A/N: I said that there would be the science bros, and the science bros there are!
Nothing dark here! Just some plot and some boys being boys.
This one is short and sweet (just like all the men in this chapter), but then again I did just post a longish chapter like two seconds ago.
Me no own Avengers. That makes me a sad panda.
"Hey Stark!" Clint called, as he pushed the doors to the lab open. Banner was sitting in front of some projection of what looked like building blueprints, and Stark sat at a desk, feet up as he tinkered with one of his hand repulsors from his suit.
"What's up, March of the Penguins?" he asked without looking up from his work.
"Fuck off, Dead Weight," he growled as he stalked forward.
"Ooh, that's a new one," commented Banner from the side, "I like that one."
"Bruce, I'm hurt," Stark said in mock injury, "You're not supposed to like Big Bird's ideas. I thought we were science bros!"
Bruce shrugged, still appraising the blueprints, "What can I say? When it's good, it's good. I'm an equal opportunity kind of guy."
Coming to a halt in front of Stark's desk, Clint crossed his arms on his chest. "Do you still have access to Shield's databases?"
"Why? You gonna tell on me to ol' one-eye?" Stark aimed his repulsor at a holo-projected target and fired. "No, you see. It's still burning through to the palm. Maybe if I adjust the coolant levels and add a layer of adamantium to the armor…"
Bruce made a noise of disagreement, "Mm. Make sure the beam is spread equally across the blast initiation site, maybe a larger expulsion port."
"Yeah, yeah, already on it, mom." Stark had now taken off the glove, making adjustments on projected images.
Barton rolled his eyes, "Listen, I want to know what Shield is doing with Loki's scepter. I don't like the idea of the guys who tried to blow up Manhattan having access to a big fucking laser-beam stick from another dimension."
Stark finally looked over to the archer, his face a picture of apathetic disbelief, "Really? And don't you work for those guys? Shouldn't you know what they're doing? Last time I heard, you and Russia's Next Top Model Spy were blue ribbon members in their little book club. They kick you out?"
Barton growled and looked away, "It's sort of messed up right now. I don't like them because, you know, the whole blow us up thing was kind of a turn off. They don't like me because Criss Angel decided to mind freak me. Fury said I'm on 'temporary leave.' Whatever. The point is they won't let me know a single thing about the spear or anything to do with anything that happened."
Tony sat quiet for a moment, staring up the archer who was blatantly not looking at Stark. "Hm. Fascinating. Looks like the baby bird fell from his nest and momma bird doesn't care. Sad really. Alright, whadya wanna know?" Stark threw the schematics of his repulsors to the side, and brought up images of the scepter from Shield's files.
Clint sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. At least Stark wasn't suspicious of him. Hell, if Clint wasn't himself, he'd be suspicious of him. "What's the status of the thing?"
Banner had ambled his way over to the projection that Tony had up and was looking on with the rest of them. "It looks like they're keeping it under constant surveillance." Bruce crossed his arms and shifted his glasses.
"Yep. And it also looks like there was a small spike in activity from it starting six days ago. Nothing huge. And it seems to have leveled off at that point." Stark's eyes were bright with information.
"Is there anything about getting rid of it? Of their plans for it?" asked Barton hopefully.
"It's like you don't like the thing or something, Robin" Stark commented in mock curiosity.
"Ooh, Robin," Bruce commented idly as he browsed Shield's files, "You see, that's like a triple hitter there: you got the side-kick reference, the bird reference, and the Robin Hood reference all in one. That's clever."
Clint's thought there was actually more references that could've been made in that, but he wasn't going to point them out.
"Jarvis," Tony piped, "Start a tally. Tony: 3, Barton: 1"
"As you say, sir," replied the calm accented tones of the AI.
Clint growled, "Stark."
As Tony grinned childishly, Bruce moved aside some pages, "It doesn't look like they're sending it anywhere anytime soon, Clint. Looks like they're using it to take the place of the Tesseract. Trying to study it to figure out an unlimited power source…again." Banner rubbed his eyes underneath his glasses.
Tony sat back, "I don't know why I never liked these guys. They're a very determined bunch of people. Hard workers."
Barton's shoulder sagged slightly. As long as that scepter was around, so would Loki. Non-killable, very confusing, head-ache inducing Loki. Clint didn't care that he slept better, he wanted the god gone.
Turning from the two 'science bros', Clint headed out. "Right. Thanks. Gotta go. See ya later." And with that he left.
Bruce and Tony looked at each other. "What was that about?"
A/N: Was it good?
I don't claim to know anything about science. Sadly, the science bros. may suffer for this. But I'm trying to sound somewhat credible. Science and math make my thinker box hurt...
Clint is referring to how both he and Robin were 'raised' in the circus. Nothing integral to the story, though.
Fun Fact: Steve Rogers will call you...maybe. (Probably not (shucks)).
That'll do.