Chapter Ten

A Game Changer

"I'm kind of in a meeting right now." I informed him. An unofficial one, granted but important nonetheless.

"Sounds boring. Bruce and I are here and you need to see what we found." At his admission, my interest piqued.

"Why? What did you find out?" I asked, eagerly looking for information.

"Well, we can show better than we can tell you." I sighed in frustration, trying to figure out how to get both things done.

I groaned, running my hands through my hair. "Tony, I can't really reschedule."

"This can't wait." I hear Bruce speak up.

"Ok, fine." I decide, as I spy the Agent coming back in my direction. "I'll figure something out."

"Bring me some skittles!" I hear Tony yell, before hang up and try to think of something.

Shit. Too late. "Hey." I say, sporting a brilliant smile.

"Hey, ready to go?"

"Yeah, just do you mind if we make a few pit stops?" I smile as sweetly as possible, without looking weird.

She frowned, "What kind of pit stops?"

"Some very important information has come up. And I need to retrieve it immediately."

"If it's urgent we can reschedule, Kate." Kamryn says, trying to be understanding.

"It'll only take a moment. In fact, we're really close by. It's only a few blocks from here." I explain to her. "I'd really hate to cancel this meeting. I don't want to interrupt any other work or plans you might have."

"Actually, I'm all yours. Director Fury understands the importance of your father's disappearance. He's a valued member to our research team. And I welcome any plans that seem more interesting than Netflix with my dog." She finishes with an embarrassed smile.

I find myself smiling with her. "You have no idea how much I connect with you right now."

Her eyes lit up. "You have a dog too?"

"Nope. I'm just the legal guardian of teenage boys." I share. "But Netflix on my couch sounds so much more appealing right now." We walk out the door and I steer her in the direction of Stark Tower. I slide my sunglasses back on and adjust my fishtail braid.

"Damn. That sounds like a lot to deal with." Her eyebrows furrow. "Sorry, we're getting off topic. Where are we going again?"

"To get some skittles and then to Stark Tower." I say casually as I glance around to placate my paranoia. There was a lot of construction going on the closer we got to the Tower.

"I'm sorry, what?" The short brunette stares up at me as I stop the newsstand to buy Tony's skittles.

"Skittles." I say.

She stares blankly for a second, then answers, "No, the other thing."

"Stark Tower." I say as I continue down the street.

"And why would we be going to Stark Tower?" She asks me as I turn to walk away.

"To see Tony Stark, and Dr. Bruce Banner." I answer professionally. "They insisted. I'll be thirty minutes tops."

"Are they even going to let me in?" The Agent asks seriously as we get a block away from the building.

"He will if he wants me up there." I indirectly threaten. "We'll have to get through Happy first. And a little tip, don't be insulted, but he's just a little thorough." If it was possible, the color leaves her face. "It's not that bad. I promise."

As we walk in through the lobby, Kamryn gapes a little. Hardhats everywhere, bringing supplies from one side of the lobby to the other. I led her to the reception desk and requested access to the penthouse labs.

"Name please?"

"Silver." I mutter,

"Full name?"

"Katherine Silver and plus one."

The blonde's eyes widen a little as she realizes who I am. "I-I'm sorry Ms. Silver, but there's no plus one on the list."

"Kate, it's fine. We can reschedule for tomorrow." Kamryn promises me.

"No, it's fine. I'm calling Tony." Before I could even begin to dial, my phone beeped.

Tick tock. Bring the agent up. But she waits in the lounge.

From Tony.

Don't tell me you've been watching me on camera.

I text back.

Nope, Happy texted me.

I glance around the Lobby to find Happy coming my way. Looking dreadfully serious. Happy was sure living up to his nickname lately. "Identification, ladies."

I frowned. "Seriously, Happy? I was just here yesterday."

He shook his head, and Kamryn passed her I.D. "Sorry, Ms. Silver, I don't make the rules." Though I was quite certain that as head of security, he does.

I hand over my ID with haste, and follow him to the penthouse elevator. Happy passes us our visitor's badges and urges us not to take them off.

"And I will be watching." He says ominously as the doors finally shut.

"My god." Kamryn says. "He's worse than security at the Triskelion."

"Like I said, don't take it personally. He means well." I defend.

Master Stark ordered me to deliver you straight to his lab.

I hear above me. Kamryn jumped.

I glance at her. "Sorry, that's JARVIS."

"The A.I.?"

That's correct, Ms. Barrett.

"Uh, okay then." Kamryn nods, taking a sip of her coffee.

When we hit the floor of the lab, a finally felt the wave of anticipation wash over me. I was nervous, and yet anxious of what I was here for. The nightmares, the faint blue glow of my veins in my wrists, it all had to mean something.

"The lounge is that way. Second door on the right." I direct, pointing down a hallway. "And thanks, by the way."

"No problem." Kamryn answers dejectedly, following the directions I gave her. I shook the guilt off as I put in my new passcode to the general lab. When I entered, I immediately spot Tony pulling out holographic files and enlarging them. Bruce was doing the same, except, studying my DNA. Seemingly, the files he opened contained my bloodwork.

"Good, you're here." Tony says, not looking up.

"What's the big emergency?"

"Skittles, first." Tony says, walking over to another desk and opening files for a diagram. I rolled my eyes and threw the bag of fruity candy at him. "RUDE!"

"What's going on?" I asked Bruce. As I spoke, he pulled up a detailed view of my dna sample.

"Here." He pointed to the blood platelets on the screen. "These are from the blood in your wrist." He pointed to the platelets that were glowing. "The red blood cells are now a dark blue as a result from your contact with the Tesseract. We think that the tesseract's power has slipped into your bloodstream."

"Instead of killing you, like it should have, your x-gene adapted to it." Tony added, popping a skittle into his mouth.

"And it's doing what exactly?" I said, growing more and more worried, but keeping my expression cool.

"Has your body gone through any recent changes?" Bruce asks, closing the file. I move in closer to Tony, staring at my DNA helix in the enlarged file next to him.

"Other than the sudden mind reading, no." I answer honestly.

Banner's eyebrows knit together, and he scratched his head. "I've studied the x-gene for years, and I'm not an expert, but I think you should take it easy, just until I can do some tests."

"I'm sorry," Stark started, "But did anyone else hear her say that she can read minds?"

I roll my eyes. "I've always had telepathy. I'm one of the rare ones that do. But Charles Xavier, he locked it away when I was young. I wasn't ready for that. He built a wall in my mind, to keep it from pushing through."

"And the accident put a chink in the armor. Awesome." Tony narrowed his eyes at me, "What am I thinking?"

"Seriously?' I fold my arms. "You really want to do this now?"

"Duh. Let's go with the jedi mind tricks."

I decided to bite, and opened my mind to the voices. The onslaught made me wince, considering I could nearly hear the entire building. I took a deep breath and followed Tony's voice into his own head.

He was singing.

"Start spreading the news, I'm leaving today. I want to be a part of it, New York, New York!"

"You were singing New York, New York." I say dryly, "By the way, your internal singing voice sucks." I dodge a skittle thrown my way. "I can go pretty deep. As deep as I want, pull through memories. My powers aren't as shallow as reading minds."

"I want to do a brain scan tomorrow. Maybe noon?"

"Noon's fine." I nod.

"Great, I'm clearing my schedule for the day." Tony immediately picks up the phone.

"No solid foods six hours before, okay?"

"Gotcha." I grab my forgotten coffee and exit the room quickly. When I get to the door however, Kamryn was standing behind it.

"Hey, I was just leaving." I say, with a forced smile.

"I see, but if you need some time alone..." Kamryn trails off, as she studies my face.

"No." I say quickly. I try to smile brighter, "See? I'm fine."

"See you tomorrow, Kitten." Tony mocks, as I lock the door behind me.

I ignore Tony. "See you tomorrow, Bruce."

He looks up, "Yeah, you too."

"Really?" Tony said.

"Yup." I smirk as the lab door closes. "Let's go."

"Are you sure, Kate?" Kamryn said, and I could feel the concern from behind me. As we step into the elevator, I say nothing, but I can feel her gaze burned the side of my face.

"No, I am not okay." I say finally. "But being by myself isn't going to help. Going home to my brothers to worry them isn't going to help." I sigh, "I need to be productive."

After a long pause, she answers, "Okay."

"How far to your apartment?"

"Not long. I live in Soho." Kamryn stated proudly.

"That's actually pretty cool. I always wanted an apartment in the city." I smiled to myself, remembering dreams of a beautiful view with the loud new york city beneath me. But back then, I was sixteen, and a sophomore at Stanford. My dreams were a little unrealistic.

"It's a dream come true, I'll tell you." Kamryn smiles as she hails down a cab. "Why didn't you ever get one?"

"The city is a little expensive for my budget. With all the eyes on my parent's assets, I've been supporting the boys by myself." I explain, my mood dropping a little. But I try to stay positive. "But the boys are going away soon, for college. And even after they get their grad presents, I still have a little saved up. Who knows?" I shrug.

S.O.H

"This is hopeless. I mean, what the hell is all this anyway?" I complained reading my father's reports about the Tesseract.

"Don't ask me." Kamryn shrugged, "This is your area."

"He had to be insane." I shook my head. I knew there was something I had to be missing. Forgotten files with loony theories and hypotheses weren't getting any me closer to figuring out what happened to my father. "What else is there Kamryn?"

"Holy shit, look at this. Your father was detained and questioned in London about a month before his disappearance." Kamryn stood up and brought me the fax sheet of paper. "For trespassing."

I sigh in disappointed. "Kam, I spoke to the investigating agent about this already. It was his old lab from before. He just wanted to retrieve some old family items. He didn't know that his access pass was expired."

"Katherine, it's new info." Kamryn urged. "It was faxed about a month ago from today. Officer Holden, the guard on duty, remembered something else. A phone call."

"What phone call?" I said, with mild irritation. "Why wasn't it in the original report? Why now?"

"He said he was fuzzy, something about being on duty for ten hours. Look, it doesn't matter Kate, it's a lead." Kamryn brought her the printout. "Worth six hours of squat. Now I'll call the tech dept. and see if they can find out who he was talking to."

"Ok. Thanks." I feel the corners of my lips turn up.

"No problem. Now, I'm officially inviting you to dinner." says Kamryn, as she ruffles through drawers and pulls out a few menus.

"Sounds fancy." I muse. I smooth down my tank top. "Do I look okay?"

"I don't mind, but Rummy's a bit shallow." Kamryn matched my response with her charm.

I feel a grin spreading across my face. I was really starting to enjoy having Kamryn around, and that was weird for me. I'd never had a constant in life besides my family. Plenty of long distance friends and allies, but never someone I could call everyday. I snapped out of it when I realized that Kamryn had asked me what were having.

I straighten up and walk over to the kitchen island. "What do we have here?"

"Basically Pizza or chinese."

I picked up a menu. "Giano's Italy. My mom and I, we loved that place." I smiled as I remembered, it was one of my earlier memories with my parents.

"Pizza it is. Any toppings?" Kamryn asked as she grabbed her phone.

"Ooh, the chicken cutlet."

"No problem." Kamryn must have already dialed, because she was already speaking to someone. "Bonjourno, Marco." That's all I heard, considering I was shocked at her perfect Italian.

As Kamryn hung up, I commented, "Non ero a conoscenza che lei ha parlato italiano così buono."

"I spent a year in Italy my senior year in college." Kamryn told me.

"What part?" I was so interested in her story.

"Florence, actually." Kamryn made a face, it was intense, and you could tell she was reliving something. I didn't mean to, believe me, but I saw what she was thinking. More like what she was seeing.

"Giorgio! Giorgio!" She called as she blindly felt around for her love. Kamryn was standing in a stunning little black dress. Her hair was longer and in beautiful curls. She wore a black bandana over her eyes. "Dove sei, Giorgio?" Frowning, she pulls her blindfold off.

The room was lighted, dozens of candles were lit in the room with roses around a table. The table had covered plates on it with glasses of water and champagne to accompany it. There on top of a metal covering was a note. Kamryn picked it up. It read 'Per il mio amore'. She smiled and kissed the note tenderly.

But where was Giorgio?

Out of nowhere, Kamryn could hear shouting. It was in Italian, but Kam could understand most of it. It was coming from the window. As she moved closer to the noise, she could hear Giorgio's voice. And an unfamiliar woman's.

'You lie to me, Giorgio. All you've done to me is lie.' the woman yelled in her native language.

'I could never.' Giorgio was arguing with a another woman.

'Then who is she? That woman you spend all your time with?'

'None of your concern, Gia.'

'It is if you claim she's not like the others. You can't love me if you love her.' the hysterical woman sobbed.

'Gia' Giorgio went to touch her, but she pulls away. 'It is not that simple.'

'Well my question is, do you love me more than her?'

'I do not know.'

'I'll make it easier for you then. I'll leave and never return.' The brunette haired woman then walks away from him angrily.

'Gia! Gia!' Giorgio calls, and runs across to the woman. He gathers her in his arms and kisses her passionately.

By now Kamryn is crying silently. She rips off the bandana. It smells like him. She grabs her purse and jacket, fleeing his apartment as fast as possible.

The memory ends quickly, and Kamryn isn't facing me anymore. Still hearing her sad thoughts, I decide to change the subject. "I hear that TBS is playing Julia Roberts movies tonight."

Kamryn smiles. " Sure. Sounds fun."

And so we had a girls night. The first one I ever had apparently. Kamryn explained to me how this works.

Romantic comedies

Pizza (or Chinese, whatever your feeling)

Wine (and lots of it)

A lot of mindless chatter/ Marveling over hot actors

By the time we fell asleep, Edward is declaring his love to Vivian, and I am very buzzed helping an intoxicated Kam into bed. Although tripping on her floor wasn't supposed to happen so ladies and gentleman that's how I ended up Kamryn Barrett's floor for the very first time', because there were many after that.

Morning was slightly awkward. Kam was pretty embarrassed at how drunk she had gotten and she was slightly hungover. I was pretty embarrassed that I woke up face down on her bedroom floor. We both agreed that we drank too much wine and called it a day.

I was meeting Bruce and Tony at three and it was 7:28. I had over an hour and a half to shove a croissant and coffee down my throat before I was on a strict diet. I grabbed my laptop and decided to skype with Nathan. We hadn't been speaking since I missed his homecoming game, and I hadn't been home for three days. I think it that it was about time that I fixed this.

He picked up after three rings. "You rang?" Nathan was in the kitchen, with his laptop facing the den area, where Jake was sitting.

"I just wanted to check in. Make sure you weren't causing any trouble." I tease with a slight smile on my face. "Hey Jakey!" Jake immediately turned around.

"Hey Kate. What's up?"

"Nothing much. I'm checking in." I repeat. I see a two medium bowls of popcorn on the counter, and notice the plasma was on. "What the hell are you guys doing?"

Nathan pops a piece of popcorn in his mouth. "Game of Thrones marathon."

I gasped. Those assholes! "Hey, you're just gonna watch it without me?" Those traitors! I've been missing episodes to catch it as a family.

"Dude!" Jake whines.

He rolls his eyes at his twin. "Why not? I'm sure you have a TV." Nathan shrugs smirking.

"It was his idea!" Jake defends himself.

"Come on dude, grow some balls!" Nathan yells back.

"You guys better have done your homework!" I shout, though I'm pretty sure they don't care. It's not like I'm at the house to do anything.

"Nate, it's starting. Popcorn, man." Jacob reminds him.

"Duty calls." Nathan smirks. "Give a kiss to that sexy Redhead for me." Then my douche of a brother blows a kiss at me. I flip him off in return. Then he ends the call.

I smile. My brothers are such assholes.

They're so lucky I love him.

S.O.H

I wasn't nervous about the brain scan. At all. To be honest I didn't think much of it. Just another important test. An efficient way to figure out what the new energy has done to my body. Not only that, friends were doing this for me. Not strangers. People that I knew and was starting to really trust. I shouldn't have to be nervous. Bruce has done this plenty of times and mine was going to run just as smoothly. It wasn't that. It was the metal slab in front of me that I was expected to get on. As I entered the room I took a deep breath, burying my nerves and post-traumatic stress deep into my mind. I imagined a door and I shut it all inside. When it was locked and secured, I took a breath of relief and relaxed my face.

"Katherine, just in time!" Tony calls out to me. "We're ordering Thai. You want?"

"No thanks, I ate." I declined, greasy food wasn't going to help me keep my focus. Tony nods and addresses Jarvis with their orders.

"You alright, Kate?" Bruce spoke up from my side.

I jumped a little, then relaxed. "I'm fine. I'll be fine."

"Report on Silver's vitals, will you JARVIS?" Tony calls out, having heard our short conversation.

"Tony, that's not—" I tried to protest.

"Upon arrival, Ms. Silver's heart rate spiked to above 120 per minute. The source of her anxiety is undetermined, Master Stark." JARVIS analyzed.

"Thanks, buddy." Tony turns to me and I look away. "Are you nervous about people seeing into your head?"

"It doesn't hurt, trust me." Bruce tries to reassure me.

"It's not that. It's just brings up bad memories." I shut my eyes as I breathed out. "From when I was a kid." I was sure they knew about it. It was in my files. All of the brain scans and blood tests that were taken after I was returned to my parents, they were there.

"Right."

"Maybe we can compare those to today's scan." I offered.

"Right." Banner agreed. "To catch any irregularities."

"Hey, buddy?"

"Already on it, sir." JARVIS displayed my old medical files on the screen. What I saw was exactly how I remembered it. As impossible as it was, the readings were exact.

"Jesus." Bruce breathed the word. "At age five?"

"Yeah. The X-gene usually activates around twelve, but my mother was a mutant, and my father carried the gene. I really had no chance." I answered reluctantly. "A lot of my memories are vague. I can't exactly remember what they did. Just a metal table." I stared at the one in the room. "With restraints."

"Forget the table. Jarvis can do the scan." Tony said flippantly. I took a sigh of relief and sat on the leather couch in the room. Bruce came over and set the metallic strips on my head.

"You're not going to feel anything besides the calibration of the EKO strips connecting to JARVIS." Bruce soothed.

"I'm fine. I'm ready when u are."

"JARVIS?"

"Calibrating Ms. Silver's brain activity live now, sir." Tony and Bruce moved to a desk in front of me and his holographic computer powered on immediately.

A live feed materializes in front of me and I'm apprehensive about what I see. I raised my eyebrow as I see the parietal and frontal lobes lighting up. What this reading was suggesting, was that I was using around forty-four percent of my brain capacity, which isn't exactly rare for mutants with my power. Imagine the looks of wonder and confusion on their faces as they witness the extent of my power live.

"Impossible." Bruce breathes.

"Highly possible, in my case actually. " I correct him, smiling awkwardly. "Are there any visible irregularities?"

"None, other than the one hundred percent usage of your frontal lobe."

"Make my notebook disappear." Tony calls out.

I roll my eyes, not understanding what he was trying to do. "Tony…"

"Humor me."

"I can't make things disappear. I tried that when I was fourteen." I told him, recalling the story.

"At least levitate it."

I nod and lick my lips, concentrating on the molecules of the book. Easy enough. Staring at the book, it slowly lifted and stayed in the air, with barely any effort on my part.

"There. You see that, Bruce?" Tony points to a part on the screen.

"That's interesting." Banner comments.

"What?" I say, annoyed that I'm not following their findings. In doing so, I break concentration and the book drops.

"We figured out what's going on." Bruce says.

"Yeah, your powers aren't going out of whack, the energy from the tesseract gave you balance and expanded your powers." Tony explained.

"That's not really comforting." I mutter dreadfully.

Very lame ending, I know. But I needed to get this out in time for the new year. I have officially decided the endgame and I think you guys will be wowed and surprised at how deep this story gets, assuming I write it as well as I can picture it. I know I've been falling off, but I'm not giving up.

Anyway, ENJOY THE NEW YEAR GUYS! I hope that your new year begins prosperous and with great luck, because 'good' isn't enough anymore!

Next Chapter: more Kamryn, Steve makes a comeback, the send off for Thor and Loki, and some plot bunnies.

Update: hopefully before the end of January. sorry, I'm working on original stuff and my other fanfics. maybe you'll get this one shot I'm writing soon.

Till next year!

REALHUNTRESS18