"Do you think he sees faeries?"
SHIELD briefing room. Night. Daphne
The avengers sat inside a briefing room, watching through a monitor as Fury spoke to Loki inside the Helicarrier detention section. Loki was trapped inside a strong, glass cell staring at Fury through it.
"In case it's unclear." He moved towards a control panel outside of the cell. "You try to escape. You so much as scratch that glass." Fury pressed a button on the panel that opened a hatch directly beneath Loki's cell. The God peered out of the glass and down below, hearing the loud gushing of wind from the gap.
"Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?" Fury asked sarcastically, closing the hatch.
"Ant," he stated, pointing at Loki. He then gestured towards the panel. "Boot."
Loki didn't look phased by the threat. He smirked at the Director. "It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me."
"Built for something a lot stronger than you," he replied, making sure the God of Mischief knew that he would not be able to escape.
"Oh, I've heard," he drawled, looking at the camera that the group of superheros were watching through. "The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man. Not to mention the disgusting mutant you've employed. "The group turned their gaze towards Daphne and Bruce, eyes showing pity. This annoyed her to no end. She didn't want anyone's sympathy and she was sure that Bruce didn't either. "How desperate are you, that you call upon such lost creatures to defend you?"
"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control." He walked closer to the cage. "You talk about peace and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."
Loki grinned snidely. "Ooh. It burns you to 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 just smirked at him. "Well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something," he mocked, striding out of the detention section.
The Avengers stayed quiet for a few moments, not knowing what to say, while Daphne tried to hide her smile at Nick's last comment. Steve was sitting in the chair next to her with Natasha at the head of the table while Bruce stood slightly behind Daphne and Thor was lingering off to the side, looking torn. The silence stretched on, the tension palpable until Bruce broke in with a comment.
"He really grows on you, doesn't he?"
The mutant woman laughed at this. "I agree, but someone needs to stop feeding him drugs. It's unhealthy. Do you think he sees faeries? I wonder..." she trailed off, muttering to herself about magic mushrooms and rainbow unicorns.
The group smiled affectionately at her childlike behaviour, except from Thor, who grumbled at her slight against Loki. She noticed this and gave him an apologetic look, making him smile gently.
"Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?" Steve questioned the God of Thunder, quickly becoming serious.
"He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or 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? From outer space?"
"So he's building another portal," Bruce commented. Light bulb moment.
"That's what he needs Erik Selvig for," Daphne said, realisation coursing through her.
"Selvig?" Thor intoned.
"He's an astrophysicist," Bruce clarified for him.
"He's a friend." Thor looked concerned for Dr. Selvig.
"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours," Natasha chimed, glancing at Daphne when she mentioned 'one of ours'. Both of the women had expressions of sadness on their faces.
Steve looked thoughtful, then turned to the brunette. "Can't you break this spell? I mean, with your abilities?"
She sighed, though she had been expecting this kind of question. "No, I don't know what Loki's done, but for some reason, I can't stop it. Whatever it is, it seems beyond my abilities. I'm sorry."
He nods understandingly before continuing. "I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here."
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki." Bruce interjected. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell the crazy on him."
"Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother," Thor snapped, irritated.
"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha argued.
"He's adopted," he offered sheepishly.
"Iridium. What did they need the iridium for?" Bruce wondered, ignoring Thor's excuse.
"It's a stabilising agent," a new voice appeared. They all looked up, seeing Tony strut in with Phil.
"I'll fly you there. Keep the love alive," he said to Coulson before turning to the rest of the group. "Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD."
He walked up and ruffled Daphne's hair, "Hey, Kitty," he greeted before realising something. "Wait a minute, can you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Turn into a cat," he elaborated, hope shining in his eyes.
"Oh, um, yeah but it feels weird." She made a face to support her comment.
"You need to show me that sometime!" Tony exclaimed happily. "I've always wanted a cat."
"Did you not just hear me say that it felt weird? And hey, I'm not your pet!" She cried indignantly.
"Yet," he added, grinning when she huffed.
He then strolled up to Thor. "No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing." Tony walked around the room a bit. "Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants," he said, referring back to the Iridium.
He turned to the Helicarrier crew. "Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails." He froze, glancing at a guy on a computer. He abruptly pointed at the man, exclaiming, "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did."
The Avengers looked confused at Tony's rambling, all except from Daphne, who was thoroughly amused at the genius and assumed his behaviour was normal.
He then covered one eye, looking around, moving towards a computer. "How does Fury do this?"
Agent Hill answered him. "He turns."
Tony started fiddling with the computer controls and Daphne saw him place something underneath it. Nobody else seemed to have noticed the action. Tony span around and caught her questioning eye. He pleaded to her with his eyes and relaxed when she nodded minutely, still wondering what he was up to.
"Well, that sounds exhausting." He started before getting back to the point. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."
Maria Hill stepped forward. "When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?"
"Last night." He answered bluntly, as if it were obvious. "The packet - Selvig's notes - the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?" He asked, confused.
Nobody replied to his question.
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve inquired.
"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin, just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce said.
This is where Daphne stopped trying to understand what they were saying.
"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect," Tony theorised.
"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet," Bruce finished.
"Finally, someone who speaks English," the billionaire cheered, walking towards Bruce.
"Aw, look, they even finish each other's sentences!" Daphne cooed, moving so she could sit cross-legged on the table, facing the two genius'. "Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?" Both scientists glared at her, but she grinned at them.
"Is that what just happened?" Steve asked, seeming puzzled throughout the whole encounter.
Daph put her hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, I didn't understand either." He smiled at her in appreciation. They watched as Bruce and Tony shake hands, showing a mutual respect towards the other.
"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. You're work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."
"Thanks," Bruce said, looking down awkwardly.
"Way to kill the mood, Tony," the brunette scolded him.
Nick Fury walked into the briefing room at this point. "Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him," he informed Stark.
"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon." Steve inputted logically.
"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys," Nick snapped, dramatically storming out of the room. All he needs is a cape to swish around.
"Monkeys? I do not understand," Thor announced.
"I do!" Steve burst out, looking proud of himself. "I understood that reference." Daphne giggled at his obliviousness; it was adorable. She ruffled his blonde hair warmly, still chuckling. He beamed up at her, his blue eyes lighting up, like a child showing his mother what he had learnt in school.
Tony just rolled his eyes at the Captain and turned back to Bruce, "Shall we play, doctor?"
"Let's play some." He replied, both of them walking out of the room.
Daphne noticed that the guy who had been playing Galaga, looked around discreetly before going back onto the game, not moving a muscle. She grinned and sashayed over towards him, feeling Steve's curious eye on her. She grabbed a glass a water that she found on a table and carefully balanced it on the guy's head. He was so focused on his game that he didn't notice.
Steve had moved closer to see what she was doing and covered his mouth to muffle his laugh. Daphne grinned mischievously at him, snickering silently. She coughed loudly, gaining the man's attention - which resulted in him being covered in water.
She leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "You really shouldn't be playing on the job," she warned him. He quickly stood up and left the room.
"Oh, was it something I said?" She asked, feigning innocence.
Helicarrier Kitchen. Night. Steve
Steve and Daphne were in the kitchen. She was telling him about when she threatened to stop baking brownies for Clint until he taught her how to shoot arrows. Steve had been intrigued in how such food could sway an agents mind so easily, and Daphne offered to make some for him so he could judge for himself.
He watched her as she baked. Her arms were covered in flour and her auburn hair tied up in a pony-tail. She moved gracefully as she prepared the brownies and glanced up as if she could feel his stare. They both blushed. Steve broke the silence.
"So how well do you know Barton?"
She laughed quietly. "He's like a brother to me. Though, when we first met, he hated my guts. He believed that I was out to destroy SHIELD and everything they stood for so, of course, I kicked his ass." He chuckled at the image. "I remember that I was making brownies for Phil and Clint came in, obviously smelling the food. He looked at me like he couldn't believe that someone like me could bake."
"Someone like you?" Steve interrupted.
"A mutant," she answered honestly. "Like I said before, mutants are not exactly welcome."
"Why?"
"It could be for any number of reasons. Fear? Jealousy? Because we were born different and they thought themselves superior? I don't know." She replied, her voice small.
"Anyway, he smelt the brownies and eyed me suspiciously, probably thinking I had poisoned them or something similar. I ate one, just to prove they were edible and quietly asked him if he wanted one. He approached me cautiously, and slowly grabbed one before taking a bite." She smile warmly. "He made the most hilarious sound ever. It was a cross between a gasp of surprise and a moan. By that time I couldn't breathe because of my laughing, and he joined in, forgetting his apparent animosity towards me. We've been close ever since." Steve smiled at her loving expression. She moved over to get a pair of oven mitts.
"And Coulson?"
She swiftly took the cooked brownies out of the oven. "Phil? Ah, well, he practically raised me since I was eight. Found me living on the streets in England and brought me into SHIELD."
"What about your parents? Why weren't you with them?" He asked, thoughts circulating his head as to why she wasn't with any parents.
She stayed silent for a while, glancing up at him with such sadness in her eyes. He was about to tell her that she didn't have to say anything when Daphne started speaking.
"Um, they were killed when I was eight. They were trying to protect me." She started cleaning off the counters. "I was in another room at the time, hiding, but I saw them get shot. Uh, after they... died, I ran. Didn't stop running until suddenly I found myself in the middle of a city. My powers were mostly influenced by my emotions since I was too young to control them. I must have accidentally teleported myself. That's when Phil found me. And here I am now."
"So you're a SHIELD agent?"
"Yeah, but I only get called in when I'm needed. It gives me the opportunity to at least try to be ordinary, though I do love the job and the people here."
He paused for a moment. "I'm sorry that you had to go through that," Steve said sympathetically.
She chuckled quietly. "You've nothing to be sorry of but thank you anyway."
They both smiled at each other.
"So what about you? What was your life like?"
Steve sighed nostalgically. "It was very different. People nowadays always seem to be in a rush or stressed out about something. Everything was much simpler back when I was born until, of course, the war. Believe it or not, I was a scrawny little thing growing up. The other kids used that to their advantage. I had attempted to enlist in the Army, but got rejected for my frailty and sickness."
He had stopped talking at this point, reliving memories of his past.
"So, what happened?"
"A man called General Chester Phillips had heard my plea to fight and offered me a place in a top secret experiment named Operation Rebirth. They gave me the Super-Soldier Serum and I became Captain America."
"Here try this," she said, offering him a cooled-down brownie. "I didn't poison it, before you ask."
"No, no, I trust you," he assured her, biting into it. It was delicious. He groaned in delight, his cheeks warming when Daphne started giggling.
"Don't worry. Clint's reaction was much more embarrassing," he told him, grinning cheekily. She sobered up suddenly. "What was Peggy like? I heard about her. You don't have to answer though."
"She was something else. She would like you. Peggy was a soldier. She was strong, could take on any man without batting an eyelid. We got rather close during the time of the Serum."
"But after crashing the plane into the ocean, you didn't see her again?" She probed gently, her ice blue eyes swirling with sympathy.
"Yeah. But I found out, when I woke up, that she was still alive so I visited her. She had gotten married, had a family. She told me that I should move on, live my own life. Before that, I probably wouldn't have been able to, but now I think I can." He glanced at Daphne with tender eyes, thinking that although both women seemed alike in appearance, they were completely different.
"Well, if you ever need anyone to talk to, I'm always around," she offered, her expression soft.
"Thank you," Steve said gratefully.
"Okay, no more chick-flick moments," she laughed.
"Chick-flick?" He was befuddled.
"It's a type of film. Oh! You need to watch modern films! I'll help you with that. Seriously they are the best!" She gushed.
He laughed at her excitement. Definitely going to have my hands full when it comes to her.
Finished chapter. Hoped you liked it. Think this was the longest part so far... Wanted Steve and Daphne to have a little moment there.
Love you guys
-Jess xo