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Let Her Go

"You'll have to forgive me," I said when I found my voice again. "But I'm positive I saw you die."

Coulson had quickly lead me to the small plane they had arrived with and we were currently boarding. He had been accompanied by two of his team members, a large dark skinned man and a shorter woman who looked like you better not crossed her.

The engines roared and Coulson smirked at me. "Sometimes our eyes deceive us."

"Mine rarely do," I said.
There had been no escaping. No one survived being speared with a metal scepter, much less when it was magical and wielded by a Norse God.
Coulson had died. I remembered screaming, I remembered his body sacking and I remembered the self-satisfied expression on Loki's face. There had been no life left in him.

"Mine either," he said. "Which is lucky, because that's how we found you."

I raised an eyebrow. That had probably less to do with his eaglelike eyes and more with S.H.I.E.L.D's technology.
More than anything else, this was a change of topic that I did not appreciate. If someone came back from the dead, that was not easily swept under the rug.
Unfortunately, I also knew a lost cause when I saw one. Coulson would not give me the answers I wanted, so my best shot was to get to Tony as quickly as I could and hope that he had answers for me.

"I thought that would be Fury's job," I said. "I hear his eye is excellent at observing."

The woman scoffed and pushed past me towards the cockpit. "Fury's dead," she said.

My gaze followed her until she was out of sight and I turned back to Coulson. "He's dead?"

He squared his shoulders. "Yes."
He was lying. It was just the twitch of his eyelid and the slight throbbing of the arteries in his neck, but he was definitely lying.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "That's so tragic," I said. "How did it happen?"

He huffed. "You're like your brother."

"Which one?" I asked despite knowing who he meant. No one ever compared me to Thor.
"Never mind," I said when he faltered. "I know you'd never compare me to the murderous one." His expression shifted from gently amused to hardened by anger. I shrugged. "Though he clearly didn't succeed, so I figure we're all good."

Coulson's expression evened out and I thought about telling him that now he reminded me of Loki. I did not. He had not made me that angry yet.
A jolt went through the plane and it set into motion. My fingers reached for the nearest stack. My stomach clenched just slightly - I did not quite trust the Midgarian technology.

"I appreciate the rescue, though," I said as the plane rose into the air. The floor shook my fingers clenched tighter for fear of losing my balance.

Coulson nodded. "We watched the Avengers Tower," he said. "And Dr. Selvig's lab in Norway. We never thought you'd come out in the middle of Mexico City."

"It was a gamble," I said. "Our systems aren't as reliable as they used to be."

If he was not inclined to share, then I would not either. It was none of his business that Loki had taken over Asgard's throne or that he had replaced Heimdall as gatekeeper with some feckless nobody.

"I'm actually hoping to meet with Mr Stark," I said.

Coulson shifted his stance and looked out of one of the small windows. I did not want to know how high up we were. "Stark is in Vienna today," he said. "That is a long flight away-"

"I know where Vienna is, thank you very much."
A year of travelling through Europe did not go by without a basic concept of geography. I also knew where Mexico was; I understood the kind of distance that this meant.
"But if you can just drop me of in New York-"

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," Coulson said.

I raised an eyebrow. What he meant was that he did not want to let me go. Fury might not be in charge anymore - alive or not, I did not know what to make of it yet - but S.H.I.E.L.D had not changed a bit.

"Until we can make contact with Mr Stark, we could well use your assistance."

I hummed in response. I had not come here to help S.H.I.E.L.D; indeed, after the last contact I had with them, I never wanted to help S.H.I.E.L.D again.
Besides, it could not be hard to get in contact with Tony. The man deviced new forms of communication in his sleep. No, if Coulson pretended not to be able to reach him, he had to have his reasons.

We had reached our intended height and had held it for several minutes when Coulson's female team member exited the cockpit again. Without even once looking at me, she handed Coulson her phone.

"They found Daisy," she said.

Coulson inspected the phone and swiped several times. He exchanged a tense look with his agent and then strode over to me. He swayed slightly in his step because the plane juddered in that very moment. My grip tightened around the stack again.

"Here," he said and held the phone in my direction.

On the screen played the stride of two blue-skinned creatures across a very Midgardian street. "Are those Kree?" I asked.

The woman groaned, but Coulson triumphed. "Told you," he said to her.

She huffed. "Tell us what you know!"

My eyebrows shot up at her commanding tone. The magic tingled in my fingertips. Maybe she should learn what it meant to meet the Queen of Asgard.

"What Agent May meant to say," Coulson said and shot a warning look in his agent's direction. "Is if you would please help us?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Why?" I asked. "Why are there Kree on Midgard?"

"They have been frozen in space," Agent May said.

"Of course," I mocked.

She blinked in confusion. "They came crashing down in a spaceship-"

"Oh, I believe you," I said.
There were very few things that I was not inclined believe anymore. I swiped across the screen myself and found more pictures of the Kree; on each, they looked more fierce and aggressive.

"What can you tell us?" Coulson asked.

I shook my head. "Absolutely nothing," I said. "We haven't made the contact with the Kree since I've been alive. To me, they are only stories."

"And how do you fight them in stories?" Agent May asked.

I scoffed. "You don't. You just die."

She rolled her eyes. "Aren't you a joy."

I shrugged. If there was a fight with the Kree, I was going to stay far away from it. I was not sure if they would be able to handle it alone - but I trusted Coulson to at least keep the matter quiet and out of sight. He obviously had excellent survival skills, so he would undoubtedly get this situation under control.

The longer the plane was in the air, the more my orientation suffered. By the time we landed on S.H.I.E.L.D's base in the middle of nowhere, I had no idea if I should go north or south or east or west to find Tony. Which rendered my plan to just teleport completely useless - that kind of magic only worked with very precise directions.

Coulson's agents were in the air again the moment we hid the ground; those Kree did not dispose of themselves. Coulson himself lead me into his base, through thick barricaded doors and industrial hallways until we got to his office where the Kree-stricken streets played on large screens.

Coulson pushed me inside, gestured to the two people in coats that waited ("Fitz," he said and, "Simmons", and I had to figure out myself who was who) and disappeared again. If I waited long enough, I might see him on the screen again.

"Hi," the woman offered and extended her hand to me. "I'm Jemma." She pulled the hand back again and frowned at herself. "Do I have to curtsy?"

"No, you're good."

She nodded very seriously, as if she had truly expected I would say yes. "This is Fitz," she waved at her coworker, who awkwardly waved back at me.

I did not offer them my name; they had probably been told the stories, anyway. Instead, I looked back at the screen, where on of the Kree was again marching between generic buildings.

"We think they're only here to kill Hive," the woman told me.

I knew I would regret it the moment the question was out, but I could not help myself. "What in the Norns' name is a hive?"

Immediately, I got told what felt like a whole life story, including several times of travelling through a portal between realms, genetic experiments and rather disturbing form of mind control. All of it had only taken place in the past six months; I already felt a headache coming.

One of the Kree flew from right to left across the screen. All our heads turned to follow the movement. A young woman had sent the creature flying and was panting now, hands outstretched.

"Oh," Jemma groaned. "Daisy..."

"That was impressive," I said. "Is she a magician?"

The man scoffed and Jemma elbowed him in the side. "We, uh, we don't believe in magic," she said. "We're scientists."

I raised an eyebrow. "So?"

"So?" the man demanded. "So, we deal with facts, with provable rules and correlations-"

I smiled. Midgardians and their limited mind. Magic was science, and just because it was a power they could not tap into, that did not mean that there were no rules or correlations. Or facts. My magic was a fact.

"You see magic," I said and gestured to the screen. "Every day, and yet you still don't believe in it."

"That is - that's not-"

"Fitz!" Jemma shushed. "She's right."

I chuckled. "Of course I'm right," I said. "And be glad, cause without it, you'd be lost. Your little human weapons won't do a thing against the Kree. Her magic on the other hand..."

"Is still human," Fitz grumbled. "Because she's human."

"Sure," I said. "Human magic."

He grumbled and I smiled brightly at him. He was probably afraid; I had met such people all my life. Years ago, I had strived to win such people's trust and admiration - but that did not matter to me anymore. I had been reproached, banished, sent to the dungeons for being a witch, but I could not change who I was and I did not want to, either. Should other people worry about being popular.

"I hate aliens," he spat. If he hoped that it would sting, he was disappointed.

"Fitz!" Jemma protested, but he jumped up from his seat and strut out of the room. The woman turned back to me. "I'm very sorry," she said, then she hurried after him.

She did not need to be sorry. Their departure meant that I was left alone and nothing could have been better. While Kree and human sorcerers were still fighting on the screen, I tip-toed around Coulson's office, hoping for clues. At least I needed directions to the nearest city, anywhere that had maps.
There was nothing to be found, though - whether Coulson did not care to make notes or was paranoid enough to expect just what I was doing, I did not know.

My stomach was clenching. I did not want to be here, and who knew how long Coulson planned to keep me?
In my frustration, I pressed a few random keys on the keyboard of his computer. The scene on the screens suddenly changed. It was not their magician anymore, but rather the inside of their base, long hallways and labs, and - another one of their airplanes.

In retrospect, I did not know why I thought it was a good idea. I had never flown a plane. I had no sense of orientation whatsoever. I did not know how to get the machine above ground.
I could not help myself.

I traipsed across the hallways and waved my hands at the cameras so they would not see me; I imagined Coulson had quick means to stop me if only he noticed.

The ramp of the plane descended at another gesture. My heart beat heavily, but my feet carried me forward, anyway. Maybe flying this thing would be just as easy. I only needed to reach the next town, anyway.
My steps echoed on the cold metal of the plane's interior.

"And where do you think you're going?"

I froze in my steps. "I had the impression Coulson took you with him."

Given the few things I knew now about Coulson and his team, I also thought that they desperately needed Agent May in their fight against the Kree. It seemed almost ridiculous that he would have left her for me.

"I don't trust you," she said.

I pulled a face. "I can't fault you."

When I turned around, she leant against the wall, right where I had stood earlier that day. "You're not leaving," she said.

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Listen here," I said. "I don't want to fight, not with you, not with Coulson. But I'm not staying. I want to go see Tony Stark, and I will."

"We told you he isn't in New York-"

"So?" I asked. "I'll wait for him. Your human days mean nothing to me."

It was not entirely true: if anything, my family was known to be impatient. Agent May did not know that, though. For the first time, I saw some of the awe in her gaze that I knew from other Midgardians. Where I usually said, we are not Gods, this was the kind of time when I bathed in such words.

"Coulson will kill me," she ground out between her teeth. "I'll get you to Avengers HQ."
My mouth opened in surprise; that was a lot better than I had hoped for.
"But you don't get fly. We still need this plane."

It was probably for the better.

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