Bed of Roses [N. Romanoff]

Chapter 3

Bailey watched as the small blue dot pulsed over and over on the digital map in front of her.

She had woken earlier than usual that morning, and decided to join Bruce and Tony to be somewhat of help in reading out information that they were too lazy to walk back and forth to read.

"So these are energy pulses that you're tracking through Gamma Radiation, which would lead us to the position of Strucker?" she read out.

"Yeah- how'd you get that?" Tony stopped in mid motioned and asked her from surprise.

"I just read the heading," she explained, and turned the screen for him to read it.

He gave her a look and continued with what he was doing.

"Watch yourself, Tinton," Bax warned, holding a screwdriver as a threat.

This only increased the glare he was already treating her with.

"Who's Strucker?" she curiously asked, "Like, I know he has the sceptre. But what is he doing with it?"

Bruce took the liberty to explain to her instead of giving Tony the chance to turn it into a game.

"He's been taking part in some illegal experimentation, or mutation. He's changing the DNA of innocent people, forcing them into inhumans they could never imagine, some are forced into it and others volunteer. We need to take Loki's sceptre from him before he succeeds," he seemed highly stressed by this man. Banner fiddled with his glasses as he spoke, and never let go of a tiny piece of material that he used to clean all the apparatus's around him.

"Well, yeah I got that already," she grumbled and rested her face on the palms of her hands.

"Then don't ask questions you already know the answer to," Tony shot back.

"Calm your farm, Rocket Ship," she teased back with a giggle.

"I'm allowed to kick you out of this lab, you know that?" Tony stated while Bruce retorted with: "Do you just lay in bed and come up with these pet names?"

This resulted in Tony giving him a high five.

Bax rolled her eyes, and spun her chair around to get up and leave.

"Oh come on Peter Pan, where're you going?" they both proceeded to laugh as she shook her head and left the room.

"I'm going to find my Tinker Bell!" she shouted back, and left to find Steve with a smile prominent on her face.

It didn't take that long to find the super soldier in the gym, where he continuously destroyed Tony's punching bags. Luckily this man was a billionaire, Bax would've kicked the Avengers out of her house after the first day.

The two of them then walked back upstairs, and Bax began making Steve a berry smoothie.

"Do you know what's going on in there?" he threw his head in the direction of the lab.

"Of course," she replied, but before he could ask more questions she turned the blender on and his voice got drowned by the sound of the machine.

"Sorry?" she shouted above the noise, "What's that? I can't hear you!"

Steve just shook his head at her.

Bailey could've easily told them how close the men were at being exactly where they wanted to be, but she wasn't going to steal their shine. Sometimes she can be a nice person. Sometimes.

When the noise died down, and she poured his drink into a glass, Steve took the opportunity.

"Will you fight with us?"

"Much better than fighting against you, right?" she joked and handed the purple drink over.

"You know what I meant. Thank you."

"I know what you meant, and yes, I will. I didn't stick around this long just to be a pain in the ass-"

"Butt." Steve corrected her. She gave him a weirded outlook, but continued.

"Butt," she said, and watched him smile in gratitude. "Plus, I'd really like to get in on that action."

Suddenly the lab door slammed open against the wall, turning everyone's heads to the over dramatic Tony.

"What the hell was that for?" Clint asked, coming up the stairs.

"Baxter, that wish might come true sooner than you think." Was all tony said.

He and Steve shared a look, and the next words were almost predictable.

"Avengers-"

"Suit up!" Bailey interrupted and ran off to her wardrobe.

The whole lot of them stood in the quinjet, adjusting the last pieces of their suits before their feet touched down on Sokovian soil.

Bax left for the corner, in the shadows, where she fiddled with the zip on the front of her Cat Suit. This was the first time she was actually wearing the outfit, designed by both Tony and Natasha. They held the most expertise about not only the technology ideal, but exactly what made it comfortable and helped Bax gain access to more flexible hits.

She had given them her thanks by baking them a try of biscuits each. She didn't know what superheroes ate these days, or what they did to say thank you. As grateful as they both were, they made it clear that biscuits weren't how the cool kids did it these days, but still hinted that they wouldn't mind more.

The back of the jet opened, and their faces were hit with a cold gust of air.

Snow was all around them, as well as tall trees and wavy hills.

A hint of fear lingered in Baileys ribs and throat, but she walked off with the rest of her teammates (or, Nat drove a Jeep out of the jet), and stood in line with them.

"What's the rules?" she asked, positioning herself to get ready to take off into the skies.

"One rule, don't get your fellow teammate hurt," Tony replied to her before his suit lit up and he shot into the sky as a beam of light.

Bailey looked over to Steve, "What's the rules?" she repeated.

"Don't distract anyone," Thor replied, and swung his hammer and he too was then flying.

Bailey gave out a sigh, really lost for words now. This was the first time she was working with the team, and if all they do is wing every mission, there was going to be conflict. She liked getting told what to, and how to do it.

She especially liked it when it came to infiltrating a Hydra base, she was most definitely the least experienced out of everyone she had come with. All she needed was an indicator of maybe just who to hit, how hard to hit, and up till what point must she continue hitting.

Besides, no one eve spoke about who was supposed to be the person that would have to go in and grab the Sceptre.

"Someone just tell me the damn rules," she muttered.

"I think they got it fairly right," Steve then kicked down on his motorcycle, clicking it into gear and revved.

"Let's just get this sceptre, okay?" he then sped off into the snow.

Bailey gave a hard look to the only three people left next to her.

"And people still ask me how I manage to get angry so quickly," Bruce sympathised for the new girl.

"I don't blame you," was her retort.

"Is this a code green?" he asked the soldiers that had already run onto the scene.

"Couple hundred men out here, we could definitely use some help," Cap answered for the man.

With a scared sigh, he walked onto the snow, which soon turned into a jog. As soon as he sprinted behind the pile of snow, Bax stopped watching the broken man.

Eventually a deep voiced scream filled the air, and the last three Avengers watched as trees started falling down just a few feet in front of them.

"Need a lift?" Nat joked.

With an eye roll, Bailey kicked off the ground.