Update as of March 2019 - this story has been revamped and contains some new chapters! The chapters that have been revamped will say so at the top of their author's notes and for the new chapters, it will say so in the leading author's note and have an "(!)" in the navigation bar.

[If you're new to this story/series, go on right ahead and start!

For those of you old readers coming back, the story is better this time around. A lot of old and useless arcs closer to the beginning of the story have been cut out and the important ones were expanded and written with better details and flow; the cringe was (hopefully) cut out, and there are new chapters replacing some old ones! (The new chapters will say "new" in the navigation bar). Every single chapter has been modified in this story but the overall plot of this story has not changed.

I hope you enjoy!]

Prologue:

I send my text message before opening the door and letting myself inside. I put my phone in my back pocket as I strut down the semi-empty hallways of my school. However, I take a peek back on my phone to check the time. I'm only thirty minutes late which, considering my usual punctuality, is a personal best.

"Emily Stark."

I turn around and see my principal standing at the end of the hallway, giving me his usual face of disappointment. Can't say I've never seen that before. I give him my best smile and wave as I quickly enter my classroom. I see my math teacher standing at the side of the chalkboard, having already finished writing an equation for the class to solve but nobody does. I glance at the math problem and quickly think it over in my head. I walk over to the board and pick up a piece of chalk to write down the right answer before making my way over to my seat.

"Good job, Miss. Stark, just for that I won't mark you as late," my math teacher praises as she marks down her attendance sheet. "Would you like to share with the class how you got that answer?"

"Mental math," I respond as I take my seat.

I think she rolled her eyes at me before she went to ask the rest of the class if they could figure out how I got that answer. I turn around and look at my friends: Angela and Xavier Rogers, Merida Barton, Apollo Foster, and Daniel Banner. All of them, except for Daniel, are looking at the board with a confused expression. That only makes me laugh a little.

"Go up and show them how I did it," I whisper to Daniel. I know that he knows the answer. He knew it before I even walked in the room.

"I can't," Daniel replies with a grin on his face, "I used the same method you did."

Of course, he did.

-o-

After class, I walk down the hallway with Merida and Angela by my sides. We're not really sure where the guys went but I'm too hungry to care at the moment because it's not like any of them went to go get me food.

"You showed up late and you still didn't eat?" Angela questions.

I moan irritatedly. "I don't need this from you, Mom, it's too early for that."

Angela rolls her eyes.

We continue walking and stop when we see a familiar locker. It's Apollo's, but what's important is what he has inside of his locker. Pop-tarts. I walk up to it, tapping on the metal door with my manicure as I look at my girls with a salivating smile on my face.

"Who knows his combination?" I ask them.

"Don't need it," Merida responds.

Merida swings her bag on her shoulder and pulls out her lanyard of keys. It jingles loudly as she searches through her keys for the right one. I don't know why she has so many and I'm too scared to ask. When she finds the one she's looking for, she grabs the padlock on Apollo's locker and uses the key to open it. I clap happily as we open the door. At the moment, I don't care why Merida has a master key to all the locks in the school because it's moments like this where it's beneficial that she has one.

Merida throws out Apollo's jacket which lands on Angela's head. She and I push past the textbooks that he never uses until I find that bright blue box all in the back. I open it and pull out a packet for me, for Merida, and offer one to Angela which she rejects with an angry look on her face.

"He's going to find out," Angela says as she puts his jacket back and closes his locker, locking it again.

"What's he going to do?" Merida asks rhetorically as she opens her packet of pop-tarts. "Throw me off the Bifrost? I'll just take Stark with me."

I bite into my pop-tart and the artificial sweetness fills me up with joy. "So worth falling into an abyss."

"Debatable," Angela states.

-o-

Out of all of us, Xavier, Apollo, and Merida all have their driver licenses up to the point where they can drive anywhere on their own. Daniel has his road test in about a week or so and I still have to schedule my written one. I honestly keep forgetting that I have to make an appointment.

"You guys are lucky," Angela says. I can sense a little bit of jealousy in her voice. "My father won't let me drive - at least, not yet."

"Why?" Daniel questions. "Out of all of us, you should have your license already. You should be the one teaching us to drive and relaying all the rules to us."

He has a point. Angela is probably the most responsible out of all of us which makes it extremely ironic that she isn't even allowed to drive at the moment. And they gave Merida Barton a license.

Angela shrugs.

Xavier nudges her. "Don't shrug. Dad said he would rather go back in the ice than see you drive."

We all can't help but laugh at that. Angela is offended by that statement which only means that it's true. I find that hard to believe but if Captain America says she shouldn't drive, then we should agree with him. I have yet to find out why he wouldn't let her and it seems that Xavier doesn't even know.

Apollo puts his arm around me. "Stark, just you wait, I will personally teach you how to drive."

I almost have a heart attack. "Dear god, no."

"Why not? My mother taught me and look at how well I drive."

"I will never insult your mother like that."

"Hey, if she wasn't such a bad driver, she would have never met my father. She hit him with her car twice."

"That's concerning," Angela points out.

Merida scoffs. "That's the parent-meeting-for-the-first-time story that's concerning?"

"Yours and his both."

"Whatever the story is, they made ours possible," I tell them. "That's all that matters."