Insects

It didn't take very long to arrive back at the helicarrier where upon arrival we were greeted by a very stern looking Fury, who instructed the group of SHIELD agents behind him to escort Loki to his room. Once he was led away, Fury turned to the rest of us- specifically Natasha. "Meeting on the bridge in five minutes. Inform Dr. Banner."

With that concise statement, he pivoted on his heel and marched in the same direction Loki had just gone moments ago. Natasha was the first one of us leaving the jet to follow his instructions, heading towards the lab to tell Bruce where we would all be meeting. While she did that, Tony announced that he had his own errand to take care of before separating from the group. The rest of us, with nothing better to do, made our way into the control room.

Once inside, we dispersed among the upper level of the room. Steve took a seat at the table, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin against his hands with a thoughtful expression on his face. The man who had introduced himself earlier as Thor stood next to Fury's pedestal, crossing his broad arms over his even broader chest.

I stood across from Thor, leaning against the silver railing that separated us from the SHIELD agents who never stopped working on whatever it was they did all day. Natasha returned with Bruce in tow, and the sound of them entering made me turn over so that my back was to the agents and my hip rested against the railing.

As Natasha sat on the opposite side of the table from Steve while Bruce opted for simply standing a few feet from the door he had come in from, multiple screens both on the glass table and circled around Fury's pedestal flashed on, displaying a circular glass cell with Loki standing inside. Fury came on screen, stalking around Loki's cell and towards a tilted monitor on a stand while all of us on the bridge watched with rapt attention.

"In case it's unclear, if you so much as scratch that glass..." Fury tapped the monitor in front of him a few times and the floor beneath Loki's cell spiraled open, whipping the air loudly around the room. "It's 30,000 feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?"

He closed the floor, causing the air to still once again before pointing towards the monitor and Loki respectively. "Ant. Boot."

Loki chuckled quietly as he stepped backwards towards the center of the cell. "It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you."

"Oh, I've heard." Loki twisted to smirk at the camera, and an involuntary chill ran down my spine at the illusion that he was staring right at me. "A mindless beast. Makes play he's still a man. How desperate are you that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?"

"How desperate am I?" Fury took long, deliberate steps closer to Loki. "You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace, and you kill because it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

Loki turned back to Fury with a mischievous grin, sucking air in between his pursed lips as he shook his head once. "Oh. It burns you to have come so close. To have the Tesseract. To have power- unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share. And then to be reminded what real power is."

Fury stood, glaring silently at the man in front of him for just one second before smirking and walking away, out of frame. "Well, let me know if real power wants a magazine or something."

Loki looked once more into the camera before the picture disappeared, and we all looked away from the now blank screens to each other. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce asked sarcastically, tucking his arms together over his stomach.

"He's like a fly." I grimaced at the image, sticking my tongue out and knitting my eyebrows with exaggerated disgust. "He just keep buzzing around, pestering people. But he has to have some kind of end goal."

"He has an army called the Chitauri," Thor answered my implied question. "They're not of Asgard, nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army," Steve clarified dubiously. "From outer space."

"So he's building another portal." Bruce removed his glass, twisting the stem between his thumb and forefinger. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?"

Bruce turned to face Thor at the question and nodded. "He's an astrophysicist."

Thor shook his head, glancing at the floor. "He's a friend."

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," Natasha explained. "Along with one of ours."

"Well, I wanna know why Loki let us take him." Steve propped his elbows on the table, looking at each of us in the room but focusing mainly on Thor. "He's not leading an army from here."

Bruce tapped his glasses against his hand as he rocked slightly on his feet. "I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You could smell the crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak," Thor warned. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother."

"He killed 80 people in two days."

Thor shifted uncomfortably at the dead expression on Natasha's face, and mumbled his weak explanation. "He's adopted."

"Loki wasn't alone," I reminded everyone, bringing the conversation back to the main topic. "Barton was there too, but he got away with that weird silver metal."

"Iridium," Bruce corrected. "But what do they need the iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent." We all turned to the new voice in the room to see Tony finally joining us with Coulson at his side, who Tony muttered something unintelligible to. Whatever it was he said caused Coulson to roll his eyes and walk away without a word, walking down the short steps to the lower level of the room while Tony merely shrugged and walked further into the room. "It means the portal won't collapse on him like it did at SHIELD."

When he reached Thor, he held his hand out diplomatically and slapped his shoulder lightly. "No hard feelings, Point Break, you've got a mean swing. Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long as Loki wants."

Tony stepped onto Fury's slightly raised pedestal, flapping his hands flippantly. "Raise the mizzenmast, jib the topsails." A handful of agents turned to look at him with confusion, and he pointed at one man in particular. "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did."

As we all stared on in confusion, Tony covered one eye and turned in small half-circles, glaring at the screens before returning his attention to the rest of us. "How does Fury even see these?"

"He turns," Agent Hill answered with an annoyed expression.

"Sounds exhausting." Tony fiddled with the screens, running his hands over every surface within arm's reach. "The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The iridium was the hardest of the bunch to find, and without it they wouldn't have been able to make the portal." He turned to me with his head tilted slightly as he clicked his tongue. "Shame we weren't able to stop him."

I rolled my eyes and looked away from him, though I did contemplate turning his hair pink for a moment longer than I probably should have as he continued rambling on about things I barely understood. "The only major component he still needs is a power source of high-energy density. Something to kick-start the Cube."

"When did you become an expert on thermonuclear astrophysics?"

"Last night," Tony answered Hill easily with his hands shoved deep int his pockets. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked in an attempt to stop Tony from going off on yet another tangent. Thankfully, it was Bruce who answered.

"He'd have to heat the Cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier."

"Unless," Tony added, holding one hand out towards Bruce, "Selving has figured out how to stabilize the quantumtunneling effect."

"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally! Someone who speaks English."

"Is that what just happened?" I shrugged and shook my head at Steve's question, throwing my hands up by my side before dropping them to slap against my thighs. I had no idea what these two geniuses were talking about, much like I never understood what my brother was saying when he rambled about his computers. It seemed I would never get away from smart people.

Tony shook Bruce's empty hand firmly with a smile. "It's good to meet you Dr. Banner. Your work on antielectron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage-monster."

Having previously had no idea what Bruce was here for other than to track the Tesseract, Tony's unapologetic words caused a click in the back of my head at the connection finally being made as to who exactly Bruce Banner was. I had heard of the destruction caused by the Hulk on the news, but having been in California at the time, I had never seen the results in person.

As far as I knew, however, Bruce seemed to be plenty in control. Seeing him as the same 'green rage-monster' I had seen on TV seemed pretty far-fetched, but the pursing of his lips and small nod at Tony's statement was enough to tell me that he was in fact the same man.

While I was having this mind-blowing revelation in the back of my mind, Fury entered the room and stated what I had thought just moments ago. "Dr. Banner is only here to track the Cube. I was hoping you would join him."

"I would start with the stick of his," Steve suggested. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the Cube. And I would like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Thor asked with furrowed eyebrows. "I do not understand."

"I do!" Steve blurted, causing us all to turn to him with mixed expressions ranging from annoyed to humored as he blushed slightly and tried to explain himself. "I- I understood that reference."

Tony rolled his eyes dramatically in Steve's direction before turning to Bruce. "Shall we play, Doctor?"

Bruce held his arm out towards the hallway that led to the lab, walking in front of Tony to lead him to their workplace. "Right this way, sir."

The two men leaving the room seemed to signal the end of the conversation, and everyone moved to either return to their earlier activities or find some way to entertain themselves until they could be useful again. As for myself, I had already planned on entertaining myself by talking with Bruce earlier, but now that I knew he was the Hulk, I was even more intrigued by the man.

Not because he could destroy a city with one hand if the mood struck, but more how he was able to not destroy a city with one hand at all times. With curiosity piqued, I laced my hands behind my back and kicked my heel against the ground as I started my way back to the lab.

I'd like to apologize for taking so long to update. I had some personal problems that have since been resolved, so I will be returning to my update schedule of one chapter every day/every other day.

Also, a huge thanks to the readers/reviewers who have stuck around not only for this story but for my others while I've been away. I seriously love you guys, and hope you'll continue to enjoy these stories as I continue to put them out for you.