Survivor's Guilt ~ A Marvel Story

~ 8 ~

With the newfound strength from the ring, I was able to people to force people to not see what was in front of them. When Loki and I arrived through the portal of the Tesseract, they only saw him. They couldn't see me, I wouldn't let them. 

This way, while my brother attacked the guards, I could make my way to the cube without anyone noticing. It was the perfect guise. 

When I spotted the cube, I noticed a man was already crouching by where it was being held. I stepped over the groaning men that had fallen. As I passed, I stared at their strange weapons. There wasn't a blade at the end like anything I've seen on Asgard. 

I noticed the man reach for the cube and begin to place it in the box. 

I let the illusion fall away and his eyes widened as I appeared. "Mother fuck-" His free hand grasped the fabric of clothing around his heart.

"Please don't," I placed my hand on his that was about to close the case he placed the cube in. "We still need that."

His eyes bore into mine as he spoke. "This doesn't have to get any messier." He slowly begins to stand after quickly sliding the case away from me. I take a step forward but his arm flings out, blocking me from moving. 

"Of course it does," I respond, my eyes flickering between the man's single eye and the case on the floor. "We've come too far for anything else." 

"I am Loki, of Asgard," My brother steps beside me as the man in the long coat takes a few steps back, picking up the case. I don't take my eyes off the target. "And I am burdened with glorious purpose."

"Loki? Brother of Thor!" I turned my attention to the man who knew of him and our brother. He was an older man, concern writing lines across his forehead. I wanted to ask how he knew him but now wasn't the time.

"We have no quarrel with your people," The man with the eyepatch brought out attention back to him and the case.

"An ant has no quarrel with a boot," Loki bit back.

The man's scarred face relaxes a bit. "Are you planning to step on us?"

"I come with glad tidings," Loki responds, a bit of offense covering his words. "of a world made free."

"Free from what?" 

"Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart," He pauses and turns around, placing the tip of the staff on the heart of the man who recognized Loki's name. "You will know peace." The man's eyes turned a glassy blue and he fell into a trance. 

The one-eyed man spoke again. "Yeah, you say 'peace' but I kinda think you mean the other thing."

Another man with brown hair walked up to me. "Ma'am Director Fury is stalling." My eyes met his and the blue of his eye gave away that he was working for us. "This place is about to blow and drop a hundred feet of rock on us." I stared at the blue cloud of energy that was beginning to get brighter by the second. "He means to bury us."

"Like the pharaohs of old," Fury admits, tilting his head in an attempt to intimidate us. 

"He's right," The balding man says, staring at some kind of machine. "The portal is collapsing in on itself. We got maybe two minutes before this goes critical."

I stared at this man wondering how my brother knew him and how much he cared for him. How upset would he be that this man was under our control? I wanted to know.

"Well then," Loki says, pushing his shoulder into the man. 

I flinch a little when a loud pop comes from some strange weapon that the man in all black was holding. Fury falls back, dropping the case on the ground. 

Realizing that I knew no one's name, I also realized I could change that. 

Clint. Eric.

A proud feeling puts a smirk on my face. I'd always needed physical contact to read someone's mind. Now, they just had to be near me. I look down at my hand, admiring the power of the ring from Heimdall.

Loki puts his arm around my shoulder as we begin to walk. Clint picks up the case as we go. Five seconds on this planet and we'd already succeeded. 

Now, we just needed to find a way to stabilize the Tesseract so we could open the portal to Thanos again.