FIRECATCHER: The Avengers

Monster

The camera showing Loki in his cell turned off. 

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Banner said, clearly not happy with how Loki had called him a mindless beast.

 "Loki's gonna drag this out." Cap said. "So, Thor, what's his play?"

 "He has an army called The Chitauri," Thor said in his deep voice. "They are not of Asgard, nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth - in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

 "An army," Cap said unbelievingly. "From space." 

"So he's building another portal," Banner said. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

 "Selvig?" Thor asked. 

"He's a astrophysicist" 

"He's a friend."

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," Romanoff informed Thor. "Along with one of ours."

"I want to know why Loki let us take him," Cap said. "He's not going to lead an army from a prison cell." 

"I don't think we should focus on Loki," Banner said. "That guy's brain is a bag of cats. You can smell crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak," Thor said angrily. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother." 

"Loki killed eighty people in two days," Romanoff said. 

"He's adopted," Thor said.

"Uh... guys," Banner said. "Were you expecting somebody?"

All the avengers turned to look were Banner was pointing. Tony was arriving with Maria. She was cuffed, both by her hands and her feet, muzzled, and wearing an electric collar. 

"Cap," Tony said. "I brought you a present."

"Is this one of Loki's followers?" Cap asked.

"No," Tony said. "This is the new recruit."

Cap's eyes went wide. 

"Why the hell did you chain her up?!" Cap said.

"Um, because she's dangerous." Tony said innocently.

"Then why did you bring her here?" Romanoff asked.

"Fury told me to bring her."

"What's she doing?" Banner asked. 

Everyone turned to look at her. She was just pulling her hands out of the melted handcuffs. They all stared. 

"Oh," Tony said. "I forgot to tell you she could do that. My bad."

Maria, her hands now free, pulled all of the other shackles off. 

"Thank you for the collar, Stark," Maria said sarcastically, glaring fiercely at Tony. "I loved it."

"You threw a wine bottle at me!" Stark said defensively.

"I think we should introduce ourselves," Cap said, trying to break up the argument.

"I know who all of you are," Maria snapped. "You're Captain America, that's Tony Stark, over there is Bruce Banner, and that's Natasha Romanoff."

"I see Stark has told you about us," Romanoff said. 

"Stark hasn't told me anything. I just know who you are." 

"Since you know all about us, why don't you tell us who you are?" Romanoff said.