Chapter Fifty-Seven: Reach

Eve woke up to the urgent footsteps of the policemen coming up the stairs. She was groggy and sore. In the daze of waking, she could not understand that she should have been panicking. Her right arm wafted lazily over the one couch's surface. When she felt no one beside her, she allowed her left to mimic the movement. She sat and pried her eyes open, expecting to find Loki lurking with Sasha nearby. She was stunned to find the curious gaze of a police officer instead.

He was alone, as his comrades were searching the floors above and below. His partner was tending to the librarian, and he hadn't felt like waiting to join the search. The sight before him didn't feel at all threatening. "How did you get in here?" He demanded the instant their eyes met. She scoured the area, desperate to see her companion. She was hit, when he didn't appear, by the overwhelming feeling that he wouldn't at all and that he had fled without her. To add insult to injury, he'd taken the puppy out of spite. "Are you hurt?" He prodded when she didn't answer.

The scene looked suspicious to say the least. Her gears began to turn. With the right attitude, she could make him see her as the victim. There were a lot of variables in play. The officer-whose name pin read POWERS-seemed to be growing impatient. "Possibly," she responded with a coy vagueness, doing her best to sound dazed-which was no stretch, anyhow. She shifted her weight forward and felt the thin material of the stolen jacket come up against her otherwise naked figure. One look at her hands revealed the blood she'd managed to forget about.

Officer Powers watched her grimace at her own stained fingers and narrowed his eyes. "That's an awful lot of blood if you're not hurt," he commented, proceeding her way with caution. "Are you alone?" He was close enough to touch the couch bed then. In stature, he was as stereotypical as a cop could get-the extra tummy flab, the blonde buzz cut, the rigid mustache.

"I hope so," she crawled toward him and tucked her legs underneath herself, continuously looking around, making sure to appear nervous. "I hope he isn't still here."

"Who?" Just like that, he had one hand on his holstered gun.

"How many of you are there?" She neglected to answer.

"Eight," he said.

Eve bit her lip, slouching down to duck partway behind the back of the couch. Just her eyes peeked over. "If he is still here, I don't know if that will be enough."

"Hold on-weren't you-"

She yelped and pointed away from the stairwell. "He's here! Shit, get me out of here!" She leapt over the edge of the couch and hid behind him.

"Stay back," he drew his gun and walked toward the shelves.

"No, don't! You need backup, let's just go, please!" She whimpered perfectly, trembling her bottom lip like a puppy begging for food. It was all wasted, considering he didn't look at her.

"Is he armed?"

"Possibly," she sounded uneasy. He held his walkie to his mouth to call for backup. "Wait!" She halted him, her unclear plan already falling apart. She started thinking about how far she could run if she got out the front door. Regardless of what she wanted to do, she would have to get through Officers Powers first. Impulsively, she wondered where she should hit him first.

Don't do that, Loki's voice echoed in her head.

"What the fuck?" She exclaimed, in shock.

"What? What is it?" He spun around, nearly knocking her over as he did so. When he found nothing, he stared at her intensely. Before she could stall any longer, his glare softened into a look of pure amazement. Then, he was frightened. "What the-" he couldn't gather himself. Eve looked around, expecting Loki to have resurfaced, but found nothing for the officer to be startled by. "What the hell?" He reached out to where she was standing, swatting as though at a fly. She dodged him and prepared to shout.

He can't see you, Loki informed her.

Where are you? She demanded.

"Where the fuck did you go, you little bitch?" Officer Powers jumped quickly to profanity in his frustration.

If you want to hit him now… Loki suggested. Eve planted her feet and jabbed him on the cheek. He stumbled back and held his walkie to his mouth reflexively. She swat it out of his hand and jogged over to where it bounced, kicking it across the carpet.

"Alright, I get it, you're like some kind of mutant invisi-bitch, right?" The idea of people with outlandish powers was not such a drastically foreign idea anymore, especially not in New York. Still, his attitude toward the unknown was pretty textbook.

"Your kind words are unparallelled. You're such a charmer," Eve snipped.

Don't talk to him, Loki scolded.

Can I punch him again, then?

No, I'll- She swung a kick at the hand holding his gun, knocking it away. Oh, very clever. The cop tried to retrieve his weapon, but Eve kicked it a few feet every time he got close. He went for his walkie, then, sprinting toward it, trying to outrun her. She picked up the firearm and said, "Don't." The gun, unlike her, was totally visible. He froze.

Loki was taken aback. What are you-

"Go downstairs. Leave your walkie and go." He agreed nonverbally and scrambled for the staircase, shouting what must have sounded like nonsense to the others all the way down.

Loki appeared next to her, Sasha in his arms. "Can I keep this?" She asked him, testing the weight of the gun in her hands.

"Fine," he shrugged and put his arm around her. When she opened her eyes, they were somewhere different.

"This is lovely," she swooned.

"Oh, stop," he sneered. They were in a dingy, stone stairwell. Eve slapped him on the shoulder. "Ah! Believe it or not, that is still very sore."

"Where were you?" She barked.

"I went to see if there was any of that frosty, crunchy dessert left." That much was true, though it sounded like a fib. What he left out was that he could have come to her aid much sooner. They would have been able to avoid the police altogether. When the librarian first entered the building, that was what woke him. He figured he'd have enough time to grab something to eat before she noticed anything was awry. He'd neglected to take into account the state of the bathroom. When the police arrived, he sequestered himself in a closet and set to watch how Eve handled it out of curiosity. He was ready to save her life at a moment's notice.

He was intrigued to see that the very first thing she did upon waking was reach for him. When her eyes opened and he was gone, he watched her feel the sorrow over if first, then worry about the authority figure standing over her after. He experienced a wave of guilt-a small one, anyway-but fought the urge to stop his experiment for her sake. He toured her mind as the situation escalated and found a yearning for him at the base of each emotion. He allowed himself to dissect the notion, finding not as he suspected a desire to be rescued, but a desire for him to be near her and nothing additional. Delving still further, that notion lent no more than half of itself to romantic entanglement. The rest was a melting pot of admiration, passion and tentative friendship. He found himself distracted.

He pulled himself out of the complex web of her emotions and watched her scheme to trick and confuse the man-apparently with no end game. Once the officer attempted to contact the others, she considered striking him. She found she had no more diversion tactics worth using. Then, he intervened.

"Where are we?" Eve asked.

"SHIELD."

"Are you STUPID?" She shouted before realizing she shouldn't raise her voice. "Are you?" She repeated in a harsh whisper. "Are you stupid?"

"I'm only joking," he laughed.

"Don't mess with me right now, okay, I'm high off hitting that loser cop."

"Take it easy, Invisi-Bitch." Eve's glare was deliberate.

She'd been a joy to watch then. He doubted she knew this, but when she became aware she was invisible, her attitude changed altogether. With full control over her environment, she moved with a confident sureness. She played with the man like a cat would a mouse, batting him between her paws until he was a shaking, whiskered mess.

"This is a hotel stairwell," he revealed.

"In Germany?"

"No."

"Are we still in New York?"

"Yes."

"Okay, we don't have to go to Europe right this second-but we can't still be in New York. You get that, right?" He handed her the dog and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. She tapped her foot on the ground for eight seconds before losing her patience. "Hello-oo?"

"Eve. Be quiet." She sighed. He took a deep breath to focus, traveling to places he remembered in his mind. He was stopped at a certain point, alerting him that he'd not yet regained enough strength to teleport so far. "We have to kill some time," he said at last.

"I'd really like a shower."

"Let's get a room, then, shall we?"

"How will we pay for-" she stopped herself. "Okay, right."

He found an empty room and teleported them into it. Eve abandoned the coat and firearm in moments after setting Sasha down and rushed to the bathroom. The shower may as well have been made of gold for the way she looked at it. She ran the water as hot as she could tolerate and unpackaged a bar of hotel soap. It felt so good to get in that she sighed involuntarily, smiling like she'd never have a sad moment again. The pooling water at her feet was a grotesque coppery red, she paid it no mind and scrubbed herself until it ran clear again. She felt no need to rush and cared for her hair and body until her fingers pruned. Once done, she wrapped herself in a towel.

Upon hearing the water stop running, Loki entered without knocking. Through some form of nurturing instinct, Eve spun him so she could see his wound. It hadn't improved, the flesh around it stained with blood and flesh that ached to the point of redness, branching out like a firework from the site. "I haven't been able to do much work on it," he explained. "Cleaning it will help. Not as much as magic, but that will have to wait."

"Why?" Eve ran her fingers across it, having flashbacks to the surge of emotion that led her to pull the arrow out of him.

"We have to leave, I'm saving what I've got for that."

"We'll be okay for a little while."

"You were adamant that we can't be in New York any longer."

She smiled a little weakly. "Right, well, I guess I forgot how bad this was. Your brother's lie should distract them for today at least-assuming he goes along with it." He looked back over his shoulder at her. It was a telling look, one of uninhibited uncertainty. "Let me help you," she offered before running the water again for him.

As she assisted from outside the shower to clear all the excess blood off of him, water (both clean and copper) continuously made its way to the floor, begging her to wonder if no bathroom on earth was safe from their wave of destruction. It wasn't until they were quite through and he was drying himself that she realized neither of them had any suitable clothing to wear. He had pants at least, but as for her? Nothing at all.

"I need something to wear," she announced.

"Well, I don't think so," Loki all but winked at her.

"If you want everyone else to see me naked, I guess," she said.

"I could go find you some things, but I get the feeling nothing I pick out on my own would quite satisfy you."

"I'm not worried about being presentable," she scoffed, slowly gaining suspicions that he would come back with the ugliest thing he could find just to prove her vanity.

"Even so," he said, "we should stick together. I can make it look like you're wearing something in the meantime."

"Nothing too slutty, okay?" She glanced down at her body and waited, soon looking back up to him. He'd wandered into the bathroom again. "Hey!" She called after him. "Did you mean-"

"It's already done," he shooed her.

"Is not," she smacked her hip bone.

"You won't be able to feel it, Eve, I'm not going to waste a tactile spell for your reassurance."

"But I can't see it, either."

"You have the sight, remember?"

"This is going to be really, really weird."

"Put on the jacket, then."

She took this as a challenge and refused, storming into the hall without waiting for him. A man of about forty was out there as well and he looked at her like she was edible. "Hello," she was weary.

"Hello," he echoed.

"Can I ask your opinion on something?"

"Sure, sure, sure," he stepped toward her, a little too eagerly. At this point, she was positive he was looking at a naked woman.

"What color do you think my shirt is?"

His eyes connected with her breasts magnetically. "Well, green."

"Thank Christ," she breathed. Loki joined her then, staring down the stranger until he left.

Walking down the street was, above all else, a struggle. Eve had overestimated her ability to trust him and kept fearing he'd drop the spell for a laugh. They stopped into the first store they came to and she browsed casually before draping a couple things over her arm. "Done," she said.

"Let's go try them on," he suggested, several things over his own arm as well.

At the changing rooms, he followed her into the biggest one in the corner, at which point a salesperson came to stop him. "You can't go in there together," she insisted.

"Okay, right," he agreed, but then entered and shut the door anyway.

By the time the clerk got it unlocked, they were gone. He brought them to the alley outside of the place and they walked to a pet shop down the way before heading back to the hotel, having to warp into the room through the door. Small, necessary bursts of magic were regained quickly enough that it didn't set him back very far. After the tedious blood-scrubbing and leisurely shopping, it was already afternoon. Eve fed Sasha and got dressed-jeans, tank top, sweater. Loki's clothing was more formal as usual, dress pants and button-up shirts all the way. Greys and greens.

Her stomach gurgled. "I need to eat or I might die," she blurted.

"Bring her just in case," he pointed to the puppy who was promptly scooped up. They explored the hotel lobby until they found the entrance to the bar. Inside, they scuttled to the corner booth and waited for a server.

His name was Gabe and he immediately said, "You can't have a dog in here."

Eve had assumed Loki was cloaking her. "She knows when I'm going to have a seizure," she defended the pup. Loki raised an eyebrow, unfamiliar with the concept of service animals.

Gabe pursed his lips but didn't press the matter. "What can I get you?"

"Rum & coke. Hot wings. I dunno, a bunch, a lot." Hunger had effectively frazzled her.

"ID?" He prompted.

"Shit, it's in my purse, which I left in the room. I'm old enough, scout's honor."

"Ma'am, I can't-"

"Would you call me ma'am if you thought I was twenty-one or younger? If yes, you need to rethink some things."

"I'm just doing my job."

"That's so like you, Gabe."

Loki stood and meandered over to the bar itself while Eve continued to berate their waiter. He snatched a business card out of the contest fishbowl and brought it back with him. "Here we are," he interrupted whatever lazy insult she was slewing. He showed the card to Gabe, who seemed satisfied by the driver's license illusion he'd laid on top of it. "Water for me." He came back in a few minutes with their drinks.

"How old did you make me?" She wondered after a sip.

"Thirty-eight."

She frowned. "Great. Gabe thinks I'm a bitter almost forty-year-old."

Loki snickered. "Why on earth do you care about Gabe's opinion? He probably thinks you look marvelous for your age."

"I don't like that guy," she scowled.

"When he brings our food, I'm sure you'll like him a bit more."

By the time the wings did arrive, she'd finished two rum and cokes with another full one at her lips. Gabe set the chicken down on the table and she smiled warmly at him. "Gabe," she whispered, "is this a bunch or a lot?"

"A bunch," he droned before dropping about one hundred napkins on her side of the table and leaving.

"Gabe thinks you're a slob," Loki laughed.

"Gabe can suck it."

They devoured the food but it didn't seem to help Eve's lightheadedness, which was now being brought on by the alcohol in her system. The pile of dirty napkins beside her rivaled the stack of clean ones before too long. She was insistent on keeping her face clean and giving their waiter a lot to tidy up. Loki was enjoying watching her unwind. Even though Thor's decision was not guaranteed by any means, it was an easy idea to get attached to. While he was still aware of their surroundings, it was nice to be able to relax.

"When is it going to happen?" She stared at him, struggling to focus.

"When is what going to happen?"

"When is it-when are you-" she finished her drink and pushed everything in front of her to the side. She leaned onto the table and took one of his hands in both of hers. "When are you going to leave me? I keep thinking, I keep knowing that any second now-"

"Yes?" He knew where she was going but wanted to hear the words.

"When you were gone this morning, every time you've been gone," she was having trouble gathering her thoughts. "I always think this is it-this is the one. I think about how the next time I see you, if ever, you'll be on TV again mutilating some city far away from me. So when is it going to be? I want to know, because I can't, Loki, I can't be scared, I can't run away with you and be scared."

"I can't make you promises," he said, "Unless you'd like me to lie for your benefit."

"That's not what I'm saying. That's not what I want."

"Alright. Tell me, then."

Looking at him from across the table wasn't sufficient anymore. She abandoned her post to sit beside him, giving Sasha an opportunity to snatch a used napkin off the table and chew it up. She got her face close to his, eyes reflecting the seriousness of her intention despite her intoxication. "Just say you'll tell me. I'm not saying you owe me anything, you don't. That's what I want, okay, alright? A warning. Don't vanish. I don't want to worry about it."

With this, he put his arm around her. "I spoke too soon, I suppose. I can promise you that."