Clint Barton could only watch through the massive screen in front of him as he watched the thing in control of his body board a Quinjet. He wanted control of his body back, he wanted to warn Nat, he wanted to do so many things but no matter what he couldn't wrest control back. "Ah, this type of mind control. The most mentally damaging type in my opinion." Said a female voice, that hadn't come from outside. Clint made a quick 180, and looked in surprise at the alien horse he had left behind at the blown up Shield base.
"Who the hell are you?" Clint said defensively, readying himself for a fight.
"Relax, draw too much attention to me and the spell will detect my intrusion. I came here on behalf of Nick Fury and Natasha Romanoff." Clint was a bit skeptical, but Fury had tried to recruit crazier.
"Alright, now, I need you to tell me where you are, and where is the Tesseract?" Clint relaxed more, knowing that Fury still wanted the Tesseract out of dangerous hands.
"The Tesseract has been moved to New York, as for me, I'm boarding a Quinjet to attack the Helicarrier. You have to warn Fury." Clint said, turning back to look out the screen.
"Okay, I can't break the spell as is, but once we meet, I can break it then. Stay strong Barton, and know this, all of this is Loki's fault. What this spell is doing isn't you." Nightmare said as she turned to walk out of the dream realm. However, when she had entered the mindscape, the spell had begun trying to find the intrusion. And at her moment of leaving, it had found her and attacked brutally.
Back on the Helicarrier, Fury and Natasha were watching Nightmare carefully, not exactly sure what to watch or wait for. At the table, Steve and Tony were talking. "What do you think Cap? About her." Tony asked, gesturing at the Alicorn.
"She seems to want to help. Why, I still don't know. I don't know her past, or anything about her really. I was just as surprised as anyone here when I first saw her. So I can't really say anything about her." Steve's mind flashed back to that wink she had sent his way, and felt his face get a bit hot. "But I think I can safely say she doesn't mind exploring outside her own species." Tony blinked, not expecting that at all.
"And how can you say that so surely?" Tony asked, ever the gossip guy. Steve was about to try and dodge the question, though his attempt would have gone horribly, when Nightmare screamed out in agony, her eyes flying open to show glowing white eyes. Her wings shot out, smacking away Natasha who had been closest to Nightmare. Nightmare screamed for several seconds, before collapsing on her side. Fury was the first one to check on her, putting his hand on her neck to check for a pulse. After several moments of searching, he sighed in relief and looked up at the others after taking his hand away from her neck.
"She's alive, unconscious, but alive."
"What the hell was that?" Bruce asked, concerned.
"I don't know. If I had to speculate, the thing that has Barton under control attacked Ms. Moon. And until she wakes up, we don't know anything. Stark, Doctor Banner, back to Plan A. See if you can track the Tesseract by analyzing Loki's staff." Fury said, picking up Nightmare's limp body. He had a bit of trouble with her wings, as they had also fallen limp. Eventually he adjusted her so he held her like one would a large dog, her neck hanging down against his back over his left shoulder. Thankfully her mane still moved like a cloud, so Fury was able to push it out of his way fairly easily.
Everyone on the bridge watched as Fury carried off Nightmare, Natasha close behind. Natasha felt like Nightmare was her best way of getting Clint back, and she would be damned if anything happened to her before she was able save Clint.
Loki sat in his cell, staring at his hands. He needed to rile up the beast before Barton attacked, otherwise his plan would fall apart. It had started to when that damn horse interrupted his spell. 'As long as she is here, I can't do anything.' Loki thought, his scowl deepening. 'And how dare she lay her filthy hooves on me! I think she'd make a nice new cape after all of this is said and done.' Loki then shot up, seamingly to stare straight ahead.
Loki then grinned as it seemed he would be able to get his plan back on track after all. He would have to be careful though, with the greater distance he needed to put more power into the spell which would make it more noticeable, even to a mortal. Loki closed his eyes, and began concentrating. Soon a small ball of green mist formed between his hands. Loki was beginning to sweat, but didn't stop. After a few more moments of fortifying and adding a few more components to the spell, he sent it off. Loki gasped, sweating profusely.
Bruce and Tony were in the lab Bruce had been brought to earlier. Bruce was waving a scanner over the jewel part of Loki's staff/spear. The scanner was letting out rapid beeps like a Geiger Counter but a lot deeper. Bruce looked from the staff to the screen above it and spoke. "Yeah, gamma readings are definitely consistent with that of Selvig's reports for the Tesseract. But it's gonna take weeks to process."
Tony, who was across the lab, walked up to a black box that had it's lid propped up by a glass pane. At Tony's approach however, the glass pane turned blue and a screen appeared on it. "If we bypass their mainframe and direct route to the Homer Cluster we can clock this at around six hundred teraflops." Tony said as he tapped and slid a few things around on the screen. When he finished speaking he began walking towards Bruce. Bruce let out a chuckle before responding.
"Heh, All I packed was a toothbrush." Tony let out a chuckle himself before making a suggestion to the scientist.
"You know you should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R&D. You'd love it, it's Candy Land." Bruce's once small smile turned into a frown.
"Thanks but last time I was in New York I broke…" Bruce hesitated before finishing. "Harlem." Bruce could still barely remember seeing the aftermath of his fight with Emil Blonsky on the news, and he cringed inwardly. Tony could see this, so he tried to alleviate any fears while walking behind Bruce.
"Well, I promise a stress-free environment. Tension. No surprises." Tony pressed a small metal rod into Bruce's midsection which let out an electrical discharge. Bruce turned to face Stark as he lightly winced from the sudden pain like he had been pinched there.
"Ow!" All Tony did was lean in, looking his face over.
"Hey!" Steve said as he walked into the lab. Tony, ignoring him, just asked Bruce one question.
"Nothing?"
"Are you nuts?" Tony answered swiftly and quite worryingly while turning his head to answer Steve before looking back at Bruce.
"Jury's out. You really have got a lid on it haven't you? What's your secret, mellow jazz, bongo drums, huge bag of weed?" Steve, who could hardly believe what he was hearing, spoke.
"Is everything a joke to you?"
"Funny thing." Tony responded. Tony heard the soft chuckle Bruce gave, finding Tony's demeanor childish and refreshing. With everyone walking on eggshells around him, it was a nice change of pace to have someone like Tony be able to joke around with him, even if it was a bit at his expense.
"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny… no offense doc." And back to the eggshells.
"I- it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle," Bruce cast a glance at Tony, "pointy things." Tony left out a soft snort as he walked away from Bruce. "Speaking of which, how's she doing?" Tony and Bruce paused what they were doing to look at Steve.
"Resting. Natasha is going to interrogate Loki. Whatever hit Nightmare, hit her hard." Steve said after a moment of thought. "I think out of all of us, Natasha and Fury were hit hardest when she fell." Steve shivered himself, that scream would haunt his dreams for a while.
"Well yeah, she was their best shot at Agent Barton." Tony said, still not liking even the idea of magic. Heck, how is he supposed to defend against something that has no recorded weakness? If he faces magic in the future, he'll need to make his suit resistant to it, at the least. Heck, not just his suit, himself as well. Freaking mind control spells, how was he supposed to combat that?!
"Actually, I think they are starting to look at her like she is one of their own. She's clearly shown she is willing to help them, her past is… a bit messed up, but I think they see potential in her." This got the billionaire's and super soldier's attention.
"You know of her past?" Tony asked, intrigued.
"Told me and Natasha herself. From what I could gather she was a co-ruler of some civilization but her sister hogged the spotlight. Nightmare got jealous and eventually enough was enough. They got into a fight, with her sister banishing Nightmare from her home."
"So she wants to be appreciated for her share of the work?" Steve asked.
"Which is exactly what she has been getting here when she started helping us. She isn't evil, she just… feels unloved and underappreciated for the work she does." The room was silent for a while, thinking this over.
"So she's an emo teen no one understands?" While Steve glanced at Tony questioningly, Bruce just sighed. "Doesn't matter, soon I'll have everything S.H.I.E.L.D. has on her and the Tesseract." This made the two turn to the billionaire.
"What?" Steve said, not liking where this was going.
"Let's just look at the facts. Fury said he wanted to use the Tesseract to power the world. So why didn't he come to me, the biggest name in clean, sustainable energy? In fact, what is Shield doing in the energy business anyways?" Steve scoffed but Bruce gave his own slice.
"Steve, you gotta admit that that is at least a little fishy. Why call Tony in now? Not then? I'm pretty sure we know the answer that we don't like, but without hard evidence, we can't exactly confront Fury about it." Steve, though reluctant, had to admit that something was off.
"Keep tracking the Cube." Steve said as he went off to find his own evidence of their claims.