Director Fury and Dr. Erik Selvig were walking together, "No, it's not funny at all. The Tesseract is not only active, she's…misbehaving," Selvig explained.
"How soon until you pull the plug?" Fury wanted to know.
"She's an energy source. If we turn off the power, she turns it back on. If she reaches peak level…"
"We've prepared for this, Doctor. Harnessing energy from space."
"We don't have the harness. My calculations are far from complete. Now she's throwing off interference, radiation. Nothing harmful, just low levels of gamma radiation."
"That can be harmful. Where's Agent Barton?"
Selvig snorted, "The Hawk? Up in his nest as usual."
Fury radioed Agent Barton, "Agent Barton, report to me." Clint came down from his so called nest to join Fury on the floor. "I gave you this detail so you could keep a close eye on things," Fury reprimanded Clint.
"Well I see better from a distance," Clint replied calmly.
"Are you seeing anything that might set this thing off?" Fury asked as a scientist called something to Selvig about the cube which was pulsing with a blue light.
Barton shook his head answering, "No one's come or gone. Selvig's clean. No contacts no I.M.'s. If there was any tampering, sir, it wasn't at this end."
Fury stopped and looked at Clint, "At this end?"
"Yeah the cube is a doorway to the other end of space right?" Clint reasoned. "Doors open from both sides." Just then the Tesseract pulsed a few times before loosing a blue bolt of energy that turned into a wave opening up a portal. Once the smoke cleared a tall long haired man was on one knee underneath the portal dressed in strange clothes and carrying some sort of spear. He slowly stood up grinning evilly. Fury commanded him to put down the spear but all the stranger did was look down at the spear before shooting an exploding blue light at Clint and Fury who dove out of the way. The SHIELD agents attacked the intruder who responded in kind with more blasts of energy from his spear. If Clint hadn't dived out of the way he would have been hit. Clint got up and attacked the stranger who blocked the blow.
"You have heart," he commented as he placed the tip of his spear over Clint's chest. Clint froze his eyes turning to solid black as blue light spidered up his neck to turn his eyes Tesseract blue making him fall under some form of mind control. Clint put his gun away as the intruder turned to other SHIELD agents that were nearby as Fury attempted to leave with the Tesseract. "Please don't. I still need that." The intruder turned to Fury his voice silky smooth.
Fury stopped but didn't turn, "This doesn't have to get any messier."
"Of course it does. I've come too far for anything else. I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose."
Selvig looked over startled, "Loki? Brother of Thor?"
Fury turned keeping a tight grip on the case containing the Tesseract, "We have no quarrel with your people."
"An ant has no quarrel with a boot." Loki countered.
"You planning to step on us?"
"I come with glad tidings of a world made free."
"Free from what?"
"Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart…" Loki spun and placed his spear on Selvig's chest to put him under his mind control. "You will know peace." Clint looked up at the ceiling which was starting to crumble.
"Sir, Director Fury is stalling." Clint informed Loki walking over. "This place is about to blow and drop a hundred feet of raw materials. He means to bury us."
"Like the Pharaohs of old," Fury agreed.
Selvig looked up from a computer confirming what Clint had said, "He's right the portal is collapsing in on itself. You got maybe two minutes before this goes critical."
"Drop him," Loki ordered Clint who shot Fury. He then picked up the case as he, Loki, Selvig and the other controlled agents left. Clint gave the case to Selvig and took the lead heading towards the cars. Fury then sat up and as the first pieces of the building fell to the ground with a crash…
Thud. Raven woke with a start when she rolled off of her cot onto the floor. She fought her way out of the blankets that had somehow twisted around her when she was thrashing around. She sat up dripping with sweat gasping, "Nigel. Clint." She stood up looking around, "Now where did I put my phone? I've got to warn them that Loki might be coming to the research facility for the Tesseract. But it might have already happened. Or might not even happen. Ugh." She put her head in her hand feeling a headache coming on. "I hate this stupid ability that's more of a curse. It stops me from getting a good night's sleep and isn't very explanatory." Raven spotted her phone on the small fold up table. She picked it up and then wanted to throw it across the small room that she was staying in for the night crying indignantly, "No signal?!" She then laughed harshly, "Of course there's no bloody signal. I'm in freakin' Antarctica." She sighed and put her phone down before pulling her long raven hair into a bun at the back of her head. Raven pulled on her white fur lined parka that would help her blend into the Antarctic wilderness and as she did so she caught a glimpse of her pale complexion in the mirror. Although her skin was normally quite pale because no matter how long she laid in the sun her English skin would barely tan, she was even paler as a result of her nightmare/premonition. She rolled her eyes again cursing her mother's family who were the ones that passed down her curse as she called it, the only difference being that they could actually control it. Raven only got flashes and maybe a whole scene of either a future or present event while she slept and sometimes she didn't even remember it until it was almost too late. She shook her head to get rid of her dismal thoughts so that she could focus on her job. Raven strapped on her multitude of various knives that were her weapons of choice. She could shoot guns but she preferred the thrill of throwing knives and getting right in the thick of the action.
When Raven was ready to head out she placed an ordinary looking grey sphere on the floor that once activated would discreetly demolish the shelter until nothing was left. This saved agents from carrying too much when they had to go to remote areas for missions. Once outside Raven headed off to fulfill her mission which was to eliminate a band of terrorists, strangely based in Antarctica, who planned on destroying every major city in Northern Hemisphere with homemade chemical bombs before obliterating the entire continent of Antarctica and flooding most if not all of the South Hemisphere and maybe even part of the Northern Hemisphere. Ambitious but Raven was there to make sure they failed. As she approached the lab she slowed her pace so as to not disturb the snow as much. She circled the lab and whenever she spotted a guard she would throw one of her two inch long knives that were so thin they looked like giant needles. These deadly blades would bury themselves in the necks or the foreheads of Raven's targets, killing them before they knew what had hit them. Once she'd made her way back to the front door she slipped behind the two guards and, after removing a pair of knives from their wrist sheaths, skillfully slit their throats so that she didn't get a drop of blood on her clothes. Raven padded softly inside and the entrance hall ended at an empty catwalk which looked over the lower level where everything was located. She walked to the edge and looked down to see about a dozen people running around putting the finishing touches on the chemical missiles as a timer counted down to launch. Raven scanned the entire room which since it was the whole building meant she had to walk around the catwalk to get a good view of everything. Raven smiled when she saw her ride out of there which was a high speed jet that seated one person, and from what Raven had read about it was fairly simple to actually fly. "T minus two minutes," one of the men downstairs called out to the others.
Alright I like a challenge, Raven thought as she ran down the stairs and started to throw her knives. At one point she had to perform some complex acrobatics to avoid some retaliatory fire from those remaining. The countdown reached the one minute mark as Raven eliminated the rest of the opposition. She ran over to the control panel where there was, to her dismay, no big red button that was labeled abort in any language. Just my luck, Raven groaned mentally, they never make it easy. She laughed harshly; Of course they never make it easy. Nothing has ever been easy in my whole life so why start now. I mean Natasha's off interrogating some Russians, Clint's just keeping an eye on the Tesseract though granted that might not end up being the walk in the park we thought it was going to be which is the same with Nigel and his combination of security duty and top secret engineering project at the same research facility. What do I do? I get to go all the way to freezing Antarctica all on my lonesome. Oh well it's better than guarding some stupid cube but still…. Raven grinned as she finally spotted the tiny grey button that was labeled abort. She hit the button shutting down the missiles just as the timer hit the thirty second mark. Cut it a little fine there. Because you were too busy thinking about Clint. He's a friend. Raven started arguing with herself, something that she was prone to doing when she was on her own. I was thinking about Nigel and Natasha as well. But mainly Clint. HE'S A FRIEND, besides he likes Natasha. How do you know? They're always together and you can tell just by the looks they've shared. Not for a while. Whatever just shut up. I can like him even if he's out of my reach. But you don't just like him do you? This was an argument Raven often had with herself depending on her mood but it was always along the same basic lines. Raven had had feelings for Clint for a few years now but had never voiced those feelings for several reasons which were mainly: she believed he liked Natasha, she didn't want to ruin their friendship, and she had some family problems that needed resolving. Not to mention her brother would tease her mercilessly if he ever found out. So Raven keeps quiet and tries not to feel jealous when she sees Natasha and Clint together as she is very close friends with the both of them and had been ever since she and her brother began working for SHIELD.
While Raven was arguing with herself she was placing the same devices that she had used in the shelter all around the lab with the largest concentrations underneath the missiles, control panel, and the unarmed bombs that would have been used to blow up the ice. She opened the hanger doors and strapped herself into the cockpit of the jet. Raven checked all the controls making sure she knew where everything was. Just as she started the engines up, Raven activated the devices and then took off. By the time she was climbing into the atmosphere the entire lab was in ruins.