"So much for peace and quiet..."
En route to Banner's Lab. Morning. Daphne
Daphne was practically running after a frantic Steve, down the hallways of the Helicarrier. After discovering the HYDRA weaponry, Steve was more than a little anxious to confront Fury about them. She couldn't say she blamed him.
"What do you think this means?" Daphne questioned, wondering what was going on through his attractive head. No shame in thinking the truth...
"Honestly, I don't know. But we're about to find out," he replied with conviction.
They had rounded another corner and had reached Bruce's lab. They could hear part of, what appeared to be, an argument between Tony and Nick. Steve stormed into the room, looking pissed - for lack of a better word.
"PHASE 2 is SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons," he spat out, dropping a HYDRA weapon onto the table which caused Fury, Bruce and Tony to turn around. Steve faced Stark and said; "Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow."
"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract." Director Fury tried to explain. "This does not mean that we're-"
"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony moved to the computer screen, turning it around to show plans of the weapons. "What were you lying?"
Steve laughed, though it was humourless. "I was wrong, director. The world hasn't changed a bit."
It was at that moment that Natasha and Thor walked in. Nat kept her eyes locked on Bruce while he returned the look, frustrated.
"Did you know about this?" He asked angrily.
"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?" She retorted, ignoring his question.
"I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed."
"Loki's manipulating you," she cautioned.
Like SHIELD manipulates us?
"And you've been doing what exactly?" He argued, taking the words right out of Daphne's mouth.
"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."
Daphne sighed mentally. She hoped that the bickering would end soon. She was hungry, and tired, and frustrated, and angry, and everything that you could possibly feel at once without spontaneously combusting... But mostly hungry.
"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy. I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."
"Because of him," Nick replied, pointing a finger at Thor.
The God of Thunder looked stunned. "Me?" He asked uncertainly.
"Last year Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learnt that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."
"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor tried to resolve.
"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched," He looked at Daphne then. "They can't be controlled."
Daphne looked around behind her before realising he meant her. "Excuse me?"
Steve interrupted whatever Nick was about to say. "Can't be controlled like you controlled the cube?" He asked, sarcasm heavy in his voice.
"You're work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies-"
Daphne snorted, unamused. "That's ironic."
Thor continued his speech. "It is a signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war."
"A higher form?" Steve quizzed.
Fury didn't let Thor answer. "You forced our hand. We had to come up with something."
Daphne's head started to spin with the speed the argument was escalating at.
"A nuclear deterrent," Tony scoffed.
"'Cause that calms everything right down," Daphne sneered, finishing Stark's statement.
Fury then turned to Tony. "Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?"
"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep-" Steve started to mutter.
"Wait! Wait! Hold on! How is this now about me?" The billionaire questioned defensively.
"I'm sorry, isn't everything?"
"I thought humans were more evolved than this," Thor grumbled.
Fury snapped. "Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?"
Daphne ran a hand down her face, picturing a nice, long holdiay with plenty of junk food and endless sleeping time. Anything to get her away from the inane arguing.
"Did you always give your champions such distrust?"
Nope, that's for the special ones...
Natasha spoke up. "Are you all really that naïve? SHIELD monitors potential threats." Her expression was firm but softened slightly when she caught Daphne's eye, in an apologetic gesture. The mutant woman just shook it off.
"Captain America's on the potential threat list?" Tony burst out, finding it hilarious. "Are you above or below angry bees?"
"I swear to God, Stark, one more crack..."
"Threatening! I feel threatened!"
None of them noticed the blue gem on Loki's scepter glowing brightly.
It was hard for Daphne to determine one person's voice from the other.
"You speak of control, yet you court chaos," Thor drabbled on.
"It's his M.O., isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're... we're a time bomb." Banner stated. No, really, Bruce?
"You need to step away," Nick warned him, harshly.
Tony slung his arm around Steve's shoulders, not in a friendly gesture either. "Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?"
Cap shoved his arm off of him. "You know damn well why! Back off!"
Stark squared up to Steve, trying to intimidate the captain. "Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me."
Daphne pushed her way towards them. "You two, stop! You're being childish, the both of you!"
They ignored her. She was really getting sick of that.
"Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?" Steve taunted.
"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist."
Steve smiled, eyes flickering dangerously. "I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. Yeah, I've seen the footage-"
"Steve..." Daphne tried to warn him. He ignored her... Figures.
"The only thing you fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."
"I think I would just cut the wire."
"Tony, stop. Come on, you're better than this." Daph tried to calm the argument to no avail.
He turned his attention to her. "Why? Trying to protect your little boyfriend?"
She glared at him, secretly wishing that the earth would open up and swallow her whole. He's not in a calm state, Daphne. She told herself. Don't kill him yet.
"Always a way out..." Steve said, referring to their original argument. "You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."
"Oh my God! Has everyone magically become deaf?" Daphne complained to no one in particular.
Something inside of Tony shattered. "A hero? Like you? You're a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle!"
The mutant gasped. "Tony!"
"And you," he spat, facing Daph, who was standing in between the men. "You're not even meant to exist! A failed experiment in nature! You act so innocent, when you're probably plotting ways to kill us all!-"
Steve had started shouting at him in her defense. She was immensely grateful that he cared enough to do that, but for now, she needed them to listen to her. Light bulb moment.
Tony carried on yelling at her, but she just blanked him out. Anger rose up in her as the arguments around became muffled to her ears. She took a deep breath and let out a stream of golden wisps, which flowed around the room, touching everyone as it went. Suddenly all the shouting became silent. Literally silent.
They were still yelling, but she had muted them, making them all look like idiots.
One by one, they slowly realised what had happened and turned to face her.
"First of all," she started, her voice eerily quiet and clear with thinly concealed distaste and anger. "If I wanted to kill any of you, you would be dead by now." She directed that at Stark. "And secondly, how old are you all?! You are being pathetic, arguing like toddlers rather than have a normal discussion like adults. You're yelling about things that have no relevance to the situation! We are battling against a force to be reckoned with and, if you can't put your heads together for one minute, then we are all but defeated, and the world will be in the hands of Loki."
They all avoided her gaze, looking uncomfortable and a tad ashamed. She freed them from the muting illusion but they stayed quiet. But, of course, Tony just had to have the last word.
"Pfft, I'm still not taking what I said back, old timer," Tony sneered at Steve.
He laughed bitterly. "Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds."
Thor found this amusing evidently. "You people are so petty... and tiny."
The argument commenced again. And all my hard work has been undone... of course.
"Yeah, this is a team," Bruce muttered.
Fury stepped in. "Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his-"
"Where? You rented my room."
"That cell was just in case-"
"In case you needed to kill me," he finished coldly. "But you can't! I know! I tried!"
The room went silent at that, everyone looking at Bruce in despair.
"Bruce?" Daphne whispered, appalled at the revelation.
"I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the Other Guy spit it out! 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!"
Daphne reflexively flinched at the word 'freak', a wash of emotions running through her. She watched as Bruce progressively got more and more upset, looking at Natasha.
"You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?" Nat and Fury both reached for their guns as Banner picked up the scepter.
Steve tried to warn him off. "Doctor Banner... put down the scepter."
Bruce looked down towards his hands, stunned to see that he was, in fact, holding the scepter. The computer, next to him, started beeping.
"Got it," Tony said.
Banner slowly and cautiously placed the scepter back down and went towards the computer, checking on it.
"Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my party trick after all."
"Located the Tesseract?" Thor asked.
"I can get there faster," Tony stated.
"Look, all of us-" Steve started to say.
"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard," Thor boomed. "No human is a match for it."
Stark span around to leave but was halted when Steve held onto his arm. "You're not going alone!"
"You gonna stop me?" The genius retorted.
"Put on the suit, let's find out."
"I'm not afraid to hit an old man."
Daphne inhaled deeply. "Oh bloody hell! Shut up!" She yelled, slapping them both on the back of their heads.
"Ow!-" Steve cried out.
"What the hell-" Tony complained.
"Shush!" She commanded.
"But-" They both started.
"Nope!"
"Daph-"
"Not another word from either of you!"
Both men looked like they were about to protest.
"I mean it," she informed them firmly.
They glanced down to the floor, staying silent. "Great!" She beamed. Finally, peace and quiet...
Until...
"Oh my God!" Bruce murmured.
BOOM! Everyone was thrown backwards in an explosion. Steve, Tony, Fury and Thor flew across the lab while Natasha, Bruce and Daphne fell down into the lower equipment room. The mutant woman landed awkwardly on her back, yelling in pain as her left arm twisted from underneath her. She hurriedly searched the room, seeing Nat not far from her and Bruce, who gripped the grated floor, trying to maintain control on the Other Guy. He looked up at the women, his eyes turning Hulk green.
So much for peace and quiet...
End of chappie! Hope you enjoyed it. I love writing this fanfiction. Thank you to those who have reviewed, followed or favourited either me or this story. It helps my confidence as a writer. See you next time.
Love you guys
-Jess xo