Chapter 2: Partners in Crime
Author's Note:
Sorry for the delay! Been very busy and we would have updated so much sooner than this but life happened and we tried to get it on here as soon as we could. Okay, again, my friend and I do not own Marvel or the movies because if we did, we'd be rolling in cash and flying with the supers. We're just fans with a love for Marvel and all comics. We hope you all enjoy this new chapter!
Somewhere in Susquehanna, New York…
Jack
"Hey Remy," I shouted from the crater in the ground, "Look at what I found!"
"What the hell?" Remy asked as he approached me in the crater to see a belt, "Is that what crashed on the ground?"
I looked up at my fellow homeless friend and grinned before looking back down at the belt. It was mostly a tainted silver color but it had highlights of tarnished gold. It was adorned with strange markings on every part of it that I assumed it was some type of ancient writing from a memory of my school's history textbooks. I studied it intently as it glowed slightly with a white light. I didn't know what it was about the belt that made me do it but I felt drawn to pick it up.
"Hey, do you think that's a good idea?" Remy asked me as I studied it closer in my hands, "I mean, it fell out of the sky right?"
"Yeah, but look at it!" I told him excitedly, holding it for Remy to see, "This would get us so much money if we sell it!"
"Sure, but I don't know about this, Jack," Remy said uneasily as he watched me look it over again, "maybe it was left here for a reason."
"It's just a belt Remy," I snapped as an idea suddenly came to my head, "I'm going to try it on."
"What? Are you crazy?" Remy shouted at me, "You just found this random belt in a crater in the ground and now you want to try it on? What's wrong with you?"
"Come on Remy," I sighed to my friend in exasperation, "what's the worst that can happen?"
Remy watched with bated breath as I slowly brought the belt around my waist. I buckled it to me and looked up at Remy with a smirk. Nothing happened; it was just a belt, not some grand weapon of some sort. It only took a minute but I started to feel funny and then I knew something was wrong. I looked down at the belt and suddenly felt as if my body was being shocked with bolts of lightning. I jerked in response and barely heard Remy call out my name.
The belt had started to turn a bright white light, brighter than before I had picked it up. Before I knew what was happening, blue bolts of electricity shot from the belt hitting me and Remy both. I felt like my mind was exploding. Images, pictures, and information of a place called Asgard…but one word rang out in my head.
"Megingjörð," I breathed out with what felt like my last breath as I fell to the ground motionless, all thoughts ceasing before my eyes closed for the last time.
Lucy Rivers
Today has not been my day. With the way this morning had started, it was a wonder how it would turn out good at all. It was a marvel I slept at all and now I was running late for my internship at the morgue. I guess I should take a step back and talk about myself before I go any further. My name is Lucy Rivers and I am determined to be the best surgeon in history.
As a child, I watched my older sister die and it was my entire fault. At least that was how I felt about it and was made to feel that way. When I was nine years old, my sister had just gotten her driver's license. She had come to pick me up from school for the first time driving alone. We were on our way home when I asked her if she would drive me to the ice cream shop because I made a hundred on my fraction math test. She always told me that when she got her license that she would take me to get ice cream every time I made a hundred on my tests. That day she was going to fulfill her promise and we were looking forward to having many more drives like it. On the way there, a driver came into our lane and we had a head-on collision. I was not harmed from where I sat in the backseat, but my sister was killed.
That was the worst day of my entire life and I couldn't forget any part of it no matter how hard I tried. I was plagued with nightmares for years, seeing the car collide with ours every night. The dream would wake me in the middle of the night and I would always be crying before I even realized it was my memories haunting me again. I missed her and couldn't stand for the longest that I was still alive and survived while she hadn't. Those events had cheated Caroline of the full life she was suppose to live. It took me half my life to realize that I couldn't change what happened and that my sister would not have said it was my fault.
For years, I blamed myself but to make it even worst, my mother blamed me. She would say things like "If it weren't for you, Caroline would still be alive." I heard that every day for the past eleven years and at times, I believed my mom was right. I felt like it was my fault and this leads me to where I am today. I am a first year medical student at the best medical school in New York. I decided to become a surgeon to save lives and let no one have the burden that I will carry for the rest of my life.
I tapped my fingers on my leg with impatience to be punctual for this internship. I woke up late this morning and couldn't believe I had forgotten to set my alarm. Last night, I had been studying late for upcoming tests. I am more than determined to be the best and I'm willing to dedicate all my time to doing it. Part of my dedication paid off since wanting to be a surgeon made it possible to get an internship at the morgue. I was so excited to have landed the position and since I was the top in my class, it was unfortunate that my first day at the morgue begun with me already running late.
The traffic was so bad, that I decided to get out of the taxi and run to the morgue. I kept telling myself as I ran, Come on, Lucy! Run faster! It was times like these that I wish I was super athletic like some of the people I knew. I finally arrived at the building and was on time. However, I looked messy and sweaty beyond belief. My hair was uncombed, I was sweaty enough to look like I showered in sweat, had no makeup on, and I smelled bad. I was surprised they even let me in the backroom with how disheveled my appearance was.
Today, I was going to help find the cause of death of a woman who died suddenly. It was easy stuff but it was all part of the internship to see where I was at. We opened her up and found what was wrong with her. Apparently, the woman had a heart attack since there was a blockage of white blood cells in the coronary arteries. It was disgusting sometimes how fascinated I was by studying human anatomy. I was fascinated by observing the way everything that happened to the victim lead to this point and how they ended up here. It was even more interesting to find causes of death but I was more in this for saving people from the deaths that might land them here.
There wasn't much talking during the procedure so working efficiently was good enough to make the operation go faster than what it should have. After we were finished, we heard a lot of noise outside the morgue. I looked up at my supervisor as she quirked up a confused brow because of the commotion. She gave me a nod to signal that she, too, was curious as to what was happening outside the doors. She and I decided to stop the lab clean up to go out and have a look for ourselves. There was a dead man outside, a homeless man from the state of his dress. But I noticed he was wearing the most beautiful belt I had ever seen.
It was tarnished silver and gold colored that was engraved with what looked like tribal symbols of some ancient culture. It clashed with his moth-eaten clothes and did not seem to belong. Maybe he had stolen it. Either way, I thought it was gorgeous. I really wanted one like it and I knew that I wanted to see the company that made that belt. I had no clue how I was going to do that though since I was nothing more than an intern here but it was worth a shot to try and see about doing that man's autopsy to find out where the belt was from.
I was distracted with thought when my supervisor got my attention and said, "Since you are officially an intern, we give all our interns a key to the morgue, in case we need you to come at strange hours throughout the day."
"Now, don't overuse this privilege we gave you, it is just a precaution," she said as she gave me the key as I felt myself get giddy.
"Thank you," I said quietly as I stared down at it.
I was so excited to hear that I had a key! Now I can go inside and see what company this beautiful belt came from! Thank goodness for that, it would have been hard to explain my sudden interest in autopsying a homeless man since I just wanted to view the belt. I soon left the morgue since I was done with my shift there and had class later. On the way to class, I came up with an exotic plan on how I can sneak into the morgue at night. It shouldn't be too hard, or at least I didn't think it would be but what if I was caught? I decided that I need to get my best friend, Lauren, in on the plan. She was the best improvisational liar I knew and would be perfect to help me in my escapade. I just didn't know how well she would take it that I wanted her help for something like this.
Lauren was more than a friend to me, she was family. My mother had felt that since Caroline was picking me up, the car accident had been my fault. I believed her till I became friends with Lauren. She somehow understood how I felt and pushed me to see that I was not responsible for her death. She was like a sister to me and took care of me when my own family wouldn't. She was the person who helped me decide to be a surgeon in the first place and motivated me to be the best I could. Lauren was always up to the challenge to help me through anything I put my mind to. I just hoped that she would be game for this and not question my choices like I knew she would.
"Hey Lauren, I was wondering if you would help me sneak into the morgue because I want to buy a belt exactly like this dead homeless guy's and need to see the brand it is," I muttered to myself, thinking of how to phrase this and realizing how stupid that was.
"Yeah, she will totally go for that."
Lauren Hunter
"Okay, so how much time do I got before he notices, do you think?" I asked my brother into the phone as I balanced the laptop on my legs.
I sat cross-legged on the couch in my apartment's small living room blasting AC/DC from my stereo. I hummed Thunderstruck while waiting for my little brother, Alan, to answer me. I had done all my homework and I was deathly bored which was almost never a good thing. My best friend, Lucy Rivers, had left our apartment earlier this morning in such a rush that I hadn't heard from her since. She had started an internship at the forensic morgue as a way to give herself another step up to being an A-class surgeon. She had been running late this morning so I didn't even get so much as a, hi or bye from her in the process. I couldn't understand her excitement for working in one of those places but she was my friend and I just went with it.
She hadn't been back yet from her last class and since I had finished all of mine earlier along with my homework, I decided to entertain myself the best way I could. I was Lauren Hunter on a mission and that was to set my Dad up on a date. I knew he would be against me talking to him on the subject so I did what any daughter did to get his attention on the subject, I hacked his computer. With the help from my tech geek brother, we had at least gotten into his system and were now trying to implant the bug of romance on his computer without him noticing.
"I checked, he's still on the computer and hasn't show signs of noticing he's been hacked. So maybe twenty minutes at the most," Alan said before he snickered on the line to say, "but last time he caught you in ten. Why are you doing this again?"
While I had moved out for college, Alan still stayed at home with our Dad and kept him company. He was doing classes at a community college nearby for a Computer Science degree. Both of us had loved computers since we were old enough to even use one but it was more of a talent for Alan to use them than me. I preferred more to study animals and wildlife and when I decided to get my bachelor's degree I surprised everyone when I wanted a degree in Wildlife and Fisheries. It was one of the main reasons I no longer lived with my brother and Dad but I still talked to them at least twice every day.
"Alan, you know why," I whined to him as I continued to execute commands to my father's computer several miles away, "Dad has been single since before we even knew him and he doesn't seem capable of finding himself a date, so we'll just have to do it for him."
Our Dad wasn't actually our real dad but Alan and I couldn't even remember our real parents well enough see anyone else in the role of our father. Our real parents had died when I was barely five years old and Alan had been two at time. It had been sixteen years since then and we still didn't remember much about them or the accident but they had died at gas station explosion. Neither of us could remember it but I remembered at least the flash of light and holding on to Alan for dear life when it happened. We had been found at least twenty paces from the explosion and had somehow been the only survivors of the whole mess.
After that, we had been placed into the foster system and had been from home to home for the longest. We hadn't been bad children, but most of the foster parents who took us in would send us back for unusual reasons. The reasons were usually nutty and had most workers in the system baffled when they got us back. What they didn't know though, was that I was the cause for every one of those strange reasons.
I don't know how I was able to and couldn't even remember how long I could do it but I was able to shift into animals. I could change my body into every living animal in the planet and back in the blink of an eye. I could have sworn I had been doing it all my life but it was so natural now that I didn't even have to think or concentrate to do it. I had looked it up later in years and only came to the conclusion it was possible for me because I had this X gene that existed in my genetic code. Mutants is what people like me were called but it didn't matter to me, it was the reason every foster parent we had would ship us back. That is, till our Dad adopted us.
"Why do I always willingly agree to do things with you that will ultimately result in me getting in trouble?" Alan sighed out and I snorted at him.
"Because, baby brother, you love me and would do anything for me," I retorted as I finished uploading the file to launch on Dad's computer, "now, I can't remember what we set the time of launch to last time, but how about ten minutes?"
"Sure, he should get off the computer by then and come back after talking to," Alan trailed before shouting into the phone, "do it now, he left for the bathroom!"
I hurriedly made quick work of our task with the right keystrokes. I could not fail this. It was important that our Dad had someone since we were getting older and going our own ways. I almost tripped up a few keys but I finished it and sent the cupid's file to make brutal impact on our father's love life. I gave a sigh of relief but it was short lived when I heard Alan scream into the phone.
"Code red, code red," he yelled as I heard him slam his room door in the background, "he came back too early! He saw it too soon!"
I heard the distinct thud of what I imagined was my father's fist banging on Alan's door and then silence. It was almost deafening to hear the door creak open in the background but I heard it nonetheless. There was another eerie silence that could be cut with a knife if it wanted to. I held my breath slightly worried for my brother but then I heard Alan give an anguished cry and his panicked voice.
"No Dad, it was all her idea, I swear, please don't take my baby!" Alan begged and I knew that he was talking about his laptop that our dad probably took.
"Traitor," I muttered into the phone and heard my dad speak.
"Alan Gunther Hunter, what have I told you about helping your sister hack into my computer?" Our dad, Phil Coulson, said sternly with a slightly raised voice, "Give me the phone so I can talk to your sister."
I gulped as I heard the static of the phone being passed off to our Dad. There was nothing but silence at first and I cringed, waiting for him to speak. It was almost worse than if he was speaking since I could feel the frustration come off him in waves through the phone. After feeling like I was crumbling under the silence, he finally spoke.
"Lauren Mabel Hunter, would you mind explaining why I have a dating profile of a Miss Audrey Nathan?" He asked me with a calm voice that unnerved me.
"Hi, Dad, um, I don't know what you're talking about," I said to cover my guilt. "That's unusual that you had that pop up but I don't know why you would think I would know why that happened."
"I had a new program installed on the computer, it would ping me the next time someone hacked my computer," he told me with a sickly nice voice, "it's funny how the trace came back with your apartment as the location for my hack."
I gritted my teeth and felt my eye twitch, knowing exactly where that program came from. It was probably another SHIELD product that he got rights to through his job. It wasn't fair that he traced it since that just took out all the fun now in hacking his computer. I eyed everything in my apartment now wondering if had it had been bugged and he was watching me right now. Out of everything about my Dad, SHIELD was the one thing I never cared for.
After Alan and I had been in the foster care system for six years, we were approached by Phil Coulson who wanted to meet us. He had been sent there by SHIELD because they had caught wind of my shifter abilities and wanted us brought in to be studied. At least that's what Phil had told us when we got older but that was not what happened. As soon as he met us, he had decided he wanted to adopt us and raise us as his kids. He didn't want SHIELD involved in our lives and I agreed with him and hold some resentment to the institution for wanting me as animal for study. I never regretted choosing to live with him and neither did Alan but I still did not like that our Dad worked for them.
"That's not fair," I said in indignation and started to pout, "You cheated with SHIELD gear!"
"Not when my own children are hacking my computer," Dad sighed out and asked, "Were you at least done with your homework before you decided to initiate in criminal activities?"
"Yes sir; which was why I was looking into finding you a girlfriend," I said in a chipper voice while he groaned into the phone. "You should date her. She was that girl you saved from that stalker guy um…Daniels was his name."
"Did you hack my mission reports again?" He asked in shock and I refused to answer, which was answer enough. "Lauren, do you have any respect for authority or do you just want to be arrested by local authority?"
"Why should I worry about that?" I retorted smartly with a grin. "My Dad's an agent of SHIELD, he'll bail me."
"Lauren, give me anymore of that smart attitude and I'll let you stay in jail when you're caught," he started to say but didn't get to finish when there was a knocking on my door and I interrupted him.
"Someone's at my door," I said in the middle of his rant and smiled. "Well, Dad, maybe it's the cops coming to take me away."
"I couldn't get that lucky," he mumbled into the phone as I got up and went to the door.
"Well that hurts," I said laughing as I unlocked the door and went back to my spot on the couch. "I love you too."
"If you're the cops go ahead and arrest me," I said staring back down at my laptop, "my own father won't even take pity on me and thinks it's good for me to get busted."
"Wow, I didn't know I looked like a cop," Lucy said from the door, closing it with flourish and shouted, "do I look like a cop Mr. Coulson?"
"Is that Lucy?" Dad asked inquisitively while I rolled my eyes.
"Yes Dad. Now, not that this isn't fun, but I got to go," I said hoping to get off without him really noticing but I was not that lucky.
"Alright, but we are not done with this, you hear me young lady?" Dad said in a serious tone that made me wince. "Now I need to deal with your brother."
"Yes sir," I told him as I heard Alan whine out my name to help him before Dad ended the call, there was nothing I could do, he was on his own.
"Did you hack his computer again?"Lucy asked me and I rolled my eyes.
Lucy Rivers had been the one friend I could always count on in the world. I had only two friends in my life and with one of them in Culver University, Lucy and I had gotten even closer than we already were. When Dad adopted Alan and me, he had decided to stay with us in our home state of Texas. He would fly into work, paid for by SHIELD, and come home to the house he bought for us to live in. When we were enrolled in school with him as our father, neither my brother nor I did well in the friend department. I wasn't exactly considered normal since I scared what potential friends I could have had when I showed them I could shift into animals.
I didn't make friends till I was in high school and Lucy had been friends with me since I was sixteen. She and I had been friends since high school and when I had moved here for my Dad's convenience after graduating, she soon followed me here from Texas when she graduated a year later. I didn't know what I would do if she ever wanted to stop being friends. She even knew I could shift into animals and still was friends with me regardless of my mutation.
"What makes you think that?" I replied with a cheeky grin and she rolled her eyes.
"You listen to AC/DC's Thunderstruck when you hack," she said simply with a smile. "You know the government would so bust you for stuff like that right? It's not like your dad can bail you or anything when that happens and you would go to jail."
I thought to myself, If only you knew what my dad did for a living. I always wanted to tell her, but I couldn't risk her safety or my other friend's. Alan and I knew our dad was an agent of SHIELD but to everyone we knew only knew him as Phil Coulson, the guy trying to be a dad in our life. It was difficult lying to people so close to me, but I told myself it was for their safety. Dad had told us from little on after he had adopted us that we couldn't tell anybody that our dad was a government agent. So we lied and said our dad worked in real estate and kept our word to him since.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, how did your internship go?" I asked Lucy as she sat on the couch with me lazily.
"Yeah, about that," Lucy said uncertainly and I eyed her with worry, "I have a favor to ask."
"Why does this sound like you're asking me to commit a crime?" I asked her, arching a brow.
"Well," she trailed and explained what she wanted to do for the night, "there's this belt…"
Lucy Rivers
As I turn the key to hear the door unlock, my heart begins to race. I was highly nervous about what I was about to do. I keep thinking, What am I doing? What if we get caught? Actually, what would happen if we did get caught? They probably would never let me come back, take away my internship, and then I would go to prison for abuse of key privileges. The other possibility was that I was maybe overreacting but the loss of the internship was a huge possibility. I realized it then, I just needed to be extra quick and pray to the powers above that I was not caught.
I turn to Lauren and see the look of fear and annoyance in her eyes. I know she is asking the same questions and probably it's something like, How did Lucy talk me into doing this? I really didn't have to try too hard to convince her since she had it in her head already that I would get caught without her. Lauren almost backed out immediately when I told her my plan, almost. As she put it, she was too loyal to let me get in trouble on my own and for that I was grateful. When I opened the door, I saw her shudder from the corner of my eye and turned around to give her an uneasy look.
"You okay?" I asked her quietly in a soft whisper.
"Okay? Did you really just ask me if I'm okay?" Lauren snapped quietly, shaking her head, "I'm entering a morgue Luce. A morgue!"
"Okay, I'm sorry," I groaned back apologetically while she rolled her eyes at me, "I know you have issues with places like this but if the bodies bothered you that bad-"
"It's not the bodies that bother me in there," she interrupted me and sighed, "It's the tools you use to cut open the bodies that bother me."
I stared at her puzzled for a moment and asked, "You know they are just instruments to be used by people like me, right? They are only lethal if someone is using them."
Lauren looked at me shocked before blinking and said, "You know a lot those same instruments are used to dissect animals, right? I turn into most of them! So excuse me for feeling squeamish around your torture devices that cut into my animal brethren."
I knew she was talking about her shifter abilities but I still was surprised by comment like this when she told me. I had accepted her powers years ago, but it still shocked me that she even had them. When Lauren had first told me years ago, I didn't see her differently, but it did scare me a little to think of what my friend could do. Over time, I got more used to the idea and seeing her change into various animals but it was times like these that I had to remember what she could do.
"Alright then!" I hissed quietly as I turned back to the open door. "You can scream at me later about it but we already have the door open!"
It was too late now for us to go back at this point. The door was unlocked and we both just walked in, not thinking of the consequences anymore. I felt so scared and yet like the biggest dork on the planet as we walked down the quiet darkened hallway. I broke into a morgue with my best friend to find a brand name on a belt that currently belonged to a dead hobo. I was either completely insane or I just had absolutely no boundaries or respect the dead. There I was, surrounded by dead bodies, yet all I wanted to do was go see one of them for a belt name and I wanted to be a surgeon who cuts up bodies to save them. It was official; I was disturbed. Am I crazy or a psychopathic killer? I kept thinking to myself.
We finally found the room that contained the dead hobo in one of the numerous lockers full of bodies. I reached for the door when it occurred to me that the door may be locked. What if it is locked? And we can't get in? And then they see us on cameras trying to get in? My hand begins to shake as I slowly turned the knob to find the door locked. Sweat gathered at my brow and I started to panic. The door was locked! I would be arrested, Lauren would be an accomplice, but mainly I would lose my internship!
"It's locked," I squeaked quietly to Lauren.
"I've got it, don't panic," Lauren assured me as she glanced at the security camera at the end of the hall, "make sure that camera stays looking to the east hall."
I gave a quick look at the camera while I saw Lauren assess the crack under the door from the corner of my eye. I instantly knew what she intend to do and hoped above all that she would do it quickly. I stole a glimpse back in her direction as she changed in the blink of an eye into a mouse and her clothes pooled around her now small body. I had seen her shift countless of times over the years but watching Lauren change was always a wonder. Lauren had described it once as her whole body changing, from her cells and DNA to her anatomy. She had said it was either shrink in size or would expand beyond normal and she felt as if animal instinct kicked in more. It didn't matter how she described it, Lauren would change too fast for the naked human eye to see it in slow motion to witness the process she described.
I fought off the urge to shriek and step on her by watching the camera to make sure it didn't turn this way. I was thankful that this time she didn't change into any type of bug but I didn't like mice either. I heard her now small body scurry under the door with a tiny mouse squeak. I jumped in the air when I heard her tap the glass from inside the room and turned to the window in the door to see her grinning at me. Lauren looked up to the camera and I did as well to be sure it hadn't turned in this direction before she pointed down at her clothes. I rolled my eyes as she crossed her arms in front of her tightly to hide her nudity.
It was an unfortunate side effect Lauren had to her shifter abilities and she seemed to still be embarrassed by her continuous loss of clothes. That was partly why she didn't shift as much since replacing clothes cost a lot of money when turning into bigger animals, like elephants and such. I felt sorry for her that she still hadn't found a way to prevent that side effect but it couldn't be helped. I was still slightly embarrassed by it myself but I tried not to show it for her sake.
I blushed as I hurriedly grabbed her clothes and converse from the floor and threw them in the room when she opened the door. It didn't take her long to get clothed again and she soon opened the door with a flushed and embarrassed face. I fought off the urge to laugh since Lauren was rarely embarrassed by anything but this was one of the few things that made the list. Looking up at the camera again to be sure it hadn't turned, we smiled at each other before she stood to the side and held the door open. We walked in and saw him on one of the many slabs in the room. We both just stood there for a few seconds, thinking about what we have done. We just broke into a morgue to get a belt brand name! This really wasn't our finest moment as far as criminal activity went but we were already here and there was definitely no going back now. I stood there for the longest and didn't move as the gravity of the situation finally hit me.
Lauren, unable to take my lack of movement anymore, said, "Well, aren't you going to do it? We can't turn back now."
I walk up to him hesitantly and saw the belt was really tight around his waist. Putting on a pair of latex gloves, I hurriedly began searching over the belt moving it left and right trying to find a brand name. I couldn't find the company who made the belt inscribed anywhere without taking off the belt. I look to make sure no one is coming and in a flash and a burst of stupidity, I begin to take the belt off the hobo. I must be crazy or stupid or both to be doing this but it was happening. I can hear Lauren muttering something to herself, but it was unknown was she was saying to me. It sounded something like "this is stupid" and "I hate scalpels" but I didn't pay her too much attention.
I grab the belt, and notice that there is no company's name anywhere on the bloody thing. I was baffled, but before I could ask Lauren about it, who was on lookout, she whispered, "Crap! Someone is coming!"
With a rush of adrenaline, I put the belt on me in panic. I felt strange after doing so and had this sudden calm and clear clarity feeling. I thought I heard thunder off in the distance but that couldn't be possible since the sky was clear tonight of any stormy weather. I was so lost in what I was experiencing after putting on the belt that I didn't notice a man walk in and clear his throat.
He looked to be the janitor here and said, "What are you ladies doing in here?"
Lauren was a very good liar and said, "My friend, who is an intern here, thought she might have left her cell phone in one of the rooms."
Lauren kept a very good poker face of innocence for the guy and stated, "We came here to look for it."
The man eyed me and I just gave a feeble nod as I felt sweat once again bead on my forehead. I wasn't a very good liar, there were times I could pull it off, but it didn't come as naturally to me as it did Lauren. I just hoped that for once I looked convincing this time and he would leave. The janitor almost didn't look convinced but he just sighed. He shook his head and left pushing his trolley of cleaning supplies. Well, that confirmed he was the janitor of the morgue.
Lauren held her breath and then said, "Let's get out of here! Now!"
I didn't have time to argue because she pushed me out of the door. She kept fuming about scalpels and how they were lethal and eventually got to how stupid my plan was since we were nearly caught. She practically has to force me into her Jeep to even get us going so we could get home. I barely listened in to what she was saying, too deep in my own thoughts to really care.
Where did I hear that thunder from? Had Lauren heard it? I took the time to ask her between her rants and she just laughed at me and shook her head. Lauren told me that it was probably just my imagination playing tricks on me in the moment but I wasn't so easily convinced. It hadn't happened until I put the belt on and nor had I ever felt as relaxed with myself and surroundings as I did now. After doing something like this with Lauren, normally I would be more worried about the consequences because I never thought of them during the situations. Right now, I didn't really feel as fearful as I normally would and didn't know what to think of it.
We got back to our apartment and I collapsed on the couch while I watched Lauren hit the fridge for the wine bottle. I didn't mention that I still had the belt on, because I didn't want Lauren to yell at me. She wordlessly came over with the bottle and two glasses. Setting them out in front of us, she told me to drink up since we had done our criminal activity for the night. Out of pure exhaustion, after our talk and our glasses of wine, I went to my room and passed out on my bed.
Loki
I had firmly decided after my time here that I deeply hated the people of Midgard and found them repulsive. I had been here at least for the past two days since Heimdall refused to open the Bifrost to me till I found Thor's wretched belt. When I had first arrived I had been given strange looks and asked several times if I was from some place called a Comic-Con Convention. After much study and scrutiny on the subject, I realized that my attire looked rather outlandish compared to the peasant clothes of Midgard. After much searching I found clothes that looked befitting of my status and cast an illusion charm over myself of a similar apparel to blend in.
So now, here I was in the early hours of the morning, in what the Midgardians called a "business suit", studying the crater-like area that Megingjörð had landed in. I had already searched the perimeter but it seemed the belt was no longer here. I let out an exaggerated sigh, entirely frustrated with the whole mess and just wanted to find the blasted thing to go home. I watched the Midgardian authorities walk past me to once more try and investigate the crater with their primitive methods. I rolled my eyes as I heard them discuss what could have made that impact on the ground.
"Aliens, I'm telling ya," one of them boasted as the other shook his head in disbelief, "there is nothing else that could have done that other than green men in a UFO."
If it wasn't for the fact that I was invisible to their eyes and needed to remain unseen, I might have taken away their voices. The endless chattering of this NYPD group was degrading for my ears to continuously be subjected to but I needed to find out where the belt might be now. I was debating on taking one of them hostage and subjecting them to my ways of persuasion when a huge black "automobile", as I understood it to be called, parked in front of the scene.
I stared at the transport curiously, examining the insignia of a bird in a circle on the front doors. I saw that the law enforcement also shared my confusion as to who had arrived since they began whispering to themselves about who it might be. A man with brown hair and a receding hair line in his mid forties, I believed from the Midgardian's short life span, stepped out of the vehicle. His warm blue eyes scanned the area before saying something to someone still in the transportation. He straightened the jacket of his suit as a man wearing an eye patch over his left eye stepped out too. I studied the bald man with the eye patch carefully as he surveyed the crater site cautiously before straightening his long coat. Both approached the site, conversing silently as they ducked under the yellow tape that marked off the region. I was intrigued by these new people as two other people exited the automobile as well from the back to begin talking with the NYPD. I let my curiosity get the better of me and decided to tail behind the man with the missing eye and his companion.
"Sir, I can't thank you enough that you allowed me to accompany you here," the man in the suit said happily. "I have been wanting a chance to come and visit Lauren but I haven't had the time to."
"I know, Coulson, you never stop talking about those kids," the eye patch man said as they got closer to the two authorities in the crater. "If I knew you were going to talk about them this much, I might have just left you with Stark."
"I'm sorry, sir," the one called Coulson immediately apologized with a regretful tone, "it's just that I miss them, they are my kids, and when I'm not with Lauren and Alan…I can't stop thinking about them. I never regret adopting them but I never thought being a father would mean I would love them this much. With both of them in college and Lauren living up here…it's difficult."
"I understand," the one with the eye patch said, his voice laced with hints of empathy. "Let's get this done and you can visit with her for as long as you like."
"Thank you, Director Fury," Coulson replied with a smile as they drew closer to the buffoons in the crater.
I rolled my eyes at the sentimentality of these humans and how easily they could weaken by it. There was love and sentiment similar to this on Asgard but to see it so displayed on their faces here was nauseating. The one called Coulson clearly couldn't hide how much he missed his children. The one called Director Fury obviously empathized with him, which made the moment that much more pathetic for me to witness. Luckily, I wouldn't have to be subjected to it for much longer since the two apes from the crater approached the two with stony faces.
"Excuse me," the UFO fool said with a pathetic authoritative tone, "this crime scene is off limits to civilians."
"Son, do I look like a civilian to you?" Director Fury snapped at him, causing the man to slightly cringe at his tone.
Pathetic, I thought to myself as both of the Midgardian authorities looked at each other in trepidation. This entirely proved why, even with their meager advancements, humans were still primitive beings. They still felt the need to display their shows of power to induce the other to quiver in fear. It was no better behavior than animals in acts of dominance. I watched on as Coulson cleared his throat to break away some of the tension before giving the two imbeciles a forced smile.
"What Director Fury means to say, is that the local authority no longer needs to concern themselves with this investigation," Coulson said with diplomacy, "we will be taking it from here."
"And who's we?" One of them finally dared to ask as Fury glared at him with his one eye.
"SHIELD, that's who," Fury said in a deadly cold tone, "now if you will please leave the area, I don't like to ask twice."
Both men clearly wanted nothing more to do with the crater after Fury's very obvious threat and scrambled their way out of the crater. I wasted no more time listening to the two as they decided to stand outside the crater and turned my full attention to these people from SHIELD. I wanted to know more about this "SHIELD" group and decided they would be the best to help me find Thor's belt. Both Coulson and Fury examined the crater with an analytical look before meeting each other's eyes.
"Do we know what made impact here?" Fury asked his partner who gave him a disappointed look.
"No, sir, we're as clueless as the police are," Coulson replied with a sigh before studying the ground again. "The only thing we know that they don't is that whatever landed here gave off slight waves of gamma radiation, which was why we picked it up in the first place. We've been watching for any signs of gamma radiation, you know, after the whole thing with Banner."
"We need to find him before the military does," Fury said, making it obvious to me and Coulson that he did not want to discuss the subject. "Do we know what happened here?"
"From the police reports, there were two dead bodies found here," Coulson began to say while I listened with my undivided attention, "two homeless men, nothing unusual from the normal reports as far as dead homeless people went but the on sight coroner had reported that they both had a heart attack that was within minutes of each other."
"That's unusual," Fury commented as he turned his attention back to studying the crater.
That's not unusual for me, I thought to myself knowing exactly what had caused their deaths. It was self-explanatory as to what had happened here and it was that one of the two wretches had put on the belt. Megingjörð wasn't just a belt Thor wore to make himself appear more pleasing to the female eye. It was magical just like his hammer, Mjolnir, but Megingjörð didn't give Thor the power of thunder and lightning like the hammer did, it gave him the extra strength he needed to lift Mjolnir. It was the whole reason I took it in the first place, Thor was worthy of Mjolnir's powers but Megingjörð was what gave him the strength combined with his own to lift it with ease. Regardless of it giving enhanced strength and the possibility to fly, it was not that different from the hammer in respect of who was worthy to enough wear it.
That was what had happened here; one of the dead simpletons must have put it on and was not worthy. Unlike Mjolnir, it was not simple in rejecting who wielded it by not letting the subject lift it. This was why they had sent me to find the belt before something like this happened because Megingjörð did not just reject it wearer if they weren't worthy, it killed them and everyone in the vicinity. Now that I knew what had happened to the belt after it landed here, it was now possible for me to find it. I didn't feel pity for the two dead urchins since they were foolish enough to try on the damned thing but I was thankful that they and these SHIELD people made my work easier.
"Yeah, I know," Coulson replied as he pulled out some strange electronic device, that I had learned to be called a "cell phone", and began moving his finger on the screen. "But there was something else that caught my attention in their report."
"What could be more interesting than a moon sized crater and two spontaneously dead street thugs?" Fury asked inquisitively as he arched his eyebrow.
"The fact that they were both homeless, without a cent to their name or appearance, and one of them happened to be wearing this," Coulson answered, showing Fury a picture of one of dead bodies that had a rather well crafted belt on it.
I felt myself grow excited at seeing the belt on the corpse, knowing that my trip to Midgard was finally drawing to a close. Now I just had to find this dead body and take it back. I watched the mortals study it intently and found myself growing impatient. It seemed to be ages before they finally drew the right conclusion.
"That must have been what fell from the sky and emitted those weak waves of gamma radiation," Fury summarized while Coulson nodded in agreement.
"That was what I was thinking," Coulson agreed as he met Fury's eye, "which is probably what caused their deaths."
"Find out where the bodies were taken from those two morons over there," Fury ordered, pointing at the UFO fools behind them.
"Yes sir," Coulson said, turning to walk in that direction but turned back. "I can still see Lauren after we find the belt?"
"Now, Coulson," Fury sighed as Coulson left him with me on his heels.
I needed to find that belt before SHIELD did so I could go home. I hoped beyond all hope that Coulson could get the location out of these officers so I did not have to resort to interrogating humans so beneath me. We had reached the UFO morons and they studied Coulson warily.
"Mind telling me where the bodies were sent to?" Coulson asked politely but one of them huffed at him.
"Why should we?" One of them asked, giving Coulson a haughty look.
"Because I asked you," he replied stonily giving them a fake smile, "and because I really want to spend time with my daughter after this case. So if you don't want any trouble, I suggest you answer me quickly before I get angry."
"We'll find that out quickly," the smarter of the two said carefully before returning with his partner to their automobile.
Author's Note:
Hoped you liked it and are as excited to read it as my friend and I are to write it! Please leave a review if you liked what read, we enjoy reading them. Apologies for any grammar or spelling mistakes again but I think I got them this time with a little extra help. This chapter was longer and we hope to keep it consistent with this length but if not, apologies in advance. The next chapter will be up here soon so look for an update in the future. Special thanks to those following this story and those who have reviewed it. It keeps my friend and I going and it makes us happy to know you love our story as much as we do! Thank you so much for reading!