Devil of Menace

4 - Arrival

The quinjet lands on the Helicarrier, a large battleship with two runways. One provides direct access to a hangar at the rear that's aligned along the spine of the vessel. Steve, Coulson, and I descend the ramp only to be greeted by a familiar redhead. "Agent Romanoff, Captain Rogers." Coulson says. "We've met," Nat nods at Steve, "Good to see you Vik." I smile, "I thought you were in Russia." I say. "I came back after Coulson called me." She explains, turning to the man in question, "They want you on the bridge. They're starting the face-trace." Coulson nods, "See you there." He walks away, leaving the three of us to walk towards the Helicarrier railings. "It was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice. I thought Coulson was gonna swoon. Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?" Nat asks, humour present in her words.

"Trading cards?" Steve asks. I laugh, "They're vintage. He's very proud." I explain. I spot Bruce awkwardly trying to cross the runway whilst simultaneously avoiding the swarm of people. "Dr Banner." I call, effectively clearing him a path with my voice. Bruce joins us, shaking our hands. "Oh yeah, hi." He smiles shyly, "They told me you'd be coming." He says to Steve. "Word is you can find the cube." Steve says, slowly slipping back into the Captain I know. "Is that the only word on me?" Bruce asks nervously. "Only word we care about." I say, smiling gently. "It must be strange for you, all of this." Banner says, motioning to the numerous levels of technology surrounding us. I follow Steve's line of sight to a group of training men, "Well, this is actually kind of familiar." He says softly. "We might want to step inside in a minute. It's gonna get a little hard to breathe." Natasha calls over the wind that has seemed to pick up.

The Helicarrier shakes slightly as it prepares to set leave it's position, agents onboard strap down quinjets and planes in preparation. "Is this a submarine?" Steve asks curiously. "Really? They wanted me in a submerged, pressurized metal container?" Bruce rambles. The pair move closer to the edge of the Helicarrier as four large fans lift into the air, allowing the ship to take flight. "Oh no, this is much worse." Bruce comments, I join him at the edge and squeeze his shoulder, "You'll be fine, I promise." I say. The three of us walk into the bridge of the ship. Agents scurry about, Hill's voice can be heard shouting orders. "We're at lock Sir." Hill calls to Fury. "Good," He responds, "Let's vanish."

The Helicarrier rises higher and mirrors deploy, reflecting the exterior scenes back out, camouflaging the ship. "Vik, Gentlemen." Fury acknowledges. Steve reaches into his pocket and hands over 10 bucks, causing me to giggle quietly. Fury walks over to Banner and holds out a hand, Bruce hesitantly shakes it, "Doctor, thank you for coming." Bruce smiles, withdrawing his hand, "Thanks for asking nicely. So, uh... how long am I staying?!" He asks anxiously. "Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear." Nick explains, my brows furrowing at his choice of words.

"Where are you with that?" Bruce asks as Natasha glances at a photo of Barton on a nearby computer. Coulson answers, "We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us." Natasha returns to the conversation, "That's still not gonna find them in time." She sighs. "You have to narrow the field." I say before Banner asks, "How many spectrometers do you have access to?" Nick pauses before asking, "How many are there?" Banner pushes his glasses up his nose as he states, "Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?" He finishes. Nick motions to Natasha, "Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr Banner to his laboratory please?" Natasha nods and leads Banner down the hall, I catch her saying, "You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys."

Fury turns to me, "Solovyova, show Rogers the quarters." I nod, "Follow me Rogers." Steve follows me out as we walk through the Helicarrier before eventually coming to a locked area. I type in the code and the light flashes green, signalling that it's now unlocked. "I had your uniform sent to my room." I say as I open the second door we come to. Steve walks inside and jumps onto the bed. "This place is crazy." He says whilst I open the closet and pull out our suits. I unzip the bag holding Steve's and lay it over the bed. "Whatdya think?" I ask as Steve's eyes roam the bright blue uniform. "I think I preferred the old one, it was more subtle." He laughs. I roll my eyes, "You should probably try it on." I suggest.

Steve stands and rolls his brown leather jacket off his shoulders. He begins to undo the buttons on his shirt and I shamelessly watch as the expanse of muscle is revealed. He shrugs the shirt off and begins to remove his jeans, "You know I didn't mean in front of me right." I say. "You're not complaining." He remarks. "Not yet." I smirk back. "You never complain angel, imagine how tightly wound you'd be if I wasn't here." He says, leaning over me, a hand on my cheek. "I coped for seventy years." I retort as Steve leans closer. "That was before you had me once, can't get enough now can you?" He whispers, dropping his lips to my neck. I smirk, "I think it's the opposite Stevie baby. You love being under me." I reply. His thick lashes brush the skin of my neck as his eyes close.

"Maybe." He says before standing back up, a flush painting his cheeks.