CHAPTER FOUR
I UNDERSTOOD THAT REFERENCE

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

     Riley couldn't stop staring at Thor.

No one could really blame him, and he wasn't the only agent whose eyes were straying. Either the people looking found him incredibly attractive, or they were trying to wrap their heads around seeing a literal god from Norse mythology walk through the Helicarrier, his voice booming as he demanded to know what they were going to do with his brother. Riley was a mixture of both. It had been easy to ignore the god's presence while on the Quinjet, even when they had to persuade him into actually coming into the jet. Riley had simply kept his eyes forward, helping Nat navigate through the storm Thor had summoned. Now he didn't have that distraction.

It was the next day, the sun setting as evening approached, and they had all been summoned to the briefing room by Fury, though Fury wasn't there. He was up on a screen, staring inside the clear cube that Loki was being kept in. He was about to start interrogating Loki, and Riley knew he needed to be focusing on that. On why the meeting was called in the first place. Instead, his eyes were glued to where Thor was pacing beside the table. His eyes flickered down to his bare biceps more than he cared to admit. It was all very distracting, Thor being there. Riley nervously reached for his bottle of water, drinking more than he needed to just to get the dryness out of his mouth. Beside him, Nat leaned forward to whisper into his ear, sounding more than amused.

"You're staring," she pointed out. Riley let out a small whine and put the bottle back on the table, screwing the cap back on while he shot her a desperate look. She only responded with a wide, ecstatic grin. Before she could say anything else, they heard Fury's voice. At once, everyone around the table leaned closer, their eyes now glued to the screen. On the screen, Loki was pacing the length of the clear cube. He was looking for a weak point, though he wouldn't find one. The cube was meant for the Hulk. It went without saying that Loki wouldn't be able to get out from strength alone, especially not if he was weaker than Thor. Fury didn't say much. He just told Loki how his prison cell and his imprisonment would work. He didn't ask any questions.

With someone as egotistical as Loki, one didn't need to throw questions at him and hope he would answer. Loki would always say too much, because he would always feel the need to fill the silence, to make his voice heard. He thought that making grand speeches made him more powerful than he actually was. He had never learned that real power was having all the attention in the room even when you weren't saying a word.

"In case it's unclear," Fury said, clicking away at a few buttons on the monitor. "You try to escape? You so much as scratch that glass?" He pressed a final button, and the panels beneath Loki's feet opened wide, letting in strong gusts of wind. The only thing separating him from plummeting down into the cold water of the sea was his prison cell, the glass as thick as they could possibly make it. "Thirty-thousand feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works?" Fury closed the panels, then motioned at Loki. "Ant?" He turned toward the monitor and made the same gesture. "Boot." Riley ducked his head, trying not to show how amused he was. His smile quickly faded away, however, when he heard Loki laugh in amusement as well.

"It's an impressive cage," Loki admitted, backing away from the glass with his hands raised in a placating gesture. It was all very condescending. Riley worked at his jaw to dampen his sudden annoyance. He wasn't used to seeing Fury receive such little respect. It scratched at all the wrong nerves, made him defensive and irritated. "Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you," Fury admitted, playing along. There was no point pretending like they had constructed a cage specifically for Loki. It was too advanced, too neat and organized, and Loki simply wasn't that important. At the end of the day, they could easily overpower him without the cage; the cage was just convenient. Riley shifted uncomfortably in his seat and shared an uneasy glance with Nat. They both knew where the conversation was heading, and neither of them knew how Bruce would react. If he started to get even a little agitated, they had orders to follow—and those orders included putting Bruce inside the cage Loki was currently inhabiting. Fury had made that very clear during another briefing earlier that morning, though that one had only Nat, Riley, and Coulson in attendance.

"Oh, I've heard," Loki was quick to drawl out, turning his head to stare straight into the camera. The screen was being displayed flat on the table—as well as various monitors around the control room, the biggest one being in front of Maria Hill—so Nat and Riley got his gaze straight on from where they were leaning over the table. Neither of them flinched back or looked away, not until Loki added, "The mindless beast makes play he's still a man." That made them both glance toward Bruce, just to make sure he wasn't taking any of the words personally. He seemed slightly bothered that they had made a cage just for him, but he didn't seem angry or irritated. That was good. Riley, a little relieved, glanced back down at the screen, where Loki was still rambling on.

"How desperate are you?" Loki asked Fury, his voice slow and calm. Riley worked at his jaw again. He hated the way Loki was talking to Fury, and hated even more than he couldn't do anything about it. "You call on such lost creatures to defend you." Loki didn't know how right he truly was. The entirety of S.H.I.E.L.D. was made up of lost individuals, but it was especially true for the Avengers team Fury was trying to build. It was made up of a traumatized man-child of a billionaire in a metal suit, a ninety-year-old super soldier lost in time, a man who couldn't control the beast inside of him, a woman who had been spying for so long that she didn't know how to do anything else, and an orphan who didn't quite know where he fit in the world. They were all lost in some way.

Riley didn't know much about Thor, but he could bet that the thunder god was lost somehow too.

"How desperate am I?" Fury asked. He sounded calm to anyone else, but Riley could hear the rage underneath. It showed itself in the way Fury got closer to the cage, in the way he started emphasizing more of his words. "You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can't hope to control, you talk about peace, and kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate, and you might not be glad that you did." He was right in that regard. A desperate Nick Fury was more dangerous than normal, because his mind got sharper. He didn't scramble for a solution; he just got smarter.

"Oh," Loki mused. He seemed delight at Fury's confession, though Riley didn't think it was the right reaction. "It burns you to have come so close. To have a Tesseract, to have power. Unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is." Riley let out a scoff he couldn't quite hold back.

"Why are villains always the same?" he muttered to Nat, ignoring the looks of confusion sent his way by everyone else in the room. "Power this, control that. It's textbook at this point. For once, I'd like to be surprised. Even a little bit." Nat smiled and nudged him in the shoulder.

"Don't ask for that," she advised, reaching for the water bottle. "You might not like what you see." Riley just shrugged. On the screen, Fury was smiling and turning away. He had gotten all he would get from Loki without actually questioning him.

"Well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something," Fury quipped, already walking away. Loki didn't respond. He just turned to look back up into the camera, a smirk pulling at his lips. Rolling his eyes, Riley swiped at the table, sending the screen away for now. Once the screen was off the table and the people in the control room went back to their jobs, the heroes around the table processed what Loki had said at their own pace. Riley could see that a few of them were disturbed. Bruce, especially, seemed a little sick to his stomach. Riley could understand. A god talking about unlimited power and showing humankind what real power actually was, it was a lot to take in. The fact that Loki was implying that things weren't over yet was obvious, and they all knew it.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce muttered eventually, just to break the tense and stunned silence. Riley took his water bottle back from Nat, downing the rest of it as everyone shifted in their seats.

"Loki's going to drag this out, so..." Steve drummed his fingers on the table, then glanced over at Thor, who seemed a little upset. He hadn't been looking at any of the screens around the room during Loki's interrogation. He had kept his head down, though he had heard every word. Now, he was staring at the table in silence. "Thor, what's his play?" Thor blinked a few times and glanced up from the table, taking note of everyone now staring at him. He blinked a few more times, then cleared his throat.

"He has an army called the Chitauri," Thor explained. Riley frowned, then swiped across the monitor embedded into the table, bringing up the alien catalogue. As he searched through their system for the race of alien Thor had mentioned, Thor continued his explanation. "They're not of Asgard or any world known." Hearing that, Riley scoffed and exited the search. If they weren't from any world they knew, then that meant they had never been discovered before by S.H.I.E.L.D. He had the worst feeling that Loki had done that on purpose. "He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"Well, this just gets better and better," Riley muttered, flopping back in his seat. The force of it made his seat roll a few inches away from the table, the wheels smooth against the floor. Riley didn't bother rolling back. He just stayed a few inches away and started idly twisting around in circles in his chair, using his foot to push himself slowly.

"An army?" Steve was saying, his voice flat. Riley caught him cast a disbelieving look around the table, trying to see if anyone else was taking the news like he was. All of them were straight-faced, even Riley, whose spinning was getting faster. "From outer space?"

"So he's building another portal," Bruce mentioned, already connecting the dots. Loki's army wasn't on earth yet, but they would be soon. That was why Loki had seemed so unbothered inside his cage. He might be locked up now, but his minions were working away at the portal so his army could come through. All he had to do was wait. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for." Riley stopped spinning, the name vaguely familiar. It took him a moment to recognize it as the astrophysicist Fury had hired to study the Tesseract. He had been captured along with Clint, one of the first people to be put under the scepter's control.

"Selvig?" Thor asked, voice tense.

"He's an astrophysicist," Bruce responded. Thor pressed his lips together.

"He's a friend," Thor said. There was a beat of silence. Riley looked over at Nat, not knowing what to say. Nat was quick to come up with an explanation.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," she revealed, arms crossed on the table. "Along with one of ours." Riley ducked his head. He hoped the discussion wouldn't go toward Selvig and Clint, because he didn't think he could handle talking about Clint at that moment. He was already irritated with Loki. If anger got involved, he probably wouldn't be able to stop himself from going to confront the god himself.

"I want to know why Loki let us take him," Steve said abruptly, changing the course of the conversation. Riley glanced up at him, vaguely wondering the same thing. He had originally thought it was all too easy. He was glad to see that someone else had thought the same thing. It went without saying at that point that capturing Loki was all part of Loki's plan. Riley just wanted to know why. "He's not leading an army from here."

"Maybe he needs something from us," Riley said, pulling himself closer to the table. "Or maybe he's just doing this for fun. He's a trickster god in Norse mythology. Tricksters like playing around a lot, right?" He looked at Thor for confirmation, but didn't get one. Bruce was already steering the conversation away.

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Bruce said honestly. Riley disagreed, for the most part. The sooner they knew what Loki was up to, the sooner they could disrupt whatever plan he had. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You can smell the crazy on him." Thor bristled at that, straightening his spine to look down his nose at Bruce.

"Have care how you speak," Thor warned. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother." There was a beat of uncomfortable silence. Riley cleared his throat.

"Your Asgardian brother killed eighty people in two days," he told Thor gently, just to remind him what kind of brother he was and who they were dealing with. Thor paused at that. Either the news was shocking to him, or he hadn't expected for Riley to address him. Out of everyone at the table, Riley was the only one who hadn't said a word to him. Thor shifted on his feet, then raised his shoulders in a sheepish shrug.

"He's adopted?" Thor said, phrasing it as an uncertain question. Riley raised his eyebrows. Meanwhile, Bruce was in his own little world, brainstorming away. He was thinking out loud, muttering to himself. Riley only heard the last bit of it.

"I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium," Bruce said, turning the subject back to what was important. He seemed to be thinking ahead of everyone else, because it took Riley a moment to realize what he was even referring to. "What did they need the iridium for?" That was why they had been in Stuttgart, Germany in the first place, why Loki had caused such a huge distraction. It was just to get their hands on the rare element.

"It's a stabilizing agent," Tony said from behind Riley and Nat. Riley jumped and twisted to look at him, frowning to himself. He could have sworn Tony had already been in the briefing room with them, but he should have known he wasn't. Tony had never been so silent for so long. As Riley watched him walk in, he saw Tony twist toward Coulson and continue a previous conversation. Something about flying Coulson somewhere and keeping love alive. When Coulson excused himself, Tony continued his explanation about Iridium. "It means the portal won't collapse in on itself, like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D." Seeing Thor, Tony raised his hand placatingly, even though Thor wasn't angry at his presence. "No hard feelings, Point Break, you've got a mean swing." He patted at Thor's arm with the back of his hand. "Also, it means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants." He approached Fury's control platform then, looking over the control room.

"Where has he even been?" Riley muttered. Nat let out a huff of amusement and sent her elbow into his side, telling him to stay silent. The last thing they needed was to antagonize Iron Man when, at the moment, they seemed to be in need of his brain.

"Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails," Tony said mockingly, making the hand gestures as if he was on a real pirate ship. Riley, who had worked as an ( albeit, fake ) intern at Stark Industries before he was even an agent, rolled his eyes in irritation. This kind of behavior wasn't surprising to him. He could vividly remember the boxing ring in the middle of Tony's workspace. He could also vividly remember Nat being pressured into learning how to box, only for Happy to throw a light punch at her when she wasn't looking. He'd ended up on his back a few seconds later. Riley had thought Nat was just a normal assistant then, nothing more and nothing less. Looking back, he should have known better—but then, maybe he had known. Maybe he had wanted to get caught. It was because she had caught him that he was even in S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first place.

Still playing around, Tony pointed at a random man down in the control room and said very loudly, "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did." At that, Riley eased up from his chair and cast a look around. Sure enough, one of the men manning the invisibility controls had a game of Galaga brought up, though he minimized the game quickly. Amused, Riley sat back down and looked back at Tony, who was now studying Fury's controls with a hand placed over his left eye. He looked for a moment, then pointed at the monitors on the left side. "How does Fury even see these?"

Unamused, Maria said, "He turns."

"Sounds exhausting," Tony declared. He turned to play with the monitors as he continued his explanation about the portal, pressing things randomly and bringing up random footage. Riley felt a flash of irritation, though he buried it. He had no desire to get in a confrontation with Tony. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kickstart the cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Maria asked, her arms crossed over her chest. Riley could tell she had grown annoyed with Tony's antics.

"Last night," Tony declared. When Maria narrowed her eyes in annoyance, he seemed genuinely surprised. "The packet. Selvig's notes. The Extraction Theory papers?" He cast a look around, but everyone else seemed lost. Riley certainly hadn't been given notes about astrophysics to read. Tony let out a sound of exasperation. He stretched his arms out as he got closer to the table. "Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked, sounding done with Tony's antics. He even started talking before Tony could properly finish his question, not that Tony let that stop him. He finished his question regardless.

"He'd have to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce explained, as if that meant anything to Steve.

"Unless," Tony cut in, "Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect." He was walking toward Bruce now, drawn to him simply because he was the only one who understood even half of what Tony was saying. Riley was better at learning new fighting styles than he was understanding science. He recognized the words, but he didn't quite understand what they meant when they were put together.

"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet," Bruce pointed out. It meant nothing to Riley, Steve, Maria, and Nat—though Thor seemed to be following just fine—but Tony looked delighted.

"Finally, someone who speaks English," he said cheerfully, reaching his hand out to shake Bruce's.

"Is that what just happened?" Steve muttered, looking lost. Riley could empathize.

"It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner," Tony greeted, give him a firm handshake. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And—" Tony added with a little more excitement in his voice. "—I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster." Bruce paused at that, then grimaced and glanced down at the floor. Riley crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair, giving Tony a judgmental look.

"Thanks," Bruce muttered, though he didn't sound very grateful. Riley clicked his tongue.

"Nice going, Stark," he couldn't help saying. "Good work." It brought Tony's attention to him. The look he gave Riley was less than friendly. Before he could say anything, though, Fury was walking into the briefing room, commanding everyone's attention.

"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube," he announced, his eyes glued to Tony. He was making it very clear that the Hulk wasn't what they needed from Bruce. Considering they were flying thirty-thousand feet up in the air, the Hulk was actually the last thing anyone needed. "I was hoping you might join him." Steve leaned forward in his seat, his brow furrowed.

"Let's start with that stick of his," he said, referring to the scepter. It was currently waiting for Tony and Bruce inside the lab. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon." Riley tilted his head in thought when he heard that. Everyone inside S.H.I.E.L.D. knew the history behind HYDRA. It was the thing that Captain America had fought against, after all, and for good reason. Aside from trying to take over the world with powerful weapons, the fact that they were Nazis was more than enough reason to fight against them.

"I don't know about that," Fury admitted, "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 monkeys." Bruce and Tony nodded, taking his words for what they were, a silent order to figure out how the cube and the scepter worked, especially together.

"Monkeys?" Thor said softly, brows furrowing as he looked at Fury. "I do not understand."

"I do!" Steve jumped in, far too fast for comfort. He didn't realize how eager he sounded until he looked around and saw everyone staring at him strangely. Riley, for what it was worth, found it amusing. It must have felt good for Steve to finally know something that someone in the room did not. Clearing his throat, he clarified with, "I-I understood that reference." Tony, who had rolled his eyes at Steve's outburst, turned away to face Bruce.

"Shall we play, doctor?" he asked. In response, Bruce motioned with his hands for Tony to take the lead. The two of them walking out was a silent cue for the rest that the briefing was over. Everyone dispersed slowly. Maria muttered about taking her dinner break, turning to leave. Steve got to his feet and said something about exploring the Helicarrier. Riley thought about joining him, but he hesitated, eyes straying to Thor. While Fury and Nat walked away together, talking in low voices, and Steve and Maria went off on their own, Thor was left by himself. He was looking out at the control room, brows furrowing in thought. Riley hesitated only a moment, then decided to approach him.

"Are you lost?" Riley asked. They were the first words that came to him, but it wasn't until he said them out loud that he realized just how rude they sounded. He grimaced to himself. Fortunately, Thor didn't seem to take any offense. He just shook his head and motioned toward Fury's controls.

"Your technology," Thor said. Riley glanced around, frowning to himself. From what he had read, Asgardians were far more advanced than humans were. He couldn't imagine Thor was amazed by anything in that room, except for perhaps the Helicarrier they were riding in. "Is it capable of finding people?" Riley's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Within limits," Riley said slowly, "but yes. We mainly track people through facial recognition and DNA, but we get those through various databases. Government buildings that deal with identification, police records, student ID's, hospital records. Most recently, Ancestry.com. It's not exactly ethical, but what intelligence organization is?" The question was rhetorical, so Riley was relieved when Thor didn't respond to it. He was sure he would have gotten a very different reaction from someone like Steve Rogers. Shaking his head, Riley asked, "Why? Do you want us to find someone?"

"A woman named Jane," Thor said, nodding. "Loki has already targeted a friend. He will use her against me." Riley nodded and went to Fury's monitors, bringing up the tracking database. He already knew who Jane was. Jane Foster had been on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar since she had gotten involved with a bunch of Norse gods. It was how that had found Selvig. But when he typed in his registered number and password to access her file and whereabouts, he was declined. He didn't have Level 8 clearance. Sighing in frustration, Riley stepped away from the monitors, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

"What is the matter?" Thor asked, getting a bit worked up. "Is Jane in trouble?"

"No," Riley said quickly, waving his concern away as he looked around the control room. He needed to find an agent that was a level higher than he was. "No, no. I just don't have Level 8 clearance. I'm only Level 7. But it's good news! Before Loki, Jane's file could be accessed by any agent, but now it's restricted. It means they're putting in effort to hide her location. Coulson!" His sudden shout made Thor jump. Coulson, who was holding a sandwich, nearly dropped it. He shot Riley an exasperated look as Riley walked farther into the control room, heading toward Coulson's spot perched over an abandoned monitor.

"I'm kinda eating here," Coulson said dryly as Riley approached, though he was smiling. Riley beamed back. He liked Phil Coulson, thought he was a good man through and through. He had no doubt in his mind that he wouldn't hesitate to put Thor's mind at ease.

"I was hoping you could reassure Thor about Jane Foster?" Riley said hopefully, already stepping away. If her location wasn't cleared for him, then it meant Fury didn't want him to know. He wasn't going to loophole his way around that. Not right now, at least. Maybe later, once tensions weren't so high. "You will? Great, thanks!"

"Riley—" Phil started, but Riley was already gone. He had spent enough time in the control room anyway. Now, he started making his way to the training room. He knew that was where Nat would be. She had gotten a little tense during the briefing, which meant she would be working that tension off now. Or so he thought. On his way to the training room, he had to pass the windows that allowed people to look down onto the clear cage. He spotted Natasha's vibrant red hair there, out of the corner of his eye. He paused to change the direction he was going.

"Nat?" he asked, walking toward her. She was leaning down on the railing, staring down at the cage with clear, wide eyes. She was thinking hard about something, her brow furrowed and her lips pursed. Riley was careful not to touch her. If he startled her, there was no doubt in his mind that he'd end up with a sprained wrist. That was the last thing he needed. "Nat?" His second try did the trick. She blinked slowly, then looked over at him, her brow still furrowed. He raised his eyebrows.

"I would have thought you were staying to gawk at your new crush," Nat teased, offering him a wide smile. Riley scoffed and waved her away, leaning his hip against the railing.

"I never thought I would be attracted to an alien, but there Thor is, and here I am," he muttered almost bitterly, in slight disbelief. Nat managed a light chuckle, but it died off quickly. She was staring at the cage again, her mind somewhere else. Riley looked at her for a moment, then said, "I thought you were going to be in the training room."

"That's where I was going," Nat told him, narrowing her eyes when Loki came into view, "but then I started thinking. Steve was right earlier. Loki let us take him in. It was too easy, and he didn't even struggle on the way here. I mean, he had the perfect chance to escape when Thor and Stark were fighting in that forest. He was left abandoned on a random cliff. Instead, he just...waited for us. He wants to be here. I just need to figure out why." Riley looked down at Loki as well. Even though the viewing windows were tinted, Loki was staring up at them anyway, as if he could sense them there. Nat's hands tightened around the railing once, and then she was pushing away from it, turning to head to the lower floor, where the entrance to Loki's room was.

"Wait, what are you going to do?" Riley asked, startled. Nat flashed him a quick smile.

"What I do best," she declared. "I'm gonna get some answers."

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The way I cannot wait for Disney+ just so I can pause without fear that the site will crash. Anyway, here's a long awaited update. I'm sorry it's been so long. xx