Manhattan ⇻ The Avengers [1]

chapter eleven

Back at the Helicarrier, while multiple SHEILD agents began to unload Loki from the quinjet, Winter went to go get changed and grab some food. Once they got to the cafeteria, Gen took control once more and the speedster continued to go pick up 10 containers of pad thai. She managed to carry all of it back to the table where the rest of the Avengers were just in time to see a screen with Loki on it go black.

"He really grows on you doesn't he," Even though she didn't know what Loki had said, she figured that it wasn't good and that the rest of the Avengers could use some comic relief.

The speedster sat down in one of the chairs and began to eat out of the first container as Steve spoke, "Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?"

The asgardian shook himself out of whatever daze he had been in, "He has an army called the Chitauri. They are 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."

"An army? From outer space?" Steve asked incredulously.

"Don't sound so surprised, Cap," the speedster scoffed, "It's a pretty common theme throughout the multiverse."

"Multiverse?" Doctor Banner looked over at her in surprise.

"Yeah, where'd you think I came from?" Gen asked rhetorically, waving her chopsticks in the air, "This amazingness didn't originate on your Earth."

"Okay," the doctor looked confused but continued on, "So, he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?" Thor questioned.

"He's an astrophysicist," Banner clarified.

"He's a friend," Thor corrected.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," Natasha told him, "along with one of ours?"

"Agent Barton?" Alison concluded, "He's the only one in the file that isn't here."

"I want to know why Loki let us take him," Steve pondered, "He's not leading any armies from here."

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Banner said as Gen started eating the out of the second container, "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell the crazy on him."

Gen immediately recognized that that was the wrong thing to say as Thor stiffened slightly, "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," Romanoff retorted.

The speedster snorted out a laugh, nearly choking on a her food when Thor remarked that Loki was adopted. As if that made it any better. Following the conversation there was an awkward silence that was soon broken by Doctor Banner changing the subject,

"Iridium, what did they need the iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent," Gen turned to see Tony,  Agent Taylor, and Fury walk in the room, as he continued walking he turned to face Coulson, "I'll fly you there. Keep the love alive," he turned back to them, "Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHEILD."

He then turned to Thor, "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 said referring to the iridium again.

"Stark's all over the place," Winter commented, appalled.

'Uh," Tony continued walking up to Fury's command area, "Raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails-"

He stopped suddenly pointing over at a man at the other end of the helicarrier abruptly, "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we would notice. But we did."

Gen started chewing more slowly, watching the billionaire with a slightly horrified expression, "Forget Loki, this guy has a bag full of cats in his brain."

The speedster continued to watch Tony as he covered one of his eyes and began to look at all of the screens in front of him, "How does Fury do this?'

"He turns," an agent deadpanned, looking annoyed with him.

He ignored what the agent had said and continued on, but Gen noticed that his hand went under the table quickly, seeming as if he were placing a bug on the underside of the computer, "Well, that sounds exhausting. The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he needs now is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Agent Taylor asked.

"Last night," Tony answered, as if it were obvious, "The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does he need a particular kind of power source?" Steve asked from where he sat beside her.

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

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

"If he could do that any reactor could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion," Gen muttered as she took a bite of her sixth bowl of pad thai.

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet," Banner repeated.

"Finally!" Tony exclaimed, gesturing to Dr. Banner, "Someone who speaks English."

Steve turned to her, confused, "Is that what just happened?"

"No," Gen joked, "It was the secret language of the scientists."

Steve cracked a smile and Gen smiled back, "Thai?" she asked him, holding out an unopened bowl of the food she had gotten.

"Sure," Steve agreed taking the bowl along with the packaged fork that the speedster offered him.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner," Gen heard from the behind her, "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."

"That wasn't very nice," Alison pointed out, "He clearly doesn't like hearing about that."

"Thanks," the scientist responded, sounding a bit put off.

"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube," Fury told them, "I was hoping you might join him."

"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon," Winter said, Gen relaying it after each word.

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube," Fury conceded, "and I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Thor asked, confused, "I do not understand."

"I do! Steve exclaimed excitedly before quickly regaining his composure, "I understood that reference."

Tony rolled his eyes and turned back to Dr. Banner, "Shall we play, doctor?"

The man nodded and they walked past the rest of them toward what Gen assumed was the lab. The girl shrugged and sped through the rest of her food before running off.

Four pages... I think that might be the longest chapter in this series so far. However, I think it's just because of the fact that this has a lot of dialogue from the movie and I couldn't find anywhere else to stop the chapter. The only reason that this is up so late (even though it is usually up later than this, but this is different because it's a holiday) is because over the past 36(?) hours I've finished two complete seasons of Steven Universe (which is the first three parts on iTunes), so I've been a little bit obsessed... Anyway... I hope that you all enjoyed the chapter, that you have a wonderful week, and that I'll see you all again next Monday with chapter twelve.
~ Aria