Lusca leaned over the rail of the ferry and grinned at the giant greenish-blue woman guarding her island and welcoming foreigners like herself. The young queen gave a very unqueenly hoot of delight as the salty air blew her curly hair out of it's tight bun and all around her face. One of her earbuds fell out of her ear, but she quickly popped it back in more securely.
"What are you listening to?" Romanoff was sitting on a bench and smirking quietly at her charge.
"Come on Eileen!" Lusca sang, "Oh I swear, at this moment, you mean everything!"
"Ah, and what do you think of Lady Liberty?"
"She's gorgeous! Much taller in person!"
"True," Romanoff glanced up as a government helicopter flew over their heads, "Hey, I hate to cut this short, but I think if we stay out much longer we'll both be branded as traitors."
Lusca stopped smiling, rolled her eyes and pulled out her earbuds, wrapping the cord around her iPod. She sat down next to Romanoff.
"Very well, I suppose all good things must come to an end," She turned to the redhead, "Thank you for rescuing me. It was a lovely day."
"You're welcome," Romanoff nodded, "But, for my sake, can we downplay just how much I encouraged you to leave the party?"
"Of course. It was my idea entirely, I think you'll recall. I shall take the blame."
"Thank you."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the fresh air and the breeze. Finally Lusca turned to Romanoff.
"You aren't under his control anymore, are you?"
"I would prefer to neither confirm or deny that."
"How'd you do it?"
"If you ever happen to find yourself under the control of His Majesty's mind control then I would suggest you give yourself a concussion."
Loki watched the two women strut confidently into his office, arms crossed, chins lifted, seemingly daring him to tell them that they'd done something wrong. This was not good. Self assured people could not be controlled. If you wanted people to do what you wanted them to they either had to be afraid of you or they had to respect you.
"Lewis informs me that you did not show up to your scheduled event."
"I was hit with a sudden bout of sickness. I feel much better now, perhaps it was a type of stage fright," Lusca raised a brow. Definitely challenging him.
"It would seem that you are exhausted - if those bags under your eyes are any indication. You'll have a week of rest," He said, "I suggest you get started now."
"Is this a dismissal?" She asked, evidently surprised that she was being kicked out without a fight. Loki had no quarrel with her missing a single event. She was very obviously drained and needed a break. Besides, dismissing her now would leave Romanoff without anyone to defend her actions. He suspected that Lusca had planned to take the blame for everything, but if she wasn't there he forced Romanoff to come up with a new strategy.
"Yes."
Lusca jumped when a guard put a hand on her shoulder and escorted her out of the room, but she didn't make any objections.
"Now Romanoff, I hope you realize that this means you are being reassigned," He said, but there was no reaction, "I think, since you seem to speak Russian so well that you will go with my ambassador to Moscow. Far away from any important happenings around here."
"Very well, sir."
"And if you attempt to coerce Lusca into neglecting her duties again before you leave I hope you know that Barton will suffer for it."
"Coerce?" She asked, "I wouldn't dare, sir."
"I'm not so sure of that," He drummed his fingers on the desk, "I think that, before I let you go too far from my sight you'd better prove your loyalty."
Her eyes didn't betray any worry over this.
"You, Barton, and the other ex agents have already been so helpful in telling me where the SHIELD bases are, but the Helicarrier and Nick Fury still elude me. Find it. Bring it down. Then you can be off to Russia."
"It won't be easy. Fury knows me. He knows my tricks. It might take weeks."
"Lusca gets a week of rest, you have a week of work to find it. If you fail then I'll know your loyalty lies elsewhere," He made the scepter appear and lifted her chin with the point, "And that you need a refresher."
"If you are unsure of my loyalties, sir, then why not use the scepter on me again?"
"Because using it once on a person captures their mind, but using it again sets it free to its old destructive nature. Rather like a light switch."
She quirked a brow at this, no doubt tucking away that information. Good. Now he knew to kill her if she ever touched the scepter. He didn't know why he didn't kill her already. Maybe because she was one of the most dangerous women on this planet and her skills would be extremely useful if he could only get her to work for him.
"You are dismissed to begin your search."
He waved her away and she left without another glance at him.
Sighing, he checked the security feed on his computer and watched the assassin walk down the hall to the elevator. Once inside, she did nothing suspicious. No warning phone calls to Fury or anything. He tracked her progress through the building until she was in Stark's lab. She opened up one of the holographic screens and appeared to get to work. Loki wasn't sure what she was doing exactly, but it looked like she was trying to find the Helicarrier. He made a note to send one of his computer lackies down to check on her progress later to make sure she was actually doing something.
He switched to the feed of Lusca's living room and saw her opening the small refrigerator and pulling out a sandwich. She did nothing but munch the sandwich for a while and then go lay down on the couch and fall asleep.
Deep in the Wakandan jungle, the Helicarrier was full of the few remaining uncompromised SHIELD agents buzzing around trying to recruit any superhumans that they knew of to come to their aid. It was a slow process.
The agents, after it was clear they weren't winning any battles against the Chitauri, turned their ship to stealth mode and disappeared. When they received a transmission from the king of Wakanda, T'Chaka, inviting them to hide in the jungle, Fury had readily accepted the offer and flown there with as much haste as a gigantic flying aircraft carrier that was trying not to set off any alarms could fly.
T'Chaka and his son, T'Challa, had been most welcoming and had aided what was left of SHIELD in coming up with a plan of attack against the earth's new "king". Wakanda was one of the places on Earth that was yet uninvaded, though no one was sure if that was because Loki was unaware of their presence or if it was because he was aware but didn't want to pick a fight with the mighty and hugely advanced nation.
So the Helicarrier was safe for the time being and the agents were getting a tad stir crazy and by golly if they had to listen to Fury ask them what the location of the Fantastic Four was one more time they might just scream. The director had been reminded numerous times that the super powered team was in space. Exploring stuff. Nobody knew what they were doing really, but nobody had the time to try and get a message to them wherever they were in the galaxy.
It seemed the X-Men were unresponsive and likely hiding themselves in Xavier's school. No one apart from Fury had known the school was anything but a normal boarding school anyway so they were probably fine. And it wasn't like Loki was doing anything to mutants in particular, so that group of heroes was likely to stay out of matters until the dust settled.
The lack of progress in recruiting seemed to be making Nick Fury go crazy because he burst into the control room with a dangerous grin and all of the agents knew to avoid eye contact and focus on their respective tasks until the crazed leer disappeared from the director's face. The only one brave enough to talk to Fury when he got like this was Coulson. And Coulson was supposed to be dead (not that anyone believed for a second that Fury let his right hand man die). In the place of Coulson, Maria Hill stepped up to try and get their boss back into a logical mind.
"I've got it!" Fury declared, "Who says that we need good or even neutral party enhanced players in this game? The bad guys care about the fate of the world too!"
"Oh no," Penny the security specialist whispered to Jack the weapons manager, "Is he suggesting what I think he's suggesting?"
"That we create an elite team of criminals to save the world? Yeah, that's what it sounds like. We're doomed if Hill can't talk him down," Jack groaned, cleaning his pistol for the tenth time that day.
"Nick, Nick!" Hill was dashing around, trying to keep her boss from doing stupid things, "We can't release criminals - especially not enhanced criminals! You really think guys like Abomination and Sandman are going to help?"
"No, but what about Taskmaster? Or Juggernaut?! Ha! I'd like to see Loki go up against the Juggernaut!"
Penny rolled her eyes as Maria Hill desperately tried to keep Fury from remember that he could remotely release of the the prisoners SHIELD had across the globe from the Helicarrier. The brief entertainment was interrupted when Penny's phone beeped. She checked it.
"Crap."
"What is it?" Jack asked, putting his piece back together.
"Message from Agent Romanoff!" Penny shouted over the chattering in the room, "Putting it up on the big screen!"
The room fell silent and Natasha Romanoff popped up on the big screen, looking as if she was immensely bored.
"Prove my loyalty! Ha!" The compromised agent scoffed, "I am the most loyal agent he has. Oh well, at least this won't take very long."
The message ended and went black.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Fury shouted at the agents, "Is she using a code that any of you know? What's she trying to say?"
"Sir," Hill said, "I don't think it's in code. She's just warning us."
"How is that a warning?"
"She said that she's being asked to prove her loyalty. What if that means Loki is having her look for us? She didn't have to say she was the most loyal. She's letting us know that she is no longer compromised. And she told us that it won't take very long. She's going to find us and she's going to report us to him and she wants us to get out of here. She is probably being watched and covertly sent the message. Agent Pent, how did she send this?"
"She sent it to me on Snapchat."
"What the heck is a Snapchat?!" Fury demanded.
"It's an app, sir," Penny answered, "You can send pictures or messages to your friends and then they disappear after you open them so no one can look at them again."
"Clever. Is there anyway that someone could retrieve this message?"
"I doubt anyone would think of doing so, sir, but I'll get ahold of the creators of the app and make sure no one can see anything Romanoff has sent if it's even possible to do so."
"So are we going to get out of here?" Hill asked, "Thank the Wakandans and go stealth mode in the sky again?"
"No."
"No?"
"It could be a trap. They might not be able to find us right now, but they might be able to if we take off."
"So we're just going to sit here and let them find us?"
"I didn't say that."
A/N: Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! :)