In this chapter, Henna's backstory is revealed. Again, thanks for ChelsieLynn's suggestion to put it in earlier than I thought! Thanks for viewing!
I stared at the small village that lay in front of me. It was a historical village, one that refused to move on from the old ways of the past. Loki was nowhere in sight, and I cursed Stark. He probably gave me the wrong locaton.
My earpiece crackled to life. "Anything, Agent Levet?" It was Barton.
I pressed the speak button on the side of it. "Nothing yet, Clint. And it's just Henna." I let go of my earpiece and shifted uncomfortably in the old fashioned dress I was being worn to 'blend in'. The dress itself wouldn't even be so bad, if I hadn't been forced to wear it over my black jumpsuit.
Then something moved in the corner of my eye, unusual for late at night. I turned to see a dark figure approaching the rocky shore.
Slowly I walked closer, then hid behind a building. I watched the figure stand, hands behind his back, looking down at the water below.
"Henna? What do you-" I quickly shut off my earpiece.
The figure lifted his head and turn slightly. That face. The pale skin, emerald eyes, and longish, dark hair. Loki. Clearly seeing nothing -the unaware buffoon- he turned back to the sea.
I flicked my earpice back on. "Shush," I hissed. "Target sighted. Don't speak or my cover'll be blown."
No response. Good. Time to put on a show.
I cautiously approched him, then froze. "Sorry," I said, just loud enough for him to hear. He turned. "I didn't know someone would be here." I made sure to lace my voice with a Norse accent so he wouldn't be suspicious.
"Do not fret, my dear," Loki said, grinning widly, his eyes flickering. He took a few steps towards me, and my heartbeat quickened. "I was just leaving."
"I do not think that I recognize you," I said softly. "What would your name happen to be?"
"I think you very well would reconize me if I told you my name," Loki hissed. "So I will leave it up to you. Leave now, you insolent quim, and I might spare your life." He was now in my face.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
His hands tightened around my throat. "Pity," he said as i struggled to breathe. "If you weren't mortal, you might be beautiful."
"I still am," I managed and grinned. I kicked him in the crotch and while he was catching his breath I flipped him over my shoulder, tearing my dress in the process. I tore the rest of it off and pinned Loki to the ground with a couple of knives.
"Who... who are you?" He choked out.
"My name is Henna Levet," I said as I stood over him, my long, dark hair blowing in the breeze. "And I am your wort nightmare. Mwahaha!"
Then I started laughing for real. "How's that for inexperienced, Fury?" I yelled at the sky.
"You're wearing an earpiece, Agent Henna," Fury's voice said in my ear. "I can hear every word you're saying."
"Still, I though it would be more dramatic," I said.
I looked down at Loki, who was struggling to get up. He managed to get one of his arms free, but I shot the knife deeper into the ground, sticking him again.
"Where are they?" I muttered, looking around the sky. I pressed the speak button on my earpiece. "Agent Romanoff. Barton. Where the Hell are you?!"
"Sorry, Henna," Nat said in my ear. "We can't land; we don't want to disturb the village."
"Then get your asses down here rather than the plane!"
"On it," Stark said.
"Crap," I muttered.
Sure enough, Iron Man landed beside me.
"Ah, the Avengers," Loki spat. "That's who this wretch works for."
"With," I corrected. "I work with the Avengers."
Tony glared at me for stealing his line. Well, as much as someone wearing a metal suit can. Then he turned back to Loki. "Come on, Reindeer Games." I pulled the knives away and Stark swung Loki over his shoulder. I followed him as he flew away, riding my hoverboard.
"And I suppose you're new," Loki said to me as we flew back to the helicarrier.
"No, just temporary," I grumbled.
The Avengers, plus me, are gathered around a screen, watching as Fury slams the door to Loki's cell. It's much more durable that last year, Banner told us. Loki even touches the walls, alarms blare.
"Henna."
My head flicks up. "Yeah, Fury?"
My heart is thumping a million miles a minute as Fury leads me down the hall into an empty room. "This is about last night."
"Uh huh."
"You've gotten better."
I smile faintly. "No dip," I said.
"How?"
"Last year," I said, like it explained everything.
"And how does that fit in to all of this?"
I took a deep breath. "Last year, when Loki and the Chituari attacked New York City, the Avengers weren't on border patrol."
"I am aware of that," Fury said coldly. "They took out the army as soon as they entered to portal."
I shook my head. "Not all of the army. Some Chituari were trying to escape into the rest of the world, so I got together with a couple of other SHIELD rejects and made up the border patrol your team oh-so-innocently forgot to put up."
Fury ran his finger through his non-existant hair. Then he sighed. "So that's where you practiced," he muttered. Then he sighed again.
I raised an eyebrow. "Isn't there something you'd like to ask me, Fury?"
"Henna Levet, welcome to SHIELD."
I walked into the room and stood, arms folded.
"What were you doing in Norway?" I asked.
Loki chuckled and sat down in his cell. "You could say I was the cheese in the mouse trap."
"You're stinky and no one likes you?" I asked innocently.
He made a face. "Guess again, mortal."
"Hmm... you were trying to lure us there."
"Correct."
"But why?"
He sighed. "Why do you think?"
"To take over our minds."
"You really are ignorant, aren't you?" Loki said, an exasperated expression on his face.
I grinned. "That's what they tell me!"
"My dear, there is only one thing I have to say."
"Spit it out, prisoner."
"I am ever so sorry."
"Well, that's your problem, isn't i- wait, what?" Did Loki, SHIELD's arch enemy, just say he was sorry?!
"I think I made myself clear," he said. "Henna, I am sorry."
I was frozen with confusion. He had said he was sorry. And the thing that confused me the most?
He wasn't lying.
I could tell.
But I folded my arms and huffed. "Why should I accept your apology? You killed so many people last year, and not to mention what your brother told me about the Destroyer in New Mexico."
His cheeks reddened slightly at the memories. "I know I have made bad choices in the past, but I was young and foolish."
"You were a year younger than you are now."
"Ah..." He looked away. "But you would have done the same, if you had lived a life such as mine."
"And what life would that be, Loki?"
"Living as the unloved child, in the shadow of your sibling."
My blood ran cold.
"I grew up alongside Thor. We played together, fought together, learned together. We both knew we had an equal chance of being king. Yet as we grew older, I found that Father began looking at him as more of a ruler, giving him the lessons necessary. Without me. Everyone loved him so much more. His mind was full of power, so he got his friends and I to go seek revenge on the Frost Giants. I knew we would need assistance, so I called the All Father. When he found out, he banished my brother to Earth. Then my father fell ill, so I assumed to position of King."
He paused to take a breath, then looked at me to see how I was taking this all in. I was sitting in a chair across from him, and we were only seprated by the glass (and about four feet of floor). I was leaning foreward in actual interest, then quickly adjusted myself. "Go on," I said, unable to put poison into my tone.
"My friends came to me, asking me to undo my brother's banishment," Loki continued. "But I could not do that, for my first command could not be to undo my father's last. They grew angry and left to go get him themselves. But since that was against my command, I sent the robot, the Destroyer, to bring them home."
"But it went crazy and blew everything up," I summed up sarcastically.
"Yes," he said in wonder. "How did you know?"
"Women's intuition," I muttered.
"I did not know it would decimate the entire town-"
"It's called the Destroyer," I pointed out.
"It was not called that on Asgard!" He quickly composed himself. "I did not know it would decimate the entire town, but apparantly it was made to kill intruders, not capture them. I made a mistake, and paid for it dearly. When Thor returned, he was furious with me and battled me on the Bifrost. He decided to destroy it so I could not bother Earth again-"
"Obviously that didn't work-"
"-But it created a void, which I fell into. I landed on a barren moon, of which I had no knowledge of. A Chituari -the leader, actually- found me. He was known only as the Other. He promised me I would be accepted back onto Asgard and he would return me to there if I gave him the Tesseract. When things got out of hand, when I realized who I had hurt, I transported back to the moon where I met up with him. He threatened me and when I still refused to do his bidding, he manipulated me. Took over my mind. After your team won, and I returned to Asgard with my brother and was sentenced to punishment and eternal imprisonment. I escaped to come say I was sorry for everything, in hope you would forgive me. Do you?"
I looked down, fixing my eyes on my boots. "I... don't know." I laughed lightly. "If you actually knew me, I'd say you were manipulating me."
"And why is that, Agent Levet?"
"Henna. And..." I took a breath. What was I doing?! Was I really about to tell my life story to this biotch?! "When I was born, I had a disorder. Brain damage." I guess I was. "The doctors predicted that I'd never be able to talk. One thing they didn't know was my parent weren't really office workers. They were scientists.
"My mom designed the chip, something the size of a finger nail to make me smarter and fix my disorder. My dad preformed the surgery that put it into my brain. However, he accidentaly put it on my pineal gland, the part of your brain that's said to control your 'sixth sense' but is too small to really do that. The chip, however, while fixing my disoder, also caused the brain tissue around it to swell. It gave me some psychic abilities. It gave me the power to control pretty much any metal. I can tell when people are lying, and read the minds of my enemies. Only my enemies, so you'd better watch out." I grinned.
Then I sighed. "The chip wasn't the only reason I hated my parents, though. They never knew about my abilities. Instead, because I had had a disorder, they treated me like I still did. I would do whatever they said, but still not get praised. They hated me. To replace me, they had another daughter when I was six. My sister, Amanda." I closed my eyes. "Amanda was perfect. No disorder. She was artistic since the age of four. My parents loved her. I was smarter than she was, and often got better grades than her. Yet the simplest mistake from me, and no dinner for a week. Amanda does something wrong? She gets a kiss and a 'try better next time, okay love?'. Yet I didn't hate Amanda the way my parents hated me. No one could hate Amanda. She was the sweetest girl in the world, and tried to do worse to make me feel better. To try to make mom and dad notice me instead of her. But it didn't work.
"When I graduated college, I moved to New York with my best friend, Sarah Martin." I snorted. "Best decision I ever made. I got a job in Stark Tower and that's the end of it."
I looked back up at Loki. "So what do you think?" I asked.
He blinked and stood. "Come here, Henna."
I walked over to his cell. "Yeah?"
He put his hands on the glass. "You and me, we're the same in a couple of ways," he whispered.
I shivered.
"So you're the right person to believe me when I say this." He took a breath. "I want to join your little group."
I felt the color drain from my face. "The Avengers?" I choked out, my throat constricting.
"If they will except me," he said softly, "then yes, I do."
What do you think? I know this chapter was a little longer, but I had to get Henna's full backstory in. Don't count on them all being this long, though, nor my updates as fast as they've been. Please review with advice and compliments if you've got any! I love you all! 3
