Chapter 11 – A Meeting Of Minds

A/n: I'm aware that there were mixed reactions to the changes last chapter which I had expected but I'm glad that you all were nice to me about your opinions so thank you.

HockeyGal09: I'm glad you enjoy seeing updates of this story :) Enjoy!

XxxBellaBellaxxX: Was so glad when you reviewed. I'm really glad you still enjoyed the chapter

paisley15: I tried to foreshadow the force field as much as possible. When she tells JARVIS they need to get to work after her phone call with Phil she's working on the bug and the force field. And she slips it into her hand whilst on the quinjet. I'm glad you liked it anyway. Her name is Gemma Arterton so you were mostly there :D Those are basically my thoughts on her. She's gorgeous but sometimes her hair is just… no

MelodyPotterSnape: Thank you, glad you liked!

youwannabekate: For Tony you're right it would be OOC but for Toni it's slightly different. She was raised to be a proper lady meaning that it's ingrained in her personality not to be too impolite to people. Steve just gets on her last nerve because of all the comparisons made between them which is why she still lashes out at him sometimes.

LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books: Yay, you reviewed I was getting worried. And yeah it would be quite funny to see Tony watching Toni's actions there :) Yeah me too, enjoy Thor's shock in this chapter when she comes in

Ashtree1165: I'm flattered that you like this story if it's not your usual type. And yeah Tony always works weirdly well as a girl :D

The helicarrier was shown making its way through the sky as twelve armed guards escorted Loki through its halls. Within the SHIELD laboratory Bruce was working on the tracking device for the cube as the group made its way past. Loki smirked happily at Bruce through the window as Bruce removed his glasses contemplatively.

"I didn't understand why he looked so pleased to be there," Bruce admitted, "I get it now."

When the group reached the detention area Loki was placed in the glass cell and the pressurised lock engaged. From around the side Fury appeared walking towards the computer and he spoke, "in case it's unclear, if you try to escape, if you so much as scratch that glass," here Fury paused to hit the red button in the centre of the display and the floor beneath the cell opened up.

"It's 30,000 feet straight down in a steel trap, you get how that works?" Fury continued being forced to shout over the sound of the wind rushing into the helicarrier.

"If it hadn't been designed for completely barbaric reasons it might have been a good system," Toni admitted, "although of course it probably had some sort of design flaw. SHIELD tech usually does."

"The tech doesn't have flaws as such Annie it's just not as good as yours because none of our developers have your intellect," Natasha sighed rolling her eyes.

"Like I said," Toni said shrugging, "flawed!"

Once he was sure he had gotten his point across Fury closed over the floor again before gesturing first at Loki and then at the computer saying, "ant, boot."

"It's just like Director Fury to remember all the jibes that have been made at him," Clint muttered.

Loki stepped back into the middle of the cell chuckling at Fury's turn of phrase, "it's an impressive cage," he admitted, "Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you," Fury told him.

"Oh, I've heard," Loki said turning to face the security camera. The footage from the cell was shown to be being watched by Natasha on a screen, "A mindless beast. Makes play he's still a man."

Upon hearing that Natasha looked up carefully to look at Bruce who had his arms crossed and was clearly unimpressed.

"All that talk of Fury trusting me," Bruce laughed bitterly, "and he's still trying to think of ways to get rid of me. Not that I was surprised, spies aren't supposed to trust anybody. Let alone people like me."

This was not helping Natasha's lingering feelings of guilt about what had happened on the helicarrier and how the destruction that followed her words had been almost entirely her fault.

"How desperate are you that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?" Loki continued as Thor was shown listening intently.

"How desperate am I?" Fury said incredulously, "You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control."

"You couldn't control it either yet you had no qualms with using it," Steve butted in.

"You talk about peace and you kill cause it's fun," Fury continued, "You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

"Ooh," Loki said clearly not impressed by Fury's little speech, "It burns you to have come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share," upon saying this he through another significant look at the camera which Hill was shown watching.

"I get that the quip was directed at you Toni but you weren't even there at the time," Steve said puzzled.

"He probably figured I would be," Toni pointed out, "he couldn't exactly see us he was just making quips at the camera and hoping the person they were intended for was watching."

"And then to be reminded what real power is," Loki concluded.

Fury scoffed and began to walk out of the room. "Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something," he quipped.

The tense mood in the room was somewhat broken as they all chuckled a little at Fury's sarcasm. The mood had been too bitter for laughter on the helicarrier but the comment had been rather amusing.

Loki walked directly up to the camera as was shown on Steve's computer screen before they all closed down.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce quipped trying not to show that he was upset by Loki's comments about him although it showed in his eyes.

"Loki's gonna drag this out," Steve predicted, "So, Thor, what's his play?"

"He has an army called the Chitauri," Thor informed the group, "They're not of Asgard, nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth in return, I expect, for the Tesseract."

"An army…" Steve said sceptically, "…from outer space."

"You really had a lot to catch up on didn't you? Pretty much the worst time to wake up," Clint said with a low whistle.

"So, he's building another portal," Bruce deduced, "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?" Thor questioned clearly shocked to be hearing the name.

"He's an astrophysicist," Bruce explained.

"He's a friend," Thor replied simply.

"I'm sorry, it must have been hard for you to find out like that," Bruce said regretfully.

"I am grateful that I found out then Friend Banner and not when we came across him on the side of my brother. There is no need for your apology," Thor said brushing off the apology.

"Loki has him under some sort of spell, along with one of ours," Natasha explained although it was clearly a touchy subject for her.

"Aww, you do care!" Clint teased good-naturedly which earned him a slap on the back of the head from Natasha although it wasn't as hard as it could have been. This reduced Toni to quiet sniggers about how obvious the pair was.

"I want to know why Loki let us take him," Steve brought up as it was clearly still bothering him, "he's not leading an army from here."

"You were right to be bothered by it but to be honest right then we had more important things to focus on," Natasha admitted.

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Bruce suggested, "that guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You could smell crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak," Thor said imperiously, "Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother."

"He killed 80 people in two days," Natasha said disbelievingly as if wondering who would associate with the man after that family member or not.

"He's adopted," Thor was quick to point out upon hearing this room.

This made everyone in the room but Toni and Thor laugh. While Toni had found the sudden change in attitude amusing she had a feeling that Loki being adopted and it being used against him like that might have been a reason that he was so bitter towards his family.

"It think it's about the mechanics," Bruce theorised, "Iridium… what do they need the iridium for?"

"It's a stabilising agent," Toni said as she entered the room in a black cat suit similar to Natasha's which was clearly what she wore under her suit for manoeuvrability.

Clint wolf whistled at seeing her in the tight fitting Lycra which earned him a death glare from Toni and another whack to the back of the head from Natasha.

"I'm just saying, pick a weekend. I'll fly you to Portland," Toni said returning to her conversation with Phil, "Keep love alive."

"That was nice of you," Steve muttered although the subject of Coulson's future plans was still touchy seeing as he hadn't gotten to go through with any of them.

Phil clearly embarrassed that Toni was talking about this in front of the rest of the group gestured that she should turn back to the other conversation topic. "It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD," Toni explained before pausing next to Thor, "no hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing."

"I apologise, I did not know…" Thor began.

"I said no hard feelings," Toni reiterated as she made her way open to the computer screens before continuing with her explanation as if she had never stopped, "Also, it means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long, as Loki wants."

She turned to face the computer screens before muttering, "Raise the mizzenmast. Jib the topsails," completely confusing all the SHIELD agents working on the floor. "That man is playing Galaga. He thought we wouldn't notice but we did," she exclaimed pointing at a SHIELD agent sitting in the last row.

"I was impressed that you came in during the middle of a conversation and didn't require any help catching up and you kept dipping in and out of your explanation," Bruce complimented making Toni smile at him.

Toni frowned and briefly covered her left eye with her hand before asking, "How does Fury even see these?"

"He turns," Agent Hill said exasperatedly.

"Sounds exhausting," Toni joked obviously knowing that Hill wouldn't see the humour in the situation.

"All work and no play pretty much sums up Agent Hill," Clint laughed.

"The rest of the raw materials," she continued suddenly back on track once more, "Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily," she began clearing things from the screens to have something to do with her hands, "The only major component he still needs is a power source of high-energy density. Something to kick-start the Cube."

As she spoke this last line she neatly slipped another similar tiny metal device to the force field from earlier onto the computer systems using her clearing of the screens as a cover.

"That was slick," Clint complimented amazed, "Are you sure you don't have spy training?"

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Agent Hill asked.

"Last night," Toni clarified, "the packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked clearly not comfortable with Toni's ability to process information so quickly.

"He would have to heat the Cube to 120-million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce said suddenly butting in.

"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilise the quantum tunnelling effect," Toni said walking forward visibly thrilled that someone understood what she had been saying.

"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet," Bruce replied.

"Finally, someone who speaks English," Toni said pleased.

"Only person I've met who can keep up with me in more than one field. Best day of my life," Toni laughed.

Bruce was attempting not to show how incredibly touched he was by this statement but clearly didn't do very well because Toni walked over beside him and took a seat there.

"Is that what just happened?" Steve muttered sarcastically.

Toni and Bruce shook hands as Toni said, "It's good to meet you Dr. Banner. Your work on antielectron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage-monster."

There was a slight pause before Bruce managed to force out a bewildered, "thanks."

"I was shocked that you knew what I was but that it didn't seem to bother you," Bruce admitted quietly to Toni so the others couldn't really hear. He didn't want to make any of them feel bad about how they treated him back then.

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

"I would start with that stick of his," Steve recommended, "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

"Sceptre, Steve, sceptre," Toni muttered exasperatedly.

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the Cube," Fury said picking up where Steve left off, "And I would like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

Clint flinched at the mention of being under Loki's control but the tact of the team remained and none of them commented on it. Unless Clint reached out to them they didn't want to interfere unless it got really bad.

"Monkeys? I do not understand," Thor said confused.

"Note to self; get Thor to watch The Wizard of Oz. JARVIS has every movie on demand anyway. Well apart from these," Toni muttered quietly.

"I do," Steve blurted out, "I understood that reference."

"One of the few I was getting before I moved in here," Steve sighed. Adjusting had not been the easiest thing in the world for him.

"Shall we play, Doctor?" Toni said turning to Bruce obviously fed up with the idle chatter.

"This way, ma'am," Bruce said pointing down the corridor.

Back over near to the wall one of the male agents switched his screen back to Galaga.

This caused a lot of raucous laughter to come from the team who had honestly thought Toni had been kidding about someone playing a video game instead of working during a global crisis.

A/n: Originally the first part of the lab scene was going to be in here but I wanted to get this up now so it will be in the next chapter :) Love always 3