Fire and Ice | Avengers/Steve Rogers

four.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offence, Bruce." Vera sent a sheepish smile in the doctor's direction, who shrugged in response.

Wyatt's eyebrows furrowed as his sister made the comment. Wyatt didn't realise she was referring to herself, as well as Bruce.

"I don't think Bruce would have agreed to come if he couldn't handle a few pointy things, V." Wyatt said as he crossed his arm over his chest. Vera looked at him in slight surprise at the snarky tone he'd used. Tony's eyes drifted as he held his hands up in defence before walking around the table to the rest of the group, tapping the prod against the palm of his hand repeatedly.

"With enough pressure, anything can crack, Wyatt." She retorted. They continued to slightly glare at one another, a slightly tense atmosphere growing. Steve was beginning to grow increasingly concerned.

The two twins continued to stare at each other, both recalling the memory Vera was insinuating. Her memory. Steve could see that the woman was getting aggravated, which he knew she was afraid of, he put his hand on the small of Vera's back in an attempt of cooling her down.

"You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut." Tony pointed the prod at Bruce with a teasing smile.

"And you need to focus on the problem. Mr. Stark?" Steve's voice broke through the tension, directing the conversation back on Tony, who looked back in surprise.

Tony put down the electrical prod and picked up a little silver pouch.

"You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables." Tony walked around the desk in front of them, looking at the room of people, almost quizzing them as he spoke, his eyes drifting over everyone.

Everyone went silent for a couple of seconds.

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve's eyes never left Tony.

"He's a spy, Captain." Tony stared at him incredulously. "He's the spy. His secrets have secrets. It's bugging him too. Isn't it?" He directed his attention towards Banner as he shoved a handful of blueberries from the silver pouch into his mouth.

"I – um, I just wanna finish my work here and..." Bruce began stuttering as he looked around the room of people staring at him, waiting for his answer.

"Bruce?" Wyatt and Vera asked in unison, both eager to know the thoughts of the man they had grown to idolise. He looked up at them both, a sad look in his eyes.

"A warm light for all mankind, Loki's jab at Fury about the cube." He sighed looking down at his hands.

"I heard it." Steve prompted him.

"Well, I think that was meant for you." He stated, pointing his finger at Stark, who shrugged and offered out the blueberries to his fellow scientist. Banner looked startled before taking a small handful and continuing. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."

"The Stark Tower? That big ugly..." Steve trailed off as Tony swivelled his head to look at Steve with a look of warning. "... building in New York?"

A look of realisation dawned on Wyatt's face.

"It's powered by an ark reactor, a self-sustaining energy source." Tony nodded at Wyatt's statement before he continued with his point. "That building will run itself for what, a year?"

"That's just the prototype." Tony shrugged. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."

"So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?" Bruce pursed his lips as he shrugged.