Mirabella Odinsdottir

23- Manipulating

I entered the lab following my brother and Agent Romanoff. "Did you know about this?" Banner asked Romanoff, "Do you wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?"

"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed"

"Loki is manipulating you"

"And you've been doing what exactly?" In fairness Dr. Banner did have a point there. "You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you"

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy, I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction" Fury paused and then pointed a finger over at me and my brother, "Because or them"

Thor looked down at me with a very confused face and then to the rest of the room, "Us?"

For once I was just as confused as Thor, what the hell had we done? I mean yes, the destroyer did flatten a town according to the Sif and Warriors Three but that wasn't Thor's fault, he was doing Earth a favour.

"Last year Earth had visitors 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"

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet" Fury was becoming more agitated by the second which was truly something since he was normally so calm and terrifying all the time, "But you're not the only people out there, are you? And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, that can't be controlled"

The Captain began saying something and Thor started walking forward saying something but for now, it was just background noise. Something else had caught my attention. Something that had slipped past everyone else unnoticed, Loki's sceptre was glowing.

The sceptre began to glow brighter and just as it did the room erupted into chaos and accusations, insults, questions and answers were thrown across the room. Truly I was amazed by my brother, this was technology completely beyond the nine realms and honestly, I was impressed that he had landed his hands on it.

As everyone argued I walked up to the sceptre and began tracing the edge of the spear with my finger. Now the room had calmed down and Stark and Rogers were arguing, don't get me wrong, the two didn't exactly like each other but the look in their eyes was that of pure hatred, and the two of them didn't hate each other, well not yet atleast. I doubt that they would ever be overly friendly with each other so enemies fighting for the same cause seemed to sum up their future friendship.

The sceptre had dimmed slightly as if it was replicating the mood of the room, no, that was wrong. It was dictating the mood of the room.

Thor began chuckling, "You people are so petty, and tiny" Then Fury asked Agent Romanoff to escort Dr. Banner back to his room which only angered him, "Where? You rented my room"

"The cell was just in case...."

"I case you needed to kill me, you can't, I know I tried" The sceptre stopped glowing for a second and everyone turned to face Dr. Banner. In truth I wanted to hug him or something, not out of pity but just as a comfort. I felt awful that the sceptre had fuelled his anger enough for him to say that partially against his will.

"I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out, so I moved on. I focused on helping other people, I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk" At that Dr. Banner began to reach for the sceptre so I took my hand off of the edge and stepped back allowing him to. I probably shouldn't admit it, and I never would out loud, but I wanted to see where this was going.

"You wanna know my secret agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?" Banner seethed out through bared teeth. Agent Romanoff and the director reached for their guns calmly and slowly but still ready if action was needed immediately. It was only now that I realised that I wasn't any more than an arms length away from Dr. Banner and was starting to regret being so close. The point of the sceptre was around ten centimetres away from my abdomen. Well shit.

"Dr. Banner, put down the sceptre" At Rogers authoritative voice Banner looked down at the sceptre and seemed surprised at the fact that it was in his hand. The locator for the Tesseract began to ping and Banner sort of delicately threw the sceptre onto the bench, glad to have it out of his hand. "Sorry kids you don't get to see my party trick after all"

I quickly walked following Banner to the screen at the back of the lab, I did have some part to play in locating it and knowing Thor, if I didn't see it for myself he wouldn't let me know where the Tesseract was. As we rushed over Agent Romanoff was quickly followed behind me, everyone began to shout again but all noise blurred out when me and Banner saw the Tesseract's location.

"Oh my god" Banner took his glasses off and and looked at me, time felt like it had frozen and my heart had stopped in my chest. "Thor" I said slowly and calmly, and may I add barely audibly over the shouting in the room.

Bang.

The heat that rose from the centre of the room was torturous and the blast knocked everyone flying. I screamed my eldest brother's name by instinct, but my shouting stopped as the wind was knocked right out of my lungs as I landed on cold, hard metal. After letting out a shallow grunt I turned my head to the right to see Romanoff lying with a metal pipe trapping her foot.

"We're okay, we're okay right?" She said into her ear piece, I assume Fury or someone was asking if we were still okay, then a strained panting came from my left and I carefully moved me head to see Banner straining against something as if he was experiencing an unimaginable pain.

I carefully and slowly wriggled free from under the debris on top of me and moved over to try and help to get the pipe off Romanoff's foot. Fortunately for me I wasn't really injured, I could only feel a few cuts and scrapes spinkled across my body, and apart from everywhere aching I was alright.

Banner continued groaning as me and Romanoff tried desperately to get her foot free, "Doctor? Bruce?" She asked as I continued pushing against the pipe. Natasha continued to try and persuade Bruce that he was going to be okay as we both desperately wrestled against the cold metal tube. "Your life?!" Banner screamed out in a low deep voice.

Great, Tony wasn't actually joking about a monster, that's what was going to happen, that's why Romanoff was concerned, Bruce began to turn an awful and hideous shade of green. Suddenly far more desperate than I was a few moments ago I successfully pushed the pipe slightly off Romanoff's foot. Thankfully that was all she needed to wriggle out the rest of the way.

I could hear awful tearing and ripping sounds from where Bruce had fell and then a bone chilling growl. The red headed Agent grabbed ahold my arm and led me towards the stairs running as quickly as we both could.

The now beast that stood before us a roared chasing after us. We climbed the stairs but it was ripped from under my feet, following Natasha's lead I grabbed onto the bars above but clearly was not as well trained in acrobatics as she was. Thankfully she didn't just leave me behind to die by myself and hoisted me up after her, I ran infront of her but behind me she was grunting and a lot of clanging where the walk way was being pulled from under her feet.

It was clear that we weren't going to get away on a foot chase against the beast so this meant we would have to out smart it. Shouldn't be difficult should it? It's only one of midgaurdians' best and most brilliants minds who had turned into a monster that we had to out smart, doesn't sound difficult or strenuous at all.