CHAPTER 4 – Uses
There had been years of training, countless days and nights spent preparing for every possible scenario and more still thrown into the thick of those very horrors, but as Adriane stood there staring at the approaching madman she could barely recall a moment of it. Loki's gait was that of a predator as he pointed the glowing sceptre at the stunned agent, but in a moment of pure instinct Adriane kicked the weapon from Loki's hand and grabbed it as it skidded across the grating. Even as her fingers closed around it she regretted the action; her eyes darted from the sceptre the blazing eyes of the God of Mischief and a thick lump formed in her throat.
'Oh damn it.' She turned on her heel and took off, leaping over the still corpse of Agent Coulson and out the door he had thoughtfully left open. 'Dumb idea Ace, really dumb.' Her feet thumped against the floor and she didn't dare turn to see if Loki was in pursuit, but she gripped the railing at her hip and swung herself down a level to be sure. Her ribs burned painfully in her abdomen and her leg threatened to give way as she landed, but she pulled the stamina from somewhere to make it to an small auxiliary lab. The door sealed shut with a hiss and Adriane fell back against the counter, the sceptre clattering beside her, and she dropped her head to her knees with a groan. Her ribs were throbbing, her leg felt as though it was on fire and she dully wiped the dried blood from her forehead.
'I think I would have preferred Banner.' She moaned to herself as she laid flat on the cold, sterile floor.
'A man could take offence to that.' The voice was clearly Stark's and yet, as Adriane frantically looked around, he was not in the room.
'...Stark, is that you?'
'Not interrupting your Hulk fantasies, am I?'
'Where are you?'
'The Cap and I are fixing the outer right turbine,' the sound of whirring blades was faint, but noticeable in the background as Adriane finally laid eyes on two speaker feeds in the ceiling. 'I need you to get into the operation system and delay the auto reboot so we're not sashimied out here.'
'Oh God can't you get someone in the control room to do it? I'm not good with technology.'
There was a snort that cracked around the room. 'They're all a little busy right now, I've been trying to get through to someone for the last ten minutes and time is a factor here doll-face.'
With a gulp of dread, Adriane struggled to her feet, her muscles finally protesting in force as her leg bowed weakly under her slight weight. She groaned as she dragged herself over to the humming monitor mounted against the wall, gasping with relief on the soft wheel-chair. 'Okay, I'm at the computer. What do I do?'
'You need to go into the manual controls and select the front turbines.'
'Okay, done.'
'Great, now I need you to bring up the programming code that controls the sequence to restart the engines and reset the count.'
'...Okay you're going to need to say that again and dumb it down a lot.'
Stark groaned into the room and Adriane cringed. 'Time, darling, time! Double click on the right hand turbine, it will bring up a screen with lots of boxes. Click on the one that says 'Configuration' and then the one that says 'Restart Sequence' and it will bring up a window with lots of scrawling green writing.'
As he spoke, Adriane tried to follow Stark's instructions even as her fingers trembled when she heard Steve Rogers yell something urgent sounding in the background. 'Alright, I'm there. What now?'
'Find the line that says 'Emergency Fault Restart Sequence' and delete whatever number is at the end.'
'...Done.'
'Write in 'restart' and press Enter.'
As she hit the key, the lab fell into silence; the whirring of the turbines through the speakers had stopped and all that was left was the somewhat incredulous laughter of Stark and a distant relieved sigh. 'Excellent work doll-face, we owe you our skins...Literally.'
'This. This is why I hate technology; that was too close.'
'You should have seen it from here, ma'am.' Roger's called out and Adriane laughed, her ribs stabbing painfully as she did.
The mirth was short lived however as the lab door blasted clean of its holding and flew, with deadly force, into the wall just a few feet from Adriane. She screamed as the sparks form the electric controls threw up a thin layer of smoke; just enough to conceal Loki as he reclaimed his sceptre and took grinning at the badly wounded agent. 'And we meet again.' He sneered.
'Adriane, what the hell was that?!'
'Stark! Loki is free!'
Loki cocked a dark eyebrow slightly at the voice that echoed around him, but paid it no mind as he was suddenly flanked by four men; one of them Agent Barton. 'Bring her.' It was all that needed to be said as the highly trained fellow agent strode forward and reached for Adriane.
'Don't you lay a hand on her, Rudolph!'
Stark's threat went unnoticed as Adriane shirked away from Barton's grip and staggered out of the chair, throwing it in his path. Loki had vacated the doorway, clearly confident in his new-found, unwilling ally and Adriane made to follow him. She barely got two steps before she screamed in a new agony; an arrow pinning her jacket to the wall.
'Barton, stop please. It's me...,' Her pleas were pointless and Barton wrapped a hand around Adriane's upper arm with a vice like grip before yanking the arrow free of her clothing.
'Next time it won't be your clothes, understand?'
Her throat tightening with angry tears at the unnaturally cold voice of her friend, Adriane just nodded for fear of sounding weak. She was dully marched through the familiar halls of the ship, helplessly staring at her friends and co-workers fighting for their lives. She wanted to leap in and join the fray, but every time her muscles so much as twitched defiantly, Barton's hold tightened threateningly. His eyes never left the path ahead of them, but Adriane knew all too well Barton could see a lot more than the average human and she would not have a hope of slipping free of his sight.
A distant explosion caused the rally of Loki's men to stumble a bit, Adriane falling into Barton as they both lost their footing. She cried out as her ribs collided with the hard muscle of the archer's torso and he smirked at the sound. 'Do I have to carry you?'
'Don't touch me Barton.' Adriane growled, crying out as she her leg buckled beneath her when they attempted another step; it was just too painful.
Barton sighed and swung the pained captive into his arms and Adriane could not move an inch without searing pain flying through her body. They reached the ejection deck with agonising slowness, giving Adriane time to see the battle her friends were fighting and she was being stolen from; there was no one to save her.
Loki, Barton and two other brain-washed henchmen climbed into one jet while the others filed into five other waiting planes and Adriane found herself hoping SHIELD had some way of tracking their aircraft. The hope sank when she realised Barton would know about any tracers and would already seen to them and, with a final desperate glance for any of The Avengers, Adriane was carried inside the jet as the door rose behind them. Barton placed her on the seat beside him and buckled her in with a notable lack of care and she hissed between her teeth as the strap hitched against her ribs. Barton smirked, dropping next to her and nodding to Loki whose regal face was highlighted by the faint aqua glow of the Tesseract.
'Secured, sir.' Barton barked simply as Adriane scooted away from the tension in the belt and glared side long at her once partner.
Loki's eyes flicked up sharply to Adriane and a cruel grin graced his unashamedly handsome face as he clipped the case at his feet shut and leant forward. 'Now you can see first hand how I have expanded your friend's mind.' He whispered darkly.
Adriane's eyes blazed in her anger. 'He is not the same man I asked about,' she hissed. 'It just has his skin.'
'His skin is all I needed,' Loki shrugged coldly. 'Soon, no part of him will be necessary.'
'Do you really think this plan is going to work? There is no happy ending in this for you, just a painful capture.'
'I am not the captive here, pet.'
Adriane cringed at the pet name, but upheld her glare still. 'So I have a ring-side seat to the others pounding you into Demi-God putty, I don't mind.'
Loki let out a liquid velvet laugh that trickled through Adriane's vein with such strength that she knew the sensation wasn't just in her imagination. The trickster God smiled devilishly at his shuddering captive and relished in her discomfort. 'I have uses for you among my ranks, child, and yet I think I would rather you keep that forked tongue barbed.'
'What are you talking about? I am not helping you.'
'The wonderful thing about you mortals is your emotional attachment to each other; it can motivate you into amazing feats.'
Adriane's stomach flipped anxiously and she pushed back into her seat. 'You have nothing to scare me with,' she tilted her head to Barton. 'You've already taken them from me.'
'Agent Barton here is the only person you care for?' Loki's eyebrow twitched in disbelief.
'...Yes.'
He leant forward, his eyes glinting darkly as Adriane found herself wishing her chair would recline. 'I can taste your lies.'
The ship was steady and humming through the clouds, Thor, Agent Mason and The Hulk were nowhere to be seen and Agent Coulson's cold body had been taken from the chamber where he breathed his last. Nick Fury had watched with a tight lump in his throat as the stretcher was taken from his sight and the call came over all communications channels that Agent Phil Coulson had been officially pronounced dead. Letting loose a frustrated scream, slamming his fist into the wall at his side before huffing out his anger and making his way to what was left of the original meeting room.
Natasha, Stark and Rogers were all there, looking worse for wear, but alive and they glanced mournfully at the Director as he entered.
'Coulson?' Rogers' asked darkly.
'Loki,' Fury croaked, clearing his throat. 'Loki got him.'
'What about Thor and Doctor Banner?' Natasha asked only yo receive a blank stare.
Stark straightened in his chair, his face oddly cold. 'Where is Agent Mason?'
Finally Fury twitched, his fist noticeably clenching when he threw his glance to Stark. 'I haven't been able to reach her.'
'Before or after the break-in to your supposedly super secure lab?' Tony was on his feet now and Fury tensed his shoulders.
'You have something to say Stark?'
'Actually this time I think I want to hear what you have to say Cyclops, you've been making weapons powered by the Tesseract, you gathered us all here under false pretenses and now another of you agents has been snatched out of your flying Alcatraz. Just what is this cube capable of that you're not telling us?'
Rogers remained quiet as he and Natasha waited with baited breath for the Director to respond. Fury tried to stare down Stark, but soon realised he would have a better chance of staring down his trademark iron suit. With an uncharacteristic sigh, Fury's shoulders dropped a notch lower and the first signs of fatigue began to show on his face. 'There is nothing about the cube we haven't told you, but we weren't upfront with you about what Loki may know.'
'What are you talking about?'
'The Tesseract is an alien device, which you all know,' Fury leant back on the ledge behind him. 'We think Loki may have located the origin of the device and the aliens who made it.'
Natasha clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle surprised cry while Rogers and Stark exchanged shocked looks, quickly followed by irritation. 'How long have you known?' Rogers growled.
'The first night I arrived in Nevada the Council of Directors told me they had received reliable intel to support the theory, once we realised Loki had gained control over several of our operatives using a weapon powered by the Tesseract...Well we kind of joined the dots.'
'With a blunt crayon,' Stark snapped. 'Didn't you think we had a right to know that Loki had the makers of the goddamn Tesseract on his side before throwing us into the fray?'
'You denied us crucial mission intel, Director,' Rogers' piped up. 'And you've jeopardised the life of yet another agent because we weren't fully informed.'
'I know!' Fury's voice thundered through what was left of the room, earning a few glances from within the control room. Stark seemed unphased as did Rogers, but Natasha has stiffened to a board and was watching her superior with a wary gaze.
'...Sir?' She prompted.
Nick's face had fallen momentarily, but his stoic demeanour quickly replaced itself and he strode down into the control room floor. 'I want these systems and up and running within the hour and I want all resources focused on finding Agent Adriane Mason's location, am I clear?'
'Yes, sir!' There was a loud rumble as boots clapped on the floor and the clicking of keyboard keys rattled in harmony.
'As qualified as I'm sure the Lollipop Guild down there is, I'm not waiting an hour for them to tell me Mason is somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere.' Stark gave Fury a mocking salute before marching from the room, no doubt to suit up.
'Stark! Get back here!'
'I'm with Stark, sir,' Rogers stepped forward and gave Fury a curt nod. 'Computers aren't going to find Agent Mason, but we can.'
Natasha watched the men leave with a tired face and she turned to Nick only to find him smirking to himself. 'Something funny, sir?'
'They needed something...,' he murmured. 'They needed a push.'
'Sir...You couldn't have known Loki would come for Agent Mason, could you?'
'That's need to know Agent Romanov...And you don't need to know.'
The dripping sound was driving Adriane nuts, it was constant and somehow audible over the clatter of the men bustling to make Loki's horrific plan a reality. A couple she recognised as SHIELD operatives, not least of all Agent Barton and of course Doctor Selvig, and other familiar faces of foot soldiers that must have been 'recruited' from the rubble two weeks ago. Once they had arrived in the underground facility, Adriane had been lead by Agent Barton into a cage against the far side wall and locked inside. The archer stood just a few steps away, his arms folded and no doubt, even though his back was turned to the brunette agent, he was keeping a close eye on her.
She groaned and dropped her head back against the craggy wall, strands of cocoa brown hair catching in the sharp pits. She hadn't seen Loki since her imprisonment, but she knew he was nearby judging by the nervous twitching glances of the soldiers bustling around. Barton occasionally snorted as one clipped his gun against the wall or almost tripped over his own feet; all of their training evidently forgotten under the panic of Loki's wrath. As the archer's shoulders jerked in a derisive laugh, Adriane finally leaned forward and wrapped her hands around the rusted bars.
'If they're so hopeless, why does Loki keep them around?'
Barton barely glanced over his shoulder as he spoke. 'They still know where to point a gun and who shouldn't be down here.'
'And he has you for everything else?'
'He's got me for the work that takes brains.'
'Yeah, I saw that at the base,' Adriane sneered. 'Barton, what the hell am I doing here?'
'Trying to distract me I would guess.'
'You know what I mean.'
Barton snorted. 'I think you're about to find out.' His head bobbed forward and Adriane looked up to see Loki striding forward and making a direct line for her.
'Oh goody.' Adriane backed up in the cage, her arms folded across her middle and she watched with a nervous flutter as Barton shuffled off and left only the raven-haired Demi-God as company.
His impossibly green eyes caught her gaze and a sinister grin spread across his ashen skin. 'I hope you like your accommodation.'
'At least we gave you a seat,' Adriane said coldly. 'Unless you're going to poke me with the brain-washing stick of destiny, what am I doing here?'
Chuckling to himself, Loki came to stand in front of the cage, even with the slight lip Adriane stood on, the Norse trickster was comfortably a head taller than the slight agent. 'As I told you; those mortal affections of yours could prove useful to me.'
'You have nothing to threaten me with.'
'You, dear, will be the threat.'
Adriane pressed her back flat against the wall as though she might just pop out the other side, but in reality the bricks simply pricked the bare skin of her back. 'What are you talking about?'
'Your one-eyed superior saw fit to send you to me, believing you could extract information; I have to think that anyone he would trust with such a task would be missed.'
Adriane laughed bitterly, rolling her eyes. 'You don't know Director Fury if you think he's going to risk you taking over Earth just to make sure I'm standing with him to watch it happen. I'm what S.H.I.E.L.D bosses like to call an 'acceptable loss'.'
'Then you shall be my gain.'
'...Come again?'
Loki's grin only widened at the slight quiver in Adriane's tone and he rested his forearm on the bars holding the agent back, leaning forward. 'I watched you in Germany, dear, I saw what you were capable of. A good warrior can be invaluable in a war.'
Adriane glared as she flattened herself to the wall as much as he spine would allow. 'Wrong side.'
'What of when you're abandoned, hm?' He held Adriane's gaze effortlessly even as she told herself to turn away. 'Do you truly believe your words; that your commander will leave you in my hands? What if he does...Will the lines of good and evil that part us be so bold to you then?'
'I know what good and evil are without orders from Fury.'
'Because, by your own admission, he rescued you. He was your kind saviour.'
The rough bricks trailed faint red marks across Adraine's creamy white shoulders as she squared them arrogantly. 'I survived before Fury found me.'
'Ah yes, but will you survive now he has lost you?'
