Chapter 21
A/N: Two updates in one day and another coming soon? I'm on a roll. I really hope you guys enjoy this chapter, review please!
xXxXx
"What is this place?" Thor asked as he and Lena stepped off of the Quinjet into a hangar on the Helicarrier. Natasha and Steve trailed behind them, and Tony was already somewhere else on the ship since he had flown away from the forest solo. Steve handed Loki over roughly to several armed agents, who led him away and out of the hangar towards his cell.
"It's called a Helicarrier," Lena explained in an unusually tight voice, making Thor look down at her in confusion. "It's run by SHIELD."
"Ah yes, SHIELD. And you are… a part of them now?" Thor questioned, genuinely curious.
"Yeah." Lena's voice was taut, and it didn't take an expert to know that she was really pissed about something. "I've been an agent of SHIELD for two months, but I started working with them right after New Mexico."
"I see."
"Yeah, remember New Mexico?" Lena looked up at Thor with mock enthusiasm, a cruel smile on her face. "Remember how you whisked back up to Asgard after promising to actually come back?"
The group came to an awkward stop as Lena's anger with her brother reached its tipping point.
"We're just going to head to the bridge," Natasha said as she touched Steve's arm lightly, "Take your time."
Lena avoided eye contact with Thor as the hangar emptied out. She stood with her lips pursed and her arms crossed, her hands slightly shaking.
"Sister, if you would–"
"Did you destroy the Bifrost?" Lena asked quickly. Thor froze, his face overcome with shame. Lena shook her head slowly in disbelief. "Oh my gosh. You really did, didn't you? I thought Loki was lying, but you actually destroyed the only way for me to get back to Asgard." Lena scoffed, turning her back on Thor and running her hands through her hair, completely shocked.
"I had no other choice, Lena."
"No other choice?" Lena whirled around to face him. "How was there no other choice? Explain that to me, Thor."
"Loki was using the Bifrost to destroy Jotunheim," Thor said lowly, stepping up to his sister.
Lena gasped in shock. "What?"
"He was using its full power to try and destroy the Frost Giants in their entirety. There was no way to stop the Bifrost other than to destroy it."
"But… but Heimdall could have–"
"Loki had used the Frost Giant's ice casket to freeze the Bifrost in place." He paused, looking down at his sister pleadingly. "Sister you must understand that I would have never left you here with no way back to Asgard if I could have helped it."
Lena didn't say anything, just looked down at her feet quietly for a few seconds.
"I thought I was being ignored," she spoke softly. "I called out to Heimdall hundreds of times, but he never–"
"He heard you," Thor interrupted, making Lena snap her face up to him in shock. "Heimdall heard your every cry, as did Odin. Father would have used his own magic to bring you home when you asked were Loki not a threat." Thor's voice dropped as he stepped forward and put his hand on Lena's cheek, "Lena, don't you understand? You are the Daughter of Asgard. You were never ignored."
Lena inhaled shakily, closing her eyes as a few tears slipped out. Thor didn't say anything else, only wrapped his massive arms around Lena's petite frame and hugged her tightly. Lena embraced him in kind, clutching onto his armor for dear life and crying into his chest.
They stayed like that for a few minutes, and Thor didn't mind one bit. It amazed him how he felt more connected to the sister he didn't know he had up until six months ago than he did the brother he had known for centuries. And even though blood relation didn't matter to him and he still considered Loki his true brother, Thor wondered if it was because he and Lena shared the same father that they were so deeply connected.
"W-What about now though?" Lena spluttered out as she finally pulled back from the embrace. "Can I get back to Asgard now? How did you even get down here if the Bifrost is destroyed?"
"Father had to use a great deal of dark magic to send me to this realm," Thor explained. "Only the power of the Tesseract can send Loki and I back now." He paused for a second before smiling. "And you. There is enough power to bring you back home as well."
Lena breathed out a massive sigh of relief at just the mere thought of returning to Asgard. She would get to see Odin, and Frigga, and Sif and the Warriors Three, and Heimdall. She smiled wistfully as she jumped ahead of herself and began imagining all of the heartfelt reunions.
But the smile fell off of her face when she thought about what she would be leaving behind. SHIELD, Fury, Coulson, Hill, Natasha.
Clint.
If she – no, correction: when she saved Clint from Loki's mind control, what would happen between them? Would they get back together? Their breakup wasn't even technically a break up. It had been more like a… space-up. Which didn't make any sense, but that's how Lena saw it. Clint was angry at her because she had been so messed up because of Loki getting in her head (he still didn't know about that unless Loki had told him), then Lena said she needed space, and then he had given her way more than she wanted. A space-up.
"Sister, what's wrong?" Thor asked, seeing the conflict displayed all over Lena's face.
"I just…" she trailed off, biting her lip to try and find the right words. "For so long, I felt like I didn't have a home at all. And now I have two. How am I supposed to choose between them?"
Thor's expression was dejected and full of disappointment.
"I'm sorry, Thor," Lena continued, "I know you want me to say that I'll come back to Asgard no questions asked and in all honesty, I might. But it's something I'll have to think over. If I knew for certain I could come and go as I please, I wouldn't think twice. But I have a life here now. I'm committed to SHIELD, I have friends, I have…"
"Agent Barton?" Thor supplied, making Lena look up at him wide-eyed. "Sister, do not apologize for having loved ones outside of Asgard. I find myself torn between realms as well, my heart lying with Jane Foster."
"Oh yeah, you really need to call her by the way," Lena interjected, making Thor chuckle. He looked down at his sister thoughtfully.
"Your heart is too good to be contained in just one world," he said resolutely, making Lena's eyes start to well up again. "I may be selfish in asking you to come back to Asgard with me, but I will not hold it against you if you choose to stay here out of love."
"I don't love Barton," Lena said much too quickly. Thor quirked an eyebrow up in amusement. "Who said I love Barton? I have never said those words."
"And why did you assume I was referring to Agent Barton specifically?" Thor narrowed his eyes and Lena's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. "Relax, dear sister. Agent Barton seems like a good man. I am not surprised that you have grown to care for him."
Lena smiled meekly. "Yeah, well… we're kind of on the outs right now."
"Why so?"
"Well it started out when Loki attacked me a couple months ago and then he started getting inside my head and giving me these awful dreams, and then Clint and I broke up or spaced up, whatever you want to call it, and now Clint is under Loki's mind control from that scepter he carries."
Thor looked down at her in shock, his eyes wide and furious. "Loki attacked you? Months ago? Heimdall said nothing of that!"
"Well I would assume Loki shrouded us from Heimdall's sight," Lena muttered, shrugging her shoulders. "But yeah, he's been a real pain in my ass lately. Which is why," she looped her arm through Thor's and began walking them towards the bridge. "We're going to whip our brother back into shape, find the Tesseract, get Clint back, and save the planet from ultimate and total destruction." She looked up at her brother with an amusing expression. "All in a day's work for Odin's children, right?"
Thor laughed boisterously as the two Asgardian warriors made their way to Helicarrier bridge.
xXxXx
Thor and Lena stepped onto the bridge through the sliding doors, and everyone immediately turned to look at them. Lena's eyes widened and she looked up at Thor, whose expression screamed confusion.
"It's the hair," she whispered before walking away from him and sitting beside Natasha. Thor touched his hair idly before walking over to the railing and looking out beyond the Helicarrier into the clouds where the sun was slowly starting to come up.
"Everything alright?" Natasha asked in a low voice, nodding her head over at Thor.
Lena took a deep breath and smiled. "Yeah. Everything's good. Except for, you know, my crazy evil brother trying to rule the world and turning my boyfriend into a blue eyed zombie. But other than that, I'm great."
Natasha chuckled dryly.
Dr. Banner walked in at that point, and Lena smiled over at him. He gave a small wave, his eyes widening at the sight of Thor.
"That's my big brother," Lena explained with a shrug.
"Oh. Right," Banner murmured before walking over to stand next to Steve.
Suddenly the screens on the table before them turned on, and everyone looked down to watch the live footage of Loki being led into a large glass cell that was held up by fancy hydraulic rigs. The glass door closed shut behind him and Loki and Fury were left in the room together.
"This oughta be good," Lena mumbled as she crossed her arms on the table and tuned into what was likely to be a show.
"In case it's unclear," Fury said loudly, "You try to escape? You so much as scratch that glass," he leaned over and pressed a button that opened up a hatch underneath the cell to the open air beneath the Helicarrier. "That's thirty thousand feet straight down in a steel trap!" Fury shouted over the wind before closing the hatch. "You get how that works?"
He pointed at Loki. "Ant." He turned and pointed at the button that would drop Loki. "Boot."
Lena laughed suddenly, and everyone else turned to look at her. Her face sobered and she shrunk under their gaze.
"Sorry. Inside joke."
"It's an impressive cage," Loki said, bringing everyone on the bridge's attention back to the screens. "Not built, I think, for me."
Everyone in the room seemed to glance at Banner then, and it was obvious he knew that it was his alter ego that Loki was referring to.
"Built for something a lot stronger than you," Fury snapped.
"Oh I've heard," Loki smirked, looking right into the camera. A rush of chills ran over Lena's body at his terrifying stature. "The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man. How desperate are you that you call upon such lost creatures to defend you?"
"How desperate am I?" Fury asked indignantly. "You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace and you kill because it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad you did."
Lena was grinning, thinking to herself, Hell yeah, Nicky.
"Ooh," Loki said in a low voice, narrowing his eyes at Fury. "It burns you to have come so close. To have the Tesseract. To have power, unlimited power. And for what?" He looked back into the camera. "A warm light for all mankind to share? And then to be reminded what real power is."
Lena rolled her eyes, glancing over at Thor who looked deep in thought. He met her eyes and she shook her head slightly to let him know that she was just as upset as he was.
Fury suddenly scoffed. "Well you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something," he said sarcastically before striding out of the room, his black trench coat swaying behind him.
Loki looked back into the camera one last time before the screens all went black.
"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Banner said sarcastically.
Lena scoffed. "Yeah, something like that."
"Loki's gonna drag this out," Steve said with a sigh. "So Thor. Lena. What's his play?"
"He has an army called the Chitauri," Thor said in a low voice, making Lena's eyes widen to the size of saucers.
"What?" Lena asked incredulously. "You could have mentioned that earlier, you know?"
"What are the Chitauri?" Natasha questioned, shooting Lena a glare. Lena ignored her, standing to her feet and running her hands through her hair in frustration. She knew of the Chitauri, she had heard horrible stories of them during her time on Asgard.
"They're not of Asgard or any world known," Thor explained. "He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."
"An army?" Steve deadpanned. "From outer space?"
Lena whirled around to face the super soldier. "Steve, have we met?" She asked incredulously, making him shrink under her gaze.
"So he's building another portal," Bruce moved the conversation forward. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."
"Selvig?" Thor asked, whirling around upon hearing the man's name.
"Oh, right," Lena said quickly, biting her lip. "I forgot to tell you about that."
Thor looked at her in disbelief. "You could have mentioned that earlier, you know?" He echoed her words from before.
"Oh shutup," Lena muttered.
"Loki has Selvig under some kind of spell," Natasha said. "Along with one of ours." Her gaze trailed to Lena, who looked away quickly, biting her lip.
"I wanna know why Loki let us take him," Steve weighed in. "He's not leading an army from here."
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Banner replied. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him."
"Hey!" Lena shouted.
"Have care how you speak," Thor said lowly, his tone mirroring Lena's. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is our brother," he gestured to Lena.
"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha deadpanned.
Thor and Lena looked at one another and Lena shrugged. "He's adopted," she muttered as if that was an explanation for his crimes.
"Iridium," Banner said suddenly. "What did they need the Iridium for?"
"Is that what Clint took from the building beside the museum?" Lena asked. Banner nodded. "Well hell if I know. I've never even heard of Iridium."
"It's a stabilizing agent."
Everyone in the room turned to see Tony striding onto the bridge with Coulson by his side. Lena rolled her eyes and looked over at Thor, who still looked resentful.
"Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD," Tony continued. "You were there for that, weren't you Maggie Pie?" Lena rolled her eyes, but nodded. "Right, probably wasn't such a fun time." He strode over to Thor and tapped him on the arm as if they were old friends. "No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing."
Lena laughed at Thor's irritated and bemused expression. Tony turned to point at her and she raised her eyebrows.
"You however, I do have hard feelings towards my little Maggie Pie. My offer from before is off the table. You are officially uninvited to sexy times with me and Pepper."
"Oh no, how will I find a way to go on?" Lena asked dryly.
"The Iridium?" Steve pressed, annoyed by the bantering.
"Right," Tony snapped back into science mode. "It also means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants." He turned to the crew of the Helicarrier. "Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails," he called out playfully. Lena had to cover her mouth to stifle a laugh as the crew looked up at him blankly. "That man is playing GALAGA!" Tony shouted, pointing at a man across the room. Lena only laughed harder. "Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did."
Tony stood in between the computers and spun around to look at them. He tested out covering one eye, looking between the screens. "How does Fury do this?"
Oh, Tony, Lena thought to herself. No tact.
"He turns," Maria Hill answered him monotonously.
"Well that sounds exhausting," Tony muttered.
Lena watched as he spun around, but she was the only other person in the room that seemed to notice him reach down and place something underneath Fury's desk. She opened her mouth to say something, but Tony caught her eye for a split second. Her mouth closed as he gave her a look that clearly said, 'please don't.' And if Tony Stark was asking her something with a 'please,' she figured it was pretty important, so she kept her mouth shut based on a newfound gut instinct to trust him.
"The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily," Tony continued to say as if nothing had happened, his eyes flickering back to Lena at the mention of Clint. "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?" Maria asked.
"Last night," Tony said as if it were obvious. "The packet. Selvig's notes. The Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"
"We've been a bit busy," Lena said wryly.
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked, ever the man on a mission.
"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Banner explained intelligently.
"What?" Lena blurted at what sounded like a foreign language.
"Unless," Tony said as he walked over to Banner, "Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."
"What?" Lena asked even more incredulously.
"Well if he could do that he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet."
"Finally," Tony said gratefully, "Someone who speaks English."
"Is that what just happened?" Steve asked. Lena scoffed and shook her head, throwing her hands up in the air.
"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner," Tony said as he shook Bruce's hand. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled."
Lena looked over her shoulder and smiled at the two scientists.
"Wow, Stark," she said appraisingly. "That was actually really nice of you to say to him."
Tony looked over at her and beamed. "Why thank you, Maggie Pie. I can be affable at times." He turned back to Banner. "And I'm also a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."
Lena rolled her eyes and threw her hands up again. She made eye contact with Thor to see him looking at her strangely. "Green rage monster?" He mouthed at her silently.
Lena sighed. "I'll explain later," she mouthed back.
Suddenly Nick Fury walked in, his authoritative presence taking up the room.
"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube," he said to Tony. "I was hoping you might join him."
"Let's start with that stick of his," Steve said. "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," Fury replied.
"I just want to know how Loki used it to turn Clint and Selvig into his personal flying monkeys," Lena said dubiously.
"Monkeys?" Thor turned to his sister in confusion. "I do not understand."
"I do!" Steve shouted, pointing at Thor with a glad expression his face. Lena laughed at his excitement while everyone else rolled their eyes. "I… I understood that reference," he explained.
"Good job, Cap," Lena said appraisingly. "Twenty points for you."
xXxXx
About an hour later, Lena walked out of her room on the Helicarrier and down the hallway in search of Tony and Banner. Or anyone, really. She just didn't want to be alone.
Her hair was still damp from the shower she had taken, and Lena shuddered as she thought about how badly she had broken down under the hot stream of water. She had cried and cried until there weren't any more tears left.
All she could think about was the way that Clint had looked at her back in Stuttgart. He had been ready to kill her, he had wanted to kill her. And just when she thought she was breaking through and his eyes had started to turn back to their normal beautiful shade of green, that hope had been ripped away from her.
But now wasn't the time for self-pity, though it was what Lena desperately wanted to fall into. Now was the time to be strong, to get answers. So unable to stand one more minute alone, Lena had gotten out of the shower, made herself look presentable in her backup Sparkstrike outfit (which was the same as the new one just two pieces instead of one and had more black than silver), and taken off out of that room like a bat out of hell. Right now she wanted to find Tony and have him explain just what that little device he had put on Fury's computer was.
Lena rounded the corner without paying attention, running right into a very broad, muscular chest.
"Shit, sorry," Lena blurted as Steve placed his hands on her shoulders to steady her.
Steve furrowed his brow. "You should really watch your language," he said offhandedly.
Lena laughed out loud at that, covering her mouth with her hand when she saw Steve's slightly offended expression. "Sorry, Cap. It's just… you're so cute sometimes."
Steve rolled his eyes, but chuckled all the same. "Where are you headed?" He asked. "Thor's on the bridge with Coulson if you're looking for him."
"Nah, Thor's fine," she waved a hand carelessly. "He gets along with everybody as long as they aren't trying to take over the world or named Tony Stark. Speaking of the little brat, do you know which lab Stark and Banner are in?"
"I think they're this way," Steve nodded his head. Lena followed him down the somewhat empty corridor. "So do you and Stark not really get along, or is that just an act?"
Lena chuckled. "Most of it's an act," she said honestly. "Stark's a great guy, he just doesn't know when to shutup. I think he appreciates that I call him out on his bullshit."
"And the Maggie Pie nickname?"
Lena rolled her eyes and sneered under her breath. "He hacked into my file the day we met and thought it was hilarious that my first name was Magdalena. I don't find it nearly as funny as he does."
Steve laughed. "You know it's strange how different he is from Howard."
Lena looked up at him with a tense expression that caught him off guard. "Cap, I know that Howard Stark was your friend and all, but he was a really terrible father to Tony."
Steve looked shocked. "Really?"
"Oh yeah. The guy was a dick. He loved Tony of course, but he was never present in his life. Always made Tony feel like a nuisance. That's what Fury tells me anyway." She paused, her face deep in thought. "I went 22 years not knowing who my real father was, but I can't imagine being a kid and having a father figure right in front of me and he just not care. It kind of makes sense why Tony is the way that he is. He uses all of his humor and intelligence and money to cover up just how… bitter he truly is."
Steve stared down at Lena thoughtfully, genuinely taken aback by her wisdom.
"But what the hell do I know," Lena shrugged, playing off the serious moment. "I'm not a psychoanalyst, no matter how much I like to think I could be."
Steve laughed as they rounded another corner. They could hear Tony and Banner's voices and they walked towards the lab. They stepped into the room right as Tony poked Banner in the side with a miniature electric rod, sending a bolt of electricity into the man's side.
"Ow!" Banner said in annoyance, holding his hand to his side.
"Nothing?" Tony asked him in disappointment when nothing happened and Banner didn't turn green.
"Hey!" Steve shouted angrily, Lena trailing behind him as they approached the two scientists. "Are you nuts?"
"Jury's out," Tony joked without even putting much effort into it.
"Tony," Lena admonished, getting the man's attention. "Come on, you can't have thought that was a good idea."
"All my ideas are good ideas, Maggie Pie." He turned to look back at Banner. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"
"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve snapped.
"Funny things are," Tony turned to look at him arrogantly.
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, Doctor," Steve added as he looked over at Bruce.
"No, it's alright," Bruce assured him. "I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."
"You're tiptoeing, big man," Tony pointed at him. "You need to strut."
"Tony," Lena said, "I really don't think you should be giving out advice in that department."
"You need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," Steve continued, still angry.
"Steve, relax," Lena whispered, trying to calm him down before the situation escalated any further.
"You think I'm not?" Tony snapped. "Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables." He turned to face Lena suddenly. "You work for SHIELD, Maggie. Why don't you know anything beyond the mission?"
Lena searched for a reply as the three men turned to look at her. "Look, I'm just an Agent, and not even a high up one at that. Fury's not obligated to–"
"You're a part of the Avengers Initiative, Lena," Tony said harshly, calling her by her preferred name for the first time. Lena's eyes widened. "If Fury isn't telling you something it's not because of your clearance level, it's because he doesn't want you to know."
Lena was silent, absorbing the weight of Tony's words. As much as she hated to admit it, he had a valid point.
"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve asked.
"He's a spy, Captain. He's the spy. His secrets have secrets. It's bugging him too, isn't it?" Tony pointed over at Bruce.
Bruce was caught off guard and he stammered to try and find his words. "Uhh.. I just wanna finish my work here and–"
"Doctor?" Steve cut his rambling off, staring at him sternly.
Bruce sighed. "'A warm light for all mankind,'" he suddenly said.
"That's what Loki said to Fury about the cube," Lena replied in understanding.
"I heard it," Steve said tersely.
"Well I think that was meant for you," Bruce pointed at Tony. Tony held out a bag of blueberries as a reward for Bruce and Lena rolled her eyes. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."
Lena tensed at the mention of Clint and Bruce glanced at her with an apologetic expression. Someone must have told him about her connection to Clint by now.
"The Stark Tower?" Steve questioned. "That big ugly…" he paused when Tony gave him a look. "…building in New York?" Lena chuckled under her breath.
"It's powered by an arc reactor, self-sustaining energy source," Bruce explained.
"The news said your building would run for what, a year?" Lena asked Tony.
He nodded. "That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now is what he's getting at," he clarified to Steve.
"So why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project?" Banner asked.
"What is SHIELD even doing in the energy business in the first place?" Lena whispered to herself, staring down at the ground in shock. Why had it taken Tony Stark pointing this out for her to even consider these questions?
"There we go, Maggie Pie," Tony pointed at her. "That's the look I want. You gotta stop bowing down to Fury just 'cause he's your boss. And I'm going to look into all of that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files."
Lena snapped her head up as Tony pulled out a miniature Stark tablet from his back pocket.
"What?" She asked incredulously.
"I'm sorry, did you say–"
"JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge," Tony interrupted Steve. "In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide." He held out the bag of blueberries innocently. "Blueberry?"
"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around?" Steve snapped.
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome."
Lena sighed, turning on her heel and pacing across the room as she ran her hands through her still damp hair. "I don't understand," she said lowly. "Why is SHIELD messing around with this?" She whirled back around to face the men. "Is SHIELD the reason Loki even found the Tesseract?"
"Probably," Tony nodded.
"I think Loki's trying to wind us up," Steve said quickly, trying to diffuse the situation. "This is a man who means to start a war. And if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them."
"Follow isn't really my style," Tony said matter-of-factly as he popped a blueberry in his mouth. "And quite frankly, I get the feeling it's not Maggie Pie's style either. Look at her face," he pointed over at Lena. "She's questioning every decision she's ever made with SHIELD right now. Aren't you, Mags?"
Lena took a few deep breaths, her eyes darting between the three men as they stared at her.
"I need a breather," Lena said suddenly, striding in between Tony and Steve, bumping Tony's shoulder in the process as she abruptly left the room.
Rounding the corner to an empty corridor, Lena pressed her back against the wall and slid down it, bringing her knees to her chest. She breathed heavily, trying to slow down her racing heart.
SHIELD had become a home for her. She had a family of people she cared about inside the organization. And now to think that SHIELD was messing around with something they shouldn't be – that could be highly dangerous – and hadn't said a word to her? It was a scary thought. Hiding information like that only meant that they were planning on doing something very un-SHIELD like with the Tesseract. But what?
And there was one person other than Fury on the Helicarrier that might have the answer to that question.
Lena jumped back up to her feet, a look of determination on her face as she started making a beeline for Loki's cell. Time to have a little one-on-one chat with her brother.
xXxXx
A/N: Okay guys, I have a serious question. I plan my chapters out way in advance, and I have to ask: is it going to bother any of you immensely if I switch up the events of Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World? Because it would make my plans for this story SO much easier to carry out if I could have Thor: The Dark World's events happen BEFORE Iron Man 3, but I know that's not how the timeline works in the MCU. Would you guys mind terribly if I switched it up? If the majority of you are sticklers for accuracy, I'll definitely come up with something else, but I wanted to ask now so I had plenty of time for feedback. Leave me a review with your thoughts!