It didn't take long for Tony and Steve to return with Loki and Thor.
"I apologize, maiden. I had no intentions of causing you harm."
"It's fine, Thor. I was not seriously hurt. I'm just glad that everyone is okay."
"Everyone besides Tony, you mean," Steve interjected with a slight smile.
"Hey, Spangles, shut up," Tony said.
Steve started towards Tony, But Nat cut in. "Gentlemen, we are almost back. i would prefer if I didn't have to explain to Fury why you're both injured."
"Injured? I haven't touched Rogers yet."
"I'm talking about me hurting you."
I couldn't help but laugh at Tony's expression. Steve only smiled at Nat, then looked at me and started to laugh.
"Great, now you've got Rogers and the beautiful lady laughing at me."
"Indeed, Man of Iron. The lady is beautiful, but I do believe that the Widow would genuinely hurt you. Mayhaps we-"
"Shut it, Goldilocks. I'm not interested in whatever mumbo jumbo you might think is going to happen."
"Gentlemen, as entertaining as this conversation is, we have arrived back at the helicarrier. Thor, Director Fury will direct you on where to place Loki for now. Dr. banner, you'll remember where the lab is, I trust?" I could feel myself slipping into the leader role, taking control like I understood everything that was happening and it didn't affect me. Truth be told, I was all but broken. The only thing keeping me going at this point was the fact that Clint was out there and who knew what Loki did to him.
Steve smiled at me. "Alright, men. Let's listen to the lady. We have a job to do, so lets get it done."
We landed quickly thanks to Nat being, well, Nat. I made sure Thor exited first with Loki to make sure that nothing would happen. Fury met them inside. Coulson was waiting for Tony, which I found odd but didn't say anything about. Nat walked off to who knows where, which left me with Dr. Banner and Steve. I ended up walking between the two of them to the briefing room. Thor soon joined us, but never looked at the screen.
When Fury finished threatening Loki, there was silence in the room.
"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Dr. Banner interrupted the silence. I looked from the corner I was sitting in and managed to crack a smile.
"Loki's going to play this out," Steve said. Ever the military man, so I really shouldn't have been surprised. "So, Thor,what's his play?"
Thor finally came out of daze to respond to Steve. "He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them people. They will win him the earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."
I tried to recall any myths from any culture that may have mentioned creatures like the Chitauri, but none came to mind. So much for being a genius.
"An army? From outer space?" Steve asked in utter disbelief. Not that I could blame him, but in this day and age, nothing really surprised me anymore.
"So he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Slevig for." Dr. Banner mused aloud.
"selvig?" Thor questioned.
"He's an astrophysicist." Dr. Banner replied.
"He's a friend."
"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours," Nat said. Everyone turned around in surprise except for me. I had seen her enter during Fury's threatening of Loki.
"I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here." Steve couldn't help it. It was part of his training while in the army.
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him."
"I don't care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother." Anger resounded off of Thor at Dr. Banner's comment.
"He killed eighty people in two days," Nat deadpanned.
"He's adopted." I couldn't help but smirk.
"Iridium. What did they need the iridium for?" Dr. Banner asked. I opened my mouth to answer when Stark walked in with Coulson.
"It's a stabilizing agent." He turned to Coulson while walking and continued their previous conversation. "I'll fly you there. Keep the love alive." He turned back to us. "It means that the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at Shield." He turned to Thor, a smirk on his face. "No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing." He turned back to the rest of us, and continued talking about the iridium. "Also, it means that the portal can open as wide and stay as open as long as Loki wants it to."
He walked over to the bridge of the ship, where Fury would usually be. "Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails." We all just looked at him. I couldn't believe he was acting this way. "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." He began to mimic Fury and mess with the controls. If looks could kill, Stark would've been dead by Maria's stare. "How does fury do this?" he asked incredulously.
"He turns," Maria said. If you knew her well enough, you could hear the venom in her voice.
"Well, that sounds exhausting.The restof the raw materials, Agent Barton canget his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."
"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Maria asked him.
"Last night," he said as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "The packet? Dr. Selvieg's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"
Steve ignored his last comment an asked "does Loki need any particular power source?" I just sat back, observing what was going on.
"He would have to heat the cube to over a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb Barrier," Dr. Banner stated.
"Unless Dr. Selvieg has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect." Tony replied to Dr. Banner.
"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."
"Finally, somebody that speaks English," Tony walked over to Dr. Banner for a handshake.
"Is that what just happened?" Steve said in utter confusion. I looked at him, a smile playing on my face. While I may not have understood everything that Dr. Banner and Tony had just said, I got the gist of it.
"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. You're work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."
"Thanks." The good doctor looked so embarrassed at Tony's comment.
Fury walked into the bridge. "Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him." The tone of his voice said that there was no debating this order.
"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be ,apical, but it works a lot like a HYDRA weapon," Steve said.
"You're right, Captain," I said. "Based off of the studies that I have done about the weapons that HYDRA used back in your day, the scepter is very similar." Everyone just turned and looked at me.
"Agent Barton, you've studied HYDRA weaponry?" Fury asked me.
"Sir, after we found the tessaract, I thought it prudent to study what HYDRA had done with it exactly." Fury just stared at me like I was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
"I don't know about the Sceptor being a HYRDA weapon, but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like toknow how Loki used it to turn two ofthe sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."
"Monkeys? I do not understand."
"I do! I got that reference!" Steve was so proud of himself. Tony just looked at him and rolled his eyes. I glared at Tony, and he sheepishly smiled.
"Shall we play, Doctor?" Tony asked.
"Let's play some," Dr. Banner replied as they left the room.
I looked over a Steve, debating whether or not to ask him about his past, when Nat grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the room.
"Can you believe Stark?" she asked me. I stayed silent, realizing that she just wanted to rant. "I'm headed down to Loki's cell. I'm going to see if I can get any information out of him." I nodded. "Are you okay, Mel?"
"I'm fine," I said. All I wanted to do was head to my room and curl up with a good book. Nat just looked at me and then decided to leave. I didn't go with her because I would be of no use to her with Loki.