Ruthless and Mockingbird

"I don't get how a war can be cold," said Steve as he sat in Ruth's room facing a once blank wall that Ruth was now using to project images and short videos of these historical event.

"Well, if you would quit interrupting me, I will tell you how a war can be cold," she said, rolling her eyes. Steve gave her an unbelieving look, but let her continue speaking about the picture on the screen.

"It was called 'The Cold War' because we were at a stand still with what was then The Soviet Union. Both countries had enough WMDs, or Weapons of Mass Destruction, to deter us from actually fighting. Instead, espionage was quite popular."

"But it wasn't actually a war?"

Ruth shrugged, "Not in the traditional sense, no."

Steve began to speak again but was silenced when a loud bang could be heard from floors below. Knowing that Dr. Bruce Banner was staying at the mansion and had an affinity with science, Steve immediately jumped to his feet and began making his way to the laboratories below.

Ruth was hot on his trail, wondering what Steve was worried about. With her new senses, Ruth would've been able to just hear exactly what was going on, yet her high tech ear plugs blocked out anything that wasn't of average decibel, and she planned to keep it that way.

She jumped into the elevator with Steve just before the doors could close. The ride down seemed to take longer than usual.

When they finally stepped off into the basement, they saw smoke billowing out of what Ruth assumed to be the lab. A coughing Bruce Banner stepped through the haze, waving his arms to fan the smoke away from his face.

"Are you alright?! What happened!" shouted Steve as he made his way over to the scientist.

Bruce began laughing, and soon a dusty Tony came walking out behind him. Ruth joined the doctor in his laughter.

"Oh my God, Tony," said Ruth in between fits of giggles. "You look like that kid from the Sandlot after that vacuum exploded!"

"Thanks," said Tony as he dusted himself off. He moved his fingers through his hair to get some of it out, but the only thing that would really do the job was a hot shower.

"What exactly happen here?" asked Steve, ignoring the reference to the movie.

"Certain chemicals just shouldn't be mixed, boys," said Tony. "And girl," he tacked on at the end.

"And I missed all the fun?" Ruth's voice was laced with disappointment as she shoved her ever present sunglasses up further on her nose.

Bruce spoke up, "You must be Ruth. I'm Dr. Bruce Banner."

"Nice to finally meet you," she replied. "I've heard a lot."

"All good I hope," he replied, with a nervous chuckle.

"Definitely," Ruth gave a slightly mischievous smile before saying, "I'm hungrier than those kids you see on UNICEF commercials! Lets go feast and be merry!"

"Have you met Thor?" asked Steve.

"No, should I have? Is he awesome?"

"Not as awesome as me," said Tony.

"Well, if he isn't as awesome as Tony, why would I have any need to meet him!" Ruth clutched her heart dramatically.

"Let's get something to eat," said Steve, before the conversation of how amazing Tony Stark is could go any further. The billionaire already had an ego the size of the Hindenburg.

The quartet made their way to the ground floor, and Tony briefly excused himself to go take a quick shower and change. While they waited in a sitting room, Clint and Natasha walked by. It appeared that Clint had just said something very funny, because Natasha actually laughed. Well, it wasn't a full-blown guffaw, but she did chuckle, which was something no one saw very often.

"What're you three up to?" Natasha inquired. "And who are you?" she pointed at Ruth.

"Agent Ruth Conners, S.H.I.E.L.D.," said Ruth.

"Natasha Romanoff," she said.

"Black Widow," said Ruth.

"The one and the same," said the redhead. "I've heard that I wasn't the only one with a nickname, Ruthless."

"Yeah, no," Ruth said rolling her eyes. She wasn't particularly found of that name. "Besides, I'm not the one who is ruthless, Natasha. Or should I mention your track record."

Natasha tensed and Clint spoke up, "So... what are the afternoon plans?"

"Lunch, then training," said Steve.

"Sounds like fun," said Clint.

Just then Tony came into the room, his hair still damp. He took a look around at everyone, each of them staring at something, anything, but each other.

"Did I miss something?" he asked, taking note of the tension in the air.

"Yeah," said Ruth. "Banner bet Rogers that he couldn't do a back flip to save his life. Then Clint came in and knocked Steve down just as he was about to jump. Now Bruce owes me seven bucks, as I predicted the exact thing would happen. Oh, and you missed a unicycling bear in the front yard."

"Right," said Tony slowly. "Well lunch should be ready now."

Tony walked to the main dining hall with the others in tow. Natasha hung back with Clint, his hand on her shoulder in a comforting way. Natasha knew she had a lot to make up for without this woman reminding her of it.

The kitchen staff had put various types of sandwiches on the table ranging from peanut butter and jelly to Italian hero. Tony took his usual seat at the head of the table, the others finding somewhere near him though the table was very long. Natasha sat as far away from Ruth as she could, lest the two get into some kind of argument. She didn't want to accidentally start anything.

Ruth's face scrunched up at the different smells wafting through the room. It was like every individual flavor was ten times stronger. A few smells were fine, but mixed with the bad brought the scent of the room up to a whole new level. It took everything in Ruth to not run straight to the closest bathroom to pray to the porcelain god.

She settled on a simple PB&J sandwich as she knew that it was the only one that didn't have too many different tastes. Ruth wasn't sure how long she could take these new, keener senses before succumbing to madness.

Through deafening silence, people ate their meals. Finally, Tony had enough of the quiet and started rambling on about a party he had been to the week before and soon everyone was more relaxed. Luckily the rest of lunch went by without incident.

**

When lunch was over, Steve said he was going down to the training room. He invited Ruth to come with him, and, eager to test the limits to her newfound strength, she accepted.

"I read over your file," he said as Ruth began to stretch.

"I imagined you would," she responded. "Fury did give you orders to do so, didn't he?"

"I asked for them, actually."

"What?" Ruth asked, shocked. "Have you been stalking me or something?"

Steve blushed a little, "No! Th-that's not what I meant! I just mean that I sort of asked... Well, I asked Fury if he knew anyone that can teach me about this new age. Someone who wasn't Tony. He said that he had an agent who recently acquired some superhuman powers and would need help coping. He also said you had a knack for history."

"So basically I help you, you help me?"

"Basically."

Ruth blinked. "I still get paid, though, right?" Steve looked at her questioningly. "Ah, whatever. Let's spar."

Steve held up a finger before throwing Ruth some boxing gloves. He picked up some punching mitts for himself and placed them on quickly. Turning around, however, Steve saw that the young woman held up the gloves with an eyebrow raised to his direction.

"You put them on your hands," he said indicating to the gloves.

Ruth rolled her eyes, "No shit, Sherlock. I'm just wondering why I'm training to be the next Mike Tyson instead of how to fight evil with super strength. Am I to bite their ears off as well?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about..." Ruth sighed and started to explain her comment, but Steve didn't let her continue. "Look, I just want to start off with a little strength test."

"Oh," she said as she shoved the gloves on. "Alright. I guess."

Ruth watched quietly as Steve spaced his feet apart and got into a holding stance. He motioned for her to hit, and, still feeling stupid for wearing the bulky gloves, she threw a half hearted punch to his awaiting mitt.

"That's not all you got," said the Captain. "I know that's not. Even I had a harder punch before the serum. Try again."

Ruth sighed and put a little more effort into it, feeling boredom already. This couldn't possibly be any sort of training.

"Better, but you're still not giving me your all."

Ruth rolled her eyes before cocking her arm back and throwing her fist straight to his gut with as much strength as she could muster. Steve doubled over, coughing. Ruth's strength was greater than he originally thought, and although he has hit and been hit hard, he sure wasn't expecting it, let alone right in his abdomen.

"Was that good?" Ruth said with feigned innocence.

Steve wheezed out 'Yeah' in between coughs. Once his body settled, he said, "You could've aimed for the mitt, though."

"Yeah, probably could have," she said with a shrug. "Anyways, now you know my strength, can we actually spar for a bit?"

Steve gave her a wary look, "Uh... actually I forgot that I need to... uhmm... Tony. Yeah, I have to speak with Tony."

"Tony? I thought he was busy-"

"Oh, no," said Steve. "He's not. Not for this anyways. We'll test your eyesight tomorrow. See you at dinner?"

Ruth looked at the man before her, accusing him of his lie through her eyes. Not like he would be able to see them through the darkened lenses, though.

She shrugged in the end and said, "Sure. See you then."

"Yeah, see you." Steve watched as the girl walked out of the door, slamming it. He knew it must've been meant to be a light shove as she whipped around with a shocked expression, looking at the now broken frame and shattered glass.

Steve walked over to the phone that was on the wall of the training room and pressed the buttons just like Clint said. It started ringing and then Tony picked up.

"Which one of you is it?" came Tony's voice through the receiver.

"It's Steve."

"What is it, Cap? Can't figure out the microwave?"

"No, it's the door to the training room," Steve replied. "It's... well, broken."

Tony sighed, "Again? What happened to it this time?"

"Ruth," was all he said before looking at the girl. Steve caught her eye and mouthed, 'I got it handled, go ahead and go.' Ruth nodded, not really wanting to face Tony after this, not sure if he would be angry with her.

"How'd she do that?" asked Tony.

"She really doesn't know her own strength."

Tony was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I think you should talk to her about that, preferrably before she breaks anything else. Find out the extent of her powers. The last thing I need is the Avengers Mansion falling apart."

"We have found out the extent," said Steve. "It's controlling it that's going to be an issue."

"Is it an anger thing, or what?"

"I think she's just not used to it," suddenly something clicked in Steve's mind. "What are we having for dinner tonight?"

"Mexican. What does that have to do with Ruth?"

"Nothing, I'm going to go talk with her about it. We need to have someone help her until she can control herself," he said, deciding to see if Ruth would be comfortable around the chosen dinner.

"Why can't you do it?" asked Tony. "Isn't that kind of your job anyway?"

Steve was actually planning on asking Natasha, but figured that after what happened today, that wouldn't be a wise decision.

"That would probably be best," he said after a moment. "Someone needs to fix the door and clean the mess though."

"I'll have it taken care of," said Tony.

Steve hung up the phone immediately and made his way out of the training room. As he left, he shifted the frame back to its place, groaning when his stomach clinched in pain. Steve lifted his shirt to see a nice size bruise upon his body. He definitely need to help Ruth control her powers and quick.

**

When Tony hung up the phone, he leaned back in his chair a moment and thought about his conversation with Steve. This Ruth girl was certainly proving to be more interesting than he thought. A moment later, he sat up straight and turned himself toward his many computer screens.

"Give me everything you can find on Ruth Conners," said Tony.

JARVIS got to work, easily bypassing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s firewall like Tony himself had programmed him to. There were endless perks to being a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist; one of which being having the means to get to confidential files from the database of a secret government organization.

It didn't take long before all of Ruth's records were laid out before him on the holographic screens.

Tony scrapped the useless stuff, like a newspaper article about how she nearly won the 3rd grade spelling bee, and got further into it.

Tony tried to start from the beginning of her career, but got bored with all of useless information.
All he really needed to know in regards to that was that she was good at her job. No mention of her abilities though, which Tony found a little strange.

When he got to more recent entries, however, things got more interesting.

There was talk of an accident a few months before Loki came to Earth. Some sort of mission went awry. The account was very vague, but it did talk about Ruth being captured by a deluded scientist named Dr. Jaques du la Cucreux and injected with some kind of serum that gave her heightened senses. She had been confined to a hospital bed because her senses were so overloaded.

That explains the sunglasses, thought Tony.

Her new abilities were as listed: increased strength, hearing, sight, and smell.

Just as Tony was about to close out of everything, his phone rang again. Expecting it to be Steve again, he answered it.

"What'd she break now, Steve?" he asked impatiently.

"Not Steve," said a woman's voice. "Hello, Mr. Stark."

"I thought I'd be getting a call from you soon," he said, recognizing the voice. "Are you coming tonight?"

"Yes, Fury assigned me to the mansion. I should be there around eight," said the woman.

"Perfect. We'll see you there," he said before hanging up.

**

"Are you sure you can handle the smells?" asked Steve for the millionth time that day.

"I'll be fine, Cap," Ruth assured once again. "And if I can't handle it, I'll just eat another PB&J."

Steve nodded and they continued their way to the dining hall. Ruth watched the man walk before her. She didn't know whether to be irritated that he was treating her like a child, or thankful that she had someone to help her out while she learned to control herself.
At least I'm not at risk of breaking any more doors.

As the pair reached the dining room, Ruth almost turned around and run straight back to her room.

The amazing spices and flavors of the Mexican dishes were overpowered by something she truly despised: fish.

When Steve's worried voice reached her ears, Ruth realized that she had stopped walking and closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" she asked, looking into his worried blue eyes.

"I asked if you wanted to go back to your room," Steve answered. "I'll get us a few PB&Js and you can teach me a bit more about the Cold War."

Ruth shook her head, "I'm fine. When you said Mexican, though, I wasn't expecting anything with fish."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm fine now. Let's go eat," he nodded and walked her to a chair that was right next to the woman she saw bickering with Tony earlier.

"Hello, Agent Conners," the woman said politely. "I don't think I introduced myself earlier. I'm Pepper Potts."

"It's nice to officially meet you, Pepper," Ruth said, smiling. "But please, call me Ruth or Ruthie."
Pepper smiled and turned back to Tony, giving him her full attention. Ruth smiled at the couple.

Without thinking, she reached for her glass of wine. It seemed to all happen at once; Steve called her name, she turned to him, breaking glass was heard, then a sharp pain came up from her palm.

Pepper and Steve immediately came to Ruth's aid, as Bruce walked off to grab a First Aid kit. Steve began cleaning the glass, as Pepper worked with getting a nice sized shard out of Ruth's bleeding hand. Finally, Bruce came back and Pepper began to hastily doctor the injury, while the kitchen staff cleaned up the remainder of the mess, shooing Steve out of the way.

Once everyone was settled again, Tony spoke up, "Okay, until you are able to hold a glass without breaking it, you can have a plastic cup." He handed her a red Solo cup, and Ruth couldn't help but feel not only embarrassed, but also annoyed with herself for not being able to hold a glass without breaking it.

She groaned when she read what was written on the side of it: RUTHLESS. She figured only one of two things could've happened, either Tony played dumb at lunch and actually heard her conversation with Natasha, or (the more likely scenario) Tony must've read her file.

Within minutes, everyone had returned to their usual states. Clint and Natasha were sharing some private story with each other, Steve was trying to bring Ruth out of the dampened mood she was in since Tony gave her the cup, and Tony was trying to simultaneously have a conversation about meetings with Pepper and science with Bruce, all while keeping an eye on the white wooden doors in front of him down the length of the table.

The meal was almost done when JARVIS spoke through the speakers in the dining room.

"Your other guest has arrived, sir," it said.

Everyone looked at each other questioningly, silently asking if anyone knew who this mystery guest was.

"Finally," said Tony as he looked at his watch. "She's ten minutes late. Send her in."

About thirty seconds after Tony gave the order, the white doors opened and in walked a beautiful woman. She had blonde hair that was worn loose around her shoulders and her blue eyes were hidden behind a pair of glasses with yellow lenses and white rims. She stood tall in her black and white suit fashioned in a combination of Kevlar and Beta cloth, made taller by her black boots. In her hands, she held two battle staves, each polished to a shine.

"Bobbi?!" asked Clint, complete shock on his face. Part of him, well, most of him, couldn't believe she was here. He suddenly became acutely aware of how close he was sitting to Natasha.

"Hello, honey," said Bobbi, a mocking tone in her voice. "Did you miss me?"