A cosmic entity that predates the universe and possesses unlimited power. Can you think of an existence more intentional?

It was solely and attentively created to persuade chaos and the demise of mankind. No--it's not the power itself that tears us apart, but our own longing for distinction and the greed for something greater that we convince ourselves we don't have.

Humans. We are the most susceptible to ourselves. Bred to wreck everything in our path because of our emotional talent. It is with this power, the tesseract, where we are reminded that we are nothing but players in a game we are destined to lose. Our purpose is submission, to our humanity and the temptations of the universe.

Why do we try so hard to convince ourselves otherwise? What does the universe know that we don't?

S T U T T G A R T, G E R M A N Y

I put in an earpiece and throw myself out of the helicopter that has hidden itself just above the clouds. My black combat suit blends into the curtain of night until I open the parachute.

Only seconds later, I hit the rooftop as countless pairs of glowing blue eyes turn to the sound of the impact. I unclasp my train and rid it off the side of the building.

I give a little smile to my audience while I steady myself.

"Hi."

Either they aren't ones to talk or they took it the wrong way. Nonetheless, they came charging full speed ahead.

I elbow the neck to my right and spin to their back, taking the gun from their strap. I use them briefly as a shield while I shoot over their shoulder, taking out four more glowing eyes.

Throwing the gun to the ground, I drop my shield to invite those whose eyes are squinting in frustration as they run towards me. I jump on the shoulders of the first and use a full body spin until they hit the floor. I guess It's an acrobatic day.

I quickly jab at ones neck on a fatal nerve and kick of their body to get onto yet another set of broad shoulders. My feet don't touch the ground for a good 10 seconds as I swing from person to person, taking out the remaining bodies.

Finally, I jump down and settle my feet. Less than a minute. That's pretty good.

"Roof 2 Secure."

"You could be faster if you used your gun."

I smirk up at the sky as if they could see me.

"Roof 5 Secure. Safiya, eastbound, three stories down."

I turn to see an entire floor of guards looking up towards my rooftop, now fully aware of my presence.

"I got it." I quickly scope the area for anything I could use until I spot rope on one of the fallen guards. I wind it up and throw it to wrap onto one of the poles of the water tank on that roof.

The yelling in my ear becomes deafening. "Saf, you're kidding me. You could walk!"

"That takes minutes!" I throw myself off the side of the roof, grasping to the end of the rope for dear life as I crash through the large window of the guarded floor.

The room was impressive. An architectural masterpiece with art inspired by Germany's great Otto Dix. Fitting, I suppose.

The guards and I all stood still for a few moments like they were allowing me to catch my breath. Or maybe they didn't expect me to crash through their window. Either way, I spoke aloud to the wide eyed mass, resting my hands on my hips.

"Thanks."

They don't talk much either.

They start to charge from their side of the room to mine, but I don't give them the time to run. I jump onto the long, royal style dinner table and run until I could slide to the end to meet them.

I cripple the wrist of the man with a sword and take it for myself. I swing aimlessly to try and get a handle on its weight while wrapping my head around why someone actually brought a sword to a fight in the 21st century. Nevertheless, I was getting good with it.

I take out the rest of about 40 men until I was able to drop it to the ground in success.

"East room clear. Is everyone inside?"

"All rooftops are prepared and clear for exit. Change and meet them downstairs."

I make my way to the elevator only to find my change of clothes presented to me as the doors open. Vincent is nothing is not quick.

I quickly slip on the dress and hide my suit within the walls.

The doors open a moment later to a grand ballroom, dripping with renaissance charisma and golden seduction. Tonight it hosted what would be considered the grandest art gala of the year, filled with thousands of people abiding by the black tie stipulation.

I join the room wearing a long sleeved, dark blue gown with an off the shoulder neckline. I side eye the usher as I walk past him, acknowledging how he so evidently looks me up and down.

I make my way towards the bar to grab a drink and to get a good look at the layout of the room.

"Scotch. Please." The bartender nods and slides it over to me. I flash a soft, obligatory smile before turning around and taking a sip.

Focus.
The main entrance is made up
of windowed doors,
heavily guarded with the
majority of staff on duty.
On both the east and west side there is
one emergency exit and one elevator.
Behind me is a large staircase, leading up to the exhibition rooms, all having two exits.
One to enter the next and one emergency.
78-no 79 security guards are on the main floor. 15 are undercover.
Ushers by the elevator--

I take another sip as I feel two hands make their way around my waist, pulling me into the body behind me.

If we weren't in a public setting, there would be a bullet in their head right now, but it's as if the hands know that all too well. Before I could even turn around, they quickly, yet smoothly bring their mouth to my ear.

"Tell me love, is it incredibly selfish to take some of your last moments of freedom for myself?"

A smile escapes me without my conscious consent, holding only a slight hint of despair.

"It wouldn't be too out of character." I turn around to face Neal who keeps his arms locked around my body. His smile fades to hold my face in his hand as he runs his thumb over the faded scar on my cheekbone.

I rest my head gently in his hand as he rubs circles with his thumb. "Egypt. I was a little careless."

"Have you gone soft while I was gone? You don't get hit."

I grin and take his hand in mine. "Come on."

I lead him to the ballroom floor and wrap my hands around his neck. His hands find their way back to my waist, occasionally stroking up my back, almost desperately feeling every inch he could get away with.

His eyes were absolutely intoxicating, as much as I hate to admit it. It was easy to get lost for a few seconds and he never seemed to cut my looks short. He relished in the any moment of vulnerability that slipped out of me.

It took me a few moments to come back down to earth. "What do you know that I don't?"

His face falls slightly, clearly upset that I started the conversation like that, but he abides.

"The tesseract is in this building." He whispers. His voice is deep, almost like a growl against my ear. "Considering the event, there will most likely be some kind of show from Loki. He has possession of another power, as strong as the tesseract, that he has used to create his guards..some kind of mind control."

"What do we do?"

"We are still tracking the tesseracts energy flow to pinpoint where exactly in this building it is stored. Something is manipulating our data though, and I'm not too sure of the source. It's going to take a few more minutes."

"We wait for him to make an appearance?"

"Mhm." He smirks and spins me out to his side. "I could think of worse ways to waste time."

I spin back in, holding our position for a few moments before settling back into our initial stance. The tone changes dramatically and almost instantly when I spot a hint of that look in his eye. Maybe he didn't mean for it to slip, but he acknowledges my find.

"I expected you to be more delighted. I thought you would think this all for the best."

"Oh? Should I be smiling at the idea of running for the rest of our lives?"

"At the idea of all of us at a distance perhaps."

I frown as our eyes meet more directly, but his expression does not dare falter. His next words seem to be forced back down his throat, but his stare is undoubtedly sure. He looks back and forth from one eye to the other, trying not to give too much attention to just one.

"God-" he lets out breathily before he cuts himself off. He brings my face in the strong grip of his hand before his lips gently lay against mine.

The familiar feel of his lips on my skin is enough to make me unapologetic in the moment. It's selfish, that I know all too well, but I indulge, once again giving him more than I can control, but nothing close to what he deserves.

His kiss grows hungry for time, understanding that its supply is empty. As we can both feel his awareness of our surroundings start to slip, he pulls away slowly, tasting what seems like his last drop of water.

Neal had been the only one unfortunate enough to gain my affection, ignorant to the fact he had been gifted a Trojan Horse. My attachment is a pure contagion that had devoured his entire being beyond reason.

It had been years of pushing and pulling, but he grew more persistent as I did weak. About a year ago, I was put on the radar of Russian Intelligence. My location was untrackable and I was a ghost, but I didn't think to count for my new liability. I had left my one emotion behind, forgetting I had let it loose.

Neal was taken for 4 months. Tortured and beat almost to death. 4 months too long. He was foolish. He was prepared to die before disclosing any information on me.

He is love, he is vitality.

It was when we found him that I realized who I am. He had convinced me to show my endearment just once and the consequences had shown themselves in his scars.

I was close to love, that forbidden land. He had convinced away it's fatality. I was foolish, perhaps just as much as him.

Over everything, love and I are not meant to be. With me, love is a paralytic, a weapon used to strip a person of everything they are. It is not the love people look for. It is not the love some deserve. I am not to embrace the kind of love others are capable of. I will utterly destroy it.

I am contempt, I am death.

I stroke the back of his neck with my thumb and find the courage to look back into his eyes.

"I'm sorry..." I say unexpectedly weak. I had never said the two words with meaning before, despite years of fighting.

He looks for answers deep in my eyes, but finds nothing as always. I have hated him for compromising us both. He was willing to be taken by my venomous bite over and over again. How does he submit so easily?

The yelling in our earpieces makes us aware to our surroundings again.

"It isn't here. Our power has been attracted to the energy Loki possess on his person, not the tesseract."

I quickly speak back. "Do we pursue the seizure of the second entity?"

"We don't know its ability or what Loki plans to do with it, but it's on the move. It's being put into play tonight. Ania, come back to the aircraft. We are going to use our power to make specialized weapons with the time we have. I have a feeling we will be fighting this."

I look around the room over Neal's shoulder to spot the location of the rest of our team. "Whether or not he uses the tesseract, S.H.I.E.L.D. will be here soon. We need to get to the roof for a peripheral view and to be out of sight. We can pick our fight then."

"Agreed. Roof 4."

Neal tightens his grip on my waist as he pulls my leg slightly from underneath me, causing me to fall into him.

"It seems you've had a little too much to drink, love." His tone is more serious than playful.

I roll my eyes, but only seconds later I'm made aware of how the staff are looking at the other agents leaving so ubruptly.

I turn back to him in compliance. It must have been the nostalgia. Or the scotch. "Please, take me home."

He smirks briefly before holding me tighter, walking us past every guard on our way to the elevator to lock in our alibis.

I stumble past security into the elevator with Neal close behind as we laugh playfully into each other's ears, whispering sweet nothings loud enough for others to hear.

When the doors finally close infront of us, we quickly regain ourselves to grab the clothes we had stored within the walls.

He unzips my dress as I rip off his tie like a routine we have done a million times. We find we are the last to arrive on the rooftop when the doors open again and we have already missed the start of the commotion.

Myles waves us over to the edge. Floods of people start running out of the building, screaming like a bomb had went off.

"We missed his entrance."

"We need to go. S.H.I.E.L.D. and C.I.A. operatives are surrounding the area. We will be killed on the spot. Whatever is going to happen is going to be contained."

The helicopter gets closer to our reach as a figure approaches the mass. The face of the havoc. The rest of the team walks towards their escape.

"Safiya lets go!"

"Wait a second."

"There's no waiting!"

I stand, wind blowing through my hair as if it wants to push me back to the helicopter. He walks with such confidence down the steps, holding a scepter that fosters the source endless power. We should be stopping this, but I'm too captivated in the way he performs.

"Kneel before me." He roars.

The people are hesitant, unsure of their place in such definition. He repeats himself, but this time with an eminent force.

"I said... Kneel!"

I move closer to the edge, the voices of my team becoming more and more of distant murmurs. The mass of people fall to their knees. He laughs at his work before he starts to slowly walk around.

"Is this not simpler? Is this not your natural state?"

"Saf lets go!"

I draw closer to the edge.

"It's the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power. For identity. You were made to be ruled."

I notice my mouth slightly gaped before I shake my mind back to myself. This "god" was different. This one would be an exemplary adversary.

"In the end, you will always kneel."

I smile, almost not noticing an older german man stand.

"Not to men like you." He states, with the assertiveness of a soldier.

The god laughs, the devil riding on his words. "There are no men like me."

"There are always men like you."

"Safiya now!"

I look to my right as some of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s team starts to confront the god. As much as I want to watch, I run back to the helicopter and take Neal's hand to pull myself up.

He looks at me, inspecting my face for some kind of observable answer. "What the hell was that?"

"Don't you want to know who we're up against?" The answer seemed to satisfy everyone except for Neal, who stared at me tentatively. I meet his gaze with assured eyes, silently screaming my independence.

Drew breaks the silence after a minute. "What's the plan now?"

On cue, Vincent walks back from the captains area. "S.H.I.E.L.D. has taken Loki with them. I'm waiting for further detail, but I assume they will hold him for research and questioning for a while."

I slightly tilt my head in confusion. I'm more intrigued than underwhelmed. Why would a god who holds an entity of such power fight to lose? He could have ended them all with one swipe of his hand. My head straightens slowly as a smirk grows across my face. It was a performance after all.

"He wanted to be captured," I spoke aloud.

"Why the hell would anyone volunteer to be in the custody of S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"I don't know."

There's a great sigh amongst them all. Vincent takes center stage.

"There is a reason we weren't sent out in the first place. S.H.I.E.L.D. has just put together their own team of enhanced beings, with greater capabilities than us." He looks at our disgusted expressions and smiles to himself. "Not by much."

"So they don't want extra hands? How does that make sense?"

"It's about what they are willing to lose. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s team has people with a personal stake in the mission and are more motivated to see it through. Before we stole from them and became the new Benedict Arnold, they were afraid this would be the one battle we lose."

There was a silence, with only the propellers of the helicopter buzzing around us. "We're going to an independent safe house in New York. We can't risk any of you going back to your home."

"Is this it?" Ania questions.

"Loki is with S.H.I.E.L.D. and no longer any of our concern."

I shake my head in disagreement. "There's a reason for that. The tesseract is still out there and now he is just closer to the only people who could stop him. He's smarter, more cunning."

"Oh I'm sorry. I didn't know you knew him personally."

I roll my eyes. "Listen to me. This isn't over."

My statement was met with quiet. I eye them all down to get some kind of response.

Myles places his elbows on his thighs and covers his face. "If Loki is taken in and being dealt with, I don't want to risk walking shoulder to shoulder with S.H.I.E.L.D. or the C.I.A. for longer than I have to. I don't want to die for nothing."

That seemed to resonate with the rest of them. Drew nods her head and leans forward. "I agree. The sooner we ghost the greater our chances are of 1. Living and 2. Maybe finding a place to settle down. After they have the tesseract, their priority will be our heads. This is our window."

The silence only reinforces everyone's agreement but mine.

Neal grabs my hand out of the sight of the others and whispers out of earshot. "Saf, they have a point."

I clench my jaw to resist any unnecessary retaliation. It's insulting that he truly believes holding my hand will change my mind.

The rest of the ride is quiet. I look to the night sky for the feeling of infinity, something beyond the present. I find solace in the interminable existence of space. The home for the impossible and the unimaginable. It is always our last resort for hope. Almost like it was inevitable, I impose an inaudible sigh.

I recognize this feeling. One I've had once before. As if the night is penetrating my skin and finding home in my body. It has found me again.

Darkness, bringing both confidence and delusion, but protection nonetheless. Over everything, it is a sign that this next chapter will need nothing but my most destructive self.

Night itself is innovative. Inspiring. She allows you visualize what you want to see. She brings comfort, yet unceasing thrill. This is dangerous, but it is my being. Day shows you too much. He extinguishes the light that isn't his. He defines. He is absolute. There is no room for people like me there. If what i feel turns to be true, day and I will not see each other for quite a while.

After 7 hours of minimal communication, we reach the safe house. Abel, Ania, and Myles leave immediately after saying brief goodbyes. As much as we care for each other, it is in or nature not to draw things out too long.

Drew hugs me and looks me dead in the eyes. "Don't die."

I smile and send her off into the night as it finally resonates that I will never be able to see them again.

The stakes had gotten irrepressible, I understand. To participate further would be motivated by personal matters and perhaps of the absence of reason. There could be no fault in their decision to go against me and I would not hold them to it.

I may be more concerned with why I did not do the same.

I walk into the house built right outside of the city, finding a bedroom window that overlooks the skyline. For the chaos that is New York City, it looked peaceful from a distance.

It only took a few moments before my silhouette turns to see someone in the doorway. I turn back to the window after a second, crossing my arms loosely across my chest.

"When are you leaving?"

The voice rises after a few seconds from behind me, pushing through a loud sigh. "Morning. In a few hours."

Neal leans off of the doorway to enter the room, settling in front of the window on my side.

"We could get the goodbye out of the way now." I say half jokingly, still staring out on the skyline.

His hand takes my arm so I turn to face him. The moonlight seems to only show the parts of his face that are disappointed.

"Don't do this." He whispers.

"I need to."

"You're becoming them. The very people you fight against. "

"I'm no angel, Neal."

"But you tend to play for their side." He grabs my face with both hands as if to drill sense into me. "You are becoming them. This path of self destruction. You will fall."

I push his hands away and move away from the window, but he continues. Persistent as ever.

"This is it all. Fear, ego, debt, fulfilling some sense of purpose. This is mortality-"

"Purpose will not be my death." I interrupt him aggressively.

"You believe in your right to tear down entire empires. You had a pass for justification, but now you do it as a personal fondness. What does that say about you?"

"I have always been them. We have always been them. I've known that. Have you?"

"You are dooming yourself."

"It will happen eventually."

"Who the hell are you?"

I counter quicker than I had before and much more aggressively. "If you are the one to make people into heroes than you must really see the world as artless. There is a regime being built right in front of our eyes, compromising the lives of every person on earth. There are few trying to stop it. What does it say about you when you choose to let it happen?"

He laughs out of spite. "I do not want the role of a god, nor do I feel it worthwhile fighting against one."

"You give it too much power." I turn my head dismissively.

His voice raises to a much louder yell. "It has too much power."

"You gave it all its power!"

"Stop fighting me!"

"Don't tell me to stop!"

"Why can't you listen to me just this fucking once!"

"I know I'm right about this."

"I don't want you dead!"

"What does it matter! I'm never going to see you again!"

"I love you! How many times do I have to fucking say it!"

"How many times do I have to save you by stopping you!"

Somewhere in the midst of the screaming, his lips crash violently into mine only seconds before throwing me up against the wall. Our yelling now replaced with incessant moans that consume every corner of the room. His hands desperatetly grasps at my body before his mouth attacks my neck with a burning hatred.

"Listen to me," He gets out breathily as he pushes my hips deeper into the wall with his hands. "Settle in a little town in southern France. One remote, off the grid, but holds some kind of charming character. Meet a boy who runs a family owned vineyard. Go sailing along the coast. Teach him art, music, 'big city' things. Corrupt him in the best ways possible."

His lips attack the spot on my neck he is all too familiar with, knowing I could not hold back that moan.

"Show him all the good in life while you find it yourself. Have children. Let them teach you how to love..." He hisses as I claw his back, but quickly regains his self. "Make this easy for yourself. Take the out."

I flip over so his back is now against the wall, holding his neck firmly between my fingers. I bring my lips up to his ear as he gasps from the sudden move.

"I'm not a fucking doll." I bring my face in line with his. "You think I want to go sailing and drink myself to death?"

He rips my hand from his neck and holds my wrist out in between us, keeping his deep, fixed stare. "Never."

He slowly walks off the wall, drawing closer to the body I keep unmoved, wrist still in hand. His face stops inches away from mine as a pair of impossibly hooded eyes make it beyond my surface.

"It's where I want you. If we were not who we are, I would want you away from this. With me, in a dream." He drops my wrist carelessly as it falls back on my side. "We would sail, drink, swim, fuck, over and over again until we love. And you would be able to do it."

I clench my jaw, not caring if I pulled a muscle. This was it. He has me at the breaking point.

I let the rage exhale through a sigh before I meet him with all fronts armed and guarded. I grit my teeth. "I am not your possession," I whisper with a calm that could start a fire. "And for the hundredth time, I am not some fucking angel."

I push off his body and blend into the darkness of the room, slamming the door behind me moments later. There was only one feeling I have ever fully accepted, and it has started to seep into me like it had finally found its home again.

If darkness wants me again, than it is pure darkness I will become.