Discord
Lexi's POV
I stared at the monitor screen in front of me where Tony had hacked into the security cameras so we could observe what was going on. Loki was locked in a cylindrical glass cage. We watched on in silence as Fury walked in and over to a control panel.
"In case it's unclear, you try to escape- you so much as scratch that glass," we heard Fury saying. Fury pushed a button and suddenly the floor beneath the cell dropped away to nothing. This was nothing I hadn't seen before on the BUS. "Thirty thousand feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?" He pushed a button and closed the floor the gestured first to Loki. "Ant - Boot."
"It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me," Loki replied.
"Built for something a lot stronger than you."
"Oh I've heard...How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?"
"How desperate am I?...You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can't hope to control, you talk about peace and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."
"Oh. It burns you to have come so close, to have the Tesseract, to have power- unlimited power, and for what?...warm light for all mankind to share? And then to be reminded what real power is."
"Well, let me know if 'real power'wants a magazine or something."
"He really grows on you doesn't he?" Bruce said as the monitor screen turned off.
"Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?" Steve asked.
"He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard nor any world known. He means to lead the against your people. They will win him the Earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract," Thor replied. I kept my mouth shut as I had nothing worthwhile to contribute as of yet.
"An army, from outer space?"
"So, he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."
"Selvig?"
"He's an astrophysicist."
"He's a friend."
"Loki has them under some kind of spell- along with one of ours," Natasha pointed out.
"I wanna know why Loki let us takehim. He's not leading an army from here," Steve said
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bagfull of cats, you can small crazyon him," Bruce replied.
"Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother."
"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha pointed out.
"He's adopted?" was Thors response.
"I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium, what do they need the Iridium for?" Banner asked as Tony came walking in.
"It's a stabilizing agent," Tony commented. "Means the portal won't collapse onitself like it did at SHIELD. No hard feelings point break, you got a mean swing," he added with a look towards Thor. Thor gave Tony a look as he walked to the control panels. "Also, means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants. Standing now at the command area of the ship, I watched as Tony covered one eye. "How does Fury even see these?" he said with a look towards agent Maria Hill.
"He turns!"
"How exhausting!" I continued to watch as Tony messed with the screens, sticking something to the underside of a desk. I knew from experience that he was trying to hack into Fury's files. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on-pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source of high energy density. Something to- kick start the Cube.
"When did you become an expert inthermonuclear astrophysics?" Hill asked.
"Last night. The packet, Selvig'snotes, the extraction theory papers - am I the only one who did the reading?" I kept my mouth shut since it would do no one any good for me to pipe up and say that I had done the reading. I managed to understand most of it but some of it went right over my head. I was more of a hacker than an expert in science.
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked.
"He'd have to heat the Cube to a hundred and twenty million kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce started to say.
"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the Quantum Tunneling effect," piped ip Tony.
"Well, if he could do that he could achieve heavy-ion fusion at any reactor on the planet."
"Finally. Someone who speaks English."
"Is that what just happened?" Steve said. I had to put a head to my mouth to stop myself from smirking. Something that Steve noticed as he gave me a smile and a wink.
"It's good to meet you, Doctor Banner. Your work onanti-electronic collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."
"...Thanks," Banner said with an unsure look right as Fury walked into the room.
"Dr. Banner is only here to track the Cube. I was hoping you might join him," Fury said.
"I'd start with that stick of his. It may be magical but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon," Steve said.
"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the Cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys.
"Monkeys? I do not understand," Thor said. To be honest, neither did I. It sounded like some movie reference though.
"I do!" the entire room went instantly silent, as we all stared at Steve. Man, his eyes are so blue! I couldn't help but flashing back to the first time I had seen those baby blues; the day I had finally escaped Hydra. "I...I understood that reference," Steve finished saying. I smiled at him sensing the pride he had at finally recognizing a reference.
"Shall we play, Doctor?" Tony said with a look towards Bruce.
"This way, sir," the two men walked off.
I looked over at Steve, wanting to talk more to him but jot knowing what to say.
"What should we do now?" I finally said once the silence had gone on ling enough.
"Let's check on Tony and Bruce," he replied. I nodded my head and followed him out of the room and down the stairs to the lab.
"Ow!" Dr. Banner was saying as we walked in just in time to see Tony zap Bruce in the side.
"Hey!" we both cried out.
"Nothing?" Tony said. My guess was he had been trying to make the Hulk come out. Seemed like a pretty stupid idea under the current circumstances but who was I to question the actions of a billionaire.
"Are you nuts?" Steve cried out.
"Jury's out. You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?" Tony speculated as he looked at Bruce. I frowned as I scratched one of my scars. It suddenly seemed to be bothering me and I hissed as I scratched too hard and caused it to bleed. Before anyone could notice the blood, however, my skin had rehealed.
"Is everything a joke to you?"
"Funny things are."
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, Doc," said Steve.
No it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things," Bruce said calmly. I had to give him props but didn't know what to say so just smiled appreciatively at Bruce who returned the smile.
"You're tip-toeing, big man. You need to strut," said Tony.
"And you need to focus on the problem, Mister Stark," replied Steve, sticking his chest out.
"You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us in? Why now, why not before? What isn't he telling us? Ican't do the equation unless I have all the variables."
"You think Fury's hiding something?"
"He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets," Tony said as he gestured to Banner. "It's bugging him to, isn't it"
"Aah, I just wanna finish my work here and..."
"Doctor?"
"A warm light for all mankind,"Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube," Banner finished.
"I heard it." I nodded along to show that I too remembered Loki's comment.
"Well, I think that was meant for you," Bruce said.He gestured to Stark, who offered him a blueberry. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."
"The Stark Tower? That big ugly..." I laughed as Tony gave him a look.
"- building in New York?"
"It's powered by an arc reactor, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?"
"It's just the prototype.I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now, that's what he's getting at," Tony clarified for Steve and I.
"So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? What are they even doing in the energy business in the first place?"
"I should probably look into that as soon as my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files." Ha! so I had been right to assume he had been hacking in earlier!
"I'm sorry did you say,"
"JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours I'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?"
"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," I pointed out, not that any of the men seemed keen on listening to my advice. I thought wistfully of Coulson. I wished he was able to be here right now. he would know what to say to get everyone working together!
"Following's not really my style, Lexi."
"And you're all about style, aren'tyou?" I snarked back.
"Out of the people in this room, which one is "A" wearing a spangly outfit and "B" not of use?" Ouch.
"Banner, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" said Steve. "Just find the Cube," with that said he exited the room. I decided to follow since I had nothing better to do and after Tony's comment, I didn't feel like staying in a room with him any longer. I don't know why, but for some reason, his words had really gotten to me...
Authors Note
- hey! Hope you guys like this latest update sorry it was a long time coming!