ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ɪʀᴏɴ ᴄʜɪʟᴅ

Phase Two

{Chapter Thirty-One}

Abby sat in the lab with her father and Bruce as they worked. It was way past the young girl's bedtime, which was why she had her head laid on the desk struggling to keep her eyes open. The large window behind her father showed that sun rising, bright rays shining through the window and reflecting off of the metal surfaces scattered around the room.

"What are you doing, Mister Stark?"

Fury's booming voice echoed through the room, startling the girl causing her head to shoot up. Tony sat casually on the work surfaces with Bruce stood behind him studying the screen before them. Abby rubbed her eyes tiredly a long yawn escaping her.

Tony looked at the Director as he entered the room, "Uh, kind of wondering the same thing about you."

Fury's stern glare was set on the man as he spoke firmly, "You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

Abby stood moving towards her father. Tony glanced at his tired daughter with a small smile lifting her up to sit beside him. Abby gave the man a tired smile before curling up beside him and closing her eyes.

"We are. The model's locked and we're sweeping for a signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile." Bruce spoke up for the first time.

Tony nodded along with Bruce his hand absentmindedly rubbing Abby's back in a soothing manner, "Yeah then you get your cube back. No muss. No fuss," Tony then turned his attention back to the screen, "What is 'Phase Two'?"

Just as Abby was nodding off she was yet again startled. Steve slammed some sort of weapon down on one of the desktops causing the girl to jump. Feeling her flinch, Tony wrapped his arm tighter around his daughter comforting her.

"'Phase Two is S.H.I.E.L.D uses the cube to make weapons!" Steve announces glaring at Fury, "Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me."

Fury moved to face Stevmoving closer to him trying to excuse what the supersoldier had found, "Rogers we gathered everything related to the tesseract. This does not mean that we're creating..."

"I'm sorry, Nick!" Tony called out effectively cutting the director off turning the screen to face the soldier and the director, "What were you lying?"

Abby sighed climbing down from where she was sat and moving to a chair closer to the door. The young girl held her head in her hands rubbing her temples in an attempt to soothe the headache that was beginning to form. She could feel the tension in the room almost suffocating her.

Abby looked up as Thor, Natasha and Amber entered the room. Amber sent a small smile towards the twelve-year-old placing a hand on her back in an attempt to comfort her.

"Did you know about this?" Bruce asked looking over at Nat and Amber.

Amber looked down at the floor in shame. She had known about Phase 2, she didn't agree with it but she had no say. It's not that Amber didn't trust Fury, but it is hard t trust others when you can't trust yourself.