"Go! Go! Go!" Tony yelled and the jet slowly gained attitude.

Some more shots were fired at them, now coming from the outside of the base. One might have hit something important on the wall of the hold, judging from the shower of sparks it evoked and Tony kicked the bay door controller. He clambered to his feet as soon as it started closing.

He turned to Loki, still trapped inside the armor. "I know, I know, I'm getting you out, right now," he said and tugged at the plate that hid the emergency release. It must be a less than an optimal experience for Loki to be confined in an inescapable contraption again.

Romanoff sprung out of the pilot seat just as Tony finally wrenched the piece of metal free and pulled on the release bar. The armor unfurled and Loki half-fell, half-stumbled out, his eyes shooting around in blind panic.

He took one wobbly step forward and his eyes focused and found Romanoff. His legs buckled and he fell to his knees. She caught him before he crumbled to the floor completely, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him into a heartfelt embrace, whispering something Tony couldn't catch over the sound of the engines. Then, when Loki looked up at her, his eyes wide and bright and confused, she gently brushed the hair away from his face and placed a kiss on his forehead.

Tony's flustered. Because Loki – the terrifying alien god who tried to subjugate Earth, the feature act of Tony's nightmares and panic attacks – was crying, with choking sobs and heavy tears rolling down his hollow cheeks.

Tony turned away and headed for the cockpit.

It was dark and he couldn't move, no matter how hard he strained. The sounds were muffled, drowning in the rush of blood in his ears and the desperate flutter of his heart. He tried to breathe, but the metal pressed on his chest and throat and there was no more air, just darkness and panic and shouts and gunfire.

His head started to swim, the darkness turning red at the edges.

Then the armor opened suddenly and – devoid of its support – Loki stumbled out. Someone caught him. Loki looked up and his mind blanked out.

"I told you I'll come," Natasha whispered and held him in her arms and for a moment Loki forgot about the darkness, the pain, and the fear, lost in her light.

Loki fell asleep in Romanoff's arms. Or perhaps just lost consciousness, it was hard to tell. Tony kept his eyes firmly on the outside, his fingers gripping the yoke with way more force than necessary.

"Did you know that he was forced into attacking us in New York and it took a year of torture before he gave in?" said Natasha in a light, casual tone, like it was a perfectly normal thing to utter in a conversation. "Oh, and he was under the influence of the scepter the whole time."

"I must've missed that part of your report." Tony turned in his seat to face her, put down the headset, slid lower in the chair and crossed his legs. The autopilot was on anyway. "Seriously, Romanoff, what the hell are you playing at?"

"Nothing." Her fingers smoothed Loki's hair, her other arm still cradling him protectively. There was tenderness in the gesture Tony wouldn't suspect her even capable of. "I just thought you should know."

"Hell, yeah I should. Preferably before I risked my life breaking your alien boyfriend out of a Nazi super-prison? Don't you feel like that was kinda an important detail?"

"I would tell you if you didn't agree without it. But you did and there was no point in making you think I'm playing you for pity or I'm being manipulated myself."

"Oh, so not telling me was not at all a deception?"

She rolled her free shoulder and sighed. "You don't seem too surprised."

"It makes sense," Tony admitted.

"It does, doesn't it?"

Tony nodded, slowly, and didn't stop until the motion died down on its own. "You think they didn't know or just didn't care?"

Her shrug was more deliberate this time. "Doesn't matter," she said numbly, pulled her sleeve over her palm using her teeth and wiped some of the blood and grime from Loki's face. "The outcome is exactly the same."

Unable to avoid the reality before his eyes anymore, Tony looked down at the Norse god of mischief, curled up unconscious on the floor of their stolen Quinjet, looking like an overzealous Holocaust movie extra, every rise and fall of the sunken chest a labored effort, apparently as much of a victim in all this clusterfuck as the rest of them.

Tony felt sick again.

"What the fuck are we even doing, Romanoff?"

"No idea," she said quietly, and her fingertips traced the too-sharp line of Loki's cheekbone, just above the metal. "But it feels like the right thing to do."

"Yeah," he muttered and turned back to the cockpit. "It does."

They set the engines to twenty percent power and turned off all the unnecessary features, including cabin heating. Tony shivered and pulled the jacket he liberated from one of the lockers closer around himself. The temperature was in the low forties. The Quinjet operating system still kept on flashing the warning about insufficient energy levels.

Romanoff flopped into the co-pilot seat. Loki came to in the meantime, if briefly, and she managed to convince him to move to a makeshift bed she made with a pile of safety blankets she found in the back. At least this time he appeared to be asleep and not knocked out cold, which Tony counted as a good thing.

"I thought we are heading back to New York," she said, tapping the side screen, the only one that was still on, to zoom in on the route, "but we are clearly not."

"Change of plans. We can't make it that far," Tony said. He couldn't connect his arc reactor to the charging port of the jet without the suit and it was drained to the point he wouldn't be able to put it on without manually bending the plates around himself. "Besides, there must be a metric shit-ton of camera footage and a legion of eyewitnesses who saw me there and it's only a matter of time before the Hydra fucks come knocking at my door. And the tower is the first door they will check." He tried to keep his tone relaxed, not quite sure he managed. "Same with the mansion, plus I have no workshop set up there. We need a safe place, something that can't be traced to my name easily, because, no offense, but I don't think the two of us can take them head-on. And our wannabe benevolent ruler of the Earth over there doesn't look like he can survive much more of their jolly treatment."

He didn't want to look, so he just waved his hand loosely towards the back of the plane. As if called out, Loki shifted in his sleep, setting the chains to clinking.

"What about Pepper?"

"She's on a work trip in India. Happy is with her. I messaged him already to be on a lookout, but they should be safe so far away, at least for a while, until I figure out something more permanent."

"So, what's in… Shithole, Middle of Nowhere, Maine?" she asked, still studying the map.

"A safe place, I hope. And someone who might be able to help."

She crooked her head and appraised Tony's answer with a pout.

"Oh, you don't trust me all of sudden, Barbarella?"

"One more stupid nickname and I'll punch your teeth so far in you'll have to spend half of your fortune on search and rescue operations to ever find them again," she said with a pleasant smile. "Who's someone?"

"A friend."

"The shortlist of people whom I trust right now is not that extensive and the way you're acting is making me want to cut it one position shorter."

"You will see. I'm not going to spoil the surprise. Also, cool your cucumbers, Romanoff, and don't forget, we are in this together now. If shit goes down, I have everything on the line as well."

"Having second thoughts?"

"Not at all."

She sighed. "Then why didn't you remove the shackles? Loki is in no condition to run, even if he wanted to."

She's been eyeing the chain hatefully since Tony brought Loki onboard (or the other way around, rather), so he wasn't surprised by the question.

"I'm not worried about that. I just can't," he admitted with a wave of a hand. He took a closer look at the manacles when the god was unconscious and found no keyhole, not even a visible seam or hinge, like they were made of one solid piece of metal. "It's vibranium. Or, more likely, a vibranium-beryllium alloy, and my laser beam didn't even scratch it. And – as you probably noticed – there's no obvious way to open them with tools. The material is too dense for my portable scanner, but, if I had to guess I'd say it's a magnetic lock. And that will take some fiddling and some more advanced equipment in my workshop to find the right frequency."

"Shit, what kind of funding do they have to gain access to that?"

"My thoughts exactly. Goddamned Nazi bastards," Tony agreed. "There's one more thing," he added, lowering his voice. "There was this kid who we found on our way out. Scrawny and scared out of his mind. And a wizard, apparently. He recognized Loki and admitted he was forced to put some sort of spell or enchantment or something equally Dungeon-and-dragony on the shackles. I'm not sure what it's supposed to do, but Loki didn't seem happy about it being there, and, from context, they probably used it for torture. Well, another kind of it, at least. You happen to know what that might be about?"

She rubbed her eyelids with her thumb and index finger. "Yeah. The muzzle not only blocks Loki's own magic, but also hurts him if he has magic used on him, willingly or not. Or if he even thinks of taking it off, literally. Or makes any sort of sound with his vocal cords."

"Fuck me," Tony muttered numbly once the initial shock wore off. "Someone must really hate him, back home."

"Tell me about it," she said, looking at the distance behind the windshield. The sky was growing pink in the East, they weren't going fast enough to outrun the sunrise line. "What happened to the kid?"

Tony told her, carefully skipping around the part where Loki writhed on the floor in agony.

"I see. Too bad, he might need help."

"So do the others."

"Others?"

"There were more prisoners there, Romanoff. Or test subjects, as they were fondly called in the logs. You told me and I believed you, but… There were dozens of people there. Hundreds, maybe. And the way they are treated…" He sighed. "I knew I couldn't help everyone right then and there, that would be a suicide and would help no one in the long run, but hell… It really shouldn't be that complicated. This was a civilized country. This shouldn't fly. And definitely not under a banner of a US government agency."

"It's been going on for years, Stark. And not only with Hydra. They are just a tumor that grows on an already sick organ. There was this whole buzz about Guantanamo, protests and public outrage, and Ellis yielded. Guess what? It wasn't because it was the right thing to do. No. He needed it to go away, so no one would dig deeper. This is only the tip of the iceberg. The black sites, the Fridge, the CIA prisons in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the bases on the Pacific, who knows how many more outposts like the one we just visited. People just go in and no one hears about them ever again. Hell, you think SHIELD was taking Loki on a field trip when we were attacked?!" She was yelling at this point and Tony just watched with wide eyes, too stunned to stop her. "I've seen it, Stark. I've seen it all. I've worked for them and let them pat me on the head for a job well fucking done after I snuffed out lives on the other end of the world, without a cause or explanation, just because the targets knew something they weren't supposed to, asked wrong questions, or could do things that were not to someone's liking. You can fill five 'Battle of New York' memorial plaques with the names of people Uncle Sam disappears in the name of public security, each fucking year! So don't tell me what should and shouldn't fly, because you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about!"

She ran out of the pent-up anger and slumped, panting slightly.

"It doesn't mean it's okay to just leave it like that," he said quietly after a moment.

"I tried. And only succeeded at getting people I cared about hurt or killed. It's like… every time I try to do something, it makes things even worse," she said. "But you're right, it does not make it okay."

"Viva la revolution," Tony uttered darkly and turned off the autopilot. They've arrived.

The "safe place" Stark talked about turned out to be a house in a clearing in the middle of a forest. At first glance from up above, it looked like a lodge or an oversized cabin, with a smaller outbuilding in the back, closer to the line of the trees, and a rough stone path running towards the forest. But, as they descended, more details became obvious. Under the dark shingle of the mansard roof hid a modern construction, with full height, tinted windows and textured concrete on the walls.

"Jarvis, open the barn for us," Starks said and the roof on the shed started to part.

It was Stark after all and he just didn't do "rustic".

Stark guided the plane inside expertly. Flying out in the open with an autopilot engaged was one thing and performing a complicated landing maneuver with most auxiliary support systems turned off was another. It seemed that his pilot's license wasn't just for show, unlike a lot of other aspects of his character.

Stark got up and approached Loki, then stood over him and watched with a furrowed brow. Natasha curled her hands into fists. Stark dropped into a crouch and shook Loki's shoulder. "Hey, princess, time to wake up."

Loki stirred and his eyes dashed around. With what looked like ultimate effort, he propped himself on his shaky arms, shuffled his legs and tried skulking away towards the back wall.

"It's all right," she said, shoving Stark out of the way and dropping to her knees. Loki calmed down the moment his eyes landed on her. There was that familiar tug behind her sternum and she smiled. "We are in a safe place. Just a few more steps and you can rest. Can you do that?"

He nodded.

"Let's get you up."

Loki allowed her to grab his hand and pull it over her shoulders, then attempted to stand up, but his legs wouldn't obey him.

Without saying a word, Stark grabbed Loki's other arm.

The hatch didn't react to the button, there wasn't enough power left in the cells for the pneumatic servos to work. Stark kicked it open and it fell out, raising a cloud of dust into the air.

Loki's hand on her shoulder was a familiar, cool presence. She wrapped her arm closer around his waist as they moved towards the main building, and for the first time since the doomed flight so many months ago, she felt… home.

The double glass door slipped aside as they approached. The living area was spacious and tastefully furnished, although not as sleek as the usual Stark-brand interiors she saw so far, with accents of dark wood and textured fabrics, a big, round couch with fluffy cushions in the middle and a massive fireplace by one of the walls.

"Where to now?" she asked.

Stark's eyes jumped to the door on the left that looked suspiciously like it led into the basement, then quickly reconsidered. "Guest bedroom, down that hall," he said, tipping his chin in the opposite direction.

They walked down the darkened corridor and almost reached the end when one of the doors on the side flew open and a man hurried out, his silhouette barely visible in the pale light of sunrise seeping from the room.

"What is this?" he asked.

"Hi, Bruce," Stark said. "Jarvis, can you give us some light?"

A couple of wall lamps came on. Loki's fingers squeezed Natasha's arm, then he dug his heels and tried jerking away.

"Hey, it's fine," Stark said. "He's a friend."

Banner rubbed his eyes and blinked. "Tony? What is…" He paused, taking in the scene before his eyes. "Uhm…"

"I'll explain later," Stark said curtly. "And get dressed, we are going to need you."

Banner stared at them for a couple more seconds, his eyes dashing between Stark, Natasha and finally landing on Loki. He grunted something unintelligible and returned to his room without saying anything else.

Stark turned back to Loki. "Come on, princess, it's not far."

Loki hesitated for a few seconds, then conceded.

Stark led them into a room and Natasha assessed it quickly. It indeed appeared to be just an upscale bedroom, with a king-size bed, fluffy carpet and a line of windows creating the entire opposite wall. There were no bars, the windowpanes looked just like regular glass and the door had a standard lock. She swallowed the sigh of relief. Of course, Stark might consider it just a temporary solution, but she would deal with that once they got there.

Stark pulled the covers away and guided Loki onto the bed. Loki hissed in pain when Stark grabbed his arm during his manhandling attempts. Stark pried his hands away immediately. "Sorry," he muttered.

"I got this," Natasha said, and Stark stepped away, relieved. She helped Loki get his legs on the bed, but he protested when she tried to settle him down on his back.

"That's how they kept him…" Stark said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

She closed her eyes. Between Stark's words and the stains on the rags Loki was wearing she didn't need more. "On your side then?" she asked, and Loki gave her a small nod. She fluffed the pillow and helped him down. "Is this okay?"

He moved his wrist for "yes" and she smiled. "You remember," she said and then chuckled at the shadow of the indignant glare. That was exactly the way she expected her… the old Loki to react. "You want a blanket?"

[No.]

Yeah, she figured.

Stark left the room not long after, which was probably for the best. Just as the door closed behind him, Loki let out a breath and allowed his eyelids to fall, some of the tension already draining away. She sat down on the edge of the bed but, as much as she yearned to comfort him, hold his hand, so he knew she was still there, she didn't. There was hardly a patch on his skin that wasn't covered in cuts or sores or bruises and she didn't want to cause him more discomfort than he was already in. Her core shimmered and she wished she could let that power flow through her fingers, mend his wounds, soothe his pains.

When Stark returned, perhaps half an hour later, dragging Banner along, Loki was dozing off. He shifted minutely when the men arrived, but didn't open his eyes. Natasha suspected he was listening, but she didn't mention it, allowing the scene to play out on its own.

"Maybe we should come back later?" Banner whispered timidly. He changed out of his pajamas, had his glasses back on his nose and was carrying the most classic doctor's bag Natasha she has ever seen.

"Come on, we have to know what we are dealing with here," Stark murmured back, just as quietly. "You can save the details for later but I need to know if I have to call someone in."

Banner nodded, still not entirely convinced. He shuffled further into the room and leaned over the bed.

"Loki? Are you awake?" he said. His tone was calm and collected, but there was still an insecure edge to it. "My name's Bruce. I'm a doctor… erm, a healer… of some kind. Is it all right if I examine you?"

Loki's eyes flew open and he studied the man in front of him, then his gaze fell to Natasha.

"It's okay," she ensured him. "He is telling the truth."

Loki's face still showed hesitation.

"I can stay if you want," she offered.

He brought up his arm and traced a circle over his chest with an open hand.

"Okay, I will," she said with a smile.

"I'm out. I'll be in the living room, if someone needs me," Stark offered and left.

Tony wanted to start with a cup of coffee, but no matter how many times he turned the knobs on the coffee machine, it still didn't taste right, so he gave up and poured himself a double whiskey. That helped to settle the conflicting thoughts rummaging in his head at least.

One side of him wanted to act. Put on the armor, fly to DC and punch Pierce in the face until he was just a bleeding husk on the ground, then continue all thorough Romanoff's list until every goddamned piece of Nazi scum was gone. But Romanoff was right, if they didn't do it properly it wasn't going to stop, it would only make them crawl into their holes, hiding their tracks, burying the evidence.

Going public was the only reasonable action, but they needed more. No, not more. Everything. They needed the location of every secret base, designation of every compromised unit, name of every person held hostage. They needed to be thorough, because if there was just one root left, that weed would grow back, like it did after Cap took out Hydra's leader in the forties.

How did they put it? Chop off one head, two more grow back?

Ugh.

Tony already scouted ahead, but the Council database was a hard nut to crack, throwing him off before he could get more than a peek. Sure, he got a thing or two, but at this rate it would take years and Tony wasn't interested in waiting that long.

Now he only needed to find a way that wouldn't endanger himself or the people he cared about. Or anyone innocent, truly.

Like Loki.

Thinking about the god in those terms was weird, but the longer he turned the thought around in his head the more natural it felt. And the state he found the god in made it even harder to hold a grudge against him. Loki might not be the shining beacon of rightfulness, but – whatever his sins truly were – he's been punished enough.

They succeeded at getting him out and he might yet get a chance to recover, at least physically, but it didn't feel like a triumph. How many more people were still stuck in the dark, without someone like Romanoff on the outside to mount a rescue, without any hope? How many more like those dozens he willfully ignored? He was there and he left, without doing anything.

No, it wasn't a victory, not at all.

He sighed and got up to pour himself another glass.

The door to Loki's room opened and Bruce stepped into the living area. He came over to the couch and clapped down with a heavy sigh, dropping the tablet he was carrying onto the seat next to him and the bag on the floor. He undid the top button of his shirt and ran his hand through his hair.

Tony eyed him closely, looking for the hints of green. "You look pale. Do I need to get my armor on?"

Bruce shook his head. "No, I'm fine. I just… I think I'm not this kind of doctor, Tony," he said.

"Oh come on, don't give me that! You worked as a physician before and you know this is an emergency…"

"No, that's not what I meant. I just don't…" he flustered then met Tony's gaze. "I don't know how he is still alive, Tony."

Tony sat down next to him. "What do you mean?"

"I ran just a cursory scan and a basic examination, Loki was barely lucid as he was, but…" He paused and took a deep breath. "His neural system is in shambles because of the drugs they kept him on. That alone should make him a vegetable, yet he is coherent enough to answer questions. There's not a single organ in his body that's not damaged in some way, because the parenteral nutrition he was on wasn't covering even a fraction of what his body requires to function. It's easier to list which bones haven't been broken, some still are… I don't even know how he is able to move his hands, since most of his metacarpal bones are shattered. He has pressure ulcers on a good portion of his back and lower body because they kept him in one position for months, some of it is infected and it looks like it's not the first time. And I have no idea how to even start to interpret his body temperature. Or these," he added, waving his hand at the tablet.

The display showed a chart that Tony guessed was some sort of blood test results. "So… Are you saying that there's nothing you can do?"

"If he were human, he would be dead, many times over," Bruce judged, numbly. "But he is not and I don't know if anything I can do is going to help or make it even worse. I'm groping blindly here, Tony. For now, I cleaned the worst of his wounds and gave him an IV with fluids, some mild analgesics, too. By the way, he refused the painkillers at first and Natasha had to talk him into it before he agreed." He sighed. "I guess we will have to see if it works at all… I'm going to need more specialized equipment than I have here. A TPN setup and some proper, high-protein formula, enteral feeding machine for later… The central line equipment, too, because the catheter wasn't maintained properly, and the artery is scarred, and we might need to redo it."

"Just tell Jarvis what you need, he will make a short order."

"I already did," Bruce said and flexed his fingers, then tossed his head back in frustration.

"What is it?"

"They just… took him apart, Tony. Bit by bit, until there was almost nothing left, yet he still lived. How much longer would he last if you didn't get him out? Months? Years? Decades?"

Tony didn't answer, because no matter what he would say, it wouldn't make it any better.

Banner looked shaken when he left and she was just glad he was done, at least for now. Loki was barely able to keep his eyes open by the end of the exam and there were parts where she had to force herself to watch. She swallowed, fighting the surge of nausea. It was all her fault, if she got there earlier, before…

The door opened and Stark's head appeared in the crack. "Romanoff? There's a…" His eyes fell onto Loki's nearly naked form, only a piece of thin bedsheets Natasha found in one of the drawers covering his nether regions. Loki's clothes had to be cut away so Banner could tend to his injuries and there was nothing to replace them in the room. They also had to turn Loki over to his other side, with his ruined back towards the door, because that was apparently the only position in which the tube in his vein was still permeable. Stark walked right onto what was quite a disturbing sight for anyone with at least a scrap of empathy left. "I'll be right back," he uttered and disappeared.

He returned a moment later carrying a bundle of white fabric. He gingerly placed it on the armoire. "Here are some clothes. It's not much, but…"

She gave him a small nod.

"This is the only bedroom besides the main and Bruce is occupying that one for now. I'll get something arranged later, but there's a daybed in the library if you want to get some sleep."

"I'd rather stay here, but thanks," she said. "What about you?"

"I have a couch in the workshop. It's really comfy," he said with a chuckle, but it didn't sound too convincing and his smile faded almost immediately. His eyes dashed back to Loki. "Is there anything else I can do?"

"No, thank you, Stark." She paused. "For everything. I wouldn't be able to do it on my own."

"Don't mention it." He turned to leave.

"Hey, one more thing… How did you find Banner?"

"Easy. I've never lost him," he smirked and left.

The sun traveled through the sky, but Banner said Loki's eyes needed more time to adjust after so long in the dark, so she kept the curtains drawn.

Banner returned a couple more times, to check on Loki and replace the IV bags but he didn't say much when she asked about the progress. "It's too early to say," was all he had to offer.

It was well into the afternoon when Loki woke up. She was nodding off, curled in the chair by the window but stirred immediately when he started moving and the chains clinked. They didn't even bother with removing the shackles she got stuck on his wrist all those months ago…

"Hi," she said and cleared her throat.

[Hi,] his hand spelled and he moved to sit up and got somewhere halfway through. She scrambled out of the chair and helped him, adding another pillow so he could rest in a reclined position.

"You shouldn't be moving too much yet."

[I'm fine.]

She smiled but it was a bitter smile. She witnessed him say it too many times to believe he actually was, even if the sight before her eyes weren't enough of an evidence.

[You look ill.] He spelled the adjective. He still couldn't get his left hand to cooperate, the shackles weighing it down.

"I'm just… tired, that's all. It's nothing, don't worry about it."

She sat down on the edge of the bed. Loki reached out and brushed the back of his palm on her knuckles. Her eyes started to prickle again. He patted the empty space between them.

"I don't want to hurt you."

[You won't.]

"Will you go back to sleep if I join you?"

[Yes.]

She lay down on the bed, facing him. "I have something to show you," she whispered. She curled her fingers and brought forth the light, its shimmer reflecting in Loki's eyes. He covered her hand with his own and she brought the whisp down, so it hovered just above his skin. "Can you feel it?"

He shook his head.

"I will describe it to you," she promised.

She talked, in a hushed tone, until his eyelids fell and his breathing evened out. She stayed there, unwilling to disturb him, until she fell asleep herself.

"Natasha?" came to her in an insecure whisper and someone shook her shoulder.

She opened her eyes. She was still in the bed, but she curled closer to Loki in her sleep, with her head to his chest. His arm was around her waist, too. He was still asleep.

The hand on her shoulder moved again. "I'm awake," she whispered back. "Just give me a sec."

"Okay," Bruce's voice responded, "we're waiting in the kitchen. Brainstorming time."

With that Banner let go of her arm and left. She lingered another minute before she untangled herself and slowly got off the bed. Loki stirred and his fingers twitched at the loss of contact, but he didn't wake up. She rearranged the sheets around him and gently brushed hair away from his face.

She left the side table lamp on.

The house was darkened as she moved through it and the clock in the hallway informed her it's three-thirty in the morning. She slept for at least ten hours, maybe more.

Stark and Banner were indeed in the kitchen. Bruce was reading something on his laptop's screen, taking notes in a notepad. Stark sat hunched over an empty coffee cup, his face in his hands.

"What's up?"

Stark groaned and dragged his hands down. He had dark circles under his eyes and his goatee has seen better days. "We are trying to figure out what to do now."

"With?"

"Everything," Stark groaned again. "Bruce is trying to figure out how to fix Loki, I'm trying to find a way to deal with the goddamned legion of Nazis. We're both failing spectacularly." He got up and grabbed his cup. "Coffee?"

She shook her head. "Why didn't you wake me up earlier?"

"I had to sleep it off too," Stark said. "Only Bruce was a busybody."

"I'm still trying to find out what we're dealing with here," Banner said in an exasperated tone. "I've been going through the medical records we got for Thor, both from SHIELD and what Tony got after the battle, but it doesn't make any sense."

She clapped down and ran her hand through her hair. "That's because Loki's not Aesir."

Bruce frowned.

She took a deep breath. It felt like betraying Loki's trust, but this was a medical emergency. Without that knowledge, Banner might inadvertently make it worse while trying to help. "He is not of the same species," she said. "Remember what Thor told us about Loki being adopted? Well, it turns out Thor's father kidnapped him from a whole different planet. They are called the Jotnar and it's a race of… uhm, Loki described them as Ice Giants. They've been on Earth before, apparently. A long time ago."

"That would explain the body temperature at least," Stark tossed in without turning away from the coffee machine. "But he doesn't look all that giant to me. Okay, the guy is still a head taller than me, but a lot of people are, so…"

"Okay, so we can try searching the databases for that, perhaps SHIELD has dealt with the species before," Banner interjected before Stark got too carried away. He started typing.

"I don't think it would work. Odin used some sort of… spell on him, to change his appearance, and that's a physical change, not just an illusion."

"So he is a sort of… what, a magical hybrid?"

"Something like that."

Stark returned to the table. "That's just great. Magic, spells, unique mystical creatures…"

"Loki is a person, Stark," she snarled.

"I know he is. That's why we are trying to help him, in case you didn't notice."

Banner tapped his fingers on the table and bit the end of his pen. "Hmm, that actually helps. It could mean those proteins are something his body produces naturally, and the blood composition is altered to accommodate for lower body temperature…" He started writing, still murmuring to himself.

She turned back to Stark. "What happens on the SHIELD front?"

"So far, it's business as usual. I've intercepted some internal comms, but nothing official yet. There was a bunch of sad men in suits at the tower, but they carried no badges and Jarvis put the private section at total lockdown, so they just spoke to some of my employees and got exactly jack shit."

"So, what's the plan?"

"The same as it ever was. Make it public, take it all down, the sooner the better. They are cooking something big, here in the US. If I had to guess, it has something to do with that Helicarrier project Fury wanted me to consult a few months back. One of those costs eight hundred mil and the division has already sucked in like two billion over the last year and pumped the prices of vanadium and tungsten on the market with their big orders. So they are building a couple, and fast, and I have no idea what for, since they are not that convenient and cost too much to operate."

"Can we find more on that?"

"No, at least not that easily. It's all on the Council's servers and they are too well protected."

"They have… an AI on their own."

Stark crooked his head and raised an eyebrow. "And how do you know that?"

"A friend. She hacked in for me to help me find Loki. She said something about… a DNN?"

Stark whistled. "I'd like to know your friend," he said with a smile.

"She is dead. Hydra killed her because she helped me."

There was a moment of silence.

"I will call Fury and tell him I changed my mind about the project," Stark said after a while, "and maybe he will let me in. If I give it a breathing room of at a couple of days he might not make the connection."

"If he is in on that he would know you had your hands at breaking out Loki and you'd be walking into a deathtrap."

"What can you do… You think they would risk disappearing me?"

"They disappeared Loki," she said numbly.

"What do you suggest then?"

"I'm a fugitive from the law, you're just a controversial billionaire playboy with a troubled past and a hero complex, Banner is more known as the green rage monster that wrecked Harlem and Loki is the guy who released an alien swarm over New York. We are too easy to discredit, no matter how loud we yell. This needs a face. Someone whom people trust."

"I think I know where this is going."

"Rogers."

"No way. He won't listen. He got all bristled up when I told him SHIELD is hiding stuff and that's like the elementary school level of civic awareness."

"And then he went down and searched for it himself. He is self-righteous and has outdated ideas about patriotism, but he is not mentally challenged. There must be an argument that would convince him. We just need to find it."

"It must be a goddamned good argument, cause if we go to him and he doesn't listen we are toasted. If we get Captain America going medieval on our asses right now there's no way we are making this right. And I can already tell I don't enjoy hiding in a dank hole."

She looked around. "Your definition of a 'dank hole' is peculiar," she said.

Stark chuckled, but there was something nervous about it. He was way more anxious about the situation than he let out. And he let out quite a bit. "Any suggestions on how to approach Rogers?"

"Not yet."

Stark slumped his shoulders. "We still have a few days to figure it out. We need to see how things settle first. With…" His eyes dashed down the hall, where Loki's bedroom was. "Everything."

She nodded.

Bruce pushed his fingers under his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Okay, I think I have an idea where to start. I'll still need to go through the data on Loki Jarvis downloaded when you were… down there, but I think we might be able to synthesize a formula that would work for him. His body is way more resilient than human one, so perhaps it will deal with the worst if given a chance to heal."

He stood up. "I'll be down in the workshop if someone needs me."

"You should get some sleep too," Stark suggested.

"There will be time for that later," he said and walked out of the kitchen.

Stark took a swig of his coffee.

"Stark?"

"Mhm?"

"I know it's spells and magic and…" she started, then rubbed her fingers on her temples. "You think you'd be able to do something about the muzzle?"

"I don't know," Stark admitted. "I went through the data SHIELD gathered when they tried taking it off first and it doesn't make any sense. It's an extremely strong material, but… It's just that, a piece of metal. It doesn't have a microprocessor that could be programmed, nothing that would explain its ability to react the way it does."

"That's the magical part."

Tony nodded. "I'll try. It might work. After all, we have something that they didn't when they tried."

She raised an eyebrow. "What is that?"

"The expert's input."