Bella the shield Chapter 17


She ran fast towards the ramp and jumped on it. There was no way that she would be left behind to deal with the big mess Loki had created a few minutes ago. She hoped that Dr. Schäfer would pull through as he was only a scientist caught up in the middle. Loki was sitting diminutive on a bench. Too diminutive. She suspected that his "capture" was part of some plan. His hands in cuffs, which she knew he would be able to get out of if he used one of his magic tricks.

"Sorry, ma'am you can't be in here." a familiar "young" man dressed in a tight suit in the colors of her country was addressing her.

"Yeah. Watch me icicle." she shot back annoyed staring at him angrily, while walking past him. She was exhausted, tired and just wanted to catch sleep for a few hours. So although she felt sorry for snapping at her uncle's and grandmother's personal hero she had no extra energy to be friendly at the moment. That last energy would go into punching the so called 'God of Mischief' in the face. He more than deserved it.

The captain took a closer look at her and stumbled backwards as Natasha finally took off. But he became even more confused at Stark's explosive laughter.

"Icicle, That's a good one mi piú bella, Bella." he laughed.

"She is a S.H.I.E.L.D agent." Natasha supplied explaining her presence to the captain.

"Shield indeed." the dark haired Asgardian chuckled causing Bella to turn angrily towards him ready to punch his face. She drew her right hand back to hit him hard while snarling, but to her dismay she did not come very far as a strong firm hand caught her wrist.

"That's enough, ma'am." Rogers deep voice came from behind her and she struggled to wiggle out of his grip.

"Let me go!" she hissed dangerously.

"According to the Geneva conventions of 1929, prisoners are not to be tortured or otherwise harmed." he cited, not letting go of her wrist.

"I'm not going to torture him, but he deserves to be punched in the face for what he has done to Dr. Schäfer. He was bleeding heavily, he could have killed him. If he survives, then he will be stuck with only one functioning eye for the rest of his life." Bella shouted angrily at the captain. "Thanks to him" With that she pointed towards Loki.

"He has furthermore endangered the lives of dozens of innocent people, including Selvick and Agent Barton. We had a close call with Cold ones and had he not destroyed them there would have been a massive blood bath and I would now be in the hands of the Volturi. And they would do god knows what with me." She heard Natasha and Tony's sharp intake of breath. They were surprised.

"So, yes. I will punch him and there is nothing you can do to stop me." she ranted with blazing eyes, but unfortunately he did not waver but continued staring at her. That would not do it. She had heard many amazing things about the man before her, but nobody had informed her that he was an actual daydreamer. She quickly spun around, twisted his hand behind him and pushed him towards a startled Tony, who yelped as she dove forwards towards Loki, who actually looked scared for a second and slapped his face hard in anger. His head spun to the other side. That felt good. Bella sighed relieved as she rubbed her hand.

He touched his hit cheek with his cuffed hands and chuckled darkly, tilted his head to the side and remarked taunting Bella by roaming his eyes over her body. "Mh. Such passion."

Her anger was renewed and she wanted to properly punch him this time. Why had she just slapped him? But to her dismay, the captain and Tony had caught themselves again and were now pulling her back from their prisoner and pushed her on one of the seats in the plane opposite of Loki's seat. She tried to stand up again but Tony pointed his gloved index finger at her and ordered smirking like a cat, which had swallowed the canary, while patting her hair like a toddler:

"Sit down and behave properly Fantaghiro."

I swear if you continue treating me like a child, then I will kick your butt. Bella smirked back with tight lips and a dangerous glint in her eyes as she leaned back locking her angles and crossing her arms. She would get back at him for it. After all she hadn't told him about two other ways to hack his A.I. Jarvis. Maybe she could torture him with Justin Bieber, which she knew he had a personal aversion against.

But she was finally with her agency again and dared to relax for a second. But she needed to tell them of her suspicion that Loki's capture was part of some bigger plan. Yet the regular and dull sound of the jet engines quickly lulled her into a soft, much needed sleep. The last thing she became aware was someone putting a blanket over her shoulders and the distant clicking the closing of her seat belt.


He had been caught off guard, when the young woman had unsteadily landed on the ramp. He had not known that there were S.H.I.E.L.D agents, who weren't under Loki's control, already on sight. He couldn't help himself but stare. She looked exactly like a younger and paler version of Peggy. And she seemed to have the same fire in her. She had to be related to Peggy somehow. There were too many facial similarities. Others might not be able to see it, but he had memorized her face and she had to be related to her. Was she the third generation in this agency? As he studied her napping with her head tilted and her lips partly open he couldn't help but think that she looked rather young to be an agent. How young where Fury's recruits? Did she choose to serve her country or was she dragged into it. He wouldn't put it past S.H.I.E.L.D to observe offspring of talented agents as those would be easier to recruit than new ones who had no ties to any military or spy agencies. But she had looked exhausted and he had no idea what Cold ones were, but judging from Romanov's and Stark's expressions they must have been very bad news. As he had seen her shiver in the green, torn and bloodied dress he had put the blanket over her shoulders and Stark had closed her seat belt. She even had still some dried blood on her hands, which suggested that she had tried to save the attacked scientist.

He didn't want the prisoner harmed, but he could understand why she had done it. To be the only agent taken by Loki and resisting being brainwashed was an amazing feat, yet he wondered why the crazy Asgardian hadn't killed her. Wasn't it the most logical thing to do for villains? The entire facility in Nevada hadn't been able to stop Loki and they had managed to take him down in Stuttgart? It almost seemed too easy. Something was fishy.

His gaze wandered towards their prisoner, who seemed almost diminutive, and deep in thought, but for some reason his gaze never strayed far from Bella. Bella, Stark had called her earlier. Loki's green eyes were fixed on the sleeping young woman strapped in opposite him.

"He's saying anything?" he heard Fury's voice faintly over Romanov's com, but she told him that Loki had not really spoken a word since they had captured him, but he was pleased to hear that Bella was with them. The director ordered her to get straight to their location as they were running low on time.

"I don't like it." Steve told Stark conspiratorially.

"What? Rock of ages giving up so easily?" Stark remarked drily.

"I don't remember it being that easy. This guy packs a wall." Steve answered but Stark obviously didn't get the gist.

"Still, you are pretty spry for an older fellow." he remarked and asked. "What's your thing? Pilates?"

Steve became confused. Why did Stark not take this seriously. They could be leading him directly to their base's location. God, they had even failed to search him for any bugs.

"You might have missed a couple of things doing your time as a capsicle." Stark joked.

"Fury, didn't tell me he was calling you in." Steve shot back. Why is Stark even here? So far he only seemed to be a liability. The Iron Man seemed to know Bella. Hope that Peggy didn't fall for Howard's advances. But that was not Peggy. He knew that they had been friends, but Peggy had been far too strong willed to fall for Stark's father.

"Yeah, there are lots of things Fury doesn't tell you." the other man remarked condescendingly.


Suddenly there was a loud thunder and the air craft shook as it was struck by lightning, waking Bella from her slumber. She was shortly disorientated until she spotted the other people in the plane.

"Where is this coming from?" Natasha commented trying to figure out how to evade it. The satellites had not suggested any thunderstorms in their path.

Loki suddenly seemed jumpy and his face wrinkled. He looked scared. Bella could see that his eyes were green at the moment.

"What's the matter? Scared of a little lightening?" Steve taunted, but the wheels in Bella's head were already turning and even confirmed, when Loki answered. "I'm not overly fond of what follows."

Bella hastily unclipped her security belt and jumped up as another lightening struck the plane.

"Get ready, we are getting another visitor." she stated. To the confused looks Rogers and Stark were giving her she elaborated.

"Thor, Norse God of Lightening. Loki's brother." Suddenly the plane jerked again as if something had landed on their roof causing Rogers and Stark jump into action.

Iron man put on his headpiece again, while Rogers put on his helmet.

Stark strode determined towards the exit to lower their ramp to confront their new visitor, while Rogers shouted. "What are you doing?"

Bella quickly scanned the room for any possible weapon she could use for defence, but as protocol stated everything had been put out of Loki's reach. She could not let Thor get her hands on Loki or they would not be able to retrieve the Tessaract in time to save their friends. And Loki's scepter was nowhere to be seen.

As the ramp was lowered she jumped, as a well built man with long blond hair and an iconic hammer, landed on it. His expression was angry and he tossed his hammer towards Tony who flew backwards from the impact. He was going for Loki and Bella jumped in between the two and stopped him shortly in his tracks.

"You can't take him from us. We need him at the moment." she shouted over the loudness of the thunderstorm, but his surprise soon vanished as he grunted and side-stepped faster then she had expected her, pulled Loki's security belt apart, snatched him by his throat and disappeared into the storm. Bella huffed angrily as Stark and Rogers jumped out of the plane, without any plan of attack.

Great! A typical male pissing contest. But they had no time for that. Whatever Selvick was building for Loki was a threat, which they had to stop.

About thirty minutes later Natasha got the confirmation that Thor relented to the Captain's logic and that he would come with them to find the Tessaract with them as it was the only chance to get back to Asgard.

When the landed Bella gasped. The forest, where they landed to pick the four males up looked half burnt, several lines of trees where completely destroyed and deep gaps in the floor. She suspected that Tony and Thor had fought with their toys without actually talking much to each other.

"Next time I suggest using diplomacy first, instead of wrecking our planet." she thundered against Thor who only grinned sheepishly.

"First you come here and thanks to your brother you wreck a whole small town, now you almost destroy our delicate tundra, just because your testosterone splashes over?"

Tony snickered, but Bella would not have any of it.

"The same goes for you Iron Man." she insisted with blazing eyes.

Steve rubbed his nose to hide his grin. Bella even sounded as bossily as Peggy. It reminded him of how she had talked to the men of his Howling Commando. She was not someone he wanted to cross.

Loki was safely tucked in again, yet to his dismay Bella somehow seemed to have taken over the command which caused Thor and Loki sitting next to each other with Stark and Roger on the opposite seats staring testily at each other. Bella turned and climbed at Natasha's copilot seat and sight as that one was cozier then the seat she had set on in the back of the plane. And she spotted Loki's scepter under Natasha's seat, who grinned conspiratorially.

"You're Ok?" she asked and Bella complained. "Peachy. Too much testosterone cramped into one tiny jet." Natasha smiled understandingly.


Sometime later they finally arrived at the "Helicarrier" and Loki was escorted to a prison cell by not less than thirty heavily armored men. Bella was impressed. S.H.I.E.L.D practically had a flying military command fortress, which could simply vanish. But couldn't it also be a danger if the wrong people got hold of that technology?

She was ushered in a bathroom to get clean and orders to join the others in fifteen minutes on the bridge for a briefing. Bella relished the feeling as she breathed in the damp of the warm shower and the strong steam of water running down her body, getting rid of every evidence of her ordeal. When she stepped out of the showers wrapped in a black S.H.I.E.L.D towel with a grey eagle on it she spotted a bundle of new clothes, a suit and shoes, similar to what Natasha or agent Hill were wearing. They fit her perfectly.

When she stepped out of the washing rooms, she saw her uncle leaning against the wall, with his arms crossed, clearly waiting for her to emerge.

When he saw her he took two steps and wrapped her in a tight hug and kissed her on her front.

"Never scare me like that again." he murmured not letting go of her as she hugged him back, but she was scared again to ask. What if the question would make things awkward between them.

"Can't promise you that. We're at S.H.I.E.L.D." she reminded him and heard him chuckle knowingly.

When he let go of her she hesitated, but decided to jump head first into the cold water.

"Can I ask you something?" she whispered carefully. Please don't be angry.

"Sure" he answered neutrally.

"Barton has insinuated something, which has bugged me already for some time." she started, took a deep breath and whispered.

"Could it be that you are my biological father and not Charlie?" He sucked in air and seemed shocked.

Looking left, then to the right he grabbed her hand and pulled her into a storage room, pulled out a pen and clicked it, while a green light started to blink.

"We have three point two minutes before, S.H.I.E.L.D. figures out that I'm jamming their recordings." he explained.

It was his time to take a deep breath.

"Yes, Bella. You are mine, but due to my job here and your mother's previous job I couldn't dare to claim you as my daughter. But god knows I wanted to. So when Renée suggested making me your "Godfather" that I could be in your life somehow, I was overjoyed."

Tears gathered in her eyes. She wanted to be angry at him for deceiving her, but she could also understand his reasoning. He was Fury's right hand man beside Maria Hill. She could have been used against him, had anyone known about her. But looking back at it she must have unconsciously known as she had called her official father "Charlie" and only occasionally "dad".

"Who else knows about this?" she asked with shaking voice.

"Within S.H.I.E.L.D. only Fury and Sharon so far, outside only your grandmother and your aunt." he answered.

"I think you forgot the old crusty headmaster, of my high school exams." she tried to elevate the situation.

"Mr. Charlston is a former SSA agent and old friend of your grandmother. He would take this secret to his grave." her now confirmed father answered.

So, in a way I know have two fathers. One biological one and one, who died, but both loved me.

She hugged him again. "Bella, please understand. Nobody can know that you are my daughter. Even your cousin works for S.H.I.E.L.D. under an alias." he whispered.

Sharon is an agent too? At her inquisitive stare he elaborated.

"Peggy Carter has made many powerful enemies during her time as an agent and founder of this agency and we, as her offspring, we would be targeted by those in order to get back at her." he explained.

"The longer you work for this agency, the more you'll realize how big her legacy actually is."

His pen bleeped two times and went off indicating that the jamming was over. "We need to head to the briefing."

She followed him out of the storage room and towards the bridge, but they just happened to run into Tony stark who had now changed into one of his expensive suits.

"So, beasty Bella. You need to tell me everything about the Leech incident you mentioned earlier." he swaggered.

"No, the Cold Ones are not my current priority." she answered him mirroring Coulson, who she suspected had already been informed of what she had ranted earlier in the jet or had even heard the recording. This would certainly explain why he was so calmly walking next to her.

He huffed annoyed and addressed Coulson: "So, Portland. Pepper mentioned that you liked Portland at this time of the year."

As they walked past more guards and rounded the corner she could hear a hesitant voice ask:"Iridium, what do they need the Iridium for?" and Stark quickly answered. "It's a stabilizing agent."

Turning shortly back to Coulson he suggested. "You could take a weekend off I'll fly you to Portland." but the elder agent, clearly being uncomfortable with the suggestion murmured: "That's a lovely suggestion. Need to stay over there." he pointed to somewhere behind the table. Bella raised her eyebrow. He wanted to hide something or was just very uncomfortable.

"It means the Portal won't collapse on itself as it did at S.H.I.E.L.D." he explained and patted Thor's strong arms confusing the Asgardian. "No hard feelings point break, but you got a mean swing."

"It also means that Loki can open the portal as wide and as long as he wants." Bella deduced and all eyes were now on her.

Tony nodded and decided to play the clown again as he made a handful of strange comments which had the well trained technicians halt their actions in confusion, but Bella suspected that he was planning something else. He was way too docile as it were and he could have a different agenda. Or she was already as paranoid as some of the other agents in the agency.

"How does Fury even see these?" he asked agent Hill, who calmly answered with a hint of annoyance: "He turns."

Tony commented that it sounded exhausting and kept closing files on Fury's screen, but Bella followed his movements diligently. Something was up.

"The rest of the raw materials … agent Barton can get his hands on fairly quickly. The only major component he still needs is a power source of high energy density. His hand suddenly lingered at the base of a sceen while he had only touched the previous screens before. Bella made a mental to check for a bug later. Hitting his hands together he said. "Something to kickstart the cube."

But it seemed that Bella was not the only one suspecting Stark as Agent Hill focused her gaze on the millionaire and asked."When did you become an expert in thermal-nuclear-astrophysics?"

But Tony only responded with: "Last night." He really is a genious.

"The package? Selvick notes? The extraction theory papers?" he asked surprised. Am I the only one who did the reading?" Bella nodded as she tried to recall what she could remember. She had seen parts of his notes, but never the complete theory papers.

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" the captain asked curiously and was rewarded by an extremely uncomfortable man with graying hair, who was nervously fuddling with his glasses.

"He'd have to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin, just to break through the Column Barrier."

Stark happily finished his colleague's musing. "Unless Selvick has found a way to stabilize the quantum-tunnel effect."

Bella wanted to answer that if that were possible then he would be able to achieve that then he would be able to use any reactor on the planet, but she held back as she did not know for certain that this would be the correct answer, but fortunately for her the other scientist told Stark exactly that:

"Selvick could create heavy ion fusion in any reactor on the planet."

Tony seemed glad and commented: "Finally, someone who speaks English."

He shook his hand and with it handed him a backhanded compliment:"It's good to meet you Dr. Banner. Your work at anti-proton collisions is unparallel and I really like the way you lose control and turn into an angry green rage monster."

Dr. Banner! The Hulk! We have the Hulk on board. Bella grinned happily. The amount of fantastic scientists at S.H.I.E.L.D. took her breath away. Maybe he and Tony could cook something up together against the vampires once they had dealt with the Loki situation. That would be quite awesome. She locked eyes with Coulson, who now had a S.H.I.E.L.D. clipboard in his hands while following the conversation with interest.

Although Dr. Banner clearly seemed even more uncomfortable at Tony's direct way of addressing his little anger management issue.

"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube." Fury informed them returning from the lower levels where the specifically designed cell for Loki was located. "I was hoping that you'd join him." he told Stark, who nodded.

Steve Rogers suggested: "Let's start with his stick of his. It may be magical, but it looks an awful like a Hydra weapon."

"I don't know anything like that, but it is powered by the cube." Fury answered and Bella thought that this actually might be a good idea to warn them about their suspicion.

"Yes, it seems as if it is powered by the cube." she piped in again ",which suggests that it's specific radiation is almost identical with that of the cube, but it is also a liability to this helicarrier." she explained.

Fury raised his eyebrow and Bella elaborated.

"While we can use it to search for the cube, Loki's minions, led by none other than our agent Barton, will be able to track the spear. Loki's capture was way too easy and if he had wanted to he would have been able to get out of his cuffs. It seems that he wanted to get captured and he is mostly biding his time until we are under attack, giving him the opportunity to cripple us. S.H.I.E.L.D. is the only thing standing between him and his goal and by taking out our resources he can achieve that.

Fury nodded approvingly. "Thank you for the warning Agent Swan. But at the moment we need that spear to find the cube. And I want to find out how he was able to turn some of my best agents into his personal flying monkeys."

Thor asked confused:"Monkey's" clearly taking Fury's comment literally, while Rogers proudly stated that he finally recognized a modern day reference. Tony just rolled his eyes while Bella wanted to bash her had against her table. They had no time for things like that.

But Bella needed to get more of her chest:"With all due respect Sir, I believe Loki is just as much a flying monkey, then those agents are." As her father stepped closer, looking clearly worried, she quickly stated: "And no, I don't suffer from Stockholm syndrome."

"What makes you believe that?" Fury enquired fixing her with his iconic angry stare.

She addressed the blonde Asgardian:"Tell me Thor, you grew up beside your brother, right?"

A smile ghosted over his face as he clearly remembered better days with his brother. "Aye, we did."

"Do you recall your brother's eye colour?" she enquired with accelerating heartbeat. Maybe my theory is correct.

"Of course, they are green." he answered directly. "It was always a controversial topic at court as none in my family had those."

Bella nodded thanks to him, walked over to the screentable and opened Loki's feed from his short interaction with Fury.

"Then why do his eyes have the same eye colour as the Tessaract and the scepter?" she asked them as a blue eyed Loki was staring back at them.


Still not quite happy with this chapter, so some changes might still happen.