Chapter 23

And now a little intrigue, a wee bit of action, and Steve eating crow. Thanks for reading and reviewing everyone!

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Chapter 23

Steve ducked, but not fast enough to avoid the second half of the spinning back kick Natasha swung his way. He grabbed her leg and held it, preventing her from completing a kick to his temple. Natasha yelped with frustration and punched him twice in the side of the head, causing him to see stars. He ignored the pain and threw her to the ground, raising his boot to stomp on her midsection. She grabbed his foot and rolled, throwing him off-balance. He fell. She leaped on top of him, going straight for his throat. At the last moment, Steve bent in half, wrapped his ankles around her neck, and flipped her backwards hard upon the ground, pinning her. She shrieked in anger and flailed, trying to get up, but could not.

"Enough of the horseplay!" Nick Fury shouted. "We've got a briefing to conduct!"

Steve released his hold and rolled to his feet, lending her a hand to get up. Just in case, he kept his right knee bent for extra balance. Giving him a smile of pure innocence, Natasha took his hand and yanked him forward, knocking him off-balance. Steve was ready for it. Instead of fighting the fall, he rolled forward in a move any first-year gymnastics student learns and landed upright in a ta-da position, turning magnanimously once more to re-offer Natasha his hand.

"Way to go, Cap!" Tony Stark and Thor both clapped from the sidelines of the sparring area.

"You're getting to know my moves," Natasha groused, this time getting up for real.

"Only some of them," Steve said. "I may be an old dog, but I usually only get burned once before learning new tricks."

The eyes which stared back at him were watchful. Wary and alert. The Black Widow's normal demeanor. Ever since the incident on Ambrym, Steve had not detected that peculiar 'off' sensation in her reaction time, but his gut still whispered 'be careful.' Natasha killed without remorse when ordered, but killing someone against a direct order, even an alien, was unusual for her. Had it been anyone else … maybe. Most people were prone to heat-of-the-moment fits of passion if properly aroused. Even him. The aliens had, after all, tried to suck Natasha's brains out of her head. Or that was what they were calling the strange injuries she and the Melanesian islanders had all suffered at the hands of the Chitauri.

"Enough of the foreplay," Tony Stark said with a grin. He waggled his eyebrows at them, earning a snicker from both Banner and Thor.

Clint was not amused. Steve had begun to notice a strain between Natasha and her lover … if that's what they really were. Somehow, he thought so. Or at least they had been before the weirdness had started, though he wasn't so sure about right now. If he didn't know any better, he would swear Natasha was flirting with him these days instead of Clint. Steve gave Clint a friendly a grin to communicate he was not a threat. Clint glowered and stalked in the direction Nick Fury had gone. Towards the maximum security area of the Triskelion.

After going through several layers of passcodes, guards, and retinal scanners, they gained access to the subject of today's briefing. The captured Chitauri sat in a bulletproof glass observation area similar to the one used to inter Loki on the U.S.S. Gerald Ford. The creature glanced up at the audience that had come in to gawk at it then feigned disinterest, even though they were certain it watched their every move. Natasha came in behind them. She walked up to stand in front of the glass, taunting the creature with her presence. That got a reaction. The creature hissed and moved as far away from Natasha as possible, its six-fingered hands tugging nervously upon the bandages covering the stitches in its neck.

"Doctor Banner," Nick Fury said. "You have the floor."

"As you can see," Bruce said, "it survived. I managed to stitch its throat back together, but there appears to be damage to its vocal cords. All it can do is hiss."

"For all we know," Tony Stark said. "Maybe that's all its capable of."

"Perhaps," Banner said. "But the Chitauri have fully developed vocal cords and a voice box the same as we have. A bit thicker, which means its voice would be lower than ours, but it should be capable of speech."

Steve stared at the creature of nightmare which had been haunting Earth's dreams since the Chitauri had poured through the dimensional portal opened by the Tesseract Cube. Basically humanoid, it was taller and more muscular than a human, with a blue-grey cast to its skin similar to a battleship. The torso and limbs could pass as human if the creature dressed up in loose-fitting human clothing, but there was no mistaking the face for human. Although it had the large, rounded brain pan of a humanoid, it had the face and fangs of a lizard. Was this what the mysterious 'Other' Loki had allied with kept hidden under its long, black hooded robe?

Was this what Herr Klaiser had really looked like back in 1945? After all, if Red Skull had been able to hide his face beneath a mask, why not one of these creatures? But, no… Red Skull had once been human. Herr Klaiser's origins were less well known. The SS leader had possessed the height and strength of one of these creatures, but there would have been no hiding the oversized hands and feet with extra digits or the misshapen jaw beneath a mask. Steve had seen Herr Klaiser's face and hands the first few times he'd interacted with him, though he'dtaken to wearing a cloth over his head for a period of time after Steve had thrown his shield at him during a battle. Just for a moment, it had appeared he'd taken the Nazi SS officer's head clean off. An illusion caused by distance and the dim light, no doubt, as no body had ever been found. Incidents involving the Nazi leader had continued and, some time later, he'd seen Herr Klaiser with his own eyes, so it was more likely the Nazi leader had just been injured.

"Any luck communicating with it?" Steve asked, noting the way the creature pretended to look at the floor, but glanced repeatedly at them, undoubtedly trying to size up the situation. It was a prisoner of war. Had the roles been reversed, Steve would have been doing the same.

"They're just drones," Natasha said, her voice devoid of emotion. "You're wasting your time."

"We don't know that," Tony Stark said, pacing in front of the cage. "It sure seemed pretty intelligent to me when Banner was saving its life."

"I agree," Banner said.

"It was smart enough to plead for its life," Steve said. "Or at least that's what I think it was doing." He turned to Natasha. "At the very least, it was smart enough to understand I was the only thing standing between it and Natasha."

Natasha gave him an icy glare. They'd had words after the last mission about her behavior in the cave. Fury refused to bust her down until she pulled her act together because they desperately needed her skill-set, but Steve had already made up his mind that the next mission he led, Natasha was going to be relegated to a less critical role. Fury had given him the green-light to lead now that he'd stopped moping about losing Peggy. The real reason, he suspected, that Natasha was suddenly going out of her way to be friendly and Clint wouldn't stop glaring at him.

Steve had no talent for charming women, but leading them was a different story. Pouting, moping, fits of temper or the cold shoulder would not dissuade him from paying attention to that uneasy feeling that sat in his gut. Natasha just hadn't been … right … since she'd been injured. It was part of the reason he'd been sparring with her more than usual lately. He wanted to trust her again. He just … didn't.

"Thor," Nick Fury called out. "Any intel from the All Father?"

"The All Father has entered the Odinsleep," Thor said. "My brother's misbehavior has been very trying on him and opening the Bifrost without the benefit of the machinery we'd built to dampen the negative side effects of the Tesseract Cube are taking their toll. My mother told him if he didn't rest voluntarily while things are quiet, where we have a hope of awakening him if the need is great, than she was going to have Heimdell knock him senseless before he kills himself from overwork."

As much as mortals thought of the Asgardians as gods, Steve was finding out they were as mortal as any human. Only more genetically evolved, longer lived, and more powerful. Asgardians were to him what he was to a regular human. Tony Stark had taken to calling Steve the 'Asgardian Missing Link' and making monkey sounds behind his back to get Thor to laugh. Steve was glad Tony and Thor were warming up to one another, but not at his expense.

"Nappy time?" Tony Stark said. "That's inconvenient. So you made a trip back for nothing?"

"Not … entirely," Thor said. "I interrogated my brother."

The Avengers all perked up with interest. Thor looked markedly uncomfortable and more than a little ashamed.

"And?" Nick Fury said. From the look on Fury's face, Thor had already briefed him.

"It is always hard to tell whether Loki is lying," Thor said, his expression exasperated. "He peppers the lies with just enough truth to make it believable." He gestured towards their blue-grey skinned captive. "My brother said those are not the Chitauri."

"What?" they all exclaimed.

"But I've autopsied hundreds of them from the battle over New York," Banner exclaimed. "These are the guys that came down from the hole in the sky and blew midtown Manhattan to hell!"

"Yes," Nick Fury said. "They are."

"What else did Loki say?" Steve asked, noting the way the Chitauri … or whatever breed of soldier he was … watched while pretending not to watch from inside the cage. The creature couldn't hear them. But it could see how they reacted to one another.

"He didn't," Thor said, throwing up his arms in exasperation. "He just laughed and told me we had no idea what we were up against."

"You should have tortured it out of him," Clint said. He made eye contact with each of them. "When are we going to admit we're out of our league and do what is necessary?"

"This is my brother thou speak of," Thor growled. His hand unconsciously reached down to caress the handle of Mjolnir strapped to his belt.

"We're Americans," Steve said. "We don't torture people."

Nick Fury was silent. Natasha snorted with disgust.

"The Asgardians are dicking us around!" Clint snarled, pointing at Thor. "We should have never let him take Loki off the planet."

"And we were going to contain the little bastard … how?" Nick Fury reminded him.

"Then we need to go to Asgard ourselves and demand they stop pussy-footing around the little weasel!" Clint said.

"Americans don't torture," Tony Stark said.

"But…"

"American's don't torture," Tony Stark repeated, his expression so fierce and intense it made Steve momentarily wonder 'who are you and what have you done with my pain-in-the-butt teammate.' Tony tapped his chest, the arc reactor beneath his shirt making a light 'clinking' sound. "In case you forget, I had this thing cut into my chest without anesthesia. We don't do things like that in this country. Not if you want me to remain a part of the team!"

"Who the hell needs you?" Clint snarled. "You're not even a real Avenger!"

The others began to talk at once, the argument becoming heated as Fury tried to rein them in. Steve glanced over, expecting Natasha to jump in on Hawkeye's side, and noted she had walked over to stand in front of the glass cage, her expression emotionless and cold as she stared at the creature. The Chitauri … or whatever it really was … had curled up in the opposite corner as far away as it could get from her icy expression. It's head was covered with its hands, as though she were about to beat it through the glass. Natasha had come over from the Soviets and was a trained interrogator, which is what they called professional torturers over there. It was a part of her skill set S.H.I.E.L.D. claimed they didn't use, but which Steve suspected they actually used quite often.

"Natasha?" Steve asked.

She didn't answer.

"Natasha," Steve said, putting a hand on her shoulder and turning her towards him. The expression she gave him was so empty and devoid of emotion it gave him chills. As if somebody else was staring out at him through Natasha's eyes.

Natasha blinked, a confused expression coming upon her face.

"I'm … sorry," Natasha said. "I must have spaced out. It's just …" She gestured towards the Chitauri cowering at the opposite end of the cell. "I guess I have to agree with Clint."

She turned and followed the others out of the detainment room, where they animatedly continued the argument as they walked down the hall. Steve heard a 'thud' and jumped back, turning to see the creature had thrown itself into the glass. No. Not thrown. It was standing in front of him now, trembling, one hand pressed against the glass as though it were pleading with him.

"I don't understand what you're trying to tell me," Steve said. He pointed to his head. The creature didn't grasp what Steve was trying to tell it. This was a creature from an alien planet. They didn't even share the same underlying non-verbal language. For all he knew, the thing had thrown itself against the glass in a futile attempt to break through and kill him.

The creature's mouth opened and shut, the fangs giving it a menacing appearance, but its grey eyes told a different story. It was scared. Had it recognized Steve had been the one to order its life be saved and was now pleading with him to release it?

He'd probably never know.

"I'm sorry," Steve said, holding out his hands in what was a universal human gesture of 'I don't know' but probably meant something else entirely to a creature from another planet. He backed out of there, watching it, until he turned to follow the others outside the detention center, the security door clanging behind him. He pushed aside his reservations and followed the angry voices, which could probably be heard all the way to Asgard. What the All Father must think of them, these people who could never seem to get along!

He waited until they were done arguing about the other nine gazillion things Fury needed to brief them on today before pulling his nemesis aside.

"Tony … can I ask a favor?" Steve trotted after the billionaire-genius-playboy-philanthropist.

"I told you," Tony said, clearly annoyed. "I don't condone torture." Tony tapped on his arc reactor to accentuate his point. Pepper had filled Steve in on what had happened to Tony in Afghanistan, but even she didn't know the full extent of it, she claimed.

"You're singing to the choir," Steve said.

Tony grunted and resumed his walk … no … strut … down the corridors of the Triskelion. For an average-height guy, Tony Stark had a way of filling the room that Steve envied. Why hadn't he been born with whatever charisma Tony Stark had to attract people to him, male and female, despite his physical limitations? Although at least Tony was able to keep enough weight on him to wield his Iron Man suit and taller than Steve had once been. Even next to the slightly-short-of-average Tony Stark, the pre-serum runt Steve had once been would have been small.

Maybe if he'd had a little of whatever charisma Tony Stark had, Steve wouldn't have forgotten to ask Bernice for her telephone number? There had been wariness in Bernice's eyes when she'd mentioned she'd once been engaged to a man who'd broken up with her because he'd disapproved of her career in art. Steve sensed that if he didn't call her, Bernice would not come looking for him a second time.

It was time to pucker up and kiss Tony Stark's ass…

"So what do you need?" Tony asked.

"It's … um … I misplaced something," Steve said.

"You never misplace anything," Tony said, sarcasm coming into his voice. "Mister Perfect America. You didn't mention anything about leaving something behind in the meeting."

"I … um …" Steve stammered. "It's got nothing to do with the last mission."

Tony stopped, giving Steve an appraising stare. It wasn't the persona of the class clown Steve was dealing with now, but cold, calculating businessman who'd expanded his father's company into a multi-national corporation.

"What is it?" Tony asked.

"I need a telephone number," Steve said. "One of your employees."

"Have Fury send me a requisition," Tony said, resuming his walk down the hall. "I don't let the government anywhere near my employees. If you want trade secrets, you're going to have to pay for them."

"It's … not … that," Steve said. "It's … personal."

Tony stopped and turned, his brow furrowed. All of a sudden it clicked. Tony burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" Steve asked.

"I owe Pepper one pair of Louboutins," Tony said.

Steve cocked his head to one side, puzzled. "What are Louboutins?"

Tony laughed harder.

"Send me a requisition."

"But … it's just a phone number!" Steve said, anger rising in his blood.

If Tony didn't give him that phone number, he'd have to stake out Stark Industries. Not that he minded surprising Bernice as she came out of work, but he wasn't sure which building she worked in. The Stark Industries complex encompassed dozens of separate buildings spanning several city blocks all tied together by an underground network of basements. All he knew was that Bernice worked 'in the basement.' The one time Steve had been down there to speak to Doctor Nyi, he had walked into the basement via Stark Tower and been escorted out of there several blocks away. It wasn't the stakeout Steve wished to avoid, but the fear that in the days or weeks it took to track her down, she would be so angry when he finally did track her down that her that she would simply hang up and refuse to speak to him.

"Don't get your little red-white-and-blue tights all knit up in a dental floss wedgie," Tony laughed, slapping him upon the back. "I handed over supervision of those kinds of details things to Pepper when I asked her to be my CEO. I'll have to ask her to divulge that information."

Somehow Steve doubted that was all there was to the story.

"When?"

"Just give me a couple of days," Tony said. He gave Steve a conspiratorial grin. "Don't worry. We'll have that pretty little brunette eating out of your hand in no time."

Steve shut his mouth before he said something stupid. Like the last thing he wanted was to have Bernice eating out of his hand. That would be unsanitary! Why would he wish to demean a female by forcing her to eat out of his hand? If there was going to be any eating involved, it would be over a candlelit dinner at a tasteful restaurant, not whatever vulgar mating ritual the former playboy referred to now!

Whistling a tune as he walked away, Tony burst out into the lyrics just as he turned the corner:

Yeah I'm the first to fall,

And the last to know.

Where'd you go?

With no phone number, dissent amongst their ranks, an uneasy feeling about Natasha, and a critter they couldn't communicate with locked up in the Triskelion basement, Steve went home to knock the sand out of a half dozen punching bags.

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Note: So poor Steve –still- doesn't have Bernice's phone number. You didn't think I was going to make things that easy, now, did you? Guys always appreciate things more when they have to work for it.

The song Tony was humming was: 'Heels over Head' by Boys Like Girls

And as for the whole thing with Natasha and the alien … you'll just have to wait and see. In fact … -I'll- have to wait and see, too. There are 3 different canons floating around the Marvel-verse about the critters and I haven't decided which version to go with yet … if at all. The Muses are beginning to whisper a fourth option.