Aqua's P. O. V:
I fall asleep in my bed with my book of City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare open in my lap. After I'd eaten dinner and watched The Little Mermaid and Aristocrats, I'd performed Hydromancy to check the next few days in my job as a S. H. I. E. L. D agent. The only ones who know are my parents and my friends, Bloom Hart and Leo King, who are also dating, as I trust them with my life. In these past two years, whenever an attack on Malibu happened, I would face the enemy first and then Iron Man (A. K. A Tony Stark) would just randomly show up to finish the job. He and I don't really get along. We normally find ourselves in a banter just before he'd fly back to his home—almost like father and daughter, in a way.
It just makes saving the world/city that much more difficult.
I don't think I'll survive a team with him.
I'd moved into my own house on Sea Lion Place; it has five acres with a stable, three paddocks for my palomino mare Glimmer, who I still compete with, and a large, 20 by forty arena. It even has a swimming pool.
Tony also has no idea who I am yet, and I made my mentors, Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton (Black Widow and Hawkeye) to promise not to tell him yet. Though, I do hear from Fury and Phil that Tony complains about this annoying woman who can control all aspects of water and ice that gets on his nerves, and I just think it's funny.
Bloom and Leo would sometimes help with the enemy simply by Leo, a tech whiz, use his phone or iPad to track them down if Tony hasn't defeated them already. I've also moved into my own house just this past year, with Glimmer and my tortoiseshell cat, Scarlett.
My house is only fifteen minutes away from my old house, but it's comfortable. It's two storey with a large screen TV in the living room, some spare bedrooms, and a bathroom, while my room has an ensuite. Almost every room has an air conditioner in it, instead of fans or heaters.
My bedroom has aqua walls with a window seat by the window, laid with pink and blue cushions. It has a balcony in between two large, square windows with horse printed curtains. My bedspread is usually light blue, but I've changed it to plain pink this time. There's a white nightstand beside the bed with a lamp on it, and my aqua blue iPhone. My room is pretty much lined with tall bookshelves brimming with books, with only enough space for my white desk, chair and closet, the window opposite the shelves.
And on my walls are posters of anime such as Naruto, Fairy Tail, Inuyasha, Sailor Moon and some of my favourite artists like Britney Spears, Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift.
I have funko pop dolls and plushies from various anime and other fandoms, and I have an Excalibur collector's item which I'd gotten from the BBC Merlin convention many years ago; my parents had taken me to the convention when series 4 was airing leaning beside my desk, along with my light blue classical guitar (I sing, but not as a professional.) I got to meet the cast and have photos with them, and I also brought home a King Arthur red cape with the dragon crest of the Pendragon taking flight, which I hang on a stand on the other side of my room.
There's a white desk beside the bookshelves with trophies from past competitions on it, and there are more on my bookshelves. Along with photos of me competing with my palomino mare, Glimmer.
I also have two framed photos on my nightstand, a lamp sitting on the table. The lamp is of a wild buckskin stallion rearing, with a horse in a sunset background printed around the casing.
I have another, similar lamp with a chestnut mare and black foal on my desk.
One photo is of me and my parents when I was twelve, my father holding me against his left hip as my mum stands beside him, the photo being taken by one of their friends. The other is of me, Bloom and Leo in the early days of high school. We'd met during kindergarten days and have been best friends ever since. It was a hot summer day when this photo was taken, and we each have an ice cream as we stand outside an ice cream shop. I hadn't noticed it earlier, but Tony Stark was leaving the ice cream shop with Happy, his friend and bodyguard. And Tony noticed the camera, so he's holding up two fingers with the rest folded down, a pair of shades on his face.
Even when I'd finished taking the photo, I still hadn't recognised the brunette man. And, to this day, Tony didn't recognise me from that hot summer day.
I couldn't be bothered to tell him, either, as I want to wait and see how long it'll take him to find out.
When is pointed it out to Leo and Bloom, they'd found it all funny as well, but said they wouldn't tell Tony if they ever saw him again.
I was woken up hours later by my cell phone blasting Love Story by Taylor Swift. It's my ringtone, and my message tone is Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jensen. I check the time which reads 3am, and groan in annoyance. I'll make whoever is calling me at this hour regret it—unless it's my friends or family.
I look back at the screen and see the name Nicholas Fury scrawled across the screen. My right eye twitches violently. He and I don't really get along. He can't stand my sarcasm and hotheadedness, and he's too serious for my liking.
But I press the green call button anyway, knowing he'll just be pissed off if I ignore his call, and demand grumpily, "What is it, Captain Eyepatch? You'd better have a godsdamned good reason for waking me up at 3am! You know I'm not a morning person..."
"Well, Aquamarine, perhaps if you wouldn't stay up all night reading, you might actually get some sleep," Fury retorts, making me face palm as I groan again.
"You didn't answer the first question," I point out to him.
"Get to the helicarrier. I've got an assignment that needs your attention. There's already someone waiting outside for you. I've tried to get your mother to come, but she refused. Oh, and don't go back to sleep. I know what you're like," Fury explains.
"Aye, aye, Captain Eyepatch!!" I say sarcastically, feeling Fury roll his single, right eye at me, the left hiding behind a black eyepatch, before he cuts off the connection.
I hang up and groan for the third time, hanging my head in exasperation, mentally cursing the man before I drag myself out of bed and find out my uniform. It mostly just consists of a three quarter length aqua blouse with the collar folded down, with black leather pants and a black leather jacket over it, a pair of black leather fingerless arm warmers on my hands, knee high black combat boots, and a black hooded cape. Though, I usually change only the shirts whenever I go to duty. I stuff the cape in my blue shoulder bag for now.
When I was old enough, mum told me she was once an assassin in S. H. I. E. L. D., and uses Weapon Manipulation, which allows her to create and control any type of weapon she could think of. This had earned her the nickname "Titania." She's basically like the real life version of Erza Scarlet from Fairy Tail.
Mum left her life as a S. H. I. E. L. D. agent behind a long time ago, since she'd married dad and they had me. Mum told me it was because she'd wanted to live a quiet life with her family.
I understand that, but it would've been awesome to fight alongside her in S. H. I. E. L. D.
Once I was dressed and grab my purple shoulder bag that has my essentials, including at least one book and manga, and some chocolates, I refill four of my brown medieval leather water bottles, that are like the ones Katara uses in Avatar in case I'm in an area without water nearby, grab a quick breakfast of toast and vegemite and cocoa, before I leave a note for Bloom and Leo, then I leave my house.
Fury wasn't lying when he said there'd be a vehicle waiting for me, a big black van. I open the door and slide into the front seat, seeing there's a dark haired man wearing a tuxedo suit at the wheel.
Once I was buckled in, we drive off to the helicarrier, and as we do, I make sure to text Bloom and Leo that I'd been called out, so they know to look after Glimmer and Scarlett, before sending a similar message to my parents.
I then doze off during the rest of the drive there.
🌊❄️🌊❄️
I lean against the doorway to the gym in which a tall, muscular man with swept back blonde hair and light blue eyes was going at it with a punching bag, a few more lying scattered on the floor. He wears a plain white shirt sleeved shirt with some jeans and enclosed shoes.
After gathering at the helicarrier, Fury had sent me and Phil off to recruit the other members; Phil had gone to call in Natasha Romanoff who is currently being caught and interrogated, so she could go get Bruce Banner with Phil's assistance, then Phil would go get Tony Stark, which left me to fetch the one and only Captain America, Steve Rogers. I wasn't exactly his biggest fan, either, but I've always wanted to meet him. I'd been curious about Steve ever since I'd heard about him having survived being frozen in ice for centuries.
And, apparently, he and Tony don't get along. That makes two of us.
I smirk when Steve punches the bag so hard that it ends up flying off the hook, hitting the floor with a thud.
Steve goes over and picks up another punching bag and attaches it to the hook. He then stands in front of it and starts punching the hell out of it, too.
I decide to make myself known as I say sarcastically, "Whatever—or whoever—you're angry at, I'm pretty sure that poor punching bag didn't deserve that." This causes the blonde man to whip his head around to me in surprise, just as he goes to pick it up and set it aside. He also has bright blue eyes.
Steve furrows his brows at me as he asks, "And, you are...?"
I smirk as I push away from the doorframe, the man starting to unwrap bandages from his hands and knuckles, acting as protection while punching, and I introduce, "Aquamarine Spears Rivers, at your service, Captain. But, my friends and family just call me Aqua."
"That's a pretty unique name, ma'am," Says Steve, untying the bandage from his other hand. I blush only slightly at being called that. "I'm—"
"Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, the first Avenger," I finish for him. "I know all about you."
"I don't know that much about you, Aqua, though I've heard of your abilities," He retorts, making my smirk widen.
"I'm not exactly a member of S. H. I. E. L. D., but I do work for them, ever since they'd found out about me having these supernatural abilities."
"When I went under, the world was at war. When I wake up, they say we won," Steve says. "They didn't say what we lost."
"We've made some mistakes along the way. Some very recently. Then again, that's what makes us human, because not everyone is perfect," I say. Steve gazes at me in what could be some amazement.
"What are you doing here, Aqua?" Steve asks, making me smile at the thought of him using my nickname as he goes to sit on a bench.
"Fury sent me with a mission," I tell him.
"Is he trying to get me back in the world by sending you to get through to me?" Steve murmurs.
"We're trying to save it. That's the only reason I'm here," I state as I hand him the file Fury gave me, and he takes it. "I don't mean to brag, but I'm one of S. H. I. E. L. D's best and strongest members. That's another reason Fury trusted me with this."
"It's a HYDRA secret weapon," The blonde mutters, gazing at the picture of the Tesseract, a brightly glowing blue cube.
"From what I gather," I say as I cross my arms below my chest, "Mr. Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought—well, the others thought—the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs."
Steve closes the manila folder and hands it back to me as he asks, "Who took it from you?"
"Loki. Adoptive brother of Thor. You could say he's not from around here," I explain, shrugging slightly. "I've met his brother, don't know that much about Loki himself, except for what I learned about Norse mythology. But that seems to be different to the real life version that I met back in New Mexico. It wasn't the best of first meetings, as I'm sure you can imagine; he invaded earth as a giant tin man, then he tried to blast me and my coworkers to smithereens. Fun times, huh?" Steve chuckles a little at that. He then gets to his feet and grabs his bag and punching bag as I say, "There's a lot we'll have to bring you up on, if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."
"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me," Steve says, standing up.
"20 bucks say you're wrong," I say as he goes over to grab his bag and punching bag. "I'll be waiting in the car outside your apartment. I've been told to catch you up on everything." I add as he walks away, punching bag slung over a shoulder, "Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?"
Steve pauses to glance back at me over his shoulder as he mutters, blue gaze soft, "You should've left it in the ocean."
I heave a groan of annoyance as the blonde man leaves the gym, before I, too, leave to go wait in the car outside his apartment, listening to some Katy Perry while I wait.