I walked into the lab with Steve and we saw Tony poke Bruce with something and have Bruce shout out "Ow."
"Hey!" Steve said.
"Nothing?" Tony asked Bruce looking into his eyes.
"Are you nuts?" Steve asked Stark.
"Jury's out." Tony said. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?"
"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked Tony.
"Funny things are." Stark retorted.
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny." Steve said. "No offence, Doc."
"It's alright, I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." Bruce said.
"You're tip-toeing, big man. You need to strut." Tony told Bruce.
"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark." I said.
Tony looked up at me surprised. "You think I'm not?" He asked me. `Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us?" He asked the both of us. "I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."
"You think Fury's hiding something." Steve asked.
"He's a spy. Captain, he's "the" spy. His secrets have secrets." He said. "It's bugging him, too. Isn't it?" Tony said to Bruce.
"Uh, I just want to finish my work here, and…" Bruce said.
"Doctor?" I asked him.
Bruce looked up for a moment and took off his glasses. ""A warm light for all of mankind." Loki's jab at Fury about theCube."
"I heard it." Steve said.
"Well, I think that was meant for you." Bruce said to Tony. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."
"The Stark Tower? That big, ugly…" Tony gave Steve a look. "Building in New York?"
"It's powered by an arc reactor, a self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?" Bruce asked Tony.
"It's just the prototype." Tony explained. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at."
"So why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. bring him in in the Tesseract project?" Bruce asked Steve rhetorically. "What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"
"I should probably look into that once my decryption programme finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secure files." Tony said.
"I'm sorry. Did you say…" Steve said.
"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?" Tony offered Steve.
"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around." I said pointedly.
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence?" Stark asked. "Historically, not awesome."
"I think Loki's trying to wind us up." Steve said. "This is a man who means to start a war and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders. We should follow them."
"Following's not really my style." Tony said.
"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Steve asked.
"Of the people in this room, which one is, A, wearing a spangly outfit, and, B, not of use?" Tony asked.
"Steve, Christine, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you." Bruce said.
"Just find the Cube." Steve said and walked out.
"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" Tony asked in disbelief. "I'm wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."
"The guy's not wrong about Loki." Bruce said. "He does have the jump on us."
"What he's got is an Acme dynamite kit." Tony said. "it's going to blow up in his face. And I'm going to be there when it does."
"Yeah. I'll read all about it." Bruce said.
"Come on Tony." I said. "Be civilized, he is your team mate.. You're going to have to learn to get along with him, whether it be until we finish this mission, or longer."
"Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us." Tony said to Bruce and stuck his tongue out at me.
"You see, I don't get a suit of armor." Bruce said. "I'm exposed. Like a nerve. It's a nightmare."
"You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl its way into my heart. This stops it." Tony said referring to the reactor in his chest. "This little circle of light, it's part of me now, not just armor. It's a terrible privilege."
"But you can control it." Bruce told him.
"Because I learned how." Tony said.
"It's different." Bruce said.
"Hey," Tony said moving Bruce's work to the side so that he could talk to him properly. "I read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you."
"So you're saying that the Hulk… The other guy saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?" Bruce asked.
"I guess we'll find out." Tony said.
"You may not enjoy that." Bruce told him.
"And you just might." Tony said.
***AUTHOR'S NOTE***
Y'all need to review more often! I love reading your reviews... please take 2 seconds out of your day to tell me what you think of the sotry and how I am doing.