Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The land itself was unchanged. The mountains still rose to snow-capped peaks, and the sea still grumbled and sang in the harbor just as it always had and always would. But two years ago, Hell had come to people of Arendelle, and Queen Birgitte now feared that it would never leave.

In her castle, once the proud home of her ancestor Queen Elsa the Snow Queen, Birgitte watched, under guard, as the German lieutenant dumped her jewelry casket open on her vanity.

"Leave that alone! Are you looters, as well as murderers?" she demanded furiously.

The German glanced at her and smiled like a shark. "You will not tell us where the great jewel is, so we must look for it. And take some... recompense for our trouble."

He pawed through the gold and silver, holding up a necklace with a gold chain and a large, round red stone set into an old bronze pendant. Holding the stone to the light, he sniffed disdainfully. "Looks old, but it is no ruby, is it? A rock. But the gold is real. For you, Your Majesty. What 'royalty' is worth these days." He kept the chain and tossed the stone pendant to the floor.

She flinched when it landed on the wooden slats, but it landed without harm and skidded across the wood to her feet. She lifted her eyes to the German dog and spat in hatred, "You will never rule in Arendelle. You will never conquer us."

"We already did." he returned with unctuous smile, swept the best jewels into one of her embroidered handkerchiefs and left the room with sharp commands to his soldiers to stay on guard outside. "You will stay here. If you try to escape I will round up twenty of your people and shoot them in front of you. Have a pleasant evening, madame."

The door slammed behind him and his men. She seized the pewter ewer and hurled it at the door. "Damn you all to hell!" she shouted, and then waited to see if anyone would come back in.

When no one did, she bent and picked up the pendant. It fit in her palm, and she smiled at it in relief. Funny that he had thrown away the most important piece as if it held no value.

Now to see if it did what it was supposed to. If the stories her Nana had told her were true: If you break the stone in a time of great need, your ancestor the Ice Demon will return to aid you.

"I hope you were right, Nana, for this is a time of great need," she whispered.

Kneeling on the floor, on the other side of the bed out of immediate sight of the door, she put the red stone on the rug, between two towels to muffle the sound, and then took up the pewter ewer.

She closed her eyes, not knowing how to do this. Supposedly all she had to do was break the stone, but that seemed not proper. She was not summoning him as if he was a servant; she was pleading his help, and she should be the supplicant in this. "I am Queen Birgitte, second of her name, great-granddaughter of Elsa the Snow Queen of Arendelle, your descendant, and I beg you, Ice Demon, to fulfill your promise and come to our aid. Please, your people need you."

She brought the ewer down as hard as she could.

The stone shattered like an egg with a loud cracking sound. She lifted the top towel away to see the shards, sitting dull and unaffected. She'd smashed a royal heirloom for nothing.

Then…

The ruby shards sparked and glinted, as if each caught the light of a brilliant sunset. An intense cold washed over her, like a sharp knife of winter, biting the skin of her arms and her cheeks. Soon it was gone and the room was warm again.

She smiled as she gathered up the shards and dumped them in the hearth. At her window, decorated with iron bars after her previous attempt to escape, she looked out to the harbor and the movement of enemy troops. There was a tank in the square and several German boats in the water, controlling access and using them as a base to control the Danish straits and to attack the North Sea.

She had hoped the invasion would be quickly fought off, but she had not reckoned with the sheer strength of the Nazi machine, overwhelming her little country. Two years after that hideous flag had first been raised over her castle, she had decided it was time to beg for help. She had nothing to lose at this point, and her people were dying every day trying to fight these invaders as best they could.

The message was sent, and if God and the gods were kind, she would have her response soon.

And these invaders would be very sorry they had ever crossed the border.

In Asgard, Thor knew that Loki had a formal petition for the king and he knew what it had to be about - there was only one thing Loki wanted. So Thor made sure he was in the hall at the appointed time to listen. Loki would formally make his request, again, and he would be formally denied, again. Thor wanted to be there, to support him.

Loki entered, wearing the green cape and helm of his court armor. "I request permission to go to Midgard," Loki said, looking up at the throne.

Odin's expression was, if anything even more grim. "Three times in the past two years, you have made the same request and I have denied it each time. Nothing has changed, Loki. Your request is denied."

Loki clenched his jaw and said with passable patience, "It has changed. This time, Arendelle has asked for my aid. The situation has grown dire for them. They need my help."

Odin was not impressed. "War has engulfed Midgard. It is… tragic, but it happens. It is not Asgard's place to interfe--"

"How can you say that?" Loki interrupted, incredulous. "You interfered yourself in the Winter War…"

"To defend them from the invading Jotnar. Not for wars they bring upon themselves. Else where would we stop? They war amongst themselves constantly."

Loki gestured sharply with his left hand, pushing the king's concern to the side. "I'm not interested in the rest of them. Only Arendelle."

"One of many--"

"No!" Loki jerked forward a step, temper snapping into fury. "Not one of many. The only one. I promised Elsa I would watch over Arendelle. For two years I have waited and I have been patient, but now this child of my own blood begs my help! I will not let these monsters murder her people - my people - in the streets without retribution!"

Odin let the echoes die, look on his face grim and forbidding, as he tightened his grip on Gungnir. "You will," he declared. "You should never have made such a foolish promise, Loki. And you may not keep it now. You may not go to Midgard and you may not involve yourself in the war there," he commanded.

Loki's eyes narrowed and his jaw and fists clenched, and Odin returned his look and warned quietly, "Do not gainsay my will in this. Or I will have you confined until you submit."

Loki's mouth and throat worked with words he desperately wanted to say but forced himself to held back. He whirled and stalked out again. His face was white with rage and his jaw so tight he should crack his teeth, and he glowered at nothing, not acknowledging Thor at all as he passed.

A silence fell until the slamming of the far door announced that Loki was gone.

"At least nothing is on fire this time," Thor said, jesting to try to cut the tension. But Frigga's face was still taut with concern, and Odin's grip on Gungnir was too tight.

"Will he obey?" Odin demanded of him.

The true answer was that Loki was probably on his way to the Observatory at this second, because no, he would not obey. Thor had not seen Loki so furious since he had left last time, and that did not bode well. Nor had there been such a break between his father and brother in the century since Loki had returned, and Thor hated to see it again. He tried to intervene, get some leniency for Loki's emotional reaction, "Father, you ask much of him. He lived among them for a long time, and some are still his blood kin. Our kindred, too, through him. They are in some sense Asgardian."

Odin's eye was severe as he rejected that line of reasoning. "Mortals. The child is long dead, and the blood thin. But that matters not; even if the child was alive, still I would forbid it."

Thor nodded in reluctant acceptance. Odin would not be swayed on this, but Thor did not believe Loki would either.

Unfortunately Odin knew that as well. "Loki is forbidden the Bifrost until this war on Midgard or his foolish impulse passes. The Einherjar shall be used to assist Heimdall, as necessary." Odin tapped Gungnir to seal the command, and Thor winced inwardly. That command put Loki under house arrest on Asgard for the duration of the threat against Arendelle.

Thor's gaze met his mother's and he knew she thought the same - Loki was not going to give up the defense of Arendelle so easily. The more Odin sought to box him in, the more he would resist. She flicked her eyes deliberately to send him after Loki, and he quickly made his farewells to father and mother and went after his brother.

Cape billowing behind him but helm discarded, Loki was pacing his chambers with all the stalking fury of a leopard, as Thor entered. "Do not parrot his words," he warned Thor icily. "I am in no mood."

"I came to warn you, he has forbidden you the Bifrost and detailed the Einherjar to assist Heimdall."

That made Loki stop pacing and he almost smiled. "So many? I feel I should be flattered."

"He remembers what happened to Heimdall the last time," Thor reminded him drily, but Loki was not amused, lips twisting sourly as if he might wish to do it again. "I am sorry you cannot go," Thor added. "I know how much it must pain you to see that land under threat."

"No, you do not," Loki answered after a moment, more softly. "When Birgitte broke the stone, I looked at Arendelle." With a flick of his fingers he cast an image in the air. "This is what I saw."

After a moment Thor recognized the place - this was the main market square of Arendelle, with the same stone pavings, with the bridge to the castle on one side and the church and the small buildings. It had changed, too, grown in population with greater numbers of houses and spread up the hills and the ships in the harbor were larger. But his eyes fixed on the center of the image then, people forced into a close herd in the middle of the market square by dark-suited soldiers with weapons. There was an armored vehicle behind them, in clear threat.

But the soldiers fired their weapons at the people in a great cloud of smoke- some tried to run screaming and were cut down. In the end, there was a pile of bodies - perhaps twenty - in the square. The image froze there on the scene of carnage, as Loki stared at it.

Thor gasped, horrified by the brutality. Those people had been without weapon, and at least a few of them had been children. "Oh, dear ancestors, Loki… I … you are right. We must stop this."

"I will."

"You need not go alone. I will gladly stand at your shoulder, brother. I will do whatever we must to get to Midgard, if we must fight the Einherjar, I will. I knew Elsa and Anna. They are my people, too," he declared staunchly.

Loki's glance was grateful and he even smiled a bit, before shaking his head. "That will not be necessary. I have found hidden paths in Yggdrasil to bypass the Bifrost."

"You can do that?" Thor was impressed, and surprised as he'd never heard of such a thing -- ships with stardrives could travel Realm to Realm, or use the Bifrost, but magical pathways were new. "Then we will take these paths together."

Loki hesitated, pressed his lips together, then shook his head once in regret. "I can take only myself. You will need to stay."

"But -- no, alone is dangerous. If there is a path for one, there must be a path for two," Thor insisted. "What can you do alone?"

"A great deal, Thor. I know where the tesseract is," he admitted, and Thor turned shocked eyes on him.

"You know--? You found it? And you told no one? Loki!"

"The Casket should be mine, and he never has offered it to me," Loki added, a bitter tone to his voice. "So the tesseract is mine in recompense." Thor wanted to protest that Loki had kept a dangerous secret like the tesseract for himself, but he wasn't surprised either. As much as Loki had reconciled with Odin, there remained a chasm of misunderstanding and distrust between them. Loki slipping out to Midgard was not going to improve the situation either, but Thor couldn't try to persuade him not to go, not after seeing that slaughter.

But Loki wasn't thinking about the tesseract anymore as his eyes went back to the image hanging in the middle of the room. "I should have been there when these creatures first invaded. I could have stopped this."

"Brother, it is not your fault--" Thor reassured him.

"No," he agreed. "It is theirs. Mortals have such short memories," he whispered, hands clenching. "They have forgotten. I will bring the Ice Demon back and they will remember why Arendelle should be left in peace."

Thor had heard enough stories about Loki's years as the Ice Demon to know that was not all good, and with the tesseract, could do worse. Thor gripped his shoulder. "Do nothing you will regret."

"Oh, I will regret nothing," Loki promised darkly. "But they will regret much."

"Then go, and bring back stories of honor," Thor wished him, hoping the reminder of honor would keep Loki from dishonorable behavior.

Loki saw right through it and chuckled. "Honor? I leave that to you, brother. Honor has no place in vengeance."

Thor wanted to argue with him, but knew there was no point when Loki was so determined.

"Come home," Thor told him. "When it is finished, come home. Do not do as you did before and believe you had to stay away."

"Even when Father is furious at my defiance?" Loki asked lightly, but with an edge of concern.

"He is always furious at your defiance," Thor joked. "Mother will talk him down, especially if I show her this," he gestured to the projected image. But the light mood evaporated and he looked at Loki, fearing this might be the last he would see him for another long stretch of time.

Loki rolled his eyes. "You needn't gaze on me like that. You will see me again."

"I know. But be cautious."

Loki snorted. "The irony of you telling me to be cautious is rather stunning."

Thor folded his arms and gave him a disapproving glare. "You ran blindly into the manticore's cave. Do not claim it is my flaw alone!"

Loki's mouth dropped open at the sheer effrontery of that accusation. "I was invisible! I had a plan! Unlike you and your countless reckless stunts! The dragon, remember that? That was all you, brother, all you."

Thor refused to fall for the attempted distraction with ancient history. "Your invisibility spell shielded neither sound nor scent, and your 'plan' consisted of throwing daggers at it until it was dead. Hardly a tactic you would condone if I did the same. You had no knowledge what was within, but because you thought you heard Sif's voice, you rushed in." Thor had followed after, but not quite immediately. The sight of Loki held off the ground by the claws impaling his chest, and the manticore's stinger ready to strike, would stay with him for the rest of his days. Manticore poison was one of the most deadly in the Nine Realms – Asgard had the anti-venom but Loki would probably not have survived long enough to get home for it. His anger faded for worry. "You nearly died, Loki," he murmured. "If I had been but seconds slower...."

Loki hesitated, casting down his gaze as if he was finally realizing the gravity of what had nearly happened, and huffed a breath in irritation. But he approached Thor to give him an unusual look of serious intent in his pale eyes. "I will be cautious." Thor knew that was both promise and apology for nearly getting killed.

"See that you are." Thor gripped his arms again in both hands. "I dislike you going alone. These mortals have better weapons now--"

Loki sniffed in disdain. "Hardly. They still use explosive projectiles."

"Did you not see the armored vehicle? They grow more advanced by the hour. They are not the ones you knew."

Loki rolled his eyes. "They are still children groping in the dark for a light to find the way out of their meager lives. Now, fret not, I will keep in contact with Mother so you will know how I fare."

Thor would have let him go then, but some chill dread took him, looking at Loki's face, and instead Thor pulled him close, wrapping arms around Loki's shoulders. "See that you return."

"Fine, fine, get off," Loki squirmed free. "It appears I must go to Midgard to escape your piles of sentiment." He rolled his eyes and stalked to the wall case, choosing daggers to tuck into his vambraces and boot tops and others to store in his dimensional pocket for easy conjuring and throwing.

"Now, if you would do me an excellent favor?" Loki asked and when Thor agreed with a quick nod, he continued, "I will set a light touch of illusion around you, so it might seem I have disguised myself as you. Ride to the Observatory and approach Heimdall to visit Vanaheim."

"To distract him."

Loki's eyes flickered to the west. "And Father. They will both be occupied with you for a little while. Opening the path is not easy or quick and if they see what I intend too early, they could raise the city's shield. Any high energy discharge makes the path highly… problematic."

Which probably meant it would be impossible since Loki tended not to acknowledge impossibility. But Thor resolved to make sure the shields did not go up as Loki attempted to leave. Thor grinned. "This feels very much like our tricks in our youth, trying to fool Mother that I was you pretending to be me."

"Hopefully you do a better job this time," Loki said dryly. He held out a hand and in a moment, Thor felt the faintest touch like a chill breeze twine around his body, briefly stirring his hair. Loki observed and then gave a satisfied nod. "There, the air is slightly warped around you. Hopefully they will think I was careless in my fury."

"I will hold their attention," Thor promised. He wasn't going to promise a very convincing version of Loki-pretending-to-be-Thor, but if he was himself it wouldn't matter. All Loki needed was for Heimdall and Odin's gaze on him, not watching Loki.

"Good, then go."

Thor didn't move, still worried, until Loki let out an aggravated groan. "Do I have to leave first? You are pathetic." He started for the door and that prompted Thor into following him.

Before Loki could open the door, Thor put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. "You will take care of yourself."

Loki turned his head to look at Thor over his shoulder. "There are no manticores on Midgard, I promise you." Flashing a grin, he slid out from under Thor's grip and triggered the door to open, stepping into the hall.

"I will head for the stables," Thor told him. "See you soon."

Loki wagged his fingers in farewell and headed in the opposite direction until he turned a corner and was gone from view.

Thor started for the stables to do his part in distracting any watchers. If he weren't so worried about Loki and his plan, it might have been fun. He left Mjolnir in the stall and took his horse across to the Observatory. Heimdall suspected he was Loki immediately, and Thor tried to keep up the deception by acting irritated by the doubt and insisting that he was Thor and he needed to go to Vanaheim, right now. When Heimdall refused, declaring the Bifrost was closed to all travelers, Thor attempted to order him and then cajole him like Loki might. He watched the Einherjar suspiciously like he might be considering magic against them all. But as soon as Heimdall sent a message to the king to request permission for "Thor" to travel the Bifrost, which Odin of course denied, Thor retreated with an openly sullen mien. But inwardly he felt jubilant at the success and hoped he'd done enough to distract Heimdall at the right moment.

Returning to the palace, feeling bereft at the knowledge that Loki was gone, he went to find his mother. She was standing on her balcony, overlooking the gardens, alone as if she had been waiting for him. She gestured him to come near.

Frigga examined him for a moment and then with a wave of her hand, dispersed the illusion. "Ah. Clever. So, then, Loki has gone?"

Thor nodded, then frowned. "You don't seem surprised he got past Heimdall."

She smiled. "That is because I know he did not use the Bifrost. However, I am surprised you did not go with him."

"I offered," Thor admitted, "but the path would hold only one, he said."

She frowned at him and shook her head. "Not so. If he opens the door, any can pass through. He chose to go alone."

"He could have opened the path for both of us?" Thor asked, not entirely surprised that Loki had lied about it. "Why would he not wish me with him, to help?"

Frigga looked out over the peace of the garden, her hands tight on the railing and belying her calm. She was not easy about Loki traveling alone to Midgard in the midst of war. "They are his people. His responsibility," Frigga answered. "And likely because he knew your father would recall the both of you in fury if you defied him, also."

Thor snorted a laugh. "Does he believe Father will be less furious with him alone?"

Frigga smiled wryly. "No, but the Allfather will send no one after him, knowing they will become pawns in Loki's scheme to free Arendelle before they ever return here."

"But, no, Father is wrong! We should help them," Thor objected. "Loki showed me what made him so angry – men with weapons firing into a crowd, slaying all before them, men, women, elders, children... A mass execution full of terror. It was terrible, and we should not sit idly by and let such evil occur there, if we are so willing to keep order on Vanaheim and Alfheim."

Frigga's hand seized his arm. "My dearest, it makes my heart glad to know you believe that. And truly I agree with you. Yet the Allfather is correct; the humans war amongst themselves, and for little cause. We cannot interfere in their disputes, else we either must rule them or we become tools of their conflicts." Thor nodded reluctant understanding; in general the policy was right, but in this particular instance it was wrong. Frigga inhaled a deep breath and continued, "And whether or not his decision was right, he gave the command which Loki is defying. A king does not lightly accept defiance or rebellion, nor should he."

"No, but--"

"Loki is the exception to many rules, including this one?" she asked, with a smile. "He acts from the heart, but also from defiance, believing there is no consequence he would not accept." Her smile faded, as her expression grew more troubled and her blue eyes more distant as she saw something to come. "There will be consequence, Thor."

He felt a chill slip down his back, at the surety of her tone. "What consequence?"

She shook her head, that she didn't know, but it couldn't be good.

"I could follow him? Help him?" Thor suggested. "You could send me on Loki's path."

For a moment she seemed tempted, as if what she sensed was troubling enough that she would risk the king's fury, but then she said, "Even if I would, I could not. I do not know his path."

He frowned. "But you taught him--"

"His command of Yggdrasil far exceeds mine, Thor, and he has kept his method secret."

Thor was shocked. "Even from you?" Frigga was the only person Loki would admit to caring about, and they shared their magic. To find out he had held back secrets from her... But he thought of Loki's keeping the tesseract for himself, declaring it his recompense for the Jotunheim treasure, but perhaps it was truly because he no longer trusted his family, as once he had.

She turned away, face briefly showing her sorrow, but her words revealed that Thor's supposition was most likely correct. "He keeps one foot on the threshold. Nothing we say or do will fully convince him he belongs here."

"After all this time?" Thor asked softly. "But… we are his family."

"Yes, and he does care for us, my son. But the secret of his true ancestry preys on his heart. He fears the truth will be revealed and he will be reviled by the people, shunned and cast out."

"But I would stand with him."

"Yet you could not stand against the entire will of the people. I doubt the reaction will be as terrible as he fears, but he knows well that the intolerance against the Jotunn continues."

"I wish you had never told him."

She nodded sadly. "Perhaps that would have been better."

Thor turned his gaze up, imagining he could see Midgard beyond the veil of the sky. "I wish he was going to Midgard to visit with Elsa." She had been the only one he had seemed to trust with his whole heart after learning the truth, and her death had driven him into keeping his feelings more to himself than before.

Frigga patted his arm. "Perhaps avenging Arendelle will give him some measure of ease, and allow him to purge his grief."

If it were only purging his grief, Thor would be less concerned, but that was not Loki's plan. He shook his head once in soft denial. "He intends to bring back the Ice Demon and kill as many as he can, to force them out of Arendelle. I don't know if that is good for him, Mother, to embrace that darkness again."

Frigga shook her head, equally troubled by the thought. She reached up to take hold of her braid and draw the end through her fingers, smoothing it. "No. It is not. But your father has forced him into inaction for two years, when he might have been able to defend them without matching death to death. Now we will see the consequence of that patience."

"As long as he comes home at the end."

"He will." She found a smile for him. "I will not let him hide another century, not this time."

"Good." They both turned to look out over the city and the gardens and the sky above, and Thor thought she might be wishing she could see Midgard as well.

Chapter Text

Leaving Asgard was simple enough. He'd found - and used - the doorway to Midgard before, though it had been some years ago. He had lied to Thor about needing a distraction to escape Asgard, though the fear about the city's defensive shield had been true. High energy sources in general made teleportation impossible. But Thor had been so insufferable and clingy, Loki had thought he needed a task or he'd want to follow and then he might realize he could come with. Loki didn't want Thor blundering around, throwing Mjolnir, and otherwise getting in Loki's way. 

Because I'm going to do things you're not going to like, brother. Your heart is too whole to do what must be done. And while your fury burns hot and reckless and then sputters out quickly, mine is ice and deliberation and takes a long time to warm. I would rather not have you mewling in my ear about honor and such foolishness, while I slaughter them. They murdered children and they do not deserve the protection of honor. I will kill them and they will remember to fear the Ice Demon.

The path spat him out with unexpected vigor, sending him stumbling across uneven ground. But he caught his balance and first inhaled the crisp air - it tasted like fall. Snow had already returned to the heights, and here, summer's green had already faded for the duller colors of autumn.

There was also an unpleasant and new sulfurous stench on the breeze - the smoke of combustion and oil, not the smoke of charcoal and food. It was the stink of the invaders and their vehicles.

He turned to look down to the town. He'd put himself on the ridge, not expecting there to be houses only a few hundred meters downslope now. The town had grown, buildings sprouting up the slope and around the curve of the bay to the far side. The houses and buildings in the town center seemed much the same, though now there were horseless, motorized vehicles, not carts. 

At the end of its own small spit of land, the castle remained, and fury filled him at the sight. There were iron bars across some of the windows, including the one which had used to be the queen's bed chamber. And there was a new flag at the highest tower - red and black and white. It was not the flag of Arendelle. He lifted a hand to set it on fire, but lowered it. Not yet.

There were new boats in the harbor and larger ones in the fjord beyond - these with motors, not sails. The market square was deserted, and in fact the entire town seemed very quiet, except for the black and grey clad soldiers walking their patrols. 

He crept down the slope, slipping past dark houses to a new closer vantage, watching. The church with the tesseract was behind the town hall from this vantage, but the spire was still there. He would have to go there later to fetch the tesseract, but first he wanted to watch.

Unlike you, brother, I am not entirely a reckless fool. I will bide my time, bank my fury, and then attack. 

He'd almost come to believe there were no people at all, but as the sun set he saw a young man get up on the roof of his house and dart across to another roof, crouching low to the roof line, making his way to the south side of town and vanish. 

Loki smiled to see it. Ah, resistance. Good to know. 

Then activity began and several of the homes belched carriages and drove across the bridge to the castle, where the lights were coming on in some festive display. The sight of a couple alighting from the carriages in fancy dress made him smile in eager anticipation.

Oh. A banquet. For me? You shouldn't have. You really shouldn't have. 

He wrapped an invisibility glamour around himself and started down. 

In town proper, everything was much worse than it had seemed from above - the town was far too quiet, with even the sounds of approaching supper muted. Occasional sounds of babies crying were quickly hushed, and he caught furtive glances out the curtained windows. It all reeked of fear. 

There were papers nailed to the street lamp pole and he paused to read them - announcement of curfew, promises of money for those that came to the occupation authorities with reports of any illicit activity, the threat that any one caught with weapons or harboring 'undesirables' would be executed.

He hesitated in the square, at the darkened splotch on the cobblestones where the people had been murdered. He remembered Elsa making a sheet of ice for the children to play, and Olaf waddling around to everyone's delight, and his heart felt too tight, giving him pain of how different it had become. Where once there had been fearless acceptance, now there was terror. And he hadn't stopped it.

Elsa, I am glad you are not here to see what has been done to your people. I will destroy these invaders like I promised. Too late for some, I know, and I regret that profoundly, but it will be done.

There were guards at the end of the bridge, standing in their grey uniforms and black boots, and they saw nothing, eyes and senses blind to what was before them. 

Loki stabbed them both before they knew there was any danger to them, piercing their hearts in one quick blow between the ribs. Then with his free hand, he lifted the dying bodies by the collar and threw each into the water. He examined the weapons - a multiple round version of the same rifles he'd last seen more than a century ago - and thought scornfully, "Projectiles still. I left too early before I could drag them to more advancement." Though he probably shouldn't complain when their primitive weapons were what he was going to use against them. 

The rest of the way was clear, up to the courtyard. Here there were more people: some soldiers, and some civilians, at least in civilian dress, waiting around. They were the carriage drivers for those who had gone in to the banquet. But even the soldiers were low-level minions. He needed the officers first, who would be with the queen and whatever others had been invited to this farce.

He glanced up at the wrong flag on the tower and, smirking, held out his hand. Ice crept up the pole, winding around it and then across the flag until it drooped heavily, coated with clear ice. A moment later it was too heavy for the flimsy rope holding it, and the flag fell free of the pole.

Now it begins. 

The throne hall was empty. They must be using the solar to the west as a formal dining room. Still wrapped in the invisibility glamour, which as Thor had reminded him shielded neither sound or scent, but his footsteps made little sound on the carpet of the hall and his scent was nothing compared to the stink of the vehicles, candles and the fish being served for supper. 

Loki walked past two more guards, breaking their necks from behind and hauling both into the servant's corridor. They wouldn't be hidden long, but in a few minutes it wasn't going to matter. 

Then changing the glamour to a civilian evening suit and making sure it was properly buttoned, he pulled open the doors to let himself in.

The war-time dinner party had made some effort at 'festive' even if it seemed there was only a few paltry fish on the table, some brown bread, and jam, and last years tinned peas. But there were bottles of wine from the south, and the invading officers seemed in high spirits. 

At the head of the table, a blonde woman of some indeterminate not-young age was wearing a blue gown and a barely veiled look of disgust as she listened to the be-decked officer next to her. She wore no tiara or crown, but Loki sensed a faint thread from her of recognition, that his power and blood recognized her. She was the one who had called him. There were other officers there and a few women companions who seemed too young and too resigned to be actual wives of those officers, but were likely townspeople pressed into companionship.

There were a few older civilian men as well, some chatting quite pleasantly, others more surly to the occupiers.

There was, however, no empty place setting, so Loki thought he would begin there. It would establish his identity to Birgitte and possibly her people, and she would listen to him when he started to ready her escape.

Letting the doors slam behind him drew a puzzled attention at first from both the Germans and the natives. Loki waited until the conversation died and in the following silence, with all eyes on him, he gave a nod of his head to Birgitte. "Good evening, Queen Birgitte. It is lovely to make your acquaintance. Though I am distressed there has been no place left open for me to sit as there ought to be." 

Her head lifted and her blue eyes looked very like Elsa's, as understanding dawned there, and she stared at him in open wonder before recovering herself. "Um, yes, I do hold to the tradition, sir. Two years ago there would have been a plate and a chair, according to the ways of Arendelle. But as you see, my table is not entirely my own." 

"Yes, I see that. It is not you I would ever blame for this forgetfulness."

He strolled nearer and one of the officers, not the highest ranked near Birgitte, but a midlevel man, blustered in German, "Who are you? How dare you enter this place?" 

"How dare I?" Loki returned in the same language, offended. "Really, I think you are the one with the daring. This is my place, not yours." 

The senior-most officer, a colonel seated beside Birgitte, leaned forward. "Your place? You are from Arendelle? What is your name? Where are your papers?"

"My papers?" Loki rolled his eyes at that. "I need no papers. Fool." He circled around the colonel to address Birgitte. "You called?" 

"I did. And you came." She smiled at him in gratitude.

"I sorrow I did not come sooner." 

"Who are you?" the colonel demanded. "Where is your identification? This is a vassal state of the Third Reich, and you are to surrender your papers immediately or you will be arrested."

"Vassal state?" Loki wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Arendelle is no vassal state, and certainly not to a corrupt and foul thing that would murder children in the street. And I am here to end it." 

"You alone?" the colonel asked, with a smirk.

"How else was I to make the fight more fair?" Loki retorted. He vaulted up on top of the table, as the others gasped at his daring. He straightened to his full height, head nearly brushing the chandelier. It held electromagnetic lights that burned with a lot of heat waste; Arendelle should have something better. "Now then, how many of you others keep to the tradition? That way I know which ones I let walk out of here." 

A young woman looking up at him suddenly gasped. "The place that waits!" she exclaimed. "At Christmas dinner!"

"Oh, I am elevated to Christmas dinner! Elsa would be appalled, but I find it utterly delightful. That's new." He idly kicked some candlesticks out of the way and knelt before her. "Tell me about that." 

"Uh, we put out a plate with a dried plum on it, so that," she inhaled a deep breath and her voice quavered, "that the Ice Demon will keep the house safe." 

"Pagan superstition," the colonel sneered.

Loki straightened and let the illusion on his Midgardian clothes fade so that his combat leathers appeared, enjoying the amazement on their faces at the simple trick. He addressed the German officer, "No, Colonel. Not superstition. Because you did not leave a plum on my plate at Christmas dinner, and so, like the plagues of Egypt, your house will not be passed over. Which," he smiled at the colonel, "is rather delicious irony, is it not?" 

The colonel sneered at him, "You are a Jew?"

Loki tilted his head back and laughed. "No, no, Colonel. Such a small mind you have. I am not one of those passed over; I am the one bringing the retribution. I am the protector of these people, I am the monster they tell stories about. I am a god." He reached up and crushed one of the glass bulbs between his fingers to pull the heated tungsten wire; it was too hot for him to touch without harm, but he kept his face impassive and dropped the still-glowing bit of wire into the German's ale. The drink exploded into a cloud of superheated vapor, shattering the stein, and everyone pushed back, some shrieking with fear. The colonel and several of his men pulled weapons. Though several of them had shaking hands, the colonel's was steady, his face twisted with hate and fear.

"You are sitting in my chair, Colonel." Loki held out his hand to form a staff of ice in it, thinking of Elsa as he did it. His blood seemed far less vile when he thought of it as hers. He let his eyes turn to Frost Giant scarlet, as his amusement faded away for pure unbridled rage. "I am the Ice Demon and your lives were all forfeit the moment you crossed the border to Arendelle."

The colonel got the end of Loki's ice spear in his throat. For the second man, Loki gestured with his free hand, igniting the powder in the bullet and the weapon exploded in the soldier's hand. The dining hall dissolved into projectiles and screaming. 

Loki hadn't hadn't had this much fun in ages, hitting Germans in the head with his ice staff and kicking a tureen of soup into another's face and then breaking his neck with a well-placed boot. 

Birgitte was not idle either, ducking out of the line of fire and stabbing another soldier who tried to take her hostage, with her fork right in the eye.

But the gunfire got out of hand - the bullets themselves were more stinging insect than pain, but they were irritating, because Loki still felt the force of each impact. Plus the smell was bothering his nose. And likely one of the mortals, perhaps Birgitte herself, would be injured.

So he pulled more strongly on a thread of power, gathering it into his fist, before he flung it back out in a narrow, focused stream, and did not err in his aim as the powder in all the weapons combusted at once.

He shielded his face with his sleeve from the concussive blast and shrapnel of metal and bone. There was an unfortunate scent of blood in the wake of the explosions. As the smoke cleared he saw that the enemy were all down, moaning, if not dead. 

Birgitte stood unsteadily, clutching the arm of her chair to steady herself. "Oh my God," she whispered, eyeing the carnage.

"We have little time," Loki said, striding to her. "They will come to investigate. You need to be away."

She looked up at him, blonde hair in golden wisps around her face. "You killed all of them." 

"Not all; not yet. First, you need safety. Is there a place to go?"

Thinking quickly, she said, "King Hrothgar of Norway escaped to Scotland last year. I could join him and we could run a resistance from there. Britain so far is free. But we need a boat. Or a plane." 

"Aircraft are too risky. But there are boats in the harbor."

"Harald, Kristoff," Birgitte called. "We must go." 

Loki turned to see who she addressed, half-expecting to see a familiar face then rolling his eyes at himself. Kristoff was long dead, what did he expect? This Birgitte was not his grand-child, but a distant descendant. Those days were long gone. 

Still, he was a bit relieved to see that this Kristoff was dark haired, as he picked up a sidearm from one of their erstwhile occupiers. "Ready, my queen." 

Birgitte addressed the others in the room. "We will send these Nazi invaders into the sea. You must all believe and hold firm."

"Go, Your Majesty," one of the young women urged her. "We will flee, frightened and confused." 

The others near her agreed and one added with a cunning smile that Loki appreciated, "We'll be sure to spread the story of what happened here." 

The one who had told Loki the story of the plum looked at him with awe and satisfaction, "I heard the Germans are looking for the gods. They'll be very sorry they have found one." 

"Oh, yes," he agreed. "Keep yourselves as safe as you might. Fight those who can be fought. I am but one, and I cannot do this alone. None of us can." Though as he stalked back to the door, blood and bodies scattered in his way, he thought that at least this much he had done mostly alone. 

There were four soldiers hastening toward the dining hall on the other side as he opened the door. They fired their weapons at him, and he ducked out of the path of the bullets, twirling the ice staff to kill three and nearly the fourth, except a gun fired behind him to strike the enemy soldier instead.

Loki glanced over his shoulder and Kirstoff shrugged. Loki gestured him up to join him, as they cleared the way for Birgitte. 

"We need a way to get to a ship," Birgitte said. "The docks are guarded…" 

Loki pondered that problem as the palace guards and attendants joined them, picking up weapons and killing as many of the invaders as they could, running out into the courtyard. The resistance had already gone to work, fighting in the courtyard and sabotaging the vehicles.

"They'll rouse the garrison," Kristoff warned as several low level Germans ran away, across the causeway.

"We need a boat," Birgitte said, turning her gaze to the boats in the harbor. "We have the men to take a ship from them, but we have no motorboat or dinghy to get there." 

"Ah, my dear, you are descended from me and the Snow Queen. You need no boat when there is ice," he said and leaned over the side of the causeway, targeting the nearest ship. Then weaving seiðr as fast as he could - wishing it was as easy for him as it had been for Elsa - he made a path of ice across the surface of the water. "Go. Swiftly." 

Kristoff was first to climb the wall and test the ice. It was more like a raft, bobbing under his weight, but it didn't break. 

"Hurry," Loki urged them. "I cannot hold it if I have to fight them, too." 

"Come with us," Birgitte urged him. 

"I have invaders to kill," he told her with a grin and then seized her under the arms. "Pardon my hands but you need to go." He set her on the ice path and then handed her one of the guns, and turned his eyes on Kristoff. "Keep her safe." 

"With my life, my lord," Kristoff promised.

In the end twenty people ran across the ice bridge and attacked the German boat. Loki watched as long as he could, holding the ice for them, while they slipped on board and took it over. 

He let the ice dissolve so no one could follow them, and hurried across the causeway, as German vehicles and soldiers started to go across in the other direction. In the dark, it was easy to walk unseen. Later, I will kill the rest of you. But first the tesseract and I will burn you all with it.

The square was now busy with soldiers roused from their supper or their beds, running for the castle and the harbor, but Loki ignored them all to head for the church. 

The entire front of it was ruined, lying in rubble, as if the entire façade had been hit with Mjolnir. It must have been that beast of a vehicle off to the side with the immense canon barrel. Loki's abdomen tightened in dismay and dread at the sight. Why attack the church? 

He approached more slowly, warily. The church was dark and seemed abandoned. No attempt had been made to repair the façade, which seemed odd and ominous unless it had been a recent event. He stepped over some wires, and slipped into the dark vestibule. Eyes adjusting to the starlight, he paused his step to see the carving of Yggdrasil standing uncovered against the wall. That was also new and strange, to be so open about their lingering devotion to the old ways, though if he and the plum had become part of the Christmas tradition, perhaps there was a little more blending than he had expected… 

He focused on the lower part of the tree, where Jormungandr was depicted, and its eye that was the trigger for the drawer that hid the tesseract. The drawer was still there, but his heart was uneasy. Why would the invaders crush the front wall of the church? Why would this paneling be exposed so openly?

Knowing he had little time, now that the invaders had been roused and the queen had escaped, he reached for the snake's eye and pushed it.

The drawer popped open. It was empty. But it was already too late. As soon as he pushed the eye, an electromagnetic current surged through his bare fingers and into his body. The pain was excruciating, overloading every nerve, but he couldn't move to free himself. It only stopped when his legs collapsed, and he fell to the floor. 

Trap. Fool. 

He raged at himself, but impotently, as his body would respond only with twitches. 

Get up, you idiot. This was a trap. You are under attack.

But he couldn't move, even when he heard the sounds of boots approaching. Then an oddly mellifluous German voice said, "You are too late. What was yours is now mine. As are you."

Loki forced his head to turn to see a human, dressed in a black uniform, with a special pin on his coat lapel, an octopus? How strange…

"I have tracked you through the centuries. And your cube of power. I know your secrets, and I knew if I hurt them enough you would come. And here you are." His lips lifted in a satisfied smirk, as the truth hit Loki like a blow:

He was luring me here. Birgitte and Arendelle were the bait, and I fell into it like the biggest moron in the Nine Realms. Thor was right, damn him.

His fingers could wiggle. He was getting his control back. In a moment, he could be on his feet again.

Where had they found that kind of power? This was more than they'd had at the palace for the lighting.

"You are confused?" the German asked lifting sharp eyebrows curiously. "When it was you who gave us the power source? A gift to another queen according to the story…" He nodded to his left deliberately, and Loki turned his head to see the officer's men there, beside an open metal case and within was not the tesseract, but something round. 

It was the child's ball Thor had given to his infant grand-niece, Princess Birgitte. 

They had stolen the present given to Loki's own grandchild. The cold rage filled his chest at the offense. Bastard, I will send you to hell. 

"It is small compared to the jewel I now possess. But strong enough, yes?"

The fury gave him strength, needing to punish this mortal for this insult, and Loki pushed himself to his feet. His legs felt like water, his muscles twitched randomly, and his spine burned with the aftereffect, but he ignored all of it. "Those jewels are not yours." 

"Everything is mine. You will help me usher in a new age of greatness."

"You are delusional, mortal." 

"No, it is you who are delusional. You are a god, but I will take your power." As he talked he gestured his men to gather their things and go, and he turned and started heading outside. "As you will see."

Steps still wavering, but feeling stronger by the second, Loki followed him intending to stab him to death and take back the ball. He reached the front empty wall of the church.

To find all that equipment and vehicle noises he had heard, the grumbling and creaking, had not been sent to the castle. Some of it was here, especially the large beast with the armor plate and treads, and the very large gun pointed in his direction. 

He lifted a hand, intending to spark the propellant in the shell, but he was too late.

The world exploded into fire.

tbc. 

Chapter Text

Loki stirred slowly, aware only of pain at first. Getting skewered by the manticore had been a pleasant day by the river compared to this. His skin seemed too tight on his flesh, his bones all ached, and yet when he tried to move, his muscles responded sluggishly. 

What had happened? Where was he? 

He opened his eyes, or at least it felt like he did, because it seemed darker with his eyes opened than when they were shut. There was no light at all. 

He tried to move again, more aware now, and found that his wrists and ankles bore some kind of metal cuffs. Worse he was locked in a narrow metal tube of some kind. There was not even space to bend his knees more than a little, although he was able to reach up to his face and confirm that his eyes were open, it was just a featureless darkness inside this confinement. He reached for seiðr, finding the threads thin and distant, hard to grasp. The bindings and close confinement made it difficult to use the supporting gesture, but after a moment he conjured a thin pale glow.

The best thing he could say was that the light proved he wasn't blind. Otherwise, he saw the plain metal interior surface of the tube - perhaps it was a missile casing, it was difficult to tell what it had been before holding him - and he saw the metal cuffs on his wrists, and the short chain between them gleaming brightly.

They had taken him prisoner.

This was intolerable. They couldn't possibly succeed at this. He was stronger and smarter and he had powers of which they had no understanding at all. He would laugh at their temerity, if only getting hit by a tank shell weren't quite so painful. 

He turned his left hand to expose the little lock to his sight, thinking scornfully of how stupid they were to think such a thing would hold him. Seiðr feathered inside the small lock, and it clicked. A moment more he had that wrist free, and he shoved at the top of the tube, expecting the lid to come off against his strength. It didn't budge. He pushed harder, bracing his shoulder. It was fastened down tightly, and the metal didn't show a dent for his efforts.

Instead of smashing at it like a fool, he felt for the seam, where it would have to be weaker, and pushed again. This time it moved, slightly, when he put his strength against it, but found that he wasn't quite as strong as he should be, still recovering. 

How had these primitives even figured out how to tap into the energy source in the ball? It should be beyond them and their internal combustion engines, projectile weaponry, and general ignorance of how the universe worked. Even if this German officer had stolen both tesseract and child's toy, he couldn't possibly understand them. 

Which was, presumably, what he wanted Loki for. He was going to have to teach them a lesson about offending gods, and not taking the Ice Demon seriously. 

Angry, he shoved at the seam again, shifting it enough to crack open and let in a sliver of bright light. But someone must've noticed on the outside, because the metal of the tube suddenly lit up with live current. Trapped in it, the power ran through him, frying his nerves as his body rattled helplessly against the tight walls of his cage.

It ended, leaving him panting and weak. He had barely started to recover again, maybe ten minutes later, when they charged the tube again, leaving him shaking in reaction.

Dread started to seep into the places were arrogance had been, as he realized that his captors were, it seemed, quite capable of doing that, again and again, sapping his strength with each jolt. It seemed ridiculous, but nonetheless true, that they had found a way to keep him prisoner with very little danger to themselves.

He tried to weave seiðr as soon as he gathered enough strength to control it, between each charge, but all he accomplished was freeing his other wrist. He couldn't focus the power on what he couldn't see outside, and he didn't have space enough to pull the cuffs off his feet. Simply wedging the lid up proved useless, as there was something else holding it down. 

After two hours, he was finally resigned to the fact that he was trapped. He would have to wait for them to make a mistake or change his circumstances by opening the tube. Humans were impatient and quick - he was immortal, he could wait.

Being resigned to waiting didn't make waiting hurt any less, though, and he started to tense between each charge, even though he knew there was nothing he could do. They had stripped off his boots and with the metal cuffs attached to his ankles, there was no position he could adopt that protected him from the power surging through him.

He thought about calling to his mother, but held back. All she would do was send Thor to rescue him. If he rescued Loki again, so recently after the manticore, Loki would never hear the end of it. The rest of his long life would be nothing but Thor hovering over him, believing Loki couldn't do anything for himself. 

So he instead hid himself from view, so neither Frigga nor Heimdall would see him stuck here and send Thor to his rescue. He would rescue himself and show his family that he was not the helpless weakling they all tended to believe he was. 

He was strong and tough and clever, and he could get himself out of this. Or so Loki believed.

 
He was wrong.

Thor entered his mother's room where she was sitting before her fire, having finished scrying. He was hoping she would be relieved and smiling when she turned to greet him, but instead her brow was knitted in worry. 

She found a smile for him, but that did not erase the concern in her eyes. She held out a hand for him to come nearer.

"You did not reach him?" Thor guessed. Loki had not contacted her since he'd left, so she had finally decided to contact him for herself, and get information.

She shook her head once, glancing back at the hearth and pressing her lips together. "No. It felt... different. Before, when he hid himself, I could touch the shroud, but this time, it was as if there was a wall. An outside force. I would say it is a high energy barrier of some kind, but Midgard does not have that sort of knowledge." 

"Loki does," Thor pointed out.

"Of course, but he would need a source; his strength is not so great as that." 

Thor hesitated, knowing to tell her would reveal something Loki had kept to himself. But she needed to know. "He told me before he left that he had found the tesseract. That he intended to use it to exact his revenge."

She lifted her head, her eyes wide in shock and dismay. "The tesseract? You are certain that was what he said?"

Thor nodded. Only now seeing her reaction did he understand the power now in Loki's grasp. "Yes. He said it was in recompense for Father never offering him the Casket of the Ancient Winters." 

She shut her eyes briefly and then shook her head. "So he takes the most powerful and dangerous weapon in the universe, in exchange for an artifact for which he has no use?"

"An artifact he feels should be his."

"Perhaps it should be, but the tesseract... He should know better than to use it in this way, it will attract attention to Midgard." She frowned again. "Yet it is strangely diffuse, so perhaps..." She trailed off, gaze distant, then looked at him again. "I am uneasy. If he is shielding himself deliberately then that is his choice, but he may not realize the tesseract has this effect."

Thor knew that if Frigga was uneasy about something, there was something ill happening. Her power was less showy than Loki's tended to be - especially since most of his were oriented to combat - but she was powerful and Thor had learned long ago to heed her. "Shall I ask Father to send me to check on him? Perhaps to acquire the tesseract, he will finally be amenable."

As expected, Odin had been most displeased with Loki's escape, and it had not been a surprise when Loki had hidden himself away from sight. But once Odin found out about the tesseract he might decide it was best to take back both errant son and lost weapon. 

Her gaze went back to the brazier, as she considered and after a moment, nodded. "We shall ask," she answered. "It has been months, and I have felt nothing from him at all."

That worried Thor more than anything -- Loki would not have lightly broken his promise to contact Frigga. Even if he was busy slaughtering invaders and doing other things of which she would not approve and he had lost track of time, he should still realize he had not reached her once.

"The mortals do not have the power or skill to keep him from reaching you," Thor said, hoping it was true. "It must be his choice, and you know he has said that mortal time often slips past him." 

"There is power on Midgard, though," Frigga murmured. "I find it hard to believe their sorcery is so adept to harm him, but no doubt there is some. Remember his story about Fandral's son and the princess with the magical hair? The sorceress hid the princess from Loki's effort to find her." 

"That sorceress is long dead."

"Someone taught her. Someone could have taught others. Or written it. Knowledge is rarely lost forever. And Loki himself was not that careful when he was on Midgard for those many years." She rose, determination chasing away her worry. "I will seek the king's counsel. And we will determine what to do." 

She left but Thor lingered in her room, newly worried about this danger he had not even imagined before, that some sorcerer might have caught Loki in some net. But it seemed ridiculous that someone of Loki's skill and power could have been overcome. It was more logical to assume that Loki was hiding himself again, as he had during his long sojourn to the mortal world.

It turned out that was what Odin believed as well. Though infuriated by the news about the tesseract's recovery, even that was not enough to change his mind. 

"I can go to Arendelle," Thor tried to persuade him. "Surely he started there, and I can trace him through whatever stories he has left behind. He intended to bring war to them, not hide in the shadows. I cannot believe he is so difficult to find."

"He intends to take this weapon and interfere in a war I specifically forbid!" Odin slammed Gungnir on the floor, still angry. "This is his attempt to trick us into involvement, and I will not." 

"But, Father--"

"No. You are forbidden Midgard, and if you are found plotting to disobey this order as your foolish brother did, I will strip Mjolnir from you and have you confined," Odin ordered harshly. "The mortals have brought this on themselves, and Asgard will play no part."

Thor bowed his head, knowing there was no other choice. The king had decided. If Loki needed help, he would get none from Asgard.

On Midgard, the war continued, fire and death spreading to engulf millions of mortals. Loki's silence persisted, days turning to weeks to months. If he was involved in the fight, Frigga could find no trace. He left no eddies of his passage, no whispers of his name reached them. He had utterly disappeared. If not for Frigga's confidence that she would know if Loki were dead, Thor would fear the worst. 

"He will reach us when he's ready," she told him. "Whatever he's doing, he doesn't want us to know." 

"What if-"

"Thor. There is no sense in fearing the worst, when there is nothing we can do. We could not find him, even if we went to Midgard; we can only wait." Her words were firm and he took some consolation in them, until he noticed the lingering worry in her face. There might be no sense in fearing something terrible had happened, but she did. Yet she was also right that there was nothing they could do until they knew where he was, or until she could find him and learn what was happening.

On Midgard, the year turned to 1943. It would become known as the year when the tide of war shifted, the year of the supersoldier. The year the course of history changed.

tbc...

Chapter Text

The "factory" was much larger than Steve had envisioned. There were dozens of tanks and vehicles on the grounds, and the buildings themselves were huge, planted here in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere in there, were the prisoners. And somewhere in there, hopefully, was Bucky. 

His infiltration was going pretty well, no alarm had been raised yet, as he removed a few enemy soldiers from his way and got onto the weapons floor. There were many strange, ominous looking devices there - guns and bombs, but very different from the ones he knew. They looked terribly lethal, glowing so eerily. 

He found his way to the prisoners, held in small groups in separate cages, and freed the first group without the alarm going off, though that surely wasn't going to last now that there were hundreds of Americans and others about to run amok in the factory. 

But when Bucky wasn't with them, Steve left them to find the "isolation level" from which no one had returned.

He was only halfway there when the alarm went up. Steve bit out a curse and continued punching his way upward. Fortunately the enemy was mostly trying to corral the prisoners and heading away from him, so he had fewer to deal with than the escaping 107th. 

There was a nicely dressed, obviously German, leader who came out of a room, stared at Steve in shock, and scurried away down the hall with a case under his arms. Steve let him go, so he could look in the room, hoping he'd found Bucky.

It wasn't Bucky, but he had found someone. 

"Dear God in Heaven," Steve whispered, and for a moment he forgot about Bucky, about the Nazis, about everything but the horror show before his eyes.

It was a man, strapped naked to a tilted metal table, all pale skin and bone. He had a strange sort of mask over the lower part of his face, which reminded Steve more of a dog's muzzle than a breathing mask. There were tubes attached to him: one in each arm, two in his abdomen, and a strange form of catheter. Worst of all, Steve was pretty sure the tubes were draining blood and other fluids from him; only one was set up to drip into him.

Steve came closer to see how he could help, or really, if he could help; he wasn't sure the prisoner was still alive. He gasped to see the prisoner was restrained with metal bolts through his wrists, clamping him to the table. He would have been crucified if the table were vertical. 

But he was alive. The eyes snapped open, shining like shards of ice and utterly mad in rage. Steve took a reflexive step back as if the prisoner could kill him with the sheer power of his fury, but recovered himself to move closer. With one hand Steve pulled the mask away, finding it had included a gag to keep him from speaking. He dumped the mask on the floor. 

What hellish nightmares had been happening in this room?

"I'm here to help you," he reassured the prisoner, who stared at him in empty rage. But he did reflexively start to try to loosen his jaw muscles with small motions back and forth to ease the cramping.

"Are you awake? Can you hear me?" Steve tried again. But the prisoner's expression didn't change, as if he didn't understand. Maybe the prisoner didn't speak English. "Verstehen Sie?Können Sie mich hören? Je suis ici pour vous aider. Pouvez-vous me comprendre?" 

The questions seemed to attract his attention, proving he wasn't totally gone. The prisoner blinked several times and frowned, and Steve could see the mental effort as he dug his way to alertness. The blind fury dissipated, and he focused on Steve's face, recognizing him as someone new, and maybe as someone to help him.

"Yes, that's right," Steve encouraged him. "Come on back. My name's Steve Rogers, I'm American. Are you with the 107th?"

His lips parted and it took a moment for him to find his voice, but then he repeated in an uncertain voice, slurring the word, since he could barely move his jaw, "American?"

"Yes, American," Steve confirmed. "I want to get you free, but I don't know--"

"F--fjarlegja allt--" he started and then stopped, closing his eyes and gathering his strength to speak in English. "Remove all of it."

"I don't think that's a good idea..." Steve said. "Let me go find a medic, there must have been one with the 107th, and we can help you--"

"No." The prisoner's voice was less hesitant already, even if it was still hoarse as if he hadn't spoken for awhile. He wasn't American, Steve realized; his accent sounded more like Peggy's as his voice grew stronger. "Remove it. Left arm first, that delivers a toxin to weaken me."

A toxin? They were poisoning their prisoner? Steve doubted that was the only thing keeping him weak; he looked gaunt and ill, as though he'd been here for some time without much food. "Okay. Okay, I can do that." Steve did as requested, pulling that needle and tube out first, then going to work on the others as quickly as he could, grimacing at the seeping blood and fluids from the wounds. But he was stymied lower down, and inhaled a deep breath. "I, uh, I'm sorry, oh God, I have to touch you to get it off, I'll try to be quick," he said. It was a tube connected to a metal cap for his prick, bound painfully tight to keep it in place. It was distressing how the prisoner flinched when Steve touched him, but when Steve had to grip his bare shaft to hold him steady enough to pry up the edge, he tensed but lay perfectly still, his head tilted away, eyes shut, as if this had happened so many times he could only endure it. When it started to stiffen in his hand, Steve felt sick at the suspicion of what the tube was meant to collect. He hurled the whole evil contraption to the floor with disgust. "There, thank God that's off you. Nazi filthy thing." 

But those were the easy things to remove; Steve had left the bolts for last. Taking the other tubes and needles out had left small wounds, but the wrists were going to bleed like a son of a bitch. He pulled the roll of bandages from his jacket pocket, wishing he had twice this amount, and leveled the table with a push at the head. He looked more closely at the bolts to see if they were threaded like screws or more like nails. He was stunned to realize shone similarly to his shield, perhaps they were made of vibranium as well. But they weren't threaded, it looked like, which would make this a bit easier. 

Why the hell would anyone put special bolts through the wrists of a man who looked starved and was being poisoned besides?

"What's your name? Where are you from?" Steve asked. Oh dear God, the prisoner had been here long enough his skin had grown onto the bolt; he was going to have to tear it to get it out. 

"L--" he didn't finish, arching his back and moaning in pain as Steve loosened the nearer bolt with a sharp twist. 

"Answer me, think about that," Steve urged, moving to stand behind the head and leaning down across his face to draw his attention. "I know it hurts but look at me, and tell me your name. Focus. Look at me and tell me your name?" 

He didn't focus on Steve; his gaze strayed past Steve's head. "L - Lukas," he whispered, voice shaking.

"And where are you from, Lukas?" 

He didn't answer for a moment, gaze turning distant as if he didn't hear the question. Steve insisted, more loudly trying to get his attention, "Lukas, where are you from?"

He muttered something foreign, then more clearly answered, "Arendelle." 

Lukas barely finished when Steve braced himself and pulled out both bolts. Lukas arched his back and screamed. "Oh God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I have to do it," Steve told him. Then while Lukas lay there, gasping and stunned from the pain, Steve unrolled some of the bandage and quickly wrapped his nearer wrist. The blood soaked it through. "Oh my God, this isn't enough, this isn't enough at all…" He wrapped it as well as he could, and did the same for his other hand. Gently, he laid the injured hands down and patted his thin arm with what he hoped was reassurance and comfort. 

"Rest. I'm going to find you some clothes off one of the guards I punched in the face outside. I'll be right back," he reassured Lukas, though he wasn't sure if Lukas could hear him. 

He dragged the guard into the room by the boot and started stripping his body armor. He pulled off the pants, belt, and the undershirt and turned to bring it to Lukas.

Lukas was sitting up. Steve stared, flabbergasted that he was upright. How the hell was that even possible in someone with holes in his wrists, who looked so weak and sick? 

"Uh, wow. Are you sure you should be up?" Steve asked. He frowned, tickled by something strange. It was weird he was sitting up at all, of course, and so pale and thin like he didn't belong in this room. Which of course he didn't - no one did - but certainly not with holes in them, still trickling blood.

"I think we have no time for me to be weak." Lukas reached for the clothes, forgetting about his damaged wrists. His face blanched and he twisted his body to the side to retch, dry heaving from the flare of agony. He slipped off the table, but his legs wouldn't hold him up. Steve grabbed him around the shoulders before he could collapse to the floor.

"Whoa there, let me help." 

"I… need a bit more time to heal," Lukas said in a fainter voice, slumped into him.

A bit, Steve thought with some bleak amusement as he pulled the undershirt over Lukas' head. The guy had spirit at least, even if he felt frail in Steve's hands, and Steve worried that his enhanced strength might break his bones accidentally. He eased his grip around Lukas' ribs as he helped Lukas sit on the table again. "How long have you been here?" he asked. 

Lukas closed his eyes with a frown. "I… don't know," he said after a moment. "It was… 1942?"

Steve's hand patted the thin shoulder in sympathy. "I'm so sorry, Lukas. It's November '43." Lukas fell silent at the news he'd been captive for at least a year. Steve swallowed hard, not knowing what more to say, so he didn't try. He knelt to help Lukas put his feet through the pant legs. Steve straightened and pulled Lukas' nearer arm over his shoulders, remembering the opposite situation, when it had been Steve sick and weak, and Bucky had helped him dress when he couldn't stand on his own. "Okay, let's have you try to stand, lean against me and I'll get these up."

Lukas tried to stand on his own, but his knees sagged and Steve had to brace him between his body and the table, while Lukas muttered something annoyed under his breath.

In pulling the trousers up, Steve frowned. There had been a tube into the upper abdomen, as if it had been draining something from his liver, but the seeping wound was gone. He looked all over, on the other side, if he'd forgotten which side, but it was gone. "It's… not here. It healed." Steve touched the place it had been, the skin was unbroken and yet it felt a little smoother and more tender in a sign that it actually had been there. Steve looked up in astonishment. "Lukas, it healed."

Lukas did not seem impressed with this observation, and he was certainly not surprised by it. "I need food and water to process the rest of the toxin; it's interfering with the healing." 

"You knew?" Steve demanded. "You-- you're like me? You had some kind of serum?" Then he wished he'd kept his mouth shut, because obviously those tubes hadn't been put there for fun, but for probably horrific Nazi experiments. 

"Like you?" Lukas looked at him curiously, but seemed less disturbed by the reminder of being given a serum or experiments than Steve would've expected. "I know nothing about that. Hurry, Steve Rogers, I have an abomination to kill." 

Steve opened his mouth to say something about how Lukas was not going to be killing anybody any time soon - quick healing or not, he still had holes in his wrists, he was sagging against the table, and he was skinny as a rail. Steve could count all his ribs, and his waist was barely bigger than pre-serum Steve's had been, despite the added foot of height. Steve had to tighten the mesh belt as far as it would go, just to keep the pants on his bony hips. But Steve knew from personal experience that nobody weak wanted to hear that they were, so he just asked, "Abomination?"

"Schmidt," Lukas hissed, and the mad glint in his eyes was back, from when he'd first woken up. "I will crush every bone in his body, kill all of his servants, and burn Hydra to the ground."

Steve had heard a lot of oaths during this war, some even more extreme than that, but this was the first Steve believed. It was chilling in its intensity, which seemed all at odds with his physical weakness, but there was no doubt Lukas meant every word.

"Oh. After what he did to you, I get that," Steve nodded. "But first, we need to see if there are other prisoners. Bucky Barnes, from the American 107th is somewhere around here. We need to find him. Do you know where he might be?"

That turned the oath of revenge aside, as Lukas had to think about it. "There is always … screaming," he murmured, with a flick of his eyes to the upper corner of the room and the air vent there. "Not far I think. But I saw very little of this place when they brought me here." 

Steve closed his eyes in brief distress at screaming, and prayed Bucky was still alive. Trying to stay focused, he pulled in another breath. "Okay, hold onto the table. I'm gonna pull this kraut's socks for you, even if his boots are way too small."

"No matter," Lukas interrupted. "Let us find your compatriot. I would not leave a hound in this hell." 

Steve didn't want him to walk barefoot, but they were running out of time. It was still surprising that Lukas could walk at all, but with Steve's arm around his back, he moved his feet, and Steve only had to catch him twice as waves of weakness threatened his collapse. He kept his injured wrists pressed against his body, and his lips flattened to a grim line.

So close to him, Steve figured out what had been weird. Lukas' jet black hair was long, down to his shoulders and oily from being unwashed for awhile, but his jaw was as smooth as if he'd just shaved. Maybe the mask thing he'd been wearing had suppressed his beard, since Steve couldn't believe Hydra had given their prisoner a shave this morning, or any morning.

But the appearance of two enemy soldiers wiped it from his mind as he raised his shield before him and Lukas. Then, seeing more enemies on the stairs, he shoved Lukas through the next open door, so he could grab his pistol off his belt. "Wait here." 

Lukas fell against the door jamb, failing to catch himself with his injured hands, but managed to spin himself around the corner out of the way.

Steve picked off the enemies and when he was done, called, "Lukas? Let's go."

"You should come in here," Lukas called back and Steve ducked in the room.

Oh God, Bucky. Lukas was standing next to the table, holding out a hand and looking frustrated that he couldn't open the manacles that were keeping Bucky against the table.

Fortunately he was neither naked nor bolted to its surface, Steve saw as he hurried to join them. Bucky stirred, blinking his eyes blearily, first looking at Lukas without recognition, reciting wearily, "James Buchanan Barnes, Staff Sergeant, serial number…" But his voice faded away as his eyes found Steve. "You… I know you. Steve?"

"Bucky." 

"Steve?" 

"Yeah, buddy. And this is Lukas. He used to have the fancy suite down the hall." 

Curling his lip in hate and disgust, Lukas slammed a foot into an apparatus hanging with tubes and glass vials, knocking it to the ground. The vials shattered and oozed liquid over the floor. "Similar accommodations."

Bucky's gaze flipped up to the duct in the corner of this room, but all he said was, "Oh. That was you." He'd heard sounds from Lukas' room, too, Steve realized. They'd heard each other being tortured. Steve's stomach lurched with horror and dismay, and his anger let him pull apart the manacles like they were paper. He helped Bucky sit up and Steve couldn't resist, dragging him into a hug. "Oh, God, Bucky, I thought you were dead." 

Bucky pushed back and had a good look at the changes. Steve felt a bit self-conscious under the staring. "I thought you were smaller." 

"It's still me," he offered. "I'll explain later."

"That has to be some tale," Bucky said, shaking his head and accepting Steve's hand to stand up. He wavered, moaning softly as he clutched at Steve to keep his balance and bent over in evident pain. "Oh, Jesus, like fucking fire…" 

Steve threw an arm around his waist to keep him upright. "Lukas? Can you manage?"

It felt wrong to ask the one with the holes in his wrist who'd been a prisoner more than a year to be the one to manage, but Lukas wasn't leaning on anything, finding some reserve of strength or his serum-healing was working well enough that he was able to stand in his bare feet. 

"I can manage," Lukas replied curtly. "Help your friend." 

They headed back into the corridor, and fortunately it seemed all the Hydra soldiers had fled. Unfortunately, they had fled because the base was on fire, and was rocked by another explosion that nearly tossed them all off the walkway. 

Thinking quickly, Steve decided they had to go up, at least there was nothing on fire up there, unlike the floor where weapons were burning, and maybe if they could get out of the building through a side exit… 

Both Bucky and Lukas seemed to gain strength as they went, finding reserves to escape, so Steve could climb ahead.

That meant he was the first to see Schmidt and that toady of his Steve had seen before. They were both standing on the other side of the catwalk. Steve wanted to stop there, at the top, blocking Bucky and Lukas from seeing them, but then his own anger rose up. 

You Nazi bastards need to pay for this hellhole. They can't do it, but I can. "SCHMIDT!" he yelled.

Schmidt turned and walked back toward Steve, slow and casual. "Ah, you are the one Erskine made."

"And I'm gonna take you down, you son of a bitch!" Steve shouted.

"You think you are the only one?" Schmidt returned sneering. He ripped off his mask, to show his red skin, and Steve at first could only stare in horror at what had happened to him. He looked like the devil. 

He also fought like one, as Steve discovered, when they fought. Good God, the power of his fists... but Steve was getting the upper hand when suddenly the catwalk groaned and split apart, separating them.

But Bucky and Lukas had been watching and Lukas saw the separation and possibility that Schmidt would escape. He yelled something at Schmidt and rushed the end of the bridge, as if intending to jump the widening distance.

Steve, who might have jumped it himself, lunged after him and caught him around the chest. "No! You'll never make it!"

Lukas struggled against him, wildly, with enough strength he managed to throw Steve off him. "Let me go! He needs to die!"

Steve grabbed him again and spun him against the railing, to hold him there and look into his face. "He will! He will Lukas, I swear it, but not today!"

That delay was enough - now even Lukas in his drive for vengeance recognized that no one could cross that chasm, not as something exploded beneath them and shot up a sheet of flame that made Steve stagger back from the heat. But Lukas did not, eyes fixed on Schmidt across the gap.

"We could have ruled this world, you and I!" Schmidt called to Lukas. "We could have been gods together!"

"Never!" Lukas yelled back, incensed. "You are no god! You are a child playing with matches, nothing more. And you will pay for your offense, when I rip out your heart."

"Or perhaps I will rip out yours in Götterdammerung!" Schmidt yelled. "Another time, mein Dämon!" He and his toady disappeared into the elevator on the other side. 

Lukas stilled, cast one last longing look in the direction Schmidt had disappeared, but gave in with a dark oath, "If I have to pursue him for a hundred years, I will see him dead at my feet."

"You gonna totter after him with your old man cane?" Bucky asked. 

For an instant, Lukas looked blank as if he didn't understand the tease, but a small smirk formed on his lips. "It will not be so long, but whatever it takes."

"And I thought I hated that asshole," Bucky muttered. 

"Come on, you two. Let's get the hell out of here before it collapses on our heads," Steve slung an arm around Lukas, more to keep him from pursuing Schmidt than because Steve thought he would fall over, and checked that Bucky seemed to be hanging in there at his side. Both his old friend and new one needed food, rest, medical attention, and proper clothes, and hopefully once they rejoined the 107th outside they could get those things. 

Outside the facility, Steve urged Bucky and Lukas to a safer distance as the factory prison exploded with a final burst, tearing itself apart.

Lukas turned to watch, his expression closed and hard. "Hey," Steve said, "at least you're out of there." 

"There are seven more," Lukas said. "I will see them all burn to the ground."

"Not alone." Bucky's expression echoing Lukas' in grim promise.

"But first," Steve said, "we find the rest of the prisoners and we get everyone back on our side of the line. Which is about thirty miles that way." He pointed in the general direction of Italy. It was going to be a rough march. He glanced down and grimaced. "Hopefully we can find you shoes on the way."

Lukas looked down as if he'd forgotten he was barefoot and shrugged. "It is irrelevant."

A voice called out from the smoke and the looming shadows of trees, "Barnes, is that you?" 

The three turned to find a group of former prisoners, now armed. "Morita!" Barnes shouted and waved his arms.

Steve saw the same American prisoner he'd mistaken for an Axis soldier, when he'd opened the cells, and several companions, who were eager enough to bring one of their own and their rescuer back to where their group was now organizing. Steve, not surprisingly, found that he outranked everyone there- the squad's captain and lieutenant had been the first to disappear into "isolation" after their capture. 

It also turned out to be a fairly mixed group of Allies. Bucky's squad included an English soldier and a member of the French Resistance. They both gravitated to Lukas when they heard his accent. "What division, mate?" Falsworth, the English soldier, asked.

Lukas blinked at him. "I am of Arendelle," he answered curtly. "Not English." He turned and walked away, pressing his wrists against his chest in an effort to control his pain.

The others seemed a bit startled by his rudeness, but Steve felt sorry for him. He murmured explanation to Bucky, knowing it would spread to the others, "He told me he was captured some time in '42." 

Bucky's eyes went wide. "Jesus, more than a year with those bastards? How the hell is he even walking?" 

"I don't know," Steve answered, though he figured it had to be some kind of serum that Schmidt had invented based on the incomplete version he'd taken and then used on his prisoners like lab rats. At least Bucky was okay, and it seemed Lukas had gained some kind of benefit from his nightmarish captivity.

"We have a truck. And Duggan captured one of their tanks," Jones exclaimed.

"We're never getting him out of it, by the way," Monty said dryly, and Bucky chuckled.

"Then let's go. Lukas and the other wounded can ride on the truck," Steve ordered, and with Bucky and Duggan's help shouting commands, they managed to get the group moving.

It was quite a column that started south, toward the Allied lines. They were well enough armed that the Germans only tried to attack them once. But Duggan in his captured tank made short work of them, and a more conventional explosive took out a lightly armored truck. The remnants scurried away, and Steve was impressed as Bucky picked two of them off with rifle shots as if it was easy.

In the aftermath, as Steve was sending out scouts to make sure the Germans weren't regrouping, and getting everyone else organized again, Dernier came up to him, waving a pair of boots. Jones translated for him, "He found these for Lukas." 

"You found boots for him? In this?" Steve shook his head, impressed all over again with their resourcefulness. No, he was impressed most that Dernier had even thought about it in the melee. 

He led them to the truck, where the medic was rewrapping Lukas' wrists with new bandages scavenged off their enemies.

"I found these for you," Dernier told him in French. 

Lukas reached out for the boots, the hand getting smacked by the medic. "No. Stop using your hands."

Lukas glared at him, narrow-eyed as if he could set the medic on fire with the strength of his annoyance. "I can put on my own boots."

"No, you can't," the medic returned placidly. "Let them help."

"I don't know them."

"I'm Sgt Gabe Jones, 107th," Jones introduced with a bright grin. "That's Jacques Dernier."

"Comment appellez-vous?" Dernier asked.

"Lukas," he answered, and then added after a hesitation, "Onsdag. Of Arendelle." 

"Rank?" Jones asked.

"I am not a soldier." 

"You're a civilian? Oh my God." Jones was incredulous, and Steve was shocked. Though he realized he shouldn't be - they all knew the Germans were doing terrible things to civilians, too. It was still horrifying.

"Not precisely," Lukas admitted. "I am... in the defence ministry." 

Steve and Jones exchanged a glance, both reading between the lines. "Defence ministry" of Arendelle most certainly meant Arendelle resistance, since Arendelle had fallen to the Nazis with Norway back in '41, and maybe the Arendelle Shadow Cabinet. For all Steve knew, he was looking at Arendelle's Defense Minister himself or chief intelligence officer, considering how cagey he was being.

He was someone above Steve's paygrade, certainly. "When we get back to camp, I'm sure Colonel Phillips will want to talk to you. And Agent Carter is in the British intelligence service, she should be able to get you in contact with your people."

A smile toyed at Lukas' lips at some private humor. "Oh, that would be interesting if she could. But in this case, I do not require it. I intend to bring down Hydra before I go home."

They exchanged a look, neither wanting to say it was unlikely that he would be going after Hydra with holes in his wrists anytime soon. "I want to be right there with you," Jones said, and beside him Dernier nodded solemn agreement. 

After it proved difficult to hold the water canteen between his hands without bending his fingers or wrists, they put Lukas' boots on for him, paying no attention to his half-hearted complaint.

"Thank you," he said when they'd finished tying his boots. "I am … unused to such dependence."

"Luckily I don't think you'll stay that way," Steve said. 

Lukas' eyes dropped to his injured wrists. "No. Though longer than I wish. I would like to contribute more to the defense of this group than being a passenger." His lip curled in distaste at his helplessness. 

"Ah, don't worry, we got you covered," Jones said cheerfully. He waved a goodbye to Lukas and headed off with Dernier, as Bucky joined them in exchange. 

"Yeah, we've got Captain America," Bucky greeted, lifting his eyebrows at Steve's outfit deliberately. The shield somehow felt heavier under Bucky's skeptical eyes. "Let's hear the story. Because you somehow gained about a foot of height and fifty pounds of muscle since I saw you last."

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Lukas' head lift to look at him curiously. He told the story mostly to Bucky, but so Lukas could hear, too -- how he'd volunteered for Erskine's formula. 

"That is the craziest stunt I've ever heard!" Bucky declared in disgust at the end. "Volunteering for some experiment. Jesus, Steve, did you not see what it did to Schmidt? What if that had happened to you?"

"It wasn't ready then, Erskine told me. Schmidt took it too early." 

"His greed will be his undoing in the end," Lukas murmured, not even attempting to pretend he hadn't heard every word. "But we must hasten it along before he does something even more irretrievably stupid in his arrogance."

"So what happened to you?" Steve asked. "Erskine would have told me if about another. Are you from Schmidt's experiments?"

"Wait. You?" Bucky asked in confusion. "Are you like Steve?"

"No," Lukas answered shortly. "I am not." He walked away, leaving Steve and Bucky behind him. 

"They bolted him to the table and had tubes in him," Steve told him softly.

"Jesus Christ," Bucky blurted in horror.

"Yeah, a bit like that, actually. But the smaller wounds healed up like they barely happened. They did something to him that worked."

Bucky clenched his jaw and his gaze went distant, fixed out to the treeline. "Injections. They kept giving me this shit that burned. That wouldn't have been so bad, except I knew they were just going to keep doing it, until it failed… Everyone else they'd sent up before me died of it. I guess, except for him. Maybe that's why they kept him so long, kept trying with the rest of us...." His voice trailed off to silence, his thoughts sinking back into memories of that hell.

"You got out, Buck," Steve gripped his shoulder. Bucky turned to face him again, a shadow of a smile on his face. 

"And somehow you managed to make yourself a captain, Captain. Some guys have all the luck," Bucky teased. 

Steve rolled his eyes, but he was grateful for the teasing nonetheless. Bucky was alive and free, and the rest of the prisoners were free. 

His gaze found Lukas barely visible among the trees, standing alone, his head tilted back to look up at the sky. Though Lukas had denied it, Steve knew the truth, that he'd found someone else like him.

tbc...

Chapter Text

Being without the poison clouding his mind felt odd. The pain was less as well, and Loki felt a new clarity of thought that he hadn't had in a long time. Not so long, as even the mortals reckoned it, but long enough. He wore his borrowed enemy clothes and his enemy boots, and was eager to divest himself of them. But he was too weak still to form clothes, and could alter them only a little. He probably shouldn't demonstrate his powers in any case. Who was to say the Allied military would not do the same as Schmidt had done, if they knew who had fallen into their grasp?

So he'd given an alias, and he was prepared to play mortal as long as he needed to. It was less difficult than it might be, with his wrists still hurting him and his lingering weakness.

Rogers knew about the healing, but he thought it came from an outside source, similar to his own serum experience. Loki would not disabuse him of that notion.

He rolled his shoulders and head, trying to work out the lingering stiffness and aches from being held immobile. He was healing but it was slow. The water was welcome, helping to push out the toxin, but he needed food. But edibles were scarce and Loki saw no point trying to claim any for himself. Unlike the mortals, he wouldn't starve to death, and he suspected he wouldn't be able to choke it down yet in any case, since it had been a long time since they'd given him anything to eat.

His wrists and hands twinged sharply, and he realized he was trying to clench his fists. Rage filled his chest at the thought of what Schmidt had done. Again and again.

With some effort he turned his thoughts to his current surroundings, hearing the convoy get underway behind him. Not all of the escaped prisoners were soldiers, though most were.

He should have claimed some high military rank, but his wits had been too dull to think ahead. Perhaps claiming his relation to Birgitte would ease his path into higher councils. Because he wanted - needed - to be part of the discussions of destroying Hydra. He wanted to do it himself, alone, but that was the same hubris that had gotten him captured in the first place. He needed help.

He glanced up at the sky. He'd needed help before. He'd called out, pain and misery finally cutting through the pride, but no one had answered. No one had come.

He'd sensed no attempt to contact him, not a whisper from anyone, including his mother. By the time he knew he'd was wrong about being able to free himself, he'd been too weak to initiate the contact. But even if no one had been able to hear or touch him in his weakness, they should have seen. Heimdall or Frigga or Odin himself should have seen something of his suffering.

They'd left him there. Left him to the humiliation and the pain. Left him to die.

Was this Odin's punishment for Loki's disobedience? Or was he just uncaring of his adopted monster?

Loki's jaw cramped from as tightly as he was clenching it as he glowered upward, wishing he could see Asgard from this ball of mud.

I'm free now, thanks to Rogers' compassion. I don't need you. I spent a century on this world before, alone. I found my own way, my own friends, my own family... without you. You proved you don't need me, and I need nothing from you either.

It felt good to form the words, even if no one could hear. He held the glamour around himself with what power he could muster. If they didn't want to see him, then he would keep himself unseen.

He was going to avenge himself on Schmidt first. Destroy his enemies. And once that was done, then he'd decide what to do about his so-called family.

Phillips looked at the tall man who entered the command tent, as he snapped his fingers and gestured his two aides to get out.

He was taller than Phillips himself, at least as tall as Rogers if not taller, though more slender. His hair was jet black and long, framing a face less conventionally handsome but arresting in its angular features, pale skin, and sharp icy eyes. He was wearing an olive fatigue jacket over a German undershirt and trousers that were surprisingly clean and well-fit on his slender frame.

"Colonel Phillips. I am Lukas Onsdag. I'm told you asked to speak with me."

'Asking' had not been part of it, but Phillips grunted in amusement at the smooth correction that he was not subject to Phillips' orders. After Rogers' report, Phillips had known he'd have to speak to Onsdag.

"Rogers says you were a prisoner of Schmidt's as well, but you're not with the 107th."

"No," he answered. "I am not in the military." His accent was English, but tinged with something quite different from, say, Agent Carter's. "Queen Birgitte of Arendelle will vouch for me." The calm declaration turned hesitant and he frowned. "If she arrived at Scotland safely. I... that was some time ago," he added, troubled. "I was captured helping her escape."

Phillips raised his eyebrows. Rogers had said that Onsdag had claimed to be from Arendelle, but he'd said nothing about the queen or any attempt to free her. Phillips hadn't concerned himself too much with small Scandinavian countries, beyond  their being under Nazi control, but he did know that both Norway and Arendelle had active resistance groups and both their monarchs had escaped. That lent credence to Rogers' theory that Onsdag was someone high up in the Arendelle resistance. "Yes, last I heard she was safely in exile. Agent Carter probably knows more." 

"Good to know." 

"So you're with the Arendelle resistance?" Phillips asked.

"All those loyal to Arendelle are with the resistance," Onsdag answered and smiled faintly. "My task is to end Schmidt and Hydra. I have some particular skills of use in that endeavour."

"Like what?" Phillips asked.

A knife went sailing past his ear and embedded itself into the wooden pole behind him, before Phillips realized Onsdag had a knife in his hand. He reared backward, far too late, heart thumping.

"That," Onsdag said. "Among other things."

"Jesus, son," he gasped. "You could have told me."

"I find demonstrations save time. And I am no one's son." He stalked around the desk to retrieve the knife. Phillips saw in a brief glimpse that the knife was long, slim-bladed, and the hilt was golden. It was not a knife he'd seen before - it was certainly no military issue he'd ever seen- and he had no idea where Onsdag had gotten it. He slipped it into an inner pocket of his jacket and faced Phillips. "Your mission is Schmidt as well, so as loath as I am to work with anyone, it seems to make greater tactical sense to work together."

Phillips blinked and frowned. "You want to join the SSR?"

Onsdag gestured sharply. "I am not military, Colonel. And I have no desire to start now. I am not, shall we say, accustomed. But I am also grudgingly aware that what I want most is easier to achieve with pooled intelligence."

"And what you want most being Schmidt?"

"His head detached from his body specifically," Onsdag said, without a single glimmer of humor to suggest he wasn't being absolutely literal about it.

"Well, I understand that," Phillips allowed. "However." He pushed back from his desk and stood up. "Rogers and the others who saw the factory are being pulled back to London for debrief and R&R. So if you're serious about pooling intelligence, that's where it starts."

"Then I accept, Colonel," Onsdag gave a polite nod of his head and saw himself out without being dismissed.

Phillips frowned severely, since he hadn't meant that as an invitation, but now it had become one. He stretched and shouted his assistants to come back in and add Lukas Onsdag to the list of those being evac'd to London. And to Agent Carter, he said, "And contact the War Department to confirm his story."

"You think he's a German spy? After what Captain Rogers said about how he'd been held prisoner? With those injuries?" she asked, in that highly polite and yet so-very-skeptical tone of hers that suggested, respectfully, that he was slightly bonkers.

Onsdag was still wearing bandages on his wrists, but he'd also just thrown a knife with pinpoint accuracy, suggesting that Rogers was right about the superfast healing. "No. I believe he was a prisoner and he wants to take Hydra down. But no sense in being gullible to any heroic story that comes along."

Which required a trip to London, as well as meeting with Allied command, something Phillips was not really looking forward to. He liked the field, not politics, and whenever there were two generals in a room, there was always politics.

But it had to be done. Schmidt and Hydra were a new, lethal danger to the Allies, different from the rest of the Nazi war machine.

He and Carter and their assistants flew to England on Stark's plane, ahead of the military transport bringing the former prisoners.

In the hangar just off the airfield, an envelope was waiting for Agent Carter. She first pulled out two telegrams, scanned their contents, and lifted her brows in surprise. "It confirms that Queen Birgitte is in exile in Scotland, with Hrothgar of Norway. The second is from her: 'Lukas Onsdag is our personal crown envoy. We thank the old gods for his rescue. He has our complete faith. HRH Birgitte, Queen of Arendelle.'"

Phillips nodded. "So he was telling the truth about that."

"Apparently. Curious a Christian queen would thank pagan gods."

"A code?" Phillips guessed.

"Possibly. Though …" her voice trailed off, and she looked thoughtful, even perplexed as if she was thinking something she didn't want to believe.

He glanced up at her, prompting impatiently, "Agent Carter?"

She was reading another sheet of paper from her envelope. "There are … stories… Colonel, about Arendelle and the traditions that linger there. The royal family is said to descend from a demon or a god, depending on the story, and not in ancient history but during Georgian times. A demon, they say, called to protect the land from invaders."

"Well, it didn't do a very good job of it," he snorted. "Arendelle was invaded with Norway in '41."

"True, but." She held up the third sheet of paper. "This is a report of interviews with those who escaped with the queen and later. They say a man identifying himself as that protective demon walked into the palace during an occupation dinner, killed all of the Nazi officers present, and helped the queen escape, before disappearing. This was when the man we now know as Johann Schmidt was in Arendelle."

He filled in the blanks and looked up sharply at her. "Are you saying that Lukas Onsdag is a demon, Agent Carter?"

She met his eyes, returning his look calmly. "No, of course not, Colonel. But I suspect Schmidt thinks he is. If he thought he had captured the so-called "Ice Demon of Arendelle" it's no wonder he tortured Onsdag. But we know the queen escaped with his help, and our reports out of the Norwegian resistance agree that most of the German garrison in Arendelle was killed." 

He snorted. "It's probably just the queen and her resistance creating some sort of folk hero out of their legends. And their spy fitting the bill."

"Very possible, Sir." She frowned at something else she read. "There was retaliation. Much of the city was razed, and those who didn't escape into the mountains were sent to work camps." 

Phillips nodded  once, depressed but not surprised. He glanced down at the telegram from the queen of Arendelle and handed the papers back to her. "All right. Find out what you can about him and this "Ice Demon" thing," he instructed her. "But… quietly," he warned. "I need him to run against Hydra, not get stuck here as a toy for the desk jockeys and docs. Let's not attract too much attention to this quick healing business."

She nodded, lips curling in a suppressed smile of shared understanding. "Yes, sir."

"As the queen's personal envoy make sure he's with Rogers, in the main debrief. Let's see how he handles himself." He snorted. The man had thrown a knife past Phillips' ear; he could handle himself just fine.

Steve was a little sorry he had refused Phillips' invitation to come with him and Peggy on Stark's plane and had stayed with the men. The transport plane was packed, with the men grabbing onto straps hanging from the metal strips riveted into the hull and sitting where they could on the narrow canvas benches. There was a stench of too many unwashed bodies mixed with machine oil, and Lukas had recoiled sharply at the ramp, gagging in disgust. He'd gotten over it, but he continued to be pale and quiet during the bumpy flight. Duggan had found him a paper sack in case he threw up, though Lukas held onto it as if he didn't know what it was for. He ended up in the most forward seat, behind the navigator's station, and Bucky sat next to him. Steve sat across the way, turning his shoulders sideways so he didn't feel like he was taking up so much room on the crowded bench.

"Never flown before?" Bucky asked Lukas when some turbulence made Lukas dart his eyes around and keep a deathgrip on the crumpled paper bag, as if he feared the Germans were firing on them. His breaths seemed too deliberate in an attempt to keep himself calm. 

"Not in a primitive craft like this," he answered shortly. "I wish I could fly myself."

Bucky's conversation had the effect of diverting Lukas' attention away from the dangers of the airplane. "That'd be nice. I wanted to be a pilot - I've got good eyes-- but that's no place for enlisted guys like me. Fancy ones like you, though...."

Steve was just as glad Bucky had avoided becoming a pilot. Fighter pilots might have the glory, but they also died at a rate worse than commandos.

"Fancy?" Lukas repeated, arching his eyebrows, and Bucky laughed.

"Like that. You're so Manhattan you squeak."

Lukas seemed offended, but also amused, as Bucky pulled a smile from him. "I am not American, Barnes."

"Whatever. You ain't a farmer, or a wharf rat, is what I'm saying."

"No," Lukas agreed. "That much is certainly true."

They talked as best they could over the loud engines and rattling of everything in the fuselage. Steve couldn't join in too much without yelling over the noise, but he watched and listened, smiling as Bucky's conversation with him helped ease the stiff anxious posture. It seemed to help Bucky, too, as he found a new target to rib about his Manhattan attitude and his long hair and everything else he could think of to make the time pass. In the back Duggan had a pack of cards and someone had found a flask, and there was great hilarity when Morita claimed it was apple juice. Steve turned his head away, seeing nothing, and accepted the flask when it was passed to him. Apple brandy. He offered it across the aisle to Lukas, who took it, sniffed, and passed it to Bucky. 

"You sure?" Bucky asked. "It might settle your stomach?"

"I think only the ground will do that," Lukas answered with a wan smile and leaned back against the fuselage, both hands tucked around his middle. 

The plane landed with a big enough bump Steve nearly lost his breakfast, and rather to his surprise, Lukas didn't either. But Lukas' eyes flew wide, grabbing the edge of the navigator station with both hands as if he thought he could lift the plane back into the sky. Whatever he said, Steve was fairly sure this was the first time he'd flown in an airplane.

The landing gear rolled on the ground, and Lukas was wrenching open the hatch before they'd stopped so he could jump outside and take great big draughts of fresh air. Everyone else followed, not that much more slowly. Everything was green, including the buildings, painted and netted to make the airfield harder spot.

They were hurried into trucks, by a harried lieutenant and driven into the city. Lukas peered out the back of the canvas curiously, far more relaxed on the ground than he'd been in the air. "Some of it looks much the same," he murmured.

Seated beside him Falsworth asked, "Have you visited London before then?"

"Yes. It was... years ago," Lukas answered. "I remember more horses."

"Ah, you must have visited when you were quite young, before motorcars became popular."

"I was younger certainly," Lukas agreed, staring at the buildings, some of them quite shattered and burnt. It wasn't all as it had been. "Different."

Bucky, on Lukas' other side, bumped shoulders companionably. "We were all different before the war." Then he looked deliberately at Steve. "Some of us more than others."

Steve rolled his eyes at this attempt at wit.

Falsworth said, "Well, it isn't Arendelle, but I hope you can feel somewhat at home here in Britain."

Lukas glanced at him and nodded his thanks.

The trucks rolled to a stop and someone hit the side of the truck. "We've arrived, gentlemen," Peggy's familiar voice called out. "Welcome to the war ministry."

Within the building, she directed the rest to go with others for their debrief, while she escorted Steve and Lukas personally. She brought them into a heavily fortified building and past two guards, into a narrow door and a staircase that went down. Lukas stopped at the doorway, instead of following her immediately. Steve came back to him, concerned.

"You okay?" Steve asked quietly.

"Fine," Lukas answered, even though he was plainly not fine at all. His skin had gone ashen and Steve could see his pulse fluttering in his throat, rapid as a bird's. He held his left wrist and rubbed it with his thumb as if the injury still hurt him, though Steve had seen him use it so well it had probably healed completely. Lukas murmured, barely audibly, "It's dark."

The staircase was dimly lit, and probably seemed darker after the sunlit vestibule that they were standing in.

Lukas added, soft, "Something is wrong with me. I should be stronger than this." 

Steve shook his head against the words and the worse shame behind them. He put a hand on the bony shoulder. "You were a prisoner for more than a year," Steve reminded him. "That's going to leave scars."

"It left none, on me," Lukas corrected.

"Not on the outside. Doesn't mean they're not on the inside."

Lukas gave him a look as if he'd never heard words like that before. Then he smiled a bit sadly, agreeing, and gestured them both forward. "Come, I'm sure Agent Carter would like you to join her." Peggy was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Lukas smirked at Steve, as Steve tried to splutter a denial, face burning.

But Lukas seemed better again, as they went below into a better lit region of the ministry building, underground, full of soldiers of all kinds. They were let into what looked like a high-level meeting and some maps.

It all seemed too high level for Steve, until he reminded himself that he was a captain, and he had important intelligence to tell all these colonels and generals. That let him walk forward to join them with confidence, and Lukas paced him easily, his previous uneasiness passed. Steve noticed Agent Carter was one of only three women in the room.

One tall man with thick blond hair came forward to Lukas, his eyes widening, "You are him, are you not?"

Lukas gave him a narrow-eyed look and did not offer his hand. "You are?"

The general bowed to him formally. "General Arndt of Norway. On behalf of King Hrothgar, I wish to give our thanks to you for your assistance in freeing Queen Birgitte."

That unbent Lukas' hostility and he smiled. "You have spoken to her, then?"

Arndt nodded. "Yes, sir. She is with the king in Edinburgh. I am their liaison to the Allied command here. She said to keep watch for you and sent this telegram for you." He handed a small piece of paper to Lukas, and, leaning a little nearer, said in a softer voice, "I am not certain, sir, what I should tell them."

Lukas answered him sharply, in what Steve presumed was Norwegian. 

Arndt nodded. "Ja, as you command, sir."

Lukas read the paper in his hand, and Steve saw in his glance it was not in English either and brief. But it made Lukas smile, before he folded it and slipped it into his inner pocket of his fatigue jacket. Arndt brought Lukas up to the table and Carter gestured Steve forward, he looked at the back of Lukas' head and wondered. Arndt knew something about who Lukas was - he was someone important if a general of another nation would bow to him and accept his orders. Steve might have been willing to write it off as simple respect, one high-ranking person to another and particularly as their nations seemed close allies, except Arndt knew that Lukas had some sort of secret. 

Steve's gaze went to Lukas, tall and thin and somehow immaculate in his borrowed, unmarked green fatigues. It had been only four days since Steve had found him nearly dead in the Hydra facility, and he looked better than Bucky and some of the other prisoners did. Unlike the rest of them who had rushed to take advantage of the unit's barber, Lukas hadn't cut his hair. All he'd done was slick it back from his face, but it remained collar length, distinctively unique in this military place. Yet no one said a thing, as Arndt deferred to him to take his place at the table as if Lukas had every right to be there. 

As Steve gave his report about the six other facilities he had seen marked on the map, he wondered about this stranger he had rescued. Before Hydra and their experiments, who was he? 

"There is another facility," Lukas said, drawing attention as he peered at the map and corrected the placement of one of the flags that Steve remembered from the map in the factory. "His headquarters are not any of these. It lay closer to the Austrian factory than any of these." 

"Were you there?" one of the generals asked.

"Briefly," Lukas answered. "I saw cut stone walls. Granite. It was underground."

"How large was the facility?" another officer asked.

"I don't know."

"What did you see?"

"Nothing."

"You must have seen something," the same officer persisted. "Anything could be a valuable clue for us to find its location."

Lukas' voice turned flat and tight, as if speaking was an effort. "At first, they kept me in a metal tube. I saw nothing but darkness then and during transport." His hands were clenched to tight fists, to try to keep control.

A metal tube? God, no wonder he'd had a problem going into the narrow dark opening upstairs. Steve touched his upper arm, and though Lukas shrugged it off, his voice seemed easier as he went on to explain, "My sense of time and distance was not highly accurate, but I am certain it was not one of these. But all I saw was the stone wall opposite where I was held. I only know it was his headquarters because Zola said as much."

The British general pursed his lips. "We need to know where it is."

Phillips said, "Then we start taking down the ones we do know about. We light a fire under his ass." He glanced at Steve and Lukas and gave a small grim smile. "And I have just the men to do it, general."

tbc... 

Chapter Text

After the main briefing was over, Loki was satisfied he would be part of the re-tasked SSR, with a "diplomatic attachment". He took that to mean he should listen to Phillips as unit commander, but Loki was not specifically under his command. Phillips grimaced but didn't seem surprised. He was clever enough to know Loki would listen to him as long as their goals aligned, but as soon as Loki had no use for him, he would leave. 

But that was the last of the good news. Arndt pulled him aside and, speaking in a low voice in Norse, so that few others could understand, he said, "Sir, it occurred to me that the queen's message did not inform you, and I thought you should know -- after you helped Queen Birgitte escape, the dogs came back."

Loki felt cold. Schmidt had gloated to him about some Nazi or other attacking Arendelle, but Loki had thought it a lie. He'd wanted to believe it was a lie. "What did they do?"

"The people were not unprepared," Arndt said. "After the uprising -- you were not the only one who attacked that night -- the people knew the Nazis would not let such an action go unpunished. Many escaped into the mountains to join our resistance there, but some were taken prisoner or killed, and many of the buildings were destroyed. The castle was set on fire and is ruined."

He heard the words, but they seemed to be in a language he didn't understand, meaning slipping past him until it snagged at the end. The castle had burned. What of Birgitte's baby blanket that Frigga had made for her? He hadn't seen it; he had no idea where it was. And the book. The Rabbit's Guide to the Universe that he'd made. Was it all burned to ashes? "Was -- was anything saved?" he asked, his voice catching despite his attempt to keep it level.

"Nothing I know of," Arndt answered, "but that doesn't mean nothing was. We know some of our own treasures were put into hiding."

He wished so, but he would not hope for it. Better to expect it was all destroyed. Distantly he knew that he should think of the town, of the people murdered or imprisoned, but all he could think about was how the castle had looked, a fairy tale castle with high ice turrets and spires, glimmering with the strength of Elsa's power. "Elsa's castle," he murmured. "And now it's gone, too." His eyes were wet and he blinked it away,  

"We must defeat these monsters," Arndt declared, "and get our homelands back."

Arndt's determination seemed to cut through the fog and reminded Loki of why he was here. "We will," Loki said. "First Schmidt because he has something of mine. And once I get it back, I will take it to Berlin and they will all burn." Schmidt had captured the demon all too easily, and he wasn't afraid. But this world had never seen the fullness of Loki's own powers and certainly not what he could do with the tesseract. The Allfather had fought the Jotunn and the Casket of the Ancient Winters in the Winter War, using the tesseract, and that was nothing compared to what Loki could do with the tesseract unfettered.

Arndt nodded, fierce hate in his blue eyes of a far more ancient warrior's heart. "May it be."

Loki's gaze went to the map of Europe on the table, marked with the Hydra bases, and his eyes strayed to tiny Arendelle in the far north. Tiny ruined Arendelle, its castle destroyed, its people fled, because of him. He had promised Elsa he would protect them, but he hadn't. 

Without a word to Arndt, Loki turned and left, climbing the stairs above two at a time. He needed open air, out of the stifling underground and away from the overpowering stench of cigarettes. He rushed past soldiers on watch and out into the street. 

Night had already fallen, and the city was shrouded in darkness. It felt empty, but for the sound of troops and cars moving slowly through the streets. The civilians he'd seen before - and that was few compared to those he'd seen in the streets the last time he'd been in London - were tucked inside. But as he stood there and listened, he heard the sounds of life continuing, of people and the clink of dishes and the purr of motors and some far away police alarm, but all reminders that there were still people here. With the few lights on the street and the city, the stars above shone clear and cold between the clouds, and it helped him calm down.

Really he should not have been surprised that Steve followed him out. "Lukas, you all right?" 

"Fine," he answered. 

Steve didn't buy that at all, but he grimaced and didn't pry. "Happy to listen, if you want," he offered. "I'm going to meet the men at the pub down the way. You want to join us?" 

Loki could not think of a single thing he wanted less in that moment than to be around a bunch of transient mortals celebrating their brief reprieve from death, while so many of their fellows were corpses elsewhere. He shook his head at Steve. "I think I'll walk the city. I would rather be outside."

"But the curfew--" Steve objected. "You shouldn't wander around in the dark."

Loki smirked. "I do better in the dark. I'm going to visit Westminster. Enjoy your evening."

He walked away and as soon as he was out of sight, cast an invisibility glamour because no, he did not want to be bothered with the curfew or well-intentioned mortals. It felt good to exercise his magic again; though he'd recovered his strength, he could still use it little because of the mortals around him constantly.

He walked the city, momentary lightness fading back into a foul mood as he saw familiar things all changed by this war. His feet carried him to Westminster Abbey, its great bulk ancient and, by moonlight, seemed mostly as he remembered it. It was the first thing that felt comforting in its familiarity. He circled to the north side, avoiding guard posts, and cracked open a door just enough to slip inside. The transept was dark and deserted. He held out a hand to conjure a light, but pulled back realizing he didn't need it. It was dim, but not full darkness. Which was at first puzzling when he saw no lights, but as he made his way deeper within he understood. 

Within, all was changed. In the central altar space, part of the roof was missing, and some of the windows were as well, letting starlight and some partial moonlight within the space. Other windows were boarded up, pictures and tapestries and the screens were missing, the tombs had been dismantled or blocked up by bags of sand, and the floor had been covered. There was still debris piled to the sides, and bits of lead all over the choir stalls from when the leaded windows had melted in the fire that had blackened the stones.

He went out of the choir, past the makeshift altar there, and turned to his right, his feet carrying him automatically.

There was nothing to see, both monument and grave stone buried by protective barriers. But he remembered what they were, and who they were for. Isaac Newton. He'd been a friend before Loki had understood he had a friend. He'd been the first one Loki had sought out after leaving Arendelle and the Ice Demon behind all those years ago. They had discussed physics, religion, philosophy… so many things with an eager understanding and sympathy. Isaac had died in 1727. He had been the first, but certainly not the last to leave too soon.

His finger ran along the sandbags that hid the memorial from view. "I understood so little then," he murmured. "You kept calling me 'young man' and it made me laugh because I was older than you could imagine. But you were right." 

He heard a door open and waited for whoever it was intruding on his solitude. The snap of shoes made the identity pretty clear and then the quiet voice came from behind him. Agent Carter. "You are in violation of the curfew."

"Why so I am. How did you find me?"

"You told Captain Rogers you were going to Westminster." She took a few measured steps toward him, carrying a lantern that cast strange shadows across her face. "I thought you might be meeting a spy when you declined the invitation to the pub. I didn't expect you to come here. Can I ask you why?"

His gaze flicked up to the view of the sky. "I came to find something familiar and found it all changed."

She frowned at him. "It was hit in the Blitz, in '41. With Parliament. You're familiar with London then?"

"When I was young," he answered. It was a lie, but it felt true. Those years with Isaac felt like both yesterday and a million years ago. They had been before Elsa, so he'd still been angry and determined never to go home, beginning his project to advance Midgardian awareness of the world, only to find that it was so breathtakingly backward he had barely known where to start.

Now, as then, he was hiding his true name, so no one on Asgard could hear it. And now, as then, there were those tempting him with friendship. But he had been right to be more aloof from Isaac, and he needed to do that again. He was here to kill Schmidt and retrieve the tesseract, not make friends with mortals who would die. "But I suppose it is the lesson to be who I have to be."

"Who you have to be?" she repeated curiously.

"A solitary creature of shadow and death, Agent Carter. Not sunlight and camaraderie."

"A spy and assassin," she guessed, though it was not much of a question.

He said nothing. It was easier to let her think that.

"Still," she continued, "even assassins must need a holiday?"

That would probably be true for some, but he shrugged. "I have been not much used to company."

Her expression fell into sympathy and she nodded understanding. "It may take some time to readjust. I can see the appeal of being in a quiet, holy place like this," she glanced around at the interior of the church. "Ruined as it is, it's still quite beautiful."

He opened his mouth to say it was no faith of his, but held his tongue as his gaze followed hers, able to see the interior better with the light of her lamp. She was right; it was beautiful. Beneath the damage, he felt its age, similar to his own. It was something that even these short-lived beings had made to endure.

She broke the silence. "General Arndt said you had not known about Arendelle. He was concerned for you."

He lifted his eyes to the empty slots where the windows had been. "Schmidt told me, but I thought he lied." 

"I'm sorry. Will you return to Arendelle then?"

He wished he could say yes. "No. There is nothing I can do for them." The truth was bitter, sitting on his tongue like a metal burr, and he wanted to spit it out but he couldn't. Because it was true. He could go there, he could kill all the Germans in the country one by one, and in the end the machine that powered the invasion would only send more. Maybe no one would be left at all, by then. No, there was no point in hacking at limbs. "We need the head of the snake. Schmidt is the priority. His weapons will not only ensure his victory but his domination, unless he is stopped."

"Yes. I think so, too. And I'm glad you'll join us." 

He felt her gaze on him, as he looked toward the shadowed northern aisle.

"Do you know what gives me hope?" she asked, and answered her own question. "Knowing that when this is over, this place and others like it, we'll rebuild them."

He knew she was also trying to comfort him, that Arendelle could also be rebuilt. But she didn't know that it wasn't just a place to him. It was the place he'd first come to on this world, and the place he kept returning to, during his exile. It was the place that had become home to him. And now it was destroyed. It could be rebuilt, but it wouldn't be Elsa's castle anymore. The study where he and Elsa had read together, the hall where he'd first seen his grand-daughter, the parapet where Thor had convinced him to go back to Asgard -- all was destroyed. "Not as it was."

"Perhaps. But this place wasn't the same as it was when it was first built either, even before it was hit," she added. "It's changed. But even if they built it exactly the same, they won't rebuild everything exactly as it was. There will be new buildings in new styles and new variation, and from the old we'll have something new. I find that quite a hopeful thing." 

"You think it can improve?"

"I do. They're doing fascinating things in science, engineering, construction, everything. We'll have new buildings and new motorcars, perhaps even flying motorcars if Howard Stark gets his way." 

"Flying cars?" he repeated, incredulous. "The people here can scarcely drive in two dimensions, he wants to add a third?" 

She laughed. "It's some years away." 

He found a smile, and glanced at Newton's memorial again, admitting, "I'd like to see that. In my early years I was interested in bringing a new age of technological advancement to your people." 

"Your people?" she repeated. "You're not one?"

He wasn't sure if he'd slipped on purpose or accidentally, and had to grin. She was a clever one. "English."

She clearly did not believe that glib answer at all, and cocked her head a bit to regard him with somber, deep eyes. "Why will you not tell us the truth?"

"About?"

"Everything. Who you are. What you are. Where you come from. I've heard the story of Queen Birgitte's escape. That you killed all the Nazis in town, and you were hit by a tank shell."

He smiled at that, delighted that the truth had spread, even if he had to deny it. "Surely you know better than believe such stories. They are always so exaggerated."

Carter pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at him as she considered. "And you claimed to be the one known as the Ice Demon."

"If you know that, then you know the truth." Admitting an impossibility was even better than a lie. "I am the Ice Demon."

"But what does that mean?" she persisted. She frowned in puzzlement. "Is it a hereditary position? A folk hero whose identity you assumed?"

He couldn't help a laugh. "A folk hero. Ah, so little you know. The Ice Demon was no hero, Agent Carter. A villain in truth, that Arendelle and Norway told stories about to frighten their children. But then, all that power and fear was reduced to a plum on a plate at Christmas," his voice fell away to a more sour memory. "No one else remembers. I wanted to make them know fear again."

"And found Schmidt ahead of you." 

He nodded. Not only had Schmidt laid the trap, he'd shown the invaders had little to fear from the Ice Demon, after all. 

Her gaze was steady and strong. "I hope you will trust us with the truth," she said, more seriously than he had expected. "I believe you mean well, and certainly you hate Hydra, but it's difficult to trust you when I know you're hiding things that can help us, and help the war."

"But that is exactly why I need to keep the truth to myself," he said, knowing it was a tacit admission that she was right. "I do not wish to be... what is it Rogers called himself? The Allied Dancing Monkey? That's not my role, and I fear if I told you all of the truth, your war machine would demand… answers. Assistance. Things I cannot give."

She nodded slowly, understanding coming to her features. "Things Hydra sought to take from you by force."

"Some of them at least," he agreed. "And while I would be more willing to share them with the Allies, because we have a common enemy, nonetheless, I cannot trust that your commanders will be wise with the truth." Nor did he trust that they would not do to him exactly as Schmidt had done in their pursuit of his knowledge and immortality. They had not strapped Rogers to a table to try to backwards engineer the serum, but they could.

She considered that for a space of silence and suggested, "Perhaps, when we are far from London and have only our unit to rely on, then you will tell us what we need to know."

A smile grew on his face. "I could not deny my allies the same information my enemies already possess, Agent Carter."

"Good. I look forward to it. May I escort you back? We leave England soon and you should take advantage of what little time we have for R&R." She looked around at the gravestones and memorials and back at him, her eyes softer. "Among the living?"

He glanced at his friend's grave and knew he should resist. He should concentrate on his mission, not extraneous things, but there was something about Carter's face that reminded him of Elsa's, making him promise not to let his heart get frozen again. Torture and captivity, grief and vengeance, made it tempting not to feel anything, but that held dangers of its own.

And it seemed that none of these people were inclined to let him brood on his own. Their very human sentimentality was held out to him and he was too fragile to resist.

He gestured to have her precede him. "Agent Carter. We should indeed return to the living."

She nodded and smiled approvingly, and they left the damaged church together.

Steve was drinking with Bucky, making sure he was joining this crazy new task force, when Peggy, stunning in a red dress, entered the pub with Lukas. He pushed down the snap of jealousy, reminding himself that he had no claim on her. He and Bucky waited for the two of them, as they made their way over through the men who had fallen quiet at her arrival.

"Captain. I bring you another member of your squad," she greeted him.

He smiled both at her and Lukas. "Glad to see you're joining us."

"It was this or stockade for breaking curfew," Lukas joked.

"Howard has some equipment he'd like you to try," she addressed Steve. "Tomorrow."

"Sounds good," he said, just to have something to say. The lighting in the pub was perfect for her, making her hair a rich gleam and her skin glowing. He wanted to sketch her, even if he knew he could never do her justice.

"Equipment?" Lukas repeated with interest. "I would be interested as well… And I would like to meet Stark."

She turned to him, arching her brows. "The new technological age, Mister Onsdag?" she asked in pointed reference to something that made him smile.

"Just so."

Steve glanced from one to another, curious, but they didn't elaborate. Peggy looked toward the main room where the squad was singing something in French, then back to Steve. "I see your top squad is prepping for duty?" she asked, voice edging a bit dry at the sight of them drinking heavily.

"You don't like music?" Bucky asked. 

Her gaze didn't leave Steve's though, and she said to what felt like him alone, "I do actually. I might, when this is all over, go dancing."

"What are we waiting for?" Bucky asked.

"The right partner," she said, and Steve felt a warmth in his chest at the reminder of what they'd talked about that forever-ago day in the car. "0800 Captain. Mister Onsdag."

She walked away and Steve added belatedly, "Yes, ma'am. We'll be there."

"I'm invisible," Bucky complained as soon as she was gone. "I'm turning into you, this is a horrible dream…"

Lukas chuckled. "You're far too late on the scene, Barnes."

"What about you?" Bucky asked curiously, turning back to the small table and his beer. "You got a girl at home? Waiting for you? Is there someone crying happy tears to get that telegram that you're out of that hellhole?"

There was no smile, only stillness and a flick of his eyes heavenward, that made Steve think someone close to Lukas had died. But he answered simply, "No. There's no one waiting for me."

Maybe he had gone to Westminster to pray for someone. But this was no time for mourning, but for getting away from dark memories before they all went back to war. Steve clapped him on the back and coaxed him to the bar. "You're just waiting for the right partner, too, like she said. You want a beer? I'm apparently buying for the squad."

Lukas smirked. "That would be welcome, as I have no funds."

"Wait, you have no money?" Steve blinked at that. "But aren't you a prince of Arendelle or something? Surely you have some kind of stipend? Nothing?"

"I have money in a bank in Switzerland," he paused and corrected, "or I did, but other than that, no. So far I've acquired what I need, so it makes little difference." His gaze traveled around. "Except in pubs."

"Oh, well, shit, we'll get that straightened out tomorrow," Steve promised.

"After you go play with Howard Stark's doohickeys," Bucky said, sounding a little jealous that Steve and Lukas were going to get to see Stark's lab and he wasn't. Steve hoped he could get Bucky access, too. But he turned to Lukas with a curious face, "You like science stuff? I thought you were a spy?"

Lukas hesitated long enough to let the bartender bring him a beer. He turned the glass mug around without drinking. "I have been interested in scientific progress for quite some time." Then he smiled to himself. "And you would be amazed at the amount of progress made because spies carry information from one part of the world to another."

"I'd love to talk to Stark, but I don't know much. I'd probably just embarrass myself."

"Oh?" Lukas turned to him. "You have an interest?"

"Bucky insisted we go see Stark Expo," Steve explained. "He's always been into that stuff. He's much smarter than I am, even if he likes to pretend he's not."

Bucky rolled his eyes at Steve, not accepting that at all, but answered Lukas' question, "We didn't get to learn a lot in school. So I was planning after the war's over, to go to college, study engineering or something like that…" he trailed off, glancing at his beer as if he thought Lukas was going to mock him for his plans.

Lukas watched him with a curiously somber eyes and then offered, "Was there a topic you would like to learn more about? I am not a teacher, but I do have knowledge. And I have long believed knowledge should be shared."

"Really? You would do that? That would be great," Bucky said, leaning toward him with new excitement. "Magnets. Can you explain magnets? I get the whole positive-negative attract, but I don't understand why. What makes the same charges repel like that?"

Lukas smiled. "Ah, the fundamental forces of the universe. You ask interesting questions, Barnes. Now if only I had Birgitte's book…" he murmured to himself and then grabbed a fistful of hazelnuts out of the small bowl nearby and scattered them on the top of the table. "We'll begin with the basics."

"I know this. Atoms," Bucky said, very proud of himself.

Lukas laughed, and though it was definitely condescending, it didn't seem to be in a mean way. "No, far more basic than that."

"There's more basic than atoms?"

Lukas' face suggested he was restraining himself from rolling his eyes, and instead gulped half his beer. "Yes. But I'll start there and work our way back."

Steve listened for awhile in curiosity, but eventually wandered away to the other men, while Lukas and Bucky entertained themselves in the middle of a war with science instead of beer and bawdy songs.

It was something of a revelation to Steve. He'd known Bucky was smart and interested in such things, but to see him so engaged, as if this was the best thing he could be doing right now, was new. And it was another piece of the puzzle that was Lukas, watching him teach Bucky with nuts, toothpicks, and empty brandy snifters.

You're an odd duck and no mistake, Lukas Onsdag of Arendelle. Whatever you are.

Chapter Text

Steve presented himself at HQ on time, to find Lukas already there ahead of him, waiting in the foyer.

"Good morning," Steve greeted him. "You were up early." The two of them shared a small room in the barracks, and he hadn't heard Lukas slip from the room. It must have been before dawn when Steve awoke, alone in the room.

"Benefits of not drinking very much, compared to our compatriots," Lukas said lightly.

Benefits of having super-healing, too, as Steve knew for himself. Alcohol had a temporary impact on him now, and presumably the same was true for Lukas. But Lukas seemed not to want to dwell on it, so Steve jerked his head toward the entrance. "You ready?"

Lukas still hesitated to go into the narrow dark stairwell, but he went through on his own, before Steve could offer any support. Trying to lighten things up, Steve asked, "Are you going to get your hair cut before we go?" Because Lukas' hair was still well below his collar, nearly to his shoulders.

"Cut my hair? Certainly not," Lukas said, sounding offended. He ran a hand through his hair, tugging his fingers through the length of it and gripping it into a tail in his fist, before letting it fall loose again. "Why?"

"It's not, uh, common," Steve answered, confused that Lukas seemed to think it was proper or fashionable.

Lukas scoffed. "Neither am I."

Steve had to agree with that. He'd thought Lukas was waiting for money or free time to get a haircut, but apparently it was how he wanted it, not because it had grown that long in captivity. But if Lukas didn't mind, Steve supposed he shouldn't either.

They made their way through the planning rooms, ignored by most who were busy on their own tasks, but Steve didn't see Stark anywhere.

Lukas lingered back to look at the map, while Steve approached a woman reading the newspaper. "Excuse me, I'm looking for Mister Stark."

"He's in with Colonel Phillips," she answered, glancing at him at first with little interest, then her gaze snapped back to him in recognition. What felt like only three breathless seconds later, she was all about being "grateful" and tugging him behind the shelves.

Something metal slammed to the floor and Steve shoved away from her, as she jumped. The stapler had fallen off the desk to the concrete floor. "Oh, how clumsy of me," Lukas said with a quite insincere smile. "So sorry to interrupt."

Steve stepped away, jerking his jacket back into place. "No, no problem. Sorry," he said to the woman, who glared daggers at Lukas, just as Peggy walked into the hall behind Lukas. Thinking about what she almost, might have, could have seen, his smile was probably far too big in relief.

Peggy smiled at him. "Good morning. Howard's ready. If you'll both come this way."

As they headed down the corridor, Steve leaned in toward Lukas and murmured, "Thanks."

Lukas glanced at him, eyes glinting in amusement, but didn't have much chance to reply before Peggy took them through the restricted door where Phillips and Stark were talking.

"Ah, Captain, excellent," Stark said. "And you must be--"

"Lukas Onsdag," he introduced himself to Stark with a nod. "I have some interest in technology myself, so I wanted to visit."

"Uh, sure," Stark agreed, confused but willing to go along. "Captain."

"I'll see you both at the mission session in one hour," Phillips ordered. "Agent Carter."

The two groups went their separate ways, as Howard led him into a deeper lab area. It was a large open space, with people working at multiple work areas. There was, Steve saw with some delight, a motorcycle in the middle.

Howard showed them both some fabric, for suits, "Carbon polymer," he said, as if Steve had any idea what that was. But he was interested to hear that it would block a knife. Like a fine chain-mail, perhaps.

Lukas touched it with his fingers. "It's too thick," he said. "But these fibers are too brittle to be extruded more finely."

Howard looked at Lukas with a curious puzzlement, as if a dog had said hello to him. "Yes. That's the problem in our fabrication process. How do you know that?"

Lukas shrugged. "It's obvious, isn't it?"

Howard looked at him as if it was anything but obvious, but Lukas was no longer paying attention to him, turning away to wander to the motorcycle and other work areas.

Howard's eyes followed him. "No, really, how does he know that?" Stark asked in a softer voice.

"He's a spy. He knows a lot of things."

Howard shook his head, chasing out the weirdness, and moving onto shields for Steve.

Then a loud, frantic voice interrupted, "Sir! No, sir, you can't touch that!"

Steve whirled, the light new shield in his hand, and saw Lukas on the far side, looking at something set into a niche in the wall.

"I'm not touching it," Lukas responded to the technician irritably. "Stand back before you hurt yourself."

Howard rushed over to him, Steve at his heels. "What are you doing?" Howard demanded.

"What am I doing?" Lukas repeated, incredulous, turning on him. "What are you doing? Do you know what that is?"

Steve looked into the little brick-walled room and saw a tiny glowing ball set into some kind of apparatus. It was glowing brighter than a lamp, with the same blue tinge as the weapons he'd seen in the factory.

"It's the power cell pulled out of the gun that the Captain's men took out of the Hydra facility," Howard answered steadily.

"That is not what it is. It is a danger and a weapon, and it should not be here." Before anyone could stop him Lukas grabbed a pencil off the desk near him and flung it at the tiny glowing bead. It struck directly, point first, and Howard yelled, "No! What are you--"

The glowing marble was flung to the floor, struck the power cord, and exploded.

Steve tackled Howard down and covered him with the new round shield. After the main force had passed over him, he looked up to see how Lukas had fared. He was also on the floor, half inside the room, but despite his proximity, stirred.

"Are you crazy?" Howard demanded furiously, struggling free of Steve's arm. "You can't just throw things in a lab with high-energy power sources--"

Lukas got to his feet, his clothing mussed by the blast, but otherwise unaffected. "You are playing with forces you know nothing about." He glowered into Howard's face, unflinching. "Schmidt is making this mistake, trying to harness a power he doesn't understand. Don't follow him in being a fool," he said harshly and turned on his heel to stalk out of the lab, rigid and fists clenched in fury.

Howard looked after him, frowning in confusion. "He doesn't want us to be able to use what Hydra has? How does that make sense?"

Steve grimaced. "He was a prisoner in that Hydra factory for a year. I don't think he wants us to have anything to do with things Hydra created."

"We can't fight them if we don't understand what we're fighting," Howard objected, and then looked in despair at the ruin of the equipment. "And he blew up my sample. You'll need to get another of those guns for me to look at."

"Sure," Steve agreed absently, but casting his gaze over the remnants of the explosion, he lifted the shield which had kept both of them from injury and was itself undamaged. "I want it."

"Yeah, it's yours," Howard agreed, his voice still stunned. "Whatever you want."

Loki climbed the stairs up to the surface, clutching the little power cell in his fist to hide it from view.

When he'd seen it there, that little thing glowing so innocuously in Stark's lab, he'd been filled with such rage he'd started to shake and he still hadn't stopped. It was not a toy, it was a beacon, and the more Schmidt and Stark and everyone else on this planet played with the tesseract and the tesseract's energies the more danger they were courting.

Outside, under gray skies that looked heavy with rain, he found a burnt out shell of a building a few blocks away which wouldn't be further damaged. He set the bead on a slab of broken concrete, where it glowed like a candle that belonged to another Realm. Part of him wanted to carry it around, his own personal power source that he could draw on when he wanted, but it would also keep him from doing things like teleporting. Plus it was unstable and probably more dangerous than it was worth.

The best thing to do was render it inert and safe. He cast his senses out beyond himself, checking to make sure he was alone, and then cupped a hand over it. The energy thrummed against the shrouding spell he held around himself, echoing back into the atmosphere with surprising strength.

Strands of seiðr came to his call, delicately twining around the crystal housing and drawing off the energy, and he sent it into the ground. Blue lightning crackled over the ground like roots from a strange tree, all the way out to the fallen front wall of the building, and then sank into the dirt and stone beneath.

He let out a deep breath and lifted his hand. He peered at what was left, and his lips parted in shock. It was a basic but pure salt crystal that Schmidt had harnessed to house a drop of the tesseract's energy. This planet had an endless supply of this very simple mineral. That meant it was not difficult to make the core of the batteries themselves - only in transferring the energy and keeping it stable afterward.

There were already thousands of those little power cells, with more being made every hour of every day. All of it lighting a bonfire that would be seen across the universe if Loki didn't stop it soon.

He hurled the crystal into the dirt where the rains should dissolve it into the dirt, and stood up, brushing his hands on his trousers. He rubbed at his wrist with his thumb, missing his vambraces from his combat leathers. These flimsy garments made him feel as if he were wearing pajamas, though at least he was hiding his dagger sheaths underneath the light jacket, one at his back and one beneath his sleeve, and those were reassuring weights against his skin.

A wet drop hit his head and a second on his hand, and he looked up to the dark clouds, as another raindrop plopped on his face. He could push the rain from him, but that would gather suspicion. Quick healing was one thing, but not getting wet in the rain without an umbrella was rather obvious.

So he cast no spell and hurried, annoyed when the rain became steady with a cold wind besides, soaking his jacket before he reached the shelter of HQ so he left a puddle in the foyer. But he didn't care that he was wet, as long as Phillips was ready to finally tell him which of the facilities was their first target.

The hunt began in Greece. Allied Command wanted Germany to look to the Mediterranean, so this would be a good diversion, and the other Hydra sites were difficult to reach as a major storm blew across the north.

They landed at Malta to prepare, and Steve found himself hurried past ancient ruins to the local HQ. In an interior room, he joined Colonel Phillips, Agent Carter, Colonel Mulaney, and Lukas around a map of Greece hanging on the wall.

Mulaney, it turned out, was in contact with British troops on the ground in Greece - those men having blown up a major bridge on the rail line in the country in one of the most dramatic acts of sabotage Steve had heard of.

"The bridge was here," Colonel Mulaney took a pointer and indicated a spot on the large map. "It was their main route from the Balkans to Athens."

"Thermopylae," Lukas murmured. "Does no one learn in two thousand years?"

Mulaney gave him a surprised look. "You know history?"

"Lucky that the Germans don't," Lukas said dryly.

Mulaney cleared his throat. "In any case, this is the only standard gauge track in the entire country. If they're transporting material from the Balkans, the factory has to be on the main line."

"Or near it," Peggy observed, leaning close to examine the map. "We've seen them build their own track."

"Yes, of course," Mulaney agreed with a nod. "But the Greek resistance would see significant rail building. They're well-organized, if not overly unified. In any case, this factory you're looking for only makes sense to me if it was meant to create weapons to send south. But after Montgomery beat Rommel at El Alamein and the rail line was cut, their production can only go back north." He frowned at the map. "Which seems tremendously inefficient. Are you certain it is still in operation?"

"Of course, it is operating," Lukas interrupted. "This is not for the Reich. Schmidt is stock-piling for his own forces."

Mulaney was stunned. "He's in rebellion against Berlin? Doesn't that help us? Can't we negotiate--"

"No," Lukas declared in a tone so forbidding they all fell silent. "You cannot negotiate with a mortal who believes himself a god."

More diplomatic in tone, Steve added, "He's right, Colonel. Schmidt is no better than Hitler. Maybe worse. We can't negotiate with him."

"And these weapons he's making," Phillips added, shaking his head, "have to be stopped. They're nothing you've ever seen before."

Mulaney nodded understanding. "Understood. Well, my men on the ground report that the rail traffic continues south as far as it can and ends up about here." He pointed again to another point north and west of the destroyed rail bridge. "There's a facility here. It was a stone quarry, but appears to be much more now." He flipped through some papers and pulled out a hand-drawn map. "This is from verbal reports -- a narrow valley, hills with low cover, and the factory itself inside the valley with a rail spur."

"Parachute in. Meet up with your men on the ground," Phillips said pulling the basic map in front of him and then pushing it to Carter as if it was mostly useless. "Blow it to hell."

"My men there, with the local resistance, could take care of it," Mulaney offered.

"No, Colonel," Phillips said. "Your men have no idea what Hydra is - they aren't the usual SS that Special Operations deals with. SSR is tasked with this. Right, Captain?"

"Yes, sir," Steve agreed promptly. "We'll take care of it."

That evening, since the squad wasn't due to depart for a full twenty-four hours while Mulaney contacted his men in Greece, the squad took advantage of the unexpected break, smoking their cigarettes and drinking beer after dinner.

Loki, who had no interest in cigarettes, drinking, or being social, wandered away to go up in the old tower to check out the view. As the night crept in and the stars came out, it seemed as if the war was far away. The moon came up, to shine on the sea.

Rogers found him. "Hey, Lukas. You weren't at supper."

"I ate elsewhere," Loki answered. It was a lie, but now that he'd recovered his strength, the humans needed the food more than he did.

Rogers glanced at him, as if he guessed that wasn't true, but didn't press. Instead, he looked out at the view himself. "Looking for the open air?"

Turning his eyes back to the sea, Loki nodded. After a moment, he added, "If I look at the harbor just right, it could be Arendelle. With the moon on the water and the causeway to the castle just to that side."

"Sounds pretty."

"It was beautiful."

"It will be again."

Loki glanced at him and couldn't help a smile. "Such confidence. You remind me of my brother."

"You have a brother?" Rogers asked and smiled back. "Why, I think that's the first personal information you've offered, Lukas, I feel flattered."

Loki rolled his eyes. "As if I know that much about you, Rogers."

He snorted. "Bucky would gleefully tell you anything you wanted to know, even if I wasn't an open book. You just don't ask."

Loki had to admit that was true. He didn't ask, because he didn't actually want to know. He knew too much about these men - these mortals - already. But he couldn't say that he expected them all to die, and answered simply, "I'm used to being alone, Rogers."

Rogers frowned, looking concerned. "You don't have to be. You're part of the team. You can be with us more than just to eat and sleep." His frown deepened. "Except you don't do that either. I don't seem to need a lot of sleep, but I do need to eat. But you give away half your meals."

Loki grimaced, not having realized anyone was paying attention. "No sense in it going to waste." Loki shrugged. "The food is terrible and I am not often hungry." Some of his earliest memories of his mother involved her trying to get him to eat more. Frigga had told him that he couldn't leave the table until he finished his plate, and so he'd learned his first sleight of hand to feed the hounds under the table. That hadn't lasted too long since Thor had caught him at it and ratted him out. The best part was remembering how he'd punched Thor in the face.

Rogers broke into the memory with a soft question, "Because they starved you?"

Recalled to the present, Loki fixed his gaze out on the water and his hands tightened on the parapet. "That doesn't help, no."

"Still, you need to keep up your strength, right?" Rogers asked. "Make sure you eat something." Loki nodded, with no intention of following through, but hopefully Rogers would drop it, which he did. "I wanted to ask you about the plan. You didn't mention whether you'd parachuted before."

Loki considered whether to lie about it, but decided not to bother, "No. I have not."

"I didn't think so. Tomorrow I'll have Duggan go over the procedure. It's pretty basic."

"I'm not concerned." That was the pure truth. The parachute was so his human companions wouldn't realize he didn't need one. He couldn't fly himself, but he could control a fall by putting his own mass slightly out of phase with gravitational acceleration so the two did not interact. He might not even need to do that, depending on the altitude, since his body was far tougher than a mortal's. It would take a significant fall to seriously injure him. He had always been aggravated that Thor could fly and he could not, especially when he felt there had to be some way to fly with seiðr. But so far he hadn't found the trick to it. Falling like a leaf was still falling, not flying.

"So you don't like flying, but jumping out of an airplane is okay?" Rogers teased gently and shook his head. "That's backwards."

"The sooner I am on the ground the better I like it."

Rogers laughed. "All right. Fair enough. Get some rest and something to eat, would you?"

"You need not be concerned for me, Rogers. I am more capable than our first meeting would indicate."

"First of all, it's Steve," he corrected, with a warm smile. "I think after that first meeting, we're past that kind of formality. And second, I know you're capable. I think you're even more capable than you've let on. But third, since I did see that hellhole of our first meeting, I can't help but be concerned. That's what friends do, right?" He didn't wait for an answer, gripping Loki's shoulder with a hand that felt a lot like Thor's, and then he went down the stairs.

Loki watched him go, fighting the warmth that gathered in his chest at the words, and finally let out a sigh. It seemed the more he tried to hold himself away from them, the more they all came to him, which would be amusing if it weren't so aggravating. Centuries of the knowledge that he was scarcely missed unless he made himself noticed, had utterly flipped around here, and they refused to let him be.

The next day Loki had his lesson from Duggan in parachuting and pretended to listen attentively. Then he was called to Phillips, and entered the office curiously.

Phillips was behind his desk, with Carter at the door. She shut it behind Loki, leaving all three of them in the old stone room with only narrow windows to let in light at the ceiling. Maps of Italy, Malta, Greece and North Africa were pinned to the walls, marked with pins in some places.

"Have a seat, Mister Onsdag," Phillips said.

"Or should we say, Mister Wednesday?" Carter asked, her voice a light tease. Loki lifted a brow at her.

"You discovered what it means?"

"It's an alias. We get that," Phillips said. "But you told Agent Carter you'd tell us who the hell you are when we were out of Britain."

Loki crossed his leg, ankle on the opposite knee, so he could fold his hands on his other knee, and smile. "It is an alias, yes. But my real name is not something I will share." He was still shrouding himself, so he wouldn't speak his name aloud and draw attention. "Lukas Onsdag will have to do." His smile widened at the matching annoyed expressions on Phillips and Carter's faces at his refusal.

"Can you at least explain the Ice Demon?" Carter asked. "Or how Schmidt captured you?"

He could obfuscate some more, but he had promised her he would tell them something, so he smiled and leaned back in his seat. "I was hit by a tank shell." The other two exchanged a look, and his smile widened. "No, as you have surmised, my healing is not a product of Hydra. There is power in the royal family. Not all develop anything useful, but some do." Which happened to be true, if backwards, since the power derived from him, not the other way around, but he doubted they would believe the full truth anyway.

Carter nodded thoughtfully. "So descent from a demon or god is a story to explain where it comes from."

"And how do you know it isn't true?" Loki retorted with stiff offense. "It is not a legend, Agent Carter. It is history."

She looked a bit surprised by his anger and added hastily, "I'm sorry, I meant no offense. So, a supernatural healing ability. Anything else?" Carter asked.

Here, he had to be careful. Nothing immortal or god-like, and no magic. "Endurance. Reflexes. Cold doesn't bother me."

Carter and Phillips exchanged a look. "That all?" Phillips asked.

"I don't need to eat or sleep much," he added, with a shrug since Rogers had undoubtedly told them that already.

"And that was enough for Schmidt to keep you a prisoner for a year?" Carter asked with some doubt clouding her brown eyes.

"I had an ability without a serum. He wanted to learn how it works and take it," he answered flatly. He blinked back flashes of captivity -- so many tests, so many needles and sharp blades - and the worse nightmarish slowness in his memories, caused by the poison that kept him in a weakened stupor. Fingers on his skin...

His chest seemed too tight, and he stood up in some instinctual effort to leave the tightness in the chair. "I am done with this."

Peggy watched Lukas walk out, his eyes like pits to hell at the reminder of where he'd been. She regretted mentioning his captivity, not intending him to be upset enough to flee the room.

Phillips frowned after him. "Did we learn anything?" he asked. "Because I'm thinking we didn't learn squat."

"We did confirm that it's his blood, not from a serum."

"I can't plan ops to take advantage of what he can do, if I don't know what he can do," Phillips grumped. "You'd think he'd know that, as much as he wants revenge."

"Colonel, he spent a year with a madman torturing him for his secrets. Can we really blame him when he wants to keep them to himself?" Peggy asked. "We'll find out the truth, when he trusts we won't bolt him to a table for experiments."

Phillips grunted what was probably agreement. "All right. We'll see how this one goes. He'll reveal himself; he's enjoying playing with us too much not to pull the curtain back eventually. I'll get my second supersoldier sooner rather than later." He tossed his pen back in the ink well. "Mission is a go, Agent Carter. Wheels up at 1700 hours."

She nodded sharply. "Yes, sir."

tbc...

Chapter Text

Steve was standing, hanging onto a strap affixed to the ceiling as the plane headed eastward. The other Commandos were seated on the benches lining the bulkheads, olive fatigues unmarked, gear at their feet ready to be put on. Lukas stood opposite to him, looking more at ease with flying now, though he still looked toward the front and the cockpit windows with more intensity than the black night probably deserved.

Peggy stood up from her co-pilot chair and dug something out of the bag she had slung over her uniform. She pulled out to transponders. "This is for you," she handed Steve one and smiled into his eyes, teasing, "Try not to let it get destroyed this time. If you miss the primary evac, activate this and head for the secondary site. And this," she handed it to Lukas, "is a spare. Just in case the captain loses his. Again."

Lukas tucked his on the inside pocket of his jacket. "I will take care of it."

From the front the pilot reported, "Thirty minutes to drop. Coming in over land."

"Everyone gear up," Steve ordered. He was already wearing his and let Bucky check the straps one more time, and then went to make sure Lukas was properly kitted as he tightened the straps across his chest.

Each had a small pack with the necessities for themselves, ammo, and then whatever part of the mission they were carrying. Explosives, detonators, grenades, and one squad radio. Steve of course had his shield strapped to his left arm, in addition to the standard weapons, and he wasn't the only one with a non-regulation weapon. Lukas had two knives strapped to his forearms beneath his jacket sleeves - they were nearly impossible to detect even when Steve knew they were there. Steve had no idea where he'd found the sheaths, but he seemed to know what he was doing with them.

"I see the first signal fire," the pilot reported. "We are go for drop. Ten minutes."

"Everyone, check your neighbor's chutes!" Steve ordered. "Let's not make stupid mistakes."

His eyes met Peggy's. Her lips smiled. "Good hunting, Captain. To you and all your men."

"Thank you, ma'am. We'll see you soon." He saluted her sharply and turned to open the back ramp, beneath the tail.

In moments, the wind whipped through the cabin, until the pressure equalized and it was cold but bearable.

Everyone checked their chutes and Bucky and Duggan both gave thumbs up. "Sarge, in position!" Steve told Duggan who got ready. Then, they all stood and lined up, while Steve looked to the front to watch Peggy, who held up her arm while she listened to the pilot.

Steve could just barely hear the pilot, but he saw her drop her arm and he ordered, "Duggan, Go! Morita, Go. Everybody, go, go, go"

Bucky gave him the thumbs up and jumped, leaving just Steve and Lukas. "You ready?" Steve called, wondering if Lukas had a problem with jumping out of airplanes after all.

But Lukas grinned at him. "Ready, Rogers."

"STEVE!" he shouted the correction as Lukas headed to the edge. "I told you to call me Steve!"

Then the grin became a smirk. "Steven." He jumped off the edge. Shaking his head, Steve lifted a hand to Peggy and threw himself after the rest of them.

Loki waited to pull the cord, wondering if he even needed to. In the darkness, as long as he didn't open the chute he was all-but invisible already.

The feel of the air against his skin was cool and pleasant, and the freedom of it felt perfect - he was free, open air all around him, the stars above him. It was exhilarating to fall, to feel the gathering acceleration of gravity grab him and hurl him at the planet.

Then he heard a yell and glanced up to see Rogers falling toward him. He was gesturing for Loki to pull the ripcord, and from the set to his jaw he was about thirty seconds from grabbing Loki to share their parachute. The fool was going to get himself killed, thinking Loki was in danger.

Loki held up a hand to indicate he didn't need help and stay back, and pulled the cord with a sigh. The parachute opened properly and yanked him to a slower floating speed. He looked upward, urging the chute to one side with a conjured gust of wind, to see Rogers' sail also spread above him, nearly glowing against the stars. Looking down again, the slower descent was good for looking at the ground if not nearly so exhilarating as the fall had been. Monty had gotten himself stuck on the only tree in a hundred meters and that made him laugh as he floated down. But he saw no others - no Greeks, or occupiers here yet. No, that was an error. There, to the east, there was movement on the ridge.

He touched down lightly and immediately gathered his chute up to hide the blinding glare of the white fabric.

Rogers landed more heavily, having to roll on the ground and he stood up and ran for Loki. "Are you all right?" he asked. "I thought you might be in trouble up there. You pulled late."

Loki shrugged. "No, no trouble. I saw people there, heading our way."

"Hope that's our ride," Rogers said. He whistled softly for the team to gather, as Monty was cut down.

It was a few tense minutes, especially with Monty's chute spread out on the tree so there wasn't much doubt there were Allies there. But a voice called out, "Hitler's a big wanker, right?"

Half the Commandos snickered, and Monty called back, "Not exactly the call sign, mate."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, "the queen's bees are in her knees.""

"I think that was supposed to be the other way around, but close enough," Steve said, with a laugh. "Captain Rogers with the SSR."

They all exchanged names and the Special Ops Captain Harrison shook hands with Rogers. "The road's this way."

They scouted the Hydra facility in the early morning, the SOE team taking Steve, Lukas, and Bucky to watch as a train of four cars arrived. Two cars were full of something that rattled metallically, scrap metal perhaps, but the other two were slatted cattle cars full of people herded out of the cars and into the factory.

Steve exchanged a grim look with Bucky. Prisoners. That mean they couldn't just bomb the place to the ground. They'd have to free the prisoners.

Lukas cocked his head, listening to something. "They are Russian. Or perhaps Ukrainian. I'd need to hear more, but they're from the Eastern front."

Steve shook his head. They hadn't heard a lot from the Eastern Front, but what they'd heard was mostly terrible - thousands and thousands dead, starvation, prisoners, entire towns obliterated. "If they're mostly soldiers we can liberate them and then they'll help destroy the factory, just like Austria."

"We need to hurry," Lukas observed, and explained at Steve's quizzical face. "They didn't bring any food for these prisoners. Hydra has already denuded the locals of most of their supplies. The prisoners already look weak, if we wait too long, they'll starve."

"Well, this gets better and better," Bucky muttered. "Cannot wait to take these rats down."

Steve nodded. "No kidding. Let's go, I've seen enough."

They squirmed off the ridge and out of there.

They planned the assault for just before first light, when the prisoners would still be bunked down, and the guards should be at their least alert.

While the plan had originally been to have Loki hang back as befit his supposed civilian status, Loki had nearly put a dagger in all of them to make the point that he could take care of himself. Duggan had tried to get him to carry a machine gun which Loki had disdained with a sneer and he'd taken a pistol only because he had to carry something. He'd also grabbed four grenades and extra explosives because he could discharge those at a distance.

But he was much happier grabbing the truck as it went at the gate and riding the undercarriage inside. And at first it went well - perimeter security seemed to be Italian and somewhat under-equipped. The Commandos blew the gate and ran into the courtyard.

But then the more elite Hydra guards heard the commotion and poured out fo the main building, some of them with their disintegrator guns. Cloaking himself in invisibility so not even his allies could see him, Loki crouched next to one of the trucks and grabbed the dark energy housed in one of those weapons, ripping it free of its containment to explode. This produced a fantastic bomb that not only killed its wielder but slammed into anyone within five meters. It only took two or three before Hydra soldiers realized their weapons were blowing up and threw them down in panic, to get picked off by Barnes and Jones.

Then there were no more easy ones and the smoke grew thick, as Hydra retreated, and Rogers started running, throwing his shield to make sure they didn't close the inner doors. Loki was quick to follow, letting his invisibility fade as he stood. The shield slammed into the closing door, wedging it open, and Rogers reached for it.

But Hydra was above, in the tower, with a view of the gate and they fired. Loki saw the bullets, tracked four of them would hit Steve, since there was no way he could pull the shield and turn in time. Barnes, now atop the wall, was firing at the tower, taking out the defenders, but the gun had already fired.

Rogers turned, hearing someone else yell, and he ducked, but the bullets weren't headed for his head.

And Loki was too far to tackle him down. There was only one thing to do.

He stood in the way.

He had just enough time to strengthen his aura so the impact jolted him back, but didn't damage his clothes. He wasn't wearing his armor or he wouldn't have bothered with even that much.

"Lukas, oh my God!" Rogers grabbed his shoulder, supporting him in case he collapsed.

"I'm fine," Loki shrugged him off. "We need to get to the prisoners."

Rogers' blue eyes were wide and stared in disbelief. "But they hit you, I saw them hit you."

Loki snorted and jerked his jacket to display the lack of holes and blood. "Nothing hit me. Barnes got them in time. Come on."

Frowning in confusion, Rogers realized it wasn't the time to argue and headed back to the door hastily.

Behind him, Loki opened his hand and dropped the one bullet he'd caught with the others that had crumpled against his aura and fallen to the dirt.

Inside, Loki was the only one who could talk to the prisoners and get them herded out. The sight of the conditions reaffirmed his commitment to ending Hydra, no matter what. He would not keep a chicken as these people had been kept, worked and starved.

Then, prisoners removed, Hydra soldiers either taken prisoner themselves or dead, Loki found his way to the factory floor where a large battery fueled by the tesseract was waiting, used to charge the other weapons they were building.

Rogers found him there. "We blowing this place to hell, or what?"

Loki held his three sticks of dynamite. "We are. Everyone else clear?"

"Bucky and Duggan are ushering them out." Rogers glanced at him. "You saved my life."

"You are mistaken. Do you have a timer?"

Rogers shook his head. "I could get one from Dernier."

"No. We'll just have to run." Loki set the three sticks on top of the battery, and then handed one of his grenades to Rogers, and took another himself. "We can't be more than ten meters or the grenade will explode too early. It needs to land next to the dynamite."

"That's going to make a boom."

"Why are people always stating the obvious?" Loki asked impatiently and yanked the pin out. Primitive devices were irrelevant when he could spark the thing himself, but he had to play by mortal rules and it was irritatingly inefficient.

They backed away, as far as they could and still have clear routes both to the exit and throw their grenades.

Loki's was, of course, a perfect throw - he could throw daggers at a dragon eyeball at five times this distance. And Rogers' was good, too, landing quite close and then they both turned and ran for the exit.

It exploded with a preliminary bang of the grenades, and then a deeper whump of the dynamite and Rogers threw his shield over both of them as the shockwave slammed into them.

Loki waited, wondering if the battery would go and if he was going to have to pull on it with seiðr manually, then it went.

Loki wasn't ashamed to huddle underneath Rogers' shield as the explosion ripped everything apart all around them. Intense heat and shock washed over them, machinery was slammed around, the walls collapsed, and half the roof was vaporized. With one hand hidden, he extended his aura out to a bubble to strengthen the vibranium - it was strong but this pressure and heat might melt it.

Then it was over. Steve lowered the shield and straightened warily. "Holy mother of God," he whispered looking at the devastation. The entire main building of the factory was utterly destroyed from ceiling girders to foundry machines, their heavy steel twisted and broken. There were small fires still burning but most had been put out by the explosion's own vacuum before the air had rushed back in.

Loki stood up and surveyed it with a smile of satisfaction. "One more down."

Back on Malta, celebrating a mission accomplished in the base canteen, the hour had grown late and everyone else had gone off on their own, leaving just Steve and Bucky and a candle on the rickety wooden table, set into a jar lid. Bucky set something down on the table next to Steve's beer glass. It was a small, malformed piece of metal. Steve fingered it curiously before giving into the inevitable question. "Okay, what is it?"

"It was in the dirt at the Hydra base. It's a bullet. Or what's left of one."

Steve looked at it again. It was flat on one side as if it had slammed into concrete but that was about all that seemed special about it. "And?"

"It should've been in your spine," Bucky murmured. "I wasn't quick enough to take that bastard in the tower."

Holding it up again, he peered at it. "What the hell?"

"I didn't see it hit, I was shooting the tower, but after, I saw Lukas drop it out of his hand. Like he'd fucking caught it."

"I'm sure there's another explanation," Steve muttered, uneasy. Except he had been convinced himself that the Hydra bullets should have hit him, wide open without his shield as he'd been and the shooter up high. "He said it missed."

"The bullet hit something; that doesn't happen hitting dirt. And if it did hit him, that's not super healing, that's … invulnerability."

"He's not invulnerable, Bucky. I saw him, very vulnerable, before we found you."

Which Bucky knew, but he waved his hand in an urgent vague gesture of simulaneously hearing what Steve was saying and yet disagreeing with it. "Maybe Schmidt knew how to -- peel it away, or weaken it or something. Because that," he pointed at the bullet, "didn't hit him and he healed up; it hit him and acted like he was a wall. How is that even possible, Steve?"

"It's not. So there's another explanation."

"Sometimes he talks like science is barely a step up from monkeys banging sticks together. Like he's Howard Stark, but no one's heard of him."

"Maybe we have," Steve suggested with a wry look. "Lukas Onsdag isn't his real name and Peggy said he won't tell what it is." He set the bullet on the table top. "Anyway, even if he's some kind of natural prodigy or Hydra experiment or whatever, he's still just a man. And our friend."

"True. Even if he's not so sure about the last part." Bucky picked up the bullet again and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket. "Lucky charm," he answered Steve's raised eyebrows. "The bullet that saved Captain America's pretty pretty face for all the newspapers and ladies to sigh over. Oh Captain, can I call you Steven?" he imitated a high-pitched mocking cooing.

Steve tossed the coaster at him. "Shut up."

"Aye, aye, cap'n." Bucky's salute could use some work as he pushed his chair back. "Gonna hit the hay. Don't stay up too late."

"Good night, Dad."

Bucky laughed and flipped him off behind his back as he walked away, entirely unconcerned.

Loki heard the footsteps, lifting his brows at the realization that his visitor was Barnes, not Rogers. He turned his eyes back to the book of poetry in his lap.

Barnes got close to the wall where Loki was perched. "Hey. You weren't at the party. You doing okay?"

Loki looked up. "I am not much for feasts and revelry. But I am well, thank you." He lowered his gaze back to the book. But that of course was not going to work as a dismissal, since Barnes seemed determined to talk to him.

Barnes leaned close enough to see the script. "What the hell is that chicken scratch?"

"Arabic poetry. I found the book in a pile -- a remnant of someone's collection I presume."

"You can read that?"

Loki shrugged. "I learn languages easily. It's a gift."

Barnes asked, "Is not getting hurt when you're shot at also a gift?"

Loki sighed. "I told Rogers they missed."

Barnes fished something out of his jacket pocket and held it up. "While you two were inside blowing the hell out of that place, I grabbed this off the ground. Where you dropped it. After you caught it."

Loki saw the bullet well enough by moonlight and grimaced. He turned away to look through the darkness at the movement of ships at the harbor and hear the distant drone of planes at the airfield. The war continued, even though the Commandos part of it was in a lull for the night.

"Look, I get that you don't want to tell anybody the truth," Barnes said, earnestly. "I was in that hellhole, I know what they did. I swear I won't tell - not the colonel, not even Steve. But I've got to know."

Loki sighed again and closed his book slowly. "There is very little that can injure me when I have my strength. It's innate, not given by any serum or any other external gift. As I explained to Colonel Phillips and Agent Carter, I am related to Queen Birgitte of Arendelle, and to her ancestor the Snow Queen. That is the well-spring of my ability."

He held out a hand to summon ice, forming a glimmer of frost on the railing that grew swiftly to icicles, hanging beneath like crystalline teeth. Barnes' eyes widened and he seemed not to breathe, as he reached out gingerly to touch one. His hand trembled as if he thought it might burn him, but then he touched the ice, felt that it was real, and he turned incredulous eyes on Loki. "How?"

"Queen Elsa was the daughter of the Ice Demon of Arendelle."

"The what?" Barnes repeated. "What's that? Never heard of it."

"Him," Loki corrected. "About two hundred fifty years ago, a…. man came to the mountains between Arendelle and Norway, and for several years he terrorized the people, like a mad dog, attacking all who came near, uncaring of their lives. He had strange magical powers. He called himself a god but they called him a demon. Later, his child Elsa the Snow Queen was born with powers over ice. Ever since, the royal family has held a potential for … strange power. It mostly lies dormant, but not always."

"Oh," Barnes slumped against the wall and folded his arms. "That's… weird."

Loki grimaced. "I knew I should have kept silent. It is too much--"

"No!" Barnes corrected and straightened up again as if Loki had caught him at something. "No, it's not. I can deal with it. So what was the Ice Demon, really?"

Loki had no idea how to answer that question even semi-truthfully. "Who knows?" Loki shrugged. "Perhaps truly a demon? Or an angel." He smirked thinking of how appalled Elsa and the old bishop would be at his blithely assuming himself an angel. But why not? Immortal being from a higher realm happened to be true.

Barnes made a face, wrinkling his nose. "Maybe he was an alien. From another planet."

Loki shot a look at him, surprised he had come up with the idea."Why would you think that?"

"Well, I don't much believe in angels and demons," Barnes said, and glanced with a worried frown in the direction of the town's cathedral and lowered his voice, "Seems sort of … superstitious. God, I can believe in, but all that other stuff? What about other religions? They can't all be right. So that magic, I don't buy it. But what about other planets? There are other planets in our solar system. Maybe Venus or Mars have people, too. Or maybe other stars have planets."

Amused by the enthusiasm and yet also impressed that Barnes had thought it through, Loki looked up at him and slowly nodded. "Yes, I think you may be closer to the truth than anyone else. Though I will tell you that Venus is a hideous place, unfit for any life."

"It's got an atmosphere! It's probably a jungle with giant snakes and dinosaurs!"

Loki smiled at him, feeling some strange affection for this mortal and his enthusiasm, and shook his head. "Alas, no. It's temperature is far too hot; it rains sulfuric acid, not water."

For a moment Barnes looked disappointed that Loki had just crushed his dream of a jungle paradise on Venus, then he frowned. "How the hell do you know that?"

Loki grinned and lied flippantly, "Because I've been there."

Barnes stared at him and then burst into laughter. "You have not! Liar!"

"Maybe," Loki teased. "But I do know a great many things." He stood and tucked his book into his pocket. "I think I should escort you to the barracks to rest, as it's gotten quite late and I hear we're departing early."

"Yeah, I could use some shut eye." Barnes tucked the mangled bullet into his pocket and closed the button securely, then gave a short laugh, shaking his head. "You and Steve are enough to make a man feel… ordinary."

Loki chuckled a little bitterly. "I know that feeling, Barnes."

"You? But you have all these special abilities…"

Special abilities. But never the ones that counted for anything. "They set me apart. It is a difficult thing to be different, and not also feel less." Which was something his family had never understood, neither being different nor feeling less.

"Oh. I didn't think of it that way." Barnes was quiet, following him down off the roof, nodding once in acknowledgment to the watch officer, who was amusingly startled by Loki's appearance, since Loki had passed him unseen.

They passed the anti-aircraft emplacement, ready but quiet now that the Nazis had been pushed back from Malta, and headed for the barracks where the Howling Commandos were housed.

"Then it's a good thing you're here, right?" Barnes asked. "I mean, on the same team with Steve. I know he likes it that you're here. You two don't have to be different on your own."

Loki wanted to object that he was different. Rogers had some abilities, but he was still human. There was no escaping that Loki was nothing like them. He was alone.

Barnes hand closed on his arm. "And you'd probably feel less apart, if you spent more time with us. You know the others are fine with the captain, and they're fine with you. So you don't have to be worried they'll think you're a freak or something, they already know you're different."

Which they did since the wounds to his wrists had given away his quick healing. But the problem was that he wanted to stay apart. He didn't want to get attached to these mortals and watch them die. The thought of Elsa and Anna's deaths still tore at him, all these years later.

Frigga's words came back to him, that trying to avoid pain was in the end fruitless, because all he was doing was denying himself feeling the better part, when the pain would come inevitably. He glanced at Barnes' profile. It was too late not to feel something when he died. And Rogers, too.

"All right, fine," he heaved a sigh. "I will make an effort to be more sociable, Sergeant."

(to be continued)

Chapter Text

Christmas came, with the team pinned down by a sudden storm in the French Alps before they could get their next operation underway. Their tents were little protection from the wind and blowing snow, but once everyone was in the main tent, it was warm. They listened to the radio broadcast from London, sang christmas carols in English and French, and drank the local wine.

Steve asked Lukas about carols in Norwegian, but he shrugged for an answer. "I know none. But--" a light came into his eyes of an idea. "There is something I can do to celebrate. I'll be back." He slipped out of the tent, with no coat, and for a moment, Steve frowned thinking he'd gone through the tent wall. Maybe the wine was more potent than he'd thought.

"What do you think that's about?" he asked Bucky.

Bucky shrugged. "Tradition from Arendelle, maybe?" He lifted his aluminum cup full of the rough red they'd found. "Merry Christmas, buddy."

Steve clanked his own cup to him. "Merry Christmas."

That prompted a whole round of all the Commandos toasting each other and wishing each other Merry Christmas. Steve got up and approached where Peggy and the Colonel were sitting. "Merry Christmas, Sir. Agent Carter."

She smiled at him warmly. "To you as well, Captain." She held up her cup - she'd found a ceramic mug somewhere and appeared to be drinking tea, not wine - and Steve touched his cup to hers, and then the Colonel's.

The tent flap blew open. "Hey!" Duggan yelled. "Someone shut that damn thing!"

Lukas was briefly framed by the violently flapping doorway and he set down something he was carrying, to tie the flap shut again and keep out the wind, even if they'd completely lost all the heat. It didn't bother Steve very much, and Lukas still wasn't wearing a coat as he shook his head briskly, to get the snowflakes off. He picked up what looked like a wooden bucket and came to the middle, between the two makeshift long tables.

"So, it occurred to me," he announced, "that I should share one of my people's traditions with you. In my country, it is a tradition at Christmas dinner to put a plum on your plate. It's an old tradition, from more pagan days, and it is said that the Ice Demon will protect those in the house when an offering is made. Now usually, they have to use canned plums for this, as Christmas is inconveniently situated in winter, but I found some actual plums." He held up the bucket and then began to pass them out.

Steve took his, finding it was, in fact, a plum, a bit hard from the cold, but fresh and purple-skinned.

Lukas went up to the Colonel and Peggy and handed them their plums. "To put all who receive them under the Ice Demon's protection," he told them.

Peggy took hers, turning it in her hands with wonder. "This is a summer fruit. Where did they come from?"

Lukas smiled. "I saw them in the village when we were heading here. So I nipped down to grab them."

"In the blizzard?" Phillips lifted his eyebrows skeptically.

Lukas shrugged. "I told you the cold doesn't bother me. I can take the base myself tomorrow."

Steve heard that and intervened, "No, not alone. I'll go with you. They'll never expect an attack in a blizzard."

Phillips snorted and shook his head. "You two. Could probably do it, too, and wouldn't that be a kick in the pants? But no, we stick to the plan. This is a temporary delay." He waved his hand in dismissal. "Take this as a bonus R&R for Christmas."

"Yes, sir." Steve's eyes caught Lukas', and he read the same disappointment. Maybe they could go tomorrow anyway. He'd have to pull Lukas aside and see what he thought about going without orders.

Lukas passed out the rest of his bounty to the men, and when he handed the last to Bucky, he said, "Merry Christmas, Barnes."

"Thanks. Are we supposed to eat them? Or keep them or what?" Bucky asked. Jones, next to him, paused guiltily, his plum half-eaten already.

Lukas chuckled. "Eat them, of course. No sense in wasting food."

Steve bit his and, despite the frosty skin, it was delicious. It had been awhile since any of them had any fresh fruit.

Lukas sat beside him, watched everyone savoring his gift, and munched on his own fruit with a satisfied, even smug expression

"So you gave us all this great gift," Steve said, "What's the thing you wish Santa would bring you?"

"Santa?" Lukas repeated, frowning as if he had no idea what Steve was talking about before he realized. "oh, yes, "Santa Claus". What a bizarre adaptation of Saint Nicholas. But if I could, I would ask him for Schmidt's head on a pike."

"Somehow I don't think Santa Claus will assassinate anyone," Barnes said with a chuckle. "The war would be over by now if that worked."

"Pity. The ability to fly a sleigh in a blizzard would be quite helpful right now. But I suppose the Ice Demon hasn't done anything useful either," Lukas said, lips twisting wryly, "so I shouldn't mock your fat bearded gift-giver too much."

"Hey," Bucky said, nudging him with his shoulder, "his heir is here with us, kicking Nazi ass. And you found us fresh fruit in the middle of a blizzard. If that's not a Christmas miracle I don't know what is."

"That's right. Let's not sneeze at what blessings we've got." Steve poured more of the wine into their cups and held up his cup. "Merry Christmas, everybody."

Lukas touched his cup to Steve and then glanced at Bucky, teasing, "What are the odds I can find mistletoe and hang it up over Steven and Agent Carter's heads?"

"What?" Steve spluttered, and was sure he must be blushing all the way to his hair.

Lukas and Bucky laughed at him, but that was all right. Steve joined in the laughter, a little rueful that his feelings were so obvious to them. It was cold and miserable outside, but it was all warm companionship and holiday cheer inside, and that was a miracle indeed.

Chapter Text

Peggy was waiting for them on the edge of camp as Steve and Lukas were about to leave. She seemed to have a sixth-sense about when Steve was planning something reckless, and she looked at him in disapproval, but no surprise, as she stood there, bundled up against the pre-dawn icy cold.

"I can't talk you out of this?" she asked, knowing she couldn't.

"We're going to snoop around. They'll never expect anything with this much snow on the ground," Steve said.

She evaluated them both before giving in with a nod. "I hope so. Here's a locator if you need evac." She handed him the device with gloved hands, and turned her eyes to Lukas who was bare-headed and had no overcoat, and she smiled a bit. "You meant it when you said the cold doesn't bother you."

"The blood of the Ice Demon is ice, Agent Carter. I was born for lands of winter, not this paltry snow fall," he gestured to the few inches that lay over the ground and blanketed the trees. His gaze flicked eastward. "We need to go."

"I will see you soon," she told them. "And you can attempt to evade the colonel's reprimand again."

Steve grimaced. "If we can take the facility down, it'll be worth it."

Lukas clapped him on the back. "I will induct you into the Arendelle army, Steven, and protect you from the colonel's wrath."

Steve laughed. "I think Captain America in the employ of Arendelle would be a little… strange. Let's go. You up for running there?"

A slow smirk formed at the challenge and Lukas said with calculated disdain, "Certainly. If your bulky shield doesn't weigh you down too much."

"Oh. Now it is on." Steve grinned at him. "Last one to the secret Hydra base is a rotten egg." He turned and started running.

Lukas kept the pace Steve set, both the earlier faster run or when he leveled off into more of a ground-eating jog. It was the first time that Steve had felt truly challenged, that he was pushing his new talents to their fullest with someone who could seemingly match him in strength and endurance. Maybe Lukas felt the same because when Steve glanced at him, Lukas was smiling in honest enjoyment, not his usual more sarcastic smirk.

The forest was beautiful as the sun rose. The ice crackled and the snow fell off the trees. They saw a few rabbits poking about, and two deer who were so unaccustomed to people they stared at the people as they ran past.

But then the silence of the forest ended as Lukas slowed to a stop, and he said softly, "Steven." He sniffed the air. "It's close now. We need to be careful."

Steve sniffed, but couldn't smell whatever Lukas did that gave away the factory's proximity. He was right, though, as they crept nearer and perched on an outcropping of rock on a ridge to one side of the factory. This facility was smaller than either of the other two, but belched smoke from two chimneys, and the snow around the fence and on the road was unmarred by tracks of any kind. There were no tanks outside, and though the guard towers were manned, there was no one walking the walls.

"What is it we should say?" Lukas murmured. "Piece of pie?"

Steve chuckled and corrected, "Easy as pie, or piece of cake."

"Ah. Simple as dessert. You free the prisoners. I'll take care of the weapons."

Before Steve could object to this plan, Lukas jumped off the rock. Steve stared at where he'd been, stunned that he'd just leaped as if it was nothing to jump down twenty feet. Steve followed, finding it wasn't hard at all, and hurried after Lukas in the dubious protection of a ridge-side approach where only one tower could see them.

But it seemed the guards were too busy sitting around in a stupor around some space heater and not looking outside, because no one raised the alarm as they knelt beneath the wall. Lukas touched the fence with one bare hand and smirked at Steve, whispering, "Rotten egg."

Steve just rolled his eyes and un-holstered his shield, mouthing, "Ready?" The wall took only two blows with the shield before he'd smashed a hole big enough for them, and Lukas darted through. The sound had finally roused a guard to come look, and Lukas hurled a dagger that took him right in the throat. He plummeted silently off the wall to the snow below.

They scurried to the side door, which Lukas pulled right out of its frame and Steve ducked so he could throw it, like his shield, at two more guards approaching across the courtyard.

Steve went in first, and came face to face with two Hydra guards and their disintegrator guns. Steve blocked the shots with his shield and then threw it at them, smashing them to the floor. He and Lukas each took a gun.

"Prisoners must be that way," Lukas pointed down one corridor. "You have thirty minutes before I blow this place to hell."

"Done. Don't get caught."

Lukas smile was a feral baring of teeth. "I won't be." He went down the corridor, eliminating two Hydra guards before they knew there was anything to worry about.

Freeing the prisoners here was almost as easy as freeing Duggan and the others had been back in Austria. The Hydra guards were completely unprepared for any kind of resistance or attack, and when Steve smashed the first lock off the cage, there was still no alarm. The prisoners were mostly French, and he wished Dernier or Jones was there, but his weak French was enough to explain who he was and that they needed to get out of there right away.

The alarm rang then, though whether from the first escaped prisoners emerging or something Lukas had done, Steve couldn't tell, but it meant he was running out of time. He showed the prisoners the way out and yelled at them to get a vehicle. Then he ducked back inside to find Lukas.

It wasn't hard. The trail of bodies was a pretty obvious clue. Lukas had stopped using the Hydra weapon, in favor of a blade, leaving bloodied enemies in his wake. The commandant of the facility had his neck at an odd angle, slumped against the floor of his office. But Lukas wasn't there. Steve swept all the papers he could find into his backpack, hoping there was some useful intelligence, and then felt a tremble in the floor of the first explosion.

Was it already thirty minutes? Apparently so. Time to get out.

The commandant's office had a window, and he took advantage of it, leaping through it with his shield protecting his body from the shards. He fell to the lower roof beneath, and without pause raced for that edge, and hurled himself off down to the snow.

The building blew up behind him, and the force caught him in mid-air. He slammed to the ground, dazed, and gritted his teeth against the pain in his ribs. It would pass, but right now, it pinched his breaths.

Lukas found him and offered his hand to pull him up. He looked as fresh as if he'd been walking in a garden, not assassinated every Hydra officer he'd met and blown up the factory. He regarded the factory with glowing satisfaction. "Another one down."

The facility was burning, black smoke billowing into the sky, and below, the prisoners were running around, taking care of the remaining guards and yelling in vindictive, jubilant French.

"Now we get to go listen to Phillips yell at us."

Lukas shrugged. "Let him. We succeeded, and success, I have found, is far easier to forgive than failure."

Which turned out to be mostly true. Phillips did yell at him - and him alone, Lukas getting a glower of annoyance - but walking into camp with eighty more freed prisoners did take the sting out of it.

"I hope you both enjoy your lone wolf heroics," Phillips snarled at them both at the end of the dressing down, "Because now London's taken a stronger interest in our work, and you're about to be in every newsreel on the planet."

Steve grimaced, now having second thoughts about the mission. And from the look of it, Lukas was regretting it as well.

Chapter Text

The presence of journalists ruined all the ease Loki had found with the squad, especially after someone told them that he had been with Steve.

"Someone was playing a joke on you," he told the journalist. "Captain America was alone."

"Sir," the eager young man protested, "you were with him. You took out that facility with him; we know that. I just want a quote and a photograph."

"No photos."

Loki expected that to end it, but of course it didn't. The child took his photo anyway, from across camp as if Loki wouldn't notice. But he heard the shutter click and headed that way, anger simmering. The dumb skinny mortal grinned up at him with insincerity that Loki could have felt from another Realm, and said, "But, sir, you're one of the Howling Commandos. You're a hero. The people of the world deserve to know--"

Which was exactly as far as he got before Loki's hand went around his throat and lifted him clear off his feet. "Do not take my picture again." He threw the boy down to the ground and grabbed the camera off his neck as he fell. Even as the boy yelled at him to stop, Loki opened the back and yanked out all the negatives, exposing them to the sunlight, as the reporter swore at him in dismay.

He dropped the empty camera and stalked off. Rogers ran after him. "Hey! Lukas! Kinda rough on the kid, weren't you?"

Loki glowered back at the photographer who was still kneeling in the dirt, the negatives in his hands, trying to stuff them into his shirt as if that would save them from being over-exposed. "I warned him not to take my photo. He didn't listen."

"But why not?" Rogers asked, confused. "You're not going to be a spy after the war, Lukas; you're going to be the national hero of Arendelle."

The words struck like a knife. He stumbled away from Rogers, as if that would let him escape those thoughts, ending up in the back of the cook tent. He was no hero of Arendelle, and never had been. "No, I will not. I cannot. You don't understand." He swallowed hard, remembering the Asgardian toy left in Arendelle and now in Schmidt's hands, and he shook his head. "I left too many footprints last time -- why do you think Schmidt knew I existed? He murdered dozens of people for the sole purpose of luring me forth. Because he knew what I was. I cannot leave bigger trails for others to follow," Loki insisted.

"Hey," Steve's hand closed on his shoulder tightly. "It's not your fault."

"It is! I was careless! He came looking for me." He curled a hand around the rough rope, needing its support.

"No," Steve insisted strongly. "Schmidt's the one who killed those people, not you. He's a murderous madman, and we need to take him down. It's not your fault."

"I-- I could've come back to Arendelle sooner," Loki admitted, turning away from Steve's bright, kind eyes. "I should have come sooner. I could have helped them more. They died because I didn't come…"

"You're only one person, Lukas," Steve murmured. "No matter how strong we are, we can't be everywhere, or do everything. The Germans would have attacked Arendelle and Norway whether you were there or not."

Loki shook his head, finding no words to argue that wouldn't reveal his secrets. He didn't disagree, since Scandinavia had been too strategic for the Reich to ignore, but Schmidt wouldn't have come without Loki's presence. And he wouldn't have the tesseract if not for Loki. He had left his trail, leading Schmidt right to the tesseract and to him. He had tried to lift human progress, and he had given Schmidt the tools to make his devices of terror. He looked bleakly eastward toward the Allied lines where brave humans were throwing themselves on a pyre to push back an aggressor fueled by things Loki had left strewn all over the world.

"I have to stop him, Steven. I have to end this."

"We'll get him. Didn't I promise you in Austria, we would get him?" Steve asked.

"You did." Loki turned his head to look at Rogers and then away again, adding, "And you mean it."

"Of course I do. And you know what I think might be a good idea?" Steve asked. "You know how we're trying to light a fire under Schmidt's ass with our attacks? Don't you think you helping us would do that, too? You and me working together? The public doesn't have to know about your special talents, but Schmidt sure does. Pose for a picture or a video with the squad; it'll get back to him. Show him you're after him, too."

Loki considered that. It had a certain appeal, to demonstrate to Schmidt that Loki had found allies and they were working together towards Schmidt's defeat. He would have to be careful. "All right. So long as they keep my name out of it. That boy is accompanying us to Latveria, isn't he?"

"That's the spirit!" Rogers said, slapping his back companionably.

That was how a newsreel of the Howling Commandos included brief footage of a tall man with unregulation black hair in unmarked fatigues standing like a grim shadow behind Captain America. He was not identified in the newsreel, or in the military-approved article and photograph about the triumphant assault on the Hydra base in Latveria. But the lack of formal identification didn't stop other journalists from putting it together that Lukas Onsdag of Arendelle was part of the Commandos team, nor stop a queen in exile from talking to another journalist from identifying him as her rescuer.

Which was how Loki found himself the object of hilarity as Barnes dropped a package in front of him. "Mail for you."

The package was made up of letters, all bound together with string. The others looked at the pile and hooted, laughing. "Is it the long hair?" Jones demanded from the others. "Or the general air of mystery? Look at that stack!"

Dumbfounded, Loki looked at the stack. "Those are all for me? From whom?"

"Well, I don't know that, do I?" Barnes returned. "A pile for the dashing captain, of course. Oh, look, more for you." He dropped more letters in front of Loki's place at the table.

"What are all these?" Loki repeated blankly and fingered the string on the pack of letters. "One might be from Birgitte, though she would likely send me a telegram, but there is no one else to send me a letter..."

"Probably admirers," Morita said. "We all get those."

"Not as many as some people," Barnes teased, dumping another pile of letters on Rogers' place. "You need help answering your fan mail, Captain? I'm sure we could all help you out."

Rogers rolled his eyes. "Gimme. I'll do it."

"Looking at that, I think we should keep a tally of marriage proposals," Duggan teased. "Looks like Lukas is gonna give you a run for your money, Captain."

"Marriage proposals? Don't be ridiculous." Loki opened one of the loose letters warily and scanned it, frowning at what he read. It actually was a marriage proposal. "Oh. But-- they know nothing about me. Why would they write this to me?"

"Because you're not ugly?" Duggan suggested, lifting his beer in salute, his bright blue eyes teasing.

"And you're single," Monty added. "Aren't you?"

"But-- why?" Loki stared at them, in consternation and confusion. And the entire table broke into laughter. Offended that they were laughing at him, he stood fast enough to knock the bench over, tipping Dernier and Jones backward, too. They smacked into the dirt, startled, and the rest laughed again.

Loki's hands clenched and he stalked away so he wouldn't put a dagger in all of them.

"Wait, Lukas!" Barnes called and started after him, but Loki was in no mood, tossing invisibility over himself as soon as he was around the corner between the tents. Barnes walked right past him between the tents, calling after him.

Loki went to the perimeter of camp and lit the letters on fire with a twist of seiðr, watching them burn with a dark satisfaction. I need no ignorant mortals pretending on acquaintance, their letters filled with lies and desperate pleas for attention. They should not even know I exist.

"Lukas?" Barnes' voice came from behind him. Loki started, only then realizing he'd let the invisibility glamour fade. "Hey, they didn't mean any harm by it."

"I do not take well to mockery."

"I got that, but they were just poking a little fun. Admit it, your face was ridiculous. You know everything about everything, except the idea that some ladies might fall a little bit in love with you on the newsreels."

Loki still did not believe this was even happening. "That is the most absurd notion I have ever heard. And I have heard many."

"You must have seen the mail Steve gets?"

"Well, yes, of course, but I assumed he had met many people in his travels…" Loki's voice trailed off since, on second thought, it had been a stupid thing to assume that all those letters represented actual acquaintances. "Oh."

Barnes chuckled and shook his head. "Sometimes you're the most worldly person I've ever met, and sometimes you act like you were raised by reindeer."

"Reindeer?" Loki glanced at him sharply at that, thinking of Anna's husband. The reminder of Kristoff brought to mind the stone troll colony - he should, when this was over, go check on them. They all had the brains of rocks, but they didn't deserve Nazi tanks to crush them either.

"You know, because you're from Arendelle?" Barnes explained, then rushed on when he saw Loki wasn't amused. "Anyway, when we get back to town, we'll have to take advantage of our hero status and find ourselves some dames, right? Might as well get some use out of it." Assuming the answer to be yes, Barnes slapped him on the shoulder and moved back toward camp.

No, I think not. I did that. I casually "found some dames". It resulted in more hurt than finding out the truth of my parentage. So I will leave the mortals to each other. No more mortal branches of my family tree.

But it was too late to stop the reporters and the newsreels, and every time he saw his photo in a paper or received another letter from a stranger, he knew it was another trail he was leaving for the future.

There was nothing to done about it now, except finish the task at hand - stop Schmidt and retrieve the tesseract. Each mission got them one step closer, even as he was frustrated that it wasn't over with already.

Finally, a new mission got them the closest they'd been, with a spy report that Zola himself was on a train. And since Zola would give them Schmidt, they went after him, with the most dangerous plan they'd come up with yet.

It was frigid on this rock promontory on the side of the mountain. Winter had these mountains in a tight grip, and it hadn't been a fun climb into position, or for Bucky to shoot the lines into the rock wall on the far side of the ravine with his bare hands trembling. But finally everything was set, and Jones on the radio reported confirmation that their target was aboard this train.

"I will go first," Lukas volunteered and grabbed the hand-grip slider from Duggan with an impressive confidence.

Steve opened his mouth to object, because it was his plan and he should go first, but Lukas leveled a look at him that kept him quiet.

"This has got to be the dumbest thing I've ever done," Bucky muttered, taking another of the hand-grips for the zip line. "In my life." Steve would've asked him if he wanted to switch with Jones, but it was just Bucky doing his usual grumbling.

"Ready…" Morita said, tracking the train. "At the curve."

Lukas put the hand grips on the line and waited at the edge of the cliff, his eyes on the train as well. Steve had little doubt that Lukas was doing the same calculations Steve was, to insure their arrival above the train was exactly right.

"Ready, little more…"

Lukas jumped before he heard anybody say go, on his own time, hurling himself into the air with both hands on the grips across the line.

Steve followed, squinting in the sudden rush of frigid wind against his face. He looked for the train - four cars, traveling slowly on the big curve -- but still coming up very fast as the line took them across the gorge.

Behind him he heard Bucky yell something the wind snatched away, and grinned as Bucky kept yelling all the way down the line, as if he was on a wild ride at the pier.

But ahead, the train was coming up under them and Lukas let go, dropping easily to the roof of the second car of the train like a raven alighting on a branch. Steve himself was not so lucky, landing harder on the third car, and he turned his head in time to see Bucky land on the last car. He gave Steve a thumbs up and started scooting across the top toward Steve.

As planned, Lukas headed to the forward-most car, better able to deal with the cold outside, while Steve lowered himself into the gap between first and second, to start going backward to check each car. Bucky followed him inside.

They were attacked immediately and separated. Steve was thankful for his shield that kept off the firepower of the Hydra supersoldier's weapon. He and Bucky tag-teamed to finish it, until they were beset again.

Everything exploded, and Steve pushed himself up, bleary-eyed. There was a giant hole in the side of the car, and neither attacker nor Bucky was in sight.

Grabbing his shield and sliding it automatically into place, he looked out the hole. Bucky was clinging to a railing, dangling off the side of the train. Oh, God.

"I'm coming!" he yelled. "Hold on." He felt his way across the torn car siding, with little to hold onto, but desperate to get closer. Just a little more, he could stretch and grab Bucky's hand...

Steve inched a little closer to where Bucky was hanging. "Here take my hand!"

Bucky reached for Steve's hand, but he was still too far. Just a little more…

Then, the railing tore away, and Bucky fell.

Steve yelled his name and lunged to catch him, but he was plummeting, too far, too fast. It seemed like Bucky took everything as he fell, leaving Steve feeling empty with shock.

"Steven!" another voice shouted, dragged his attention upward, reluctantly.

He saw Lukas on the roof of the train car, at the edge where the side had been ripped away, and by his horrified expression, he'd seen Bucky fall, too. "Get Zola!" Lukas yelled at Steve and then…

He launched himself from the train.

He didn't jump, he dove headfirst. Steve watched him fall, mouth agape, but the dark despair that had filled him watching Bucky fall, seemed to get lighter as Lukas fell. He ought to fear that Lukas had just jumped to his death, but Lukas had strange powers and clearly didn't believe he was going to die. A brighter hope kindled in Steve's chest, that somehow that crazy bastard, whatever the hell he was, could find and save Bucky. If anyone could, he could. It was Bucky's only chance, and Steve resolved to hold onto hope as long as he could.

tbc..

Chapter Text

That was incredibly stupid.

That was Loki's thought as he jumped from the train. He was supposed to be chasing Schmidt and the tesseract, not going after a mortal who had probably died hitting the ground thirty seconds ago. But seeing Barnes fall, he'd remembered how Barnes had sat down next to him and asked Loki about Howard Stark's flying car, and somehow that had turned into a three hour discussion on Science For Rabbits. It had been rare that anyone had ever wanted to discuss the things Loki was interested in, and though it was simple material, Loki had found he liked teaching Barnes.

So Loki had impetuously jumped after him. Because that wasn't stupid or ridiculous, at all. Pure sentimental drivel, was what it was, inspired by Rogers' brash foolish heroics. But he'd done it anyway. Because Rogers' brash stupid heroics had saved Loki's life, and Loki would repay that debt. Barnes would certainly die if Loki didn't jump after him, and Loki knew enough healing he could, possibly, keep Barnes alive. If he wasn't already dead.

Loki wove the seiðr to siphon off the gathering force of his fall so he wouldn't hit the ground too hard himself and for a moment, it felt as if he was flying. Of course, he wasn't, he was still falling, but it was as close as he could get. Well, that wasn't precisely true; there was shapeshifting to a flying form, but true shapeshifting was always more trouble than it was worth.

The ground was still coming up quickly with some rather painful-looking rocks in his landing area, and he pushed himself to a clearer area with a gust of wind. He landed on a snow drift, and rolled to rid himself of his acquired energy from the fall.

Climbing to his feet, he tested everything to check that he was uninjured and tilted his head back to check the position of the train trestles and the moon.

Direction figured, he started to walk swiftly down the narrow canyon toward where Barnes must be.

The ravine was mostly snow and rock, with few trees to block his view. So it took him longer than he thought he should need to find Barnes. But he heard a soft sound above the whine of the wind and approached the river, careful of his footing on the icy-covered rocks.

There, a black shape against the black rocks, where the icy water had shoved him against the opposite bank. Barnes had fallen into the river, through the layer of ice on the top. If he hadn't been moaning, Loki might never have known he was there. Loki didn't want to get wet and swiftly twined seiðr into a narrow bridge of ice across.

He knelt on the rock beside Barnes and reached for him to pull him from the water, hesitating when he saw the blood in the water and staining the ice. But there was nothing else he could do -- the cold was suppressing the blood flow and shock, but he was also going to freeze to death if Loki didn't get him out of the water. The only reason the water was flowing at all must be a geothermal spring somewhere upstream keeping the water temperature slightly above freezing in this ravine. But Barnes was lucky, because if it had been solid ice, he'd already be dead.

Loki glanced up at the train track and back down to his friend, amazed that he wasn't dead anyway. He was going to injure Barnes further, pulling him from the water.

But he was hopefully numb and mostly unconscious, and it had to be done.

Very carefully, feeling for bones that shifted wrongly in his ribs, Loki grasped him under the arms and pulled him up. It felt a little strange to be using his full strength, lifting Barnes right out of the water, and it was stranger still that Barnes' eyes opened and looked right at him when Loki was holding him like a baby, feet dangling off the ground.

Barnes' eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp.

But holding him up revealed that among the dripping and the pallor, there were several immediate injuries that needed tending. His left arm was shattered and shredded, white bones protruding. A quick probe with seiðr gave back the rather discouraging list of other injuries: Legs, shoulder, ribs, pelvis, and head. It was astonishing he was still alive.

"Let's get you warm, shall we?" he murmured. "Don't die on me, Barnes."

He carried Barnes to the side of the ravine where slabs of granite had fallen in some long-ago slide, leaving one slab flat against the ground and a second leaning against the canyon wall atop it, leaving an open space beneath. It was poor shelter, but it would have to do for now. He laid Barnes atop the flat rock as much underneath the low, makeshift roof as he could.

There was no fuel to sustain a fire in this tree-less frozen ravine, so Loki glanced at his unconscious companion and held out a hand to warm the stones above and below them. Then, since he was already using seiðr as if he was alone, he pulled the water out of Barnes' clothes, to dry him more quickly.

Unfortunately the warmth started to make him bleed more, blood pooling beneath his shattered arm and the white bone, and he stirred, moaning with the pain.

"So, now I have to keep you from bleeding out. This is a problem."

The arm was so badly mangled, having taken a lot of the force of the fall, that as Loki examined it, he shook his head. "I am no expert, my friend, but I cannot leave it as it is and I cannot heal it before you die. The only way I see to do this is to remove it and cauterize what's left. Not ideal, I know, but I think it's the only way. But we can't have you awake during this, can we?"

He put his fingers on Barnes' forehead and twined the seiðr into his mind, forcing him back into deep sleep. Pulling his dagger, he held it before him, and with the same spell he'd used on the stone, but at a far higher level, heated the blade.

The metal blade glowed red, not the heat of forging so it would deform, but hot enough to sear mortal flesh. Then, acting swiftly, he pared off the worst of the damage and cauterized the ends of the vessels at mid-bicep to halt the bleeding. He reset the dislocated shoulder as well with a swift jerk, to halt the continued nerve damage from that.

Rather to his surprise, Barnes didn't die during all this trauma. His blood pressure fell but didn't plummet, and his heart remained strong, even when his breathing faltered and then resumed itself.

Though healing humans with seiðr was not a practiced skill of his, he sent some into Barnes and started knitting the fracture in his fragile skull until the wound stopped bleeding and he didn't sense any damage there anymore. He tried to grab more threads to work on Barnes' leg, but they slipped his grasp and he slumped against the stone. It would have to be enough for now. He hadn't done so much fine work in a long time, and his head ached like a dragon was roasting it for dinner.

His eyes were closed for only a moment, or so he thought, when Barnes stirred with a groan. Loki's eyes shot open, surprised that Barnes was returning to consciousness. Stubborn human.

Loki leaned close so Barnes could see his face as his eyes flickered open. At first the pain overwhelmed him, making him gasp and turn pale when he tried to move anything, but after holding himself still, he opened his eyes again and saw Loki.

"Lukas…" he whispered, frowning in confusion.

"Yes, I'm here with you. Hush, now, Barnes. Rest." He touched Barnes forehead to push him back into sleep again. He resisted, trying to keep his eyes open and parting his lips to issue some protest, but Loki pushed harder, until sleep fell on him like a rock.

Loki hastily checked that his heart was still beating, and let out short breath of relief. "Oops. You're a little tougher than you seem, James."

Glancing upward, he saw that they'd already fallen into the mountain's shadow, and though the sky would remain light for a time, sunset was not that far off. He should take this time and look for better shelter.

Ironically, the place they had jumped off the mountain was a short distance down the ravine and straight up. But the rest of the team had all been under orders to pack and go to the extraction point, so they were long gone. He'd have to find another way out. As this was still a heavily German-controlled area, he would have to be careful. According to the map, the lower valley would open up into some farm villages, and those would probably be crawling with military. This close to the Hydra base, Schmidt would probably have some of his spies around as well. As they had discovered, Hydra was not only a bunch of blank-faced minions, but infiltrators as well.

He glanced at Barnes and shook his head, mostly at himself. "Two hundred years ago, I would never be in this position. I would have let you die, because that's what mortals do. There are always so many of you dying for so little purpose, and yet here I am trying to keep you alive. I am utterly, irretrievably mad."

He was talking to someone unable to respond - that right there was a good indicator of madness.

"But there's no helping it, I suppose. Or that I need to carry you to better shelter for the night."

Before he picked up Barnes, he used the jacket sleeves to tie Barnes' amputated arm across his body to keep that more still, and then, knowing there was nothing to do but to do it, he scooped Barnes up across both arms. His weight was not a problem, but his height and bulk in conjunction with the injuries that Loki was trying not to make worse, made it tremendously awkward. He nudged Barnes' head against his shoulder as best he could to prevent it from hanging back, and hiked him up against his body, to make them more one mass rather than two separate ones.

"I had to carry Thor like this once. You are far less of a burden," he told Barnes as he started walking westward, stepping with care through the snow to the river. He was going to walk on the ice of the river. It would be slippery and risk falling in, since the ice was just a crust, but it would be less exhausting than forcing his way through the snow and leaving trails.

Except for the muffled burble of the river and the soft sounds of Loki's footsteps, all was silent. There were a few faint rustling noises of animals, and cracking ice when he listened. But mostly all he heard was Barnes breathing against him, short and shallow but regular, and his heart seemed strong.

Once he heard an airplane's engines and looked up, but whoever they were, flew to the north side of the canyon out of sight, so he couldn't see which side they belonged to. He lowered his head again, with a sigh. Not that he could have attracted the attention of an Allied plane -- well, he could but probably not in a manner the pilot would understand or survive.

"I find myself in the difficult position of both too much power and not enough, James," he murmured. "I am not powerful enough to do what truly needs doing to these enemies, and yet it is difficult to hide and play mortal. If I had the tesseract back in my grip, though, everything would be different. I could walk right into Berlin and end the war. Schmidt still has no true understanding of what he possesses. Which is good for the rest of us, of course, but it is maddening to me that he uses it as a battery. It can alter the very fabric of existence, and he thinks so small. Pathetic."

When he slipped on the ice, losing his footing on a gap he hadn't noticed, he decided to pay more attention to his surroundings and stop chattering to a silent Barnes who couldn't hear him or answer.

He kept an eye on the surrounding cliff walls, searching for caves that might be useful, but found nothing worth taking the time to investigate.

The sun slipped low enough to peer briefly around the southern rim and shine up the valley, right at him. Which made him even more visible against the snow, and he pulled a glamour over them that was not full invisibility, since that was difficult to maintain with both of them, but would give back a muddled image like a mirage. One would have to look closely to notice, and most people rarely looked at anything closely enough.

The river dumped over a short falls and the ravine widened into a broader valley. He stood at the top of the falls on a stone and looked down. Ordinarily he'd jump, but with a glance at Barnes, he decided he should find a better way down. He found a deer trail in the snow that became a faint human path.

Beneath the falls in the valley, there were more trees and bushes, the sun seemed warmer, and even though the winter still lay heavily over the land, he saw his first smoke farther to the west marking what was probably the village.

But the sun was setting and he needed shelter for Barnes before that. His skin was too cold, and if his cells froze, there would be little Loki could do about it.

The closest farm, which included a small house and several outbuildings in the middle of some fallow fields, did not seem to be occupied as there was no smoke coming from it. He he turned his feet in that direction and started straight for it, trusting to the illusion to keep from being noticed.

At closer inspection the small house was clearly empty since the door sat ajar as if Loki was not the first to seek its interior. The inside had been looted, though it seemed only valuables and metal had been taken, since the wooden furniture and ceramic dishware remained by the kitchen area. A rabbit was nesting in the corner and startled by the sudden arrivals, it ran for the door before Loki could stop it.

He laid Barnes on the table, since the mattress looked more like a giant mouse nest than anything a human should sleep on and pulled the door shut. There was a ladder to a loft and he went to check above, finding it full of sleepy birds but also a closed chest that turned out to be full of women's clothes and blankets, and they were only a little moth-eaten. He brought it all down to pad the table and lay the blankets on Barnes.

Weighing the risk of smoke being seen and someone investigating versus keeping his friend warm through the night and using power he could ill-spare, he crushed the wooden chest with his foot and put a few pieces in the hearth and sparked a fire. Gathering snow into one of the bowls he set it by the fire to melt, and an examination of what was left in the kitchen told him all the food was long gone. Luckily that was not urgent yet since Barnes had eaten this morning. He didn't plan for them to stay here very long.

Tasks finished for the moment, he sat in the rickety chair and stretched out his legs with a sigh.

Barnes stirred a bit later, woken by the warmth. He moaned and twisted his body in renewed pain, and Loki scooted his chair closer so Barnes could see him easily.

His eyes flickered open and found Loki.

"Rest, Barnes."

Barnes eyes squinted in confusion as he remembered. "The train…" he said hoarsely.

"Yes, you fell and hurt yourself quite badly," Loki told him.

"I should be dead," Barnes whispered.

Which was probably true. Loki was still impressed he had survived long enough for Loki to get to him. But he smiled. "Some are too stubborn to die easily. As they are too stubborn to rest."

"Everything hurts," he whispered, body shuddering with the pain.

"I'll tend it," Loki promised. "Go to sleep, James."

Barnes' mouth lifted a little. "Ah, was wondering when… you'd give in."

"To what?" Loki asked curiously.

"You said… James."

Loki hadn't even realized he'd used "James" and his smile widened. "You caught me. James," he said it again, liking the sound of it. "Now close your eyes and rest. We're safe here for the night."

He set his hand on Barnes' forehead and this time more gently coaxed him back into sleep away from the pain.

Taking up another strand of seiðr, he probed Barnes' pelvis, finding that the break somehow had improved, not grown worse as Loki expected after the hours of carrying him. "Hm. That is curious. I think you were not as unaffected by Hydra experiments as I assumed. Perhaps that is why you survived the fall at all."

He laid seiðr in the fracture to encourage it to knit a little faster, when sound from outside the small house made him lift his head sharply. A vehicle stopping. Boots in the snow. Coming nearer.

Well, that took less time than I thought. They were close. Damn.

He glanced at Barnes worriedly and checked his knife sheaths, and then shifted his chair around so the table wouldn't block him if he had to move. He twitched the end of the blanket over Barnes' head and waited, crossing his ankles in front of him.

The footsteps outside and the soft murmuring they thought he couldn't hear grew closer, and then the door was yanked open.

tbc...

Chapter Text

Cold night air swirled inside, disrupting the warmth, and two men entered, wearing woolen greatcoats and fur hats. There were two more outside on guard. One had a pistol unholstered and pointed at Loki the instant the door opened, and the commander probably had another but he wasn't holding it, so it was irrelevant.

"Good evening," Loki greeted in German. "Do you seek shelter? The night will be cold." His calm took them by surprise but not quite enough to let him play himself off as a local.

"Silence!" The commander ordered. "You are not from here."

Loki lifted his brows. "By your accent neither are you."

"You are an American spy."

"I am not American!" Loki objected. "Do I sound American? No wonder you're stuck in a village in the middle of nowhere, with that much skillful deduction." He rolled his eyes in scorn. His disregard for their authority seemed to be almost as confounding as his words.

"We serve the Reich."

"Oh?" Loki asked with some false disappointment. "Not…" he paused and said, "Hail Hydra."

And they both gave it away, answering promptly. "Hail Hydra." They stared at him in shock. "You?"

Loki smirked at them. "I need transportation."

"There is a car," the officer began, before he asked, squinting suspiciously. "Do you have proof you are not an enemy spy?"

Loki rose to his feet, empty hands spread wide in a gesture they would think was unthreatening, but put him bodily between the gun and Barnes. "No. Of course not. How would I have proof of that?" He considered keeping up the lie, but there was no part of him that wanted to pretend to be one of them for a second longer than he had to.

They glanced at each other, perplexed, and Loki seized his chance. He pulled his daggers into his hands and threw them: the first for the one with the gun, right in the eye socket, and the second in the throat. They collapsed like felled trees, and Loki swooped down to retrieve the blades, rising again quickly into the doorway to throw them again. One was a clean throw, but second man had started to move. The blade slipped across his throat but didn't lodge, spraying blood all over the snow.

Loki looked around quickly for more, in case, but saw no one, only their canvas-topped vehicle on the track of the narrow lane that went to the village. He retrieved his daggers and pulled the other two bodies into the cabin.

"Did I say we would be safe tonight?" Loki murmured to Barnes, ducking back inside. "I might have mis-stated that. We need to go." He stripped off the coat of the larger of the two, wrapped it and two blankets around Barnes, and jammed the hat over his head. He pulled the Hydra pin off the other one to have as a token, and put one of the pistols in his pocket for Barnes.

When he had carried Barnes outside, he turned his wrist to point his palm at the cabin as best he could without dropping his companion, and threw a spark through the door to land on the table where Barnes had been. The old clothes caught fire, and he grinned. Very shortly the entire house would be on fire from floorboards to roof and with any luck would burn the bodies and melt the snow outside. At least it would sow confusion.

He set Barnes down on the back seat of the jeep, strapped him in as best he could, and slid himself into the driver's seat.

"Horseless carriages," he muttered in disgust. "You would think they would have horseless carriages that drive themselves. At least a horse knows how to find the path on its own. What is the point of this vehicle? No one has explained it to me, but it is utterly stupid. And Stark wants to make horseless carriages that fly. Foolishness."

He had, at least, watched enough of its operation to know what to do. The spark lit the primitive combustion chamber and the resulting piston action turned the wheels. But when the engine started it wouldn't go, even when he pushed on the go pedal, but then he remembered the gearing mechanism.

The car jumped forward and died. Loki swore loudly and smacked the dashboard as if that would make it go. Then he inhaled a deep breath, resolving he was not going to act like Thor-- he would act, not react, and do this thoughtfully. Calming down helped, and he got everything working in the right order so the jeep lurched forward and then continued. It was, however, going the wrong way, so he turned it around, the wheels slipping on underlying ice and Loki fearing he would have to get out and push the jeep.

But when it was all humming in the right direction with the breeze on his face, he started to understand the appeal of the vehicle. It bumped along, the steering and speed at his control, and the car hummed and growled.

As he approached the village there were other troops visible, and he smiled and wove seiðr into an illusion of the same four soldiers who had come to investigate, weraing their greatcoats and fur hats.

The other military troops there raised hands and a few saluted as the vehicle passed, and Loki lifted a hand in return in brief acknowledgment. And he kept driving through the main road of the village, past the small church. There was milling about in confusion and pointing at the farmhouse that was now smoking heavily, trying to get his attention. He continued driving, grinning, and laid another spark in a barn as he passed. It would catch fire soon, and with any luck spread to the German trucks near it.

"Ah, I do love attacking them," he confessed to Barnes aloud. "They make the most delightful sounds trying vainly to control the situation."

He kept driving right out of the village and continued westward. He wished he could see their faces as the four soldiers left.

The night would help him escape, and he could see well enough by moon and stars that he didn't need the vehicle's lights, but he was worried about Barnes in the open, though at least now he had a warmer coat and a blanket.

Loki kept going, hoping to find a safer place for Barnes to recover.

Barnes stirred, moaning, and Loki thought he'd better take a look. It was dark, with sunrise still hours away. He didn't consider the temperature though until he pulled over to the side of the road and saw Barnes was shivering.

Loki grimaced and tucked the blankets around him more snugly, but that seemed to serve only to wake him more. His eyes opened and flicked urgently around as if he couldn't see Loki's face nearby. "Lukas?" he called, sounding distressed.

"James, I'm here." Loki conjured a tiny light in his hand so Barnes could see him better. His visible relief at seeing Loki made Loki smile and pat his good shoulder once. "We had to leave the cabin in a bit of a rush. Let me put you back to sleep for the rest of our journey tonight, since I have no other medicines for you."

Barnes shook his head. "Water?"

There was a canteen among the gear in the jeep but the water was frozen within. Turning away from Barnes, Loki held the canteen and thawed the water to lukewarm, hoping to warm up Barnes within. Opening the top, he held Barnes' head and shoulders up to sip. He turned ashen pale, shifting his shoulder and hurt arm, hissing in pain. Mouthful of water swallowed down, he made the unfortunate choice of looking down at the blankets which covered him and perhaps tried to move his injured arm. "What-- Lukas, my arm-- it feels--"

Loki did not want to have that conversation right now. He put his other hand on Barnes' forehead. "Sleep, James."

"Wait, no--"

But Loki put him to sleep, a little rougher than perhaps he should have, but he had little idea what to say to Barnes about the injury or about what he'd done, since he was wondering if it had truly been necessary. Now that he knew Barnes had some accelerated healing, Barnes probably wouldn't have died. Loki had believes it had been necessary, and he thought he would do it the same way again, but… still. There was a niggling doubt that perhaps he had acted too hastily, that Barnes might have survived, healed, and kept both hands. But he would never know now. It was an uncomfortable thought, to look on Barnes and feel that doubt. Maybe Barnes had only one hand now because of Loki, not because he fell from a train and nearly died.

As long as Barnes didn't die perhaps that would make some amends.

Near first light, he found another abandoned farmhouse, its people dead or fled or gone to huddle with relatives while the war raged and the young men were all away. The car was nearly out of fuel, so he hid it in the barn and scoped out the house. This one was larger with two floors and though it had been stripped of valuables and food, it had been closed up with more care. So there was an actual bed that was not a vermin infested mattress to put Barnes on, and the house was cold and still, but warmer than the outside. He went back out to cover their tracks, experimenting with ways to shift around the snow so it looked untouched. He did so just in time, as army vehicles soon barreled up the highway, looking for them. But they went right past the farmhouse, seeing no trail leading off the road. Loki watched them from the window smirking as they passed out of sight.

But when he turned from the window, the smile faded. He had hoped that the shelter for the rest of the night would be enough to help, but as dawn broke over the broad farming valley, Barnes fell into a feverish delirium that Loki's sleep spell could ease only for a short time. So he knew they were going nowhere for a while.

He kept the bedroom warm by keeping some of the bricks in the hearth hot, in lieu of an actual fire that would release smoke. There was no shortage of water, and he found some jars of jam that served as easy food to spoon into Barnes whenever he stirred. In between he worked on Barnes' fractures, getting them back on track healing properly, and read the entirety of the small house's library twice. Finally, he was so bored he started annotating the children's history book to amuse himself. The book's grasp on the 1700s was ridiculously inaccurate.

The third day, Loki was resting in the chair beside the bed when a hoarse voice asked, "Lukas? Where the hell are we?"

Loki's eyes popped open and he looked to see that Barnes was, in fact, alert again. He recognized Loki and though he seemed weary, his forehead seemed a more normal temperature when Loki touched it.

"We are in a farmhouse, hiding behind enemy lines," Loki explained. "You've been ill."

"I was…" Barnes' voice faltered and he glanced down at the sling supporting the stump of his arm. "What happened?"

Loki took a deep breath and asked in a level tone, "Do you remember the train?"

"I remember. I… fell."

"You did. I jumped after you," Loki explained. "You were badly hurt, and I had to -- well, your arm was broken in multiple places and it was torn and bleeding. I couldn't fix it. I - I am sorry. I should have found another way," he admitted softly, looking down at his hands and rubbing his fingers together. "But I wanted -- you were so hurt, I had to decide and--"

"Hey." Barnes cut in, and Loki glanced up, fearing condemnation, or hate, or anger that Loki had made this decision alone.

"You saved my life," Barnes said. He reached his hand across the bed toward Loki. "Thank you."

"But you--" Loki objected halfheartedly, gesturing to the missing arm. "That can't be--"

"No, of course, it's not what I wanted, and it hurts like a son of a bitch," Barnes said. "But I'm alive. And as soon as we get out of fucking Germany, I'm going home."

"But I thought you and Steven…"

Barnes shook his head and smiled a bit wryly. "He's the one who wanted to go to war, be a soldier, fight the good fight. You should've seen him, that scrawny kid, he never backed down. I had to haul his skinny ass out of so many fights. But he's the one who wanted to go and got denied. And me? I'm good at it, but I didn't want to go. I knew it'd be shit. Got my call-up and went, because I ain't no yellowbelly and I hate Nazis, too, especially after what they did, but now I've got my exit pass. I want some simple life, some house like this, a pretty wife, maybe a daughter…"

"I had a daughter." The words slipped out of Loki's mouth softly before he could call them back, pulled from him by Barnes' wistful voice that reminded him of when things had been happier, more like home.

"Had?" Barnes repeated.

"She died. Long ago." He thought of Elsa's bright blue eyes dimming into death. He hadn't seen it, but he had always known what it would look like. He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I did not intend to change the subject. I will do this for you, James-- I promise to get you out of here, safe and alive, so you can go home and start looking for that better life for yourself, after the war ends."

"You don't owe me," Barnes insisted. "I owe you. And not just for not letting me bleed to death. I know I was hurt worse than this. You did something, didn't you?"

Loki glanced away. "No, not very much, not what--"

Barnes cut him off, having none of that. "Bullshit. Everything hurt like hell. Now I ache but it's healing, except for the arm. And you kept touching my forehead and then, nothing. You put me to sleep. How the hell did you do that?"

Loki didn't want to answer and agree that he had done anything, but there was no hiding it anymore, if Barnes remembered that much. "I accelerated your healing. And yes, I put you to sleep several times since it was the only way to block your pain."

Barnes considered that. "Wow. Thanks. I won't tell anyone, if that's what you're worried about," he promised. "It's another piece of the secret, isn't it? Is there more?"

"Some," Loki admitted. "I have not shared everything, not of who I am or what I can do."

"That's okay," Barnes told him, much to Loki's surprise. "You tell me when you want. What you want. You don't owe me nothing, Lukas. So. Now that I know you can heal people by touching them -- which is amazing -- what's the plan?"

Loki was just as glad to change the subject. "I think, as well as you are doing, it would be wise to continue to hide here a few days more while you recover. You can walk around, get stronger, and then…"

"We walk out of Germany?" Barnes asked, eyebrows up incredulous. "Are you fucking serious?"

Loki grinned. "No. Not walk. We need to steal an airplane."

"What?!"

Really, Barnes' horror at that idea was too funny. "We need to get out of here in a hurry, once we go. The Allied line is moving east, but not swiftly enough for us. We need to reach France or perhaps south to Italy would be better still."

"Are you crazy? They'll shoot us down."

Loki eyed him and said dryly, "You have a disturbing lack of enthusiasm for my plan."

"'Cause it's nuts!"

Their eyes met, and they both started to laugh, at least until Barnes held his ribs, gasping and turning pale.

(the road trip continues...)

Chapter Text

As there seemed no hurry to go, Loki set aside two more days for Barnes to heal and gain his strength back. He started to hobble around the house, and Loki felt more comfortable leaving him with the pistol while he went to scavenge food. There was little left to find in the neighboring houses, but he hunted two sleepy birds with his daggers, remembering belatedly how much he hated cleaning birds. Roasting the birds over his heated bricks proved tricky until Barnes pointed out that there was a perfectly good oven that should work with hot bricks just as well as burning coal. Yet it turned into a delicious feast, especially when he added the bottle of apple brandy he'd found.

Barnes' injuries were healing well, but his arm continued to pain him greatly. Loki didn't know what to do about that, if anything; Barnes reassured him it would go away, but Loki was doubtful when it lingered. He decided he might as well look at it, now that Barnes already knew about his power. "Sit up and let me see the arm."

He undid the sling, checked the shoulder, which seemed healed, and then the amputation site, finding it clear of infection. It would have been difficult to believe it had happened only a few days ago, if Loki hadn't been the one who had done it. There was nothing on the surface which indicated ongoing problems.

Barnes watched him, intrigued by Loki doing this for the first time while he was awake. "So this is how you do it?"

"There is a… substance, the underlying fabric of the universe, which I learned to manipulate at a young age," Loki explained absently, while he probed the end to see where the problem was. Ah, the blood vessels and such were cauterized, but the nerves were not, sending signals of alarm and distress. He held out his hand, peering deeply into the injury, and spun the threads to heal again, soothing the raw and broken ends.

Barnes let out a soft sigh and sagged backward in relief. "Oh, God, that feels… amazing. I didn't realize how much it had hurt until it didn't…"

"I should have done it before. You can tell me, if something is still bothering you."

"You've done so much already."

Loki shook his head. "James. These many days since you and I were rescued from Austria have helped me more than you will ever understand." He leaned back, holding out his hands on his knees and looking at his wrists. There was no sign of his injuries; they had healed as if they had never happened at all, but in his mind, the wounds lingered, reminding of that pain and stirring the rage in his heart. He sought words to explain to Barnes. "It is an easy thing when you have power to believe you are a god. In that, I understand Schmidt all too well. But you and Rogers kept me tethered to humanity, in a way that I wouldn't have been alone, consumed by rage and revenge."

Barnes nodded after a moment and smiled. "So we're friends? That what you're saying?"

"If… that's all right with--" Loki faltered into uncertainty, cursing his tongue for failing him in these times when he no longer knew how to behave and what to say, when the words became too important for speech.

Barnes reached his good hand to seize Loki's arm. "Hell yes," he said, then added with charming honesty, "I promise to keep your secret. I know it was hard for you to trust me with it."

Loki's lips twisted wryly. "I'm afraid there is no keeping that a secret," he gestured to Barnes, meaning his arm and the rest of his body nearly all healed from his terrible fall. "Either you did it yourself, altered by Schmidt and Hydra, or I did it. In truth, I believe it was both, James; you had some benefit from that serum they gave you." Barnes' brow lowered and he grimaced, nodding a slow acceptance, much to Loki's surprise. He'd expected Barnes to be more shocked. "You suspected?"

"Nothing overt, but I didn't seem to be getting tired as quickly as I used to. Little stuff. But yeah. I thought there was something." He fell silent for a long moment until Loki thought maybe he'd forgotten anyone else was in the room. "Don't know if I wanna be a lab rat. Can't go fight like Steve." He glanced at the sling, and Loki felt another twinge of guilt. "You know it'll be my 'patriotic duty' to figure out what happened to me. How to make it work on someone else."

"No, they won't," Loki promised. "Not again, not for either of us."

"I don't think we can stop it."

Loki thought about it for a moment, and said, "We don't have to tell them the truth. They already know about me-- not everything, but enough. We can say I gave you a transfusion of my own blood and that healed you."

Barnes frowned at him. "No, no, then they'd just do the same to you."

"I am not American, and I am under no obligation to submit to their experiments."

"I don't know," Barnes said uneasily. "You get known for having magic blood, people can do a lot of crazy things to take that."

"Why do you think I have kept what I can do a secret?" Loki returned dryly. "Being Schmidt's toy was enough. But I can withstand our allies better than you can." They already knew he would retaliate with lethal force if anyone attempted to take him captive, but Barnes was right: someone was going to try and Loki might have to demonstrate his sincerity. He rubbed at his wrist with his thumb, phantom twinges reminding him that he was not going to let it happen again.

"Lying to everybody doesn't seem right either..."

"It's not fully a lie. Your own healing must sprout from my blood in the first place, in the potions Schmidt gave you. In fact, it's possible the reason the others died, and you did not, was that you already shared my blood."

"Already? What do you mean?"

Loki decided Barnes already knew enough that he might as well hear Loki's theory. "As my descendant."

Barnes frowned. "That can't be. You're my age."

Loki smiled a bit. "I'm older than I look, James."

Loki saw him put it together as his eyes went wide. "Oh." A heartbeat later another piece fell into place and he blurted, "Oh!" Loki chuckled at the reaction, wondering what all he'd put together, but instead of asking how old Loki was, as expected, Barnes said, "My family isn't from Arendelle."

"There was a time I wandered much of the world. And I paid no attention to any offspring I might be leaving behind," Loki admitted. "I didn't realize it was possible until much later. But the point is, you must have my blood in you, perhaps naturally, but certainly as part of Hydra experiments. So it isn't a lie."

"I think my mom would say 'James Buchanan Barnes, dressing up bullshit in fancy clothes is still bullshit'," Barnes imitated his mother's scolding voice, making Loki snicker at the thought of Frigga saying that, but then frowned, cocking his head to the side to examine Loki. "Is it weird that you could be my great-grandpa or whatever?"

"I wouldn't be concerned, it's probably not true. I don't sense your relation to me as I can with Birgitte," Loki told him, more dismissively. Though he still wondered, since Birgitte had likely strengthened her descent through intermarriage with distant relatives. Without that the relation would be thinner still. He'd keep it to himself that it was non-human blood. Barnes had enough to manage. "It's only a theory."

"But a cool one," Barnes decided and nodded. "Yep, I like it. Gramps."

Loki narrowed his eyes at Barnes. "Just remember I can put you to sleep."

Barnes of course didn't give up on his teasing. "Does this mean I get to be in the Arendelle royal family?"

"No."

Barnes chuckled, delighted by Loki's abrupt refusal. "Fine. Be that way." He thought about the situation and lifted his hand. "But wait, if we're putting it on you anyway, why don't we tell the truth?"

Loki rose from the wooden chair to look out the small window. It was still winter out there, though at least there'd been no new snowfall. They were going to have to get out before another storm hit, or they might be trapped here for weeks. "A blood transfusion is pedestrian and forgettable. They already know I have 'magic blood.' But healing by touch is a miracle. Or witchcraft. It's not an experience I wish to repeat." Not because they'd hurt him, which they hadn't, but their panicked attempt to kill him when he'd been trying to help, had drawn forth the demon again. He'd gotten angry at their ingratitude, lost control, and left a massacre in his wake.

It had been another snowy place, and he shut his eyes trying to not see its shadow out in the bare winter field. But he remembered anyway. He'd thought he hadn't cared at the time, but the memories had crept into his dreams, reminding him that he could never escape, never forget. A monster doing monstrous things.

Barnes knew enough of history to grimace in sympathy. "Fair enough. I'll keep the secret." His gaze shifted to the sling. "You think maybe I'll heal this? Grow my hand back?"

Loki wanted to say yes, even though he was nearly certain the answer was no. He blinked and said, "There is a slim possibility, as I don't know the limits of this, but no, my experience is that loss of limbs or organs--" he thought of Odin and added, "like an eye, do not reform."

Barnes nodded, disappointed, but not very surprised. "Kinda thought so." He pondered a bit more and added with a flashing grin, "You know, it's because I thought I might be different was how I caught on to you plucking bullets out of the air and shit like that."

"I never did that!" Loki protested, laughing.

"I notice you're not saying you can't… Jesus, you are such a freak."

Anyone else saying that Loki would've been hurt, but with Barnes, he knew the mortal was teasing and didn't mean it in a hurtful way. Loki folded his arms and glared at him in mock offense. "So are you. If you're feeling so much more chipper, we should be on our way tomorrow. Before Steven gives up on us for dead."

Barnes snorted. "I'm surprised he hasn't come crashing through the door looking for us. But yes, I'm ready as I'll ever be, I think."

It was fun to use his powers openly. He didn't have to worry about Barnes finding out, since he already knew, and his slack-jawed amazement was gratifying as they acquired a new vehicle and Loki drove it through the gate of the airfield with salutes as if Himmler himself was coming to inspect them.

"Who the hell am I supposed to be?" Barnes demanded in a whisper, leaning forward to whisper to his "driver".

"Colonel of the SS," Loki answered, grinning at him over his shoulder.

"Holy shit."

Loki snickered to himself but warned more seriously, "Do try to keep up appearances, Colonel. The illusion will hold, but if you do too much wrong they'll still know we're impostors."

They pulled up and Loki went to arrange immediate transport to Berlin with the air supervisor, easily able to cow him with news of the colonel's injury and urgent need to report.

It was a plane not too different from the one that had taken them to Britain the first time, though at least this one smelled better. He escorted his injured colonel in the tidy black and gray uniform up inside the fuselage.

The plane stood at a strong tilt to the back, and he offered a surreptitious steadying hand to Barnes as an officious young steward escorted them forward with a great many apologies for the state of the aircraft and its lack of proper amenities.

I think I will kill you first, Loki promised the young man silently, narrowing his eyes. So concerned about whether the colonel will have schnapps in the middle of this horrific slaughter. No mercy. Not for any of you.

Barnes sat down as other officers came aboard with their assistants, and Loki and Barnes endured all the formalities, as Loki wondered whether they would get away with this long enough to make their move.

Finally, the hatch was closed, with two young men to serve the eight passengers, three more men in the cockpit and one aft gunner. Barnes' eyes met his as the planes engines sputtered to life and his hand clenched around the armrest.

The plane went level and began to taxi, and it was Loki's turn to grip the arm rests. Surely this clumsy heavy thing would fail to get off the ground, or would slam straight back down. I did not spend a week getting James back on his feet to lose him now to the humans' inability to build proper flying craft.

The plane launched into the air with a shaking roar like a belching dragon, and for an instant Loki thought of his dragon teacher on Vanaheim. She'd been an old one and canny. He wondered what she'd think of Midgard and especially their clumsy flying machines.

They lurched into the air, and the engines strained. Loki was sure they were going to crash… lift was never going to keep this tin can in the air.

But they leveled off to the short flight to Berlin and Loki knew the time was now. He stood up.

"Sir," the nearer steward rose from his seat to meet him, "Excuse me, sir, but you need to stay seated for the duration of the--"

"The Colonel wants a drink. And a cigarette."

The young man turned around to find the drink, while the officer seated behind Barnes and next to where Loki was now standing, pawed his jacket to find a cigarette. Loki stabbed the steward in the back with a dagger, pulled it out, and cut the throat of the one finding the cigarette. The others finally started shouting in alarm.

Fools. They had no chance. Only one managed to fire his weapon, point blank right at Loki's chest. He jerked back from the force of the blow, but smirked as the captain stared while Loki's uniform melted away for Asgardian combat leathers.

"What-- what are you?" he whispered, his hand shaking on his weapon.

"I am the Ice Demon of Arendelle and you are all dead men." He didn't wait, striking like a viper to take down the captain. The rest of them on his end of the plane realized they couldn't shoot him and so they came at him hand-to-hand, as if that would somehow succeed where firearms would not. But Loki had been trained by the best with hundreds of years of experience, not to mention training with weapons-masters of Earth in his century of wandering. He didn't have to use his blades to kill them all. He dispatched two with his bare hands and that left the gunner, who knelt with his hands up.

"Surrender, I surrender. Have mercy," he begged.

"Mercy," Loki repeated. "I'm not known for that, but I had some, once." He leaned down to whisper coldly, "Then Germans burned my daughter's castle, rounded up my people to murder them, and tortured me for a year. There's not a lot left. But since you plead so nicely, I might find some for you." He lowered his bloodied dagger to his side, and at the moment the relief shone in the gunner's face that he would be spared, Loki lashed out with his foot, breaking the gunner's neck. He slumped to the floor and Loki grimaced in disgust. "That's more mercy than you deserve."

Meanwhile behind him, he heard Barnes warn the cockpit crew, "Don't." One handed or not, he could still use a gun with lethal effectiveness. "Course 165, Ein-seis-funf. Now. Pronto," Barnes ordered. "Change course or I blow your heads off and set it myself."

Loki turned in time to see the navigator try to rush Barnes and get whacked in the head with Barnes' pistol so hard he dropped like a stone. Without changing expression, looking as deadly serious as Loki had seen him, he asked, "Anyone else feel like being a hero? Nein? Then change the course."

Loki stalked up the aisle, stepping over the bodies, and Barnes glanced at him. "Where the hell did that outfit come from?"

"I changed it. It's my armor."

"Impressive. Ridiculous, but impressive. Can you tell these two morons to change the course? They're acting like they don't understand me."

Loki smiled at the pilot and co-pilot who were both looking at him. "I killed everyone else on this plane," he told them in German, continuing to smile. "If you want to live, you do as my friend orders. You take us where we wish to go, and you will be taken prisoner by the Allies. Otherwise you die."

"We… we could crash the plane," the co-pilot stammered. "We will all die."

Loki shook his head with mock sorrow. "No, my friend. We won't die. Only you will."

"What sort of monster are you?" the pilot demanded.

"The kind that will enjoy watching you die." Loki held up one of his daggers, hoping the blood dripping off it would make his point better than his words.

Apparently even Barnes was concerned and cautioned, without taking his eyes from the two Germans, "Lukas. They're going to do it, of course. They're not entirely stupid."

"Ja, ja, we take you," the pilot agreed hastily, staring with giant eyes at the dagger.

"And Britain will take us prisoner?" the copilot asked. "Not Russia? We hear very bad things from Russia."

"Yes, Britain and America," Barnes confirmed. "Not Russians."

With trembling hands the pilots swung the plane around into a heading south instead, to head over the mountains to Italy.

(tbc...
Next: the road trip ends and we check in on Steve)

Chapter Text

The pub where they'd spent that night of R&R was now a bombed-out ruin. It was missing most of its roof, one wall had collapsed, and burnt debris was scattered over what was left. There was still an oily, sooty puddle on the floor from the fire brigade, and the place reeked of smoke, though the fire had been out for days. The place seemed to fit Steve's mood perfectly. He kicked a broken bit of lamp out of his way and righted the least damaged stool to sit at what remained of the bar.

It was time to face facts. Bucky was dead. He had to be, after that fall more than a week ago. And so was Lukas, who had bravely but stupidly plunged after him, crazy enough to believe he could survive a thousand foot plunge off a train bridge and still help Bucky. Steve hadn't grabbed them. He hadn't been fast enough, or smart enough, or strong enough to save them. He'd only been able to watch them both fall.

He took out his flask, looked around for a glass but they were all broken or melted, and settled for swallowing the brandy out of the flask. Of course it didn't do much for him anymore - the burn of the alcohol faded quickly, but it was better than nothing.

He heard footsteps and identified them as Peggy, coming to console him, probably. Or try to get him to put his grief aside and go back to being a soldier. Chin up, and all that. Get through the war and grieve later, when there was more time.

"Steve," she greeted softly.

"Zola doesn't seem a fair exchange," Steve said, not looking at her. "Not for Bucky. Or Lukas. That Hydra toad isn't worth their lives. Schmidt himself isn't worth it. They were that monster's prisoner, Peggy, tortured and starved and experimented on and I don't know what all. To die falling from a damned train…"

"Steve…"

"Bucky was always there for me, always pulling me out of one stupid scrape after another… He shouldn't have even been there. Me and Lukas should've done it alone; instead, I let him come, and now they're both dead."

"Steven," she repeated more forcefully to get his attention. He turned to look at her finally, and she smiled.

"We just received word," she said. "They're alive."

That was… unexpected. Impossible. "But… how? They fell from the train, hundreds of feet into ice and rock…"

"I don't know, though I doubt such a fall could kill someone who survived a tank shell at close range. I should warn you, it's a medical airlift, so I presume Sergeant Barnes is injured. Somehow they made it to Italy and they're on the way."

Steve remembered to close his mouth, which had stayed open during her explanation. He was still astonished, though. How the hell had they reached Italy? But he only asked aloud, "When? I need to meet them."

"ETA is 0530," she told him and her smile widened as he overturned his stool and tripped over it in his haste to stand up and go to the airfield. "Steve, wait! There's a car outside, waiting for us."

That got him to pause. She had gotten it ready, because she knew he'd want to go. Because Bucky and Lukas were alive. He seized her shoulders overcome for a moment by excitement. "They're alive!" He kissed her cheek. "Thank you! Peggy, they're alive!"

"I know." She was laughing at him, but he didn't care. "Come on."

It took them almost as long to get to the airfield in the dark as it did the airplane, especially having to pass through the curfew checkpoints. They all sent him and Peggy on their way, but it was time Steve begrudged.

First light was glimmering in the sky when radio control got the crackling report that the plane was on approach. There were numerous ambulances on standby, Steve realized once he went outside-- Bucky wasn't the only one injured who was coming back to Britain.

The plane landed and Steve started toward them, but Peggy called him back. "Captain. Let them unload."

So, shifting his weight impatiently, he waited and watched as the stretchers were unloaded. Medical corps men and women were there to determine who would go where, taking reports from the arriving attendants.

He worried he might miss them in the confusion, since all the patients on the stretchers looked alike and he could barely see at all in the early morning gloom. In the end it didn't matter, since he recognized the coiled grace of that lean silhouette alighting from the plane under his own power. "Lukas!" He rushed over. "Lukas!" Peggy chased after him but he didn't stop, reaching him just as Lukas helped another familiar figure out of the hatch.

And his feet stopped. "Oh, God. Bucky?"

Because it was Bucky. Bucky, alive. On his feet. A little pale in the golden light of the early morning, but better than Steve had ever hoped. But he wasn't completely undamaged: his left arm ended at the elbow, and the rest of that arm was wrapped in thick bandages all the way across his torso and his neck.

"Steve!"

Steve hugged him, careful of the injury but as tight as he could. "Oh, pal, I'm so glad to see you."

"You, too," Bucky answered, sounding a bit amused, as he drew back.

Steve couldn't let go of his good shoulder, looking into his face. "You're all right? You-- I can't believe it. I must be dreaming this."

Bucky's hand clasped his forearm, and it certainly felt real. "Not a dream. That guy had a bit to do with the fact that I'm standing here." He jerked his head at Lukas, and Steve realized how rude he was being. Lukas was watching the two of them, with some affectionate amusement.

"Lukas, you crazy bastard! What the hell were you thinking?" Steve grabbed him into a hug, too. "Thank you. Oh my God, thank you."

Lukas patted him once on the back and detached himself. "You have nothing to thank me for, Steven."

"What? Are you kidding? You saved his life. What the hell happened?" Steve asked.

Lukas took it as a question about Bucky's amputation. "His arm took the brunt of the fall. It shattered," Lukas explained. "I had to remove it to stop the bleeding."

"Did a good job, too," one of the attendants put in, overhearing their discussion. "We couldn't have done it better in hospital."

"Well, I'm not so certain of that," Lukas demurred, frowning at Bucky.

"And you, you're okay?" Steve asked him. He looked fine, miracle that might be.

Lukas shrugged. "I am unhurt. They were reluctant to let me go on the airplane, so I might have implied I was being recalled by the Intelligence service." He glanced at Peggy, smirking.

"If you want to join us, Mister Onsdag, we would be glad to have you," she returned smoothly.

"I'm sure you would."

The attendant broke in, "I gotta take Sergeant Barnes to medical."

Steve nodded, but couldn't quite let go of Bucky's shoulder. "Okay. I'll see you soon. And you can tell me all about it. okay?"

"Hey, no problem," Bucky said and he glanced at Lukas. "What we talked about?"

"Yes," Lukas agreed. "Rest well, James."

They took Bucky away to one of the trucks with the red cross on it, and Steve let out a heavy breath of relief when he was out of sight. Bucky was alive; it was a miracle.

Peggy addressed Lukas, "We have a car, if you want to join us?"

He accepted, and in the walk back to their car, when they were alone, Steve asked, "So, uh, how the hell did you not get hurt jumping off the train without a parachute?"

Lukas smirked at him. "Steven, I have never needed a parachute."

"How?" Peggy asked. "That's impossible."

"I shunt the acceleration of my fall beyond Yggdrasil," he answered, and when neither she nor Steve understood what he said, he rolled his eyes. "That's why I didn't bother to tell you. Rabbits," he muttered. "You're all still rabbits." He shook his head, before he leaned back and folded his fingers together, and he changed the subject. "So, while I was attempting to get Barnes out of Germany, I hope you had better luck with your extraction of Zola."

"I did," Steve nodded. "I got him out. And he's at HQ."

Lukas stilled. Steve could feel the tension pouring off of him, even though there was nothing in his expression to indicated that he thought anything about that at all. His voice when he spoke was light, almost joking, and yet also very certainly he meant every word. "You mean he's still alive? How have you not pulled all the information from him and hung his corpse from the city walls yet?"

Peggy and Steve exchanged a glance, before laughing a bit uneasily. "We… don't do that anymore," Peggy said.

"Pity. But tell me, Agent Carter, why is he still alive?"

"Because he has information but, so far, he's refusing to give it up," she answered. "The Colonel is interrogating him. And he seems quite the coward, and he'll talk endlessly, but he won't give up Schmidt or the base."

Steve shook his head in disgust. "He tried that chit-chat with me, and I finally had to gag him to shut him up. But he's smart."

"I'll have to visit him," Lukas said. His voice was calm, pleasant even, but there was something about it that sent a chill down Steve's back. It was a promise of violent and painful retribution that reminded Steve that Zola had been one of Lukas' torturers.

"I don't know that Command will allow that," Peggy said, not buying his attitude either. "Fearing that you'll kill him." Her lips made a more sympathetic smile. "Understandably so, but he's too important of an asset for you to kill him. I'm sorry, Lukas."

His eyes went hooded as his face smoothed out to unreadable, and he leaned back in his chair as though he was relaxed and letting it go. "Well, when you finally tire of his games, let me know. I will interrogate him, and he will not be able to lie to me."

"You can make your offer to the Colonel," she said. "But I doubt it will be necessary."

"It will be," Lukas declared with chill confidence.

His anger at Zola's continued existence cast a pall over their conversation as they returned to base.

Both Steve and Peggy sat in on Lukas' debrief about what had happened after the train. Lukas managed to make the entire time sound incredibly dull from his transfusion of blood to help Bucky, waiting around for Bucky to heal, to their escape by forcing an airplane to fly them to Italy. The senior officers kept poking at his story, not believing that he and Bucky had accessed an airfield dressed in ill-fitting disguises and managed to talk their way into two pilots and a plane, until Lukas threw a Hydra badge onto the table. "I found one of those. That is why they gave me what I wanted."

That shut everyone up. General Shaw handled it then set it down as if it might poison him. "Disturbing that it grants that much power to any bearer."

"That could help the strike team access Schmidt's headquarters," Phillips pointed out.

"Except I am told that despite Zola being in your hands for several days you have nothing from him," Lukas stated in flat disgust, and looked to General Shaw. "I offer to interrogate him, General. I will find out what we need more swiftly."

"Thank you, Mister Onsdag," the general said with a glance at Phillips, "but none of us are unaware of your personal hatred for the man. I understand it's completely deserved, but he is a valuable source of intelligence."

"Not if he tells you nothing, he's not," Lukas pointed out, but subsided, arms crossed in annoyance, through the rest of the debrief. At the end, he took back the Hydra badge.

"We need that, Mister Onsdag," Shaw said.

"When you get the location of Schmidt's base, I'll be happy to donate it to the cause," Lukas returned and stood. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have told you everything of use."

He stomped out of the briefing, and Steve went after him. Figuring words weren't going to do much to help Lukas, Steve refused to accept Lukas' refusal to be sociable and persuaded him to go to the mess hall. There, as Steve expected, Lukas' grumpiness couldn't endure in the face of the other Commandos' exuberant delight to see him walk in and that he'd saved Bucky's life. They all bought him multiple rounds of beer to celebrate, and he relaxed. He seemed glad to be back and joined some of their songs. He also, on request, told a much more exciting version of how he and Bucky had dodged Nazis for a week, than he'd told the brass. Steve was sure neither story was fully true, but Steve thought he could let Lukas have his fun. He'd find out from him or from Bucky what had really happened, and certainly the men appreciated the tale.

Later, as some were dispersing, Steve glanced around to find Lukas and ask if he wanted to come with him to see Bucky. Lukas had curled up in the corner, head against the wall and his eyes closed. He'd nodded off over the book in his lap.

Steve smiled, glad to see he was back and getting some rest after the difficult journey to bring Bucky back to Allied territory alive. He considered waking Lukas to coax him to a cot, but decided to leave him alone. At least he was resting.

tbc...

Chapter Text

Loki crept through the base corridors, cloaked in invisibility glamour, searching for what Phillips had forbidden him to see. The guards were sleepy here, deep in Allied territory, and Loki hardly needed illusion at all to pass them.

He looked through the narrow window and spied his target in the plain cell. There was a table and two chairs, cot, and small toilet - perfect for keeping a prisoner housed for quite a while and interrogate him as well.

Touching the door he felt there was no charge in it that would block him, and gathered seiðr to push his molecules between those of the door in a short-range teleportation. On the other side, he paused, closing his eyes, to gather his strength.

Still invisible, he padded silently to the other side of the table from where Zola was seated, wakeful and worried, and then Loki let the illusion fall away.

The sight of Zola's rabbit-y little face filled Loki with rage, but he clenched his fists and tamped down his anger with the promise that it would be much more satisfying to carry through his plan than rip the weasel's head off.

Zola started violently when his head lifted and he caught sight of his visitor.

Loki inclined his head slightly. "Herr Doktor Zola, guten abend."

"How–" Zola's eyes flicked to the door, which had never opened. "How did you get in here?"

The sound of Zola's voice was an unexpected blow, causing Loki's fingers to turn numb and his body refused to move, even to breathe. He hid the reaction and smiled slightly, letting his stillness serve to intimidate. "Oh, but I am not here. If anyone should look in the window, they will not see me. I am reading the 'Iliad' – in Greek of course – in the mess hall. In full view of everyone. I thought it would be best to have our conversation in private." He let his smile widen to show teeth, and approached the table. "We have so much to discuss."

"What is it you want?" Zola demanded, stuttering only a little with fear. He had to know what Loki wanted - vengeance - but he was being a little brave. That would make this much more fun.

Loki held tight to his calm. "My friend, Colonel Phillips, and his superiors, want to know about Schmidt and Hydra. They are prepared to offer you a great many things in exchange for your cooperation. You – they say – are a scientist, quite brilliant. They believe you can be persuaded to change masters for some luxuries like frequent food and your own laboratory eventually."

Loki paced slowly around the table. "But I know you are loyal. Exactly why you are loyal to a mortal who thinks he's a god, when he is not, I do not know, but--"

"He will make himself a god. You will see. He will destroy this earth and a new one will rise in its place--"

Loki snorted a laugh. "Spare me the Hydra propaganda, Herr Zola. I heard plenty of it when you--" he curled his hand around Zola's throat from behind and pulled, making him give a strangled yelp, and Loki leaned down and whispered in his ear, "-- tortured me. Did you not think of the danger of offending a demon, Herr Zola? Did you not think there would be retribution?"

"I was-- I was only following his orders. I had to," Zola protested hoarsely.

Loki released him and returned to the front of the table so he wouldn't rip out Zola's throat in fury. "Do you know how much I loathe that phrase "I was following orders"? Because I myself despise following, and I never follow orders if I don't wish it. I do what I want, and that is my way. Those who do not choose, those who only follow – they are weak."

"Or they have no choice."

"No, no, Herr Zola, you are wrong. There is always choice. Even to do nothing is a choice, and you chose to do far more than nothing. In the old days, do you know what I did with those who offended me?" Aware of Zola's nervous gaze on him, Loki wandered back behind him again slowly. "There was a criminal who thought a traveler alone was easy prey. He pointed one of those little one-shot pistols at me, as if I should be afraid of such a thing. I took the gun away from him and I wrapped my hand around his neck like this…." He demonstrated again, making Zola jump in his chair a little. His pulse beat under Loki's touch like a little bird's heart, and he was sweating. "I lifted him up, and threw him over a cliff. But the best part," he bent close to whisper in Zola's ear, "was hearing him pray for mercy and help, and his god was nowhere to be found."

He released Zola again and flicked his eyes toward the window in the door to check if anyone was there. His untended double in the mess was still sleeping but someone would eventually notice that he never shifted position or reacted to anything in the room. He had to move this along. Pity, he wanted to draw out Zola's fear and suffering much, much longer.

Returning to the other side of the table, he looked down at Zola. "Let me lay out my problem: I want you dead. I want to break every bone in your little body and pull your heart of your chest with my hand. Make no mistake, I am not one of these humans. You serve a mere human insane enough to believe he's a god; I am a god. And the old gods are not kind. You are an ant and I will step on you. So you have one chance to tell me where Schmidt and the tesseract are, or I crush your skull in my hand with less remorse than squeezing a grape." He leaned forward and his smile widened. "If you lie to me, I shall know. It is … something of a specialty."

Zola's eyes were deliciously wide, darting for a way out, and he stammered, "I – I – "

Loki wagged his finger in Zola's face. "Tick tock, doctor. Your life hangs by a thread. Do you want me to snip it?"

"I never wanted to hurt you, but you don't understand, Schmidt -"

"You seem to fear him more than you fear me. That is a mistake, Herr Zola. Everything Schmidt wants, I already am. I am immortal, and I am without remorse, or ethics, or humanity. I could have ruled this planet two hundred years ago, if I had wanted, because there is nothing on this meager little world that can stop me." Faster than any mortal eyes could see, he pulled his dagger and slammed it into the table – right through Zola's hand. His other hand was tight over Zola's mouth as he heaved a breath trying to scream.

"Give me Schmidt, little man," he hissed. "Or you die, right here, right now."

Zola stared at the blade through his hand with huge eyes, startled and scared by the violence and the pain, unable to catch his breath until Loki peeled his hand off Zola's mouth and the scientist panted.

But he gave in. "Austria. There, our secret base."

Loki gestured, casting a map woven of light to unfurl across the table. "Show me."

The sight of the map enraptured Zola, and he tried to touch it with his other hand, but it vanished when he touched it. Loki sighed impatiently and cast it again. "Do not touch it."

Hand hovering above the map, Zola indicated a spot. "There."

Even if the very air hadn't vibrated with the lie, Loki would still know it wasn't true. Someone else would have believed him, though Loki thought Phillips would probably also know it was a lie. An attempt to throw him off, now that the immediate fear of the attack had faded.

Loki asked, bored, "Is that your choice, then? I put a blade through your hand and still you lie to me?" He pulled his dagger out and Zola let out a cry, as the wound began to bleed and he cradled his injured hand in his good one. Loki held the blade to the light, examining the edge; he'd missed the bones but the tip had broken off, slamming into the metal crosspiece underneath the table. Damn. He was going to have to fix that. He angled the blade to catch the light. "Do you remember how many tubes and needles you had in me, Zola? I do. Shall I put this blade in the same places?" Then, with the same words and tone that Zola had used on him so many times it had crept into his sleep, Loki added, "I am intrigued to learn what it does to you. And how long it will take you to die."

Zola finally seemed to understand that Loki wasn't bluffing. "No, no, I mean here," Zola pointed to a different place a hundred miles away. "Here. The map – it was confusing a moment, but this is the place." He held his injured hand tightly to his chest and asked piteously, "Do you have a bandage?" He expected tending as a return on the bargain. Fool.

"No." Loki memorized the new location, knowing it was now true, and then banished the image. "Good. Now I will use that knowledge and kill Schmidt." He made the dagger vanish from his hand as well and folded his arms. "His very existence offends me. He believes he is so different, so superior, and yet he does not see he is exactly like every other mortal on this planet, clawing for an advantage, burning your own kind. He makes himself into an abomination and fools follow him, all of you seeking transient glory and power, when in a few short years it will be for nothing."

Loki regarded Zola calmly now that he had what he wanted. "Yet you... you are worse. Perhaps I see too much of myself in you, but I know you are a very dangerous man, Zola. Left here, you will eventually betray my friends and do great harm. But that is not why you will die. No, you and Schmidt will die because Arendelle is under my protection and you invaded it and butchered my people."

Zola leaned back, terror lighting his eyes again. "But you said – you promised--"

Loki laughed once, sharply. "Poor foolish little mortal. You know who I am. Did you believe the god of lies?"

"But I know more! I have information--"

Loki cut off the frantic offer, not wanting to hear it. "Of course you do. The difference between me and Colonel Phillips is that I don't care about your information. That is why I will do this for him, so you cannot manipulate him with it. Schmidt is a monster, but you, Zola, you are a disease. This Realm is better without you in it; of that, I have no doubt at all."

He grabbed Zola around the throat one last time, and in a second it was done. The corpse slumped on the table and Loki regarded him coolly. He felt less pleasure than he had expected, only satisfaction, but no regret either.

He slipped from the room to "wake" back in the mess hall. He pretended to read for a few more minutes and rose to fetch himself a drink. Making sure he remained in view at all times, he sat down with Jones and Dernier to speak French with them. Speaking in French reminding him of the years he'd lived in Paris. It had been an exciting time, and he'd enjoyed prodding the young students into more mathematical rigor, while admiring the changes in art and music. But too much attention had made him nervous that Asgard might track him through the eddies of his passing and he had not stayed long.

This time, he didn't particularly care. He was maintaining the shroud, to hide himself from direct view, but he was leaving traces everywhere. Anyone could find him, if they bothered to look, which clearly they did not. So Loki had no particular desire to go home either. He would do as he pleased, help the mortals, and maybe when he had the tesseract in his hand, he would keep it for himself.

With the tesseract, I could stop this war. Put an end to the fighting. No one could stop me. I could make a better world than this one.

When the alarm rang and soldiers started dashing about, he hid a smile. Someone had found the body.

Chapter Text

Less than an hour later, Loki heard that Phillips requested his presence in his office. Curious that Phillips would call him in, when Loki had made an effort at giving himself an alibi, Loki presented himself. Maybe Phillips wanted his advice on the investigation.

"Shut the door, Mister Wednesday." Loki shut the door and sat on the hard little chair across from Phillips, who looked tired, pulled from his sleep by this business. "So. Doctor Zola was found dead a little while ago."

Loki made his voice as dry as he could. "What a loss."

"The door was locked, no key was missing. Yet someone stabbed Zola in the hand and broke his neck. The guards in the hall swear no one passed them." Phillips tapped his papers together, before laying them flat again and smoothing his hands across the surface. He glanced up and looked Loki in the eye. "Did you do it?"

"I was in the mess reading. Everyone saw me."

"Which isn't exactly a 'no'," Phillips observed.

Loki leaned back and crossed his ankles. "Of course I did it. But you are the only one who will ever know that, Colonel."

Phillips stared at him, as if the confirmation was the least welcome news he could imagine. "Why? Why did you kill him? Revenge? He was a valuable--"

Loki held up a hand and Phillips stopped his complaints as if he'd run into a wall. "That is exactly why. You thought he was valuable, but he was not. He was rubbish-- No, worse, he was poison. He would have poisoned your Realm, as sure as Schmidt wants to watch it burn. You do not take vipers to your bosom; you cut off their heads."

"You – you could have said this before. Warned us--"

"And you and your superiors would still have thought you could control him. Or believed his technological brilliance would be worth the risk. But there is no technology worth the cancer he would spread. So I took care of it."

"I... I know ethics in war is a slippery thing, but cold-blooded murder of prisoners... I can't condone this," Phillips rubbed a hand over his face, looking weary.

Loki folded his hands together and pondered what to say, and decided only the truth would do, at this point. "I am a thousand years old, Colonel Phillips." Phillips' dark eyes flipped to Loki's face, astonished. Loki continued, "My true name is Loki of Asgard, and I have been both a demon and a god to your kind. I am not of this world, and my powers and knowledge exceed anything found here." He held out a palm and it was a child's trick to conjure green flame for Phillips to stare at. "I have walked the streets of Boston when it was still a colony, I have taught mathematics to a prince of China, and drunk wine with Robespierre. I tell you this so you understand: I have seen much and known many people. Zola was very intelligent, but also one of the most purely evil men I have ever met." He snapped his fist closed around the fire, extinguishing it, trying to stay focused on what he was telling Phillips, not descend back into memories of the darkness.

"He hid that evil in affability and cowardice, looking meek, but he was not. He believed in Schmidt and Hydra. In the end, he would have wrapped you in bonds of corruption so tight you would have no choice but do his will. And you – your people – would not have seen it until it was too late." He sat back again. "You need not condone my action, whether you do or not is immaterial to me, but I want you to understand he was a threat himself, not a mere minion serving Schmidt."

Phillips blinked and frowned at the surface of his desk, mulling that over. Then with his practicality asserting itself, he dismissed most of it as irrelevant and stated, "You were protecting us."

Loki inclined his head in agreement. "Yes." Then he admitted, "Not to say there was no vengeance, because I would never let him live after what he did to me. But it was also to protect others, too." He smiled ruefully. "When I first came here, I intended only to defend Arendelle, since I placed that kingdom under my protection long ago. Then I wanted to avenge myself. But my desire to help has grown beyond revenge. These Nazi horrors must be ended, not perpetuated into the next generation."

"You'll get no argument from me about ending the Reich," Phillips agreed, then sighed. "But he died in my custody, and we got nothing from him. The brass is gonna want someone to pay when we have no lead for Schmidt's whereabouts..."

Loki gave a chuckle. "Did you think I killed him before he told me that? No. I know where the secret base is. And I will tell you, as long as you keep the truth between us."

Phillips narrowed his eyes at Loki. "You want me to cover up a murder in exchange for something you should give me for free."

Loki let his lips curl. "You would have made a deal with Zola. He would have disappeared into some laboratory to be useful. His victims would never have found justice. Zola electrocuted me, poisoned me, stabbed me with needles and blades, touched--" His voice choked in his throat and he had to clench his fists to get himself back under control. He tightened his jaw and said more coldly, "Yet you would have dealt with such a monster. Do not pretend your morality is now so inflexible that you cannot deal with me."

Phillips didn't speak at first, regarding Loki with wise eyes in his aged face. "All right," he said with a short nod. "I guess if I have to make a deal with a devil, better the devil I know."

Loki ignored whatever Phillips thought about this arrangement and smiled. "Excellent." He stood up and paused, smile fading away, and put his fingers on the desk, leaning toward Phillips. "I will remind you of what I said on our first acquaintance: I am a part of this to kill Schmidt and destroy Hydra. That was always my intent. You put yourself between me and Zola; do not do it again with Schmidt."

Phillips met his gaze. "I understand."

"It's time we cut off the biggest head of the Hydra viper, Colonel. Come, I will show you where the base is."

That seemed to give Phillips more heart. "To the strategy room then." As they headed for the door, Phillips glanced at him and frowned in deep skepticism. "A thousand years old. Really?"

"Really."

Phillips grunted, unimpressed, and Loki had to laugh.

The night before they were to ship out to attack Hydra HQ, Loki followed Steve into Stark's workroom, finding to his surprise that Stark was busy with a few assistants taking some sort of mold off the end of Barnes' amputated arm.

Barnes glanced up to see Steve and Loki enter and his smile broadened. "Hey! Good to see you!"

"What's going on?" Steve asked. "I thought you were going to ship back to New York?"

"Well, I was going to, then Mister Stark here--"

"Howard," Stark interrupted and without looking up, continued prying the mold off until it was free and he could set it carefully in a waiting tray. "I'm thinking I should be able to design a better prosthesis for Sergeant Barnes than anything he'll get from the Army or off the street in Brooklyn. Something light and strong… " his voice trailed off as his mind headed away into thinking about the possibilities.

Barnes glanced at him to see if he intended to finish, then said, "From here, I can keep up with the news better. They've told me I can assist in the strategy room and listen in to the reports. I wish I was with you guys."

Loki felt a stabbing of guilt that he'd ruined Barnes' chance to go after Schmidt.

"You fell off the damn train, Bucky. I just-- I still can't believe you're alive," Steve moved closer to squeeze his good shoulder.

Stark bumped into him and blinked, belatedly figuring out that his place had been pushed aside. "I'll just start this, and we'll clean you up later. Excuse me." He wandered away and nobody else said anything, or much noticed.

"And thank you for helping him," Steve said to Loki, as if he thought Loki would be offended if he wasn't thanked, again.

Loki and Barnes' eyes met. Barnes would eventually tell Rogers that he wasn't quite as normal as he'd been, but Loki was leaving it up to him when to share it. Their plan had worked as intended; medical staff and military had gotten very excited about Loki's healing blood, but Loki had refused to "donate" any. They'd tried to appeal to his patriotism and science, using Zola's death as an excuse for why it was necessary, which had made Loki laugh at the irony. But Phillips hid the truth, as Loki had known he would, and Loki's alibi held against everyone else.

One particular doctor had not accepted his refusal and come at him with a needle. Luckily for the doctor, Steve had intervened, preventing Loki from hurling the doctor into the wall. Phillips had reminded his superiors that he needed Lukas Onsdag for Operation Viper. Orders had come down for everyone to leave him alone. Loki knew it wouldn't last, but it was still better than what might have happened to Barnes instead.

"I'm so lucky, you know?" Steve said, looking from one to another. "My oldest friend and you-- my newest. The one most like me now. You saved Bucky's life and mine--"

"Well, you saved mine first, Steven, it seemed only proper," Loki returned lightly. "We're a team, are we not?"

"Not anymore," Barnes said with a disappointed grimace at his wounded arm. "I've been sidelined."

Steve shrugged. "Not for long. War won't last forever. And after that? We can be a team in peacetime, right? You'll have your fancy new arm from Stark and you can be part of bringing some of these bastards to justice. We can all bring some light back in the world again."

Hearing Rogers talk, Loki wanted to be part of that. Once Schmidt was dead, the tesseract was safe, and the war was over, why did he have to leave? His family didn't care where he was, so why not stay here? He could help Arendelle, or he could stay with these new friends he'd made. Or why choose? He could do both, couldn't he?

"And you--" Steve turned to Loki with some excitement, "Just think if you could really crack the secret of that blood of yours, if someone can figure out how it works and duplicate it. Instead of making super soldiers, like Schmidt wanted, it could heal people. That would be so amazing, wouldn't it?"

Which was where the fantasy fell apart, because of course it wasn't his blood that had healed Barnes. That was a lie. Not that it mattered, because if it were true, he still would have no part of Steven's plan.

His jaw tightened. "I will not submit to testing and being experimented on. Never."

Steve looked horrified at the thought. "No, of course not! Oh, Jesus, no, we'll have to make sure that doesn't happen again."

Barnes touched Loki's arm with his hand. "You risked exposure to save my life. Don't think I don't understand that."

"You know I risked less than you think, James," Loki corrected brusquely. "But in any case, all of this wistful dreaming will never come to pass until we kill Schmidt and stop his main plan of attack. If we fail, this world will become immeasurably worse, not better."

"You won't fail," Barnes declared. "I mean, c'mon, Captain America and the Ice Demon. If that's not a team up for victory, I don't know what is. You two are gonna kick his ass so hard they'll hear it in Detroit."

Steve grinned. "Hell yeah. That's what this is all for. This is why I agreed to that crazy serum in the first place. We'll get him and bring you back a trophy."

Barnes smiled and shook his head. "Just bring yourselves back. And put that fucker down. That's all I want."

They heard Agent Carter's voice from the end of the room, calling, "Gentlemen, it's time. We're leaving for the airfield."

"See you on the other side, Bucky," Steve said. They embraced tightly, Barnes with a one-armed hug, and Loki offered his hand. But Barnes ignored that to hug him, too.

"Good luck. Take some down for me."

"We will," Loki promised.

They headed out, and Steve called as they were leaving, "Hey, Stark. I expect Bucky to have a great new hand by the time I get back!"

"Bring me back that power source of Schmidt's and you've got a deal, Captain Rogers," Stark called back. Loki had no intention of letting him have it, but he kept that to himself as he smiled a greeting at Agent Carter.

Her eyes went right past him like he wasn't there to find Rogers, and Loki almost laughed at the way Rogers cleared his throat and pulled back his shoulders a little more as he got close to her. There was a strange urge in Loki's fingers to take their heads and force their lips together, to get it over with, but on the other hand it had been highly entertaining to watch them dance around each other for these months.

But they seemed determined to wait until after the war, though he didn't know if they had spoken about it or it was silently understood. Loki respected that, and didn't try to encourage more, even if it was disappointing not to be able to smirk at them canoodling in the corners. Of everyone they deserved their happy ending, and Loki wanted to give it to them if he could.

tbc...

Chapter Text

Steve saw the giant flying wing's engines flare and knew it had to be Schmidt with his payload of death. He started to run, crashing through enemy soldiers, leaping as necessary, letting nothing slow him down.

He saw movement above. Lukas was running on the highest catwalk. He had no opposition up there, running across the thinnest beams and wires, fleet as a gazelle, as if he weighed nothing.

The plane was accelerating, and Steve leaped for a chain to swing himself closer, above the fray. He was still too slow. At least Lukas was ahead, but Steve didn't want him to get aboard and have to confront Schmidt alone.

He wasn't going to make it. The flying wing's acceleration was building, heading now for the straight runway out of the hangar.

A car horn honking made him look down to see Phillips driving with Peggy in the passenger seat. Tucking up his legs, he flung himself into the car as Phillips did something which shot them across the tarmac.

Glancing up, he saw Lukas hurl himself onto the top of the wing, just before it cleared the hangar entrance and went outside. The car was gaining on the craft, beneath it now. The timing would have to be perfect -- but it was. He jumped from the car and grabbed the landing gear, as the mountain fell away beneath him.

He'd made it and now he could stop Schmidt. Carried inside the plane as the landing gear retracted, he saw the bombs neatly labeled for their destinations: New York, Washington, London, Berlin.

His first thought was an appalled: 'he's going to bomb his own people?' but of course Schmidt thought no one was his own people. Which didn't explain why anyone followed this madman.

At first he saw no resistance and wondered if Schmidt was the only one aboard, and whether Lukas had made it inside somehow or he had fallen off. But then Steve had no more time to wonder as Hydra enemies were all over him, trying to launch the bomb planes.

He hurled his shield at yet another black-clad enemy, only to have it caught in a bare hand. Steve's gaze snapped up to the face in shock, only to see Lukas there, lifting his brows at Steve. Somehow he'd changed his clothes to a leather outfit of mostly black with touches of green and gold, and a long coat. Steve had the odd thought that it looked more right on him than fatigues ever had.

Lukas threw the shield back at him. "'Ware your friends, Steven."

Steve caught the shield. "Sorry. What the hell is--"

He gesture to the new outfit, but a new group of enemies attacked, interrupting. They tried to launch the mini-bombers and Steve threw himself atop one to stop it, while Lukas threw -- fire? Jesus, he was throwing fire and setting the rocket ablaze too early so it exploded in its cradle. Then Steve was fighting for his life, to get control of the little bomber as it launched into the air.

Loki reached out a hand as if he could pluck Rogers off the flying craft as it fell out of the plane, but there was nothing he could do. Rogers had to fend for himself, as enemies swarmed like the mindless locusts they seemed to be.

But they were impediments to Schmidt and the tesseract, and Loki was tired of waiting.

"You think you serve a god?" he snarled, kicking one hard enough he tumbled over the railing into the hole and fell screaming into the open air. "You think that human freak is anything close to a god? What will you think when I take his ugly head off his puny mortal body?" He slammed two heads together with a satisfying crash, and without pause, let them go and threw a dagger at the one coming up behind him.

"I have had the worst year of my entire life, on this benighted excuse for a planet, and the only reason I would not gladly watch it all burn to ash is because of that man who just foolishly threw himself out of a plane, and his friends." His elbow went square into another's throat and he fell like a stone.

Loki glanced around for more enemies and found none, taking a moment to catch his breath.

"And because I made a promise. It is difficult to keep, but I do try, Elsa," he murmured.

He climbed the ladder, finding an enemy there to knife to death, before he found the command deck. Opening the hatch, he was immediately shot at by one of Schmidt's tesseract-powered guns and he ducked back down. It had no black powder to blow up from afar, but the dark energy in it was even easier to grab if he was quick enough to seize it, before Schmidt fired it.

"Is it you and me again, mein Dämon?" Schmidt called. "As it should be, a fight between gods."

"You are a mortal freak with delusions of grandeur," Loki retorted loudly, "There is only one god on this planet: me."

"Your age is past! This is the age of Hydra, the age of--"

In the middle of Schmidt's proclamation, Loki threw himself out of the hatch, hand thrust out as he reached for the power in the weapon.

Only to be caught by surprise when he found far more power than he expected, and the strength of it surged through him and threw him like a doll against the back wall of the command deck.

He fell to the floor, shaking his head to try to clear it, and had the vague satisfaction that at least Schmidt's weapon had blown up as well. He'd thrown it from him in time, but at least he didn't have it anymore.

Schmidt unholstered his pistol and held it at Loki, his blood-red skin and monstrous nose flaring with his breath. "It is mine," he hissed. "Mine."

Loki's eyes cut to the small device to the side of the room - the tesseract was in there, had to be. If he could only get to it--

Schmidt shot him. The power of the projectile shoved him back into the wall, stinging. He didn't stop either, unloading his weapon at Loki, and moving forward until he was close enough to kick Loki in the head.

Oh, I had forgotten how strong he is… Loki thought dazedly from the floor. He started to lift himself up, and that shiny black boot caught him square in the stomach, flipping him over onto his back like a landed fish, gasping.

"You are weak, Dämon. Your power is mine."

He pulled a dagger from his vambrace, but Schmidt kicked it away, so the blade went spinning. Schmidt kicked him again, the power of the blows driving deep into his flesh, as if his spells on his leather were nothing.

Something was wrong with him. He felt as if he couldn't breathe, could barely move. He could fight better than this. But his body felt sluggish and reluctant, and his hands were shaking. Fear. It was fear.

Get angry, Fool. This is not the time to be afraid of this mortal. You are stronger and better in every way, and you do not cower to such as him.

Except he remembered. Electroshock, over and over, until he knew little else. Those hands holding him down while they put the bolts through his wrists. The toxin they'd flooded his body with to keep him weak. Constant endless waking nightmares or hallucinations of this creature touching him in other ways.

GET UP. Or you will never hear the end of getting killed by a mortal. You will never get to Valhalla, because you die so stupidly.

That was enough to spur him to push himself up again, unwilling to be easy prey on the floor. But Schmidt's boot caught him in the head again, this time behind the ear, and the pain was instant and acute, flaring in the side of his head. He collapsed back to the floor, his small gains obliterated.

He thought it was a hallucination at first, caused by the blow to the head, as the front window shattered and glass shards flew everywhere. But no, it was really happening, as a mini-bomber slammed into the command room. Schmidt was hurled to the back of the room with explosive, deadly force.

Steve Rogers was at the controls, and he grinned at his success and the way Schmidt had gotten whacked, but the grin disappeared as his eyes met Loki's. He jumped out of the mini-bomber and rushed over to him. "Oh my God, are you all right?"

"Fine," Loki insisted, but had to clutch onto Steve's arm as the plane whirled sickeningly around him as he tried to stand. "Oh."

"You're bleeding," Steve said with dismay, touching the side of Loki's neck which only then did Loki realize was wet.

"He kicked me." But that wasn't important. What was important? He couldn't think. He held onto Steve's arm since the airplane was wobbling. These primitive flying machines were so unsteady. Perhaps he should help Howard Carter with his flying car, after all.

"C'mon, let's get you in a chair," Steve urged him forward.

The fierce, cold wind blowing through the shattered front window smacked Loki alert. The pilot's chair was, remarkably, still in place, off to the side from where the mini-bomber had plowed through the window. It was with some relief that Loki sat down, though the controls floated oddly, before he blinked them back into place.

"We need to get control of the plane. You know German, can you figure it out?"

"Yes," Loki agreed. "Certainly." Probably. Maybe. It could not be that hard, could it? It would be easier if his head didn't hurt though. The entire left side of his head and neck throbbed, and spiked with every motion. Hopefully it healed quickly.

Forcing his concentration on the console helped him push past the pain. The radio was simple, and seemed to be functional. The flight controls, however, were a problem. "There is an autopilot function, locked in. And the controls are damaged," he answered and frowned. "We will have limited control, even after I break the autopilot."

Steve grimaced. "Can we ditch it?"

"Send it into the ground? Yes. I believe so. But." He stopped, looking up at his friend. "If the plane goes down, you'll die."

"We stop Schmidt. Millions of lives will be saved. I'm okay with that bargain."

"I am not. I can send the plane down. You take a parachute and a tracker. The Allies will find you. Even if the Germans find you, the war is almost over. You will be fine."

Steve shook his head. "No. I won't let you die alone."

"I won't die. Unlike our friend in the back, I am actually immortal." He tried a smile, but Steve didn't buy it.

Steve shook his head. "I know you can die," Steve said softly. "And I'm pretty sure if this plane crashes, you will."

"Of the two of us, you have Carter and Barnes and all your friends, and your world." He pointed to the pocket where he knew Steve kept his compass and the photo of Agent Carter. "Of the two of us, there's no contest about who is the better man."

"No," Steve protested, shaking his head. "That's not true."

Loki smiled sadly. "Ah, Steven, do you think they called me the Ice Demon because I was good? I might have been the Snow Angel, but I was the Ice Demon, and I killed mortals before your country existed. But this, I will do for you. Go."

Steve shook his head in angry denial, still bravely resisting what had to be done, but before Loki could confess how Zola had died, a third voice interrupted from around the nose of the mini-bomber. "No!" Schmidt shouted. He sounded a little breathless, but unfortunately not dead. Loki twirled the chair, as Steve stood in front of him protectively, shield held out.

"You can't fight us both!" Steve called, his voice strong enough to rise above the wind.

"I think I can," Schmidt returned, and held up what he was carrying. The tesseract case.

"No!" Loki shouted. "You are mortal! It is not for you to wield!"

With a mad grin, Schmidt opened the case. The blue cube of power shone like a star in the middle of the command deck, washing the entire room in otherworldly blue light.

At his side, he heard Steve gasp at his first sight of it, caught by its beautiful streaming power.

But Loki didn't forget it was dangerous, especially since there was zero possibility that Schmidt could wield it. "You ignorant fool! Stop!" Loki lurched from his chair, having to grab the back of it as blinding pain shot through his head at the sudden movement.

"You would have kept it in a church!" Schmidt shouted in scorn. "But it is mine! And I will burn you all! The world!"

"Don't do it!" Steve yelled. Loki threw himself at Schmidt, knowing he wasn't going to be in time. And he fell short anyway, slamming to his knees.

Schmidt grabbed the tesseract with his bare hand. For an instant he grinned widely and called out, "All this power!" But his delight turned to pain, and he screamed, as the power of the tesseract overwhelmed him.

Reality tore open, seiðr burning, the frayed ends snapping like a tiger's claws shredding Loki's senses. He opened his mouth to scream, but it ended. In only a few heartbeats, Schmidt was gone, without a trace. The tesseract dropped to the floor.

It was so very close. And it was shining so very brightly. Loki knew he could handle it. He was a god, wasn't he? Not a fragile mortal to be so easily overcome. With that in his hand, he could stop this plane. Stop the war. Stop all the wars.

Before he'd crawled two steps nearer, Steve's hand grabbed him by the collar and hauled him back again. "No, don't do it!"

That snapped the allure and Loki blinked, breathing hard as if he'd been running.

"You with me again?" Steve asked in concern, and offered his hand to help him stand. Loki was glad for the help, climbing to his feet. He felt heavy and tired; even the echo of that wild backlash made him feel scoured raw.

"I am," Loki agreed. "Now we need to fix the plane and--"

But as he turned, his eyes swept where the tesseract had fallen. It was gone. There was a gaping hole in the floor where it had been. Its bare power, unleashed, was melting through the metal. If he didn't catch it, it would pass all the way through the hull and fall to the ground. He would lose it, forever. "No! I have to catch it before it's gone!"

"Wait, Lukas! Let it go!"

Steve grabbed him again, but Loki shoved Steve off and rushed for the hatch. He threw himself down the ladder chute to the bottom, landing roughly. His vision whited out with the spiking pain in his head, and everything inside him wanted to heave itself free.

Tesseract. He had to save it. He pushed the nausea away, to hurry into the large cargo bay.

"Where is it? Where is it?" He looked around frantically, hoping he'd beaten the tesseract there. When he looked up, he saw the hole where it had come through, and tracking downward saw it had eaten halfway through the floor.

Heedless of what touching it might do to him, he threw himself at it. Hand extended to grasp it.

Too late.

The last steel between the tesseract and the outer air dissolved into nothingness, and the tesseract fell, as icy wind shot through the narrow hole.

"NO!!!" he howled in fury, slamming a fist into the bulkhead.

The hole was too small for him, but the hole where the mini-bomber had blown up was not, and he launched himself into free fall after the tesseract.

The wind was frigid and the ice beneath him looked unforgiving, but he kept his eyes fixed on the tesseract's bright glow as it landed onto the ice below him. It ate its way into the snow and vanished.

He marked the place by eye, as he landed hard and fast. The force of it smashed the ice and snow beneath him. There was no land beneath, the ice was a layer only above the sea, as the ice cracked and he plunged into the water.

It was bitterly cold and so dark he thought he'd gone unconscious from the shock and pain of his landing.

He was sinking.

He opened his eyes turning all around, desperately searching for a bright glow falling into the deep. But the water was freezing and dark as ink. There was no star or sun or tesseract visible anywhere.

No, I lost it. It's down here somewhere and I lost it. It's gone.

He swam, in the direction he thought it might have fallen, and there was nothing but darkness in every direction. A faint light gave him some hope, but when he swam toward it, he found it was the surface.

His head broke through and he drew in a breath of the frigid air, as the droplets rolled down his face from his wet hair.

I could dive again. It must be under there.

But no, it was gone. He had been a tiny bit too slow and it had slipped away.

He found a thicker piece of ice to haul himself out of the water and stand on the floating iceberg's edge.

A bright orange light in the sky caught his attention in the west, and his eyes widened. It was the engines of the flying wing at the horizon- the last gasp of their fire as the plane went down.

The full folly of his decision hit him then, worse than the blow when he'd smashed into the ice.

Steve.

He'd left Steve on the plane. He'd left Steve with no choice but to crash it himself. Which of course, Steve had, because he had to stop the plane from dropping its payload of a bomb that would kill millions of people. He'd crashed the plane because Loki had left him, to dive for a rock that was already at the bottom of the sea.

It was supposed to be him. The one who could survive, the one who was immortal, the one with the blood on his hands -- while the hero should be the one standing on an iceberg waiting for rescue.

Faintly he heard groaning of metal and ice. That was the sound of the plane sinking beneath the cracked ice. The cockpit was open, the sea pouring in...

In a few minutes, if he wasn't already dead from the impact, Steve Rogers would drown or freeze to death.

I killed him. I killed Captain America. With my greed and recklessness and stupidity.

The one who was supposed to show these mortals a new path in the wake of this terrible war was dead; the hero that should have been, now cruelly taken away by a trickster god of the old days who shouldn't even be here.

Why did I come? I meant to help, but all I did turned to death and sorrow and suffering.

He kept watching that place where the plane had gone down until his eyes turned dry as bone. The cold bit at him, but he felt none of it, not even the icy droplets that slid down his cheeks in place of the tears he couldn't shed.

He could wait for the inevitable plane or boats or whatever small human craft would come search, but what was the point? To tell them that Rogers was dead? They knew that already. To tell them Loki was no kind of hero? Well, they should have known that, and they certainly knew it now. There was nothing for him in this Realm and all its mortal death.

He was too exhausted to use his own paths, so that meant it was time. He stripped off the tattered remains of his shroud of invisibility and addressed the empty sky. His voice was low, but hopefully it was enough to get his attention if the Watcher was there. "Heimdall. I'm ready. Open the Bifrost. It's time to go home."

Home to his father's anger, no doubt. But Loki didn't care about that. Whatever Odin did made no matter, compared to the knowledge of what Loki had done. 

I am the demon that killed Steve Rogers. I am the monster who murdered my friend.

There was no sign of the Bifrost. Perhaps Heimdall or Odin refused to bring him back to Asgard, ignoring his call, to abandon him in this wasteland. It would be fitting punishment for the Ice Demon to drift on ice, alone.

But no, even that was denied, as the power built, and the Bifrost opened and snatched him away.

next week: the final chapter as Loki goes home. 

Chapter Text

Thor waited beside Frigga in the empty hall. Odin sat in his throne, and a handful of Einherjar stood close by, but no one else knew Loki had returned.

Thor would have gone to meet Loki, but Odin had sent the Einherjar to take him into custody. Wanting to object, Thor had bitten his lip at Frigga's shake of her head in warning, and together they waited, anxious.

Loki had been gone without a single word to them, not even to Frigga. It was nothing as long as the century he'd spent in hiding on Midgard before, but still long enough that Thor believed something had happened to him.

But he didn't expect Loki to appear at the other end of the hall looking disheveled. He hadn't bothered to shift to even the illusion of court armor, and his fighting leathers were wrinkled and gray, instead of black. His hair looked uncombed and damp, and the tails of his coat were shredded with trim hanging loose. It was quite unlike him to appear so unkempt.

Frigga started toward him two steps before forcing herself to stop. Thor likewise wanted to go to Loki.

Loki walked with his usual posture and stalking grace and his chin was up, but when Thor tried to meet his eyes and smile at him in welcome, Loki's gaze was vaguely directed downward. He didn't appear to notice or care about his escort of four armed Einherjar, either. At closer range, the paleness of his skin seemed translucent and blue-tinted, as if a hint of his true blood was leaking through, and his face was thinner than Thor recalled.

But worst of all, he did not look happy to be home. Though no one else did either. Frigga and Thor were both worried by his appearance, and Odin glared at him from the throne. It was all very different from Loki's first return from Midgard, when Odin had been openly pleased to welcome him back and friends like Sif had been there, too.

At the end of the aisle Loki finally looked up at the throne. He didn't wait for Odin to speak first, forcing an insincere smile. "So. Let me guess, you are still angry?"

Thor had never understood Loki's need to provoke their father, when he knew Odin was upset with him already. And indeed, Odin didn't respond well to the dry question. Gungnir slammed against the floor. "You disobeyed my command to stay in Asgard! You willfully ignored my order not to interfere in the wars on Midgard, and circumvented the protections put into place to prevent it."

Loki paused and then said, "Some people would be proud their son discovered an entirely new method to travel the Nine Realms."

"A method you devised purely to disobey me!"

"Well, not purely…"

"You lied about the existence of the tesseract!"

Loki shot a look at Thor, for betraying the secret, and insisted to Odin, "I kept it secret, but I never lied about it!"

Odin didn't listen, overriding him. "And you have not the least shred of remorse for any of this!"

Loki interrupted, "Not so. I regret going to Midgard." The words caught his family by surprise, as Thor would never have expected him to say it, even if it were true. In the dead silence that fell after that, the reflexive taunting seemed to melt from him, and he added in a quieter voice, "I learned the lesson. You were right. I should not have interfered."

Odin peered at him, with suspicious squint that the words were spoken to get mercy. "And why not?" he asked.

Loki's lips lifted in a bitter smile. "I'm not a hero. Is that not what you wanted me to learn? That I cannot save anyone? That I was a fool to try?"

Odin hesitated, and Thor thought his father shared his uneasiness. There was more here than Loki's willfulness. "No…" the king answered slowly. "That was not--"

"Well, it's true. So if you intend on pitching me out in the street or putting me in prison, I would appreciate your getting on with it so I can change my clothes. These are quite uncomfortably salt-encrusted."

Thor frowned. Salt-encrusted? How were his leathers salt-encrusted and he hadn't changed them with magic yet?

Frigga echoed Thor's concern, with her own. "Loki, is that blood on your neck?"

Loki put a hand to the side of his neck. "Did the sea not wash it off?" He rubbed at the smear remaining there, inspecting his fingers with a grimace.

"Why were you in the sea?" Thor asked, but that was the wrong question. "Why is there blood on you at all? Is it yours?"

"A human monstrosity kicked me in the head," Loki answered. The flat tone momentarily disguised the horror of what he was saying -- no mortal should be strong enough to hurt Loki, not to make him bleed so much to stain his skin and the collar of his surcoat. Thor would've said that was impossible. Thor shared an alarmed glance with Frigga.

But Loki ignored their shock, continuing, "Then he was fool enough to handle the tesseract before I could rip his heart out. And the tesseract dropped to the bottom of the sea." He barked a laugh and looked up at Odin. "So, yes, Allfather, I failed in my quest to protect Arendelle, or anyone else, and I failed to retrieve the tesseract. Though I suppose I succeeded in angering you, so at least I know how to do one thing well."

"Must you?" Odin asked wearily. He inhaled and shut his eye, gripping Gungnir more tightly for strength. Then he lifted his head. "Long have you vexed me, Loki. Always you are disobedient and defiant."

Loki chuckled once, humorlessly. "Did you not punish me enough for that?"

Odin frowned. "I have not punished you."

"No? More than a year in darkness was not enough?" Loki returned with sharp bitterness that cut through the air like a blade of ice. "It felt like punishment to me."

Frigga stepped nearer. "Loki, what do you mean? You kept a shrouding glamour on yourself, so we saw--"

"Did you not even try?" he exploded in furious demand.

Calmly Frigga insisted, "I did. Several times. I could never reach you through your shrouding."

"So you thought it was mine, but you never wondered why I would do that?" he demanded and his eyes were shining like broken shards as he looked on her. "All that time, I called for you! But no one looked. No one helped." His voice fell into the silence of the throne room, turning soft at the end.

Help, Thor realized with a sinking in his heart. Loki had needed help that hadn't come. Frigga had been right to worry that something had gone terribly wrong with his quest to Arendelle.

Loki was digging beneath his left vambrace with his right thumb to rub his wrist. It was a peculiar gesture Thor couldn't remember seeing before.

"We didn't know. We thought you were shielding yourself from our sight," Frigga told him, reaching out toward him in gentle reassurance. "Loki, what do you mean, 'year in darkness'?"

"Don't." He stepped away from her hand. "Don't pretend you care." His eyes flicked from her, to Thor, and ended on Odin, his face still holding both hurt and anger, and his lips went to a flat line. "If you're not done punishing me, you know where to find me. If you bother to look."

Loki whirled around and stalked back down the aisle, ignoring Frigga's call of his name. Odin let him go, gesturing the Einherjar to stand down, as a troubled frown drew his brows together.

Frigga clutched her hands together and looked at her husband with hard blue eyes. "I warned you his silence was wrong. He was suffering, and you ignored it."

"He disobeyed and paid the price for it," Odin declared, grip tightening on Gungnir and waving it once sharply, as if he could erase the problem. "He is home and it is done."

Thor shook his head in sorrowful disagreement. "I think Loki is not yet home at all." He lowered his eyes so his father would not see his sudden doubt and unease. But he thought of the blood on Loki's neck and the mortal with strength enough to hurt him, and he couldn't hold his tongue. "He needed us and we were not there. I should have left to find him. I should have helped him."

"Yes," Frigga agreed. "I think so. All that Elsa gave him is undone. All his trust in us is broken." She added in a whisper, eyes turning toward the door where Loki had disappeared, but wide and blank with farseeing, "If the ice in his heart does not thaw, Loki my son will be gone. Only the Ice Demon will remain, and he will be our enemy."

"Mother, no--" Thor objected, shaking his head in denial.

She blinked back to the present. "It is not yet fate, Thor. He is lost in darkness, and his fire burnt out to cold ash, but we can help him." Her smile was not convincing. "Loki needs some time to recover from what occurred on Midgard. He will be well, Thor."

Unlike her previous words, these were clearly Frigga's hope, not prophecy, and they did not reassure Thor at all.

"I will go to him," Thor said. "Perhaps he will speak to me alone."

Frigga agreed, and Odin dismissed him, but when Thor reached Loki's chambers, he found the doors shut and locked. Nothing short of Mjolnir would open them, and so Thor leaned against the door and murmured, hoping the door would carry his words within. "I am here, Brother. When you are ready."

There was no reply.

Loki entered his suite and set the ward so he would be left alone. All seemed untouched from the day he had left. Yet when he looked around, it felt strangely unfamiliar and insubstantial, and the urge to break it all to pieces or set it on fire welled up in his chest. He clenched his fists and forced the rage away.

Instead of burning everything, he moved to the shelf and the snowflake sculpture that sat in the position of honor in the center. It was his most precious possession, all that he had left of Elsa, and a bit of the tightness in his chest eased to see it there. With a careful finger he caressed the edge of it, closing his eyes and wishing that when he opened them again, he would be back to the day she had given it to him.

But that day was long gone. Instead, when he opened his eyes, the snowflake seemed… incomplete. Alone.

He held out a hand and formed a different ice sculpture. It was round and only a little smaller than Elsa's snowflake. Bowed out in the center and adorned with a five pointed star, the ice was clear and pure.

Loki set the miniature replica of Captain America's shield next to Elsa's snowflake, on what had become his memorial to the dead.

He stepped back to look at it, his mood bleak and stricken.

Steven. You should have been so much more. You should have been their champion, and instead you're dead at the bottom of the Atlantic because of me. I went to Midgard and involved myself with mortals again and got you killed. I interfered in your war, pretending I was some kind of hero, pretending I could help. But I should have known better. I need to stop lying to myself that I am anything but a monster and a demon. I am no kind of shining hero. Not a god, not an avenger of wrongs, just a reckless fool. I make nothing better, only worse.

He touched the snowflake again, one finger on its gleaming edge. I held on to you too long, Elsa. I thought I could shelter you and yours beneath my protection, but that was naught but fantasy. Arendelle is ruined because I didn't let go when I should have. So that is what I must do. Midgard is on its own, as am I.

Loki turned away from the shelf and headed to the other room to bathe and change his clothes.

The next day, Thor went to try to see Loki again. He expected the doors to be shut fast still, but instead they swung open to invite him within.

The foyer was empty and Thor called, "Loki?"

"Balcony," he heard faintly and Thor went to find him. He glanced at the shelf where Elsa's snowflake rested, and he frowned at the second item, wondering what it meant.

"Good morning," Loki wished him as soon as Thor went between the two columns and outside.

Unlike yesterday, Loki seemed restored, his fighting leathers and hair tidy. He turned his eyes from his regard toward the mountains to smile at Thor. It all seemed… normal.

"Are you well?" Thor asked, worried. "Yesterday…"

"-- was not a good day," Loki said with a short laugh. "But I feel much better, now that my head has stopped aching abominably."

"But you were so upset and injured. There was also that 'year in darkness' you mentioned. What did you mean?"

Loki looked down with a rueful, embarrassed smile twisting his lips. "My head hurt and I was feeling dramatic. You know how I get."

Thor did know that, but he also knew that Loki had rarely confided in anyone since Elsa's passing. And this change of mood seemed too easy. "Loki," he said, moving closer and trying to make Loki feel the sincerity in his voice, "if there is aught you wish to tell me, I swear I will keep whatever you say between us. You need not force a lightness that is false."

"How very sweet of you, Thor," he mocked, and when Thor narrowed his eyes in disapproval, Loki added more seriously, "There is nothing, I swear."

Thor still didn't believe him. "What happened while you were away?"

Loki turned his eyes to the horizon and his thumb rubbed at his wrist again, absently. "Nothing important. I lost the tesseract, as you heard. That was… annoying. But Midgard was dull, for the most part."

"Dull? In the middle of that conflagration?" Thor asked, incredulous.

Loki shrugged. "Minor skirmishes. Nothing worth the time to tell the tale."

Thor lifted a hand, meaning to grip Loki's shoulder, but Loki turned to go inside and called back over his shoulder, "What have you been doing? Anything exciting? I've been back less than a day and I am already bored of this place. I want to do something fun."

Thor's eyes rested on Loki's back, weighing whether he should accept this levity or insist Loki talk to him. He doubted the sincerity, but Loki seemed in no mood to reveal the truth. Thor would have to wait for an opening when Loki was more vulnerable and willing to talk. Perhaps an adventure in the wild was what they needed.

Thor followed him inside and decided to play along. "Fun? A hunt perhaps? A visit to another Realm?"

"You offered a dragon the last time I returned from Midgard." Loki teased, "If all you have this time are some elderly bilgesnipe I will be very disappointed."

Thor had to laugh at that. "I am glad you have come home, brother."

"Of course you are. Because I liven up this dreadfully dusty place."

His grin was as bright as Thor remembered, and his eyes gleamed with familiar mischief. If there was ice or shadows in his heart, Thor saw none of it, as Loki rolled his eyes at Thor's idea of returning to Vanaheim. Soon they were bickering about where they should go on their next adventure and it was as if Loki had never left.

As they passed through the main room, Thor glimpsed the icy tokens on the shelf and they reminded him of Frigga's prophecy. But he decided her words must be a warning for later, since Loki seemed his old, blithe self.

Loki was home again, eager for adventure, and Thor was glad to have his brother back.

the end.