The body of Skurge lay still on the bridge floor. An Asgardian mage stepped forward, her hands glowing with frost. With a wave, she encased Skurge in a block of ice, preserving him in a crystalline tomb.
No one wanted to cast his body into the void of space, Skurge had once been a respected warrior of Asgard, before his loyalty to Amora twisted him.
Kakashi turned to Natasha, who still stood nearby with a flirty smile. He let out a long, exasperated sigh.
Despite his experience with spies, flirty agents, and beautiful women who could charm a snake, Natasha was a puzzle.
He prided himself on reading people thanks to his life as a shinobi, their motives, their lies but she kept him guessing. He thought that he managed to figure her out. But not anymore.
Was she teasing to throw him off, or did she just enjoy watching him squirm?
'I hate dealing with smart, pretty women,' he thought, his eye twitching. 'They're more dangerous than a kunai to the chest .'
"Fine," he said, his voice dry. "I'll teach you some tricks."
Natasha's smile grew wider, and Kakashi was certain it wasn't just because she was happy about learning. No, that smirk was a weapon, designed to make him melt and spill more techniques than he planned.
He shook off the thought and moved to his next task, pulling a small paper tag from his pouch. It looked ordinary, thin, white, with faint ink markings.
Natasha leaned closer, her curiosity piqued. "What is it?"
"You could call it my form of voice recorder," Kakashi replied, keeping his tone casual.
Maria, standing beside Sif, took the tag and flipped it over, inspecting it like a detective. "Isn't it just a piece of paper?" she asked, squinting for any sign of a chip or tech.
Kakashi's mind raced. 'Is it gime to reveal fuinjutsu?'
But the idea of explaining chakra seals to S.H.I.E.L.D. made his stomach churn. If Fury got wind of fuinjutsu, Kakashi's life would become a nightmare.
'Explosion tags? He'd have me mass-producing them to save on bombs. No one would suspect a paper blowing up a tank.'
He imagined Fury grinning, handing him a factory job. 'Storage scrolls for secret files, weapons, even coffee supplies. And Hawkeye could open them since he's got chakra. I'd never sleep again.'
Then there were the voice recorder tags. Fury, head of the world's sneakiest spy agency, would lose his mind over paper that could record conversations undetected.
Kakashi shuddered. 'My work hours would triple. No more naps. No more readily my magazines and novels.' To protect his precious sleep schedule, he decided to keep fuinjutsu a secret.
"It's just something I came across," he said, shrugging. "It acts as a recorder."
Before anyone could press further, he formed a quick hand seal. The tag hummed faintly, chakra flowing through the ink. He focused, recalling the last words he'd heard from the Collector in the museum:
"Thanos has employed Ronan to find the Orb. Keep an eye on him for any updates. I also have information that he's hired Loki Odinson, a prince of Asgard, to help him find…"
The tag glowed, and the Collector's voice filled the air as he finished the sentence.
"…another of the Infinity Stones. He is sending Loki to acquire a stone with his Chitauri army somewhere. We don't know where."
The voice continued, frustration creeping in. "I don't know which Infinity Stone he wants with Odin's son, of all people. It must be with Asgard if he's involving him. We're not strong enough to face Asgard to get the stone."
A note of mirth entered the Collector's tone. "The Orb contains the Power Stone. Thanos already has the Mind Stone, so he's likely after the Reality Stone from Asgard. According to my knowledge, The stone was with the Dark Elves, defeated by Odin's father, King Bor. But keep an eye on Loki, he'll leave Asgard to deliver the stone after all."
"Loki's last known location is the Nova Empire. I don't know which planet. As for the Orb, Ronan is after it. His ship was in the Kree Empire but departed urgently. He lost contact with some hired help, pirates, likely."
The rest was more speculation about what might have happened to draw Ronan away from the Kree empire. And Kakashi might have solved the mystery with all the details that he managed to hear from the collector.
Kakashi stopped the tag. The recording could hold up to fifteen minutes, but the key details were out. The ship was silent, everyone processing the information.
Kakashi now had a lead on Loki, the Nova Empire but the Collector's words raised bigger questions. Ronan likely knew someone had wiped out his pirate fleet, and Kakashi was the culprit. That could bring trouble. And collector had a huge spy network himself to get information about two empires that were huge and spanned planets. Well, you don't need spies when you can use money to buy information which the collector seems to have a lot of.
More pressing was the mention of Infinity Stones. Thanos, Ronan, Loki, the Collector, all chasing these stones. Power Stone, Mind Stone, Reality Stone.
'Just what are these stones?' Kakashi thought
------Author Notes---------
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