I Kneel to No One

Strange Attraction

"Just- here," she huffed, tearing off a page of the notebook I had given her. "You write things you want from me -appropriate things- and I'll write down things I want. Then we can match them up or whatever."

"As you wish," I replied. "I will take this page and note what I require of you, and you shall do the same. Tomorrow, we will compare our lists," I acquiesced.

Elizabeth seemed far too confident, and I did have to attend to the matter of the agent, whose name I did not care enough to learn. A tendril of cold anger wound through my chest when I recalled the reason I had come here in the first place- Elizabeth attempting to hide the man, for reasons I could not decipher.

"Actually, Beth-" I began, knowing exactly what she would say.

"It's Elizabeth," she interrupted.

My lip curled. As I suspected.

I pretended to be disappointed. "Really? I thought we were getting somewhere."

She gave me the most deadpan look I had ever seen, tilting her head in such a way that I could tell what she was thinking even without looking into her mind. I chuckled.

Straightening, I turned and walked over to the boy, who stood pretending to work on a part of my machine. His hands shook with the effort of not turning around as he felt me behind him.

I heard Elizabeth's heart rate speed up as I approached him. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

I turned the disheveled man around and tilted his chin up to look into his eyes. He fought to maintain his blank façade, but he failed miserably. His petrified, brown eyes confirmed my suspicions: this one was no longer under my control.

I grabbed the man by the throat and threw him to the ground with godly strength. My boots clacked on the floor as I prowled towards him.

"Get away from him!" Elizabeth yelled. She started to walk towards me, but with a wave of my hand, Barton held her back.

What is she doing WHAT IS SHE DOING- screamed Elizabeth's thoughts. Aside from reminding me of our first meeting, it struck me how the girl did not stutter or make even one mistake with my pronouns, even in her panicked state.

But that was irrelevant.

The hawk held her upper arms, unflinching even as Elizabeth yanked frantically against his grip. Unhurried, I stood over the man who had escaped, placed my foot on his chest to keep him in place, and lowered the point of my scepter to his chest.

...

Beth POV:

A tendril of blue light wound around the tip of the scepter and entered his chest. The man instantly stilled, and blue veins crawled their way up his neck. His eyes turned to black holes, void of all light and warmth, before giving way to the same cold blue as the Tesseract.

Loki turned on me with a deadly sneer curling her lips. "Did you really think you could deceive me? I am the God of Lies, you foolish maverick! I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that you were hiding something from me!"

"What the heck is a maverick?" I yelled back, blinking back tears.

Loki hesitated. "You!" she growled. Oh, very nice. Miss Silvertongue over here. Do you even know what that word means?