UPDATE: 07-28-2017

There's a line in the Avengers movie that suggests that Fury never asked Stark to go to Stuttgart. I'm rolling with it.

Chapter 7 – Rogers

STEVE

The SHIELD agents tasked with bringing Captain America up to speed had done so with great enthusiasm. Not great effectiveness, but Steve couldn't discount their eagerness. Isobel was very sweet, and Ricky was impossibly patient, yet Steve Rogers still didn't quite get this century. Especially people like Natasha Antonia Stark.

Up until his SHIELD 'crash course', the only person Steve had wanted to seek out was Ms. Stark. He'd looked up his old friends from the Commandos, and even got the name of Peggy's nursing home, but—he didn't want to see any of them yet. They were all too close, and now he was so far from their lives. He and Howard were close, but he didn't fight in trenches with him. There was history, and friendship between them, without nearly as much bloodshed or heartache.

When he first heard about Toni, Steve wanted to meet Howard's only living relative. Howard had her much later in life, but that meant she would remember Howard more than Dugan's grandsons or Dernier's niece would remember the men Steve fought beside. That was his thinking, at least, until SHIELD gave him eighty pages of press releases, articles, and reports on the infamous heiress.

Until September of last year, Toni Stark was only known for sumptuous parties, harassing the press, and too many arrests without a criminal record to match. Stark Industries grew larger and more profitable than ever under her leadership, but with that came an appalling number of deaths and ruined lives, though they either won or settled each lawsuit. Some called her a futurist, and others called her the Merchant of Death. Since her return from Afghanistan—and what happened there to make her build Iron Man?—things have changed tremendously for Stark Industries, moving towards "green" energy, but it was such a mess, there were so many rumors and allegations and videos—Good Lord, why do people film so much nonsense?—that Steve didn't know who or what this woman was.

It was probably unfair of him, but despite her intelligence and business sense, Steve couldn't help but think of Toni Stark as the apple that fell very far from the tree.

With all this in mind, Steve was a bit relieved that he didn't have to meet her yet. Agent Romanoff had already contacted Agent Coulson, Steve's current escort at the Helicarrier, and informed them that Ms. Stark wasn't returning from Asia with her and Dr. Banner.

Steve was glad to meet Natasha and Bruce, though.

Steve held out a hand to the meek doctor, wondering how someone like Bruce Banner could become something as ferocious as Agent Coulson described. "Nice to meet you, doctor. The word around here's that you can find us the cube?"

Bruce shook his hand firmly, but with a wary look in his eyes. "And that's the only word on me?" He asked doubtfully, and there was dark, hunted feel about the way he spoke of it.

Steve supposed that looks could be deceiving. "Only word I care about," he replied honestly.

He didn't think Bruce believed him yet.

Agent Romanoff only spared him a curt look of acceptance. "You caused a lot of excitement around here, Captain," she commented in a cool voice. "I thought Coulson was going to swoon."

Steve felt his mouth twist into a brief, uncomfortable frown. Coulson's enthusiasm sorta threw him for a loop, as Steve hadn't expected anyone from this century to know so much about him. Boy, was he wrong about that. "Right, I... spoke to Agent Coulson on the flight here," Steve acknowledged, trying to maintain the calm disposition that Natasha seemed to carry easily. It was hard when you were blushing.

"Did he ask you to sign his trading cards?" Natasha spoke flatly; Steve almost missed the teasing tone underneath her words until he caught her bright green eyes, flashing with amusement.

Shucks, now he really was blushing. "Uh," he stalled, looking for something to change the subject. There wasn't much to talk about on a... "What exactly is this place?" Steve wondered. "Director Fury called it a Helicarrier, but I don't think I've heard of it before."

Just as Steve asked, an alarm began to sound, and personnel around them were suddenly strapping down all the jets. Steve wandered to the edge of the boat, wondering what was happening.

Bruce followed, and they both recognized that the water around the boat was churning, rising closer to the edge of the carrier. "Is this a submarine?" Steve asked, surprised.

Next to him, Bruce wrung his hands together. Natasha appeared and advised them to come to the bridge because "it's about to get a little hard to breathe."

"Great," Bruce replied, running his hand through his hair. It looked like a nervous gesture. "They're putting me in a pressurized, enclosed space, underwater..."

Steve had to admit, it didn't sound like a good plan. He started to follow Agent Romanoff when the tarmac shifted, throwing him off balance.

In a submerging submarine, you'd expect the movement to be downward, towards the sea. It seemed that SHIELD liked to exceed Steve's expectations: the ground was moving upwards.

Steve moved a little closer to the edge again and saw that there were huge engines churning the water away, at least four of them, lifting the carrier into the air.

"Oh," Bruce rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "No, this is much worse."

It was quite impressive if you asked Steve, but he figured he would keep that to himself for now, if only to save Bruce the trouble of thinking about being stuck in a giant, floating metal box. God knows he owed Nick Fury ten bucks over this one, though. He didn't think anything would surprise him after he read about the Hulk and Toni Stark's crazy gadgets.

At least now, Steve knew better than to underestimate Nick Fury.

—

TONI

It goes without saying that Toni didn't fly herself straight to Fury's floating metal deathtrap for a little team-bonding with the boy band. Without Clint around it wasn't much of a band. Banner was fun, but Toni wasn't recruited on the same terms as the doctor. If she was going to be useful, she needed to be able to access Iron Man at any time.

Within a few minutes of arriving in New York, Toni was standing on a lit platform, injecting nanosensors into her forearms. It didn't hurt very much, not after the years of manual labor, open flames and lab accidents that her arms had been through, but she had to stay still while the bots settled and it sucked.

"Dummy, don't move. I swear, if you spill that on me I'll donate you to a public school." Toni warned, eyeing the protein shake with mistrust. "JARVIS, how badly will starkium react if it comes into direct contact with strawberries?"

~With any luck, you've properly sealed the reactor, and your question is immaterial.~

Toni hummed. "Well I can't really check, can I?" she pointed out, disgruntled. With great effort, she lifted her head enough to catch the straw in her mouth.

~Just two more minutes, Ms. Stark,~ JARVIS told her sympathetically. ~And then the sensors will be calibrated and you'll be free to test drive your latest stroke of brilliance.~

The AI didn't even sound sarcastic this time. Toni tipped her head back and laughed indulgently. "Oh J, I can't even begin to describe how satisfying it is to hear my own invention compliment me on more of my inventions."

Dummy beeped excitedly, expressing his own compliments, and knocked over the glass of strawberry smoothie. Toni squealed in shock as cold liquid dribbled over her stomach, and then banged her knee on a work bench.

"Son of a BITCH."

~Calibration complete.~ JARVIS announced pleasantly.

—

After a few hours of testing out the Mark XV—there were a few kinks that she should iron out, like the speed issues and the fact that her helmet always tried to bash her face in when it reacted to the sensors—Toni was more or less satisfied. JARVIS had just set up a new flight pattern through the five boroughs for her, but Toni dismissed the display.

"J, any luck tracking down Barton?" she asked tentatively, doing a barrel-roll through Queens and then turning around before she flew too close to the suburbs.

~I'm afraid Barton is very good at covering his tracks. However, there is evidence that Loki is in Germany.~

Toni's eyes widened. "He's already in public?"

JARVIS brought up the image in question. ~A ninety-two percent match. Incoming call from Agent Coulson.~

With a sigh, Toni answered. "What's he doing in Germany?" She demanded without preamble.

"We don't know yet. The team's suiting up. Quinjet leaves in 2 minutes."

Coulson seemed more blasé than usual, but she appreciated the head's up. "That doesn't sound like an invite."

"Not an official one. You're welcome to join, but Fury thinks Captain America can handle it alone."

Toni paused. She'd forgotten. Out of all the personnel files Toni had received, Steve Rogers' file had interested her the least. Howard tended to bring up Steve a lot when he was being an asshole and thinking about it left a bad taste in her mouth. Once she started thinking about Howard, it was impossible to stop. Why wasn't there any bourbon in the lab?

"Already bringing out the Captain? Does he still wear stars and stripes?" Toni teased, brushing aside her discomfort.

"I helped with the new design," Coulson replied, a little too quickly. "He's the real deal, Stark. Of course there's stars and stripes."

She grinned as JARVIS began rerouting fuel for a long-distance flight. "If you say so, Coulson, it must be true," Toni conceded, rolling her eyes. Coulson was the biggest Captain America geek on the East Coast, after all. He still nagged her about the re-designed shield Toni had in her lab.

"You should tell him about that prototype shield," Coulson added as if he'd read her mind. Toni sighed dramatically, but the agent ignored it. "He told me about throwing the shield in enclosed spaces and being able to calculate its trajectory; being able to use those moves in an open environment—"

"What? I didn't catch all of your nerd-out, I'm going through a tunnel." She rolled her eyes, and read the data collected from SHIELD.

"No, you're not," Coulson said flatly.

"No, I'm not," Toni forced herself to laugh. JARVIS's flight plan was all laid out for her, down to the attack formations she could take in Stuttgart against their unknown player, Loki.

Coulson was quiet, but still on the line. "Will I see you in Germany?" He asked eventually.

Toni exhaled sharply, remembering to breathe. "No," she said before she could think on it further. "Rogers needs the workout more than me. I think—Loki isn't the priority here. The Cube is still out there, isn't it?"

If he isn't in Stuttgart with Loki, he's probably with the Cube.

Coulson hummed in thought. "Well, I wouldn't put it that way, but yes. We still need to locate the Tesseract, even if we capture Loki," the agent admitted hesitantly.

"Fury didn't call me in anyway," Toni pointed out, and was her heart beating faster? No, she was just weird. "The sooner Banner and I locate the Cube, the sooner I can stop whatever Loki's planning, while Rogers and Romanoff stop Loki."

"Divide and conquer," Coulson said, considering it. "The Tesseract is dangerous enough on its own. You'll need to contain it, somehow."

Toni huffed in momentarily delight. She hadn't been sure that Coulson would agree. "Don't get ahead of yourself. We still need to find the damn thing. Get Banner ready, I'll be there in thirty."

She ended the call before Coulson could respond, and brought up schematics Eric Selvig had been using while testing the Tesseract for SHIELD. She'd read through the files already, but a refresher never hurt. The Mark XV was her fastest suit yet, but it would still take time to reach the Helicarrier.

Her crash-course in astrophysics came rushing to the forefront of her mind, and Toni starting making notes on Dr. Selvig's work. Soon, her mind was fully occupied by theories, calculations, and energy readings, leaving no room at all for Captain America. There was only the Tesseract.

And Barton.

—

Bruce Banner flitted around the lab, mumbling under his breath. Every few minutes he would pause and take off his glasses to look at an instrument properly, and Toni was beginning to suspect he didn't need the glasses at all. She had set up a few programs to bypass SHIELD's mainframe and cut down on their processing time, so now Toni was just observing Bruce and waiting on her virus to reach SHIELD's archives.

"The readouts are incredible," he raised his voice to address Toni, and then stopped, seeing that she was already watching him. "They were right about the gamma signature—but without you, this would take weeks to process."

He took off his glasses again. Toni counted five times in the past hour. "I thought you'd be out there with Captain Rogers. That suit seems pretty useful."

Toni shrugged carelessly. "Taking down a dictator in Germany seems more like Rogers' thing. Me? I know weapons. The sooner we recover the Tesseract, the better. Otherwise, we'll be mopping up SHIELD's collateral damage, and that's not my department."

"So once we've tracked it down, you're going to just… get the Cube yourself?" Banner asked, an odd look crossing his face. "Doesn't this guy have a bunch of brainwashed government agents doing his bidding?"

Toni paced the room, checking a few screens to avoid looking Banner in the eye. "Not really a problem for me, sweet pea. In fact, without Loki around it should be easier to break whatever control he has over Clint—and Selvig, and the others."

She felt her gaze on her back. "Who's Clint?"

"Agent Barton," Toni clarifies, but uncertainty rises in her throat anyway. "I used to work with him." Clint was her friend (currently sans benefits), and while that gave her more reason to search for the Cube, it wasn't why she was researching instead of going out the Germany.

Right, Toni scoffed to herself, You're doing this because you don't want to look at Captain Perfect.

Fury didn't call her in. So it was fine. Why doesn't it feel fine?

"You know, if you're impressed by all this," Toni gestured around the lab quickly, "You should come by Stark Tower. Ten floors of R&D, it's like Candyland."

Banner froze like a deer in headlights. It took a moment for him to realize that was a legitimate offer, and then he looked down and cleared his throat. "Uh, thanks, but last time I was in New York, I kind of broke… Harlem," Banner said, fidgeting as he glanced towards her before quickly averting his eyes to the screen in front of him.

Toni wandered closer, taking a quick look at some of the gamma readings. There was nothing he didn't already know on the screen, and she eyed the doctor curiously. "That's hardly an excuse," she argued, "I know what happened with Blonsky and Ross. I'm still inviting you." She stopped when she reached the counter Bruce was stationed at.

"Right," Bruce watched her warily. "But… why?"

Her eyebrows rose up. "If you can tolerate me for this long, you're golden. I shocked you like, twice already, and nothing."

"So that was on purpose," Bruce mused, but he only looked pensive. "I knew you couldn't have made that circuit mistake twice."

Toni's eyebrows were getting friendly with her hairline. "What the hell are you smoking? No one's this mellow all the time."

"The secret's actually Pilates. Agent Romanoff was close." Banner's reply was so casual, Toni believed it for an embarrassingly long moment.

Bruce gave a short, gentle laugh at the look on her face, and Toni finally realized he was joking. "Would ya look at that? He has a sense of humor," Toni grinned, feeling accomplished.

Banner rolled his eyes, but there was still a small smile on his face. He looked at the readings again. "Without any more sample data, we can't do much else to calibrate this search," he stated, "And we've been at this for hours."

Toni perked up. "Coffee break?"

"I was going to say lunch break—or, maybe it's breakfast." He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to remember. "Either way, I was thinking we should find a cafeteria."

Toni wrinkled her nose. "I don't think I've ever, in my entire life, eaten cafeteria food. And if television is to be believed, it's always shitty."

"You won't know that until you try," Bruce said sagely. "It's time to broaden your horizons."

"And by that, you mean stop being a snobby rich girl?" Toni deduced, but a smile pulled at her lips.

"You said it, not me."

—

Later, Coulson found the two of them on the bridge, arguing over peanut butter.

"Don't even try, Banner. No one wants chunks in their sandwich."

"If you like peanut butter, the odds are that you like peanuts as well. Why not have both at the same time? Besides, the texture's more interesting."

"You're an abomination, you know that?"

"You're thinking of Blonsky."

"Ha!" Toni grinned and offered him more freeze-dried blueberries. After vetoing on the cafeteria, they had compromised on several healthy vending machine snacks, because apparently, that's something SHIELD had as well. Bruce took the proffered berries, somewhat hesitantly. Toni suspected he liked them more than he'd admit.

"I've just made contact with Romanoff," Coulson told them unceremoniously.

Toni eyed the agent's careful lack of expression. "Any problems in Europe? It's been awhile since they left." She kept her question vague. Like Banner, she still wasn't sure how long she'd spent on the ship. It was easy to lose track of time working with Bruce.

Coulson set down a tablet with a shrug. "They hit a bit of a snare on the return trip. The other Asgardian showed up. Captain Rogers talked him out of taking Loki off planet, so they're still enroute—"

"Whoa, whoa. Back up. Thor showed up?" Toni asked, incredulous. "I've looked at Foster's reports, her Einstein-Rosen Bridge hasn't shown any activity." Bruce made a small noise of surprise, understanding her implications.

But the agent regarded her dispassionately. "Am I supposed to know what that means?"

Ugh, Coulson was so pedestrian. "It means there's no way for Thor to get here. But you said he wanted to take Loki back to Asgard. How was he planning to do that?"

Clearly, Agent Coulson didn't like this question because he didn't immediately answer her, not even to say something annoyingly sassy. "ETA in five minutes," he said finally, getting to his feet. "Ask him yourself. Maybe you'll have more luck than Cap talking to him. That hammer is something else."

Toni paused, and then the warning in his tone registered. She watched Coulson's retreating back with alarm. "Wait, what are you saying? Did he attack Rogers? Phil! I need details!"

He was already gone.

She turned to Bruce, but he only put up his hands in defeat. "Hey, you're welcome to interrogate the angry Norse God, but I'm out."

Pouting, Toni stood and activated the holo-screens around the bridge, switching a monitor to the security cameras just as the quinjet touched down. "Wanna watch the show?" Toni asked, already streaming the footage to the screen closest to Banner. "I'm guessing the ones in capes are the Asgardians."

"Hmm," was all the answer Toni received from Bruce.

She cocked an eyebrow. "Would you like to share your thoughts with the class, Dr. Banner?"

He responded with a half-smile. "You can just call me Bruce, you know. And it's funny: Thor looks more upset about being here than Loki, don't you think?"

Her gaze fell back to the screens. "You think? Maybe he'll join our club," Toni quipped, but his words got her thinking. The beefcake in a red cape stomping towards the bridge seemed pretty angry.

"Again," Bruce spoke up, "You're welcome to question him, Ms. Stark, but please wait until I'm gone. He's bringing his magic hammer."

Toni stared down the doctor. "So…you don't wanna be here when he shows me his—ahem—magic hammer?"

For the first time, Banner was taken aback. "Really?" He asked, downright aghast.

"What? You're a man of science, surely you want to see that hammer at work too," Toni said, dead serious.

He huffed. Toni thought he looked a little pink around the ears. "I'm not talking to you."

She bit the inside of her mouth to keep a straight face. "My interest is purely academic. I wanna see him swing his hammer for me." Toni paused, starting to run out of steam. She wasn't entirely sure that that made sense, but she added a pelvic thrust for emphasis because she was twelve.

Bruce rolled his eyes. "If you're done being twelve…"

A grin nearly split her face in two. Banner was clearly her other half, they were so in-sync.

"I bet he could nail me real good with his magic hammer," she added, because she had to.

"Toni..."

"Okay, okay. I'm done, I swear."

Toni cackled, Bruce face-palmed, and three more 'Avengers' stepped onto the bridge.

Romanoff cocked her head to the side. "Something funny, Stark?" She looked distinctly more ruffled than the last time Toni had seen her, and as if the room could sense it, the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees with the Black Widow's entrance.

Guess taking down Loki wasn't as easy as Fury thought.

"Not anymore," Toni replied, equally chilly. "Where's the would-be conqueror?"

Romanoff's eyes flitted to the holo-screens. "Secured." She switched the footage to the cameras outside a large, circular holding cell. "The Director is going to speak with him. If you'll be quiet for once in your life, perhaps we can listen."

Toni took a moment to bask in the Black Widow's glare. Romanoff was still mad about Calcutta, it seemed, but only enough to engage in passive-aggressive remarks. Toni plopped into the seat between Bruce and Rogers, spinning herself slowly to face Romanoff. "Agent, are you trying to insult me? Do try harder, otherwise it's no fun for me."

The redhead looked at her sharply, eyes cold as hell. "Don't test me, Stark. I'm not like the other agents you've worked with."

Toni was seconds from making another biting remark, just to dig deeper and see how far she could push the Black Widow, but she held back. Romanoff didn't just look angry, she was sad. Just a little bit. It was a tiny blip of an emotion that Toni might've imagined, but… Natasha Romanoff was friends with Clint Barton, and it would make sense if she were the tiniest bit worried about him, like Toni was.

For that, for her relationship with Barton, Toni stopped. It wouldn't be fun until Clint was around to mediate, anyway.

"I've only worked with two other agents," she huffed instead, leaning back in her chair. "You're not special—oh, look at that, Patchy's in the house."

The others all turned their attention to the monitors, and indeed, Director Fury was already introducing himself to the demigod known as Loki.

Toni kicked up her feet onto the table and pulled out her phone. Only twenty more minutes until JARVIS broke through to the archives of SHIELD.

ENDNOTE: I've gone over Marvel movie plots so much, I'm sick of their dumb characters and shitty storylines. Plot holes will be filled. Mistakes will still be made by our heroes. Characters won't have their personalities boiled down to 'snarky' or 'annoyed by the snarky one' (don't get me started). Several people will die, and not come back to life.

That being said, I'm still a shitty writer, so feel free to tell me what I'm doing wrong.