Chapter Five: The One-Eyed Son of a Bitch

Emma followed her grandfather, Dr. Banner, and Natasha onto the bridge of the helicarrier. Dr. Banner took his position at the science console, of course.

"Gentlemen," Nick greeted and Emma coughed. "And ladies. . ."

Emma watched her grandfather hand Nick money and she wondered what that was about but she couldn't help but look around the bridge, forgetting what just happened. It was her first time being on the helicarrier and her first hearing anything about it. It was large and spacious with several computers and what looked like a briefing room in the back. She felt her grandfather nudge her and so she focused on the people before her.

"Doctor, thank you for coming," the director greeted the scientist.

"Thanks for asking so nicely," Dr. Banner said and Emma detected a hint of sarcasm in his tone. "So, uh. . how long am I staying?"

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear," Fury told him.

"Where are you with that?" he asked.

He turned to Phil to explain.

"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," Phil explained.

"That's still not going to find them in time," Natasha spoke up.

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

"How many are there?" Fury asked.

"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 asked.

Emma listened to him speak and she couldn't help but wonder what the hell she was doing here. She wasn't particularly smart not like Dr. Banner anyways and she didn't have the strength like Steve or the skill set like Natasha. She simply worked in an office and did paperwork. The only thing special about her was her heritage.

She stood with Steve and Phil that night, waiting to locate Loki using satellite facial recognition. Phil just had to ask Steve to sign his trading cards and it was just as awkward as Emma thought it would be. She was very relieved when an agent spoke up, announcing that they got a hit on Loki.

"Location?" Fury asked.

"Stuttgart, Germany. 28, Konigstrasse. He's not exactly hiding," the agent replied.

"Captain, you're up," Fury told her grandfather. "Carter, you sit tight. Your time will come."

Curious, she watched Steve leave the room and she couldn't help but feel worried. He was going up against a god after all. There's only so much that he could do. Natasha took off with the Captain on a Quinjet and all Emma could do was wait for him to return. She never felt so helpless before. When they arrived in Germany, she could only watch from a screen as Steve jumped from the Quinjet before Loki who had forced a group of people to kneel before him.

"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing," Steve told the god.

"The soldier, a man out of time," Loki said standing up.

"I'm not the one that's out of time," Steve replied.

"That's your grandfather," Phil whispered to her in awe and Emma sighed.

She watched as Steve fought Loki and just as it seemed Loki was about to have the upper hand, Iron Man joined the fight. Pretty soon they had Loki captured and on board the Quinjet. When they arrived back at the helicarrier they had not only Loki but his brother, Thor, as well. She sat in the briefing room with the others, watching Fury interrogate Loki. Steve and Emma watched until the monitor grew black. Emma bit her lip worriedly, Loki really did give her the creeps and she hoped that he wouldn't do whatever had set out to do.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Dr. Banner spoke after a moment of stunned silence.

"Loki's going to drag this out," Steve said. "So, Thor, what's his play?"

Thor, who had been standing there without looking at the screen, came out of his thoughts.

"He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people," Thor said. "They will win him the earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army? From outer space?" Emma and Steve spoke at the same time.

Everyone looked at them, they looked at each other, and then the both of them just shook their shoulders.

"So, he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for," Dr. Banner said.

"Selvig?" Thor asked.

"He's an astrophysicist," Dr. Banner explained to him.

"He's a friend," Thor replied.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," Natasha said. "He's not leading an army from here."

"I want to know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here," Steve said.

"I think he wants something on board this helicarrier," Emma spoke up and Dr. Banner looked at her.

"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," Dr. Banner said.

"Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother," Thor defended the crazy god.

"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha replied.

"He's adopted," Thor said, suddenly looked ashamed and Emma shook her head.

"Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?" Dr. Banner asked.

Tony Stark walked in with Phil and Emma groaned. Steve looked at his granddaughter and she just shook her head at him. He explained that it was a stabilizing agent then continued his conversation with Phil.

"Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD," Tony said and then turned to Thor. "It also means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants. Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails. That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice but we did. How does Fury do this?"

He turned around the screens with one hand over this eyes and Emma rolled her eyes. Tony was like that kid in class that had ADHD and must have everyone pay attention to him.

"He turns," Maria replied.

"Well, that sounds exhausting. The rest of the raw materials, Agent Burton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source," Tony replied. "A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Maria asked, suspiciously.

Emma felt more out of place than and she wondered furiously what the hell she was doing here. What did Fury want from her? To make her feel like an outcast? If she wanted to do feel that than she would go back in time and re-live her childhood.

"Is everything alright?" Steve whispered to her. "You're frowning."

"Just wondering what the hell Fury wants me here for," Emma whispered back to him.

"I've been wondering that too," Steve replied. "Don't worry, I'm just as confused as you are."

"Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?" Tony asked.

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked.

"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Dr. Banner replied.

"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect," Tony said.

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet," Dr. Banner said.

"Finally, someone who speaks English," Tony said.

"Is that what just happened?" Steve asked and Emma smirked.

Tony and Dr. Banner shook hands. A glimmer in their eyes shone as the mutual respect for each other showed. It's like they just became science bros, she thought. She could almost imagine the fist bumps that would probably, one day, be exchanged between the two men.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. Your work on anti-electro collisions is unparalleled and I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster," Tony said.

Emma shook her head at him. This guy did not have a filter, did he?

"Thanks," Dr. Banner replied, looking down.

"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him," Nick Fury said as he walked into the room.

Emma couldn't help but feel suspicious of the eye-patch wearing man which wasn't unusual for her. Nick never did anything without an ulterior motive. He was the director of SHIELD after all and Dr. Banner did turn into giant green monster. No offense, she said in her mind.

"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it worked an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon," Steve told the director.

"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," Nick Fury said furiously. (HeHe, I couldn't resist.)

"Monkeys? I do not understand," Thor replied in confusion.

"I do! I understood that reference," Steve said, looking proud of himself and Emma snickered while Tony rolled his eyes.

Tony and Dr. Banner walked out of the briefing room.

"Carter, come with me, it's time we had that talk," Fury said, walking out of the briefing room.

Emma pushed her chair back and stood but was stopped by her grandfather's arm on hers. He looked at her in concern.

"I'll be fine, Steve," Emma said. "But I'm touched by your concern."

She gave him a comforting smile and followed the director out of the room. He was already halfway down the hallway when arrived. She hurried to catch with him, cursing her short legs as she did so.

"I'm sure you're wondering what you're doing here," Fury said as they settled down in an empty room.

"No, no. Not at all. I've just been here NOT twiddling my thumbs," Emma replied with nervous sarcasm.

"Well, you're here for a reason, Agent Carter. You're very special, maybe even more so than your grandfather," Nick Fury began, leaving Emma more confused than ever.

"What? How's that now?" she asked.

"You have the same serum that runs through Captain America's veins running through yours," he told her and she burst into laughter.

"I'm sorry, sir, but that's ridiculous," Emma said.

"Do I look like I'm the comedy business, Agent?" Fury said.

"B-b-but, sir, if I had the serum I wouldn't be so clumsy, I get sick a lot, and I wear glasses! Glasses, sir," Emma said putting emphasis on the last part.

"That's because your powers, much like Dr. Banner's, are triggered by anger," Fury said.

"How do you know this? I mean, I should know this, right?" Emma asked in confusion, wondering the hell was going on with her life.

"Do you remember much about your childhood?" Fury asked her.

"Well, I remember going to the doctors a lot but I thought it was because of Steve before he was injected with the serum," she replied.

"If there were ever any situations where people got a hold of your blood, your grandmother wanted to make sure that they didn't. To put shortly, we found a way to cloak the serum in your veins. It wasn't easy but the only glitch is, is that they tend to show up when you're in a highly irritate state," Fury told her. "Wouldn't want the government getting their hands on you."

"So, the reason I got the job as SHIELD was for you to protect me?" she asked.

"Well, yes and no," Fury said and his hands went behind his back. "Well, I believe we're done here, Agent."

He prepared himself to walk out of the room but Emma wasn't done with him. She may not be as smart as Dr. Banner but she certainly wasn't stupid.

"Hold up," Emma said, feeling her pulse rise as she started to connect the dots. "You were hoping to use me, weren't you? Like you were hoping to use Dr. Banner? What? As some sort of weapons?"

"I have better things to be doing right now, Agent," Fury said, not even bothering to look at her and that only made her angrier.

"LOOK AT ME, YOU ONE EYED SON OF A BITCH!" Emma exclaimed.

She grabbed him by the lapels and slammed against the wall. His feet dangled above the floor, his head barely touching the ceiling. She could practically feel the anger and the adrenaline pumping through her veins but there was something else there, pumping away and giving her the strength to throw the director across the room.

"Look at what you can do," Fury said, almost proudly.

"I'm not some pawn in your game and I'm certainly not some fucking lab experiment who's DNA you can just twist around like some goddamn toy," Emma said heatedly.

Angrier than she had ever been, Emma twisted on her heel and left the room, leaving Fury lying on the floor.