The Bird

Tony was irate. Not only was Phil Coulson dead, his daughter was missing. She wasn't in either her nor his room like she was supposed to be. He knew she wouldn't stay there. He should have kept her with him.

"Where's my daughter, Nick?" Tony stormed over to the table, slamming his hands down.

"Mr. Stark -" Director Fury tried to reason with the man.

"Don't 'Mr. stark' me. My daughter is missing."

"There's nothing we can do for her. She's in Loki's hands now."

Tony couldn't help the laugh that came out. "Do you know how dangerous that is? You have no idea what she's capable of. I have no idea what she's capable of." Tony collapsed into a chair. "I should haveb een there..." He didn't want to think about what Loki could be doing to her.

Steve had followed him into the room, silently taking a seat at the table. The entire mood of the hellicarrier was tense and mournful.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. I guess he never did get you to sign them." Fury threw the vintage trading cards on the table. " We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, the location of the Cube, Banner, Thor, Skye, I got nothing for you. I lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming. Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, Stark knows this, called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, to see if they could become something more. To see if they they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes." Tony stood and walked away, down to the detention sector.

He knew he should have been looking for his daughter, but...he couldn't. She was lost like Loki and the Cube. He knew Loki wouldn't kill her she was too powerful. Too bendable. He wouldn't waste something like that.

"Was he married?"

"No. There was a cellist, I think."

"I'm sorry. He seemed like a good man."

"He was an idiot."

"Why? For believing?"

"For taking on Loki alone. Both him and Skye."

"He was doing his job."

Tony scoffed. "He was out of his league. He should have waited. He should have..."

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony." Steve moved closer to the billionaire.

"Right, I've heard that before." Tony made to leave.
"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?"

"We are not soldiers. I'm not so marching to Fury's fife."

"Neither am I. He's got the same blood on his hands that Loki does. But right now we've got to put that behind us and get this done. Now, Loki needs a power source. If we can put together a list..."

"He made it personal."

"That's not the point."

"That is the point. That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?"

"To tear us apart."

"Yeah, divide and conquer is great but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us, he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."

"Right. I caught his act in Stuttgart."

"Yeah. That was just the previews. This is opening night. Loki, he's he's a full-tilt diva, right? He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants act monument built to the skies with his name plastered-" Realization hit Tony. "Son of a bitch"