As my sister and I returned to the bridge, where the others were gathered around the large table located behind Fury's station, I heard Banner say, "He really grows on you, doesn't he?"

     "Loki's gonna drag this out," Steve claimed. "So, Thor, what's his play?"

     "He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard, nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

     Steve blinked, "An army. From outer space."

     "So, he's building another portal," Banner stated. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

     Thor arched an eyebrow, "Selvig?"

     "He's an astrophysicist."

     "He's a friend."

     "Loki has him under some kind of spell," Natasha explained, "along with one of ours."

     "I want to know why Loki let us take him," Steve interjected. "He's not leading an army from here."

     "I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," I countered.

     "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats," Banner agreed.

     "Forget cats," I scoffed. "He's batshit crazy."

     When Steve winced in my peripheral vision, I muttered, "Sorry. I'll warn you next time."

     Bruce laughed under his breath, then added, "You could smell crazy on him."

     "Have care how you speak," Thor warned as he crossed his arms. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother."

     "He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha retorted.

     "He's adopted."

     "I think it's about the mechanics," Banner said. "Iridium...What do they need iridium for?"

     "It's a stabilizing agent," Stark answered as he sauntered into the room.

     He briefly turned to mutter something in Coulson's ear, then continued, "It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D. No hard feelings, Point Break. You've got a mean swing."

     Thor's brow furrowed as Stark patted his shoulder, clearly unaware of the movie reference.

     "Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants," Stark added as he moved to Fury's workstation. "Raise the mizzenmast. Jib the topsails."

     Even as the closest technicians favored Stark with bewildered expressions, he pointed to a desktop several rows below.

     "That man is playing Galaga. He thought we wouldn't notice, but we did."

     Steve glanced in my direction with wide eyes, as if to ask, What's this guy talking about?

     I shrugged.

     How was I supposed to know? After all, I had spent sixteen of my twenty-four years on this Earth as a brainwashed assassin, and such activities left very little time for catching up on the latest pop culture.

     Covering one of his eyes, Stark gestured to the consoles on his left, "How does Fury even see these?"

     "He turns," Agent Hill answered without bothering to hide her irritation.

     "Sounds exhausting."

     "That's not the only thing that's exhausting," Natasha whispered under her breath, and I chuckled quietly.

     "Something you'd like to share with the room, Shortcake?" Stark quipped.

     When Natasha only smiled and batted her eyelashes, Stark returned to the subject at hand, "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is a power source of high-energy density. Something to kick-start the cube."

     Hill crossed her arms, "When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?"

     "Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

     I started to raise my hand, but he stopped me, "Nobody likes a suck-up, Manchurian."

     Now that reference I understood.

     Taking a deep breath, I clenched and unclenched my fists under the table as Steve asked, "Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?"

     "He would have to heat the cube to one hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce answered.

     "Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect," Stark countered.

     "Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet."

     "Finally, someone who speaks English."

     Steve's eyebrows shot upwards, "Is that what just happened?"

     "It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner," Stark said as he shook the physicist's hand. "Your work on antielectron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage-monster."

     Bruce forced a smile, "Thanks."

     "Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube," Fury interjected as he walked onto the bridge. "I was hoping you might join him."

     "I would start with that stick of his," Steve suggested. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

     "I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube," Fury replied. "And I would like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

     "Monkeys?" Thor echoed. "I do not understand."

     "I do," Steve claimed excitedly. "I understood that reference."

     When he looked around the room, which had fallen silent, I patted his hand, "Good for you, sweetie."

     He scowled and snatched his hand away, though a smile quickly tugged at the corner of his mouth.

     Rolling his eyes, Stark turned to Banner, "Shall we play, Doctor?"

     Bruce nodded and gestured for Stark to follow, "This way, sir."

     As the two men stepped into the hall and out of sight, Steve swiveled in his chair and stared in the direction they had gone.

     I studied his face for several moments, then asked, "Something troubling you, Captain?"

     He hummed quietly, then stood and said, "I'm in the mood for a stroll. Care to join me?"

     I glanced at Natasha, who nodded encouragingly, and replied, "I could use some fresh air."

     As I got to my feet, Steve offered his arm in a manner I had only seen in old-fashioned movies.

     Tentatively linking my arm through his, I asked, "Is this how you won the ladies over, back in the day?"

     He smiled, "There was only one lady, Miss Romanoff. And she rarely had time for pleasantries."

     "Agent Carter?" I asked, and he nodded. "She's a remarkable woman."

     "She is."

     "I can only imagine what it was like to see her on the frontlines."

     He nodded once more, his eyes drifting to a long-ago time and place, "She was...something else."

     We walked in silence for a minute or so before I asked, "Is something bothering you, Captain?"

     "I believe I asked you to call me Steve."

     "And I'll do just that when you call me Ana."

     He smirked, "Fair enough, Ana."

     I snorted, "Now, Steve, correct me if I'm wrong, but something tells me you didn't bring me along just to reminisce about the good ol' days."

     He shook his head, his smile fading as he replied, "No, I didn't. I need your perspective on something."

     "And what is that?"

     He paused and nodded to a laboratory in the distance, where Stark and Dr. Banner were currently attempting to locate the Tesseract.

     When Stark appeared to jab a metal instrument into Banner's side, Steve scoffed and charged forward, "Hey!"

     "This should be fun," I said with a sigh before jogging toward the laboratory.

     "Are you nuts?" I heard Steve ask in disbelief.

     "Jury's out," Stark replied before facing Banner. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?"

     I stopped just short of the threshold and massaged my temples, hoping to maintain some semblance of professionalism.

     Unfortunately for me, Stark seemed hellbent on testing my patience, "You got a sidekick now, Rogers?"

     Regretting my decision to come along, I stepped into the room with a deep sigh and said, "I have a name, you know."

     "The Winter Widow, right? Or is that name out of commission?"

     "I prefer Anastasia, but only my friends call me that, so you can stick with Agent Romanoff."

     "Huh, that's odd. I was under the impression that you didn't have any friends."

     My left eye twitched as I marched forward, but Steve grabbed my arm and intervened on my behalf, "Is everything a joke to you?"

     "Funny things are."

     "Insulting one of our own and threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny," Steve argued before glancing at Bruce. "No offense, Doc."

     "It's all right, I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."

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

     "And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," I retorted.

     "I'm sorry, since when are the extras allowed to speak?"

     "Tony," Steve warned, and Stark raised his hands in surrender.

     Meeting my eyes, Stark finally dropped his devil-may-care façade and answered, "Do you think I'm not? 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?" Steve asked.

     "He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets."

     After grabbing a bag of blueberries and popping several into his mouth, Stark pointed at Bruce, "It's bugging him, too. Isn't it?"

     "Uh, I just want to finish my work here, and..."

     When Bruce faltered, I quietly prompted, "Doctor?"

     Banner sighed and removed his glasses, "'A warm light for all mankind.' Loki's jab at Fury about the cube."

     "I heard it."

     "I think that was meant for you," Bruce explained, gesturing to Stark and accepting a handful of blueberries when they were offered. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."

     "Stark Tower?" Steve laughed. "That big, ugly..."

     Stark glared at Rogers across the table.

     "...building in New York?"

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

     Stark shrugged, "It's just the prototype."

     When Steve's brow furrowed, Stark explained, "I'm kind 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 wondered. "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."

     My eyes widened, "I'm sorry. Did you say—"

     "Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge," Tony said of the artificially intelligent system that functioned as his assistant. "In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?"

     Bewildered by Stark's revelation, I could only take a blueberry as Steve remarked, "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," I finally said.

     Steve nodded in agreement, "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."

     "Following's not really my style," Stark replied.

     Steve sighed, "And you're all about style, aren't you?"

     "Of the people in this room, which one is, A, wearing a spangly outfit, and, B, not of use?"

     "Steve," Bruce quietly interjected, "tell me none of this smells a little funky to you."

     "Just find the cube."

     Rogers marched out of the room, and I turned to follow, but Stark called, "Agent Romanoff?"

     Groaning inwardly, I reluctantly spun around, "Yes, Mr. Stark?"

     "I apologize. For earlier. I lash out when I'm stressed."

     I offered a small smile, "Apology accepted, Mr. Stark. Now, if you'll excuse me."

     When I stepped into the hall and noticed Steve had disappeared, I decided to make my way back to the bridge.

     Even as the automated doors slid aside, Natasha pushed to her feet and said, "Fury wants us to interrogate Loki. See if we can shake anything useful out of him."

     I winced, "Lucky us."

     Returning to the room that held Loki's cell, Natasha stopped at the door and whispered, "Stay sharp. I have a feeling he'll try to turn us against each other."

     "I have a feeling he already is," I muttered.

     When the door slid aside, we found Loki pacing slowly in his glass cage, his hands clasped behind his back and his addled mind clearly at work. Sensing our presence, he suddenly stopped, then turned with a calculated smile.

     "There's not many people who can sneak up on me," he said.

     "But you figured we'd come," I stated.

     He nodded, "After. After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would both appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate."

     "We're not here to make friends."

     When Loki grinned and started to reply, Natasha cut him off, "I want to know what you've done to Agent Barton."

     "I would say I've expanded his mind," the Asgardian replied with an innocent shrug.

     My sister fell silent for a moment, then took several slow, methodical steps forward, "And once you've won, once you're king of the mountain, what happens to his mind?"

     "Oh...Is this love, Agent Romanoff?"

     "Love is for children. I owe him a debt," Nat replied.

     Loki backed away from Natasha and settled on the bare cot in his cell, "Tell me."

     When Natasha hesitated, I caught her gaze from across the room, Careful.

     She nodded discreetly, then sat in a nearby chair and began, "Before I worked for S.H.I.E.LD., I, uh...Well, I made a name for myself. I have a very specific skill set. I didn't care who I used it for, or on. I got on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar in a bad way. Agent Barton was sent to kill me. He made a different call."

     Loki nodded, "And what will you do if I vow to spare him?"

     "Not let you out."

     The Norse God leaned forward, "No, but I like this. Your world in the balance, and you bargain for one man."

     "Regimes fall every day. I tend not to weep over that. I'm Russian. Or I was."

     "And what are you now?"

     "It's really not that complicated," Natasha claimed as she got to her feet. "I got red in my ledger, I'd like to wipe it out."

     "Can you? Can you wipe out that much red?"

     My heart raced as I slowly circled the cell, and my palms grew sweaty when I noticed Loki's expression: His eyes were glinting and his smile was now corrupted by something darker than mischief. I glanced briefly at Natasha and found her expression matched my own.

     "Sao Paulo? The hospital fire?" he said, and Natasha's face paled. "Dreykov's daughter?"

     My heart stopped.

     Loki's eyes flicked from me to my sister, "Barton told me everything."

     My mouth opened and closed several times as I tried to speak, but my voice eluded me. I backed away from my sister and toward the stairs, then sprinted into the hall, my mind racing.

     From the doorway, I heard Loki growl, "Your ledger is dripping. It's gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer. Pathetic!"

     I fell to the floor, trying to drown out his words, but he continued on, "You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are part of you. And they will never go away!"

     I slammed my fist against the door's control panel, forcing it to slide shut. Pulling myself to my feet, I staggered to the quarters I had been assigned and tried to sort through my thoughts.

     Was Nat responsible for Antonia's death?

     Did she know—She couldn't have known.

     Don't lie to yourself, of course she knew. She's a spy, it's her job to know.

     She wouldn't have gone through with it, would she?

     Don't ask yourself that, you already know the answer!

     As my mind and body grew more agitated, I began to circle the small room like a caged animal.

     Oh my God, she knew I was there.

     She knew I was there, and she went through with it anyway.

     Oh my God, Antonia—What if...

     She used Antonia as bait.

     My legs gave way as the sight of Antonia's lifeless body flashed in my mind's eye.

     She was a child!

     She was collateral damage.

     Just like you.

     "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" I screamed, and though the voices in my head fell silent, my hands remained clamped over my ears for several minutes.

     Suddenly, Natasha's voice crackled in my ear, "Loki means to unleash—"

     I tore my earpiece out of its hollow and chucked it across the room. Leaning my head against the cool metal of the wall, I focused on the ceiling and tried to clear my mind. When someone knocked on the door, I glanced at myself in the mirror to make sure I was presentable, then reluctantly got to my feet.

     When the door slid open, Natasha said, "Loki wants—"

     "Was it you?" I interrupted, daring her to meet my eyes.

     "Ana, we don't have time—"

     "Was it you?" I roared.

     Nat flinched. Staring down at her feet, she slowly nodded.

     "Did...did you know?"

     She nodded again.

     "About me?"

     "Yes."

     "And Antonia?"

     "Yes."

     My heart shattered, and my voice broke with it when I said, "She was a child, Natasha! How...how could you?"

     "I'll explain everything later, сестра. I promise," Natasha replied after a moment, her eyes brimming with tears. "But, right now, we need to make sure Loki doesn't follow through with his plan."

     "Which is?"

     "To unleash the Hulk."

     "Shit."

     "Yeah. I'm headed to the lab now. Everyone else is on their way."

     I nodded and wiped my eyes, following close on Natasha's heels as I set my personal feelings aside. After all, emotion was the enemy of efficiency. A concept Natasha and I had learned the hard way in the Red Room.

     "What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" Fury asked as my sister and I followed him into the laboratory.

     "Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you."

     "You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

     "We are," Bruce said. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."

     "Yeah, then you get your cube back. No muss, no fuss," Stark added before gesturing to the screen in front of him. "What is 'Phase Two'?"

     Steve stormed into the room and dropped a large weapon onto the table behind me, "Phase Two is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the cube to make weapons. Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me."

     Fury sighed, "Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're making—"

     "I'm sorry, Nick," Stark interrupted as he spun his monitor around, revealing the plans for a weapon powered by the Tesseract. "What were you lying?"

     "I was wrong, Director," Steve scowled. "The world hasn't changed a bit."

     Bruce turned to Natasha, "Did you know about this?"

     "You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?" she countered.

     "I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed."

     "Loki is manipulating you."

     "Loki is manipulating all of us," I insisted.

     "And you've been doing what, exactly?" Bruce said, ignoring my statement.

     "You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

     "Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy. I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

     "Because of him," Fury answered as he pointed at Thor, who had just entered the room.

     "Me?"

     Fury nodded, "Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."

     "My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor argued.

     "But you're not the only one out there, are you? And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, that can't be controlled."

     "Like you controlled the cube?" I retorted. "Forgive me, Director, but in my experience, the more you try to control someone, the more they'll fight back."

     "Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies," Thor accused. "It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war."

     "A higher form?" Steve repeated.

     "You forced our hand," Fury shot back. "We had to come up with something."

     "A nuclear deterrent. Because that always calms everything right down," Stark quipped.

     Fury rounded on him, "Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark."

     Steve scoffed, "I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck-deep—"

     "Hold on," Tony interrupted. "How is this now about me?"

     "I'm sorry, isn't everything?"

     "I thought humans were more evolved than this," Thor said, and I laughed under my breath.

     "Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?" Fury replied, turning back to face the God of Thunder.

     "You treat your champions with such mistrust."

     Natasha rolled her eyes, "Are you boys really that naïve? S.H.I.E.L.D. monitors potential threats."

     "Captain America's on threat watch?" I asked in bewilderment.

     "We all are."

     "Wait, you're on that list?" Stark inquired. "Are you above or below angry bees?"

     "Stark, so help me God, if you make one more wisecrack—" Steve snapped.

     "Threat! Verbal threat!" Stark shouted. "I feel threatened."

     "Show some respect."

     "Respect what?"

     Staggering backwards, I pinched the bridge of my nose and leaned against the table behind me as voices overlapped and arguments grew louder, causing my head to spin. When someone placed their hand on my shoulder, I opened my eyes and found Steve standing next to me.

     "You okay?" he asked quietly, and I nodded.

     "Fine. Just getting a headache."

     He chuckled, "Yeah. I'm right there with you."

     "You speak of control, yet you court chaos," Thor stated, nearly having to shout over the others.

     "That's his M.O., isn't it?" Bruce replied. "I mean, what are we, a team? No, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're a time bomb."

     "You need to step away," Fury instructed.

     "Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Stark countered, casually placing his hand on Steve's shoulder.

     "You know damn well why," Steve argued, shoving his hand away. "Back off!"

     "I'm starting to want you to make me."

     Steve snorted, "Yeah. Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"

     "Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," Stark answered, and Natasha nodded in agreement.

     "I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. 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."

     Steve shook his head, "Always a way out. You may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

     "A hero? Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."

     Steve smirked, "Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds."

     Thor laughed, "You people are so petty, and tiny."

     Bruce sighed, "Yeah, this is a team."

     Fury turned to Natasha, "Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his—"

     "Where?" Banner pressed. "You rented my room."

     "The cell was just in case—"

     "In case you needed to kill me. But you can't," Banner argued. "I know, I tried. I got low. I didn't see an end. So, I put a bullet in my mouth, and the other guy spit it out. So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good. Until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk."

     As Bruce slowly walked backwards, he turned to Natasha, "You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?"

     When Banner unknowingly reached for Loki's scepter, my hand moved to the pistol at my side.

     As Natasha and Fury did the same, Steve calmly instructed, "Dr. Banner, put down the scepter."

     Looking down, Bruce furrowed his brow in confusion when he saw the scepter was now in his hand. Even as he placed the scepter on its stand, one of his consoles beeped urgently.

     "Sorry kids, you don't get to see my party trick after all," he said as he moved to the monitor.

     "You located the Tesseract?" I asked.

     "I could get there fastest," Stark claimed.

     "The Tesseract belongs on Asgard," Thor argued. "No human is a match for it."

     When Stark turned to leave, Rogers stopped him, "You're not going alone."

     "You're gonna stop me?"

     "Put on the suit, let's find out."

     "I'm not afraid to hit an old man," Stark retorted, and I groaned.

     "Put on the suit."

     "Oh, my God," Banner whispered, his face dropping.

     My brow furrowed, "Bruce, what is—"

     The metal grates beneath our feet were thrust upwards by an explosion and the laboratory was engulfed in flames. The concussive blast sent me careening through the glass wall and onto the bridge below, where my head collided with a steel staircase and my world went dark.