Adapting To Abnormous Changes
Life could change drastically in just one year.
One entire year, in which you were constantly trying to finally adapt to the new schedule the head of the allegedly very secret organization itself, Director Fury, had burdened you with the moment you had arrived back on Earth. A schedule he had forced into your prior routine, in which your main focus had merely consisted of surviving school—now you supposedly also had to survive agents and spies. In conclusion; you were stressed to an extent to which you questioned whether you would ever be able to graduate at all.
Yet despite all these new adjustments on Fury’s behalf, the worst of your apparent anxiety actually had nothing to do with him. Not so far, at least.
The fact that you had been appointed as an Avenger had been kept a secret for now and was only open information for S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers themselves. Still, they deemed it necessary for you to receive proper training, and you really didn’t have it in you to object—after all it was mostly training in self-defense, therefore something that could very much be of use at any given time. The person appointed to teaching you the mythical ways of how to defend yourself—how to disarm someone with guns pointed to your head, how to free yourself from a chokehold, how to take someone out in just a few steps as well as many more techniques—was none other than Agent Richards, who had also offered you to call him Evan almost immediately on meeting him for the second time.
He was surprisingly strong—nothing you could have possibly gathered from his rather lanky statue and constant wearing of rather cliche, black suits—as well as truly determined and thorough in his training, for your muscles hadn’t stopped aching once since you had begun this entire ordeal.
You couldn’t even quite say that you were getting this entire education for free, seeing as how you repaid this debt by being some sort of Agent after all. Oftentimes Fury’s people would ask you more about your abilities, and once you had even been brought in to extract information from an enemy agent.
That was an experience you would not even in your dreams declare anywhere near pleasant, not endurable or anything of the sort—not even if you had been clubbed in the head and been cursed to only talk utter rubbish—for the horrors you had endured purely through seeing what some people were capable of merely imagining could not be eradicated by any force in the world.
It was simply horrendous, you admitted to yourself, horrendous how deep down into the rabbit hole some people could throw themselves; their morals shredded to bits by the world’s best shredder, pieces afterwards having been blasted with some of the most impressive new technological invention crafted by Tony Stark himself, to not let a single fragment of common sense remain intact.
Maybe you should have hoped they’d kill themselves with their little implanted bombs they liked to hide in their teeth before you even had the chance to look into their minds, no matter how evil this might have sounded to anyone but you.
Yes, all of this was indeed reason to panic enough, sending every normal person spiraling straight down into hell, yet it wasn’t what truly made your daily life feel like a living hell. No, to blame was the constant talk about what had happened back in New York. Back during the ‘Tragedy of New York’ as people liked to call it.
They knew you had been there and they were aware you had been injured in the process—now they wanted every single little itty bitty detail of what had happened and where and how, and who you met and if you met anyone at all and more questions, at which point you blatantly decided to tune out every single time, because you literally just couldn’t take it any longer.
So much talking about a time you wanted to forget, desperately tried to forget in your grief and mourning of the friends you had lost, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to let go of the memories. Couldn’t also, because people apparently were incapable to last a day without bringing it right back up to the surface. And with each time and each talk of the past, the same hollow feeling threatened to engulf you once more, the pure longing for something supposed to make you whole, and with each time you couldn’t help but wonder how he was faring, throwing your entire process of coping with the situation directly overboard.
The Prince, sentenced to rot for the rest of his life in chains had barely made it to a year imprisoned, if he was still as well—and hopefully sane—as you wanted to believe. For most of the time there was nothing to be felt, not the tiniest, little sliver of hope for anything to ensure you that he was indeed still alive.
There had only been one occasion. One occasion about one month after you had tried to once more neatly fit into the life you had previously vacated. A tug scarcely strong enough to make you stumble over nothing as you walked along the corridor of your school, barely catching yourself before the force was gone as quickly as it had appeared. And left you none the wiser.
Life could indeed change dramatically in just one year, you noted with a heavy breath dragged out through your nose as your communication device vibrated violently in your pocket, alerting you to a mission the lovely Director Fury apparently decided to send you on in the middle of your math class.
You grimaced.
All these sudden notifications forced you to a life of lies and the stab jolting through your heart whenever you still gave your best to contort it into a half-truth didn’t subside, no matter how many times you had done so.
Stringing up excuses about having an important appointment related to your sickness, an excuse crafted meticulously by Tony Stark as he backed you up with proof you couldn’t even dream of how he had gotten it, you scrambled to get your things with an apologetic glance to your friends as you rushed down the stairs in obvious hurry, people on break stumbling out of the way before you could accidentally push them over.
Just how where you ever going to graduate like that?
———
“London.”
“Say what?”
A hand shot out from within the black car parking directly in front of your school, pushing the door open for you from the inside, as if you were incapable of doing it yourself. It wasn’t the first time you thought it, but you couldn’t help yourself as your eyes glanced at the car in disdain; Straight out of Men in Black, you chimed, no longer even wanting to chuckle at the irony of actual agents driving actual cars that looked directly ripped from a movie.
“Well, hello to you too, Evan,” you grumbled half heartedly, letting yourself fall down into the seat next to him before the sound of the car’s engine filled the air around you and he drove off in one swift move. He gave a light laugh, for the both of you knew that you were simply exhausted from Fury’s latest obsession over some YouTube videos that started to pop up about two days ago in the far corners and crevices of the Internet. It didn’t have many views, which meant even fewer people were actually concerned about what it showed and even fewer would be willing enough to give up resources such as time and money—though mostly money probably—to drive by and see it for themselves.
You couldn’t say that you were particularly convinced either; sure, you never knew what might be possible nowadays, with gods and aliens and agents and whatnot evading your life as if free real estate, yet it could have also been a mere trick; ropes gently lifting cars from the ground to make it appear as if they were floating weightlessly in the air, expertly timed cuts to create the illusion of objects disappearing in seeming nothingness before being spit out in another corner.
Evan cast you a quick glance while he was driving and it was obvious that he didn’t buy whatever was happening either.
After a quick switch to the jet as usual, you threw yourself into your seat, mindlessly tapping the surface of the table separating you from the agent as he spread out a couple of folders for you to see.
“Clearly Fury really thinks that there’s something off about it...and maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge after all we’ve seen,” you mumbled into your scarf sitting softly around your neck and warming it as well as giving you your valued sense of anonymity.
“I agree, even though I’m more inclined to believe that he sends us for you to get some practice—“ you shifted and leaned a bit forward at his words, propping your arms on the table— “After all it doesn’t seem to be all that threatening. Maybe for you to get some information from the people that own the place.”
He looked thoughtful for a moment, before giving a simple shrug.
“Or maybe there isn’t really anything and he just wants you to have some victims to practice on.”
Now that didn’t sound so nice.
You gave him your best smoldering glare and a light punch to the shoulder, though the expression didn’t rest long on your face, as you couldn’t find it in you to even pretend to be mad, eased even further by his gentle laugh.
The both of you startled as a ring sounded through the plane, echoing along the walls, before Evan picked up his phone and stood from his chair to take the call.
“Hello?”
You watched him silently walk up and down the little space in the jet as he was once more deep in thought, this time for real though, judged by just how deeply the lines on his forehead were drawn as he furrowed his brows more and more with every passing second.
All in all you felt much more like an Agent’s Apprentice than anything else, though you suspected that made a lot of sense. Who in their right mind was born with the skillset required to work with stealth in silence and shadows as if made for the job? For now your only tasks seemed to consist of following Evan wherever he was being sent off to—though you could probably also see it the other way around as Fury had him immediately stationed near your hometown to follow the schedule he had burdened the both of you with, declaring him to thoroughly train you in fighting and defending yourself with whatever weapons you currently had at your disposal.
That had, in one lesson, included a spoon.
And you would never forget just how much damage you could do to someone with such a simple piece of cutlery. Honestly, Even didn’t really look like a fighter, yet could more than simply hold himself in battle if necessary. It was truly astonishing.
“Understood. We will be there shortly.”
With a quiet crackle of static the call had been ended and left Evan standing with a silent look cast absently to the floor.
“What is it?” you spoke up, remaining seated as you cautiously watched him stand among all the silver, metal interior; roar of the machine deafening when you started to zone out upon waiting for his reply.
He gave an almost defeated sigh as he sat down across from you again, collecting his thoughts.
“It seems there was a commotion in London,” he said with a grimace, picking up a pen lying on the table from earlier note-taking and twirling it in his hands, “Apparently some people actually came to check on it, and now one of them is missing. They had meant to call the police, but obviously—“ He gave a small grin at that— “Our people had hijacked their connection and we received the call instead.”
“So,” you spoke, piercing his unhelpful puzzle pieces of information together as usual, “Now we actually have something to solve and Fury might have been right?”
“Seems like it.”
———
Your foot came into direct contact with a puddle as soon as you stepped outside the jet, face contorting to disgust as you felt the water soak your shoe and sock. A look towards the sky showed no hints of grey, even though the entire place seemed to have been thoroughly drenched by masses of water. With a quick motion you adjusted the mask you had been given, assuring that it was properly in place to hide most of your face—much like a surgical mask, but completely black and made of thicker material, covering your nose and mouth with slight changes to the fabric to enable you to properly breathe through it.
Hiding your face seemed the safest bet for everyone involved, to ensure that you might live a normal life apart from all the agent stuff going on around you.
The rest of your clothes consisted of some sort of agent-like suit, black and more on the tight side. To help you fit into the theme, you liked to joke. It was connected to your mask through the fabric covering your neck, to further make sure it stays in place. Meanwhile the sleeves of your suit only went all the way barely past your elbows to give you enough freedom to have physical contact to people whose memories you were trying to invade.
Fury’s team had created the suit for you after you had thoroughly explained your abilities to them as well as your desire to hide your identity, and luckily they had listened to your feedback.
Evan was already out to access the situation, and you couldn’t help but feel as if he really was in charge of protecting you. His irritation swapped in strong waves over to you and once you stepped up from behind him and beheld the sight, you couldn’t help but reciprocate the feeling. People dressed like police officers, who you assumed to be members of S.H.I.E.L.D., looked positively horrified and shaken, standing almost motionless around and halfway tucked behind the cars they came in, while some of them lied stunned on the cold and wet stone floor.
“What happened here?” Evan spoke as he took a few steps closer towards the agents, lighthearted attitude he usually carried around you gone as he took on a more professional approach, most likely acting as their superior. You simply followed suit behind, being long since used to his switch in behavior.
“The lost woman reappeared,”a man stepping up from behind one of the apparent ‘police cars’ said, crossing the way over to Evan with quick and hurried steps, “We wanted to interrogate her, but some sort of energy...red, powerful energy lashed out and knocked our men down.”
He didn’t even need to gesture for the three of you to once more take a look at your surroundings, playing out the scene in your head. A couple of agents were still trying to shake off the initial shock and rise to their feet, stumbling as if in a daze.
“Where is that woman now?” Evan continued on.
The man before him seemed to stumble over his words as if trying to grasp what he had seen, before finally forming a sentence,
“Some man appeared all of a sudden...in a flash of lightning—“ Your ears perked up considerably at that— “And took her with him, just like that.”
Evan’s glower continued, waiting for the man to finally come to the conclusion they were, most likely, all already expecting.
“We believe it might’ve been Thor.”
With your eyes widening in a mixture of emotions you couldn’t hope to name, you caught side of a symbol burned into the street, recognizing it from one of the books Loki had shown you on rare occasions. Your body tensed up immediately with what you thought was anticipation; anticipation not inherently positive or negative. Thor was here, yes. That was good, great even, a connection to your friends back on Asgard after an entire year of not knowing how they were.
But he was gone already, disappeared back to wherever, Asgard probably, and with him your only possible connection. For as much as you had tried whenever those idiots in school had once more reminded you of who you had lost, you couldn’t seem to reach Loki. The distance between the both of you must have been too far—after all, back on Asgard you had problems merely connecting to him from your temporary chambers to his prison cell; so it was no wonder that you couldn’t pick up on anything.
You only knew—felt—that he was alive. That needed to be enough.
“Thor,” you mumbled quietly as if to reassure yourself that, yes, he was indeed here and yes, he was indeed gone now. From the corner of your eye you caught Evan throwing you a slightly concerned glance, yet paid no further mind to it as you were lost in thoughts, determination steadily gaining on you.
Wasn’t there a mention of portals in those YouTube videos?
———
“Are you sure we want to keep looking? It’s getting late.”
The voice of Evan sounded tired. Something you were aware you should be feeling too after you had been searching the facility left and right for hints and clues to where a portal could possibly lead to not just the other side of the room, for hours on end. These two friends of the person who had gone missing only to reappear and disappear another time, hadn’t been a helpful source of information; the woman, Darcy, and her intern, whose name you didn’t catch, could only confirm what your colleagues had already told you as soon as you had arrived:
They had come to investigate the abnormal situation they had discovered due to the videos found on YouTube, and found out that the rumors were actually true; shortly before their friend went missing. Apparently they were just as shocked as the rest of them regarding their friend’s sudden rise from the apparent dead as well as her sudden disappearance with Thor and general whereabouts.
“Yes,” you spoke, determination so set in your voice you could hear Evan stifle a sigh over the communication device you held to your ear, “If I find a way to Asgard, I could ask Thor about whatever was going on here myself.”
Another defeated sigh over the intercom.
“I know you’re right, and I know that your motivations to visit your friends are probably the actual reason you’re looking so thoroughly—“ Busted— “But we can always continue tomorrow.”
He was using his voice of reason, as usual, trying to call you back whenever you were about to go overboard with something. Just like back a couple of months ago, when you had pushed yourself to discover the enemy spy’s secret memories with such intensity that you had nearly overexerted yourself from both the stress inflicted on your own body, as well as from what you had seen. Those terribly, agonizingly disgusting things you had seen in that man’s head—you could picture Evan vividly in front of you, chasm between his blonde eyebrows deepening with every time you didn’t listen to his advice—you were sure half of his wrinkles were actually your fault, the other half, granted, his family.
“If you want to you can go, I want to try at least for an hour or so more.”
Or two, you added in your head. Or three. Or four. However long it might take to find a way, you were willing to pull through with it.
“You know I can’t,” came his reply, before the both of you resumed your search in silence. Only crickets could be vaguely heard creating their harsh but captivating melodies outside, few birds scattered in the night to aid in their concert, chirping and singing despite the darkness. All the while you sneaked around in an old, abandoned facility, twisting and turning every single stone in your path to try and trigger some sort of super secret pathway to Asgard. Evan was searching near the entrance, taking a better look at the cars strewn about—whenever they weren’t flying at least.
Yes, Evan sounded tired, and you knew you should be feeling the same, but you couldn’t. Anywhere around here, anytime now you might possibly find something that could help you in returning to Asgard, to visit your friends. To visit the one person who carried the missing piece of your soul, the one person whose piece you carried within you. To Loki.
You bit your lip in frustration as the tug, the constant tug within your chest, tightened especially uncomfortably for a second and you couldn’t help but stagger a few steps forward with the sudden sensation. As if it was trying to lead you somewhere—as if trying to reunite with its missing piece itself. And so you took a deep breath and started to brush everything happening around you completely aside, tuning out your physical surroundings to let the tug within your soul guide you on your path, guide you further and further into the depths of the facility. Your shoes scraped against the asphalt, dust, dirt and stones swirling into the air with every step as you shuffled along a corridor, glancing left and right for any signs if abnormalities.
Such as what you were seeing directly in front of you.
With a squint of your eyes you declared the air around a certain spot near the wall to your left to be stirring abnormally, as if heat was radiating from it. Your heart began hammering in your chest as you stretched your hand out, carefully getting ready for anything that might happen should your skin actually come into contact with whatever laid out in front of you, breathing quickening as the tension tightened like hands around your throat and started burning uncomfortably in your chest, constricting your access to oxygen and leaving you behind breathless and anxious.
Nothing happened.
Maybe Evan was right—you were sleep-deprived. You couldn’t help the way your face fell immediately, all tension gone and replaced by bone deep sadness, as you realized it had been a mere figment of your imagination. Your hands fell back down to your sides as you clenched them to fists—you had been so sure that this method would work, that your soul could actually guide you into the right direction. So very, completely, utterly sure. You thought you felt it after all, had that feeling been wrong all along? Mere wishful thinking?
“Alright Evan,” you called over the device, unable to keep the grief and disappointment from dripping into your words like resin down a tree trunk after it had been stabbed—just like your heart, “I guess we can go for today—“
As you turned around, you braced yourself to run against a piece of debris standing slightly crooked right in front of you, debris you hadn’t seen before as you had purely relied on your connection to Loki; next to being too exhausted to properly see without a slight blur coating your eyes like a thin veil. But there was no collision—nothing happened. Instead, you found yourself relentlessly falling through midair for a couple of seconds and you gave a startled yelp in response, which easily turned into a scream as you were falling still.
“Evan—!”
Your exclamation was cut short as you came into harsh contact with water, forcing your arms and legs to work over their shocked reaction to swim to the surface, to break through and desperately gasp for oxygen as you tried to blink the water from your eyes away in a frenzy. Your heartbeat went from 180 to 0 to 180 again much too quickly as you fought to orient yourself in an unknown body of water, flailing around as you tried to reach something, anything to steady yourself with. Luckily the current wasn’t strong enough to pull you down for too long, but with difficulty, yet all the determination from a few minutes prior. you managed to pull yourself onto something akin to a shore.
You gasped, heaving a breath as you heavily plopped down on your back to catch and calm yourself against whatever had just happened.
Staring into the sky you blinked.
And blinked.
And blinked again, only to find that the sky still held the same radiating darkness brightened by a multitude of starts and galaxies and nebula that shouldn’t be visible from within the factory, neither from anywhere on Earth. In sudden realization you forced your exhausted body to rise, stumbling on your unsteady footing as you gazed around, eyes widening as indescribable relief flooded you, flooded the connection you could once more feel and which vaguely radiated back with palpable confusion.
You were back on Asgard.