Hi! Surprise! Bet you thought I'd forgotten about this, eh? I've been busy with The Immortal Saga, of course, and the inspiration for this just got a bit dry.
Here we are then! Grace is now about to meet the Avengers...
Enjoy!
LookAliveSunshine03
DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to Marvel. Everything else belongs to me.
Chapter 3
Walking between two of the three security guards (let's call them Rock and Hard-Place), I am being led down an endless amount of corridors that are all frustratingly identical.
This ship stinks. It's overrun with scared humans scurrying about, tense and important-like. I do catch some of them staring at me, though that could just be because I'm still wearing my evening gown. A beautiful plum bargain, I'm wearing black shorts underneath. When you're me, you never know when you might need to run or fight, and it is best to do it without the worry of showing off your underwear.
Magnus looks marginally uncomfortable. "Miss Taylor, you were telling us about –"
"Meeting the Avengers, I know," I reply coolly. "I was getting to that."
You can smell the testosterone a mile away. I can't see them just yet, but I count four men, and one woman. She has to be the one who called me in. The Black Widow. Her heartbeat is steady and strong. There's hairspray in her hair and her perfume is faint, but exotic.
I smell expensive cologne and engine oil. That must be Stark, because his heart works harder out of any of them.
Mr. Stars and Stripes has a pleasingly clean scent beneath the memory of his costume.
There are two others I haven't met before. One of them…stinks of something I really don't want to consider. His heartbeat is normal enough, but the sour-bitter tang of something in his blood makes me very uneasy indeed.
We turn a corner, and I see them all together for the first time. The Helicarrier is a bustling mass of activity around them, but the gang seem utterly impervious to it all. I recognise the Black Widow from the helicopter cockpit in Stuttgart. She has gone off to look at a computer screen, crouching down on a step and casually swiping through images of a man. Maybe that's her lover? That must be an interesting role to play.
But my eyes are drawn to the God. I almost gasp. I feel like I need to step back to take him all in. Thor, with arms like iron in that red cape. How surreal, to be in the presence of the one who turned New Mexico into a crater.
His scent makes my pulse quicken. Electric, and Otherness. Like Loki's, only warmer. If I try and bite this one…no, I couldn't. One swipe of that hammer and I'll be dead.
Where's he parked it, anyway?
I am in the presence of greatness. So what does that make me? A pretty, mutated mess in a dress.
They all look to Fury's coming…and to me. They all freeze.
"So Dracula's bride is still alive after all." Stark is the first to speak; as if he would have it any other way.
It's Rogers who is all action. The man with the plan always is. He gets to his feet so fast he knocks his chair to the floor.
I lift my hands up in surrender. "Hey –"
"What the hell are you playing at?" he growls at Fury, glaring at me with such loathing I'm half-anticipating him to pull out his shield from somewhere.
"Who is this?" the man in the purple shirt is asking. The one with the crazy stink.
Meanwhile Thor frowns, clueless. "Dracula's bride? I do not know that name."
Adorable. I want to keep him.
"Miss Taylor has agreed to fight with us," Fury explains. He pushes me forward. "She, too, wanted to stop Loki. Isn't that right, Miss Taylor?"
That's not entirely true, and he knows it. I wanted to kill Loki. There's a difference. But if I need to prove I'm on their side, this is a damned good way to start.
I meet all their eyes. Purple Shirt is the first to look away. Why is he so familiar? "I did not know who Loki was, but he killed an innocent civilian, I knew I had to do something. My name's Grace, by the way. If you were wondering."
I don't tell my favourite interrogators the part about what Bruce Banner said next. About how he knew my father, Doctor David Taylor, the haematologist, driven desperate by heartache.
He's dead, now, just as I should be.
"So…they accepted you?" Magnus' disbelief is affecting his professional stance.
"Mh-hm. They were wary of me, but they weren't trying to kill me, so things were looking up." I grin. It was only till after the battle in New York that the Captain believed I wasn't going to tear his throat out. How could I? I wasn't a monster. A throat that pretty shouldn't be torn out.
Frederickson does the right thing and changes the subject. "Where were you on the Helicarrier when Dr. Banner…" he pauses, suddenly unsure of how to word it.
I decide to help. "When Banner let the Other Guy out?" I smile. "I was watching Loki."
After watching the Black Widow's little performance for him on the monitor, I admit I'm impressed by her. She even had me fooled for a second.
Now Loki is back to prowling his cell; I can almost see his mind working away, now that his plan is out in the open.
Dr. Banner is the Hulk. The Hulk is Dr. Banner. His unnerving smell is justified tenfold. I kind of want to see the one who broke Harlem unleashed, because this meek and mild manifestation is boring to watch.
As an act of good will, I have been supplied with a change of clothes. They won't tell me what they're going to do with my dress. I'm afraid I shall miss it. Their uniform is so dull, and it smells of dry-cleaning.
The good news is that Rock and Hard-Place have been dismissed. Hallelujah. Unfortunately I am now under the watchful eye of the Avengers. They have already taken me down once; Fury helpfully reasoned when I questioned this (not without a note of suspicion, I might add); they can do it again if I'm dumb enough to try anything.
Good thing I'm not dumb. But…my throat is dust-dry. I keep clearing it, to no effect. I need something to moisten it, and water just won't cut it. Not for a moment.
How can Loki look so calm? I want him to see me. I want him to know that I am near, and fear it. I stare at him on the surveillance screen, willing him to look this way.
"That was when the bomb went off," I say with a shrug. "Or whatever it was. It proved to be a very nice distraction."
What the hell has happened? The hive is in turmoil, and people are running around in a panic. The world has taken on a very slanted view. An engine must have blown.
So…are we going to fall out of the air? The idea makes me angry. If I am to die, it will not be with an empty stomach, or in the wreckage of some military airship.
Then I hear the guttural roar, far away, and I know I am not alone in my anger at all, which is rather exciting. I don't doubt the Other Guy will keep everyone busy, because this may be my only chance to…chat with my supper.
The lights are flickering in panic as I make my merry way towards him and that delectable scent of his. I blend in very well in this new uniform, and no one tries to stop me. They can feel and hear a lot of banging and crashing about beneath us as well as I can. I wonder: how much damage has the Other Guy done? How many millions of dollars has he smashed beneath those dainty green fists?
I hope he's enjoying himself.
Magnus jumps on that like a wild cat. "What makes you say that, Miss Taylor?"
I shrug with a roguish smile. "You humans are so frightened of your own destruction, yet you are so willing to blow each other up to stop it. It strikes me as very…hypocritical."
"Says the woman who must kill innocent people to live," Frederickson mumbles. We've been at this for hours now. He's drunk four cups of coffee. No wonder he's forgetting himself.
"Would you be saying this now if I didn't?
Well. I am bitterly disappointed that Loki isn't alone. His brother is with him, trying to reason with him.
Of course he is behind all this.
The door to the cell is opening, and for a stupid moment I am confused and panicked. How did Loki do that without pressing any buttons?
Thor has the same idea. "No!" He heroically leaps to stop him, and Loki braces himself in the doorway.
And disappears in a flash of golden light. Thor slams insides inside the cell, and the door slides smoothly shut.
Oh. So that's how it's going to be.
"Are you ever not going to fall for that?"
My mouth has gone dry. Loki stands at the console, pressing buttons.
He looks at me.
Heehee I couldn't resist the cliff-hanger...
