Once that little chat was over, I quietly strode into my room on the way there to change into my lab uniform .  I was quite alarmed at how observant Loki could be, but I shook it off.  Just as quietly as I left, I came back.  Fury was waiting, tapping his foot impatiently against the ground.  "You need to be more careful."
  I took a deep breath, "You need to trust me.  Damn it, it's just like before!  You still don't trust me!  I only lost control because that prick pointed a weapon at me."  Fury flashed out a gun to my forehead in a split second.  I froze.
  "What are you gonna do if anyone else turns a weapon on you, Gonzalez!"  Fury spat.  I glared at him while Natasha, Bruce, and Tony yelled out in alarm.  Of course, only Natasha knew what could possibly happen. 
  "Sir!  You can't just put everyone in jeopardy like that!"  Natasha yelled when Fury put his gun back into his holster.  It took every ounce of my self control not to bitch slap that bastard. I mean, why is he so stupid sometimes?  I shook my head and sat down.  Bruce walked up to me.
  "What was all that about?"  He asked.  Wow, he's concerned.  How cute.
  "Fury just likes to push my buttons is all.  Nothing to majorly concern yourself with."  I replied nonchalantly.  He didn't seem too convinced, so I put my hand on his,"Listen, Bruce,"  He looked a bit startled.  "It's alright.  Honestly.  Like I said before, Fury just isn't all that great."  He nodded and turned towards Fury.
  "So, iridium.  What did they need iridium for?"  Bruce asked, finally getting down to more important matters.
  "It's a stabilizing agent."  Tony replied, as he casually strode in from who knows where.  Everyone turned to him, to make him explain more.  Of course, these dumb idiots don't know what this means.  Tony went to open his mouth, but I beat him to it.
  "Means the portal won't collapse on itself, kinda like it did at SHIELD head quarters.  Idiots."  I heard a faint chuckle next to me and flashed my brightest smile.
  "Right, it also means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants."  This seemed to sink in and Fury was not happy about it. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube."  Tony explained more in detail.
   "When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?"  Agent Hill interrupted.  I laughed a bit, she's right.  Tony has never talked about thermonuclear astrophysics.
  "Last night."  I couldn't help but laugh even more," The packet, Selvig's notes, the Extraction Theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading?"
  "Hell yes!"  I said.
  " Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?"  Captain asked, not really liking the fact that there was joking in this situation.  Kill joy.
  " He got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier."  Banner answered.  He had a small glint of amusement in his eyes.
  "Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunnelling effect."  Tony said, thinking deeply.  Which is something I don't normally see him do.
  "Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."  I input.
  "Finally, people who English!"  He yelled out.  Oh dear.
   "Is that what just happened?"  Steve looked so lost.  I couldn't help but laugh.
  "So what now?"  I asked.
  Fury looked at me, not really meeting my eyes.  I caught on.  He wouldn't dare.  "You, Agent Gonzalez, are going to be locked in the science lab.  No more fighting, going on missions, you will put your very heart and soul into finding that tesseract.  Nothing more, nothing less."
   "You can't do that to her!  From what I heard, she played a big part in capturing Loki."  Bruce spoke up.  Bless him.  I turned to him, partly sad, and somewhat mad. Not at him of course.
  "Nothing we can do now, Bruce.  It was bound to happen anyway."  I tell him
  "Why are you locking up my assistant? She may have kept being a SHIELD agent away from me, but she has no special powers, she's no threat." Tony intervened.
  "That's where you're wrong, Tony."  I said darkly, as I strode off to the lab.

  When I got to the lab, I was fuming.  No, that's a bit too subtle for what I felt; I was furious.  I screamed the moment the doors locked behind me.  "God! I am so STUPID!  What the hell!"  I yelled out in frustration, throwing every glassware I could reach towards the door.  "You knew he was going to lock you up!"  I scolded myself, turning away from the door.  No use in trying to get out.  "And to top it all off, you have a mother cussing crush of Bruce!  I mean, how could you not see it before, huh, Ash?  Damn, it's like the stupid admiration and attraction to him never disappeared from before I met him!"  I grabbed my hair, "It's too dangerous.  I could hurt him.  I just, I-"
   "Well, that's not something I'd ever hear from the hot headed, stubborn, pretty little assistant of mine."  I froze.  Was I yelling?  When did he even come through the door?
  "Um, uh, seems someone got a little... angry."  Bruce.  Dear God.  To top the icing on the cake, he had to be here to witness my embarrassing rant.
   "Someone has a crush?  Well, not something I'd ever think you'd have.  What did you say?  Stupid admiration and attraction to him before you met him.  Didn't know you knew anything about him."  Damn you, Tony.  Damn you to hell.
  I turned around and looked at Bruce, who was blushing like mad and looking to the floor, "Yeah well... I uh..  What the hell.  Yeah.  I have a bloody crush on Bruce Banner.  I'm not good at this stuff okay?  I barely know the guy, but I know of every experiment, every thing he studied.  I looked up to him."  I finished, I could feel the heat on my cheeks.
   "  Well, It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. You're work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."  He coughed uncomfortably. 

  It's been three full weeks since that little embarrassing encounter, but oddly enough, Bruce seemed to talk to me more.  It's dumb, but I think he may like me back.  "So, how long have you been with SHIELD?  I heard you left them for some time, why?"  I shifted a bit, to let Bruce look onto the screen.  Yeah, I've been locked up in this lab day and night, I even have my own cot now. 
  "Well, I left for 3 years.  Fury wanted me locked up like this.  Thought I'd proven my worth and he could trust me, but I guess not.  So I left and I was homeless for a good 6 months.  Fury always made sure my back ground checks were failed so I might come running back, "  I looked over to make sure he was listening and then kept going, "But, I'm very stubborn, as you know.  I refused to go back and be treated like some pet.  But, one day I heard of an assistant job opening for Tony Stark.  I love science and anything relatively close to it, so I decided to take a shot and get an interview.  Oddly enough, the background check cleared, and even some information that I never gave showed up.  I didn't know what Fury was up to, but I didn't care. Anyways, I guess it was to keep tabs on me.  Probably got tired of sending agents to chase me down so they could watch me.  He probably decided the best way was to watch the troublemaker and the potential threat all at once.  Oh, when I was seventeen they recruited me and I stayed until I was 22."  I added hastily, drawing my blood in a vile for my weekly blood tests Fury has me do.
  "  By potential threat, what do you-"  Bruce had gotten so close to my face because of the urgency of his question.  It seemed like it was killing him to know why I was such a big threat.  The intensity of his eyes was just too much for me.  Don't even ask me why, or what was going through my mind.  I just acted upon sheer impulse.  I mean, his lips looked like they could kiss mighty fine.  So I closed the gap, and brought his lips to mine.  Just for about 3 seconds.  But I was right, those lips could kiss pretty damn good.  I pulled away, muttering a slight apology.  But I wasn't sorry.  I've only known this man, personally,  for almost 3 weeks, and have known of him since I was 16.  But I cared for him very much already.  I mean, I'm still worried that I'll kill him.  Not me, but her.  She pretty much mutilated the last man I fell in love with.  That was when I was sixteen though.  I looked at Bruce cautiously.  He seemed to be slightly smiling, but at the same time trying to calm down.  Oh yeah.  I forgot.  He can lose control if something surprises him to much.  I went to apologize again, but Tony strolled in, smiling hugely.
  "Bout time, Gonzalez."  I blushed madly,and looked away.
  "Shut up, Stark."
  "So, the gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But it's gonna take weeks to process."  Bruce spoke up in a small voice.
  " Seems she dazzled you, Hulky.  Well, if we bypass their mainframe and direct a reroute to the Homer cluster, we can clock this around six hundred teraflops."  Tony replied, striding to his equipment.
  "All I packed was a tooth brush."  I snorted and put my vile of blood in a fridge.
  "You know, you should come by Stark Towers sometime. Top ten floors, all R and D. You'd love it, it's candy land."  I laughed and stood beside Bruce.
   " It's true.  I love it!  He doesn't know, but I kinda fooled around in his lab in the middle of the night."  I added in a whisper.  Bruce laughed.
  "Thanks, but the last time I was in New York I kind of broke...Harlem." 
  "Well, I promise a stress free environment. No tension. No surprises."  Tony smirked.  Liar.  He poked Bruce with a zapper.  wow, just, wow.  I shook my head in amusement.
  "Hey! Are you nuts?"  Steve yells, making me jump.
  "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"  Tony asked, mildly curious.  I shook my head.  I have always wondered too. I mean, I can keep a lid on my temper, but I don't know how to really control it.
  "Is everything a joke to you?"  I scoffed loudly, making him turn his attention to me.
  "Funny things are always funny to him."  I said.  He just gave me a stern look.
  "Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, doctor."  I rolled my eyes at this.  How could you not take even the slightest bit of offense to that?
   "No, it..it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."  Bruce said.  Though I could tell he took major offense.  I really hate Captain America. 
   "You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut."
   "And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark."  the Captain demanded furiously.
   "You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us. I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."  Tony spat back.
   "You think Fury's hiding something?"  Steve asked.
   "He's a spy. Captain, he's the spy. His secrets have secrets."  Tony looked over to me, and I nodded in agreement.  I knew Fury had secrets, hell, he was keeping mine.
   "It's bugging him too, isn't it?"  Tony pointed at Bruce, who seemed startled at being called out.
   "Uh...I just wanna finish my work here and..."  He stopped, becoming a bit shy.
   "Doctor?"  Steve said.
   "'A warm light for all mankind to share', Loki's jab at Fury about the cube."  He paused again, waiting for the urge to go on.
   "I heard it."  There was his urge.
   "Well, I think that was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't post that all over the news."  Bruce called out Tony this time.
   "The Stark Tower? That big ugly...building in New York?"  Steve asked.  Both Stark and I took great pride in that building, jerk.
    "It's powered by Stark Reactors, self sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?"  Banner asked.
    "That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now."  Tony said, swelling with arrogance and pride.
    "So why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"  Bruce asked hypothetically.  It made some sense in a way. 
    "I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files."  I stopped at Tony's words.  My files.  If he got into SHIELD's database, he'd have full access to my whole entire file.
    "I'm sorry, did you say...?"  I butted in, a bit unnerved.
    "Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge. In a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide."  Tony replied.
    "JARVIS!  Stop trying to hack into SHIELD's files at once!"  I yelled desperately at the ceiling. 
    "No!  Jarvis ignore Gonzalez.  Keep going.  Damn Red eyes, why do you not want that?  Aren't you curious as to what Fury is doing?"  I shook my head, unable to speak.
    "And you're wondering why they didn't want you around."  Steve said sarcastically.
*********************

   I couldn't move.  I couldn't focus on the work I was supposed to be doing.  Yeah, I knew Fury was planning on making weapons of mass destruction. I didn't care.  I only cared about my files.  I looked at the lab door.  That door is the way out for fresh air, or at least, as fresh as it can get.  I didn't want to be near Tony or Bruce, and I sure as hell didn't want to be near those files loading onto his computer screen.  "Well.  Look what I found, Bruce!"  Tony called out.  I could hear Bruce making his way towards Tony. He didn't find it.  It's something else.  The guy you've fallen for is most definitely not going to see those files.  But that was too much to ask.  Because he did find it, it's not something else, and the guy I've fallen for was going to see those files.  He'll see what I did.  He'll be so disappointed.  "It's Red eye's file!  Her full file."  I just knew Tony would never take no for an answer.  He was too stubborn.  I had only one choice.  I had to let it go.  Let go of the fear of being judged, I had to let go of the tight secret I've kept for so long.  I strode over towards them, keeping my eyes down, and pushed Tony aside.  He bumped into Bruce.  I mumbled a small apology before taking a look at the screen.
  "Ashlyn."  His voice made me shiver slightly, "Ashlyn, if there is something you truly don't want us to see, we won-"  I put my hand up, silencing Bruce.
  "I-if I were to t-tell you myself, I would not get through it.  B-besides the video that will automatically pop u-up will explain things only s-she remembers."  I pressed the file open, and out popped a video.  I moved aside as I pressed play to the beginning of my new life.