Undercover Agent

THE bunker is large enough and has lots of forgotten equipment for Selvig to start building his idea for a machine. Whatever that machine is going to do, Kaylin doesn't know. She doesn't need to.

The first thing Kaylin did was show the others around. She even went as far as to lead the way to the end of the tunnel, pointing out the Vault as she guides her company to where the tunnel transforms into a sewer which ends in a river not far away from the property.

Kaylin knows every hidden room and escape route each property has. Her dad's old boss made sure of it, for all his houses on US soil. Her dad, himself, told her about some of the escape routes from the property in England and Italy, and Aunt Peggy explained everything about her own house.

It's always good to be prepared.

"Good work," Loki praises as they gaze over the river, before they turn towards Clint. "You're to find more manpower."

The blond nods and wades into the water, making his way to the river bed to do just that.

Loki turns to Kaylin. "You're to assist the doctor and come up with a distraction plan."

Kaylin tells him she will, and leads the way back inside. A distraction plan is not that easy to come up with, but maybe when she's working on the machine, an idea will come to her. She does know how SHIELD operates the best, with how many mission reports she has read and digitized.

Selvig is inspecting every bit of metal he finds in the bunker, and Kaylin watches as his eyes light up when he spots a piece of disregarded vibranium. It's a really small piece, leftover from the Second World War. A souvenir, really. Still, Selvig looks like he's hit the jackpot.

Kaylin walks over to assist the man, and the two of them work together as they create the blueprints for a very large machine. She has no idea what to call it, but that's not important. The important bit is that it has to work.

Loki is standing at the entrance of the bunker, and when Clint comes back with more manpower, they use their staff to free them. One by one, more people are there to help build the machine, so Kaylin steps back to inform Loki of a possible distraction.

The god watches her approach and invites her to speak by moving to sit down.

"SHIELD has a helicarrier," Kaylin begins. "It's a large, military-like platform that, most of the time, sails over the ocean. However, it has the ability to fly and do it cloaked. It's on the East-Coast, though, so we have to find a way to get there, first, but I'm a hundred percent sure that that's the main operating base right now.

"When we reach the helicarrier, we can cause some havoc to keep them occupied so they won't be paying attention to you activating the machine."

Loki evaluates that plan for a long time before they nod their agreement. "That's a plan I can work with," they say.

-

Building the actual machine takes time. Time they don't have.

Kaylin is fighting with a metal part that won't fit into the machine like she wants it to. She has changed the shape five times already, and doing it again would render the thing useless.

Cursing her way through it, Kaylin manages to, finally, get the metal part to fit. She cheers, earning a chuckle from her friend.

"Just find the element, Barton," Kaylin says, rolling her eyes.

Clint holds up the tablet in his hands to show her he's trying.

Selvig had told them he needed something strong that could hold the Tesseract without compromising the materials, and Kaylin suggested iridium. It may be one of the rarest elements on earth, but it is one of the best ones that could combat the energy spikes from the Tesseract.

So, now, Clint is trying to find said element. He's taking his job very seriously, despite joking around with Kaylin, still.

Not even mind control can keep them from being childish.

A new wave of people come into the bunker, and Kaylin spots them holding all kinds of materials. Her eyes light up immediately at the sight of a big chunk of plastic, it being something she had been needing a while now.

"Put it over there," Dr Selvig instructs when he sees the new people. He points at a table a few paces away from him.

The one holding the plastic, however, walks right over to Kaylin and gives it to her.

"Yes!" she shouts, grabbing a pair of scissors and starts cutting away.

"Where did you find all these people?" Selvig wonders, looking around in amazement.

Clint shrugs, not looking up from the tablet he's still working on. "SHIELD has no shortage of enemies, Doctor," he says. Turning the tablet around, he shows the screen to the man. "Is this the stuff you need?"

Looking up, Kaylin inspects the screen. It shows iridium in an untouched form, which is preferable. "It is," she answers for the doctor.

Selvig nods along. "Iridium is found in meteorites," he explains. "It forms anti-protons."

"That, and it's corrosion-resistant," Kaylin adds. "It's extremely rare, and very hard to get hold of."

Clint grins at her, conversing without words that he has found it already.

From behind the agent, Loki appears. The god is walking towards them with a faraway expression, but looks up when Selvig starts talking.

"Hey," the scientist calls out. "The Tesseract has shown me so much. It's more than knowledge, it's truth."

Personally, Kaylin hasn't been near the cube enough to have it show her things, but with the amount of energy seeping off of it, she can imagine what it has done to Selvig. The man isn't found anywhere but near the Tesseract, and if Kaylin had her own mind, she would've gotten worried. However, it's not important, so he has no opinion on it.

"I know," Loki replies to the doctor, smirking slightly. They turn to Clint and address him. "What did it show you, Agent Barton?"

"My next target," is the simple answer.

"Tell me what you need."

Clint walks over to the weapons table and places down his tablet. He picks up his bow and lets it unfold. "I need a distraction," he says while picking out arrows. "And an eyeball."

Loki turns to Kaylin, and she knows what the god wants her to do without them having said it. She nods and picks up the tablet Clint had dropped, looking over the information.

"OK, so he's in Germany," she begins brainstorming her plan out loud. "There's a gala in Stuttgart, and he's keeping the iridium in a sealed off vault."

"Hence, the eyeball," Clint adds.

"Yes," Kaylin agrees. "Easy enough. I need a quinjet and someone who wants to interrupt the gala to find Heinrich Schafer. I can get them in, but it's gonna be tough."

Loki starts walking. "I'll be going in." Before Kaylin can protest, they explain more. "This is the perfect opportunity to cause a disruption for SHIELD. We have their eyes on Stuttgart, so they will not know about the machine."

Kaylin and Clint share a look. Yes, it is a good plan, but what if the god gets caught? SHIELD will take him in, probably to the helicarrier-

"You plan on getting caught," Kaylin realizes, her eyes wide.

Loki nods, gracefully. "Give them a few hours, then you can cause a distraction on the helicarrier you mentioned. You are, obviously, very good at thinking up distractions. I'm impressed."

Kaylin blushes.

What? It's a God who just complimented her. Everyone would blush.

Clint leaves to find them a quinjet, and Kaylin gets together a team to assist him in this mission.

-

The plane ride to Germany is mostly silent. Clint is behind the steering wheel, with Kaylin as his co-pilot, but neither are making the jokes they normally would when flying together.

Loki is sitting in the back, looking ahead of them with a thoughtful expression. The staff's blue gem glows brightly, almost with a bit of a pulse, and the knuckles holding the staff are turning white due to how strongly it is gripped.

Kaylin lands the quinjet on the roof and Loki is the first one out. Clint hands out orders to all the others, before stopping to face the woman, who's already halfway out her seat.

"You need to stay here," he tells her.

Kaylin scoffs. "Like hell I will."

Clint rolls his eyes. "Linnie, I know you want to help, but we need you to pilot us back as soon as we have the goods."

She says nothing, and Clint narrows his eyes at her, but he leaves soon enough. Kaylin waits only a few moments before she exits the quinjet and makes her way inside.

For years, Kaylin only did desk work. Her field work is rusty, so she only sticks to keeping a low profile and keep her eye on the situation. She has a communication unit in her ear to stay in touch with the team going after the iridium, but her eyes stay on Loki.

The god makes their way down, and while Kaylin is having small talk about the weather with some gala guests, she watches Loki waste no second in using his cane to attack the man who's eyeball is needed to unlock the door.

As soon as the guests notice the commotion, they start running. Kaylin runs too, but in the opposite direction.

Making her way back to the quinjet, she thinks to herself that, maybe, she should've just stayed there in the beginning. It's not like she did anything of note worthy down there. However, there's this small part of her brain that whispers how she always has this need to keep an eye on every part of her team. She has her ears on one part, so it's only logical she has her eyes on the other.

Now that every gala member is running outside, she knows Loki will follow them.

Sitting in her co-pilot chair, Kaylin can see the square where Loki is holding every guest hostage. She sees duplicates of the god at every corner, and a small part of her brain wants to go down there and stop them. Those people have nothing to do with this. Yet, the part that is still under the scepter's control tells her that it's not important. These people serve only as a means to get SHIELD's attention.

Kaylin can't hear what the people down in the square are saying, but a smirk makes her way across her face once she notices every one kneel before the god.

All, except one.

An old man is standing, staring straight at Loki and refusing whatever it is that the god wants him to do.

Loki turns the scepter towards the man and prepares to blast him, when someone in red, white and blue lands between them and deflects the blast with their shield.

Captain America has joined the party.

Kaylin's eyes are wide as she watches the scene below. Never had she thought that Steve would be there, but it makes sense.

Does this mean that the Avengers Initiative has been activated?

"Got it," Clint announces suddenly. "We're on our way back."

"Copy that," Kaylin replies, and turns on the quinjet's engine. "As much as I want to watch the show down below, Loki needs to be captured for the second phase of the plan to work."

The team enters the quinjet fast, but silently, and Clint takes his seat without dumping his gear. He gets ready for take off, with Kaylin putting on the cloaking device to stay undetected to the Avengers below. There's no need to give them away just yet.

-

The bunker is filled with life when they get back. Everywhere they look, people are working on parts of the machine.

Selvig walks up to them, and Clint hands him the iridium before he walks away to find something to eat.

"Ready, doc?" Kaylin asks, following the doctor back to the main machine.

Selvig shakes his head. "This iridium is a key component, but we still need higher ground," he says. "The portal is almost done."

What portal? Kaylin doesn't know the answer, and her brain tells her she doesn't need to know. She has her orders, and she will perform them to perfection.

"Good," Kaylin tells the doctor. "Loki is with SHIELD, so that part of the plan has succeeded. All we need to focus on now is finishing this machine and freeing Loki."

Walking away, she searches for Clint. She finds him sitting on a nearby table with a freshly made sandwich in hand. With a deep frown she walks over, curious where he got it. Especially because her fridge is empty, so it can't be from her kitchen.

"Where'd you get that?" Kaylin wonders, her stomach growling after she's done speaking.

Clint swallows his bite and grins. "Two blocks from here, there's this little lunch room that sells amazing sandwiches," he tells her.

"Great," she replies, holding her stomach. "I'll be back in a jiffy."

Kaylin practically runs out of the building, following her friend's instructions to the T.

The small store smells like freshly baked bread and coffee as soon as she steps inside, and Kaylin has to stifle a groan of pleasure to not scare off those inside. She is quick in placing an order and is out of the shop within five minutes with her goods.

While munching on her food, Kaylin gets the feeling that she has to hurry. She starts walking back faster and finds the others rushing around, trying to clear out the space.

"What's going on?" Kaylin questions the first agent she walks past.

"Phase Three," they reply, before running off.

Clint walks over and pushes her towards the exit. "Selvig's found a high enough building, so we're off. He won't tell anyone what it is, but that's alright. Our part is to rescue Loki from SHIELD. Now, where do you think they've taken him?"

Kaylin chuckles. "Isn't it obvious?"