Samples from Comm Part 1

[foster_j]

The Orion emitter beeped, dragging Jane's attention away from her tablet for a moment as she began walking towards it, still typing to get the last of her thoughts down. Signals coming in from the Andromeda galaxy were still wonky, the last signals still showing signs of being deviated from the normal. The remnants of the Convergence. Jane had been backtracking the signals since the dust had settled in Greenwich, determined to understand the readings that were far different then anything she'd ever seen prior. Some of the readings were clear signals from the other galaxies that had been in alignment, and Jane did her best to document and analyse those signals for prosperity, adding to her virtual mapping points to cross-reference all the data when the deviations were too far away from her equipment to pick up.

Now, however, her focus was split between the Einstein-Rosen Bridge and the time-travel incident, so only two computers were taking readings from the Hubble Telescope while the other six were working around the clock on the Bridge data she'd been feeding it. Tapping the emitter, Jane sighed, setting her tablet down to take a look at the emitter's sensors. Somehow one of the small level calibrators had gotten knocked out of alignment, making the emitter unable to lock onto its focus target. With a tiny flashlight between her teeth, she wiggled the sensor, loosening the bolt just a little while she eyeballed the level range between the tripod legs, pleased when the emitter's beeping ceased, and she tightened the bolt again to keep the sensor in place.

Collecting her tablet, Jane returned to her notes, crossing absently back to the array of computers in the warm greenhouse where her coffee mug rested, steam rising from the porcelain. Overhead, the stars were shining against a cloudless sky, the perfect star-gazing weather. Setting her tablet down, Jane glanced up, towards the door leading to the Tower below, noting that it was nearly time for Dr. Banner to join her.

~

"Hey!" Jane called out happily, lifting a hand to wave him over. "Almost. You can set your things down anywhere. I've got popcorn in the microwave." She waved a hand absently to the other end of the long table of computers as she checked the monitor, making a tiny adjustment to the settings. Outside, the biggest of the scopes made a whirring sound and shifted to the right by a tenth of a degree.

She glanced up and laughed softly. "I've fallen asleep up here a few times. The chaises are more comfortable then my old bed in London. I had to beg the Stark crew not to go overboard. Apparently, my idea of overboard and theirs is vastly different. They were hauling a full bathroom set up in before I stopped them." Jane paused to take a sip of her coffee, watching Bruce's interest in her gear. "You're welcome to check it all out."

The trajectory timer went off and Jane hurried over to it, hitting the reset button and setting the equipment up to continue tracking on the other two scopes. They were clearly pointed at other things - if Bruce was curious and asked, she'd explain the other trackers. For now, she went to the mini fridge and pulled out a beer, holding it up to Bruce in invitation though he'd brought tea. "You want to look through the viewer or project it on the wall?" Jane asked.

~

She just smiled and nodded, setting the beer on the table for herself. There was no fear that he would lose control with one beer, but what a person wanted or didn't want was entirely personal, and Jane never disrespected those choices. Shutting the small door of the fridge, Jane rose, absently collecting the beer bottle as she moved down the row of monitors, tapping on a keyboard or two, quickly scanning the readings and checking for any corrections. There were only two, and she made them quickly, as familiar as she was with the gear she herself had built, the programs she'd written. The telemetry readings were still well within parameters and she knew there wouldn't be much until the Voyager 2 download in the morning so she set the autos to run in the meantime.

While the greenhouse hadn't been her idea - she'd only asked for a canopy to keep the elements off her gear - Jane had to admit it was a pretty nice set-up if she had to be away from Mauna Kea for a while. She was, however, rather certain that the idea for the greenhouse and not an enclosed, building structure was probably Pepper's and she was entirely too grateful for that. Jane preferred the open sky, to be able to look up and see the stars above her. "Viewer it is, then. You made the right choice, no matter how cold it is - the view out there is just amazing," Jane laughed softly, crossing to the microwave to pull out the popcorn. There was a stack of bowls on top of the mini fridge and she emptied the bag into one of them. "Monitors 3-6 are still correlating the gravitational deviation readings from Neptune and Pluto. These here," she gestured to the last two monitors on the table. "are computing the density of dark matter displaced by the gravity well caused by the Convergence."

"I'm afraid the prototype of my Bridge* is back at the Observatory. I've been working with the schematics from the Stark reactor for refit, but I'm still getting hung up on the top end power burst. They seem to be built for sustaining a certain ratio output," Jane explained easily, happy to be talking to someone who wouldn't give her a head-tilt after everything she said. Grabbing the beer bottle, she tucked it under one arm as she crossed to the door, holding it open for him. "You'll be able to see Lovejoy now. The tracking will keep the scope on target until it passes out of range in a few hours. I'm taking video, of course, if you want a copy. I know it's not uncommon, but I want to see if its trajectory also shifted during the Convergence."





Staying in New York didn't mean Jane's work came to a standstill. After picking a place to stay - two doors down from Natasha - she'd gone right to Pepper's assistant to get permissions to use the upper-most roof area of the Tower along with the necessary requisitions for equipment. In typical Stark fashion, three telescopes, sensor arrays, telemetry tracking dishes, and a clear, greenhouse type structure was erected in no time. Jane had spent most of the afternoon up there setting up her computers and getting the gear online, although the last telescope was still needing to be assembled. Checking the North sensor array, Jane made her way back to the greenhouse which was heated for the computers - and her - comfort.

Being that she spent most of her time in Hawaii, Jane had rarely come up to this roof before. Sure, she'd looked off the deck forty floors below because, honestly, it was pretty impressive to be standing where all of the Avengers had been at the end of the invasion attempt. The problem was, that balcony connected to Tony and Pepper's lounging area, so it wasn't exactly the best place to set up her gear. Higher, on the true rooftop, Jane felt more at home, even with the dusting of snow all around.

Getting caught up in her work was nothing new for Jane and she was stepping out of the greenhouse, bundled against the cold, when she caught movement by the door out of the corner of her eye. Turning, Jane was surprised to see a man she'd never seen before - which wasn't unusual in the Tower with so many people - but definitely unusual up here unless he was one of the crew that was going to set up the last telescope. "Hi! I'm sorry, I should have let maintenance know I was going to handle the last one myself. But you're already here so it'll go quicker with the two of us. I'm Jane, Dr. Foster," Jane said as she crossed towards him, holding her hand out in greeting, smiling cheerfully.

~

His face could have been plastered on Wanted posters on every channel being broadcast and Jane wouldn't have a clue. She spent all of her time working or reading published papers. Generally, her information came from inside the Tower. Natasha or Pepper, but Natasha had taken a few days off and Pepper was busier than usual, so Jane was happily clueless as per usual just the way she liked it. Too many distracts were just that, distractions. The tall man shook her hand with a warm smile, putting Jane as ease. Then he spoke and Jane's smile melted away.

The itch to slap him was strong, but Jane tamped it down. Barely. "Your name's been mention, Mr. Ward," she stated cautiously. Mentioned was an understatement, but Jane wasn't about to tell him that Skye'd cried while talking about him. Granted, they were drunk, and Skye was pretty far into it before she mentioned him, but it didn't take a genius to make the connection. And Jane didn't think he was going to try anything - she trusted Clint almost as much as she trusted Natasha and clearly Natasha hadn't killed him so he must not be a big concern except for Skye and her poor broken heart.

Waving off his offer to help was also on the tip of her tongue, but she reconsidered. It would definitely go faster with help - she hadn't been kidding there - but it would absolutely be easier as many of the pieces were quite heavy. Jane wasn't weak and she had lots of practice doing it solo, but she'd learned long ago the benefits of accepting help, even basic manual labor help. "Well, I'm putting together a six million dollar telescope so I won't turn down any help offered," she told him honestly, glancing over to the far end of the roof where a few stacks of water-proof, impact-proof boxes remained. "The cases are numbered and heavy, so watch your back. I've cleared a spot over there for it."

~

Jane turned and strode across the rooftop, snow flying from the tips of her boots leaving a wake of feathered footsteps in the snowfall. Now that she could put a face to the name, she wasn't entirely comfortable, but he was at the Tower and Jane really didn't think he'd do anything other than what he'd said he would. In this particular instance, that was helping her, so she'd make good use of that help. She had her hands shoved into her jacket pockets because she couldn't wear gloves doing the assembly - not even thin ones could get a grip on the smaller pieces and it was precision work.

Moving to the boxes, she flipped the latches on the top case and raised the lid to show one quarter of the base stored there in firm foam molds. The three boxes beneath it held the other pieces, but for now, Jane nodded to Ward as she slipped her hands beneath one side of the piece. "It's heavy but slippery. We can just set it down on the tarp there. When we unload the rest of the base, I'll just need you to hold the pieces upright together so I screw them together," she told him, lifting at the same time he did and shifting the piece over to the tarp a few feet away. "I was hoping the snow would have stopped, but it just keeps coming."

"Besides, this is the small one," Jane laughed, tilting her head back to where the other two, very large telescopes were panning the sky in a minutely slow, invisible to the eye movement controlled by sensors and the program she'd written.

"So what is you're doing here, besides helping me?" she asked casually, making small talk while they unpacked and moved the pieces.

~

"True. I haven't really spent a lot of time on the East coast in the last few years, and I'm afraid Hawaii has spoiled me a bit," Jane admitted, casting her gaze skyward for a moment. It was too brief a moment. She could, in fact, spend all night staring at the stars, working out algorithms in her head as the constellations lit up the night. It didn't matter the weather, though she had to admit that she did enjoy star-gazing more on her porch overlooking the ocean more than any other Earthly location to date.

As Jane stood up two of the base pieces and nodded for him to hold them, she caught his glance to the other telescopes and laughed. "Impressive only in that Stark's folks certainly know how to follow instructions really well. It took two teams four hours to set those up," she told him, her main focus on setting the bolts in place and turning them quickly with nimble fingers. "Everything. All of it. Everything there is to be known, found," Jane laughed again, softly. "But I'm guessing you mean more specifically. There was a rather stellar event some time ago - maybe you heard of the situation in Greenwich. What most people think of as time is linear. We've been talking for less than 10 minutes. You're a certain age, etc. But time exists in all dimensions. When you look up at a star, what you are seeing is an echo of light. That star might have gone super nova thousands of years ago, but the light that traveled away from it - the light you see in the sky - that's been traveling for hundreds if not thousands of years. The event in Greenwich was the result of universe moving over thousands of years incrementally to cause an instability that intersected several universes at a specific point. Well, the movement continued so the intersection is gone, but the trail left in universal gravity is still doing that slow movement further and further away from our universe. I'm studying it."

While she'd been talking, with Ward's help, Jane had finished assembling the base and now she stood to examine the numbers on the other boxes. "We're looking for 10 & 11," Jane said absently while Ward talked. Clint. Natasha. She had heard of the special case Stark's people were working on. It made sense that this was the friend Ward spoke of. Jane had developed a friendship with Natasha over some time, and she could put the dots together as to who's safety had been involved. "Do you have plans? For the future?" she asked, shifting one of the boxes to see the number - 23 - and grimaced. The piles of boxes numbered just over a 100 and they hadn't been placed in any particular order.

~

"Specific? Yes and no. That's a bit more complicated. What happened was completely unknown to us. The Aztec's thought it was the end of the world, which led the unfortunate life cycle calendar that con-artists use to scare people. Point is, the astronomical community began gathering gigabytes of data the moment we realized the enormity of the event unfolding. Sadly, we had very little warning, and I was, err, a little preoccupied, err, off-planet, to coordinate a world-wide focus until it was over," Jane explained, glancing up from behind the stack of boxes she'd just checked.

She moved to the next stack, already seeing one number of the digits halfway down and began stacking the top boxes off to the side. "Got 10 here. Can you put it over by the base, please?" Jane called out as she slid the covering box off for him.

The one under was 11 and Jane picked it up and brought it over to the tarp, setting the box down to the side of #10. "In general, the event you cleaned up for, is showing me a lot about how gravity works in mass," she continued, reaching over to unlatch box #10 and open it. Inside gleamed the stainless steel half column that would fit together with the one in #11 to form the pedestal from the base. They were large, but light, much lighter than the smaller base boxes had been.

Jane was also considering if she wanted to tell him more of her studies. While she wasn't concerned with anyone breaking into the Tower to steal her data (or herself), she still paused before finally saying. "More specifically, I'm using that data to build an Einstein-Rosen bridge. In layman's terms, I'm making a portable wormhole."

"Well, what would you like?" she asked, arching a narrow eyebrow at her impromptu companion. "If the sky was the limit, what would you want?"

~

"Similar but that was a spacial anomaly, far more dangerous and harder to control. If that had been left open, it would have started pulling parts of our world into the void. That's why, in part, Eric used the Stark reactor to power it - it had a limited amount of energy in it. Powering a tower this size, it could have worked flawlessly for about a year. Powering the Tesseract drew on all its power for a very short burst of time - without knowing the specifics of the containment device, I can only estimate but the anomaly probably wouldn't have lasted a week," Jane answered absently, fitting the pieces together and checking the connection with a tiny calibrator. If it was off by even a single millimeter, the telescope's mechanisms could wear incorrectly and cause stress on the parts.

"Why?" she glanced up for a moment, confused at his question. He was an attractive enough man, in that boy-next-door sort of way that was unremarkable. No doubt, that came in handy as a spy. For a man. For a woman, Jane fully understood why Natasha could seamlessly "be" other women, could change the color of her hair and clothing style and be perceived as a different, but still gorgeous woman.

"To explore our universe. There are worlds out there, that we couldn't begin to imagine. Yes, there are beings out there that won't be friendly, but there might be some that are. And, honestly, 99.9% of the universe is uninhabited. The odds that my Bridge will find one of the populated planets is astronomical. We might find resources that can help us improve our own world, or find another planet that we could colonize."

She resumed the jig-saw puzzle of rebuilding the telescope, listening to his answer and considering it. It was strange. Jane didn't think that would be a limit thing, not fighting. Couldn't he just stop now? If he wanted to, it was very simple. "Forgive me, but I don't understand. If you don't want to fight, just don't. Spies aren't dumb, so that means you are a smart man. I'm sure there's something else you could do, something that you would find rewarding, if you put your mind to it. Oh, can you hand me that wrench?" Jane asked, pointing to the tarp to the right of his foot.





Jane had arrived just after Steve to the meeting, though her focus had been on her tablet where JARVIS was feeding her counter measures to the virus she was designing. She made adjustments and let 'him' try to break it down once again. This was a delicate process as she was trying to filter out very obvious intrusions that would be caught in a protection grid while still retaining the ability to insert information overriding HYDRA's formula. If she succeeded, HYDRA's backup's, databases, even its remote backups would all be overwritten with her version of the formula - something that would not work and would be virtually untraceable.

As the meeting started, Steven gave his run-down and she was half-listening, aware of most of the information he spoke of, while juggling the read-outs JARVIS provided her. Jane expected the Steve, Natasha, and Clint would do most of the planning and strategy with an occasional question to her as to the feasibility of something or another thing. Her attention was drawn further into refining the virus, her fingers tapping lightly against the cool glass screen.

It was JARVIS who pulled her focus away from the virus when, on the screen, a message flashed 'Your attention is required in the meeting, Dr. Foster'. Jane glanced up in surprise, hearing the tail end of Clint's words as she looked from him to Natasha to Steve and then back to Clint. "I have been at odds with SHIELD in the past, yes, but, er, what are we talking about here? You want me to go undercover - with HYDRA?" she asked incredulously, her subconscious memory bringing Natasha's words to the surface. Jane's gaze shot to Natasha.

~

Steve. Steve had a calming, reassuring tone to his voice. It was the only thing keeping her from full-on panic. He made it all sound so reasonable, doable, logical. The man could sell ice to Eskimos. His words threw her into thinking about the logistics of filtering information out of a HYDRA facility without blowing her 'cover'. It was possible, of course. Anything was possible with the right tech. "I'm not sure it would impede anything. I believe HYDRA is using both private and public cloud storage servers to move their data between facilities in real-time. If they are, I would be able to use those same public services to coordinate with JARVIS," she pointed out, letting her thoughts run down that avenue of the operation to distract herself from the panic.

Clint. He'd be there. She wouldn't be alone. Okay. Okay. She could do this. Clint would look out for her. Jane's gaze went to Clint, then Natasha. "Well, you're right. It makes the most sense. My, er, relationship with SHIELD was rocky, at best. I wasn't always, um, forthcoming with the extent of my research. HYDRA agents in SHIELD would know about that," Jane explained slowly, clearly awkward about her past with that agency.

"I can do it. I mean, Clint will be there, right? He'd what? Pull us out if things go wrong?" she asked. Gods help her, Jane was hoping that Natasha's version of essentials covered keeping her ass alive.

~

Ah. The stare from Natasha got her heart racing again. She did trust the other woman, but she had a feeling that what she thought Natasha capable of was only scratching the surface. A dangerous, dangerous surface. This was one hell of a rabbit hole she was going down to earn that stare.

"I... I understand," Jane told her, told them all, although she wasn't entirely certain that was the truth. She knew HYDRA through their science, their methods, the lengths they'd go to, which made the situation all the more frightening. "But this is important. If I can see how their information transfers are actually happening, I'll be able to tailor my virus better and the chance to see what they are doing first-hand could be invaluable. We might never get another chance."

There were so many things racing through her mind, but a continuous thread of trust for the people in the room with her was what kept Jane from telling them all that they were crazy.

"Cover story, right," she repeated, glancing to Clint with a weak smile, then back to Natasha. "Baby steps. I trust you all, Nat, Steve, Clint. I know you wouldn't suggest this if you didn't think it was possible." There was a lot riding on this. Tension hung in the air. It was her choice. Her decision. They were counting on her, her team, she was part of a team bigger than herself. After everything she'd gone through with Thor, Jane was more confident about her capabilities. "I can do this. I can. I want to."

~

There it was again, the reassurances, that tone Steve had that made people eat out of his hands. He had to be aware of it. That made Jane have all the more faith in him. Natasha was going to teach her the basics. She was already laying out how to keep the research going in the lab while she trained with Natasha for this mission. It was likely she'd train with Clint, to work out her cover story that he was going to present to HYDRA, too. Maybe even Steve.

"I'm known for my astrophysics. The best lie is the truth, right? If Clint is going to 'sell' me to HYDRA, he'll have to know what I'm working on, won't he? Once I'm in, assuming they buy Clint's story, how long do you think I'll have to stay?" she asked, the foremost questions coming to her first. Most of what she was thinking of was technical aspects of preparing to go.

~

"I can get him my CV - my curriculum vitae - although I suspect HYDRA already knows all that about me if they were targeting me when I arrived back in the States. If they were targeting me, we should find out why. If it's for my work with the quantum field generator, then Clint will need to know a bit about it. Theoretically, it makes the most sense that they'd want something like that - it transfers molecular energy from one object to another - essentially a transporter that can cover hundreds, millions of miles," Jane explained patiently.

A month was far less time than she had originally thought she'd have to keep the rouse up for, so Jane nodded thoughtfully. "Most scientific labs revolve around bi-weekly report cycles. It's not out of the question for HYDRA to stick to those protocols, but the time span doesn't bother me. I'd rather stay longer and get what we need," she sighed. "If I can win their trust, well, we'll cross that bridge when it comes, right? One thing at a time."

Jane didn't say it, but her thoughts also went to Steve's friend, Bucky Barnes. If she could get access to the records that could help Steve and Natasha with him, Jane would do her best there. The more they knew overall, however, was of equal importance, especially if she could pin down their information transfer system. She glanced over to Natasha and subtly nodded. Yes, she could do this. She had survived Loki's attack at New Mexico. She had overcome the Aether, Dark Elves, and the end of the world. "I have a good idea of what I'm getting myself into, Steve. If I feel like we can't sell this, I'll tell you," Jane declared finally.

~

"Yup, baby steps. I know this isn't happening without planning, and that makes me feel better about the whole thing, honestly," she admitted. It wouldn't be hard to be herself, to compartmentalize the tower and her 'team mates'. Scientists, successful ones at least, were able to keep their private and career lives separate due to the fact that it was uncharacteristic for partners to understand exactly what they did for work. To be fair, she'd kept a lot from SHIELD after they'd hired her on, mostly out of a desire to make progress in her research without the chance of it being classified. At the time, Jane had rationalized it as simply not telling SHIELD, so honesty wasn't an issue. She hadn't lied, just withheld the truth.

Glancing to Clint, seeing the firm look in his eye, strengthened her resolve further. "Oh, you'll all know if I have concerns," she laughed softly, her off-key humor taking some of the edge off what she was considering. It was at the forefront of her thoughts that she had to be mentally ready for this, because failing wouldn't just risk herself, it would risk Clint. She'd never forgive herself if that happened.





She'd been joking - mostly. There had been a few times during grad school where Jane had been the victim of male jealously leading to them stealing her car's spark plugs enough that she took vengeance on them with their own medicine. Still, she hadn't really thought something like that might help with HYDRA although it didn't seem out of the question now.

"Okay, do you want me to fight it when they're spewing incorrect data or in other ways? I might need some examples, because it would be reckless if I didn't stop them from a course that might blow up the entire lab. I mean, I can hold my tongue if they're just blustering stupidly, heaven knows I did that a lot through grad school when they felt the need to contradict everything I said, including my professors," she pointed out. A part of Jane was hoping desperately that Natasha didn't expect her to sleep with any of the HYDRA scientists, because Jane wasn't going to do that.

She'd happily slit their throats if Natasha would show her how (minus high heels), but her heart belonged to another even as confused and tired of missing him as she was.

~

"Okay, smaller scale, got it," Jane repeated, torn between being grateful and being wary of just what that would mean. Of course, keeping her story as close to reality was the key, but she'd still need to 'sell' whatever method of insertion they chose. When Natasha pointed to her heart, Jane understood - really understood. Her entire academic life had been a fight because her passions for science were misinterpreted as her being an emotional female that others could simply ignore. The problem there was that the more she was ignored, the more Jane fought back, harder and with more passion.

"Oh... OH!" she followed Natasha's reasoning fairly quickly, her eyes widening in surprise while her thoughts raced. Yes, it was all over the internet that Thor had been slapped by a woman in the UK before they both disappeared. Her family and friends had known about the deep sadness she'd fallen into after his first absence. No doubt, SHIELD had been very aware of her prolonged mourning. It made sense to take that route. She could sell that. Thor was not here now, after all.

"That makes perfect sense. So, I just have to feign an interest in Clint. I can... I can do that," Jane reasoned, her tone distracted because her mind was racing at a thousand miles an hour. "That's a good cover, really, it is. You're going to tell Thor that's a cover if he comes back while I'm gone, right?" She paused, turning to take a few steps before swiveling on her heel, pacing back. "Although... well, anyone who knows me knows I'm not going to fall in with a guy randomly. We should, um, be seen in public together. Dinner or a gallery showing."

~

There was an immediate relief at Natasha's reassurance, the tension flowing out of her shoulders that she didn't even know was there. She had thought of Heimdall, but every mention of him by Thor only spoke to the demi-god being able to see her, not that he could hear what she was saying, so she was less anxious that Thor would get the wrong impression. That was assuming he was still having Heimdall watch over her. Heimdall clearly had been watching over Natasha for Thor to come when she needed assistance, so there was that.

She wrinkled her nose at that. "No, that won't work. I'm supposed to be... what? the 'scorned' woman? The first time Thor disappeared, I threw myself into my work for six months without break, before I lost it. It took two years before my mom convinced me to go on a blind date. Dating has never been a focus in my life, so for me to suddenly be, what? Lonely, depressed, needy? I... I mean, sure, I've cried over a pint of ice cream before over a guy, but I didn't throw myself at the first guy who crossed my path. No one who knows me would buy that."

"No..." Jane sighed, frowning deeply as she continued to pace, turning this over in her mind. She stopped short, her features expressive and open with the sudden idea. "What if... what if he saved my life? Not really, but we could stage something, right? Well, you could. What if he, oh, oh, right - it would have to be in a public place, like Central Park," she stammered, the idea dancing around in her head. "That would be something that would catch my interest in a guy. I'm, um, scorned, right, and angry, and this guy swoops in and saves my life, so I'd be, um, grateful, right? And adrenaline surging causes emotional attachments..."

~

It was easier for Jane to consider the whole picture through biological responses that she knew herself to be vulnerable to, then for her to view it from a spy's perspective. She could simply count on one hand the number of guys she'd pursued in her life and it was a very small number. Heck, even Darcy would have laughed at the idea of Jane chasing after a guy, even one as good looking as Clint, which meant that SHIELD's personality mock-ups probably had that covered as well.

"No, it doesn't have to be a big thing," Jane agreed warily. The idea that they might stage something big and dangerous was a concern, but she did trust Natasha to a point. "That would be pretty normal for me, sure. Yeah, that would work. Should work. I hope."

All the possibilities danced in her head. Some of them were not so promising. But Jane had put her trust in these people, and she was very determined to make this undercover assignment as believable as possible. The more HYDRA bought the cover, the safer she and Clint would be, and hopefully, the more information she would be given access to that could help their efforts. "Okay, the cover will get us in, allow me to talk with Clint without raising suspicions, what else do I need to know?"

~

"Don't oversell it," she repeated, nodding to show she understood. What Natasha said made sense. When you simply reacted, that was all it was. When you were acting, there was some dimension of having the sense of it inside your head before you could react. She'd have to work on that.

It certainly helped that she had spent some time around Clint already, gotten to know him a little. Hopefully too, any little scenario they played out would give her a jump start toward letting those mental hang-ups loose. "I'll work on that."

Natasha couldn't know that Jane was thinking of the first time she'd been brought into SHIELD HQ's, her thoughts there of the people who had nearly ruined her life's work, only to find that they were people like her for the most part. Still, she had managed to not get close to any of them. Mainly because she always kept it in the back of her mind that they could sweep away any of her discoveries at the slightest wimp. Natasha's last statement brought her thoughts around abruptly. "Bunking with Clint? Oh, I... I hadn't thought of that. I guess it's a possibility."

"That part you don't have to tell me twice. I've never had much reason to get close to any lab partners in the past. The level of competition in my field is brutal. You just don't get friendly. You never know if they want to come to your apartment for drinks or to snoop through your papers when you aren't looking," Jane assured her firmly, a hard glint in her eyes. "Clint is the only person I will trust, that's a given."

~

Under the right set of circumstances, Jane could be very ruthless. Threaten her friends, her family, her world, and there wasn't anything Jane wouldn't do. She was a world away from who Natasha was, but they were both women, both had that capacity for fierce passion, both accustomed to fighting to be taken seriously, to be given the respect they deserved. Yes, she was going into a very dangerous situation, but the basics, the basics, never seemed to change.

And Jane had a pull, a drive, here. She'd seen the data from Clint's attack on the HYDRA facility. There was a man out there, a man that meant a lot to Steve, who from Steve's account had been used in the most visceral of ways. HYDRA had done that. They knew how they'd done it. If she could get to that data, she could reverse-engineer it, she was certain. Jane didn't flaunt it, but she was a genius. Not a full-tilt, grand duchess ego like Stark's, no, but she knew, if the data was there, if they had done it, she could help un-do it. And Steve was a friend. That made his friend her friend.

"I'm not nervous," Jane stated bravely, perhaps a bit more bravely than she actually felt about the situation, but there was no part of her mind that thought Clint would take advantage. He was like Natasha. Skilled, trained, compartmentalized. All she had to do was let herself play along. "Because we both know what would happen if a certain someone checked in on me at the wrong time. Okay, so I'm bitter, Clint saves my life, I'm grateful, a little infatuated, he tells me about this great place that needs me and I go with him. That's the hard part. In the lab, that's just all me."

"When I get access to their system, I'll plug JARVIS in. If there's a way to relay between us, he'll find a way," Jane reasoned, trying to think of what could go wrong, but she was so far out of her depth here. "I'm guessing Clint is going to be doing the heavy lifting. What else do I need to know?"

~

Jane crossed to one of her workstations, tapping on the keyboard for a moment, and then several screens popped up. "I'm not bringing JARVIS in, I'm going to plug him in. See this? It's an algorithm that takes a message, and parses it out to incoming emails at the facility. One letter will be inserted into a single 'spam' email received by all the low level personnel in the facility, in distributed departments, from our favorite current Nigerian prince and various erectile miracle drug distributors."

"See this? The algorithm replicates itself into the pixels of each letter. When their email systems automatically shunt those emails into their spam files, it replicates itself into the same letter on one outgoing message. Once the outgoing message reaches its destination IP address, it will copy itself once more to an IP address that JARVIS will be monitoring. Untraceable," Jane finished, pointing to three more screens while Natasha looked on. She looked up at the other woman sheepishly, blushing lightly. "I might have been working on this for awhile."

She straightened, laughing softly. "You want me to use less words. Have we met? I tend to, um, ramble. It's okay. The more 'me' I am, the better they'll believe us." Jane flashed a smile to Natasha. "Boundaries, got it. As far as killing someone... I'll keep that in mind, okay?"

~

"Yeah," Jane agreed sheepishly. The thing she wasn't saying, the thing she wouldn't say, was that she'd been working on the program since SHIELD began screwing with her life as a way to communicate with Eric when he was out of the country. Things had just taken a different turn before she could finish it, that's all. It wasn't in the realm of genius for Jane to finish something she'd started a few years earlier. "It's a simple relay program, nothing that we can use against them, though."

She went to retrieve her coffee mug, listening to Natasha. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Jane put out grimly. Sure, she had no trouble teleporting evil aliens into other dimensions when the world was a risk. Sure, she might have slugged a few demi-gods. But outright killing? Well, that was an iffy situation that even Jane couldn't speak to. "I'll get with Clint, work out the details. Thanks for your advice, I'll do what I can not to get us killed."





It had been a restless night's sleep, tossing and turning, even though Thor had arrived at the Tower, with her subconscious playing tricks on her, causing Jane to wake several times during the night at the slightest sound. She was nervous, knowing how much depended upon her being believably attracted to Clint Barton in the coming weeks - an illusion she would have to maintain or risk both their deaths, something Jane felt a deep responsibility over. She had volunteered for this mission, and they were counting on her to be able to keep up with Clint when HYDRA had them under a microscope. The slightest screw-up - it haunted her sleep, what little there was of it. Around 5:00 a.m., she finally fell into a deep sleep, waking three hours later with no memory of her dreams.

A quick shower later, Jane pulled on her customary jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt before gathering her hair into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. What did that matter? Clint didn't care what she looked like, he was a trained agent, he could fake affection without batting an eyelash. It was all on her. For all her reassurances to Natasha that she simply had to be herself, because well, anyone who knew anything at all about her would see her being false from a mile away, when the most important thing she had to do for this mission was to BE FALSE about a romance. Hell, she didn't even have a handle on what the hell was or wasn't going on with Thor and she was supposed to project attraction to Clint, a man she barely knew. Except that's what coffee was for, right? To get to know him in a way that helped her fake this believably.

Gathering her courage, she headed down to the kitchen for coffee and to meet Clint. Thankfully, he was already there and she stopped at the coffee machine to fill her mug before going over to the lounge area to greet him. "Good morning," she said with no real certainty. "So, I'm hoping you have some tips on how to do this."

~

The coffee was a little hotter than she preferred, but Jane was going all-in this morning, so she powered through the sting as she took a big sip, willing the caffeinated liquid heaven to back up her nervousness. She didn't have any frame of reference for what this should be like. Her scattered history with 'relationships' had been a distracted mess of conflicting schedules punctuated by a few smoldering tumbles in bed that generally ended badly.

Clint was looking relaxed, thankfully, or not. She couldn't tell when he was being 'spy-ish' or not, much the way she always sort of took Natasha to be all the time. Clint exuded the strong, silent type persona, though she knew he had a great sense of humor hiding under that facade.

"Details, right. Um, green, I don't have one, and damned if I know," she laughed, feeling some of the tension lessen with the injection of humor. Jane took a seat on the sofa next to Clint, just a foot away, tucking one leg up under her to sit sideways while cradling her mug.

Under different circumstances, Jane would have abjectly found him attractive. He had incredible arms. Nice eyes. A gravely toned voice that most women found appealing. He wasn't Thor, but to be fair, Thor was completely opposite of the men she'd dated in the past also. So, that was something she could reason out. "I'm all ears," she prompted after a long moment.

~

A soft chortle escaped her lips and she tried to reign it in, but Jane was Jane and it quickly went from her trying to stifle it to a devilish giggle that lit up her eyes. "Somehow I think blackmailing a super spy would be bad for my health. Your secret is safe with me," Jane assured him, another tiny giggle escaping her lips.

They seemed to share a common ground in humor, which Jane counted as a lucky thing. As serious a scientist as she was, Jane enjoyed a good laugh when she could. Life was too short to be grim all the time. Besides, her world, she viewed, as being full of wonder and discovery, all of which were good things as far as she was concerned.

She sobered though, when Clint began speaking again. Yeah, she didn't think this was his first rodeo, in fact, Jane was comforted by that fact. It was like sex, it was better if one of you wasn't a virgin. She started to nod, feeling calmer than she had been for days, and turning the information into an organized list in her head. Her eyebrows arched, however, at his confession.

Jane set her mug on the low table. "ASL?" she asked, signing the letters. "I did under grad teaching. We had to learn for the state requirements. I'm very rusty mind you, but it could come in handy." Jane wasn't concerned about spreading anything Clint told her. She wasn't a gossip. Jane paused for a moment, thinking before she signed hesitantly you and Natasha? finishing with a tiny heart made of her curled fingers.

~

The feeling of relief when Clint nodded was almost palatable. She hadn't been entirely certain that she'd signed that correctly, so at least she had gotten that right. Things were looking up. Clint looked pleased as well. Another minor victory. She sent a silent thanks to whatever bureaucrat that had decided physicist teachers needed to know ASL, in a science that was 99.8% mathematics.

Ah, so she hadn't been wrong when she'd picked up on the shift in the way he'd said Natasha's name. She was foolishly pleased with herself for picking up on that, but a second later, consequences occurred to her. You speak differently on her name, she signed painfully slowly. "I'm fairly clueless on that sort of thing," Jane added, arching her eyebrows.

"Well, if they're expecting me to do more than hand hold in public, then they've gotten my file mixed up with someone else's," Jane declared firmly, then edged slightly. "I, er, I may have kissed in public once or, er, twice, but those were extenuating circumstances." She wasn't quite sure how Thor would take any of this, though, as she hadn't told him of it yet. His arrival had distracted her.

Retrieving her mug, Jane sat back, feeling more comfortable with the whole idea of this. "The scenario doesn't need for me to be head over heels in love with you, so some degree of unfamiliarity should be expected. Let's see, what would I know about you? How do you like your coffee?"

~

The nudge drew a surprised, bright laugh from her lips and Jane reigned it into a warm chuckle. She'd needed that. The edges were falling right off. Clint's relaxed manners, his teasing, it was disarming. If she had more guile about her, Jane would realize that it was intentional, but she was a very genuine person in a social setting since her geekness lived in her molecules. "Well, I have a feeling they'll know if I'm a screamer, which I'm not," Jane interjected with a blush that spoke to her feigned casual declaration. "So, um, yeah, not that."

She tried to think about sex, but it just made her blush deeper. Still, there was a lot at stake. Sucking her bottom lip between her teeth, Jane rocked up on her hip, holding the coffee mug out over the floor while she tugged the hem of her t-shirt up a little and rucked the waist of the jeans down a tad more, uncovering the rise of her hipbone. A birthmark, darker than her porcelain skin made a vague half-moon there. "Only one," she squeaked out, quickly tugging her jeans back in place, though she didn't avert her gaze from his. Jane wasn't a shrinking violet when it came to good sex, but she wasn't used to talking about it casually.

More nodding. Jane had a serious coffee addiction so she wasn't going to sling barbs over Clint's choices. She also had a bit of a sweet tooth, so that worked into what she might bring back for him while they were at HYDRA. It was 'real' for Jane to bring a romantic partner coffee and a treat. The more she could be herself, the better. "I could make it a condition," Jane pointed out firmly. "I'm worth it and they'll know that. SHIELD gave me anything I wanted. It got to the point where I started asking them for things I thought they would say no to, just to see if they would. They didn't. Happy scientists are productive, smart scientists all the more so, so please tell me you don't snore."

~

"I'll do my best to contain any disappointment to acceptable levels," she teased back, nudging his foot with the back of her hand playfully. It was easier to think of Clint like one of her cousins, making the banter and toying comfortable in her head. "I've heard men talking to each other so I thought the mark would be something you should know, because otherwise, I'm clearly perfect." Jane laughed happily at that. She had a healthy ego, accepting of her body the way it was and kept it healthy.

Nightmares. Now that sobered her up quickly. She had nightmares. Her mom had said she called out in her sleep. "I don't snore, either, but mom says I toss a bit and talk if I'm having a nightmare. It... it's from the Aether, I think. I used to sleep like the dead before that happened to me. Now, well, not so much. If I wake you, just tell me to be quiet," Jane admitted, somewhat grateful that she didn't feel like a solitary freak now. "Donald - my ex - claimed I can grind my teeth if I'm stressed, but I think he was just saying that so he had an excuse to leave. He was a bit of a prick."

Her expression shifted noticeably when he mentioned Loki, turning toward restrained dislike. Even though he'd helped Thor get the Aether out of her, Jane still felt the hatred and distrust rising just hearing his name, even though he was dead. "Got it. Hardcore Clint. As long as you aren't a dick directly to me, I can handle that. I've seen a lot of things since SHIELD first found me, and I've done a lot of things I never thought I would. So I mean it when I say, don't direct it at me, or I can't promise I won't be in your face about it, okay? I trust you, Clint," she told him firmly.

"Our timeline is going to bring up surprises, Clint. We'll be a new couple in their eyes, so knowing too much won't help, will it? New couples are all about figuring things out about each other. It's the 'honeymoon' period when hormones and sex make everything seem not quite so bad. So, it won't be a surprise that I don't know a lot about you, to them. You're just the guy my mother would have warned me away from," she mused wryly.

~

On the flip side, Jane had seldom had anyone speculate on her love life. She hadn't found time or had the inclination to date during grad school, then her life sort of took off in terms of career path which left almost no time at all to consider dating. On and off over the years, her mother had set her up on a few dates, which led to some tumbles in bed, then progressively more frustrated text messages as the guys realized Jane wasn't going to throw her career and life's work away for them. Donald had just been one in a mediocre line of men to finally understand that.

"We'll take turns sleeping on the floor," she chuckled warmly. Jane didn't fault Clint for having ghosts, too. Just one more thing that gave them a comfortable common ground to relate to each other when they were undercover. Clint wouldn't feel as alone, and she wouldn't feel the need to hide that from him out of embarrassment.

Her mug was cooling in her hands, but Jane was almost done with the coffee so she didn't move just yet. What Clint followed up with surprised her. Another arched eyebrow, this time in cool regard. Jane had some very firm, lingering feelings about what SHIELD had done to her in Puente Antiguo. "I didn't know that," Jane replied, tensing again. That tension was effectively broken with his poke. She couldn't be angry at Clint for what had happened there, it seemed. "Right, right. Want more coffee? 'cause I'm hungry now."

~

"Excalihammer?" Jane repeated in a mixture of incredulous humor and surprise, doing nothing to stifle the laughter that bubbled up. "Darcy calls it Mew Mew. Poor Mjölnir. On Asgard, I heard something about it being made out of a star by Odin, though don't ask me how that's supposed to work since stars are basically super-heated gases with incredibly dense centers made up of metals, but the gravity is so strong it's a liquid ball."

Her eyebrow arched higher, though she remained neutral. "I'm at the top of my field," Jane replied with a shrug of her shoulder. Coulson would have been a fool if he hadn't know that, and of all the things Jane could think of that man, fool certainly wasn't a title she'd have given him. Now that he was dead - mostly? - she didn't want to speak ill of him.

The idea of Clint cooking was enough to drag her back to a light chuckle. "If you're hungry, I make a pretty good omelet if you're game to try," she offered, sliding off the sofa, nudging his foot with her knee as she did. It made her smile brighter. She crossed to the kitchen area and took a peek inside the frig. Everything she needed was there, plus some.

~

She laughed even harder for a moment, genuinely enjoying the joke with Clint. Having seen Mjölnir under that tent, though, that sobered her a bit. Jane knew how much Mjölnir meant to Thor, had heard the pain in his tone when he'd called to the heavens in agony and regret. While the term was funny, Jane just ended up shrugging helplessly. "I can see how that made sense. I wouldn't, um, mention that to Thor, if you know what I mean. He's a little, err, sensitive about Mjölnir."

Setting the eggs and egg whites on the counter, Jane glanced up at Clint with a smile. Passing up an onion, a green pepper, and a container of spinach, she said. "You can start on those. Not too small," Grabbing the mozzarella, Jane opened a cabinet and dug out a bowl. Checking a drawer, Jane circled around Clint to check another, finding a whisk and holding it up triumphantly, wiggling her eyebrows. "Easiest yummy omelet in the world. Even I can't screw it up, which, is more remarkable than you know."

Pan on the burner, Jane returned to the bowl and began cracking eggs, peeking into the bowl to make sure there were no shell bits as she went along, counting them out in her head. "Pass the salt and pepper, please." Belatedly, Jane realized this was a good exercise in being comfortable with Clint, in a very domestic way. She had a moment of fear when the idea that overthinking it would make her feel awkward, but it wasn't and the moment passed. "Do you have any food allergies? Or anything that you really dislike to eat?" she asked, just treating this as a 'get to know you' breakfast the morning after, minus the sex part.

~

She giggled softly but declined to say more there. It wasn't in her to rub that in, not to mention, Jane had seen the TV footage in New York. Clint had been as bad-ass as the rest of them, and she wouldn't want Thor to be on the end of his arrows anytime soon. It was good, however, that he could easily make her laugh. Jane's default setting was happy. It didn't take much to nudge her in that direction, but it didn't take much to nudge her in the other with the right trigger. So far, Clint was as easy to get along with as her favorite cousin, and she was more than happy to ease him into that category in her head.

Adding a handful of the cheese to the whisk, Jane nodded her thanks as she took the passed shakers. "No allergies. I'm not a fan of super spicy stuff. No jalapeno's or chili's, but a little heat is okay," she told him, flashing a smile before she circled behind him again to run some butter over the pan's surface. Jane paused to scoop up the diced onions, adding them to the bowl and setting it close to the cutting board for when he was done with the peppers. "Kale does taste a bit like dirt. I prefer spinach. Baby spinach is super yummy."

"This'll be a big omelet, but it's high protein while still being really good. Like I said, it's a great go-to breakfast, and you don't feel like you've overeaten afterward," she assured him, using her fingers to tear the spinach up into smaller pieces. "What about your favorites? Besides diabetes inducing pastries. Do you have a really favorite dish that your mouth just waters thinking about?"

~

With the peppers done, Jane gave the mixture a quick whisk to get everything shuffled together, moving the bowl into the crook of her arm, braced against her hip as she did that and circled around Clint again to the pan. "It could be argued that I don't have regular mealtimes either, but I think you win that category hands-down, so I won't," she teased easily, turning away from him, holding the bowl out over the pan and using the whisk to get all of the mixture into the pan. Setting the bowl and whisk aside, Jane added a bit more salt and pepper then adjusted the temperature just a bit.

The pan sizzled then subsided as it warmed to the new temperature. Jane fished a spatula from the utensil holder and set it on the counter beside the burners. "I probably should amend that to I don't 'eat' much. I do, however, have a rather healthy addiction to coffee. I'm not sure there's anything I won't drink as long as it's part-coffee, which is sad to hear now that I've actually said it. Don't tell Darcy I said that. She'll gloat for a week, maybe a month," Jane admitted with a rueful curve of her lip.

"Mmm, chicken and dumplings. With those thick, Biscuit dumplings lining the top of the pot? I love those. Being able to break off a piece of dumpling and dip it in the sauce," she mused happily as she watched Clint search out the plates. The last time she'd specifically made this omelet for someone else - it had been Thor. Pushing that thought aside, Jane made a funny face that went along with her mental shove to get her thoughts back on track. "For me, it's lobster. Baked, stuffed lobster with enough melted butter to submerge the whole thing."

~

"Except what they say is food at gas stations. That's not food, that's a quick trip to the hospital," Jane teased. "Got it, no energy drinks unless Darcy organizes a Halo tournament in the lounge." Which was entirely possible, of course, but she was assuming that Clint was good at video games. The odds were good that he was. Flipping the omelet, Jane eased it back on the pan and folded gently, reaching for more salt and pepper.

"You really don't want to cook lobster if you can help it. The kitchen will stink horribly for months and months after if you do. Get it at a restaurant. Or, I guess you could probably put in a request with the cooking staff here. It probably isn't unusual for them," she told him, shaking her head. The 'incident' with the lobster had been a sore point around her childhood home after her mom had made that mistake. She glanced over and nodded. "Sure. I think it's safe to say that I'll always say yes to coffee. Oh, one sugar and just enough cream to turn it beige."

Finally, the omelet was done and Jane used the spatula to cut it into two pieces, one smaller than the other, and she pushed the bigger piece onto one plate then the smaller onto the other before shutting off the burner and setting the pan on a cool one. Carrying the plates, she brought them over to the sitting area and laid the one with the bigger piece down on the table for Clint. "Don't get your hopes up, this is really the extent of my cooking range unless you count peanut butter and jelly sandwiches," she cautioned with a soft laugh. "I do, however, have every take-away place in London on speed dial. Not that that helps us here."