And I'm back with chapter two! Again, still really just gauging interest at this point and having fun with it - let me know what you think!

Chapter Two

Temperance handed Tony another cup of coffee before carefully lowering herself onto the couch next to him and blowing gently into her own steaming mug.

"Is that that nasty flower tea?" Tony asked, his eyes still scanning lazily over the image and text projected in front of their faces.

"No," Temperance answered, "it's Irish breakfast."

Tony turned to her, his eyebrows raising in surprise. "Wow, great idea. Is my coffee Irish, too?"

"No, that's not what Irish breakfast is. It's-nevermind. So...have you ever seen anything like this before?" She asked, gesturing toward the blue, glowing cube showing on one of the projected panels. They'd been "studying" for almost an hour now, and while she couldn't understand most of the thermonuclear astrophysics side of things, she was extremely interested in the secrets about the Avengers initiative that the files revealed. Besides, her confusion was helping Tony to process the information, since he had to turn and explain just about everything they read to her in layman's terms. And then there was the very important duty of simply keeping him on task.

"Actually, I might have." Tony replied, deep in thought as he stared at the object. "My father wrote about something like this in his notes."

"Oh." Temperance said softly, not sure how to respond. "So...this cube. It's made from cosmic energy. Cosmic as in...space?"

"Cosmic as in space." Tony confirmed. Temperance took a sip of her tea, processing the information. She leaned forward and pulled up a file on her side of the projection that she'd already read two or three times - about the incident in New Mexico. After she had learned about the Avengers Initiative, she had thought back on what little news existed about that incident and had bet Tony that it had something to do with S.H.I.E.L.D.

"So how did S.H.I.E.L.D get it?" She murmured out loud, studying an image of the "destroyer" wreaking havoc on a small town in New Mexico.

"Yeah, I noticed that's conveniently been left out. Along with why they had it. What they were doing with it."

She pinpointed with her finger an image of a man with long dark hair and dragged it to the front, expanding it with her thumb and forefinger.

"So this is the guy who has it?" Temperance asked, still murmuring to herself. "Loki."

"He looks like a theater nerd I knew in high school." Tony joked. "Were you a theater nerd, Temp?"

"No." She replied simply, still assessing the photograph. "...What is he? An alien?"

"Can't you read?" Tony replied. "He's a god."

Temperance gave him a wry look. He smirked and she rolled her eyes, turning back to her side of the projection panels and pulling up a picture of the blonde "god," Thor. "You read up on the makeup of that cube, and I'll read about these guys." She ordered.

"Well aren't you the dedicated student." Tony replied. "Maybe we'll just send you back to Stanford and find someone else to be my right hand man."

Temperance scoffed, choosing to ignore him as she learned more about Loki and Thor's home, a place called Asgard. The information in these files was scarce; they'd clearly augmented/edited them to control how much Tony knew, but they still held a lot more than anyone else in the world probably knew about.

The rest of the evening was used up in intervals: they'd read separately for a while and then, when they needed a break, they'd stop and talk about everything they'd read over coffee or tea, attempting to piece it together. Temperance's body was certainly losing steam, but her mind was wide awake with the constant flow of new information. It was hard not to be engaged when a whole new world had been opened up to her - literally.

"Because it's cosmic energy," Tony was explaining, "it likely emits some level of gamma radiation."

"So, then, theoretically speaking, couldn't they just look for places with high levels of gamma radiation? Surely that would narrow the search." Temperance replied, her feet pulled up under her and her head resting on her arm, which was propped up on the back of the couch. Tony's eyebrows raised in surprise.

"I was just getting to that - that's exactly what we need to do." He replied, "Your inductive reasoning is better than I thought it was."

Temperance rolled her eyes at the back-handed compliment. "We?" She asked.

"Huh?"

"You said, 'that's exactly what we need to do.' Who is we?" She clarified.

"Dr. Banner and I." Tony explained. "There's a chance Fury will bring me into headquarters to track the tesseract with Banner. That's what the homework's for."

"Oh." Temperance said, frowning. "I thought you were just a consultant." She asked, eyebrows raising. She knew how big of a fan Tony was of Dr. Banner's work.

"I am, currently." He replied. "But when they want to stop piddling around and get real results, I imagine they'll come back for me."

Temperance resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his swelling ego.

"And remember," he added, "I wasn't supposed to show you any of this, so mum's the word."

"If Coulson was that concerned about me seeing it, I don't think he would've just handed it over to the man who once called a press conference to announce to the world that he's a hero." She retorted.

"You really think I'm a hero?" Tony asked, placing a hand to his heart in feigned sentiment.

Temperance responded by abruptly swiping away all of the files on the projection in one swift movement. "If the world needs you so badly, you'd better get some sleep, Iron Man."

Temperance finally got to spend a day with her father, as promised. Alan Ward had taken a break from work to come into the city, and they had done lunch followed by a long walk in central park.

"So what was the urgent matter?" Alan had asked at one point, his hands shoved into his pockets as he walked. He seemed happy and peaceful today, though his clothes were a little more rumpled than Temperance would prefer, as if he'd slept in them.

"Oh, I'm not really allowed to talk about it." She told him apologetically. "At least not yet. It deals with a new project Tony might be taking on."

"Something new already? We just finished Stark Tower." He said, surprised.

"Well, that's the thing with Tony. Always some new idea brewing." She replied with a half-shrug. She'd tried to be present with her father as much as possible, but her mind kept drifting back to the information she'd learned about the tesseract and the other members of the Avengers Initiative. She thought about what little she'd read regarding Asgard: the brothers, Loki and Thor.

Even after the day was long over and she was getting ready for bed in her tiny Manhattan apartment, she couldn't shake the images she'd seen the night before from her brain. If people from other worlds were making contact with earth, the world as she knew it was now gone. And what if these 'gods' weren't here for peaceful purposes? It certainly didn't seem like Loki was here for peace, as concerned as S.H.I.E.L.D. seemed to be about him.

She got her answer to that question when she shuffled into her bedroom after her shower to see that a 'breaking news' update was flashing on her television screen. Hugging her robe more tightly around her for warmth, she curled up on the end of her bed and watched the images that played across the screen.

"Breaking News out of Stuttgart, Germany, where a terrorist attack was thwarted by a group of unknown heroes." The anchor announced. Temperance dove for the set and turned the volume up when she saw an image of the Iron Man suit flying into a crowd.

"You're kidding." She gasped to her empty apartment. The screen played a few clips of the event in Stuttgart square, where Loki was standing before a crowd in some sort of horned helmet.

"Witnesses are telling us that the unknown terrorist demanded that a crowd of gala attendees here in Stuttgart bow to him, before Captain America and Iron-Man appeared and pursued him."

"They actually called him." Temperance announced to herself. "Imagine that."

"Nobody has seen the mysterious man in green or the heroes who pursued him. We are currently waiting on word from the authorities on whether or not this man is in custody."

Temperance chewed on the inside of her cheek nervously as she crawled across the bed to grab her phone from the nightstand. She dialed Tony's number and he didn't answer, even when she put in the special code to be directed to his suit. He was probably just busy still, she assured herself. Curling up against the headboard, she soon fell asleep with the TV still blaring.

Temperance was disoriented when she woke again. So disoriented, in fact, that she wasn't even sure what had woken her until she heard her phone vibrating against the nightstand raucously. She grabbed the remote and turned off the TV, glancing at her alarm clock through bleary eyes. 3 AM. She suddenly remembered what she had fallen asleep thinking about and quickly snatched up the ringing phone. Tony's picture and name lit up the screen and she sighed in relief.

"Are you okay?" She asked immediately as she answered, foregoing a greeting.

"I'm fine, mother." He replied. "I take it you've seen the news?"

"Yeah, it's scary. Nobody knows what's going on. Are you in Germany right now?"

"I'm not at liberty to say where I am." He answered. He sounded proud of that fact, and Temperance shoved a tongue into her cheek, annoyed.

"Does this mean I have tomorrow off, too?" She asked after a moment.

"Wow, and here I thought you were actually concerned." He ribbed. "No, actually. I'm not calling my paid assistant at 3 in the morning for pillow talk." He then continued sarcastically. "I'm calling because I need your help."

"Okay." Temperance said, her eyebrows furrowing. She got up and walked toward her closet, knowing that this errand would likely require her to go back to Stark Tower. "What do you need?"

"Okay, take a deep breath, because this one might be a little bit above your pay grade." He began. Temperance rubbed her forehead and yawned, trying to get herself to wake up more.

"What is it, Tony?"

"I need you to come and talk to this guy. Loki."

Temperance was officially awake.

"What?" She asked. Her look was incredulous, though Tony couldn't see it. "Why on earth

would S.H.I.E.L.D. need me to do that?"

"Listen, Temp. I know it sounds crazy, but I was listening to this guy talk to Fury and Natasha and...I've seen you work. I think you could crack him." He told her in a conspiratorial tone.

"Crack him?" Temperance repeated. "What do you think I am? I'm a negotiator, not a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent."

"Come on, Temp. You have a way of changing people's minds, you're young, you're cute-"

"So's Natasha." She pointed out flatly.

"Look, I got Fury to agree to bring you on board and Coulson is arranging transportation to get you here. It's worth a try. We haven't been able to get anything out of him and we need to move quickly because it seems like he's got something big planned with the tesseract."

"Tony, I'm really not qualified to-"

"You are." Tony cut her off. "All you have to do is talk to him. He's contained; it's absolutely safe. You know I wouldn't be bringing you here if I didn't think you could do it."

Temperance rubbed her temple, thinking quietly. Hadn't she just last night wished that she could continue to be involved in the Avengers Initiative? Sure, she had been thinking more in terms of reading additional files and hearing about it from Tony, but to be there and troubleshoot at the heart of the crisis…that was different.

"You there?"

"Yeah. Where do I meet Coulson?"

Temperance couldn't stop asking questions about the helicarrier. How much fuel does it use? What if somebody got stuck outside when it was taking off? Do you spend more time on the water or in the air? How many engines does it have?

Coulson politely deflected most of the young brunette's questions, claiming that he couldn't share too much with her. He hadn't even allowed her to keep track of where they were traveling, causing her to feel extra disoriented when she looked out the giant bay windows at the front (at least she thought it was the front) of the helicarrier.

"This is mission control." Coulson announced, gesturing for her to step forward on the platform. There were agents all around working on computers and speaking into headsets. Coulson gestured to a tall man wearing all black who turned around to reveal an eyepatch.

"This is our director, Nick Fury." He introduced. Temperance held out a hand and Nick Fury accepted it, openly assessing her.

"Nice to finally meet you, Temperance." He told her as he released her hand. His face suddenly turned harder. "You're not going to make me regret allowing you onto this aircraft, are you?"

Temperance stood up a little straighter, clearly uncomfortable. "No, sir. At least...I hope not."

"Good answer. You go where we tell you and only where we tell you." He explained. "When you're done talking to our guest, we'll arrange for transportation off this ship, where you'll go back to your life and never talk about any of this."

"Of course." Temperance agreed. He gave her a small (possibly approving) nod and then ordered Coulson to walk her to the lab.

Temperance let out a sigh of relief when they arrived at the lab and she saw Tony tinkering with some kind of device. This was normal - this she could do.

"About time, Temp." Tony greeted, walking up to her and slinging an arm casually over her shoulders. "Thanks for coming." He then murmured to her. His sudden sincerity threw her off and made her nervous all over again. How serious was this thing she had gotten herself into?

"Temperance, this is Dr. Bruce Banner." He introduced her to the slightly shorter dark-haired man on the other side of the lab. The man put his glasses back on his face and shuffled over to shake her hand. "Banner, this is Temperance Ward."

"Ah, yes." Bruce replied in a slightly nasal tone, "the world's greatest assistant."

Temperance turned to Tony with a raised eyebrow.

"Before you gloat, those are his words, not mine." Tony insisted.

"Mhm." She replied simply before turning back to Bruce. "It's a pleasure to meet you Dr. Banner. I've heard all about your work from Tony. Too much, really."

Bruce laughed, scratching the back of his head. "So, you're going to talk to antler man?"

"That's what I hear."

"If you don't want to, speak now." A new voice joined the conversation. Temperance and

Tony turned to look at the owner of the voice, Captain America, as he walked through the door. "We shouldn't be sending a civilian in anyway. No offense."

Temperance sized him up as Tony's arm fell away from her shoulders. Captain America seemed every bit as noble in person as he had in her history books, but mostly, she just got the overwhelming impression that he had a stick shoved up his...Temperance had been hanging around Tony Stark for too long. She shook the thought as she reached out to shake the Captain's hand.

"Temperance Ward." She introduced herself.

"Steve Rogers." He replied in kind, taking her hand. His grip was tight, but not nearly as tight as she had expected it to be. He was probably holding back for her sake, though, of course.

"Nice grip." He told her, causing her eyebrows to fly up in question. Her grip?

"Thanks?" She said uncertainly.

"Temperance, long time no see." Natasha Romanoff greeted as she strode into the room in a black body suit. "I can take you down whenever you're ready."

Temperance glanced around to see that Coulson had, indeed, left her with the Avengers. She greeted Natasha enthusiastically. She had met Natasha before, when she was undercover as Natalie Rushman, an assistant at Stark Industries. Temperance nodded, before turning to look at one of the monitors. The man, Loki, was pacing like a plotting jungle cat in a some kind of transparent, suspended prison cell.

"What do we need to know?" She asked as she watched him thoughtfully.

"This staff is connected to the cube - it uses tesseract energy." Natasha explained, gesturing to the glowing staff propped on a table near the center of the room. Temperance immediately took a few steps toward it; the blue glow of the energy it gave off reflected in her eyes as she stared at it in fascination. "We need to find the cube. Loki has people under his control - people that he's using to plan something big. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and scientists. If we find the cube, we find them, and we can shut down the operation." Natasha continued, a hint of sadness passing over her eyes at the mention of the S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel.

Temperance nodded, glancing at another monitor to her right and walking over to it. "So the gamma radiation traces aren't working?" She asked, turning to Tony and Bruce. Bruce's eyebrows raised in surprise at the question.

"Not quickly enough." Tony answered. "It's still like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"Are you sure about this?" Steve asked her again, looking concerned as if he had known her for five years and not five minutes.

"Can't hurt to try, right?" She replied, glancing back at the screen where Loki was being monitored. "I mean, he's locked up in that...thing."

"Alright, well, the sooner the better. You ready?" Natasha asked. Temperance nodded, following her toward the door.

"Hey." Tony murmured as she walked past him, grabbing her arm. "You get uncomfortable, walk away."

Temperance nodded reassuringly before she walked out.

"Hey, Natasha." She called out as she caught up to the woman in the long corridor. "I was thinking, and...the difference between an interrogation and a negotiation is that, in a negotiation, I usually have something to put on the table. Something to offer. Is there…?"

"Nope." Natasha replied, popping the 'p' sound. "I mean, promise him whatever you want. I doubt he'll believe it, though."

"Right." Temperance replied, exhaling deeply. "And...how many people are going to be watching me do this?" She asked, thinking about the monitor she'd seen in the lab.

"Just do your best." Natasha replied, quirking her lips just slightly in an encouraging smile. "If you get nowhere, oh well. Neither could we. This is your stop." She said, nodding toward the door they'd stopped at.

"Okay." Temperance breathed. "Let's do this."