A/N I don't own Marvel or the Avengers. This chapter is mostly everyone's reaction to Ariana. Well Mostly everyone. There is also some shameless Pepperony Fluff.
Agent Barton sat in what the team had dubbed his nest. Every member of the team had a place to stay in the Stark Tower, but Barton was rarely in his room. Preferring instead to keep an eye on things from the eaves. He thought over what had happened today, and felt uneasy. He knew he was the only member of the team who had seen Ariana Winters in action. It took a lot to make him shutter, but as he thought of that day long ago he could not stop the impulse.
He had been part of a recon team for one of the mercenary groups who found out about a girl who could read minds. The group decided to capture her, in hopes that they could use her powers to infiltrate a rival group. After all, if they were unable to hide their secrets, they would be easily taken over. They had tracked her down to London, and had managed to corner her in the Underground tube system. He had stayed up top on the steps, until he heard the screaming start. By the time he had made it down the steps, she was gone. His entire team was dead on the floor. Later the scientist had said that each of their hearts had burst. So he watched from the lab from the eaves, waiting for the girl to make one move against Banner, and then he would put an arrow into her eye.
AAAAAAAAAA
Steve sat in the command room long after everyone left. He was pouring over the file that Fury had given them. Almost every page was an incident in which someone or many people had died at the hands of the person Fury seemed so keen on making part of the team. He thought about Agent Romanov claiming her file was filled with red, and wonder if it had as much red as this girls. At least Romanov had been doing a job, whether it was for right or wrong. This girl it seemed had killed many innocent bystanders. He knew Banner as the Hulk was much better at controlling himself, but there were still quite a few incidents in which the other team members that to subdue him. Steve worried that with this girl, that even if she learned to control it, the incidents would get them all killed. Hours later he left the briefing room. He walked past the now empty lab, and wonder what else Banner had learned about her.
AAAAAAAAAAA
"Pepper" Tony called from the living room of their Penthouse. "I am back". He shuffled some papers he had in his hands as he read over the new design ideas for his suit.
"Tony" Pepper's voice called out to him. He glanced over the papers to see her standing in the door way of the bedroom. The black negligee she was wearing making his mouth water.
"Perhaps you like to put those papers down, and join me in the bedroom." She said Laughing as he threw them behind his back. He was across the room in record time to attach his lips to her neck, and his hands on her hips as he backed in the room, and unto the bed. It was only a matter of time before he forgot all about the suit designs.
AAAAAAAAAAAAA
Bruce paced his suite in the Stark Tower thinking of Ariana and what he had learned that day. He had thought to help her the same way he had helped himself, Total immersion. He remained angry all the time, so that angry was his normal. His plan was to slowly immerse her into the thought and emotions of others until she was desensitized. She had told him that she had tried similar things in the past, and that they always ended badly. He knew he had to find her an anchor of some sort to give her the ability to know herself when lost amongst all the emotional wreckage of others. He just had no idea how to help the girl who trusted no one. How did you help someone who was determined that it would all lead to failure? And even if she managed to gain some control, how could they ever think that it would last? Was he even willing to risk the lives of people he cared about for an emotionally unstable woman?
AAAAAAAAAAAA
Alone in the room, which was in fact more like a prison cell, that she had been given at the S.H.I.E.L.D Headquarters Ari considered packing her bags and leaving. It was obvious that she was not welcome within Stark Towers. Tony Stark having told Director Fury, after her meeting with Dr. Banner, that she was not to be back in his building. That if Banner wanted to help her, he would have to do it else where. His arrogant brown eyes looking at her before turning away with disinterest. She had allowed herself a quick peek into his mind, reading only the surface thought that she was nothing more than a charlatan. Ari generally found it easier to be around people who believed her to be a fake, as they had desire to use her for anything and that she always knew what they were thinking without having to listen to their thoughts. She had backed out of his mind, though, as his emotions had started clouding her thoughts. He was restless and edgy, with a hint of dark bitterness masked behind something she did not give herself time to define. She had no desire to stay where she was not wanted, when she herself did not want to be there. Just as she started piling clothes into her bags her cell door slid opened.
A woman in a black cat suit walked in. Her hair was a short messy red, and her eyes were empty of emotion.
"Are you going somewhere?" the woman asked with a bored tone. Instead of waiting for an answer the she just continued speaking "I suppose you are running away, already giving up."
"What is it to you?" Ari asked.
"Nothing." The woman said as she paced around the tiny cell, picking up random things. "If you want to run away that is your business, I won't stop you."
"Good" Ari snapped, feeling more than slightly annoyed with this disaffected woman.
"It would seem that you really have no desire to try to blot out all those deaths you caused."
"Who are you?" Ari asked, her eyes narrowing.
"Agent Romanov" the woman replied walking back towards the door.
"What do you want from me?"
"Nothing, I have no need for people who don't try to right their wrongs. For people who give up with out any effort." Agent Romanov gave one last measuring glance at Ari before walking out the door. Ari stared at the shut door realizing that Romanov had left it unlocked. Her heart was pounding with emotions that were purely hers. She began throwing her clothes back into the set of drawers that occupied the room, because she be damned if she would allow that woman the satisfaction of being right. She had no idea that Agent Romanov stood in thee hallway smiling a satisfied smile, as she had successfully manipulated the young woman inside.
