{CHAPTER EIGHTEEN}
"Harlow, it's time we have a chat."
"It was a long time coming" a very common phrase basically meaning that something was expected. In this situation, the expected side was not on behalf of Harlow, rather the stranger talking to her. He had been waiting until the time came when he would have to finally introduce himself and come clean.
And that day was, better yet, the night of the Christmas Ball.
"Harlow, it's time we have a chat." The man proposed as he gestured over to two seats placed opposite each other in the room. Harlow followed his directions only due to her curiosity.
"Nice eyepatch." Harlow uttered as she slumped down and onto the seat. She kept her eyes locked on his, scanning for any sign that he was a threat. After all he was a stranger that somehow knew her name.
"I'm Nick Fury. The director of SHIELD an American based special law enforcement and counter-terrorism agency." He stated as he walked over and sat down. Nick paused after what he told her, expecting one of two responses. Harlow would either not believe or get confused.
Harlow nodded slowly while taking in the information. I mean it isn't totally out there considering the life she's had. "Okay Nick, but why are you here?" She asked as she patiently sat, coming to the terms that the situation was much more important than she originally thought it to be.
Nick sighed, "Because I know who you are, or in other words what capabilities you have." He revealed making Harlow's jaw clench. "And I need your help, we have a-"
Harlow was quick to cut him off before he got too far in his reason for needing her. "And how do you know this?" She queried a threatening scowl settling on her face.
"Listen kid, I'm going to be brutally honest with you because we don't have the time." He admitted and took a short pause, "You got put on our radar when you were one year old. We got calls from the government here about a disturbance, and even though we're not international we checked it out. And found you all alone. We ran tests and found out what you were, you had some really weird results." Nick explained, leaning forward slightly in his chair towards her as he spoke.
Harlow crossed her arms over her chest and scoffed. "And you just what- let me return home and to my parents?"
"No we didn't." Nik bluntly replied and clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Kid, you killed your biological parents in the explosion that drew us to you. We gave two of our agents the mission of raising, keeping an eye on you and reporting back to us. Kelsie Loughty and Eddie Loughty aren't their real names. They're Agent Wilson and Agent Kent. Both who died during a mission over three years ago now."
Speechless. Completely and utterly speechless.
Harlow had no idea what to say, her world was coming down crashing on her. The people who helped her as a kid, the two individuals who claimed to love her were nothing but agents doing a job.
Dead agents.
The time she spent looking for them after breaking away from Russia was pointless. She was never going to see them again, she wasn't sure she wanted to anyway. What would there be to talk about. Nothing!
Harlow sat staring the man in the eye, blinking slowly every so often as her mind tried to wrap around the information her just disclosed in minute. "So... what do you need my help with?" Harlow questioned numbly as she tried to move on rather than focussing on her complex thoughts, rather than grieve.
She barely noticed as the man approached her side and passed her a file. She opened it to find a blue cube. "What the fuck is that?" Harlow asked as her eyes scanned the page and in a flash took in all the information she could see.
Just as Fury was about to explain, Harlow started speaking again. "You've messed with this shit?" Harlow dared to question, peering up at him in slight disapproval. Nick's silence is the only answer she needs making her groan, "Man people can be fucking dense-"
"It has been stolen from us." Nick interrupted her, "Loki, God of Mischief, has taken it along with our men. I need you to help me get the tesseract back. Do you think you can manage that?" Nick muttered rather patronisingly.
"Of course I can." Harlow spat bakc and snapped the file shut.
"Well we better get going. Grab your stuff and meet me back here in ten minutes." Nick instructed her. Harlow nodded along and ran as fast as she could to her room, she needed a fucking weapon.
With all the information she had been handed in such a short time her mind was everywhere. What had she learnt in the space of three seconds? Well her identity is not a secret. There's this American spy shit. She's a parent murderer. Her fake parents are dead. And she's needed to get a blue cube back.
But all she could do was pack a bag. As an underage wizard she knew she couldn't use magic but she wasn't going to leave her wand behind, so she packed it along with her weapons. She only took a few pairs of clothing and a couple pairs of shoes. She wasn't sure what this situation was going to entail but she knew there was no need for a whole wardrobe.
Harlow stormed back out of her room trunk in hand and sprinted back to Dumbledore's office. She never made it all the way there as she was stopped by four panting Marauder boys. "Godric you run fast!" Peter squeaked, trying to stop the feeling of dying. He himself wasn't a sporty lad so was definitely the most impacted by all the running.
"What are you guys doing here?" Harlow rushed out her question, "You're meant to be at the ball."
"So are you!" James exclaimed pointing at her as he resumed regular breathing. "Where are you going? You better not be leaving again." He rambled with concern as he eyed her trunk.
Harlow's eye followed his and she glanced down at her trunk. She immediately understood why the boys were panicking. "No I'm not leaving." Harlow shook her head and patted James on the back.
"Then why-why do you have your stupid trunk?" Sirius questioned accusingly still feeling the threat of Harlow disappearing again.
"Well..." Harlow drawled giving herself a second to perfect a lie. As much as she hated it, there was no way she could tell them even an ounce of the truth. She glanced around the boys and saw each one of them watching her very closely, "tomorrow's the start of the holiday and I'm going home to Russia. Meaning I have to get a flight and that flight is soon." She explained, feeling very content with the lie she made up on the spot.
"Oh." Sirius mumbled pathetically before his face lit up with a grin. "I guess we'll see you when you get back then." He proposed, feeling slightly glum she wouldn't be joining them at James' on Christmas.
"Why can't you just floo all the way there?" Remus asked, the look on his face notified Harlow that he wasn't fully convinced. Which irked her. Why did he have to be so clever, she wasn't sure. But Remus was not only book smart but intelligent when it cam to common facts.
"Different countries have different rules." She responded suddenly and checked her watch. "I really have to go, I can't miss it." Harlow went round the group and gave them each a rushed hug before continuing her journey to Dumbledore's office. Just as she was about to round the corner she froze having remembered something. "Sirius I'll see you at your families ball. 12 Grimmauld Place right?" She hollered out to him.
"Eh yeah." He called back, his voice still showing how unpleased he was with the whole idea. "Don't wear a red dress, please?" He shouted a second time but hissed in annoyance when he got no replies.
As soon as she made it back to Dumbledore's office Nick criticised her for taking eleven minutes and not ten. Harlow in response just raised her eyebrows and ignored his comment. The pair of them walked to the fireplace and Harlow tilted her head to look at Nick.
"How are we getting to wherever we're going?"
Just as she asked the question Dumbledore appeared inside the room and walked over with a jar of floo powder. "I'll see you next term Miss Loughty." He bid her farewell and sent her a look, which only creeped her out.
Nick grabbed a handful of the powder and muttered something that was inaudible to Harlow, she was too focus on glaring at Dumbledore. She just felt a hand grab her arm before the tight feeling of travelling by floo, an experience she hadn't felt in years.
They were spat out at a different fireplace which brought them to a jet hanger. It was certainly a weird place for a fireplace. Her lingering eyes on the fireplace was noticed by Nick who was already boarding the jet. "It was put there specially for us, it'll be non functional and destroyed in a minute." He offered as a response to her unasked question.
Harlow sped up her pace so she was on the jet. She watched as Nick moved to the front of the small jet and took a seat behind all the control. "Well come on and sit down. We've not got the quickest journey. Usually we have pilots but none are high ranking enough to have knowledge about the wizarding world, so it's just you and me."
"Sure." Harlow muttered and took the remaining seat. Her mind was still in complete disarray. The best she could come up with was doing as he asked while she tried to sort through the muddle that her head was.
Just before Nick took off he passed her the file on the Tesseract along with another hefty pile of papers. "Familiarise yourself with everything and read as much of Selvig's notes as you can. It'll help you get a better understanding." Nick instructed her as he turned his attention back to the board of controls and started flying.
Harlow read everything. Even though at first it appeared to be mountains of notes and files she managed to get through all of them. Her speedy pace at reading things and the way she was able to understand it from just reading it didn't go unnoticed by Nick. He heard as she hummed in agreement with something she read or she muttered out equations and formulas she read ten pages prior.
To not raise too much suspicion when she clocked onto Nick's eyes roaming to her regularly, Harlow slowed down her reading. She didn't actually read any slower she just read the page and waited a decent amount of time before moving to the next page. In the time when she was pretending to read she attempted to swallow the pill.
The pill being the fact she's basically been an orphan since the age of one and her phony parents probably hated her. Add on the fact there is an object called the Tesseract that they don't understand very well apart from it very powerful and basically it's own energy source. There was a lot of scientific words and formulas to go into further detail. It was all detailed in his notes, the extraction theory papers, everything she needed to know about thermonuclear astrophysics.
It was a lot to take in, but for Harlow it was a simple reading session that lead to her basically being an expert. After everything her captors did to her and experiment on her, she couldn't deny her increased function of her brain and her photographic memory really came in handy.
"Who else is going to be there Nick?" Harlow finally broke the long silence with a question that she had been thinking since Nick first dropped the little remark about meeting the team members.
"It's Fury, and just a few other individuals with special skills." Nick stated and refused to provide any further answers after that so Harlow gave up asking.
Somehow Nick managed to arrive at the same time as the others arrived, which was a miracle. Harlow took her time re-organising the notes she read, after all this Selvig guy was a genius, who in her opinion, made very good and high quality notes. So he'd probably want them back. Harlow emerged from the jet minutes after Nick left her and told her an agent would be there to pick her up.
Harlow never expected that once she stood up again after picking up her trunk, that she's lock eyes with Captain America. To say she was confused would be an underestimation, wasn't he dead. She raked her brain and then the news article of him being alive ran through her mind.
Beside him stood a gorgeous red haired woman who looked serious maybe a little bit bored or grumpy, Harlow wasn't sure. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest and in an instant Harlow could tell this woman wasn't impressed.
"I'm guessing Nick didn't tell you to expect me." Harlow mused and she moved her trunk around in her grasp and held out her free hand. "I'm Harlow Loughty." She introduced herself and shook Captain America's hand first.
"Steve Rogers, nice to meet you." Steve spoke with a smile one that was not mirrored, but that was just Harlow. "If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?"
Harlow bit the inside of her cheek. She could sense his reaction from a mile away. A reaction filled with ethical and moral opinions. But if he knew the things she'd done, well he certainly would react differently. "I'm fifteen." She revealed and cringed subtly when she saw his jaw drop. "And you are?" She directed her question to the red head as she tried to steer the topic away for her age.
"I'm Agent Natasha Romanoff." She replied and forcefully shook hands with Harlow.
Natasha lead the two of them back out and onto the runway strip where they found the third person Natasha was supposed to collect. Harlow refrained from asking any questions like, Where are we? What am I supposed to do? Or, hey Captain America how was semi dying?
"Doctor Banner." Steve called out to a man looking very lost and Harlow presumed him to be the individual they were searching for.
"Oh yeah hi." Bruce muttered as he joined them and started shaking Steve's hand. Their hand shake was weirdly long and continued as Bruce spoke, "They told me you would be coming."
"Word is you can find the cube." Steve noted and finally removed his hand.
"Tesseract." Harlow whispered to herself.
"Is that the only word on me?" Bruce asked while he fidgeted with his hands. He looked around himself nervously only making Harlow that bit more curious.
"Only word I care about."
"And I have no idea what you guys are talking about." She uttered to herself but a little too loudly as both of the men turned to face her. "Harlow Loughty." She offered once she noticed the attention was on her and briefly shook Bruce's hand. It was very sweaty.
"You're a new face." Bruce muttered, not having been told one thing about a young girl that would be joining them.
"Yeah this is new for me, so whatever." She sighed, "Hey Steve how old are you? I mean you asked my age, it's only fair if I ask you." Harlow defended after receiving a weird look from the war hero.
"Old enough for all of this to remind me, of my younger years." Steve answered a he gestured to the surrounding jets and people doing drills.
"Gentlemen and child, you might want to step inside in a minute." Natasha said as she approached, Harlow hadn't even realised she left them. "It's going to get a little hard to breath."
The four of them watched as the workers started to secure the jets and other machinery to the ground. It was impossible to ignore the noise of whatever was happening to what they were standing on.
"Is this a submarine?" Steve asked with a little excitement in his tone.
"Really? They want me in a submerged, pressurised, metal container?" Bruce states in slight disbelief at how inappropriate the submarine would be for him. Or better yet the other guy.
Harlow started to move towards the edge of it after her curiosity got the better of her. Steve and Bruce followed after her an watched as the Helicarrier propelled itself into the air rather than sinking under the water. They could all hear the turbines powering up and stared as they moved upwards.
"No, no. This is much worse." Bruce expressed with the same disbelieving tone which was in an attempt to hide his panic.
TWO CHAPTERS IN ONE DAY COS I FEEL AWFUL FOR RECENTLY HAVING DELAYS. I'VE ACTUALLY SPENT THE WHOLE DAY WRITING OR GETTING TOO DISTRACTED TO WRITE!
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