DELIRIUM- MARVEL

• EIGHTEEN •

2012

Cassandra sat at the briefing table. She'd just been to Germany to hunt down a psycho god, met her nephew for the first time in a while, and met another, slightly less psycho god. She leaned back in her chair, and nearly fell over, but Natasha pushed her chair back.

"Thor, what's his play?" Steve asked.
"He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any other world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him for the Earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tessaract."
"An army? From space?" Cassandra asked, confused.
"So he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for." Bruce said.
"Selvig?" Thor asked.
"He's an astrophysicist." Cassandra answered.
"He's a friend."
"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours."

Natasha said, looking down at the mention of Clint, Cassandra put a hand on her shoulder.

"I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading any army from here." Steve wondered.
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you can smell the crazy on him," Bruce said, making Cassandra smile a little bit.
"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." Natasha said.
"He's adopted." Thor said, countering her comment.

A moment of silence passed the group before Bruce spoke up again.

"Iridium, what do they need the Iridium for?"
"It's a stabilizing agent." Tony interrupted, walking into the room.

He muttered a few things to Agent Coulson, and smiled at Cassandra.

"Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants," he turned to the crew. "Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails. That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did." Tony covered an eye, mimicking an eye patch, turning back and forth. "How does Fury do this?"
"He turns," Agent Hill informed. Tony gave her a suprised look, and ran his hand under the base of the screens.
"Sounds exhausting."

Cassandra gave her nephew, who was, now older than her, a disapproving look, and he blushed slightly, not enough to notice. Natasha cocked her head, raising a brow in Cassandra's direction. She shook her head slightly, mouthing, "I'll tell you later." Natasha nodded, and turned back to the conversation.

"The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube." Tony said.
"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Cassandra asked, knowing he hadn't known it before.
"Last night," he said. Maria sighed, setting a hand on her head. "The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve interjected.
"He's got to heat the cube to a hundredand twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier." Bruce said.
"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect." Tony reminded.