Chapter 10: Everybody Lies
"Why did you do it?" Loki asked, stepping into the snowy, moonlit clearing to join Charles. The telepath was perched atop a fallen log, regarding the rose-colored moon above them with a pensive expression.
"This sky is peculiar. I'll concede that we are in a dreamscape. It should be surreal by definition, but this is different," Charles observed with a glance back at Loki.
"I could say the same about you, Little Man," Loki replied, crossing the clearing to stand on the ground behind Charles' perch.
Charles smiled slightly and glanced down at himself with his arms spread wide before turning to meet Loki's gaze. There was a spark of amusement in his eyes. "Hmm, well... You can hardly hold me responsible."
Loki arched an eyebrow in question.
"We are in your mind," Charles reminded him.
"I see," Loki allowed, folding his hands neatly behind his back. "You should know better than to try to evade my question. You know that I will not be dissuaded."
"Who says I'm evading?" Charles replied pleasantly, turning away to look back up at the moon. "Now, tell me about this sky."
Loki sucked in an impatient breath, blowing it out through his nose, then answered, "I don't see the relevance."
Charles just smiled wanly to himself and turned away to resume stargazing.
"Might I remind you that you are in the form of a mortal?" Loki said silkily. "I wonder what might happen to a creature of the mind once he is slain within the realm of thought."
Charles didn't seem at all moved by the threat, replying mildly, "Now you know better. Friends don't threaten each other, Loki." He remained silent until Loki began to wonder if perhaps he'd gone too far this time. He opened his mouth to apologize -not that he was feeling remorse. He merely wanted to get Charles to talk again- but Charles spoke first as if in response to some invisible cue, "Good. So, the moon is peculiar..."
"So you say," Loki remarked drily. "This is not of my design. I cannot translate any deeper meaning to these forms, as I know naught of their purpose, myself."
"It's your mind."
"It matters not. It has been... changed during the time that I was remade," Loki elaborated, carefully schooling his features to remain as unaffected as possible. "You now reside here as well. One might argue that this is no longer mine alone."
Charles looked down and Loki saw his expression soften. "No. This is still your mind, Loki. Only yours. That doesn't change no matter who visits, or what others try to do to you."
Loki looked straight ahead, blinking rapidly as he absorbed the statement. Before Charles could question it, he responded, "It appears to be a blood moon. Although I doubt that that is the reason you find it so peculiar."
Charles watched him now, silently encouraging him to continue, so Loki studied the sky more closely.
"It's fairly close... or perhaps large. Either way it cannot belong to Midgard, but that much is obvious."
"This isn't Earth we're experiencing here, anyway," Charles noted.
"It suits this sky... but the snow..." Loki looked around them, frowning. "It doesn't match. It is too clear and the clouds are mere shreds. Shreds." Loki's features tensed.
"Peculiar."
She was in a shadowy, beige cell. The padding over the walls and floor of this box they had shoved her into had once been smooth and white, but the abuses of time and neglect had left them stained.
Jane didn't know who the masked men in scrubs had been, but from what little she could make out during the brief interval when they came in to administer the injection, they seemed to be ordinary humans. They were almost too ordinary. Nondescript. She figured they had to be actively affecting that appearance.
"I know. It's dreadful, isn't it?" Jane's own captor drawled, walking in from the stone doorway at Jane's back to stand beside her chair. Jane flinched in surprise and looked up at the other woman. Her kidnapper was still staring at the screen in front of them, not seeming to notice or care. "The poor thing's been in there for over two Midgardian weeks. Lost track of the passage of time four days in," the mutilated alien recalled.
The woman on the screen flopped onto her side on the floor of her prison and shook some of the hair out of her face, enough to reveal one gray-green eye as it shifted sharply upward to look straight at Jane.
"I think they're trying to drive her mad," the kidnapper reflected, then she walked around to crouch in front of Jane's chair, blocking half the screen from view.
"Why are you doing this?" Jane asked, shifting her cuffed wrist against the deceptively sturdy armrest of the antique armchair that she was chained to. She knew that she had no chance of breaking out of it, but Jane did score some petty victory by scuffing the old, burgundy velvet upholstery. Her captor's red eyes observed the movement in passing while the alien rearranged the flowing black and gold skirts of her silk gown around her bent legs.
"Hmm. Not the most auspicious introduction for the two of us, but I've witnessed worse ones."
Jane glared at her and she let out a heavy sigh, rubbing at the eye surrounded by the blackened scar tissue that covered one side of her face.
"I can relate, believe me. Kidnappings are rarely fun. Let's shift that trend," she held out her ghostly, faintly bluish, white hand toward's Jane. "It's good to meet you. I am Queen Hel."
Jane blanched. "Hel... Am I dead?"
"Oh no, Dear Child! Of course not! I didn't think that you mortals were still telling those silly little stories anymore," Queen Hel reassured her, giving Jane's hand a comforting squeeze. "No, no, your soul is right were you left it. I just wanted to have a little chat without my cousin blundering in."
"Your cous- Do you mean Thor or Loki?" Jane responded, relaxing despite herself. This woman gave off more the aura of a fun loving aunt than a spectre of death. Then again, she might merely be showing Jane her nice face due to their mutual acquaintances. The Queen arched her graceful white eyebrow at Jane.
"Who do you think." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah," Jane gave a little half shrug, conceding the point. Besides, realistically she doubted that Loki would really care much whether or not she disappeared. He might not mind her presence, but it was definitely Thor who valued it.
"Now don't get me wrong, the big lummox does have his merits. He's a big puppy dog and we all know it," Hel said, brushing her long, white braids away from her face. She then looked at a cracked marble pillar nearby, reflecting, "A rather loud, and destructive puppy dog."
"They both have their moments," Jane pointed out.
"Mmnn. If you say so," Hel replied, humoring her. "Do you know, I have been checking in on you for quite a while now. You are very promising, if you don't mind my saying so. I quite enjoyed watching your progress since Mr. Static fell to Earth."
"Static. Wha- Wait, you've been watching me? Like you're watching her?!" Jane exclaimed, jerking her head towards the screen.
"That one? Oh, no. The augur girl's important to Dad, or she will be. I don't know. Time has gotten confused. No, you're interesting, could be useful if you so choose. She's... different."
"Your dad was the elder Loki, right?"
"Naturally."
"Isn't he... I um, I thought he died in the war," Jane said uncertainly.
"Ah. So he did," Hel agreed after considering for a beat. "Confusing time..." she pondered to herself, taking one of her braids out and re-braiding it for no apparent reason.
Jane eyed her more critically. Despite the other woman's youthful appearance, Jane was beginning to get the impression that she was going batty in her old age. Perhaps if she played along the Aesir would remain mostly harmless.
Hel's face suddenly lit with an idea. "Let's have a tea party," she suggested cheerfully and leapt to her feet to fetch another chair for herself.
"Umm. I don't..." Jane began. Hel set her green and gold armchair down opposite Jane's and a table already layed out with fine china, rich smelling tea and delectable tea-cakes materialized between them in a whirl of gold. "Okay." Jane remarked, falling into her I-will-humor-the-crazy mode. "Why not?"
Loki and Charles watched the sky in contemplative silence. It wasn't clear how much time had passed. It felt like somewhere close between a split second and an eternity and Charles was patient enough to let it extend as far as Loki needed it to. Finally, the young god broke the silence.
"I remember a sky like this, but it wasn't cold. It burned." Loki's brows furrowed and he bent forward to lean against the log. "There was so much pain!" Charles knelt down to rest a gentle hand on Loki's shoulder while he tried to catch his breath. "What is this?"
"Shh..."
"Charles!?"
"I don't know. I don't fully understand it yet, but we'll figure it out."
"But I can't..." Loki trailed off, squeezing his eyes shut, torn between conflicting sensations:he was running for his life. He leapt from stone to stone, not even daring to consider a pause for breath despite his painful exhaustion. "No!" Loki clutched at Charles' warm hand on his shoulder, reminding himself that this wasn't real. There wasn't an angry demon storming after him while he risked his life to buy his brother's family time to flee. He allowed the consciousness' calming presence to anchor him, following Charles back to his own logic and reason. It made no sense. These were false sensations. Thor had no such family, and if he did, their safety would never fall to Loki, the slightest and least battle-ready of Thor's kin, if he was still to be counted amongst them. "I don't want this."
"It's alright. Just relax," Charles soothed. "It can't harm you."
All that Loki could see was the acrid smoke and steam billowing off of the dead warriors on the ground before him. Their troop had been burned alive in mid-flight, not even allowed to flee lest they warn the rest of their village. He could smell them burning.
"No! I don't care! Stop it!" Loki protested, struggling against the false memory. He rolled onto his back in order to avoid being pierced by his enemy's sword and knocked into one of the smoldering corpses. This was not a warrior. It was a young witch. He swallowed down the bile in his throat upon recognising the familiar markings on her leather pouch. "I won't have it! Make. It. Stop!" Charles grabbed Loki by the shoulders of his tunic and hauled him up just as an armored, male, silhouette ran into view on the distant clifftop. Loki might have heard someone calling to him, but it was too faint for him to be certain. Charles locked gazes with Loki, banishing the vision before the flames could consume him again.
"Better?" Charles inquired. He was more or less completely supporting Loki's weight now. Apparently, the boundaries of reality in this place were easily bent to Charles' will. Loki reminded himself that it would be foolish to be comforted by that while he grabbed the smaller man's forearms and gave them a gentle squeeze in confirmation. He was still struggling to catch his breath.
"What was that?" Loki managed to ask without sounding too breathless.
"A memory," Charles responded grimly.
Loki shook his head. "Can't be." He looked up at Charles' face and stilled. The consciousness was warily eyeing something over Loki's shoulder. The Trickster followed his line of sight back to the clifftop- He snapped his eyes forward, unwilling to face the intimidating ghost that waited there. It was only then that Loki registered the change in their surroundings. Charles no longer stood atop a fallen tree, but instead balanced on a rocky outcropping, while Loki was now standing on the blackened earth where the many bodies had lain smoldering in his vision.
"It was," Charles returned, not taking his eyes off of the ghost.
"But it can't be... I've never been to a place like this, and Thor certainly never-" Loki broke off and pulled away from his friend, but only a step, trying to make sense of the impossible nonsense. "Nothing is real," he spat, pacing away and then right back to Charles, careful never to let his gaze wander to the cliffs.
"I understand your frustration."
"NOTHING is REAL!" Loki raged. This was it. He had tried to adapt, to roll with the blows as he had learned to do over the centuries, but there was only so much lying and uncertainty that even the Trickster's mind could take before it began to give under all the pressure.
"It looks that way to you now, but it will make sense in time," Charles tried to reassure him. "We are obviously missing some key pieces to this puzzle. We simply need to wait and listen for more information."
"You say that, Charles. You know nothing! How could you possibly understand?! All of my life I have been lied to about my very nature! Who and what I am, while I struggled without hope to fit in with my own natural enemies! But that was nothing! For I am no mere monster, but a tool of my so-called father, and no matter what I do or how far I travel, there is always more deception for me to uncover!" Loki fumed, stepping closer to Charles as the rage took over. "How could you possibly imagine!"
"I'm here," Charles told him in the same calm, reassuring voice that he had been using before Loki's outburst. Once again he didn't look intimidated by Loki at all. Instead, he just looked sad.
"Why are you here?" Loki snapped. He instantly regretted the words as soon as he'd spat them out, but it was too late.
Charles scrutinized him for a moment with a solemn expression, then nodded once to himself. "You're right. You need more time," he concluded, turning on his heel and walking towards the flat, gray rock face behind him. It took Loki a few seconds to register what was happening.
"What? Wait! Where are you going?" he called to the retreating mortal.
"You're still running away," Charles replied. "I'll be back when you're ready."
Loki stared after him, searching for a more moving argument to pose to the consciousness than 'I am so,' which was simply too childish to be tolerated. "No, don't!" Loki cried out as Charles stepped through the rock face as if it were an open doorway, and vanished.
Loki ran up to the rock face and felt for any sign of a passage, finding nothing but smooth stone. He grimaced and struck it. "Damn you! Charles, come back!" Loki paused and forcibly calmed himself, adding in a reasonable tone "You must know that I did not mean what I said."
After his appeal was met with apparent indifference, his temper flared again. "Just as I know that you are still with me, no matter how you mask yourself! I know, because you reside within my thoughts! What point is there for you to hide from me within my own head!?" Loki shouted at the sky above. "You literally cannot leave me here!"
Loki blinked and found himself in the familiar setting of Stark Tower, slightly different than it was during the Chitauri invasion. "Ah, yes. Very clever," he drawled sarcastically, giving up on the one-sided argument for the time being in favor of studying his surroundings.
He stilled when he caught sight of the cityscape around him, and glided almost unconsciously to stare out the windows, pressing a hand to the glass. New York was not what it used to be. He would have found it troubling enough if the damage that he and the Chitauri swarm had reaped on Manhattan had been left unrepaired. This was a densely populated, hub of a city afterall. What he saw was even worse. The buildings around him looked even more abused. Most of them showed signs of hurried attempts to repair and fortify them. It was also clear that all the scars could not have possibly been left by him. The lower levels showed evidence of recent, if not downright fresh wounds and there was a toxic iridescence that Loki's inhuman eyes saw floating ominously through the air, everywhere. Poison.
Loki's attention snapped to something that was too massive to be human moving over the walls of another building. His mind went first to the Hulk and his destructive rages, but instead, Loki's eyes met a beast of cold metal and polymer. The red light from a scanner that served as its eyes, reflected off of the glass of the building that it climbed, and Loki shivered. The beast was hunting. Its movements were precise and robotic, but he could still see the predatory vein underlying them. It was probably wiser not to think too far into what, or perhaps who, the monster was chasing. Loki tore his eyes away from the troubling discovery just outside his current sanctuary and focused on the room instead.
The floor had been resealed with a sheet of tinted plexiglas, leaving the preserved evidence of his brief foray as the Hulk's plaything in clear view. Although, after seeing the surrounding city, Loki wasn't sure whether Stark had chosen this approach out of necessity, or spite. He turned his back to the reminder and made his way over to claim a bar stool. Someone had left one of the stools pulled out, so he used that one. The Trickster drummed on the countertop, considering ways to pass the time until Charles relented. There was a bottle of gin sitting on the counter, and after a brief hesitation, he reached out to pick it up. His hand went straight through it, as though he were nothing more than a ghost. He frowned and tried again. "What?"
The lift dinged and Thor and Captain Rodgers came out of the lift in mid-argument.
"I know that you want to search for her, and we are searching. You can't just go charging off into the unknown-" the Cap insisted. "We have no idea who took Jane, or why."
Loki's eyebrows ascended towards his hairline. "Dr. Foster? Why would anyone take her?" he wondered as Clint came in off of the roof and claimed a stool at the other end of the bar, crossing his arms over his chest. The archer didn't seem interested in helping either side of the debate. He merely leaned back against the counter and watched the drama unfold.
Thor scowled down at Steve. "We have tried your way, and after a day of sorting through your useless footages-"
"Just footage," Clint quietly corrected.
"And sensory logs-"
"Sensor logs," Clint clarified again, still going more or less completely unnoticed by the arguing pair.
"We have come no closer to finding her!" Thor argued.
"Well, apart from the obvious," Loki amended his previous statement.
"It is clear that magic has been used to snatch her! I will request assistance from Asgard, and we will begin the search my way," Thor declared, heading for the roof.
Loki scrunched up his face. "No. Please don't do that."
The Cap seemed to be thinking on a similar wavelength, because he darted around to walk backwards in Thor's path. "No. Wait a second and think about this. You aren't considering all of the variables here."
"Undoubtedly," Loki agreed, beginning to feel oddly sympathetic towards the frustrated blond. He had been through the same uphill struggle, himself, a thousand times over and knew just how trapped the Captain must be feeling. Clint, on the other hand, was casually pouring himself a drink from behind the counter, his unbothered countenance still intact.
"I have no more time for this, my decision is made," Thor dismissed, making to step around Steve.
"What about your brother?" the soldier blurted out.
Loki rolled his eyes, looking away out the wall of windows. He, therefore, missed the way that his mention stopped the bull-headed prince in his tracks.
"He is completely vulnerable right now. We are his only defense against SHIELD, or what about your own people? You don't know how they'll react if you reveal your location now after busting him out of prison, not to mention the treason charges."
"I did what I had to, for all our sakes," Thor defended.
"And I know that," Steve confirmed. "I'm only suggesting that you try to be more careful for now. I can't stop you from leaving. I won't. Are you certain that this is what you really want to do?"
"Undoubtedly," Loki stated bitterly in the silence that followed. "He's always certain."
"I will explain to Odin all that Loki has done for the good of both our worlds," Thor replied, "Surely, after I share my suspicions with him about Loki's-"
"No!NO! Shut up, you imbecile! You agreed that you wouldn't!" Loki objected, drowning out the rest of Thor's words as he leapt to his feet. Clint almost choked on his beer. Steve's eyes had narrowed in response to the possibility that there may have been more going on behind Loki's first visit than any of them knew, but he filed those questions away for later and refocused on the current crisis.
"Hold on a minute!" Clint remarked gruffly, turning back around to face them.
Steve held up a hand, signaling for him to wait. "If you think that that'll be enough to convince him," the super soldier conceded, stepping out of Thor's way and falling into parade rest. It would've been amusing to Loki if he weren't now on the verge of having another panic attack.
"I'm going to die," he realized, dropping back onto his bar stool. He thought that he had moved past caring anymore, but a small part of himself that he'd thought long buried had been gaining hope that perhaps his future might not be quite so monstrous and lonely as he'd come to expect. That part of him still clung to life, having been encouraged by Charles' assurances and his surprisingly amicable encounters with Jane. It now brought a spark of fear to his heart, making everything that much worse. "We're going to die!" he amended, becoming short of breath.
Clint frowned at the other two Avengers, locking eyes with the Cap before turning his piercing stare on Thor's back.
The thunderer walked past the Cap, but to Loki's surprise, he stepped up to the wall of windows and stared uncertainly at the darkening sky. There was no sign that Thor planned to go anywhere anytime soon. There was a long drawn out silence while the others calmed down, Loki wrestled his breathing back under control, and Clint silently fumed. He was hiding his irritation well, but Loki could still feel traces of it.
"You want to let us in on the big secret here?" the archer finally cut through the tense atmosphere, making it even more charged than it already was.
Thor stared out through the windows for a moment, looking torn. "I promised him that I would not pursue it."
"You think that your brother might be innocent of war crimes that will keep him imprisoned for thousands of years, and you won't pursue it?" Steve questioned, looking incredulous.
"I promised him that I would not," Thor responded, turning to face the others. Loki got up and left the room, heading in a random direction. He didn't want to be around for that conversation, more importantly, he knew that he couldn't afford to.
He ended up in Stark's lab. It hadn't changed much since his last visit. There were a few new projects layed out here and there, and there was an area sectioned off by a thin, white veil with figures moving about behind it. The lab was still mostly the same nonetheless. Loki wandered closer to the figures, two of whom were conversing in hushed voices, while the third sat half-obstructed from view on the other side of the bed. As Loki neared the curtain, he belatedly realized that they were congregated around his resting place. He stepped through the veil to observe them.
Dr. Banner and Tony Stark were standing together at Loki's bedside, leaving them now semi-sandwiched between Loki and his body. On the far side of the medical bed was a dignified old woman with neatly styled hair and immaculate nails. She had retained her beauty well into old age. If Loki had not been able to sense the weight of her experience hanging around her like a cloak, he might've thought her to be easily ten years younger. She had one hand placed over Loki's eyes and the other rested on the right side of his chest over his heart. Her own eyes were tightly shut in concentration.
"You were right, and you were wrong," the woman observed, without opening her eyes.
"I was what and what?" Tony queried, looking up from the game that he'd been playing on his Stark-phone.
"Phones off, Mr. Stark," the telepath drawled, and Tony hastily hid the device under his sleeve.
"God. I still hate that," he swore.
"Sorry, Professor Frost. He'll behave now," Bruce said, ignoring the look that Tony shot him in response.
"What I meant, was that your patient here did suffer some extensive injuries," Frost explained. "It just so happens that none of them were physical. They were exacerbated by the explosion, but they're healing nicely. It's nothing that would keep him out of commission for more than another day at most."
"You said that they were exacerbated by the explosion," Bruce verified, confused.
"Mmm hmm."
"So you mean all of this is some delayed reaction to his encounter with the Aether?" Tony guessed, looking understandably troubled by the thought. Loki's eyes locked on Frost's face. She cannot have discovered that, can she? If she has, does that mean she knows? Loki fretted.
"Oh no," she dismissed, opening her eyes. "These are much too old for that. There are layers of augmentation throughout his entire psyche. That kind of butchery takes time." Loki could feel her disgust at what had been done to him reverberating through the room in waves, despite her even tone. "I'd say a year at the very least, if it were someone as potent and experienced as I am, but they'd have to be specialized, and they would have keep at it almost non-stop."
Loki leaned forward, grabbing at the foot of his bed. They knew now, at least in part, that he had not been in full control. He didn't know how, or if he could stop the inevitable investigation. The thought floated through his mind all over again: "I am going to die."
"Don't be so dramatic. I know that this looks bad," Frost remarked. "It is not the end of the world."
"I'm not being dramatic!" Tony snapped, still looking pale and a tad nauseous.
"I wasn't talking to you," the telepath corrected, causing Loki to snap his head up from its limp dangle over the mattress. "That's right, Sugar; I can see you," Professor Frost confirmed with a subtle smirk.
"What?" Loki and Tony questioned in unison, with the former almost being drowned out by his corporeal competition.
"Loki," Frost confirmed, winking at the all-but-invisible presence in the room. "He's standing right there."
"But-" Tony's eyes flickered unseeing over Loki, and he continued. "He was trapped in his head."
"Not anymore. It's not unheard of with this kind of condition. He's healing from an intense mental ordeal," Frost replied. She turned to look Loki right in the eye and said, "Sometimes a disoriented consciousness wanders out through the cracks."
Loki swallowed and gave a jerky nod, he didn't know for certain how much this woman already knew, but he was determined to do whatever he could to mask Charles' presence for as long as possible.
"You could wake up now, if you wanted to," Frost told him. "I can bring you back." She held out a hand with a knowing look in her eyes and Loki found himself transfixed. Frozen by his inexplicable and irrational fear, he could do nothing but stare at the outstretched hand. "Hmm, I suspected as much." His would be savior retracted her hand and used it to pull herself to her feet with the support of the arm rail.
Loki blinked and looked away, ashamed of his own cowardice. Charles words echoed through his head, "You're still running away."
Bruce rounded the foot of the bed to offer the tired woman a hand, giving the empty space reportedly occupied by Loki's consciousness a wide berth.
"You've got an hour to change your mind," Professor Frost informed Loki on her way out. "Don't push it too close. I'll leave when my ride gets here."
After that Tony and Loki remained standing together in mutual psuedo-isolation while they processed their recent revelations. Even when accompanied by what amounted to a ghost, Tony Stark insisted upon disrupting the sanctity of silence.
"What the fuck is going on?" he demanded, looking from the invisible Loki to his peacefully unconscious body.
Loki face-palmed.
Jane jerked awake on the worn, gray couch in what looked like a hospital break room. She was wearing the same drab gray scrubs that Wanda Maxwell's captors had been wearing. Jane frowned. "How did I know that?" She wondered aloud, then she took a look at the ID clipped to her chest, and the skillfully faked replica caused a memory to return.
Jane took another bite of her tea cake, then stopped in mid-chew when she noticed the way that her hostess was looking at her. The playful absent-mindedness in those red eyes had vanished completely to be replaced by an entirely sane intelligence, watching Jane expectantly. The ancient being sitting across from Jane took another sip of her tea as Jane's vision began to darken. Jane jerked forward and spit the bite of cake out onto her plate, even though she knew that it was already too late.
"What 'id y'do da me?" she murmured, struggling to remain lucid. There was an outside influence flowing into her mind and it smelled of burning juniper.
"I truly am sorry, Dear. This was the fastest way to prepare you for your next task. You're going to do me a little favor."
"F'ck yhhh," Jane replied, half-conscious.
"I deserve that. Don't you worry though. We've given you all the preparation that you'll need," Hel informed her. The last thing that Jane saw before everything went black was the Queen taking a large bite of her unfinished tea cake.
"What a bitch," Jane concluded, standing up and looking for something that she could use to pick locks. She only had fifteen minutes before the guards on this floor changed shifts. "Come on, Nurse McQueen," Jane encouraged herself. She flashed a fleeting smile when the lock on the supply cabinet clicked open. "It's showtime."
A/N: Ok. So yeah, I guess this kinda counts as cliff hanger. Not too major though, probably. It was fun writing all of the deception. As it was the theme of the chapter I really got a kick out of making sure that almost every character in the chapter was committing some kind of deception, if not outright lying. I hope you enjoyed that too. Anyway, thanks for reading. If any of you have questions for me, feel free to review/PM me. Special thanks for this round goes to icanhearthedrums for helping me get better acquainted with Hawkeye, and to Janieceal for reviewing. I seriously love reviews. I cannot stress that enough.