Chapter 24– To Recap
Avengers Tower, New York
2015
A Titan was a being worthy of fear.
You'd expect a Titan to be sat on a throne; ruling the world with an iron fist. To be unmatched in power and authority as they conquered everything their eyes touched.
Unfortunately, this Titan was glaring balefully at an incomplete exterior model. Her chin resting on top of her hands as she sighed with exhaustion.
"Stupid Maths. Why does Architecture even have maths?" Ophelia grumbled; a scowl painted on her lips as she looked hopelessly at the neoclassical building she had been trying to design for the better part of two weeks, "I just wanted to make pretty buildings; I'm not built for equations."
To pass time, Ophelia casually spun one of her many pens in the air. She manipulated its gravitational field to float in lazy circles with mindless ease, a far cry from her previously stained efforts to manipulate gravity. She pouted despondently at the pages of measurements she needed to calculate.
"Did you know that there are more stars in the observable universe than there are grains of sand in the world?" A voice suddenly called out.
Ophelia's head shot up with a wide uncontrollable grin, turning back to see Natasha stroll into the tower's library with a tablet in hand. All traces of her previous annoyance had seemingly vanished.
"Have you been doing research on me Romanoff?" Ophelia asked with a cheeky grin, her dimples in full view.
"I like to be well informed." The Russian replied with a coy smile as she leaned behind Ophelia's chair. Resting her cheek on the brawler's crown as she examined the end of semester project.
"All those stars at your grasp." Natasha said with a smirk, rocking herself back and forth in thought. "I like the idea of a god wrapped around my little finger."
"Um Titan, excuse me." Ophelia jokingly corrected as tilted her head to look at Natasha, "If you wanted a god you have the wrong blonde."
"And what a big bad Titan you are." The Romanoff lightly teased, tapping the Delacour's jaw fondly before turning her focus back to the incomplete project. "How far are you with the school project."
"Not even halfway." Ophelia sighed tiredly, her shoulders drooping slightly.
"And when's it due?" Natasha asked.
"Five days!" Ophelia cried out, dislodging the redhead's position by slamming her head on the table with a loud groan. "I'm so fucked."
"Destroying any braincells you have left won't help you." Natasha chuckled as she gently eased Ophelia upright. A scowl of petulance on the Delacour's face as she looked at the never-ending work her university seemed to give her.
"I'm not a Maths gay. My brain isn't wired for numbers, it's made for maladaptive daydreaming." Ophelia grumbled as the Romanoff smirked in amusement.
"Help me." The brawler pathetically whined to the Russian with wide pleading eyes.
"My brain's wired for stealing government secrets and killing people." The redhead casually intoned. "Not college level calculus."
Ophelia slowly slid down her chair in hopelessness, muttering under her breath various threats against the Greeks for making the blasted subject that gave her nothing but pain.
"Don't you think you're spreading yourself a little thin, Lia?" The redhead cautiously approached, drawn to the dark circles under Ophelia's eyes and the air of exhaustion she had permanently carried for the last two weeks. "You've been balancing college, taking down HYDRA bases, training non-stop and working with INTERPOL for the last few months. You're burning yourself out."
Try as she might to deny it, Ophelia knew that Natasha was right. The first month after she returned from Korbin, everything seemed calm. The Delacour had been allowed to hang out with her friends again, get used to Earth and maybe for once have some peace and quiet.
She should have known better than to have trusted the calm before the storm.
As soon as July had passed, and Ophelia had celebrated her 19th birthday with a typical Asgardian celebration of booze and music that Thor planned laboriously; shit hit the metaphorical fan. With Fury dead to the rest of the world, the brawler no longer had her protection from the world governments.
The United Nations Security Council especially were eager to have Ophelia's file and identity in their hands; but it was one thing to trust them with the security of the world. It was another to trust them with the tools to destroy it. Fury stood by his old choice when he called her after the UN made their demands to Tony's Stark Foundation.
"If they find out what you can do Delacour, they'll stop at nothing to have you under their control. I wouldn't be surprised if a Cold War started just to claim you as a weapon. Do not let them control you." Fury impressed seriously to Ophelia one night on a videocall. His clothes scruffy and worn instead of the full leather she was used to.
She was fielding pressure from all sides to make a decision. Tony was being bombarded with court marshals and subpoenas to handle files about Ophelia that no one but Fury had. And despite Bruce trying to calm her down and tell her it would all be okay; the stress of the government's interference was getting to them all. Steve was especially rankled at the thought of Ophelia being sucked into government control.
With how little she'd paid attention to her secret identity, Ophelia was surprised she hadn't already been exposed. She put it down to dumb luck and how oblivious humans tended to be.
Caught between two choices that would bring their own problems and suffering, Ophelia did what she did best.
She did her own thing.
Flashback
INTERPOL Headquarters
Lyon, France
Mireille Beaufort was a formidable woman.
She had to be to rise through the ranks at such a young age and gain the respect of old rich men who were used to wielding all the power in the room.
Elected as the President of INTERPOL nearly two years ago, the 39-year-old French woman had seen some of the worst horrors this world had to offer. She knew better than anyone that aliens weren't the biggest threat to Earth.
No. Humans were. It was humanity she saw the worst of every day. Trafficking rings and genocide, ethnic cleansing and slavery, racism and cold-blooded murder.
Mireille Beaufort had to be a formidable woman to look at the worst of humanity, and still choose to defend it to the best of her ability.
Not much in this world left her at a loss. But one morning, upon opening her securely locked office, Mireille entered the room and flicked the light switch. Only to step back in shock as a fully armoured and masked Avenger sat in her office chair. Spinning in circles as she hummed a quiet 'whee' under her breath.
"I believe you have the wrong room, Atlas." Mireille calmly announced as she tried to gather herself from the shock, whipping out her gun as she fingered the trigger.
Ophelia abruptly paused in her spinning at the sound of the new voice, springing to her feet with liveliness as she assessed the person in front of her.
"President Beaufort." She declared, smoothly hopping over the desked and standing a good distance away from the president. "No, I think I have the right room."
Mireille looked around cautiously; noting that alarms hadn't been triggered at all and that Ophelia had cleverly positioned herself out of view from the outside.
"What does an Avenger want with me?" She bluntly asked, holstering her gun as she carefully analysed the situation.
"You can drop the pretences, Mademoiselle. We both know too much." Ophelia drawled, a glint of amusement in her eyes.
"Fine, what does Ophelia Delacour want with me." Mireille raised her eyebrows expectantly as Ophelia lightly grinned. The brawler unclipping her black and gold mask to reveal her face.
"You've known my identity even longer than SHIELD. You've known my abilities for years, and yet you've never given that information up." Ophelia pondered, leaning on the wide desk behind her as her dark green eyes sharpened at the president. "I wanna know why."
"Oh that." Mireille chuckled under her breath as she waltzed over to the chair behind her desk. "INTERPOL doesn't care about elections or politics. Our one goal is to fight against crimes against humanity, and you Miss Delacour have been doing that long before you became an Avenger. I vividly remember a pile of naked human traffickers outside my office window a few years ago."
At the stern look from the president, Ophelia bit back a bark of laughter at that particular memory. All those evil men, all those terrible tattoos.
"As long as you keep doing your job as Atlas, I see no reason to give the world governments any information on you." As Mireille crossed her legs, a thoughtful expression crossed Ophelia's face.
"They're asking for it now." Ophelia said with a faint frown. "And as soon as they know what I can do, all hell will break loose."
"I'll ask you one more time, Delacour. What do you want from me?" Mireille sternly asked, leaning forward on the desk with her arms crossed.
"I want your help."
Flashback end
"I might be burning myself out, but for now I don't really have a choice, Nat." Ophelia sighed as Natasha lightly squeezed her shoulder.
INTERPOL was the only organisation that had the resources and the authority to protect her from the world governments. A politically neutral group that swore to never allow interference from any side of politics in their investigations. Ophelia was miraculously granted a provisional five-year contract with the organisation.
She worked to some degree as an operative, but like Fury had done, she was limited contact to only the most trusted subordinates of President Beaufort. She had her pick of missions, but Ophelia was at times asked to do certain operations that required her particular skills. The arrangement gave Ophelia two things that she needed.
Legal protections from political organisations that wanted her under their thumb; and a chance to do the missions she thought were most important.
Ophelia loved being an Avenger and the team had given her a family she never thought she'd have. But the missions she did as an Avenger were typically world ending ones; it was taking down HYDRA and defending the world from certain death.
The Avengers rarely saved the kid from an abusive home, or rescued families from persecution. At least with INTERPOL she had a way to still do what she loved while being with the people she loved.
"You know what? I'm not gonna get any work done in this state." Ophelia sighed, pushed away from the desk and supressing a yawn. "I'm going to bed."
"It's three in the afternoon." Natasha said with a raised eyebrow.
"It's not like my sleep schedule could get any more fucked." The brawler called out with a tired grin, walking backwards to the elevator. "Care to join me?"
"You're not going to bed until you get something to eat." The redhead pointed out, pressing for the penthouse level on the elevator.
A roguish grin flitted on Ophelia's lips, chasing away the bags under her eyes and sparking life back to her face.
"Not like that you perv." Natasha rolled her eyes fondly before smacking the back of the brawler's head. "And I'm serious you need to eat."
"I'll be fine Tasha, don't worry." Ophelia waved off her concerns, earning a raised eyebrow from the Russian.
"The last time you slept with an empty stomach, you threw Stark out of a window for calling you Ratatouille." The redhead deadpanned, earning a smirk from Ophelia. "I'm doing damage control."
"I think that's more because of Tony than the lack of food." She joked. "But fine, I'll eat something."
As if on cue, the doors opened, and the two women were greeted with the sight of the common room in complete disarray. Tony and Steve took centre stage, hurling insults at one another as the rest of the team watched with morbid fascination.
"Would you look at that, I even have free entertainment." Ophelia sarcastically drawled as she removed herself from Natasha's side to go to the kitchen connected to the bar. Leafing through ready-made sandwiches labelled with names and vague threats to find leftover tacos from the night before.
She blocked out the shouting in favour of eagerly waiting for the microwave to ding. Nat had been right as per usual as Ophelia noticed the faint hunger pangs for the first time.
"Who even wants you here old man?! Nine times out of ten you're useless and the one time you're needed, you're gone!" Tony roared; the two men red in the face as they came up close to one another. Their noses practically touching.
"What are they arguing about this time?" Ophelia asked Clint as she bit down on a taco, sliding next to him on the bar. Clint gave no response as he munched on a pack of pop tarts that surely belonged to Thor.
"Clint? Clint. Aw putain he has his hearing aids off." Ophelia muttered, nudging the archer's arm to get his attention.
'Why are they arguing?' She signed to him, putting her plate to one side and her food in her mouth so she could sign.
'Bruce brought up Howard Stark when he talked to Steve and Tony overheard.' Clint replied with his cheeks full of pastry as Ophelia winced. She could spy Bruce with his head in his hands as the other two men tore into each other.
"Why is it always daddy issues?" She grumbled, looking on as Natasha grew more and more irritated at the loud noise.
"Would you dangle Stark from the top of the tower if I asked you nicely?" Clint asked as he turned on his hearing aid.
"Do you even need to ask?" She replied, a cheeky grin on her lips.
It would have been better to just lock the two in a room together and let them either settle their differences or kill one another. Ophelia didn't mind as long as it shut them up.
"We should lock them in a small room together and see what happens." Thor whispered in her ear, earning a bark of laughter.
"I was just thinking the same thing." She replied with a pitched voice, the two blondes slapping each other's shoulder's in excitement. Thor abruptly snatched the pop tarts from Clint's as he hopped up to sit next to Ophelia on the bar.
"If you don't shut them up, Lia; I will commit first degree murder." Natasha threatened as she joined everyone at the bar. Her left eye twitching as Steve's booming voice got louder.
"Overemotional senior citizens." Ophelia grumbled under her breath as she hopped off the bar, marching purposefully at the two men as Bruce looked on in thinly veiled hope.
"Well maybe you- OW." Steve yelped as Ophelia grabbed a fist full of his hair, yanking him down to her level as she did the same to Tony.
"If I get a bald spot Delacour, I'm murdering you." Tony spat out through gritted teeth as the brawler pulled his hair.
"I'd like to state for the record that I had no involvement with whatever just happened." Bruce pleaded with his hands up as he looked at the indisposed heroes in Ophelia's grasp.
"You two are annoying. No, you're more than that, I legitimately want to knock the both of you out." Ophelia groused, twisting her arm to pull harder on their hair which earned her a loud howl of pain from the pair of them.
"It's been a long day, so if you could do us all a favour and shut up about your marriage problems; maybe Nat won't skin you alive." She let them go with a slight push, trying to supress a scowl at how much the two had been arguing lately. She'd thought they settled their differences during the Chitauri invasion but apparently not.
As the two men gingerly rubbed their heads and winced in pain, JARVIS' voice sounded through the room.
"Sir, Miss Hill seems to have locked down the location of the sceptre." JARVIS announced.
"Where is it?" Thor's voice boomed eagerly as he strode to Ophelia's side
"The co-ordinates given match with..." Tony trailed off as he used a tablet to sift through the data. "Sokovia?"
"It's a landlocked country in Eastern Europe." Bruce explained, rubbing his glasses clean with the bottom of his shirt. "War-torn to my knowledge."
At the mention of Sokovia, Ophelia felt that mysterious feeling spike. For months now she'd tried to keep whatever it was to the back of her mind, so it didn't interfere in her life. But it demanded her attention sometimes, writhing with bright emotion as it teased her senses.
"Sokovia." Ophelia murmured under her breath; she didn't know why but excitement burned inside her at the mention of the country.
"Get suited up. Be ready in five." Steve ordered as everyone moved to get ready.
"These people never let me nap." Ophelia sighed as she stuffed the remaining tacos in her mouth, going to her floor with all haste.
Sokovia.
This'll be fun.
A/N: So now we begin Age of Ultron. Next update is the a battle against HYDRA and a meeting cut short. If you could tell, INTERPOL will play a big role in Civil War so even if this chapter is just setting things up, it is an important one. Thanks for reading! And thank you to everyone who comments and votes, it really makes my day seeing you enjoy this story.