Sparks Fly

Sparks Fly

Chapter 3

Tony and I walking with Agent Coulson to the meeting room. “Rome is very nice, hardly visited any of the sites though,” I explained to Coulson who was asking us about our recent international trip.

“Yeah it was quite beautiful from the hotel window,” Tony added with a smirk as we walked into the room.

“Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?” I heard Dr. Banner ask upon entry.

“It’s a stabilizing agent,” Tony answered before turning back to Coulson, “I’ll fly you there. Keep the love alive.” He finished before turning back to the group.

“Iridium will keep the portal from collapsing in on itself, like it did at shield,” I explained for Tony as he turned to Thor.

“No hard feelings, Point Break. You’ve got a mean swing,” Tony told him as I rolled my eyes. “Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants,” Tony explained going back to the Iridium. Tony looked around the room before speaking to the crew, “Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails. That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn’t notice. But we did,” Tony ranted then covered one of his eyes, “How does Fury do this?” He asked looking around.

“He turns,” Agent Hill answered. Tony looked around at the monitors and placed a button sized hacking implant under Fury’s desk which I only noticed.

“Well, that sounds exhausting,” Tony said giving me a wink.

“Everything else that is need Agent Barton can get his hands on easily but the last thing he needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube,” I finished explaining.

“When did you two become experts in thermonuclear astrophysics?” Agent Hill asked.

“Last night. The packet, Selvig’s notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Are we the only ones that did the reading?” Tony asked looking at everyone.

“Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?” Steve asked.

“He’s got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the coulomb barrier,” Dr. Banner explained to Steve.

“I alone have the ability to do that,” I piped in.

“”Unless, Selvig has a figure out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect, if not he would have to kidnap her and force her to use her energy which in the end would burn her alive,” Tony explained.

“Well, if he could stabilize, he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet,” Dr. Banner added.

“Finally, someone who speaks English,” Tony said looking at Dr. Banner as I raised an eyebrow. “Of course you also speak English my little Catalyst,” Tony added as I nodded my head sarcastically.

“Is that what just happened?” Steve asked confused. Dr. Banner walked over to Tony and I and shakes Tony’s hand giving each other a look of mutual respect.

“It’s good to meet you, Dr. Banner. You’re work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I’m a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster,” Tony greeted.

“Tony thats rude some people can’t help lab accidents,” I said as Dr. Banner shook my hand. “Hi, Katherine Harper but you can call me Kat I am known as the Catalyst,” I introduced.

“Yeah I remember the lab accident with the clean energy your body absorbed it and now you can produce energy to sustain the word,” Dr. Banner said acknowledging my work.

“Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you two might join him,” Nick Fury said as he walked into the room.

“Let’s start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon,” Steve said as I looked over at him.

“I don’t know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And i’d like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying moneys,” Fury stated.

“Monkeys? I don’t understand,” Thor said speaking up.

“I do! I understood that reference,” Steve said excitedly as Tony rolled his eyes at him.

“Come on boys lets go play,” I said to Tony and Dr. Banner before walking out of the room to the lab.

I sat on a stool in the lab in front of a board full of algorithms, I spun around on the stool before facing to algorithm again. Something was off and I couldn’t place what was making my work incorrect.

“What is she doing?” Dr. Banner asked Tony.

“She is thinking, when she is stuck on a problem moving helps the gears turn again, it’s like it wastes some of the pent up energy so she can focus again, soon enough she will erase the whole thing and start over coming up with the correct solution,” Tony said from in front of his own algorithm.

“I have it,” I squealed before erasing the board and quickly righting down the correct equation. Tony smiled at me as a few sparks popped in the air. Dr. Banner scanned the scepter with the gamma ray detection device as I walked over to him.

“the Gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig’s reports on the Tesseract. But it’s gonna take weeks to process,” Dr. Banner spoke up.

“If we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer Cluster we can clock this around six hundred teraflops,” Tony said looking up from his monitors.

“All I packed was a tooth brush,” Dr. Banner admitted making me laugh.

“You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You’d love it, it’s candy land for people like her and I,” Tony said with a smile.

“Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke. . . Harlem,” Banner admitted sheepishly.

“Don’t worry if taking all the power from New York several times,” I told him to make him feel better.

“Well, I promise a stress free environment. No Tension. No surprises,” Tony said as I scoffed. Tony suddenly poked banner with a mini-electrical prod just as Steve walked in.

“Ow!” Banner yelped touching his side as Tony looked closely at Banner.

“Hmmm, nothing,” Tony said still looking at him closely.

“Hey! Are you nuts?” Steve asked looking at them.

“Relax Steve he is only joking, if something so simple set off Dr. Banner do you really think he would be here?” I asked but Steve completely ignored me.

“You really have got a lid on it, haven’t you? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?” Tony asked Dr. Banner.

“Is everything a joke to you?” Steve asked stepping closer to them.

“Funny things are,” Tony replied with a smirk.

“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn’t funny. No offense, doctor,” Steve said as I stood up from my leaning position.

“Dr. Banner may not take offense to it but I do, it’s not like her would purposely cause us to fall out of the sky but it is much easier for me to do it,” I said as my eyes began to glow and my hands lit up. “A person who has suffered for as long as he has knows what to do in a situation, how do we even know the soldier who woke up after centuries of sleeping in ice isn’t destructive?” I asked my voice raising with each word and the glow spreading throughout my body.

“Woah, it’s alright. I wouldn’t have come aboard if I couldn’t handle pointy things,” Dr. Banner spoke up trying to get us both to calm down but anger was building up inside my body.

“You’re tiptoeing big man you need to strut,” Tony said to him and I kneeled on the ground. The staff started to glow brighter from it’s position as they all turned towards my kneeling from.

“Kat? Hey sweetie don’t worry just some grown ups arguing no need to kill us,” Tony said as he moved to my said.

“I can’t. . . it’s not me,” I said through gritted teeth.

“What do you mean it isn’t you?” Steve asked backing away from me.

“It’s the staff! It’s glowing as brightly as her,” Dr. Banner said but just as Tony turned to look at it everything stopped my energy dispersed like it was never there and the staff returned to normal.