Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, they belong to Marvel (and Norse mythology :D). I am very sad about this, but I have borrowed them to write my own story.

AN: I have a new appreciation of the arms of the dude who plays Clint Barton, also of the muscles of Robert Downey Jr. Mojitos are fun.

Quote of the day:

Tony Stark: [reading the newspaper] "Iron Man. That's kind of catchy. It's got a nice ring to it. I mean it's not technically accurate. The suit's a gold titanium alloy, but it's kind of provocative, the imagery anyway."

Song of the day: 'Falling Away From Me' by Korn.

Warning: Bad language.

Chapter Ten – Radio Active.

Strangely Banner was more on edge once they reached the lab that had been set up and Tony found himself wondering just why he was trying to put the guy at ease. He settles back against a workbench and listened as Banner indicated to the equipment that had been provided by S.H.I.E.L.D. Tony shook off the ideas that bounced around his skull on how he could improve the tech and smiled winningly at the scientist.

"Please Banner," the scientist turned brown eyes to him and Tony found himself smiling naturally. The crooked turn of one side of his mouth obviously worked better than his full on charm as Bruce's shoulders dropped from his defensive posture. Tony swallowed. "You heard what I said to Fury didn't you?"

Banner grinned self-consciously, "I tried too, but my hearing isn't quite that good. Whatever you said had the good Captain staring at you open mouthed though."

Tony scrubbed at his hair, "Ah then forget I said anything then Banner, please."

"Of course," Banner smiled and Tony relaxed, "You said you wanted to see the lab, so why don't I give you a tour while we wait for Fury to decide we are responsible enough to actually use the sceptre to do our jobs?"

Tony found himself laughing, he really liked this guy. "Okay so show me."

It was only when he glanced at his watch he realised he spent half an hour talking to the scientist about nothing in particular. "Banner?"

"Yeah Stark," Tony chuckled as the response came out muffled by the pen the scientist had in his mouth.

"What idea are we using to calibrate the Tesseract's co-ordinates?"

"Well currently I have been using the information screened in by labs equipped with spectrometers." Banner looked up from his work and Tony perched on the bench next to him raising an eyebrow and making 'gimme more' hand signals. "I had them put the spectrometers on the roofs of the labs and calibrate them for gamma rays. I've managed to create an algorithm based off cluster recognition and what I have been able to access of Doctor Selvig's notes."

Tony found himself staring, open-mouthed at the now slightly blushing scientist, before he could gather his thoughts Banner shrugged slightly, "It isn't the best I know, but until I can get my hands on an exact frequency then it was the best I could do."

Tony cleared his throat and forced himself to focus. "Right and it took you turning up for any one in S.H.I.E.L.D. to actually think of doing that. What were they doing before using wirelessly accessible cameras?"

"Well…"

Tony groaned and hid his face in his hands. "Oh my god we have agreed to help imbecils." He heard the scientist shifting uncomfortably next to him and offered him a wry grin, "Don't worry Doctor, I would have probably taken until now to figure out that was what I needed to do." He sat up a bit straighter, "So do you have a map so we can rule out certain places to scan until the drones get here?"

Banner's smile was blinding and Tony smiled softly back pouring over the holographic map and checking co-ordinates given to him by the scientist. When the grunt given the duty of supplying them with the sceptre finally turned up they had managed to rule out a good quantity of Russia, the Middle East as well as China and Japan. Ninety percent of Europe and thirty percent of America and Canada had been eliminated, along with eighty percent of the Arctic and Antarctic Circle.

Tony's first indication was of someone else arriving was the scientist stiffening out of his easy slouch and the other male's shoulders hunching protectively. His second was a scent of gun metal that had him standing sharply and spearing the female who had delivered the sceptre with a harsh glare. What was Fury thinking sending one of his gun toting grunts in here with Banner? Apparently he needed to have another talk with the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He deliberately stepped in between Banner and the agent, breaking the gaze the young woman had on the scientist. She shrank back slightly under his glare and he gave her a quick once over to make sure no bare skin was touching the sceptre.

Satisfied he nodded and gestured at a work bench. "Put it there." He knew he sounded short but he was tired and the woman had single handedly managed to undo all his good work with the scientist. He blinked as he realised he was very protective of the man he had literally just met, but still kept his body between him and the agent's view. He nodded when she carefully placed the sceptre down and offered her a tight smile. "If Fury will allow it I would suggest you retire for the evening."

She offered him a sketchy salute and he frowned after her retreating form. Deciding to play it as if he hadn't noticed Banner's tension he walked over to where there was a supply of latex gloves. "Banner, we have a stand we can prop this up on before we start?"

The scientist's was nervous again when he replied, "Yeah here."

Tony snapped the latex gloves into place and picked up a pair of cotton ones to wear also, no way was he letting that thing near his skin. He glanced over to where Banner was as he pulled those on also and nodded, "That should be okay." He agreed, picking the sceptre up. "You okay to start running the algorithm program while I get this in place?" he wiggled his gloved fingers to indicate that the screens would recognise his touch in the gloves.

Banner nodded miserably and Tony mentally cursed. Huffing he hefted the sceptre, which was heavier than it looked and carefully set it up on the stand Banner had provided. He examined the equipment carefully and managed to get the tiny wires to attach to the sceptre, even as Bruce managed to get the algorithms under way. Finished with the set up Tony exchanged places with Banner and moved over to one of the screens.

When he next glanced up the scientist was running a handheld spectrometer over the sceptre, concentration clear on his face and his shoulders relaxing slightly. "The Gamma readings are definitely consistent to Slevig's reports on the Tesseract."

Turning back to the screen where the data was now flooding threw Tony offered an encouraging grunt to make the scientist keep talking. Banner took the bait, "But it is going to take weeks to process."

Tony scowled at the technology he had to work with before an idea hit him, "If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this at..." Tony paused and made sense of the readings he was getting. "…around six hundred teraflops."

Behind him he heard Banner snicker and glanced up in time to catch the shy smile the scientist threw him, "All I packed was a tooth brush."

Tony made a mental not to hand Fury his ass over how they had treated the scientist but managed to make an offer, "You know, you should come by Stark Towers sometime. Top ten floors, all R and D. You'd love it, its candy land."

He could hear Banner thinking behind him as the scientist moved to another workbench. "Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke...Harlem."

Tony classed that as a win because there was wry humour alongside the self conflagulation. An idea came to him and he wandered over to the scientist, scooping up a screwdriver as he went. "Well I promise a stress free environment. No tension. No surprises."

Mind made up at the scientists sad smile he ducked around behind him and jabbed him in the ribs with the screwdriver. Banner's surprised "Ow!" echoed slightly but Tony peered into the brown eyes.

"Seriously?" he groaned, "Nothing?"

He bit back a growl as an indignant voice sounded from the door way, "Hey! Are you nuts?"

God damn super soldier and his morals, but completely the wrong attitude to how to treat Banner. He supposed he couldn't fully blame the man as he was only following on S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol and probably thought he was protecting the scientist, but Banner was tensing up again and Tony was now the one close to losing his temper.

He forced himself to peer at Banner again before turning away to rummage through his rucksack that had magically appeared. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"

Banner's grin lit up the lab, only to dim as Captain America once again spoke. "Is everything a joke to you?"

He decided the super soldier was only being so antagonistic because of whose son he was and played casual. "Only the funny things," he joked pointing the screwdriver at the man, fake smile firmly in place.

Banner was still beside him, but had stopped tensing up so he wasn't offended by Tony's actions. The Captain's next words were a different matter however, "Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, doctor."

Tony repressed a groan and an eye roll and determinedly opened a bag of dried cranberries even as Banner seemed to ready himself for his own type of fight. "No, it...it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."

Tony did groan at that and he pointed the screwdriver at Banner, "You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut."

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark." Tony tightened his grip on the bag and screwdriver in his hands. Captain America was seriously getting on his last nerve.

It was probably a good job he wasn't the one who turned into a giant green rage monster. He was focused on the damn problem and just because he could also think of other things didn't mean he didn't know that this was serious. They had an alien god-being in the cell the damn people had built for Banner, and probably shown him, with said god's brother torn between being protective and murderous. On top of that they were risking an alien invasion that could theoretically wipe out the human race. That he was for once playing nicely with others and well meaning, but miss-directed people kept spoiling his plans was not helping his blood pressure.

For a moment he tasted coconut and metal before turning his back on the super soldier and once again wandering behind Banner. "You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

Tony knew he was rambling, but the light that shone in Banner's eyes at his words told him that he probably wasn't being as paranoid as he was wont to. Captain America's baby blue eyes went wide, "You think Fury's hiding something?"

He didn't need Banner's discrete nudge to understand if he caught the Captain's interest the man would go exploring himself. "He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets."

He pointed at Banner ignoring the Captain's look, "It's bugging him too, isn't it?"

Banner swallowed and acted nervous, but Tony had catalogued al his tells and was merely impressed by the man's acting. "Uh...I just wanna finish my work here and..."

Captain America obviously bought it for he cut through Banner's ramblings with an almost harsh tone. "Doctor?"

Tony met Banner's eyes and silently offered him encouragement. The scientist sighed and pulled his glasses off, rubbing his nose in a nervous, but irritated manner. "Fine. 'A warm light for all mankind to share', Loki's jab at Fury about the cube."

The Captain responded and Tony felt his eyes widen even as he turned his full attention to the conversation, "I heard it."

Tony finally put the pieces together as Banner pointed at him. "Well, I think that was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't say anything it was posted all over the news." Tony offered the scientist a cranberry and Banner grabbed a handful.

Rolling his eyes mentally as he realised he had found someone else who forgot to eat Tony turned to a frowning Captain America who was babbling. "The Stark Tower? That big ugly..." Tony glared at him and the Captain swallowed, "building in New York?"

Banner mumbled around a mouthful of cranberries and Tony offered the bag again as the scientist talked, "It's powered by Stark Reactors, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?"

Tony forced a wide grin back as Banner's attention switched back to him, "That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."

Banner gestured, sounding more slurred as he relaxed, "So why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

Tony hid a grin as he walked around the workbench to the Captain's side, "I should probably look into that once my decryption programme finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files."

Tony let the grin go as the Captain stuttered and Banner snickered, "I'm sorry did you say…?"

Deciding to take pity on the morally struggling soldier Tony offered an explanation, "Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever tried to hide."

The man merely stood up straighter was he offered him a cranberry, "Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around?"

Tony sighed heavily and exchanged glances with Banner who rolled his eyes and returned to work on the sceptre. "An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically not possible."

Captain America drew himself up further and Tony found himself feeling short. "I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them."

"Following is not really my style." He mentally winced as he let the words out.

"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Apparently the Captain has sass hidden somewhere and Tony forced himself to smirk.

"Of the people in this room, which one is; a) wearing a spangly outfit, and b) not of use?"

Banner huffed a small laugh at Tony's response, but tried to be the voice of reason. "Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?"

The supper soldier shot Tony a venom filled glare before he turned to Banner, "Just find the cube."

Tony stared after the retreating blue back, even as Banner flapped behind him, "That's the guy my dad never shut up about? Wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."

Tony was relieved when Banner didn't comment on his tone of voice. "The guy's not wrong about Loki, he does have the jump on us."

Tony rolled his eyes at that and leant against the workbench for a few moments rubbing his hands over his face and hair. "Urgh," he found himself muttering as he headed for another screen, "What he's got is an ACME dynamite kit. It's gonna blow up in his face, and I'm gonna be there when it does."

"And I'll read all about it." Banner sounded so sure he wasn't wanted, couldn't be of use that Tony forgot that the set of Captain America's jaw had meant the super soldier would be investigating.

"Uh huh," he agreed, "Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us."

Banner was silent for a second and Tony wondered if he'd played it wrong, "Ah, see. I don't get a suit of armour. I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare."

Oh cry me a fucking river, Tony found himself thinking and decided to give Banner a short history lesson. "You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel, trying every second to crawl its way into my heart." He tapped the slight glow that could be see through his two t-shirts, walking over to make eye contact with the scientist. "This stops it. This little circle of light. It's part of me now, not just armour. It's a terrible privilege."

Banner looked over at him, calculating and cautious, "But you can control it!"

Well statements Tony could work with, "Yes because I learnt how. This goes Banner I die."

Tony felt a twinge of guilt when Banner turned back to his screen, hiding the flash of sadness in his brown eyes. He nearly missed the response, "It's different."

Tony snarled, "Hey," he snapped flinging the information away from the centre of the screen and forcing Bruce to focus on him alone. "I've read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you."

Brown eyes became disbelieving, "So you're saying that the Hulk, the other guy, saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Save it for what?"

Tony didn't miss the flinch the scientist made at saying the name of his alter ego and so forced himself to step away and study his own data again, "I guess we'll find out."

Banner seemed almost thoughtful as he replied, "You may not enjoy that."

Tony grinned at the data, "You just might."

Silence, other than the beeping of the tech surrounding them and yet Tony felt that it was more of an easy silence than they had had before. He hoped Banner would think on his words, the man needed to believe in himself and he needed S.H.I.E.L.D. off his back. The only way he would do so was to finally stand up for himself. Tony rubbed his eyebrow as he worked, eyes skittering about the data, he still didn't understand why he was so drawn to the scientist, nor why he was so protective, but Banner was a good guy and he clearly needed a friend.

The blue of one of the graphs he was staring at reminded him of Loki's eyes and he huffed as the Asgardrian found his way into his thoughts again. He mentally shook himself, wondering momentarily if the so-called god could offer mind control through his armour. "Stop being stupid!" he muttered under his breath and Banner huffed a laugh behind him.

"Our Asgardrian friend giving you a headache as well?"

Tony turned and leant against the workbench. "I want to punch him and yet he intrigues me."

Banner's brown eyes met him in amusement. "The other guy doesn't like him," he admitted softly.

Tony raised an eyebrow at the admission and thought that perhaps trying to set the other male at ease would be worth it, "So what we can't find this thing I lock you in a room with him and we get the answers that way."

Banner laughed, "Well it would be worth the thirty thousand foot drop."

Tony managed to force a laugh and throw a pen at the scientist before he turned around and glowered at the screen in front of him. Damn Fury showing him the bloody thing. His hands curled into fists and he really hoped Jarvis' scan or Captain America's search turned something up. Bloody man needed bringing down a peg or two.

AN: Please leave me a review and let me know what you think.