Valkyrie: Lazy Day

~Previously~

Eira put a finger on his lips, effectively stopping him from talking for the moment. "Yes. Why do you think I would have been there seventy years ago?"

"Seventy years ago?" Steve was confused. He thought that she had just been a hallucination as the cold claimed his consciousness after he went into the ice.

Now Eira was finding a way to explain. "We shouldn't talk about it here. Ears everywhere." She gestured to the other patrons, who were giving them curious and gossip-greedy gazes.

~Present~

Eira was digging out the laziest thing she's ever made for breakfast: cold cereal. Although the A/C had gone out in the middle of the night, she hadn't had the motivation to even bother to fix it. Sure, she had the know-how and time to do it.

She was just being a lazy Asgardian.

Fixing herself a bowl of cereal, Eira plopped herself down on the couch and pulled up her Netflix on the HUD. "House or Criminal Minds ..." She picked a random one and settled herself in for a long, hot morning.

About the time the show's theme music started to play, someone came down to join her. "You want to go out for a run with us?" Sam asked.

Eira, who had finished her second bowl by this time, shrugged. "Do you really want to get your asses whooped by a woman?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the screen. Once the show resumed, she sighed and turned the HUD off. "Fine. But I'll only jog this morning. I'm feeling particularly lazy today ..." She yawned to emphasize her point.

"Really?" James asked. "What's your ambitious side look like?"

Steve, who's seen that side of her, blanched. "Like a mother dragon fighting off snakes."

"Huh. I was going to say like a really pissed off cat with intention to kill to remain safe." Eira shrugged, setting her bowl in the sink. "I'll met you guys outside. How many laps around the facility?"

The answered varied. Sam said three, James said four, and Steve said ten.

"All right. See you out there." Eira retreated to her room.

~*~*~*~

"I don't see how you could even run that fast!" Sam huffed. "I know you're Asgardian and all, but still-!"

Eira shrugged off the pack she had come out and ran with. She opened it and offered the Avenger a bottle of water. "Centuries of practice. Valkyrie go through a routine every morning, by the way. I just haven't done it for a few years now." Eira offered another to James. "Hey, Steve! How many more?!" She chuckled to herself as the soldier ran past them for the fifth time.

"One more!" Steve didn't look back at the three.

"All right. I guess I should go inside and, oh, I don't know, maybe fix the A/C that broke in the middle of the night?" Eira sat down on the grass, complete contrast to what she just said. "Or I could stay here and enjoy the sun, the heat, and debate to fix the air or not."

"The A/C broke?" Sam asked.

"Yup. Probably a blown motor again. Although it's always the one that stops working, out of the whole facility. I'll see if I can fix that." Eira watched Steve come up to them, panting. "Water?"

He took the offered bottle. "Thanks," he huffed.

"So, how many laps you run?" Sam asked Eira.

"About eight or nine. I lost count." Eira laughed, despite the fact that she merely jogged the amount that Steve did. "Besides, I needed the stretch. Well, that A/C unit won't fix itself." She stood up and walked away, toward the facility.

Turns out her hunch was right. It was yet another motor that had died. Holding the technology in her hands, Eira stared at the hole it came from. "So, what's causing you to short out like this? Bad wire? Faulty engineering? Stark's hidden collection of suit parts?" Setting the ruined part aside, she stared at the machine, as if it were going to come to life and tell her the issue.

"All right. Destiny, would you be kind enough to run diagnostics on the issue?" Eira pulled her phone out, taking pictures of the machine and parts.

It wasn't too long before she received a text. "There's a blue wire that's been severed, causing the motor to short circuit."

"And this is why I programmed such a brilliant AI." Eira looked up into the hole, seeing the wire, hidden among a cluster of multi-hued coated wire. "And why I didn't see it in the first place. All right, rerout power to another unit until I have the wire repaired."

Another hour and a half later, and a trip to the shop, Eira installed the rebuilt motor. A quick aura scan told her that the Avengers were now in the basement, rummaging through old archived files.

As Eira descended the stairs to tell them the good news, she heard Sam's voice.

"Woah! Look at this one!"

"Dude, lemme see that!" Clint demanded. "Hey, this is the first time S.H.I.E.L.D. took a picture of all the agents on active duty! I think it started in ... the 70's? See? There's Ryu. So that must be Peggy, and there's Howard Stark ... along with some other agents."

Eira could now see the item in question. It was like Clint said. "Well, I can clarify easily for you. From left to right in that picture, you have Howard Stark, Peggy Carter, Alexander Pierce, Erika Snow, Ryu Snow, Derek Perry, and Edwin Jarvis. On the bottom row, there's Nick Fury, some of his friends from the CIA, and Arnim Zola."

"Then what'd you do to your hair?" Natasha asked. "It's bright red!"

Eira chuckled seeing the obnoxious color of her hair. "Oh, yeah. Stark thought that it'd be a great idea for me to go undercover a week before. And asked me to dye my hair to a dark mahogany color. Or was it burgandy? Well, either way, it didn't turn out right and Pierce had to call the undercover mission off." She smiled mischievously. "So, what else did you find rummaging down here?"

"Old blueprints for weapons. The failed algorithms for Project Insight. Zola's research." Natasha gestured to the labeled boxes.

"And a bunch of pictures." Sam held up a few more. "Like a lot more than you can imagine."

Eira snickered at the box. "I thought I ordered Ryu to get rid of those."

"Wait, Ryu took pictures of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the old days?" Clint asked. "Now I gotta see this!"

While Eira leaned over the railing, the few Avengers down there went through the box. It wasn't too eventful, but after a couple minutes, Eira cleared her throat. "Why don't we move this upstairs?" she asked. "The air's been fixed."

"Uh, this box is a bit too heavy for me to lift. You mind doing it?" Sam asked.

Eira scowled at the thought. "Fine."

Carrying the box up the stairs, Eira glanced down at one of the photos on top. It was one of her, of course. How Ryu got a picture of her sleeping, she didn't want to know.

"All right. There you go. Whole box of pictures from the past forty years." Eira dropped the box in the middle of the living room. "Taken by Ryu."

Natasha picked a photo up from the box. "Yeah, that's from Ryu, all right. It's you. And you look so happy and carefree. What happened?"

Eira sighed, crossing her arms and sitting down on the sofa nearby. "There's a lot that happened."