The Helicarrier. A flying base in the sky, used as the main base of operations for the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, thankfully shortened to SHIELD. The base resembled an aircraft carrier, with four massive turbines sticking out the sides.

Currently, the lower half of the Helicarrier was submerged into the ocean and several workers were running around the upper deck. Some were working on the planes, while others were running around the deck like traditional soldiers.

Ben Tennyson had been held by the best soldiers SHIELD had while talking to Nick Fury. They'd been in there for about thirty minutes, discussing the details of Ben's situation and explaining what the condition of his probation would be. For the duration of his stay, Ben would need to take part in any HYDRA raid he was asked to, and he would not be permitted to go anywhere without an armed escort.

Currently Ben was sitting on the edge of the Helicarrier, waiting for Fury to return while he tried conversing with his "Probation Officer". Natasha Romanoff was a beautiful red-head with a stance that said she would rather be doing anything else than babysitting SHIELD's latest acquisition. Her hair reached the nape of her neck and she wore a skin tight cat-suit that showed off enough to keep her opponents off guard, while still keeping her modest.

"So, are you actually going to say anything or am I better off trying to do some laps?" the snarky thirty-year-old said while currently messing about with a stone he'd found on the deck. "If you tried, I would be forced to shoot you for attempting to escape" the red-head replied, her voice a flat mono-tone. Sighing, the Omnitrix wielder stood to his feet and made his way over to Natasha, who tensed up upon seeing the difference in stature between them. Ben stood about a head taller than the red head and this difference was evident once the shapeshifting hero was directly in front of her.

"Look, if this thing goes the way I hope it will, we're more than likely going to have to fight together at some point" Ben told her, before reaching his hand out as an olive branch. "So let's start over, the name's Ben Tennyson, nice to meet you, miss?" she seemed confused for a second, her eyes scanning over Ben's muscular form for a second, her intent to find any sign of lying turning up nothing. Slowly, the SHIELD agent reached her hand out and clasped it around the one that had been held out to her, "Natasha Romanoff, SHIELD agent" she replied as their hands moved up and down together in an awkward fashion.

"Good to meet you Natasha Romanoff, I hope to get to know you better"

6 Months Later

Blaring alarms sounded from around the SHIELD base as all of the soldiers ran around in a panic, trying to remove all of the equipment from the building. A helicopter was seen coming down from the sky, with a stoic Nick Fury on board. He looked out of the window at his operatives running around.

The helicopter landed in front of a balding man, who was wearing sunglasses despite the moon being very present in the sky. Fury approached the sunglasses with a concerned look on his face, which was more evident once he started talking, "How bad is it?".

"That's the problem sir, we don't know" the balding man replied, a neutral look upon his own face, despite the seemingly dire situation. Nodding, Fury turned back to the helicopter and called out to the other passenger that travelled with him, "Tennyson, get out here!".

The brown-haired male that had previously been sitting on the helicopter, suddenly climbed out the open vehicle and moved over to the two other men. "Coulson, good to see you" Ben called out over the sound of the helicopter blades. The three men started walking inside, followed by Maria Hill, SHIELDS' second in command, a brunette woman that was slightly shorter than Ben, that was wearing the SHIELD standard jumpsuit.

They began making their way into the innards of the building, getting deeper into the ground as they went, when Coulson left the group after explaining the situation. He'd told them that the Tesseract, which had been retrieved by SHIELD after the raiding of a Hydra base during Ben's stay at Wakanda, was being tested on by a man named Eric Selvig. Something had gone wrong, which lead to the cube giving off enough energy to level a mountain. Though it hadn't done so yet, SHIELD was naturally worried about the potential risk and so were beginning evacuation of the base. "What about the nearest town?" Ben asked as they continued making their way to the room the Tesseract was being experimented on. Fury turned back to the omnitrix wielder, "we began evacuation an hour ago" he told the brunette. "That's going to have to be good enough" he replied, rounding the corner that lead to the dome housing the Tesseract.

"Sir, evacuation may be futile" Hill told her boss, descending the final flight of stairs. "We should tell them to go back to sleep?" Fury replied, his question being a rhetorical one. "If we can't control the Tesseract's energy, there may not be a minimum safe distance" she replied. "Worse case scenario, Diamondhead can encase the thing in enough taydenite to stop a nuclear bomb, that should at least reduce the blast the blast zone" Ben told them as they reached the door, before he walked in and left the two to themselves.

"Doctor Selvig, what seems to be the problem?" Ben asked as he reached the work station Eric and the other scientists were working at. "Ben, good to see you" he replied as the two shook hands. Ben and Doctor Selvig had met a little over a month ago, when they had both been brought in to work on the cube. Ben didn't have much knowledge at the time, but with the help of GreyMatter and BrainStorm, the cube was less of a mystery to them than before.

"Talk to me Doctor!" Fury called out once he'd entered the room, quickly striding over to meet the other two men. Ben and Eric turned around to see Fury walking towards them "Director, the Tesseract is misbehaving" Eric replied, which seemed like a joke, but the tone of his voice told them otherwise, "is that supposed to be funny?" Fury asked. "It's not funny at all, the Tesseract is not only active, she's behaving" Selvig told them, taking place at a computer that showed multiple readings that showed some very bad signs.

"I assume you pulled the plug" Fury asked, his only surviving eye continuously flicking over to the cube, "she's an energy source, we turn off the power, she turns it back on". Ben started tuning out at that point, he didn't really understand what they were saying, he just knew that he needed to be ready. He vaguely heard Fury mention Barton, but he just wanted to be ready.

While Ben was staring off, Clint Barton, a man with short, light brown hair and blue eyes, came down from his perch. He and Fury began talking about what might have caused this. Ben was their prime suspect, having only been let off probation a month ago, though both Clint and Natasha had vouched for him, as well as having destroyed multiple Hydra bases. Selvig and the other scientists were clean as well, which left only one cause for the Tesseract to go off like this.

It wasn't at this end of space.

Fury and Barton went separate ways after that, with Fury going to check on the readings being displayed and Barton walking over to the Omnitrix wielder. Upon the brunettes meeting, Ben had taken a seat on a crate, and was currently fiddling with the omnitrix subconsciously.

"Hey" Barton called out upon reaching him, knocking Ben out of his stupor. "Hey Clint, good to see you" he replied as he got to his feet. The two men stood in vigilance for a few seconds, before Clint turned and started a conversation. "How are things with Nat?" he asked. Ben started blushing, he and the Black Widow had started dating shortly after his probation ended. It was on a mission to find evidence on someone Fury believed was working for Hydra, which lead to them dancing at a fancy party. He had then asked her out once they got back to the helicarrier, mostly due to Clint pushing him towards it. Ben had never even been on a date before, not to mention something long term like this, so for him to go from a novice to semi less novice was weird, though Ben was sure he was happy. Both he and Natasha had been taken by organisations that made them do things they never wanted to, then being given a second chance by the same organisation.

Suddenly, a surge of energy started erupting from the Tesseract and caused the whole room to shake. Ben tried to transform, but the energy was too much and was coming out at such a rate that it made getting closer impossible. After a few seconds of spewing pure, white hot energy, it stopped and fired a laser at a platform on the opposite side of the room. A blue wormhole appeared from the laser and started growing in size, until it collapsed in on itself and released a load of energy throughout the room, causing most to shield themselves from the sheer amount of light it gave off.

Kneeling where the wormhole once was, was a man with long, slicked back hair and a sadistic smile on his face. He held a sceptre in his right hand that seemed to be glowing. Ben and several others slowly approached him, with the Omnitrix wielder's hand hovering over the dial in case of a fight. "Sir, please put down the spear!" Fury told the newly appeared man, though it was clear he wouldn't do that.

Rearing his hand back, the stranger fired a blast of energy at Fury and Barton from his sceptre, knocking everything away. Ben immediately turned the dial and activated the watch, though by the time he tried to transform, the attacker had struck again. Leaping forward, he tried to stab Ben in the chest, though the shapeshifter was able to avoid it with little more than a small cut on his bicep. He wasn't so lucky with the next attack. The stranger swung his arm out and knocked Ben away, sending him to the ground. His head hit the platform in the centre of the room and everything became dazed.

The stranger went on and killed the rest of the SHIELD agents before they could even get a shot off. Barton tried to rush him, but the stranger, in a surprising show of strength, grabbed his wrist and stopped his advance. He looked into Clint's eyes and saw something there, "you have heart" he said, seeing Clint struggling to free himself from his grasp. The stranger reached his sceptre forward and placed the sharp point at his chest, before channelling the blue energy from a jewel at the tip into his heart. The energy made it's way through Clint and caused his eyes to start glowing blue. Fury looked over to the scene from his spot next to the Tesseract and was shocked to see Barton stop struggling and place his pistol back in his holster at his side.

Fury saw what was happening and realised he'd have to get out of the building. He reached his hand up and removed the Tesseract from it's place in a ring that was used to drain it's power. The power from the cube started burning his hand, so in an attempt to avoid ending up on the other side of the universe, he placed it into a briefcase so he wouldn't have to carry it by hand. Fury tried to leave with the case, making his to the unconscious Ben with the plan to wake him up and get out of the building.

"Please don't, I still need that"

Fury turned back around to see the stranger, surrounded by his men that each had the same blue glow in their eyes. "This doesn't have to get any messier" Fury said, once again trying to negotiate with the invader. "Of course it does, I've come to far for anything else" the stranger replied, when Ben started to wake up and pay attention to what was happening. "I am Loki, of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose" the now revealed Loki told the director of SHIELD.

"Loki? Brother of Thor?" Eric asked, standing up after having checked a dead soldier. "We have no quarrel with your people" Fury said, though Ben, now fully conscious, could tell this wasn't going to end well.

"An ant has no quarrel with a boot"

Yeah, definitely not going to end well

"Are you planning to step on us?" Fury asked. Ben wasn't starting to get annoyed, he could easily take them down...

The energy. He thought, slowly looking back at the residual energy gathering above where the portal had been. He's going to bury us.

"I come with glad tidings, of a world made free" Loki told them, "free from what?" Fury asked, though it was clear he was trying to get him to start monologing so that he would stall for longer. "Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart..." Loki turned around and began changeling the blue energy into Selvig's chest "... you will know peace".

"Yeah, you say peace, I kinda think you mean the other thing"

Barton suddenly walked over to the Asgardian, his next words ruining the whole plan "sir, director Fury is stalling, this place is about to blow, drop a hundred feet of rock on us" they all looked to the energy that was getting more and more volatile above us "He means to bury us".

"Like the pharaohs of old" Fury confirmed. Selvig turned to a computer and confirmed that the portal was going to bring the whole place down in two minutes. "Well then..." Loki said, with a look to Barton. Clint went to pull out his gun and shoot Fury, but there was a flash of green light and with a blur, both Fury and Ben were gone from the room.

Outside, Fury suddenly appeared in a blur that was connected to a black and blue velociraptor with balls on the end of each foot. "Sit tight, I'll be back with the cube" XLR8, the oddly coloured velociraptor said, before zipping off back into the base.

He ran around until he found them getting into a jeep, Hill was there loading the last of the equipment when she saw Barton and Loki getting into a vehicle. "Who's that?" she asked, indicating to the Asgardian, though Clint's reply of "He didn't tell me" over his shoulder put her on edge. The other agents started getting into the other vehicles, though when she spotted Ben coming around the corner, she became even more tense. Her suspicions were confirmed when she heard Fury's voice over the radio, "Hill, do you copy? Barton has turned" she made a dive behind some cover as Clint fired three shots at her.

Clint went to get into the vehicles, but was stopped by XLR8 slamming him into the side. "Stop it Clint! Wake up!" he yelled, smacking his three-clawed hand against the side of his face. Clint seemed dazed for a second, but ultimately the brainwashing won out. Barton pushed XLR8 off him and began climbing into the vehicle. Hill climbed out of cover and began firing at the jeep, but it drove off too quickly, followed by a black and blue blur.

Loki looked out the back of his vehicle and saw the velociraptor following them. Taking aim, he fired a blast of energy with his staff, causing an explosion that knocked Ben back and into the wall. The attack caused him to transform back and he stumbled to his feet.

Another jeep pulled up alongside him, the door opened to reveal Maria Hill inside. "Get in!" she yelled, an order which Tennyson followed and climbed into the passenger seat. Ben grabbed a pistol that was kept in the side compartment and began firing at the car in front. The bullets were aimed at the wheels for about a second, but Loki was able to fire another blast at the car before the wheels were taken out.

Ben tried to transform again and continue to chase the rogue agents, but before he could, the built-up energy expanded and shook the entire base. Loki and his soldiers were able to escape, but Ben and Maria were still trapped underneath.

Ben was lucky, the jeep had stopped most of the rubble from crushing him, but he was still caught underneath the base with very little room to manoeuvre. Fury came on over the radio, telling them that Loki had escaped with the Tesseract. "As of right now, we are at war" Fury told them, a solemn silence passing between everyone listening. Coulson was the first to speak up, voicing the unspoken question "What do we do?"

Fury was silent, I knew what he was planning. The Avengers initiative had been scrapped, but Fury had been secretly working to bring those who could fight, when no one else could. Picking up the radio, I decided to reply with the only thing I could think of.

My whole life, I had either been a weapon or hidden from the world. Now I had the power to save those I had once harmed, and I was going to give everything to ensure that I did.

"Whatever it takes"