Chapter 8: Welcome Back
"Great. Now I'm stuck up here with you." I moaned as slumped on the chair, pouting.
"I love you too." Clint rolled his eyes and sat next to me. I rested my head on his shoulder and curled up next to him.
"I'm not complaining about you, it's her I'm not so fond of." I replied, glaring at Agent Hill as she sat on the opposite side of the room. I heard Clint chuckle as he smoothed my hair down my back.
It was silent for a while, the power flickered but every time it ended up staying off until it switched on and stayed on.
"Come on, time to go." Clint said gently when he stood up, seeing all the lights of the city flutter to life once again.
I sighed and didn't move, "I'm not going Clint, I told you."
"Elle, you're being selfish -and a bit of a hypocrite." Clint pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing.
I looked him in the eye, trying to keep my temper, "How am I being a hypocrite?"
"Because you're staying with Mr. Stark!" Agent Hill butted in, "Howard Stark is the one who created the serum that changed you. And you're staying with his son while most of your friends at S.H.I.E.L.D had no idea what was going on, just like you."
I opened my mouth to reply but I couldn't. I didn't have a reply for that. I liked hanging around Tony, I didn't know it was Howard who had created the serum, Nick had never mentioned the person by name but I should have seen that before. The only other people I knew of that were trying to recreate the Project Rebirth serum were Howard Stark and Bruce Banner.
At that moment, JARVIS' system had rebooted. "Hello Ms. Barton."
"Hey JARVIS." I replied quietly, ignoring Clint and Maria. "Do you have the files that Howard Stark created on Project Rebirth 2.0?"
"I will search my hard drive, but such files do not sound familiar." JARVIS replied.
I pursed my lips and thought of any other key words that might have been in the documents. "If not, try search any files with a mention of vibranium."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Thank you JARVIS."
I unlocked the workshop doors and skipped down the stairs, two at a time.
"Elle, what are you doing?" Clint called,
"Finding out what the hell is wrong with me!" I yelled from the shop.
I sat around, playing around with new ideas for the Stark Tower, even trying to put a ginormous Playboy Bunny on top, above the Stark sign. It didn't work, but it was worth a try.
Surprisingly, Clint and Maria didn't follow my downstairs, but I knew that they were still up there, I could hear footsteps and voices of hushed conversations -most of them about me, but also little snippets of discussions about Director Fury, Bruce, Natasha and someone named Sky. I'd never met a Sky in my life so I took it that she was a new recruit.
"Ms. Barton." JARVIS caught my attention,
"Find anything?" I stopped what I was doing, which was designing new weapons for the Iron Man suit. I wanted to try improve the lasers but I was having a bit of trouble.
JARVIS replied, "I didn't find anything labeled 'Project Rebirth 2.0' but I didn't find a file labeled 'Barnes.' there are multiple mentions of the element vibranium within the document."
"Great, bring it up." I told him and he showed me a screen with a whole lot of pages of notes on an experiment.
I read the file, it wasn't very big, only about ten pages long but it was very, very interesting.
It was notes on me.
I had to stop reading on page six due to the voices upstairs, the conversation seemed to be between three people instead of two, and they were trying not to yell.
I sighed and jogged upstairs, "Hey! You mind keeping it down, I'm studying!"
Wow, I haven't said that since high school. I thought to myself.
I noticed that Clint was arguing with someone behind the wall in the hallway. I couldn't quite hear his voice but from the shadow cast on the wall I knew it was a male.
"Who are you talking to Clint?"
"No one my ass, Barton." I heard Tony exclaim, "Now get out of my house."
I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face when I heard Tony's voice.
"Tony!" I ran towards him and hugged him, causing him to fall off balance before steadying himself. "I missed you."
"I missed you too," He mumbled into my hair and kissed me on the cheek and I blushed, remembering my brother was watching.
"I found some files." I told Clint, "I haven't finished going through them yet but they are notes on my life."
"What files?" Tony frowned,
"I'll explain later." I told him, "But I think I need to go see Bruce, is he still on the hellicarrier?"
"Yes," Hill stepped in behind Clint and I held in a groan, I'd thought she'd left -okay, so, I'd hoped she'd left. "I'll call ahead and tell him your coming."
* * *
An hour later, Maria and Clint were piloting the jet while I rescanned through the Barnes file on Tony's laptop.
"You mind telling me how you got ahold of this file?" Tony asked, peering over my shoulder and I read over the start of page four.
"Hill told me your dad was the one who created the serum that they'd been experimenting on me. I thought you might have some kind of file that was all your dad's work and that maybe there could be something on me in there. I asked JARVIS to look into it." I explained, not taking my eyes off the screen.
Tony chuckled, shaking his head, "A week living with me and you've already taken over my robot butler."
"I thought he was Just A Rather Very Intelligent System." I replied, smirking.
Tony chuckled next to me and read over the files at the same speed. I scrolled down to the next page, but he stopped me.
"What?"
Tony took control of the laptop and highlighted a six line paragraph. "That section there, my dad was talking about adaptations and changes to someone's body. The possibility of superhuman abilities revealing themselves."
"Yeah, I know, this is my forth time reading it, Tony." I replied, taking the laptop back. "Plus, we already know that the serum has some kind of superhuman potential, he was trying to recreate Steve's changes."
"I think we better do some tests on you, just in case you have some kind of ability." Tony joked, nudging me and I laughed dryly.
* * *
"Welcome back, Elle." Director Fury awaited us as we landed on the hellicarrier which was mid air, somewhere over the ocean off the coast of Malibu.
"Don't call me that." I shot at him, strutting onto the Tarmac and hugging Steve, who was also waiting for me.
"Welcome back, Noel." Steve squeezed me tight and I gasped for breathe,
"Steve...can't...breathe..." I said breathlessly as a girl with brown hair, brown eyes and a Nerd Herd t-shirt on giggled.
"Oh right, sorry." Steve let go and took hold of the girls hand. "Sky, this is Noel Barton, Noel, this is Sky Evans. She's, uh, she's my girlfriend."
I swear my jaw would have dropped onto the runway if I hadn't been wrapped up in another hug from Sky Evans. I was so happy for Steve! I remembered he'd told me about meeting Skylar in the Stork Club when he was taking me to see Tony and I knew I already liked this girl, anyone who Steve liked, I was bound to like as well.
"I'm so glad to finally meet you! Honestly, Bruce and Steve don't shut up about you, I feel like I know you already!" She smiled and I hugged her back.
"Well, I hope to get to know you too. I'd like to say that I have heard about you too, but I've been ...away for awhile." I told her truthfully.
"Oh, don't worry. I know." Sky nodded.
I smiled up at Steve, putting a hand over my forehead, blocking the near-blinding sun. "I like her. I approve."
Steve laughed, but we were interrupted by Agent Hill and Fury directing me inside and towards Bruce's lab.
Unfortunately, on the way to the lab, Tony was called away by Clint and Steve and Sky had a training session scheduled so I was stuck with Fury and Maria who insisted that I had to talk to them.
"How was your week off?" Fury tried to start a conversation.
"Great." I replied coldly, "I was away from you."
Fury sighed and Maria rolled her eyes, muttering something under her breath.
"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that." I glared at Hill, "If you've got something to say to me, say it to my face, you coward."
Both Maria and Fury seemed quite shocked at what I'd said but I didn't say anything more. Maria didn't reply to my outburst and I was glad, I had heard enough from her for today.
Nick Fury swiped his ID card and typed in the seven digit code for Bruce's lab before the door opened with a 'whoosh' sound.
"Dr. Banner." Fury called and Bruce's head popped up from a computer screen.
"Yeah." Then he spotted me, "Noel! How are you?"
"Better." I shrugged, pushing past the Director and Hill. "How are you?"
"Bored. Not much to do around here since Loki disappeared with Thor." Bruce admitted, "But I've heard you might be my new case."
I smiled, incredibly interested in response, "Yep, what have you got planned?"
* * *
Authors Note: HI GUYS!! Internet is back up!! So updating and then...I'm going to finish off my essay, but anyway!
So, how'd you like the chapter? Is Noel being stupid by hating Fury? Why do you think Maria and Noel dislike each other so much? How do you think Noel will react if she finds out that Sky was supposed to take her out?
Next chapter is coming soon but before I go finish my homework, I wanna ask you guys something. Last night, I spent about two hours staying up and planning because I had a brain wave for a new fan fiction. It's set completely in the Iron Man movie universe and centres around a completely new main character.
So, my question is, should I post it?
This is the summary I have so far:
Arielle Burn is Tony Stark's new assistant, recently hired after Pepper Potts was killed in the arc reactor explosion along with Obidiah Stane. With most of the company still in grieving, Arielle isn't very welcome and quickly befriends another new comer by the name of Natalie Rushman.
But both girls have secrets that will threaten Mr. Stark and his company. The only problem is; with a new threat on the lose...how long can they hide them for?
What do you think? Should I post?
Until the next upload! Comment, vote, like!
*huggles* arielleblack