Chapter 11
- Location
- Writeland
AN: I absolutely hate writing argument scenes. I hate them even worse when they're motivated by dumb mind control. So I'm not going to!
I promise that this is the last Stations of Canon entry.
-------------
The ringing in my ears had gotten worse and worse as I tried to tune out the dumb high school bullshit going on around me. I had almost stepped in when Fury put his hand on his gun when Banner started getting irritated; what the fuck was he thinking? That that would accomplish anything? Nat did it too, was she stupid? Was it just a reflex they drilled into you in spy school that any threatening action is to be met with pointlessly underpowered handgun?
Then, something exploded, and alarms started going off around me.
Fury barked orders, and I pulled my Scouter off and tossed it, frankly sick of the whole shit show. I didn't need it anyway. I could feel something building, and I was already halfway down the hall before anyone noticed I was gone. Good thing too; Banner was NOT looking happy. I pulled some loose debris off Nat's leg and yanked her up to her feet; luckily nothing was broken.
"Go. NOW." I ordered, and she at least had the good sense to listen as I stepped further into the corridor. "Bruce... buddy, are we having a moment?"
"A MOMENT!?" He bellowed, and I backed off. Ohhhh shit. Yeah. I could feel that. That was... big.
"Hey; listen, we'll get out of here, we'll talk about this, we'll make-" I started. Nope. Nope nope nope. Not a talking out of it situation. He was already seven feet tall and growing, muscles splitting fabric, skin turning green. I could feel the power coming off him in waves like heat off asphalt. He looked at me with something like sadness, and then that vanished, and it was all just rage. Not even at me. I was just part of the universe, and that was something Banner couldn't stand right now.
I floated backward and threw my senses out as wide as I could manage. Okay. That direction has no people in it. Go, go go! I ran, and heavy feet thumped behind me. Bulkhead in the way-fuck it, smash right through it. Big guy smashed it wider. Fuck you, Loki you smug elf lookin' piece of shit!
I heard a whistling sound, and I ducked by pure instinct; as something smacked into the big guy and sent him careening over my head and out into what looked like a hangar bay; which I was GOING to avoid, thanks a lot Thor. "Run you fucking morons!" I shouted at the gormlessly staring humans staring slackjawed at the spectacle, and at least some of them didn't take five precious seconds to decide to listen to me, rushing for the doors. The Hulk almost smashed me through a bulkhead for my trouble, but Thor intercepted him; actually catching one of his huge green fists; albeit with both hands from a braced position.
"You don't have to do this Banner! We are not your enemies- try to think!" He implored, before being bashed through a series of crates.
"We're well past that now Thor!" I shouted, barely managing to slip past a flurry of haymakers, before the Hulk just tried to hit me with a jet. A whole jet. It came apart in his giant hands and only that saved me from an even worse headache. Thor, finally reading the room, smashed the back of his head with that big fuck off hammer, and launched him off his feet... "Okay yeah, that works." I said, popping my knuckles and flying up as high as I could get; pouring as much Ki between my palms as I could manage. I still wasn't great at this, but I could just about manage this much. "M-80!" I shouted as I tossed the ball for the big, tactically unsound windows at the end of the hangar, bursting them like a soap bubble and letting the air go rushing out; popping my ears slightly.
Thor got the message, and on his next swing, he hit the Hulk toward the edge. It almost didn't work. Those big green toes dug into the tarmack and held on tight, even as Thor came in with a football tackle to try to finish the job. In the end it took both him and me hitting the Hulk at the same time to tip him over. Then, of course, Thor got his cape caught by a set of meaty green fingers, making me roll my eyes as I stepped away from the sucking hole out into the sky. Superheroes.
His hammer leapt off the decking and chased him out the window, and a few moments later he was back with me, sans cape, jogging a little to catch up with me.
"I meant to do that."
"Sure you did big guy."
"Why did you shout a letter and number before attacking?" He asked, making me float to keep up with him now.
"Because it's tradition."
He nodded gravely, seeming to respect that.
-------------
I found myself wishing that he still had the cape when he suddenly surged forward as we got to Loki's cell and dove in through the open door, letting it shut right behind him.
"Are you ever not going to fall for that?" Loki asked, exasperated. Fuck you Loki, I refuse to empathize with your exasperation over how dumb Thor is.
I jumped for the controls, and Loki grabbed me by the wrist and bashed me against the deck, before putting his foot on my throat and hitting the buttons himself; opening up the iris plate beneath the glass cell. Honestly who designed a prison this way? SHIELD had too much money and not enough sense.
Whatever flunkie that had set Loki loose hit the deck nearby, and I felt the foot come off me as Loki stepped back, and who but Phil fucking Coulson showed up, hefting a big glowing space gun and aiming it for our mutually disliked associate. "Move away from the controls please." He said in that perfectly unflappable secret agent tone he had whenever he wasn't talking to or about Steve.
Then I noticed something weird. I could feel Loki moving away from me and toward Coulson, but I couldn't see it. Oh, right, the hologram trick.
"Do you like this? Started working on it when you sent the destroyer, even I don't-" Coulson started, and then I threw the straightest and narrowest Ki blast I could manage for where I felt Loki sneaking around, knocking him sprawling onto his back.
"Just fucking shoot him Phil!" I shouted.
Loki had just about sat upright when Phil came to his senses and fired, hitting him with a blast that drove him through a wall and left a smoking, molten line wherever it touched. I floated up and glanced over the control panel, shutting the bay doors and getting Thor free, the blond giant striding out and looking chagrined to have been so easily fooled.
"Seriously, with the monologue?" I asked as I batted Coulson on the back of the head playfully.
"He's still got the staff." He said, rubbing the slight mark I'd made and dropping the ludicrous, smoking cannon he'd brought onto the floor. Presumably it was spent. He and Thor both jogged for Loki's last location, leaving me sighing behind them.
"Thanks Charud for saving my life after I was a big dumb idiot!" "You're the coolest Charud, I now replace Captain America with you in my heart." I said to myself, kicking the decking a little before going after them.
-------------
Loki was nowhere to be found. After Coulson scored a point for humanity on the smug bastard, all my senses would tell me is that he's not here. Either he figured out how to make his illusions work on more than vision, or he had another way out.
Fury was angry and disappointed. Nat was off doing something personal; apparently she'd secured Barton, so that was one needle pulled out of my side. I'd have hated to have to kill the guy. Apparently SHIELD could put his melon back together after Loki scrambled it, so that took some of the sting out of the mind control threat. Still not gonna let him poke me though.
"What I want to know is, why bother with all the song and dance? Why let himself get captured? He has this plan to use the Hulk, but for what?" Tony asked, tossing a bouncy ball at the wall repeatedly and catching it again. "Why not skip straight to the invasion part? He could have set up his machine and gotten things under way by now. "
"He was targeting us. Us specifically; he knows if anyone has a shot at taking him down, then they were on this boat." Steve reasoned, tapping his foot.
"You guys have been at each others throats this whole time. I kept wondering why, and now I think I have a pretty good idea... did we all just assume that he has to touch you with the stick to control you?" I asked, flexing my neck back and forth as soreness slowly faded. "We should have smashed that thing. Found the cube some other way." I opined.
"Hindsight's 20/20 and all, but I dunno, maybe if we'd floated that idea Fury would shoot it down because it takes away one more source of space guns." Tony growled under his breath, as Fury sighed under his breath, arms crossed behind his back.
"Yes. We used the Tesseract to build weapons. Probably would have done more if we had the chance. But I never put all my eggs in that particular basket. I had other ideas. Namely, all of you. Tony knows this; Charud too."
"The Avengers program? Still not clear what I'm avenging, by the way." I said, grabbing my fifth bear claw of the hour and wolfing it down. "Sounds like SHIELD's not exactly a unified front on this stuff. Some of your higher ups have different ideas about how things should be done?"
Fury didn't say anything but he did pick up a donut and bite right into it, shocking me, I having been under the impression that he subsisted on a diet of his own hardassedness.
"Still if he wanted to kill us there's more efficient ways. Why all together, right here, with himself present personally?" Tony persisted, pacing the length of the briefing room. "...Why'd he start monologuing to a bunch of kneeling civilians in Stuttgart?"
"Because he's an egotistical fuck. No offense." I said.
"I am somewhat offended but I cannot argue." Thor grumbled, apparently somewhat humbled by his near miss with tumbling out of the sky in a big glass box.
"Right, right, he wanted to beat us on our home turf, prove he'd outwitted us, and do it publicly... Show everyone that he's the smartest guy in the room." Tony went on.
"Speaking from experience here?" Steve jibed, but gently.
"Yeah yeah yeah I get it, I'm a diva, I talk down to people, I sing my own praises, I build monuments in the sky with my name-" He started, then interrupted himself as we all turned to face him at once.
"...Son of a bitch, he's gonna steal my tower."
-------------
Stark and I both flew in at the same time. Now I could feel Loki again, radiating icy smugness from Stark's gaudy monument to his own ego. The cube was there, actine blue light sparking over the surface of Selvig's device as the man himself busily ran around it checking readings.
"Shut it down Dr Selvig!" Stark ordered over the roar of the wind and the device.
"It's too late!" Selvig said, manic in his mannerisms, blue light burning in his eyes. "She can't stop now. She wants to show us something... a new universe!" he said, to the roar of scientific triumph.
"...Okay." Stark said, and blasted the machine. Or at least tried; both of us knocked backward by the shockwave coming off it.
"Alright... new plan." Tony said, shaking it off. "You coming?" he asked, as he set down and began to step free of his suit, while I eyed Loki warily, and did something I was probably going to regret. Going along with Tony's plan.
-------------
I promise that this is the last Stations of Canon entry.
-------------
The ringing in my ears had gotten worse and worse as I tried to tune out the dumb high school bullshit going on around me. I had almost stepped in when Fury put his hand on his gun when Banner started getting irritated; what the fuck was he thinking? That that would accomplish anything? Nat did it too, was she stupid? Was it just a reflex they drilled into you in spy school that any threatening action is to be met with pointlessly underpowered handgun?
Then, something exploded, and alarms started going off around me.
Fury barked orders, and I pulled my Scouter off and tossed it, frankly sick of the whole shit show. I didn't need it anyway. I could feel something building, and I was already halfway down the hall before anyone noticed I was gone. Good thing too; Banner was NOT looking happy. I pulled some loose debris off Nat's leg and yanked her up to her feet; luckily nothing was broken.
"Go. NOW." I ordered, and she at least had the good sense to listen as I stepped further into the corridor. "Bruce... buddy, are we having a moment?"
"A MOMENT!?" He bellowed, and I backed off. Ohhhh shit. Yeah. I could feel that. That was... big.
"Hey; listen, we'll get out of here, we'll talk about this, we'll make-" I started. Nope. Nope nope nope. Not a talking out of it situation. He was already seven feet tall and growing, muscles splitting fabric, skin turning green. I could feel the power coming off him in waves like heat off asphalt. He looked at me with something like sadness, and then that vanished, and it was all just rage. Not even at me. I was just part of the universe, and that was something Banner couldn't stand right now.
I floated backward and threw my senses out as wide as I could manage. Okay. That direction has no people in it. Go, go go! I ran, and heavy feet thumped behind me. Bulkhead in the way-fuck it, smash right through it. Big guy smashed it wider. Fuck you, Loki you smug elf lookin' piece of shit!
I heard a whistling sound, and I ducked by pure instinct; as something smacked into the big guy and sent him careening over my head and out into what looked like a hangar bay; which I was GOING to avoid, thanks a lot Thor. "Run you fucking morons!" I shouted at the gormlessly staring humans staring slackjawed at the spectacle, and at least some of them didn't take five precious seconds to decide to listen to me, rushing for the doors. The Hulk almost smashed me through a bulkhead for my trouble, but Thor intercepted him; actually catching one of his huge green fists; albeit with both hands from a braced position.
"You don't have to do this Banner! We are not your enemies- try to think!" He implored, before being bashed through a series of crates.
"We're well past that now Thor!" I shouted, barely managing to slip past a flurry of haymakers, before the Hulk just tried to hit me with a jet. A whole jet. It came apart in his giant hands and only that saved me from an even worse headache. Thor, finally reading the room, smashed the back of his head with that big fuck off hammer, and launched him off his feet... "Okay yeah, that works." I said, popping my knuckles and flying up as high as I could get; pouring as much Ki between my palms as I could manage. I still wasn't great at this, but I could just about manage this much. "M-80!" I shouted as I tossed the ball for the big, tactically unsound windows at the end of the hangar, bursting them like a soap bubble and letting the air go rushing out; popping my ears slightly.
Thor got the message, and on his next swing, he hit the Hulk toward the edge. It almost didn't work. Those big green toes dug into the tarmack and held on tight, even as Thor came in with a football tackle to try to finish the job. In the end it took both him and me hitting the Hulk at the same time to tip him over. Then, of course, Thor got his cape caught by a set of meaty green fingers, making me roll my eyes as I stepped away from the sucking hole out into the sky. Superheroes.
His hammer leapt off the decking and chased him out the window, and a few moments later he was back with me, sans cape, jogging a little to catch up with me.
"I meant to do that."
"Sure you did big guy."
"Why did you shout a letter and number before attacking?" He asked, making me float to keep up with him now.
"Because it's tradition."
He nodded gravely, seeming to respect that.
-------------
I found myself wishing that he still had the cape when he suddenly surged forward as we got to Loki's cell and dove in through the open door, letting it shut right behind him.
"Are you ever not going to fall for that?" Loki asked, exasperated. Fuck you Loki, I refuse to empathize with your exasperation over how dumb Thor is.
I jumped for the controls, and Loki grabbed me by the wrist and bashed me against the deck, before putting his foot on my throat and hitting the buttons himself; opening up the iris plate beneath the glass cell. Honestly who designed a prison this way? SHIELD had too much money and not enough sense.
Whatever flunkie that had set Loki loose hit the deck nearby, and I felt the foot come off me as Loki stepped back, and who but Phil fucking Coulson showed up, hefting a big glowing space gun and aiming it for our mutually disliked associate. "Move away from the controls please." He said in that perfectly unflappable secret agent tone he had whenever he wasn't talking to or about Steve.
Then I noticed something weird. I could feel Loki moving away from me and toward Coulson, but I couldn't see it. Oh, right, the hologram trick.
"Do you like this? Started working on it when you sent the destroyer, even I don't-" Coulson started, and then I threw the straightest and narrowest Ki blast I could manage for where I felt Loki sneaking around, knocking him sprawling onto his back.
"Just fucking shoot him Phil!" I shouted.
Loki had just about sat upright when Phil came to his senses and fired, hitting him with a blast that drove him through a wall and left a smoking, molten line wherever it touched. I floated up and glanced over the control panel, shutting the bay doors and getting Thor free, the blond giant striding out and looking chagrined to have been so easily fooled.
"Seriously, with the monologue?" I asked as I batted Coulson on the back of the head playfully.
"He's still got the staff." He said, rubbing the slight mark I'd made and dropping the ludicrous, smoking cannon he'd brought onto the floor. Presumably it was spent. He and Thor both jogged for Loki's last location, leaving me sighing behind them.
"Thanks Charud for saving my life after I was a big dumb idiot!" "You're the coolest Charud, I now replace Captain America with you in my heart." I said to myself, kicking the decking a little before going after them.
-------------
Loki was nowhere to be found. After Coulson scored a point for humanity on the smug bastard, all my senses would tell me is that he's not here. Either he figured out how to make his illusions work on more than vision, or he had another way out.
Fury was angry and disappointed. Nat was off doing something personal; apparently she'd secured Barton, so that was one needle pulled out of my side. I'd have hated to have to kill the guy. Apparently SHIELD could put his melon back together after Loki scrambled it, so that took some of the sting out of the mind control threat. Still not gonna let him poke me though.
"What I want to know is, why bother with all the song and dance? Why let himself get captured? He has this plan to use the Hulk, but for what?" Tony asked, tossing a bouncy ball at the wall repeatedly and catching it again. "Why not skip straight to the invasion part? He could have set up his machine and gotten things under way by now. "
"He was targeting us. Us specifically; he knows if anyone has a shot at taking him down, then they were on this boat." Steve reasoned, tapping his foot.
"You guys have been at each others throats this whole time. I kept wondering why, and now I think I have a pretty good idea... did we all just assume that he has to touch you with the stick to control you?" I asked, flexing my neck back and forth as soreness slowly faded. "We should have smashed that thing. Found the cube some other way." I opined.
"Hindsight's 20/20 and all, but I dunno, maybe if we'd floated that idea Fury would shoot it down because it takes away one more source of space guns." Tony growled under his breath, as Fury sighed under his breath, arms crossed behind his back.
"Yes. We used the Tesseract to build weapons. Probably would have done more if we had the chance. But I never put all my eggs in that particular basket. I had other ideas. Namely, all of you. Tony knows this; Charud too."
"The Avengers program? Still not clear what I'm avenging, by the way." I said, grabbing my fifth bear claw of the hour and wolfing it down. "Sounds like SHIELD's not exactly a unified front on this stuff. Some of your higher ups have different ideas about how things should be done?"
Fury didn't say anything but he did pick up a donut and bite right into it, shocking me, I having been under the impression that he subsisted on a diet of his own hardassedness.
"Still if he wanted to kill us there's more efficient ways. Why all together, right here, with himself present personally?" Tony persisted, pacing the length of the briefing room. "...Why'd he start monologuing to a bunch of kneeling civilians in Stuttgart?"
"Because he's an egotistical fuck. No offense." I said.
"I am somewhat offended but I cannot argue." Thor grumbled, apparently somewhat humbled by his near miss with tumbling out of the sky in a big glass box.
"Right, right, he wanted to beat us on our home turf, prove he'd outwitted us, and do it publicly... Show everyone that he's the smartest guy in the room." Tony went on.
"Speaking from experience here?" Steve jibed, but gently.
"Yeah yeah yeah I get it, I'm a diva, I talk down to people, I sing my own praises, I build monuments in the sky with my name-" He started, then interrupted himself as we all turned to face him at once.
"...Son of a bitch, he's gonna steal my tower."
-------------
Stark and I both flew in at the same time. Now I could feel Loki again, radiating icy smugness from Stark's gaudy monument to his own ego. The cube was there, actine blue light sparking over the surface of Selvig's device as the man himself busily ran around it checking readings.
"Shut it down Dr Selvig!" Stark ordered over the roar of the wind and the device.
"It's too late!" Selvig said, manic in his mannerisms, blue light burning in his eyes. "She can't stop now. She wants to show us something... a new universe!" he said, to the roar of scientific triumph.
"...Okay." Stark said, and blasted the machine. Or at least tried; both of us knocked backward by the shockwave coming off it.
"Alright... new plan." Tony said, shaking it off. "You coming?" he asked, as he set down and began to step free of his suit, while I eyed Loki warily, and did something I was probably going to regret. Going along with Tony's plan.
-------------
Last edited:
