Nightmare

The Ant and The Boot

Just as the scepter touches my chest, I see Clint is behind me. Slowly, subtly, I lightly touch Clint's finger nail and try to make him do something tiny, like blink twice.

I mentally reach into the fortress of my mind, and suddenly I'm not in control anymore. I wander through the detail-less rooms of the abandoned castle in my mind, which I've done only once before when told I could do it, and never tried again until now. I have whispered my will to my mind, and now it have obeys without me in control. I hold my hand out in the empty void of a corridor and my mind calls something towards me. It reaches my hand and I see that it is an embodiment of someone's mind. Clint's mind. It has a glowy blue aura surrounding it, probably the effect of the scepter. Blink twice, my mind directs Clint's.

I turn back to reality and open my eyes as my vision turns black. The blue energy from the scepter reaches my chest, and I feel no different when my vision starts to clear. And then I get a migraine, which also happened the first time.

"Please don't," Loki says to someone behind me. I don't need to turn to see that now Fury has put the Tesseract into a briefcase and is trying to sneak out of the room. "I still need that."

"We have no quarrel with your people," Fury tells him.

"An ant has no quarrel with a boot."

"Are you planning to step  on us?" I hear Fury's voice and turn around.

"I come with glad tidings, of a world made free."

"Free from what?"

"Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart... You will know peace."

"Yeah, you say peace, I kind of think you mean the other thing."

From the vacuum chamber ceiling, the Tesseract's energy cloud rapidly builds into what may become an implosion.

"Director Fury is stalling. This place is about to blow and drop a hundred feet of rock on us. He means to bury us," I say, turning back to Loki, playing along.

"Like the pharaohs of old," he responds as I glare at him as I turn around, winking and sticking out my tongue really fast so he knows I'm still on his side. If Loki sees me do it, he might see it as me mocking him, but Fury knows what I mean by this.

"He's right. The portal is collapsing in on itself. You got maybe two minutes before this goes critical," Selvig interferes.

Without hesitation, Clint shoots Fury, and even though I know he's going to survive, it's all I can do to keep from flinching.

(+)

We walk into a garage—well, I hobble with the crutch—with a bunch of SHIELD vehicles, passing Maria Hill.

"Who's he?" Maria asks Clint, nodding to Loki.

"He didn't tell me," Clint lies, continuing to walk in between me and Loki. Selvig and four turned guards walk behind us.

I hear a crackling noise come from Maria's walkie talkie and hear Fury's voice. "Hill, do you copy?"

Loki and Clint look at her sharply.

"Agents Barton and 4-2-0 have turned," Fury says. Now I can't tell if he's playing along or actually believes I'm with this crazy green man.

All eight of us get into vehicles; Clint, me, Loki, a guard, and Selvig in one, and the other three guards in another. Loki sits in the back of the pickup truck, gripping his scepter as I swing into the passenger seat. Clint starts driving, but I know we're going to be intercepted soon.

Sure enough, Maria catches up to us in a car of her own, shooting through her windshield.

Loki throws a blast at her with the scepter, and she veers off sharply to the left, no longer behind us.

"Give me a gun," I order Clint.

"What?"

"Give me a gun. She's taking a shortcu--" Maria's car drives in front us, and since I was right, Clint throws me a gun as he rams our pickup truck into the side of her SHIELD vehicle.

Her car is pressed to the side of the tunnel when Clint pushes it from our path and zooms ahead.

I'm still hearing gunshots, and Clint's still driving, so I open my car window, poke my head out, and start shooting. My aim isn't too good, so instead of firing at her too many times, I focus on shooting at the wheels of her car, in fear of killing her.

Just before I run out of ammo, my bullet hits a tire and her car stops.

We drive away into the night, leaving her behind.

(+)

We've been driving for a few minutes when I look at the sideview mirror and see a chopper flying toward us. I know this is Fury when I see gunfire rain at the back of the car, where Loki is sitting.

Then I see a blast going to the helicopter and see it burst into flames. I also see a figure jumping out right before it crashes to the ground.

It's still pitch dark in the sky and around 2:00 AM when I pass out after a few minutes due to the migraine, the gun still held in my hand in an iron grip.

(+)

I wake up facing the window on my right, my crutch across my lap. I adjust my mask and look around me.

Selvig is driving now, and I see our other vehicle in front of us. If I peer closely at it, I can see four figures in there, so one of the guards that was in the pickup truck earlier probably transferred to that one. It's around 4:30 AM now.

Selvig is driving, and I turn around to see Loki and Clint in the back. Clint has a map of something pulled out and is discussing it with Loki quietly. My head throbs. I might be able to handle it if I have a Tylenol and some water, so I turn around in my seat to ask them if they have any.

"Hey, do you--" I wince at the pain in my head that just increased by ten. "Do either of you happen to have any Tylenol or water, cause my head hurts."

"No," Clint says, while Loki ignores me.

I turn back around, knowing it's really hard to get someone's attention if they're bent on acting like you're not there. "Selvig, do you have any water or Tylenol?"

He points to the small compartment in between the driver's seat and the passenger seat, keeping his eyes on the road. I open it and find a Tylenol tablet and an opened bottle of water. I pop a Tylenol tablet into my mouth and do a waterfall with the bottle, because someone lese drank from it already and because it's fun.

Then I lay my head back and close my eyes, hoping to fall back asleep, even though I know I can't because there is a madman right behind me.

Then the car in front of us takes a turn to the left, and Selvig follows suit. A few minutes later, we pull up to a rest stop.

I drop out of the car. Now is my chance to escape.