Recap - after encounters with Ivory, she cleverly distracted them enough to cause chaos in the ballroom
Chapter Seven: The Suavest Spy Part Four
Barcelona, Spain - 23:01 PM
All hell breaks loose in the ballroom.
Guests run over one another, ripping the ends of ball gowns and throwing off heels in order to run faster as they all want to be the first one out. Nobody really cared about each other. With Ivory right on the ambassador's tail, Xavier and Daniel begin running after her. Ivory, knowing that the boys are right behind her, runs up a staircase, still wearing her heels. She approaches a small ledge and takes a leap off it, grabbing onto a hanging banister mid-air and swinging across. With other agents on the ground to pursue her, Xavier and Daniel decide to run for the ambassador to make sure that he's safe.
The moment Ivory lands on the ground, Merida begins picking up dropped heels and whipping them at her. As of right now, Merida is grateful for her perfect aim and discarded pointy shoes.
Some of the shoes hit Ivory but she brushes off the pain as though it never hit her. Ivory opens a slit on the side of her dress and pulls out a gun that was strapped to her thigh. She points it at Merida and begins firing. Merida dives to the side and hides behind a table. Ivory spins around and sees a violinist who stands on a chair to point her instrument directly at her. Ivory recognizes her, despite the darkness at the time, from the other night in Miami when she was attempting to steal the ring. Angela cocks her shotgun which was cleverly disguised as a violin and begins firing at her.
With another gun in her hands, Ivory begins spinning around to fire at both Angela and Merida unexpectedly. Angela jumps down to take cover. Once Ivory is out of ammunition in both her guns, she doesn't bother to reload. She discards her weapons and begins running. Angela and Merida begin chasing after her down the hallways.
-o-
Ivory sprints and sees a doorway where she knows she can snatch that brooch. With her eyes narrowed on that open door, she suddenly sees a tiny man grow into a normal-sized one. She pauses when she sees him point an electrified fist at her, amazed at the powers she finally gets to see in person. Ivory coos at James which causes him to turn his head at her unexpected reaction.
"Bye bye..." She mutters to him with a little wave of her fingers.
Confused, James thinks back to what she could mean by that odd farewell and the only moment that come to mind is when Ivory kissed him on the dance floor.
That's when it hits him.
"You also can't arrest me if you don't catch me..."
After she said that, she kissed him. This was all planned.
James is about to fire at her but then falls to the ground. Ivory grins as she steps over him and runs off. James rolls around and attempts to fire at her but ends up holding himself in a growing, crapming pain in his stomach.
Angela and Merida come running. Angela hops over James to continue chasing Ivory as Merida immediately deals with James.
"Are you dying?" Merida asks, kneeling down to check his vitals. She put two of her fingers on his neck and his wrist, all while opening his eyes even wider to check his pupils.
"I'm not dying, Merida," James says before clamming up. "I - hopefully - know how to fix this."
"Good. Then I can tell you to go to hell and not feel bad about it."
-o-
Xavier and Daniel sprint through the hallways of the gala, chasing Ivory. Xavier pulls out his gun from his holster and begins firing at Ivory. Ivory turns around for a brisk second just to see what she's being followed by. Her eyes meet theirs and for a moment, the boys were frozen in hypnosis at her devastatingly beautiful looks. She snickers to herself, shaking her head at the weakness the male species has for a beautiful woman. She pulls off a jewel from the collar of her dress and holds it in her hands. She keeps it in her grip as she bursts through a door and begins running down a staircase. The moment she hears the two men entering the stairwell, Ivory stops.
Ivory peeks over the railing and looks up at the two agents. She whips the jewel from her dress and watches as Xavier catches it. He looks at it and then at Ivory. She mimics a fake explosion with her hands, making a circle with her lips. Xavier notices the jewel beeping a small red light.
Xavier throws the jewel as Daniel throws himself in front of his friend. Ivory jumps over the railing, falling to the bottom and landing on her own feet. All of that happens as the jewel blows up.
-o-
Angela runs up to the rooftop where Ivory was only steps ahead. She figures that Ivory has no escape from the rooftop in mere seconds but when she makes it there, Ivory is gone. Angela heads over to the edge and peeks over. There's no Ivory in sight, even with facial recognition technology scanning everyone below. Angela doesn't understand how she could've escaped, though, she was only in a ballgown and couldn't have made it farther than her eyesight in the short amount of time. Angela looks out to the streets and sees guests from the gala leaving in a hurry. There's no sign of alarming chaos that should get her attention and that's the only part of this whole failed mission that relieves her.
"Ivory's gone," Angela says softly into her coms, "I lost her."
Xavier: Don't blame yourself. She outsmarted all of us.
Daniel: The ambassador's out and he's heavily secured. That's a good sign, right?
"But that won't stop her from pursuing him," Angela continues, bringing a hand to her forehead as she begins heading back inside. "How will we tell the council this?"
Merida: The council most likely already knows. Hell, they probably knew we'd lose the moment we entered the ballroom - and she wasn't ever there yet! They'll have some choice words to use because we're such disgraces to everyone, especially our parents. What would our parents say right now? 'Where was your training? Did you shut off your SHIELD brains?' Oh, and does anyone know the cure for cyanide because Ivory poisoned James via lipstick.
James: I can handle myself!
Merida: You're squirming on the floor. You can barely get up.
Angela sighs disappointedly as she begins running back inside to meet the rest of her team.
-o-
Quinjet - 1:34 AM
"You guys know that I'm smart as well," a currently-dying James tells his teammates while cooking himself a cyanide cure with Daniel's assistance.
The team is silent as the stand back as James cures himself. They're all looking at the ground, waiting for the council to call on one of them. The council was skeptical to start this initiative in the first place and now they have a right to be. The team all mentally rehearse the debriefing one of them will have to face with perfect responses to whatever the council will throw at them.
James takes some cyanide antidotes and charcoal capsules before heading off to take a nap to allow the cure to sit in. That makes it more likely for everyone else to get called on by the council since he's unable to attend a debriefing, which they all dread.
"You're not mad that Ivory kissed James?" Xavier asks his twin.
To everyone's surprise, Angela looks up and shakes her head. Her boyfriend did have a playboy reputation in the past and she didn't really let it anger her then so why would it ruin her now? Even though James was close to death, she still wasn't mad.
"I have more important things to be angry at," she replies. Xavier nods, understanding her point.
Suddenly, the group gets a call from their tablet from a SHIELD secretary. Nobody wants to pick it up but answering urgent calls is basically an order so they follow.
SHIELD Secretary: The council would like to see Agent Barton.
Nobody responds. The top guesses for receiving a debriefing and scolding from the council on behalf of the whole team were Angela and Xavier.
"I'll be right there," Merida replies unenthusiastically, hanging up the call.
As she exits the room, she gives her team a reassuring look that says that everything will be fine right before swearing under her breath in Russian about how much she hates the council.
-o-
Location Classified - 1:47 AM
Merida faces the council in their holographic forms. Unlike Xavier, she goes for the unprofessional approach. Her expression is slightly angered with her arms crossed and weight balancing on one hip. Her eyes look straight into the ones of the council members, saying that she's ready to take whatever they will throw at her, no matter how harsh and condescending it will be.
"Ivory Gates has somehow gotten the brooch," one member starts.
"There were five of you and one of her, how could this have happened?" Another adds.
"You're all supposed to be professionals."
The comments and reprimands that reek of disappointment and frustration keep rolling in. Merida keep her arms crossed, letting all that's being said go through one ear and out the other. She isn't phased by it. Hell, she isn't offended.
"Are you giving us attitude, Merida?" One member asks even though they know the answer is yes.
Merida playfully shrugs, adding to the attitude. She knows that the reason they used her first name instead of her title was to emphasize how serious this situation was supposed to be.
"This is not a joke," they try to tell her. "If you do not take this debriefing or the failure of your mission seriously, then - "
"What are you going to do?" Merida asks, cutting them abruptly. "Fire me? Are you actually willing to fire Agent Merida Barton, daughter of The Black Widow and Hawkeye who just happens to be two of The Avengers and the world's greatest assassins? Go right ahead, I dare you. I speak five languages fluently and have an expertise in all things combat, marksmanship, and aviation. Not to mention that I can get references from any of the other Avengers and even Director Fury himself. Needless to say, I can easily work for whatever government agency I want and can blow yours to bits with just the right arrow."
The council is speechless.
"If you want to get Ivory Gates so bad," Merida tells them, "then chase her yourself!"
Stay Tuned - time to suit up.
