Up and Away(SI MCU)

[Proman]

(Pat Doyle: Rikers Island)

I shouldn't have trusted the imprisonment of Doc Ock to standard police. Oh, it was SHIELD that had arrested her, but it seemed that SHEILD wasn't the type to hold such a public criminal themselves. If she had been a monster, or even if I hadn't managed to save the few people that were in danger, Ock would've been in a cell so far down that she'd burn.

But that wasn't what had happened, instead a disarmed and seemingly helpless woman was put into holding and then escaped with the help of her advanced technology literally dropping from the sky. I had been strangely allowed to examine the cell that she had escaped from, but I think that was a thing that SHIELD set up for me. No doubt wanting me to like their organization, and it was working decently well.

They've given me enough rope so far, I just hoped that I wouldn't end up hanging myself with it, especially with how I wasn't able to glean anything at all from the cell. The only thing I really noticed came that the blast marks from her new arms landing appeared to be the same as the blast marks I had found on the roof of her former apartment building.

So that would explain what those were.

It wouldn't do much good to go looking for her by eye or by just searching the area. Ock was smart enough that I doubt anyone could find her all that fast. No, I was more likely to catch her by tracking the resources needed to rebuild her projects. It wasn't like she would be using many legal channels anymore but I knew just the right man to get me some feelers out on the black markets. I don't think even criminals would be dumb enough to knowingly help a woman that could end the world with her experiments.

Something that my next article would be sure to mention. Though, I wasn't super concerned given that SHIELD would be looking for her, and while lacking my raw capability at moving, they had the resources to be much better at finding this woman. Not that I wouldn't attempt it, but I had my doubts.

As I left after my fruitless investigation of the crime scene I tensed up with the sense that I was being watched. I darted my eyes around the area, flashing through the whole invisible spectrum, well about three spectrums but it's cooler to say whole. But it did let me see that cameras were watching my every move, from street cams to the cams that were littered around the prison, due to the small size of the cameras

From what I knew, it could be anyone that was watching me. Ross? He could want revenge, SHIELD? Could want to know more about me before approaching me once more? AIM? HYDRA?

I mean the last two could just be me being paranoid. From what my research told, AIM seemed to be legit and HYDRA dead but I wasn't putting past them to have survived in some new form, a Neo-Hydra. While AIM seeming legit meant shit all given Ross's actual somehow legit military career. My thoughts on all this were broken when my phone suddenly rang, the tone of banana phone telling me it was Louise that was calling me.

"Yo," I answered, deciding to continue walking down the street while answering. I didn't really have anything else to do for the day, so it wasn't like I was in a rush… but I was peckish for a snack so I decided to walk and talk. "What can I do for you, Lou."

Said young woman let out a sigh;

"First… don't call me Lou," she replied, her tone more exasperated than mad. An unusual mode for my friend but I suppose that we all undergo those sometimes. "Second, I've got great news!" Louise squealed… before her voice shifted to something less… energetic. "And some oh news!"

I let the air fill with awkward silence before scrunching my nose up.

"Tell me the good news, first," I told her, "I could use some."

"I've gotten a great job offer from Stark Industries!"

"That's amazing!" I said while walking up to a food vendor, a hotdog guy, and buying two dogs with everything on it. One amazing thing about being super-powered, I seem to have lost my aversion to the smell of ketchup and have begun to like most condiments. That combined with the Super Stomach, meant I wasn't too worried about whatever I ate anymore.

Except for pure milk... that could rot in hell.

"Bad news is… they know that it was me that snuck in, knocked out one of their guards, and stole their data."

I had been holding the phone between my ear and shoulder at this point, a hotdog in each hand while I took a large bite out of one. But at this news, I nearly dropped my phone, it was only my super speed that allowed me to catch the thing, eat a single dog, and go get the phone back to my ear before she would've even noticed I had done so.

"Shit, that's bad."

"Yeah," Louise replied, doing a sort of half sigh, half groan that I had only heard from cartoon characters before now. "But… they're not looking to press charges, Stark will even give me a job... if you agree to meet with Mr. Stark."

The second she said that… I came to a rather obvious conclusion. It was an easy thing to do, given the reputation of the man, in this universe, and in my own. Iron Man was a tech hero, tech was his business like having bullshit powers were Superman's.

"You know he's probably already hacked this call… right?"

Before she could even respond to my statement, a man's voice came out of my phone, overtaking her's.

"Wow, you caught on quickly, Blue."

---

(Louise: Moments Earlier)

Louise sat waiting in a hallway, dressed in a suit, with pants since she wasn't interested in wearing a skirt or even working in an environment that required her to wear one. It just wasn't an outfit that she was comfortable wearing. She arrived just moments ago for an interview, the job being offered as a simple assistant role for the offices in this building. This wasn't some great lab for Stark Industries, but instead, it was one of the offices that were set for legal documents, patents, contracts, and the like that were created and signed in this building.

That and it also housed the social media teams that Stark tended… to ignore. So in many ways either a thankless job or an easy ride depending on how they looked at it.

Louise was here for an assistant role, for the social media team. It had good pay, good hours, and even a nice forward path for a future career, or at least that was what was Louise told. Whether that was true or not was yet to be seen. She had been waiting here for the past ten minutes, not too long when it comes to the Job Interview process, but it was more than a little bit odd when put together with how there wasn't anyone else in queue to be interviewed… sent a bad vibe down her spine.

She heard the sounds of footsteps bouncing off the floor before Louise actually caught sight of someone that she hadn't thought she'd be meeting today. He wore a suit, one of the most expensive-looking suits that she'd ever seen, his hair only slightly messy while his facial hair was neatly trimmed.

This was Tony Stark, and from his strut to his smirk, Louise knew that the rich bastard was up to something.

"Well, well, well," Stark started, his eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. "If it's not the young girl that broke into one of my offices the other day," Louise jolted up from her seat, her heart beating a mile a minute as Stark continued walking past her, waving her to follow him along to the open office.

"You know, if it wasn't for just how meaningless that info was, I'd have you hauled into a cell for a few weeks," he sat down behind a desk, an open balcony behind showcasing a beautiful city skyline, as he said this, his left arm now pointing towards a chair in front his desk. It was then that he took out his phone, its hollow-tech screen far more advanced than anything that Louise had seen in her life before now. "But I gotta admit, I'm impressed at the whole setup. If I hadn't watched the news, then I would've never guessed that your boyfriend was so..."

Stark pressed a section of his phone, a display popping out of the desk and revealing a series of pictures that compared Blueman and Doyle, as well as the scenes of Blonsky attempting to attack him. Some were obviously taken with a phone camera, so were so fuzzy and blurry that you really couldn't tell what they were looking at. But other pictures, other videos even, were clearly from street cameras so Pat's form was unmistakable.

"You… know that it's not a secret anymore right?"

Stark looked up, his expression that of raw annoyance.

"I'm not blackmailing him or anything. Hell, I wanted to do that, I'd have you arrested and have him by the balls," he revealed slowly taking out a contract and sliding across the desk to her. "No, what I am doing is bribing you, you get him to meet with me and I'll give you the job. I think that a quick thinker like yourself could be useful given the situations that I seem to find myself in."

Louise looked down at the contract, her eyes peering over the paper with the sort of fine detail attention that many her age weren't capable of. As far as she could see, there wasn't anything unusual about the contact.

"I have to ask him if he's up to it," she said, when the former Stark Industries CEO nodded, she moved from her chair with her own phone in hand. It didn't take long for her to stand in a corner of the room and start a conversation with her powerful friend.

Her part in this ended when Pat said;

"You know he's probably already hacked this call… right?"

Louise turned around, her eyes now glaring at Stark, who only responded with a wink and another press of his phone's touch screen, causing the call to change over to him.

"Wow, you caught on quickly, Blue," Stark spoke, something that only caused Louise to glare even harder at the man. It was at this moment that two things happened, the first a redhead woman, wearing a suit much like Louise's but both far finer and extremely more expensive, entered the room. The younger woman instantly recognized her as Pepper Potts, the current CEO of Stark Industries.

Stark took one look at the older redhead, his grin became strained as she spotted Louise, giving her the side-eye as she passed by.

"Wait just one second," He exclaimed, turning his attention to Pepper. "Hey, honey… what brings you here?"

"Oh, imagine my surprise when I find out that you're holding a personal interview for a new assistant, not something that you wanted to do a few days ago," Pepper walked around the desk, her heels somehow causing Stark to flinch with every step. "A young redhead assistant at that… do you just have a type, Tony?"

There was nothing but silence.

It was at this moment that Louise couldn't help but an audible gag in the corner. Something that seemed to bring Miss Potts no small amount of enjoyment if her face was anything to go by, while Stark appeared to be sucking a grape from his.

"Well that answers that question," Pepper spoke, her tone sounding just slightly snide as she sat on Stark's desk.

"Pepper, I'm just doing Fury a-"

"You mean the Director of SHIELD, that Fury?" Louise spoke, her head snapping up. While she hadn't met the man, Pat was more than willing to tell her all about his encounter with the mysterious head of one of the most powerful organizations in the world.

SHIELD didn't like to make too many waves, but they had their fingers in so many pies that their reach and power were truly without question.

"I wasn't aware that old cue ball had met with ya, kid?"

Once more, Louise found herself being interrupted but this time it wasn't by a door opening. It was instead the sound of a loud crash, ringing out behind Stark, causing both him and Pepper to spot the very event that Louise could see normally from her vantage point. Pat stood on shaky feet like he was having trouble regaining his footing after having flown here as fast as he could. Louise wasn't sure how the Irishman had found where she was so quickly but she guessed that he may have called her Pops.

That would be a fun talk once she got home.

Pat flashed them all a grin as he walked forward, entering the office with the same kind of swager that one would expect from a movie star. There was a casual arrogance to him that came from knowing that he was basically invincible.

"Sorry, I ruined a moment between you two," Her friend spoke, his accent causing Pepper to visibly raise a brow before Louise caught her mouthing oh, that's what's going on to herself. "But I don't like to be put on hold, you asked to speak to me, Mister Stark?"

Even before Stark stood to full height, Louise could tell that Pat towered over the man by a good five to six inches. This was one of the few times that his height was really showcased since Stark was a small man, even smaller than his CEO in fact, who herself was a small woman.

"That's fine, you worked real well at breaking up a little misunderstanding," Stark grinned, looking Pat up and down like a piece of meat… that he was going to study for science. "And boy do you open up a number of scientific possibilities just knowing that you flew here."

"Aren't you small for an Iron Man?"

 

[Proman]

(Pat Doyle)

"Really? A New Hope reference?" Stark raised a brow cheekily at me, grinning at me with a smile that was closer to what I would've expected from a hyena from the Lion King than from a person. "With some weak sauce like that, I don't think someone that's two steps away from being part of the Blueman group should be throwing any stones."

I blinked, before looking down, realizing that I was wearing a blue shirt with a pair of blue jeans. Now that he mentions I probably should stop dressing as a Power Ranger, as in color-coded clothes. If nothing else, just for the variety sake.

"Hey, ain't nobody is making fun of the hotrod red ranger suit you run around in," I shrugged, leaning my back onto a wall behind Lousie, causing her to turn slightly on her chair so she could keep both me and Tony insight.

"Ranger suit?" he held back a snort. "Don't think spandex looks good on me, it makes my ass look fat. You, on the other hand, look like a regular color-coded Blue Power Ranger."

"Why, thank y-"

"What's happening right now?" Louise intruded, her expression the definition of confused, while the other redhead in the room just rolled her eyes. It seemed that Pepper expected this sort of thing. "Wasn't this going to be a serious meeting, why are you two trading insults?"

"This is just how they compare… egos."

Miss Potts' rather… suggestive comment was something that I let pass if only so I could actually focus on more important things than that. Like what Stark wanted with me, or what Fury wanted the man to do.

"So… let's leave the smack talk alone for now," I said while hoping that he'd take me up on it. I was not good at trading verbal blows, so trying my hand against Stark wouldn't end with me on top. "What's this favor that you're doing for Fury?"

Now, this brought a smile to Stark's face, he even sat back down and started to lean back on his seat with his feet up on the desk. It was at this moment, that I think I understood what the senators felt like in Iron Man 2.

"Well, see the cyclops is an old softy, I know it surprised me too," he winked, chuckling as he did. "And he felt bad about how you're going to lose your job because of him sending you Ross's way, so-"

"Wait, what?" The duel voice of myself and Louise sprung out, it didn't even take me a second to realize why.

"The article, the first one I wrote," I sighed, rubbing my forehead, I noticed that Stark nodded slowly while Louise's expression was still as confused as before. "It was actually about me, but that's not good optics."

"Especially given the way that you put yourself on a pedestal," Stark added with a smug grin. "Nice job there, I'd done the same in your shoes."

Oh, that hit me right in the throat, I hadn't even been thinking about that when I wrote the damn thing. See, writing about yourself, as I had done, without admitting that I was even a little bit involved. That was a violation of journalistic ethics. When this got out, it wouldn't look good on me, Oh, sure no one so far could prove that I was Lugh, but that wouldn't last for long. There was only so long before someone figured out the man that matched every description of Lugh, shared many of the same powers, and even sounded like him… was Lugh.

It was only common sense.

I doubted Ellison would fire me over this, as it wasn't I hadn't done anything illegal just unethical. Not only that but the guy's way too soft-hearted to fire me for this, given what he'd assume my background was. But I mightn't ever write a story for the paper again, it wouldn't be good optics and I would've proved to be untrustworthy. It was possible that I would be struck as an office assistant, which wouldn't be an awful job… just not to my personal taste.

It wouldn't let me get away with keeping my ear on the ground for those juicy threads I was looking for.

"Since how you've broken the whole sacred creed of Journalists is out now," Stark continued on, with air quotes and all. This finally allowed Louise to grasp what he was talking about. At least I think she did? I didn't really have much time to explain it at the moment. "Fury was feeling bad about the whole thing, and hinted to me that it meant to be a good idea to have my own super-powered investigator on hand to look into things."

"So you invited my friend here, offered her a job, all so you could offer me a job?"

"That's about right, what do you say?"

I mean, it sounded like a good enough job offer, much better than my future prospects with the Bulletin. The biggest issue was working for someone like Tony Stark, a man that was famous, multiversally known at that, for being an ego-driven, alcoholic that's heart was in the right place. But from what I've read about this version of Stark… he wasn't an alcoholic? So… ya?

"So what do you want?" I asked, shaking me head free of those thoughts.

"What man wouldn't want a super-powered man hanging around them?" Stark's eyes twinkled. "Especially given the trouble I've had recently."

I suppose that it would make sense given the attempts that Russian made on his life, the Hammer Drones… and the attempts on his life before Vanko. But I still don't trust his word on this, there was something… untruthful about it.

"What's in it for me?" I responded, staring at his arc reactor with the large variety of visionary powers I had in my command. At first, I hoped that it would give me an understanding of how it was made since he had made one in a cave using some scraps. While I recognized a lot of the materials it was made from, or I could at least narrow down a few possibilities from some research I had been doing. There was one element that is used to power the reactor, no could I make sense of how the thing was constructed overall.

"Money," Stark responded, loudly breaking me from my thoughts about his Arc Reactor. "Good working hours, traveling to exotic locations."

"It sounds lovely," I drawled, licking my lips as I walked over to Louise, finally taking a seat. "But there's gotta be a lot more in it for me. I'm-"

Stark put up his hands, stopping me from speaking without a verbal command. I could tell both, why this man had been in command of a company like this even with Stain around in the same management circles, and why this man could walk into a senate hearing and out without giving them a single thing.

Within a single second Stark waved his right arm in the air, turning around a gaudy holographic display, showcasing… my own PC's desktop.

"You've hacked my desktop," I stated, before deciding to place a single finger on the desk before me. I pushed down, the part that was under my finger crumbled into dust within a moment. Something that Stark didn't take any heed of, though Potts stood up in fright. "So… what? You want a medal?"

I wasn't even going to ask how he managed to do this to a computer that I had never connected to the internet for this very reason. I could only presume that he had gotten someone to plug in the ethernet cable so he could do this.

"So, you think that you can find weird stuff while working in just New York?" He quirked an eyebrow. "Now, I'm not going to ask what you're looking for, I couldn't even tell from what files were on the computer alone, but I will say, you're better off with the web I can cast… than the one the Bulletin could."

That statement gave something away to me, something put a grin on my face.

"You're not sure what I did will be a problem are you?" I snorted. "You're just preempting the chance that I could so you can have an easy sell."

That seemed to catch the two redheads off guard, even if Stark only smiled in response. I could tell that I had surprised him as well, something that brought me some small pleasure. He'd been the one dictating things since I got here. But now, I could tell that there was more than just an altruistic desire coming from him. Stark wanted something from me, something more than having me in his employ. Working for him would give me plenty of things, but it could also put me under his control.

But I wonder how much his ego can take?

"How about this," I said, leaning forward with what one may call a smug smile. "If you can find Octavius, I'll be your personal investigator… but if I find her first, you make me a suit. Nothing fancy, I'm not looking for a Iron Man suit just something that won't become swiss as easily."

Stark's stare became laser while Potts and Louise seemed to briefly gasp before regaining their composure rapidly. I waited for a few moments, letting Stark have time to think the offer over.

"My mind versus your powers," The man hummed, stroking his chin. "That could work, that could work," he repeated, tapping away at his gross holographic keyboard. "Well, be prepared to lose Blue Boy. Because fantastic powers may be your Homefield, but brains are mine."

"Oh," I grinned standing up from my chair. "Don't think that it's just my powers you have to worry about," I started to walk back towards the balcony, preparing to launch myself into the air and resume my search for the nefarious scientist… when Louise once more spoke up;

"I'm still getting the job… right?"

I turned around to see Potts giving Stark a glare when the former CEO shrugged, causing her to break out into a sigh. It was only after giving her notepad a once over that the current CEO of Stark Industries spoke;

"Come with me, I'll find you a place to work."

---

(Jim O'Reilly)

Jim jumped up out of his bed, the alarm blaring into his ears. Today was the last day off since he had taken on that entire crew in the pub and slaughtered them. The award was much more than he had ever dreamed off, but then again. Why wouldn't it be, he had just crippled the Kitchen Irish in a way that they wouldn't be able to recover from for years.

And given his straight-laced reputation with them, they'd never look for him as the hitman, even if someone recalled him entering the pub.

But the money alone didn't seem to give him any relief.

Whenever he closed his eyes for longer than a second he could see the dull dead faces of his old mates, O'Leary's face, gasping for a final breath, his face burning off as the fires of cremation came over his body. But Jim pushed the visions back, because he was here for something more now, something beyond mere bonds of brotherhood that he had once developed with the crooks of his past.

He was working for the future of this city.

"Honey!" his wife yelled out, her voice cutting through his bleak thoughts, saving him from being swallowed whole by the guilt that had been spreading through his soul these past few days. "Mr. Wesley is on the phone for you!"

There wasn't a second wasted, Jim launched himself from his bed, practically leaping down some of his stairs. It wasn't without notice by his wife, who couldn't help but roll her eyes as he hurried to place the phone at his ear.

"Yes, sir?"

"Ah good," Wesley proclaimed. "I hope I'm not catching you at a bad time. I would hate to reward your dedication by annoying you while you enjoyed some well-rewarded family time."

"No, sir," O'Reilly couldn't help but shake his head, even as he understood that the other man wouldn't have been able to tell that he had done so. "I was just having a lazy day to myself."

"Good, good, I'll get right into it. We need you in today, we've discovered a few issues that need addressing."

"What sort of issues?"

"That kid of yours, we've noticed that she's been hanging out with the super-powered reporter."

He didn't speak for a moment, not able to find his breath in the haze of adrenaline that rushed through his body at that very moment.

"... I'll come in right away, sir."

Jim could tell that it was going to be a long day ahead of him.

---

(Tony Stark-Sometime later)

He didn't take any heed of Pepper as she strutted back into the office, instead, his focus was deadlocked onto the computer screen he had ahead of him. While earlier he had been using a holographic keyboard as the control, Tony had replaced it moments ago with the real thing, needing the sense of tactility such an item granted him to really get going.

"Tony, are you still at this?"

Pepper was slightly confused when she had left him in this room a few hours ago the man had been confident that he would find the rogue Doctor within minutes. But here he was, hours later and still not any closer to finding his former employee.

"Well, I'm not one to be wrong about things, but in this case. Octavius really has covered her tracks. Thought it would be much easier than this. She's clearly had some sort of breakthrough. Maybe spite is a better motivator than I thought?"

Pepper walked around the desk, coming over so she was standing behind Tony with her head coming in close to his ear. While there was plenty of information on a screen that she couldn't make heads or tails of, such as the schematics of a prototype of the Doctor's famous tentacles, among other things, the maps of the city with lines drawn over them were much more in her wheelhouse.

But the lines appeared to end in the middle of nowhere, on random rooftops with large scribbles drawn over them.

"She's blacked out all available security cameras in a four-block radius, something that will cause more than a few problems for the people living there, but the main thing is I've been forced to use satellites to track the marks that her tentacles leave on the ground. Something that ends in several different locations."

"And that's all you could find? No bank details? No warehouses under an alias?"

Tony nodded, closing his eyes and leaning back into his chair with a heavy sigh.

"Are you really going to make him a suit?" Pepper couldn't help but bring up the topic now that they were alone once more. It brought the former CEO back to the real world and he gave her a grin that contained the usual sort of confident swagger that the man was known for.

"It doesn't matter, I get what I want either way,"

Pepper didn't even have to ask her boyfriend to clarify there as he stood up and reached over to a nearby cabinet, taking two glasses and pouring out a drink before he gave her a wink.

"See, Fury asked me to do an assessment on the guy, he's already got the whole psych/how well does in the group evaluation that I went under," Tony explained in-between sips, licking his lips and taking in breaths. "He wants me to figure what his limits are, without directly asking… because… "

"Because... ?"

Tony shrugged and gave an airy chuckle.

"He didn't say, but Fury helped me and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt… just this once."

With that said, Stark went back to walk, pulling up another holographic display while Pepper's eyes went over to the clocks on the wall, wondering how long it would take Tony before he was too tired to go on. After ten minutes, she reached into a desk drawer, pulled out a laptop, and walked over to a lounge couch over in the corner of the room.

If he was going to spend the whole day and night working, she might as well do the same.

---

(Pat Doyle)

Louise was talking about the oddness of her father's working hours while we were having lunch. I was still off official working hours, given the sheer scope of my last story it was decided that I deserved it, but Ellison wanted me to come in after lunch. I chewed on a sandwich, the ham and cheese esd as familiar as it was tasty. It turned out that flight opened up a whole new avenue for produce that I hadn't access to before. So a quick flight to Ireland and I was able to get myself some real Irish cheese and ham.

The ham didn't taste any different, but the cheddar was my favorite brand.

"I mean, he's off odd hours in the night, there's never a real schedule," she continued to explain what was bothering her today. "And not to mention the super suspicious talks he has with his boss. It's so obviously coded but I can't tell if it's just he doesn't want mom to worry or if he's actually doing illegal shit."

"Security can be dangerous," I half-heartedly agreed. "So I can see why you'd think that could be it either."

There wasn't a lot I could say to my friend, I didn't know her father well enough to comment, nor did I think it was my place to throw out some theories about what he could be doing. I had only known them for the last few months. It wouldn't be right of me to just assume things passed what Jim had been doing.

Not after he left the criminal life behind.

Louise simply sighed, lowering her head into her hands while picking at her salad every once in a while. It seemed the situation had gotten down in the dumps, but perhaps she only needed her mind taken off things.

"How did the job go after I left?"

I didn't even bother to look at her at this second and I could tell that Louise was rolling her eyes.

"I'm making coffee and crafting office notes," her moan made me laugh. "It's just sooooo boring. I thought that working for a tech company would involve more… like tech?"

This time my laugh was loud and booming, her expression told me that this would be a mistake but I was invincible, not much she could do without taking it too far.

"Well, it is an office job, if you wanted to work with the tech you were better off applying for that."

"Thanks, mom," Louise said sarcastically. "What about you, had any luck finding the roofie-loving doctor?"

"If I had you'd be the first to know," I said, mumbling through a few more bites of my sandwich, it turns out that even just flying above the city and x-raying the fuck out of it, hopefully, that wasn't literal, didn't let me find the madwoman all that quickly. "I think she's left the city, I'll need to start researching areas that would suit her needs."

"The needs of a woman that can make a portal between universes out of household goods?"

I stopped chewing, swallowed before I decided to give her that point.

"Good point, I'll just need to fly faster, cover more ground and all that."

"Have you figured out how to get around being hacked?" She asked me suddenly, briefly catching me off guard before a grin stretched over my face.

"Yup, just took out the wireless card from my laptop and I'll work from there."

Louise didn't seem to like that solution, but she didn't make it verbally known. Instead, she relied on giving a stare that few could give to a man that could tank bunker shells. Eventually, her stare was broken by a loud buzzer coming from her handbag.

"I'll see ya later, I've got to head back into work now."

With her gone, I made my own way towards the Bulletin.

It was as I walked into the Bulletin office with an odd sense of weight to my footsteps, I could feel the stares of my co-workers as I made my way further in. While there were some proud smiles before, now they were a mix of suspicion… and terror. It wasn't something that I liked.

Still, I simply ignored it for now, since any action I could've done right now might've only led to worse things. It wasn't long before I stepped into Ellison's office, my hand in my pocket while a laptop sat in a bag by my side.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" I asked. I was actually pretty tired, having spent the last day and a half searching the city for signs of Ock. It was the first time that I'd actually become tired since I got to this world, it was oddly nice, if not inconvenient at the moment.

"Yes, please take a seat," At his prompting, I picked up a chair without thinking about what I was doing. Ellison gave me an unamused stare till I realized what he had been asking of me… and so I put the chair down and sat. "I was wondering if you were cooking up any other news that could get us into trouble?"

I blinked a few times.

"Sorry?" I couldn't help but respond.

"I've just had to fight off a few government agencies asking me where the hell you got your sources, that I needed to give them over to them," Ellison took in a deep breath. "So I was wondering if I should prepare for another angry call."

I scoffed.

"I wouldn't worry about that, I've been spending my spare tracking Doc Ock," I rolled my shoulders and leaned back in the chair. "Also got an offer from Stark for a job, not ready yet to take that up-"

"Wait, Stark's trying to poach you?" Ellison's expression was a mix between a frown and a grin as if he couldn't tell if he wanted to be happy for me, or mad at Stark. "I hope you said… no?"

"Not in so many words," I cringed, kind of feeling bad about the whole thing. It was obvious that Ellison didn't even think to punish me for breaking ethics, which mightn't be a good thing. "I've sorta made a bet with him that I would find Doc Ock before he could."

Ellison gave me a sharp look before slamming his hand down on his desk.

"Then what are you doing? Go get out there and find the woman before she takes out the entire state! Show that millionaire what a real investigative reporter can do!"

With a large grin spreading across my face I stood up, walked over to the fire exit, while the eyes of the office were on me, there was a large window that allowed someone to peer into Ellison's office and flew off into the sky.

---

(Somewhere near The Canadian Border)

He was sitting down on a park bench, a paper on his lap that had the second page of his dreams. General "Thunderbolt" Ross' true nature had been revealed to the world, which had brought a large smile to his face, and reading about all the details that he had disclosed being aired unfiltered. That told Bruce that he had made the right decision.

Even if the guy hadn't been entirely truthful about himself.

"Are you reading that again?" Betty's voice brought his head out of the pages and back to the real world. The real world that had General Ross's dreams splattered against the pavement.

"Only one more time, I just want to get that last piece of satisfaction," Bruce explained, much to her semi-amused annoyance. "Then I'll be off again, the life of a fugitive."

Bruce Banner couldn't help the sigh that escaped his lips, his eyes dropping to the ground. While Ross seemed to be getting what he deserved finally, that didn't mean Bruce could afford to stick around in one place, even though the cure appeared to have worked, there were too many people that would be after his mind to recreate the Hulk. So he was going to be running once more.

A soft hand enveloped his own, causing him to look back to Betty, whose soft smile brought warmth to his heart.

"This time, we're doing this together."

"Together."

 

[Proman]

(Louise O'Reilly: 2009 May 14th)

Louise was sitting in the lunchroom of the newly built Stark Tower, which was basically a building to house an arc reactor that offered free power for a number of research and development projects that Stark had in mind. She had a frown on her face, something that was far too common in the past few months, a few months that had been mostly her friend saving lives from random accidents and investigating in vain for the location of the deadly Doctor Octopus.

And so the young woman was waiting, waiting impatiently for Pat to arrive. This would be the third time this month alone that the super-powered reporter had been late to meet her, the trend that was being formed caused Louise's blood to boil.

But only a little.

Given that he was probably late because he was busy stopping a crime or staving some life. Louise couldn't really bring herself to get mad at him. What did cause her blood to start boiling, was just how smug he could be about it now.

"Louise!" Hearing her name, she looked over, finding her old school friend, Becca, running over to her with her boyfriend, Rick, being practically dragged over to her. "It's been so long, I haven't seen ya since we graduated."

Louise gave her a little smile, motioning her head to signal for the smaller woman to take a seat. When the duo was finally seated, Louise finally spoke up;

"Oh, sorry about not calling you or nothing," The Redhead shrugged, her shoulders rolling up slightly as she rolled up her sleeves on her shirt, preparing to start eating regardless of the lack of Pat at the moment. "I've been busy with my new job-"

"And your new secret boyfriend?" Becca interrupted her, the grin the other girl was wearing slowly melting away as Ricky jabbed her with his elbow. The girl turned her eyes toward him and her boyfriend shook his head hard.

Becca took a long hard look at the way Louise gripped the table, watching the skin around her knuckles turn pale. Even though the other woman had perfect control over her facial expression, the hands never lied for Louise. So she just took a deep breath, in and out. Then so she wouldn't have to speak about the subject, Louise took a large bite out of her lunch, crunching down on it as if she had been starving herself for the last month. It was so much and so fast that the other woman started to feel guilty over starting that reaction.

So she decided to change the subject.

"So… how's your dad? Heard his new job has been going well?"

This brought a small smile back to the redhead's face.

"Yeah, he's been doing great, the work's been real good for his health," Louise said after swallowing her food. "There are far fewer late nights… " she trailed off as she leaned in and whispered. "And fewer people shooting at him, which would be the big plus even if he didn't rake in more money than three mob enforcers combined."

Becca sighed in relief before morphing her face into a smile that matched her friends.

"That's great," Rick was the one this time to speak up, for the first time since he'd entered the room. Rick had always been a quiet guy, something that Louise was thankful for, but right now his voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard. "I'm still trying to figure out my-"

"Yo."

Suddenly, as if literally jump-cutting to the last open seat, Pat appeared, he was wearing some sort of blue leather jacket, with white accents, his hair had grown longer, having been uncut for the last few months, now stopping around his chin, framing his face while it was still clean-shaven and his smile was smugger than ever before. Something that didn't go unnoticed as Louise rolled her eyes at him while both Becca and Rick jumped slightly from fright, their knees hitting the table and causing it to shake.

"Pat."

Was Louise's rather subdued response, as she went back to munching on her meal. This caused Pat to frown for a single second before he leaned back on his chair, a hand going into his pocket.

"Don't be like that," he spoke, his jovial tone matching his overall body language, light and unguarded. "I was busy with a car crash down a few blocks."

"That's horrible, was anyone badly injured?" The only other male at the table asked.

Even while Louise didn't give any response to this, Rick couldn't help but ask about the crash. Pat just turned slightly, his grin much softer and could be better described as sheepish.

"Yeah, it was no bother, I can stop car crashes with a single finger," he bragged, moving forward in his seat once more, so Pat could get a better angle to talk to the other man from. "Let me tell ya, the bigger problem isn't stopping the crash… It's how grateful some people are afterward. Some of them are a wee… bit too grateful."

Becca and Rick shared a glance before the two realized what the man had just said.

"You're that-"

Before Becca could even voice her revelation, Pat shushed her, his left hand coming out of his pocket in a stop-motion, a quick wink. It wasn't like it was hard to figure out that the man in blue was the legendary super-powered reporter.

Over the past year, the reporter had been doing as much stopping crime as he was reporting on it. Though, the large majority of his actions were rescue work, helping out with burning buildings, stopping traffic accidents. That sort of thing. Very few people were out robbing banks in this day and age.

Except that one time when a guy came in with a pistol a week before, but the cops dealt with him not Pat.

New York's accident rate was down to levels many had never seen before, to a rate that made some wonder if there was any real danger to speeding anymore. But those people were morons, and shouldn't be listened to.

At least, Louise thought so.

It was then that the young woman found that she hadn't anything left to eat from her meal, nothing to hide the fact that she didn't want to talk. Instead, Louise was stuck staring at her fingers while Pat continued describing his morning of saving lives. If it wasn't for all the gloating, Louise would've felt proud, she still did feel a little proud of her friend. But that wasn't something the O'Reilly woman was going to tell him, not in the mood she was in.

"... and that was when I appeared, matching the speed of the car, catching it with me hands, and bringing it to a safe stop." Pat ended his story in a soft whisper, his hands moving forward in a mime of the event. "When it comes to catching most large objects, matching their speed is usually the way to go."

"Wow, that's intense," Becca replied, her eyes practically had stars in them when her boyfriend elbowed her once more. This time he motioned his head slightly, bringing Becca's attention back to the cross expression that Louise was wearing.

"You know… maybe we should be… leaving…" Rick supplied much to Pat's apparent amusement. With a gentle hand, he helped his girlfriend up and left the table, the duo leaving the room within seconds.

So the two were left alone… or, as alone as a crowded lunchroom could be.

"Hey," Pat spoke, after having waited through a long period of silence. "I'm sorry about being late again, I just let myself get caught up in everything, even just patrolling the city itself is a massive job. I'm letting myself get overwhelmed, so I had a thought…"

He let himself trail off, giving Louise a smile, a small hesitant thing that even on the face of a six feet tall man couldn't help but be shared by the woman herself.

"You had a thought, it sounds dangerous to me," she grinned, feeling uplifted somewhat before the O'Reilly girl waved him on.

"So, I had been flying about, and there was this cat," He put his hand on the table, his hand miming the actions of this animal. "Accidently, I picked him up, and for a second I was like… Oh no, she'd be dead… but no, she was fine, even at the fastest I could move. So anywhere you want to go, I'll take you."

Now, this got Louise's attention, she could recall the man's concerns over whiplash when she had once asked to be given a lift.

"How long will it take to get… to London?"

Pat leaned forward, an action that Louise mirrored, the two of them nearly directly in the other's face.

"Only a short half an hour," he responded, before adding on. "Just let me finish my fluff piece, then we'll figure out the place time, with time zones being considered, and this place finally being done and we'll get going, no need to pack for much, I can have you back before you know it."

It was at this moment that a large bang hit the table. Pat was the first to turn and face the noise, his grin much smaller now and stained. When Louise turned around at a normal human rate, she couldn't help but groan at the sight before.

"Agent Morse," Pat spoke, leaning back on his chair casually. There was a grimace on his face, a twitch that lasted less than a microsecond but that was more than enough for both Bobbi and Louise to pick up on it. "What can I do for you?"

"There's been a situation," Bobbi slid a folder towards Pat, the man catching it with a single finger and spinning it to face him.

Louise didn't get to peek inside it, as Pat leaned forwards, his eyes now glaring down at the page below him. He tapped against it before closing the folder and standing up, leaving it on the table. Something that the SHIELD Agent seemed to leave be.

"Sorry for cutting this short, L," Pat said, turning as he started to walk out of the lunchroom, SHIELD Agent in tow. "But the big leagues are calling, and I'm stepping into the ring."

"Stop mixing metaphors!" Louise spoke out, knowing that even as he had already left the room, that his super-powered ears could hear every word she spoke. "It's not as cool as you like."

---

(Pat Doyle)

Loki has come to Earth, blown up a SHIELD Laboratory, and stolen some artifact of great power, for no doubt nefarious purposes that included conquering either Earth or Asgard. Noice, that was something right out of the comics, and since Loki was down here and making a mess. Thor wouldn't be far behind.

I should keep an eye out for a blond doctor with a cane. Since where there is Loki, his brother, Thor can't be too far behind, ready to take out his evil adopted brother like a mighty... hammer of justice.

No, that was too lame… even for me.

We weren't taking long to get to the destination, especially given we took what I would call "Air-Lugh" to get there, I even had the time to get changed into my Lugh outfit, a blue hoodie with a white shield and a blue sun with three bursts coming out of it in the center. This was topped off with a blue domino mask.

These weren't the only clothes I had for Superheroing, but it was the only set that I had on hand. The other suit was for… special occasions, so I didn't bother to carry it around with me. The only reason that I even knew where I was going to was the folder I had been given earlier, and that place was… a SHIELD Carrier.

Now, as I came down to the thing, I was able to see the inner workings of this ship. The sight of the gears, the large turbines, and many other technical features revealed to me that this wasn't a normal carrier.

This was an airship.

Memories of the nineties Spider-man and the flying ship that SHIELD used in that came to my mind first, followed by the one in the Ultimate line of comics in Marvel. The SHIELD Helicarrier, if I recall correctly. It's impressive tech, relative to the normal stuff that the world has access to at least.

We landed without a bang, it was a fast but soft landing. It was a showcase of the power that I had at my command, that I could move that fast, but still not make a sound as I landed on their deck. Also… and this is something that I found really odd. No matter how fast I went, I never seemed to make a sonic boom… like what the hell is up with that?

Before anything else could happen, I spotted a familiar pair stepping off a helicopter, a very familiar pair.

"Dr. Banner, Dr. Ross, it's good to see you guys again!" I walked up, Morse running up to my side.

I took a long look at the pair, they were glowing in that metaphorical sense. And it didn't go without saying that Bruce was looking a lot better than he had been the last time I saw him, were before his clothes were hanging off him, obviously, he either couldn't get his hands on clothes that could fit him at the time or he was underfed and meant that clothes that should've fit didn't.

"It's good to see you too," Banner replied, his right hand caught in the grip of Ross's own hand as the two walked forward. "You… look colorful?"

"Bruce," Betty spoke up, elbowing the man lightly as she giggled. "Don't be rude."

"Hey, it was just an observation," he exclaimed with a smile. "I didn't mean anything by it."

Whatever the pair was about to say, I didn't pay it any heed as I instead my attention was grabbed by a stunning redhead walking up behind them, she didn't even make a single sound whenever her feet hit against the ground.

Interesting.

"So they brought you guys in on this, what's the sitch?" I asked the pair, deciding to pretend that I hadn't noticed the redhead.

"Well, from what we've been told, the Tesseract produces gamma radiation," Betty responded, walking forward toward the entrance to the carrier's interior. "So given that between Bruce and me, we're the foremost experts on gamma radiation in the world, they've brought us in to track it."

Bruce's facelifted into a smile as a blond man, built better than I currently was, stepped into view before us. He was tall enough, around my same height, but the broader shoulders he had made him out to be bigger than I was in spite of our similar structure. It turns out that I was staring at him but given the amused eyebrow raise from the man, I doubt I was that creepy doing so. Maybe he was just used to people staring at him.

"Steve Rogers," he put his hand out, waiting for me to shake it.

So I did.

"Patrick Doyle," I shook his hand, remembering his name from what little Marvel trivia I could recall. Far more memorable than the Hellicarrier was in the Spider-Man animated series, Captain America wasn't a man one would forget. Given there was an entire arc around him.

But hopefully, this isn't the same kind of Captain America as the "This A on my forehead isn't for France!" Ultimate Marvel version. Given the variation of Nick Fury I met with, that was a big concern for me.

"I've heard of you," Cap replied with a small grin. "The superpowered reporter; heard that you've been doing some good work. It's nice to meet you."

It was said so earnestly that I couldn't imagine this man saying the most infamous line of the Ultimate Version. So earnestly that I couldn't help but share the grin as we shook hands. We didn't have much else to say to each other, so I let the good captain introduce himself to the gamma pair. While the Cap and I had been talking, Morse had introduced herself to Banner and Ross, the two of them quietly giving each other the gentle exchanges of polite glad to be working with you.

"Dr. Banner, Dr. Ross," Rogers' tone was of deep respect. I could only presume it was respect for their intellect and supposed skills, given that the man had yet to meet them before today.

"Oh, yeah," Banner looked around as if he was surprised that the Captain was talking to him of all people."Hi, they told me that you were coming along."

"The word is that you're the man that can find the cube."

"Is that the only word?"

"The only one that matters to me."

"Gentlemen, you may wanna step inside in a minute. It's gonna get a little hard to breathe."

The redhead spoke up, catching my attention once more as we entered the Helicarrier. This was the moment that I could feel the ground start to shift and shake slightly as the place started to lift up.

"Huh, it's not as impressive as the tech sheet makes it out to be," I mumbled, grabbing Morse's attention who couldn't help but give me a side glare. "I'm just saying, this thing can't go high enough to give me trouble. Talk to me when you've got a space-Helicarrier and then I'll be impressed."

---

Author's Note: Now, I understand from the time on .net and SB that some people will take this as a retelling of Avengers, this coming arc. And in a way it is, but it's also where I start laying down some changes that don't make all that sense unless you know the whys and hows of these changes happen.

And it doesn't end like Avengers. Not in a lot of ways.

Spoiler: Actual Spoliers

Also I'm writing Loki's powers very differently from how they're used in the MCU, but that's mostly because I felt they dealt him a bad hand given the threat level he's supposed to have in this arc versus what he can actually do. So he'll use shapeshifting powers in this story. I mean the most disappointing thing about MCU Loki is that he's not allowed to properly shapeshift.

At most, he appeared as Captain America and Odin. But I'm not sure those were shapeshifting and not illusions.

 

[Proman]

(Loki: Some Underground Bunker)

He watched the humans roam about the room, preparing for what was to come, the opening of a portal, and the unleashing of his army of Chitauri upon the people of Earth. Loki was originally going to study the people that Barton had informed him would be sent after him.

But his body still ached strangely and his vision would swim at times, it was if he was still recovering from his fall.
Or something much worse.
So instead he sat down to rest, he was in no rush to complete his task as things seemed to be running ahead of schedule. This was especially odd, even with the information that the Mind stone had granted Selvig from Loki's own mind, the man shouldn't have been able to design the mechanisms that fast. It was almost like he was working from blueprints he had already seen.

Things were going much faster than Loki had planned, too fast for his liking.

As if summoned by his unconscious mind, Barton stepped forward, a tablet in his hand.

"Sir," he said, his tone a mix of stiff and professional. "I've acquired the files on the final member of the Avengers for you."

"Oh, is that so?"

Loki leaned on the scepter, letting his weight be held only by it rather than his own legs, trying to mask the burn he could still feel raging through them. There was a few seconds that the god had to think on things once more while Barton seemed to fumble with the tablet, files on the capabilities of the hero going by the title of Lugh.

Real name wasn't known, but he also went by the name Patrick Doyle. Apparently, the former title was a failed attempt to hide his identity from the mortals on Midgard, but it wasn't his terrible skills at hiding himself amongst the natives that concerned Loki.

"Well, isn't that interesting," His mind erupted in excitement at the conclusion all this data appeared to give him. "I was under the impression they were all dead. It seems that the universe is just full of surprises."

Finding one of those people here was more than surprising, it brought memories of his days in the libraries of Vanaheim, where he would study the various races within the Nine, and without, he would love to discuss this Lugh's culture with him. His people had been isolationists, so there wasn't much information out there about them and how they lived, what did they like to eat? How did their society function?

Democracy? Monarchy?

So many questions that could be asked.

And this would be the first sign of them since the destruction of their world. A race thought dead, discovered to be alive on Midgard, Loki wondered if Heimdall had kept this secret from all but the All-Father? Still, the thoughts of meeting such a member of such a famously elusive race caused him to be reminded of the days where he'd be stuck in a book, while his brother would come by to recruit him into some wild adventure of some sort, something that he enjoyed just as much.

Battles won by strength of arms, but also won by the skills and tricking their enemies. Battles that played to the strengths of Asgard's Princes. It was a joyous time, the best time and worst time of his life, Thor's little brother, his lackey.

His mind supplied these thoughts as if they were a poison towards memories of joy… it shifted things to the time on the bridge, of letting go being thrown off the shattered Bifrost. Rage only built up as he was reminded of the betrayals that Asgard had heaped on him.

"Sir?" Hawkeye spoke, confused at the sudden silence from his new boss.

"There's been a change of plans," And what changes they would be with such a destructive force on Midgard to take advantage of. "Tell me… does he have any enemies of note on Earth?"

---

(Natasha Romanoff)

They had walked all the way from the deck to the main bridge of the Helicarrier, Director Fury was in the middle of the room, letting himself peer over everyone and keep an eye on the Agents working. While Rogers sat behind Fury, where he listened in as both Banner and Ross were discussing ways to find the missing Tesseract. What was Natasha herself doing at the moment?

She was being slightly confused as she stared at the sight before her, so much so that after a moment Natasha shifted her focus to Bobbi Morse. The other woman shrugged though, a rather small smirk on her face.

"Is he always… so… " Natasha waved her towards the viewing screen where Doyle was miming not being able to breathe while still standing on the outside of the Helicarrier as it started to rise into the air.

"Childish?" Morse finished for her, raising an eyebrow. "Only when he gets excited, it mostly comes with the whole flying thing I think, because neither Rogers nor Banner acts like this."

"Maybe it's because his girlfriend works for Stark?" She questioned, bringing it up in jest.

"You think it's contagious?"

"Well, we're sure he was more mature before O'Reilly started to work for him."

At this moment, Doyle stopped miming, his face turning around back to the camera and he gave it a rather unamused stare. Natasha turned from the display, a question on her lips;

"He can'-"

"-hear you," Doyle's voice spoke up, right beside her. "Yup, even over the wind outside."

Even with the sudden surprise of the man arriving next to her before the interior sensors picked up any movement, Natasha didn't react with any outward surprise to his sudden presence.

"Impressive, any other trick you got, big guy?"

Even though he appeared to be attempting to tower over her, using his superior height to intimidate her. Natasha was sure that wasn't the case here. Doyle's stance was too casual for that. Must've grown up with a taller-than-average family.

Doyle had an odd stare, at least when looking at her like he was looking through her skin and searching her insides, and somehow still judging her for something. Natasha was used to being judged, by other members of SHIELD, by normal people, it was just how life was. Though the SHIELD Agent was more used to people at least being aware of her work in general before they started to judge her.

"A few," he eventually shrugged. "But I usually save the x-raying till the second or third date."

"If you're done, Mr. Doyle?" Fury spoke up without turning, his back to them still. "I think it's about time that you got to the matter at hand."

Natasha just walked slowly after the man, Bobbi taking up space standing next to Rogers while she continued to take in the super-powered reporter's body language. It was the odd mix of relaxed and stiff that caused her some concern. He moved as if he owned the place as if he was untouchable, which as far as the SHIELD Agent was aware, he was. But at the same time, his eyes were darting around the room searching for any threat.

Interesting.

"So… then," Doyle spoke up, his eyes stopping at Rogers, the two Enhanced individuals now sitting around the same table. "What's the plan when we catch up to his royal hornyness… " he trailed off at the sight of Natasha blinking, Rogers blinking, Morse blinking and if it wasn't for his eyepatch she would be sure that Fury would've been blinking as well. "... what?"

"His royal hornyness?" Rogers spoke up first.

"Yeah… because of-" he placed his fingers near his forehead and pointed up. "Because the horns… he wears."

Even though his face didn't seem to show it, Natasha knew that the man was now embarrassed. It took the man down another grade from that point onward, but it also revealed that he knew the kind of clothes Loki liked to wear.

"You know him?" Fury pounced on the other man.

"Only a vague idea of him," Doyle squinted his eyes. "And what I do comes from what I was told about Asgard from nearly two decades ago."

"What, did you take classes on Norse Gods in elementary?" Morse supplied.

"Classes on the political figures in Asgard," Doyle replied, seemingly revealing his alien origins to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Even Rogers, for all his good boy, never been to high school vibes, caught onto it. But it wasn't important at the moment, so no one asked any questions about his exact origins… yet. "We didn't know a lot to be honest, so what details I do have are… sparse."

"That's more than we know," Rogers interceded. "Lay it on us."

"Well," The reporter rolled his eyes up to the right. Part of her brain that was still a killer, noted that this was a common action by people that are trying to recall something, rather than someone that was making something up which would be him looking up the left, if that behavior was compatible whichever Doyle was. "He's the brother of Thor, a shapeshifter, not sure the limit on what he can transform into. He's a sorcerer of some renown, what that exactly means I'm not sure, and he's around a thousand years old-"

"-Legend says that he's been around for longer than that," Morse spoke up. "At least two."

"Well," he responded with a roll of his eyes and roll of his right hand to go with it. With every word, Doyle would gesture as if he needed to act out every word's meaning. "Legend is obviously wrong, the guy is like born near 500 or 1000 AD… from what I recall. But that's about it, never had too much interest in a guy that I would never meet."

"Well, you might regret that soon," The blonde Agent replied. "Going up against someone who could be capable of a third of Thor's destructive force without knowing what their abilities are will be trouble."

"That's a pretty big gap of information, very vague," Banner spoke up in the room for the first time in several minutes, his eyes focused on a laptop he had set on the table, he and Ross were working out a program to be used in tracking the Gamma signature of the Tesseract. "I didn't see you as a poor student."

"Well, I've got to be bad something don't I?" Doyle grinned while kicking back on the chair and started to balance on the back legs. It was the way that his eyes shifted down, it told Natasha about how uncomfortable the man seemed about the prior subject. "Life wouldn't be interesting otherwise."

"As interesting as that exact line of conversation is," Morse spoke up, finally taking a seat herself. "It does reveal a rather concerning ability that Loki has."

"Depending on how it works I should be able to see through any disguise he can take… if his insides don't match at least."

"Well, this meeting has been nice and all," Ross interceded, "But Bruce and I really need to get to a lab so we can start working."

Quickly Natasha was sent off with the pair to show them the lab that they would be working on. And for the first time since the three enhanced men had arrived on the SHIELD Helicarrier, she was sure that the reporter wasn't watching her anymore.

Natasha wondered if Fury had kept Doyle's alien origins under wraps or the man truly hadn't known.

---

(Loki: Germany)

Given the range that SHIELD had in terms of support and surveillance, Loki wasn't sure why Barton thought that this sort of distraction would work. Especially given that he was targeting a man that had the capability to enter the facility that Barton was getting the needed Iridium from. It seemed like the second place that they'd check given Loki was forcible holding the man down at the moment and using a scanner to read the needed details from those pupils to pass security.

As Loki left the man gasping in pain and exited the museum, there was something off about the area, the humans were becoming less in number by each passing second. Where once there were hundreds of them, now there were only a few dozens left.

"Ah," Loki chuckled as he realized what was going on, slamming his scepter into the ground, a blue haze erupted over the area. a blue figure tripped, sliding across the near-empty courtyard causing more screams to come from the humans.

Loki took in the man's details, he was about the same height as his brother, Thor. Slimmer built, but not by a lot. His code of dress was remarkably Midgardian for something of his power and stature, a blue hoodie with a pair of blue pants and a symbol he couldn't recognize gracing the front of it.

Blue… he was blue.

Not the most important detail of this Lugh, but it was a detail that reminded Loki of his purpose.

"No reason to make this too easy," Loki thought with a grin.

"Well, that didn't work out like I thought it would," The figure known by some as Lugh hopped back to his feet with a light bounce to his steep, a tight smile on his face. Loki considered attacking him while he was down, but it wasn't yet time to make such bold moves. "So… I'll ask you once, drop the scepter and no one has to get hurt."

Loki didn't, but he did aim the tip else while he started to pace in circles with the man. The two of them like lions waiting for the first sign to strike.

"I wonder why someone as mighty as you would protect such pitiful creatures?"

That got a raised eyebrow from the man and a roll of his eyes.

"You've got power, then it should be the service of the people, not yourself."

Loki couldn't help but laugh at that sentimental crap, it reminded him of the lies that his father Odin would tell him when he was naught but a child, things about ruling, rules about life, and how they were to help each other through it all. But life had taught him the truth that…

… freedom was a lie.

"Ah… a fool then," Loki had no use for a fool. "Pity."

With a speed that many humans couldn't have reacted to, his scepter struck out. The blade heading right for Lugh's head. While Loki had briefly thought that he would try and tank the blow, relying on his race's incredible durability, instead the powerful fool moved back out of reach before his fist leaped at out at Loki with the same kind of momentum that Thor's hammer would have. With an elegance that came from centuries of training, Loki managed to maneuver the scepter to take the blow instead of his face. But still, the attack took him off of his feet, throwing the Prince all the way to the museum steps.

Instantly Loki shifted forms, his body growing skinner, smaller but somehow much longer. Scales came next as Lugh's fist hit the area that once contained Loki's head.

"What?" Lugh exclaimed as he pulled his fist from the concrete ground.

The, now snake, Loki slithered around the scepter left on the ground, the head now pointed at the confused opponent. Then a blast of raw blue power slammed into the equally powerful blue man and embedded him into the ground nearby. Screams erupted from the peasants around them, many of them running out of sight but those with some steel in their hearts stayed within view of the two.

Loki only just resumed his true form but Lugh was already on him, a blow to his stomach this time hitting him directly. Once more, the Asgardian Prince found himself comparing the blow to something his brother would give, but for once found his brother falling short. As he coughed and groaned from the sensation, Loki felt his rage overtaking him once more. Even though it went against his plans, Loki predicted the movements of the much faster Lugh with a grace that came from his centuries of combat experience. Meaning this time when the scepter came for Lugh…

… it cut through his jacket and into his skin, cutting right into his left arm.

From shock alone, Lugh leaped back a full six meters. Loki didn't waste the opening and attempted to blast him once more, this time the other non-Midgardian slapped the blast upward and harmlessly to the sky.

"So that's how it works," Loki smirked, haven figured out the mechanism that his opponent's invulnerability worked. "Good to know."

With a sideways swipe, Loki brought the Scepter sliding at the man's feet but found that such a thing wouldn't work as the pole of the weapon bounced off him rather than anything else. Using the force of the failed blow to his advantage, Loki let himself hop back away from. Once more Loki launched himself forward with a spin, more for aesthetics than for a purpose, the blade of the scepter spinning outward. Rather than move, Lugh simply smiled and raised a hand, an action that even Loki's great Asgardian eyes could only barely make out due to his spinning.

Then it hit him.

Rather he hit him.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to surrender," The soldier out of his time spoke, his tone full of self-righteousness, his famous shield had taken the Scepter's blade without a scratch, instead the collision caused Loki to be knocked to the side. "Drop the scepter and hand over the Tesseract."

"Ah, the dreaded Captain America," Loki rolled his eyes, getting up slowly but leaving the scepter on the ground as he did. It wasn't like he couldn't reach for it at a moment's notice. If Loki thought that the blue of Lugh's outfit was annoying.

He found the blue of Captain Roger's to be more so.

Even as he searched around the area, no peasants to terrorize and a Midgardian vehicle circled around him with its weapons aimed right for him, and a catchy Midgardian melody started to come from its speakers.

Yet there was only one threat to him at the moment.

"I'm afraid that isn't an option-" Before Loki could finish his witty remark, a beam slapped him back on his ass once more.

"Stay down, Reindeer Games," In his famous metal suit, Tony Stark came thundering down from the sky, having shot the Asgardian with his repulsors. "You won't like it if you get up."

Slowly, Loki raised his hands, feigning defeat but smiling on the inside as his armor returned to the pocket space that he kept it in. Now only in his leathers, the God of Mischief knew that his plan of distracting his enemies was hitting off without a hitch.

Now that he had their attention, next it was time to break them.

Or give them a common enemy.

 

[Proman]

(Pat Doyle: On Quinjet back to Helicarrier)

I kept my eyes trained on the Norse God, ready for any sign that he was about to make some sort of move. He was legendarily a trickster, like my namesake, so I wasn't going to be dumb enough to let him leave my sight for more than a second.

His handcuffs were tight enough that I could see them cut into his skin with enough force that I would assume he couldn't shapeshift without tearing the skin there, and they were made from something far tougher than the usual stuff that I would expect from human designs, must have been something that SHIELD created recently, or had kept in a vault somewhere till it was needed.

Spy organizations weren't to be fully trusted.

Of the entire group, I kept my hand on the scepter, since it was unlikely that Loki would be able to overpower me to get his hands on it. But I wasn't dumb enough to just hold it openly, instead, I threw it into a case.

An added layer of security.

Thanks to this incident, SHIELD had given me their files on Thor. Some of it I had guessed, like Mjölnir's 'Worthy' enchantment, others, like the Bifrost being a wormhole of sorts, I had not. Asgard was far more tech-focused in this universe, but still retained their exotic abilities that involved just manipulating reality to a certain extent, which Thor implied that they still called magic, or at least ancient humans called it magic.

So any slips from my side can be excused as slips of the tongue… which they would be.

"Hey, Stark, you mind turning off the tunes," The Black Widow spoke up, drawing my attention toward her. I still wasn't going to take my eye off Loki but my ears were perking up at every word that went out of her mouth. "I like ACDC as much as the next girl, but the same song on repeat for twenty minutes will start to get on anyone's nerves."

I didn't bother to listen to Stark's reply to her, instead of turning a quick eye towards the woman and scanning with the variety of vision powers that I had at my disposal. I didn't need even a nanosecond before seeing…

… rather horrible things about her body… ok. Not doing that again, I didn't need to know what had been done… down… there. Like really, Jesus, even if this version of Black Widow ended up to be as big as a bitch as her ultimate counterpart, what her insides look like is unwarranted.

"Something wrong?" Black Widow spoke, smirking at me from the pilot seat of the SHIELD jet that we were using to carry Loki. "You've been staring at me for a minute now."

She seemed to be amused, I don't think she'd be if she'd known what I had just seen.

"No," I shook my head, turning my back to her, my eyes once more focusing on the Norse God in our midst. "I was just looking on ahead of us, making sure that the Grinch here didn't leave any surprises for us."

I heard the chortle from Rogers, and I didn't need superpowers to know that Stark was rolling his eyes.

"Really, the Grinch," Iron Man mocked. "What were you born in the 50s, Blue?"

"Some of us don't spend our time in a lab with nothing but a computer to bounce quips off."

That caused Stark to blink, it wasn't because I was any better at giving it out but rather it was probably more to do with my tone. It was much rougher, much harsher than anything that I would usually bring out.

I guess seeing what shit had been done to Black Widow put me into a bad mood. What was even the point of that? Stop the agent from having a child? Make sure they can't-

"CHCHCHHHH!"

The crack rang out through the quinjet, I could even feel the metal of the case start to crumble in my fingers. Looking down, I found that I had crushed the handle of the scepter's case in a way that I could cut a man's throat with it if I wanted.

While looking at this, and ignoring the expressions that everyone was giving me, my ears picked up a storm coming onto us… one that I hadn't heard nor seen coming till it appeared right on top of us.

Black Widow made some sort of comment about it, while Rogers and Stark continued to talk amongst themselves. I didn't give them much concern or attention, I was worried about far more important things.

"What's the matter? Afraid of a little lightning?" Roger asked as he noticed Loki flinch.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows."

Instantly I rose from my seat, Stark's repulsors whined in response to my sudden movement, even asking what was wrong… then, before I could answer, it happened in an instant, and timed with a flash of lightning, the door to the jet opened suddenly, someone forcing it from the outside.

That someone being a very familiar man in a red cape and a small hammer. He reached for Loki and before I could let out a real thought, I did what came naturally and attempted to jump at him, throwing the scepter in the Captain's enhanced hands as I did so.

But… this didn't end as well as I liked. It was as if I had telegraphed my attack as Thor just stepped back and let me jump out of the jet. He and Loki followed soon after but actually headed downward, unlike me, who stayed airborne.

I shifted myself around and made to rocket after the brothers but once more Thor showed me up. As I got to them within a second, so did Mjölnir hit me in the face and knock me away. Hardly the worst blow that I had ever felt in my life, I barely even felt it but given my current durability, that might've meant more than I thought.

Before I could attempt to go after him again, he raised his hammer into the air… and struck me with a bolt of lighting.

That hurt more than a little.

I didn't quite get knocked out by this, but I did drop to the ground in a rather rough crash, my body nearly getting buried underground from the force that I hit the damn thing with. I noticed that my hoodie was ruined, the single-cut it had gotten from Loki was the least of my concerns compared to the fact it was on fire. I blew on it, but that sort of turned it to dust.

"Not sure that should work like that?" I thought as I looked upon my now topless form. It was time to shift to a different style of suit, the whole Smallville coat get-up wasn't working out for me. Even with the storm raging above in the sky, my ears were managing to pick up the conversation between the two as clear as if I was standing next to them. Thank Rao for giving Kryptonian nonsense senses.

"Where is the Tesseract?" Thor nearly screamed. I could hear his rage clearly, it coincided with the roar of thunder above us. This man was worthy of his title at least, God of Thunder.

"I've missed you too," Loki practically giggled, the maniac in a manner closer to the Joker than anything else I've ever heard from a real person. This version of the god appeared to be skirting to the edge.

"Do I look to be in a gaming mood?!"

I picked myself up after this was said, making my way towards them while I let the two reveal details to me that I hadn't been aware of from SHEILD's files. I wasn't sure that the whole Dark Matter part made much sense from my understanding of science. Does Dark Energy allow for either teleportation or wormhole generation? Maybe, I really only know that the damn thing exists.

Better get on fixing that, given I can read a whole book in a few seconds now it wouldn't be much of my time spent.

Then the two talked a bit about Loki being adopted and how that drama has affected them. Seems like the young Odinson has gone through a bit of a psychotic break from the knowledge that he wasn't the same species as the rest of Asgard.

Then I heard this line;

"I remember a shadow, living in the shade of your greatness," Loki started to rant, his voice wavering in places, I could hear how he was being overcome with multiple conflicting emotions. Rage, sorrow, even the odd sprinkle of glee. "I remember you tossing me into an abyss when I was and should be king!"

"So you take the world I love as recompense for your imagined slights," Thor replied coldly. "No, the Earth is under my protection, Loki."

I decided to make my presence known now, I leaped up to the cliff that the two were speaking on, my feet hitting the ground softly. While Thor summoned his hammer, Loki simply smirked in that annoying way that only assholes could manage.

"Yeah, great job protecting there," I interceded. "I think you just missed killing a few people by a few inches. Next time how about giving us a call and not shooting us with lighting, it's bad form.."

Thor growled at me, sparks jumping around his hammer as he waved it at me.

"This has nothing to do with your kind, Kryptonian," he warned. "Go back to your own home."

"Bit insensitive, Thor," Loki couldn't help but laugh much to his brother's ever-increasing fury.

I blinked, then laughed.

"Please," I rebuked Thor, placing my hands into my pockets. Thor wasn't going to attack me outright if I didn't make the first move, at least while he thought he was the one with his brother in custody. "I've been living on Earth my whole life, it's more my home than yours. I actually work for the people here, you're a foreign prince, don't dictate to me what's my business."

That came out a little more heated than I intended. So much so when Thor took a step forward I couldn't help but raise my fists in a defensive stance, I let the heat start to rise to my eyes, ready to fire at a moment's notice.

"Now listen here-" Thor let out… only to be cut off as Iron Man slammed into him and took off into the forest below.

"I'm listening," Loki spoke innocently, smirking down on the site of the two grabbling with each other in the air and wrecking through trees.

"Hasn't anyone heard of talking before?" I asked, exasperated at the universe around me. I really hope that I wasn't stuck in one of those old superhero team-up comics, where the heroes fight with each other when they first meet each other.

I looked down at the two fighting heroes, then back to Loki.

"I won-" As he spoke, I blew… freezing his feet to the spot, much to the God's displeasure. "-t move… " Loki looked down and gave me a rather unamused expression. "... that's cold."

I ignored him for now, instead, I leaped down between the two. Thor had thrown a bolt of lighting at Stark, something I didn't let happen, positioning myself between the two and literally slapping the bolt off into the sky.

The two descended into silence, Stark was the first to break it, of course.

"Did you know you could do that?"

"..."

I didn't answer that question, not because I was embarrassed or anything but because Thor flew at me with Mjölnir nearly taking off my head as I was forced to dodge backward. I kicked out, hitting the God in the stomach and throwing him back into the forests, breaking several trees.

It didn't take more than a second before Thor was out again, his weapon flung out ahead of me. This was when I decided to up my game, I rushed forward and slid under the majestic instrument, and grabbed hold of it.

Now, see there were two thoughts I had when I pondered grabbing the damn thing. The first was that while I had been told by SHIELD that his hammer had the whole "Worthy" thing here… it's just that I was basically Superman. And he was worthy, and I was obviously doing a good job of living up this example. The second being, perhaps it was a limited-time thing in this universe, I mean I don't think attacking innocent people is all that worthy?

But the hammer thought differently.

Apparently.

And I was instead taken on a ride with Mjölnir, flying across the sky and whacking Stark, our two bodies colliding together like I was the ball and him the pin. I heard him groan beneath me, and I could tell that he was about to be snarky.

So I rolled off him, my right hand still holding Mjölnir and trying to leap back up to my feet. I had thought it was just the momentum that stopped me from using the hammer… but as I fell back to my ass, I found out differently.

"You may be mighty," Thor spoke, stepping out of the forest, his good arm raised. "But that doesn't make you worthy."

Even as he summoned Mjölnir I kept my grip on it, letting it carry me towards the God of Thunder with a speed… actually slower than I was capable. But still, he was smiling, not expecting my next move.

A MIGHTY HEADBUTT!

At the same moment, I let go of the hammer, letting Thor fall to the ground with a meaty thump.

"Ha!" I went, smiling down. "No one expects a head butt."

"And I thought I had a hard head," Thor groaned from the ground. He went to reach for his hammer, he had dropped it to the ground after being headbutted but had already caught his outstretched hand.

I pulled him to his feet, holding his wrist hand enough that I was sure to be hurting him.

"Now," I spoke out, gritting my teeth at him. "Are we done here?"

I had expected for him to struggle but eventually give in, I had expected this to be the end of the fight. But instead, Thor smirked.

"Yes, I think we are."

This time Mjölnir came for my hand, smacking it and letting Thor break from my grip. He slapped me across the face with the hammer, sending me stumbling back in shock. Then Thor leaped into the air, gathering lighting around his form as he did, and brought that hammer down right for me head.

But as fast as he was, I was much faster and moved far out of the way of his attack. Now back out of the forest to where Stark was now getting back to his feet. Sadly, not everyone got the memo about my dodging speed, Thor's hammer now headed for the shield of Captain America. No doubt, he thought I had been in trouble and rushed in to take the blow.

I wasn't sure how well it would hold up to Mjölnir so I tried to rush in to save the man. But was too late as the legendary hammer smashed into America's most famous shield and created a massive shockwave that tumbled over any tree in the immediate area.

That left the four of us staring in silence till the bravest of us spoke.

"So… are we done here."

Coming from me that had been a question, coming from Cap that sounded like a demand.

---

Author's Note: Now, I'm hoping that was a decent showcase of Thor vs Blue with neither really trying their hardest. Also starting to plant part of the future conflict, as well as conflicts that will show up within this arc.

Don't have a lot to say this time, so like comment, review, or whatever you kids do these days.

 

[Proman]

This is from ways back when, when I was practicing my drawing. It's the basic idea of the outfit without much fine detail for much of the elements. There.



This one was never finished since I lost the

e source files. Meant to lighten the lines in some places, remove parts of them in other places. Add shadow in other places. Obviously, this hasn't happened.

Anyway... shorts are the future.

 

[Proman]

(Loki)

He entered the cell, the prison built for another with a rough smirk on his face. He wanted all of them to know how amusing he found the whole situation, leaving all the humans, his brother, and even the Kryptonian, with a sense of unease. It was all too easy at times. I wish the fools were less rash, but I suppose this would never work if they weren't so gullible.

He listened to Director Fury with half-hearted attention, only really gaining the gist of what he was saying when he gestured to the controls for the cage, showcasing how it could be dropped out of the Helicarrier.

"As if a simple fall like that would be an issue for one that survived the Void."

"An excellent cage," Loki said, turning to face Director Fury for the first time since he had been brought to the Helicarrier. "Not built, I think, for me."

"It's built for something much stronger than you."

Loki intentionally looked into the camera, knowing from his connection to the Scepter that the monster playing at being a man would be watching this as they spoke.

"The mindless beast makes play he's still a man," Just as you once did, his mind supplied cruelly. "How desperate are you, that you call upon such lost creatures to defend you?"

"How desperate am I?" Fury replied, his glare rivaling Odin, and not because they both had a single eye. "You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace and you kill `cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."

But Loki saw something else in there, it was more than just threatening his world.

"Oh, it burns you," The Jotun turned Aesir grinned savagely. "It burns you to come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is."

Loki knew he had him there, if this had been the All-Father there would be yells of fury at the accusation, but the Director was of calmer stuff than Odin. Fury just smiled with an expression that rivaled Loki's own.

"Well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something."

Fury walked off, leaving the Norse God in the cage made for another. Loki looked back up to the camera and smiled once more.

"Oh, I'll not need a magazine with the entertainment that you've provided me."

---

(Bobbi Morse)

"I have to wonder if you're losing shirts on purpose?" she asked him as he stepped into the Helicarrier control room. He was, as always, without a blemish on his skin; impressive given the reports of Loki drawing blood and of Thor smacking him around and blasting him with lightning but the lack of any top was becoming such a common occurrence that she couldn't help but comment.

"Hey, when you got it, flaunt it." he winked, making a joke of the question before grabbing the SHIELD Issue jacket that she'd been told to bring.

Doyle had been the first to enter the room, with Rogers following soon behind him… it was then that Morse saw the blond Norse God walking in. He was wearing a similar outfit to the reports, minus the chainmail on the arms but his cape seemed to have been folded away somewhere, the only sign of their existence being the parts peaking over his shoulders. The Gamma scientists were back in their labs, studying the newly arrived Scepter.

"Kryptonian, I would have a word with you." The Prince calmly ordered, but no matter the calm manner that he spoke Doyle still bristled at the command.

Morse took a few steps back but was still close enough to overhear the two aliens speaking with each other.

"You have done well in defending this world but your services are no longer needed," Thor said this as if he was trying to take a great weight from the other man's shoulders. "Return to your home, Earth is under Asgardian protection."

"..." Doyle blinked as if he was confused by being told to go home. The reason for his confusion wasn't a mystery for long because the reporter glared at him with enough intensity that she'd felt the need to grab an extinguisher. "You really are an ejit."

"Mind your words-"

"There is no return," The revealed Kryptonian interrupted the Prince with a wave of his hand a sharp whisper. "Krypton's been destroyed for many years now, due to space travel I'm unsure how long but at least twenty-two years. Earth has been the only other world I've known. So stop telling me to go home, I am home."

That was rather alarming information to learn, especially given the abilities that Doyle's displayed over his stay on Earth. The homeworld of a species as powerful as this man? Maybe even more so… it was a humbling thought to the human chance of survival.

It also made Thor's comment about returning home rather ignorant.

Thor's mouth held agape but before he could say anything else Doyle stepped away from him and joined Hill, and Romanoff up by the center of the command center. Morse followed after, ignoring the rather shell-shocked expression that passed over Thor's face. She didn't know him very well, so Morse didn't want to intercede where she might not be wanted.

So instead the conversation just ended and everyone started to watch Loki and Fury speak to each other,

"Loki's going to drag this out," Rogers spoke, his voice drawing Thor's attention back to the matter at hand and not at his rather sizable faux pas. "So Thor, what's his play?"

"He has an army called the Chitauri," As Thor spoke, Morse noticed Doyle's head snap to attention. The man knew something. "They're not of Asgard or any world known-"

"They're an off-shoot of Skrulls actually," Doyle interceded. "From what I can recall they've heavily cyberized themselves to the point that I'm not sure if they've kept the natural Skrull abilities like shapeshifting."

Thor glared at the other man sharply, as if the knowledge itself was suspicious.

"I'm not aware that they're any such off-shoots," He placed a hand on the table, slowly tapping his fingers across the surface. "How did you come across this information?"

Doyle sat down on one of the chairs, placed his feet on the table with a casualness that Morse would've expected out of Stark.

"Seems someone is working with out-of-date information… which is a surprise… because, between the two of us, I would've guessed that it would've been me. Given my people were the isolationists, not yours," Doyle shifted positions, from gloating to confused mid-sentence. "How did you not notice the centuries of evolutionary drift like that?"

"The affairs of the Skrulls were not the concern of Asgard," Thor responded, it was a calm response, much to her surprise given his actions so far. "But this knowledge is useful, perhaps we can find out how Loki came upon his army now."

"So… his plan is to conquer Earth with the army from space?" Morse piped in. "What does he need with the Tesseract then?"

"I suspect that he'll use it to trade for Earth."

Banner walked in, a pad in his hand, and sat down in a chair next to Thor's current position.

"So he's building another portal," he supplied, sitting down as he did so. There was a calmness to Dr. Banner that Morse wouldn't have expected from someone famous for his temper, especially given his experiences with government military organizations. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?" Thor's eyes brightened, excitement particular radiating from his body.

"He's an astrophysicist."

"He's a friend,"

Romanoff interred into the conversation after a few minutes of being silent.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," There was a momentary lapse of control from the woman, her hands noticeably clenched for just a second. Morse wondered if she was the only one to catch the action. "Along with one of ours."

"What I want to know is why Loki let us catch him?" Rogers piped back in, bringing the group back onto the task directly at hand. "He's not leading an army from here."

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Banner pointed his finger to the side of his forehead, spinning it around. "That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak," Thor warned the doctor, waggling his index finger at the man while standing to his right. "Loki's mind may be far afield, but he's of Asgard and my brother."

Morse noticed that the statement caught a look of approval from Doyle, the man seemingly impressed by the Prince standing by his familial relation regardless of what he had done. Especially if the man would stop his brother but then Romanoff opened her mouth;

"He's killed eighty people in six days."

"He's... adopted."

Doyle scoffed, leaning back on his chair with cold indifference. It seemed that respect that he was about to have given the Norse God wasn't there anymore.

"I didn't realize that the Avengers would have two prima donnas," Morse pondered.

"Of course, that's the reason you're different," Doyle grumbled under his breath. Thankfully for the survival of the people in the room Thor didn't seem to catch anything he was saying. "Or maybe you've just not been thrown into the vacuum of space enough for the bolts to loosen your head till you end up as far afield."

"Why Iridium? What's it for? Banner spoke, his voice easily helping to mask Doyle's.

"It's a stabilizing element."

"It's a stabilizing element."

Doyle's voice mixed with Stark's as the man entered the room with Coulson by his side.

"I'll fly you there, keep the love alive," Stark said to Coulson, Morse wasn't aware that he was close enough to Stark that he'd discuss his love life, before the armored hero addressed Doyle with an impressed stare. "I didn't know that your non-existent reporting degree was paired with a minor in thermonuclear astrophysics?"

"It wasn't," Doyle rolled his eyes. "I read about it on the way over here, we were given Selvig's notes and the Extraction Theory papers," Given that she hadn't seen him read those on his first trip here, and she wasn't with him when he left the last time, Morse was sure that the man had managed to read all about it from the time spent getting to Germany and back. "The science is easy enough to understand. When did you become an expert?"

So not only was he able to move fast, but read fast as well. Scary to think about.

"Last night, I did the same," Stark replied, easily shifting around till he was standing by Fury's spot near the center of the room. There was a gleam of respect for the reporter in his eye, Morse supposed discovering that the alien was smart would appeal to Stark. "Of course, ET would understand pity Earthling science. What about the rest of you goobers? No one else does the reading?"

"Besides Iridium is there anything else that he needs to create his portal?" Rogers ignored the other man's jest. The man was all business at the moment, but Morse wasn't sure how long the man would last before he would verbally confront Iron Man over his attitude.

Stark looked to Doyle, who shrugged, waving him to continue on.

"Not much," Iron Man said, turning around in his spot as if he was confused by something. "The rest of the stuff they can get pretty easy… minus a power source. It needs to be high energy density, something to kick start the cube."

"Does it need to be any particular kind of power?"

This time it was Banner that piped in, leaning forward.

"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier."

"Unless," Stark interceded with a charming smile. "Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."

"Well, if he does that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally," The Billionaire threw up his hands. "Why is it only the two of us here that speaks English?"

"That's English?" Rogers asked but he was ignored.

"You don't count," Stark proclaimed, pointing at the reporter in question with a smirk. "You're a super-advanced alien… Thanks for the heads up on that, by the way, I thought we had something special."

"That's just what I say to all the girls, Stark," The reporter rolled his eyes, leaning back into his chair.

"It's good to finally meet you, Dr. Banner," Stark held out a hand, Banner shook it with no small amount of hesitancy. "Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way that you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Despite the odd segway, Banner took it in his stride.

"Oh, I don't do the second anymore and I hope to get back to working on more of the first in the future."

Stark blinked, tilting his head. It was like he was disappointed that the tale of Banner curing himself of the Hulk appearing to be true. It was certainly something she was glad of at the moment, given the heightened tensions between Thor and Doyle.

The last thing they needed was three guys rampaging in the Helicarrier.

There was a whoosh as the door opened again, Director Fury walking in with the full nonchalance that she expected from the man.

"Banner is only here to track the Cube, I was hoping that you would join Miss Ross and him."

"How about we start talking about that stick of his," Rogers stood back to his feet and hands on the desk, Captain America stuck an inspiring image of a leader on top of things. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

"HYDRA had mind control weapons?" Doyle asked, his hand raised as if he was at school Rogers froze for a second before turning his eyes to Fury, who shook his head. "That's terrifying."

"Well… no, but the blasts he shoots out are similar to the weapons that HYDRA used."

"So… blue?"

"..."

"..."

"Yeah, they're both blue."

"So Cap's not the leader anymore," Doyle turned to the rest of the room, his hands together. "So I'm voting for Banner as our leader."

Banner glanced around the room as if he was worried that other people were going to agree with Doyle.

"Why not vote for yourself?" Romanoff, for some reason beyond Morse's understanding, played along. Even leaning forward, the blond SHIELD Agent guessed she was starting a game with him, get him over whatever obvious dislike the man had.

"You can't vote for yourself, that's against the rules."

"If we may stay on the topic at hand," Fury stepped in, not wanting to waste any more time. "It's very least a similar power source to the weapons HYDRA once used, so Rogers isn't wrong to assume they're connected."

"Sorry to waste time I guess." The reporter shrugged, pulling his arms in towards him till they were under his armpits.

---

Author's Note: Hello! And I'm back with another chapter. This is where I think the events of the Avengers really will start shifting away from the canon events of the films.

I don't have a lot to say right now... I'll only point out that he got away with it here.

You guessed... that man didn't get caught playing Galaga. Now his nefarious plans will continue unheeded till it's too late and his army descends upon Earth, the man needs to be the world champion at Galaga.

 

[Proman]

(Steve Rogers)

The sun had set when Steve finally decided to spark up a conversation with Doyle. Not having much else to do while they waited for the Doctors' search program to find the location of the Tesseract.

"So… alien?"

"Yup," Doyle smiled in response. It was the same kind of awkward expression that Steve himself would wear whenever he was asked about something uncomfortable. "Born and bred on a completely different planet."

"You don't really sound like one."

"Well, lots of planets have a North," he responded under his breath before quickly moving past that bit of snark to an actual answer to Steve's un-aired question. "I grew up in Ireland, moved on to America recently, had to see the world for meself."

"Ah," The super soldier nodded. "Maybe that is something that I should do?" he thought, "Staying in New York, it's like looking at everything through a funhouse mirror. Too different, but painfully familiar."

"Any reason you choose Earth in particular?" Steve asked, suddenly trying to get his mind away from the depressing time period he'd found himself in. That question got a dry almost blank laugh from the younger man.

"Look at me," Doyle threw his arms out, nearly hitting a technician that walked by, as if he was presenting something obvious. "Can't even tell I was alien till it was pointed out to you. Humans even share similar emotional needs to Kryptonians, it's as if God himself decided to make a backup. Where else would I be sent?"

"God?" Steve asked, picking out that part while slightly amused but also hoping to keep the conversation light. "You don't have some special god that your people worship?"

"I'm Irish, despite the whole Kryptonian thing," Doyle replied, equally. "So… that automatically makes me Catholic."

Steve chortled slightly at that, a bit of trivia popping up from his head.

"I've never been to Ireland," The blonde stated, leaning on a railing nearby. "Never had a reason to during the war. In fact, never had a reason at all."

"Only if you like endless rain and too many potato products," Doyle frowned. "I'm weirdly annoyed that that stereotype is true. Like, I ate mashed potatoes for dinner every weekday for about six years, can't stand it anymore," A bright smile suddenly overtook his face. "What I miss, is me Dad's stew, ain't nobody makes a stew like he could."

"That right," Steve smiled, "Maybe I could try it sometime."

"..." Awkwardly Doyle glanced away before muttering lowly. "Hard to have a dead man make a stew dude."

That seemed to end the conversation there.

---

(Loki)

"Thor," Loki greeted, gleeful at his brother Thor's rather heated glare. "I'd offer you a drink, but I'm afraid that the accommodations are sparse."

The thunder god took a rather deep breath, his chest expanding before he let it all out in a rather audible display. It appeared that Thor hadn't brought Mjlnor with him, which surprised the trickster God, as it was usually close by.

"Brother," Thor stated, his tone the calmest that he'd heard from the blonde since the Frost Giants broke into the Vault and ruined the man's coronation day. Thor waited for a second, crossing his arms before he decided to continue to speak; "Where did you meet with the Chitauri?"

Loki's smile became strained, his body tensing up as if he was suddenly stuck between two planes of glass. Usually, the trouble with Loki was getting him to stop talking but that wasn't the case here...

Right now? Loki wished that his mouth was stitched together.

"... You could say that I ran into them," Loki eventually revealed with a click of his teeth. "Rather painfully after being thrown into the void."

Thor blinked, his arms across to hang loosely by his side. It was an odd reaction to see, as if the blond god was only just learning this fact. Loki growled lowly, enraged at his brother Thor acting dumb. But that only lasted a second before Thor regained his usual glare.

"Enough of your lies, brother," He snarled, his teeth grinding so visibly that Loki would've been taken back if it was so amusing to upset his brother. "Tell me who's given this army to you, who sent you on this fool's errand."

"A fool's errand?" Loki couldn't help but chuckle. "There's been worse errands that we've been sent on over the years, Thor. Do I need to remind you of that dragon terrorizing Nidavellir?"

"Yes… that was a dangerous but odd situation," Thor admitted, scratching his chin before shaking his head. "But this is far worse, we're not talking about a deadly creature here, we're not even talking about something we can tell when it will be dangerous. We're talking about messing with something that neither of us truly can grasp."

The Tesseract could be a fickle thing, capable of as much harm as good to any society that tried to harness its vast power. Some never recovered from that mistake, it was why the All-Father had tried to keep it hidden on Midgard. Not that the humans seemed to understand the hidden part, using its power and practically broadcasting its presence across the cosmos. Loki supposed that was the issue in letting a species with such short lives hide it for you.

They tend to forget in a few centuries why they have such an item.

"Thor… " Loki spoke, before trailing off for a moment, stopping himself from revealing more than he had planned. The Trickster just couldn't wait to gloat, to rub his victory into Thor's face. "You've no idea what I grasp now."

---

(Bruce Banner)

"So how's studying the scepter going?" Doyle asked, coming into the room with his hands in his pockets. If there was a picture of nonchalance in the dictionary, Bruce would say it would be one of Doyle. "Not feeling anything odd?"

That got Stark's attention faster than even Betty could even start to ask what he meant by that, who seemed to have absorbed some of that psychobabble from her ex-fiance. So at times, she would go off about psychological diagnostic techniques for describing one's feelings. Bruce was glad not to hear it.

"Should we be, Zapp?"

The nonchalance that Doyle had shattered in an instant, replaced by a sharp sneer that was covered by a roll of eyes that became a much more neutral expression. Stark didn't seem to have caught, but Bruce knew more than most about suppressed anger.

"Given what we've seen," he said, slowly walking around the table that they had set the scepter on to study, peering at it with a glare that could melt steel. "This thing can literally change a man from a stalwart defender to a deadly schemer. And Loki's locked up, he can't directly be controlling anyone according to Thor. So all those mind-controlled agents are self-directed. Brainwashed and not really Mind-controlled. That's some big mind mojo, we've got to keep on guard for it."

"Everything that we've observed so far from Loki and the scepter-" Betty cut in her, her hair done up in a pony rather than her typical style. "-seems to indicate that he needs physical contract to brainwash someone."

"And you need wings to fly," Doyle argued. "We could be dealing with some kind of virus situation, where direct contact just speeds up the infection rate. We don't know yet, is all I'm saying."

"Fair enough," Betty shrugged.

Bruce had stayed quiet for the last while, hoping that Stark would lose interest in trying to figure out how to induce a 'Hulk' experience in him for at least as long as Doyle was in the room. While the man could appreciate what Stark was trying to say, that the Hulk could be used as a positive force, much like the Arc Reactor that the man still had stuck in his chest, Banner knew from experience the Hulk was too wild to be controlled in high stakes situations. Better to never transform again.

That was when Bruce noticed something about the data he was getting.

"I'm going to go out a limb here and say that there's something to your idea, Doyle," he spoke up excitedly. "Not entirely correct, mind you, you've watched too much TV but as an analogy, it worked decently."

"Bruce…" Betty glanced over at him, peering at him from above her glasses with an amused expression. "...we're not psychic. You have to tell us what you've found."

"Sorry," he chuckled, turning that display he was looking at around so that the other three could see what he had. "See, like the Tesseract the scepter gives off Gamma radiation, just sending it out at such a low level that the carrier's alert system for this stuff isn't worried. But when I cross-referenced that to the scans that the carrier takes around people themselves.

"I'm more green than ever before," Doyle turned to Stark. "Do you think that I could become the Green Mascot, or do I need to actually get painted first?"

"Don't bother with paint, we can do that in post," Stark played along with him. before stroking his chin. "Yeah, so you think it gave us a little injection of Gamma, to loosen us up and get the mind manipulation going?"

"It's a theory," Betty shrugged. "But to be honest here, we're dealing with an entirely new field of science. Any assumptions we're making here could come back to bite us."

"What do you recommend?" Doyle asked while Stark leaned closer to the display.

"We have to bring in some more people, more varied scientists of different fields," Betty started to explain. "And from there we should have-"

"Wait a second," Stark interrupted her while a large grin spread across his face. "I'm not getting any of that Gamma."

Both Betty and Bruce quickly turned back to the data, seeing exactly what the readings were saying about Stark.

"Doyle is picking up much more of it than us," Betty glanced over to the man in question. "You should've warned us that you'd soak up radiation like this?"

"Didn't know that myself," he responded smoothly. "I don't typically throw myself into nuclear reactors."

"Good policy."

"Still, it's not normal for my people either," he admitted with a squint of his eyes, which was odd to Bruce. The man beyond the physical bounds of mortals but you'd think he'd need glasses with the amount of squinting he was doing at the moment. "I can't recall anything of my biology that explains this… should've probs set up a doctor's appointment."

"With who?" Bruce asked, curious at who in the world could treat his alien biology. Something that concerned him as he pondered. While seemingly invincible to common weaponry, and Norse God's hammers and lightning, it was likely that the same couldn't be said for diseases.

Unless his people's immune system was so adaptive that Earth's diseases and viruses couldn't overcome it, no matter how foreign it was to the body.

"... why is Stark not getting Gamma-fied?" Doyle deflected, given the stakes on hand with the Tesseract and an alien army, Bruce would let him. Suddenly, the reporter twitched, he turned his head down to the left, as if he was glancing at someone several floors below them.

"It seems to be an unintended side-effect of having an Arc Reactor attached to my chest if these readings are right," Stark mumbled. "My head seems to still get all those deadly juices," he pointed at the part of the display that his head was at with a finger. "I'm not sure how this works, it's nonsensical! The Reactor shouldn't give me protection from Radiation at all."

Doyle suddenly turned around, walked over to the display that Stark had been working on by himself, and then turned back to face the man with a raised brow. Bruce could tell from just that glance alone, that the conversation was about to change topics.

"Really man, really?" he groaned. "You couldn't have waited for me to whisper this stuff to you?"

"You knew?" Stark replied, calmly, shoving his own hands into his pockets. "This is some pretty dangerous stuff that SHIELD is messing with, even just their benign stuff, like power generation, blew up in their faces," he rolled his eyes, moving the display away from the reporter. "Never mind making weapons using the Tesseract."

That caught both Betty's and Bruce's attention hard, and the attention of Rogers as he entered the room.

"What?" Captain America exclaimed, strutting over to see the same information that both Betty and Bruce now glanced at. "I can't believe it? He told me that it wasn't going to be used for this! Why would they be bothering with this, it didn't exactly work out for Hydra. We still kicked their ass."

"Maybe they watched too much Star Wars?" Doyle snarked. "Thought that once we've got those laser weapons, the world will be safe. Not that it would work like that, given beings like me and Thor exist out there. These wouldn't work any better on me than a 9mm round."

"I'm going to need to check this out myself," Rogers ignored the joke, not that he understood the reference behind it, Bruce supposed. The Captain's eyes glared at the screen. "I didn't fight a war to turn around and find that we've become Hydra."

Before Roger could take a step out of the door, a phone rang.

The ringtone? "I can see clearly now, the rain has gone…"

"Sorry," Doyle grimaced, taking his phone out of his pants pocket. "But this could be important," he held to his ear, keeping his eyes on Stark with a glare. "No eavesdropping Stark," The reporter warned.

"Yo, Double D," He spoke into the phone, his tone light with just a hint of annoyance seeping through. "What do you got for me?" There was a pause from Doyle while the person on the other end of the call spoke to him. "Really? That's where she is? How did you manage to catch her?"

"You found her at a mall… buying clothes?"

"Yes, I know that people need clothes, man! I'm just surprised that she was out in the open like that. Was she in disguise?"

"What do you mean I'm not funny? It's not a joke, I wasn't even really asking you, just asking it openly."

"No you're not on loudspeaker-" Doyle stopped for a second. "Look let's get back on the matter at hand, find where she's staying at, then call me, I'll get SHIELD after her, I'm a bit busy handling a Norse God and his massive scepter."

"No… it wasn't an innuendo."

With that Doyle hung up on the man. Bruce, who was one of the many people in the room staring at him, decided to speak up first.

"Is there a problem?" Bruce didn't really want any more issues coming to light, first, it was the Tesseract being under the control of a mad man, then it was learning that SHIELD decided to try and copy Nazi's and make weapons out of the damn thing.

He really hoped that call wasn't someone informing Doyle that the Tesseract cracked open to reveal it had been an egg for a Lovecraftian beast this whole time.

"Nothing that we should immediately worry about," Doyle explained calmly while sending a rough smirk towards Stark. "I've just won a little bet that I made with Stark over there."

Stark chuckled, with a small smile on his face, apparently taking that with good humor.

"So… you finally found out where Doc Ock has been hiding?"

 

[Proman]

(Matt Murdock)

To Matt, the world was nothing but a series of sounds, flashes of images, and smells so rich that hounds would be jealous of him if they had known. The experience wasn't entirely transferable to the way that normal people viewed the world. Things like natural color were lost to him, though artificial colors left a mixture of smells and texture that came together with trial and error to reveal themselves to him.

It was those things that made finding people around the Kitchen hard for him, it wasn't like he could spot a person off in the distance. He needed to hear their voice, smell their scents, or literally walk into them in order to find them. But that didn't mean it was impossible for Matt to find someone, just unlikely.

In fact, his capability to see people meant while it was hard to find someone. It was impossible for him to lose a person. Running into Octavius while she was shopping in some mall store was such a luck of the draw thing that Matt knew it to be suspicious. So he did the most reasonable thing he could at the moment, he called in back up.

He and Doyle had spent more than a few times over the past few months, exchanging numbers, handing each other burner phones, and talking about the raw danger that this woman presented. Matt wasn't the type of person to hunt such a dangerous person, not usually, but this was in his wheelhouse.

So with backup a phone call away, he was more than willing to keep a metaphorical eye out for Octavius.

But in all the conversations with Pat, with all their talks about the danger of this "Doc Ock's" experiments, what never came up was the idea that Pat could be busy when Matt needed him to help take down the Doctor.

Busy with a Norse God's Scepter? That sounded like it was an innuendo to him, but Matt wasn't the type of Catholic to judge a man for such behavior.

"Call in SHIELD?" Matt was only vaguely aware of the organization from a conversation with the other man, something about them being some secret security organization, a long reach with some high-tech toys. And not a group that Matt was interested in interacting with."Well, I've got nothing better to do, better tail her to her current home. Then I'll stand back and keep my distance."

Matt threw his cane into a bin, it wouldn't be collected for another two days so it should be safe there. Then he started a run-up to a fire escape, leaping up and then taking to the roof. It was a good way to keep out of the woman's sight, the rooftops nearby allowed him more than enough space to tail her, and even would give him the vantage point for whenever Octavius crossed streets, where he needed to catch up to her.

And it did all that, let him tail her for a full hour till she entered an alley and disappeared into a wall.

It was only because Matt had been down that alleyway before that he knew something odd was about to happen, the last time he had been here a wall had been at its end. Now, Matt couldn't sense the presence of a solid wall from the echoes in the alley, something that was confirmed to him when the doctor walked through where it had once been. .

His hand reached into his pocket, taking out the burner phone and he dialed.

"Found it."

---

(Pat Doyle)

"I'll personally lead the team," Morse replied when I explained how an informant, Matt, had managed to find Dr. Octavius's current dwellings."I've studied the way her tech operates in regards to movement and weaponry. Besides you, I'm the most capable person to bring her in."

"I hope SHIELD plans on getting you more than manpower and a few ballistics in regards to backup?"

While I felt that whatever deranged plans Loki was currently up to needed my attention more than Doc Ock's own mad schemes. I'd have trouble sleeping if anything happens to the agents sent to apprehend her while I was off staring at one of the two loons that were locked up.

"Don't worry," Morse smiled, brushing back a strand of blond hair out of her face. "Our techies managed to find an open wireless exploit in the drones that she uses. So we only need to stay our distance to take her out."

"Still, you might want to get her talking," I waved an arm right, for some reason thinking it would emphasize my point. "Once you got her doing that, she will talk your ear off and even I would be distracted while talking your ear off."

"What do you want me do? Make a bad science claim?"

"Tell her… something about how wormholes don't work and it's a moron's field."

Morse sighed, shaking her head downwards before raising it back up so our eyes met.

"I'll come up with something better than that," she told me with a sly grin, before turning around and starting to walk away. "Didn't spend half a decade in the academy and not pick up some shit."

I couldn't help the slight drift in my own eyes going downwards as she left, but that only lasted a few seconds… only a second. In that second, I wondered about a few things, one of them was who did Morse remind me of?

Some prolific tv actress?

The other thing that I thought about was her ass… but those thoughts didn't linger for long as I heard a loud coughing noise come out from my side as the elevator doors closed on Morse. I turned my head, seeing Black Widow herself smirking up at me with a raised brow.

"Miss Romanoff, you got a bit of a cold?"

"No, I just from a cough that I get up at this altitude," She responded slyly, before throwing a folder at me. "Some of the things that we've gleaned from the further talks between Loki and Thor. You were right, he just can't stop running his mouth."

Flipping through it fast, my keen eyes picked up several details.

"Right, so the attempted murder was a suicide according to Thor," I read off in a rushed voice, my pitch going high as I speed up. It was good to know that my odd fascination with Thor being a brother murderer was wrong. "Going to be difficult to estimate what someone like that is planning, it's not like he values his own life."

"People like Loki are easier to figure out than you think," Widow responded as we walked toward the elevator, heading back down to meet with Fury and Rogers. No doubt, the good Captain is giving that man a piece of his mind. "These Would-Be-World-Conquerers aren't that complicated, they want validation, they want control, they want power but most importantly they want to feel safe."

"And what we've got is a man that tried to commit suicide, came back with mind control powers, and to finish that up wants to rule the world through brute force." I rebutted with a smile as the lift went down. "If he wanted control, he's got that all mighty control stick. Nah, we're looking at a human drone strike."

Black Widow glanced at me with an expression that screamed about being both impressed and amused. The elevator door opened, and we started to walk down, we were heading towards the section of the Helicarrier that held those Tesseract weapons. This was going to be so cool, I wondered if I would hear a Captain America speech?

Oh this was going to be awesome.

"The idea behind drones is that they're not manned, no loss of your forces-" She started to explain, even as we began to hear a roar from some man. "=even if they're shot down, you don't lose a valued member of your forces."

"You're making the mistake in thinking that Loki is valued at all," My ears picked up a second voice talking, not Fury's but instead it was Thor, talking about how the weapons were like a beacon calling out to the rest of the galaxy that Earth was ready for a level of war that they weren't prepared for. "That's what makes him so dangerous, any disgust, hell any sympathy we feel for him. It'll cause us to underestimate what he's capable of."

"And what do you think he's capable of?"

"When dealing with someone that's willing to kill themselves, the question should always be how many people does he plan to take with him?"

That caught her up short, making her pause mid-step in the hallway so we could face each other probably.

"You think this is just an elaborate suicide attempt," It was almost a whisper that came out of Widow's mouth, I wasn't sure if she was playing up her response, acting as if this shocked her to get me to underestimate her. "Interesting theory, I've got another."

"What's that?" I asked, knowing that this woman while lacking the little bits of meta-knowledge that I had, she also had more experience in dealing with Loki's ilk that I had. It goes without mentioning that she'd far more training in deducing motive as well.

"He's an egomaniac psychopath wanting a bunch of ants to step on."

---

(Bobbi Morse)

She had the jet stealth land on the roof across the location they had been fed. Two agents surveyed the area themselves, they weren't going to rely purely on some outside source that they couldn't verify personally. While she had another two hold vigil with sniper rifles from two different locations, and another agent each were working as spotters and guards. Bobbi herself was going to enter the building through the front door with four agents backing her up.

Typically, these sorts of missions were handled by a larger team. Sadly, several members of SHEILD that would normally be part of this operation were needed elsewhere, dealing with missions and assignments that would've otherwise been handled by those like Coulson, Barton, and Romanoff.

Two out of three of those agents were faster and more capable than the majority of teams that SHIELD had, they could do the work at twice that needed to be done at twice the rate. While Coulson and Romanoff were either handling the Avengers or working as an Avenger currently, Barton was busy being brainwashed.

So all this meant that she needed to make the best of the rest. Just taking anybody with her to this mission mightn't have ended well. So she limited the numbers that were going to work with her. A team of this size, and filled with people that were used to working with each other, would limit any messy miscommunication issues that could pop up.

They didn't enter the building from the entrance that Doyle had informed them off, deep imaging scans revealed that there was a normal access point to that section of the place. It was a standard low rent apartment building, so it had four exits on the ground floor alone that they could consider.

But the front door was the safest.

If they were to sneak in, it was possible that Octavius had set traps that she monitored by the other doors. Given the raw traffic that goes through the building's front door, it would be incredibly unlikely for the woman to bother to trap it.

Too scatterbrained to bother paying attention to everyone that could possibly come from that floor.

So with the exits being watched, and even places that some wouldn't believe to be exits watched, Morse led her team into the building. EMP pulse rifles were their main weapon for this operation, a weapon designed to scramble computers from a distance on espionage missions but the SHIELD techies had managed to boost the power of the weapons so that they should take down the unshielded drones that Doc Ock liked to use.

Perhaps even those tentacles.

They also had more standard arms to use for the less mechanical targets.

The Morse lead team managed to get to the midsection of the apartment when there was a loud rumble, then a pair of doors fell down to the floor. Out of the empty doorways, a pair of Doc's signature Ock Bots came stomping out. Being the highly trained agents of SHIELD, it only took them a moment to start firing at them.

They dropped like flies being hit by a swatter.

When a keen sense of awareness, the agents continued down the hall, now with increased guard for any new threats that could be set against them. But instead, they faced nothing, there weren't any defenses showing up after that drones to stop their progress. When they arrived at the door of Doc's apartment, Bobbi set the charges herself.

But the door burst open the second she took a step back, a deadly claw erupting from the wood. It was only the instincts of years of training that let Morse fall back, ducking under the claw and rolling away from the rest of the tentacles that came for her position.

"Open fire!" Bobbi barked orders to the rest of the men, taking her pistol out its holder after being forced to drop the rifle. The EMP blasts did nothing to the cybernetic limbs of the doctor as she stepped out of the apartment.

Revealing in turn that it wouldn't be easy to hit her with standard rounds either as Octavius appeared to be wearing some sort of purple body armor. Not exactly Iron Man grade armor but it appeared to be more advanced than what SHIELD had managed to supply Captain America with currently.

"So… ants are sent after me," Octavius's voice spoke, full of clear glee but distorted by virtue of a helmet. "Do you think so highly of yourselves that you could complete a task that took a god before?"

"Phrenology is the only correct science!" The agent yelled out, causing a rant to erupted from the other woman's mouth automatically.

But Octavius's rant didn't get far, Bobbi's pistol shot out four rounds, expertly hitting the visor of the helmet. It didn't breakthrough, but it did leave a rather sizeable series of marks that blocked the woman's view of the outside world.

"Oh no," Came the rather understated reaction from the woman, even as the other agents dropped their EMP guns and swapped to their own pistols. Something that put Morse on edge, so she reached into her pocket and grabbed a gadget. "Do you know how long it took to create this helmet, this will take hours to fix."

One of the agents was grabbed by a claw, picked out, and thrown into another. While the claw that once more went for Bobbi herself was quickly dodged, after which Morse threw a gadget out into the air.

A burst from some sort of miniature rocket erupted from the back a small disc, threads exploding out, and capturing two of the tentacles in a tight grip of titanium make. Before the final two could make their way back to defend their master, Bobbi had already drawn her gun to the gap in Octavius's armor, right below her helmet and above her collar bone.

"Don't move," Bobbi warned her. "It only takes a second to take you out."

Octavius didn't say a word, so Bobbi pressed on her comm unit, opening the channel to the men waiting outside.

"I'm going to need backup," The SHIELD agent growled. "I've got agents down, but I've acquired the target, but I repeat, agents are down."

There wasn't a response.

"I repeat, agents are down," Bobbi held the gun to Octavius's neck harder when the woman started to giggle. "I'm ordering you to abandon your posts and back me up."

Suddenly… Morse fell to the ground as if she was a puppet with her strings dropped. Bobbi didn't even feel the arrow stab into her back. Though she could still hear the world around her.

"I'm sorry Bobbi, ain't going to any backup, I've dealt with it," Barton's voice spoke up, his feet clacking against the floor was the only thing that the agent could use to tell that the man was coming closer. "But Octavius is needed for my mission to be completed. Doctor, if you're now willing to join us?"

"Of course, Mr. Barton," Came the sweet, almost sinister voice of the Mad Scientist. "I'm always ready to join a cause in the pursuit of scientific progress."

There was the sound of scaping, then nothing but silence for a few moments before Octavius spoke up once more.

"What about the leftovers?" She asked Barton. "They could constitute a problem."

"Not part of the plan, we leave them be," he countered her. "There's nothing that they can do now. We have everything we need in place."

"Well… still," Octavius started, one of her claws picking up Bobbi's motionless form. "We can at least keep them for hostages, less likely to shoot first and ask questions never if we've got some bodies in front of us."

 

[Proman]

(Steve Rogers)

There were only two of them in the room, Stark and Rogers. The doctors, Banner and Ross, had escaped the lab to take a break. The two of them had worked on finding the Tesseract for longer than Stark had. Meanwhile, Doyle and Romanoff were currently discussing Loki's relevant history with Thor. The two thinking that they could create something called a character profile? Roger's wasn't sure what the point of it was, it seemed to be a diversion when they should've focused on the Tesseract.

Not giving the mad man the attention he wanted.

The American War Hero stewed in rage, quietly sitting in the corner of the room. He'd moved away from the Tesseract-based weapons when Fury revealed all the dirty details on them. It wasn't the fact that they existed that bothered him, at least in theory. It was the mass production of weapons that seemed unneeded in the world.

It was an escalation of power that other nations, that other organizations would feel the need to meet soon enough. This would become a disaster in a number of ways, it could have foreign powers haste the experimentation process, leading to cut corners, to safety measures being removed. And trying to make weapons that can match Tesseract ones?

Would take a lot of power, mistakes with that sorta thing could end up on a Nuclear level.

It didn't sit right with Rogers, nor did the outright lie told to him about it. It was one thing to keep it from the general public, he'd been part of a similar project in terms of secrecy, but it was another thing to tell the soldier fighting to get the Tesseract back a lie on what they were going to use it for.
When a man is willing to give their life to a mission, to a goal. Steve Rogers thought that they should be told why, Fury taught otherwise. It was a chafe, a chink in the way SHIELD operated to Rogers. If you couldn't trust your men with your secrets, you shouldn't trust them with your lives.

"Still sulking Ice Cube?" Stark called from his spot, he was still sorting through the Gamma readings they were receiving from around the world, searching for abnormalities that would reveal the Tesseract's location to them.

Rogers ignored him, there wasn't anything gained from engaging the odd pettiness that Howard's son seemed desperate to lob on to him. It was hard not to be disappointed that this was the man to inherit the Stark Legacy. At least in terms of personality. Tony Stark was more than smart enough from what Rogers had seen of the man to be worthy.

He was just an asshole.

"Come on," Stark tutted, a noise made from walking over to the Captain with his hands in his pockets. "You didn't really think that they wouldn't get their hands on it and not turn it into weapons? That's basically the bread and butter of SHIELD, secrets, death, and spying."

It was spoken with this gloating tone, the kind of timbre that you'd expect from someone that was shoving their lottery win into the faces of their worst acquaintances.

"I'm not sure what you want from me here?" Rogers finally spoke up. He kept his voice low, he'd done enough yelling to do him two weeks. "I've been up and about for a few weeks. Do you want to be more like Fury or something?"

This finally got rid of Stark's rather sharp grin, replacing it with an expression that was more tense than joyful.

"I don't want anything from you," he replied, his eyes hard with a type of energy that reminded Rogers' of a mirror, and the younger, sickly man that used to stare back at him. "I'm just not sure it was smart to bring you out of retirement, old man.," It was a deflection, one that Rogers' let the other man have. He could tell that whatever issue Stark had was personal, but the blonde had enough on his plate without adding Stark's shit. "World's changed; a whole new ball game and you don't know the rules."

Rogers smiled, his perfect smile seemed to infuriate the other man further. But that felt fine at the moment to Steve, he wanted to annoy him.

"Well, at least I play by the rules," He let his shoulders roll into a shrug that appeared more nonchalant than the man felt. "You think rules exist to be broken."

The Super Soldier was talking about the flagrant disregard for the national security laws that Stark broke. Hacking into SHIELD's files could end up revealing a lot of sensitive operations if the information got to the wrong people and that was without even including a lot of the international files that SHIED had on hand.

This could get a lot of people hurt, a lot of innocent people that weren't involved in making Tesseract weapons.

"Get a grip," Stark frowned, his arms exploding up into a wide wave. "Everyone is breaking the rules, SHIELD's broken the rules, Loki's breaking the rules. Even Doyle breaks the rules. It's the game now, I'm just playing along."

"So… " The blonde chuckled after trailing off or a moment. "You're saying that if they jump off a bridge you'd follow."

"Well, I can fly."

"Right, listen here," Rogers stood closer, the comment somehow causing the man to be so worked up that the Captain grabbed Stark by his collar, picking him up by it as if he was a small child rather than a fully grown adult. "I don't kno-"

"-am I interrupting?" Came Ross's voice, the tension in the room dispensing instantly. When the woman came in, her clothes dirty from a full two days of wear, Rogers took a hop back from Stark, shame spreading across his face.

But it was Stark that kept Roger's attention though, something had changed in the other man's expression. It had gone from one of the triumphs to one of horror as if he'd achieved some enlightenment that had made the rest of his life he'd spent worthless. He bit his lip as he turned back to the display cycling it back to the images of their bodies. There was a representation, one that wasn't meant to be taken literally, of the amount of minute Gamma radiation going into their bodies.

It was two times the amount that had been there the last time he'd looked, but also it was decreasing as well.

"Shit," Stark growled, his keen mind having internalized the information and had come to a conclusion. "Papa Smurf was right, the scepter's been messing with our heads," he revealed, walking back towards the item with a har glare pointing right at it. "I mean what were we even fighting about? Both of us disagreed with SHIELD making weapons out of shit like this. But we were so worked up by little differences here that we were about to throw down."

Rogers leaned back onto an empty counter, his hands grasping at his face. He could feel the tension just start to ooze away, he'd been angry, but not enough to justify beating Stark's face in.

The tension was replaced with a deep pit in Roger's stomach, something that the man recognized was shame. He was better than that, magic Space Scepter or not.

He'd not get caught like that again.

Before Rogers, or even Ross, could verbally respond to the confirmation of Doyle's Scepter theory. A loud whine erupted from the speakers on top of the room's ceiling, Stark's face lit back up into a smile, though less bright than any Roger's had seen from him before.

"We've got one!" Stark yelled up, trying to bring cheer to the room. When Ross giggled slightly, Rogers felt like he missed a reference.

---

(Doyle)

We were in the Quinjet before long, deciding to go in as a group would be better than to let any one of us run into the area and step into a trap. I was in a standard SHIELD jumpsuit, not too dissimilar to the one that Black Widow and Morse wore, except theirs were darker and bright respectively, while mine was a deep dark blue.

Patrick Doyle, Agent of SHIELD.

It had a certain ring to it, but I wasn't interested in working full time for any sort of government agency, so I wasn't going to offer up my resume to Fury any time soon. Just wasn't my jam.

"Indian Point in Buchanan?" I scratched my chin, something was off about this location. But I wasn't sure what was getting me to mistrust it so much, it seemed like I was just getting a vibe that something was up. "The Nuclear facility?"

"That's the one," Stark replied to me, frowning at the Satellite Image of the site in question. "Seems to be a perfect location to bring the troops in to me. Far enough from any major large military base, the defenses nearby would be overwhelmed within a few moments if enough of the army gets in fast, they can overwhelm what few defenses are there. It's not too far from people as well, could take over the state if they're good enough."

"And the Chitari can come in numbers so large that Earth doesn't stand much of a chance if they were to create a foothold."

Thor added, his arms crossed and his eyes glaring downward at the floor of the jet. He'd been sulking ever since I teamed up with Widow to dive deep into his and Loki's history. The Norse God didn't seem to understand why we were analyzing Loki's priors so much and was slightly agitated by the whole process.

But he gave us everything he could recall.

Loki's backlog of crimes prior to the events of New Mexico was sparse on lethality. Mostly pranks, dying people's hair odd colors, giving them new rainbow skin colors. One of the trickster's favorite pranks was to turn objects into snakes, sometimes it would the stools people were sitting on, sometimes he'd turn their drinks into snakes just as it reached their lips.

But it was the snakes were never venomous. Making all of his worst deeds, harmless if not annoying pranks till Thor's coronation.

So Loki's world domination phase was a new thing entirely, which was good for us. Meant he was inexperienced in the role, liable to make mistakes. Though, it did leave us with no real MO for an operation other than he likes snakes. Something Thor told us he also shared. The rest of the conversation was mostly about his personality. But that didn't get us anything new, much to my disappointment. We confirmed that the guy was a massive prima donna, felt that he never got enough attention compared to Thor.

Which given what I've seen from Thor… probably true.

Guy had a way of draining attention from a room, even when his brother was planning world domination. All anyone of us thinks of Loki is that he's Thor's brother, or what'll Thor do about him.

Not just how do we stop him but how do we help Thor, or does Thor help us, stop him.

"So… me and Thor go in first," I sat down, glancing up to Widow who was piloting the jet. "Followed by Cap, after we settle the area then Stark."

"There's only one entrance and you'll need to use it," Widow explained, yelling back to the four of us. "With all the sensitive equipment in there, we don't want you bursting through walls and damaging any of the equipment, dealing with a nuclear meltdown is not on SHIELD's itinerary."

"Very well," Thor was the only one of us to verbally speak up, the rest of us simply nodded. "But I warn you, this may not be a place where our standard Midgardian traps lay. My brother may have given his minions traps of his own design to set up."

"How dangerous can they be?" Stark questioned. Not in a mocking manner that you'd think he'd be using, but in that stern serious method that you'd used when asking how much will the TNT blow up when it goes off.

"Loki's traps could end with you as a small creature, like a mouse," he explained, shrugging while Mjölnir swung from his hip. "And then summon a cat of sorts, it doesn't end well."

"I thought you said that before New Mexico that Loki hadn't killed anyone?" I interceded with a confused glance sent his way.

"No, I said that he had not murdered anyone," Thor corrected me, raising a finger up to his chin as he did. A slight smug smile as if he had gotten something over me. "Don't consider my brother anything but one of the finest warriors that Asgard's ever produced. He's felled many an opponent."

"Well, they must have been shit then," I replied smoothly. "I'm still here."

"We all have our off days."

It was a quiet, near threat like a statement. Which was odd for me to recognize, I usually wouldn't be able to recognize when people make those sorts of threats. The only time that I'd notice a threat was if it was completely blatant. Not that kind of tone alone implied threat that Thor was giving me here.

But it made me angry now, it made me angrier than I can ever recall being. My hands became tightened fists, said fists started to shake uncontrollably while I could feel my teeth started to grind. The only thing that stopped the palms of my hands from bleeding or my teeth from turning to dust was that even I couldn't seem to hurt myself.

I should've taken it as a sign that like Stark and Rogers earlier, the Scepter was working some mojo on me, even as far away from the Helicarrier as we were currently, it had me raging over nothing I would normally be raging over.

I'd stood a few steps closer to Thor, my height similar to Thor, he was actually a inch or so bigger than me, didn't really help when I tried to tower over the man. Instead of looking intimidating at all, I just got the two of us tense as we started to glare at each other, sparks starting to erupt from Thor's side while my vision slightly tinted red.

"Gentlemen!" Stark stepped forward, his metal glove shoving me back a bit. I was vaguely aware that Rogers was doing the same thing to Thor, while Widow seemed to be leaning back in her seat, trying to get into a better position to listen in on us. "You're both pretty, how about we keep on track and not get distracted by the color of each other's eyes."

"R-right," It was like a bucket of water had been dropped on to the raging flames of my hatred as I stuttered out a sentence, an action that I hadn't done in a number of years. Not since I was in my early teens at least. "Sorry about that… I'll keep a tighter leash on that from now on."

The sheer emotion that I had been feeling had overwhelmed me. Like I was a raft, going down a violent river, not in control of the guy actually trying to steer the thing. Hopefully, I'd steer better from here on out.

Didn't need to metaphorically crash.

"It's been getting to us all," Stark told me, quietly as if he was ashamed of himself. Something to watch on, if anger could be amplified, guilt and shame were just another emotion that could be used to get rid of us. "Just keep in mind that it's Loki and an invasion that we're trying to stop and not each other."

It wouldn't be long till we were at the Nuclear Power Plant, the very first such place that I'd ever been to in my life. Maybe after I stop this invasion I'll go and get a tour? Do they even offer those?

It didn't really matter I suppose, I was about to get something better than a tour. I was about to assault a Nuclear reactor. I did not play enough Red Alert to be prepared for this.

---

Author's Note: And people thought that I would start up rehash the Avengers film. The idea that I'd ever do so would be funny if this was something that I've ever been known for. Honestly, rehashing a plot takes me longer to write than just writing my own. At least it does after I've created the base outline.