A/N: Hello hello! I'm back with another lovely installment of this baby. Thank you so much for your feedback, it really does make me smile and inspires me to spit out chapters a lot faster than normal. So I figure this is the one and only chapter that may ever have a meaningful author's note. I know what sort of time frame the Avengers plays out—three days pretty much—and I felt the need to add in a random ass day because we have a seventeen year old girl who's literally sleep deprived and she needs at least two hours of sleep before fighting aliens, and there's no room in the movie's original time line that actually gives her that. So I added in a day and I know it seems very random, believe me, I captained that ship's decision because filler chapters are nightmares for me to write, but I still feel like there are a few gaps in terms of character relationship development and plus, would it kill to give the Avengers a moment to breathe and Loki's little henchmen to do their thing? So in case you need a sort of time frame in terms of movie wise, the day I'm about to write out for you is the same day that Tony, Bruce and Steve will all talk about Fury's shadiness in the laboratory. Make sense? I hope so. It'll make more sense next chapter, I promise you. With that, enjoy!
Chapter Seven: And So, the Unraveling Beings
Sleep proved to be futile by the time Katniss had walked Steve to his bunk, made her way back to her own and gotten turned down for the night. It was nice to not be in a tactical outfit for a bit, her hair out of the braid and her comm off, but coming about sleep was complicated. It was hard enough sleeping on the damn ship, what with announcements and updates coming over the PA system every five minutes—she realized that headphones were a necessity she didn't even know she needed—and the general echo of all the hustling movement. Her mind also had other plans for her, tangled in the web that was what Tony Stark had implanted in her mind.
Just from reading the file on Tony, she knew that he was a genius. The smartest people in the world toppled over one other to get to work with Tony, to even be in the same room as him. There had been one line that was circled in red pen, so heavily circled that Katniss could feel the indent on the page of his file that always stuck out in her mind every time she thought of him: File cabinet—knows more than you think he does, makes and keeps plenty of secrets. It was certainly cryptic and intriguing, with not much more to go on. Just like Fury's very short fuse with Tony and the nicknames, and the way he'd clammed up almost instantly after making the comparison to someone, someone she wasn't any the wiser on, Katniss was in the dark as ever. Was this how working for SHIELD always? Walking around mindless on instructions, never knowing the truth behind anything? It was one shitty way to live, that much she knew for sure.
Sighing, she rolled out of her bunk and slid on her pair of boots resting next to the foot of the bunk. She couldn't lie there any longer and just stare at the ceiling; she'd go insane if she did. Katniss tried to ease the door open, having to use a lot of her upper arm strength to pry the door from its hinges seeing as how it was an automated sliding door and she knew if she pressed the button to open it, she'd set the little beeper off and would wake up everyone else on her corridor that was trying to get some rest. Finally getting it open wide enough for her to squeeze past, she let it close before shoving her hands down into the pockets of her sweatpants and started walking through the corridors.
There was no set destination really, Katniss knew she just needed to move her legs and clear her head. A thought to drop in for a visit with Bruce would be relaxing, but he was probably asleep himself or working on figuring out what the function of Loki's magical glow stick was. And if he was in the lab, chances are, so was Tony, and that was the last person Katniss wanted to see. Thor was out of the question, she wasn't in the mood for trying to translate Shakespearean English to modern day, and his brother didn't keep very good company either. She could always go talk to Steve, but Steve was sleeping as well and she wasn't about to interrupt him either. All of her eliminations left her in solitude.
She rounded the corner, making her way back down to Level Three. It was slightly less crowded than Level Two, which was right below the bridge, and she didn't have to dodge people with every step. Passing by one of the empty gymnasiums, she could see that a few agents were still doing late night training, and for a moment, the thought flashed her mind to maybe go inside and work some of the insomnia off until she was so exhausted she'd pass out and get a few moments of rest.
"Can't sleep?" a voice inquired from behind her, startling her. It was just Coulson, an empathic smile directed in her way. Running a hand over the top of her head sheepishly, Katniss shrugged.
"I've always been a bit of an insomniac, I think being in a new environment doesn't really help that much," she explained. Taking a quick look at Coulson, he was still dressed in his suit, arms folded over his chest respectfully, still the perfect agent. She however, was in sweatpants, a ratty blue t-shirt and her hair hanging in her face, the perfect example of a hot mess. He didn't seem to care at all though, just simply dismissed it. It was respectable; had she run into Tony, she was sure he would have cheerfully commented on how she looked as though she'd walked in off the street.
"That's most of us. Fury takes in the insomniacs since we work 'round the clock," Coulson replied.
"Do you ever get any sleep?" Katniss blurted out. "I mean, does Fury ask you to sleep in the suit in the case you have to roll out of bed and fight off the bad guys?"
Coulson chuckled. "We're not firefighters, Katniss. We do get a chance to rest. It's just not the recommended seven hours or more."
"Lovely," Katniss groaned, a laugh of her own falling past her lips and joining in with Coulson's light laughter. She then stopped, looking over at him with eyes wide with concern. "Oh god, I'm not interrupting you from doing something Fury's asked you to do?"
Shaking his head persistently, Coulson rests a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "You're fine, Katniss, don't worry about it. I'm just doing a bit of patrolling around the corridors, making sure everything's alright."
"You called me Katniss," she found herself saying, staring through the glass walls of the gymnasium at a group of agents lifting weights. Her eyes then lifted up to where his were, also trained on the same sight. "Why?"
"That's your name, isn't it?"
"Well, yeah, but I mean, I…it's been Everdeen or one of Tony's dumb nicknames, or ma'am from the much too polite Steve, or Lady Everdeen from Shakespeare," she rambled on, flexing her fingers and keeping her eyes the movement. "I don't even know if anyone's actually called me by my first name since I got on this ship except for when I force them to say it through introductions."
"Doesn't feel much like your own name?" Coulson added.
Katniss raised her head. "Yeah, how—"
"Tony assumed my first name was agent when I showed up to get him on board, and he's met me more than once. When you're a part of this world, sometimes you forget that you're still a regular person; it's just a more extreme job than most people have. Don't let the whole name thing get to you; it's an identity crisis that a lot of people usually go through their first or second year working for us. You know who you are."
"I'm not so sure about that," Katniss mumbled in response, thinking of the whole situation of her mysterious parentage and the nicknames Tony kept giving her and the very big culture shock that she had had to get used to in twenty seconds before being tossed into the real world. Being so far from what she'd always known. She knew the man next to her was just trying to console her, but it felt like a bunch of empty words. How could she know who she was when she didn't know the first real thing about herself? Coulson gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
"Then give it a little time," he said, removing his hand from her shoulder and starting off in the opposite direction. "You will."
. . .
Katniss stared at the tray in front of her, examining the contents on it, completely bewildered. Bruce let out a chuckle, his lips drawn out in a clearly amused smirk. The two of them were silent as Katniss studied the meal in front of her, trying to find some sort of opinion or question about what was in front of her to preface with, but she was drawing a total blank. She could feel Bruce's inquisitive eyes bearing into her side, probably elated at her sheer confusion. "What…is this?" she choked out finally, taking the edge of the plastic fork and poking the side of the sandwich with it.
"That is a hamburger," Bruce announced. Katniss picked up the hamburger, as Bruce called it, taking off the bun that was on top and examining the contents underneath. She heard him suppress a chuckle as she stared at it, trying to figure out what was all on it.
"No, I mean what is this?" she repeated, holding out towards his face. She accidentally jutted her arms out too far and realized that only once she saw Bruce leaning away from the sandwich in her hands. Lowering it slightly, he shook his head, still a smirk resonating on his lips.
"This is cheese, beef—well, we just suppose that it's beef but no one ever really knows," he joked, seeing the horrified look on the younger girl's face. "Anyways, there's ketchup, mustard, lettuce, tomato and pickles all on there. I spared you the onions."
Katniss rolled her eyes. "So caring, aren't you?"
"Always." Katniss had swung by the lab after sleeping in a bit late—she blamed the horny couple that happened to be a bunk over for keeping her up until very early hours, and since her comm had been off, she hadn't heard any of Fury's orders with her name tacked to them. She figured that she was safe and in the clear, since he wasn't hunting her down with a burning passion. By the time she found Bruce's laboratory, he was taking a lunch break and he'd told her that she was more than welcome to tag along. Katniss had jumped on the opportunity to spend some time with Bruce without having to be in the same room as Tony Stark. Before finally managing to close her eyes from sheer exhaustion that night, she had settled upon the conclusion that being near Tony would only cloud her mind with more questions, and therefore more confusion, and put herself in the position to be called more cryptic nicknames that weren't exactly welcomed with open arms. So, she was going to avoid him at all costs.
It wasn't her best plan, but it was the only kind of plan she had. All other options ended with someone dying or in the hospital wing.
Scrunching up her face at the lunch Bruce had bought for her—he'd been all but appalled when she informed him that back in District Twelve all food was something that had been grown or killed. There was no such thing as a restaurant, whatever that happened to be. His promise to her was to get some real food in her, and while she'd been terrified, she was reluctant in letting him pick her lunch for her. Now however, she was deciding that maybe it wasn't the brightest idea. "Go on," he insisted. "Try it. I wouldn't give you anything poisoned."
"I know that," Katniss retorted. "I mean, do you just…use your hands, or cut it up, or what? They didn't include the Hamburgers for Beginners pamphlet with my meal, you know."
"You pick it up with both your hands—or just one of them, if you're feeling like really showing off your skills," Bruce teased. "And you just…eat it." Katniss shook her head, awkwardly picking up her hamburger from the tray and holding it up to her mouth. "Now you take a bite," he prompted. She did as he said, taking a small bite of the sandwich and chewing it up profusely to decide whether or not she liked it.
"Well?" She continued to chew, her face twisting in confusion as she swallowed it down, placing the sandwich back on the tray.
"It's okay, but there's just something…weird about it," she finally admitted. Bruce just shrugged in response.
"Understandable; it's probably the beef. Don't worry though, you'll get used to burgers and other delicacies in the modern world as life goes on. Lucky for you," he began, sliding over a small bowl filled with something that seemed to resemble lettuce with vegetables in it. "I got you a salad." The quizzical look that he was met with made his shoulders slouch slightly as he handed her a fork. "Don't tell me you don't know what a salad is."
"Um…"
Bruce gave her a small smile in reassurance. "A salad's just lettuce and other some other vegetables all thrown together. You guys grew vegetables back in your little time-trapped town, right?" He'd been a little skeptical of Twelve when Katniss explained the whole situation to him; how they were isolated from most society, believed that less was better. When she told that she could never remember having a full stomach a day in her life, he told her that Kolkata sounded like a hell of a better place to settle than the little town stuck in a different century.
Katniss nodded, stabbing a piece of lettuce with her fork. "This is more down my alley," she mused after taking a mouthful of it. It was bland, not too much of a taste, so it wasn't way too much for her poor culture-shocked taste buds. Taking the tray with her hamburger that was missing a bite and sliding it towards Bruce, she smiled cheekily. "And this seems to be down yours."
"You're something else, you know," Bruce said, shaking his head.
She shrugged, waving her fork in the air before eating the bite of salad. "According to Fury, I'm teeming with charm and personality."
"Fury's…"
"Fury?" she finished, raising an eyebrow inquisitively. Bruce mirrored the same shrug she'd given him only a few moments ago. "Well, whatever he happens to be, he owes me some answers."
"Answers?" Bruce asked.
"Eye for an eye sort of thing we have. Fury told me if I helped him out on this whole wild goose chase, he'd tell me about my real parents," she muttered, thinking about the nonexistent progress she'd made with that. Fury hadn't even so much as given her one drop of information in terms of who they were or if he even knew who her parents were in the first place. Instead, he was taking the time to bless Tony out for every toe he put out of line and keep them all corralled like a bunch of children that couldn't be trusted.
"Real parents?" The new voice added to the mix frightened Katniss; until she registered that it was only Steve. Yes, only Steve, who was currently standing behind her with the most innocently puzzled look one could ever don on their face. Bruce looked down rather quickly, clamming up without missing a beat. Katniss looked back and forth between both of the men, unsure of what she was supposed to say. "Oh," Steve said, the way his eyes widening signaled that he had come to some sort of deduction in his mind. "Am I interrupting something here?"
"No!" Katniss and Bruce both insisted in the same hurried tone at once. Katniss could see the slow blush creeping into Bruce's cheeks, a blush that was probably making its way onto her own face. She realized that this probably looked like…well, something more than it actually was. And leave it to Steve to be the one to point that out.
"No, you're not interrupting anything," Katniss continued, putting her fork down. "Did you want to sit with us?"
"Oh, no, it's fine, I've got to get back to the lab anyways," Bruce chimed in, grabbing the sides of his tray. Katniss stared at him, even more puzzled than Steve had looked at her, confused as to why he was all of a sudden running off. "We still have stuff to do. I don't think you want to come in and sit on mine and Tony's conversations about science for the next few hours, and I also don't think you want Tony coming and dragging me off either."
"Yeah, no, you hit that nail right on the head. Have fun," she grumbled as he stood up. The pair shot each other a small smile.
"I had fun teaching you all about burgers," he said before disappearing. Steve, who had sat down beside her as she watched Bruce vanish into the crowd of agents, turned to face Katniss.
"You don't know what a burger is?" he asked, and Katniss shook her head in response.
"It's…another story for another day," she said dully, reaching for her water bottle and twisting the cap off of it. "So, what brings you down to this end of the ship, Cap?"
"I would say that I was looking for you, but that wouldn't really be the truth." Katniss raised an eyebrow as she took a swig of water. He sighed. "I got lost on my way to find you and ask if you wanted to come do some training with me. Not that you, you know, need it, but I just figured since you were shooting the other day you'd maybe want to—"
"Steve," Katniss interrupted him. "Breathe, it's alright." Steve visibly relaxed his shoulders; Katniss hadn't even realized how stiff he'd been when asking her that question. Giving him a small smile, she nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like fun. Let's do it."
. . .
"No, I'm not doing this."
"Come on, Steve. We've been debating this for fifteen minutes now."
"It's not a debate," he protested. "I'm not doing it." Katniss was standing in front of him, hands on her hips and an irritated scowl on her face. She and Steve had currently been standing on the mat in the middle of one of the isolated gyms down on a lower level for a good fifteen minutes, arguing over something as plain and stupid as sparring. Katniss had gotten bored very quickly with the whole weights and running on a treadmill thing. There were no training simulations down here – that gym had been conveniently occupied when they went to go claim it, and she was craving a sort of action she surely wasn't getting any of running in place. So she'd asked Steve to do a little mock fighting with her, and he'd acted as though she had told him she'd done something as offensive as burning the American flag. He refused, knowing that she wasn't a SHIELD agent and that he had his whole super strength shtick over her and was therefore completely out of her fighting league. She kept insisting she didn't care, that she needed the practice, but he wouldn't budge. Rolling her eyes at him, she let out an irritated huff.
"Steve, for the millionth time, I don't care. I am telling you not to hold back on me. This is just training, I know you don't mean anything by it. It's just for fun."
"You call this fun?" he responded.
"Technically, I call shooting birds out of the sky fun, but since we're on a…thing that flies higher than most birds, I'm stripped."
Steve let out a sigh of his own. "Katniss, I don't want to—"
"What? Hurt me?" Katniss snorted. "You think I can't hold up against you or take a hit?"
"That's not the point of all—" He was cut off yet again by Katniss, but this time, it was her fist coming right up to meet his face. Despite him not seeing it coming, he managed to catch her wrist right before it collided with his face. He was rendered somewhat speechless, shocked that she'd gone to throw a punch and the fact that she had a satisfactory smirk colored all over her face all the while. "Are you really about to hit me?" he asked, dumbfounded.
"Rule number one of sparring, expected the unexpected," she stated, her other hand reaching over to pry his off of her wrist. He had an iron grip, so she did the only thing that could come to mind. Bringing her leg up, she delivered a kick to Steve's abdomen, his grip loosening on her wrist and allowing her to wiggle free. He had some sort of look in his eyes, not one that she'd ever seen before and it intrigued her. So he knew that she was pushing him like this on purpose. Lifting an eyebrow, she locked her eyes onto his. "Still not up for a little fight?"
Steve didn't say anything, just tilted his head to the side before launching himself at her. Katniss hadn't been too prepared for his sudden movements, and she could see his sharp uppercut coming from out of the corner of her eyes. Ducking slightly and feeling proud of herself for dodging the hit, she finds herself regretting that as she felt his other fist swipe her right in the ribs. It wasn't enough to hurt, but she could feel it sting slightly. "Well, at least you're not holding back," she muttered through clenched teeth as she rested her hand on his shoulder and kicked the back of his legs. He didn't fall to his knees like she'd been hoping; instead, he was able to grab her by the waist better, and sent her straight to the floor.
"You have no idea."
A low groan escaped her as she met the mat with a low 'thud', Steve rolling back onto her and pinning her arms beside her head. She could see the word hanging off the tip of his tongue, but she wasn't about to accept any kind of defeat without a fight. Wrapping one of her legs around him as best she could, she kicked the mat and flipped the two of them over. Katniss herself had been slightly surprised she'd been able to pull that off; usually that move was her last resort move when she fought with Gale, and Gale lacked a lot of the muscle that Steve had. Straddling him, she took one of her legs and kept one arm pinned to his side. His other hand was currently wrestling with her own, his attempt to flip them back over. Finally, Katniss managed to hold it down behind his head. "I win," she panted, grinning as the two of them tried to catch their breath.
"Gotta hand it to you, you're not a bad fighter."
"Gale and I sparred all the time whenever we were bored in the woods," she said, removing her grip off his arms and standing up. She then extended a hand to him to help him up. He took it graciously, but before she could assist in pulling him off the ground, she found her legs being kicked out from underneath her and being pulled back down onto the mat. Steve smirked as he landed on top of her, straddling her just like she'd done to him only moments before. A growl escaped her lips as she tried to fight off his hands from getting a hold of hers. He was able to outsmart her and forced both arms over her head this time, having a good enough hold on her that she wasn't able to squirm out of his grasp.
"Who won, again?" he questioned smugly, Katniss scoffing loudly.
"The match was already over," she insisted.
"Rule number one," he said, mimicking her tone from earlier. "Expect the unexpected."
"Bitch," she snarled under her breath. Steve just laughed at her as he stood up, walking away from her. Smart man, she thought to herself as she pulled herself off of the mat and over to where he was now guzzling water. Keeping his distance to keep from inciting round two. "Throw me mine?" Katniss asked him, tilting her head in the direction of the water bottle that was sitting on the bench next to his. He complied wordlessly, it landing neatly in her hands.
"Thanks."
"No problem," he replied, sitting down on the bench in front of her. "You said you and Gale sparred a lot before?"
Resting a hand on her hips out of habit as she took a swig of water, she shrugged her shoulders. "Wasn't exactly the kind of sparring I'm sure you're used to," she clarified. "It was more like rough-housing. We just wrestled to wrestle; there was no real objective in mind. We'd come home with leaves in my hair, dirt on our faces and all in the cuts we accidentally gave ourselves from scratching and rolling over sharp sticks. Or thorns."
"Sounds fun," Steve said, although the tone in his voice implied that he didn't really mean that. She just rolled her eyes playfully, shaking her head. The two of them stayed silent after that, still trying to regulate their breathing from their rather interesting fight. Steve looked up at Katniss, who was still standing in front of him and had her head tipped backwards, staring at the ceiling. "Can I ask you a question?" he asked.
"Sure, I guess," she replied.
"What were you and Dr. Banner talking about earlier, about real parents?" Katniss winced at the mention of it, Steve's perplexed voice asking the very question she wasn't looking to speculate on. "I'm sorry," he quickly took back, evidently sensing her annoyance or seeing her eyes flutter shut. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."
"It's alright," Katniss said, her legs thanking her as she sat down next to Steve. He slid over a bit to make more room for her, eyes trained on her. "I told you when Fury came to get me, I didn't have any hesitations about leaving, and that…that was true. He claimed he had something I wanted, something I didn't really know I wanted, I guess, since I didn't know any different and figured I never would." She didn't look up at Steve, but kept her eyes on the movement of her fingers absentmindedly around the water bottle in her hand. "Where I lived, my parents…everyone always talked about it behind my back, whispering about it, that I wasn't really their kid. My dad died when I was younger in a mining accident, mom shut out the world afterwards, so it didn't really help with the rumors. But I could see it, everyone could. They were…like porcelain dolls, blonde hair, pale blue eyes, fair skin, and then there's me, the genetic anomaly. I tried not to buy into it because I didn't have a choice, but it still follows you. And then here comes a guy in an eye patch, confirming all the rumors and extending an olive branch"
Katniss paused for a moment, letting her gaze drift up to where Steve's eyes were, keeping a close watch on her. "What would you do?" she said, sighing softly. "If for all your life, you've tried everything to convince yourself of something and then someone walks right into your life and shatters all that work, offers to give you answers?" Steve didn't respond and left the both of them in a hanging silence. Her eyes dropped back down to her hands.
"Fury told me that he'd tell me about them and who they are if I agreed to help him out. So far, I've gotten nothing out of him," she admitted dejectedly.
"Then go talk to him," Steve said.
Katniss shook her head. "Not that easy. He won't budge, is always too busy or has an excuse. Says I'm not there yet, whatever that means. Besides, he's probably trying to…choreograph a drug bust in Botswana."
"Katniss." Steve's voice was quiet and sincere, her head snapping up to meet his gaze once more. "Sitting here and asking questions you already have the answers to doesn't help you any. You just took me on without blinking twice even though I'm genetically modified and tapped me out; you can stand up to Fury if that's what it takes to get what you want."
Mulling over what he'd said for a brief second, Katniss slowly stood up. "I'm getting my answers," she announced determinedly.
"'Atta girl," Steve encouraged as he watched Katniss make her way over to the door. She then paused for a moment as the door slid open before turning around with a smug grin on her face.
"Glad to know you agree that I won." Her lips curled up once more in a smirk, sauntering out of the room and disappearing from sight. Steve couldn't help but to shake his head in amusements, starting out of the gym a few moments later. After all, he'd been right: sitting around didn't do anyone much good, and he needed some answers of his own.
. . .
"Miss Everdeen," Fury greeted disinterestedly, only half-paying her any attention despite the fact that she was obviously there for a reason. The bridge was still swarming with activity, the Director standing over Agent Sitwell running another face trace on Barton and Selvig. Katniss forced herself to take a deep breath; keeping her temper in check was her top priority. If it got the better of her, she could kiss swaying Fury goodbye.
"Fury," she replied, her reply soft and passive enough to the point she hardly recognized it as her own voice speaking. "I need to ask you something"
"No, you don't have permission to push Stark off the edge of the Helicarrier. Believe it or not, he's actually of some use to us."
Behind him, she grimaced. There goes that idea. "Wasn't planning on it." With him walking away from the desks, she had no choice but to follow him around like a lost puppy. It didn't take long for her to catch far enough up to his pace so she was right beside of him. One thing was for sure, Fury was a power walker. "I was going to ask you about my parents." Her voice dropped a little as she said the last little bit.
Fury spun around on his heel, his eye looking her up and down as if she was Loki or something. "And why is that?" he inquired, his tone icy.
"Well, I…" Katniss trailed off, trying to think of the easiest way to put it without offending him, since she apparently had a knack for doing that whenever she opened her mouth. She hadn't prepared any sort of speech on her walk over, which she realized she perhaps should have done seeing as how in her pause, Fury had already started off once more, leaving her behind. Sighing, Katniss jogged to catch up with him once more as he made his way back to his usual post that overlooked all of the bridge techs. Ending up behind him, she exhaled slowly before starting again. "Rogers, Banner and Stark all here, working on Loki's spear and figuring out what it's got to do with the Tesseract, Loki's sitting in a cell in the lower level. We've made progress, you said you'd start talking once we did."
"You think cracking the surface of all this mess is considered progress?"
"What do you consider progress?"
Turning back around to face her once more, Fury started up again. "Progress is getting Barton and Selvig back. Progress is figuring out where the hell Loki is keeping the Tesseract. Progress is keeping a bunch of ugly ass aliens off this earth and making sure that we don't lose anyone in the process. That's progress, Miss Everdeen," he rattled off before returning to the monitors.
Reaching over and swiping the monitors off, she finally caught his attention as he turned to glare at her. His mouth began to open, most likely to scold her, but she didn't allow him the chance. She didn't take too kindly to being shut down, and her patience was rapidly drying up. "You are keeping your end of the deal, whether you want to or not. I don't care what you tell me, but you aren't going to continue to ignore me like I'm some lackey that only exists to shine your shoes and bring you your daily reports," she spat, eyes wild as she glowered at him. "Talk."
Fury had his eye trained on her very carefully, almost threatening her to not make another move. "You're certainly got some nerve, Miss Everdeen. I told you I would tell you about your parents, but you agreed to help me find the Tesseract. Right now, that is our top priority, and until I've got my eye on that cube, I don't have the time to give you a recap of your origin story," he said in a dangerously quiet voice.
"That's bullshit."
"Miss Everdeen." Katniss fell silent, still fuming as Fury talked. "My mind is made up." He pushed past her, making his way past the meeting table and heading for the main corridors.
"I'll go to Tony," she called out after him, voice slightly shaking as she tried to suppress her anger. Fury stopped dead in his tracks. "Sure does seem like he knows something, seeing as how you keep threatening him within an inch of his life every time he as much as looks at me. He seems like the type who'd love to tell me all about it, maybe I'll let him do the honors."
"Tony doesn't know much about what's good for him," Fury chuckled, swiveling around ever so slightly. When he looked up from the floor, his eye met hers. "You go to Stark, you'll get exactly what you don't want. Probably get more out of Loki than you would Stark."
"Oh really?" Katniss questioned, continuing to push her luck. "Maybe I'll drop by the prison cell and let him make his phone call."
"You'll do no such thing."
"Be my guest to try and stop me."
Fury took a step in her direction, looming over her with a threatening scowl coloring his face as he spoke. "I can take you right back to where I found you, Miss Everdeen, you were the one who agreed to come along and help out," he growled. "I don't have room on this boat for people who aren't of any use. So be of use."
"And if I already have been?" she quipped back.
"Then wait. I better not catch you so much as by the wishing well asking for an answer." With that, Fury stomped back towards the corridors, Katniss going in the opposite direction with steam probably pouring out of her ears.
Defeat, of course. God, where did Fury get off on ordering everyone around and being a complete asshole about it? She couldn't see the appeal of working under him, even if the amenities surrounding it were nice. About the time she'd made it off the deck and into a corridor, still fuming and her vision slightly red, her day only continued to get better with the lovely surprise of Tony Stark nearly bumping into her. She bit her tongue, holding in her exasperation as she leaned up against the wall, allowing him to walk by. Her luck was only growing more horrid by the hour. He caught her eyes as he waltzed past, back to the lab she assumed, shooting her a subtle wink. Under his breath, he was humming the same thing he had been the other night, the children's rhyme she still couldn't put her finger on. Right about the time he was completely out of her sight and long gone, the name finally clicked inside her head. Itsy Bitsy Spider.
That was it.
Screw Fury.
A/N: Well, I lied. This is officially the longest chapter I've ever written, rounding off at a whopping 5,684 words. That's a lot. I did my best to make this chapter as interesting as possible and like the title says, everything is starting to slowly unravel. Katniss blowing up in Fury's face and him making her swear not to go looking for answers, Tony of course adding fuel to that fire; Bruce and Katniss' cute little lunch together—that was so much fun to write, along with the Steve and Katniss fighting bit. So here's my question to you: what do you think Steve went off and did after Katniss left to go talk with Fury? Steveniss or Bruceniss? Do you think Katniss is any closer to finding out who her parents are or is she still a long way off from the truth? Be sure to leave a review and tell me what you think, and what you're most excited to see play out next. I promise I won't leave you hanging for long, just keep in mind reviews make me write a lot faster. They also contribute to the Save Tony From Being Pushed Off the Helicarrier campaign. Can't have our favorite smartass dying.
