"I don't understand. What is all this?"
Beatrice was still looking at what her and Steve had uncovered in the storage room. The odd badge on the large gun is what confused her the most; not knowing what the badge was from.
"Back during the war, u-um World War II, there was a branch of the German military called HYDRA. They took soldiers and for experimentation, and used the Tesseract for their nefarious plans to rule the world." Steve explained. He had started pacing in front of the confused Beatrice and kept his eyes from looking inside the case. "Their leader, Red Skull, was subjected to the same serum that made me how I am."
"The super-soldier serum?"
"Yes. But because of the evil present in his mind, the serum made them worse and he became the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s number one enemy."
"What happened to him?" Beatrice asked, getting Steve to stop from his pacing.
"He decided to hold the Tesseract and the power was just too much for his body to take. He disintegrated minutes before I got trapped in the ice."
Widening her eyes, Beatrice looked shocked at Steve mentioning when he was frozen. She had bits when they had met from Phil but didn't really understand the story. "Maybe that's another story for another time." She said, making Steve look at her with a nod and then go back to looking at the case.
"I thought I was done dealing with HYDRA after I woke up." Steve mumbled to himself. Beatrice looked at him quickly before looking back at the box; her heart going out to the soldier.
"What do we do now?" She asked. Out of her peripheral vision, she was Steve's shoulders square out and stiffen, then he grabbed the large gun. "Steve?"
"Now we get answers." He said, walking away from Beatrice. Still confused, Beatrice took a beat before following Steve out of the room and back into the lab where Fury, Tony and Bruce were talking.
"What's Phase 2?" Tony asked just as the two heroes walked through the doorway and Steve slammed the gun down on the table; catching everyone's attention. Beatrice walked over to Bruce's side feeling much calmer around the doctor, not wanting to get involved with what was about to happen.
"Phase 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the cube to make weapons. Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow for me."
Fury walked over to Steve, trying to explain to the captain, "Rogers, we gather everything related to the Tesseract. That does not mean that we're-"
"I'm sorry Nick," Tony speaks up, turning his screen to the director, "What were you lying?"
"I was wrong Director; the world hasn't changed a bit." Steve said. Thor and Agent Romanoff then walked into the room, catching the last of what was being discussed.
"Did you know about this?" Bruce asked Agent Romanoff. She didn't even take a second to think before responding.
"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?"
"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed."
"Loki's manipulating you."
Beatrice's eyes widened and looked over to Bruce who still had his eyes on Agent Romanoff, "And you've been doing what exactly?"
"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."
"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy. I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."
"Because of him." Fury pointed to Thor, who was one of the only ones not speaking up until now.
"Me?" he asked, a bit shocked.
"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." Fury explained.
"That's what you?" Beatrice asked. Thor's eyes met hers before trying to speak.
"My people want nothing more than peace with your planet." He explained, still looking at Beatrice. Ever since he threw her out of the quin-jet, Beatrice had not felt remotely comfortable being in the same room as him; let alone trying to speak to him.
Fury cut in getting Thor's attention back onto the S.H.I.E.L.D. director, "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."
"Like you controlled the cube?" Steve asked.
"You're 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, talking about the cube.
"A higher form?"
"You forced our hand." Fury said back to Thor, "We had to come up with something."
"Nuclear deterrent. `Cause that always calms everything right down." Beatrice rolled her eyes when Tony responded. She started to space out of the argument, feeling like she really didn't have a say in how anything happens. Not only being the lowest on the totem pole of heroes here, she also hasn't had enough experienced to give her two sense. It wasn't until she caught sight of the giant blue gem in Loki's staff, which was glowing brighter as the everyone else kept arguing. Agent Romanoff was right; only it wasn't just Bruce he was manipulating.
It was everyone.
"Always a way out... You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero." Steve said, getting Beatrice to look up and see that him and Tony were almost chest to chest, anger rolling off them in waves.
"A hero? Like you? You're a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle!"Tony countered, getting even more into Steve's face and under his skin.
"Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds."
Thor laughed, not relieving any of the tense atmosphere in the room, "You people are so petty...and tiny."
"ENOUGH!"
Everyone stopped their arguing and looked at the small 5'3" woman who had slammed her silver fist down on the counter near the staff. Beatrice met everyone's eyes before removing her hand from the cluster of broken glass she made when breaking the table.
"You are all idiots."
"What?" Tony asked, finally removing himself from Steve.
"You want to reword that, Ms. Babino?" Fury asked the hero. Beatrice looked at him before shaking her head.
"No, you. Are. All. Idiots." She said again, walking to stand before all of them. "You're all letting Loki into your minds and manipulate you. He's forcing your anger for the littlest things to come out and direct them towards everyone here."
"Littlest things? The safety of the Earth is considered a little thing?" Fury asked with anger woven in his voice, but Beatrice backed down.
"No, but you're not even talking about that anymore! Tony and Steve are about to pull out their dukes and fight right here, you and Goldilocks over there are just passing back sassy remarks. The only ones not really being affected by this are me and Agent Romanoff."
"And what about me?" Bruce asked, still angry.
"You being affected the most. Loki knows what you can do and being in this room filled with all this anger and frustration is not good for you." Beatrice turned to the doctor and explained. But that didn't seem to relax him or get him to leave.
"Where do you expect me to go? They rented my room."
"The cell was for just in case..." Fury said.
"In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know! I tried!"
There was a beat of stunned silence before Bruce continued on in a more somber voice, "I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out." He looked at Tony and Steve before continuing on in a louder voice, getting angry once again, "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!"
Everyone watched as Bruce had picked up the staff; him now looking at Agent Romanoff, "You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?"
"Doctor Banner...put down the scepter." Steve ordered, slowly approaching the man in question. Bruce looked down at his hand that held the staff and looked absolutely shocked that he had picked it up and not noticed, but before anything else could go on, something beeped in the room.
"Got it." Tony said as Bruce put down Loki's staff and goes to the computer screen.
"Sorry kids, you don't get to see my little party trick after all." Bruce said.
"You located the Tesseract?" Thor asked as everyone followed Bruce to the computer.
"I can get there faster." Tony pipped in.
"Look, all of us-"
"The Tesseract belongs to Asgard, no human is a match for it."
Tony turned to get his suit, but Steve yelled at him getting him to stop, "You're not going alone."
"You gonna stop me?"
"Put on the suit, lets find out."
"I'm not afraid to hit an old man."
"Oh my god." Bruce whispered to himself, and before Beatrice could ask what was wrong, an explosion went rocked through the Helicarrier. Steve and Tony dropped near the doorway, Fury and Thor not that far from them. Bruce and Agent Romanoff ended up flying through the glass pane behind them and Beatrice got thrown to the glass cabinet filled with vials, shattering most of what was there.
Beatrice looked up once she got her bearings to Thor, who was one of the first to get up, and offered his hand, "Are you alright?"
"Peachy." Beatrice said before ignoring his hand and getting up herself.
"Put on the suit!"
"Yep!"
hey all, so yeah it's been a while since i posted. sorry for that. I've been so busy since school is now winding down and teachers love layering on the work at the end of the year, but i hope this is okay. if you noticed i took out the bit in the last chapter of steve asking out beatrice. it looked so unnatural and not steve, it was way too soon for that. just a small explaination
please comment your thoughts :)