I've been maintaining radio silence for the last few chapters so as to keep the story streamlined. However, it's come to my attention that I've recently passed the 100 follower mark - thank you for that, guys. Seeing as you thought this story good enough to subscribe to, I'd would like to ask a favor.

Take just a minute of your time and before you click away from this chapter, leave me a review. It doesn't have to be be an essay, or praise the finer points of the story. It could just be a sentence or two about what you like/don't like about how things are going so far. As I mentioned in my A/N chapter, this is my NaNo project that I'm reviewing and posting up, so your opinion means a great deal to me. SoaA is only book one of "The Paxton Files", so I'd like to know your ideas and views on my storyline and character sooner rather than later so that I can continue to develop the plot in the best way possible.

Thank you for your readership and all of the reviews I've received so far - with with a special shout out to NicoleR85, who has been been a constant reviewer from the getgo. You are all appreciated!

-Ana

. . .

Chapter 11

A half hour later, a rather riled looking Mia and a solemn Captain walked into the upper bridge deck, where Tony and Fury were waiting for them.

Seeing as Mia's clothes had been all but shredded in the confrontational past, she was now dressed in a standard SHIELD issue bodysuit. It was much like the one Hill wore, but there were no holsters and it fit more like Widow's suit: tightly. The doctor who had released her had suggested the additional compression might do her wounded and now bandaged arm some good—it hid the bandage, at any rate, and didn't chafe her blistered thigh. Mia found the bodysuit strange and foreign feeling, but said nothing. There were much bigger things to worry about than the texture of the clothing she'd been given.

Tony cast one look at Mia's glowing hands, and one more at Steve's hand on her lower back, guiding her. The genius said nothing, turning away almost in defeat. Mia felt her chest tighten uncomfortably as she took a seat in the high backed chair Steve had swiveled for her convenience.

"Paxton." It was a single word, an acknowledgement of her presence—nothing more. Luckily, Mia hadn't been expecting much from Fury in the first place, so she was able to check her otherwise sharp tongue and remain in a tense silence.

"Director." Steve took a seat beside Mia, on her left.

Mia fisted her hands under the desk—yet this time, the mass of swirling sparks couldn't be hidden. They shone through the table's clear glass surface as proof of her volatile state.

"Should she even be here?" Tony asked stiffly.

"She's fine, Stark." Steve was firm, but not angry. Still, there was a silent challenge in his words, a snap. Don't test me on this. It directly opposed the guilt radiating off of him.

Mia's guilt was fading by the minute. Steve's talking-to had brought her back to reality, honed her sense of injustice and brought her rage roaring back to life. How dare Loki think he could reduce her to his level, his kind of senseless slaughter. He was right about one thing: she was strong, so much stronger than he knew. But he would know soon enough. The only sense of revenge that made any sense to her at the moment was the revenge directed at the god of mischief himself.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket." Fury tossed a small stack of bloodied cards onto the table. Captain America collector's cards, Mia realized, staring at them spread out on the table, blood splattered on the table. Maria had told her about agent Coulson's fanboy behavior when it came to Steve. Something he apparently took to his death. It would almost be poetic, if it wasn't so sad—and still so fresh. "I guess he never did get you to sign them."

Steve heaved a heavy sigh and picked up a card to gaze at it ruefully. Still, Mia's eyes fixated on the droplets of red on the glass. Evidence of yet another life that had been wasted because of one man's ambition. She felt an angry clenching feeling in the pit of her stomach, remembering similarly stained documents that she had read during her investigation of Project Midas. Field reports, her father had called them.

Barbaric, was the word playing at the forefront of her mind. Heartless, another. Why did it seem that she would always be unwillingly tied to men who desired control, and to hurt anyone who stood in the way of that ideal? Her life was a repeat of past events, always coming back to haunt her in a new and equally horrifying way—always with something precious to lose.

Looking beside her at Steve, a terrible sense of dread came over her. What the hell had she gotten herself into?

"Our communications, the location of the Cube, Banner, Thor…I got nothing for you."

And Tony. Mia had never seen him this affected by anything, had never seen him lose that manic glint of self righteousness in his eye or that proud uplift of his chin. It was like the genius-playboy-billionaire-philanthropist had been entirely removed, leaving a broken shell of a Stark behind. It frightened her a bit, on one hand. On the other, it made her more angry. Even now Loki was affecting the people she loved.

"I lost my one good eye." Fury snorted softly. "Maybe I had that coming."

Steve looked over at Mia and noticed her glaring at the table, jaw twitching. It surprised him slightly that she managed to be angry when everything seemed so hopeless. But then, as much as they were all caught up in the mess they were facing, Mia had an especially heavy load of issues to contend with. He knew that they were affecting her, as was her past and her newfound connection with Loki. He could see she loathed having anything to do with the monstrous man, but it wasn't in her power to control. That had to be a horrible thing to face, even without her other challenges.

"Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract." Mia heard Steve's breathing quicken ever-so-slightly. "I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier." The Director made his way around the table, carefully sidestepping the chair occupied by the obviously enraged woman with hands full of energy sparks. She may as well have had a large flashing neon sign over her head at the moment that read 'armed and dangerous'.

However Fury knew she wouldn't hurt anyone intentionally, as Paxton was one of the most self-aware people he'd met. She would be on guard—especially after the issue in the turbine wing, which was something he'd elected to ignore, in light of the current situation. It was done in self defense, after all.

"There was an idea—Stark knows this, and I would bet money that Paxton does too—called the Avengers Initiative."

Mia's ears perked up at this, despite her state of mind. She had long since learned to pay attention even when troubled—a skill that had come in handy quite a bit during her time aboard the Valiant.

"The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, to see if they could become something more." Mia stared at her hands—it was becoming a habit of late. She found that the skin had begun to heal over, the craters having disappeared and left small dark rings—scars, no doubt—on her palms. As a permanent reminder of the time she'd lost control of herself. "To see if they could work together when we needed them to"—Steve glanced over at her here—"to fight the battles we never could."

In his chair on the adjoining side of the table, Tony was beginning to fidget, agitated. "Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea." Mia met Steve's gaze for a brief moment before looking to Fury, eyes hard. "In heroes."

At this, Tony seemed to snap. He rose from his chair and strode from the room, body language screaming inner turmoil as he left. Fury watched him go in silence.

"Well," he said, after the distraught man had gone, "it's an old fashioned notion." He paused, and turned to look meaningfully at the resident anarchist. "That requires a certain level of radical thinking."

Mia looked up at him, green eyes cold and calculating, unsympathetic. She rose to her feet, setting both swirling hands atop the table. "Sir, you've been lying to me since I boarded this carrier—lying to all of us. As much as I respect agent Coulson's beliefs, I don't think for a second that you meant for these people to become those kind of heroes. Nothing built on lies can stand in strength when challenged. You pitted them against the most ruthless, calculating, villainous man I have ever had the misfortune of meeting—and believe me, I've met my share." She stopped for breath, glaring at the agent before her. "You built this team to fail."

"Mia," Steve began, but Fury interrupted.

"Paxton, despite what you may have been told or come to believe, you are not here for your loquaciousness or knowledge of unusual psychology. You would be wise to keep that in mind. I brought you aboard the Valiant because you have all the makings of a hero—should you choose to accept your gifts as such, and put your past behind you."

Mia snorted dubiously, staring angrily at the table. "Sure. A gift that cost one hundred and seventy two innocent people their lives."

The director moved around the table towards her, eyes set on her keenly. "I know a lot more about Project Midas than you do, Paxton. What your father did was an abomination, a shame to humanity. But that burden rests with him—not with you."

"I don't remember signing up for therapy when I agreed to assist SHIELD."

"Consider it a free assessment." Fury cast a quick sideways glance at Steve, who was caught in the crossfire of the heated conversation. "Rogers, talk some sense into her. She seems to listen to you. If you can convince her to change her mind—which would be a miracle—send her to me." He stormed off down the causeway to the bridge with Hill on his heels, leaving Mia and Steve alone.

Mia flopped back down into her chair, green eyes shooting daggers at Fury's back.

"He is right, you know." Steve caught Mia's chin—oddly she didn't refuse him, though the movement was decidedly stiff and unwilling. "It is a gift, and you were born with it. Your father's decisions are his own—only you can choose what you do with that gift. He doesn't hold that power. Stop letting him have that hold on you."

"That's so easy for you to say!"Mia snapped. She pulled her head out of his hand, Steve's face twisting in confusion. "You have no idea what it was like, Steve. Growing up alone. Being poked and prodded, then encouraged to explore my 'powers' instead of doing normal, childhood things. And no one ever knew. Never saw what happened behind those closed doors." She laughed coldly. "Honestly, I have no idea how we managed to keep me a secret for so long, being the First Family and all."

"Mia…"

"He used to hit me, Steve!" It came out as a sort of hissed, forced sentence. The rigidness had returned, with her teeth clenched tightly. "If I refused to use practice, he would hit me. My father, the President. Hit me. Told me what I had was a gift to humanity, and if I didn't use it I was failing my country." She swatted at her eyes, scowling at the table and not really knowing why she was telling him this at all, because the last time she checked Captain America wasn't her therapist either. "Damn crazy patriotic bastard."

She caught Hill's eye from her position on the bridge, and saw the agent viewing her with concern. Mia looked away, embarrassed.

"He's a scientist, not a politician," she muttered. "He has no business running our country."

Steve didn't seem to know what to say to this at first. "I knew things had changed since my time, but this…" He trailed off, the anger and disgust apparent in his voice. "It was wrong, what he did. Look at me." He raised her chin again, a hatred burning in his eye that actually disturbed Mia a bit. "NO ONE has the right to treat you like that. To control you like that."

"You keep saying that," Mia laughed sardonically. "But isn't that exactly what SHIELD is doing here?"

"This is bigger than SHIELD right now. I think we both know that."

"And now there's Loki." Mia sighed. "I know Thor wanted to believe the best in him, but look at the position he's in now. Thor's who-knows-where, and Loki's doing who-knows-what…"

"We'll find him. Both of them, before it's too late. "

"That's not the point." The journalist sat for a moment, fiddling with strands of golden sparks as her hands finished healing themselves. "I can see the same trait in Loki as my father. He wants me to see things his way, to believe that what he's doing is the right thing. It's not going to happen, he knows it, and I can see it in that asshole's eyes that he means to break me to get what he wants. What happened in the turbine wing was an example of that."

She turned her gaze around the room, at the silver walls of the platform and the rows full of agents seated below it. "I'm angry, Steve," Mia admitted quietly. "I'm angry in a way I haven't let myself be—ever. And I don't know if I can control that anger enough to not become what I'm afraid of becoming: the monster that Loki wants. That my father wanted."

The conflicted woman looked up at the super-soldier, and blinked back tears. "I'm not hero material, Cap. I lost the one person who mattered to me, twice. First Clem, then Rachel. Rachel was the only person who knew I even had a sister in the first place, and was like a second sister…" Mia stopped herself from going there. "How can I pretend to be something I'm not? I'm the coward, the freak that got away. Nothing close to a hero." She looked down at her now fully healed palms and the sparks clinging to her fingertips.

"You're wrong, Mia." The journalist flinched at the bluntness of his statement. "But," he added, "So am I."

Mia looked up, confused. "What? How?"

"You are hero material," Steve told her. "Fury was right about that. But we're so busy looking at the big picture that we're missing the details." He gazed at her, blue eyes filled with concern, protectiveness. "You're not a soldier, Mia. You're a civilian, and this isn't your fight to begin with. I shouldn't have taken Fury's side." He rose from the table, determined.

"What, that's it?" Mia rose too, with a scowl. "No motivational speech? Nothing?"

"You've lost enough as it is," Steve argued. "I know what that's like. I'm not going to tell you to—"

"Yeah, well, then you of all people should understand why I need to do this!" Mia snapped. She found her hands growing hot, and knew that the sparks were thickening in her hands. "We've all got problems here, Steve. We've all got issues in our past…red in our ledgers, as Romanoff puts it. But what you choose to do in spite of it? That's what makes a hero, special powers or not."She jabbed a glowing finger over at the trading cards on the table. "We owe it to people like Coulson—people who still believe in heroes—to be the best we can be, regardless of what haunts us or gives us nightmares."

The journalist looked at him, searching beyond his mask yet again to appeal to the man behind the armor: to Steve Rogers, not Captain America. "How do you do it, Steve?" she asked, quietly so that no one else could possibly hear. "How do you keep going, even after…" She didn't finish. After the ice. She didn't need to.

Steve's eyes hardened. "You know how I do." Bucky. The unspoken name hung between them.

"You do it for him, Steve." Mia looked down at their hands, and then back up at her, eyes moist. "And me? I have to do this. For them." She squeezed her hands shut, two spheres of brilliant gold light and energy. "For Clem and Rachel."

"If that's what you learned from my telling you about him," Steve whispered intensely, moving a step closer, "then telling you was the worst mistake I could have made." He clenched his teeth, looking around to make sure no one was listening. Seeing they were alone in the conference area, he went on in an angry whisper. "You have people you can lose, if this goes pear shaped."

"And you don't?" Mia asked. She knew this was a harsh way of putting it, but Steve had spent almost a year in the 21st century now and it was unlikely that he didn't have somebody to care about.

"I do!" He glared down at her, jaw set. "I do. Just one, and I'm protecting her now." Well, that was sad—and debilitating. Damn it, Steve! It was a really bad time for Mia to fall subject to pity—and an overinflated sense of worth to boot.

A bolt of pain swam through the back of his eyes, and a weakness took over—a fear even. "Don't do this," he implored her. "This isn't your fight, Mia. Don't make me lose you too."

Mia took a deep, swallowing breath. She looked up at the man before her, the man who was telling her not to jump into danger for the sake of revenge, even though Mia knew he fought as a means of reparation for losing his best friend.

Loki wanted to draw her into the fight, to pull off her carefully constructed mask and join in a battle that didn't involve her for the sake of his own personal gain. She was bound to that man, by some kind of magic from another world. Yet here was Steve, standing in front of her and asking her to step away, to save herself. To do what she needed to make sure she stayed the kind of person she wanted to be: good, kind, truthful. A light in the darkness.

She didn't feel ready. She was totally, insanely scared. But Mia knew, just like she always did, what was true—and what was the right thing to do because of it. What was more, Mia realized in that moment she could be both things: she could be the force for good she strove to be, and the monster inside of her.

It had taken the influence of both men to see it. But in that moment, Mia Paxton looked up at Steve Rogers and made her choice.

He has more of a chance than you ever will, she told Loki, through whatever faint mental connection they still held.

"You're right." Mia looked up at a mildly surprised Steve. "This isn't my fight. But I'm damn well in it—and in it to win." She laughed bitterly. "Because if we don't, I'm stuck engaged to the new ruler of this planet, and that's not an idea I'm too keen on."

"Mia—" Ah, there was the tough 'captain' voice.

"Stow it, Cap. If you want someone to convince, go talk to Tony. He looks about ready to give up on life. I need to talk to Fury." Mia flicked a palm towards the Captain's chest to create a half bubble of sparks, effectively sliding him six feet backwards and holding him there so that she had clear access to the causeway.

"Damn it, Mia!" Steve swore. He then made a sort of growling noise before storming out of the conference area. She could still hear him muttering something about 'bone headed, stubborn, unreasonable', and then he was gone—hopefully, Mia thought, to find Stark.

She let the bubble drop into golden dust as she made her way into the bridge area, ignoring the staring of a few agents who had seen her little trick.

"As you were," she ordered them, in her most authoritative tone. Unsurprisingly, they obeyed her. For a journalist, Mia had a knack for telling SHIELD agents what to do. Hopefully Steve wasn't an exception to that, because Tony really needed some help, and Steve was champion of pep talks—well, most of the time.