As I was walking down the hallway towards the lab, I met up with Thor. “Are you okay?” He asked, sounding concerned. “I’m fine…” I lied, but Thor saw right through it. “It’s what Loki said, isn’t it?” He asked. I just nodded. “Don’t worry Madison…We won’t let him hurt Agent Barton...” He said, reassuringly. I gave him a smile, and we continued to walk to the lab in silence. When we neared the lab, I heard Cap say, “Phase 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D uses the cube to make weapons...” WHAT?! I thought, I heard something else being said, but it was too muffled for me to hear. Then I heard Fury speak, “Rogers, we collected everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we’re making...” “I’m sorry Nick, What were you lying?” I heard Tony interject. Thor and I walked in as Steve was about to say. When he saw me, he turned to me. “I was wrong, Madison, the world hasn’t changed a bit.” I sighed. I walked up to Fury, extremely angry with Fury. “Weapons! You’re making weapons?! You’ve got to be kidding! I can’t believe it! You’re making freaking weapons! This is what we lost Clint for!” I exploded. Everyone was staring, and I didn’t care. I knew that I was quiet, but if I’m really pissed off at something, I can get very hot-mouthed and very aggressive.

Fury looked surprised at me, and he opened his mouth to respond to me, but Banner spoke first. He pointed at Natasha, “Did you know about this?” “You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?” She said, trying to remain as calm as possible, and also avoiding the question. “I was Calcutta; I was pretty well removed…” He said. I gave Nat a look, which said; how could you keep this from Clint and I? She responded by giving me a sympathetic look, before turning her attention back to Bruce. “Loki’s manipulating you.”

She said, with a dark tone. “And you’ve been doing what exactly?” He retorted. “You didn’t come here because I betted my eyelashes at you.” She replied, her tone still dark. “Yes, and I’m leaving just because suddenly you get a little twitchy. I’m curious to know why S.H.I.E.L.D is using the Tesseract to create weapons of mass destruction.” I opened my mouth to say something, and then I closed it. He had a point. We all turned to Fury, who sighed before turning and pointing at Thor. “Because of him.” He said, plainly. “Me?” Thor asked, sounding confused. “Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that levelled a small town. We learned that not only are we alone, but we are hopelessly…hilariously outgunned.”

Fury explained. I just rolled my eyes. “My people want nothing but peace with your planet.” Thor cut in. “But you’re the only people out there are you? And you aren’t the only threat. The world’s filling up with people who can’t be matched. Who can’t be controlled.” “Like you control the Cube..” I said, rolling my eyes. “Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it and his allies…” Thor said. “You’re obviously showing other people that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war…” I interjected; I knew where Thor was going with this. “A higher form?” Steve asked, with a questioning look on his face. “You forced our hand. We had to come up with something…” Fury said. “A nuclear deterrent. Because that always calms things right down...” Tony said. I cocked my head in his direction. He had a point. Fury turned around and threw a snarky remark in his face. “Remind me again, how you made your fortune Stark?”

“I’m sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck-deep…” “Wait, wait. Hold on. How is this now about me?” “I’m sorry, isn’t everything?” Cap replied. “I thought humans were more evolved than this.” “Excuse me! Did we come to your planet, and blow stuff up?” Fury asked, angrily turning to Thor. Natasha turned to me, and gave another sympathetic look. “I’m really sorry about this Madison, we’ll find him soon. Don’t apologize, it’s not going to help us find him any quicker.” I said, just then I was interrupted by Athena. Athena is my Artificial intelligence, before I worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. I created her as a mock replica of Tony Stark’s Jarvis . I had hacked into his system at some point, and copied his plans, but I added a few things to personalize Athena to make her human-like. “Miss Carter..” “Not now, Athena.” I said, sternly. “But, Miss Carter…” “Eípa , den xéro̱!” TRANSLATION: I said, not right now

I said, angrily. Everyone turned to look at me, with confused looks on their faces. “When, I’m angry I speak Greek okay.?” I said, cocking my head. They had all stopped arguing for the moment. Steve still looked pretty angry, Thor then said, “You speak of control, yet you court chaos.” Everyone started up again. “Guys, we can’t work together, if all we do is fight!” I said, trying desperately to stop the argument. “What are we? A team? No, we’re not a team. We’re a chemical mixture that creates chaos. We’re…we’re a time bomb…” Banner replied.

We all stopped arguing to consider his point. “You really need to step away…” Fury said, to Bruce as he slowly inched closer towards the sceptre. “Why shouldn’t the guy let off a little steam?” Tony asked. “You damn well why. Back off!!” Steve said. “I’m starting to want you to make.” Tony shot back, at Steve. “Yeah. Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off what are?” “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist…” He said, cockily. Natasha and I cocked our eyebrows at that. “I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. You may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero. The only thing you fight for is yourself, and I’ve seen the footage.” Steve said, with a dark tone. “A hero? Like you? You’re a laboratory experiment Rogers, everything special about you, came out of a bottle.” Tony said, his tone even darker than Steve’s. “Stark. Rogers. Stop it. We need to focus…”

“Shut up, Madison. Who told you that? You knew no one!” From the look on his face, I could tell that Tony wanted to take it back, as soon as he said it. I glared at him, Natasha saw a look in my eyes, she held onto one of my arms. “Hey, give her a break will ya?” Steve said, angrily. “You can’t talk to her like that!” Steve said, defensively. “What are you going to do about it? I already said it!” Tony said, cockily. “Put on the suit, let’s find out.”

Suddenly Thor laughed. “You people are so petty….and tiny.” “Yeah, this is a team…” Banner scoffed. “Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner to his…” “Where? You rented my room!” “The cell was just in case…” “You needed to kill me! But you can’t! I know, I tried.” He said, darkly. Everyone stopped talking to listen. I gasped, he looked at me. “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 people. I was good. Until you brought me back into this freak show. And putting everyone here at risk…” He looked at Nat, and I reached for my hand gun, because I had noticed that Banner was reaching for the sceptre. “You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?” I had lifted my gun from the holster, just as Nick and Nat did the same. “Dr. Banner…” I said, calmly. “Put down the sceptre.”

Cap finished for me. Het set it down, looking ashamed of himself. A computer started beeping, and he headed for it, I followed him. “Sorry, kids I guess you don’t get to see my party trick after all…” Just then, I heard Athena’s voice in my ear again. “Miss Carter…” “What is it Athena?” “I’ve located Agent Barton, he is right…” BOOM! There was a huge explosion, and I fell through the window behind me and Bruce. I landed on my back on the level below us. I felt something heavy on top of my foot. “Maddy!” I heard Nat, Cap, and Tony yell into my ear. “We’re okay!” I responded, I looked over to see Bruce lying beside me, and he looked a little….shaken up. Oh no! I thought, worriedly.

“We’re okay…right?”