Chapter 30 – Exactly As Expected

[2012 – August]

Her parent's love life aside, Silver quickly found herself on the bridge of the Helicarrier.

Ignoring the curious looks of the surrounding SHIELD agents, Silver sat down on the large table near the entrance.

As she tried to rest her hands on the table, while playing her games, she realized that she should have taken her seat cushion with her, as she was too small to comfortably reach the table.

"Are you lost? Should I help you get back to your parents?", a professional female voice asked and interrupted her attempts to find a comfortable seating position.

Turning her head, Silver saw Agent Maria Hill, who had crouched down to her eye-level and was looking at her.

"I am not lost, just exploring.", Silver answered lightly, turning her attention back to her current dilemma.

"Do your parents know that you are 'exploring'? Do they know where you went?", the agent asked, a tinge of concern coloring her tone. Clearly she wasn't looking forward to seeing two superpowered individuals ripping apart the ship, searching for their lost daughter.

"Mother and Father always know where I am.", Silver answered with the calm conviction of a child that had absolute faith in her parents.

In this case though the child was right. Through her mother's magic, Silver shared a telepathic bond with both her parents at all times, like they had between each other.

…

Agent Maria Hill was a professional through and through. She took her duties very seriously and as one of Fury's closest confidants, she had plenty of those.

Still, taking care of the child of two very dangerous and powerful Enhanced wasn't what she had in mind for her duties

Thankfully the child was very well behaved and almost impossibly adorable, and after she managed to procure a seat cushion and left a message about her whereabouts for her parents, the child entertained herself quietly.

Two hours later Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner stepped onto the bridge. They moment they saw a small child sitting on the large conference table, they were both more than a bit surprised. Just as Rogers was about to ask who that child was and what she was doing on the Helicarrier, surrounded by SHIELD agents, the child perked up as two other people appeared on the bridge.

"Mother! Father!", the girl cried out happily. Putting away her gaming console and jumping down from the chair, she ran past the stupified Captain America and Hulk's alter ego.

…

Catching Silver in a hug and lifting her up, I ignored the surrounding people as I addressed her.

"Have you had fun exploring the ship?", I asked.

"Yes, Father.", Silver nodded, while burying her head in the crook of my neck.

"Good, then.", I said, smiling gently at her, as she just melted in my embrace.

Hearing Fury clearing his throat, I looked up at him.

"Gentlemen. And Ladies", he said with a small nod in Wanda's direction, "I believe introductions are in order. Dr. Banner, meet Pietro Maximoff. He is the one we commissioned to keep you in check, should it become necessary. Though I believe you may have heard of him already under his alias Silverfire.", Fury stated calmly.

"Well, you don't not listen, when someone tells you about possibly the only person able to kill you.", Banner said with a dry tone, before extending his hand to me, "Dr. Bruce Banner, pleased to meet you."

Taking his hand and giving him a firm shake, I answered with a curt nod: "Pietro Maximoff."

After that Fury continued: "And that is Wanda Maximoff. She will be helping us in freeing those Loki has put under his mind control, while Captain Rogers here is responsible for eventually engaging Loki himself."

Steve gave a short nod in our direction, as he addressed us: "A pleasure, but I don't think you should have brought the child with you."

Straightforward, as I expected.

"You don't have to worry about that, Captain. There is no safer place for my daughter, than by my side.", I replied.

Crossing eyes with him for a moment, he turned to Fury a moment later to inquire about the mission.

From there, the whole meeting played out, like I remembered from the movie and as Agent Romanoff lead Dr. Banner to his lab, I followed behind.

Wanda meanwhile took Silver back to our room, planing to spend some time with her before the real action started.

Once Romanoff had introduced Banner to his work station, she left again. The whole time she basically ignored me, obviously still sour about the mind control Wanda had put her under.

Talk about a grudge, huh.

"She doesn't seem to like you very much.", Banner stated once we were alone.

"True, but that is mostly just her hypocrisy shining through. A killer like her, has no right to judge others like she does.", I answer calmly.

"So, it's mutual dislike?", Banner noted.

"I don't like double standards, that's all.", I stated.

The conversation died down from there, as he focused on his work.

"Just out of curiosity, how did you get free after Ross put you in that helicopter?", I asked Banner a while later.

Obivously I could have just asked Silver to tell me, as she had already breached into all the SHIELD files, but I didn't care enough to bother her with that. It was, however a passable conversation starter to disperse the quiet atmosphere a bit.

Banner stopped his actions for a moment, before he let out a long drawn sigh and answered: "The Hu-... The other guy didn't like the idea of being experimented on very much and to be honest I didn't either. General Ross had to learn that the hard way though. Along with the fact that even a bunker can't stop the other guy from escaping if he wants to."

"Thought as much.", I answered quietly.

The General never struck me as the most intelligent anyway, otherwise he wouldn't have tried to hunt down a being that quite literally gets stronger, the angrier it gets.

After an hour or so, in which I played around with my fire, mainly training my control, we got interrupted by Agent Coulson informing us, that Loki has been found and Captain America was already on his way to arrest him.

Nearly three hours later, I saw Loki being escorted through the corridor next to the lab towards his cell, before an agent came to lead us to the bridge where Rogers, Romanoff and Thor were already waiting.

I had no interest in their discussion, so I simply went to my quarters to go over our plan one last time with Wanda and Silver.

Patience truly was a invaluable tool in the right hands.