Thor couldn't decide how he felt about Jane and Darcy finding their way onto the Manhattan Island. On the one hand, he didn't think either woman belonged in a fight. They weren't trained for war, and they had very little muscle mass between them. They didn't think like soldiers. That wasn't so say they weren't intelligent, but that was just the thing: they were intellectuals. Despite Darcy's casual attitude about most things, she was just as much a scholar as Jane was, though their fields of study differed considerably. Jane was tough, but there were more ways to be a fighter than on the battlefield—he had learned that lesson slowly over these last few years in this realm.

On the other hand, he understood why the woman might have snuck into the battlefield. He had tried his hardest to keep them safe, Selvig too, and yet by doing so, he banished their usefulness into the beyond. As they marched through the chaotic, but relatively peaceful, city streets now, Darcy and Thor behind Loki and the Dwayne character, Thor realized he was in the wrong to leave them behind. He was in the wrong to assume Jane and Darcy accepted his gentle handling of them, and he should have given them something more meaningful to do with their time.

It was his fault they ended up in a warzone.

Still, the deed was done. Darcy assured him that Jane was fine in hushed tones, and then loudly complained that there was no real fighting for them to participate in. Loki ignored her. In fact, he ignored most things, his gaze fixed on the man leading them to the hospital. He'd never seen his brother put this much care into the well-being of another person, save for their parents—back when Loki still viewed Odin and Frigga as their parents, not just Thor's. From what he recalled, his lady was a fine woman: pleasant, attractive, and a scholar like Jane.

It was a shame that she was wounded in the crossfire of a war that shouldn't have ever come to this realm in the first place. Still, with the roars of aircraft and weaponry fading out, Thor liked to think that the humans would become victorious across the whole planet now, free from Pagurolid rule once and for all. They should have responded sooner. He wished they would have listened to him when he expressed what a nuisance these cretins could be, but no one wanted to panic the general public.

Well, the general public was certainly panicked now.

"So, he's your brother?"

Thor glanced down at Darcy as she spoke, and then watched her point gingerly at Loki's back. He nodded. Loki would always be his brother. He refused to let anyone tell him otherwise, not even Loki himself.

"Yes."

"You guys look nothing alike."

"You are not the first to notice our differences."

She crossed her arms over her chest, her stride quickening to keep pace with him. "And he tried to destroy New York last time he was here?"

Thor sighed. He wished people would see beyond Loki's past transgressions, however difficult that might be. His half-brother—brother—was a complicated case, yes, but there was more to him than the damaged individual who tried to conquer in a moment of desperation.

"Well, he was under the influence of another," Thor reasoned. They crossed a street, and he heard his name shouted from a group of youths. When he looked back, a few waved shyly, and he returned the gesture wholeheartedly—a wide smile and a vigorous wave. The young scattered, scuttling off down the street talking excitedly to one another.

"So, what's he doing here then?"

"I… It's a long story, Darcy," Thor said finally. He shot her a weary smile, and she nodded. "Perhaps for another time."

"Okay."

Darcy liked to push Jane. She pushed the woman out of her comfort zone whenever she could. It all came from a good place in her heart, but she knew that she couldn't push Thor in the same way. Thor was fearless in a manner that Jane wasn't, and Darcy seemed to know her boundaries. She knew when to push and pull for information, and now was a time when she oughtn't.

"Lenox Hill is really swanky," she noted as they caught up to Loki and their escort. "Beyoncé had her kid there."

"Who?"

"The singer who did the Single Ladies video," Darcy continued, holding her hand up and waving it back and forth, bouncing on her feet. "Remember? We taught you the whole dance…"

He thought back on it, trying to recall a time when Darcy forced him and Jane into a dance—there were many incidents over the last two years. Those memories brought a smile to his face, and she seemed satisfied with the result.

The group approached a large, narrow brown building soon enough. Thor had very little sense of the time that passed, as the sky was still too clouded with smoke to get a reading from the sun. The building itself was bustling with people, however. There were groups of them sitting together outside, on both sidewalk and street curb alike, and most of the conversation tapered off as they walked by. They entered the building beneath a blue sign, but the inside was no less busy than the outside.

Halls jammed with people greeted them. Thor could see emergency healers rushing to and fro, directing clusters of people this way and that. Some of the people around him looked injured, while others seemed to have the same quest in mind as Loki did: a loved one was somewhere in the building being treated, and they demanded immediate access.

"We should try the waiting room," Darcy said over the clamour, pointing to a beige sign hanging from the wall. "Probably have the most information."

The building itself was still relatively well intact, and it reminded him of the medical treatment facilities he had visited across Europe. Clean and stocked, he wondered if the aliens intended to make use of the establishment for their own purposes once the world was conquered—it wouldn't surprise him if that was the case.

He placed his hand on Loki's shoulder and steered him after Darcy, wanting to keep an eye on Loki lest he wander off and cause trouble. Their navigator lingered in the entryway, his efforts forgotten, and Thor shot him a smile over his shoulder as he left. That seemed to make the man brighten, but he was soon lost in the small crowd calling for nurses and doctors and friends.

"Look!" Darcy pointed to a sign that said Patient-Family Check-In Station, and they followed it into another equally loud and crowded room. Large and white, the room was lined with uncomfortable looking little chairs, some snack food machines, and several flat-screen television boxes on the walls. A set of double doors with no handles seemed to lead to the innards of the hospital, and there was a sectioned off station with a frazzled looking set of male and female healers behind the glass barrier.

They joined the queue, but he could feel Loki's body stiffening, see his hands in fists.

"I am sure she is here," he said. "Darcy says this is a good hospital."

The expression Loki shot him was nothing short of murderous, and he sighed, wishing that his brother would stop all this. Time had passed since their previous scuffles, and Thor had forgiven him for what he had done—why couldn't Loki do the same?

"Hi, hello," Darcy started, ducking down a little so she could speak into the holes in the glass. The haggard woman on the other end raised an eyebrow.

"Are you here for someone?"

"Yes, we… uh…"

Loki shoved her out of the way, and Thor had to react quickly to keep her from falling into the people in the line beside them.

"Her name is Max," he barked, "and she has brown hair, brown eyes, and—"

"You can fill out these forms," the woman interrupted, looking Loki up and down before doing the same to Thor. "Then you can hand them in to the station at the end." She gestured to her left. "Then you'll get a number. No one but patients and medical staff can go in the wards until tomorrow."

"No, I'll be going in now." Loki's tone had turned dangerous, and Thor set Darcy behind him. "Is it through those doors?"

"You can take the forms and fill them out," the woman repeated slowly, staring his brother down over the rim of her glasses. "If you have any of the patient's identification, that would be helpful."

"No—"

"When you hand in the paperwork, you get your number, and that'll be the order we let you in tomorrow." Darcy tentatively grabbed the clipboard from the glass opening, and Thor caught Loki's wrist before he could slam his fist against the barrier.

"Let go of me," he seethed, the murderous look back in his eye.

"We knock you back ten places when you give us attitude," the woman snapped. She was standing now, a hand on her hip. "Everyone wants to find their loved ones, and you'll wait your turn like the rest of them. No exceptions for superheroes."

"I will ruin you—"

"I've worked for the healthcare system in this city for thirty-five years," the woman snapped, settling back down on her chair. "You'll have to do better than that. Next!"

"Very sorry," Thor boomed, forcefully turning Loki and pushing him out of the way. "Thank you."

"Don't bow down to them like a simpering idiot, Thor—"

"There is no need for a scene." Darcy followed them to a vacant window ledge at the back of the room. "It will only bring you hardship. A positive attitude will make everything move faster…"

Loki snatched the clipboard out of Darcy's hands. "Give me that."

Thor watched him settle on the ledge and get to work on the documents, his neat, small handwriting filling the page. He only stopped when there was a problem with his writing utensil, which appeared to have run out of ink. Scribbling it on the corner of a page, Loki growled and hurled the small black pen at a nearby wall, narrowly missing the couple sitting there. Thor shot him a look, but his brother didn't seem to notice. He offered no thanks when Darcy found him a new pen, and continued to fill out the paperwork in silence, stewing in his rage.

Once he was finished, he shoved the forms back into Darcy's hands. Thor exchanged a look with the small woman, and she shrugged, seeming to grasp his plea without him needing to say it. When she was gone, he stood next to Loki, eyes on the window behind his brother to watch the world go by. The humans came in droves, until finally a few security officers arrived to partition them in the streets. Some twenty minutes passed, and by then there was a street vendor handing out food from a small wagon.

"Well, we are officially in the system," Darcy announced upon her return, "and so is Max. They have a record of her, so that's a good thing."

Loki looked up slowly as she spoke, his gaze unfocused. Thor smiled, though there was a pinch of worry in it.

"And Jane?"

"The nurse said Max was registered with a companion, so… I assume that's Jane."

"And what now?" Loki croaked. Darcy looked up to Thor, and then handed his brother a slip of paper.

"We're number two-oh-four," she said. "So… The guy there figured we'd be in sometime tomorrow evening."

"What?!"

Darcy took a step behind Thor when Loki flew to his feet, cheeks red and eyes crazy. Shaking his head, he pushed his brother back down into a seated position. A few people scuttled to the other side of the waiting room.

"You could come back to Brooklyn with me," Thor suggested. "Get some rest, something to eat, and we will return in the morning."

"No, I wish to stay." Loki leaned back against the window, seeming quite spent now, his energy fading. "You may go."

A quick sweep of the room made him want to stay. He had faith in Loki, but not enough at the moment for him to leave all these people around his brother's temper. So, he shook his head and took a seat next to him.

"I will go where you go."

Loki rolled his eyes, and Darcy drifted over to the vending machines.

Loki's eyes narrowed when Darcy chomped down noisily on a handful of chips, and she shot him a small smile when he looked at her. Legs splayed and back against the wall, she had been alternating between chairs and the floor for the last seven hours, and every little movement she made irked him. Thor had the common sense to sit still, a stoic statue beside him on the window ledge. The rest of the waiting room knew not to occupy any of the seats nearby.

They'd been there for seven hours. Seven agonizing hours. Seven hours in that room, knowing Max was somewhere on the other side of those doors, not knowing how she was doing or what state she was in. He couldn't be sure if the staff were treating her well, if she had eaten, if she was in pain. Loki felt useless in that waiting room, but he was also vaguely aware he wasn't the only one. Dozens of people filtered in and out of the room over the course of the day, and all of them put up a fuss about finding their loved ones.

All of them were denied.

Thor briefly argued the merits of this system with him: it would give the healers a chance to actually heal the countless sick and wounded before being overwhelmed with panicked family and friends. Loki didn't care about any of them. He didn't care about the crying widows or the angry parents. He didn't care about the husbands and wives and lovers who stomped their feet and threw a fit. He didn't care about any of them, or what happened to their city beyond this point.

Loki was done caring for the affairs of this realm. He simply wanted to see Max. He'd led a resistance today, and instead of being hailed a hero, he was treated like every other commoner in the city. No, he couldn't care about these people anymore, not in the way that Thor did. Thor forgave them for every slight, imagined or otherwise. He understood their selfishness, their ridiculousness, and he still embraced them. He had grown, this former brother of his, and it made Loki bitter.

It made him feel small.

Darcy was on her feet again, and Loki set his head in his hands, listening to her boots clomp across the floor. She stopped at a black garbage bin nearby, dumped her chip bag, and then started pacing back and forth in front of them. His lip twitched.

"This is insane," she muttered. Her footsteps faded, and when Loki glanced up, he spotted her speaking with the woman behind the glass barrier. The lines had died down considerably, but Loki had noticed that people came and went in rushes over the last seven hours. Now that night had fallen, he wondered if the numbers would grow or cease until morning.

His eyes drifted back to the speckled tile flooring until Thor nudged him.

"What?" There was more malice in his voice than necessary, but he was aware of that—and he didn't care. Thor gestured to Darcy as he stood, and Loki spied the brunette waving them both over.

"Cafeteria is on the second floor," the woman behind the glass stated. "They're probably only serving basics."

"Basics sound amazing," Darcy insisted. "So… Just through… these doors?"

The woman sighed, eyeing both Thor and Loki for a long moment, and then nodded. "Take a right to the elevators. Don't wander."

"Thank you so much."

Loki gawked as the thick double-doors swung open, and then darted through without questioning it. They closed as soon as Thor was through, and the trio found themselves standing in a silent corridor, the lights flickering. A massive sign on the wall in front of them gave directions to all manner of places, including the cafeteria.

"How did you get us through?" Thor asked, a hand on Darcy's shoulder. She shrugged.

"I asked if the cafeteria was open," the woman started, "and she said yes."

Loki scanned the various titles on the sign, trying to figure out where they might have placed Max.

"She said we had to go back out the way we came, but I said you guys might start a riot, being celebrities and all," Darcy continued. "So I asked if there was a route we could take to bypass the crowds, and here we are."

"Very good thinking, Darcy."

"Where would they hold her?" Loki mused, running a finger along the signage. He should have thanked the little woman for her efforts, but he couldn't be bothered to. Surely she would know he was grateful.

"It'll probably depend on if she's seen a doctor." She was beside him now, barely up to his shoulder. Arms folded, Loki watched her scan the sign, and then noticed Thor looking in both directions behind him. He was on alert, this Asgardian, and it made Loki want to scoff: as if someone could forcefully remove him now. He'd go where he pleased, and no one could stop him.

"I think we should begin somewhere and work our way through the building."

Loki nodded at Thor's suggestion, and then stalked to the left, marching in the direction of the ER, radiology, and the intensive care floors. Thor matched his stride with ease, but he noticed Darcy struggling to keep up with them. He didn't slow his pace. Not when he heard the dull chatter of people, the beeps of machines. Loki knew they were headed in the right direction when a trio of white-clad medical workers rolled a bloodied woman down the hall on a stretcher with wheels. One of the workers shot them a look, but clearly there wasn't the time to stop and reprimand the group for being where they shouldn't be.

He and Thor stood out too much: their Asgardian battle attire would draw the eye of any they walked by. So, he took a few moments to alter his clothing down to a basic black pair of trousers and a green sweater, while Thor's looked almost identical save for the red of his cape bleeding through in his new shirt. The man stopped, as if only suddenly noticing that he was wearing something different, and then looked at Loki over his shoulder. Now, if only he would put the damn hammer down… They would look totally inconspicuous then, even if they weren't wearing white medical robes.

"Your magic has changed, brother."

He ignored Thor's comment, stepping around him and carrying on down the never-ending corridor without another word. They searched that floor thoroughly, scanning all the patients stuck on stretchers in hallways with their rescuers. There were dozens of rooms and spaces occupied by people who were in stable conditions, and yet none of them were Max. When this floor's search proved fruitless, Loki led the group up to the next level, and they started their search all over again.

Another hour crawled by before they made any progress. They were on the sixth floor, fresh out of the stairwell, when Darcy let out a laugh.

"Jane!"

There was only one other person in the hallway dim, and it was a woman crouching in front of a vending machine with her arm halfway inside. She turned sharply at the noise, and then struggled to retract her arm.

"Hey!"

"Don't worry, I totally did the same thing with the vending machines in the waiting room…"

So this was the woman. Thor swept down to help her get her hand out of the dispenser. Small, fragile, and brunette, this wasn't the type Loki would have matched with Thor—ever. Still, he handled her with care, and he had her free from the machine's grasp in a few moments.

"Are you well?" he asked, holding her face in his hands to kiss her. The display was over with quickly, and Loki tried to peer around the duo, hoping her might see Max seated on one of the chairs in the hall. He didn't, of course, and he started to pace as he waited for the reunion between the trio to simmer down.

"Fine, fine, yeah," the woman breathed, smiling to Darcy and linking her hand with Thor's. "Are you guys okay?"

"Super hungry," Darcy said, "but alive."

Jane's laughter sounded tired, and he felt her eyes wander over to him moments later. He paused mid-stride when she did, and then dipped his head a little.

"You are said to have brought my woman to this infernal building," he drawled. "Is she here?"

The woman's large brown eyes looked between him and Thor for a moment.

"This is my brother," Thor said, gesturing to Loki. He tried not to roll his eyes, and he was half-successful. "Darcy says you brought a woman named Max here."

"Oh, yes, I did." They started off down the hallway again, setting a pace far too leisurely for Loki's temper. Still, he managed to keep it in check: Max couldn't be in danger if they moved this slowly. They appeared to be on a floor where the sick were housed for long-term stays. Passing rooms with six or seven beds slotted inside, Loki noticed most were trying to sleep, while some had the televisions on and were watching Max and Johnny's video.

"We were so lucky a medical unit was passing by." He tuned back into the conversation when it applied to Max, stepping closer so that he could watch Jane's face as she spoke. "She needed some fixing up."

"What sort of state is she in?"

"She's… got a lot of painkillers in her system right now." Jane released Thor's hand so she could address Loki, and there was a chill to her tone as she spoke. "We had to wait for four hours to see someone, but they fixed her nose, which was broken, and did an assessment for her ribs, which were bruised, not fractured or broken. She looks a lot worse off than she is."

Loki wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to that, so he merely nodded. He should have stayed with her. He should have shut her away in some non-descript building, and then stood guard until the day was done.

"The doctors want to keep her for observation on the off-chance that there might be internal bleeding, or her concussion is worse than they originally anticipated." They turned left down a small corridor, and stepped to the side as a cluster of frazzled nurses moved from one room to the next. "Everyone has had a blood sample taken, and they're trying to run tests to make sure it's okay to release all the patients. That's all they'd tell me."

"I thought this place would look fancier." Loki gritted his teeth as Darcy poked her head into all the rooms. How did Thor stand living with either of them for extended periods of time?

He pushed through the group when Jane finally stopped in a doorway, and he found his woman in a room with seven other beds. Mercifully enough, curtains divided the space up quite nicely, and Max was closest to the door.

His heart nearly broke at the sight of her. Seated in her bed with a thin sheet over her legs, she looked quite frail in the hospital gown. Her nose had a brace across it, but that did nothing to hide the bruising across her cheeks and under her eyes. In fact, her whole face looked puffy and swollen. A small tube stuck out of her arm, leading up to a bag of nearly clear fluid, and each one of her fingers had wrapping around the tip. Loki could see some dried blood seeping through.

It pained him to see her like that, but he pained him to see her smiling too, a plastic bowl on her lap and a white spoon clasped awkwardly between her fingers. Her hair had blood in it, but someone had taken the time to pull it out of her face and tie it behind her head. He glanced back at Thor's woman, wondering if she had done it.

"Hi!" Max drew out the vowels, her voice sing-songish as she addressed him. He approached her slowly, careful to avoid the wires hanging off her, and sat at the end of her bed. More than anything, he wanted to kiss her, to scoop her up and take her away from here. But he didn't do any of it. He was cautious—she was already so delicate.

"She probably won't remember any of this," Jane noted from the door. "Like I said, she's pretty substantially drugged up right now."

"Look at the jello," Max cooed, holding up the bowl for him to inspect the obscene green goop he remembered she liked so much. "They found it specially for me."

"How thoughtful of them," he murmured, setting his hand on her knee—carefully. "Is it good?"

"It hurts my face."

"Perhaps you shouldn't eat it then." He smiled as she hugged the bowl protectively to her, and then shuffled closer. "Can I look at your hands?"

"Take a picture, picture, picture…" She scooped some jello toward her mouth, and then frowned when it fell off her plastic spoon and back into the bowl.

It was like he could breathe again. Nothing mattered outside this room, and it wasn't because he was angry or frustrated or impatient—it was because everything that mattered in this whole realm was right in front of him at last.

"I put all her clothes in a bag," Jane told him as he shuffled up the bed. He heard her pull a plastic bag from somewhere and set it near him. "They're pretty bloody."

"Thank you."

He meant it, every last syllable. He turned to her and gave her the most earnest expression he could muster, and while she didn't quite return it with a smile, Thor would explain the gravity of his words to her at some point. The man continued to be a looming presence in the doorway, watching Loki's every move in silence. He could feel those observant eyes on him, and he didn't care. He didn't care that Thor watched him feed Max jello, nor did he care that Thor saw him bury his face in her matted hair.

"I'm going to take them back to Brooklyn." Thor's voice eventually rumbled through the room's peace, and Loki glanced back at him as Max slurped the jello noisily by his ear—her spoon had found a more permanent home on the floor after it fell from her stiff fingers. "I'll return tomorrow."

"Do as you wish," he mused, eyes fixed on Max's face. Loki flinched when a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"I am glad she is well."

He nodded, not wanting to speak again knowing that his emotions would betray him. Thor, Darcy, and Jane disappeared when Max started to hum. Someone behind a curtain coughed. Nurses filtered in and out to check on their patients. Max had her dosages altered. Loki stayed by her side through the night. He sat with her when the jello was gone, when the people around them started screaming in their sleep. He was there when the humming faded and the crying started, and for all the power he had, there was nothing he could do to make her well, to make the pain stop.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Right, so I think I made a mistake choosing an actual NYC hospital to be the back-drop of this chapter. I couldn't find any information on the hospital layout for the life of me, so things will have glaring inaccuracies. Still, I liked the Beyoncé bit, so I kept it as is. Have some forgiveness for the lack of realism with that.

I fully anticipate people being… maybe not quite as satisfied with the reunion between Max and Loki as they could be. I just couldn't picture Loki getting weepy and emotional at the sight of her. In this fic, I personally feel like he's more prone to act out in anger and frustration, while his sadness and other more emotions that might make him "weak" stay just below the surface. I don't know. Give me your thoughts on that one.

I also like that Thor doesn't get upset at Jane and Darcy for sneaking out. In all the conflict we've seen that involve Jane and Thor in the movies and whatnot, I always thought Thor was fine letting Jane get herself into sticky situations-like he knew she should handle herself. It's something I quite like about their relationship.

I've had some seriously amaaazing reviewers lately, and I made a post on tumblr with a weeping gif to express my love for all of you. Seriously though. You're all amazing, and you know just how to pick me up when I'm feeling shaky about an update, or the way the story is going, etc. Like Loki, I feel like I can finally breathe again now that this portion of the story is done, and we're moving on to Part Two with people still sticking around. Part Two is when it gets a little messy.

LOVE YOU ALL! SEE YOU NEXT WEEK WITH THE NEXT UPDATE!