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It was a normal lunch period, or so they thought. The cafeteria was serving mystery meat, Bucky used his charm to get an extra pudding cup out of the lunch ladies, someone drew a handlebar moustache on a ‘Vote For Tony’ poster. It seemed like business as usual.
But it never was whenever Steve came sprinting in. They saw his red beanie moving through the crowd before they even saw him.
He slammed his sketchbook on the table and caught his breath. “Guys, guys, holy shit!”
Natasha took out one earbud and raised an eyebrow. “What’s up?”
“I saw the Jersey Devil in the gymnasium.”
The reactions from the rest of the table were mixed, ranging from T’Challa’s complete disbelief to Thor’s genuine interest and concern. Bucky stopped staring at Sam for a moment to actually ask Steve about the ludicrous thing he’d just blurted out.
“You saw the what in the where?”
Steve stuck his leg in the gap between Wanda and Sharon and plopped himself down, whipping out his sketchbook to show them the ‘proof’. “Look, he was like nine feet tall and it had yellow eyes-”
“Did you take one of Loki’s special brownies again, Steve?” Bucky asked. “One, the Jersey Devil is in south Jersey, I don’t know if you knew that. Two, we’re in New York and not south Jersey. We’ve never even spent more than a day in Jersey in our combined thirty-four years of life, Steve.”
Steve turned to his other best friend. “Sam, do you believe me?”
“Do you want my honest opinion on that or my best friend opinion?”
“If I ask for the best friend opinion are you gonna text everyone else your real one?” Sam shrugged and pulled out his phone. “Give me the honest one, then.”
“Honestly, like, to be honest, if you’re gonna ask me to help you catch the Jersey Devil you are officially the whitest person I know, and you’ve seen my boyfriend, right?”
Steve rolled his eyes. This always happened. One of them, mostly Steve, would see something, they’d tell the others, the others would want no parts of it, and they’d end up going monster hunting together anyway. He just wished they could skip the ‘the others would want no parts of it’ part to save some time for once.
Steve crossed his arms. “Well, someone has to go with me.”
“You didn’t let me finish, Steve,” Sam said. “I’m going with you, just expect a lot of complaining.”
“I could keep his lips busy.”
Sam smirked. “Bucky, chill.”
“You’re in?” Steve asked him.
Bucky stuffed an excessive amount of pudding into his mouth and only half-swallowed by the time he opened his mouth to speak. “Steve, me being in was implied. Don’t act like we’re not the world’s worst package deal.”
Nat put her hair into a ponytail, which meant business. “If those two losers are going, I guess I have to go too.”
“Any other takers?”
Steve looked at Sharon, who looked at T’Challa, who looked at Thor.
“Thor and I have a presentation after lunch.” T’Challa explained, holding up multicolored index cards. Thor nodded. “We don’t want our clothes to get messed up.”
“I just don’t want to go.” Sharon told him.
Natasha pouted. “Aw, not even for me?”
Sharon didn’t even hesitate to respond with, “Nope.”
Wanda reluctantly raised her hand. “Can I go?”
“Of course.”
Her twin scoffed. “I’m not going.” She elbowed him in his side. “Actually, Steve, I might go.”
“So it’s settled. Me, Sam, Bucky, Nat, and the Maximoffs are gonna go catch the Jersey Devil.”
The group stood up and followed behind Steve. “Yeah, the rest of you can watch while we look awesome.”
“Wait!” Bucky ran back to the table and grabbed his second pudding cup. Sam shook his head. “What? I earned this.”
Steve kept all of their monster hunting supplies in his locker. (What else would he keep in there? Books? Not likely.)
Everyone had their own weapon of choice. Bucky preferred his bare hands and the occasional knife, Sam had a bat, Steve had a makeshift shield that was just the lid of a trash bin he’d grabbed from his house ages ago when they fought their first monster, Natasha had a taser, Pietro was a track star, and Wanda had a slingshot that Clint gave her for her birthday.
They followed Steve to the gym, sneaking of course. If the other kids knew there were monsters in the school they’d panic, and then the monsters would panic, and it would be a loss overall. So they had to keep their hunting on the DL. There were thirty minutes left in the period, so they needed to hurry, but they couldn’t wait for the school day to be over.
When they got to the gym, Bucky kicked the door open. Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you always have to do that, babe?”
“Yeah, it’s called making an entrance and I’m great at it.”
They stopped dead in their tracks when they came face to face with the Jersey Devil itself. It was huge, not as tall as Steve described it, but taller than all of them. The kids could feel their beating hearts pause each time it’s hooves clopped on the hard gym floor, and it slowly approached them, almost inquisitively. They took a few steps back.
“Pietro, lock the doors,” Steve ordered.
The brown-skinned boy shook his head. “I am not I sure I want to do that.”
“Lock the doors, Pietro.”
Pietro locked the gym doors, trapping them inside with the monster, or trapping the monster inside with them… No, definitely trapping them inside with the monster.
It released hot breath from it’s nostrils and then growled. Natasha cleared her throat. “Aren’t these things supposed to-” The creature screeched, and the teens covered their ears, screaming to block out the sound. When it was done, Nat sighed. “Nevermind then.”
Bucky gulped. “Shoulda stayed in the cafeteria while I had the chance…”
“First thing we need to do is tie its legs.”
Sam shook his head and started pulling Bucky along. “No, the first thing we need to do is get out of its way!”
The Jersey Devil charged towards them, dipping its head slightly. As it did, Natasha grabbed hold of it’s ears and somersaulted onto it’s back. It tried bucking her off and Steve tossed Pietro some heavy rope from his backpack. (What else would he keep in there? Books? Not likely.)
“I have an idea!” Sam said. “Confuse it. I’ll bother it’s tail, Bucky attacks it from underneath, Wanda distracts his eyes with the slingshot, and Pietro ties its legs.”
“What do I do?” Steve asked.
“Help if one of us looks like we’re about to die!” Bucky told him before sliding between the monsters hooves on the already ripped knees of his skinny jeans and under it’s belly.
Sam sighed. “Help Pietro, Steve. You’re strong enough to tie the rope.”
Steve grinned. “Good thinking, Sam.”
“I’m watching you, Steve.” Bucky warned him.
“No one’s flirting with your boyfriend, Bucky!” Natasha said.
Bucky punched the monster in it’s stomach with his prosthetic fist and it screeched again, while Wanda shot it with rocks she’d collected on their way to the gym. “Not true, everyone flirts with my boyfriend.”
Pietro ran the rope around the Jersey Devil’s legs about three times, while Steve held the other end. There was a lot of noise, they were surprised that no one barged in demanding to see what was the cause of the ruckus, but the students weren’t that observant, and the gang saw that as an advantage.
“Steve, pull!” Pietro shouted.
“No, the thing’ll fall on Bucky!”
Bucky stuck his head out from under the monster. “Pardon?”
“Roll out before we tie its legs, Buck.”
Bucky rolled out and Sam pulled him away. Natasha tased the monster in it’s neck and it screeched again, while Steve and Pietro pulled the rope tighter and tighter around it’s legs. Wanda shot a rock directly into the monster’s eye, and it stumbled backwards, causing Natasha to slide off onto the floor. Luckily, she tucked and rolled, landing safely, then backing away as the huge Jersey Devil collapsed in the middle of the gymnasium floor.
Bucky, who’d procured tranquilizer from God-knows-where, pulled out a few syringes with doses clearly meant for bears from his backpack (They were next to his books, because Bucky’s a good student and a nice young man). He ran over to the monster and stuck it with all of them at once, refusing to move until it’s eyelids fluttered shut and it’s huge wings stopped attempting to flap.
Once the monster was sleeping, Bucky stepped back and blew some hair out of his face. “At least that one didn’t end with us covered in goo,” he said. “My ma’s gonna kill me if she has to scrub another pair of my jeans.”
“Our mom didn’t even get the stains out all the way last time,” Wanda told them. “I had this really nice dress and now it has a faint green stain on it.”
Natasha called the hotline for monster retrieval and Pietro put a warning sign on the doors of the gym to keep people away until they got there. Steve put his hands on his hips and congratulated everybody.
“I think we’ve earned early dismissal.”
Pietro sucked his teeth. “Yeah, right, because that always works. ‘Principal Fury, we caught a ghost’, ‘Principal Fury, we shut down Tony’s rogue microbots’...”
“We caught the Jersey Devil, guys, he’ll definitely give us a day off this time.”
Principal Fury didn’t give them the rest of the day off, not immediately. First he gave them a piece of his mind. “Why were you kids chasing monsters again, what have I told you about letting adults handle it?”
“Adults wouldn’t have gotten to the scene quickly enough!” Steve argued. “We took action, it’s what we do!”
“And you could’ve gotten hurt, or worse, and I’d have to live with that.”
Steve looked down. “I didn’t think about that.”
“You never do, Steve. Look, it’s nice that you wanna save the school-”
“I wanna save the world, Principal Fury.”
“Don’t we all? But you have to know when to sit things out.”
Bucky chuckled. “Telling Steve Rogers to sit things out? Good luck…”
Principal Fury turned to him. “Mr. Barnes, you didn’t have to go with him.”
“No, trust me, I did. He would’ve gone alone.”
The tired principal sighed and leaned on his desk. “Alright, you can go home early.” Steve smiled. “But you all owe me an hour of Saturday detention. Don’t think you can just get out of it by killing a vampire or something either, I’ll just add an hour.”
Steve bit his lip to try and keep his thought in, and everyone around him was begging it to stay inside. Too bad it was Steve. “Okay, but, what if a vampire attacks during detention?”
“Go home, Rogers.
Please.
”
Natasha pulled Steve’s ear and dragged him out. “I’m just saying!”