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Chapter Five

The next day, Gwen found herself back in the world of irritation. She no longer looked sickly and no longer had a headache, but that didn't stop her from being annoyed. And some people, especially Nick Fury, were very good at making her annoyed. And she didn't appreciate it.

Gwen had woken up with the impression she'd be leaving and going back to Stark Tower to rest there, but it seemed Fury had a different idea in mind. Even if she wasn't exactly needed at the moment.

"But all my stuff is there!" exclaimed Gwen after she had approached him in the command center.

"Either you stay here or you go and we'll bring you right back," he said. "I promise we won't send you through tests as long as you remain on the helicarrier."

Needless to say, Gwen was more than angry. She was pissed. So for the next few days, she was cooped up in the labs with Bruce, who also seemed to be living there. It made things easier at meals to at least have a friend there for Natasha and Clint were apparently too cool to eat with the rest of the crew.

Gwen also wondered were Steve Rodgers wandered off too. She hadn't thought about the fact that Tony had called him a "Capsicle" the day she met him. She was very curious to find out why and thought it was slightly disrespectful to ask other people behind his back.

But that was another matter. Her first priority out of everything was to find out why SHIELD had a part of the tesseract on the helicarrier. She spent a lot of time in the labs simply trying different ways to crack the codes of SHIELD's security. But she eventually also noticed that there was a missing person to their party.

"Where's Tony?" Gwen asked Bruce as she scanned the security camera footage of where the door that Clint took her through was.

"I'm not sure," answered the doctor.

"Is he okay?"

"Oh, I'm sure he's fine."

"What if he got arrested?"

Bruce looked up from the counter at Gwen's worried face.

"Gwendolyn," he said calmly, "there is no way that someone could arrest Tony Stark."

Gwen suppressed a smile at the image of what would happen of someone did try. It involved explosions and a lot of angry people.

It had been about a week after Gwen became a resident of the helicarrier that she had a headache return. She groaned as she woke up to feel a throbbing head. Reaching over, Gwen gabbed her phone and texted Natasha in hopes that she'd alert Fury that she was not feeling good. Gwen decided she was going to spend her day in her living quarters.

It was quiet most of the day. Gwen snuck out to grab something to eat before the crew would so she didn't run into anyone. They would certainly be asking her a lot of questions.

It was shortly after lunch and she was working on some more code cracking on her phone when there was a knock on her door. Curious, she yelled, "It's open!"

Her visitor opened the door and revealed himself as Steve Rodgers.

"Oh, hi Captain," she said feeling rather surprised.

"Hi, um, Agent Romanoff said that you weren't feeling good," he said. His cheeks were slightly pink and Gwen couldn't believe a man as attractive as himself seemed so nervous about talking to her.

"Yeah, I have another headache," she said, giving him a small smile.

"Is there anything I can get for you?"

Gwen's eyes widened in surprise. "You're offering to help me?"

Steve furrowed his brow in confusion. "Why wouldn't I?"

"It's just that no one has offered to get me anything before."

"Then you need to be around some nicer people, ma'am."

Ma'am? She had never been called ma'am before. Now that was surprising.

"Well, thanks for the offer, but I've just got to let the Excedrin kick in now," she answered.

"The what?"

"Y'know, the medicine? Relieves headaches?"

Steve still looked rather confused.

"Actually," said Gwen hoping to avoid the awkwardness that was occuring, "could you go and tell Doctor Banner that the medication he gave me wore off already?"

"Can do, ma'am." Steve smiled and gave a salute.

"Thank you, Captain."

"No problem, Agent Powers."

"Captain?" she asked when he began to leave.

"Yes?"

"You can call me Gwen," she said with a large smile.

Steve returned it. "Alright, Gwen. Then you can call me Steve."

And with that, Steve left and closed the door behind him, leaving Gwen with a ridiculously large smile on her face.

Steve was walking with a straighter back as he made his way to the labs. He couldn't believe that he actually had a successful conversation with Agent Powers - no, now it was Gwen, he'd have to remember that. But she had actually been smiling and everything.

He had been worried he'd make a fool of himself and therefore avoided meals with everyone else knowing she'd be there. The only reason he was on the helicarrier was because he tried living in Brooklyn again, but it was just so...different. And it was also hard to live in a place where you didn't know how to use ninety percent of the appliances.

So, in his time being anti-social while Gwen was eating, he was trying to build up the courage to talk to her. And once he found out she wasn't feeling good, he had to talk to her. He didn't want her thinking he didn't ever want to see her.

Finally, Steve made it to the labs where Bruce was once again working.

"Doctor Banner?" asked Steve. "Gwen wants me to tell you her medication wore off already."

"Oh, thanks Rodgers," said Bruce, looking up.

Steve smiled at the Doctor and turned to leave.

Bruce looked down but quickly looked back up and squinted behind his lenses.

"Since when do you call her Gwen?"

But it was too late. Steve had already left.

Clint found it easiest to think at night. He would wander the helicarrier and be on the lookout for suspicious activity. That was how he found the door which held the room that hid a part of the tesseract. He wasn't sure when it had gotten there, but it probably had been there since Thor and Loki had gone back to Asgard.

It was weird how they hadn't noticed that the cube wasn't completely together.

Clint was contemplating different uses for the cube when he heard footsteps. They were fast, which was suspicious, so Clint went to follow it. His footsteps were nearly silent.

There was a figure at the end of a dark hall and it turned right. Clint was fast and was at the end of the hall in a few seconds. He pressed himself up against the wall on the right and peaked out.

The figure was at the door.

In order to stay in the shadows, Clint stayed still and watched the figure open the door and go inside. It looked about the same size as the figure he had seen the other night when he first discovered the door. Clint wanted to follow, but stayed back, especially when he saw that whoever went inside had closed the door and locked it. So Clint stayed at the end of the hall and watched.

Watching was something he did best.

"Barton?"

Clint turned to see Natasha making her way down the hall.

"Tasha?" he asked. "What are you doing?"

"I couldn't sleep. A better question is, what are you doing?"

She stopped in front of Clint and crossed her arms over her chest.

"I couldn't sleep either," Clint every so slightly lied.

"We both know that you're watching something...or someone," answered Natasha.

Clint knew that there was no way he could make up an excuse for watching that door. He sure wanted to, but he realized he would need to tell Natasha what was hidden in there.

"Listen, I found-"

He was cut off by the sound of the door closing. Clint realized too late that whoever was going in the door had already left. As quick as he could, Clint turned to look around the corner and saw just a coat whipping around and leaving the hall in a different direction than the figure came.

"I'll talk to you later, Tasha."

Without waiting for an answer, Clint took off down the hall silently. He followed the direction in which the figure went, but it was no use.

The figure was gone.

Asgard had never been in such a panic. No one knew how the cube had possibly gone missing. It had been locked in a stone cellar which was guarded every moment of each day. No one was allowed inside. The guards always remained on the outside. Therefore there was less of a chance that someone could take it.

Of course, all the guards were infuriated at the fact they had been guarding an empty room for months. They felt as if their time had been completely wasted. But they got over this drama and helped the rest of the realm in their search for it. Unfortunately, it seemed the cube was not in Asgard. And if it wasn't in Asgard, then it could be absolutely anywhere. And that did not ease the panic each person felt.

Odin had sent a group of Asgard's finest warriors to search for the tesseract and they always came back empty handed. It was so near impossible that the cube was gone and seeing as it had been gone for long, the chances of actually finding it were very slim.

To Thor it seemed someone had taken it when it had been returned. And he was very unsure how. So once he had been alerted of the cube's disapperance, Thor nearly flew to Loki.

"Brother," said Thor when he entered Loki's cell which was quite similar to what the cube had been in. "Brother, you must speak."

Loki's mouth was not covered, but he did not part his lips. He had not spoken since he was in Midgard.

"Brother," repeated Thor, "the tesseract has been stolen."

Loki looked as though he wanted to say something, but he did not make any movement to do so. Thor thought maybe Loki knew what had happened.

"Loki," said Thor, "I want to know if you have any knowledge of what happened to it."

He remained silent and still, watching Thor. The god of thunder became fustrated and left the stone room. Thor knew he was going to have to go to Midgard soon and warn them of the cube's disapperance. He was to protect Midgard from danger. That was his job. But Thor wanted Loki to talk.

And most of all, though unrelated to the crisis at hand, he wanted his brother back.