S.H.I.E.L.D., conference room.
The Tesseract sat in the middle of the conference table. Nick and the others stared at it, exchanging blank looks. No one spoke, and the atmosphere was oppressive.
Earlier, they had avoided making a choice, but there was no escaping it forever. Once everything else had been dealt with, they had to face one question: should they hand over the Tesseract or not?
Handing it over might cause today's tragedy to repeat itself.
Keeping it meant considering who could withstand Tony's retaliation.
Everyone present except Thor had dealt with Tony. Even Steve, who disliked him the most, had to admit that if Tony retaliated, the resulting disaster would be no less severe than Loki's.
It was a dilemma.
Eventually, Thor could no longer stand the oppressive atmosphere. He rose impatiently and said, "What's there to agonize over? If nothing else works, let me deal with this Tony guy. Kill him, and wouldn't that solve everything?"
Everyone gave him a strange look. Nick's mouth twitched, and he inexplicably felt that this scene was rather familiar.
Hadn't Thor also said earlier that he would deal with Loki? And how had that turned out?
Not only had he failed to resolve the situation, he had made it escalate further.
For a while, no one said anything. They simply stared at Thor in silence until he finally buckled under the pressure and reluctantly sat back down.
"This won't work, that won't work. Then tell me, what should we do?"
"Keep sitting here wasting time?"
Thor sounded irritated, with a hint of helplessness in his voice.
He, the mighty Warrior of the Nine Realms, was actually powerless against a mortal. Before fighting Loki, he would never have imagined such a thing.
Now, however, he had to admit that the mortal who could