Hurtling over the Atlantic toward Germany, the Quinjet cabin was dark, illuminated only by the faint glow of the instrument panels.
Across the aisle, Steve Rogers sat strapped into a jump seat, his shield resting by his boots. While me watched the clouds blur past the small window in silence.
The silence between us hadn't gone unnoticed. Steve was a soldier accustomed to sizing up the men he went into the field with, and I offered no peace over that.
No rank. No uniform. Yet SHIELD granted me unrestricted access to their most secure assets.
And I had given him nothing to work with.
Leaning forward, he finally broke the silence. Up front, Natasha Romanoff glanced back, watching us through the windshield reflection.
"You're not military, Adrian," Steve stated.
"No."
"Then what's your role here?" Steve asked, keeping his tone perfectly polite. "Fury trusts you enough to put you on this jet. I just want to know who's covering my flank."
Turning my head, I met his earnest expression. He was a good man whom trying his best.
"You don't need to worry about my flank, Captain," I said. "I have very little value to this operation."
Steve frowned, unconvinced.
Before he could press the issue, I pulled my phone from my suit pocket and checked the GPS coordinates. We were nearing the drop zone.
Unbuckling my harness, I stood up and walked toward the back of the jet.
"Agent Romanoff. Open the ramp."
Natasha hesitated, her hands pausing on the flight controls. We were miles above the city, completely concealed by the cloud cover. But she remembered the crater in New Mexico. Pulling back on the throttle to slow our airspeed, she hit the release button.
The metal ramp lowered with a whine, letting the freezing, violent night air rush into the cabin.
Steve braced himself against the bulkhead, raising his voice over the wind. "Where are you going? We're still ten miles out."
"Nowhere."
Stepping off the edge of the ramp without a parachute, I let gravity pull me into the dark clouds below.
The ramp sealed shut, cutting off the invading wind. Steve stared at the empty space, utterly bewildered.
"Who exactly is he?" Steve asked, turning to the cockpit.
Natasha kept her eyes locked on the flight instruments. "Don't worry, Captain. He's not human."
.....
Down in Stuttgart, chaos gripped the plaza. People in evening wear poured out of the museum, screaming as Loki herded them toward the center of the square.
Landing silently on the slate roof of the museum, I stood near the stone gargoyles, watching the street below.
Loki struck the ground with his scepter. A wave of magic swept across the cobblestones, throwing up multiple illusions of himself to box the civilians in.
"Kneel before me!" Loki shouted, his voice echoing off.
Slowly, the terrified crowd dropped to the ground. Hundreds of people bowed their heads. Loki smiled, enjoying the theatrics as he twirled the glowing scepter and walked among them.
"Is not this simpler?" he announced to the kneeling masses. "Is this not your natural state?"
Remaining on the roof, I bypassed the physical space between us and projected my thoughts directly into the Loki's head.
I'm just wondering why a king is running errands.
Down in the plaza, Loki froze mid-step.
The arrogant smile vanished. He whipped his head around, scanning the cowering crowd. None of them had spoken; they were all too terrified to even breathe.
Loki gripped the scepter tighter, his knuckles whitening. "Who is there?" he muttered.
You talk of ruling these people, my voice echoed inside his mind. But you are holding someone else's weapon. Borrowed power. Tell me, Asgardian... when the Chitauri are done bleeding this world dry, do you really think the Titan lets you keep it?
Loki stepped backward, his composure fracturing. He looked around, trying to figure out how someone had slipped into his head and how they knew about his deep-space pact.
You are a very small prince, I whispered, striking the exact nerve of his insecurity. In a very large universe.
"Show yourself!" Loki yelled. Raising the glowing blue scepter, he aimed it wildly at the crowd, desperate to blast them just to silence the voice.
A shield dropped from the sky, slamming into his chest before he could fire. The impact knocked him backward onto the stone pavement. The shield ricocheted, flying back into the hands of Captain America, who had just hit the ground from the Quinjet above.
"You know," Steve said, walking forward. "The last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing."
Loki scrambled to his feet, off-balance and rattled from the psychological intrusion. Now he had a super-soldier standing in his way.
A heavy mechanical whine heard. The Quinjet hovered into view above the plaza, a machine gun locking onto the prince. A second later, a blast of repulsor energy scorched the cobblestones. Iron Man dropped from the sky, landing heavily between Loki and Steve.
Tony stood up, aiming his glowing gauntlets at the Asgardian. "Make a move, Reindeer Games."
Loki looked at the armor, then at the soldier, and finally at the sky. Outnumbered, outgunned, and still deeply unsettled by the unseen voice, he let the golden armor vanish from his body, leaving him in simple leather. He raised his hands in surrender.
From the shadows of the museum roof, I watched Tony and Steve take him into custody. The cold wind blew past my suit as the first piece of the board fell into place.