Vertigo: Hydra's Greatest Weapon

Chapter 14

It feels so strange but so cool to get into the Avengers' compound with an ID card. I don't think I'll ever get over this feeling.

"Welcome back, Agent Atwood." A woman's voice from... somewhere... startles the crap out of me, causing me to jump a bit. I look around me but I don't see anyone.

"My UI, FRIDAY." Another voice makes me jump again with a teeny yelp. I whip around to Tony Stark walking past me.

"Oh, that's neat," I tell him.

"Come," he calmly instructs. I nod and jog up to him, following him around the compound.

"So, Mr. Stark-" I start but am cut off.

"Tony. Or Stark. No 'Mr. Stark'."

"Okay. So Tony... You designed this whole place?"

"Sure did. I love designing things. Speaking of, how's your room?"

"Oh, I love it! It's luxury compared to what I'm used to, thank you."

"I'm glad you could make it for dinner tonight. We're all super excited to officially meet you. But as of now, I have to go make it so this is where we part ways. Great talking to you," he rambles before leaving me at the entrance of the kitchen. I stand still for a moment, just processing the conversation that just abruptly ended. I smile and shake my head as I turn to find my way to... anywhere until dinner.

I don't find anything interesting at the moment so I just stay in my room and watch whatever's playing on my 75-inch flat-screen TV on the wall in front of my bed. Whatever Tony's making, it's got to be fancy because it's taking a while. I get bored so I text June and immediately get a response. We text until it's time for my first dinner as an Avenger.

"Hey! I'm glad you could make it!" Steve happily sings as I walk into the kitchen.

I awkwardly smile at the large group of people, a few I haven't met yet, and walk further into the room. Everyone's just sort of standing around so I do the same, leaning against the island counter.

"Hi, I'm Rhodes. Call me Rhodey." A new voice snaps me out of my staring contest with the floor.

"Oh, hi. I'm Callie." I smile and hold my hand out to him to shake. He's got one hell of a grip.

"I know. Everyone's heard of you. Fury talks highly about you."

"He does?"

"Definitely."

"What- What does he say? Just wondering..." I break eye contact to look at the ground to hide my blushing.

He chuckles, making me blush even more. "He just thinks you have potential here. And clearly so does Pierce."

"Glad to hear it." I awkwardly smile at him.

Suddenly dinner is being called to start and the man who just introduced himself as Rhodey invites me to sit next to him. As people are sitting down around the long rectangular table, the redhead, Natasha Romanoff, and I make eye contact. She shoots me a brief smile but quickly looks away before I can return it. She sits down next to Clint Barton so I assume they're friends. Tony sits with some blonde-haired woman, Steve is next to the man who was introduced as Bucky Barnes, and the other ginger, Wanda Maximoff I think, is with the robot, Vision. I'm really proud of myself for memorizing the names of the people here, there's a lot of them.

There are a lot of conversations going on at once. I eavesdrop on a conversation between Tony and Steve. All I pick up are the keywords "shield", "blasters", "vibranium", even though I don't know what that is, and "suits".

"Callie!" I flinch at my name being almost yelled across the table. "I think I speak for the rest of us when I say it's time we get to know you a bit better," Clint says, making the table quieter.