2012, Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility.
It had been only tens of minutes since she had taken a break. He did not want to disturb her, yet after the heinous tasks she had been assigned to, he was compelled to make sure she was fine. Since her first entering S.H.I.E.L.D., he had seen her as his own daughter, nevertheless how old she might be. Not a daughter, but perhaps a protégé.
He was not sure whether she saw him as an equal, but he knew she had a deeper respect towards him than Fury.
Amid such thought, he failed to notice the intense trembling beneath his feet. Coulson almost dropped the coffee in his hand when a powerful blast hit his footing for good. He stumbled forward, but managed to regain his stance whilst saving the coffee. Sighing, he turned to the door before him. She's at it again, he thought, pressing a button to open the room. He had expected another tremor as the doors slid open, revealing a young woman practicing with her staff, only to be surprised by the weapon stopping in front of his face. Wind spliced two, blowing his face with a gentle breeze.
Inertia looked back at the man, the stray hairs from her long ponytail obstructing her bronze gaze. Pale as always, nevertheless the tremendous amount of sunlight exposure, she blinked.
"Coffee?" Coulson said, extending the drink to the woman. "Dark roast, extra caffeine. Thought it might cheer you up."
"After those assignments? Not likely," she replied curtly, even though she took the beverage gratefully. "Are you bribing me? You know this doesn't work nevertheless how much you add the caffeine." She pulled the staff away from his face and spun it nonchalantly.
"I know it might cheer you up," retorted Coulson. Inertia scoffed and leaned the weapon against the wall. He eyed it with slight apprehension. In her first day as an 'agent'—rather an inaccurate title, really, for she despised that word—that weapon had taken on a being unlike any other in Earth. Despite him being without weapon, Inertia had proven her skillset much frightening than expected.
Inertia sipped her drink carefully. "What are you doing here? I thought I deserve my already shortened break in privacy."
"I know you do," Coulson said. "I just want to make sure you're alright. You've been pushing yourself hard by guarding the Tesseract. I don't want to lose my number one subordinate."
She raised a brow. "I've suffered worse, Coulson. Though I should tell you that I am quite uncomfortable with guarding the Tesseract, especially ever since it has emitted that strange energy."
He could only imagine her discomfort. He was one of the few who knew of her sensitivity towards energies, especially disturbing ones, and her intense unpleasantness when confronting a foul one. "I know you don't want to deal with alien artefacts so much after your first mission. I am slightly disappointed myself, having promised you no more of this kind of tasks—"
"This is different from the Asgardian hammer, Coulson," she retorted sharply. Putting her coffee down, she huffed and glared at Coulson. "This… cube. It is very obnoxious. Not that the energy it emits is foul, but I just feel… unnerved by its immense power."
"You are not the only one." Coulson was giving her a strange look, and she understood.
"No. For the hundredth time, I am not an Asgardian. I thought we are already over that matter."
"Well, I am still convinced that it is true," Coulson reasoned. "After seeing you brawl with Thor last year…"
"He had no weapon and his powers were taken from him," Inertia continued as she rolled her eyes. A year ago, her staff had struck Thor's abdomen directly after he had failed to lift Mjolnir. It was the first mission she was assigned in after the hammer fell on New Mexico. She had known Mjolnir as not an ordinary hammer, as Elliot had marvelled about it for a long time.
At first, Inertia thought her purpose there was just to try lifting the legendary artefact, but she realised she was so wrong when she saw Thor himself breaking into the encampment dedicated in researching the weapon. She was ordered to subdue Thor, and she did. Thor was in a weakened state, much to her relief, and she managed to defeat him quickly. Her first and worst message, a strange turn of fate occurred and she ended up befriending the God of Thunder. Elliot had warned her not confront any member of his race for it might reveal her true heritage. But she had not been involved deeper into otherworldly objects since that incident, except cleaning New Mexico after a giant robot almost destroyed the city.
Months went rather peaceful for her afterwards. Without the need of proper training, she was assigned under Coulson and worked many missions with him. She respected him as her superior, more than she respected Fury as the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. Perhaps it was because Coulson was kind to her, a remembrance of Elliot. He had taken care of her, given her everything she needed, including her new staff.
But now the staff was only a reminder of how things had changed in her life.
The Tesseract research came in, and Eric Selvig arrived as the head of its research. Inertia was pulled out of her comfort zone and immediately dumped into the current research facility, along with Clint Barton. Now she was standing there, waiting for her already shortened break to be over and return to her post, in a damned reeking lab filled with mad scientists and a bird.
"Back to the Tesseract then," Coulson sighed. "I am afraid that you won't be leaving the Cube's vicinity soon. I know you despise that thing so much, but it is too dangerous to place such potent object under normal eyes. We need a pair of inhumane ones in case something happens."
"I understand I am the only one capable of doing so," Inertia said. "And I understand that humans often interfere with something they don't understand, and the consequences are never pleasant."
"You're saying we should leave the Tesseract alone?"
"Not alone, just untouched. It's beyond our knowledge, and not something safe to understand. Perhaps we should have asked help from those capable."
"Such as?"
Inertia pursed her lips and refused to continue. Noticing that her break was up, she put her cup on the table. "My time is up. I'll see you in the lab."
"Again, zipping your mouth unnecessarily."
"Some things are meant to be unknown," she simply said. Coulson sighed once more before he left her alone in the room. She wiped her forehead clean from sweat, Elliot's warning haunting her. She should have not spoken so much, not even in front of Coulson. Who knows what the Watcher had seen from that conversation.
Grabbing her weapon and white jacket, Inertia left the room quickly. She reluctantly walked past the strolling agents, most of them staring at her. With the massive uneasiness in her stomach, she managed to ignore their eyes and focus on the energy nudging her senses. Her hereditary ability to sense energies and forces around her worked as a double-edged sword. The Tesseract's energy continued to awake her at nights, and even now she could not concentrate so well.
She wondered whether these people really understood that the Tesseract was also a double-edged sword. Most of these agents perhaps had not even seen the Cube. She had never trusted them, nor they did they trust her. For them, she was just a stranger employed under Fury, appearing a year ago under the most suspicious circumstances.
The Avengers Initiative. It had been a year and Fury had not even brought up the subject again. Inertia wondered whether she had been cleverly deceived.
She arrived in the lab before Coulson did. It was not her ahead arrival which surprised her when she entered the large room, but the Tesseract instead. Her skin shivered when she felt the radiated energy, far stronger than she remembered. Far menacing.
Yet she was very tempted to reach for it. Her hands trembled, resisting the urge to step closer. She wanted to deny it, but the nausea plaguing her mind—caused by the Tesseract—was also balanced by an unquenched desire to experiment the object's powers. Could it enable her to do magic or amplify her powers?
"What's happening, doctor?"
Inertia caught Coulson walking past her. Snapped back to reality, she noticed the scientists looking aghast as they observed the Tesseract. Selvig, in particular, was mesmerised by the cube. Coulson acted calmly, watching in apprehension when a scientist almost burnt his hands after he poked a stick into the Cube. Furiously Selvig snatched the stick from the curious Coulson, unamused by his inattentive action. Coulson rubbed his hand, looking as cool as he had always been. "Things are progressing well, I believe?"
"No, it isn't" Inertia answered in Selvig's stead. "The Tesseract is behaving way harsher than before." She ended her words with a glare at Selvig, who was still bemused by her capability to discern the cube's state. "Something triggers this."
"And more unstable, for that matter, but I didn't do anything," retorted Selvig. "I was at the bathroom when the lab reported." Receiving a doubtful look from Coulson, Selvig continued. "Look, I am tasked t study it but I have never dared to use it or play with it. Furthermore, the reaction is spontaneous!"
Coulson glanced at his protégé. Inertia stood as still as a statue, equally unconvinced as he was. Yet, judging by Selvig's expression, he was not lying: despite being a mad scientist, he knew better than to risk his life over a simple curiousity. "Evacuate the facility," Coulson finally instructed to a nearby agent. Selvig gaped at his decision, clearly not agreeing with this. "I do not want to take any risk, doctor. We don't even know what this object is capable of, other than it being a source of energy and a gateway to someplace in the universe."
"It's only behaving, I assure you," Selvig suggested. "It's not like it's going to explore or anything."
"That's what we initially said when we found a persistent hammer," Inertia retorted. Selvig of course remembered the incident the year before, and Inertia succeeded in suppressing any of his urges to protest Coulson's decisions.
"Furthermore, as far as I have seen, this object is like a mini nuclear reactor," Coulson continued firmly. Selvig looked around, seeing the protocol just announced commencing. All agents in the compound moved hastily and in order, a hint of panic in their eyes. Coulson knew, however, that the evacuation protocol would be quite useless if they didn't know the safe distance they should take. The Cube might as well be stronger than a nuclear reactor or atomic bomb despite its small size. A nuclear bomb recently could wipe out an entire city, so this alien rubic might as well devour them all if it explodes.
Coulson rolled his sleeve and took a glance at his watch. Frowning, he turned to Inertia, who was still looking at the Cube with both fear and curiosity. "I'm going to call Fury. You stay here with Barton and guard the Cube."
"Yes, sir," Inertia answered despite her wavering heart.
"Good," Coulson said with a small smile. He then nodded at Clint, who perched like a bird above them. Clint, with his goofy black glasses, saluted man as he leaned against the railing above nonchalantly. Inertia and Coulson sighed, the latter shaking his head before he left the room, leaving only Inertia and Clint with several other men to watch the ever-suspicious scientists.
Inertia inhaled a deep, exhausted breath, and took a seat near the Tesseract. She sat still, listening to her heart which beat according to the Tesseract's pulse. It is more than just an energy reactor, she mused, gripping her disassembled rods tight.
"Bored?" she heard Clint asking through her comms. Inertia looked up t see Clint playng with his bow. "What? I thought you like a monotonous life and now you don't seem to like it."
"I am certainly not enjoying this kind of boredom," she responded, connecting the rods into a full staff. The weapon glistened under the room lights, reminding her it was a weapon capable of massive destruction. With its enhanced features, it was a tool of great catastrophe, now capable of breaking the ground without her exerting her abilities on it. "You get to travel elsewhere whereas I spent almost half a year looking at this blue rubic."
"And you get to relax here while I need to travel and injure my poor muscles," retorted Clint, inducing a smirk on Inertia's face. Once she entered S.H.I.E.L.D., she was given strict rules of where she could travel and what she could do. Fury had said she was an important 'asset', too important to let loose and unwatched. It was one of the many things she despised as an agent, though she could not deny being there had brought her some friends. Fortunately even, those friends were warm and true to their hearts.
After leaving Elliot, her guardian and mentor when she turned 17, she had not encountered many sincere beings. Most people she had met had motives behind them, including Fury. Clint and Coulson, however, were exceptions. They actually treated her as if she was their sister—ignoring the fact she was older than all of the S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel. She had a second home to return to, in the form of a carefree archer and a wise old man.
"Espionage is not really a thing to boast about. Sometimes I am envious of you working as a bodyguard and armed personnel," Clint defended.
"Well, you are too weak to be a bodyguard anyway," Inertia argued with a chuckle. Clint snorted in return, either impressed or disappointed by her sarcasm. Nevertheless, it eased her boredom slightly, at east for now.
"Hey. I don't think Selvig is really impressed with the Cube," Clint said after a while. Inertia turned her attention to Selvig, who seemed quite panicked and dazed when he gazed into the monitor recording the Cube's activity. She could feel it too, the energy rising far beyond their expectation. She stood up as the power continued to build up, restless of what it might imply.
"Well, if Fury is to arrive, he better does so quickly."
oOo
It was only four hours later did Nick Fury, the infamous director of S.H.I.E.L.D., arrive at the facility. Accompanying him was Agent Maria Hill, her eyes constantly wary of her surroundings. The helicopter buzzing behind them could not hide the chaos ensuing in the facility, which dismayed Fury immediately The two were greeted by Coulson, his face kind and innocent as usual. He looked too calm for a person who had just alerted him of a possible nuclear explosion four hours earlier.
"How bad is it?" Fury asked Coulson once he reached the solid ground.
"That's the problem, sir. We don't know," Coulson answered as they began pacing to the main lab. "Four hours ago, Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from the Tesseract."
"NASA didn't authorise Selvig to test phase," Fury said, reading his peer's hesitance.
"He wasn't testing wasn't even in the room. Spontaneous advancement," Coulson retorted. "And it has been developing tremendously over the past hours. I have assigned Inertia and Barton to watch the researchers and report me anything… The last report doesn't show any good indications."
"So it just turned itself on and acting on its own?" asked Hill, who was bemused by his explanation.
"What are the energy levels now?" asked Fury in turn.
"As I've said, it is climbing, reaching levels which signify no good news. When Selvig couldn't shut it down, we ordered the evac."
"How long to get everyone out?" inquired Fury while he studied the escaping personnel.
"Campus should be clear in the next half hour," answered Coulson.
"Do better," Fury ordered. "Go take care of the men. Leave the lab to me."
Coulson nodded and subsequently disappeared from Fury's vicinity. Fury and Hill took a turn in the chaotic corridor before they entered the laboratory area. "If we can't control the Tesseract's energy, there may not be a minimum safe distance," Hill suggested.
"I need to make sure that PHASE 2 prototypes are out," Fury responded.
"Sir, is that really a priority right now?" asked Hill. She knew the importance of the prototypes—they might as well be the only way to bring peace, said the World Council—but to her the lives of their men were now their outmost importance.
"Until such time as the world ends, we will act as thought it intends to spin on. Clear out the tech below. Every piece of PHASE 2 on a truck and gone," Fury answered surely, his tone stern enough to prevent her from arguing further. Hill nodded in accordance and went to the agents standing not far. She directed them to follow her before she, like Coulson, disappeared. Fury, for the first time in a while, sighed. There had always been a fine line between his orders and moral importance. Back when he was a junior in his field, he had always thought of his men first before any non-living objects; but he had learned so much in his life, enough to tell him that sacrifices sometimes must be made.
He hoped this time there would be no sacrifices needed.
Fury finally arrived in the lab, welcomed by one of is quietest yet most aggressive asset. Inertia folded her arms as the director joined the fray, her bronze eyes blazing sharp as always. It had been months since his first encounter with her, yet she hadn't changed. "Director," Inertia and Selvig said simultaneously, the former's voice cold and derisive. "About time," the woman continued in a whisper, exasperated by his late arrival. Fury did not mind her usual indirect admonition and instead approached Doctor Selvig. Inertia huffed, not impressed when Clint tried to surprise her by landing behind her back. He did not look satisfied either with Fury's arrival, having just waited four hours doing nothing.
"Is there anything we know for certain?" Fury asked the doctor who, as far as Inertia was concerned, had not slept for nights. Neither had she.
"The Tesseract is only misbehaving," explained Selvig, trying to be as convincing as possible. "It's not only active, but misbehaving."
"How soon until you pull the plug?" Fury asked dumbly. Inertia snorted and looked away.
"She's an energy source," Selvig told Fury. "If we turn off the power, she turns it back on. If she reaches peak level… We don't have the harness to use energy from space. Our calculations are far from complete. Now she's throwing interference, radiation," Selvig paused and studied Fury's reaction. "Nothing harmful though; just low levels of gamma radiation."
"Gamma radiation," Inertia scoffed. Both looked at her. "My instincts tell me that it is more than a gamma radiation. It produces a different type of energy than those found on Earth. It is beyond our comprehension."
"So you're saying we shouldn't have researched this thing?" asked Selvig in turn. Inertia frowned, eyeing the cube.
"Man hasn't learnt anything from their past mistakes," Inertia brusquely answered. Fury stepped between Selvig and the woman, warning her of her sharp attitude. She created an equally stern face, warning Fury of what he had done.
"The least thing we need now is a fight between assets," Fury told Inertia. "You might be older than any of us, miss, but here I'm in charge. I say what to do and you do it, understand?"
She remained silent, though her gaze refused to let go.
"Do any of you saw anything which might set this thing off?" Fury continued with a sigh.
"No one's come or gone and Selvig's clean. No contacts, no I.M's. If there was any tampering, sir, it wasn't at this end," reported Clint. Fury once more turned to Inertia, expecting a different report or at least a supporting argument. Yet she had zipped her mouth close, her attention more drawn to the spiking levels of energy now the Cube emitted. "She hasn't seen anything on the ground either. Nothing suspicious."
"Perhaps Barton is right," Inertia spoke slowly. "The one playing with the object is not from the inside."
"The Cube is a doorway to the other end of the space, right? Doors open from both sides, as far as we are concerned," Clint bluntly explained.
"We assume someone or something is meddling with it from the other side. That's our argument, which we have talked about for the past four hours," Inertia continued with a hint of annoyance. She was about to add another sarcasm when suddenly she sensed a spike of energy coming from the Cube.
"Doctor, it's spiking again," a scientist reported, gaining all their attentions. Selvig stared at the screen in horror, watching the graph line inflating into a high peak. The Tesseract began shaking erratically, alerting Fury and his two agents. Inertia immediately stepped in front of Clint and the director, raising her staff whilst the archer clenched his bow and searched for an arrow.
The Tesseract began shaking the entire facility, alarming Coulson and Hill at different ends simultaneously. Coulson knew it was certainly not his protégé's doing and he instantly called Hill, who regretted his decision of leaving the director in the lab.
As the building vibrated, the Cube emanated an ominous azure glow. Inertia's footing shifted, her heart beating faster as the object transformed into a bright luminescent light which blinded their eyes. The energy before her was unlike anything in the world. It no longer frightened her, but instead endeared her senses.
Something about it was familiar.
"Stand back," she muttered, staring at a small model of sun summoning an unknown aura. It shot a blast of energy to the vacant platform at the end of the lab. All agents and scientists inside the room staggered back and observed the blast forming a circle of portal on the platform. A shudder shook Inertia's internals and rendered her highly alarmed, yet at the same time she felt an inevitable pull towards the expanse of alien matter. She was about to take a step closer when she sensed something, or someone, lingering inside the menacing energy.
And that someone was not a stranger. Someone whom she had seen before.
She was pondering over this inscrutable familiarity when, as she had expected, the portal blasted a wave of sapphire energy to its surroundings. Yet it did not harm them or any of the equipment. It was only a gust of wind which blew past their flesh, as if teasing them. But what waited on the previously empty platform was not expected by Inertia.
A figure, clouded with the remaining energy from the portal, knelt on the platform. The remaining fog of blue ascended to the ceiling, clustering into an irreversible cloud of smoke and revealing the being in front of them.
"Please… don't advance," Inertia warned the advancing agents, but they brushed her hesitant warning away. They did not listen. They sneaked closer to the being, peering through their scopes and aiming for his head. Inertia was rooted to the ground, either because she knew this person or the killing intense he radiated was too intense to handle and blinded her senses.
The stranger finally lifted his face slowly, revealing a menacing smile and icy blue eyes. She now remembered where she had seen this being before. It was a year ago, on her first mission. This intruder, she knew from heart, was similar to Thor and his kind, but darker. His skin contrasted Thor's bronze one, the aura enveloping his entirety resembling that of someone vile. Yet his face showed nothing of strength or evil, but exhaustion. He looked more battered than themselves, as if he had been tortured.
"No," she said, though she did not know to whom she directed her word to. The intruder stood up, lifting a glowing spear which all of them had just noticed. His smile slowly faded when his eyes landed on the stealthy troops, and he scowled.
Inertia shifted just too late to prevent hell from breaking loose.
oOo
Her hands were still trembling. After years of training, facing against a true Asgardian was still an inscrutable challenge for her. She stood there, staring at her bruised arms. It would heal in no time, without doubt, though the emotional shock she had had would take longer to disappear. She had almost gone out of control.
"Do not let anyone know," Inertia whispered to herself. After the truculent of disaster before, the encampment in New Mexico seemed more peaceful now. Rubbing her hands, she strolled hesitantly to Thor's cell. He was, she could see, bewildered by his defeat, or perhaps by his inability to lift his own weapon. What had caused him to fail?
But when she neared his cell, she abruptly stopped. There was someone else other than the Asgardian inside the room. The presence was cold, and bitter.
And Thor was speaking to someone else.
"Thank you for coming here," Thor dejectedly said.
"Nothing could have stopped me," his visitor whispered. Inertia stepped into the room, discovering nothing but empty air before Thor. She clutched her weapon tight and glanced around cautiously. Thor stared at her with a startled expression.
"Goodbye," Thor said. Inertia gaped at him, for she could still feel the presence inside the room. Coulson entered then, startled by Inertia's figure lingering inside the cell.
"Inertia, what are you doing here?" Coulson asked.
Inertia did not answer and instead barged out of the room. She could feel it; the footsteps of the intruder as if parched on the ground like a brand. Neither did she question who he was or what was his intentions here. All she cared at that current moment was to find him.
She instantly found him.
Her eyes moved towards the hammer, centred in the crater. And in the middle of that crater was a man, his figure tall and his hair dark. His hand was on the hammer, grasping it with intense care which frightened her.
She rushed downstairs. She regretted not leaping down directly, ignoring all the stairs and ladders.
She arrived to glimpse only a pair of diminishing eyes staring back at her.
The man was no more, only the hammer as lonely as ever. She walked towards it, her fingers touching its handle yet did not dare lifting it. She knew she was not worthy enough to do so.
It was cold, very cold.
A/N: Here comes the second chapter! It starts directly from the Avengers, and here there's a timeskip. Inertia has joined S.H.I.E.L.D. over that missing time, yet she's still doubtful of whether to trust the organisation or not. I hope you like it and thank you for those who have read it! Please feel free to give me some inputs if necessary!
