Remembrance of Things Past
The sequel to "The Animal Inside" and "The Dog Days are Over"
Part Twenty-Nine: Day Three, Part One
Natasha stands before the door, hesitant, though Frigga had consented, though Thor had just disappeared down the hall after showing her the way, though Loki himself had exhibited no hesitation the first few times he had appeared to her, arriving in her bedroom with no regard for privacy or permission. Yet the circumstance is different now. She and Loki are different now, and Natasha does not know if he would consider this to be another violation of his trust or simply shrug off her curiosity, dismissing what had once belonged to him as the possessions of another man and another life.
She weighs the risks against the advantages, but in the end, she decides on what has driven so many of her actions concerning Loki so far: unrelenting curiosity. She has to know.
Breathing in, Natasha grabs the handle before her and pushes against the heavy door, slipping into the bedroom before she can reconsider. A fire ignites in the hearth along the right wall as she closes the door behind her, as she pauses a moment to gaze at her surroundings.
She stands on a rough stone floor. In the middle of the room, on a raised platform, she sees an enormous bed crafted from dark, gleaming wood, the linens so black and smooth they resemble a vat of ink. An immense mirror in a heavy gold frame hangs on the left wall. Natasha recalls Loki's flat in India, the one item of decoration the ornate mirror behind the couch. If she wins, perhaps she can ask him about the significance of mirrors, their use for his magic.
If she wins.
Alongside the mirror, she sees a variety of weapons on display, and it is these that draw Natasha forward. Four line the wall in total. She passes a white bo staff first, the material reminiscent of marble. Along the length, carved and colored in a deep forest green, are intricate images of a dragon, the beast sailing over clouds, perched on a mountain, breathing flames that trail away in sleek, small curls.
The next weapon brings her to a halt. A sword, slim and curved like a katana, adorns the wall, but the blade before her is not silver, but black, and not metal, but something like glass. Natasha leans in for a closer look, stopping when she hears the blade begin to hum. The rune on her face tingles as an etching on the blade collar starts to glow, two serpents intertwined in the shape of an S. Natasha reaches out and touches the symbol, and the room around her vanishes. She finds she is in the Louvre, Loki before her but his back to her, staring into a glass case at a small blue figurine carved from stone. She sees his reflection in the glass. As he tilts his head for a better look at the figurine, a tiny hippopotamus, his eyes find hers, and he stills.
They stare at each other, silent, and then Natasha says, "I like your sword." He turns toward her, and she knows that he has heard her though she doubts that anyone else has. The other patrons of the museum pass them by, unaware of her sudden appearance. She waits for him to respond, but when he does not, she continues. "I would have asked for that instead of the Casket."
Loki continues to stare, but still he does not respond and she thinks, perhaps, that she was wrong, that she hadn't seen him in the shadows outside the palace or in the entrance to the Bifrost, but then he says, his voice soft, "There is no magic binding the sword. I can call it whenever I wish."
"So why don't you?" she asks. "It's a beautiful weapon."
He looks at her. "It is at that."
She waits, but he says nothing more, and Natasha takes him in, his suit black, his hair longer than before though it's only been a few days since she saw him last, and she tries not to feel hope at the shadows beneath his eyes, but she does.
"What would happen if you called it now?" she asks. "Would I come too since I'm holding it?"
"Yes," he says, arching a brow. "But you probably wouldn't survive rematerialization."
Natasha shrugs as she glances around the museum. "A pity. I do love the Louvre. I guess I'll have to wait another hour or two until I can see it in person."
"So soon?" he asks. "Your talk with Odin must have gone well."
She smiles at the feigned innocence, at the feel of talking with him again. "You should know," she says, the smile still on her lips. "You were there."
He says nothing for a moment, and Natasha thinks that she's pushed too far, that he'll deny her claim, that he'll reassert his charge of her arrogance, but then he smiles, a genuine one belonging to the God of Mischief, and she tries, she tries not to feel hope, but she does.
And then she sees Winter in the distance.
He watches Loki; he stalks him. And Natasha doesn't need to wonder how Winter found Loki because she knows them both, Winter that good and Loki that proud, walking boldly in public because what has he to fear from a simple man from Midgard. And Natasha doesn't fear Winter killing Loki, but she fears Loki killing Winter, and she fears most of all a confrontation between the two prompting Fury to action, Fury and Phase 2.
Even if I hear from you, if I don't like what I hear, we're going after him.
The smile fades from Loki's face as he catches sight of her expression. "Natasha, what—?"
"Leave," she says, looking back at him. "You're not safe here." She knows that Loki leaving might also prompt Fury to action, but the risk is less, she hopes, she hopes.
"Why?" he asks. He begins to turn, to follow her gaze, and she wonders if he would recognize Winter somehow, one killer to another, but he freezes before he completes his turn, his eyes fixed on something behind her. She follows his gaze to find Frigga before them.
"We must go," she says, looking at Natasha. Natasha begins to panic at the tension in her voice. "Time is short."
Natasha turns back to Loki. He stares at her, his eyes wide. Beyond him, she sees Winter draw closer. "The church," she says. "Go."
Loki hesitates. "Why?" he asks again, but before Natasha can respond, Frigga lays a hand on her arm and pulls her back to Asgard. Loki's bedroom reappears with a rush. Natasha releases the sword, and she sees Frigga pull it from the wall, then the air crackles, green light flashes, and they teleport again. Breathless, Natasha jerks away. She opens her mouth to ask Frigga why she pulled Natasha away, but torches flare along the bottom of the walls and she falls silent. They stand in a high-vaulted chamber at the end of a long flight of stairs. A walkway extends before them to the opposite wall, which glows beneath a pattern of carved stone.
"I apologize for the swiftness of the departure," Frigga says as she turns and strides down the walkway, the sword grasped by the handle in one hand. "But we must move quickly if we are to succeed."
Natasha does not move. "What's going on?" she asks.
Frigga stops a few feet from her. "Odin has rendered his judgment," she says without turning. "He will not give Loki the Casket."
Natasha closes her eyes. For a moment, she cannot speak, rage building within her, choking her, but then she says, "Why?" spitting the word between gritted teeth.
"He fears what will occur if others discover that Loki possesses the Casket. He hears whispers of the name Thanos, of his power and his hatred for Loki, and this troubles him."
At this, Natasha opens her eyes. The Doge's Palace rushes back upon her, the look in Loki's eyes, the shadows in their depths, as he spoke of Thanos.
What will happen now? Now that Thanos knows you've failed?
Something far worse than Hell.
Natasha looks at Frigga. "If Thanos hates Loki, wouldn't Odin want him to be able to defend himself? Especially if he is that powerful?"
Frigga turns toward her, her face flushed with anger. "You think I did not say that, and more, last evening? Any counterargument you may conjure, Odin already knows. Yet he still feels this is the wisest course of action."
"So what are we doing here?" Natasha asks.
Frigga raises a brow. Natasha sees Loki in the gesture, in the sly look in Frigga's eyes. "We are going to steal the Casket," she says.
Natasha blinks, thrown, then she narrows her eyes. "But Odin—"
"Odin is king and therefore must consider the people of the Nine Realms in his decisions. I, however, need only consider my sons. Now, come," Frigga says, turning and continuing down the path. She beckons for Natasha to follow. "Time is short."
The Tesseract floats before Tony, or the image of it does, small and blue and sparkling. He flicks his hand, sending the cube shooting away from him and then brings forth the data from Jane, her stats on the possibility and probability of creating an Einstein-Rosen bridge to Asgard. The science tempts him, a coy mistress. How can he, Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, Iron Man, Avenger, and all around stunningly awesome guy, resist decoding the mystery behind interstellar travel? If he did, NASA would flip their shit, and Tony cannot resist anything that causes any sort of official agency to flip their shit.
And besides, Doom. Loki may have thrown the Asgardian version of temper tantrum because Natasha lied to him, storming away from the team in a dramatic huff, but Doom would return regardless. Tony saw the crazy in his eyes in Switzerland, the man choosing to burn in a fire so that he could kill Loki. He will not relent.
So Tony studies. The distance between Earth and Asgard is smaller than the distance that Loki attempted to traverse with his portal in May. Still. Tony flicks his hand once more and draws toward him the study of the robot that he stole from Doom. Its power source resembles his Arc Reactor, expected given Vanko's contributions to his father's research, but it's nowhere near as powerful as Tony's, so.
"If he had a thousand," Tony says, "he could get to Asgard."
"A thousand what?" Pepper says from the couch, her head bent toward some important Stark Industries document that Tony knows he should pay attention to, but this is so much more interesting. If Doom weren't a crazy, torturing, cape-wearing psychopath, Tony would want to be his best friend, the man's knowledge of mechanics and physics impressively impressive.
"Robots," he says. "Assuming, of course, he's not trying to open a Loki-sized portal. If he is, he'll need something bigger, stronger. He'll need—"
"Yours," Pepper says.
"Yep."
It takes a moment for Tony to register the tone of her voice, to realize that her statement was not hypothetical, that she was not fulfilling the role of human sounding board usually filled by Bruce or Jarvis. It takes a moment for him to register the fear.
Looking up, he finds her face pale and her eyes wide. She stares beyond him to the terrace. Tony turns and sees Doom rising from his crouch before the glass wall, from where he just landed. He wears his armor, the faceplate smooth and new, a replacement for the one that Clint destroyed in New Mexico.
Tony turns back to Pepper. She meets his eyes, the fear in them sharp and bright. "Go," he says. "Get Jane and Darcy. Go to lockdown."
She nods and runs for the lift, her papers scattering about her. Tony waits until the door slides shut behind her before he presses the call button on his wrist for the Mark VIII. "Jarvis?" he says, turning back to the terrace. Doom extends a hand and fires at the glass wall, but the glass only cracks; it does not break.
"I have alerted Dr. Banner and Mr. Barton. Director Fury is here and on his way as well."
"Thanks."
Doom fires again and the glass explodes. Tony drops to the ground as shards fly past him. He hears the wall behind the lift begin to open, the Mark VIII preparing for launch. Doom strides into the room, saying something, some sort of spell, and the image of Loki crouching in the midst of a giant fireball flashes into Tony's mind. He scrambles back across the floor away from Doom, wincing as fragments from the wall cut his hands and knees.
Doom continues to mutter as the wall unfolds and the Mark VIII shoots out. Tony rises as the suit begins to adhere to him, starting with his legs. Then he looks at Doom and shakes his head. "You would think after what we did to Loki back in May, assholes like you would learn not to come after us. And you're supposed to be smart."
Doom finishes the spell, but the room does not explode into fire. Instead he says, "As are you, Mr. Stark. A pity the rumors were wrong."
The confidence in his voice causes Tony to turn. He finds the top half of the Mark VIII hovering in midair, frozen in place by Doom, and Tony has one brief moment to panic before Doom fires, the blast hitting him in the back and propelling him across the room. Tony crashes through the rest of the suit, scattering the pieces before slamming into the far wall.
The impact stuns him; it sends the room swirling in a slow circle around him and knocks the air from his lungs. Tony tries to stand, but Doom is on him before he can do so, his left hand on Tony's throat, pinning him to the floor.
"I regret that these are the conditions of our first meeting, Mr. Stark," he says, but Tony hears no regret in his voice, just rage, the anger simmering beneath his veneer of civility. "Unfortunately," he continues, "Loki destroyed my reactors when he was last in Latveria, so now I must use yours if I am to travel to Asgard to destroy it."
And before Tony can protest, before he can do anything, Doom lays his hand on Tony's chest and begins to drain the power from his Reactor.
Steve strides down the Rainbow Bridge, almost jogging to keep up with Thor, who walks ahead of him, Mjolnir by his side. He still does not understand, not entirely, the explanation that Thor provided for him as he pulled Steve from the palace, from his search for Sif, the clarity of his thoughts hindered by his urgency. All Steve knows is that they must leave Asgard and they must leave now, without Sif and without Natasha.
"Where is Natasha?" he asks again.
Thor does not stop. "With my mother. She will follow."
"But—"
Thor stops, so suddenly that Steve nearly walks past him. The last time that Steve had seen him so anxious was when Loki had teleported away with Doom. Steve knows that this current anxiety concerns Loki again, somehow. "Trust me, Captain," Thor says, the appeal in his eyes clear and direct. "I beg of you. I will explain, but it must be later. We cannot delay our departure."
"Because Loki is in trouble."
"Yes," Thor says, and Steve knows that it's not a lie, but he knows that it's not the complete truth either. He suspects the complete truth involves whatever Natasha does now with Frigga because, if Loki were in trouble, Natasha would come, no matter the state of their relationship. But he will trust Thor and hope for the truth later. After another moment, Steve nods and Thor leads them once more down the Rainbow Bridge to the Bifrost.
Steve glances behind him, taking in the strange buildings and the eerie calm to the realm. He understands a bit more Sif's excitement about New York, the boroughs indeed humming with life, raw and loud and coarse. Steve found some of that within the Warriors Three, their feast last night definitely loud and often raw, the humor from Volstagg especially brash. He wishes that he had had a moment alone with Sif. Perhaps she could have shown him the aspects of Asgard that she loves. Maybe, someday, she still could.
Steve follows Thor into the Bifrost. Heimdall turns from his watch, his long sword in his hands. "The Queen has informed me," he says to Thor. "The same man who fired upon Ms. Romanov now sets upon Loki."
Thor nods and positions himself for the journey. Steve stops beside him and watches as Heimdall prepares to activate the Bifrost, but then something like lightning explodes in the chamber and Steve drops. From the corner of his eye, he sees Thor turn and Heimdall begin to kneel. Moving into a crouch, Steve looks behind them to find Odin standing in the entrance, his eye fixed on Thor, a golden spear in one hand.
Thor moves to stand in front of Steve. "This does not concern the Captain," he says to Odin, his left hand raised. "Please allow him to leave Asgard. Loki—"
"Continues to place his own desires before the good of Asgard," Odin says, anger clear on his face. "And now, it seems, do you."
Steve sees Thor narrow his eyes. Rising from his crouch, he looks from Thor to Odin and back again. "What is going on?" he asks Thor.
Thor does not look at him. "A family concern, Captain."
"What—?"
Thor steps past him, his gaze still on Odin. "You must allow the Captain to travel to Midgard. He can stop Loki from killing this man who pursues him now. If he does not, Loki may suffer dire consequences."
"As do we all for our actions," Odin says.
Thor tilts his head to the side. "Even you?" he asks. "What have you suffered for your wrongs?"
Anger colors Odin's face. "I suffer the fact that my wife and son conspire against me to steal the Casket from my vault."
Thor gazes calmly back at Odin. "The Casket does not belong to you," he says. "For good or for ill, it belongs to Loki."
Odin clenches his jaw. "So you trust his ability to wield the Casket wisely?"
"What has doubting Loki engendered? Natasha was correct. If we continue to mistrust him, we only justify in his mind his destructive actions. Yet, if we change, if we place the responsibility for his actions onto Loki himself, then he may change as well."
Odin opens his mouth to reply, but Thor steps forward and says, "We may discuss this in depth further, but you must allow the Captain to leave Asgard first. Loki respects him. He may listen to him."
Odin does not respond. In the silence, Steve hears Heimdall move forward. He steps into view, the sword still gripped in his hands. "My king," he says, "I observed the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. inform Ms. Romanov that he would pursue Loki should he become aggressive once more. Though this man that follows him intends him harm, I believe the Council seeks any opportunity to break the treaty he signed."
Odin studies Heimdall. In the silence, Steve attempts to ground himself amidst the multitude of revelations, the Red Room pursuing Loki, Natasha and Frigga attempting to steal from Odin's vault, and now Fury vowing to engage Loki as well. Steve will have to speak to Fury about that one when he returns to New York. Assuming that he does return. He glances at Odin, who looks at him, and Steve thinks that he should speak, that he should argue for leaving as well, but before he can do so, Odin nods and Heimdall returns to his position. As he lifts his sword, Thor moves past Steve to stand beside Odin, and it is only when the winds of the Bifrost begin to rise around him that Steve realizes that Thor has placed Mjolnir in his hand.
