I was jostled awake as my head bounced against cold, hard metal. I looked around with my bleary vision to find the tall, imposing man adorned in brilliant green robes sitting across me with a malicious, heartless smirk painted across his thin, pale face. In the process of trying to shake out of the thick, grey dizziness that had devoured the world around me, I felt the whir of a helicopter above me, the impossibly fast movement of its powerful blades vibrating almost violently in my chest. The perpetually stoic man across from me turned his chilling emerald stare to its hulking metal frame, an air of annoyance emanating from his very being. Squinting, the last bits of drowsiness drifting from my adrenaline-filled consciousness, I could see Nick in the distance, taking aim from the innards of the helicopter. Though he began to shoot, the helicopter was far too unstable and the speeds of the vehicles racing were too high to hit the mysterious man accurately. With a pompous, maniacal laugh, the man raised his body to his full height and turned around quickly, only to shoot a white hot bolt of energy directly at the Helicopter. Hitting it spot on it began spinning out of control, with Nick holding on desperately inside it.
Nick…
This seemed to sober me up enough to fight back.
While his tall, slender body was turned away from me, I tackled the man as he chuckled fully at his own delusions of superiority. Before his initial shock wore off, and I lost my edge of surprise, I tried to twist the odd, glimmering weapon out of his hands. This seemed to irritate and disgust him beyond belief as his confident smirk turned into a deep, animalistic snarl. Growling in anger, he shoved me away, nearly sending me flying out of the back of the truck. I grasped desperately at the tailgate, determined to hold on, but as the sinister man advanced towards me, his thin, pale lips curled in a sickeningly menacing smile, I made the decision to let go. Taking a deep breath, mentally urging my muscles to cooperate, I turned and all but dived out of the truck. I held my breath as the slate grey concrete neared closer, and, at the last possible second, tucked my body into a tight bundle. I landed successfully, and after rolling for a few feet, pushed myself up to my feet. Realization washed over me, acidic and hot, as I ran to the helicopter, now reduced to nothing but fire and scrap metal. The bitter stench of iron filled my nostrils. I began to search frantically, but turned around to find Nick just standing there looking in my direction, absolutely silent and stoic as always, though in his eye shown a glimmer of some untold emotion. A relieved expression spread wide across his weary countenance as I approached him. Without hesitation, he cupped my face in his big, calloused hands and brushed back my tangled hair to see if any bruises or cuts marked my mocha skin.
"I don't know what you're looking for. You know you won't find anything." He gave me a fatherly pointed look and a low, quiet grumble emanated from behind his lips as he continued to inspect me.
"I still have to check," he muttered. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, letting him play the role of protective father just a little while longer. He smelled of gasoline, leather, and an extremely faint wisp of cinnamon, which only my sharpened senses seemed to be able to detect. Opening my eyes, I smiled and brushed his hands away from me, raising my eyebrows in playful reassurance, though deepening my tone to convey the seriousness of what I had to say.
"I'm not a child anymore, Nick." I stepped back to survey the destruction around us and sighed. A large weight appeared on my shoulders as my body began to feel labored with anxiety and frustration at the appearance of this new, infuriating turn of events.
"We're gonna need some help with this one," I spoke into the whipping wind before taking one last glance around. The scene was desolate, the property damage alone was massive, and there was no doubt in my mind that a handful of innocent victims had been mercilessly claimed as casualties. I pinched the bridge of my nose between two slender fingers trying to soothe the throbbing that had appeared behind my eyes. I was trying fruitlessly to clear my cluttered mind when I felt the pressure of the warm hand on my shoulder.
"I know." Nick's calm and determined face stared down at me. I looked back at him, nodding in agreement. Before I could attempt to strategize with him about our next course of action concerning the H.Q. and the citizens helplessly trapped in the middle of the fray, my mind flashed back to the man in ornate green and black clothing. His pin-straight-onyx black locks and the haunting coldness of his grey-green eyes stung at my memories.
"Who is he?" Nick's hand fell from my shoulder and he sighed as if the same, impossibly heavy burden that I had felt fully upon my very being had been crushing him for years.
"Loki of Asgard," He began, his words shocking some deep recess of my mind, though I couldn't ascertain why. "Thor's brother." My eyes squinted in confusion as suddenly he turned away from me, his long black coat whipping in the wind, and pulled out a sleek cell phone to call for both a pick-up and a head count. His shoulders sagged slightly as he terminated the conversation quickly. Calls involving civilian deaths were never easy, regardless of how many he'd had to make before. Tucking the phone into one of his many pockets, he turned towards me, his face hard and his mood changed.
"What happened and why is Loki after the Tesseract?" Nick limped around some of the debris, inspecting the damage himself. "You're hurt…" I went to help him, instead he waved me away.
"It's fine, Kida." He urged, a slight grin appearing on his face, "I'm not a kid anymore, either." Amusement sparkled in his deep, chocolate-brown eye as he looked down at me. I shot him back a stern and disapproving look, my jaw tightening at his specific brand of humor, desperately willing myself not to smile. He chuckled fully, his laugh like brilliant firecrackers in the wind, before clearing his throat to continue, "From what I understand, Loki wants the Tesseract to make our world his throne. Something to do with his Daddy not hugging him enough as a kid, I guess." I snorted at this, Nick's sarcastic wit hard to ignore. "Regardless, he says he comes to 'set us free'."
This goal was hardly typical of the 'bad guys' SHIELD regularly dealt with, so the response caught me off guard. I blinked furiously, waiting for some sort of bad punch line that never came.
"From what?" I stammered, utterly confused. A long, still moment passed before with no answer. I stared at him silently urging him to answer me. He stopped circumnavigating the helicopter's ruins and turned around to his full height.
"Our freedom." I furrowed my eyebrows.
"Is that a joke, because that doesn't make any sense?" He gave me his 'I'm serious' look. I shrugged and gave out a sigh. "And he took Barton?" I crossed my arms and I looked the opposite way. "We'll definitely need more help." I felt strong arms wrap around me and I turned into the embrace and placed my forehead onto his broad chest.
"I know sweetheart, I know." I wrapped my arms around him and took fistfuls of his jacket in my hands. This all felt like a bad nightmare and Nick was here to wake me up from them like he had when I was a child, but this time it's real and Nick can't wake me up from this one.
The SUV stopped at the docks and Agent Phil Coulson opened my door for me. I stepped out and gave him a smile.
"Thanks Cheese." Coulson gave out a small chuckle.
"Nobody has called me that in a really long time." I just shrugged, thinking back to the hundreds of Coulson's most embarrassing moments that Nick recounted in great detail as I was growing up.
"It's kinda cute. I was just thinking that I should try and bring it back." He shook his head and gave me his signature sheepish grin.
"I'd rather you didn't…" It was my turn to give out a chuckle.
"Whatever you say, Bossman." And I gave him a little salute as Nick came over.
"I need you to get Agent Romanoff on the phone. Tell her drop what she's doing. We need her to go pick up Banner. Then you'll need to go get Stark. I'm sure he'd love to come out and play with the others. I'll personally handle Captain Rodgers, but I'll need you to escort him here." At the mention of the Captain, Coulson seemed to beam at the thought. The adrenaline began to pump through me once again. Strategizing made every inch of my body itch with excitement.
"What can I do?" I blurted out, my eagerness barely containable. Nick seemed to think about it for a while before he replied.
"Get some rest. You're looking a little pale." I sighed as I silently agreed. I had been feeling unusually fatigued after the spikes of energy I had gotten from the Tesseract before I had been ripped away from the vicinity of it. I watched as Nick walked away, his back impossibly straight as he tried to suppress his slight limp. I gave him a little wave, though with his back turned he had no way of noticing. With a sigh, I turned to follow Coulson onto the Helicarrier. Ooo… the Cap'll have fun with this, I thought sarcastically as I looked over the edge before we walked inside.
I looked around to see everyone working on tracking Loki and the Cube. Just watching everybody work so hard made me tired. I let out a large yawn, stretching my body upwards, before finding a convenient spot on the railing to sit on, right near Agent Coulson.
"You know Nat is on a mission right? She won't be very happy if you take her out of it if she hasn't finished." Coulson took out his phone and gave it to someone nearby on the Intel team.
"Get me on the closest phone to Agent Romanoff." Coulson turned back to me.
"We don't have much of a choice." The tech returned his phone while bathing him a wealth of information, including Nat's current location and mission intel. From what I could discern from pieces of their hushed conversation, she was currently being held captive by some low-level scumbags somewhere near the Russian border. Together, the two arranged a call to contact the illusive assassin. He put the phone to his ear and as soon as he got an answer he asked to speak to the red headed woman currently in their possession. I almost snorted at the thought. Nat would never really be in that position but sometimes she likes to let them think that. It's her way of interrogation. Coulson sighed and waited a moment before speaking.
"You're at 114 Solenski Plaza, 3rdfloor. We have an F22 exactly 8 miles out. Put the woman on the phone or I blow up the block before you can make the lobby." Hearing Coulson threaten the guy so easily made me more than interested. I hung on his words, just trying to imagine the responses on the other end. Coulson had always been nothing more than a friend and mentor to me, though it was intensely invigorating to hear him speak with such dark purpose. I hopped down from my spot on the railing and put my ear up to the phone. Coulson tilted the phone in my direction so I could also hear what was going on. There was some rustling before he spoke again.
"We need you to come in."
"Seriously! I'm in the middle of an interrogation; this moron is giving me everything." Somewhere in the background you could hear the man denying that he didn't give up everything. "Look, you can't pull me out of this right now…" Coulson cut in before she got to finish her part of the argument.
"Natasha, Barton's been compromised." There was a slight pause.
"Let me put you on hold…"