𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑 | parker¹

vii. glorious purpose

And of course, it was Aster.

She was standing next to the scientist, a grimace on her face and her arms crossed over her chest as she stared at the swirling energy inside of the Tesseract. "I didn't do anything. I swear on my life and my love for Thai food that I didn't touch it."

Aster wasn't lying. She just left out the tiny little detail about the Tesseract's energy levels going haywire when she got close to it.

It was just a coincidence. At least she hoped.

Dr. Selvig exhaled a stressed breath and exasperatedly ran a hand over his forehead, eyes on the machine in front of him.

"Talk to me, Doctor!" Fury bellowed, entering the facility.

Aster took her eyes off of the Tesseract to greet her boss. "Hello to you too."

"Director," Selvig nervously greeted him.

Fury stopped beside the two and put his hands on his hips. "Is there anything we know for certain?"

Aster answered the question that was most definitely aimed towards Selvig. "The space ice cube is misbehaving."

Fury craned his head down and narrowed his eye at her. "Is that supposed to be funny?"

"Actually, Sir," Selvig cut in, beckoning Fury over. "I won't say this often, but Aster's right. The Tesseract is not only active, but she's also... misbehaving."

Fury wearily eyed the machine. "I assume you pulled the plug."

"You can't just unplug it from the wall and boom everything's fixed," Aster butted in. "We turn off the power, she turns it back on. If she reaches peak level..." As she trailed off, she wiggled her fingers into the air and made a fake explosion sound.

"I get it," he gruffly told her before turning to Selvig. "We prepared for this, Doctor. Harnessing energy from space."

Aster frowned. "We did?"

Both of the men ignored her. Selvig walked past Aster and over to the computer as he spoke. "But we don't have the harness. My calculations are far from complete and she's throwing off interference, radiation. Nothing harmful, low levels of gamma radiation."

"That sounds kinda harmful," Aster mumbled, tilting her head skeptically.

"Where's Agent Barton?" Fury questioned.

Aster's eyes strayed up to the catwalk and she snorted when she saw Clint hanging onto the railings up above.

Selvig just scoffed, pointing up and behind him. "The hawk? Up in his nest, as usual."

Fury grabbed the radio on his belt and held it to his mouth. "Agent Barton, report."

As Clint came back down to ground level and began discussing the situation with Fury, Aster couldn't take her eyes off of the Tesseract. Maybe it was just paranoia, but the glow of the cube made dread settle into her stomach. She felt drawn to it, but she stayed her distance.

Something about it seemed very familiar. Very wrong.

Aster felt the feeling grow inside of her as the glow became brighter. There was a low buzz in the air because of how much power the Tesseract was giving off. Another scientist caught the attention of the others before Aster could even open her mouth.

"Doctor, it's spiking again."

Clint and Fury came to stand beside Aster, the former speaking quietly. "No one's come or gone, and Selvig's clean. No contacts, no IMs. If there was any tampering, then it wasn't at this end."