Marvelous: Reincarnation

Chapter Five

"Just connect the red wire to the left receptacle...yeah, right there."

Hope nodded, twisting the end into place before securing it with a bit of red tape. "Do I need to weld the other end?"

"No, we should just be able to leave it there." Bruce answered, never once looking up from the tablet he had in his hand. "The charge should jump through the metal fine enough."

He's talking like we don't know basic science. Eric snorted in her head, making Hope roll her eyes once again. Like, trust me, I'm pretty sure the Heir of the Earth can handle a bit of electricity.

"Stop calling me that." Hope muttered, twisting underneath the bottom of the machine again. Eric had gotten increasingly brazen since they moved into the mansion, going so far as to insult some of the other Avengers she was interacting with. On top of that, he was pushing her further on the Aaron thing, and calling her the 'Heir of the Earth', whatever that meant, and she was getting fed up with him.

"Sorry?" Bruce called, finally looking up to her. "Call you what?"

"Nothing!" Hope hastily shouted back, sliding out from underneath. "Just talking to myself."

"Doing that a lot lately." He chuckled in response, although his face was worried.

"Yeah, well." She forced a laugh, tapping the side of her forehead. "Got a lot going on in here."

Bruce nodded after a moment, then asked, "Everything connected down there?"

"Yeah!" She stood, wiping her hands on her shorts. "Should be all good to go." She came to stand beside Bruce, looking up at the machine in front of them with wide eyes. "Tony's gonna flip when he sees this."

"What makes you think he hasn't seen it yet?" Bruce snorted, messing with a few dials in front of him.

"The fact that he hasn't suggested upgrading it." She grinned, making Bruce laugh.

"True, true." He stood straighter, glancing at the console before up to the screen in front of them. "Alright, this is it. Scanner should be up and running...now." He flicked a switch, and with a lot of whirring and beeping, the screen in front of them came to life. 

There were four screens to the machine. The top left hand screen was a radar, constantly sweeping the Earth for signs of extraterrestrial life. The bottom left hand was a radar as well, sweeping for specifically energy related to the Tesseract.  The top right hand was a real-time feed from a satellite of wherever they chose, and the bottom was a screen that switched between security cameras surrounding the door. At any time, this screen could be switched and the radars could be modified to scan for anything else.

He's created an insurance policy against us. Eric growled loudly, making Hope flinch and frown.

Why would he need to do that?

"You don't think it's good?" Bruce asked cautiously, and she turned to find him staring at her.

"No, no, it's great."

It's great that you think we're dangerous.

"The radars seem to be working really well."

Because we are. We're very dangerous.

"We can definitely use this to help SHIELD as well."

So dangerous that you need to know where we are at all times.

"He's not keeping an eye on us!"

"Who's not?" Bruce asked, interrupting her. Hope froze. Had she really said that out loud?