Radioactive (An Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter 15: Angry Girlfriends and Bad News

-Entry created on: 5/20/2013-

As the helicarrier landed in the middle of the Atlantic, roughly 50 miles from Boston Harbor, Clint and I gathered the Avengers

The other Avengers agreed to my plan with varying levels of agreeableness.

"No way," Tony crossed his arms.

"Tony, we have to!" I insisted. "What if it was Pepper instead of my friends?"

"I'd probably develop an extremely clever plan that would not involve doing the obvious and playing into Loki's trap," Tony remarked, pulling a pretzel out of the bag he had taken from one of his stashes.

Did I mention that? In case I didn't, Tony snacks stashed all of the helicarrier. No one can find them, so they don't get touched.

"If they can send me an email in code, then Loki hasn't trapped them," I pointed out.

While Tony and I fought, the other five Avengers sat at the glass table that over looked the main room of the helicarrier. They mostly made jokes and, in the case of Thor and Natasha, electrocuting each other with low levels of electricity, Thor with his hammer, and Nat with her Widow's Bite attached to her glove.

"Loki could be torturing them. Or worse, he could have used the glow-stick of destiny on them," Tony countered. "Besides, if Loki shows up, we still have no way to stop him without killing him, which both you and Thor are insisting on."

"He has a point," Nat threw in.

"BUTT OUT, NAT! NO ONE IS DYING, TONY, NO ONE'S GETTING KILLED!" I yelled at him. Fighting Tony had frustrated me. I took a deep breath and continued. "Look, all I know is that I have three best friends in trouble, and God has given me the power to save them. With your help or without it, I intend to do just that."

"No way, you are not!" Tony argued.

"Jeez, you two fight like daughter and father. Are you sure you're not related?" Bruce asked.

"Might as well be," Steve added.

"Um, Stark, one of your helicopters just landed on the runway," The same agent who had intercepted Ava's message walked over.

"What?" Tony asked, wiping out his phone. "Jarvis, show me the SHIELD security cameras facing the landing pad on the Helicarrier."

"I thought we got you out of our system," The agent groaned.

"You thought wrong, agent," Tong gave him a sarcastic salute.

I studied the agent for the first time. He had short, dark hair and dark brown eyes. He looked a lot older at a glance, but in studying him I discovered he was only maybe 17.

"What's your name, agent?" I asked.

"Grant Ward. Agent Ward, ma'am. No one's asked me that before," Ward answered.

Harnessing everything I learned from Sherlock, I discovered a small slice mark on the tip of his ear, and faded bruises around his left wrist. He noticed my staring, pulling down the sleeves of his uniform, but first on the right side. All of these signs pointed to something dark in his past, and there was no way I was going to let him hurt quietly. No one deserved that.

I discovered his eyes were tracing my own wrists, making me jam my hands in the pockets of my jean shorts.

"Pepper?" Tony asked no one in particular.

"Pepper is here?" I asked, brightening up. I really liked her.

"Yeah, and three other women. Jeez, Thor, is that your girlfriend? Slightly World of Warcraft, but she rocks it," Tony asked.