Raven was about an hour or two away from the Helicarrier when she ended up flying into a freak storm. Thankfully it wasn't one of the worst possible storms one could encounter while flying over the ocean though the last couple tens of miles were definitely close. In those couple tens of miles there was more lightning, rain and wind than in the previous bulk of the storm. It was too late for Raven to turn around so she just had to grit her teeth and fly through it. Of course with Raven's luck her phone would pick that time to finally find signal and after about five minutes of various tones notifying Raven of all her missed messages and phone calls. The amount of alerts set Raven on edge even more so than she was already because she knew that it meant something had gone wrong somewhere. Not long after her phone finished collecting everything she had missed, her phone rang. Raven wasn't sure if it was ill or good luck that the jet had a Bluetooth headset built in. The timing of the caller couldn't have been worse but since Raven really didn't want to miss any more calls she answered it. Of course it didn't help that the caller was Agent Coulson. Raven sighed and said, "Hello," into the microphone.
"We need you to come in," Coulson told Raven.
"I'm a little bit preoccupied at the moment," Raven responded gritting her teeth as she hit a nasty spot of turbulence and narrowly missed a bolt of lightning.
"This takes precedence."
"Haha I really doubt that."
"Raven-"
"Can't I just call you back?" Raven interrupted but it was lost in some static.
"Barton's been comprised," Coulson continued unaware of the interruption.
Raven let out a strangled gasp and lost control of the plane for a brief moment causing it to drop slightly. She regained control of herself and the jet. "I'm about an hour or so out. What happened?"
"Good we'll brief you on everything when you get back."
"Alright," Raven replied thinking, Damn it Coulson. I really wish you wouldn't leave me hanging like this, as she hung up the phone. She tried to just focus on flying the plane but she couldn't help the panic that was rising in her chest and various situations that flitted across her mind none of them good. About forty five minutes later the storm was far behind her and Raven could see the Helicarrier. She prepared to land but just as she began the descent a message appeared on the jet's computer screen in big red letters. The message read 'Main base destroyed. Self destruct set for ninety seconds. Eject immediately.' "Bugger," Raven muttered along with a few other choice swear words in both English and in Celtic. She slammed her fist on the eject button that had opened up and was shot into the air. Her parachute opened up and as she floated down to land on the Helicarrier Raven watched the jet explode into thousands of tiny fragments that fell into the ocean. Raven landed on the Helicarrier and stumbled forward slightly to catch her balance. Once one of the technicians had taken the parachute away Raven walked over to where she saw Natasha standing with two men that from their backs Raven couldn't identify.
"Gentlemen, you may want to step inside in a minute," Natasha was telling them as Raven walked up. "It's going to get a little hard to breathe."
"Well I see I made it just in time," Raven commented from behind Natasha as the two men walked to the edge saying something about submarines. She thought that she recognized the taller one of the two as Captain Steve Rogers but she wasn't completely sure if her mind wasn't playing tricks on her because why would he be here. Not unless Fury had decided to call in the scrapped Avengers Initiative.
Natasha spun around and smiled slightly when she saw Raven, "Raven, how are you?"
"I've been better."
"So you heard then?"
"About Clint being compromised, yes. Got a call from Coulson just as I was flying in a rough storm patch. But he wouldn't tell me anything more."
"It might be better if Director Fury explains it since he was there. You flew? I didn't see any planes landing after we did."
"Unfortunately the jet I obtained had an automatic self destruct set for a certain length of time after the main base of operations was destroyed."
"So you had to parachute the rest of the way."
"Well I can't fly and I didn't feel like dropping like a stone either so I didn't really have much of a choice. Nigel?"
"Don't worry he's inside."
Raven sighed in relief, "Who are they?" she indicated the two men that were walking back towards them.
"This is Captain Rogers," Natasha told Raven indicating the taller man and gesturing to the man who was shorter and had dark hair introduced him as Dr. Bruce Banner. "And this is Agent Raven Moviarty." Raven shook hands with the Captain and the doctor in turn. They all walked into the main conference area overlooking the bridge where Director Fury was waiting.
"Gentlemen," Fury said as Raven scanned the room for the tall raven-haired man that was Nigel. She spotted him on the other side of the room as for some strange reason, Steve gave Fury ten bucks. Before she could head over to Nigel Director Fury started talking and was almost in her way. "Doctor thank you for coming."
"Thanks for asking nicely," Bruce replied shifting nervously. "So, uh… how long am I staying?"
"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear."
Oh no, Raven thought flinching slightly. It happened. Nigel looked over at her in concern not missing the twitch.
"Where are you with that?" Bruce asked.
Coulson looked over from a computer screen and gave the answer after Fury gave him the go ahead. "We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cell phones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."
Natasha was squatting by a computer where a picture of Clint was displayed, "That's still not going to find them in time." Raven tried to contain her flare of jealousy but it wasn't easy.
"You have to narrow your field," Bruce told everyone sounding a lot more confident than he had before. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"
"How many are there?" Fury answered with what wasn't really an answer.
"Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?" Raven's head reeled slightly from all of the tech language. Science was not her forte at all.
"Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please?"
"You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys." Natasha stood up and led him out of the room. Agent Coulson walked over to Steve to talk to him about something. Raven thought it might have something to do with his vintage trading cards. She started to head over to where Nigel was standing but had to go the longer route because Agent Hill was standing in the direct route and the two of them didn't exactly get along which was an understatement. Hill strongly disliked Raven mainly because she didn't trust her due to her family history.
Raven was just walking by a row of computers when one of the agents cried out, "We got a hit. Sixty seven percent match. Wait, cross match, seventy nine percent."
"Location?" Coulson asked as Raven glanced at the screen to see Loki smiling up at the camera as if he knew it was there.
"Stuttgart, Germany. 28 Konigstrasse. He's not exactly hiding."
Bloody God of mischief, Raven thought seeing that Loki knew exactly what he was doing and probably had some devious plan up his sleeves.
"Captain, you're up." Fury ordered as he walked up. "Agent Moviarty debriefing in five. Conference room."
"That's you Rae," Nigel said with a grin.
"I know that Nigel," Raven replied rolling her eyes.
"Why weren't you answering your phone earlier? Fury, Coulson, and I all tried calling you but all calls went straight to voicemail and you never have your phone off. So, what happened?
"I had no bloody signal that's why. Cell signal is rubbish down at the southern end of the world and in the middle of nowhere." Raven smiled and stood next to Nigel. "Besides there's no need to get so overprotective of me, I can take care of myself you know."
"But that's my job. To protect my baby sister as much as I can." Nigel replied putting his arm around Raven's shoulders but she slid out glaring at him.
"How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not your baby sister?"
"I am older."
"By four minutes!" Raven protested as they started to head down one of the many halls to the conference room.
Nigel pulled Raven aside once they were out of the other agents hearing, "Raven, what happened? You're shaking like a leaf and more rattled than you've been for a while."
Raven sighed, "I saw something. I'm not going to go into detail right now because I want to find out from Fury what the hell happened first."
Nigel ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "Dammit can't you learn to control it? Never mind forget I asked. I know you can't."
"I blame our dear old mother," Raven sighed. "It was her Scottish side of the family that were the seers. But at least they could control it. You know, I really think mother cursed me before she died. This never happened before we moved out."
"We'll figure something out, I promise," Nigel whispered in Raven's ear as he enveloped her in a hug."
"Don't make promises you might not be able to keep Nigel." Raven returned the hug and pulled back smiling. "Now scat. I've got to get to my debriefing. Plus I want to find out what happened with the Tesseract."
"We'll swap stories later then?" Nigel asked with a grin.
"Of course. I take it you're heading back to the bridge?"
"Yeah I'll either be there or seeing if Dr. Banner wants an extra hand in the lab. Depends on whether or not I can stand Hill's watching."
Raven chuckled slightly. "See you later." Nigel wandered off as Raven walked to the conference room where Director Fury was waiting.
