Author's Note: Alright, we're approaching a bit of an arc here. I just hope I do this right. In other news, I have an editor now! Yay! Unfortunately, she started after I've already got twelve chapters of this fic up on the internet. So there have been some minor changes made to chapter four, and there might be more coming for the rest of the fic. Read them, or don't, the story should flow nicely either way. Anyway, read and review, as always. And enjoy!
"Ms. Trescott?" I awoke to the sound of… someone's voice. Sounded like an old British dude.
"The hell…?" I questioned, sitting up. "Who's in my room?"
"No one, miss." There was the voice again. "My name is Jarvis."
"Oh, yeah. You're Stark's AI butler. What're you doing here?"
"Mr. Stark installed me in the helicarrier's mainframe, thinking I could be useful."
"O-okay. One more time; what're you doing in my room?"
"I only thought you would like to know that-"
"Spit it out!" I cut him off.
"Ms. Trescott, it's noon."
"Oh." I said, not fully comprehending. "Oh!" I realized now; I had slept 'til noon. Fury was probably ticked.
"Do not worry, miss. Director Fury understands perfectly, given the day you had yesterday."
"Seriously?"
"Yes, miss." Wow. I didn't think Fury was biologically capable of being considerate. I always figured if he ever did something nice for someone else he'd, I dunno, explode or something. That's when my ears were bombarded with another sound; the most dreadful screeching I'd heard since my last stay in a torture chamber.
"The hell is that?" I yelled over the noise.
"The Tyler triplets, miss."
"The what?" I stood up and opened the door, still in my pajamas (pants and a t-shirt sporting white bat silhouettes on a field of black) and popped my head out. Following the direction of the ungodly noise I soon came to one of the halls leading to the office. Walking down the hall was Rose, looking not nearly as rested as she was stressed. She was holding two blonde babies, one in each arm, and a third, red-haired baby was in the arms of Loki, who was walking behind her. All were bawling. "What're these kids doing here?" I asked.
"Fury called us in on too short notice to call a nanny." Rose replied. "They were fine up until we got on the helicarrier, then-" She was cut off by one of the babies tugging at her hair. "Ow! Madison!"
"That's Eric, dear. Madison is over here." Loki said, holding up the child in his arms pointedly.
"I'm at the end of my rope here." Rose said, exasperated. That's when her eyes lit up, and she seemed to get an idea. "Wendy, do you like kids?"
"Do I- ah!" I was cut off as the two kids in Rose's arms were unloaded onto me.
"Watch them while we're talking with Fury, would you?" She asked, pleading in her eyes.
"I cannot handle kids, Rose! Do I look like a responsible adult?" I twitched.
"Please? It would only be for half an hour, an hour at the most!" I sighed.
"Fine. Fine, I'll watch them."
"Thank you!" She squealed. "You're the best!" She gave me a kiss on the cheek before handing me a bag full of what I presumed was baby stuff, and walking off to Fury's office. Another baby was unloaded onto me as Loki passed. He smirked as he walked by.
"Good luck." He said. "You'll need it." And that's how I ended up juggling three crying, Asgardian babies. An hour later, I was sitting in the rec room, (yes, the helicarrier has a rec room. Not surprisingly, it was Stark's idea) holding one kid in each arm, with one sitting on my lap. "Show me the way to go home," I sang. "I'm tired an' I wanna go to bed." I'd been singing this song for the past forty-five minutes, and the kids were finally fast asleep. I could give my vocal cords a rest. That's when Natasha came in.
"Hey." She said. I shushed her, and she seemed to notice the kids. "Rose saddled you with the triplets, huh?" I nodded. She sat down on the couch next to me. I noticed she wasn't in her cat-suit today. She was wearing jeans, and a black t-shirt with 007 printed big and bold in white on the front.
"James Bond fan?" I said.
"What can I say? I love the classics. Nice PJs, by the way."
"Ah, screw you." She grinned. Gee… was I really that funny? I couldn't help smiling back. I guess we were over what happened in Moscow. It seemed like things were back to normal. But… I still couldn't help but wonder what would have happened… if she had kissed me back. Of course, my train of thought was interrupted when one of the triplets, (Madison, I think?) opened her eyes.
"Oh, shit!" I whisper-hissed.
"Quiet, you'll scare her." Natasha said. "C'mere, Maddie." She picked the kid up and started bouncing her up and down on her lap, much to her delight.
"You can tell them apart?" I said.
"Of course I can. It's easy. Madison has black hair, Eira has blonde hair, and Eric… well, the parts are different."
"I see." My nose wrinkled as a foul stench made its way over to me. "Oh, great."
"Where are the diapers?" Natasha asked. I soundlessly pointed to the bag, and watched as she unzipped the top, pulled out a diaper, and got to work. I was mesmerized. She was acting… motherly! And this is Natasha we're talking about here! I stared too long, though, because when she was finished she turned and caught my gaze. "What are you looking at?" She asked.
"Where did you learn how to change a diaper?"
"One of my missions once involved posing as a nanny for a while."
"By missions, you mean…?" She obviously didn't want to talk about it, so I let the matter drop.
"So. Why are you still watching the triplets?" She asked. I was confused.
"Loki and Rose were in a meeting with the Avengers. Come to think of it… why are you here?"
"That meeting ended about forty-five minutes ago."
"Well then, what the hell are they…" I trailed off. "Oh. On second thought, I won't ask." Natasha nodded. Just a few minutes later, Rose and Loki came into the room, Rose still fixing her hair.
"Thank you so much for watching them!" Rose said. Now Eira and Eric were awake too, and they cooed, reaching for their mother. She picked them both up, and Loki took Madison from Natasha.
"Yeah." I said dryly. "You're welcome." Rose looked sheepishly at the floor.
"Well, we'd best be going. Isn't that right, Loki?"
"I'm afraid she's right. Time to get the young ones back to their nice, reinforced nursery." I snorted, and he looked at me curiously.
"Wait." I said. "That wasn't a joke?"
"Never underestimate a child of Asgard."
"Oh, and I just can't wait until their Jotun sides start to show through." Rose said sarcastically. "Goodbye, and thank you again!" She said as they left the room.
"Huh." I said, simply.
"Huh? Care to articulate more?" Natasha sat back down on the couch next to me.
"I didn't know they had kids."
"Well, you know now. They're one year old, all of them." There was an awkward silence.
"She's my mother." I blurted out. Natasha's eyes widened, and she stood up in a hurry, moving to the door. "Where do you think you're going?" I said after her. She turned, shushed me, then stuck her head out the door and looked left. Then right. Then she shut the door carefully, and locked it.
"Okay. It's safe now." She sat down again.
"I went to visit my pa yesterday." I said. She nodded. "She's my mother. Charlotte's my mother." She nodded again. Of course; she had to have been expecting this. I think even Pete figured it out before I did. "I always knew my mom left when I was six. I just never knew…" I trailed off. "Do you think Fury knew?" I asked. Natasha looked at me, as serious as ever.
"Of course he knew. Fury knows everything about all of us." She was right. Fury had an endless amount of information on every one of the Avengers. Why should I be any different? Wait… did I just call myself an Avenger? My train of thought was cut short by Natasha. "I still don't think he's telling us everything about Charlotte." She said. I looked up.
"What do you mean?"
"Don't tell me you didn't catch it. In the transmission? She called him Nick. Nobody calls him Nick. They've got a history." Something caught in the back of my throat.
"Oh, god. You don't think he…?" Her eyes widened.
"Oh, no no no. No! I mean, you look nothing like him! He can't be!" Of course, logic demanded we abandon the idea. But in the back of my head… "Do you want me to?" She said.
"Want you to what?"
"Find out." I looked at her quizzically. "I can hack into Fury's file system. Find everything he's not telling us. But you might learn something you're not ready to know."
"Are you sure?" She nodded. "It'll just be more red on your ledger." She snorted.
"With my past, this barely even registers as 'red'."
"After you, then?" She smirked.
"We're not going anywhere."
"Wha?" I watched as she pulled from god-knows-where, a little black device with a cord attached to the end. There was a little screen on the device, and a plug on the end of the cord. "The hell is that?" I asked.
"This is what's going to get us the file." I watched curiously as she plugged the device into an outlet in the wall, and code started flashing up and down the little screen as she typed as fast as she could using only her thumbs.
"You look like you're trying to hack into the Matrix by texting." I observed.
"How astute." She said dryly.
"I'm just saying." I peered over her shoulder as she made quick work of Fury's firewalls.
"I'm in."
"Whaddyou got?"
"Hold on." She scanned through the files until one caught her eye, and she opened it. "Charlotte Vanderburg…" She muttered. "What are you hiding?" She stopped scrolling. There it was, right in the middle of the screen.
"She used to date Fury?!" I sort of whisper-yelled. Natasha nodded, transfixed by the screen.
"It looks like they dated in high-school. Their senior year." Wow. The thought of Fury dating. Doing normal, human stuff… it was weird.
"Wait; that's not all that's in there." She nodded.
"It says he got her pregnant." My eyes widened in alarm.
"No, no it's not what you think!" She said quickly. "She had an abortion. It was very soon after that that she…"
"She went berserk." I finished for her. "Started killing her classmates." I thought. "My dad said she'd disappear sometimes. For hours, even days."
"That… explains something, doesn't it?" My blackouts. Charlotte - my mother – I'd bet the farm I got them from her. There was a moment of silence. And I stood up, unlocked the door, and made a beeline for Fury's office. "Wendy, where are you going?" She ran after me as I stormed through the halls. Fury knew. He knew this entire time. Charlotte was my fricking mother and he had me working against her, totally in the dark when he could have just told me. Did he expect me to just take this lying down? I felt the collar buzz as I walked, picking up pace as I went, and twitching uncontrollably. Oh yeah; the collar. I decided I didn't care. I was interrupted when Natasha stepped in front of me, arms spread and in my way. "Stop this." She said. "You don't have to do this." I hesitated a bit. Then walked straight through her, pushing her to the ground. The collar's shock registered as only a faint buzz in the back of my neck. No wonder I couldn't feel it, too; by now my vision was starting to blur, and my thoughts were focusing in on one goal; make Fury pay. It was starting. Soon I would wake up in a dark room somewhere, chains on my wrists and blood on my hands, and I didn't care. I was angry. I was mad as hell. The last thing I saw, I mean really saw, was the doors swinging open at my touch, and Fury turning to look my way.
"Fury!" I shouted.
I remember little flashes after that. Natasha trying to pull me off of Fury. All the agents calling for backup at once. They tried to shoot a tranquilizer in my ass; all it did was make me worse. I remember being held back kicking and screaming by huge, green arms. And crying. It might have been me who was crying. I'm not sure. I woke on the ground, face down. I quickly sat up and looked around; a circular room with glass walls, and a metal ceiling and floor. Hulk's vault. They had to put me in the vault. I looked down at my hands, which were covered in blood. The stench of iron filled my nose. I panicked for a second, then I saw the cuts, scrapes and raw bits on my hands. It was mine; my blood.
"That was me. Sorry." I looked up to see Bruce sitting outside the vault. He looked distressed. He was completely disheveled, and he hadn't shaved in at least a day. "When Hulk was bringing you in here, you were pounding at him pretty hard. Clawing at the walls." I said nothing. He stood up out of his chair and walked over to the wall of the vault. "Are you alright?" He asked. I shook my head now. God… all I wanted was to disappear. What had I done? Wait… what had I done?
"What happened?" I asked.
"Natasha said you found out-"
"No." I said firmly. "What happened?" He took a deep breath.
"Fury's got a broken leg and a few impressive bruises. You broke Tasha's nose. Clint tried to help too. He's still crying over his broken bow. Three of the agents are in the medical ward. Two are dead."
I moved slowly, curling up on the spot, hugging my knees. I tried to cry. I tried, I really did, but I couldn't. I had killed two people. Two innocent people. I hadn't even cared. Before I went, before I was all the way gone, I remember wanting so bad to black out. Maybe I just didn't want to have to witness the things I wanted to do to Fury with my own eyes. I heard him tapping on the keypad.
"No, don't come in." He didn't listen. He stepped into the vault with me. "You're stuck in here now." I said.
"Coulson's watching on a security camera. He'll know If I need out." He sat down on the floor with me, and put an arm around my shoulder. I didn't want it there. I didn't do anything about it. "Wendy, I know how you feel." He said. "I know what it's like to-"
"You don't." I said. My voice was quiet, but harsh. "You don't know. When I black out, it's me. It's me killing everyone and enjoying it. And, yeah, I don't remember after, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't have the luxury of having some "other guy" inside me I can blame it on." He was taken aback. He slowly removed his hand from my back.
"Wendy, you can't let this define you. There have to be treatments out there, ways we could make you better!" I snapped toward him, my teeth bare and my eyes wild. He gulped; then leaned forward and wrapped his arms around me. If he was expecting a reaction, he didn't get it. I sat still as a stone waiting for him to leave. Eventually he just fell asleep, and I shrugged him off of me onto the floor and lay down on my side. I didn't want to be anymore. I just didn't want to exist. Huh, yeah; I thought to myself. Like I'd be brave enough to end it.
"Why not?" I heard a voice say. The voice was feminine, but sort of raspy. It sounded like me.
"Where are you?" I asked.
"Right here, dumbass." I looked around. "Here as in I'm in your head. Congrats; you're officially nuts." Oh yeah. Dad had said that Charlotte used to talk to herself; I must have inherited it. Great; just great. Now I was a homicidal berserker schizoid. "Why not?" The voice said again. "Go on, just do it."
"I don't have anything here."
"Didn't Fury say the collar was rigged to explode?" I gave it some thought. I fondled the collar for a bit. Then I slipped my hand under, feeling it buzz. I started to pull.
That's when I heard the door open, and Natasha walked in.
"Hey." She said. I didn't bother looking up. "He fell asleep, huh?" I heard a clatter. "Since you refuse to leave the vault, I thought I'd better bring you some dinner. Compliments of Wade." I rolled around and peered cautiously at the plate. Chimichangas; figures. "He asked to make it extra spicy for you. It corroded the first few tortillas we tried, so eventually we just wrapped it in three at the same time and hoped for the best." Leave. Just leave. Leave leave leave… "It wasn't your fault." Oh, this was going to be interesting. "It wasn't anyone's. The way I see it, the universe just has a funny way of entertaining itself." She stepped toward me. "Oh yeah; Fury asked me to do this." I heard a click from her direction, and another from the collar; and it fell off. The collar fell to the ground, lifeless. "He said it would be too easy to misuse, and he'd put it back on once you were feeling like yourself." Somehow I doubted those were his exact words. "We're all worried." Natasha said as she left. "Everyone is. Even Stark, though he's trying his best to hide it. Just… feel better." She slung Bruce over his shoulder, and the door closed behind her. And I went back to my nice, comfortable fetal position.