Edited 17/11/2024
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After her Power Nap Olivia woke up and instantly made a beeline for the coffee machine in one corner of the lab.
She had slept in her clothes from the other morning but she had been too tired to care.
"Hey kid"
Tony gave her a sort of salute as they both got their coffee cups and placed them on the lab's table, then sitting down on one of the chairs in the room.
Banner came in no too much later and took Olivia's cup taking a sip and grimacing at the amount of caffeine and sugar the girl had put in it.
Fury entered the room where they were.
"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" he asked Tony who was calmly drinking his energy juice.
"Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you" Tony played with his cup.
"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract"
"We are, the model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile" Bruce explained drowsily.
"And you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss. What is Phase Two?" Tony questioned.
Before Olivia could reveal it herself Steve entered and slams a large HYDRA gun on the table.
"Phase Two is SHIELD used the Cube to make weapons" Olivia huffed and crossed her arms over her chest making Bruce look at her in amusement as Steve turned to Tony "Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me"
"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're..." Nick tries excusing himself.
"I'm sorry, Nick" Tony turns the screen towards Fury. It shows a plan for some a missile powered by the Tesseract.
"What were you lying about?"
"You know, you were wrong, Cap. The world hasn't changed a bit" Olivia said.
Thor and Natasha entered the room and Olivia saw Banner look to the assassin as the red head walked to stand by the young girl.
She took the croissant that Natasha was holding in her hand and bit into it.
"Did you know about this?" Bruce asked the assassin accusingly.
"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment doctor?" she quirked an eyebrow and and let the young girl besides her lean her head onto her shoulder.
The ex assassin wasn't used to receiving affection from others and she was surprised to find out she liked the girl attention and so she let her lean against her.
"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed"
"Loki's manipulating you" Natasha tried to calm her down.
"And you've been doing what exactly?"
"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you"
"Not entirely" Olivia muttered from besides Natasha low enough so only she would hear.
"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy"
"I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction"
Fury butted into the conversation and pointed at Thor redirecting their attention.
"Because of him" he pointed at the god.
"Me?" the God of Thunder pointed another finger at himself with a questioning look.
"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, out-gunned" he swung his arms down as if to strengthen his point.
"My people want nothing but peace with your planet"
"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And, you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled"
Olivia took her cup of coffee back from Bruce and sipped it quietly knowing the fight that would break out and willing herself to calm down. She held the Luke warm cup between both of her hands.
"Like you controlled the cube!" Steve shouted.
"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for A HIGHER FORM OF WAR!" Thor bellowed the last part.
"A higher form?!"
"You forced our hand! We had to come up with some..." Fury tried talking.
And of course Tony had to get into the conversation.
"Nuclear deterrent! 'Cause that always calms everything right down"
Everyone becomes hostile and begin cutting each other off. They all started fighting.
"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?" Fury brought up the man's past.
"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep..." Steve tried to 'defend' but managed to somehow offend Stark.
"Wait! Wait! Hold on! How is this now about me?" Tony put one hand on his chest.
"I'm sorry, isn't everything?" the captain scoffed.
"I thought humans were more evolved than this"
Olivia gave Natasha a look as the men stood stiff and nervous and so did she. Everyone was beginning to argue over each other.
"Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?" a vein popped in Fury's forehead. Olivia's head started to ring as their voices grew louder "YOU'RE NOT MY CHAMPION!"
Olivia tried tuning out their voices as she held the cup tighter and the palms of her hands grew warmer.
The liquid in the cup also grew warmer little by little and started bubbling but she didn't notice as she tried keeping her gaze fixed on the wall to ignore the pain now blooming in her head.
"You're a threat. VERBAL THREAT! I FEEL THREATENED!" Tony's childish remark echoed in the back of her head "RESPECT WHAT!
"SHOW SOME RESPECT!" Steve had also started shouting.
Ж
On a screen in the jet is Loki's scepter. Inside men working for Loki put on masks and load weapons. Barton readies his bow.
"Transport six-six-five-O, please relay your form code. Got you on the computer but not on the data log. What is your haul? Over" the intercom voice asked.
"Arms to ammunition. Over" the pilot said from the ship.
Ж
"You speak of control, yet you court chaos!" Thor bellowed.
"It's his MO, isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're...we're a time bomb" Bruce had also taken to joining the screaming match between the fully grown men.
"You need to step away" Fury warned.
"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Tony questioned.
"You know damn well why! Back off!" Steve faced him.
"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me" Tony turned his full attention to the captain.
"Yeah, big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?" Steve challenged.
"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist"
If Olivia hadn't been trying to calm down she would her laughed at the man's famous line of the script.
As it happened their conversation was now muffled, as if she were wearing earmuffs, but the painful ringing was still there making her shut her eyes tightly.
"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you" he took a step nearer to the billionaire scientist.
"I think I would just cut the wire"
"Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero"
"A hero, like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle" Tony spat out.
Ж
The ramp of Clint's ship opens and Barton nocks an arrow, takes aim and lets it loose.
The arrow swings in the air and attaches to the side of one of the carrier's enormous engines,
flashing.
Ж
"Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds" Steve challenged uncrossing his arms and squaring his shoulders.
"You people are so petty, and tiny" Tony laughs sarcastically.
"Yeah, this is a team" Banner muttered.
Just as Natasha realised that Olivia was in pain, Fury turned to her.
"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his..."
"WHERE?! YOU RENTED MY ROOM!" Banner finally looked like he blew a fuse.
"The cell was just..." Fury tried to calm the angered man down.
"IN CASE YOU NEEDED TO KILL ME. BUT YOU CAN'T, I KNOW, I TRIED!" he pauses when he takes notice of everyone staring at him "I got low. I didn't see an end so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out. So I moved on, I focused on helping other people. I was good until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk. You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?"
Everyone is watching Banner, Fury and Natasha reach for their guns.
"ENOUGH!" Olivia shouted.
The coffee inside the cup she held let out a violent spray of mist as it reached its condensation temperature and made fog appear on the lab's glass walls surprising everyone as well as the cup fell to the floor, it's contents now empty.
She didn't acknowledge it like the rest did and she looked up at Bruce whose had was placed on the sceptre and who had lifted it from its place.
"Bruce, hands off" her voice cut through the silence as they soon realised Banner was holding the weapon.
His hands jerked off of the cold metal when he saw the young girl was having trouble breathing and he immediately felt guilty for shouting.
He was about to approach her when the monitor makes a noise, signaling the Tesseract has been located.
Banner puts the scepter back on the table and walks over to the screen on the other side of the room.
"Got it!" Fury shouted at the success of their search.
"Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my party trick after all" Bruce said apologetically.
"Located the Tesseract?" Thor moved to the screen trying to descipher it.
"Look, all of us..." Steve tried.
"I can get there faster" as soon as Olivia calmed down she rolled her eyes at the man's challenge.
She stared at the palms of her hands which she was sure had been glowing bright blue earlier when she had gotten more anxious, but they were now their normal, usual pink color.
"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it" Thor said.
"That's a lie" she muttered low enough to ensure that none of them had heard her.
The center of the Tesseract was an infinity stone which meant that the general thing belonged to no one but the universe.
Stark turns to leave and Rogers holds him back with a hand on his arm.
"You're not going alone!" the super soldier said.
"You gonna stop me?" Tony smacks his hand away and stands straighter as the captain was a couple of inches taller than him.
"Put on the suit, let's find out!"
"I'm not afraid to hit an old man"
"Oof. Jab" Olivia thoughts she finally got her senses back.
"Put on the suit" Steve repeats.
Banner sees something on the monitor that clearly catches his attention when he leaps forward and closer to the screen to get a better look.
"Oh. My. God"
Barton kneels down and presses a button on his bow. The arrow head explodes creating a blast that destroys one of the engines.
Everyone in the lab flying in different directions.
Fury, Olivia and Thor fall to the ground behind a table, Tony and Steve are blown to the entry way, Banner and Natasha fly out the Wishbone lab and into the lower equipment room.
"Put on the suit" Steve asks this time for a completely different reason and in a different tone.
"Yep" both men finally agreed on something.
Steve helps Tony up and they run out of the lab.
Ж
People were running around, yelling and grabbing guns while the monitors are beeping wildly.
S.H.I.E.L.D Techs are panicing while S.H.I.E.L.D Agents are gearing up and running to their stations.
"All hands engaged" an intercom voice said.
Olivia looked around and saw that one of the ship's right engines was failing.
She ran up to the lab's cupboard and pulled out the earpiece she had used to show Banner her robot's functions and she quickly activated UNITY.
"UNITY! Connect me with a server that should be labelled either Tony Stark or Iron Man"
Banner had been nice enough to update UNITY and integrate her into the MCU's internet so she would have better access to the information from this world. Of course Bruce hadn't realised that.
"There is no device with that name miss" Olivia pulled her hair in frustration. She wasn't totally sure that Tony and Steve would realise it in time "There is, however, another intelligent consciousness labelled JARVIS miss. Shall I try to connect?"
"Yes! Yes, yes, yes!" she waited for her AI to establish some sort of communication and she sighed in relief when Stark's voice sounded in her ear.
"Who is this?"
"Tony!
"Kid? What the hell...? How the heck are you doing this??"
"Tony not the time! One of the ship's right engines is failing and if you don't get it working well most probably fall to our very obvious deaths.
Tony would have laughed at her tone of voice if what she had said weren't so urgent.
Ж
Hill is standing her command area. She is looking at a screen.
"Number Three engine is down"
"We've been hit" another one of the bridge techs says.
"Maria!" Hill turns to the voice, surprised to see the teenage girl, Olivia.
She holds up a hand stopping the girl as she presses her finger to her earpiece.
"Did we get a run in? Talk to me"
"We got a fire in Engine Three"
"The line looks mostly in tact but it's impossible to get out there to make repairs while we're in the air"
"We lose one more engine we won't be"
"Hill!" the S.H.I.E.L.D agent gives her attention to the girl "I've already informed Stark"
The woman nodded, now they could concentrate on other problems and they would have to trust Iron Man and Captain America to fix the failing engine.
Olivia sees Coulson run down some steps and she tries to follow but Maria takes a hold of her arm.
"No way kid, you're staying with me"
The helicarrier shook distracting Maria Hill long enough for Olivia to slip past her guard and follow the man, whom she knew was going to pay Loki a little visit, down the stairs.
She slips down the second flight of stairs and almost falls on her face but he manages to get up and run down to where S.H.I.E.L.D was keeping Loki.
Ж
Natasha's leg is trapped under a very large pipe. She tries pulling herself painfully free.
He groans in pain. He gives up. Banner is in the corner spazing out, he is fine but he is making very weird moments.
She looks over to Banner, who is breathing heavy, having landed hard.
He was gripping the grated flooring to maintain control, but his eyes are green, his face intense.
"We're okay, right?" she whispered quietly.
Ж
Barton and his men have landed and are making their way across the deck and over to an air vent.
Barton signals his men to kick in the vent and they do, the grating gets kicked in and the men jump down at Barton's orders.
"Keep that engine down" he orders to three of the men behind him "Detention, wait for camera to go dark" he says to another pair "Stay close" he moves forth with the remaining two men.
Ж
"Find engine three. I'll meet you there" Tony tells the captain after Olivia had warned them of the failing engine.
Cap peels off as Tony approaches a tech room. Inside, Tony's Iron Man suit stands waiting, lit from above in a blue light in all its glory.
Ж
Bruce crouches low in the dim light as he struggles to suppress the rage, but his face is growing, changing slowly.
Natasha is pulling herself painfully free again, talking to Banner softly trying to calm him down.
"Doctor? Bruce, you gotta fight it. This is just what Loki wants. We're gonna be okay. Listen to me" she stretches out her arm and holds out a hand to the man on the floor.
Two maintenance guys run in making Natasha wave them away.
"We're gonna be okay. Right? I swear on my life I will get you out of this, you will walk away, and never ever..." she keeps trying to get him to take her hand but she only hears him growl like an animal.
"Your life?" his voice has a sudden change in it, the bitter amusement is morphing to a growled threat.
Banner begins to transform into the Hulk, shirt tearing, he throws himself away from Romanoff, who looks terrified, then he turns to look at her, transforming, his skin turning a greenish hue, just as the lights go out.
"Bruce..."
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