Chapter 3
Tony thinks it says a lot about how much the team does not need a Soot that they can gather together and meet in one of the neutral lounges to talk about it.
Cap had retreated from the room once Tony nodded and agreed to meet with the team in twenty minutes. Supposedly, Steve had gone through the information on the Avengers’ new house guest and asked Phil some more questions.
When Steve shows up in the lounge, his expression is impossible to read.
He’s trailing just behind Bruce who had been trying to go over the decade of science and medical journal articles pertaining to pack dynamics and pack/team/group Soothers that he’d missed since the Hulk. Bruce looks discouraged but not exactly upset.
If Tony didn’t know it was ridiculous, he would say Steve looks surprised.
Everyone's seated. Not comfortably like they were just an hour ago upstairs, but they’re sitting around looking at each other with varying degrees of mutual frustration.
He looks up at Steve and raises an eyebrow.
Steve nods and makes a gesture with the tablet he’s holding. It kind of looks like he’s going to toss it to the side, but his arm lifts a bit too high for that to be the case. JARVIS immediately displays the current screen onto the wall beside him.
Tony had figured out how to get this to work for Steve early on when he realized the guy was so uncomfortable that he was afraid to go through the tablet’s settings to find a ‘cast’ or ‘mirror’ button lest the information be lost. So now Steve just gestures with the tablet, and JARVIS takes care of the rest.
The profile Tony had seen before was now on the wall. There are a couple of little notes Tony didn’t notice before. Because they weren’t there. This profile has been updated in the last five minutes according to the tally at the bottom of the page.
Natasha obviously notices the date, “Steve, what?...” She’s usually very loquacious, but for some reason, she doesn’t talk to Rogers the same way. He seems to respond better to open questions like this instead of anything accusatory.
“I contacted Fury,” he says. “... And then the president.”
“What!” Clint leans forward like he’s either going to spring up ready for a fight or slide out of his chair to laugh on the floor. “You called the president? What, have you had him on speed dial this whole time and just not told us? We could have invited him to the mission last month with the-”
“Clint, shut up.” Natasha doesn’t have the patience for his shit on a regular basis. Right now, he may get stabbed - maybe somewhere not that important, but the danger is there.
“So her name actually is Elle, at least to everyone that speaks with her. The few people I tried to get in touch with about her gave me similar reactions: yeah, she’s great - a trained Soother,” Steve grimaces like he might be sick at that, “a good agent, but she’s on a mission right now so you can’t contact her.”
“The Soother is being assigned a live-in long-term, possibly year-long position while they're not even here?” The question could have seemed concerned from anyone else. From Tony, it just sounded angry, like if she had been at a SHIELD base somewhere he could have prevented this.
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that against some sort of protocol?” Bruce asks, looking between Natasha and Clint.
Natasha answers, “SHIELD routinely assigns missions while agents are still in the field. If they had to wait for agents to come back to base, the whole schedule would fall apart.” Natasha is staring at the far wall, contemplating. “If the agent has been a licensed Soother for long… she might have no idea she’s been considered for this. SHIELD wouldn’t make informing her a high priority for any mission.”
“Well that’s not creepy,” Tony mutters.
Steve is still tense, standing next to the screen.
“But this isn't a 'mission.' It's a completely different situation!” Bruce’s upset doesn’t put anyone in the room at ease.
Tony is the one to change the subject. “What did you get from the president?”
“She's… pending intermittent reviews … She's to stay as a formal Soother to the team for 16 months.”
“Well, that’s just bullshit.” Clint has a knack for summing things up.
Steve’s mouth just tightens, then he keeps going through what he’s found out, “She’s supposed to be here in two weeks. We - well, Tony, you have that long to set up quarters for her and prepare access codes for a team Soother.”
Tony smirks, “Great, how does a room with an excellent view and a slanted balcony sound? I can remove the handrails and everything.”
There are low sounds of agreement, but no one feels up to continuing the joke. Everyone is still thinking about what a Soother means for the team.
The team is made up of alphas sans Natasha.
Phil is nice, polite but he’s still an alpha even if he doesn’t live in the tower with the team.
And Natasha might be an omega, but they’re pretty sure her dynamic was chemically forced in the Red Room.
Soothers are often betas, easy scents to balance out the “pack.” Most are just betas that decide to work in some sort of social work/therapy setting. Betas just have that natural ability to even things out. That doesn’t mean that the betas themselves are always logical and calm but that they simply don’t exude pheromones when they are upset or angry or on edge.
This Soother is a SHIELD agent, though. That’s not exactly a common resumè.