Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers. The Avengers belong to its respective owners. I just own my OC. Writing for fun and not for profit.

Chapter 10: Thunder and Lightning

It was not fair.

Everything was gone.

Everything she has ever worked for, everything she hoped to gain for the betterment of others was gone. She couldn't contact the Hellicarrier. Loki took out her earpiece, and her weapons were gone.

She could barely breathe. She was alive, no doubt, but everything hurt in her heart and soul.

All she wanted to do was to help. She wanted to help bring the Avengers together. The minute she was pulled away from her assignment and heard she was going to train and work her way up to a level seven agent, she could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, like she really did matter, like she really could be somebody at S.H.I.E.L.D. and not just an agent who worked in the background. She wanted to be apart of something great. She didn't know why she felt that way. She just did. Maybe it was her mother's wishes of her to become something extraordinary? Her mother always had high hopes for her daughter's potential success in the world. Maybe not in the way she thought with S.H.I.E.L.D. but something amazing. Zoe just had this inkling for as long as she could remember that she was born to do something great. It sounded silly, but Zoe always believed in it.

When S.H.I.E.L.D. first offered her the job, a place where she didn't have to feel so lost anymore, she fell in love with the technology, the people, and asked so many questions because she was genuinely interested to protect her world, her home, from strange creatures. When she found her mother dead, it wasn't like anything she'd ever seen before in her life. It wasn't a natural murder. And when she learned that her father worked as a double agent, and actually wanted to get better before she accidentally killed him. Zoe frowned at the thought as the feeling of guilt penetrated her heart. She still hadn't gotten over that. She wanted to be like him, well, not exactly like him, but she wanted to be a good agent at S.H.I.E.L.D.

She let out a defeated sigh.

Now here she was, lying in the grass and dirt, covered in sweat, grime, and tiny incisions dotted along her face no thanks to the glass shards that she crashed into. Her head hurt like an anvil hit on her head and she was seriously wishing for some painkillers right now.

All thanks to Loki. All this pain, this wave of exhaustion riding through her, as if she was loosing the will to fight, to feel…was this what it felt like to loose? Zoe frowned. She didn't like it. And it made her think about what Loki said to her about being a burden to her family at S.H.I.E.L.D. maybe she was. She tried to help but trying just didn't seem like enough.

It made her question why Director Fury even asked her to be apart of S.H.I.E.L.D. The only thing she was good at was acting. She couldn't stop Loki. She might have saved Fury's life, but that could've ended a lot worse because she knew Barton was one of the top shooters, so how on Earth could he miss her heart?

Did that mean he was still in there somewhere? A small slither of hope started to crawl its way into Zoe's heart the more she thought about it. Or did he mean just to injure him so that he could take the Tesseract and get away?

She chewed her bottom lip.

She remembered the exact moment she got the call from Agent Coulson to come in and help him put together a remarkable team of people with incredible abilities to help the world fight things that normal people like her could not do.

She didn't have super strength, she couldn't smash things into smithereens, she couldn't fly, and she couldn't have enhanced abilities like the Black Widow. She was just human with the strange craving to help save the world, to stop Hydra once and for all. And now to stop Loki and his army of aliens from getting through.

But how were they going to do that when they were stuck out here?

Zoe let out a groan, and coughed, feeling the heavy weight of defeat weigh in on her shoulders. Loki had arrived through that portal with rage and fire in his eyes, like he was ready to kill. He killed good men she worked with. She tried to stop him from further damage like taking Agent Barton and Dr. Selvig. And he divided the team.

All for what?

What was Loki trying to prove? Or did he just want rage over the world? Did he really mean to rule it?

Zoe shivered at the crazy thought as it drifted across her tired and hazy mind. She would rather die than to have someone like Loki, God of Mischief rule her. Over her dead body for sure. And others would despair. God of Mischief was an understatement.

And she let him escape with the Tesseract. Maybe she should've let Fury get shot? Then maybe she could've stopped Agent Barton from taking the Tesseract. Zoe tried to think of a million different scenarios as to what could and could've happened but every time one would cross her mind, she would see Loki taking the blue cube away from S.H.I.E.L.D.

Zoe frowned. "This is my fault," she realized out loud, now resting her body half-way up from the ground on her forearms. Her brown waterfall of hair covered her face. "This is all my fault," she repeated frantically. "Barton turning against us, a-and Loki taking everything from us. I'm so stupid," she whispered. "For thinking that this could ever work, if I hadn't pushed Coulson with the idea that this was awesome. That he could meet Captain America and things would be better," she fretted, worry creasing her brows. She whipped the sweat off her forehead and winced at the burning feelings in her soul.

"Do not blame yourself for Son of Coul's passing," Thor said gently.

Zoe suddenly looked up, and pushed her hair out of her eyes to see the God of Thunder, kneeling beside her. When she looked up into his kind eyes, they were suddenly filled with sorrow, and that made her frown. Even though the sun's glowing rays made his dirty blonde hair look like a halo around his kind features, he still had a barrier of sadness wrapped around him. "That rests on Loki's shoulders. Not yours."

She turned to sit up, and sit cross-legged in the grass, staring at him. They stared at one another in silence. She looked around her beautiful surroundings, an empty field with the skies still blue.

"But you do," Zoe said, noting the dull tone of voice he bared. Thor may be there to try to win her heart over heroism, but she had one thing going about her. She could usually play off emotions of other people quite well, and Thor simply wasn't. "Why?"

She looked at him curiously. Thor looked up at the skies, thoughts drifting across his mind back to his brother and everything they'd done together in the past.

She only remembered the brief summary of how Thor got caught up with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s business. They tried to keep him at bay, but he escaped and met up with a woman named Jane Foster, who was a scientist, studying space and all that scientific-y stuff that Zoe was not well equipped in.

Thor came to Earth last year in New Mexico. It was probably S.H.I.E.L.D's kick-start to the whole mass destruction thing because Loki had sent the Destroyer to destroy Earth. This rage of Loki's was a long time coming, but how could Zoe have known he was going to come back?

She didn't. But S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted to be prepared for something in case he did or something else did. She was eager to help Agent Coulson start the Avengers Initiative and gather all information about upcoming creatures such as Iron Man. Captain America, the first avenger. She would gather the info, he and other agents like Romanoff would see if they held potential to join the team. Zoe was pretty bummed that Iron Man ruled out when she read his evaluation packet taken by Romanoff. Still, she wanted to find them, and create this team with Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D. because she believed in heroes. That was something she and Coulson always had in common. Agent Hill wanted to help her become a good agent so that she could be apart of something great. Hill was the only one who really believed in her, and helped her get this far…

Now it was torn apart.

"He was a friend," Thor replied. He stood up from the ground and walked over to the hammer resting upward with the handle in the air. Thor's hand lingered toward the handle, and Zoe watched with apprehension, but nothing happened. "Perhaps Gods like me have no luxury of friends."

Zoe's frown deepened. Well, we couldn't have that now could we? She thought, and pulled herself up from the ground. She dusted herself off, and straightened her tight uniform up so it wasn't askew anymore.

"Everyone has the luxury of friends," she said. "Even Gods."

"Then why do I feel this way, Zoe?" Thor looked at her with tired sadness in his eyes, and her heart twinged. She furrowed her brows at him and all she wanted to do was give him a much needed hug.

True. He was God of Thunder for crying out loud! He was strong just as he was mighty, and fierce, and he seriously kicked ass with Mjolner. She saw the footage when he defeated the Destroyer in New Mexico and only wished she could be apart of it. That was when she decided it would be so cool to work with creatures like Thor. She worked hard to get to where she was today.

But the loss of Agent Phil Coulson still rested within their souls and Loki was still out there. Thor was going to have to face him at some point in time. Perhaps Thor was having trouble weighing that down on his shoulders to balance the scales of goodness that he wished was still in Loki's heart, but Zoe remembered those emerald eyes filled with fiery rage.

There was no hope in his soul.

"That just means you have a heart," Zoe said, as a smile found its way on her face. She walked closer to him, tentatively, and cleared her throat. Thor watched her with the utmost curiosity as she took her two index fingers to outline a heart across his silver armor on his chest. "Something Loki lacks. You are God of Thunder, Protector of Earth, and you have a good soul. And if I know Coulson like I used to, he wouldn't want to you to think this way, right?" she swallowed hard as if she was talking about him like he was still here.

Thor looked down at her slender and tiny frame of an hourglass shape physique. Where did she find the courage to keep going? Even though she'd gone through a rickety past, she still had a big heart, more than what she pretends to show. She obviously had something going for her. Hope? Faith? Whatever it was, he liked it on her, it looked good.

She looked up at him. "I know it isn't going to be easy," she said. "Fighting your brother, but Loki isn't your brother anymore, Thor. When I saw no love in my father's eyes, and he came after me, I knew he was over." Zoe gulped. "I didn't mean to kill him, but he just wasn't," she sighed. "He wasn't…"

"Your father," Thor finished for her.

She licked her lips and nodded slowly.

They both felt it then. The sense of familiarity. She could understand how he felt right now, and now he realized what he had to do, not that he wanted to do it, but she was right, Loki needed some common sense knocked into him. Thor was going to give it his last shot to try and bring his brother back, and to try to stop his army from taking over Earth.

"Will you fight with me, Daughter of Sawyer?" Thor asked. "Will you avenge Son of Coul and put an end to Loki's madness?"

Zoe smiled up at him thoughtfully and shrugged. "I'm not an avenger."

"Perhaps not, but I am sure Son of Coul wouldn't mind if you helped a little," Thor said, as a roguish grin appeared on his face.

"Well," she said, crossing her arms over her chest, as she stood in front of him with a determined glint in her eyes. If they were going down, might as well go down swinging together. "Loki does owe me a weapon."

Thor's grin widened at her and he reached for Mjolner, wrapped his hand around the handle and suddenly felt the magic and power splutter to life within his soul and strength returning back to life.

He raised his hammer high in the sky. Zoe ducked a bit, covering her head with her hands as the sky filled with lightning and thunder. Her heart sparked at the same time, and she felt even more determined to go after Loki.

The God of Thunder was back.