A female doctor checked on the unconscious patient 0-8-4. After checking to make sure that the patient was somewhat comfortable, she walked out of the room to address the two people waiting outside, watching the room through a one-way mirror.
Maria Hill and Phil Coulson both stared at her blankly. "What's the status report on patient 0-8-4?" Hill asked.
The female doctor, Marge McLannister, another agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, opened her file on the patient. "She is stable," the woman stated in awe. "In fact she's recovered from the fall at an accelerated rate; I was able to take her off of life support a week and a half ago. If a human being had suffered the same injuries, they would either be dead or would have taken months to heal; even then, that person would never be the same."
Coulson whistled. "Well," he replied. "Good thing that she's not human then."
McLannister nodded. "Yes it is." Marge turned a glance towards her patient. "It's almost as if some outside force has fixed all her broken bones, and life threatening injuries."
Hill raised an eyebrow. "What? Like magic?"
McLannister shrugged. "It's the only way to explain how some of these injuries are being healed. If Doctor Strange can do that sort of thing, who's to say others can't?"
Hill stared at the patient, who's been in the care of S.H.I.E.L.D since her discovery in Canada three weeks before. The woman had somehow survived a fall that would have killed any other human being. "If she's healed, then how long would you say it would take her to regain consciousness?"
The doctor shrugged. "It's hard to tell. It could be anytime within the next few days I suppose."
"Is there a reason she hasn't woken up before?"
McLannister held her index and thumb on her chin, contemplating the answer to the question. "If I had to guess, I would say it was because of the extent of her injuries. You wouldn't be able to tell from looking at her now, but some of her injuries were life threatening. Had you not responded as quickly as you did, Agent Coulson, she wouldn't be alive right now. Now that the threat of death as past, she may wake up." The three agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. observed the patient silently.
Hill sighed. "Director Fury wants a progress report on the patient. The file please."
McLannister gave Hill the file. Fury's second-in-command and Coulson left the medical bay. The doctor decided to go to her own office, to catch up on some paperwork. Once the three left the one-way mirror, no one was around to notice one of the patient's hands moved, nor did anyone noticed when those green eyes fluttered open.
Director Nick Fury looked through the images on the tablet. The first image was of the site where patient 0-8-4 crash-landed. In the ground, there was a large crater that the female patient was pulled out. Fury swiped to the next image on the tablet; markings that were found in New Mexico after Thor came down using what he called the Bifrost. Fury himself never actually met Thor, but from what he had heard from Coulson, the man would have been a powerful ally for the agency. He had gone back to Asgard in order to force his sister off the throne. The outcome of that battle is still in question since Thor hasn't contacted Earth at all; but since no other robot came down to destroy another town on this planet- it's safe to assume he won. Fury continued to swipe between the two images. These images looked absolutely nothing alike, but Fury knew that the two events were related to each other. Any f***ing moron could see that. Fury swiped to a third image, taken from one of SHIELD's labs. There was a knock on the door. Fury turned off the tablet. "Come in."
A man opened the door. The man had blonde hair, blue eyes and athletic build. He wore a blue outfit with white stripes, red straps and a big white star in the middle of his chest. Strapped to his back, was a white and red striped shield with a white star in the center of it. "You called sir?" The man asked, sitting in the chair in front of the desk.
Fury wasted no time with greetings before pushing the tablet in the man's direction. "A week ago, at 2150 hours, something crash landed in a forest in Canada."
The man held the tablet awkwardly in his hands and began to look at the first image on this screen. He whistled at the large hole in the earth. "Do we know what it was?"
"Swipe to the very last image," Fury instructed. The man swiped to the image did not change. "To the right Rogers," Fury growled.
The man, Steve Rogers, did as he was instructed until he got to the very last image; a picture of patient 0-8-4 lying in the medical bay. Rogers stared at the image in shock. "Who is this?"
"We have no idea. We recovered her from the crash site," Fury stated. "For now, we're just calling her patient 0-8-4."
Steve's eyes became wide in disbelief; for someone who just went through a fall that caused such trauma to the earth, she had to be something special. Even Steve wasn't sure that he could survive a fall like that and come out as lucky. "0-8-4?"
"Code for objects of unidentified origins."
Steve Rogers narrowed his eyes. "This is a person."
"Of unidentified origins," Fury pointed out grimly. "Who crash lands in our back yard, without any explanation as to why." Fury pulled out a file and held it towards the soldier in front of him. "She has been in a coma since the incident."
Steve put the tablet on the table and gladly took the file, something familiar in his hands, and scanned through all that the file detailed, such as the fall and her recovery as of now. "So why exactly am I here?"
Fury looked at the soldier in front of him. "We don't know anything about her," he pointed out. "Until she wakes up, we don't know whether or not she's a friendly face or an enemy combatant. We need to be ready either way."
Steve snorted. "So I'm here to take her down if she decides to turn on us."
"There is always the possibility that she will decide to attack us when she wakes up." Fury eyes narrowed. "I would prefer that we're able to counterattack in case she does."
"Are you kidding me?" Steve held up the file angrily. "Look at these pictures! It's obvious that falling on Earth the way she did wasn't part of her grand scheme to take over the planet."
"And look at those pictures," Fury said unperturbed. "She's healing at a exponential rate. It's only a matter of time when she wakes up from her coma and is a full strength. There's no telling what she may decide to do when she does wake up Rogers."
"So you think ganging up on her is the solution?" Steve couldn't help but to think back to when he had woken up for the first time since he was frozen. All of the confusion and the fear when he realized that he had been lied to. 'I reacted badly when that happened,' he thought. 'On a planet she probably doesn't know, alone and held by some secret government entity? I can only imagine how bad her reaction might be.'
"Do you have any better suggestions?" Fury asked pointedly.
"Yeah I do." Steve got up from his seat and stood. "Starting off on the right foot by introducing ourselves when she finally wakes up, actually being open and honest with her and not actually making an enemy out of her right off the bat."
Fury sighed. 'How the hell can someone be so naïve?' He had absolutely no idea. It was that type of foolishness that caused Fury to lose the sight out of one of his eyes. "Fine," he growled out. "Try it your way if you want to, but if she decides on the more violent route…"
"I'll take care of it if we get to that point," Steve said. Steve turned towards the door, when Agent Hill barged through the door. The woman ran into the office and if Steve didn't know any better, she would say that she seemed… worried. "Director Fury." She saluted quickly.
Fury also seemed to notice the demeanor of his second-in-command. "What is it Hill?"
"Director," Agent Hill stated, "patient 0-8-4 has disappeared from the medical bay. So far every available agent is looking for her, but they're not having any luck."
"It seems she woke up earlier than we thought she would." Fury glowered at Steve. "Find her Captain."
"Yes sir." Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, ran out of the office, after the woman in the photo.
The first thing that Loki noticed when she woke up was a plain, white ceiling. She stared at it for a few more moments, as if waiting for something. 'These are certainly not my quarters,' Loki thought grimly. She suddenly noticed the sheets and the bed she was laying on. 'Not my bed.' Loki pulled the sheets off of her and got out of the bed. Her sharp green eyes began to take in her surroundings. These quarters were white and bare except for the bed and some strange devices next to it. The most interesting thing about this drab place was the large mirror that was right next to the door. For the life of her, she couldn't understand the purpose of such a large mirror being part of the wall like that or why someone would put it right next to the only door in the whole room.
'Pathetic,' Loki thought as more men in strange clothes ran past her. She used her magic to make it difficult to notice her. While this spell was not a very difficult one to cast, Loki could feel it draining her already low reserves. Her injuries must have been more extensive than she had previously thought. She would need to find a way to escape this place quickly; while the spell makes it harder for others to see or notice her, it wasn't infallible. Someone could see her if they either knew she was there or focused on where she was standing long enough. Loki was to walk down the hallway when someone else ran down the hallway.
Steve ran down the hallway, towards the room patient 0-8-4 had been kept in. While running, he pulled the cowl of his mask down, covering his golden hair. He pulled his trusty shield out of the straps on his back. He continued running, but then he heard something. Steve stopped running. 'What was that?' He turned around, but saw no one. 'I thought I heard something.' Steve turned looked towards each hallway leading to his position, concentrating. Where did that sound come from?
Loki gasped as she studied the man. His strange blue armor that stretched with his figure, giving her the unspoiled view of all of his muscles. He wore a blue helm that he wore over his face, covering the top of his head to his eyes. With the armor and the way he moved, Loki would have thought that she was looking at one of the Æsir warriors. He was glorious. She watched with baited breath as he stopped. Loki blushed when she realized that he must have heard her gasp. 'Fool,' Loki cursed herself. Now the warrior was looking right at her. Loki gritted her teeth. The man now focused on her position. Loki knew he could not see her, but if he focused long enough it would only be a matter of time…
"Rogers!" A woman of medium height, with dark brown hair tied into a tight bun ran towards the man. "Let's spilt up! I'll take the left, you take the right."
The warrior Loki had been watching, Rogers, nodded. "We'll regroup here if none of us find her. For now, we should try not to hurt her. She's probably just scared and confused."
The woman said nothing. As the two ran their separate directions, Loki realized that the pair had most likely been talking about her. Loki began to feel a warm feeling in her chest when she considered how concerned the man had seemed about her. Loki quickly squelched that feeling down. As touching as the concern was, it would not help her get out of here. She needed to find out where she was and find a way to escape as soon as possible. Loki turned and walked in the direction the warrior and the woman had come from.
After a while, Steve Rogers had run toward the agreed rendezvous point. Hill was already there waiting. "So you didn't find her either." Hill stated. Steve said nothing. It was sort of obvious.
"So now what?" Rogers asked.
Hill sighed. "It's a big ship. She has to be somewhere. We keep looking until someone finds her." Steve nodded.
Suddenly a loud alarm could be heard. Both agents, startled by the sounds, looked around. Multiple agents ran past them and towards the same hallway.
"What's going on?" Steve asked. Hill put her hand towards her earpiece and narrowed her eyes. "Hill?"
"It's Director Fury," Hill began. "He's being held hostage."
"What?" The captain asked, perturbed. "By who."
Hill gave him a lengthy look. "Patient 0-8-4."