A/N: I'll admit that it's been a short while since I last watched anything to do with the SHIELD helipad, and even when I was watching it, I wasn't exactly admiring the architecture at the time. That being said, I hope this chapter is still passable to the rest of you.
Also, a sincere thank you to everyone who's followed/favourited my story so far. It makes me happy to know that people genuinely appreciate this story. : )
Chapter 22
A Marvellous Vertibird
I feel crap the next day. In the night, I was plagued with nightmares of a black scaled, green eyed dragon in danger. It was just like in the past, until the end bit. I usually could always tell what was a dream and what was... More...
After the bit with the warriors (as that must be what they were), my mind seemed to take over the dream and warped it into some kind of espionage mission to save some kind of black dragon ornament from my worse nightmare and greatest phobia. Those fucking knitted teddy bears.
But back on topic. What was that bit about something happening in sixteen years? Does that mean sixteen years ago, or in sixteen years time?
Well... Of course he means sixteen years time (I think), but what about the rest of it? Maybe those agents would be able to tell me more about it today. A knock sounds at the door as I stretch and yawn in bed.
"Yep," I say tiredly to the door as I drowsily check my clock. 9:17. Still got about two months of lie-ins to try and catch up on.
"Miss White-Friar," an unmistakably recognisable female voice says from the other side of the door. "We were supposed to have left for S.H.I.E.L.D head quarters over three hours ago."
"Oh, fack it!" I exclaim as I roll out of bed and change into the first clothes my hands touch (my dark blue shirt with small hot pink polka dots decorating it, and my dark denim skinny jeans with a dark grey hoody to finish the look). "Coming!" I yell as I hastily drown myself in deodorant before throwing the door wide open.
"Now, let's piss off and get this over and done with ASAP," I say nervously. After all, knitted teddy bears may be my arch enemies, but needles come as a close second.
I was forever scarred after my first injections as a very small child, where I clearly remember thinking in my traumatised young mind, "No more!"
And now here I am betraying that young child of my memories by getting literally fucking experimented on. Fucking brilliant.
Sorry if I sound a little fucking tense, but I don't much fucking like having some prick stick his finger up my arse to see if shit still comes out of it, and I especially fucking despise it when that same prick inserts some kind of crap into my veins that has fuck knows what bullshit in it!
So, yeah. I'm a little tense.
I'm surprised to see a notable lack of agents in the living room as I shuffle my way past it towards the front door.
"So, where's Smiles, Grumpy and Dark 'n' Brooding?" I ask Natasha as I open the door to step outside, only to have my question immediately answered.
"Sorry we're late. There was an issue involving an extinct reptile and an illegal drug," Coulson says swiftly from where he stands next to the car. I can also see both of the other two agents sitting in the front two seats of the car.
"Don't worry, Agent Coulson," Natasha says, sounding quite irritated. "She was still asleep when I came to collect her."
"Hey!" I say defensively, not much liking the way she's looking at me. "It takes work and effort to look as fabulous as I do!" She just blankly stares at me, unimpressed with my sense of humour.
I can already tell that our relationship will be a... strained one.
Agent Coulson just smiles patiently at me, even while Agent Dickhead glares silently through the window from the front passenger seat.
-BREAK-
The journey stretches on for what feels like forever, but was actually only a couple of hours. I had just about enough time to say goodbye to everyone before the agents whisked me away to take me to their top secret base. The car is silent for most of the drive, with me crammed between Agent Coulson and the stiff and silent Natasha. Agent Coulson frequently tries to pick up the conversation in the car, with the occasional bit of help from Agent Dickhead (though most of the time, he just manages to piss me off), but he eventually gives up, filling the car with silence again.
As the car finally stops, I see the ocean spread out from the window and a welcoming sandy beach.
"Are you seriously trying to tell me that your top secret government hideaway is located on the beach?" I ask incredulously. Agent Dickhead snorts in amusement as Agent Coulson calmly answers.
"No, but we're almost there," he says as we climb out of the car and make our way down to the beach below. Judging by the signs dotted about, it appears to be a private beach that is highly unaccessible to anyone other than those who own it. Those people, it seems, being S.H.I.E.L.D.
With Dark 'n' Brooding now leading the way, we walk towards a dock with several simple boats tied up to it.
"You're fucking shitting me, right?" I say in disbelief. "Is your little hideout in Atlantis or something?"
"You know, I'm really starting to feel like punching you in the face, right now," Agent Dickhead says through gritted teeth and a sidelong glare at me. I glare back at him from where I walk behind him and to the right while carefully treading to keep the sand out of my poorly chosen trainers (and failing).
"And I'm really starting to feel like punching you in the dick. I'd like to see just how high you'd scream, Agent Dickhead," I retort truthfully. To my right, Natasha smirks and gives me an approving nod, even as Agent Dickhead grumbles about how much of an unfair bitch I am.
"You seem to like calling Kerne that," Natasha says softly, her voice masterfully pitched just low enough for me to hear her, and for the others to be oblivious. I shrug as Dark 'n' Brooding leads the way to the least most attractive boat.
"What can I say? He's a dickhead," I say simply as we congregate around the boat. Agent Dickhead snarls at me.
"My name is Kerne!" he shouts, almost frothing at the mouth. I roll my eyes at the bloke.
"Look, mate, I lived with a crazy evil god for two months and survived with more than just my sanity intact. Do you think a whiny little prick such as yourself could possibly come even close to intimidating me?" I ask him, more incredulous that he would think such a thing than anything else. His nostrils flare as he tightens his fists.
"In fact, I kind of find it cute," I say, smirking at his anger. Dark 'n' Brooding has to hold him back as Agent Dickhead goes to lunge for me.
"For fuck's sake, remember what I told you before- just ignore her!" Dark 'n' Brooding says as Dick continues to struggle for me. I raise an unimpressed eyebrow at him- just like the one Loki used to raise for me.
"Let me guess, I remind him of his abusive mother or something, right?" I ask Agent Coulson and Natasha as I watch the two men struggle.
"Actually, I think you remind him of his little sister," Agent Coulson says calmly.
"Don't fucking tell her!" Dick shouts out, looking and sounding kind of demented.
"If we're done, we need to take you to the lab," Agent Coulson says in what sounds like serious disappointment. He presses a concealed button to the side of the door, and gestures for me to go inside after the door slides open.
The inside is quite a bit more clean and advanced than what the aged and battered external of the ship might suggest. Though it only just has enough room for the five of us, it certainly seems almost state of the art. Which, of course, is what I should have expected from a boat owned by a top secret agency like S.H.I.E.L.D.
As Agent Coulson, Dick and I sit down on the white leather seats that are fixed to the walls, Natasha makes her way to the top of the boat in order to steer it. While she does this, Dark 'n' Brooding quickly goes around to check that all is well with the small boat.
"You need to work on your temper," Agent Coulson says to Dick while he's seated between us.
"But she-" Dick starts to complain, but Agent Coulson swiftly intervenes.
"She's the victim of kidnapping by one of S.H.I.E L.D's greatest enemies. It doesn't matter whether she has feelings for him now or not; as an agent and representative of S.H.I.E.L.D, you do not attempt to attack someone you are ordered to protect," he scolds Dick, who reluctantly ducks his head in shame.
"For now, I'll let it go as you haven't caused any harm to her yet and because she had antagonised you first, but I won't be so lenient should it happen again," he warns with a sharp glare to Dick.
"As for you," he says, his attention now turning to me. "Please don't upset my agents. Some of them are more... delicate than you are," Agent Coulson says carefully. Dick stares at him in horrified outrage.
"This is fucking bullshit, man," Dick says angrily as he gets up and storms his way into the toilets.
"As I said. Very delicate," Agent Coulson says without even sparing Dick a glance as he slams the door shut. "He'll be disciplined, though. I'd say a few months without any missions and frequent appointments with an anger management specialist would suit him fine."
"Yeah, I think he might actually need more than that," I say warily as I hear what sounds like a furious yell coming from within the toilets.
"He'll be fine," Agent Coulson says. "After all, he either gets better, or finds a different department to work in."
"But why does he seem to hate me so much?" I ask in confusion. After all, I might be pretty damn annoying, but most people can tolerate me a whole lot better than that guy does. Hell, even Loki tolerated me better in our first week!
"It's not really my place to say," Agent Coulson says carefully. "And besides, the information around it is classified."
"Really?" I ask in disappointment. "But I take it that it has something to do with that sister I supposedly remind him of?"
"Yes," Agent Coulson says. "I never met her, myself. Apparently, she was a very reckless girl with a worse mouth than yours."
Huh. Loki would have loved to have heard that, I think with a smirk as I think back to all the times he complained about my language. Well, I told him I wasn't all that special.
"I'm sure we would have got along swimmingly," I say sarcastically. The funny thing is, I never really get along very well with like minded people.
I wonder why that might be...
-BREAK-
Surprisingly enough, the boat trip lasts for a very short amount of time. About a quarter of an hour later, Agent Coulson is nudging me towards the entrance of the boat.
Stepping outside again, I notice that we appear to be stepping onto a large and unusual shaped ship. People rush around in all manner of uniforms, from the crisp and clean suits of the agents, to the more casual scientists and technicians.
"You know," I say thoughtfully as I eye up the expensive sleek looking planes positioned about the massive ship. "Somehow, I'm really not surprised." Agent Coulson turns to give me a small and rather fond smile.
But my analysing of the ship soon comes to an end as Agent Coulson, Natasha and Dark 'n' Brooding (I really need to come up with a new nickname for him) lead me towards a door to the guts of the ship. Dick is left to calm down back on the boat.
The inside isn't quite as futuristic as the boat, which I find rather unusual as the agents leads me through dark corridor after dark corridor. But that's not to say that it's not high-tech or secure, of course. Walking through the corridors, I see metal sliding doors leading into laboratories filled with machines I couldn't even begin to understand, and scientists carefully working hard around them.
"So, what was the deal with the boat?" I ask as we head down another corridor- this one being noticeably larger than the others- as we walk towards the door at the far end.
"What do you mean?" Agent Coulson asks as he types in a code to open the large door in front of us.
"Well, I don't know about you, but it seemed to be going for a bit of a different style to this place," I answer as I look around the darker ship and compare it to the blindingly white interior of the small boat.
"The main S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier is often on the move. Because of this, the boats occasionally have to travel hundreds of miles to reach it, which calls for a more comfortable interior for the agents during their missions," he says as he provides the security machine with a card to read and a fingerprint. The door finally opens.
"Bit excessive, all that security crap," I comment with a indicative nod towards the scanner mounted to the wall.
"After what happened last year with Loki, we're taking no chances," Agent Coulson says, before indicating me to ahead of him into the large room in front of me.
The first word that comes to mind when I see the room is that it is massive. And full of all sorts of fancy computers, but mainly that it's huge. A large window at the far end of the room (or should I say 'hall'?) provides a clear view of the ocean stretched around us as the window reaches from the room's floor to its ceiling.
"What is this? Some kind of battleship?" I ask as I see some of the more questionable items dotted about the room, and think back about the unusual shaping of the ship as a whole.
"Almost," Agent Coulson says from where he stands next to me. "It's the S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier, not a ship." I throw him a questioning look, not really seeing what he's trying to say.
"Helicarrier," Natasha finally speaks up, and I can almost hear her eyes rolling. "As in, it flies." My eyes widen as I looks around the space again, but with a new sense of interest and respect.
"No shit," I say, my voice a little high from surprise. "So you're saying that this hunk of metal is an overgrown vertibird?" Broody shocks me with a dignified humorous sniff.
"A what?" Natasha asks blankly.
"A vertibird. You know, those flying things in the Fallout universe?" Natasha continues to give me her blank stare, while Agent Coulson resolutely keeps his eyes facing the window- either not hearing us, or already getting used to me, and is practising the art of ignoring my nonsense.
"Whatever," I drop the subject with a careless shrug. "Just know that it's fucking cool that S.H.I.E.L.D has its own freaking vertibird, alright?"