Chapter 8 – Welcome to SHIELD

A/n – Again really thrilled by the great response I'm getting for this story and the dedication is again to LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books and XxxBellaBellaxxX whose names have actually been added to my word dictionary because I'm sick of having to get rid of the red lines all the time.

youwannabekate: She's still Iron Man because of the events of Iron Man the movie. Sorry about the 12% thing but it was quite hard to work it in as I knew you wanted it. I know but I did say it was a filler. It's going to come as quite a shock especially to Steve although that's more because of the reasoning behind the suit. They'll get into it a little then but Toni won't go into detail until after it's shown on screen. At some point yes they will; but it won't be expected and they will panic about it :)

Guest: For that you'll have to wait and see mainly because I haven't truly decided myself yet. I'm leaning towards Fury not having lied about it because I think Toni would have hacked in and found out by now.

MelodyPotterSnape: Glad someone picked up on that as that was my intention. Her connections to Phil & Tasha were easy enough to sort out. Bruce's was there already and Steve's is beginning to develop and will hit a crucial point during the Iron Man viewing. Still not sure what to do with Clint to make him closer so suggestions are appreciated.

XxxBellaBellaxxX: I'm glad you liked it because Phil/Toni interactions are fun to write.

Booklover2526: You're welcome and most of the added scenes include Toni so I hope you like those too.

LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books – Toni is basically Tony with bits of me. Seriously :) I take Tony's character throw bits of me in adjust accordingly and voila you have Toni :D I've always loved Phil especially in that scene. Tasha and Toni are going to raise hell in Iron Man 2 especially. Toni will make him lighten up don't worry. Dedicated reviewer indeed.

ReaderoftheBooks: Glad you liked it!

Harm Marie: Good, glad to hear it!

The scene changed once more to show an underground corridor covered in damp stains with small pools of water gathering on the floor. Running through it were two armed soldiers who emerged in a lab that had been set up at the end of the corridor.

"Pretty good for an improvised underground lab I guess," Toni acknowledged, "could have contained some of the dangerous equipment better but I guess they're not good enough to manage that. If only something had blown up in Loki's face."

At the back of the lab Selvig had set up a machine not unlike the one that SHIELD had to hold the Tesseract as they worked on it. Selvig was instructing several other members of his lab team as Loki watched on from his seat on the ground.

Taking a deep breath he invoked the magic of his staff and blue light shone from it as the environment around him changed to the barren ship from the opening scene of the film.

"I can see why they'd want somewhere else with a place like that," Clint admitted taking a look at how empty and horrible the place seemed.

"Maybe they like it that way," Steve said, "we still don't much about them other than their fighting tactics."

"That's because SHIELD don't have geneticists who are actually willing to work with all of us," Bruce said a little bitterly. Several of the geneticists there were more interested in working on him than on the Chitauri although Toni had stopped them from doing so with a few well aimed words and threats she could easily carry out.

"The Chitauri grow restless," said one of the alien creatures.

"You know when he says it like that it makes me think that their army were the ones called the Chitauri and they actually call themselves something else," Toni said thoughtfully.

"One more thing to think about," Natasha sighed, "thanks Annie!"

"Let them gird themselves," Loki replied, "I will lead them in the glorious battle."

As he said this another figure appeared seemingly from mid-air as Loki sat watching. The figure bore a striking resemblance to Loki in fact it was him.

"Battle?" the alien scoffed, "against the meagre might of Earth?"

"Glorious, not lengthy," Loki confirmed, "If your force is as formidable as you claim."

"Well it wasn't that long I'll give him that," Clint said, "didn't turn out the way he wanted though."

"You question us?" came the offended reply, "you question him, he who put the sceptre in your hand? Who gave you ancient knowledge and new purpose when you were cast out, defeated?"

"WE DID NOT CAST HIM OUT," Thor roared.

"From the stories you tell it sometimes seems like occasionally you did even if you didn't mean to. These things can happen accidentally," Toni muttered softly.

"I was a king!" Loki snapped back clearly not pleased by this analysis, "The rightful king of Asgard, betrayed."

It was clear that Thor wanted to comment on this too but one look from Toni showed him that it would be better to keep his thoughts to himself. He had truly angered Toni only once when he had accidentally 'injured' one of her AI's and he never wished to do it again.

"Your ambition is little," the alien scoffed, "and born of childish need. We look beyond the Earth to the greater worlds the Tesseract will unveil."

"You don't have the Tesseract yet," Loki jibed.

"Not the best move in the world," Natasha said wincing at the unsubtle nature of the phrase.

The alien upon hearing that raced over at lightning speed and held his hand threateningly near to Loki's neck. "I don't threaten," Loki said calmly, "but until I open the doors, until your force is mine to command, you are but words."

"You will have your war, Asgardian," the alien muttered threateningly before stepping in closer to begin to circle Loki, "If you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from us, there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he cannot find you. You think you know pain? He will make you long for something sweet as pain."

At a jerk from the alien's hand Loki was snapped out of his meditative state and back to the underground lab where his true body lurched to the side with a grimace fixed upon his face.

"Ouch," Clint muttered although he felt no sympathy for Loki's suffering after what he had done.

The quinjet with Steve and Coulson aboard was shown approaching the helicarrier in its boat form. It landed gently on the runway and the two disembarked as Natasha approached, "store the Captain's gear," Coulson ordered which was responded to by a quick, "yes, sir."

"Agent Romanoff, Captain Rogers," Coulson introduced.

"Ma'am," Steve said formally.

"Hi," was Natasha's cool response.

Toni smirked a little at this response as it was similar to hers whenever Steve had his moments of realising he was actually still talking to a woman whilst talking to her. It was left over from his 40's gentleman like behaviour or something but really it unsettled her because nobody ever treated her like that.

"They need you on the bridge," Natasha said turning her attention to Coulson, "They're starting the face-trace."

Coulson nodded and departed with a quick, "see you there."

Natasha sized Steve up with a look before striking up a conversation, "it was quite the buzz around here finding you in the ice. I thought Coulson was going to swoon. Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?"

Both Toni and Steve stiffened at the mention of the trading cards for similar and yet slightly different reasons. The other people in the room noticed of course but knew better than to ask especially since it would probably come up.

"Trading cards?" Steve almost laughed.

"They're vintage. He's very proud," Natasha continued.

Standing around slightly aimlessly on the deck near where the pair was heading was a thoroughly uncomfortable looking Dr. Bruce Banner. Upon seeing him Steve called out, "Dr. Banner."

When Bruce located Steve he instantly walked over seemingly relieved that he no longer had to stand around and dodge passing soldiers. It didn't appear to be having a positive impact on his nerves.

"Yeah, hi," Bruce said shaking Steve's hand, "they told me you would be coming."

"Didn't tell me Toni was coming," Bruce interjected.

"I don't think anyone but Tasha knew I was coming. Fury believes I'm narcissistic and everyone would immediately be put off his little project if they knew I was involved," Toni spat out, "he just does it to spite me but everyone does it so I'm used to it."

"Word is, you can find the Cube," Steve said.

"Is that the only word on me?" Bruce asked nervously.

"Only word I care about," Steve clarified eliciting a nod from Bruce.

"It must be strange for you, all of this," Bruce acknowledged but Steve simply took a look around and shrugged saying, "well, this is actually kind of familiar."

"Gentlemen," Natasha said interrupting their talk as they moved over towards the edge, "you might want to step inside in a minute. It's going to get a little hard to breathe."

There was the ominous click of machinery and the shouts to secure the deck coming over the PA system. The flaps on the side of the ship opened and began to drain away any water. "Is this a submarine?" Steve asked amazed.

"Really?" Bruce said incredulously, "they want me in a submerged, pressurised, metal container?"

"Arguably the results would have been worse had it been one," Bruce confirmed, "I wouldn't have been able to get away and would have kept causing carnage."

As they stood at the very edge they could see one of the engines of the helicarrier emerging from the water spinning rapidly causing the water on top of it to fly in all directions. The momentum and lift generated by the engines lifted the helicarrier out of the water as the wind generated by the speed blew through the clothes of those on deck. "No, no, this is much worse," Bruce quipped.

This elicited a quiet chuckle from several of the Avengers although Toni's wasn't really all that quiet in comparison to the rest.

The planes were fixed to the ground with sturdy ropes and everyone on deck was fitting themselves with an oxygen mask as water poured from the slats in the deck of the helicarrier. Inside the helicarrier Natasha led Steve and Bruce through the corridors and into the main control room where Fury was waiting. General chatter about helicarrier statistics buzzed through the room as Steve took a good look around. Bruce however stayed at the back of the room with an uneasy glance at the SHIELD logo.

Through the buzz of noise Hill's voice came through, "All engines operating. SHIELD Emergency Protocol 193.6 in effect," she turned to address Fury, "we are at level, sir."

"Good," Fury stated, "Let's vanish."

"Engage retro-reflection panels," Hill said. Upon her order the panels on the underside of the ship turned to show the mirror side which reflected the sky back to an observer almost completely concealing the helicarrier.

"Okay, that's sophisticated enough for me I guess," Toni said with a shrug which said she had accepted that they had managed this much but she didn't feel it was that much of a great feat.

"Gentlemen," Fury said as he turned away from his computer screens. Steve reached into his pocket and handed Fury the ten bucks from in there fulfilling their bet.

The team other than Bruce now realised what Bruce had been talking about back when the bet between Fury and Steve had been made initially.

"I'm just glad that bet wasn't on-going or I'd be totally broke," Steve laughed.

"Doctor, thank you for coming," Fury said as he reached out for a handshake.

"Thanks for asking nicely," Bruce said trying and failing to keep a hint of sarcasm from entering his voice. He did however accept the offered hand and shook it briefly, "so how long am I staying?"

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

"That didn't exactly work out did it Toni?!" Bruce said accusingly although his tone wasn't harsh.

"Don't even try and pretend that you wanted to leave without seeing the labs and once you did you couldn't," Toni joked with a smile.

"Where are you with that?" Bruce inquired.

Fury gestured over to Coulson who stood by some screens and let him explain, "We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cell phones, laptops, if it's connected to a satellite it's eyes and ears for us."

Natasha spoke from her position beside the screen with Clint's details on that she had been examining, "that's still not going to find them in time."

"You have to narrow your field," Bruce said slipping into science mode, "how many spectrometers do you have access to?"

"Oh, I like where this is going," Toni said obviously realising what Bruce's intentions were.

"How many are there?" Fury said as if it should have been the obvious answer.

"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, basic cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places," Bruce continued.

"That's what I thought you were doing," Toni said nodding, "logical place to kick-start a search for something emitting a radioactive signature."

"Do you have somewhere for me to work," he asked.

"Agent Romanoff," Fury said turning to Natasha, "could you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please?"

"You're going to love it Doc," Natasha said as she led him out, "we've got all the toys."

"Not quite all of them," Bruce said with a smile.

"Well we're not Stark Industries sponsored so we have all the toys you can get without that sponsorship," Natasha admitted.

A/n: The scene doesn't end there but I'm going to tag it on to the beginning of the next chapter addressing the Germany scene.