Chapter 1
Natasha Romanoff's entire life has never been a stranger day than today... Loki of Asgard attacked them, stole the tesseract, kidnapped Clint, everything seemed fine... they assembled a team... flew to Germany... they thought that Loki had already done something...but the party was over....they found the mercenaries and interrogated them....
Loki was gone.
He was about to attack in the crowd Heinrich Schafer, a scientist with access to a warehouse containing Iridium, an element which doctor Selvig needed to stabilize future portals created by the Tesseract. Loki should have attended a gala where Schafer went as a guest, and personally attacked him.
It didn't happen.
The mercenaries were surprised, Clint managed to be put to sleep with a sleep dart (irony) and maybe he will wake up normal.
When they arrived at Loki's base, they found it abandoned, other mercenaries fighting for the remains..the machine was dismantled, the tesseract disappeared, and Dr. Selvig suddenly found himself in his own apartment, deep asleep.
When they woke him up, he couldn't remember anything other than being kidnapped from the Shield base when Loki arrived...
Currently, there were dismissed in the room, Director Fury, Dr. Banner, Stark and Rogers....
''We have to find him,'' Fury insisted and kept checking the camera reports. Stark kept hacking their files and complaining about various planned weapons against the Shield, Rogers kept giving him a bad look, and Doctor Banner kept coming up with excuses to go back to India since their plan failed.
"Fury, there's really no need to be nervous, we'll find him," Stark was saying, going through the files.
Fury looked at him: ''Have I ever told you, Stark, that I'm glad your father had only you''.
Something clouded Stark's eyes: ''Not really, we never talked about it''.
Fury replied, "Well, I'm very grateful then that I have to deal with one Stark instead of two or three."
Stark smiled bitterly: "Don't be so sure, I'm still young after all, and there's an automatic paternity test every month for many women, maybe one of them will get lucky eventually."
Suddenly Maria Hill burst into the room and said what Natasha had wanted to hear for a long time...
We found him (After much thought, it was the last time things looked serious...then)
When they arrived at the place where Loki was supposed to be... it was nothing like Natasha expected... a vault of weapons, a vault of secret files, not even the headquarters of any politician!
It was a house...a very elegant house in the suburbs, very expensive to rent according to the old lady, and had been empty for several months until a well-mannered young man rented it for six months and paid in advance! There was a two-car garage next to the house, the yard was clean, and there was a fountain in front of the mansion...
She could see from their faces that Rogers and Stark were unsure of the whole situation too...so she took the initiative and knocked on the door.
It was opened by a nice young girl in a maid's outfit.
"How can I help you?" she asked, smiling and looking curiously at them.
''Is your master at home? ' asked Natasha, making a charming face.
''No, the master left an hour ago... but the mistress is in the living room, if you wish to see her, I may ask if you will be admitted,'' replied the maid.
''Mistress? '' Natasha marveled, Rogers and Stark staring in surprise next to her.
"Yes, so you want to see her?" asked the maid.
Rogers leaned down to Stark and whispered, "Are you sure that's the right address?"
Stark replied, "Coulson said they were sure....but what if they actually got the addresses wrong?"
Natasha, however, decided to talk to the mistress of the house ... even if the address was not good, the neighborhood was good and they can ask her about Loki.
They were ushered into the living room, where at a table sat an extremely attractive woman with black hair tied in a braid, wearing pearl jewelry and a white dress with an oriental pattern. Interestingly, this woman had a mosaic of colored stones on the table in front of her, which she was arranging. It was a pink butterfly. Natasha saw that Stark i Rogers are amazed by beauty of this woman... and she was also....
The stranger smiled at them: ''Unfortunately, I do not have the pleasure of knowing you, may I ask why you visited me? I recognize Mr. Stark and Mr. Rogers from recent press reports, but I don't know you... And I'm not sure what the reason for this visit would be.''
"I'm Natasha Romanoff, Agent Shield, and we're here on a mission," she replied.
"Yeah, we're looking for a certain tall guy with megalomania and a blue ankle," replied Stark, whom Rogers rebuked with his eyes.
''Sorry to bother you...it's quite a strange thing...'' Captain America tried to explain.
Suddenly the door opened by itself, a green light flashed and they saw Loki of Asgard in golden armor and with a golden helmet on his head...he was holding the scepter with which he enchanted Clint.
''What are you doing here?'' asked Loki.
''Eh, are we fighting you? you know that's the rule...bad guys fight, good guys win? Didn't they teach you that in school or whatever Renaissance fair you grew up in? '' replied Stark. Loki snorted: "Odin wouldn't like you calling Asgard a Renaissance fair."
When Loki asked what they were doing there, Natasha told him about the stolen tesseract, his crimes and so on. Loki looked at her with amusement, and his expression was very hard to read - after all, he was known to be able to hide his true feelings behind his mask - God of Mischief after all!
At the end of her story, however, he couldn't help but shake his head, and a hint amusent of could be seen in his eyes. "And you expect me to give you the tesseract in one piece?" he asked mockingly. To be honest, they didn't really expect it...more of a fight.
"Yes, we would expect it," replied Captain America.
"Well, I can't give it to you because it's not yours anyway, but you can go on with your boring ant life because I'm not going to conquer your boring world," replied Loki.
''Why?'' they asked in same time.