Chapter Ten

Alessia still thrashed against the stranger's arms. "GummhpUUPHHmmrph" Alessia struggled to shout through the man's hand.

"Listen to me. Your friend's were apprehended an hour ago. The entire area is being searched just to find you." The man's voice was soft, just above a whisper and his words had the lilt of an english accent to them. Alessia relaxed slightly against him.

"Hmmvrmmoo?" Alessia asked against his hand.

"Who I am is not important." The stranger replied, correctly deciphering Alessia's muffled query. "Right now there are things you need to know. There are fifteen men that are looking for you in this building. Five of them work for Stark, nine for a national safety agency, and one for an organization called Apex Gold. He is by far the most dangerous. You were lucky that the last time they had you within their grasp they didn't know who you were. Their allies would find you an invaluable asset with great destructive power. This is important: you musn't let them take you. No matter the cost. It would be better to surrender yourself to one of the fourteen others."

"Mmhummhu-" Alessia tried to say. The man took his hand away so she could speak. "How do I know which one he is?" she asked.

"You don't. I do. I'm going to help you get out of here." The man's arms dropped off of Alessia body, freeing her. She started to turn, to get a look at him, but he put his hands on her shoulders, stopping her. "It's best for now if you don't know what I look like." he said gently. He gave her shoulders a little push sending her out into the bustle of the mall again. She fell into the crowd, trying to see the man out of the corner of her eye. A dark hoodie was casting a shadow over his face anyway. She focused her attention forward again, shuffling through the bodies that pushed against her.

"Just keep walking," Came a breathy english whisper closeby. "And take a left up here, two from the agency are coming the other way."

Alessia did her best to follow his instructions, hoping this was the right thing to do. He said Bucky and Sam had been captured. She didn't want to believe him, and she didn't like trusting someone who wouldn't let her see their face, but what other choice did she have?

Besides, part of Alessia thought, It's not like Bucky or Sam are trusting you with anything. Bucky is a wanted ninety-year-old and nobody will tell you how or why.

"Out this door up here," said the man, just a few paces behind her. Alessia veered to the closest exit. The doors swung open for her mechanically and she stepped through, followed closely by the man.

"Keep walking," He instructed her.

"Where am I going?" Alessia asked, half exasperated, half apprehensive.

"Into the parking deck ahead of you." He said, falling at her side, his face still obscured in shadows. Alessia had to pick up her speed to keep up with him as they walked under the cement awning into the first level of the parking deck. It was dark inside, lit by sporadic industrial lights.

"We're being followed," The stranger murmured.

"What?!" Alessia hissed back in an alarmed whisper, desperately fighting the urge to whip around and check.

"One of Stark's men, I believe," Said the hooded man under his breath. "Don't be alarmed, they won't recognize you."

"Uhh, why not?" Alessia asked, both wanting to know why she wouldn't be recognized and why that shouldn't alarm her.

"You won't appear as yourself to them." he replied.

What the hell does that even mean? Alessia wanted to shout.

"We still need to lose them though. I'm sorry about this."

"For wh-" Alessia began, before tumbling down onto the pavement, scraping her palm on the way down.

"OH FUCK ME!" Alessia swore, checking her hand. The flesh of her right hand was skinned, and her left knee was stinging, but it could have been worse. Her fingernails were all still firmly attached and her ankles were both okay.

"Miss, are you alright?" a deep male voice echoed off the walls of the parking deck, accompanied with rapid footsteps.

"Uh, yeah, I think I'm okay." Alessia said, looking up for the owner of the voice. A tall tan and muscular man in a V-neck helped Alessia to her feet. His biceps were almost as big as Alessia's thighs. Maybe bigger, it was hard to tell, because Alessia was also noticing the tiny earpiece peeking from his ear, and her heart was tripling its normal speed.

Oh god he was totally following me, he looks exactly like the type of guy you'd send to take out a dangerous person.

She met his eyes for only a second. Dark brown, almost black. Something unforgiving in them. For half a second he stared back at her, his massive hand still on her arm from helping her up, and Alessia felt a cold icy sense of fear shoot through her.

"You should be more careful, ma'am." He said, dropping his hand, no hint of sincerity in his voice. He turned around, heading back in the direction from where he came. Alessia stared after him, not sure what exactly what had happened.

"Come on," her hooded companion said, nudging her shoulder to guide her, "Let's get going,."

She followed him mechanically, her neck craned around, eyes still fixed on the shrinking silhouette of the muscular man with the earpiece.

"What… why… how come.." She tried to iterate her thoughts, but a real sentence didn't seem to be leaving her mouth.

"He's gone now," The hooded man said. "Don't worry about him anymore."

"But-"

"Come on, this next left, I have the blue one."

Alessia turned her attention forward again and looked for a blue car. It was so dark that that it was hard to tell what color some of the cars were. The hooded man led her to a subaru parked crookedly in two spaces instead of one.

"This is you?" She asked, her inclination to trust him dropping even more.

"I don't have much experience driving," he said defensively.

"Okay, where are we going?" Alessia asked, standing her ground instead of stepping inside the car with him.

He was fumbling with a key ring, sorting through three or four keys to find the correct one.

He selected the correct key and fitted it into the lock. "I thought the best course of action would be to take you as far away from people who may be looking for you as possible." He replied with a crisply british know-it-all tone in his voice, swinging the driver's side door open.

"So you're saying you don't have any sort of plan," Alessia retorted, stepping between him and the now-open car door. She peered up into the shadows his hoodie cast over his face. He was gripping the car key the way a child might, in a clumsy fist. Alessia reached out and pushed the hoodie off of the man's face. He drew back just barely at her outreached hand, but otherwise made no move to stop her.

The dark gray cotton fell back and revealed a thin pale face framed in long messy black hair. He had sharp cheekbones and icy silver-blue eyes. He was searching her face, as though gauging her reaction.

"Will you tell me what the fuck is going on?" Alessia asked him, blocking his way into the driver's seat with her body.

He was still watching her with an unnerving intensity. "I'll tell you everything." He replied.

Alessia blinked up at him. He did keep me from getting caught.. She thought, chewing her lip and weighing the decision. She took a deep breath and made her choice.

"Alright," Alessia said, holding her hand out, palm up. "But let me drive, for Christ's sake."

The world was twisting, rapidly swirling around and around and around. A splitting headache, nauseatingly bright lights. Colors, sounds, the clenching tightness of bonds locking limbs into place. Bucky was all too familiar with sensations like these.

He tried to swallow. His mouth was very dry, and his throat rough and sore. He blinked through bleary tears, trying to see his surroundings better. For a moment, he had thought he was back in the brain-washing chair. The past few months had faded into a meaningless dream, because this was what was real. This was what life was.

But the longer he was awake, the more he remembered where he really was. Moving backwards, he recalled getting shot by four or five sedatives. He had been in a car before that. He had been with a dog. Daisy, the dog he had when he was a kid. There was a man with him. And a girl. No the dog wasn't Daisy. Who had he been with?

Steve's friend, and a girl. She had been warm. And before them, there had been Steve, looking exactly like himself, if only sadder, more worried, saying: "I'm gonna get you out of this, Buck, I promise."

Before that? It was the girl again. No, three of them. Before that? He had been going to bed in his apartment, thinking about how many newspapers he had collected and how only a few of them had anything important written on them. Before that?

His mind was tracing backwards, skimming over the dozens and dozens of missions that preceded his few months of freedom. He was traveling back in time, to a day before the train, to a time before war, looking for something like home...

He was fourteen. He was walking down the sidewalk. Steve was laughing at something he had just said. Beth, his younger sister, walked a few paces behind them. Steve was carrying her books for her, even though Beth was probably stronger than Steve. There was a girl set up ahead of them, a cardboard box on the sidewalk in front of her. Beth had dashed ahead to see it.

"Bucky, they're puppies!" She'd said.

"Beth, we can't get a puppy, Mom and Dad'd kill us," Bucky was trying to say. It didn't seem to matter, though, because Steve had run ahead to catch up to her, arriving out of breath, his hair flopping into his face. He and Beth were fawning over the dog she had chosen from the litter. A tiny blonde puppy with a black nose and big eyes.

"James Barnes,"

Bucky was again sitting in a cold, steel chair, strapped painfully into the reality of the twenty-first century.

"My name is Bucky." He managed to say. His voice was hoarse, a dry rasp. He longed to be swept back into the memory of 1931. But it had evaporated into nothingness as he forced his eyes to see the world around him.

"Do you atleast know which direction is 'away'?" Alessia asked as she pulled the car out of the parking garage and started to wheel towards the mall exit.

"It doesn't matter which direction you choose as long as you keep driving." Said the dark haired man lounging in the seat next to her. Alessia let a out a deep sigh, but chose to follow the signs promising to spit her out on the interstate in a few miles.

Once she was on the road, the steering wheel grasped firmly in her hands, Alessia started to feel a sense of control and confidence fill her. She was driving, actually making choices about where things were going, and she was about to get some answers finally.

"So," Alessia began, turning her attention to the man in the passenger seat "Who are you again?"

"I don't believe I ever told you in the first place," He replied with that same self-satisfied know-it-all lilt in his voice. Alessia groaned.

"Fine. Who are you… For the first time?" She rephrased, taking her eyes of the road in front of her momentarily to check her blind spot before merging.

"Is that really the first question you want to ask?" He said, that smug I-know-something-you-don't quality still in his voice.

"Yes." Alessia replied. "I just found out one of the last two guys I was with might be like, a hundred or something. If you don't want to talk to me I don't need to be here. And I sure as hell don't need to be driving you around if you're not going to be helpful."

Alessia tried her best to give the man a piercing glare in between glances at the road ahead of her. Traffic was more congested here. Last thing she needed was to accidentally rear-end someone while trying to evade the law.

"My name is Loki, of Asgard." The dark-haired man said with a resigned sigh. Ahead of Alessia the traffic was letting up, but she didn't move.

"Bu-Bull shit." She said, glancing over at him. He had a bored look on his face, and that smug superior air that clung to his voice was oozing out of his very gesture. He appeared far too relaxed to be lying.

A horn sounded behind Alessia. She hit the gas hastily, trying to make up for her moment sitting idle. Gee, sorry I didn't move fast enough for you, She thought. I only just realized that the god of mischief is in the car with me.

"I don't know why I'm surprised." Alessia replied, voice defeated. "I found out my boss is an avenger less than a week ago."

"Your boss?" He asked, sounding mildly intrigued.

"Yeah, Clint. Uh, I uh.. He's not one of the better known ones I don't think you'd kn-"

"Oh, Barton. Yes, yes. I worked with him last time I was on Midgard. Brilliant marksman, as I recall."

He's fucking with you. Alessia told herself, shooting rapid glances at the god in the car. Thats his whole shtick. He fucks with people. That's all mischief really means.

"Wait wait wait." Alessia said, a new, alarming thought occurring to her, something that should have occurred to her earlier. "If you're Loki- the same Loki that trashed New York three years ago- why are you helping me? And why shouldn't I pull over and kick your ass right now?"

"I am the same Loki," He replied. "I'm helping you because you, love, are a very valuable asset that I'd rather not see in the wrong hands. And as for the last one, I think you'll find I'm better company when I haven't been burned to a crisp. Don't forget that I promised to tell you anything I can, but I will be much less inclined to share if you are only interested in fighting me."

Alessia let that sink in. She didn't really think she should believe his reason for helping her wasn't motivated by some more personal gain, but he was right about her wanting answers. However, she'd really wanted answers he wasn't likely to know. Like how Bucky was still alive if he actually was the same age as Captain America, and why he was wanted. Instead, she started with something he did seem to have information on.

"So you know who Apex Gold is?" She asked.

Loki sighed, exasperated. "You're starting off entirely wrong," He said. "Haven't you ever wondered why you have the ability to create fire?"

"What?!" Alessia was taken by surprise. "Wait.. you-you.. You know? I mean, you know how?"

This revelation was quickly replaced by a heart stopping realization. "Does that mean you know who my parents are?!" She asked, a queasy, twitchy feeling in her stomach.

"Calm down," Loki warned. "Don't get to excited."

"So, you don't know who my parents are?" She said, the nervousness in her belly refusing to subside.

"I didn't say that," Loki replied. "I just couldn't help noticing that when you get excited you steer this car rather poorly."

Alessia let out a shout of astonished indignation. "Oh, I'm sorry, maybe I'm having a hard time steering because the alien in the passenger seat just told me he knows who my birth parents are." Alessia said. "I mean, do you have any idea how big of a deal that is to me?" Alessia continued, merging onto the interstate finally.

"You may be talking to the one person who understands the most," He replied softly. Alessia shot him a look again, able to linger longer now that she was on the open highway. He wore a contemplative look and glanced up to meet Alessia's gaze. He offered her a smile that was both sad and sweet, as well as charming and sly. Alessia quickly looked back at the road. That hint of mischief in his smile reminded her who she was talking to.

"So, if you don't mind, I'm going to begin with the beginning." Loki said, briskly changing tone. "We'll get to the here and now when we come to it. Does that suit you?"

"Fine." Alessia said. "Just.. just start."

"I still don't understand. If he wasn't in control of his actions, why is he being punished?" Thor was standing with Tony and Natasha, watching the interrogation of James Barnes on the monitor. The injustice of it plagued him. "On Asgard we do not punish someone for a crime they didn't commit freely."

"It's not about why he did it," Tony said. "It's about his ability to do it. He's dangerous, Thor."

"But, is not the Hulk more dangerous? Why is he free if another must be locked away?" Thor argued.

"Doctor Banner has proven his loyalties are with the Avengers," Natasha said.

"Because you've given him the chance to!" Thor exclaimed. How could his friends be so blind? "Let Barnes do the same, we will need as many men fighting beside us as we can get if the Muspelian army arrives on Midgard!"

Natasha and Tony exchanged a glance.

"Don't doubt it, friends, they are a planet ravaged by a twenty-year civil war, and I believe the Loyalist faction will be coming to drain Midgard of it's resources."

"Look, Thor, I looked into it when you said you thought that the organization that kidnapped Pepper and Jane was in league with another planet," Tony said. "And, there were a few fast decaying traces, that, I mean, might be from interplanetary communications. But, they could have been from weather analysis, or radio, or a really powerful microwave, or-"

"Why do you refuse to believe what is right in front of you?" Thor interrupted. "Your world will be in great peril, and you refuse to prepare for it!"

"Want some tea?"

Wanda was hanging by the door of the blue room, one of the bedrooms in the Avengers compound not regularly inhabited. Natasha or Steve sometimes stayed in it, but today it was serving as a guest bedroom for Jane Foster.

"Oh, yes please!" Jane replied "Do you have chamomile?"

Jane was pouring over a table covered in papers that Pepper Pots had dropped off for her the day before. Equations and diagrams and charts that Wanda couldn't understand even if she dipped into Jane's mind and listened to her thoughts.

"We do," Wanda said "I'll be right back with it."

Wanda turned to head back to the kitchen. It was nice having someone like Jane around for a change. Wanda didn't really have any female friends, and even though Vision and the rest of the team were great, she wished that it was easier to find companions.

Pepper had brought readings from Tony's lab for Jane to look over. She was proof reading Stark's estimates, trying to determine whether the radiation from her kidnapper's base was from interplanetary communication.

What Jane didn't know was that Pepper didn't exactly ask Tony if she could take the readings. Pepper insisted that Tony wanted a real expert in the field to look at it, but Wanda didn't need to read minds to know that wasn't true. Stark almost never admitted that he was wrong, or that someone else might do better.

So Jane was settled into the blue room, comparing charts and diagrams and running calculations while Wanda dithered about, pretending to mind her own business. Instead she was thinking of every possible excuse to peek in on Jane. Did she want to throw any clothes in with the next wash? What should they order for dinner? Would it bother her if Wanda practiced guitar? What Wanda was really looking for was the news that Jane had either completed the calculations, or was ready for a break. But Jane was immersed, and even when Wanda snuck a quick look at her thoughts, the patterns Jane was observing were simply inconclusive. So far, she could neither prove nor disprove Thor's theory. However, unlike Stark's brief review, Jane's investigation was very, very thorough.

Alessia skidded to a halt at the side of the interstate. Her hands were trembling and she felt sick. She could throw up or blow up or pass out. She was feeling waves of burning hot and freezing cold.

"You're fucking with me."

"I promise you I'm not." Loki replied. There was sincerity in his voice.

"You've got the wrong girl." She said. Her voice was trembling. She realized she was holding the steering wheel so tight that her knuckles were splotchy white and red. She let go of it like it had stung her, and drew her hands close to her body, looking down at them.

"I always knew I was a fucking monster." She said. Were those tears running down her face? She could feel them making their way down her skin, but didn't think she had been crying.

"You are not a monster," came a kind, soft whisper from her right. "Don't you understand? You're a powerful being, a born warrior, a god among mortals."

Alessia was shaking her head fiercely. "I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't to." She was saying. "P-p-p-please, I can't- I'm not-"

Loki let out a sigh, and leaned across the center console to take Alessia by the shoulders and pull her into a hug. "I understand. This is hard for you. You feel like you've lost everything. But soon you will realize that this means you have so, so much more."

Alessia was stiff in his arms, and she did not hug him back. Instead, her arms were pinned to her chest, hands fisted at her collar bone. She could push him away, shove him, throw him, or just run from the car. She could run out into the highway, she could dial 911 on her phone and tell whoever answered it where she was. Take me away from here, She could say. Put me away, put me somewhere, I don't care, but I don't belong here.

Instead, Alessia gently pushed the Norse god a mischief away from her. He let go with no objection, his hands lingering on her shoulders a moment longer before he removed them.

"Would you like to know your real name?" He asked her.

Alessia's breath hitched in her throat. She closed her eyes a moment, relaxed her arms, and took a deep breath. She put her hand to the red stone around her neck, resting over her heart the way it had for as long as she could remember.

"My name is Alessia." she said.