The Hawk's Sister

Compromised

Dahlia sits at a bar sipping on her lemonade waiting for her informant to arrive when her phone starts ringing "Hello?" she asks picking it up. "Dahlia, it's Phil, you need to come in." Phil Coulson tells her. "Phil, I'm waiting for my informant." she sighs. "Lia, it's your brother. He's been compromised." Phil explains. Dahlia freezes "I'm on my way." she responds before hanging up. Walking outside she walks down the street and to a side alley where she parked her bike "What've you got yourself into this time Clint." she sighs before taking off down the road.

Jumping out of the quinjet, that took her to the helicarrier, Dahlia smiles as she sees her best friend Natasha talking to Phil who has just got off a different quinjet. "Nat!" she calls over. Natasha turns and smiles as Dahlia runs over and hugs her "How was Russia?" Dahlia asks. "Boring, you know what's happened?" Nat asks. "Yeah I read the brief on the jet." Dahlia responds before they both turn to Phil and a tall blonde. LThey need you on the bridge. They're starting the face-trace." Natasha tells Phil. "See you there." he says before walking away. "Dahlia Barton." Dahlia says sticking out her hand. "Steve Rogers." the blonde responds. "So you're the famous Captain America. It was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice. I thought Coulson was gonna swoon." Dahlia tells him as the three of them walk along the helicarrier. "Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?" Natasha asks him. "Trading cards?" Steve asks. "They're vintage, he's very proud." Dahlia explains.

They spot a shortish dark haired man with glasses trying to keep out of everyone's way, Dahlia recognises him as Dr Bruce Banner. "Dr. Banner." Steve greets as they reach him, shaking hands with him. "Oh, yeah. Hi. They told me you'd be coming." Bruce responds. "Word is you can find the cube." Steve says. "Is that the only word on me?" Bruce asks. "Only word I care about." Steve responds making Bruce feel a bit more at ease. "It must be strange for you, all of this." Bruce says motioning to their surroundings. "Well, this is actually kind of familiar." Steve says looking at the soldiers training. "Gentlemen, you might want to step inside in a minute." Natasha starts. "It's gonna get a little hard to breath." Dahlia finishes with a smile. The helicarrier starts to shake as people strap down planes and quinjets in preparation "Is this a submarine?" Steve asks. "Really? They want me in a submerged, pressurized metal container?" Bruce asks. "Not quite." Dahlia tells him as the helicarrier starts to rise out of the water. "Oh, no. This is much worse." Bruce says realising what's happening.

Nat and Dahlia start leading them through the corridors, Dahlia keeping instep with Bruce "Dahlia Barton, it's a pleasure to meet you. I've read all your papers." she smiles. "It's good to meet you." Bruce responds as they reach the main flight deck that doubles as a conference room at the top. Fury turns to greet them "Gentlemen." he nods. Steve walks up to him and gives Fury 10 bucks, making Dahlia shake her head slightly in amusement. Fury walks over to Bruce and puts his hand out "Doctor, thank you for coming." he says. "Thanks for asking nicely. So, uh... how long am I staying?" Bruce asks slightly nervously. "Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear." Fury assures him. "Where are you with that?" Bruce asks. Dahlia freezes when she sees her brother's picture show up on one of the screens, Nat taking her hand and squeezing it in reassurance. "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." Phil explains. "That's still not gonna find them in time." Nat comments, Dahlia nodding in agreement.

"You have to narrow the field. How many spectrometers do you have access to?" Bruce asks. "How many are there?" Fury counters. "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?" Bruce asks. "Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please." Natasha nods and gives Dahlia a quick hug before leading Bruce down the hall "You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys." she tells him. Dahlia sits at the table and runs a hand through her hair "Agent Barton, you good to work on this mission?" Fury asks catching both Dahlia's and Steve's attention. "Just you try to stop me." Dahlia responds with a smirk. Steve looks across to her "The man who Loki is controlling, he's related to you?" he asks noticing the same last names. "Yeah, he's my older brother by ten years. Practically raised me though, as soon as he moved out I did too. I was ten at the time and he didn't give our family a choice in the matter." Dahlia says, remembering Clint telling her he found a place for them to live.