The Adventure of a Thief

"Dr. Roberts?" I ask startling him awake. He was sleeping by my bedside in the hospital.

"Molly, oh thank God you are awake!" Dr. Roberts stood, "You had us all concerned." He grabbed a glass of water and handed it to me, I took the glass and drank a reliving sip.

"I'm so sorry that all this has happened!" Dr. Roberts continued, "I should have never let you be in that kind of situation, and I will never let it happen again."

"No, I'm glad that it did happen," I told him, "I really learned a lot."

Dr. Roberts regarded me warily, "Well ok. An agent from S.H.I.E.L.D will be in here shortly to ask you questions. Listen, Molly, they have an opportunity for us, and I really think that we should take it. It's a job offer and it pays very well."

I nodded, "What kind of work would we be doing?"

"Nothing we hadn't done."

Right then, a young man came into the room, "Molly Hatkins?" he asked.

"That's me," I said, sitting up a little bit.

"I'm Roger Elliot, from S.H.I.E.L.D. Do you mind explaining to me what happened?"

"What exactly do you want to know?" I knew that this guy wanted me to be as detailed as possible, but there was no way that I was going to tell him, and have on record, that I wrestled naked with Loki in between the sheets.

"Everything, Ms. Hatkins," the young man said slowly like he was talking to a child.

I nodded, and told him what happened, leaving out my small relationship with Loki. When I was describing the young girl, Hela, and the ice creature, his facial expression changed. It was just another unbelievable thing that had actually happened. He wrote my whole story down, and when I had finished, he stood up, closed his notebook, and shook my hand, "It was nice meeting you Ms. Hatkins, thank you for the information, and I would like to see you around on the force."

After he left, Karl came in. Dr. Roberts left to give us some privacy.

"You met Loki," he finally said after sitting down.

I nodded, "Yes, was he a friend of yours?"

"Yes, before I was banished Loki, Thor and I were good friends," Karl said, "I didn't know so much has changed at Asgard, Thor has told me. I did not know my friend had changed. I thought that he could be trusted."

"Karl, he didn't do this to me, it was his daughter, Hela."

"Hela?" he asked. "I am not familiar with her."

"She had a huge ice creature," I said, shivering at the memory. I knew that I wasn't going to get over that thing easily, "it was barely human."

Karl looked at me with a sense of fascination and horror in his eyes. "That is bad. I will tell Thor, and we will resolve this."

"Karl, don't hurt him," I said suddenly.

"Of course not, child," Karl said, and that's when he spotted it. The ring. He lifted up my right hand. "What is this? Who gave it to you?"

"Loki did," I said, uncertain.

He put his hand over the ring. "There is strong power here. It is very beautiful," he chuckled, "And Thor thought that Loki didn't care for humans, and here he is, giving one of the most powerful relics to a human."

Karl let go of my hand, and left, laughing the whole time.

Dr. Roberts came back in and sat in the chair by my bed. "How are you doing?"

"Pretty good, I think my abilities have gotten stronger," I said, and then glancing at the ring, "I think I have gotten stronger."

Dr. Roberts nodded, "They said you can leave today. You have no signs of broken bones or any concussions. You'll just have to come back to get the stitches removed."

"Stitches?" I asked.

Dr. Roberts looked at me amazed. "You are covered in cuts and bruises and even have a bit of frost bite, Molly. You even have a stitch on your face. Now I know that you haven't looked in a mirror, but can't you feel them?"

I looked at him and shook my head.

"Maybe it's the drugs," Dr. Roberts said, but in his head he was thinking, "Hopefully the frost bite didn't take over all her nerves, or maybe it's that ring that Karl was mentioning."

"I'll go tell the doctor that you are okay to go, and we can start the checkout process," he said, while getting up to go.

"Before you go, why was I able to contact you through the glass cell?"

"I was wondering about that too, Molly. I think it's because what you have has nothing to do with physics, or anything that science has proven 100%. What you are able to do is pure will power. The technology to actually contain your abilities is not invented yet."

He turned around and was about to head to the door when I stopped him.

"I'll join S.H.I.E.L.D. It'll be nice to have a job."

He smiled at me, "You're lucky your first full time job will be interesting. We will tell Fury in the morning."

When he had left, I felt a tear roll down my face. I knew that the only reason that I took the job was so that I could keep busy. The job would distract me from having my second close encounter with death. The fact that what had almost killed me was something out of a horror movie scared me, a lot. I would like to forget about that. I also knew that I should probably forget about how powerful I had felt when Loki and I were together. Even though I would love for it to happen again, I knew that it never would.

I got up out of the bed, and grabbed the clothes that were hanging up. No more ugly hospital gown for me. When I put on my jeans, I had to be very careful about the stitches. I then looked in the mirror. I knew that it was vain of me, but I couldn't help but hope that the scratch on my cheek wouldn't scar.

When Dr. Roberts and Karl came back into the room to get me, I was ready.