Chapter 3
This made no sense. No sense whatsoever.
How could Thanos possibly know the location of his Intended before he himself did? The very idea was preposterous.
And yet…
The gleam that had festered in the eye of the Other had been so full of malicious confidence, so completely sure of the threat he offered that it was almost certainly true.
Stranger things had happened. No doubt stranger things would. But what Loki couldn't understand was how, after all of the ridiculous fawning he had seen his oafish bro–no, Thor, had put himself through over a mortal; after all of the unnecessary meaningless people he had himself killed to further his cause, after a thousand years of assuring himself that he need pay no mind to the trifling prediction Heimdall had made in his youth, that no mortal was worth the price he would have to pay…how was it that after all of this he was still intrigued by the idea? However faintly.
A mortal? A human, his queen? Certainly not willingly.
What sentimental nonsense; what bilge-infested bedtime story did Heimdall and Odin really think his life would become? Knowing all the while (as they always had) that he was not even of Asgard; that he was an accursed Frost Giant, loathsome and putrescent, repulsive to all who looked upon them? That the form he had taken as an Asgardian in his infancy was a mere subterfuge, a deceptive trick concocted subconsciously to save him from destruction? And still they had lied, offered him something cheap and fleeting as recompense for the losses he would endure.
How could any such situation not end in heartbreak? He had been bound as a witless child to a woman who would die in a handful of years. Surely this was yet another trick on Odin's part, another scourge placed upon him to remind him of his true place in the All-father's court: beneath everyone else's feet.
Loki hissed in irritation, the sting of pain from the Other's touch still lingering on his face. He had other, better things to concern himself with. Soon he would stand as ruler over the Earth–it's only ruler. Until then, he had much to do to prepare for the glorious days to come.
Soon, the Tesseract would be ready. He would summon his army, and claim a throne–a world– for himself, as payment for that which he had lost. And he would not need the love or affections of a mere mortal to console him. He would be above them all, as he ought.
Then, what would it matter, the fate of his Intended?
It would just become another unnecessary weight he had shed in his rise to power.
. . .
It had been a solid four hours since agent Hill had taken Mia to her room. Four hours was plenty of time for her to piece together what was bothering her, what wasn't fitting in the picture correctly.
Mia had known, of course, as soon as Stark had shown her the information he had on the Tesseract project. She had been playing stupid to see what he knew; which appeared to be less than she did. It was a covert op, and Mia shouldn't have known about it in the first place if it weren't for Hill. Not that she would ever tell anyone at SHIELD that: the agent's 'cover story' was real, they had worked together before. That just hadn't stopped once she'd joined SHIELD.
Phase 2 went against everything SHIELD 'supposedly' stood for, which didn't surprise the anarchist at all. But creating weapons from the Tesseract (if what Hill told her was entirely accurate) was horribly risky. From reading Selvig's Extraction Papers, the scientist clearly hadn't even figured out how to properly harness the Tesseract's energy, let alone control it or manipulate it. The entire project was a case of putting the cart before the horse, and if SHIELD's history was any kind of gauge to the stupid ends they would go to before admitting they were wrong, it could put a lot of people in danger. Indeed, it already had: Loki being the prime example of their failure to protect the masses.
Loki had clearly come for the Tesseract: that much was obvious. But what he meant to do with it was unclear. Even SHIELD's resident irregular psychologists seemed to be at a loss, unable to explain his motives or predict his next move; which gave the man a lot of wiggle room for error.
Or was he even a 'man', by conventional standards? Mia chuckled at the thought as she sent out tendrils of golden smoke from her right hand, levitating her messenger bag from the chair onto the floor where she sat. 'Humanity' as a term was being reinvented every day, in part by the very people she was working with. While Dr. Banner's "Hulk" alter-ego couldn't be called human by conventional standards, his normal, non-mutated form clearly was, posing all sorts of rhetorical questions about the nature of the 'standard form' that humans always reverted to. Was it a base to build up from, or a failsafe? These weren't really questions for a political journalist to be asking, as it was more scientific then politics: but her study of Loki had brought up questions that she had jotted down for future analyzing. Not to mention, her own personal anomalies.
'Loki' was apparently a figure (god, really) from Norse mythology. Mia as a rule disapproved of such kinds of stories, whether of cultural significance or not. However, the proof wasn't in Loki himself (whom only a handful of people had even seen so far, and while under duress) but in his brother, Thor.
Thor had been the piece of the puzzle that finally made everything fit together. Apparently, the demigod had paid a visit to Earth the year before, supposedly 'banished' from his own kingdom of 'Asgard'. Mia still thought it completely phony (most of the pictures SHIELD had taken of the man looked photoshopped. A flying, anti-gravitational hammer? Seriously? And while the man was impressively tall, strong and good looking, his armor looked like it had come from the nearest cosplay retailer–it wasn't exactly convincing.) Mia thought of how Jane would have one of her 'field days' if she'd seen something like that…and then it hit her.
New Mexico. All of this had taken place in New Mexico, a year before.
Jane had…been involved?
There were photos to prove this theory true. Finally, it all made sense! Darcy's comments about how Jane was moping over a guy (which hadn't made any sense at the time) now were perfectly logical. So that was why Jane didn't like to talk about it: she had fallen for a god, who had then returned to his own planet after the fighting was done and hadn't returned.
Yikes.
If he were around, Mia would have punched him for upsetting her best friend. Then, thinking how that wouldn't really hurt him much, she decided she would have blasted him with her 'magic'.
Mia stared at her hand, watching the golden strands of sparks swirl in her palm. She had never understood why she had this strange ability; even her parents had been at a loss to explain it. No one in her family had shown any such ability before. It wasn't just show, either: Mia literally had the ability to manipulate matter. As a child, she hadn't cared for toys, preferring to practice creating things out of her 'magic', as she'd dubbed it at age three. So many scientists and doctors had come to observe her, like a test subject in her own home.
"It's completely beyond me," one of the better ones had said. "The girl displays abilities that shouldn't be physically possible. This 'golden matter' of hers is completely under her influence. It shouldn't even exist, yet there it is. It is a fact: an improbable, impossible yet completely undeniable fact."
She had learned from a young age that such things were not acceptable, and her parents had restricted her contact with the outside world in an attempt to keep her 'anomaly' a secret. Of course such perfection was necessary, considering who they were…
Mia scowled at the thought of her parents. They were her biggest, best kept secret, even considering her 'condition'. She had gotten away from them, created her own life…but still she harbored that fear of who she was, what she was. A fear she saw echoed in the equally strange people around her. They were afraid of themselves, to some degree; and while Mia was perfectly comfortable with her 'magic' in private, she had mentally conditioned herself to forget it existed while around others. The thought of using it in front of others was still a complete impossibility in her mind. She never stopped to consider why.
According to the internet, 'Loki' was the god of Mischief in the Nordic pantheon. Fantastic; the world was being taken over by a prankster. Still Mia couldn't understand why. She spent a good amount of time reading everything she could about him and his family, the royalty of a place called 'Asgard'. Okay, that proved that the guy posing as Thor had done his research. In short, it didn't prove anything.
The legends surrounding these god figures were absolutely ridiculous. The 'Asgardians' were nearly perfect, living in a utopian society modeled on Nordic culture and traditions. The utopian aspect was somewhat dimmed, however, by the constant power struggle between Loki and his brother Thor. Apparently the two were complete opposites of each other: Thor was golden and perfect, the ideal Asgardian warrior (and prince,) while Loki was sinister, spiteful, and in fact, rather ugly. Most renditions of him portrayed a creepy, unsettling red-haired jester who was spindly and downright evil looking: stereotypical villain archetype.
Strangely, Mia found no images related to the man in the records agent Hill had given her access to on her tablet. All of the security footage (from what Mia could only assume was yet another top secret base) had been edited: they had blurred over his face, though from what she could tell he wasn't as spindly as she would have guessed. Thin, but the video quality was too poor to see much else. He was carrying a long spear that had an inset which seemed to glow the same shade of blue as the Tesseract. Mia suspected it drew from the cube as a power source–a successful one, which was more than SHIELD had managed to make. No doubt they wanted to get their hands on that for the Phase 2 program.
Back on the topic of Loki, he definitely lived up to the stereotype–at least on the page. According to myth he was married to some Asgardian woman named Sigyn, and was the father of 1. The embodiment of Hell (apparently a woman called Hel), 2. A wolf, 3. A serpent, and the mother of an eight legged horse. Frankly, she really didn't want to know how much of that was true. Having worked with enough politicians to know that way more than half of their back-story is usually lies, Mia figured that and eighth of all that was probably fact–however, that did leave the possibility that he had parented some unlikely creature in the past, which was more than offsetting.
"Talk about a kinky weirdo," Mia muttered, scrolling through yet another page crowded with Nordic names and places of myth. She didn't like to think what might happen if he was let loose on the world as its unchallenged ruler. "Still, I've seen worse."
Since he had escaped from the base where the Tesseract had been housed (and most of Phase 2, Mia figured grimly,) Loki's whereabouts were unknown. She knew from the conversation on the bridge that they were tracking him down as she worked, but she could only hope that they found him before he subjected any innocents to his trickery, or violence.
So, Mia arranged the facts in her mind: Phase 2 had been (discouragingly) relocated, SHIELD had no idea where Loki was and appeared to be preparing a small task force of heroes to fight it's battles, should worse come to worse. And, for some reason other than insight, they needed her. This set Mia on edge: they couldn't know about her 'magic', could they? Or her other secret?
As she was fretting over the details she couldn't seem to narrow down, a knock rang on her door.
"Come in."
An unidentified agent poked her head in. "Miss Paxton?"
"The one and only," Mia replied dryly, shifting her half asleep legs to one side. "What can I do for you?"
"Director Fury sent me to inform you that Loki has been located."
Mia sat up straighter. "Already? Cripes."
"He'd like your presence on the bridge immediately." The agent said, and went out quickly.
"They're all about manners around here, aren't they?" Mia groused, shaking out her sleepy legs as she rose shakily onto her oxfords. "Well, duty calls." She scowled, hating the idea of being employed by the government.
Mia found her way to the bridge with relative ease, having been led there twice already. It was located in the forepart of the ship, unlike most bridges, so it was simply a matter of walking in the right direction until you ran into it. When she arrived, she found agent Hill and Fury standing at the console together, talking. Fury looked up when he saw her approaching, and gave her a grim smile. That was unnerving. Then Hill turned around, looking vaguely put out.
"Miss Paxton," Fury said. "Have you had enough time to bring yourself up to speed?"
"As much as can be expected, given the circumstances; yes." Mia nodded briskly and clasped her tablet before her in an efficient way. "I won't be able to create any conclusive theories until I can interact with Loki face to face."
"That can be arranged," said Fury, watching her closely for any signs of excitement. He had heard that journalists of her type often got excited at the prospect of working with a dangerous client–in a way that could interfere with their performance. Luckily, the look on Mia Paxton's face was one of gravity and decorum, not eager anticipation. Clearly she saw the man for what he was: a dangerous criminal, not an interesting specimen to poke and prod like the psychologists wanted to. That was the reason Fury had sent them away, and allowed an anarchist of all people on-board his top secret vessel. He could do with skepticism instead of scientific inquiry.
"Good." Mia was glad the Director had granted her access so quickly; she had been expecting to have to persuade him. This saved time. "Where is he currently located?" She asked, taking a step closer to the console.
Fury waved her over, and pointed to a screen. "Stuttgart, Germany."
"Twenty eight Konigstrasse," Mia read aloud, and cocked her head. "An art museum. Interesting." She quickly searched the internet for events at that location. "An exposition on the Nordic-Germanic period, with artifacts on loan from the Hague. Dr. Heinrich Schāfer will give a presentation on the historical significance of this period." She rolled her eyes. "How lovely for the demigod's ego."
"Captain Rogers and agent Romanoff are already en-route to his location," Fury explained.
Mia scoffed at the thought of the soldier. "You're sending him in, alone?"
Fury raised an eyebrow at her. "What, you doubt the Captain's performance ability?"
"After being encased in an ice cube for seventy years with no gym nearby, yeah. A little."
"And just what is it that you propose I do?" Fury said, getting his irritated tone on that made nearly every agent in the room look up in alarm.
Mia stared at him, unaffected. "Send in Ironhead as back up. Just in case. If I'm wrong, it doesn't hurt. But if I'm right…" Mia shrugged. "Besides, I suppose Romanoff will be running air reconnaissance and won't be on the ground at all, correct?" She sighed. "I'm just saying: this guy is a trickster: the trickster. You'll want to have all of your bases covered. Think of the populace."
The agent's watched spellbound as Fury deliberated. "That's not a bad idea, Paxton," he said finally, and spoke into his earpiece, telling someone to get a hold of Stark and give him the go ahead. The room returned to its normal hum of activity, but Mia didn't miss the awestruck looks she received: she had just convinced Nick Fury to change his mind.
"It'll take an hour or so for the plane to arrive," Agent Hill told her. "Perhaps you'd like me to show you the mess hall?"
Mia suddenly realized how hungry she was. "Yeah I'm kinda running on a cup of coffee and a few bites of cereal…my breakfast was interrupted." She glared over at Coulson, who shook his head and turned away, grinning. It was only really banter at this point anyway. "Lunch would be good."
The mess hall had surprisingly good food. Mia ordered herself a gardenburger with fries and sat down next to Hall, who was actually on break for a few minutes–a miracle, given her extremely busy schedule.
"You don't seem to be too concerned about capturing Loki," Maria mused, training her steely blue eyes on Mia's face. "In fact, you seem to be taking this whole thing in stride: gods and heroes, the whole top secret base deal."
"Well, it's not exactly like I didn't know they existed," said Mia, giving the agent a pointed look. "Well–minus the god part. That was unexpected, but certainly not surprising. In my line of work, you see pretty much everything. I'm sure you understand the feeling."
Agent Hill nodded, and sipped her diet soda quietly. "Phase 2 was relocated, after the attack," she told the noshing journalist after a while.
"I know," Mia said, and finished her bite of burger before continuing. "I gathered as much. That project would be kept as close to the Tesseract as possible, so…" she shrugged. "It made sense."
"It's on board."
Mia looked up abruptly. "I'm sorry?"
"Phase 2. All of the gear was moved onboard the helicarrier. It's all on this ship, in secure storage."
Mia considered this, while eying her fries. Something wasn't sitting right with her. "Well that's good to know." She tried to rein in her swirling thoughts, follow them to the source of the problem. She reached for the glass bottle of ketchup, and set her hand on the lid. Golden sparks shot out from the metal cap, like static electricity. Hill jumped.
"Sorry…that's weird," Mia said, frowning thoughtfully.
"Yeah, that is weird. This entire ship is grounded, because of the equipment. Shouldn't be able to conduct like that…" the agent eyed the bottle suspiciously.
"No, not that," Mia corrected. "I mean, yeah that's a little strange. But I mean, why a museum? What is it he wants there?" She furrowed her brow thoughtfully. "Everything Loki's done so far has had a sound logic behind it. So what's his angle? What does he need that a museum has to offer?" She thought back on all of the details she had read over the past few hours. Some part of his plan was still incomplete…
Agent Hill looked disturbed. "That's actually a really good point."
Then, it hit her. "Holy geez," Mia breathed, standing up in a hurry.
"What? What is it?!" Agent Hill demanded, seeing the woman's horrified face.
"We've got eyes on Loki," Mia said, keeping her voice down so as not to attract attention from the other agents in the room, "so what's the rest of his crew doing?"
Agent Hill (rather unbelievably) paled.
"And what's the main thing, what the lynchpin of his plan?" Mia clenched her fists tightly to stop her 'magic' from getting away from her in her state of agitation.
"The Tesseract?"
"Exactly." Mia got up from the table, abandoning her lunch. "Tell Fury: he's there for the Iridium. His men are probably breaking in as we speak."
"Director Fury, Miss Paxton has had a breakthrough," Hill relayed as she stood there, one hand to her ear. "She told me to tell you, Loki is after the Iridium." There was a pause. Hill looked up at Mia, who had been waiting tensely. The agent looked grim. "We're needed on the bridge."
. . .
Mia was still plenty angry as footage from a traffic camera was streaming across the screen of a room just off of the bridge. She sat at a table, watching the people from the museum rush out into the streets, running from the horrible sight they had just seen. Loki had just taken out a man's eye with a strange device, at the exact same moment the building's security protocols were overridden. Fury had informed her that by the time agents had arrived on scene, the crew and the Iridium were long gone.
Loki, however, like any power hungry politician, was eager to show off for the crowd…or was it himself?
Already he had blown up a police vehicle with a blue bolt from his staff, corralled a large group of people in the plaza outside of the museum, and somehow cloned himself to intimidate them and keep them from running away. He was dressed in what Mia could only assume was full Asgardian battle armor, an outlandishly large helmet adorned with huge horns on his head. He was cocky as all get out, emanating a regal, overbearing yet dangerous air that Mia could feel even over the camera.
Still, the camera quality was so poor that she couldn't make out the man's face. It was rather apparent though, that he didn't have fiery red hair. But the situation was making Mia very uncomfortable.
"This is a blatant defiance: a demonstration of power," she told Fury. "He's making a point: he will have his way, and he will take it by force. Those people are allin danger; he won't hesitate to kill them to further his cause."
"Tell me something I don't know!" Fury snapped, though it did make him feel better about what he was doing to stop the maniacal god to hear it from an expert.
"Those people are not collateral!" Mia cried, pointing angrily at the screen. "They just saw someone murdered before their eyes; they're scared, and they don't know what's going on. You need to get them out of there, NOW!"
"We're doing what we can, Miss Paxton," Agent Coulson reassured her, walking into the room. "Sir, the bird is in place. We're ready for the drop."
"Good. Tell Rogers it's a go, then have Romanoff scramble to location; we have civilians in a hostile situation, we need to clear them out!" he ordered into his ear piece. Mia felt slightly better–until she saw Loki step down into the mass of frightened people.
"What is he doing?" she whispered, green eyes narrowed in confusion as she watched him gesturing in a grandiose manner with his hands. "Lecturing…giving a speech," she realized. "About what? He doesn't need to convince them to take over the world. What's the point of this?" She watched him carefully, her breath catching in her throat as an old man rose from his knees, defying the god. She wished wholeheartedly that she could hear what they were saying. She could see from the tilt of Loki's head alone that he was giving a sassy one-liner. Then he was raising his staff, pointing it at the man…
"Oh god," Mia said, and slammed on the communication console. "Rogers, get in there!"
Fury looked extremely miffed at this breach of authority; however, Mia was too busy being relieved. No sooner had she spoken that Captain Rogers jumped into the frame, him and his vibranium shield protecting the elderly man from a bolt of blue energy from Loki's spear. "Copy that, Paxton," he replied in the COMM, and Mia let out her breath in relief.
"Thanks, Captain," she said appreciatively. She liked the man a little better now. When she thought about it, she liked Steve Rogers; and the hero he was while in spandex; just not that he had to wear the star spangled every time he became that hero.
"You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing." The line remained open; and even though Fury was glaring daggers at Mia for her insolence, he made no move to shut the device off.
"The soldier," said a contemptuous voice that Mia could only assume was Loki. She had seen him get struck by the rebounding bolt, and now he was rising to his feet. A sardonic if breathless laugh came through the speaker. "The man out of time."
"I'm not the only who's out of time," Rogers explained flatly, a loud rushing sound filling the speaker momentarily before agent Romanoff's voice cut over the crowd on a loudspeaker. "Loki, drop the weapon and stand down," she ordered.
"Yeah, like that'll work," Mia muttered quietly. Fury, who had stopped glaring a while ago, shot a glance in her direction. "What? It's not exactly his MO to just surrender."
As if to prove her point, Loki fired a bolt out of the frame, towards what Mia could only assume was the plane. Rogers then took it upon himself to throw his shield at Loki; it literally bounced off of the man and returned to its owner.
What followed could only be described as an embarrassing (if not well intended) fight. It basically entailed the American symbol getting pummeled rather unimpressively in front of the German population. The only good thing about it was that the people managed to run away during the encounter. "The guy's all over the place," Romanoff commented worriedly. Mia shot Fury an 'I told you so' look.
"Hey, at least the speech was good," Mia said cheerily.
"I heard that," said the Captain, sounding strained but annoyed.
"Eyes on the prize, Captain!" Mia called, deflecting in an uplifting way.
"Agent Romanoff," said a familiar and dryly sarcastic voice over the intercom. "Miss me?" In typical Tony fashion, AC/DC began playing over the audio.
"Tony baloney." Mia was beaming now. As much as she and Stark bickered and jibbed each other, she had full confidence in the guy, especially when in his metal suit.
"Paxton." Stark sounded pleasantly surprised. "This was your idea, wasn't it."
"Not gonna lie, Stark." Mia smiled. "Now help Cap kick Loki's self righteous ass. His whole 'holier than thou' attitude and power trip have really pissed me off."
"Anything for the resident anarchist," Tony said, as two golden beams shot Loki square in the chest, knocking him backward onto some low steps. He landed in the picture a moment later, pointing as many weapons as possible at the god. "Make a move, Reindeer Games." Rogers came to stand beside him, panting.
Slowly, reluctantly, and probably with a great deal of ego bruising (the very thought of which made Mia very happy,) Loki raised both of his hands, his armor disappearing.
Mia gave a cheer and punched Coulson in the arm in a friendly way. He looked surprised for a moment before giving her a genuine smile. Even Fury looked a little relieved.
"Good move," Stark, commented, before giving an acknowledging nod to the man beside him. "Captain."
"Mr. Stark," the Captain replied, equally stiff.
"Good work boys! Wooo!" Mia punched the air.
"Um, aren't anarchists supposed to be temperamental and demanding? I don't remember happiness being under that definition."
"Oh, shut it Stark, before I tell them all about what Pepper and I did to you with the orange juice."
A groan. "Would you stop bringing that up?"
"Sure; as soon as you haul his sorry hide back here, so I can have a go at him."
"It's a deal."
"Agent Romanoff, please remain in contact with the bridge. The rest of you, get off the line," Fury ordered.
A chorus of "yes sir" rang through the speaker before the Director terminated the call. The camera cut out the transmission. Fury turned back to the small group in the alcove with him. "Coulson, make sure the cell is ready for his arrival. Hill, with me. Paxton…" He stared at the journalist for a moment, unsure what to tell her. Finally he settled on, "Prepare yourself for your turn with Loki."
It then hit Mia fully what she had just agreed to.
Oh, shit, she thought.
Taking on a self obsessed, psychopathic villain-god for a mental spat couldn't be too bad, could it?
Shit.