Author's Note: Hey, I am posting more than once within a few days! Yay! Okay, so you know how in the last chapter, I told you that I tried fixing the scene change in the last few chapters? Yeah, well, that didn't work. Turns out (surprise!) I suck when it comes to technology!
Tony: I don't!
Chapter 26: Memories
You mentally steel yourself before you knock on the door. You like Nick Fury, but he kinda scares you a bit. He is really tall and his deep voice is intimidating. Most of all, you have no idea why he called you here. After all, you barely had time to rest. Your body still sags under the weight of the battle. The long slice in your side from Loki's scepter aches, and you have a slight limp. You feel bruised all over, and you really only want to sit in a vat of ice until you numb the pain away. But, work comes before relaxation. Not only that, but you still have to help with the clean-up.
You knock on the door, and you hear Fury's voice from the other side, "Come in."
His voice is not like Thor's. Thor is reassuring, Fury is only interested in getting the job done.
You open the door and peek inside before entering.
Fury is sitting at his desk, looking at a file before closing it, his eye looking up to meet yours. "Come on in, Miss Y/N," he says, standing. "Go ahead and close the door, please."
You do as he says and then shuffled over to the seat in front of his desk and sink into it. You are tense and sit straight as a board, as though you are at a principals office.
"I am sorry to call you here on such short notice," Fury says. "I know it has only been a few hours since…well, New York."
"With all due respect, Mr. Fury, can we hurry up? I want to work Search and Rescue with Steve-I mean Captain America," you say.
"No need to be formal. I can tell you two are close from my surveillance," he says.
"Oh," you say on the outside. Creepy, you say on the inside.
"Anyway, I was going to say that this is of upmost important," he says, sitting back down at his desk and folding his hands. "What do you know about the stone in Loki's scepter?"
You flinch at the name and pain shoots up your side from the slice. For a moment, you are lost in your thoughts, thinking about Germany. The cold, claustrophobic feeling fills your for a moment as your eyes stare at nothing.
"Miss Y/N," Fury interrupts, bringing you back to reality.
Taking a shaky breath, you answer, "Sorry. Um, I know that it is a powerful stone, probably almost an equal to the Tesseract," you say. Again, you get a shiver when you say the stone's name, but this time, you don't know why. "And, I know that it can mind-control people," you say softly.
"Yes," Fury says. "Well, what I have to show you is going to be difficult, but I have to show you. I know that you were having troubles with your ice powers when you first got here."
You nod, your mind flashing back to those moments on the ship. Anything would set of your powers. It was only when the Hulk started to attack the ship that you started to get a rein on your powers. One of the ice-fire extinguishers went off, ice almost spraying a passing soldier. Instinctively, you reached out your hand to stop it and pull it into you. You felt your ice reverse from flowing out to flowing in. Once you felt how to do it, you were instantly in control. Well, almost. You can feel your frost covering your seat.
"Why would what you have to show me have to do with my powers?" you ask.
"I had Bruce and Tony take an energy analysis of the scepter when we had it. However, it was when I saw videos of you fighting in New York that I remembered your biological and chemical analysis. Each Avenger has different energy levels. Steve's is one of the highest because of his enhanced abilities. However, your energy charts were through the roof," he says.
"What do you mean?" you ask.
"In simple terms, your energy signature is higher than any of the other Avengers. That doesn't mean that you are stronger than them, but it means that you have more capacity for handling energy," he says.
"So, what does this have to do with the stone?" you ask, still feeling confused.
Fury sighs before flipping the folder around and sliding it towards you and nodding at you.
Wearily, you open the folder. On one side of the folder is a picture of the scepter with energy, radiation, weight, power and other sort of readings. The picture on the other side of the folder is of you. Both readings are the exact same.
You feel your breath completely leave you. Everything in the folder is a complete match. "So what, you are saying that I am as powerful as some mind-controlling super marble?" you ask.
Nick shrugs. "Essentially, yes. And no," he says. "Your relationship with the stone is…different."
"That answers my question how?" you ask, all intimidation gone.
"I believe that your connection to the stone has to do with when you were mind controlled," he says.
"What? How am I different from Barton and all of the other agents? We all went through the same thing," you say.
"Not quite," Fury interrupts. "None of the other agents actually subdued the energy inside of them. You did. It is inside of you, and no amount of head-banging will get it out. It is part of you now, part of you in a different way that it was part of Barton."
"So what, am I the stone?" you ask.
Fury sighs. "Yes."
You then reach deep inside of you. Deeper than your ice, fire, or other powers. Then, you feel it. A spark of blue, coursing, beautiful, dangerous light. Pulling on it, you open your eyes to see blue energy weaving around your fingers.
"Amazing," Fury says. "To have that much control over it already."
You shake your head, but you can't deny that it is fascinating. Then, you stop. "I feel other power. Different than the stone…"
"What?" Fury asks.
"Give me your shoe," Darcy says, pointing at your boot.
"What? No!" you say defensively. "Ask Intern for his instead! Isn't that his job?"
"My name is Ian," Intern grumbles sadly.
"We know, Intern, now give us your shoe!" Darcy states.
You can't help but giggle at them. You are actually really enjoying your time with the astrophysicists and Intern. You were hoping to learn something about the stone and your powers, since it came from space. Not only that, but SHIELD suggested that you spend a while with them. Almost every other Avenger had some sort of knowledge on astrophysics, and, since it was such a big problem with New York, SHIELD thought it best for you to study with them. Also, it would be good to lay low for a while.
You crumple a piece of paper and toss it over the edge. It falls before rippling into nothingness. You can't help but wonder how it did that. You would probably be able to find out with Jane's help. You studies have come a long way. Except for the mathematics. You really, really hate math.
You suddenly feel a soft breeze that seems to blow through your coat and right into you. It is cold enough that it shocks you. It takes you a moment to realize that you aren't breathing. When you exhale, you breath comes out in mist much like when you use your ice. You look at your hands, which are starting to frost over. Right before you stuff them into your pockets to hide them, you see a flicker of red jolt through your fingers. The wind seems to keep blowing right into you.
"Darcy, do you feel that?" you ask.
"Hmm? Feel what?" Darcy asks. She then looks at you in concern. "Hey, do you have allergies?"
"Allergies, why?" you ask.
"Because your eyes are kinda red," she says.
You quickly rub your eyes, hiding your face from the others. You then see a small trail of red weave up the back of your hand, and your blood freezes. The red light was inside of your body!
You quickly run over to one of the windows, trying to see your reflection. Fear prickles inside of you as you only see the reflection of two, red glowing eyes.
Then, you feel the red flare inside of you as you pass out.
You suddenly come to as it feels as though a bucket of cold water was splashed over you. Gasping, you jerk awake to see that you are in the back of an ambulance.
"Stay still, miss," a nurse says, flashing a light in your eyes.
You try to push her away. "I'm fine," you say.
Ignoring her protests, you get off of the bed and walk out the open door of the ambulance to see Darcy arguing with police. You look around in surprise at all of the police cars. You can't help but put your head down and shrink past them. You feel your ice start to spring to life inside of you, but you quickly quiet it. Does England know about the Avengers? You wouldn't be arrested because of your powers, would you? Probably. Dang…
Then, to make matters even better, it starts to rain. "Great," you say, shrugging your hood over your head, not even realizing that none of the rain-drops hits your head.
"Jane!" Darcy shouts.
You look over to where Jane is rushing out of the building, a shocked and angry look on her face. She storms over to Darcy.
"Where have you been-" Darcy starts, but Jane cuts her off.
By the tone in her voice, you can tell that an argument is brewing, and it cannot be good. Your walking hastens to a jog as you run over to the arguing women.
"Jane!" Darcy finally shouts, causing Jane to stop and raise an eyebrow. Darcy never shouts. "You were gone for five hours," she says.
Jane stumbles a step back, blinking in confusion. "What?" she asks softly.
"What?" you ask loudly.
Darcy whirls around and gives a squeak. "Finally! Wait, what are you doing here? You were out for five hours!" she says, finally putting her hands over her face. "What is going on here?!" she freaks. "Why am I the one who has to deal with everything!"
Jane shakes her head, but then immediately stops as she looks to the side. Her eyes widen as she starts to walk towards whatever she sees.
Your gaze follows her, and you feel your breath being sucked away too. Thor is standing there, his cape waving majestically in the wind in a very Thor-like fashion.
Darcy yelps and covers herself with her coat. "When did it start raining? This day sucks," she says.
You look around and notice that there is a fine circle of dry around you. You watch where Jane is walking to see that it is completely dry too. "Oh no," you breathe under your breath, following Jane, and leaving Darcy to the mercy of the rain.
You suddenly pause in your tracks as you see Jane walking towards Thor. They might need a few moments before you point out the problems with the rain. You do hope that they get to catch up nicely.
Slap!
Ouch! Well, that didn't work.
Darcy jogs up into your circle of dry-ness, shaking out her wet hair. "Don't interrupt now," she warns. "Could make it awkward."
You roll your eyes. "They get five minutes, but then, I'm going to have no choice."
"You know, I think those police are eyeing us weird," she says, giving them a side-glance. "I'm gonna go see what their problem is. Have fun with the lovebirds."
"M'kay," you say. "Oh, and try to be tactful with the police?"
"Hey, it's me!" she says, pulling up her hood as the rain hits her.
You smile at her , but you kick the ground with your toe. The rain is really disconcerting to you. You even purposefully try to touch the rain, but you feel something inside of you shift when you walk. Closing your eyes, you reach deep inside of you. You feel the blue light pulsing inside of you, and you cringe. You haven't actually trained with it since New York. You might have used it a little, but you never train with it. You can tell that it is connected to your ice, in fact, you know it, but you can't bring yourself to use the energy directly.
Right next to the flashing blue is a seething red. Your eyes flash open. It's one of the lights that you felt in Fury's office all of those months ago.
You are so stunned that you don't even realize that Darcy has run past you and the rain has stopped. Shaking your head to clear it, you see that Darcy says something to Jane before Jane strides back over to the police.
"Jane, what's going on?" you ask, glancing at Thor.
"I don't know," she says quickly.
You give an extremely awkward wave to Thor, who returns it just as awkwardly. You are looking forward to seeing him again, but this must mean that something bad has happened. With New York came good things too, one of which Thor's friendship.
You look over just in time to see a police-man grab Jane's arm. Suddenly, red energy explodes out from her, literally dissolving the cars and concrete around them.
You gasp as you fall to your knees, the same red energy blasting out from you. Flexing your hands, you quickly gain control, but your eyes widen in horror as you see red strains of energy flowing through your body.
"Thor!" you shout, looking up to where he is kneeling next to Jane.
Thor's eyes sweep over you in concern. "Come here," he orders, holding out a hand.
Jane rubs her eyes, groggily asking, "What happened."
You grab Thor's hand as he looks to the sky. "Wait, what's happening?" you ask, panic flooding you.
"We are going to Asgard," he says, right before blinding light flashes you, Jane, and Thor away.
