Loki groaned softly. Thor was going to have his hide.

Around the same time that he figured out he wasn't dead he also realized his magic had returned, which told him to get off the ground and heal himself. His magic came back in stages, and it hurt. It was as if all his limbs had been asleep, and had just woken up to the point where everything painfully tingled. He shook out his arms.

Healing wasn't his strong suit, but he managed enough. He took a few hesitant strides, then more even ones, hand clutching over the injury. He was more wounded in vanity, and all he could do for that was try not to gaze towards a reflective surface. He was sure he looked a mess.

Loki considered the potential open courses of action. He could roam around. Potentially start over. Pretty much anything else was useless to him, and everything - options or not - gave the dissatisfying feeling that he was stalling.

He picked the option to roam and started with the least obstructed path he could find. Although he couldn't actually perceive anyone to be stealthy for, he made extra effort to walk noiselessly.

He was uncomfortably unsettled. In the almost-empty silence, the trees seemed to listen.

...

Thor gauged how well the battle was going by how his enemies - in this case, the Hydra agents - were faring. At the moment it was fairly grand.

Its grandness increased when recognizable false lightning shot out overhead, directed towards buildings that evidently held weapons.

"Man of Iron, your presence is much appreciated!" He waved at the figure, who proceeded to fire a wall of energy towards a rocky crag. The debris that fell blocked a line of advancing assailants.

"Nice to see you too, Point Break." The intercom crackled with static.

Thor frowned. Stark had specially designed his communication device to be shock-absorbent, so the static couldn't be from Thor. He was about to mention it when a large man-made thunder droned out both of their voices.

A hovercraft of ginormous girth covered Thor, as well as the rest of the landing pad, in shadow.

"Aw, great." Stark began to zig-zag across the territory, as if he were pacing back and forth mid-air. "I've gotta go."

The Captain's voice cut in as Stark's voice cut out. "Tony. Are you safe? Where-"

"Just meet me at the meeting point, I'll deal with the rest."

Stark maneuvered around the rocky wall that bordered the landing pad and increased his speed. Two smaller versions of the hovercraft spat out from the large airship and darted after him.

Like the Captain's, the Black Widow's intercommunication was completely fine. "What happened? Did we just lose Tony?"

"Again?" Logan growled, but it was difficult to tell if his response was from frustration or from fighting.

The Captain allowed his gaze trailed the path Stark had taken, just for a moment. "Maybe." He flung his shield towards the side.

They were playing a war of fatigue, and every agent they immobilized on the mountain meant less agents to follow after the flash drive and Stark.

Thor flung his hammer towards the ground and steeled himself to fight with double force.

...

Clint felt like he was still being watched, but in a more familiar way than before. Before was an aliens and magic way. Now was just a someone is tracking you down with lethal intent way.

He probably shouldn't have provided any hint to his follower that he let on, but it was too late for that now - he'd already slowed. Now he strung a taser arrow and spun around, figuring he would make up for it with speed.

The hand of his stalker caught the arrow when it flew, and let out a distinct hiss. He didn't topple over like Clint expected.

He dropped the arrow and somehow forced the other hand to strike out at Clint, fully leaving his forest defense. He was slow, and Clint blocked it easily, but his mind began to wander down a one-loop trail.

His hand is metal. His entire arm is metal. ELECTRICITY IS SUPPOSED TO REACT TO METAL.

The only benefit Clint got from the arrow seemed to be that extra second of time. The man lunged his whole body at him, metal arm-first, and Clint rolled out of the way.

Between rolls and jumps and arrows that slowed down but wouldn't stop the stalker from continually fighting Clint saw a movement behind some of the trees.

Not another one.

The man fighting Clint was facing in the opposite direction, but he either sensed it or heard it and clearly thought the same thing. He advanced towards the motion just as quickly as he'd gone towards Clint.

There was a definitively non-attacker-like screech, and a bright bubble of light popped out and diffused around the man.

The light was unnatural, but Clint noticed that it wasn't red. It was almost like a concentrated flashlight that tinged green around the edges. The person who'd instigated it started to speak just as Clint's suspended disbelief and realization compounded.

"He has hidden memories, but it took more than I expected to immobilize him. I would never be so messy in my use of magic otherwise." Loki appeared chagrined, as if it was the bubble of magic and not the scream that had exposed him.

Clint's voice sounded unusually strained (at least, to himself). His volume rose with every question.

"You were dead. What are you doing here? What did you do?"

Loki pushed away from the man and stumbled out from behind his tree. The man also stumbled but backwards and in the other direction, falling to the ground. He put both of his hands on his head and crumpled in on himself.

"What did you do?!" Clint shouted, looking between the two of them.

Loki appeared slightly concerned but folded his arms. "I just said I removed the barrier on his memories. It was very thick, so evidently he is experiencing them all at once."

Neither of them moved until the man did - the pensive silence lasted almost five minutes.

Eventually, slowly, the man lowered his hands from his head, and with shaking fingers, ripped off his mask.

He pushed himself off the ground and looked at Clint, seeming to ignore Loki completely. "Who are you?"

"Wow, this forest must think I'm popular," Clint mumbled. The man looked surprisingly familiar, though who he reminded Clint of was an elusive piece of information.

Clint raised his voice, restraining himself to stare only at the man. He'd already positioned himself to view Loki from his peripheral vision. That was enough.

"My name's Clint. Listen bud, you're a good fighter. Do you want to help me?"

The dude gave him a weird look before shrugging. "Sure."

Clint's eyebrows raised in spite of himself. "Really?" He'd hadn't actually expected the man to give a genuine response.

The memory-return didn't fix the guy's default glare expression. "What did you want, a parade? You're definitely not Hydra."

Clint didn't know whether to be insulted or proud of whatever made him not look like a Hydra agent. It would doubtless hurt him in infiltration missions.

In this case, though, it was surprisingly helpful, so he took it for what it was worth.

"What do you remember?"

The man's jaw tensed. "A lot of things I'd rather forget."

Clint paused. He could handle that answer for the moment. "What's your name?"

The man paused too, wary, but then he relaxed. "Bucky. Who's that?"

He didn't say weirdo, but it was somewhat implied. Loki was reasonably annoyed. "You must be mistaking me for someone else. I am Loki, prince of Asgard."

Bucky's eyebrows raised. He turned back towards Clint. "You were working together?"

"No."

"We were previously separated," Loki explained. Clint's jaw clenched.

Yeah. Something like that.

"I was the one who freed you from your mind entrapment," Loki added. Bucky's expression immediately changed.

He looked to Clint for confirmation. "Seriously?"

Clint's stomach dropped in disappointment. "Yeah."

Bucky walked up until he was standing straight in front of Loki.

"Thank you so much."

The sincerity in his tone was so clear that Loki looked uncomfortable. He tried to cover it with a graceful smile, and then instead of basking in the response, changed the subject. "Our destination is the volcanic structure that looms over the edge of the mountains."

"Why?" It was strange to see him turn from so serious to bewildered.

"We have something to throw in it and Hydra's trying to stop us," Clint answered plainly.

Bucky nodded before looking a little discouraged. "You'll never make it through. There's an entire operation at the base."

"There is, if I recall, a back door entrance?" Loki inquired.

"It's a volcano," Clint muttered. "The entrance is at the top."

Loki turned red. "To get around the base."

A ghost of a smirk formed on Bucky's face. Clint wondered how long he'd been under Hydra's control - when he smiled it looked like twenty years lifted clean off.

"There's an entrance we could get through."

Clint didn't look for Loki's gloating expression - it would be there either way. The entrance is good news, he reminded himself. He focused on Bucky. "You up for running?"

"Yeah." The smirk grew a little bit of edge. "But I doubt you are."

Loki moved ahead of him this time so Clint was forced to see his grin.