Ivy Bennett was generally an honest girl. She was honest on the first day of second grade, when Eloise Lekrillane called her new and polished shoes "the most ugliest thing I ever saw!" She was honest with her twin brother, Oliver, when he tried to ask out Eloise Lekrillane in freshman year and nearly got called a "weirdo with the most ugliest hairdo I ever saw!" She was also very, very honest when she expressed her dislike about her name to her father, who said that just because Eloise Lekrillane said her name was the "most ugliest name I ever saw!", it was too late to change it now (this was one of the reasons Ivy decided to go into law).

However, it didn't matter how many times she heard Eloise Lekrillane use bad grammar, or how many times she had to smack Oliver upside the head, or how many times she "woe-is-me"'d over the fact that she was named after a poisonous plant that could bring upon an unfortunate person some very unpleasant circumstances. It didn't even matter that she found law school to be one of the worst experiences she'd ever encountered, so she dropped out and went to live in D.C., effectively rendering her jobless and left to work as a part-time receptionist for some shady agency called S.H.I.E.L.D. Frankly, she didn't even know what field they specialized in, but she felt somewhat content in assuming that they sold weight-loss pills.

Honesty wouldn't really help her out if she was dead.

Currently, her biggest issue was that her office had just had a plane wing torn right through it, and that a giant helicopter detonated outside. She wasn't even watching all of this happen; it was her day off, and all she wanted was ice cream, but of course life wasn't that easy. Before she knew it, her job went up in flames and her Twitter was exploding with the tag "S.H.I.E.L.D." Apparently they didn't sell weight loss pills.

Ivy cursed and glared at the waiter, who was late in arriving with her food. She picked up her plate, grabbed a takeout box, and ran for her life, being a bit too lax about everything considering the situation at hand.

She ran to her car and drove away, passing the National Archives, the Smithsonian, and the White House.

She wondered what the president thought of all this.

With a snicker, she kept driving and looked through her rearview mirror. Well, the plane really was exploding. This wasn't just some crazy dream. She bit her bottom lip and furrowed her brow, concerned with the people left behind. She suddenly found herself regretting not going back and helping everyone.

The panic was now starting to set in; Ivy was jobless! Again! She was jobless now, and all those people were homeless, and what if there was another blast? What if the president sitting there in the Oval Office ended up caught in the aftershock, and there was no more leader for the country, and Europe invaded, and America turned into an anarchy, and Captain America and Iron Man and Bruce Banner and Thor all died too, and then that guy with the green cape decided to take over like he wanted to in New York?!

Ivy quickly plucked her inhaler out of her purse and stuffed it into her mouth, thirstily gasping as she reminded herself to calm down.

Screw hyperventilation.

She put her inhaler back into her purse. Well, she tried to, and unfortunately, her insistence on keeping her eyes on the road led to a chain of events which could have been considered unfortunate (for Ivy, anyway— for the metal-armed man in the middle of the road? Not so much).

First, Ivy furrowed her brows as she tried to locate the opening of her purse.

Second, she became frustrated and turned to look at her purse (which, lo and behold, was actually zipped).

Third, after she finally got her inhaler into the stupid thing, she looked back up to see a gleam of metal and a pair of half-dead eyes.

Fourth, she shrieked like a banshee as her mind registered that the metal thing in the middle of the road was a person, and she was about to hit him.

She slammed on the brakes, praying to every higher power that there was no one behind her and that she stopped in time. Fortunately, she did, and the man's arms were now resting on the hood of her car, the fingers on his left arm making a deep indentation on the top.

Ivy's first thought was Iron Man. After all, who else could be made of metal? Maybe he'd just lost the rest of his suit.

But no; this man certainly wasn't Tony Stark. Almost as handsome, Ivy supposed, but still not Stark, because she'd actually met the man on a few occasions, could even be considered his friend— she did work for S.H.I.E.L.D., after all— and his eyes had never been this hopeless.

Ivy stared in shock. She wasn't sure people like this metal guy were even allowed in D.C. as she drank in his appearance. His face, covered with bruises and cuts and dirt and pain, so much pain, was vaguely familiar, and his tall, imposing figure donned a suit that most certainly didn't belong in the nation's capitol.

Ivy knew it was bad to judge on appearances, but for one of the first times in her life, she didn't feel angry. She didn't feel confused. She didn't feel startled. She didn't feel happy, or sad, or annoyed.

She felt terrified.

She'd never known she'd had a phobia. Not until she'd looked into the eyes of a ghost.

The ghost had run.

After centuries of staring at those hollow, haunting eyes, he pulled his arms out of Ivy's car and ran.

Petrified, Ivy stared at where his form had been. She hadn't even realized how long she'd stayed shaken at the steering wheel until a woman tapped on her window.

"Are you alright, miss?" she asked politely as her children danced around her legs. "You seem quite frazzled, and there's a dent in your car."

Ivy choked on her words. No, she wasn't alright, and she doubted she'd be again. Not unless she started sleeping with her eyes open and her lights on.

She gulped and managed to nod with a strangled, "Yes."

The woman nodded back, and kept walking with her children.

Ivy put her head in her hands, feeling dizzy and taking time to catch her breath. She reached for her inhaler again but didn't even bother using it. She looked left and right, then made the long drive back home.

The first thing she did was pull all the blinds shut, lock the doors, and bar them all with chairs. She then whipped out a large bucket of ice cream and slipped a Spongebob Squarepants DVD into her PS3 and sat herself down in front of the television. After watching for a while, she heard a knock.

"Oliver," she muttered. She had been expecting her brother and forgotten about his arrival through all the excitement. Smoothing out her tank top and pajama shorts, she went to open the door.

It was not Oliver on the other side.

Ivy slammed the door shut and held a hand over heart, which was now beating wildly. She took deep breaths, and opened the door to greet the ghost.

Work in progress. Again. I am so, so, so, so, so sorry! My muse has been thinking on this one ever since I saw CA:TWS, and things sorta spiraled. Sorry again! I'm having writer's block with TMwaB and TJtI, but I'm doing alright with Cat Roux. I just need to make that one longer.

Once again, really sorry!