Morning found Loki back down in the basement, hunched over a table with a mess strewn around him. He'd found a hacksaw down in one of the corners, and had used it to cut a large stick into thin disks. He had ruined his knife beyond repair, shaping the disks to smooth out the harder corners and carving sigils into both faces of each one. With a small drill he'd found near the saw, he bore holes into each one, just big enough to fit the chain from their dog tags.
When Morita made his way down to the basement to gather up the last of anything he might need for their mission, he stopped to watch Loki fill in one of the sigils with a fountain pen, carefully darkening the lines he'd carved into it.
"What are you doing, Olson?" Morita asked.
Loki hardly looked up and tossed him one he'd already finished. "Put that on your tags. It will offer protection in battle."
Morita looked at the carved disk, turning it over in his hands. It was little more than an inch across, with Ægishjálmur on one side and an intricate shield knot on the other, both designs darkened with black ink. Humming distantly at it, Morita pulled his tags from under his shirt and unfastened the catch so he could feed the chain into the hole.
"Does it work?" he asked.
Loki shrugged, forgiving him his scepticism. It was in their nature to be sceptical. "My people believe it does," he said.
"Good enough for me." Morita dropped his tags back under his shirt and picked up the box he'd come down for. "They're handing out costumes upstairs. Time to go."
"Once more unto the breach," Loki sighed to himself. He finished the final sigil and gathered up the rest, following Morita back up the stairs.
Everything was abuzz with activity as the squad readied itself to leave the relative safety of Italy and return to Austria. Howlett was standing up on a chair while Dugan crouched at his ankles, hastily fixing the length of his trousers so he didn't look quite so much like he was wearing a stolen uniform. For a moment, Morita watched the two of them, leaving to go get changed with a heavy sigh.
"You sleep at all last night, Olson?" Rogers asked, handing him a uniform of his own.
"About an hour," Loki admitted. He took the uniform and exchanged it for the sigils. "Have the men put these on their tags."
Rogers looked down at the carved disks for a moment before nodding. "All right."
Loki nodded in return and went back to his bunk to get changed. He realised he'd left his glasses on the table the night before, but no-one else seemed to have noticed. Fortunately, they were all far too busy with their own tasks. Loki quickly changed into his SS uniform, arranging it as he remembered seeing them in photographs, months earlier while still in training. He made sure every line was perfect, every crease flattened, and took the time to comb his hair, parting it off to one side in what he hoped was a professional-looking manner. He had no idea what his collar rank meant, with the Sig runes on one side, and three pips in a diagonal row on the other, only able to hope that whoever had scrounged up the uniforms had paid attention to the ranks of their squad.
He slid his glasses on, making sure they were as straight as they could be, before walking out of the room with all the commanding authority he could muster. The room went very suddenly quiet around him, with all eyes turning to him in stunned surprise. Grinning wryly, Loki clasped his hands behind his back lazily.
"Guten morgen," he greeted the room.
"Fucking hell. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were actually in the SS," Dugan said, slowly standing. His own uniform had been hastily assembled, with the collar open at his neck and creased all over. It was the same with everyone else who had already put theirs on.
"I do believe that was the point," Loki said. He dropped the character he'd slipped into and relaxed his posture, giving off the impression of being no more than a man in a costume. He looked around the room and chewed his lip. "Luckily for the rest of you, you've a classically-trained actor to whip you into shape."
He started making rounds through the room, straightening collars and fixing creases as he came to each man.
"You're SS," he told them all. "Only the best are chosen for these ranks, and you're all better than everyone in the room. And you know it."
He fixed Pinkerton's shoulder straps, turning them the right way round.
"You are all kings amongst peasants, and you should be telling them without words to drop to their knees and grovel at your feet."
Around him, everyone straightened their backs just a little more and hardened their expressions. Loki smiled.
"Better," he said.
He turned and tried not to frown at Coulson, who still hadn't changed into his uniform, and sat glowering at it instead. Loki sat down next to him, leaning in close so they wouldn't be overheard.
"Are you backing out?" he asked.
Coulson shifted his jaw. "No," he said after a moment.
Loki nodded. "It's unpleasant. I know. We all hate it." He watched Coulson mull over his choices, knowing he'd make the right one. "Did Captain Rogers give you a sigil?" he asked.
Coulson pulled his tags out from under his shirt, showing the disk next to them.
"I was wondering where you went last night," he said.
"Couldn't sleep," Loki told him. He dragged his hand down his chest, feeling the lines of his own sigil on his tags. "When this is over, I am going to go home and sleep for a week."
Coulson actually laughed at that. "I believe it. I think I might do the same."
Loki nodded. For a moment, he considered trying to feed Coulson another cheap one-liner, but got back to his feet instead. Leaving Coulson with a brief but steadying hand on his shoulder, Loki made his way over to help Dugan re-fit Morita's uniform.
"What's his problem?" Dugan asked, trying to nod subtly at Coulson.
Loki cast a quick glance back before meeting Dugan in the eye. "He's Jewish." Loki still wasn't entirely sure what that really meant. It was just another human religion to him, but one which had come up again and again during the course of this war.
Dugan and Morita both understood far better than Loki did, and answered only by nodding. While Dugan bent to fix the length of Morita's trousers, Loki helped him use some old sleeve garters to fix the length of his shirt sleeves. But it wasn't just the shorter soldiers in their squad having problems. Both Dugan and Rogers were a bit too big for their uniforms — problems that were not so easily solved with quick hem jobs and accessories that had been decades out of fashion.
"What a group we make, huh?" Dugan said suddenly. "A Canuck, two limeys—"
"I am from Iceland," Loki cut in.
Dugan snorted and continued unabated. "A Jew—"
"Yeah, we get the point," Morita said, effectively cutting him off.
"And a man who spent too much time in his mother's sewing room," Loki chimed in.
"Yeah, who asked you, Olson?" Dugan asked, ignoring Morita's laughter.
"The same man who called me English," Loki answered. He stood back while Morita put on his jacket, the sleeves of which were also entirely too long. "Who found these uniforms? Half of them don't even fit."
Even his own was a bit loose around the waist, but at least the trousers were the right length. Morita's uniform was all around too big, but even Loki knew that in reality, his uniform was the least of his problems.
"This is gonna get us all killed," Morita muttered.
"I'll put in a good word to the Valkyries for you," Loki said. He finished hitching up Morita's sleeves as best he could, but it was still obvious that the uniform wasn't meant to be worn by him.
"You really believe that stuff, don't you?" Dugan asked. He looked up at Loki, not sure if he should be confused or impressed.
"I do." He stepped back to get a better look at Morita's uniform and shook his head. "This had better not get us all killed."
While everyone else milled about, packing their gear and checking their equipment, Loki sought out Bruttenholm. He was outside, watching as Alfedena slowly came to life. Many of the soldiers here were transitory, either waiting to be invalided out, or fresh from the replacement depots and waiting for their final orders. There wasn't a lot to be done, with the line in shambles and even the Axis powers still scrambling to regroup after Hydra's attack.
Loki stood next to Bruttenholm for a long moment, drawing the occasional wary look from the few soldiers out on the streets.
"This one's better," he said, handing Bruttenholm one of the last of his carved sigils.
Bruttenholm took it and nodded. Being a civilian consultant attached to the mission, he wasn't given a uniform of his own, outside of a heavy German overcoat to make him look like he belonged with the rest of them. One of the stolen Opels was going to be their primary mode of transport, and from where Loki and Bruttenholm stood, they could see Howard Stark and a small team doing their best to fix it up before they moved out.
"I don't suppose we have many German-speakers among us," Bruttenholm asked warily.
Loki looked back toward the house. "Jones, apparently. And me. In a way."
Bruttenholm nodded. "Two out of ten. I've seen worse numbers."
It was an effort for Loki not to laugh. He felt like he was starting to reach a point where everything about the war had worn him so thin that his nerves had completely frayed, and the only thing holding him together was the idea that he might actually survive one more day. Everything was one day at a time. Every man in the squad lived each day for the night , and nothing more. It was all they could do to keep from breaking down completely.
Bruttenholm knew none of this; not like Loki did. He'd spent the majority of the war in Churchill's Underground, only recently being embedded with units. He looked up at Loki with a question he didn't dare ask on his face. It wasn't exactly hard to read though, and when Loki saw it, he shook his head and looked toward the heavens.
"I am not who you think I am," he said. Bruttenholm's confusion only grew. "I was named after an idiot. One who apparently did terrible things to fish. I'd ask about the story behind that, but I'm not sure I want to know."
He looked away, wondering if the knowledge would be worth it, or if he'd just wind up with a life-long mental scar.
"But you…" Bruttenholm struggled to frame his question.
"I am. I'm just not that one." Loki looked down at the faint scar that ran across his palm, barely visible unless one knew to look for it. The scar from when Thor had hastily and improperly tried to swear a blood oath between them. Before he was able to say anything else, Coulson walked out to stand next to them, wearing his SS uniform along with an expression of pure venom. Loki looked over at him, almost impressed that Coulson had gone along with this plan at all.
"Your hair is a mess," he said, reaching over to try to tame it with his fingers.
"I'm kinda glad we're going through Germany now," Coulson said, almost calmly despite everything. He stood still, letting Loki mess with his hair as much as he wanted. "I am going to stab Hitler in the fucking eye."
Loki tried not to laugh, and failed. "I shall give you the knife to do it with," he promised.
Coulson actually smiled. "See, this guy's got my back at least." He gave Loki a friendly backhand to his chest as he leaned forward to better see Bruttenholm. "We took a hell of a pounding on Christmas Eve. A bunch of us wound up in some Nazi work camp, and this son of a bitch jumped into Austria to come get us. Ain't even jump qualified, and he didn't think twice about it."
Loki cringed and shook his head. "He wasn't there in the plane with me. I thought more than twice when I was looking out that hatch at the sight of Austria exploding underneath me."
Coulson snorted and shook his head. "Hey, why aren't we just jumping in, anyway? Sounds like it would be a hell of a lot easier."
Further down the road, Howard Stark and his team finished up with the Opel and made their way back to his plane.
"Because nobody's jump qualified," Loki said, watching the activity from where he stood.
"Told you we shouldda signed up for airborne." Coulson shifted uncomfortably in his uniform, tugging on the hem of his jacket. Loki reached out to still him, knowing that if he got in the habit of fidgeting with it, he'd never stop. "I heard those guys are still in training. Can you believe that? Guys that signed up at the same time we did are still back in the States, not getting shot at. I don't get why. You jumped already. Why won't they let us?"
"Because I went AWOL," Loki told him. He frowned at what looked like Stark loading up his aeroplane for take-off. "I wasn't supposed to be there anyway."
He forgot all about their conversation and started walking down the road to Stark. Coulson followed after him, offering a quick parting wave to Bruttenholm. As they walked down the road, several of the soldiers who were out stopped what they were doing to stare at the two of them in their SS uniforms. One man even started to raise his gun, stopped only by the solider next to him.
"Mister Stark," Loki greeted levelly as they approached the aeroplane.
Stark looked up from his checks, eyebrows raised curiously. "I heard about this plan of yours, but I didn't think it was serious," he said.
"Apparently it was," Coulson said irritably. He sized up the aeroplane, looking up at its polished fuselage. "Did you have other plans?" He was hopeful for anything to get him out of the uniform he was wearing.
Stark smiled apologetically. "Headed off to London. They want me analysing that Hydra tech you guys brought back from Austria. Figure we might be able to fight fire with fire, you know."
Coulson and Loki both failed to hide their disappointment.
"But hey," Stark continued. "We loaded up that truck of yours. Nothing too fancy, but it should help you get across the border."
Loki ignored the way Coulson was frowning. "Thank you. For all your help." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the last remaining sigil. He handed it to Stark as he clapped the man firmly on the shoulder. "For all your safe travels, my friend."
Stark returned the gesture and nodded. "You too. Look me up when this is all over. Both of you."
Coulson nodded. "Thanks, man." He offered his hand, and Stark took it in a firm shake. "I owe you a drink, at the very least."
"I'll hold you to that." He nodded before stepping away to finish checking over his aircraft before taking to the skies.
Loki and Coulson left him to it, and completely out of other options, returned to finish packing their gear before moving out.
hr
No-one sang or joked as they wound their way along loose roads and steep trails, cutting as inconspicuous a path as possible through Northern Italy. The lumbering, two-tonne truck hadn't been built with mountain roads in mind, and those in the cabin had just as rough a ride as the rest in the back.
Loki held the map, navigating for Barnes as he drove. Rogers sat on Loki's right, stiff-backed and looking every bit like the German officer he was pretending to be. Despite the size of the truck, the cabin was still feeling a bit tight with the three of them sat next to one another and their weapons by their feet. Being the slimmest, Loki got stuck in the middle, right in the way of the gearstick. So Barnes could use it, Loki kept his knees apart, trying to also keep his foot out of Barnes' way. No matter how he sat, every time Barnes shifted gears, he nearly put the gearstick right into Loki's groin.
"Watch it, would you?" Loki snapped, jumping so hard he smacked his head on the rear window frame.
He refolded the map so it wasn't taking up quite as much room while the other two snorted quietly.
"What?" Loki asked.
Rogers actually started laughing.
"Well, if you didn't insist on putting them right there," Barnes said.
"Putting what where?" Coulson asked through the cabin's open rear window.
Loki was in no mood to deal with it. "Shut up, Ray," he said, twisting back to try to slap Coulson. He missed.
"Olson's just a little testy because I can't switch gears without getting to second base," Barnes said, loudly enough for those in the back to hear. It got several quiet titters from them.
"Hey, while we're on the subject of Olson's balls, can we pull over? I gotta take a leak," Howlett called out, soon followed by almost everyone else asking to stop as well.
"We'll stop as soon as we get to some more even terrain. This thing'll never start on a hill," Barnes said, shifting gears again.
Loki was certain that Barnes' fist in his groin was intentional that time. He shifted so he could guard himself with his hand.
"Buck, do it again and I swear I will cut yours off," Loki threatened.
A few of the guys laughed again, but Loki ignored it. He was just sick of getting smacked every ten seconds.
"Hey, man, I'd listen to him," Morita chimed in, because apparently everyone had something to say all of a sudden. "He killed his drill sergeant in basic."
Loki looked to the heavens, wondering when the rumour had mutated to that capacity. Not in the mood to get into it, he ignored it as well. Barnes didn't seem quite so inclined to do the same.
"Wait, that really happened?" he asked, looking over quickly.
Loki rolled his eyes. "No," he said dryly.
"Never happened," Coulson said loudly. "Horton was just a little rattled, but that son of a bitch had it coming."
"Oh." Barnes shifted gears and hit Loki yet again, and the only reason Loki didn't punch him was because it actually seemed an accident this time.
He still wasn't happy about it, though. "Fuck this," he grumbled, throwing the map against the dash panel. He was beyond caring at this point, and if Rogers got a knee to the side of the face, so be it. Loki twisted and turned in his seat so he was on his knees, facing the rear window.
"Coming through," he announced, before crawling through the tiny space. Those closest to him moved over to give him room as he crashed gracelessly to the floor.
"How the hell'd you fit through that?" Dugan asked incredulously, eyeing Loki with disbelief.
"I can fit into anything I want to fit into," Loki said. He pulled himself up onto one of the benches along the side of the truck and leaned against the back of the cabin.
"Apparently," Dugan said.
They fell into silence again, but it wasn't the tense, stifling silence of before. Quiet conversations rose and fell as they bounced along the mountain road in the most indirect path to Austria they could find. It would take them ages to get there, but they were far less-likely to be spotted on the back roads.
As they neared the Austrian border, Barnes pulled over one last time to let Rogers and Loki switch places, so they could have at least one of their German-speakers in the front. They weren't sure what they were going to come across as night fell, but they were ready for anything. Bruttenholm was squirrelled away inconspicuously as possible, along with Morita and Jones, where they hoped no-one would see them, with the rest seated with their weapons beneath them, ready to be drawn.
Loki wanted to weave a concealment spell on all three of them, but he didn't trust the old Álfar magic not to give out on him unexpectedly, and he couldn't get close enough to work the seiðr on them. So hiding them in the darkened corners of the truck would have to do.
According to their map, which Loki read by weak torchlight, they were already beyond the Austrian border by the time the sun had set completely, and still they had come across little more than mountains and trees.
"I don't like this," Barnes said, just loud enough for Loki to hear him over the rumble of the engine. "Something seem off to you?"
Loki cast him a wary glance. "Just keep driving. There's a town up ahead. That's what I'm worried about."
It wasn't just the town up ahead that worried Loki. It was the town after that, and the town after that, with no way around any of them. Their out-of-the-way route was, for the time, an Alpine thoroughfare, connecting an entire line of villages to one another.
They could just see a sign on the side of the road announcing their imminent arrival to Weitlahnwald. Loki inhaled deeply and put the map down on the seat beside him, keeping his hand close to his sidearm.
"Look alive, gentlemen," Barnes called back to the rest.
The next bend they rounded found them at a checkpoint they'd all been expecting since the moment they rolled out of Alfedena. A soldier waved his torch back and forth and held his hand up, signalling them to stop. As they did, he walked up to the passenger window and shone his torch in at Bucky and Loki's faces. In the light, they could see his uniform, marking him as a Hydra soldier, rather than one of Hitler's. They hadn't expected Hydra's control to reach so far so soon, but even if they had, none of their soldiers had been captured for their uniforms to have been re-appropriated.
He looked back and forth between Loki and Bucky, letting his light fall to the insignia on Loki's collar.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, glaring in at them. His accent was different from the Germans Loki had heard before, up in Schmidt's fortress, so Loki imitated it right back at him.
"We are going to Berlin," Loki told him, taking care to make sure none of the men in the truck heard English when he spoke. "As part the effort to infiltrate the Führer's top ranks. Surely you were told of this?"
The soldier looked confused for a moment and once again shifted his gaze back and forth between the two of them.
"Berlin?" he asked, directing his question and his light at Barnes.
In that moment, Loki could see the plan fall apart completely. Barnes nodded curtly, not missing a beat, and responded, "Ja." With that single syllable in an accent that even Loki could hear as wrong, the soldier's confusion gave way to suspicion.
"Get out," he told Loki, opening the door.
Loki shot Barnes a glare that he couldn't hope to see in the dark and climbed out of the truck. He held himself stiffly, making sure the soldier knew he thought himself above this treatment. The soldier didn't care. He moved quickly to the back of the truck and pulled open the rear flap and shone his light in at the rest of the men in SS uniforms. For a very brief moment, Loki almost thought him convinced, until his light found Jones in the back corner. The solder turned back to Loki, and he knew it was all over.
"What is this?" the soldier demanded.
Loki laughed sheepishly, actually finding the way the young soldier didn't quite seem to know what to do just a little bit funny. The soldier looked back into the truck again and blew the whistle around his neck, sounding the alarm. Before the soldier ran out of breath, Loki drew his sidearm and fired two rounds into his chest and jumped up onto the rear bumper.
"Go, go, go!" he called out.
He pulled himself back into the truck as Barnes floored it, only to get thrown to the ground a few moments later as the truck suddenly stopped again.
"Why are we stopping?" Pinkerton shouted.
"Big problem!" Barnes shouted back.
Everyone leaned in toward the centre to look through the windows, seeing the big problem Barnes mentioned. A tank larger than anything any of them had ever seen slowly swung its canon around over the tops of the houses, zeroing in on the Opel.
"What the fuck is that?" several of them cried out at once.
"It doesn't matter! Get out of here!" Coulson shouted back.
Barnes threw the truck into reverse and turned sharply, trying to manoeuvre a three-point turn on the narrow dirt road without getting anyone killed. The ground itself shook as the giant tank began lumbering forward, easily crushing the houses as it tried to get a clear light of sight to the truck.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," Barnes shouted as he threw the truck into gear and turned as tightly as he could.
He drove flat-out back the way he came, while those in the back scrambled to find anything that might work against the massive machine that had started to follow after them. Dugan threw back the rear flaps, pulling the canvas cover almost completely off on the right side of the truck to clear their line of sight. Loki and Howlett both started firing their sidearms at it, but it did little good, and only emptied their magazines for nothing.
"Where's that stuff of Stark's?" Rogers called out. He pulled a long box from beneath the bench and opened it, finding something that looked almost like a rifle, but at the same time, nothing like one. He stood up, pushing the canvas cover out of his way, and braced himself against one of the supporting bars before firing the weapon. A flash of blue light exploded from the front of his weapon and shot through the air at the tank. While his aim was true, the shot did nothing to the integrity of the tank. He fired once more, hitting roughly the same spot, but it still barely left a scratch.
"Germany was a stupid idea! Whose fucking idea was this?" Dugan shouted as he emptied his rifle back at the tank.
"Argue later! Fight now!" Pinkerton pulled another of the Hydra weapons out from under the benches and started firing back at the tank as well.
While the Opel had the advantage of speed and manoeuvrability, the tank didn't seem to be taking any damage at all. Loki darted back to where Bruttenholm was huddled behind Jones, clutching his cane and looking around with wide owl eyes as the chaos erupted. Loki shot a glance up at everyone else, all focused on the fight behind them, before turning his attention back to Bruttenholm.
"Stay here," he said. Before Bruttenholm could object, Loki grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him into a kiss. If he could ensure one person would survive this mess, it would be the person who had already helped him the most. Luckily, Bruttenholm was too stunned to fight back, letting Loki work the magic he had only barely been able to achieve with everyone else. With the spell finished, Loki scrambled back to grab another of the Hydra weapons Stark had supplied them with.
This one was different. It seemed more like a mortar launcher, but hand-held. Not having the time to contemplate that, Loki stood up against a support bar and fired the device back at the tank. It kicked against him, shoving itself into his shoulder, and shoving him into the bar at his back. The blue energy it shot collided with the tank, but it was difficult to tell if it managed to deal any damage at all. Before he could try again, an explosion so loud it blew back the trees around them rang out. Loki had just enough time to register what had happened before the forest to the right of the Opel exploded in a burst of blue energy. It rocked the truck violently, nearly pushing it off the road.
Everyone in the back of the truck ducked down as far as they could, hoping not to get thrown out. That thing was not going to stop until everyone was dead, and nothing they had with them were any good against it. Loki looked around at those with him, finding himself stuck with a decision he knew he'd have to make sooner or later. He knew he had the best chance of stopping the tank that pursued them, but it would expose him for what he was.
It wouldn't exactly be the first time.
"Don't stop!" he shouted over his shoulder to Barnes.
He leapt up to his feet and ran the few short steps to the back of the truck, jumping out and rolling along the ground to ease his landing. It felt like all the air had been forced from his lungs, but he couldn't stop. If he stopped, everyone would be dead.
Making sure the Hydra canon was still in one piece, Loki ran back toward the tank. As he came to it, he tried to find any way he could up to its top, but it was taller than his apartment building back in Brooklyn. There had to be some way up. He ran back behind it, grabbing onto the track and riding it up. Suddenly, the tank seemed to be moving much, much faster. Once on top of the track, he spotted a ladder up the side. He grabbed hold of it as he came to it and climbed up it, struggling to keep his balance and climb one-handed. At the top, he found the hatch that led into machine. He dared a quick glance up to make sure Barnes hadn't done anything stupid like stopped for him, and seeing that the truck was still moving, Loki pulled open the hatch and fired his canon down into it. If it hadn't killed anyone inside, it would have certainly disorientated them. Loki took the opportunity to reload his sidearm and dropped down through the hatch, finding himself in a surprisingly small cockpit with four very dead Hydra soldiers. He had never learned to drive a tank, but he started pulling levers at random anyway. He wasn't sure what any of them did, but he was certain at least some of them must have been important.
Finally, he found one that was. He pulled the lever, and almost at once, the tank jerked hard to the left. Not waiting around to see what was going to happen next, Loki climbed back out of the cockpit and slid down the ladder. He stopped just before he came to the track, seeing the trouble he'd made for himself. The tank was already starting to fall down the steep slope at the side of the road. He couldn't ride the track back down without killing himself, so he ran against it instead, slowly moving to its outer edge and jumping off before the machine fell off the edge entirely. Loki landed hard on the ground and rolled into a tree, losing his pistol and the Hydra canon. He distantly registered the sounds of the tank crashing down the mountainside as he lay on the cold ground, staring up at the forest canopy above him. He really hoped this wasn't going to become a habit of his.
Loki didn't hear the truck skid to a stop, or anyone shouting his name as they ran back down along the road. He just wanted to lie there and pretend for a few minutes that he wasn't constantly setting out to kill himself, or whatever it was he kept doing.
"Hey, he's over here!" Jones called out. He ran over and dropped heavily to his knees beside Loki, struggling to work out what to do. Morita arrived soon after, throwing his weapon to the ground and getting down close to check for injuries.
"I told you not to stop," Loki said flatly.
"Holy shit," Jones said, laughter on the edge of his voice. "What the fuck was that, man?"
Loki let Morita move his hands over him, knowing he'd find nothing of consequence.
"I don't want to go through Germany," Loki said.
Jones broke out in hysterical laughter, and brought Morita down with him. Loki didn't see what was so funny about any of it.
Rogers made it over to them, looking down at Loki with an incredulous expression and his hands planted firmly on his hips.
"Did you go to Lehigh?" he asked, panting a bit.
"No, I was at Union." Loki waved Morita off him and forced himself to sit up. Something pulled hard in his back, and he was pretty sure he was bleeding, but he didn't care. He just wanted to get as far away from Austria as possible.
"We can't go through Germany, Cap," he said. He looked up at Rogers and shook his head.
Rogers looked over his shoulder, back toward Weitlahnwald. "No," he agreed. "No, we can't."
He offered a hand, and Loki took it, letting Rogers pull him to his feet. The four of them walked back down toward the truck as quickly as possible, Loki trying just to stay on his feet. The rest of their squad were waiting with weapons drawn, in case anyone else decided to come after them, and staring wide-eyed at Loki as he approached. He ignored the mutterings that circulated through everyone as he climbed into the back of the truck and sat heavily beside Coulson.
"You all right?" Coulson asked.
Loki buried his face in Coulson's shoulder, digging his glasses into the bridge of his nose. He didn't care about that, either.
"So, what's the plan?" Howlett asked as the truck lurched back into life and sped back toward Italy.
Rogers sighed as he got settled in with everyone else. "We're gonna try France," he said.
—
NOTE: In light of FFN revoking access to FLAG, Calibre, and other eBook-creation apps, as well as disabling the ability to copy/paste, I have created a folder on Gdocs, which has downloadable versions of all my fic. You can also find my work on AO3, which has a built-in eBook download feature.
You can find these links on my profile.
