Athena Erskine was beautiful and bold. A female scientist in a world of men. Athena lived every day outnumbered but not outsmarted. Athena had to force her way into every room. So that she could demonstrate how much brighter, she is than all the men...
"Loved you yesterday, love you still, always have, always will."
Elaine Davis
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Both Steve and Athena were hurrying back to the lab. Steve was gripping one of the HYDRA assault rifles in his hands. Athena had been so shocked that they had found it hidden away in a storage room. Athena had many bad memories connected to these evil devices. And to think that S.H.I.E.L.D had some lying about. It chilled Athena's blood.
As the two of them hurried towards the lab, they could see the door open as Tony and Bruce stood opposing an unimpressed-looking Fury. But Athena supposed he always looked unimpressed, so what was that difference?
"What is PHASE 2?" Athena and Steve suddenly heard Tony ask as they walked through the door.
"PHASE 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the cube to make weapons." Steve chose that as the moment to drop the assault rifle on a table, creating a laugh clatter. Steve then turned to Tony. "Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow."
"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract." Fury tried to defend. "This does not mean that we're..."
"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony interrupted. Standing up, Tony swung the screen around so that everybody could see the blueprints for tesseract-powered weaponry. "What were you lying?" Tony asked.
"I was wrong, director," Steve told him. "The world hasn't changed a bit."
At that moment, Thor and Saklauss entered, followed by Natasha, who kept a very close eye on Banner. On the other hand, Banner looked angry. Very angry, Athena was pretty sure he had a lid on it. She didn't want to put anyone at risk.
"Did you know about this?" Banner demanded, looking at Natasha.
"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?" Natasha asked Bruce calmly.
"I was in Calcutta," Bruce shouted, "I was pretty well removed."
"Loki's manipulating you," Natasha told him.
"And you've been doing what exactly?" Bruce asked in a tone of voice that suggested that he thought she was the one manipulating him.
"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you," Nat told him
"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy." Banner told her. Fed up with whatever was going on. Turning to the monitor, Bruce pointed at the schematic for the weapon, "I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."
"Because of them," Fury told him, pointing at Thor and Saklauss
"Use?" Saklauss asked, stunned.
"Last year," Fury told them, "Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that levelled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."
