Revamped!
Chapter 7: The Kleptomaniac Part Four
The Spanish Embassy - Barcelona, Spain - 23:01 PM
All hell breaks loose in the ballroom.
Guests run over one another, ripping the ends of ball gowns and throwing off heels to run faster to be the first one out. Nobody cares about the other's safety if it meant getting out alive. With Ivory right on the ambassador's tail, Xavier and Daniel begin running after her. Ivory, knowing that the boys are right behind her, runs up a staircase, still wearing her heels. She approaches a small ledge and leaps at it, grabbing onto the hanging banister mid-air and swinging across. With other agents on the ground to pursue her, Xavier and Daniel decide to run for the ambassador to make sure that he's safe.
The moment Ivory lands on the ground, Merida begins picking up dropped heels and whipping them at her. As of now, Merida is grateful for her perfect aim and discarded pointy shoes.
Some shoes hit Ivory but she brushes off the pain as if they never hit her. Ivory opens a slit on the side of her dress and pulls out a gun that was strapped to her thigh. Her flirty remarks got her through the security check. She points it at Merida and begins firing amid the rush of screaming citizens. Merida dives to the side and hides behind a table. Ivory spins around and sees a violinist who stands on a chair to point her instrument directly at her. Ivory recognizes her, despite the darkness at the time, from the other night in Miami when she was attempting to steal the ring. Angela cocks her shotgun which was cleverly disguised as a violin and begins firing at her.
With another gun in her hands, Ivory begins spinning around to fire at both Angela and Merida unexpectedly. Angela jumps down to take cover. Once Ivory is out of ammunition in both her guns, she doesn't waste her time reload. She discards her weapons and begins running. Angela and Merida begin chasing after her down the hallways.
-o-
Ivory sprints and sees a doorway where she knows she can snatch that brooch. With her eyes narrowed on that open door, she suddenly sees a tiny man grow into a normal-sized one. She pauses when she sees him point an electrified fist at her, amazed at the powers she finally gets to see in person. Ivory coos at James which causes him to turn his head at her unexpected reaction.
"Bye-bye…" She mutters to him with a little wave of her fingers.
Confused, James thinks back to what she could mean by that odd farewell and the only moment that comes to mind is when Ivory kissed him on the dance floor.
That's when it hits him. Again.
"You also can't arrest me if you don't catch me…"
After she said that, she kissed him. This was all planned.
James is about to fire at her but then falls to the ground like before. Ivory grins as she steps over him and runs off. James rolls around and attempts to fire at her but ends up holding himself in a growing, cramping pain in his stomach. He rolls into a fetal position, biting the inside of his cheek so hard he can almost feel his teeth breaking through the innards. Despite the pain, he continues to lick his lips because he recognizes the taste. Chemical formulas run through his brain like movie credits as he winds into himself tighter.
Angela and Merida come running over. Angela hops over James to continue chasing Ivory as Merida immediately deals with James.
"Are you dying?" Merida asks, kneeling to check his vitals. She put two of her fingers on his neck and his wrist, all while opening his eyes even wider to check his pupils.
"I'm not dying, Merida," James says before clamming up. "I, hopefully, know how to fix this."
"Good. Then I can tell you to go to hell and not feel bad about it."
-o-
Xavier and Daniel sprint through the hallways of the gala, chasing Ivory. Xavier pulls out his gun from his holster and begins firing at Ivory. Ivory turns around for a brisk second just to see who she's being followed by this time. Her eyes meet theirs and, for a moment, the boys were frozen in hypnosis at her devastatingly beautiful looks. She snickers to herself, shaking her head at male species' weakness for a beautiful woman. She pulls off a jewel from the collar of her dress and holds it in her hands. She keeps it in her grip as she bursts through a door and begins running down a staircase. The moment she hears the two men entering the stairwell, Ivory stops.
Ivory peeks over the railing and looks up at the two agents. She whips the jewel from her dress and watches as Xavier catches it. He looks at it and at Ivory. She mimics a fake explosion with her hands, making a circle with her lips. Xavier notices the jewel beeping a small red light.
Xavier throws the jewel as Daniel throws himself in front of his friend. Ivory jumps over the railing, falling to the bottom and landing on her feet to the sound of an explosion.
-o-
Angela runs up to the rooftop where Ivory was only steps ahead. She figures that Ivory has no escape from the rooftop in mere seconds but when she makes it there, Ivory is gone. Angela heads over to the edge and peeks over. There's no Ivory in sight, even with facial recognition technology scanning everyone below. Was she even chasing Ivory? When did she lose her? Angela doesn't understand how she could've escaped, though, she was only in a ball gown and couldn't have made it further than her eyesight in the short amount of time. Angela looks out to the streets and sees guests from the gala leaving in a hurry. No sign of alarming chaos should get her attention and that's the only part of this whole failed mission that relieves her.
"Ivory's gone," Angela says softly into her coms, "I lost her again."
Xavier: Don't blame yourself. She outsmarted us. Let's clear out.
Daniel: The ambassador's out and he's heavily secured. That's a good sign, right?
"But that won't stop her from pursuing him," Angela continues, bringing a hand to her forehead as she begins heading back inside. "How will we tell Agent Moore this?"
Merida: Agent Moore likely already knows so the Council will chew us out for it. Hell, they probably knew we'd lose the moment we entered the ballroom and she wasn't even there yet! They'll have some choice words to use because we're such disgraces to everyone, especially our parents. What would our parents say now? "Where was your training? Did you shut off your SHIELD brains?" Oh, and does anyone know the cure for cyanide poisoning because Ivory poisoned James via lipstick.
James: I can handle myself!
Merida: You're squirming on the floor. You can barely get up.
Angela sighs disappointedly as she begins running back inside to meet the rest of her team.
-o-
PNG Quinjet - 1:34 AM
"You guys know that I'm smart as well," a currently dying James tells his teammates while cooking himself a cyanide cure with Daniel's assistance.
The team is silent as the stand back as James cures himself. They're all looking at the ground, waiting for Agent Moore to start a debriefing call with Angela or the rest of the team. James is glad that he can use cyanide poisoning as an excuse to get out of that confrontation. The Council was skeptical to start this initiative and now they have a right to be. The team mentally rehearses the debriefing one of them will have to face with perfect responses to whatever Agent Moore will throw at them.
"Here," Daniel says, handing James a tray.
James takes some cyanide antidotes and charcoal capsules before heading off to take a nap to allow the cure to sit in. That makes it more likely for everyone else to get called on by Agent Moore since he's unable to attend a debriefing, which they all dread.
"You're not mad that Ivory kissed James?" Xavier asks his sister.
To everyone's surprise, Angela looks up and shakes her head. Her boyfriend did have a playboy reputation in the past and she didn't let it anger her then so why would it ruin her now? When they started dating, he was only committed to her. Although James was close to death, she still wasn't mad. It pained her more running in and seeing him gnawing at himself and writhing on the floor. She wanted to be the one to check up on him but she's a faster runner than Merida.
"I have more important things to be angry at," she replies. Xavier nods, understanding.
Suddenly, the group gets a call from their tablet from a SHIELD secretary. Nobody wants to pick it up but answering urgent calls is an order so they follow.
SHIELD Secretary: Agent Moore would like to see Agent Barton.
Nobody responds. The top guesses for receiving a debriefing and scolding from the council on behalf of the whole team were Angela and Xavier. Angela was the first one in this case and Xavier is their team leader, the one who said he'd take all the responsibility.
"I'll be right there," Merida replies unenthusiastically, hanging up the call. She looks at Angela. "I guess your SO wants someone to yell at and not feel bad."
As she exits the room, she gives her team a reassuring look that says that everything will be fine right before swearing under her breath in Russian about how much she hates debriefings.
-o-
Merida faces Agent Moore in her holographic forms. Unlike Xavier and Angela, she goes for an unprofessional approach. Her expression is slightly angered with her arms crossed and weight balancing on one hip. Her eyes look straight into Agent Moore's, saying that she's ready to take whatever they will throw at her, no matter how harsh and condescending it will be.
Agent Moore: Ivory Gates has the brooch. There were five of you there. How the hell did that happen?
The valid comments and reprimands that reek of disappointment and frustration keep rolling in. Merida keeps her arms crossed, letting all that's being said go through one ear and out the other. She isn't fazed by it. Hell, she isn't offended. Agent Moore isn't wrong. They failed.
Agent Moore: Merida, are you giving me attitude?
Merida playfully shrugs. Agent Moore tends to ask rhetorical questions she knows the answers to, doesn't she? Yes, she does. She knows that the reason they used her first name instead of her title was to emphasize how serious this situation was supposed to be.
Agent Moore: This isn't a joke. If you don't take this debriefing or the consequences of your failed mission seriously, then -
"What are you going to do?" Merida asks, cutting her off abruptly. "Fire me? Are you willing to fire Agent Merida Barton, daughter of The Black Widow and Hawkeye who are two of The Avengers and the world's greatest assassins? Go right ahead, I dare you. I speak five languages fluently and have expertise in all things combat, marksmanship, and aviation. Not to mention that I can get references from any of the other Avengers and even Director Fury himself. Needless to say, I can easily work for any government agency I want and can blow the one to bits with just the right arrow."
Agent Moore is speechless.
"If you want to get Ivory Gates so bad," Merida tells them, "then chase her yourself!"
