"Unclear authentication. Access denied," a robot tone informed bluntly and the same message appeared on a small screen of a retinal scanner. It was the second try and the third failed one would seal off the section they were in.
Loki clenched his jaw and drew back from the scanner, cold dismay on his face. "Damn!" he murmured gravely upset, unbelieving that they journey had stalled now, when they had gotten already so close.
They had moved in with extreme caution, his illusions smoothening their way. Only once they had taken down a few guards who had become too suspicious about them, but no lives were taken.
Thor's confusion turned into a harsh frown. "What? No, no! Do not tell me you cannot fool their security system?" He watched at his brother in the fake form, that silence of Loki beginning to bother him. His hand clasped Loki's forearm as though pulling him back on Earth from the doubts of his mind. "Loki? You can do this."
Loki shook his head, finding it impossible that the mortals had crafted a system he couldn't break. Was it the lack of his skills or was his mind so occupied with the thought of leaving Emma surviving on her own, that he couldn't pull it through? Maybe it simply was that the system couldn't be fooled by magic. "One more failed attempt, and their system would lock us in," he reasoned, they both speaking nearly in whispering volume.
They stood before thick armored doors, on the bottom floor of the facilities, in the most secured section of the base. Only a couple of more doors between them and the object they desired.
Patience wasn't Thor's virtue. He squeezed the mobile phone/Mjölnir in his palm, giving it and the doors a glance. "Maybe I should give it a try," he said, lifting his weapon for a hit.
Loki stopped his brother, his hand on Thor's shoulder. "No, don't! You will..."
He hadn't even finished his sentence when the doors were sealed with a door coming down from the ceiling. Behind them, another set of doors closed them on the blocked end of the long hallway. They both turned around, finding themselves trapped just as Loki had feared. Immediately the space was beginning to fill with misty gas.
"Just brilliant!" Loki grunted staring down at his feet at the smoke-like gas that was rising fast. "Now they know we are here!"
Thor juggled with his mobile/hammer. "Then there is no point of hiding anymore," he pondered aloud and the brothers exchanged significant glances.
Thor called out for the powers of his hammer, the electric-blue sparkles turning him back to his own self, while Loki's appearance returned with the smooth glimmering wave of his green and gold.
The gas kept coming until the whole place was filled with it from top to bottom and that happened rather quickly. They watched at the gas around them, pondering what was the purpose of it, since that seemed to have no effect on either of them.
Thor raised a brow, holding on his hammer and Loki only nodded, offering the door to him and stepping out of the way. "Go ahead and smash. It's all yours, brother."
Thor grinned a lifted his hammer. Finally some action.
Next thing the ventilation turned on, sucking the gas out from the space. And noises, coming from the closed doors in the middle of the hallway behind them, drew their attention. Someone was coming at their way and they both prepared for a fight, Loki summoning his last throwing knife in hand.
"Remember, no killing!" Thor reminded.
They were expecting that army they had seen on their way down there but when the doors opened, they didn't see the hallway full of agents armed to the teeth. No. They saw only one person standing, a woman. And that was agent Romanoff, being slightly out of breath as if she'd been jogging a mile. Or, she looked like her, her pistol extended towards them. Next to her on the floor against the wall sat Fury, unconscious, his head drooping.
"Ah… Natasha?" Thor said the name with a cautiously warning tone. "We wish no to harm you."
Loki conjured his knife away, gaping at her in a bit of a shock, recognizing his own illusion when he saw it. "Emma?" he sighed in a disbelieving voice, waving his hand towards her and stripping her fake form, the golden glimmering wave revealing her true appearance. If almost felt like his concern of her welfare had brought her there, but he wasn't overjoyed of seeing her at the moment. She being there would spoil everything!
"Emma?" Thor echoed, looking as much puzzled as Loki was, and suddenly worried. "What has happened? Where… where is Jane?"
She shrugged ignorantly, holding the gun with both hands, aiming at them. "Jane went on a date with my dad. She couldn't resist his bestial charm. Sorry, buddy, but I don't think she's getting back with you anymore."
Thor dropped his hammer and his jaw. "W-what? Oh… you were making a jest? She is safe, right?"
Loki's face filled with sincere wonder and uneasiness for her unexpected showing up. She shouldn't have been there. She should have been flying away from the place. He couldn't think up any reason good enough for her to risk her life by coming after him into the SHIELD's fortress, but there had to be one, a really good one, and he could tell she was messing around with Thor. "Emma, what happened? What are you doing here?" he asked with growing concern, taking a few steps closer to her. "You should no be here."
Thor glanced quickly at the director, having an idea. "She brought Fury. Maybe we could…"
Emma fired the gun and it barked surprisingly loudly inside the long concrete hallway. The bullet struck the steel door behind the Asgardians on the level of their heads, rebound on Thor's back and then dropped on the floor. It was enough to stop Loki on his tracks and all still as if he would have suddenly turned into a statue, leaving him utterly confused. He could tell Emma was seriously beside herself. But for what?
Thor flinched with the minor pinch in his back. "Hey! What is the matter with you? It is us!"
"No one touches Fury!" she declared but looked visibly shaken by firing the gun at them, sorry molding her expression, her hands trembling. "Sorry. My hands are still shaking. It seems I can't control it." She heaved a troubled sigh, and lowered the gun slowly, having no idea what she was doing. She gave them a short, messy summary how she had ended up in the building.
While getting down there, she had mulled it over and over in her head, reasoning things to herself and her unconscious captive. She had dragged Fury with her like a human key card, he involuntarily granting her access to the top secured levels. The effect of the sedatives had cleared off but her head didn't feel any clearer, as she stood now in front of the Asgardians.
"I got another job offer just now. One of those once-in-a-lifetime-opportunities, you know," she said, absent-minded and nodded towards the sleeping director Fury with a helpless smirk. "I'm not sure yet. We're still discussing about the terms and stuff with the boss here." She stared at Loki accusingly, as he was treading slowly to her in his graceful manner, and she continued with trembling voice. "Telling the truth, it's a bit hard to find common ground with someone, if you can't trust one another. Right?"
Loki stopped in front of her. "What are you talking about?" he sighed, hearing her accusing tone. He hadn't given her any reason to be so upset with him, not anymore. Whatever reason it was that had brought those tears in her eyes had to be severe. "Emma, it is not safe for you to be here…" he begun gently, his hands going for her shoulders.
As if her hand would have had a will of its own, she slapped him hard across the face, anger and uncertainty reflecting from her eyes. Then disquiet lifted its head in her heart as she met his harshly questioning emerald gaze for that sudden, unfair treatment against him.
Her sharp breathing smoothened, as his big hands settled on her shoulders. "I saw your toy, Loki. They have that, that freaking Destroyer here. I guess Jane was right. You were asking for that slap in the face. But I don't blame you for it. That thing and whatever you did with it, it belongs into your past. I know," she said with a sad voice, staring into his beautiful eyes that were demanding answers as much as hers were. Hesitating, she touched his chest, letting her palm rest against his heart over his golden gorget, her other hand holding the gun. "Is there anything else you should tell me?"
An aloud sigh passed his lips as Loki scowled down at her, still puzzled and slightly offended by her act under his brother's eyes. However, he found man enough in him for not to condemn her for it, ignoring Thor's presence. "About?"
Emma blinked. She didn't want to believe Fury, but what he had told her, had the Trickster's trademark all over it and she wanted to give Loki a fair chance to come clean.
"About agent Coulson. He's dead," she told in a monotone voice.
Loki fought an urge to ask should that have meant anything to him because it seemed to mean a great deal to her for some strange reason he couldn't understand.
"What?" Thor asked moving closer to them. "How?"
Loki snorted, not completely meanly, side-glancing at his brother. Then his face lowered closer to hers with a questioning frown. "A man dies and you automatically assume I had something to do with it?"
She kept staring into his eyes. "Do you?"
His hold on her shoulders grew tighter. "No, of course not. Surely this cannot be the solely reason why you so foolishly rushed after me?" he asked in disbelieve and his gaze pierced straight into her core. "Is it?"
It took great effort to stand her ground, unyielding, under his dark, magnetic charm when all of her wanted to give in to him. She loved this man. She cared for him more than she cared for anyone else and those feelings couldn't simply been turned off. She knew she didn't want to live without his touch and he should have done some utterly messed up, vicious stuff before her love for him would have died.
It pained her to question him. She hadn't wished their meeting again would be like this.
"Fury told me you did something to Coulson, to his mind. I want the truth, Loki. You promised me last night that there are no more secrets between us. I deserve to know the truth… about everything," she said, her voice becoming nearly a whisper at the end.
Loki gasped, as if that would have been another slap in his face, a one that actually hurt. "What?"
"Loki?" Thor warned in a grinding tone of voice.
Waiting for Loki's confession, she had closed the whole world outside her, not paying attention to Thor's warning words or anything else around her. What she saw was something darker flashing in his eyes and twisting his beautiful face.
In a heartbeat his grip on her was harder, aggressive even, his other hand going for her neck, and she didn't noticed that they were moving until he pushed her up against the wall. Her backside from head to heels took the hit, his hand cupping the back of her neck. The gun had dropped from her hand. She gasped with difficulty, having no chance to fight him off, as his whole length pressed against hers. Had that been enough to antagonize him?
She heard the first shots and then the racket of the sudden gun firing and the bouncing ricochets filled the air, deafening her ears. With only a glimpse of the corner of her eye, she saw a group of armed agents on the other end of the long hallway, firing at them. Then her vision was blocked. She felt Loki's tall body glued on hers, sheltering her, protectively and strong, his arms wrapped around her head.
His left temple against her right, he whispered into her ear over the shooting, "You shouldn't have come here, my precious fool. You shouldn't have come…"
She sensed fear in his voice that made her press herself tighter against his broad frame as if he was her shield on a blazing battlefield. It felt like that war Fury had mentioned just started, but in Loki's arms, she felt safe. Covering her and taking the shots, his breathing was hot on her neck, bringing the fervent memories of their last night in her mind. Her body responded to his sharp breathes and his intense embrace as though her lady parts would have been ready to move out and live with him. The rest of her was trembling with adrenaline and fear of the battle because she didn't want to set her beast-side out, ending up hurting others and herself.
A powerful male voice carried over the shooting, shouting to 'cease fire' and something about Fury. The racket ended, leaving the hallway hauntingly quiet with thin concrete dust floating in the air.
Loki lifted his head to check their situation. With a quick look there were at least a dozen armed men and more appeared to be coming. He recognized the real agent Romanoff pulling out her guns, but not that tall man with her, who stood out in the crowd with his strange outfit with stars and stripes and a mask. Loki snorted to him, and glanced at his left. The sealed doors were open, as Thor had used Fury as a human key card in the retinal scanner and shouted them to move in.
Loki's eyes met with Emma's to check that she was fine, his hands running over her head and along her arms. He used the opportunity and rushed in with her, protecting her and carrying her like a child in his arms, and Thor followed them with Fury. And once inside the next room, but not safe yet, Thor passed the sleeping man to his brother like an unwanted rag-doll right after Loki let go of Emma lowering on her feet next to the wall.
"Thor, stand down! Give up while you can and we can still talk about this!" Natasha Romanoff shouted.
Standing in the doorway, his focus on SHIELD people, Thor took note that their following party wasn't hurrying after them as he had assumed. Either they were afraid or then… "They are holding back. Loki, this could be a trap."
"You think?" Emma cried out and leaned against the wall behind her, staring at further away at a remote controlled weapon systems in the hall only 30 feet away from them. That looked like something she could only imagine to belong on top of a military truck or a tank.
The doors in front of Thor slid closed, trapping them inside the place with the nasty-looking weapon that seemed to become alive and aiming at them as if someone was playing videogames with their lives.
With a quick perceptive sweep of gaze over the great warehouse-like space, Loki had already gotten their bearings. "I see it. Thor, there are three automatic weapons. Take them down!" he said, passing the rag-doll man to Emma.
Actually, he had been planning to let Fury collapse on the floor but Emma managed to clutch on the man before he hit the floor and his weight nearly pulled her down with him.
"Stop tossing him! He's a human being…" Emma cried out, annoyed, but then Loki pushed her down too and she went down with ease, tumbling over the man. "Hey!"
"Stay down!" Loki ordered, his commanding tone of voice stripping her willing to resist.
He bore down on her as he squatted and hunched his body over hers when the heavy shooting begun again. Emma grunted as he pushed her hard against Fury and they were like a human sandwich piled up on the floor, he covering her head and upper body. All she could think of was that he was so strong that he could have pushed her down with only one finger even she would have fight back with all she got. But she didn't want to fight back. He was protecting her time and time again, his body heavily on top of her, his green cape eclipsing her sight.
The remote controlled guns fired at Loki's illusions, as there suddenly appeared to be dozens of Loki's in the place hoaxing the weapons and giving Thor a chance to take them down. Thor swung his hammer at the weapons, destroying them completely one by one while Loki covered Emma and unintentionally also the SHIELD director.
The shooting was over before it had properly begun, and Loki's hold eased on her, his hands coming on her shoulders. Emma lifted her head to look at him over her shoulder, seeing that he was thankfully fine. His gaze met hers again and his hand brushed her cheek gently as if asking was she all right, before he helped her on her feet. That single touch of his, that had the power to calm her even on a war zone. And she held on to him, just wanting to climb into his embrace, her heart still racing wild.
Not even the successful team play wipe the grimness from Thor's face as the brothers glanced at each other again. With a few strides, Thor split the short distance between them. "Loki, did you do any harm to Coulson? I want to know because she seems to have a reason to doubt you," he asked with his thundering tone, returning to the subject left unfinished.
"Just… just hang on now! I didn't say he did it for sure!" Emma exclaimed with an uncertainty, wavering with her doubts. She had gone there for seeking answers not with a vengeance. She didn't want to break their anew found brotherly connection, fearing that she'd been all wrong that she had been duped by Fury. She feared that her own doubts would derail Loki emotionally again and that's when things could get really nasty.
Ignoring her, Thor's hand was around Loki's neck, holding on him firmly. "Answer me, brother! Did you cause his death? Do your poisonous games never end?"
"Don't you dare to hurt him, Thor!" Emma snarled, taking a step closer to them, one hand grabbing on Thor's forearm and another on Loki's shoulder. "Fury only said something about brainwashing. Hell! I don't know…"
Both men only side-glanced at her and kept staring each other in the eye as though she was just a puny mortal, which she pretty much was.
Loki's look was rueful in his brother's grip, those unjustified suspicions hurting him. For once, he didn't deserve this kind of treatment and doubts. He took a breath and swallowed, his face solemn, his eyes sincere.
"Believe me; if that man is dead, it is not of my making. Brainwashing, you said, my dear Emma?" A small sad smile flickered on his lips, unable to hide the pain in his eyes, challenging her to think it over. "If I had a power to alter the free will of a man, don't you think I would be sitting on a throne already?" he asked her and it made her think hard. Then he turned to Thor. "I have nothing to do with it. I swear to you on Frigga's life." When he said the name of his adoptive mother, his voice quivered. So significant was that desperate vow of his.
Staring at him, Thor took in those words as if they were a sacred oath, and nodded, his blue eyes asking for forgiveness, his grip on him becoming softer nearly as a caress. He knew, Loki would never swear on their mother's life only to betray that oath. As far as he knew, Loki didn't possess a power over mortal's minds.
"Brother, get the Tesseract!" Thor said, letting go of him and moved backwards closer to the door, as it seemed to be opening again. "Emma, you go with him! I will hold them back as long as I can."
After all his mischievous schemes and foul play, that had sounded like 'Loki, I believe you' to the trickster god, and the meaning of it was even emphasized as Thor trusted him alone with the Cube. It almost felt like they would have been equals, true brothers again.
Being capable for only nodding back to his brother, Loki turned at Emma once more, offering his hand to her with a pleading look. "I cannot force you to believe me. I only wish you would."
Having no time for hesitating, as the doors were opening, she took his hand. His vow on Frigga's life had given an overwhelming impact against her qualms and doubts and making cold shivers running along her spine. She knew deep inside he would never hurt her but the others may not be that lucky.
Squeezing her hand softly, Loki smiled, a serious smile, and together they picked up Fury from the floor.
"Be careful with him, all right," she begged, letting Loki carry the man.
Thor scowled at her as she and Loki were already running forward inside the large warehouse. "For you sake, Emma, I hope Jane is fine. You swore to me that you will take her safe from here and here you still are. If something happens to her, you will be answering it to me."
His warning words reached her ears as she was rushing with Loki along one of the long aisles between the high shelves. That's what he had said but to her it had sounded more like an angry growl 'don't ever fuck with the Asgardians!'
One worried look over her shoulder and she saw the group of armed agents moving in through the opened doors, agent Romanoff and one strangely familiar-looking tall fellow leading them. It only took her a second to put together where she had seen that patriotic stars and stripes uniform and the half mask. The last time she had seen someone wearing something like that had been in her grandfather's old black and white newsreels from the early 1940's. Then the images from her long lost trading card entered her mind with a one single flash of his star –shield, turning her back into a little girl for a moment with awe.
Captain Rogers? Oh, she needed to get her more of those sedatives if the hallucinations afterwards were so awesome. (The possibility of the real Captain America actually being there didn't even cross her mind.)
Captain Steve freaking Rogers … in real colors! Shit! It was good stuff!
… …
While placing all his trust on his unpredictable adoptive brother with the Cube, Thor prepared to face the SHIELD people and hoped that Emma would keep Loki on the right track.
He dropped his hammer and watched at Natasha and the men who regrouped in front of the entrance, their weapons aiming at him. "I do not want to fight you. Natasha, we only want the Tesseract and then we will be gone," he informed calmly in a conciliatory tone.
Her pistols aimed between his eyes, Natasha stared at him coldly. "Not gonna happen, Thor."
"You don't want the Tesseract, sir. It will only bring you trouble," Steve Rogers said speaking from experience while moving closer. "The last time I saw a man touching it, he disappeared before my eyes."
"Yes, that was the plan," Thor murmured with a smirk. "I am sorry. We have not met. I am Thor Odinson. Prince of Asgard. The god of thunder," Thor said to the man, spreading his hands as if asking him to introduce himself.
Not impressed by the fancy titles, Steve Rogers moved forward. "Captain Rogers. I'm here to make sure that the Tesseract won't fall into the wrong hands. Step down, sir."
Natasha was worried about Fury whom she couldn't see while scanning the huge place, neither she see the Trickster god. If they couldn't stop the Asgardians then damn right they would at least try to stall them as long as Ironman gets there. Natasha knew that Tony Stark should have been there at any time with his improved gizmos.
"Cap, he's stalling. We need to find Fury. You deal with him. I'll go after Loki," Natasha said to Steve.
She ran straight towards Thor and then bypassed him easily with her fearless, cheetah-like agility, leaving the thunder god gaping after her as if they had been just playing tag and she had gotten away.
"Natasha, do not make this any worse!" Thor shouted after her when she managed to slip away from him and he was going to go after her.
A strong hand stopped Thor and it belonged to Steve Rogers. Captain was almost as tall as Thor was and he stood there holding him like a bouncer, ready to escort him out. "No, you shouldn't make this any worse to yourself," Steve said as the thunder god turned towards him.
Thor's glanced at the mortal's hand that held him like it would have been an insult, a mere provocation, and smiled wryly. "And, you really should not touch me! Did you not hear who I am?"
"I heard you're the guy who broke the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge in DC. And I'm not very forgiving type towards those who harm my country."
... ...
After reaching the other end of the long warehouse, Emma and Loki heard the sounds of battle that carried all the way from the other side as Thor and Steve's debate took a turn to a more physical level. The noises of things breaking, while the heroes were smashing each other against the walls, shelves and crates, kept Emma on alert.
She followed Loki jogging through the maze-like aisles. He seemed to know where they were going and they stopped in front of a very large door that looked like it belong to a bank vault with very complex looking locking system.
She took a deep breath and heaved it to steady her slightly panting breathing while watching at him, as he studied the mechanism of the door and dragged Fury with him.
"Loki, I'm sorry," she said in a regretful tone, looking into his eyes as he turned at her. "I'm sorry I doubted you for a second. I shouldn't have. But all the things he told me..." She glanced at Fury, still mulling it over what he had told her. "About Coulson's death, about the destroyer and the Tesseract... It just got me so freaking confused. I feel so bad for the way I spoke to you, and the all wrong timing… I didn't mean Thor hear to it…"
"All is well, my love, as long as you believe me," he said softly, caressing her with his voice as though they wouldn't have been in a dreadful hurry and in a soon-to-be boiling point of SHIELD's fight-back.
She smiled back at him in an uncertain way, weakly, touching his arm as he lifted Fury closer to the retinal scanner. She so much wanted to believe him. "I believe you. You wouldn't lie to me...?"
It came out without thinking. The last sentence sounded like a question, and she stared up into his eyes.
Loki met her stare with a loving, reassuring smile. "You know I would not lie to you, Emma."
The system gave a short blunt sound and informed, "Restricted access. Password required, Director Fury."
They glanced at each other and Emma thought that was it. They wouldn't get in and maybe in some level it was better that way. Then to her surprise, Loki punched in the code.
"Access granted. Welcome, Director Fury."
Loki beamed at her contently while stepping aside from the huge doorframe and pulling her with him, waiting the thing to open. "It was a wise move to bring Fury with you. We may have not made this far without his cooperation."
The heavy bolts of the massive lock were retracting one by one.
Emma gaped at him, puzzled. "H-how did you know his password?"
"Professor Xavier told me everything."
The massive door was unlocked and it sounded like a spaceship's airlock had opened, before it slowly turned wide open. The door itself was the impressive 4 feet thick, and the vault behind it was as long as a small shipping container and 14 yards width. The whole place looked spotless, sterile, white and metallic-grey with full shelves on the back wall and several sized lockers on both sidewalls. Everything inside the vault was in a perfect order and the air coming out felt dry, cool and stagnant.
"There," Loki sighed whispering, already seeing it. "On the back. In that silver casket."
This was the worst timing ever for having second thoughts, but knowing that soon it would be too late, she stepped before him in the huge doorway, her small frame hardly blocking his way.
"The Tesseract, Loki?" she asked uneasily, hating to ask it but she just had to. She lifted her hands up, looking miserably sorry. "What are you going to do with it? For real? Please. I need to hear it from you."
Loki's face clouded with that questioning tone of her voice. He let go of the unconscious man and let him fall on the floor, staring at Emma in the eye, amused by her worried reaction for the man's sake.
He moved close to her calmly as he spoke. "Is this doubt I still hear in you voice? Did you not just say you believe me? Yet you question me again? I told you. The Tesseract belongs to Asgard and we need it to get back." His voice was deep with that dark undertone, as though he had been trying to convince it to himself as much as to her, since his own purposes had varied ever since they said goodbye in the jet. "The Professor exchanged his information for a visit inside my head. Emma, I let him read my mind to prove my intentions."
She didn't move. She just blinked, astonished. "What? Why?"
"I did it for you, my love." His gaze was studying and his voice (even to his own surprise) became warm again. "What have I done to deserve your doubts? Do you not trust me anymore?"
"Never have and never will! You're too shady character for my taste."
That interfering statement Natasha Romanoff gave made them both turning towards her voice just before she opened fire. Emma didn't really even see her behind the thick door that blocked her vision.
There wasn't many who could sneak upon the trickster god and her stealthy attack took him by a surprise but he didn't stay brooding it over. Hastily, he pushed Emma inside the vault into cover from the bullets with one hand, underestimating his own strength while doing so. Unprepared for it, she flew against the sidewall with a grunt, getting the wind knocked out of her, and landed on the floor on her knees, struggling to take a breath.
… …
Without thinking any other possibility, Natasha ran straight at the menace god, her pistols extended and she emptied her magazines at him mercilessly. Loki growled like a pissed off giant and strode towards her regardless of the bullet rain that barely left a scratch on him, his face like a vicious mask.
When her shots ran out, she threw her guns at him to only noticed, that they went straight through his illusion and she quickly focused to her surroundings, hoping to seek him out before he would get her.
"Stop playing your cheap tricks on me and show yourself! Or are you afraid of a girl?" Natasha shouted for provocation, readying her bracelet tasers.
She heard running steps drawing near from behind and with only a glimpse she registered it was Loki. Her instincts took control and she pounced at him, circling him with a fast spin and shoving her electrocuting bracelets at his neck, releasing the maximum charge. The Trickster growled and dropped immediately on his knees and passed out at her feet.
Before a sated smile of a sweet revenge manifested on her lips, a golden/green glow swept over the man, revealing a black tactical uniform. Her short-lived victory turned into a shock when she realized she had electrocuted a fellow agent who had been following on her tail. She should have known! Clint had told her everything about Loki's tricks.
She turned and saw four more agents running to her aid, and behind them, the trickster god emerged with a devilish grin. It was his move next.
… …
Inside the vault, Emma heard the thunder-like gun fight coming from outside and she fear more for the agent's sake than Loki's, knowing he was capable of tearing her apart. She hated that bitch who had made her growing her claws but it didn't give her a reason to wish her death.
She felt the hot flash of pain in her back as she stretched her spine and took a cautious breath. Then it was gone as her body recovered from the injury. Loki had thrown her in so hard that fleetingly she thought of him being mad at her, but then the roaring sounds of the shooting begun and expelled the rest of her doubts. He wouldn't ever intentionally hurt her, right? Right? He had let professor Xavier read his mind. That had to prove something.
As she was going to launch herself off from the floor, she felt a soft bump against her backside and shot a grim glance over her shoulder, ready to take down any fool who was preying on her there. But there was no other than a few larger metallic drawers that were opening after her impact against them. She felt the coldness flowing out from the long lockers and the first thing entering her mind was those nasty cold chambers where the corpses were kept in the morgue.
As she stood up, she found out that the thought wasn't so very far-fetched. There were indeed corpses inside of those cold lockers but nothing like she had ever seen before. A gasp passed her lips when she took a closer look at the body inside of a frozen container that was the nearest to her. The skin of the corpse was green, all over, his features (as she assumed it was a male) were strong and reptilian and still much humanlike. His ears were long and sharp like an elf's. The long stitched up wound from his chest to abdomen was an obvious autopsy cut. A humanoid? An alien?
She looked at the other container and lifted her fingers to her mouth in a shock. There were only half of a corpse, missing right side of the head, arm and rest of the right leg from knee down. It was impossible to tell was it he or she, because what was the left of the torso was badly damaged. But the skin clearly looked blue and the features differed from the other being so much that she believed them to be different species.
The third locker was empty and a small label on the door said, "Specimen TA-GH 38 moved to TAHITI project".
What the hell did the aliens have anything to do with tropical islands?
As she looked closer, all the lockers were labeled with that same prefix "Specimen TA-" and followed by a short series of letters and numbers.
Specimen MF86! She recalled that infernal digits for her great dismay. That's what she had been to Hydra. They had referred her as a specimen as if she wouldn't have been a human being at all in their experiments.
The sickening memories flooding into the mind made her legs going week. That and the unexpected findings stunned her so utterly, that for a small moment she forgot where she was and that there was all hell broken loose outside the vault.
The sounds of battle snapped her out of her confusement. She turned around, staring at the large amount of different size lockers and things on the shelves, realizing that inside that huge warehouse department had to be all the evidence of the aliens' visits on earth. The Tesseract was there too, on the back in a silver casket, like Loki had told her. She thought she saw it on a shelf at the far end of the vault, 'the silver casket'; a metal briefcase.
Wasting no more time with doubting, she ran at the back of the vault and grabbed the briefcase. One thing was sure, she'd rather be hell-bound than let SHIELD expand their freaky collection with two more fresh alien corpses. So, if it was a stupid-ass mistake she was making, at least she did it following her heart.
On the time when she returned on the vault's threshold, she witnessed as agent Romanoff and Loki clashed into a fierce physical duel. The other five agents lied defeated on the floor and Romanoff was the last one of them still standing.
Natasha was delivering vigorous hits and kicks that would have been fatal to a mortal, but it didn't do much to the trickster god as he blocked them effortlessly. She was incapable of hurting him as much as she would have wanted to. Not even her bracelet tasers worked on him properly.
He blocked another hit of hers and grabbed from her wrist. She tried to climb on his neck with a hope to bring him down, using his own weigh against him, but there was no luck. He was a mountain, unshakable, unbeatable. She hadn't faced an opponent like this before. The Asgardian was too damn strong; nothing that she did had any effect on him.
With his supreme strength, he pulled her down like a bad clinging kitty off from him, shoved her face-first against the concrete wall and pinned her there, locking her arms behind her back.
"Whatever happened to worshiping gods in this realm?" Loki rebuked, keeping her immobilized.
Natasha grimaced, feeling a small scrape in her left eyebrow bleeding. "I don't believe in gods!"
Loki clenched his jaw with a baleful look. "Then maybe I can give you something else to believe in for."
Still she did resistance, trying to wriggle out from his grasp, until her body was pressed against the wall so hard she couldn't move any longer. With the air that he was squeezing out from her lunges, escaped a low grunt, which she didn't recognized as her own. His hand clasped her neck from behind, not as much as to hurt but to kill her slowly, by stopping the blood flow to her brain. It was working, her vision blurring and blackening from the edges.
In her diminishing field of vision, she saw the blonde approaching them with a pistol she'd picked up from one of the fallen agents, aiming at her or him. She wasn't sure. The ex-assassin had killed so many people that she hadn't afford to believe in god. But if there was God, then He had to be a dreadful wiseass for sending a guardian angel in a form of Emma Morgan into her rescue.
"Stop it, Loki! Please, stop!" Emma shouted, alarmed, hurrying closer to them, a gun in her right hand and the briefcase in another. "I can't watch you hurting her."
Loki scowled at her. "Then don't watch. These people never know when to quit."
Another sound of crashing from the other side of the warehouse made Emma wince. She stared at Loki and the female agent in his grip. Natasha's face was towards her and it looked like she was going to pass out at any second.
Emma took a step closer to him lowering her gun down. "Please, spare her. Do it for me. Loki, I have to still live on this planet after you'll go home and it would be a hell of easier if I knew we left these people alive." She lifted the briefcase for him to see it with a small sad apologetic smile. "Here. I found it."
Loki glanced at the 'silver casket' and then looked into her eyes, seeing all the earlier doubt gone. His harsh expression softened and with a giving up sigh, he eased his grip on Natasha a bit. He kept her against the wall and in his firm grasp, releasing his hand from her neck. He hadn't been planning to kill her, only put her senseless like he had done to the other agents.
Natasha gasped for air, feeling an explosion in her head as the blood flow returned, seeing stars in her slowly returning vision.
He turned back at the woman in his grip, squeezing her wrists and adding the pressure until she groaned. "Emma saved your life. Now, you owe her answers. You tell her what happened to that little man… agent Coulson. Lie and I will snap your neck."
Still slightly winded, Natasha brought her gaze back at Emma. She recalled everything Coulson had told about Ms Morgan and Loki having a connection, and she could understand it now. She saw it in that naively trusting way Emma looked at him, she could tell it by the way Loki relented under her plea. Was that love? It couldn't be. Love was for children. In her opinion, Emma Morgan was an idiot for trusting the Trickster and one day I would get her killed.
Loki's crushing grip demanded her answers and she grimaced in pain. The Asgardian didn't even have to put an effort and he could have split her in half, which made her wonder, how the hell had Morgan ever survived sleeping with him.
Natasha took a deep breath, as she finally could. She gave the short official version of Coulson death and added, "Fury had no other choice. He shot Coulson down. Three shots. One went straight through his heart and killed him instantly. There was nothing we could do. And it's all Loki's fault."
"That is a lie!" Loki boomed at the woman, his hand returning on her neck. "You are making this too easy for me."
Emma's hand landed on his wrist to stop him for fulfilling his threat. "I know," she mumbled, exchanging glanced with Loki, processing all the information she had gained. What Fury had told her, the details, didn't add up with Natasha's story. Someone was lying.
"Your heart must beat if you're to bleed to death, doesn't it?" She cast a grim look at Natasha, making her visibly worried. "For a moment there I forgot you people lie for living. If Coulson is dead then there's no reason for me to join you, or to believe you at all, because the rest of you are just a bunch of lying assholes."
Gritting her teeth in Loki's grip, Natasha gave her a pitying grin. "I thought that was your favorite type of people."
What a bitch! Emma snorted. "Did you know there's a secret freezer full of alien popsicles over there? I bet you too want to take a closer look, agent Romanoff. And guess what? You were right. Thank you. I wouldn't have ever grown my freaking claws without you tossing me against the wall. So, just give me a reason to shove my claws up your ass!" she menaced. She could be a bitch too!
… …
The new mortal man was tougher than Thor had assumed. They had already redecorated the other end of the warehouse, fighting and shoving each other against the walls and shelves. Whiles the agents had been scurrying for cover and a small group of them had gone after agent Romanoff. And as much as Thor had paid attention, the rest had been assembling a large strange-looking weapon (an ultrasound cannon) near the door.
The thunder god scrambled up from a messy pile of wrecked crates and shelves where Steve Rogers had just tossed him with his fancy shield. A real challenge for a change, Thor admitted wryly to himself, just when he wouldn't have needed one.
Steve Rogers approached him. "Had enough?"
Thor grinned as though he had already won. "Oh, that was just warming up, my friend," he stated and summoned his hammer that flew to him in his command. "Nice shield by the way. Now it's going down."
Seeing the Asgardian striding towards him once again, now with a weapon, Rogers rushed meeting him in the half way and took a defensive stand, unyielding and lifting his shield. At the same time, Thor brought his hammer down, not with his maximum powers but hard nevertheless, smashing it against the vibranium shield.
The clash of the metals thundered violently. The very impact struck like a lightning bolt and the burst of the massive energy released all around them in a shockwave, throwing the agents against the walls and on the hallway, knocking over or bending the long shelves, and turning the crates and objects in the warehouse into fatal projectiles that spread in a heartbeat all around the space. And the whole place became darker, only the emergency exit signs and small shock-resistance lights remain, spotting the otherwise dim huge hall.
The devastating ruin, left by their collision dumbfound both of the heroes. They stood nearly frozen and somewhat feebly, staring around them in shock. Neither had seen that coming, neither had wanted anyone getting hurt and now all the agents lied there senseless and injured.
Thor peered at the other end of the warehouse through the crushed racks, as far as he could see in the darkness, wishing his brother and Emma were all right.
Dismayed, Steve Rogers took a deep breath and shot his finger at his opponent. "You better put that hammer down now, buddy!"
"Oh, you want me to put my hammer down?"
… …
When Loki registered the explosion, the pressure wave was already there, bringing the destruction in its wake. The racks and shelves (bolted to the floor) bent and toppled like dominoes in a furious, hellish blast and half of their content was carried within the shockwave that hit without warning. It shook the foundations of the building like an earthquake.
In one moment, he had been escorting the redhead agent towards the vault and looking Emma in the eye as she was carrying the briefcase. The next, he was pulling himself out from under the pile of metal, broken crates and rubbish, his ears momentarily deafened by the blast. It was dark around him, but not completely pitch black, as there was still light coming from the vault, enough to illuminate his surroundings.
With a gasp, he crawled up on his knees and noticed the female agent lying all still on the floor where he had cleared the stuff off. She seemed to be alive but unconscious and bruised. But he didn't stay checking for her condition. He needed to find Emma. He couldn't see her anywhere. The well-organized place with width aisles had suddenly turned into a sea of chaos, dust and paper documents still flying around in the air.
Carefully, he moved through the debris, clearing his path in growing worry, tossing the elements of racks and crates off his way vigorously. He cried out her name once, twice. Then the metal briefcase flew on the floor while he was pulling other things out of his way. He saw it flinging open and the light-blue glowing cube landed on the floor next to it only a few feet away from him. The cube cast cold, pale light like a star on the night sky. Loki stared at it as tough it would have been calling for him, only for four long seconds, until he returned his eyes at the pile and kept digging.
He shuddered as he finally found her foot peeking under the shattered planks of wooden crates and crushed cardboard boxes. He kept removing the objects away, digging her out from under the rubbish, and then gently turned her on her back one hand under her neck, kneeling next to her. In the meager light he saw bruises all over her face, a small cut on her left cheekbone and one on her chin. Her ears were bleeding.
His breathing quivered as he placed a hand over her heart and felt it beating. "Emma, do you hear me? Please, open your eyes, my love. I am here."
He witnessed her superhuman healing factor in action as the cuts in her face healed and the bruises fated. Tenderly, he brushed her golden hair behind her ear, touched her cheek and pulled her into his arms. "Emma, can you hear me?"
She winced whimpering as though she would only waken up from a nightmare, shot her eyes open and started hitting him, screaming. "No! No! Get your fucking hands off me! Don't touch me or I'll..."
Loki snatched her hands in his and hushed her down with soft 'Shushes', holding her gently. "Or you will kill me?" he took a guess with a soft voice. "It is all right now. I am with you. "
He broke into a tear-filled smile as she focused her confused eyes at him clutching on to his hand when he freed her hands. He cupped her neck, his thumb caressing her face. "Can you hear me?" he asked and she nodded. "Are you hurt?"
Emma shook her head, perplexed, glancing horrid the state of the place around her in the darkness. It was as if after an explosion. That's what it had felt too, she recalled. "What happened? What was that? Are we still there? What the hell happened?"
He was as much ignorant she was about it, but he assumed Thor must have had an input for that infernal blast. That damn reckless oaf! He had to do everything with a big boom.
Loki picked her up into his arms and carried on clearer part of the floor. "I don't know, but we must go. Can you walk?" he asked, helping her down on her feet.
As if she wouldn't have been sure, Emma took a few cautious steps. "Yeah, I think so." Her gaze swept over the mounds of debris, searching. She noticed Romanoff and one other agent lying among the stuff and she moved back over the piles crawling closer to the vault.
Loki followed her with his gaze, lifting his hands in disbelief. "What are you doing? This way!"
"The briefcase…" She glanced at him uneasily, throwing things out of her way. "And… and Fury..."
Loki bit his tongue between his lips and checked his surroundings as if to see was anyone seeing this and to get his bearings. "I am sure he will match his name after he sees this desolation. Come now."
She didn't expect the director of SHIELD to turn into a marshmallow for her concern. She just needed to check he was alive and find the damn briefcase she had lost in the blast, and which she didn't see there right behind Loki. She tossed broken pieces of wooden crates aside, uncovering the man with the eye patch. He groaned, still in a light state of sedation, and she moved away with a small relief.
As she turned at Loki, he bent to pick up something from the floor and lifted it up, then studying the strangely glowing and radiating light-blue cube in his palm. That's when she noticed that the metal briefcase laid open at his feet. She watched him speechlessly as he kept staring at the thing fascinated, mesmerized by it to the point of making her feeling jealous of that overrated fluorescent nightlight. The intensity of his gaze was as though he'd been planning for making out with that damn thing.
Then he looked at her behind it, his face illuminated with the blue pale glow. The shade nearly matched his Jotun skin color. His gleaming eyes locked with hers. "The Tesseract, Emma," he whispered being too distracted to even smile, too compelled with the feeling of power in his grasp. "It is ours."
Okay. Not at all suspicious behavior. Only thing missing was a maniacal laugh, and she'd been seriously worried for the decision she had made.
The glowing box of destiny didn't impress her, but her animal senses told her to shy away from it as if it would have been radiating hazardously.
Emma tried to share his enthrallment, unsuccessfully. "Nice. It's a nightlight. Loki, is it really worth of all this trouble?"
Holding the Cube and watching at her, he suddenly realized that he had reached the point of choosing his path between the two of them. To keep the Cube, to master its secrets would grant him unlimited possibilities to fulfill the schemes he thought he had already given up. And with it he would be doomed to loose her. With that recognition, a tide wave of emotion rushed through him. He parted his lips to speak but no words came out.
Emma moved closer to him over the rubbish with a bad feeling. "Loki? Is everything all right?"
Her concern of him felt so disarming. He heaved a laborious sigh, overcoming his emotions, and chose his path whether it was the right or wrong but she would always be a part of it. With a subtle smile, he conjured the Cube into a safer place and then offered his hand to her. "Could not be better. Come now, my love. Let us hurry."
She took his hand and it felt warm and comforting, making her wanting to believe him.
… …
Phew, another long chapter again. I'm sorry, it seems I'm incapable of keeping things short and simple. But the moment of truth is near as Loki finally got the Tesseract. Thank you for following and for your reviews. I'm pouring my heart and soul into this Loki fiction. So, your feedback means a lot to me and I'm always happy to know what you think about the events of the story. I hope you're having a beautiful autumn. It's my favorite time of the year.
