Thank you so much for everyone who reviewed and followed this story! It's really humbling to know people are out there reading my stuff, especially since I sweat so much over whether or not to post...
Is this turning into a giant cliche fest? Because if it is, let me know (nicely please!). And i'll either trash this chapter and start over or figure something else out...
...Sorry about this chapter guys...I'll just, like, say that right now...
Quick note: The calm feeling mentioned is not just a violin-swells, first-meeting thing of love. It ties back to something, I swear.
When Simza Sterling steps off of the plane, she knows that she probably looks just as disgusting, limp, and tired as she feels, and the jet lag that is already seeping itself into her exhausted bones doesn't make things any better.
Still, she forces one foot in front of the other and makes her way off of the crowded aircraft and through the hustle and bustle of the airport, and then she steps out into the warm, balmy, humid night.
For a moment, Simza sets her suitcase down and just takes a breath to collect herself as she watches the people and cars pass along the busy roads. Then, she stretches out her sore arms and back and legs, and fishes into the pocket of her slacks for a piece of paper.
Using only the dim light that shines through the glass windows of the airport terminal, she peers down at the hastily scrawled address in her hand and tries her hardest to decipher her own clumsy chicken scratch, but after just a minute, she gives up with a heavy sigh.
"Just-!..." Simza starts to shout in frustration.
A few onlookers give her odd looks.
"Damn me." she finishes to herself quietly.
Then, with a resigned huff, she begins rummaging through her bag to find her cellphone so that she can call upon Coulson, her special fairy godmother, for help.
"Agent Sterling?" a voice suddenly says.
Simza glances up.
And she is met with the sight of a young-ish looking man.
It takes Simza all of just a second for her to realize that he is, undoubtedly, a SHIELD agent.
He doesn't exactly blend in, after all. Not standing there, dressed head to toe in a crisp, clean suit, against the soft blur of colors in the background.
Simza starts to frown.
"Yes?" she says.
"I've been told to escort you to the location." the man answers. He picks up her suitcase then and without any other word, begins walking off down the street.
It takes her a second to snap out of her exhausted stupor.
But when she does, she hurries after him.
"Wait, you're not gonna tell me any other details about this whole thing first?" Simza asks, struggling to match the stranger's long stride.
"No." comes the answer. "Direct orders from Fury. We're not to disclose any information until you actually return to base. With Dr. Banner, of course."
Simza lets out a sigh of aggravation as she bumps and nudges against the flow of the city's crowd, a crowd that will part for this serious, ever-so-posh looking man but not for her, no doubt just a frazzled receptionist or assistant in their minds.
And she doesn't know if it is that, or if it is the simple smarmy look on this man's face that forces her to say it, but all of a sudden, she blurts the words out before she can stop herself.
"I could find out even without you telling me, you know."
The man, surprisingly enough, almost smiles at that.
"So i've been informed. However, since your...departure from SHIELD, Agent Sterling," he half-sneers. "we've upgraded all of our security systems and even implemented-"
"-a DNA recognition system so that I couldn't possibly have gathered any intel whatsoever on SHIELD's top secret Avengers project?" Simza interrupts. And now it is her turn to almost smile. "Do tell me more."
The man stops dead in his tracks.
And his expression is suddenly so dark and frigid it sends a chill up her spine, even in this ridiculously hot summer air.
"How do you know about that?" he demands.
"I'm an info broker. It's my job to know." Sterling returns.
"So why pretend to be clueless?"
"Because it wasn't in my best interest to play anything other than the part of a clueless underling." Simza sighs.
And she turns to continue on, but suddenly, the man whips his hand out and clamps it onto her shoulder with a vice-like grip.
"Your best interests," he growls. "are now SHIELD's. You're not working on your own anymore, Agent Sterling, and that means no more lone-wolfing it. You follow orders. Understood?"
For a moment, Simza says nothing. Then, her eyes narrow and she only steps in closer, matching his sharp gaze with a withering glare of her own.
When she finally speaks, her voice is low and controlled and quiet.
But cold, too.
The voice of someone practiced in the cruel, calculating act of interrogation.
"Look. You seem like a relatively new agent so i'll give you some advice. SHIELD is going to seem perfect to you for a few more years. It's going to seem like the greatest thing in the world- impenetrable, undefeatable, noble...Trustworthy."
She pauses to let her words sink in and then, she leans in even closer to make her next words count.
"But then, it's gonna fail you." Simza says. "So you listen to me, rookie. Always leave yourself a way out. And never let them make you any promises. Understood?" She finally lets up. "...Or you'll end up just like me."
Even this austere, uppity man seems to give pause at that.
And seeing his startled face, as if everything he knows has been torn down, Sterling can't help but feel a slight twinge of guilt in her chest.
She knows how hard it is to accept that your heroes aren't really heroes, after all.
"Or maybe you won't." she says. "I mean, who knows."
But the man remains frozen on the spot and so Simza lets out a sigh. "...Look, i'm sorry. That was my fault. I shouldn't have antagonized you like that, i'm just...tired. So can you point me in the direction i'm supposed to go so we can get the hell out of here?"
The man absently nods in the direction of the outskirts of town where she can glean the outline of a rather rundown home in the distance. An ominous air looms around its solitude and Simza hesitates.
"You got any weapons on you?"
The man nods again and clumsily pulls a pistol from a concealed holster in his belt, which she takes and stows away only after checking to make sure it's loaded.
"Thanks." she mutters.
She is careful to avoid his eye as she takes her bag from his hand and shuffles on alone.
Simza does not enter the home immediately.
No, that would be a stupid thing to do, given SHIELD's penchant for tests and tricks and traps.
So first, she listens and watches and deduces all she can from her surroundings. And after, even when she's done all that she can and she's found no sign of obvious danger, she only stands on the porch, hand almost, just almost, shaking.
"Just get in there, you gutless chicken." Simza whispers to herself.
And then, she forces herself to step past the sheer curtain that serves as a door before she can lose her nerve.
"You know, for a man who-"
Sartled half out of her whits, Simza whirls around to find the source of the voice, hand already grabbing for her weapon.
But standing there in the shadows, is only an equally surprised red-headed woman, dressed far more appropriately for the humidity than she in a thin black shirt and skirt, with a gauzy crimson shawl draped across her shoulders.
For a long moment, the woman continues to stare, green eyes only slightly wider open than usual in an expression of subtle surprise as Simza gawks openly back. But then, the spy's features shift into a look of quiet amusement instead.
"So...they got you to join the party after all."
"Agent Romanoff." Simza says in greeting. After a moment's hesitation, she puts the pistol away but the suspicion doesn't wear off entirely.
The Black Widow nods to her in turn.
"...They didn't tell me you were coming." Sterling says carefully.
Slowly and deliberately, putting on a show of making no sudden movements for the sake of her own safety, she surveys the interior of the home.
A few rooms, each one as empty and shabby as the next. A wooden table. Wooden chairs.
No doctor.
No hidden assassins come to kill her either, which is promising, but no doctor.
And so she starts to suspect this all been just some ridiculous trap after all.
Picking up on this, Romanoff says, "They called me in yesterday. They had no idea that you were gonna be here at the time." A pause. "That is, until I suggested you."
Simza blinks.
"'You suggested?'..." she echoes.
And that is when all the parts and pieces finally click into place.
"So Fury was bluffing..." Simza says incredulously. "'List', my ass. Goddammit."
She slumps herself down in the nearest chair in both relief and irritation, knowing now that this has all most definitely been a trap. Just not the kind she had expected. Either way, she's fallen into it and now it's too late to back out.
"I should have known..." she sighs.
"Don't beat yourself up over it." Romanoff offers with slight shrug of her shoulders. "It's true that we need your help."
"Why? I mean, you're already here." the other woman replies wearily.
The space between the spy's brows crinkles.
"Fury didn't tell you much, did he?"
"No. He told me it'd be an easy job. Told me to recruit Dr. Banner. Told me we're looking for something called the tesseract. That's it."
Romanoff lets out a small breath of exasperation at that.
"SHIELD is taking this mission up to the skies, Sterling. That means every agent on this operation will be contained in a metal vessel along with the doctor. We need you with us as a failsafe."
Simza doesn't speak for a very long moment.
"...So i'm not here for interrogation?...Or info?"
Romanoff shakes her head.
"No."
Slowly, Simza Sterling takes in a deep breath as she mulls over all of the facts in her head, and as she does, her fingers absently tap out an unrecognizable rhythm on the arm of her chair.
Tap tap ta-tap tap tap...
The tapping stops.
"...You know that my-...that it doesn't work once he's already changed. Only before." Sterling murmurs. "So unless i'm hovering over him 24/7, i'm of no more use than the next person."
Romanoff nods.
"We know. Still, on the off-chance you can stop him before that if something goes wrong, we figure it's better to be safe than sorry."
"So what am I doing here then?" Simza snaps in irritation. "Even if that's all SHIELD wanted, they didn't have to call us both all the way out to India."
"I was supposed to head back to SHIELD when they heard confirmation that you'd arrived," Romanoff explains, not even the slightest bit fazed. "but you were taking a little while longer to get here than we expected. They almost thought you weren't coming in at all."
"Pff. Yeah, well. That is actually not my fault. They just had to get me a ticket on the one flight in the entire damned place that got delayed three hours?"
"That's some bad luck, you have, Sterling." Romanoff says, but she starts to grin because it's oddly nice to know that some things about Simza haven't changed.
Simza just snorts.
"Story of my life." she grumbles.
But finally, she shakes off the bitterness and looks up at the spy again from her chair.
"So what's the plan, then? I mean, i'd assume we're not just hiding out on the outskirts of the city for no reason?"
"You'd be correct." Romanoff says with an approving nod. "In fact, i've sent someone out to-"
But she doesn't get to finish.
Because just then, a young girl of no more than 7 or 8, darts into the room, dashes straight between the two women without a word, and then clambers out the opposite window noisily.
"What-" Simza begins.
But then, there is a series of short, focused footsteps growing closer and closer and then a head pokes in through the makeshift door and...
And it is him.
Bruce Banner.
With just the same sleep-mussed look and tired face that she remembers.
Simza goes completely still.
Agent Romanoff straightens to attention beside her.
And he...he just surveys the room, eyes confused and surprisingly innocent. Until he notices them, of course.
"...Should have gotten paid up front, Banner." he mutters to himself with a wry, tired laugh. "Would've died a richer man."
Agent Romanoff steps in, as smooth as anything.
"I think we both know that you dying isn't the real danger here, doctor."
The man lets out a resigned sigh of acknowledgement to that, then slowly enters the room in full. A deep purple button down and a dark suit jacket edges through the thin material hanging over the door and the doctor wrings his hands uncertainly as he stands there, waiting for the women to reveal whatever it is that has caused them to lure him out of hiding.
Romanoff glances at Simza then, expecting her to take over here.
But Simza doesn't.
Because it's harder to face him now than she'd ever thought it would be.
It's harder to hear the familiar gentle timbre in his voice and it's harder to see him shift uncomfortably in the silence, just as soft-spoken and seemingly timid as ever, and...
It's also harder to deal with the guilt.
Simza's hand passes absently over the fading scar at her neck and, for a moment, she forgets how to speak.
"Yeah, I know Mom. Thanks." a 24 year old Simza Sterling says into her phone as she hurries through the streets towards her second favorite dive. (Her first favorite is apparently closed for maintenance due to an incident that had happened just yesterday night, which had resulted in the wall being completely busted out in some bizarre way.)
"Yeah, I'll tell her. I know, I know. Okay. Bye."
With a short blip! the call disconnects and the bright-eyed, optimistic young woman stuffs the device back into her pocket as she continues on eagerly.
She has something to celebrate tonight.
And she's called all of her friends out to tell them the good news.
She's been officially hired. And that's with her employers knowing she hasn't received a full college education, too.
She's gotten through a year's worth of grueling training and it's a hard job. No doubt about that, but it's also the only one she can get with her skills or, well, lack thereof, so she has no complaints.
She'll earn decent money, see the world, then retire and live a boring old happy life to the end of her days.
It's not exactly the most thrilling plan, but...
"Pleasure in the simple things." Simza laughs to herself.
With a new spring in her step, she turns the last corner, ducks into the shortcut that cuts through the alleyways, and then-
Nearly shrieks.
Because lying there near the dead-end of the backstreet is a body.
No...
Simza cautiously ventures one step closer and sees that the 'body' is still breathing.
It's a man.
A...naked man.
"...Hello?" she calls out cautiously.
The man lets out a soft groan but other than that, he remains still, face planted in the asphalt.
"...Hello? Are you alright, or...?"
Still, no response.
And so Simza gingerly pulls her phone from her pocket to call the incident in to the police, but just that very second, her cellphone begins buzzing in her hands.
Her friends, probably calling to tell her that she is very, very late.
And Simza wants desperately to go to them.
But at the same time, she can't help but wonder if she can really afford to leave this man here.
He might be a criminal.
He might just be some random drunk, but...
He might also be a victim. He might also be dying.
And so she hugs her coat closer around her body and chews at the skin of her bottom lip, not knowing what on Earth to do.
Luckily, she doesn't have to make that choice.
Something else makes it for her.
And that 'something' is this:
A light ping!
A new message.
Two sentences followed by a picture.
He waits and he watches them, the two women, one of whom is staring at him agape from her chair, and the other of whom is staring at the first woman in apparent confusion.
This one, the redhead, she is obviously a spy.
Her quick recovery to his untimely appearance as well as the nuanced shifts in the shadows of her eyes makes that much obvious.
The other woman, well...he isn't exactly sure what she is.
She looks almost comically unkempt next to the other, but even in her tired face there is a dark sense of wariness that suggests she isn't entirely innocent either. Still, of the two women in the room, Bruce finds himself inexplicably calmer with this plainer one around.
"...For a man who's supposed to be avoiding stress, you sure picked a hell of a place to settle." Romanoff says, trying to recover from Simza's silence.
Banner shrugs.
"Avoiding stress isn't the secret."
"Then what is it? Yoga?" she quips.
And the man offers up a smile at the jibe, but nothing else and as he paces around the room, Romanoff gives Sterling a quick nudge and a questioning shake of her head before he turns to them again.
"You brought me to the edge of the city. Smart." he says from the window. "I, uh, assume the whole place is surrounded?"
This time, the Back Widow does not swoop in to save her and, after a moment's pause, Simza is forced to answer.
"No...No, just you and us." she manages.
"Right."
Judging by his matter-of-fact tone, he clearly doesn't buy it, but he lets the matter drop for now in favor of a more important question. "And who exactly are you two?"
"Natasha Romanoff. This is my colleague, Simza Sterling."
Simza manages an odd smile in greeting.
He ignores her.
"And are you here to kill me, Ms. Romanoff, Ms. Sterling? Cause that's..not gonna work out for everyone."
"No, no. 'Course not." Romanoff hurriedly assures him. "We're here on behalf of SHIELD."
His eyes light in recognition at that.
"SHIELD..." he scoffs. Then, "How'd they find me?"
"...They never lost you." Simza says. "Just kept their distance."
"That's right." Romanoff agrees. "We even helped keep some other interested parties off your scent."
"Why?"
"Nick Fury seems to trust you. But now we need you to come in."
The doctor pauses.
"...What if I say no?"
"We'll persuade you." Romanoff answers.
"And what if the...other guy says no?"
"Look, we're apparently facing a catastrophe here." Simza interrupts testily.
She is growing weary of the roundabout games and is tired enough to throw all her previous inhibitions out the window.
"...Well those I actively try to avoid." the doctor answers, frowning at her sudden outburst.
And Simza nods, matter-of-factly.
"Right. Of course. As you well should. You know, I refused at first too. But this isn't a catastrophe you're gonna be able to run from, doctor."
She digs through her suitcase then and pulls out a file which she lays open on the table.
"This," she says, digging out a photo of a bright blue glowing object, "is the tesseract. It has the potential energy to wipe out the planet."
The doctor quirks a brow at her.
"And what does Fury want me to do? Swallow it?" he says.
Despite herself, a snicker escapes Simza's lips before she can stop it.
"That's an interesting idea," she replies. "but no. They need you to find it."
"Why do they need my help?"
"Because it emits a gamma signature that's too weak for SHIELD to trace." she sighs. "But you're kind of an expert on this sort of thing, aren't you? They're hoping you can do the impossible."
"So...Fury isn't after the monster." he says, casually edging toward them.
"Not that he's told me."
"And he tells you everything?"
Simza starts to smile.
"No. He tells me nothing, actually." she answers. "I'm not with SHIELD. Not anymore, at least. I'm just here for this one projec-"
Slam!
"Stop lying to me!"
The table shakes under the weight of his fists slamming down upon it and all in a second, Romanoff's gun is aimed at his head and Simza is on her feet, too, heart pounding in her chest, her chair knocked back from her abrupt movements.
She is prepared to do what needs to be done.
But that doesn't mean she isn't scared.
Even now, she can feel her heart rate climbing out of control, her head spinning, her breath growing ragged, her knees turning to jelly...
Don't do this again, doctor, she finds herself pleading in her mind.
Luck is on her side today.
"I'm sorry. That was mean..." Banner says, drawing back. He is grinning now. "I just wanted to see what you'd do."
Neither of the women let up their defensive stances.
"Alright. Look, i'll help you. So why don't you put that down now and, uh, nobody gets hurt." he tries again, raising both his hands in the air this time in a show of peace.
There's still a trace of that amused grin on his face, but after another moment, Romanoff finally lowers her weapon.
And he can tell that she is a little shaken, but not too much, which makes him wonder what her safety net is.
Nobody waltzes in to meet him, of all people, without having a surefire backup plan, after all.
When he glances over at Simza next, however, and he sees the shaking hands, a surprising thought begins to dawn on him...
What if the safety net is her?
But no matter how hard he looks, he doesn't see any aspect of the girl that would even pose a slight threat to his alter ego.
"Is your friend over there gonna be okay?" he says to Romanoff.
Natasha looks over to Simza only then.
"Yeah...She'll be fine." the spy answers. But she instinctively steps in front of the other agent to hide the woman's unsteadiness.
Romanoff then casts a somewhat guilty glance towards the doctor as she speaks covertly into an earpiece.
"Stand down...We're good here." she murmurs.
Bruce manages a laugh.
So the Sterling woman isn't the backup plan, after all.
No, the backup plan is just the usual. Tanks and huge guns.
"'Just us'?" Banner quotes, giving her a pointed glance.
"...I didn't know that Romanoff had brought back up." Simza replies.
"Uh huh." comes the answer.
He gives her a skeptical look; a look to challenger her.
But Simza only blinks dejectedly at the floor once before she picks herself up and walks out of the room.
In the strange silence that follows, Bruce Banner just frowns after her in confusion as Romanoff retrieves the file that her associate had left behind.
"...She wasn't lying, you know." she says quietly.
Banner glances at her, caught off-guard by the sudden voice.
"What?"
Romanoff pauses in shuffling together the classified papers to turn her piercing green eyes on him just for a second.
Then, she looks away and her hands resume their work.
"It's true she left SHIELD. And it's true she thought it was just the three of us, too."
And suddenly Bruce Banner feels kind of like an asshole.
Because that look of terror on the woman's face? That had been real. Which means he'd struck on some personal nerve trying to test her when she'd been honest all along.
Banner lets out a heavy sigh.
He catches her sneaking numerous glances on the flight back.
But they aren't angry ones. Or wounded ones.
They're just...curious.
And kind of familiar, too.
"Sorry, but have we met somewhere before?" he asks, leaning across the middle seat where Agent Romanoff slumbers.
Even in her sleep, the spy hardly moves. Hardly betrays anything at all.
Simza shakes her head.
"...I think i'd remember if we had."
"Oh." he replies. Well, then, uh, it's nice meeting you Agent Sterling." he finishes politely.
"Likewise, Dr. Banner." she answers.
A silent moment passes, in which Simza pretends to read her book and Banner pretends to notice the view outside his window.
But then, he suddenly turns back towards her in determination.
"I'm sorry about...uh...before, by the way." he offers sheepishly. "I've never really been a people person."
And to this, at last, Sterling starts to crack the tiniest of smiles.
"I can tell. And it's okay."
He gives a few awkward nods of relief.
"Alright...Good."
He shifts back into his seat.
"Hey...Hey. You feeling alright, yet?"
Bruce Banner slowly blinks his groggy eyes open.
And the first thing he sees is a such a bizarre sight that he jumps awake.
"Who...Who are you? What am I-" he begins to say.
But then, in his panic, he starts to feel his mind pulsing, being stretched thin and pinched and pulled this way and that-
Oh, no. No, no. Not again, he thinks.
"Wait. Hey, it's okay. You don't have to worry." the woman rushes to say.
She pulls the hood of her sweater back, which had, up until that point, been drawn so tightly around her face, that she had looked like some kind of cartoon alien.
"It's okay." she says again.
It doesn't help.
His hand clenches into a fist. He grits his teeth.
Stop, stop, stop, he tells himself.
And he is just about prepared to tell her to get the hell out of his sight before 'the other guy' breaks loose and kills her.
But then, out of nowhere, the stranger lays a cool hand on his arm and a rush of inexplicable clear and calm washes through him, head to toe, like a sweeping ocean wave with occasional shushed murmurs of "it's okay" and "you don't have to worry" anchoring him amidst the current.
As the feeling leaves him, he stares at her stupidly.
And once she sees that he is subdued, the girl smiles at him and retreats a distance away.
"Better?" she asks.
"...Yeah...Better." he murmurs dumbly.
(But he doesn't think to question what or how or why.)
Slowly, he looks around.
A small, messy apartment.
There's clutter everywhere and he is lying on a worn couch in the middle of a cramped, messy living room. A blanket's been laid out over his body and as he sits up, it starts to sag off of his shoulders.
As for her...Well, she doesn't look dangerous. Especially not dressed in a pair of sweats and an un-ironed button down that peeks out the bottom of her hoodie.
A somewhat odd combination.
Still, to her credit, she doesn't seem to care whether her clothes match or not, which tells him that she is most likely an exhausted college student or...a recent graduate, maybe, down in her luck and searching for work.
Her face seems friendly enough as she perches, cross-legged, on top of her kitchen table.
"So...what are you? Excaped convict? Prodigal son? Super secret spy?" she asks, conspiratorially. But there's a joking glimmer in her eyes.
"What? No." Banner says. He rubs at his weary eyes. "I'm just...I'm just..."
She waits for his answer, expectantly.
"...Nobody." he finishes. "Look, I appreciate the help, but a little tip for the future? You see someone lying out on the street, don't bring them into your home. I thought that was pretty common sense."
She laughs.
"You looked like you needed help. And hey, don't worry about me. I'm pretty tough, you know. If you meant me any harm, I could handle it."
He snorts, more to himself than out loud.
"I, uh, highly doubt that."
"So, do you live around here or something? I can help you get home..." she says, ignoring him.
And seeing no reason to lie, Bruce Banner shakes his head.
"No, i'm just in town for a few days. I was going to find a place to stay, but I got...mugged. By some giant, hulking jackass." he lies.
She nods sympathetically.
"Tough break."
"You have no idea."
"Well, at least you weren't injured." she says. "Kinda strange that they'd want all the clothes off your back though...Unless you were wearing something nice?"
He doesn't reply.
"...Right. Well, we should probably report that to the police then. Here, i'll-" she begins to say, digging in her pockets for her phone. But at her words, the man suddenly bursts out in panic, "No, no, no! Don't!"
The girl blinks at him once.
Then, slowly retracts her hand, seeming to have a better understanding now of just the exact kind of shit she's stepped into.
For a second, Banner wonders if she'll throw him out.
The idea doesn't thrill him, exactly, considering the fact that he has no real plan of action yet.
The girl continues to chew on her bottom lip for a long while.
"I'll tell you what." she says at last. "...Seeing as how you've been...mugged and you have nowhere else to go, you can stay here for awhile. Under one condition." she says. "Well, three."
"Yeah?" he answers doubtfully. "And what conditions might those be?"
"Well, the first two are kind of a given. Don't murder me. Or rob me." she laughs. "I mean, that's just good manners, don't you think? As for the third condition..." She pauses. "While you stay here, don't open the door for anyone. Not even if they tell you that they know me. Friends, family, I don't care what it is. Don't do it." She offers up a half-smile. "This is a dangerous neighborhood. Which i'm sure you know by now. Are we agreed?"
He nods.
And she is all smiles again.
"Great. Well, now that that's settled, we should probably start by getting you some clothes. I don't supposed you'd be willing to chip in there?" She laughs before he can respond, and Bruce Banner begins to think that talking to herself like this might just be a habit of hers.
"Oh. Uh. No. Here. I can..."
He fumbles around for his wallet as she just gives him an odd look that is a cross between a smile and a frown of concern.
Of course, it is only when his hand graze his bare backside, where his butt pocket is supposed to be, that he realizes why.
"..."
"Like I said," the girl says."'Start by getting you some clothes'? Oh, and don't worry. Whatever, uh, parts I may have seen while I was getting you up here, i've already completely forgotten about." she assures him a grin and a wave of her hand.
"...Hey, what's your name?" he asks. As if learning her name is somehow a fair trade for her seeing him in the nude.
"What? Oh. It's...Ellie. Mills. You?" she says.
She turns the question back on him so fast that he fumbles for his words, even although he is the one who asked her first.
'Steve' he starts to answer.
(His typical alibi. Generic. Safe.)
But a sudden pounding in his head, the remnants of last night's rampage, and he is left to deal with "...St-archk..." instead.
She raises a brow at him.
"Stark as in 'Tony'? You a distant relative or something?"
"Uh. No. Starchk as in...Starch."
"...Starch...Your name is Starch?" she asks, with a frown.
"Yeah, it's my last name...First name's...Buck." he lies.
"Buck Starch. Uh-huh..."
The girl continues to frown.
"I'm, uh, not from the city."
And finally, she snickers.
"Amazing."
"...What is?"
"The whole universe lined itself up just for this pun. You ready to hear it?" she asks. And again, before he can reply, she leans in and says, "Buck naked in my apartment."
She sniggers.
"Get it? 'Buck-naked'."
And, still in her getup, she heads over to the front door of her apartment, still cracking up over the idea of "'Buck-naked' in my apartment" as she leaves him.
Once she is gone, 'Buck' heaves out a heavy sigh.
This is a bad idea and he knows it.
But after narrowly escaping whomever those men had been last night, he needs a place to hide, to recuperate, to find his ground.
(Before he goes off again to hide out somewhere new, anyway.)
As blissfuly ignorant and...lonely, perhaps, as that girl had seemed, he is glad that she is the one who'd found him.
Because she seems so unbelievably...unremarkable.
In a word, normal.
And, for some reason, people always forgot to suspect normal.
As soon as 'Ellie Mills' is out of the room, her laughing stops short and trails off into a sigh instead.
'All agents in the vicinity are to be on the lookout for this man. If he's found, I want you to report it in immediately.'
And she'd been the one to do it. She'd been the one to find him.
But still. She can't believe the sheer number of mistakes she's practically already just made.
Too obvious. Too eager. Too...
New.
She starts to wonder if she'll ever be an agent worth her salt.
Just then, her phone rings and when she sees who it is, she rushes down the stairwell and bursts out the door into the alley to answer.
"Has the subject regained consciousness?" is the first thing that the voice on the other line says.
'Hello to you to.' Simza thinks to herself dryly. But she doesn't dare say a word of that out loud.
"Affirmative, sir. The subject and I have spoken a little and he seems to have no idea who I am or who I work for."
"Good. Keep it that way." Nick Fury says. "Has he given you a real name?"
"Negative. He gave me an alibi. Not a very good one." Simza can't help but snort. "Buck Starch."
The man on the other end of the line, however, isn't one to be very easily amused.
"See if you can't keep him there for a few more days, Sterling." he says.
That sobers her up pretty quickly.
"...Sir, I told him he could stay but...i'm supposed to head out to-"
"I'm well aware of your other assignments, Agent." her boss interrupts, firmly. "I'll find an adequate replacement for all your current operations and see if I can find you some new work there in the meantime. Right now, we need you to stay where you are."
"...But, sir-"
"I know it's not what you wanted, Sterling. But we were gonna assign someone to shadow him anyway. It's better if it's someone he would never suspect."
The words are difficult for her to hear, but they are final. And Nick Fury knows this so, as an afterthought, he adds, "He ran out on us yesterday night. We thought we'd lost him for good. Good work, agent. We're lucky you found him when you did."
"...Yes, sir." Simza says after a moment.
But she doesn't feel lucky.
Especially not after what comes next.
"In fact, Agent Sterling, from now on, I want you to keep an eye on his movements. He may not be a threat, but we may need his help in the future. We need someone to keep tabs on him at all times. Are we clear?"
"...Sir?...Does that mean-..."
"Yes, Agent. I'm assigning him to you. Permanently."
And with that, the line disconnects.
And young, ambitious Simza Sterling lets out a groan of frustration as she knocks her head repeatedly against a side wall.
Because her very first mission for SHIELD has just gone from gathering intel in a foreign country...to glorified babysitting.
If it's for the greater good...If it's for a mission...She can deal with it, she tells herself to stave off the disappointment.
But the words ring strangely hollow, so she just lets out another sigh and ducks out of the alleyway, and into the nearest mens' clothing store.
For the first three or four days, things remains difficult.
But then four days bleed into five and five days bleed into six, and between all of the awkward, unintentional midnight coffee rendezvous and the similarly late breakfasts, something changes.
And by the end of a week, 'Ellie Mills' doesn't want 'Buck Starch' to leave, and 'Buck Starch' doesn't want to go.
So he doesn't.
And for awhile, things seem as if they'll be (remarkably enough), okay.
But beneath the facade of 'average woman' and 'average man', they are, both of them, time bombs.
Each of their own special kind.
And they don't know that they are set to go off in just 14 more days.
What do you think? I don't know.
I feel kind torn about this, to be honest, guys...
Writing is hard...