Disclaimer: I own nothing but the OC. This is all still unbeta'd, so read at your own risk.
By seven A.M. the next day, I was safely on board the helicarrier, lounging around a table in a conference room. Just like that first time that we all got together like this, everybody was chillin' out whilst Hill droned on and on (this time, it was about logistics and air support). Granted, these were very important things, but I'd been up since three thirty in the morning and I'd just surreptitiously sent Kesavan my hey I'm bailing for a pretty good reason so ttyl email from my phone under the table, so I was pretty much over whatever she was saying.
Loki had left after I'd finished packing; Nat had demanded that he stick to a curfew, because he still hadn't redeemed himself for New York. She was waiting in a car on the next street, ready to take him back into SHIELD custody. He grumbled a little, but I told him to suck it up. He totally did deserve their mistrust, and it wasn't like they were chaining him up and shackling him to a wall. I'd woken up after a four hour nap, thrown sweatpants and a hoodie over a SHIELD catsuit, kissed my sleepy parents goodbye, and gotten on a bus to the jetties, where a boat piloted by another agent was waiting. I removed my disguise en route to the rendezvous point, sliding my boots on just as we stopped under a patch of ocean illuminated by a spotlight from a helicopter hovering above us. The other agent caught the end of a cable and hooked it on to me, doing the same to another cable and my suitcase. Nodding my thanks to him, I allowed myself to be hoisted up, up and away, ready to return to work.
Admittedly, I wasn't quite ready to sit up and pay attention to Hill.
Eventually, Rogers stepped up with the attack plan. It was basically everything that Loki had told me last night, but with one difference.
According to Rogers, he and I were the ones who were supposed to do the planting of the device.
I raised my hand, confused. "Erm. I thought that Loki and I were supposed to be doing the smash-and-dash."
Thor leapt to his feet, shoulders tense. "I told you that you would be staying here," he growled. Loki sat back in his chair and met his brother's angry gaze.
"And I told you that I would be going with Kate. Clearly you aren't very good at listening to people."
"You have no magic, Loki. What have you to defend yourself against the Eldjötnar? There are no weapons you are familiar with here. It is too late to have knives forged for you. You will stay here and supervise the attack."
Loki was out of his seat and snarling in the space of half a heartbeat. "You would have me caged like a rabbit! Just because I do not throw myself into the fray, it does not mean that I fear battle. Give me a gun and I swear upon Yggdrasil that my aim will be as true as if each bullet were a knife."
Thor opened his mouth to protest, but Loki bulldozed on. "And you think that I am weak without my magic? Hah!"
And then with a harsh exhalation, blue flushed down the pale of his skin, raising ridges and swirls in a complex pattern dance of tattoos in its wake. Red seeped into his eyes, staining the whites with blood and eating into his irises, leaving a more catlike pupil. Only his hair remained the same: cropped and unmilitary. Craning my neck around, I almost sniggered upon seeing that his eyebrows were still blonde, but the atmosphere in the room was too tense to support jocularity of any kind. No one else found his eyebrows funny, so. Ok.
In fact, everyone was looking pretty horrified at his sudden transformation (well, except for Darcy and Stark – the two of them were very obviously fascinated). Thor looked like his balls had shrivelled up and fallen off.
"Loki," he spluttered, clearly trying not to freak out. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Am I not naturally strong in this form, brother? Do I not have strength to break the backs of a hundred Eldjötnar across my bended knee? Surely it was the All-Father's intention for me to embrace myself in my entirety, despite stripping me of the magic known to the Aesir, and gelding me of the frost-touch inherent in my blood brethren."
"Brother," Thor said lowly, quietly, trying to breathe evenly. "I know that this pains you; the reminder of this pains you. I mean only to spare you distress."
"You mean to spare me distress?" Loki repeated, incredulous. "Then let me go with Kate and let me keep her safe!"
Woah.
Everybody turned to stare at me in the dead silence following Loki's outburst. I didn't know how I was supposed to look; I was torn between rejoicing, because wow he cares, and feeling rather insulted that he didn't think that I could look after myself. Come to think of it, if anyone here had a right to be insulted, it would be Rogers. Loki really didn't think very much of the Super Soldier Serum thing. Eventually, because everybody was still staring at me as if I'd grown a second head and that head was a pug's head, I settled for playing the calm card.
"Boys. Sit down. Both of you." I rose very slowly, keeping my hands out in the universal gesture for calm yo' tits. Thor sank into his seat following a subtle prod from Foster, but Loki remained on his feet, still furiously glaring at his brother. "Loki." I wasn't going to touch him, because touching an angry Loki is kind of like slapping an already pissy cobra, but I turned to him and held my hands, palm up, in the space between us, offering a bridge back to a world with less rage. "I will go with you, ok? Everyone's fine with this." I took a moment to place some pressure on Thor's shoulder when he started to get up again. He took the hint and sat back down. "Everything's fine. Loki."
Reluctantly, Loki turned to me, visibly trying to get his temper under control. I tried to continue being a reassuring figure, but I was starting to panic, a little. Did he honestly think that I was going to injure myself, or, god forbid, die?
With supreme force of will, Loki inhaled and exhaled, hard. The colour drained like paint in a sink, drawing away from his fingers first. The entire process took less than three seconds; then it was pale, gaunt Loki who clasped my fingers, kissed the back of my hand, and exited the room.
I made to go after him, but it was Thor who shook his head. "He needs some time, Lady Katharine. Leave him be."
Predictably, it was Stark who spoke up next. "So, Thor. First question: is Asgard actually Pandora? Second question: is your little brother blue everywhere?"
I found Loki tinkering in the lab on board the helicarrier an hour later. He still did not seem inclined to be chatty, but it's not like I take that sort of thing into consideration.
"So," I began, perching myself upon an overly-squashy swivel chair, "What're you doing?"
"Streamlining," he replied, tersely.
"Uhhuh." I eyed the tiny silver box he was fiddling around with, intrigued. "Is that the portal destroyer?" I'd taken to calling it that. It felt catchy.
"Yes."
"Why can't we just go boom instead of waiting for it to disable the portal?"
Loki looked at me as if I was mad. "A portal is a tunnel through the swirl of time and space. Do you really want to channel an explosion through that?"
Well, I'm sorry that I can't keep up. He was clearly still hung up about what had happened, because, y'know. Loki likes to brood. Preferably on the ashes of what was once a lush utopia populated by innocent little beings, but he's not particularly picky. I huffed, blowing a lock of hair out of my face. "Lokes. Not to try and fish for affirmation, or anything, but why are you so hung up about keeping me from harm? It's not like I haven't survived seriously morbid situations, before. SHIELD did train me with a view to keeping myself alive."
Loki acted as if he hadn't heard me, focusing all his attention on screwing the final panel on to the portal destroyer just so.
"Err, hello, God of Chaos?"
"Why can't I want to ensure your safety for myself?" he snapped, hooking the device onto the utility belt of the SHIELD regulation fatigues he was sporting. Thor wasn't able to squirrel Loki's battle gear from Asgard, and Loki was too proud to ask his father for it himself, so he had, with obvious disdain, consented to wearing SHIELD's uniform.
"I don't know," I muttered, staring at my boots. "You're just awfully intense about it. SHIELD agents are trained to put the mission first. Saving comrades comes second. No one's ever been so insistent on getting others out alive before."
In the blink of an eye, Loki was in front of me, tilting my chin up with a gentleness that was wholly incongruous with his tone. "I have had every good thing in my life stripped from me. I will not have you taken, too."
I honestly had nothing to say to that. As it was, breathing, let alone breathing evenly, became a problem. As I stared at him like the proverbial dumb deer in the headlights, the attack alarm began to blare.
We both leapt into action. Loki snatched the remote detonator from the workstation and threw it in my direction – I was in the process of checking if I had both my revolvers ready and almost missed the catch – and we were off, racing towards the deck.
Surprisingly, for the number of people mobilised and the possibility that a great number of people would die today, the allocation of agents into quinjets was pretty organised.
Loki and I clambered into a separate quinjet from the main group. We had a small squad of SHIELD agents as backup, but the bulk of SHIELD's resources were amassing for a full-frontal assault. Hill was barking orders through a com-link as tech flunkies sent field coordinates to pilots.
As we took off, Fury's voice crackled over the intercom. "Attention, all agents. The Eljötnar have made contact on the island of Luzon, in the Philippines. They've opened a portal on the side of Mount Pinatubo. There are no civilian settlements directly in their path, but Golf Squad will be ensuring that all civilians are evacuated from the site ASAP. November Squad, hover on standby at the portal site. All other units will report to base point and wait for the hostiles to clear higher ground. Draw them further away from the portal, and use the jungle to your advantage. Win. Fury out."
What an inspirational motherfucker.
Our pilot activated the quinjet's stealth mode as we neared the portal; from a window, we could see ragged lines of fire demons streaming from a tear in the rocky face of the volcano. They were huge; warlike and grim, they moved purposefully down towards lower ground, torching any vegetation in their way. Something in my gut clenched at such casual destruction. We had to get rid of this madness.
It was incredibly difficult to wait silently until the entire fire demon army had exited the portal. There was an overwhelming urge to pick them off while we had the element of surprise; thin their ranks early. But, we couldn't alert them as to our position. Loki must have noticed the tension in my posture, because he laid a hand on my shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze of reassurance. Startled, I glanced over at him, but he kept his gaze resolutely on the march of tribal warriors below us.
The agents around us didn't miss our exchange – I felt the sudden stiffening of the one behind me – but we had bigger things to worry about than Loki's reformation into a thoughtful being.
Finally, the line of giants petered out. A single squad of ten giants remained behind to guard the portal as the rest lumbered towards the tree line. We continued waiting for a good while, until a collection of roars ripped through the afternoon.
The intercom crackled to life. "We have contact! November, drop now!"
That was our cue.
Loki and I were the last ones out. I looked back at him before my jump – he nodded, and blue spread through his veins like blood in water.
I squared my shoulders and leapt.
SHIELD did not equip us with parachutes for this jump; the fire demons could easily burn a hole through the fabric before we even landed. Instead, we got jet packs to allow us to control our momentum.
The guard squad had spotted us.
One demon was already down, having been caught unawares by a bullet to his head. These bullets were new, too; Much like a hollow-point bullet, they expanded and shattered when they hit their target, but they also released a lethal burst of liquid nitrogen. The demon was out like a light.
The remaining nine were not so easy.
When I hit the ground, three agents were already goners, having not been fast enough to dodge jets of flame. Remembering my own injury from several weeks ago, I used my telekinesis like a force field, putting light shields between any fire and myself. I shucked the pack (it was only extra weight on the ground) and went straight for the two warriors hanging back around the portal, ducking under a jet of flame and firing a bullet. With a swift flick of my wrist upwards, the bullet punched through the chin of one, letting the nitrogen explode in his head.
There wasn't time to double-check the kill. I propelled myself up over another burst of fire using my telekinesis and shot at the other demon twice in mid-air. One bullet went completely wide before I could catch it, but the other one got him in the neck. It bubbled and froze over instantaneously; a violent gesture with my wrist had the remainder of the shards explode outwards, decapitating him.
Shielding myself from the gory remnants of fire demons, I almost missed another demon coming at me. Winded by my landing, I rolled to the side, but not fast enough. A burst of flame singed my back, and I cried out.
Loki, drawn by the sound, appeared from god-knows-where, and put a bullet into my attacker. I clambered to my feet, cataloguing the agony in my back and filing it away. Breathe through it. I wasn't successful in ensuring that the pain didn't dull my senses, because Loki's fierce, battle-hungry expression suddenly morphed into one of horror.
I was shoved to the ground before I fully registered what that expression meant. The first thing I saw upon rolling back to my feet a second later was the fire demon barrelling straight at us. I shot him, ensuring that my bullet met its mark. As the demon collapsed, I looked wildly around for Loki.
I almost wished I hadn't.
He was pinned to the ground by an iron javelin through his right shoulder. He managed to pull it out as I rushed over to him, but he was losing a great deal of blood very quickly. A quick survey of my surroundings showed that only one fire demon was left, and he was being despatched by the two remaining SHIELD agents – who also didn't look altogether steady on their feet.
Loki and I were supposed to head into the portal together, but he wasn't in any shape to go anywhere. Already giddy with blood loss, Loki tried to push himself up, but I held him down. Incensed, he tried to snap at me, but I beat him to it.
I knocked him out with a quick blow to the head (not hard enough to give him a concussion, but with enough force to make him pass out – the blood loss was already doing that, anyways) and grabbed the portal destroyer from his belt. The two agents were suddenly by my side, looking grave.
"He needs medical attention. You with the burn, get him to it." The agent I'd gestured to nodded and handed his extra cartridges over to me. I handed them right back to the other agent. "And you, take these and guard the portal. You should have a pretty good shot from the higher ground."
They didn't even ask what I was going to do. We all knew it.
I checked my belt for the remote detonator right before I stepped through the portal, but with a sort of calm resignation, I saw that the fire that had grazed my back had melted away half of it.
At least I wouldn't be around for Loki to kill me for this. I only can die once. We all only die once in a lifetime. Aren't we all on loan to the world, anyways? The most important thing is to make full use of the time we've borrowed. I thought about my family and my country; I hoped that SHIELD would call them after my death and tell them exactly what I had died for. I wanted them to be proud of me, but most of all, I wanted them to know how much I loved them, even though I hadn't been around to show them that I did.
Taking a deep breath (still working through the pain in my back), I raised my psychic shield and stepped through the whirling mass of light.
It was kind of like moving from one room into another, but there was like a galaxy of stars and space in between. In the time it took for me to step fully into Muspelheimr, I felt myself age backwards and forwards about ten times; felt the songs of a million universes thrumming in my bones. It took all the concentration that I had to keep my shield steady around me. When I broke through to the other side of the portal, I would only have about a split second of surprise on my side. I had to make that second count.
The step was complete, and I felt my body whoosh back together into that specific time and space. There was none of the nausea that characterised travel by Odin's methods; just a vague tingling under my skin.
I was in a cave, with five fire demons tinkering around the platform I'd arrived onto. I managed to take out the two in front of me immediately upon materialising; I caught another in the back as he ran for help, but one more managed to escape. That left me with one to handle. He sidled cautiously around a workstation; I took the opportunity to activate the portal destroyer, holding it steady in one hand as I trained my revolver on him. Noting that he was weaponless, I realised that the only reason why he wasn't launching fire at me was because he was afraid to damage the portal. Without preamble, I shot him in the chest as he reached for an iron spear in a bracket against the wall.
A glance down at the device told me that it was only forty per cent done with destabilising the portal. I was gripped by an irrational desire to just press the red manual destruct button before more fire demons came, but I quashed that feeling down. Destroying it early meant unchecked destruction. I had to get the job done right.
A squad of guards came clattering into sight, armed with iron crossbows. I managed to get one with the remaining three bullets in my revolver – unlike Clint, I wasn't good enough of a shot to have each of my bullets fly true without my abilities, and my other hand was currently holding the device. Tossing the useless gun aside, I got my shield up just in time. Sixty-five per cent.
Fuelled by desperation and anchored with the determination to finish the mission, I'd managed to create the sort of corporeal shield that Loki had been pushing me towards. For the next three minutes (that felt like about three hundred years), I kept it strong, withstanding a barrage of arrows from increasingly frustrated fire demons. Ninety per cent.
Still, I didn't have an inexhaustible reservoir of energy. My shield began to waver, letting in shots, but slowly, like a pin pushing through a rubber band. They were slow enough that I could move to dodge them as they came, but once they realised that they could get through, the shots came faster.
The arrow through my side brought me to my knees. Ninety-five per cent.
They began closing in. One last surge of strength blocked an arrow to my neck. Ninety-eight per cent.
Another arrow seared through my chest, narrowly missing my heart as I moved at the last moment. Ninety-nine per cent.
My shields were gone. I watched the arrow that would kill me slice through the distance between us. One hundred per cent.
With the greatest effort that I had ever made, I put my thumb over the red button and pressed down.
For an awful moment, nothing happened.
Then heat, bright and welcoming, washed over me, and I knew no more.
A/N: THIS IS NOT THE END. There's another chapter left. Don't panic. I wasn't sure if it was better for me to write the last chapter before posting this one and the last one up at one shot, but I figured that perhaps you guys would want to read this as quickly as possible, and I don't want to keep you waiting (hello, freudianprincess!).
Don't hate me for this, please; it had to happen. Review!