"Abby! You're going to be late for school! Get down here or you're not getting a ride!" Cherry called.

Abby stormed down the stairs, swinging her backpack over her shoulder and tugging on her last boot. She glared at Cherry the whole way to the car, and in the car she refused to meet Cherry's gaze, staring heatedly out the window.

"You can't ignore me forever." Cherry flipped on her turn signal, passing a car that was actually going the speed limit.

"You're going thirty over." Abby muttered.

"Can't get pulled over. Have a Shield badge on the back of the truck. For all they know, I could be chasing a villain."

"Aren't you breaking the law?"

Cherry laughed. "I break the law all the time. Laws are more of… guidelines... than actual rules."

There was a hint of a smile on Abby's lips, but she was trying hard not to show her amusement. "Isn't that from Pirates of the Caribbean?"

"No. It's something they teach us in Shield 101. I mean, Natasha and Clint don't obey the law. Fury definitely doesn't obey the law."

Abby rolled her eyes, going back to angry again.

"Listen," Cherry sighed. "I'm sorry I missed your birthday. I can't exactly decide when I get abducted."

The brunette teen sitting next to her glared at the dashboard. "Yes, you can. It's called getting a normal job. You wouldn't get abducted if you worked at Walmart or McDonald's. When you go to work, you dress like you're going into the middle of a battle zone." Abby gestured to Cherry's outfit. A black bullet-proof vest that looked exactly like a black jacket to the untrained eye, dark sunglasses, Shield badge, gun sling, a communicator, extra ammo, and combat boots with steel-tipped heels. She didn't have to wear the boots, but she did because she could.

"Do you remember what happened four years ago? When that freaky god invaded New York and killed thousands of people with an alien army?"

Abby nodded.

"Well, Earth was defenseless. If it wasn't for the Avengers, we would all be slaves right now." Cherry had to bite her tongue to keep from telling Abby about Loki mysteriously reappearing on Earth, the strange Chitauri attacks, and how there might be another invasion coming. "If we don't do anything, Earth will fall under attack again, and we won't be prepared."

Abby muttered something, grinding her jaw in irritation.

Instead of returning to their previously awkward conversation, Cherry smiled, turning the radio onto full blast as they pulled up in front of the school. Teens stared at Cherry like she was some sort of alien. "Have fun at school. If anyone bothers you, I'll lend you my bazooka."

Abby slammed the car door shut without another word.

Cherry was late. Again. But instead of worrying about whether this would affect her getting fired or not, she strode into the room. Then, she looked each one of the Shield agents in the eye before smiling and plopping down into her swivel chair, swinging her feet up onto the table, folding her arms across her chest.

The other agents glanced at Fury, who was staring Cherry down with a look nobody would want to be within ten miles of. "Glad to see you finally joined us, Agent sparks." Fury ground out.

Cherry picked at the imaginary dirt under her nails. "Don't mind me interrupting. Go on. I'm listening."

Fury's eye narrowed. "Someone give Agent Sparks some notes."

The agent sitting next to her was Matt, the guy who had been talking in her earpiece the night she had been abducted, which had been only a few days ago. He fixed her with a levelled stare before giving her a file folder.

Cherry flipped it open, looking at the pictures of Chitauri raiding groups taken by Shield scouts. There were lines of text under it that she didn't have to read, so instead she tried to listen to Fury's dull tone as he tried to explain what they were talking about before he was so "rudely interrupted".

She looked around the table at the other people. And to her surprise, there was Captain America sitting right next to Fury, trying not to smile. On the other side of Fury was Natasha, who looked equally parts bored and amused.

"Agent Sparks, are you even listening?" Fury asked coldly.

Cherry smirked. "Of course, Uncle Fury. I was listening to every pretty word coming out of your mouth. You were talking about how we were going to begin putting together data to see whether the Chitauri attacks form any sort of pattern, and if that has to do with the men who had Loki. And abducted me in case anyone cared about that part."

Fury continued talking, going over the results of data this, data that. More Chitauri. More strange people working against Shield. Still no contact with Asgard. Loki is finally ready to start working. This woke her up. "What?" She breathed.

Fury's eye grew wide in anger. "What now?" He snapped.

"Loki's ready to start working?"

"Yes, the doctors have said he is able to stand now, so that means he can start working. But because we don't know what Asgard wants to do with him, we can't give him a criminal punishment yet or hurt him in any way. That means no accidentally shooting him like you did the last criminal you were in charge of watching."

Instead of a snarky comeback, Cherry grew suddenly quiet. She knew in just an hour or so she would have to start working with a monster. Agents stood up and started filing out of the room, the meeting over.

Cherry felt a hand on her shoulder. "You okay?" Natasha asked.

Cherry coughed. "Yeah. Just tired. Got home late last night." She stood up, shrugging off Natasha's hand.

Natasha glanced at the fading bruise on Cherry's jaw. "How's your jaw?"

Cherry touched the bruise. "Doesn't hurt anymore. You have a strong swing. You should teach me how to hit like that sometime."

Natasha nodded and left.

Cherry stood there for a while, flipping her phone over and over in her hand until she accidentally dropped it. She bent down and picked it up, seeing the file that had been sitting in front of her. She pocketed her phone and opened the file.

Before, she had only skimmed through the pictures. Now, she read the text. It talked about the sites the Chitauri were targeting, which was seemingly random. There was a paragraph on Loki and his link to the Chitauri, which was now undetectable. There was no more random Tesseract power around him or anything abnormal besides being an alien Prince. She read about how they had tried contacting Thor through Jane Foster, but the scientist hadn't been able to reach him for four years.

Cherry snapped the file closed, tucking it under her arm, and began walking through Shield headquarters. She slid her I.D. card into the elevator clearance device and pushed the button that would take her to the underground medical bunker.

She would have to face this one head on. No contact with Asgard. Random Chitauri. "Recovered" alien prince. And an angry sister to top it all off. She slid her I.D. card through the scanner one more time, let it scan her thumb and eye, and stepped off the elevator.

Loki's new room was Room 27 in the East Wing. Though he wasn't in critical condition, if Loki tried to escape, he was a mile underground and didn't have an I.D. card to get him into the elevator, or the DNA to make it move. He would be trapped underground until he was sedated. Which is why when she opened the door, the first thing she noticed was the thin metal collar around his neck that would pump sedating fluid into his blood stream with the click of a button.

She smiled.

And when the Norse God first saw her, he smirked.

And neither of them bothered to care that both expressions were empty.

Thor battled the icy winds of Jotunheim, the Lady Sif following closely behind him. His hands were going numb with cold, his feet already lost to touch. He turned, the wind whipping his hair into his face as he scouted the surrounding whiteness. It was getting dark.

Sif unsheathed her sword, sticking it into the ground, leaning on it. Thor raised an eyebrow, only to see that she was about to fall over. Thor pulled her arm over his shoulder, her body slumping against his. "We've been here for over two days! We aren't going to find him in this weather!" Sif shouted weakly over the hissing winds of the storm.

Thor sighed, the puff of breath immediately whisked away into the storm. "We have to find him!"

"He's been gone for four years, Thor! If he isn't here, he's dead!" Sif coughed, choking on snow that flew into her mouth.

Thor's numbing hands clenched into fists. "This is our only lead! It has taken years just to find it! The longer we wait, the farther Loki is!"

The wind was howling, snow turning into sharp ice, hitting their exposed faces, leaving tiny cuts. "What if he wasn't taken?! What is this is all one giant goose chase that Loki has lead us on?! We will have died on this frozen wasteland for no reason!" Sif's voice was being torn away by the brutal ice.

Thor's lips pulled into a thin line. He glanced around their surroundings once more. Snow, ice, wind. No visible hills, mountains, caves, or people. Nothing to be seen past an arm's length in front of him. The sinking feeling in his chest finally hit rock-bottom. Four years of pointless searching. Wasted time. He sighed. "Heimdall!" Thor called at the top of his lungs.

He looked around one last time before they were swallowed up in a vortex of color.

Loki was gone or dead. And either way, Thor was never going to see his treacherous brother again.

This chapter was a bit choppy, but if you've ever written a story, you'll know it's hard to keep the plot going if you've been sick for a week and haven't been able to write. Anyways... hope you liked it. :) If you have any questions or ideas, don't hesitate to PM me. I don't bite :D

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