Hello, everyone - I'm back. To those who are new to my writing: Please, please read Riven before you read this story! You don't have to, but believe me, it will make much more sense!

To all my returning fans: THANK YOU for waiting! I can't tell you how much I appreciate it! Things are going to happen very fast in this story, and I'm exploring new POVs, but for the most part, it's the same format as Riven. I'm trying to hang on to the characters and the plot, but if I screw up, don't be afraid to call me on it. As always, leave me a review.

And a very special THANK YOU and large hug for my best friend, who reviews as Captain America. Thanks, Cap. I appreciate it.

Disclaimer: I own Riven Lange, Riven, and The Freed. The plots are mine, the Avengers are definitely not.

Welcome back to the inside of my head. Hang on tight, this is gonna be a wild one.

K.S.

The staccato sound of gunfire echoed throughout the room. An explosion flashed fiery death.

Riven Lange jumped off the couch and yelled, "Finally! Yes!"

Tony Stark gave her an amused look from where he reclined on the couch. "Good game," he said mildly.

Riven hopped around in a little circle, waving the game controller in her hand. "Yes! I knew I could beat you! It took forever, but I did it!"

Stark laughed. "Yeah, you did."

Thor was leaning on the back of the couch, a puzzled expression on his face. "I do not understand," he said. "We are supposed to be searching for the Freed. How will inducing avatars of energy to duel help us accomplish this task?"

Riven finally calmed down enough to set aside her controller and switch off the television, smiling at Thor. "It won't – but I needed a break. I've been in Tony's lab all week, trying to track Fury's communicator. It's been jammed somehow, with this really nasty code on it, so I'm pretty sure the Freed have him. If I can figure out the code, I can find Fury and the Freed at the same time. But I'm not running on the Tesseract's energy anymore. I needed to relax for a bit."

Thor nodded, the slight frown melting off his face. "I see. Recreation is necessary. But why do you believe the Freed have captured Fury?"

Stark shrugged, cutting off Riven's reply. "I've seen the code she's trying to break. I don't think anyone but the Freed could put together something quite that complex."

Riven stretched, tipping her head from side to side. The bullet wound below her ribs had almost healed, and it didn't bother her anymore unless she deliberately aggravated it. "Yeah, I've never seen anything quite like it. JARVIS has been a big help."

The grey-eyed scientist gave the millionaire and the demigod another smile, and added, "I'm going to get something to eat before I get back to work. Thor, want to come?"

Thor nodded gravely. The Asgardian was always hungry. Riven looped her arm through his and led him off toward the kitchens.

Steve Rogers entered the entertainment room only moments after Riven and Thor left it. He eyed Riven's game controller where it sat abandoned on the television console, and then turned to Stark. "You let her win, then?"

Stark grinned. "Oh, yeah. I figured she'd earned it, working in that lab all the time. She thinks she actually beat me, but that's all right. She came pretty close a couple of times - she's no good at strategy, but she runs the numbers so fast she gets the patterns figured out before I even know she's seen me."

Steve smiled. "That sounds like Riven." His gaze drifted back to Riven's game controller. Steve paused for a moment, then crossed the room and switched the television back on, scooping up the controller. "Up for another round?"

Stark's eyes lit up. "You're on, Cap."

Natasha Romanoff had just gotten out of the shower. Dressed in a white bathrobe, she exited the bathroom in search of clothes, and discovered Clint Barton sitting on her bed.

"Clint. What are you doing here?" Natasha crossed the room to the closet, rifling through the assorted outfits in search of something that she actually wanted to wear.

Hawkeye had his head tipped back, studying an air vent on the ceiling. Natasha would have bet anything she owned that he was trying to decide if he would fit in the duct. "I wanted to talk," the archer replied.

Natasha finally settled on a pair of slacks and a black shirt. "Why? You haven't been having any nightmares lately."

Hawkeye blinked, directing his attention to his partner. "How did you know that?"

The Black Widow turned to him, smiling in a way that made Hawkeye's bow hand twitchy. "I haven't heard you in the air ducts. And you and Riven have both been smiling a lot more than usual."

Hawkeye shrugged, returning his gaze to the air vent. "Well, you all heard our conversation in Acadia. We aren't exactly a secret."

Natasha laughed, retreating to the bathroom and half-closing the door so their conversation could continue while she dressed. "Only with us. You shouldn't tell Fury, once Riven finds him. I can't see him having any good thoughts about his precious prodigy getting romantic with one of SHIELD's best agents."

Hawkeye ignored her. "I've been thinking about the Freed. They're supposed to be pro-human, wanting to wipe out all the 'inhumans'."

"Yeah?" Natasha emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed and drying her red hair with a towel.
Hawkeye continued, "But they also want to take out SHIELD, because supposedly we're evil, for controlling people's lives and using the 'inhumans' as a private army."

Natasha tossed the towel over her shoulder, where it landed neatly on the hook attached to the bathroom door. She moved across the room and sat next to her partner. "Clint, where are you going with this?"

Hawkeye looked at her, his gaze full of storms. "I don't know."

The Black Widow sighed. "I get it. You're worried about Riven."

He glanced away. "Think about it. Count out the times she's been near our team. New York – Riven got a piece of the Tesseract buried in her side, giving her life-threatening migraines and seizures for a year. Acadia – she took a sniper's shot for me, and was nearly killed on several occasions over a few days."

Hawkeye's hand gripped the bedpost, and Natasha's eyes followed the movement. "And now we know for sure that the Freed are hunting us. We've been able to hide here, but not even Stark Tower's bunker of a basement can keep the Freed out forever. We're going to have to face them on our terms, because we can't afford a repeat of last year. New York City barely survived Loki's army; we can't bring the Freed here. I'm afraid to let Riven out of my sight. She's in her lab right now, trying to find the Freed before they find us, but I don't want to think about what will happen if they get here first."

He closed his eyes, and Natasha gently laid her hand over his, prying his fingers free of the bedpost. "Clint. Look at me."

Hawkeye faced his partner, and Natasha said softly, "We'll be all right. Riven can take care of herself, and we'll all protect her."

He started to speak, and Natasha laid a finger over his lips. "I'm not done. Yes, I know she got shot in Acadia, but think about this – Riven saw the sniper. She chose to take that bullet for you. Do you really think Riven would have been shot if she didn't think it was the lesser of two evils?"

Hawkeye took a breath and let it out slowly. "No. You're right, Nat. You always are. Thanks."

She watched him stand up. "I'm going to go check on Riven again," Hawkeye said, and Natasha made a shooing motion at him as he left.

The Black Widow sighed. "My partner has turned into a soap opera," Natasha muttered. "I think I need to hit him."

Dr. Banner was in the lab when Riven returned. She had a cup of tea in one hand and a sandwich in the other – her grey eyes were vacant as she wandered in and deposited her snack on a convenient table.

The doctor glanced at Riven's food with a surprised and somewhat disapproving air. "Hello, Riven. Feeling better?"

"Much," Riven replied absently. "Tony let me win. I forgot to eat lunch again." She picked up the cup of tea, drank a little, and walked to a monitor, tapping the screen.

"This is wrong," Riven whispered, and opened a new window on the screen. Dr. Banner pulled up the same information on his screen, frowning at it.

"I don't see how this is wrong," he began, and Riven cut him off.

"I know, I don't see it either, but I know it's wrong. I can feel it. Something's off in the numbers." Riven scowled at the screen. "What aren't you telling me?" she hissed.

Dr. Banner raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

Riven glanced at him, apparently just now realizing he was in the room, despite having held a conversation with him. "Oh – not you, Bruce. The computer. I'm missing something here, and I know it has to do with the computer."

The doctor returned to his work; he'd mostly gotten used to Riven's antics, but she still surprised him occasionally. "This code is based on a series of random numbers that are constantly changing, yes?"

Riven blinked, her mouth full of sandwich. She settled for nodding enthusiastically until she could swallow. "Ulk. Sorry. Yes, that's right. I've got three different random number programs running, trying to find the right sequence, but I'm not getting anywhere – the numbers are always changing, so I don't know if it's not working because I'm three seconds too late, ten minutes too early, or if it's not the right combination at all."

"I hate random numbers," Dr. Banner muttered. Riven paused, her mug of tea not quite touching her lips.

"Random?" she blinked. "No. It's not random. It can't be." Riven set down the cup with a clank, barely avoiding splashing hot tea on her keyboard. She tapped the screen, rearranging a few numbers, and then began typing so fast her fingers knocked into each other.

"It's not random!" Riven punched the air, spun around, and hugged Dr. Banner. "Thank you! This is exactly like that video game that Tony and I were playing! I know how to break it now!"

The surprised doctor blinked down at Riven before carefully untangling himself from her enthusiasm. "I don't quite follow you."

"Well, no. It's absurd, really, just a minor technical glitch." Riven spun around again, grabbing hold of the counter to steady herself. "Whoa. I shouldn't spin, it makes me dizzy. Anyway – no computer is capable of creating a continuous cycle of truly random numbers. Eventually, it will show a pattern. Just like the video game; I sucked at guessing where Tony was waiting for me, but I could figure out when the random enemies were going to attack, because I recognized the pattern – the computer wasn't actually being random. It wasn't capable of being random."

Riven bounced up and down on her toes, her late lunch forgotten as she began to write a new computer program. "I understand now why the computers aren't making any progress. It's because the computers think it really is an endless random sequence, with no pattern. The computers will eventually repeat themselves, but our programs won't catch it, because they're computer programs, which will, by definition, see only a random sequence."

She paused, and then sank back onto her heels. "Which means we're in for a lot of hours of manual research. I'm writing a program to record every hit we get on the code breaker, and we're going to have to go through the list and try to find the pattern."

Dr. Banner added, "Which will be practically impossible, because we won't have a complete list of codes, only the ones we actually found."

Riven smiled at him, exhaustion plain in her eyes. She ran a hand through her spiky black hair, sighing a little. "Yeah. Basically."

The doctor said gently, "Riven, finish your lunch and go take a nap. You need it. Your video game might have recharged your mind, but your body needs rest. You went through a lot in Acadia, and your system is still adjusting to not having the Tesseract's power to draw on."

Riven nodded. "All right. Thanks, Bruce." She gathered her sandwich and mug of tea, and left the lab.

Dr. Banner watched her go, and then turned back to the computer screen, opening Riven's new program and reading through the list of seemingly random numbers.

I see random, yes – but Riven says there's a pattern in here, somewhere. I'm going to find it.

Not a bad first chapter, hmm? Yes? Be sure to tell me what you think.

K.S.