THIS CHAPTER HAS BEEN REWRITTEN

thanks to Lauraxfox!

Disclaimre: I own nothing except my OC Jackie Walker

Chapter VII

In Which Loki Acts Like a Bitch

"There's not many people that can sneak up on me."

"But you figure I'd come."

"After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate."

"I wanna know what you've done to Agent Barton."

"I'd say I've expanded his mind."

"And once you've won. Once you're gone over the mountain. What happens to his mind?"

"Is this love, Agent Romanoff?"

"Love is for children. I owe him a debt."

"Tell me."

"Before I worked for SHIELD, I uh… Well, I made a name for myself. I have a specific skill set. I didn't care who I used it for, or on. I got on SHIELD's radar in a bad way. Agent Barton was sent to kill me, he made a different call."

"And what will you do if I vow to spare him?"

"Not let you out."

"Ah, no. But I like this. Your world in the balance and you bargain for one man?"

"Regime's fall every day. I tend not to weep over that, I'm Russian, or I was."

"And what are you now?"

"It's really not that complicated. I've got red in my ledger; I'd like to wipe it out."

"Can you? Can you wipe out that much red? Drakoff's daughter? Sao Paulo? The hospital file? Barton told me everything. Your ledger is dropping, it's gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer. Pathetic! You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors, but they are a part of you, and they will never go away. I won't barter Barton! Not until I make him kill you. Slowly, intimately, in every way he knows you fear. And then he'll wake just long enough to see his good work, and when he screams I'll split his skull! This is my bargain, you mewling quim!"

"You're a monster."

"Oh no. You brought the monster."

"So, Banner? That's your play?"

"What?"

"Loki means to unleash the Hulk. Keep Banner in the lab, I'm on my way. Set the door to locked… Thank you, for your cooperation."

oOoOoOo

"So Jackie, how did you got involved with SHIELD?"

Hm, good question. And hard to answer actually. Not even sure if 'involved' was the correct verb to be used in this context, since I'm not really working for/with them. The more answerable question would be 'What have you done to be stuck here on the Helicarrier for the rest of your life?'.

I replied lamely: "Murdering, illegally ripping off a ticket sellers head, conspiracy to murder, possible littering, you name it."

Ignoring the look both scientists were giving me, I put my both arms behind my back and strolled around the lab, looking at the scientific things with curious eyes. It's like visiting an exhibition.

Tony Stark kept touching a screen that seemed to be appearing out of nowhere and floating midair. If only my laptop screen would work like that at home, then I wouldn't need to take it everywhere with me. Bruce Banner was working on the other side of the lab, doing some tests on Loki's magical scepter. The scepter was wired up to lots of cables, which were connected to some devices. I carefully glanced at it and had to think about what happened in Stuttgart. A shudder went down my spine and I quickly tried to shake off those bad memories. Did SHIELD know about it? Surely they must have noticed it since they hacked into all these cameras and watched everything.

"What are you doing with all those…" I gestured at the technology in the room "Things?"

"Locating the Tesseract." Bruce responded, not even looking up once.

"Because SHIELD cannot even look after their cube." Tony added "I've heard you were supposed to help us?"

I snickered at the comment about SHIELD, thinking how true it was, but then paused at the latter one. "… Do I look like Albert Einstein?"

"Do we look like Einstein and Newton?" Stark countered and busied himself with some blueprints on the screen. No, you two are Banner and Stark AKA the science bros.

This short lived conversation died and the silence returned, where only the sound of machines beeping and the whooshing of the screen moving around me could be heard. Leaning back on a wall, I stared at the scepter. It was lying there innocently, waiting for something to happen. The longer I stared at it the more I felt like it was calling for me. Before I knew what was happening, I was walking toward it. The scepter glowed a dangerous blue. It was a beautiful color, yet at the same time it had something mysterious about it. Slowly I reached out a hand, wanting to touch the scepter. Just few inches away I could feel electricity coursing through my veins which got stronger the closer I came the scepter.

"Ouch!" I squeaked suddenly as blue sparks went flying when I touched the scepter and left my fingers with a slight burning feeling.

My Squeak caught the attention of both scientists, who turned their heads to look at me. Embarrassed about getting caught, I shook my hand to cool down the burn.

"Rule number one," Stark chastised me "don't touch anything in the lab if you have no idea what it is."

Until now, I didn't know just how annoying Stark could be. I always thought his sassiness was something cool and funny, but now experiencing it in real life; I realized that it wasn't that cool at all. Funny how views on things could be changed so quickly.

Stark kept listing some rules I should follow when I'm in the lab, while I just rolled my eyes and took a blueberry out of a bag I spotted on the table. Surely Stark wouldn't have a problem with me eating all his food.

Something hit my head. Turning around I saw Tony holding a thick folder in his hand. Iron Man took the blueberry bag away from me and handed me the folder, saying I could use the time to get familiar with the Tesseract, and that he was sure SHIELD wouldn't mind if I took a small glimpse into it.

I stared at it dumbfounded for a few seconds. It was a thick folder… I'm not even sure if I wanted to look through it. I bet it's really boring and written in such complicated English that my brain would go dead after reading the first few sentences.

Meh, I'll just look through the photos. I opened the folder. Indeed there were lots of pictures. I especially like the black and white one from the small village where the Tesseract was originally found. There was also a group photo of some people standing in front of a temple, all of them were old except one standing on the right. He was young, and had a handsome face. A sense of familiarity washed over me and I couldn't help but think I may have seen that face somewhere before. But this was ridiculous since this photo was really old. Skipping a lot of pages consisting of reports, calculations and analysis, I found a rather new photo of the Tesseract. Even though it was just a picture, I could already imagine just how bright the Tesseract would be glowing.

"How did you do that?" A voice interrupted my reading. Tony Stark had his two arms resting on the table, looking at me somewhat eagerly.

Confused and not knowing what he meant I looked around myself, and then back at Stark. "Do what?"

"Defend yourself from the blast in Stuttgart."

It took me a short moment to understand what he meant. I didn't really like to think back about it. So I simply shrugged my shoulders as a reply and put the folder away.

"C'mon, you can tell Uncle Tony your little secret."

Uncle Tony? Sounds nice, though I can't imagine Iron Man being a good uncle. He's more the type of uncle who'd most likely stay single forever, but have lots of fun in his life.

"Did you drink any serum?"

"Uh, no?"

"Or did you get hit by a meteor and then receive special powers? Or you're a telepath? Or perhaps a small witch, or-"

I interrupted him quickly. "I don't know, it just happened somehow, okay? And really, can we just drop this and pretend me and Stuttgart never happened?"

Stark defensively put up his hands. "Just asking, no need to get touchy." He turned back to the screen and continued with his work.

I leant back on the wall and ran a hand through my messy hair. I missed my hairbrush. But Iron Man did have a point there. How the fuck am I still alive?

"You know, if you don't have anything to do, would you please leave us alone?" Stark suggested. I guess he was trying to get rid of me now. I was kind of in their way. I stood up, ready to leave, when Bruce suddenly stopped me.

"Wait, I need a DNA test from you."

I turned around again and looked at him strangely. "… Why?"

Banner's one word answer was: "Mutation."

Something in my mind clicked. Bruce probably wanted to see if my DNA structure changed or got mutated in some way. That thought made me totally uncomfortable. Not only because I didn't want to end up as a mutant, but also because it reminded me of that failed biology exam I had about genetics and mutation last year.

I sat down on a chair and stretched out my left arm, waiting for Bruce to put in the needle into my skin. I quickly looked away and shut my eyes, waiting for it to be over.

"There all finished. Wasn't that bad, was it?" Bruce smiled and put a band-aid on it. It had the SHIELD logo on it. SHEILD sure had to mark everything as their own. Are they afraid that people would take their stuff and not give it back?

As I examined it, Uncle Tony's voice shouted in triumph about something that he found, while standing in front of the screen. I tried to see what it was, but right in this moment Nick Fury walked into the lab, not looking very happy.

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" He demanded to know.

"Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you." Said person replied.

Looking back and forth between the bickering men, I pointed at the exit and announced rather timidly. "Uh yeah, I think that's my cue to leave." And with that I walked out of the lab, while Steve walked in. He was holding a weapon like thing in his hand. Uh oh, seems like the small fight between the soon-to-be Avengers was going to start soon. Better leave before things get too violent.

On my way to nowhere I saw Thor and Natasha talking to each other.

"Do not speak like this about my brother!" Thor shouted at Natasha, who looked rather unimpressed. She didn't even flinch once at Thor's loud booming voice. If it was me, I'd already have ran away.

Hm, shouldn't they be in the lab with the others? I decided to give them a small push. "Hey guys, just so you know, the others are fighting in the lab."

Hearing that both of them turned their head to look at me, and then walked away. Passing me by Natasha said silently so only I could hear: "Stay away from Loki, kid. He's dangerous."

Too bad I'm not going to listen to her advice, I'm actually planning to visit Loki. There are things I wanted to ask him about, or maybe I just wanted to talk to him. Loki was always a character that interested me. I don't think Loki was evil by heat, he was just a damaged soul, lost in this cruel universe.

I stopped dead when I realized that I had no idea where Loki's prison even was. There aren't many maps of the Helicarrier I could use to find my way and I doubt anyone would point the direction out to me.

Just then when I was ready to turn around and walk back to the lab I saw that right next to me was a wide open door. I stuck my head inside and looked around. My eyes then landed on the glass prison. A person was standing there, smiling at me creepily.

"Hello, Jackie."

oOoOoOo

"Why shouldn't he let off a little stream?"

"You know damn well why! Back off!"

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me."

"Yeah, big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthrophist."

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

"I think I would just cut the wire."

"Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero, like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."

oOoOoOo

Loki had me strapped against a wall. Both arms extended, holding on the wall, he looked down at me with a smirk. My head was lowered down. I stared at my feet, unable to look into his eyes. I felt how one hand grabbed my chin and slowly raised my head to meet his eyes. They were beautiful. Slowly he lowered his head, his face getting nearer and nearer, until I felt his cold breath on my lips. And then he closed the distance between us…

Nah, just kidding.

Loki was still in his cell and I stood at the door, wondering whether I should go inside and talk to him or just walk away, pretending to never have seen him. Just few minutes ago I was so keen on finding him, and now that I actually found his prison, I felt like chickening out.

Isn't it weird that I found the door to his prison wide open?

"Lost, aren't we?" He sneered.

"No, just walking around without a real destination." I replied, trying to sound brave, but it came out more like a squeak. I must have sounded like Minnie Mouse.

Loki's smirk grew. "Why don't you come in have a talk with me. It does get boring here." He made an inviting gesture with his hands and pointed at the chair that was standing in front of his cell.

Looking back at the God and then at the chair, I pondered about his invitation. Of course it was a bad idea to do as he said. He was after all the bad guy, and I was supposed to stay as far as possible from him. But somehow I wanted to stay. Partly because I was always a fan of Loki, before I even knew about the MARVEL Loki.

When I was sure that no one was watching, I walked toward the chair and sat down. No one said anything for a while. I feel like I was in the principal's office.

"Nice cell." I started, looking around a bit. Inside I was face palming myself. Nice cell? What a stupid thing to say. "So, what's up?"

At that question Loki raised an eyebrow and looked up in confusion. I clamped a hand over my mouth and tried to contain my giggle, not believing that he actually did something like that. But then again, I think he wasn't used to Midgardian slang yet. The God of Mischief returned his gaze back to me and glared. My smirk immediately disappeared and I gripped the chair.

Loki chuckled darkly at my sudden stiffness. I felt utterly stupid now. "Do you know why you are still alive?"

I shrugged. "Dunno. Sheer luck, I guess?" I answered, but it came out more like a question.

"That's because you have a small amount of Tesseract energy inside you."

I nodded at his explanation, but then widened my eyes, realizing what he actually just revealed.

"What?!"

Ignoring my outburst, Loki continued talking. "How else do you think you did not die earlier?"

I thought about what he said. It did make a bit of sense. But why would I have Tesseract energy inside me? How did it even get inside? Still I refused to believe it. "Do you have a proof?" Wow I sounded like someone just accused me of murder and I was denying everything.

"I confirmed it few hours ago. I could feel Tesseract signature radiating from you when I healed your wounds. So little that it could not be picked up with ordinary Midgardian technology."

I stayed silent. What he just said made me feel like someone punched me in the stomach. Loki didn't heal me because he was a nice guy, but because he wanted to see whether his assumption was right or not. It made me lose a bit faith in him. And how come I was radiating Tesseract signatures? I didn't touch the cube, let alone see it with my own eyes!

Just as if Loki had read my mind, he suggested: "Perhaps you came into contact with the Tesseract when you were still an infant."

"Eh no, that can't be, because well…" How do I explain that it's not possible without having to tell him the whole truth about me? "It's actually really funny, you see, the Tesseract is actually not supposed to exist…" I finished lamely, hoping he will just drop the subject. Not so much luck with that though.

"Are you familiar with the story behind the Tesseract?" Loki asked.

I opened my mouth and then closed it again. Was I familiar with it? Well, I only know about it from the Captain America movie, but I guess it wasn't that much. So I just shook my head. The taunting smirk came back onto his face. Arms behind his back, Loki started to pace back and forth in his cell.

"Allow me to enlighten you, mortal. The Tesseract was a gift from Odin to the humans a long time ago. Why the All-Father would do such a foolish thing and give it to handful mortals is beyond me. Along with the Tesseract, a warrior was sent down to Earth to keep a watchful eye on the cube, making sure the mortals weren't abusing its power."

I didn't know why Loki was telling me the story, or why he was even willing to talk to me. But what I did know was that his voice – while telling a story – had something really relaxing in it. Soon I found that I wasn't sitting too stiffly on my chair anymore. I loosened up and waited for him to continue telling the story, but strangely he remained silent.

"And then?" I urged him on.

"You know the rest."

I stared at him in disbelief. He couldn't be serious, could he? How was I supposed to know the rest of the story? Unless he meant the hipster Norwegian hid the Tesseract in a temple and then the German stole it. Then yeah, I know the rest. Though the more I thought about the story, the more I had the feeling that something wasn't entirely right…

"What happened to that guard?" I asked. It just didn't fit. I mean, Odin even thought of a guard for the Tesseract, so why was it still taken away?

That question made Loki stop pacing around. He turned around and stared at me. "This is what I have been wondering about too." Well that makes two of us. "But perhaps he was the reason why you have Tesseract energy inside you."

Again a silence followed afterwards, which was quickly broken by my sudden outburst of laughing. This took the God of Mischief aback. Furrowing his brows in anger, he demanded me to explain to His Highness why I was laughing my ass off. Calming down, I slid down from the chair slightly and rested both hands on my belly.

With an amused smirk, I commented: "That was a good one."

Elegantly Loki raised an eyebrow.

I elaborated: "Me having met that guard."

Sure, I was forgetful sometimes but I think I would have noticed if I've ever met a two and half meter tall guy who weighed as much as an elephant, dressed in a battle armor, face covered in beard. Well, at least that's how I imagined an Asgardian guard/warrior would look like. I looked back at Loki and immediately dropped that smirk of mine. He looked truly pissed off. And somewhat offended.

I sat up straight on my chair again, looking back at the still open door, wondering if now was a good time make a dash for it and never come back.

But Loki's sudden question made me turn my head back to him. "Are you scared?"

He stared at me. My brows furrowed in confusion, not knowing how I should respond to that question.

"You don't know the answer yourself, do you?" He stated.

I wasn't listening. Was I scared? Yes. But of what exactly? Of SHIELD? Of Loki? Of what was going to happen? Scared for my life, that I might die? I don't know.

Loki continued talking. "You should be scared. For your life and for the people that are dearest to you." He paused dramatically, waiting for a some reaction from me. "Oh, I forgot. You don't have any people that are dear to you."

At that my heart started to beat a little faster.

"Only a workaholic father, who seldom visits his daughter without being able to see the face of his wife who ran away with another man."

My lips went dry. I stood up, trying to say something, but couldn't The God only continued talking: "Tell me, how does it feel to be left by the only family you have?"

It was getting hot and cold at the same time. I sucked in a deep breath of air, but realized that it was still hard for me to breath. Sweat began to form on my forehead. I gripped the chair harder, knuckles turning white.

"From the moment you were born into this world, you were alone. Don't even imagine you can gain the love of someone. You are nothing but a pathe-"

"Am I cursed?" I suddenly whispered, making Loki stop talking.

The God of Mischief looked at me questioningly. I took it as a sign to keep talking. "What am I?"

Loki furrowed his brows in confusion.

I kept talking. "The Casket wasn't the only thing you took from Jotunheim that say, was it?"

His eyes widened in realization.

"You were knee-deep in Jotun blood. Why would you take me?" I quoted "You took me for a purpose. What was it?"

Loki's face paled, something I didn't know was possible for him, since he was already so pale.

"So I am no more than another stolen relic, locked up here until you might have use for me?" The world flew out of my mouth like have known them the whole time, sounding so natural.

"Stop it." Loki demanded in a silent whisper, but I only ignored him.

"Because I am the monster parents tell their children about at night?"

His face turned into anger and pain at the same time. "I said, stop talking, mortal!"

"You know, it all makes sense now, why you favored Thor all these years, because no matter how much you claim to love me, you could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the throne of Asga-"

"SHUT UP!" the loud shouting of Loki and his banging against the glass with his fists finally made me shut my mouth. He stared at me with hatred and panted heavily.

I literally jumped up from my chair, knocking it over in the process. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. I crossed the line and now he was going to murder me in my sleep. Loki's face turned from hateful to pained, almost as if he was going to start crying soon. It wouldn't surprise me. Personally I thought that of all the people he was the most emotional one. At this moment I just wanted to be inside the cell and give him a hug. Sometimes I think all he needed was a hug. It may not say much, but at least it would make someone fell better.

I opened my mouth again to apologize, but then the whole room started to shake. I grabbed onto the nearest railing, waiting until everything had calmed down. Carefully I glanced over to Loki, who was standing safely in that glass cell. He was now wearing a triumphant smirk. A loud angry roar could be heard from far away.

We're doomed.

oOoOoOo

"Doctor? Bruce, you gotta fight it. This is just what Loki wants. We're gonna be okay. Listen to me. We're gonna be okay. Right? I swear on my life I will get you out of this, you will walk away, and never…"

"Your life?"

"Bruce!"