different » marvel ¹

two

   We walk inside the helicarrier and we're met with Director Fury.

   He greets Banner first, shaking his hand. "Doctor, thank you for coming."

   "Thanks for asking nicely. So, uh, how long am I staying?" He asks.

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear." Fury tells him. Banner nods, "Where are you with that?"

Fury turns to Agent Coulson, expecting him to explain. "We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

   "That's still not going to find them in time." Natasha chimes in. I nod in agreement, "You have to narrow the field."

   "Yeah," Banner says. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?" The look on Fury's face tells him what he needs to know. "Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

   Fury nods, "Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory, please." Natasha nods, leading Banner to his lab.

• • •

   I stand next to Steve and Agent Coulson as they talk, waiting for Loki to be found.

   "I mean, if it's not too much trouble." Coulson tells Steve, to which Steve shakes his head. "No, no. It's fine."

   "It's a vintage set. Took me a couple years to collect them all. Near mint, slight foxing around the edges, but —" Coulson was cut off by one of the guys at the computers.

   "We got a hit." He tells us. "Finally." I mutter before he continues. "Sixty-seven percent match. Wait, cross match, seventy-nine percent."

   "Location?" Coulson asks as I look over to Fury.

   The guy tells them the location and Fury looks between Steve and I. "Captain, you're up."

   Steve nods, walking off.

• • •

   I sit next to Natasha in one of the jets as we fly to Loki's location. "Right up here." I tell her, she slows down, beginning to hover.

   "Loki, drop the weapon and stand down." She demands over the speaker. I see the look on his face, "He's not going to stand down." Loki sends a blast at the jet, but Natasha quickly maneuvers it out of the way. Captain takes this time to throw his shield at Loki. They both begin to fight, Loki deflecting Steve's shield when he throws it. He knocks down Steve, and goes to stand over him, his scepter pointed at his helmet.

   I see them exchange a few words before Natasha speaks up, "This guy's all over the place." Her words end right as a warning flashes over the monitor in front of us. PA System Override. Music starts playing, I facepalm, hearing Tony Stark come over the radio. "Agent Romanoff, did you miss me?"

   Stark flies over in his suit and fires at Loki, making him fall. He lands, "Make your move, Reindeer Games."

   Loki slowly raises his hands in surrender, my eyebrows furrow at this. "He's letting us take him?" I look as Loki's armor materializes away. "Woah . . ." Natasha sends a light glare my way.

   "It's not my fault that was cool." I defend.

   "Good move." Stark comments, the Captain and him greeting each other.