Time Bomb of Tension
After that confrontation, the four found and cuffed Loki and then got onboard the Quinjet in silence. Thor was naturally curious about Tom and Ghost but now wasn't really the time as they have more pressing matters.
Once they made it back to the Helicarrier, a fully armed squad took Loki out of their hands and escorted him through the Helicarrier.
The squad escorts Loki past Bruce's lab, who sees this through the window and Loki smiles in the most mischievous manner, which unnerves Banner a lot.
Loki was then placed in a circular cell, surrounded by glass, held over a chasm. And Nick Fury stands, facing him.
"In case it's unclear, if you try to escape, if you so much as scratch that glass, it's 30,000 feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?" Fury warned the Asgardian as he opened the chasm below, a strong gust of wind blowing in the whole chamber before Fury closed it back up.
"Ant, boot." He then said, summing up what he explained, making Loki chuckle amusingly.
"It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me." He pointed out.
"Built for something a lot stronger than you." Fury replied.
"Oh, I've heard. A mindless beast. Makes play he's still a man." Loki said, looking directly at a camera.
On the bridge, around the table, everyone except for Tony were listening and watching a live feed of the conversation. Nat, one of the three sitting at the table, looked over at Bruce, who seemed uncomfortable.
"How desperate are you that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?" Loki continued. Thor wasn't watching as he kept his distance from the table, just listening. Steve, still in his new uniform sat at the table and Tom, still in his armour sat next to him, looking at the live feed frowning at all of what Loki's saying.
"How desperate am I? 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 that you did." Fury warned the God of Mischief, who wasn't even phased.
"Ooh. It burns you to have come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share. And then to be reminded what real power is." He started to say, essentially trying to push Fury's buttons. All he did was stare at him before he started walking off.
"Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something." Fury said as he walked out.
The live feed then cuts off on the table, leaving everyone in thought.
"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce asked sarcastically.
"Not how I would put it." Ghost said mentally.
"Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?" Steve said, looking at said Asgardian.
"He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard, nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract." Thor explained, facing them all, with Maria Hill watching them all converse.
"An army from outer space." Steve said in disbelief. A tendril formed out Tom's shoulder and Ghost's face formed, a blank expression on his face.
"Is it so hard to believe?" Ghost asked.
"You got me there." Steve backed down on his disbelief and Ghost receded back into Tom.
"So he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for." Bruce pointed out.
"Selvig?" Thor questioned, knowing who he is.
"He's an astrophysicist." Bruce said, thinking Thor doesn't know who Erik is.
"He's a friend." Thor revealed.
"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours." Nat said, looking away, still torn inside with what happened to Clint.
"Shouldn't we be a bit concerned why Loki let us take him in?" Tom asked, knowing full well that Loki has some kind of grand plan.
"Yeah, he's not leading an army from here." Steve agreed with him.
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You could smell crazy on him." Bruce shrugged off.
"Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother." Thor sharply told him.
"You do realize that he's killed 80 people in two days, right?" Tom said.
"He's adopted." Thor added.
"Really? Could that be part of why he's evil?" Ghost asked Tom.
"Possibly. I never suspected he'd be adopted." Tom replied.
"I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium… what do they need the Iridium for?" Bruce asked as Tony and Coulson walked in.
"It's a stabilizing agent." Tony answered the question.
"I'm just saying, pick a weekend. I'll fly you to Portland. Keep the love alive." Tony discussed with Coulson, who nodded and walked off.
"It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D." Tony then explained as he walked past the table and then he saw Thor.
"No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing." He said, patting Thor on the arm, making him look at Tony in confusion.
"Also, it means the portal can open as wide and stay as long as Loki wants." He continued, walking up to the bridge controls.
"Uh, raise the mizzenmast. Jib the topsails." He then said, making everyone on the bridge look at him as though he's high.
"That man is playing Galaga." He then pointed to someone on his right.
"He thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." He then added. Tom narrowed his eyes at the ego driven billionaire.
"How can anyone stomach him?" Ghost asked, clearly annoyed.
"I have no clue. You'd think he was high or something." Tom remarked. Tony then looked at the controls, covering his left eye, imitating Fury.
"How does Fury even see these?" He asked Hill.
"He turns." She answered bluntly.
"Sounds exhausting." Tony commented before he started to fiddle around with the controls.
"The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is a power source of high energy density. Something to kickstart the Cube." Tony then explained, Tom noticing that Tony planted something on the control console since his eyesight was improved more thanks to Ghost.
"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Hill asked in a scathing manner.
"Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?" Tony said, Tom raising his hand up, but not saying anything.
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked.
"He would have to heat the Cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier." Bruce answered.
"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect." Tony pointed out.
"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet." Bruce concluded.
"Finally, someone who speaks English." Tony said, finally finding someone with equal intelligence to him.
"Is that what just happened?" Steve asked as Tom rolled his eyes.
"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. Your work on antielectron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster." Tony greeted Bruce with a shake of the hand. And with the last point, Bruce was uncomfortable. And both Tom and Ghost inwardly growled at Tony.
"Disrespectful git." Tom spat.
"Does he not see that it's a sore spot for him?" Ghost questioned.
"Thanks." Bruce said, looking away from Tony.
"Dr. Banner is only here to track the Cube. I was hoping you might join him." Fury entered, throwing the idea of seeing the Hulk out the window.
"I'd start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon." Steve brought up.
"Though it clearly ain't." Tom said. The design of it alone was a red flag as it looked alien in design.
"Either way, it is powered by the Cube. And I would like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys." Fury stated.
"Monkeys? I do not understand." Thor said in confusion.
"I do." Steve said, a little too eagerly, making Tom look at him oddly and Tony rolled his eyes.
"I understood that reference." Steve then proudly said.
"Shall we play, Doctor?" Tony asked Bruce.
"This way, sir." Bruce led him out of the bridge.
As they left, Fury told Nat to go and talk with Loki and she left.
Both Tom and Steve decided to go check up on Tony and Bruce after sitting at the table for a while.
When they entered Bruce's lab, the two saw both Bruce and Tony by a table with Loki's staff and Tony oddly shocked Bruce on his side.
"Hey!" Steve called out.
"Are you high or something?" Tom asked Tony, questioning why he'd shock Bruce.
"Jury's out." Tony told him as his attention was still on Bruce.
"You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?" He asked the scientist. Steve immediately started to like Tony less.
"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked, Tom glared at Tony.
"Funny things are." Tony replied.
"Really? Risking everyone's safety on a Helicarrier is funny? Your sense of humour is downright awful." Tom scolded him before looking over at Bruce.
"No offense." He added a quick apology.
"It's alright, I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." Bruce accepted the apology with ease.
"You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut." Tony remarked.
"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark." Steve reminded the man.
"Do you think I'm not? Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables." Tony pointed out, which shifted the conversation.
"So you're saying that Fury is indeed hiding something?" Tom asked, very aware of what he and Ghost thought when they first met the man.
"Of course, he's a spy. The spy. His secrets have secrets. It's bugging him, too. Isn't it?" Tony said as he started eating blueberries.
"Uh…. I just want to finish my work here, and…." Bruce awkwardly tried to stay out of this conversation.
"Doctor?" Steve asked, clearly wanting to hear what he thinks. After he thought for a bit, he took his glasses off, deciding to say something.
"'A warm light for all mankind.' Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube." He said.
"We've heard it." Steve nodded.
"Well, I think that was meant for you." Bruce said, pointing to Tony. He then offered Bruce some blueberries, who grabbed some.
"Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news." He then further explained. Tom and Steve knew what he's talking about.
"The Stark Tower? That big, ugly… building in New York?" Steve asked, making Tony look at him with a raised eyebrow.
"It's powered by an Arc Reactor, a self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?" Bruce asked Tony.
"It's just the prototype." He insisted.
"I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at." Tony then bragged, making Tom sigh through his nose.
"So why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. bring him in on the Tesseract Project? What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?" Bruce pointed out.
"So Fury is hiding something from all of us, including Tony." Tom answered coolly with Ghost growling mentally in his head, feeling used like a tool.
"I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D. 's secure files." Tony said as he walked up to Tom and Steve.
"So you did plant something on the controls." Tom said, not all that surprised. Steve was shocked.
"I'm sorry, did you say-"
"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?" Tony interrupted Steve.
"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around." Steve shot at Stark.
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome." Tony retorted, annoying Steve.
"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. 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." Steve naively stood his ground. Tom inwardly cringed because Steve thinks the world is like what it was in the 40's morally but it's more grey in today's time.
"Following's not really my style." Tony replied, stuffing some blueberries in his mouth.
"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Steve asked, referring to Tony's Iron Man suits.
"And getting on people's nerves." Tom added, crossing his arms.
"Of the people in this room, which ones are, A, wearing a spangly outfit and cheap looking armour, B, not of use, and C, housing a slimy parasite?" Tony had the nerve to mock the two. Ghost growled so much that it was audible to everyone and Tom and Steve looked like they wanted to punch the man.
"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you." Bruce said, making Steve look at him while Tom stared at Tony with a look of cold anger.
"Just find the Cube." Steve muttered as he and Tom left.
As they walked down the hallway, no one else present, Tom's fist formed into Ghost's and he punched the metal wall so hard that a huge dent was formed, making Steve jump from such a display of anger.
"That git had to call my armour cheap. And to call Ghost a parasite." He snarled, his eyes forming into Ghost's.
"Tom, calm down. Now ain't the time." Steve placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him down, which worked as Ghost's eyes receded and Tom took some deep breaths.
"You're right. Let's see if we can find out what Fury's hiding." Tom suggested, which Steve nodded in agreement.
They both made their way through the Helicarrier until they reached the door leading into a secure storage room.
"Want to help open the door?" Steve asked the host, who smirked.
"Yep." Tom agreed, his arms covered in Ghost's mass. The two then heaved the door with enough strength to snap the hinges off and opened it. Ghost's mass receded back into Tom as he and Steve entered seeing metal boxes, hearing indistinct talking from somewhere nearby and they both silently leaped up to a catwalk above them and made their way down it.
"What is in these boxes?" Ghost asked Tom.
"I have an idea." Tom replied, sending mental images of weapons for Ghost to see.
They eventually found a couple of boxes and decided to open them. Once they did, what they saw made them and Ghost furious. HYDRA weapons.
"Fury wants to use the Tesseract to make more weapons." Tom said to Ghost, who growled once more.
"That no good, lying sack of meat!" Ghost raged.
"I think it's time we have a little chat with Fury." Tom suggested coldly. Steve agreed with ease, snatching one of the weapons and they stormed out of the storage room.
They made it back to Bruce's lab, where Fury was.
"What is Phase 2?" Tony asked him. Steve placed the weapon on the table.
"Phase 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the Cube to make weapons. Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for us." Steve stated.
"Rogers, Wron, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not me-" Fury stopped when Ghost formed out of Tom, snarling right in his face.
"Stop lying to us. Fury." He spat at him, receding back into Tom as Tony flipped a monitor to show a schematic of a weapon, clearly backing up the fact that Fury was lying.
"Sorry, Nick. What were you lying?" Tony asked, everyone's attention on the monitor.
"I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit." Steve told Fury as Thor and Nat entered.
"Did you know about this?" Bruce asked her.
"You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?" She suggested.
"I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed." Bruce scoffed.
"Loki's manipulating you." Nat said.
"And you've been doing what, exactly?" He pointed out how she pretty much lied to him.
"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you." Nat shot back.
"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy." He finished their little dispute before diverting his attention to Fury.
"I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction." He said, pointing at the monitor.
"Because of him." Fury answered, pointing at Thor without looking at him.
"Me?" Thor asked, shocked at the accusation.
"Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that levelled a small town. And 2 years ago, a meteorite containing a symbiotic alien landed and bonded with a human." Fury started with, looking at Tom, who stared coldly at him.
"We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned." Fury then said, looking at everyone.
"My people want nothing but peace with your planet." Thor said. Ghost then formed out of Tom.
"And my kind are cut off with the universe." Ghost added before receding into Tom.
"But you're not the only ones out there, are you? And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, that can't be controlled." Fury then said, revealing his reasoning for everything.
"Me and Ghost aren't threats." Tom sneered, sounding offended at what he and his friend are called.
"Like you controlled the Cube?" Steve asked.
"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 stated, essentially saying that this is pretty much Fury's fault.
"A higher form?" Steve repeated.
"You forced our hand. We had to come up with something." Fury said firmly.
"A nuclear deterrent. Because that always calms everything right down." Tony scoffed, making Fury round on him.
"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark." He said.
"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep-"
"Wait, wait, hold on. How is this now about me?" Tony asked, irritated.
"I'm sorry, isn't everything?" Steve asked him, scathingly.
"I thought humans were more evolved than this." Thor said, feeling like he's surrounded by petty children.
"Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?" Fury asked him in return.
"You treat your champions with such mistrust." Thor countered back.
"Are you boys really that naive? S.H.I.E.L.D. monitors potential threats." Nat joined in.
"Captain America's on threat watch?" Bruce interjected with a raised eyebrow.
"We all are." Nat told him.
"Wait, you're on that list? Are you above or below angry bees?" Tony asked Steve.
"Stark, so help me God, if you make one more wisecrack-"
"Threat! Verbal threat. I feel threatened."
"Show some respect."
"Respect what?"
Everyone excluding Tom started to now argue over themselves, unknowingly affecting the gem in Loki's sceptre. Tom pinched his nose in frustration.
"This is not a team." He said to Ghost.
"This is what happens when you treat everyone as an enemy and have opposing personalities clash." Ghost stated.
"You speak of control, yet you court chaos." Thor called Fury out.
"That's his M.O., isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're a time bomb." Bruce interjected, getting everyone's attention.
"You need to step away." Fury warned him.
"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Tony asked, placing a hand on Steve's shoulder.
"You know damn well why. Back off!" Steve barked, shoving Tony's hand off. Tony now looked serious, his joking manner gone.
"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me." He told the super soldier.
"Yeah. Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?" Steve asked, not in a good mood.
"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." Tony listed off, bragging of course, making Nat shrug and Tom roll his eyes.
"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. 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 let the other guy crawl over you." Steve started to call out Tony's behaviour as Iron Man, clearly striking a nerve within Tony.
"I think I would just cut the wire." He retorted. Steve smirked at this.
"Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero." He concluded, now really striking a nerve in Tony.
"A hero? Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle." Tony decided to try and strike a nerve.
"Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds." Steve growled.
"What is this, a dick measuring contest?" Ghost asked, not amused.
"You people are so petty, and tiny." Thor laughed, looking as though he was drunk, making Steve and Tony glare at the Asgardian.
"Yeah, this is a team." Bruce muttered.
"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his-"
"Where? You rented my room." Bruce pointed out to Fury, referring to the cell Loki is held in.
"The cell was just in case-"
"In case you needed to kill me. But you can't. I know, I tried." Bruce confessed, silencing everyone with shock.
"You tried to take your own life?" Tom asked, which Bruce nodded.
"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 want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?" Bruce coldy explained, unknowingly grabbing the sceptre, causing Fury and Nat to place their hands on their guns and Tom's right hand formed into Ghost's with the claws fully out.
"Dr. Banner, put down the sceptre." Steve ordered him calmly. Bruce then looked at the sceptre, shocked to see it in his hand. A monitor then beeped, getting everyone's attention.
" ." Bruce said, carefully putting the sceptre back on the table. Tom's hand went back to normal as Bruce walked past everyone to the computer.
"Sorry, kids, you don't get to see my party trick after all." He told everyone with humourless sarcasm.
"You located the Tesseract?" Thor asked.
"I could get there fastest." Tony said.
"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard. No human is a match for it." Thor stated.
"You're not going alone." Steve told Tony, grabbing his arm.
"You're gonna stop me?" Tony asked, shoving Steve's hand off.
"Put on the suit, let's find out." Steve challenged.
"I'm not afraid to hit an old man."
"Put on the suit."
"ENOUGH! You're acting like spoiled brats!" Tom bellowed at the top of his lungs, stopping everyone, shocked.