January 2014

Nick Fury narrowed his eye and slammed the mission report down on the table before him.

"What do you mean, we've lost her?" he barked, voice resonating through the whole room.

"I've only seen her once - heard her, once. Romanoff is out there still, because of this bullshit goose chase. It's been months, Fury," Tony snapped.

"I'm sure the Avengers can do better than this."

"Sir, I've never even caught a single glimpse of her, never mind had a chance to move at the situation," Steve commented, speaking up for the first time.

"I've seen no reading of her and from what Tony's described to me, she seems almost surreal," Bruce added tentatively.

"So you all are telling me that she's a damn ghost? She's been doing things that no one has ever done before - doing some kind of magic none of us have seen before. None of us, not even the public has seen her in action, but damn it – she's not a ghost."

"How do we know she's even here and not a hallucination?" Tony prodded, upset.

"If you were here at our last briefing, Stark, you would know that she wiped out the entire Circus of Crime when they had five different towns under hostage. Not to mention she killed Carnage the moment we were onto him after his latest attack on Barton."

Clint grunted in response, clearly unhappy.

"She's an asset we could use on this team. In S.H.I.E.L.D."

"I certainly hope you're not questioning our abilities, Director," Thor said carefully, letting the words roll off his tongue slowly.

"Not at all, my dear god," Fury said, chuckling a bit. "If I want it, then I must have it."

A sudden siren and flashing red lights grabbed the attention of the room as agents stormed the room with weapons in their hands. Bruce was suddenly on the floor before he could react, knocked out cold.

"Banner!"

Tony was in his suit, then on the ground, out like a light. His suit shut off with him as his eyes rolled back with sparks coming off of the various joints of his limbs. Clint fell to the floor unconscious and Thor followed seconds after. Agents began to drop, and within a minute, Fury was left standing by himself. He suddenly felt arms grip his shoulders and spun around, shooting whatever was behind him.

"If you want me, sir, then you must come get me," a young woman's voice said, lilting and feather-light.

"What do you want?" Fury demanded.

"I only want reprimands from the Captain," she crooned, before dissipating away from the scene.

Moments later, Bruce stirred and coughed, looking around.

"What happened?" he asked, looking at the fallen bodies around him. Those in the room woke one by one, dazed, as eyes rolled about the room with lack of awareness.

"Check the security cameras now. Check all systems whether or not they were hacked. Check everything. Now," Fury shouted.

"God damn it," Tony grumbled. "JARVIS!"

The system kicked on and he was on his feet, stumbling from the fierce rush of blood through his body.

"What the hell just happened?" Clint questioned.

"Sir, we've double, triple-checked all of our systems. All of our cameras cut off at 21:00, just five minutes before our security alarms were set off," an agent stated.

"All of them?" Fury whispered. "I believe we've just rendezvoused."