This is mainly so pretext but in the last part of this chapter, we already meet Loki! I'm excited to publish this and I hope you'll like it. Let me know what you think! xx Alexa

Fairview, Maine. November 2011.

I knew it was too late to run but we still did, stumbling blindly through the growing darkness.

When I opened my eyes again, a moment later only, or so I thought, I lay in a bed with bleached blue covers. The room was strangely blurry.

"She's awake."

And she can hear you? Ben was rarely that rude. The man I could make out at my bedside, however, was not Ben.

"Who are you? Where am I? Where is Ben?" I tried to sit up but someone had bound me to the mattress with thick white straps. This was slowly but surely turning into a retro horror movie.

"I understand you have many questions." He looked like a modern pirate with his leather coat and eye patch, which, of course, raised even more questions.

"I cannot answer all of them thoroughly but I will try. I am Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D You were hit by an extraterrestrial object that seems to have transferred some of its energy on you. That's why you are here at the S.H.I.E.L.D base near Portsmouth. We have to do some screenings to make sure the object has not altered your physique."

The physique I could make out under the covers looked a lot like mine.

Where is Ben?"

He gave me a quizzical look. "Who is Ben?"

"He was with me when – when that thing hit us."

Director Fury looked at the woman that had come in after him and she turned on her heel and rushed back out. Somehow, that had roused them, but why?

"No one was with you when you were found. If the object hit your friend at full speed, he might have been, er, ripped apart by the impact."

Ben, dead. It couldn't be. I had known him all my life, I had been in love with him almost all my life.

They had not found a body. That was the fact I clung to desperately. Perhaps he had run to get help and was now looking for me, yes, that could be it. He wasn't dead, certainly not.

"Are you ready for the screening?" Director Fury might as well have asked me for the time or the weather, so little did he seem to care for my reply.

"Didn't you already do them when I was unconscious?" I asked. This didn't seem like the kind of organisation that asked nicely first.

"Some tests require your consciousness." At least he was honest. "So, can you tell me your name, date and place of birth?" He pulled out something that looked like a phone the size of a notepad, but it was only a screen. He tapped at something on the display then looked up at me, waiting for my reply.

"Cassandra Elizabeth Dalton, 12th of September 1985 in Fairview, Maine."

"Who are your parents?"

"Susan and Kenneth Dalton."

Fury entered something into his strange electronic notepad.

"That seems to be correct."

What had he expected? That I'd forget my parents' names?

"Do you feel any different than before your accident?"

"No."

That was a lie, of course but I wasn't going to tell him that all this freaked me out. I had no idea who he was. For all I knew he could be the leader of some underground terror cell or some doctor that planned experimenting on me. Getting out of here was imperative. Once I had found out what 'here' was, exactly.

"Your scans have shown that your cells have been altered by the contact with this alien substance but as of yet, we were unable to identify it. Your cells seem to regenerate at a much faster rate."

"Ah," I said. What did that even mean? Eternal youth? Or would I stop looking like myself?

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"It is yet to be determined how fast your regeneration is. It might mean that you will live to a very old age or that wounds heal much faster – but the lab needs some time." He hesitated for a moment. "When these scans were conducted, your subconscious reacted to the intrusion and erected psionic shields."

"I erected what?"

This was some mistake, I was certain. I had never even heard of all this, how could I possibly set up something I didn't even understand?

"Psionic shields. You seem to have developed certain psychic powers."

"Psychic? Like, prophecies and stuff like that? When Mars is in the third house, capricorns shouldn't leave the house?"

That was really nothing I believed in. Relief washed over me Fury guy was obviously just a freak, not that it made being locked in here any better.

"Well, that's really not my field," I said and pulled at some of the tubes. "I think I should better get home, my parents are surely looking for me already –"

"Miss Dalton, I don't think you understand the severity of your situation. As long as the extent of your abilities remains unclear, you cannot simply return to your suburban life. Your parents have been informed that you have accepted a placement with a large company in the defence industry and have moved to New York. Your apartment in Fairview has been cleared out and your belongings were moved to the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters."

I knew that my mouth gaped open but there was nothing I could do. Had this man simply cancelled my entire life? Sure, it wasn't extraordinary but I liked it very much.

"I'm not moving to New York."

"Upstate New York," he clarified, as if that was my issue.

"I'm not moving at all. I have a life at Fairview. My family, my friends, my job...I can't give all that up because I was hit on the head by a falling rock."

"I will not force you to stay," he said although I had a feeling he would do exactly that if I refused, "but if you love your hometown so much, you should not visit it again. As I said earlier," he sounded annoyed, "you have psionic powers that have not yet been further identified. You will therefore remain in protective custody and figure out how this incident has changed you."

"I thought you were not going to force me?"

"I won't have to. You will see sense."

"I am in a strange underground hospital that looks an awful lot like a spaceship from Star Wars, talking to a guy that calls himself Director Fury and wears an eyepatch. Seeing sense would not be beneficial, I think."

He smiled. "Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D., Miss Dalton. You can get ready for transport."

The last sentence he had spoken into a sort of walkie talkie on his arm.

~o~

The S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters turned out to be a large, grey and very boring building in a rural area north of New York that no one would have looked at twice which was probably the intended effect. Unfortunately, my 'quarters' as Fury had called them loftily, turned out to look a lot like the bedroom I had shared with two of my friends in a Youth Hostel in Upper Watton, VA. In case you've never been, not the kind of hostel you'd stay at twice.

"It's functional," he said, noticing the way I stared at the pile of stuff in the middle of the cell.

"Let's hope so. What happened to the rest of my furniture?"

"Warehoused. The fee will be deduced from your salary."

"My salary?" I had not anticipated being paid for this madness, so that was a pleasant surprise.

He said a number and I was sure he was pulling my leg. Even as a college librarian, I had earned more and my mother had called that "genteel poverty", although it really hadn't been all that genteel.

He interpreted my expression correctly. "Well, protecting the world from evil forces is no goldmine but the feeling of moral superiority is great."

Well, I didn't have to pay housing or bills, it seemed, so perhaps it was alright after all. Was there a secret agents' supermarket round here?

"Is there some sort of community kitchen? And where will I get food?"

Fury looked at me as if that was a very profane question. "There's obviously a canteen. I'll leave you to, er, decorating your quarters now. Join the team for a briefing in Room B1003 in an hour."

Moving my clothing into the small metal wardrobe was a difficult task in itself but after a while, the pile on the floor in front of the bed was not larger than it had been at home, so I set off to look for Room B1003. Thankfully, the headquarters followed a very reasonable structure and B1003 was indeed the third room to the right of the elevator on the first basement level. How many levels there were, I didn't know because although there were 12 elevator buttons I found it hard to believe that there were like nine underground levels.

"Miss Dalton, Agent Romanoff," Fury introduced a red-haired agent in a black catsuit, "And Agent Barton."

"How're you doing?"

"My most senior field agents. You know of course that Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, has recently been found alive?"

"Yeah."

"He is also a member of the team, for the most part. As long as Romanoff and Barton are here, they will oversee your training."

Neither of them looked especially thrilled.

Soon enough I knew that I, too, had no reason to be. I was a complete failure. Again and again, I told them that I had no powers, that it was all a mistake but Fury insisted on further training.

There was really nothing I learned in all those hours in the windowless hall that looked very much like a high school gym.

Natasha was tough and really stretched me to my limits but I was grateful because I felt like I didn't deserve Barton's kind supportive attitude.

Some three months in, I noticed that all their coaxing had its effects. Occasionally, especially with Romanoff, I noticed an uncomfortable tingling in my head, as if a bee had flown into my ear.

"Come on," she raised the baton again, ready to hunt me through the hall. "You have ten seconds."

I saved my breath and ran, jumping over the first hurdle, climbing up the second but the third proved fatal already. My hands, wet with sweat, found no hold and I slipped from the ladder, some fifteen feet from the ground.

I knew the fall would hurt and tried to brace myself but nothing happened. It seemed as if I wasn't falling at all, actually. I turned my head and opened my eyes.

I was lying on a platform made of air, buzzing, glowing air. It felt like a part of me, somehow, I knew exactly how wide it was, could feel the air around its edges. This was my doing. Fury had been right all along.

"Congratulations," said Agent Romanoff with a grin. "Your first force field."

I stretched out a hand to touch it when suddenly, it vanished and I fell, face first, to the ground.

Strong arms caught me before I hit the floor.

"Well, we better try that again, huh?"

From then on, it was easier. I knew what I was looking for, this tingling in my head, the strange feeling that there was something outside my body that belonged to me.

I even learned how to conjure these shields without being in mortal danger which made my nights a lot calmer.

After a while, the shields no longer disappeared when I stopped paying attention. I could even leave the room and they remained in place, as strong as before. Hurrying down to the canteen to grab a blondie proved too much of a distance, however, as I found out one afternoon, when the scientists prodded them again, trying to find out what exactly they were. They explained later although I understood very little. Something about condensed cosmic energy. The gist was that these shields protected me from both physical and psychic threats.

Fury was almost smiling when they told him, which seemed to be a clear indication that this was spectacular.

I was not labouring under the delusion that now that I had learned to control my powers, he would let me go. Strangely, I no longer wanted to return to Fairview. But I missed my family and my friends. For three months our only contact had been infrequent phone calls. I had not even returned home for Christmas, too scared had I been of endangering my loved ones. But now that it had turned out I was harmless, there was really nothing blocking me from returning home for a visit.

"You get three days," Fury said when I breached the subject.

"Three days?" I asked. "I have been working my ass off for three months. No breaks, no weekends. And all I get is three days?"

"Two, if you continue shouting, Miss Dalton. I am already missing an eye, I'd rather not fall deaf, too."

"Why only three days?"

He seemed to weigh his options, then he sighed. "Sit down, Miss Dalton."

Fury had never offered me a seat before.

"Now, you will have heard of the incident in New Mexico last year."

"When that shopping centre was destroyed? Wasn't it a gas explosion?" I tried to wreck my brain for a little more information but catastrophes happened so often, it was hard to keep track.

"A whole town was destroyed by two aliens."

I would have liked to laugh. The problem was, I knew he wasn't joking. "Aliens?"

"Two subjects from Asgard. You remember Thor?"

"The Norse God?"

"He is one of the aliens. And that proved once and for all that we're not alone in this universe. The Asgardians might wish us no harm but others will. And we are completely defenseless."

The penny dropped. "You want me to form a shield around earth."

"Let us start a little smaller," he said and opened a drawer.

"Try this."

It was a bouncy ball painted to look like the globe.

"Can you create a shield around it?"

"I don't think I can create spheres. Only like, rectangles." I stared at the little ball. How could this be difficult? It was tiny. I had created shields that would have cut the room in half.

"You better practise, Miss Dalton. Sooner or later, we will have need of your skills, and I have placed a large wager on sooner."

~o~

May 2012

It turned out that Fury was right. Unfortunately, capturing an entire horde of strange space horses in a force field was really above my paygrade. I was driven to New York City just in time to witness its destruction.

"Up to Stark Tower, Dalton," Fury shouted into his radio. I pulled the earphone out. I could probably hear him even over the deafening sound of general calamity and the resulting panic anyway.

Stark Tower loomed above me, every inch the nightmare it had promised to be. Broken glass covered the ground like sand and Stark's work of art had to be a homage to the Italians, for it looked about as trustworthy as the Tower of Pisa. Four giant letters had fallen off, leaving it with an impressive A.

"Top floor." Fury was still clearly audible with the earphones hanging around my neck.

Please, let the elevators work, I prayed as I walked through the foyer but life was rarely that kind. Therefore, I arrived on the top floor approximately an hour later, ready to lie down for one to three days and do nothing but breathe but I had a job up here. Not that anyone had told me what to do, really. I just hoped I'd figure it out as I went.

And truly, this was rather self-explanatory. The assembled Avengers were in combat position, facing a man that looked as if he had had a really tough night. Loki. The Asgardian that wanted to rule the world.

I raised my hands and walls of red-golden light formed a cage around him.

He looked at me and I thought I saw surprise on his bleeding face. "No introduction? How rude."

I was about to reply when Hulk groaned and Loki whimpered. Someone had evidently left an impression.

It was Stark who transported Loki back to the facility, bound and gagged. Not an altogether dignified exit and Barton in particular seemed to enjoy the scene but the Asgardian would regain his strength. I wondered whether Stark would be able to hold him. For a while, perhaps, but earth was too small a place for a god. Nothing here could ever contain him.

I was wrong, of course, as I usually were. Back at the headquarters, Fury insisted on a security briefing and this time, I was allowed to sit at the same table as the big guys. Not everyone was there, Thor was missing, and Banner, too, but Stark, Rogers, Barton and Romanoff looked at Fury with varying degrees of interest.

"This battle is over but there are others," he said, cheerful as ever, "We need to be ready. And we have a rather unwelcome remnant of this catastrophe in our high security cell."

"It won't hold him for long," Rogers said, looking slightly nervous.

"It won't have to. You might wonder why Miss Dalton is with us. She had an accident last November. An extraterrestrial object hit her and transferred some powers onto her."

"It was a particularly bad Wednesday," I mumbled. Natasha smiled.

"Miss Dalton has exhibited skills that would allow us to detain Loki on earth. I don't know about you but I'd sleep better if we could keep an eye on our prisoners."

"I'd sleep better if he was far away on a different planet," said Barton.

"Would you? Loki will be in the custody of his family. I do not trust his brother or parents to show the necessary rigour should he attempt an escape which, we can be certain, is only a matter of time."

"And what will we do? Shoot him? He's practically a god," Rogers pointed out.

"Even gods can be killed," Stark grinned savagely.

"This is," Fury said as he put a hand on my shoulder, "where Miss Dalton comes in. She is able to project psionic shields that would render Loki powerless."

"His magic perhaps. He's still strong enough to take us all down."

"My shields can withstand a lot," I said quietly. Suddenly, all eyes were on me.

"Where were you today, then?" asked Stark. "Hidden away here like a secret, perhaps?" His stare pierced Fury but he ignored it.

"I considered it safer not to risk Dalton's life today. She is still developing her powers after all."

"What the director means to say is that I would have been no help at all. My shields work only in close proximity and best within eye contact. It's a protective measure of my subconscious." It was a full sentence in the presence of Captain America and Tony Stark. I was proud.

"What we can agree on," said Fury, as if I had said nothing at all, "is that Dalton's shields can contain Loki. For that reason, I will make you an agent."

My jaw dropped. "I have no agent training –"

"Well, probationary, then. You will need the security clearance." Fury turned back to his team of Avengers, pride in his face. This was his initiative and it had paid off.

"Be careful, Cassie." Natasha had this urgent look on her face again. "Don't talk to him. Don't even listen. Just ignore him, he will stop eventually."

Natasha had interrogated him, I remembered all of a sudden. How had it gone? Nat was the most level-headed person I knew. If Loki had managed to fool her, how easily would he manipulate me?

"Do you think you can manage, Miss Dalton?" Hill spoke with the stern kindness of a high school English teacher. "He is practically a god. And he has deceived more seasoned agents."

She didn't look away from me but Clint shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Well, he doesn't have his cane now, does he?" I asked, much braver than I felt. I did not want this to be a cul-de-sac for me. I had given up everything for this life. I wanted it to be everything. I wanted to do more, I wanted to be better.

"Let her," Fury decided. "There are cameras. He won't go unwatched. Don't let him get to you, Dalton. We'll have you on video, too."

Charming, the trust he put in me, even after all this time.

"I know, sir. I won't disappoint." It was childish but I longed for his approval.

"Disappointment I can bear. Just don't ruin S.H.I.E.L.D."

Fury had stuck his head out for this, for the right to keep Loki prisoner on earth. If anything went wrong, it would be on his head, too.

The director turned around. "Barton, see whether you can get anything out of him. I want to know more about this...employer of his. I want to know everything."

I decided I'd rather not be present for this part. Barton wouldn't have been my choice of interrogator but I was a peace-loving and altogether kind-hearted human being. Fury no doubt wanted to capitalise on Barton's anger, as long as it was red hot and forgeable.

Natasha accompanied me to the canteen, but she was lost in thought. Barton had been her closest friend. Her brother, in a way. She was scared of losing him before she'd found him again.

"He'll be fine," I said. We both knew it was more wish than wisdom but she smiled nonetheless.

"Of course he will. He's strong. I just...It's too soon. He doesn't know who he is anymore."

"You'll tell him. He'll remember, once he's back in the game. The two of you against the rest of the world."

Natasha chuckled. "Not the entire rest. Only a large part of it." She was silent while she piled vegetables onto her plate, only when we had sitten down in a niche far away from prying ears, she spoke again. This time, it was with concern.

"Are you sure you're up for this, Cassie?"

"I'll be fine," I said and lied for what felt like the hundredth time since I got here. I wasn't going to be fine. I was some sort of human prison for an alien mass murderer, I was decidedly not fine. But there was not much use in whining and actually no one to whine to, so I yielded to fate. I was going to be a prison guard. So what, there were worse careers. More dangerous ones, too. I tried not to think of all the dead people I had passed on my way to the Stark Tower. He was a psycho, perhaps, but I didn't need to talk to him. I wouldn't talk to him.

~o~

Loki was pacing up and down in his cube when I entered the cell but his posture was so regal, his back straight as a ruler, that it didn't look like a prison at all. Well, he just didn't look like a prisoner. The cell really ticked all the boxes. A cube made of glass so dense it was (supposedly) unbreakable stood in the centre of a well-lit underground hall. The walls and the floor, everything was grey concrete. I had entered through two high security doors and there was another at the end of the hallway. And as that alone was not enough to contain Loki of Asgard, I was here, too.

He looked up as I conjured my shields. When he saw me, a mean smile formed on his lips.

"They send you as my gaoler? Oh, this is sweet."

"It's nice to meet you, too," I said. A wall of break proof glass really made me a lot braver.

Loki's smile sent shivers down my back. "What are your skills, then? Barton failed to mention you, too, unless you are that hopeless case he talked about."

"Yes," I said as I tried to find a comfortable standing position. "That sounds like me."

"Psychic shields." He reached out to touch them but his fingers met only glass. "And I deduce from your presence here that they are only effective as long as you remain in physical proximity."

How did he do this? Make me feel like an idiot although he was the one trapped in a glass cube for eternity for trying to rule the earth?

"A true Sherlock Holmes."

He waved that reference away, still prowling his cage. I had never seen a panther, not even in the zoo, but I imagined that this was how they moved. With a sort of lazy arrogance, languid but somehow fluent in his movements, water in man's shape.

"Has no one warned you, girl? I have a silver tongue." And a terribly arrogant smile.

"It looks alright to me," I said, although my heart was drumming in my chest.

"Oh dear, are you the most entertaining they have to offer?"

He stopped pacing to look at me. Not in the way guys sometimes did at night clubs, not in this disgusting, leering way. In the way a critic would study a mediocre piece of art, in the way a sniper would eye his target, in the way a safe-breaker would scan the high security doors to a bank vault, or in the way someone (a space alien, for example) would scrutinise a twenty-four-year-old librarian from a small town in Maine that was way, I mean, way, in over her head, looking for any sign of weakness. It was chilling and I caught myself looking away, shrinking under his gaze.

No.

I straightened my back, raised my gaze to meet his. How was it even possible to have emerald green eyes without contacts?

"Everyone else is occupied with the mess you made." I felt much better accusing him but he smiled. He had me right where he wanted me: Talking to him, revealing minor details he could piece together.

"We are alone here then you and I?"

"Is that thought scaring you?" I did my best to look as threatening as a 5'3 girl with a penchant for sweet cakes and fuzzy cardigans could. They had still not given me a uniform, which I found both an insult and a relief. I would never look as good in a catsuit as Natasha and I was not desperate enough for a full length leather coat like Fury's, although they added an awful lot of drama to every entrance.

He laughed. "You will not be so forward when I'm done with you."

Say whatever you want about Loki, but he recovered from humiliation quickly.

"I'm terrified. Although, I think, not quite as terrified as you ought to be. You do like green, don't you? Perhaps a little less now?" I gave him a very big smile but he returned it.

"Your beast isn't here. He's a man now, I'd wager, and lost somewhere. It might be weeks, or months even, before he resurfaces."

He didn't say it but the implication was plain: Loki didn't plan on staying that long.

I felt him pushing at my shields. It was a strange sensation, no one had ever been able to touch them but to my great relief, I found it a nuisance but no difficulty.

"Where did they find you, I wonder? A witch, here on Midgard. I remember your people used to burn women like you."

"Well," I said, more lightly than I felt, "that was back in the day when they also used to worship men like you. We've come a long way since then, thankfully."

"Not so long." He smiled. "A breath of air for me. You are mayflies, mortal. You cannot hope to hold me. I'm a god."

"You're an alien people once mistook for a god. Big difference." I really had to bring a chair next time. Perhaps a table, too, so I could read. I was talking to him too much and worse, I already felt myself reacting to him. He was a prisoner. I shouldn't hate him, I shouldn't find him arrogant or annoying or surprisingly attractive. I was here to guard him. That was all.

I took a few steps towards the looming grey wall opposite his glass cube. This was the lowest basement level, the walls were some six feet thick. Even if he found a way to escape the unbreakable glass cell, he'd have a hard time getting out of the hall.

But as I stared at the closed security doors, I didn't feel especially secure myself. Locked in with the beast.

"If you are to be my companion now, don't you think it would be courteous to introduce yourself? I have always found your Midgardian manners lacking. You are so...crude. There is no refinement in you."

"Certainly. Nothing cries refinement like trying to seize power over a different planet with a horde of alien horses in tow. Let's say we're even."

Loki laughed. It was a chilling sound, joyless and cold and mocking. "I like you. We will have a lot of fun while I'm here, I'm certain. Now, your name..."

It wouldn't hurt telling him. He was not Rumplestiltskin, after all.

"Cassandra Dalton."

A satisfied smile spread over his face. "Miss Dalton. You're not an agent, are you?"

I had the choice: Tell him I was a probationary agent and show him how unskilled I was, or pretend I never even attempted to become one.

"I exist outside the hierarchy of this institution." I told him. It wasn't a complete lie.

"Of course you do, Miss Dalton. I am very much looking forward to our time together. Are you?"

I caught a glimpse of his wolfish grin before he lay down on the hard bench, arms folded behind his head. I didn't like his complacent smile one bit. He was up to something. And I would find out what it was.