The Queen Of Winter Book One

Perfect Memory

Bucky stumbled to his feet. He turned on his heel and ran up to the living quarters. "Jarvis, call everyone to the briefing room. Now! It's an emergency!" He called out with a real sense of urgency. The team assembled in the briefing room. filling in one by one as Bucky paced the floor.

"Not that I don't love the enthusiasm Manchurian Candidate but It's usually me that gets the band together." Tony mocked as he entered the room and took his seat.

Bucky scowled at Tony. "We've got a serious problem. The tesseract has been stolen." Bucky said with a straight, serious face. There were collective gasps and chatter among the group.

"No. Not possible. It's protected in the basement. We would know if anyone had broken in." Nat said as she tried to dismiss Bucky's claims.

"Well this bruise right here says otherwise." Bucky lifted his shirt to show the starting of a bruise across his stomach where Anna had hit him with her powers.

"Hydra?" Steve asked.

"Anna" Bucky answered.

There was a nervous laugh from the group. "Very funny Buck. What's really gong on here?" Clint asked. Bucky shook his head and rubbed his temple. "I wish I was joking but it was her."

"Jarvis play security footage from the vault." Tony called out to the AI.

"Right away sir." A hologram appeared in the middle of the room. It showed Anna appearing in the vault, placing the tesseract into the silver case and the altercation with Bucky. The team looked on in horror.

"Anyone else feeling some serious deja vu?" Tony mumbled.

"There's something not right. She looks like Anna, she sounds like Anna but she doesn't seem like our Anna." Bruce shook his head as he contemplated the situation.

"She looked really hot in that outfit though." Bucky unintentionally said his thoughts aloud. Nat swiftly gave him a punch in the arm. "Not helping Buck." She chastised.

"She called herself Ghost. Anna hates that name with a passion. Why would she willingly refer to herself as that?" Steve questioned.

"Well we all know the one creep who insisted on that name." Nat added in.

"Rumlow is still in SHIELD custody though." Steve pointed out.

"Something's going on here and I'm going to get to the bottom of this." Tony took out his cell. "Jarvis connect me directly to Fury." He stated as he walked out of the briefing room.

The team chatted between themselves coming up with all sorts of different reasons for Anna's behaviour. They were all silenced when a dazzling rainbow light filled the room. Nat looked out of the window to see the remnants of the bifrost fading away and Thor and Loki emerging from the light. She watched as they walked towards the building and disappear through the door. Within minutes they walked through the doors of the briefing room with purpose.

"Friends, we seek your assistance. Lady Annabelle has fallen under a powerful spell. She is in danger." Thor told the group as Loki stared absently at the floor.

"Aha! that explains it!" Bruce exclaimed. Thor and Loki both snapped their heads towards him.

"She was here." Nat explained.

"She stole the Tesseract." Bucky added.

Tony reentered the briefing room. "Reindeer games, point break." He nodded towards Loki and Thor. "So it turns out our old pal Nick has been keeping secrets from us. Rumlow escaped when they tried to transport him to the Raft. He's in the wind, on the lamb, MIA." Tony's frustration was evident. He turned to Thor and Loki "Now do you two knuckle heads want to explain to me how the hell he managed to get to her on Asgard of all places? How could a lowly mortal outwit the Gods" Tony mocked.