Pound of Flesh

The conversation between Natasha, Clint, Bruce, and Tony comes to an abrupt halt when they spot the woman ambling into their living room. Her long hair is frizzy and jutting out in every direction, and the oversized plaid shirt she's wearing doesn't cover much below her hips. A slew of scandalous thoughts parade through their minds at the sight of her swollen lips and fresh limp.

Three pairs of eyes turn sharply to Tony. "Hey, this one's not mine. Although, if there aren't any takers…"

Steve strolls in from the kitchen then, nearly running right over her. "DJ!"

Four pairs of eyes widen almost comically at this new sliver of information.

"This little stray sex kitten is yours?" Tony asks more than a little incredulously. "What happened to the self-righteously celibate Cap I've come to know and actively avoid?"

Steve shoots him a vastly annoyed look and moves so that DJ is shielded from view. "Have some respect, please? She had a rough night."

"I bet," Natasha can't help but comment with a sly smile.

DJ patted Steve on the shoulder as she stepped back into sight. "I assure you all that Steve has been nothing but a perfect gentleman. Not for lack of trying on my part." She sends Steve a sunny smile and lets her hand drag down his bicep as she steps away. "I should probably change back into my clothes now. Thanks for the loan."

Five pairs of eyes watch speechlessly as she leaves.

"You're an idiot," Bruce mumbles as he burns into his mind the image of the button down shirt cutting low on her cleavage. "And I mean that sincerely."

"Drop it," Steve demands firmly, giving each of them a very stern look. But really, they listen to him less than they listen to Fury. Which is never.

Clint crosses his arms over his chest from his place on the couch. "Let me just get this straight for the sake of clarity. A stacked blonde was in your bed practically naked and putting the moves on you, and you just say 'no thanks?'"

An indignant look marred Steve's features. "She was fully clothed until I left the room. And she was in a delicate situation. I'm not going to use her trauma to my advantage. That sort of insensitivity is Tony's territory."

"Steve," Natasha sighs in exasperation as she palms her face. "Please tell me you let her down tactfully."

Guilt practically oozed from Steve's pores. He'd always made an effort to be polite, but when it came to women all of his good intentions went out the window. "Well, I… I tried."

"Uh-oh," Bruce laughs in a way that's the closest thing to glee Steve's ever heard from him. "She's free game now."

"Dibs!"

"What? No. You have an on and off ex-girlfriend who would castrate you if you even looked at her twice. I get dibs." Clint stood up as if to go after DJ, but Natasha whipped her hand out and pulled him back by his shirt. "Come on!"

They all nearly jump out of their skin when someone loudly clears their throat from behind them, and they turn to see Fury with a look of steely disapproval. "I know you're all talking about the breach in the system last night and not fighting over a woman."

"Don't be ridiculous," Tony scoffs folding one leg over the other. "I helped create that system. It has more security measures than Gitmo. It's impenetrable."

"Well pardon me, Stark, it must have been some other high-security system containing vitally confidential information dangerous to the public. I'll go check in with my other superhero initiative."

Tony, being about as contrite as he ever got- which wasn't much- treaded a little more softly. "But if there had been any sort of intrusion I would have been personally alerted in several different ways."

"Not to interrupt, Sir," JARVIS' synthesized voice rang through the air. "But all alert procedures were disabled at four thirty-two last night. Or rather, this morning."

"Um, no."

Bruce gives a humorless laugh and fiddles with the pair of glasses in his hands. "I think what Tony means is that that's equally impossible. Even if whoever did this was a hacking mastermind, Tony set up some safeguards that have to be manually shut down. I've seen them. They're in the building."

"Between two geniuses, two highly trained agents, and a super solider I would hope one of you would have noticed a God damn stranger walking in through the front door."

DJ stops in her tracks in the doorway. "This was poor timing, wasn't it?"

"Damn it Stark-"

"No no, she's not mine. Blame this one on Captain Loverboy over there."

Steve anxiously shifts his weight on his feet. "Hey now, I don't think we should be so quick to blame her. I was on the couch all night, I would have noticed if she came out of my room."

"Captain Rogers, are you telling me that you not only brought a strange woman into the tower, but you also left her unattended? Apparently that serum didn't do much for your common sense."

DJ carefully pads forward, trying to keep an annoyed look from creeping onto her features. "I think we might have a misunderstanding here. Steve just brought me here because I was attacked last night. I don't know what's got your ominous panties in a bunch, but I didn't do anything, alright?"

"Well I'll just take your word for it then," Fury retaliated sarcastically, "and call off the agents on their way to arrest you."

Tony jumps to his feet, growing antsy with the quickly escalating situation. "Hey, hey, calm down, Patches. There's an easier solution than arresting everyone you lay your eye on. JARVIS, can you pull up all footage from last night?"

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Sir. All footage beginning at midnight was wiped nearly five minutes ago."

"Huh." DJ wrings her hands as the atmosphere in the room get a lot thicker. "Well that's unfortunate."
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The handcuffs clink against the metal of the chair as she slumps down in her seat and tilts her head back in frustration. Agent Hill looks unperturbed by the fact that she's been standing for three hours as her hostage sits and glares at her, so DJ figures now's as good a time as any to annoy some answers out of her. "You're terrible at this, ya know?"

Hill just arches a perfect brow and waits.

"You haven't said a word this entire time. I don't think that's how an interrogation works." DJ shrugs and winces as the cuffs bite into her skin. "Not that I would know. I've never been interrogated before. But I do watch TV. You're no Kyra Sedgwick."

Not even a smirk at that.

"I'm pretty sure you're at least legally obligated to tell my why I've been taken into custody. And while I'm on the subject, these handcuffs? A little unnecessary."

The agent finally moves after that, stalking forward on long legs so that she stands directly in front of DJ. She bends at the waist so that they're eye level, the expression on her face still skillfully neutral. "This is not my first interrogation. And you are certainly not the first obnoxious person I've had to deal with. I can wait for a very long time, so you might as well tell us everything. I think you know exactly what you're here for."

"You're a very serious person," DJ whispers as Agent Hill's eyes sharpen. "And sort of intimidating. Has anyone ever told you that?"

Hill exhales loudly and straightens to her full height. "Are you naturally this annoying or is this for my benefit?"

"A little bit of both."

The brunette actually lets the corners of her mouth twitch a little at that. "I'm flattered. Listen, we could pull Agent Romanoff out of her meeting and this would go a lot faster, but she's a lot more intimidating than I am, and quite frankly I don't think she'd respond so well to your little quirks."

"I don't know, I think she'd find me charming."
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Fury dropped a folder into the center of the table with a flourish. "This is all we could collect on our friend in there. And it's suspiciously very little."

Natasha reaches across the table to grab the folder, cracking it open. "Daisy Joelle Ryder. Twenty-three years old. Attended Bishop Kearney High School. Dropped out of college. Twice. Worked a series of odd jobs until December of last year, where she dropped off the face of the Earth."

"You sure know how to pick 'em," Tony smiles sweetly, clapping Steve on the back.

Steve shrinks away from Tony in annoyance, fixing a confused stare on the small pile of papers in Natasha's hands. "There has to be an address. Or... Or hospital records. She told me she's in therapy- there's got to be some sort of paper trail…"

"We only have her parents' address, but they reported her missing- wouldn't you know it- December of last year. Before that there are a handful of Emergency Room visits, but zilch after that. Not even a secret Swiss bank account."

"Maybe she's some sort of con-artist," Clint offers with a shrug. "She could've stolen some missing girl's identity and got mixed up with someone who paid her to infiltrate our system."

"Except we've got copies of her 'missing' posters." Natasha taps lightly on the grainy image. "Bam. There's her pretty face."
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"How would I have gotten into your fancy computer system?" DJ is seconds away from stomping her feet like a toddler. She's run through the events of last night at least four times already, but apparently she's not being thorough enough. "Half the time I don't even know how to work my coffeemaker."

Agent Hill rolled her eyes, her patience coming to an end. "So you just decided to go home with Captain Rogers without any reason?"

"Um, you have seen him, right? I mean, I'm pretty sure even blind people think he's a babe. So no, it wasn't without reason. It's entirely possible I wanted to do naughty, naughty things, but I assure you that none of those things included hacking into your system."

"So after you and Captain Rogers were intimate-"

"Now I know I told you at least a dozen times that we weren't," DJ cut her off with a growl. "I'm pretty sure at this point you just like hearing me say I was rejected."

Hill actually cracks a real smile at this. "It is a little amusing. Yes."
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"As much as you'd like to, you can't keep her handcuffed to a chair forever," Bruce reasoned. "And maybe Steve's right. Maybe it is just a coincidence."

"I don't believe in coincidences, Dr. Banner."

Tony stood up and slipped a pair of sunglasses onto his face. "And I don't believe in little girls hacking my system. Let's quit wasting our time on Little Miss Sunshine and find the big bad that invaded our much sought after privacy."

"You don't get to make that call, Stark." Even Fury's eye patch seemed to be glaring. "I may not like to follow the rules myself, but even I can't let a suspicious individual walk out of here. Even if we didn't detain her, I'd have to send someone to trail her, and right now I don't have the resources to waste on that bullshit."

"So keep her with us," Steve offered quickly.

"What?"

Clint cut his eyes over. "Yeah, what?"

"It's my fault she's here in the first place, right? So it's only right if I'm the one to take care of it."

Fury sighed and fought the urge to rub at his throbbing temples. "If I can't waste a rookie's time, I sure as hell can't waste yours, Captain."

"Please, sir. I wouldn't feel right without the chance to rectify my mistakes."

"God damn it!" Fury all but snatches the papers out of Natasha's hands. "Fine. But if anymore weird shit happens, you get into contact with me immediately and bring that woman into custody."

The door closes with a satisfying slam behind him, and more than one person left in the room is less than thrilled with what Steve's signed them up for.