We sat there in the control room, not really saying much. We were all watching Loki on the screens in front of us; he was locked in the cage that was meant for someone else. My eyes were glued to the screen, watching Loki's every movement.

"In case it's unclear," Fury started at Loki, "you try to escape. You so much as scratch that glass..." There was a pause, Loki walked over to the edge of the cage, looking down, presumably at the drop below. "30,000 feet," Fury continued, "straight down, in a steel trap. You get how that works?"

I put in my headphones, not listening to their conversation but instead staring at him. Watching how he moved, how he seemed to glide as he walked. His arrogance was apparent by his every move, but also his elegance. He was refined and poised, it was fascinating just watching him walk.

He had the grace of a ballerina but his attitude left something to be desired. It wasn't until the video feed went away that I even paid attention to the rest of them and took out my headphones.

"He really does grow on you, doesn't he?" Dr Banner said sarcastically.

The team didn't respond, all seeming to acknowledge his sarcasm on the inside, then Steve piped up, "Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?"

Thor, until Steve had brought up this point, had been spaced out, probably deep in thought about his brother. He then turned and replied, "he has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

This seemed to hit a lot of us, the thought of an alien army attacking the world seemed so unreal, so scary and dangerous and unbeatable. Steve had decided to voice his shock to what Thor had said so the rest of us didn't have to. "An army? From outer space?"

I decided to speak up, "So he's building another portal, that's what he needs Selvig for." I said, contemplating Thor's words and connecting dots in my head.
"Selvig?" The name seemed to catch Thor's attention, and Dr Banner piped in to answer before I could.

"He's an astrophysicist," Dr Banner replied, clearly familiar with the man's work.

"He's a friend." Thor bristled, perhaps at the idea of one of his friends under Loki's control, or his friend being thought of so flippantly as a scientist and not anyone of emotional value. He knew few Midgardians already, so Loki having one he knew was obviously to hurt him.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours," Natasha explained further, I looked towards Natasha. I knew from my research on her that Clint had brought her to SHIELD, that he had been sent to kill her but instead gave her another chance; I suspected Natasha was more upset about him being controlled than she let on.

It had all been circling in our heads, the one thing that Steve decided to voice out loud. " I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here."

I nodded, "it did seem weird that while you guys were fighting, he didn't seem to want to escape. He just sat and watched you fight. I was sat not too far from him and he looked to be enjoying himself..." I didn't know how to describe my encounter with them, how he had threatened me before completely ignoring me the next second. I couldn't seem to voice my thoughts on his lack of escape attempts, on how easy it was to capture him, how it seemed he didn't even put up a fight.

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him." Bruce seemed to not care about Loki's reasons for being here, and he seemed to be right. Loki did seem crazy, but did that make him any less dangerous?

Thor seemed to take offence, slightly raising his voice, "have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother."

Natasha seemed to not care that Loki was his brother or 'of Asgard' as Thor put it, "he killed eighty people in two days," she said, having a clear rationale.
Thor's reply was quieter and more of a question than a statement, "he's adopted?"

Dr Banner then changed the topic of conversation to science, "Iridium, what did they need iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent," Tony and I said at the same time, I turned to see he had walked into the room with Agent Coulson, his eyes staring daggers at me.
"It means the portal won't collapse on itself, as it did with us," I explained further, Tony walking around the table.

He looked at me, daring me to explain further. Probably satisfied with my silence, he explained further, "Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants."

By this point, Tony had captured the attention of everyone, except myself who was happily ignoring everything he was saying. It wasn't until I noticed he put a hacking implant on the side of the control desk that I got interested.

My brother and Dr Banner began talking science, and with everyone focusing on them I went over to the control panel and began to put his hacking implant programme into quarantine.

When I finally turned back around to rejoin the conversation, I saw Fury walking in and I nonchalantly moved over towards Steve, trying to look as if I wasn't just quarantining Tony's programme. "Dr Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him." Fury looked towards Dr Banner and Tony. Then he looked at me, "you too," he said

Then, both Tony and I refused, catching the attention of the team. "I wasn't asking," Fury replied to our refusals.

"Fine," I said, slumping against the railing, not happy with the arrangement.

"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon." Steve interjected, saving the awkward silence after our little show.

"I don't know about that, 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." Fury said, clearly annoyed by the God of Mischief's actions and their lack of solving the problems at hand.

Thor then decided to speak up, "Monkeys? I do not understand." Steve looked at me and then smiled, turning back to the group seeming very pleased with himself.
"I do! I understood that reference." I smiled and patted him on the shoulder as if to say 'good job'.

Then Dr Banner, Tony, and I made our way to the lab, trying to locate the tesseract that Loki had hidden. I sat at a desk further away from them, doing a bit of searching in the database for what Tony would be looking for.

I kept quiet as they figured out how to find the sceptre, any time Dr Banner was going to ask me a question, Tony would instead ask him what he was not sure about. I don't suppose I minded though, it left me to do some in-depth searching, finding exactly what the Tesseract was going to be used for.

When Tony had left the lab, Dr Banner made his way over to me.

"Agent Cahya," he started.

"I said, you can just call me Cahya, Dr Banner, I'm not really an Agent of SHIELD, they just keep trying to convince me to do it and so Fury has resorted to calling me Agent Cahya to annoy me until I agree to be an agent," I said, a smile on my face.

"Then, Cahya, you should call me Bruce," he said, giving me a genuine smile.

"Alright, Bruce, what is it you came over here for? Something Tony can't help with?" I smiled, hoping to help Bruce, and perhaps pick his brain on a couple of his papers and the concepts I didn't fully understand.

"Well," Bruce paused, he seemed to be nervous, rubbing the back of his neck, "I was wondering what was up with you and Tony, I mean he is so... hostile towards you. What's that about?" He seemed very curious. I just put on a fake smile.

"Oh it's nothing, he just doesn't like that I'm as smart as him. We sort of bumped heads the first time we met, and so he's just being Tony. Don't let it get to you, I'm not bothered by it." I gave him one more smile to drive home my point, he nodded and walked away from me when we heard the door open.

Tony walked in and looked at the two of us but decided to ignore it, not before he gave me a very hard glare. I looked down at my work and relaxed again when he began to talk to Bruce again.

I heard the door open across the room and looked up to see Steve walked in, "Hey! Are you nuts?!" He seemed distressed and I looked up to see Tony staring at Banner with a look of puzzlement, holding a mini-shocker in his hand.

"Holy shit, Tony, trying to kill us all?" I panicked, Tony ignored me and talked to Banner.

"You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?" He seemed to not really take it seriously, considering we could currently be in a situation with a giant green guy trying to crush us if Bruce hadn't stayed calm.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve seemed genuinely distressed, I got up and walked over, bumping his shoulder lightly to let him know I was there. He gave the briefest of smiles at me and then returned to Tony, who looked even more displeased that I had walked over.

"Funny things are," Tony said with a smile that didn't seem genuine.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offence, doctor." Steve looked at Banner and then back to Tony, their staring contest challenging each other silently.

"No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." Bruce smiled, probably trying to diffuse the situation. I smiled back, trying to be reassuring that this was just going to happen no matter what we did. I'm not sure if a smile can say that much, but I tried.

"You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut."

"Tony!" I exclaimed, not believing what he was saying, "you can't just say that, what if strutting, as you call it, causes him to stay as Hulk, never get control back!" I was shocked at his casual nature to the problem.

"It's okay, Cahya, I can control him." I nodded at him, not feeling much safer with Tony around trying to get the Hulk to come and play.

"Well, you need to focus on the problem, Mr Stark," Steve interjected, stepping slightly in front of me, probably trying to subtly stop me from throttling my brother on the spot, in a totally non-murdery way that is.

Tony seemed to take offence to his insinuation, "you think I'm not? Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables." Tony had a point, but up until now, I had his programme under quarantine so his search wasn't going anywhere.

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve suddenly seemed a bit less angry, more curious if anything. His stance seemed to tense, but not in anger towards Tony - at least I didn't think it was towards Tony.

"He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets." Tony pointed at Bruce, "it's bugging him too, isn't it?" Banner looked bewildered, not really wanting to get into the conversation.

"Uh...I just wanna finish my work here and..."

But before Bruce could finish his sentence, Steve spoke up, "Doctor?"

"A warm light for all mankind, Loki's jab at Fury about the cube." Banner reluctantly replied, his thoughts now becoming words. "Well, I think that was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it's still all over the news," Bruce looked at Tony and then to Steve.

Steve seemed to be computing it all, "the Stark Tower? That big ugly ...building in New York?"

Banner replies immediately, explaining his reasoning, "it's powered by Stark Reactors, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?" Banner turned towards Tony and by this point, I was feeling more like a silent observer of the conversation than anything. I didn't really know what to say.
"That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at."

"So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

Tony arrogantly replies, "I should probably look into that once my decryption programme finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files." I scoff at this, knowing currently his programme is doing nothing of the sort at this moment in time.

Tony goes to check his decryption programme but stops walking. "Well, that's not good." Tony looks down at the screen then back up.

"Um..." Bruce begins, "what's not good?"

Tony looks back at banner then back down at the screen, "my programme has been put into quarantine, I can't access any of the files until the quarantine is lifted." I silently smile to myself, the one thing I am better at than Tony Stark.

"I'm sorry, did you say...?" Steve still not really having caught up. Tony, still looking concerned, still gives a reply.

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge or has been running it till it was quarantined. If I can lift the quarantine, then in a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide." Tony was typing something into his screen but was again stopped from bypassing the security in SHIELDS servers.

Tony's head shoots up, "I need to find the person who quarantined me... I can't break it myself, Jarvis seems to have been trying since it has been put on it. Who's the Head of Security Technology on this ship?" Tony turned to Bruce, looking for an answer.

"I-I don't, ummm, I don't know," Bruce says, looking bewildered. But Steve turns to me.

"Aren't you SHIELDS hacker expert? When we brought you in a year ago, that's what he said he wanted you for," Steve looks at me for confirmation but I can see Tony's head has the wheels turning, and then he looks at me and explodes.

His eyes glare at me as if they could kill me if only he had enough willpower to, "You!" He storms towards me angrily and I take a step back, but he is quickly held back by Steve. "You always need to ruin things for me!"

I looked at Tony, my mouth trying to find the words to say, but all I could come up with was, "it's my job," I meekly replied, not really knowing what else to say when faced with an angry Tony.

Tony struggled against Steve, trying to get loose, but Steve wasn't letting go, "let go of me, or so help me God!" Tony begins but Steve cuts him off by shoving him away and putting his hand up for him to stop.

"You think this is the way to get her to lower the quarantine? Shouting? Of course, your first thought is violence. I mean, why don't we just ask nicely or find another way around it?" Steve says but then I see Tony turn to Steve, his eyes glowering.

"What is that supposed to mean?" He is slightly calmer but still volatile. I decide for the sake of Steve I should probably speak up.
"I'll lower the quarantine," I say, causing everyone to turn to me, "but on one condition."

Tony looks at me and then smiles a not-so-nice smile that makes my stomach drop, "oh! You have a condition! Prey-tell, what is this condition that you so wish?"

At this point, I'm too scared to answer, knowing it will only make him madder, instead, Steve turns to me. "What's your condition?" He looks at me with a smile and seems to want to diffuse the situation.

"I-I..." I couldn't seem to be able to say it, the words stuck in my throat. All that was running through my head was the thought that it was a stupid condition, "I wanted Tony to stop ignoring me," I whispered; Steve, who was standing closest to me, heard what I said but Tony and Bruce didn't.

Steve looked at me with some sort of pity in his eyes, not the pity you don't want, but more of the kind of pity that makes you feel comforted. Understanding, that's the word, he seemed to understand how I was feeling without uttering a word. He turned back to Tony and kept his hand outstretched as to stop him from charging at me.

"Well?!" Tony asked, gritted teeth, "what did she say?" Steve also seemed to be at a loss, the burden of telling Tony my wish now on his shoulders rather than mine.

"She said that her condition was that you had to..." He paused, trying to find the best way of telling Tony my request, "...to stop ignoring her." He seemed to be staring at Tony, judging his reaction. Tony took a minute, all of us waiting in anticipation. Then he turned to me.

"No." It wasn't loud or angry, it was emotionless and that hurt a lot more. Tears began to make their way to my eyes, blurring my vision. Steve turned to me and blocked my view of Tony and Bruce so I could only see him - not that I could see much.

He looked down at me with a sad smile and put his hand on my shoulder, "do you think maybe you could do it for me?" I nodded immediately and turned to go to my laptop, lifting the quarantine and then running out of the room, not wanting to face Tony.

I heard Steve calling after me but I just ran harder until I realised I'm outside of Loki's holding cell, I hid behind a pillar and waited for Natasha to leave, sneaking in behind her.

I didn't really know what I was doing, it all seemed to happen so fast, but I ended up right in front of Loki, tears in my eyes.

"Oh look, my favourite human has arrived," Loki snarked at me, I quickly wiped the tears from my face. "I've already had one of you from your merry band of heroic fools, I don't need another." I snarled back at him.

"Well if it isn't the adopted brother," I said back, this caused Loki's anger to swell as he hit the glass causing me to jump. I calm my heart down and look at him again, he seems to want to kill me with his eyes, as Tony did earlier.

I realised that I had lashed out and said something I don't think Loki was expecting, "sorry, I'm just having a bad day."

"Clearly," Loki replied, less angry and more annoyed by my presence.

"Don't you just hate older brothers? They are the worst sometimes," I said with a laugh, hiding the actual pain inside.

Loki seemed to look at me with curiosity, "Older brother?" He seemed to ask himself this question rather than myself but soon comes to a realisation, "Stark? What was his name? Tori, or Terrance or something like that. All your human names are so forgettable."

"How did you know?" I'm shocked he knew, we had kept it a secret for so long, from everyone except Fury, Steve and of course Tony knew.

Loki looked at me with a smirk, "the one thing I am great at is reading people, and your interactions with that fool in a metal suit were quite... noticeable." I nodded, taking in the information.

I felt angry at Tony, and apparently my brain had not caught up with my mouth as I ranted to Loki, "he's just so arrogant, you know? He completely ignores me, only giving me glares when I upset him. I see him try to bypass the security and quarantine his program, only for him to blow up at me when he finds out. This is my job! Doesn't he get that? And so after he attempted to kill me or whatever he wanted to do, I say I'll unquarantine his programme under one condition. And he couldn't even agree to that!"

Finishing my rant, I saw Loki looking at me with a curious look. Suddenly, the ship jolted, I looked around and saw Loki smirking. He must have planned this.

I went over to the screen and logged in to see that one of the engines had failed. I looked back at Loki who is just smiling at me like all was okay and the ship wasn't under attack - although I suppose that to him it was a rescue mission, not an attack.

He paused, just looking at me for a second as if contemplating his next words and once he seemed resolute in what he wanted to say, he smiled. "How would you be interested in a job?" This caught me by surprise, but I replied anyway.

"I already have a job?" I said hesitantly, it seemed to come out as more of a question than an answer; not able to comprehend what he actually said. Loki smiled at me, opening his arms wide as to gesture to himself.

"I can give you a better one, or I can force you, your choice." I looked at him, smirking at me.

I waited for a moment, thinking about what I should do, then I reply, "I suppose I would rather not be forced. So sure, why not?" Loki almost seemed taken back by my answer.

Loki looked at me like I was a new toy in a toy shop, "you are an interesting human, I'll give you that. Most of your friend would have fought me until the end... And yes, I do hate my older brother." Loki replied to my earlier question, at that point we heard a loud roar and I saw Loki smirk evilly. We both knew that meant the Hulk had been released.