Bruce was called for a meeting about Loki and Illayana insisted on coming – not that he would have left her alone in this place – but she refused to touch the page with the drawing. Even the pen was shunned. After Bruce took it away, she did, however, gather up all her notes, stacking them in a haphazard pile.

At the bridge, where the meeting was taking place, Illayana curled into a chair, still quivering slightly, but putting on a brave face. Bruce placed the picture on the table and rested his hands on the back of her chair.

One seat separated Illayana and the red-haired woman from earlier, whom Illayana had been introduced to as Agent Natasha Romanoff, and three seats the other way was a large blonde man she dimly recognized as Captain America from the old newsreels teachers show their history classes. Phil and another large blonde man in a red cape and armor were speaking quietly over a computer screen. Half-sick and half-relieved, Illayana realized that this must be Thor. Captain America was looking at her curiously, and she stared back blankly until he looked away.

There were screens on the table, depicting a giant glass prison which housed Loki (Illayana weakly repressed a shudder) and a control panel with a dark-skinned man in an eyepatch. Phil left, and they watched the conversation between the two.

"You see how this works? Ant," the man gestured to Loki, then to the control panel, "boot."

"It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something much stronger than you."

"Oh, I've heard. A mindless beast; makes play he's still a man."

Despite her terror, Illayana narrowed her eyes at the screen and reached up where Bruce's arm was resting. She touched it gently, trying to reassure herself that he was there. Not a mindless beast, she thought viciously. She had always been very defensive of the man, just like she would be for any of her friends.

Even ignoring that, however, the Hulk was still not a mindless beast. He had the mentality of a very large, very green, and very angry three-year-old. One who also knew that he was stronger than most, and that if anything incensed or hurt him, he could just – well – smash.

"Ooh…it burns you, to have come so close," Loki taunted, "To have the Tesseract; to have power – unlimited power…and for what? A warm light for all mankind to share?"

He turned toward the camera with a smirk. "And then to be reminded what real power is."

"Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something," the man shot back, before sweeping away.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce said sarcastically, drawing a faint smile from Illayana, who wrapped her arms around herself. Like mold, she thought, remembering the malice in his gaze. It hadn't even been directed at her, and yet she was shivering.

"Loki's going to drag this out," Captain America said. "So, Thor . . . what's his play?"

"He has an army, called the Chitauri," the god of thunder reported gravely. "They're not of Asgard, nor of any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth…in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army. From outer space," the Captain deadpanned incredulously. Illayana found herself thinking the same thing. When had her life turned into a movie?

"So, a portal," Bruce said. "The energy from the Tesseract could be used to create a portal. That would explain why he needed Erik Selvig."

"Selvig?" Thor asked, standing a little straighter.

"He's an astrophysicist," Bruce supplied.

"He's a friend."

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," Romanoff informed him, adding a somewhat regretful, "along with one of our own."

"I want to know why Loki let us take him," Captain America said. "He's not exactly able to lead an army from here."

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Bruce piped up, shaking his head, "the guy's a bag of cats; you can smell the crazy on him."

"Have a care how you speak," Thor said frostily. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother."

"He killed eighty people in two days," the woman stated bluntly, face still blank. Illayana felt the breath go out of her. Eighty people, gone, she thought, because of one man.

Thor paused for a second. "…he's adopted."

Illayana twitched. Violently. "That's bullshit, and you are a hypocrite," she said, speaking up for the first time since what she had dubbed in her mind as the Incident. Her headache was spiking again. "You just invalidated your own argument."

Thor looked very affronted, and opened his mouth to speak. Illayana cut him off, sitting up in her chair and spreading out her notes. She made sure to keep them far from the drawing, however. "Norse mythology tells us that Loki is the god of mischief and lies," she started, her eyes flitting from face to face. "While they may not be entirely accurate – hell I didn't know there was any accuracy until today – we have no reason as of yet to doubt them. According to what we know about the real Loki, he relies on his words and his sorcery, and, more recently, that scepter. So we can assume that Loki is powerful, and therefore he shouldn't be easy to capture. But you hardly have a scratch between the two of you."

"So why did he give up right away?" Captain America wondered, catching on to her line of thought.

"He wants to be here," Romanoff muttered. "He needs something from here."

Illayana nodded, though she felt sick to her stomach. "It was a double play. His distraction in Stuttgart, whatever it was for, could have been a lot more subtle. Loki favors subtlety."

"Unless-"

"Unless putting on a show benefits him more," Captain America realized. "But we can't just let him go."

"We could land," Illayana offered, running a hand through her hair. "Take him to a more secure location."

"We don't have enough time for that," Romanoff said. "We need to find out what he means to do by being here, but it has to be linked to what he was doing there."

"The Iridium," Bruce said. Illayana could feel him beginning to pace behind her chair. "That's what was stolen. What does he need the Iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent."

The new voice came from a doorway to the right. It was a somewhat familiar man with dark hair, wearing a blazer and a Black Sabbath t-shirt. There was a curious circle of glowing blue underneath the shirt, and that was what drove the recognition home: this was Tony Stark. He said one last thing under his breath to Phil, who was followed by another woman, this one brunette, before continuing on into the room.

"With the Iridium, the portal won't collapse in on itself like it did at SHIELD. No hard feelings, Point Break, you got a mean swing," he added, patting Thor's massive upper arm as he passed, sparing him a quick glance. "It also means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants."

Stark swaggered over to the helm and stopped in front of it. There was a moment of silence. "That man is playing galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." Still quiet. He jerked his head around, then put a hand over one eye and repeated the motion. "How does Fury see these things?" he asked. Illayana wasn't entirely certain he wasn't serious.

"He turns," the brunette said dryly.

"Sounds exhausting," Stark replied. He swiped his fingers over the screens, changing and moving things around with confidence. She wasn't sure if he was allowed to, but this was Tony Stark. He didn't exactly play by the rules.

"The rest of the raw materials," he continued, "Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is a power source of high energy density. Something to . . . kick-start the Cube." Illayana thought she saw his touch linger unnecessarily on the bottom of one of the screens, but pushed it away. I must be getting paranoid.

"When did you become an expert in thermo-nuclear astrophysics?" asked the brunette agent.

"Last night," Stark responded with a smile. The brunette raised an eyebrow.

"The packet," he elaborated, "Selvig's notes. The extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" the Captain asked, looking to Stark.

"He'd have to heat the cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break through the cooling barrier," Bruce said, stopping behind Illayana's chair again.

"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect," Stark pointed out, turning to face the other genius in the room.

"Well, if he could so that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion to any reactor on the planet."

""Finally! Someone who speaks English!" Stark exclaimed, crossing the distance between them. He held out his hand, ignoring the Captain's muttered, Is that what just happened? Illayana was kind of wondering that too. "Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Banner. Your work on anti-electronic collisions is unparalleled…"

Illayana smiled encouragingly at Bruce, who hesitated, then took the billionaire's hand.

"…and I'm also a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

"Thanks," Bruce said weakly.

"Doctor Banner is here to track the cube," the man in the eyepatch, who Illayana assumed must be Fury, told Stark, striding towards the table. It was very dramatic, with his cape billowing out behind him. But Illayana was somewhat reminded of Snape from Harry Potter. "I was hoping you might join him and his . . . assistant." She started, bristling a bit at the way he said assistant. She worked with mythology and folklore, for goodness sake! It wasn't her fault she was dragged into this!

"Excuse you, I am not his assistant," she hissed, standing up. Everyone else in the room, even the subordinates working technology, turned to stare at her in shock. "I am a professor of mythological studies and since you didn't know, I have actually been trying to help in a way that includes my field, even though I wasn't even asked whether I'd like to come here in the first place!"

Fury gave her a hard stare with his one eye, but she glared back at him, refusing to back down. To her right, Romanoff even seemed a bit impressed. Only a tiny bit.

"I'd start with that stick of his," Captain America suggested awkwardly, trying to turn back to the situation at hand. Fury and Illayana continued to stare at each other, until the man finally gave her a nod. She nodded back and sat back down. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon."

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the Cube," Fury agreed, finally turning back to the matter at hand. "I'd like to know how Loki turned two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

Illayana stifled a snort, not wanting to laugh at the man's almost-joke after their little staring contest, but Thor furrowed his brow. "Monkeys?" he repeated. "I do not understand—"

"I do!" the Captain jumped in eagerly. He flushed when everyone turned to him, stammering embarrassedly. "I – I understood that reference."

"What I'd like to know," Illayana said, inadvertently saving the Captain from further discomfort, "is how I drew that, before I even saw the guy. And when I have no artistic ability to speak of." She gestured to the picture on the table, taking care not to touch it.

Captain America, however, had no qualms about picking it up. He inspected it, and said, "It's a perfect likeness . . . and you said you'd never seen him before?"

"I couldn't control my hand," she confessed, wincing and trying to ignore the pain in her temples. "It was scary. And then just as I finished, he walked by with the guards." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the tenseness in Bruce's posture. He was angry, angry that Loki had done something to her, whatever it was. She was the only person on this aircraft that had no real reason to be here; yet she was, because of him. If anything happened to her, she feared Bruce wouldn't be able to keep himself from losing control from the guilt and rage.

Apparently he hadn't changed as much as she thought.

Fury frowned and looked expectantly at Thor. "I have no answer," Thor said apologetically. "I have no understanding of my brother's magic. I was never one for it myself."

The frown deepened, and he took the picture from Captain America and handed it back to Bruce. "See if there's any energy readings on it. This is not our main concern at the moment though, so get back to work." With that, Fury turned and walked over to the brunette and Phil. Illayana rose from her chair and followed Bruce and Stark as they headed back to the lab.

Stark turned to her with a smirk as soon as they got into the now-familiar white room. "And what might be the name of Doctor Banner's pretty assistant?" he asked casually.

"Not his assistant," she said, glaring at him.

"Right. Professor of mythological studies, you said? And what might the professor's name be?" He flashed her a smile and a wink.

"Illayana Robinson," she introduced herself, holding out her hand for a shake and ignoring the wink.

"Tony Stark," he said, grasping her hand in his. "But I'm sure you already knew that."