Chapter IV: Learning all Your Tricks

A/N: Sorry for the long wait, I wanted to get everything just right. Thanks go out to Laura for her beta work. I'm also updating today due to a new movie that is coming out, titled Crimson Peak. I'll be seeing it this weekend. Enjoy the chapter! SSD

"I'm learning all your tricks; I can hurt you from inside…" The Devil Within, by The Digital Daggers.

"They want me to talk to Loki? Why not you? You are his brother."

Thor took a deep breath, and said, "He asked for you specifically. It seems that SHIELD thinks that you might be able to get more information out of him, given your prior relationship."

Hanna went over to where the sink was and splashed some cold water on her face to get her focus back in the waking world, and out of the realm of disturbing dreams.

"Where the devil did the idea of me being tied up come from?" Hanna thought to herself.

Flexing her neck, Hanna turned to Thor and growled, "Let's just get this over with. I probably will not find out anything of use for them."

###

Hanna and Thor were walking down to the area where Loki was being held. Thor could tell that Hanna was getting more and more tense. This would be the first time she'd actually spoken to Loki since the incident.

Hanna had never said anything to him about what went down while she fought Loki in the Throne Room. The only person who Hanna may have spoken to about it, was likely his mother, who when he asked her about it, told him that it was not his business.

Once they got to the final barrier, Thor looked down and noticed that Hanna still had her sword with her.

Motioning to it, Thor said, "I'm going to need to take that from you."

Rolling her eyes, Hanna still handed it over. She still said, "I don't need my sword to harm him."

Feeling that one last piece of advice was needed, Thor said, "Don't let him get to you."

Hanna nodded and went in.

###

He was using that grin of his. The one that used to make her insides flip around.

"Surprised to see me?" he asked.

Hanna shook her head. "You always find a way to survive." Seeing a chair nearby, she used her magic to move it to where she could sit and still keep an eye on him.

"Now can we get this over with, I don't have all day." Hanna doubted severely whether she'd get anything useful out of him.

Loki was looking her up and down. He was trying to make her uncomfortable. It was the same look he'd given her when he'd asked her about secrets. Norns alone knew what he had in mind for her.

"Look, if you don't have anything to say, I can leave." Hanna made to get up.

"Can't old friends catch up for a bit?" Loki asked with a crooked gleam in his eyes.

"You and I are not "old friends" at the moment." Hanna hissed. "Or any kind of friends. You saw to that quite well."

There was still one thing about him freezing her that still escaped her: Why did she not get frostbitten?

Loki's mouth quirked a bit before saying, "You still have a use to me. After I win…" he trailed off. His eyes traced up and down her body.

Hanna's lips tightened before replying, "Any ideas you may have for me, cast them from your mind."

Loki looked like he was going to make a lewd comment, before saying, "You haven't seen your family in a while have you?"

This was a change from the usual sarcasm. "You know full well that I haven't. The Bifrost is still destroyed, so I can't just drop in for visit."

"Your cousin Sven wasn't too bad of company. He has a better sense of humor than most of your family. I remember when he won the Thunder Tournament…" Loki was rambling.

"Wait. My cousin has never won a Thunder Tournament. Though he always places high. Loki should know that." Hanna thought to herself.

Hanna looked at Loki as he was rambling onward, there was something slightly… off about him, beyond the obvious. She began to lightly probe his mind.

She was going to need a drink if she could find one on this floating fortress. If this worked.

Hanna lightly tapped around the mental defenses, taking full advantage of Loki's distraction.

After a bit in his mind (she really was going to need that drink) Hanna found something that got her attention. His magic/mind signature was wrong and there was influence on it, trying to make it look like it had changed.

Hanna knew one incontrovertible fact: No matter how good a magic user you were, you could not change a person's mind signature.

She now knew something else: Loki was being used, but for what?

To cover herself, Hanna said to Loki, "Are you done rambling? It's not like you have told me anything useful." She got up and left.

Before she left, and was still within earshot, "I wonder what you look like under that armor. What you'd look like tied up."

Flashing back to the dream and fighting the blush Hanna could feel trying to break free, she tried to keep it from her mind.

With a toothy smile (if one wasn't being overly picky), Hanna said through gritted teeth, "Wouldn't you like to know?" She turned on her heel and left.

She could hear Loki chuckling behind her. He was well aware that she was flustered.

Thor was still there waiting for her. "Did you find out anything useful?"

Hanna only replied, "Not sure"

Thor noticed that Hanna was blushing, but decided against asking why. She looked to be in a foul enough mood already.

###

Hanna and Thor were walking towards the lab where Stark and Banner were working to track the Tesseract. As they walked in, they heard Fury ask,

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?"

In a sarcastic manner, Stark asked back, "Uhhh, kinda been wondering the same thing about you."

Ignoring the accusatory tone, Fury continued on with, "You're supposed to be looking for the Tesseract."

Then Banner spoke up saying, "No. The model is locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. If we get a hit, we'll have a location within half a mile."

"We'll get the cube back. No muss, no fuss." Looking on the screen, Stark asked, "What *is* Phase 2?"

Then a weapon clattered onto a nearby table. Captain Rodgers said, "Phase 2 is SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons." To Stark he said, "Sorry the computer was a little slow for me."

Trying to save the situation, Fury began, "Rodgers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract, this does not mean…" Stark interrupted, turning the screen around as he said, "Sorry Nick. What were you lying about?"

Hanna noticed that the images were showing missiles of some kind. Those were weapons in every sense of the word.

Steve then said, sounding disappointed, "I was wrong Director. The world hasn't changed a bit."

###

Hanna and Thor moved further into the room. She noticed that the redhead from earlier was there as well.

Motioning to her, Bruce asked, "Did you know about this?"

Ignoring the question, she said, "You might want to think about removing yourself from this environment."

"I was in Calcutta. I was pretty far removed." Bruce was sounding tetchy.

"Loki's manipulating you." She said.

"And you've been doing what exactly?" Bruce was sounding tetchier.

Hanna could now sense an only too familiar energy signature in the room.

"You didn't come along because I batted my eyelashes at you," she shot back.

"Yeah, but I'm not leaving just because you're getting a little twitchy." Turning towards the screen the formerly secret weapon, Bruce asked "I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction?"

Fury was silent for a moment before saying, "Because of them." He was pointing at her and Thor. She and Thor stepped forward in confusion before Fury continued with, "Two years ago, Earth had a visitor from another planet, who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, we are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned." Except Fury wasn't laughing at all.

Before she could get a word out, Thor said, "My people want nothing but peace with your planet."

Turning around Fury shot back to Thor, "But you're not the only people out there are you? And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people that can't be matched. That can't be controlled."

"Like you controlled the Cube?" Rogers scoffed.

###

This time Hanna finally spoke up, "Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki here, and his allies." Thor cut over saying, "It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"A higher form?" Rogers sounded shocked.

Fury replied to Thor, "You forced our hand. We had to come up with…" Stark interrupted him saying, "A nuclear deterrent? Because that always calms things right down."

"Remind me again of how you made your fortune Stark." Hanna got the feeling that Stark had been the maker of weaponry at one point or another.

Rogers started to get into the argument, "I'm sure if you still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep-" The shorter man cut across saying, "Wait, wait. Hold on. How is this now about me?"

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?" Rogers sneered.

Thor snarled, "I thought humans were more evolved than this."

Hanna shared that sentiment, though she said nothing. She was trying to keep an eye on the green signature that was encircling the room.

"Excuse me, do we come to your planet and blow stuff up?" Fury shot back.

Everyone's voices started to run together for Hanna. She was acquiring a headache to end all headaches. She was only catching snatches of the argument. The green energy in the room was affecting her, it was all she could do to not jump in and make the argument worse.

The redhead said, "Are you boys really that naïve? SHIELD monitors potential threats."

Bruce scoffed, "CAPTAIN AMERICA is a threat?"

There was now a ringing from the spear. Hanna wondered if she was the only one that could hear it. The power source at the end of the spear was also starting to glow.

Thor's voice cut through the haze Hanna found herself in, "You speak of control, yet you court chaos." And the both of them were intimately familiar with chaos and the person that personified it when he wanted to.

"It's his MO isn't it? Well what are we a team?" Bruce asked sarcastically before continuing, "No, no we're a chemical mixture… we… we're a time bomb."

Fury turned towards Bruce, "You need to step away."

Tony said, "Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?"

Steve cut in before any more could be said, "You know damn well why. Back off!" He shoved Stark's hand off his shoulder.

Hanna could feel herself starting to sweat. All of her magical focus was being poured into trying to resist the haze of chaos.

"I'm starting to want you to make me." Stark sneered.

"Yeah. Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off what are you?" Rogers asked.

"Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist." Stark replied simply.

The redhead rolled her eyes at that, but didn't dispute it, Hanna noticed.

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you," Rodgers snarled before going on, "And I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play. To lay down on a wire to let the other guy crawl over you?"

"I think I would just cut the wire." Stark snarked back.

Rogers actually grinned a bit at that. "Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero, like you? You're a laboratory experiment Rogers. Everything special about you came from a bottle." Stark snarled.

"Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds." Rogers challenged.

Thor started laughing all of the sudden, before snickering, "You people are so petty. And tiny."

The voices in the room started to run together again for Hanna, the green haze creeping up on her. She heard Fury order, "Agent Romanov, please escort Doctor Banner back to his room."

"Where? You rented my room." Bruce's voice was getting higher.

"The cell was.." Fury began to say but Bruce finished, "… In case you needed to kill me. But you can't. I know, I tried."

That shut everyone in the room up for the moment. Noticing that he had everyone's attention, Bruce continued on, "I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth, and the other guy spit it out. So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good. Until *you* dragged me back into this freakshow." He was looking directly at the redhead.

"I put everyone here at risk. You want to know my secret Agent Romanoff, you want to know how I stay calm?"

Hanna then noticed that both Fury and Natasha put their hands where they could get their weapons. Captain Rogers then slowly, clearly and calmly said, "Doctor Banner, put that scepter down."

The shorter man looked down at the weapon in shock. He hadn't realized he'd even been touching it.

Cutting through the tension an alarm went off. Putting the scepter down, Bruce said, "Sorry kids. You don't get to see my party trick after all."

"Have you located the Tesseract?" Thor asked.

"I can get there fastest," Stark said.

Speaking for the first time in a while, Hanna said, "The Tesseract belongs on Asgard. No human is a match for it."

On the other side of the room, Stark and Rogers were arguing again. Hanna tuned them out before focusing on Banner, whose face had drained of color.

"Oh my God." He looked up from the screen. Hanna looked at the screen herself from where she was. All she could tell was that the Tesseract had been found and it was nearby.

Then an explosion of heat and flame cut into the room knocking everyone around.

Thor was knocked to a different level, Romanoff and Banner knocked through walls that fell in separating them from the others.

All Hell broke loose.

###

Captain Rodgers turned to Stark who was on the ground next to him, again he said, "Put on the suit." This was a completely different tone.

"Yep!" the shorter man replied.

Rodgers noticed Hanna getting up, before saying, "Come with us. We need your help with the fire."

Absent orders from Thor, she had no chain of command. She figured she could help these two humans. Hanna followed them as they ran out of the room.

Stopping in front of a room, Stark shouted, "Meet me at engine 3" to her and Rodgers.

"Follow me. We need to beat him there," Steve said.

Hanna sped up when she heard a roar of pure rage echo through the flying fortress. She didn't want to be any closer to whatever made that noise than she had to be.

"What was that?" Hanna hollered.

"That is likely the Hulk."

###

Loki grinned evilly in his cell, showing all his teeth. His plan had worked, the Hulk was loose!

His men, led by Agent Barton for the moment, would do their work well. And obey all his commands.

It just wouldn't do if Hanna got harmed unnecessarily.

###

Steve and his Asgardian companion finally made it to the area around engine 3. It seemed that they had beaten Tony to it.

He allowed himself a few moments to take a look at Hanna. Not breathing heavily at all, she was taking in the damage, showing little emotion on her face.

Before he could think about it any further, Steve saw a familiar red-gold suit of armor. He shouted, "Stark! We're here!"

###

"Good." Stark replied. "Let's see what we got."

Hanna now knew that when Stark was in that suit, he was known as "Iron Man" even though the flying armor was not made out of that metal.

She watched Stark fly around assessing the damage. The words he was saying were obviously parts of the damaged engine. The only thing that made sense to her was when he muttered, "Work on dislodging the debris."

To Captain Rodgers he said, "I need you to get to that control panel and tell me which relays are in overload position."

Before the Captain jumped, he said to Hanna, "If any of Loki's troops come this way, keep them busy."

After he'd made the jump, Rodgers shouted to Stark, "It seems to run on some form of electricity."

Hanna could almost hear Stark rolling his eyes before he said, "Well, you're not wrong."

She wondered what Thor was up to. Perhaps he was going try and wrangle that beast known as the Hulk.

###

After about ten minutes of clearing debris, Tony finally broke through to the other side.

"Okay, the relays are intact!" Steve hollered. What's our next move?"

"Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won't start without a jump. I'm going to have to get in there and push."

"But when that thing gets up to speed, you'll get shredded!"

"That standard control unit can reverse the polarity enough to disengage maglev…" Tony started to say, before Steve cut across shouting, "Speak English!"

Taking a breath, he continued with, "See that red lever? It'll slow the rotors down long enough for me to get out. Get by it and wait for my word."

As Steve made his way over there, he heard Hanna yell out, "We've got company Captain!"

###

Oh her old teacher had prepared his mind-slave troops well. They were throwing strange round weapons that Rodgers knocked away before they exploded.

Not even bothering to draw her sword, Hanna jumped into the fray.

###

As Steve was dealing with his group of soldiers he did get glimpses of Hanna fighting.

She was faster than anyone he'd ever seen.

Then again, despite her humanoid appearance, Hanna was anything but.

Steve ignored the smell of burning flesh. She was not just using her fists.

All of the sudden, the Helicarrier began falling to the left. Loki's people had managed to disengage another one of the engines. Steve could barely keep his feet.

They needed to get this one back online and fast. It would not end well if they did not.

Steve was continuing to fight when more of Loki's men came through from a different angle. He briefly noticed that despite the fact that Hanna was causing them more trouble, the soldiers were more focused on him. As they went on shooting at him, they beat him back to the edge of the rail, he fell back and barely managed to grab onto a cord of steel rope.

###

Hanna knew that Rodgers was in trouble. But Loki's troops were keeping her busy.

She wasn't killing all of them, because she had a feeling that this organization would want to question some of them.

###

"You're gonna lose."

Loki turned around at that. The mortal agent seemed to be stronger than he had previously thought.

"Am I?"

"It's in your nature."

"Your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky… Where *is* my disadvantage?" Loki asked.

"You lack conviction." The agent ground out.

"I don't think I…" Loki didn't get to finish as he got blasted through the wall.

"So that's what it does."

###

The propeller was starting to get up to speed again.

Tony called out, "Captain the lever please!"

###

"I need a minute here!" Steve was slowly making his way back up.

###

"Lever NOW!" Tony bellowed. He was started to get clobbered by the propellers.

###

Steve was dodging bullets as he was crawling on the floor. He knew that Tony was on borrowed time.

Suddenly he heard the guns clatter to the floor along the sounds of bodies dropping, the smell of burnt flesh clearly in the air.

"Sorry I took so long Captain." Steve looked up as he saw Hanna standing in front of him with her hand out. After he took it and she helped him up, Hanna said with a slight smile, "Now let's get Stark out of there before he gets crushed."

With a wave the lever went down and Tony fell/flew his way out.

They'd won their little battle around the engine. Steve wondered what at the price that may have been paid.

A/N 2: So… Was it worth the wait? Tell me what you think please! SSD