Bold is me
Italics are Taylor
Underlined is Tyler
Regular text is the story
By the way, I don't write these chapters on a Word processor. I write them right on the doc manager. That way, if I'm in the middle of one, I can update from my mom's house or my dad's. :)
Natasha was in surgery when Coulson arrived. Apparently some of the glass shards had become embedded under her skin, and they had needed to operate to get them out. Coulson was pretty sure the spy had now broken the previous record for 'amount of stitches recieved for a workplace accident'. He wasn't sure whether getting thrown through a window counted as an accident or not, but he was willing to bet it did.
The door was opened and the doctor peeked out, beckoning to Coulson to come in. "You can only see her for a little while," the doctor murmured. "She's recovering."
Coulson didn't ask what she was recovering from- it could be any number of things. He felt bad going in there to give her an assignment so soon after she had gotten hurt, but that was his job. He entered, bracing himself, and immediately winced.
Natasha smiled weakly. "I know. It's bad," she murmured.
Coulson agreed with her. Every large slice she had recieved from the broken glass had been sealed up by stitches, and the spiky black thread stuck up from her skin. Her left arm was in a bright pink cast, too. Presumably she had not been allowed to select the color. Coulson guessed she had used it to break her fall.
"I didn't know you had a broken arm!" he exclaimed.
"Hey, that doesn't leave this room. I don't want people knowing the famous Black Widow has a pink cast. It'll make me look weak."
Phil smirked. "Even worse, they might start thinking you're a girl. God forbid."
That earned him a look. "I'm the best seductress this organization has, Phil. I think being a girl is a requirement. As a matter of fact, it's been a while since I got sent out to do my thing."
"Well, then you're in luck. Familiar with the name Tony Stark?"
"Sure. What did he do? Last I heard he was on our side."
"The kids that attacked us are taking refuge at his house. We need you to camoflague yourself as a worker in a position close to Stark, and then take the kids back here for research reasons," Phil explained.
Natasha slumped against her pillow. "So there's more then one kid."
"What?"
"You said kids. More than one."
Phil nodded. "There's two, a boy and a girl. They claim to be brother and sister. They go by the names Taylor and Tyler."
"What sort of research do you want to do?"
Phil was surprised. Nat didn't usually ask this many questions. Normally, she just took her mission at face value and did it. He hoped the spy wasn't turning soft. "These children have abilities we've never seen before. If it's something that's going to happen again, we need to be prepared for it, for the good of SHIELD and our nation." Even as the words left his lips he regretted them. They sounded so false as he played them back in his mind.
Natasha sighed. "And you're going to achieve this by hurting children," she murmured. Phil Coulson waited. She needed to decide whether she would take the assignment or not. He realized about ten seconds into the lull that she had never, to his knowledge, done a job that required her to harm a child. He would have to check that out and ask Fury if this was such a good idea. He also wondered if she and her partner had really concocted this idea, seeing how hesitant she was to take the job.
"I'll do it," she said, and his heart leaped. "So long as I don't have to actually hurt the kids."
Phil gave a businesslike nod, but inside he was torn. Why had she taken so long to decide, and was it a reason that could potentially affect her performance? Probably. He knew the former Russian spy had more demons than anyone else he knew- they were apparent in everything she did. One time an agent had jokingly called her a 'Soviet spy', and warned everyone to be careful around her, or she might nuke them.
Coulson wondered if that poor fool was out of the hospital yet. He briefly considered the idea of dropping in and suggesting a premature retirement while he was nearby, but dismissed the idea. It was a choice the man had probably already made on his own. He glanced back at Natasha, who had closed her eyes and was relaxing on her pillow. Coulson realized the pressure of the conversation must have taken a lot out of her and backed out of the door, trying not to make any noise.
Einstein started barking, alerting Doc Brown to the presence of a bus, swerving at an alarming rate down a road with its lights off. Doc gasped.
"They found me. I don't know how, but they found me. Run for it, Marty!"
Marty just stood there and looked confused. "Who is it?"
"The Libyans!"
"You know what I don't understand?" Taylor mused. "Why Doc Brown thought it was a good idea to steal plutonium from armed terrorists. That is the most dumbass thing I have heard of."
Tyler paused the movie. "You know, there's a fan theory that he had a death wish."
"Why?"
"Well," he began, rewinding the movie that Tony had pointed them to, "See how he stands in front of the DeLorean here, and holds Marty's wrist so he can't run away? That there, dear sis, is a man who wants to die."
"Wow, he was lucky! If it had reached eighty-eight miles an hour any later, he still would've been a pancake and never would've known it worked. But why did he want Marty to die with him?"
"Probably because of the video camera, you know, having a record on tape in case the time machine actually did work. Or, that was why Doc wanted Marty there, at least. You see..."
Tony tuned out the conversation and looked at Pepper. "Okay, so they know a good movie when they see one. I still don't understand why this was important enough to warrant you dragging me out of my lab."
"To show you that these are just kids who are smart and feel totally at home around here. They're your kids, Tony! I mean, that one talks just like you," Pepper said, pointing at Tyler.
Tony shook his head slowly. "I'm still not convinced, Pepper. I mean, you want me to believe, completely out of left field, that my kids came back in time?" He glanced at the movie they were watching and smirked. Oh, the irony. "Why are they watching that anyways, if they have firsthand experience time traveling?"
"I think Taylor had a question about time travel, Tyler tried to explain it using the movie and then discovered she had never seen it. Anyways," she paused to check her watch, "You should get some sleep, Tony. Big day tomorrow."
Tony tried to remember. "What's tomorrow?"
"That weapons demonstration. In Afghanistan."
Yay new chapter! Please review, as always, and I will give you an internet cookie. (::)
Can I have a cookie?
No. You don't read the story. You're in it.
Well, that doesn't mean I like it! A cookie might change my mind, though.
I've given up trying to make sense of these weird conversations. You know, Taylor, if you want a cookie you could just bake some yourself.
Too lazy.
