Recruited - Chapter Eleven
"Iridium. What do they need the iridium for?"
Anna and Stark followed Agent Coulson down the corridor leading to the main level of the helicarrier. The genius crept forward, past one of the armed SHIELD guards, explaining to the Agent how to rekindle his love. "It's a stabilsing agent," called Stark, answering Banner's just voiced question. "Look, what I'm saying is: pick a weekend," said the billionaire, turning back to Coulson, "I'll fly you to Portland." As they neared the group, Stark straightened his tie. "It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD."
Anna crept away from her boss, opting to stand closer to Agent Coulson and Steve Rogers on the other side of the table, eyeing the newcomer with interest. He was tall and broad, his physique nearly matched with Steve's. His long blonde, dirt-smeared hair touched his shoulders, and his face was unshaven and worn.
"No hard feelings, point-break. You've got a mean swing," said Stark, patting the blonde's arm condescendingly. Anna closed her eyes in brief exasperation. "Also," continued the billionaire, "it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants." He moved closer to the principal digital screens and stared at the readings. He called to the technical Agents, asking them to update the findings. And then he pointed to the right, gesturing to a young male Agent. "That man is playing Gallagher. He thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." He pointed his finger at the culprit in true Stark fashion before turning back to the monitors. He frowned, and lifted a hand to cover his left eye.
Oh, God, thought Anna. Surely he's not going to-
"How does Fury even see these?" asked Stark, turning back to the miss-matched group. He looked specifically at Coulson and Hill.
Agent Hill folded her arms across her chest. "He turns," she said.
And that was all it took. A laugh escaped Anna's lips, and the two Agents turned to her with identical reprimanding looks.
"That's exhausting," commented Stark, catching Anna's gaze and winking before commanding the screens. He stroked the last display with his index finger and changed the interface. "The rest of the raw materials," he continued, "Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is a power source of high energy density." Anna watched Stark's fingers as they ran along the underneath of the computers, and she raised her brows as she spied him inserting a micro reader into one of the ports. Anna glanced around the group, and she appeared to be the only one to have noticed.
Stark Industries +2, SHIELD 0.
"Something to… kick-start the cube," said Stark, turning back to face the group, sliding his hands into his pockets to hide the casing of the reader.
"When did you become an expert in thermo-nuclear astrophysics?" asked Agent Hill, her tone showcasing her disdain for the male.
Stark smiled and retaliated with a carefree raise of his brows. "Last night."
Hill merely stared in response.
"The packet," continued Stark, moving closer to the table. "Selvig's notes. The extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?" He turned to his employee. "Not that I expect SHIELD to have filled you in on every little detail, Annie. But I could use another great mind here."
Steve spoke up. "Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" He asked, looking toward Stark.
Dr. Banner stopped his pacing, holding his glasses in his hands. "He'd have to heat the Cube to one-hundred-and-twenty-million kelvin just to break through the barrier-"
"Unless," interrupted Stark, walking closer to the two Doctors. "Selvig has figured out how stabilise the quantum-tunnelling effect."
Banner nodded. "Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion-fusion at any reactor on the planet."
"Finally," said Stark, moving closer to Dr. Banner, gesturing to the man with his hand. "Someone who speaks English."
From his seat at the table, Steve raised his brows. "Is that what just happened?" he asked, sounding terribly confused. He looked to his left and caught Anna's eye; the doctor smiled slightly, her ears trained on the two geniuses behind her.
"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner," said Stark, shaking Banner's hand with his firm grip. "Your work on the anti-electron collisions is unparalleled." Anna blinked in surprise. No comment on Banner's alter-ego? Was Stark being… polite? "And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."
There we go, thought the analyst.
Banner didn't respond immediately. He merely swallowed and forced out a short, "Thanks."
And that was when Fury intervened. "Dr. Banner and Dr. Wellington are only here to track the Cube. I was hoping you might join them."
"Let's start with that stick of his," added Steve, looking up at the Director. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon." He glanced to his left, looking at the three geniuses for some form of confirmation.
"I don't know about that," said Fury, "but it is powered by the Cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."
"Monkeys?" repeated the blonde man clad in expensive, heavy-looking armour. "I do not understand."
"I do!" exclaimed Steve, pointing his finger at the blonde.
Beside her, Stark rolled his eyes and Anna could barely contain her laughter. The room was silent.
"I-," Steve turned to look at Anna, a slight rose hue colouring his cheeks. "I understood that reference."
Stark turned to Anna with a "who-the-hell-is-this-guy?" raise of his brows, and Anna smiled despite herself. "Shall we play, Doctors?" asked her employer, eager to get to work.
"Let's play," agreed Banner, and, like Steve, he gestured for Anna to go first, but Stark hurried in front, seemingly already knowing the route toward the lab.
Back inside the lab, Anna continued her work in locating the tesseract. She ran numerous codes and scans through the computers, but came up with naught. Opposite her, Banner and Stark worked together in finding as much information on Loki's sceptre as they could. It was a heavy golden spear with a piercing blue light. A deadly blue light, realised Anna. She looked away from it and back toward her displays, holding back a sigh.
"The Gamma rays are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the tesseract," confirmed Banner, gliding his scanner over the golden sceptre. "But it's going to take weeks to process."
"If we bypass their main frame," said Stark, explaining the route he had devised inside his head. It should, explained Stark, cut that time in half, leading them to an answer in a much shorter time frame.
Banner laughed. "And all I packed was a toothbrush," he joked.
Stark laughed. "You know, you should come by Stark Towers sometime. The top ten floors are all R and D. You'd love it. It's candy land, isn't it, Annie?"
"My floor is," sang the analyst, smirking, eyeing the new graphs she had been sent by the other SHIELD technical agents. She spread the data out evenly on the monitor.
"Thanks, but," Banner paused, and he turned to the brunette. "You have a floor to yourself?"
"I'm very indispensable, aren't I, Tony?"
"She likes to think so," said Stark. "It's really because she's a bit like you in the rage department. I couldn't have anyone else near her-"
"What?" laughed Anna, incredulous.
"You know you're a bit of a nightmare to work with. You're smarter than the rest of my Stark employees. I really didn't want to have to employ someone to clean up after the blood baths. And you're my only female employee on the upper floors. I wouldn't want to watch a mud-wrestle between two men, would you?"
Banner reigned in the conversation. "I'll pass," he said. "The last time I was in New York, I kind of broke… Harlem."
"Well," said Stark, turning away from Anna as he passed Banner's workstation. "I promise a stress-free environment. No surprises." And without warning, he prodded Banner in the back with a shocker-wand, peering into the Doctor's eyes with a scrutinising look.
Banner cried out with surprise, and he turned to Stark with an incredulous look.
"Hey," called a voice from the door.
The three doctors - for Stark had his PhD, but he didn't like to bring it up in conversation -, looked up to find Steve Rogers standing just outside the room.
"Nothing?" questioned Stark, ignoring the Captain's complaint, facing Banner with an expectant stare.
"Are you nuts?" asked Steve, marching inside.
"Jury's still out," said Stark, barely glancing at the hero. "You really have a lid on it, don't you? What is it? Mellow jazz? Bongo-drums? Huge bag of weed?"
"Is everything a joke to you?"
Stark merely stared at the former soldier. "Funny things are."
Steve's glower intensified, his lips forming a tight line. His eyes flashed to Anna before landing back on Stark. "Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offence, doc."
"No, it's alright," said Banner, holding one hand in the air to halt any further arguments. He paused. "I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle… pointy things."
"You're tip-toeing, big man. You need to strut."
"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," cut in Steve, frowning.
Stark laughed. "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 until I have all the variables."
"You think Fury's hiding something?" deduced Steve, his brows furrowing.
"Fury's a spy. Cap, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets." Stark delved his hand into the bag of fruit and grabbed a handful of the small berries. He popped them into his mouth. "It's bugging them, too, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Anna, brushing away loose strands of copper hair.
"Uh," began Banner, shaking his head. "I just want to finish my work here, and-"
"Doctor?" asked Steve, his expression stern.
"A warm light for all mankind. Loki's jab at Fury about the cube…"
Steve nodded his head. "I heard it."
"Well, I think that was meant for you," said Banner, turning to his right to point to Stark. Anna remained on her stool in between the doctors, her gaze directed on Banner.
Instead of responding, Stark thrust out his hand and offered the bag of fruit to the two doctors. Anna accepted the fruit with a quiet "thanks,", whilst Banner stole a handful and turned back to face the Captain.
Banner continued voicing his thoughts. "Even if Barton didn't tell him, it was still all over the news."
"Stark Tower?" questioned Steve, raising one brow. "That big ugly-"
Before he could finish his sentence, Stark and Anna turned toward the soldier with identical looks of displeasure at his choice of words.
"…building in New York?" finished Steve.
"It's powered by an Arc reactor," explained Banner, placing a blueberry in his mouth. "A self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?"
"It's just the prototype," said Stark, offering another handful of blueberries to the analyst. Anna smiled up at him in gratitude; her stomach was empty. Didn't SHIELD feed its recruits? The billionaire turned to Rogers. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. It's what he's getting at."
"So," said Banner, coming to his final question, "why didn't SHIELD bring Stark and Anna in on the tesseract project? What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"
Stark moved past the two doctors, coming to stand on the other side of the desk. He pulled out his smartphone from his pocket and stared down at it. "I should probably look into that once my decryption programme finishes breaking in to all of SHIELD's secure files."
Steve turned his gaze to Stark. "I'm sorry, did you just say-"
"JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge." Stark looked to his right and nodded his head at Anna. "You can thank Anna. She helped write and install the programme. Thank you, by the way," said Stark, inclining his head toward the female. "In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide."
Steve looked from Stark, to Banner, and finally rested his gaze on Anna.
Stark smirked. "Blueberry?" He asked, holding the bag out to the Captain.
"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around," chastised Steve, his voice hard.
Stark rolled his eyes. "An intelligence organisation that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome. Want proof? Ask to read Annie's undergrad. papers. Or ask her yourself."
Anna remained silent, contemplating Banner's previous questions.
Steve kept his stare cast on Stark. "I think Loki is trying to wind us up," he explained. "This is man who means to start a war and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed."
Anna glanced up at Steve to find him staring at her, silently willing her to agree with him.
"We have orders," finished the soldier. "We should follow them."
"Following is not really my style." Stark grabbed a handful of the fruit and tossed them in his mouth.
Steve laughed, his facial features warped into a disgusted glare. "And you're all about style, aren't you?"
Stark looked to his left, exaggerating his facial expression. "Of the people in this room," he began, "which one is a) wearing a spangly outfit, and b) not of use?"
The captain didn't retaliate. He merely stared down at Stark with his glare plastered on his face.
"Tony," cut in Anna, shaking her head, signalling that he had gone too far.
Banner sighed. "Steve," he said. "Tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?"
"Dr. Wellington?"
Upon hearing Steve call her name, the female looked up. She worried her lip between her teeth and sighed. "I'm with them on this, Steve. I'm not SHIELD's biggest fan. I'm not their puppet either. It doesn't seem right. If I'm going to follow orders from anyone, it's my boss. Not Fury."
Steve looked away. "Just find the damn cube," he muttered. And he strode out of the lab, a dark scowl pulling at his lips.
As the door to the lab closed, Stark handed the aluminium bag of fruit to Anna and crossed over to the other side of the lab.
"That's the guy my Dad never shut up about?" asked Stark, pulling one of the glass displays in front of him. "I'm wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."
Anna rolled her eyes at his words, and busied herself with her research. She tapped the display closest to her and watched as the graphs levelled out, her findings displayed in royal blue.
Banner choked out a short laugh. "The guy's not wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us."
The analyst looked up at the two men. "What actually happened in Stuttgart?" she asked. "You said you'd tell me, and you never did."
Stark looked at the woman from over his shoulder. "We fought. I saved Captain's life. Thor came and snatched him from the plane. We fought. Rogers hid behind his shield. We brought Loki back here."
"Wait," said Anna, frowning. "You didn't actually fight him?"
"Rogers?"
"No, Loki."
"No. He sat on the sidelines."
Anna's confused expression deepened. "You mean a God intent on starting a war against all humans just… sat on the side and didn't do anything to evade capture?"
"Mhm," hummed Stark, turning to face her. "What is it you're getting at, sunshine?"
"It doesn't seem right."
"He's a God from another world. There's nothing right about that."
"No," cut in Anna, "I mean, why would he let himself get captured? Why go down without a fight?"
"Dignity," said Stark, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"No," said Anna. "I think it's more than that."
Stark shook his head. He returned to Banner's earlier point and elaborated his thoughts on how Loki would be defeated and sent back into space.
Banner turned away from his work and faced the two. "I'll read all about it."
"Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us. Minus you, of course, Annie."
"You make it sound like that's a bad thing," she commented. "Perfectly happy not being a superhero, thank you."
Stark smiled.
"No, you see," said Banner, changing his work interface. "I don't get a suit of armour. I'm exposed." His voice took on a dark tone, and he glared at the display. "Like a nerve. It's a nightmare."
"You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl its way into my heart." He tapped the arc reactor, its light visible behind the cotton thread of his shirt. "This stops it." He walked forward, coming to stand by Banner's work station. "This little circle of light," he said, "is part of me now. It's not just armour. It's a," he paused to find right words, "terrible privilege."
At her workstation, Anna smiled as she watched the two interact. Stark had switched from being billionaire jackass to the man she was friends with. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, she called him. A little like Banner himself, she mused.
"But you can control it," said Banner.
Stark nodded. "Because I learnt how."
Banner shook his head and turned back to his work. "It's different."
"Hey," cut in Stark, wiping away Banner's slides. He pushed them to the side of the screen and stared at Banner through the glass. "I read all about your accident. I had Annie here pull up all of the info she could find. That much gamma exposure should've killed you."
Banner's eyes flickered to Anna. "So you're saying that the Hulk, the… other guy, saved my life?" He laughed. "That's nice. That's a nice sentiment. I'll save it for… what?"
Stark levelled his gaze. "I guess we'll find out," he said, coming to stand by Anna's displays, reading her findings, but the female shifted out of her seat.
She stood, stretching her arms out in front of her, and pulled the hair-tie out of her hair, letting the curls fall down to her chest.
Anna switched off her glass display and turned to Stark, meeting his stare with a casual shrug.
"Where are you going?" he asked, tone surprised.
The woman shrugged, and she wandered toward the door. "To find Steve," she said. "To apologise for your behaviour."
"That's not part of your job description," said Stark, raising his brows.
Anna sighed. "Steve isn't the bad guy here, Tony. Loki is. Steve is… wired differently."
"Oh? How so?"
"He's from the forties. He's still adjusting to this world. He doesn't appreciate all of science and technology like we do. Imagine waking up to find that seventy years had gone by, and you have no idea how any of it works."
"If I had been frozen in time for seventy years, technology wouldn't be as advanced as it is today."
She looked back at her boss with an exasperated stare. "I'm just saying don't be so harsh on Steve. He's not a bad guy, Tony."
Tony blinked. "I didn't realise you were a member of the Captain America fan club," he said.
"Since yesterday. I cancelled my subscription to All Hail the Iron Man."
Tony smirked, seemingly thankful that their playful banter was back in full swing. "Did you pay the leavers' fee?"
"Every time I see you," quipped Anna, and she smiled, leaving the lab in search of the Captain.
AN: Another stupidly long chapter, I apologise. I didn't want it to be this long, but as soon as I had all of the dialogue and script, it just fleshed out (and there was no other stopping point for this chapter)! And a stupidly long Author Note to follow...
The Avengers category is here! I've moved the story over into that section now.
There is a ton of dialogue in this chapter, mostly from the script. I didn't want to cut it out or change things, so I just opted to put Anna inside the scenes. Tell me what you think - did it work OK?
I've had a few people question my interpretation of Dr. Banner - I just want to say that I'm basing him off Mark Ruffalo's performance (not the earlier films). The story ties in with the Avengers Movie, so I'm only writing Ruffalo's character. Not Norton's or Bana's.
And to those of you who have asked if Anna will gain a superpower - no way. I love Anna being human. I do have some fun scenes written for later on (I might do a short series once this is completed - there will be a sequel!), but no, she'll forever be human. If you're looking for a story where the OC is magical and amazing and everybody loves her, this story isn't for you.
And a couple of you have asked if I've seen the film - I have! I've seen it 4 times now (it's been open for a week in the UK), and I loved it each time. So fantastic. If you want to ask me more, PM or Tweet me (at)daisylovestea
Aaaaaaaaand a few of you have apologised for leaving long reviews -DON'T APOLOGISE! I love long reviews. They're fantastic. I really love them. It's great getting to know what you all think.
Finally, a big thank you to everyone who's reviewed! I can't believe I've nearly hit 200 reviews! How crazy is that? I'm just 34 away. So crazy.
Please Review!
~LittleApril / Daisy
