TWO
THE GROUP WERE NOW on the Helicarrier with the other agents, including one of Hope's personal favorites Maria Hill. She reminded her of her mom and her aunt Freya. She was badass.
After the plan went into vanish mode, she along with Steve and Bruce met up with Director Nick Fury. "Gentleman, Agent Kenner" He greeted.
The man with the eyepatch had been a longtime friend of his mother's, surprisingly. She saved him from a vampire back in the day, introducing him to the existence of the supernatural. He had been the one to order Phil to recruit her specifically. Not because he felt in debt to her for what her mother did but because he needed someone to deal with the supernatural based shit going on around the world.
Steve handed Fury a ten dollar bill, confusing everyone else who didn't know what it meant. Fury then walked up to Bruce and extended his hand forward, Bruce reluctantly shook it.
"Doctor, thank you for coming" He greeted. "Thanks for asking nicely" Hope almost snorted at the man's sarcasm, despite the soft tone he seemed to speak with. She had heard all about Nat's little adventure to recruit the legendary Bruce Banner. "So, uh... how long am I staying?" He asked.
"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear" Hope couldn't help but think that Nick was lying. They could've gotten another gamma-ray specialized scientist, but they chose to go around the world to get him? She knew he was probably the best at what he does, but she would've let the guy stay where he was, where he felt the calmest.
"Where are you with that?" Fury walked a bit forward before pointing at Phil. Hope visibly frowned when she saw Nat sadly looking at a picture of Clint. She wouldn't admit it, but she really did miss him. He was family to them. Hell, they even met his family. They were closer than most agents, that's why Hope immediately agreed to help without hesitation.
"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us" Phil explained. "That's still not gonna find them in time" Natasha pointed out, looking away from the picture.
"You have to narrow the field. How many spectrometers do you have access to?" Bruce inquired. "How many are there?" Hope looked at Bruce with interest. "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 on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?" Hope blinked, not understanding half of what he had just said.
"Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr.Banner to his laboratory, please" Natasha did so, leaving Hope to wonder what was going to happen next. More importantly, what was Loki's plan and why take Barton?
***
Hope couldn't help but laugh as she watched Phil persuade Steve to sign his trading cards. "It's a vintage set. It took me a couple of years to collect them all, finished the set when Hope got me the last ones needed. Near mint, slight foxing around the edges, but..." Phil was cut off by Agent Sitwell.
"We got a hit. Sixty-seven percent match. Wait, cross match, seventy-nine percent" He corrected, almost shocked that Loki was probably knowingly walking in front of the camera. "Location?" Agent Sitwell pulled it up.
"Stuttgart, Germany. 28, Konigstrasse. He's not exactly hiding" Fury nodded at the agent before moving his attention towards Steve and Hope. "Captain, Dove, you're up" Steve nodded, walking away to get ready. Hope, on the other hand, wondered why he would send her in. This was most likely a publicity stunt if they were sending Captain America in instead of agents that could get the job done quietly and quickly, so why send her too?
Fury seemed to know what she was thinking and spoke up. "The world needs to be ready to accept people like you. If you're side-by-side with the world's first superhero, it will make it a hell of a lot easier" Hope didn't argue with him at that point. She knew better. Fury might not fire her, but he'll give her boring jobs as punishment.
***
Hope wore the standard S.H.I.E.L.D black bodysuit, her hair put up in a neat bun so it wouldn't get in her face or be yanked. Steve wore his famous Captain America suit, modified of course, with his shield.
An awkward silence filled the room as they waited to arrive in Germany. Steve decided finally to speak up. "Why did you become an agent?" He asked. Unlike most people who would just be asking to fill the void, Steve made it feel like he genuinely wanted to know, and he did. He wanted to know why a child would want to join in a government agency.
"My parent and my uncle, they died because of me. I trusted the wrong person, which got my mom killed. My dad sacrificed his life to protect me. My uncle, he couldn't live without my dad, so he died alongside him" Hope forced herself not to cry as she continued.
"Director Fury...he was an old friend of my mom. He sent Phi—Agent Coulson to recruit me" She corrected herself. "Coulson's currently my legal guardian" Steve looked at her, not with pity, but with sympathy. He had lost both of his parents way before he went under the ice. Hell, his dad died before Steve was even born. He understood her.
"I don't know what happened, but I'm positive it wasn't your fault" Hope sent him a thankful smile. Her aunts and uncles kept telling her this, hell even the Saltzman twins did and Lizzie hates her! But being told this by the world's first superhero, it made it seem a bit more real.
***
When the two arrived in Germany, they saw a scene straight out of a movie. Loki was forcing the people to bow down to him, one elder male decided to stand up by himself. Loki was about to kill him with his scepter. "Look to your elder, people. Let him be an example" Just as the energy beam shot out from his scepter, Steve showed up and blocked it with his shield, one that Hope had even put a few protection spells on. Loki was knocked down by the blast being reflected towards him.
"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing" Hope showed up at Captain America's side. Loki stood up, assessing both superhero's, a rise of interest when he sensed the magic flowing through the girl's veins.
"The soldier. A man out of time. A Mikaelson. The daughter of a true beast" Steve ignored his comment about Hope as people screamed and were all fleeing the scene.
"I'm not the one who's out of time" The quinjet made itself visible, a huge machine gun was pointed directly at the God.
"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down" Hope smirked at the sound of Natasha's voice. Loki sent a beam of energy towards the quinjet, Natasha maneuvering just in time to miss the beam.
Loki then used his magic to duplicate one very different versions of himself, the false one fighting Cap while he fought Hope, wanting to see just how powerful she was even when pretending she wasn't the daughter of the Original Hybrid.
The two began fighting, Hope was able to dodge his attacks, using her actual fighting skills until she needed to use her powers. She got some good kicks and punches in until Loki managed to get the upper hand, shoving her on the ground and putting his foot on her stomach in an attempt to stop her from moving.
"Kneel" Hope snorted at his lame attempt, mumbling a quick, 'motus' to get him off of her. She knew it was a weak, simple spell and it wouldn't have too much of an effect on him, but she just wanted him off of her.
They continued to fight, Hope now using her magic, until 'Shoot To Thrill' by AC/DC started blasting from the quinjet. The three looked up at the sky, Loki had retraced his fake double at that point.
Iron Man, aka Tony Stark, was flying down from the sky and ended up blasting Loki right to the ground. When he reached the ground, he had his suit pull out weapons that were built into it.
"Make your move, Reindeer Games" Steve and Hope got up, moving to Stark's side. The God of Mischief was on the concrete ground. He put his hands up in surrender, retracting his ridiculous armor and helmet that seemed to be a mere illusion.
"Good move" Stark kept his composure while talking to the God. "Mr. Stark" Steve greeted timidly, not knowing how to act around a man whose father was one of his friends from back in the day. "Captain, Dove" He greeted the two, although not as tense when saying Hope's alias.
She knew deep down that their disdain for each other was likely going to hinder their search for the tesseract, she just hoped it wouldn't be too severe and could be reversed.