He entered the cell, the prison built for another with a rough smirk on his face. He wanted all of them to know how amusing he found the whole situation, leaving all the humans, his brother, and even the Kryptonian, with a sense of unease.
It was all too easy at times. I wish the fools were less rash, but I suppose this would never work if they weren't so gullible.
He listened to Director Fury with half-hearted attention, only really gaining the gist of what he was saying when he gestured to the controls for the cage, showcasing how it could be dropped out of the Helicarrier.
"As if a simple fall like that would be an issue for one that survived the Void."
"An excellent cage," Loki said, turning to face Director Fury for the first time since he had been brought to the Helicarrier. "Not built, I think, for me."
"It's built for something much stronger than you."
Loki intentionally looked into the camera, knowing from his connection to the Scepter that the monster playing at being a man would be watching this as they spoke.
"The mindless beast makes play he's still a man," Just as you once did, his mind supplied cruelly. "How desperate are you, that you call upon such lost creatures to defend you?"
"How desperate am I?" Fury replied, his glare rivaling Odin, and not because they both had the single eye only. "You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace and you kill `cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."
But Loki saw something else in there, it was more than just threatening his world.
"Oh, it burns you," The Jotun turned Aesir grinned savagely. "It burns you to come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is."
Loki knew he had him there, if this had been the All-Father there would be yells of fury at the accusation, but the Director was of calmer stuff than Odin. Fury just smiled with an expression that rivaled Loki's own.
"Well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something."
Fury walked off, leaving the Norse God in the cage made for another. Loki looked back up to the camera and smiled once more.
"Oh, I'll not need a magazine with the entertainment that you've provided me."
(Bobbi Morse)
"I have to wonder if you're losing shirts on purpose?" she asked him as he stepped into the Helicarrier control room. He was, as always, without a blemish on his skin; impressive given the reports of Loki drawing blood and of Thor smacking him around and blasting him with lightning but the lack of any top was becoming such a common occurrence that she couldn't help but comment.
"Hey, when you got it, flaunt it." he winked, making a joke of the question before grabbing the SHIELD Issue jacket that she'd been told to bring.
Doyle had been the first to enter the room, with Rogers following soon behind him… it was then that Morse saw the blond Norse God walking in. He was wearing a similar outfit to the reports, minus the chainmail on the arms but his cape seemed to have been folded away somewhere, the only sign of their existence being the parts peaking over his shoulders. The Gamma scientists were back in their labs, studying the newly arrived Scepter.
"Kryptonian, I would have a word with you." The Prince calmly ordered, but no matter the calm manner that he spoke Doyle still bristled at the command.
Morse took a few steps back but was still close enough to overhear the two aliens speak with each other.
"You have done well in defending this world but your services are no longer needed," Thor said this as if he was trying to take a great weight from the other man's shoulders. "Return to your home, Earth is under Asgardian protection."
"..." Doyle blinked as if he was confused by being told to go home. The reason for his confusion wasn't a mystery for long because the reporter glared at him with enough intensity that she'd felt the need to grab an extinguisher. "You really are an ejit."
"Mind your words-"
"There is no return," The revealed Kryptonian interrupted the Prince with a wave of his hand a sharp whisper. "Krypton's been destroyed for many years now, due to space travel I'm unsure how long but at least twenty two years. So stop telling me to go home, I am home."
That was rather alarming information to learn, especially given the abilities that Doyle's displayed over his stay on Earth. The homeworld of a species as powerful as this man? Maybe even more so… it was a humbling thought to the human chance of survival.
It also made Thor's comment about returning home rather ignorant.
Thor's mouth held agape but before he could say anything else Doyle stepped away from him and joined Hill, and Romanoff up by the center of the command center. Morse followed after, ignoring the rather shell shocked expression that passed over Thor's face.
She didn't know him very well, so Morse didn't want to intercede where she might not be wanted. They then started to watch Loki and Fury speak to each other,
"Loki's going to drag this out," Rogers spoke, his voice drawing Thor's attention back to the matter at hand and not at his rather sizable faux pas. "So Thor, what's his play?"
"He has an army called the Chitauri," As Thor spoke, Morse noticed Doyle's head snap to attention. The man knew something. "They're not of Asgard or any world known-"
"They're an off-shoot of Skrulls actually," Doyle interceded. "From what I can recall they've heavily cyberized themselves to the point that I'm not sure if they've kept the natural Skrull abilities like shapeshifting."
Thor glared at the other man sharply, as if the knowledge itself was suspicious.
"I'm not aware that they're any such off-shoots," He placed a hand on the table, slowly tapping his fingers across the surface. "How did you come across this information?"
Doyle sat down on one of the chairs, placed his feet on the table with a casualness that Morse would've expected out of Stark.
"Seems someone is working with out of date information… which is a surprise… because between the two of us, I would've guessed that it would've been me. Given my people were the isolationists, not yours," Doyle shifted positions, from gloating to confused mid-sentence. "How did you not notice the centuries of evolutionary drift like that?"
"The affairs of the Skrulls were not the concern of Asgard," Thor responded, it was a calm response, much to her surprise given his actions so far. "But this knowledge is useful, perhaps we can find out how Loki came upon his army now."
"So… his plan is to conquer Earth with the army from space?" Morse piped in. "What does he need with the Tesseract then?"
"I suspect that he'll use it to trade for Earth."
Banner walked in, a pad in his hand, and sat down in a chair next to Thor's current position.
"So he's building another portal," he supplied, sitting down as he did so. There was a calmness to Dr. Banner that Morse wouldn't have expected from someone famous for his temper, especially given his experiences with government military organizations. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."
"Selvig?" Thor's eyes brightened, excitement particular radiating from his body.
"He's an astrophysicist."
"He's a friend,"
Romanoff interred into the conversation after a few minutes of being silent.
"Loki has him under some kind of spell," There was a momentary lapse of control from the woman, her hands noticeably clenched for just a second. Morse wondered if she was the only one to catch the action. "Along with one of ours."
"What I want to know is why Loki let us catch him?" Rogers piped back in, bringing the group back onto the task directly at hand. "He's not leading an army from here."
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Banner pointed his finger to the side of his forehead, spinning it around. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him."
"Have care how you speak," Thor warned the doctor, waggling his index finger at the man while standing to his right. "Loki's mind may be far afield, but he's of Asgard, and my brother."
Morse noticed that the statement caught a look of approval from Doyle, the man seemingly impressed by the Prince standing by his familial relation regardless of what he had done. Especially if the man would stop his brother but then Romanoff opened her mouth;
"He's killed eighty people in six days."
"He's... adopted."
Doyle scoffed, leaning back on his chair with cold indifference. It seemed that respect that he was about to have given the Norse God wasn't there anymore.
"I didn't realize that the Avengers would have two prima donnas," Morse pondered.
"Of course that's the reason you're different," Doyle grumbled under his breath. Thankfully for the survival of the people in the room Thor didn't seem to catch anything he was saying. "Or maybe you've just not been thrown into the vacuum of space enough for the bolts to loosen your head till you end up as far afield."
"Why Iridium? What's it for? Banner spoke, his voice easily helping to mask Doyle's.
"It's a stabilizing element."
"It's a stabilizing element."
Doyle's voice mixed with Stark's as the man entered the room with Coulson by his side.
"I'll fly you there, keep the love alive," Stark said to Coulson, Morse wasn't aware that he was close enough to Stark that he'd discuss his love life, before the armored hero addressed Doyle with an impressed stare. "I didn't know that your non-existent reporting degree was paired with a minor in thermonuclear astrophysics?"
"It wasn't," Doyle rolled his eyes. "I read about it on the way over here, we were given Selvig's notes and the Extraction Theory papers," Given that she hadn't seen him read those on his first trip here, and she wasn't with him when he left the last time, Morse was sure that the man had managed to read all about it from the time spent getting to Germany and back. "The science is easy enough to understand. When did you become an expert?"
So not only was he able to move fast, but read fast as well. Scary to think about.
"Last night, I did the same," Stark replied, easily shifting around till he was standing by Fury's spot near the center of the room. There was a gleam of respect for the reporter in his eye, Morse supposed discovering that the alien was smart would appeal to Stark. "Of course, ET would understand pity Earthling science. What about the rest of you goobers? No one else do the reading?"
"Besides Iridium is there anything else that he needs to create his portal?" Rogers ignored the other man's jest. The man was all business at the moment, but Morse wasn't sure how long the man would last before he would verbally confront Iron Man over his attitude.
Stark looked to Doyle, who shrugged, waving him to continue on.
"Not much," Iron Man said, turning around in his spot, as if he was confused by something. "The rest of the stuff they can get pretty easy… minus a power source. It needs to be high energy density, something to kick start the cube."
"Does it need to be any particular kind of power?"
This time it was Banner that piped in, leaning forward.
"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier."
"Unless," Stark interceded with a charming smile. "Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."
"Well, if he does that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."
"Finally," The Billionaire threw up his hands. "Why is it only the two of us here that speaks English?"
"That's English?" Rogers asked but he was ignored.
"You don't count," Stark proclaimed, pointing at the reporter in question with a smirk. "You're a super-advanced alien… Thanks for the heads up on that, by the way, I thought we had something special."
"That's just what I say to all the girls, Stark," The reporter rolled his eyes, leaning back into his chair.
"It's good to finally meet you, Dr. Banner," Stark held out a hand, Banner shook it with no small amount of hesitancy. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way that you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."
Despite the odd segway, Banner took it in his stride.
"Oh, I don't do the second anymore and I hope to get back to working on more of the first in the future."
Stark blinked, tilting his head. It was like he was disappointed that the tale of Banner curing himself of the Hulk appearing to be true. It was certainly something she was glad of at the moment, given the heightened tensions between Thor and Doyle.
The last thing they needed was three guys rampaging in the Helicarrier.
There was a woosh as the door opened again, Director Fury walking in with the full nonchalance that she expected from the man.
"Banner is only here to track the Cube, I was hoping that you would join Miss Ross and him."
"How about we start talking about that stick of his," Rogers stood back to his feet and hands on the desk, Captain America stuck an inspiring image of a leader on top of things. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."
"HYDRA had mind control weapons?" Doyle asked, his hand raised as if he was at school Rogers froze for a second before turning his eyes to Fury, who shook his head. "That's terrifying."
"Well… no, but the blasts he shoots out are similar to the weapons that HYDRA used."
"So… blue?"
"..."
"..."
"Yeah, they're both blue."
"So Cap's not the leader anymore," Doyle turned to the rest of the room, his hands together . "So I'm voting for Banner as our leader."
Banner glanced around the room, as if he was worried that other people were going to agree with Doyle.
"Why not vote for yourself?" Romanoff, for some reason beyond Morse's understanding, played along. Even leaning forward, the blond SHIELD Agent guessed she was starting a game with him, get him over whatever obvious dislike the man had.
"You can't vote for yourself, that's against the rules."
"If we may stay on the topic at hand," Fury stepped in, not wanting to waste any more time. "It's very least a similar power source to the weapons HYDRA once used, so Rogers isn't wrong to assume they're connected."
"Sorry to waste time I guess." The reporter shrugged, pulling his arms in towards him till they were under his armpits.
Author's Note: Hello! And I'm back with another chapter. This is where I think the events of the Avengers really will start shifting away from the canon events of the films.
I don't have a lot to say right now... I'll only point out that he got away with it here.
You guessed... that man didn't get caught playing Galaga. Now his nefarious plans will continue unheeded till it's too late and his army descends upon Earth, the man only needs to be the world champion at Galaga.