Who are you? (A Loki Love Story)

Chapter Eleven - Weapons and Explosions

        I was woken up by a persistent knocking on my door, and I was about to yell at whoever it was to go away when I saw that the clock said that it was twelve thirty. I slowly got up and opened the door. "Hey Steve." I said, and gave him a half wave.
        "Oh!" I heard him say. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were still asleep." he glanced around the hallway nervously and I laughed.
        "I don't normally sleep this late. I'm still replenishing energy." I paused. "What did you need?"
        "I was wondering if you could help me with something." He paused and I nodded at him to explain. "I need help looking through the storage areas."
        "Why?" I asked. What would he need that's in storage?
        "I'm curious to see if Stark's idea about Fury hiding something from us is right, and storage seemed like the best place to start, since I'm not good with computers." I smiled.
        "Just give me a few minuets to get presentable to other people." I said and he nodded. I shut the door and went to get on my uniform. As I got it out, I saw that someone had made modifications to it. It had been almost identical to the one Nat wears, except fireproof. Now it had red and orange swirling patterns all over it. I put it on quickly and put my hair into a ponytail. "Ready to go?" I asked Steve when I came out a minuet later. He gave a short nod, a grim look on his face. We walked in silence for a few moments before I thought of something. "Why me?" I asked, startling Steve out of his thoughts.
        "What do you mean?" he asked, confused.
        "Why did you ask me to help you? I thought you didn't like me that much." He looked seriously confused now.
        "Why did you think I didn't like you?" I paused, thinking about it.
        "The way you acted yesterday when you found me in the training room." I pause "And at dinner. You seemed like you didn't want anything to do with me." He stops and puts a hand on my shoulder, turning me so that I'm looking up at him.
        "I'm sorry." He says, completely serious. "I didn't mean to come off that way." He pauses and looks away from me. "Everything that you had said earlier had given me a lot to think about."
        "It's Okay. " I say and we start walking again. We come to the main storage unit. "What should we look for?" I ask. There is a few seconds of silence before he answers.
        "Anything to do with the tesseract."
        "Anything specific? Because that is a pretty wide range." He thinks about it for another second before a grim, angry look plasters itself on his face.
        "Hydra."
        "Hydra? That was a WW2 group." I say, confused. "Weren't they the ones who you fought against with your military group?"
        "Yes. But they are also the group that had control of the tesseract at the time." I nod and start to walk towards the back of the storage area.
        "If its about that then that sort of stuff would be in the privet room of that timeframe." Steve follows me until I find the correct room. "Here you go. The WW2 section." I go to open the door, but it's locked. "That's weird. They never lock these doors." I jiggle the handle again.
        "May I?" Steve asks. I step back, motioning for him to have at it. He grabs the door, and his muscles bulge as he pops the door from the frame, setting it aside. We walk in and I head up the stairway to the second level. He Stays downstairs and heads left.
        "Not that way." I yell out to him, and he turns around. "Its all files from that age."
        "How do you know?"
        "Spent a lot of time in the storage areas when I first got here." Steve raises his eyebrows. "I'll explain later." He looks around on the lower level while I work on the top. We are in there for about ten minuets when I come along a few crates that I hadn't seen before. "Steve, I might have found something!" I yell. He doesn't bother going up the stairs. He just jumps up to the second level. "Show off." I mumble when he reaches me. He gives me a half smile and pops the lids of the two crates. I cant see very well into the two crates because of the lack of light, so I light my hand on fire to get a better view.
        "Hydra weapons." Steve says in a cold voice. He grabs one, and we leave the storage unit.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

        We're a few hallways away from the lab when Natasha's voice comes through on the earpiece. "Loki plans to unleash the Hulk. Keep Banner in the lab. I'm on my way." I tell Steve and we both start to walk a little faster towards the lab. We hear voices as Steve and I walk into the lab.
        "What is Phase 2?" I hear Tony ask Fury.
        "Phase 2 is SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons." he turns to Stark. "Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow for me." I walk over to where Banner and Tony are to see the computer screen.
        "Rodgers, we gathered everything related to the tesseract. This does not mean that we-"
        "I'm sorry Nick." Tony says interrupting. "What? Were you lying?" he asks, turning the monitor so everyone could see the missile plans.
        "I was wrong director, the world hasn't changed a bit." Steve says. Nat and Thor walk in.
        "Did you know about this?" Bruce asks Nat, and I stand next to him and raise an eyebrow at her, waiting for her response.
        "Do you want to think about removing yourself from this environment Doctor? Sophie?" She says in a cold voice.
        "I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed." Bruce says, backing towards the table that had the scepter on it.
        "Loki's manipulating you." Nat says.
        "And you've been doing what exactly?"
        "You didn't come here because I batted my eyelashes at you."
        "And I'm not leaving because you suddenly get a little twitchy." Banner says. I cross my arms.
        "I'm not leaving either." I say.
        "I want to know why SHIELD is using the tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction." Banner says, pointing at the plans.
        "Because of him." Fury says, pointing to Thor.
        "Me?" Thor says, confused.
        "Last year earth had a visitor from another planet, who had a grudge match that leveled a small town." Fury says, "We learned that, not only are we not alone, we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."
        "My people want nothing but peace with your planet." Thor starts.
        "But you aren't the only people out there, are you?" Fury asks. "And, you're not the only threat." Fury turns. "The world is filling up with people who can't be matched. They can't be controlled."
        "Like you control the cube?" I ask.
        "Your work with the tesseract is what drew Loki to it. And his allies." Thor says. "It is a signal to all the realms that earth is ready for a higher form of war."
        "A higher form?" Steve asks, but he is ignored.
        "You forced our hand. We had to come up with something!" Fury says.
        "A nuclear deterrent." Stark says. "Cause that always calms everything right down."
        "Remind me again of how you made your fortune Stark?" Fury asks.
        "I'm sure that if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep in this too." Steve says.
        "How is this now about me?" Tony asks.
        "I'm sorry, isn't everything?" Steve says.
        "I thought humans were more advanced than this." Thor says.
        "Excuse me. Do we come to your planet and blow stuff up?" Everyone starts to argue, and a pain starts in the back of my head.
        "Everyone shut up! This is what Loki wants!" I yell, but everyone ignores me. I'm standing behind the table when I notice Loki's scepter start to glow. "Guys..." I say. Banner's hand starts to move towards the staff.
        "We are a time bomb." Banner says.
        "You need to step away." Fury says.
        "Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Tony asks.
        "You know why! Back off!" Steve says.
        "I'm starting to want you to make me." Tony says, turning to Steve angrily.
        "Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off and what are you?" Steve says, getting closer to Tony.
        "Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." Stark says calmly.
        "I know guys with none of that, worth ten of you." Steve says. "And I've seen the footage. the only thing you really fight for is yourself." Everyone is now watching them. "You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play. To lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."
        "I think I would just cut the wire." Tony says.
        "Always a way out." Steve says. "You know, you may not be a threat but you better stop pretending to be a hero."
        " A hero? Like you? You are a laboratory experiment Rodgers," I flinch at that. "Everything special about you came from a bottle."
        "Guys....." I say, a little louder. They still ignore me.
        "Put on the suit." Steve says. "Lets go a few rounds." Thor starts laughing.
        "You people are so petty." He pauses, "And tiny."
        "Agent Romanoff, please escort Doctor Banner-"
        "Where? You rented my room." Bruce says.
        "The cell was built just in case-"
        "In case you needed to kill me." Banner says. "But you cant. I know. I've tried." Everyone is staring at Bruce, and I go stand beside him. When I place my hand on his shoulder he shrugs it off. I notice a few eyes darting between me and Banner. "I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth, and the other guy spit it out." He pauses and glances at me. "So I moved on. Focused on helping other people. I was doing good until you dragged me back into this freak show. Putting everyone here at risk." He has his hand on the scepter. "You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?"
        "Doctor Banner." Steve says. "Put down the scepter." He looks down at it as if he didn't know how it had gotten in his hand. The tesseract locator beeped.
        "Sorry kids, you don't get to see my party trick after all." Bruce says, putting down the scepter and walking over to the monitor. Everyone starts arguing about who should go retrieve the tesseract, and I notice Bruce take off his glasses in surprise and looks closer at the monitor. I start to walk over to him when an explosion bursts through the ship, throwing everyone in different directions. I am thrown back through a window with Nat and Bruce, and I hit my head on the floor, ripping a gash from my cheek to my forehead. I look up and see Nat is trapped under a heavy metal object, trying to get out while at the same time trying to keep Bruce calm.
        "We're okay." I hear Nat say into the earpiece. She looks over at me, my skin turning orange and red, and Bruce, who I can tell is struggling to keep the other guy under control. "We're okay, right?"