Intertwine

4 - And Here Comes The Storm

It went on like that for some weeks. No sign of Loki. Training every day, my powers growing stronger by the hour it seemed. I'd started to grow small trees out of Steve's apple cores when I got bored. Stark and I had come to an uneasy truce, although we did make some comments to one another occasionally. I'd forgiven Thor, mostly. I wasn't allowed to meet anyone else on the compound for some reason, only being allowed on three of the floors. I felt a little bit like a dirty secret, or some sort of experiment. Not that I minded too much, I didn't like meeting new people, but still, I didn't feel like I was here to be a part of a team. I was being trained for one job, and one job only. To defeat Loki.

"Roara, coming to the lab?" Bruce asked one morning as I drank my coffee. I still didn't like it, but it was what everyone drank. I suppose it was a social thing.

"Why, has the almighty Stark requested my presence?"

He shrugged. "I thought you'd want a look around when people weren't running tests on you. Give you some freedom. Might be a nice change. You're training with Steve this afternoon by the way."

I looked at Steve who was reading a newspaper. "Is this true? After you nearly broke my nose yesterday?"

"And you nearly dislocated my shoulder, I think we can call things even."

"You know that was an accident." I defended. Steve didn't believe in going easy on me, although I did genuinely like training with him. When Nat was around I sometimes sparred with her, although she sort of terrified me. In my opinion when it came to hand to hand combat, she was the worst to train with.

"Of course." Steve turned the page on his newspaper. "Tell that to Romanoff when you see her after me for shooting practice."

"Do I ever get a break?" I groaned, getting up from the table.

"Hey we all have important stuff we do, we're taking time out of our days to train you up." Steve grumbled.

"I could literally strangle you with a piece of lettuce." It was true. I'd managed to make vine like ropes out of the lettuce in Thor's burger one time when he was getting too self important.

Steve folded up his newspaper. "I don't doubt it. You've been lucky we haven't had to go out on too many missions recently. It's been a quiet couple of months."

"It's always quiet before the storm." Natasha said, walking into the room.

"Well let's hope this storm doesn't hit before I'm up to scratch." I muttered, picking up my satchel. I'd taken to carrying a small bag around the compound with me. It had some seeds and plants in it, but also books if I got bored (some days there was a lot of waiting around) and a notepad just in case I needed to write something down.

"Who said you'd be going out on a mission any time soon? You're not even an avenger." Tony walked in behind Nat.

I groaned. "Next time you're bringing asshat in I'd like a warning. I need time to prepare." I said to Nat. She just smiled and shrugged.

"Tony, I was just going to take Roara to the lab." Bruce began but Tony held up a hand.

"We've got word of a secret lab in Austria, developing some kind of new technology. We don't know what it is yet. We're going to need you on standby to analyse any data. Steve and Nat are coming with me." Tony said.

Steve rolled up his sleeves and leant forward on the table. "MO?" He asked. Mission Objective, I translated in my head.

Tony threw Steve a device and Steve caught in one hand, flicking it forward so that a hologram of the information hovered above the table. Steve began to look through it. I walked behind him so that I could see what he was doing.