Chapter Nine
"How did your Apple advance and your Chanel didn't?"
Thor likes gummy bears.
At least, he says he does. Leila's not completely convinced. She thinks he probably just, like, tolerates them, going by his body language. But that's a good sign. He's making an effort to like the candy she has offered him. It means he's accepting her white flag, apparently having picked up on the fact that it's as much as he's going to get.
Besides which, there are very few things that Leila would describe as "delightful," but watching Thor hold tiny little candies in his enormous beanstalk-giant hands is definitely one of them.
He's standing awkwardly by the wall in the bridge next to her. She's leaning against the wall, like a normal person. Which is a wild dichotomy, because...sure, Thor isn't normal by human standards, but she gets the sense that he's a good example of normal where he comes from. Your garden variety Asgardian. Aside from being royalty, but maybe that just means he's more normal, because maybe royalty is what decides what is and is normal. Like how presidents and first ladies define the fashion of their respective genders during their tenures.
Meanwhile, Leila, compared to your garden variety human…well.
"So," she says, gesturing to the room, covered with touchscreens running programs at top speed. "Do they have stuff like this on Asgard?"
"Not for generations," he says. "We outgrew your technology before I was born."
"Huh." Not the answer she expected. Given the clothing, she expected Asgard to have the same level of technological advancement as a Renaissance Fair.
"So tell me this," she says. "How did your Apple advance and your Chanel didn't? Did you take all the energy we put into textiles and apply that to tech? Or are you guys just in the middle of some kind of 800's revival?"
Thor glances at her, as if trying to parse at least a single word of what she just said, and her lips turn up in a half-smirk. Before he can answer, though, Leila hears comms click on and turns away, touching a hand to her ear to indicate the situation to Thor.
"Loki means to unleash the hulk," Natasha says without preamble. "You guys keep Banner in the lab, I'm on my way. Send Thor as well."
Leila looks up to see Fury storming over. She watches him pass wordlessly through the entryway to the hall next to them. Then looks back at Thor and jerks her head in Fury's direction before trailing after him.
Thor follows, shooting a quizzical glance in her direction, an eyebrow raised.
"Loki's planning on getting Banner to hulk out," she says by way of explanation. She assumes he's been briefed on the Hulk situation, and his nod of understanding confirms it.
"Let me be clear," Fury says without turning to face them or breaking pace at all. "Under no circumstances can we allow Banner to turn."
"Yes, sir," Leila says, and she really can't be assed to be sarcastic about it. Her mind is too busy racing. Okay, that play makes sense, she supposes. Divide and conquer. But how does Loki plan on doing it? Banner doesn't seem like an edge case; if anything, he's the most chill guy on the helicarrier. It's not like Loki can harass him from his glass cage.
Maybe that's why he was going so hard on him through the camera, she thinks. She knew they were watching; maybe that was attempt #1.
So what's attempt #2?
She shakes her head. She has to assume Nat has more information that she gave on comms.
When the three of them arrive at the lab, Fury pauses after entering, which is unusual. He doesn't seem like the type to be easily surprised–
Oh.
Tony and Bruce have congregated around Loki's scepter, clearly focused on it instead of the tesseract.
Right. She never did tell Fury about their detour. To be fair, she's not actually sure how the scepter comes into play with that, so she can't really feel that bad about Fury being caught off guard.
"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" Fury demands. Yeah. Anger sounds more like him.
"Uh...kinda been wondering the same thing about you," Tony says.
"You're supposed to be locating the tesseract."
"We are," Banner pipes up. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."
"And you'll get your cube back," Tony adds. "No muss, no fuss. Hey, what's Phase 2?"
There's a clanging sound, and everyone turns to see Steve dropping an enormous assault rifle onto one of the tables, looking murderous.
"Phase 2 is, SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons."
Well. That's news to her.
"Sorry," Steve adds, obviously not sorry at all. "The computer was moving a little slow."
Fury goes on the defense. "Rogers, we gathered everything related to the tesseract. This does not mean that we're–"
"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony interrupts, turning a screen around to face them. It's covered in a bunch of weapon designs; the biggest one on the screen matches the one Steve just dropped on their metaphorical laps. "What were you lying?"
Leila snorts and ignores the annoyed look Fury shoots her.
"I was wrong, Director," Steve says. "The world hasn't changed a bit." His eyes shift from Fury to Leila, and she holds up her hands.
"I didn't know about this," she says, feeling defensive for no real reason.
"Oh, yeah. And would you have cared if you did? Since you're 'a spy not a soldier' and all."
She narrows her eyes, but Natasha walks in before she can respond. Banner turns his gaze on her.
"Did you know about this?"
Natasha dodges the question. "You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?"
"Not a bad idea," Leila says, trying to get a grip on herself. For some reason, she can feel anger building in her again, like it did when she copied Loki's abilities–not to the same extent, but it's a similar feeling.
"Shut up, Whittaker," Banner snaps, before turning back to Natasha. "I was in Kolkata. I was pretty well removed."
"Loki's manipulating you–"
"And you've been doing what, exactly?"
"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes."
"Yeah, and I'm not leaving just because suddenly you get a little twitchy." He gestures to the screen, almost...dramatically. It's an interesting side to him. Or it would be, if she wasn't worried about turning into a rage monster, metaphorically. Or, more pressingly, Banner himself turning into a rage monster, literally. "I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."
There's a beat. Frankly, Leila would like to know the answer to that too, if only out of mild curiosity. Finally:
"Because of him." Fury waves an arm in Thor's direction.
"Me?" Thor asks, at the same time Leila says "Him?" She understands Thor posing a potential threat, but not WMD-level. He's powerful in theory, sure, but in practice...after spending two minutes with him, she feels that he poses about as much of a threat to Earth as the gummy bears he held in those enormous fucking yeti hands did.
"Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but that we are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned."
"Oh, okay," Leila says. "That's fair."
She can see Steve open his mouth to argue out of the corner of her eye, but Thor speaks before he can.
"Is it? My people want nothing but peace with your planet."
"I mean, that's pretty obviously not true at this point," she mutters.
"Loki is…"
"Adopted, I know. He might be the exception to the rule, but he's a hell of an exception."
Fury waves a hand in her direction, as if to say 'see?' "You're not the only people out there. And you're not the only threat."
"And you don't seem to care to warn us about other threats…" Leila mutters.
Fury continues, ignoring her. "The world's filling up with people that can't be matched, they can't be controlled."
"Like you controlled the cube?" Steve scoffs.
"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies," Thor says defensively. "It is a signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war."
"A higher form?" Steve mutters.
"You forced our hand. We had to come up with something."
"Nuclear deterrent," Stark says. "Cause that always calms everything down."
"That's also fair," Leila says.
"I'm sorry, Whittaker, can you stop treating this like a debate?" Steve snaps at her. "Lives are at stake here."
"Lives are always at stake, Cap. That's why he makes the big decisions and I don't."
"Oh, that's why? Or is it because you just don't care?"
She glares at him, pushing herself off the wall. "Oh, and I'm supposed to believe you do? How many people did you kill in Europe, Rogers?"
He tenses. She's hit a nerve, she can tell. "That was different. We were at war."
Leila can hear other arguments going on in the room, but she tunes them out. "And so are we, apparently."
"Yeah, now. SHIELD didn't put this together in a day."
"It was for a rainy day."
"That you didn't know would come."
"BUT IT DID! You can't call someone paranoid if they were right!" God. It's not even that she's passionate about defending SHIELD's honor or anything. It's just Rogers'...smugness, his sense of self-righteousness, his absolute confidence that he's the only one who's right that's getting under her skin for some reason. She wants to see him broken.
"I thought humans were more evolved than this," Thor says. Leila glares at him.
"Feel free to keep your people off our planet then," she snaps. "Nobody invited you here."
"Did you always give your champions such distrust?"
"Are you all really that naive?" Natasha jumps in. "SHIELD monitors potential threats."
"Wait, you're on that list?" Tony gestures to Steve, sparking up a new argument between them, and suddenly there are about five different conversations going on that Leila's too angry to even try to follow.
"You speak of control, yet you court chaos," Thor says.
"Chaos would be showing up on our door no matter what," she snaps. "That's the whole point of SHIELD, to contain that chaos."
"Chaos," Banner repeats, before Thor can respond. "It's his M.O., isn't it? I mean, what are we, a-a team?"
"Nobody said we're a team," Leila snaps, but Banner doesn't seem to hear her.
"No, no, no, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're...we're a timebomb."
"You need to step away," Fury says lowly, to which Stark responds by slinging one arm around Steve and the other around Leila.
"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?"
Steve shoves Tony off of him, sending him stumbling into Leila, who ducks out from under his arm, dodging the sudden weight. She balls her fists, glaring daggers at each man in turn.
"You know damn well why!" Steve snaps. "Back off!"
Tony's caught his balance now, and he steps closer to Steve. "Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me."
"Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"
"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist."
"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. Yeah, I've seen the footage."
Leila rolls her eyes. "We can't all be the Howling Commandos."
"Howling commandos?" Thor asks.
"His team from 70 years ago," Leila snaps at him, for no real reason.
"Ah. Well, I can say, I've fought many a battle and I've never seen a team behave as such." He gestures to the room."
"NOBODY SAID WE WERE A TEAM!" Leila snaps, at the same time she hears Steve threaten Tony with "let's go a few rounds."
Thor glances between Leila and the bickering men behind her and then laughs.
"You people are so petty," he says, an insufferable smile on his face. "And tiny."
"Oh, we're petty? Your psychopath brother is playing intergalactic risk because he found out he was adopted. You know what humans do when they find out they're adopted?"
"What?"
"NOT FUCKING THAT."
Thor glowers. "Tread carefully, my lady. These humans may call you princess, but Loki is my family, and true royalty."
Leila steps closer to him, unwilling to be intimidated. "Maybe in Asgard," she says softly. "On Earth, he's nothing but a killer. Make your peace with that now, your highness, because if it comes down to me and him again? I won't hesitate."
Thor looks ready to fight, and Leila tenses to dodge whatever blow she's sure is coming, but then–
"In case you needed to kill me, but you can't. I know, I've tried."
She and Thor lock eyes for another second and then turn to Banner in unison. It takes Leila a moment to process the words, make sure she heard what she thinks she heard. In the end, it's Banner's uncomfortable expression under the attention he's attracted that sells her on it. Uneasy and embarrassed and a little defensive, and painfully familiar to her.
"I got low," Banner says finally. "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 freakshow and put everyone here at risk!"
Banner's attention is directed at Natasha again, but he's got one hand reaching for the scepter. Leila reaches for the pistol on her hip, her mind running through possibilities. Shooting him is mostly useless, as he's just explained, but a well-aimed shot at his hand could stun him into dropping the scepter, at least. That could make him turn, though, and that's what she's there to prevent. Or was. Under no circumstances, Nick had said, but he hadn't known Loki's scepter was there when he did.
Pick your poison, but do it fast.
"You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?"
"Doctor Banner," Steve says slowly. "Put down the scepter."
Banner glances down and looks distinctly stunned to find his own hand wrapped around the scepter. He lets it go immediately, as though it's burned his hand.
A few thoughts click together in her mind suddenly. Loki's powers. The scepter. This sudden, irrational anger. Before she can start to think through that connection, though–before Banner can say anything–a computer behind him beeps loudly.
"Got it," Tony mutters before he heads over to join Banner. Leila files away the thought for future examination.
"Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my little party trick after all."
"Located the tesseract?" Thor asks, as if it's not completely obvious. Leila rolls her eyes.
"I can get there faster," Stark says, sounding like a child proposing a foot race.
"Look, all of us–"
"The tesseract belongs on Asgard," Thor interrupts Steve. "No human is a match for it."
"Oh, I'm sure," Leila snaps.
Tony turns to leave, almost to the door when Steve grabs his arm.
"You're not going alone."
"You gonna stop me?"
"Put on the suit, let's find out..."
Leila watches them as she briefly reconsiders Thor's statement about humans being petty.
"I'm not afraid to hit an old man," Tony threatens.
"Put on the suit."
Their argument is interrupted by a loud "Oh, my God!" from Banner. Before Leila can even fully turn to look at him, there's the sound of an explosion and the room pitches, throwing everyone across the room.
She's not sure if it makes her lucky or not, but Leila's the only one that gets thrown out the door. She doesn't see it happen; her feet leave the ground and then she slams into a wall and crumples and when she looks up she's out in the corridor.
She gets to her feet quickly. This has never happened on the helicarrier, but she knows the feeling from missions on quinjets that went south. Someone or something's blown out one of the engines–given the direction of the shift, probably engine three, although with how high up they are she can't be sure.
"Put on the suit," she hears from inside the lab. Steve's voice sounds less aggressive and more...professional now. Worried, but clear-headed. The voice she imagines he used while giving orders to the Commandos. She's vaguely impressed at how quickly he can shift gears, how he moves from "fight me" to "follow me" in the course of a few seconds.
"Yep," she hears Stark say, and the two of them head out of the lab, pausing when they see her.
"Whittaker, you're with them," Fury shouts to her, but it doesn't matter. She's already fallen into step beside them.