Corrupted - The Tigris Series Book 1

Chapter Thirty One

July 25, 2012

It had been two days since we defeated Loki and the Chitauri. It had taken a while for Secretary Alexander Pierce to agree to let Thor take Loki and the tesseract back to Asgard, rather than letting the US government handle them. I was glad that they managed to convince him. No government or organization needed to be anywhere near something as powerful as it, not even S.H.I.E.L.D. When Steve had finished his search and rescue mission, he had offered to bring me to a hotel to stay for a while until I received the files that I was promised. Now, we had all met on a bridge near the outskirts of New York to watch Thor leave with Loki and the tesseract. Selvig had made them a glass tube with a metal handle on each side, acting as an activation device so they could use the power of the cube to teleport themselves back to Asgard. We all watched closely as he carefully placed the cube into the device, and handed it to Thor. He patted Selvig on the shoulder, muttering his goodbyes to him with a smile.

He eyed Loki, who still had the metal device over his mouth, as he turned to face us again and look between the six of us. He nodded to us as a silent goodbye, then held out the device towards Loki so he could grab it. Loki peered at all of us, then locked his gaze on mine as I stared back at him. He had his brows furrowed in utter defeat, though somehow kept the mischievous glint in his eyes. It was no wonder that he was known as the god of mischief. I kept my expression completely void of emotion, staring back into his green eyes, coldly with my arms crossed.

"He looks like he wants to confess his undying love to her." I heard Natasha whisper in Barton's ear.

I glanced over at them, seeing Baron grin. His sunglasses covered his eyes, so it made it difficult to track where he was looking. I grabbed a quarter from my pocket, and flicked it towards her head gently enough so it would only bounce off of the side of her head.

"Ow," she muttered with furrowed brows and a smile as she watched the quarter drop, then looked back up at me.

I gave her a look that would clearly indicate to her that such a thing was not the case between Loki and I, and that she was ridiculous for suggesting it.

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. "I was kidding."

"What happened?" Steve questioned, confused as to what was going on.

"Nothing." I rasped, facing Loki again as he grabbed the handle on the device.

Steve glanced between Natasha and I for a moment, then also turned back towards Thor and Loki. Thor nodded to all of us one last time as we stood around them, then turned his handle around to activate the device. A bright beam of light engulfed them, and shot them into the sky within just seconds, then they were gone.

"Well, that was exciting. Hey, Bruce? You still up for seeing Stark Tower? I swear, you'll love it. Well, if we don't count everything that was destroyed in our kick-ass battle with weird, alien robots." Tony asked Banner, fixing his light grey suit.

Banner chuckled, looking down shyly. "Sure."

Steve turned towards his motorcycle, adjusting something for only a moment, then turned to walk towards Stark as he stood next to his deep red sports car. "Good work, Stark." he complimented, shaking his hand.

"You too, Cap." Stark replied, genuinely.

Natasha grabbed a duffel bag out of her grey car with a S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on the side, and handed it to Banner. Barton stepped around the car to stand next to the drivers seat, and peered at me through his sunglasses. He gave me a slight wave, then stepped inside the car. I waved back, glancing away from him, awkwardly. Natasha turned to me once Banner had turned to throw his back in Tony's car, and raised a brow, expressively with a sigh.