Abraham. Isaac. Isreal. Moses and the Ten Commandments. King David and his line. Jerusalem and the Temple. Sacrifice. The Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth. Jesus and the Apostles. Betrayal. Crucifixion. Resurrection. Ascension. Salvation and the Gospel. Revelation. Death, Hell, and the Grave.
Captain Rogers tried to give the company what Commander Fury called the "Reader's Digest Condensed Version" of his faith. He really did. J.A.R.V.I.S. helped out by providing a wall-to-wall timeline of significant events and pictures of various places in the Holy Land.
It still took two hours.
Tony Stark fake-napped in his chair: sprawling and snoring in an exaggerated fashion out of boredom. Clint got sick of his attitude and started lobbing paper wads at Tony's open mouth. Clint didn't believe in Jesus either, but he wasn't about to be openly rude to Cap, especially when the information might help them form some planetary defense. Most of the paper wads fell short, though. There was a slight breeze from the air conditioning that blew them off course.
Volstagg caught on to Clint's prank after the third paper wad failed. The giant redhead rummaged about the plate he had brought in from the lunchroom and produced 3 blue-cheese-stuffed ripe olives. These he gave to Hawkeye with a wink.
Loki grinned at the ongoing mischief; for once he could watch the fun and nobody could blame him. Thor raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
Clint's first shot bounced off of Tony's face. The second olive landed in his mouth, where it was promptly swallowed. Natasha scowled at Clint and held out her hand in a demanding gesture. Clint gave her the contrite puppy-dog face, but surrendered the olive.
"Juvenile delinquent," she murmured, "it's like this," she said, and gave the olive a swift sideways whip. The olive embedded itself inside Tony's right nostril, the cheese sploinking out to dribble down his chin.
Tony fell out of his chair, sputtering obscenities, all pretense of sleeping through the Bible lesson gone.
"Nice shot," murmured Lady Sif to her new friend.
"Thanks," said Tasha, leaning back in her chair and grinning.
Thor wiped his face with his hand and tried to look serious, but Loki was shaking with mirth, albeit silently.
"If you children are QUITE through!" Fury finally bellowed.
"Yeah, guys, what happened to saving the earth?" whined Stark, wiping splatted blue cheese off his face. "Since when did Sunday School become a food fight?"
"Consider yourself lucky, Stark. In my day if somebody made such a scootch of himself during catechism he got hit with itchy balls or skully caps, not olives," Cap snorted. "Now quit bein' a weisenheimer and pay attention!"
"Brooklyn," Stark muttered darkly, glaring at him.
"Uptown," Cap groused back.
"Men," Sif and Tasha said in unison, rolling their eyes in disgust.
"Ladies and gentlemen...and Fandral...I give you Earth's mightiest heroes!" Loki poured on the sarcasm, clapping loudly for affect. It earned him several indignant glares from the Avengers side of the table, but once he had their attention he snarled furiously. "I suppose you boys have forgotten why we are listening to this? Or that some of us have never heard it before? Thanos is coming; make no mistake. And this religious teaching," he pointed to the glowing holographic timeline, "fits the profile of the offending religion and the timeline of the offense."
"Never mind that more sophisticated minds think it's all rubbish and fairy tales," Tony snarled.
"What you think of any faith is of no import now, friend Stark," Thor rumbled. "What matters is what Thanos thinks of it. That creature's madness has convinced him that this teaching threatens his lady love. No amount of disbelief will dissuade him from rubbing the memory of it out of the cosmos."
"But this is insane!" Tony sputtered.
"Thanos probably is, but that doesn't make the threat any less real, Stark," Clint spoke up for the first time in three hours. "How sane was Obadiah Stone when he tried to have you killed? How about the Mandarin? Did their sanity, or lack of it, affect their ability to invent or wage war?"
"Well said," Hogun said, nodding at the archer.
"Thanks," Clint answered.
"We are wasting time trying to convince Lord Stark of any reasonable course of action," Fandral interjected, his face suddenly mutinous. "For the nonce, it seems clear that this realm is at its end. I, for one, intend to enjoy what is left of it while it still stands." The sculpted warrior kicked his chair back, away from the table, and stood. "If you will excuse me, Thor?" He gave his prince a jaunty salute.
"Where will you go?" Thor said, frowning. "We may have need of you yet, old friend."
"Not far," Fandral shrugged. "I can find what I really want easily. That saucy red-head that joined us for the luncheon looked spicy enough. Mayhaps I can make her scream for a few hours, and find some amusement there..." he tossed over his shoulder as he walked to the door.
He never made it out. The Mark VII popped out of a wall and formed itself around Stark, the man himself flying across the table even as several jaws dropped open at the audacious suggestion.
Tony tackled Fandral on the fly, both of them crashing through drywall. Fandral let a few of Tony's punches land before grabbing both gauntleted fists in his own and head-butting the furious superhero in the helmet.
"DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION NOW, STARK?" the swordsman bellowed. "YOU WISH TO DO BATTLE OVER ONE MAN'S WORDS AGAINST YOUR LADY? WHAT IF IT WASN'T ONE MAN? WOULD YOU STAND BY AND DO NAUGHT IF IT WAS A TROOP? AN ARMY? A PLANET?"
Tony's face-plate popped open, revealing his still-red, furious face, an erratic pulse throbbing over his temple. He finally seemed to comprehend what the Aesir had been saying, for he dropped his fists to his side, though he still shook from anger. A few moments later Bruce and Clint reached his sides, pulling him back from the chaos even as Thor and Volstagg reached Fandral.
"Are you well, friend?"Thor rumbled, even as Volstagg checked the swordmaster for damage.
"A schoolyard brawl, consider it naught," Fandral answered darkly. "The young fool had to see the error of his logic."
"T'was a deceitful, dastardly, crass, low, and dirty trick to pull on Stark," Loki said, wiping a tear out of an eye. "I find myself quite sentimental. I did not think he had it in him!"
"Nor I," said Hogun in wonder.
"Then you men have ne'er paid attention when Fandral attended a grand ball," Sif remarked dryly. "I have heard much worse from that honeyed tongue after a few goblets of wine."
"I don't remember church being this interesting as a kid," Clint said wistfully, lounging at the mussed table.
"Me either," said Cap. "Even in Brooklyn, we had the sense to wait until the preacher was done to start trading shots!"
"Your priest would strike you for interrupting?" Tasha had been raised Russian Orthodox Catholic. The notion of a priest stopping his homily to correct rowdy boys was a shocking one.
"Nah," Cap replied, "he wouldn't. The Mother Superior, now, that was a different story. She was wicked with a yardstick!"
The commotion was already dying down when Pepper Potts and Miss Sauer poked their heads in the ruined conference room doorway.
"Ummm," a distressed Pepper began, looking at the mess, "saving the world and other fine hobbies?"
"Something like that," Fury said dryly. He stretched lazily and glanced over at the two women. "Hello, Sauer. Don't suppose there's any JD in this place, is there?"
She shrugged non-committally. "Not sure. I think the boss only drinks McClellan or JD Blue, but I can look. The beer for tonight's dinner should be here any time, though."
"Thank God," Fury said, settling back in his chair. "The only thing missing from this brawl is a few drunken idiots."
Pepper tugged on Sauer's sleeve, and the pair disappeared into the hallway.
"Tony has been drinking Jack Daniels since the budget cuts went into effect last spring," she murmured to her assistant. "He never bothers to check what I fill the decanter with," she explained.
Sauer's eyes went wide. "Damn, Pepper, you do like to live dangerously!"
Pepper shrugged. "Somebody has to balance the checkbook around here."
Tempers cooled, beers quaffed, and the war conference resumed with a little more decorum. Talks turned to strategy, for while it was important to understand why Thanos sought the destruction of the Earth, it was more important to understand how he would accomplish it, where he would strike, and (most importantly) how to eliminate or kill him.
There, they were stuck. Even the long-lived Aesir were younger than Thanos by 2,000 years. Loki could tell them nothing of the creature's weaknesses; he had seen none in his time with the Mad Titan.
"Does he have blood?" Clint wanted to know. "If he does, can we bleed him to death? That's basic."
Loki grimaced. "We can assume bodily fluids of some kind, I suppose. Most living things have them..."
"Most?" Tasha was incredulous.
Loki shrugged. "The Karys Thyllynes are intelligent sculptures of hydrophilic salts: a most peaceful people. They do not strictly need water or fluids of any kind to live. Fluids merely make communication between individuals easier to accomplish."
Tasha's eyes widened. "Wow." She frowned suddenly. "Are you pulling my leg?
Loki only grinned. Thor rolled his eyes at him and sighed.
"As you were saying..." Sif prompted.
Loki sighed again. "The problem is getting close enough to Thanos' actual body to do significant damage. He is a much more accomplished dark sorcerer than I, and unrestrained, as I am."
Fandral stood up again, and Tony shot him a dark look. The swordsman held his hands out in a conciliatory gesture.
"Peace, Stark. I only wish to use the chamber-pot."
"Miss Sauer can direct you," Tony said evenly.
"I'll go, too," Clint offered. "I don't know if you've seen anything like Tony's fancy plumbing before."
Miss Sauer directed both men to the appropriate door, casting an anxious eye at the conference room.
"You guys aren't going to tear anything else up while you're here, are you?" she asked.
Fandral shook his head. "Worry not, lass. T'was just a necessary diversion to get Stark to look beyond his bias. He was being rather...how would you put it, Barton?"
"Ummm...a pigheaded bigot?"
"That sounds plausible." Fandral looked over the young woman's shoulder to the candy mobile hanging in the air, and frowned. "May I speak with you when we are done?" he asked the young secretary.
"Yes, that's fine. I'll be at my desk," she nodded blandly.
The men appeared a few moments later laughing about something and shaking water off their hands. Fandral slapped Barton on the back and excused himself.
"Hey, Annie," Clint said in greeting, knocking on her desk as he walked by.
She smiled in greeting only; Sauer was on the phone again.
"Yes, that will be fine. I will tell him myself at the first opportunity. Thank you, Doctor. Good day," she said, then looked up to where Fandral stood, grimly pondering the candies that rotated above her desk. "Is there something I can do for you, Sir Fandral?"
TBC
