Magic vs Science

The three of us followed Natasha inside the helicarrier- as she called it- where I could see that all of the hurrying men and women from earlier must have been rushing to come into what appeared to be the command center to this flying ship. Once inside the room, she walked down a short flight of steps and spoke with a man sitting in front of a computer while Dr. Banner and I stood in front of a large glass table. Steve stood on the opposite side of the table from us, next to probably the most intimidating looking man I'd ever seen in my life.

After instructing the SHIELD agents to engage the retro-reflection panels, the man turned to face Steve, Dr. Banner and I- allowing me to recognize him as Director Nick Fury, thanks to Phil's description when he first recruited me.

"Gentlemen," he greeted, nodding towards the two men. Steve stepped forward and handed him what looked like cash, though I couldn't see how much it was. After accepting it, Fury walked over to where Dr. Banner and I were standing, glancing at me before shaking Dr. Banner's hand. "Doctor, thank you for coming."

"Thanks for asking nicely," he replied with a hint of sarcasm that made me wonder just how 'nicely' they had asked.

Fury turned to me, offering his hand. "And you must be Miss Peterson."

"Alice," I corrected with a nod of my head.

After we shook hands, Fury returned his attention to Dr. Banner when he cleared his throat and quietly slapped his hands together. "So, uh, how long am I staying?"

"As soon as we locate the Tesseract, you're in the wind."

"Mm." Dr. Banner stepped slowly towards the railing of the platform, and having no idea where else to go, I followed after him. "Where exactly are you with that?"

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet." I looked over the railing to see the source of the familiar voice and saw that Phil was standing on the level below us. "Cell phones, laptops... If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

"Well that's a little scary," I commented, rolling back on the balls of my feet. Dr. Banner shrugged one shoulder and nodded in my direction, silently agreeing with me. The rest of the present group, however, elected to ignore my quip.

Natasha stood from where she had been kneeling next to a computer displaying a photo of a man I didn't recognize. "That's still not going to find them in time."

"You have to narrow your field," Dr. Banner suggested. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"

"How many are there?" Fury asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Instead of answering the rhetorical question, Dr. Banner slid his arms out of his suit jacket and hung it over his arm after rolling his shirt sleeves up to his elbows. "Call every lab you know. Tell them to put their spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm, basic cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

Fury nodded and motioned towards Natasha with one hand. "Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please?"

"You're gonna love it, Doc," Natasha smirked, walking past us and towards a hallway leading to a different part of the helicarrier. "We got all the toys."

After Natasha led the doctor out of the room, everyone except Steve and I dispersed to carry on with their earlier jobs. I considered talking with him, but before I got the chance, he was pulled off to the side by Phil.

Blowing a puff of air upwards that made my bangs ruffle, I twirled in a half-circle on my heel and wandered off down the same hallway Natasha and Dr. Banner had disappeared through. I was still curious about what it was he was so hesitant to talk about, and even if he was going to be working, he seemed to be the most interesting person around here at present.

I knew I was going the right way when I passed by Natasha heading back towards the bridge, and a large window showed me which room Dr. Banner was in. The door slid open when I neared it, allowing me to easily slip inside and look around.

Dr. Banner noticed me enter due to the sound of the door opening, causing him to look away from the computer he had already started working at. "Can I help you with something?"

"No," I shook my head, shrugging half-heartedly before thinking about it for a moment and nodding. "Actually, yes. Am I supposed to call you Dr. Banner, or am I allowed to know your actual name?"

He chuckled shyly, glancing at the floor and his computer screen before looking back to me. "Um, Bruce."

"Umbruce." I adopted a thoughtful look and tapped my chin. "Odd name. I like it."

Bruce knit his eyebrows slightly before shaking his head, the corner of his lips tugging up as he turned back to his computer. "Thanks."

I laughed quietly, examining the room as I walked further in. "So, Umbruce. Do you like magic?"

He looked from the computer to a notepad on the table, scribbling with a pen before typing on the screen, mainly focused on the task at hand. "Sure. Doesn't everybody?"

"Well I didn't ask everybody." I teased, raising an eyebrow with a smirk as I rounded one of three tables in the room. "I asked you."

Bruce seemed to think about it for a minute before shrugging noncommittally. "I'm more of a science guy, I guess."

"Ah," I sighed. When I finally made my way to the table he was standing behind, I smiled at him through the glass monitor that hung from the ceiling. "I bet I could convert you, though. Magic is so much more flexible and fun than science."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," I confirmed, taking a few small steps back as I considered which trick I should show him first. "What's your favorite color?"

He raised one eyebrow, leaning around the monitor to look skeptically at me. "Knowing my favorite color constitutes a magic trick?"

"Just tell me, will you?"

Bruce pressed his lips together and returned his attention to the computer, shaking his head. "I don't have a favorite color."

I rolled my head back and groaned dramatically, twirling about randomly on my feet. I didn't do well with boredom, and Bruce wasn't making entertaining myself any easier. "Then just pick one!"

"Okay, okay," he sighed, glancing around the room before pinching his shirt. "Purple."

"Purple," I repeated, crossing one arm over my stomach and resting my chin in my other hand, drumming my fingers against my cheek as I looked over everything in the room. "Purple, purple, purple."

Bruce watched me for a minute, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, he shook his head with slightly raised eyebrows. "Very magical." His sarcastic grin dropped when he turned back to the computer monitor and saw that the text on the screen had changed from green to purple. "Wait..."

"Ta-da!" I smiled brightly, holding my arms out to the side. "But that's not all!" Skipping over to his side, I lifted his notepad and pen. His jumbled letters and numbers that I mentally deemed illegible had also changed from black to purple ink, along with the pen itself.

Bruce looked back and forth from the screen to his notepad before turning to me with a thoroughly confused expression. "Okay, how did you do that?"

With a triumphant grin, I leaned in and whispered, "Magic."

When I pulled back I could see that my explanation had done absolutely nothing for the doctor, but any further describing was interrupted by the door opening once more to reveal that Natasha had returned. She only glanced at Bruce before turning to me and nodding her head towards the hallway. "Come on. We got a hit."

I nodded and started following her out of the room, turning back to wave at Bruce on my way out. "See you in a bit, Umbruce."