Banner's voice was calm. He didn't sound angry at all.
He wanted to talk with Ryan a little longer, but then he heard a door open.
The laboratory had glass walls. Banner set down what he was working on and looked through the glass. He saw a man in handcuffs.
The long-haired man wore a relaxed smile despite the cuffs and the gun at his back. "You're all too tense."
The newcomer was being treated like a prisoner. Watching him, Banner asked Ryan, who had also stepped up to the glass, "He makes everyone more nervous than I do."
"Because he stole the Cosmic Cube everyone's been looking for."
Ryan told him the prisoner's name. "He's Loki."
Loki had been caught, but Ryan knew it was deliberate. The man was full of dirty tricks, and most of what went on in his head was scheming.
Banner, though, seemed interested in Loki. "Now that we've caught the mastermind, why not ask him where the Cosmic Cube is? S.H.I.E.L.D. has ways of making people talk."
"Unfortunately, we can't use any of them." Ryan tapped the glass, pointing toward the group following Loki.
Banner looked over too. Everyone in that group was famous.
Loki's brother, God of Thunder Thor.
The billionaire, Tony.
And Captain America.
Looking at them, Banner said, "Things just got lively."
Loki couldn't hear Banner from inside the laboratory. He raised his head and scanned the room.
He saw electronic equipment and people at work. On an elevated platform stood the One-Eyed Commander he had met before: Nick.
Loki cared about none of that. After looking around, the person who held his attention most was the one watching him through the glass.
Even though that person's face had changed, Loki recognized him at a glance. It was Ryan, the man