Stepping through the portal, the last thing Danny expected was to be confronted with a big shiny gun – let alone twelve of them.
"Whoa!" Danny raised his hands reflexively.
Peering past the ends of the large, threatening weapons, Danny found a small army of black-clad soldiers hunting through the remains of the now-destroyed lab. Catching the eyes of a bewildered man with thinning blonde hair and a stressed-out Darcy, Danny felt a strange amount of pity for the pair as they were interrogated by more soldiers dressed in black.
The lab had been – for the most part – trashed. Computers screening the progress waves of the portal had been destroyed, glass windows and whiteboards with penned-out formulas shattered, and Danny saw more than one generator spark furiously, reading at a level of only thirty-two percent.
A shorter presence passed through the portal, halting next to Danny. Jane Foster stood with wide eyes at her demolished laboratory and the armed gunmen, before a deep growl erupted from the back of her throat.
"What the do you people think you're doing?" Batting a hand at a nearby gun, she screeched, "Don't you dare stick that thing in my face! This is my lab!"
Two more figures emerged from the portal. Tony and Thor stepped through with twin expressions of surprise. Steve Rogers quickly following with his own look of disbelief.
Danny began to feel claustrophobic as his eyes shifted throughout the room. There were too many people and not enough space to move. He couldn't risk turning intangible and escaping – there was the possibility that the others could get hurt if he left them.
"Don't worry, Miss Foster, everything is under control," a man dressed in a leather trench coat stepped forward, one of his eyes concealed with a patch, motioning for them to lower their weapons.
"And who are you supposed to be, Mr Big-shot? Tell me, how can any of this be under control? My lab is destroyed – again! What if another generator blew, huh? We might have been stuck—!" Jane was cut off by the balding blond man Danny had spied earlier.
"Jane! I'm so glad you're alright. The staff, they turned on us! They were not who we thought!" the old blonde man stumbled forward – ignoring the men questioning him – and hurried over to grab Jane's shoulders, shaking them.
"Erik! Finally, someone with a little common sense! What happened?"
The man – Erik – seemed to lose all his strength. Staring at Jane with weary eyes, he explained, "The hire staff. They… they weren't who we thought they were. Shortly after you went through and Darcy had left to gather provisions to celebrate, they took over. I – I don't really remember what happened; one moment I was levelling the utilization fields, and the next I was locked in a supply closet. After Darcy came back… she was forced in too."
"Who were they? What did they want?" Steve spoke up.
Erik shook his head, "I don't know, it was hard to hear. I think they were waiting for someone. They took the plans for the trans-dimensional portal."
"They took them?" Danny squeaked.
Jane rounded on Tony, poking him on the chest, "This is your fault! I knew I should have asked where you got those guys! They were completely useless – and apparently thieves!"
Tony blinked, "Hey, don't go blaming me for this; you employed them, remember?"
"I never even planned to have an assistant, let alone a whole team!" Jane clenched her fists at her sides.
"But they were contracted under your name," Tony retorted.
"I didn't hire them! I thought you did!"
"That is because neither of you employed them," the man with the eye-patch said coldly, "DALV corporations has been linked to the employees. They're a falsified research and development facility used for more 'under-the-table' transactions. They obviously found out about your 'secret-project' and decided they wanted a piece of the action, too."
"DALV?" Danny exclaimed in surprise – the guns were trained back at his head, "What would they want with the portal? They already have their own," Danny paused, "Does it have something to do with that Loki guy?"
"We are aware that Loki is back on Earth, along with another unknown creature, and we are now taking precautions for the impending violence," Eye-patch stated.
"You know of these DALV creatures? More of your friends?" Thor sneered, placing a large hand on Jane's shoulder, who shrugged it off with a frown.
Danny snorted, "Hardly. I have way too much history with their vampire boss to ever be buddy-buddies."
"You can be friends with me!" Darcy called out. Danny quirked a questioning eyebrow.
"And what are you? Another Asgardian?" Eye-patch looked to the god, "Training them for war a bit young, aren't you, Thor? Although he does fit the stature."
"Nah," Tony cut in, "He's still potty-training."
Danny slugged him in the arm; the team ignored the older man's pitiful cry.
"He is not one of my kind," Thor's expression darkened, before spitting out, "He is a Draugur."
Danny looked down at Thor, "Okay, seriously, why do you keep calling me that? I have no idea what it means!"
"A Draugur? Very well," Eye-patch nodded at the armed guards, "Swap firearms and take him in."
New shiny guns were aimed at him – similar to the ghost-hunting equipment his parents produced, only scarier-looking.
"Wait, what?" Danny cried, "What did I do?"
Steve's face filled with anger, stepping in front of the halfa, "You can't just take him without a reason! He's just a kid!"
"On the contrary, Captain, under chapter six, paragraph forty-nine, SHIELD operatives are legally capable of placing an unidentified creature or alien under arrest until said creature has proven to not be a threat to our society. Whatever this thing is, he must be dealt with for the sake of our planet."
Danny blinked, "Wow, you're like the Guys in White – only nicer."
Big shiny silver guns began to whine in response.
Danny resignedly raised his hands back up in the air, "I take that back."
/ / /
Steve crossed his arms in a huff, leaning against the main platform's railing as he looked out the Helicarrier's large cock-pit window. SHIELD jargon swept over him in an annoying hum of noise as Steve swallowed the urge to hit something. The Draugur, Danny, had been detained in a containment cell farther in the ship, similar to the one designed for Bruce not six months ago.
Steve felt bad for the kid. It was obvious now that Danny had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and was suffering the consequences. He blamed Tony.
The other Avengers – now including Thor – were being rounded up. Clint Barton from a mission in Saudi Arabia and Bruce had been hinted to have been seen in Botiz, Romania. Natasha Romanoff, on the other hand, had had a much shorter trip after facing suspension for the past week and was already on board. Steve didn't know what the suspension was for, but whatever she had done, it must have been bad.
"We're meeting in the conference room in half an hour," a deep voice announced behind him, "Barton and Dr Banner should have arrived by then."
Steve glanced over his shoulder at Nick Fury, "What's going to happen to Danny?"
"Nothing at the moment," Fury tapped lightly at one of the backless monitors splayed around him, "If the creature proves to be a threat, then it will be terminated. If it isn't, negotiations come into play."
"So his choices are to be killed or take away his freedom. You know, I met a lot of people who shared the same ideals as you the first time I visited Germany," Steve gritted out.
Fury gave him a blank stare with his single eye, "If it does not prove itself to be of any worth to us, then yes, Rogers, that's the ultimatum. The creature may just look like a teenager, but this is politics, Captain, not play-time. SHIELD does not take any chances against protecting its world and neither should you."
The veteran glared, "Don't lecture me about war, Fury," turning on his heel, Steve stalked off without a backwards glance.
/ / /
Danny scowled from his seat on the floor in the round glass case. He felt like a caged animal expected to balance a brightly-coloured ball on his nose, like a sea-lion or something.
The dark room was difficult to look out into under the harsh glare of fluorescent lighting in his circular cell, but Danny could still see the blinking red light of the security camera as it watched him.
Standing, Danny once again made his way over to the clear wall, fingertips hovering over the cool glass. One slip and the glass would zap him with a current of over thirteen thousand volts, the suited men had informed him. Danny, however, was sick of sitting in time-out and allowed intangibility to wash over him, his body falling to room temperature as he began to lose his corporeal form.
Pressing his fingertips against the smooth surface, Danny grinned, readying himself to push through. The Dudes in Black may have been able to procure some actual ghost-hunting equipment, but they obviously knew very little about ghosts themselves if they didn't think about anti-ghost shields.
Chuckling, Danny allowed his hands to slide through, when a burning white-green light overcame him. Stabbing energy ran up his arms to spread throughout his body. Shouting in pain, Danny ripped his arms out of the glass and collapsed on the ground, breathing hard. Looking down to see his hands smouldering and charred, Danny cradled the appendages against his body with a hiss. These guys were playing rough.
"If you're curious about where we got our equipment, the GiW were having a garage sale after their disbandment," a strong feminine voice called out. Danny could practically hear the smirk.
Squinting past the reflection of the glass, Danny shuffled as close as he dared to the electrified glass. A brown-haired woman in a tight black uniform stood next to the control panel on a connecting platform, eyeing him curiously.
Danny blew on his hands lightly, "Should have known those bone-heads were involved – or at least, you guys use the same dry-cleaners. You never get your own hands dirty, do you?" the ghost-boy sneered, cautiously peeling off his liquefied gloves and throwing them at the SHIELD agent's head. Violent light spattered across the glass again as the gloves melted into nothing.
Danny smiled, waggling his gloveless fingers at her. The agent frowned.
"This cell has been specifically altered for your kind. Any form of ectoplasmic energy comes in contact, a signal will be sent through to the control panel," the woman waved a hand at the small, collective row of buttons, lights and switches, "And its defence system will automatically initiate. If you so much as leave a hand-print on that glass, not only will you be burnt to a crisp, but you will be free-falling over twenty thousand feet down to the sea."
"Joy," Danny droned, looking away in false disinterest so the woman couldn't see his growing anxiety.
The agent's scowl deepened. Stepping as close as the metal platform would allow her, she bent down to his eye-level where he sat, "Commander Fury will be here in a few hours to talk to you. Behave."
As the woman stood up to leave, Danny quickly made his arm intangible, shutting his eyes at the expected bright light and shoving his hand through to grab at the momentarily blinded agent. Ignoring the body-wracking pain running through him, Danny snatched at her side - the woman giving a yelp as she skittered out of reach – before dragging his arm back through the glass, rolling away and curling in on himself. Clutching at his burnt hand, he heard a gun click. He didn't move, waiting with baited breath for several long seconds before the gun clicked again – the safety lock back on – and footsteps dashed through the automatic doors, sliding shut with a hiss.
Grunting slightly as the pain lessened to a dull thrumming, Danny mentally cheered at sight of the thin, relatively unharmed, laminated card clutched in his reddened and sore hand. Agent Maria Hill had just unknowingly given Danny a huge gift, and who was he not to accept it?