Black Widow - Y/N Romanoff X Steve Rogers

Chapter 9 - Meeting

We all watch from the bridge as Nick talks with Loki. "In case it's unclear. You try to escape. You so much as scratch that glass." Nick presses a button which opens up a hatch underneath Loki's cell. "Thirty thousand feet, straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?!" Nick closes the hatch and points at Loki. "Ant." Then points at the button. "Boot."

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

"Built for something a lot stronger than you."

Loki chuckles, "Oh, I've heard." He looks into the camera. "The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man. How desperate are you, that you call upon such lost creatures to defend you?"

"How desperate am I? 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."

"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." Lokis smiles.

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

We all look up as the monitor turns off. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Banner smiles.

"Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?"

"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." Thor nods.

"An army? From outer space?"

"So he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for." Bruce crosses his arms.

Thor quickly turns, "Selvig?"

"He's an astrophysicist."

"He's a friend." Thor frowns nod turns to me.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours." I nod.

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

Banner chuckles. "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."

"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." I suddenly say.

"He's adopted." Thor shrugs.

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

"It's a stabilizing agent." Tony walks in beside Coulson. "I'll fly you there. Keep the love alive." He mutters. "Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at Shield." He walks over and slaps Thor's arm. "No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing.....Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants." He turns to the crew. "Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails. That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did." We all look over and frown. Tony then covers his eye and looks around. "How does Fury do this?"

"He turns."

"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 nods.

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?"

"Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?" He throws his arms out as he stares at all of us.

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?"

"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier." Banner nods.

"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet." Banner says as Tony slowly walks to him.

"Finally, someone who speaks English."

"Is that what just happened?" Steve looks at me.

Tony and Banner shake hands. "It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. 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."

He looks down awkwardly. "Thanks."

"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him." We all look up to see Nick.

"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon." Steve nods.

"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."

Thor frowns. "Monkeys? I do not understand."

"I do! I understood that reference." Steve says proudly.

Tony rooks his eyes and turns to Banner. "Shall we play, doctor?"

"Let's play some"