Bird Set Free | Natasha Romanoff ✓

Chapter Two

Aquila Cadman surveyed the sky in front of her, her old playground.  In the years following the destruction of her home, as well as plenty of drinking, there had also been plenty of illegal stuff. 

One of her personal favorite pastimes was following airplanes or helicopters as her massive size in her bird form often shocked the passengers. 

Aquila's eyes were drawn back to the horizon as another Quinjet began landing on the Helicarrier, sending huge gusts of wind towards everyone on the top. The brunette gripped the bar in front of her, as her hair securely tied in a ponytail reached around to slap her in the face. 

Her eyes followed the Quinjet as it landed, including being drawn to Agent Natasha Romanoff who had been the one to bring her to S. H. I. E. L. D. 

She watched as Agent Coulson, another person she had quickly met upon her arrival, led Captain Rogers and Dr. Bruce Banner, away from the Quinjet. 

Aquila was knowledgable about who they both were and considering she would be working with them to dispense the current threat Loki posed, she was a little shocked that S. H. I. E. L. D had even thought of her in the first place. 

A giant alcoholic eagle. 

Aquila watched as both Agent Coulson and Agent Romanoff waved her off, to do what Aquila presumed was to meet her new teammates. 

"This is Aquila Cadman, Captain Rogers, and Dr. Banner. And this is Captain Steve Rogers and Dr. Bruce Banner, Miss Cadman."

"It's a pleasure to meet you both," Aquila replied offering her hand for them both to shake. 

"You are the one that turns into the giant bird, correct?" Captain Rogers clarified.

"I prefer the term 'killer bird', although birds are actually not that threatening." Aquila joked. 

"Well, I think they can be quite threatening, actually. Before the war when I lived in Brooklyn, there was a pigeon that I thought was pretty terrifying, never stopped begging for food." Captain Rogers joked as well. 

"I'm glad I had the chance to meet you as well, Dr. Banner. I'm a huge fan of your work." Aquila said. 

"It's nice to meet you too, Miss Cadman." Dr. Banner responded and appeared like he was going to say something else but Agent Romanoff interrupted, her hand pressed against her earpiece.  

"Gentleman, Miss Cadman, you might wanna step inside in a minute. It's gonna get a little hard to breathe."

All three people in front of Agent Romanoff looked at her, slightly confused as water starting to churn nearby and a mechanical-like whirring echoed through the air. 

"Is this a submarine?" Captain Rogers asked, perplexed. 

"Really?" Dr. Banner asked after Captain Roger's question. "They want me in a submerged pressurized metal container?"

The three of them walked to the railing of the Hellicarrier where Aquila had been only a few minutes prior. They all watched as propolser engines appeared from beneath the water and sent gusts of wind back into the air which caused Aquila's hair to whip her in the face again and for all three of them to take a few steps back. 

"No, no, no," Aquila heard Dr. Banner say. "This is much worse."

Aquila took a deep breath in, enjoying being so high in the air again even though she wasn't in her other form, before following the others into the inside of the Hellicarrier. The three of them followed Agent Romanoff into what Aquila perceived as a HQ or communciation room almost, filled to brim with any and every type of technology there is. 

Even if Aquila had never been that into technology considering her upbringing with little technology for her to use, she knew that this was still pretty cool. 

"Miss Cadman, Gentleman." The director of S. H. I .E .L. D, Nick Fury said. Aquila had known of the supposedly legendary Nick Fury for long before S. H. I. E. L. D had forced her to come to help them. 

Aquila watched as Captain Rogers pulled a wad of bills from his pocket and handed Director Fury a ten. She continued to look around, lazily listening to Dr. Banner's conversation with Director Fury.

"Doctor, thank you for coming."

"Thanks for asking nicely." Dr. Banner replied. "So, uh...how long am I staying?"

Aquila suddenly stood a little straighter. 

How long exactly would this take?

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear."

And how long would it take to get the Tesseract?

"Where are you with that?" 

Everyone turned to where Agent Coulson stood. "We're sweeping every accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops," Agent Coulson explained, "if it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

"That's still not gonna find them in time." Agent Romanoff chimed in, looking towards an image of who Aquila assumed was Clint Barton, Agent Romanoff's missing best friend.

"You have to narrow your field," Doctor Banner tried to explain. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"

"How many are there?" asked Director Fury.

"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 basic cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

"Agent Romanoff, would you show Doctor Banner to his laboratory, please." Director Fury asked. 

Agent Romanoff nodded in response before walking off, leading Doctor Banner down the hallway.

"You're gonna love it, Doc." Aquila could just hear Agent Romanoff say to Doctor Banner as they walked out of sight.  "We got all the toys."