"Look, it's the Hockey girl." Stark said excitedly, grinning wide. She wondered if he was faking a smile or just faking faking it. Seemed like the sort of twisted thing he would do.
She liked him already.
"Stark, Banner," She nodded in succession. As a mostly unwilling prisoner she was as rude as could be but as a fellow research associate she was always polite and right now she was a research associate, "I hear you need a Nuclear physicist."
Stark pointed at her with a finger. "You're not exactly a Nuclear physicist though."
"I am, it's just not all I am. Got that degree to work with Dad for a few projects but biochem is more challenging and fun."
"It is?"
"Well, Dad already taught me about nuclear physics so in comparison. Plus when things blow up I just have to worry about third degree burns instead of a nuclear meltdown which turns cities into ghost towns, so there's that." Banner snorted and Stark smiled again. "So, catch me up."
"The sceptre is connected to another object, the Tesseract, which Loki intends on using for certain purposes." Dr Banner said as if that was sufficient information. A fair few moments of silence followed, Mila expecting some expounding on what 'certain purposes' they were but apparently none was forthcoming.
"What purposes?" She finally asked and the tow proceeded to have a silent conversation that she really wanted to be a part of.
"If Fury's asking her to work on this she has the clearance." Stark shrugged and she understood why the secrecy.
"He's using the Tesseract to open a portal that will let in an alien army from outer space to subjugate Earth." Stark continued. She blinked, taking her time to absorb this piece of information. Alien army. ALIEN army. Alien ARMY. Whaaaaaat?
"He needed the Iridium to stabilise the portal. When his plan at the gala failed they found another source for it, CERN reported their stash of iridium missing four hours ago." Banner elaborated in a manner contrastingly calm to Stark's puppy-ish excitement.
She nodded in understanding. "So you're tracking its radioactive tag?" They stilled and looked at one another which made the answer pretty clear. "So you're not tracking its radioactive tag."
"That narrows down the parameters significantly." Banner said and he and Stark were suddenly in a flurry of activity. She took a look at the program they were running that they were changing now and realised they were just tracking it down by its Gamma radiation.
Noobs.
But that was fine, it wasn't exactly in their field. Except for Dr Banner that is, but she knew that he hadn't exactly been practising his art for some time now, he must have gotten out of date being on the run for so long.
"Jarvis is still trying to figure this thing out." Stark's eyes flicked to the sceptre even as his fingers typed out command after command.
"It shoots out energy waves right?" That was interesting but not exactly that interesting. The Iron Man suit's gauntlet did the same thing really.
"Loki used it to take over people's minds." Ah, yes, she'd forgotten about that bit. That was much more interesting. Also explained why she had wanted to hoard it like a child with a toy back when Loki'd demanded her to return it.
"So it's important."
"Very important."
"And Loki's plan will definitely involve it."
"Obviously."
"Huh. Hey Stark, I heard about the holographic projector of yours that's been making its rounds everywhere."
"So?"
"So can you make it look like anything? Realistically, I mean."
"Sure." He shrugged.
"And you can make something to mimic an energy signature too?"
He stopped typing and raised an eyebrow before looking back at the sceptre.
"I see where you're going with this." He snapped his fingers and pointed at her, very excited. "Once this program's recalibrated."
"Cool."
But then what was she supposed to do?
"The boys are excited." A very female voice said and she jumped only to find the redhead pilot from the jet at her right.
"I'm Mila."
She smiled like she knew secrets. It reminded Mila of her Mum's new girlfriend. "Natasha."
"Nice to meet you."
"Pleasure to meet you as well. That was some nice work taking down Loki."
Mila waved it off. She'd done worse to others in bar fights.
"Well that was some nice...flying of the jet." That was the correct response right, a compliment for a compliment? She wasn't really certain, not being used to compliments. Well compliments that came ina form other than 'Cute ass'.
Natasha raised an eyebrow. "You're not good with compliments are you?"
Mila shrugged. "There's always room for improvement, anyway."
"That's true," Natasha conceded. "Next time keep your wrist tighter and spread your hands further apart."
Useful information was much better than flattery.
"I'll keep that in mind."
"It's not enough is it?"
"What isn't?"
There was an entirely detached look on Natasha's face although she sounded oddly hungry. "Hurting Loki like that. You want to do more."
"Yes." She wanted to hurt him in his mind the way he hurt hers when he tried to take her Dad's eye out. She wanted him to feel that fear and worry, wanted him to panic. Wanted him to feel desperate and scared.
Twisted, yes, but then she wasn't exactly known for her magnanimity.
"It's your lucky day."
"Doesn't feel like it. But I assume this means you want me to interact with him."
Natasha shrugged. "People are sloppy when they're angry. You can make him angrier than I can."
"But I wouldn't know what I'm looking for."
It hadn't exactly escaped Mila's notice that Natasha was essentially talking about interrogating Loki. Probably to find out more about his plans but it wouldn't quite work because Mila didn't know half of what Natasha did and she didn't know what would hurt hi—
Thor. Thor would know. No one knows your weak spots like family, she kenw that well enough from the terrible arguments her parents had before the divorce.
"I'd like to chat to his brother before I talk to him."
Natasha smiled, all wicked and charming.
Seriously, just like Mom's girlfriend.
"Hello." She said softly, her talk with Thor having more of an effect on her than she'd expected. From within his cage Loki cocked his head.
"Strange."
"You were expecting someone else?"
"I expected you to be here earlier." He deflected and made a moue. "What took you so long?"
"I was talking to your brother." His jaw clenched. "Or not your brother, it seems you've disowned him."
"I've disowned him?" He snarled but pulled back with a strange look.
"That's the way he says it. Although I suppose since you introduced yourself as Loki of Asgard that's not quite how you see it."
He smirked and opened his mouth to say something but abruptly stopped and frowned.
"You...you pity me."
"You don't understand it do you? But then you wouldn't, you don't understand all the grown up emotions. It's all love, hate or a mixture of the two for you. A child's emotions."
Patronising people was something she was a natural in. Usually though, it was unintentional because she really was that much better than most of them and their ignorance was all kinds of pathetic for her to see.
"A child? You're the child, you know nothing of the world."
"Probably but I know a lot about myself. I've lived and learned more in my twenty nine years than you have in your eleven centuries. It's sad." She cocked her head with sympathy that was heartfelt which always hurt people more than the mockery. He did seem the type to abso-fucking-lutely loathe pity.
"You dare—" He paused again and bared his teeth, running a tongue under them angrily. "You talked to Thor."
"Yep. The man's an open book. An open book that has many chapters all about you. According to him this all started because you found out you were an adopted frost giant and began thinking yourself a monster."
Tact had no place here, really. Natasha wouldn't agree but she'd asked her to piss him off. And personally, she thought she was doing a very good job of that.
"Me, a monster? Do you know even know whose court you're in? Fury who carries the mark of his sins on his face, Thor, the greatest war monger the Nine Realms have ever known, the Merchant of Death, The Black Widow with her ledger dripping with blood and then the true monster himself, hiding himself in the skin of another, Hulk."
She shrugged. "None of them are currently trying to take over the world with an alien army, that would be you." She tilted her head quizzically and frowned. "Why is that by the way?"
He stared at her for a second before rolling his eyes. "To teach mortals the true meanin-"
"No, not why are you taking over the world, why are you doing it with an army. That seems like something Thor would do, all battle hungry and tally ho. From what I understand you're not the type for a —"
"Fair fight?" He snarled and it was her turn to roll her eyes.
"No, the type to fight like this. Without doing loads of prep work, without any real plan beside breaking stuff. This isn't exactly a smart plan, it's an almost impulsive one, that's out of character. Only not really impulsive at all because there's an army waiting for orders." Sweat was beginning to bead on his forehead and she pressed on. "Without a backup plan in case the portal doesn't work, with only a rudimentary chain of command that is very dependent on that sceptre of yours. Flash and bang while there's no real substance. Weird, don't you think?"
His breath was coming in harsh breaths now and she ruthlessly suppressed the smirk that wanted to make its way out when his eye twitched at the mention of the sceptre.
"In fact while on the subject, where did you get the sceptre at all? Where did you get this army of chitauri at all? You fell into a Void, into nothingness, what could you have to offer the one who gave you such pretty toys?" She was asking with the subtlety of a battering ram, she knew, and so she wasn't surprised when the reaction to it wasn't subtle either.
"I am really going to enjoy killing you."
"I am really going to enjoy watching you try and then fail." A rumble under her feet interrupted her gloating and it only got worse as he began laughing hideously at her look of alarm.
She threw herself against the wall with a shriek as fire erupted from the vent below her. "What the fuck was that?"
When her ears finally stopped ringing she heard laughter and followed it to see Loki out of the cage, suddenly helmeted and stalking towards her, almost happy. Troops poured in, armed and ready, and as Loki nodded at them two took hold of her arms and held her captive while another handed him the sceptre.
"This would be my army."
