Chapter 10:
Dani POV-
I was shown to my room, which wasn't really a room, just kind of a cot, but it was fine. Unfortunately, it was lonely, which made me miss Tony, and Pepper, and Ghost, and Issa, and Scarlett, and Zeke, and Danny and Sam, and Tucker, so much more.
They had assured me that I would see Tony tomorrow, so I was holding onto that hope.
After I got dressed for the night in SHIELD pajamas (because apparently we couldn't have stopped by the hotel so that I could get my own clothes and pajamas) I called Pepper who, I have no doubt, was worried sick about me by this point.
"Hello? Dani?" She answered the phone on the first ring.
"Yeah, I'm here," I told her.
"Oh, thank God! You know you could have called me sooner!" she exclaimed.
"Yeah, sorry about that," I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly.
"Have they been nice to you? Is Tony there?" she asked me.
"Yes and no. They've been nice, but Tony isn't here. They've assured me that he will be here tomorrow though," I told her.
"Oh, okay," she said, sounding a little confused.
"I was calling to say goodnight," I told her.
"Okay, goodnight Dani, love you," she told me.
"Love you too," I replied, hanging up. I turned out the little light on the side of my bed and the room became very dark. But, surprisingly enough, the rumbling of the engines was very easy to fall asleep to, and I fell asleep quickly.
The next morning, I woke up and got dressed, also in standard SHIELD attire. It was black and tightfitting, similar to what Natasha had worn when she was undercover at Stark Industries, and helped us take down Ivan Vanko and Justin Hammer.
Of course, on a Helicarrier like this, everyone is up early, so there were people scrambling everywhere by the time I woke up, making it very hard to talk to anyone. Of course, it made it slightly easier to spy on everyone.
I transformed in one of the bathrooms and decided to peek into some of the rooms on the ship.
After floating through many empty, boring, rooms, I came to a circular one, with a cylinder of thick glass in the center.
And there was a man in it.
And Fury was talking to that man.
"How desperate are you? You call on these lost creatures to defend you," the man, who I'm assuming must be Loki, said. I'm not entirely sure who he was directing that 'lost creatures' jab at, for all I knew it could have been the entire Avengers initiative, but it sure felt a hell of a lot like it was directed at me.
"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace and you kill cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did," Fury replied.
Loki seemed unfazed, in fact, he almost seemed too calm. Instead of having his plans foiled, Loki seemed like he was exactly where he wanted to be; front and center, ready to watch the show.
"Ooh. It burns you to come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is," Loki taunted easily from his position behind the glass.
"Yeah, well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something," Fury remarked before stalking off. I was about to fly out too but Loki looked in my direction. And when I say 'looked in my direction' I mean he looked at me, like he literally made direct eye-contact me with despite the fact that I was floating there invisibly.
When a creepy, knowing smile spread across his face, a chill went down my back, and I decided I needed to get out of there.
I left, but his eyes followed me the entire time.
I was still shaking off the eerie feeling the encounter had given me, when I entered a lab containing Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner and Tony.
Hmm…funny that no one had told me that they had arrived.
"So why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?" Dr. Banner asked.
"I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files," Tony replied. I nearly laughed. It didn't surprise me at all that Tony had hacked the system, I had nearly done the same thing, but I had left my program in my hotel room.
"I'm sorry, did you say...?" Mr. Rogers, on the other hand, sounded extremely surprised that Tony had hacked the system.
"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide," Tony told him, popping a few blueberries in his mouth.
"Blueberry?" he offered the bag to Steve.
"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around?" Steve scoffed in response.
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically not possible," Tony said. He had a point of course. Why should SHIELD be able to tap into everyone else's lives and we are not able to hack them back.
"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them," Steve said. From what I had seen in the glass-cage room, I would say that that's pretty accurate; Loki is trying to get under everyone's skin, and from what I could tell of Fury and just going by what is happening in this room, I would say he's already done a pretty good job at it.
"Following is not really my style," Tony said.
True.
"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Steve countered. I could see that my dad was getting ready to shoot back a response, but I figured now would be a good time to make my presence known, and hopefully remove some of the tension from the conversation.
"I wouldn't say he's all about style," I remarked, leaning casually in the corner, in human form.
"Dani?" Tony asked, "What the hell are you doing here? And what are you wearing?"
"Wait a minute," Steve said, "Who are you?"
"Oh, my bad," I smiled innocently, "I'm Danielle, Tony's daughter."
"You have a daughter?" he looked at Tony incredulously.
"Well," I corrected myself, "adopted daughter." He seemed to believe that even less.
"Danielle, what are you doing here?" Tony asked me again.
"Why don't you ask Director Fury. He's the one who decided that I should join the Avengers initiative," I smirked.
"No. Nope, you're going home, now. Does Pepper even know you're here? Because you know she's freaking out right now. No, you need to go home," Tony said finally.
Hmm…I had kind of been banking on him letting me stay.
"Of course Pepper knows, do you think I want to give her a panic attack. She said I could come, albeit reluctantly, but, at any rate, she knows I'm here," I told him.
"So there is someone you care about, Stark," Steve pointed out, then he turned to me, "Why would Fury have even requested that you be on the team, I mean, no offense, but you're just a child."
"I'm sixteen," I growled, "and I can assure you, I have as much right to be on this team as you do."
"Why? Because your daddy bought it for you?" he asked a little pointedly.
I felt my eyes turn green.
And Tony noticed.
"Okaaayy," he stepped in putting his hands on my shoulders, effectively calming me down, "You can stay if you calm down," he whispered to me, my eyes turned back to blue.
"Fine," I said seating myself in a chair.
Steve looked between Tony and me then he turned to Dr. Banner, "Just find the cube," he said before storming out.
Dr. Banner looked between the two of us and merely shook his head before turning his attention back to the screen.