in the shadows ━ steve rogers

chapter thirty-five

"It's a stabilizing agent," Tony replied, walking into the room. "Nephew coming in. Don't be doing anything weird." Grace rolled her eyes but didn't make any effort to move. Tony looked at Thor. "No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing. Also, it means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants." He turned around and looked out at the agents working at their desks. "Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the topsails. That man is playing GALAGA!" Grace peered around Thor at the agent before shrugging. "Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did." Tony covered his eye and looked around. "How does Fury do this?"

"He turns," Maria said, deadpanned.

"Well, that sounds exhausting."

Grace fluttered her lips and stood up. "Tony, get to the point." She walked over to the agent who was playing GALAGA. "So long as nobody finds out, I won't tell anyone," she whispered to him with a smile.

"Fine. I'll get to the point," Tony said with a sigh. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."

Maria furrowed her brows. "When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" she asked.

"Last night," Tony replied. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

Grace looked around the room and nodded. "I'm gonna go with yes."

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked.

Bruce shrugged. "He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier."

Tony nodded. "Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."

"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet," Bruce added.

Tony smiled. "Finally, someone who speaks English."

"Is that what just happened?" Grace and Steve asked at the same time.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner," Tony said, shaking the scientist's hand. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Grace shook her head. "Nope. Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube, Tony."

"I was hoping you might join him," Nick added, walking into the room with Adelaide behind him.

"I really don't like your brother," Adelaide told Thor before sitting next to Steve and Thor raised his eyebrows at the blonde agent.

"Let's start with that stick of his," Steve said while Grace stood behind Adelaide's chair. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

Nick shook his head. "I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Thor asked in confusion. "I do not understand."

"I do!" Steve exclaimed, feeling proud of himself. "I understood that reference."

Tony rolled his eyes and Grace flicked him. "Be nice," she hissed at him and he let out a breath.

"Shall we play, doctor?"

"Let's play some."

⸻ ~~~ ⸻

𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 pen in her hand, staring blankly at the wall in front of her. She heard a knock on her office door and she sighed. "If it's the council criticizing everything we do again, just... tell them I'm not here. Or better yet, tell them to talk to Fury."