After losing my outline, my thoughts really were a complete mess.
I'm reorganizing the outline, so there might be minor issues with the plot over the next few days.
If you spot any problems, leave me a comment. I'll fix them as soon as I see them.
Once I've finished reorganizing the outline, I'll also review everything myself as soon as possible.
I'm very sorry.
A few days later, before Natasha could contact Lynn, Coulson called first.
Lynn was brewing tea when he answered. The voice coming through the receiver brought his hands to a halt.
Coulson sounded anxious, with alarms and the noise of helicopter rotors in the background.
"What you said would happen happened anyway." Coulson kept his voice very low, but he couldn't conceal the anxiety he was forcibly holding down beneath it. "I couldn't stop it. Loki took the Tesseract. He killed quite a few agents, took control of Hawkeye and Professor Selvig, and destroyed one of our underground bases."
Lynn set his teacup on the coffee table and stood without interrupting.
"Dr. Banner and Stark should be with you, right?" Coulson took a deep breath and forced his speech back into his usual steady cadence, though that steadiness now sounded more like something he was struggling to maintain. "S.H.I.E.L.D. needs your help."
"I can't decide for them. I'll go ask and call you back in a bit." Lynn hung up, stood, and raised a hand to draw a circle. The portal opened straight into the cavern laboratory. The sound of the tide swept through from the other side, mixed with the sizzling of a welding torch. Ivan Vanko was bent over a set of thruster nozzles he had just removed, with the white parrot perched on his shoulder. Seeing the portal and Lynn's expression, he switched off the welding torch and straightened. "What happened?"
Lynn didn't answer. He walked over, grabbed Ivan's wrist, and pulled him toward the portal. The parrot flapped its wings twice and landed on Ivan's head. The second portal opened directly into Banner's bedroom. Banner was sitting on the edge of his bed, leafing through an old paper on gamma-ray spectral analysis. Seeing Lynn pull Ivan out of the orange sparks, he closed the paper, stood, and asked, "Looks like something serious has happened. Do you need me or Hulk?"
"Both. Come with me first." Lynn raised his hand and drew a third portal, leading straight into the living room on the top floor of Stark Tower. The elevator was too slow.
In the top-floor living room, Tony was sitting at the bar with a glass of red wine in his hand and Pepper beside him. Pepper was saying, "My baby, and I only get twelve percent of the credit?" Tony tilted his head, the relaxed smile he only showed around Pepper on his lips, and was just about to reply.
Three figures stepped out of the portal. Lynn led the way, followed by Ivan, whose parrot was using its beak to straighten its ruffled feathers on his shoulder. Banner came last, still clutching the paper he hadn't had time to put down. Tony's smile froze. Pepper looked at the three uninvited guests, then turned to Tony. For once, Lynn wasn't grinning or joking around. Ivan had I'd like to know what happened too written all over his face, while Banner's gentle expression held a trace of wariness.
"What's wrong?" Tony set down his wineglass and stood to ask.
Lynn glanced at Pepper and tilted his head slightly, his tone tactful but his meaning clear. "Pepper, I'm very sorry to interrupt your time together, but I have something urgent to discuss with Tony in private."
Pepper studied Lynn's expression, then looked at Tony. Without pressing for answers, she stood and gathered the documents on the coffee table, lightly patted Tony's arm, and headed toward the elevator. Before the doors closed, she glanced back at Lynn. There was no reproach in her eyes, only a silent request: Keep an eye on him for me.
Lynn waited until the elevator doors had closed completely, then turned back to face the three men.
"Coulson just called. Loki took the Tesseract. He killed quite a few of their agents, used the Mind Scepter to control Hawkeye and Professor Selvig, and destroyed an underground S.H.I.E.L.D. base. You all know Hawkeye. Selvig is an astrophysicist."
Ivan frowned, and Banner's fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the paper. Tony leaned against the magnetic base of the floating sofa, arms folded, without saying a word. He was waiting for Lynn to finish.
Lynn still gave them a brief account of the Tesseract's origins, telling them everything he knew. It was a treasure of Asgard, as well as the vessel for the Space Stone. During World War II, Red Skull had unearthed it in a church in Norway. Later, Howard Stark had recovered it from the sea and brought it back to the Strategic Scientific Reserve, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s predecessor. Howard Stark had been studying the Tesseract all along, but hadn't pursued aggressive research geared toward weaponization like this. Fury had restarted research into the Tesseract a few years ago, not for scientific exploration, but simply to develop weapons using it to counter potential extraterrestrial threats. He had brought in Selvig to lead the research, but Fury knew almost nothing about the Tesseract's true nature.
"He knows it's an energy source and can open portals, but he doesn't know what the Tesseract really is, much less that its very existence is a signal. Activating it is like lighting a lamp in the universe." Lynn paused after saying this, giving the three men a few seconds to digest it.
"I had Coulson try to persuade Fury to stop the research. Coulson went, but Fury didn't listen. Fury's desire to protect Earth is good, but he kept something he didn't understand at all on Earth to study it. That was a mistake! Now Loki has taken the Tesseract, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is seeking our help. They asked me to find out what you think. They want us to help retrieve the Tesseract and capture Loki."
"I'll state my position first."
Lynn pulled his hand out of his pocket and held up one finger. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is internally unstable right now. We can share intelligence with S.H.I.E.L.D. and fight alongside them, but I won't join. Once we join, we'll be incorporated into Fury's chain of command and bound by his priorities. I admire his ideas and his foresight. But I don't approve of his methods most of the time."
The living room fell silent for a moment. Outside, New York's nightscape was framed like a painting by the floor-to-ceiling windows, and a few wisps of cloud drifted slowly across the moon. Tony unfolded his arms. "When does S.H.I.E.L.D. need an answer?"
"As soon as possible. Coulson is still waiting for my call."