A/N: Thank you guys so much for your reviews! You're so sweet! =)
I will see you all again on December 21st for the last chapter!
We never shoot to stun,
We're kings of the kill and we're out for blood,
We'll take one by one,
We're kings of the kill and we're out for blood.
-Ruelle "Monsters"
Chapter Fourteen:
"This is not going to work." Clint murmurs under his breath and Natasha flicks her gaze up towards him again, then grips the steering wheel tighter. It isn't her partner's first proclamation of such doubts, but as they get closer to the facility, it's becoming less and less of an annoyance and more worrying.
Clint has been here before.
He knows these halls.
They do not.
The building is nothing impressive. It's large, certainly, but there is nothing about it that she declares it to be dangerous and a prison. It's a dull grayish color with a black roof and lights next to every window. It's two stories tall with a wire fence around the property, a garden to the left and a spacious place for parking vehicles to the right with a large burn mark splattered in the center. Stabled to the fence every thirty feet or so is the words "Private property; keep out. Trespassers will be shot". It's not something she would have labeled as "Hydra" without a reasoning such as this. There's a single entrance for cars attached to the road with a security guard identifying any passerby.
"Your confidence is staggering, Barton." Loki assures behind them from his position in the back seat.
The car is a present from Pepper, a rental that she managed to get contracted for them before they left Cheyenne for Lusk what feels like days ago. It wasn't, closer to a day now, but it wasn't weeks upon weeks without end. They've barely been in the car for four hours since they left, then stalked the facility for a bit as perimeter checking, but she's anxious and has yet to associate a different memory where she's wanted to leave a vehicle more than now.
"Hey," Clint accuses lightly, "I've been here—I know the pains of their security. Bending a little bit of light isn't going to change anything."
Natasha sees Loki's head tilt slightly in the rear view mirror, but he gives a knowing small smile as he does so. It's not quite to the point of unnerving, but it's getting there. Natasha bites her tongue for a second then glances at her partner.
"Clint. Shut up."
Clint makes a face. "Hey! I'm just expressing concerns."
"It's not feeling me with rousing confidence." She counters.
Or any at all, actually.
Clint's lips turn down and he opens his mouth to respond, but Steve lifts up a hand. "Be quiet," he commands, "we're nearing the gates."
Natasha forces her stance to relax and the illusion she's wearing, via Loki, to settle against her skin easier. It's strange, almost like wearing a cold blanket that smells vaguely like cinnamon hot chocolate. She's not sure why, but she didn't ask Loki when he cast it and has no desire to.
Their plan is terrible. They're going to get caught, murdered, then dragged to the Hydra facility to have their corpses studied. She wishes that she had her Widow Bites, or at least one of her guns or daggers. Loki's given her one of his, but it feels strange in her hand. Unwelcomed.
They're getting closer, the anxiety in her stomach does not settle.
Thirty feet, fifteen, five.
Steve ducks, disappearing from her sight as Clint scowls and lifts a bit of stray hay (that Natasha is honestly not sure where came from) to his mouth to chew at aggressively.
Natasha slows the car to stop in front of the barrier, quietly wondering when it was set up because Clint never mentioned it in his descriptions of the building. She rolls down the window and flicks her gaze to her hands again to make sure the illusion is still set in place before she makes eye contact with man in the security hut.
He's young—early twenties—which is good because youth is easier to manipulate than those older. He looks bored out of his mind, but attempting to be focused as he leans forward and squints at her, face grim. "ID." He requests, his accent is a thick Russian.
Natasha feels a slight lurch in her stomach at it, but forces herself to focus and stay in character.
"ID!?" She repeats in a thick southern states drawl. She deepens her voice to add the proper amount of age for her appearance. Currently, she's sporting graying hair, wrinkles, and clothing she admittedly wouldn't be caught dead in if not for the direness of the situation. It feels so strange to know that this exists only because of light bending. Loki could have easily remained undetected from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s scanners after he took the Tesseract if he desired. Natasha flicks a gaze to Clint, who meets her eyes behind his sunglasses.
"ID!?" She echoes once more in a squawk.
Clint, too, is aged and wearing farmer's clothing. Across his cheek is a long jagged scar looks like he fell on a rather aggressive table edge.
Natasha turns back to the young man, scowling. "How dare you!? We don't have time for this!"
The man slips from his glaze, releasing an irritated sigh, "Ma'am, for security we not allow you into building without a scan of identification. It can be your driver's license; it won't take more than a moment."
Yeah, but she doesn't have her driver's license right now. It's back at the Tower, lodged in one of her shoes where she dropped it a day before the attack.
Natasha scoffs loudly, "I was told that this was an asylum."
"Aye." Clint agrees, his voice deep and also laced with a Southern drawl.
The young man flicks his gaze to the ceiling; impatient this one. Good. "We a mental health facility, yes," he agrees, "but they specialize in treatment for PTSD."
"But it's an asylum?" Natasha presses.
The young man stares at her. His eyes are losing the annoyance and bordering on mildly wary. "No, tis' not. You local? They list this on the internet."
"Bah!" Natasha exclaims in a loud huff. "Sonny, no one got time to look at those darn fancy calculator-ma-bobs." She insists, waving her hand. Loki releases a loud moan from the back and Natasha sees him grip the edges of his hair and tug. He mutters something under his breath and then giggles to it, slamming a hand over his mouth as he does so, eyes alight.
Natasha forces herself to relax.
This was planned.
The guard's hands shift for the gun on his hip, hissing a Russian curse under his breath. "What that? Ma'am, you'll have to leave car."
She panics. She can't leave, they'll search it and find Steve and have questions. She bites at her tongue to calm her frayed nerves and scoffs louder, "Excuse me!?" She demands. "My son is insane and I'm here to do something about it before he murders the lot of us. He got a good hold on Bessie this morning and gave her a good scare—that's our family cow, but the way. I've been driving for hours and I'm exhausted—Oi! You put that gun down, Sonnie."
The young man's hand wavers, and Natasha sees a companionship of two men walking towards them, Hydra agents, she spots the logo embroidered on the side of their sleeves despite the early hour. It's seven AM, so it's not drastically early, but Clint doesn't consider it not-early until eight, so she's gradually shifted to agree with him.
The two walk up to the security shack and both take a long look at her, eyes narrowed. Natasha doesn't lesson her scowl; instead, she deepens it.
"What appears to be the problem?" The agent on the left asks. American.
The young man opens his mouth to answer, but Natasha beats him to it: "Our son tried to kill our cow this morning—he's mad I tell you mad. He has his fits on occasion, yes, but this is unlike anything we've ever seen and I was told by Mrs. Turner that you'd take him and rattle his brains back together."
As if to prove her point (and he is) Loki falls backwards and rams his head into the space between Clint and Natasha, hissing between his teeth and reaches his hands to grab at his tongue and tug. Clint leans forward and plucks Loki's hands from his mouth with an irritated face.
Natasha makes a pointed expression towards the Hydra agents.
The three of them are staring at the interior of the car where Clint has now moved onto both hands to keep Loki from clawing at his face. He's murmuring words in Aardent that sound like nonsense, but Natasha recognizes the pressure he applies to the words to be from his native tongue.
The three are quiet and Natasha flicks her gaze to Clint sharing her anxious look with him.
This isn't working!
"OI!" Clint barks, causing the three to flick their gazes to him. "Are you going to help us or not!? We don't have all day, you know! He's going to rip his eyes out!"
The three don't look like they doubt it. Judging from Loki's desperation to grip at them, Clint doesn't look like he does either.
The original young man makes eye contact with her again, "Fine. This the exception, there be paperwork inside that you need to fill. This government issued facility. You have the rest of today to find a different place to transfer him."
Natasha feels her muscles relax with relief, but she still holds her outward demeanor in the same stiffness. "Good! We can work with a few hours. You're to generous lad, we won't forget it." She assures.
Loki lets out a screech and young man makes a something between a disgusted and heavily disturbed face. "Go!" He commands, flicking open the gate. Natasha nods and drives forward slowly, rolling up her window as she does. When they enter the property fully, Loki sags in Clint's grip and Steve sits up.
"I can't believe that worked." Steve murmurs under his breath.
Neither can she.
But it doesn't matter right now. They can appreciate how gullible Hydra agents are at a later date. They're on the property because they faked needing to be here and now they can work from inside out as they search for their other teammates.
Loki lets the illusion fall from where it's wrapped around herself and her partner as Clint leans forward to pluck his quiver from where it's hidden next to his feet. Natasha pulls the gun from off her person as she drives into a parking spot and she sees Loki and Steve prepare their weapons.
Clint pulls and arrow out and looks back at Steve, who gives a curt nod.
Clint exhales sharply, then rolls the window down a few inches, knocks his bow and fires.
They watch, breathless, as the arrow sails through the air and slams into the front door, exploding on contact. Alarms immediately start to wail, but they don't wait. She and the other three scramble from the car, making a break for the newly created entrance.
Hydra agents are beginning to race towards them in large waves, and Natasha fires a few shots in sync with Steve. Loki jerks a hand out and seems to throw water at them. The water hits the ground and spreads across the dirt rapidly as ice that causes many of the men to lose their footing and slip.
Magic.
Magic is nice.
They reach the doors where more men are waiting and Natasha fires a round of bullets towards them as Loki briefly indulges in hand-to-hand and the her other teammates echo her actions. They're quiet, but move quickly and efficiently as they trek through the halls and are well into the building when the lights give and their cast into darkness.
Natasha slows her rapid movement, lifting her gun and listening for breath.
A door slams shut behind them, rattling uncomfortably in her ears. Her muscles pull taut and she awaits for the oncoming attack. There's the slow agitated breathing of her teammates, but nothing else.
"Cap?" Natasha questions quietly, moving in the direction she last saw him. They didn't plan for this, honestly, their plan so far has only been held together by sheer luck and mercy from some being on high.
"Just keep moving." Steve grits out.
A greenish glow begins to work up from behind her, but it's stopped abruptly when Loki lets out a loud cry of pain and there's the sound of a body tumbling to the ground. "Loki!" Natasha hisses panic, moving back towards the source of the noise.
"Oh, Captain, it's such an honor to have you here." Natasha's spine tenses at the voice. She's only met him twice, but she wasn't fond of him either time and felt the need to give his neck a good rattle the last time she saw him. Alexander Pierce. Fury's superior.
And, apparently, Hydra's as well.
Natasha forces herself to focus, and continues her search for Loki.
"Is it now?" Steve questions, he sounds weary, but he's behind her by at least ten feet now.
Pierce laughs quietly, almost as if sharing a fond childhood memory, "Oh, yes, indeed. I've been looking forward to getting to meet you, along with the little hawk with his spider and ah—yes, you were foolish enough to bring Loki along, weren't you? I've been meaning to have words with him for sometime." He's going to be waiting a lot longer because that is not happening unless it's over Natasha's cold, dead, corpse.
She can't find him.
Where is he?
She can hear his rattling breaths.
He's injured and she doesn't know how or where or—
"You're not going to." Clint's voice is firm and icy. "Take note of that."
"Ah, Mr. Barton," Pierce says, "always a pleasure."
"Where are the Avengers?" Steve questions firmly, Natasha hears him replace ammo in his weapon. "We're just here for them. No one has to get hurt."
"Dear Captain," Pierce says softly, "you know that this just can't be done. But yes, you are right, no need for injuries—no more injuries, I suppose. You've been anxiously awaited here, but I'm afraid our chat has to come to an end, I'll see you when you wake up."
A speaker clicks off, but Natasha barely processes it as she whirls around, confused. Wake up. Wake up!?
A stinging sensation feels her nose and the realization smacks her. Oh, gosh—he's going to sedate them. "Move!" Natasha hisses, scrambling to find the exit, but the hall is long and dark. The door feels miles away. Her limbs are growing heavy and the air is thick and sweet.
She slams against something and recognizes it for the door and begins to pound against it. Clint joins her a moment later, fists slamming into the metal. It doesn't give. Or help anything beyond make her fingers hurt.
No!
They can't have come this far only to fail!
Tony, Thor and Bruce need them and they can't help anything if they're drugged and unconscious. Wake up!
They can't...what...why is she standing when she's so exhausted and—Tony, Thor, Bruce! She has to get to them has to—has to—
Natasha's body collapses against the cold, hard ground and she slips into the realm of sleep a moment later.
000o000
His stomach is burning with the pulsing ache of where the blade slipped between his ribs. It's severing. Burning. A sharp acidic sent is spilling into his nose and he can't figure out the source of it. Someone is speaking and thought he knows he needs to be paying attention, Loki can focus on nothing else but the burn of the broken tissue.
His head is spinning rapidly and he doesn't know how to make it stop. He needs it to stop. But he can't.
His sedir is refusing to respond in his panic, his foggy muggled mind is restricting his ability to focus (clear your mind, dearheart, his mother would tell him again and again, but it's never felt harder) and his natural healing is being equally slow. The burning sensation of the broken tissue is one that refuses to relent or quiet.
He needs Thor.
Thor will fix it.
He was medically trained, he can make the aching go away.
But his brother isn't here, and it's his fault.
A ragged hiss pulses from his lungs. He has endured far worse than this—it shouldn't be bothering him so. He needs to gather himself, this is pathetic.
Thanos would—
Stop.
He's not there anymore.
He's not.
This pain is not from their scalding water, or weapons slick with his blood—he is no longer there. Another staggering pulse ripples through him, and this time a cry does escape him.
Thor.
He needs Thor.
Or Eir.
Or Mother. Even Odin. Just—something to stop it.
Something is wrong. (Poison, the less hysterical part of his mind supplies simply, the blade was poisoned) It's burning him. Like the water. And the brand. Oh, Norns, he never left. Thanos will return with his daughters, and they will hold him down as the pulse of the Mind Stone rages through his mind once more searching for weak links and—and—
Loki slams his palm against the floor and attempts to shove to his feet, but his coordination has been lost. He lands on his shoulder, hard, and releases a pained hiss, curling around his stomach and panting.
He's trapped.
Stuck.
Swallowed in a stygian he can't remove. Where is Thor? He needs him. Please. He can't do this anymore on his own. He needs...he needs...he wants to return home, where is mother will embrace him and he will be safe in Serenity's walls. Where Thanos's hands cannot reach and—oh, Norns something is burning his back and—
Something is touching him.
He twitches with surprise and whips his head back, eyes ripping open to blurrily stare back at whatever has gripped his shoulder. It's dark and nearly impossible to make out anything, but Loki can make out a figure leaning over him, dark hair falling in front of their face.
He doesn't understand. He...he's...tired. He's tired. Exhausted. Maybe…sleep. Sleeep.
The hand moves from his shoulder, gloved fingers briefly touching his hair before some sort of plastic mask is strapped across his face. Loki bites back rising panic as he swings a hand out to lash at the attacker, but they catch his wrist and twist it behind his back, slamming his palm against the warm wound.
He feels everything along his spine go rigid.
"Stop it." The voice is low, hissed, and strangely desperate. Male.
Loki inhales raggedly and is bizzardly aware that the air has lost the acidic tinge. The plastic. The plastic has stopped whatever it was. "Can you understand me?" The same voice, still quiet and their grip is unyielding. After a moment, Loki makes a noise of confirmation.
"Good." The voice says and a sharp prick shoves into his elbow and Loki twitches to it. Needle. He hates needles. It pulls back, "That will counter what what they released into your bloodstream. Hydra has been waiting for you to get here and I'm not letting it stay that way. We don't have much time."
We?
"The Avengers are waiting, hurry." The man insists and grabs his elbow, dragging him up to his feet. Loki staggers, hand coming to press against his abdomen where the stab is sluggishly bleeding, but the man grabs his arm and swings it over his shoulders. One of his arms is metal.
Loki's consciousness takes this moment to give out.
Everything is strangely drowning under water and he only picks out sounds that don't have any meaning or context to him. Footsteps, yelling, and briefly gunfire. Then the roaring of fire.
When he comes to completely, he catches a brief glimpse of the man, (brunet, tall, broad and carrying a gun) and immediately places him to be Steve's attacker from the Tower. Sergeant Buchan Barnes. His memories were a mess and Loki grabbed at all of them in desperation to get him away from Clint and tugged.
Ah. Right.
The pain is passable, but his focus is not. Distorted. He feels like he's walking backwards, but trying to run forward as he does so.
Get. Up.
Up.
Loki's fingers move towards his mouth where he grabs at the edges of the mask and pulls up. It is not like his muzzle, when he drags it away, it follows without complaint. Loki tosses it away from him and exhales sharply when the memories finally click back into place properly.
The attack.
The Avengers.
Where is he?
Loki pulls his eyes open and squints into the cloud—covered sky.
Sky? He was in a building.
Loki jerks into a sitting position and presses a hand against the wound, attempting to scan his surroundings further, but his stomach lurches and he leans to the side, releasing his stomach's contents. There's blood. Along with strange little black things. Poison.
The retching doesn't help with the pain, or the building panic.
When he's reduced to dry heaving, Loki bites at his tongue heavily and attempts to get to his feet. He's in the desert far off from the facility where that they attacked which is burning into the rising sun. Not at the Avenger's hand, he can't see Thor or Stark in the sky and there the only ones he thinks can start something that large.
No, there are cars rapidly leaving the building, and he's going to assume that the Avengers are present, because the alternative thought isn't a pleasant one.
Hydra.
Hydra has them.
Loki attempts a hobbling step forward, but the staggering pain ripples through his side once more, heated and breathtaking, forcing his feet tangle beneath him. He collapses in a panting heap on the hard, cold, dirt floor his hand pressed against burned flesh.
It's not numbing!
Why is it not numbing!?
Loki hisses between his teeth and tips his head towards the sight. Everything blurs painfully and Loki squeezes his eyes shut. This is not helping. His sight is as useful as it was when he couldn't see anything.
He needs to keep moving, he has to—
He can't—
Augh!
Loki slams both hands on the wound and bites back the yell of pain. He's fine. This is nothing compared to Thanos's hand, but that doesn't mean that it hurts any less. Norns. He has rarely felt this useless. What is he doing? He is pathetic.
He can't do this anymore.
He's tried everything and nothing is helping.
He is not a hero, he is not some gallant knight to be looked for on the east; he is Loki, and he is a fool. His arrogance and lack of being able to think forward has gotten Thor kidnapped, if not killed already, and the rest of the Avengers well on their way to that. Why does everything he touch crumble beneath his fingertips? He was trying, and look how far it got him: A cowering heap on the ground, slowly bleeding out from a wound he can't heal and should be able to. He can't do this anymore, he can't, he can't, HE CAN'T!
Loki hisses and curls in towards his stomach, wrapping his hands around his head and squeezing his eyes shut.
Please.
He doesn't know what to do.
What he can.
Please.
Loki feels the would numb and his sedir, finally, blessedly beginning to work on closing it. A hiss of relief escapes his lips and he slowly uncurls.
Tracker, the thought hits him suddenly. He is a tracker. Once he heals the blasted stab wound, he can track the Avengers and drag their sorry butts back to Lady Potts. Hydra will deeply regret the moment they decided that laying hands on his team.
Loki slowly sits up, keeping his hands firmly pressed on the wound and is relieved when there is little pain. He works his sedir across the wound rapidly and is thankful when it doesn't resist. MTDR is unpleasant at it's best, but Loki ignores it as he takes in his surroundings. He has no idea how long he's been here, but judging from the lighting it's been several hours.
When the wound is closed and nothing but tender, he tugs the hoodie he's been clinging to for nearly a week now off and spreads his fingers over it, searching for traces of Thor on it. Tracking spells aren't something that he's keen on, mostly because if they don't succeed it slowly drives the sorcerer mad from lack of being able to find the object. Creating a tracker isn't something he usually works for because of this. He knew someone from Alfheim that the insanity winding happened to and he's always been wary of it sense.
This is dire. He doesn't care if he's driven mad from this—he already is, isn't he? What more can happen?
His sedir latches onto Thor's signature and the tug jerks in his gut towards the location. Loki releases a breath and closes his eyes for a moment, gathering the fabric into his hands, lifting it towards his nose to inhale the smell. The residue of Thor's scent is weaker than it was when he stole it.
Loki exhales and opens his eyes lifting them to the road, he rises to his feet and slips the hoodie into his cache; opening his hand a small yellowish light appearing to guide him forward, and begins the hunt.
000o000
Over the course of his lifetime, Loki has come to expect one of two things happening when he's hunting something with sorcery: the person does everything in their power to hide their tracks from his magic, or they vanish for a short period of time, weakening their signature from sedir in an effort to hide.
Hydra is either overconfident or stupid. Perhaps wide mixture of both. They have assumed the state of mind that they aren't being followed by anyone of importance and have left a trail so wide for him to follow that if he really had need, once he found the explosion site again, he could have tracked them without sedir.
Idiots.
Once he'd located the trucks and small army of following cars, he'd kept his distance for some time studying them. The road they're on is a single trail with no exit points or alternate routes until they pass a small town that is not greatly populated.
Loki only knows this because he'd scouted ahead for a proper ambush site and now he resides here, on the roof of one of their drink shops waiting for Hydra to arrive. The town is maybe a forth of a mile long on both sides, old wooden buildings falling apart, rusted and weathered.
It is not anything of note, and he doubts that they have had a fresh can of paint enter for at least twenty years. Maybe more. Asgard would have a heart attack at the misuse and lack of care for buildings. Looks is something they're obsessed over and made it impossible and very rare to find any ruins of older buildings. Vanaheim is the best for seeking out history from what Loki has put together over the few hundred years.
Loki lifts his head as he hears the sound of cars and squints into the distance, spotting the black vehicles rapidly approaching. He exhales deeply and forces his nerves to settle, getting distracted is not something he can afford at the moment, and his hands shaking is definitely going to qualify for that.
The cars race forward, nearing the small down with rapid speed. A minute at most before they get here.
Let the games begin, then.
Loki lifts his hands and gathers the surrounding water vapor of the city, stealing from their plants, pipes, and in the ground beneath them into the air. It slowly surges at his request, looking extensively like blurring blobs to him, but he knows from past experience that it's closer to rain falling up when vision is clear. The weight of the water makes his muscles strain, but he does the best he can to cast it to the side and flicks his hands out, lowering his fingers to cool the temperature of some of the water and allows it to drop to the heated water beneath it.
The fog is created and expands outwards long before it hits the ground, causing the air around him to condense into an almost pitch black smoke. He hears the screeching of tires and allows himself a small smirk of satisfaction. Best not to celebrate before the victory, however.
Loki leaps from the roof landing in a roll and maneuvers to his feet, waving his hand out to check for the pulses of the Hydra agents and pinpoint them. Towards the edge of the city, he can see bright lights shining as they attempt to slowly navigate their way through.
They're wary.
It's cute.
Loki strides forward summoning his tattered armor from the battle of New York and comes to a halt in front of cars. He opens his fingers to grasp the matter of the glass and wills it to shatter, the glass exploding out and the lights dying, casting the surrounding area into darkness. The cars screech to a halt at it, and he hears doors opening, but confused murmurs ring up.
Loki has lived in a stygian, this does not bother him.
Instead, he takes the shattered glass from the multiple vehicles he has stolen from, and spins the glass shards, shoving them towards the wheels and hears the sound of the rubber popping as the glass injects itself.
There, grounded. It is so much easier to chase something when it's not running away.
Now he needs to find the team and release them, and for that, he needs a distraction. A large one. Loki slips out of the viewpoint of the drivers as they wave their beams of light towards his location and lifts his first finger out, waving it towards himself and feels the familiar warmth of invisibility wash across him.
It's unpleasant, but Loki has long since grown numb to the sensation.
The tracking spell pulls him towards the middle trucks, long and large, something that looks like it could carry a small bilgesnipe if one were to really push. Loki moves forward and casts a splur of illusions, waving them off towards the Hydra agents and glances at the first truck.
He really should have planned this with a tad more detail.
Alas.
Loki closes his eyes and focuses on what he remembers feeling when he world-walked Natasha, Steve, Clint, himself and the car to the Barton farm. The engine, their power source runs differently than Asgard ever manufactured; they don't have coal on Asgard. It's interesting and something that Loki wants to study at a later date, but he doesn't have time at the moment.
The engine was strangely bulky, but there were liquids inside of it, something keeping it cool and running properly. Well, he doesn't think they'll be needing that anytime soon.
Loki tugs the water from the device into the fog and hears a loud fizzling before a following explosion. The agents scramble, their light beams waving helplessly around the fog and Loki watches it with a strange sort of detachment.
This organization kidnapped his kin and his kith and bares no remorse for the destruction they dally. It is repulsive.
Loki fidgets further with another two engines before moving towards the truck. There are a handful of agents guarding the back and the driver has clambered out to join them. He's hissing words angrily in their direction, as if it is their fault that this occurred. Loki doesn't bother to pick out dialog, he moves with purpose towards the driver and washes the invisibility spell from his skin as he does so. His gaze flickers up once before the man jumps, yelping and raising a weapon in his defense as his minions follow suit behind him. Someone fires and it smacks against his armor, enough to mildly bruise, but not do much else.
Loki flicks his gaze up to the man who's watching with wide eyes and smiles.
"Oh, dull." Loki says, releasing a sigh and barely holds back a roll of his eyes. He lifts a hand up (quietly relishing their flinches), clasps hold of the molecules weaving their guns together and tugs. The weapons are ripped from their hands, metal twisted beyond use and clattering into one mass at their feet.
Four of the six agents are wearing helmets, so it's hard to gauge their expressions, but the remaining two flick their gaze from the weapons to him several times. The driver lifts another weapon, some sort of staff and his remaining colleagues quickly find alternative sources for destruction.
"Mr. Odinson," the driver drawls, eyes suddenly perking with a strange sense of delight, "we've been waiting for you."
Yes, he knows. Everyone here to Knowhere knows by now. Have they done anything to hide their goal of his capture? As long as Loki has known them, they've been blaring it to anyone who will give them a moment of their attention.
Loki smiles slightly, tilting his head and draws closer slowly. "How thoughtful. Especially for mere thieves."
"Thieves?" The man sputters, but to his credit holds his ground. "We are Hydra!"
Loki's expression strains and he stops about a foot from the man. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"
"It should." The man is stalling, giving colleagues time to prepare an attack against him and Loki doesn't have time for this. He swings his elbow up and nails the man in the nose, casting a shield as the men open another round of fire and summons a dagger, swinging it up into the other unmasked man's shoulder. The man looks mildly surprised. Loki rips the weapon from him and kicks him back into the fog and the growing chaos from his illusions then turns to the masked agents.
Their stances say wary and there's fair reasoning to it.
Loki readjusts his grip on his dagger before summoning another for his other hand and jumps at them. Their guns are useless against his weapons and Loki uses this to his advantage. Within a minute all three are unarmed, injured for what could be fatal if they don't move quickly enough. Loki pushes them to the side with sorcery and moves towards the doors of the truck grabbing, locating the hinges and raising his fists, squeezing in. The hinges collapse inwards like a ball of paper being crumpled and the doors in turn fall at his feet.
The sound is loud and draws more attention than he was really hoping for. Loki flicks his hands out and draws it elsewhere when the spell slams into another car, lighting it ablaze. With that set and the minions scrambling to rush towards that instead of him, Loki turns to the truck.
He clambers into the back of the tall machine and brushes himself off of imaginary dirt staring at the interior. There's two benches on either side with some sort of magnetic wall that's holding cuffs against it. The Avengers are split between the two benches: Bruce, Natasha and Clint on one side with Steve, Thor and Tony on the other. Sergeant Barnes is present as well, at the end of Clint, Bruce and Natasha's bench.
Natasha, Clint, Tony and Steve lift their heads to look at him, but the other do not. Loki buries the rouse of worry at this and forces himself to focus. There are no guards present inside, a crass move, but not one Loki sees below Hydra. Their arrogance will be the death of them.
The Avengers stare at him silently, and the tracking spell releases a relieved hum as Thor comes into visual contact, fuzzing out back into his subconscious. Loki takes several steps forward and reaches Clint first, grasping the metal shackle attached to his wrist and tugging.
The metallic pull is strong enough to make him strain, but it gives out before he does. Magnetic cuffs, creative, he supposes, but a tad on the impractical side. Clint makes a slight noise as his hand drops into his lap likely from the blood rushing back to his fingers and Loki repeats the process with the archer's other hand, giving a fleeting touch to the Hawk's shoulder to take a magical assessment of his condition.
Strained, tired, but no fatal injuries. Still, though, "Are you injured?" Loki demands.
Clint stares up at him, looking startled for several more second before he manages to ground himself. "No, I'm fine." His voice is quiet as if he doesn't trust it and Loki realizes that he's watching the lower half of his face for words.
He cannot hear him.
At least not well.
Hydra took the device for hearing and this infuriates him. He reaches a hand out to clasp Clint's chin and turn his head to the left staring at his ears. He only saw the device briefly when Clint was under his control, but his memory has always been a curse with how detailed it is. The faint outline of the clear plastic is missing. They did take it. Well. They can add that to their growing list of regrets when he's finished with them.
He releases Clint's chin and forces his expression to relax as the hawk's gaze flicks up to him, confused. Loki is uncertain how to assist, injuries such as these are not common on Asgard. Loki doesn't comment and moves to Natasha, repeating the process with her cuffs and sees a long cut stemming from next to her eyebrow down to her chin and there's a swelling bruise that looks distinctly like a hand mark.
Anger swirls through him at it, but he bites his tongue to withhold a comment.
"Are you hale?"
Natasha gives a hesitant nod, and Loki releases her, moving to Bruce. A thick, black leather collar is strapped around his neck and blinking rapidly, but Loki has little idea of what it is. There are messy bandages around his shoulder and thigh that are stained red. Jarvis said that he had sustained two bullet wounds, Loki didn't realize that he didn't release the monster to heal himself.
He has been suffering for days, and has not release his counterpart.
Loki glances at Natasha, "Can you care for him?"
She nods.
Loki pulls the cuffs off the wall and Bruce's body attempts to slump forward, but Loki catches him and Natasha moves to take the weight. He moves his fingers forward and clasps the collar feeling for a release latch. When his fingers find it, Loki grips and tugs it away from Bruce's neck. The light beeps once more before it fizzles to black.
After making sure that Natasha has proper grip on the scientist, he turns to Sergeant Barnes. The man's head lifts slightly towards him and Loki stares at him. "You have my thanks." Loki murmurs quietly and leans forward to grab at the cuffs around his metal arm. His flesh and bone hand does not have one.
Sergeant Barnes' lips thin, but he doesn't respond.
The metallic pull is stronger and Loki can't get it to pull for more than a second before snapping back. Frustration begins to tug at him, but Loki forces his muscles to relax and flicks his gaze to the wall. Fine. If he can't get the magnets to release, then he'll just change it into something not magnetic. Or less magnetic. Like copper.
Loki presses a hand on the wall and it ripples with the warping, but Sergeant Barnes' arm falls a second later the cuffs useless against the copper.
Loki turns and sees Tony and Steve watching him carefully, but their stances are not weary with mistrust. Loki turns his gaze to Thor, who is slumped forward head rolled against his chest and hair a mess across his face. His hands are lazily bandaged from what wounds Loki is not certain. It doesn't matter; Thor bled because of them. And this is not acceptable.
Loki takes a step towards Steve's direction, hands moving to grip the cuffs, but he stops at a voice: "Hey! Stop! What do you think you're doing!?"
Loki flicks his gaze up and sees two Hydra agents waving guns towards them, faces shrouded with the obnoxious helmets. Loki resists the urge to roll his eyes in annoyance, but sees the Avengers tense around him.
One of the two, more anxious or perhaps attempting to use the moment of surprise they lost when they spoke fires his weapon. It's not the bullets that he's been previously accustomed to, but some sort of bluish light. Similar to what Coulson fired at him several months ago, but more contained and focused.
Loki jerks his left hand out and catches the haze. The pulse is powerful and would have been destructive had it hit its intended target. Well. Loki can work with this. He shoves the blast back towards the Hydra agent and it slams into his gun. The weapon is immediately destroyed and the man staggers back, releasing a loud cuss as he clutches his broken arm to his chest.
He flips his other arm out to pull up a normal handgun and Loki feels irritation wash across him. The other man lifts his large gun, preparing it to fire. Loki walks towards the end of the truck's floor and flings a dagger towards the first man and flicks another towards him.
"Where one head is cut off, two more shall take its place." He murmurs the words like a chant as he falls to his knees and Loki turns back towards the interior of the truck.
"For the love of the Norns," Loki mutters under his breath and moves past Steve and Tony lifting his fingers up and twisting his wrist as he transforms the cuffs into copper. Tony and Steve jerk forward at the sudden release. Loki moves to his sibling and repeats the process with the cuffs, catching Thor as he tumbles forward.
Clint materializes next to him suddenly and Loki shifts Thor to his back with the little space on the bench and flicks hair away from his face. It's pale and thinner than he remembers, but nothing extensive shows itself. A collar similar to Bruce's is strung around Thor's neck and Loki makes quick work of it.
"They sedated both of them when we left." Tony offers quietly and Loki flicks his gaze up to the man.
Sedatives.
Ah.
Loki hums quietly under his breath and does a quick search of Thor's frame with his sedir, but beyond his hands, he doesn't find anything. Good. He needs to deal with these imbeciles and now he can do it properly with Thor not going to give up the ghost at any second.
He looks at Clint and makes sure he has eye contact before he says: "Watch him for me."
"Where are you going?" Steve demands as Loki moves towards the exit. Loki looks back at him.
"Someone should deal with these idiots before they put their heads together and realize where they need to focus their attack." Which, judging from their uncoordinated scrambles, won't be within the next few minutes. His illusions are distracting most of them, and the rest are busy dealing with the destruction of the engines or working through the fog to be of any use to their counterparts.
Natasha looks up from where she's carefully re-wrapping Bruce's wounds to him. Loki flicks his gaze to the dark haired man for a second. He doesn't have the energy to perform a healing, hold up the illusions and attack Hydra a the moment. Bruce will hold until he returns and then he will aid.
"We can help." The spider insists.
Loki's lips twitch on a smile and he shakes his head, "You are injured," he reminds, "remain here. I will retrieve you when it is safe."
Steve shakes his head, "No, just give us a few guns and—"
"My good captain," Loki interrupts before he can continue on with his insisting, "I do not need the distraction of making sure your pathetic mortal resistance doesn't give out suddenly," he waves a hand slightly and a golden light spreads across the ground outside of the truck, "step beyond this light and they will be able to damage and see you. Do not leave it."
With that stated, Loki teleports from the truck into the middle of the chaos outside of it.