John mentally punched Sherlock in the face (while trying not to show his stress on his own) as he watched him deduce Loki. Insult a God with the pointy spear of doom in his hand? Only Sherlock.

When he finished, Loki looked like he was going to explode with anger, he walked over to them, face to face with Sherlock, anger faded from his face and was replaced by a dangerous smirk.

As though he knew what would happen next Sherlock gently pushed John back while keeping eye contact with Loki. Loki raised his sceptre and placed the tip over Sherlock's heart, Sherlock shot john a wink before his eyes were swallowed by black, his sly smile vanished.

"No SHERLOCK!" John rushed forward but a hand grabbed him from behind, it was Barton.

"We have no quarrel with you people." Fury interjected while John struggled.

"An ant has no quarrel with a boot." Loki answered simply as he moved his eyes from Sherlock.

"Do you intend to step on us?"

"I come with glad tidings, " he said as he walked over to the restrained John, "Of a world made free."

"free from what?" Fury asked sceptically.

"Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that…in your heart," he turned swiftly and placed the sceptre on Selvig's chest, "You will know peace."

"Yeah you say peace, I kinda think you mean the other thing."

At that moment Sherlock turned to face fury and looked up at the roof where a pool of lingering energy glistened.

"Director Fury is stalling, he means to bury you when the residual energy from the Tesseract loses all stability and brings the roof down on us all."

"He's right the portal is collapsing in on itself, we've got maybe two minutes before this goes critical." Selvig confirmed, his eyes glowing under Loki's command.

"Well then." Loki said as he looked meaningfully at Barton who hit John hard on the head sending him to the ground, then swiftly brought his gun up and shot fury squarely in the chest.

Sherlock, Barton and Selvig followed Loki swiftly out of the room, Sherlock picking up the Tesseract case by Fury's body as he went.

Without second look at John, Sherlock left.

John regained consciousness almost immediately, feeling dazed he got up and looked around the now empty room, a pang of fear crossed his heart as he realised Sherlock had gone with Loki.

The energy from the Tesseract that was contained in the roof was swirling around dangerously.

"Hill! Do you copy?" He heard a groan and followed the sound to find Fury had been shot and was on the ground, he rushed over in time to see him pull out a bullet from his vest. He barked orders into the radio and tried to get up, John helped by supporting a part of his weight.

Without needing to say a word to each other, they started a little haphazardly towards the door, John made to go the way he and Sherlock had come in but Fury pulled his arm and motioned to a set of stairs that lead up to the roof.

"Helicopter" He said between orders.

John nodded and followed.

They made it to the roof and into the helicopter just as the roof gave way beneath them.

Fury sat opposite John talking into his radio "They're in the tunnel; no one's been able to stop them, yet."

The helicopter banked left, turning towards a flat bed truck with orange lights on top, that has sped out of the end of the tunnel, just before the seal dropped.

"There, Loki's in the back, careful he wouldn't think twice about blowing us out of the sky." John said anxiously pointing towards the truck. The truck then turned onto a dirt track, Fury hung out of the open side and shot a few rounds at the car before Loki raised his sceptre.

"Look out!" Shouted John, but it was far too late a bolt of blue energy hit the tail of the helicopter before he had finished his sentence.

"Jump, now!" Shouted fury.

"But the pilots!" Fury pushed him out of the plane, he landed hard on the ground just as the helicopter's blades were shattered by impact, the whole thing smashed to the earth and caught on fire.

He looked up from his place on the ground to find fury already standing.

"The Tesseract is with a hostile force, I have men down. Hill?"

John staggered over to the crashed site and put his arm through the shattered window to check the non-existent pulses of the pilots. That pang he felt in his heart, reminded him so strongly of Afghanistan, he looked up at fury.

"As of right now. We are at war."