Chapter Three: Chilled

Time went quickly after their agreement. He had explained his plan to her, which he was going to lead an army from another planet and subjugate this world to his rule. It was something that she looked forward to seeing. A part of her had always craved oblivion that the world just being gone would bring, but this plan worked, too. It was more than enough to keep her interested. The idea of watching as the other humans on this planet forced to work under his rule was amusing to her.

Other things were interesting her as well. She was finding more that she enjoyed watching Selvig work on the Tesseract now. Science had never really interested her. She much more enjoyed physicality rather than anything else. It was more the way that Selvig seemed to enjoy what he was doing now. The worry that had previously etched his face seemed completely dead and gone. Whatever exactly was going on with Selvig and the others made humans almost tolerable to be around. They bitched a lot less and seemed content.

She couldn't quite experience the same pure bliss that Selvig and the others did. Loki's scepter did not seem to work on her. Even having a cause and a person to follow did her well, though. Barton seemed to find it amusing that she smiled a lot more than he'd ever seen. She actually didn't think of them as under mind control. Barton, Selvig, and the others always said that they appreciated the 'knowledge' that the Tesseract had shown them. They really did seem to be happier in this state.

Today was another day of watching Selvig play with the Tesseract and just be marveled at it. Barton had found himself a new perch to look down from, and the newly renamed Phoenix was watching everything from a corner of the room. She still had her gun at her side, but she really felt no need for it. Only a few that would likely be called in for this would be hurt by a gun. She assumed that the others she could just hit until they stopped moving. That's usually how she ended up doing things, anyway. She really did enjoy getting her hands dirty.

Loki was sitting alone, away from the others. He looked as if he was meditating, but, from the strained expression on his face, she could tell that he wasn't relaxing. She assumed he was doing something magical. She had never practiced magic, but she did appreciate its worth. She had discovered long ago that, if she concentrated, she could feel magic around her. Only when she put forth the effort to concentrate, though. She shut her eyes and did so, just to satisfy her curiosity. It felt like the electricity of the Tesseract, only more powerful. Whatever secrets that little blue box held, she knew immediately that it belonged to Loki, or at least his people. It was Asgardian technology. Loki's magic and it felt too similar for that to be any different.

She opened her eyes and lost the connection just in time to watch as Loki winced in pain before opening his own eyes. Their eyes connected for a second before she heard Selvig talking, causing her eyes to flicker back toward the scientist.

"Where did you find all of these people?" Selvig asked Barton. She hadn't even realized that Barton had come down from his newly picked out perch. Then again, she had been distracted.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. has no shortage of enemies, Doctor," Barton replied with a slight smirk. He held up a screen to Selvig. Curious, Phoenix walked over, looking over Barton's shoulder to see what it was. "Is this the stuff that you need?"

Selvig nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, Iridium. It's found in meteorites, it forms anti-protons. It's very hard to get hold of."

"Especially if SHIELD knows you need it," Barton replied, the wheels in his head already spinning, by the look on his face.

"Well, I didn't know!" Selvig exclaimed.

"Seems like the two of you have learned a lot from it," Phoenix said, eyes flickering over at the Tesseract again.

Selvig nodded. "It's shown me so many things that I never thought of imagining," he said, his own eyes looking back toward the blue block. The thing was mesmerizing, she had to admit that. It was odd, but she was a little jealous that these two could get things from the Tesseract when, while she could feel it, it couldn't do the same to her.

She heard a silken chuckle behind her, whirling around to see Loki standing behind them. Selvig and Barton wandered off to continue their work, while Loki moved up beside her while she turned her eyes back to the glowing blue box. "The mind qualities only work on lower beings," he remarked. She suspected that he had read her earlier jealousy from her thoughts. "It expands their minds to our level."

"They really are blissful looking," she remarked. "I've never seen Selvig so relaxed and happy."

"Rulers can't quite have that sort of bliss," Loki remarked. "The bliss that you're seeing in them is the freedom of choice. It's people like us who have to make the choices for them."

Her eyes moved over to look at him. It was startling to be close to him. It was easy for her to forget the extreme height difference between them. She only came up to his chest. When this close, she had to crane her neck up at him to look at his face. "It is easy to forget that their happiness comes from the fact that they're free from choices." She just needed to keep remembering that.

"Exactly," Loki said to her. Then he rested his hand on her back, just under the back of her neck. His thumb brushed against just under the collar of her shirt. She shuddered at the feel of his cool skin against her own always boiling flesh. Before she realized it, though, he was pulling his hand away.

That was curious. It had to be from the slight chill in his touch. He was colder than even humans were, though. She found that she normally couldn't even stand to have humans touch her. She performed the usual handshakes that she had to, but otherwise did little in the way of touching. They felt clammy to her, especially these days. That and they complained that she felt feverish if they lingered for too long. Loki's touch was different, though. It was something completely different from anything she'd encountered. Sometimes she actually became too overheated and would want to fling herself into a lake. Loki's touch brought on a similar experience: cooling and relaxing.

Her eyes turned back toward him, but he was already moving away, distracted by something else. It was for the best, though. She had things that she needed to do as well. In addition, she really wanted to forget the fact that Loki's fingers had practically made her purr.

What she wanted to do right now was beat the hell out of something. When she heard an alarm start going off, something that Barton had installed, she almost felt relieved. At least that would make for a good distraction right now.

The intercom that was in her ear crackled to life. "S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives on the perimeter," Barton's voice barked in her ear. "Seems like they traced us here."

She had to stop herself from muttering 'Good,' as she'd at least have something to do rather than stand around and crave people touching her.

She looked back at Loki, who had a glare on his face. "Take care of it," he said, spinning away, leather coat flowing around him.

With a nod, she headed outside. While Barton could do his thing from far away, she much preferred to be up close. She wasn't the type to look before she leaped, if mainly because, at least on this world, she didn't have to. Humans were entertainingly breakable, after all.

The band of operatives was small. It seemed that they had caught something more of a recon mission rather than a full assault. She threw herself at the first of them. This wouldn't be a fight with guns tonight. She had the impulse to literally tear these people to pieces.

At least the operatives had training, or this might be boring. She had jumped on the leader of the group. She didn't recognize him off the bat, but she didn't know every worker for S.H.I.E.L.D., either. She heard a arrow fly by her ear, so she could only assume that Barton had fired off an arrow at one of the others. She was concentrating on her task at hand. She tightened her hands around the larger man's throat. This was what she wanted. Growling slightly, she squeezed the man's neck until his eyes nearly bulged out of his head.

When he stopped moving, she grinned. She had been so distracted by what she was doing that she hadn't heard someone sneaking up behind her until she heard an explosion behind her. Turning around, she saw the dissipating light that was the signature of Loki's scepter. He was standing a little further away, scepter still aimed as the now very dead body at her feet.

She smiled and bowed her head to him in thanks. She then launched out her fist toward her left and knocked away what seemed to be the final operative. Barton had taken out the rest with his arrows. It was amazing just how damn impressive he was with that bow. Before the last operative could sit up, she pulled a knife out of her boot and slashed his throat without so much as a second glance, looking down at her shirt with distain as blood splattered on it.

"Damn. I liked this one," she grumbled. "Nothing gets out blood."

She looked up just in time to watch as Loki pulled her up from the ground, waving his hand over her shirt and making the blood disappear. She looked up at him and kept herself from focusing on the feel of his hand on her bare arm.

"Better?" he asked with a smile.

"Much, my king," she said, returning his smile and bowing her head slightly.