INFERNO │ Marvel

3.3 science talk

Back on the Helicarrier, the new team of heroes was gathered at the bridge, all except Tony who had gone to remove his suit, watching a live feed as Nick Fury spoke to a now locked-up Loki. Amelia sat between Steve and Natasha, her suit folded back up and laid at her feet under the table.

"In case it's unclear, you try to escape, you so much as scratch that glass," Nick Fury spoke. The sound of howling wind came through the speaker. "Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?! Ant. Boot."

Loki laughed. "It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you."

"Oh, I've heard," Loki affirmed. He looked directly at the camera, his gaze unnerving to all who were watching. "The mindless beast makes play he's still a man. How desperate are you, that you call upon such lost creatures to defend you?"

"Lost creatures, my ass," Amelia cut in. "He's playing mind games."

"How desperate am I?" Nick echoed. "You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace, and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

"Oh, it burns you to have come so close," Loki sneered. "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."

"Well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something."

The feed shut off, leaving the team in tense silence.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce spoke up after a while.

"Like a fungus," Amelia snarked.

"Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?" Steve asked. Thor turned in his spot, his back to them that entire time.

"He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known," he explained. "He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army?" Steve repeated in disbelief. "From outer space?"

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

"Selvig?"

"He's an astrophysicist."

"He's a friend," Thor told them.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours," Natasha added.

"I wanna know why Loki let us take him," Steve said. "He's not leading an army from here."

"Maybe he's just an idiot," Amelia half-joked.

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Bruce said. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak," Thor told them both, and Amelia rolled her eyes. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he's my brother."

"Newsflash, dude," she scolded him. "Being a 'higher being' doesn't make you or him any better than the rest of us."

"He killed 80 people in two days," Natasha asserted.

"He's adopted."

"I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?" Bruce questioned.

Tony walked in then, Agent Coulson at his side. "It's a stabilising agent."

"So the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD," Amelia caught on.