"You have the Tesseract? You've been keeping it from me all this time?"
Hermione's voice came over the phone, filled with undisguised surprise and accusation.
Fury choked.
He had expected Hermione to react this way, but now, to recover the Tesseract, he had no choice but to bite the bullet.
Besides, Fury had already prepared a backup plan.
He intended to send Iron Man, Tony Stark, and Captain America, Steve Rogers, into action first under the name of the Avengers, to test the waters.
His main reason for contacting the young wizard was to see whether she had a way to locate the Tesseract, and to keep her as his last resort if the Avengers couldn't handle things.
He also knew about Tony and Hermione's relationship. Rather than let Tony spill the secret later, he might as well tell Hermione himself and appear a little more forthcoming.
"So this is the level-nine clearance you gave me?" Hermione's tone dripped with sarcasm. "What, are you the only person in all of S.H.I.E.L.D. who knows about the Tesseract? I had no idea the director moonlighted as a research scientist."
Fury fell silent.
After a long pause, he finally spoke, a hint of weariness in his voice. "This is an emergency. Please forgive me for now, Miss Wizard. Once this is over, I'll make it up to you to your satisfaction."
He could tell Hermione about other things, but the Tesseract...
That was the key to potentially gaining power that could rival aliens, or even the wizarding world. He couldn't risk letting Hermione know.
"If you lost something, go find it. Why call me? I'm not the one who stole it," Hermione snapped.
The mention of making it up to her softened her attitude a little.
"Because you know the person who took