And here we get our first glimpse of a certain Captain ;) I just want to take this time to tell you, feel free to review this story. Do you have any questions so far? Is there anything wrong with how I'm portraying any of the characters? Just anything? I really want to make this story the best I am physically capable of doing so say anything, I wont be offended! :) Anyway, I really hope you enjoy this chapter, you can get readin'!
"So shall I just wait in here then?" I asked, lying across a row of seats, trying to get the phone they'd gave me to work. I was having no such luck. We were inside the quinjet, and having landed next to Captain America's apartment, Phil was practically bunny hopping in his shoes to go and get the 1940s superhero.
"Yes. And we may be a while so-" He held his hand out with a small smile and I passed him the phone with an embarrassed smile, the awkwardness grew when he tapped the screen just a few times and handed it back to me, having successfully gotten to the game I wanted to play in 3 seconds. "There you are. Lego Lord of the Rings, eh?"
"It looked interesting." I shrugged watching the loading screen, when it finished and instructions on the controls came up I was overjoyed. "Are you going to get going then? The longer you stand here the longer I have to sit in here."
Phil just rolled his eyes. "I'll see you in a bit." He said before getting off the plane and closing the door. I started to play the lego game, not wanting to speak to the pilot, he didn't look very friendly.
"Okay… Drag one finger to move… Second finger tap to jump." I mumbled quietly, following the directions as hoards of the bad guys ran forward "Tap to hit…" I tapped the screen forcefully but I ended up losing all of my lives and dying. All the studs I had collected so far exploded from the dead character and after I'd re-spawned and I ran around trying to get them back. "Noooo! The money!" I cried before I heard someone clearing their throat.
I looked up to see the pilot staring at me with a raised eyebrow "Miss Stolder?" I nodded "It's just a game." I winced as he rubbed his temples.
"Sorry." I whispered loudly.
"Just… Please, keep the noise down." I rolled my eyes and turned back to the game. Fine. I'd play in silence.
By the time the door re-opened, I had just defeated the Balrog and paused the game, bored of it, and chucked the phone across the plane. I let my head fall backwards off the seats and looked at the two men who stepped through the threshold of the plane. Phil stepped in first, followed by a tall, dark blonde, muscular man who looked extremely uncomfortable and out of place. I grinned at the both of them and waved, which must've looked slightly weird since I was upside down.
"Hello!" I shouted, Phil just looked up unamused but the other man, which I'm assuming was Captain America, almost jumped out his skin, bless him. He leapt two feet into the air and clutched his chest, his eyes wide with momentary terror. I don't think he realised I was there.
"I'm sorry ma'am." He apologised, which made me grimace, ma'am? Seriously? "I didn't notice you there. You gave me quite the fright, Steve Rogers, pleasure to meet you." He said politely, walking over after placing his bag on the floor and holding his hand out for me to shake, I reached over and took it noticing the largeness of his hand as it enclosed mine.
"Cali Stolder, you too."
Shaking my hand, he looked at me as if noticing something for the first time. "You're British!" He exclaimed in surprise, making me laugh. I did wonder when somebody would bring that up.
"Yep." I smiled before shuffling my feet up the row of seats, giving him room to sit but not actually having to move. He nodded his thanks before sitting down I turned back to Phil. "You fangirled yet?" When he just stared at me I turned back to Steve "Has he had any fangirl moments?" He looked extremely caught off and awkward but I just waited, well, until Phil stepped in to save him.
"No." He glared at me slightly before narrowing his eyes. "Wheres the phone gone?" I gasped and looked at my hands in fake puzzlement, however after one glance I saw that he wasn't buying into it so I rolled my eyes jokingly and shrugged, pointing in the general direction I had thrown it.
"Somewhere over that way." I told him, noticing the condescending look Steve gave me before closing my eyes and relaxing, deciding that sleeping might be the best way to pass the time.
I heard a scrape from where phil was standing before "Cali! you broke it. You broke one of Stark's 'unbreakable' phones." I cracked one eye open and saw that it was indeed smashed. Oops. "He won't be too happy about that. What did you do?"
"Well since I couldn't express my celebration at completing the level verbally, I had to resort to expressing it physically… And then it just flew. It was like magic!"
Phil just shook his head and pocketed it. "He spent a long time making sure those wouldn't break."
"I'm sure he should've tried harder." I dismissed before settling back into silence and closing my eyes again.
When I woke up, now well rested, Steve sat holding a tablet on which he was looking through the files of the Avengers while Phil talked him through it. I sat up and rubbed my bleary eyes before my vision cleared. I saw that Steve was in the middle of watching the video of the Hulk's attack on the army with an expression of minute horror on his face. They both turned to me when they saw that I was up.
"Did you have a good sleep ma'am?" Steve asked me. I ignored him. "Ma'am?" Seriously! Ma'am, no, Cali, yes, even Stolder would do. Not 'ma'am'. Out of the corner I saw Phil smile, again, at Steve who turned to him dejectedly.
"She wont answer unless you use her name." Phil sighed prompting Steve to turn back around in realisation.
"Cali?"
"Yes?" he looked at me weirdly.
"Did you?"
"Did I what?" I replied in all seriousness, trying not to laugh at his expression.
"I, umm, already said. Did you have a nice rest?" He replied irritated, his face scrunching up in confusion.
"Oh, sorry, I thought you were talking to 'Ma'am' whoever that is. And yes, thank you, I feel much more awake now." Steve just stared at me in disbelief while the grumpy pilot managed a laugh and Phil a grin. He just shook is head and opened his mouth to reply.
"Anyway, we were just looking through this information on the Avengers initiative, I understand you are to be joining the team too?"
"Oh, yes, I have a 'special skill set' or something of that nature." I shrugged "I just wanted to help."
"Yes, I read your file actually, how did you do all those things? Was it the same way I got my abilities?"
"You mean the serum? No, I guess was just born with them, I mean these guys couldn't find anything similar to yours in my blood."
"You were locked away for a while though, are you sure they didn't do any experiments?"
"I highly doubt it, I mean, I can remember most of my time there and they never took me away from my cell, they just kept me locked up and observed. I didn't see who it was, they always kept themselves hidden."
"I'm sorry,"
"Yes, well, I'm pretty sure they didn't give me these 'powers', besides, I think my abilities are more on the mentally generated side than the physically generated like yours are." Steve tilted his head in acceptance and looked back to his tablet.
"We're about forty minutes out from base, sir." Agent grumps called from the front before returning to his piloting. Phil nodded before standing up and joining us.
"Right, so you were most likely born with your abilities." Steve stated looking at me for confirmation, which I answered with a nod before he carried on his questioning "But this Doctor Banner was trying to replicate the serum that was used on me?"
"A lot of people were." Phil replied, launching into an explanation. "You were the worlds first superhero. Banner thought gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula."
"Didn't really go his way did it?" Steve commented as he watched the Hulk slam a car apart with a roar. I huffed in agreement, I felt sorry for the man.
"Not so much. When he's not that thing though, guy's like a Stephen Hawking." Steve glanced at him, his expression one of the upmost confusion.
"He's like… A really smart person." I supplied and he nodded in realisation before we both turned back to Phil.
"I gotta say," He began and I tried to hold in a laugh, I suppose he'd kept this in long enough "It's an honour to meet you, officially." Steve smiled at him politely in mild amusement before he started speaking again. "I sort of met you, I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping." I snorted and started to laugh uncontrollably while Steve stood up uncomfortably and walked over to look out the window of the plane. "I mean, I was… Present while you were unconscious from the ice." By this time, tears were streaming down my face as I clutched my aching sides, Steve's face expression merging into one of pained embarrassment. "You know, it's really, it's just a… Just a huge honour to have you on board." Phil finished uncomfortably.
"Well, I hope I'm the man for the job."
"Oh, you are." I managed to get out through my giggles.
"Absolutely." Phil continued after sending a scowl in my direction. "Uh… We've made some modifications to the uniform. I had a little design input."
"The uniform? Aren't the stars and stripes a little… Old fashioned?"
"With everything that's happening, the things that are about to come to light, people might just need a little old fashioned." Phil told him seriously and everything was silent.
"Well, this just got gloomy." I commented. Both of them looked at me unamused and I stayed silent for the rest of the journey.
About half an hour later our plane touched down on the Helicarrier and I was the first to leave. Phil had been as nice as ever, maybe a bit embarrassed but Steve had completely changed. He was no longer treating me with friendliness but with irritation, like I had done something to personally offend him. And every time I had tried to be friendly and make a joke or lighten the mood he had glowered at me even more darkly. I didn't know what was wrong with him, I decided I'd just ignore him instead.
Anyway, after getting off the plane I waited for Phil until he got off closely followed by Captain A-mardy-arse and led us over to an agent in a tight black suit with bright red hair who nodded at the three of us politely, staring at me slightly longer with a mildly curious look.
"Agent Romanoff." Phil began causing her to turn back to him. "Captain Rogers." he introduced him completely forgetting about me. I ignored it, Phil was starstruck, I couldn't hate him for that.
"Ma'am?" Steve spoke first. God. Ma'am. Again? I groaned out loud causing him to scowl at me again while the agents graced me with smiles.
"Hi." Agent Romanoff, which I'm assuming was the 'Natasha' that Phil spoke to on the phone, dismissed him with a simple one word greeting before turning back to the other agent. "They need you on the bridge. Face time."
"See you there." He replied before walking away. Steve and Natasha did the same leaving me on my own and instead of following them like a lost puppy I wandered off on my own, looking around the abundance of vehicles crowding the deck marvelling at the technology.
After a while, I felt like hopping into one of the planes and flying around for a bit. Just to see if I could. I was really bored… I wondered how much trouble I'd be in if I was to… Say, loosen, some of the ropes holding them down. It would certainly make for some entertainment. As I was contemplating doing exactly this though, I felt a stare on the back of my head. Turning around I saw an agent looking at me from strapping another jet to the floor, shaking his head at me and tapping his earpiece with a raised eyebrow as if to scold a naughty child. Rolling my eyes I let my hand surround itself in the swirling blue and red mist and flicking my ring finger slightly I ripped the earpiece out of his ear, the mist travelling at the speed of a lightning bolt, so fast nobody saw it.
Leaving the angry agent to himself I turned back to go and find where Natasha had gone since I couldn't have any fun. However when I saw her standing alone as Steve went off to talk to another man, I felt a bit sorry for her, she looked lonely and I found myself wishing to go and keep her company. My eyes unconsciously concentrated themselves on the spot next to her while I remained indecisive of wether I should go over there or not. What if she didn't like me? Would she even want to speak me? What if I annoyed her like I did Steve? The questions kept coming but whilst I had the internal battle, my eyes never once left the spot to her right.
All of a sudden my vision began to warp, shapes and colours blending together in blurs and streaks. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly to try and get rid of it but as soon as my sight was shut off I felt a freezing cold sucking sensation in the centre of my body that began to spread quickly until my entire body was encompassed. Then I felt nothing for a split second, the ground seemingly disappearing from beneath my feet until they hit the ground again forcefully causing my eyes to snap open. I swayed dizzily for a moment, not taking notice of my surroundings until the cold feeling receded and vanished. I looked up and found myself face to face with a very stunned Natasha about two feet away. She stared at me in shock, eyes wide with disbelief and her hand placed over her mouth, frozen in mid gasp.
Another wave of dizziness rolled over me, causing my balance to waver until she grasped my shoulders. What had happened? Had I fainted or something?
"How did you do that?" she implored in a serious voice, but her face betrayed her complete befuddlement.
"What are you talking about?"
"What do you think I'm talking about? you just got from over there to just here in less than a second."
"I what?" I exclaimed, and sure enough, I was now standing in the exact spot I had been concentrating on moments before.
"You didn't know you were doing it?" Natasha queried, looking slightly concerned, I shook my head no. "And you've not done it before?"
"Never! I didn't know I could."
"Do you think you could do it again?"
"I don't know, I could try?" I offered. She nodded and I tried it, thinking back to what I had done. I concentrated on a space behind her, really hard, before blinking and felt the same sensation as before. I opened my eyes and found myself in the spot I'd wanted to be in, gasping in shock before Natasha turned around and did the same. I decided to try it differently, I imagined a being in front of her again, telling myself I really wanted to be in front of her before blinking, again, feeling the cold sensation and opening my eyes to find myself where I wanted to be. So I didn't have to be looking at the place to do it then… Woah, I realised, I could go anywhere I wanted.
"You're sure you haven't done this before?" I shook my head. "Right." She said before touching her hand to her earpiece. "Director, the girl with powers… Yes her, no, no problem it's just… Well you might want to check the security footage of the deck from a few minutes ago. No just do it, you'll see what I mean… Wait, did she?" She exclaimed suddenly smirking, laughter in her eyes. "No I don't know why, good on her though, that guy's an ass. No that wasn't what I meant, keep watching… Wait for it. If you mean disappear and reappear somewhere else in less than a second then yes, she did just do that. I don't know how neither does she… No, never. I have no idea. Do you want to see her? Oh she is? I'll just bring her with the others." She finished speaking and turned back to me. "I assume you're Stolder then?" She asked ironically, giving a small smile.
"Yep. It's nice to meet you. Natasha, right?" I grinned back.
"Yes, thats me. I have to say I'm intrigued by you. Everyone is, especially after that." She answered matter of factly. Can you do anything else?"
"Well, to be honest, I don't really know. I think at this point SHEILD probably knows more about me than I do. Telekineses and energy manipulation, you might call it, seem to be the main themes at the minute. I figured they could be put to good use."
"You joined the team." She stated "Why?"
"Oh, I couldn't help myself. I needed a bit of excitement. Plus not everyone can do what I can do, I may as well do some good with what I have."
She nodded before she started walking us towards Steve and the other man as the platform we stood on whirred into life "Gentlemen, you may wanna step inside. It's gonna get a little hard to breathe." I smirked at their suspicious expressions, I had seen this all before.
"Is this a submarine?" queried Steve in awe.
"Really? They want me in a submerged pressurised metal container?" The awkward looking, bespectacled man asked himself in amused horror. I looked at Natasha questioningly.
"Thats Dr. Banner. The Hulk."
"Really? He seems like such a nice… Quiet guy."
"Oh, he is. He could be dangerous though. Very few of us actually thought he'd be brought onto the project." I just nodded and then smirked again as the fans began to whir loudly and lift us out of the water, highly amused by the pairs' reactions.
"Oh, no." Banner muttered to himself. "This is much worse." I couldn't help but agree.
We entered the bridge, wading through the ocean of agents milling about doing their job. I chanced a look at the two men's faces and couldn't hold in a mirthful snort when I saw their mouths open and their eyes wide, both of them gaping like fish.
"Gentlemen." Director Fury called from across the room, smirking as Steve walked straight over to him, handed him 10 bucks and dazedly strode past him in disbelief. Fury patted his pocket triumphantly and greeted Dr. Banner extending his hand to him who reluctantly shook it. "Doctor, thank you for coming."
"Thank you for asking nicely." Banner replied sardonically before checking himself. "So, uh… How long am I staying?" he asked more politely.
"Once we get our hands on the tesseract you're in the clear." Fury replied, his face lacking any expression but there were some telltale signs of a slight lie with made me stare at him suspiciously. After him returning my stare with a raised eyebrow I decided to drop it, I could look more into it later. He nodded in satisfaction and turned back to Banner who had started speaking.
"Where are you with that?"
Phil was the one to answer but my mind was somewhere else. I looked at Natasha as she studied an image on a screen forlornly. Stepping to the side I saw a photo of Agent Barton, the man who saved me. Apparently he was missing, or… Wanted. Oh no.
A hand patted me comfortingly on the back and i turned around to see Phil who began to speak "We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops, if it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."
"Huh, creepy." I muttered to myself, hearing me, Natasha rolled her eyes before turning to the others.
"Thats still not going to find them in time." She spoke, all trace of sadness now gone, replaced with her stone cold, emotionless 'agent' face. I'd have to learn how to do that.
"You have to narrow the field." Banner began, going into science mode, it was quite fascinating to watch. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"
"How many are there?" Fury queried, as clueless as I was.
"Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?" Well, that was a tonne of mumbo jumbo and a half" I mumbled to myself, shaking my head in confusion and watching a few others around the room do the same.
"Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory please." Fury dismissed them both and pivoted on his heels to come and talk to me.
I watched as Natasha led Banner off, saying "You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys."
"Miss Stolder. I must say, I was surprised to learn you wanted to be on board with this. I suspected that you'd want to be free, considering the circumstances we found you in."
"Ah, the past is in the past, as they say." I shrugged, smiling "I don't exactly have anywhere to go either."
"To your old family?"
"Well, as you just said, they're my old family. They all think I'm dead."
"But that doesn't tell me why you wanted to join the team." He raised an eyebrow.
"I suppose I was already involved by the time I saw what happened in New Mexico. I figured that if I could help, then why shouldn't I?"
"That's a very honourable thing to do, Miss Stolder. Coulson has informed me of your… Abilities. What else can you tell me about them?"
"I'm really not too sure about them myself. I remember the first thing I did was cut the power… It was in my first few months there and I got really down one day. There was no power until I got over it. Anyway, my abilities grew from there. I think I know about as much as you do."
"We got a hit." An agent suddenly interrupted the conversation, from across the room where some sort of face recognition programme was set up one one of the holographic screens around the room. "Sixty-seven percent match." The person the technology had zeroed in on looked strangely familiar, but I couldn't for the life of me place him anywhere in my memories. From the way everyone acted though, I guessed this must have been the 'demigod scum' everyone was on about that destroyed the New Mexico facility… He didn't look to sad about it though. "Wait, cross match, seventy-nine percent."
"Location?" Asked Phil in 'agent mode'.
"Stuttgart, Germany. 28, Konigstrasse. He's not exactly hiding." The other agent replied.
"Captain, you're up." Fury told Steve stoically, who nodded and left, walking with purpose. He then turned to me and stopped, seemingly deep in thought. After a while he shook his head and spoke. "As useful as your abilities might be, I can't send you in just yet. You're too important at this point. Go and join doctor Banner in his lab for now, I'll send someone up with food." He finished, dismissing me with a wave of his hand.
Great, I thought to myself, heading towards the lab, I bet I'm missing all the action.
