Reign

Chapter 7: Illusions and Fear

Ash screeched in fear before shouting, "Natasha!!" The SHIELD agent shot out of her seat and rushed to the counter to where Ash stood, pressed against the wall. Ash covered her eyes as tears ran down her face. "He- he's back!"

There were gasps from within the coffee shop as many people now saw the Asgardian figure walk past the window of the coffee shop. He turned and looked into the window, directly at Ash with a smile. Ash saw this between her fingers and only whimpered with deep fear.

Natasha pressed a button on her belt and shouted, "Everyone stay in here!" She ran across the coffee shop and to the clear glass doors until she felt something invisible tug her ankles causing her to fall to the ground. In a flash of green, strong steel restraints hugged her ankles together, hugged her wrists together, and clamped her arms to her body.

Ash leaned over the counter and exclaimed, "Natasha!"

"Oh, yes," A smooth voice came from behind Ash, "Everyone, stay in here." The room felt as though it got darker.

Ash attempted to slip around the counter but Loki caught her arm and pulled her against his chest. He held her arms against him as one hand was firm around her neck. Ash attempted pulling away as she cried out, "Let me go!"

His cold hand only seemed to grow tighter around her neck as he whispered into her ear, "I would not test me if I were you..." She whimpered as everyone in the room was still. There was uncertainty in the air as Loki looked at all of them with a harsh glare. "Is this how you mortals react to your ruler? You simply sit and stare as fools? Kneel before me!" They hesitantly got to their knees as they had no other escape from the angry god. But he smiled as he once again looked around; that was, until his gaze fell onto the fallen SHIELD agent. "Isn't this a familiar scene? Wouldn't you think so, Natasha?"

She struggled to sit up against the restraints as she ordered, "Let her go, Loki."

"This one is mine until I am the ruler of this world! The Chitauri will get the Tesseract and I will have Earth as my own!" Ash made a small noise of pain and Loki slightly loosened his grip, not knowing just how tight he had begun to hold her.

There was suddenly the crack of thunder outside as Loki knew exactly what that meant. He smiled at Natasha and nodded his head. "Until next time." He smirked at Ash and whispered into her ear, "I've done my part... It's your turn..." He vanished in a puff of green smoke. In actuality he simply returned to his form as a black cat, not that anyone else could have seen that.

Ash collapsed to the floor as she leaned against the wall with her knees wrapped tightly to her heaving chest. She remained where she was, shivering and crying as people began to rush from the building.

As the group of Avengers ran into the building, the steel around Natasha suddenly vanished and Clint helped her to her feet. She announced, "Loki got away..."

As they silently looked at each other, they heard the less than silent sobbing coming from behind the counter.

"Ash?" Clint looked over the counter, finding the young girl hiding against the wall, tears streaming down her face as she held her cat close to her. She didn't respond to her name as she seemed to be in far too much shock to answer.

Ash just couldn't believe what had happened. She followed through with Loki's plan, as much as it really frightened her to have had his hand wrapped around her neck. She knew that Loki wasn't aware of the fact that she hadn't been able to breathe in his tightening grasp. But she felt his frustration with these people and with Natasha. What would she do were he to ever get so angry with her? She had just experienced it. He was stronger, more powerful than her. She had no doubt that he would be able to kill her in such a quick motion.