Back on Earth….
On the way to the Helicarrier, which was docked in the bay, Agent Maria Hill and Aurora spoke not a word. As she drove, she noticed Aurora nodding off to sleep. Maria said not a word, but when they arrived at the bay, she woke her up. The two women exit the car together and head inside the cargo hold. They arrive inside and they are met by Nick Fury and some SHIELD guards.
Fury says, "Greetings Ms. Lawson, follow me."
Aurora complies and follows him. Fury takes immediate stock of her appearance and Aurora sensed it, but she had been so tired lately she just didn't care. Fury noticed the same pale, despondent look on her face, similar to the one that was still plaguing Dr. Selvig. She was escorted to an interrogation room. Fury excuses himself and leaves the room. Aurora sits down and lays her head down on her arms and closes her eyes and tries to read the thoughts of the agents behind the two way mirror.
Aurora can hear all of what's going on behind the glass. She continued to lay with her head down and pretended to nap.
A Dr. Jemma Simmons comes into the office outside of Interrogation room 1 accompanied by Leo Fitz and interrupts, "Hello Director. I have some questions about a file." She looks at the glass. "What is happening here?" she asks.
"Is that who I think it is?" ask Fitz. "Is that Aurora Lawson?"
"Yes, it is." Maria Hill replies. "Why are you so interested, Fitz?"
Fitz starts to gush, "Are you kidding? She is one of the country's top computer programmers. She has worked with numerous weapons manufacturers and governments all over the world. She even invented small scale weapons on the side. She is famous. We studied her while in SHIELD academy. She developed a program called the Ghost Protocol. It is a computer based navigation and command program for weapons, mainly for the US military. For example, when small things such as bullets are shot out of a gun, her program allows for the user to direct it to its intended target. It allows for snipers, to shoot their targets, even if they are covered up or mobile. As long as a target can be tracked by GPS or satellite, you can kill anything within a 5-10 mile radius. This self-guided system can be used for things like missiles too. Also, in the event that your weapons fall into the wrong hands, the infamous Ghost protocol is kicked in. It completely erases all information in the weapon and uses an electrical pulse to paralyze the part of the brain that stores memories, provided the person is in direct contact with the weapon. Hence: the Ghost protocol. Now she's collaborated with Tony Stark to improve on a solar powered mini arc reactor that can be designed to provide a power source for deployed military personnel and most recently she has wanted to provide people with a way for clean energy. She is absolutely brilliant! Wait… why is she here?" he asks.
"She has been suspected of being in league with the war criminal known as Loki." Says Hill.
"You mean the Asgardian who wrecked New York?" asks Fitz.
"Yes, the same. The only thing is she is exhibiting similar signs to what Dr. Selvig is experiencing, as result of the mind control." Says Hill.
Hill hits a button to record the conversation about to take place. Simmons and Fitz watch as Nick Fury takes an ear piece and instructs Hill to keep him informed while he went to interrogate Aurora. Fury walks into the room where she is now sitting up. He is carrying a small stack of manila folders, which are the case files from the New York incident.
"Hello Nick."
"Aurora, do you know why you're here?" he asks.
"Yes, I believe so, but truthfully, the last few months have been a little blurry. I haven't been myself lately." Aurora carefully listened to Fury's thoughts, so she could tailor her answers to the questions. She had to make it seem like she was taken advantage of by Loki, so she could avoid any jail in the Fridge or the Cube.
"Are you familiar with the Asgardian, Loki? If so, what was your relationship with him? I ask this because we have footage, and pictures of the two of you in Germany and New York together. We also found several pieces of advanced technology in Germany and New York, all with your company's logo. Care to explain?" as he lays out the pictures and the folders. Aurora takes a careful look at them. She acts very surprised at a few pictures, despite that she knew very well everything that occurred between her and Loki. She had to make them believe that she was just a victim.
"Yes. I was familiar with him." she replied.
"How did you meet him?" asks Fury.
"It was over 5 months ago, I think…right after I left your facility after seeing the Tesseract and giving you the programing for the missiles. I flew home, went to the spa and out to eat with Sam. Nothing out of the ordinary, we went to a club and it was there I met him." She smiles, but then changes her expression to look puzzled and pained. She continues, "What kind of my stuff did you find in Germany or New York?"
"We found several ion cannons and iridium in containers in Germany along with this." Fury points to a picture of the eye scanner that was gouged into Dr. Scheafer's eyeball. She looks at the picture and replies, "This was just a prototype I designed a couple of years ago. I had the weapons program in R &D scrap this, along with the ion cannons. They were supposed to be stored in the vault underground. I didn't realize that they were used or missing."
"You didn't?" asks Fury.
"No, a few years ago, right after Tony Stark went missing in the Middle East. I decided to jump in on the weapons manufacturing bandwagon. With Stark out of the picture, it opened up opportunities for other companies to take advantage of the contracts for the DOD. The eye scanner was initially designed for the CIA in covert operations. If you needed to break in somewhere and retinal scanning was part of the security, this allowed to you to take the tripod with claw and place it into someone's eye and virtually recreate their eye. The cannons were just prototypes, I planned to dismantle them and use them for other projects. The R & D that went into all of it was just too expensive for me to do without a backer, so I scrapped them. The weapons game was a dangerous game and I was afraid that my inventions would fall into the wrong hands. I never showed them to anyone, even when I was dating Justin Hammer. After I scrapped them, I locked them up. They obviously made it out and I don't remember how." She says as she hangs her head. This time she meant it.
"It's okay Aurora, do your best. So during your time with him, you had no idea that he was an Asgardian?" asks Fury.
"Not really, at first. When I met him the night I was out with Sam; he just appeared to be a foreign businessman here in NYC. I just considered him a possible one night stand, no strings kinda thing. But that wasn't the case. We continued to see each other. You know, I knew something was kind of off about him, but it had been a very long time since I had been with a man. We became lovers. He was so enchanting. I fell in love and I liked that feeling." As she stares into the air and smiles. "Nothing really seemed to be out of the ordinary, I mean, I enjoyed having company. Days went by and all, then I met with Tony at Stark Tower. We discussed our joint project for the DOD and the military, which is the solar arc reactors. I planned to go overseas and pitch the ideas to our business partners in Germany and China. Then, Tony and I got to having a few drinks, some laughs and well, one thing led to another…" Aurora smirked.
"Spare me the details about Stark. Continue."
"After I left the tower, I hurried home. Loki was there. That's when it got crazy. He got so angry, furious and called me all kinds of names." Aurora started to cry, "I thought that we had something special." She started to shake. "I was so scared. After that, things became fuzzy, next thing I know I'm on a plane from China to New York and all hell had broken loose." as a few tears roll down her cheeks. She starts to stutter and grabs her head, "I'm so tired, something happened to me right when I got back to New York. It was like my mind was back and everything was clear. I just knew it was him, and I thought if I could talk to him, since he said he loved me, I could get it to stop…but it didn't. I got scared and ran. Nothing has been the same since then."
For the first time, she wondered if Loki did use mind control on her. Did he lie? She was a little upset with herself, for a telepath, she was obviously a weak one.
"Sir, this is Simmons. The scanner is showing normal vitals, with no EEG variations; which mean that she is telling the truth."
Fury shakes his head and sighs. She was one of the most brilliant minds he had encountered. Loki had left an utter mess behind him, including her, Selvig and other SHIELD agents. Thankfully, Thor took him away to prison on Asgard. Thor had explained how the Tesseract would be used to rebuild the BiFrost, so if he was ever needed again, Heimdall, the All-seeing Keeper of the BiFrost, would notify him and he would return. For the moment, he had decided it would be best to keep her under SHIELD protection. He would put someone on her, maybe possibly back at her penthouse. He would talk to Hill and have her arrange it.
Fury gets up to leave, his mind is racing. "Aurora, stay here. I'm going to make arrangements for you and we are going to keep you under SHIELD protection."
"It's really not necessary. I'll be fine. I'm sorry Nick. I really made a mess of things. Please help me. " she pleads.
Fury agreed and left the room. Tony Stark came bursting in. "What is the meaning of this? Why is she here?"
"She was involved with Loki in the attack on New York; but apparently not of her own free will. It seems he left her mind a mess. She told us she had fallen in love with him. Judging from the interrogation and the live bio-scanner results, she has been truthful in telling what she knows. Because she is such an important computer consultant for us, Fury is deciding what to do with her now." Replies Maria Hill.
Nick comes into the room and explained to Tony about the evidence of her involvement with Loki He told Tony that they were going to monitor her. Tony asked to talk to her. Fury agreed and left the room.
Tony walks in to the room and shuts the door. "Hello Aurora."
She walks up and hugs him. "What are you doing here, Tony?"
"I could ask you the same thing. SHIELD called me in when they discovered evidence of your involvement with Loki and the New York invasion. Why? He asks.
She glances down at the floor. "I don't know, Tony."
"Of all the people in the world, why you let him take advantage of you?" asks Tony.
"That's funny, Tony. You used to do the same thing to me."
"What are you talking about?"
She turns bitter, "Of course, you wouldn't remember would you? I was so in love with you Tony for so long. The first couple of years we were together were great. We had even discussed starting a life and family together. Then your weapons building took off, then you started drinking and partying. After that I became nothing more than a convenient little plaything. I did everything I could to make you love me, but it wasn't enough. You never even missed me the day I moved out." She said. "But thankfully, you gave me something that day: Motivation. Thanks to you and every bit of money I ever made, I worked my ass off and made my company what it is today. Your captivity in Golmerrah, allowed me to move on with my life and capitalize on the military arms race. Your company made weapons, I programmed computers and worked on advanced bionics and cybernetics for the DOD and SHIELD, in fact. Everything I have today, I owe to you." She says.
He looks at her with his big brown eyes and smooths her hair and says, "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I was in a very dark place for a while. The only happiness I found was in the bottom of any bottle I could find. I'm sorry you had to be in the middle of all of that. You have no idea what it is like growing up in the shadow of Howard Stark: the legendary founder of SHIELD, master inventor and creator and forecaster for modern technology. He and mom died when I was young, and I needed someone. Obadiah was my surrogate father and I was taken advantage of; fuck, he had me kidnapped and taken to the Middle East to die. When I survived and made it back I wanted to make something of my life, something to help: I wanted to rid the world and protect the people from the very weapons I helped make. Looking back at my life, I had so many missed opportunities for happiness and I let them slip away, one of which was you. I thought of you often while I was in captivity, as well as Pepper too." as he takes a finger and raises her head to look at him.
"I know you still care about me, Aurora. I still care for you; and I always will, but we are in different places now. I will always consider you my dearest friend and business partner for a long time. My place is with Pepper. She was the one constant that I had in my life, and somehow managed to keep me in line. She completes me."
Aurora stood there, speechless. For the first time, Tony finally admitted how he felt about her and knew what he had missed. The hardness in her heart for him started to soften, she felt like she could finally forgive him. He was always there for her even before they had become lovers. He never doubted her genius and now they were working together. She would still love Tony, but she missed Loki too. Sadly, the more she talked with Fury, the more she didn't understand. Why were so many events missing? Did she have amnesia? Thinking back on all that transpired, she started to feel extremely guilty for helping Loki. A lot of people died as a result of the invasion and she had helped to make it happen. Maybe SHIELD would allow her to atone for what she did after all.
"Oh Tony." She runs and hugs him so tightly and kisses his cheek. "I'm so sorry. I've made such a mess lately. I forgive you. You have always been there for me and I've been so selfish and bitter. I really wish you and Pepper the best. I want to continue our work on the DOD project. I think that we could do some real good for the country and the world."
"I agree, Aurora. I want that too. We are two of the most brilliant minds here. You know." He smirks.
"Was there ever any doubt?" she smirked. "We can change the world. I want to make it a better place. I can't explain why everything happened with Loki. I just know how I felt and I felt LOVED. I liked that."
"You do realize that Loki is not coming back right? Thor said he was to stand trial in Asgard." Says Tony.
She starts to cry and blabber," I know. It's hard to accept it. I have no one in my life now; he's gone and you have Pepper. My life hasn't been the same since then and losing the baby has made it worse."
"What baby?" asks Tony
"I found out I was pregnant right before the battle started, I went to find him to tell him and try to get him to stop. It didn't work. The next few weeks after that I started having severe pain in my right side. It was unbearable. I went to Dr. Marshall and it turned out the pregnancy was ectopic, or tubal. It was on the verge of rupturing my fallopian tube. Dr. Marshall said that it had to be removed, otherwise it could kill me. Ever since then, I haven't been able to sleep, the guilt is too much for me. I thought it was the hormones from the birth control since then, but it's not."
"Was it mine?" he asks, as he hugs her tighter. He steps back to look at her.
"No. I wore my diaphragm with you."
"You know, if it was mine, I would never leave you. Ever. Regardless, you are my friend and business partner. Despite everything, you are one of the strongest women I know. This was not your fault. You will get through this, you have me, your family and SHIELD. We will help you. You will find love again. I have the name of a great therapist. We've got to get you back out working with me, we've got a world to conquer." He smiles at her. "Remember, I'm with you until the end of the line."
"Where'd that come from?" she asks and smiles.
"I borrowed it from my dad, he used to say that to me when I was little. It was something someone he used to know said all the time to a friend of his."
"Who?" she asks. Tony replies, "Captain America of all people. Cap's friend, Bucky, that died. It was something they said as kids and soldiers in the war together. Dad thought it was a nice sentimental saying, so I guess he took it. I just don't have the nerve to tell Cap." Laughed Tony. "
You will be alright, Aurora. Will you call me if you need me? I will help you. Don't worry, I'll deal with Pepper."
"Yes, I will. I really just want to get some sleep. I'm so exhausted." as she sits down. Tony motions for Fury to come and get her. They arrange to have agents take her back to her penthouse. She goes inside, with agents standing outside. She is so tired from everything that has just happened and didn't give a fuck right now. She knew Tony was probably right. Loki wasn't coming back. She needed to move on. She takes the blue engagement ring off of her finger for the first time in months. As if by magic, she starts to feel better than she ever had in six months. It was like a weight was lifted off of her. She decides to go and take a shower and ready for bed. She looks up, despite knowing Loki might never hear her, but says, "I miss you Loki." With that, she goes to the door and tells the guards they can go, she is going to bed. She lays down and sleeps the most that she ever has in the last six months.
