Riptide
Lydia’s POV
“What?” I said, looking up from the files on my father’s hands “Why did you call the Tesseract ‘space stone’?” My father asked me.
I stood there motionless without giving an answer, if I was honest with myself, I didn’t know why I called the blue cube ‘space stone’ the term not something I have ever heard before, but the moment I looked at the picture of the Tesseract a whisper of a british accent calling it that and a flash of pale hands holding it, came to my mind.
“You aren’t the only one with naming abilities dad” I answered in lieu of saying the truth, suddenly being wary of Agent Coulson for some reason, the look my father directed at me told me that he didn’t believe one word I had just said, but he didn’t fight me on it, probably due to the presence of another party.
“We would like for you to help us” Agent Coulson said, interrupting our silent communication “Your assistance in tracking the cube would be much appreciated Mr. Stark” he continued
“Are you sure that you only want me to assist in the tracking of the cube?” My father said while looking through the files “Because this looks like Fury wanting to make real his little boyband” He finished while projecting various videos, I could see a frozen man in a slab of ice, a green giant fighting and what looked like a vaguely bigger version of an Iron Man suit spiting fire from his mouth.
“I thought the Avenger’s Initiative was dismissed” I said, still looking at all of the information “Yeah, and if I remember correctly, I didn’t even qualify, right Agent?” My father piped up from beside me.
“This is not a personality problem Mr. Stark the world is at stake”
My father just hummed at that “Are you going?” I asked him, he turned to look at me, he didn’t need to answer me, I already knew what his answer would be “I will book you a flight to D.C. Pepper would probable appreciate your help with the negotiations over there” He said instead of answering my question.
I was about to agree with him when a dizzy spell hit me, a flash of golden and a shouting voice saying ‘Kneel’ came to my mind “I will be accompanying you” I said “I can help with the tracking while you focus on fighting” I continued shooting a look at my father that said I wasn’t changing my mind anytime soon.
“Miss Stark’s help would be valuable to us” Agent Coulson said
“Then it has been decided” I nodded at him “I will go and prepare my things for this trip” I said and went to my room to pack my things, leaving my father and Agent Coulson alone before he could say something against my decision.
Not long after that, I found myself at SHIELD’s helicarrier, it was bustling with agents tracking any sights, news or clues about the cube, I made a show of looking over the information collected while installing tiny decoders chips so Jarvis could hack into SHIELD files, having finished with that I was going to sit in front of a computer when someone entered the room.
“Miss Stark, we would appreciate it if you didn’t touch things without permission” Night Fury said while motioning for me to step away from the chair, I was deciding if I should protest or not when a man behind the director’s back caught my attention.
Another dizzy spell, a blurred flash of green and the same british voice saying ‘Oh no, you brought the monster’ “Dr. Banner, an honor to meet you, your work on anti-electrons collision is unparalleled, and I admire Big Green as well, he is astounding when he loses control and just smashes everything” I tried to hide my little episode of dizziness by focusing on the men in front of me, I could see Dr. Banner smiling awkwardly while he extended a hand “Nice to meet you” he said, even if his face said that he had no idea who I was or why I was there, so I turned to Fury “Director Fury how is my father and Mr. Rogers mission going?” I asked, with a curious expression.
“Hill” He motioned towards a woman, whom did something on a screen and then there was a video being projected “This is what is happening at this moment, Stark and Captain Rogers are going there to engage with the hostile” She said gesturing towards the live transmission where I could see a tall dark haired man with a scepter and fancy medieval clothes shooting an energy blast to a police car making it explode.
The transmission continued showing the actions of the tall dark-haired man, he was trapping a group of people with what looked like a display of magic, he had them surrounded with various copies of himself and was telling them something.
“Do we have audio?” I asked, wanting to know what the man was saying “Unfortunately we do not, this video is from a security camera” Agent Hill responded.
I nodded and turned to continue watching the transmission, I frowned, the guy was obviously stalling, creating a distraction, he hadn’t attacked any of the civilians, he was just scaring them and probably hurling insults at them, he didn’t seem to want to do more than that.
“Do you know if anything important is happening near the square?” I said, still watching the transmission, I could see Agent Hill gesture to someone, presumably to search for any important events, little time passed until someone reported his findings.
I half turned to Agent Hill to listen to what had been found, just as she was about to open her mouth, I could see out of the corner of my eye how the man terrorizing the poor people on the street clearly shouted to the multitude to kneel, a british voice yelling the same word echoed in my head, and I didn’t hear anything that was being discussed, too immersed in my thoughts.
“Miss Stark, what do you think?” Dr. Banner asked me “Sorry, what did you asked me?” I said shaking my head a little to focus on what was being discussed
“There seems to be a gala where there are exposing some valuable items two streets over, there was a report that someone attacked one of the men assisting, Dr. Heinrich Schafer” Agent Hill said “We presume one of ours is collecting whatever they need from there while Loki is doing his little show” She said with a straight mouth, her eyes pinching a little at having had to repeat herself.
“Dr. Heinrich is an astrophysicist, look if there was something exposed related to meteorites” I said distractedly, so the dark-haired man’s name was Loki, which means that he probably is Thor’s brother. But why is he making a spectacle? The Nordic mythology paints Loki as someone shrewd and cunning, so he must be after something, I focused more on him … does Loki want to be located? But why? If he is located is obvious there is going to be some type of confrontation presumably to capture him, does he want be captured? I mussed to myself.
I received my answer soon enough, as soon as Iron Man and Captain America arrived to the square Loki surrendered and turned himself in.
“Agent Hill, the hostile will be arriving soon, make sure that the containment cage is ready” The director gave his order, what are you going after Loki? I thought to myself, well it shouldn’t matter, soon an opportunity to fin out would be presenting itself.
The moment Loki was brought to the helicarrier and secured on his cell, a debriefing was called. There were some faces I have never met before on the room, Mr. Rogers was one of the new faces, along with the alien prince Thor.
“Why does he need iridium for?” Dr. Banner asked, a few moments ago it was confirmed that what was robbed on the gala was a piece of that metal.
“To stabilize the portal” I said, making everyone look at me.
“My dear daughter is correct, the iridium will stabilize the portal, which means that it won’t collapse like it happened at SHIELD, it also means that it can be opened however much and big Loki wants” My father said, entering the room, everyone looked like they had no idea what he was talking about.
“Since when did you both became experts at astrophysics?” Agent Hill questioned us.
“Yesterday” The both of us responded flippantly at the same time.
“He will have to heat the cube to a 120 million Kelvin degrees just to break the Coulomb barrier” Dr. Banner said, taking the attention of us “Unless Dr. Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantic tunnel effect” I said, making everyone look at me again “I am also a Stark you know” I told them.
“That means that he could achieve the heavy ions fusion on any reactor on the planet” Dr. Banner continued. “Dr. Banner a pleasure to meet you, your work on anti-electrons collision is unparalleled, and I am a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster” My father greeted the good doctor “Thanks” Dr. Banner said “I can see the similarities” He gesture between my father and I, we both just smiled at him.
“Dr. Banner is just here to help us track the cube” Fury said interrupting any future conversation “I was hoping you would join him” He paused for a moment “You to Miss Stark, you seem to be knowable enough” He finished with an assessing look towards myself.
“If possible, I also would like know how Loki used the magic scepter to control two of the greatest men I know” He added at the end.
“Sounds good, shall we go and play boys?” I stood up and joined my father and Dr. Banner to the side.
“This way, Miss and Sir” Dr. Banner gestured for us to follow him.
After working for a few hours on the tracking algorithm it was finally finished, it was just a matter of time before we got a location on the Tesseract. So the three of us where now just chatting among ourselves.
“You should come to the tower sometime soon Bruce, can I call you Bruce?” My father asked, Dr. Banner just nodded “Excellent, then just call me Tony as well, then as I was saying you would love it all 10 floors just dedicated to R&D, it’s a paradise” He continued to try and entice the doctor.
“Thanks for the offer, but last time I was on New York I kind of destroyed Harlem” Bruce said, my father just hummed and started talking, without a warning he gave a small shock to the good doctor “Auch” Dr. Banner said.
“Hey! Are you nuts?” An annoying and indignant voice exclaimed.
“Jury is out” My father said without looking to Mr. Rogers direction.
“Putting on risk everyone’s lives on this ship in danger is not funny” He continued complaining towards my father.
“That’s rude Mr. Rogers” I said without looking towards him “I’m sure Dr. Banner is the one who is the most concerned about his situation, implying that he would come to this ship without having a way to control himself and purposely putting someone else in danger is insulting” I told him angry on the good doctor’s behalf, Bruce seemed like a kind and quiet man, maybe a little shy and a little broken, but he was good nonetheless. He didn’t have to be treated like a monster.
‘Oh no, you brought the monster’ the same voice resonated again in my mind.
It seemed like the captain was going to apologize but I cut him off “Who was the man that Loki put under his control?” I asked, looking at the men in front of me for answers “It was Agent Barton” My father said.
“And what was his rank? Was it high? Does he was an enough high-ranking agent that he had access to sensitive information?” I pressed on “As far as I know he was one of the best on the field” This time it was the captain who answered.
“Why are you asking?” “What did you figure out?” Both my father and Bruce asked me.
“I think Loki turned himself in on purpose, I didn’t know why, but now I think he was intending on finding out the size of the forces he would be fighting against in the near future … and since he didn’t fight neither of you” I said pointing towards my father and the captain “And he didn’t seem overly worried about his brother” I continued on “Assuming Agent Barton has informed him about all of you, I think Loki’s target is Dr. Banner” I finished looking towards him.
And eerily silence fell on the room, just as I was going to speak again a beep came from one screen, Jarvis had finished hacking into SHIELD’s servers, at the same time the door smashed open and Fury came in.
“Stark! What do you …” Fury started shouting “I think it would be best if we remove Dr. Banner from the ship, director” I interrupted him “I think he is Loki’s target” I said with a serious face.
“We know, agent Romanoff went to question the prisoner and got that information” The director said “Well, what else did she get?” I asked
“That was all”
“Just that? Did she even try to pry information out of him? I deduced that without having to talk to him” I said incredulous at SHIELD incompetence, the director just gritted his teeth and stood there saying nothing “You know what? I will do it myself” I said intending on talking to Loki, maybe I could figure out more about his plan and find some more answers.
“Where do you think you are going?” My father stopped me “Getting actual important information out of Loki, since it seems like SHIELD can’t do his job” I muttered
“As much as I know you are capable enough, I won’t put let you put yourself at risk” He said “He won’t hurt me” I answered confidently
“What makes you said that?” Fury asked, surprising everyone at showing a tiny bit of concern
“Hurting me it’s not part of his plan” I said instead of replying with ‘He just won’t’ that my instinct provided me with.
Following the directions towards Loki’s cell, I bumped into agent Romanoff, she glared at me a little, seems that she knows I called her useless, but I ignored, it wasn’t my fault she couldn’t do her job properly.
Entering the holding room, I walked until I was just in front of the cell.
“Mitt lys” Loki muttered with an awestruck face as soon as he saw me, I was taken aback by the tender tone and the deep relief that showed across his face.
A green flash and suddenly I was enveloped by arms that felt like metal, an electric smell tickling my nose and a current going through my body leaving me immobile.
“I will save you this time” A soft voice vowed.