Chapter 12: Talking to People… Bleh
Disclaimer: I have a train ticket. I do not have Marvel.
Secondary Warning: I'm not feeling so well, but the story must go on. I leave this upcoming Tuesday so I'll post on Monday and try to post again on Thursday once I get to my sister's place. Thank y'all for the continued reviews! Keep it up, my lovelies!
"Gosh darn it, though, Steve! Fury got me! I don't know how, but he did. He's planning something, I know it. We can't allow this," I tell him as he leads me to wherever it is we are going.
"Fury got you?" Steve questions.
"Yes! And it is unacceptable!" I exclaim.
"How'd he get you? Also I've been meaning to ask you, why don't you like the director?" Steve asks as we continue on to the lab, I hope.
"I don't know. I just have a gut feeling that he pulled one over on me. And oh, I like Nick. As a person, anyway. As a spy and director of tons of spies… well, let's just say we have different opinions about a lot of things. It's all about control with spies. Those who can't be controlled are dangerous to them," I shrug. "Really, though, Nick isn't a bad guy. He does what he thinks is right. I just don't always agree."
"That makes sense. So,you don't how he beat you, you just know he did?" Steve tries to coax more information from me.
"Trust me, Steve, he got something on me from that conversation," I sigh.
"Like?" Steve questions.
"Something important enough for him to smile at me. He hates me."
"Huh," is Steve's only response.
"Just think about it. It makes sense," I encourage him as we approach the lab and the sounds of Bruce and Tony talking drift into the hallway. We arrive in time to see Tony shock Bruce with something.
"Ow!" Bruce exclaims.
"Hey!" Steve shouts as he enters the room ahead of me. I sigh at the scene that is likely about to happen and follow him in.
"Nothing?" Stark ask while closely examining Dr. Banner.
"Are you nuts?" Steve inquires.
"Jury's out," Tony replies. Steve glares at him while Bruce and I chuckle. Sorry, Steve, but Tony's funny. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? A huge bag of weed?"
"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asks Tony.
"Funny things are," Tony quickly responds with a motion of the zapper in his hand.
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny," Steve disagrees. "No offense, Doc."
"It's all right, I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things," assures Banner.
"You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut," Tony advises with more zapper motions.
"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," chides Steve.
"Easy, tiger," I caution Steve. No need for this to end in a brawl.
"Do you think I'm not?" questions Stark. "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."
"Agreed," I mutter under my breath.
"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve inquires.
"Of course he is, Steve! We literally just had a conversation about how he can be manipulative," I interject.
"He's a spy," Tony expands. "Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets." He pauses to eat some blueberries before continuing with a gesture towards Bruce, "It's bugging him, too. Isn't it?"
"Uh…" Bruce stammers. "I just want to finish my work here and…"
"Doctor," Steve interrupts him. Bruce pauses his work and takes off his glasses before speaking.
"'A warm light for all mankind,'" he quotes Loki. "Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube."
"I heard it," Steve remembers.
"Uh, well, I think that was meant for you," Banner tells us while pointing at Tony. Tony immediately offers him some blueberries as an award. Dork. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."
"The Stark Tower?" Steve asks. "That big, ugly-" Insulted Tony look. "-building in New York?"
"It's powered by an arc reactor," Bruce explains, "a self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?"
"It's just the prototype," Tony brags. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at."
"So," Bruce chimes back in, "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?"
"Now when you put it that way…" I murmur. My head is going to explode.
"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 comments as pulls out a weird pocket computer. What is the point of having these things be see-through? Seriously, can't we just use normal computers and cell phones? No that isn't cool enough for S.H.I.E.L.D.. Pfft, nerds.
"I'm sorry. Did you say…" Steve begins.
"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge," Tony responds before Steve can even ask. "In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?"
"Yes, please," I reach forward and grab a few. Yummy!
"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around," Steve says sarcastically.
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome," Tony rebounds.
"I think Loki is trying to wind us up. This is a man that means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused he'll succeed. We have orders. We should follow them," Steve suggests. I groan. I can't help it. "Eve," Steve turns to me, "do you have something to add?"
"Nothing," I put my hands up in mock surrender. "Only that I'm not much good at listening to orders, especially Fury's. I've blindly followed orders before and let's just say it landed me in a world of hurt." Steve is being weirdly unquestioning about all this. He's following orders to the t. I know Steve has disobeyed orders before. This is just personal for him, somehow. I'll try to support him as best I can right now.
"Yeah, following's not really my style either," Tony adds.
"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Steve berates Tony as he turns away from me.
"Of the people in this room, which one is, a) wearing a spangly outfit and b) not of use?" Tony quips.
"Steve," Bruce breaks in before things get too out of hand, "tell me none of this smells a little funky to you."
"Just find the Cube," Steve orders before turning and leaving.
"Steve," I call after him, but it's too late. He's gone. Dammit.
"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" Tony questions. "I'm wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."
"Hey!" I exclaim in offense. "Be nice to the poor guy! Do you think it was easy for him to wake up all alone in what is essentially a new world? No, it wasn't! Then to make matters worse he gets pawned off on some stranger and not a week later is brought in on a this mess! Cut him some slack, Stark!"
Silence reigns for a full minute while I glare at Tony and he looks shocked before Bruce cuts in to get back on topic.
"The guy's not wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us," Bruce says as if I hadn't just exploded.
"What he's got is an Acme dynamite kit," Tony replies causing me to laugh. Tony shoots me a glance and grins in victory. Dammit I am trying to be angry here! Please stop having a good sense of humor! "It's going to blow up in his face," Stark continues. "And I'm going to be there when it does."
"Yeah. I'll read all about it," Bruce promises as they each get back to work on their individual screens.
"Uh-huh," Tony scoffs. "Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us." Bruce chuckles at that idea.
"Nah, you see, I don't get a suit of armor," Bruce reasons. "I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare."
"You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl it's way into my heart. This stops it," Tony divulges as he taps the arc reactor in his chest and walks towards Bruce. "This little circle of light, it's a part of me now, not just armor. It's a terrible privilege."
"But you can control it," Bruce points out.
"Because I learned how," Tony rebuts.
"It's different," Bruce defends.
"Hey, I read all about your accident," Tony tells Bruce. "That much gamma radiation should have killed you."
"So, you're saying that the Hulk…" Bruce pauses here before correcting himself, "the other guy saved my life? That's nice. That's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?"
"I guess we'll find out," Tony concedes.
"You might not enjoy that," Bruce warns him.
"And you just might," Tony responds.
"Okay, I hate to break up the bromance, but I would like to ask you something," I break in. Both of their heads turn to me, but they don't say anything. Alright then I'm taking that as a "Go right ahead, Eve". "Uh, Doctor Banner, how is it that you recognized my name?"
