So... yup.

It actually doesn't take me long to determine what I'm going to say. It's mostly a matter of how much information I'm going to reveal. For one, I'm not going to tell them about Jared. His life, his memory, isn't something I should hand out like a flier. For two, I am more than likely not going to tell them about what Jared said about staying away from the East Coast. They've got enough tech and brains to figure that out for themselves. Pretty much, I'm going to act like I don't know a thing. I was just a helpless woman who was held prisoner. It's best if they believe that.

I walk out the door. I acknowledge the fact that I am still in my pajamas. Awkward.

I remember which direction I came from and head that way.

Everyone I've talked to who works for SHIELD (excluding Nick Fury) and one more guy and woman is present and either sitting or standing around a table. Even Loki's voice is present.

"… And then to be reminded what real power is." Oh, fantastic. I probably just missed an epic speech of his. Brilliant. I smirk with satisfaction.

"Well, let me know when 'real power' wants a magazine or something," that was Fury's voice. So, I guess everyone is here.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" says the guy whom I haven't met.

"Oh, just wait. Give him a few days and you'll want him to be your best friend," I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm. "My name's Abby. And yours?"

"Bruce Banner." I smile briefly and nod in greeting.

Steve starts talking. "Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?"

I hear Thor's voice for the first time. It's very deep and accented. "He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. He will win them the earth in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

Steve stares at him in disbelief. "An army? From outer space?"

"So, he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selivg for." Selvig. The name sounds familiar. I probably ran into him while I was in Germany.

"Selvig?" says Thor.

"He's an astrophysicist," says Bruce.

"He's a friend," Thor replies.

Natasha speaks up. "Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours."

"Who's the one of yours?" I ask out of curiosity.

"His name is Clint Barton," she answers.

"Hey, I know him. I just briefly met him in Germany."

"So, he's ok, then?"

I shrug. I don't know what happened to anyone except Jared and Loki.

Steve begins talking again. "I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here."

Bruce cuts in. "I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag of cats, you could smell crazy on him."

I point at him. "That is not untrue."

"I don't care how you speak," says Thor. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother."

"He killed eighty people in two days," informs Natasha. Something I said comes back to mind. Something about more people dying than I know about.

"Eighty-one," I say, including the thug I encountered.

"He's adopted," says Thor. You learn something new every day.

Bruce changes the subject. "Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?" He looks at me with what I interpret as a look of expectancy.

"What? I don't even know what Iridium is."

Stark walks in with another dude. "It's a stabilizing agent." I guess that both answers Bruce's question and tells me what it is. He mumbles something to the other dude. "Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD." He walks by Thor. "No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing. Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants. Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails. That man is playing GALAGA. Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did."

I clamp my hands over my mouth and snort. "GALAGA," I mumble.

"Oh, it's you. Miss Angry-Pajama-Lady."

"If you want a nick-name for me, Tin Man, you're gonna have to keep trying," I snap.

"Fair enough." He covers his eye with his hand. "How does Fury see all this?"

The one woman answers. "He turns."

"Sounds exhausting. The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick-start the cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" The agent asks.

"Last night," Stark retorts. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" inquires Steve.

"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier."

"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect," Stark says.

"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."

Whoa. Everything they just said went way over my head. Science. I don't understand it.

"Finally, someone who speaks English." Stark walks over to shake hands with Bruce.

"Is that what just happened?" mutters Steve. He gets me.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner," says Stark. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster." Hold on. What?

Bruce hesitates. "Thanks."

Fury enters the room saying, "Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him."

"Let's start with that stick of his," says Steve. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

"I don't know about that, 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."

Thor seems confused. "Monkeys? I do not understand."

"I do!" exclaims Steve. "I understood that reference."

Stark rolls his eyes, and he and Bruce walk away to go do science-y stuff.

Fury's eye comes to rest on me. "Why has she been allowed in on this conversation?"

"Again, do I look like I wanna cause trouble?"

"You're starting to sound like it."

"Well, why don't you interrogate me so we can just get this over with and I can go home," I snap.

"Home isn't the best place for you to go."

"How do you know that?"

"How do you?" I stare at him in silence. "Would you like to begin that interrogation now?"

And that, ladies and gentleman, is how my "poor innocent prisoner" plan failed.

And here I would like to apologize. I know some of you were looking forward to "The Cost of a Mortal's Captivity," by Abby Brandon. However, plans and minds change. So, while I'm still going to add that bit, I'm afraid you'll have to wait until the next chapter. 'Til next time -TARDIS-elf