Cruel Vengeance

Avengers Tower, New York

September 2011

“Bruce!”

Bruce flinched, almost dropped the scepter, and whipped around.

Darcy stood there, hands raised. “Whoa. Hey. You were in the zone, dude. I called your name like five times.”

“That’s what happens when a scientist is working,” he said with a bit of a bite.

Darcy shrugged, unconcerned. “I’m used to it from Jane, not you so much.”

“Come down here more,” he said, and smiled a bit. His heart rate was settling. Bruce let himself relax. “Not just when you have news.”

“How’d you know I have news?”

“Because you’ve been glued to your round table discussion with Tony and Clint for four hours even though there’s no new progress, and I doubt you’d walk away unless you had an update.”

“Huh,” Darcy said. “Fair point. Yeah. There’s news. Tony almost had JARVIS tell you, but I wanted to stretch my legs. Where’s Jane?”

“I made her go sleep,” Bruce said. “It’s been a while.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Of course it has. Whatever, we can catch her up later, I don’t want to wake her up.” She boosted herself onto a counter and kicked her legs, looking nothing like the clever and increasingly influential person Bruce knew her to be. More like an irreverent college kid. “So here’s the rundown: Steve is still on the run, Natasha and our new buddy Barnes are with him, and they’re going to kidnap a SHIELD agent as soon as they finish robbing Fort Meade to get gear for an ex-military buddy of Steve’s that he apparently met at one of Tony’s things at the VA.”

Bruce blinked. “What?” The last he’d heard, Steve, Natasha, and Barnes had been coming back from a supposedly abandoned army base. The Swiss scientist-slash-Hydra-agent apparently stored for forty years on 1970s databanks had been weird enough–Bruce would’ve loved to get his hands on that tech and figure out how they did it–and then they’d told him that Hydra had been leeching off of SHIELD for years, hiding inside it like some kind of parasite. Bruce tensed just thinking about it. If Fury was involved in this–

No use jumping to conclusions. You’re a scientist. You’re above this. Stay on track.

“Remember those VA meetings Tony’s been going to?”

“Yeah?”

Darcy shrugged. “Steve befriended this guy Sam Wilson there. Sam was down in DC for some kind of conference and after Steve, Natasha, and Barnes almost got themselves blown up, that’s where Steve dragged them to lay low. Evidently he decided to trust Sam and now Sam’s on board with the whole take-down-SHIELD thing, but if he’s gonna help he needs his old army gear. Which is apparently a wingsuit with guns on it.”

“You lost me at “wingsuit”,” Bruce said.

“Want to just come join the round table?” Darcy said. “What’re you doing down here, anyway?”

“Scepter,” Bruce said. “Still. I’m afraid we might lose jurisdiction over it in this mess.” He pointed at a cage full of lab rats. “It has some really interesting effects on neural networks, and Tony discovered two new atomic elements already. But it’s running on its own right now. I have an hour… Might be nice to get out of the lab.”

“Come on then,” Darcy said, grinning, and bounced down off the table.

Bruce followed her to the elevator with only one backward glance at the scepter. He needed to process the data he’d been collecting and store it on an offshore drive for safety, and then there was Loki’s blood tissue, which he still hadn’t gotten around to examining. So much to do.

But he’d been down here for almost eight hours now. And he was part of the team. He should know what was going on. Wanted to know. Bruce was worried about Steve and Natasha, and even Barnes, a little, simply because both Steve and Natasha would lose it if he died. So he’d go along with Darcy.

Up on the common floor, Bruce headed straight for the fridge. His stomach growled loudly as the smell of food. “Who made sandwiches?” he called over at the table. Only three seats were occupied: Darcy, Tony, and Clint.

“You’re welcome,” Clint said back, grinning.

Bruce turned back to the fridge.

The sandwiches were gone.

Bruce frowned. Looked at the table. Back at the fridge. “Darcy, what did you do?” he said.

She looked at him with perfectly innocent eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar,” Bruce said.

Loki materialized out of thin air three feet from Bruce’s left. Bruce flinched backward and bumped into the fridge.

Loki held a sandwich out to Bruce with a smirk.

“Very funny,” Bruce said drily, and accepted it. “Darcy, I assume you knew about this?”

“I hadn’t the faintest idea,” Darcy said.

Clint snorted.

“Right,” Tony said. “We totally believe you. Bruce, get some food and come on over. I’m making progress on the SHIELD hack. Finally.”

Loki tossed the other three sandwiches back in the fridge and Bruce closed the door. They congregated at the table, Loki sliding in next to Darcy.

Bruce examined him. “Why are you here?”

“You are much more interesting than the view from my window,” Loki said smoothly. “I swore not to reveal your secrets, if you had forgotten.”

Bruce looked away. It was true, and he believed that Loki would keep their bargain for the moment simply because he had something to lose by breaking it and no potential benefit that Bruce could see. That didn’t mean he trusted their Asgardian houseguest.

“What have you found?”

“A backdoor channel into SHIELD’s network,” Tony said. He didn’t smile, but his eyes were burning with the focus and engagement that Bruce hadn’t seen in months. “I went looking for Jasper Sitwell’s itinerary and found a way through their firewalls for the first time. JARVIS is chipping away at it. But from what we’ve got so far, it was someone really high up in SHIELD selling Chitauri tech on the black market.”

“Certainly part of Hydra’s plan,” Loki mused. “Release offrealm technology to Midgardian criminals, and by doing so, drastically increase chaos and civil unrest.”

“How do you know?” Tony asked suspiciously.

Loki smirked. “Because it’s what I would do.”

Clint made a choking noise, and Darcy laughed. Bruce shook his head. “Don’t encourage him.”

“I’d bet our black-market dealer is Thanos’ contact,” Tony said darkly.

Clint frowned, levity gone. “There’s plenty of people in SHIELD who aren’t Hydra. Could be one of those.”

“Yeah, but of the higher-ups?” Tony asked. “We know Pierce is involved. Fury might be; we don’t know yet. That’s it. They’re at the top of the totem pole. They’ve got the authority to do pretty much whatever they want, and honestly, a Hydra person is way more likely to be Thanos’ lackey than otherwise.”

“Because Hydra is evil?” Bruce said.

“Yes,” Clint said. No hesitation.

Bruce traced abstract shapes on the table. “It’s dangerous to make a blanket statement like that,” he warned. “To assume that membership with an organization automatically makes someone ‘evil’. That’s the kind of hate that breeds genocides. Civil wars.”

“That’s all well and good for civilians,” Clint said. “Scholars, noncombatants, philosophers. Spies, soldiers, we can’t hesitate.”

“Don’t fall into that trap,” Bruce said.

Clint sat forward, palms braced on the table.

“Guys,” Darcy said. “Maybe not right now? Clint, you’re tense about Natasha, but chill out, she can handle herself. Bruce, you’ve got a point, but I tend to think we can take a few Hydra lives for the sake of getting rid of that fucking organization for good.”

Clint exhaled sharply through his nose and sat back in his seat again. Bruce got his heart rate under control and focused on grounding himself.

“The point remains that a Hydra agent would necessarily possess a predilection for sacrificing lives in exchange for their own version of ‘good,’” Loki said, his voice perfectly even as always. Perfectly controlled. Bruce resisted the urge to demand he be kicked out of the meeting. “It appears that Hydra’s goal is to create a world order in which Midgardians sacrifice their liberties at the altar of global stability, allowing themselves to be controlled. Thanos would quite possibly permit a small portion of humanity to survive, beneath his control, as a slave population extracting resources from Midgard for his own use.”

Tony squinted at him. “Excuse me, but why do you care?”

Loki raised his head, and Bruce flinched slightly at the terrifying, ice-cold rage that looked out of the Asgardian’s eyes. “I have a vested interest in ensuring that Thanos’ plans are disrupted in any way possible. And I will ally with whomever I must to achieve that end. Including Midgardians who loathe me.” He shrugged. “Also, I’m bored.”

Darcy made a noise that sounded suspiciously like choking on laughter.

“Maria?” Bruce said, hoping to derail this before the tension got too much and these volatile people set each other off.

Clint’s face shuttered.

Tony tapped the table. “Still unconscious.”

“So we’re still stuck,” Bruce said. “Fantastic. I’m going back to the lab.”

He made it halfway across the penthouse.

“Dr. Banner, I believe you may wish to stay,” JARVIS said. “I have just been notified that Director Fury is on his way and expects you all to be present. He will arrive in ten minutes.”

“Out,” Darcy said to Loki.

He cocked his head. “I could impersonate Dr. Foster.”

“No,” Tony said. “Fury’s worked with her; he might notice. And there’s no need. Just go upstairs and stay out of the way. Turn yourself into a coatrack or something if anyone comes poking around.”

“As you will,” Loki said indifferently, and left the room.

Bruce returned to the table. “What does he want? And why now, of all the times?”

“I have not been informed of Director Fury’s objective,” JARVIS said.

Darcy whipped out her tablet. “It’s definitely weird that he’s showing up while SHIELD is conducting a manhunt for Captain America. I’m going to message Maria so if she wakes up she knows to stay hidden. JARVIS, can you make sure the safe room’s locked up tight?”

“The door has been sealed, Miss Lewis,” JARVIS said.

“Thanks.”

“I need to go check on that last test,” Bruce said.

Tony frowned. “Have you been copying all your results to an off-network server or drive or anything?”

“Most of it,” Bruce said.

“JARVIS, copy all our data somewhere and hide it so it looks like it’s part of your subdirectives,” Tony said.

“Do you think Fury’ll force us to give up our results?” Bruce asked, brows furrowing. The first trickles of anger began to escape and he mentally focused on control, measured breathing, clearing his mind. The anger never went away, but he could manage it. He had to.

Tony shrugged. “I hope not. But it can’t hurt.”

“True.” Bruce decided he needed hot chocolate or something soothing and headed for the kitchenette, Fury be damned. Once upon a time, he’d respected Fury enough to not be cooking during the man’s arrival, but those times were long gone.