Summary: OC approaches Loki after the events of the first Avengers movie with an offer. She will free his child Jormungand from his prison on Earth to clear a life debt. She should have remembered that nothing involving Gods, especially this particular god, is ever azs simple azs it first appears. There is adventure, and some familiar faces along the way.
Disclaimer: any recognisable words, characters or plot points belong to the creators and/or owners of the relevant source material
Notes: I have no plans for any pairings at the moment. This story happens alongside canon so the main plot points there will mostly stay the same, except for when they don't. This work is unbetaed.
Chapter one
It had taken Steve a minute to figure out what the old man had meant about asking the waitress for her number. People had phones now, he reminded himself, tiny little phones they could carry about in their pockets. SHIELD had in fact assigned him his very own, Mallet or Spanner Tech or some such. Said phone may or may not be languishing in a kitchen drawer in his also SHIELD assigned apartment. It also may be the fourth such device as the delicate screens seemed completely incapable of withstanding a Super Soldiers gentlest tapping. He dropped his gaze to the sketch he had been working on while fighting back a sigh. Everything was just so overwhelming. Even his sketch looked-confining.
A blast of noise to his left had him reaching for his shield. That he wasn't currently carrying. He tried to disguise the move by running his hand through his hair. He doubted the bluff was successful.
/I HEAR THE BAYING OF THE HOUNDS
IN THE DISTANCE, I HEAR THEM DEVOURING/
The tinny sound of guttural screaming and crashing instruments had him gritting his teeth. He didn't understand how anyone could call that music. Even if it was just for what the agent who gave him his phone had called a ringtone. You could apparently assign different ones to different people. Useless for Steve with his grand total of nobody to call or be called by.
A blonde girl three tables over from him huffed as she lifted her phone to her ear. Thankfully bringing the awful racket to an end.
"What do you want?" She snapped, her face turning ugly in resentment. "I told you I was spending the weekend with my friends. If Dad thinks you can convince me-"
"You need to get out of the city Lisa." A female voice with a Scottish accent barked back. "Get on the first train or bus out of there as soon as you can."
"Oh my God!" Lisa snarled. "How convenient that you should have one of your feelings when I'm with people my Dad doesn't like. I'm nineteen I can go where and with whomever I like! Instead of pandering to Dads paranoia you should just tell him that."
"I'm not lying or pandering to anyone! You-"
"I don't give a rats ass!" She snapped before pulling her phone and pressing the red icon that terminated the conversation. She tapped away at some other things too fast for Steve to follow what she was doing. "Aaaaaand blocked! She's not even my real aunt, God!" Lisa Turner went back to her salad while Steve Rogers boggled at her. Neither aware that miles away from them a motorbike accelerated to terrifying speeds, its rider cursing all teenagers and those belonging to childhood friends in particular. Even farther away, deep under ground, the Tesseract stirred to life.
As she sprinted up the stairs Lisa vowed that if she lived through this she would never ignore one of her aunts warnings ever again. The shrieking monster behind her fired its energy gun again, the blue light that she had seen kill her friends narrowly missing her head. Slamming through the door she pelted across the roof only to come skidding to a halt when she ran out of both roof and anywhere to escape to. She gasped a sob as she whirled back to face the monster. It approached lazily. It made a coarse ululating sound that could only be mocking laughter directed at its cornered prey. It was hard to tell who was more surprised, girl or monster, when one of the sky skimmers crashed into the corner and sent half the roof and Lisa along with it crashing towards the street below.
Motorbike and rider smashed their way through the doors. Screeching across the foyer of the evacuated office building and through the open doors of the elevator. A gloved finger jabbed the button for the thirty-second floor and then hefted the bike around to face the way out, muttering a quick thanks to any deity listening for the American proclivity for over-sizing everything as she did, as the doors slid smoothly shut. As soon as they opened again the bike howled back to life and careened forward. Empty cubicles zipped passed as she aimed for the large windows. This was going to be a close thing. She could feel it.
Many months after the Invasion of New York a video was flagged for the attention of Nick Fury. Possible enhanced sighting. The video was actually a spliced together collage from several CCTV cameras. A young girl fell, only to be caught by Loki of all people. His skimmer landed on a roof, the girl kicking out at the Chitauri driver and pounding her fists against the smirking gods chest. He could be seen saying something to her, possibly about kneeling and new rulers and so forth. Then a motorbike crashed through a window of the opposite building followed by a figure in leathers and helmet. The bike collided with a passing skimmer sending it wheeling to the ground while the female figure appeared to use the falling glass shards and other pieces of debris as stepping stones across to the occupied roof. Rolling to her feet two feet from Loki and his hostage.
Fury never saw the video.
Hail Hydra!
"That was almost impressive." Loki drawled as the caterwauling mortal was finally silent while she gawped at the helmeted one. "For a human. I had not credited your species capable of such feats."
He could see nothing of this new Midgardian save for the rather obvious signs of its gender. To the North a troop carrier went tail up as if it had suddenly met with some immovable obstacle. Loki cursed internally as he had not credited the Beasts return to the field of battle being so quick. Several explosions struck the carrier sending it falling back, presumably away from potential casualties. The Chitauri screamed their fury and Loki cursed aloud this time as he realised both the mortals had taken advantage of his distraction and fled the scene. Turning back towards the battle he assured himself it was no matter and that he had more pressing concerns than assuaging his momentary curiosity.
It must have been late into the night by Loki's reckoning, though there was no method with which to monitor the march of time from within the cell he had been relegated to. Thor and his new cronies were no doubt well into some raucous, ale soaked celebration of their victory. While he languished under the pressing might of Mjolnir. Odin's golden child taking the briefest moment to inform him of his transport to Asgard and the Allfather's so-called justice on the morrow, before sweeping out to partake in something called a shawarma. Leaving his once brother to stew in his failures.
"You must forgive me if I don't get up." He said as the mortal stepped from the shadows. "I find myself somewhat at a disadvantage." She still hid behind the helmet but he could feel her gaze weighing him despite it. When he sent out a tendril of his now untainted seidr his green eyes widened a fraction t what he felt. "Well. I had thought those of your line had long since fallen to extinction. How fascinating!"
"She told me you caught her when she fell." She intoned. "She owes you her life."
"The screeching one? And what does the life of one such as she matter to you? She was the most ordinary of mortals."
"Only to the eyes of a God. Her father would say otherwise."
"A father would." She cocked her head at him and the pause became laden with a queer significance. "Do you think to kill me then? Render the debt void?"
"I come to take the debt on her behalf."
"Oh? Do you offer me a favour? Your allegiance?"
"First a question. My offer relies on your answer."
"Some would argue the wisdom of asking Loki Liesmith questions."
"I would argue that Loki Silvertongue has no reason to lie when it is not to his advantage."
"Perhaps so. Very well, ask your question!"
"There are stories of your children. Sleipnir, Fenrir, Hel, Jormungand, Narvi and Vali."
"YOU DARE!" If not for the hammer he would rend this impertinent mortal to nothingness for her temerity.
"So they exist then? There is truth in the tales of their fates?"
"What tales?" Surely the Midgardians were no better informed than he.
"Sleipnir functions as Odin's steed. Fenrir was tricked and imprisoned. Hel reigns as Queen of Helheim. The Great Serpent was banished to the deepest parts of Midgard's ocean." She shifted as if to brace for the next, her voice lowered till it was just above a whisper. "Narvi was torn apart and his innards used to bind his father while Vali fled in the form of a bird."
"Damn you." He hissed. "Damn you and all who came before you."
"It is true then." She mused before standing tall. "A bargain then. A life for a life."
He went still, his struggles fruitless in any case. The temerity of this mortal. Her sheer gall. To tell him his children have become nothing more than fodder for the mortal throngs entertainment. The why of it, however, escaped him.
"My life is not in peril." Not anymore at least.
"Not yours. You know of my line, you said. You know what we can do?"
"The progenitor of your bloodline had his own tales in certain parts of this world last I was here."
"Most of which have become lost to those outside my family." She nodded to concede the point. "There has not been one so gifted for millennia. I have some of his abilities though."
He remembered suddenly Heimdall's telling long ago of young warrior stepping on the backs of birds to reach a spear mid-flight. This mortal had that very day skipped across the air in a similar fashion.
"I fail to see how this pays the debt. Or its relevance in the case of my children."
"Jormungand is on this planet. I can find him." She told him as if the task was as simple as dressing oneself in the morning. "Find him and free him. A life for a life."
"Think you if it was so easy I would have not have retrieved him my self? Odin has used powerful seidr to keep my children from me!"
"Not from me."
"...What."
"He has hidden them from you. Not from me. It will not be easy but it is possible. That is my offer. Your child free from his imprisonment and Lisa is no longer beholden to you. What say you?"