After their little skirmish in the woods back in Europe, the team are now back in the Helicarrier as Loki is being escorted by dozens of S.H.I.E.L.D. police, whilst he is in handcuffs, smiling.
As they pass the Helicarrier Lab, Banner stops working on the Chitauri Scepter and looks up.
Loki eyes him as he walks, nodding and smiling, Banner rubs his head, not wanting to entertain the stare off.
...
In another part of the S.H.I.E.L.D. base, John is currently seen with a phone to his ear and a smile on his as he listened to something on the other line.
"Daddy! Daddy!" Nellie's excited voice is the current reason for his smile, "Grandpa Lenny took us out for ice-cream today! It was so much fun! And then after that we went to the park! And after that we came home to play! And after that Grandpa Lenny showed us how to use his gu--"
"O--kay, that's enough phone time for you," Nikki's voice now sounds as she takes the phone from her sister, "...and sugar."
John chuckles as he listened to his daughters.
"Hey, dad," Nikki's voice greets him properly now.
"Hey, Nik," John's voice is soft as he leans his back against the wall of the lonely and private hallway, "How are things at home?"
"Great!" Nikki's voice became excited, "How are things at the seminar?"
"Uh..." John looked for a word, "Educational... to say the least."
Nikki chuckles, "...And how's Natasha?"
John sighs and rolls his eyes at his elder daughter's attempts to get into his love life. Natasha walks in, on cue, which makes his eyes go to her.
"She actually just got here," John's eyes notices Natasha's smile now, as she already guessed whom it was.
'The girls?' she mouths and John nods.
"Oh, Natasha?! Can we talk to her?!" Nikki asks excitedly whilst Nellie's excited squeal is heard in the background.
John raises a brow and then passes the phone to Natasha, "...For you, apparently."
Natasha raises a brow as well, but still accepts the phone anyway, "Hello?"
"Nat!" John hears Nellie's loud voice from the phone...and they weren't even on speaker.
Natasha's smile widened, "Hello, and who is this beautiful voice I'm speaking to?"
John could only release a breath of amusement as he listened to Natasha's responses to whatever the kids were saying to her.
"Oh really? Nellie?" Natasha chuckles, "Of course I remember you, sweetheart."
The former assassin folded his arms and raised one of his feet to the wall as Natasha went over and leaned back on the wall opposite to him, still on the phone with his girls.
"Hello, Nikki," Natasha's smile turned to a grin, "Yes," her eyes then go to John teasingly, "Your father is taking very good care of me, thanks for asking."
John rolls his eyes.
"Oh," Natasha's brows raise as her smile only continues, "...Really? Wait, so he only read romances on his free time--?"
"Alright, that's enough," John tries to get the phone from Natasha whom quickly turns, still listening to Nikki speaking.
"No!" Natasha says in disbelief at something Nikki told her, she tries to move, only for John to wrap one arm around her waist and use the other to grab the phone, "He read it that many times--?!"
"O-kay!" John finally gets the phone and attempts to talk to Nikki as she and Natasha both giggle at his expense, "I'll handle you later, young lady, bye."
Nikki's giggles subside, "Totally worth it! Bye dad!"
"We love you!"
"We love you!"
Both Nikki and Nellie yell into the phone which makes John smile brightly, not even noticing the way Natasha was also smiling at him.
"I love you too, girls," John hangs up the phone and now looks at Natasha.
His hold on her was tight, "What did she say to you?"
"Oh, nothing...just something about you reading The Notebook way too many times to count."
"God damn it," John sighs and Natasha laughs before patting his face a few times.
"You know, I never would have expected The Ghost to be a hopeless romantic," Natasha says just as John releases her from his hold.
He leans back against the wall opposite to her again and folds his arms, "Yeah...so maybe I am."
Natasha sends him a teasing smile, "Now that's cute."
John scoffs and waves her off, "Wasn't there a reason for why you came looking for me?"
"Aw, why change the subject?" Natasha follows after John, whom shoves her playfully as they exchange a small laugh, "Fury is about to interrogate Loki right now, I just thought you'd want to be there."
"Oh?" John raises a brow as they were now on their way to the control bay, "You think he'll manage to get any information?"
"Hard to say," Natasha shrugs, "Loki is..."
John noticed the way she was trying to find a word, "He's an interesting character, I think you mean."
"Yeah," Natasha nods, "...an interesting one for sure."
...
Loki is now seen free from his cuffs and is contained in a large glass cell held by some hydraulic rigs.
Fury enters the room and walks up to the control panel of the cell, "In case it's unclear. You try to escape. You so much as scratch that glass."
Fury presses a button which opens up a hatch underneath Loki's cell and Loki peers as much as he can from the glass.
Without seeing, the sounds of gustins winds would make man shit his pants. Not a god, though.
"Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?!"Fury closes the hatch and points at Loki, "Ant," then points at the button which would drop Loki into the steel trap,"Boot."
Loki smirks at this, "It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me though."
"Built for something a lot stronger than you," Nick simply responds.
"Oh," Loki still has his smirk, "I've heard."
The God looks into a camera.
The others watch on the monitor as Loki is getting interrogated, Banner especially looks at the monitor intently.
"The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man. How desperate are you, that you call upon such lost creatures to defend you?" Loki taunts.
"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control," Nick decides to play along, "You talk about peace and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate...and you might not be glad that you did."
"Ooh. It burns you to come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is," Loki continues his game.
Nick smiles at this, "Well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something."
Fury walks off leaving Loki in his glass cell. Loki looks back at the camera, smirking.
Steve watches until the monitor goes black.
Thor, who didn't even look, just listened, stands there, torn apart. In fact everyone else all just stand there in stunned silence.
Finally --
"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce tries to break the tension.
"Loki's gonna drag this out," Steve points out before look to the Asgardian currently in the room, "So, Thor, what's his play?"
Thor, snapping out of a daze, replies, "He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."
Steve frowns, "An army? From outer space?"
"So he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for," Banner suddenly concludes.
Thor jolts at the name, "Selvig?"
"He's an astrophysicist," Bruce clarifies for anyone unsure.
"He's a friend," Thor assures the rest of the people in the room.
"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours," Natasha says, her mind going back to her friend.
"I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here," Steve begins to think.
"Steve's right," John, surprisingly, agrees with the captain, prompting the blonde to look at him, surprised.
The World War II veteran nods, grateful for the assist.
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him," Banner makes his own conclusion.
Thor, still having his brotherly instincts, replies, "Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother."
"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha deadpans from the side of John and Shadow whom both splutter to try and contain a snicker.
"He's adopted," Thor suddenly finds the need to reply and the assassins find it harder to keep themselves together.
"Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?" Bruce's mind was still at work.
"It's a stabilizing agent," Tony's voice is heard as he walks in with Coulson, whom he turns to, "I'll fly you there. Keep the love alive. Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D."
The Iron Man then turns to Thor and taps his shoulder, "No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing."
Tony then decides to expand on his point about Iridium, "Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants."
The Stark then goes over to Fury's control console and then directs the crew, "Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails," he then turns around and points to a random worker, "That man is playing GALAGA! Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did."
Tony then covers his eyes and looks around at the control console, "How does Fury do this?"
Agent Hill, whom was standing off to the side, decides to input, "He turns."
Tony looks around the monitors and places a button size hacking implant under Fury's desk, without anyone, but Ghost and Shadow, noticing.
They chose not to comment on it...
"Well, that sounds exhausting. 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," Tony finishes his very long introduction.
Maria raised a brow, "When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?"
Tony turns to her cheekily, "Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asks, already having heard enough of Stark's somewhat ramble.
"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce says which makes Tony turn to him.
"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect," Tony fires back.
"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."
A voice beckons the two geniuses and Tony swerves around to see whom it was that spoke.
"Finally, people who speak English--" Tony begins, but his eyes widen as he notices whom it was that spoke, "Professor Smith?!"
"Is that what just happened?" Steve asks as he is stuck on the previous conversation held.
"Wait," Natasha pipes up, "You know Professor Smith?" she directed at Tony.
"Are you kidding me," Tony approaches John and shakes his hand, "His analysis on The Notebook was fan-tas-tic! The way he analyzed the love and feelings each character went through during the story was, phenomenal."
Natasha raises an amused brow at the men, more specifically, John, whom closed his eyes in guilt, his mind reeling back to his earlier talk with Natasha.
"...Or...so I've heard...from Pepper of course," Tony clears his throat when he notices everyone's eyes on him, "I don't read romance novels..."
Natasha leans over closer to John and teases, "Hopeless Romantic..." she whispered to him.
"Yeah," John simply drops his head.
"But, wait, Mr. Smith," Tony becomes confused, "I'm confused, what's an English Professor doing--"
John simply raises a hand and blocks the bottom half of his face which makes Tony,'s eyes widen further...before he face palms.
"You're the one-man-army from Budapest?! Of course!" Tony grins and pats John's shoulder now, "Loved the stream back in 2007 by the way, I threw a party and everything.!"
"...my...thanks?" John tries to take the compliment.
"No problem," Tony simply walks off.
The billionaire then moves to Dr.Banner and the men shake hands. A glimmer in their eyes shines as the mutual respect for each other shows.
"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner," Tony smiles, "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."
Banner, not knowing how to take that, simply looks down, "...Thanks."
Nick then walks in, "Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him."
"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon," Steve says to the room.
Nick responds to this, "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? I do not understand--" Thor becomes confused.
"I do!" Steve raises a finger excitedly, "I--I understood that reference."
Tony rolls his eyes, while Cap looks proud of himself.
"Shall we play, doctor?" Tony noel directs his attention to Dr. Banner.
"Let's play some," Dr. Banner becomes excited to finally have some company.
As Banner and Tony walk out, the Stark stops right next to John and whispers, "We are definitely getting a picture later, by the way. Pepper's gonna lose.her.shit."
John chuckles, "Of course, Me. Stark, it'd be an honor."
Natasha smirks at him.
Meanwhile--
The GALAGA player turns ever so discreetly, watches as everyone else disperses and goes back to playing.
As Natasha and John were walking away, the Russian spy decides to do a little more teasing, "I didn't realize English lecturers were so famous!"
John scratches his head at that, "We're not, trust me. I just happened to write a few reviews, articles and character studies for a few books and then I was suddenly being asked around the world to give guest speeches..."
"Wow," Natasha leans over and smiles cheekily, "Seems pretty interesting to me."
John simply chuckles at that.
....
Later that night, Ghost is currently standing near the windows of the Helicarrier ship's control room when Thor walks up beside him.
"You seem troubled, Warrior," Thor's voice prompts the former assassin to look at him for a moment before turning back towards the windows as they stare out at the stars.
"Yeah..." John begins, "I've just got a lot on my mind...that's all."
"Well, maybe I can be of some assistance," Thor smiles at the English teacher.
John chuckles at the God's suggestion, "Thank you for the offer, but...I don't think you can help this one."
"Well, we may never know, if we don't at least try," Thor glances at John for a quick moment and the man sighs.
"You're right about that," John places his hands in his pockets as the commotion in the background begins to fade, "Everyone around here knows that I have a special power... and they're expecting me to use it."
Thor hums, "Yes, the power of the Tesseract."
John turns his head to him, in slight surprise, "Yeah... your brother noticed the same thing."
Thor nods, "Yes...Gods recognize their equals you see."
"I'm no God, trust me," Ghost shakes his head as his eyes become lost in the stars now, "I'm just a man that's frightened of the gifts he possesses."
The Asgardian now turns to John in surprise, "You are afraid?"
"Terrified," John clarifies without looking to Thor, "The last time I used it was years ago. Before, I was able to focus on one specific thing, but after I got hit by the Tesseract...It's like I could sense...everything."
Thor begins to try and wrap his head around what John was saying.
"Was there anything else?" Thor asks him and John releases a heavy breath.
"It was like the space around me was...just...it didn't seem to matter how far away from something I was, I could just take a step and...boom...I'm there. My strength was...scary," John began to remember his infamous prison escape, "And there was a voice...a little girl."
Thor's eyes remained on John as he finished.
"I just tried my best to tune it out. The power, the itch of wanting to use it, it was like a drug," John looks down in somewhat shame and shakes his head, "And I don't think I'll have the strength to resist it once I turn it on again."
Thor places a hand on John's shoulder in a comforting gesture, "There is nothing to fear, Warrior Smith. You are a man of pure heart, I know you will get through this."
John chuckles at Thor's pure heart comment, "I don't know about all that...but thank you, Thor."
"It's what us Gods do," Thor grins and the two both share a small laugh.
"Ghost," Shadow's voice prompts John to look back.
"Shadow?" John asks with a raised brow, sending the man a look.
Shadow simply nods, "I've found it..."
John nods, "Good," his face was dead serious, he then turns to Thor, "Please, excuse me, Thor. It was a pleasure talking to you."
"As was it talking to you, Warrior Smith," the man and God both shake hands before John and Shadow both begin to leave.
As they were walking, Shadow asks, "We picking up the boy scout on our way?"
"Why not," Ghost says as they went down the hall that led to the labs, "The guy's kinda growing on me."
...
In the lab, Banner continuously scans with a gamma ray detection scanner on the scepter for radiation whilst Tony looks at his monitors, shifting and solving as many algorithms and equations as possible.
"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But it's gonna take weeks to process," Banner begins as he adjusts his spectacles.
"If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops," Tony explains his theory.
"...All I packed was a tooth brush," Banner says in his own little quiet voice.
Tony smiles at this, "You know, you should come by STARK towers sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land."
Banner appreciated the invitation, "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," suddenly, Tony pokes Banner with a miniature electrical prod.
Steve walks in on them, pissed at Tony.
"Ow!" Banner winces and Tony looks at him closely.
"Nothing?" Tony asks Banner and still keeps a close eye on him.
Steve raises his voice a little, "Hey! Are you nuts?"
"You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?" Tony asks Banner, still not paying attention to Cap.
"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve finally captures his attention.
"Funny things are," Tony simply responds.
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny," Steve directs at Tony just before looking to Banner, "No offense, doctor."
Banner waves him off with a nervous smile, "No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."
"You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut," Tony directs at Steve.
"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," Steve tries to remain on point.
Tony narrows his 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."
Steve's mind reels back to the incident in Fury's office from before with John, "...You think Fury's hiding something?"
"He's a spy," Tony begins, "Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets," he points to Banner now, "It's bugging him too, isn't it?"
Banner began bobbling with his next words, "Uh...I just wanna finish my work here and--"
"Doctor?" Steve turns to him.
"A warm light for all mankind, Loki's jab at Fury about the cube," Banner sighs.
Steve nods, "I heard it."
Banner then points at Tony, "Well, I think that was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't post that all over the news."
Steve's face contorts, "The Stark Tower? That big ugly..." Tony gives him a look, "...building in New York?"
"It's powered by Stark Reactors, a self- sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?" Banner elaborates.
Tony was still proud of himself, "That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."
Banner then directs his attention to Stark "So, why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"
"I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secure files." Tony simply states as he pulls up his holographic A.I. program.
Steve was taken aback by this, "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 S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever tried to hide," Tony holds out a bag of blueberries to Steve, "Blueberry?"
"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around?" Steve folds his arms, not accepting Tony's offer.
"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not possible," Tony smirks at Steve.
"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's military blood flowed.
Tony's face contorts, "Following is not really my style."
Steve smiles sarcastically, "And you're all about style, aren't you?"
That hit a nerve, "Of the people in this room, which one is; A. wearing a spangly outfit, and B. not of use?" Tony quickly rebuttals.
Bruce, not wanting a fight to break out, talks, "Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?"
Steve takes in the possibility, but as an obedient soldier, shakes it off, "Just find the cube."
Steve walks out of the lab, his head down, still torn apart by the possibility, but as the doors to the lab close, a voice gets his attention.
"Aww, is the little soldier lost?" Shadow's grin captures Steve's eyes as he and Ghost are both leaning against the opposite sides of the door with their arms folded.
"How long were you there?" Steve asks as he glances at both of them.
John sighs, "Long enough for me to hear just how much of a loyal soldier you really are."
John steps off of the wall and approaches Steve.
"You're a good man, Steve," John's voice was low, "Which is why you shouldn't be kept in the dark."
"Shall we?" Shadow dramatically gestures to the hall that led to the storage facilities.
Steve remains quiet for a while before looking back to Ghost, nodding, "...Let's go find these secrets."
Joh smirks, "I'm already way ahead of you, Cap."
...
In the Storage bay area, Steve, with all his might, slides one side of the heay iron doors along with Shadow before they all stealthily walk in.
SECURE STORAGE 10-C is a large warehouse, filled with metal crates stacked. Steve looks up, seeing another level.
He, Ghost and Shadow nod to one another before leaping up high and holding onto the catwalk railing.
They continue to move forward...
...
In the Detention Center Part of the Helicarrier, Loki walks back and forth inside his glass cell until suddenly, he stops.
"There's not many people that can sneak up on me," he turns to see Natasha standing there.
"But you figured I'd come," Natasha responds.
"After," Loki smirks, "After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate."
"I wanna know what you've done to Agent Barton," Natasha responds simply.
Loki just shrugs, "I'd say I've expanded his mind."
"And once you've won. Once you're king of the mountain. What happens to his mind?" Natasha asks again.
"I would call this love, Agent Romanoff" Loki begins with a grin, "...but we both know whom already has your affections..."
"Love is for children," Natasha begins with a fold of the arms, "I owe him a debt."
Loki sits down, "Tell me."
And Natasha just stands there, "Before I worked for S.H.I.E.L.D, I uh...well, I made a name for myself. I have a very specific skillset. I didn't care who I used it for, or on. I got on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar in a bad way," Natasha begins to reminisce, "Agent Barton was sent to kill me, he made a different call."
"And what will you do if I vow to spare him?" Loki asks her cunningly
"Not let you out," Natasha wasn't falling for any of it.
Loki laughs, "Ah, no. But I like this. Your world in the balance, and you bargain for one man?"
"Regimes fall every day. I tend not to weep over that, I'm Russian... or was," Natasha keeps a stoic face, but very well knowing that the reason she was doing this...was for Clint's secret family.
"What is it you want?" Loki asks her.
"It's really not that complicated," Natasha tries to play it off, "I've got red in my ledger, I'd like to wipe it out."
"Can you? Can you wipe out that much red? Drakov's daughter? Sao Paulo? The Hospital Fire? Barton told me everything. Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything?"
The God then stands angrily, "This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer... PATHETIC!"
Th scene intercuts to show-- Tony and Banner continuously working at their monitors--
Loki continues speaking, "You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers."
--Agent Hill checks every viewscreen in the bridge as Fury oversees--
"You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away!"
-- Ghost, Steve and Shadow all open a steel crate.
Angrily, Ghost flexes his jaw as glances behind him momentarily before looking back into the crate along with Steve and Shadow whom both look at the array of HYDRA weapons.--
Loki slams his cell, making Natasha 'flinch.'
"I won't touch Barton. Not until I make him kill you! Slowly. Intimately. In every way he knows you fear! And when he'll wake just long enough to see his good work, and when he screams, I'll split his skull! This is my bargain, you mewling quim!" Loki finishes and Natasha turns around before walking away, disgusted.
"You're a monster," she then whispered, quietly distraught.
Loki laughs as this, "Oh, No, you brought the monster."
Natasha then quickly turns back around; poised, "So, Banner... that's your play."
The grin on Loki's face suddenly disappears, "...What?"
Natasha then taps on her earpiece, "Loki means to unleash the Hulk. Keep Banner in the lab, I'm on my way. Send Thor as well," she then turns to Loki, "Thank you for your cooperation."
Natasha quickly walks out, leaving Loki frozen at what just happened.