PURE AND TAINTED ( wanda maximoff )

five → my respect for you has grown

PURE AND TAINTED
CHAPTER FIVE
( my respect for you has grown )

"I JUST HAD TO BE STUCK with you guys," Aline muttered, "didn't I?"

She currently sat on a desk with her legs crossed, looking down at the grimoire sitting in her lap. She wasn't sure why she had decided to remain with the two, but it didn't really matter. They didn't bother her, she didn't bother them. Although she was too busy reading the spells and descriptions, she could hear the nerdy-science-bromance happening in the background. She didn't pay exact attention to it, but she did hear something about breaking Harlem, Stark Towers being Candy Land, et cetera. She just tried to keep her attention focused on the many spells, tapping a pen against her knee in boredom. Although she had already combed through this grimoire with a metaphorical fine-toothed comb, she still searched through its crumbling pages and wrote little notes here and there on the pages.

She paused in her actions when she saw something written in the corner, just three words that had written over by her own writing. Aline had down that years ago when Rome first left; she hadn't wanted anything of Rome to still be left behind. Her cousin had left her, it had been her choice to abandon her at that dark period, so why should she have anything that reminded her of Rome? Using the pen, Aline rewrote the words in the hopes to cover her cousin's handwriting. It failed. At least she had managed to get rid of all of Maggie's notes.

Looking up quickly, she saw that Tony and Bruce were still talking about whatever it was that nerds talked back, and she quickly turned her attention back to her grimoire. None of it really told her much about searching for giant sources of energy, but then again, she was confident that no spell would be able to track it down since there had never been this kind of situation before. Why did Fury even need her? She knew that Bruce had experience with gamma radiation, seeing as he was able to turn into an anger filled creature (just like her, she thought to herself) because of it, so he would be able to find it.

Honestly, she was sure that Fury was making her be there just to taunt her. He wanted to lord over her with all that information, with the files that revealed everything about her and her past, and that just ticked her off. She wasn't needed. All she wanted to do was go back to her apartment and teach her dance classes and wallow in her own self-pity like a typical twenty year old (she often had to remind herself that despite her not truly being twenty years old, she could pass as one).

When Tony poked Bruce with an electric prod, eliciting a loud exclamation, Aline lifted her head once again and saw the two grinning to themselves like children. At that moment, Steve had appeared in the room, still dressed in his stupid suit. Spandex, Aline had decided, looked ridiculous on everyone. "Are you nuts?" he demanded.

"You really have got a lid on it, haven't you?" Tony asked, paying no mind to the captain. Instead, he kept his whole focus on Bruce. "What's your secret 一 mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?"

Aline was barely listening to their conversation, but that managed to grab her attention. She hummed to herself. "Weed sounds nice right now," she muttered, still reading her grimoire.

Steve flicked his blue eyes toward Aline, nearly scoffing at her attitude. He still wasn't completely clear about why Aline, a young girl such as herself, was here. But he looked over at Tony. "Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked, his eyes set in a narrowed glare.

"Funny things are," Tony said.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, doctor."

"No, it's all right," Bruce said, and he shook his head. "I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."

"You're tiptoeing, big man," Tony said. "You need to strut."

Aline scrunched her nose. "Ew, gross," she said and flipped through another page of the grimoire. There was nothing on this page so she went to another one.

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark."

"You think I'm not?" Tony asked in amazement. He cocked his head. "Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve asked.

Aline nearly burst out in laughter. Of course Fury was hiding something 一 no matter what secret you impossibly managed to get out of him, there was always a hundred million more hidden. But instead, she remained silent and shut her book. She put it beside her then moved her legs to dangle them off the desk. Oddly, she was interested in this conversation.

"He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets." Tony pointed to the two other people in the room. "It's bugging them too, isn't it?"

"Duh," Aline said and shrugged when Steve raised a brow. "Steve, I've known Fury since the early days of his agent career. That man has as many secrets as I have victims." At seeing Steve's eyes widen at that little comment, she again shrugged. She nodded her head towards Bruce.

Seeing her little gesture, the man shook his head. "Uh... I just wanna finish my work here and 一" Bruce started.

"Doctor?" Steve said.

A beat passed before Bruce spoke again, still fiddling with the item in his hands. "'A warm light for all mankind' 一 Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube."

"I heard it." Steve nodded.

"Well, I think that was meant for you." Bruce said and pointed at Tony. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the Tower, it's still all over the news."

Steve raised a brow. "The Stark Tower? That big ugly 一" Steve cut himself off when he saw Tony's face "一 building in New York?"

"It's powered by an arc reactor, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?"

"That's just the prototype," Tony bragged. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at."

"So, why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. bring him in on the Tesseract project?" Bruce asked, referring to Tony. He even nodded his head towards the billionaire. "I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

"I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secure files."

Steve paused. "I'm sorry, did you say 一"

"J.A.R.V.I.S. has been running it since I hit the bridge," Tony said. "In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever tried to hide." Pulling a bag out seemingly nowhere, Tony held out a bag of blueberries to Bruce and Aline. "Blueberry?"

Aline grinned, reaching into the bag and pulling out a few. "My respect for you has grown," she smirked, popping one in her mouth. "You're a pretty cool dude. You should teach me that some time; I'd absolutely love to mess with Fury." Payback's a bitch, she wanted to add. They didn't need to know about her personal beef with the director.

Steve glared at them. "Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around?"

"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence?" Tony said. "Historically, not awesome."

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up," Steve said. "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."

"Following is not really my style."

Steve gave a mocking smile. "And you're all about style, aren't you?"

"Of the people in this room, which one is A, wearing a spangly outfit, and B, not of use?"

Aline spoke, brushing the dark hair from her face. "Steve," she said, "c'mon, this doesn't seem fishy to you? I mean, this is Fury we're talking about." She leaned back on her hands. "I've known him for years and he still hasn't gotten me to trust him."

The blond paused, before saying, "Just find the Cube." Then he stormed off.