Tony was watching Harmon out of the corner of his eye, even as he spoke to Banner about the arc reactor in his chest – and damn, the guy didn't know how small a pool of people he had ever talked to it about was. Nor did Harmon, of course, and he could tell that she was interested in what he was saying.

Okay, maybe he couldn't actually tell – she had pretty much no giveaways in her body language – but hey, mutual non-consensual metal in their bodies had to make them bros. Tony wasn't trying to get on her bad side, but she seemed to get angry pretty quickly, which was ironic considering who she was in the room with. Harmon didn't seem like she'd be bad company and her sense of humor was surprisingly on point with his own, but at the moment he was pretty sure he was only getting to talk to her work-personality. So yeah, he'd back off a bit for now. After all, she hadn't completely shut down his suggestion of coming by the tower. Maybe he'd get to see Harmon minus the mission-headspace.

She only really entered the conversation when he heard her let out an incredulous snorting sound after he said the "other guy" must have saved Bruce's life for a reason to be seen.

Turning to her, he said, "Clearly someone in the audience disagrees. What say you, Tink?"

Harmon shrugged and addressed him and Banner for the first time since she'd agreed to not alert Fury to the decryption he was currently running.

"I say that equating Banner's accident with your situation is absurd. The circumstances are too different. The only common denominator is the wow-factor and how unusual both of your conditions are."

Before he could respond, Harmon focused directly on Bruce and spoke in a firm, but not unkind voice, "You're incredibly dangerous in a way Stark is not. The lack of control is expected considering any testing of your control when you're in your," she seemed to pause for a second, clearly trying to come up with a term for when Bruce turned green, "heightened state would be dangerous for everyone around you, and would include provoking your own anger intentionally. It's a loop – to try to learn control and minimize the damage you can cause, you have to in turn invite that possibility – a pacifist like you must be drowning in the risk-reward ratio."

Seemingly done with her assessment of Bruce, she turned to look at him. Tony stood firm and didn't allow himself to show any sign of being uncomfortable by her searching stare, but he was. Had he been unaware of her job and not experienced her dazzling personality, he might have been flattered. Tony was around attractive people all the time and was sort of immune to it, but objectively, Harmon could be called 'pretty'. Not beautiful or stunning, but definitely interesting with the contrast between her very dark hair, pale skin, and light blue eyes.

So yes, being stared at so closely would normally be a bit of an ego boost. But at the moment, he was pretty sure she was doing her best to non-physically dissect him. Which was not awesome.

"You're belittling his situation unintentionally by comparing it to yours, and it isn't fair to you either. I've almost certain that you're honestly trying to be helpful, which forces me to alter most of the information I've gathered on your motives regarding spending time with members of this team."

Tony bristled at that and turned back to the data he had been analyzing with Banner. It seemed like the 'information' she was talking about was more along the lines of personally trying to assess the situation, but he wasn't thrilled about the idea of her sitting in a corner and forming opinions based on –

"You don't have to look so pissy. It's nothing personal."

Tony whirled back around and saw that Harmon was looking at him with more humor in her expression than she had since he'd prodded at Bruce. Speaking of which, Banner seemed much less on edge suddenly, as if Harmon pointing out he was mega-dangerous was soothing or something. Not like Tony had been trying to put him at ease this whole time. Okay, maybe not this whole time, but still – Tony had been trying to extend an olive branch or whatever.

"It's cute that you're calling me pissy since you've been little miss trigger-happy since we've met."

Instead of making her annoyed, his comment didn't seem to phase her in the least. Ugh, figuring out this chick was going to be the end of him. Harmon just shrugged and replied in an even tone – though for all he knew she could be internally raging.

"True. We're on a mission and I've made it clear I don't like being on this team. We've got a hostile alien megalomaniac on board a flying piece of machinery that can be downed in a multitude of ways by anyone even slightly familiar with SHIELD technology. And as I've already told you," at that, some annoyance did sneak into her voice, letting him know that she probably hadn't planned on telling him in the first place and was bothered that he hadn't taken more of a note of it, "my best friend is involved in this shit against his will."

Banner was clearly trying to stay out of the conversation and focused entirely on the equations in front of him that were in the process of uncovering the location of the Tesseract.

"So, you and Barton are close."

Harmon tensed but nodded back with a suspicious expression on her face, as if his statement was the beginning of an interrogation. Christ, someone needed to book her a massage or give her a bottle of champagne.

"What about you and the itsy-bitsy spyssassin?"

For a second she seemed to freeze, and Tony honestly didn't know how she would react. But then an enormous, somewhat sadistic smile covered her face and she started cackling like some witch in a children's story book.

"Holy shit, please promise me I can be there when you actually call her that. Nat will tear your fucking face off! Or, you know, just glare at you meanly in a way that makes you look over your shoulder for the next year."

Tony considered her answer but didn't quite rise to the bait. Interested in the dynamic of the SHIELD agents on the team, he asked again, "So you and Romanoff aren't buddies?"

Harmon seemed a little bit more relaxed when she responded, "It's not like it seems. She's an incredible agent. I don't dislike her, we just don't get along."

Harmon had taken one of her hand guns out of its holster again and was running her fingers across its barrel – clearly it wasn't the intimidation tactic she tried to make it seem like, if anything Tony was pretty sure it was an unconscious habit. She had stopped fairly suddenly while talking, and a few minutes of quiet passed in the lab as Bruce worked and Tony tried to think of more conversation topics that wouldn't cause any kind of tension for any of the three individuals in the room.

Talking about Barton and Romanoff had been a bad move. Tony could see that now that he watched Harmon more closely. She kept glancing at the decryption running with an entirely blank expression on her face – the look of someone trying hard not to give anything away.

It hadn't actually struck him what Harmon's decision not to alert Fury meant. Tony was fairly certain by now that he and Bruce were part of the Avengers Initiative, same as Rogers. But Harmon was an Agent of SHIELD.

She was committing treason to the organization by allowing this to happen. And based on the way she was beginning to look more and more withdrawn, she was running through possible scenarios that would be happening as a result of her decision.

Tony stared at the program himself and saw that in only a short time, he would have access to all of SHIELD's files. For a brief second, he wanted to discover that there was something nefarious going on with the World Security Council and Fury in regard to the Tesseract.

Because Bex Harmon had just bet on Tony's hunch, and he really hoped it hadn't been for nothing.


Clint, Phil, Sarge, Natasha, Betty, Kayla. Clint, Phil, Sarge, Natasha, Betty, Kayla. Clint, Phil, Sarge, Natasha, Betty, Kayla. Clint, Phil, Sarge, Natasha, Betty, Kayla.

Bex was on the edge of a panic. She was trying incredibly hard not to let Stark or Banner see exactly how close she was to losing it. During a brief moment when they had both been looking away from her she had managed to take another one of her oral suppressants. But she needed one of her intravenous suppressants very, very soon.

She was reaching the twenty four hour maximum time between doses, and in her high-stress situation she probably should have gotten injected hours ago. But she hadn't been able to tear herself away long enough to locate one of the few doctors on board who were certified to give her the drug and who she had performed a very in-depth, very illegal background check on.

Clint, Phil, Sarge, Natasha, Betty, Kayla.

When she was thrown out of SHIELD, only two of those things would be accessible to her. More like one, actually, since there was no way she'd ever go looking for Kayla. It would be her and her dog. By themselves.

She couldn't go through with this. She had to tell Coulson or Fury. Fuck, even Hill.

There wasn't going to be anything wrong. Oh god, Bex couldn't go through with this. Tony Stark was hacking an international data base, and she was letting him do it right in front of her. A civilian shouldn't have access to everything he would be seeing. Beyond the internal issues at SHIELD – there was a number of national security files that he could see. It was unethical.

If Stark had been wrong, and she'd supported him in this – he just couldn't be wrong.

Coulson wouldn't trust her again. Natasha might get it, after a while. And Clint…

Bex wanted to destroy everything around her. She wished so badly that the feeling flooding through her was rage. Rage, she could deal with.

But it wasn't. The only feeling Bex had was a childish terror at the thought of Clint's reaction. What he would say when he found out that she had betrayed SHIELD. He had put everything on the line for her, when he had brought her in to SHIELD instead of taking her out.

Everyone had said she was a bad investment. That she would turn her back on them as soon as it was convenient. And they were right.

As another thought formed, Tony Stark cut through.

"I'm in."