A/N: Well well, if it isn't me again, giving you yet another update of this little gem. Thank you for all your reviews last chapter, I know it wasn't the most exciting chapter I've written for this story but it definitely told us a lot and set up the scene for what's about to happen now. I don't really have much to say, aside from the fact that the chapter title is the greatest chapter title I have ever come up with. Ever. This chapter will spin by fast because it's definitely dialogue heavy instead of drawn out thought and action. I'm pretty excited too, because some people are finally going to get an earful and there's going to be a few bombs dropped that you're not expecting. At all. I won't keep you any longer, read on!

Chapter Ten: Hell Hath No Fury Like Nick Fury

Stalking through the halls of the Helicarrier, Katniss was seeing red. She wasn't quite sure what she was angrier over anymore; Loki's mind games during her impromptu interrogation or all of the things that were related to her discovery of who her mother was. Loki's taunts resonated in her mind as she stormed past people, all but pushing them out of her way. Hawthorne won't have that pleasure; I'm talking about someone who you matter much, much more to. This is pathetic, you're pathetic. The vulnerability leaks off of you. This ship is the lighter, and you are the fuse.

Guess that meant the whole damn thing was about to go down in flames.

Rounding a corner, she almost collided with Thor, who lighted up at the sight of her. "Lady Everdeen," he greeted. "Our presence has been requested in the Doctor's laboratory." Katniss had to fight the urge to roll her eyes; I was the one who called you, moron.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Come on Shakespeare," she said, hardly waiting any time before resuming her prowl to the lab. "I really don't have the time to waste."

Thor followed alongside her quietly, reminding her vaguely of a Labrador. He was nothing like his brother—he certainly knew when to shut up unlike Loki, but his brother was his biggest weakness. It didn't take too much for Katniss to figure that one out. The way that he protected him in any kind of conversation that was mostly targeting Loki in a negative way, the way that he was always trying to bring out the person he knew Loki to be whenever he was near; it was something that she'd picked up on almost instantly. Thor's weakness would always be his loyalty, especially to Loki, and it would be his downfall, essentially. She'd all but forgotten he was tagging along beside her until he decided to speak up again. "Fair maiden, is there something troubling you?" he asked politely.

"Nope, everything's just fine," Katniss said through her gritted teeth. Obviously, that was a lie, but what Thor didn't know definitely wouldn't kill him. As she rounded a corner, Bruce's lab came into view; Fury, Bruce, Tony and Steve all standing there. It didn't seem like too friendly of a conversation. Something was sitting down on the lab table—Katniss assumed it had been Steve's findings up in 10-C, and she briefly wondered how pissed he was at her for ditching him up there. The thought dissipated the second her eyes locked on Tony. Tony, who had known everything, Tony who had literally rubbed her mother right in her face and did it all with a smile. And then there was Fury, who knew and actively avoided telling her, for what, the sake of the greater good? She could taste the metal in her mouth as she felt her hands instinctively move to the back of her utility belt, where Natasha's file was protruding.

Like a whirlwind, Katniss stormed into the laboratory, Tony's face lighting up. "Oh look, it's the baby bird!" he exclaimed cheerfully. Not even bothering to acknowledge his comment, she took the file out from behind her and threw it down on the table next to whatever Steve had come across. Tony's face instantly paled, and Fury looked as though he had dry swallowed cement.

"So, who wants to explain what the fuck this is?" she started, glancing around the room. Every eye was on her; Tony pretty terrified, Steve was startled, Fury stood there like a statue and showed no kind of emotion, Bruce looked almost sad for her, and Thor was just confused as he always was. "Well?"

"You were not supposed to go looking, I thought I'd made that very clear," Fury said, his voice dangerously low. "Those were orders."

"Baby bird doesn't follow orders?"

"I am not your agent," Katniss snapped, her hand colliding on top of the file again for emphasis. "Now does anyone want to to tell me what this is about?!"

"Miss Everdeen—" Fury started, but Katniss cut him off.

"I don't know why you waste your time calling me by that name, since we both know that's not what it is. Why not just go ahead and start calling me Miss Romanoff?" Katniss got treacherously close to Fury, her eyes wild. "Or maybe I should just go by my father's last name; you want to tell me that?"

"Whoa," Tony's unusually serious voice cutting in; holding his hands out as he finally opened his mouth, stepping forward. "You mean to tell me she has no clue—"

"We are not doing this right now, Mr. Stark," Fury replied.

"No, Fury, we're doing this right now!" Katniss shouted. Spinning around to face Tony, her eyes narrowed into slits as she began prowling towards him. "You, you knew about this the whole time; and you never said a word to me? God, please don't tell me the reason is because you're my father."

"Of course I'm not your dad, but I thought you knew! She really has no idea?" Tony asked Fury, completely disregarding the livid teenager in front of him. "You mean to tell me you've kept this secret from the girl ever since she stepped on the bridge? I thought you would have at least had the dignity to tell her then, knowing the girl's been in the dark on everything about her life! I mean, that's why I thought Capsicle was coming to me, asking all these questions about taking action and getting him-"

"Mr. Stark!"

"I never said that she didn't know," Steve interrupted Fury's threats and Tony's verbal method of ironing out his thoughts, glancing over at her apologetically. She, however, didn't even bother to look in Steve's direction.

"Well you sure as hell fooled me!"

"Can we get back to the issue here?" Bruce finally said, turning around a monitor that showed a graphic of something that resembled a missile. Katniss couldn't really think of anything else it could be. He must have seen her staring at it rather closely, because he then addressed her. "Did you know anything about this?"

"Why would I know anything about…whatever that is?" she fired back.

"Well, seeing as how you're the only one on this case that's walking around in the name of SHIELD, I automatically assume you know they're planning to use the Tesseract to make weapons of mass destruction!"

Katniss stepped closer to him, a rather vain attempt to get him in check. "You're being manipulated, Bruce; Loki wants us all to piss you off and force you into an episode. Wanna step out for a breather?" she asked, her voice low and eyes scanning over his face.

"You haven't had any issues with me and the other guy before, why are you all of a sudden getting twitchy?" Bruce countered, lifting an eyebrow.

"Twitchy, no, precautionary, maybe." Katniss felt a pair of hands grab her shoulders, trying to pull her back from her little standoff with Bruce.

"Katniss, just let—"

"You let go of me!" she snapped, whipping around to face Steve. "So, you research my situation after I tell you about it, and then you decide, like everyone else, to keep it from me? What kind of fucking plan is that?"

"A plan where you don't get hurt!"

"Well, excuse me when I say that it's a shitty excuse of a plan!"

"I don't understand why you're being so childish over all of this!" Steve yelled back, and Katniss fell silent. She'd never heard anything like that come out of Steve's mouth before, and she hadn't expected it to. Steve was probably one of the only people she could even expect to understand why she was acting the way she was, the only one she'd apparently trusted enough to talk to, and now here he was, throwing it back in her face and calling her a child. Falling back slightly, she gave him a dirty look before turning her back to him.

"I thought humans were more evolved than this," Thor commented, his interjection into the conversation the work of impeccable timing.

Fury's head twisted in the demigod's direction, shooting him quite the glare. "Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?"

"What?"

Fury sighed as the room around him fell silent. "Last year earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge mass that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, and hilariously out gunned."

Thor's face scrunched up in confusion. "My people want nothing but peace with your planet," he explained.

"Yeah, but you're not the only people out there are you?" Fury barked. "And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled."

"That doesn't give you control over them," Katniss spat bitterly.

"What, like you controlled the cube?" Steve said.

Katniss hadn't seen Thor very angry at all, but everyone was already dancing on pins and needles as it was, it didn't come as a surprise that he was perturbed as well. "Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki and his allies to it," Thor growled. "It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"A higher form?" Steve asked again.

"You forced our hand; we had to come up with something."

"A nuclear deterrent," Tony stepped in, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, 'cause that always calms everything right down."

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?"

"And how do you make yours, Fury?" Katniss interrupted, crossing her arms.

Fury scowled, clearly unhappy with her. "No one asked you to go looking around for answers, Miss Everdeen, you could have waited—"

"Until you did what, Nick, told her? Because you clearly weren't planning on that!" Tony yelled.

"And you were?" Steve's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion, focusing his attention on Tony.

"Since when is this about me?"

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?"

Everything swarmed into chaos after that. Steve and Tony were butting heads over something that had more than likely evolved into them throwing mindless insults at one another. Bruce and Thor—two very unlikely people whom Katniss assumed had only said about three words to each other, if they'd even met at all—were arguing over the Tesseract and SHIELD's control over it, and they were probably on the same side, but it sure as hell didn't sound like it. And then there was Fury and Katniss, Katniss berating him with every colorful word that she'd ever known.

"You're rich, you know that? I mean, dangling what I want over my head and making me jump for it in the very way that's going to benefit you; really, truly clever. But when I finally come to my senses that's what you're doing and confront you on it, you just…what? Keep it up? Pray I forget? Doesn't work like that, Fury, some of us aren't so easy to roll over on our backs and ignore when we're getting played. You're as much of a monster as Loki is."

"Miss Everdeen—"

"Do not call me by that name," Katniss spat. "Does it physically pain you to be honest with someone?"

"What else does she not know, Nick?" Tony stepped in, ignoring his conversation with Steve altogether. "Does she know why she's really here? Does she know about me, about anything at all? Or are you just using her to further your own agenda?"

"Mr. Stark, you are not making this situation any better—"

"—and you're not a threat?" Katniss could hear Bruce say to Steve, who had apparently picked up where Tony had left off. She quickly glanced back and forth between Fury and Tony, before locking in on Tony.

"What is there to know about you, Stark; that you're no better than Cyclops over here?" Katniss' thumb jabbed in the direction of Fury, her eyes slits as she rounded on Tony. She was past the point of formalities, holding her inner commentary inside her head. She was angry, repressing her thoughts was no longer a priority.

"Are you gonna tell her?" Tony said, looking past the fuming girl in front of him and at Fury. "Because if you don't, right now, I'm telling her. Three seconds."

"Tony—"

"One."

Thor's voice caught Katniss' attention in the midst of Tony and Fury's standoff. "You people are so petty, and tiny," he chuckled.

"Two."

"I'm not—"

"Romanoff left me in charge of the child!" Tony revealed, his voice increasing in volume. Katniss stared at him, horrified. "Me! Not you, me. When she came to work for me and after the two of you ambushed me with her agent status, I did some real research on her and accidentally found out that she'd had a kid. She almost murdered me for it, but agreed to spare my life if I promised her that I would be the one to look after her if something happened to her. She knew that one day, it would all come down to something and the kid would find trouble—or you'd bring it knocking—and Romanoff wanted my word that I would take care of her if the day came that she couldn't. Safety-wise, financially, the whole nine yards."

"So that means—"

Katniss' dismayed, foreign-sounding voice was drowned out by Tony exploding on Fury yet again. "Natasha named me her godfather; why the hell, I'm still trying to figure that out. And the minute I knew you had recruited her—"

"Wait, how did you even know she'd been recruited?" Fury interrupted.

"Sending Coulson to recruit me on the Tesseract goose-chase?" Tony chuckled darkly. "Coulson knew all about my little secret too; brought me every last thing you ever had on Katniss when he came to give me the stuff you sent with him. I think you'll find that unlike yourself, Coulson, has values and a heart and quite frankly, doesn't have a goddamn death wish."

"So you're not even here for this…shit storm," Katniss managed to utter. "You're here because of me."

"God, I could care less about Fury and his nuclear parties. I'm doing this because I made a promise to someone and I'm not about to break it, something Fury clearly doesn't understand. Especially not when the someone I promised knows about seventy ways to kill me with her pinky."

"Natasha is dead!" Fury yelled. Tony was quick to respond, his voice at the same volume level as Fury's, if not louder.

"That doesn't change anything!" he roared.

Thor, who Katniss had guessed was idly watching the fight lay out in front of him, finally stepped in, addressing Fury. "You speak of control? All you court chaos!"

Bruce shrugged, a bitter laugh escaping him. "It's his M.O., isn't it?" he said, turning to face everyone else. "I mean, what are we, a team? No…no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're...we're a time-bomb."

Fury slowly started approaching Banner, hand hovering over his gun holster. "You need to step away."

"Why shouldn't they guy let off a little steam?" Tony asked playfully, to which earned him a hit in the shoulder from Steve.

"You know damn well why! Back off!"

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me."

"Yeah, big man in a suit of armor," Steve sneered. "Take that off, what are you?"

Tony pretended to ponder that thought. "Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," he said.

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. 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 and let the other guy crawl over you," Steve replied, his voice hardening.

"I think I would just cut the wire," Tony reasoned.

"Always a way out." Shaking his head, Steve continued. "You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "A hero, like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."

"This is fucking ridiculous," Katniss muttered, her voice sounding particularly defeated as she gripped the edge of the lab table, throwing one of her hands in the air. "We're all lying to one another, we're all being lied to, why are any of us even here if this is all it's going to amount to?"

"You're really going to check out, just like that?" Steve retorted. Katniss whipped around to face him, flames dancing in her eyes as her lip curled upwards in an animalistic snarl.

"I thought you would agree that this wasn't the exact environment for a child—"

"Do you ever let anything go?"

"Miss Everdeen, take Dr. Banner with you on your way out," Fury said coolly.

"Where?" Bruce cut in. "You rented my room."

"The cell was just—"

Fury was cut off yet again by Bruce, who was visibly beginning to grow angrier by the minute. "In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know, I tried." Everyone had fallen silent, eyes locked on the doctor. Katniss was having trouble believing her ears; a suicide attempt? Had everything really piled that heavily onto his shoulders, leaving him with that as his only option? She looked at him, the confusion among many other emotions reflecting there in her eyes. His little outburst had faded as he started talking again, his voice low. "I got low, I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out," he said, the edge building up again in his tone. "So I moved on, I focused on helping other people. I was good until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk."

Bruce then turned to face Katniss, his teeth visibly clenched together. "You wanna know the secret, Katniss? You wanna know how I stay calm?"

Katniss watched Fury's slow travel towards Bruce, reaching for the gun in the holster strapped to his thigh, her eyes flitting back over to Bruce. "Dr. Banner," Steve stated. "Put down the scepter."

Bruce looked down to the scepter in his hands before glancing back up at the group of people around him. Trying to figure out what he was about to do next, as well as counting her own breathing, Katniss was cut short at about twelve to the persistent beeping sound over in the far corner. Right, they had been tracking the Tesseract last time she'd walked off—she still assumed as such, she didn't know it was possible to continue that as they hacked into SHIELD. "Sorry, kids," Bruce said, dropping the scepter back down on the table as he ambled over to the monitor on the other side of the room. "You don't get to see my party trick after all."

"Located the Tesseract?" Thor asked.

Always the one to subtly brag about himself in any possible situation, Tony piped up. "I can get there faster."

Steve shook his head. "Look, all of us—"

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it," Thor continued, obviously not aware of the fact no one was listening to him.

Steve, however, was busy trying to pull Tony back from leaving and talk some sense into him. "You're not going alone!" he shouted, to which Tony spun back around at the sound of.

"You gonna stop me?" he asked.

"Put on the suit, let's find out."

"Give it a fucking rest already, you two," Katniss hissed over her shoulder as she followed after Bruce to see what had appeared on their tracking map. That, and she knew every second she spent within close proximity to Fury, the closer she was to slapping the eye patch right off that man.

Tony scoffed, disregarding Katniss' comment entirely. "I'm not afraid to hit an old man." Steve wasn't playing either, as his voice was just as serious as Tony's had been.

"Put on the suit."

Leaning over slightly to get a glimpse at the monitor Bruce was currently standing in front of, Katniss saw a little flashing dot hovering in the sky next to a small red box reading '99%'. "Bruce?" she asked tentatively, not sure if he was pissed with her or what. Her finger then brushed over the screen, pointing to the blinking circle on the map. "Bruce, what does that mean?"

Lowering his glasses, Bruce just stared at the screen in disbelief. "Bruce?"

"Oh my god," Bruce breathed, evidently stunned by what he'd seen. It wasn't a good enough answer for Katniss.

"Bruce, what does it—" Katniss was cut off mid yell as the sound of the explosion drowned her voice out completely and sent the floor blasting out from underneath her.

A/N: Cliffhangers really are my specialty, in case you haven't noticed. Good lord, this was one of the most fun chapters to write even though it was mostly all surrounded by quotation marks. I hope that I managed to grab you in a few places with some surprises as well as make this chapter slightly more interesting than it probably could have been, and to think that there's still so much you don't know. I'm very evil, I know. Katniss is obviously very high-strung and is pissed with all of her team members—even Thor, who she's said what, three words to?—and it's so much fun to write her snippy side, it was one of my favorite things about book Katniss. Clearly, where I'll pick up next time is going to be just as tension-filled and I'm so excited to write it, because Katniss is going to be so much more vulnerable than ever, and so is one of our other friends. Wink. So, my question for you is this: what did you think about Katniss being Tony's goddaughter? Were you expecting that, why do you think Natasha made that choice; why not someone else? Do you think Steve was in the right or was Katniss during their little riff? Don't you wish Katniss would have bitch-slapped Fury? (I know I do.) What do you think the battle on the Helicarrier is going to do now that we're about to have not just one archer on board? Let me know in that pretty little review I just know you're going to leave me, as well as whatever else you thought/what you're most excited for. I love seeing what you guys have to say! Until next time…just remember, there's a chance Katniss could be dead after that explosion. Adios. ;)