Out Of Time

fifty-three

Fury, Tony, and Steve found themselves back at the table on the bridge. Each of them looking numb and devastated. Steve and Tony were each trying to create a plan to save Y/N, silently.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket," Fury started, pulling out some trading cards. "Guess he never did get you to sign them." He threw the trading cards on the table. They were stained with blood. "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube... Banner... Thor... Y/N. I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming... Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on the number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark knows this, called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes."

Tony suddenly got up and walked off, not wanting to hear anymore of Fury's excuses.

"Well, it's an old fashioned notion," Fury sighed.

"Sir," Steve called, "I have a question that's been bothering me for a few days now."

"I may have the answer."

"My sister... how does she know Stark?"

~~~

Tony made his way to the room Loki's cell had been in. He stood there, silently staring at the spot where the cell once was. Steve, who had followed him after learning about how his sister knew Stark, came further into the room.

"Was he married?" Steve asked.

"No," Tony answered. "There was a, uh... cellist, I think."

"I'm sorry. He seemed like a good man."

"He was an idiot. Both him and Y/N were."

"Why? For believing?"

"For taking on Loki, just the two of them."

"They were doing their jobs."

Tony scoffed. "They were out of their leagues! They should have waited. She should have listened to me when I told her to find safety! He should have-"

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony."

"Right. And how did that work for him? Or even her? She's missing now and we don't have a clue to where she could be." Tony started walking away.

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?"

Tony turned around sharply, raising his voice, "We are not soldiers! I am not marching to Fury's fife!"

"Neither am I! He's got the same blood on his hands as Loki does. Right now we've got to put that aside and get this done. Now Loki needs a power source, if we can put together a list-"

Tony had moved to look at the blood stain on the wall. "He made it personal."

"That's not the point."

"That is the point. That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?"

"To tear us apart."

"Yeah, divide and conquer is great, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us and he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."

"Right, I caught his act at Stuttengard."

"Yeah. That's just a preview, this is opening night. Loki's a full-tilt diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built in the skies with his name plastered- son of a bitch!"