Tony pressed his nose to the glass encasing the box right next to Clint, whose nose print resembled an adorable bird. If Tony crossed his eyes, his looked like a weird, deformed cat. He ignored the burn of Natasha's eyes on his back (mostly) and turned around to Bruce.

"Pleeeease?"

He asked again, as if the time spent for Clint and Tony to look at the thing was enough for him to change his mind.

"No."

Bruce was grinning, though, in his not-smiling way that he got when he was trying to show disapproval for what Tony is doing when it was actually hilarious. Natasha raised her eyebrow again. It was terrifying.

"I still agree with Bruce." She said.

Bruce gave him a smug look. Science bro, no. His quiet, contained exterior held a heart of gold, a monster of green, and a little evil elf that loved puns and sarcasm.

"Stark, you down here? Fury wants a briefing on the robot dolphins-"

Steve, who was oblivious to the argument going on amongst his team members, asked, entering through the automatic doors with a little swish. Tony was proud of that swish. It sounded like Star Trek.

Steve cut off whatever he was about to say when he saw the entire group in the lab, Bruce still with a handprint from where he had not-so-subtly facepalmed, Clint, who had perched atop a (thankfully not active) Tesla coil when he had been startled away from the case, and Natasha standing at a safe distance. Tony retracted the glass from around the box with a couple taps of his fingers on a display..

"Come on in, Stevie. We're putting it to a vote. Who thinks we should press the big, dangerous button?"

Steve looked entirely unimpressed, folding his arms even though he didn't even know what was going on.

"Absolutely not."

He was using his Captain America voice.

Tony and Clint slumped, their excitement deflating.

"Maaan. I was kind of hoping we could blow something up." Tony said.


Everyone in the room, except for Black Widow, jumped when Tony's cell phone rang. But the familiar, soothing, dulcet tones of AC DC's Back in Black didn't sound quite right, Tony thought. The verses actually sounded sort of screechy. And sparky. And yeah, okay, his phone was on fire.

The other Avengers stared in unhidden confusion, watching him throw his phone across the room. It decided to spark some more, and apparently, the sparks were catching, because, halfway across the room, the mystery button glowed an eerie purple.

They all stared at it wordlessly.

It's when the thing started to shoot out green sparks that the team of superheroes managed to spur themselves into action. Tony was muttering curse words like orders, trying not to watch as the stream of sparks got steadily more alarming. He hoped Steve wasn't judging him on his language, which was somewhat of an inane thought during an actual, legitimate emergency.

Natasha vaulted over the table and to DUM-E, who was bleeping sadly, holding up the fire extinguisher, and spinning in a circle. Tony wasn't actually sure what Natasha planned to do with the fire extinguisher, since the flames were clearly some sort of Asgardian thing, but he stayed clear in case she tried to hit him with it.

Bruce pulled out his cell phone to call for backup, reconsidered, which was a probably a good idea considering the previous incident with Tony's, and threw it out the door before it could do further damage. The lab was now filled with- oh, joy- smoke, but none of the sensors were going off. JARVIS was talking in the background, about latest schematics on an Iron Man suit. It was possible his sensors were a little messed up. To be honest, it would actually be hilarious to watch if they weren't afraid they were going to die.

Steve was the one who dove for the device and covered it in one of their fire-retardant blankets.

The smoke cleared, and they all sat there, slightly singed, in shock.

Natasha cleared her throat daintily, and Clint pretended he was examining his watch, although he obviously did not have one. Tony opened his mouth to speak. Of course, that was when everything went purple and started to tingle.

"I knew Banner was right."

Natasha said, before everything faded out.