Warnings: language, violence, mild gore, mild sexual humor, hints of torture, brief mentions of noncon
So many, many lights.
The lights did irritate him, lining the walls in the dim car tunnel, even as he exited it. Always had. There were too many times when, in his searches, he'd deluded himself that they were something more. Something less artificial, more...real.
In childhood he'd often wonder about lights. About what they were. If they were more than just a spell. If such lights could even truly exist without being conjured.
Of course, he'd learned since his youth that such things did not exist. Or at least, if they did, that they were not for him to find.
There were other things that he searched for at present anyway.
More pressing, less whimsical things.
Still, he knew. Even in youth-even from youth, that had been all he'd done to the lights. Chase, or farther, had they ever been within his means to reach. Drive away. Be it the light from the heat of a burning conflagration, or the warm glow of a fae. A golden reflect, or the muted shine of ice...
The glint of Chitauri metal, he reminded himself sternly. What you actually need. Pushing errant thoughts aside.
Worst case luck, the mortals of SHIELD had their grimy paws on it. Best case, his scrying uncovered it, and he would recover it from the grimy paws of whatever other mortal had happened upon it.
He gritted his teeth. Of course, the desire to not draw attention would get in the way.
Besides, there were worse cases. The Chitauri could have all of it.
Such didn't appear to be the case luckily. It wasn't long of more scrying that a mask of one of the aliens revealed itself. Lifting it from the human's "thrift shop," despite them being able to apparently hide it from government seizure all this time, was laughable. Reaching out with his magic again revealed still more, though lesser scraps. Sizable, and still wholly useful, some of the microchips and wiring surviving.
He couldn't care much what the metallurgist wanted with the Chitauri materials. He wasn't much for the practice of metallurgy, it being of little to no interest to him. And as long as the man held up his end of the bargain, he could care much less.
Still, he thought as he came around the corner where his latest scrying had led him. Trying to hide his sudden, freezing halt as something less inconspicuous, more casual, as he'd looked up and realized his absentminded state. Realized where it had allowed him to wander. He wished he'd been tasked to gather something else.
Something he could gather far, far away from this realm. This wretched realm.
The foot of Stark Tower seemed to be the favored spot at which to leave flowers and memorials. Plans to make something more concrete and specific to the incident were being talked over, but only now. On top of clean up, some people seemed almost put off by the idea, and debates over whether to erect anything or not were ever present. Sensibly, given just verbal and social interaction that had followed the invasion, it was sensible to say that the site would be nothing but a lure for conspiracy theorists and the highly religious, and conflict between they themselves and angry mourners would be almost inevitable.
The hooded figure paused in what seemed from the stutter that took his steps, to be a sudden decision. And there on the corner he stood. Nearly a block away, gazing at it; it would be foolish to venture closer, he knew.
It was foolish to be here at all really.
Especially given the notion that the building's owner was surely aware to monitor for arcane energies by now. If he wasn't overestimating him. Truly, the sense of respect the "Avengers" had earned from him, he would be lying if he said it hadn't waned since that day.
Waned, but not dissipated. He distantly wondered what masochistic fascination kept him rooted to the spot. His eyes unable to look away from the mortals' gestures and tokens of tribute.
As it were, someone stopped there next to him at some point. Though he didn't notice, much less that their "Sad, isn't it?" was directed at him until after the fact. It took him long enough to respond, that by the time he noticed the the words were for him, he was turning to a, "Hey... You okay?"
Typical.
The random overly-sociable for his taste-and for this city for that matter, in his experience-stranger stared back at his brown eyes half framed by a mess of darker brown hair when he paid them mind. It clicked a moment soon enough to save himself that the deadpan look that was probably his face would do nothing more than invite more of the prying. At least, here with this person of this place-be their care born of bored prying or authenticity. So he tried to morph his features into something of a smile.
Whatever resulted, he caught the other's involuntary slight drawback and facial scrunch. They recovered quickly enough that even he would-almost-have to be slightly more impressed than amused. Even if that recovery was into an awkward smile that excused.
Luckily this left open an opportunity for him to turn away and give a nod to whatever was said softly during the next near minute, as he was paying it no mind. And in seemingly the same amount of time he found himself the only one standing on the curb again.
Eventually, a pale hand shied from beneath the top garb to pull it more securely closed, and with a dismissive noise he allowed himself to be herded back into the flow of the perpetually hurrying crowd.
He would have to go with his city hopping plan after all, with that lapse of judgement.
A stray dog sniffed hungrily at the leather of the booted feet. He ignored it as it followed for a few blocks. Focusing. Buses may sometimes have cameras, but less urban places had far fewer. Either way, a handful of the devices was far more manageable than the seemingly endless amount he seemed to encounter in a place like this.
Besides, he thought as he settled in a seat, the ride would give him a chance to rest. His magic reserve, if nothing else. Even now he wasn't certain if the face he'd replicated on the formed coin was correct. He was just too irritably tired to care at the moment, it was starting to register. How long exactly had he been searching? His mind hadn't really kept track of it at the time. Even now it wasn't vitally important information. Still, he thought about he hadn't taken a break to rest since he'd arrived in this realm. It seemed just hours. A day? Possibly two? His only rest being the time taken to scry. If one could even count that. Still more magic he'd used on top of upholding a glamour enchantment off and on.
The thought reminded him that he was holding such a guise right now.
A quick but subtle check for cameras. Then the head tucked chin back into his chest. Might as well rest completely...
Let any of the mortals dare touch him.
The passenger in the seat across the aisle from him squinted his eyes. He could have sworn the lock of brown hair hanging from under the hood had just coiled itself and turned black-darkened as if wood by fire. Then again... He turned back to the bottle concealed in the brown bag that the bus driver had so graciously ignored. He had just gotten off of work...
The nine to five grind. Never did it not feel good to hang up an apron at the end of a full day of work. There was that one guy who had complained about their little cafe not serving hot chocolate. Well, at least not the cheap store brand that some came into the place looking for. Theirs were specialty brands. Dark hot chocolate, milk hot chocolate, soy hot chocolate, white hot chocolate.
Still, she thought as she exited the building, not even near 'Can I speak to a manager?' status man could put a damper on her mood. Not when the rest of the day was met with promise of going home where there was quiet and promise of a paycheck.
She'd made short her goodbyes as she snagged a complimentary-for employees-highly caffeinated tea, ever to know and form opinions on the flavors. There was literally a new recommendation every other day for what they should try. It was like a bar, but with tea instead of alcohol. Though the owner was in favor of throwing a little twenty-one and older alcohol fest every few weeks.
Though working a work day grind was working a workday grind, she supposed she could have gotten a job at a worse place. Their prices were more affordable than the bigger national chain coffee shops around surprisingly. So while they got just as many uppity as well as down to earth wealth patrons as one would expect, they also had enough hipsters, aspiring writers and crash studying college students staking out a table next to an outlet for hours on end, and of course the average simple passerby, simply there for their morning fix. She wasn't much of a tea or coffee person herself, but she could see how the smell of them was near if not actually therapeutic for some.
Still, today seemed like a home as soon as possible day. If the young woman had to look at another flip-lip lid topped cup for at least twelve hours, she might lose her mind. The thought even had her nearly sentence her own cradled cup to the next trash can she passed. Almost. She was content simply rolling the bottom of it along the waste bin's domed top.
Going full force with getting home asap, she decided to shave five minutes off of her walk back by cutting through alleyways. Something she avoided for the obvious reasons. Muggers, rapists, drunk people, giant mutant rats raiding dumpsters, said giant mutants biting her and giving her some deathly disease, someone finding her passed out on a pile of garbage due to something related to any of those or not...
Still, she exited the several alleys despite these stigmas as planned, and was falling back into her autopilot daze as she approached the next one until she saw. A figure, walking into the alley before her. She thought nothing of it as they hadn't seemed to pay her any mind. Bad justification for an even moderately populated rural area, she knew. But the statistics of likelihood that nothing would happen were still on her side.
Halfway through, the oddly cloaked figure stopped. Causing her steps to falter.
But she, hesitantly, moved on nonetheless. A cloak wasn't practical attacking wear, she reasoned to herself. Besides, this wasn't city-city. If she screamed loud enough if she failed to just elbow the person where the sun didn't shine and make a getaway, someone would hear her. Maybe want to be a hero.
Assuming the figure had parts that would hurt if attacked where the sun didn't shine. Either way, she thought as she noticed what they were doing, the middle of a dark alley was an odd place to try and admire yourself in a mirror.
Just keep walking, you paranoid maniac, she scolded herself. Someone dressed in a gaudily green cloak was easily enough describable to the police. The young woman almost laughed aloud when she saw a soft light from what must have been a phone where their back was turned to her still. Apparently another perpetrator of the stopping. Paranoia dismissed then.
Almost dismissed.
She twitched but ignored it when the cloak billowed despite a lack of wind in the alley. It wasn't as if the person had seemed to react to her.
Yet suddenly, just as she was passing, her stomach turned and the ground wasn't there.
It must have only been a foot, two feet, that she dropped. But it didn't change the fact that drop she did, due to the disappearance of the ground.
It took her body a moment to register that she was falling. Even if it would have sooner and afforded her time to react, the surface she landed on wasn't solid. Bumps, softness, spaces where her foot slipped through.
She instantly fell onto her back with nothing stable to stand on. The bumps and mounds dug into her, bending her body over and around them at odd angles.
Before any of this could fully register in those first few moments, the sharper of the pains came spiraling to the forefront. Lashing from the initially pained spot on her upper arm like a flame eating fuel. Hungry, rabid, and burning.
It was difficult to focus on where she was, what happened, if moving was overly smart. The putrid rotting smell of the place registered just as her hand met a fur or felt-like texture she couldn't see to tell in the darkness and promptly fell through it with the slightest weight, hitting with a wet sound whatever was underneath it. She was already fighting back a retch between the pain and the timing of that sound with the smell, not even having to feel the slippery, malleable mass her hand had entered.
The rhetorical flames from the pain in her shoulder had spread to her entire body now, in the matter of the seconds since she'd fallen. She felt her body shaking uncontrollably, and for a moment wasn't sure that she wasn't actually on fire, a gray film over her vision.
What must have been not even five seconds after the drop, her eyes had just enough time to see the very dimly lit ceiling vanish. The sudden light blinded her for a moment. A moment, as there was someone knelt next to her now. She recognized the cloak of the stopped figure first as they leaned over her. Her eyes were just confused enough between adjusting to darkness one moment, and the figure was at such an angle to the light, that she could see their face.
And recognized it.
As the man with the army of aliens that had attacked Manhattan.
Her heart lurched.
She didn't know his name, hadn't seen him outside of fast moving videos and sub-par pictures. But as it was also supported by the near out of place cloak, she was almost completely sure it was him. The man firing down at the streets in Manhattan. The man in an amateur cell phone video ordering a crowd in Germany to kneel, moments after dispatching a police cruiser.
The young woman wondered when the floor had become solid as she raised an arm in what was all she could do in the way of self defense. Her body didn't allow her to do anything more, other arm too crippled with still escalating burning, at the pain-that she could experience this much pain in the matter of what couldn't have started more than ten seconds ago-of her joints feeling excruciatingly strained then cracking, to drag herself up now that she had purchase. Mind so sure her life was about to end if she didn't do something as she saw his hands raise with a glowing film.
She felt her mouth open at the same time as the gray darkening, but wasn't sure if she cried out, due to the ringing-turning-hissing growing to deafening levels in her ears. Which was what alerted her to the spots crowding out her vision. The green clad figure in one part of her vision, her distorting hand, nails blackening and elongating, in another.
Darkness took her.
