Chapter 3 , I hope you enjoy
They had been driving for about an hour when Coulson received a call from Director Fury; he wanted them to rendezvous with him before they continued on to meet Tony Stark.
Carrie stepped out of the car and saw Director Fury standing outside of what looked like an old Gym, it was open all hours. She peered down into the car to see Coulson checking his phone once again.
"I'll be back in half an hour, I need to stop off and pick up some documents, and when I return we'll continue on to see Stark" he said, before giving her a small smile.
"You should be pretty honoured, the guy you're about to meet, he's uh a big deal" Phil said enthusiastically, Carrie smiled at Coulson's attitude.
"Who is he exactly?" Carrie asked.
"Let's just say you should know him when you see him" Coulson said lightly before slowly driving ahead.
"Miss White, It's good to see you up and about" Fury said as she joined him as they entered the gym.
"I'm feeling alright, sir, thank you" she said as they walked past the front desk, it seemed like the place was empty, though the light coming from one of the main rooms and the sounds of grunting and punching told her otherwise.
"Hah, not many people could say that after jumping out of a crashing chopper" Fury said giving her an amused look.
They both came to a stop as they came to the only one of the gym rooms that were currently occupied, Carrie saw a blonde man aggressively hitting a punching bag, he was tall and quite muscular in appearance, and he seemed to focusing entirely on the punching bag, not realising their presence.
She could see him hitting it harder and harder before finally swinging his fist back and hitting it clean off the chain it was hanging from, sand spilling over the ground as the bag broke from the force, Carrie's eyes widened at the display.
She saw him pant slightly before walk across to a row of punching bags and pick one up with one hand and deposit it on the chain, before resuming his hits.
"Trouble sleeping" Fury called out, startling both Carrie and the man, who turned to see them both standing there.
"I slept for 70 years, Sir. I think I've had my fill" the man said as he hit the bag slowly.
'70 years?' Carrie thought in confusion as Fury walked towards him.
"Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world." Fury suggested to the man.
The man merely looked over at them, before stepping away from the bag and began to remove the wraps on his hands.
"I went under, the world was at war, I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost." He said putting the wraps into a gym bag.
Carrie knew she had seen his face before, she couldn't pin point it though.
"We've made some mistakes along the way. Some very recently" Fury said calmly, holding a small folder in his hands.
"Wait.." Carrie said looking at the man.
"You're Captain Rogers" she said as realisation flooded her mind. She had learnt about him during the past three months, as Phil had been trying to not only get her up to speed on the initiative, but also other subjects, one being history, since her prior learning consisted of her pre-high school education consisting of home schooling by Margaret, and her high school learning experience had been dampened by her frequent harassment by other students, and teachers who were not much better in terms of her treatment, that mixed with her ongoing home life with her mother and her sheltered life, caused the young girl to be behind on many subjects.
Phil however had been adamant on trying to give her at least basic knowledge of most subjects, many of which she was still learning, as well as the massive amounts of other aspects of life she was still behind on. And he seemed to be very enthusiastic about teaching her about Steve Rogers, or as most people knew him, Captain America. Carrie had been quite surprised when she had learnt of his origins and role in the Second World War; he had been changed from a sickly young man into a super soldier capable of amazing feats single handily and with his team, The Howling Commandos.
Steve smiled slightly at her and gave her a nod.
"That would be me, and you are, Miss?" he asked politely.
"Carrie, Carrie White" she said slowly, waiting for the look of shock or distaste at hearing her name, since most people knew who she was since the events of the Prom, the videos of the events were still surfacing online, and magazines, and newspapers, news channels were still talking about it.
This is why she was surprised when Steve offered his hand to hers to shake, she slowly reached out and shook it, looking up to see him smile.
"Nice to meet you" he said kindly.
"…You too" Carrie said softly, smiling back.
"Are you…..with SHIELD?" he asked, glancing back at Fury with a raised eyebrow.
"Uh, well…" Carrie began slowly.
"Miss White is currently on a trial basis with S.H.I.E.L.D" Fury said, interrupting them before continuing.
"Until the end of this trial, she is not considered an Agent, merely a civilian drafted under circumstances were her particular talents are required in order to maintain the peace" he said calmly, not noticing Steve's eyes narrowing at hearing this.
"Talents… So she's part of the initiative?" Steve asked slowly.
"Yes" Fury answered.
"Don't you think she's too young to be involved in something like this, Sir" Steve said as he glanced over at Carrie, he remembered back in the early days of the war, when young people her age were enlisting, some lying about their age just to go off to war, he tried not to think about it too much, the images of some of them lying in the trenches dead always made him feel sick to his stomach.
"I understand your concern Captain, believe me, but I stick by my decision, and trust me when I say that she is more than capable" Fury said, before handing Steve a folder.
"I'm guessing you're here with a mission, Sir" he said taking another glance at the young girl who was looking at the folder curiously.
"Trying to get me back in the world"
"Trying to save it" Fury said ominously as Steve opened the folder to reveal pictures of the Tesseract.
"Hydra's secret weapon" Steve said with a grimace.
"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you" Fury said as Steve looked up at him, Carrie tilted her head in confusion.
'Howard Stark, could that be Mr. Starks father?' she thought.
"He thought what we think, the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy" he said as Steve sat down and looked over the documents.
"And that's something the world sorely needs" he added.
"Who took it from you?" Steve asked as he handed back the folder.
"He's called Loki, He's….not from around here" Fury said slowly.
"There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on, if you're in." he continued as Steve looked down in thought, his eyes glancing over at Carrie before back to Fury.
"The world has gotten even stranger than you already know" Fury said slowly as Steve got up.
"At this point I doubt anything would surprise me" Steve replied casually.
"Ten bucks says you're wrong" Fury said as Steve went to pick up another punching bag, placing it on his shoulder and began making his way to the exit.
"There's a debriefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment" Fury said as he and Carrie began to follow Steve, she walked ahead slightly until she was walking a little behind Steve.
"Captain?" she said.
"Yes?" he said turning to her as he slowed down to her pace.
"You've seen the Tesseract before….In the War I mean" she said softly to which he nodded.
"Could you maybe tell us anything that might be helpful?" she asked as Steve looked down and walked ahead, his voice calling back.
"They should have left it in the ocean" he said with a hard edge to his voice as he left.
After being picked up by Agent Coulson, they continued on their way to Stark Tower. Phil had already asked her several questions about how it was meeting Captain America, he had only met him once or twice previously, one of those times being when he was still frozen in the ice, another had barely been a meeting as he had filed a mission report to Director Fury and had walked in on a meeting between him and Steve, which ended in Coulson stumbling all over himself and almost making a scene, so he hadn't officially had a chance to talk to the super soldier, but he was confident he would soon.
"Ok, here we are, Stark Tower" he said as they pulled up outside a large building with the words 'Stark' on the top in big blue lettering.
"Not very subtle" Carrie muttered under her breath as they pulled up.
Phil walked into the lobby with Carrie in tow and pulled out his phone as they made their way to the elevator.
Carrie watched as he dialled a number as they entered the elevator and waited patiently as he pressed the button to take them up to the top floor, Carrie jumped at the sound of a sudden voice.
"Agent Coulson, do what do I owe the pleasure, sir?"
Carrie looked around frantically, worried that she was hearing things again.
"Don't worry, that's just JARVIS, he's Tony's computer program and A.I." Phil said reassuring her, though Carrie still understand what an A.I. was.
Phil continued to hold onto his phone as he talked into it, despite the fact JARVIS could pick up his conversation through the surveillance.
"I need to talk to Mr Stark Jarvis, this is important" Phil said as they continued to go up.
"I will try and patch you into him now, sir" Jarvis said as Coulson looked down at his phone to see the number dial before suddenly stopping.
"Is there a problem?" he asked the A.I.
"Sir has told me to inform you that he is not currently in at the moment"
"Really?" Phil said with a small smile.
"Well if you could inform him that this is an urgent matter, and It is important that I speak with him" Phil replied.
"I will be sure to express your insistence, Agent Coulson" Jarvis said before the elevator once again went quite.
"So, he's not here?" Carrie asked.
"Oh no, he's here, he just doesn't want to see me" Phil said knowingly as the elevator continued to ascend.
They waited for a minute as the elevator was close to the top when Phil dialled the number once again on his phone, this time however he input an override protocol to bypass Jarvis's connection and got through.
"Mr Stark, we need to talk" Phil said as he held his phone out on speaker, Carrie looked at the screen and saw a man appear, she recognised him from some of the files Phil had shown her before, however it was different seeing Tony Stark in person, or through a screen in this case.
"You have reached the life model decoy of tony stark, please leave a message" his voice said through the phone as he held a straight face, Carrie could swear she could hear laughter in the background.
"This is urgent" Phil said seriously.
"Then leave it urgently"
At that moment the elevator doors opened and Carrie saw Tony Stark sitting next to a woman with similar hair to her own, and they were both holding champagne glasses, Carrie felt bad since they may have interrupted a private moment.
"Security breach, that's on you" he said turning to the woman, who Carrie realised was Miss Pepper Potts, Phil had told her about the woman before, she was Tony Starks CEO and girlfriend.
"Mr Stark" Phil greeted Pepper got up to greet him.
"Phil! Come in" she said happily as Tony looked at her in confusion.
"I can't stay" Phil said as they both exited the elevator.
"Uh Phil? His first name is Agent" Tony said as he walked around to meet them with Pepper.
"Come on in, where celebrating" she said.
"Which is why he can't stay" Tony said with a forced smile, glancing over at Carrie who waved slightly.
"Who's the kid?" he said in curiously before continuing.
"What is it some kind of Super-secret bring your kid to work day" he said sarcastically.
"Not exactly" Phil replied.
"Your niece?" Tony questioned to which Phil shook his head slightly.
"You're babysitting for a friend?" he offered to which Phil shook his head again before handing him the digital folder.
"We need you to look this over" he said.
"I don't like being handed things" Tony said childishly, as Pepper reached over.
"That's fine because I love being handed things, so let's trade" she said as she gave Phil her glass of champagne before handing Tony the folder and taking his glass and drinking it as he turned to Phil with the folder in hand.
"Official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday-" Tony began, only for Phil to cut him off.
"This isn't a consultation"
"Is this about the Avengers?" Pepper asked which made Phil turn to her questionably; Carrie also looked at her in surprise, which wasn't missed by Tony who looked at her in interest.
"Which I know nothing about!" Pepper said quickly covering her tracks as Tony took his eyes of Carrie and walked across the room as he set up the digital folder as he scoffed.
"The avengers initiative was scrapped I thought, and I didn't even qualify" he said turning around and sending Phil an annoyed look.
"I didn't know that either" Pepper said to Carrie who smiled at her response, as Phil did.
Tony continued ranting as he walked over to a console.
"Apparently, I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others?"
"That I did know" Pepper said.
"This isn't about personality profiles anymore" Phil said calmly.
"Whatever, Miss Potts got a sec?" he called as Pepper turned to the two.
"Half a moment" she said before walking across to Tony.
(Tony's POV)
He looked down at the tablet as he opened up the various sub-folders.
'Leave it to Agent super nanny to show up and ruin my evening' Tony thought as he glanced over at the young girl beside him, something about her seemed familiar.
Pepper was at his side a moment later, pulling him from his thoughts.
"You know, I thought we were having a moment" he said casually.
"I was having twelve percent of the moment" she said with a look.
'There's that comeback, not so subtle at all' he thought smiling slightly.
"This seems pretty serious, Phil looks pretty shaken" she said glancing back over at Coulson who was still standing there holding the glass of champagne with Carrie by his side, holding her hands over his mid-section.
"Who knows?" Tony said before turning back to Pepper.
"Why is he Phil?" he asked suddenly, glancing back over at Coulson who continued to stand there with his little creepy smile.
"And what's with the kid for that matter" he said before leaning back.
"Hey kid!" he called, which caused her to jump slightly before looking up at him.
"What's your name?" he asked curiously.
She glanced up at Coulson before turning back to him.
"Carrie" she said softly, Tony nodded before turning back to pepper.
'That sounded familiar somehow' he thought.
"What is all this?" pepper asked.
"This is…" he began as he enlarged the files so that they were projected onto several larger screens, opening up the full contents.
"This.." he said as he looked at each of the screens, Pepper was silently looking at them as well, one showing the Hulk attacking a tank, another of Captain America being thawed, another showed a Blonde man and a large metal machine shooting fire at him.
Tony's eyes suddenly spied one of the screens and he looked at it intently.
It showed a picture of Carrie's face beside a list of statistics and a video of her standing on a stage wearing a pink dress, completely covered in blood. She looked enraged and Tony could see several objects begin to float off the ground before she screamed and threw her hands forward, sending everyone present in the room flying back along with tables and other objects. The video then skipped ahead to another scene of her smiling sadistically as she twisted her hand, Tony could see in the corner several people being crushed by a bleacher.
'Carrie…..she said her name was Carrie…...Carrie White!' He thought as realisation hit him at whom the girl was.
"I'm going to take the jet to DC tonight" Pepper said suddenly, pulling him out of his thoughts.
"Tomorrow" he said distractedly as he looked at one of the other scenes.
"You have homework; you have a lot of homework"
(Tony POV End)
Carrie could see Pepper whisper something into Tony's ear, followed by him making a weird facial expression and causing Phil to awkwardly look away in Carrie's direction who looked confused, before looking away herself, as she saw pepper and Tony kiss.
After breaking the kiss pepper made her way over to Carrie and Phil.
"Any chance you're driving by the airport?" pepper asked.
"I can drop you" Phil replied.
"Fantastic" Pepper said as she glanced over at Carrie and smiled before shifting on her feet slightly, Carrie looked down, she saw familiar hints of nervousness and concern in her eyes, but Carrie couldn't exactly blame her after seeing her and Tony looking at footage of the Prom, however she was picking up another vibe from her, one of concern for her, as well as a kindness in her eyes that shone through the outer feelings of anxiety.
"You wouldn't mind waiting here for me, while I drop off Miss Potts at the airport?" Phil asked as the made their way to the elevator.
"Um.." Carrie began as she looked back and saw Tony inspecting a hologram of the Tesseract.
"You won't be long?" she asked.
"No, the airport isn't very far and I'll come pick you up as soon as I leave there" he said, Pepper was watching the interaction between the two with curiosity.
Carrie nodded as Phil gave her one of his small smiles.
"Think of it as a team bonding exercise" Phil said.
"That is, if you can handle him for that long" Pepper said in the same tone she used earlier, Carrie smiled slightly as the two got into the elevator, Pepper asking Phil about 'The Cellist' who Carrie knew was named Audrey, Phil had been saddened recently since she had moved back to Portland.
"So!" Tony's voice called out from the far side of the room, Carrie turned to see him strolling over and leaning on one of the tables, Carrie moved over closer to the centre of the room.
"You're Carrie White"
Carrie nodded shyly as Tony seemed to be analysing her.
"Tell me something" he said looking at her curiously.
"When you do your 'thing'" he said wiggling his fingers around dramatically.
"Do you need to use your hands? Or is it purely thought based?"
Carrie looked unsure for a moment before answering.
"I can do it just by mental concentration, though it helps to use my hands to focus it, or-" she began only for Tony to interrupt her.
"Think fast!" he exclaimed suddenly as he threw a small notebook at her from the desk, Carrie instantly brought her hands up in defence, and the notebook stopped in mid-air.
"Hmmm, interesting, I just wasn't sure if you could-look out!" he said suddenly as he sent a coffee mug her way only for it to stop shortly after the note book.
"Please stop doing that, Mr Stark" Carrie said as she lowered the objects down.
"Why?" Tony asked walking over and sitting on the couch near her, still looking at her.
"Making you a bit mad there Snow White" he quipped as she looked at him in confusion.
"I'm sorry?" she asked.
"Well the thing is I read that your emotions are tied to your abilities. So if you get angry you can do more?" he finished with a question.
"…Yes, when I get mad I can use my power at a stronger level than what I can right now" she said before her eyes shifted away from him.
"But, when I get mad, I tend to…." She began only to pause.
"What, you lose control?" he asked sincerely.
She nodded silently.
"Well at least you don't turn green, that's a plus, I don't think you could pull of green skin, it would clash with your whole 'kindergarten school teacher' look you've got going on there " he said light-heartedly, gaining a small smile from the young girl who understood who he was referring to, but then frowned at his following statement.
"Kindergarten teacher?" she asked confused.
"Well I wouldn't expect anyone your age to be wearing a get up like that" he said motioning to her clothes.
"Except if you were entering a nunnery or something" he said offhandedly.
Carrie looked down at her clothes and subconsciously pulled on her cardigan.
"Also!" he said suddenly pulling up the digital tablet from before, having taken it off the console after transferring its data.
"It says here" he said scanning down the tablet before looking back at her.
"That you have Telepathy, among other things?" he asked.
"Uh, yeah I do" Carrie said as she sat down opposite him on the couch.
"So what, you can read minds and stuff?" he asked as he took a sip from the leftover glass of champagne.
"Kind of" she began before looking back at him.
"I haven't practiced a lot with it so far, but Phil has said that in time I will be able to do it easily, I did receive some help from a Professor 'Xavier', I was supposed to go and receive lessons from him soon, but then the Tesseract was stolen and I suppose that I will have to wait" she said as Tony nodded.
"So what can you do with it so far?" Tony asked with interest.
"Well … It's kind of hard to explain, I can sometimes feel a person's mood and some 'surface thoughts', which are more like a vibe I get about someone, and other times….I see things" she said with a faraway look.
"Do you see dead people?" He asked with a false expression of fear.
This caused Carrie to tilt her head in confusion.
"No, why?" she inquired confused causing Tony to let out a scoff.
"Geez kid, haven't you ever watched 'The Sixth Sense?'" Tony asked incredulously.
"No, I didn't really use to watch any movies" she said casually, this caused Tony's jaw to drop rather comically.
"You can't be serious?!" he exclaimed in disbelief.
"Mama …. she didn't allow any movies in our house, she said they were too sinful and full of fornication and depravity" Carrie said as Tony looked at her with an incredulous look.
"Okaaaay, what about TV?" Tony asked to which Carrie shook her head.
"She didn't allow a television either"
Tony tried to stop himself from face palming as he rubbed his eyes and groaned slightly.
"I really don't know why I'm asking this after those two answers, but music? Come on you've got to have had music right?" Tony implored as he leaned forward.
"Oh yes, we had music" Carrie said nodding.
"Finally!" Tony exclaimed smiling.
"Does Gospel music count?" Carrie asked genuinely.
Tony let out a groan as he buried his head into a couch cushion.
"Oh my god, it's like talking to an Amish person"
"You shouldn't take the lord's name in vain" Carrie said seriously.
This only got another groan from the billionaire.
( Line break )
An hour later Carrie was asleep in the passenger seat of Phil's car as they made their way back to HQ for the night, they would meet up with Captain Rogers in the morning before heading to the Helicarrier, which she was quite excited to see.
Phil looked over at her sleeping form and smiled, thinking back to when he had returned to Stark towers, and Tony had instantly pounced on him and began to list a number of movies and bands that she had to be introduced to, and demanding to arrange a movie night and ranting about several other things before they had finally left.
Coulson yawned slightly as they pulled into HQ, he was looking forward to as much sleep as he could get, especially since tomorrow would be a big day for everyone.
So there it is ! Chapter 3 Please let me know what you think and review
I do hope you enjoyed it all, I wanted to write another one while it was still fresh in my head, I MIGHT have the next chapter up tomorrow, maybe, since I am spending the day with my dad I might not get back till the afternoon.
Questions:
- I am planning on Having a sequel ( or later chapters following 'The Avengers') deal with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, should I do it, and if so should Carrie be a main character? ( she may have cameo's in Thor 2, as well as Iron man 3 )
- Should Sue make an appearance ?
Please Review and let me know what you think XD