"Shall we play, Doctor, your majesty?" Stark asks looking to both Banner and Arselia. "This way, sir. Oh and your majesty." Bruce says as he leads them out of the room.
———
An hour has passed since Dr. Banner and Tony led Arselia to the laboratory where they would study Loki's scepter and track the Tesseract. Within in the hour, Tony and Bruce introduced the goddess to the new technology and how to use it properly. It was quite difficult at first, but the Asgardian managed to learn how to use the tech quickly.
"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports of the Tesseract. But it's going to take weeks to process." Bruce states as he scans the scepter. The goddess looks up from the small tablet she was reading that held information on both the Tesseract and the scepter. She recognizes the power that these magical items hold, has even read about them when she was younger. She finds them to be similar to that of infinity stones.
Created during the Big Bang, these stones were said to be the most powerful objects in the universe. Space, time, soul, mind, power, and reality. The goddess isn't too sure if the items she is currently studying are infinity stones or they come from the power of the stones. Regardless, she knows that these items are powerful and dangerous.
"If we bypass their mainframe and direct route to the Homer cluster we can clock this at around six-hundred teraflops." The billionaire states. "All I packed was a tooth brush." Dr. Banner says with a chuckle. "You know, you both should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R and D. You'd love it. It's Candy Land." Tony explains.
"What is this "Candy Land" you speak of?" Arselia asks confused. Both men look at each other, then back to her. "Oh, right. Goddess from another realm. It's a metaphor for a board game. You know what a board game is, right?" Stark asks. The goddess nods her head. She knows what board games were from her time on Earth, but never heard of the one Tony spoke of. She would have to look up what it was once all of this is over.
"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke Harlem." Banner says, bringing the conversation back to Tony's offer. "Well, I promise a stress-free environment. No tension, no surprises." Tony says, then tases Bruce. "Ow!" "Stark!" The raven-haired woman exclaims. A shout from Steve Rogers can be heard coming from the door way, but Arselia focuses on the idiotic man and the scientist in front of her. "Nothing?"
"Are you nuts?" Steve asks as he walks towards the trio in his red, white, and blue suit. "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 says as Arselia puts her tablet down and helps Bruce scan the scepter. "Is everything a joke to you?" The patriotic man annoyingly asks. It was weird for the goddess to be in his presence again. She noticed how serious he got over the years of her being without him. The Asgardian can recall the goofy, shy, and skinny man she met many years ago. But now, he's different, and the conflict within the goddess' mind can't tell whether he changed for the better or worse.
"Funny things are." Doctor Banner and Arselia both looked at each other for that comment and rolled their eyes. "Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, Doc." "It's alright, I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." Bruce states. "You're tip-toeing, big man. You need to strut." "And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark." "Do you think I'm not? Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."
"You think Fury's hiding something?" "He's a spy. Captain, he's "the" spy. His secrets have secrets. I mean he knew very well that Princess Leia over here and her brother existed. And yet he didn't say a word. It's all just very strange. And I'm sure it's bugging him, too. Isn't it?" Stark asks. Arselia knew that the man was referring to her, but continued working. She didn't have time for the man's nonsense, but she did find it strange how the Fury man only now recruited the humans to help him.
"Uh...I just want to finish my work here and-" "Doctor?" Steve asks, cutting the man off. Bruce stops working and takes his glasses off, though Arselia continues to examine the scepter, and even uses her magic to try and scan the energy source. The source felt familiar to her, in the strangest way possible. The noise of Doctor Banner talking was blurred out, as she focused everything on this power. She almost felt connected to the power that came from the scepter. It was as if a magnet was drawing her in, or a force was pushing her towards whatever this may be. But the goddess stopped once she heard Tony talk about accessing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files.
"I'm sorry. Did you say-" "Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours I'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.LD has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?" Tony says, cutting off Steve. "Yet you're very confused about why they didn't want you around." "An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome." Steve huffs slightly and looks in Arselia's direction. He meets eyes with the goddess. Eyes that seem very familiar for him to look into, yet he doesn't understand why. Maybe it was those years in the ice messing with him, or maybe she has a familiar face. But wouldn't he be able to recognize the face of a goddess, especially one as pretty as Arselia?
"What do you think about this all, Arselia?" Steve asks, still holding the eye contact. "It is very strange, as Stark stated. If they truly had good intentions for an intelligence organization, they would have brought in Dr. Banner and him along time ago. But if they didn't have good intentions, wouldn't it make sense to keep out the ones who would be able to figure what they were truly doing behind all the doors that Fury seems to have closed?"
Steve looks at the goddess for a few moments before looking back to Tony. "I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We-" "Pardon me to interrupt, Captain, but believe me when I say I know my own brother very well. A majority of the tricks he has up his sleeve, he either learned from me, or taught me to do. No matter what he does, we'll still know how to stop him because of me."
"Yeah, that's why I'm still skeptical of you. The Goddess of Mischief and the God of Mischief, right? Who's to say you're not working with Loki and tricking us all right now just to kill us?" Arselia laughs slightly, but is taken aback by Steve's questioning. She knew if he truly knew who she was, he wouldn't talk to her like that. Or would he? Maybe this isn't the man she truly once knew, but a version of him she is now meeting.
"Captain if I were truly working with Loki and wanted you killed, you can be certain you'd all be dead already." Steve looks at the goddess with an anger in his eyes, a look that the goddess has never seen from the man before. Steve lets his small argument with the woman go, but both of them know that he will be watching her moves very closely.
"We have orders. We should follow them." "Following's not really my style." "And you're all about style, aren't you?" "Of the people in this room, which one his, A, wearing a spangly outfit, and, B, not of use?" Stark questions. "Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you." Banner states. The blonde then looks to Bruce, then to Arselia, then to Tony. By the way he was acting, the goddess could tell that Steve knew they were right. "Just find the Cube." The man says, before leaving the room.
Arselia walks to lean on the table for a moment, overwhelmed by the power she felt from the scepter and the conflicting emotions she felt during her talk with Steve. "That's the guy my dad never shut up about? I'm wondering if they shouldn't have kept him on ice." Bruce laughs slightly at Tony's comment, while Arselia rolled her eyes.
"The guy's not wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us, even if you do know most of his moves, Arselia." As much as the mischievous goddess would like to disagree, she knows Bruce is right. Though, Loki and Arselia often trained each other not only in combat and magic, but in mischief, the soul bonds would always have their own tricks up their sleeves. And now, Arselia isn't sure of which one he will end up using.
"What he's got is an Acme dynamite kit. It's going to blow up in his face. And I'm going to be there when it does." Tony states. "Yeah. I'll read all about it." "Uh-huh. Or you'll be suiting up with the reset of us. Speaking of which, do you wear that outfit constantly or is that just your "my brother is trying to destroy mankind" look?" Tony asks, addressing Arselia. "For someone who is so smart, you truly ask some of the most foolish questions." The goddess says. "You think I'm smart?" The billionaire asks with a sarcastic smile etched upon his face. Arselia looks to the man unamused, then looks to the screen that has information on the scanning of the scepter. If Tony was barely going to put in effort, she would have to for the both of them.
"Unlike you two, I don't get a suit of armor. I'm exposed. Like a nerve. It's a nightmare." Bruce states. "I've got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl its way into my heart. This stops it." The brunette says, as he taps where a circular object is let up underneath his shirt. "This little circle of light, it's part of me now, not just armor. It's a terrible privilege." "But you can control it." "Because he learned how, I'm sure." Arselia says as she walks towards the men. Tony nods his head in response to the goddess' claim. "It's much like magic or any power for that matter. You study it, practice, then fail. But, you keep following that small cycle until you succeed. Then, the possibilities are endless from there." The goddess states. She then forms a small ball of lightning throws it between her two hands. After a moment of tossing the ball she makes it disappear. "Ok, you've got to teach me how to do that." Tony says. The woman chuckles at that, while Bruce looks between the two, then back to the screen.
"It's different." "Hey, I read all about your accident. That much gamma exposure should have killed you." "So you're saying that the Hulk...The other guy saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Saved it for what?" Bruce questions. "I guess we'll find out." Stark says as he looks to Arselia, then back to Bruce. "You both may not enjoy that." "And you just might."
Tony then motions for Arselia to follow him over to another screen with information, and they both continue to do research on the whereabouts of the cube and the power of the scepter.
𝐀𝐍:
𝐇𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐨 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞! 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠! 𝐈 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭. 𝐌𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐱𝐱