So, I wrote an OC story. I'm a little ashamed of myself because I don't know whether or not anyone will read it, but so many other people are doing it that I sort of just made up my own character without any real need.
Anyway! This is pairingless because I feel like the story will be more interesting if she has a friendship based chemistry with everyone rather than a romantic based chemistry with one person. I mean, if someone wants a pairing, suggest it, and if I get enough I'll write it in. I know it's under the Tony category right now, but that's for science reasons.
Disclaimer: don't own anything that you recognize.
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One.
Like everything significant in Ariel Novak's post-high school life, her meeting with the Avengers was caused a death, and began with a computer mishap.
"I'm the detective on this case, I have clearance to enter," she said again, trying to get it through the idiot security guard's head that identification programs were not impervious to glitches. "You have my ID in your hand."
The guard, unfortunately, wasn't budging. "The swipe didn't read your ID as valid," he said and she gripped her sides tighter in annoyance. With her hands on her hips, she knew she looked more like an irritated college student than an experienced FBI agent, but this guy was running down her already thin patience. "I'm sorry, miss, I cannot let you through."
"Look," she said, staring him down the way she used to stare down new recruits, but he remained unaffected, "there is a murdered man's corpse rotting its way onto a floor right now, and unless I get in to investigate—"
"Your ID was not—"
"Agent Novak?"
Ariel turned around, and found a very annoyed looking redheaded woman that looked about her age that she vaguely recognized as the Black Widow person from the news. "Yes?" she said, ignoring the security guard now, even though it was clear he wanted to say something.
The woman took a step closer. "You're being temporarily transferred to a new division by order of Agent Hamilton," she said, holding out a manila folder. As Ariel accepted it and flipped it open, the other woman continued, "You will find the official transcripts in there and a temporary identification card, as well as a documented synopsis of your new case."
She looked up, bewildered. "New case?" she repeated. "I'm in the middle of—okay, well, trying to get into the middle of—a case right now, and you're saying that Hamilton is pulling me?"
As if this day couldn't get any worse. "Yes," the woman answered simply. "Now I have to ask you to come with me, Agent Novak."
"Why didn't he call me?" she said, and behind her the stupid security guard went, "Oh! It's working! Clearance to enter, miss."
Oh, naturally. "This came through on a fax, he is unable to use his phone at this time."
"If I'm not working on this case, then who is?" she asked, double checking to make sure her boss' signature was authentic, reluctant to give it up so easily. It gave her reason to stick around in New York for a while, and as much as she loved her fiancé, she hadn't been back to her home city in five years.
"Agent David Marlow," she said, and Ariel felt her mood, if possible, plummet even further. Dave was trying hard to get the promotion supposedly opening up to her, and didn't bother to hide it either. "Are you coming?"
I hope the computer glitches again, she thought as she answered, "Yes, I'm coming, Agent, um—"
"Natasha Romanoff."
Ariel nodded, not sure what else to do, and followed Agent Romanoff to a rather unremarkable Honda and slid into the passenger's seat, not quite sure what she was expecting. The other woman took a seat behind the wheel and flicked the car into drive. She said, "So, do I get a debriefing, or just sit here quietly?"
"You'll be debriefed when we get to HQ," she said, which was a non-answer that Ariel took to mean that she should shut up and wait.
The drive was fifteen minutes, short by all things considered, but felt ages longer. Ariel and silence didn't mix, and the car felt stuffy despite the air conditioning. She flipped through the manila folder, trying to glean what she could and finding little, which was frustrating because she liked going into things with having at least an idea of what was going on. The transcripts told her that she was being transferred to the government agency Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, which everyone knew about but was never sure was real or not, but other than that they spit back all the objective information she already knew: D.O.B., hometown, education, service record, age, ethnicity, religion. The synopses of the case only said that Frank Caraway, a S.H.I.E.L.D. veteran, had been murdered in his home with possible ties to a new (unnamed) global threat, and the basics that went a long with it.
When Agent Romanoff finally parked, it was in front of a building as unremarkable as the car. Considering that it was on the route she used to take to high school, she must've passed it every day for years and never looked twice. She followed the other woman inside, and the lobby was deceptively quiet, too. As she walked, she pulled her new ID from the folder so she could flash it in front of the security guard, who was a considerably better person than the first one because he nodded them entrance into the elevator, leading to another uncomfortably silent ride.
"Follow me," she told her as the elevator doors open, and the atmosphere changed from awkward and silent to hectic and loud. Ariel did as she was told, weaving her way through the rushing agents in their S.H.I.E.L.D. uniforms that looks much more comfortable than the business clothes she was wearing. When they reached a surprisingly plain (in comparison to the metal and plastic everywhere) wooden door, Agent Romanoff held down the button of an intercom and said, "I've got Novak, Fury."
"Let her in, Widow."
There was the distinct sound of the door unlocking and Agent Romanoff took a step back, arms folded behind her, which was a pretty good indication that she was supposed to let herself in. With a mumbled, "Thank you" because she didn't know what else to say, she pushed open the door and entered.
The room was emptier than she expected, with white walls and big windows and touch screen computer monitors instead of pictures placed throughout the room, currently displaying colorful backgrounds of tropical fish like a doctor's office. There was a small-ish oval table in middle, covered in short stacks of paper and evidently replacing the need for a desk. At the end furthest from her sat a man, head down as he scribbled something on a slip of paper. Without meaning to, she straightened her posture to military acceptable and waited for instruction.
After a solid moment of nothing, the man said, "You can sit, you know. I don't bite." She sits and he looks up, putting his pen down. "Do you know who I am, Agent Novak?"
"Nicolas Fury," she answered, thinking back to the second signature on her transcript, the one next to her boss, "head of the agency S.H.I.E.L.D."
As he nodded, her only thought was, God, do any of them know how to smile? "I'm assuming Romanoff gave you no information?"
"All she told me was that I was temporarily transferred to work on a new case and I'd be debriefed here."
Fury took another, considerably thicker folder off of a pile next to him and slid it down the table to her. "Your file only gave base information on one of the agents killed," he said and she looked up with sharpened interest. By complete accident, catching serial killers had become something of a specialty of hers.
"How many?" she asked.
"Four," he answered, "and we think there might be a connection other than their occupation, which is why we decided to outsource to the FBI."
"There's no one who can do the job here, sir?"
"I have spies, Novak, not detectives." He folded his arms, and added, "It's not unusual for an FBI agent to have a service record, and you're one of three with a perfect success rate, all of which George Hamilton recommended. Do you know why I chose you?"
Perfect success rate. Her, Marlow, and Kips, then. But—wait, Marlow was an idiot, so choosing her made sense, Kips had been an agent for twenty-two years, and her only five, so why? She sifted through her head what little she knew, and came up with the blank spot after Concentration: on the bizarrely short Caraway file.
"Caraway did something with astrophysics, didn't he?" she said. "But I finished my senior year online when I was in Afghanistan."
"But you did your first two on campus, and it's still a degree," Fury answered. "The Ivy League education level was just the added bonus. He focused on radio astronomy and astrochemistry, but your concentration on aerospace engineering was the closest we could get. You were a lucky find, basically."
Lucky find. She hadn't gotten that since her first serial killer case was accidently shoved on her at twenty-two. "Were any of the others involved in astrophysics, sir?"
"Most members of S.H.I.E.L.D. who joined before last May are in one way or another," he said, and Ariel briefly thought of Mark, who was probably sitting at home waiting to hear from here and maybe she should turn this down, "so that isn't usual. Any narrowing down needs to be done by a professional, and an aerospace engineer FBI detective sounds pretty good. I spoke to Stark and he agreed to help look into possible connections, but he's an inventor, not an investigator."
"Stark? As in Tony Stark?" she said, surprised even though she knew he was part of the Avengers, and Fury nodded. "He knows astrophysics?"
Something told her that she wasn't the only one who didn't know this, because he said, "Apparently if it's science, Stark knows it. Learned it in a day about four months ago. Do you agree to cooperate?"
With hesitation she answered, "Yes, sir," and felt guilty because she promised Mark that she wouldn't be in New York for more than a week, and if the possible murderer counted as a "global threat" she didn't think she'd been done in seven days.
"Good," Fury said. "You'll be working closely with the Avengers because of the nature of the assignment. Like the rest of us, they can't solve a murder case, but they can deal with the murderer when they need to. You have military experience, so I know you can defend yourself, but we don't know how dangerous this person is yet. Romanoff and Barton will meet you in the lobby. Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Novak."
He looked back down and she knew the conversation was over. Though she was still bursting with questions, Ariel stood. With a last, "Yes, sir," she let herself out. Then she retraced her route and got herself to the elevators, where she took a considerably more relaxed ride down than she had up. Since she was eighteen, she'd stared to the barrel of a gun more times than she could count and had dealt with six serial killers, fifty-two dangerous criminals, and sixty-one murders of passion. But even with a record of that, there was something about Agent Romanoff that intimidated her. Maybe it was the lack of smile, or that she knew the woman could probably kill her before she was able to draw her gun, but whatever it was, it put her on edge.
She just hoped that the rest of them weren't like that.
Then the elevator stopped, the doors slid open, and she got a look at the Agent Barton, who was staring at Romanoff with exasperation. Immediately she knew that wasn't going to be the case. The two looked up when she exited, and Barton greeted her with, "Hey, Ariel Novak, right?"
"Yeah," she answered, and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, Agent Barton."
"You too," he said. "And drop the Agent, sounds too formal. I'm taking it you agreed?" She nodded. "Right, c'mon, Nat and I are bringing you to your temporary housing for the next…undesignated period time."
The hotel on Wall Street had a max stay limit of a week, and she felt her heart sink a little. She picked it because it was cheap by New York standards, under three hundred, but finding another one probably meant a jack upped price. But for now she didn't mention that, following them back out to the same car and now that she wasn't confused as hell, her mind supplied her with the information that Hondas were one of the mostly commonly driven cards in New York, so it made sense.
But then she got into the back seat and was instantly confused again because the carry-on travel bag she bought for convenience's sake was next to her. "Um," she said, "why's this here?"
Her and Romanoff's eyes connected in the review mirror, and the other woman shook her head. "Typical Fury," she said, putting the car in drive. "I'm taking it that he didn't tell you you're living situations are getting transferred to Avengers Tower because you're part of the team until the case is finished?"
"He neglected to mention that."
"Yeah," Barton said. "Since this counts as a high profile threat, and you're working as a detective on the case, living on your own in a hotel room is considered a bad idea. Ex-soldier or not, since you aren't an official S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, you count as a civilian."
"Civilian?" she said, half-annoyed, half-unsurprised, and she wondered why she wasn't offended. "I've been dealing with dangerous peoples for nine years."
He shrugged. "Doesn't mean anything. And you'll be staying on the 'guest' floor, so you won't suffer from a complete invasion of privacy."
Well, there was always that, she guessed. She had to contact Mark, for one, and calling her fiancé in front of other people felt unprofessional and a little embarrassing. "Anything else I should get a head's up about?" she asked.
Romanoff answered, "Tony has an AI installed, so JARVIS might talk to you sometimes, especially since you'll be given access codes to the labs."
"If you drop any references in front of Steve, he won't understand them," Barton added. "Bruce is kind of an awkward snowflake, Tony can be pretty obnoxious, and at the moment Thor isn't there and he kind of talks like he's from a Shakespearean play, so you may or may not meet him. Oh, and I guess one of us'll explain that later. Am I missing anything, Natasha?"
"Not that I can think of," she said, and Avengers Tower came into view. Sure, she hadn't been to New York since she joined the FBI five years ago, but it was pretty obvious. "Actually, Tony's probably installed JARVIS the ability to recognize your S.H.I.E.L.D. ID, so just flash it at the door and you can get through."
Though it took longer that it probably would've anywhere other than Manhattan, Romanoff pulled into the narrow parking lot that sat adjacent to the building, and Ariel was way more okay with this whole thing than was probably reasonable. And since Orlando was on the same time zone, she couldn't blame jetlag kicking in either.
To double check, the other agents made her show her ID at the door, and like they said, there was there came the unlocking buzz and she pushed it open. Barton hit the up button for the elevator and told her, "The others—or at least most of them—are probably the fifth floor, which is kind of like the common area."
"Right," she said, mentally cataloging it along with the number of every hotel room and Princeton dorm she'd ever stayed in.
The elevator shot them up faster than the S.H.I.E.L.D. one, and about a moment after entering, it dinged and slid open to a short hallway and the sound of men talking. She followed the other two out, squashing down the sudden nervousness that made no sense because she'd always been good with meeting people, which was one of the reasons she qualified for becoming a homicide detective in the first place.
"We've got the girl," Barton said as they entered the room, alerting the three men who stood around talking. "Novak, this is Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, and—"
"She knows who I," Stark cut in, and looked way too satisfied for some reason. "I read your undergrad thesis paper on quantum mechanics in relation to space travel, and it was pretty good considering it was written by an eighteen-year-old."
"How'd you—" She began, then stopped. "Oh. I cited one of your research essays on nuclear energy, didn't I?"
"Yup," he answered, and held out his hand. "Tony Stark."
They shook. "Ariel Novak," she said. "Nice to meet you."
"Ariel the detective. So do I call you Disney or Watson?"
"Bruce Banner," said another man who she recognized from the news before she could answer, and she really wished she'd been given their files since evidently they'd seen hers. And then some.
Immediately following his introduction, the guy she was pretty sure was Captain America or whatever his alias was said, "Steve Rogers. You're head of the murder investigation, right?"
"Yeah," she answered. "When can I get started?"
"Later today," Romanoff said. "You should drop off your stuff downstairs first."
"Okay. What floor? And can I make a phone call first?"
Stark said, "Seventh and yeah, sure, do whatever."
Feeling awkward and out of place wasn't something she was used to, and she had a feeling there was something wrong with being more uncomfortable in an air conditioned New York apartment than she had in Prague only four months ago when she couldn't understand a thing anyone was saying. She gave a smile that didn't look overly stupid, managed out an, "I'll be right back," and got herself back to the elevator, upstairs, and into what was technically her own personal floor.
Though her instinctive reaction was to search the place to get to know where everything was, she knew she was on a pretty tight schedule and informing her fiancé that she got her case transferred (though she was starting to think that the Groverfeld murder was never hers to begin with, and instead used to conveniently get her in New York, which sounded like something Hamilton would do) and that he shouldn't expect her back in a week.
The phone only rang twice before he picked up. "El?"
"Hey," she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I don't have much time, so I have to say this quickly. I was just handed another job, and I think it's going to take a while."
There was a short silence. Then, "You forgot Laura's getting married next Friday, didn't you?"
Oh yeah, that was why she promised him she'd be back in week. "No," she answered, even though she totally had because it wasn't important enough on top of everything else to bring to her immediate attention. "I didn't have much choice, and Hamilton's currently with his wife and son in Hong Kong, so reaching him is kind of hard."
Even though she couldn't see his face, she knew he was annoyed. "Just try to be back within the week if you can," he told her.
Feeling guilty, she said, "I'm try. Really. I'm so sorry. Just…well, it's a murder case."
"I get it. You said you had to make it quick, so I better let you go. Bye, El. I love you."
"I love you too. I'm sorry about this."
"Right," he said, and the line clicked closed.
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I guess review if you want, or if you feel like suggesting a pairing.
