Voisin was a mess: tears were streaming from her eyes and she was cradling her right hand, bruised from hitting the wall over and over again in her despair. The skin was broken in some places and there were smears of blood on the wall. After Loki fixed the hole Barton had created, he must have taken an extra precautionary measure and reinforced the plaster with his magic.

Finally, after emotionally exhausting herself, she sat on the bed and hid her face behind trembling hands. Why was she doing this? Loki wasn't her concern. Or, at least, he shouldn't be.

But he had been so beautiful—and so sorry for all he had done; Loki never wanted to war with Earth. He was broken.

Voisin heard feet coming down the hallway and the sound brought an end to her thoughts. She ran to the bars in her doorway and wrapped her hands around them.

"Help me!" she called. "Take me to Loki. Please. I need to— Dr. Selvig?"

A man walked into her line of vision was wearing jeans and a plaid blue shirt. The color of his eyes matched his attire and they brought a stark quality to his pale face and appeared to darken the bags under his eyes. His hair was unkempt and he had several days' worth of stubble on his chin. In his hands was a big silver suitcase that looked heavy.

When he saw her, there was recognition in his features.

"Agent... Carolyn?" he asked, struggling to remember her name.

"Yes!" she cried happily. "It's me."

"Why aren't you fighting with Loki? That's where we're going." He lifted the metal suitcase. "We've got the Tesseract."

"Loki... forgot about me," Voisin said, desperately hoping they would just let her out. "I need to help him. Please, take me with you."

To her relief, Selvig nodded to the guards. One of the four of them stepped forward and took a small hand grenade out of his pocket. Voisin moved back immediately and went to crouch behind the cover of her bed. The explosion caused pieces of debris to go flying and a piece of sharp plaster nicked Voisin's cheek, scraping a thin line across her face as it flew by. Unbothered, she got up and was out of the room before the dust cleared.

"Thank you so much," she said to the doctor as they began walking.

"Of course. We'll need all the help we can get. But you can't go wearing that," Doctor Selvig said, motioning to her jeans and button up shirt. "Loki has weapons and outfits in the room that leads out to the helipad on top of Headquarters. We're headed that way now."


They were in a helicopter and Voisin was putting the weapons she'd borrowed from Loki's supply room into the correct pockets on her belt sewn into her catsuit. She had two guns, a knife, and a hand grenade that all found a place in the belt. Selvig was seated next to Voisin, holding the suitcase close to his chest. Voisin finished situating the weapons and then looked out of the open side of the helicopter to see Stark Tower coming nearer and nearer to them as the doctor tried explaining what his purpose with the Tesseract was.

"It's a portal," he shouted over the noise of the helicopter. "It's a portal that will bring the Chitauri from their realm to ours. The Tesseract will create a... huge hole in the sky, if you will, and two realms that should be millions upon millions of light years apart are suddenly only a few hundred feet from each other!" He was breathless with excitement. "It's incredible! The power she has... I wouldn't have thought it was possible a year ago. But she's given me insight—wisdom to see what's hidden just beneath the surface..."

Now they were hovering about twenty-five feet over a cement walkway on the side of Stark Tower that was Tony Stark's personal Iron Man landing pad. Voisin knew this from when he was late to a meeting and he flew onto the deck as a revolving robot removed the Iron Man suit from his body, making a fashionable entrance but annoying Director Fury and causing Natasha Romanov to roll her eyes.

The pilot of the helicopter was shouting at them over the loudness of the helicopter blades. "You'll need to disembark using the rope ladder!"

Voisin saw that the ladder was in a pile in the corner of the aircraft. She got up from her seat carefully and threw it out the open side.

"I'll go first," Selvig said to Voisin as he started to move toward the edge.

"Do you want me to carry the Tesseract?"

His eyes flicked to her, wide and surprised she would even suggest such a thing. "No, I'll do it," he said quickly.

Voisin tried to hide the worry from her features. "All right," she said gently. "You can, then. I don't have a problem with that."

"I'm sorry, dear," he said, seeing his error. "It's just—I've spent all of these past few days with the Tesseract; I feel responsible for her. And if something were to happen to her—it—, I'd want the blame to fall entirely upon me." His cover up was nice, but Voisin could tell that his behavior had been influenced by overexposure to the mind-controlling alien technology.

Selvig started down the ladder and already the suitcase was serving to be a hindrance. Voisin wanted him down safely, but she wanted him down now. What was Loki doing, she wondered. She shook her head at herself.

Voisin moved over to the open side of the helicopter and crouched down to spot Doctor Selvig. She looked over the edge and found the doctor had only gone down six rungs. He was struggling with the suitcase. He stepped onto the next hold but slipped and Voisin jolted forward to help him, thrusting her arm out for him to grab onto. Selvig was able to steady himself, but the agent was still uneasy. She got as close to the edge as she could—and just in time, too.

Her hand was still outstretched and Selvig grabbed it, taking the agent by surprise and pulling her over the edge. For a brief moment, there was nothing solid under Voisin and she thought she was surely going to die. But she remembered that the ladder should be on her left. Still holding onto Selvig with her right hand, she reached out for the ladder with her other. She felt something brush her fingertips and then she took hold of a rung.

But that did not mean they were saved from certain peril.

Voisin's hand was slipping and Selvig was desperately trying to put his foot in one of the spots on the ladder, but his arms were entirely useless to this effort since one of his hands was holding Voisin's and the other was clutching the suitcase.

"Doctor, you need to let go of the case!" she shouted over the noise of the helicopter.

"No!" he yelled back fiercely. "I can't do that!"

"What's going on?" the pilot called to them. Voisin could barely hear him.

"Lower the helicopter!"

"What?"

"Oh mon Dieu— Lower the helicopter!"

They descended slowly toward the curved cement path jutting out from Stark Tower. About ten feet of the ladder's length disappeared as it folded into itself when the bottom of it reached the ground.

"That's as low as I can safely go," the pilot yelled at them.

There was still a good fifteen feet of air between Voisin and the ground. "Jump, doctor!"

He looked down. He had been able to get a foothold on the ladder, but for some reason he thought that this meant he had bought them time to hang suspended in the air a good story from the closest solid structure that they could stand on. "It's too far!"

"Doctor Selvig, I cannot—" And that's when Voisin lost her grip on the ladder.

As they were falling, she caught a glimpse of Selvig holding the Tesseract to his chest. Voisin managed to land in a roll, but she went right to the edge of the cement path that was only five feet wide and nearly fell off. She gained enough momentum to roll the other way. Panting, she lay on her back for a moment, staring at the sky. Her hands were trembling and adrenaline was coursing through her veins.

Voisin sat up and looked over to Selvig who was on his back, the Tesseract still safely in his arms. The air had been knocked out of his lungs and he was wheezing as he began struggling to his feet. Voisin stood up and rolled her shoulders, making sure nothing was out of place.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Yes. I—I'm fine." He blinked and she saw his eyes did not seem as unnaturally blue as before. He looked around as if he didn't recognize where he was. Selvig's gaze found Voisin. "Carolyn?"

"Yes," she said carefully. "I'm Carolyn."

"What was I doing? What is this?" He turned to the suitcase he had set on the ground. He knelt down beside it and started walking to unlatch the container.

"No, wait!"

He stopped and turned to look at her. "What? What is it?"

"Um." This needed to happen. For Loki. It had to be done. "Nothing. I don't know."

He gave her an odd look and then seemed to shrug it off. Selvig went back to the suitcase and opened it. Voisin saw it was a glowing blue cube and she watched as Doctor Selvig's face went blank. He reached out to the thing and tendrils of the blue light ran down his arms and went to his chest, disappearing at a point that Voisin knew was where his heart sat. He blinked and his eyes were eerily blue once again. Voisin felt a moment of guilt, but it was gone as she remembered Loki. This needed to happen.

Doctor Selvig looked back at her and his gaze was chilling. "What are you doing here?" he snapped. "You need to go. You can't be around the Tesseract—she doesn't know you."

Voisin took a tentative step back. This was what she had been waiting for. This was her chance; she needed to find Loki. But still, she hesitated.

"Go! I don't need you here. I can do this on my own!"

Voisin took another step away, and then another. She tore her eyes from the doctor and ran inside of Stark Tower.

She found herself in the middle of some kind of living area. Lights turned on automatically.

"I sense human presence," a disembodied English voice said, robotic and unfeeling. Voisin froze. J.A.R.V.I.S. "Scanning for identification." Voisin cursed herself and her thoughtlessness. She should have—"Agent Carline Voisin," the computer said warmly as characteristics of human speech flowed into his tone. "Member of S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance level: seven. Welcome, agent. The last time you were in Stark Tower, you were attending a meeting conducted by Director Fury. It's been awhile. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"I—no, J.A.R.V.I.S., thank you," she said to the program with relief. "Actually... can you direct me to the first floor? I need to get out of here."

"Of course, agent. Mr. Stark's private elevator is located to your left behind the purple curtains. You may take that to the first floor and the nearest exit should be through the first pair of doors you see and to your right."

She went over to the curtains and pushed them aside quickly, revealing elevator doors. Voisin pressed a button with an arrow pointing down and the door slid open easily. She stepped inside. "Thank you," Voisin said before the doors closed.

"My pleasure, agent."

It was maybe an entire three minutes before she arrived on the ground level. The elevator opened again and Voisin rushed out. She was in a small room and another set of doors was ahead of her. She pushed past them easily and then walked out to find she was in the main lobby of Stark Tower. A woman behind a large desk looked over at her, but upon seeing the catsuit Voisin wore, she averted her eyes respectfully and resumed typing.

A giant boom shook the floor and people screamed or shouted, doubling over to maintain their center of gravity. Agent Voisin held her ground, looking outside when the shaking stopped. She ignored everyone else and ran out the huge glass double doors and looked up at the sky. A huge ray of the glowing blue Tesseract light was directed heavenward and it was tearing a hole in the sky. The blue was gone, replaced by a starry night scene that was so black it was almost purple.

What concerned Voisin was not that the atmosphere of the Earth was torn, but the black swarm that was coming out of the portal like a stream of insects. She gasped.

This must be the Chitauri army.

It was like the proverbial swarm of locusts, sent to Earth to spread famine and death. She watched them loom closer with the rest of the people on the street, but she tore her eyes from the approaching threat and looked around at the civilians. A sense of anxiety began to rise in her stomach. They were her responsibility; she was best equipped to get them to safety. God, what if she was unable to save them? What if she wasn't able to fight the aliens?

A laser gun high above Manhattan was aimed and a stream of high-power energy flew to the ground, creating a huge crack in the tar on the street and sending people screaming for cover.

Voisin's eyes focused back on the black cloud of the Chitauri. She seized up.

She was at the front of the Augustin Bank, standing in front of the teller desks, waving her arms about and yelling at the people to exit the building. The men in suits clutching their checkbooks and their fountain pens were indignant and the woman with diamond jewelry on every available appendage had their red-painted lips pursed.

"S'il vous plaît!" she shouted at a particularly stubborn gentleman,

"Pourquoi?" he puffed. "I see no danger."

"Je suis Agent Carline Voisin," she hissed, flashing her rarely-used badge. "There are three men upstairs who are being held hostage by rogue members of the spy agency. The building must be cleared."

A gunshot. The second and third followed soon after.

"Get out!" she yelled as several women screamed. Voisin looked around and saw a man on the ground, his hand on his neck as blood flowed out of the wound. She saw two other bullet holes in his chest and his button up shirt was slowly staining red.

Voisin ran over to him and pulled out her gun, standing in front of the body protectively and aiming her weapon in the direction she thought the gunman had fired from. She saw him standing over the marble railing on the second floor. His eyes met hers and he turned and ran. Voisin shot at him, but he was gone and the bullet collided uselessly into the stone wall, the impact creating a small cloud of white powder.

She turned around to the injured man and saw him struggling to breathe. Voisin knelt down beside him and touched his arm.

"Agent!" She looked up. It was the head of her department. He strode across the empty floor to the body. He looked shocked by the man lying in his own lifeblood, but it disappeared when he looked at her again. "Agent, they have your father."

Voisin was jerked out of her mind when streams of hot blue light began raining down on her and the people on the street, sending debris flying and car alarms blaring. She blinked, shaking off the cobwebs of the past, and jumped into action.

"Come on!" she yelled. She caught the arm of a frantic woman holding her purse over her head. Voisin pushed her toward the doors of Stark Tower. "Get inside!"

There was a continual zoom and revving of an engine, and an object was hurtling through the air at remarkable speeds, weaving between the tall buildings of Manhattan. The figure came nearer and she saw it was a Chitauri warrior. Soon, there were more and more of them, all flying above the streets. Some landed and began dismounting their extraterrestrial vehicles.

"Get inside!" Voisin shouted, now bordering on panic.

"What are those things?" a man running toward her asked.

"I don't know. Just find cover—get off the streets. You'll be better off if you do," she said, putting her hand on his back and directing him into Stark Tower.

Others were not as inclined to get to safety. They had their phones out and were filming the aliens. One of the Chitauri noticed this and aimed its gun at a man and blasted him fifty yards backward into a sizzling pile of broken bones and burning flesh to give the people with recording devices a proper show. Everyone screamed and ran while the alien warrior just laughed.

Voisin's eyes fell on a Chitauri that was making its way toward a car that had flipped over on its side. It was a small white car, and in it was a family that was frantically trying to escape, but couldn't get out. The agent pulled out her gun and fired at the alien. Its head snapped around to look at her and Voisin froze.

This was the first time she had really seen one of them in all of their glory. Back in Loki's council room, they had all been sitting behind desks or crouched on top of tables. Standing, this one was maybe over six and a half feet. Its face was skeletal and toothy, wearing a sinister grin that Voisin desperately wished she wasn't on the receiving end of right now. Its armor was scarce, but where the pieces of golden metal did not reach, Voisin saw a hard-looking exoskeleton that both fascinated and terrified her—mostly terrified, but that was neither here nor there at the moment.

The thing began approaching her and then, in a flash of red, white, and blue, it was toppled over and its gun flew out of its arms and slid over to Voisin. She picked up the heavy weapon and looked around and saw Steve Rogers—or rather, Captain America at this point in time. His shield flew black to him and he caught it on his arm out of the air. She gave him an appreciative look and he nodded, turning back to fighting off a group of maybe seven or more of the aliens.

The gun in her hands was shaped like a large assault rifle, but was much bigger and glowing with the alien technology. At the end was a sharp blade, like a bayonet, but the sharpened metal was intricately shaped and looked freshly polished.

Voisin looked up and saw that other Chitauri were drawing near. It couldn't be too difficult—all guns had the same basic operation system. She aimed the weapon and pulled the trigger. The kick was powerful enough to make Voisin take a step back and she knew that after a few more shots from this thing and she'd have a terribly bruised right shoulder in the morning.

Her aim had been off, but she'd nicked an alien in the side and he was raising his weapon to reciprocate the fire. Voisin fired again and the warrior flew backward. When it reached the ground, it gave a final twitch and stopped moving altogether.

Voisin ran and crouched behind an abandoned car and began shooting at the others who were advancing. There were four now. One of them sent a stream of energy her way and she ducked under the cover of the vehicle and it rocked back slightly when the deadly blast hit it. Voisin stood up quickly, aiming and firing in one smooth motion.

Three to go.

She crouched behind the car again as another shot was fired from the Chitauri. As she was turned around and went into a crouch, she saw that another one was coming near from the opposite direction and she shot it down easily. The Chitauri on the other side of the car fired again and it went through the windows of the car, shattering glass and sending shards of it flying all around. Voisin shook the pieces out of her hair and then raised her weapon. She rested the gun in the broken windows and began shooting at them again rapidly in a steady stream of short but continuous energy blasts. When she took her finger off the trigger, not a single one was standing.

Voisin looked around. The only aliens she saw were zooming around in the sky now. She stood up and ran past the felled soldiers and went to the flipped car that had the people inside. Through the windshield, she saw a man and woman in the front seats, and past them she saw a tipped car seat with a child still buckled into it in the back.

Nimbly, Voisin climbed onto the car and pulled on the door handle. It took all of her strength to get the door unlatched. She threw it open and helped the man climb out and then his wife. Voisin opened the back door and jumped inside, unbuckling the girl from her car seat. Voisin pulled herself up onto the outer side of the car again and lifted the girl up out of the wreckage.

"Anna?" the mother asked hysterically. "Anna, baby, are you all right?"

Voisin held her down to the father who took the girl in his arms. "Get to a shelter. Hide someplace safe," Voisin advised once they were reunited. The parents nodded, grateful, and went into Stark Tower where a door was being held open and others were beckoning them inside.

Voisin, still standing on top of the car, looked around. The streets had cleared out quickly. She looked back to the end of the block where she'd seen the Captain fighting, but he was gone, too.

And then, a high-pitched scream rang through the empty streets. Voisin jumped down from her perch and ran toward the sound. Around the corner, a group of six Chitauri were pushing a woman into an already crowded bank where people inside were trying to keep the doors closed to them.

"Hey!" Voisin called loudly. The struggle stopped as all eyes fell on her. Behind her, a piece of rubble shifted and Voisin twisted around and jumped away, avoiding the sneak attack. Another Chitauri was standing behind her and made a leap at her.

She rolled out of the way and the creature was too large to control his movements in midair. Before it hit the ground, Voisin was crouched and had her firing pistol in her hand and aimed at its unarmored stomach. She shot at it and black blood spurted out of the hole, spattering her face and getting in her hair. Voisin spit out what had gotten in her mouth and moved to where it was on the ground hissing at her in pain.

In a flash, it discarded its ruse of being hurt and stood up, but Agent Voisin was quick to react. The bladed end of the Chitauri's gun caught her left shoulder as she jumped away and she stumbled backward, clutching at her wounded arm as blood gushed from between her fingers. Voisin, all mercy lost, raised her own gun at it steadily and shot the thing right between its dark eyes.

Instead of dying immediately, it howled in anguish. The others at the entrance to the bank shoved the woman aside and began sprinting toward Voisin who dodged energy blasts and rolled behind an empty taxi as she ignored the sting in her arm.

She had only seconds to think. There were five of them now, maybe six if the one she had injured could fight. She had two knives, two guns, and a hand grenade. Voisin pulled the grenade out of its pocket on her belt just as the chitauri came around to where she was kneeling behind the car. She ripped out the pin and dropped it were they were standing. She fell flat on her stomach, pulling herself under the cab and coming out on the other side. She started to get up to run, but the grenade exploded and threw the car over her head, clearing her entirely and flipping it in a complete circle before it landed on its remaining three tires.

Voisin felt flames lick at her back and her arms and legs. Then the heat dissipated and all that was left was burning pieces of tires and several Chitauri bodies strewn around on the concrete. She rose on her feet and could smell burning rubber and her singed hair. Her right calf was screaming at her for attention and Voisin looked around to find that part of her catsuit had burned away and shiny red flesh was showing through the hole.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the door to the bank was still cracked open. A man's head was poking out and was watching her intently until his eyes widened and he pointed at her. "Behind you!"

But it was too late and a sharp blade was sinking into her back, just missing her spinal cord, but certainly puncturing several internal organs and coming out of the front of her body. Voisin watched the tip of the sharp weapon peek out of her stomach in a detached wonderment. Was that really her blood on the glinting silver? It almost seemed like the blade would never stop moving outward, but then it started to retract. The pain began once the weapon left her body and it was excruciating.

Her hands desperately tried to staunch the wound, but the blood flow was too heavy and too dark. This was different from the cut in her arm. This was fatal. The ground met her knees roughly and the jolt made her gasp as pain shot through her entire body, causing her mind to go momentarily blank.

The Chitauri who had stabbed her came around to her front. This one was wearing a large helmet on his head that she'd seen on none of the others. Wait—no... that face.

"Ah, it is the liar's plaything." Kleiser. "A pity your wound is so large; you may have been a useful asset when controlling the so-called god."

Voisin sneered up at him and spat in the dirt at his feet. It caught her off guard to see it was a mix of saliva and blood.

Kleiser threw back his head in laughter and it was a dark, twisted sound. "I will allow you your final act of defiance, human. I would end you, but it seems you have only very little time left." He put his foot on Voisin's chest and pushed her to the ground. She screamed in pain, nearly drowning out the sound of his laughter as the leader of the Chitauri walked to an abandoned alien vehicle and rose into the sky then zoomed away.

Voisin was breathing heavily in an effort to remain conscious. She struggled to sit up. Voisin saw the door of the bank open again.

"No!" she shouted at them, her voice breaking from the exhaustion that swept over her. "Stay inside."

The man who had tried to warn her about Kleiser was so daring as to completely remove himself from the safety the building provided and Voisin practically roared, "No!" He froze. "Get back," she panted. "You will not risk your life for the sake of mine, or so help me, I will kill you myself." She pulled her second gun out of its holster for effect, cocking the weapon threateningly. The man went back into the bank. She let the gun drop to her side.

Voisin began crawling to the cab again. She was really just dragging herself along the street, though, pulling herself through rubble and dust and leaving a dark red trail as she did. She was spitting up blood now, choking on the hot liquid every time she had to breathe. Blinking away dark spots from her vision, she positioned herself against the taxi.

This was the end. Elle temps de mourir.

Voisin was so tired. She just hoped that Loki would be all right. Maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. would forgive her. Maybe Loki would suffer through his punishment from Fury and be able to return to Asgard. And maybe, just maybe, he would strive for goodness and accept love from his family that he always thought was missing.

Vaguely, she heard the crunching of plaster and crushed cement under the soles of boots. Voisin closed her eyes and let her head fall to the side. Whatever was going to happen next was no longer her concern. She was going to be dead soon.

A cool hand with long fingers touched her cheek with startling tenderness and she stirred. Who was doing that? Her eyes opened a fraction and she saw the telltale emerald green cape and shiny gold breastplate. Of course. Who else could it have been?

"Carline?"

"Loki?" Her voice was thick with blood and she coughed. Droplets flew out of her mouth and she winced in pain. She tried to wipe the blood from her lips, but it just smeared across the back of her hand.

His voice was surprisingly soft. "I thought you dead."

"You should be fighting. Go," she said, "win your war."

"I am too tired," he said. Something in his tone made her want to reach out and touch his face, but she was too weak. Loki knelt down beside her. "Let me heal you."

As he was reaching out, Voisin felt a gust of wind on her face and Loki was flying backward and crashed into a building. Her eyes couldn't follow him as fast as he was going, but when Loki came to a stop, she saw that Mjölnir—Thor's hammer—was resting on top of Loki, rendering him immobile. "Did he harm you?"

Voisin looked up and Thor was standing in front of her, watching his brother intently. "No," she said, her voice fading. "No, I—" But he stopped listening and his red cape billowed out behind him as he made his way to Loki.

"Thor," Loki said quickly, trying to lift the hammer off his body. "Please, let me up. I can heal her."

"Enough of your games, brother," Thor said, his voice full of venom.

As he stopped in front of Loki, other Avengers assembled behind him. Iron Man landed beside the God of Thunder, and next to Iron Man was Captain America. The Black Widow jumped out of the sky from seemingly nowhere and Hawk Eye followed soon after. Crumbling cement and the quaking steps of a giant told Voisin that the Hulk was probably not far behind.

"Remove this from me," Loki hissed. "I need to go to her." The superheroes were blocking Voisin's view of him.

"To whom?" Thor asked. "The mortal?" He sounded confused.

"Yes," Loki shouted, frustrated. Her vision was starting to blur and her breathing was slowing down. "Thor, curse you, let me up! I demand you release me so that I may heal her!"

Before anything else happened, Voisin found that she could hold on no longer and so then gave in to the blackness that swaddled her into unconsciousness like a tender mother.


This is where the alternative ending comes into play (obviously). Also, sorry if I got any details about the movie wrong!

Reviews are always welcome!