Spy Games Ch. 5

Thor

(The Crater)

I would never believe it possible, but Thor and Jane seemed to be growing just as close as they had originally, even with my interference. I suppose without me they still only had a couple days to get all lovey dovey, but it was a bit ridiculous that they were already star gazing together within a few hours of the interrogation. And then the next morning took both their breakfast and lunch together.

I mean, of course Jane was pumping Thor for all the information she could get out of him, the star gazing session was mostly her learning about the Nine Realms and the Bifrost, and the breakfast and lunch conversations were just as information based. But there was also a look of growing admiration in both of their eyes for one another. It seemed less and less likely I'd get a chance to seduce Jane for a bit of fun, but I suppose in the end I hadn't really put the required effort into it.

Oh well, you win some, you lose some. On a related note, I heard the sounds of our newest visitors long before anyone else. With a growing smile, I sped through the work site and confronted Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. They had been relatively stealthy as they approached the crater from a nearby hill that covered them beautifully, but not to my enhanced hearing.

As I appeared before them in a burst of speed however, they reacted less than admirably, drawing their weapons and letting out a sudden girly screech in the case of the larger one. We all took half a moment to stare at him, and he had the good grace to blush scarlet in embarrassment.

Smiling, I spoke, my eyes drifting from Sif to each of the male Warriors, "The Lady, the Fop, the Foreigner, and the Brute. You're trespassing."

As planned, my words have the desired effect of pissing off each of the four Asgardians before me in different ways but to much the same result. I had weapons leveled at me and in a biting tone Sif speaks up, "You will take us to Thor right now Midgardian."

I raise an eyebrow and clasp my hands behind me, leaning forward ever so slightly, "Counter offer. You surrender your weapons and come with me, and I'll see what I can do about visitation rights."

Fandral narrowed his eyes and stepped in with his rapier, clearly intending to attack me, "Asgardians do not surrender."

I smile even as I slide along the edge of the quick thrust he punctuates that sentence with, appearing behind him and slamming my fist into the back of his head and sending him sprawling, "I was hoping you'd say that."

He's not out for the count by a long shot, and I watch with interest as the other three take on a much more wary stance, even as he slowly gets to his feet. Raising my hands, I beckon them all forth with that same cocky grin still on my face.

I have to give them credit, beyond Fandral's initial misstep, all four warriors come at me as one, moving as a single cohesive unit with the sole purpose of bringing me down. Their blows are aimed at non vital areas and I'm surprised at their unwillingness to kill. I suppose they think they still need me for information of sorts.

The reason behind it doesn't matter, what matters is that I make use of the way they hold back to play with them for a few minutes so I can get a better idea of just what I'm dealing with. I'm dodging and deflecting mostly, unwilling to take a direct hit right away. I notice quickly though, that Hogun and Volstagg's weapons do not glow with the same magic that Sif's sword and Fandal's rapier do.

They're getting frustrated now, my speed making it seemingly impossible for them to land a blow on me and my self-satisfied smirk angering them. But I've seen enough now, and I know I won't have much longer with the amount of noise we've been making. From defensive to offensive in less than second, I come to a stop behind Volstagg as he rears back to swing a strike down at me from over his head, I grab the shaft of said axe and kick him square in the back with my full strength.

His weapon is wrenched from his grasp as he goes flying forward, tumbling head over heel and slamming into the ground with even more force than Fandral had. Holding the battle axe in one hand, I heft it a bit and look to the others with a smile, "Hm, I thought it'd be heavier."

An instant after that I'm behind Hogun and swinging the battle axe like a shovel, the flat of it swinging around at high speeds to slam into his head. To his credit, he was already beginning to turn when it connected, but even still it seemed he was not fast enough to react to my attack. He went down and stayed down, even as Volstagg began struggling to rise, starting to recover from his fall.

Hogun is unconscious, I'm sure of that, and Fandral and Sif are charging at me in a clear rage over how I'd just brained their friend. They still aren't fast enough though, and I drop the battle-axe to pick up Hogun's fallen mace, before flashing to Volstagg and slamming it into his leg, creating a satisfying crunch and forcing a scream of pain out of him as he falls to the ground. From the looks of things, he won't be walking for a while.

Stepping away from him and dropping Hogun's weapon as well, I take advantage of the lull in battle to speak, as both Fandral and Sif have frozen upon seeing their large friend in such pain, "Let's pause for a moment shall we? I don't think this is going very well for you, so let me be a gentleman enough to make things a bit more fair."

I lock eyes with Sif and a wicked grin spreads across my face as I make my offer idly, "My lady, you may have one free strike on my person, if your companion remains where he is."

A single look from Sif has Fandral standing down, as she approaches me cautiously, enchanted sword and shield held at the ready. I just smile, standing in a relaxed stance, and wait for her to come to me. I need to know what her sword can do, I need to know the pain and damage it could cause. So as she lunged forward, intent on skewering me through the chest with it, I let her.

As the blade flashed with magic and slid into my torso I let out a grunt, as the most intense pain I'd felt in a long time went through my body. Before she could do anything more my hand lashed out and grabbed the wrist of the hand holding her sword, locking her close to me and keeping her from dragging the sword out of me in any direction she might have wanted.

Her eyes widen and she swings her shield around to bash me across the face and force me to release her. I grab the lip of it with my other hand, stalling its movement and leaning in close as blood pools in my mouth, my eyes turning gold and black, my fangs sliding out, and my terrifying grin growing increasingly bloody, "That actually kind of hurts."

And then I slam my forehead into her temple sending her reeling. Releasing her wrist, I grab onto the handle of the blade she's holding instead and pull back, angling a rather high kick at her midsection. It slams home and she goes flying back, leaving both her shield in my grasp and her sword lodged in my stomach.

I stand there for a moment reveling in the sensation of actual pain for the first time in centuries, physical pain that I hadn't actually felt for so long. This… I could get addicted to this sort of feeling if I let it go too long again. Eventually though, Fandral draws my attention back to him, as he seems to finally find his resolve once more and prepares to attack me again.

I get ready to meet his attack and brutalize him as I have the others, when SHIELD agents finally swarm into the area, guns out and pointed at my four opponents and shouts on their lips demanding they stand down. Given that three out of four are already on the ground, though Sif was in the process of rising to her feet, Fandral is the only one to have to actually respond to the shouts.

Looking around at the number of men surrounding him and his comrades, along with the state of said comrades, he looks directly at me and drops his rapier to the ground before slowly raising his hands, "We surrender."

At that the fight goes out of Volstagg and Sif both, and the SHIELD Agents begin to move into secure them. Paramedics move towards me with wide eyes at my bloody appearance. Before they can even reach me though, I'm pulling Sif's sword out of my chest despite their vehement protests. I chuckle, which only results in me spitting blood onto the ground at their feet, and gesture to my torso for them to watch as the gaping hole in me closes up quickly with the foreign object lodged in it no longer.

That gets more eyes, from Sif and the Warriors three and my allies both, but I shrug that off and hand over Sif's equipment to a SHIELD Agent beside me, before walking to where Coulson stands without a care in the world.

"Status." Is the first thing he says to me, but oh what unspoken words I can hear in that single word. I've shown quite a bit of my hand here after all, and given SHIELD quite a lot to think about.

Still, appearances must be kept up, "Sir. I found these four scouting our perimeter for an unauthorized entrance into the site. I confronted them and they demanded to see Thor. I asked them to surrender their weapons before I take them to him, and they became… violent. As you can see, I dealt with the threat."

He looks at the four prisoners being carted off to the site below, Thor walking past them towards us, "And you didn't think to tell them that Thor was not a prisoner here?"

I smile pleasantly at that, even as Thor arrives, "They did not seem very inclined to listen sir. They were quite quick to anger or to action depend on how one looks at it."

That last bit is directed at Thor, and he does look a bit sheepish for a second, though it is quickly covered up by the anger he's feeling towards me for my manhandling of his friends. He ignores me in favor of looking to Coulson, "Son of Coul, I apologize for my friends. They believed me to be in danger and were just trying to find me."

Coulson doesn't even look at me as he takes control of the situation, "Understandable, but they will have to be detained until we have an idea of exactly why they're here. Did they tell you anything."

Thor looks sheepish again and shakes his head, "Only that they came to find me, but not why. I wished to speak with you as soon as possible."

That gets a nod from Phil, "Then go and find out exactly what they want. I'll be in soon and we'll discuss their stay on Earth."

With that Thor leaves and Coulson turns to me, an actual frown etched across his face now that we're alone, "You've been holding out on us. Fury isn't going to be happy that you were hiding this much from us."

I smile slightly, "I suppose he won't be, but I promise you I am as dedicated to SHIELD as ever. I confess, it was the first time I'd met actual Asgardians and their weapons… I felt a certain urge to… test myself. I know neither you nor the Director have any reason to trust me, but all I can do is endeavor to change that over time."

I don't get a response to that, as he looks down at the large hole in my suit, "And are you fully recovered now?"

I bring a half smile, half grimace to my face at that, "I am healed, but weakened. I will need blood to build back to my full strength."

A partial lie of course, one sword through the chest and the amount of blood I'd lost barely weakened me. I could go for months without blood if I needed to these days, a byproduct of my age and the magic I'd been subjected to over thousands of years I supposed. Natural dessication would take quite a long time in my case.

Still, I receive a nod and he directs me to our medical center, where we have some blood bags on hand. I make sure to pass by Thor and his friends on the way, but I'm surprised to find that they don't stare me down, purposefully shying away from making eye contact with me. I wouldn't have expected such meek behavior from Asgardians, but perhaps Thor has warned them against picking anymore fights.

I get my blood bags, drink them in plain view of my new Asgardian friends and settle into wait in the medical area. It's only a couple hours before the Bifrost beam hits Earth again, this time only a hundred yards away from the crater that SHIELD had made their base around. The Destroyer stepped out of the beam and a moment later the Bifrost shut off and the metal monstrosity began walking slowly towards the crater.

Coulson came walking into the medbay and showed all of us a live feed of the Destroyer, "What is this?"

The Asgardians actually pale at the sight and Sif looks to Thor, "It is Loki. He has sent the Destroyer to silence us, to silence you."

Volstagg speaks up next, "We must stop it from reaching Thor." Of course he then tries to pull his broken leg off the table he's laid out on so he can stand, only to cry out in pain. Everyone looks at him with concern but I just stand and roll my eyes, looking to Coulson as I then roll my shoulders.

"This is the first taste Earth will have of interplanetary conflict. Frankly, you aren't ready. I'll do my best to stop this thing but I need you to give the order as well as promise me that you'll call for a retreat if the time comes."

Agent Phil Coulson looks at me for a long moment, as if slightly surprised by my serious façade and the fact that I'm stepping up to the plate. After a moment he nods, "Go." And I'm gone, zipping away. Behind me I hear the Asgardians I hadn't disabled demand to be allowed to help as well. Thus, when they come up behind me as I stand at the edge of SHIELD's camp watching the Destroyer approach, I'm not even slightly surprised.

I am a little surprised when Sif throws something at me, but I catch it easily from the air, looking at Volstagg's battleaxe with a raised eyebrow even as she explains, sounding as if she swallowed a bitter lemon as she spoke to me with actual courtesy, "Volstagg demanded that his weapon at least be used, if he could not do battle alongside us."

I chuckle at that but nod, curling my hand around the large battle-axe and holding it at my side to focus on the Destroyer even as Hogun, Fandral, and Sif prepare themselves for another battle. The Destroyer stops about fifty feet from us, and I take that moment to speak even though I know it is already preparing to attack once Loki finishes assessing his opponents.

So I address him directly, "Loki, Acting King of Asgard. You are trespassing on this planet by proxy. Call back your toy or I will be forced to break it."

There is a pause from everyone around me, as if no one can believe my audacity. Even the Destroyer freezes up for a moment with its head tilted to the side and I can imagine Loki sitting upon his throne staring at me in disbelief. And then the Destroyer opens its face and a beam of destructive energy fires out after a moment of charging.

It hits directly where I'd been standing, but of course I wasn't there anymore. With a sneer on my face and Volstagg's battle-axe in my hand I appeared at the Destroyer's side and swung into it with… well it would be quite epic to say all my might wouldn't it? But that would be a lie. I used half of my might, and found the Axe embedded deeply into the Destroyer, for all of the good that did.

At that moment, I knew that I could use both my speed and strength to swing this axe fast enough to cut the Destroyer into pieces. I wasn't honestly sure if it'd get back up from being put into fifty different chunks however, which is why I found myself holding back. I wanted Thor to become worthy here, I wanted him to return to Asgard and send Loki off of the broken edge of the Bifrost into the abyss below so that I could expect Loki at a relatively similar time frame as the Avengers.

Quite frankly, I wanted to insert myself onto the team when they were just getting started, so I could come off as the prickly and arrogant, yet reliable member of the team. Not to mention that I felt like becoming an Avenger was the best way to eventually move from SHIELD Agent to SHIELD Consultant without causing the spy organization to hunt me down and force me to dismantle them. After all, I wasn't sure if I really wanted SHIELD or Hydra over one or the other quite yet.

So, I held back as I'd been doing since I joined SHIELD, as I'd done even in the fight with the Asgardians. I let my eyes widen in surprise as the Destroyer turned to look at me, despite my clean strike on it using Volstagg's axe, and that fake surprise was the excuse I'd use if anyone asked how the Destroyer was able to backhand the shit out of me a moment after that.

I went flying but landed on my feet as my sneer transformed into a snarl and my face transformed from human to hybrid. The three Asgardians supposedly fighting with me moved in as one against the Destroyer as I was knocked away. They worked as a team to land blow after blow that staggered the metallic golem, pushing it back and even giving the façade of winning for a few brief moments.

And then they too were beaten back with beams of light forcing retreat and physical blows slamming them into the ground. Once again I leapt into the fray, this time quite literally as I landed on the Destroyer's back, slammed my palms into the approximate area where his shoulder blades would be and began to slowly claw into his hollow body.

I was only just beginning to pull apart the metal with my bare hands when his head spun around and the energy beam coalesced before striking me directly in the face. I turned ever so slightly that it wouldn't hit me straight on, wanting to keep my head intact for what came next. That didn't stop it from burning my face off even as it threw me clear.

All part of the plan of course, as I guided my own trajectory directly into the side of SHIELD's hastily constructed base, and right through the wall, coming to land in a heap besides Thor. He kneels beside me, not really sure what to do, but that's alright because I do. Reaching up I grab his collar and pull him down to my badly burned face to whisper accusatorily through nonexistent lips, "He's here… for you…"

I release him after that and slump backwards, closing my eyes and feigning unconsciousness. It's only a moment before Thor stands and leaves my body behind. If he'd stayed even a moment longer he might have noticed that my face had already started healing, but I've awakened purpose within him and he does not look back.

I listen on as Thor confronts the Destroyer, and through it his brother. I listen as he lays down his life and begs his brother to let everyone else live. I hear as Thor is presumably killed given the cries of horror and shock, and I watch as Mjolnir, glowing with barely restrained power shoots from its resting place to Thor's hand, coincidentally, flying right past me on the way.

I let a small smile grace my face as I slowly rise to my feet, pretending to still be weakened and relying on my destroyed clothing and the smoke and dirt covering my skin to sell that image. Making my way back to where the fighting is taking place, I arrive in time to watch Thor defeat the Destroyer and succeed in breaking one of Asgard's finer weapons.

The background is where I belong and where I stay for this next bit as Thor and Coulson talk and Thor promises that he won't forget SHIELD's generosity and that they can always count on him to defend Midgard. I watch as Thor and Jane exchange goodbyes as well, though surprisingly there are no promises of return or heartfelt cries of love.

A single kiss on the lips between them, a shared look of understanding, and then Thor is gone, leaving the warriors and Sif behind to drag Volstagg back with them. I'm intrigued by that, wondering just what damage I've done to Thor and Dr. Foster's relationship. I knew they'd grown close still, but it seemed they hadn't grown close enough to ignore the countless obstacles in the way of any potential happiness they might find together.

It seemed I'd made more practical people out of both of them, with my changes. My musings are interrupted by Coulson as he approaches, looking at me warily, "That was certainly… something. I have to say, I wasn't expecting you to get up again after that last strike."

I wince and run a hand over my newly healed face before lying to his face, "I might not have if not for my speed. That last attack was aiming to take my head clean off my shoulders, but I was able to move partially out of its way in time to keep my head at the cost of my face. Not an experience I ever hope to repeat sir."

He nods, "I can imagine not. I appreciate the effort you put in here. You were right back there in the medbay, we weren't ready to fight that thing. Fury will appreciate what you did as well."

I smile grimly, "I'm more interested in what he does about this, then his feelings about it. SHIELD isn't going to sit around doing nothing from here on out, is it? So what's the next step sir?"

Coulson actually smiles back at that, "We'll be moving out soon. I have to talk to the Director about all of this, but I expect he'll have our next assignment within the day. For now, babysit our newest scientists. They've had a bit of a scare after all."

I chuckle at that, but move away to leave Coulson to his call.

-x-X-x-

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