Infinity

Chapter 9 ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

"You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land."

"Thanks, but last time I was in New York I kind of broke Harlem."

I laugh and continue working.

"Well, I promise a stress free environment. No tensions. No surprise."

The doors open and Steve walks in. He looks angry.

"Ow!" Bruce shouts, grabbing my attention. I turn to see Tony watching Bruce closely.

"Nothing?"

"Are you nuts?" Steve asks.

"You really have a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"

"Is everything a joke to you?"

I shake my head, "Okay, stop." I hate fights and arguments, especially petty ones.

""Funny things are."

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny." Steve snaps, "No offense, doctor."

"No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."

"You're tiptoeing, big man, you need to strut." Tony says, waving his little electrical prod around.

"Tony, enough." I say.

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark." Steve says angrily.

I feel a small tension grow in my neck as I pick up Delvameg.

"You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us and why now? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

"You think Fury's hiding something." Steve asks.

"Of course he is." I say.

"He's a spy, Captain. He's the spy, his secrets have secrets." Tony points to me, "She gets it."

"A warm light to all mankind." I say, "Loki's claim to Fury concerning the cube."

"Well," Bruce says to Tony, "I believe that was pointed at you."

"Stark Tower? That big ugly building in New York?" Steve asks, provoking Tony a bit further.

"It's powered by arc reactors; it's completely self-sufficient, right?" I ask.

"That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."

"So why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. call him in for the Tesseract project?" Bruce asks inquires, "Why are they even in the energy business?"

"I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of Shield's secure files."

Steve gets an uneasy look on his face, "I'm sorry, did you say-"

"Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret Shield has ever tried to hide." He holds out a bag to me, "Blueberries?"

"No, I prefer strawberries."

"Yet you're confused about they didn't want you around."

"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence." Tony says sarcastically, "Historically not possible."

"I think Loki is out to start a war-"

I cut Steve off, "Exactly. Loki wants nothing more than for us to tear each other apart so he can take the Earth that much sooner."