"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?"

"Kind of been wondering the same thing about you."

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

"We are. The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."

"Yeah, then you get your Cube back. No muss, no fuss. What is Phase 2."

Just as Tony asks, Steve walks into the room and slams a gun down on the table.

"Phase 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the Cube to make weapons. Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me."

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're making..." Fury starts.

Tony's monitor begins to beep.

"I'm sorry, Nick. What were you lying?" Tony asks as he flips the monitor.

"I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit," Steve says.

Natasha, Lauren and Thor enter the room, all their eyes on Bruce.

"Did you know about this?" Bruce asks.

"You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?" Natasha asks.

"I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed."

"Loki is manipulating you."

"And you've been doing what, exactly?"

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you girls get a little twitchy. I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

"Because of him," Fury responds.

All eyes now on Thor.

"Me?", He asks.

"Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned," Fury says.

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor says.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you? And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, that can't be controlled," Fury says.

"Like you controlled the Cube?" Steve asks.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war," Thor says with a hint of anger lacing his voice.

Lauren's head twitches as she hears ringing in her ears.

"A higher form?"

"You forced our hand. We had to come up with something," Fury says.

"A nuclear deterrent. Because that always calms everything right down," Tony says.

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?", Fury asks.

"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck-deep..." Steve starts, but gets cut off by Tony.

"Wait, wait. Hold on. How is this now about me?" Tony asks.

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?" Steve asks.

"I thought humans were more evolved than this", Thor says.

"Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?" Fury asks.

The ringing in Lauren's ears only gets louder.

"Are you boys really that naïve? S.H.I.E.L.D. monitors potential threats," Natasha says.

Everyone in the room starts arguing. All but Lauren. As they butt-heads, she puts her hands over her ears in an attempt to stop the pain. She feels all of the negative energy. She feels it in her body and in her mind.

And yet nobody seems to notice.

"Captain America's on threat watch?"

"We all are."

"Wait, you're on that list? Are you above or below angry bees?"

"Stark, so help me god, if you make one more wisecrack..."

"Threat! Verbal threat. I feel threatened."

"Show some respect."

"Respect what?"

The room gets so loud to the point where Lauren can't make sense of anything except a few sentences every so often. She shuts her eyes and gets down on her knees.

"You speak of control, yet you court chaos."

"That's his M.O. isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're... we're a time bomb."

As Lauren tries to contain her own powers, she feels Bruce trying to do the same thing.

"You, need to step away."

"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Tony asks as he puts a hand on Steve's shoulder.

"You know damn well why. Back off!" Steve exclaims as he shoves Tony's hand away.

"Oh, I'm starting to want you make me."

"Yeah. Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist."

She doesn't understand. She's never felt this before. Her powers being on the brink of exploding, her mind pounding and her body tensing.

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

"I think I would just cut the wire."

"Always a way out. You know you may not be a threat but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero? Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."

"Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds."

"You people are so petty, and tiny."

"Yeah, this is a team."

"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his..."

"Where? You rented my room."

"The cell was just in case..."

"I case you needed to kill me. But you can't. I know, I tried."

The tension slightly soften as everyone turns their attention to Bruce. Lauren is finally able to open her eyes.

"I got low. I didn't see an end. So I put a bullet in my mouth, and the other guy spit it out. So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good. Until you dragged me back here into this freak show, and put everyone here at risk. You want to know me secret, Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?"

"Dr. Banner, put down the scepter," Steve says.

Bruce looks down at the scepter in his hands, not even realizing that he had grabbed it in the first place. Every agent in the room has a hand on their gun, and then the monitor beeps, meaning the Cube has been located.

Lauren shakes her head and takes a deep breath. She stands back up as if nothing had happened.

"Got it," Fury says.

"Sorry, kids, you don't get to see my party trick after all," Bruce says as he walks over to the monitors.

"You located the Tesseract?" Thor asks

"I could get there faster," Tony says.

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard. No human is a match for it," Thor says.

"You're not going alone," Steve says, grabbing Tony's arm.

"You're not gonna stop me?"

"Put on the suit, let's find out."

"I'm not afraid to hit an old man."

"Put on the suit."

"Oh, my god," Bruce whispers.

Lauren feels a familiar presence outside  of the helicarrier... she thinks it may be Clint. She doesn't act fast enough, because then a huge explosion rolls through the aircraft, knocking everyone into different directions.