Chapter 2
“Just a heads up Cap,” Agent Romanoff leads him along with Doctor Banner into the helicarrier, twisting around corners and walking for what felt like miles.
He felt more as if he was infiltrating that last hydra base all over again. He couldn’t stop himself watching every corner with cautious eyes.
“-seen him angry, but we’d rather not have him completely destroy the carrier, so watch what you say when he gets here.” And now he feels like a heel for ignoring what was clearly a warning because of his nerves. They’re just arriving in what seems to be the control room where Fury stands, hands behind his back.
“Sorry ma’am but-”
“Gentlemen,” Steve shifts his eyes from the redhead to Fury and decides he just won’t start and verbal scuffles with anyone. After handing over the ten bucks Fury earned fair and square, Doctor Banner and Agent Romanoff walk off to some science lab where he’ll be tracking the Tesseract.
Steve’s left alone with Fury who keeps watching him, trying to read him.
“Is there anything I can help you with Director?” The way he’s being watched is irritating to say the least, like being viewed at a zoo or something.
“Have you shifted at all since you’ve been out?” He tenses and Fury raises his hands in a placating gesture. “Not trying to start anything, just curious, seeing if maybe the ice caused more damage than we thought-”
“I can shift just fine, There’s just no reason to,” Steve realises he’s snapping at Fury but the nerve of people nowadays.
“Just because you’re not fighting doesn’t mean you shouldn’t shift Captain, new studies show it’s better for your health, embrace natural instincts or some nonsense.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” It’s not that Steve even refuses to shift outside of combat, it’s just…
Why shift outside of combat if his griffin form was created for it?
***
“Captain. You’re up.” Steve just nods and goes to suit up, Coulson, the human, makes room for him so he can depart to face Loki.
***
Stark’s kind of an ass… they’ve been in the air for all of five minutes when Loki finally speaks up, his eyes pinned on Stark.
“I haven’t seen one of your kind in at least a millennium.” His eyes are cold, calculating. Stark tenses and meets Loki’s gaze.
“And how would you know what I am? I haven’t even shifted,” This earns him a smirk and Steve’s reaching for his shield, this guy’s unnerving.
“There’s a certain… aura, if you will, on all creatures. Depending on the creature class, the aura is more prominent. And your aura, Mr. Stark, is very prominent, unlike the good captain here,” he pins his gaze on Steve now, “you weren’t born with that power, it was given to you, pathetic really.” Steve’s about ready to pop this guy but Stark grabs his arm and turns them around.
“Relax. He’s wants you to react. Wants to know if that shit gets to you. Breathe.”
“How about you get your hands off before I-” Steve was interrupted by a flash of light and a dip in the ship’s flight.
“Where the hell is this coming from?”
***
So… demigods exist… or aliens, depends on your point of view apparently. Steve’s doing his level best to keep his distance because, to be frank, he doesn’t really trust the guy. THe video of Loki in his new cell cuts out just as he looks to the security camera, and Dr. Banner cracks a joke.
There’s a small debate on the plan of the demigod. An army from outer space, which is absolutely not what Steve signed up for, some sort of portal, and something called iridium, what the hell is-?
“It’s a stabilizing agent,” when Stark emerges, tailed by Coulson with a tolerant smile on his face. “Think about it, I can fly you out there,” Coulson just gives a shake of his head and steps away, “means the portal won’t collapse on itself like before,” Stark goes to pat Thor’s arm who looks rather shocked, “No offense Point Break, you got a mean swing,” but Thor catches his wrist when he goes to continue.
“You are-”
“I’m gonna stop ya right there Big Guy, I wasn’t done being a genius,” and there he is being an asshole. How is he supposed to work with this guy?
**
Steve walks in right when Dr. Banner lets out an indignant ‘ow’ and sees Stark get right in his face.
“Hey! Are you nuts?”
“Jury’s out. You’ve really got a lid on it don’t you? What’s your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?” Banner just smiles and turns back to the screen in front of him.
“Is everything a joke to you?” Honestly, the nerve on the guy.
“Funny things are,” He just grins and steps around the doctor to grab some packet of food.
“Threatening the lives of everyone on this ship isn’t funny. No offense doctor.”
“That’s alright. I wouldn’t have come on this ship if I couldn’t handle pointy things. I don’t think we’ll need to worry about an incident with Mr. Stark here though.” Stark just gives Banner a grin and the soldier can’t help but tilt his head in confusion.
“Why do you say that doctor,” the scientist just looks at him in confusion. He turns to look at Stark who’s just tossed some blueberries in his mouth and gives him an analyzing look.
“You telling me agent know-it-all didn’t tell you about me? How very rude of her. I mean I guess she’s already keeping plenty of other things under wraps. No time to properly inform the national icon when you’re too busy under the thumb of Fury.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? You think he’s hiding something?”
“Maybe you should do some research Cap. You’re not very useful here.”
And with that, “Just find the cube.”
**
“Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract, that doesn’t mean-”
“Sorry Nick, what were you lying?” He looks incredibly smug when he turns the screen to show off some missiles and other types of blueprints.
“I was wrong Director, the world hasn’t changed a bit.” Thor and Agent Romanov storm in the room and Stark’s eyes absolutely light up.
“Doctor, Stark, would you please consider removing yourselves from this environment?” Stark just gives her a frown and looks over to Banner.
“I was in Calcutta, pretty well removed. I wanna know why Shield is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction.”
Fury just rolls his shoulders, “because of him,” pointing a finger at Thor, who gestures to himself in disbelief.
“Me?”
“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.” Fury looked over in Stark’s direction and glared, “We’re not all terrifying beasts of legend. We need a way to defend ourselves.”
“My people want nothing but peace with your world-”
“But your people aren’t the only people out there are they? Half the world’s population are capable of shifting into something, most of that population has standard shifts, there’s only so many people capable of being something more. Something that can take on other worldly forces we may never understand. That’s why this team was formed, to become the force no one will want to face.” He spreads his arms to gesture to all of them, “Phase two exists in case you fail.”
“See what I’m hearing is nuclear deterrent, which isn’t exactly a good way to handle any situation.” The nerve of this guy.
Fury seemed to have the same thought when he came back with, “Remind me again how you made that fortune Stark?”
“I’m sure if he still made weapons, Stark’d be neck deep in ‘em-”
“Wait! Hold on! How is this now about me?”
“Sorry isn’t everything?” The others are arguing with each other now but Steve can’t focus on them. His attention is only on the man in front of him, who’s looking at him like he’s daring him to continue, so he does. They verbally spar for a while before Banner makes a comparison to a time bomb about the ‘team’.
“I need you to calm down doctor-”
“Why shouldn’t the guy let off a little steam?” Stark looks overly excited at the notion.
“You know damn well why! Back off!” Stark’s eyes flash and he’s suddenly looking at Steve dead on.
“Oh, I’m starting to want you to make me,” his voice is deeper than an abyss and everyone simultaneously shuts up to look over at them. Steve’s straightened but isn’t deterred.
“Yeah. Big man in a suit of armor, take that off, what are you? You may not be a threat but you better stop pretending to be a hero.” Everyone’s staring, looks of fear in their eyes, not as they look at Steve, but as they’re watching Stark, who’s got a shark’s smile on his face.
“A hero? Like you? You’re a laboratory experiment Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle. You were nothing. A scrawny little human who somehow made an impression on a delusional doctor and you were pumped full of the thing that finally made you into something useful.” and that was just a slap in the face. This guy really knew what buttons to push and what buttons to crush.
“Put on the suit, let’s go a few rounds.”
“Captain perhaps you should-” Thor made to step forward when Stark let out something not unlike a growl and the blonde giant stopped.
“Perhaps the captain should lay in the bed he made for himself. You got it Cap, I’ll get the suit right now let’s see how long you last. Feel free to use that shifted form of yours,” Steve lets out his owl growl at the man and he just laughs . “Think that little kitten hiss is gonna get me scurrying away? You’ve got another thing coming.”
“Stark.” It’s Natasha, she’s got her hand up to show she’s not a threat, “Stark I know you hate to hear this, but I need you to calm down. Right now. The scepter’s manipulating you, Loki’s manipulating you, I know you hate when that happens, so I need you to breathe, and focus,”
That at least halts the man and he manages to take a breath and swipe a hand across his face. He opens his eyes and, huh, he hadn’t realized they were golden before compared to their current hazel coloring.
“Sorry, that’s uh, my bad, sorry,” Natasha sighs in relief and looks like she’s about to reply when the helicarrier lurches and everything’s chaos.
**
“Stark, you’re nuts. There’s no way you’re going against that guy alone.” He’s got his arms crossed over his chest and is trying to make himself as imposing as possible. Stark just gives him a look over his reconstructed armor and goes to put it on.
“The fucker’s using my tower as a base of operations for that portal, he killed my Coulson, you think I’m gonna stand for that? No thanks, it’s my tower, he was my friend, and he’s gonna pay.”
Steve just sighs and moves so he can get in his path again. “Tony please, I know it’s your tower and I know you cared about Agent Coulson. It’s stressful but you can’t go against a guy like that on your own. Just stick with the team, and we can take him together.” Stark just glares at him, like he’s got some sort of ulterior motive.
“I’ll handle him. You’re on standby Cap.”
“What the hell do you-” Starks’ in his armor and darts around the soldier and fires up the repulsors to get farther, “Stark!”
**
They just got shot out of the sky and had themselves a rocky landing, everyone makes it out and the soldier starts trying to brainstorm, “We need to get back up there-” a roar interrupts his train of thought and everyone looks to the portal as a giant flying slug with teethand armor flies out of the portal. “Stark are you seeing this?” There’s no answer. “Stark?”
“I don’t think you need to worry about that thing right now Cap, I think Stark’s got it covered.” He snaps his head to look at Natasha to ask her what the hell she means by that when a shadow passes overhead. Panning his head up, he finds something he never thought he’d see, a dragon that has to span at least three city blocks, not even including wingspan.
“I thought, Howard wasn’t a-”
“Guess you could say Howard had a thing for strong women then Cap. Tony takes after his father when he’s human; takes after his mother when shifted.” Natasha smiles and looks to the sky just as the huge armored worm thing gets gutted as it’s trying to flee and the chitauri are scattering, followed by flames of blue fire.
**
Tony finds him ten minutes later sitting in the middle of the street with his shield in his lap.
“Cap? You okay?” He doesn’t even respond so he kneels in front of him and pokes him in the face. Steve blinks and looks over to him with wide eyes. “You with me old man?” He just stares at him. “I didn’t break you did I? Nat said she warned you about what I was when you got on the carrier…”
“I might have… not been listening…” Tony lets out a startled laugh and stands, holding his hand out for him to take.
“Don’t tell her that, she’ll ruin your life.”
Steve smiles and takes the offered appendage.
“I don’t doubt it.”