ASGARD
Heimdall had his lips set in a thin line. His gaze was fixed on Midgard. Ordinarily, he would not look at such an inferior realm, but this time, something had caught his eye. Or rather, someone. That someone being Loki, the fallen prince of Asgard.
Heimdall's mouth twisted into a snarl as he watched. Loki going mental had never surprised Heimdall. He had always had a bad feeling about that bastard.
Heimdall contemplated on whether or not telling the All-father of Loki's return. On one hand, if he turned a blind eye, he wouldn't have to hear about the entire royal family talk about him for centuries on end. The downside to this was that Loki evidently had decided to wreak havoc on Midgard. For the second time. Heimdall didn't know Loki's full intentions, but he knew that whatever they were, this whole affair would probably result in a lot of death on Midgard's part. Not that he cared in particular. But he knew that the Prince was overly-fond of it, and if any harm should come to it he would become very, very angry. Heimdall shuddered. The elder Prince was nearly as bad as the younger.
Heimdall contemplated a long, long while, going over scenarios in his head. There was no reason for Asgard to find out about Midgard, or Loki. Nobody went there. The only time it was brought up was when the Prince came to him to ask about his 'lover.'
Heimdall finally decided not to speak word of it. He turned his gaze to another realm, fixating on a maiden's dressing room. There, a woman briefly looked out the window, and then began to undress.
Heimdall smiled.
This was the best job in the whole Universe.
NEW MEXICO. SEVERAL MILES FROM THE P.E.G.A.S.U.S. FACILITY
Coulson shivered as a chill pierced the air. The warm rush of adrenalin had long since worn off and was now replaced with a cold, hollow feeling. He turned and casted a glance behind him, and he could just barely make out the faint outline of the destroyed helicopter. Coulson had been the only one who had survived the crash. Now he was walking up the road; hoping that maybe he could hitch-hike his way back to SHIELD Headquarters. Or at least get to a payphone, since he couldn't find his cell. He felt tired and weak, worn out from this whole affair. It didn't help that he was lugging around a heavy garbage bag over his shoulder which slowed down his every step.
Coulson started walking again, but felt it was in vain. There had been no cars, no people, nothing whatsoever. In fact, it was eerily silent. Coulson had assumed that the police or other agents of some sort would be rushing to the pitiful remains of the P.E.G.A.S.U.S. facility. But there was no one.
The garbage bag seemed to be getting heavier with each agonizing second that passed, but Coulson wouldn't dream of leaving it behind. It was far too important that he got it back to headquarters. Another gust of wind scored through the air, bringing it's bitter needle-like chill with it. Above these two discomforts, Coulson became aware of a sudden noise.
It was repetitive, and, while not extremely loud, it was still there.
It was, unmistakably, the sound of footsteps. Coulson turned around, overjoyed with the possibility that it may be someone who could help him.
His face fell when he saw to his surprise that no one was on the road, though he was sure he had heard footsteps. Shrugging to himself, Coulson turned and resumed walking. However, he hadn't gone three steps before he heard a soft voice, speaking directly into his ear;
"Hail Hydra." It whispered.
Coulson whirled around, looking for the owner of the voice. But like before, there was no one on the road. Had Coulson been a smart man, he would have been worried by now.
But Coulson, though a well-known figure in SHIELD, was certainly not a smart man.
So, at best, he was only mildly puzzled. He continued walking along the side of the road, whistling a cheerful tune to himself. It was then that an unseen blow hit him from the side, and Coulson tumbled to the ground. Before he could could begin to realize what had just happened he felt the garbage bag wrestled from his grasp.
"No!" Coulson cried, jumping to his feet. He stopped short when he saw a figure standing in front of him, the garbage bag in his hands. Coulson squinted in the darkness, trying to make out a face.
The figure was a middle-aged man, he was wearing a black suit of some sort, and an old-fashioned looking army hat.
"Give me back my bag!" Coulson demanded, impulsively reaching for his pistol, even though he had lost it in the crash.
"Why should I?" The man asked gruffly.
"Because it's mine, and it's important!" Coulson shouted, walking over to the man to retrieve the bag. The man backed away.
"I am only looking for food and water. If you'll give me some I will give you your bag back." He said.
"I don't have any of those things! I barely got myself out of the facility alive!" Coulson whined, hoping that if he could make himself appear pathetic the man would give the bag back.
"What facility?" The man blinked. "I'm afraid I must apologize; I only just recently woke up, and I don't remember anything that's happened since…" The man trailed off, shaking his head, looking greatly disturbed. "Do you know where we are?"
"We're in New Mexico." Coulson frowned, wondering if it was possible that the man was suffering from amnesia.
The man held the garbage bag back out to Coulson, looking ashamed and embarrassed. Coulson grabbed it hastily.
"What's in there?" The man asked. Coulson gave the man an angry glare.
The man licked his lips. "My name is Schmidt, Johann Schmidt." He announced.
Coulson turned the name around a few times in his head. It sounded oddly familiar, but he couldn't figure out why.
"I don't know how I got here, but I woke up laying on the ground not far from here. I saw you walking, so I thought…" Johann shrugged. "I don't know, I'm just really hungry, and thirsty."
Coulson felt pity for the man. He remembered once when he was on a mission he had to go half the day without eating food. It had been torture.
"If you'll come with me, I'm trying to get to a payphone so I can call SHIELD." Coulson said. "Do you live around here?"
"I don't know." Was Schmidt's reply.
Coulson shrugged. "We can probably pull up your identification on the records at SHIELD. In the meantime, come with me."
Johann looked relieved. And so, together, they walked down the road.
Fury was jolted awake by the sensation of falling and hitting his head on the ground. The first thing he noticed was darkness; it did not make much of a difference if his eyes were opened or closed. The second thing he noticed was that he was upside-down, and it felt like he was surrounded by some sort of cold material. Fury felt agonizing pain in his head, and equally painful aches on his chest.
What the fuck had happened...?
He felt like he was being dragged along, upside down, possibly in a... bag of some sort?
Fury shut his eyes, trying to think. Then it all came back to him. The facility, the zombie people, Loki. He just couldn't remember when he had blacked out. The facility—what happened to the facility? Where the hell was he?!
Fury tried to break out of his dark prison, and felt the material surrounding him stretch.
"Open up, motherfuckers!" He yelled.
He felt the prison fall, and he hit the ground, groaning at the impact. He became aware of a voice;
"You have a person in there?"
And then there was a second voice; "I thought he was dead!"
"Why would you carry a dead person around?!" The first voice asked.
"Let me out!" Fury shouted. He saw a light from behind him, and then felt the material slide off of him.
Fury squinted at the sudden brightness.
"Are you alright, sir?" A voice said, this time closer to him. Fury squinted at the person, trying to make out who it was.
Coulson.
Fury frowned. He looked at his surroundings and found that he was on the side of the road. Next to him was a black garbage bag—evidently what he had been in. Next to Coulson was another man Fury didn't recognize.
"Why the fuck was I in a garbage bag?" Fury asked in a manner as calm as he could possibly manage.
"I—uh—you were shot, sir." Coulson fumbled, looking uncomfortable.
Fury narrowed his eyebrows. Right, He remembered. Barton had shot him. Fury looked down and sure enough; his entire shirt was soaked in blood. The bullet must have missed his vitals. Upon further examination, he found it had stopped bleeding. He remembered his hand had been stabbed, and glanced at it. It was sticky with partially-dry blood, and, since the dagger had gone all the way through, had an ugly slit on either side.
This would all explain why he felt like shit.
"Why the fuck are we out here? What the fuck happened to Loki?!" Fury shouted, starting to get up, but he only succeeded in falling back to the ground, the pain zapping his energy away.
"The facility has been destroyed, sir," Coulson explained smoothly. "Loki got away. Me and Johann here are going to find a payphone so we can get back to SHIELD."
Fury felt himself fading, but still forced himself to speak. With his good hand, he reached into his pocket and retrieved his cell phone. After briefly making sure it was not damaged, he handed it out to Coulson. "Call them from here. And don't go looking at my private files."
Coulson took it and began to pace around, dialing. Fury glanced at the other man—Johann. He wasn't dressed like a SHIELD agent. Fury wondered who he was.
With a grimace he looked back at the bullet wound. If Coulson had thought he was dead, that probably meant Maria Hill thought he was dead as well. Which meant...
"Fuck." Fury muttered under his breath. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
"Why do you use such uncultured language?" Johann asked.
"Because my fucking deputy director might be first in command now!" Fury shouted, glaring at Johann. Asking him about his language, who did this bitch think he was?
Coulson walked over, a smile on his face. "Bad reception here, but I managed to get through. They'll be sending someone to come get us immediately."
"Did Maria Hill make it out?" Fury demanded. "If she so much as fucking touched my comic books I swear…"
"Yes, she made it out. SHIELD says she called them as well. I guess she didn't catch Loki." Coulson explained. "He got the Tesseract, you know." He added.
"Yeah, I'd figured that." Fury grimaced, pushing thoughts of Hill out of his head when he realized it was stressing him too much. He looked at the barren desert in the distance. He hoped that there were no chupacabras around.
He shivered. This was a dumb idea, coming out here. Right now he could have been through at least three seasons of an anime had he just stayed home.
But no, of course the blue-cube had to be sending off weird signals before giving birth to a sickly chainsaw-wielding alien.
Of fucking course.
"Sir?" Coulson dragged Fury out of self-pitying thoughts. "What do you think we should do? About Loki, I mean. Do we have any idea what he wants?"
Fury took in a breath. He was exhausted and in pain, and he really was not in any position to be coming up with plans and ideas.
"He said something about becoming our god and king," Fury resisted the urge to snort at how ridiculous that sounded. His amusement faded, however, when a sudden thought came to him..
"Wait a minute... Selvig said something about him being Thor's brother." Fury stated.
"If Dr. Selvig said it, there's a seventy-five percent chance it's not true, you know that sir."
Coulson cautioned.
Fury rolled his eyes at Coulson. "Based on Loki's reaction to Selvig's statement I think it's very possible that he is, in fact, related to Thor."
"Okay, so maybe he is Thor's brother." Coulson said, thoughtfully. "That would make him an Asgardian."
"Yeah, he did say he was from ass-guard or whatever." Fury nodded, stroking his chin. "Do you think he has a magical hammer as well?"
"I highly doubt it sir." Coulson shook his head. "When we get back to SHIELD we can look into some of the Norse Myths about him, if you'd like."
"Does Thor have any weaknesses? It's been awhile since I read the file report on him." Fury asked. Usually aliens had some ridiculous thing that reduced them to weak, vulnerable creatures. Magic green rocks, microorganisms, hell, even water in some cases, could render an alien powerless, or even dead.
However, Fury dropped these thoughts when Coulson shook his head. "None that we can tell. Once he got his hammer he seemed to be invincible."
"Excuse me," Johann interrupted. "But I don't quite understand."
"Too bad for you," Fury said dismissively, waving a hand. He grunted as that small movement sent a wave of pain over him. "...First things first I'll need to get some people looking for that damn blue-cube. I'll talk to the World Protection Council when we get to Headquarters. They'll figure out something."
Coulson looked doubtful, but didn't argue. Fury rolled onto his side, feeling his breathing become labored. "Make sure I get medical attention when they get here."
Coulson nodded, and started pacing again. Fury shut his eyes. Just before he had slipped into unconsciousness a thought came into his head. The Avengers Initiative. If he could somehow get a few super-powered assholes to work together...
It was a terrible, awful plan.
But maybe...
Before he could think more on it, he fell asleep.
Maria Hill looked again in horror at the crashed helicopter. Yes, she had seen worse. But this, combined with the whole facility caving in on itself...
She shook her head. SHIELD reinforcements would be here to pick her up any minute now. She had called them not long ago, after making her way out of the collapsed tunnel.
When her car had hit the wall it had caused the ceiling to crash onto it. Luckily she survived, but she had been almost trapped in the car. It had taken her awhile to get free.
Now she was here. Waiting.
The more she looked at the destroyed helicopter the worse she felt. Mr. Loki was responsible for all of this. Hill wasn't sure what he was trying to accomplish, but she knew it couldn't be good.
She could only hope that they would find a way to stop him.
She heard a loud whirring noise, and a light in the sky caught her eyes, she looked up and saw a SHIELD helicopter closing in.
Time to go and solve this mess.
Loki felt hands all over him. Cold, rough hands that groped him without care, as though he were an object. His eyes were shut, but it made no difference; he could still see the dizzying flashes of color in his head. Loki heard breathing. Heavy, long, drawn out breaths that made him cringe. They were being dramatic. Nobody breathed like that.
"Stop." He choked out as one of the hands grabbed his throat a little too hard.
He heard laughter, which irritated him.
"The Tesseract, Loki…" A gurgling voice said into his ear, which made him try to flinch away, but he was being held in place. "...Bring us the Tesseract."
"Not yet," Loki mumbled. "I need it."
The hands grip on him tightened and stopped moving.
"You have a lot of confidence for someone who has only ever resulted in complete failure." The voice said. Loki couldn't help but grin. So, they thought they could manipulate him by telling him how worthless he was?
Hilarious.
It really was too bad he was dead inside already.
"Ah, you smile now." The voice said spitefully. "We will get the Tesseract with or without you, Loki. You are only a convenience for us so we can get it faster."
"I'll give it to you, calm down." Loki snorted. "You've been sitting around for ages. What's the haste? Surely if you're all so desperate for it you could have retrieved in much sooner."
All of the sudden the hand around his neck squeezed hard, cutting off his air. Loki's eyes shot open, and he saw darkness.
"Do not question the ways of my master. You will give us the Tesseract, or you will die." The voice said, going uncomfortably close to his ear.
Loki couldn't answer, he couldn't do anything. He saw something in the dark, something coming for him.
Loki jolted up, impulsively grabbing his chainsaw, breathing hard and shaking.
He was alright.
He was fine.
It was just an idiotic dream.
Loki was in Selvig's underground lab, he had laid down on the floor shortly upon arriving while the agents he had possessed got to work. Loki shuddered, and then laughed at himself. Pathetic. He was just tense from all the excitement.
"Did you have a good sleep Mr. Loki?" A voice said. Loki jumped, not realizing there had been a person in the room with him. He looked and saw it was Barton, wearing a dumb smile.
"What are you doing in here?!" Loki demanded. Barton shrugged, the smile not fading in the least. For some reason Barton wasn't staying in the robotic-monotonous state of mind the other soldiers he'd possessed had. Loki considered using the chainsaw on Barton again, because his cheerful behaviour was aggravating him.
"Get out!" Loki pointed to the door. Barton stood up and started leaving. Before he got to the door, however, he turned around.
"Did you want me to tap into SHIELD so we can spy on them?" Barton asked.
"What?" Loki frowned. "Can you do that?"
"Yes." Barton replied.
"Then do it. Have a couple men listen in. Let me know if anything interesting comes in."" Loki said. Barton nodded, and then left. Without shutting the door behind him.
Loki set his teeth together. He was tired, but he wanted that door shut. So he got up off the ground, walked over to the door and slammed it shut. He laid back down on the ground and fell asleep instantly.