stormbird. ( steve rogers, rewriting! )

thirteen.

Agent Shailene Elrend

I ran down the hallways and around bends. I let the time slip, again! I really need to get back to work-

I ran right into something hard, interrupting my thoughts. I went flying backwards onto my butt. "What the hell?" I rubbed my nose and looked up. Steve was standing above me, looking worried. "Oh, sorry Shay." He said, looking nervous.

He stuck a hand in front of me. I smiled, and took it, grasping his large, warm hand in my smaller one. I saw his muscles ripple slightly as he pulled me up as if I weighed nothing. Well, to him I must weight nothing, anyway.

I felt my palms break into a sweat again, my thoughts traveling back to my and Natasha's conversation.

"You're in love. You have to tell him!"

"What if-"

"Shay, are you okay?" I looked up into his warm blue eyes, looking worried as he gazed at me.

"What? Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Sorry about that, and about earlier..." He smiled. "Its okay, really. Both times. Don't worry about it, okay?" I nodded, and smiled.

"I should probably get back to work. I've put it off for far to long." He nodded, and moved aside. "Okay. Be careful! I'll see you later Shay!" I started walking past him. "I will, don't worry! And try not to run into anyone, alright?"

"Yes ma'am!" I chuckled and waltzed into the lab breezily.

Tony looked up from his work. "Why do you look like you won the lottery?" He asked, sounding snarky.

"Because I feel like I did." I retorted, rolling my eyes and walking back over to my workbench. I arranged my things on the workbench, pretending to not notice the almost silent whispers between Bruce and Tony.

I rolled my eyes and worked on my computer, reviewing Bruce's algorithm.

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But its gonna take weeks to process."

"If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops." I replied, not looking up. I heard Bruce chuckle. "All I packed was a toothbrush."

"You know, you two should really come by Stark Towers sometime. Top ten floors, all R and D. You guys would love it, its like candy land." I looked up and smiled at him. "I will take you up on that offer." I said.

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke... Harlem..."

"Well, I promise a stress free environment. No tension, no surprises." Suddenly, I hear a sharp zap, and a cry of surprise from Bruce. I look up sharply. "Stark!" I yell when I realize that he just poked Bruce with my taser pen.

"Give that back!"

"Nothing?" Tony asks, scrutinizing Bruce, completely ignoring me. He chucks my pen behind him as Steve walks in.

"Are you nuts?" Steve asks, outraged. He catches the pen and hands it to me. I grab it. "Don't take my stuff!" I yell at Tony.

"You really have a lid on it." He says, ignoring the two of us. "What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? A huge bag of weed?"

I look from Steve's enraged face to Tony's, what I have come to call his 'more sarcastic than usual' face.

"Oh no. Here it comes." I say, looking at Bruce.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve yells. "Funny things are." Tony replies quickly. "Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense doctor." Steve turns to look at Bruce. He waves his hand dismissively.