Avengers X Eternals

Nick Fury

Nick Fury hung up the phone with Coulson sighing to himself. He respected Coulson immensely, he was one of the best field agents he had yet just as of recently he had miserably failed twice. More than anything he didn't want to point blame at the man; Fury trusted him without question.

Maybe it was the situation, he tried to tell himself. Maybe the people he was trying to recruit were simply not interested in defending the planet. Although, why wouldn't they be interested in defending the planet when that woman, Ajax, had deliberately ordered her soldier to not let any humans get harmed.

Maybe it wasn't Coulson's morals, but instead his ability. He made a mental note to watch his next missions carefully, just to check up on him and make sure his skills didn't need some fine-tuning.

The other thing that frustrated him was that once again he was caught with his pants down. A potential threat in the mystery-powered people and a definite threat in the deviants; now he'd have to go to the World Council and explain how with his massive operating budget he didn't know of their existence. It was another reminder of how little he knew about his own backyard.

But for now, he pushed the problem from his mind. His biggest concern now was the tesseract, and building weapons that could be used against the exact people in question. He stepped out of the backroom and greeted Doctor Eric Selvig, the astrophysicist responsible for maintaining the breach caused by the tesseract.

"Tell me about it, Doctor?"

"The cube," the man was practically breathless from enthusiasm, "she's beautiful. She's the key to everything we've been searching for." He held up his hands in a praising gesture. "She has completely changed our understanding of the universe and energy."

That was exactly what Nick Fury wanted to hear. He smiled unconvincingly nonetheless. "Why should I care?"

They were talking in stride as Doctor Eric Selvig brought him up close and personal with the tesseract. Being closer to its presence, Nick Fury had to admit it had an allure to it. A radius of power that made him want to stare.

"Theoretically, we could use the cube to open a breach, a portal if you will, to any point in the universe. That's what we set up down here." The Doctor motioned to a circular-looking contraption on the other side of the room.

"Interesting," Fury posed. He then looked up to the rafters where Hawkeye's keen eyes watched over the scene. He made a gesture and the ex-assassin jumped on a rope and slid down. They met at the center of both of their routes.

"What do you think about all this?"

"The science, I don't know enough to begin to understand it all. But I trust the doctor's word in that it could be useful. What about you, how has the search for the Avengers been coming along?"

Nick Fury didn't say anything.

"That bad?"

"Stark doesn't want to do anything without his name on it. The God, Thor, is still God knows where in space and I have no way to contact him. I plan to send Natasha to recruit Bruce Banner once she's finished up a side mission she is running for me but he's not known to work well in a team. Then we had four really promising candidates that all disappeared like smoke."

"Have you gone to Captain America yet?" Barton had nearly been fully briefed on the subject.

"I wanted to save the guarantee for last, but it looks like I may need my desert soon." Fury shuffled his feet and stopped behind a shelf of scientific-looking equipment.

Suddenly a blaring screech cut through the building, ratting the rafters of the shelves and making Fury spin in a slow circle. Trying to determine the origin of the noise. He wasn't completely sure but it sounded close to what Coulson had described. But when the beast broke through the double doors at the end of the hallway Fury knew it was cut from the same cloth.

It was made of nightmarish black and green skin and crawled on all fours like an apex predator stalking its prey. Fury upholstered his gun but kept it lowered. The doctors didn't have the same field training and broke out everywhere in screams. Like a hawk, it picked them off one by one, and soon a squad started firing from another side. Barton raised his bow and loosed a shot with no effect.

Then if his day couldn't have gotten any stranger, suddenly the ceiling caved in. Bricks of all sizes of cement cascaded into the room and fell everywhere. Once the dust settled, Fury saw a man innocently hovering just below the massive crater. The expression on his face was almost boring.

Lasers fired from his eyes and hit the beast, sending it into a fit of screams and wails of pain. Satisfied, the man lowered himself completely and quickly dashed into it. The sound his fist made when connecting with its hide was nothing short of incredible.

Barton had an arrow lined for his head. Nick Fury slowly raised his hand and lowered the bow. Fury stepped out from behind and puffed out his chest. "Excuse me."

The flying stranger turned to him and slowly approached. Barton was quiet but tense at his side. He knew if it came to a fight he would try to defend him although Fury also knew it would've been useless.

"What do you want?" His accent was thick with years and layers, not originating from any specific place Fury recognized.

"To thank you, for saving our lives."

He shrugged, "just doing my job."

Before Nick Fury could give his Avengers pitch the tesseract started acting up. Shooting bursts of energy everywhere until eventually a steady beam of light illuminated from the gunnel. It intersected the small circle and slowly a portal began to form. Eventually settling as a giant black hole in the center of the room.

Not even the stranger seemed to know what to make of it. He jumped up close to it and looked around, seemingly noting nothing significant. Until the portal collapsed into itself. Leaving only a humanoid figure in its wake.

Fury tentatively stepped forward, Barton had another arrow drawn. The strange flying man stood directly over the figure. "Who are you?" He demanded.

The crouching figure stood up and met the superpowered man eye to eye. For a second he looked confused. In his right hand, he held a scepter of some kind with a glowing orb at the center of it. The stranger walked around and surveyed the room. He brought the staff up, almost defensively, then brought it down onto the other stranger's chest. He did nothing to stop it but the second it touched his chest, Fury could tell something had changed.

The super-powered stranger that had just protected them, overlooked the crowd. His eyes now glowed an impossible blue. Fury was 100% certain that wasn't his eye color three seconds ago. Barton detected the same thing and loosed the arrow he had notched.

The new stranger, the one that came through the portal, caught it with ease. "My name is Loki, of Asgard. I have come to show you into the light. To bring you into the future. To save you."

Fury glanced above Loki, just where he'd come in a portal was beginning to form. So he stepped up, giving everyone else time to run. "What if we don't need to be saved?"

Loki huffed a laugh. "Nobody realizes they need to be saved until they are." The stranger who had just flown through the building turned his head towards Fury and he had half the mind to dive out of the way just before an energy blast from his eyes lit up just where he'd been standing. The impact sent him spiraling across the room and into a low pit. 

When he was finally able to find his feet, Fury looked around. There were a couple of dead bodies of fallen soldiers and scientists. But more importantly, nobody else was alive. Barton was nowhere to be seen as well as Doctor Eric Selvig.

That probably meant that whatever happened with the mystery flying man had also happened with them, or that they'd gotten away. Although with his luck today, Fury had a hard time believing the ladder was the case.