Not too keen on this chapter, it's a bit of an easy filler. If you see any mistakes or things you would like to enlighten me with, by all means comment away. I was once a science buff, but that was three years ago now, and the vast store of knowledge had characterised me as a high school student has been replaced.
Thanks for all the reviews and love!

Cinna

Part One: Great Expectations

Chapter Eight: Hit and Miss

They've been working on the readings for days.

Day one had brought little ground, Doctor Banner and Doctor Foster (and the small team of scientists Director Fury had provided them with) more concerned with setting up the right equipment- and where necessary, creating it- and the custom fitting of computer programs. Stark had been more than a great help, happy to pitch in his two cents (or more, even when unnecessary, as is Stark's wont) in their brainstorming and build the equipment and computer algorithms needed for their work.

Day two went better, Jane and Bruce now able to actually work and analyse and theorise. Tony wasn't around to help by then; too absorbed in his own Fury-assigned job, but every few hours- when it occurred to him that he should eat- he came to see how it was all going. By eleven o'clock that night (when they finally decided they could work no further fuelled only by coffee and sugar) they had managed to isolate the components of the transmission that marked Harry's appearance (as they team preferred to call him; 33678 sounded too impersonal, and the Falling Man made him sound like a legend) and smooth out the connections between the elements that the SHIELD agents had begun exploring.

Though it had been difficult; the Helicarrier's sensors were only designed to monitor certain radiations, and it was hard for the pair to tell if the data in front of them was really all that was there, or if the sensors had missed some crucial piece to the puzzle. In the end, Jane theorised that the burst of energy was definitely a combination between a tesseract-activated wormhole and the Asgardian Bifrost, but not quite. For one, it lacked the sheer amount of energy that characterised both forms of transport (almost like an echo, slightly empty and distorted, an imperfect simulacra). Secondly, there was some undefinable element in the data that still had them stumped (which they suspected was incomplete and therefore infinitely harder to identify), but had the possibility- they were quite sure- to turn the combination into something entirely and incomprehensibly different.

Jane had joked offhandedly that Harry was probably not just a visitor from another galaxy, but from another universe entirely, like a superman comic she'd once read. Bruce thought it unlikely- the boy had no technological possessions on his person, and it should have been impossible for him to make the jump alive without more protection than his woollen cape thing, which had certainly seen better days.

She'd left a post-it note with the words alternate universe on a computer screen anyway. Bruce had frowned, but chose not to say anything about it.

Day three was spent partly arguing over what exactly this extra element was (Tony came in at some point and after an overview of their notes and the data, joined into the heated debate) and partly (after they decided to give up on the golden egg for the time being and focus on the second part of Fury's orders) working furiously on tracking any future transmissions. It was more difficult this time than it had been to track the tesseract. The tesseract was a permanent energy source; it constantly bled radiation, just like the sun (not to mention the amount of radiation it emitted), making it easy to track via satellite. A burst of energy that lasted no longer than a second was considerably harder. It required constant monitoring of the feeds; an almost blanket surveillance of all operable satellites in the sky that had the right equipment (which surprisingly wasn't that many). Some of which should technically not have existed and had to be hacked (they had Tony to thank for that service). By the time they'd finished, it was 12 o'clock. Now it was just a waiting game.

Day four had them back at arguing and analysing the extra element- that golden egg- that had accompanied Harry's sudden materialisation. To no avail.

Day five Steve told them that Harry had still not re-awoken, though he was healing at an incredible rate, leaving the doctors stunned and uneasy. In his down time, Bruce double checked the boy's blood sample and found no differing results. He was neither Asgardian nor mutant. He passes on his findings to the Director feeling somewhat useless and silly. Bruce and Jane bickered some more.

Day six Tony threw his hands up in disgust at his lack of progress on the mole-skin bag and complained at the (by now) harried and equally frustrated scientists. It seemed to emit readings similar to that of Loki's magic, almost, but not quite (and wasn't that a familiar story). He'd tried cancelling out the radiation, but had consistently failed, more often than not scrambling his electronic equipment. Tony suspected the energy was actually fighting his counteracting measures with some of its own, but in the end pinned it down to just a natural fluctuation fuelled by his paranoia. No scans he tried would show him anything that was inside it. Bruce and Jane continue arguing.

Day seven found the pair unwilling to explore it more, until Tony had the brilliant idea, halfway through the day, to run a comparison between the undefinable element that had been driving Bruce and Jane mad, and almost-but-not-quite-Loki magic readings that Tony had been monitoring on Harry's belongings. They all felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner.

Bruce's fingers are literally, literally millimetres away from the keyboard, only seconds from beginning the analysis, when a sharp klaxon bursts from a computer in the corner of the room. The one monitoring the satellite feeds. Tony all but flies over to the console.

"Holy shit." He breathes, checking the screens. He looks up at Bruce and Jane's expectant faces.

"We've got a hit."