Chapter 6

If the world could do Natasha Romanoff a favor and stop coming up with impossible people, she would be a lot happier and would have to deal with a lot less paperwork. Also, she wouldn't have been landed with the task of explaining these impossible things to Steve Rogers.

"Are you certain that's what you saw?" Rogers asked for the millionth time. Natasha sighed in exasperation and shoved an open folder in his direction. "Yes, for the thousandth time, I'm certain," she pointed to a large full color photo at the top of the stack of papers inside. "I dug around a little, and turns out we have a whole file on him, with several unsolved cases involving suspicious circumstances." Steve pulled the photo out and compared it to the grainier one lying on the oak table next to him.

She sat back and glanced around idly as Steve compared the pictures and flipped through the reports she had discovered. They currently sat in an abandoned conference room in the sub-levels of an old S.H.I.E.L.D facility, which was now being used as a prison and meeting spot for the Avengers (but that was classified, only a few select people knew about it). There wasn't much around them, only an outdated projector screen and a few discarded chairs. They were in the upper levels of the underground complex, but even then they were pretty far under the surface of the city. The only access points were a few abandoned subway staircases, and they were guarded by heavy security.

The prison itself was used for people deemed unfit to reside in public jails, or people suspected of having unnatural abilities. Technically neither of them were supposed to be there, but she thought Steve ought to look into this case, considering he normally had a more rational thought process when it came to superhuman. Her secret reason was that she couldn't stand to talk to Stark right now, even though he was the one who hacked SHIELD and gave her access to most of the information in the file.

The file itself contained classified information about a case that was forgotten a couple years ago, about a kid named Perseus Jackson, a resident teenager in New York who had stirred up trouble over the past few years. Immediately after that crazy encounter two nights ago, she had used a grainy security photo from a street camera to check the databases for this kid. Despite all her research, she was still really confused as to who he was, and how he did what he did that night.

She quickly snapped back to attention as Steve pulled a paper out of the folder and slid it across the table at her. "I'll admit," he said sounding puzzled, "this kid really does know how to avoid unwanted attention." He pointed the middle of the sheet, which was titled "Sightings and Database Matches." Below it was listed every time the kid had been sighted, and a description of where and when. Steve pointed to an event that dated back to several years ago, and then to the next one, which was dated back only a few months ago.

"See, there's a pattern too," he added, peaking her interest. Maybe this pattern would give them a clue as to who this kid was. "Even though there's only a few sightings, they are almost all during the fall, winter, or spring, when he's in school." He indicated the top few sightings, which were circled, "With the exception of these, which all occurred within a few days of each other and were all random acts of destruction or violence."

Natasha scanned all the dates, and saw the pattern he was indicating. She sat back again and thought for a second. "He also seems to be quite a delinquent, changing schools almost every year due to-," she looked closer at a particular account, "-disruptive classroom behavior," she finished, quoting the principal of one of the kid's previous schools.

"Yea, looks like we've caught a troublemaker, but most of this still doesn't make any sense," Steve pulled the paper back and looked even more confused. "How did he manage to break part of the St. Louis Arch? He must have been only 12 or 13 at the time, and right after that he blew up a school bus!" Natasha nodded, she had already seen all of this and had puzzled over it for a while. "No normal teenager goes around doing stuff like that," she said conclusively. "And don't forget what happened a few nights ago, whatever the heck that kid did to that creature was not natural," she added.

"Yea," Steve said quickly, "are we just going to ignore the fact that SHIELD was hunting this creature in the first place? I didn't hear anything about it until you called me!" Natasha inwardly cringed, this was not a subject she wanted to discuss right now. "I'm sorry," she began again, "it was classified information until the kid apparently killed it and tried to run-"Steve cut across quickly, which was unlike him.

"But Stark was there, and he almost got killed himself! I could have helped, and maybe you wouldn't have had to shoot that kid," he finished quickly. Natasha had to tread lightly, she was involved in too much behind the scenes stuff to let Rogers know everything, especially since she wasn't even completely sure what he knew about it.

The behind the scenes stuff mainly consisted to inside arguments about Steve after several incidents, including his mission with the Winter Soldier and a subway disaster with a potential terrorist threat that had happened a few months later. She was avoiding bias in the argument, but secretly she was planning an argument in his favor, and excluding him from this mission was part of her way to try and get him off of SHIELD's immediate radar.

"I told you," she explained cautiously, "I didn't have a choice, I had to incapacitate him before he got out into public traffic and out of our sight." When Steve still looked skeptical, she added, "I didn't hurt him too bad, only a small shot to the upper shoulder, barely missed the bone and muscle. We treated him as soon as he arrived, but the concussion kept him out for a while."

Suddenly the sound of static filled the room, and they both glanced down at the small black radio sitting by Natasha on the table. She grabbed it and tuned the sound up, clearing away the static. "-just woke up, checked out his surroundings and laid back down, doesn't seem to be any danger right now, we'll keep an eye on him though," a voice crackled out. "It's the secure SHIELD station, she explained quickly, before standing up and gathering up the papers. Steve followed suit, pushing in his chair before following her out of the room and into the nearest elevator.

"Are we going to see him?" Steve asked as she strode through the yawning elevator doors, stepping in after her. "Yes, but first we have to see Fury, he told me he found some secure files buried so deep even Stark couldn't get to them," she explained, "and no doubt Fury will want to come with us to interrogate the kid." Steve nodded, and they stood in silence as the floors ticked past, until finally the doors opened to a large room occupied by a large table and updated projector screen, and a single person reading through a stack of papers.

"Director," Natasha said, stepping through the doors along with Steve. "I brought Rogers up to speed, and we worked out a couple of possible patterns but nothing else," she clarified.

He glanced up, then back down, giving Natasha a quick, pointed, you-shouldn't-have-brought-him-here glare, but she dismissed it, storing the problem for later. "Did you get those deep storage files? I-"she was cut off by the buzz of static from her radio again, but it ended too soon for her to catch whatever was said. She glanced back up and strode over to the tableside, where Fury pushed a small stack of papers at her.

She read through, but was disappointed to discover no new information besides a small paragraph about how the kid had disappeared for a long time very recently and hadn't been sighted in half a year. Until now, she thought.

While she was reading, Steve had oh so gracefully erupted into conversation with Fury about why he had been excluded from SHIELD affairs recently without any explanation. Natasha rolled her eyes as Fury retorted with some standard answers, which revealed absolutely nothing. They both began to grow increasingly frustrated, and just before she was about to step in and break them up, the lights above them flickered. Natasha's radio flared again, but the only sound that came out this time was a low bleeping noise. She glanced it over and tired adjusting the frequency, but to no avail. Raising an eyebrow, she pulled Fury's tablet closer to her and tried accessing the security cameras.

Suddenly the lights blinked off again, and remained off as all three of them froze in surprise. Then the emergency lights kicked in, giving the room a dim eerie glow. Steve and Fury glanced at each other and then to her, leaning in to get a glimpse of the security footage. Fury strode over to the panel near the elevators and flipped it open, fiddling with the switches, but to no avail.

He pulled a similar radio out of his coat pocket and turned it on. "This is Nicholas Fury, code Alpha 0-0-2-3-3, requesting a report on the situation in the basement," he spoke firmly into the top, but only received static back. While he fiddled with it as she had, Natasha focused on accessing the security cameras. Surprisingly, all she saw was grey static or blank screens in the place of all the camera footage. Knitting her eyebrows together, she tired a couple passwords and hacking techniques, but nothing changed. She glanced back at Steve's confused face, closing the tablet. "I'm going to check it out down there, "she said, striding for the elevator. "I'm coming too," Steve added, following her to the elevator doors.

"No one is going anywhere until we figure out what's going on down there," Fury said firmly. She punched the button anyways, but was left even more puzzled when nothing happened. Glancing up, she noticed that the lights above the elevator had gone dark.

"Looks like no one is going anywhere anytime soon," Steve commented, trying the button as well. Fury strode over to his tablet and furiously typed away, while Steve tried forcing the elevator doors open. Struggling, he managed to shove them open while Natasha fiddled with the control panel. Glancing up, she saw only darkness, and upon further examination, saw that the elevator car was nowhere near them. "Well now we're really stuck," she said, annoyed.

Steve leaned into the elevator shaft as she had and reached out for the elevator cable, but it was too far away for him to reach. "Hey, Nat," he said cautiously, "I mean, agent Romanoff," he amended quickly, "are there any other ways out of this room?" He already assumed the answer, because if there were any other exits he assumed that's what they would be using.

She glanced back at him as she pried back a few wires in the elevator control panel. "No," she cast a quick glance at Fury, "this is a secret meeting room, couldn't make it too accessible I guess," she finished with a huff, internally cursing whoever designed this building. Sighing, she looked at him and affirmed what he was already thinking. "It's one of the reasons the building was discontinued for use in the first place," she explained, "faulty structure after an accident and the lack of exits. Anything happens up there," she gestured to the ceiling and turned back to the panel, "and we get a few tons of rock dropped onto us."

She could sense Steve's obvious growing distress, but he didn't say anything as he strode back to the meeting table. Several tense, silent minutes later, a large rumble sounded from somewhere in the structure beneath them. She banged her fist in frustration against the panel and slammed it shut, clearly going nowhere. Nick Fury glanced up from whatever he was doing on the tablet with a look of frustration and tension before resuming his work. Steve stopped striding around the room and gave her a hard look.

She glanced around a bit more frantically, trying to hide her similarly growing distress. Suddenly her eyes caught on something she hadn't considered before, the air vent in the ceiling. It was big enough that if she could get up there, she might be able to find a passage to a main hallway or staircase.

"What is it?" Steve asked, recognizing her "I got a plan" face. She pointed to the air duct and explained her plan. "If I can just get high enough up, I should be able to climb it," she said with as much confidence as possible. It wasn't much comfort when they both looked at her skeptically, but she had learned not to doubt her abilities. "Need a boost?" Steve made a step up with his hands and got ready to lift her up.

Now feeling a little skeptical herself, she strode forward and pulled a small knife out of her back pocket. She stepped into his cupped hands and felt him push her towards the ceiling vent. She braced herself against the grated shaft with one hand and tried unscrewing one of the corners. With a successful PING, the screw dropped out and landed on the carpet. Before she could attack the next one however, a large rumbling sound came from almost directly above her. Starting slightly, she braced both hands against the metal and listened intently, casting a glance downward at Steve.

Seeing her concern, he braced himself and she hopped down. "What the hell was that?" Fury questioned, looking up. There were several seconds of silence, before another large crash sounded again, even closer this time. Natasha quickly drew her small handgun, hastily followed by Fury.

There was a low rumbling sound, like something banging on metal, then nothing. "Nat," Steve asked quickly, "what floor is directly above us?" She shook her head, trying to remember. "I, I think there's a maintenance staircase and some offices," she said quickly. They all stood still, in a tense silence, ready for action. There was a pause, then the most unexpected thing happened.

Someone fell through the air vent.

She dove backwards as twisted metal, glass, and chunks of ceiling rained down. Rolling onto her side, she blindly took aim at the floor, trying to get a glimpse of what just happened. She couldn't spot Fury, but Steve had also rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding being squashed by whatever fell through.

That thing, it turned out, was a person. And not just any person, it was that kid from the alley. The kid that she shot. The kid that was supposed to be in security cell in the basement.

Giving herself half a second to be shocked, she stood and aimed her gun at the teen. Steve was pressed flat against the wall, directly behind the teen, and looking stunned. Scrambling to his feet, he looked up at the shaft and then back down at the kid. Natasha inched forward and kept her gun trained on him all the while, but lowered it after the she noticed he wasn't moving. Steve noticed too, and bent down to examine him as Nick Fury strode to her side.

"Is he dead?" she asked in a stunned voice. There was blood pooling around his torso, and speckles of blood spattered the metal and carpet around him. She knelt next to Steve and helped him, trying to find any severe wounds. They both jumped back and Fury aimed his gun as the teen suddenly started in a fit of coughing. He groaned and tried to shift, but cringed at the slight movement. He rolled slowly onto his back and Natasha saw what was causing all the blood, there was a large gash in his leg, probably caused by the impact. He slowly opened his eyes and blearily took in the situation. Natasha almost felt bad for him, she could see the fear and surprise building in his eyes, and she guessed all the noise and commotion was him trying to escape.

How could a teenager get past so many guards unarmed and make it so far? She wondered. Meeting Steve's eyes and glancing at the broken air vent, she knew that this kid had a serious plan backfire. Looking back down as he tried to sit up, she noticed that he was well built, and looked strong even covered in blood and considering he had just fell through an air vent.

Taking in the situation, she saw a silver lining. At least now she would be able to get some answers to her questions about who the hell this kid was.

PERCY'S POV

I am so totally screwed.

A/N

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