Once they were in the air, Agent Romanoff escorted Doctor Banner, Steve and Beatrice into the Helicarrier. The inside of the S.H.I.E.L.D. base was like walking into an alien space ship; the technology looking light years ahead of this time. Beatrice and Steve looked around in awe as they walked onto the bridge. The far wall was glass and you could see the clouds and sky through it as the Helicarrier flew. Many other agents were working at their respective computers or talking strategy or code to each other. Beatrice's eye landed near the middle of the room where Agent Hill was ordering the other agents around and talking into the small headset attached to her ear. Agent Hill took a seconds to smile lightly at Beatrice before going back to her business.
Steve walked around the bridge in shock and awe; never guessing that this is what the future would have been like back when he was just a small kid from Brooklyn. Doctor Banner was finding the mass of people around him had raised his anxiety and was a bit jumpy when seeing the armed guards at their posts. Beatrice's eyes landed at the man in the center of all this; a man with dark skin and dressed all in black from his shoes to his eye patch that covered his left eye. He exchanged words with Agent Hill before turning around to face the people that had just come aboard his ship.
"Gentleman," He said with a tone of authority before glancing at Beatrice, "Miss. Babino."
Steve merely walked up to the man, dug into his pocket and pulled out a ten before going on to look around the bridge. The man pocketed the money before walking up to a nervous looking Doctor Banner. "Doctor, thank you for coming."
"Thanks for asking nicely. So, uh . . . how long am I staying?" The doctor asked, shaking the man's hand before getting straight to what he was thinking.
"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you are in the clear."
"Where are we with that?" The man, who Beatrice still had no clue who he was, turned to Agent Coulson on the lower deck for an explanation on the situation.
"We're sweeping every wireless accessible camera on the planet." Agent Coulson explained, catching Steve's ear and Beatrice's interest. "Cellphones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."
"That's still not going to find them in time." Agent Romanoff added.
"You have to narrow the field. How many spectrometers do you have access to?"
Nick turned to the doctor, "How many are there?"
"Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work." Beatrice's head was spinning from what had just tumbled out of Doctor Banner's mouth. Suddenly, she felt way out of her depths being here.
"Agent Romanoff, would you show Doctor Banner to his laboratory, please?" The man asked. Agent Romanoff walked from where we was and started showing the doctor out.
"You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys." And with that they were gone. Steve was still on the lower level looking around as Beatrice watched the people work, a frown on her face.
Why was I brought here? Beatrice asked herself. Steve is the world's first superhero, Doctor Banner is a mega genius to the power of 75, Agent Romanoff probably had all that S.H.I.E.L.D. training, and Tony Stark (if he showed up) had his Iron-Man suit he could use. Everyone involved with this had experience with what they were going to do on this mission; besides herself. Beatrice had had some boxing lessons as a kid and can hold her own, plus she has her ability with metals. But no experience on saving the world. She was thinking so hard that she didn't even hear the footsteps coming up from behind her.
"Miss. Babino." Beatrice jumped before turning around and facing the man from earlier, "I don't think we've properly met. I'm Nick Fury; Director of S.H.I.E.L.D."
Beatrice took his hand and shook it, before letting herself talk, "Nice place you got here sir."
"Thank you." Director Fury said with a smile, "It might not seem like much, but it's home." That made Beatrice laugh and then look out to the agents still working. It was silent for a little while before Beatrice spoke up.
"Director, I don't fully understand why I'm here."
"S.H.I.E.L.D. has been interested in your abilities since we've caught wind of a girl whose hand turned to rusted metal at a playground in Brooklyn." Beatrice straightened out and looked at Director Fury.
"That was the first time I used my powers. You mean you have been keeping tabs on me since the very beginning?" She asked, a bit alarmed.
"We knew that one day we would like to recruit you into our folds, but the timing never seemed to be right. When we thought it was the right time, we heard of your grandparents passing. So we waited and then we had to deal with all the new heroes coming out of the woodwork. Stark has kept us busy, plus the finding of the Captain and some ugly business in New Mexico. Then the Tesseract was stolen and I thought it was finally time to talk to you about S.H.I.E.L.D." Director Fury explained. Beatrice nodded a bit numbly at the superior. That was a lot to take in in a couple minutes. She was looking out at the lower level before catching Steve's eye. He gave her a questionable look, probably wondering what was wrong. Beatrice shook her head before looking away, she barely knew the man and she didn't feel comfortable telling him about this.
She stood next to Director Fury for a little while longer, Beatrice asking questions about S.H.I.E.L.D. and Fury answering before a voice from the lower level broke their conversation.
"We got a hit. 67% match; weight, cross match, 79%."
"Location?" Agent Coulson asked, as he stood the closest to the other agent and beside Steve.
"Stuttgart, Germany. 28, Konigstrasse. He's not exactly hiding." the agent said, looking up at his superior. Director Fury nodded at the information.
"Captain, you're up." Steve nodded and left the room, but not before catching eyes with Beatrice. She nodded at him right as he left. Director Fury turned to Beatrice and put a hand on her shoulder, making her look at the man.
"You're up too, kid. Agent Coulson, care to take Miss. Babino down to where we're keeping her new uniform?" Agent Coulson nodded and then led Beatrice out of the room the same way Steve left. The agent and non-agent walked down the corridor and took a couple turns before stopping at a pair of double doors.
"I hope you like it, I got to put some say into this one too. But a lot of it came from Agents Hill and Romanoff." Agent Coulson said before pushing the double doors open.
Once Beatrice was dressed in her new clothing and had put her rings back on, She walked out to find Agent Coulson waiting for her. "It looks good on you. You look like a hero." Beatrice blushed at what he said, never really considering herself being a hero.
The leather pants with bits of Kevlar padding in them wrapped around her legs like a bulkier second skin. Over those were a pair of black combat boots that were long enough to reach halfway up her calf and had buckles keeping the laces in place. On top was probably the part of the "uniform" that Beatrice was most questionable about; it was a Kevlar padded bra top that covered what needed to be covered but left her torso bare. Over the bra was like the leather jacket that she walked in with, but on the shoulder of both sleeves was the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo in gray. Beatrice got a sort of Black Canary from DC Comics vibe off of it when she was putting it on.
"Thanks Agent Coulson." She said, wrapping her arms around her torso to try and cover her stomach. Agent Coulson noticed her arms and chuckled.
"Don't worry about it, you look great. And you can call me Phil, I feel like you and I will might be working together after this. Did the Director talk to you about that?" Phil asked as they made their was down the hallway. The couple of agents that passed them stared at the newly suited up Beatrice, but Beatrice was too focused with what Phil was talking about to pay attention to them.
"A bit. I have to say that I'm a bit interested in working here, I like the job I have now but . . . I don't know. Being her doesn't seem so bad." Beatrice explained to the man. Phil nodded as they walked to the platform where Agent Romanoff and Steve were waiting in the jet. Beatrice turned to the agent and gave him a handshake, "Thank you for walking me around. And the talk."
"No problem. Oh! There's one more thing," Phil pulled out a smaller tablet from his suit jacket and gave it to her. Beatrice turned it on and watched as a page came up with a picture of her and what seemed to be her information. "Your file. I thought you would want to look at the name Fury assigned to you."
Beatrice looked up at the top where her name would be and scrunched up her eyebrows at it, "Beatrice 'STERLING' Babino?"
"Because you can work with metals and the main one you use is silver. Get it? Sterling silver?" Phil asked, his elbow hitting her ribs lightly in a joking way. Beatrice smiled at that and laughed before handing the tablet to Phil.
"That's clever. See ya Phil." Beatrice waved as she ran over to the jet. Phil waved back and Beatrice turned and got on the jet just as it was taking off. She closed the door and looked inside to see Steve standing in the jet with a newer looking version on the Captain America uniform Beatrice had seen in pictures, his shield on his back. She looked past Steve and saw Agent Romanoff and another agent piloting the jet as they started their way to Germany. Beatrice looked back in Steve's direction just to see him gawking at her appearance. His eyes were wide and a deep blush came onto his face once he noticed that he had been caught.
"You ready for this, Captain?" Beatrice asked, trying to play off the look he was giving her. Steve stopped his gawking and looked away from her face.
"I should be asking you that, this is your first time in the field."
"I got this; Sterling's got this?"
"Sterling?"
Beatrice smiled at him and his confused look, "That my hero name I guess. Fury came up with it."
"Huh, suits you"