2.
Sarah sat swaying with the rhythm of the car, gripping the handle of her briefcase, an old, brown, ratty leftover of her early days in D.C., as the train sped on towards 405 Lexington Ave. where new offices far below the Chrysler building were beginning to teem with life in the 9 to 5 world., in view of Mr. Stark's newly re-renovated tower. Her first instinct when the train pulled into Grand Central Station was to remain in her seat, go back home and hide under her bed with Mr. Whiskers but her feet found autopilot a more sensible option and she was soon standing before a large black desk with countless monitors surrounding it. Sarah nodded to the security guard, an older man with grey hair who looked as if he were made of iron, and handed him her new badge. He took it from her, a quizzical look on his face which she observed in one of the monitors trained on the desk itself, then handed it back to her. "Welcome to your first day, Ms. Miller, good luck" he said as he pushed a button she couldn't see and a door slid open to the right of the desk. She stepped through the door with the ominous words, good luck, ringing in her ears. Moments later, she was being helped to her feet by a giant of a man as she silently cursed Murphy's law. She had been walking with her head down, a bad habit she couldn't seem to break, only glancing up to read the numbers on the doors along the hallway when she'd run full force into a wall of solid flesh and stepped backward in an awkward dance before finally landing in the corridor cross legged. "M'lady, are you injured?" The man asked, concern etched on his bearded face as he took her by the arm, a hand to her back to steady her as he lifted her to her feet. She managed to stutter a negative as the blond stranger bent and picked up her briefcase. "You would do well to keep your eyes trained before you when you walk, M'lady. To do otherwise is to court disaster" He said as he handed her briefcase back to her trembling hands. "Now where is it you're headed, that I may be able to direct you?" "Room 230 I think, or that's what it says in my folder anyway." The man smiled and swept his arm in a grand gesture down the corridor, "You were almost there," Two doors further. Sarah sighed, "Thank you," and walked quickly to the door as the strange man bowed deeply, "My pleasure, M'lady."
New hire paperwork kept her busy most of the morning and she felt oddly safe in the confines of her new cubicle. She began to relax just the slightest bit and had hunched over her computer terminal ready to set up her new password which she'd had yet to decide upon when a shadow cast her cubicle in darkness. She turned her chair and looked up into the face of the bearded stranger. "M'lady, forgive the intrusion. I wished to inquire upon your health after your fall in the corridor this morning and to correct a grevious error upon my part. I did not properly introduce myself," Sarah could see, in her peripheral vision, heads popping over the edge of the cubicle wall beside her and she was suddenly aware that this was one of those wondrous and terrifying moments she had been expecting and dreading all at once. "My name is Thor and you are?" Her name, oh god, she knew the words but she couldn't find her voice, she mouthed "Sarah Miller" swallowed, her throat clicked drily. "Forgive me, I did not hear you, M'lady" Thor said, stepped back and smiled. "Sarah Miller" she managed to croak and offered her hand for him to shake which he promptly took and bussed lightly across the top of her fingers. "An honor M'lady Sarah. I am glad to see you are faring well. I hope to meet you again." Sarah could only smile and nod in return as she watched Thor disappear down the aisle past the cubicles, nodding to the other agents as he walked past. When Sarah had regained her composure enough to raise her head, she was looking into the eyes of a young red-headed woman poised over the wall above her computer terminal. "I'm Lily," she said smiling as she offered her hand over the top of the monitor, "And you just made the biggest first impression on record in this office." She took Lily's hand and shook it, her hand limp, her senses reeling. "You'll get used to it" Lily smiled even bigger, "Get into a conversation with Mr. Stark and you won't know what hit you." It wasn't until half an hour later when Sarah stood to head to the cafeteria for lunch that she realized that she'd been sitting at her terminal tensed like a arrow set to fly. She stretched and winced as her muscles protested loudly when she started back down the corridor out into the main hallway.
The cafeteria was filled with agents, men and women in lab coats, a flurry of activity swirling around blue metal tables and chairs. Sarah picked a table farthest from the center of the room and opened her small yogurt cup. She'd had no appetite for the past hour but was determined to force the contents of the cup down before any other excitement decided to develop. Ten minutes later, she had relaxed into the pose of one who had completely let her guard down, her legs crossed at the ankles, left arm draped over her stomach as she perused an internal newsletter she had found at her desk upon arrival, so engrossed was she that she was completely oblivious and remained so, of the tall man with dark hair that had paused in his purposeful stride at the far side of the room to stare at her for a full three minutes until he spied Director Fury heading towards her table.
Sarah looked up at Mr. Fury with a twisted feeling in the pit of her stomach, wishing she hadn't made the attempt at the yogurt after all. Mr. Fury clasped his hands behind his back and nodded at Sarah, "How's your first day moving along, Ms. Miller?" "Good, sir" she replied with a smile that she hoped didn't look as shaky as it felt on her face. "Good, after lunch, please report to Lab number 3 on level 10 with your pad for a requisition list from Dr. Banner. He knows you're coming." She watched Fury walk away. Dr. Banner, she had read a great deal about him before being assigned here, how his experiments with gamma radiation had turned him into a mutant Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. As she picked up the refuse of her lunch, she realized the muscles in her back had tensed up again.
Dr. Banner stood before a row of transparent computer screens suspended from the ceiling, his glasses perched far down to the tip of his nose, his mouth moving in soundless words as he glanced at the papers in the crook of his arm and back again to the glowing screens. Sarah had watched the door to the lab slide open in response to her badge and she'd walked in but it took her clearing her throat twice to get the doctor's attention. He smiled at her, his movements belying the fact that he had been as flustered to see her there as she had been to be seen. "Sorry, deep in thought, Ms..." He pushed the glasses back further on his nose and glanced at the badge at Sarah's shoulder, "Miller, you're new aren't you?" "Yes sir," she replied, for all the quiet rage that simmered beneath the surface of this man, Sarah felt he was the most normal member of the team she'd heard so much about and she stood quietly while Dr. Banner took the pad from her, made a few gestures on the screen and was in the process of handing the pad back to her when to the right of her ear came a whispered "Boo" She drove her right elbow backwards, connecting briefly with cloth and hard muscle, whirled around, maintaining the merest fingertip grip on the pad, nearly backing into Dr. Banner as she came face to face with Tony Stark, hands up, bent slightly forward, gasping, "Don't they make agents nowadays with a sense of humor? Good reflexes though sweetheart," Tony stood upright and took a deep breath, "You may need them around here, in fact I'm sure you will." He brushed past her and up to Dr. Banner, "How about you, Bruce, did she test your reflexes too?" A quick smile as Dr. Banner made as if to look at his notes again. "Nope just came here for requisitions." Tony glanced at Sarah then back at Dr. Banner, " Oh, ok, well if you'll excuse us sweetheart, a complex thermonuclear problem a day keeps the doctor away." Dr. Banner glanced behind himself at a long object laid out on a sterile table. "Thanks for coming down here to get those requisitions out, I put a rush order on them." Sarah nodded and backed from the room. As she walked down the corridor, she was aware of the feeling one gets when starstruck. She well knew she'd just met two of the greatest modern minds alive and would likely meet them again and again working here. When the door of the elevator at the end of the hall slid open, she stepped inside, her head down, as she turned to press the number of the floor she needed on the panel, she realized there was someone else in the elevator with her. She looked over her shoulder to ask her fellow rider what floor he needed to go to but stood frozen with her hand hovering over the brightly glowing numbers, staring at the man with the wide smile and green blue eyes. "Who are you?" The man said, causing Sarah to grip her pad tighter. "Sarah Miller" she replied in a small voice. The man let a smirk cross his lips and he nodded, "I am Loki." She felt as if she was staring at the face of pure madness, everything about him, the long black coat he wore, the dark green button down shirt, black pants, boots, black hair pulled back from his high-cheekboned face, gave the impression of a horseman recently freed from the Apocalypse. And now this horseman was following her. "Where do you work?" Loki asked as he kept stride beside her down the corridor to room 230. "I work here." She gestured as she walked through the door, listening to the thud of his boots as he followed her all the way to her cubicle. She was once again aware of eyes upon her as Loki leaned against the desk her computer was perched on, arms crossed with a slight smile. "What kind of work do you do?" She set her pad down beside the keyboard of the computer and sighed. Scary was quickly being replaced with annoying. "Requisitions, accounting, an occasional stint ridding the world of irritation with my service pistol," The sudden laughter caused her to jump and she nearly backed her chair into his knees. She put her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes momentarily, opening them only to find Loki had squatted beside her chair and was smiling inches away from her face. She kept her hand to her mouth so as not to scream. "I can't help but think that comment was directed towards me." He said, "Tell me do they let you carry arms right from day one?" On impulse, Sarah reached around to her left side and lifted the lapel of her jacket to reveal a brief glimpse of a pistol in a side holster. All at once, Loki was standing again, his hands clasped together, head thrown back in laughter. Sarah allowed herself a shy smile. "Sarah Miller, I can stay no longer today, Fury gets...concerned when he cannot find me. I will visit with you tomorrow." Before Sarah could say anything to the contrary, Loki was far down the aisle, before he left room 230 however, he turned, smiled again at Sarah and closed the door behind him.