Reawakening [2]

Back into the World

Chapter 5

Abi, Tony and Bruce had all retreated to Bruce's lab and were conducting tests on the sceptre.

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But it's gonna take weeks to process." Banner said as he scanned the sceptre. Tony was looking at one screen and Abi was sat on the desk looking at another.

"If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops." Tony said pressing some buttons on his computer. Abi raised an eyebrow and Bruce chuckled.

"All I packed was a tooth brush." Bruce told him.

"You know; you should both come by STARK TOWERS sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land." Tony said with a smile as he walked over to them.

"If it's anything like your dad's office I think I can imagine." Abi muttered. Tony looked confused for a moment before he remembered how old she was.

Bruce chuckled. "Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke...Harlem."

"Well, I promise a stress free environment. No tension. No surprises." Tony said before he poked Bruce in the side with a small electrical rod.

"Ow!" Bruce exclaimed.

"Hey!" Steve called walking through the door.

"Nothing." Tony said examining Banner closely.

"Are you nuts?" Steve asked Tony. Abi hopped off the table. She could tell Steve was annoyed as it was for them losing the thing he 'died' to keep out of the enemies hands.

"Jury's out. You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?" Tony asked.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked.

"Funny things are." Tony replied.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, doc." Steve said.

"No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." Bruce assured them as he and Abi went back to looking at the readings.

"You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut." Tony said with a laugh.

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark." Steve said.

"Steve calm down." Abi said in his head. He gave her a look and she rolled her eyes.

"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 told them.

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve asked.

"He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets. It's bugging them too, isn't it?" Tony said pointing at the other two.

"I've been in too many people's heads today to really care. Plus, I just met everybody." Abi told them

"Uh...I just wanna finish my work here and..." Bruce trailed off.

"Doctor?" Steve urged.

"'A warm light for all mankind, Loki's jab at Fury about the cube." Banner muttered.

"I heard it." Steve told them.

"Well, I think that was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower it was still posted all over the news." Banner said. Tony offered him a blueberry which he took. He held the packet out to Abi who also took a few.

"The Stark Tower? That big ugly ...building in New York?" Steve said as Tony gave him a look.

"It's powered by an arc reactor, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?" Banner said.

"That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at." Stark told Steve.

"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 queried.

"I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files." Tony told them.

Steve looked taken back. "I'm sorry, did you say...?"

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?" Tony offered Steve the bag.

"Why not ask Abi?" Steve said.

"I can break into people's minds, not their computers. Plus, I've kinda had enough of that for today." She told him.

Steve turned back to Stark. "Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around?"

"An intelligence organization that fear intelligence? Historically, not awesome." Tony told him.

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them." Steve said.

"Following is not really my style." Tony said eating more blueberries.

"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Steve said with a smile.

"Of the people in this room, which one is; A. wearing a spangly outfit, and B. not of use?" Tony said.

"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" Abi said trying to change the subject.

"Just find the cube." Steve said before walking out.

"Steve." Abi called after him. "I'll be back in a bit." She muttered before walking after him.

She found him stood looking out of the windows on the bridge. "You gonna tell me how you ended up here?" She asked him.

"Can't you just read my mind." Steve asked with a smile.

"Yes. But after sixty-seven years of Russians I would like to have a proper conversation with my brother." She said also smiling as she pulled herself to sit on the rail, her back to the wall.

"I've been out for two weeks. They found me in the ice and defrosted me. What about you?" Steve asked.

"Two days. They deforested me two days ago. I don't know why. They probably wanted to wipe my memories and force me to do something else." She muttered.

"Why is your hair brown?" He asked.

"I have no idea." She said with a laugh. "It must have altered the genetic coding."

They sat there for a few minutes before Abi spotted Natasha. "I'll see you in bit." She said to Steve as she ran after Nat.

"Natasha!" Abi called. Nat stopped walking and turned around. "You recognised me, why?" Abi asked.

"You really don't remember anything they did to you or made you do, do you?" Natasha asked. Abi shook her head. "You helped train me and the others in the Red Room. They called you The Ghost." Natasha told her.

Abi gasped and grabbed her head as images began to flash through her head. Girls doing ballet, scientists with injections and holding a gun to people's head.

"Are you okay?" Natasha asked.

Abi nodded. "I just need to sit down. Thank you." She muttered before running off again.