An Interesting Alliance (ON HOLD)

Chapter XXI

Percy

  The Quinjet landed down the massive battleship or more commonly known among us the Helicarrier.  The Helicarrier had two runways. One with direct access to a hangar at the rear was aligned along the spine of the vessel.

  Phil and Steve walked down the ramp, meeting up with us (Natasha and I). Phil made the introductions, but when he cam to my name, he stared at me. "I didn't know that S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were trained this young."

  "That's because they don't," I said with an unimpressed eyebrow, I turned to Coulson, "They need you on the bridge. Face time."

  "See you there." Phil walked away leaving Steve with us. I could tell that Steve wanted to say more about my age, but thankfully, he remained quiet.

  "There was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice. I thought Coulson was gonna swoon. Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?" said Natasha.

  "Trading cards?" repeated The Spangled Man With A Plan, dumbfounded.

  "They're vintage, he's very proud" I quipped.

  Without realizing, Banner didn't notice us walking as he was nervous as hell. He moved around as people kept walking in his way, looking right and left like he was afraid someone will attack him.

  "Dr. Banner." Steve walked up to Banner and shook his hands.

  "Oh, yeah. Hi. They told me you'd be coming" Banner said.

  "Word is you can find the cube."

  "Is that the only word on me?" If I didn't know he was nervous, I'd think Banner has ADHD, with all the moving around.

  "Only word I care about."

  Bruce looked at me, and I found my cue for introducing myself. "Agent Jackson. Nice meeting you."

  "Likewise," he shook my hand while looking at me curiously, then he turned to Natasha accusingly, "You said that S.H.I.E.L.D. agents didn't start that young, only you or something."

  I refrained myself from groaning and rolling my eyes. "That's because S.H.I.E.L.D. agents don't start that young."

  "And she's right, agents Jackson and Reyna, and I are the only ones who started training young. And not by S.H.I.E.L.D.. Except Jackson here, since she's a special case" said Natasha.

  I could see Steve perked up at the mention of Reyna's name.

  "Is agent Reyna here?" he asked with (was that hope?) in the eyes.

  "She'll be joining us shortly" I said.

  "Must be strange for you, all of this" commented Bruce, gesturing at the agents running along. I turned to Natasha and we shared a knowing smirk when Steve's attention's was diverted.

  "Well, this is actually kind of familiar" said Steve.

  "Gentlemen, you may wanna step inside in a minute. It's gonna get a little hard to breathe." Our flight attendant a.k.a. Natasha said.

   The Helicarrier started shaking as it prepared to fly 'sail'.

  "Is this is a submarine?" asked Steve.

  "Really? They wanted me in a submerged pressurized metal container?" said Banner incredulously. The men moved closer to the edge of the Helicarrier. Four huge lift fans mounted on the side started to lift into the air in VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) flight. Steve watched in awe as Banner smiled.

  "Oh, no. This is much worse" he said, sarcasm dripping from his words.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  We entered the bridge of the ship. ­ A flurry of activity ­ dozens of agents sat in front of their viewscreens. Agent Hill shouted her instructs to leave turned to Nick Fury, who was at the command chair. "We're at lock, sir."

   "Good. Let's vanish." My godfather turned and greeted the newcomers. "Gentlemen."

     Almost instantly, Steve marched forward while opening his wallet and gave the director 10 bucks. Fury took the money and put it away in his pocket and gave me a subtle shrug to me in response at my questioning eyebrow and amused smile. I shook my head and paid attention to what's happening when I finally spotted Reyna in front of a computer screen eying the picture of Clint, same with Natasha who was sitting right next to her.

   "Doctor, thank you for coming" commenced Fury after he shook hands with Banner.

  "Thanks for asking nicely. So, uh... how long am I staying?" asked the latter of the duo.

  "Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear."

   "Where are you with that?"

   Nicky turned to Coulson to explain. "We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

  "That's still not gonna find them in time" piped in Natasha.

  "You have to narrow the field. How many spectrometers do you have access to?" agreed the doctor.

   "How many are there?" asked Fury.

   "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?" said Dr. Banner.

  "Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please?" said Fury.

  Natasha nodded and walked off, leading Banner down the hall. "You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys."

  Steve saw Reyna and gave a wide smile in greetings once he caught her eye.

 "Reyna. Nice to see you again," he said as he shook her hand, his fingers lingering for a moment.

  "Likewise, Rogers." She responded with a dip of her head and a genuine smile. They locked eyes with each other until she broke away from the eye contact and Steve cleared his throat, a blush creeping onto hi neck. Is one of my best friends having a crush? With my blessing from Aphrodite or Venus, whatever the hell you want to call the goddess of love, affirmed that, yes, Reyna does have a crush.

   If it weren't for the multitude of agents around me, I would've squealed. I looked at my godfather who gave me a knowing look. He's having way too fun playing matchmaker. If I didn't know any better, I would say that Uncle Nick was a legacy of the love goddess instead of Nike.

   I approached Reyna, and noticed that she too was blushing. I took Natasha's place and raised a teasing eyebrow.

   "What?" she said while blushing even harder.

   I took a good look at her and smirked. "Nothing." I got up and went into my room and changed into my S.H.I.E.L.D. catsuit, similar to Maria Hill's.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~HELICARRIER BRIDGE / NIGHT~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   "We got a hit. Sixty-seven percent match. Weight, cross match, seventy-nine percent," declared one Jasper Sitwell.

   "Location?" asked Coulson after his subtle fangirl or should I say fanboy moment with an oblivious Captain America into signing his trading cards while I was trying to keep a straight face and not burst out laughing at the whole situation.

   "Stuttgart, Germany. 28, Konigstrasse. He's not exactly hiding" replied Sitwell.

   "Captain, you're up" ordered Fury.

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