"So, what exactly are you going to do to me?" Beatrice asked as she sat on top of one of the tables in the lab looking room. Tony was swiping his hand over the holographic screen while looking over something science related while Doctor Banner walked over to Beatrice with a syringe in his hand.
"No need to worry, Miss. Babino. I just want to figure out how you came to have your powers. I'll just be taking some blood, that's it." Doctor Banner explained. Beatrice looked at the syringe and then was taking off her leather jacket when Tony took this moment to speak up.
"Miss Babino?"
"Its my name; Beatrice Babino."
"Huh, I'm gonna start calling you Babs now."
"Alrighty," Beatrice smiled before looking back at Doctor Banner, "Whenever you're ready Doctor Banner."
Said doctor nodded and walked over to Beatrice and grabbed her arm, "You can call me Bruce, I think we've crossed that line when I told you I was gonna take your blood."
"Then you can call me Beatrice, Miss. Babino makes me sound like I'm some spinster school teacher." Bruce chuckled as the needle point went into the girl's arm. Beatrice was looking away from her arm to Tony who was working, but then whipped her head back to her arm when Bruce gasped quite loudly. Tony also heard and walked over and his jaw dropped slightly. The three of them watched as Beatrice's blood would be sucked into the syringe and appear silver in color before quickly fading and turning to the basic red color. Bruce removed the syringe from Beatrice's arm and quickly gave her a small stack of gauze to cover the opening that was already starting to bleed slightly.
"What did we just watch?" Beatrice asked, pressing the gauze to her arm. Bruce walked away to his table to where Loki's staff was perched while also analyzing the blood with his eyes.
"Has that ever happened before?" Tony asked.
Beatrice shook her head, "No, not that I've ever noticed."
"Beatrice, how much do you use your powers on a regular basis?" Bruce asked.
"Um...Very rarely to be honest. I use it maybe once a month just so I don't get rusty."
"Pun intended?" Tony smirked as it took Beatrice a moment to get what she said. Once she did, she laughed and shook her head.
"Maybe because you have been using your powers more excessively than before, it's having an effect on you at a cellular level. I'll definitely do some tests once this is all over."
"Alright. So what's going on with Loki's staff?" Beatrice asked. Bruce carefully put down Beatrice's vile of blood and then started to scan the scepter with some bent looking wand.
"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But it's gonna take weeks to process." Bruce explained. Tony walked back over to his screens and started getting back to what he was doing before being distracted.
"If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops." Tony said, still staring at his screen.
"All I packed was a toothbrush." Bruce said from his place near the staff, making Tony laugh. Beatrice smiled as well, knowing the feeling of not wanting to be in this situation for too long.
Tony had finished what he was looking for and then walked over to Bruce and Beatrice, saddling up next to Bruce, "You know, you should come by STARK TOWERS sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land."
"Thanks, but last time I was in New York I kind of broke...Harlem."
"Well, I promise a stress free environment. No tension. No surprises." And just as he left the sentence hanging, Tony shocked Bruce with some electrical rod. Bruce yelled out in slight pain and Beatrice's eyes widened, she had forgotten for a minute about "the other guy".
"Nothing?" Tony asks, but is interrupted by another voice.
"Hey, are you nuts?" Beatrice turned her body around to see Steve walk through the door and into the room, a angry frown etched on his face.
"You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?" Tony prodded, making Steve's anger bubble.
"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked.
"Funny things are."
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny." Steve said, but then looked over to Bruce to quickly add, "No offense, doctor."
"No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." Bruce explained.
"You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut." Beatrice watched as Tony was easily getting on Steve's nerves with him avoiding the actual conversation and his sarcasm. She liked both Tony and Steve, so she didn't speak up during their little squabble. She wasn't going to pick sides.
"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark."
"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."
"What are you getting at Tony?" Beatrice asked, finally getting in on the conversation.
"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve asked lowly, his voice barely a mumble.
Tony kept explaining while also eating some snack from a bag, "He's a spy. Captain, he's a spy. His secrets have secrets. Tell me you haven't noticed anything Babs." Beatrice watched as Bruce and Steve both looked at her, Bruce eventually looking away to get back to work but Beatrice could tell he was still listening.
"I-I hadn't really put that much thought into it. Director Fury told me everything about why I'm here when we first got here."
"Really?" Beatrice nodded at Tony, his look of not believing what she said pretty much written on his face in caps.
"Yeah, he wanted to recruit me to S.H.I.E.L.D. He thought that when all this crap happened with Loki and the Tesseract, it was a good time to finally approach me about it." Beatrice explained. Steve nodded and turned back to Tony with a raised eyebrow that said 'well?' Tony quickly looked over to Bruce before slightly shouting,
"It's bugging him too, isn't it?"
Bruce looked up from his work to see everyone in the room looking at him, "Um... I just want to finish my work here and-"
"Doctor." Steve cut him off. Bruce took a breath before taking off his glasses.
"'A warm light for all mankind', Loki's jab at Fury about the cube."
"We heard it."
"Well, I think that was meant for you." Bruce said, pointing to Tony who held out his bag of food to the doctor, "Even if Barton didn't post that all over the news."
"The STARK TOWER ? That big, ugly-" Tony gave Steve a look before he started to continue, "building in New York?"
"It's powered by Stark Reactors, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?" Bruce asked Tony. Tony nodded before explaining to Steve.
"That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."
Bruce pointed at Tony again asking, "So, why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place"
"I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secure files." Tony said offhandedly, which caught Steve's attention.
"I'm sorry, what did you say-" Steve ended getting cut off by Tony.
"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." Tony strutted over to Steve, his overconfidence overflowing as he held out his bag to Steve, "Blueberry?"
"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around?" Steve asked when he didn't accept the fruit. Tony shrugged before offering Beatrice as well. She shook her head at the offer, not really in the mood to eat while discussing the possibility of conspiracy with S.H.I.E.L.D.
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not possible."
"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 isn't really my style." Tony said. Steve smiled sarcastically before replying,
"And you're all about style, aren't you?" That seemed to hit a small nerve with Tony, who got up a bit in Steve's face.
"Of the people in this room, which one is; A. wearing a spangly outfit, and B. not of use?"
Bruce spoke up, trying to get everyone to just get on some form of the same page, "Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" Steve was quiet for a couple seconds before looking back at the other men in the room.
"Just find the cube." And with that, Steve walked out of the room. Beatrice watched him leave and kept an eye on the door for a little bit longer before jumping down from the table and throwing out the gauze she had been keeping pressed to her arm. She quickly grabbed her jacket and started to put it on as she walked out of the room as well. Beatrice looked both ways down the hall before catching a small flash of blue turn a corner. She ran down the hall following the color and soon caught up to Steve who was walking with a purpose.
"Steve, wait up!" Beatrice called out, getting the large man to stop and wait for her. She finally caught up to him and the two started making their way down the corridor. "Do you think there is something up with why we're here?"
"I don't know, something Doctor Banner said made a bit of sense. I just want to check it out for myself."
"Well, I'll help. Mainly because I have nothing else to do and I'm kinda bored." Steve sent a small smile her way before his face grew serious as they neared a door labeled, SECURE STORAGE 10-C. "Be my look out, alright?"
Beatrice nodded and turned around to watch for any agents coming around towards them. Beatrice heard the groan of metal and Steve grunting as he tried to pry open the door. Getting a little fidgety, Beatrice jumped on the balls of her feet until she heard a loud cluck of the door opening. She turned just as Steve got the door open enough for the both of them to get inside. Beatrice looked around as she walked into the room; it smelt of dust and old paper, something that reminded her of her old home with Nana and Pops.
Silver crate-like containers were stacked throughout the room and there seemed to be no one around, which was fairly odd. Steve was right behind Beatrice, looking around and noticing a second level to the room with more crates. Steve got Beatrice's attention quietly, just in case there was a guard posted somewhere in the room and pointed to the second level. The two walked over and looked up, wondering how they were going to get up there.
"I got an idea." Steve whispered. Beatrice nodded for him to continue but Steve just laced his fingers together to make a foot hold for her foot. "I'll give you a boost."
"You sure?"
"Positive." Beatrice looked a bit unsure before nodding and getting her balance and her foot locked in Steve's hands. Quick enough, Steve's strength threw Beatrice up and she grabbed onto the railing before pulling herself over to safety. Steve then took a few steps back before easily jumping up and climbing over like Beatrice did. Beatrice was a bit shocked at how easily Steve was able to get up to her, but she just rolled her eyes playfully and whispered, "Show-off" before walking down the second level with Steve following with a shy but playful smirk.
They walked around for a bit longer; opening a couple more cases before coming to one labeled only with a year, 1945. Steve slowly opened it up and sucked in a breath at what was inside. There were masks and files set inside, but what caught Beatrice's attention was the large gun with the stamp of a skull and tentacles coming out from underneath it.
"What is all this?" Beatrice asked, looking over to Steve who hadn't looked away from the weapons.
"The secret Fury was keeping from us."
chapter done! please please PLEASE COMMENT! i really want to know how i did and if it came out good.