"So? Decided to stick around, huh?" A voice asks. Snow turns to see Natasha smirking at her, arms crossed causally.
"Yeah, I…wanna see this through," Snow smiles grimly.
Natasha nods comprehensively. She of all people understood what it was like to feel that guilt,
and she could tell,
Snow felt guilty,
maybe for not intervening sooner.
Yes. Guilt. For a number of things, one of those which included Natasha herself. "Hey, listen. Earlier on, when I first came in, I could tell, what I said had bothered you," she starts. Nat shakes her head dismissively. "I wasn't trying to upset you," Snow stressed shamefully, not wanting any bad blood with her new teammates.
"It's fine. Don't worry about it," Nat assures.
She gets it, Snow was just trying to prove herself, in a room full of powerful people, looking down on her. It was only natural, and she probably would have done the same.
"Are you sure?" Snow questions apologetically. Nat smiles calmly.
"Yeah," she replies, setting Snow at ease.
"So…who is he?" asks Snow sympathetically. Whoever it was, Snow could tell Nat thought greatly of.
Natasha was good at reading people. She could tell Snow was genuine and good-intentioned.
But this?
It wasn't a topic she wished to open.
She was stressed as it was, worrying out of her mind about him.
All her life, Nat had been trained not to feel.
And still,
she felt.
And it was always.
Always.
For him.
What did she feel? She didn't know. But it scared her. Caring scared her.
Being cared for
scared her.
She'd never admit it out loud. The agent was secretly in battle with herself and her heart, constantly.
She felt herself breaking without him.
But she fought that too.
"A…friend," she said solely, quite the understatement, feigning a smile as best as she could.
It wasn't enough to fool Snow, but it was enough for her to take the hint.
Snow sees Nat's eyes avert to someone behind her. She looks to see one of the agents waving over. "Excuse me," Nat retorts calmly, walking off as Snow nodded in assurance.
Snow's attention is then caught by the sight of Thor and Steve, conversing near the meeting table. They looked serious.
Since this was all about Loki. And Thor was Loki's brother, Snow wanted in on whatever they were discussing.
"…you say he fell?" she heard Steve ask Thor, who looked tense on his chair, for obvious reasons. They acknowledge her presence as Thor replies and she seats herself near Steve.
"Yes, after I destroyed the Bifröst," Thor replies grimly.
"Bifröst?" Steve questions, confused by the word. Thor explains.
"It is a bridge. Connects my people with the nine realms."
Steve was more baffled by this than Snow was, who held a little more knowledge about Norse Mythology than he did.
But hey, he was in the presence of the God of Thunder, he should expect crazy.
"Why did you destroy it?" asks Snow suspiciously as it seemed not to make sense.
"Because
…Loki
had wished to use it,
to destroy Jötunheimr, realm of the giants,"
he said, confusing, and shocking, both his listeners.
"Which, I'd come to discover, was where Loki's real heritage had originated," he utters grimly, shocking them further.
"He's a giant?!" Steve asks in bewilderment.
"Does he know?"
Snow inquires seriously, attempting to deduce more about the God of Mischief, and the reason behind his fears, and unknown torturer.
"He found out, just before he resumed his attempts at wiping out Jötunheimr," he replies.
"Wait. So…he knew, and still tried to destroy it?" Steve asks as if talking about a mad man.
Snow listened intently.
Lies.
They were weapons. And the bigger they were, the more damage they could make.
Thor and Loki grew up together. Supposedly raised equally. But the facts were still.
One was adopted.
One was not.
No matter how hard the parents would try, there would always be a difference in treatment.
It must have been big too, frustrating even. Keeping Loki wondering for a long time.
Snow supposed, he'd never expected the truth. And when he'd heard it,
he snapped.
"He was angry. In denial," she utters sorrowfully, Thor nodding as Steve listened.
"Blinded by rage," Thor resumes. "After finding out myself, even I was surprised by what he had attempted. I'd had thought that his anger would have been directed towards father, but he aimed it elsewhere. And I…cannot comprehend the reason," he told honestly.
Both Steve and Snow attempted to make sense of it for Thor. But Steve could only see a tyrant, hungry for power, for control. It consumed him for sure.
But Snow saw things differently, more heartedly than heatedly. What Thor had said could only mean one thing. Loki wanted nothing to do with his real heritage. He wanted the one he grew to know. Did he grow to love it too?
There must have been more to the story.
Before she got the chance to ask any more questions, agent Coulson approached Thor, asking for a moment of his time to show him something. He went, leaving Steve and Snow alone.
"I don't suppose you know why he did it?" Steve asks Snow calmly. She shakes her head perplexedly. "Well, either way, I don't think it'll help," he said.
"Yeah," she replied, honestly not agreeing.
Yes, it wouldn't help them, but she wanted to know more. Snow had connected with Loki on very deep and personal levels. Not only did it break her heart, it also caught her interest,
as she caught his.
XXXXX
In his cell, temporary, Loki's mind was in shambles. Then again, he wasn't sure when it wasn't.
He couldn't think straight. A part of him doubted he was even there. Wondered if he was still trapped.
Had he never gone out?
Was this all in his head?
No. No.
Thinking was the last thing he wanted to do.
But his thoughts,
his mind,
was not his own.
It moved randomly, back and forth, to the same places, with little to add.
Little, but evident.
The girl. She was…peculiar. Concerning.
Why?
There was something she'd said.
A word
he hadn't heard in so long.
A word he lost faith in.
"I...understand."
Understand? When was he ever understood? Even before all of this.
Still. In his fragile state. Hearing it
made all the difference.
XXXXX
Steve got up, excusing himself to the bathroom.
Not wanting to sit alone in a foreign, interesting place, Snow rose as well, intent on looking around. Not every day you get to fly sky-high in an alien-fighting, high-tech ship.
She walked down the hall where she remembered seeing Tony and Bruce go, until, eventually, she came by their lab, spotting them through the glass window.
"Oh, look! If it isn't Snow White!" grins Tony in amusement, stood behind a computer screen on a desk, and Banner, on another, with Loki's long, gold-colored, metallic staff, that caught Snow's interest greatly, across him on a table.
Snow smiles dismissively at her name. Not the first time she'd been made fun of for it. But she loved the name, so the mockery never bothered her. She brushes it off.
Confidence in one's self comes a long way.
She approaches the two in greet and curiosity. Tony halts his work, stepping towards her. "So, did you pick it yourself, or…" he draws as Bruce smiles as well.
"My parents did," she replies, trying to push off other grim thoughts about her deceased parents. "Last name was White. They though it would be 'cute'," she explains, content with the memory flash.
"Oh, it is cute! Right Bruce?" Tony turns to Banner, who takes a moment.
"Yeah…Cute," Bruce replies uncomfortably.
Tony turns back to Snow, smirking flirtatiously. "Are the Mister and Missus aware that their little princess is off fighting prince charming?" he teases playfully.
Snow tenses up. "Uhhh…They're dead," she says, smiling painfully.
"Oh," Tony's face falls. "I'm sorry...My parents are dead too," he smiles sympathetically and she smiles back in understanding as Bruce winces at the sour topic.
Though Tony acted tough most of the time, he was really understanding, and very sensitive, even if his stubbornness out-weighed such traits at most.
So, considerately, he twists the topic. "Were they like you?" he asks instead.
"You mean 'weird and dangerous'?" she grins sarcastically, resting her hands in the pockets of her black trouser. Tony widens his eyes at her comment, looking for a counter as Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Well, I...didn't-" he smirks uncomfortably, making her chuckle slightly, causing him to ease down.
"No, Tony. They weren't," she assures calmly. He stops talking and nods curiously.
"So…how did you get your powers?" inquires Bruce curiously.
"Umm…I'm not really sure," she replies half-honestly, strolling towards him.
No need for them to know about the stone. She wasn't even sure it was real, having it happened so long ago.
Besides. She didn't like talking about it. So, hopefully, a short explanation would satisfy them.
"I got them when I was twelve," she tells, stepping towards Bruce, her eyes wandering along Loki's scepter in curiosity and admiration, specifically the blue, glowing part.
"Did you get a Hogwarts letter too?" Tony grins, snapping her out of it as he approached her.
She cocks a 'seriously', yet, amused, eyebrow as Bruce rolls his eyes.
"What…uh…What else can you do?" Bruce asks, the one most fascinated by her abilities.
She really didn't like talking about herself, but she didn't want to turn Bruce down. So she arranged the list in her head as she spoke.
"I…can…fly," she started. Tony and Bruce raised impressed eyebrows at that. "Self-regenerate. And…heal others. That, aside from the force-fields, and emotions-reading," she tells.
"Wow!" exclaims Tony, Bruce nodding in agreement.
"That's amazing," he says, "is there something specific…in your DNA, that generates these abilities?"
"Um…I'm not sure," she replies.
"Have you ever run any tests?" adds Tony.
"No," she replies plainly.
"So, when you go to a hospital, and, like, take a blood sample, nothing ever shows up?" asks Bruce suspiciously.
"Umm. I've never taken a blood sample, after I got them. It was too risky for exposure." They semi-understand that.
"Yeah, but, if you're sick-" starts Tony.
"I, also, don't get sick," she smiles. It takes the guys a moment to accept.
"…Oh…Well, then, you should definitely come by Stark tower sometime. We," Tony points to himself and Bruce, "could run the tests. Obviously no need to worry about exposure with us," he suggests, Bruce nodding eagerly, then is quickly reminded by something.
"Yeah. Maybe," Snow nods as well.
William was no doctor. Sure, he could take blood, but he wouldn't have been able to tell what would be wrong if something was. Neither could Linda.
Going to a doctor would do far from help. It could lead to 'worst-case scenario', as in, being taken in for experimentation. That was no life.
But Tony and Bruce. They already knew about her. There was nothing to fear.
"Uhh…" trails Bruce uncomfortably. Tony furrows his eyebrows at him.
"What?" he asks.
"It's just…Last time I was in New York…I kind of broke Harlem," he explains awkwardly, referring to…the Other Guy.
Tony smirks, and turns to Snow, who smiles at Bruce in sympathy.
She gets it. She knew well, what it was like, to hone a monster inside. Oh, she knew well.
"Well," Stark starts, turning to stand suspiciously near Bruce, causing Snow to squint her eyes at him as he smirked at her mischievously. "I promise a stress-free environment," he says, waving about an odd-looking, metallic rod. "No tension. No surprises…"
And at that, Tony zaps Bruce with the rod!
"Ow!" Bruce exclaims in slight pain as Snow's eyes widen in great concern, fearing
a much less-quiet,
far more dangerous
version of Bruce.
Tony doubted such an occurrence, but was still curious as he studied Bruce's eyes closely.
The type of curiosity Tony had though, was the kind that killed the cat.
"Hey!" yells a voice. The three turn to see Cap storming in, wrathful at Tony's getting-dangerous behavior. "Are you nuts?!" he asks in disbelief.
"Jury's out!" the amused Stark claims.
He then glances away from Steve, ignoring him, and back to Bruce. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums?...Huge bag of weed?" Tony asks humorously, causing Snow to roll her eyes at the last statement.
"Is everything a joke to you?" Rogers questions at him disapprovingly. Snow tenses. So does Bruce.
"Funny things are," Tony replies plainly, pointing at Steve with the rod.
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny," Steve tells strictly, then turns to Bruce, "No offense, doc," he apologizes.
"Uh, it's alright," Banner assures, "I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."
At that, Tony shakes his head disapprovingly, strolling off. "You're tiptoeing, big man," he tells. "You need to strut."
"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," stresses Rogers.
Tony clenches his jaw, edging towards him as Snow nears them cautiously. Wow! Those two really don't like each other. She wondered when that started, and how she missed it.
"You think I'm not?" Tony asks as if daringly. Steve stands his ground.
"Now, now, boys," Snow starts humorously in an attempt to lighten the mood. They turn to her. "It's no competition. We're here to do our jobs. Nothing less. Nothing more," she points the last statement at Stark, who shrugs it off.
Coming from her, at least it was less annoying.
"Speaking of jobs," starts Tony suddenly, as if recalling something serious, walking off in the direction of a hanging screen. "I don't suppose you guys are wondering, as I am, the reason, behind Fury, calling us now," he states. They're confused. "You know, like, why now? Why not before?
...What isn't he telling us?"
he asks suspiciously, arousing their own doubts. Not like any of them ever trusted Nick and his organization of spies. "I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."
"You think Fury's hiding something?" asks Snow, who wouldn't be surprised if Tony was purely right.
"He's a spy. Princess, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets," he states, popping a blueberry into his mouth as she brushed off the apparently new nickname and he offered her some that she took, eating them one by one in a daze as she wandered about the disturbing topic of
being played
by their employer.
"It's bugging him too. Isn't it?" he turns to Bruce, who immediately tenses up, eyeing around nervously, afraid to say the wrong thing.
"Uhhh, I just wanna finish my work here…and-" he starts, Steve cutting him off.
"Doctor?" he pushes seriously.
Bruce halts his ranting, loosening as he removed his glasses and sighed. "'A warm light for all of mankind to share,' Loki's jab at Fury about the cube," he starts, Snow's heart clenching at Loki's name.
"I heard it," nods Steve grimly, getting the exact opposite reaction to Snow, a feeling of disgust.
"I think that was meant for you," Bruce points to Tony, who is as interested in hearing Banner's thoughts as Steve and Snow were, pushing forward his bag of blueberries for him. He accepts the offer reluctantly as he talked on. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news," he explains, Snow nodding at the fact that she'd also seen it. Self-sustaining energy-functioning building.
It was all the talk for the past two days, until the attack in Cleveland, Germany. Courtesy of Loki.
"Stark tower?" asks Steve, slightly perplexed, wondering why in the world the God of Mischief was interested in some tower. "That big ugly-" he stops when Tony cocks an eyebrow at him, daring him to finish that sentence as Snow rolled her eyes.
He does.
"Building in New York?" Steve finishes, fueling Tony's despise towards him.
Feeling's mutual.
"It's powered by an arc-reactor," Bruce tells.
"A self-sustaining energy source," Snow explains. Tony and Bruce nod as Rogers listens.
"That building will run itself for, like, what? A year?" Banner asks Stark, who nods once more.
"It's just a prototype," he tells. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at," he brags to Steve, who remains unimpressed.
"So, why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D bring you in on the Tesseract project?" Snow asks Tony in suspicion towards the organization,
towards Nick.
"Exactly," Bruce states, pointing at her. "What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"
Snow's mind riles up, and heart flares. What was Fury keeping secret? Did he have something to do with Loki being on earth now? Was he possibly the reason all of this started?
"I should probably look into that, once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D's secure files," Stark tells calmly as the others widen their eyes.
Seriously?!
"I'm sorry. Did you say-" starts Steve, but Tony cuts him off, fiddling with a mini-screen in his hand.
"Jarvis's been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D has ever tried to hide.
Blueberry?"
he offers innocently. Steve ignores it and speaks up.
"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around," he states sarcastically in disapproval.
He was really getting on Tony's nerves, they could tell. Still, not like Stark could run out of comebacks.
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome," he says blandly.
"I think Loki's trying to wind us up," says Steve sourly.
Snow squints her eyes at that, somewhat irritably, like a part of her refused anything said against him. She didn't get that.
"No offense, Cap, but there's only one person in this room that I would trust the opinion of, when speaking of the green-bean," Tony tells firmly with a constant dislike in his tone towards Steve.
They both turn to Snow, as if waiting for her to intervene, so was Bruce.
She notes this, and starts to estimate the situation, picking at the right words to keep her at point between both, and with no one. Neither men were wrong, and they should know that.
Snow walks towards them calmly, crossing her arms casually as she spoke. "The way I see it? Loki needs to start a war, for whoever he's working under. Yes, maybe he is trying to wind us up. Maybe that is part of the plan," she tells, earning Steve's appreciation, and Tony's reluctance and slight disappointment for not standing by his side.
But she wasn't finished.
"But. We're not getting the full picture, are we? How can we win a war, without all the information?" she asks seriously, directing the question to Steve himself as Tony lightens up. "Steve. If Fury is hiding something, related to any of this, we need to find out what it is, and, quite frankly, Tony's way isn't doing much harm. Either way, the trust, between all of us," she gestures to them, "and S.H.I.E.L.D, is as thin as a thread," she tells.
The room falls quiet for a moment. Tony was satisfied with what had been said. Bruce too. And eventually, so was Steve.
But he could see that damned smirk on Stark's face, as if he'd won something. The last thing Steve would do, is go along Tony's victory parade.
"Just find the cube," he tells the Stark irritably, storming off.
But they'd succeeded in planting doubt within his heart, and he was wary. Steve never relied on nor liked technology.
Practical work. That always got the job done. If Nick was hiding something important from them, he'd find it, his own way.
When he's out, Tony speaks up again. "That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" he asks sarcastically. "I'm wondering if they should've kept him on ice," he says jokingly, but mostly in annoyance.
"Tony," warns Snow somewhat playfully.
"What? You don't think he's a pain?" he asks back as if it was impossible for her to think otherwise.
"No, I don't," she states calmly, widening Tony's eyes.
Even though she agreed, only a bit, but picking sides was just not her style.
"The guy's not wrong about Loki though," says Bruce. They turn to him as Snow leans with her back on one of the tables. "He does have a jump on us," Bruce notes.
Tony and Snow think about this. They don't like it. They don't like feeling threatened. Who does?
But Tony refuses the thought. "What he's got, is an Acme dynamite kit," he starts. "It's gonna blow up in his face, and I'm gonna be there when it does," Stark states humorously. Bruce chuckles at that, but Snow frowns.
"Yeah? I'll read all about it," he says.
She most definitely did not like the idea of causing the God of Mischief any kind of pain. Every time she'd think about him, and what she got off of him,
what she felt,
she'd wince internally. Her heart would clench. Hasn't he hurt enough? It didn't seem fair.
But emotions were as dangerous as they were important. She shouldn't let them cloud her judgment. When the time comes, and she is required to fight him, she would.
…Right?
"Or, you'll suit up with the rest of us," Tony says to Bruce, re-attracting Snow's attention.
Bruce seems reluctant on replying to that. Snow was right when she said he feared his own strengths. He smiles bitterly.
"You see, I don't get a suit of armor," he explains grimly. "I'm exposed. Like a nerve.
It's a nightmare."
Tony and Snow share a look. They each understood what Bruce meant, but differently.
Tony was the type of person that saw the strength in any weakness. He was well at adapting to what he couldn't change, and he wanted to help Bruce do the same.
Snow, however, felt the exact opposite. She didn't want to adapt. She didn't want her powers.
But, as Bruce, it was something she could not change, and had lost hope in doing so. Not very uplifting, yes.
Maybe Stark could cheer them both up, not that he was aware of Snow's feelings, or her past, which he was very intent on looking up.
"You know? I've got a cluster of shrapnel trying, every second, to crawl its way into my heart," he says like it was no big deal, and his next words show both why he acted so. "This," Tony taps his arc-reactor with his finger, "stops it. This little circle of light. It's a part of me now. Not just armor. It's
…a terrible privilege,"
he explains.
"But you can control it," states Snow, Bruce nodding in agreement.
And that was when Tony noted the shadow behind her eyes. He caught a glimpse of something more to her story, something grim. His urge to find out more about her grew, as did his urge to prove his point.
"Because I learned how to," he says. Snow refrains from rolling her eyes.
All her life, all she'd ever done, was learn to control it, and still, she was never sure she could.
She was never sure.
"It's different," says Bruce. Snow agrees.
Tony turns to him once more, "Hey," clearing his computer screen to get his full attention, "I read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you," he says. Snow wasn't entirely sure what accident he was talking about. Not like she researched every odd being on the planet.
"So…you're saying that the Hul-the…other guy…saved my life?" asks Bruce in denial. Tony nods and Snow listens. "That's nice," he starts sarcastically. "It's a nice sentiment…Saved it for what?" he asks irritably.
"I guess we'll find out," utters Tony optimistically, honestly uplifting Snow's spirit.
She definitely respected Stark.
"You may not enjoy that," retorts Bruce as Tony walks off to another table, resuming his work.
"And you just might,"
he replies.
XXXXXXXXXX