After exiting the cell room, I found an empty corridor and tried to reorient my thoughts. Thankfully Loki hadn't spoken too much or thrown me off. I just had to hope that if Loki ever got free that he wouldn't try to corner me or something.
"Rachel?"
"Captain Rodgers!" Surprisingly, he was carrying a bulky weapon in his arms. Oh yeah. The lab argument was about to happen. Time to be the ringmaster of the three ring circus. "Would you mind if I followed you back to the lab? I am severally directionally challenged in this maze."
"Of course, Ma'am." Darn it; that made me sound old. It was sweetly respectful though.
"I would prefer Miss, if that is alright. I think I'm still a couple years away from earning enough respect to be a Ma'am. I'm not even 21 yet."
"You seem very mature for your age, Rachel."
"Well, you haven't seen me with chocolate yet; I turn into a three year old." A laugh! I got a depressed, war-zone-ready Captain to laugh! Hopefully things keep going this well, I thought to myself.
We fell into a comfortable silence as I tried to figure out the best game plan. I could just go in, go down the list of personal peeves individually, and then tell them the plan for defeating the aliens. However, that meant they would know that I knew exactly how this meeting was going to pan out, which was very awkward. But, I couldn't just let them have at each other either. As we neared the lab, I heard voices through the open door.
"...within half a mile."
"Yeah, you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss." Tony gave a dramatic pause just as we got to the door. "What is Phase 2?" Captain took this as his cue to enter the lab and drop what he was carrying on a table.
"Phase 2 is SHIELD uses the Cube to make weapons! Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow for me."
"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract," I urgently motioned to the Director to not continue his thought.
"Well, this wasn't collected." Tony turned the computer screen around to show the schematics of a weapon.
"I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit." What did that mean exactly?
"And it never will. There will always be bad men and always be those trying to defend the freedom of innocents from those men. Sometimes those defending make almost as big a mess as the bad guys, but at least their hearts are in the right place." My planned defense of Fury and his phase 2 plan having been spoken, I was very uncomfortable with the stares from the four men in the room. "I just mean...violence never deters violence, but if you have no defense plan at all that's pretty stupid too."
"Defense plan? How are weapons like that a defense plan?" In so many ways you are correct, Banner, and in some ways you are so wrong.
"Aliens are at our door step. Not everything can be taken down by a single bullet."
A mental image of the Leviathans sent a shiver down my spine. Those things could cause a lot of damage. Despite this, if Thor didn't insist on taking the Tesseract back with him to Asgard, I would ask him to insist. The Tesseract was too powerful and would draw way too much unwanted attention if it stayed on Earth.
"Now, Director, can we move the staff to a more secure location and sick a couple guards on it? I'm sure Loki's rescue team will be arriving shortly. Doctor Banner? Could I speak to you for a moment?"
"Stark, Rodgers, with me, please." The two heroes followed the Director while Natasha, who had walked in while I was speaking, grabbed the staff. With everyone and the staff out of the lab and heading in opposite directions, I felt a lot better. Now I wondered if I could convince Banner to let the Hulk help with the aliens on Stark Tower.
"Doctor Banner, have you ever considered that if there was an alien army heading out of a portal, that the human lives you save might easily outweigh anyone you might hurt while being the Hulk? Add to that the fact that Hulk might not like being cooped up so long, and the longer you wait the worse he might be?" I had no idea if I was correct about the second question, but it was a reasonable inquiry. Banner was thoughtfully silent for a long moment before the ship lurched. "The cavalry has arrived for the opposing side!" Banner might have looked at me like I had lost my mind. At least he wasn't in danger of turning into the Hulk unwillingly. "Safest place is probably the control room. Do you know how to get there?"
"Umm..." I remembered he had been escorted to his lab, maybe even on the other side, so he didn't really know his way around.
"That's fine. Jarvis? If you're not too busy keeping Mr. Stark alive, could you tell me how to get to the control room?"
"Certainly, Miss Rachel." Thankfully we weren't too far from the room, though I think we took some detours for safety reasons. "Here you are, Miss Rachel."
"Thanks so much, Sir Jarvis." I carefully directed Banner to lean against the wall where we couldn't get shot at, then called into the room. "Rachel Christenson and Doctor Banner requesting permission to enter the control room." I didn't want to just walk in where the Director's sharp shooting skills could easily get me, but I didn't want to crouch in and raise suspicion and gunfire either.
"Permission granted," came the commanding voice of the Director. As we entered, Coulson, Director, and Banner all gave me strange looks.
"Better safe than sorry." I was just really glad Coulson was in the control room. That meant he wasn't doing something stupidly heroic.
"All hostile forces have been neutralized except one." You get three guesses for who it is, and the last two don't count. I was able to catch Coulson's eye and directed it to the hole in the wall where Clint had shown up in the movie. Coulson then directed several SHIELD agent's aim to that spot.
We waited several long moments before I remembered the true purpose of Clint's mission: free Loki. The distractions, taking down the helicarrier, and separating the Avengers was just hot fudge, caramel, and whipped cream on top of the ice cream. I took off for Loki's cage before my brain could catch up with my actions.
Since I was looking up, I somehow managed to see Hawkeye before he saw me. I quickly looked around for a way to contact someone. I was reaching into my pocket for my phone when, suddenly, I was gagged with a piece of cloth. As soon as I realized this wasn't a friendly action, I began violently flaying trying to hit my attacker. I began aiming more for the head, but Clint was behind me. He even managed to restrain my arms, so I began hitting my head backward with as much force as possible. He probably had a harder resistance to being knocked out that I did, but I just had to hope that it worked or that someone, hopefully Natasha, was coming.
He began moving to my side where my head could not hit him, so I changed tactics by stomping on each of his feet. That gave me enough of a distraction to hit him with my head one more time. Delay, delay, delay. I didn't have chance, but Natasha, or practically anyone else, did. Hopefully she came soon. Clint retaliated by giving my head a resounding smack. It was actually the first time he had attacked me. Hanging limply, I decided to pretend I was beaten. He moved back behind me and started moving me forward. Where were we going? I never was going to find out, because I attacked Clint with my head again. Growling, I felt Clint shove me forward. Thankfully, whatever was going to happen next was interrupted by a large pipe hitting Clint before he was shoved head first into the wall.
I let myself relax once I saw it was Natasha. With less adrenaline in my system though, my head was ringing painfully and my area of vision was dark around the edges. I blindly groped for the cloth covering my mouth while watching Natasha stand over Clint's unmoving body. Immense guilt for what I had done to both Clint and Natasha washed over me. It only increased when Natasha stooped to help me remove the gag. I raised my head from where it was resting on the floor so I could turn it to help her reach the knot better. My vision was getting even darker, so I dropped my head limply.
"Rachel, Rachel, you have to stay awake. You might have a concussion. Hey!" When did an assassin have to clap in my face to gain my attention? "Stay with me. Talk to me." The invitation opened the flood works.
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop it. It's all my fault."
"Nothing is your fault Rachel." How much more wrong could she get?
"I hurt Clint. I hurt him bad. It's my fault." Paramedics arrived and got me onto a stretcher. I wasn't much help and felt even more guilty as Natasha hovered over me instead of helping Clint who was being restrained to a stretcher behind her. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay. Let's talk about something else. Where's home?" She didn't seem to be paying attention to my apologies, so I answered her question.
"Alright spy, I'll play along. The south. Hot summers, nonexistent winters, and a big city where I didn't get an accent. The bible belt. The football fans are crazy back home."
"Which football fans?"
"All of them." She gave me a weird look and I wondered if I had heard her right. "Sunday night football is a big deal. Sundays should be more about church though."
"Church?"
"I'm Christian. The ladies there are so nice to me. I get so many hugs." I could use a hug right now. "I have this one friend who swings me around sometimes when we hug, just infrequently enough that it startles me. You know what really startled me? Agent Coulson turning up at my hotel. I was all like, what?" I sounded a little bit like a normal teenager for that last part.
"Agent Romanov?" Speak of the angel and he shall appear! Or was the quote devil? But that would be Thanos! "I'll take care of Rachel." Natasha disappeared from my view, and Coulson replaced her.
"Hello, Agent. That's not your first name though, even if Tony thinks it is. You're Phil the protector. Phil the daredevil. Phil the Director's right hand man. I shouldn't be calling you Phil." Was I speaking out loud or were these my thoughts? "Agent Coulson, was I speaking out loud?" When Coulson didn't respond right away, I was in some ways relieved and in others not. Then he spoke.
"Yes you were, Rachel. Make sure to get a CAT scan on her." A CAT scan? Did they have a mutant cat who was going to curl up by me? Okay, that thought was out there. Scrunching my eyes closed, I tried to organize my thoughts but was distracted by someone shaking me. "Rachel! You have to stay awake." Why did I have to stay awake? The alien invasion!
"The portal! Is everyone at the portal? Are they there to stop the aliens? Was the nuke approved? Are they alright?" The look Coulson was giving me told me I had done something wrong. "That's why I have to stay awake, right? To make sure everyone is safe?" Hesitantly he nodded and I felt like I had missed something. This feeling didn't go away as he turned and talked to the nurses. Stay awake. Stay awake. They might need you. Only you know how the movie went.
"Rachel?" Coulson was back. "You feel up to helping make sure everything goes according to plan?" Do I feel up to making sure no one died? Anytime, anywhere.
"Of course." He nodded stately, and I began being wheeled in another direction, probably the control room, to watch the ultimate showdown.