7. Mail Call

. . .

Loki let the curtain go with aching slowness, settling it back into place with a single finger. He could still see the two bulky shapes down on the lawn of the apartment complex. He could tell both were studying the game he rigged for them. "That'll keep this pair busy a while yet. I think there might be several others elsewhere in proximity, however." There were a few more cars arriving around the fringes of the building, but he couldn't be sure of the purpose of their occupants. Still, he looked for ways to keep the route between the door of the building and their vehicle clear of their hunters. If he had a little fun doing it, all the better.

He could hear Simmons rustling through the piles of stacked mail by the television behind him. "What did you do?"

"There's a tall man in a dark navy suit on the other side of the parking lot, and he looks almost – but not quite – entirely unlike me. He'll examine the building for a while, and then he will pace off with firm purpose down a narrow side street, the hallmark of a fumblingly obvious intelligence agent. Purely bait. The two below by the door are fixated already, and will likely follow him to try and beat information out of him. They cannot know it's only a ghost and it will evade them. It should be quite frustrating." He turned to smile at Simmons, an amused jackal's grin. "I like this part of the job."

"You would." She rushed her gloved hands through the tossed papers, trying not to think about the people that might already be inside the complex looking for them. "Nothing here. I'll start the next room. You don't think any of them will come up to the room to search?"

"Might do, but they won't find us." Loki decided against telling her that if he was so inclined to be sure a location was safe from an enemy's search for hints, he would have simply destroyed the entire floor with them in it. Pointless to alarm her. The scenario was unlikely here. These interferers seemed insistent on being relatively subtle for humans. Still, he crossed the room to check out the hall again. He could hear the creaks of other humans in their homes, doing whatever they did in the dead of night.

A moment later - "Loki?" Her voice was hushed but urgent, catching his attention. "Back here, please."

He shut the door with a careful pull, silencing the click of its locks with a wave of his hand and keeping his pace almost as quiet as he passed through the doorway into a tiny bedroom.

Simmons looked up at him from the far side, well away from the window. The room was fastidiously neat, the open closet revealing a set of variously colored scrubs and sweaters and boxes full of medical texts. He scanned all this quickly before he saw her raise her latex-gloved hand, the thick envelope pinched carefully between her fingers. "You think?" she asked him, still hushed but hopeful.

He dug in his pocket for the set of gloves she'd pressed on him and tugged them on, reaching out to take it from her. His eyes narrowed at the weight of it. Naturally plain, rough paper, passingly like a child's canvas for crayon art. The front of it was unmarked, no address, only the dents of the dead nurse's fingernails near the edge. Flipping it over revealed that it was unsealed, slit carefully open along the gummy flap. "Yes, I do. Did you look inside?"

Simmons shook her head, tugging into her jacket pocket for a plastic evidence bag. "If given an option, I'd prefer to in a controlled state. Don't know what might be contained. What if it's not merely a letter?"

He arched an eyebrow in agreement, no stranger to valuable paranoia himself. When she had the bag ready, he passed the envelope back to her to be sealed tight inside. Then he put his hand on his pocket, feeling it buzz sharply in a particular cadence. They'd taught him that was a priority notice, one to be examined as quickly as possible. From the look on Simmons' face, she'd just received the same thing.

While she secured the envelope inside her coat, he tugged out his phone to see what the matter was. The first thing he saw were the uploaded photographs from the late Mr. Stutgart. He studied the rugged cuts along the spine. "Well, that's unpleasant."

Simmons glanced up at him and he flashed the screen at her before returning to scan the attached notification and marking what seemed important. "Ugh. There goes physical evidence." She shook her head. "Quick saw through the spine and a flesh scrape. Scoop and dash. Dirty technique, but I suppose they got what they wanted. What's the rest?"

"More of these interlopers are local, which is not news. However, we're to skip this morgue and save ourself further trouble. She's verified that the same has been done to the nurse and quite likely the station owner. New order is to meet her at this designated location in... West Virginia. As soon as possible." He read off the destination to her.

"Hah." Simmons shook her head and buttoned her light blue coat shut. "There's a little laugh under the circumstances. Just up the road from Quantico, actually. Well, at least we found some of what we came for." She arched an eyebrow at him. "Think the two below have slipped off? We need to get moving. It's some hours on the road to make the meet."

He moved closer to the window to peer down through the veil of the curtain, not touching it. "The two have, but we ought to be careful leaving. There's definitely more out there now, looking for anything out of place."

"Can you just make us invisible till we get to the car or something?"

"I'd prefer not until I must." He tilted his head, looking for a wider view and being careful to not rustle the curtains. "Better to save the energy in case of real need. I'll mask us if I see watchers, though."

"You're being freshly cautious."

"This new faction killed that unctuous medical examiner," said Loki, in the tone of a bored clerk. He didn't notice her sharp gasp, too busy picking out darker shadows against the wall of the building and marking their tracks. "That so much is irrelevant to me, but for the knowledge that they will strike at need. I said I'd avoid us conflict, I'm trying to do that."

She said his name, her voice chiding.

He rolled a grey-green eye over at her and pulled away from the window. "Oh, what? I'm not going to weep for him. They used him cruelly and they tossed him aside. Cold work, yes, and perhaps not particularly deserved."

Simmons shook her head. She understood that he wasn't human and wouldn't react to all things the same as she might, but still. The brusqueness in him was an unbreakable wall, a startling reminder. "He was a rude old man, but I hate when people get hurt in our wake. No, Loki, it's not deserved at all."

The frozen thing in him held firm. "I'm simply not going to get wrought up over every piece of collateral damage that crosses my road. You don't mark out a lifespan like mine and permit that, you'd go mad." He shrugged, gesturing for her to follow him out of the room and towards the entry of the tiny apartment. "I think we've all hadquite enough of me going mad, regardless of the reasoning. Might we go, please?"

. . .

There were more of them in the building, footsteps tracing slow paths through stairwells and crisscrossing the halls. Simmons tugged him down an unused and creaky staircase that he muted as best he could. "Why are they coming now? Just bad luck?"

"Don't know. Might be they're guessing who's in play against them and are stepping up in accordance. Backtracking the victims is your standard investigative playbook, and not just SHIELD's, correct?" She nodded up at him. "Then it may well occur to them to lay traps around the other corpses and see what foxes come running to feed. It's what I would do."

She couldn't help a little exasperated sarcasm, still thinking ruefully of the dead examiner. "The list of things you would do in a similar circumstance is vast and occasionally disturbing."

He went dead quiet for a moment, while she regretted the sharpness of her tone. When he talked, his voice was steady and calm, his attention firmly on their surroundings. "When we get out of here, please don't harass me all night for the crime of not being a human or I'm going to spend my revenge telling you just how many people my famed brother kills without remorse on a good week." He shook his head, moving down the staircase and listening to distant rustling. "Enough. There's a pair moving close. I might have to burn some fair energy after all, to keep that promise I made."

. . .

He did have to. Three more men in plain suits passed dangerously close to them in the lobby, not realizing that the still air next to the elevators held the targets they sought. Simmons remained close in his wake, the proximity making the costly spell, that tangling, multi-layered veil of invisibility, easier for him to weave around them. He maintained the shimmer of empty air without a crack for long, straining minutes, although he was forced to waver it to get the automated door to permit them through. More chancy finagling, an art built from centuries of practice. That drew a puzzled glance from some of their pursuers, and he pulled at Simmons' arm to hurry her before the others came too close. And then the next warning - "We're going to run through the lot."

"Are you certain?" She didn't bother to keep the worry out of her voice.

"I want to spare myself enough energy to keep the vehicle changing in case, and I've else in mind besides. I'm not a battery. I can't run complicated magic for days, much less hours, without costs." He watched, waiting for the closest patrol to turn away. "Go!"

. . .

"Drive!" was his next snapped command as they tumbled into the vehicle. Three armed men in plain suits were charging across the lot at them. No shots were fired yet; they'd both done what they could to ensure no clear aim, but now they were sitting targets. "Don't worry about what I'm about to do, just push the damned thing."

Simmons didn't think, she reacted, slamming the gearshift into position and picking out the fastest route away from the building as the passenger door slammed shut. Defensive driving had been one of her least favorite training courses at the Hub, but it didn't mean she scored poorly at it. The tires screeched as she gunned it, pulling the durable vehicle over a curb to cut a turn. Next to her, Loki muttered something. A enormous flash of light filled the parking lot behind them, nearly startling her into jerking the wheel. Her training held firm and she grit her teeth, pulling them onto a main road past a tree line. As far as their pursuers knew, they'd vanished.

"I changed the vehicle's illusion as well," said Loki, slumping a little into the seat. A hand passed over his face. She glanced at him and saw a tiny line of weary grey under the eyes, like those of a marathon runner in need of a sip of salty water. "You're fine now to travel normally. And if you happen to see a late night sandwich shop that's not made of plastics and despair, kindly let me know."

"Did you hurt them?"
When he spoke again, his voice was snappish. "No I damned well didn't hurt them. Spots in their eyes for days and I startled the entire building no doubt, but I didn't hurt the wee fragile creatures with the guns pointed at us."

"That's not-" She shook her head, fighting to calm down her adrenaline. She pulled the SUV into the slow lane, steadying her breathing and trying to figure out where the freeway she was going to need was. Abruptly she noticed the front hood of the car was a new and common-looking deep red, replacing the dingy Chevy. "I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to pick a fight."

"Weren't you?" He slumped further.

She inhaled once, then exhaled. Her heart finally slowed down to something more normal while she tried to think from his side. To him, she clearly had. To him, her question followed from the events before. She shook her head. "I truly wasn't. I am sorry."

He finished rubbing at his face, not looking at her. "Do you think I'm overly fond of how brief human life is? Do you think for a second that does not and will not trouble me, having chosen willingly to stay?"

Simmons looked stricken. "No... I never thought of that."

"And why would you?" He sighed, leaning a little to fish out his phone. "You cannot parallel our moralities so easily. And I simply cannot spare what little I have to give for those lives I pass even more briefly. I can't."

Simmons glanced at him again after absorbing that, watching in new disbelief as his fingers flicked through the list of addresses. "That's not-"

He looked up, the corner of his mouth forming the start of a wry smile. "Yes. Skye's list of pizza places she so kindly put on my phone. There's apparently one yet open just a few miles from here." By way of offering a truce, his voice became comically defeated. "I give up. Feed me disgusting chemicals and cheese. I'm starving. I'll even offer a dissertation about why true-weave invisibility is so wearying if that'll get me a large one."

She found herself laughing. "Double pepperoni."

"Gods. I'm going to be ill."

. . .

The morning sun was sharp and bright when they pulled into West Virginia. These roads were familiar to Simmons, and she took back roads towards the old industrial neighborhood only miles away from the headquarters of the FBI. Loki watched curiously out of the window, less tired than he'd been just a few hours before due to both a pizza he declared moderately horrifying and a catnap. "Looks suitably like nothing."

"Underneath the refinery is an old SHIELD storehouse, a biological one. I did a little training there, but we don't use it much lately. We can't. It's too close to the agency and so we must be subtle." She drove past, drawing a glance from him. That got another smile. "If we pulled up, the residential security would go on full alert for intruders. The actual entrance is up a few blocks yet. We can be a little clever, when we like."

"Just a little."

. . .

May was waiting for them inside the alley entrance. "You can brief me on your trip in a bit. I just barely beat you here. I know my contact's inside, but we haven't had a chance to talk much yet past a few texts. Tried to give a warning." The last was said with a flicker up at the bemused face of the demigod. "So, I'm just going to say this: I've got it under control. If something happens, let me handle it."

She led them in, down through dim corridors that connected one seemingly dead business with another. Past a triple-lock door and a tired-looking security team. And down into the colder floors, tightly-sealed glass doors revealing numbered and ordered contents.

The one she settled on was downright freezing. Simmons tugged her coat closer around herself as May let them into a titanium-lined vault, whistling softly in a greeting at the back of the woman inside. Her long red hair was knotted up, wisps of it reaching the shoulders of a plain black jacket. "Nat."

The slim figure turned and then crossed black-clad arms tight across her chest. There was a blade just barely visible inside one thick cuff. Simmons felt her eyes open wide, certain she had not actually heard Loki behind her whispering the words 'Hel and shit incarnate.'

Natasha Romanoff's eyes flickered first to May in pure disbelief, and then up to Loki's face where he stood behind Agent Simmons, the stare narrowing into something deadly sharp. Her voice was a threat. "I thought you were kidding, Mel."