Man Out of Time - A Captain America / Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 54

Chapter 54

"All right everybody," Nick Fury shouted above the din. "Everybody who isn't on death's door, get the hell out!"

Doctors and nurses looked up, then down at their patients. Bernice was no super-spook, but she knew the onlyreason the debriefing was being held in here was because Steve was in no shape to be questioned otherwise. Behind Director Fury stood several stern looking military men with far too many bars on their uniforms and a man she recognized from the television as being the Secretary of State. Big guns. Doctors helped patients out of beds to other parts of the ship, several of them in wheelchairs. Even Mr. Stark was hustled out of the room, although Bernice knew he'd been called down for a debriefing earlier and was quite capable of hobbling along on his own, only suffering from a broken knee and a minor malfunction of his arc reactor Miss Potts insisted on making the doctors watch.

"It's okay." Steve gave her hand a quick squeeze. "It's just questions. That's all. Procedure. The Joint Chiefs need to know what I know."

"I'll go get a bite to eat," Bernice said. "Do you want anything?"

"Just you," Steve said. He glanced over at the doctor, who was restricting him to a liquid diet until his innards healed up, and lowered his voice. "And maybe a piece of chocolate cake from the mess hall? I'm starved." He shot her a fetching grin that made her heart skip a beat.

"Fat chance," Bernice said. "I'm afraid I'm the only dessert you're going to have for the next three days."

She gave him a kiss, lingering longer than she should. If only she was some kind of super heroine, like … no … the bitch … she didn't care what Steve said the bitch had been like before she'd been eaten or digested or whatever the hell the shape shifters did to their victims before they assumed their shapes. She had not known Natasha before, and no matter how much Steve or even Miss Potts seemed saddened by her death, Bernice simply could not summons an ounce of empathy for the woman who'd died when the shape shifter had decided to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. by taking her place.

Maybe she was no heroine, but there was no better example than Miss Potts that the loved one of an Avenger could make a difference in how they were treated by a government that looked upon them as little more than 'assets.' Bernice stopped in front of Director Fury and the important politician and generals who wanted to speak to her husband. She crossed her arms, her usually timid demeanor cast aside in light of the important the message she had to convey. She drew herself up to look as tall and intimidating as possible, the effect lessened by the fact the top of her head just barely came to Director Fury's chin.

"If you tire my husband so much as a nanosecond longer than he's capable of talking in his condition," Bernice said. "The shape shifters will be the least of your worries. Do I make myself clear?"

She shot all of the generals, including the Secretary of State, a look her grandmother had always used to convey, without words, that something you were doing was falling short of her very high expectations. The disappointed grandmother look, they used to call it. The most horrible punishment any member of the Miller clan could possibly endure. She had been the recipient of those looks herself several times as a kid, though much less frequently than her brother. They'd always joked they'd just wished Grandma Peggy would drag them out to the woodshed and beat them with a switch instead of giving them that look.

She gave those very important men that look…

By the way they all leaned backwards, away from her disapproving glare, as she stood her ground between them and her husband, the message had been appropriately conveyed. Mr. Fury looked as though he wished to give her a high-five and say 'you go girl.' That is, he would if stern directors of super-secret agencies were prone to such fits of emotive behavior. Director Fury was not. But by the bemused expression on his face, he was suitably impressed by her pugnaciousness.