Chapter 10: Tony, Please Focus

Kat watched through the monitor next to Natasha as Fury confronted Loki who was currently in his cell.

"In case it's unclear, you try to escape- you so much as scratch that glass-" Fury explained, pressing a button on the panel next to him. The floor below Loki's cell retracts leaving the open sky in its place, the wind howling and whipping through the room. "Thirty thousand feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works? Ant." He continues gesturing to Loki, then the panel. "Boot."

"It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me." Loki comments, glancing over at the camera in the corner of the room. His stare burning all the way through the lens and the monitor, as if he could see all of them watching.

"Built for something a lot stronger than you."

"Oh, I've heard...A mindless beast- makes play he's still a man..."

Kat glanced over at Banner, knowing that the comments were meant for him. He didn't appear bothered by it, but she could sense the mix of shame, embarrassment, and frustration radiating off of him.

"...How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?" The god continues, his gaze locked on Fury.

"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war, to steal a force you can't hope to control, you talk about peace, and you kill because it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did." The director replies, never breaking eye-contact with the god before him.

"Ooh. It burns you to have come so close, to have the Tesseract, to have power- unlimited power, and for what? A warm light for all mankind to share?" Loki said, glancing at the camera then turning back to Fury. "And then to be reminded what real power is."

Fury surprisingly smiles as he leaves without a second glance, "Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something."

The monitor shuts off as Kat blinks, having finally calmed down from her interesting encounter earlier in the woods. The entire group sighs as they sat, speechless, at the conference table in the bridge.

Banner then cut through the strange silence. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?"

"Loki's going to drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?" Steve speaks, looking to the god standing off to the side.

"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." Thor replies.

Steve blinks, "An army, from outer space?"

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

Thor's brows furrow in confusion, "Selvig?"

"He's an astrophysicist."

"He's a friend."

"Loki has them under some kind of spell- " Nat adds, but Kat finishes for her.

"Along with one of ours."

The woman's hand finds the girl's under the table, slightly squeezing it for comfort. Kat returned the gesture, trying to push all of the poisonous thoughts of what Clint had been doing since that night. She knew it wasn't really Clint, but she knew that she had to have hope.

As much a Natasha and Kat were like sisters, Clint and the girl were almost twins. Although they didn't look that much alike, they did have very similar personalities. They shared same attitude, and with him not here, it was getting harder and harder to look on the bright side. He had always been the one to cheer her up and give her hope. She knew for a fact that he would want her to be the same even without him there; but it was harder than anything she had done before. And realizing that was more painful than getting shot in the leg.

Steve's voice suddenly brought her back to reality. "I want to know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here."

"I was thinking the same thing." Kat added, remembering Loki's odd cooperation on the cliffside, "He didn't try to run, or escape, or anything. When I found him, he didn't even try to fight me. He had the perfect opportunity, so... why didn't he take it?"

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you can smell crazy on him." Banner advises; Thor taking offense to the comment.

"Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother."

"He killed eighty people in two days." The girls chorused, gazing over at him.

"He's adopted?"

Kat chuckled under her breath at Thor's quick change of opinion as Banner continues the conversation.

"I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium, what do they need the Iridium for?"

"It's a sta—" Kat began, but another voice interrupted and overpowered her own.

"It's a stabilizing agent." Tony Stark answered, muttering to Coulson who had walked in with him. "I'm saying, take a weekend. I'll fly you to Portland. Keep love alive."

Coulson blushed and split away from Tony, heading over to stand next to Thor.

Tony, unfazed, continued as he strolled in, seeming to be as comfortable in the hectic bridge as he would be in his own home, "Means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D. No hard feelings point break, you got a mean swing." The genius spoke to Thor, patting him on the arm with the back of his hand, earning a glare from both the god and Kat, though he continued to ignore both of them. "Also, means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants. Ah, raise the mizzen mast, ship the topsails!" He ordered sarcastically, causing eye rolls and strange looks to be exchanged by the rest of the people in the room.

"Tony, I think you should sit—" Kat tried to reason with the man but was interrupted.

"That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." Tony shouted, pointing out another agent in the control center, completely ignoring the girl. He then covers one eye, looking around at the control panels in front of him, making Kat raise an eyebrow, unsure of what he was doing. "How does Fury even see these?"

"He turns." Maria Hill states with her signature 'no-nonsense' attitude.

"Sounds exhausting."

Kat couldn't help but shake her head, scoffing at his immaturity. Usually, she didn't mind it, she even found it amusing seeing as she'd spent the majority of her life living with trained soldiers and assassins. There wasn't much time for joking, so Tony's antics were something she normally would've welcomed, but with the previous events, she was exhausted and just wanted to get to the point and find a way to win this war. "Tony, please focus."

Glancing in her direction, not only could Tony hear her tone of voice, but could see how she sat slumped into her chair. Even when off duty, she would sit up straight in her chair at attention, a side effect of her intense training as a kid, always on high alert, but now she was leaning up against the back of her chair, her head propped up by her hand. And although there was distance between the two, he could see the violet rings underneath her slightly glassy eyes.

He could see the way her shoulders were so tense they were almost to her ears. It was obvious that the girl had lost sleep over the dilemma. Honestly, she hadn't slept properly since before Loki had arrived, not even able to get more than fifteen minutes of sleep at a time. And that didn't even include all of the strenuous activity she had done in the meantime. Her powers were the only source of energy she had, and it was quite literally the only thing keeping her awake at this point.

Deciding to oblige her, he began to discuss the topic at hand, "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 of high energy density. Something to kick start the Cube."

Hill's head tilted, "When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?"

"Last night." Tony blurted out, "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 asked.

"He'd have to heat the Cube to a hundred and twenty million kelvin just to break through the um—the—" Kat explained, leaning forward, and resting her forearms on the chilly glass table, snapping her fingers trying to remember what she had studied, though the sleep deprivation wasn't helping.

"The Coulomb barrier." Banner finished for her, nodding to her when she quietly thanked him.

Tony's eyebrows raised at her, impressed, "Someone's been studying."

"You're not the only one who did the reading." She shot back.

"Well, that is unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the Quantum Tunneling effect." Stark continued.

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

"Finally, people who speak English." Tony sighed, his gaze switching between Kat and Bruce.

Cap looked to the others in confusion, "Is that what just happened?"

Kat couldn't help but smile a bit at his innocence despite the fact that he was seventy years old as Tony shook Bruce's hand.

"It's good to meet you, Doctor Banner. Your work on anti-electronic collisions is unparalleled." Tony said in a very mature fashion, but that quickly changed, "And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

"...Thanks." Bruce muttered, catching a glimpse of Katrina rubbing the bridge of her nose at the man's behavior. She was itching to slap him upside the head, but she didn't feel like moving from her chair at the moment. Though, his face scrunched in confusion when she quickly perked up, back at attention, but the question wasn't unanswered for long. The one-eyed Director soon walked onto the bridge. She could always sense the man's aura before he would even walk into the room.

"Doctor Banner is only here to track the Cube. I was hoping you might join him." Fury states.

"I'd start with that stick of his." Captain Roger's 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 added, "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? I do not understand—" Thor questioned but was quickly interrupted by an excited Steve.

"I do!" The super-soldier shouted, though he quickly became uncomfortable under all of their stares, "I...I understood that reference."

Rolling his eyes and dismissing the Captain, Tony turned to Banner, "Shall we play, Doctor?"

"This way, sir." Banner responded as they walk off down a hall, but they didn't get far before Tony turned on his heel to the young girl.

"Kat, since you did your research, would you like to join us?" Tony asked, hoping to get a chance to talk to her and get a read on her, but she didn't get to answer him.

Fury laid a firm hand on her shoulder, keeping her in her chair. "Agent Hart has some matters she needs to attend to with Agent Coulson."

"Alright then. Let's go, Doc." Tony said, almost in sarcastic surrender under the stern man's gaze.

Kat immediately tensed when Fury mentioned that she needed to 'attend to some manners' with Coulson, which meant he was most likely going to scold her for her behavior in the field, and she was not looking forward to it. At that moment, she would've rather been scolded by Fury.

~

"What happened to 'when have I ever disobeyed orders', Katrina?" Coulson asked, as they stood in a vacant conference room. She didn't even need her powers to sense the tension in his body and between him and her.

Kat threw her arms up as she sat in one of the chairs around the small table, "I've already been over this with Natasha, Coulson. How did I disobey orders?"

If this were a discussion with Director Fury, the conversation would be very different, but to her it felt more like a lecture from father to daughter than from a superior to a lower-level agent. Plus, she was tired of repeating herself. She didn't understand how no one could see that what she did was necessary. If she hadn't stepped in, she wasn't sure what would've happened.

"You engaged. If I'm not mistaken, your mission was to protect and clear the civilians away from the area. That was your only mission."

"Which I completed! Everyone was cleared from the streets before I stepped in. And my gut was telling me to help Rogers, so I trusted it! Isn't that what you told me to do?"

"You should've let the others handle it. Loki could've seriously injured or killed you." Coulson spoke through gritted teeth.

"Again, I've already been over this, that risk comes with the territory. Why is everyone treating me like a kid?" Kat shouted, shocked that after over years of strenuous training, where she was, in a way, forced to become an adult at an extremely young age they still questioned her judgement. They had always claimed that they trusted her. Why now were they questioning it?

What she didn't realize was now that she was in the line of fire, it became real to the adults that had not only trained her, but also raised her and watched her grow up, that they were the ones that weren't prepared for her to be in harm's way. In all of her training of prepared her to protect herself and others, they hadn't prepared themselves for the fear of losing her. And it hit them like a brick wall.

"Katrina, that is exactly what you are! You are thirteen! A child!"

"Is that what Fury thinks?" Kat wondered, her fists clenched, "Because I don't think he would've sent me out there if he didn't trust my judgement. If he thought I was a child... If he did, I wouldn't even be on this helicarrier. I would be back in some remote, top-secret facility, in a training room, not seeing a fight other than on a computer screen...Tell me I'm wrong."

A tense silence filled the air between them. Coulson hated to admit it, even to himself, that she was right. Fury was the most critical man he had ever met, who's judgement he trusted without a doubt, and who would never let a soldier who was incompetent out on the battlefield. But, again, he would never admit this, seeing as it would only encourage the girl more.

Even more so than he hated to admit that her reasoning was correct, he also kept the fact that Fury had told him that he was impressed with her progress on the field. Despite the fact that she had ultimately ended up down on the ground in her fights with Loki, she had held up impressively well against the god. This was especially true for her age and the short time that she had been training, seeing as most wouldn't be at her level after less than a decade of training. This had been her first fight against a threat from another world. She had been on missions before, but typically it was against threats from this world, and ones that had an already-planned procedure. Her time was usually saved for missions that pertained to her expertise.

After a few moments of Coulson giving no response, she scoffed, "You can't. Because you know I'm right. So, what is the actual problem?...Do you not trust me? Is that what this is?"

"Kat...I..." The man hesitated. He wasn't sure why.

"You don't. So, you lied to me." She realized, her angry expression turning to one of hurt, referencing his statement from before she left to apprehend Loki. "Why?"

Coulson tried to explain that he wasn't lying. To try and tell her that he did trust her. That he was proud of her. Of everything she had done. He tried to explain everything, but nothing would come out. He honestly wasn't sure how to tell her. No words would come to him.

"Wow. Alright, I-I think--I think we're done here." Kat spoke in a shaky voice, the hurt clear in her eyes that someone who's judgement she trusted with everything she had, didn't trust her's. "Thanks for the confidence."

"Kat, wait—" He called out to her as she passed him grasping her arm, but he stopped when she yanked her arm out of his hold, and stomped out of the room.