They walked for some time until they got to the nearest town. It was small, quaint, but neither of them seemed to attract much attention to Loki's relief. He'd asked Natasha what year it was, and she'd told him that it was the late fifties. The 1950s. It had been centuries since he'd really mingled with the other humans; when he normally came to Midgard it was to watch the way the sun crested over the snow capped mountains, or to feel the rush of the ocean as it washed over him on the beach. He looked over at Natasha and smiled at the thought. They could go there. They should. She deserved to be on a beach somewhere, lying carefree and happy in the sun, sipping wine or nibbling at fruit from a tray. She deserved a charmed life after everything she'd been through. He could read it in the lines around her eyes, faint but just enough for him to see, and the way she held herself said infinitely more. She was protective, standing a little closer to him whenever they passed a particularly burly looking man, though she kept her face stoic. He gave her hand a squeeze, glad now that she'd washed it off by melting snow to get rid of the evidence. It would have garnered them too much attention.

Loki bought them a room in a small hotel down the road, a one-bedroom that made the man at the counter give them a wide grin as he passed them their key. Not for the first time was Loki grateful for the Allspeak that allowed him to understand and converse back in fluent Russian, as though he'd spoken the language all his life. He hadn't even noticed it happening at first, if he was honest with himself, though it was the only way he was able to understand Natasha before. The man behind the counter winked before the pair walked off, making Natasha shudder and Loki wrapped his arm around her shoulders, holding her closer. She leaned into his touch as they walked up the stairs towards the third floor.

The room was small, with the one bed taking up most of the space on the garish blue floor, the walls a hideous pattern of bright blues, deep greens, and a mix of yellow thrown in there. Natasha seemed to think the same thing, rolling her eyes as she set down the meager bag of things she'd thought to bring with her from the base. It had fit into a medium sized bag, and she started pulling out clothing of her own, folded small enough to fit within the small confines. She excused herself to the shower, letting out a murmured noise of discontent as she stepped into the bathroom. If this room was any indication of what to expect, Loki expected it would be garish. Whatever the mortals thought they knew about design was entirely wrong.

While Natasha was gone Loki perched on the armchair in the furthest corner of the room, anticipating this being his spot for the evening. Not that he minded; it was right that Natasha had the bed. She needed it more than he did, and he'd slept in much worse conditions. His eyes looked to the door of the shower and listened hard. It didn't seem like she would be out any time soon, and so he closed his eyes and relaxed in the chair, trying to send his magic out, trying to feel out for something else, to see if anyone was tracking them. He'd done his best to keep his magic minimal, using a simple glamor to change a few scraps of useless paper into money to pay for the room. Small magic wouldn't get them noticed, but anything big or extravagant? It would be what the Allfather and Heimdall would be looking for, and Loki wasn't ready to go back to Asgard. Not yet, not until he made good on his word to keep Natasha safe and take care of her.

He relaxed in his seat when his searches were inconclusive. It was likely that his absence wasn't even noticed on Midgard. He'd been gone for a week in one of the caves far away within the forests of Asgard before they realized he was gone, and even then it was because Thor hadn't seen him in any of their training sessions, not because he'd missed him. A week's head start, at least, would get them far enough he hoped, so long as he was able to keep a low enough profile.

"Natasha?"

"Yes, Loki?" She'd just come out of the shower, hair falling in wet rings down to her shoulder, padding on bare feet back over to the bed. Her eyes met his, gaze curious and more relaxed than he'd seen her look since he met her.

"Will our presence here be seen as different? Considering we are not fully grown, two young people staying without any adults will not garner any extra attention, will it?" He had no idea what this world's concepts of propriety were anymore. When he'd last visited and dealt with the other mortals it had been centuries ago, when they'd still worshipped him as a god, too fearful of the repercussions of spurning his attention to refuse him the proper tribute. That had been more of Thor's area of expertise, though, not Loki's. If they were going to grovel he wanted it to be out of respect and adoration, not simply out of duty.

Natasha's laugh was a warm blanket on a cold night, covering him as she smiled over at where he sat. "Loki, these are the fifties. No one cares about anything like propriety any more."

She sounded as though she'd lived through more decades than she'd let on and he looked up at her, green eyes curious as he took her in, from the oversized shirt she was wearing to the long pants that fell over her feet, obviously too big for her, as though she was trying to lose herself in her clothing. "In comparison to what?"

Natasha gave a quiet sigh, pulling the blankets around her slowly. She took off the top one and threw it to Loki, who caught it with a murmured thanks. "I've lived a lot longer than I look like I have," she told him. "In the Red Room they were testing a serum on humans. A serum to make what are considered super soldiers. The Americans managed to perfect it, and so the Russians wanted to match them. I don't age the same way that normal humans do. I should be in my twenties," she admitted with a sigh. "The older I grow age-wise the slower my body begins to age. I'll be sixteen looking for some time. By the time I hit my middle to late forties, year wise, assuming the serum doesn't stop working, I'll have nearly quit aging entirely. I'll look like I'm twenty for quite some time. At least that's how it's been with the others that I've heard about. This is just a knock off," she admitted. She pulled the blanket she'd kept tight around her, sealing her legs in and cocooning herself in the blankets, as though they were made of steel and would keep her safe. He didn't doubt that she felt that way, as though she could keep everything out so long as she was protected from all angles, like the bad in life would simply be repelled by the cover of a blanket; it was a shield against all the evil she'd endured, a way of keeping the good inside and the bad out. He understood that entirely, having already been halfway through doing the same thing as they were talking. Great minds and all that, he supposed.

"Hey, Loki?" The voice sounded from the middle of the blanket cocoon she'd woven for herself, and the top of her head poked out, her eyes locking on his for a moment.

"Yes, Natasha?"

"Thank you."

He smiled and bowed his head, curling his body further as he tried to find the most comfortable position to fall asleep.

He doesn't dream once he's finally asleep, but he could feel Thor reaching out to him, wondering where he is, as the Allfather tried to track him down. He'd thought he'd had much more time than this-how as it that they'd found out so quickly? He caught a glimpse of his brother's face, riddled with worry and concern, calling out to Loki from the small basin where he, or someone else, was scrying.

No.

He forced himself awake with a start just in time to hear the pounding of footsteps up the stairs. The sound jolted Natasha awake as well, and she looked up towards him. He put a finger to his lips and motioned to the small closet that had been afforded them. Natasha nodded and crept over there with Loki just behind. Except he closed the door on her, leaving it open a crack, as he walked around the room to try and set it right, to make it look like she hadn't slept there and that only he had.

The knock on the door jolted him upright, coiling his muscles like a spring as he looked at the door.

"Sir? I know you're in there. Open the door, please." It was the voice of the man who'd sold he and Natasha the room. "You and your girlfriend need to get dressed and let us in, sir."

"Alright, give me a minute," he said as he quickly glamored himself into something less conspicuous, modeling it after what he'd seen the others they'd passed wearing. It was scratchy and uncomfortable but he didn't know why he'd not thought about it before. Idiot. It wasn't that there were a pair of young adults staying in a room that had alerted them to something different, but Loki himself. But there wasn't time to mull over that for very long and, swallowing hard, he crossed over to the room just as he heard the key fit into the lock.

"I'm coming," he said, sounding agitated as he closed his hand over the door knob and, after undoing the deadbolt, pulled the it open. The man from the front desk stared at him, flanked by two men wearing badges that Loki had recognized.

Shit. They'd found them.

The two men from the Red Room pulled out guns without waiting a moment, and while one shot the hotel worker the other pointed the gun at Loki and shot through the door that the prince had just shut. Natasha was out of her hiding place in a moment, though Loki beckoned her back even as the door flew open. The guns were pointed at the pair within a moment, and though Loki had nothing to fear his eyes flew to Natasha, trying to figure out how to best handle the situation so that she wasn't hurt. There was a chance, now that both men were prepared, that they would shoot her first the moment that Loki made a move, and no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the threat was issued. Loki held his hands up, raising them to his eye level so that they knew he wasn't armed, and the one who was closest to him kicked him down and onto his back, the barrel of the gun pressed to his temple. That might hurt, Loki thought, if the man could pull the trigger fast enough. His eyes focused, instead, on Natasha, who'd just taken a blow to the face from the butt of the gun. She bit down on her tongue to stop from making noise, and when she pulls her face back to glare at the man her eyes are pure ice. Loki watched the man lead her forward by the elbow towards the door, growling that she was going to have a whole hell of a lot more to worry about than just a scratch on her temple, when the god kicked the other man away and latched onto Natasha's ankle. He shot the man holding her backwards before he could do much else and the pair of them disappeared from the small hotel.

Even before he opened his eyes he could hear that there was something very wrong with where they'd ended up. Above him birds were cawing, calling out to one another in search of food, while the soft roar of water and tang of salt flooded his brain, too. He felt sand beneath his fingertips as his hands clenched, and when he finally opened his eyes and sat up he was staring out at aquamarine waters and breathing in the hot tropical air around them. His heavy winter clothing felt too cumbersome, but it wasn't what worried him the most. Beside him Natasha was stirring, groaning quietly as one hand moved towards her head. It was still bleeding, steadily, and as she finally let on how much it had hurt Loki moved closer to take her hand. He only let himself breathe when she squeezed his back and her eyes opened up to stare at him.

"Where are we?" She asked, voice hoarse as her eyes moved from his to the beyond-blue sky above them. Loki swallowed hard.

"I don't know." He said. But that had been big magic. Very, very big. "But we can't stay here long."

A/N: No longer a one-shot because my brain just won't let it go! Again, many thanks to Desiree for the prompt that inspired this all, and I hope you continue to enjoy this!