"You took my assistant—the assistant that you hired for me—to go and kill terrorists?" Pepper hissed, Tony chasing after her as she stormed up the stairs to his living room.

Tony shrugged, "It was for a good reason of course. I knew you would understand."

Leaning forward to follow them up the stairs with her eyes, Scotty scratched at a hole in her metal armored neck. The hole was deep in her neck, most likely from a bullet. When Tony had shut off her cyborg mechanics, the metal shielding that originally encased her entire body turned back into her normal skin; wherever a bullet hole had formed, the metal didn't flip back. It had felt like it had only been moments before that she was watching him play with his suit, when suddenly she blacked out. She woke up in the same spot, but now with bullet holes in random places on her body, Tony just beginning to escape from his own metal casing, also freckled with bullet holes.

Pepper came in at the worst moment, when Tony had finished taking off his suit and was beginning to tend to Scottys.

"What happened?" Scotty had asked him, looking down at her collarbone.

"Nothing. Just got in a spat with some not so nice people," he shrugged, running a screen over the indents.

She glared at him, "Yeah and how come I can't remember it?"

"Because you weren't awake, okay? You were…in a test drive."

Her eyes widened and mouth dropped open, "you turned on all my stuff and I didn't get to see it?"

"Well it's a bug I need to fix, kay? I didn't know you wouldn't verbally respond or mentally know what the hell was going on. But you followed orders, and you didn't talk back, so it was kind of a plus on my end," he said, poking himself in the chest with a different tool. It looked like a screwdriver with a flashlight attached to it.

Pursing her lips, she lifted her hand and smacked his arm with the heel of her palm.

"Ow," he whined, staring at her wildly.

"Are those…bullet holes?" Pepper winced, appearing in the doorway, staring at Tony's suit and then at Scotty.

They both whipped their heads around and stared at her. "Hi Pep," Scotty waved innocently.

"Hey Pepper…um…yes they are—"

"Where the hell did they come from?" she asked, her eyes widening further.

"Um…from the guns of…terrorists?" Tony answered easily, looking at Scotty's "wounds".

Scotty looked at him, "TERRORISTS? You said—"

"I said not so nice people. And the last time I checked, terrorists aren't so nice," Tony growled through gritted teeth, smiling at Pepper.

He had so nonchalantly answered Pepper, but when she asked he danced around the subject. He was always good at that, but maybe it was also Pepper's talent of getting things out of him without even trying.

Pepper's face began to turn red, and her eyes sparkled with pure anger. Without another word, she spun on her heel and marched back through the door and up the stairs. Tony dropped the tool onto the table and grabbed Scotty's arms, "be right back. Pep wait up!"

"Madam, would you like a glass of water? To occupy your time until Master Stark comes back?" Jarvis' soothing voice asked over the intercom.

Her eyes wandered up to the ceiling where the speakers were, and only nodded sullenly in response, "yes please."

The glass of water popped out of the table and she picked it up without looking at it. Taking a sip, Jarvis chimed in, "Your components looked wonderful, Madam. You performed well."

She smiled into her water glass and gulped it all down. It set down with a clunk on the counter, "thank you Jarvis. If only I could remember."

"I'm trusting you have all been keyed in on what is going on right about now," Fury said, his voice quieter than usual. His arms were folded behind his back.

Natasha stared at everyone around the table. Scotty nodded curtly, and Bruce also acknowledged him with a slight nod. He was standing behind a chair, playing with his glasses. Steve leaned back in his chair and set his arms on the armrests.

"Vaguely," he replied.

Fury eyed him with his good eye and then began to pace. "Over 24 hours ago, a God named Loki infiltrated our headquarters and stole the Tesseract. It is a weapon capable of global destruction—" he described. Coulson sat up straight.

"You might remember it, Captain. Schmidt used it for his weapons back in the 40's," he nodded. Steve gave him a meaningful glance, his eyes filled with hurt and remembrance.

"Our job is to find it," Fury said, ignoring Coulson, stopping and glancing at Bruce before looking at Steve and Scotty, "and take it back."

Steve nodded, "Sounds simple enough."

Agent Hill and Coulson looked at one another without expression, but their faces said it all. They knew nothing about this situation could be simple. Scotty even shared a look with Natasha, both of them visibly worried that it wouldn't be as Steve had hoped. He had seen the Tesseract, but was fully confident it wouldn't be too brutal. Bruce tapped his glasses on the palm of his hand.

"How long will I be aboard?"

Everyone looked in his direction. Fury blinked, "Once you find the Tesseract, you're free to go."

Bruce nodded, "Where exactly are you in that process?"

Fury looked over his shoulder at a man sitting before a computer. The man peeked over his own shoulder before speaking up, "We've been tracking cell-phones, PDA's, and anything else that gives off radiation but we have nothing so far."

Scotty noticed Bruce's face contort slightly, his brow furrowing. He started towards the computer.

"Then you're going about it wrong. How many spectrometers do you have access to?" he asked, turning to Fury.

"Why?" Fury replied apprehensively.

"Call every lab you know and have them put their spectrometers on the roof, calibrated for gamma rays. It'll be a starting point, and if the Tesseract comes into range we might get lucky," he explained, kind of swaying as he spoke, like he was trying to be actively moving instead of standing there awkwardly.

He gestured to Scotty, "Agent Action said there was a lab I could work in? I'll be needing to test alternatives if this fails."

Coulson suddenly gave out a snort, and Steve looked at him oddly. Scotty rolled her eyes, while Fury paid them no attention, only clenching his jaw.

"Accion…take Dr. Banner to the lab," he muttered, looking down at her, nodding his head towards a different door.

Not making eye contact with Fury, her eyes fell on the door and she pushed herself up out of her chair. Bruce turned his head over his shoulder, and then looked at Scotty, his brows raised expectantly. With a crick in her neck, she found bending it doubly useful, losing the crick and gesturing towards the door to ease Bruce's trepidation.

"This way, Bruce," she smiled, stopping to wait for him.

All the eyes in the room trailed his movements as he sped up to be escorted, gauche by all of their attention. They began walking together and a smirk appeared on her face. She was kind of excited to see his reaction to the lab, where he would stay and work. Reaching her arm out, she wrapped it around his elbow and pulled him along. The look on his face read his surprise, yet again, at her touch.

"We've got all the toys, come on," she told him quietly, tugging him through the door. It automatically shut behind them, and Bruce instinctively looked over his shoulder at it.

His eyes fell back on her as she looked for the room number, and he lifted his other arm to pat her hand. It was a hesitant pat, like he was afraid to touch her skin, but he patted nonetheless. The actions made her, eventually, look down at his hand and then his face, her eyes eager. With every step they took, slowly creeping into syncrasy, her long braid, reaching her hips, swung back and forth like a rope.

He half smiled awkwardly, "I can probably find it on my own if you want to go back."

Knowing he was trying to be alone, she smiled devilishly, quirking a brow, "Do you not want me here?"

"No, I rather enjoy your company. You don't talk too much, and when you do talk, you keep the conversation stimulating," he said, shaking his head lightly, his hair bouncing around his temples.

The gray in his hair was suddenly more apparent now, probably from the lighting. It was reflective and was the perfect amount, riding up around his ears and dancing around his different waves of hair. All of it made him look wise beyond his years, add that to his calm demeanor and he could've come off as a saint.

She looked at the room numbers, finally, catching herself from the thought, and pointed. "It's right here," she muttered before going on, "and I think I would like to stay for a few minutes if that's all right. Just to keep you company."

"Be my guest," he nodded with his half smile. The door before them slid open and they walked straight into the lab room. Tables were strewn across the floor, some had computer screens, others had beakers or petri dishes, and one or two were blank; one of the blank ones sat in front of windows that Scotty couldn't really see out of. Computer screens descended down from the ceiling when she reached to turn on the lights, everything sort of humming to life.

Nodding, looking rather impressed, Bruce walked towards the empty table by the windows. He reached out and pulled one of the computer screens with him, pressing it so boxes would appear. Rough fingers dragged across the screen and pulled the boxes around, poking at others so they would be bigger. Graphs, tables, and other charts showed up, and Scotty decided otherwise than to try and figure them out. But Bruce seemed to enjoy working with computers again after having been in India for so long without this advanced of technology. His coat slid off of his shoulders and he tossed it onto the table.

Scotty paced around, poking at a few screens, seeing if they would turn on. Once they did, she would pull her hand away worriedly, hoping she hadn't touched anything important, and then would move onto the next thing. After touching every screen, she stood next to Bruce, trying not to inadvertently stare over his shoulder like a nuisance.

An undetermined graph enlarged itself on the screen, the bars fluctuating every so often. Some on the left would get bigger, while on the right they would get smaller, then vice versa, then they would all go catty wompus. They both stared at it intensely, Bruce examining it, while Scotty sort of tried to look like she knew what it meant.

Finally she had to ask. "So what does this graph mean?" her finger was centimeters away from the screen.

"That is what is measuring the gamma radiation. Every bar on the graph represents one major spectrometer S.H.I.E.L.D put up all over the world," he described, using his hands to emphasize what he was saying. "There's D.C…Britain…India…Germany…Canada…Brazil…Indonesia…Japan…South Africa…and they expand far enough to cover the other parts of their respective continents," his fingers pointed to each different bar that fluctuated.

She nodded, "Wow. So when they stop moving, whichever bar is tallest…that's where the Tesseract is?"

"Correct," Bruce nodded with pride.

"Interesting," she muttered, hovering her finger over the graph. Bruce's eyes fell on them, examining every knuckle and fingernail, every detail. He reached out and attempted to touch her hand; shocked by his movements, she slightly pulled her hand away, looking at him oddly.

Turning a deep pink he pulled his hand away. "I'm sorry," he apologized nervously, "I was just wanting to look at your hand."

"I could see that," she said, her voice low. He half smiled, "I find it fascinating that…despite you claiming you had a horrible accident…your hands are in perfect condition. Your skin is in general perfect condition. No scars or anything."

Getting back into Scotty's robotic side, she laughed at his mentioning it. She remembered telling him her skin had technically been replaced, but he must've forgotten.

"My skin is brand new, theoretically," she chuckled warmly, tucking hair behind her ear so she could clearly look at her "perfect" hands.

"Wasn't there any permanent damage? Nerve damage, tissue damage?"

"All fixed, but I'm lucky enough to still have my fingers if that's what you're really getting at," she laughed a little more comfortably, thinking about it all.

After an accident like hers, and after she got over being constantly annoyed with Tony for his behavior and making her what she was, she was very laid back about the subject. She got over trying to pity herself and how much of a cyborg she was. How much of an art piece she was. S.H.I.E.L.D helped her with that.

Bruce had moved over to the table behind her and leaned an elbow on it casually. He squinted at her, "you haven't told me what kind of accident it was. If you almost lost your fingers it must've been an explosion of some sort. Car crash? Plane crash? Secretly working for a SWAT team?"

The last one made them laugh, their laughs meshing together like music. Nothing sounded sweeter than his verbal happiness, since he physically didn't look like the happiest man. She leaned her backside on the table and continued to stare at her hands.

"Really it could be any of those. Let's just say it was a moving vehicle, and I wasn't the driver," she said through giggles, sticking her left hand out for him to take so he could finally analyze it.

Cringing, she didn't mean for it to really sound like she was blaming Tony. They were desperate, he was completely the bad guy.

"Why won't you tell me?" he wondered, cocking his head to the side.

She shrugged, "it's like my political views…its something meant to be private."

"I understand," Bruce nodded, gazing down at her extended limb. Just like she knew he would.

With ease, he stood up straight and took her hand, rubbing it with his calloused fingers. It was like he was molding the image and feel of her hand in his mind for safe keeping, like a computer scanning a picture. Sensually, his fingers traced her veins, rubbing her knuckles, his thumbs caressing her palm. She was surprised she hadn't turned beet red by that time, the feeling so different from the usual handshakes she had always given. The last time anyone had held her hand in this way was—

A sharp pain ran up her left palm, right in the crook of her thumb, and she pulled the hand away with a gasp. Bruce almost leaped across the room, backing away from her like he had just run over a dog, his eyes wide with worry.

"I'm so sorry—did I hurt you? It was an accident!" he stuttered, his voice full of plea—hoping for forgiveness.

She rubbed the spot on her hand vigorously, looking up at him with a suddenly fretted glance. Stepping towards him, she shook her head causing her hair to sway back and forth in its braid.

"No, you're fine! You barely touched me…I don't know what that was…" she assured him, peeking down at her hand.

"I didn't…mean to…" he sighed, staring down at the floor, his shoulder slumping slightly. A dark cloud was practically forming over him, the air around him dense.

Scotty took another step closer and reached out her left hand to grab his. No pain was present when she grabbed his. Squeezing it tightly, she held his hand between both of hers.

"No pain, see? It wasn't you, Bruce," she muttered, standing close to him so only they could hear each other talk. Her quiet words comforted him, and his tense body seemed to relax instantly.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

The computer started going crazy, beeping frantically, flashing red. Bruce pulled his hand from hers, though was surprisingly hesitant about it, and advanced towards the computer, grabbing either side of it like he planned on shaking it around like it was a screaming woman he wanted to calm down. Scotty followed behind him and peered over his shoulder.

From what she could see, the graph had stopped moving, the Germany bar standing taller than the rest, blinking red. Bruce tapped it and a map of Germany appeared on the screen. A blinking red light hovered over Stuttengard.

"It's there…" he whispered, sounding a little shocked.

A smile spread across Scotty's face and she patted Bruce's shoulder, "Amazing job Bruce!"

With that, she sprinted out of the lab and down the hall. Agents were running around preparing things, yelling to one another, talking on communicators. She weaved through all of them until she emerged into the weapons room. Already there, Steve stood in front of his new costume, staring at it somberly. Two cabinets away from his was Scotty's little walk in. She came up behind Steve and patted his shoulder, "You ready? You're going back to Germany!"

He smirked. "Never thought I'd have to," he chuckled. His big blue eyes turned to stare at her, and all she could do was smile at him.

"It'll be fine. Get dressed, we gotta get going."

Hopping over to her own cabinet, she pressed a tiny blue button of the side. It opened to reveal mechanically arms folded into the walls. She stepped in and shut her eyes, relaxing all of her muscles. An arm popped out of nowhere and stuck itself into her neck without warning. Not reacting to anything, her skin slowly peeled up ever so slightly to allow long metal sheets to shoot down and cover her skin in a protective, moveable layer. Other, clunkier arms shot up from the floor carrying four pieces of what look like canons, attaching them to her arms. The same went for her feet. Unfortunately, because S.H.I.E.L.D thought it was necessary, they modeled those mechanics after Tony's suit and even gave her arc reactors, or at least cheap looking ones that worked just as well. They were quieter, giving her more stealth. Another reactor popped out of her chest, leaving one lump on her entire skintight metal body. When her helmet unsheathed itself, it would cover her entire face without eyeholes; it was made of a material where she could look out but no one could look in, and information could be displayed before her. Like Iron Man. But she was a sleeker, silver Iron Man.

Once the arms fell back into their place, she stepped out of the cabinet with two loud, mechanical clunks.

From the corner of her eye, she could Steve staring at her with his brows raised. Barely turning her head, she looked at her, not making any sort of expression. He was already halfway in his suit.

"You look…futuristic! Like a model at a Howard Stark expo," he said, seemingly impressed. Scotty tried not to roll her eyes at the comparison, knowing that he had personally been a friend and coworker of Howards.

She just sighed, and started to leave, "Everybody says that."

Even through her metal skin she could feel Steve looking right through her with his obliviously lost eyes.

"I'm guessing that's him," Steve whispered as Scotty silently lifted them through the air up onto a building rooftop.

From afar they could see Loki loudly corralling people into a huge group. Multiple carbon copies of him popped up over and over again all around the crowd, all holding a copy of his shining scepter, with what looked like a copy of the Tesseract. Scotty tried to watch all of them, her metal skinned helmet peeling off of her face and folding back into her suit. Her braid fell down her back gracefully. They had been dropped off by Natasha's helicopter from afar so the noise wouldn't attract attention.

"It appears so," she replied, trying to keep track of who could be the real one. When she saw scenes like this in movies, it seemed easy to keep track of the original, but after a while, in real life, things start to mess with your head. She could barely keep track of how many of him there were.

The crowd below was going crazy, but both knew not to do anything until it was the right time. Together, in unison, they kneeled behind the lip of the roof, peeking over, prepared to jump up at any moment.

Steve opened his mouth to say something when Loki's voice exclaimed over the crowd.

"I said. KNEEL!"

The crowd hushed, and lowered themselves to their knees.

"Qualities of a dictator…can move or stop a crowd with only a word," Steve growled, his voice full of resentment.

"Don't let it get to you…we move in when it's time," she reminded him in a sing-song voice; hints of acid and hatred slipped through her teeth as she spoke, the words he said making her feel oddly patriotic.

While they spoke, Loki had given them a speech, appearing and reappearing all around his clones before appearing finally in the middle of the crowd. He lifted his arms up and out, like he was presenting his kneeling masterpiece, smiling psychotically. His scepter glowed brightly.

One lone man stood up suddenly. Steve tensed up, and shifted, preparing himself for flight.

"Not to men like you," was what they could make out from afar.

Loki dropped his arms, "there are no men like me."

"There are always men like you."

The words seemed to resonate with Loki, and definitely with Steve. He immediately stood up and ran to the side of the building, finding the fire escape. Scotty only whipped her head around the watch him run and then pursed her lips frantically, looking back at Loki. Her clunky feet began to desperately dance around, like she was decided whether or not to follow him or whether she should stay and keep watch just on Loki.

Loki was advancing towards the man, his scepter glowing brighter than before. The copies were even beginning to glow.

"Look to your elder, people," Loki called out to the crowd, sticking his scepter out towards the man's chest. "Let him be an example."

Scotty's eyes widened in shock and she stood up immediately, her metal skin helmet darting from her suit and wrapping around her head, sucking her braid up into the helmet.

"Not even," she growled, shooting into the air so she could hover just above the lip of the roof, the arc reactors as quiet as mice. Below she could see Steve sprinting onto the scene, the Loki clones obviously reacting to him, their bodies turning to face his oncoming form.

Pulling her arms up, the two canons attached to one another to make one huge double barreled canon. The arc reactors lit up, the impending whistle sending out a message that she was preparing to shoot. Small, electric blue dots shot out from her hands and exploded beneath all of the feet of the clone Lokis. There was no fire or harm caused to the people around them, the beams only disarmed any magic or computer holograms. Thank God S.H.I.E.L.D had come up with that. The people only began yelling in surprise.

As if he knew she would take care of it, Steve ran right past the puffs of holographic smoke and straight for the old man and Loki. His pace slowed, and his chest seemed to stick out a little further.

"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everyone else," he said with a strong, booming voice, gesturing to the crowd, "we ended up disagreeing."

Loki didn't look too shocked that his clones had been destroyed, or that anything weird had happened. He looked so calmly at Steve.

"The soldier. A man out of time." Steve couldn't help but smirk with a devilish look on his face.

"I'm not the one who's out of time," he replied.

Scotty flew forward and pointed her barrel canon at him, the whistle louder than the previous one, the canon preparing for something big. Behind her, Natasha's helicopter arrived.

"Loki!" Scotty shouted, right as Natasha prepared a machine gun, "Drop the weapon and stand down!"

Frantically, Loki stared wildly at the three of them. He took a step away and raised his scepter. Steve jumped in front of the old man, covering them with his shield.

"KNEEL," he ordered, blasting a beam out of his scepter.

The blast hit Steve's shield and he flew to the ground with a thud. Without warning, Scotty shot at Loki with a large blue-ish orange beam that fried the concrete, missing Loki as he jumped away from the spot. With a wave of his hand, a line of five Loki clones appeared from thin air and all organized themselves so they could fight.

Steve pulled himself up right as Scotty shut off her arc reactors and slammed to the ground, cracking the pavement under her feet. As quick as a cat, her arms were up again, individually shooting their own beams, dodging shots from the clones. A clone jumped at her and she bent backwards to dodge it before whipping herself back up to head slam another one. That one disappeared.

The one who tried to jump up at her, came from behind and wrapped his scepter around her neck. Tugging at it, she squeezed her eyes shut. On command the small fazor popped out of her shoulder and shot backwards into the clones face. It disappeared. Coughing a bit, she glared at the other three, readying her stance. Two of them attacked at once, shooting beams and running towards her, even stabbing at her with the tips of their scepters. Attempting to dodge one scepter, another lodged itself into her helmet, sending cracks all across the front of her helmet, sparks flying around her and her computers jittering into darkness.

Screaming in panic, she pulled at her mask until it retracted, a green light on her neck beginning to blink, showing that it was repairing herself. Not caring that her face was exposed to everyone, she easily took both scepters from the clones and stabbed each with their own after flipping over their heads to have an advantage. They disappeared in a holographic haze, and the scepters disintegrated in her hands.

She looked over in time to see Steve chasing after Loki, getting ready to toss his shield at the God like a boomerang. The arc reactors on her feet activated and she propelled herself into the air so she could leap to his aid, but the last clone hooked onto her feet, flying up with her.

"Oh no you don't!" she called, kicking it in the face with one of her boots. With a free arm, it grabbed onto that boot, making her unable to kick. She flapped her arms like a bird to see if she had the concentration to shoot anything, but nothing happened.

The green light on her neck was still blinking. "Come on, come on!" she hissed to herself, knowing what she could do. But she would need her helmet to do it. Less than a few seconds later, the blinking slowed.

"That's good enough!" she said loudly, not sounding reassuring to herself. Her helmet crept up her neck and around her face, a few thin cracks evident in the metal.

With all her might, she pulled her legs up into the fetal position, the whistle of missile preparation ringing through her ears. Her feet lit up to incredible brightness and the shocked look on the holographs face was clear. Like a rocket, she straightened out, all of the energy pushing out through her boots, shooting the holograph off of her legs, through the air, until he disappeared.

"Joni!" she could hear Steve cry from below and through her ear piece.

The power from the rocket was enough to help her lose control and hurtle through the air, up and up. She wailed in disorientation, spiraling around and around in confusion. She was unable to tell whether her rockets had stopped yet or not.

Glitching computer stats in her helmet made way for a little less recognizable format. Arrows and targets measured the horizon, the latitude and longitude, the targeting in general for shooting, everything.

"Allow me to be of assistance, Ms. Accion," a smooth, delightful English voice said. As robotic as it was, it sounded like it was smiling.

"JAAAARVIIIIIIS?" she wailed.

As if someone else had taken over, the spiraling stopped and she successfully hovered in the air, trying to get over her nausea. Grabbing the sides of her helmet, she smacked it until it retracted again. Her hair fell around her face, her long braid flowing in the wind. She looked down at Loki and the crowd, Steve and Natasha shooting at him.

"Jarvis—how did you get control of my suit?" she panted, her chest heaving.

"Incoming madam, from your left," Jarvis spoke up through her ear piece, ignoring her question. Steve or Natasha didn't ask who it was, so she was guessing only she could hear him.

"What?" she questioned, looking in that direction.

Natasha's helicopter spun around like a spinning top, rounding about like someone had tossed it like a discus. It was coming right at her, impending doom, the blades moving faster than the actual helicopter. Gasping in fright, she could barely think about moving when she was side swiped by a red and gold bullet just in time.

They hurled through the air, up further than before, tight arms wrapped around her waist. She didn't dare push at whoever it was, for fear of setting something on her suit off, possibly blowing herself up. She hadn't completely figured out all of her new gadgets.

Quickly, they halted, and the arms let go, her savior not saying a word. Right as she turned around to say something, they sped away, down towards Loki. Scotty attempted to say something, to verbally show her confusion.

"It is a pleasure to see you again, Ms. Accion," Jarvis' voice said delightfully.

She coughed, "…Ditto."

A voice echoed through her ear piece after the savior landed with a quiet clank.

"Glad I didn't miss the party," the voice said dryly, his tone made of pure, unadulterated sarcasm.

Natasha's woozy voice answered, "Welcome Mr. Stark."

"Tony?" Scotty questioned, not knowing how she couldn't have guessed. She could've put two and two together.

"Joni…nice to see you," his voice said stiffly.

He used her first name. He really wasn't happy to see her.

But it was official.

The creator had arrived.

This is going to be awkward.

Hurray!

That was fun!

And because I don't know the technical stuff of the fight, the next chapter will be in the plane when they meet Thor.

Yay for Tony and Scotty interaction!