Because I needed something to do for the two spare hours I just had nothing to do in. Honestly, I'm quite proud of the fact that I wrote 2400 words in two hours. So, here is a double update, just for you guys... Leave a review or a comment if you like it! You have no idea how much it makes my day.
~O~O~O~
"You get how this works?" Fury was saying onscreen to Loki as he stared down at the thirty thousand foot drop beneath him. "Ant." He pointed at Loki. "Boot." He pointed back at the screen that controlled the cell.
Loki chuckled, and Raegan felt Thor tense beside her at the coldness that seeped into Loki's voice. "It's an impressive cage. Not built I think, for me."
Fury just stared at him. "Built for something a lot stronger than you," he said sharply.
"Oh, I've heard," Loki said, staring directly at the camera mounted on the wall beside his cage. "A mindless beast. Makes play he's a man."
Natasha looked up at Bruce, who was staring awkwardly away from the screen in an attempt to ignore the jab Loki was sending his way.
"How desperate are you?" Loki continued. "You call on such lost creatures to defend you."
"How desperate am I?" Fury growled, his voice hard, emotionless. "You threaten my world with war; you steal a force you can't hope to control; you talk about peace and you kill because it's fun. You have made me very desperate."
Fury and Loki seemed to be locked in a stare off competition.
"You might not be glad you did," Fury said eventually.
"Ooh," Loki said smarmily, smirking at Fury. "It burns you to have come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power. Unlimited power. And for what?" He grinned at the cameras, like he knew they were all watching him. "A warm light for all mankind to share? And then to be reminded what real power is." His voice was so harsh, Raegan took a step back. He reminded her of… no. She'd think about that later.
Fury's mouth twitched as he walked away. "Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something," he said as he left the room.
The screens went blank. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce said.
"He's going to drag this out," Steve said. "So, Thor. What's his play?"
Raegan looked at the Norse god, who looked deep in thought and a little sad. "He has an army, called the Chitauri. They are not of Asgard, nor of any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, in return I suspect for the Tesseract."
"An army," Steve clarified. "From outer space?" He looked at Raegan, who shrunk back in her seat.
"They aren't mine," she murmured, putting her hands up in a submissive gesture.
"So, he's building another portal," Bruce said, pulling his glasses off to look at Thor. "That's what he needs Eric Selvig for."
"Selvig?" Thor asked, recognition crossing his features for a brief second.
"He's an astrophysicist." Bruce amended.
"He's a friend," Thor replied absently.
"Loki has him under some sort of spell- along with one of ours," Natasha said, letting emotion flit briefly across her face as she said it. Barton, Raegan thought. Loki had Clint, and now he would pay for it. No wonder the assassin seemed so down.
"I want to know why Loki let us take him," Raegan said, vocalising the point that had been running around her head the past couple of hours. "He's not leading an army from here."
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guys brain is a bag full of cats- you can smell crazy on him," Bruce piped up.
Thor whacked the table. "Have care of how you speak," he snarled. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he is my brother."
"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha replied, devoid of emotion.
"He's adopted," Thor said hurriedly.
"I think it's about the mechanics," Bruce said. "Iridium. What do they need the Iridium for?"
"It's a stabilising agent," Tony said, entering the meeting room with Agent Coulson. Steve noticed Raegan's hands clench into fists as she tried to keep her breathing steady. He gently took her hand under the table, squeezing it gently.
"It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD," Tony continued. He noticed Thor and swaggered over. "No hard feelings, Point Break, you have a mean swing. Also, means that the portal can open as wide and stay open for as long as Loki wants." He walked over to the flight controls and stared at them all, then at the crew members.
"Raise the mizzenmast! Jib the top sails," he said, watching as everyone paused in what they were doing to stare at him. "That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did."
Steve gave her a curious look as Tony said this. "We'll go over this later," she whispered as something of Tony's beeped. He covered one eye and looked at the controls yet again.
"How does Fury even see these?"
The female agent in the corner looked fairly unimpressed as she sighed. "He turns," she replied.
"Sounds exhausting," Tony said. He began fiddling with something. "The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he needs is a power source of high energy density. Something to… kick start the cube."
"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" the female agent- Agent Hill, Raegan thought her name was- asked suspiciously.
"Last night," Tony replied bluntly. "The packet. Selvig's notes. The Extraction Theory Papers? Am I the only one who did the reading?"
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked.
"He'd have to heat the cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break through the coulomb barrier," Bruce said from where he was pacing behind Raegan and Steve's seats.
"Unless Selvig has worked out how to stabilise the quantum tunnelling effect," Tony said, walking over to Bruce.
"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet," Bruce replied.
"Finally!" Tony cheered. "Somebody who speaks English!"
"Is that what just happened?" Steve muttered to Raegan, who laughed.
"It's good to meet you, Dr Banner," Tony said as he shook Bruce's hand. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled… and I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."
"Thanks," Bruce responded uncertainly, biting his lip anxiously as Fury appeared suddenly in the room.
"Dr Banner is only here to track the cube," he said. "I was hoping you might join him."
"I'd start with that stick of his," Steve added. "It may not be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."
"I don't know about that," Fury retorted. "But it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki managed to use it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his own personal flying monkeys."
"Monkeys?" Thor asked in puzzlement. "I do not understand."
"I do!" Steve burst out, looking proud of himself. "I understood that reference!" he explained. Raegan patted his arm gently.
Tony rolled his eyes. "Shall we play, Doctor?" he asked Bruce.
Bruce motioned for Tony to follow him. "This way sir."
~O~O~O~
Natasha walked out a few minutes later, muttering under her breath about training rooms, while Fury and Hill did their own thing and Coulson left with Thor as he began to discuss Bilgesnipe.
"Steve?" Raegan asked, waving to get the captain's attention. "Much as I like it, do you mind maybe letting go of my hand for a minute?"
Steve blushed and hurriedly released her hand, muttering apologies.
"No, it's fine," she said softly, placing a hand gently on his forearm. "I'm sorry about freaking out when Coulson came in. He just scares me for some reason. If you hadn't held my hand, I might have had a panic attack."
"Miss Adakai?" Fury called from where he was conversing with Agent Hill.
She looked at Steve, who raised an eyebrow, but then took her hand as she walked over to where Fury stood on deck.
"Yes, Director?" Raegan asked curiously.
"Agent Romanoff mentioned to me that you had formed a bond with Loki somehow- to the point that you told the rest of the team he had offered to have you work under him willingly."
Agent Hill stared open-mouthed at Raegan, who nodded slowly.
"I'm not abusing whatever miniscule amount of trust he has in me for you guys," she said eventually. "So, it's a no to interrogation, and whatever else you and your minions have concocted with me in mind."
Fury stared at her in disbelief. "Aha, Mr Spy, that's right. I can have my secrets too," she said triumphantly.
Steve frowned as she danced happily across the deck, poking her tongue out at the confused Director.
"You see Fury, recruiting me was a win-lose situation for SHIELD. Because I have a skill set that even the military has refused to share with you. And it's even more fun to watch you squirm as you try to work out how I know things that I shouldn't."
"Romanoff told me about your argument with Stark on the jet. She also mentioned the trust you seemed to place in Loki even though nobody else did. It's those small things that make me wonder if you are on our side or not, Miss Adakai." Fury narrowed his eyes at her.
Raegan smirked.
"I'm secretly working for Loki," she said eventually, after a long, awkward pause. She started taking large, clomping steps forward, her arms stretched out in front of her as one does when pretending to be a badly controlled robot. "Must… destroy… Earth. Fury… is… a… pirate. Mwa… ha… ha… ha!"
Agent Hill raised an eyebrow at Steve as Raegan pretended to bump into a wall, falling backwards and continuing her robotic evil chuckle.
"Okay, so we'll send Agent Romanoff in to talk to Loki then," Fury said, his eyes still fixed on Raegan's robot impersonation.
Steve helped her up, his fingers twining with hers as she glared at Fury.
"Loki will hurt Natasha. He'll use Barton as a bargaining tool- a weak link in her armour," Raegan muttered as Agent Hill summoned Natasha up from the training room to 'talk' with their guest.
"I don't see you offering to go in there," Fury snapped.
"Because I don't need to interrogate him, Director. He is being controlled by something else, something worse than Loki, something that is planning far more destruction than this crazy god is."
"How do you know for certain? Did you happen to walk up to him and just ask?" Fury growled.
"No, I read his mind," Raegan retorted, watching as the Director paled considerably.
"How? Whose minds have you read since you were here?" he asked, instantly on the offensive.
"Only the minds of those I perceive as a threat," she replied sweetly. "Which means that I have picked the brains of everybody aboard this Helicarrier apart from those on my team. So yes, that means that I have been in your head, Director, and I have seen your dirty little secrets. 'Phase Two' ringing any bells at all?"
Fury reached for his gun, but a shot of bright green sparks prevented him from touching even the holster.
"Don't," she hissed warningly as Natasha entered the room.
"Ah, I see the Director has found out what it is you can do," she remarked dryly, receiving a glare from Fury.
"You knew?" he shouted. "Agent Romanoff, you have a duty to report all information back to me! Why did you not tell me that she can read minds before we let her into a top secret facility?"
"I thought it would be funny," Natasha said, deadpan.
"Indeed it was," Tony said, entering the room with Bruce in tow. "I have saved the footage and uploaded it onto YouTube, Fury."
Raegan snorted. It sounded like something Tony would do, even if what he had just said was an empty threat.
"You're bluffing," Fury said, glancing at Raegan to discern her reaction to Tony's statement.
She grinned. "I wouldn't trust the crazy alien, Director," she said plainly. "But he's totally bluffing."
"I want a tech team with me in the lab in five minutes or less ASAP!" he yelled at Agent Hill, who began relaying the instructions to the helicarrier. Fury looked at Raegan, who gave him a quizzical look- raising an eyebrow and smirking. He stormed out of the room, living up to his surname.
Tony high-fived Raegan, and Steve seemed to resent the fact that she and Stark were bonding. It's not fair, he thought. Stark was such an arrogant prick to her before- why does she forgive him so easily?
Raegan looked up at him. "Because we need to work as a team, even on trivial things such as pranking Fury. Steve, you need to forgive Tony for being as rude to you as he is, and Tony, you need to relinquish the bad memories of your childhood and your father to help save the world from the crazy god."
Everybody stared at her. "So it's true? You can read minds?" Bruce asked.
"Yes," she said slowly, hesitantly. Steve noticed her body tensed up as if it she were subconsciously waiting to be hit.
"Cool," Tony said flippantly as he and Bruce walked up to the lab, before pausing on the stairwell and looking at Natasha pointedly. "Aren't you supposed to be socialising with Reindeer Games right now?"
"I was wondering if Raegan wished to join me," Natasha responded, her voice almost pleading.
Raegan sighed. "Yeah, why not? I'll watch from outside though- I can still pick up his mind from through the doors."
She squeezed Steve's hand gently- he still hadn't let go from the whole confrontation with Fury- and stared up at him.
"Go and talk with Tony. And please try not to kill each other during that time. I'll come and find you once we've finished 'chatting' with Loki. Do you think you can handle that?"
Steve nodded slightly, gazing directly into her eyes. "Stay safe, okay?" he murmured, tucking a flyaway strand of her braided back red hair behind her ear without even realising he had done it.
"Okay," she whispered as he released her hand reluctantly.
She smiled, squared her shoulders and followed a smirking Natasha- who was lingering by the doors- out of the room.
A/N: So, I have a reply to a reviewer: Caitie-AwesomeHippie.
First of all- thank-you! You have officially made my day!
My answer to your question is: she's from one of Thor's Realms. Meaning, she could be from a tenth... making her defintely the last of her kind. I was tossing up making her a Dark Elf for a while, but I don't think it would make the story work as well. Thor will know of her eventually. Raegan is telepathic, has accelerated healing (all of my OC's do- it's an artistic failing) and can output green energy to do what she wants- usually attack somebody, heal, or shield herself or others. Oh, and she's a top notch assassin. I hope my rant answered your questions.
To the rest of you, leave a review if you like. Or not. It's really up to you, but I would appreciate it :)