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Clint looked at the black box that Natasha had set in the middle of the conference table. “So what do we know about it?” he asked the four other Avengers that were in the room.
“Um, I ran some test as soon as we picked it up and it’s not made of anything that anyone’s ever encountered before,” Dr. Banner said running a hand through his hair.
“I picked it up after the fight in New Jersey against those zombie things,” Natasha supplied. The box was a six inch cube; it was perfectly smooth and so black that it completely absorbed any light shown on it.
“Is it bad?” Steve asked. “I mean has it done anything or given off anything?”
“Not that we can detect,” Tony shrugged.
“Are we gonna wait till it does something?” Clint asked.
“I mean that is a plan,” Dr. Banner sighed.
“So we’re going to wait till this thing tries to kill us?” Steve asked.
“Yeah, why not?” Natasha shrugged.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Tony asked.
A few weeks passed before anyone thought of the box again. Tony had put it in a safe in the floor of the Tower that was basically a giant vault. JARVIS alerted them to a problem one morning when they were all sitting down eating pancakes that Steve had made for everyone.
“Mr. Stark,” came the British accented voice.
“Yes, JARVIS?”
“It seems that the 10th floor safe is being melted. It’s apparent that the source is the black box.”
The Avengers all raced down to the 10th floor.
“What are we actually going to do when we get there?” Clint asked as they raced down four flights of stairs.
“Working on that,” Tony said as one of his suits attached to him as he rushed down the stairs with them.
When they got to the landing to the 10th floor the door was slowly melting away from the hinges. “There’s no way that’s good,” Steve commented.
“No shit,” Tony scoffed stepping forward now in his suit and touched the door. Everywhere he touched it just melted away. “JARVIS is telling me that this door’s cold….”
“How cold?” Dr. Banner asked.
“About eighteen degrees Celsius. That’s really weird.”
Dr. Banner reached out to touch the door and it melted off in his hand. “It feels like sand.”
The five of them walked through the door and took in the surroundings. The room was bare with cinder blocks and iron showing. It was just one large floor with the elevator in the middle. The safe was on the other side of the room. They all rushed towards it dodging dripping mettle. Where the safe used to be was just a grey puddle and the box was sitting neatly on the ground. Natasha reached out to pick it up. Once her fingers graced the surface everything in the room that had previously been melting solidified. Steve had to dodge and falling piece of mettle the size of his shield. It shattered on the floor like ice.
“Great, now I have to redo this floor,” Tony sighed.
“What are we going to do with this thing?” Natasha asked as she cradled the box.
“Well you probably shouldn’t let go of it,” Steve said.
“Okay, do we want to get rid of it?” Dr. Banner asked.
“Yes,” came the resounding reply.
“Okay, any suggestions?”
The first idea was to drop it from a very high point. So Tony flew it out to the middle of a field in Canada and dropped it from as high as his suit would go. It bounced back up and hit him in the face and broke his suit. The second idea was to drop it in the ocean. It floated back up to the top and started to evaporate the Atlantic Ocean. Next they took it to the shooting range in the basement and Clint and Natasha had at it. It blew it up. Then they made Dr. Banner turn into the Hulk and try punching it. As soon as the Hulk touched it he turned back into his normal human self. Dr. Banner asked if he could keep it. Steve vetoed that idea. Next they tried burning it. That only succeeded in burning down the top three floors of the tower.
“I’m giving up,” said Natasha with the box firmly in her hand as she flopped onto a half burn couch.
“You’re going to be stuck with that thing,” Clint noted.
“Can’t we just throw it into Russia and run?” She suggested.
“That would be bad,” Dr. Banner commented.
“How bad?” She asked
“World War Three bad,” Dr. Banner responded
“That’s a bit dramatic.”
“No its not.”
“Yes it is.”
A loud crash of thunder interrupted their argument. “I may have a solution to your problem.” Thor said as he hopped through a hole in the ceiling.
“Is that thing yours?” Steve said gesturing to the box.
“I’m afraid it’s my brother’s. He thought it would be funny to leave it where you all could find it. It took me a few hours to figure out what he was laughing so much about.” Thor held out his hand. “I can take it back to Asgard with me.
Natasha handed it over, “Thank you cause I am done with that thing.”
“Have a good day,” he waved his hammer as he climbed back up to the roof.
“Anyone else want some pizza?” Clint asked as he dug his phone out of his pocket.
“Yes,” said everyone in the room.
“Who are we going to say the order is for this time?” Tony asked.
“Cleanup crew for the gods?” Steve suggested.
“Perfect,” Clint smirked as he called the nearest Pizza John’s. It may or may not have been on speed dial. “Hello, hello I’m calling to order pizzas for the cleanup crew for the gods. I would like ten large pepperoni pizzas for the Avengers tower.”