Note: Thanks to all the people who've read this story so far and added it to their favorites list. I'd like to give special thanks to Tahiri Veila Solo, imasuperhero, Jen Lennon, IlikeKnightsInBangedUpArmor, GhibliGirl91 and Ophelia115 for leaving reviews. I love receiving feedback (even criticism) as it helps me shape my writing into a better product. And … one of you will find a character's thoughts here to be familiar
And since this is a superhero story, it's time to turn the action back to … well … some action!
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Chapter 11
They sat clustered around the table, a round table, of course. What other type of table would any self-respecting architect have designed for the superhuman men and women who made up S.H.I.E.L.D.? Not only did the round table remind the assembled super-egos they were here for a larger purpose, but it also solved the very practical problem of seating no superhero above, or below, the other. Enormous video screens rose from desktop to ceiling, a different part of today's briefing displayed on each screen. Laser pointer in hand, Nick Fury circled the room making his presentation. By not standing in one place, no single Avenger could accuse the S.H.I.E.L.D. director of playing favorites.
Steve noted what Fury was doing. Soothe one ego here. Stroke another there. Put this arrogant S.O.B. back in their place. Smooth it over so the one slighted did not seethe. A maestro, conducting his high-strung, extremely volatile orchestra. So very different from commanding a battalion of enlisted men … and yet not so different now that he was picking things apart and scrutinizing them. The men Steve had taken command of when he'd rescued the 101st Airborne from Red Skull's fortress had served under fire together for years during the Great War. The Avengers, with the exception of Clint Hawkeye and Natasha, had only recently been assembled from their separate missions.
His eyes drifted over to the empty seat at the table. Black Widow. Someday soon they were going to have to acknowledge she wasn't ever going to wake up and find somebody else to fill that seat. Hawkeye … he might as well be missing. He sat next to his lovers' empty seat, as though guarding it, his expression exhausted from too many weeks sitting at her side, pleading with her to come back from whatever trauma had left her body an empty shell.
"Commander Rogers," Fury said, giving him a pointed look. "Do you care to enlighten us what you found?"
"Oh … yes," Steve said, realizing his mind had drifted away from the briefing. He stood and took the laser pointer from Fury's hand, forcing himself to walk around the room as though he were inspecting a line of troops rather than stand in one place. Fury handled the Avengers with a firm hand. If Steve was going to lead them, it was time he learned that same skill.
"After Red Skull blew up the technology in his fortress," Steve said. "Howard Stark became obsessed with trying to piece together alien technology and see what it did. Some of this we know…"
Steve searched for the correct button on the remote control, fumbling as the first button he hit was the wrong one and the screen slid back to an earlier slide. Stark snickered. A five-year-old had more familiarity with the technology Steve had trouble grasping. He could fly any plane, shoot any gun, or lead a battalion of men straight through the gates of hell, but he still hadn't figured out how to make the clock on his microwave do something other than flash '12:00 – 12:00 – 12:00' no matter how many times he read the instruction manual.
"It's the big red one," Stark said, his dark goatee and impish grin giving him the appearance of a devil. "You can't miss it."
Steve suppressed his annoyance and hit the big red button. The picture changed to the slide he wanted to show. If he let Stark know he was succeeding in riling him, it would undermine his command.
"Thanks," Steve said, giving him a neutral response that did not match the irritation clenching in his gut. The last time he had felt this frustrated was when the USO had gone to France to perform his Captain America act for the remnants of the 101st Airborne and they'd thrown tomatoes at him. He'd responded by going AWOL and rescuing the missing members of their party, proving them all wrong. What he needed to do now was another show of leadership to prove himself all over again. Only this time, instead of him being the superhero leading a troop of ordinary men, he was the most ordinary member of the group. If he was going to win their respect, it would be his ability to coordinate successful missions which would win them over.
Or at least that was Peggy's take of the situation…
"As I was saying," Steve repeated, aiming the little red dot at the image in the center of the screen, technology so simple even he had quickly mastered it. "Some of this we know. The tesseract cube was retrieved from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and Howard Stark devoted the rest of his life trying to harness its power. With limited success. The fact the cube even existed inspired his research into alternative sources of energy such as the arc reactor, but he was never able to recreate or fully harness the tesseract cube as Red Skull had done."
Tony Stark gave Steve a dark look. Talk about your Oedipus complex! Steve had learned a whole lot of information he hadn't known about his nemesis from Pepper Potts, most of it knowledge that forced Steve to temper his irritation and cut him some slack. Just as Peggy had asked. That didn't mean he had to like dealing with the arrogant jerk! Steve hit the red button and advanced to the next slide, an image of a gigantic carved tree.
"Yggdrasil," Thor said. "Gateway to the nine worlds."
Steve nodded.
"Both Red Skull and Adolph Hitler were obsessed with the occult," Steve said. "While Hitler believed he could harness the mythology of the gods to inspire people to support his rise to power, only Red Skull understood that behind that myth lay technology. In that, Red Skull and Tony's father were a lot alike."
Tony Stark sat back, his expression one of disdain. "Tell us something we don't already know."
"If you knew it," Thor growled, his fist wrapping around Mjolnir, "then it would have been you who contacted Asgard. Not the mortal Jane."
"Enough!" Banner said, his voice possessing that dangerous edge they were all learning meant his other half was lurking a little too close to the surface. "If you want to bicker like teenaged girls, do so on your own time."
Steve's eyes were drawn back to the empty chair in the room. So, he noticed, were everybody else's. Natasha had been more than the token female. And also the least likely of the bunch to 'bicker like a girl.'
"Stark … the elder one," Steve continued, "thought his research into the cube had failed. He tried testing the cube again and again, only to have the facility he was conducting research in blow up. Some of his failures were pretty … spectacular."
Steve flipped to an image of a miles-deep crater in the ground. And then another one. Then a third one. Craters the government had officially attributed to research into nuclear weapons, but which Pepper Potts had turned up were failed tests of the tesseract cube. Tests none of them would have even known were not nuclear weapons had Peggy not told him about Howard Stark's obsession and the three failed tests.
"I was always told those were tests of the hydrogen bomb," Stark said, leaning forward in his seat with curiosity. "Although there were a lot of things about my father I'm discovering I didn't know."
"He was the father of the atomic bomb," Banner said, gesturing to the wasteland that was left after each atomic … or tesseract cube … explosion. "Why would anybody question … this?"
"Can you increase the resolution of that image?" Thor said, his voice filled with excitement. "There. That one there."
Steve smiled. They had spotted it. The anomaly he'd noticed while digging through photographs of Howard Stark's old research. He stared at the remote control, trying to remember which button told the machine to make the image bigger.
"The green one," Tony whispered, leaning towards him and pointing to the correct button. This time, there was no condescending tone to his voice. Only urgency.
The image grew larger. Although fuzzy, the bare spot at the center of each mass of tangled shrapnel was clear, smooth, and had a ring of rune-shaped writing around the landing pad.
"I'll be damned," Tony Stark whistled. "The old man succeeded and he didn't even know it."
"He thought he had the power source for a weapon," Steve said. "Not the key to opening the Bifrost … the rainbow bridge between worlds."
"There," Hawkeye said, the sharpest eyes of the group. "What's that? Blow that up."
Steve fumbled with the remote control. Green button. Green button. After a few false tries, he centered the picture and blew up the image even further. Standing in the center of one of the scenes of desolation stood a lone figure. A purple-faced demon unlike anything any of them had ever seen. Not Chitauri … but something else completely. Next to him stood a figure in a long black cloak with red trim, unnaturally tall for a human. The hood was down, revealing the face Steve knew only too well.
"Your father consorted with Thanos?" Thor roared in anger. He picked up Mjolnir and slammed it down upon the table, smashing it in two.
"My father did no such thing!" Tony Stark shouted back. He was not wearing his iron man suit at the moment, but it was only the push of a button away.
"The evidence stands before us now!" Thor shouted. He pointed at the screen. "Thanos is the enemy of Asgard."
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Nick Fury shouted, attempting to rein the two in before this devolved into another one of their fistfights. "That's not what Steve said!"
"Who is Thanos?" Banner asked.
"What does this have to do with anything?" Hawkeye asked.
"Thanos?" Steve asked. He pointed to the other figure standing on the screen. "My point was that is Herr Klaiser, who we now believe is this mysterious Other who recruited Loki to invade earth. Howard Stark's company was infiltrated and his research sabotaged. But we can document he opened Bifrost at least three times."
"Do you know what you have done?" Thor shouted at Tony Stark.
"Me?" Stark asked. "What does this have to do with me? I wasn't even born yet!"
Thor threw Mjolnir at Stark. Stark ducked. He pushed a button on his wrist. A high pitched whine filled the room while the briefcase he always carried with him unfolded around his torso. Thor retrieved his hammer and stalked towards Stark to clobber him. Stark powered up the pulse reactors on his gauntlets and fired at Mjolnir. The pulse bounced of Mjolnir and singed Banner. Banner began to hyperventilate. His eyes turned green.
"Guys! Guys!" Steve shouted, trying to regain control of the situation. This was so unlike commanding a platoon of soldiers. On the other side of the now-shattered table, Nick Fury was doing the exact same thing, trying to regain control before New York City had two superheroes duking it out mid-air and the Hulk loose in the city. Hawkeye, on the other hand, hadn't moved. He stared at the videos with an impassive expression on his face, scrutinizing every detail for whatever clues could help him awaken the woman they all had no doubt he loved, even though he refused to even speak of it.
The door to the conference room slammed open, the door opening so hard it slammed the wall behind it.
"Sir! She's awake!"
The brawling continued. Banner's growls began to take on the edge of a caged tiger. His shoulders began to bulk up, a slight tearing sound as he fought the monster trying to unleash itself. Thor launched himself at Stark and knocked him back. The Iron Man suit robotics whined, throwing the upstart Norse god off of himself as though he were a flea.
"Deputy Director Fury, Sir!" the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent dressed in the scrubs of a doctor shouted. "She's awake. Sir! Agent Romanov has woken up!"
Everybody stopped, Thor mid-swing. Only the sound of Banner hyperventilating as he got his lesser half under control broke the silence of the room. The first of them to move was Hawkeye. He sprinted out the door towards the sick bay.
The rest of them followed.
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Note: I've had some questions about Herr Klaiser, the Other, and Thanos. In the Avengers movie, the cloaked leader of the Chitauri who promised Loki an army to back him invading was called The Other. At the end of the movie, The Other speaks to a shadowy purple-faced figure who is named in the credits as 'Thanos.' They are two separate alien leaders of two separate species. The 'easter egg' hint at the end of Avengers is that Thanos will be the villain in an upcoming Marvel movie, which will be a game-changer because Thanos works on a galactic scale.
In traditional Marvel canon (Ultimate Avengers), Herr Klaiser was the leader of the Chitauri charged with subjugating Earth (there was no 'Other'). He took the form of a Nazi officer after absorbing his consciousness and devouring him. Much of what Herr Klaiser/Chitauri leader did was the same as what The Other/Chitauri leader did. Therefore, I am hinting that these two are really one and the same leader since it makes my storytelling easier if there is only –one- leader of the Chitauri.
Please! Brain-sucking shape-shifting aliens are hard enough to build a story around without giving them two (or three) different leaders! I can only research the canon on one bad guy at a time! Bad boys! LOL! I can see why Loki fanfic is so popular!
Hmmmm … what will readers want when Thanos finally is featured as a bad guy in an upcoming Marvel movie?
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Natasha walked up to the big, purple faced alien and ran her fingers through his tentacles.
"Hey, big boy," Natasha said. "Why don't you tell me all about your invasion plans?"
Thanos rumbled in his throat, not sure whether to kill, or kiss the attractive human female.
"You're just here to spy on me," Thanos said. "The moment I tell you, you'll betray me. Just like Death did."
"But you –do- so like to play with fire, now," Natasha said. "Don't you, big guy? The Titan who fell in love with Death."
She slid her fingers down his purple warts, causing Thanos to shudder with desire. Danger. If there was anything he'd learned with his relationship with Death, it was that females were not to be trusted. Especially not ones nick-named the Black Widow.
"You will pay me the proper respect, woman!" Thanos roared. He flipped Natasha on her back. She went down amazingly easy for one so agile, her pert breasts rising and falling as though she panted with desire instead of fear. It was a trick. He knew it was a trick. He placed one meaty hand around her throat, not sure whether to snap her pretty neck, or lick it.
"You like to hurt me," Natasha purred. "Don't you?" She stretched her neck, giving him greater access. "Or do you simply wish to mark me as yours?"
Thanos sniffed the tasty morsel, scenting her pheromones of desire. His? Yes. He wanted her, and he would take her. He bit her neck, scarring it, leaving his mark, marking her. HIS woman! Natasha moaned, halfway between pleasure and pain, as she urged him to do more. He wanted … more. He wanted … her. He could feel the spell of the Black Widow cloud his senses as some part of his brain screamed a warning … it was –she- who was marking –him.- Bending him to her will and making him dream of what it would be like to lay pretty planets at her feet as trinkets. Yes … he would give Natasha what she wanted because it was, after all, what –he- wanted.
Her phone rang.
"You should get that," Thanos said.
"Not now," Natasha said, visibly annoyed. "Finish it."
The phone continued to ring, breaking the mood. Natasha grabbed her phone and flipped it open.
"Can't you see I'm in the middle of recruiting our next S.H.I.E.L.D. agent!" Natasha screamed into the phone. "How am I supposed to work under these conditions?"
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Okay … there … I couldn't resist. So for those of you asking about Thanos and the –rest- of you pleading with me not to kill off Natasha … there you go. The reviewers made me do it! Only in fanfiction could you get such a bizarre little vignette!
LOL!
Don't forget to hit the big blue button on your way out the door! Reviews make me smile.