Chapter 6- Discussions and Find the Cube
Yelizaveta sat in the commissary with a slice of pizza and her Dr. Pepper when Steve came in. "Pizza, huh?" Steve asked.
"Yep. I may be Russian, but Fury won't supply borsht or lapsha. So I make do with pizza. It beats eating hot dogs," Yelizaveta said, making a face. She liked most American foods, but eating a hot dog still made her stomach turn a little.
"You don't like hot dogs. Me and my friend, Bucky, could eat them by the gallon when we were your age," Steve said.
"I don't totally disregard bratwurst, but I just don't like regular hot dogs that Americans eat at carnivals and baseball games," Yelizaveta said as she took a bite of her pepperoni and bell pepper pizza.
"So, where did you come from in Russia?" Steve asked, changing the subject as Yelizaveta finished the slice and picked up her drink.
"I was born in Siberia and lived in Moscow most of my life. What you said about Loki's staff looking like a HYDRA weapon, I know HYDRA weapons as I was born on one of their bases," Yelizaveta said..
"Wait a minute. HYDRA survived?" Steve asked.
"Yeah, HYDRA survived after you took down Johann Schmidt. I was part of a breeding program. You remember Erskine wanted you to be a different kind of soldier with a serum?" I am sort of the same. They replicated the serum and I was born with the serum all in my blood stream," Yelizaveta said.
"What about your parents?" Steve asked.
"I never knew them. HYDRA sold me to a school for elite spies when I was two. If I ever knew my mother or father, I don't remember them. Clint is the closest thing to a father I ever had and that's why I want to save him," Yelizaveta said.
"Well, I'm gonna go check on Dr. Banner and Stark to see how they are coming with the staff. You want to come?" Steve asked.
"Sure. Knowing what an idiot Tony Stark is, he'd probably burn the lab down," Yelizaveta said as they made their way to the lab.
Jimmy Banner held a notepad as his father scanned the staff. "The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports of the Tesseract, but it's gonna take weeks to process," Dad said, tapping Jimmy's hand in the subtle gesture that he should write that down.
"If we bypass the mainframe and direct route to the Homer cluster, we can clock this at around 600 teraflops," Stark said as he pressed a few buttons and left his computer.
"Heh, all me and Dad packed was a toothbrush and my ipod," Jimmy said, his long dark hair falling over his eyes as he wrote out an equation.
"You know, you and the kid should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd both love it. It's Candy Land," Stark said.
"Thanks, but, the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke Harlem," Banner said, reminding of what happened when Jimmy's grandfather Thaddeus Ross wanted to experiment on Dad and it didn't go well.
"Well, I promise a stress-free environment. No tension, no surprises," Stark said as he poked Dad in the back with an electric prod.
"Ow!" Dad yelped as Captain America and Markova entered. Jimmy found himself liking both the Captain and the former Russian spy. Even though she had pointed a gun at his father, Jimmy figured she had to have a good heart in her.
"Hey!" Captain America protested.
"Nothing?" Stark asked Dad.
"Stark, are you nuts?" Markova asked.
"Jury's out. You really have got a lid on it, have you? What's your secret? Mellow Jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?" Stark asked Dad, who chuckled dryly at the jokes.
"Is everything a joke to you?" Captain America asked, a steely look in his eyes.
"Funny things are," Stark said, pointing the prod at the captain.
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny," the captain said stiffly.
"No offense, Doc," Markova said softly.
"It's all right, Yelizaveta, I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things," Dad said, looking up from his staff at her.
"You're tip-toeing, big man. You need to strut," Stark said, walking around the lab.
"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," Markova snapped, her blue eyes turning glacial.
"Do you think I'm not, Catherine the Great? Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables," Stark said.
"You think Fury's hiding something?" Captain America asked.
"He's a spy. Captain, he's "the" spy. His secrets have secrets. It's bugging him and Junior Hulk too, isn't it?" Stark asked, swallowing some vitamins as he looked at Jimmy and Dad.
"Uh...I just want to finish my work here, and-" Dad said, fumbling with his explanation.
"Doctor?" Markova asked.
Dad removed his glasses. "A warm light for all mankind." Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube," Dad said.
"I heard it," Captain America said.
"Well, I think that was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news," Dad said as Stark handed Dad the bag of blueberries in his hand.
"The Stark Tower? That big, ugly...building in New York?" Captain America asked, hesitating as Stark turned to glare at him.
"It's powered by an arc reactor, a self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?" Jimmy asked Stark.
"it's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at," Stark said.
"So, why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. bring him in on the Tesseract project? What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?" Dad asked.
"I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secure files," Stark said, looking at the tablet in his hand. Jimmy looked over in time to see twin expressions of shock on Captain America's and Markova's faces.
"Hold it. I'm sorry. Did you say-" Markova started to ask.
"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?" Stark said, holding out the bag to Captain America and Markova.
"And yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around," Captain America said, barely hiding the disgust in his voice.
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome," Stark said.
"I think Loki is trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders. We should follow them," Captain America said, sounding like a true soldier.
"Following's not really my style," Stark said, eating a blueberry.
"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Markova snarked.
"Of the people in this room, which ones are A, wearing a spangly outfit and carrying a sword, and B, not of use?" Stark asked sarcastically.
"Steve, Yelizaveta, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" Dad asked.
"Just find the Cube," Captain America said as he and Markova walked away.
"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" Stark asked as soon as they were out of earshot.
"They aren't wrong you know. We do have to find the Cube," Jimmy said.
"Probably right, but I'm wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice," Stark said as Dad went to a computer.
"Huh. They're also not wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us," Dad said as he raised a small symbol at the bottom of the screen.
"What he's got is an Acme dynamite kit. It's going to blow up in his face. And I'm going to be there when it does," Stark said.
"Yeah. Me and my boy'll read all about it," Dad said.
"Uh-huh. Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us," Stark said.
"You see, Dad doesn't get a suit of armor. He's exposed. Like a nerve. It's a nightmare," Jimmy said, running his fingers through his hair.
"You know, kid, I've got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl it's way into my heart. This stops it," Stark said, indicating the thing that was glowing through the material of his shirt. "This little circle of light, it's part of me now, not just armor. It's a terrible privilege," Stark said, walking up to the computer where Jimmy and Dad stood.
"But you can control it," Dad said.
"Because I learned how," Stark said.
"It's different," Dad said, reaching up to the corner of the computer screen.
"Hey, I read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you," Stark said, turning off the computer screen.
"So, you're saying that the Hulk...The other guy saved Dad's life. That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?" Jimmy asked bitterly.
"I guess we'll find out, kid," Stark said, walking away.
"You may not enjoy that," Dad said in a low voice.
"And you just might," Stark said as they went back to their work.