Ash's POV

Bruce, Tony, and I continued to work in the lab, but not on the scepter as we were originally ordered to do. Instead, Tony was teaching me to hack into secure files as he explained that the device he attached to the main console when he first showed up was doing so.

"So if this is equal to that unless...?" I looked up to Tony questioningly as he nodded and I continued with the line of code all the way to the end. I had finished it when I looked over to the "loading" sign, as I found out it was called when Fury walked in looking aggravated as he demanded,

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?"

"Uh...kind of been wondering the same thing about you." Tony responded pulling away from where he had been helping me to go over to the larger adjustable screen.

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

"We are. The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile." Bruce told him as he came over to where I was sitting instinctively.

"And you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss." Tony tapped at the screen in front of him as some encrypted files showed up, "What is PHASE 2?"

Abruptly, Steve smacked a giant weapon onto the lab table with enough force to scare me off my seat and nearly fall onto the floor had Bruce not caught me and pulled me behind him.

"PHASE 2 is SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons." Steve looked furious at the use of weaponry, looking over to the three of us, Tony in particular before adding, "Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow."

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're..." Fury started to explain before Tony pulled up a file that contained blueprints for a missile using the Tesseract's energy as a power source,

"I'm sorry, Nick." He moved the screen to show everyone the plans for the weapon, "What were you lying?"

"I was wrong, director. The world hasn't changed a bit." Steve was practically seething with disappointment as Thor and Natasha entered the room, Nat keeping her gaze on me and Bruce before he asked her with slight agitation in his voice,

"Did you know about this?"

"You wanna think about removing yourselves from this environment, doctor?"

"Oh, we were in Calcutta, we were pretty well removed."

"Loki's manipulating you."

"And you've been doing what exactly?"

"Aside from pretending to be on our side." I spoke up upset at this turn of events, just as I was beginning to think that these people were trustworthy.

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

"Yeah, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy. I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction." Bruce pointed to the screen and Fury hesitated before he answered, pointing to me and Thor,

"Because of them."

"Me?" We both questioned in confusion and we looked at each other in concern before facing back to Fury as he explained,

"Last year earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. A year before that, we got call of an alien who could light fires just by walking by, spreading radiation poisoning wherever they went, and we learned that not only are we not alone, not just in this galaxy, but we are hopelessly, and hilariously, outgunned.

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet." Thor tried to defend himself and his people and so did I by arguing,

"And my people despised war of any kind and wanted nothing to do it."

"But you're not the only people out there, are you?" Fury asserted, leaving us silent, "And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled."

"Like you controlled the cube?" Steve argued back toward Fury as Thor stated,

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"A higher form?" Steve questioned in disbelief and I felt my skin prickle as everyone's arguments just blended together as I held my ears trying, and failing, to block out their angry voices until Bruce took my wrist in his to calm me down right before he argued,

"It's his M.O., isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're... we're a time-bomb."

"You two need to step away." Fury told us stepping forward when Tony placed a hand on Steve's shoulder asking,

"Why shouldn't they let off a little steam?"

"You know damn well why! Back off!" He retorted angrily pushing Tony's hand off, offending him enough to start another heated argument,

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me."

"Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist."

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. Yeah, I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

"I think I would just cut the wire."

"Always a way out... You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero? Like you? You're a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle!"

There was a tense silence and in those few seconds I felt an odd sensation in the back of my head, like something bad was about to happen, but I couldn't determine what as Steve got close to Tony's face challenging him,

"Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds."

"You people are so petty... and tiny." Thor laughed at everyone in the room before Bruce muttered,

"Yeah, this is a team..."

"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr.Banner back to his..." Fury started to order Nat until Bruce interjected,

"Where? You rented my room. Or are you going to put us in Ash's room?"

"The cell was just in case..."

"In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know! I tried!" I looked up to Bruce in worried question as he started to explain, "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 other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk!"

Bruce's grip tightened around my wrist making me wince in pain as he unknowingly pulled the scepter off its stand, "You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?"

I noticed Fury and Nat put their hands towards their holstered weapons, readying them for use when Steve calmly told Bruce,

"Doctor Banner... put down the scepter." He looked down to his hand to see the scepter, looking at it in question before looking to me and releasing his grip on my wrist to see that he had unknowingly crushed it enough to leave red marks on my skin.

A few seconds later, the devices started beeping, signaling that the trace subroutine had been completed and Bruce put the scepter down to check the results,

"Sorry, kids. You don't get to see my little party trick after all." Bruce directed to Nat as we walked over to the monitor,

"Sorry about that kid..." Bruce quietly apologized to me as I rubbed the red marks before I assured him quietly,

"It's OK..."

"You've located the Tesseract?" Thor questioned and I nodded in response to his question.

"I can get there faster." Tony told us before he and Steve initiated in another argument making me tune out as I helped Bruce to open the results, showing that small traces were right outside the ship,

"Oh, my...!"

Suddenly, a blast from the outside blew up the room sending everyone in different directions. Blinded by dust and rubble, I vaguely felt myself falling into the dark and my head collided with something metal from the ringing that sounded after I hit it and blacked out from the collision.