It was not what Emma had expected when she approached Loki. She had just wanted to steal a moment to be close to him, but now she was running with him along the long, steel-gray corridors back to the direction where they had came from. He had snatched her away from their capturers; kissed her with a sweetest kiss and picked her up in his arms like a guardian angel. It had been like an out-of-body- experience, seeing themselves distancing from the illusion Loki had conjured of them two. She wasn't sure how he had done it but she was happy he had.
He had conjured away both of their handcuffs and they rushed side by side holding hands, glancing at each other with small grins, not believing that they had pulled through it. Emma could have never imagined Loki running away from anything. But there he was, dashing with her like a wind and Emma was glad no one had gotten hurt.
It was beyond his understanding how desperately he had wanted her back and how very pleased he was now, her staying by his side even against all the trouble they had faced. "For a small moment there you got me worried that you were having second thoughts about us," he smirked.
Emma let out a tiny giggle. No matter what had happen she couldn't be happier being with him again. "You're the one who asked me to be ruthless."
"Not towards me!" Loki laughed. His long legs set the pace of their run and she made an effort to keep up with him. "Please forgive me that I was not there with you when you awoke in this morning as I promised."
Emma did her best to recall everything that had happened on that day already. It had been an awfully long day. "Yeah? Where were you?" she asked as if scolding, breathing fast while running even faster, holding on his hand.
Loki grinned a bit with a sorry look. "The boy, Damien, insisted me to go seeing his grandfather's horses in the morning. And before you ask; he is fine. He is back in his home."
Emma laughed a bit. "You are his idol! You actually went seeing horses with him? You are a big softy."
Loki took a breath, sounding careless as if they had been simply jogging hard. "He would have not granted us any peace in the whole night if I would have not given into his wishes."
"Yeah, I bet it could have turned out to be a quiet different kind of night having him with us. And silly me thought that you had dumped me."
"I will never let you go, Emma Morgan."
"You could have taken the world without me, you know?"
Loki knew that. And yet his plan was progressing quietly on the background, the young ones he met in England were working for his cause. He cared none of that at the moment, though, as he smiled to her. "And what would I have done with the world without having anyone to share it with?"
She was surprised by his sweet words. "If we both managed out of this alive, I might fall in love with you, Loki of Asgard."
Loki gave her a fond sideways glance, squeezing her hand tight. "If you would do that, I just might give up my plans for world domination and settle for you."
"Oh, you think you could dominate me instead?"
"Most certainly," he grinned.
"Hey, I have claws now, so you're better stick with the world ruling plan!"
They both chuckled a bit, panting. And then they heard the sounds of the approaching soldiers from behind as they were reaching to the elevator. The soldiers were yelling after them to stop.
"Please, no more killing, Loki!" Emma shouted, exchanging glances with him. "Let's just get out of here!"
The thrill of escape was becoming unbearable as a few gun shots carried through the corridor. The doors of the elevator were still open and Loki and Emma rushed inside. Loki pushed Emma protectively against the side wall into a small sheltering nook and sent an energy blast towards their followers. A first few fell down but the rest kept coming, opening fire at him. So, did Ironman who had reached by the agents' side.
Emma hit the elevator's buttons trying to get it into motion. "Come on, come on!" she grunted.
Loki delivered the soldiers another energy blast and another. The heavy rain of bullets rattled against the metal walls and the closing doors of the elevator, Loki taking a few hits but they rebounded from him. Thanks to his durable Frost Giant inheritance and Asgardian sorcerer's abilities he was able to withstand almost anything they had for him, except maybe Thor's hammer and Ironman's missiles.
"Hold your fire!" Thor shouted to the agents while emerging on the other end of the long corridor. "Loki! Do not do anything stupid, brother!"
Loki got the glimpse of running Thor when the doors finally closed holding back the shots, and the lift was in motion, heading up.
It had been close!
Heaving a sigh and smiling broadly, Loki turned at Emma, thinking about their options to get out from the building complex. "So, are you ready to show your claws? I want you to stay behind me when we..."
All his thoughts came to a halt as he watched her leaning and sliding down against the elevator's metal wall as if her feet had gone numb under her. A blood red stripe, like swept with a brush, was drawn on the wall behind her head. Loki reached out for her and caught her before her limb body slumped on the floor, him holding on her behind her back. There were several bullet holes on the side walls, ricochets that had bounced off from him. One under her blood stains.
"Emma?" Her name came out from his mouth with a whisper as he held her in his arms. Her eyes were partly closed and rolled up, only the whites showing. There was a long wound on the left side of her head above her ear, blood pouring out from it, dribbling on the floor. The white bone of her skull was exposed where a ricochet had peeled skin and hair off from her head. And not only that, there was a small piece missing from her skull on the back of her head, her brains been exposed and partly damaged by the shot.
Loki gasped in horror, staring down at her, kneeling and laying her gently on the floor. "Emma, no! No, no, no!"
The taste of her sweet lips still on his, the feeling of utter helplessness grabbed a cold hold from his insides. He stroked her head gently, unsure where to hold her, or what to do. She was still breathing that much he could tell. "Emma, please, please..." His voice was trembling, his throat tightening, his heart pounding in his chest as though it was going to explode in pieces.
It had been his fault. The bullet had bounced off from him and hit her. He had believed he had been protecting her but he had pushed her right there where the ricochets had hit. "I know you can make through this, Emma. Come on! Stay with me!" His words were more of a prayer than anything else. Then for a tiny moment his face darkened. "Do not dare to make me go rummaging through all the underworlds to bring you back, my Valkyrie!" he rasped as if a threat would have brought her back, tears rushing into his eyes, his lips trembling.
The world had stopped in a heartbeat, him holding her, sitting on the elevator's floor on his knees. It could have been only a few seconds or an hour. It felt all the same. The doors opened as the lift reached the floor zero, but Loki paid no attention to it. Another group of armed soldiers were already waiting them behind the threshold of the elevator. In the corner of his eyes Loki saw the approaching men with their weapons. His attempt of escape was over, he being shocked more than he was when Odin fell into the Odinsleep. After all Odin had always pulled it through, she may not. He wasn't going to leave without her even he could have fought his way out easily.
"Help her!" he said begging, his gaze never leaving her. "Help her, please!" he roared at the soldiers who moved closer to them.
... ...
No more mocking words. No more bitter, despising tone in his voice. Thor hardly recognized his brother who stood still and numb inside his new cell, larger than the one in the Helicarrier, equally strong made. Loki had come there quietly, being like a shadow of his former mischievous self, not saying a word.
That was the first time, they both on Midgard, Thor would have wanted to give him a brotherly hug. Thor could only imagine what was going on in Loki's mind. He had never seen his brother like that, so shattered, so quietly. And they had gone through a lot together, good and bad. Thor had expected to end up into a fierce battle with Loki just like before but when he'd found his brother in the floor zero, restrained by the group of armed agents, Loki had looked completely heartbroken and given up.
"I heard the healers on Midgard are highly competent, so I am sure she will be in safe hands," Thor said, giving some console words, knowing it didn't mean much to Loki. It wouldn't have meant much to him either if it would have been Jane in Emma's place right now. And he regretted he hadn't brought any healing stones with him. Those could have helped her.
"I trust you with my life."
"If we both managed out of this alive, I might fall in love with you, Loki of Asgard."
Loki couldn't get those Emma's words off his mind, thinking only that if she would die, the people of SHIELD should pray his cage would hold him. At the same time he cursed these feelings. He cursed that he had grown so fond of her that it hurt him to see her suffer. He cursed that everything he cared was stolen from him, ripped from his hands. She had made him keeping at bay the darkness that lurking inside of him. For a small moment she had made him feeling of being a worth of something more. For a moment she had made him forget the pain he had been exiled with. And Thor, the golden boy, knew nothing of it. His gaze strayed without anything to look at, not really hearing what the people around had been telling him. Loki had hardly looked at Thor at all.
"Loki, I am ..." Thor begun, but Loki lifted his hand for him to stop pouring his consoling words.
"Don't!" Loki said his voice cold as ice, his face expressionless while he was slowly turning away. "You have done enough already. Go and claim your trophy!"
"I did not want this to happen," said Thor, talking to his brother's back.
"You think I did?" Loki's tone was feeble, unfamiliar to his normal character. "If she would die... I will not be responsible for my actions."
"As if you ever are." Thor was struck speechless by his brother's blindness of seeing his own flaws. "How come you fail to see your own part in all of this? Did it not occur to you that she is not bullet-proof? She is not like us."
Loki turned to face his brother. "At least I was doing something, trying to get her out from here, while you idly fret!" he cried out, a glimmer of madness flickering across his face. The same look Thor recalled him having while they had fought in the Bifrost observatory.
"Loki, you do not truly know her and yet she lied for you. She killed for you…"
"Yes! She did more for my sake than you have ever done!" Loki was quiet, staring straight into Thor's eyes, and he looked sad again. "Why could you not leave me in peace? Everything was fine without you," he said with a whisper.
"You know damn well why I came to Earth."
A very small smile visited on Loki's lips. "Did you know I was planning to meet you precious Jane? I would have shown to your woman what the Asgardian kings are made of. I would have made her beg, I would have make her scream and curse you..."
Without a second thought, Thor slammed his fist hard to the strong glass wall, enraged by Loki's provocation. It made aloud, hollow sound, the glass remaining intact. Thor glared at his brother who still seemed to be the same, or even the worst, that he had used to be.
Loki let out a pained chuckle-alike, glancing at the glass. He wished Thor would have brought his hammer, so he could have talked himself out from his cage. "I would have killed her very slowly, very intimately, transformed myself into her beloved Thor," he continued, relishing of seeing his brother boiling in rage behind the transparent wall, but there were tears brimming in his eyes. "Come now, brother. Why not share the frustration? The pain? And hatred? We are family after all, are we not? Oh, I forgot; we are not!"
Thor gathered himself realizing that it was all talk. It was grief and pain. It was all Loki was capable of at the moment. "Loki, you make it very hard to feel sorry for you," Thor snapped back at him and turned to walk away.
Loki watched him go, a small part of him dying every time he fought with Thor. "Have you not yet guessed why I never went to New Mexico, to your woman?" he asked and saw Thor stopping but not facing him.
He took a lean from the cold wall, anger and pain from his face fading away. "Because of Emma. She talked me out of it. Do not ask me how, but she did." He swallowed his tears but his eyes got wet. "Her last words to me before she…" His voice grew faint and he sucked in a breath. "She said; Please, no more killing, Loki. I should have not listened to her. I should have killed them all to keep her safe. So, you heed my words, brother. You tell them to hide the Tesseract. You tell them to hide it well, because this cage will not hold me forever if something happens to my Emma."
... ...
In his job working overhours had been more of a rule than an exception. Coulson hadn't had a decent night sleep in a few days already and Fury had told him to take a break. But as usual to his style he never left anything in a halfway. He grabbed a takeaway coffee and went back at the hospital ward within the Triskelion building complex. Emma Morgan had been taken there to be treated. Her head injuries caused by the ricochet had been severe. For a normal person the trauma would have been fatal, but in her case Coulson had remained hopeful.
Phil Coulson took a sip from his large coffee cup, walking to the ward where he had left Ms. Morgan a while ago into the care of the doctors and nurses.
"Agent Coulson?" one of the nurses from the desk yelled at him just as he had arrived there.
"Yes."
"We have a situation in the CT-room. The female patient you just brought; she came in conscious and is being out of control now. The security is there now. Also the STRIKE team has been called."
Coulson gave the woman his coffee cup and rushed at the small radiology department that lied behind a few long hallways. As he got in there, he heard a gun firing and pulled out his own pistol, sidestepping through a small rush of staff and patients that ran away from the threatening sounds of gun firing. Another shot carried through the corridor and a strong-build male security officer scurried hunching for cover into the corridor from the CT-rooms, dragging a male doctor with him over the floor. The doctor had injured his throat, being barely able to breath. And the security officer had a nasty cut in his right forearm.
Phil Coulson hurried to them and squatted down checking the doctor's state. "I'm agent Coulson. What's the status here?"
"Hey, we need help over here!" the security officer shouted at the doctors on the other end of the corridor. Then he turned at Coulson. "That woman went completely berserk when she regained consciousness," the man said, helping the doctor as he spoke. "She assaulted the nurse and Dr. Leon, and as we got here she managed to take my Taser and shocked my colleague with it. He's still in there. She was armed with some crazy blades. Shit! I've never seen anything like that. Then she took his gun and start shooting at everything, screaming like mad."
"Alright. I heard that the STRIKE team is coming for back up. Don't let them rush in. I'm going in there," Coulson said and got up on his feet.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. Let the STRIKE have her! I'll bet she is high on something."
Coulson cautiously went in from the first door leading to the CT-rooms, remaining behind a wall next to the door that had a small window screen. Apparently Ms. Morgan was on the other side of that door. Coulson could hear her walking and tossing things on the floor inside.
Coulson took a breath and exhaled it slowly. "Ms. Morgan!" he shouted through the door.
Immediately he got answered with a gun shot that broke the glass from the door's window. "Fuck you! Fuck all of you! It's over! I'm done! I will not let you hurt me anymore!" a panicky young woman's voice cried out back at him.
For someone whose brains had been partly damaged a while ago, she sounded doing just fine. It was no question that she had her father's fast healing abilities. "No-one's going to hurt you! We are here to help you. Please, put the gun down!" Coulson yelled and he was delivered another shot.
"I'll kill you all if I have to! No more!" she screamed like a mad.
"Could we please talk about this, Emma. Can I call you Emma?"
"Who the fuck is Emma?"
"Emma Morgan? That is you, isn't it?" Coulson was sure it was Ms. Morgan's voice he heard.
There was completely quiet for ten long seconds. "Why the hell would you call me with my grandmother's name?" she asked in a slightly confused voice.
Phil Coulson banged the back of his head quietly against the wall and heaved a sigh. The brain damage had caused her amnesia? "Emily Morrison?" he asked cautiously.
"Like you miserable fuckers wouldn't know!"
Charming teen angst! Coulson took a moment to think. "It's alright. I'm an S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson. We have taken down the Hydra's research unit where they kept you. They will not do any more tests on you, I promise. We have caught them, all of them. You are safe now, Emily! It's over. You're safe!" he spoke in calm, compassionate and assuring voice.
"It's over?" a tiny voice asked, nearly crying.
"You have my word. It's over. They are gone. No-one's going to hurt you. Could you please put your gun down, so we could talk?"
"I... I want my mom!"
"Of course. We'll find her for you. I'm going to come in now," Coulson said and cautiously pushed the door ajar. No more firing.
At first his attention was caught up by the male security officer that was lying down on the floor, the wires of the Taser still attached to his torso. The room looked empty, and he stepped in, but on his right he noticed Emma on the other side of the room, next to the massive CT scanner, still holding on to her gun, not aiming straight at him, but hesitating to put the pistol down. Her head was wrapped with bandages and the left side of her blonde hair was stained with blood. She looked small, fragile and confused like a child in lost.
Coulson showed her that he put his own gun on the table and hoped her to follow his example. "It's alright. I won't hurt you."
"You are not one of them?"
"No, I'm not," Coulson continued in his calm way and kneeled next to the security officer to check up his pulse. The security officer was fine but unconscious; he was going to have a hell of a soar body once he would wake up.
Emma followed the agent with her gaze doubtfully. "Do I know you? You look... somehow… I don't know." She touched her head with left hand, feeling the bandages, not knowing why she had those.
"We have never met. Are you hurt?"
"My head hurts. I don't know what they've done to me. My hands… there's something inside of my hands. Spikes… they came out. It hurt so much." Tears were rolling down on her cheeks as she held on to the gun with both hands. Her head felt like a mess, everything mixed up. Things didn't make any sense, flashbacks of memories hurling inside her head. "I hurt people. I didn't want to. I just wanted to go home, but they were trying to hurt me."
"No one is going to hurt you now."
"I don't know where I am."
"We are in a hospital. And you will get to home. Can I have that gun, please?" Coulson said walking slowly towards her, keeping his hands in her sight.
Emma moved backwards away from him. "Don't touch me! I'll fucking kill you if you try to touch. I swear, I will!" she screamed.
"I won't. Everything is going to be alright, Emily," Coulson reassured, reaching his hand. "Would you give me that gun, please? What would you say for a nice large cup of hot cocoa?"
"That would…" She wiped the corner of her eye with the back of her palm. "That sounds nice."
"There is a little cafeteria right behind a corner. We could go there. I'll buy."
Hesitatingly she let him have the gun, taking a few steps backward, gazing at him confused, being scared about everything around her. He seemed safe enough to trust, acting completely different than those who had once captured her. "How did you know I like hot chocolate?"
Coulson gave her a small, compassionate smile. "I didn't. That's my favorite drink."
… …
Standing tall and imposing, his hands clasped behind his back, Loki glowered down at the male agent through the glass wall of his prison. He felt like an exhibit in his glass-steel cage, but instead of being ogled by idiots around him he was locked up underground where no one would see him. Out of sight, out of mind?
The man, Coulson, had come down there into the dungeons to tell him the news about Emma, Loki assumed but he wasn't sure if he wanted to know. He didn't let his uncertainty show though.
After the incident in the radiology department, Coulson had taken Emma for a cup of hot chocolate as promised (shooed out the STRIKE soldiers) and slipped some tranquilizer into her drink. She was sedated and sleeping in another ward now. The CT scan they had finally managed to take from her showed no more physical damage in her head. And her claws, they hide inside her forearms and appeared to be of bone, very small actually. Coulson figured out that the thick coating layer of ice somehow emerged on the claws when they came out, but he wasn't sure how.
"I won't keep you long. I know how busy you are, scheming to take over our world and all," Coulson started gazing up at the captured Asgardian deity with a tender sarcasm in his voice.
"Hm," Loki snorted at his poor attempt of humor. He might have been captured but not defeated yet. "Why are you here?"
"I thought you should know that… Emma Morgan is gone."
"What?" Loki sighed in a gravely shocked voice, shuddering, his cold gaze piercing the man before him.
Coulson was interested about the trickster god's authentic reaction. It was as if he would care for her. "She is alive but she's not the same person you knew. Physically she is healed from her injuries but the shot caused her a brain damage that led to amnesia. She is suffering from a memory lost. Her whole identity as Emma Morgan is gone. She has forgotten everything what happened after her 17th birthday, including you. It is as if you would have never existed to her."
Loki hid the first shock with difficulty under a frown. At least she was still alive. That was all that mattered. It seemed that his capturers enjoyed of seeing him suffer, he pondered. "How long will it last?"
"We don't know. She might recover, regaining her full memory in time or remain the way she is for the rest of her life."
Loki walked closer to the wall, his face nearly expressionless but inside of him was a storm raging. "What will you do to her now?"
"That won't be your concern anymore."
The god of mischief took more intimidating pose, leaning his right hand against the wall, staring down at the agent. "Oh, but it is. My bargain to you still stands. If your people would harm her, you will regret that you caught me."
"She got injured because you tried to escape with her!" Coulson reminded. "Thankfully she is a fast healer. Which makes me wonder; is that the reason you are interested in her? Because of her powers? You had a perfect chance to run without her. Why didn't you?" he asked curiously but Loki didn't answer. "If she would be cooperative, as she seems to be now, we have no reason to harm her. For her sake, I hope she'll never remember you," Coulson informed shortly and was leaving.
"The Hydra…" Loki said, his voice turning smaller, and Coulson turned back at him lifting an eyebrow, "I do not know what or who they are, but she fears them more than death. She told me everything, what they did to her once. She would not survive through that again." The trickster god's hostile conduct was all gone and he stared at the agent with a begging look. "Son of Coul, you swear to me she will not fall into their hands!"
Coulson frowned a bit confused. But then he nodded in understanding and left.
Loki watched him go. His forearm across the glass Loki rested his head against it, his forehead leaning to his arm. His eyes were filling with tears, forcing him to close his eyelids. What was he mewling about like an infant? She was a mortal. A mortal! he tried to reason with himself, but his sanity wasn't listening when his heart had finally gotten its turn to take the stage.
If someone would have told him back in Asgard that he would weep for a mortal one day, he had laughed and called them mad fools. Now, the only fool was him, for feeling like this. He felt himself being pathetic, the sentimentality was killing him. To his own puzzlement he couldn't tell was he feeling wretched because he had nearly lost her or that she didn't remember him at all anymore. Was it too much to ask to have one person in his life who didn't see him as a monster? Just one who he didn't have to share with anyone else?
Emma had given him everything he had ever desired; the admiration, acceptance and the feeling of being loved. She had unlocked some feelings that were nearly novel to him like truly caring for someone else more than himself. Not mentioned the intimate connection they had shared. It was as if he had taken a bite from the forbidden fruit; another kind of life had been unveiled to him. And he wanted all that back with her.
Everything that could have gone wrong had gone terribly wrong. The pain of every miserable thing was cumulating inside of him, and Loki let out an anguished roar. He punched his fist against the wall, and he kept punching until it hurt too much to continue. He circled in his cage frustrated and screaming out his pain.
He could felt her lips on his, feel her touch on his skin, the soft touch of her golden hair against his palm. He was beginning to regret he had ever kissed her, that he had ever forced her to come alone with him. She had crawled under his skin and made a little warm nest inside his heart. She had made him a weak fool. A soft oaf!
"I like you being a big soft oaf."
He smiled a bit to that thought, hearing her voice in his mind. She couldn't be gone! He was not going to let her go, he told to himself and took a seat on the floor in the middle of his cell, legs crossed, and closing his eyes. He had never done this before but he recalled that had created a connection into her mind while they were sitting inside the snow vehicle in the storm. Maybe, just maybe if he would concentrate hard enough she could hear him.
