The blows against his abdomen and ribs hurt, but he couldn't move to stop them from striking him. He heard Natalya moan as she fell and hoped they hadn't killed her, but he couldn't help her either.

His ribs ached as someone's boot flipped him onto his front. He tried to struggle, but his muscles twitched uselessly. Cuffs snapped around his wrists at his back, and his ankles were wrapped with some kind of thin rope multiple times and that looped around his throat, too, snugly.

As they trussed him up, his insides seemed to freeze so he could barely draw breath. "No, let me go, let me go," his voice sounded strange, all breathy and weak.

Ward said, "He needs to shut up."

"Got it," Rumlow answered. Loki felt a fist in his hair and his head was pulled back, and though Loki tried to stop him, Rumlow was able to shove the appliance into his mouth. It pressed down on his tongue and between his teeth, and had a stretchy band that went around his head tightly, pulling his hair. "There." His eyes met Loki's and he smirked disdainfully. "For a god, you're pretty pathetic."

Loki didn't bother to try to speak aloud. He knew how impotent it would sound, so he let his eyes do his speaking for him, letting his enemy know that Loki would pull out this mortal's heart at the end of this game.

Rumlow blinked, took a step back, releasing Loki's hair so his head fell forward.

"Let's go," Sitwell said.

"Sitwell, no offense," Rumlow said, "but you're not in charge anymore. STRIKE, get our passenger loaded. Sitwell, prep the jet, we need to go."

Two men lifted Loki up, and he kicked out, like a sea creature with his feet bound together, and managed to hit one in the face. But it was a short-lived victory, as they tasered him again. It was worse this time, the electricity shooting through already damaged nerves and his whole body seized with blinding pain.

Not again, not again.

But it was happening again. A prisoner, again, subdued again.

And finally, like before, there was relief in letting go into the dark, even with the knowledge that he would not like waking.

"Senorita? Senorita?"

Natasha stirred, at the urgent stranger's voice. Her head hurt, and moving anything ached tremendously, and it took a moment for all the memories to come back.

Sitwell. STRIKE. What the hell?

She opened her eyes and forced herself to sit up. The quinjet was gone, and Lukas was nowhere to be seen. They'd taken him.

The young guard in his trim olive drab uniform was not prepared for her urgent hand grabbing his collar. "When did they go?"

"Treinta- thirty minutes. More," he answered in English. "Are you okay? You need the police?"

Half an hour. She shut her eyes, forcing a calm, and let go of the guard. This was nothing to do with him. "No, no police."

He shook his head, frowning and seemed upset by that choice. "But the men attacked you! You need the police."

It had felt like an attack. Like a betrayal. Her operation had been changed out from under her with no warning. She tried to tell herself it was SHIELD and her superiors had the right to do that, it still stung bitterly. "No," Natasha said and got to her feet. Her head hurt, and her extremities were numb, but anger was an anti-toxin in her veins. "I'm all right." She smiled at him, and he shuffled his feet, embarrassed by the attention. "Thank you very much for your help."

They'd taken Lukas's book and the dagger. There was only one loose page fluttering against the edge of the hangar door, and she retrieved it, smoothing it against her shirt carefully.

As she walked back to the pocket-sized car, she pulled out her phone to call Maria.

"This is Hill."

"What the hell?" Natasha demanded. "The plan was to go to Arendelle, and you pull it out from under me?"

There was a pause, and Maria asked, lowering her voice more private, "Natasha, what's going on?"

"What do you think? Sitwell just activated the new orders, Rollins tranq'd me and they left me unconscious-"

Maria interrupted, "They did what? What are you talking about? What new orders?"

In an instant, her anger went cold. Maria didn't know. Natasha bit out in a very level voice, "To take Lukas to the Fridge."

"To the Fridge? No, there's been no such order. Who told you that?"

"Sitwell. And Rumlow backed him up. Said the new orders were for STRIKE to take Lukas to the Fridge. I protested, and Rollins shot me with a tranq dart. They took Lukas."

"That's… not right," Maria said slowly. "There's been no such order that I know of. I certainly didn't reassign Rumlow's team, and as far as I know, not from the director either, and I don't see why he would go behind us both if it came from him. Let me talk to him, I'll get back to you."

She hung up and that left Natasha with an unsettled feeling that this was worse than she'd thought. If this wasn't from Fury or Hill, who had changed the operation? There were few people who would have the authority, and none without Fury's permission when her op was director-sanctioned…

Which really left only one option – that Sitwell, Ward, and STRIKE had done this on their own. Gone rogue. To capture Lukas.

She dialed a different number from memory.

"Barton."

"Hey. How's everything?" she asked Clint.

His pause as he realized she was using their code for undercover status was infinitesimal, but she knew he heard. He answered with the same ease, "Oh it's hunky-dory," he gave her back the green code and then asked with more concerned voice. "And you?"

"Not good," she answered honestly. "Sitwell snatched my target without Hill's knowledge."

"Sitwell?" Clint asked with a short laugh. "When's he done anything without orders?"

"Exactly. Ward and Rumlow backed him up."

Barton took a second and figured it out, too. "They went rogue?" he demanded.

"Unless Fury changed his mind and didn't tell me or Maria. I don't know what's happening, but I don't like it."

His voice settled to calm. "I'll take your bad feeling over a thousand pages of proof."

Feeling a bit relieved that he believed her, she said, "Just.. watch yourself. Tell Phil. If there's a…" it was hard to even speak the words, but she had to force them out, "rogue faction, they might move on your target, too."

"I hear you. Keep in touch."

Feeling better that at least Strike Team Delta was on the same page, even if they weren't on the same continent, she put her phone away.

She hurried after the security guard. "I don't need the police, but I do need to talk to air traffic control. I need to know where the plane went."

He smiled at her, happy to take her there.

Thor sat on the roof of Jane's building, gnawing his way through a paper bucket of fried chicken, and looked out at the quiet village. He missed his family, his other friends, and his home. It was somehow worse to know Mjolnir was almost within sight, and yet out of reach.

About ten minutes of feeling sorry for himself passed, before it occurred to him that Loki had been alone on Midgard twice before, both times in far more unpleasant situations.

He lifted his head, reminding himself that if Loki could wander Midgard for a century in self-exile, Thor could do the same.

A large black vehicle pulled into the parking lot below, and he looked down to watch Jane stomp out of the building, to confront the men alighting from the car. One was the man who had tried to interrogate Thor at the hammer facility, and he wore a black suit, and had little hair. Agent Coulson was his name. Another man with the compact muscular form of a fighter followed him, and he was wearing a more obvious combat uniform including a pistol in his thigh holster.

"You have a lot of nerve coming back here!" she spat at them, hands on her hips. "I have nothing left for you to steal, unless you're after my DVD player this time!"

"I'm not here for you, Doctor Foster." The man removed his sunglasses and tipped his head back to look at Thor. "We're here to speak to... Doctor Blake."

"Well, we can't always get what we want," Jane retorted.

"Doctor Foster, it's important."

"Oh, let me guess, 'national security.' Well, your 'national security' is crap!" she raged at him. "And I want no part of it, and Thor doesn't either!"

Coulson and the other man exchanged a look that settled oddly on Thor's heart. Something was wrong. He stepped off the roof and jumped to the ground. "You want me, Son of Coul? Speak."

It was only after he noticed their reactions that Thor thought anything of the drop. Such a little fall, too.

"You seem in a better mood," Coulson observed, but that was an obvious conversational gambit and Thor ignored it, so Coulson would get to the point. "This is Agent Barton," he introduced his companion briefly. "And since Doctor Foster just called you a name that confirms Doctor Barnes' suspicion of your connection to the hammer, I'll tell you what's happened. We believe there's a connection between that hammer and the burned circle that formed the same day in Arendelle."

"Arendelle?" he asked, excitement tightening his breath. Another circle meant the Bifrost, and surely the same day meant Loki. "Is Loki there?"

Coulson raised his brows and then frowned, "Loki?"

"My brother. You know him better as Lukas Onsdag."

"Your brother?" That got another reaction. Clearly Coulson didn't know everything he thought he knew. "The Ice Demon of the Howling Commandos is your brother?"

"Of course," Thor answered.

"Oh." Coulson took a moment to process that. "Doctor Barnes didn't mention that. Well, we've been observing him, too. He's why we're here."

"He is in Arendelle, that is good then. It is a second home to him," Thor said, then was unnerved when Coulson and the other exchanged another glance. "It is not good?"

"There was… some difficulty when he arrived," Coulson said. "He took exception to SHIELD being in town. Apparently he felt we were an invasive force and tried to fight us."

"Fight? What did you do?" Thor stepped toward him, and Coulson took a step back, looking up, and for the first time showed alarm. Barton moved like a bodyguard, closing the gap to Coulson's side, ready to throw himself in between.

Coulson explained hurriedly, "If he'd just said he was Onsdag, SHIELD knows about him and we would've stopped, but he used a different alias: Luke Rendell. And when we knew who-"

"Coulson," Barton interrupted, "That's why. His cover was blown. That's why they moved on him."

Thor didn't like the sound of that. "Who? What happened?"

Coulson grimaced. "We had Agent Romanoff, one of our best agents with him, to keep him under observation. But about twelve hours ago, other agents lied to Agent Romanoff that they had new orders, attacked her, and abducted Onsdag."

Thor felt as if he couldn't quite understand that. "Someone abducted my brother? For what reason?"

"Well, I don't know why yet. But it seems apparent a small group within SHIELD has gone rogue to take him."

Thor's heart seemed to beat too strongly and his breath a little short. Prisoner. After all that he had learned of Loki's previous captivity, for some human to take him again was difficult to hear. He spit out the word in disgust, "Hydra."

Coulson straightened and shook his head. "Well, not them, they're long gone. SHIELD took out their remaining cells after the war. But perhaps someone with a similar desire to-" his words stopped, realizing what he was about to say and who he was about to say it to.

Thor finished for him, "Hold him prisoner and experiment. As was done before."

"Yes," Coulson agreed. "Unfortunately that does seem likely. With a new twist. Records on Onsdag and in James Barnes' book suggest he was invulnerable to bullets in WWII. If he was then, he's not now. He wasn't hurt badly, but a bullet hit him in the arm." He gestured to indicate the spot over his black jacket. "Agent Romanoff tended him, and she reported he was definitely hurt."

Which meant Loki was mortal as well, right now. Hydra had needed to go through some effort to restrain him before, but his assailants would need less now. Thor held out his hands to look at them, thinking about this mortal skin they were both in. They were not as fragile as these humans, but they both lacked their full strength. "We were sent here by our father and our usual power is stripped from us until we prove our worthiness." He thought of Mjolnir, not far away, and Loki back in the hands of madmen trying to steal the Ice Demon's powers again.

Barton said in dry incredulity, "Your dad sent you to Earth to punish you?"

Thor would have argued the wording but had to admit, "Yes. We were reckless and he was wrathful with us. But that matters not when Loki is threatened. I must rescue my brother, Son of Coul."

"I don't-"

Thor was not going to accept any denials or delays. "For these few years since your war, Loki has done this." He lifted his hands to rub his thumb against his opposite wrist. "It is a gesture he never made before coming to this world. But since, whenever dark memories surface in him, he rubs at invisible scars, from when those evil men put metal spikes through his wrists while they performed their torture. I will not let them try to destroy him again."

Coulson held up a hand. "I have every intention of rescuing him, I promise you that. I mean, I would anyway, but he's a Howling Commando. He fought with Captain America to destroy Hydra. He deserves every effort to get him out. But we need to find him. They claimed they were going to our facility called the Fridge, but they never arrived. They could be anywhere by now."

"They would need a place," Thor said. He thought of the movie and what Schmidt had done to Loki in the past, and felt sick at the thought of what these new people might do, believing Loki was full powered. "They would not attempt to hold him unprepared."

"I agree. So I came to tell you that Agent Barton and I are leaving to join Agent Romanoff in searching for him."

"Then I will go with you."

"I don't think that's a good idea. We don't know how deep this betrayal goes, and these people might want to get their hands on you, also."

"I care not," Thor said. "Let them try and they will learn the folly of trying to hold the sons of Odin."

"All right." Coulson gave a grim little smile. "Since I can't be sure who else to trust, we could use your help, when we find him."

"No!" Jane objected. "Thor, no, you can't trust these people. After what they've done!"

Coulson looked at her with an apologetic grimace. "I realize we didn't start off on the right foot, Doctor Foster, but unfortunately everything I've said here is true."

Barton nodded. "Romanoff called me herself, right after they took him."

She glowered at them, unwilling to allow the least softening, and Thor wanted to smile. She was so loyal and fierce for such a tiny person. "I believe them, Jane. I must help him."

Bending, she nodded, "Of course. And I suppose two astrophysicists and an intern aren't going to be much help. But if there's anything we can do, you'll tell me, right? And be careful."

"I will be. And return when I am able," he promised and lifted her hand to his lips, delighting in her astonished and flustered expression after.

Thor said his farewells to Erik and Darcy as well, and took the front passenger seat of the large car for the drive out to the desert.

The place looked different in daylight and without the rain, but still seemed made out of paper. Thor kept that observation to himself as the car pulled inside the fence. "I want to see the hammer again, before we go."

Coulson frowned at him. "You think you'll get a different result?"

His jaw tightened. "I have more need now. And surely, wishing to rescue someone from terrible harm is a worthy endeavor."

"I would think so." Coulson ordered, "Barton, escort him. This time, less punching, please. Wheels up in fifteen."

Mjolnir was still stuck in the mud and Thor wrapped a hand around it, thinking of going to rescue to Loki, hoping that would be enough.

Mjolnir didn't budge. He pulled harder, gritting his teeth, for naught.

"FATHER!" he bellowed. "I need it. Loki is in trouble, he needs me! PLEASE!"

There was no answer. Mjolnir remained stubbornly affixed to the ground, as if Thor had no more right to her than any random mortal on this world.

"What do you want?" Thor whispered, more to the hammer than Odin. "Must I go after him empty-handed? What if I am too mortal to save him? What if he is too mortal to live? When does it stop, Father? Would you punish us so much for so little?" He tugged again at Mjolnir's handle, still in futile effort and cast his eyes upward. "I swear," he promised in a low voice, "if he dies, I will never forgive you. Not ever."

But Mjolnir remained fixed to the dirt. So Thor clenched his empty fists, stood up, and walked away. He would rescue his brother, with or without his Aesir invulnerability, and with or without Mjolnir.

Let no mortal step in his way.

... tbc...