12. We All Have Our Problems

The three heroes brought the man and Loki back to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. They learned that the Asgardian they were fighting is named Thor Odinson and is Loki's brother. Steve and Jessie sat in the debriefing room with Doctor Banner, Thor, Agent Hill, and Natasha. They just finished taking a look at Nick confronting with Loki. Jessie was inspecting the damage of her cybernetic arm, trying to find a way on how to fix it.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Banner asked after the screen went black. Steve looked up.

"Loki's gonna drag this out," he stated. He looked to Thor. "So, Thor, what's his play?"

"He has an army called the Chitauri," Thor replied after coming back from his daze. "They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army? From outer space?"

"So he's building another portal," Bruce began saying, "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?" Thor asked.

"He's an astrophysicist."

"He's a friend." 

"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours," Natasha said, referring to Agent Barton. Jessie could tell the red head was saddened with the thought of her friend being gone.

"I wanna know why Loki let us take him," Jessie spoke up staring at the table she sat at. "He's not leading an army from here."

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Bruce said. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him."

"I don't care how you speak," Thor said. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother."

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

"He's adopted."

"I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?" Jessie asked herself but out loud. Tony walked in speaking with Coulson.

"It's a stabilizing agent," Tony said to Jessie as he walked in with Coulson. He began speaking to Coulson, the others hearing. "I'll fly you there. Keep the love alive." Tony then looked to Jessie and continued to answer her question. "Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D." He walked by Thor and over to the computer station where Fury stands.

"No hard feelings, Point Break," he said to Thor as he walked by, patting him on the arm, "You've got a mean swing." He stood between the computers and turned to look at Jessie. "Also, it mean the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long as Loki wants." He turned to the ship's crew. "Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails. That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did." He the covered his eye looking around. "How does Fury do this?"

"He turns," Agent Hill replied. Tony walked around the monitors, placing a button sized hacking device on one without people noticing.

"Well, that sounds exhausting. 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."

"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?" Jessie shook her head.

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked.

"He got to heat the Cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce replied.

"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect," Jessie replied.

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally, some people who speak English," Tony announced breaking the connection Bruce and Jessie were having from their conversation. He walked over to the two conversing scientists and shook hands with them.

"Is that what just happened?" Steve asked looking to Jessie. She smiled at him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner, and you officially, Sergeant Evans," Tony greeted Bruce and Jessie, a glimmer in their eyes at the respect they gave each other for knowing about science. Tony began speaking with Bruce, "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster." Bruce looked down.

"Thanks," he said quietly. Nick walked into the room and began speaking to the group.

"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube," he spoke. "I was hoping you and Sergeant Evans might join him."

"Let's start with that stick of his," Steve suggested. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon."

"I agree with Steven," Jessie said. Tony looked at her confused.

"Uh, his name is Captain," he said.

"Shut up."

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

"Monkeys?" Thor asked confused with the statement. "I do not understand."

"I do!" Steve exclaimed. "I understood that reference." Tony rolled his eyes at Steve's proud understanding of the statement.

"Shall we play, doctor? Sergeant?" Tony asked Bruce.

"Let's play some," Bruce replied as they began to walk to the lab. Jessie stood up and gave Steve a quick hug before catching up with the two. Everyone else from the group walked off, and Coulson tried to stay calm when he saw Steve and Jessie hug, trying not to fangirl.

In the lab, Bruce scanned the scepter with a gamma ray detector, trying to detect any radiation. Tony was looking at the monitors, shifting and solving algorithms and equations. Jessie was sitting at a table fixing her metal arm. Bruce set the scanner on the table and turned to his computer.

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract," Bruce stated out loud to the other scientists in the room. "But it's gonna take weeks to process."

"If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster," Jessie began saying to Bruce, "We can clock this around six hundred teraflops."

"All I packed was a tooth brush." Tony smiled.

"You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime" Tony suggested to Bruce. "Top ten floors all R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land. As for you Sergeant, my dad always talked about you, but I never knew you were this smart."

"What did Howard say about me?" Jessie asked.

"He mostly brought up facts about you being 'one of the greatest soldiers in history.' His words. Then again, he never really talked to me so I don't entirely know what he thought or said. But I've seen you fight, and I have to say; you do fight good. And you're also better with modern technology than the Captain is. How? And really? Steven?"

"Thanks. Steven is his name, and yes, I am better with technology than he is. Clint and Natasha taught me all I needed to know about it. You should've seen Steve when he first used a smartphone. Most hilarious thing I've ever seen."

"Thanks, Tony, about the offer," Bruce said after thinking about the offer, "But the last time I was in New York I kind of broke... Harlem."

"Well, I promise a stress free environment," Tony replied. "No tension. No surprises." He then poked Banner with a miniature electrical prod. Steve walked in witnessing what happened. He looked at Tony, irritated with his childish actions.

"Ow!" Bruce exclaimed at the pain from the small shock.

"Nothing?"

"Hey! Are you nuts?" Steve asked Tony.

"You really have got a lid on it, haven't you?" Tony asked ignoring Steve. Jessie looked up at the blond Super Soldier then back to the metal arm in front of her. "What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"

"Is everything a joke to you?" Jessie asked paying keeping her gaze on the arm.

"Funny things are." Jessie looked up, a serious look on her face.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, doctor."

"No, it's alright," Bruce said. "I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."

"You're tiptoeing, big man," Tony said. "You need to strut."

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," Steve said.

"You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us and 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?" Jessie asked.

"He's a spy. Evans, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets. It's bugging him too, isn't it?" Bruce looked up and saw the three looking at him.

"Uh... I just wanna finished my work here and..."

"I second that," Jessie quietly said giving Bruce a smile which he slightly returned.

"Doctor?" Steve asked.

"A warm light for all mankind," Bruce quoted, "Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube."

"I heard it." Bruce pointed to Tony.

"Well, I think it was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it's still all over the news."

"The Stark Tower? That big ugly..." Tony gave Steve a look saying, Continue and you're dead, stop talking and you're still dead. "...building in New York."

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

"That's just the prototype," Tony said. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."

"So, why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. bring him on the Tesseract project?" Bruce asked referring to Tony. "I mean, 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 photos."

"I'm sorry, did you say...?" Steve was taken aback by what Tony had said.

"Are you hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Jessie asked.

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge," Tony said, sounding proud of himself. "In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. Has ever tried to hide." He held out a bag of blueberries which he was now eating from. "Blueberry?"

"Yet you didn't get confused about why they didn't want you around?" Steve asked ignoring the offer.

"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."

"Following is not really my style." Jessie smiled slightly.

"And you're all about style, aren't you?" she asked. Tony looked at her, no emotion on his face.

"Of the people in this room, which one's are; A. Wearing a spangly outfit, and B. Not of use?" Jessie stayed quiet and stared at Tony, then looked to Steve.

"Steve, Jess," Bruce said, "tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" Steve took in the possibility of what both Tony and Bruce had said, but shook it off being acquiescent.

"Just find the Cube," he said, walking off. Jessie watched him as he walked out of the room.

"That's the man my dad never shut up about?" Tony asked. Jessie looked to him.

"Just stay off his case, Tony, and mine," Jessie warned.

"Wonder if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."

"The guy's not wrong about Loki," Bruce said. "He does have a jump on us."

"What he's got is an ACME dynamite kit. It's gonna blow up in his face, and I'm gonna be there when it does."

"Yep, and I'm gonna read all about it."

"Uh-huh," Tony began saying, "Or you'll be suiting up with the rest of us."

"Did it!" Jessie exclaimed. Both of the older men looked to her as she looked like a kid who just walked into a candy store. She looked up. Tony looked confused. "I fixed the arm by myself, no help needed from you."

"Congratulations," Tony said sarcastically with a small smile. Bruce gave the 26 year old a warm smile before looking back at Tony.

"Now you see," Bruce spoke up, "I don't get a suit of armor. I'm exposed. Like a nerve. It's a nightmare." Jessie put the cybernetic arm on covering her flesh one and tested it out.

"I've got a cluster of shrapnel trying every second to crawl its way into my heart. This stops it." Tony tapped the Arc Reactor on his chest. "This little circle of light, it's part of me now, not just armor." He walked over and stood on the other side of the screen Bruce was working at. "It's a terrible privilege."

"Seems like we all have our problems," Jessie spoke. The two men turned to look at her.

"And what's your problem?" Tony asked. She looked up at him, a smirk on her face.

"The serum? It takes over my anger making me out of control. Hazardous. Like a weapon. A bomb. I was stuck in isolation till the end of the war because of it. Also, this arm, it help protects my actual arm which was damaged by grenade shrapnel in '42."

"Guess you're right," Bruce said. "We do have our problems. But you can control it."

"Because I learned how. After being unfrozen by S.H.I.E.L.D. I trained at the gym with Nat, I focused on life and starting over. I left my past behind."

"It's different."

"Hey-" Tony began saying, swiping the screen making everything covering it move to one side, "-you two keep leaving me out of the bonding moments. I read about all your accident, Banner. That much gamma exposure should've killed you."

"So you're saying that the Hulk... The other guy saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Save it for what?"

"I guess we'll find out." Tony began to walk away, walking back to his desk.

"You may not enjoy that."

"And you just might."