Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings belong to Marvel. I'm just playing in the sandbox.

This fic is a prequel to a larger multichapter fic I've been planning for a while now, called Ashes Remain, which I'm in the process of writing right now. This is very slightly AU at the end for just one (pretty crucial) scene, which is where Ashes Remain takes off. This is mostly to give me motivation to keep working on the fic, since it's a pretty big undertaking. Either way, some feedback would be fantastic. Enjoy!

He was falling. It was a strange sensation to him, for all he was used to perching on high places (and jumping off if the need came). He was falling and it didn't stop.

The world around him seemed strange and far away. It was coated in blue. All of the things around him that he knew were dark or silver were a bright splash of electric blue.

He felt the gun in his hand slip back into the holster. It felt right. He was staring at Fury, waiting for orders. Orders that he didn't even need when the time came. He simply knew.

Shoot him.

He did. Fury went flying backwards. (A small part of him noted that there was no blood, but he did not care. The Director was down and it would stay that way.) Then they walked away.

It was a haze. He had never felt such terrible joy before. It was a strange thing. His stomach was revolted, but the rest of his body seemed to sing as he moved. He had a marvelous purpose before him – one that would honor the master.

There was no time for thought, only time for focus. (He dimly remembered whirling around and emptying the rest of his clip in Hill's direction. He couldn't bring himself to be sorry. Not after all that had happened.)

He felt like he was lost in the swirling blue behind his eyes. It was hard to focus on anything but the glorious freedom from free will. It was incredible to have such an acute purpose and to be able to use his skills in the name of something he wanted so badly.

(There was a moment when red swam in front of his eyes, but he could not place what it was. The memories were too dim and they did not matter in his quest.)

It seemed like everything was going so fast. He worked through the night, unable to sleep with the thrum of joy in his veins. (Beneath the joy there was also terror – a small part of his mind knew what was happening and it hated it. The lack of control scared him more than he would ever have been willing to admit. But every time he fought the bonds on him there was nothing to tear apart.) He felt very little fatigue when the clock told him it was morning. He could not see the sun, but it hardly mattered. There was so much to do organizing the mercenaries and sending them off to retrieve things for Selvig. Every moment was full of something; when he was not gathering equipment, he answered every question the master had. (He told him more than he should have and there was no way to stop it.)

He found that he enjoyed the retrievals more than he would have expected. It was mundane, but it was a challenge. Not much of a challenge, but it was nice to flex his muscles and do the will of his master. It was easier not to draw attention to himself while he knew the master was taking care of Fury's dogs.

Working behind the scenes was always his strongpoint. He saw better from a distance. Even more so when he could see everything from a different perspective. It was freeing.

(He felt like he was forgetting, but the sweet taste of freedom had gone from his mouth. This was not freedom. Not like Loki seemed to think. There was too much blood on his hands. Too many more innocent lives lost. All because of them. Because of him.)

He felt a wicked glee (that he was not entirely sure was purely him) when the Helicarrier came into view. It only took one explosive arrow to kill one of the engines keeping the craft in the air.

Entering the Helicarrier was easy. A few agents here and there tried to stop them, but they went down without much trouble. It was easy to wreak havoc. S.H.I.E.L.D. hardly knew what hit them.

Then she was there. Natasha. She was tired and she was desperate; he could see it all in her eyes. She was the first real challenge he faced on the Helicarrier – the woman who knew how he fought as intimately as he knew how she did.

He did not need words to know what his master wanted him to do. He only knew that he was to kill her. It seemed like a pity. She had always been a good ally in any fight, but the idea of having the Black Widow as one of his kills seemed delicious to the power thrumming in his veins. He knew exactly what she feared. It only seemed fitting that it would be her partner that ended her.

Neither of them bothered to keep the fight from becoming dirty. He pulled her hair and she bit him. It hurt, he realized numbly. It hurt.

Stars exploded in front of his eyes when she flung him into one of the rails. He did not know how he managed to get the gun at his thigh in his hand or shoot. He struggled to stand as she threw herself back up.

When he looked up at her, the blue numbness surrounding him began to dissolve. Everything came flooding back. Every single thing he had done under Loki, everything before that. The power that held him fought to keep him there. His gaze caught on the hand she had pressed to her side.

"Tasha?"

His world faded to black.