A note on the universe: I always operate under the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which means no Spiderman, and no X-Men. I say this because I make references to comics. Also, this is the same universe as Unknown Child (this takes place after it). Don't have to read Unknown, but it's a nice reference for those who have. And before you panic, the reference has nothing to do with the plot of the sequel.
Annie had been set up in a room adjacent to the rest of the Avengers. She had been struck by a sense of wonder for a brief moment when she ran into Captain America in the middle of the hallway before realizing she was on nearly equal footing with them. Technically the only other person with real powers was Thor. Iron Man's were all man-made, Captain America didn't really have any powers, he was just at the peak of human physicality, Hawkeye and Black Widow were well-trained, and Banner's powers was from gamma radiation. Still, she knew all of them could kill her with their bare hands and that she was just another scientist, not a hero. Not like them.
The only downside to her room was that it lacked color, just like her old cell. It was unfortunate, but at least she could customize this one a bit. She fell back on the bed and an intercom buzzed. "Dr. Townsend, Dr. Banner has requested you in his laboratory." She pressed the button next to her bed.
"Are you kidding me? I was just grilled by Fury about my capture. All I want to do is sleep."
"I just send the orders, I can't change them." The voice clicked off and she sighed in frustration. She changed into a familiar pair of jeans and t-shirts that S.H.I.E.L.D. had recovered from her room at her apartment in the city and put on a lab coat before heading down.
She gave her fingerprint and eye scan before it let her in and walked in. She walked up to Banner and offered her hand. "It's an honor to meet you Dr. Banner. You called?" He awkwardly shook her hand before looking down at his tablet.
"The honor is mine. Anyway who can handle Loki's crazy and make it out sane is impressive." She took a moment to look around the lab.
The room was any scientist's dream. It had the most up-to-date equipment and most of it she had only hoped to see. How Banner was not giggling like a schoolgirl was a mystery.
"I hear that you could help us trace the gamma signature on this, maybe have some info on where they are heading," he said, gesturing towards the scepter behind him. Her eyes locked on it.
"How do you have that?" she asked, not taking her eyes off of it.
"Stark and Rogers caught Loki last night," he explained. "Didn't anyone tell you?"
"No. No one told me that. Leave it to S.H.I.E.L.D. to avoid telling me something important," she said, putting her head in her hand.
"They probably wanted to keep you focused on their project instead of worrying about Goat Man," the distinctive voice of Tony Stark said. She turned around and rolled her eyes.
"Oh God. Don't tell me I have to work with your arrogant ass?" she groaned.
"Well you don't have to work with my ass per se, but you could if you want," he replied with a wink.
"In your dreams Stark. Don't you have Pepper to satisfy your needs anyway?"
"I'm sure I could convince Pepper that three is company. But your eyes are a bit disconcerting. I don't like having weirdly colored eyes looking at me." He turned away and looked over Banner's shoulder at the tablet.
"Purple eyes, that's interesting. Highly unusual, though not really important right now. What's your specialty Dr. Annie?" Banner asked, looking up at her.
"Microbiology with an emphasis in microbial and human genetics," she recited easily. "My eyes were what motivated me to study it."
"Why didn't you just get a degree in Genetics then?" Stark asked.
"Because I believe the key to fully understanding life as we know it resides in microscopic organisms, not in us," she said, irritated.
"I think the better question here is why S.H.I.E.L.D. had a microbiologist working on the Cube that was clearly pure energy and had no evidence of life," Banner threw in.
"You got me on that one. Most of the time I was just Selvig's lackey. Why S.H.I.E.L.D. decided to hire me I will probably never know." She leaned back on the desk in the center of the room. "Though honestly, the most important thing right now is why Loki let himself get caught. No offense Stark, but it would take all of you to pin that guy down, and I'm not even sure that would be enough."
"Offense taken, but I know. Been trying to figure that out myself. While I don't have an answer to that I will have an answer to your first question in about an hour. I've got JARVIS hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mainframe." Annie restrained her jaw from hitting the floor.
"That's majorly against protocol Stark…"
"So is hiding the fact that you are our own little Professor X, but that doesn't bother you." She kept her expression neutral.
"How'd you find out?" Fury had decided to keep it under wraps for her own sake, which she had thanked him for profusely.
"I had suspicions, so I pushed you. When I started to irritate you that binder next to your hand started to vibrate and right now it's floating about an inch off the table. Banner's noticed it the whole time but he's too polite to say anything." She looked down at her hand and immediately made a cutting motion, dropping the binder back down to its place.
He walked up to her and pointed a pencil at her. "You, my friend, are not nearly as good as Banner at keeping everything bottled up." He flipped around and pointed at Banner. "And you! You need to stop the whole bottling up business all together. Time for you to shine Bruce!"
Bruce and Annie looked at each other and simultaneously rolled their eyes. "I'm sure both of us would like to just work on finding the Cube." She nodded in agreement. He walked over and showed her the tablet. "This is what we know so far. We've got a tracking algorithm going but our lives would be much easier if you knew where it was."
She took the tablet out of his hands and flicked through the information quickly. "Most of this is gibberish to me, but I can tell you right off the bat I don't know anything. I was stuck in a cell for three days. The only time I got out was when Hawkeye told me I was the next part of the plan then I broke the spell on him and…" She paused. "Shit."
She dropped the tablet onto the counter and ran out, leaving a bewildered Tony and Banner in her wake. "How did she figure something out before me?" Tony asked, sounding a little hurt. Banner shrugged his shoulders.
"There's a reason they brought her in."
Annie ran down to Loki's holding cell, somehow managing to find it on her own. She made no attempt at being quiet and burst in. "What the hell are you planning Loki?"
His eyes widened in mock surprise. "My dear Anastasia, how did you ever escape from your cell?"
"Don't play games with me Loki; I'm sick of games. What do you got up your sleeve?"
He leaned forward in his seat. "But I do so enjoy games. And this is turning out to be one of my favorites."
She walked straight up to the glass. "Yeah, well it's not exactly on the top of my list. Though I do enjoy being on the other side of the glass for a change," she taunted. "Now, what stupid plan do you got going?"
He grinned like the Cheshire Cat. "There's no fun in telling you."
She spun on her heel and walked up to the control panel and started typing, opening the floor beneath his cage that would drop him 30,000 feet. "Fury says that the only way to disengage the clamps holding your cage in is for you to scratch the glass and then for me to press this big red button. I, on the other hand, know how to override the protocols." She flipped open the case to the button and waited. "So give me a hint, or I'll drop you."
His smile faltered. "You're bluffing. Computers aren't your specialty."
"I was bored while working on the Tesseract. I had time to learn lots of neat ways to override simple commands," she threatened, beginning to type in some numbers.
"It was rude of you to put a crack in my beautiful handiwork. I merely returned the gesture," he said, slightly quicker than he needed to, but with a smirk on his face. She flipped the button case down and closed the floor.
"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" she said, turning to leave.
"You remind me of a sister I once had," he said quietly.
Sister? Annie didn't remember any sister in Norse Mythology. "She was quite resourceful like you. Not clever, but resourceful. Also had quite the temper." He chuckled at the last part.
"I don't have a temper. I'm just blunt when it comes to extracting information." Her head tilted slightly. "What happened to her?" she asked, curiosity getting the best of her.
"She betrayed me. So I killed her." Out of all the things Loki had said to try and freak her out, this was the scariest. Not because of what he said, no, it was how he said it. So calmly. Like it was perfectly natural to kill your family if they didn't agree with you.
"Dr. Townsend, we need to see you on the bridge," Agent Coulson said from behind her. She turned around.
"I was just about to leave anyway," she said before following him out. She could feel Loki's eyes on her as the door closed, and could almost see the malicious grin on his face. Chills ran up her spine. All she could do was figure out his plan and stop him.