Chapter Eleven: Roll With the Punches
"Girls just wanna have fun." -Cyndi Lauper
November 3, 2012 - Avengers Tower Training Arena - Manhattan, NY
As Natasha slammed Audrey like a ragdoll onto the sparring mat, Audrey decided that now was as good a time as any to ask the question she'd been wondering about for several years.
"So what exactly did happen in Budapest?"
Natasha laughed, sounding genuinely amused. Clint, who was taking a water break after six grueling rounds of hand-to-hand with Natasha, groaned. He lifted the cord and stepped into the ring, a towel over his shoulder and a bottle in his hand.
Neither of their reactions provided any sort of clarity as to what happened in Budapest. The file was so highly redacted that even Audrey couldn't see it. She was pretty sure it was just Natasha and Clint, Director Fury, and a few top members of HR.
As Audrery pulled herself up off the ground, Clint swatted Natasha with his towel and she wrinkled her nose.
"I'll tell you what happened in Budapest," Clint announced.
Natasha grabbed the towel from him. "No, Clinton, I think I better take this one."
Audrey raised an eyebrow. Why was it such a big deal who told the story? They'd both been there, and they'd been partners.
"Ha!" Clint exclaimed, looking incredulous and slightly deranged. He looked at Audrey and pointed at Natasha. "She wants to tell it! No way, baby. You tell it wrong."
In the back of her mind, Audrey wondered if Audrey and Clint would argue for long enough that she could get out of today's training session.
"You tell it wrong," Natasha argued. "Your version is nowhere near the truth."
"Tell you what," Clint offered, capping his water bottle. "Let's go another round. Winner tells the kid what happened in Budapest."
"I'm older than you both," Audrey interjected.
They ignored her. "Fine," Natasha said, smiling tightly as she shook Clint's hand. "Clear the ring, Carter."
Audrey was happy to oblige. She stepped out of the ring and went to grab her own water bottle. It had been just past four that morning when Natasha woke her up to announce that training had been pushed up to accommodate for the fact that Helen's welcome party was scheduled for that afternoon. So, bad news in two arenas—she'd been awake and working for almost six hours now, and also, Helen, who probably thought she was crazy after Halloween, was no longer avoidable.
Thinking back on it, Audrey had no idea what she'd been so freaked out by when she met Helen. Well. She knew she'd been jealous, but that made no sense, and she had no idea why she'd acted like it had. Helen was very nice, and she and Jane had been thick as thieves ever since the party; Jane had given her a tour yesterday that spiralled into a 7 hour brainstorming session, according to the update Darcy had texted her.
Whatever the case, Audrey had set aside whatever feelings she didn't have for Bruce, and realized that she wanted Helen to like her, and it was dumb for her to let the feelings she didn't have for Bruce get in the way of that.
The memory of Halloween made her cringe. Not only was it embarrassing to have acted the way she did, but the motivation behind it was even more mortifying.
Audrey heard Natasha and Clint clap hands behind her as she uncapped her water bottle, and by the time she'd turned around. Clint had Natasha in a headlock.
"I thought I taught you not to leave that spot open," Clint said. "Ready to give up?"
"Not even close," Natasha replied.
Through some act of immense upper body strength or pure magic or maybe both, Natasha lifted her legs and flipped herself upside down, until her legs were around Clint's neck. He released her head and she took advantage of the opening to spin herself around and shove him, facefirst, onto the mat.
Hopping back up, she retorted, "Are you ready to give up?"
"Nope," Clint grunted. He also stood back up, only for Natasha to grab him by the shoulders and kick out the backs of his knees. He returned the favor by sweeping her legs out from under her. Once they had both hit the ground, they began to wrestle each other, rolling back and forth.
"You know what," Natasha said, through gritted teeth, as Clint put his forearm over her neck, "Maybe you should tell the story. All of this is bringing me back to Budapest."
"Really?" Clint asked, looking genuinely confused.
"Nope." She kicked her legs up into his stomach and Clint bowled over.
They boxed back and forth, neither landing very many punches. The downside to having been trained by the same person was that almost every move was predictable, even if they had their own strengths and weaknesses in combat. The match dragged on for another few minutes before Clint finally socked Natasha and she stumbled back, landing in the corner of the ring.
"You done yet?"
Instead of a response, Natasha grabbed onto Clint's shoulder and flipped up off the ground until she was basically doing a handstand on top of him. As she landed, she pressed down onto Clint's shoulder, taking him down onto the ground.
As Audrey watched her finally take him down, she knew exactly what Clint felt like as his knees buckled. Natasha seemed to have the ability to weigh as much or as little as she wanted at any given moment—one second, she could be airborne, light as a feather, and the next, she'd push down with all the pressure of a ton of bricks.
"Fine," Clint grunted, when he hit the ground. "You tell her what happened in Budapest."
"Happily." Natasha offered her hand, and he scoffed, but accepted nonetheless. "The year was 2008," she began, as though she was a sailor recounting her journey at sea. "Strike Team Delta had been sent to assassinate Karina Adami, after evidence arose of her plan to assassinate an ambassador."
"You're leaving out the part where Coulson was sick," Clint reminded her.
"I'm getting to that. Coulson was sick, and so someone else had to act as our handler. Someone we'd never worked with before. Anyway, things started to go wrong basically as soon as we hit the ground. The contact hosting us had disappeared and the address didn't exist, our weapons were lost, whatever. Fast forward a few nights, and Clint, here, decides that he wants to stay in a hotel, but the way he plans on achieving this is by finding some nice Hungarian girl to take him home for the night."
Clint rolled his eyes at Natasha's dramatics. Even Audrey had to admit—Natasha was being much more emotive than usual. It was rare for her to share pieces of her past.
"So we go to a casino, only, Clint doesn't have nearly as much game as he thinks he does, so the woman he picks is actually Karina's half-sister and partner-in-crime, who catches onto the fact that he's not just a tourist pretty quickly, and he's ambushed almost as soon as they leave the bar."
"And where were you during all this, Natasha?"
"Winning at poker," she retorted, smirking. "The plan was to carry out the mission the next evening, when she had plans to host a dinner party celebrating the assassination and we'd have the most clear shot."
"Wait. After the assassination?" Audrey asked.
Natasha shrugged. "S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't such a big fan of the ambassador either. We just couldn't let someone dangerous get away with that sort of thing."
The disaffectedness with which she told the story gave Audrey pause, but before she could chime in or think too hard about it, Natasha had moved on.
"We were killing time and gathering intel. I was hustling one of the guys who'd had an invite. Until I got a distress signal from Clint. Pretty bad sign."
"Alright, alright, I'm interrupting," Clint announced. "We were tied for how many distress signals each of us had sent out that year. Two-two. Tasha only likes to parade this one around because she beat me, and then she won that year."
Natasha rolled her eyes. "I saved Clint's life, we snuck out. We got stopped at the border and had to go undercover as the two tourists whose passports we stole. A couple."
"Okay…" Audrey said, not sure if this was the big part of the story that had made it such a legend around S.H.I.E.L.D. Going undercover as a couple wasn't usually the default, but it wasn't rare enough to be noteworthy when it happened.
"When we got back, Fury didn't believe that some of the—measures taken—to preserve our covers were strictly mission related. We had to fill out an HR form establishing a relationship between us."
That was more abnormal. Fury was rarely wrong about those sorts of things, and for Clint and Natasha to have been permitted to keep working together despite suspicions on his part was an anomaly.
"Was it?" Audrey asked. "Strictly mission related, or whatever."
Natasha shrugged. "That's enough stalling for today, Carter," she said, narrowing her eyes at Audrey.
"Uhh...what?" Audrey said, attempting to sound oblivious.
"Don't pretend. I know what you're doing." To Clint, she said, "You wanna go a few rounds with her?"
"Gladly," Clint said, cracking his neck.
Audrey joined him in the ring, prepared to lose. It was actually a relief to be sparring with Clint, for once. While Natasha was incredibly skilled, Audrey was stronger, but it didn't do much good with the fact that Natasha was faster. Clint wasn't as trained as Natasha, and even though he still bested Audrey 90% of the time, she felt they were better matched. At least she stood a chance in a fight with him.
"Ready to go?" Clint asked, raising his hands into two fists.
Audrey mirrored him. "Ready as I'll ever be."
November 3, 2012 - Avengers Tower Residential Units - New York, NY
After training and a heavy lunch, Audrey returned to her room to get ready. Helen's welcome party wasn't supposed to be anywhere near Tony's Halloween gala in terms of numbers or dress code, but she doubted that Helen would appreciate it much if she showed up in the tee shirt she'd worn to training, sweaty and gross.
The party was supposed to start at 3, which felt odd to Audrey, but had been what Pepper and Jane settled on in order to work around a virtual Stark Industries board meeting with someone in Tokyo that Pepper was supposed to attend that night.
After she got out of the shower, Audrey threw on jeans and the first nice shirt she could find, and then padded over to her kitchen for more food. While she rummaged through her drawers in her fridge for the bag of carrot sticks, her phone rang.
That was weird. Anyone who ever needed to talk to her either communicated through an encrypted communications line or lived in the building and sent messages through JARVIS.
Audrey grabbed the phone from her coffee table—blocked number. She lifted it cautiously to her ear and waited for the person on the other end of the line to speak.
"Is this damn thing working?"
Audrey raised a brow at the familiar voice. "Fury?" she asked.
"You got it."
"Since when do you use a phone?"
"Since when are we this chatty?" Audrey rolled her eyes. Fury somehow seemed to hear it through the silence, because he said, "There's no need to get snarky."
"Why are you calling me?"
"Just checking in. Saw you put in a request to check out about 40 years of files on the Red Room."
Audrey leaned back against the arm of her couch. It figured that Fury would've noticed her request, since most people didn't check out almost all the intelligence on a topic that S.H.I.E.L.D. had, all at once. But she didn't know that he would've tried to stop her over it. "Just...curious." It was a terrible reason, but she wasn't going to supplement it with a lie unless Fury forced her to.
"Curious about 40 years of classified history?"
"Sure."
Fury was silent on the other end of the line. "I'm going to say this once now, and likely once again when you get yourself into some sort of trouble. Whatever you're doing, be careful about the threads you're pulling on." He paused, and Audrey thought about when the two had first worked together in the nineties, back when she'd been an analyst in his office. He hadn't been so cryptic back then; there was something about being the Director that created the need for so many secrets. "You don't want the whole thing to unravel." He sighed. "Well, anyway, files are ready to pick-up."
"You sound like the guy at the pizza place I order from."
"Hey," Fury objected, sounding a little miffed. "Be nice to me. I'll tell on you to your mom for insubordination."
Audrey rolled her eyes again. Fury wouldn't actually get pissed at her, not for making that joke. "Thanks, Director," she said, emphasizing his title.
"Yeah, yeah. Make sure you know what you're doing."
The line went dead. Audrey pulled the phone from her ear and checked her call history, as if to make sure that the conversation had actually happened. Had Fury seriously just called her to be careful? Or had he been threatening her? Be careful about the threads you're pulling on. You don't want the whole thing to unravel. What did that even mean?
She set the phone down on the counter. Fury hadn't stopped her. If he really didn't want her to be getting involved, he would've just stopped her. He certainly had the ability.
Audrey was careful. She'd been careful as a handler, when she was working to make sure her team was safe. The only person whose safety she was reckless about was her own, and she was life-proof enough to take it.
Right?
Yes. She was. She would be fine.
November 3, 2012 - en route to the Hub - New York, NY
Audrey decided to kill the time until the party by heading to HQ and picking up the files Fury promised. When she'd first put in the request, she assumed they were digital and that she'd just get a list of passwords to view them in the database. She hadn't realized that she would be picking up boxes and boxes of actual, paper files.
Pepper had offered her a ride when Audrey popped her head into the office to ask for the keys to a car.
"I have to pick up some champagne, anyway," she explained. "We'll just stop on the way."
Which was how the two women ended up stuck in gridlock traffic, in the front of a '64 Rolls Royce. Audrey would've taken the train, if she could but she needed the trunk to transport the files. And at this rate, with the clock on the dash reading 2:32, they were both going to be late.
"So," said Pepper. "How have things been? I haven't seen you much since you got back from Mosc—wherever your mission was, I don't know where. Because it was top secret."
"I've been okay," Audrey said. "Tony told you?"
Pepper bit her lip and nodded. "He—yeah. Sorry. I was worried. Well, I mean. We were all worried. You're not usually one to hole up in your room."
"It was a long, weird trip," Audrey explained, looking out the window. For a while now there had been a toddler holding hands with his mother walking down the sidewalk. They were actually managing to pass the car in terms of speed.
"Do you want to...talk...about it? Can you talk about it? Is that allowed?" Pepper's hand flexed against the steering wheel, and Audrey noticed her neatly manicured nails. She glanced down at her own hands, where her nails were jagged from being bitten.
"I've been seeing Isabel," Audrey said. She didn't really care if Pepper knew about the mission; the two of them had never been particularly close, but Audrey knew that Pepper was trustworthy. She set lines and didn't cross them, even though nobody would hold it against her except herself. "Things just got bad really fast. I got kidnapped, Natasha had both of her legs broken, I got tortured, we got taunted by a guy with a metal arm. We nearly leveled a small town in Siberia."
Pepper's eyes widened visibly, but she seemed like she was trying not to freak out for Audrey's sake. As if her reaction to this news would trigger some sort of revelation in Audrey that would send her into a spiral while they were both trapped in a car together.
"The files I'm picking up are actually—well, they're related. They're on the people who kidnapped me."
"I see."
"Yeah." There was a beat, and then Audrey scrunched up her lips, blowing out a breath. "Well, how are you?"
"I'm...good," Pepper squeaked, still looking mildly alarmed by the ease with which Audrey had explained Europe. Audrey was half surprised with herself, but she and Isabel had been practicing articulation in therapy for the past few weeks, and apparently, it had paid off. "Stark PR wants to release Avengers merchandise and donate the proceeds to the relief fund, but S.H.I.E.L.D. won't answer my emails about whether or not that's breaking federal law. So...still trying to figure that out."
That added up, Audrey knew, but for Pepper Potts, she figured they would've made some sort of effort or exception or something. Pepper was awfully important, not just to Stark Industry and not just to the Avengers; it had been her who cleaned up the massive PR mess in the wake of New York, and who set up all the relief funds designed to fix what the Avengers and Loki had broken. Without Pepper, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s funding would've dropped and each of the Avengers would have been placed on trial. The least they could do was answer her emails so they could make tee shirts, or whatever.
"I can talk to them," Audrey offered. "I have more direct connections, I think. Also, leverage."
"Would you?" she asked, sounding relieved. "Thank you so much."
She leaned across the center console and gave Audrey a hug. Behind them, a car honked and they jumped apart.
"What!" Audrey exclaimed, at the same time as Pepper's, "Jesus!"
The light hadn't even turned green, the car in front of them had just turned off and made more room before the intersection.
"I don't think anyone in New York knows how to drive," Pepper said. "No offense."
"I know I don't have a right to agree, since I'm from Los Angeles, but I agree anyway," Audrey concurred.
"Oh, really?" Pepper asked. "I assumed you were from Brooklyn. I'm from LA too."
"What part?" Audrey asked.
"Malibu," Pepper replied. "My dad worked at Pepperdine and I stayed there for college because of the discounted tuition. I started working for Stark Industries right after graduation. You?"
"Echo Park. But I don't remember it much—my mom moved us back to New York in '51, but we lived in Westwood in the seventies and part of the 80s."
"Westwood's nice," Pepper commented politely. Audrey nodded, unsure what to say next. A few more minutes ticked by until Pepper asked, "Were you in high school at the time?"
Audrey shook her head. "No. I didn't go to high school, I was homeschooled."
"Oh, wait. I did know that. Tony mentioned it to me."
"Yep. Homeschool. I think that's part of why Tony's the only friend I've ever been close with."
"Really?" Pepper asked, sounding genuinely surprised. "You seem close with your old team, though."
She shrugged. "I mean, we were friends, but—it's hard to bond when most of the time we were, uh, hanging out was to...investigate and hunt down people who run human trafficking rings."
"Fair enough," said Pepper. "How's Tower life been? In contrast to that?"
"Um," began Audrey. "It's been okay," she said cautiously. "It's weird being around people so much, but I think I like it." She didn't know why she sounded so unsure of herself. Audrey knew that she liked being around people; she liked to spend time in the common floors and wake up to see Natasha in the ring, and have dinner with her dad in the evenings. But it felt mortifying to admit it, that she liked being cared about and that she liked caring about others.
A car skidded in front of them, cutting them off, and Pepper leaned on the horn. Audrey winced at the sudden noise and held her breath, waiting for it to stop. Pepper made a sharp turn onto the next street, which put them in front of the Hub. The clock read 2:44. There was no way for them to make it back to the Tower on time.
"You can park underground," Audrey said. "I'll just—I'll get out here and meet me. Just...text me what level you're on."
"Sounds good," said Pepper, as Audrey slipped out of the car and shut the door behind her.
Being back at the base after so long felt nice. Audrey didn't miss her old life, not really, but she did miss when everything wasn't so crazy and unexpected every single day. She'd had a routine at S.H.I.E.L.D., back when nobody knew who she was. And that calmness–the quiet of the elevator ride up, the waiting for her coffee to brew, the paperwork in an office—had been sorely missing from her life ever since.
She scanned her I.D. badge as she entered the building and passed through security, and pressed her palm to the scanner pad outside the elevator.
"Welcome, Agent Carter," it greeted. That was new. The elevator hadn't talked the last time she'd stopped by. "Which department are you visiting?"
"Records," she replied. The doors started sliding shut, but an arm between them stopped them at the last second. Audrey raised an eyebrow and watched the doors pull back, revealing Agent Sitwell.
He smiled, smarmy as ever, in greeting. "Hello, Audrey."
"Agent Sitwell," she replied tightly, steepling her hands together in front of her belt.
"Take me to the Director," he demanded.
"Confirmed," the elevator replied.
Audrey stared down at her shoes as the elevator began to bring them up. The tension between them was palpable on her end, but if he noticed, Sitwell didn't give any signal. Instead, he hummed to himself cheerily. "How are things with the team?" he asked.
"They're fine," she said, hoping the small talk would stop there.
"Have you donned the costume recently?"
She gave him another bland smile. "'Fraid not."
"Well, I was always a fan," he divulged.
"Director's office," the elevator announced. The carriage slowed to a smooth stop, and the doors opened.
"By the way," Sitwell said, as he stepped out. "I was sorry to hear about Europe."
Any trace of decency, or decorum, or decency dropped from Audrey's face and she scowled at him.
"Get well soon," he said, throwing her another gross, sticky smile, and the doors slid shut.
"Son of a bitch," she hissed as soon as she was alone again. "Get well soon. I could give him a reason to need to get w—"
"Records," the elevator announced.
Audrey glanced up, the same way she always felt the need to when JARVIS started talking, but as per usual, there was no face to connect to the voice. "Um, thanks," she said anyway, and stepped out.
When she'd flashed her badge and gotten her thumbprint scanned, Audrey realized just how many boxes of files she'd asked for. The Records staff brought them out one at a time, and the tower in front of her grew taller and taller until Audrey began to doubt that it was going to hold up.
"That's all," the lady at the desk said, once they'd finished bringing out the thirteenth box.
Great. Just thirteen boxes. It wouldn't have been a lot if it weren't for the fact that there was only one of her, and she could only balance two at a time, and the parking garage was fourteen stories away, and she didn't want to talk to the elevator again.
"Would you like a cart?" the lady offered, watching Audrey stare at the boxes, befuddled, wondering how the hell she was going to get them back to the Tower.
"Yes," said Audrey. "A cart would be great."
November 3, 2012 - Avengers Tower - Manhattan, NY
With Pepper's help, Audrey had finally managed to load the boxes back into the car by a little past 3. Pepper drove very reasonably and calmly, usually, but the Angelino in her was apparent as she wove through traffic on the way back, speeding through any breaks she could find and slamming down on the breaks when they closed up. Audrey gripped the side of her seat as she was jostled around the car, assuring herself that if she was life-proof enough to survive an alien invasion and two kidnappings, surely she could survive the trip back home.
"Oh, shit!" Pepper exclaimed, once she'd parked in the Tower's lot and turned the ignition off in the car. Audrey jumped at the exclamation. "We forgot the champagne."
"I have a bottle of wine in my kitchen," Audrey offered. "I don't drink because it's pointless, and it's not champagne but JARVIS says it's a really fancy bottle."
Pepper frowned, but nodded nonetheless. "Okay, that should be fine. I can have staff come help bring the boxes up to your room," she offered, before getting out of the car and dialing a number on her phone.
Audrey didn't know how Pepper managed to juggle so many things at once and do all of them well; next to her, Audrey felt like she was juggling one ball and it was hitting her in the face every time she tried to throw it up in the air.
When she stood and shut the car door, Pepper was finishing up her call. She pointed at Audrey. "I'll meet you in the labs?"
"The labs?" Audrey asked.
"Yes, the labs."
"Won't—won't Tony and Bruce be working?"
Pepper shook her head. "Tony took Bruce out to do….something, I don't know. But the labs are ours."
"Alright," Audrey said, but Pepper was already dashing off, flanked by security guards she was giving various directions to. She blew out a breath. "Alright."
By the time Audrey actually got to the labs, everyone already had a drink in hand, gathered around the tables and talking. Natasha offered her a beer when she got inside, but she shook her head, placing the wine on the table next to an elaborate charcuterie setup and a pitcher of lemonade. Audrey poured herself a glass from the pitcher.
Natasha, Jane, Darcy, and Helen were all deeply engrossed in a story Helen was telling about an accident at her old lab, and Audrey settled in next to Darcy, who threw a welcoming arm over her shoulder. The story didn't make much sense to Audrey, since she'd only heard the last thirty seconds of it, but the rest of the group broke out into raucous laughter when Helen finished telling it.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she moved to dig it out with the hand not holding her drink. She found two messages from Tony.
[3:37] tony stark: which of these headlines is worse do you think
[3:37] tony stark: [link]-IS LADY LIBERTY IN A GANG? SEE HER NEW TATTOO. [link]-CAPTAIN AMERICA AND IRONMAN SECRET ROMANCE?
[3:38] audrey carter: I'm gonna have to go with the one that says you're dating my dad
Almost immediately, Tony replied.
[3:38] tony stark: i find that offensive. your dad would be lucky to have me.
[3:39] audrey carter: I'm with pepper right now, do you want me to share these revelations you're having?
[3:39] tony stark: no i'm sorry tell pep i love her
[3:41] tony stark: do u know why bruce has been moping since halloween
Audrey frowned at the text. Bruce? Moping? That wasn't his MO at all. Bruce was put together and polite more than anything else. Tony was the lab's resident moper, when he wasn't staying awake for a week straight on nothing but redbull to cook up some new project.
[3:42] tony stark: i'm vetting his data for him and he's been staring at his little cup of tea for like half an hour looking sad. he didn't even insult my music when i started blasting it
[3:43] audrey carter: I don't know. Have you tried asking him?
[3:44] tony stark: believe it or not, i actually have tried that
[3:44] audrey carter: And?
[3:45] tony stark: he says he's fine
[3:45] tony stark: i think it's girl trouble.
Audrey almost choked on the lemonade, violently sputtering into her elbow and dragging the attention of everybody else in the room to her. "Sorry," she said. "Um, there's an article on my news alert about my dad and Tony having an affair."
Next to her, Darcy snorted. "A match made in heaven."
"I've read so many of those trashy tabloid articles," Helen admitted, looking mildly ashamed of herself. "I didn't believe any of them," she added quickly. "They're just funny."
"They're very rarely true," Pepper assured Helen.
Helen grinned slowly. "So Natasha doesn't have a secret identical twin?"
"That's classified," the assassin replied, with gentle sternness.
Audrey checked her phone again, where she saw that Tony had texted her twice more.
[3:46] tony stark: any idea who it could be?
[3:48] tony stark: i'm gonna investigate
Audrey couldn't even begin to list the reasons that this was a bad idea. Tony was definitely going to update her on what he found, and if he was right—that it did have to do with someone Bruce was seeing—Audrey knew it would make her upset. She had reacted so poorly to Helen for no reason in the world, she didn't know if she could handle the same setup but worse. There was also the fact that it was none of her, or Tony's business, if Bruce was having problems with a girl. And also, Tony could have been wrong. He usually got paranoid on the third day without sleep, and maybe it was nothing, and Bruce wasn't moping at all. Audrey could have gone on and on, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to stop him over text; he'd just ignore any messages that he didn't find favorable. Instead, she pocketed her phone and resolved to deal with it later.
As Darcy and Jane pulled Pepper aside to discuss the rest of the party, and Natasha asked Kate a question about her bow, Audrey and Helen were left to converse with each other. The blonde winced, thinking about what Helen must have thought of her after their last interactions.
"How was the move-in?" she asked, trying to sound casual and not like she was crazy.
Helen beamed. "It was great, all things considered. Out of all the parts of moving to the United States, it was one of the easiest."
"I hadn't realized you were only just moving here," Audrey admitted. "Where from?"
"Ewha Womans University, in Seoul. I've really only worked in academia before, never for a private firm. I'm always...dubious about research if it's being done for-profit."
She couldn't fault Helen for that—Audrey was also, generally, dubious about working for anything for-profit. If she hadn't grown up with Tony, and if she didn't live with him, and if she hadn't watched him change drastically over the last five years, she would have doubted him too. It was only their history together that made her feel any different; how could Helen feel anything but dubious?
"I felt the same, sort of. About the Avengers. Because we're managed by S.H.I.E.L.D. but Stark Industries has leverage, since they fund so much of our expenses."
Helen nodded. "It's a new realm. I'm hoping for the best."
Audrey raised her cup of lemonade. "Cheers."
They toasted and Helen took a delicate sip of her own drink. "We didn't get much of a chance to meet at Halloween," she said. "I've been really looking forward to working with your team. I've actually been particularly interested in you."
"Me?"
"The genetic properties of your cells," Helen explained. "They heal so quickly they've prolonged your lifetime. It's...well, it's incredible, truth be told." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to make it sound like I want to study you under a microscope, or anything. I'm not supposed to talk business at this party."
"No, it's okay," Audrey said. "I've, um, I've never actually been properly...studied? Or. Nobody's ever done any in-depth research on the way the whole aging thing works. It's been mostly estimates and assumptions."
"How strange," Helen mused, nodding slowly. "Well, if you ever want to volunteer for study," she said with a wink, "my door's always open."
"Thank you," Audrey said.
"Only if you want to," Helen was quick to add.
"Of course," said Audrey. "It's really great to meet you, Helen. Properly, I mean."
Helen grinned back at her, earnest and kind. "Likewise."
A/N: thank you for reading! please leave a review if you feel so inclined.
Chapter 12: Meet Me in the Hallway
Sometimes, the Soldier came to visit and brought her small gifts.
"Hello, солнышко. How are you, little sunshine?"
"I'm cold."
"Spring is coming soon. I brought you these to help you while you wait."
The Soldier handed her a small bouquet of white daisies.