Heat of the New World - Book 2 (The Avengers)

Chapter 3 - First Offenses

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports of the Tesseract," Bruce said as he scanned the scepter, "but it's gonna take weeks to process."

"May I?" Annabelle asked, looking at the scepter and he nodded. She gently placed her hand on it, running it up before stopping and hovering her hand around the blue orb at the top.

"If we bypass their mainframe and direct route to the Homer cluster, we can clock this at around six hundred teraflops."

"All I packed was a toothbrush," Bruce chuckled.

"You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime," Tony said, walking back across the room while Annabelle watched by the table that held the scepter. "Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it. It's Candy Land."

"Candy Land?"

"It's a board game," Bruce told her before turning to Tony. "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." He walked around Bruce's back, poking him in the side and giving him a small electric jolt.

"Ow!"

"Nothing?" Tony asked, looking for some response in Bruce.

"Hey! Are you nuts?" Steve demanded as he walked in.

"Jury's out." He looked back at Bruce. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?"

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

"Funny things are."

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

"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 said as he walked back around the desk.

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark." Annabelle moved her hand from the scepter as she felt it getting warmer as the tension in the room rose.

"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. It's bugging them too, isn't it?" Tony asked, looking over at Bruce and Annabelle.

"Uh... I just want to finish my work here and..."

"Doctor?" Steve asked, making Bruce sigh and take off his glasses,

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

"I heard it."

"Well, I think that was meant for you," he looked at Tony. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news," he explained as he took a few blueberries from Tony's outstretched packet.

"The Stark Tower?" Steve asked. "That big, ugly..." he paused as Tony looked at him, "building in New York?"

"It's powered by an arc reactor."

"Supposed to be a self sustaining energy source," Annabelle said after Bruce and he nodded. "It'll run for a year according to most articles I read."

"It's just the prototype," Tony shrugged. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at," he explained to Steve.