[Classified Location], SHIELD Helicarrier
April 2011
The containment unit had been built for the Hulk, but Natasha supposed it worked just as well for superpowered aliens.
Loki was pacing slowly about the cell, back to its door, when Natasha slipped out of the shadows and stood on the platform.
He froze, then turned, a predatory smile on his face. "There are few people who can sneak up on me."
"I have a unique skill set," Natasha deadpanned. "And you knew someone would come."
"After all the tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a balm, as a friend?" He paused. "And I would cooperate."
"I want to know what you've done with Agent Hill."
"I'd say I've expanded her mind."
"And after you've won? After you're king of the mountain? What happens to her mind?"
Loki raised an eyebrow. "What do you care for Agent Hill? I received the distinct impression that she does not care for you."
"The feeling's mutual," Natasha said. It was true that she and Hill had had friction in the past. "But someone I care about cares about her. So here I am."
"Ahhh," Loki said, focusing more intently on her. "Agent Barton, correct?"
"You just get into every corner of her mind, didn't you?"
Loki raised his hands, palms up. "I cannot do any differently." He regarded her for a second longer, and smiled again. "Is this love , Agent Romanova?"
Natasha almost, almost flinched at the name. She hadn't used it in a decade, and it was a reminder of a past that she kept buried. "Love is for children. I owe him a debt."
Loki sat down, a slow movement that nonetheless belied his deadly strength. "Tell me."
Natasha carefully pulled up a chair, calculating furiously in her mind. She needed to get something from him, something to end this and free her to hunt her Soldier. She and Loki examined each other carefully, and something in Natasha responded, recognizing a kindred spirit: someone who wore masks and traded in secrets for a living, who treated others like pieces on a chessboard.
This was going to be quite a mental battle.
[Classified Location], SHIELD Helicarrier
April 2011
"JARVIS, gimme the algorithms."
"Screen five, sir."
Tony flipped through the algorithms as fast as his fingers could move, calculating in his head and skipping one step after another. If he could just get the software to cooperate…
"These gamma signatures are definitely consistent with what Selvig got off the cube. But it could take weeks to get a hit off the cube; we have no idea where in the world to look."
"Hopefully Foster can sort out how to track the opening of a bridge," Tony said absently. "That'd be another angle. Maybe she'll spot something we don't."
"Yeah, where is she?" Banner asked.
Tony turned away from the screen, blinked glowing number afterimages from his retinas, and said, "I sent her to get sleep. She'd been awake for forty-two hours, said she didn't sleep in transit or anything. She almost set her hair on fire somehow messing with my wiring." Hopefully she's learned her lesson. This is my lab.
"At least she brought clothes," Banner said dryly, putting down the scanner and stepping over to a computer. "All I packed was a toothbrush."
Tony narrowed his eyes, thinking about how easy Banner was to work with. The guy was so easygoing and low-profile, but it hadn't taken Tony long at all to develop a healthy respect for the unassuming man's sharp mind. And he could just tell that Banner was a boiling little ball of anger and resentment underneath all that mellow. Tony's incisive curiosity reared its head. "You should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors are all R&D. You'd love it, it's Candyland."
"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York, I kind of… broke Harlem," Banner said awkwardly.
Tony picked up a pen and meandered around toward the other man. "Oh, come on, that's what building specs are for. They make 'em stronger nowadays. And I promise a stress free environment. No surprises, no sharp things…"
Just as the door opened, he stabbed the pen into Banner's ribs.
"Ow!"
Tony examined Banner's hazel eyes intently. "Nothing?"
"Hey!"
"Oh, look, it's Mr. Star-spangled Soldierboy," Tony said amiably, then turned back to Banner. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"
"Is everything a joke to you?" Rogers said angrily.
Tony gave him his best condescending look. "Funny things are."
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship is not funny. No offense, doctor."
"Maybe not if you've got a flagpole up your ass," Tony said agreeably.
Banner ignored Tony. Irritating. "No, it's all right. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle… pointy things."
"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," Rogers said with even more anger.
Oh, it's go time. Tony squared his shoulders and stepped toward the captain. "You think I'm not? At this point, all we can do is wait for a spectroscope somewhere to pick up the cube's signature. In the meantime, I've got my own little project going. Why did Fury call us in, and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the math without all the variables."
Rogers stared. "You think Fury's hiding something.
Tony made a note to research whether naiveté could be physically painful. "He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets." He pointed at Banner. "It's bugging you too, isn't it?"
Banner raised his hands. "I just want to… finish my work, and go—"
"Doctor?" Rogers' voice brooked no arguments.
Banner hesitated, but at last he began to speak, and Tony mentally slapped himself on the back. He'd read the impassive scientist right. ""A warm light for all mankind'… Remember Loki's jab at Fury?"
"Yes?" Rogers said. They'd all watched the surveillance tape.
"Well, I think that was meant for you." Banner nodded at Tony, whose mind began spinning, factoring this into the situation. "I think he wants to communicate something to you."
"Because of the tower," Tony mused. Why would Loki want to communicate with me?
"The Stark Tower? That big ugly…" Rogers trailed off as Tony cast him a look like Really ? "…building in New York?"
"It's powered by Stark Reactors," Banner continued, undeterred by their friction. Tony had to give him kudos for patience. "Self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?"
"And it's just the prototype," Tony added to Banner, unable to resist the pride he felt in this accomplishment, then turned back to Rogers. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now, is what he's getting at."
"So why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project from the beginning? For that matter, why not Foster? Selvig's good, and he's got more experience, but Foster is just straight-up brilliant. It just makes sense to combine his experience and her new outlook."
"And you," Tony added. "No one knows gamma radiation like you do, and this cube is putting off a hell of a lot of it."
"Ah… yeah, that too," Banner said. "I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place? Isn't SHIELD a defensive organization?"
Tony decided he might as well spill. The Captain was standing there like a blond rock, brows furrowed and trying to process all this. Tony visibly saw him consider the possibility that Fury was lying and then brush it away, ever the good soldier. Time to shock him out of it.
"Yeah, I'll look into that, once my decryption program finishes breaking into SHIELD's secure files," he said, lifting his StarkPhone, where JARVIS' progress report ticked upward in the top corner.
"I'm sorry, what?" Rogers was shocked. Angry. Excellent, that was better. Anger made people think more clearly. At least this person. If only Tony could redirect said anger…
Tony smirked and popped a dried blueberry in his mouth. "JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge. Won't be long before I know every dirty secret Fury's ever tried to hide. Blueberry?" He proffered the bag to Rogers, wondering if the soldier would take the olive branch.
Rogers slapped it away. "And you're wondering why they didn't want you involved in this."
"SHIELD is keeping secrets from the people who are trying to help," Tony countered. "We can't do our job like good little flying monkeys unless we have all the information. An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically not awesome."
Rogers visibly controlled himself before he spoke. "Loki's trying to turn us on Fury, to split us up. This is unfounded paranoia and it can only be detrimental. We have orders and we should follow them."
"Such a good little soldier," Tony mocked. "Following's not really my style."
Rogers stepped closer, an infuriating little smile on his lips. "And you're all about style, aren't you?"
Tony felt a muscle jump in his jaw. This arrogant little… "Of the people in this room, which one is A) wearing a spangly outfit and B) not of use?"
Rogers puffed up like an offended blowfish, but Banner headed off the rising tension. "Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you."
Tony watched Rogers' face closely without seeming to, a skill he'd perfected in years of corporate meetings. Once again, Rogers almost seemed to be considering the possibility, but again, he brushed it off. "Just find the cube," he snapped, and walked out of the lab.
Tony narrowed his eyes at the window. It was one-way glass, and he saw Rogers hesitate, then square his shoulders and set off toward the hull of the ship, not the bridge and the sleeping quarters.
Or possibly not the hull. Possibly he was heading for the storage units.
Smirking, Tony glanced back down to see if Banner had noticed, but the man was oblivious, already back to focusing on the staff.
Excellent.
"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" Tony mused. "Wonder if they shouldn't have kept him on the ice."
"He has a point about Loki," Banner said.
Tony frowned. "There's something off about this. Why is Loki trying to communicate with me?"
"Divide us. Like the Captain said." But Tony could see that Banner was just playing devil's advocate, that he had doubts too.
Tony shook his head. "It's possible. But I get the feeling that there's something bigger going on. We're missing something. And if we're not careful, we won't find out until we're all at ground zero of an alien invasion."
"And I'll read all about it," Banner said dryly.
Tony turned to the other man, who was now adjusting one of the instruments on screen eight. "Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us."
Banner laughed without amusement. "See, I don't have a suit of armor. I'm exposed. Like a nerve. It's a nightmare."
"You're afraid of it," Tony said.
Banner was silent.
"I'm right, aren't I? You're afraid of what'll happen if you can't control it. Afraid of what'll happen if you can. You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut."
There was something just beneath the surface of Banner's pleasant expression. Tony knew he'd hit a nerve and waited.
"I have good reason to fear the H— the other guy," Banner said at last.
Tony shrugged. "And I have good reason to fear the suit."
"Ah, but you can control it."
"Because I learned how."
"It's different."
"Is it?" Tony swiped the data off the screen and met Banner's eyes. "I've read up on your accident. That much gamma radiation? Should've killed you."
Banner scoffed. "So you think the other guy saved my life?"
"I think he exists to protect you," Tony countered. "I think he shows up when you're in danger or angry or in pain. And I don't know why you of all people, but I do think if you stop being afraid, you can learn to at least not break Brooklyn, this time. Capsicle might get miffed."
"You might not like it if I do," Banner said tightly.
Tony looked back. There was something underneath this man's surface. The longer Tony observed him, the more he was sure that Banner was a ticking time bomb, just ready to blow up in the face of anyone stupid enough to betray him again.
"You just might," he said at last.
Banner shot him one more look, a mix of apprehension and something else Tony couldn't name, before at last he turned back to his screen and Tony followed suit.
[Classified Location], SHIELD Helicarrier
April 2011
Natasha picked her words carefully. "Like I said, I have a… specific skill set," she said at last. "I didn't care who I used it for. Or on." Carefully, carefully, she let traces of vulnerability show on her face. "I got on SHIELD's radar in a bad way. Fury sent Barton to kill me. He made a different call."
"What will you do if I vow to spare his beau?" Loki murmured.
Natasha let her lips quirk. "Not let you out."
"Ah, but I like this," Loki breathed, standing. "A world hanging in the balance, and you bargain for the life of one woman for whom you feel indifference at best."
Natasha shrugged, knowing she had to give him something. "Regimes fall every day. I tend not to weep about it; I'm Russian. Or I was." Now I'm nothing. Woman without country .
"What is it you want?" Loki asked.
"I thought I made that clear."
Loki shook his head. "You bargain for your Hill's life for another reason."
Shit. Natasha hadn't wanted to go here, but there it was. One way to keep him on her string. "It's really not that simple. I've got red in my ledger, and I'd like to wipe it out."
"Can you?" Loki said, stepping forward, and here was the predator; here was the vicious thing she'd expected from Thor's stores, reveling in the opportunity to tear her apart. "Can you wipe out that much red ? Drakov's daughter?"
Oh.
"Sao Paulo?"
No no no
"The hospital fire?"
How does he know this?
"Hill told me everything." Loki was watching her closely, drinking in every second of the torment that Natasha deliberately allowed to show on her face. She thanked her stars that she'd had the forethought to turn off the cameras in here. "Your ledger is dripping , gushing red, and you think doing a favor for a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality! This is a child at prayer, pathetic ! You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that separates you from the horrors, but they are a part of you and they will never go away."
You think I don't know that? Natasha wanted to snarl. You think I'm so naive? You think you're so brilliant, but what you haven't noticed is that I like this goddamn life.
But she couldn't.
There was a tiny part of the girl she'd once been so long ago that she barely remembered it, a tiny fragment of a person long dead but not entirely exorcised, and it screamed and sobbed and trembled at his words, at the memories they woke. Natasha had long since made her peace with what she was and what she'd done. But now she used that half-forgotten shrieking fragment to turn herself into a trembling wide-eyed mess. The image of a shattered woman on the verge of falling apart.
And Loki bought it.
"You're a monster," she gasped out, turning away.
His smile was so many shades of cruel. "Oh, no. You brought the monster here."
There it was.
Natasha straightened and turned back to him, all traces of the little-girl-Natasha fading away. "So. Banner. That's your play."
Loki's smile fell away.
"Loki plans to release the Hulk," Natasha said, pressing down on her earpiece to activate it and speaking directly to Fury's shadow, Agent Lang. "Keep Banner in his lab, I'm on my way. Get Fury and Thor there as well."
She looked back at Loki once, intending to revel in his shock, but surprise was only one of the things on his face. She saw respect and… satisfaction?
That made no sense.
Tucking away the odd observation to peruse later, Natasha dipped her head once. "Thank you for your cooperation."
And she left.
[Classified Location], SHIELD Helicarrier
Aprill 2011
Secure Storage 10-C
Steve frowned at the words. He'd already searched the other two "Secure Storage" units, and gotten nothing for his pains: weapons storage, mostly, and data; some chemical and scientific stuff that he didn't entirely understand beyond the "DANGER" and "BIOHAZARD" labels. He wasn't even sure why he was doing this, really. Fury was his commanding officer, and that alone demanded respect.
But he couldn't deny that the arrogant, narcissistic Tony Stark (so similar and so different from his father that it disoriented Steve whenever he looked at the man) had a point about Fury. He couldn't say that the scientists' suspicions were unfounded.
Captain America wouldn't have broken his orders like this. But Captain America was dead, and Steve thought he liked himself better as Steve Rogers anyway. Captain America was too trusting, and Steve Rogers - well, he could make Steve Rogers whoever he wanted.
Steve grabbed the door and hauled it open against its will.
Secure Storage 10-C didn't look particularly different from its siblings 10-A and 10-B, except that the cases in here were all locked with much fancier-looking computerized locks.
This modern world gave Steve headaches way too often.
He crept through the shadows, vaulted up a level, and landed in a crouch, wincing at the clang his heavy military boots elicited from the catwalk. After several seconds, he concluded that the noise hadn't drawn any attention, and slipped silently along. Steve didn't really know what he was looking for, except that it would probably be near the back. People liked to keep their secrets hidden. Fury liked to keep his buried under eight layers of protection.
Steve made it to the back third of the storage bay before he noticed that all these boxes and compartments were labeled Phase 2.
He picked a drawer at random, listened carefully to check that he was still alone, and broke the lock off with two kicks.
The compartment released its secrets with a hiss, and Steve stared at its contents, first in shock and then in growing anger.
Impossibly, infuriatingly, Stark had been right.
And once again, Steve had been betrayed.
He knew how Captain America would've reacted: some anger, a discussion with his CO, and then a return to order-following.
Steve gritted his teeth and heaved the biggest piece of the betrayal out of the drawer.
He wasn't Captain America anymore, and he would not stay loyal to the people who lied to him time and again.
[Classified Location], SHIELD Helicarrier
April 2011
Something about this whole situation was not right.
Darcy's mind was spinning like a top, trying to fit all the pieces together. She didn't know why no one else was seeing it - well, okay, she understood that some of them were just stupid, but that wasn't her problem - and she couldn't quite piece it together, but she knew something was off. Like that time Stacy Cratton kept saying she hated James Mason but dropped comments about him and never accounted for her absentee evenings, and it turned out they'd been dating on the fly for a year but couldn't tell anyone because of James' parents' religion and his uncle who was one of the faculty. Well, obviously not exactly like that, but still.
Darcy watched Loki pace from her hiding place in the observation room.
Somehow, SHIELD had made the wall look like a wall on the other side but a window from this one. She hadn't known that was possible, but honestly she was way past her shock quota after the last couple years, and anyway she'd been creeping past the sleeping Loki and when she saw the cameras shut down she'd immediately ducked into the nearest unlocked door. It turned out that she was in a secret observation room the size of a closet. And then Natasha Romanoff walked in, and she discovered the speakers that relayed everything from the containment unit into her little spy closet, and this whole debacle got way more interesting.
And Darcy definitely did not mind getting to check out Alien Number Two without him knowing, because yeah, Thor was attractive, but his megalomaniacal younger brother was something else.
Heh. He was out of this world attractive.
Darcy had never expected to be able to use that pun in real life.
Even imagining what he looked like under all that complicated armor couldn't distract her for long from the more serious thoughts that ran around her brain like rabbits on crack, which was annoying because Darcy had been enjoying those mental images, but she couldn't deny that there was something serious to be contemplated and she was apparently the only person around ready to contemplate it. So she thought about the security footage she may or may not have hacked from a StarkPad on the way down here and Loki's comment "a warm light for all mankind" and how Stark hadn't been brought in on the Tesseract until Fury had no other option and how Loki hadn't looked upset at all when Natasha figured out his plan. Darcy figured there were two likely interpretations of that information: either Loki was winding all of them up, or.
Or.
Darcy pulled out her StarkPad, issued when she joined the PR team, and placed a call.
"Lang? This is Darcy Lewis."
"How did you get this number?" the agent on the other end snapped.
"Director Fury," Darcy lied. "Can you patch me through to Thor?"
Irritating stick-in-the-mud. Darcy's least favorite kind of person. "I'm on task for public relations. There was some footage of him and I need to ask him a few questions just so I can handle the press."
"Ms. Lewis-"
"Look, don't shoot the messenger," she sighed, putting fake weariness in her voice. "I know you're super busy and this is so not a good use of your time, and I'm sorry, but I really need to speak with him?"
A pause.
"Fine. We've issued him a StarkPhone and taught him how to answer calls. I'll send you his number."
"Thanks so much," Darcy said, dripping fake gratitude, and Lang said "No problem" in a considerably warmer tone than he'd started with, and a message chimed through a few seconds after she hung up with Thor's intranetwork number and a smiley face.
"In your nasty-ass dreams, Agent Lonely," she muttered, and called the number.
Thor's voice rumbled through the line. "Who calls the Son of Odin?"
Oh my fucking God, has no one taught him just to say "hello"? "It's Darcy."
"Lady Darcy," Thor said. "I did not get the impression, when last we spoke, that you wished to continue our friendship."
"Sorry for any, um, miscommunication," Darcy said. "And sorry to bother you, but if no one's mentioned it I work with Stark's Public Relations team and I need to ask you a few questions to handle the press. People tend to freak out a little when aliens with magic hammers named myeuh-myeuh show up."
"Of course," Thor said. "What information do you require?"
"Um." Darcy scrambled. "First of all, just so I have it on record that you've stated this, do you mean any harm to anyone on Earth?"
"No!" Thor sounded offended.
"Okay, sorry," Darcy said hurriedly. "I had to ask. Um. Next is… What tipped you off that Loki had come to Midgard?"
"Heimdall alerted Odin to a disturbance regarding Loki, although Loki himself remains concealed from Heimdall's sight," Thor said. "I was dispatched to capture Loki and set Midgard to rights."
"Mmm. And why do you think Loki is doing this?" Darcy asked.
Thor paused. "Vengeance. He loathes me and Odin with a passion unmatched by any I have ever seen. There is no pain can prize his need from him."
"So he'll never stop unless he is stopped?"
"I would expect not."
"Awesome," Darcy muttered, and moved into the more important questions. "Do you think he has a chance of conquering Midgard?"
"I do not know," Thor said. "Heimdall has yet to discover what Loki's forces might be, or where he has been in the time since he fell from the Bifrost. However, he is not to be underestimated. Loki is a brilliant strategist both with politics and military campaigns. His mind is unmatched among Midgardians."
Oh, Darcy so wanted to rip into him right then for his condescending attitude, but she held herself in check. She needed info. "So you still have no clue where he might've been all this time."
"Some clues, but they would mean nothing to Midgardians."
He's really asking for it. Deep breaths, Darce .
"I don't remember anything about the mind-controller nightstick thing. Has Loki used that before?"
Thor paused. "No."
"And have you ever heard of something with its power before?"
"No," Thor said, drawing out the word.
"Is it possible it could be used on an Asgardian?"
"Fear not, Lady Darcy, I do not intend to allow Loki to use it on me," Thor said.
That's not where I was going, but okay. "Answer the question."
"It is possible," Thor admitted reluctantly.
Time to move on . "Okay. Uhhh… they also want me to ask if you think you can take Loki in a fight."
"He is not trained nearly as well as I," Thor said, pride ringing through the phone. "Loki has always disdained the use of weaponry, and his seidr - what you might call magic - is ill-suited for combat. Yes, I believe I can do so with ease."
Darcy tapped a finger against her thigh, annoyed, and decided to bring out the big guns. She'd make him so mad he would never think to consider her important questions. "And do you feel any remaining filial attachment to Loki?"
Silence.
Excellent.
"No," Thor said at last. "He has lied and murdered and betrayed me too many times."
"Would you be willing to kill him?" Darcy asked innocently.
There was another weighty hesitation, and then Thor said "Yes… if it came to it."
"What about torture?"
"What?" The Asgardian sounded shocked, offended.
Darcy smirked, even though he couldn't see her. "Like, to get the information of the Tesseract from him before his plan goes through. Could you do that?"
"I do not know how things are done here on Midgard," Thor seethed, "but on Asgard we are above such cowardly and ignoble tactics! I would never stoop so low! I-"
"Wonderful," Darcy said, her voice as chipper as she could make it, "that's all I needed to know. Thanks!"
She hung up on him.
Her tactic had worked perfectly. Hiding her real questions, like those about the scepter, in the middle of emotionally charged other inquiries was a surefire way to get people to forget everything but what made them sad or pissed. And she knew Thor well enough to know exactly how to fire him up.
The brunette woman cracked her knuckles and looked out at the containment unit. Loki was pacing circles around it, and the cameras were still down - looked like Natasha hadn't turned them back on in her rush to go keep Banner's skin the same color.
That was good. Because Darcy smelled something off here, something about the appearance of the scepter and Loki's unknown possible army and the look on his face as he'd watched Natasha leave, and she wanted to talk to him in person.
She straightened decisively, gauged her fear (low) and her anticipation (high), and stepped out of the closet.
Loki's eyes fastened on her.