I walked into the lab quietly, hoping not to disturb the two scientists.

"This stops it. This little circle of light. It's a part of me now, not just armor. It's a... terrible privilege."

"But you can control it," Dr. Banner replied.

"Because I learned how."

"It's different." Dr. Banner turned towards his screen. Tony minimized whatever it was that Dr. Banner was looking at and started talking to him.

"Hey, I've read all about your so called "accident". That much gamma radiation should have killed you."

"He's right, Dr. Banner," I interjected. "I've examined all the tests and files. You should not have survived that. There was something in your DNA that allowed you to survive."

"So what you're saying is that the Hulk... the other guy... saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?"

There was a pause until Tony replied, "I guess we'll find out." They returned to their computers and continued working. I started up one of the other computers.

"You may not like that," Dr. Banner said, breaking the silence.

"You just might." Tony replied. Dr. Banner looked up at me, and I nodded my confirmation. Dr. Banner gave me a small smile then returned to work. I looked back at the screen in front of me and logged onto my secure network, which luckily wasn't connected to the SHIELD network. That network is waaay to easy to hack. Trust me on that. I started running a search algorithm in hopes of locating my brother. Nothing was turning up. I looked up from the screen and saw that Tony and Dr. Banner were looking at something on the screen.

"Are you seeing this?"

"I can't believe this! What could they be trying to hide?" Tony said

"What's the issue?" I asked.

"There's a massive fire wall that JARVIS is having a problem breaking through."

"JARVIS is your A.I., right?

"Yeah, he's what I've been using to find all of SHIELD's secrets. But there is a fire wall that he can't seem to break." I walked over to the screen and looked at what they were trying to access.

"TONY! Stop trying to hack into my records!" I screamed.

'What do you have to hide, Beautiful Agent Barton?"

"Stark, I'm warning you. Stay out of my records."

Tony shrugged then continued moving items on the screen. I went back to the computer I was working on. I hacked into the SHIELD server and looked at my record. I checked to see who last looked into it.

"Huh, that's odd."

"What was that, Agent Cute Barton?"

"The last person to access my record was my brother."

"What's so odd about that?" Dr. Banner asked.

"He accessed it this morning." I replied. Suddenly, I heard the door open.

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" I heard Dr. Fury ask.

I looked at what Tony and Bruce were working on.

"Uh.. Kinda been wondering the same thing about you."

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract." Fury told Tony menacingly.

"We are." Dr. Banner told him. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile." He informed the director.

"And you'll get your cube back. No fuss, no muss." He stopped talking as his screen suddenly popped something on it. "What's PHASE 2?"

I heard something heavy being dropped next to me. I jumped and looked at it. Steve looked at me apologetically before talking to the others. "Phase 2 is SHIELD using the cube to make weapons. Sorry, the computer was taking too long," he said to Tony. I looked at the Director. I had heard about what HYDRA's weapons did and I didn't like the fact that the Director was trying to recreate that.

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. That doesn't mean that.."

"I'm sorry, Nick. what were lying about?" Tony interrupted.

I turned around to where Tony was and saw that he had turned his screen around so that everyone could see it. On it was weaponry resembling the HYDRA weapons that SHIELD had "gathered".

"I was wrong, director. The world hasn't changed at all." Steve looked disappointed in SHIELD and all those affiliated.

Thor and Natasha walked into the lab, Nat's eyes boring into Dr. Banner. Dr. Banner glared back at her.

"Did you know about this?" He demanded her. I walked over to where Steve was, but stopped when I heard Nat start to speak towards Dr. Banner.

"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?"

"I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed." I laid a hand on Steve's shoulder, and he spun around quickly.

"Steve, I promise I didn't know about this."

"You work for them, Melody. How can I believe that?"

"Trust, Steve. You have to trust me when I say that I had no knowledge of this. All I knew was what Clint told me, that they wanted to use the Tesseract for good."

"I'd like to know why SHILED is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction," I heard Dr. Banner say.

"Because of him!" I heard the director reply.

"Me?" Thor asked.

"Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet." Thor said.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And, you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It sounded like the director was trying to justify what he was planning on doing with the cube.

"That doesn't give us a reason to create weaponry that could wipe out the human race, sir. If those weapons fell into the wrong hands, whole countries could be wiped out."

"That was a risk we were willing to take. These probable attacks had to be controlled."

"Like you controlled the cube?" Steve asked, indignantly.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war." Thor said.

"A higher form?" Steve asked. I knew what Thor was talking about, but it didn't feel right to talk about this.

"You forced our hand. We had to come up with something."

"Nuclear deterrent? 'Cause that always works," Tony said.

"Tony's right, director," I cut in.

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark," the director demanded.

" I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be.."

"Wait! Wait! Wait! How is this now all about me?"

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?"

"I thought humans were more evolved then this," Thor said while smirking.

"Excuse ME, did we come to YOUR planet and blow things up?"

Everyone started talking at once. It looked like Tony and Steve were about to duke it out right then and there, while Natasha was truing to justify SHIELD's action leading up to this point. Nobody but me notice that Loki's scepter started to glow.

"Guys? Hey, everybody!"

"Shut it, Agent Barton, or so help me, you won't be employed by SHIELD any more," the director yelled at me.

"You speak of control, yet you court chaos." Thor told the director.

"It's his M.O., isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're... we're a time-bomb." Dr. Banner said.

"You need to step away," Fury told him.

Tony put his arm around Steve. "Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" He asked.

Steve shoved him off, causing Tony to almost bump into me as I moved around the lab, trying to get to the least conspicuous place.

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me," Tony said as he got face to face with Steve.

"Big man in a suit of amor, take that away and what are you?" Steve asked angrily.

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," Tony replied without any hesitation.

"I know guys with none of that who are worth more then ten of you. Yeah, I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

"I think I'd just cut the wire."

"Always a way out... You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

I could see the anger coming off of Tony at this point. "A hero? Like you? You're a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle!"

"Gentlemen, please. No fighting," I tried to appeal to them.

"And you, Agent Barton, you aren't any better. You're nothing but a sneaking little spy who always does what's she told to do, no matter the consequences."

"Leave Melody out of this, Stark." Steve almost growled.

"Who's gonna stop me? You?"

"Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds." Steve said, his chest puffed out.

Thor began to laugh. "You people are so petty, and tiny." Tony moved away from Steve. I slowly walked over to him, aware of how tense the situation was.

"Yeah, this is a team."

"Agent Barton, will you escort Dr. Banner back to his..."

"Where? You rented out my room."

"The cell was just in case..."

"In case you needed to kill me. But you can't, I know. I've tried." He paused as the room fell silent. "I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out! So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk!" He stopped and look at Nat, "You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff," He started to reach back and grab Loki's scepter, "You wanna know how I stay calm?" I slowly reached down for my gun.

"Dr. Banner... put down the scepter."

Suddenly, the computer started to beep. "Got it," Tony said as he walked over to the screen. Dr. Banner set down scepter and began to walk over to the screen.

"Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my little party tricks after all."

"Located the Tesseract?" Thor asked the two scientists.

"I can get there faster," Tony said.

"Look, all of us.."

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it."

Tony started to leave, but Steve quickly stopped him.

"You're not going alone!"

"You gonna stop me?"

"Put on the suit, let's find out."

"I'm not afraid to hit an old man," Tony replied.

"Tony, stop it. Steve, let it go!" I tried to shove my way in between them. Steve gently moved me out of the way.

"Put on the suit."

I heard Dr. Banner say something behind me, then I felt the Helicarrier rock, sending us all sprawling. I was falling, tryiong to grab at something, but missed everything I reached for. I hit my head, then the world went black.