Chapter One: The Portal
Andra Forsythe leaned against the metal railing, looking down at the scientists in the lab. It reminded her of her days back in Europe, when she'd been free to do as she pleased. When she would often look down at the people in the streets and wonder what it would be like to be a part of them. She'd enjoyed the chase then, the kill. She remembered how they ran in the streets to avoid rain, just as these people ran about in their lab coats, how they would –
"Back off," he called in a warning tone, breaking her out of her thoughts.
"What?" she asked, turning around to face him.
"You know, I need to stop letting you up here. I know they're annoying, but you keep going all predatory-animal and I don't want to see you get stuck back on ice 'cause you tried to attack a scientist."
"There's no chance of that happening," she protested.
"You were thinking about it."
"No, Clint, I wasn't."
"You were," he corrected, and she could hear the smirk in his voice, "You've got a tell."
She sighed and stood. When she came to her full height and stood before him, she was only an inch shorter than he was at about five feet, nine inches. Her bright green eyes met his blue ones, and a smirk crept its way onto her face. Hands at her sides, she cocked one hip to the side and stared him down.
"How do you know I've even got a tell?"
"Right, because I've noticed absolutely nothing about you in eight years."
"What is it?"
Clint scoffed and chuckled. "I'm not going to tell you what it is. That would be cheating."
Andra scoffed, shaking her head, and went to sit on the edge of the platform, lacing her arms through the bars of the railing. Of course, he would know her tell. Clint's observation and perception abilities were rather annoying at times. They didn't call him Hawkeye because he liked birds; the man could shoot an arrow at a gnat 300 meters away and hit it straight-on. She had found that out very early into their friendship from a bet that she lost a good ten dollars on. He was a very gifted marksman, and his eyes never seemed to miss anything. Anything.
She looked over at Clint as he sat down beside her. She'd been his friend for such a long time now. It seemed like she could barely remember a time before she'd met Clint and joined S.H.I.E.L.D. He'd saved her life that night, as he had the life of their mutual friend, Natasha Romanoff. He was a good agent, but he was a better man. As a person, Clint Barton was one of the few that she could actually stand to be around for longer than an hour. On assignments, he noticed things almost no one else did, making him an invaluable asset to the mission. Outside of S.H.I.E.L.D., he was a perceptive and caring friend who knew equally when to tease about a mistake and when to stay silent and simply be there. Though she would never say it to him, she appreciated Clint more than she could begin to express.
When she came back, he had been the one to comfort her. Tasha had asked questions – too many questions – but Clint had known what she needed. A shoulder to lean on until she could find her own footing. He still hadn't pressed her to tell him what went down in Bolivia, no matter how many times she was certain the question had crossed his mind. He'd simply been there while she had rebuilt herself up from the ground. For that alone, she was eternally grateful to him.
A soft chuckle came from her companion, and she looked up at his face to find him looking at her with a raised eyebrow. "You gonna say what's on your mind, or are you just gonna stare at me?"
She cracked a smile. "Why, making you uncomfortable?"
"People are starting to get the wrong idea."
"What?" When he didn't say anything immediately, she stiffened. "The new rumor in the Admin building is about us, isn't it?"
He gave her a half-smile, half-smirk. "They think we're involved," he teased.
She laughed, but when his expression didn't change, she raised her eyebrows. "Please tell me you're kidding."
"The rumor is we're in a 'non-professional relationship'," he said, his half-smirk becoming a full one.
"Romantic or sexual?" He just nodded and she sighed. "It was Riley, wasn't it?"
"Probably," he agreed with an amused tone, "That's what he does best."
She groaned, rubbing her forehead with the side of her index finger. "I haven't taken my break today. I'll hit the lunch room in the admin building, see what I can do about this rumor of his."
"You do that. I'll be right here, being bored."
"I'm only gonna be gone for half an hour; you'll survive."
"Hurry back."
With that, Andra stood and launched off the platform railing with one foot. She landed on both feet and dropped to a somersault to avoid any damage to her feet. The landing wouldn't have bothered her so much if the floor hadn't been concrete and had any amount of give. Andraste stood to her full height and walked away from the Nest. The Nest was the fun little moniker everyone tended to give to whatever place Hawkeye spent the majority of his time. At the moment, that was a small metal catwalk that extended around the walls of the laboratory, where he claimed he would be able to see everything. Since he had claimed the spot, it had been her prerogative to mingle around and speak with the scientists below.
Andra was just outside of the main lab and had started down a set of stairs when Barton called her back over the coms. She immediately rushed back into the room. The scientists below were rushing about and one of the computers was letting off a loud siren noise. Then the sirens of the entire laboratory began going off, amplifying the noise to the point that she winced in pain, her sensitive feline ears flattening against her head. Eventually, they got the sirens to turn off, but her ears rang.
She walked up to Selvig, who was working on a computer, apparently fascinated by whatever he was seeing. "What's going on?"
He shrugged. "I'm not sure, she's never acted up like this before." Andra remembered his strange habit of referring to the Tesseract as a 'she' and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "These readings are like nothing I've ever seen; completely off the charts."
"Could it be dangerous?" she asked, glancing up to Clint, who looked back at her nearly blankly.
"Potentially, yes," he admitted, and he frowned. "She's emitting gamma radiation."
Her eyes widened. "Good to know," she mused as she walked away, picking up her walkie-talkie off her belt and switching it to the major channel. "Hill, this is Forsythe. Do you copy?"
There was no reply, then a bit of static. "This is Hill; I copy. What's the status down there?"
"Selvig says the Tesseract is 'acting up.' It's releasing gamma radiation. Get somebody to call the Director, ASAP."
"Copy that."
She then switched to the channel she and Clint had found for themselves and looked up at him. "You gonna come down from there, Birdy?"
He picked up his walkie-talkie and smirked at her from above. "I'm fine up here. What's going on?"
She sighed. "If you bothered to listen to the main channel every once in a while, you'd already know."
"Just tell me what's wrong."
"Selvig says the Tesseract's acting up. Says it's releasing some kind of gamma radiation, and he says his readings are off the charts."
"You talk to Hill and Coulson?"
"Hill; not Coulson. That would be my next mission. I've got Hill on the horn to Fury, see what he wants us to do."
"Knowing him, we'll be sitting tight for now."
"Likely. Switching channels to the main now, and I suggest you do the same." He started to say something, but she switched to the main channel before he could finish his sentence.
Coulson's voice came over the slight static. " – you copy? Andra, are you there?"
"I'm here," she responded, "I copy."
"What's the status on the Tesseract?"
"Acting up, according to Selvig. Says it's releasing gamma radiation. It's potentially dangerous."
Coulson was silent. "I'm ordering a full-scale evac of the facility. I want you and Barton to hang tight with those scientists until the Director gets here. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," she answered, nodding even though he couldn't see her.
"He still not on the main channel?"
"Considering he's not said a thing, I assume not," she looked up at Clint as she said this.
There was nothing for a moment. "Somebody needs to put a leash on that guy."
Andra could do nothing but laugh. "Agreed."
She was leaning against the wall as she had been for the past hour, arms crossed and one leg propped up against the concrete. The scientists hadn't been informed about the evacuation, so were merely working as before. Andra had ruled out the necessity to tell them of the protocol, seeing as it would only hinder their progress. Compartmentalization was key to success in S.H.I.E.L.D.
"Agents, report."
She turned her head and saw the Director walking towards the computers of the lab, speaking with Selvig about the situation. She heard him mention something about the Tesseract 'behaving' and knew Fury was now up to date on all the recent happenings at the PEGASUS base. It took more effort than it should have to push off the wall and walk towards her superior. Clint's boots hit the floor and she looked over her shoulder at him as he strode over to them.
"Agent Barton, I gave you this detail so you could keep a close eye on things," he reprimanded him.
"Well, I see better from a distance," Clint defended with an almost snippy tone.
"Have you seen anything that might set this thing off?" Fury continued, looking between the two of them now.
"Nothing's happened on the ground, sir. Scientists have been doing nothing but working," Andra mentioned, "And no malicious intent anywhere. They're all here for the same purpose."
Clint nodded. "No one's come or gone. Selvig is clean; no contacts, no IM's," he looked at the glowing blue cube, "If there was any tampering, sir, it wasn't at this end."
"At this end?" Their superior raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, the cube is a doorway to the other end of space, right? Doors open from both sides," he explained.
As if the Tesseract wished to confirm what he was saying, it glowed brighter and seemed to gather a cloud of moving energy around it. Then a beam erupted from the other end of it, shooting towards an incredibly convenient platform behind it. A portal opened where it shot. Through it, thousands of stars could be seen, shining in some sort of purple glow. It was… for lack of words to truly describe it, it was beautiful. Then the image collapsed in on itself and released a burst of energy that knocked them all back before rising to the high ceiling of the cavern-sized lab. Andra blinked the temporary blindness from her eyes as she sat up, raising a hand to the back of her aching skull.
She squinted at the platform and saw a mass of something black remaining on it, completely engulfed in what looked to be a blue fire. Then it faded and she made out the form of a man kneeling there. He slowly stood while agents began to surround him and she took a good look at him. He was tall, maybe six feet or so, and very thin. His face was gaunt and his eyes appeared sunken, with a crazed look to them. The smile that played across his lips was haunting, and she found herself shrinking away from him just slightly. He was clothed in black, with what looked like accents of green. There were bracers on his arms that looked like gold and he was holding in his right hand a spear. It was short for a spear, but it was pointed at the end and she could think of no better name for it. His eyes searched the room, stopping for a brief moment on herself.
Fury looked up at him and shouted, "Sir, please put down the spear!"
Instead of taking Fury's advice, he merely looked down at the weapon in his hands as if unsure what it was. Then he raised it again and shot a blue burst of energy at them. Clint knocked Fury out of the way as Andra rolled to the side, all three successfully avoiding the blast, but it destroyed the equipment behind them. Agents dove at the man, guns firing, but he proved to be far more powerful than they were. Blue bursts from his spear and knives from somewhere in his strange ensemble killed the agents quickly and efficiently.
Andra quickly came to the conclusion that he was well-trained – by who and where, she had no idea. His fighting style was different than most of the ones she was used to. It had similarities to a lot of styles, but it was very unique in its fluidity and power. He was strong and fast. She stood slowly, testing her stability, and looked towards Clint, who was on the other side of the room, standing and holding his side. Was he injured? She worried for a second about how severe his injuries were, before her attention was gained by another problem. A jolt of pain raced through her arm and she grabbed it with her other hand, feeling something sharp brushing her fingers before she ever reached it. Andra looked to her left and saw that her left arm had a piece of metal imbedded in it.
She dove behind an overturned table and hissed when she accidentally banged her left shoulder against it. Her hand came up and she looked at her wound as she touched it gently. Then she grabbed a hold of the metal shard and yanked it out. She bit her tongue to keep from crying out in pain and could taste blood. The shard made a high-pitched clinging noise as she dropped it on the ground. Andra looked around quickly, seeing no first aid kits on her side of the room. She hissed again as she retrieved a cable from her belt and began wrapping it around her upper arm to act as a tourniquet. There was nothing she could use as bandaging at this moment, she would have to do that later. The wound was deep, but not deep enough that she'd bleed out anytime soon. At least… she hoped.
Once she was finished with the little medical aid she could do at the moment, she got up on her haunches and glanced over the back of the table. The strange man was touching the end of his scepter to the left side of Clint's chest, just over his heart. Andra watched as Clint's eyes turned a full, demonic black, then a light, cold, almost lifeless blue. Then he lowered his gun back into its holster, and nodded at the man. What? She was confused. The male moved on to another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, Donovan, turning him to his side with a simple touch over his heart. It appeared to be some type of brain-washing, since neither of them fought back from the moment that he touched their chests and made their eyes turn blue. Andra spared a glance around the room, surveyed the scene and her eyes caught sight of Fury putting the Tesseract in a case and cautiously standing up.
The man froze and turned around slowly. "Please don't. I still need that," he said in a low, deep-voiced accent that sounded almost British, but not quite. It was unidentifiable and that worried her.
"This doesn't have to get any messier," Fury replied as he turned around to face him.
"Of course it does. I've come too far for anything else. I am Loki of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose," he announced.
Selvig looked up from his place on the floor. "Loki? Brother of Thor?"
"We have no quarrel with your people," Fury told him, sounding very confident.
The man – Loki, apparently – looked at him with an amused expression. "An ant has no quarrel with a boot."
"Are you planning to step on us?"
Andra mustered up what strength she had and stood. The wound in her arm was weakening her, but she attempted not to let it show. This man was, for the moment, the enemy, and she couldn't show weakness if she was going to fight him. She wasn't letting them leave here if she had a choice, she'd already made up her mind about that. There was something about this Loki guy that screamed 'dangerous villain,' and there was no way she was letting him walk out of here with the source of untapped, unmeasured power that he apparently 'needed.'
"I come with glad tidings," he corrected Fury, smiling as the Cheshire Cat would, "of a world made free."
"Free from what?" Fury asked.
"Freedom."
"Freedom?" Andra repeated incredulously. How could you be free from freedom? It was a paradox, and thinking of it now would likely make her head spin.
He smiled at her momentarily before adopting a more serious expression. "Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart," here he turned and pointed his staff at Selvig, turning his eyes bright blue as well, and said softly and gently, "You will know peace."
Fury tilted his head to the side. "Yeah, you say peace, I kinda think you mean the other thing."
"Sir, Director Fury is stalling. This place is about to blow," Clint interrupted, and Andra, not for the first time in her life, wanted really badly to hit him, "Drop a hundred feet of rock on us. He means to bury us."
"Like the Pharaohs of old," Fury confirmed. He was lying through his teeth. Maybe buying them time was the objective, but burying them was not, and she knew that perfectly well.
Selvig checked on the computers. "He's right. The portal is collapsing in on itself. You got maybe two minutes before this goes critical."
"Well then…" Loki trailed off, and looked at Clint who raised his arm and shot Fury in the chest, walking over to grab the case he'd been holding.
Andra would have stopped him, but he held the gun in her direction, and she knew if she moved, he'd kill her. Or would he? Clint had shot Fury in the chest. If he had intended to take Fury out, he would have taken Fury out instantly, no questions asked. One bullet to the head. So why hadn't he? Clint Barton never, ever missed. Which meant he had aimed for his chest. Which meant he wasn't completely taken over. He was still in there, somewhere.
There was hope.
So, what do you think of the first chapter of the new version? I know, it's been up here before, but it's in a separate book now! Oooooh!
*laughs* I know, not very exciting.
But hopefully the chapter was! What did you think?
Any questions, comments, concerns? Want to hit Clint? Review or drop me a line!
- Emmy
