A Spider's Web ll Natasha Romanoff

An Adventure

"Ow!"

Steve and I just so happened to walk into the lab at the perfect moment to see Tony zap Bruce with a metal rod. As a sadist, I found enjoyment in the hurt Bruce temporarily went through, but the blond super soldier next to me didn't.

"Hey!" Steve exclaimed, "Are you nuts?"

"Jury's out" Tony said to Steve, before turning back to Bruce. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?"

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve interrupted.

"Funny things are." Tony admitted.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny." He stated. "No offense, Doc." I would have taken offense.

"It's alright, I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." Bruce replied.

"You're tip-toeing, big man. You need to strut." Tony said.

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr.Stark." Steve interjected, annoyed with the man's antics. I did have to agree with Steve. I wanted to leave this place and go back to life away from all this.

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

"You think Fury's hiding something?"

"He's a spy. Captain, he's "the" spy. His secrets have secrets. It's bugging him, too. Isn't it?" Tony pointed over to Bruce after shoving a handful of blueberries into his mouth.

"Uhh..." Bruce trailed off awkwardly. "I just want to finish my work here, and..."

"Doctor?" Steve questioned.

Bruce looked around awkwardly, not wanting to express his opinion. " A warm light for all mankind. Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube."

"I heard it." Steve said.

"Well, I think that was meant for you." Bruce pointed at Stark, who handed the blueberry bag over to Bruce. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."

"The Stark Tower? That big, ugly-" Steve cut himself off after seeing Stark's pointed look. "Building in New York?"

"It's powered by an arc reactor, a self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for, what, a year?"

"It's just the prototype." Stark confirmed. "I'm king of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at."

"So, why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D bring him in on the Tesseract project?" Bruce has a point there.

"What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

"I should probably look into that once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D's secure files."

"I'm sorry. Did you say..." Steve started, surprised.

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge.In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D has ever tried to hide." Oh no. "Blueberry?"

I hold my hand out and Stark drops a few blueberries into my palm. Steve, however, just looked appalled at Tony's confession.

"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around."

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

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. 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." Steve advised. I was not the following orders type of person, so his suggestion made me a little unhappy.

"Following's not really my style." Stark said my thoughts out loud.

"And you're all about style, aren't you?" This testosterone showdown was really starting to get on my nerves. It was clear that there was tension between the two men and they were looking to hash out their differences.

"Of the people in this room, which one is, A, wearing a spangly outfit, and, B, not of use?" Ouch, that had to hurt. It's come to my realization that Steve and I were more the brawn than the brains of this team, while Tony and Bruce were the brain. Natasha...she was, of course, the beauty, but she was still an enigma I have yet to figure out.

"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you." Bruce interrupted the possible fight.

Steve looked at me, expectedly. "I gotta agree with them on this." I said, knowing there was a lot more to the story. And I was going to find out.

He looked around, uneasy, before commanding, "Just find the Cube."

He turned around and walked out the door, with me following behind him.

"Are we gonna go investigate or are you going to go sulk, while I do all the work?" I asked.

He looked over at me, before looking around. "Let's go." He said, now walking in the opposite direction that he was originally going in. I smiled and walked up to him so we were side by side.

Finally something fun to do.

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"Come on, Grandpa, put your back into it." I encouragely joked. Currently, Steve and I were in front of a large metal door that I had deemed suspicious. He was trying to yank the door open with his hands. We were going deep into the Helicarrier to try to find evidence, proving that there was something strange going on.

"Would you like to try?" He said, backing away from the door and gesturing for me to take the lead.

"Ugh, I would but you see-" I hunched forward, placing the palms of my hands on my knees "I think I threw my back out fighting Loki. I'll give you the honor."

The super soldier rolled his eyes, knowing I was lying and went back to the door. Sure enough, a few moments later, metal creaking could be heard from the door and Steve was finally able to yank the door open.

"Good job, partner." I clapped his shoulder in congratulations and walked into the room, with him trailing behind me. There were crates all over the place and along the walls. Well, this is definitely not suspicious.

I heard voices in the distance and Steve must have also heard them, before he started scaling the crates and scaffolding next to us.

"Showoff" I muttered under my breath, before throwing my body on the crates and up onto the catwalk.

"This way." He instructed, walking off.

"This is not my definition of a fun time." I said to him.

"You really think there is something weird going on?" He asked, ignoring my statement.

"Would we be down here if we didn't think there was?" I countered. It made him quit talking, knowing I was right. If neither of us had suspicions of foul play, we wouldn't be in unauthorized areas searching for anything we could find.

"Let's split up and start looking around." He said, walking off towards some crates. I did the same, going in the opposite direction. I opened a few, not noticing anything of importance, but that was before I opened up two crates that made me stop in my tracks.

It wasn't the objects in the crates that made me freeze. It was the logo on them. The symbol. HYDRA's symbol. The same symbol that was burned into my back between my shoulder blades. The symbol indicating that I belonged to them.

I cringed and felt an icy chill go down my spine as images flashed across my eyes. These were HYDRA's weapons. Why does S.H.I.E.L.D have these?

"Margot?" Steve's voice snapped me out of my daze. "Did you find anything?"

He walked up behind me when I didn't respond and he looked over my shoulder at the weapons. I heard him take a sharp inhale as he eyed the weapons in front of us.

Phase 2 is using the Cube to make weapons. I looked at Steve and he looked back at me.

"Well, are you going to grab it? Cause, uh, you know, I threw out my back earlier."