What If… Part Two
Tony pulled out his phone without taking his eyes off of Aya. "Jarvis call Nora now."
"Of course sir." Jarvis answered before dialing. The phone rang a few times before Nora's voice came on the phone.
"Hey." It said.
"Kid where the hell…" Tony started.
"Gotcha, I'm probably busy so you know what to do." Her recording said before there was a beep.
"Phone must be on Airplane mode." Aya taunted.
"Where is she?" Tony growled.
"Aya let me talk to him!" Nora cried out making Aya wince a bit.
"Find the tesseract and we'll talk." Aya said.
"Be quiet and let me work." Aya thought.
"I can calm him down. He needs to know I'm okay." Nora said. "I'm all he's got Aya."
"If anything happens to her…" Tony started.
"Your Nora is nineteen, the one I'm in right now is twenty three. That's the best guarantee you'll ever get in regards to her safety." Aya said. "Now get to it."
"Happy?" Aya said rolling her eyes.
Tony glared at her before walking out.
"What happened to her… after…" Steve asked.
"Oh sweetheart. Don't go there." Nora muttered.
"Can you stop with the commentary? They can't hear you and I don't care, you're giving me a bigger migraine than the one I already have." Aya groaned rubbing circles on her temples.
"I have more important things to deal with than your love life." Aya said. "Go make yourself useful and make sure Howard Jr stays on task."
"Can you tell her I love her and that I'm going to get her back?" Steve asked.
"Steve… He's been through enough as is. I just want to hug him and tell him its all going to be okay." Nora cried.
"You make me want to hurl." Aya deadpanned at both of them before walking away. She approached Fury and Maria but paused when she saw one of the technical support agents that was supposed to be running facial recognition for Barton or Selvig play Galaga instead. "Hey dumbass if you're going to slack off at work make sure it's a game you're actually good at."
"I…." He started. "Sorry!" He cried.
"That the interrogation?" Aya asked looking at the screen.
"It is." Fury said eyeing her suspiciously. "Are you done tormenting my agents?"
"Considering it makes them more productive you should be thanking me." Aya said. "I'm heading down to my office if you need me."
"Is there anything we should know about the tessaract or the scepter you may have forgotten to mention?" Fury said.
"Scepter?" Aya asked.
"The one Loki used to brainwash Barton and Selvig into doing his bidding?" Nick said.
"Where is it?" Aya said.
"In the lab. Banner and Stark are…" He started but she had already teleported.
Aya appeared in the middle of an argument. One that brought back memories of the 1940's.
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offence, Doc." Steve said.
"The apple really doesn't fall far from the tree." Aya said as she walked into the lab and started reading what the two of them had on their monitors. "The first and only time Howard tried to trigger a time jump I turned Nora into a toddler to teach him a lesson."
"Nora never met Howard." Tony said.
"She did." Steve and Aya answered at the same time as her eyes landed on the scepter and she grimaced.
"Elian." Aya muttered.
"Elian, Your brother?" Nora asked making Aya's eye widen in shock.
"How did you…" Aya whispered completely ignoring the conversation happening in the room.
"She was his wingman." Steve said.
"What do you have on the tessaract?" Aya said not taking her eyes off the scepter.
"We're still looking. The gamma signature…" Bruce started.
"It's unique signature is the key to the tracking algorithm you're going to use the spectrometers to trace." Aya said.
"Since when do you have a degree in Thermonuclear astrophysics?" Tony said.
"I don't Nora's rambling." Aya said rubbing her temples"Uh she won't shut up."
"Then let her out. We can use all the help we can get and like you said the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. My kid's a genius." Tony said.
Aya glared at him before walking over to the table getting close to the scepter making it glow.
"He does have a point Aya. I can help. All hands on deck situation remember." Nora said appearing in front of them.
"Nora?" Steve asked.
"Wait you can see me?" She asked.
"Hey, unique gamma signature." Aya said keeping her on task.
"Well it's similar to the time stone's energy signature. The only difference is that the tessaract works on a different frequency but it's nearly identical to Aya's…" Nora started before she disappeared. Aya walked over to the computer inputted some data before bringing up the file.
"Howard's readings and the data collected should give you something to start with." Aya said before teleporting away.
"You let me talk to them." Nora said.
"Don't get used to it. That thing makes it hard to focus. That constant buzzing in my ears." Aya groaned.
"That was her." Steve said. "That was actually Nora."
"Yeah it was, and thanks to that slip up, I just got a way into Shield's encrypted server. That was faster than Jarvis." Tony said looking through it.
"What are you doing?" Steve asked. "You're supposed to be looking for the Tessaract."
"With the data Nora gave us we have everything need. The spectrometer's will do the rest." Bruce said.
"Then why are you looking through confidential files?" Steve asked.
"Because he kept Nora a secret." Tony said. "That thing has been parading around as my daughter for almost seventy years and he didn't say a damn thing. You really think he didn't have an inkling that something was wrong?"
"You think there's more?" Steve asked.
"Don't you? 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 said.
"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 asked Bruce.
"Uhhhh, I just want to finish my work here, and..." bruce started.
"Doctor?" Steve asked.
"A warm light for all mankind." Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube." Bruce said.
"I heard it." Steve confirmed.
"I think that was meant for you." He told Tony. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."
"The Stark Tower? That big, ugly building in New York?" Steve asked.
"It's powered by an arc reactor, a self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?" Bruce asked.
"It's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at." Tony elaborated.
"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 asked.
"When he stopped by to recruit me he mentioned they thought that the Tessaract was the key to unlimited energy." Steve said.
"Why would an intelligence agency be trying to solve the world's energy crisis, my bet is they have something big they need to power." Tony said. "the question is what."
"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 said.
"Following's not really my style." Tony said.
"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Steve retorted.
"Of the people in this room, which one is, A, wearing a spangly outfit, and, B, not of use?" Tony answered.
"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you." Bruce asked.
"Just find the Cube. If not for Fury then for Nora." Steve said storming off.