Personal Recount
Saturday, May 5, 2012 – One day After New York's "Incident" – Private Written Recount
The only way for me to accurately make sense of all of this is to start recounting everything from the day when things started to turn south. I could start at the time the Cube was first taken from the tomb in Norway where it was hidden, but that's someone else's story to tell. I don't have the details of everything that happened during that time anyways, so I'm going to leave that part out. The part I can tell, which is what this recount covers and when it starts, is the one in which I was directly involved. As for the other parts that happened after the Girl appeared, I'm going to leave those to the people who fought in the "incident" in New York.
I'm a busy person. I have an organization to run, and in addition to dealing with this, I also have other problems to attend. I don't have time to be writing the whole day, so this is going to be my recount of all that happened during the "incident" in the J.D.F.E. facility. This is a recount of everything as I experienced it starting from the beginning of the day the god and the Girl arrived and up until the end of that same day. Because I promised the Girl that I will keep her existence a secret and out of the organization's database and records, I'm writing this for my personal files for which only I have access. I decided to not reveal her name even in this report and refer to her only as the "Girl."
I had to write an official report with the details of the "incident" that happened at the J.D.F.E. facility, but I had to omit a lot of information from it to protect the Girl. The official report is the version that everyone except the Avengers knows, so I'm creating this file, which contains recordings of the events. I'm also writing about every detail related to what actually happened. Everything that people think happened is not the complete truth.
The reason why I'm writing this is that if anything were to happen to me, someone needs to make sure the Girl's identity is kept a secret and to keep an eye on Stark, so he doesn't make a mess of things. The Girl is the key to the protection of humanity and possibly the entire universe. Her safety is imperative. As of right now, the Avengers are in charge of her security. Her continued presence here on earth after the New York "incident" is supposed to be kept a secret. Everyone needs to continue to believe that she left the planet with Thor. We expended quite a few hours organizing the setup to make it look like Loki, Thor, the Girl, and her other companion were teleported out of the planet by the Tesseract. The Girl even went through the trouble of getting Loki to cooperate and assist her with the creation of an illusion double.
When I ask her about how she got Loki's compliance, all she said was "Easy. I employed a method of persuasion on him that in here in Midgard is known as blackmail." She didn't elaborate on that.
Although I'm really curious about what she could have over Loki to make him behave, I didn't ask. Over the past few days, I have learned that some things are better left alone and as a mystery. If someone had told me a few days ago that I wouldn't be trying to get information pertaining a person of interest, I would have laughed in his or her face. After what happened with the Tesseract and the Girl, I learned that sometimes wanting to know too much about something can spell major disaster. Like for example, if you find a powerful artifact of unknown origins at the bottom of the ocean, the best thing to do is to ensure that the object is kept hidden and secure instead of having scientists experiment on it. Funny how sometimes it takes a major catastrophe to put things into perspective. If the Girl didn't tell me what she said to Loki to make him comply, then I'm better off not knowing.
Central Park was selected as the perfect setting for the ruse because it was out in the open. The park was large enough for S.H.I.E.L.D. to be able to arrange for a private departure and at the same time ensure that the press had a perfect view of the event from a safe distance. The stratagem was so well done that if I hadn't seen the Girl and Loki creating the illusion doubles, no one would have been able to convince me of the fact that two of the people who were teleported by the Tesseract were not even real. At present, the only thing left to do is for Stark to make sure that the Girl keeps a discreet profile, which would be something easy enough to do. The problem with the previous statement is that Stark wouldn't know the meaning of the word discreet even if it hits him over the head with a sledgehammer.
Since the Girl doesn't seem to stand Rogers, Stark is the one who is supposed to make sure that she keeps a low profile. I almost had an aneurysm when I heard about that. I told her that if the fate of the world depends on Tony Stark knowing how to be inconspicuous, then the world is going to go to hell in a hand basket. She said she trusts Stark to do the right thing, and Stark smiled at me and said "Pirate. I know how important this is. She will be safe with me, and I won't mess this up." As if him saying that he isn't going to mess things up is supposed to reassure me. In other words, I'm going to stand by my original assessment and say that we are all going to be completely screwed. I'm sure that what Stark is going to do is to contribute to causing trouble; I have no doubt about it. Having those two in the same vicinity is a terrible idea.
The only reason why I allowed that crazy idea is because the Girl doesn't trust S.H.I.E.L.D. and won't allow us to keep her in our custody. Although I assured her S.H.I.E.L.D. could keep her safe, she doubts my words on the subject. The other only option was for her to stay with someone trustworthy enough and with the resources to protect her. There is also the issue that she won't trust anybody she doesn't know with her safety. Unfortunately, that leaves Stark as the only available option.
If it weren't for the fact that Rogers is going to stay with them to keep an eye on both the Girl and Stark, I would have still insisted on finding another solution. I trust the Captain not to let things get out of hand. I also told Stark that Romanoff is going to be going with them or there was no deal. There is no way I'm going to allow anything like that without me having someone near them to observe and report to me. I need to be able to clean up and keep any situation from getting out of hand and quiet in case Stark screws things up.
I was sure Stark was going to argue about it and never agree to Romanoff staying with them. I was right about the argument part, but I was wrong about the rest. When Stark started his argument, the Girl touched Stark's arm and told him that she liked Natasha and "can she stay with us? I would like to have at least one female friend, and there are not many people we can trust to keep my identity a secret. Plus, keeping at least most of the members of the Avengers under the same roof is going to help the team to get to know each other and work better in the future."
Stark just sighed and said "fine, but she stays away from my lab, and there is going to be no snooping in my computer systems." Except for Miss Potts, I have never seen anybody be able to manage Stark like that. Even Miss Potts has trouble making Stark heed with such ease.
For some reason, when the Girl arrived, she took one look at each team member and immediately decided she liked Stark, said that she and Romanoff are going to be the best of friends, and expressed a strong dislike towards Rogers. Up to this moment, I'm still trying to figure out how that happened. However, it makes me feel a lot better to know that if the Captain manages to be able to keep the Girl in check, then Stark can be managed as well. Though, I'm sure that Captain Rogers is hiding something related to the Girl. Stark is acting suspiciously as well. What could they be hiding? The only thing I'm sure about is that whatever Stark and Rogers are hiding is most probably going to complicate things. This mess started because of the Cube. That damned Cube, Rogers was right about what he said; it should have been left in the ocean.
