THE BLONDE MENACE
OLIVIA STRAIGHTENS HER SHIRT SELF-CONSCIOUSLY, GLANCING AROUND CENTRAL PARK. She’d fix her hair, but it’s too short to really do anything with these days. Convenient for wigs, though.
“Liv!” a voice calls out from behind her. She turns, seeing her girlfriend come up to her, beaming, wearing what Olivia knows to be her cute scarf. “Hey! Sorry I’m late!”
“It’s fine,” is all she says, not even smiling. “Come on, there’s an ice cream stand over there.” She turns towards the ice cream stand, trying to ignore the way Hannah seems to dim.
“Right,” she agrees, “yeah. Ice cream. Sounds good!” She hurries to walk next to Olivia, taking hold of her hand.
“So,” Olivia starts, unable to stand the disappointment, “you look nice. How was your day?” Hannah smiles.
“Oh it was really good, actually,” she replies sincerely. “I went rock climbing with my brother— he moved out yesterday, that’s why I didn’t text back until late. Had a class today. I hate Freud, but my professor’s PowerPoint was pretty succinct, at least.”
“Hmm,” Olivia hums, agreeing, “Freud is the worst. I hated Psych, don’t envy you having to take it again.” Hannah snorts.
“Thanks, hon,” she replies, sarcastically, though her grin is sincere. “Really. Feeling so loved right now.” Olivia’s grip on her hand loosens.
“What kind of ice cream do you want?” she asks abruptly. “I know you usually like rocky road, but do you want to shake it up a little?” Hannah blinks twice, then recognizes that they’re in striking distance of the ice cream cart.
“Oh! Oh, uh— hmm. I think I’ll just go with rocky road, actually,” she replies. Olivia nods.
“One rocky road and one strawberry, please,” she requests. Hannah watches her as she buys the ice cream, worry mounting by the second.
Olivia offers Hannah her ice cream wordlessly, and she takes it. They eat and walk in silence for a minute, surrounded by the mindless hum of people.
“Are you okay?” Hannah finally asks. “You’ve been really weird, today.” Olivia glances at her, then sighs.
“We should break up.”
She watches her girlfriend practically stagger at the weight of those four words, stopping in her tracks.
“What?” she breathes. Reluctantly, Olivia also stops walking.
“This, us, it’s not working,” she tells Hannah. “I’m just… not in love with you.” Hannah looks like she’s been struck.
“What?” she repeats. “Just— just like that? You’re just… breaking up with me?” Olivia nods.
“Yeah.”
The shock on Hannah’s face melts away to anger.
“No,” she decides. “No— no, you do not get to do this to me. For months, I have put up with you, I have loved you, and you are so, so hard to love. Disappearing constantly, keeping so many secrets, and you’re breaking up with me?” Hannah begins to flounder in her rage.
“I—,” she struggles, “what is wrong with you? What, are you— are you cheating on me? Because—,” Olivia cuts her off.
“No,” she states, firmly, her tone brooking no argument. “I would never do that. You know that.”
“No!” Hannah explodes. “I don’t! I don’t know anything about you! You won’t tell me anything! I try so hard, so hard to love you, but all you do is take and take! You don’t get to break up with me, not after all of that!”
“But I am,” she replies quietly. Hannah’s chest heaves, and her eyes shine with tears.
“What, am I just— am I not good enough for you?” she inquires desperately, her voice cracking, searching Olivia’s eyes for something she won’t find.
Olivia takes a deep breath.
“No,” she answers, “you aren’t.” Then, she turns and walks away from her heartbroken girlfriend— ex-girlfriend, she reminds herself, into the frigid autumn air.
She blinks aggressively to hide the tears threatening to spill over. Involuntarily, her eyes flick over to the alley.
She’s just in time to see one of the Information Department’s lackeys vanish from sight.
‘You’re better’ stays trapped in her mouth like lead, to remain forever unspoken.
***
The scheduled Avengers team meeting was set for 3:00; considering that it’s 3:16, Olivia is technically a little late. She brought donuts though, so she’s hoping they won’t be too upset. Still, she’s speedwalking— or more accurately, it looks like she wants to start running but is suppressing herself to keep a walk because she’s in a professional setting.
The ‘professional setting’ being the finally-rebranded Avengers Tower, where she technically lives (for now). She pushes open the door to Meeting Room 4 with one hand, balancing her boxes of donuts in the other. Her and Bruce’s coffees are haphazardly balanced on top.
“Well look who finally decided to show up,” Tony remarks as she focuses on not dropping anything.
“Don’t shoot,” she jokes— she’d raise her hands if she had any free—, “I brought donuts.” She sets one coffee down in front of Bruce and another in front of what she assumes is her chair, next to his, sliding the donut boxes onto the table.
“Good enough for me,” Natasha shrugs, reaching across the table to take one. “You’ll never guess who showed up earlier.”
Olivia drops into her chair between Bruce and Steve, looking up inquisitively. She freezes; staring at her from the other side of the table…
…is Thor Odinson himself.
She regains her composure even quicker than she lost it, grinning at the blonde menace.
“Hey! Thor! When did you get in? I thought you were still hanging around on Asgard,” she lies, knowing perfectly well he left Asgard a long time ago. Loki damn near threw a party about it.
“Lady Banner,” he greets, offering up an amiable but tense smile. “I trust you’ve been well?” She nods.
“Well as I can be, with everything going on,” she muses. He nods.
“Alright, not to interrupt this heartwarming reunion,” Tony interrupts, a little sarcastically, “but we are in the middle of a meeting.”
Olivia focuses her attention on the projection, which Maria Hill is operating.
“This,” she points, referring to a building set up in what looks like the middle of nowhere, “is one of HYDRA’s holdover bases. We managed to find it using data we got from SHIELD’s database, and a little bit of new intel.”
“That is where my brother’s scepter is being kept?” Thor interjects. Maria shoots him a little bit of a dirty look, but maintains her composure.
“We don’t know,” she admits. “It might be, or it might not. Either way, we’ve got to shut it down.”
“Hey, Connie Corleone,” Tony pipes up. Olivia shoots him a glare, but he ignores it, continuing, “are you going to shut this down with us?” She glances at Bruce, who’s also watching her for an answer.
She sighs.
“Yeah,” she confirms. “I’ll help shut HYDRA down.” If they have some kind of connection with MEDUSA, she wants to know about it— and this is the best opportunity she’s gonna get to find out.
“Good,” Maria nods. “They’re gonna need all the help they can get. Now, the best point of entry seems to be here—,” she continues. Olivia’s pocket buzzes.
She pulls out her phone, seeing a new text from Hannah.
Hannah: 2PM Thursday, I’ll send you the address.
Olivia forces out a breath, feeling strangely boxed in all of a sudden, but responds with only a simple acknowledgment.
“You okay?” Steve whispers, breaking her out of the trance she was in; she didn’t realize she was staring at Hannah’s message until he said something. She’s quick to shut off her phone screen and stuff it into her pocket with a quick nod.
“Fine,” she replies briskly, keeping her voice low and trying to focus on Maria’s layout of what to expect at the HYDRA base. There’s a brief pause in which Olivia completely fails to listen, all of the words drifting straight through her head as though she isn’t even there to block them.
“…who was it?” Steve asks, voice quiet (even for his whisper tones). At her glance, he’s quick to add, “if you don’t mind my asking.” She turns her eyes back to Maria, turning the words over in her head, tempted to just say ‘I do mind’ and leave it at that.
“Ex-girlfriend,” she answers instead. He does a half-subtle double-take. Whatever he was expecting her to say, it apparently wasn’t that.
“How long?” he prompts, knowingly. Olivia turns her head, away from him instead of towards him.
“Years ago,” she breathes softly. “MEDUSA took a lot of casualties. I did, even. I decided she wouldn’t be one.” His face falls a little with something that might be empathy.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers back. She taps the wood of the table.
She chooses not to respond, refocusing instead on the very well-made presentation that Maria is giving. She hopes that interaction was enough trying for the day.