So awhile back, someone mentioned shipping Steve/Mia…which made me start thinking ship names. Theirs is obvious: Stevia is just a little too perfect, imo. Way too convenient. My hope was to have a split in the readership over the otp… does anyone ship Mia/Loki out there? If you do, you'll like this chapter. Raise your hand, and let me know if you prefer the ship name of Lokia or Mioki. ;)

(I'm leaning towards Mioki, myself. At least as a name.)

-Ana

Chapter 15

Back on board the Valiant, Fury was watching live news feeds streaming across his control panels on the bridge, forehead furrowed in concentration.

"Sir." Hill came up to him, mildly winded. "The Council's on."

Fury scowled, and pulled up the secure feed he loathed most.

"Councilmembers."

"Director Fury, what is the meaning of this?!"

"Well, it appears that Loki has decided to start a war," Fury declaimed —checking his current rage behind a mask of calm.

"You had direct orders: to obtain and control the Paxton woman before the Tesseract threat escalated!"

"Now that Loki fellow has the Tesseract, and Paxton is loose on the city? Have you any idea how bad this situation is?"

What if she suddenly goes rogue? We could have another Banner incident on our hands! What if—"

"Mia Paxton has assured me that she is in no way eager to misuse her powers," Fury told them. "I've seen her interact with the rest of the team and can say with confidence that she is an asset—not a threat." He withheld the information regarding said woman's 'engagement' to the god who was currently wreaking havoc on New York City.

"The 'team'?" someone scoffed. "You don't mean to tell me that this hodgepodge group of rabble-rousers is your long elusive 'team'?"

"My team is the best option we had."

"This has gone on long enough."

"Director Fury, the Council has made a decision."

"I recognize the Council has made a decision." Fury stood, his hands on his hips and an obvious scowl now lining his face. "But given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I have elected to ignore it."

"Director, you're closer than any of our subs. You scramble that jet…"

"That is the island of Manhattan, Councilman. Until I'm certain my team can't hold it, I will not order a civilian strike against a civilian population!"

"If we don't hold them here, we lose everything."

"If I send that bird out, we already have." With a vicious jab of a finger Fury terminated the conference. He looked up at Hill, still glaring. "Now I understand how Paxton feels," he muttered angrily. "Idiots."

Hill looked alarmed at his words. "Sir, that's what I'm here to tell you," she said. Her face was both worried and horrified. "Paxton is down."

"WHAT." Fury quickly pulled up his news tabs again, to see footage of Mia taking the kill-shot from an easily recognizable bolt of blue light.

"Shit."

. . .

Far above the city, Loki was still hard at work, using his scepter to blast the buildings and people below him.

Despite the current promising state of things, he was experiencing a conflicted feeling at the moment. This was strange, and he sincerely hoped that the Other didn't sense it as well. Yes, Loki had just delivered a fatal blast to his own Intended. The woman had been too busy protecting the innocents to see the strike coming before it was too late.

It had been a perfectly timed shot—one Loki now found himself regretting. What if his plan failed? What if his attempt to scramble her thoughts had only resulted in her death? He had read her file; by all rights a shot of that magnitude should have only knocked her out. But had it? There was no way for him to know, as when she was unconscious he could have no clear image of her thoughts or whereabouts.

Why did he care even now, he wondered? She had made it abundantly clear which side she was on. Still, that faint glimmer of hope skewed his intentions and made him second guess her ability to remain steadfast to her cause. That was why he'd made the effort to shoot her down—not because he wished to kill her, but because some part of him still wanted her to change her mind, even if he had to give her a hard shove to make that happen.

Who knew what would her state of mind would be when she awoke—if she awoke. At the moment, Loki's Chitauri forces were gaining a decided upper hand. He had bigger things to fret over—like finally getting his revenge.

But if he was lucky—if— then she would awake as a kind of monster the likes of which her friends had no chance of standing against.

. . .

"MIA!"

Without hesitation, Steve was over the edge of the bridge and at her side in a matter of seconds, scooping her up into his arms and checking her for signs of life. "Mia, Mia. Oh, come on. Don't do this to me now," he told her, eyes pricking with tears as he felt for her pulse.

There was nothing.

After a few frantic moments of waiting, Steve laid her on the ground and began CPR. "Come on, Mia," he whispered between compressions. "Come on. Wake up. That's an order, now!" he tried, just daring her to return to consciousness to argue that she wasn't a soldier.

He parted her lips, his face tense with barely suppressed anguish. I would kiss you again—if, and when you wanted.

Steve felt his chest tighten as he pressed his mouth to hers. A few more tears slipped down his grimy cheek. Why was it that every time he kissed her, it was in an attempt to save her life?

After three attempts at restarting her breathing, Steve simply pressed his lips to hers, tears streaming down his face. He set his forehead against her pale, ash streaked one, holding her face in his gloved hands.

"Oh, Mia." A mangled sob snuck through his teeth. "Not you too." Steve pressed his lips to her forehead, and closed his eyes for just a moment.

A faint beep sounded. Then a second. Then a third. Steve pulled back, and found her suit flickering between gold and black. A green line over her heart began to spike, depicting her recovering heartbeat.

"There we go!" Steve found himself breaking into a wide, teary eyed grin. He sniffed and swiped at his nose with the back of his glove. He laid her back down on the ground, watching her expectantly. "There's my girl. Come on, Mia. You can do it."

The pulse line eventually returned to a normal if slightly elevated heart rate. Steve watched as her lungs began to work, her chest lifting in gentle swells. Slowly, the golden glow began to return to her hands.

Then her face began to move—her forehead contorting into a mass of wrinkles, eyes screwed shut as a flush of pink tinted her cheeks.

"Unnnngh." She opened one eye in a squint, groaning. Steve looked down at her, more relieved than he could find words to describe- not to mention an overwhelming array of other emotions that it was definitely not the time nor place for.

A single green eye peered up at him. "Steve?" she moaned, lifting a hand slowly to her eyes as if everything were very bright. "What the hell happened?"

Steve let out a short, relieved chuckle. "You took a hit, Paxton," he told her. "You're fiancé thought he'd take a shot at you."

Mia's eye closed, and her head flopped back onto the ground. "That bastard," she muttered. "And he's not my fiancé." Both of her eyes sprang open, Steve noticing for the first time the flecks of gold in them. Hardly surprising, he realized. "Can you give me a hand up?"

"I'm not sure that's a good—"

"That's an order, soldier." For a moment Steve wondered if she'd heard him after all. But she couldn't have—not without a pulse.

Silently, Steve got to his feet, picking up his shield as he did. He leaned down and offered her a hand. Tentatively, Mia sat up, grimacing against the pain, and took it. He tugged her gently to her feet, glass crunching under her shoes.

"Aw, that feels like hell." She pressed her hand to her head, wincing, and pulled them away to reveal glowing fingertips covered in blood.

"You need medical attention," Steve told her.

"Yeah, I noticed, Cap." Mia rolled her eyes—and winced again. "Who turned up the goddamn lights?" she demanded.

"Uh, you." Steve pointed a finger up at the glowing shield she'd created. "Nice work, by the way. It almost killed you, but—"

"Loki almost killed me," Mia corrected, flexing her sore fingers thoughtfully. "Not that. You people underestimate me, I'm afraid. I've got a bit more where that came from, and I intend to use it." She pressed a finger to her ear, hearing nothing in her COM. "You got a connection by any chance? My suit's still recalibrating."

"Yeah. But Mia, you need to get out of here. Now. You need to—"

"Steve, please. I—"

"Will you STOP interrupting me?!"

"No!" Mia glared at him. "I'm injured! Stop arguing with the wounded person! God!"

"Then listen to what I'm going to say!"

"We don't have time." Mia grimaced at the crackling in her COM. "Stark, you there?"

"Paxton?" Tony sounded both relieved and horrified. "Cap said you were down, I thought—"

"Cap's wrong. I'm fine." Steve scowled at this.

"She was down, Stark. Now she mistakenly thinks she's joining back in the fight."

"I am joining back in the fight."

"Cat eyes, maybe you should listen to gramps for once."

"I told you, I'm fine." The journalist lifted her gaze to the sky. "Does anybody have eyes on Loki? I need to have a word with my Intended."

Tony sighed. "He's in the Tower right now. Hulk's with him."

"Good." Mia began punching coordinates into her sleeve—her right sleeve, as her left had a large crack running down the display and was no longer functional. "Find something for Steve to do, m'kay? I think he's bored."

"Mia, Thor told you not to confront Loki." Steve set a warning hand on her arm.

"Yeah, and that was before he tried to kill me. I think I have the right to give a bit of a lecture now." Mia looked up at him as if he were daft. She scowled. "And stop giving me those big watery blue eyes, for Christ's sake! I've got this."

"Like you had the shield?" Steve said pointedly.

"Yeah. Like that." Apparently they each had different ideas about success. She sighed, then winked at him and pressed the button on her sleeve, disappearing.

"How bad was it, Rogers?" Tony asked seriously.

Steve looked grimly at where she'd fallen. "She didn't have a pulse, Tony. For two minutes, flat line."

There was a long silence.

"Did you give her mouth-to-mouth?"

"Oh, good grief!"

. . .

Loki was knocked through the tower window by the Hulk, thrown against a decorative shale wall and onto the ground. The god quickly regained his feet though, before the scientist- turned- enormous green monster could pummel him again.

"ENOUGH!" Loki drew himself up to his full height—which unfortunately wasn't accented by his helmet. He had lost it during his tumble to the tower roof.

Hulk stopped mid-smash, staring at the smaller man as if to say 'excuse me?'

"You are all of you beneath me," Loki declared, fists clenched at his sides in barely controlled rage. "I am a god, you dull creature. And I will not be bullied by—"

He never finished his sentence. The Hulk had lost patience at 'you dull creature', and had promptly grabbed the god by his legs, smacking him about on the tower's floor and reducing it to heaps of rubble. After five good wallops, Hulk left Loki resting uncomfortably in the floor.

Loki let out a long, low whine of pain.

"You know, you shouldn't have called him a 'dull creature'. He's got multiple PHD's."

Mia had materialized directly in front of the window. She took one look up at the big green face and swallowed. "Um, hi Doc." She wasn't exactly sure how to address him when in Hulk-form.

Luckily, the Hulk's angry scowl turned into a smile. "Mia," he intoned.

The journalist looked relieved, and grinned weakly up at him. "Nice to see you, Bruce." She looked behind him at Loki, and whistled. "I see you did a number on Thor's little bro there. Good work."

"Puny god," the Hulk growled, but then looked back at her. "Hurt?" he asked, pointing a huge finger at her wounded arm. The blood had dried on her sleeve from the sun in a long wave of dark brown that reached as low as her elbow.

"Ah, yeah. A little." Mia's hand automatically went to her head, where the pain was fresher and worse. For some reason (perhaps because she was drawing them off to her hands,) her energy wasn't healing her wounds. Unfortunate, but the sooner the battle was finished, the better. "I'll be okay though."

"How hurt?"

"That little shit right over there got me with his scepter."

The Hulk turned halfway, snarling at Loki a second time. The battered god's eyes widened in fright.

Mia set a tiny hand on the giant's arm. "Don't worry," she told him ominously, hands brimming with energy. "I'll take it from here."

With a grunt of approval, Hulk marched out of the room.

Mia sighed in relief as he left. "That went better than I expected," she said, walking confidently to the part of the ruined floor where Loki was. She levitated slightly over the smashed marble, staring down at him from a foot in the air. "Though not, I take it, the way you had."

"You…mock my demise?" Loki barely managed to croak out, eyes shifting from each of her glowing hands to the other.

"I prefer the term 'gloating'. But yes." Mia glared, one singed eyebrow raised. "You do realize this could have been avoided entirely if you'd just listened to me."

"Or…you to me." Loki's slight smile was somewhat lessened by the fact that he couldn't feel his face very well at the moment. "If you'd…simply heeded my council, we would…be sitting atop the world, victorious."

Mia's face darkened. "Get up," she ordered him.

Slowly, Loki extricated himself from the rubble and took a few shaky steps to the short set of gold-lined stairs.

"If you looked like shit before…" Mia shook her head, taking him in with an air of disgust. "You are really messed up now, let me tell you."

Loki looked up at her, eyes filled with genuine pain. "Must you also find joy in my downfall?" His voice caught, and tears slipped over the edges of his eyes. "You, the only person destined to be the one I love?"

Mia stiffened from the sudden change in his tone. This was as gut level honest as she'd ever seen him be. It was like the mask had been lifted, revealing the broken individual behind. An individual who had been broken long before ever setting foot on Earth.

He let out a weak, sardonic laugh. "Fate must truly despise me, to give me someone so worthy, yet so impossibly unreachable." He pursed his lips, looking at her with a plainness of face so unexpected that Mia didn't actually know whether to blast him where he sat, or give him a giant hug. "Why?" he asked quietly. "Why did it have to be you? Why the one woman who never wants me, regardless of circumstance? Of the millions of women in this city, of the billions on this planet, of the indeterminable number in the universe—why you, Mia Paxton?"

Mia stared at him a long moment. The questions he asked were valid—hell, she'd often asked similar ones throughout her own lifetime. But she didn't know the answers, to her problems or his.

"I don't know," she replied, throwing her hands up and beginning to pace. In her earpiece she could hear the chatter of the rest of the team. From the sound of things, Tony was giving JARVIS a demonstration of biblical proportions, Steve was getting his ass handed to him and Barton was out of ammunition. Romanoff was silent.

While pacing a loop in front of the shattered window, Mia felt glass crunching under her soles. "I don't know anything, any more than you do," she confessed. "To be honest it feels like my life has been one giant search for answers I'm never going to find, for secrets just beyond my reach." She faced him. "But that's not the point. That's not your point. You came here to take revenge for something that you feel was taken from you. What was it?"

The bruised and thoroughly battered demi-god looked down at the floor, still panting slightly. "It's not something I care to relive," he stated plainly. "Much as you do not care to relive your past, I do have my history—and it's not what the books tell you, I'll promise you that."

"Well good. That's progress. The books would have you mothering an eight-legged, winged horse."

Mia heard Romanoff in her earpiece. "Paxton, I'm on the roof. We NEED to get Loki's scepter—it can shut down the portal. Do you copy?"

Loki looked affronted. "Mothering?" He repeated.

"Yes," Mia said, a little too firmly. It was as much a response to the Widow as to her Intended.

"Roger that. Over."

"I didn't mother Sleipnir—I raised him, from a foal. He was the irregular offspring of Asgard's finest mated pair of winged horses. His parents rejected him, and the stable-master would have had him culled, had I not intervened." It appeared to really bother Loki that people thought he had given birth to a mutant pegasus. "Mothering," he scoffed breathlessly. "With the facts of Midgard so incorrect, it's really no wonder you do not wish to love me."

"And that's just the more esoteric example," Mia continued, trying to figure out how she was going to keep an eye on Loki and deliver the scepter. She didn't know why it mattered, she had him covered and should have been able to knock him out and walk away. But some odd part of her didn't want to do that—not just then, when he was on the cusp of spilling his guts. "You're rather the popular parent, according to legend: father to any number of strange creatures and people."

"I am not a father," he argued stridently. "Ask Thor, he will confirm it."

"Not even to Hel?"

If possible, Loki just looked more confused. "Hela is my cousin," he said, sounding disgusted.

"Oh. Well, that's news." Mia crossed her arms. "Guess we learn something every day."

"If these are the only reasons for you denying me, than rest assured that I am not parent to anyone or anything." His eyebrows were stuck in an upward condition, as if deploring the entire concept.

The reason I'm denying you? Look around, Loki!" Mia gestured out at the burning city. "You've been trying to take over my planet since before we met! It's not exactly an endearing quality!"

A small smile lighted on the god's broken lips. "I do believe that was the first time you've addressed me by my name."

Mia rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well the context could have been better."

Loki's smile softened, ever-so-slightly. "I wish I had known you before all this," he told her, growing disturbed. "I wish I could have met you before I fell from Asgard, before I became the man you see before you now." He gestured vaguely to himself. "Broken. Worthless. A failure. I used to be a prince, you know. A real prince, not an outcast. A royal who lived in a palace, with servants and beautiful halls and splendor all around. I hoped to recreate that here, on Earth. In a court of my own making."

"With me as queen?" Mia guessed.

"Exactly." The light in his eyes faded. "Instead all I have accomplished is putting you into danger—perilous danger."

"I've been in danger my whole life. That's not new."

"This is danger of a kind you have yet to experience," Loki argued. He gazed at her penetratingly, actual fear in his eyes. "The call you received, the call that attracted SHIELD's attention. It was a threat, wasn't it? In words you couldn't understand?"

The blood rushed from Mia's head as if she were upside down. "Yes," she confirmed. "It was. It didn't even sound human."

"It wasn't." Loki shifted, rubbing his sore hands together almost fretfully. "The one whom the Chitauri answer to, the one who created them: he is the one who threatens you. His mouthpiece is the one who contacted you, hoping to frighten you into submission." He swallowed dryly. "He is the one who has placed a price on your head—a price that I cannot fail to pay."

Mia refused to cower at this declaration. "And that price is?"

"The Tesseract, for your life."

Now the journalist blanched. "He knows what I am," she whispered, and cleared her throat before saying more loudly, "He knows what I am, to you."

"He knows you are my Intended, yes. He knew even before I did—how, I do not know." Loki looked at her beseechingly. "You say I look terrible, you say that I am worn before my beating. I bear the weight of your life on my shoulders—and the yoke of the Tesseract's power as a shackle."

This did explain the bruising that had been around his eyes, the wear on his features. Gods didn't show weakness—only when seriously abused themselves. "They used its power to hold you to your purpose," Mia realized. "You'll only be rid of the Tesseract's weight when it's out of your control."

"And I will only let it out of my control when trading it for your life," said the god seriously. "It is the one bargain I make above all others. Above my bargain for the Earth, I bargain for your existence."

"That's why you came aboard the Valiant," Mia realized. "You needed to get the Tesseract back to make the trade. Instead, you met me." She smiled faintly in spite of herself.

"A strange love story, is it not? And one whose ending remains unclear as of yet."

"UGGGGH." Mia clutched at her head. "As much as I hate to say it, I think I've just reached my tolerance level for dirty politics. If I live through today, I am so done with journalism." She fisted her hands at her sides, sparks swirling around her wrists as her suit changed from black to gold. "As much as I can see the value in our little talk, I have bigger fish to fry—perhaps literally."

"Shit. Paxton, we could use a hand up here on the roof!"

"I did not wish this for you," Loki told her, eyes frantic as if driving a point. "I hope you realize that now. I only wished for you to embrace your powers, in the event that I couldn't protect you."

"So…in the event of now?" Mia gritted her teeth, firing three shots off at him: one at his feet another at his hands, and the final at his head. The first two bound him with live, electric cord. The third struck him in the temple, effectively knocking him out. He lolled to his side and onto the stairs, unconscious.

"That's what I thought." Mia brushed her hands off and cast one last look at the conflicted god sprawled before her. Then she bolted out to retrieve the scepter, and teleported to the roof.