The ship was impressive, almost anyone could say that excluding Thor. In his world, this technology would almost be considered primitive. But humans were amazing creatures. Just one hundred years ago televisions didn't exist, let alone a working passenger airplane. But humans, being resourceful to a point of recklessness, had advanced faster than any other beings ever had before. Ninety-nine years after the invention of the passenger plane, a monstrous flying aircraft carrier was almost undetectable by anyone who didn't have the clearance to know it was there. And that flying aircraft held over a thousand people and thousands of tons of equipment. Humans really had advanced quickly.
Advancement, while great for any species, was something humans tended to be particularly good at. And because of that, in a room that was surrounded in windows, two men measured dangerous readings off a scepter that had been brought to Earth from another world.
"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports of the Tesseract. But it's going to take weeks to process." Doctor Bruce Banner stood by the scepter, a device in his hand as he studied the glowing blue portion of the scepter. He was speaking to Tony Stark, who stood at an interesting looking computer, tapping buttons and speaking at the same time.
"If we bypass their mainframe and direct route to the Homer cluster, we can clock this at around 600 teraflops," Tony answered.
"Heh," said Bruce, looking at Tony. "And all I packed was a toothbrush."
Tony gave a little laugh, walking towards the doctor. Picking up a sharp-looking object along the way. "You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it. It's Candy Land."
"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke Harlem." Bruce hesitated at the last part, memories of what had happened flashing through his mind.
"Well, I promise a stress-free environment," Tony said. "No tension, no surprises." And with those words, Tony poked Bruce with the object he had picked up earlier.
"Ow!" Bruce exclaimed, turning to look at Tony. Tony watched him intently, expecting Bruce to become angry enough to turn into the Hulk.
"Hey!" Shouted Steve Rogers from the door, storming in after seeing the display.
"Nothing?" Tony asked Bruce.
Captain America strode forward, asking "Are you nuts?"
"Jury's out," Tony replied, glancing at the Captain briefly before turning back to Bruce. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?"
"Is everything a joke to you?"
Tony looked towards Steve at his question, pointing the sharp object at him. "Funny things are."
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense Doc," Steve said, softening his voice slightly.
"It's all right, I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." He looked towards Tony for a moment, before looking back at the computer he was working on.
"You're tip-toeing, big man." Tony walked away from Bruce. "You need to strut."
Steve immediately intersected. "And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark."
"Do you think I'm not?" Tony picked up a silver bag of blueberries, and walked closer to Steve, looking directly at him. "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."
"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve's voice wasn't disbelieving, just curious.
"He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets. It's bugging him, too. Isn't it?" Tony pointed to Bruce, looking over at him.
Bruce looked up at Tony, his face showing his reluctance to get in the middle of the conversation. "Uhh, I just want to finish my work here, and-," he was cut off by Steve.
"Doctor?"
Bruce took his glasses off, looking at the table instead of at the two men, their eyes now trained on him. "' A warm light for all mankind.' Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube."
"I heard it."
"I think it's meant for you." Bruce pointed to Tony. Tony offered the bag of blueberries to the other man, and Bruce took a handful as he continued talking. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."
"The Stark Tower? That big ugly..." Tony turned to look at Steve. "Building in New York?"
Bruce elaborated. "It's powered by an arc reactor. A self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?"
"It's just the prototype." Tony turned from Bruce, directing his next words at Steve. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at."
"So, why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. bring him in on the Tesseract project?" Bruce looked at Steve as he spoke. "What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"
Tony walked around Bruce, walking closer to Steve as he pulled a device out of his back pocket. "I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secure files."
"I'm sorry. Did you say-," Steve began.
"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?" Tony offered Steve the bag.
Steve didn't acknowledge the offer, just looked right into Tony's eyes as he questioned him. "Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around."
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome."
"I think Loki's 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."
"Following's not really my style."
"And you're all about style, aren't you?"
"Of the people in this room, which one is, A, wearing a spangly outfit, and, B, not of use?"
"Steve," Bruce interrupted. "Tell me none of this smells a little funky to you. What about that woman that was with Loki? Fury didn't tell us anything about her, yet she's here."
"Just find the cube," Steve said briskly, before quickly moving to the door.
Steve walked out of the room, the door opening automatically for him. He walked several paces out the door before pausing, a look of concentration on his face. After a moment, he turned, walking down the hallway with a purpose.
He stopped a passing worker, asking him for directions to the next place he would visit, before continuing down the hall and to an elevator. On the floor that the woman had told him, Steve stepped out and walked down the long hallway filled with doors set twelve feet apart. After several moments of walking, Steve approached a door, guarded by two men. They stood on either side of the door looking straight ahead.
"Is this where the woman that was brought in with Loki is being held?"
"Yes sir," said the guard to the right. Steve looked at him.
"I want to talk to her."
There was a pause, the two men hesitating, and Steve looked directly into the man's eyes. "That woman was brought in with Loki, she has to know something."
Another pause, this one much shorter, before both men said "Yes sir," and the one to the right turned, tapping the keypad. The door clicked and Steve reached for the handle, pushing the door open.
He stepped inside observing the room, and the quiet that that seemed to envelop everything. He stepped towards the inside of the room, turning to look at the door as it slid closed behind him. He advanced farther into the room, attentive in case the girl was as dangerous as S.H.I.E.L.D. seemed to think.
But she didn't jump out at him as he rounded the corner. In fact, she didn't even seem to move from where she sat on the neatly made bed. Her eyes were closed, her back straight, socked feet flat on the ground, hands in her lap.
Steve took the chair from the desk and turned it to face where she sat. He watched the breath in her body, the complete stillness that seemed to hang in the charged air around her. She didn't look like much to be afraid of. She was thin, the clothes that she was wearing hanging on her small frame in odd ways.
Steve looked away, studying the room once more, and finding nothing more than what he had already seen. When her turned back to the girl, he saw her eyes staring right down into his soul.
"Captain Rogers," she said, her voice soft as she nodded her head once in acknowledgment.
Steve straightened up, unsure as to how this girl could know his name. "How...?" He started to ask, studying her, trying to find any indication of an outside source giving her information. He stopped when he realized that her eyes held the heaviness of age, the weight of the world, just like he did. He had felt that tremendous force press on his shoulders, both now and in the past.
"I can't read your mind, if that's what you're thinking," she said with a twitch of her lips. She pushed herself farther on the bed until her back rested against the wall, her legs crossed, hands in her lap. "I knew you, from before."
"Before?"
She didn't answer, only closed her eyes for a moment before looking back at him. "Saving all those soldiers on your own. Sacrificing yourself to keep the world safe from the tesseract. It was all truly inspiring."
"You say that like you were there."
"I was." The girl took a deep breath, and the faint smile that had been on her face before dropped into coldness. "You and I both look very good for our age."
There was a long moment in which neither said a word. Then finally Steve spoke. "Do you have a name?"
She snorted, a smile flitting across her lips. "Of course I have a name. I've had a lot of names, but the most recent is Sigyn."
"Why are you here?"
Sigyn's smile grew. "Why are you here?"
"To stop Loki from taking over the world."
"No, Captain Rogers. That's why I'm here. I'm trying to save the world by saving him."
That gave Steve pause. "I thought you were working with Loki to cause a war."
"Oh, I am. He's trying to break S.H.I.E.L.D., and I'm just offering him my help. That doesn't mean I want the world destroyed."
"But S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying to protect everyone from him."
"Are they really? Is that why they started experimenting with the tesseract? Is that why they decided I would be a great test subject? There's a lot more to S.H.I.E.L.D. than you think there is."
Steve looked shocked, his face slack for a moment before it tensed up, his body going rigid as he thought through everything he had seen, what Tony and Bruce had said.
"You were a test subject?"
Sigyn's face dropped, her smile turning to a frown, her eyebrows drawn together, lips slightly parted.
"Unfortunately."
"What did they do to you?"
"Sorry, but I don't share my personal life with just anyone. But you should follow your instincts. You know there's something going on here, the fact that you came to speak to me is proof of that. Find out what it is, bring it to light. You'd be doing yourself, and me, a huge favor."
Steve felt a sudden need to leave the room, like he was uncomfortable and needed to escape as quickly as possible. He stood, putting the chair back to where it was, and knocked on the door to be opened. He didn't know why he needed to leave so quickly, but he did know that Sigyn had been right. There was some weird stuff going on and to back that up it required him to find real proof, not just the word of a prisoner.
He started searching.
Across the entire ship, computers were sounding the alarm about a security risk. Everyone knew it was happening, but not many people would have guessed it was one of the so-called Avengers. Fury knew though, having observed Tony Stark do many amazing things, and who else would have the technology to break through layers of security and firewalls?
Fury stormed into the lab where Tony and Bruce were trying to track the Tesseract. "What are you doing, Mr. Stark?"
"Uhhh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you." Tony didn't move from where he was seated on one of the work tables.
"You're supposed to locating the Tesseract."
"We are," said Bruce immediately. Director Fury looked at the monitor that was tracking the Tesseract. "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.
Tony watched as Fury turned, looking in the direction Bruce had pointed. "Yeah, then you get your cube back. No muss, no fuss. What is Phase 2?"
The clanking of metal on metal caused the three men to turn and look toward the sound. Steve stood next to a table, having slammed an advanced looking gun onto it. "Phase 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the cube to make weapons. Including locking up a woman and testing the cube's power on her. Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me."
Fury addressed Steve, using as calm a voice as he could to try to deescalate the mounting tension in the room. "Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract, including the girl. This does not mean that we're making-," Fury said, only to be interrupted by Tony.
"I'm sorry, Nick. What were you lying?" Tony stood, swiveling the screen that had been in front of him to face Fury, showing plans and documents and proof of phase 2.
"I was wrong, Director," Steve said as Fury looked towards the door. Thor and Natasha had walked in, trying to take stock of the situation. "The world hasn't changed a bit."
"Did you know about this?" Tony asked, gesturing towards Natasha.
She didn't answer him, instead turning towards Bruce. "You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?"
"I was in Calcutta," Bruce said with an unamused laugh. "I was pretty well removed."
"Loki is manipulating you," Natasha said as she took a step forward.
Bruce rebutted. "And you've been doing what, exactly?"
"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you," she responded.
"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy." Bruce walks over to the same screen Tony had turned around, pointing to the display of weapons and plans that had been uncovered. "I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is experimenting on people with the Tesseract, and then using it to build weapons of mass destruction."
"Because of him." Fury pointed his finger directly at Thor.
Thor, very confused because he had yet to say a word during the entire conversation, questioned him. "Me?"
Fury didn't direct his next words at Thor, but towards the entire room. "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 we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."
"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor was quick to defend, having no knowledge of there ever being a battle that involved Earth.
"You may say that," answered Fury. "But one of your people has been on this planet for two hundred years. And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, and just like that girl, who can't be controlled."
"Like you controlled the cube?" Questioned Steve.
"One of my people? Is it the woman that was with Loki?" Thor paused, his eyes burning into Fury. "Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war."
"A higher form?" Asked Steve, confused as to what could be worse than the wars he had seen.
Fury, looking directly at Fury said, "You forced our hand. We had to come up with something."
"A nuclear deterrent and experiments on an innocent woman. Because that always calms everything right down." Tony responded, displeased about the plans he had seen.
"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?"
"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck-deep-," began Steve, but was interrupted by Tony.
"Wait, wait. Hold on. How is this about me?"
"I'm sorry, isn't everything?"
Thor butted in, looking at Fury as he said, "I thought humans were more evolved than this."
"Excuse me, did we come to your planet to blow stuff up?" Was Fury's response.
"You treat your champions with such mistrust."
"You boys really that naive?" Asked Natasha, looking a Thor. "S.H.I.E.L.D. monitors potential threats."
Bruce, with a disbelieving face, asked Natasha, "Captain America's on threat watch?"
"We all are." Answered Natasha.
"Wait, you're on that list? Are you above or below angry bees?" Asked Tony.
"Stark, so help me God, if you make one more wisecrack-," Steve began.
"Threat! Verbal threat. I feel threatened." Tony said loudly.
Things were escalating, Thor, Natasha, Tony, and Steve all crowded around Fury as they argued and accused each other. What they didn't know was that the next step in Loki and Sigyn's plan was almost upon them.
"You speak of control, yet you court chaos," Thor accused Fury.
"That's his M.O., int it?" Bruce asked, drawing Fury's attention. "I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're a time bomb."
"You need to step away," Fury said forcefully.
"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Tony asked, looking around at the rest of the group, placing his hand on Steve's shoulder.
"You know damn well why. Back off!" Steve knocked Tony's hand off.
"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me," Tony said, looking at Steve and he walked around him.
"Yeah. 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. I've seen the footage. The only thing you really 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."
There was a small silence in which Steve smiled and looked briefly at Bruce.
"Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat but you better stop pretending to be a hero."
"A hero? Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle." Tony stepped closer to Steve, now less than a foot apart.
"Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds."
Thor, having heard enough, started chuckling. "You people are so petty and tiny."
"Yeah, this is a team," said Bruce.
Fury finally cut back in. "Agent Romanoff, would you escort Doctor Banner back to his-,"
"Where?" Bruce asked. "You rented my room."
"The cell was just in case-,"
"I case you needed to kill me. But you can't. I know, I tried. 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. You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?"
Everyone was on edge as Bruce picked up Loki's scepter as he spoke.
"Doctor Banner. Put down the scepter." Steve's voice was deadly calm but full of fear.
Bruce looked down at the scepter in his hand, confused as to how it had come to be in his grasp. But before anyone said anything else, the computer beeped, drawing everyone but Natasha's attention.
"Got it," said Tony.
"Sorry guys," Bruce said as he sat the scepter back on the table and walked to the computer that had beeped. "You don't get to see my party trick after all."
Several decks below, Sigyn was smiling.