Umbra

Chapter Eight

Grey watched Tony out of the corner of her eye as she sat at one of the desks in the laboratory, scratching out equations on her pad of paper. Sure, S.H.I.E.L.D. had all the tech you could possibly need, but Grey still preferred to use the traditional methods. Her and the other two Scientists were meant to be investigating Loki's weapon, but Tony seemed content with being annoying, and Grey was fine with invisibly spying on him. She didn't like him, she kept thinking to herself. He was just intriguing to her - he wasn't as bad as the press made him out to be.

"You know what, Shadow?" Tony said, swiping away his algorithms from one of his screens, "it's fun watching your pen move by itself, but it would be nice to see your face once in a while." He smirked as Grey immediately reappeared, rolling her eyes.

"Maybe I didn't want you to see me, Stark."

"You didn't mind it back in that conference room." He sent her a wink, and she scoffed.

"Fuck off."

Bruce interrupted their 'conversation' with an awkward cough. "Sorry to interrupt... but the gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But it's gonna take weeks to process."

"If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops." Tony said, twirling an electric rod in his hands. Bruce smiled worriedly.

"All I packed was a tooth brush."

Grey gave him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, Doctor, I don't even know what I packed. Fury only told me I was coming the night before."

Tony was watching them both with a grin. "You know, you two should come by STARK Towers sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, its candy land."

"What, that eyesore in New York?" Grey laughed slightly, biting her lip. Tony scowled at her and repeated her sentence in a mock British accent. Bruce let out a chuckle as well.

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke...Harlem."

"Well, I promise a stress free environment. No tension. No surprises." Tony promised.

Grey rolled her eyes and mumbled, "Sure."

Suddenly, Tony poked Bruce with the prod he had been fiddling with, sending an electric shock through him. Bruce let out a yelp of pain, and Tony watched him closely, curious. "Nothing? What about you, Shadow?" He turned and threateningly pointed the electric stick at her.

"You come near that thing and I'll put you in a choke hold."

"Is that a promise?"

"Hey! Are you nuts?" Steve had walked in, and his expression was unimpressed.

"You really have got a lid on it, haven't you?" Tony said in disbelief. "What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"

Grey choked on the drink of water she had just swallowed.

Steve sighed angrily. "Is everything a joke to you?"

"Funny things are." Tony replied breezily, shrugging. Grey rolled her eyes slightly, moving to snatch the electric prong out of his hands and quickly snap it. Tony jumped as she did it, his eyes widening. "Those things are $500 each."

"I'm sure they have insurance." Grey said coolly, smiling before sitting back down.

Steve sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny." He seemed to realise what he said before looking up at Bruce apologetically. "No offense, Doctor."