Natasha's POV
6:20 am
I am so frustrated right now! I mean come on! Bruce cannot just tell us we are insensitive. We are secret agents for crying out loud! we have all been trained not to show any emotion, no matter that situation. I need to go vent on someone.
I see Clint leaning against a wall, polishing one of his arrows. Well, I need someone to vent on, whose better than him. He isn't doing anything and he knows how to take a hit; but he will hit back, which will be better for me.
"I need to vent." I tell him bluntly as I grab his hand and start dragging him to our boxing rink and gym room.
"I can see that." He replies while walking with me. I walk into the training room and immediately go into the boxing rink. I get into a defensive stance while Clint takes his precious time in walking over here.
"Hurry up!" I bark at him.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" He says putting his hands up in surrender. He also gets into a defensive position. We start to circle each other. I circle each other for about a minute until I go in for a lunch. He deflects it and we start going at each other. We do this for about 40 more minutes until I need to get some water.
"I need something to eat." I say as I start to walk out.
"I can tell, you are crankier than usual." Clint says
"Thanks for letting me vent." I say ignoring his comment.
"No problem. Next time, try not to bruise my face. I mean you hit me on my good side even! Who does that?!?" He says over dramatically.
"You have no good side." I state hiding the smile I have inside.
"Hurtful!" he says putting his hand over his heart in mock hurt.
"I thought you were an expert assassin and spy. I didn't think 5 little words could hurt you that much." I say with a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. He just lets out a huff in annoyance.
We walk into the cafeteria to see Bruce sitting at a table all alone. I really don't want to see his ugly face right now.
"What's up Bruce?" Clint says walking towards him. Uggggg! I walk through the buffet-style line and get my breakfast. I get fruit, milk, a small box of cereal, and large coffee. Clint waves me over. I guess I should go sit by them. I sit down an start eating my food, without saying a single word to them.
"So where's Rose?" Clint asks.
"I don't know. I told her eat her food, she did, she cleaned up, and then just left. I don't know where she went. I think she might have gone to her room." He says with a shrug and a sigh.
"We should probably know where she is." I state, not wanting Fury to yell at me.
"Nah. She's fine. It's not like she could escape, we are almost 50,000 feet in the air. Anyways, what do you think Cap't is gonna make us do." Clint says changing the subject.
"I don't know. I hope it's something interesting though. I really don't want to play dress up or play with baby dolls." I say exasperated just from the thought of it.
"I thought you were a girl. Don't all girls like those things." Clint says with an eyebrow raised.
"I am a girl. I just don't like those things. Plus, when you're an adult/woman, we don't play with dolls. I'd rather go to a shooting range or something like that." I say as I lean back in my chair.
"Why must you be so violent?" Clint asks with a shake of his head.
"Have you met yourself?" I ask him.
"Yes, yes I have." He says with a cocky grin on his face.
"My point has been proven." I say.
"Well..... I got to get going. Bye." Bruce says as he gets up and leaves.
"What's you favorite gun?" I ask Clint, trying to waste time.
"I don't use guns, remember." He says tapping the tip of my head.
8:00 am
Clint and I ended up talking for about 45 minutes about random things.
"There you are, we all need to meet up in the conference room." Steve says from the cafeteria doorway.
We groggily get up and start walking out of the cafeteria.
"Wait! Coffee!" I yell as I run toward the coffee machine. Ahhhh, sweet coffee.
"Women and their coffee." Clint says under his breath.
"Excuse me if I've been up since 5 in the morning. I need my coffee this morning. Would you rather me be cranky and tell or have my coffee and be more content? Your choice. Choose wisely." I say with a smug smile on my face.
"Fine. I'm sorry." Clint says through a sigh.
"Good boy." I say parting his head like a dog.
We get to the conference room and I see everyone is here except Tony. Of course Tony isn't here yet. I sit down in the back of the room. We wait about one minute until Tony bursts through the doors.
"I'm here!" Tony announces as he takes his seat.
"Finally. Ok, we new to make a plan on how to get Rose to open up to us." Steve says.
"Well, we should probably know where she is first." Clint says
"What do you mean? she should be in her room. I locked her door and it's only 8:00. No child is up that early." Steve asks confused.
"Why don't you let Bruce tell you what happened." I say looking at Bruce. Bruce gives me a short glare until he starts telling everyone (the short version) what happened.
"Wait! There's another hulk?!?!?" Tony yells.
"Yes, but she doesn't know how to control her powers. Don't make her angry and we will be ok." Bruce replies.
"Well I think we need to split up and try to find her." Steve says.
"I'll take the training rooms." I say
"I'll take the two northern labs." Tony says.
"I'll take the other two." Bruce comments.
"I shall check on deck." Thor responds
"I'll check her room, the control room, and the cafeteria." Steve says.
"I guess I have the hallways." Clint says.
"Lets go." Steve says with a nod of his head. Everyone goes off in their own directions. I go straight for the training room that we found her (hulked out) in earlier this morning.
I open the giant metal door. The scene I see before me shocks me. I see Rose dodging the lasers. She has for to be on level 9 or 10. She is dodging just about each and every one of them. I also notice that her hair is a fiery red like mine. That's odd. I thought her hair was blonde.
She turns the blasters off. I look over to the shooting range area and see all of the targets with perfect bulls-eyes through them. Wow!!!! This girl is good. She's better than I was at that age. She's almost as good as me now, and that's saying something.
I press the location button on my watch. When I press this button, it sends out my location to all of the Avengers. That way they know to come here.
I look back at Rose and realize her hair is blonde again. How'd she do that?!?!?
She turns around and sees me staring at her in shock.
"I'n sorry. This was the only room I knew of and I had to get away from Doctor Banner. Please don't make my punishment severe. I promise I won't do it again. Please don't hurt me." Rose pleads.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I was just shocked. You made all bulls-eyes and you were on level..." I say
"10. I was on level 10." Rose interjects.
"Dang! You were on level ten and you only have a few burns. Most of the agents here don't know how to do that and most of them have been training 20+ years. Where did you train at?" I ask with curiosity.
"I have never done those things before. I have never held a gun, much less work one. I did learn to dodge but not lasers...fists." She says cautiously.
"Hey, I read your file and it said you are an orphan? Is that true?" I ask trying to see what her reaction will be.
"You have a file on me?" She asks getting nervous.
"We have one on everyone in the world. But you didn't answer my question. Are you an orphan?" I ask again.
"Yes. I am an orphan." She says with her head hung low in shame.
"Don't be ashamed about it. I was an orphan too. Well I was until I found a family here. S.H.E.I.L.D. is my family now." I say calmly.
"Really? These big people became your family and you aren't afraid of them?" Rose asks with wide eyes.
"Yes." I say with a smile, a genuine smile.
"Hey, I heard you ran away from Bruce earlier. Is that true?" I ask.
"Yes. He was forcing me to eat all of this food and it was too much.....Where's a bathroom?" She asks looking sick.
"Follow me." I say grabbing her hand and leading her to the bathroom. We run to the bathroom.
"Tha...." Rose starts to say but she never finishes. She runs into the bathroom and closes the door. I can hear her vomiting through the closed door.
"Are you ok?" I ask through the door.
"Fine. I just ate too much." She says as she opens the bathroom door.
"Here, chew on this. It will make your breath smell better and it'll get rid of the terrible taste." I say passing her a piece of gum.
"What is this?" Rose asks staring at it.
"It's gum. Haven't you ever had any?" I ask with slight shock.
"Oh yeah. I remember this stuff. The last time I had any was when I was at the orphanage, about 4 years ago." She says popping the gum into her mouth.
"Were you adopted 4 years ago?" I ask trying not to be pushy.
"Um...sort of." She says with her head hanging down.
"It's ok, you don't have tell me." I say putting my hand on her shoulder.
"How we go back to the training room and I can help you perfect the art of dodging lasers?" I say (the last four words, I say in a pristine school teacher voice). Rose giggles a little bit and nodded her head. We walk to the training room and I can vaguely hear the sound of footsteps and conversation coming towards us.
"Can we go somewhere else?" Rose asks looking up at me.
"Why? I thought I was going to teach you how to kick butt." I ask
"Honestly I don't want to be around the big people. I hear Steve, Thor, Bruce, Tony and Clint coming right now. They are about 45 seconds away, give or take some seconds." She replies.
"How do you know? I can barely hear anyone and I'm trained to have heightened senses." I ask her with a questionable look.
"I just do ok. They will be here in like 15 seconds, can we go now?" She pleads. I look at her and right then, Thor, Clint, Steve, Bruce, and Tony walk in.
"I told you." She mutters under her breath as she hides herself behind me.
"Hey guys. Um...can you guys leave for a moment?" I ask them. I really want to know how she was able to predict it was them and their time of arrival.
"Why?" Clint asks skeptically
"Cause I want you to." I say sternly
"How about.....No. We just found her, I want to see what other powers she has." Tony says with a smirk on his face. I hear Rose take a sharp intake of breath and her grip on my legs get tighter.
"Do I really need to force you. You guys will leave one way or the other. Which will it be gentlemen?" I ask getting irritated. Tony just scared her and I really want some questions answered. They give me skeptical looks but they eventually start leaving. Clint is the last to leave.
"I'm sorry about them. So how.." I start to say but Rose effectively cuts me off.
"I know what you want to know. If I told you how I can do it, you would have to know my past and I'm am not telling anyone, ever!" Rose says defiantly.
"OK, but then how do I know I can trust what you say?" I ask trying to get some information.
"I will prove to you that you don't have to know how I can do this. I will prove to you that I am not lying and that I can just do it." Rose says getting slightly frustrated.
"OK, prove it." I say crossing my arms over my chest. I want to make sure that that wasn't just a lucky guess.
Rose's POV
I listen carefully and I can easily make out everyone's conversations. Tony is talking to Clint about Natasha and how she is so difficult to work with. Steve is talking to Bruce about my DNA results. Wait, they took a blood test! Oh, no! That will get them even more suspicious. Either way, Thor is just being quiet and Nick Fury just walked over to them and told them that I need to be contained. Well that's, mean.
"Tell them to come in and I will tell everyone what they were just talking about." I tell Natasha
"Ok." She says. She walks over to the door and everyone comes in; they all stand around me.
"Rose is going to tell you what every single person was just talking about." Natasha says with a slight attitude. She thinks she's going to win this one, haha.
"Steve, you were talking to Bruce about my DNA results. By the way, I knew that my blood was special and I'm glad you learned basically nothing from it, especially my weaknesses. Tony, you were complaining about Natasha and how she is so hard to work with. Clint was sort of agreeing with you but he thought it was because she was a stone cold assassin. Then Mr. Eye Patch over here came and told everyone that I need to be contained so I don't hulk out again. He also told you that I need to be contained because I probably have unknown powers and he doesn't want me to destroy everyone. By the way, I'm not working with anyone, that's just Mr. Eye Patch's paranoid assumption. I mean you found and kidnapped me in the woods, I was alone and unarmed. Give a girl a break!" I say with a frustrated expression.
"Is all of this true?" Natasha asks with a slight undertone of anger. Everyone nods their heads. Natasha immediately starts glaring at Clint and Tony.
"Not all of it is true, my name is NOT Mr. Eye Patch, it is Director Nick Fury." He says as he gives me a pointed look.
"I know. You insulted me so I figured I wasn't going to give you the respect of calling you by your real name as a return favor." I say with a shrug. Wow, where did this confidence come from? I kind of like it, as long as it doesn't get me into trouble like last time. I think it's because Natasha is here and I actually sort of trust her, I mean she has been really nice and she helped me when I vomited. Everyone stared at me in shock. Did I say something wrong?
"Wow. You've got guts kid. No one has ever talked back to Nick like that. Well except for Tony." Steve says pointing to Tony.
"Thanks. Oh by the way, Doctor Banner, all of that food that you forced me to eat has now been flushed down the toilet. Thanks for making me vomit." I say with two thumbs up and sarcasm dripping off my words.
"I'm sorry. I was just trying to.." Bruce starts to say but I cut him off.
"I know, but when someone says they can't eat anymore, you should probably believe them." I say as I start to walk away from everyone.
"Where do you think you're going?" Fury asks irritated.
"Somewhere. Somewhere that isn't here. Oh by the way Natasha, thanks for everything you did today, you are the reason I have so much confidence right now, otherwise I'd be in a corner trying to escape these overgrown demons. I know you all want to know my past but no one will ever get me to tell you, no matter what." I say as I slam the door in their shocked faces. I can hear them talking to Natasha about how she got me to trust her.
I start to run and I end up at another dead end. I go into the last door on the left. I walk into a medium sized room. It has tools everywhere. It sort of reminds me of those labs you see on TV (I was able to watch TV in the orphanage). I walk around and sort of skim my eyes over everything. I see some pieces of metal and a blow torch. I want to make something. I know what you are thinking, how does she now all of this. The orphanage was near a mechanic shop, sometimes I would go there to help the owner, Julie. She was the one that taught me all about mechanics and how girls can do everything a man can do.
I grab the blow torch and a mask. I start melting the metal together. I don't know what I'm making, I'm just making something. Something beautiful.
Tony's POV
What!?!?!? How did Widow get Rose to trust her? That's insane, Widow is the least trustworthy person here (except Fury).
"How were thou able to get Lady Rose to trust thou?" Thor asks.
"I found her training in this room and she was talking to me, though you could easily see that she was terrified. She was telling me why she ran from Banner and before she could finish, she asked to go to the bathroom. She went in and I could hear her vomiting a lot. She came back out and we talked and walked. I told her I was an orphan until I joined S.H.E.I.L.D an now they're my family. She was surprised that "these big people" were my family. Then I told her I'd show her how to dodge all of the laser shots in Level 10." Widow says.
"Why would you show her level ten?!?!? Most agents can't even do that!" Clint sort of yelled.
"Oh, I didn't tell you. When I found her, I saw her practicing on level 10. She barely had any burn marks so I figured I would help her perfect her performance. She also did that." Widow says pointing towards the shooting targets.
"Damn. This girl has skill. She's almost as good as me." Clint says with a little envy. I admit she does have skill, I mean not every 10 year old can make all bulls eyes.
"Did she tell you where she was trained?" Fury asks. Nosy much.
"She said that she has never even touched a gun but she did say that she has practiced dodging before. She wouldn't say but I didn't want to push my luck." Widow replies.
"Well then, I think we should find her. Who knows what else she can do." Cap't says.
"What happens if one of us find her? It's not like she trusts us. She only sort of trusts Natasha." Bruce says.
"Find her but don't make contact. When you find her, signal us but keep an eye on her so you don't lose her. After we get there, Natasha will go in and talk to her. Maybe you can convince her that we aren't here to hurt her?" Cap't says. He points the last question at Natasha; she just nods.
"Check the same places you checked last time." Cap't says. He's soooooo BOSSY!!!! I mean come one. Everyone nods and starts to leave.
I head to the right and towards the two northern labs. I go into the first lab but Rose is no where to be seen. Why does she have to be so...so...childish? I mean I know she's only 10 but come on! Man do I hate kids. I walk towards the next lab. I hear a blow torch on. What is someone doing with a blow torch? I walk in and see a small person wearing a mask and melting prices of metal together. I walk towards them quietly. I see beautiful brown hair cascading down the person's back. Who is that? It looks like a small girl. Noooooo. It can't be, kids (much less little girls) can't use blow torches and make that awesome of a creation.
The little girl must have felt my stare because she looks up and takes off her mask.
It is.......ROSE!?!?!?!?!? What the heck?
"How'd you do that?" I ask pouting to her magnificent metal creation.
"I don't know, I saw the blow torch, metal, and mask. I just started melting pieces together." She replies.
"It kind of looks like Stark Tower. How do you know what it looks like without knowing about the Avengers? Wait, you were that little orphan looking girl Clint scared off after the bombings." I say remembering that day.
"Maybe, maybe not." She says softly.
"You were but either way, are you done with this awesome creation?" I say looking at the sculpture in amazement.
"Not yet, I just have to do two more things." Rose says as she pulls the mask over her face again.
"But it looks perfect. If you do anything else, you'll ruin it." I say trying to stop her from ruining the perfect replica of Stark Tower. She doesn't listen but instead she adds a little tiny piece of metal to the bottom of the tower.
"Time for the final touch." She says after she takes off her helmet. She grabs a computer chip and a piece of black plastic.
"Finished." She says
"Why'd you do that, it's not going to help at all?" I ask her utterly confused.
"I'll show you." Rose replies. She moves the switch on (black plastic piece) and the tower lights up. The roof opens up and you can see a whole living room inside. It has a couch, bar, large flat screen TV, and even little people.
"That's amazing! You should take that as a compliment kid, I don't say that to just anyone." I say smiling at her.
"That's not all." She says as she reaches her hand into the tower and presses the TV screen. The screen turns on and it shows a video of us.
"What.....How...What?" I ask completely speechless.
"There's a video camera right here and this is kind of like the computer screen, it's just inside of the house." Rose says pointing towards a little camera hidden in the right side of the tower.
"Amazing, where'd you learn to do this?" I ask with wonder
"People." She says looking down at the ground. Ugggg, again with the shyness. "Fine! Don't tell me. I bet you don't know what this is though?" I say throwing my hands up in the air and then pointing to my "heart". Ha, got her there.
"It appears to be an Arc Reactor. Well, it's a smaller version. It must power a a magnet that keeps bits of metal out of your blood stream. But your heart is still working." She replies examine it closely. (A/N: I wasn't exactly sure how this works until bearsofclaires commented and told me.) Well dang, this kid knows her stuff.
"Wow, and your hair....it's brown. It looks like mine." I say getting speechless. Could she be a shape-shifter? Her eyes grow wide and she runs towards a mirror on the other wall.
"I-It's b-blonde. I-I don't k-know what y-your t-talking a-a-about." She stammers. I loom at her hair again and notice that it's blonde again. I must have just imagined it.
"Well, lets do something." I say walking over to one of the desks.
"Ok." Rose responds walking back over. She still has her head hung down. I think we might be able to work together.
Steve's POV
I can't believe it. Rose just keeps disappearing. I don't think my nerves can handle much more of this stress. It's like whenever she disappears, my nerves have a freak out moment and I immediately make the conclusion that she jumped out of the Helicarrier and died or someone took her. I can't keep doing this, I mean we did something like this 4 years ago and we never saw her again until yesterday. I can't have that happen again.
I don't see her in her room so I head back towards the training room I was just in and wait for the rst of the team. This was the spot we had silently agreed to meet at if you didn't find her. I see Thor already standing by the targets, throwing his hammer through the targets. I just lean against a wall and wait. Soon Natasha walks in with Clint not to far behind her. What if she really did jump? Could we have scared her to the point of suicide? I look up to notice Bruce walk in with a slightly sad expression. The only person that hasn't returned is Tony. He should have gone into both labs by now, I mean Bruce did and his were further away than Tony's.
It has been about 5 minutes now and everyone is getting restless.
"Tony should've been back awhile ago. Do you think he found her?" Bruce says breaking the tense silence.
"I agree. We need to find the Man of Iron." Thor states starting to walk out. No one questions him as we can see a very faint expression of anger on his face. We also don't disagree because we all want to find the kid. We walk into the first northern lab but it is empty. We immediately start walking towards the second one; everyone slightly speeding up to arrive at the lab faster. We walk into the second lab and we see Tony standing there with a dark brown haired little girl. They are both messing around with Tony's portable holographs.
"Tony, why aren't you looking for Rose? We have been waiting to hear if you had fond her or not but you never returned to the training room nor did you send in your location. Why are you playing with this little girl when we have to find Rose? Little girl, are your parents S.H.I.E.L.D agents?" Natasha asks
"I forgot to send in my location and this is Rose. Are you guys blind?" Tony asks slightly irritated. Everyone looks at the little girl again but this time she has blonde hair; it's Rose!
That can't be right, I saw Tony with a brown haired little girl just a couple of seconds ago.
"But she had brown hair a second ago!!!!!" Clint points out flabbergasted.
"No, I saw that too when I saw her making this...." Tony days pointing to an exact replica of Avengers Tower.
"Your mind is just playing tricks on you. Trust me, every other time I look at her, her hair is brown but other than that, it's blonde. Also, do you want to see what this amazing creation can do?" Tony asks with enthusiasm at the end.
"Um...sure." I say with slight confusion. What would it be able to do?
Tony nods at Rose and she walks towards her sculpture. She lifts it up and slides a little black on switch that was placed on the bottom. She puts the tower down again and the top of the tower starts to come off. When the roof of the tower is off, you can look inside and see a very detailed top floor; it was so detailed, that you could see the eyes of the people in the tower.
"How'd you do that?" Clint asks amazed.
"I don't know, I saw the blow torch, metal, and mask and just started to melt the pieces together. It just ened up this way." Rose says in a soft tone.
"Who taught you how to use a blow torch?" Clint continues to question.
"I rather not talk about." Rose says with her head down. You can tell she is uncomfortable.
"Tell me." Clint presses
"No." Rose responds
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Stop it!" Natasha yells annoyed. Rose visibly flinches as Natasha yells, and she runs to hide behind a table.
"Rose, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I was just trying to..." Natasha says when she notices that Rose is now hiding.
"Save it. Can you guys just let me go. I will stay in the shadows and I won't bother anyone, I just want to leave." Rose says still hiding. Everyone stares shocked or they tense; I am one of the few that tense. I hear someone else walk into the room.
"You will not be leaving any time soon Ms. Rose." Fury says as he comes into veiw. He has his hands behind his back, with his posture straight. Rose looks up at him with a terrified expression.
"Why?" Rose asks after a moment of silence.
"You have powers that we don't know about. You also refuse to tell us how you got these powers, so in turn, we must keep you here to make sure you don't cause trouble for the rest of the world." Fury states bluntly.
"I won't cause any trouble, I promise. You won't even know I am alive." She pleads with eyes that are starting to get watery.
"We will always have tabs on you, whether we decide to let you go or not. We need to be able to understand your powers and your background before we can even consider letting you out back into the civilized world." Fury states
"Fine! Be a rude and cruel person. I will find a way out of here!" Rose screams throwing her hands up in the air and running out of the room.
"Someone needs to follow her, she can't be on her own. I am putting you guys in charge of her. Good luck." Fury says after Rose has disappeared. Fury turns around and heads to the control room.
"Ok, who wants to go after her?" Clint asks exasperated.
"We need someone that hasn't scared her already, someone she trusts more than all of us." Natasha says
"She hates Clint so he's out. I think Widow should go; she can talk to her, going all motherly on her." Tony says.
"I doubt she will talk to me, I just broke the little trust I had gained. We need someone that doesn't have a temper. We can't scare her even more." Natasha says with an undertone of slight sadness.
"That leaves Cap't and Hammer Man over here." Tony says pointing to Thor and I.
"I shall go watch over Lady Rose." Thor pipes up.
"Good, just don't go all loud and imtimidating on her." I say.
Rose'sPOV
I run to the room I woke up in. I need to find a way out of here. But I have a feeling that there is no way out, and even if I do make it out, I will be caught again and I will be punished severely.
I sigh and fall onto my bed. I need something to do. I could figure out who the heck the Avengers are. Yeah, I think I'll do that.
I just need to find a computer. >:)