Chapter Seven

Bruce, Tony, Thor, Steve, Natasha and Fury were in the lab before Alice had made it to the door. Everyone was looking at each other with distrust and apprehension. "Did you know about this?" Bruce said to Natasha, Tony noticed Alice run in breathing heavily. Alice heard Natasha start making mental plans on where to put Bruce in order to keep the Hulk from causing damage. "You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?" Natasha implied harshly. Bruce gave a sarcastic chuckle, "I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed." He made eye contact with Alice who was frozen behind the group. "Loki is manipulating you." Ramanoff replied walking towards the doctor a few steps. Alice walked up next to Thor prepared to step in if needed. "And you've been doing what exactly?" "You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you." Bruce scoffed, "Yeah, we all know who has the better looks between you and Bianco. Anyone would come because she bat her eyelashes. But I'm not leaving because suddenly 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." He looked around the room at everyone and there was a pause. As flattered as Alice was, she knew things were about to come to light. "Because of him." Fury said suddenly, pointing at a confused Thor. "Me?" He asked in disbelief. Everyone looked on with confused looks, except the two S.H.I.E.L.D agents. "Last year Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned." Thor seemed appalled and tried to justify. "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." Alice and Bruce exchanged glances before she took a few steps closer to him. "Like you controlled the cube?" Steve interjected, Thor thought the same skepticism. "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." "A higher form?" "You forced our hand. We had to come up with something." Fury tried to defend himself before he was interrupted by Tony. "A nuclear deterrent. 'Cause that always calms everything right down." "Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?" "I'm sure if he still made weapons Stark would be neck deep." Steve attempted to keep some civil peace but failed as Tony reasoned for himself. Alice could hear Tony getting upset and very worked up over those comments. He knew he had hurt people and he has spent years trying to make it up. "Wait, wait, hold on. How is this now about me?" "Oh, I'm sorry. Isn't everything?" "I thought humans were more evolved than this." "Excuse me, do we come to your planet and blow stuff up?" Tony and Steve had started fighting while Fury and Thor did the same. Alice stood a couple feet away from Bruce at this point and was wincing with a hand to her head. Everyone was screaming both verbally and mentally. Alice was hearing so many voices at once and the tension in the room continued to rise steadily. "Are you really that naive? S.H.I.E.L.D monitors potential threats." "Captain America is on threat watch?" "We all are." "Fury, you on that list?" "Stark, put on the suit and make me." "Verbal threat! I feel threatened." Alice could hear the steady grow of a piercing energy noise behind her and turned around to see the increasing glow of the staff before turning to the group again to point it out. Everyone continued fighting however and even directed some toward her. "What about Green Machine and his girlfriend, huh? They both on that threat list?" "Show some respect for once." Steve scoffed. "Don't bring me into this, Stark." Alice defended herself. "What? Do you take offense to being called my girlfriend?" Bruce turned to the brunette agent. "What? No, of course not. This just isn't the time or place." "Alice," Natasha started. "You can not be compromised. Keep your head clear and no distractions. Loki could use everything against you and you know that. Why are you letting someone get close to you?" Alice didn't know what to say as the others fighting just got louder and Bruce started defending her. "She can have a social life if she wants to." "Not with you." "And what does that mean?" "It means I don't want her getting hurt when you two get into a small fight and you loose control. You're unpredictable and unreliable." "Listen, if Ally wants to go out with someone who knows what it's like to be weighed down with abilities then let her. You aren't her mother." "Ally? I'm sorry, maybe you warned her a little too late then." Tony snickered as Alice was stuck and didn't say anything, too in shock. Thor's voice across the room caught her attention. "You speak of control, yet you court chaos." "That's his M.O isn't it?" Bruce suddenly said loudly and everyone looked over at him. "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." "You need to step away." Fury told him. "Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" "You know damn-well why. Back off." Steve and Tony went back at it again, this time talking low blows. Alice heard what they really wanted to say to each other and it was worse than the verbal exploits. "Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his roo-" Fury began but Bruce was quick to cut him off. "Where? You rented my room." "The cell was just in ca-" "In case you needed to kill me but you can't. I know. I tried." Alice took a step back from the Doctor as everyone else in the room froze looking at Banner. She shook he head slightly as Bruce made eye contact with her and regretted saying anything. She looked as if that statement had crushed her. Bruce felt the need to explain himself to her, "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. You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?" Alice was so shocked she didn't realize that Bruce had picked up the staff until Natasha and Fury had their hands on their weapons and Rogers asked him to put the scepter down. Bruce met Alice's eyes and felt a pull on the object, she subtly nodded and he let go. The group watched as she levitated it back onto the stand and Banner looked around slowly. Just then the computers started to go off showing they had located the energy signature match. Tony and Steve started fighting over who would get their faster as Bruce looked up from the screen and to Alice across the room. She saw the look on his face and watched him mouth 'oh my god' before running over to him just as an explosion rocked the ship.