The Infamous Hacker (Natasha Romanoff x OC)

Chapter 4- I prepare to eavesdrop on my boss

Captain America woke me up about 10 minutes before landing. 

I thanked him and sat up, stiff. The nightmares had not done anything to help my mood- in fact, I was about ready to smack Loki senseless until the memories went away.

This time, the nightmares were about a few other things I had presumably done. I saw the unreadable code again, but I also saw Selvig. I saw him working. I felt myself approaching him, and I heard myself talking. I couldn't understand my own words as he waved me over. He showed me a picture and a bit of blurry information. I'd walked back over to my computer and began to type. 

Suddenly, I'd felt weight on my shoulders. I'd turned around to find Loki, grinning. He said something inaudible. I'd turned back to my computer and pointed to something, an image that had come up. I'd heard myself saying something, but the words were slurred and strange sounding. He'd nodded and walked away, signaling Agent Barton, who had been watching me. They'd walked away, and the world had gone black.

Now, I was back aboard the helicarrier, which was still on the water at the moment. I was starting for my room when I heard Natasha call out to me. 

"Hold on, Bryce, I need to ask you something," she said, waving me over. I made a beeline for her, and she looked at me with worry. 

"What is it?" I asked.

"You kept flinching in your sleep. Or at least, that's what Cap says. Is everything alright?"

I nodded, glancing down at my feet. "Yeah. It's all coming back... slowly. How long was I gone for?"

"No more than 2 days. We started the search immediately," Natasha replied. "Though it appears that 2 days was enough for you to do a lot of stuff,"

"I guess,"

"Well... if you ever want to talk to someone about it before Fury does... I'm here," she said.

"Thanks," I replied with a smile, then left to go wash up in my room.

~

My room was no larger than a typical walk-in closet. It had to be that way, because of how many people worked on the helicarrier and because we needed our money for more important things.

I flopped down on my semi-comfortable cot and tried to clear my head. So much had happened, and I was in serious need of debriefing. 

What just happened?

Well, I was hit in the head by a car. That's new.

What happened with the scepter?

Well, clearly something happened because I couldn't remember much of it. My best guess was that I was brainwashed, which was what everyone kept telling me. I knew from research that brainwashing was possible, but you needed a complicated program and a lot of scientific stuff that I wasn't entirely sure about. Last I checked, you couldn't just hit somebody with a spear and mind control them.

If so, what did he make me do?

This one, I didn't really know.

I sighed and stood up, taking off my gear and grabbing some new clothes to change into and putting them in a small fabric bag. Then, I walked down to the showers and quickly rinsed off, pulling off the bandages Natasha had put on my head and sucking in my breath as I cleaned up the gash. I don't know what it is about running water, but for some reason, it always seemed to start the flow of thoughts in my head. Now, normally, I get good thoughts and memories, but the only thing I could remember at that time was the car accident. 

My parents talking. Laughing. I was 15, and laughing with them in the backseat.

A speeding car. A cop chasing it.

A head-on collision. 

The airbags in the front seat being completely busted. 

Mine going off. 

The world spinning, spinning, spinning-

Then everything going black.

I went under because of the shock of the accident. When I woke up, they told me my parents were dead and that I should've been too.

I quickly washed my short hair(because it didn't take long, as you can imagine) and dried off, pulling on some new SHIELD work clothes and gear. I tried to blink back the tears forming in my eyes that always came with thinking of my parents as I dried my hair with my hand blowdryer. Then, I pulled my hair back(ok, look. It came down to my shoulders. It was short. To me) with great difficulty and finally headed out, my bloodstained clothes and towel stuffed in my bag. 

I stepped out of the door and started walking back to my room, deciding that it was probably a good idea to put my headset back on and gun or something in my pocket.

I tossed my bag onto the floor and grabbed a q-tip, clearing the water out of my ears. Then, I threw that away and applied a bit of makeup(mascara and light eyeliner) to my face before placing my earbud radio and microphone into my ear. It was extremely useful- it was small and discrete, and made it so that only the person wearing the earbud could hear the radio, so no more eavesdropping. It didn't surprise me that my friend Nico managed to make it. He was a brilliant guy who loved creating things and solutions, sometimes both at the same time. 

Speaking of eavesdropping, that was what I was about to do. 

I started for the main control room to overhear Fury's conversation with Loki once he'd been put in his cell. The cell was the glass container we originally made to contain the Hulk, but since we don't keep normal cells on the helicarrier, we had to improvise. And besides, we didn't exactly trust Loki with a "normal cell".

I grabbed my holstered gun and clicked it to my belt. Then, I knelt and searched through my old clothes, pulling four knives that were hidden inside of them. I couldn't throw a knife accurately to save my life, but I still hid them in my boots and sleeves anyway. I examined each one carefully as I did. They weren't mine- I didn't own any knives other than the ones that were used for cooking. They were very thin-bladed, easy to pull out in a second. Where had I gotten these? Had Clint given them to me? 

Confused, I let the mystery hang in the air as I checked around my room for anything that I hadn't grabbed and left, walking with purpose down to the main control room.