SPOILER ALERT
This chapter contains altered information of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
If you have not seen the film, I strongly recommend not reading this chapter until you have.
(By the way, it's a fabulous movie.)
"Who is she?" Jane asked, climbing over the back of the seat to join Selvig at the front of the van. "What's going on?"
"Teagan Hill," Selvig said quickly. "They tried to open up a portal and it collapsed on itself like I knew it would. They wouldn't listen to me, Jane, so I got out as quick as I could. But I had to come back to find you, I couldn't leave you at that hangar. They used the formula you tried before Greenwich – The world is going to hell and they're trying to rip open a hole in space!"
"But Erik," Jane murmured, throat tightening, "people died in that hangar. My work killed people."
"It wasn't you," he answered grimly, keeping his eyes on the dirt path in front of him. "It wasn't you, Jane, it was me. I'm trying not to think about it."
"Teagan Hill," Thor murmured, looking at the young woman. "I remember you from the helicarrier. How is Phil?"
"Don't know, don't care," she replied, glaring at him over her laptop.
Thor was surprised, looking between her and the back of Selvig's head. "Was it not you who brought him back to life after the incident was over?"
"I was," she growled. "The doctors patched him up, I got him back in his body, and then I left. I'm not working for S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore, especially after the crap they've pulled."
The van veered left, forcing everyone to cling to what they could to steady themselves.
"Sorry!" shouted Selvig. "They're coming up on my tail!" He swerved to avoid the bullets he couldn't see, then slammed on the breaks. "Everyone out, and grab what you can!"
The six of them asked no questions and piled out immediately, arms full of cords and monitors and whatever else that lived in the back of the van. A very nice looking jet, sleek and white, waited for them just a few steps away. Out came Tony Stark.
"Everyone in!" he said, ushering them to the stairs. And in they all went, tripping over the items they lugged. Stark decided it felt nice to have that kind of trust, that they would pile into a billionaire's jet without a second thought. Also, they were being shot at. Stark threw flash bombs to dissuade the approaching vehicles, ran inside his jet and flopped into the cockpit. They were off the ground in seconds.
"I didn't give much thought to what I was going to do today, but this certainly was not on the list," Ian said weakly, heart pounding in his throat.
Darcy gave a frightened laugh, clinging to his arm.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., autopilot," Stark commanded, and his A.I. system took over. "Morning guys, want some breakfast? I have a couple of boxes of doughnuts in the mini fridge, sausage kolaches, danishes, doughnut holes, et cetera. Milk, coffee, orange juice. No? More for me, then." He wandered over to the bar and proceeded to stuff his face. Teagan joined him for another cup of coffee.
"Mr. Stark, I think it's best that you explain," Selvig muttered uneasily.
Stark looked around, as if surprised they expected him to talk. He swallowed and pulled up a holo-monitor. "Sorry for the whole explosion thing down there," he began. "Had to make it look like you guys were, you know, dead. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s gone kind of crazy since the last time you were in town."
Teagan scoffed under her breath, sitting down.
Stark gave her a sarcastic look. "Yeah, shut up, Satan," he muttered.
"Oh, that's a new one," she snorted.
"Children, please," Selvig said sternly. He turned to Jane. "I called you all the way out here because otherwise you wouldn't be safe. Those phone calls I'd been getting in England – it was Teagan. She was working under Mr. Stark for a while, coming up with a way to build a new Tesseract. S.H.I.E.L.D. almost caught whiff of it, so she destroyed her research and came to join me with mine."
"Keep me safe from what?" Jane asked.
"From S.H.I.E.L.D.," Stark said simply.
"But, isn't S.H.I.E.L.D. the good guys?" Darcy interrupted.
Stark gave a wry grin, pulling up some files on the monitor. "What were you doing on May 2nd, 2012, Ms. Foster?"
Jane frowned. "I was sent to Tromsø, Norway. Agent Coulson asked if I wanted to continue my research there."
"Right," said Stark. "Well, what I was doing on May 2nd, 2012, was hacking into the S.H.I.E.L.D. database from the Helicarrier. The whole gang was together, and Loki was in a lockbox in the wine cellar. I said I would know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. had ever tried to hide. Well, I missed a few things.
"Two days ago, I got a text from Nick Fury. He told me to go look into those files one more time. I thought, 'what the hell, April Fools,' right? But I was wrong. A little more digging and I found out the biggest secret of them all. Nine hours later, I got a call from Hill's not-sister, Other Hill. Fury's dead, unknown killer, and she's next in line for being head of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Steve and Natasha went off on a goose chase to hunt down the assassin. Banner went off the grid and the Hawk flew the coop, so to speak. All I have left is Prince Charming over here, and where he goes, you guys follow."
"I do not understand your desire for such secrecy," Thor finally spoke. "What danger do we face?" A small collective hum filtered out of the rest of the ignorant party.
Stark shot an abysmally despairing glance in the god's direction. "You guys. S.H.I.E.L.D., the organization here for the country's protection, is filled with HYDRA. Okay? HYDRA. The Nazi group that tried to use Tesseract technology to destroy the world. Cap's old girl Becky Carter helped found S.H.I.E.L.D. to protect against them and other threats, but it's all gone to hell. It's chock full of neo-HYDRA members, and they've built helicarriers to kill off 'potential threats' by the millions. Every single one of us is on that list to be exterminated. HYDRA is going to take over and use S.H.I.E.L.D. as its cover."
"We must stop this HYDRA," Thor growled, gripping Mjølnir tightly. "I vowed to protect the nine realms. I cannot allow this genocide."
Stark nodded. "There's nothing we can do. Widow's been sending me texts every few hours to update on the situation. If we jump in to help them, it'll only speed up the death clock. We have to lay low, stay out of site. We can't risk blowing our cover." Stark leaned forward on his elbows and held his forehead in his hands. "There's nothing we can do but hide, and it kills me. Hiding isn't my style. I should be out there helping them. But I risk killing a huge percent of the population." He rubbed a hand through his hair and added, "I can't stand this."
"Where are we going?" Jane struggled out, hand over her mouth. She felt like she was going to be sick. That facility was probably trying to open a bridge to find a way to escape the slaughter while the rest of the population burned. Thor wrapped an arm around her protectively.
"Rose Hill, Tennessee," Stark answered. "Pepper's already there. We'll lay low with a friend of mine."
It took a few hours to reach Tennessee. They passed the time with small talk. Stark filled them in on what had happened during his Christmas. The Mandarin, Aldrich Killian, the destruction of the Miami mansion, the termination of the Iron Man suits, the surgery to remove the arc reactor from his chest. He made a few jabs at Teagan's interest in Killian's Extemis research, specifically the empty slot in the human brain. ("Luckily for Killian, your entire brain is an empty slot," she snapped.) Teagan mentioned her research on the Soul theory, and wondered what the Asgardians had done with the Tesseract. Thor merely stated that it would not be returning to Earth.
The jet landed seemingly in the middle of nowhere. They unloaded, leaving Selvig's equipment behind. A kid darted through the trees. "Hey, Tony!" he shouted.
"Harley, my man," Stark grinned. "I found some strays. Your mom making dinner tonight?"
"No way," Harley gasped, ignoring Stark. "It's Thor! Hey, can I see your hammer? Do you think I can lift it? How many bad guys have you killed? What's it like in Asgard? Can I go there?"
Thor was startled into laughter, hounded by this child's questions. "Yes, you can try, many, beautiful, and no," he tried, setting Mjølnir on the ground. Harley couldn't lift it.
A few minutes later, they joined Pepper in the barn. It was crowded with six adults and one child, but they were at the hospitality of Harley's mother.
Harley didn't stop talking until Stark locked him out.
"Nice to meet you," Pepper smiled, shaking hands with the two couples. "And it's good to see you again, Teagan. Erik."
They all offered their greetings.
"Oh, are you together?" Pepper wondered, looking at the rings on Darcy's and Ian's hands. They gave a sheepish smile.
"Engaged since March," said Ian.
"We were planning for November of next year, but since the world's going to explode," Darcy started, smile fading along with her words.
"Tony and I are engaged, too," Pepper nodded, looking down at her own hand. "Since January. We had a heck of an argument before we came to Tennessee. I was scared, and I threw the ring at the wall." She laughed, though tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. "I don't think I'll ever get it back. Not with those things hovering over the Eastern Seaboard."
҉
The marsh was humid and sticky. Mud clung to him, threatening to pull him under and fill his lungs with the putrid stuff. He stood as a dead tree amidst all the others on this quiet, unsuspecting planet. The Chitauri would have trouble finding him here.
The Tesseract was hidden away with magic, but not far from Loki's reach. He had not vocally spoken for months. Siv paced around him, a thin little soul, a wisp in the corner of his eye. Metaphorically speaking; these trees did not have eyes. They felt the world's aura, sensing living creatures through the life they possessed. Siv's life force pounded wildly and in strange colors compared to the world of grey and white that Loki saw. Today, she could hardly contain herself.
'What is wrong with you?' Loki thought angrily.
Siv looked up at him in distress. 'Please, go back to Asgard. There is something going terribly wrong in Midgard; the Tesseract needs to talk with Heimdall.'
Loki could have scoffed. 'Things go terribly wrong in Midgard all the time. They are human.'
Siv let out a quiet sob, crouched, curled over her knees in a little ball. For a moment, Loki wanted to go back to ease her strange fear. But then he remembered he hated her, and stood his ground.
'You don't understand,' she protested through tears. 'When the humans took the Tesseract for the first time, they experimented on it. They harvested its power. Within the last fifty years, they have modified the power they stole to catalogue the soul. They have built machines to tear down the human civilization. And when the rest of Midgard is gone, they will modify it again and use it to destroy the other realms. Loki, please! Please go back to Asgard! You don't have to do anything about this war, you don't have to go back to Midgard, you don't have to deal with any more humans. You just have to go back to Asgard and give the Tesseract to Heimdall.'
'I will not,' he hissed. 'If I go back with the Tesseract in hand, the Chitauri and Thanos will trace me there. Do you think I am so stupid that I will allow that to happen? Midgard is at risk, fine. But that's nothing compared to the others that still live on.'
Siv nodded weakly. He was right.
His mentally softened, though still angry. 'For a thousand years, you haunted me with a Midgardian form. You couldn't once think to inhabit an Asgardian vessel? It would have been easier for the both of us if you would have just taken a peasant body, instead of a useless human.
'Siv, Midgard could drown in blood and I would not care. When I first found out your truth, I thought saving that hero 'Steve Rogers' would bring you closer to me. Instead, you vanished. I was left to suffer alone as Thor took the crown. And then, for a while, I thought the human he fell in love with was you. Even now, I cannot shake that thought. I let myself fall from the Bifrost, fully expecting to die. Instead, I wound up on a strange rock filled with creatures that tortured me. I thought you had saved me again, only to make me suffer on that unforgiving rock. They shoved the shard into my chest. They made me see you as the death of me, and Siv, you are. When you sacrificed yourself as the shard returned to the Tesseract, I was relieved. I would never have to see you again. I would never have to worry. Because of that, I will not go to Heimdall.
'Not unless you tell me why you still exist.'
In that moment, Siv felt the pangs of raw love and adoration.
҉
Tony's pocket buzzed with a text message. There was a tense silence as he read it aloud. "'Few hours of sleep. We've been patched. Falcon, Cap, and Widow headed to Triskelion. Flying to D.C. now. Widow infiltrating. Cap and Falcon given equipment that will stop Project Insight."
And then, a few moments later, "Will upload all of the information from the Lemurian Star onto the internet. Better clear out Stark Tower. Take cover in case we fail."
Harley knocked loudly on the barn door. "Hey, mom wants to know if you guys like lasagna!"
"Yeah," Stark responded. It was quiet as they waited for Harley to leave. Stark's voice was hardly above a whisper. "I'm going to New York. The rest of you get below ground. I built a shelter under the barn."
"Tony Stark," Pepper cried, "you are not leaving me behind again!"
"I have to," he murmured. "If they fail, I won't make it back. I'll be wide open over there. You'll be safe here, I promise. The helicarriers can't reach this far away. Honey, please." He held her by the shoulders and planted a kiss on her forehead. "Please just do this for me."
"Hey, guys," Darcy spoke up, trying to smile. "It's Captain America. And Black Widow. I don't even know the other guy, but come on. If the Avengers could stop an alien invasion in like three days, they can stop a bunch of psycho humans. Right?"
"She's right," Jane piped up. "We'll be fine. They won't win. They can't win."
Tony shook his head. "You can't come with me."
"Stark," Thor murmured kindly. "We are your friends. You have little say whether or not we follow you."
They boarded the jet and headed for New York without so much as a goodbye to Harley or Ms. Keener.
҉
'The shard manipulated you to see what held your heart. For every person that was taken, they saw someone different. Clint Barton saw Natasha Romanoff. Erik Selvig saw Jane Foster. It magnifies the emotion they have for that person and feeds off of it. A hallucinogenic parasite. Thanos himself is possessed by the shard, even though it's been destroyed. He was under its spell for too long. There's no hope to save him. His lover, Death – she doesn't exist. The shard created her image for him because he loved death. I thought that joining with the shard would have broken the effects, but I was wrong. And the Tesseract saw I was wrong and pitied me, because I had given up chasing you to help you stop the war. So . . . she saved me.
'I was cleansed of the unimportant vessels, the ones that saw you briefly or never saw you at all. I've been left with Siv and Clarice, and the knowledge that I have spent this time looking for you. I am 'alive' on a whim. When a soul goes to the heart of the Tesseract, it manually washes away our past lives and stores all of those memories in one place. They never go away. They never disappear. It uses those memories to catalogue the past and potentially the future. There are certain patterns in history that help predict the outcome of the future and for almost twenty thousand years, the End has been in production. This catalogue, this algorithm – it's what the humans have managed to tap into with their weapons.
'The memories a soul collects are stored for eternity, but a soul itself can wear thin. Particularly the ones that split continuously. If they return to the Tesseract and then are deemed unfit to continue on, they become another layer of the cube. I should have been removed from circulation. I have split so many times since the dawn of life. Refusing to clean myself of memories should have meant the end for me. Loki, I don't know why I'm still me. I shouldn't be here. I should be one with the Tesseract, I should be a ghost– '
'You are a ghost,' he thought sarcastically.
Siv gave a little smile. 'Ghost or not, I'll never have another vessel if you don't take the Tesseract to Heimdall.' She suddenly paled, in complexion and aura.
Loki would have narrowed his eyes if he could. 'Why do you say that?' he asked, words filling with venom.
Siv shook her head, staring behind and above him. 'The Chitauri are here. They've sent a squadron, a Leviathan. Please, we have to leave!'
The tree shook and the branches stretched up into the sky. It uprooted and stormed through the marsh, off the cliff and down to the murky lake below. The Leviathan roared. The Chitauri screeched. From under the water, a huge barbed and purple tentacle shot up and wrapped around the Leviathan's muzzle. A horrendous beast filled the lake, a mass of poison and tentacles and teeth. Loki would not leave this time without a fight.
However, no matter how many of those putrid Chitauri he smashed away or ripped apart or injected with toxins, they kept coming. The beastly kraken that was the raven haired prince could find no end to them. It was then he noticed Siv shouting in the back of his mind. He could not see her, but she was there. He felt her like a presence within his own body.
'You have to get out of here! Loki, they're never going to stop, you have to trust me! Find an opening and get out!'
And then he saw through her eyes. Saw the power at work. The soldiers were nothing more than rotting corpses, reanimated to fight in an endless war against him. Under their skins, threading through their bones, gleaming in their eyes, a hollow green light filled that living death with Thanos' will. And while he fought desperately for a path to escape, Loki wondered just how many of the Infinity Gems Thanos had in his collection. He had only a moment to plan his next move – the Leviathan was diving headfirst toward the beast in the lake.
There was a huge flash of white hot light as Loki dissolved into a lightning beast. He slammed down a flat, stumpy foot and sent out a storm of electricity. The Chitauri and the Leviathan shuddered and collapsed; the lightning would not stun them for long. Loki became a great black hawk, spirited away through a portal made by the hidden Tesseract.
He would never admit to using a Thor-like method of attack.
Siv could not help but laugh.
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