*I still own (drum roll) NOTHING! Sad but true*

Toni's Point of View

She relaxed her posture slightly, painting the picture of a man who didn't really care where his walk took him. Thor made to come towards her, contrition and guilt evident on his face but she beat him to the point though.

"Don't worry about it Fabio, you got a mean right hook." She shot off, wincing internally at the memory. She gave him a pat on the arm as she sauntered past him, trying her best to keep her back straight (but not too rigid) and not to wince. It wouldn't do for her to be showing signs of pain from no visible injury.

"It also means the portal can open for as long and as wide as Loki needs it,"

She strolled to the edge of Fury's crow's nest, noting that from this vantage point nothing could go on without him knowing about it. Figured, the guy had a control complex the size of New York.

"Master of all he surveys," she mumbled under her breath, just stopping herself from grinning at all the lovely and completely hack-able computers spread out before her like a picnic.

Like taking candy from a baby.

Toni had never really understood that saying. Why would you give a baby candy to begin with? Now, that sloppy, sweet smelling awfully lumpy baby-food…that was another matter… But then it didn't really trip off the tongue the same way.

Speaking of babies.

"Raise the mizzenmast, jib the top sails," she ordered, giving into the five year old that was always lurking near the surface. She swept her gaze over her 'crew', seeing most of them remaining fixed on their work while some threw her looks that told her more plainly than words what they thought of her…well, him. Something on a screen caught her eye.

She pointed.

"That man in playing Galaga," she announced obnoxiously loud and, using the hand that wasn't pointing the accusing finger she quickly planted the bug – pressing it beneath the desk and activating it - while everyone's eyes were either on her gesturing arm or on the culprit.

"He thought we wouldn't notice, but we did," she trailed off.

Her mission completed Toni began winding down the spectacle she was making of herself, fighting the blush that she could feel burning under the neckline of her shirt. Thankfully it wouldn't show up quite the same on her holographic face.

She studied the computer screens in front of her thoughtfully, lifting a hand to her left eye and then studying them again.

She really loved playing the little devil sometimes, even if it would embarrass the life out of her when she thought about it later.

"How does Fury even see these?" she tried to keep the smirk in her head and not on her face as she turned to Hill.

"He turns," the agent deadpanned, her arms crossed over her chest, her posture rigid.

I won't be getting in her way if bullets start to fly. I'll be at the top of her list on the 'accidental hit' list.

"Sounds exhausting," she muttered, spinning back to the screens and flicking at them in a way that everyone but her would see as pointless. Of course they didn't know that she had just created a lovely little crack in the system to make her babies work a little bit faster.

That's what she loved about people who thought they knew everything. They tended not to see the obvious or to think that someone wouldn't dare to have the audacity to do something as barefaced as she was. Like now. Here she was in a room filled with some of the most intelligent people on the planet (she had a feeling Fury would settle for nothing but the best) and yet she was getting away with treason.

She continued talking – almost to herself – to keep up the act that she wasn't really focusing on anything at all.

"Agent Barton can easily get hold of the rest of the raw materials. Now the power source of a high energy density that is going to be the hitch in the plan," One more thing – there!

"They'll need it to kick start the cube," she swiped a finger across the screen, planting a bored look on her face for show and spun to face the 'team' – she resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she scanned them all, the same way that she would an enemy.

Thor she had already met – it was obvious the guy loved his brother no matter what Loki had done. Capsicle (who was still in his superhero costume – didn't the guy own anything else?), she already knew pretty much everything about even down to his blood type, Natasha Romanoff…Toni still wasn't sure how she felt about the assassin come spy… and then there was him.

She was in the same room as one of her idols. She would love to corner Bruce Banners brain, get it drunk and just let it talk.

She stopped thinking and brought her mind back quickly to what she was saying.

"I'm thinking something bigger than an AA battery here guys," she folded her arms across her chest.

Silence.

"When did you become an expert of thermo-nuclear astrophysics?" Agent Hill asked cattily.

Meow! Put away the claws lady!

"Last night," she sneered back, with no guilt over her attitude. The doctor's papers had been an interestingly quick read to say the least. She looked away from Hill to see everyone sitting at the table staring at her looking confused. Well, everyone except for the standing Banner.

"The packet?" nothing "Selvig's notes? The extraction theory papers?" still no sign of recognition on anyone's face – again, except for Banner. She felt her anger begin to bubble at this. Seriously! They had no idea what they were actually going to be fighting for, or why? "Am I the only one who did the reading?"

Because if she was going to be used to go after someone she sure as hell wasn't going in blind and with no clue as to why.

Nothing.

Whatever anger driven comment that would have shot from her mouth at this revelation thankfully never happened at Capsicle decided to speak asking about the power source that was needed.

She concentrated on breathing as Dr Banner answered the questions flawlessly – although she doubted the Capsicle knew that what the doctor was saying was basically "HELL OF A LOT OF FIRE POWER!"

"He would have to heat the cube to 120 million kelvins just to break through the coulomb barrier," the quiet spoken man answered.

Toni thought she was going to either pass out or do a happy dance.

She decided on doing neither and seeing if the doctor really knew his stuff or if it was just a fluke.

"Unless," she piped in, "Selvig has figured out a way to stabiles the quantum tunnelling effect…" she began to walk towards Banner praying that it wasn't a fluke.

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor in the plant,"

Toni was in love!

"Finally," she gestured to the others – just remembering to stay in character "someone who speaks English,"

Toni was feeling to giddy to make any reply to Capsicle's "Is that was just happened?" comment and instead reached out to shake Dr Banner's hand.

Up close the man wasn't really anything special.

He was a bit shorter than Anthony Stark although as Toni Stark she figures she would come to just a little past his shoulder. He had the look of someone who had been living stressed for far too long…nervy. Seeming to try his best to make himself appear smaller than he was. She found herself wondering if his slightly greying roots were from age or a physical showing of mental and physical trauma.

"It's good to meet you Dr Banner," she fought to control the excitement in her voice. She was shaking the hand of one of the most intelligent men on the planet. In fact she had been shaking his hand for a little bit too long now.

Oops.

She dropped the hand.

"Your work on anti-electron collusions is unparalleled," she gushed knowing that she was going to say something embarrassing an minute now, "And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into a giant green rage monster,"

Yip, and there it was. It was an indisputable fact of the universe that when she was around people embarrassments would happen.

The poor man just looked at like she had lost her mind and then he seemed to decide on a bemused smile as he stuttered an "Ummm thanks," at her.

Could she have been anymore stupid!

But then again though it looked like the doctor needed to come to terms with his green other self.

Fury entering the room saved her from having to try and un-embarrass Bruce – thankfully, because she had the gut feeling she would have dug herself into a deeper hole and give everyone else more reasons to think that Anthony Stark was a complete and utter prat.

"Dr Banner is here purely to help with tracking the cube, I was hoping that you could help him,"

Yeah, sure, after I send you to Germany and put your shiny rocket-firing suit to use, Toni thought tetchily, but settled with throwing a mocking salute at murmuring "Aye, aye, captain,".

She made a point of looking at no one, knowing that there would be at least two people glaring at her in disapproval. Romanoff and Rogers. She wasn't all too sure about Thor or Banner but she preferred not to know right now.

"I would start with that stick of his," Capsicle piped in, helpfully.

You don't say Captain Lets Point out the-

Toni stopped herself then.

She really needed to make an effort to stop being so bitchy, even if it was just in her thoughts.

"It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon,"

Ok, I have to admit, his reasoning isn't too bad at all.

"I don't know about that, but it is being powered by the cube,"

Toni's mind immediately began to churn with ways that they could maybe use the staff to speed up the search for the Tesseract. If it was being powered by it there must be a connection. Maybe they could follow the link? If she could configure a scanner to –

"And I would like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys,"

Oh yeah. Meeting.

Her eyes darted about the room trying to get a fix on everyone's emotions. Romanoff's expression stuck out to her the most. It was only there for a second but long enough for Toni to know that the assassin was more affected by what was happening than what she was wanting everyone to know. She remembered the files and videos that Phil had brought her – was that only last night? – and knew that Romanoff must be close with the archer even if she didn't want to be. Life or death situations tended to do that to you…

She caught Thor moving out of the corner of her eye and switched her focus to him. The almost comical expression of confusion on his face had her wanting to giggle.

Mustn't have Wizard of Oz on his planet.

"Monkeys? I do not understand,"

The poor guy probably thought they had been literally magic-ed into something.

"I do!" Capsilcle announced, excited.

She felt a pang in her chest. The Capsicle had been launched into a whole new century with nothing – technology, sayings, nothing – being familiar. His happiness at hearing something he knew made her want to hug him.

But she didn't.

Because first and foremost, she still didn't like him all that much. And second, even the eccentric Tony Stark would get some funny looks if he threw his arms around Captain America in the middle of a briefing.

She crossed her arms over her chest – just in case.

"I understood that reference," Capsicle explained to the now silent team.

She rolled her eyes. If no one could join the dots and reach that conclusion themselves they were idiots.

Silence reigned for a few more seconds until she broke it by turning to Banner.

"Shall we play, doctor?" she grinned.

The scientist smiled back, and she was sure she saw a conspiratorial glint in his eye as he gestured to the hallway at their backs. Or it could have just been a trick of the light.

"This way sir,"

Hello everyone.

I am so sorry for the long wait. The past fortnight has just been HELL! But I won't bore you with the details (one word - FAMILY!).

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I know it stuck pretty much to the film but I hope I am making Toni enough of her own person to make it kind of new for you guys. I tried to make it clear that she isn't being totally blinded by her dislike for Steve and she can appreciate his situation. I hope that came across ok :)

I won't make any promises for when the next chapter will be out – might be tomorrow, might be next week or the week after. Things are just too crazy for me to say right now but I will be writing whenever I have the chance.

I have had a few comments/messages about what Captain Americas shield is made out of. I said adamantium as when I looked it up the article said it was made of an adamantium steel-vibranium alloy. Soooo yeah….

I hope you all have a good week!

Remember – Feedback makes the fairies happy :)