CABIN HALLWAY. 1:56 AM.
"Oh, come on guys, we really shouldn't be doing this," Steve whispered, looking around as if Loki would appear around the corner any second. Bucky, Sharon, and Natasha had their hands over their mouths, hiding their snorts and giggles. Wanda was trying to play along and smiled, but Steve saw that her heart wasn't into it. Tony was helping Bruce and Pietro attach his cellphone to the selfie stick. Clint crossed his arms and shook his head.
"No way, Steve. He's had this coming for a long time. We're just seizing the perfect opportunity," he insisted.
"They were harmless pranks. None of them even really hurt you. You're playing with his emotions. That's not fair." Steve had thought better of all of them.
"Then he shouldn't have left his journal around for Bucky to easily find in the locked drawer in his room," Tony said. He opened the door to the guest room he was using. The girls went in first, then Bucky, Pietro, and Bruce. Steve hesitated but ended up backing away. He wasn't going to take any part in this. He waited for Tony and Clint to shrug and go inside the room before turning around and calling out for Loki. Maybe if he intercepted the boy on the way here, he could stop him from making a huge mistake.
Tony stood in the back corner of the room. Natasha and Clint were hiding under the bed, the covers pulled down low enough so no one could spot them unless they knew to look there. Pietro and Bruce went inside the wardrobe with the door cracked open far enough to record through. Sharon and Bucky were in the closet. Wanda kneeled behind the dresser, being the smallest one there. Natasha had to elbow Clint to keep him from laughing too loud.
There was a knock on the door. Natasha put her hand over Clint's mouth and shushed him.
Loki pushed it open. He was holding a candle and wearing a bathrobe and slippers. "Tony? Are you in here?" he asked.
"Come on in," Tony invited. Loki smiled shyly and pushed the door shut behind him. "Why don't you put the candle out?"
"Huh? Oh, sure," Loki said, blowing it out in what he prayed looked sexy and seductive. There was enough light coming in from the outside floodlights anyway, he assumed.
"So, should we start with… making out? And see where it goes from there?" Tony suggested. He expected Loki to go with it, and he was ready to make the sacrifice of having to kiss Thor's little brother for the sake of humiliating him. What he didn't expect was Loki to strip off his robe and climb onto the bed. Thankfully, he was wearing what Tony assumed were briefs (they very strongly resembled panties, and he didn't put it past Loki to steal a pair of his sister's underwear), but it still caught him off-guard.
"Come here, big boy. I'll blow you so hard that you'll black out," Loki said, in a sudden deep and sultry tone that Tony also didn't expect. Huh. Guess the journal entry Bucky had found and shown everyone was much more PG than he'd thought.
Of course, that was when Clint's laughter finally slipped out of his mouth and around Natasha's hand, which had been struggling to muffle the noise, and was loud enough for even Tony to hear. Loki's seductive act dropped and he looked around. "Who's that? Who's there?" he asked.
One by one, everyone revealed themselves. Wanda stood from behind Tony. Bucky and Sharon exited the closet. Clint and Natasha crawled from underneath the bed, making Loki hug his legs to his chest. Pietro and Bruce were the last to reveal themselves, the former holding the selfie stick and cellphone. Loki's gaze was locked with the phone.
Steve burst into the room. "Loki!" he exclaimed. He looked around and saw that Loki had figured it all out. He quickly grabbed the bathrobe and tried to help Loki put it back on, but instead, Loki snatched the bathrobe and fled the room. "Loki, wait!" he called out. He turned back to his friends and snapped, "You guys are jerks!" before running after Loki.
"Oh, come on Steve, it was hilarious!" Clint insisted as the group followed.
CABIN KITCHEN. 2:04 AM.
Angela wandered in to see her beloved and her brother with their heads resting on the counter. She walked over and picked up one of the bottles. Father's finest liquor. It wasn't like their father would miss it.
"Way to outdo yourself, brother," she chuckled. Thor didn't budge. Sera twitched then went back to snoozing. Angela kissed her temple and ran her fingers through her hair. A note on the table caught her eye. She picked it up and read it:
Loki
You look pretty sexy in those jeans.
Bet you'd look sexier without them.
Come to the guest room at 2 AM ;)
Tony
Angela shook her head. "What did our naïve baby brother get himself into now?" she wondered aloud.
Outside, a shadow moved past the window. It looked too narrow to be one of the elk they'd seen earlier.
"What was that? Didn't Father say it'd just be us this weekend?" Angela asked. No answer. She sighed and ignored the shadow. Who would come up on a mountain during a snowstorm anyway? No one else owned cabins this far out anyway.
A door slammed on the far side of the house. It sounded like the front door. Angela looked between the kitchen door and her brother. No point in poking the drunk bear. She ran out the kitchen doors and to the atrium. Everyone was standing outside, their backs turned to her. Everyone but Loki.
Angela pushed past them. "Where's my brother?" she asked. She noticed the phone and selfie stick and felt her stomach drop.
"He got worked up over something stupid," Clint answered.
"It was just a prank, Lokes," Natasha added.
The note. Angela clenched her fists. "What's your guys' problem? You jackasses!"
"Angela…" Steve began. But Angela was already running out into the snow, following Loki's footsteps and not listening to whatever he was going to say. He didn't even know how to tell her what had happened.
"Should we follow them?" Tony asked.
Steve glared at him. "You're probably the last person Loki wants to see right now," Steve said. He pushed past him to get back inside. One by one, everyone shuffled in. Wanda closed the doors behind them. Everyone gathered in the den, waiting for Angela and Loki to come back to explain and apologize. At least they all looked as terrible as they really were, Steve thought angrily.
Angela ran as fast as she could. Damn Tony for tricking her baby brother into going into his room. Damn whoever found out that Loki had a huge crush on Tony. Damn Pietro for filming it. Damn Thor for being too drunk to kick ass and take names right now. Damn the fucking cold.
Angela cried out for her brother and followed the footsteps. She had to stop every now and then to shield her eyes from the snow. Follow the footsteps. Follow the footsteps. They could only be his. They had the little imprints from the bottom of his slippers that they got in Madrid during Christmas vacation. Eventually, there were no more lights to guide the way, and she had no choice but to use her halfway-charged phone as a flashlight to see the path. A ball of fire came between two trees above her. She jumped back. Fire? On a mountain in Canada during snow? Oh, god, she needed to find Loki.
Then she heard sniffling. No doubt her brother, crying over his broken heart. She found him hunched over in the snow, only dressed in his robe. His pale, hairless legs stuck out under it.
"Oh, god, Loki, you must be freezing!" Angela shoved her phone in her pocket and shucked off her coat. She forced Loki's arms into it as he sobbed.
"I'm so stupid," he cried. "I can't believe I fell for that."
"Yeah, they're all getting beat up when we get back there. I promise. Here, come on. Up we go." Angela helped pull Loki to his feet. He fell against her, his tears soaking her sweater.
A vague screech came from somewhere beyond the trees. Loki's sobbing ceased and both siblings looked toward it. It came from the direction of the cabin.
"Angela…"
"Loki…."
Angela grabbed Loki's arm and began running. Loki cried as they did, and Angela fought to keep a strong grip, but lost it when he tripped on the bridge. She helped him up and forced him to keep running. If this was another prank, she was going to kill those assholes.
They found themselves cornered at the edge of a cliff very quickly. Loki held her hand tight. They were both shaking, but not from the cold. They turned around to not see anything, but hear the screech come closer. It was too inhuman to be their so-called friends.
"No!" Loki cried.
"Fuck, no! You stay away!" Angela shouted. The siblings backed toward the edge, and Loki's foot slipped out from under him. The two were pulled down off the cliff, but Angela managed to grab the branch before they fell. Loki's crying worsened, and began swearing.
"Hold on!" Angela pleaded. Above them, flames shot out. Now Angela was terrified. This wasn't going to end well for them, she knew it.
A shadowed figure above them held out its hand. Angela looked down between her brother and the hand. If she wanted to, she could let go of him and grab the hand. But the hand could be a murdering rapist. Or worst, it wouldn't be, but she would have dropped her brother into the mines mother always warned them about.
Fuck it. Mother always worried too much. She'd rather be with her brother than take her chances on whoever had been stalking and chasing them.
She screamed as she let go.
CABIN DEN. 7:38 AM.
Sera had come to first, and bumbled into the den to see everyone sitting around, baggy eyes and worried expressions. Neither Angela nor Loki were present. She wanted to assume they were sleeping, but her friends' faces said otherwise.
"What's going on?" she asked. No one answered. They all looked between one another instead, as if waiting for someone to speak up first. "What happened? Where's Angela?"
Steve stood up. Everyone's eyes suddenly were glued to the floor. "It was a dumb prank, Sera. Loki overreacted and ran outside, and Angela went to get him," he explained.
Thor came into the room behind Sera, and Steve stiffened. "What happened?" he asked groggily.
"Loki overreacted to a prank and Angela's going to bring him back inside," Sera said.
"Yeah, she did, but the thing is… that was five and a half hours ago. They haven't come back," Steve continued. Sera looked panicked, and Thor looked angered. Shit. Someone was going to get their arm broken or something, Steve could sense it.
"And have you done nothing? All of you?" Thor demanded. Silence. "They couldn't have gone far! They're probably at the other cabin." Thor pointed to Sharon. "Come with me to look for them. Sera, hold down the fort."
"Got it," Sharon and Sera said. The blonds grabbed their coats and boots and headed off into the daylight. Sera sat down where Sharon had been, between Natasha and Tony.
"What was the prank?" Sera asked. Again, silence. "…How bad was it?" More silence. Wanda quietly stood and took Tony's phone from the coffee table. She opened it to the video from the night and showed it to Sera. The volume was turned up all the way, so everyone was forced to relive it as Sera watched. She kept her emotions masked, though flashes of anger glinted in her eyes now and then. When it ended, Sera stood and walked back into the kitchen. A minute later, they heard her talking on the landline to the police to report two missing persons.
"They're dead," Clint whispered.
"Don't say that," Bruce said sternly.
"They're dead and it's my fault. It was my half-baked idea. I got them killed."
"I was the one who snooped through Loki's things. You wouldn't have thought about it if it wasn't for me," Bucky said.
"And who gave you that dumb idea?" Natasha asked.
"None of you made Loki run outside," Tony insisted. "He could have just as easily ran upstairs. He chose to run outside. None of you did this."
That didn't make anyone feel any more comforted.
Sera came back into the den. She stood there and told Tony, "Delete the video." He did so and showed her for proof. She nodded and walked to the door, waiting for Thor and Sharon to come back.
TWO MONTHS LATER. DUBOIS FUNERAL HOME. 12:48 PM.
The search had been cut in half after three weeks of searching. Another three and they called it off together. Steve, who was checking on Thor, was over when Mrs. Olson found out. Her cries still haunted him. That night still haunted him.
Nothing had been the same since.
Sera moved to America. She said she had applied to study abroad a long time ago and the approval had just come through, but everyone knew she couldn't bear to look any of them anymore.
Loki's best friend, Verity, who had been visiting family while they were at the cabin, had attempted suicide. She was found in the family car in the garage, both that and the minivan running.
Thor insisted he was okay. He'd gone to therapy with Dr. Jane Foster to prove it. She was hot, according to him.
Now, at the funeral, Steve stood awkwardly in the back of the room next to Tony, Sam, and Sharon. Natasha was sitting with Bruce and Bucky a few rows ahead. Pietro and Wanda were closer to the front. Clint didn't come. He still blamed himself. Steve held Sharon's hand throughout the service. A few times, she had to nudge him and ask him to loosen his grip before he crushed her hand.
FOUR MONTHS LATER. EAST ALBERTA HIGH SCHOOL. 5:30 PM.
They honored Loki at what should have been his high school graduation. Their class valedictorian talked about him during her speech. The group had gone in support of those in their group who was graduating as well, Sharon, Wanda, and Pietro. All were solemn as they accepted their diplomas. They couldn't even fake it for the camera posed to take their picture with either vice-principal.
Thor insisted they came over to his house to celebrate. He was wasted after twenty minutes, and passed out before the first hour passed. Everyone helped get him into bed and bunked in the living room. They had trouble sleeping with the pictures of Loki and Angela all staring back at them, mocking them and blaming them for their disappearance.
The next day was Angela's birthday. She would have been twenty-two. Thor got black-out drunk again.
TEN MONTHS LATER. STARK MANSION. 9:37 PM.
Today was Loki's birthday. He would have been nineteen. Everyone sat around and told stories they remembered about him. Clint shared nothing. Wanda shared the most stories, and arguably the nicest ones, too.
Thor insisted on being alone.
ELEVEN MONTHS LATER. UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA'S ARTS AND HUMANITIES CAMPUS. 4:03 PM.
Sharon texts everyone, asking if they saw Thor's message. Steve, who was with Sam, Bucky, and Tony at the time, went to the nearest computer lab and checked Steve's email. There was a video message from Thor, filmed from the cabin, inviting them back. He said that the anniversary of Angela and Loki's disappearance should be a day for friendship, not moping and depression. Everyone who could come should come. He emphasized that heavily and said it seven times.
Steve felt bad. Tony did too. They decided they would go. Sam decided that because he wasn't involved that he would stay uninvolved. Bucky said there was something off about Thor lately and that he'd rather stay back with Sam.
Natasha and Sharon were going, claiming to need a break from university for a nice weekend. Clint flat-out refused. He still felt like shit, but promised to stay with Sam and Bucky so they could ensure he didn't so something regrettable.
Bruce also felt bad and wanted to go. Pietro and Wanda, who were with him, said the same. Wanda mentioned later that Thor hadn't sent the message to Sera or Verity. It was decidedly for the best.