A/N: Hey guys, I'm really sorry for the long wait, but there was a lot of stuff going on recently. But I have all of the chapters for this story ready, so they'll be up and ready to go from here on out. Always awesome to hear back from you guys! So here's the next chapter, lots more action in this one, so it should be interesting to hear back from you about how I did! Anyways, let me know what you think :)

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I made sure to take my own sweet time on the walk back to my room, busy thinking of everything we had talked about.

I had really hoped that Loki would be able to change his mind; that he would come to his senses before it was too late. But when was it going to be too late? It had been several days now, and he still had no plan of escape. I feared that it would be soon that he would put his plan in motion, and when he did that, there would be no hope left for him.

And what was he talking about when he said I could be his Queen? He was nuts! How could he expect that I would just turn against my own kind, my friends and my family, just because I felt a little something for him?

But then again, wasn't I asking the same thing of him? To switch sides? It must seem as impossible for him to do as it did for me.

I sighed, and walked back to my room, getting a little tired. My nightmare had taken a lot out of me, and I so I decided to just go back to sleep. Something told me I may need the rest.

I was woken up the next morning by the obnoxious chirping of my alarm clock, and I practically smashed it in my attempt to make it stop screaming at me.

I groaned, and stretched out my limbs. I reluctantly got up and dressed in my usual skinny jeans and t-shirt, putting my gun in my holster. It was strange how my gun simply seemed to be a part of me now, like a third arm or leg. I haven't had the chance to use it much, but carrying its weight around all day every day has kind of gotten me attached to it.

Heading out of my room and to the lab, I took out my phone and began playing a game on it. I was almost to the lab when I could hear Steve yelling. I knew that Tony and Steve didn't get along very well, so it wasn't a surprise to see the fighting begin this early in the morning.

I walked into the lab, and everyone turned to face me. Steve looked really angry, Tony was simply amused, and Bruce looked like he was trying to hide in an invisible shell.

"Hey guys. What's up?" I asked. Tony rolled his eyes at Steve, and walked over to my side.

"The usual," He said. Now it was my turn to roll my eyes, and I shoved Tony playfully.

"And the usual involves yelling at each other?"

Tony smirked, and walked back over to Bruce's side.

"Well, Bruce and I both agree that Fury is hiding something pretty big, but Mr. Patriot over there is having a hard time believing it," He summed it up.

I raised my eyebrows at Tony, but turned to look at Steve.

"Steve?" I asked gently. He turned around to face me, his face red with anger.

"What do you know about this? You've been living with S.H.I.E.L.D. ever since you were a little girl. You must have something to share," He said.

I sighed, and thought about all of the locked doors I had seen while I was lost.

"Well, back at the old base, I knew everything that they tried to hide. But that was then, and this is now. There are two things I know for certain. One is that every S.H.I.E.L.D. base has its secrets, and since this is the headquarters, I wouldn't be surprised if they were hiding something bigger than all of the other base's secrets put together. Second, to prove that they have secrets, I came across some locked doors while I was wandering around the other day. They were somewhere in the East Wing, and they looked pretty important," I said.

"That's all I know."

Tony seemed impressed, but Steve just looked angry in his silent-glaring way.

"Just find the cube..." He muttered towards Tony as he marched out of the door. I watched as he went towards the East Wing, looking determined. I smiled, knowing what he was about to do, but looked back at Tony.

"So, do you just like making fun of Steve or what?" I asked him. Tony smirked, and shrugged his shoulders.

"The guy's asking for it," He said, and got back to work on finding the cube. I walked over to the screen, and watched as they worked their magic. But I smirked when what I saw wasn't anything related to the Tesseract.

"This doesn't look like finding the cube..." I said, wondering what in the world it was saying 'Access Denied' for. I glanced over at Tony, who didn't look up from the screen as he spoke.

"Sunshine, I thought you were smart. I'm in the process of breaking into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database, trying to know just what exactly they're hiding from us. Should be done anytime now," He said. He then pointed to another screen, and I saw that that was the one doing all of the work on finding the cube. I nodded.

"Alright,"

I hopped up onto the counter beside Tony, and rested my head on his shoulder, wishing that I could be anyone else right now.

Only I would have feelings for a God who was trying to take over the world I lived on. Why me? Why couldn't it be some other person, and then I could be the one lecturingher about her love life. But no, it just had to be me. I'm sure Clint would be proud of me, his own sister hanging out with the one who took his mind from him.

I winced at the thought of my brother. I hadn't thought of what he might think of me hanging out with Loki. I knew that he definitely wouldn't be a very proud brother, but what would he do? Would he not consider me his sister anymore? Would I lose him again?

I sighed, and took my head off of Tony's shoulder just in time to see Fury storm into the lab, looking just a tad bit angry.

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" He asked, and it was obvious he knew about Tony trying to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s systems. Tony didn't even blink as he responded.

"Yeah, well, kind of wondering the same thing about you," He said.

Fury just shook his head.

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract," Fury spoke.

"We are," Bruce stepped in, and pointed to the monitor behind Fury, which was in the process of finding the Tesseract.

"The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within a half mile," He said.

"Yeah, then you'll get your cube back. No muss, no fuss," Tony smirked.

There was a beeping, and I looked over to the monitor to my right, which had a new window open, revealing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets.

"What's Phase 2?" I asked, curious as I watched blueprints pop up onto the screen. I looked up at the door as Steve walked in, carrying a large gun. He slammed it down onto the table, and glared up at Fury.

"Phase 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the cube to make weapons. Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow for me," Steve said, and shook his head. Fury tried to backtrack, and started holding up his hands in defense.

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract," He spoke, walking closer to Steve. "This does not mean that we-"

There was some more beeping, and my eyes widened at the plans that had popped up onto the screen in front of me.

Tony jumped off of the counter and turned the screen around, showing plans for a missile that clearly involved the cube.

"I'm sorry Nick, what were you lying?" Tony glared at him, showing him the blueprints for the missile. Fury sighed, and stared at the ground.

"I was wrong Director," Steve glared at Fury. "The world hasn't changed a bit."

Just then, Thor walked in with Natasha, joining our little 'party'.

"Did you know about this?" Bruce asked Natasha, who shook her head.

"You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?" Natasha asked, and Bruce shook his head.

"I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed." He said.

"Loki is manipulating you..." Natasha said as she walked closer to Bruce.

"And you've been doing what, exactly?" Bruce scoffed. Natasha stared at him with a frown on her face.

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you," She said.

"Yeah, and I'm not leaving because you get a little twitchy." Bruce spoke firmly. "I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction!"

It was silent for a moment, and Fury glared down at the floor, before pointing a finger at Thor.

"Because of him."

Thor looked around, obviously still confused.

"Me?"

"Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, that we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned." Fury spoke.

Thor narrowed his eyes.

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," He said. Fury looked up at him, tilting his head slightly.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you?"

He turned back to face everyone else, and continued explaining.

"And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, that can't be controlled."

"Like you controlled the Cube?" Steve threw out with a shake of the head.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war." Thor pointed his finger at Fury.

"A higher form?" Steve asked.

"You forced our hand," Fury tried to explain. "We had to come up with something-"

Tony scoffed, and shook his head.

"A nuclear deterrent?" He said, walking towards Fury. "Because that always calms everything right down."

"How was a weapon with that much power a solution? All it's going to do is make things even worse!" I said, not believing that they thought a weapon like that was going to fix things. How did they think that it was going to 'make it all better'? I stood next to Bruce, and shook my head.

Wait.

This had to have something to do with Loki. Of course he would be the one to try and tear us apart from the inside, and quite honestly? It was working. Here we were, fighting amongst ourselves, when the real problem was him.

My heart seemed to stop as I came to the sudden realization that this was what he wanted, and right now was the perfect opportunity to strike.

He was going to escape while we were all standing around, fighting.

I looked around, and everyone seemed to be captivated by Bruce, who was talking about God knows what. I glanced towards the door, and knew where I had to go.

With my eyes narrowed in determination, I bolted out of the room, heading for Loki's cell. I could hear Tony shout out after me, but I was already long gone.

It was then, while I was running, that the explosion happened.

It seemed to come from nowhere, but the power of it not ten feet away from me knocked me back, throwing me at the wall opposite of the explosion.

The wind was knocked out of me, and I couldn't breathe for at least a minute, my limbs non-responsive. Once I was able to breathe again, I used all of my strength to stand up off of the ground, and move forward.

I stumbled along, trying to make my way through the debris of the walls that had crashed down around me. Technically I crawled half of the time, my limbs still too slow to do what I wanted them to. By the time I made my way away from the site of the explosion, I was able to run again.

One thing that I wasn't expecting, however, was for someone to be in this area. Well, someone was, because I ran smack into them, nearly sending me and the other person flying to the floor.

I looked up, and let out a strangled cry at who I saw.

It was Clint.

My breathing seemed to stop as I stared at my brother for the first time in what seemed like forever, and from looking at his eyes I could tell that this wasn't my Clint. What truly made me realize that he wasn't himself, though, was when he raised his bow level to my chest, about to send an arrow straight through my heart.

My eyes widened, and I immediately dropped to the floor to avoid getting shot. The arrow flew above my head as I collapsed to the ground, but I took advantage of my position and knocked his feet out from underneath him.

He fell to the floor, and I quickly jumped on top of him, pinning his arms to his side. He struggled, trying to get me off of him, but I held him steady.

"Clint!" I screamed at him, trying to get my brother back. I finally had the chance to save him, and I wasn't about to let it slip from my grasp. He didn't respond, didn't even look me in the eyes.

"Clint, please!" I begged him to come back to me. I was so emotionally distressed at that moment, I accidentally loosened my hold on him, and he literally threw me off. I groaned from the pain of my head smashing into yet another wall, but this time I sat up quickly, my eyes trying to find my brother.

I didn't have to look too far, though, because he was kneeling right in front of me, his bow aimed at my head.

"Clint, I know that some part of you can hear me. You have to try and break Loki's hold on you! I know that you don't want to be doing this, so please try and break through!" I said.

Clint didn't respond, didn't even take his bow away from my face. I sighed, and shook my head. There was no use; Loki's powers were too strong. I looked at Clint one last time, and then closed my eyes, accepting my fate.

There was a whistling sound, and then a dull thud.

I kept my eyes closed, but after nothing happened, I opened them.

Clint was nowhere to be seen.

I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding, and looked around. What caught my eye, was the arrow that was not even an inch away from where my head had been, lodged into the wall. My eyes narrowed, and I started to wonder.

Why hadn't he killed me? Clint never missed, so if the arrow hadn't hit me, he didn't want me dead. But why? I thought that his mind was gone, that he couldn't think with Loki there inside of his head.

But the same thing happened when he shot me with his gun; he hit me in a non-lethal area of my body, straight through. He had to have been thinking then, because he didn't hesitate in shooting Fury in the chest.

Maybe my brother was still in there somewhere, and we just had to pull him out.

I sighed, my breath a little shaky, but knew I had to go to Loki. He could have very well escaped by now, and I wasn't about to let that happen.

I stood up, and sprinted towards the cell room.

I made it there in record timing, and wasn't surprised to see Loki already out of his cage, surrounded by men that worked for him.

He was staring off to the side, and hadn't noticed me yet.

"So I take it you ignored what I said?"

Loki whipped around, his eyes narrowing when he caught sight of me. We stared at each other for a long time, before he finally motioned for his guards to leave the room. Once they were gone, I slowly walked towards him, until we were as close as we normally were when we had the glass between us.

"Loki, why are you doing this?" I whispered, wanting to know why he continued causing so much chaos. Doesn't he realize that it would get him nowhere? He would be defeated, and then I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

The thought of being without Loki caused a sharp pain in my chest, and I jumped a little at the sudden feeling.

Loki stared at me for a long time, without saying anything. Then, he looked up at me, opening his mouth to speak. But before he could get any words out, we heard loud footsteps enter the room.

It was Thor.

Before he could see either of us, Loki created an illusion to trick Thor, and it worked. The fake Loki looked like he was about to escape the cage, and Thor let out a shout, rushing towards it.

He tried to force the fake Loki back into the cage, but he simply passed through the illusion, and winded up locked in the cell himself.

"No!" I screamed, and ran to the cage, my hands smacking against the glass.

Thor looked up at me in confusion, but then looked to Loki.

"Are you ever not going to fall for that?" Loki asked Thor, smirking. I didn't look away from Thor, my hands in fists upon the glass.

The one person who knew Loki well enough to stop him was now stuck in a cage. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked behind me to see Loki standing there, a wary look on his face.

This was the first time we had actually touched each other, this time without the glass between us. I grabbed his hand and held it in my own, reveling silently in the softness of his skin.

He placed his hand on my cheek, my own hand still covering his. I closed my eyes for just a moment, the power his touch had over me was simply amazing. Then, I came back to my senses.

This was Loki.

My eyes shot open and I shoved Loki away from me with all of the strength I was capable of. He was shocked, but quickly covered it up with another one of his smirks, looking back at Thor. He wandered over to the computer that controlled the cage, pressing several buttons and opening the hatch beneath the cell that Thor was trapped in.

"The humans think us to be immortal. Shall we test that?" He went to press the red button that would send Thor falling to his death, but someone stopped him, and this time it wasn't me.

"Move away please," A voice came from my left. I looked over to see Agent Phil Coulson standing there with a giant gun aimed at Loki's chest.

"Coulson!" I whispered, knowing that he was in over his head. Hell, I was in over my head.

He just smiled gently at me, before turning to Loki, who was eyeing the weapon with a look of caution.

"You like this? We started working on the prototype after you sent the Destroyer. Even I don't know what it does. Do you want to find out?" He threatened, powering up the gun. Loki stepped away from the controls, his hands held up in a sign of surrender.

But his eyes told another story entirely.

"Phil!" I screamed right as Loki stabbed Coulson right through the heart with his staff.

My knees gave out, and I collapsed to the ground, both of my hands held over my mouth to stop my cries of shock. I watched as Phil's face contorted in pain, and only came to my senses a few seconds later.

I scrambled to my feet, rushing to his side and putting pressure on the wound. My hands were soon covered in his blood, and I knew right then that there was nothing that I could do to help him.

"Phil..." I said, tears welling up in my eyes.

Yet another good agent lost because of Loki.

"I'm so sorry Phil," I whispered, staring down at my friend's pained face. He was still conscious, but his eyes were having a hard time focusing on my face. His hands found mine, pressed firmly against his wounds, and he squeezed them gently. A weak smile crossed his face, and he nodded at me, letting me know that he understood how grave his situation was.

God damn it.

I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his forehead for a moment, then took my hands off the wound and wiped the blood that stained my hands onto my jeans. Slowly, I released my hold on Phil and stood up, pointing a shaky finger at the emerald eyed man behind me.

"Loki, just stop and look at what you've done. All of this hurt, all of this pain, and it's because of you." I resisted the urge to look at my friend who was still lying, bleeding out on the ground. The anger inside of me rose at the the thought. "I know that you have good somewhere in you; we all have it. We all have the potential to make our choices ones that change the world for the better. You've destroyed so much already, Loki, but I know that there's more to you than this. You just have to make the right choice, please, Loki!" I begged him. I knew that once he pressed that button, it was all over for us. Whatever little crush I might have had on him, would be irrelevant.

He had made these choices that drove us apart even further, and after this; after Phil, I couldn't delude myself any longer.

He was the enemy.  

Loki just shook his head, and his fingers inched closer to the red button. I wiped tears away from my cheeks, and took a deep breath.

"Loki, I'm warning you now. The minute you press that button, my feelings for you won't matter anymore. All that will matter is that you are trying to take over the world, and I will be forced to stop you. I don't want to see you get hurt, Loki, but I'll take you down myself if I get the chance. You can stop this, you can help Phil, god, Loki, now is your chance to finally redeem yourself, to make yourself worthy of actual respect. So make the right decision. Choose redemption, choose me, or choose your stupid little dream of ruling the world," I said.

I held out my bloodstained hands, anger and contempt clouding my thoughts.

"Make your choice."

Loki's eyes never left mine as he pressed the button, sending Thor to his almost certain death.

I clenched my eyes shut, and let out a sharp breath.

I heard Loki start to walk towards me, and I opened my eyes, but a sudden blast of energy sent him flying through the opposite wall. I looked around to see Phil sitting there with the giant gun, still fighting for his life.

I hesitantly made my way over to Loki's side, but he sat up, apparently unharmed. He stood, and stared down at me with his damned emerald eyes. I stared back at him, unsure of what to do next.

And at that moment, it was clear to me what my feelings for Loki were. It also became clear that this was probably the last time we would be talking, instead of fighting. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I certainly didn't expect that I would do this.

I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling his lips down onto mine.

I suppose the most shocking part of the whole situation was the fact that Loki was actually kissing me back, placing his hands gently on my waist. I melted inside, and I knew that if he were anyone else, I would follow him to the ends of the earth.

It was then that I knew what love felt like.

And it was then that I knew heartbreak.

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A/N: Hey there guys, sorry again for the wait, but I swear I'll be better at updating! So in this chapter we have a little bit of Clint, and a whole lot of Loki. I wanted to give you some more Loki/Sam, and this kind of just ... happened. It was totally unplanned, but somehow fit. Anyways, tell me what you think of it, about Clint, Loki, or any other person or event that you liked. Let me know, my little reviewers :D