A/N: You guys never cease to amaze me. Thanks, y'all. :) And to answer a couple questions asked, no, Amrita is not Asgardian...however, she is based off of a different culture's mythology... Aaaand that's enough clues for now! If my chapters continue to go the way I'm planning there should be answers to any questions of her past/origin in chapter 11 and/or 12.

Bit of a longer chapter this time 'round.

I don't own Marvel/The Avengers. Sadface.

Amrita sat in her office, fiddling with her stethoscope. It was a much slower day than it had been the day before, and she found herself growing restless. All the free time only allowed her mind to wander back to the conversation she had had with Loki in her dream last night. He had called her Garuda—eagle. She shook her head, confused.

Just who the hell was she?

Sighing, she hooked her stethoscope back around her neck and placed the sign in the door saying she had gone for a break. It wasn't quite ten o'clock in the morning, but she already felt like she was ready to call it a day.

Amrita went to the cafeteria and got two chai teas and, in the spur of the moment, grabbed a peach for Bruce. Who knew how long he and Tony had 'played' last night, or if they'd even stopped to take a rest. If they hadn't, she knew whose ass she was going to light on fire, and it wasn't Bruce's.

Amrita rolled her eyes when she saw that the two men were both engrossed in a number of holographic screens that displayed a bunch of numbers and graphs. She couldn't have deciphered what they all meant if her life depended on it, but the two of them seemed quite interested in what the screens had to say. She knocked on the glass, causing both of them to turn. Tony gave her a suspicious look, but Bruce smiled and opened the door for her, seeing that her hands were full.

"You know, I did actually eat breakfast this morning," he said amusedly as he took the fruit and tea meant for him from her hands.

She gasped playfully and clasped her hand over her heart.

"Bless my soul! Miracles do come true," she said, then asked sternly, "but did you manage to get some sleep last night?"

He rolled his eyes. "Six hours. Scout's honor," he said, holding up his hand.

Tony raised an eyebrow at the two of them and their joking banter.

"Oh sure, when I need genuine medical attention she tries to turn me into Korean barbecue but with you she's Doctor Snuggles."

Amrita gave him a death glare, while Bruce's lips twitched upward in an amused smile.

"Well, Tony, you do have a bit of an…abrasive personality."

Amrita snorted. "That's a gentle way of saying, you're a jackass."

Bruce chuckled. Tony did not.

"Wow. Aren't you just a great big ball of sunshine," he said sarcastically. Amrita tried to smile at the annoying billionaire, but ended up looking like she was baring her teeth more than anything.

"I'm surprised you can see any light that far up your rectum," she sassed back.

"Whoa, children," Bruce said, stepping in as the mediator before things got too out of hand. "Play nice. I don't know about you two, but I don't think most of the people on this ship would appreciate it if you made daddy angry," he said, gesturing to himself when he said 'daddy'.

"Huh. Yeah, I guess," Stark said.

Amrita nodded as well, though she was confused as to why making Bruce angry bore any significance to any of the SHIELD agents on the helicarrier. She supposed it had to do with the whole 'enormous green rage monster' remark Tony had made to Bruce the night before that she hadn't had a chance to ask the man about yet.

Tony moved over to the workspace next to Bruce, who had turned back to the computer screen and was looking at a sort of information that made her brain hurt just trying to process it. Tony picked up some sort of metal object and examined it. Without warning, he prodded Bruce in the side with it, and Amrita heard the zap of electricity as Bruce jumped, looking surprised but otherwise unscathed. A good thing, Amrita thought, because Stark got on her nerves so much she probably would've used it as an excuse to maim the man if he'd actually injured the mellow scientist.

Bruce turned an annoyed glare on Tony.

"Ow!"

Tony frowned. "Nothing?"

Steve pushed through the lab door, the angry look on his face making it pretty obvious that he had seen the childish stunt that Tony had pulled.

"Hey! Are you nuts?" he demanded of the sarcastic billionaire.

Tony just shrugged, talking to Bruce as though Steve hadn't even come in.

"You really have got a lid on it, haven't you?" he said with an amused look. "What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"

Tony's questions just proved to make Steve even angrier. Amrita couldn't help but note that the man seemed very concerned. Apparently this whole 'rage monster' thing was more of a serious issue than Stark's offhand comments had led her to believe. Her brow furrowed as she silently watched the back-and-forth between the three men.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve demanded of Tony.

Tony pretended to think for second before replying smartly, "Funny things are."

Steve looked almost shocked at Tony's gall, but he quickly gathered his wits again. "Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny." He snapped, before saying somewhat sheepishly to Bruce, "Sorry, doctor."

Bruce shook his head. "No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come on this ship if I couldn't handle pointy things."

Tony rolled his eyes. "You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut."

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," Steve said disapprovingly.

Tony's eyebrows shot up. "You think I'm not?" He scoffed a bit. "Why did Fury call us, and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us?" he said, waving the electrical prod to accentuate his point. "I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve asked, narrowing his eyes a bit.

Amrita resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Steve was certainly a soldier, dedicated to following orders without question; that was for sure. She had come on board to help out, but she was fairly certain that Fury had an agenda, despite that she didn't know what it was yet. Secret government officials such as him almost always did, in her experience. She sat herself down on the nearest chair, interested in hearing if Stark had any theories about Fury. Despite that she despised the man and his sarcastic attitude, she couldn't deny that he seemed quite intelligent.

Tony gave Steve an 'are-you-serious' look.

"He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets," he emphasized, pointing over at Bruce. "It's bugging him too, isn't it?"

Bruce looked surprised and highly uncomfortable at being put on the spot so suddenly. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times before stammering out, "Uh…I just…wanna finish my work here, and…"

"Doctor?" Steve asked, giving him a questioning look.

There was a moment of silence, and Amrita looked at Bruce curiously. Surely he must have suspected something, as well. After all, it would have been odd if such an intelligent man as he were to trust a spy, of all people, not to be hiding something. Whether or not that something were detrimental to them would be the major question, she thought.

Bruce frowned.

"'A warm light for all mankind'. Loki's jab at Fury about the cube," he said, taking his glasses off and folding them in his hands.

Steve nodded. "I heard it."

"Well, I think that was meant for you," Bruce said, pointing at Tony. "Even if Barton didn't post that all over the news."

Steve pursed his lips in distaste. "Stark Tower? That big ugly…" his eyes darted over to Tony, who was giving him the stink-eye, and he decided against using the term he'd intended to use, "…building in New York?"

Bruce gave a vaguely amused look at Steve's quick save. "It's powered by Stark Reactors, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?"

Tony nodded. "That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."

Bruce gestured to Tony. "Exactly. 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 gave a thoughtful look. "I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files."

Steve looked taken aback, and even Amrita had to raise an eyebrow at that. The sly devil, she thought. When had he managed to do that? And how in the world had SHIELD not noticed it? Apparently they weren't quite as advanced as they gave off the vibe of being. Either that, or Tony was a hell of a lot smarter than he had the tendency to act.

"I'm sorry, did you say…?"

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge," Tony said nonchalantly, cutting Steve off in mid-sentence. "In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide." He produced a bag of blueberries that he had been snacking from, offering them to Steve, who refused, then to Bruce. "Blueberry?"

Bruce took a handful, nodding his thanks.

"I'd offer you some, Dr. Grumpypants, but I'm worried you'd poison them at the same time," he said sarcastically. "Besides, I don't really feel like making the effort of walking all the way over there just to make nice," he said, gesturing at the five feet between the workstation he was at and where Amrita sat at a separate counter space. She rolled her eyes, but didn't comment.

Steve shook his head at Tony. "Really. Yet you're confused about why they don't want you around?"

Tony raised an eyebrow at the comment. "An intelligence organization that fears intelligence?" he said. "Historically…not awesome."

Steve frowned. "I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed," he pressed, trying to make Tony see things his way. "We have orders. We should follow them."

Tony gave him an unimpressed look. "Following isn't really my style."

Steve returned his look with a sarcastic smile. "Right. And you're all about style, aren't you?"

Amrita leaned forward on her elbows, propped up on the counter in front of her, eyes intent on Steve and Tony. It was like watching a tennis match, the two trading snide comments as the tension built between them. She glanced at Bruce, and saw him standing rigid at his work station, trying resolutely to work on whatever it was he was working on and ignore the two bickering next to him, and failing miserably. He glanced over at her and gave her an exasperated look. She shrugged, silently saying she wasn't sure what she could do, if anything, and gave him a pitying look. He replied with an annoyed look and went back to looking at the screen in front of him.

Amrita could see clearly that Steve's comment had hit a nerve. Tony quickly covered it up with more sarcasm.

"Of all the people in this room," he said, "which of us is: A, wearing a spangly outfit; and B, not of use?"

Bruce, apparently unable to let the bickering continue, cut in before Steve could shoot back another snarky comment.

"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" he asked, hoping to divert the argument before it dissolved into fisticuffs. Having a brawl happen right next to him was definitely something he did not need with his condition.

Steve was quiet for a moment, looking pensive. He shook his head, though, and frowned at the two scientists.

"Just find the cube," he all but snapped, quickly striding out of the lab, the door closing just a little too quietly for it to be qualified as being slammed shut.

Tony pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes at the door that Steve had just left through.

"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" he said, sounding unimpressed. "Wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."

Bruce furrowed his brow. "He's not wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us."

Tony snorted. "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," Bruce said mildly.

Tony raised his eyebrows at the comment. "Uh-huh. Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us."

Bruce gave a wistful look. "Ah, see, I don't get a suit of armor," he corrected. "I'm exposed—like a nerve. It's a nightmare."

Amrita was listening intently to the conversation despite the fact that Tony made it a point not to speak to her, and Bruce was trying to split his attention so that he could work at the same time. As Tony opened his mouth to reply, though, she felt herself falling. It was the oddest sensation—and yet it was familiar to her. She'd had it several times throughout the years, as she recalled. It was almost as though she were being pulled away to another plane, as she saw herself sitting on the chair in the lab as she fell back and away, her surroundings fading to black, small specks of light appearing. Stars, she figured. That was what they looked like, anyway. She could never quite tell. It was as though she were looking at things through a dirty glass, smudged with fingerprints.

She could hear muffled voices: one male, one female. The male sounded determined about something, while the female sounded like she was trying to dissuade the male about whatever it was they were talking about. She thought she could make out the words 'search' and 'dimensions', but with how warped and muted the voices sounded, she couldn't quite be sure. The muffled voices were familiar, though. She had heard them some of the other times she'd been pulled here, though they'd never given any indication that they noticed her. She wasn't even sure if she was visible. She couldn't see her hands or any other part of her. She always figured this was what people meant when they mentioned that they'd had out-of-body experiences.

Not that she'd heard of anyone having an out-of-body experience in space, though…

It was rather sudden that she felt herself being snapped back to reality, hurtling back to her body at such a speed that when she connected with it, she was sent sprawling forward onto the ground. She groaned, and she could hear Tony's annoying remark from across the room.

"Not bad. I give you an eight out of ten. Little shaky on the landing."

Amrita grit her teeth together so she didn't sink to his level by biting back a retort. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, noticing the pair of shoes in front of her. She looked up to see Bruce, looking concerned.

"Need a hand up?" he said, looking a bit unsure whether he should help or not. He started to hold out his hand towards her, but clenched the fist shut, letting it fall to his side once more.

Amrita gave a brief smile, touched that he had thought to offer, but not feeling comfortable with the idea of physical contact. She wasn't even used to being around other people just yet.

"Thanks. I've got it, though," she said, pulling herself up with the help of the counter next to her and dusting herself off.

Bruce just shrugged. He looked as though he might say something, but he was interrupted by the door of the lab opening, Nick Fury striding into the room, fixing his one-eyed glare on Tony.

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" he demanded angrily.

"Uh…kind of been wondering the same thing about you," Tony said nonchalantly, not even looking up from the screen he was working away at.

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract," Fury all but growled.

Bruce, who was attempting not to look awkward as he stood two steps back from Amrita, raised an eyebrow at Fury.

"We are. The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile," he explained. Even the usually patient man sounded a bit annoyed, though, at Fury's demands.

"And you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss," Tony quipped, studying his screen intently as his fingers stopped moving at their usual dizzying speed. "What is Phase Two?"

Steve barged into the room, dropping a dangerous-looking assault rifle on the table next to him. It landed with a loud clang.

"Phase Two is SHIELD used the cube to make weapons," he said flatly, turning to Tony. "Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow."

Tony shrugged in response.

Fury looked momentarily taken by surprise, but his expression quickly smoothed over as he tried to do the same with the potentially problematic situation at hand.

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're…"

"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony interrupted, moving the screen he was working on towards Fury so that it displayed fully a set of blueprints for the exact weapon that Steve had brought into the lab. He gave him a sarcastic smile. "What were you lying?"

Steve gave Fury a begrudging look. "I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit."

Thor and Natasha entered the lab, and Amrita grimaced at all of the bodies in the room. It was a big enough room, but all of the other people in the room were between herself and the door, and she felt trapped. She wasn't claustrophobic, but social settings ignited a small sense of panic within her. She focused on taking deep breaths, inching further away from the group to try and collect herself as they all seemed to break down into angry bickering. She tried to lock eyes with Bruce, but he seemed to be drawn into the arguments just as much as everyone else. She thought she saw a hint of green in his normally blue eyes, but she couldn't tell for sure at this distance. She shook her head, pressing herself back against the far wall when she reached it, closing her eyes and attempting to tune out the sound of everyone's raised voices. She tried to recall how her favorite poem from her last life had gone. Some of the words escaped her, despite how hard she tried to remember.

There was a moment of silence, and surprised, Amrita raised her head, opening her eyes to look at the scene before her. Everyone was staring at Bruce, and he hesitated before speaking.

"I got low," he said softly, not meeting anyone's eyes. "I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out!"

The other guy? Is he talking about that 'green rage monster' everyone keeps mentioning? She thought, trying to control her shock at the revelation that her new friend had been suicidal. She clenched her fists. If the 'other guy' hadn't kept Bruce from killing himself, she wondered how alone she would be right now. Would she have had the courage to reach out to anyone else on this ship? She hadn't met anyone as patient and kind as the scientist there yet. She decided to be grateful that this 'other guy' had foiled Bruce's plans of suicide. Maybe she'd thank him, if she ever met him.

"…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!" he said, looking genuinely upset, and it was directed at Natasha. The redhead seemed a bit taken aback, which was unusual given her natural poker face. Bruce glared at her.

"You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?"

Amrita did not miss how both Natasha and Director Fury's hands drifted down to their weapons holsters.

"Dr. Banner… Put down the scepter," Steve said.

Bruce looked down and seemed shocked to find that he was holding Loki's scepter in his hand. He was distracted by the computer beeping, and everyone turned their attention to it.

"Got it," Tony said, and Bruce placed the scepter down, walking over to the work station to join him at the computer.

"Sorry kids," he muttered, "you don't get to see my little party trick after all."

"Have you located the Tesseract?" Thor asked.

"I can get there faster," Tony quipped.

Steve looked frustrated. "Look, all of us…"

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it," the god of thunder interrupted.

Tony went to leave, but Steve stopped him, and they dissolved into bickering once again. Amrita winced. She'd hoped that the 'team' she was supposed to be a part of would be capable of relating to each other better than this. This was absolute chaos. She looked over to Bruce, who was looking at the screen in front of him with an expression of almost…horror.

"Oh, my God," he said.

And then her world exploded.