Steve was sitting down in a Quinjet, as he was flown to the current SHIELD base. He frowned as he took in the footage of a giant green monster, the Hulk apparently, attack a college. He didn't know exactly how to feel about it, the destruction was horrible. But the man inside this monster. . .

"We're about forty minutes out from base, sir," the pilot said to the agent, a man called Agent Phil Coulson, that was escorting Steve to base.

Steve looked up as Agent Coulson stood up from his seat and walked over to him.

"So this Dr. Banner was trying to replicate the serum that was used on me?" Steve asked him.

"A lot of people were," Agent Coulson responded. "You were the world's first superhero. Banner thought gamma radiation was the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula."

Steve winced as the Hulk roared and tore apart a jeep on the screen.

"Didn't really go his way, did it?" Steve muttered.

"Not so much," Coulson said grimly. "When he's not that thing though, guy's like a Stephen Hawking."

Steve looked up at him at that term, feeling a little confuse.

Coulson seemed to notice and corrected himself, "He's like a smart person."

Coulson straightened up and then added, "I gotta say, it's an honor to meet you, officially."

Steve smiled a little at that. This agent was very friendly.

"I. . . I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping," Coulson added, before he seemed to realize what he said could be constrained as a stalkerish thing.

Steve found some amusement as he put up his laptop and stood up, watching the pilot move closer to base.

Coulson followed after him, saying, "I mean, I was. . . I was present while you were unconscious from the ice. You know, it's really, it's just a. . . just a huge honor to have you on board."

"Well, I hope I'm the man for the job," Steve said, quietly.

"Oh, you are," Coulson said. "Absolutely. Uh. . . we've made some modifications to the uniform. I had a little design input."

Steve turned towards him a little and said, "The uniform? Aren't the stars and stripes a little. . . old fashioned?"

"With everything that's happening, the things that are about to come to light, people might need a little old fashioned," Coulson said quietly.

Steve nodded his head at that. feeling a little surprised at the sentiment.

And yet, partially not.

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Percy watched as the Quinjet that was carrying Captain Rogers and Agent Coulson touch down, while staying back with Natasha. It had been nice to see her again. Especially after what had happened to Clint.

As soon as the jet had landed and the two men had started to exit, Percy began to follow Natasha over to them.

He studied Steve Rogers.

Captain America was a tall, muscular man with dirty blonde hair and kind blue eyes.

He seemed to tense a little when he caught sight of Percy for some reason.

"Agent Romanoff, Agent Jackson, Captain Rogers," Coulson introduced cheerfully.

Captain America nodded at them in greeting.

"Hi," Natasha said to him as Percy gave him a bright smile in greeting.

Then she turned to Coulson, "They need you on the bridge. They're starting the face-trace."

Coulson nodded back, "See you all there."

Then he headed for the bridge, leaving Captain America with Percy and Nat.

They began to walk along the hellicarrier.

"It was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice," Natasha told Captain America. "I thought Coulson was gonna swoon."

"Has he asked you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?" Percy asked the man cheerfully.

"Trading cards?" Captain America asked, as he shot Percy another look that he knew all too well said what he thought of seeing Percy here.

"They're vintage, he's very proud," Natasha said butting in seeing how Captain America was looking at Percy.

Percy grinned, remembering how many times Agent Coulson had shown them to him when he was on Tesseract detail. He had taken some amusement from it.

He glanced up as they passed one of the other Quinjets and spotted a man moving about, trying to stay out of the way of other people. Percy was quick to recognize him as Dr. Bruce Banner.

Percy glanced over as Captain America walked towards the doctor, a hand outstretched, "Dr. Banner."

The doctor glanced over at them and walked over as well, shaking Captain America's hand as he said, "Oh, yeah. Hi. They told me you'd be coming."

"Word is you can find the cube," Captain America said.

Dr. Banner stiffened a little, "Is that the only word on me?"

"Only word I care about," Captain America said.

Percy smiled at that sentiment.

"It must be strange for you, all of this," Dr. Banner said as he gestured at the movements of the other SHIELD agents around them.

"It's actually kind of familiar," Captain America said as he looked around fondly.

Percy glanced over at Natasha when she place a hand on his arm, as she said, "Gentlemen, you might want to step inside in a minute. It's gonna get a little hard to breath."

"Oh, I love this part!" Percy muttered to her, grinning brightly as the Hellicarrier started to shake.

She smiled at him in turn as the other agents began to strap down Quinjets in preparation for lift-off.

"Is this a submarine?" Captain America asked curiously.

"Really?" Dr. Banner said sarcastically. "They wanted me in a submerged, pressurized metal container?"

Percy shot a grin at Natasha as the two men moved closer to the edge of the Hellicarrier. Percy knew what was going on. Huge fans mounted on the sides of the Hellicarrier were moving the ship into the air.

Percy nearly laughed as Dr. Banner said, "Oh, no. This is much worse."

Then Percy said, "Follow us to the bridge, people. Lots to see, so little time."

He lead the way to the bridge with a smile on his face.

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The bridge was a flurry of activity when Percy and Natasha lead the way into it. Other agents sat in front of viewscreens that displayed the ships data. Agent Hill was shouting instructions at them.

She turned to Director Fury who was at the main control panel, "We're at lock, sir."

"Good," Director Fury said. "Let's vanish."

Percy could feel the Hellicarrier rising. It wasn't something he enjoyed but thankfully this was his first time stationed on it. From what he could see from the directors mind the ship was camouflaging as they spoke.

Then once the director was certain that the ship was level, he turned to Dr. Banner and Captain America.

Percy meanwhile crossed over to the table and sat down, putting his feet up on it.

"Gentlemen," Director Fury was saying.

Percy raised an eyebrow when Captain America reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, passing Fury a ten-dollar bill.

From what he got from both of their minds it nearly made him laugh at the amusement of it all.

Then the director turned to Dr. Banner, "Doctor, thank you for coming."

"Thanks for asking nicely," Dr. Banner said as he shook Fury's hand. "So, uh. . . how long am I staying?"

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear," the director said.

"Where are you with that?" Dr. Banner asked.

Fury turned to where Coulson was standing. Percy was swift to notice Nat leaning down to stare at a picture of Clint on one of the computer screens.

He winced at that as Coulson answered, "We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops, if it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

"That's still not gonna find them in time," Nat said quietly.

Percy stared at her, feeling her worry and fear for Clint. He stood up from the table and moved to her side, laying a hand on her shoulder.

"You have to narrow the field," Dr. Banner was saying. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"

"How many are there?" Director Fury responded.

"Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?" Dr. Banner said.

Director Fury turned to where Natasha and Percy were standing, "Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please?"

Natasha nodded and headed over to Dr. Banner, leading him out of the room, "You're gonna love it, Doc. We got all the toys."

Percy smiled at the sentiment as he watched them leave.

But that was before he noticed that Captain America was looking at him in that concerned way again.

Oh, great.

He was gonna have to deal with that sooner rather than later.

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Annabeth was watching with narrowed, untrusting eyes as Loki's minions moved around preparing for all-out war, it seemed.

She didn't like this one bit.

And clearly neither did Reyna or Chiron, based on how they were glaring at the doctor Loki had brought in as well as that SHIELD agent, Clint Barton.

They were discussing the last thing they needed for the machine they were building to combat SHIELD.

Although Annabeth was beginning to suspect that Loki had been lying to them.

She was a daughter of Athena.

She understood science and math in a way that most did not.

And she knew that what they were discussing wasn't a weapon of any kind. It was a space-time machine.

She hadn't reported what she knew to Chiron just yet, wanting to wait to be sure first.

She took a closer step forward, listening as the doctor said, "Yeah, iridium. It's found in meteorites; it forms anti-protons. It's very hard to get hold of."

Agent Barton responded, "Especially if SHIELD knows you need it."

"Well, I didn't know!" the doctor responded.

Annabeth could feel tension racing up her spine when she saw Loki walking towards them.

The doctor immediately perked up and said, "Hey! The Tesseract is showing me so much. It's more than knowledge, it's. . . truth."

"I know," Loki said, so far not seeing Annabeth standing there. "What did it show you, Agent Barton?"

"My next target," the SHIELD agent said as he sat down the portable computer he was holding on a table.

"Tell me what you need," the Norse god said.

Annabeth could feel nervousness joining the tension as Agent Barton grabbed a hold of a bow from a box as he said, "I'll need a distraction."

Then he turned back to Loki and said three words that made Annabeth's body become almost like ice.

"And an eyeball."