Loki grinned at Bella, walking toward the controls that would drop her out of the helicarrier to almost certain death. "You and your father both think yourselves invincible, don't you? Should we test that?"
Bella's mind whirled. She had to stall him, somehow.
"You're going to lose."
"Am I?"
"Director Fury is assembling a team."
"A team that could never cooperate with each other long enough to accomplish anything."
Bella had to admit he had a point.
"Move away please," said a voice suddenly.
Coulson, holding one of the largest guns Bella had ever seen – and that was saying something – stood near the entrance, aiming at Loki.
"You like it?" said Coulson as Loki took a few steps back. "We started working on the prototype after you sent the Destroyer. Even I don't know what it does. Do you want to find out?"
Loki disappeared for a moment, then appeared behind Coulson and stabbed him with his spear.
Bella shrieked.
Loki pulled the blade out. Coulson collapsed against the wall.
The alien walked over to the controls and pressed a button.
And then the cage was falling.
Bella screamed. Below her, far below her, was the ground.
"Izzy!" yelled Tony's voice. "Where are you? What's wrong?"
Bella couldn't answer. The suit wasn't going to protect her here.
She dropped against one wall of the glass cage and propelled herself forward, hoping to break the glass, but ended up slamming into the roof.
She only had a few seconds now. She was falling toward the ground. Below her were trees and grass – at least no one else would get hurt. Bella took a deep breath and shot forward, straight through the glass.
The cage hit the ground behind her. Bits of debris showered down.
And then she was skidding along her stomach through the grass and dirt. Finally, she came to a stop. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Bella lay there for a while, in pain. Physical and emotional pain. Physical because she'd just skidded at least a hundred yards belly down through dirt and grass. Emotional because she'd just seen Coulson murdered trying to help her. Why? It seemed so pointless.
She became fully aware of her surroundings again to someone rolling her onto her back.
"Miss Stark?" said a voice. "Are you alright?"
Who was it and why did they know who she – oh, right. A lot of people knew who she was.
Bella sat upright as the screens came back online. She flipped up the visor to get a good look at the speaker. The sunlight was blinding.
It was a woman with brown hair.
"Yes, I'm fine, thank you," said Bella, pulling herself slowly to her feet. She winced as pain shot through her kneecap.
"You fell out of the sky. Did your suit stop working or something?"
"No." Bella winced. She guessed she'd broken a few ribs. Those hurt. A lot. "It's… complicated."
"And probably classified, right?"
"What?"
"Tony and Isabel Stark don't just vanish off the face of the planet for a couple days without people noticing. And Jane suddenly got called away, and an alien claiming to be a Norse god showed up in Germany. This has S.H.I.E.L.D. written all over it."
"How do you know about S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Bella pulled herself carefully to her feet.
"I was an assistant to someone whose work they… 'borrowed'."
Bella guessed what the woman meant.
"Where am I?"
"You're on the Atlantic Coast, near New York City."
"Izzy, can you hear me?" said Tony's voice inside her helmet.
"Excuse me," said Bella to the woman. "Yes, Tony, I'm here."
He breathed a sigh of relief. "JARVIS just told me your systems were back online. Are you okay?"
"I'm alive. A couple broken ribs, damaged knee, and I'm probably black and blue all over. I skidded across the ground on my stomach for a quite a while."
"Sounds painful."
"It was."
On the other end, there was sounds of shooting.
"What's going on? Where are you?"
"Ah… about that. Loki's in New York, and we're busy trying to defeat his army of aliens."
"What?" yelped Bella. "How long has it been?"
"About seven hours."
How on Earth could she have been lying there so long?
"I'm on my way," said Bella.
"No! Izzy, you go back to the helicarrier. I won't have you getting killed."
Bella turned off the external speakers so the woman couldn't hear their conversation. "I'd rather be dead than have Loki ruling the world."
"No one's asking you to die. We can do that without you getting hurt."
"Tony, you're asking me to sit by while that lunatic tries to take over my planet and has Barton as his personal flying monkey," she said.
"Actually, Agent Romanoff used cognitive recalibration to get Barton back. Here, let me put him through. Hey, Barton, it's Izzy!"
"Miss Stark, good to hear you're alive," said Barton.
It was so good to hear his voice. "I'm pretty happy about it too, yes. How's it going in New York?"
"As well as can be expected."
"Could you use some help?"
"It wouldn't hurt," said Hawkeye.
"No," said Tony. "We're doing fine."
"I'm on my way."
"Izzy –"
She slipped the helmet off. "Thank you, Ms…"
"Darcy, Darcy Lewis."
"Thank you for your help, Ms. Lewis. I have to go now."
Coulson's death wouldn't be for nothing. Bella wouldn't let it. She slipped the helmet back on and took off.