Walking down the hallway, Sam had been searching for a couple minutes before she walked passed a window and when she looked inside, she found both Stark and Dr. Banner.
Flashing her keycard across the scanner, the door opened with a hiss and she stepped inside, both men looking up when she entered.
"Uh, hey! You! Weather girl? What are you doing here?" Stark snapped stepping away from the monitor he had just been adjusting.
Sam just stopped for a moment and frowned, not liking her new nickname better than the last one. "I was called here...?"
"I don't know who called you. I promise you it wasn't me..." Stark frowned slightly, crossing his arms over his chest. Sam just glared at him for a moment.
"It was me." They both turned in surprise to look at the third inhabitant in the room. He was also examining a screen, his glasses hanging low on his nose. "We could really use a third opinion."
"This is an estrogen free zone, Dr. Banner!" Stark complained.
"Yeah, okay. I'm pretty sure that I'm manlier than you are, Stark." Sam said as she approached one of the holographic monitor before examining it.
"But still, that doesn't mean you're qualified to even been looking at this stuff. This is where the big boys play..."
"Well, I have a double major in Computer Programming and Physics. I also attended Harvard for two years in hopes of learning about Astrophysics." She explained while looking at the current levels on the screen before her and frowning. "You have the intake set to high."
Stark came to stand beside her, all the while looking at the same readings. "The intake is fine."
"No, it's not. It's too high."
"It's fine."
"No, it's too high!" She said before pushing him out of the way slightly and lowering the settings. Stark also forced his way back and put them back on the same setting as before.
"It is fine."
Sam had now had enough of the billionaire's attitude and she frowned before raising her fingers to her headset. "Lock everything down." As she spoke the words, her systems took over and forced the holographic screens to suddenly blink black.
Stark just laughed. "That's a pretty good trick. Now, turn it back on." His dark eyes sparkled for a moment before his face took on a more serious tone.
"No, I don't think so."
"Turn it back on!" He insisted, taking a step towards her.
"Make me!" Sam taunted, crossing her arms over her chest. The man just looked at her before narrowing his eyes as she stuck her tongue out at him.
"Okay, that's not childish at all. I'm dealing with a five year old..." He grumbled to himself before turning back to the dark screen and taping it in hopes of restarting the system.
"How is the hacking going?" She turned her head to the side and asked her AI who was silent for a moment.
"It is going as planned. Although, Mr. Stark seems to have his own systems trying to breech the system."
"Good, keep him out but stay hidden."
"Will do, miss." She let her finger fall from the headset and she turned back to face both the scientists.
"So, a little birdie told me that Mr. Stark is trying to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s network..." Sam said smugly as she crossed her arms over her chest again, her eyes narrowed on the billionaire's form.
"Yeah. Okay, maybe I was doing a little research into Fury's background. He's a spy. His secrets have secrets. I mean, come on!" Out from underneath a table, Tony withdrew a packet of blueberries. "And I should know everything when my decryption code finishes breaking into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files. In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. has!" Tony said as he offered some blueberries to Bruce.
"Fine. Get in trouble for all I care. It won't be my fault." She raised her hand to her headset again. "Unlock everything." The screens immediately returned to normal.
"Nifty. Who's on the other end? Your sidekick?" This caused Sam to bristle slightly.
"I don't need a sidekick. And its my artificial intelligence program, V.A.N.S. Voice Activated Navigation System." Tony just looked at her for another moment, a less than pleased look upon his face.
"Yeah, I really don't care."
The door to the lab suddenly hissed open and in walked Director Fury who appeared to not be in the best of moods. "Mr. Stark? What are you doing?"
"Nothing. We have all the systems set up and now we just wait."
"No, your systems are almost set up." Sam pushed passed Tony again to stand before the monitor. "The input is still too high. You need to decrease the input and increase the output." She dragged the toggles across the screen and the machine suddenly beeped as it began to lock onto the Cube's location.
"What did you-"
"You're welcome." Sam said as she watched a loading bar appear on screen as the computers began to trace the Tesseract's real location.
"Wow, we can track down the Cube's location down to the nearest half mile!" Banner said as he stepped up beside Sam and examined the readings that were flooding into the computers.
Stark, however, was to busy being distracted by something else to nag. His decryption codes had finished and now the files were being revealed to him.
"And by the way... What exactly is Phase 2?" He asked, as he examined the monitor.
"Phase 2 is when S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the Cube to make weapons." Steve suddenly came back into the room, lying some sort of strange weapon upon the metal table in the center of the room.
"Steve?" Sam asked, wondering why he was suddenly in the lab.
"Morning, Sam." He nodded in her direction before looking back to Stark. "Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me."
"Rogers, we gathered everything connected with the Tesseract. That does not mean that we're-"
"I'm sorry, Nick!" Tony said as he turned the monitor to show a blueprint for a new type of missile. "What? Were you lying?"
"I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit." Steve admitted, feeling hurt that he had been lied to the entire time. He really thought he could trust the people at S.H.I.E.L.D. Guess that was a mistake.
"Did you know about this?" Bruce asked as Thor and Natasha both entered the room.
"Have you thought about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?" Natasha asked and Bruce could only laugh at the irony of the situation.
"I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed!" He explained, taking his glasses off his face and carefully holding them in his hands.
"Loki is manipulating you."
"And you've been doing what exactly?"
"You didn't come here because I batted my eyes lashes at you."
"Well, I'm not leaving because you get a little twitchy. I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction!"
"Because of him!" Fury turned and pointed back at Thor who looked completely taken aback.
"Me?" He asked, pointing his own finger to his chest.
"Last year, the Earth had a visitor from another planet who decided to have a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only we are not alone but we are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned..."
"My people want nothing but peace with your planet."
"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. They can't be controlled..."
"Like you control the Cube?" Steve interjected.
"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it and his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war." Thor explained and Sam could only pale at his words.
"Higher form?" Steve asked.
"You forced our hand. We had to come up with-"
"Nuclear deterrent. Cause that always calms everything right down." The billionaire suggested as he crossed his arms over his chest.
"And that's coming from the man whose company manufactures weapons." Sam growled in Stark's direction who merely turned his dark eyes towards the female.
"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep-"
"Hold on, how is this now about me?"
"Isn't it always about you?" Sam added as she also crossed her arms over her chest before her brows drew together in anger.
"Excuse me, Weather girl. But again, why are you here?" He then raised his eyebrows before taking a small step back. "Oops! Better be careful our you'll cause a hurricane!"
"Don't tempt me, tin man!"
"You wanna go, girly?" They got up in each other's faces before Thor interjected and pushed them apart.
"I thought humans were more involved than this...?" Thor asked as he towed Sam away from Stark.
"We normally are." She said as she glared at the billionaire over the God's shoulder.
"Excuse me, do we come to your planet and blow things up?" Fury then reeled on Thor. Sam could only stop and listen to all of them as they began to speak rapidly until everything turned into an annoying roar. She pinched the bridge of her nose out of frustration before shutting her eyes tightly. A headache had surged through her head and she felt a high pitched ringing fill her ears.
Yes, something wasn't right. Something was trying to manipulate them.
"You speak of control yet you cause chaos!" Thor finally said and the room grew silent.
"It's MO isn't it? I mean, what are we? A team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're-We're a time bomb." Banner said in response to all the noise and dysfunction that was going on in the room.
"You need to step away!" Fury ordered Bruce and Sam's eyes opened. She looked over at found that Banner had moved awfully close to the spear.
"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Stark asked as he placed his hand upon Steve's shoulder in a friendly matter. Or as Cap saw it, not so friendly.
"You know damn well why! Back off!" Steve shoved the hand from his shoulder, disgusted with the fact that Stark was now trying to play nice.
The tension in the room only continued to increase and the headache Sam had before pounded against her skull once again.
"Oh... I'm starting to want you to make me..." Stark taunted back and the two only glared at each other.
"Yeah... Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"
"Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist."
"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you." Steve replied sharply, coming to stand closer to the shorter male. "I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and crawl over you."
"I think I would just cut the wire..." Stark replied, surprisingly calm.
Steve just laughed at the selfishness Tony just continued to show before he shook his head. "Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat but you better stop pretending to be a hero."
"A hero? Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."
"Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds." Cap taunted and Thor just chuckled form beside Sam who was still fighting the terrible headache resonating through her skull.
"You people are so petty... And tiny..."
"Agent Romanoff, would you please escort Dr. Banner back to his-"
"Where?" Bruce interrupted, his anger beginning to take hold. "You rented my room."
"The cell was just in case-" Fury began but never got a chance to finish his words as Bruce interrupted him again.
"In case you needed to kill me. But you can't! I know! I tried!" Everyone in the room stopped speaking and looked to the doctor, sadness and disbelief flooding their irises. "I got low. I didn't see an end so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out. So, I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk..." Sam only felt her eyes widen as she watched the doctor's next actions but said nothing. "You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?"
Everyone in the room tensed and reached for their weapons. Sam herself just took a small step back, slipping her hand into the pouch at her side and palming ChatnÃr. Thor moved slightly in front of her in case anything should really occur from the situation and people would get harmed.
"Dr. Banner." Steve spoke finally, deciding to be the one to ease the tension in the room. "Put down the scepter."
The dark haired man only looked down at the alien weapon in his hand before they were all startled when one of the monitors began to wail as it narrowed down the Cube's location.
"Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my party trick after all." Bruce said as he placed the spear down and moved to check on their findings.
"You've located the Tesseract?" Thor boomed.
"I can get there faster!" Stark claimed as he also moved to look at the machine but Sam brushed by him to go and stand beside the doctor.
"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard. No human is a match for it." Thor claimed, though it seemed that everyone was choosing to ignore him.
Stark moved to leave but Steve grabbed his arm. "You're not going alone!" The billionaire shoved his hand off him.
"You gonna stop me?"
"Put on the suit. Let's find out."
"I'm not afraid of you, old man."
"Put on the suit."
However, their words fell upon deaf ears. Sam looked at the readings on the screen before rubbing her eyes, making sure that she was reading it correctly. Looking over to Banner, she saw that he also took his glasses off his face as confusion crossed his features.
"Can this be right?" She asked quietly as her eyes continued to scan the screen. She slipped her headset over her ear and had her AI begin to download the information to its server.
"The readings must be off..."
"Does that say what I think it says?" She asked once again, pointing at the screen.
But before she could ask Bruce about the true location of the Cube, V.A.N.S. spoke back to her through the earpiece.
"Miss?"
"Yeah, V.A.N.S.?" She raised her fingers to her headset and began to speak into the microphone. She straightened up from her hunched over position.
"I do believe that you are expecting trouble."
"What?" A small holographic screen projected out before her eye, revealing the problem that was expected. Sam walked over to the large window to look outside.
"There is in explosive device under your position." The AI spoke as the little white dot appeared upon the screen just below them all. Sam just looked up, her eyes filled with fear and when she looked around the room, she happened to catch Stark's eye.
Seeing her so distressed, his own brown eyes widened.
"Oh shit." The words spilled from her lips as her mind registered what was occurring and her fingers fell from the headset.
With a loud bang, the floor erupted in pieces and everyone in the room was thrown in different directions. Being thrown backwards, she was thrown through the large window. Flying through the air, it all happened so fast that before she could even think about saving herself, her back connected with the hard floor of the research level and all the air rushed form her lungs. Glass also rained down upon her from the broken windows and she quickly used her hands to protect her face.
Soon, she was gasping for air and it was only a moment before the precious gas filled her lungs, providing her some relief.
Groaning, she rolled over onto her stomach and winced, her back not feeling great after falling that far and landing on hard steel. Easing herself back, she was sitting on her knees but when she felt an odd prickle at her nose, she realized something was burning.
Wondering what the hell was going on, she raised her fingers to her headset.
"Hello? Is anyone there? Can I get an update on our situation?" She panted and the line was silent for a few moments. Dropping her fingers in defeat, she slowly rose off the hard floor, figuring that she was just going to have to be in the dark on this one.
"Hello? Greene? Is that you?" A voice replied and the woman stopped in her tracks.
"This is Greene." She replied, her senses now more alert as off in the distance, she heard gunshots.
"This is Agent Hill. The number three engine is down to an unknown explosion and unauthorized personnel have begun invading the ship. We need you to check it out and take care of the hostiles." She commanded and as she was speaking, Sam untied the arms of her suit and pulled it up and around her shoulders before zipping it.
"I copy. Greene out." She replied before Agent Hill transmitted a map to her headset that soon popped up before her eye.
Just as she was about to jog forward through, her heart nearly stopped beating in her chest when an inhuman cry seemed to emanate from every corner of the ship.
"Banner." She murmured, turning back in the direction of the noise that was loudest. However, she could only rub a hand across her face, knowing that her day just got that much worse. "Shit."