Gwen stared out into the ocean while on the S.H.I.E.L.D. base and was told that she was waiting to meet one more person; Bruce Banner, or the Hulk. Gwen didn’t understand why people called him a monster. If someone was trying to kill her and had the army after her, you could damn sure she’d destroy Harlem, too. “Miss Falcon,” she heard someone say, snapping her out of her thoughts. She turned her head to see Coulson standing there accompanied by a man with curly brown hair, warm brown eyes, and a small smile on his tan face. “This is Doctor Bruce Banner. Doctor Banner, this is Gwendolyn Falcon.” Gwen stood up, offering her hand.

“Gwen,” she said, smiling at him warmly, sensing his nervousness.

“Bruce,” he said, shaking her hand with his warm hand. He stared down at her hand in surprise.

“Sorry, I know it’s cold,” she said, shrugging apologetically.

“It’s fine, I just wasn’t expecting it. Do you have a power?” He asked. She glanced behind him quickly to see Rogers looking at her too, wondering the same thing. She nodded.

“Yes, and Captain Rogers, I’m sorry, but you’re going to hate this,” she said, and then held up her hand. It was instantly covered in ice. Rogers’ eyes widened slightly, and he took a step back. “Don’t worry, Captain Rogers, I promise that I won’t use it around you unless absolutely necessary,” she promised. He shook his head.

“Ma’am, it’s fine. I need to get over this fear,” he said.

“After what you’ve been through, no one can blame you for being wary of ice,” Banner said, already knowing what Rogers went through and the fear that now claims him. Gwen nodded her agreement. After a couple minutes of an awkward silence, Fury and Hill walked over to them, explaining that they needed help getting the Tesseract back from Loki. Banner told them that the only way he could locate the Gamma radiations by using some high-tech thingy-ma-jig that Gwen was too tired to even try to understand. She rubbed tiredly at her eyes, and then stood next to Rogers while they waited to see if the face-reorganization software could pick up one where Loki was.

After a few minutes, or what at least felt like a few minutes, someone was calling out, “got a hit! Seventy percent match. Wait, it just raised to eighty nine.”

“Where?” Fury demanded, looking over at the man.

“Germany.” Natasha grabbed my arm, and we made our way to a jet quickly. We got a pilot, with Natasha as co-pilot, and we were waiting on Rogers. A couple minutes later, he walked into the jet, decked out in red, white, and blue. He sat down next across from her, leaning his shield against the seat beside him.

A few hours later they let Rogers off the jet, because he wanted to be the one that confronted him first, the jet lingered in the air away from the fight for a couple minutes before lowering and aiming guns at Loki. “[i]Loki, drop your weapons![/i]” Natasha said over the intercom. A couple seconds later, music started playing through the speakers; ACDC.

“[i]Miss me?[/i]” A voice said throughout the jet and Gwen smiled slightly, recognizing Stark’s voice. She watched as he landed beside Rogers, weapons out. “Make a move, reindeer games,” he said, making Gwen snort in amusement. Loki held up his hands, his armor vanishing. “Good move.” The two below stayed quiet for a couple seconds.

“Mister Stark.”

“Captain.”
















When they were all on the jet, Gwen was sitting next to Loki while Rogers and Stark talked near where Natasha and the pilot were seated. Gwen was messing with her phone, attempting to block out the fact that a God was sitting right next to her. “Who are you?” She heard the man say. She glanced over at him from the corner of her eye and then continued to ignore him.

“Hey, Ice Princess,” Stark called. Gwen glanced up at him with a glare.

“Don’t call me that, Stark,” she gritted out, standing up and walking towards him and Rogers. “What?”

“I don’t like it,” Rogers commented, glancing at Loki.

“What? Rock of Ages giving up so easily?” Stark asked.

“I don’t remember it ever being that easy. This guy packs a wallop.” Gwen attempted to hold back a chuckle at his forties lingo.

“Still, you are pretty spry for an older fellow. What’s your thing? Pilates?”

“What?” Rogers asked, looking at Stark. Gwen just watched in amusement.

“It’s like calisthenics. You might have missed a couple things, you know, doing time as Capsicle.” Rogers gave Stark an annoyed look.

“Fury didn’t tell me he was calling you in,” Rogers mentioned.

“Yeah,” Stark said, giving Rogers a smirk. There’s a lot of things Fury doesn’t tell you.” Gwen opened her mouth to say something, but lightening flashing stopped her.

“Where is this coming from?” She heard Natasha asked.

“What’s wrong? Afraid of a little lightening?” Rogers asked, looking at Loki. Gwen turned around to see Loki looking tense.

“I’m not overly fond of what follows,” he said. A couple seconds later, after a huge crash of thunder, something landed hard on the top of the jet.

“The hell?” Gwen muttered, looking up. Stark put his helmet back on and opened the gate to the jet.

“Stark? What are you doing?” Rogers asked. Stark said something back, but Gwen was paying too much attention to Loki. Was that slight fear on his face? Something landed on the opening and Gwen looked at the dude entering, startled. Fuck, was that Thor? He pushed Stark, when he got too close, into Rogers. Gwen almost got hit by one of Stark’s flailing limbs, but she ducked in time. She looked up to see Thor grab Loki and jumped out of the jet with him.

“Damnit,” Stark cursed, standing up. He walked back towards the opening, but Rogers tried to stop him.

“Stark! We need a plan of attack!”

“I have a plan; attack!” Stark said before jumping out of the jet. Rogers sighed loudly and grabbed a parachute.

“I’d sit this one out, Cap,” Natasha advised.

“I don’t see how I can.”

“These guys come from Legend. They’re basically Gods.”

“There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m sure he doesn’t dress like that,” Rogers said before jumping out of the jet like Stark did a minute earlier. Gwen sighed, and plopped down.

“Now what?” She asked. Natasha shrugged.

“I guess the only thing we can do is land and wait to see what happens.” They landed the jet and waited, somewhat, patiently for Stark and Rogers to bring back Loki.

After about what felt like hours to Gwen, Stark and Rogers clambered back onto the jet, Loki in between them, and with Thor trailing behind them. Rogers sat Loki down in the seat opposite of Gwen, and he and Thor sat on either side of him. Stark sat down next to Gwen, giving her a bright smile. “Hey there, Ice Princess.”

“Stop calling me that, Stark.”

“You know you like it.” Gwen snorted at that.

“Yeah, sure, Stark.”













Gwen drummed her fingers onto the table she, Natasha, Banner, and Rogers were all sitting around. They were waiting on Thor and Stark to get there. A couple minutes later, Thor walks in and stands behind Gwen’s chair. She turned slightly so she could face everyone and looked at Rogers, recognizing the face of someone wanting to ask something.

“Thor, what’s his play?” Rogers asked, looking at Thor.

“He has an army, called the Chitauri. 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,” Thor said.

“An army. From outer space,” Steve said, seeming like he was trying to comprehend it all.

“So he’s building another portal. That’s what he needs Erik Selvig for,” Banner said, realizing his plan.

“Selvig?” Thor asked.

“He’s an astrophysicist,” Banner explained.

“He’s a friend,” Thor said lowly.

“Loki has them under some kind of spell. Along with one of ours,” Natasha said darkly at the fact that Clint was compromised.

“I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He’s not leading an army from here,” Rogers mused.

“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 added. Gwen snorted in laughter. She completely agreed with him.

“Have a care how you speak! Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard and he is my brother!” Thor defended.

“He killed eighty people in two days,” Natasha said. Thor paused.

“He’s adopted.” Gwen let out a laugh, and then quickly schooled her features when they looked at her.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?” Rogers asked, ignoring Gwen’s outburst.

“He’s got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier,” Banner said.

“Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect,” Stark said, coming out of nowhere with Coulson.

“Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet,” Banner added.

“Finally, someone who speaks English,” Stark said, moving towards Banner and shaking his hand.

“Is that what just happened?” Rogers asked. Gwen smiled sympathetically at him.

“Don’t worry, Rogers. I have no idea what they’re going on about either,” she said.

“It’s good to meet you, Doctor Banner. 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.” Banner looked uncomfortable after Stark said that.

“Thanks,” was all he said. Fury walked in and looked at Stark.

“Doctor Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him,” he said.

“Let’s start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon,” Rogers said.

“I don’t know about that,” Fury started, “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, looking around, confused. “I do not understand.”

“I do!” Rogers shouted, looking happy. “I understood that reference.” Gwen saw Stark roll his eyes, and then look at Banner.

“Shall we play, Doctor?” He asked. Banner nodded and the two started walking towards the doors. Stark paused and looked back at the blond. “Hey, Ice Princess? You wanna join?” Gwen rolled her ice-like eyes.

“Sure, and seriously, Stark. Stop calling me Ice Princess,” she ground out between clenched teeth. She stood up, following the two brilliant men into the lab. Stark sat Gwen down in a chair when they got to the lab and told her to, “just sit there and look pretty.”

Gwen watched them work for about an hour, listening intently to some of the things they said, and then felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She fished it out of her pocket and looked at the screen. It was a text from Alex.

Is there a reason I just saw the Quinjet you got into yesterday hovering over a fucking God in Germany on the news?

Uh-oh. He was texting in complete sentences. She quickly text back a reply.

It’s kind of top secret.

She didn’t have to wait long for a reply.

Please be careful. I don’t like the look of that guy. Neither does the Professor or Erik.

She sighed in relief. At least he didn’t use all caps on her.

I will. Tell everyone I love them and that I’ll be home as soon as I can.

We love you, too.

Gwen slipped her phone back into her pocket. She looked back over at Banner and Stark and saw them both working on intently on the screens in front of them. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, hoping to get a couple minutes of sleep.

Notes

Sorry about the wait. Hope everyone likes it. Thanks.