Agent Staves; Avengers Assemble [BOOK 1/?]

VIII - a visit and a criminal

•

"Hey there, laffy taffy." Regina said. Loki was already looking at her from where he was stood in his cage, arms behind his back. "I was bored, figured you'd provide some amusement." She mused, leaning on the railing. "What's swimming in that psychotic little head of yours?" He furrowed his eyebrows briefly and continued to pace slowly around his cage, not replying to her for a while.

"Staves, is it?" He asked, turning towards her.

"Sure is."

He hummed, nodding as he continued his idle pacing. She waited for him to speak, briefly wondering if he even could without a dramatic pause. "You're very young." He commented. "Why would they recruit someone so young? Are they that desperate?" He didn't wait for her to answer, just continued to list his observations. "I would say skill, but you are, as you say, 'wayward'. Unstable, if you may. Do they keep you around because they're scared to lose control of you?" He concluded, turning to pace in her direction once more. The look on his face was more curious than sinister, but Regina didn't allow herself to be fooled by it.

"Maybe." She nodded, lowering so that she could sit, legs danging off the edge and arms resting on the bars of the railing. "Before here, it was just me and my friend. We did what we did for reason, of course, but it was not always seen. When S.H.I.E.L.D caught me, I think they figured I'd get out of any prison they put me in. Or they just preferred someone else to add to their arsenal. Or, you know, hospitality and such."

"So they're willing to send you to die for them?" He asked, stopping his pacing to face her. "And you would do it?"

Regina wasn't a fool. She was young, and she often lacked common sense, but she wasn't stupid enough to take his words to heart. "I think Bruce might have been right." She hummed, tapping her nails on the bar. "Your head is like a bag full of cats." His almost-friendly smile turned to a scowl, and she grinned as she stood back up. "It was nice talking to you, Loki. I think I'll go bother someone else now." He glared at her back as she left, not seeing the satisfied look on her face she got from annoying him.

•

they're gunna rip up your heads, your aspirations to shreds,

another cog in the murder mach-

"He's a whole lotta crazy, that guy." Regina laughed, walking into the lab. She slowed to a stop, seeing the tension growing between Steve and Tony. Steve looked to her with a disapproving glare. "You went to see Loki? Fury allowed that?"

"Nope." Regina smiled. "I was bored, wanted some entertainment. You're totally right, Bruce. Bag of cats." She said, tapping the side of her head as she walked over to sit on one of the stools.

"You shouldn't have done that, soldier." Steve said to her.

"I shouldn't do a lot of things, Cap. I'm no soldier. I'm a criminal. World renound, actually, not that anybody cares about that anymore." She rolled her eyes. "Point being, if I want to visit Loki, I damn well will, and there is nothing you can do to stop me."  She understood why he and Tony clashed heads. This guy was way too righteous for them.

Steve looked from Regina to Tony, "I think you two need to be focusing on the problem."

"Do you think I'm not?" Tony asked. "Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What is he not telling us? I can't do the equations unless I have all the variables."

"You guys think Furys hiding something?" Steve questioned.

"He's a spy, Cap." Regina pointed out. "He's "the" spy. Like, higher than Spy kids sort of shit - you don't - yeah, you don't know what that is -" She shook her head, "It basically means that his secrets have secrets that have their own damn secrets." Tony held his arm towards her in a 'thank you' gesture.

"See, it's bugging him too, isn't it?" He asked, looking at Bruce.

Bruce, however, seemed a bit more immersed in avoiding the conversation than anything else. "Uhh.... I just want to finish my work here, and..."

"Banner?" Regina prompted in a sing-song voice.

He sighed, taking his glasses off. "'A warm light for all mankind'." He quoted. "Lokis jab at Fury about the cube."

Steve nodded, immediately more perceptive to anything Bruce had to say rather than Tony. Regina could very much understand that. "I heard it."

"Well, I think that was meant for you." Bruce said, pointing at Tony, who held out his packet of blueberries to him. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news." He said, accepting the offer for blueberries.

"The Stark tower, that big, ugly-" Steve cut himself off at the look he got from Tony, causing Regina to snigger at the idiocy of their rivalry. "... building in New York?"

"It's powered by an arc reactor." Regina supplied. "A some self-sustaining energy thing, I guess. It can run itself for what, a year?" She asked, looking to Tony for confirmation. She was, in actuality, quite interested in engineering, especially his unique style of it, but she'd be dead before she ever let him know as much.

"Prototype." He shrugged. He looked at Steve, obviously about to brag. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what they're getting at."

"So... why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D bring him in on the Tesseract project? What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?" Bruce asked.

Tony nodded, "I should probably look into that." He walked around Bruce and the desk, eyes locked on his screen. "Once my decryption program finished breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.Ds secure files."

"I'm sorry, did you say-" Steve started.

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge." Tony elaborated. "In a few hours I'll know every dirty little secret S.H.I.E.L.D has ever tried to hide - blueberry?" He offered. Regina hopped out of her seat to dig her hand into the bag and take some, but Steve declined with a frown.

"And you're confused as to why they don't want you around." He said.

"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically, not awesome." Tony denied.

"I think Lokis trying to wind us up." Steve stated. "This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders. We should follow them." Regina frowned. The only reason Loki's even able to make an attempt at war against Earth is because of the Tesseract. From what she'd gathered, he'd have no reason to view the Earth as a target otherwise. If anything, it made them a more formidable opponent.

"Yeah, followings not really my style." Tony said, eating a handful of blueberries.

Steve scoffed lightly, "And you're all about style, aren't you?" He asked,

"Of the people in this room," Tony started, gesturing behind him at Bruce and Regina. "Which one is A, wearing a spangly outfit. And B, not of use?"

"Aside from the fact I just got called of use - thanks, by the way - you can't seriously tell me none of this smells funky to you? Like, you've gone on a two week holiday and accidentally left the fridge off the entire time kind of funky?" Regina asked.

Steve was silent, looking over the three of them. "Just find the cube." He said before he sharply left the room. It was quiet for a few moments afterwards.

"Well," Regina began, heaving a deep sigh. "Looks like someones got his spangles up his ass." Tony smiled and ruffled her hair, putting the packet of blueberries in her hands as he walked past to get back to work. "... Where did you get blueberries?"