She walked toward him with grace and seduction, like she was approaching a throne, not a gun.
James finally saw her clearly.
She wasn't just "pretty." She was dangerously hot.
The kind of beauty that made weak men fight like a god of sparta. A beauty that could rival the spark of the Trojan War.
Lorelei leaned in close—too close—and gently ran her fingertips along his gun. Teasing it, as she looked at his eyes and gave him a flirtatious look.
"You're different," she murmured. "I can feel your strength. You will protect me from now on… won't you?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lorelei's voice and touch made James's skin crawl, not out of disgust or discomfort, more like his body wanted to yield.
Then the Space Stone within him reacted, a cold and domineering pulse of blue energy flooded through his system and shredded the sensation before it could take root.
[Foreign influence detected. Space Stone response causes rejection. Purging interference.]
James remained staring at her like nothing happened, but he kept himself guarded for anymore influence intrusion.
'So that's it,' he thought at Cortana. 'She injects her own energy—threads it into the nervous system and makes men want to obey. No wonder they couldn't resist.'
Lorelei mistook his stillness for a successful mind control and slowly lowered his weapon.
*Bang*
At point-blank range, James fired the cryo pistol into her torso.
Blue frost-stripes spread across where she was hit—then stopped, like they hit a wall.
Lorelei didn't freeze up.
She stared at him with pure disbelief. "You… attacked me?"
James hadn't expected that kind of resistance, especially from a sorcerer who specialized in mind control.
Lorelei's reflexes snapped in immediately.
She slapped the pistol away with a backhand and smacked her palm toward his chest.
James moved on instinct, dodging as adrenaline flooded in slowing the everything down.
Lorelei followed with another, turning the palm into a fist and striking with real force.
James dodged again by mere millimeters and countered with a punch into her stomach.
*Bang*
A normal person would've folded and stayed down.
But as an Asgardian, Lorelei only staggered back a few steps, coughed then got back to her stance like it was nothing.
James frowned.
He'd never taken a full close combat duel with an Asgardian. Now he understood the baseline: their bodies were built different.
He was used to holding back, but it was still enough to cave in a mortal man.
Yet she'd barely yielded.
[Asgardian physiology recorded. High durability and recovery. Without armor, your win condition is speed and sustained damage.]
James exhaled. "Time for a good ol' fashioned throw down."
He didn't equip the Umbra Sentinel nor the Asgardian armor.
He stepped in again and traded blows.
Lorelei's technique was clean—good guard, good timing, and hard counters. Able to exploit any openings, but every blow that land, felt like hitting a pillow.
Her speed just wasn't there, speed was the one thing he could dominate her on.
James stopped trying to "fight properly" and leaned into what he was: the base instinct of a predator.
With his Hyper senses and improved reaction timing with Cortana, he delivered feints, hooks, body blows, and hard vacuum slaps to the ear to destabilize her.
Every throw and kick she managed to land, James simply moved his body to follow, making him sustain zero damage.
She went for a heavy uppercut but she missed, James extended his hand and delivered a tickle attack on her exposed armpit.
The unexpected attack shocked her with a giggle as she backed away, completely losing her rhythm, James didn't let her rest as he delivered punches and kicks, Lorelei kept backing up, feeling dizziness, vertigo, and confusion from this mortal.
She was losing the fight with his dirty tactics, what's more infuriating is when he manages to get behind her, he would deliver a hard slap to her butt making it sting.
Coulson and the others finished clearing the bar's front and started making their way to the back. When they reached the back door and saw James throwing hands on a woman, they froze.
Lorelei ate a nice clean hook to her chin, making it wobble and jostling her brain, she lost balance and fell down.
She regained her bearings and glared up at him, furious and humiliated. "Are you even a man?"
James blinked, genuinely thrown off. "Whats that supposed to mean?"
The team looked just as confused.
Lorelei stood herself back up, with burning fury. "Why aren't you mesmerized by be? How can you call yourself a man and hit a woman like that?"
'Oh.'
James understood now.
He answered with his fist—another hard punch straight to the side of her temple.
"You don't get to question my manliness, I believe in equality," he said coldly. "Besides you're a criminal, surrender yourself."
Sif stepped in, blade at Lorelei's throat. She took out a collar and clamped it on her.
The device sealed Lorelei's mouth. No voice, no song, no touchy mind control.
Sif smiled down at her. "This is the knight personally conferred by His Majesty, Odin. He defeated you with pure strength and skill alone. For an Earthborn mortal, he is… exceptional."
Then she looked at James, a hint of disbelief in her eyes. "I didn't expect you to resist her spell."
James spread his hands, being casual. "Anyone with enough WILL can resist anything."
[uhum] He chose to ignore it.
Coulson walked up, looking at James like he'd just seen a new super agent get field-tested. "I didn't expect your willpower to be that strong. I was worried she'd take control of you. If she had… we would've had a real problem."
James snorted at that statement. "You would've called the Avengers."
"And we still might not have been able to subdue you," Coulson admitted.
James didn't say what he was thinking.
Without the Space Stone's rejection, Lorelei would've been a different kind of threat, and the Stone's dominance was a double-edged blade—if it wouldn't allow foreign energy into his system, then the Aether wasn't coming out either.
Lorelei glared at him through the collar, rage shaking in her eyes.
May and the others kept giving him strange looks.
James couldn't control that, he'd done his job.
Sif took Lorelei back to Asgard, and the team returned back to base.
Back on the BUS, Skye and the others listened to Coulson's recap, then stared at James like he was gay.
James didn't pay attention to it. He retreated to his room, out of sight, out of mind.
A moment later, the door opened.
Skye stepped in, shut it, and looked at him stretched out on the bed.
She climbed onto the mattress snaking her way toward James.
James kept his eyes closed. He didn't have to look to know it was her.
Skye traced a hand along his torso, then leaned in close and breathed against his ear—in clear seduction.
James's hand snapped up, caught her wrist, and rolled her under him in one clean domination.
With her hands bound above her head and clearly trapped under him, she leaned up and dared him. He leaned down and kissed her, stealing her every breath.
Slowly knocking on her lips with his tongue, she parted her mouth and ravaged her tongue, doing cherry twists and tangos with their tongue, occasionally biting her lips, and moaning for that vibrational tension.
They parted after a long moment, breathing hard from their dance.
James gave a smirk at her flushed face. "You here to check if I'm a man?"
Skye grinned, satisfied. "Mm-hm, and what I found pleased me." She slipped out from under him, light and pleased. "You're definitely a man."
She backed toward the door, eyes bright. "But you're still on probation."
Then she darted out, laughing, and left him alone blue balled.
Vacations were always pleasant—but this time, Coulson didn't lock himself in his office.
Instead, he took his beloved car, Lola, and disappeared.
No one knew where he was going, and that made James feel the clock was ticking.
He took the flash drive May had given him and started digging through it. The files were tied to an old program Coulson had once overseen—an attempt to revive key assets, originally framed around Avengers-level contingencies.
Some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who'd been terminal had volunteered. Their bodies were repaired, but their minds weren't.
They showed the same pattern: instability, obsession, and compulsive carving of symbols, always being the same patterns. An image that wouldn't leave them alone, a city that wouldn't let go.
James already knew what it was: an alien city buried on Earth. If they saw a model of it—really saw it—most of them stabilized. The answer quieted the compulsions.
Simple, in theory, but In practice? Those kinds of answers always came with risk.
James scanned the profiles. One subject had built his own model and hadn't relapsed since. James marked him as priority.
Another subject was worse, violent and predatory, with escalating ideas. If that person tipped over, he'd start hunting people.
James finished the review and made the call. If the altered memory wasn't deeply ingrained, then seeing the city model could keep them from spiraling into psychosis.
He spent the entire day moving around.
By the time he returned, he'd already relocated the three closest subjects to the base. Three more were farther out—but they would take more time to retrieve.
He was planning to brief May and head back out.
May was already there coming to him before he could even call for her.
"Phil didn't come back," she said. "He's been gone all day. I can't contact him."
"You think he went missing?"
"Yes." May's tone didn't waver. "Coulson doesn't go out of contact all day, not without telling someone, this is abnormal of him."
James grew worried as well. "Have you gotten Fitz to trace his footsteps? See if his tracker is alive?"
May shook her head. "Already done, we found nothing. His phone is either off or destroyed. And his car is sitting in a parking lot all day."
She kept going with what she knew.
"We pulled the surveillance recordings in the area. Today's records were erased. Whether we can restore them is unknown."
James went quiet, Coulson vanished and it smelled like a kidnapping.
He didn't need to guess hard who had a motive. John Garrett, he would want answers, answers about resurrection, answers about what Coulson knew.
"Got it, I'll see what I can do," James said. "Tell Fitz to grab his gear and wait with Skye, we will be going to the parking lot. You will stay here and find some leads with Simmons."
May nodded.
James moved immediately, loading up with equipment. Even if he could guess the reason, finding the who and where was another matter.
And this wasn't following a neat script anymore.
Too much had changed.
James drove a standard SUV as Skye sat beside him, anxiety in her voice.
"Is Phil really missing? He's a Level Eight agent and he was driving Lola. Who can just… take him?"
James kept his eyes forward. "One of us can."
Skye blinked. "What do you mean?"
James exhaled. He hadn't wanted to do it like this—but the timing was gone.
"I didn't want to tell you yet," he said. "But with this happening, you need to be ready."
He glanced at the console, then spoke clearly.
"Fitz—open a team channel. Everyone needs to hear this."
Fitz didn't argue. "Okay." The comm line opened.
May's voice cut in. "Did you find anything?"
"Not yet," James said. "But this is bigger than a missing agent. Listen carefully, May, Simmons, Fitz."
His tone hardened.
"This is top secret intel that none of you have clearance for. But the situation calls for all of you to know. After you hear it, you keep it shut, no one must ever know about this. A simple work termination won't be the end of it."
The line went silent.
James spoke evenly. "Hydra is inside S.H.I.E.L.D., deeply embedded in the organization. It's been there for a long time."
The comm stayed silent—then gasped and shocked exclamations.
May was the first to recover. "If that's true… then only New York is clean and HQ would be compromised. What about the other divisions? If we make the wrong move, we'll lose people."
"Yes," James said. "That is if we moved blind. That was the old problem."
He kept his voice steady. "Now we have a solution, but it takes time. I'm telling you this because you're the few people I can trust. From this point on, no matter what happens, you keep this secret. The decisive fight between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra is coming."
Skye cut in. "Can I be trusted too?"
James didn't hesitate. "Yes."
He glanced at her. "Give me your hand."
Skye offered both hands, confused.
James tapped the metal ring on her arm. "Remove restrictions."
The ring released with a soft mechanical click.
James held her gaze. "Take it off. When Phil comes back, he'll test you. You're not ready for a full field status yet—but your training's improved. You can now be evaluated as a full agent."
He didn't sugarcoat it. "Best case, you start at Level One. If you perform well, you can push to Level Three."
Simmons's voice came through. "How do you tell who's Hydra?"
James answered without hesitation. "Because I can read minds."
The team was put in stunned silence.
"It requires physical contact," James continued, "and it drains me every single time. But I used it at HQ while I was building the Helicarrier's smart system—Athena. That's how I identified embedded personnel."
Skye's voice cracked with disbelief. "You can really read minds?"
"So read everyone else's," Fitz muttered, half-dazed.
"Yes," James said. "But I'm telling you now: I have never used it on any of you."
Skye immediately pushed back, suspicious on instinct. "Are you telling the truth?"
James's mouth twitched. "Honest to my life."
He glanced at her. "If I had, I don't think we'd still be calling it a probation period."
Skye froze—then understood what he meant.
A moment later she huffed. "Hmph! Fine probations over, you passed."