Chapter Seventeen: Silver-tongued Snakes and New Arrivals
The new bloke had long, dirty-blonde hair and a brawler's build, his muscled arms coming out from an odd, sleeveless outfit that looked like Norse armor. This was for certain: that "individual" was the Thor they had heard about. And he was the exact same man Hiro and Peter had helped with directions, albeit dressed much nicer than that time. Everyone was focused in on the screen that Agent Romanoff lingered by, which showed both Director Fury and the git from earlier – Loki.
"In case it's unclear," Fury was saying to the magic-user, who was trapped in a formidable clear cell, "you try to escape – you so much as scratch that glass –" Off to the side, the dark man pressed a button, causing the floor to swivel open and rushing winds to fill whichever room the two were in. The high-pitched whistling transmitted awfully through the speakers, throwing feedback and whines that caused not only Spider-man to wince. "Thirty thousand feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?" He pressed the button again, shutting the wind out as the doors shut, and Spidey breathed a soft sigh of relief. "Ant. Boot."
"Drama queen," the boy scoffed to himself, though Hiro grumbled in agreement.
"It's an impressive cage," Loki conceded and the people who hadn't met him yet now understood why he was the Norse god of trickery and lies with that voice like honey. "Not built, I think, for me."
"Built for something a lot stronger than you."
"Oh, I've heard." The god turned towards the camera, his eyes lit up with madness and murder, not at all like his own, Hiro decided. He noticed Romanoff's sharp eyes flicker up to watch Dr. Banner. "A mindless beast – makes play he's still a man… how desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?" The animal on the teenaged superhero's shoulder didn't quite manage to hold in a low growl at that jab. The doctor was a good person, no matter how much damage his alter ego cause, no matter what others though, and he was having a hard enough time with his guilt without this ray of sunshine looking down on him
Fury's face screwed up in even more of a frown, if that was possible given how much contempt for the god in the cage was already being communicated quite clearly. "How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can't hope to control, you talk about peace and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."
"Oo. It burns you to have come so close," Loki mocked madly, "to have the Tesseract, to have power – unlimited power, and for what? A warm light for all mankind to share?" A pause. One with tension crackling in the air and a mutual dislike for the pale snake. "And then to be reminded what real power is."
"Never mind. They're both drama queens," Spider-man amended his earlier observation.
"Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something," the director finished the conversation with a smirk before walking off. The image that had been playing in the conference room shut down. Captain Rogers looked up from where he had been transfixed and seemed to realize there were other people occupying the uncomfortable silence that hadn't been there before.
Dr. Banner finally broke it. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?"
"Loki's gonna drag this out," the blonde nodded. "So…" He trailed off, catching sight of the kit perched on Spidey. "Is that…"
"A cat?" Spider-man finished, bored.
"Yes. Why…"
"Is he here? Because he stowed away. It's a long story."
"Right…" Steve gave the black feline a quick, bamboozled once-over before finally getting back on track with his strategizing. "So, Thor, what's his play?"
"He has an army called the Chitauri," he told everyone with his typical old-style accent. "They are not of Asgard nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract." At least the extraterrestrial wasn't saying "thou" or "thy" anymore. Darcy must've gotten through his thick skull since the young duo had seen them on the streets of the city.
"An army," the All-American breathed like he was still trying to wrap his mind around it, "from outer space?"
"So, he's building another portal," Dr. Banner summed up. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."
"Selvig?" Thor looked up with wide eyes.
"The astrophysicist?" Spidey half-answered, half-asked. He remembered the older man they had seen with the group, the one who was holding the map upside-down and the one who had later revealed himself and Jane – Foster! – to be the famous scientists he had then fanboyed over for a short period of time. Hiro remembered Peter's rambling when he met the woman and her partner and remembered the chuffing he worked hard to hide with the laughter Darcy didn't try to.
"Yes, he's an astrophysicist," the curly-haired gamma-expert said to the both of them.
"He's a friend," Thor revised strongly.
"Loki has them under some sort of spell – along with one of ours," Agent Romanoff explained in a bitter tone and the kit wondered how close she had been to the person under Loki's spell, which sounded an awful lot like the Imperious Curse. He didn't like it one bit.
"I wanna know why Loki let us take him," Captain Rogers brought up. "He's not leading an army from here." The brunet spider hummed in agreement as the other nodded slowly as she tried to analyze all the possible angles.
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Dr. Banner brushed away for now. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you can smell crazy on him."
"Truth!" the boy declared with a laugh while Hiro gave the man who had spoken an offended look at the comparison between cats and Loki, one he did not appreciate.
"Have care how you speak," Thor warned darkly. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother."
"He killed eighty people in two days," Romanoff shot back emotionlessly.
Thor squirmed under the assassin's scrutiny and offered weakly, "He's adopted?"
"I think it's about the mechanics," the part-time green goliath mused. "Iridium, what do they need the iridium for?" One of the doors opened to reveal Agent Coulson leading a very familiar face out, because, really. Who wouldn't recognize Tony Stark? He sauntered in like he owned the place with not a hair out of place, despite what Hiro had heard about him flying in inside the Iron Man suit.
"It's a stabilizing agent," he said to the doctor, turning back to his escorting agent. "I'm saying, take a weekend; I'll fly you to Portland. Keep love alive." He turned back to the group in general, though focused more on Dr. Banner. "Means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D." The billionaire kept ambling around as Agent Coulson peeled off from his shoulder, heading towards Thor this time. "No hard feelings Point-break, you got a mean swing."
The Asgardian seemed very confused at the assertion and his eyes followed the man around the room. The brunet was over at the main consoles now, where Director Fury had stood the first time Spider-man and his furry friend were shown the room, looming over all the workers at their computers. "Also, means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants." The alleged genius surveyed the room and addressed the agents working at the rows of computers,
"Ah, raise the mizzenmast, ship the topsails." Everyone in his vicinity gave him a strange look, bar Spidey and Hiro, who were stifling chuckles and chuffs respectively. All of a sudden, he whipped out an arm and pointed at the bloke in the back. "That man is playing Galaga!" All eyes were now on the aforementioned man. "Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." Stark went back to standing over the masses, covered one eye and twisted around rapidly. "How does Fury even see these?"
Agent Hill, looking rather disgruntled and irritated, riposted back, "He turns."
"Sounds exhausting." He absentmindedly fiddled with the monitors, poking and prodding random things and slipping a tiny device on the underside of one. Hiro tilted his head to the side when no one other than his spider-friend noticed, the boy making a perplexed noise he was sure only the cat could hear. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source – of high energy density. Something to – kick-start the cube."
"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" she inquired, wrinkling her nose.
"Last night," he waved off – literally – with a hand. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers – am I the only one who did the reading?"
Spidey raised a hand comically, smirking under the mask as he had a little flashback to when he was actually in high school. "On the plane. Agent wouldn't give them to me 'til we picked up Stars-'n-Stripes, though."
"Anyone other than Bug Boy?"
"Spiders are arachnids."
"Okay… point."
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Captain Rogers intervened after the reluctant admittance.
"He'd have to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Dr. Banner noted.
"Unless," Stark pointed out, "Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."
"Well if he could do that he could achieve heavy-ion fusion at any reactor on the planet," Spider-man objected and scratched the feline's head when he was nuzzled affectionately. The company owner gave them an odd look, probably wondering how the kit got there with – or without, he wasn't judging – the director's consent.
"Finally. Some people who speak English."
"Is that what just happened?" the American blonde whispered to the others as Tony and Bruce shook hands and then the two red-themed superheroes high-fived. The force spun the happy teenager around in his swivel chair as he successfully – for now – avoided another fanboy episode, which was probably baffling a number of people. How he flipped over just a scientist, even a relatively accomplished one, but not Tony Stark, who while still a scientist/engineer, was also famous worldwide.
"It's good to meet you, Doctor Banner," said engineer greeted officially. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you – lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."
"… Thanks."
"And you're cool too, Webhead."
"Thank you!"
"Doctor Banner is only here to track the cube," Director Fury's voice joined in from nowhere. Hiro chuffed lightly when he felt Spidey's shoulder flinch unnoticeably. "And Spider-man is here to assist him."
"Really? I thought you just wanted more dumb muscle."
"I was hoping you might join them," the African-American man went on as if he hadn't just been interrupted in a way that made them all wonder whether he was insulting them or himself.
"I'd start with that stick of his," Captain Rogers suggested, not seeing Hiro's ears perk up when he uttered the word "stick," and then even more with his next sentence. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a H.Y.D.R.A. weapon."
"I don't know about that," Director Fury responded, "but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."
"Monkeys?" Thor grimaced in skepticism. "I do not understand…"
"I do!" Steve shouted a little too loudly. Every head in the room turned towards him as he fidgeted under the sudden attention. "I… I understood that reference…"
Tony raised his eyebrows and spun steadily around from the captain. "Shall we play, Doctor? Spidey?"
"We shall," Spider-man concurred brightly.
"This way, sir," Dr. Banner led the trio out of the room, back to the laboratory with Hiro beaming on the youngest's shoulder.
So... exciting news that you may or may not care about due to the lack of relation to the story! I somehow got a solo in choir! Like, how does THAT happen?! I literally tried out because I thought I WOULDN'T get it, so it wasn't as stressful as it might have been if I thought I had a real chance. Unfortunately, I got a mild cold between online auditions and our teacher telling us who got it. I'm hanging on and hoping it eases up on my throat by the Thursday concert. Besides that...
I love this part of the movie! It was so much fun writing it with Hiro and Peter (and yes, I did give one of Bruce's lines to the latter, but I felt it was a good way to get Tony to take Spidey's smarts seriously). But another chapter down!
The A/N poll is tied with one vote for no more A/N's and one person who doesn't care. That is to say, things are in favor of A/N's disappearing forever.
The other poll – update frequency – has... no votes... so, that's a thing.
Please vote on both if you haven't already!
Lucky
To RirilsNotTaken: Thanks! And yeah, I had noticed (which included me having a fangirl freak-out when I finally realized that meant Loki was being controlled. It took me far too long to figure that out).
To winfield56: Yep! He'll get there eventually, so hang in there. It's amazing to think of my story reaching all the way to the Netherlands, even if it is just a website. That's like... 4,835 miles away! And yes, of course I looked it up.
To Dylan-A-Friend: Always good to hear, I love getting your reviews!
To MattKennedy: Always ;)
To Vladimir Mithrander: Gotta love DC (though Marvel has them beat by a long shot in the movie department, in my opinion)! Joker really is an interesting character, though the problems they have with displaying him in the movies kind of remind me of Marvel's previous issues with Spider-man. No one could get either of them quite right, but that tells you that they're just written THAT GOOD (as in, almost impossible to replicate effectively). Peter was definitely cooler in this... but you never know what will happen in the future... he is a teenager after all.
To Silvermane1: Loki won't really be getting any real help in this story. This isn't one of those stories where he gets reformed and all is well. Yeah, I know that it is canon that he was mind controlled (something I squealed about when I found out), but we're basically ignoring that and rolling with "Loki is an evil git." Sorry if that's not what you were hoping for. I will admit, though, that I absolutely love the good!Loki stories and that type of thing (I wrote one or two once upon a time).