The first thing Piper became aware of was the smell. Antiseptic. The next was the hard surface she was laying on. Habit kept Piper from moving as memory from the previous night rushed over her and she checked her mental walls to find them still in place. No point risking another power surge from the blue cube.

"I know you're awake."

Piper huffed a laugh. "How many times have you said that in the last few hours, Fury?"

"At least we know your sarcasm hasn't broken." Piper opened her eyes to Director Nick Fury smirking at the foot of the padded table she was laying on. "We weren't sure what exactly was going on with you."

She rolled her eyes, pushing herself into a sitting position on the table, Indian style. "Stop spy-poking. You think you're all cool prying for information, but it's really just annoying."

Fury raised one eyebrow.

Piper continued, more seriously. "You need to tell me what I'm doing here." Frowning at the hard padding, she added, "And you need to come up with a really good reason why I had to sleep on this."

Brushing aside the last comment, Fury took a few steps closer to her. "You're here because we need -"

"Help. I know, I got that part when someone used the Tesseract and nearly killed me, but what am I doing here?" Piper stressed, arms spread to encompass the room. "You promised, Fury, you promised me that you wouldn't drag me into anything!"

The director glared, mouth set in a firm line. "How do you know about the Tesseract?"

Piper let her arms drop. "How couldn't I know? You know what I can do, more than anyone else. You tell me."

Fury's eye narrowed. "What does the Tesseract have to do with telepathy and telekinesis? That's what you do."

"That's only a part of what I do and you know it." Piper shook her head. "And I can do that because I can sense energy fields. From all around the world if I really try. I've felt the Tesseract since I broke out of that cage, and I had to know what was giving off so much energy that I could feel it from anywhere." Piper paused, a faintly roguish expression passing over her face. "I might have dug around a bit to find that information.."

As she trailed off, Fury sighed. "'Digging around' in my agents' minds?" Piper only shrugged, lips curled with mischief.

With half-hearted glare, Fury continued. "Can you sense the Tesseract now?"

Piper became distant all of a sudden, looking down at her hands. Instead of replying, she gave her head a tiny shake.

Swearing, Fury began to pace. "If he's already left with it -"

"No, it could still be here, it's just I…. I'm not sensing anything right now." Piper admitted, still studying her hands. Fury pivoted to face her, looking almost concerned.

"You can't? Why not? Was it that attack last night?"

Before he had even finished asking, Piper was shaking her head. "It's not that I can't...just that I'm not..?"

Judging by Fury's eyebrow, that was not a decent explanation.

Piper huffed a breath and clarified. "I've closed off my mind. Last night, the Tesseract nearly overwhelmed me because of its power. It can't do that with my walls up."

"And can you take them down?"

She hesitated. "I could, but I have no way of knowing if the Tesseract is still active. If it isn't, then I'll be fine. If it is…" she trailed off, silence filling in the rest.

Fury nodded his understanding. "We'll work on it. Are you alright otherwise? Whatever happened to you last night left you as weak as I've ever seen you."

Piper shrugged, looking down at an open hand as if testing its strength. "I feel normal, besides from a minor headache. Guess I recover fast, huh?" The corners of her mouth turned up at her little joke. Then Piper paused and gave Fury a pointed glare . "Speaking of last night...who the hell was that agent you sent?"

Rolling his eye, Fury moved to the door. "If you knew, what would you do to him?"

"I'd kick his ass is what. That guy needs to learn a lesson on manners." Piper hopped down from the table to follow him, her bare feet silent on the metal floor.

Fury stopped in the doorway to look down at the girl who only came up to his chest. "You do remember that you provoked him, right?"

Piper smirked, but said nothing as Fury continued. "The man had the job of tailing and approaching you. Do you know what kind of information he read in your file? Enough about powers and superhuman abilities to scare a grown man out of his wits."

Fury paused, his eye glowering at the girl. "And then you go and make him angry, and then you do all that ninja crap to impress him, and by that point, he's scared to death of you. And you blame him for attacking you?"

She thought about it for a second and then shrugged nonchalantly, looking down at her clothes. "He should work better under pressure."

Fury let out an exasperated sigh. "I'll be sure to let him know. Without your help." With a last frown at Piper, he swept off down the corridor.

Piper stood there a moment looking after him.

"I still want to kick his ass." she grumbled before following the director.