Chapter Eight

Bruce wasn't talking to her.

But Carter could tell he was thinking about something - and hard, too. Maybe what she'd said had gotten to him. Probably not, though; she'd never been very good at the whole 'motivational' thing. She usually ruined it with a joke at the end. Could you really blame her though? Being serious was just way too hard.

At least Steve was attempting small talk - actually, it wasn't small talk at all. It was more like old people rambling. It must have been a generational thing, because Steve had been going on about the Brooklyn Dodgers for almost twenty minutes now. He didn't seem to realize that the Dodgers had moved to LA - and Carter wasn't sure if she wanted to tell him. On the one hand, it could stun him into silence. On the other, it could send his rant into a different direction. It was a pretty big risk...

"McIntyre!"

Carter had never been happier to hear Coulson's clearly upset voice. With an almost grin on her face, she turned to face the SHIELD agent. Oh, Coulson, she thought. You're my hero. And if you didn't look like you were about to kill me, I'd give you a hug.

The fuming agent walked right up to her, getting in her face as best he could. Carter had to give him credit; for someone who was about an inch shorter than she was, he was doing a pretty good job of looking intimidating. "What the hell, McIntyre? Why didn't you mention that your sister was married to a god who's hellbent on taking over the world?"

"It didn't really come up in everyday conversation," Carter replied automatically. Coulson narrowed his eyes at her, and she rubbed the back of her neck.

"This is serious," Coulson snarled. "You retained information on a wanted criminal! You could-"

"Look." Carter glanced over Coulson's head to see Tony and Thor coming up, both with curious expressions on their faces. Tony gave her a prompting look, like he wanted for her to continue with the story. "I only found out today... Or at least, I think today. What time is it? Anyways, at the time it didn't matter - Loki had already been captured."

"And he escaped. Because of your sister. If we had known about them, we might have been able to prevent this whole thing from happening!" Coulson, who was absolutely livid, gave her a little push.

Carter was about to shove him right back, when Bruce stepped forward. "Don't touch her," he said warningly, his tone dangerously low. His face was distorted by anger, and he took in rhythmic, deep breaths, shaking all over as he fought to remain in control.

"Thanks, Bruce." She threw him an appreciative smile. Then, as she turned back to Coulson, her look darkened. "I didn't think my sister was going to break him out. If I'd known, I would have said something."

"Ah," Tony said, holding up a finger. "Can I point out that maybe we're looking at this the wrong way? That maybe this is a good thing?"

Everyone gave Tony the 'dude, what you smokin'?' look. Tony, sensing that everyone thought he was being crazier than usual, held his hands up in defense. "OK, I meant that it's good that Lily is with Loki, not that Loki got out."

"You think it's a good thing that my sister is with a psychopath." Carter folded her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow.

"OK, let me rephrase that again. Maybe we can use Lily to find Loki. Right?" He looked at them all, like he was waiting for them to get it.

Bruce spoke first, his voice full of skepticism. "You mean, like, track her? Like with a chip or something?"

"Yes!" Tony gestured to Bruce like he'd just won the lottery or Nobel Prize. "Exactly!"

"Tony, people don't have tracking devices implanted in them. Dogs do."

The billionaire's face fell.

But Carter thought that he might be on to something. "Actually... that might work."

"What?" Bruce's eyes widened. "Are you saying you implanted a chip in your sister?"

"No." Carter shook her head frantically, pretty much horrified by the idea. "But there may be another way to track her. Remember what I told you about the gamma in the serum? The radiation would show up on radar... probably."

Tony clapped her on the back. "It would! Gamma sticks out - that's how we tracked the Hulk! All the Hulk-Buster vehicles I made had those kinds of radars, so that it was super easy to find hi-" Tony glanced over at Bruce, who was glaring at him intensely. "You know what, never mind. Point is, yeah, that would work."

"All right," Carter said, rubbing her hands together and looking back and forth between the two geniuses in the room. "Let's get started."

"I still do not understand." Thor leaned closer over Carter's shoulder, his eyes focusing in on the small screen she was holding. "That beeping green dot - that will lead us to your sister? What manner of magic is that?"

"Science!" Tony exclaimed, snatching the tracker from Carter's hands. "And according to science, we're pretty close." He stroked his beard in the same way that villains in Disney movies do. "Huh. That's weird. It looks like we're headed to Loki's apartment. I would have thought that he woulda packed up and moved outta there..."

Carter frowned and looked at the billionaire. "Really, Tony? You couldn't have just taken us to the apartment first? Why didn't you think of that?"

"Why didn't you think of that?" he accused, looking overly offended.

"I didn't know about any apartment!"

"Oh." Tony glanced around awkwardly. "Right."

Silence took over once again as the Avengers (Excluding Bruce, who had elected to stay behind, muttering something about steroids... Carter had been a little concerned.) trudged through the destroyed streets of New York. Soon, Barton and Romanov began a hushed conversation, and Thor had begun to randomly point out every strange 'Midgardian' thing he saw.

Carter almost wished Steve would start talking about a baseball team that didn't exist anymore. Baseball was good, even really old baseball. Maybe he knew something about the Brav-

Without warning, a car exploded in front of them.

Carter automatically jumped to the side, avoiding the blast. Crouching behind a mail box, she open her hand, forming a thin green plate. With the disk-hand held behind her in the perfect position the be flung forward at a moments notice, she peeked over the top of the blue bin.

The burning taxi sat alone in the middle of the road. Actually, it wasn't totally alone; Thor, with a smoldering cape, stood stunned next to it. A now suited up Tony stepped forward, tentatively, followed by Captain America, brandishing his star-spangled shield. The normal members of their group joined them, with Barton staring dumb-struck at the wreckage, like he couldn't believe the tables had turned and someone had shot at him.

Carter came out from her hiding spot, the disc still held at her side. She looked around at the rest of the group. "Anyone know what did that?"

"I'm guessing it was the group of aliens over there," Tony's robot-like voice said as he pointed over her shoulder. "Led by Loki. Oh, hey! Guys guess what - I found Loki!"

The first thing Carter thought when she turned around was Are those guys wearing gas masks?. The next was, Wait... those are their faces. Whaaaaat?

The aliens were black. Literally black. Their large, flat inky eyes bulged from their long faces, and their noses hooked over the spot where their mouths should be. In short... they were creepy.

But you know what freaked Carter out more? The guy who was married to her sister, her brother in law, smirking unattractively and wielding a glowing, magic spear.

"Oh shit," Barton muttered. He pressed the communication device on his shoulder and spoke into it. "Hey, Coulson. It's Clint. We're gonna need some back up. Like, now."

"Dr. Banner."

Bruce didn't turn around to face Fury when the director spoke. Instead, he leaned in closer to the computer screen, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as they began to fall forward again. He was so close; all he needed was a little adjustment here, and maybe some tweaking of the numbers there, and he had it. It would be perfec-

"Dr. Banner," Fury repeated, pulling up a chair and sitting down. "I'd like to apologize for earlier."

God. This guy just would not quit, would he? Bruce tapped in one last number before pushing back from the desk and turning to face Fury. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"I was out of line. You have to understand; I was doing what I thought was best." Fury held a porcelain mug out to Bruce. "The least I could do to make up for it was to bring you this."

Bruce took the mug and inhaled deeply. Mmmm. Coffee. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had coffee. Actually, he could. It had been almost ten years ago, on the night before the experiment went wrong. He'd spent the whole night double-checking the math and downing gallons of the stuff. God. He missed coffee. Shame he couldn't have it.

Bruce opened his mouth to tell Fury that caffeine was a bad idea, but the SHIELD director beat him to it. With a rare smile, Fury said, "Don't worry, doctor. It's caffeine free; I took your, uh, medical condition into account."

"Oh." Bruce looked down at the cup in surprise, then back to Fury. "Thank you."

Fury gave him a stiff nod and exited the room without another word.

Turning back to the computer, Bruce ran the simulation one more time. It was crazy, what he was planning, but it just might work. Fight fire with fire. Steroids with steroids. Gamma with gamma. Yes, using such a highly concentrated dose of gamma could kill him. Or permanently turn him into the Hulk. Or give him gamma poisoning and kill him slowly. But the chances of those happening where slim. It was much more likely that this would do nothing or cure him. He just needed to be sure that that was the case. Boy, it was going to be a long night. Bruce took a large gulp of coffee.

Almost immediately, he could tell something was wrong. His mind began racing, and his heart started pounding despite his best attempts to slow it. It gained speed, it gained momentum, and with it, the Hulk gained strength. Bruce could feel it breaking free of it's bonds. His last thought before the beast was unleashed was this:

That. Was. Not. Decaf.

"You wanna take him?" Tony whispered nervously out of the side of his mouth as he stared at the crazy god in front of them.

"Yes," Carter hissed, her eyes trained on Loki. Tony could only imagine what she was going through. First she finds out her sister is married. And pregnant. With a guy who's trying to take over the world and kill you. That would definitely ruin his day/week/month/year/life. Other than the fact that she was ready to murder Loki, Carter was reacting pretty well.

Loki spread his arms out wide and gestured to the mass of freaky elephant-aliens behind him. "My army," he announced. Then, over dramatically, he searched the Avengers. "I don't see your Hulk, Stark. Oh, dear. Whatever will you do without him?"

"We're more than capable of taking you down," Captain America said, stepping forward and into a defensive and intimidating stance.

Loki just laughed at the patriot. "Oh, really? And who are you? Hmm... you can't be one of the super killers Stark mentioned; your outfit is much too loud for that. Perhaps you're the one with 'staggering anger management issues' or the one who throws 'discs of doom'?"

"I'll show you discs of doom," Carter muttered, opening her hand at her side. Tony placed one armored hand on her shoulder.

"Ah, yes! You must be the super-solider!" Loki let out a delighted laugh. "The best warrior of your realm, I presume. I do hope you don't disappoint."

Steve narrowed his eyes. "I'll try not to."

Loki just chuckled again. He gave them all a once-over glance. "I shall give you one last chance to surrender. I doubt that you would survive an attack from my army. Give in now and I will spare your pathetic, mortal lives."

Tony tried to look around Loki to see just how big his army was. The answer? He didn't know. Because he couldn't see the end of it. As far as tony could tell, the alien invasion squad went on forever. He hated to admit it, but that surrender option was looking more and more appealing.

Until a now familiar cry of rage pierced the air.

Slightly panicked but trying to remain the illusion of being calm and collected, Loki narrowed his eyes. "What was that?" he spat.

"That," Carter said with a large grin, "was our Hulk."