Flowers

I followed Natasha all the way to a hangar on the outskirts of the helicarrier where Steve was waiting for us in his Captain America suit. I looked back and forth between the two of them as Natasha closed the bay door and strapped herself into the pilot seat before inspecting myself with a sigh. Note to self: look into getting a cool combat suit.

On our way to Germany, Natasha explained the situation to me seeing as nobody had bothered to tell me anything yet. From what I gathered, there was another planet called Asgard where a bunch of demigods lived, including the guy we were currently tracking- Loki. He stole the Tesseract, which was basically an immeasurable amount of energy compressed into a small blue cube that nobody had any idea how to control or what Loki was going to use it for.

When he took the Tesseract, he also brainwashed Natasha's partner Clint Barton and the physicist who had been studying the Tesseract, Erik Selvig. Why he took them and what he was using them for was unknown, but it was guaranteed to be bad. This is why SHIELD was gathering their most valuable assets, including myself.

Glad to finally have at least an idea of what was going on and somewhat flattered that SHIELD thought my tricks were valuable, I sat back against the wall of the quinjet and waited for us to arrive at our destination. Thankfully, it wasn't all that long of a wait.

The screaming of the scrambling citizens below us was loud enough to pierce through the metal of the jet, and I watched through the front window as the man I recognized as Loki split himself into multiple bodies, surrounding the crowd. He was giving a speech over something judging by his wicked grin and his outstretched arms, but I couldn't hear exactly what it was. One older man stood from the kneeling civilians, apparently opposing the trickster god.

"That's your cue," Natasha told Steve, slapping a button to lower the jet's door. He grabbed his shield and jumped out of the back, landing in a crouch in front of the protester just as Loki fired blue energy at him with his scepter. My attention wasn't on the Captain for long, however. Around the back of the building, I spotted the faint outline of a man entering the abandoned party hall.

"Oh, man," I groaned to myself. I had never done anything remotely dangerous in my life, but if ever there was a time to get risky, this was it. Before Natasha could close the back, I shook my hands to hype myself up and made a run for it. I could hear Natasha yell something after me, but the sound of wind rushing past me as I dropped onto the rooftop of the building below us drowned out whatever it was.

I tucked my arms in and rolled across the concrete roof, moaning quietly as I pushed myself back up to my feet. "Ow."

Underneath me, I heard the sound of the door opening once more and shut myself up, taking small and shallow breaths as I stepped as quietly as possible towards the edge of the roof. On the ground below me I saw a man holding a glass case with a shining silver metal inside of it, but what really caught my attention was the bow and quiver of arrows strapped to his back.

Realizing who exactly it was that I had jumped after, I took a moment to glare at the sky and internally curse the universe for my luck before moving behind him. I was only going to get one shot at this, and considering I really wasn't planning on dying today, I was going to make damn sure it counted.

Once I was sure he was walking towards the right, I took in a deep breath and pushed myself off the roof, landing with a grunt on my side behind Clint. My arms were tingling and my palms stung from the impact of the fall, but there was no time for complaining. He whipped around the second he heard my pained groan, and before I could even blink he had an arrow notched and pointed in my direction.

With a small squeak of surprise, I held my hand up in defense and focused on the arrow. By the time he released it, a small bouquet of flowers slammed against my hand instead of the arrow he had originally intended.

While he knit his eyebrows and narrowed his eyes, I took advantage of his confusion to shove myself back onto my feet and quickly take in my surroundings. I had no idea how exactly I was going to stop a highly trained and highly dangerous SHIELD agent under the control of a deranged demigod, but... Nope, that's it. I have no idea what I'm doing.

In the next second, Clint had unsheathed another arrow and aimed it in my direction. I repeated my earlier defense of instantly transforming it into a multicolored group of flowers before moving my attention to the arrows in his quiver and changing them as well with a small twitch of my fingers.

When Clint reached back for an arrow and found that he didn't have them anymore, he growled with frustration and dropped his bow along with the tube holding the metal, reaching for a palm-sized knife strapped to his thigh, pointing it towards me menacingly and moving in closer. "Woah, buddy!" I chuckled nervously, holding my hands up defensively. "I don't know if you're understanding me at all, but I'm working with SHIELD. You know- Fury, Phil, Natasha. Ringing any bells?"

The optimal reaction was that his eyes would lose their inhuman blue hue and he would snap back to reality, but that was a fantasy situation. How he actually reacted was by swinging his weapon in a wide arc that caused me to reflexively shriek and throw my arm up to cover my face. I barely felt the blade tear through the skin of my arm before it was replaced by the soft brush of a feather.

"How are you doing that?" Clint shouted, abandoning the feather to drift towards the ground as he gripped my arm and shoved me back against one of the walls in the alleyway.

At this point I could feel my panic clutching at my chest as my heart raced faster than ever before, and I reacted to his violence with the first thought that came to mind. I kicked him as hard as I could in the knee, pushing him backwards when he instinctively dropped my arm to grab the injury.

Once he was off me, I stumbled away from the wall and towards the metal he had abandoned earlier. As soon as I picked it up, loud rock music began playing from the direction of the courtyard Natasha and Steve were fighting Loki in. I held the tube in my right hand as I backed away from Clint and looked up at the sky, searching for the source of the music.

Looking away from the brainwashed man who is currently trying to kill you is a really bad idea, as it turns out. While my attention wasn't on him, Clint took his chance to charge me and tackle me to the ground. I gasped at my sudden lack of air when he landed on top of me, wrestling the metal away from me. "Come on!" I screamed exasperatedly, thrashing under his weight. "Give me a break, Barton!"

"Alice?"

At the sound of somebody calling my name, Clint snatched the tube from me and shoved me against the ground as he pushed himself up, smirking at me rolling pathetically and clutching my gut as he sprinted in the opposite direction with his bow and the metal.

Steve appeared in my vision standing above me with a worried expression a minute later, and I panted a sigh of relief. "I almost had him."

Shaking his head, Steve offered me his hand and pulled me off the ground, patting my shoulder. "Come on. We have Loki on the jet."