In the small kitchen of their London flat, Hermione makes her fifth cup of tea in two hours. Ron looks up at the sound of the kettle boiling (she always makes it the Muggle way, properly) but doesn't comment. It's been nearly three days since Harry's disappearance, and there has been neither hide nor hair of him. It's as if he's just vanished of the face of the earth. Only he can't have done, because that would be impossible.

Right?

XXXXXXXXX

Harry also has a cup of tea in front of him, but his is taken in a steamy tearoom full of hikers with muddy shoes and even muddier dogs. The waitress has plonked the most massive scone he's ever seen in his life in front of him, and he's nearly demolished it. Daphne has likewise attacked her apple pie, but no matter how hard he tries, Loki has failed to make any significant inroads into the slab of lemon meringue pie he ordered (the café's speciality, as they were cheerfully informed by a man with very cool tattoos whom Harry suspects is the owner).

What they are going to do now, he has no idea. But there are any number of hotels in the pretty little village that they could hole up in whilst Daphne figures out the cube, and they've probably got 48 hours' grace until S.H.I.E.L.D. track them down (which he has no doubt they will). Hopefully they'll be gone by then. Hopefully he'll be home, fending off Hermione's wrath for disappearing so suddenly and Ron's for being a prat with the cube in the first place.

'So,' Daphne breaks the silence, 'I guess we're finding another hotel then?'

Harry nods.

'That was what I was thinking. Then you can do your cube-thing and we can go home and you,' he looks at Loki, who's still ploughing through his pie, 'you can… do whatever it is Norse gods do when they acquire other-dimensional cubes.'

Loki makes no response. Perhaps he is annoyed, angry at being left behind; or perhaps his mouth is just too full of lemon and meringue and pastry. Given the almost painful sound of him swallowing, Harry suspects the latter.

It's still pouring outside, but they can't sit here forever. The café is showing signs of shutting up, cakes cleared from counters and somehow they have become among the last few people left.

'We should make a move,' remarks Daphne, clearly coming to the same conclusion. Loki rises and slaps three twenties down on the table – far more than the food could ever have cost, but Harry can't be arsed to fight with him about it. The tearoom could probably use the money anyhow.

Turns out, there's a hotel on almost every corner of this village, and eventually they plump for a more modest-looking one, tucked away on the outskirts. Paying in cash raises some eyebrows, but thankfully no comments, and the darkening evening finds all three in Loki's room, Daphne fiddling with the cube and making notes on the hotel stationary, Harry pacing by the window and peering out at the headlights of the cars that whizz by, and Loki lounging on the bad, face impassive. He's barely spoken since they arrived, but now his smooth voice comes drawling across the room.

'And when exactly do you think you'll be leaving?'

Harry shrugs, and looks at Daphne. Who also merely shrugs, attention focused on the cube.

Loki sighs softly and returns to staring at the ceiling. Harry wonders what he'll do when they've gone. He hopes it's nothing too nefarious; he's not sure his conscience could take aiding a criminal.

There's a bang from behind him and he whirls round to find Daphne's face and upper body covered in soot.

'Merlin's saggy arse,' she hisses, making a particularly vicious mark on notepaper.

Loki snorts.

'You okay?' Harry asks.

'Fine,' she growls, 'stupid exploding rune sequence…'

Loki snorts again, and she shoots him a glare that he ignores, green eyes still staring at the ceiling like it holds all the answers he has ever wanted.

XXXXXXXXXXX

'Are we nearly—'

'SHUT UP!'

Tony sighs.

'I'm bored,' he whines petulantly, staring out of the window.

'Really,' mutters Steve under his breath, 'we'd never have guessed if you hadn't told us, thank you for sharing that fascinating insight…'

Natasha hides a smirk. As a matter of fact, they're only half an hour from the Lake District area, and with Banner and half of S.H.I.E.L.D. scouring all available CCTV footage, it's only a matter of minutes before they have a more precise location. They won't make the same mistakes again. She had been stupid, to forget about that teleporting thing, but this time things would be different. Stealth. Capture and neutralise them as quickly as was humanly possible, and get them up to base before they woke up.

As if on cue, Barton's voice comes crackling over her headset.

'We think we've got a lead – I'm sending the co-ordinates over now.'

The location is about forty miles north of their current position. The helicopter adjusts direction accordingly, and Natasha sets her jaw. This is it. We've got them now.

In the van that's a good two hundred miles behind the helicopter, Banner squints at the grainy footage. It could be them. Three people, two male, one female – the heights match up, but the driving rain and umbrellas they hold obscure their faces, making it hard to be anything more than 70% sure.

Ordinarily, 70% would not be good enough for Natasha, but this has gone past the ordinary now - not that anything they got involved in was ever really "ordinary", but even by S.H.I.E.L.D. standards this was weird (and therefore dangerous). Banner's passed his information onto Barton, and left the decision as to whether to tell Natasha to him, and so he's still hunched over the screen in the back of the van, hacking cameras and peering at low-quality film that makes his head ache. He sighs, rubs his eyes, leans his head back against the wall of the van – but the vibrations as it chunters up the motorway only make his head hurt more. It's going to be a very long night.

XXXXXXXXX

It's a long night in the hotel as well. Harry went to bed over an hour ago, but Daphne barely noticed him go. She's used about seven sheets of the hotel notepaper and Loki's room is running out – even with her small handwriting, she'll have to invest in a notebook or something. Or just nick more paper from the other rooms.

'Are you planning to sleep at any point?' Loki's voice drifts over. Surprisingly, it is not tinged with malice, or even irritation, just a tired sort of weariness.

She casts a tempus, and has to check it against the bedside clock before she believes how late it's become.

'I guess I'd better leave you in peace then,' she remarks, gathering her papers and the neat Muggle writing stick she vaguely remembers is called a pen (and much more convenient than a quill it is too).

Loki shrugs awkwardly from his position sprawled out on the bed.

'Go, stay, do what you want. Mortals need sleep, even witches,' he says, face blank.

Daphne blinks, and the tiredness she's been fighting suddenly washes over her in a huge wave. She wonders if this is how Potter feels on a daily basis. She stands, valiantly doesn't sway, and only just thinks to grab the cube before she goes. It's a distrustful action, but still.

'Night,' she says, closing the door softly behind her.

'Goodnight,' Loki tells the ceiling.

XXXXXXXXX

Hermione has just set the kettle to boil for cup number eight when Ron decides it's time to take a stand. Five minutes and several particularly nasty curses later, he will not be touching the teabags again any time soon. He tries to tell her that he's sure Harry will be fine, but due to an unfortunate spell that he's sure George told her, his tongue has turned purple and grown about four feet, so it comes out more like, 'Ee'll e ie eriee,' to which his girlfriend gives the derisory snort it so clearly deserves.

He untangles the hexwork on his tongue as Hermione finishes off the milk in her small bucket of a mug, and repeats himself (for all the good it does). But Harry will be fine. He's always fine (heaven only knows how).