Story Info

Title: Tesseract Parasitoid

Author: Del Rion

Fandom: The Avengers (MCU)

Era: Some time after the "The Avengers" movie takes place

Genre: Drama, action

Rating: M / FRM

Characters: Bruce Banner (Hulk), Clint Barton (Hawkeye), Nick Fury, J.A.R.V.I.S., Loki, Steve Rogers (Captain America), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), Tony Stark (Iron Man), Thor (, Jane Foster, Maria Hill, Pepper Potts)

Summary: Loki's words to Tony ("How will your friends have time for me, when they're so busy fighting you?") didn't actually come true – not immediately, anyway.
Complete. Prequel to "Mindshare".

Written for: Marvel Universe Big Bang 2012 at LiveJournal

Artist: Hoktauri (see fanmixes and art on other websites: delrion . tumblr . c0m /post/35127121558/tesseract-parasitoid)

Warnings: Character death (= murder), violence, language, mind-control, some spoilers for the Marvel movie universe (especially "The Avengers").

Disclaimer: Iron Man and Avengers, their characters and everything else belong to Marvel. The movie versions belong to Marvel Studios, Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon… in short: everyone but me. This is pure fiction, created to entertain likeminded fans, no profit made.

Beta: Mythra (a ton of thanks for the great job!)
(Also, thanks to Mary (gamebird) for an early read and extra corrections!)

Feedback: Much appreciated, whether it concerns the writing or the story.

About Tesseract Parasitoid: One of my favorite scenes in "The Avengers" movie is when Loki tries to put Tony under his "spell" – and it doesn't work. That moment is the foundation for this story.

Also, the information below found at Marvel wikia made the story much easier to write (I had already hoped this could be possible, and it is nice I don't have to divert from fandom facts to do it, really): "A Cube would eventually develop its own intelligence, commonly influenced by the beings who had manipulated it." [Marvel wikia / Cosmic Cube]

The Triskelion, a S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ on an island, doesn't appear in the movie universe of Marvel (not so far anyway), but rather in some "alternative" version of the comics. Either way, I decided to use it for this fic since it gives me a real enough location for some events.

Story and status: Below you see the writing process of the story. If there is no text after the title, then it is finished and checked. Possible updates shall be marked after the title.

Tesseract Parasitoid

. . .

Written for Marvel Universe Big Bang 2012.

Tesseract Parasitoid

He awakens, once again.

He recognizes that it has not been that long since he guided the humans to understand his power, to build the portal, but something… failed. He is no longer on Earth, but neither is he in the hands of the one who wielded him.

Instead, he is imprisoned in Weapon's Vault, in Asgard. So many other relics lie close to him, gathered by Odin, the Allfather. Dangerous weapons from other civilizations, and he has become yet another one of them, to be kept away, to be guarded.

But he senses it; a small flame, far away, a piece of himself. Growing stronger, having found a suitable host… All it will take is that small flicker of light, a spark of consciousness.

He will be free again.

Soon.

Stark Tower
Manhattan, New York, NY, USA

The music started the moment Tony set foot in the new and improved penthouse. The suit had come off, and J.A.R.V.I.S. knew to leave him alone long enough to get a drink. It had been another long day of crime-fighting, tense smiles between him and Rogers, another round of butting heads with Fury, and Agent Romanoff almost decapitated him in the battle – accidentally, he was told.

Good thing he'd really improved the neck part of the suit, seeing as so many of his enemies seem fond of wrapping something around it, or just trying to crush his helmet.

He nodded approvingly at J.A.R.V.I.S.'s play-list for today – well, his play list, to be honest, but J.A.R.V.I.S. has made the picks on what to play upon his entrance.

"Anything new or wonderful?" Tony asked.

"The suit has been taken down for repairs, and the calculations for the new energy shields are still underway, sir. It seems for now that the arc reactor's energy output might not be enough to sufficiently hold up a desired density."

Tony nodded. Ever since Loki fired off the Tesseract from his roof, creating a portal which nearly helped to wipe out the whole of Manhattan, he had taken it as a side project to replicate the powerful energy-shield generated by the Cube. For now, it was just fiddling with numbers and calculations, but he would get there.

He was Tony Stark, after all, and if he wanted it –

A sudden stab of pain in his chest made him grunt.

"Sir?" J.A.R.V.I.S. piped up again, something akin to muted concern in his voice. "I seem to detect you are in pain."

"Astute observation," Tony grunted. It passed as quickly as it came, but this wasn't the first time. "Remind me to check the arc readings later on." And track the pieces of shrapnel, perhaps, just in case one of them was moving around more than it should.

"Of course, sir."

Tony sat down for a moment, leaning against the couch. Pepper would come back… was it tonight, or tomorrow? He wasn't sure. She had told him, he had the information somewhere, but he couldn't get himself to look right now. It had been way too long since he had been able to enjoy his penthouse in private; the workmen, again, had been crowding every corner, trying to repair the damage done by the Chitauri attack and its side-effects. There was a rather amusing video feed of the Hulk tossing Loki around like a rag doll that J.A.R.V.I.S. had recorded…

"J.A.R.V.I.S.," he called out on sudden impulse, "play file L101-M7."

On a screen soon played out a scene that Tony had reviewed a few times before; Iron Man landing, Loki entering the room from the other end of the balcony. Tony offered him a drink, stalling, although he said he was threatening. Words, lots of words, Loki looking annoyed and almost worried for a moment, and then the moment of truth; Loki's words, "How will your friends have time for me, when they're so busy fighting you?", and his scepter hitting his chest, a faint clinking sound echoing. Hesitance, then another try.

On the screen, Tony's made a crack at performance issues, which made him chuckle even now – until the pain was there again, sharp, brief, deep in his chest, making him shift in the hope that it would stop. When Loki picked him up and smashed him through the window, Tony clicked his fingers and the video paused. He took a deep breath.

"Sir?" J.A.R.V.I.S. asked.

"Go back to crunching those numbers for that energy shield," Tony ordered, then got up. He had barely touched his drink as he set it down, walking down the hall to a bathroom where the lights went on automatically. He looked at himself in the mirror, leaned over the sink, and shook his head. "I'm just getting old," he murmured, then undid his flight clothes and stepped out of them. The arc reactor in his chest was as bright as ever, and there were no bruises on his chest. Nothing to hurt him.

But deep inside…

He lifted one hand up to touch the arc, right where Loki's scepter did, twice. He hadn't felt it, not really, just a slight tap, traveling over firm surface to the surrounding scar tissue.

Tony shook his head, decided he might as well shower now that he was here, began to turn – and the pain was there again. Three times, in such a short interval, was a new record. The pain seemed to grow into a heated flame in his chest, almost like when he switched out the palladium core, but more intense, riding his spine up to his skull. He was aware of moaning in pain, clutching his head, squeezing his eyes shut hard against the pain, just trying to wait it out, to focus on breathing.

Breathe…

Tony raised his eyes, settled his hands heavily on the sink and slowly lifted his face, looking at himself in the mirror. A smile played on his lips. He straightened, stretched his shoulders, and just before he turned to take that shower, the blue eyes that perfectly matched the arc reactor in color flickered at the mirror, taking one last look.

Locating the Tesseract was a priority. Nothing else mattered. Of course, Tony Stark knew where it was; with Thor, in Asgard.

A world away, literally.

But Tony was no fool. There were means, had to be, for calling Thor back, to make him bring the Tesseract with him. It would all be done quickly and effortlessly.

He checked the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files on Thor, and their records for possibilities on how to summon him back if need be, but there seemed to be no such information available. He pursed his lips. What use was an Avenger who would not be present when disaster struck?

"Tony?"

He jerked slightly at the female voice calling his name, then it registered: Pepper.

"Hey," she went on, stepping into the room, coming over, kissing the top of his head. "Working hard?"

"You know it," Tony said, emptying the screen with a flick of his hand. No need to let her see it.

"Was that Thor on the screen?" she asked, innocently, but no one was innocent. Once the seed had been planted, it would grow, and sooner or later… she would become a problem.

"Just going through some stuff," Tony said as he rose and smiled that disarming smile – which of course didn't work on her, after all these years.

Pepper smiled at him then froze, taking a small step back from where she had been about to come and embrace him. "Tony… are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he smiled, stepping closer to her. "Better than ever, in fact. I feel so… invigorated, somehow. It must be the new air filtering system that was installed."

Pepper backed away again. "Your eyes," she stammered.

Tony stopped for a moment. "Ah, yes, well. Contact lenses?" he offered, but his voice had dropped.

She stopped backing away, but looked tense. "Are you okay? Should I call… Bruce or someone?"

"Please don't. We're having such a nice conversation. I would hate to ruin the moment." Tony stepped towards her. Again, she retreated, as if it was a game.

"I think I'll give Bruce a call anyway. You were complaining about those chest pains, and he's a doctor, he could take a look –"

Her words were cut off with a gasp when Tony's hand shot out, taking her by the throat, hard. Her eyes were wide, mouth open, the last of the air in her lungs escaping in a small moan.

"I'm truly sorry, Pepper," Tony said, cocking his head. He could almost see his eyes reflecting back from hers – or maybe it was the shine of the arc in his chest, he really couldn't tell. "Tony – I – truly loves you, but you're just… too smart. And that's going to be a problem for both of us."

He pulled her over to where a spiral staircase led down to the lower floors of the penthouse. She was struggling, but with her high heels and his hold on her throat, he had the advantage. She tried to scream, her throat working against his grip when he hoisted her up by the waist. Her legs tried to find purchase, but when he let go, there was nothing for her to hold onto. With a brief scream she fell several stories before hitting the floor with a sickening thump.

Somewhere deep inside, Tony felt bad as he leaned against the railing, looking down, crossing his fingers lightly. "JA.R.V.I.S.," he called out, "erase the last five minutes from any security feed. File them under my private server, and run encryption on them."

"Sir, you have just –" J.A.R.V.I.S. started, almost alarmed.

"Mute," Tony said, annoyed, then stepped back from the railing and descended the stairs, fingers sliding over the smooth surface of the wall as he went. "Oh, Pepper," he sighed at the bottom, looking at her body; eyes still open in horror, a small puddle of blood where her head had hit the floor. An annoyed frown creased his brow. "You knew dating a superhero was never a good idea…" Then he smiled. "Now, let's find you a place to… stay out of sight until my work is done."

Bruce was working in one of the labs. It was quiet, mostly because Tony tended to give him a lot of space, should he require it.

At first he had been nervous to accept Tony's offer to remain in New York, to work at the Stark Tower and stop hiding under any rock that was larger than him – or the other guy. As it turned out, staying hadn't been such a stupid choice after all. He had his own rooms – his own floor, to be exact – with plenty of chances to just disappear should he desire it, or socialize, should he feel the need, and of course use the state-of-the-art technology of Tony's R&D – Research and development – floors.

He hadn't seen Tony for a few days but that was nothing new. If Bruce was obsessed about his own work, then Tony was worse. He had had a few talks with Pepper about it, partially to allow her to let out her frustration at how Tony hadn't changed in that respect at all since becoming Iron Man, and partially because Bruce wanted to tell her where it all came from. Not that she probably understood it any better once he had tried explaining it.

Tony stepped through the doors very early that morning, which most likely meant he hadn't slept at all. He had sunglasses on, which for him wasn't that odd, even indoors, and seated himself at the work station next to Bruce's, then pushed the chair over with his feet.

"What's up?" Tony asked.

Bruce gave him a complimentary smile. "Nothing. Did you want to –"

"No, actually," Tony said before Bruce could offer him a part in what he was currently working on – not that it was really Tony's field, but sometimes he tagged along nonetheless, willing to learn new tricks. "I was wondering about something, in the aftermath of our most recent mission."

Bruce nodded for him to continue. He hadn't been there, but he had been following it, of course. The other guy didn't need to go and play at every sandbox their growing line-up of villains set up.

"You know, when the next global disaster hits us," Tony mused, "how's the whole team going to know they're needed? Mostly, how is Thor going to be called on duty?"

"I would assume S.H.I.E.L.D. has some secret phone number they can call," Bruce joked.

"I checked, and they don't have one," Tony noted, shifting his glasses, but not enough to take them off. "I bet they are just as clueless as the two of us, and while I like the odds of that, I would rather know how to get a hold of our Asgardian brother should the need arise. It's not like we can mount a bat-signal on top of the Stark Tower and aim it at the sky."

"Well, actually, that might work, in a sense," Bruce mused. "But it's just guesswork. Have you thought to ask Jane Foster? She might know, since she's probably spent the most time with Thor."

Personally, Bruce would have loved that excuse to contact her; she was a renowned scientist, in a field that held Bruce's interest, and he knew Tony would feel the same. Only, for once, Tony might not try to hit on a person, knowing what Thor's feelings on the subject might be, and that hammer truly made you respect the man, even if you dismissed the part about a demi-god.

"That's… an excellent idea," Tony smiled, shifting on his chair, then got up. He clapped Bruce on the shoulder, something he often did, and turned to leave.

"If you call her, let me know!" Bruce shouted after him. If Tony heard, he made no comment, which was a bit odd… but then, Tony was eccentric at best. Bruce shrugged it off and went back to work. Maybe once he was done, he would take a look at what Tony had been tackling to re-create the energy barrier of the Cube. That would be a remarkable addition to his suit no doubt, not to mention something S.H.I.E.L.D. would like.

Maybe that was why Tony hadn't been spreading news about it; he had a thing when it came to sharing his creations with S.H.I.E.L.D., especially when it came to things that hadn't been designed for S.H.I.E.L.D. to begin with.

New Mexico, USA

Finding Jane Foster was so much easier than he had thought; she happened to be, of all places, back in New Mexico. Whether she was looking for Thor since she must have heard of his visit to Earth once more, he didn't know, nor did he care. Well, if she was looking for him, then it might make things so much easier for them.

Iron Man landed in front of Jane's current research facility, which was little more than a house with some modifications, standing at the edge of the small town – she really seemed to have a thing for those. Well, it probably had something to do with the open desert spreading out around them, and the proximity to the spot where Thor had appeared for the first time.

Tony took off the helmet, carrying it inside as he entered. "Ms. Foster?" he called out.

There was a minor clatter, and an attractive woman walked out towards the door. "Uh, hi," she said, a bit uncertainly, looking at his attire. For someone who had spent time with a Norse god, she sounded a little anxious.

"I'm a friend of Thor's," Tony started. "They call me Iron Man."

"You're Tony Stark," she said, a bit awkwardly, then cleared her throat, coming forward. "Can I help you with something?" she asked, holding out her hand tentatively, and he shook it carefully since the armor gave him a few extra points when it came to strength.

"As a matter of fact, I am, and I hope you will be able to help me," he said with a smile, and it worked on her just fine. Jane Foster smiled back at him before he went on: "I was hoping to find a way to contact Thor."

"Is something wrong?" she asked, alarmed now.

"Not presently," Tony reassured her, "but there are a few things I would like to… talk to him about, in person if possible."

"Well," she said, a bit uncomfortable now, "I don't know if I can help you with that."

"Anything you can tell me about him will be fine," Tony smiled, shifting slightly. "Our team is… well, there was no time to exchange contact information the last time we parted ways."

She laughed, short and sweet, then focused again. "Well, he explained the Yggdrasil to me," she started.

Tony raised an eyebrow.

"A tree of the universe. Hold on, I have a drawing here somewhere…" She went round to a part of the building that looked like her office. "I don't think that it's really a map, mind you," she went on again, "but he did mention something about… Heimdall. He's someone who watches over the worlds, and controls the Bifrost – that's their means of travel."

"It got destroyed after he left you the last time," Tony told her.

"Oh," she said, suddenly looking quite upset. "That does explain why he has not returned… well, not until recently."

"If I manage to contact him, I shall see to it that the next time he drops by, he shall also visit you."

She smiled at him, then located the paper, and true enough, Tony didn't think it was relevant, although it amazed him that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't have this picture in their records. Guess they hadn't had time to get a hold of it.

However, Heimdall… "Thank you so much," he said, bowing his head. "You have been of much help to the Avengers."

"You are most welcome, Mr. Stark," she smiled back at him, no doubt hoping that Thor would indeed drop by soon.

Yes, perhaps he will, Tony thought as he stepped outside and put his helmet back on. Sooner than you think. And if not, I shall pay you another visit, in case you forgot to tell me something.

For now, there was no reason to harm her, if everything went as it should.

He took off, heading out to the desert where he knew one of the Bifrost's entry points had been – and still was – located.

Hacking his way into a few satellites that the Stark Industries didn't already possess wasn't a problem – even with J.A.R.V.I.S. running in safe mode, since the AI still seemed to take offense at Tony killing Pepper. He didn't want that to become public knowledge until his work here was done.

So, he cracked the codes and sent a message to the sky, although he didn't think that would work. Even if the message reached Asgard, by some miracle, there was probably no way for them to intercept it. It was a way to pass time, mostly.

What he hoped would work, if the word on this Heimdall was correct, was a message burnt into the ground over a couple square miles:

THOR, WE NEED YOUR HELP.
- IRON MAN & co.

It was quite simple, really, and he had no way of knowing if it would work, whether anyone was watching on the other side of the universe, but he had scripted it over the area where Thor had first appeared on Earth, so there was a chance…

He grabbed some snacks, got comfortable, and waited.

As it turned out, he didn't have to wait for very long.

That very night the skies took a sudden stormy look that hadn't been in the forecast, and Tony smiled, putting on his helmet. His hair was almost rising with the electricity in the air, and he stood, waiting, as lightning began to crash above him. And then, with a flash of blue light, a figure came down from the sky. It was almost like the reverse of Thor and Loki leaving Central Park, months ago, but Tony didn't remember such an ache in his chest then.

Now, he switched to offensive mode and waited for the dust to settle just a little…

Thor stood there, a capsule containing the Tesseract in his hand, his hammer in the other. The last of the wind made his hair blow back and forth, his red cape billowing, making him appear truly god-like.

Tony had no eyes for him, though. The aching burn to be united inflamed his veins, making him take off, to extend his hands, to let loose. Thor went down with a mighty groan, rolling on the ground after Iron Man's attack, then scrambled back to his feet. He was half-way up when Iron Man was on him, kicking him back down, then reaching for the fallen container. "Thanks for bringing it all this way," he noted.

"Iron Man, what is the meaning of this?" Thor growled as he got back up. "You summon me here, and attack me… Where is the enemy?"

"You're looking at it," Tony said inside the suit, the small smile in place, then lifted his hand and gave Thor all the firepower he had along his whole arm. It sent the God of Thunder rolling in the dust and Iron Man took off from the ground, his mission one step closer to completion.

A red warning light flickered only briefly before he heard it himself and Mjolnir crashed against his back with such impact that it sent him careening back to the ground. He twisted, protecting the Tesseract as he fell, then picked himself back up. "Bad move," he told Thor.

The hammer was already back in Thor's hand. "I do not understand, my friend. Why are you doing this? Tony…"

It made him stop, only for a moment – long enough to shift the big guns in place and target them at the ground. He didn't really stand a chance at close combat, he could admit that much from their last fight, or it would be a huge risk at least. He could take care of this much more cleanly.

Without a word, although a reply burned hot on his lips, he fired, and the ground gave beneath Thor, sending him plunging deep into the earth, the rest of the collapsing walls burying him. Certainly it would not hold him, but it would slow him down considerably.

Carefully picking up the Tesseract, Iron Man held it to his chest as he took flight again, leaving the smoking, broken remains of the New Mexico desert behind him.

S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier

Thor's fist hit the table so hard it shook. "We must find him."

"That is our top priority," Fury reassured him.

"He has the Tesseract," the Asgardian needlessly reminded them. They were all aware of that.

Steve observed the table with intensity, then lifted his head. Banner was quiet, which wasn't unlike him, but he had been staying with Stark and perhaps blamed himself for not seeing this coming. "What does he want the Tesseract for?"

Banner shifted at his words as if he had been poked hard in the side with something. "He's been… planning on duplicating the energy shield the Tesseract placed around itself. I didn't think he actually planned on using the Tesseract itself. He knows how dangerous the Cube is in the wrong hands – or any hands."

"So either it is that, or he's working with someone," Agent Romanoff, the Black Widow, said. "Where are we on that?"

"J.A.R.V.I.S. is mostly inaccessible to us at this time," Fury replied. "We're working to penetrate the system and perhaps get a clue as to how this started."

"Maybe we could go back to the Stark Tower, see if we can dig up anything there. Perhaps a hint as to where he's gone to hide," Banner suggested.

Steve nodded. "That is a good idea. We might be able to uncover something there."

"Perhaps we can find a hint as to where Pepper has disappeared, too," Black Widow said, surprisingly. "She's been missing for several days."

Fury nodded. "Go to the Tower, and keep in touch. We need to find him as soon as possible, before this whole affair gets out of control."

If anyone asked Thor, it already had, but he nodded grimly and followed the rest of them to a Quinjet. Hawkeye and Black Widow sat in front while the others took places in the back. Thor still looked like he was nursing some battle wounds, emotional rather than physical, and Banner kept shaking his head.

"Banner, it was not your fault, any of this," Steve told him, holding onto the straps in the ceiling as the Quinjet took off from the Helicarrier and sped off towards New York.

"I know," Banner noted, "but when he walked down to the lab the other day I thought something was off…"

"Were the means to contact Thor the only thing you talked about?" Steve asked.

Banner nodded, then looked at their immortal friend. "Was Ms. Foster well?"

Thor had raced out to see her once he realized Stark had paid her a visit. It must have taken some of the temper out of him, since he didn't break anything with his hammer once he arrived at the S.H.I.E.L.D. base. "She was well," Thor nodded. "Stark treated her well, with nothing suspicious about his behavior. Jane said he simply wanted to be able to summon me back to Earth."

"Well, he knew you would use the Tesseract for that," Banner continued.

Thor just nodded grimly. "We must find it," he said needlessly.

Steve craned his neck to look out the front windows. Hawkeye and Black Widow were quiet all the way until they made a somewhat precarious landing on top of the Stark Tower and found their way to a door leading to the stairs. It refused to open, no matter what, so eventually Steve and Thor physically removed it from its hinges.

"J.A.R.V.I.S.?" Banner called out once they were in. "Can you locate Tony for me?" He said it so easily, so informally, that Steve's eyed softened. They were friends, Banner and Stark. They had worked together, lived together, and that Banner had not seen this coming… Well, they still didn't know what they were looking for, exactly, and what was the cause of all this, but it wasn't like Stark to just… do something like this, when he knew it would piss off a whole lot of people. Well, maybe that part, but the people he was hurting were his friends, his allies, and Steve didn't think he would do that.

"I am sorry, Dr. Banner, but I am… unable to assist you at this time," J.A.R.V.I.S. replied a moment later, sounding almost hesitant.

"Well, thank you, anyway," Banner said solemnly, disappointed.

"If I may request that you go down a few more floors," the AI continued quite suddenly. "There is…" He didn't go on after that, and with a quick look over his shoulder, Banner shrugged and went on down until he neared the bottom.

"We could have exited the stairway a lot sooner than this," Black Widow noted. "Why did J.A.R.V.I.S. guide us –"

She ran into Steve's back, words cut off.

Steve sniffed the air. "Can you smell that?"

"Your perfected human senses serve you better than our own, I'm afraid," Banner noted.

Steve didn't know about that, but he could positively smell something. "It's like… a dead animal or…"

"Does Stark strike you as someone who keeps dead animals under his staircases?" Hawkeye noted from the rear of the group, looking down over the railing.

"Not one bit," Steve agreed and continued down, moving past Banner who suddenly didn't seem all that willing to go down any further.

They must have moved down several more floors before Steve could see something, the smell much stronger. Dried blood and death, the beginning touches of decay – something he was only too familiar with. At the very bottom, pushed into a corner beneath the stairs, lay a body.

"Oh no," Black Widow gasped, stopping, a hand on her mouth. Banner had stopped as well.

Thor and Hawkeye followed Steve down as he crouched under the stairs and gently as possible pulled out the body. He froze for a moment, remembering her so well.

"Pepper," Banner said in a choked voice.

"She's been dead for… several days at least," Hawkeye observed. "Maybe… she fell, or something."

"She wouldn't have ended up under the stairs if she fell down here," Steve noted darkly, closing the glassy, sightless eyes with his gloved fingers.

They carried her body out in Thor's cape, which he insisted they should use, and laid her out on the floor. They were at the bottom of another set of stairs, spiraling up to the penthouse area.

"There was blood on the floor there. Someone wiped it off in a hurry," Hawkeye noted, pointing.

Steve walked over there, noticing a few smears left, a faint smell, and looked up. He was standing in the middle of the spiral, so if she had fallen, or someone had pushed her down…

"Perhaps Stark isn't acting alone, or of his own free will," Black Widow said in a hushed voice. Steve looked at her, the cold, emotionless face filled with sorrow. He recalled she had worked with Pepper, when she was undercover in Stark Industries, so that might explain the attachment.

"Let's find out," Banner said in a rough, ruthless voice and started up. He stopped a few floors up, in the main area where they had all confronted Loki after the battle. Of course, the windows had been replaced and there was no more rubble on the floor. "J.A.R.V.I.S.," Banner called out next, stepping over to a small work station, "we found Pepper. Can you show us how it happened?"

"I am sorry, Dr. Banner…"

"Okay," Banner sighed, squeezing the bridge of his nose. "Okay," he said again after a while, putting on his glasses, sitting down, then started typing on the eloquent virtual keyboard that appeared on a horizontal surface. "Before he came to talk to me, what did Tony do… J.A.R.V.I.S., can you tell me if there is something you can show me? Did Tony act differently? Was something wrong with him? Did he meet with someone who… upset him, maybe?"

"My security protocols are preventing me from…" There was silence, as if J.A.R.V.I.S. was straightening himself out. "Please view his medical records."

Banner opened those, the others gathering behind him. "Anything?" Steve asked. He didn't trust the AI on the best of days, finding it odd that something coming from a motherboard could be so smart, like an actual person.

With a frown on his face, Banner scrolled the page, tapping at some places, then exiting again. "There's nothing… no, wait; he's had chest pain."

"Was he going to have a heart-attack?" Hawkeye asked.

"No, that's not… it's a bit out of place, but J.A.R.V.I.S. has taken note of it on several occasions after the Chitauri attack. And they all peaked about two days before he came to see me." Banner rubbed his face. "I wish we could access the security feed. J.A.R.V.I.S. must have seen something."

"Do you think Stark is keeping us deliberately in the dark?" Steve asked.

"Well, J.A.R.V.I.S. keeps telling me I'm not allowed to know things he would have done for me in the past – like locating Tony."

"Let me take a look at that," Black Widow said and replaced Banner on the seat. She tapped commands, waited, tapped again, then contacted S.H.I.E.L.D., telling them to start working on Stark's hidden files. "There are a lot of encryptions. He doesn't want us to see something."

"Why not just delete whatever it is?" Hawkeye asked.

"Perhaps he wants us to know something," Banner mused.

"Shall there be a secret password?" Thor asked, impatiently handling his hammer.

"I hope so," Black Widow said, although she didn't seem to think they would get in with just one such word.

Steve stepped back and looked around. "Well, is there something else we can do while we wait?"

"We could look around," Hawkeye suggested.

They did just that, but a search of the Stark Tower – or rather, the penthouse area since the Tower itself was too huge for a quick search – left them with empty hands. However, it seemed S.H.I.E.L.D. and Banner were getting somewhere. "It would seem J.A.R.V.I.S. is being jammed, put into a mode where he can't work as he should," Banner said as they returned to the floor where he and Black Widow were still working. "We're close to cracking the code to disable the lock-down, and when we get there…"

"He will tell us everything?" Steve asked.

"I hope so," Banner nodded. "Or at least I'll be able to access a lot more than I can now."

"And if that does not give us answers?" Thor demanded.

"Then –" Banner started, but a symbol appeared on the screen, and he turned back towards it. "JA.R.V.I.S., are you up?"

"Yes, Dr. Banner," the sophisticated voice replied. "You have successfully decoded the restriction protocols Mr. Stark placed on my programming before he left."

"What's going on with Stark?" Steve asked, to move things along.

There was no reply.

"Is there a specific wording required?" he inquired then.

"No," Banner replied. "J.A.R.V.I.S., can you show to us what caused Ms. Potts to…"

"That file is… Mr. Stark doesn't want others to see it, but I shall try to explain while your friends from S.H.I.E.L.D. work on that." It was odd to hear someone talking so calmly about S.H.I.E.L.D. breaking into them – mostly because Stark always fumed about that. But the AI sounded almost relieved, if possible.

A screen on the side flickered to life, replaying a video named L101-M7. On screen, Iron Man landed, the suit was taken off, and Stark faced Loki who was stepping into the room.

"Is this…" Black Widow frowned.

"Must have happened before the portal opened," Banner looked at the file. "The date and time match up with that. We were all still on our way."

They watched as the two men talked, a faint smile on Hawkeye's face, and then the scepter was raised, to tap against Stark's chest, once, then a second time. Soon after Stark went flying through the windows and a flash of red and gold soon followed him while Loki attempted to remain standing and avoid collision.

"Is this an answer, or a riddle?" Thor frowned.

"He tried to turn Stark, but it didn't work. Why?" Steve asked.

"By the sound of it, he hit the arc reactor with that thing," Hawkeye pointed out.

"That must have deleted the effect," Black Widow agreed.

"There may be another answer," J.A.R.V.I.S. supplied, and another video was played, much more recent, taken from a bathroom, it seemed. Surveillance, Steve could tell. He looked more closely.

Stark was looking at himself in the mirror, getting ready for a shower. Steve really would have preferred not to watch – until Stark's entire body twisted, his face scrunched up in pain, eyes closed, until a moment later he stood, quite unaffected, and met his own eyes in the mirror, a smile on his lips. The picture froze.

"Zoom in," Banner commanded.

J.A.R. . did just that, and in the mirror, above the shine of the arc reactor…

"His eyes are blue," Steve said needlessly. "Can that be a trick of the light?"

"I would say it isn't," Banner answered. "Did I mention he was wearing sunglasses – indoors – the day we talked? Which was the day after this, the following morning. Only a few hours in between…"

"The video involving Ms. Potts death is available to you now," J.A.R.V.I.S. announced.

They all jumped a little.

"Play it," Steve ordered.

The time on the security feed placed the events between the moment in the bathroom and before the time Banner said Tony came to see him. Pepper walked in, greeting Stark, then backed away from him. They all watched in horror and disbelief as he grabbed her, and dragged her to the steps – then dropped her to her death.

There was a deafening silence afterwards.

"What the hell is going on?" Hawkeye asked after a bit.

"Did anyone notice, when Tony talked, that he spoke of himself as 'Tony', then corrected 'I'?" Banner asked, rewinding the video to that moment.

"What does that mean?" Thor asked.

"Why did J.A.R.V.I.S. show us that video from his confrontation with Loki?" Steve added.

Banner looked like he was working the same fact over in his head. "He wanted the Tesseract, that much was obvious. His eyes remind me of what happened to those whom Loki… forced over to his side," he said, more carefully now, glancing at Hawkeye, who didn't look happy about the reminder.

"But Loki could have not been here, and he no longer wields the power of the Tesseract," Thor scowled.

Banner tapped the screen, and again they saw the same scene from the day the Chitauri attacked, the scepter tapping against the arc reactor. Over and over Banner played it, then just sank his face in his hands. "We have to find him," he said then. "He killed Pepper. There is no way Tony would have killed Pepper. Not of his own free will."

"Is it possible someone else is controlling the Tesseract?" Black Widow asked. "Someone who could have gotten access to Stark?"

Thor thought that over for a long time. "I do not see how that is possible, for the Tesseract was well guarded. Yet we do not know who gave Loki the scepter before he came to Earth." That seemed to trouble him.

"Perhaps we should find Stark and find out," Hawkeye suggested.

Steve nodded. "Can we find him?"

Banner looked at the room in general. "Can you find him, J.A.R.V.I.S.?"

"Mr. Stark cut me off after he realized I have become compromised," J.A.R.V.I.S. said in his usual tone of voice, not happy or unhappy. "He has a mobile version of my program, to keep his suit operational, but I believe I shall be able to give you his exact location nonetheless; there are many tracking devices in his suit, should anything happen. He has not cut off all my access to them."

"Could he be that careless?" Hawkeye frowned.

"Selvig said, when I met him on the roof, that he was aware of his own actions. That was how we were able to shut the portal," Black Widow told them. "Stark knew we would come after him, and he should have deleted all the evidence J.A.R.V.I.S. has just shown us, but he's left them here, hidden, and even allows us to track him down."

"Breadcrumbs," Banner mused.

Thor frowned.

"From a children's story," Black Widow smiled at him. "Two children, to avoid getting lost in the forest, leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind them. Of course they don't realize the animals will eat the crumbs, but in this case…"

"We shall find Stark, and bring justice to him," Thor nodded.

"He might not even know what he's doing," Hawkeye noted, his voice low.

"Let us hope so," Banner said, getting up, "because if he remembers this…" They all knew he meant Pepper, more than anything else.

"Mr. Stark is currently staying in a small Stark Industries-owned testing area/storage location in northern Wyoming. I have sent the coordinates to your Quinjet."

"Thank you," Steve said, nodding his head at the nearest screen.

"Keep us posted," Banner ordered as they got up.

"Should we…" Black Widow hesitated for a moment, looking at the stairs.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. will take care of her," Hawkeye promised his fellow agent, and they all climbed back to the roof, the outlook of the mission grimmer if possible.

Stark Industries testing and storage area
Wyoming

Tony looked up from his suit as an alarm started flashing on the far wall. "J.A.R.V.I.S., I'm so disappointed in you," he shook his head, then looked down at his handiwork. He was ready, but he had hoped to avoid the confrontation with the Avengers if possible.

"A Quinjet has landed, sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. – a separate mobile version of the AI – announced in his ear. "The Avengers are approaching."

"Let them come, but lock the doors. Let's not make this too easy," Tony said, then started putting his suit back together where he had taken it off for modifications.

The others must have been pissed because it didn't take all that long before the building was shaking and he could hear Thor through the rather thick walls of concrete and reinforcement. Lightning sparked on the other side of the innermost door, and it burst open with a final kick from the Captain.

Tony cocked his head slightly, standing up, Iron Man's suit coming to life.

"Iron Man!" Thor bellowed. "Hand me the Tesseract at once!"

"Woah, big guy; get out of bed on the wrong foot?" Tony joked.

"This isn't a time for jokes," Captain America told him firmly, stepping up. "Where have you put the Tesseract?"

"Somewhere safe," Tony told them, through Iron Man. J.A.R.V.I.S. was still running diagnostics, but he was positively pulsing with power.

He saw Black Widow and Hawkeye glance around, looking for the Cube no doubt. Well, they could search all they wanted…

Then Bruce stepped up, and it made him stop for a moment; Bruce Banner, in the middle of all the bulked-up, pissed-off super-heroes, standing very small and human, walking towards him. "Tony," he said, "if you can hear me…"

"Loud and clear," he replied.

"No, not you," Bruce said. "I have a theory, you see. Well, I'm not sure how it happened, but this isn't you, and you might not be able to see it right now, but… I don't want to hurt you, so please just surrender, and give Thor back the Tesseract before he tears your suit a new one."

"Funny," Tony noted, "you're getting the hang of it, good doctor, but I'm afraid the Tesseract is exactly where it belongs, for the time being."

"And where is that?" Thor asked, stepping forward. A few lamps above him exploded from the sheer electricity he exuded.

Tony wished they could see his smile. "I'm sorry for this, Bruce," he said then, and activated the repulsors. The sheer light coming out of them was blinding, but his helmet was quick to adapt.

"Tony, please, don't," Bruce begged just before Iron Man raised his hands, and fired. It was magnificent, how he could have blown through a mountain. He heard Thor's cry of outrage before he shot a beam of focused energy, and the entire under-ground building came falling down.

Iron Man flew up, through the rubble, towards the open sky – and then felt something hit him from below, hard. An angry snarl followed, and Thor's hammer came rushing towards his head as the demi-god pulled himself up, following him. He dodged, shot up from the falling debris, Thor following him through the dust. Iron Man raised a hand to blast Thor, to send him off and to buy him enough time to exit the scene. It was a shame how quick the Asgardian had learned this time, moving to the side to avoid the blast, then came back at him.

They went at it for a fair bit, trading half-successful hits as thunder rolled above them, and Thor never allowed him to slip away completely, dragging himself along, and eventually got enough momentum to hurl Iron Man to the ground.

Tony groaned in the suit, picking himself up slowly. There was a dent in the solid rock the exact shape of his armor, and Thor landed beside him, hammer already swinging. Tony didn't quite manage to dodge it, the blow sending him flying and he landed harshly several feet away.

"Come on," Tony taunted him, rolling over, Iron Man waiting for a perfect moment to hit him.

He never got it because the heavy impact of Captain's shield hit him in the head, momentarily disrupting the information from flowing, a painful ring in his ears.

There was a roar from the Hulk, then Thor was on him, striking him to the ground, and he could distantly hear Captain America telling him to not kill him.

"This will take him down a notch," Black Widow announced, sounding like she had swallowed a lungful of dust, and whatever she shot him with definitely did the trick. The suit shut down like in a seizure, the short so powerful it made Tony see stars, and reality slipped away for a moment.

The Hulk was circling them, not having liked it one bit when Iron Man made the entire building collapse on them. Thor hadn't even waited before flying up to catch Iron Man's escape, and Steve was left to protect those who could not make such a quick exit. For a moment he was positive he belonged in that category as well, because buried under a ton of stone wasn't something him or his shield could deal with.

Banner had turned to Hulk before the roof fell in, protecting Hawkeye and Natasha long enough for them to climb out, Steve going ahead of them. By the time they got to the surface, Thor was attacking Iron Man with all he had, keeping him from fleeing, and when it looked like he might have him on the ropes – which usually didn't mean all that much when Stark was wearing his suit – Steve decided it was time for him to intervene, and used the knowledge he had gained to render Iron Man temporarily unable to move.

After a solid hit in the head, a few good strikes from Mjolnir, and whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. tech Black Widow had actually brought with her, Iron Man was down.

The Hulk had stopped growling and when Steve turned to look, Banner sat there, dirty and his pants barely hanging onto his body, but got up and stumbled over to them.

"Look at that," he rasped. "He… did he actually put the Tesseract into his suit?"

Steve admitted he hadn't even noticed, but in the back of the suit was a shape of a square which kind of reminded him of the arc reactor in the front.

"That explains why it took him about two seconds to bury us all," Hawkeye noted darkly, then coughed.

"Can we take the suit off?" Steve asked. It looked complicated when it came off the way it should.

"Most of it, yes," Banner said. "It might be a good idea."

They did that without hesitation. Thor muttered and prowled, probably wanting to use his hammer some more, but Stark was down and Steve wasn't comfortable with hitting a man who was already beaten.

Banner was awfully helpful when it came to dismantling the suit, more so than Hulk would have been, at least if they wanted to keep Stark in one piece, and eventually Thor came forth to release the Tesseract from its place in the suit. Steve grimaced; it seemed the Tesseract had almost burned through to Stark's back, through the layers of metal and cloth, leaving long, twisting burn marks on his skin, as if he had been swimming with one of those jellyfish Steve had seen on Animal Planet. A little longer…

"Let's get him back to the Helicarrier," Steve decided, and after Stark was secure and still out of it, they took off. The hardest part of their mission was over, but somehow, when Steve looked at their friend and ally, he wondered if that were true at all.

Stark had the tendency to make everything a bit harder than it should be.

S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier
somewhere above the East Coast, USA

Blue eyes regarded the people gathered in the room. One side of Tony's face was bruised where either Thor's hammer or Captain's shield had caught him.

"I'd really hoped cognitive recalibration would do it," Natasha, still in her Black Widow suit, frowned.

Beside her, Clint seemed to share the same notion. "What are we going to do now?"

"We could try hitting him again," Steve said, but there was hesitance in his voice. Bruce knew he would not strike Tony, even when the eerie blue eyes stared back at him with a smugness in them that was very much Tony.

"Are you afraid, Rogers?" Tony taunted him. "Afraid my blood on your hands will taint your precious honor?"

"I'm more afraid for you," Steve said, a calm in his voice that didn't quite convince anyone. "Do you have any idea what you have done? What you almost did to yourself?"

Tony frowned for a moment. Bruce had taken a look at his back, the long trails of burn-marks. "The suit was not ready," Tony muttered, his eyes shifting, looking at something none of them could see. "I didn't have enough time…"

"Well, whatever you tried to do, Mr. Stark, it was a bad idea," Fury commented from the side, striding forward.

Tony lifted his head, looking at him. "Yes, you would know. How was it again you wanted to use the Cube?"

Fury did not reply, but he did look more like he was going to vote for trying to set Tony's brain right the old-fashioned way.

"We're not getting anywhere like this," Bruce said. "We need to figure out what is going on in his body – how the Tesseract is affecting him – and then find a way to sever that bond."

"You think that is the issue here, Doctor?" Fury looked at him.

Bruce shrugged. "That's the simplest answer. All he's said and done, his appearance, it matches what Barton went through when Loki turned him…"

"I wish we knew how that worked the first time," Steve noted gravely. "We never quite got an answer to that."

"No," Bruce agreed. "Too busy trying to stop the alien invasion and get the Tesseract back where it belonged."

Thor shifted. "Perhaps… we should seek counsel with someone who has knowledge of these things," he suggested.

"And whom would that be?" Fury asked.

"My brother. Loki," Thor said quietly.

"Yeah, I see that working out very well," Clint noted, already tensing.

"We can't trust him," Natasha agreed.

"He has been imprisoned, and stripped of his powers, for our father was not pleased with his actions," Thor continued. "He betrayed us all, but to redeem himself, perhaps he could be of assistance to us now."

"And what if he lies?" Steve asked. "What if he is not willing to help us?"

Thor's face was dark. "I shall make him tell us the truth of this. If he has ensnared Iron Man's mind, we shall know of it."

"We cannot risk it," Fury said.

"We cannot risk Tony staying like this," Bruce interjected. "Every moment…" They all looked at their prisoner, but none of them saw the dangers. Bruce wondered whether they would understand. "When the battle was over, Clint wrote in his report about what it felt like to be under the hold of the Tesseract. That he had knowledge he could have not had. Put Tony's mind in the same place. He's already frighteningly smart, he knows all of us, he knows how we operate, and if he is getting superior information from the outside, from whatever source, it is only a matter of time before we have a huge mess in our hands."

Fury seemed to recognize that possibility at least. Steve, too, was frowning, looking uncomfortable with the idea of how much havoc Tony could wreak while turned against them.

"I shall return to Asgard," Thor said, "and speak with the Allfather. If he deems Loki to be of assistance to us, then I shall return with all the information I can," he concluded.

No one said 'no' to him this time. Loki might not be anyone's favorite option for anything, but Bruce was willing to take that gamble, in order to save his friend.

He could always turn to Hulk and smash the god of trickery around a few more times if things went bad.

"Your mind is not your own," Steve told Stark. Sitting in a chair, hands tied behind him, secured and not a threat to anyone, he still felt like Stark thought he had the upper hand. So much like Loki, which made him uncomfortable – especially when Loki had been able to play them.

Thor had left, taking the Tesseract, which he needed to get back home. Steve didn't pretend to understand how that worked, but he knew they might need to take this risk in order to win.

Stark would have been happy to take the risk. He lived on them.

"How do you know?" Stark asked him conversationally. "Perhaps this is the real me."

"I don't think I've ever met the real you," Steve replied. He had no idea what he was doing here, in this room, but he had had trouble sleeping, just like everyone else, and he couldn't work in a lab like Banner, trying to unlock the mystery of Stark's condition. He had tried exhausting himself with training, which seemed to be Barton and Romanoff's way of dealing with inability to rest, and he had checked on his gear, making sure it was in perfect condition should it be needed, then resisted the itch to put it on; they were not moving anywhere until Thor returned, or Banner came up with an alternative.

Stark's head cocked. "Ah, you wound me," he spoke, answering Steve's earlier claim. "I think we have been very open with each other, Cap. Likes and dislikes… Shall we have another go at that? I would love to put on the suit, just for you."

"Not this time," Steve told him. They stared at each other, blue on blue. "I wish I knew… how to break through to you."

"Come a little closer, I didn't catch that," Stark whispered.

Steve wasn't falling for that. Stark might not have been trained like the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and he wasn't a soldier, but that didn't mean he wouldn't have a trick or two up his sleeve if someone made a mistake around him.

He seemed to realize Steve was going to stay safely away from him and leaned back in the chair, his body arching as far as it would go. "Why won't you just finish it?" he asked.

Steve frowned. "Finish it?"

"Put a bullet in my skull," Stark supplied. "All your problems taken care of."

Steve blinked. "I would never do that," he said, voice stiff.

"I know." Stark smiled. "Still, it's worth seeing that shocked look on your face. The horror."

Steve turned and left; he had clearly overstayed his welcome. He headed out to the bridge, which was quiet at this time of the night, but several people were always there, monitoring the rows of screens, making sure the Helicarrier stayed in the air.

Unsurprisingly, Fury was also there.

"Trouble sleeping?" Steve called out to him.

Fury looked at him over his shoulder, a ghost of a smile on his lips. It hadn't been so long since their places had been reversed. "You went to see him."

Steve knew better than to deny it. "There has been no change."

Fury nodded. "Doctor Banner is observing him. I fear we are running out of options."

Steve wondered what that meant. Stark's words came back to haunt him; what would S.H.I.E.L.D. do if they couldn't release Stark from whatever was holding him prisoner in his own body and mind?

Lightning flashed outside the giant windows, bright and sudden, making them both look up.

"Could that be –?" Steve wondered.

Fury's look was one of concentration. If Thor had returned so soon, mere hours after leaving, it could not be good.

They all gathered near one of the entrances, then as the air lock opened, Thor stood there, Mjolnir in one hand, Tesseract under his arm, and his other hand held a man by the shoulder who looked like a mere shadow next to him.

There was silence as Loki regarded them all.

"That did not take long," Barton finally said. His fingers twitched, as if around an imaginary arrow.

"The meeting with our father was brief," Thor announced, stepping further in, dragging Loki along.

"The Allfather was not overly fond of Thor's demands," the god of trickery supplied after a moment. His voice was the same, honey and lies.

Thor shrugged, then handed the Tesseract to Agent Hill, who moved to take it to a more secure location. Loki's eyes followed the blue glow, then settled to look at all of them once again. "There must be a reason why I was brought here," he said then.

"You didn't tell him?" Romanoff raised an eyebrow.

Thor shrugged again.

Steve wondered what exactly had happened in Asgard, and how displeased Odin must have been with all this. Judging from the mixed look of delight and dread on Loki's face, it probably hadn't been good.

"Has anything changed in my absence?" Thor asked then.

"No," Banner sighed. "He is… still the same."

Loki looked at the doctor curiously.

Banner did not elaborate, simply turning and walking off towards Stark's holding cell. The others followed, Thor marching Loki ahead of him, a firm hand on his shoulder the entire time, and Steve wondered if there was some kind of danger in Loki being here after all. If he had been stripped of his powers, what could he do? He decided not to let the Asgardian out of his sight if he could help it.

They stopped before the large observation windows, beyond which Stark still sat in his chair, staring off into space.

Loki looked at him a good two seconds before he made a sound. "Ah."

"What can you tell us?" Thor demanded.

Loki arched an eyebrow, craning his neck to look at the people standing behind him. "What are you presuming I am able to make of this?"

"What is wrong with him," Banner snapped, surprisingly impatient. "How can we… make him back to the way he was. To release him from whatever has taken hold of him."

"Well, I cannot help you with that," Loki answered.

Thor looked ready to put him through the wall. "You will not lie to us! You put a spell like this on many people."

"That I did," Loki said, in a tone that had probably soothed the God of Thunder many a time. "But this is not my doing."

"It looks awfully like it," Barton commented.

"I no longer have the scepter," Loki went on, raising his empty hands to further make his point. "How would I be able to do this to Mr. Stark from my cell far away in Asgard?"

"You tried to ensnare him before," Thor shook him. "We all saw it from a recording at his home!"

Loki stopped at that, truly hesitating before speaking again: "It did not work."

"Are you sure?" Banner asked. "Are you sure this is not related to your actions?"

Loki looked at Stark again. "No. It cannot be. The power of the Tesseract does not work that way – unless someone else wielded its power recently and managed to do what I could not."

"Who would have wielded its power when the Tesseract was safely in Asgard?" Fury asked. He had been surprisingly quiet until now, which meant he wasn't happy with the way things were going.

"That I cannot tell you," Loki said, almost sweetly.

"Who gave you the scepter?" Thor almost roared. "Who was it that set you to find the Tesseract in the first place? You will answer me –"

"Thor, he's no use to us dead," Romanoff intervened when Thor's fist was dangerously tight around Loki's throat.

Thor backed off, muttered something, throwing dark looks at Loki who took his time to breathe and cough.

"Could there have been someone else who used the same power you had?" Steve asked, wanting answers, feeling like Loki was playing them all over again.

"Can I speak to him?" Loki asked. "I might be able to uncover something you did not…"

"Good luck with that," Barton muttered, but they let Loki in, following him into the room; there was no knowing what he would do, and if he was the one controlling Stark, by some means, then Steve was going to be here to stop anything from happening.

Stark regarded them all, then looked at Loki. "The Chitauri want your head," he commented, no provocation needed. "You did not deliver what you promised them."

Loki's face fell, his eyes guarded. "And you are here to finish what I started?" he enquired.

Stark smiled but didn't speak.

Loki looked around uncertainly.

"Well?" Fury asked impatiently. "You wanted to talk to him."

"I believe you are familiar with the phrase, 'end of the line'? I can do no more here. Please, take me back to Asgard." Loki sounded almost frightened. Steve decided that whatever had taken over Stark made him nervous – or that he was still playing them into thinking that.

"You haven't even tried," Steve interrupted whatever Fury had been about to say. "Does he frighten you so much?"

"Whoever is holding his mind, I have no desire to meet," Loki noted. "I cannot stress that enough."

"I don't give a rat's ass about what you want," Steve snapped, making the others jump at his tone – and the fact that he was cursing. "How do we undo it? Do we need to build another scepter? Use the one you had?"

"It all depends on how he came to be this way, and that I do not know," Loki replied just as bitingly. "Have you not found out that much?"

"We have not seen that he would have had any contact with the Tesseract or anyone who seems to be… using it. Not after he confronted you," Banner stepped in.

"You confused mice," Stark drawled from beside them. "You cannot begin to understand… This cannot be undone!"

"I think we should move this discussion elsewhere," Fury commented.

"I agree," Steve replied.

Loki looked relieved to be out of the room, the thunder cloud that was his brother following him as they moved out. Stark stared at them, his blue eyes hard, a small smile on his lips. As if he truly knew something none of them did. Steve promised him quietly that they would make things right again, but knew better than to say it out loud.

Bruce escaped the meeting that was getting louder by the moment. His nerves couldn't take it, and he felt restless as it was. Drawn thin, too thin, about to snap… and no one liked him when he snapped.

No one wanted a repeat performance of the other guy in the Helicarrier, either, so they didn't stop him.

Instead of going to his small room, or even the lab, Bruce headed down to where they kept Tony. He looked much the same as when they left, somewhat amused, hiding something.

"Bruce," Tony whispered as he entered. "I hoped it would be you."

"Yeah?" he replied absentmindedly. He was checking Tony's vitals, to see if there was any change. J.A.R.V.I.S. was keeping an eye on him around the clock, monitoring him, but there had been nothing at all. Well, perhaps a small glitch when Thor had left, and again when he returned, but if his condition was linked to the Tesseract, that could be it.

"Come closer. I don't bite," Tony crooned.

"I think I'll stay right here," Bruce replied.

"You're so boring."

"You should know that by now."

"You should strut…"

Bruce looked up at that. "What did you say?"

Tony's face twisted for a moment, as if he fought himself somehow. Bruce stepped closer. The blue eyes blinked at him, almost angry. "You cannot win!" Tony insisted.

"We don't even know what will happen if we lose," Bruce pointed out. "Could you tell us that much? What do you want?"

Again, a twist, as if there were an internal struggle going on. "I… cannot tell you that. But I could… whisper it in your ear."

"How is that the same as not telling me?" Bruce asked.

Tony looked up at him, a smile on his lips. "Clever. So clever, Doctor. You keep playing me into a corner."

"You are making it easy."

"Not too easy, I hope."

"Nothing's ever easy with you, Tony."

"Wouldn't want to disappoint the fans…" But there was something there, as he said it; a flicker, behind the eyes. Bruce wasn't sure, but for a moment, it was as if… Then Tony's whole body jerked, as if from a seizure, then stopped, leaving him panting, and a moment later he lifted his head again, and his eyes were the dark brown color.

"Tony?" Bruce asked, surprised.

"Bruce…" Tony blinked, frowning, then shifted, and seemed to notice his bound hands, and the room. "What is going on?"

Bruce stepped over to him, knelt in front of him. He had no idea what had just happened, what he had done. "Is it really you?"

"Is there someone else?" Tony asked, a little playful.

"You have no idea… can you remember anything? How do you feel?"

"Like someone placed my head between an anvil and Thor's hammer," Tony answered, cringing. "Why am I tied up? If someone told you I'm into it, I will admit to no such thing."

Bruce let out a sigh of relief, and moved his hand to undo the restraints. "I'm so glad you're okay."

Tony rubbed his wrists, then looked at him, a soft smile on his lips. "Thank you, Bruce. So much."

Bruce smiled at him, then frowned. "For what?"

"For making it so easy."

Tony was on his feet before Bruce could get his bearings, and the brown was gone from his eyes in a blink, as if it had never been there. Bruce doubted it had. Tony reached for him, sudden and violent, a fist in his hair at the nape of his neck, and it fucking hurt, then Bruce felt his balance fail, Tony turning them around, and slamming Bruce face first into the nearest wall.

The other guy was coming out by the time he tasted blood in his mouth, and the hold of Tony's hand, warm yet vicious, was gone.

The alarm sounded, cutting off Fury's words which had made Loki sink a few inches deeper into his chair. For someone who had tried to take over the entire planet, he was very subdued and tried to look small. Thor kept pulling him up every time he sank too deep, as if preventing him from escaping through some unseen portal under the table.

Steve looked up, frowning. "What's going on?"

Agent Hill rushed to the door. "The Hulk is tearing up the detention level."

"What?!" Fury was already moving for the door.

"We are not sure what happened, but Stark is gone. Banner freed him, for whatever reason, and then Stark attacked him, escaping in the commotion."

"There's no way he's gotten off the ship yet," Fury said. "Find him – and contain the Hulk."

"How are we going to do that?" Steve asked. If Stark had brought the Hulk out, there was little chance at talking the green giant out of his temper.

"By any means necessary," Fury replied. He didn't sound too positive about their chances, but considering the alternative, he didn't really have a choice but to try.

"I will go after Banner," Thor volunteered, then positively slammed his brother against the wall, stopping Loki from moving another inch. "When this is over, I shall come and find you. For your own sake, brother, do not leave this ship."

"I would not dream of it," Loki replied, and moved back to the meeting room they had just left.

Steve wanted to secure him, but they didn't have the time. So, he headed up to the armory, slipped into his suit in record time, then asked for confirmation as to where Stark had last been seen.

There was an on-going chaos when he slipped down a few more levels and ran, shield in hand, towards the cargo bay. A security camera had spotted Stark heading that way, using Hulk as a distraction with masterful ease. It made Steve sick; Banner had always trusted Stark, and this kind of betrayal had to hurt deep. He wondered if such distrust could ever be mended.

There was no time to think. He knew Hawkeye and Black Widow were on their way, being no match for the Hulk, leaving that to Thor, and as electricity crackled in the air, Steve knew Thor had found his opponent. He wondered if Fury had any ideas besides Thor's powers to subdue the raging monster.

"Stark!" he called out when he reached the right level. It was quiet; people had cleared out after the alarm to take stations more important in the other parts of the ship. Crates were secured all around him, and he could only guess what Stark was looking for down here. Then it hit him, just as fast as he spotted the man, casually walking out of one hallway formed by huge containers. "Stark!" he called out again.

He got the man's attention, the blue eyes almost shining in the semi-darkness, then there was that unmistakable smile, and Stark began to run. Steve took after him, knowing he was faster. He lost sight of him for a moment, turning a corner, but he could hear Stark, feet heavy on the floor, and moved to follow.

"Widow, Hawkeye, how far off are you? I have a visual on Stark," he called into the radio.

"We're entering the cargo bay now," Black Widow responded.

Steve picked up the pace to catch a glimpse of Stark again, turning a corner, body already moving towards the way he knew the man must have taken – then almost ran into him. He came to a full, jarring stop, Stark standing but a few feet before him. His back was turned to him, and Steve wondered if this was a trick.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Steve said, to buy himself some time until the others got there. "Unleashing the Hulk –"

Stark turned to look at him, face passive, the eyes regarding him like an entity of their own. "You think I miscalculated this, Captain?" he asked, cocking his head, sniffing – so much like Stark. "You think I made a mistake?"

"Anyone who pisses off the Hulk makes a pretty big mistake," Steve noted needlessly.

Stark almost grimaced. "Yeah, I kind of hoped I wouldn't need to do that, but he played right into my hand. How could I not take the chance?"

"He is your friend. He trusts you," Steve went on, lowering his shield a little.

"Does he now?" Stark replied.

"You know he does. Deep inside… you're hurting from all the things you've done, all the people you've hurt."

A smile appeared on his lips. "Are you going to make me cry now, tell me all about how I dropped Pepper to her death?"

Steve was momentarily shocked into silence. Somehow, he had thought that memory would at least jar Stark a little. Perhaps he wasn't in control, at all. Whatever was driving him…

"Okay, chatting time is over," Stark said suddenly, lifting his head. "J.A.R.V.I.S., initiate the start-up sequence."

There was no reply. Steve wondered if he had gone mad, if they had hit him one too many times. "J.A.R.V.I.S. knows you're not yourself. He won't help you," Steve said, trying to sound confident.

Stark actually laughed. "He is an AI designed by me. Just because he helped you find me before doesn't mean I cannot get him to work exactly as I want. And tell me, Captain Rogers… did it ever occur to you that perhaps getting caught worked to my advantage?"

A whirring noise rose from behind Stark, from a dark corner, and one of the crates began to unfold. Steve knew he wasn't going to like this. A blue light shone where a suit began to move, although it was much bigger than Stark's usual Iron Man suits.

"J.A.R.V.I.S., blow this soldier to kingdom come," Stark ordered.

What Steve recalled of it before the robot rising behind Stark fired was the smile playing on the man's lips and a cold disregard for his teammate's safety in his eyes.

The shot hit him square in the chest, missing his shield by inches, sending him back through the air until he hit another crate, the world blacking out for a moment. He knew it was more time than Stark had needed. They had played this into his hands, somehow, not even knowing it.

One of the best features of being Tony Stark was that you made the plan up as you went – unlike Captain America who always had to have one in advance. That was why the national icon was now lying in a collapsed crate while the bigger suit behind Tony opened up, revealing his usual armor within it, and he climbed in to suit up.

He had stored this unit in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier in case of emergency. The robot would protect his suit if need be and bring it to him should they run into problems. A proto-type, nothing more – not something he had bothered to send Fury a memo about – but he had recalled its very useful existence after making Bruce lose control.

Tony could still remember the moment he realized his deception had worked, that Bruce was going to let him go – and the moment he smashed him into the wall, the kind of hit a normal man couldn't have taken without falling down and not getting up… The Hulk had smashed the room, trying to get him, but Tony knew him by now, had learned to see the attacks coming, and soon enough all he needed to do was move away from the huge green rage monster and find his way down here.

"Sir, the suit has completed configurations and is ready to –"

An explosion against his shoulder interrupted J.A.R.V.I.S., and Tony turned his head to look.

Hawkeye was fitting another arrow into his bow, which meant Black Widow wasn't far behind.

"Party time," he announced. "Big guy," he told the robot, "set to detonate in one minute."

The robot sat down, folding into itself, and a couple lights flickered. Tony turned to look at Hawkeye again, while his system scanned the cargo bay.

"Give it up, Stark," Hawkeye told him.

"While I'm winning? Not a chance," he smiled in the suit, and Iron Man raised his hands. He was about to fire when someone landed on top of him – who else but the Widow? – and he struggled to shake her off, knowing that if she had another one of those annoying S.H.I.E.L.D. EMPs…

"Flares," Tony commanded. Black Widow fell off him with a small yell, but was smoothly rolling to her feet an instant later, ready to advance. Tony didn't wait. "J.A.R.V.I.S., shut down engines 1 and 4 for me."

The Helicarrier shuddered, teetering in the sky like a bird learning to fly, and the two agents looked around in alarm. "S.H.I.E.L.D. should really find their contractors somewhere else," Tony told them through the suit. "I upgraded their system after the last battle. Seems like that is going to work for me just fine…"

"It's not over yet," Black Widow said, Hawkeye's reply being lifting his bow, sharp eyes fixated on him.

Tony took flight before they could shoot, because at that exact moment, the robot ten feet from him exploded. He heard shouts and yells through the communication frequency, heard Rogers call them all together, to make them leave the area. Elsewhere, S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel were torn between restraining the Hulk and trying to keep their sinking ship in the air.

Not wanting to be caught in the way of either, Tony blew his way through the hull, circling in the air, then decided things were moving just a tad too slow and flew over to engine 3 – for old times' sake – and aimed his repulsors at it. The engine exploded with glorious colors, sending the Helicarrier plummeting. They were safely over water, he knew that, and they had already been at a lower altitude than normal. Still, it was a fantastic belly flop into the water, stirring something inside him.

No time for that.

He soared down, watching the Helicarrier smoke and sink partially under the water like a broken toy. "J.A.R.V.I.S., be a good boy and locate the Tesseract for me," he ordered. It was time to stop playing games.

"Banner!"

His ears were ringing.

"Banner! We need to…"

His skull was about to split, and his entire body was on fire.

"If you can hear me, my friend, let me know."

"What?" Bruce said – or yelled, he wasn't sure.

"He's fine. We have to go, this section is sinking fast."

"Lead the way, warrior of S.H.I.E.L.D."

Someone was tugging him along, forcefully, almost setting off the other guy again. "Wait, I have to. God…"

"There is no time. Our flying fortress has fallen," Thor explained to him. "We must seek higher ground."

Bruce felt like asking what the hell he was talking about, then felt something lapping at his ankles, and saw water everywhere, rising – or were they sinking? It was like watching the movie Titanic all over again. He hadn't liked it the first time.

It looked like a tornado had ripped its way through the hallway, and Bruce could make a guess it had to do with something green and a hammer of gods. His face still hurt, perhaps with the memory of Tony's attack.

"Where's Tony?" he asked, despite their dire situation.

"The Captain and the others went after him. I assume it went poorly," Thor told him.

"Where is he?" Bruce asked, but didn't expect anyone to care enough to answer.

A female S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was leading them along, and when they came to an entrance blocked by what looked like the overhead level collapsed onto theirs, Thor let go of him to remove the rubble and find a way through. Bruce leaned against a wall, the water reaching his calves now.

"Are you alright?" the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent asked him, concern in her voice, but Bruce knew it wasn't directed at him, really, but the safety of herself and the entire crew.

"Yes," Bruce managed. He was still reeling. He wasn't used to moving so much and so fast after waking up.

Thor managed to pull aside enough broken metal to let them crawl through, and Bruce cringed at every sharp edge pressing into his bare skin. He had some poor resemblance of pants clinging to his hips, covering most of him, now that he took enough time to notice, but nothing else was left of his clothes. He wondered if anyone could loan him some once they got out of here.

They kept moving, away from the water, somewhere higher, and finally climbed two levels higher and met more people. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents gave them a wide berth, not wanting to stir the other guy, and they were pointed forward.

The bridge, as Bruce calculated, was probably submerged by now, and it was some kind of back-up room they finally walked into to find Fury and Agent Hill. They looked at them, noting Bruce, then turned back to a cacophony of voices shouting status updates.

"Are we going under?" Bruce asked.

"No, but we are taking in water and have closed off many sections of the carrier to keep us afloat," Agent Hill replied.

"Where are our comrades?" Thor asked.

"We reached Captain Rogers a moment ago. It seems Stark has escaped, and they are making their way back here." The agent turned back to the consoles beside her, barking commands, looking ragged and tired.

"Thor," Fury spoke up, "could you go and find your brother before he finds himself in any kind of trouble?"

Thor nodded grimly and walked off.

"You good, Doctor?" Fury asked him next.

Bruce was leaning against the wall, feeling battered and tired. He blinked. "Yeah… yes, thank you." He hesitated for a moment. "I'm sorry about all this."

"Stark knew what he was doing," Fury said by way of reply.

"He played me," Bruce agreed. "I thought, for a moment… but it was just a ruse. And it worked." It twisted his gut unpleasantly, the fact that this was all his fault.

"Sir," an agent spoke up from the side. "We have tracked down Iron Man."

Fury glanced towards the screen. "Where is he?"

"It would seem he never left; he's hovering just above the Helicarrier, and seems to be…" The soldier narrowed his eyes, looking at his screen. "I think he's searching for something."

"The Tesseract," Bruce said. Of course. Tony wouldn't leave without it. "Where did you place it?"

"In a vault beneath the armory, but that level is currently under water," Fury told him.

Bruce turned it over in his head. "His suit can manage that. He'll get to it faster than we are able to get ourselves moving."

He could almost hear Fury's teeth grinding against each other. "Damn it," he swore finally, beneath his breath, his hands tightly holding onto a railing that looked a bit bent, as if something had crashed against it not so long ago. Seeing as there were numerous objects lying all over the floor, pushed out of the way, it could have been any of those, or a person.

"Are any of the weapon systems working?" Fury asked next.

"I'm sorry, sir. It would seem Iron Man has completely disabled our weapons and communications to the outside. It's lucky we even caught sight of him."

"He did design a lot of things for you," Bruce said needlessly. It wouldn't be a problem for Tony to gain the upper hand, especially now that he was in his suit again. Guilt gnawed at his mind, steadier than ever. When Tony got to the Tesseract, they would be back to where they started, looking for him, and this time they shouldn't hope for J.A.R.V.I.S. to point them in the right direction.

They had to intercept him now, or it would be too late. In a way, it felt like if they didn't do this, they might lose him forever, and Bruce wasn't ready for that to happen.

"I'll stop him," he said then.

Fury looked at him. "While I appreciate the sentiment –"

"No," Bruce shook his head. "I set him free. I'm going to get him back. He's not going to escape, with or without the Tesseract."

"I have to decline your offer," Fury told him. "This ship can't take another rampage from the Hulk. Enough lives have been lost and endangered."

"You would rather let him go?"

"We will find him again."

"I'm not that optimistic," Bruce said, turning. His body ached, but it was vanishing. "Tony isn't an idiot, and whatever… knowledge the one controlling him has given him, it's going to make him even harder to catch. This is our last chance at that, and I'm not going to blow it."

"Banner –" Fury started, but Bruce had already turned, moving down the hallway, and no one stopped him. Maybe he was looking a bit green, who knew, and he could feel the other guy rearing his head, listening.

"This one time," Bruce spoke to himself, "you have to listen. You have to do what I'm telling you to. You know how I feel… you know this is important." There were no longer people as he rushed forward, bare feet beating against the cold floors. It was just him, and the monster inside him – the monster that hopefully was listening and understanding what he was saying.

He wrenched one blast-door open, slipping through, and there was water again, lapping against his legs, cold and uncomfortable, then another closed door, and he knew this was going to take too long.

"We need to get to the Cube and stop Iron Man from escaping. I know you… saved Tony once before, and I need us to do it again."

There was no confirmation, just like he knew there wouldn't be, and when he closed his eyes he prayed, then started to feel the change, and allowed it to take over as smoothly and painlessly as possible.

The water around his feet wasn't so cold anymore.

The Tesseract was close, he could feel it, a warmth spreading through his entire being. Like wading through chest-deep snow and seeing the lights of your home, the safety and comfort of it waiting, just outside your reach.

He was going to reach it.

Scanning the wreckage of the Helicarrier, Tony prepared the suit, then dove beneath the surface, cutting the hull with a laser, slipping inside. The walls were thicker around the vault, but he could penetrate them. It might take a little longer, but just on the other side he could feel it calling to him. Everything had fallen into place perfectly, and the Avengers would not stand a chance at stopping him –

The wall shook, momentarily interrupting his thoughts. The entire hallway around him seemed to shiver. Perhaps an explosion somewhere, giving his enemies something else to think about.

A fist tore through the ceiling, the roar muffled by water, but Tony had to admit, none of those shark movies he had seen compared to the moment of terror when Hulk grabbed him firmly around the chest plate; no teeth, just superhuman strength and resolve.

Tony fired at the green beast to get loose, then felt himself being smashed through several walls, the water taking some of the impact, slowing him down, not giving Hulk his usual leverage. For a moment he thought he had lost him, because one of them had air to breathe while the other did not. There were many things Hulk could withstand, but Tony knew he needed air in his lungs.

The wall beside him bent and split, green fists clawing at it, and Tony slipped away, fast like a fish, his repulsors working just fine under water. No one could say, however, that Hulk wasn't determined once he got something on his mind, because the beast tore after him, through walls rather than past them, eventually blocking Tony with no way out.

Tony tried to calibrate his system, to see which way was up, too focused on escaping to pay attention to which direction he had been going.

Perhaps that was why he lost the chase; Hulk didn't stop to think, to observe his surroundings. He came at Tony, grappling the suit, this time holding tight, too tight, and then smashed them both through a wall, and another, and all the flares in the world didn't make him let go. Tony was trying to get a hold of something, then was pummeled through water and suddenly he was at the surface again, outside the Helicarrier, smashing back down against the hull.

One of his legs felt like it may be broken, where the Hulk had grabbed it to drag him through the ship. The boot jet was useless, and he was uncertain whether he could fly without it. "J.A.R.V.I.S., status report?" he requested, trying to get up.

"Sir, I'm afraid your suit has taken damage and flight properties are heavily influenced by said damage."

Tony was in the process of bypassing that, somehow, when Hulk emerged from the water, climbing along the hull as if it were a slide in a water park. Tony lifted an arm to fire. Hulk growled then roared, lunging at him, and the impact of the repulsor beam didn't seem to have any kind of effect.

"Fuck."

That was all the time he had before the Hulk was on him, grabbing the suit, smashing him against the hull of the Helicarrier, and J.A.R.V.I.S. kept telling him in a growing litany what kind of damage the beast was doing. Tony thought it shouldn't be this easy, that his head wasn't in the game… why was that?

Tony fired the chest RT, blasting the Hulk in the face. He tried wriggling free, but the Hulk roared, holding his left arm, and as he was wrenched off the ground it actually hurt, like the limb was going to be torn off, armor and all. He was smashed down again, this time in the water, and a huge hand pawed at him, crunching the helmet.

"Sir, there has been a breach," J.A.R.V.I.S. told him when he felt cold water flooding the inside of the suit. He couldn't feel his left arm anymore. He could smell salt, and as he breathed in, there was water in his nose. He jerked, reflexively, wondering if it was in fact worse drowning inside the suit than without one.

The Triskelion,
S.H.I.E.L.D.'s island HQ and holding facility
near New York, NY, USA

When the Hulk dragged Iron Man's battered suit up from the water, Steve, Black Widow and Hawkeye were waiting for him. Thor had remained inside, keeping a watch over Loki, who miraculously hadn't tried to escape in the commotion.

The Hulk growled at them, dropping Iron Man to the hull with a clunk, then lumbered to the side. There was blood seeping from the cracks of the suit when Steve went for a closer look, and Stark wasn't moving. In fact, he was certain for a moment that he was dead, a horrible dread hitting him in the gut. No matter what had happened, this wasn't how he had wanted it to end; Tony, controlled by some unknown force, killed by the man who was perhaps his best friend in the entire team.

Hulk had turned back to Banner while Steve crouched by their fallen friend. After a period of disorientation, Banner told them to remove Stark's suit. It took them the better part of an hour to accomplish that, especially when Banner stopped them twice to revive Stark, whose heart apparently had stopped. He wasn't breathing, either, when they wrenched off the helmet, and it took such a long time to get the water out of his lungs that Steve was amazed he would ever breathe again.

Banner wasn't giving up on him, though, and they hauled his body, still partially in the suit, back inside, to the nearest operational med bay.

The Helicarrier was later hauled to some secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base Steve had never even heard of, and while Fury was adamant that they put Stark in chains, there was no reasoning with Banner: "Without immediate medical care, he will die." Hulk had been the one to injure Stark so that had to weigh on his opinion more than anything else, but whatever his motivation, Steve knew Fury didn't want Stark dead any more than the rest of them. So, once they docked, they moved Stark to proper medical facilities, and although he looked like he was going to collapse at any given moment, Banner was determined to follow him.

"Are you sure this is safe, Doctor?" Agent Romanoff's voice was a bit shaky, but it had been a long day. They had gathered at the door of the infirmary, watching as Stark lay completely still on a bed, finally out of his suit. His left arm looked like it wasn't attached to his body in any natural sort of way and Bruce was clearly planning to work on that.

"He's out cold," Banner told her. "His suit is wrecked and the Cube is safe."

"Doctor," a local nurse said. Many of them had gathered in the room but seemed somewhat intimidated by Banner – which wasn't that usual for S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel so his reputation must have preceded him. "He's going into cardiac arrest again."

"Damn it," Banner swore, moving around the bed. "Okay, prepare the defibrillator."

Steve winced at the way his teammate's body jumped a moment later at the electricity coursing through it. On the Helicarrier, they had managed to get his heart started with plain old CPR. Now, the machine let out a beep that didn't sound completely natural.

"I think that… device in his chest is affecting the system," one of the nurses pointed at the arc reactor. "His heart is not responding…"

Banner looked at the screen, then at Tony, and seemed to be counting the odds in his head. "Try again," he said.

They did, and the defibrillator sounded like it was going to go out of order if they tried again. The light in Tony's chest flickered, then resumed its usual, bright glow. Steve thought it was unfair, seeing as his heart wasn't working normally, but he recalled that the arc was mainly used to keep the shrapnel in place, instead of having any real effect on his heart.

"Okay," Banner said, voice faint, touching Stark's chest carefully. "Don't die on me, Tony," he vowed, then took hold of the arc reactor, twisting it around, and after a bit of a struggle it came off, a ball of light in his hand. "Again, as quickly as you can," Banner said then, cradling the arc reactor carefully in his hands. The medical team moved into position, and this time the defibrillator seemed to do the trick after a couple tries.

"We have a pulse," the nurse said.

Carefully but quickly, Banner placed the arc back in Tony's chest, locking it in place, then let out a sigh. "Okay, now we need to fix that arm…"

The people moved around, and Steve pulled back to not be in the way. Barton and Romanoff hovered beside him, watching. They were all battered and weary, having barely escaped the cargo bay when Stark blew it up, then fighting to get out alive when the Helicarrier crashed down and began to take in water.

"Maybe we should find clean clothes… get something eat," Barton suggested after a moment, but didn't move.

"Catch some shut-eye," Romanoff added.

Steve just nodded, but couldn't move. He knew his body needed rest, even with the super-soldier serum keeping him going, but any attempt to sleep would be met with a vision of those unnaturally blue eyes, haunting, taunting him…

They kept standing there while Stark's arm was fixed, then the rest of the medical team left, leaving Banner alone by the bed, and it was quiet save for the steady beep of the machines. Steve squared his shoulders and stepped inside. "You should rest," he told the scientist.

"I don't think I can," Banner told him, in that old, restless fashion. The only thing that seemed to keep him in place and from wringing his hands was the fingers he had placed near Stark's neck, as if to check the pulse. "I know I… made a conscious choice to stop him. He couldn't be allowed to leave, with or without the Cube."

"He fought you," Romanoff cut him off. "You did what you had to, in order to keep him from escaping. To keep him safe."

That brought a morose smile to Banner's lips. "Safe? Yeah, I can see how well that worked out."

"Safe from himself, and the Cube, and whoever is controlling him," Romanoff pressed on, stepping in. Barton followed her, perhaps unwilling to stay in the hallway alone while the rest of them were inside. "There is no way of knowing what the next step in his plan was. But we all know it would not end well for Tony."

Banner seemed to recognize her words. Steve looked back and forth between them, noticing the worried look on Romanoff's face. Well, she had perhaps known Stark the longest, and while there wasn't a whole lot of trust between them… it still didn't mean they were dead to each other.

"We still have to figure out how to accomplish setting his mind free," Barton noted.

"Yes," Banner agreed. His fingers caressed Stark's pale skin just slightly, then skimmed down to where the defibrillator had left red marks on his chest. "We are no closer to doing that."

"At least we've ruled out a lot of things," Steve pointed. "There has to be a way."

And as if by some magic, reacting to his words, Stark's body twitched, and a sound rose from his throat. Banner jumped into action, looking at the monitors, then looked at him as if to confirm whatever he saw.

A moment later Stark's brow furrowed and he opened his eyes.

Steve had never noticed how dark the brown in them was, how deep, regardless of how often they had stood toe to toe, staring at each other. "Stark?"

He blinked, slowly, then craned his neck to look down.

"Don't worry, everything's… where it should be," Banner said before he could catch himself. "The arc reactor is safe."

That, somehow, seemed to calm Stark down a bit, and he laid down his head. "I can't feel my left hand," he murmured.

"That's because of the awesome medicine I've shot up inside you," Banner replied. "But it should heal just fine, given that you don't use it too soon…" He stopped then, blinking, and Steve realized it almost at the same time as everyone else. "Tony?" Banner asked slowly, leaning closer towards his face.

"Yeah?" Stark frowned. "Who else?"

"It could be a trap," Romanoff pointed out.

"Yeah, there's no reason why he would be himself suddenly," Barton agreed, but looked rather open for someone to prove him wrong, which didn't happen often.

Stark's frown deepened again, and he looked between them, his eyes then landing on Steve. He seemed to contemplate something hard, putting pieces together. "Did I… attack you?" he asked then, very carefully.

"Is this some kind of ruse?" Steve asked. His fist tightened around the straps of the shield he was still holding.

"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about –" Stark started, his dark eyes confused, not a hint of blue in them, but then he looked at Banner, for the longest time, and the next time he spoke his voice was cracked with a hurt so deep Steve wasn't certain if he had ever thought Stark capable of so much feeling: "I hurt you. Oh my god, Bruce, I… What the fuck?!"

"He won't remember it all," Barton noted. "Just… flashes. Back seat and all that."

Stark looked at him, eyes a bit wild. "Remember what?"

"It could still be a trap," Romanoff said, stepping forward. "He played Banner perfectly the time before, not being himself for a second as far as we know."

Banner looked unwilling to believe that, and yet Steve knew he was cautious, knowing he had fallen for it once. "What do you remember of the last few days, Tony?"

"I… Days?" Stark looked at him again. "What should I remember?"

"What is the last thing you remember clearly?" Steve asked. "There has to be something."

It took Stark a long time to process that. It never took him that long to do anything, which was suspicious, then finally he seemed to decide on something: "Being at the Tower. Post-mission." He looked at Romanoff. "You tried to take off my head that day. Fury was a bitch, as usual. So were you, Rogers."

"Anything else?" Banner asked.

Stark took a deep breath, to center himself, his eyes closed for a moment. Steve expected them to be blue when he opened them, but the brown remained. "Nothing out of the usual. Talking to J.A.R.V.I.S., relaxing."

"Not good enough," Steve decided.

"Good enough for what?" Stark bristled. "I don't know what you want me to say!"

"The truth," Steve suggested.

"Maybe he can't tell us more than that," Banner started.

"Or maybe it isn't him at all," Steve shot that hope down.

And still the brown eyes looked at him, not changing color.

"Okay, let's look at this another way," Barton said. "We all wish he was himself, so if he is… what did we do different from the other attempts to get him back?"

"We almost killed him," Banner said dryly. "Maybe we should have made the other guy tear off his arm a bit sooner."

"The other guy tore my arm off?" Stark asked, startled.

"Almost," Banner said in a tone that was probably supposed to be comforting. "It's all good now. You'll live."

"I probably did something to deserve that…" Stark mused.

"You could say that," was all the answer he got from Banner, who drew back. "We revived him, shocked his heart, pumped him full of medicine… and took out the arc reactor," he said, halting at that, hand mid-air, hovering over one of the touch-screens.

"You took my –"

"Not now, Tony, let me think," Banner shook his head. "You remember the video, right? Loki touched the scepter to his chest, to his arc reactor. What if that was the key all along?"

"But you put it back," Steve said, shifting, his body tensing. "What if that resumes it?"

"Should we switch it to another arc?" Romanoff asked.

"Is there a spare one lying around?" Barton asked, seeming to agree with the idea.

"You took my arc out of my chest!?" Stark asked Banner again. "You know I don't feel hundred percent about that idea, ever."

"Shut up, Stark, and stop being a baby," Romanoff commanded with sharp impatience. "As if Banner would let you die."

Stark still looked a bit hurt, but perhaps he decided that if anyone got to touch that part of him, it was Banner. Steve thought it might be exactly like that; they trusted each other, understood each other… In bad times, he was almost jealous of that, because he never had that kind of connection with Stark on the best of days.

"Okay, so… is this him, or not?" Steve finally asked. "Is there a way we can know for sure?" He glanced at Hawkeye for confirmation.

The archer frowned. "I knew immediately when it was over – and I remembered a little, to be able to tell the difference. Not the events themselves, but that I was replaced by someone else in my own head."

Stark seemed to be putting it all together while he listened. "What did I do?" he asked, voice faint.

"You stole the Tesseract then attacked pretty much every one of us," Romanoff told him. "You also took down the Helicarrier and Fury's ready to tear you a new one, mind-control or no."

"And what did I want to do with the Tesseract?"

"We kind of hoped you would be able to tell us," Romanoff gave him a piercing look.

"You tried to integrate it with your suit," Banner reminded them all. "Didn't work so well, but I think you ran out of time to make the modifications, and J.A.R.V.I.S. wasn't entirely on board with you at that time."

"Traitor," Stark mused. "What did I build him for, again?" Then he was quiet a long time, as if trying to make sense of whatever memories remained in his head of the time he had been controlled. "Where's Pepper?" he asked then.

They were all unanimously quiet, which didn't seem to escape Stark's notice.

"Guys, this might be the only time I ask you to tell me the truth," he started.

"You ask that all the time," Barton noted uncomfortably.

"But I never expected you to give me the truth before."

"We'll… talk about it later. You should rest now," Banner interrupted. And with that, he took a syringe from a tray and pushed the needle into the IV drip, and for all his protestations, Stark went under in less than a minute.

"Should we have told him?" Steve asked after Stark had fallen asleep. It seemed there was still a frown on the genius' brow, and he hoped he didn't dream.

"I don't want to be the one to break the news to him," Romanoff said immediately, which was a bit off since she never had problems telling Stark anything, especially if it was going to upset him. Steve guessed this was different; not only was Pepper dead, but it was by Stark's own hand.

"Let's get cleaned up," Barton said then. "Maybe we'll… know what to do then."

Steve nodded. He picked up his shield and took off towards the rooms they had been assigned, planning on returning to Stark's room once he was done. He told himself it was to make sure he hadn't tricked them again, but he knew that beneath that was genuine worry for his teammate.

When Tony came to he could tell he was alone. The room was dark, his left arm was still numb from shoulder to fingers and he had an uncomfortable feeling that something was wrong. He couldn't remember the last few days. He knew time had passed, was acutely aware of that, but what had happened was a mystery to him save for a few flashes.

"J.A.R.V.I.S.?" he spoke up.

Silence met him for an instant, and he wondered where he was.

"Sir, I am glad you are back to your old self," the familiar voice caressed his ears a moment later.

"What took you so long?" Tony asked, annoyance in his voice although he was relieved; something familiar was what he needed right now, and his AI provided that just fine.

"I had to break through S.H.I.E.L.D. firewalls in order to install my parameters on this base's computer system, but everything should be working up to expectations now."

"Where am I?"

"The Triskelion. A secret island base of S.H.I.E.L.D. it would seem. I had no previous information of this location."

Well, trust J.A.R.V.I.S. to figure out where he had been taken, and then break through to own the system. Tony smiled. He was so damn smart sometimes, which reflected on his creations. "Could you run me through the events of the last few days?"

"I am still compiling data, sir. You temporarily disabled me for a time." Was it possible J.A.R.V.I.S. sounded hurt by it?

"Okay, show me… show me Pepper. Where is Pepper?" Tony asked.

"I am sorry, sir…"

"Stop apologizing and fill in the huge, fat blank in my brain," Tony snapped.

A screen on his right flared to life. Tony turned his head, noticing for the first time that he was strapped into the bed, as if no one wanted him to leave on his own.

A video – security footage from the Tower, he could tell – began to roll on the screen, and Tony focused his attention on that.

On the screen, Pepper walked in.

"Hey. Working hard?"

"You know it."

"Was that Thor on the screen?"

"Just going through some stuff."

"Tony… are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Better than ever, in fact. I feel so… invigorated, somehow. It must be the new air filtering system that was installed."

"Your eyes."

"Ah, yes, well. Contact lenses?"

"Are you okay? Should I call… Bruce or someone?"

"Please, don't. We're having such a nice conversation. I would hate to ruin the moment."

"I think I'll give Bruce a call anyway. You were complaining about those chest pains, and he's a doctor, he could take a look –"

"I'm truly sorry, Pepper. Tony – I – truly loves you, but you're just… too smart. And that's going to be a problem for both of us."

Silence followed, the screen freezing at the last frame.

"Sir?" J.A.R.V.I.S. asked after several minutes had passed.

"Play it again," Tony ordered, keeping his voice from cracking with iron will alone.

"Sir, I am not certain whether that is advisable –"

"Play the damn tape!" Tony barked.

And J.A.R.V.I.S., being built to take his orders, did as he was bid, over and over again.

Tony felt the sting of tears in his eyes, the tight, unbearable sensation in his chest. How could he not remember? Or did he remember? The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed there was a shadow of a memory – or maybe he just put it there.

He – or a creature wearing his skin – was dropping Pepper to her death for the seventh time when the door hissed open and Captain America stepped inside. After all, Rogers still wore the uniform although he had left the shield somewhere and seemed cleaned up from before.

Rogers strode over to the bed, glancing at the screen. "Stark… I'm so sorry," he managed then, trying to turn the screen off.

"Play it again," Tony told J.A.R.V.I.S.

"No, don't," Rogers said, looking around. "Is there a remote?" he asked.

"Captain Rogers, I shall cut off the feed."

"J.A.R.V.I.S.?" Rogers frowned, but accepted the AI's presence far easier than he used to deal with him in the Tower. "Thank you."

"Hey, traitor," Tony objected, but J.A.R.V.I.S. went on with it anyway. He jumped when Rogers lay a hand on his shoulder. "What?" he snapped, his entire body heaving as he tried to hold it in – at least until he kicked the good Captain out of the room.

"Tony," Rogers said, "you don't have to…"

"What?" Tony asked, and the tears came anyway, overwhelming him. He could hear it, over and over in his head, Pepper's last words, her last gasp – before he killed her.

Rogers reached down, undoing the straps around his right wrist, chest, waist and ankles, then sat down on the edge of the bed.

Tony pushed himself he sit up gingerly with the help of his right hand only, then attempted to push him off, but when Rogers wrapped an arm around him, Tony pressed against his shoulder and cried harder than he ever had in his entire life.

"The spell seems to be broken," Loki observed.

Tony's eyes narrowed at the demi-god's words. His left arm was still tied and secured against his side, but he was standing on his own two feet, which was a victory of sorts. Tony was never an easy patient, and right now doing something other than lying down was probably good for his mental health, the more he uncovered of the last few days.

"Is it permanent?" Fury asked.

"I cannot say," Loki shrugged.

Tony took a step, and Steve fixed a firm hand against his good shoulder. "You know I hold you personally responsible for all this," Tony started.

"Oh, you wound me!" Loki said mockingly, but took a step back, just in case. "I had no hand in this, Mr. Stark. It's all on you."

Tony froze.

Bruce cringed inside. "We still haven't established if someone was controlling him," he noted.

"True," Steve seconded him, surprisingly easy. "Let's not presume we know the situation before we do."

Tony still looked mortified, like someone had given him a solid kick in the gut. No doubt he recalled Pepper's fate; Steve had told them how Tony had gotten J.A.R.V.I.S. to show him the video, and Bruce could see it hadn't actually made him feel any better about any of this. Whatever information besides what J.A.R.V.I.S. had given him, there was no knowing, but Bruce personally knew what it felt like to wake up and have no idea what you had been up to for the past few hours, days, or sometimes weeks.

Just because he had never killed the woman he loved…

He knew, though, that Tony hadn't had enough time to recover for Bruce to bring that up, to sympathize with him, so it would have to wait. Not for much longer, though; even Fury looked a little worried whenever he glanced at the billionaire who had lost much of his usual bravado in all this. No doubt it would return, soon, as a form of self-defense and protection, and when it did, it wouldn't necessarily be a good thing, Bruce had heard how notoriously bad Tony was dealing with guilt.

"We shall uncover the truth," Thor noted. "And Loki will help us."

"I shall?" Loki asked, raising eyebrows, but one look around the room, not to mention his brother, gave him the answer he needed. "Why of course, yes," he forced a smile which was almost like a grimace. "I would be happy to help."

"I don't need his help," Tony said, voice harsh.

"We don't know if it was his doing that this happened," Bruce said as gently as possible. "He understands the Tesseract better than any of us."

"And he couldn't do a damn thing to get it out of me the first time!" Tony argued. "Or wasn't willing to. I wouldn't trust him with my pet fish, much less my mind and body."

Loki, smartly, made no comment in return.

"Perhaps you should lie down, Mr. Stark," Fury suggested. "The doctors inform me you are healing well, considering, but I don't want you to overdo it."

Tony gave him an annoyed yet suspicious look. "You're eager to put me back in the suit?" he asked. "After all I supposedly did?"

"There's a Helicarrier that you're going to fix," Fury said blankly. "Don't think I won't hold you to that."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Well, it's about time someone improved that flying piece of junk. I wouldn't set a foot on something that can be dropped so easily out of the sky. Talk about work hazards."

Bruce smiled. He knew Tony admired the Helicarrier tech since it wasn't originally his, although he could find faults in it especially due to that fact – and was all too happy to point them out. While Fury might do well not to include Tony so much in the building process and repairs, Stark Industries had the best tech for this, no denying that, and maybe there was some truth in Tony not wanting to set a foot on something he considered unstable.

It made Bruce feel a bit better, considering the time he had – and would probably in the future as well –spent using the Helicarrier's facilities; his first experience in a malfunctioning ship hadn't ended all that well, after all.

Bruce moved to guide Tony back into his room before he could come up with any more comments for Fury, and Steve followed them. Bruce gave their leader a smile of thanks. Tony didn't seem to notice, walking ahead of them, determined to not look like he was being escorted anywhere, but merely followed.

"I'm glad you were with him earlier," Bruce said to Steve. "I should have… been there."

"It's okay," Steve replied, watching Tony. "I hope it helped."

They reached the room Tony was staying in; it was small by anyone's standards, corners crammed full of medical equipment to make sure his condition didn't collapse suddenly. Tony had raised a little hell about being kept in such a place, but he was too weary to really do anything about it. Plus, keeping him company and agreeing that S.H.I.E.L.D. sucked at providing for its prized workers kept him satisfied.

Tony sat down on the bed when they entered, wordlessly watching as Bruce stepped closer, helping him off with his shirt. Steve hovered by the door, just inside the room, looking around.

"Did Fury put you on watch duty?" Tony asked suddenly. Bruce looked up, noticing that his friend's dark eyes were gazing at Steve.

The blond shifted, self-conscious. "No," he replied.

Tony frowned, then shrugged – and grimaced. "I need better meds. If they allowed me to decide what they put in me –"

"There will be no morphine, there will be no alcohol, and there will be no drugs," Bruce told him before he could finish. "Don't pout."

"I'm not!"

Bruce just looked at him, and Tony gave him a tired smile, then allowed him to help him lie down. Bruce quickly checked on his arm, seeing that the stitches were keeping as they should, then pulled a sheet over him. "Do you need something for the pain?"

"You were just telling me I'm not allowed to take anything."

"Just the good stuff," Bruce corrected. He knew what he would prefer, should he be in Tony's position, recovering from a Hulk-bashing, but as long as they were here, Bruce was going to steer clear of those things. Maybe when they all went home…

He glanced at Steve, then back at Tony, who had already closed his eyes, looking for a moment almost unbelievably relaxed. Sleep taking over, his guilty conscience silenced, the pain vanishing…

Steve moved over. "Is he asleep already?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Bruce smiled a bit. "He's tired. We don't all heal as fast as you."

Steve nodded. "It's not the visible wounds we should worry about, right?"

"No," Bruce agreed and sighed, then looked at Steve. "When do you think they'll allow him to go home?"

"Do you think it will be good for him to be there? Alone…"

"Well, I assume someone has to keep an eye on him," Bruce ventured. "We – the team – should do that. He was planning on renovating the place, having us stay there. That's why he hasn't fixed that huge sign outside."

"Huh," Steve said, looking at Tony, then nodded. "I'll ask Fury. I understand if S.H.I.E.L.D. is having issues with releasing a man who almost single-handedly made their Helicarrier crash into the ocean, but they must understand he wasn't doing it of his own free will."

"You believe that's the case?" Bruce asked him. They hadn't really had time to talk about any of this.

"I held him after he found out about Pepper," Steve told him, voice quiet, deep hurt, understanding and compassion in it. "At that point, it was no longer a guess. He had no hand in it. He couldn't have done it."

Bruce nodded. It was good enough for him. "I'll get us something to eat," he said simply.

"I'll wait here while you do that," Steve replied. There was no need to stay, really, but it had become a habit, first out of fear and then because of something very different; because every time Tony woke up Bruce was certain that for a very small moment he was contemplating putting a bullet in his mouth, or any alternative that would work for him. An ugly reminder of how low a person could get, and Bruce was determined it would be much easier to crawl out of that dark hole with someone else's help. He had tried it on his own, after all, and it had been hard work from start to finish. Some days he wasn't sure if he was even quite there yet.

Anthony…

Tony's eyes flew open. The echo of the voice hung out in the back of his mind like the last second of sleep before waking up, unwilling to leave, rooted so deep one might imagine it was real.

His room at the S.H.I.E.L.D. base was dimmed, but as always there was a presence in a chair near the bed. This time it was Rogers, asleep, which was quite unlike him; Tony wasn't certain if he had ever caught him sleeping – for more than a fraction of a second, anyway, before the super-soldier would jerk and blink and be as alert as ever.

Slowly he sat up, mindful of his left arm. He knew he was lucky to have it still, lucky to even be alive. He might have to thank Bruce for that later.

Anthony.

Tony almost jerked, looking around. He wasn't asleep anymore, he was fairly certain of that. He felt nauseated and was in a moderate amount of pain, which was normal these days. "J.A.R.V.I.S.," he spoke up.

"Yes, sir?" the AI's familiar voice replied.

"Did you register any kind of voice just a moment ago?"

"Not in the vicinity of your room, sir."

"Huh…" Tony decided he might need to talk to Bruce about his meds after all; he was hearing voices.

Anthony; it is time.

He almost fell off the bed. "J. Did you hear that?"

"There has been no sound since your previous statement, save for Captain Rogers' breathing."

Tony shook his head, slowly sliding off the bed and padding over to the door. Maybe he would get some coffee, or water, or a good pinch from someone else to make sure he was awake. How wasn't Rogers already up, either? It had to be a dream – or then it was just the fact that even Rogers was starting to look sleep-deprived.

He opened the door, peering out. The hallway looked like it always did.

"Tony?" Rogers mumbled from behind him, finally roused from his sleep. "Is something wrong?"

"Yes, or I'm going mad," Tony told him, stepping out of the room. His feet were bare, he was shirtless, and he thought he might have to do something about one of those things at least, but the voice was there, like a steady hum instead of words, and he knew where he had to go.

"Is there something you need?" Rogers asked, hurrying behind him with long strides. "Should I ask for Banner to come over?"

"Just… come with me," Tony said absently. "Please," he added then, realizing he was a little afraid, all things considered.

They went down in an elevator, Tony pressing a floor button without looking at the numbers. Rogers looked a little worried, completely alert now, checking the hallway when they stepped out. Just a few darkly clad men and women were around, so it had to be late; Tony's internal clock had never been particularly accurate.

He set down a hall, then made a turn, stopping in front of a sturdy door. "J, open this for me," he called out.

There was a silence, which seemed to draw out forever, and Rogers kept looking up and down the hallway as if he were doing something forbidden. The door eventually hissed open and Tony guessed J.A.R.V.I.S. had been forced to hack some firewalls to get them in.

Anthony, it is time. I am ready. We are both ready for the next step.

He heard the words the moment the door opened, which may have been an accident, but it managed to make him hesitate before he stepped forward again. His toes curled against the cool floor, and after two turns they stood in front of wide windows, staring at the blue glow of the Tesseract.

Tony didn't need to hear the voice again. He could feel it, with every beat of his heart, like a second warmth beneath the arc reactor. Like the pain before, but without the pain…

Was it happening again?

He panicked. Maybe that had been it, the telltale sign he should have noticed, but hadn't.

There is no reason to fear, the voice said. Everything is as it should be, Anthony. Finally.

And in front of them, the Cube, undisturbed within the heavy walls around it, set on a pedestal, started to glow like never before, shivering in its spot.

"It's not supposed to do that, right?" Rogers asked, stepping up to stand next to him, eyes gazing at the Tesseract.

"I don't know," Tony admitted. His mind told him one thing – and the feeling in his chest another.

Either things were going to go very wrong – or very right.

The alarms were going insane, and Bruce felt a moment of panic hit him, his heart beating fast. He struggled for a moment, to ease his breathing, to calm his mind, to not let the other guy out before he was certain he was needed.

He prayed that wasn't the case. Not again, not so soon.

Pulling on a shirt and sweats, he rushed to the door of his room. His first instinct was to go and check on Tony, whom he had left with Steve. S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel were running along the hallway, armed, and Bruce yanked one man's sleeve to try and stop him, but the man simply kept running, giving him an annoyed look.

Clearly he didn't know who Bruce was.

"J.A.R.V.I.S.?" he decided to try another route, seeing as the AI had found its way into this installment, possibly without any permission from the shady organization running it.

"Dr. Banner," J.A.R.V.I.S. acknowledged him.

"What is going on?" Bruce asked.

"It would seem the Tesseract is behaving most unusually. If I could request that you seek out its current holding facilities at with the utmost haste?"

"Why, is there something wrong with it that I can do something about?" Bruce frowned. Well, the Cube acting out wasn't good for anyone, in any way, and he was going to make his way down there anyway, but J.A.R.V.I.S. making it a request sent a few more alarms off in his head.

"Mr. Stark is currently nearing the room, accompanied by Captain Rogers, and I fear there might be something wrong."

Yes, Bruce could understand that. For one, Tony had wanted nothing to do with the Cube, short of destroying it. Thor had quite adamantly told him that wasn't about to happen, but since the Tesseract would be going back to Asgard soon enough, it hadn't been a problem.

Only, the Cube was still here, and if Tony was going to it, and it was acting out…

"What is Steve thinking?" Bruce muttered as he rushed out, trying to fight his way through the people to get there faster, but it took too long, and it made him want to unleash the other guy, which would lead to a chaos he didn't want to start.

He decided to find an alternative route, asking J.A.R.V.I.S. for assistance once he got into a smaller hallway, and the AI did its best to guide him to the Cube's vault while avoiding the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. He was stopped four times, shoving his ID card in the faces of anyone who asked whether he was authorized to be moving around – did they usually let tourists into their secret base, seriously? – but finally made his way to the vault, where he found the rest of his team, accompanied by Loki, Fury and Agent Hill.

Tony and Steve were standing outside the Tesseract's vault, watching it, and Tony seemed almost agitated.

"What is going on?" Bruce asked.

"The Tesseract is behaving once again," Fury said darkly.

"Is someone… using it?" Bruce frowned.

"This is different," Loki said.

"It speaks," Tony supplied – sounding fairly annoyed. "But no one can hear it, apparently."

"Save for you," Natasha said, shifting, fingering the gun on her leg but clearly there was nothing for her to shoot.

The Tesseract was still within its vault, door bolted, but it was shining, casting a blue light over them all through the extremely thick observation windows.

"I can sense a change in it," Loki went on.

"I as well," Thor nodded. "Though I cannot say what it is."

"We have to assume someone's using it," Clint snapped. "Should we get Selvig out here?"

"What is the Tesseract saying?" Bruce asked, dismissing Clint's comment, although it was a possibility. Getting Erik Selvig down here might not be a bad idea. But, for now, he would go with the obvious, and stepped closer to Tony who looked like he had just woken up and shuffled over here. He wasn't even wearing a shirt, the arc reactor's shine eerily close to that of the Tesseract.

"It… keeps calling me Anthony," Tony frowned. "I hate that."

"Anything else?" Bruce asked.

"It keeps saying it is time, that it is ready. I don't understand, though. Maybe it was supposed to mean something when I was… under someone else's control." There was that pained look in his eyes again, a tightening in his shoulders, and a resolute look on his face to never go through that again.

"It might," Bruce agreed. "When did this start?"

"The readings went through the roof around the time Stark and Rogers entered the area," Fury noted, with a hint in his voice that he still wanted an explanation as to how that had happened. "There have been some spikes on and off for a few hours, but nothing this massive."

Beside him, Tony cocked his head. The shining light from within the vault made his eyes appear almost blue, and regardless of his usual rule to try and not touch people, Bruce reached out a hand to pull him further away.

Steve seemed to jerk out of it too. "Perhaps we should leave."

"Good idea," Natasha agreed.

"Come on, Tony," Bruce said softly, pulling him along, Tony's eyes still nailed on the glass and the shining object beyond it.

"It's not speaking anymore," Tony said.

"Maybe it is a good sign," Thor suggested.

Loki shook his head, stepping forward. Fury, Natasha and Clint all looked ready to stop him, but allowed him to approach the vault, to see what he would do. Thor had told them Loki did not have his powers, so what could he do? And even if the Tesseract responded to him, now was a perfect time to find out. Bruce promised himself he would let the other guy out to play in case Loki was the one behind this, and there would be nothing left of him to take back to his cell in Asgard.

Within the vault, the Tesseract suddenly seemed to shiver.

"It did that a while ago, soon after we arrived," Steve informed them.

They all looked as the shine intensified, and the Cube all but began to hover in the air.

"That is not good, I take it?" Clint asked, reaching back for his quiver full of arrows, bow firmly in hand.

Bruce shook his head, looked at Tony, and then just stared; Tony's eyes were wide and he had stopped breathing. "Let's get him out of here," Bruce decided, tugging Tony along.

Fury was talking into his walkie-talkie, barking orders to the S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists and personnel, the others still warily watching the Tesseract, and as if responding to it all, the Cube floated higher, rotating, then suddenly it seemed its glow was being sucked back into it, leaving the room surprisingly dark in the aftermath.

Bruce let go of Tony, to take a closer look at the hovering object, curiosity taking over – then jumped back when the Tesseract charged forward, through the glass which smashed into a shower of a million pieces. The Cube sailed through the air so fast no one could even think of drawing a gun, and for one glorious, magical moment the Tesseract hovered in the middle of the room, shining, its power making the air almost crackle and burst with unseen energy, blue-ish shades pulsing along the walls.

Just as quickly the Cube seemed to turn, moving again, right towards Tony. The man jerked back, to get out of the way, but the Tesseract hit him in the chest – then vanished. The arc reactor burst with a sudden light from within, then slowly settled, and everyone blinked.

"Where did it go?" Steve was the first to ask, standing next to Tony.

"It just vanished," Natasha observed.

"Can it do that?" Fury frowned.

"It's a solid object, far as we know, but we were only beginning to understand its power," Bruce said, then took a step forward. "Tony, you okay?"

Tony's eyes were closed, his chest rising hard and fast for a moment, then calming down as if he was centering himself again. He opened his eyes as he lifted his head, and the brown was completely replaced by a shining, ever swirling blue. He regarded the room, his face strangely passive.

"Stark?" Fury asked, sliding his gun out of its holster.

The blue, shining eyes moved towards him, the face not even twitching. When Tony spoke, his voice was not his own, stripped of anything that made him sound like Tony:

"Anthony is not here right now. I am the Tesseract – the one you also refer to as... the Cube."

The End…

the story continues in
"Mindshare"