Blueberries
Esmeralda woke up in slight pain, her eyes opening to show off the dull brown color that was so dark it looked almost black. She blinked a few times and looked down to find cuffs over her wrists and over the railing of the bed. She looked around the room, letting her power release the cuffs as she heard the metal clank to the ground, getting up and letting her eyes roam around the room. Technology was everywhere and it was creating beeping noises as she heard a small click and whirring noise. She looked in the corner of the room and saw a camera looking over her.
She rolled her eyes, soon finding two men walk over to her as she furrowed her eyebrows. The men unlocked the door as she saw the infamous Tony Stark smirk. "Well, of course you would get out of the hand cuffs again." He told her, stepping close to her as she leaned away from him.
"Don't touch me." She stated with a growl, her eyes glowing a bright green as Tony saw this. He moved away from her, taking her warning to heart as he rolled his eyes.
"I was just going to try and remove that little neat piece of tech on your neck." He told her slyly, Bruce's eyes widened.
"Tony, Fury said not to- -"
"Fury doesn't need to know. He can't hear us at the moment anyway." He stated, interrupting the annoyed man while the girl narrowed her eyes.
"What do you want in return?" She asked, letting the man smirk.
"You tell us where the Tesseract is. Even maybe how to stop Loki's army. We know you don't like him after Thor had to drag you away." He told her as she crossed her arms over her chest.
"I don't know where the Tesseract is. Loki wouldn't tell me anything because he knew that I was against him. And the Chitauri are morons. All you have to do is somehow stop the portal from opening." She told him.
"So honestly you can't help us." Bruce told them and the girl's eyes widened.
"No, I can. Please, please, just get this damn disk off me." She pleaded to them, and this is when Tony Stark and Bruce Banner saw how broken the girl really is.
Tony sighed and chuckled slightly. "Bruce, hand me some tools." He stated while the girl sighed, happy that maybe these people could possibly convince Thanos that she has finally died.
Once the disk comes off, it shows that she would no longer have her vitals. She felt Tony walk closer to her, his finger moving her blonde hair out of the way as he got a better look at the metal clamped down on her neck. She hissed when his fingers dig around it and she kept still. "How long have you had it?" He asked, the girl looking at the floor.
"Three years." She told him, Tony stopping his movement and he looked at her.
"You've been going through that, the whole fainting and screaming, for three years?" He asked while she nods his head. "Why?" He asked and Esmeralda rolled her eyes.
"My father thought I was going to kill him, so he got paranoid and locked me away." She told him, Bruce coming back with a tool kit and Esmeralda looked over them.
"Alright, let's see if we can get this off." He told her, Tony smiling and they soon got a tool with electricity, zapping at the disk and she gasped feeling a release over her neck as she felt her energy come back.
She laughed, placing her hand over her neck, feeling the warm touch of skin as she felt a tear fall. "Thank you!" She yelled and hugged both of them.
The girl releasing them and smiling. "I'll do anything to pay you back." She told them honestly, Tony and Bruce looking with a smile.
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Bruce was monitoring Loki's scepter, Esmeralda looking over it as she glared slightly. "The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig'a reports of the Tesseract. But it's going to take weeks to process." Bruce stated while Esmeralda shook her head.
"All you have to do is hack into the system." She told them, Tony giving her a weird look. "What?" She asked.
"If we bypass their mainframe and direct route to the Homer cluster we can clock this at around six hundred teraflops." He said while the girl smirked and looked to Banner.
"All I packed was a toothbrush." Bruce told the two while Tony laughed with him.
"You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd live it. It's Candy Land." Tony said happily.
"Thanks, But last time I was in New York, I kind of broke Harlem." Bruce said while Esmeralda looked confused.
"I'm sorry, but how?" She asked and the two waved it off as she pouted.
"Well, I promise a stress-free environment. No tension, no surprises." Tony said while he let a metal rod electrocute the man at the side while Bruce glared at him.
"Ow!" He mumbled with a smile as Tony watched.
"Hey!" Steve yelled from a far.
"Nothing?" Tony asked Bruce.
"Are you nuts? You even have a criminal with you." He stated while the girl gasped.
"I'm not a criminal." She told him as Steve glared at her.
"That's not what Thor said." He mumbled and her eyes widened.
She was about to say something as Tony held her back, his arm wrapped around her waist as she furrowed her eyebrows at his reaction. "Jury's out. You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bingo drums, huge bag of weed?" Tony asked Bruce.
"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked and Esmeralda glared at the man in blue, red, and white.
"Funny things are." Tony stated.
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, Doc." Steve stayed while Bruce waved it off.
"It's alright, I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." Bruce told him.
"You're tip-toeing big man. You need to strut." He told the scientist while he pulled Esmeralda along with him.
"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark." Steve argued.
"Do you think I'm not? Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables." He told them, taking a bag of blueberries and the girl's eyes looked at them in awe, never seeing them before.
"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve asked in confusion.
"He's a spy. Captain, he's 'the' spy. His secrets have secrets." He stated, placing a blueberry in his mouth and giving some to Esmeralda as she gasped and looked over them. "It's bugging him, too. Isn't it?" He asked while Bruce struggled to answer.
"I just want to finish my work here, and..." Steve looked over him and interrupted.
"Doctor?" He asked and Bruce stopped, taking his glasses off and taking a moment to answer.
"'A warm light for all mankind.' Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube." Bruce mentioned.
"I heard it." Steve said and Bruce looked to Tony.
"Well, I think that was meant for you." He said, Tony holding his bag to the man and Bruce dug his hand inside the blueberry bag, Esmeralda taking one in her mouth and moaning slightly at the taste.
"This is the best thing I have ever had. What is it?" She asked and Tony smirked.
"A blueberry." He told her while she furrowed her eyebrows and looked at the fruit.
"But it's purple on the inside." She stated as Tony shrugged.
"Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was all over the news." Bruce told Tony.
"The Stark Tower? That big, ugly..." and Steve stopped at the look of Tony's face. "Building in New York?"
"It's powered by an arc reactor, a self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?" Bruce asked and Tony shook his head.
"It's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at." Tony explained to the blonde and soldier.
"So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?" Bruce asked him.
"I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files." Tony said, looking at a small screen.
"I'm sorry. Did you say..."
"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours, I'll know ever dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?" He asked and Steve glared slightly at him.
"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around." Steve stayed.
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome." Tony said and he looked to Esmeralda.
"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders. We should follow them." Steve said while Esmeralda shook her head.
"Following the rules will just make things easier for Loki. He's the God of Mischief. You suspect that he follows the rules?" She asked the soldier as he rolled his eyes.
"Following's not really my style." Tony told him.
"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Steve asked.
"Of the people in this room, which on is A, wearing a spangly outfit, and, B, not of use?" Tony asked.
"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you." Bruce suggested.
"Just find the Cube." Steve said, leaving the group as Esmeralda tilted her head.
"He's worse than my sister Proxima." She told Tony with a smile and he chuckled.
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Well, Tony is going to find that Esmeralda is more than just an innocent alien. Please leave a comment, vote, and follow! Thanks so much you guys!
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