I do not own Venom, SHIELD or any of the characters besides Elizabeth Smith/Silver Star. They belong to their respective owners. Please review. Thank you.
Chapter 6
Braxton walked back in a few minutes later; his jaw clenched. Behind him was a man in a black business suit carrying a briefcase, "Guys, this is Agent Barney of SHIELD. He wants to talk to us." He made their symbols for sonic and gun near his right hip.
'So… Agent Barney has a sonic gun on his right side. Figures,' Elizabeth's eyes tightened a fraction of an inch. She kept her face blank, "What do you need, Agent Barney?"
Agent Barney set his briefcase on the island, "Where's Venom?" His eyes bore into hers.
"What makes you thing we know where he is? Just because we help him doesn't mean we keep tabs on him."
"It would be a shame if your mother found out her eldest daughter was helping the one that killed her husband, now wouldn't it?" He had a small professional smirk on his face as he watched Elizabeth's face change colors.
First, she went pale. Then her eyes darkened and her face flushed, "One…" she growled, "That goes against the Civilian Identity Act that every SHIELD agent and hero had to sign. And two, that was Carnage not Venom." Vince had to wrap an arm around her waist to keep her from getting in Agent Barney's face.
Agent Barney's eyes went from Elizabeth's face to the arm around her waist. He followed the arm to Vince's face and studied him. Calmly, he reached for the sonic gun.
One of Jacobee's hands lit up before he could draw it, "Don't even think about it. I won't hesitate to stop you."
The gun jerked out of its holster and floated over to Sean. Sean brushed it with his hand and it disappeared. Elizabeth smirked when Agent Barney started to sweat, "The Stars protect our own; just like SHIELD. Venom is one of us and we will defend him if need be. You may have your gun back when you leave, Agent Barney. Now, why are you here again?"
Agent Barney visibly paled, "My orders are to take Venom into custody. The higher-ups want him at headquarters for some reason."
"Tech…" Braxton was already typing furiously at his laptop.
"Subject: Venom. Reason for containment: classified. Note: Fury wants to see it as soon as it arrives." Braxton whistled, "Jeez, Vee. The top brass wants to see you and I can't hack his personal computer from here to find out why."
Elizabeth glanced around the room, "I guess the Stars are going to pay SHIELD a visit, aren't they?"
Sean, Ian, Jacobee and one of the invisible ones—Vince's guess was Michael or Clifton—shouted as one, "Road trip! I call shotgun!"
Vince shook his head as Elizabeth turned back to Agent Barney, "Tell Fury that Venom will talk to him—with his teammates present. If you try anything against him, we will retaliate. Understood?"
Agent Barney glanced around the room—felt the hostility directed at him—and swallowed loudly, "I'll tell him."
Elizabeth's smirk grew, "Good. Storage, Shado—give the man back his gun."
"Do they have to?" Braxton asked, "I haven't had a chance to study one yet."
Ian snorted, "Get the blueprints and build one."
"That takes all the fun out of reverse engineering." Sean held his hand out and the sonic gun appeared. It floated over to Agent Barney and hovered in front of him. His hand shook as he reached for it.
As he tried to put it back in its holster, Elizabeth turned to look at Vince, "When do you think would be a good time for Venom to speak with Fury?"
Vince shrugged, "Whenever you say. Venom's not that picky."
She turned back to the others, "anybody got anything scheduled for tomorrow afternoon?"
"No," seven voices said in unison. Agent Barney shivered at the sound.
"3 o'clock?"
"That's fine," their eyes remained on Agent Barney's shaking form.
Elizabeth nodded and turned back to agent Barney, "We'll be at SHIELD headquarters at 3 o'clock tomorrow. Try not to shoot us."
Agent Barney nodded slowly, "right. I'll inform the defense system. Good day." He walked out the door. Braxton followed him.
No one moved until Braxton came back and gave them a thumbs-up. Then they all let out a collective breath. Elizabeth sagged in Vince's arms, "Did we just tell off a SHIELD agent?"
"Yes, yes, I believe we did," Conner replied as Michael vanished the Harry Potter character.
"What was I thinking? Why didn't you guys gag me? We're all going to die!"
"Dude, you were in the zone. We weren't about to break that," Ian said as he high-fived Sean. "I think that deserves an epic success."
"I'll only accept it after we survive tomorrow," Elizabeth turned and buried her face in Vince's shirt, "Gawd, I'm a moron who can't keep her mouth shut."
Jacobee shrugged, "Yeah, but you're the moron leader of the team." He smirked at her, "And as the lower ranks, we follow wherever you go."
Elizabeth glanced around the room at her teammates faces. They each nodded their heads at her with smirks on their faces. "All right. Now that my freak out moment is over," she said before pinning Braxton with a look, "Tech, how long will it take us to get to SHIELD headquarters?"
Braxton blinked at her, "Depends on where they'll be tomorrow. Hang on a sec…" One moment he was standing by the door, the next he was sitting at the island typing away at his laptop.
"If it helps, Conner's piloting."
He didn't even look up, "That helps me more than you know."
Conner leaned over Braxton's shoulder, "Was that an insult or a complement?"
Braxton answered without looking up, "Take it as you will." He looked up after a moment, "Two hours."
Elizabeth blinked before paling again, "Two hours?"
"Yep."
"God damn it! Shit! Fuck! Crap! Slag! Scrap! Pit fire! Ahh!" Elizabeth started to lightly bang her head against the fridge behind her. "Why did I agree to this again?" she whimpered.
Seeing the look on Vince's face, everybody else in the room stated, in unison, "She's afraid of flying." Michael continued for the rest, "And it doesn't matter what we say or do, she's frozen with fear."
"Not to mention," Jacobee shot Conner a look, "Red Bandit flies like a freakin' demon."
Vince looked at him in confusion, "They why…"
Elizabeth's voice was interrupted with bangs as she continued to hit her head against the fridge, "Because he'll," bang, "get us there," bang, "faster than anyone," bang, "else." Thud. "Ow."
Clifton rolled his eyes, "Keep it up and you'll give yourself a concussion. And we've got another problem that I just thought of. Well, two actually." Everyone looked at him as he held up his hand with the first finger raised, "One: if we're all going to talk to Fury, who's patrolling the city? And two," a second finger joined the first, "How are we going to explain to our parents that they won't be able to reach us for the entire afternoon, if not longer?"
Everyone looked at each other before gaining thoughtful expressions on their faces. Ian spoke after a minute of silence had passed, "Well, your mom kind of knows about Vince, right?"
Elizabeth blinked and raised an eyebrow, "Yeah, she thinks he's the new kid in Conner's college classes at school who lives a couple of blocks away. What's that got to do with…" she trailed off before shaking her head. "No. No way. Ian, she just met him for a total of thirty seconds. There's no way she'll believe that."
Jacobee used his hand to prop his head up on the counter, "Would the two of you mind sharing with the rest of the class?"
"He's planning on using my mom's lack of knowledge on all things Vince in our favor," Elizabeth crossed her arms. "Aren't you, Ian?"
Ian gave a cocky smirk, "Exactly. We'll just say that Vince took us out of town for the day and we didn't have any cell service. In a way, we'll be telling the truth."
Conner nodded, "That will work for a cover story but what about Clifton's first question; who's going to patrol the city while we're away?"
Elizabeth sighed in defeat, "I know a couple of guys. Let me give them a call and we'll work something out." She yawned before leaning back against Vince's chest again, "So, do we have any other Stars business to discuss?"
Sean looked around, "Unless anyone suddenly deducts where Carnage is hiding, I'm pretty sure that's it."
A few heads shaking later and Elizabeth decided to call it quits, "Alright, so we meet up at the warehouse at noon tomorrow. Whoever's supposed to be on patrol, get to it. And be careful out there. We've already lost two friends and I'd rather we didn't lose anyone else. Stars, dismissed."
Michael and Jacobee sighed before heading out the garage door. It was their turn for patrol. Sean and Ian opened their laptops back up and continued playing StarCraft. Clifton watched over their shoulders. Conner turned to look at Elizabeth and Vince, "Do you two want to hang out before I take you home?"
Elizabeth shrugged, "That's fine by me. I don't want to face my mom just yet." She tilted her head to look at Vince, "What about you, Vee?"
"That's fine," he shrugged.
"Awesome, let's go." The three of them walked out the door, "Later guys!"
"See you tomorrow or if there's trouble—whichever happened first!" Braxton called out before the door shut.
