A big mess
Phil was worried. This was a mess. A big mess.
He knew at some point he’ll have to call on Sirius and the wizards. But he really didn’t want to, and if Clint didn’t stop sniggering Phil was going to shoot him.
He couldn’t put it off though, as previously stated this was a mess, a mess that though according to the Journal was going to mainly happen in New York had the potential of threatening the entire planet. He’d have to contact the council, and probably Amelia Bones and Theodore Levinson. Should anyone from the Wizarding World learn of Loki’s presence on Earth -and by anyone he meant a Death Eater or Dumbledore - this F-ed up situation had the potential to turn into the ultimate nightmare. One little handy spell and they’d have a God at their disposal. The wizards on their side just didn’t know if the Imperius could even work on the Asgardian prince.
Phil looked at the crater that used to be a NASA base. The paperwork meant for the accident was going to take days to file. Phil gestured to the pilot and soon he was in the air, thinking about the last half hour.
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Phil was waiting for Sirius to apparate to him when the alarm started. A rapid text through JARVIS delayed his courtmate’s arrival. Finding the problem was a quick affair, the Tesseract was misbehaving, which immediately put Phil and Clint on edge. While SHIELD was trying to use science to understand the Tesseract, they knew it had more to do with the magic they were familiar with than any science either Tony or Selvig could use. Magic out of the hands of those who knew about it could be dangerous.
Clint texted Phil asking if they should call Severus and Tony to the base to see if they could make something of it. But before any of them had the time to implement this plan, Fury arrived, telling them to evacuate, that he would seal off the stone.
From there it all went FUBAR. For some reason, when Future Natasha told them to get amulets and runes meant to protect the mind, none of them thought of supplementing the rest of the SHIELD agents.
Phil watched in horror -through the security system- as Loki stepped out of the portal.
After what happened, Phil couldn’t understand why or how Loki ended up being part of Harry’s group in the Future.
While Fury tried to delay Loki, tried to distract him, nothing seemed to work. The Asgardian made quick work of the security detail.
There was a moment of stillness when Loki tried to use his scepter on Clint. Clint’s eyes turned bright blue for a second making Loki smirk but just as quickly as it appeared it disappeared. Clint grabbed his gun and shot at Loki, but he managed to intercept the bullet with his scepter and before Clint could step away he was slammed into the wall with a single blast from the scepter. Clint was obviously injured, but Phil didn’t have time to think about a rescue plan as Fury tried to advance slowly on the Tesseract to put it back in its protective case. Too bad Loki saw it. As Fury had the Tesseract in one hand and the case in the other he was an easy target.
Surprisingly Loki didn’t blast him. Instead, just as he had done to Clint, Loki placed the end of the scepter over Fury’s heart and the man’s only visible eye turned bright blue. Phil and Loki both looked on to see if the color would wash away. It didn’t.
“This will work even better,” Loki announced.
Fury packed the Tesseract and handed the case to Selvig who was already under Loki’s control, along with the rest of the agents present and uninjured. Loki gave a last inquisitive look to Clint before Fury reminded him of the collapsing building.
Phil breathed better when -as soon as the enemy was out of the room- Clint activated his Portkey out of the building.
Maria tried to stop Loki’s escape, but Fury knew all the shortcuts as well as her own shortcomings, though she gave it her best, they took over Fury’s chopper and evaded them.
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Now, Phil had to decide how to deal with it all. Calling in Natasha was obvious, Tony too, but the rest of the Avengers, he wasn’t so sure.
They kept tabs on Steve as he learned to navigate this new time he found himself in, but the man never contacted them. Phil wasn’t sure if the good captain would want to partake in a retrieval mission of the very reason he lost 70 years, to begin with.
Bruce Banner was another matter. While Fury wanted him for the team, wanted him to join the researchers on the Tesseract too, and kept General Ross away from the scientist, it didn’t mean the man would agree to help, not if a possible fight was even mentioned, not if they told him New York City was a target. Maybe he could send Natasha to him. She had a way with difficult people.
Thor wasn’t even on Earth. Though now that he thought about it securing Jane Foster was a priority. Loki might know about her, and if he didn’t Fury and Selvig did.
Securing people…
He had to call the tower, no way around it. They had to secure the children and those who didn’t want to get involved - aka, Arthur and Pepper, and Darcy if she was there.
He’d need Tony anyway. Fury had access to absolutely everything inside SHIELD. Tony needed to rework their system, hack the security procedure to keep Fury out of it, delete his access. Maybe boost their search for Fury and Loki by using JARVIS’ system. The faster they found them, the better it would be.
The trouble was that it wouldn’t take much for Sirius, and maybe Harry if he wasn’t sleeping yet, to understand what Loki’s presence on Earth meant for Phil, and he didn’t want Sirius to push himself into battle, not if he didn’t have a clear mind. And let’s be honest Sirius was a hothead Gryffindor. The second Phil would tell him about Loki, Sirius would apparate next to him, and hex anyone who so much as breathed in his direction. While endearing, Phil had too much to do to enable him at the moment.
Phil thought about it on the way to the secondary base. Then he went to visit Clint and talk about it with him. Fortunately, Clint’s injury was superficial, and the Ditany and pain potion, hidden in his quiver, took care of it in minutes.
Clint assured him he would go to the tower and talk to them, convince Sirius that he had other things to do than to be overprotective.
They needed the apparent Lord Black to contact the MACUSA, the Goblins and as many people as they could to keep an eye on things, but also to prepare. If the battle was to happen over New York as Natasha told them, then the wizards living in the city were in danger, they needed permission to use magic in public, though a heads up would suffice for them to all apparate or floo out of the city.
But more importantly, the kids needed to be relocated. The school would be a safe zone, it was far enough, and the wards -of which some were added when Severus and Harry started going to meet the other mage on sight as they clearly were not up to containing the energy from all three of them using their powers at the same time- would keep the God away if needed.
On that note, as Dumbledore refused the wards upgrade even though the Goblins offered it to him for free, the Marvelous Fund footing the bill, they needed Amelia and Ragnok to contact McGonagall and Flitwick, have them keep the students inside until they found and secured Loki. Maybe they could contact Durmstrang, as Karkaroff wasn’t the headmaster yet, and even if he had been no one would agree for Severus to contact him -not that he was allowed anyway as part of his release was to never contact Death Eaters other than the Malfoys.
That left him with the council and Steve. The council shouldn’t be his problem to deal with, but Hill wasn’t really on board with the Avengers Initiative, she didn’t trust Tony, and she was in Harlem during the fight between Hulk and the Abomination, she didn’t trust them, and until she saw them in action -hopefully the way Fury thought it would work- her thoughts on the matter would not endear the council to the plan. As she was the one who planned the whole event of Steve’s waking day, she was bound to handle him in the wrong way.
No, it all fell on Phil’s shoulders.
The Council, as predicted, disagreed. They didn’t want some freaks involved. The word made Phil’s blood boil, and he barely stopped himself from yelling at them. Finally, he told them that they had no choice if Loki could take over the director, it was reasonable to assume that none of the SHIELD agents was safe from the powers of the staff. Unless they had some unknown powers hidden that Fury wasn’t aware of as he would know how to counter it, they might as well try the Avengers. While it was true that Fury was the one who put the list together, even he didn’t know what the final result of putting the team together would be.
They agreed.
Now they needed to talk to the Avengers and the Marvelous team.