Still essentially the movie... But with subplots!!! Enjoy! - Spathi
Steve's P.O.V.
One of the agents turned while unsheathing a baton that crackled with electricity. Steve managed to dodge past it and disarm that agent, but the other agents immediately grabbed him, removing his shield from his back. The baton dropped to the floor. A large man wrapped an arm around his neck and backed up against the side of the elevator. One of the agents snatched up the electrical baton, and pressed it to his chest, sending jolts of pain through his body. The rest surrounded him, a couple seizing his arms and trying to force them to the wall. Two agents carrying briefcases detached the handles, and tried to wrap the foldable piece of metal around his wrist. One suceeded and a magnetic force started drawing Steve's right arm to the metal girder on the wall. Steve struggled against it, and accomplished dragging his arm down to around his waist, lessening the strain somewhat. Steve elbowed the other man with a magnetic cuff in the face, causing the cuff to fly through the air and stick to the opposite side of the elevator.
He took out three more agents by kicking out wildly and throwing a couple of punches, and then proceeded to throw the man with an arm around his neck (Steve wasn't sure if the man had simply been trying to restrain him, or choke him; the man had largely failed at the latter) over his shoulder, hurling him into the opposite wall. However, Rumlow kicked his right hand, which still had the magnetic cuff on it, and it flew towards the wall and stuck fast. He tried to free his hand, but was quickly distracted by Rumlow picking up the baton again, and striking at his head. Steve blocked the strike with his left arm, and then contorted his body to dodge past Rumlow's subsequent hook to his ribs. Undeterred, Rumlow grabbed the baton with two hands like a baseball bat, and swung hard at his left shoulder, pressing forward with his entire body. Steve shuddered and spasmed violently as the shocks ran through his body, pinned against the glass and unable to think clearly.
Luckily, his reflexes saved him. Another agent got up and threw a wild punch at him, and he automatically twisted to dodge it, slamming his elbow into Rumlow's face. The S.T.R.I.K.E. team leader stumbled into the elevator doors. He grabbed the agent's left shoulder and easily tossed him towards the camera located in one of the upper corners of the elevator. Steve returned to attempting to free his arm from the wall, grabbing it with his other arm, only to be interrupted yet again by the agent he had just thrown, armed with the stupid electrical rod. He redirected the agent's attack straight into the chest of an agent who had just risen from the ground, trying to attack again. Then, Steve pulled off a scissor kick, smashing both agents into the walls around him. Yet another agent (and horsefeathers, were these guys persistent) got up and threw a punch at him, and he caught his fist with his left hand, twisting the arm to the left and then kicking the guy hard in the ribs.
Steve planted his feet high on the side of the wall, and grabbed his arm again, pulling with all his strength. The cuff started to peel away from the wall slowly, until it finally detached, causing him to start falling backwards. He tucked into a backflip, and easily landed on his feet, immediately shoving his right elbow into a recovered agent's face (seriously, these twits were getting annoying. How many times did he have to knock these whacky son-of-a-guns down?) and then ducked under the wild swing another agent had taken at the back of his head. He slammed an uppercut to the guy's jaw and another punch to his ribs, sending him careening forwards. Then, he reached behind him, grasping the other guy's uniform and flipping him into the ground.
Finally, Rumlow stood up, one of those really annoying batons in each hand. Steve tensed, but Rumlow put an almost staying hand out.
"Woah, woah, woah, big guy. I just want you to know, Cap, this ain't personal!" Rumlow screamed the last word, swinging downwards at Steve's head. Steve moved out of the way, and then used his right hand to block the next swing. Rumlow struggled to force his hand downwards for a second before jabbing him with the other baton in the ribs. The pain stopped him for half a second before he shoved Rumlow's arm away so hard, the S.T.R.I.K.E. team leader over-extended and stumbled sideways. He recovered quickly, though, and went for a punch to the face, which Steve blocked. Again, Rumlow jabbed the baton into his ribs, and Steve mentally cursed himself for falling for the same trick twice in a row. This time, Rumlow pushed the baton as hard as possible, until Steve knocked that hand away, causing Rumlow to fall forwards. Steve wrapped his arms around Rumlow's waist as the man fell, and straightened while pushing the man upwards, hurling Rumlow into the ceiling. The S.T.R.I.K.E. team leader smashed into the lights and fell to the floor, unconscious. Steve stared down at him, panting a bit.
"It kind of feels personal." he grumbled to the unconscious man.
He stomped on his shield, causing it to fly up, and he easily moved his arm into the leather straps. Then, he struck at the metal cuff on his other wrist, watching in satisfaction as it dropped to the ground. He turned off the emergency stop button, and the doors opened, only for him to find a team of S.T.R.I.K.E. agents pointing their weapons at him.
"Oh for goodness' sake." he complained mentally.
"Drop the shield! Put your hands in the air!" one yelled. He spun to his right, moving to the left side of the elevator and smashing his shield into the side, severing the metal wires that sent the elevator down. The elevator started dropping, screeching to a stop a few seconds later. He pried the doors open to find himself in between the 12th and 11th floors, eye level with the feet of more S.T.R.I.K.E. agents. He closed the doors again, and looked around for a way to escape.
"Give it up, Rogers! Get that door open! You have nowhere to go!" another agent yelled. He looked out the window, and his gaze dropped downwards, towards the glass roof of the atrium of the Triskelion.
"Applesauce." he swore mentally, turning and taking a couple steps away. He whipped around and threw himself through the glass.
He freefell for a couple of seconds, taking the time to tuck himself into a ball behind his shield as best as he could. When he hit the ground, he groaned.
"I swear, this was a trip for biscuits. Today is going terribly. I'm totally joed because I didn't get any doss last night. I just got jumped, crashed through two layers of glass, and fell 200 feet. And the people I work for are trying to either pinch me or bump me off with their team of brunos who are all packing heat. All this because I'm a patsy. Why am I taking the fall for this metal-armed guy? The g-men are all wet. I've got to shake a leg and split." he thought, using a long string of slang common in the 40s because of how tired he was. He staggered to his feet, and high-tailed it down to the garage, managing to get on his motorcycle and escape the complex just as they closed the gates.
A quinjet suddenly flew in front of him as spikes rose in the middle of the road, barring his escape.
"Stand down, Captain Rogers. Stand down." the pilot said over their intercom. He ignored them. The Quinjet lowered it's machine gun, aiming it in his direction.
"I repeat, stand down." they said again. Steve continued moving straight towards the jet. Bullets started hitting the ground around his motorcycle. Steve unhooked his shield from his back, and tossed it at the jet's right propulsion turbine, jamming it, and causing it to dip sideways. He continued driving forward, suddenly hitting the brakes on his motorcycle once he was about 50 feet from it. The motorcycle pitched forwards, launching him straight at the front window of the jet. He stuck his hands out before impact and rolled up the front of the jet, dashing over to the jammed turbine and retrieving his shield. The jet suddenly flipped to the left.
"The pilot must have slowed the left turbine in order to attempt to keep the plane level, and now that the right turbine is moving at the same speed it had been before, there's too much lift on that side." he thought, falling through the air. He managed to slam the edge of his shield into the metal of the Quinjet before he fell to the ground. He swung his feet backwards, flipping through the air, and twisted, landing squarely on top of the jet. From there, he threw his shield into the fuel tanks of the thrusters, grateful that he had memorized the blueprints of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Quinjets a while ago. He sprinted towards the edge of the plane and leaped off, grabbing his shield out of the air, immediately executing a perfect front flip before landing in a kneeling position, a web of cracks circling outwards from where his shield had impacted the concrete. Steve glanced back at the crashing jet before running off.
He ran through the streets of DC, taking a quick detour to break into a gym where he had a membership. After stashing his uniform and shield in one of the lockers, and changing into civilian clothing, he went to the hospital to retrieve the flash drive. He walked quickly through the halls until he found the vending machine. He stopped short once he glanced inside, realizing with a sinking feeling that the flash drive was gone. He heard a pop as he saw Natasha come up behind him in the reflection of the glass of the vending machine. She was chewing gum. He spun around, and stared at her. She stared right back, casually chewing away.
He grabbed her by the arm and shoved her backwards into a room, slamming her into a wall.
"Where is it?" he snarled, referring to the flash drive.
"Safe." Her impassive face annoyed him.
"Do better!"
"Where did you get it?" she evaded.
"Why would I tell you?" he asked indignantly, and her eyes flicked back and forth.
"Fury gave it to you. Why?" she concluded. He ignored the question.
"What's on it?"
"I don't know." He scowled, and tightened his grip on her arms.
"Stop lying!" he demanded.
"I only act like I know everything, Rogers."
"I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?" he accused.
"Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you." Natasha dodged the question, and he felt his face twist in anger.
"I'm not gonna ask you again."
"I know who killed Fury." she said. Steve stared at her like do enlighten me.
"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists. The ones who do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years." she breathed out.
"So he's a ghost story." Steve scoffed, disbelieving.
"Five years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me." Natasha looked down, and pulled up the hem of her shirt. A pale bullet scar marred her waistline.
"Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis." she said meaningfully.
"Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now." Steve replied sarcastically.
"Going after him is a dead end. I know, I've tried." She held up the flash drive. Steve hadn't even seen her take it out.
"Like you said, he's a ghost story." she continued.
"Well, let's find out what the ghost wants." he responded, taking the flash drive, and stepping back. Natasha started walking, and Steve followed her.
"Stay here." she muttered once they had gotten outside of the hospital. She slipped off, returning 20 minutes later with a S.H.I.E.L.D. issue car. The car horn went off loudly. Natasha rolled down the window, smirking from her position in the driver's seat. Steve stared at her incredulously.
"What is she doing?" he thought.
She pulled out a credit card with the words Lotus Hotel & Casino on the front, and held it up.
"Get in loser, we're going shopping!"she called, and Steve threw open the door. He'd barely hopped inside before Natasha peeled away from the curb, wheels screeching.
Natasha's P.O.V.
"First rule of going on the run is, don't run, walk." she said as they strolled through the mall in their new outfits.
"If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off." Steve grumbled, and she rolled her eyes. They went into an Apple store, and started using one of the laptops.
"The drive has a level six homing program, so as soon as we boot up, S.H.I.E.L.D. will know exactly where we are." she warned.
"Perce, I know you've got a location on us. Do me a favor, and plant a car outside for us to steal after we're done here." she thought to Percy.
"Copy that, sis." came the reply.
"How much time do we have?" Steve asked.
"Uh...about nine minutes from... now." she said as she plugged in the flash drive. As she easily navigated the program, she noticed a couple of details which led her to one conclusion.
"Fury was right about that ship, somebody's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI, it keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands." She'd only ever seen this type of programming from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best technology geniuses and from Tony Stark himself.
"Can you override it?" Steve questioned urgently.
"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly." she replied, doing her best to hack into the AI. She knew it was taking too long, so she decided to try something different.
"I'm gonna try running a tracer. This is a program that S.H.I.E.L.D. developed to track hostile malware, so if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from." she explained, although she felt like her words had gone straight over Steve's head. An Apple employee came up to them.
"Can I help you guys with anything?" he asked earnestly, and Natasha immediately came up with a cover story.
"Oh, no. My fiancé was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations." she laughed, latching onto Steve's bicep, and squeezing his shoulder, plastering a smile on her face. She hoped the employee didn't see that they lacked rings.
"Right! We're getting married." Natasha mentally laughed at the awkward and unconvincing tone that the sentence was delivered in. Luckily, the Apple employee didn't seem to notice.
"Congratulations. Where are you guys thinking about going?" the employee asked, bobbing his head. Steve glanced at the screen.
"New Jersey." he said. She absentmindedly listened to Steve talk with the guy. After the guy left, he started hovering again.
"You said nine minutes, come on." he hissed urgently.
"Shh, relax. Got it." she reassured him, finally zeroing in on the location. Steve looked surprised.
"You know it?" she asked.
"I used to. Let's go." he commanded.
He yanked the flash drive out of the port, and started walking out of the store. They spotted a couple of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents approaching.
"Standard tac-team. Two behind, two across, two coming straight at us. If they make us, I'll engage, you hit the south escalator to the metro." Steve decided. Natasha rolled her eyes. That plan was completely unneccessary.
"Shut up and put your arm around me, laugh at something I said." she ordered.
"What??"
"Do it!" Steve complied, and quickly glanced behind them to see whether the agents had realized who they were. Natasha didn't bother. She knew that they had been fooled. They made their way to the escalator. As they are going down, Natasha spotted Rumlow on the escalator going up. She turned to Steve.
"Kiss me." she hissed urgently.
"What?" Steve looked scandalized.
"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable." she explained.
"Yes, they do." he frowned, and she grabbed the back of his head and pressed her lips to his. The kiss was awkward, to say the least. It was only worsened by the fact that Steve, who was six feet tall, was an escalator step above her. Natasha herself was only 5'3", but she seemed to always be wearing some form of high heels, whether they were rubber shoes with wedges, or actual stilettos. It was rare that she stood at her actual height. Right now, she was about 5'6", and balancing on her tiptoes.
"You still uncomfortable?" she murmured after they broke apart. Because she definitely felt uncomfortable.
"That's not exactly the word I would use." he muttered, and Natasha agreed whole-heartedly. Perhaps awkward fit the situation better.
Once they got off the escalator, Natasha immediately started dragging Steve through the mall. Moving outside, she immediately scanned the parking lot.
"Got something?" she thought to her brother.
"Dark blue Chevy Silverado, left side of the parking lot. I'm the guy wearing a Maserati cap."
She looked to her left, and spotted Percy leaning on a telephone pole, standing in front of a truck, wearing a hat with a trident symbol on it. He was using a phone, but every once in a while, he'd look around, as if he was waiting to pick someone up. He had earbuds in, and was bobbing his head as if he was listening to music. The truck was still running behind him. Natasha pointed the car out, and Steve nodded. They circled around Percy, and quickly hopped into the car, Steve jumping into the driver's seat. He eased the car out of the parking space, and starting driving backwards down the lot. Once they had reached a far enough distance, Natasha watched Steve spin the wheel and skillfully maneuver the car out of the parking lot.
She quickly realized that they weren't far from the border of New Jersey. They drove in silence. Natasha sat with her feet propped up on the dashboard. Once they passed a sign that said 'Welcome to New Jersey!', she spoke up.
"Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?" she teased, turning her head towards him.
"Nazi Germany." came the short reply.
"Mm." She nodded her head, looking back at the road.
"And we're borrowing. Take your feet off the dash." he said in a rather flat tone. Natasha laughed internally, but acquiesced, transferring her feet to the floor of the car. She kept looking at him, a mischievous idea forming in her head.
"Alright, I have a question for you, which you do not have to answer." Steve looked over at her, the statement having caught his attention.
"I feel like if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know?" she mused out loud.
"What?" he asked impatiently. Natasha winced internally at the clear mistrust and borderline annoyance in his tone, but kept an upbeat expression on her face.
"Was that your first kiss since 1945?" she gibed, smirking at him.
"That bad, huh?" Steve wouldn't look at her, and his voice hadn't changed.
"I didn't say that." she protested.
"Well, it kind of sounds like that's what you're saying." he responded, glancing at her for a second out of the corner of his eye.
"No, I didn't - I just wondered how much practice you've had." she objected.
"Pract- you don't need practice." Steve sputtered.
"Everybody needs practice." she pointed out.
"It was not my first kiss since 1945. I'm 95, I'm not dead." Steve said firmly.
"Nobody special, though?" she asked, trying to fish for info about his romantic life. Steve scoffed.
"Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience." he stated, a bitter look in his eye.
"Well, that's alright, you just make something up." she attempted to console him.
"What, like you?" he questioned sharply, and Natasha flinched internally.
"Ouch." she thought.
Steve was clearly not happy with her. She had no idea why, but it was obvious that the super soldier didn't trust her.
"I don't know. The truth is a matter of circumstances, it's not all things to all people all the time. And neither am I." she said lightly, taking the verbal punch and rolling with it.
"That's a tough way to live." Steve said matter-of-factly.
"It's a good way not to die, though." she replied in a low tone.
Natasha, Natalia, Natalie, Scarlett. They were all just names, aliases. Another word used to refer to the same person. Percy, Alexei, Peter, Perry. Her and Percy, their names didn't define them. They could slip through names and personalities easily, because they had both chosen to live their life that way. With each other, they were themselves. It didn't matter to Percy if she called him Lex. It didn't matter to her if Percy called her Nat. They weren't only Percy Jackson and Natasha Romanoff behind all of the facades. Both of them could be called many things. Assassins, survivors, fighters, protectors. Demigods, mortals, gifted, humans. But at heart, they were just brother and sister, siblings. That was the one truth that she knew was constant. Because everything had perspectives. And perspectives changed things entirely. Before she met Percy, she had started to lose herself in those shifting viewpoints, unable to figure out her own identity. Now, whenever she started to float away, that one bond between her and Percy, that unbreakable relationship, was her anchor. She started with the simple fact that she was a sister, and went from there.
"You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is." Steve pointed out, and she wondered at his words. Did anybody ever know who anyone actually was?
"Yeah." She paused, thinking about what to say next. Then, a question popped into her head.
"Who do you want me to be?" she asked softly. What she really wanted to know is whether Steve wanted her to be a persona, or her true self.
"How about a friend?" She had expected a similar answer, but was still disappointed. Of course, Captain America wanted her to be a friend. Not herself, not whatever she was when she wasn't putting up a facade. A friend. She smiled bitterly.
"Well, there's a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers." she said flatly, returning to using his last name as a way to distance herself. She was done trying to reach out to him. It wasn't worth it anymore.
Steve looked at her with a hint of a smile on his lips, and she looked away.
Percy's P.O.V.
Now that Percy knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to fall, he wanted to secure some of the more dangerous items in the agency's possession. There was an artifact in particular that he was interested in finding: Loki's scepter. Even if he was unable to recover the scepter, he was sure that there would be something of interest to him. But Percy knew he wouldn't be able to find the scepter by himself. Fortunately, he knew just the person to go to.
"Alex Fierro! How have you been?" he called out jovially to the green-haired demigod, who he'd found outside of a falafel shop in Boston.
"Right as rain. You?" Alex responded.
"Well, Ms. Fierro, life's been hectic, but pretty good." he replied.
"I still don't know how you and Magnus do that." she muttered.
"Do what?" Percy asked innocently.
"Determine whether I'm male or female the second you see me." she said. Alex Fierro, being gender-fluid like her mother, tended to have problems with people using the wrong pronouns and titles. Percy wasn't sure how he could tell which Alex was at any given time, but he was grateful for the ability.
"I need your help." Percy stated.
"With?"
"I need to find your mother's scepter." Alex was the daughter of Loki, but like Sleipnir the eight-legged horse of Odin, Loki had taken a female form to conceive her.
"You do realize that my mother's form is rather different from the Loki that invaded New York?" Alex questioned.
"Yes, I'm aware that the aspect of Loki that invaded New York was the 'alien' aspect, and that your mother is the Norse aspect, but you're still a child of Loki. There's got to be some way you can recognize your mother's power." he pointed out. Alex chewed on her lip, thinking about it.
"Alright. Let me just tell Sam and Amir I'm heading out, and grab my stuff." she sighed, turning to enter the shop. Percy nodded, and sat on a bench. 30 minutes later, Alex walked out again, wearing a backpack. Percy noticed a garrote and a knife concealed beneath the child of Loki's sweater.
"You're back, bro!" Percy exclaimed, noting that Alex had transitioned from female to male. He was pretty sure that the only truly noticable difference was that Alex's hair was a little longer, which made Percy think that Natasha's training allowed him to pick up on Alex's gender.
"I got a doggie bag full of falafel. I think it was worth the wait." he said, holding a white plastic bag aloft.
"Can't argue with you there." Percy agreed. He held a hand out to the green-haired demigod.
"Ready to go?" he asked him.
"Where to?" Alex questioned, taking his hand. Percy smiled. The two demigods started to fade.
"Siberia." And then, they had vanished into the cold Bostonian air, the only evidence of their existence being footprints in the snow, and the salty scent of the sea hanging in the air.
Steve's P.O.V.
They pulled up to an abandoned military base.
"This is it?" he questioned.
"The file came from these coordinates." Natasha commented.
"So did I." he responded. They waited a couple hours before they broke in.
"This camp is where I was trained." he commented.
"Changed much?" Natasha questioned.
"A little." he said. He started reminiscing the past, only broken out of his daydream when Natasha spoke again.
"This is a dead end. Zero heat signature, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off." she sighed, glancing at her phone. Steve was about to reply, but something caught his eye.
"What is it?" he heard Natasha ask as he approached a building. Something was off about it.
"Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards from the barracks. This building is in the wrong place." he explained. They broke into the building, and upon walking in, the first thing that he noticed was the gigantic symbol on the back wall.
"This is S.H.I.E.L.D." Natasha stated.
"Maybe where it started." he agreed. They moved through the room, and Steve stopped short when he saw three pictures hanging on the wall. One of Howard, one of Peggy, and one of Colonel Phillips. Steve privately thought that the latter bore a striking resemblance to Agent K from the Men in Black films he had recently watched, as well as to one of the main characters from the movie Space Cowboys.
"There's Stark's father." Natasha commented.
"Howard." he supplied. The red-head's eyes shifted over to the photo of Colonel Phillips, and she froze. She touched the photo gently, frowning like she was trying to remember something but couldn't.
"He looks so familiar..." she murmured. Before Steve could share his thoughts about that, her gaze switched to the last frame.
"Who's the girl?" Natasha asked. Steve ignored the question. Instead, he continued to search the building. Finally, he noticed some cobwebs moving slightly. He approached the area, and reached out.
"If you're already working in a secret office... " he trailed off as he shoved the wall aside to reveal a pair of silver doors.
"Why do you need to hide the elevator?" he finished. They rode the elevator down, stepping out to find a room with old computers in it.
"This can't be the data-point, this technology is ancient." Natasha remarked. Immediately after that, she stepped forward, and plugged the flash drive into a shiny silver USB port. The computer booted up, and words were displayed on the screen.
Initiate system?
"Y-E-S, spells yes." Natasha spelled out, smiling. Once the computer loaded, she bent over to type, but paused.
"Shall we play a game?" she said, smirking. She turned to Steve.
"It's from a movie that..." she tried to explain, and Steve cut her off.
"Yeah, I saw it." WarGames was one of the many movies on his recommendations list. The computer finally turned on, and once Steve got a good look at the face displayed on the screen, his blood ran cold.
Percy's P.O.V.
The two boys slipped through the halls of the Hydra base. It was cold, and empty, and one room had some cryostasis chambers with people in them. Percy and Alex decided to leave those things alone.
"The scepter isn't here. I can't feel it's presence." Alex announced suddenly, and Percy nodded.
"At least we can get some intel." the son of the sea responded.
As they walked through, searching the base, Percy collected several files on the Winter Soldier, which detailed what exactly had happened to James Buchanan Barnes. There wasn't much else, other than a map of Hydra bases, and two books, one red with a black star on the cover, and the other black with a red hourglass on the cover. Percy picked up the latter of the two books, as well as the map. Alex found a couple of vials of chemicals, which he handed to Percy. They also found files on Hydra operations. Once they'd picked up everything of interest, Percy grabbed Alex's hand and vapor-traveled them to Bunker 6.
"Well, at least we've got a list of possible locations." the child of Loki mused. Percy looked over at the green-haired demigod, noting that Alex's hair had become shorter.
"That we do, chica. Do you think you could find a way into Hydra? Like, can you find a member that you can shapeshift into, and then you could bring me in as an asset?" Percy replied. Alex nodded, glancing through the files.
"I think I'll be able to find someone." she said confidently, nodding to herself.
"Thanks, Alex." Percy rubbed his hands together, relieved.
"No problem, Alex." she teased.
"Just call me Xander, if you insist on using derivatives of my middle name." Percy sighed.
"Not happening, Alex. It's too fun, being able to use my own name." she chirped smugly.
"Why must you do this to me?" Percy whined.
"Because. Now deal with it." the daughter of Loki replied. The nineteen year old Greek demigod rolled his eyes.
"Can't you be more Lo-ki about it?" he punned.
"I don't sea the appeal." she returned. Percy gasped with outrage. He should be the one making ocean puns.
"Fine, try and bait me all you want. I don't care anymore." Percy sniffed, turning his face away disdainfully.
"Really? Because you sound kind of Thor about it." Alex responded, raising her eyebrows.
"Not sure what you mean by that. Could you be more Pacific?" Percy said, leaning forward conspirationally.
"You're Frigg-ing annoying sometimes. You know that?" Alex grumbled.
"Well, I Apollo-gize for being, in the words of the god himself, awesome." Percy sassed, snapping his fingers, and cocking a hip, placing the most condescending expression he could muster on his face. Alex cracked a smile, and Percy chuckled.
"Alright, well, I need to head to Alaska to retrieve some weapons from Hubbard Glacier " he commented.
"Well, you know exactly where to find me." Alex replied, gesturing towards the desk she was standing behind. Percy waved, and vapor traveled off.
To his surprise, he found himself on a S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft carrier, next to the open hangar of the Bus.
"Styx." he thought as several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents surrounded him, guns at the ready.
"Hey, there. Alaska's nice this time of year, isn't it?" he said nervously.
Natasha's P.O.V.
Her eyes flew open, and she immediately shot up, almost slamming her head into Steve, who had been hovering over her. She doubled over and started coughing, trying desperately to clear the dust from her lungs. Steve stood by her, looking concerned.
"Let's never do that again." she muttered, gasping for breath.
"Agreed." the super soldier responded, nodding seriously.
After the Zola computer had dropped several bombs on them (one literal, and the rest metaphorical), Natasha had found herself squeezed into a small grate in the floor of the room. The short range ballistic missile fired by S.H.I.E.L.D. seemed to be what was nicknamed a bunker buster, leveling the building completely and uncovering the room they'd been in, which had been deep underground. She'd briefly considered using the energy shield Percy had given her, but then decided that it wouldn't help matters. So, she'd huddled against Steve, curling into a tiny ball, and hoping that his vibranium disk would be able to deflect the debris.
She staggered to her feet, sucking in cold air as she took in her surroundings. They were standing on a hill just outside of what Natasha recognized to be Washington DC.
"How'd we get here?" she asked Steve, who she noticed was panting slightly.
"I put you on my back, and ran as fast as I could." he replied.
"That was about 180 miles, Rogers." she responded incredulously.
"I can run about a mile a minute at my fastest speed, and thanks to the serum, keep that up for a while. It took me about three hours to get us here." Steve explained. Natasha stared at him.
"That's useful." she thought.
"We need to find a place to stay. Any ideas?" she commented. Steve shook his head.
"Not really. You?" Natasha turned to survey the city again. A man in a purple shirt running near the Jefferson Memorial caught her eye.
"I might have one." she mused out loud.
30 minutes later, she stood in the backyard of the man's house. Steve rapped on the glass door. It opened a couple seconds later to reveal a very surprised face.
"Sam Wilson." Natasha remembered. The man in question stared at them, taking in their appearances. They were covered in dust, and she was pretty sure she had pieces of rubble in her hair. Not really a recommended appearance for going out in public.
Natasha could only hope that Sam was willing to let them in.
Translation of the 40s slang.
horsefeathers - an expletive. Rather flexible. Technically means nonsense. Example(s):
Oh, horsefeathers.
Horsefeathers! I dropped the flashlight.
twits - fools, idiots. Example:
He's a complete twit.
whacky - crazy. Example:
You are a whacky fella, mister.
applesauce - same thing as horsefeathers. Means the same thing too. Example:
Applesauce. The cops are here. Let's scram!
"I swear, this was a trip for biscuits. Today is going terribly. I'm totally joed because I didn't get any doss last night. I just got jumped, crashed through two layers of glass, and fell 200 feet. And the people I work for are trying to either pinch me or bump me off with their team of brunos who are all packing heat. All this because I'm a patsy. Why am I taking the fall for this metal-armed guy? The g-men are all wet. I've got to shake a leg and split."
Translates to:
"This meeting with Pierce was a waste of time. Today is going terribly. I'm exhausted because didn't get any sleep last night. I just got attacked, crashed through two layers of glass, and fell 200 feet. And the people I work for are trying to either arrest me or kill me with their heavily-armed team of hired men. All this because I'm being blamed for something I didn't do. Why am I being investigated, when it was that metal-armed guy who shot Fury? These government officials are all wrong. I've really got to hurry up and get out of here."
I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Sorry for the wait, and see you soon with the next one! - Spathi