Elemental {Avengers}

22. Nothing is permanent

10 minutes later, Loki had picked out a Jeep and a Land Rover, and had driven the latter to where I had dumped the car in the forest, behind a large bush; it would likely rust before anyone found it.

" Maeve. I'm really sorry, okay? Sometimes, I forget that my powers that that much energy. All I wanted was to give your mind a little nudge, was all. Nothing too-"

" Loki" I stated, voice firm. " It's done, Okay? I'm not actually that mad with you. Maybe it's just because of the whole Spectre thing. Has me on edge."

He looked at me with narrow eyes. " I just don't understand. If the you were indeed given those powers with the intent of using them against us, I don't understand why they didn't mind-control you well before now. When the Spectre was stolen in the first place."

" You think that my powers were created so that I could serve someone else. Someone other than Madam B" I said, unsure. " You think that I was 'created' to do something other than assassinating. To serve the Sceptre." 

" Perhaps. It explains why you were sent to kill Romanoff and Barton just after it was stolen. To wipe out any immediate threats. Why you didn't know anything about it being stolen, despite your connection to the black market, connection to Dimochka. I suspect that when you got back from your mission, they would have the Spectre in hand, mind-controlled you, and then reeked havoc on whomever they pleased using you as their weapon."

" Why wouldn't they choose one of the Avengers to mind-control? Why me?"

" I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with your connection to it. Maybe it could maximise its powers by feeding off of you"

I cringed at the thought. " You make it sound like-"

A loud snap of a twig.

We both flicked our heads to the source of the sound, the cars and equipment forgotten.

Could it have been a deer? Or a bear?

The forest was completely still; nothing made a sound save for the bird calls of the rising sun, dawn nearly upon us. And the more I concentrated on the absence of sound, the more I felt an unwavering presence of... something. Someone.

I stepped, into the dark, not knowing where exactly I was headed too. A flicker of something; a jacket, in the darkness, the fur of it's hood brushing against the hard surface of a pine tree almost 15 metres away. A leaf dropping to the ground, the branch it came from shaking. A snap of a twig behind us sent our heads flying the other way.

And then, a shift in the air.

It reminded me of that last lesson in the Red Room, having to feel the air, movement in space, to defend myself, to attack without sight.

In an instant, I whipped my arm out towards Loki, hand open, sending a shoot of power, of ice towards him in a split second. In that short expanse of time, a loud bang, diffused by a silencer ripped through the forest, interrupting the eerie quiet. And we both turned out heads once again to see a bullet, embedded in a stalagmite of ice, just inches from Loki's brain.

He looked at that bullet, trapped from it's destiny, in fear, our shaky breaths the only sound, for now. He stared at me, as if to say 'thank you', but didn't dare, not when there were threats in our vicinity. Threats, that would very soon take our lives, or even our wills.

I spoke to Loki through my mind, loud and clear for him to recognise as my own. We will have to fight. Take down every single one, or they will follow us. Don't escape through the car. Here. I threw him some daggers I had bought from New York. Short and Sharp. I armed myself with an air of chill, a breath of ice.