"What is 'Phase 2'?" Tony Stark asked Fury as he and Percy entered the lab. Before anyone else could respond, however, Steve barged in with a massive weapon in his hands and slammed it on the table.
"Phase 2, is that SHIELD uses the Cube to make weapons," Steve explained with righteous fury in his voice. "Sorry. Computer was moving a little slow for me."
"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract," Fury attempted to justify himself. "This does not mean we're making-"
"I'm sorry, Nick," Stark interrupted, swinging the screen around to show a blueprint for a weapon of mass destruction, "What? Were you lying?"
"I was wrong, Director," Steve continued, "the world hasn't changed a bit."
"Nick…" Percy questioned with apprehension, hoping to all deities in existence that Nick wasn't truly planning on making WMDs with the Cube.
Natasha walks in before Nick could reply to Percy's line of questioning.
"Did you know about this, Natasha?" Banner questions hotly, betrayal and anger laced in his voice.
"You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?" Natasha responded smoothly, not answering the doctors question.
Bruce chuckled dryly, replying with a tone dripping with sarcasm and scorn, "I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed."
"Loki is manipulating you," Natasha continued unbothered, internally wincing at how hypocritical she sounded.
"And you've been doing what, exactly?" He replied hotly, glaring at the spy.
She rolled her eyes, "You didn't come here because I bat my pretty eyelashes at you."
"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy." He swings the panel towards everyone in the room, pointing at the warhead on the screen "I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."
Fury stayed silent for a few seconds before finally dropping the bombshell of news.
"Because of him," Fury said, pointing to Thor.
"Me?" Thor questions, stunned beyond belief.
"Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned," Fury explained.
"Director...I sorely hope that doesn't include me." Percy replied slowly, voice tinged with iron.
"This doesn't include you, Percy," Fury hastily replied, panic rising within him at the thought of an angry Percy.
"Then who the fuck does it include?! Are you going to tell me that if one of the Olympians decides to come down from Mount Olympus and you don't like that you can't control them, that you won't use these against them?" Percy said, waving his hand in the direction of the WMD, "because if so, I truly hope you are being mind-controlled right now."
"The Asgardians have no quarrel with your people!" Thor announced, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Neither do the Greeks, nor the Romans. The Egyptians seek peace too." Percy added as his skin began to tingle. Frowning to himself, he stretched his senses to pick up whatever was interfering with the natural flow of energy in the air. Before he could pinpoint the object, however, he was interrupted by Nick attempting to justify himself once more.
"But you're not the only people out there, are you?" Fury challenged. "And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, that can't be controlled."
"So you want enough firepower and weaponry to force control over them? Gods Nick, do you even hear what you are saying?" Percy cried, outraged beyond belief at what he was hearing
"Just like you were trying to control the Cube," Steve added on with equal anger.
"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 informed everyone, glancing around the room.
"Higher form?" Steve echoed, but was promptly ignored as the anger in the room kept rising.
"You forced our hand," Fury told Thor. "We had to come up with something."
"He was trying to come up with a nuclear deterrent," Tony said. "Because that always calms everything down."
"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark," Fury said sarcastically.
"I'm sure if he still made weapons Stark would be neck-deep-"
Tony interrupted Steve. "Wait, hold on. How is this now about me?"
"I'm sorry, isn't everything?" Steve mocked.
"I thought humans were more evolved than this," Thor said.
"Thor, you aren't helping right now." Percy growls through clenched teeth. His skin tingled with power as his ichor boiled at the thought of Nick's actions.
"Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?" Fury fired back.
"You treat your champions with such mistrust."
"Are you boys really that naive?" Natasha jumped in. "SHIELD monitors potential threats."
"So Captain America is on that list huh? Where is he at, below or above angry bees?" Stark replies dryly.
"Stark, so help me God, if you make one more wisecrack ..." Steve warned.
"Threat!" Tony shouted. "Verbal threat. I feel threatened."
"Show some respect."
"Respect what?"
"You speak of control, yet you court chaos," Thor proclaims to Nick.
"That's his M.O., isn't it?" Banner asked. "I mean, what are we, a team? No, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos." Banner smiles with a hint of dark humor written across his face, "We're...we're a time bomb."
"You need to step away," Fury told him.
"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Tony asked, placing his hand on Steve's shoulder.
"You know damn well why. Back off!" Steve yelled, slapping Tony's arm off his shoulder.
"I'm starting to want you to make me," Tony challenged, rapidly getting into Steve's personal space.
"Yeah. Big man in a suit of armor," Steve snarked condescendingly, "Take that off, what are you?"
"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," Tony answered smoothly.
"I know guys worth none of that worth ten of you," Steve said. "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."
"I think I would just cut the wire," Tony replied.
"Always a way out," Steve said with a dry smile. "You may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."
"A hero? Like you?" Tony challenged. "You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."
"Put on a suit. Let's go a few rounds."
Thor laughed sarcastically. "You people are so petty … and tiny."
"Yeah, this is a team," Bruce stated sarcastically.
"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner to his-" Fury started.
"Where?" Bruce interrupted. "You rented my room."
"The cell was just in case-"
"In case you needed to kill me," Banner finished. "But you can't. I know, I tried!"
That shut everyone up very quickly. The room fell into stunned silence as the doctor fidgeted a bit.
"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," Bruce confronted.
"You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?" Bruce asked, the Hulk within him fighting against his restraints.
"Bruce?" Percy called out to the doctor, "Please put down the Scepter of Doom and Destruction before you accidentally kill us all."
Bruce frowned and looked down at his hand, obviously not realizing that he had grabbed the scepter. The tension in the room was shattered as the computer beeped, indicating that it had found the Tesseract.
"Got it," Tony exclaimed.
"Sorry, kids, you don't get to see my party trick after all," Bruce said, tongue-in-cheek.
"You located the Tesseract?" Thor asked.
"I could get there the fastest." Tony said.
"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard," Thor argued. "No human is a match for it."
"You're not going alone," Steve said, grabbing Tony's arm.
"You're gonna stop me?" Tony questioned hotly.
"Put on the suit, let's find out," Steve retorted coldly.
"I'm not afraid to hit an old man," Tony snarked.
"Put on the su-" Captain America is cut off abruptly.
"ENOUGH!" A deep commanding voice boomed, shocking everyone as the newest Avenger began to glow golden and his body began to rise slightly off the floor.
"The next person to threaten someone will be thrown into the deepest parts of Tartarus where you will immediately perish in the River Phlegethon, or lose all of your memories and personality in the River Lethe. This is your only warning." Percy declared, the powerful edge in his voice causing all but Thor to fidget as the waves of power washed over them. The Helicarrier began to shake as a massive storm began to form in the air.
Meanwhile with Maria Hill
"Fuck! Who made Percy angry?! WHO DID IT?" Hill yelled, frantically trying to get everyone in the deck to keep the Helicarrier in the sky.
Nick I swear to all the deities out there, if you made Percy angry, I will punch you in your good eye. Maria swore mentally, banging her fist on a panel. The blinking screen seemingly mocked her inability to fix the situation.
No one answered and instead chose to follow Maria's instructions to the letter.
Back with Percy
"Now that we are done with this bullshit display of false dominance and we all know who stands at the top of the food chain, we should instead focus on the ship that's been hovering beside the Helicarrier for a solid thirty seconds now. Oh and the fact that there is an arrow notched on a bow with enough explosives to blow up a dozen eighteen wheelers." Percy stated, his voice still laced with anger and frustration. He closed his eyes in preparation.
He wasn't too worried about an explosion, being a god and all, but damn was it annoying to get glass, metal, and shrapnel out of his eyeballs.
Everyone looked out the only window in the room and paled.
"Mother fuc-" Nick was cut off when the side of the ship exploded.
A roar was heard across the entirety of the ship.
"Oh dear, it seems that the Not-So-Jolly Green Giant is very angry." Percy quips, knowing he can easily defeat the Hulk in a one on one battle. His lips twitched, barely forming a small grin at the idea of fighting the Hulk.
So yea. Remember how I said "oH I WaNnA fOcUs On FoF oNlY?"
Yea I can't do that because I fucking lost my first book of the Throne of Glass series.
Fuckity fuck fuck am I right?
Anyways. I've ordered a new one and it says it will be in by sometime next week. This pandemic has messed up everything I'm telling you.
Anyways, I'll be updating this story until I get the book delivered to me! Enjoy!