Hey everyone, I got some wonderful reviews on my last chapter, and I just wanted to thank a few people before I begin.
Sam0728- Thank you so much for your advice, and kind words. Thankfully, this is the part of the story that I had my original idea for, so the chapters are getting easier to write.
ViolentAlice- One of the reasons that i really wanted to write this was because of how other stories were portraying Loki. I think that he is out of character for more than half of them, and that is okay, but just not the way I wanted to see him in my story. I am trying to make Atella as well rounded as I can, but I will admit that it is going to get a bit challenging to keep Loki in character as well as Atella in the later chapters. Love is a feeling that neither of them have felt before, so it is going to be interesting incorporating that into the characters.
Bleedingcrimson- There have only been a couple of things that I wish that I would have changed, but I am making them work for me. Thank you so much for reading, and I'm glad that you are enjoying my story.
Boneskatana and Azura Soul Reaver- I'm really glad that you guys dig the healing abilities. That is something that I thought would be handy for later chapters, but I wasn't sure how everyone would take it. I don't want to make her too powerful.
Everyone else, I know that I missed people that have reviewed since the first chapter, but I don't want to take up too much room in this thanking people. I will try to personally reply to everyone that I missed in the upcoming days. Thanks for all of your wonderful words of encouragement!
The last thing that I wanted to say is that I will be altering the time frame of the movie. In the movie, Loki is only in the cell for a few days at the most. In this, it will be several weeks that he will be held prisoner. I just wanted to warn you all before I went on.
8-8-8-8
Atella decided to take another nap before she left the hospital. She had no idea when she would be able to get a decent night sleep again and wanted to take the advantage when she could. Her dreams were plagued by the moment just before the spear came crashing down on her head. In her dream, she could feel the pain and hear the crunch as her diamond skin and skull shattered into tiny pieces. She dreamed that she never woke up from it, and that the world was lost to Loki and his army. She dreamed of millions of deaths and the destruction of every city or town on Earth. She dreamed all of this, but did not awake for hours.
When she did open her eyes, she nearly screamed as she found one eye looking back at her. Nick Fury was standing at the foot of her bed.
"Bad dream, Agent?" he said while his one eye drilled itself into her own eyes.
"A bit, but given what just happened, I'm not surprised," Atella said while attempting to sit up.
Fury regarding her for a moment before saying, "Do you feel well enough for another mission?"
Atella dropped her hand that was rubbing her face, looked at Fury and said, "Is everything still okay? Did something happen?"
"Everything is fine, Agent. We just need you and your talents. Nobody else can do this except for you."
Atella stood up beside her bed. She felt no different then she had the previous morning. She was completely healed.
"Where will I be going?" she asked.
"Not far."
8-8-8-8
Fury took Atella deep within the helicarrier where his office was located. There was a rather large table and several chairs in the room, where a man was already sitting in one.
"Agent Vorst, this is Thor, Loki's brother. Thor, this is Atella Vorst, one of our best agents," Fury said as soon as the entered the room.
Thor and Atella merely nodded at each other and waited for Fury to continue.
"We have no time to waste. Loki refuses to tell us where the Tesseract is and we do not have that long to find it. I am sure he has other people that are taking care of things while we have him locked up here, so time is of the essence. They will make an attack on the ship if they find the location, but until that happens, and when it does, we cannot afford to lose Loki."
Thor and Atella looked at each other at this pause. What did he want them to do?
"It boils down to this. You two are the only ones that are strong enough to contain him should he try to escape at any point in time. Stark told me that you," he nodded to Thor, "crushed the arm of his suit when you guys had your tiff in the forest. If you have that kind of strength, we can't risk the chance of your brother doing the same thing. Stark is out. Banner is not an option for obvious reasons, and, while the Captain is strong, he proves no match for Loki. Nobody else is powerful enough for this challenge."
At this point, Atella was dumbfounded. She could feel herself giving Fury a ridiculous look, and quickly closed her open mouth and said, "Um… I'm not sure what you were told, but Loki nearly broke my neck, in my other form, and he crushed my skull. How exactly am I strong enough to watch over him?"
"As far as I can tell, you lasted a hell of a lot longer than anyone else would have. Don't let him get his hands around your neck," Fury said.
Atella was still doubtful and opened her mouth to protest again, but Fury cut her off.
"You are an agent of SHIELD, and you are trained to change your tactics from target to target. You've fought him once already, you know his tricks and you know his weaknesses. I would not send you to your death. I know that you can handle it," Fury's voice was hard, but only after years of knowing him did Atella realize that he was trying to calm her down.
She nodded. "What exactly are we to do?"
Fury almost smiled, but caught himself at the last second. "You will be watching over him twenty-four seven. We cannot risk leaving anyone else to watch him. Thor will watch him during the night, Vorst, you will take over for him during the day. It will be harder for them to attempt to break Loki out of the cell while we are in the air, so this ship will not be landing until we have the Tesseract, so I cannot tell either of you how long you will have to do this."
"I thought that you had him in that cage that you had made for Banner? Does he really need added protection?" Atella said doubtfully.
"Maybe, maybe not. I would rather not risk it since we have people to spare."
Atella nodded. There really was no sense in taking that had been quiet the entire time. He looked deep in thought, and only when Atella and Fury both look at him did he say anything.
"My brother… hates me," Thor said. Atella could tell that it pained him to say it. "I fear that my presence in his company would only anger him. I am sorry, but I do not want to risk putting the people on board this vessel in danger."
Fury thought for a second on what the god just said. "Vorst cannot watch him all day, we will need someone else in there."
"I can hide him," Atella said. "I hid myself from Loki at the party. I just I mean, it worked for me. It's worth a shot."
"How are you going to sleep if you're busy keeping Thor invisible?"
Atella shrugged. "It really isn't too hard with one person, and since I have been connected to Loki's mind before, it will be easy to keep the connection this time around."
"Won't he be aware of you invading his mind?" Fury asked.
"Possibly. As long as I am subtle with it, he shouldn't suspect anything more than me keeping an eye on him. But you," she said and turned to Thor, "you need to keep quiet while you're in there. I can only hide you, not any noises you make."
Thor sat back in the chair and rubbed his chin. "It wouldn't hurt to try it, but if he detects me, I shall not do it again.
"Then it is agreed. You two shall watch over the prisoner Loki until the entire thing is sorted out. Agent Vorst, your first shift starts now," Fury said, already walking out of the room, leaving Thor and Atella alone together inside the office.
Thor glanced over at her, but Atella was too wrapped up in her thoughts to notice.
"Forgive me for asking," he said carefully, "but I have heard rumors and stories of your powers and I am intrigued. Could I see first hand what you are capable of?"
Atella looked over at him. She rarely noticed the looks of others, but she had to admit that he was one of the most handsome men that she had ever seen. He was a god after all.
Atella smiled and said, "Of course. Since we are going to be working together you should understand me, and I need to understand you. I'm guessing that you can control the lightning? And, I'm guessing that you are very strong." Atella eyed his arms and couldn't imagine this man being weak.
Thor laughed the jovial laugh of a god or king. "What you guess is true. Coulson tells me that you too are strong, but it is of the mind rather than the flesh."
"Yes. I can control the minds of others. I can see what they are thinking. I can see their memories, and I can see what they are seeing in the present. I can make them see whatever it is I want them to… or not to see. If I want, I can make them feel pain like they have never felt in their life before, or, I can make them be the happiest they have ever been. I can make them move and carry out tasks," she said and shrugged. "There really is no limit to what I can do with their minds."
Thor was sitting forward in his seat, mesmerized. "And that makes you a dangerous opponent. My brother was always more intrigued with fighting with the mind than fighting with the fists. Perhaps you can discuss it with him. It wouldn't hurt to gain his trust."
"That's a good idea. Perhaps I will. When I fought him at that party, his mind was a lot easier to penetrate than I thought it would be. Why is that?"
Thor scratched at his beard thoughtfully. "As I understand it, this gift you possess is natural. Correct?"
Atella nodded. "As natural as it can be."
"Where I come from, I think that control over another's mind is a very high form of magic. While Loki is a talented sorcerer, I do not think that he ever practiced in that particular area. It would be understandable that he could not match someone that did not have to learn the art. I am sure that if he could do what you can, he would have attempted to seize control of our father's throne a lot sooner."
Atella didn't say anything. What he said made sense, and actually made her feel relieved that her temporary victory wasn't just a fluke. She really was stronger than Loki when it came to the mind. Thor's next words shook her out of her thoughts.
"Can I see what you can do with your skin? … How you change, I mean," he said stumbling over his words slightly.
Atella laughed and said, "Of course."
She stood up and walked over to stand a few feet in front of where Thor was sitting. When she stood in front of him, he sat up in his chair slightly, as though he didn't know what to expect. Atella took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She felt the cool sensation take over her body, and heard Thor's intake of breath. She opened them to find him staring at her with a child-like amazement. He stood up from his chair and walked over to her.
"May I?" he asked.
"Go ahead," Atella said. Her voice always came out slightly deeper and more rough when she was like this.
She held out her hand for him to touch, and he grasped it gently in his own two hands and held it up to his face to examine it. He moved her fingers back and forth, watching how they moved, and squeezed her palm gently.
"This is incredible. I have never seen anything like this in any world that I have ever been to." He dropped her hand carefully down by her side. "I have faith that you are more than a worthy opponent for my brother. I will relieve you of your shift at nightfall." Thor tipped his head slightly to her, and walked out of the room, leaving Atella all alone.
Well, she thought. I better get re-acquainted with the other god on this ship.
8-8-8-8
Atella wasted no time getting to Loki's prison. She didn't want Fury to lose anymore faith in her than he already had. When she came to the iron door that led into the room, she found two guards stationed by it. She waited for one of them to address her or question her presence in this particular part of the helicarrier, but they simply stood aside and let her pass. Fury must have informed them of her new duty.
When she walked through to the other side of the door, she found at least five other guards standing around the cell that Loki was sitting in. All of the guards had giant guns that could rip a normal human in half with one bullet. They probably wouldn't even pierce the skin of the Asgardian. The god had his head down and was looking at his hands, and only looked up when Atella spoke.
"All of you are relieved," she said to the guards. "There isn't any reason you need to be here now that I'm here."
The guards did not say anything to her, but filed out of the room and left. When the last man walked through the door, Atella turned her attention on the only other person left in the room.
"Did Fury come by and explain how things are going to work around here?"
Loki stood up from his bench and walked over to where Atella was standing by the cell door. "Oh yes. He told me of how this prison works. One false move and you will send me plunging into oblivion. Am I correct?" He stopped a safe distance from the thick glass standing between them.
"Half. See, we cannot afford to kill you just yet. Not until we can locate the Tesseract, as well as anyone that you have taken hostage. Oh, and you can tell me any time we want where the Tesseract is. It would really make things go a lot faster, and I really want to go back on vacation. Point being, if you decide to get a bit rowdy in here, it will be my job to calm things down as humanely as I possibly can."
Loki laughed. "Did they not see what kind of state you were left in after our first meeting? Or did you volunteer for this to prove yourself?"
Atella took a few steps back and sat down on the floor Indian style. "I have nothing to prove to anyone, least of all SHIELD. They know fully well what I am capable of, you don't. If they put me in here with you, then they know that I can handle myself. You, on the other hand, have only seen me on a bad day. That will never happen again."
"Ah, but how can you be so sure of such things. I have indeed only seen you in action during our last little chat we had. However, fortunately for me, I have seen your true spirit Agent of SHIELD, and I do not fear you anymore than I fear the next mortal. You possess a great talent, but it is not enough. You are not enough to face what is coming to your planet, and you are not enough to face me. We will fight each other again, but this time, I will make sure that you are dead, and it will be far slower than it was the last time."
Atella said nothing. She had her head down and was staring at the floor beneath her. Loki smirked. "Have you realized just how weak and helpless you are, Agent?"
"No. I became incredibly bored about a quarter way through that speech of your's, and I nearly fell asleep, but then I realized how uncomfortable this floor is, so I'm gonna go get a chair before my ass falls asleep. You sit tight."
Atella stood up, and took one last look Loki staring at her before she laughed and exited the room in search of a comfy chair.
8-8-8-8
Loki watched the mortal leave the room, and felt his confidence flicker slightly. There was a lot to this woman, and he wasn't sure 'mortal' wasn't the best way to describe her anymore. He thought back to the previous night, to the moment of her apparent death. Even during the moment before his staff came in contact with her head, he already deeply regretted his decision. She was too powerful to kill. There was so much potential just waiting to be unleashed. If she could render him incapacitated with a mere thought, who is to say she couldn't take on Odin herself? It was a stretch, but one that was worth trying.
He sorely wanted her on his side, something that was a new feeling to him. Loki always considered himself a loner, never wanting to needing to rely on anyone but himself. Even enlisting in the help of Selvig and Barton was a huge leap for him, but he could not have hoped to move forward without them.
Perhaps he just needed to find the right person to be there with him permanently. She seemed reliable enough, and, if he could sway her loyalties, she would be the perfect right hand man. Someone to do all of the dirty work for him.
The real question was if he could persuade her to betray the people that she had known her entire life. He could never get her to go with him against her will, and he really didn't have the patience to even try that. But, there was something about her posture, about her voice that made Loki think she held a shred of resentment towards the place that she called home. From what he could gather, SHIELD did not always treat its employees fairly. Someone like Atella, who had just as much pride as Thor, would not take kindly to that sort of treatment for too long.
Loki was certain that would be her weakness. That is what he would go after, but, if he was going to play this game, it would have to be done carefully, for playing a mind game with a master over the minds of others was a dangerous game to be playing.
8-8-8-8
Atella returned a few short minutes later with a collapsible lounge chair in her arms. When she walked through the door she said, "You didn't blow anything up while I was gone did you?"
Loki was still standing where Atella had left him. "Agent, if there was any way that I could blow something up without being shot out of this aircraft, I would have done so while you were in the room."
"Great. Hey, if you do manage to kill me and break out of here, will you let Agent Barton know that I took his chair? His room was the closest, and it seems as though this is the only chair in this place," Atella said while unfolding the chair and sitting down heavily in it.
Loki said nothing, but just watched her. Atella could tell that he was lost in his own thoughts. His eyes had a far away look that people got when they were only concerned with what was happening in their own minds.
"Oh, that reminds me," Atella said. "Part of this whole guard duty thing is also guarding your mind as well. I guess they want to make sure that you don't do any magic stuff to this place, but that's just me assuming that the whole magic thing is done with your mind, right?"
Loki turned to face her completely once more. "What I do would be too complicated for your foolish mortal mind to understand," he said proudly.
Atella laughed. "Yeah, okay. If I get too bored watching you, I'll just do a quick look through your mind and learn everything that you know about the subject. Every little spell, potion, or hex that you know, I will know. You just keep that in mind."
Now it was Loki's turn to laugh. "You truly are a simple speices. Magic can only be done by those of Asgard. It would require a miracle to perform even the simplest of spells."
"Bummer. Well, that brings me back to my original point. SHEILD wants me to not only watch you, but your mind as well. I am going to keep a constant telepathic connection between us. I won't go as far as to read your thoughts, but if you begin to do anything that threatens the people on the helicarrier, I will render you completely defenseless and bring a thousand life times of pain upon you. Do I make myself clear?"
Loki smiled. "Completely. When will this invasion of my mind begin?"
"It already has," Atella said.
8-8-8-8
Loki became still for a moment, and closed his eyes. He could feel something there, in his mind, but only just. It was as though there was a very light touch on the top of his head, and if he didn't know to look for it, he wouldn't have know that it was there.
He opened his eyes and looked at the mortal sitting in front of him. She continued to surprise him. From her telepathic skills to her defensive properties, everything about her amazed him.
He focused on the connection between them again, and tried to follow it into Atella's mind. He was immediately thrown out with such force that he grunted out loud. Her mind was so powerful. She could probably completely crush him without any effort, yet she was so gentle and subtle with the connection she had just created. She could do anything she wanted to, yet she chose to bow down to the pathetic humans that ruled her life.
Loki stopped this train of thought and looked back to the woman sitting in front of him. She was pissed. Her blue eyes were staring right into his green ones.
"If you try that again," she said slowly, "I will destroy you without a second thought."
He only nodded his head in understanding. He knew that she could do much more than destroy him, and he knew that there would be no way to stop it.
8-8-8-8
It was nearly six in the evening when Atella finally moved from her chair. Both her and Loki had been lost in their own thoughts ever since he tried to look into her mind. While Atella was thinking about how Thor's shift was going to go, and if they would be successful in hiding him, Loki was thinking of possible ways to persuade Atella to join him.
As soon as Atella stood up, Loki did the same. She gave him a weird look and said, "It's a bit late for you to start acting like a gentlemen."
Loki hesitated a second and glanced at the camera that was monitoring the room before touching the connection to Atella's mind. She narrowed her eyes at him as soon as she felt him take hold of it, but he didn't go any further.
Instead, she heard him inside of her head say, "Is this what you really want? Babysitting a man when you could be ruling over everyone that calls this planet home? You could be a god."
Atella let the tension fall from her shoulders. "Unlike you, Loki, I do not have an obsession for wanting to boss people around. I am fine where I am, and, to be honest, I consider this a challenge. You're welcome."
"I don't believe you. I can see your misery hanging off of you, weighing you down. I can offer you so much more than they can," Loki said taking a few steps closer to her.
Atella walked right up to the glass door, and stared him down with her ice blue eyes. "I will never join you. I will never stand on your side and attack my planet or the people that live here. Don't try that bullshit with me again because my answer will remain the same."
Loki walked over to the glass and stood right in front of her with his hands behind his back. "With time, you will realize your potential, and you will be full of regret. Think about what I said."
Atella didn't answer the god that was smirking at her as if he knew something she did not. She couldn't take another minute of his smug attitude, and they had barely talked at all today. She quickly turned around and grabbed her chair and started dragging it towards the door out of the room.
"Wait," Loki called after her, "I thought that you said you would be guarding me? Are you leaving?"
Atella stopped and sighed. "Yes, because unlike you, I actually need to sleep every night. You will have your old friends back in a few minutes, so play nice until tomorrow." With that, she left the room, chair and all.
Loki stared after her for a moment. Something wasn't right. SHIELD wouldn't risk leaving him unattended without take extra precautions, but, sure enough, mere seconds after Atella left several guards came filing through the door. Loki looked at each one of them and immediately knew them to be mortals. However, he felt a presence in the room that he knew not to be mortal. A presence that he had felt for most of his life. A presence that he hated.
"Come on out, brother. I know you're here."
8-8-8-8
I was planning on Loki finding out about Thor much later, but then I realized that Loki is too smart for that kind of thing. I like this better.
This chapter was named after 'Nowhere Lullaby' by Built To Spill. I was listening to it while I was writing this.
Let me know if you guys like where this is going :)