(A/N) Wow, sorry I've been gone so long. Things have just been real busy and I was stuck on how to close this story out…especially on whether or not I should put all my cards on the table (which I did decide to do…mostly). Though, the response for a continuation has been overwhelmingly positive, so there'll be that. Also, I imagine you've all heard the news by now, but…ZOMIEFFINGGODS! Captain America 2 is called The Winter Soldier! YES! EPIC! (dies fangirling) It's gonna be so bleeding awesome! Course we have to wait two more years, but so be it. It's kinda funny how much the amount of Steve/Bucky fiction has gone up since the announcement. We're gonna be swimming in it by the time the actual movie rolls around. You can't get away from it. My god, it'll be beautiful.

By the by, Cinnamon-Romanji…lemme see if I've got this right. You're…upset…that I didn't kill anyone? Damn…that's a first. Normally people are up in arms when I start killing characters. Guess you'll just have to be satisfied with dismemberment.

The Winter Soldier

Chapter 11: The Right Partner

For what felt like a long time, Steve was trapped somewhere between nightmares and reality. The only constant was the pain flaring throughout his body. Sometimes, he thought he could hear Bucky's voice in his ear…feel a calming hand on his shoulder. Other times, he was certain he'd been too late and Bucky was dead…had left him behind all over again. In those moments, he screamed in both mental and physical agony, feeling this Hell was his just punishment. Though…he did have to admit he preferred this to the thought of waking up to a world where Bucky had died a second time. That world was empty of everything that had made life worth living.

All the while, memories and faces flashed through his mind: his mother, the father he'd never really known, Schmidt, Peggy, Howard, Bucky, the other commandos, Loki, his teammates on the Avengers, Fury, Dr. Erskine…

"I'm sorry," he apologized to the old man again and again.

"For what?"

"I gave your last gift away like it was nothing. I was selfish…and in the end…"

"You don't yet know if it was for nothing," Abraham finished for him when he was unable to. As he nodded, the doctor laid a hand on his shoulder. "I would say, Steven, if anyone has earned the right to be selfish, it is you. You have given all you could time and time again. No one could have given more. I knew I did right to choose you."

"But…if Bucky hadn't broken the crystal…everything you worked for would have been lost."

"It still might be," the older man said matter-of-factly. "I think we both know you will not survive if your friend did not. Did you know, Steven…that Schmidt killed my family?"

Steve looked up at this. He vaguely recalled hearing something like that from Peggy, but this was the first time he'd heard it from the doctor himself.

"My wife…and our two children…he placed them in a concentration camp in order to force me to help him…and there they died. My reasons for joining the SSR…for giving you the serum…were not even remotely unselfish. I wanted that monster to die," the old man snarled quietly, "and I was prepared to pay any price to make that happen…prepared to risk your life for my revenge. It was why I was so driven to select the perfect candidate."

"Yeah, well…Schmidt needed to go down."

"Be that as it may, you are not hearing what I am saying. Before what happened on the train, you were just serving your country, as any good soldier would; but after you thought your friend dead, you were truly fighting a war. You vowed to see HYDRA burn, just as I did. What happened in Tonsberg was no different. It is not wrong to want to change the world for love…to rethink what we think we know and to reevaluate what we believe to be important. It just took you a little longer to figure out what really mattered to you. When you thought you might lose James, or thought he might suffer, what had been important before lost its meaning. One could hardly blame you for choosing love over perfection."

"It wasn't really a choice," Steve admitted. "I understood the pros and cons…the consequences…but there was never any doubt in my mind what I was going to do…even if other people got hurt. I don't know if Captain America can think like that…and if I'm not Captain America…who am I?"

Erskine gave a small smile at this, sitting down beside him. "You are Steve Rodgers, and I can tell you right now, that is much better than any Captain America. After all, it was not Captain America who saved Bucky's life. It was Steve Rodgers."

"But I-"

Before Steve could say anymore, he suddenly found himself lying on a bed. He recognized the ceiling overhead as the med ward aboard the Helicarrier. He'd been here only a few days ago after his first brush with Nidhogg's Fire…

…and that thought immediately brought everything crashing back with painful clarity. When he tried to sit up, though, he found himself pinned down by a warm weight on his chest.

Glancing down, he was blessed with the sight of Bucky lying there with him, the moisture of his breath warm against his neck. Steve had to fight the urge to crush him against his chest, instead settling for wrapping both arms gently around him, so as not to wake him.

"Oh, God…oh, God," he whispered over and over again, feeling several tears slide down his cheeks.

You're all right…you're still alive…still with me. I was so afraid…you'd left me. Don't ever leave me again, you God damn punk!

"Oh, conscious. Awesome," a new voice interrupted. Steve looked up to see Clint striding into the med ward. He didn't even bother to wipe the tears away.

"How long have I been out?" he asked, absently stroking Bucky's hair.

"Well…today's technically the third day, but it's, like, seven in the morning still, so I wouldn't count it. Forty-eight hours, Cap. As far as I know, lover boy there only passed out a few hours ago. Didn't wanna leave your side and all that junk."

"Is he…all right?" Steve asked, looking down at Bucky again. "The apple worked?"

"Seems to have. He's healthy and he's been a perfect little angel…except for the whole 'refusing to leave your side' thing…even when Fury was demanding to debrief him."

"Heh, wish I could have seen that."

"Oh, you'll get to. Fury'll be back."

"And the others?"

"Darcy's gonna be on a crutch for a little bit, but she's mending. So's Sharon."

"And…Tony?" Steve asked, afraid to know. Clint shook his head.

"We couldn't save the arm. I think we all knew that when it happened. There was nothing clean about that break. The joint was pretty much destroyed, but you know Stark. He's not letting it slow him down. He and Banner are already working on a prosthetic."

"Banner?" Steve said, his head snapping up. "He's alive?"

Clint raised an eyebrow. "Yeah."

"It's just…Loki told me he and Thor had been killed."

"Yes, because the pipsqueak's usually so honest," the archer said with a roll of his eyes.

"What happened?"

"It's not that he didn't try to kill us. When your friend brought Jane back, Loki'd been messing with her head somehow. He was controlling her…and he was somehow able to pass that control to Natasha, Pepper, and Betty. They almost did kill us. Stark and I managed to avoid the worst of it, but Betty injected Banner with that Asgardian poison. He Hulked out and sort of…threw her against a wall."

"Oh, God," Steve murmured in horror, hugging Bucky a little tighter. "Is she…?"

"She's alive. The two of them regained consciousness yesterday morning. The poison didn't kill him, but he was in a coma that whole time…and he just about jumped ship when he found out what happened to Betty, literally. They managed to calm him down, though, Betty, Stark, and Selvig. They're keeping him distracted by having him help with the prosthetic. Stark's a…bit more excited about it than he should be, I think. He's on about how he's going to integrate it into his armor design."

"And…Thor?"

"Loki made him drink the stuff, and either he didn't really mean to kill him or he just didn't count on this Odinsleep thing of theirs. Apparently, only the reigning king's supposed to undergo it."

"What about you?"

Clint stared at him a moment before answering, "You mean the Carter thing, don't you."

"Is it true? Do you know?"

"Looks like," Clint said, shrugging in feigned indifference. "I had Fury pull my D.N.A. profile and compare it to Sharon's. Turns out we are related. Heh, had a cousin this whole damn time and didn't even know it."

"But…how could S.H.I.E.L.D. not know something like that? If Peggy was a founding member-"

"Honestly, Cap? They probably did know, just didn't see fit to tell me for some reason. I know who I'm working for. I'd never seen the official report of that accident until two days ago. It states all four family members died in the wreck: my parents, my brother…and me. There's an interesting story there…about why this piece of paper says I died twenty-four years ago when I'm standin' right here."

"Think you'll ever find out what happened?"

"Maybe…if I ever get around to it. It doesn't really affect my life right now," he lied. Steve remembered what he'd said…about remembering what it sounded like to hear the people you love screaming as they died. Had that really only been a week ago? Now it felt like a lifetime had been crammed into that week.

"What I want to know is how he knew about it," Clint continued, turning his gaze down to Bucky. Both men were a little surprised when he actually answered.

"You can't imagine how much the Soldier hated Peggy," he mumbled against Steve's chest, not looking at either of them. "That hate was burned into that part of me. Any similarity triggered it…and seeing you standing there, ready to fire…I guess he just knew."

"How're you feeling?" Steve asked, gently lifting his face up so he could look him in the eye. Bucky smirked at him, his eyes slightly red.

"You would ask me that…even though you're the one who's been out cold for two days."

"And…this?" Steve asked, pressing his fingers against the spot he knew the bullet had penetrated.

"It's fine, totally healed. Nothing to worry about," he reassured him, moving his fingers from where the mortal wound had been and drawing them up to his lips, gently kissing each fingertip.

"And…I…think I'm not gonna wanna be here in a few minutes," Clint said slowly before scurrying out of the ward.

Once again, Steve wrapped his arms securely around Bucky, and the slighter man returned the embrace just as fiercely.

"Don't you dare scare me like that again," Bucky berated him.

"Me?" Steve asked incredulously, though his hold on the other man didn't lessen even a little. "I thought I'd killed you."

"And it would have been no more than I deserved."

"And how do you think that would have made me feel? To live knowing I'd killed you?"

Bucky sighed as he snuggled closer to Steve. "No different than I would have felt if the situation had stayed reversed. Let's just agree that…neither of us would have survived in either case. We both did stupid things."

"Yeah," Steve agreed, kissing the other man's temple. "Only…what happened with Loki? Did the others get him?"

Bucky shook his head. "He split. No one knows where he ran off to. He just said he'd gotten what he needed from us."

"What…he needed? What does that mean?"

"No idea. They're thinking he's probably not even on the planet anymore…but I think we're all pretty sure we haven't seen the last of him."

"No doubt," Steve said absently, lamenting the fact that he'd lost his chance to kill the Asgardian.

"So…what happens now?" Bucky asked after several minutes of silence.

"What do you mean?" Steve asked, drawing his focus back to the man in his arms.

"I mean…you and me? What do we do now?"

"Well…Fury's probably gonna want to keep you under lock down for a bit, make sure Loki's influence is really gone…but once you're in the clear, I'd…like you to come live with me…if you want," Steve said, hesitant and awkward. Bucky glanced up at him, something uncharacteristically shy in his gaze as he sat up.

"And where do you live?"

"Depends on who you ask. I've got my own place, actually kinda near to where our old place was. Since Loki showed up, though, and the Initiative got off the ground, it's been a little easier to stay at Stark Tower. He's got room for an army and then some…but he can be a little…difficult to deal with sometimes, so I've always got the option of staying at one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s safe houses. That's what I was doing when…you first came back," Steve said, his eyes going distant for a moment before joining Bucky in sitting up. "I'm fine with whatever you wanna do; I just want to be with you…sort of…pick up where we left off…"

The look in Bucky's eyes betrayed relief, but the grin he gave him was the same familiar shade of rogue. "Sounds good to me. You know that's all I ever wanted…to be with you."

"All right," Steve said, feeling he could collapse in relief. "We'll get on that just as soon as we're both out of here. We've got a lot to catch up on."

XxX

Aware that Captain America probably wouldn't take too well to his boyfriend being debriefed/interrogated/browbeaten by Nick Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s director opted to carry out the questioning whilst the good captain was asleep and still recovering. Even though he didn't like the idea of going behind Steve's back, Bucky didn't argue against the plan, as Steve had finally come out of his coma. Fury could lock him away for the rest of his life and he probably wouldn't care, now that he knew Steve was going to be all right.

"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes," Fury began formally, "sometimes known as the Winter Soldier, do you understand why this hearing has been called?"

"Didn't know I was on trial," the soldier said casually, opting to forgo military decorum, as part of him was half certain Fury was just going to have him executed, "but yeah, I get it. You want to ask me about Loki."

"Something to that effect, yes," the director said, eying the soldier warily. He was sitting at the head of a table, surrounded by the Avengers, minus Steve, and the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who had survived contact with him: Maria Hill, Sharon Carter, and Darcy Lewis. Bucky was sitting alone before the table. Really, the only thing missing was a pair of handcuffs.

"What do you need to know?"

"Well, let's start with the obvious question: How did you survive the fall seventy years ago and wind up looking damn spry for a ninety-five-year-old?"

"Loki pulled me out of time that day. He brought me to this time in order to use me as a weapon against Steve."

"Can he do that?" Tony interrupted, pitching the question at Thor.

"I have never known what all my brother's abilities are," the thunderer answered after several moments of contemplation, "but given the power he's displayed during our recent encounters, I would not place such a skill as being beyond him."

"Why you, Sergeant Barnes?" Maria asked sharply, putting the interrogation back on track. "What did Loki hope to gain from using you over…say…Agent Peggy Carter?"

Bucky chuckled bitterly at this. "You think I'm lying…that Loki chose me and I joined him willingly for the promise of power," he said outright.

"We do have to entertain the possibility," Fury said, not at all embarrassed over being called out on the implied accusation. "After all, Agent Carter would have made just as lethal a weapon as you've proven to be."

"It wasn't about who mattered more to Steve; it was about whose extraction would have the least harmful effect on the flow of time. I was supposed to die that day. The time stream didn't miss me at all. Peggy's disappearance from the time stream would have left a deeper scar. For fear those effects might negatively impact him, Loki wanted the consequences of his meddling to be as minimal as possible…and they were. Only I paid the price for what he did," he explained, flexing his metal arm for them.

"And what did Loki do after he'd pulled you out of time?" Fury continued, accepting the explanation as typical Loki.

"I was tortured," Bucky said, struggling to keep himself distanced from those memories, recounting the time in a clinical, detached fashion. "In small doses, Nidhogg's Fire can be used as a powerful hallucinogen. Through a combination of that and the torture, I was coerced into becoming the Winter Soldier."

"Were you involved in the events of the Chitauri war at all?"

"I wasn't. I didn't see much of the people he was working with. The only one I ever really saw was an alien he called the Other. After he'd stolen the Tesseract, Loki brought me back to Earth and kinda…put me on standby."

"Standby?"

"He put me to sleep…incase his plan failed and he needed a backup. In stasis like that, I was able to keep my energy hidden without expending any of it. So I stayed hidden from S.H.I.E.L.D. until he woke me up."

"How does that work, exactly?" Natasha cut in. "Not many humans have the ability to use that kind of power, and you weren't one of them, according to your file."

"More of Loki's experimenting. He amplified the latent ability and taught me to use it. I'm still human, though; my body's not really cut out for it. The more I use it, the faster it kills me."

"Does Rodgers know about that?" she asked him, her gaze sharpening slightly.

"No," Bucky said after a moment, a little surprised by the question.

"Might want to mention it," Clint threw in, his gaze just as sharp on Bucky as Natasha's was in the few moments he looked at him.

"I've read the reports of all the agents who were present at the Tonsberg incident. What we lack at the moment is the captain's report…and yours. What happened after Loki pulled you away from the others?" Fury asked him.

"He tried to make a bargain with Steve…the Project Rebirth enhancements for my freedom…but when I saw what was happening, I broke his control myself. I tried to give back what he'd taken, but…I don't remember what happened after that…"

"He reasserted his control?" Sharon suggested.

"Must have. I guess…that's what being dead is like. I was just…gone. Normally, I was at least partly aware when the Soldier was in control, but this…the next thing I was aware of was a bullet going through me, and it didn't matter how much pain I was in. I just knew I had to give back what was taken…and I did. I was okay with dying then…but then Steve was screaming at me and trying to get me to eat something."

"The apple from Yggdrasil," Clint said.

"Then I…couldn't hear him anymore," Bucky went on as if the archer hadn't spoken, a touch of hysteria in his eyes and voice. "The apple seemed to hold me down…kept me from leaving…so I kept eating it…because I couldn't stand not knowing…if he was alive or dead," he admitted, not looking at any of them.

"Yes, and I have the reports of the final exchange with Loki," the director continued as if a near mental breakdown wasn't occurring right in front of him. "You talked about this Other then, too…and Loki said we ought to be concerned. Any knowledge of why that is?"

Bucky nearly broke out in hysterical laughter at this. This was what Fury had been leading up to. It wasn't about him and Steve, or where his loyalties were. It was just this.

"No," he said, struggling not to laugh. "I know he was threatening to come down on Loki if he couldn't get the Tesseract back, but neither Loki nor the Tesseract is on the planet anymore. I have no idea why Loki thinks we should be afraid of this guy. Can't think why he'd bother with us."

Fury looked contemplative as he glanced down at his files. "The Avengers turned in a damn good performance at the Battle for Manhattan. Is it possible whoever's backing this Other might view them as a threat, Sergeant Barnes?"

Bucky's entire body went cold at the insinuation. If someone Loki was afraid of saw the Avengers as a threat…saw Steve as a threat…

"Yes," he said slowly, his voice shaky as he gave the wall behind Fury's head a horrified stare. "That's definitely possible."

"What is this?" an angry, familiar voice suddenly burst into the proceedings. Bucky looked up to see Steve standing in the doorway to the interrogation room, wearing nothing but a pair of pants and an absolutely livid expression on his face.

"Debriefing," Fury answered casually as he pulled out a phone, glancing through a few screens before asking, "Stark? Any explanation as to why the alarm I set to inform if the good cap woke up failed to go off?"

Tony shrugged as best he could with his heavily bandaged stump. "Hey, ninety-year-old virgin's got just as much right to be here as the rest of us," he said, glancing between the furious captain and the former Winter Soldier, the simple statement letting Bucky know that as far as the billionaire was concerned, things between them were forgiven.

"You've got him set up like a prisoner," Steve said as he marched into the room, coming to stand beside his lover and placing a hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"It's fine. You don't have to make a big deal out of it, you jerk," he replied, and even though he didn't look up at Steve, he did place a hand on the one on his shoulder, letting him know he was happy he'd come.

"Well, Cap, seeing as how you're awake, you may as well stay," Fury said, indicating an empty chair at their table.

"No. I think I'll stand," Steve growled, squeezing Bucky's shoulder a little tighter.

"Right on!" Darcy cheered, pumping a fist in the air.

"Suit yourself," Fury said, doing his level best to ignore the slaphappy agent. "We're just about done here anyway. I only had one more question. Loki said he'd gotten what he needed from the two of you. Any idea what he meant by that?"

"Believe me, if I knew, I'd tell you. I can't think of a damn thing he could have gotten from both of us that he might actually need."

"You sure?" the director prodded, eyeing him as only he could. "Speak now or forever hold your god damn peace."

"I don't know anything. If I think of something, I'll let you know, but I really have no idea."

"Are we done?" Steve asked, shifting his hand so he and Bucky could twine their fingers together, his glare for the director never once lightening.

"I'd say so," Fury said, gathering up the scattered files. "Adjourned or…whatever," he finished, waving dismissively.

Starting with Steve and Bucky, the others slowly filed out of the room, until all that remained were Fury and Maria.

"Can we really do this?" Maria asked her superior. "Can we trust him?"

"Barton and Romanoff seem to think so, and their judgment's usually pretty sound."

"I almost wish I could see what happened down there to make them all trust him…even knowing how Loki operates."

"Well, we'll probably get to once Romanoff gets a hold of Stark's footage from the battle. I'm not worried about his loyalties, though. James Barnes would follow Cap to Hell and back, lover or not. I've also seen what those golden apples can do, so I can't say I'm surprised as all that. I just think he knows something…but doesn't realize it yet, and I'm afraid when we finally do figure it out, those words'll come back to bite us all in the ass. That's what I'm worried about."

XxX

By the time the Avengers returned to Stark Tower, Tony and Bruce had finished the first model of his prosthetic, though Tony was constantly thinking up new ideas for it, even after the damn thing was already attached to him. Of course, when had such a thing ever really been a stop to Tony Stark? He had learned to live with mechanical parts before and he would do it again.

The robotic arm didn't look all that different from his armor and would integrate well into the new designs for the Iron Man suit. In fact, he had actually kept the stabilizer as part of the design for the prosthetic and had insisted on making dinner that first night back (even though he had no culinary skills whatsoever and had to be supervised by Clint whilst he sautéed and fried up whatever he could find in the kitchen). They'd ended up with a meal of deep fried rice, well-done beef, and charred marshmallows for dessert. Tony had already decided to try crème brulee next time, which no one was particularly looking forward to. He'd offered to give Bucky his own space in the tower, but neither he nor Steve deemed that necessary, which didn't particularly surprise anyone.

"Enjoy the room," Tony called after the pair as they headed off for the night. "Make sweet love to it…at a reasonable level, of course; some of us are very impressionable."

"Impressionable here having the meaning of voyeuristic," Pepper added.

"Hey, gotta get new ideas from somewhere. Otherwise you're gonna start getting bored in bed, and then what'll we do?"

"Somehow, Tony, I doubt you will ever lack imagination in the sack."

Tony's response was lost to the young couple as they moved away from the commotion that was the Avengers. When Bucky glanced over at Steve, he saw that his face had already gone a rather severe shade of red, which the former mercenary had a good chuckle over.

"What's so funny?"

"Still kills me, you and innuendo. Made a kind of sense before, but now you're definitely not a virgin anymore, and here you are blushing like a little fifteen-year-old."

"It's just…not their business…and theirs isn't any of ours."

"Sometimes I think you were born in 1820 instead of 1920. I'm almost amazed you even…that night…" he stumbled over the words, a very faint blush of his own tinting his cheeks.

"Well…I think we both thought we were gonna die…and I know neither of us wanted what…what happened before…to be the end of it. Though…we're not dying now…are we…" Steve noted, trying to sound casual and failing miserably.

"No," Bucky answered, turning to face Steve as they slipped into his room. "No, we're not."

It had been a long time since Steve Rodgers had felt short of breath, but with the way Bucky was eyeing him just then, it seemed that his respiratory system had just stopped working altogether. He barely had enough presence of mind to take a breath before Bucky pinned him to the door, his lips sealing off all access to air.

Steve groaned heavily into the kiss, trembling like it was the first time all over again. At first, he just let it happen, as if things were still as they had been before the war and Bucky was the tall, strong one between the two of them. Nothing in all the world had ever been able to capture him as Bucky's kiss had. Several minutes into the heated session, though, the mighty captain seemed to remember that he was in possession of super human strength and pushed back against his lover, guiding their entangled bodies in the direction of the bed.

Bucky was pleased with the new intensity and responded just as ferociously, tearing off Steve's shirt and littering his neck and chest with angry red love bites. Steve growled against him, feeling his body react to the sharp new sensations. While he was distracted by them, Bucky took the opportunity to flip them so that he was on top and Steve had a completely unhindered view as he stripped off his own shirt, to which the captain moaned appreciatively.

This done, Bucky lowered himself back to Steve's chest, tracing slow, heavy kisses from there down his stomach, and finally…to the waistline of his slacks. As he began to undo the belt, he glanced back up at Steve's face, seeing that it had once again flushed red with embarrassment. Bucky offered him a reassuring smile.

"You pick the most interesting times to get shy," he said as he finished with the belt.

"Well…it was darker…before," the super soldier said haltingly.

Bucky shook his head before sending a small trickle of magic to the light switch in order to dim the lights. "That better?"

Steve nodded, leaning forward to kiss him again. "Thank you," he whispered against his lips.

"You still don't get how gorgeous you are, do you," Bucky said, only half-teasing as he ran a hand along the side of Steve's face.

"Twenty-two years as a scrawny nobody and four years as a super soldier. Which mentality do you think is stronger?" Steve asked, grinning in the dim light.

"Doesn't really matter," Bucky said as he moved back down. "You were always gorgeous to me."

Coherency was pretty much lost to Steve after that, as Bucky's very talented, very hot mouth was suddenly working between his legs, driving him wild with new, undreamed of sensations. He couldn't help the obscenely loud cries Bucky drew from him with every move. Even though he tried to draw it out for as long as he could, it wasn't long before Steve was coming, and even then, Bucky kept his mouth on him. It wasn't until Steve was completely spent that he finally released him, moving back up to lay beside him as he trembled on the sheets.

"God…God…Buck…" he continued to moan helplessly as Bucky kissed his neck.

"Tired already, Cap?" he teased. "Darn shame, cuz we're just gettin' started."

Steve smiled as he rolled onto his side to look Bucky in the eye. He felt practically boneless, but he was eager for more. Even though they hopefully had years ahead of them in which to explore and love each other, he had lost and almost lost Bucky a time too many to take even one second with him for granted. Leaning forward, he pressed his forehead against Bucky's.

"I could do this all night."

XxX

Loki collapsed the moment he emerged from the void, curling in on himself in pain and exhaustion. He wasn't completely certain where he'd ended up, but he was at least confident it was beyond the reach of any sapient life form. It had taken everything he had and more to get himself to this barren stretch of rock, so at this point, all he could do was hope it would prove to be worth it.

When he was feeling up to it, which could have been either minutes or weeks later, Loki slowly sat up, thinking to have a look at the environment he'd wound up in. It truly seemed to be a barren rock, a moon with a very harsh atmosphere, but still something tolerable. He knew, however, that if this moon was like its siblings and parents in this system, a more habitable environment awaited below the desert-like surface.

Slowly struggling to his feet, the trickster began to walk, sending out his senses in search of a break in the seemingly endless rock. As he moved, he also divided his senses, turning some of his attention inward, toward the reason he'd fled so far.

What his little soldier hadn't been aware of at the time was that he'd done a bit of shape-shifting before their show for the good captain. Nothing visible, of course, just enough so that he could do something other than waste the seed the human had given him. In fact, it was already being put to good use. He could feel the difference deep inside of him…the weight and knowledge of the barely begun lives he carried. The harsh journey had not harmed them.

This moon was certainly no place to raise children, but then again, these would not be ordinary children, not even by Asgardian or Jotunn standards. No one knew it, but he'd been to see the Norns before invading Earth, and while they hadn't given him exactly what he'd wanted, they had told him some very interesting things that he hadn't realized the importance of at the time.

There is a prophecy, they'd said, that the children of Loki will bring about Ragnarok…the ending times. They shall be the kith of many realms and they will have power the Trickster knows not. Though they be the seeds of destruction, they also be the light of redemption.

He didn't much care for the part about redemption. It was Ragnarok…the idea that it was in his power to turn the wheel of destiny…to bring about the beings fated to cleanse the filth of the current cosmos and usher in an entirely new one. With them as his children, he could paint his own ending to Ragnarok…and if they just so happened to be his enemies' children as well, heheh…wouldn't that make the final confrontation that much more interesting.

Lost in thought as he was, Loki nearly fell into the crevice when he finally came upon it. To his relief, he could hear the sound of water trickling up from below. Eager, he wriggled his lithe body down into the crevice, dropping into the cavern below, and was pleased to find a stream. Nothing else really mattered; so long as there was water, he could remain here. He could keep himself and his children hidden from all his enemies until the time was right, and…maybe…in the meantime…he could be the family his own had never been to him.

Feeling only slightly awkward, Loki rested a hand on his stomach as he began to walk along beside the stream, exploring the cavern.

"Don't be afraid," he said softly, pretending it was more for the not-quite-yet babies than himself. "We'll be safe here. No one will find us…and they'll never see us coming," he crooned, chuckling quietly as he walked along.

XxX

(A/N) Confused? Well, don't be fearing. That's what sequels are for. See you all next time around in To Have and To Hold.