Director Nick Fury's helicopter descended on the secret facility housing some of the most experimental projects SHIELD worked on. Of course, theoretically, any one of those could cause extreme damage to a large chunk of the facility, despite the fact that it was almost entirely underground. Due to this, Shield naturally kept dozens of emergency policies to protect its members and other projects, should any project reach critical conditions. All of that almost explained why Shield agents were swarming like flies below him. Almost.

No project Shield operated should produce a total evacuation like what was happening at the moment. Well, no official project. Shield held in its possession an object of untold power. And, apparently, someone had set it off.

The helicopter landed and Fury stepped out, followed closely by his recently appointed second-in-command, Agent Hill. Hill had proven herself working with Link handling the various curses his invisible enemy had placed around the world over the past few years. Only a few months ago she'd earned her promotion to this point. Shield still watched Link, of course, but agent Hill now had bigger issues to worry about.

Agent Phil Coulson was there to greet him, and Fury wasted no time, "How bad is it?" he asked the friendly agent.

"That's the problem, sir: we don't know," came the reply.

We don't know. Those words were, naturally, the most galling words in any intelligence organization. For Shield, the words were… dangerous. Especially since they were spoken regarding The Tesseract.

Once they were out of the open and into an elevator, Coulson elaborated, "Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from the Tesseract four hours ago."

"NASA didn't authorize us to go to testing phase," Fury cut in.

"He wasn't testing it, wasn't even in the room. Spontaneous event."

"It just turned itself on?" Hill asked.

"Where are the energy levels at now?" Fury asked, cutting through.

"Climbing, when Selvig couldn't shut it down we ordered the evac."

"How long to get everyone out?"

"Campus should be clear in the next half hour."

"Do better," Fury said, knowing full well there would be very little that could be done to make that happen.

Agent Hill spoke up, "Sir, evacuation may be futile."

"We should tell them to go back to sleep?"

"If we can't control the Tesseract's energy, there may not be a minimum safe distance."

Of course Fury knew that. Everyone who knew anything about the Tesseract knew that. But they also didn't know it would destroy the planet. They had to try to escape if they could. Speaking of which…

"I need you to make sure the Phase Two prototypes are shipped out."

"Sir, is that really a priority right now-?"

Fury turned and cut her off, "Until such time as the world ends we will act as though it intends to spin on. Clear out the tech below, every piece of Phase Two on a truck and gone ."

"Yes, sir," she replied, but still didn't seem happy about it. Didn't matter, she'd obey.

Fury walked into the room Selvig operated in and began trying to learn what he could, "Talk to me doctor."

Dr. Erik Selvig looked up from the blue glowing cube in question and answered, "Director!"

"Is there anything we know for certain?"

"The Tesseract is misbehaving."

A man tried to touch the cube with a metal instrument and it kicked back with a blue flash.

"Is that supposed to be funny?"

"No, it's not funny at all," Dr. Selvig responded, "The Tesseract is not only active, she's… behaving."

"I assume you pulled the plug."

"She's the energy source. We turn off the power she turns it back on. If she reaches peak level…"

Fury cut him off, "We prepared for this, Doctor, harnessing energy from space."

"We don't have the harness. My calculations are far from complete. She's throwing off interference. Radiation. Nothing harmful, low levels of gamma radiation."

Fury looked back at him from the cube, but he spoke almost under his breath, "That can be harmful," then louder he asked, "Where's agent Barton?"

"The hawk? Up in his nest, as usual."

Fury got a comm link and called the agent down from his perch. When he arrived Fury spoke a rebuke, "I gave you this detail so you could keep a close eye on things."

"Oh I see better from a distance."

"Have you seen anything that might set this thing off?"

Another assistant spoke up, "Doctor, it's spiking again."

"No one's come or gone," Barton said, "Selvig's clean, no contacts or IM. If there's any tampering, sir, it wasn't at this end."

Fury paused as they came close to the troublesome cube, "At this end?" He asked, genuinely confused by his agent's choice of words.

Barton looked back and saw his confusion, then gestured at the Tesseract, "Yeah the cube, it's a doorway to the other end of space, right? Doors open from both sides."

As if waiting for its cue, the Tesseract suddenly started flashing and spitting out burst of blue light. The energy in the air began to rise and suddenly the light started to swirl and gather around the cube. After a brief moment, it fired a beam of blue light out some fifteen feet and opened a portal.

For a moment, the portal increased in size, then it collapsed, and the energy came out in the wave that washed over them and ran up the walls, gathering at the roof. Fury didn't watch it, though, because something, or someone, had come through that portal. A man knelt, his cloths alight with what appeared to be blue flames. He held a dangerous-looking spear with a blue jewel embedded near the top. A jewel that greatly reminded Fury of the Tesseract.

Agents slowly approached the man, weapons pointing at him, and he stood up. Even at a distance, the smile on his face made Fury wary. It faded slightly, as he saw how many people were in the room with him, though.

There was a long silence as everyone waited to see what would happen, and Fury spoke into it, "Sir, please put down the spear."

The man looked at said spear, as if considering the idea, then it suddenly glowed bright blue and he point and fired an energy blast right at Fury. Agent Barton reacted quickly, though, and tackled Fury getting them both out of the way.

The attack started a firefight, but it didn't last long. Bullets did nothing to the man, even when they clearly struck his face. He leaped a distance not humanly possible and speared the first agent, then used knives and energy blasts to kill most of the others. He snapped a man's back by kicking a man ten feet to a wall, and it was over.

Barton stood to try and fight, but the man rushed over and grabbed his arm before he could point a gun anywhere useful. Fury found himself very near the Tesseract as the man raised his spear and touched it to agent Barton's chest. Blue energy flowed into the man's body and he relaxed, holstering his gun.

Fury thought fast, if that was a kind of brainwashing, it meant the stranger was likely to soon learn any secrets Barton knew. One of his best agents was compromised with just a tap of a spear point. Options. Fury looked up, the energy was coalescing again in the domed roof. He wasn't an expert, but it was possible that was about to explode again. If it did, this whole place would be buried. If Fury could get out…

Fury quickly pulled the cube free of whatever contraption Selvig had placed it in and put it in a container left there from before. The stranger made himself busy continuing the brainwashing of Selvig's staff and the remaining Shield guards. Fury tried to leave quietly, but the hostile wasn't blind.

"Please don't," he said into the silence, "I still need that."

"This doesn't have to get any messier," Fury said by way of warning, but the man was not impressed.

"Of course it does, I've come too far for anything else."

Well… plan B.

Fury turned back to face him and the man continued: "I am Loki. Of Asgard. And I am burdened with glorious purpose."

"Loki!" Dr. Selvig said, "Brother of Thor!"

Well, he had met Thor in New Mexico and befriended him, but Loki didn't seem to like the title.

Fury tried to bury that animosity, "We have no quarrel with your people."

"An ant has no quarrel with a boot?" Loki asked.

"Are you planning to step on us?"

"I come with glad tidings, of a world made free," he said, strolling over to Selvig. Maybe it was unfair, but Fury hoped he killed the man instead of taking him.

"Free from what?"

"Freedom! Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart…" he turned and pressed the tip of his spear to Dr. Selvig's chest, and brainwashed him, "… then you will know peace."

"Yeah, you say peace," Fury responded, "I kinda think you mean the other thing."

"Sir, Director Fury is stalling," Barton broke in, obviously catching on to Fury's move, "This place is about to blow and drop a hundred feet of rock on us. He means to bury us."

"Like the Pharaohs of old," Fury said.

"He's right," Dr. Selvig chimed in, "The portal is collapsing in on itself, we have maybe two minutes until this goes critical."

Loki looked at Barton, "Well then."

Barton didn't even hesitate, he pulled his gun and shot Fury in the chest. Fury hit the ground hard, but the bulletproof vest underneath his suit kept him alive. His chest still flared with pain, he'd be lucky if he didn't have a few cracked ribs. Barton took the case as they all walked out, leaving Fury behind to die.

It took a moment for Fury to get his wits back, but when he did he immediately pulled free an intercom and spoke while he dug the bullet out of his vest so it would stop constricting his chest, "Hill, do you copy?" He asked while grunting from the pain, "Barton's been comprised, he's with a hostile, they have the Tesseract, shut them down!"

Fury raced for the exit as the compound began falling apart around him. Near the exit, Coulson radioed that everyone was clear of the building, that man could work miracles sometimes. Fury reached the chopper and ordered takeoff. Not too soon either, the explosion was audible even through all that earth between it and Fury. A visible shockwave reverberated out from the center of the compound, then it began to collapse.

Fury felt his face harden as a sinkhole consumed the entire base though, fortunately, it didn't travel much further beyond it. It was still disastrous power, and it was currently in the hands of an alien force with stated hostile intentions towards the human race. Fury ordered his pilot to head off the jeep Loki was in, he'd made it out of the underground, and nobody had followed him out.

As the pilot lined him up, Fury aimed at Agent Barton with his own sidearm, as he didn't have a better weapon. At least one shot struck glass, but he didn't manage to stop the vehicle before Loki aimed another blast at the chopper, which struck home and sent it into a downward spiral. Fury leapt free at the earliest relatively safe moment and took more useless shots at the jeep as it drove away free.

"Director. Director Fury, do you copy?" Coulson asked over walkie talkie.

Fury pulled out his own and answered, "The Tesseract is with a hostile force. I have men down, Hill?"

"A lot of men still under, don't know how many survivors," she replied.

"Sound the general call. I want every living soul not working rescue looking for that briefcase."

"Rodger that."

"Coulson, get back to base. This is a level seven. As of right now: we are at war."

"What do we do?" Coulson asked.

Agent Natasha Romanov was tied to a chair, in the middle of broken down warehouse, being interrogated by three Russian idiots who wouldn't stop looking at her chest. In other words, she was exactly where she wanted to be. The older man, leader of the group, struck her on the cheek. It barely even hurt, but she made an effort to make it look like it hurt.

"This is not how I wanted this evening to go," he said in Russian.

"I know how you wanted this evening to go. Believe me, this is better," she answered in kind.

He chuckled at her supposed bravado, "Who are you working for? Lermentov, yes?"

One of the man's cronies grabbed her chair and tilted it backwards so she hung over a pit in the ground. She decided to be nice and look scared.

"Does he think we have to go through him to move our cargo?"

"I thought General Solohob is in charge of the export business," she said in a worried way, feeding him intel she knew was outdated. That was what she was doing here, after all, updating Shield's intel on this organization.

The goon set her down and his boss, predictably, began to gloat, "Solohob!" he scoffed, "A bagman, a front. Your outdated information betrays you," he stepped forward, "The famous Black Widow, and she turns out to be simply another pretty face."

"You really think I'm pretty?" She asked, visibly regaining composure. She'd look like she was trying to salvage the situation in a way only a woman could, and she'd be ignored. He'd think that was her scheme, and miss the real one he was already falling for.

The fool bought it, and had a goon pinch open her mouth as he went to get a pair of pliers, "Tell Lermentov he doesn't need to move the tanks. Tell him he is out. Tell him, well…" he turned back and brandished the pliers menacingly before continuing in English: "You may have to write it down."

Before Natasha could continue her fun, a phone rang in the third man's pocket. He looked confused then pulled the phone from his pocket and answered. After a moment he held it out to his boss, saying it was a call for her.

The old guy took it and spoke into the microphone, "You listen carefully-"

That was as far as he got, whoever was on the other end apparently shut him up fast, for in just a moment he was holding the phone out for Natasha to take. She pinched it between her cheek and shoulder, since her hands were tied.

"We need you to come in," Phil Coulson said.

"Are you serious? I'm working," she said.

"This takes precedence."

"I'm in the middle of an interrogation, this moron is giving me everything."

Said moron looked confused, and said, "I don't… give… everything."

Natasha gave him a flat stare before returning to the call, "Look, you can't pull me out of this right now-"

"Natasha," Coulson said, "Barton's been comprised."

That did take precedence.

"Let me put you on hold."

Less than fifteen seconds later, all three men were down with hurts they'd feel a week later. The Black Widow picked up her shoes as she started talking to Coulson again.

"Where's Barton now?"

"We don't know."

"But he's alive?"

"We think so. I'll brief you on everything when you get back. But, first, we need you to talk to the big guy."

That didn't seem like a good idea to Natasha, so she said: "Coulson, you know that Stark trusts me about as far as he can throw me" and it was true… although if he were wearing the suit she supposed he could throw her a lot farther… not important.

"Oh, I've got Stark. You get the big guy."

That stopped Natasha in her tracks, how was she going to get him? And what was happening to make bringing in The Hulk worth the risk? Before she knew it, Natasha had cursed in Russian.

Dr. Bruce Banner was washing his hands when the little girl came. His Hindi wasn't very good yet, but the family he'd just finished trying to treat immediately started warning the girl to stay away… at least he was pretty sure that was what they were saying. The girl started speaking very fast and holding out a fistful of paper money.

Bruce walked over trying to decipher the rapid words, but ultimately was forced to ask her to slow down. The girl pleaded him to help her father, who apparently was suffering the same sickness as this family. Bruce carefully followed her to a larger home on the outskirts of town, avoiding almost on habit the patrolling soldiers. She ran inside and Bruce watched as she unwaveringly made her way through the empty house and out a window.

"Should've gotten paid up front, Banner" he chuckled dryly.

"Well, for a man who's supposed to be avoiding stress, you picked a hell of a place to settle," said a woman's voice.

Banner turned and saw her emerge from a corner of the room, she was dressed in very fine Hindi attire, too fine for this area, of course. The light was low but Bruce thought she was a red-head.

"Avoiding stress isn't the secret" he said, putting his bag down. Anyone who took the effort to pull him aside like this wasn't just going to let him walk away. Or at least they intended not to.

"Then what is? Yoga?" she asked jokingly.

"You brought me to the edge of the city. Smart" he said, cutting past the pointless question, "I assume the whole place is surrounded?" he asked, looking out a window and not seeing a thing.

"Just you and me" she said, though she was certainly lying. Nobody who knew about his… condition would have the nerve to come to him alone.

"And your actress buddy? Is she a spy too? They start that young?" he asked, knowing she couldn't have been told anything. She would just have been offered a incredibly helpful amount of money for her poor family to do this.

"I did" the woman said, surprising Bruce.

"Who're you?"

"Natasha Romanov"

Bruce finally forced himself ask the important question, "Are you here to kill me, Miss Romanov? Because that's not going to work out for everyone."

"No no, of course not. I'm here on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Shield…" Bruce said, remembering the way they… cleaned up after his... first incident, "How'd they find me?"

"We never lost you, Doctor. We've kept our distance. Even helped keep some other interested parties off your scent" she revealed. It stung Bruce's pride a bit, but he guessed he shouldn't be surprised.

"Why?"

"Nick Fury seems to trust you. But now we need you to come in."

"What if I say no?" he asked, testing just how adamant they were prepared to be.

"I'll persuade you" Romanov said, smiling in a way that had likely seduced many a man before him.

"And what if the… other guy says no?"

"You've been more than a year without an incident, I don't think you wanna break that streak" she said.

"Well I don't every time get what I want."

Romanov picked up a phone as she spoke again, "Doctor, we're facing a potential global catastrophe."

Bruce laughed a bit, "Well those I actively try to avoid."

"This…" she showed him a picture on her phone and set it on a table, then sat down at the same table, "is the Tesseract. It has the potential energy to wipe out the planet."

Bruce pulled out his glasses and looked at the picture. It was a glowing blue cube, apparently, and that confused Bruce.

"What does Fury want me to do? Swallow it?" he asked.

"He wants you to find it, it's been taken. It emits a gamma signature that's too weak for us to trace. There's no one that knows gamma radiation like you do. If there was, that's where I'd be."

Bruce took off his glasses, trying to gauge how much truth he was being told here, "So Fury isn't after the monster?" he asked, skeptically.

"Not that he's told me."

"And he tells you everything?"

"Talk to Fury, he needs you on this" she said, avoiding the question.

"He needs me in a cage?"

"No one's going to put you in a…"

"STOP LYING TO ME!" Bruce shouted, slamming his hands on the table. In an instant the agent had a gun pointed at his face, but she had the restraint not to fire right away, which certainly saved her life.

"I'm sorry, that was mean," he said, trying to pacify her, "I just wanted to see what you'd do. Why don't we do this the easy way where you don't use that and the… other guy doesn't make a mess."

Agent Romanov didn't move, and her face showed real fear. So she wasn't a complete fool.

"Okay?" he asked, "Natasha?"

The agent finally lowered her weapon and spoke into an ear piece Bruce hadn't seen on her, "Stand down. We're good here."

"Just you and me?" he couldn't help but ask.

Still, he knew already that he'd be going. These people were ready and willing to fight the 'other guy' and, above that, they were willing to risk his appearance to get this cube back. That told Dr. Bruce Banner just how serious things had to be.

Director Nick Fury didn't answer to any one person in the world, but there was a council above him that he rarely actually got along with. Unfortunately, he also had to run all the biggest things by them, and so that's what he was doing now. Explaining to a bunch of push-papers how the real world worked.

"This is out of line, Director," a councilman accused, "You're dealing with forces you can't control."

"You ever been in a war, councilman? In a firefight?" Fury asked, "Did you feel an overabundance of control?"

"You're saying that this 'Asgard' is declaring war on our planet?"

"Not Asgard. Loki" Fury corrected, hoping he was correct.

"He can't be working alone. What about the other one? His brother" asked the only councilwoman.

"Our intelligence says Thor's not a hostile. But he's worlds away. We can't depend on him to help, either. It's up to us."

The first councilman spoke again: "Which is why you should be focusing on Phase 2. It was designed for exactly this…"

"Phase 2 isn't ready," Fury cut in, not needing to say that if it wasn't ready then it wouldn't be until this crisis was over, "Our enemy is. We need a response team."

"The Avengers Initiative was shut down" he chastised Fury.

"This isn't about The Avengers," Fury said, lying through his teeth.

"We've seen the list," another councilman said, calling Fury out.

"You're running the worlds greatest covert security network and you're going to leave the fate of the human race to a handful of freaks" accused the first man.

"I'm not leaving anything to anyone. We need a response team. These people may be isolated, unbalanced, even. But I believe that, with the right push, they can be exactly what we need."

"You believe?" asked the councilwoman in a tone that bordered mocking, as if belief wasn't all anyone could offer on anybody else's future actions.

"War isn't won by sentiment, Director," said the first councilman.

"No," Director Fury agreed, "It's won by soldiers."

Steve Rodgers had a hard time sleeping these days. It didn't really make sense to him, it wasn't that he had any kind of Shellshock, now known as PTSD. If anything, he just felt entirely out of place. Often, when he felt like this, he came down to the gym, like now, and punched a bag.

It was really a useless attempt. He couldn't tire out from anything this simple and, as far as he was aware, his muscles could neither grow nor atrophy. He was supposed to be the absolute peak of human form. But it did help him think.

Tonight, however, all he could think about was The War. More specifically, he found himself vividly remembering the final fight against Hydra, the 'Red Skull', and subsequent need to crash the plane he was on to save millions. He didn't notice his punches were getting faster and harder as the memories flooded through him and right as he recalled that crash, he accidentally broke the bag he'd been whaling on with a punch hard enough to also dislodge the chain from the hook.

The bag hit the ground, spilling its contents out onto the floor. Steve sighed and picked up the next bag in line, hooking it on and continuing his worthless workout.

"Trouble sleeping?" a voice he knew perfectly well called out.

Steve turned to glance at the Director of SHIELD before going back to his punching routine, "I slept for seventy years, sir. Think I've had my fill."

"Then you should be out, celebrating. Seeing the world."

"When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up they say we won. They didn't say what we lost."

The statement didn't nearly encapsulate Steve's problems with the modern world or how awkward it made him feel. But, he didn't want to get into a debate about it.

"We've made some mistakes along the way," Director Fury said, "Some, very recently."

Steve looked at him, decided he was done with his workout and began packing up, "You here with a mission, sir?"

"I am."

"Trying to get me back into the world?"

Fury held out a file folder, "Trying to save it."

Steve took it, opening it up to find a picture of a very familiar blue cube.

"Hydra's secret weapon," he said.

"Howard Stark fished that out while he was looking for you. He thought what we think: The Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs."

This. This was something Steve could do, a remnant of the war, his war.

"Who took it from you?" he asked.

"He's called Loki, he's… not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."

"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me."

"Ten bucks says you're wrong."

Steve finished packing up and starting walking to put everything away. Then he'd get ready for a fight with this… Loki.

"There's a briefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment. Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?" Fury called out.

"You should've left it in the ocean."

Tony Stark really liked being Iron Man. He took almost any excuse to put on and use the suit he found. He'd started the whole project to right the wrongs of his company, but by this point that wasn't really an issue. Still, the only thing he liked more than innovating for the next model was testing the next model. It gave him that thrill every man needed in his life.

The old saying 'do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life' held absolutely true in his case. Handing the company to Pepper, if done when he thought he was dying, had proven an excellent decision. He still technically worked for Stark Industries, in fact he was doing that right now. Technically.

The Suit was on and Tony was at the bottom of a river, the suit had been built water proof from the beginning, cutting into an underwater power line that ran straight to Stark Tower. He finished opening a hole in the casing and slapped a gizmo he'd designed over it. It activated and took control exactly as planned, and he took off to leave the nasty river.

Tony flew back into New York easily, his years of practice making it child's play to navigate through the city without damaging anything. He loved it. Sure he'd gone higher and faster but even this, only really amounting to a casual stroll for him, would prove dangerous for anyone lacking practice or control. Still, he was about a task tonight.

"Good to go on this end. The rest is up to you" he told Pepper Potts through the phone link set up in the Suit.

"You disconnected the transmission lines? Are we off the grid?" she asked.

"Stark Tower is about to become a beacon of self-sustaining clean energy" he said, not bothering to hide his pride.

"Well, assuming the arc reactor takes over and it actually works" Pepper said.

"I assume" he responded, dismissing the possibility of failure, because there wasn't one, "Light her up."

He turned the corner and got a straight shot to his latest success. The lights of Stark Tower began turning on, working their way up until they reached the huge lights that read 'STARK' which came on shining the beautiful iridescent blue that was synonymous with the arc reactor.

"How's it look!" Pepper asked excitedly.

"Like Christmas, but with more… me" Tony said, knowing it was a little narcissistic but… hey he'd arguably just won a victory greater than any of his Iron Man feats. He deserved to be proud.

"You've gotta go wider on the public awareness campaign. You need to do some press" Pepper said, characteristically running right past the good part, "I'm in DC tomorrow, I'm working on the zoning for the next three buildings."

"Pepper" Tony cut in, "You're killing me. The moment, remember? Enjoy the moment."

"Then get in here and I will" she said suggestively as he descended onto the landing platform specifically designed for the Iron Man Suit.

The platform reacted perfectly to his landing and Tony walked forward casually as the spinning wheels came up and stripped the Suit off him without causing any inconvenience.

"Sir, Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. is on the line" JARVIS said in his British accent as the pieces of the suit came free.

"I'm not in" Tony said, then the helmet came off, "I'm actually out."

"Sir, I'm afraid he's insisting."

"Grow a spine, Jarvis. I got a date."

Pepper was watching the status screen as Tony walked inside, invalidating his statement about being out but hey, it was true then. Two seconds ago.

"Levels are holding steady… I think" Pepper said, sounding like it was a question.

"Of course they are," Tony said, "I was directly involved. Which brings me to my next question, how does it feel to be a genius?"

"Well, ha. I really wouldn't know, now would I?"

she said.

"What do you mean?" he asked, "All this" he gestured around at the whole tower, "came from you."

"No," she said, refusing to give in to his nonsense, "All this, came from that " she said, poking the arc reactor in his chest.

"Give yourself some credit," he pleaded unpleadingly, "Please. Stark Tower is your baby. Give yourself…" he thought for a moment, "12% of the credit."

Her smile vanished replaced by a flat stare and he knew he'd made a mistake in assigning a number, "Twelve Percent?"

"An argument could be made for fifteen!" he said quickly, knowing it wouldn't help him dig his way out… but he'd never been good at quitting.

"12%? My baby?"

"Well, I did do all the heavy lifting. Literally! I lifted the heavy things. And! Sorry, but the security snafu? That was on you."

Pepper was getting the champagne out, but now the argument was fun.

"My private elevator…" he tried to say.

"You mean our elevator?" she asked.

"…it was teeming with sweaty workmen," he sat down with her and decided to stop digging his hole, "I'm going to pay for that comment about percentages in some subtle way later, aren't I?"

"Not gonna be that subtle" she said.

"Tell you what, the next building is gonna say Potts on the tower" he said, holding out his glass of champagne.

"On the lease" she said, upping him and clinking her glass against his.

"Call your mom, can you bunk over?" Tony said, getting a laugh from Pepper.

"Sir, the telephone. I'm afraid my protocols are being overwritten" interjected Jarvis. Tony really needed to figure out how Shield kept hacking him. He picked up his personally designed phone and answered the call, "You have reached the life model decoy of Mr. Tony Stark. Please leave a message" he said making Pepper laugh more.

"This is urgent" Agent Coulson said.

"Then leave it urgently."

The elevator doors opened to reveal Agent Coulson himself, with his phone to his ear.

"Security breach" Tony said, by way of greeting.

"Mr. Stark" Coulson said back.

"Phil! Come in!" Pepper greeted, standing up.

"Phil?" Tony asked, but nobody paid heed.

"I can't stay" Coulson said.

"His first name is 'Agent'" Tony said, trying to make his displeasure known.

Pepper didn't seem to care, "Come on in! We're celebrating."

"Which is why he can't stay" Tony responded through his teeth, holding the fakest smile he could manage.

"We need you to look this over. As soon as possible" Coulson said, holding out an admittedly very high tech portable computer.

For some reason that didn't make Tony like the agent's intrusion any more, "I don't like being handed things."

"That's fine, because I love to be handed things" Pepper said taking the laptop and handing Coulson her champagne, "So lets trade" she then traded the laptop for Tony's champagne and began drinking it, "Thank you."

Tony held the device, almost opened it, but tried to salvage his 'moment' one last time, "Official consulting hours are between 8 and 5 every other Thursday" he said, making up numbers for his fake position as a 'consultant' for Shield.

"This isn't a consultation" Coulson said, smoothly.

"Is this about the Avengers?" Pepper asked, and when Coulson looked at her with a clear expression she backpedaled, "Which… I know nothing about."

Tony gave up and walked over to his workspace, opening the laptop as he went and saying, "The Avengers Initiative was scrapped, I thought. And I didn't even qualify."

"I didn't know that either" Pepper said.

"Yeah, apparently I'm volatile, self-obsessed, don't play well with others."

"That I did know" she said, helpfully.

"This isn't about personality profiles anymore" Coulson said.

"Whatever. Ms. Potts, got a second?" Tony said, he'd given up salvaging his celebrating, but he still intended to make his displeasure known.

Pepper walked over quickly as he started unlocking the laptop, "You know, I thought we were having a moment" he said.

"I was having 12% of a moment" she countered and Tony gave her a flat stare, "This seems serious. Phil's pretty shaken."

"How would you know if it's… why is he 'Phil'?"

"What is all this?" she asked, nodding to the screen.

"This is uh…" he touched the several profiles on the screen and expanded them out to his holo projectors around the work area, "… this."

They both stared at the footage looping around them, most of which was just noise to him, but Tony did recognize a few items here and there. The old WWII hero Captain America was on the list, apparently. Though what a long dead friend of his father's was applicable in what beyond Tony at the moment.

Pepper exhaled slowly, "I'm going to take the jet to DC tonight."

"Tomorrow" Tony said.

"You have homework. You have a lot of homework."

It seemed she wasn't wrong, there was no doubt that there really was something serious going on. There was a video of some guy fighting skeletons with a sword (was that not doctored?), black and white footage of Captain America, even some from a… Hulk incident.

"Well, what if I… didn't?" he asked.

"If you didn't?" he asked with an 'I'll humor you, small child' face and tone.

"Yeah."

"You mean when you've finished?"

He nodded.

"Well, then…" she leaned in and whispered something to make even him blush. Coulson looked away a little awkwardly.

"Square deal. Fly safe" he said, and he meant it.

They kissed and Pepper left to fly to DC. Tony caught something about 'Phil' dropping her off and something about a cellist he was seeing. Tony ignored it and turned to the non-person file first. There he saw a glowing blue cube that seemed to be the linchpin to this whole thing. Funnily enough he could've sworn he'd heard about this thing from somewhere…

Despite the sense of evil magic all around, the man Link was inspecting was completely unaffected. He was sick, no doubt about that, but it was completely natural, human, sickness. In and of itself, Link supposed that it wasn't that unrealistic. If he'd been the only one like this in the village, he would've written it off. Unfortunately, this same sickness was affecting every man in the village, all the men and only the men.

It was all too suspicious, but all his ability to sense magic told him nothing was touching this man or any other the others. So, Link was left stumped by this problem. He possessed no healing powers of his own, and didn't carry enough healing potions to cure all of them either.

"It's not him, is it," said a familiar female voice behind him.

Link turned to see a face he hadn't in quite some time, "Agent Hill, I heard you got promoted."

"I was, I'm here doing that job now."

"Ok… well you're right. I'm no doctor, but this just looks like Malaria. That said I do sense Ganondorf's touch on this place."

"It's not always Ganondorf's fault, you know. There are other threats in the world. Maybe Malaria was originally magically created. Either way, Shield can take this one, you're needed elsewhere."

Link frowned, calling Malaria magical was clearly wrong, magic was in the air, but the disease was natural, but she wasn't actually trying to convince him of that. Shield couldn't have… oh.

"That explosion northwest of here?"

"You sensed it?"

"A magical rupture that size I'd have felt in Siberia."

Agent Hill took on a concerned look, then held out a photograph to Link. He took it and looked at the picture, which turned out to be of a glowing blue cube, maybe just small enough to hold in one's hand.

"I don't recognize it," he said, "I don't think any of my past lives ever saw this. So it's probably not Hylian."

"No, this came to Earth during humanity's time. Mythology calls it 'The Tesseract' and it was supposedly a gift from Odin to be kept safe and hidden. The Nazis dug it up during WWII, we ended up with it after that."

"And… it caused that explosion?" Link asked, skeptically.

"That's the short version."

"So, what. You expect me to believe Shield thinks it's too dangerous and wants me to keep it now?"

"Not at all. We want you to help us get it back. It's been stolen."

Link, turned and spoke to the woman whose house they stood in to reassure her that the illness was not a curse and he'd get real doctors to help since he figured he wouldn't be able to stay. He did, however want to know just how serious the situation was and he wanted to make sure this place still got help. He walked out of the house, Hill following him.

"Link, I know you're from an ancient race, is it that much a stretch to think that other species evolved on other planets and brought powerful magical objects of their own to Earth?"

"No, not really."

"Link. Please. Loki came, stole the cube, blew up our entire facility, and declared war on humanity itself. The cube's power is best used for making portals, if he gets it working he could bring an army from anywhere in the universe."

Link turned back to her, "Loki. You want me to fight an entity that's been heralded as a god for you?"

Hill's face was covered in worry, and her next words sounded like a true plea, "Link, we don't know the half of what you can do or why you can do it. Normally, Shield doesn't like that. But, what intelligence we do have on you suggests you care about people. We have a potentially world-ending threat on our hands. Please, we can't fight Loki. He's out of our league. That's your specialty."

Link looked in the agent's eye. She was worried, genuinely. He really had intended to go, but now he was beginning to understand the gravity of the situation. This agent had barely been phased by that dragon a few years ago, and this genuinely had her shaken.

"Shield cures this place for me, and I'll fight a god for you."