Cold Enemies, Warm Romances

Chapter Seventeen - WB039

Thunk. 

Thunk. 

Thunk. 

THWACK. 

Jessie frowned when she hit the last dummy. Curious, she twisted her quarterstaff into its normal rod form and looked around the dummy. She snorted when she saw the thing was metal. "In case there's another Destroyer robot thingie," she guessed. "Nice." 

She looked up at the electronic clock, then smiled. She walked out of the training room before heading towards the kitchen. She ducked down when she saw Bruce, Clint, and Tony talking together, most likely about her. She saw what she was looking for, slipping one into her pocket and the other she kept in her arms before ducking down through the fridge and through the floor. 

She dropped down right to the front doors. "JARVIS, don't tell anyone I'm gone," she announced. 

There was slight hesitation. "As you wish, Miss Nightshade." 

Jessie flipped open Tony's wallet and took the datapad as well. Using Tony's credit card accounts, she was able to use her SHIELD ID as a makeshift credit card. With that done, she stepped outside for the first time in a few days. She smiled, thinking that she might as well act like a girl for the first time in a long time. 

"Taxi!" she shouted.

***

Bruce frowned, looking around. "Did you guys hear something?" 

Tony shrugged, taking a bottle of wine from the freezer, surprisingly no scotch. "I didn't. Might have just been Jessie kicking ass down in the training room, just like every other day." 

Bruce shrugged, rubbing his temples. "I've just been tense ever since Loki took us." 

"You think we're tense?" Clint snorted. "Think about how hard it's been for Jess." 

"Guys?" Tony asked suddenly. 

Bruce waved a hand absently. "She was threatened by a god who could smash her to a pulp if he wanted to. I think it would be hard." 

"Guys," Tony said louder. 

Clint shook his head. "You didn't see her after Alex started shouting at her. She looked like a deer in headlights times - " 

"GUYS!" 

Bruce and Clint glared at Tony, who was staring at the kitchen counter blankly. "What?" they both asked at the same time. 

"My wallet and datapad are gone." 

Bruce rolled his eyes. "Seriously, Tony? There are so many freaking floors in this building. They could be on any one of them." 

Tony shook his head. "No, I put them here this morning. I was planning on making a run downtown to find tracking devices to hook up to Jessie and Saleen's phones so that we could keep track of where they were. I was using the datapad to hook up the ones in everyone's phone. They're both gone now." 

Clint blinked, standing. "But Bruce and I have been here all day. We would've seen someone come through." 

Tony was tapping on the table top, pulling up holograms. "I'm not entirely sure what could've happened, but - " He cut off, staring at the holograms. "Jessie's not in the training room." 

"What?" Clint barked, coming around and looking with him. "But then where in the hell is she?" 

"JARVIS!" Tony called out. 

"She asked me not to say, sir," JARVIS replied. "Don't disable me." 

Tony rolled his eyes. "I will if you don't tell me where in the name of Thor's poptarts she is!" 

"She left, sir. She was doing something at the reception desk, then she left." 

Clint looked up slowly. "Doesn't the computer at the reception desk access your bank accounts." 

"Crap," Tony muttered, closing down the holograms. "We've got to figure out where she is." 

Bruce was already heading towards the intercom.

***

Jessie stepped out of the taxi in the middle of downtown Manhattan. She looked around, smiling. Maybe for once she wouldn't get pointed at and be shot down. 

Her phone rang at that moment, and she looked at it, then sighed, seeing the caller ID: Natasha Romanoff. She found the setting that made all calls go to voicemail, then started walking along the streets. She found the Starbucks she was looking for and slipped inside. Using her ID/credit card, she got a grande mocha cookie crumble frappuccino, then started off down the streets once more, looking at all of the stores. After a while, she realized that there was one set of footsteps that sounded similar to the pattern she was walking. She slowed to a stop, and when she heard the footsteps behind her stop, she turned and splashed her coffee into the person's face. 

The British-looking woman jerked away, and Jessie took off at a run. Shouts were heard from behind her, but she kept running. 

That was before someone tackled her to the ground. 

Jessie's head slammed into the road, and she groaned in pain, her vision warping. She saw an Asian woman above her in a dark navy uniforms and she somehow got the feeling she was official. So much for going somewhere without someone pointing. She took a deep breath, then headbutted the other woman. Hard. 

The woman jerked away as well, and Jessie jumped up to run, but it was then that she saw three people that had guns aimed at her. The woman looked amateurish, like she didn't know whether to pull the trigger or not. There was a dark-haired man who looked built like Clint or Steve, and he sure as heck wasn't going to hesitate to shoot her. 

The final man, older than everyone else, walked over to the Asian woman, who was now sporting a bloody nose. The British woman ran up, followed by a sciency-looking guy. All of them were looking right at her. 

The dark haired man spoke first with a voice as cold as his stare. "You're Vertigo, aren't you?" 

"Well spotted," Jessie muttered, before blinking and taking a closer look at the older man. "Wait a minute . . . I've seen you before." 

"Don't know where you have," the amateur woman scoffed. "Try to keep off the map." 

The older man looked up. "Skye, Ward, take her." 

As the two stepped forward, the revelation came to Jessie like a smack in the face. She knew where she'd seen this guy before. He was in a photograph when she's read over files of the Avengers Initiative. His file, however, had had red "deceased" stamped over it. 

"Agent Coulson?"

***

Really sucky, really short chapter. Damn these upcoming finals . . . and the blasted headache that made me have to listen to Rohan and Gondor themes. Y'know, Lord of the Rings? Really good movie trilogy, never did read the books. *insert cricket chirps* 

ANYWAY, so sorry this isn't longer! Might as well put in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Heck, why not? Any questions about who they are and what they're like, PM me, WritersBlock039. You can ask TashaRayBartonWest, too, I'm not entirely sure if she's seen it . . . *insert longer cricket chirps* 

Oh, well. Go where the wind blows!

~ WB039