Author's Note: Hello! I changed my name! Hope that doesn't throw you; I promise it's the same person. BanditLumia was the name I'd been using since high school, and I was bored with it. Now that I'm no longer afraid of people on the internet, I'm not afraid to tell you my real name. So hi! I'm TheAngryTori! Feel free to follow me on Twitter or Tumblr (I reblog a lot of Avengers stuff, so you might be interested) if you'd like. It's the same name for all three. And if you do, please send me a message or something to let me know, because I'd love to meet you! I'm not sure if you're aware, but I consider each of you to be a personal friend because you read my story. But it'll make our friendship so much easier if I know your names!

Also, I'm sorry for the long break between chapters (again). I meant to have this one ready a couple of days ago, but I have been insanely busy. I also apologize for any possible spelling/grammar errors in this, because I am insanely tired as well. I made it longer than usual; hopefully that'll make up for the delay, the errors, and the trauma I put you guys through in the previous chapter! I hope you enjoy!

Edit: Reposting this, with (hopefully) all of the errors edited out. As Fishy Rainboots very kindly and graciously pointed out (and thank you a million times over for doing so!), I accidentally used the wrong form of "your". After wallowing in shame and embarrassment until it was all I could think about, I decided to go through and edit. Sorry to those of you who have this on Alert, and thought you were getting a new chapter. But take heart; I plan on having the next one up later tonight!

Chapter Ten: Chaos

Tony had given her her own package of blueberries.

They weren't quite the same as she remembered. These had, apparently, been purposely dried. The process made them chewy and a bit tough, not soft and bursting with juice as she remembered them to be. But the flavor was the same: cool and sweet and reminiscent of every good memory she had of Earth. While they had not been around in her youth, they had quickly become a favorite during her many visits to Midgard, and she had been unaccountably happy to find them here on this ship.

She munched slowly and happily, swiveling back and forth in the black chair she had moved to when Bruce's counter had become too crowded. She watched them work in silence, fascinated by these men and their capacity to understand such complex ideas. They moved about the lab with such purpose, seeming to know what the other would need without having to ask.

Banner was so different when he worked; no longer timid and cautious, but confident in his abilities and certain of every one of his actions. The tales credited to him a genius uncommon for his race. She had assumed it to be an exaggeration, as the Storytellers were known for such embellishments. But now she believed, if anything, it was an understatement of the truth. She wondered how much else the tales had told truly, and was filled with a desire to witness his strength for herself.

Therefore she made no objection as she watched Stark sneak up behind him with a screwdriver and jab the tip into his side.

"Ow!" Bruce shot him a half-hearted glare, only slightly annoyed by Stark's attempts to provoke him.

"Hey, are you nuts?" Captain Rogers did not seem nearly as amused as she was by his antics as he entered the lab.

Stark ignored him entirely. "You really do have a lid on it, don't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"

Sága nearly choked on a blueberry as the captain continued his reprimand. "Is everything a joke to you?"

"Funny things are."

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, Doc."

"Yeah, i-it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle…pointy things," Bruce assured, continuing with his work and pretending not to be a part of this.

"You're tiptoeing, big man," Tony laughed. "You need to strut."

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark."

"You think I'm not? ...Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Rogers was feigning disbelief, but there was something in his tone that sounded like a hint of doubt.

"He's a spy," Tony said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets." He tossed a handful of berries into his mouth before gesturing toward Bruce. "It's buggin' him, too, isn't it?"

"Uhh…" Bruce looked very much like he wanted to disappear. "I-I just wanna finish my work here, and…"

"Doctor?" Rogers interrupted.

Bruce glanced to Sága for help, but she merely shrugged, also interested in what he had to say. He sighed, removing his glasses. "…A 'warm light for all mankind'. Loki's jab at Fury about the cube…"

"I heard it."

"Well, I think that was meant for you." He pointed at Tony, who in turn offered him the bag of blueberries. Taking a few, Bruce continued, "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."

"The Stark Tower? That big, ugly…" Tony glared. "…building in New York?"

Sága glanced out the window. Yes, she could see it from here. It certainly was big, though she knew far too little of Midgardian architecture to be able to deem it ugly or not. "It's powered by an Arc Reactor, a self-sustaining energy source," Bruce was saying, fidgeting with his watch. "That building will run itself for, what, a year?"

"That's just a prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now," Tony told Rogers. "That's what he's getting at."

"Wait…" Sága began, starting to catch up with what they were saying. "SHIELD's been trying to develop this 'clean' energy through the Tesseract. So why didn't they ask for your help?"

Tony grinned, snatching up another packet of blueberries from the countertop and tossing it to her. She caught it with ease, shamelessly tearing into it with childlike excitement.

"Exactly!" Bruce agreed, with a quick smile her way. "And what's SHIELD doing in the energy business in the first place?"

"I should probably look into that," Tony began, walking away from Bruce and back over to his main workstation, "Once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files."

Captain Rogers did not look pleased. "I'm sorry, did you say—"

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. As well as a search on you, hon," Tony added, turning and pointing at Sága, "but we'll get to that later." She flushed, uncomfortable with the attention. Whoever this Jarvis was, he seemed to have a great many talents. "In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?"

"Yet you're confused as to why they didn't want you around," Rogers shot.

"An intelligence agency that fears intelligence?" he asked, lowering the offered bag. "Historically: not awesome."

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed." The captain glanced at Bruce, hoping for his support. "We have orders. We should follow them."

"Following's not really my style," Tony said, nonchalant.

"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Sága couldn't see Tony's face from here, but she didn't really need to to know he would rise to the challenge.

"Of the people in this room, which one is a) wearing a spangly outfit and b) not of use?"

"I'm not really much use…" Sága offered, slowly raising her hand.

Tony turned to her with a grin. "Yeah, but still not spangly. And he thinks you're cute, so you stay," he added with a wink, gesturing toward Bruce.

She could feel her face flush a dark red, and Bruce coughed awkwardly, fidgeting with his watch again. "Steve," he said, pretending that hadn't just happened, "Tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?"

The captain seemed conflicted, glancing from Tony to Bruce and back. "Just find the cube," he reminded them, turning and exiting the lab.

Sága watched him go. Through the window, she saw him stop, hesitate, and then turn and head in the opposite direction. What was he up to..?

"That's the guy my dad never shut up about? Wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice." Tony sounded bitter; it was a tone she recognized, a tone Thor often employed whenever someone had bruised his mighty ego.

"The guy's not wrong about Loki, though. Neither were you," Bruce said with a very quick glance in Sága's direction. He seemed to be having just as difficult a time of looking at her as she was at him, making her wonder if Stark's earlier words might be true… "He does have the jump on us."

"What he's got is an Acme dynamite kit," Tony said, moving from one computer to another. "It's gonna blow up in his face. And I'm going to be there when it does."

"Yeah? I'll read all about it."

"Uh-huh. Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us."

Bruce's laugh was humorless. "Nah, you see… I don't get a suit of armor. I'm exposed. Like a nerve. It's a nightmare."

Sága frowned. She hadn't thought about that. None of the stories ever mentioned how vulnerable he was.

"You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel in my chest, trying every second to crawl its way into my heart. This stops it," Tony said, tapping the light in the center of his chest, glowing through the dark shirt. "This little circle of light is a part of me now. Not just armor. It's a…terrible privilege." He stepped up to the other side of Bruce's computer, looking at him through the transparent screen.

"But you can control it."

"Because I learned how."

"It's different," Bruce told him, turning back to his work.

Frustrated, Tony swiped at the screen, clearing it. "Hey. I read all about your 'accident'. That much gamma exposure should have killed you."

"So you're saying that the Hulk—the other guy saved my life? That's nice. That's a nice sentiment. Saved it for…what?"

"I guess we'll find out," Stark answered, heading back over to his desk.

"You may not enjoy that," Bruce told him, trying to return to his work.

"And you just might."

Sága spun her chair around to face the window, feeling as though she had just intruded on a very personal moment.

She tossed a handful of berries into her mouth, watching and listening to a star implode near Vanaheim, and trying not to wonder whether Bruce actually thought she was "cute".

After nearly an hour of silent working, Bruce stepped away from his screen with a clap and a smile. "That should do it!"

Sága stood quickly, sending the chair spinning behind her as she peered over his shoulder, trying to understand what he was seeing on that screen. "You've found it?"

His confidence was gone instantly, and he stepped away from her, fidgeting with his glasses and not making eye contact. "Uh, w-well, not quite. But, uh… This will find it."

"How?"

He moved back to her side, pointing at a long string of numbers and symbols. "So radioactive material gives off a unique level of radiation, right?" She nodded, remembering his attempt to explain that earlier. "Well this is the radiation signature that we took from the scepter, which should be the same as the signature of the Tesseract. All of these," he gestured to the rest of the screen, "are the spectrometers from around the world. Right now, we've got them scanning for this particular signature. Once they find it, so will we."

She grinned, finding herself quite fond of the look of pride on his face as he spoke of his work. "That's wonderful!" He turned to her with that crooked smile of his.

"In the meantime," Tony piped up, standing on the opposite side of the screen and eyeing her through the glass, "let's talk about you!"

She backed away cautiously, heading back toward her chair. "I… Whatever do you mean?"

"Oh, don't act coy with me," he teased, pulling the small piece of tech called a cell phone from his pocket, tossing it from one hand to the other. "Your dad's a god, right? And you grew up here? So where are all the stories about you? Why can't Jarvis find anything?"

She sat heavily, choosing her words carefully. "Because there are no stories about me. And if there are, they've been...re-appropriated for someone much more desirous of glory than I. In Asgard, they call me 'Sághildr the Shy'. I do not crave attention as the others do; and certainly not from humans." She glanced between Tony and Bruce. "No offense; you both have been very good to me. But my history on earth has been particularly unpleasant."

"How so?"

She bristled at Stark's prying. "That is personal, sir," she told him, bowing her head. "I would like to keep it that way."

He nodded dismissively, pressing something on the face of his cell phone. "Yeah, okay… Problem is, Jarvis was able to find one record that sounds like you. In some little corner of Iceland, they still tell a story about 'Sághildr the Monstrous', who apparently leveled a whole town. Care to explain?"

She jumped to her feet. "That story has never been published. How did you find it?"

"Yeah, Jarvis had a heck of a time tracking it down…" She gaped at him, torn between shock and rage. "Look, if you're going to be helping us out, I have a right to know who I'm working with, right?"

She sat back down. "I suppose so..."

"So, what happened? Loki break up with you? PMS? Someone taped over your soaps?"

She sighed heavily, running a hand through her hair. "To call it a 'town' is being generous," she informed, looking down at her hands. "And my mother had died." She glanced up; they were both watching her intently. "I didn't hurt anyone, though! I just…broke a few buildings." Stark looked doubtful. "Alright, I razed the village. As you've seen, my magic is very closely tied to my words—and thus my emotions—and I was…upset. But I didn't hurt anyone." She looked back down at her hands. "I am no monster…

"After my initial destruction, the residents of the village were, well… They weren't pleased, as you can imagine. They tried to, umm, rid themselves of me. Unfortunately, they chose to do so at the same time that my father arrived from Asgard. He was already a bit unstable over my mother's death, and to see them with their swords and spears raised against me… He did not take it well." She turned to the window, gazing out at the sea far below them, trying not to remember the sound of the villagers' screaming.

After several long moments of silence, Bruce spoke up softly. "What was her name? Your mother."

She turned, her heart breaking at the pity and understanding she saw in his eyes. She gave him a half smile. "Her name was Eira. She was very kind."

He smiled, clenching and unclenching his fists nervously. He didn't seem to know what to do.

They were all grateful when Tony's cell phone began beeping. "Jarvis found something," he told them, stepping over to one of the screens. He pulled something up, glancing at Dr. Banner. "D'you know anything about 'Phase Two'?"

Bruce shrugged, accessing a different computer. Stark sent the file to him. "What is this..?"

Sága abandoned her corner, going to look over Bruce's shoulder once again, though she understood very little of what she saw.

"Jarvis," Tony said, speaking into his cell phone. "Get me everything about this 'Phase Two'."

Quite some time went by with no new developments. They combined the information to a single computer monitor, and Tony had assumed Sága's previous perch on the countertop. Bruce was pacing, frustrated. Sága stood by the window, anxiously twirling a strand of hair around her finger and watching the sun rise.

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" The commanding voice of Director Fury made her turn away. He looked, well…furious.

"Uhh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you," Tony challenged.

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

"We are," Bruce informed him. "The model's locked, and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."

"Yeah, then you'll get your cube back. No muss, no fuss…" Tony trailed off, distracted by the failure of yet another attempt at accessing the restricted file. "What is Phase Two?"

Captain Rogers entered the lab as well, carrying a huge, ugly piece of metal that he dropped unceremoniously on the counter. "Phase Two is SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons." He turned to Tony, "Sorry. The computer was moving a little slow for me."

Sága pushed away from the window, stepping up beside Bruce. Surely, that couldn't be true…

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we—"

"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony practically yelled, cutting him off. Jarvis had apparently found the correct password. He swung the screen around, showing a diagram of a missile. "What were you lying?"

"I was wrong, Director," Rogers reprimanded. "The world hasn't changed a bit."

Another door opened, and Thor walked into the lab, closely followed by Agent Romanov.

"Did you know about this?" Bruce demanded of Natasha, moving from Sága's side and around to the other side of the counter. She followed him, wondering what the spy had done to make him so defensive toward her in particular.

"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, Doc?"

He laughed, but the sound was humorless. "I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed."

"Loki is manipulating you."

"And you've been doing what, exactly?"

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy." He grabbed the monitor, pointing at it with his glasses in hand. "I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

Fury considered his question for a moment, before pointing at Thor. "Because of him."

Sága was immediately at his side, defensive and ready to protect her prince and friend at a moment's notice. Thor, on the other hand, merely sounded confused. "Me?"

"Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town."

"Sounds familiar," Tony muttered with a glance at Sága. She and Fury ignored him.

"We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly—hilariously—outgunned."

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor assured him.

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

"Like you controlled the cube?" Rogers challenged.

Sága spoke up, hoping to make this man see reason. "You don't understand; your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki and his allies to it. It is a signal to all the realms that Midgard is ready for a higher form of war. Don't you see that?"

"You forced our hand," was the best Fury could come up with. "We had to come up with—"

"A nuclear deterrent," Stark interrupted. "Because that always calms everything right down."

The next thing she knew, they were all talking at once, each individual arguing with everyone else. Sága had heard louder noises before, of course; but it was easier to filter sounds out the further they were away. This was just so loud, and so close, and there were so many different voices… She couldn't make heads or tails of it.

She pressed her eyes shut, hoping the decreased stimuli would make it easier to process; but it only served to make the sound amplified, her hearing compensating for the lack of sight. She pressed her hands against her ears, her feet stumbling as she reeled back from the cacophony.

Suddenly a large, gentle hand was at her waist, guiding her, pulling her close. She opened her eyes to find Bruce, his brown eyes filled with annoyance, certainly, but mostly concern. She pressed her face into his shoulder, trying to focus on his comforting scent as his arm wrapped around her waist, holding her against him. He was so warm…

The arguing eased up, though it did not fully cease. Sága lowered her hands from her ears, using them to cling to Bruce's arm instead. Her head was still spinning. As if from a distance, she heard Thor's laughter.

"You people are so petty," he was saying. "And tiny! You make even Sága seem large!"

Director Fury's voice came to her next. "Agent Romanov, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his—"

"Where? You rented my room!"

Sága had lost her desire to see what Bruce could do. Not like this; she didn't want him angry at those who were supposed to be his allies. All the same, she did not pull away from him, though she could tell from his voice and the way his arm tightened around her that he was—possibly dangerously—close.

"The cell was just in case—" Fury tried to reason, but Bruce cut him off again.

"In case you needed to kill me, but you can't. I know; I've tried."

She raised her head from his shoulder, gazing up at him, surprised. He seemed surprised as well, surprised that the words had even come out of his mouth. He seemed to immediately regret having brought it up at all.

After a moment's hesitation, he elaborated. "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 looked down at her, as if surprised she was still there beside him. She merely tightened her grip on his arm. "…So I moved on," he continued. "I focused on helping people. I was good. Until you dragged me back into this freak show, and put everyone here at risk. You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanov? You wanna know how I stay calm?"

There was a sudden shift in the atmosphere of the room; everything was silent now, except for the sound of Fury and Romanov both loosing their guns from their holsters. She looked down; Bruce was holding the scepter.

"Dr. Banner?" Rogers called softly. Bruce's eyes darted to him. "Put down the scepter."

He looked down in disbelief, as though surprised to find it in his hand. He glanced at Sága as if for confirmation, but she didn't know any more than he did. There was a brief flash of helplessness in his eyes, a deep-rooted pain so strong it pierced her own heart as well. She wanted to be strong for him.

One of her hands let go of his arm; briefly, he looked panicked, afraid that she was going to pull away from him like everyone else did. Instead, she reached down to grab the scepter, placing her hand just beside his.

"It's alright," she whispered.

A beeping alarm from the other side of the lab drew everyone's attention away. The spectrometers had found the Tesseract!

Together, Sága and Bruce raised the scepter and placed it back behind him on the countertop. Slowly, hesitantly, he extracted his arm from around her waist, walking over to check the computer. She instantly missed his warmth.

"Sorry, kids," he murmured. "You don't get to see my party trick, after all."

They all began arguing again, though not quite as loudly as before. Sága stepped forward, trying to get between Thor and Director Fury, who were arguing over who should go retrieve the Tesseract.

They all froze when Bruce removed his glasses and looked around desperately. "Oh, my God…"

And then the whole lab was noise and flames and chaos.

On impulse, Sága grabbed the two closest people and vanished to the only place she could think of.