The Ant and the Boot

The sudden sounds of sirens and shouting burned my ears with their intensity. I jumped to my feet, hand flying to the new pistol on my waist. My hands jumped around wildly, seeing nothing but running Agents flickering past in the halls. Above the heroes dispersed, sprinting off to do battle.

I had to fight, too. It was my job now.

“Dove, don't go,” Loki said behind me. I turned, facing him. His hands were pressed against the glass, his eyes intense.

“Don't go. Not in that uniform. They will see no difference between you and the other S.H.I.E.L.D agents and shall not discriminate in killing you. Please, go hide for now, in this room perhaps. I can take you with me before this aircraft tumbles to the earth.”

I stared at him. He had called this attack. Of course he had. Fear gripped me, seizing my throat like a strangulating hand.

But I had to fight. Especially now that Loki had told me what he was doing.

To scared to give voice to my thoughts, I turned on him, running with gun raised into the chaos.



“No!

I screamed after her, cursing her and calling her to stay. I had been specific in my orders: annihilate them, leave them so broken that they will never be able to rise from the ashes. The moment she turned on me she had declared war on my cause and became a target for any of my soldiers, human and nonhuman alike.

Why? Why did she fight so hard against my efforts to save her? Did she crave death? I ground my teeth together, beginning to pace in my cell. I tried to save her, to show her the error of her ways...

But they had changed her first. She had taken their lies as truth and now she would pay the price for their treachery.

I stared at the men who ran back and forth, knowing that soon they would die. Good. I didn't want these creatures to pollute my world anymore. My superior race would purge them all, their flesh becoming the soil for my better earth.

If Dove was still alive, I would find her. I would show her just how much she craved subjugation.



Guns burst and wires snapped around my head, each blast that rocked the ship sending new pieces of ceiling falling loose onto my shoulders. I ran, pushing against the other agents that ran past me in the opposite direction.

“Engine one down! I repeat, engine one down!”

“Thor engaging the Hulk in hanger four.”

“Agent Barton rogue and within the building!”

“Agent Barton now engaging Agent Romanov.”

“We need men in the control room!”

I got pushed back by the sea of people and falling hallways until I finally had to turn back. I dove to the ground as a man, dressed in S.H.I.E.L.D gear, leveled a gun at my head and shot.

They were dressed like us now. That made things more difficult.

Fear ran through my veins, pushing me to run faster. I could see what they were doing: they were trying to herd us, lock us in one passage so they could massacre us all at once.

The ship jerked suddenly, downward. I sprawled out over the ground as I lost my footing, rubble and shrapnel falling over me. I growled, shoving myself back to my feet before someone could kill me.

The man in front of me fell without screaming, a pullet shattering his skull. I dodged out of the way mostly in time but his gore still splattered hot against my cheek. I lifted my gun and shot at his attacker before they could fire again. They did scream as they fell, clutching their lower stomach where I had pierced them.

I didn't give them the chance to get up again. I fired a second shot, this one going through his temple. He crumpled, blood spreading over his skull like wax spread over a new floor.

I stared at him, suddenly feeling nausea and revulsion rolling in my stomach.

I had just killed a person.

I dropped my gun, then retrieved it, continuing to run. That man I had just killed would not be the last to attack me. I had to be prepared.

I stumbled out into the room where Loki's containment cell stood, held in place. I didn't see the cell when I entered, though: instead I saw Loki, armor in full and scepter in his hand, pierce the blade at the end of the scepter through the body of the medium sized, kind form of the man I'd come to know as Agent Coulson. I stared, paralyzed, as he fell. Loki strode over him as he crumbled to the floor and came to stand by the control panel for the containment cell.

“These people say that gods are immortal,” he said softly, dangerously, his hand poised over the release latch for the whole mechanism. “Let us find out if they were right.”

Then laughing, Loki pressed the mechanism latch. I had only a moment to meet the gaze of Thor, trapped within the vault of steel and glass, before he vanished into a sudden hole of blinding light.

I caught a strangled scream in my throat, reaching out as if to catch him. I couldn't. Nothing I did could bring him back. My knees grew week as Loki strode away, the tip of his scepter dripping with blood.

“You're gonna lose.”

Agent Coulson shifted, a large gun still wrapped around his arm. I had thought he was dead. Loki turned back with humored smile.

“Am I?”

“It's in your nature.”

Loki chuckled at this, taking a couple steps closer to Coulson. The ship turned a little, its descent starting to slow. Someone had gotten one of the engines back up.

“Your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky... where is my disadvantage?” Loki asked, spreading his arms wide as he scoffed. The agent swallowed hard, watching him. He was barely staying alive, and even now I could see his eyes begin to glaze from where I stood.

“You lack conviction,” he replied, his voice cracking as he spoke.

“I don't think I -”

The large gun in Coulson's hand roared to life, blasting Loki back into and through the closest wall. Coulson blinked, blood running down his chin from his lips.

“So that's what it does,” he whispered.

But even then I saw Loki shift in the rubble, returning to his feet. My eyes narrowed, my heart filled with fear and pain and anger – at Loki for his treachery and at myself for still, somehow, relieved that he returned to his feet: despite all of this his spell over me lingered, clouding my thoughts when my resolve should have been crystal clear.

Men began to run into the room from another hallway. I pressed myself into the shadows as they surrounded Loki, realizing that they didn't raise their guns to him. These were his men.

“We're ready to leave, sir,” the men said. “This craft will not survive long.”

Loki smiled. “Good. Have them come around to the hanger over past this room to retrieve us, we must make haste before they collect their forces.”

“Yes, Sir.”

They were close to the hanger Loki had mentioned, but I was closer. Fighting back the terror that gnawed at my heart I ran down a back passage, determined to arrive there before they did. It looks like I would be like my father after all, dying in the line of duty.

This is for Thor, Agent Coulson, and all the others that were lost today, I thought, swallowing. If they were telling the truth, if the aircraft really was compromised, then I was going to die either way. I would rather go down fighting than waiting in a corner for death to come.

I burst through a side door only moments before they came through the open passageway. I faced down Loki and his men, at least twenty of them. I lifted my pistol and leveled it at Loki's head, breathing hard as I tried to contain my fear.

I didn't want to shoot him. I could feel my heart rebel against my actions, even if my mind knew it was what I should do. Both heart and mind screamed at me, tearing me into two directions for that moment that we hung there in silence.

Loki's men, so in sync that they might have been in sink, lifted the muzzles of their guns to meet mine. I remained still, unwavering, even as my resolve was shredded by my conflicting emotions. I could feel acutely the pain of my heart, vitally alive, pounding hard against my chest – possibly for the last time.

And then, in a roar of thunder and light, they shot.



“Stop!”

I screamed over the fire, my scepter glowing with righteous fury. I threw up my and and a wall of blue lightning spun around Dove. When the bullets ceased she remained standing, eyes wide with fear and very pale, but unharmed.

I transported myself to her side, knocking the gun out of her shaking hand and gripping her about the waist.

“I claim her as hostage, and as my hostage you shall not harm her,” I ordered. I could feel the fear only now beginning to ebb: the cold that tore at my heart for that instant, convinced that her white body would be turned red, like blood upon the snow.

My escape drone raised into the air behind me, the propellers thrumming in the air like the gnashing teeth of a giant animal. I gripped the metal stand dropped down to me pulled myself and Dove onto it, my arm an iron fetter around her waist. We were pulled up into the air, drawn back into the ship as the metal cord reeled back into a tight wheel.

I held her close as we stumbled in, watching the broken fortress burn as we flew to our escape. Dove trembled and cried against me, her hands frozen into cups, as if she were grasping for something as it slipped away into the sky. I did not feel sadness, though, for her loss, only sweeping exultation.

I had taken her for my own. She was mind to keep, to sculpt into the creature I desired. Now that I had her I swore, no matter how she hated me or fought against me, that I would never let her go.