Disclaimer: I still don't own any of the fandoms in this fic
Sherlock span on his heel, motioning for John to follow him from the Bridge (which he did, as always; good old Dr Watson), shaking his head to clear it of the unpreventable surge of annoyance, even though Fury had done exactly as he had been instructed. Grumbling and cursing aside, the man had nodded solemnly as Sherlock explained what needed to be done, putting his most mechanically able agents onto replicating the 'anti-Hulk' formula.
The detective would have been pleased with the way things were going, if Fury hadn't ended the conversation by recapping the plan of attack, telling Sherlock that he had to do this and that. He knew where to be, he was the one who had come up with the plan.
That wasn't to say that he wasn't apprehensive; travelling around the world alone had been hard enough (the memories of nights alone, huddled in the cold of shoddy hostels, running a cheap phone between his fingers and itching to use it, just once, would sneak up on him in his most unguarded moments), but the idea of having to undertake that kind of mission again, this time with John by his side, sent uncomfortable barbs churning in his gut.
Sherlock ground to a halt half-way down the corridor, pursing his lips decidedly. John stumbled to a stop, colliding with Sherlock's arm; the detective hadn't realised how close together they had been. It wasn't an unwelcome realisation.
Before he could think himself out of it, Sherlock reached down and took John's hand. John's fingers seemed to unconsciously curl around his, but his arm stiffened, his expression clouding in bewilderment as he looked up at Sherlock, who avoided meeting his gaze and continued striding towards Tony's laboratory. John tugged on his arm, but didn't relinquish his grasp; and if that didn't make Sherlock feel as if he could fight a hundred Hulks with his bare hands then nothing could.
"Sherlock…" John queried; Sherlock glanced down at his doctor and smiled stiffly – warmly – he wasn't sure, but it was enough for John's face to brighten and his lips to twitch upwards, "What are you doing?" he gave their connected hands a shake.
Sherlock shrugged nonchalantly, shortening his gait when he noticed how John was having to stagger along to keep by his side.
"Must you question everything I do John?" he teased, drawing out the syllables, battling the warmth in his chest that erupted when John smiled and shook his head, his emotions written across his face, "It's dreadfully dull."
They travelled in companionable silence for a few minutes, pushing between the agents that would spill into the halls of the Helicarrier in fits and starts, washing in and out of the rooms they passed, before John cleared his throat, making the noise that he made before he broached a 'normal person' subject.
"It's…it's alright, you know - "
"Spit it out John." Sherlock interrupted fondly.
John started talking again, but Steve and Tony appeared from a door to their left and he fell silent until they had passed, nodding respectfully in return for their greeting. The moment that they had disappeared from sight, Sherlock wished that they would come back.
"It's alright to be scared of facing Moriarty again." John hastily assured the detective; his face was set and he was trying desperately to make eye contact.
Sherlock huffed and pulled him to the edge of the hall, out of the way of the flurry of agents, and moved in close, looming over the doctor; it took all his power not to retract his hand in defiance, but the feel of it clasped in his own, and the warm blue of John's eyes as they bore into his made him squeeze even tighter.
"I am not scared of him!" he seethed; John sighed in exasperation and rolled his eyes, lifting his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, but Sherlock ploughed on, "That man has been resurrected as a puppet, and I know that he won't like that, I know that he will have his own plans bubbling under the surface." They didn't have time for the detective to explode, but he couldn't seem to stop himself, "I know how he ticks now John! Don't you see? I dismantled his empire, I've seen how he works, how his enterprises are designed, I had his top men give me every detail!" John was beginning to look cautious now, but there was no stopping, "Moriarty is more dangerous than he has ever been John, but don't ever make the mistake of thinking that I am scared of him!"
John didn't speak at first; Sherlock feared for a moment that he had upset him, again, and only had a vague idea of why that might have been. John's bottom lip was dragged through his teeth, and it was clear that an argument had the potential to brew.
"Don't go after him." John said calmly, quietly, but with enough force behind it that Sherlock found that he couldn't answer back as he usually would; he wasn't one for metaphors, but he could have raked his hands through the tension between them, tangible as it was.
"John-"
"Don't go after him Sherlock." John repeated, his voice gravelly with supressed emotion.
Sherlock wanted to look away, avoid the fear (and it definitely was fear, now that Sherlock thought about it) in John's eyes; he couldn't though, the only other things to look at were the obnoxiously professional agents.
"Why would I go after him, John?" he eventually replied, swallowing guiltily before John's name. John didn't answer, but his forehead clenched as his eyes, unusually inspective, scanned the detective's face. Sherlock was once again glad that John seemed incapable of truly reading his innermost thoughts, as difficult as that made their relationship.
John shook his head, shrugging before pulling the detective away from the wall, starting up a pace towards the laboratory (Sherlock chose not to mention that their destination had changed, seeing as Tony had headed in the other direction). Suddenly the hand in his felt awkward, uncomfortable.
"Where did Rose get to? We're supposed to be ready to meet the others soon." Sherlock inquired, hoping to lighten the mood, "I want to get this over sooner rather than later."
John sighed, and it became abundantly clear that the 'mood' had been well and truly lost.
"She said she was going to try and convince Loki to help us." He explained tersely. Sherlock couldn't help but scoff at the animosity that laced his tone.
"You don't like that idea?" he prodded, smirking down at John's disgruntled expression.
"You do?" John shot back, "The man's clearly a nutter, and I honestly think he might kill us."
Sherlock refrained from commenting on how eerily similar John's words sounded; Loki had of course actually led an invasion on Earth, but mentally, personally…he wasn't that bad. It took a lot for Sherlock to even bother passing judgement on anyone in the first place, but the god seemed to be a useful man to have on the right side.
"He's apparently a master fighter, thinker, and sorcerer. I won't believe the last until I see it, but it would be idiotic to refuse any assistance offered to us." Sherlock answered briefly, and then as if it were a second thought, "I never took you as the kind of man that judged so harshly."
"He's deliberately antagonising me!" John defended himself, raising his hands (and Sherlock's with it), in the universal gesture for surrender. The detective let out a low chuckle, and lengthened his stride, dragging John along behind him.
Jack didn't want to open his eyes. There was no point. All that he'd see would be the inside of the monotonous room, too dull for the architect to have dreamed even the slightest inch in the direction of what the Master, what this Moriarty, had inflicted upon him.
And the people. He didn't know who they were, but they'd died because his blood, his DNA, wouldn't work (and GOD, how many people had tried and failed); the Master had gotten bored, but Moriarty…Moriarty. Even after the results came, he had still wanted to poke and prod and see what ticked, which bits he could lop off and how quickly they'd grow back.
Jack tried tugging at the chains that strung his arms above his head; the Master had a thing for chains, he didn't know what else he'd been expecting really, but still, it was an inconvenience, not being able to feel your hands.
It was no use. What would he even do if he managed to break free? Nothing, that was what. The Doctor was locked up, and so far unlikely to get out – maybe he was waiting for the opportune moment, maybe he had a plan – all Jack knew was that until SHIELD and the team made a move, there was no point going anywhere, as it would only end with him blowing the whole venture or ending up right back in that dull, grey room.
But there was always hope… more than hope. The signal had been sent and SHIELD would be able to find their exact position. They'd be able to send in their best and brightest. They were clever enough that they'd be able to fight the monsters (the two men were more monstrous than any of the experiments that he'd caught sight of as he was ferried about the hideout), they'd reverse what had been done, and they'd all go out for a drink and not get home until the next day.
It was a shame Captain Jack Harkness had never been a hopeful man.
He wasn't one for cursing, but in that moment he would have ripped into various things had he not wanted to allow Bruce just a bit more peace in the form of unconsciousness. The man's nightmares couldn't have been as bad for him as the reality would be soon.
If only he could get out of these restraints! They weren't nearly as bad as the last ones the Master had strapped him into, but there was no way the Doctor could get his wrists and legs free, especially not without his screwdriver.
And it was just there! His screwdriver had been left on the side, feet away, to taunt him. That was what had done it.
To Hell with the despair and the misery. He was going to fight back, cause as much trouble, maybe even try and fix the problem before the others arrived to have a go.
It would only take a simple antidote to reverse the new Hulk-people, and to do that he'd have to ensure that the Master and Moriarty (not to mention their guards) were out of the picture for long enough. He'd achieved more than that with no shoes and half a keg of whisky.
At the very least he could use his screwdriver to disable the machinery that the Master had been building. Oh yes, he'd felt the need to show that off as well. His mistake; now the Doctor knew exactly where it was, what it did, and how to get rid of it.
That was a terrific plan, if he did say so himself. Or it would be if he could get out of the damn restraints!
Things were going to go badly. They were going to go so badly, so horribly badly that the aftermath would last far longer than any other in recent years. Whether the others came through for him and performed as he thought they would, or they failed miserably, tripping at the first hurdles, there was going to be devastation.
But it didn't have to be as bad as it could get. Things could turn out for the best. That was what the Doctor kept telling himself, over and over, in the vain hope that the message would sink in and stay there.
Everything would turn out for the best.
Loki glanced up momentarily when she marched into the laboratory, her blonde hair flying behind her. He regretted the action immediately, and turned his attention back to the databases that he had been idly scrolling through. Nothing dangerous (Thor had watched over his shoulder and Stark had made it clear that his disembodied voice would allow no deviations), just the literature of Midgard.
Apparently it was 'fine' for the God of Mischief to peruse the online libraries, but catching up with the latest news from around the planet posed some kind of threat. He had seen much of the work before, but there were some 'modern classics' that hadn't yet made their way to Asgard.
He knew what Rose wanted. She was here to convince him to accompany her and the detective into the den of the enemy, while the other Avengers adopted a full frontal approach.
He didn't yet know what he would say to her. Earlier he had been excited, thrilled even, by the prospect of the science before him, the planning and scheming; he had even gotten as close to camaraderie with Sherlock, Stark, and Thor before realising where he was and suddenly suffocating under the weight of his feelings towards them.
He hated them. But he didn't really. It was more indifference. Before that, he'd hated them all, refused to play along, wandered about just to spite them and watch the reactions. Now, he was disgruntled and miserable. It was all flooding in on him and he just wanted to be left alone.
Except…he didn't want to be left alone.
What he didn't want to happen, was to be left alone in his own head. As he was at that very moment.
Rose had been trying to get his attention, standing beside him, her arms folded over her chest as she glared at him frustrated and stubborn, unwilling to lose enough faith in him to allow her to accept that he didn't want to play the hero with her.
"What is it you want me to do Rose?" Loki turned on her, stepping into her space to loom over her; he might have felt guilty if he hadn't been surrounded by everything else that made his life a misery, "What is it that makes you think that I would help these people?"
Rose didn't flinch as Loki spewed his distemper over her, rolling her eyes and blowing a stray lock of hair from her face.
"You don't even have to interact with these people – one of who is your brother you stupid, Viking, nutter – and most importantly, because I asked you to." She informed him, completely unfazed as he huffed and snarled; she had never shown him due respect, and it didn't matter how much affection may have been there before, the Chituari had wiped that from his mind, leaving only painful memories.
He asked again, sharper this time, "What is it that you want me to do?"
Rose's expression lightened and the tension in her shoulders evaporated; she thought that she was winning. Truth was, Loki was already feeling the come down from his burst of anger.
"I want you to help us." Rose sighed when Loki scoffed at her remark, "I want you to help me." She continued to implore, and Loki recognised immediately the way that her eyes widened and her lips pouted slightly; the girl was attempting to manipulate the master of deception, "I've seen you do magic, I know exactly how powerful you are. If you don't come, me and Sherlock and John, we'll be in more danger than we would with you. And…" a mischievous smile crept onto her face, making Loki's stomach turn not quite unpleasantly, "I've never met anyone who can sneak in and out of places like you can."
Loki gritted his teeth but didn't break from the sultry, imploring gaze that Rose was burning into his own. Her hands had come up to rest just below his elbows and the space between them had decreased substantially.
Inwardly he hated the fact that he wasn't sure if it was this, or the nature of what she had said that caused the slipping of his resolve. Loki liked to think that he wasn't so easily turned, but with the greater proximity to the woman, who he had barely been allowed to think of in past months, it might well have been the truth.
On the other hand, he couldn't remember the last time he had done anything like this. The fated trip to Jotenheim had been the last venture that he and Thor had undertaken…and that was less of an adventure and more a misguided storming of the battlements.
"What danger could there be? I thought that this was merely a rescue mission." Loki inquired, pointedly ignoring the victorious smile that shone from Rose's face and made her light up beautifully, "Would your opponents not be on the battlefield, tackling the brutes of your team?"
"No," Rose responded immediately, "the Master and Moriarty are clever, there's more to this than just an out an out fight. They'll be protecting the important parts of their plan, and that's where we come in," she explained; it was as if Loki had already agreed to help her (even if he refused, he was still fascinated by what was occurring) "I mean, yeah, we're gonna get Bruce and the Doctor out, but we also need to disable their databases and destroy anything they've created."
"You won't go after the masterminds?" Loki inquired; he could just about accept that Rose would obey orders (she would occasionally stop being a law unto herself if it was truly important), but she was not the only one on this mission; Loki would definitely not do as Fury ordered. Not that he had agreed to anything yet.
"No, I reckon the Doctor will want to go after them." Rose remarked thoughtfully, and then catching the inquisitive quirk of Loki's eyebrow added, "Not to kill them! Just to bring them back and lock em' up."
Loki nodded detachedly, finally lifting his eyes from hers to focus on the air behind her shoulder. He didn't want to go; it wasn't a difficult decision to come to, he just couldn't be bothered, he couldn't find the effort. But it did sound interesting, and it was something to do, in the abstract at least.
And wouldn't Thor be pleased. His stupid face would light up, and he might even try to sweep his brother into an embrace, overcome with joy to be fighting side by side once more. Even more reason not to help, no matter how much he didn't want Rose's pretty, insulting, lovely face to be smashed and marred when she failed.
"We could really you your help Loki," Rose was pleading again; oh, she may have been balancing her voice so that she sounded confident, nonchalant, but she was pleading nonetheless, "I know Sherlock thinks he's an invincible genius, but he'll snap like a twig if Bruce freaks and swats him."
Yes, the detective would. Actually, given what Loki had seen of man, he'd probably be more inclined to ignore the captives and go about the job his own way.
Oh. That could be very, very interesting. Things could become incredibly, fantastically fun. Loki unconsciously grasped Rose's arms, not pulling her close. Now that he thought about it, really thought about what was being asked of him, things could become very interesting.
Rose was asking him to leave the Helicarrier, to be unshackled and let loose, to be trusted to perform as he was expected. He would be let loose amongst all the technology, all the tools of destruction and mischief, in close proximity to the two men trying to take over the world.
Should he wish, he could walk away and never have to see these people again.
Rose would be furious, hurt, but…it had been so long since they were together. He didn't deserve her anymore.
Rose was still talking, explaining the plan, as if he hadn't heard it when the others were talking, or Thor hadn't announced everything they were planning to do at length in booming tones.
"I will accompany you."
Rose fell silent, her speech about not killing the transformed humans cut short as her eyes widened in surprise.
"What?"
"I will accompany you on this mission." Loki drawled; it would not do to seem eager, or as if Rose had in any way persuaded him.
"Loki!" Rose squealed, and before he had time to react she had thrown herself on top of him, flinging her arms around his neck and squeezing tightly; had he been mortal, he might have been thrown off of his feet.
He tried to return the gesture, caught off guard by her actions; the chains around his wrists prevented him from manoeuvring his arms into the correct position. He supposed that was probably for the best; it wouldn't do to look anything other than uncaring and unconcerned.
Steve watched from his perch while Tony made last minute adjustments to his Iron Man suit; Tony had said something about increasing thruster capacity, or energy transference, but Steve knew enough about modern technology to see that all that changed was the positioning of certain screws and bolts.
The pinched expression on Tony's face, and his unusually silent demeanour as he remained in one small part of his workspace, made it clear to Steve exactly what was going through Stark's head, genius IQ or not.
"I know I'm hot, but is now the right moment to be staring?" Tony quipped, without even looking up to see Steve roll his eyes and fight off a small smirk, "There's no way we'd get you out of that spandex in time for the big meet-up."
Instead of gracing that with a reply, Steve cut to the chase, "This won't be like last time, you know." He assured Tony, who slowly lowered his tools and flickered his eyes up to meet Steve's, no giving anything away, "There's no reason for it to go that far, not this time; we're prepared for the worst."
Tony adopted the dismissive, false smile that he always did when topics became uncomfortably intimate and turned back to the gauntlet in front of him.
"I don't know what you mean Cap, I'm psyched."
Steve moved across the room to take the seat closest to Tony. Tony didn't look up, but he also didn't shake off the hand that Steve ran briefly over his shoulder.
"Look Tony, I'm not going to pretend that I haven't noticed you having nightmares, even after all this time," at this Tony shot him a dark look, but Steve pushed past that, "You were thrown out a window, and you nearly died going through that portal – it's okay for you to be afraid of going to fight something so similar!" Tony scoffed, but Steve took the lack of argument as a good sign and placed his hand once again on the man's shoulder, this time leaving it there, "But that's not going to happen again because we know what we're doing this time."
"There's so much that could go wrong though!" Tony snapped, then looked apologetic; Steve shrugged and Tony continued, "What if we don't get Bruce out fast enough, what if one of the girls gets hurt – they're not even slightly equipped to fight – what if we can't reverse the Hulk-people and they get to Asgard - "
"Tony stop it!" Steve interrupted, and Tony pursed his lips, waiting for Steve to continue, "Donna's going to try and lure Bruce away before he even gets near to the others, and that's only if he isn't rescued properly first, the girls will be fine, Rose had got Loki at her beck and call and Thor's going to keep an eye on Donna. I don't think you included Natasha in that list, but she can handle herself." That earned a small chuckle, "And yeah, our plan's a bit sketchy, but as soon as we've got the Doctor back he'll know exactly what to do."
Tony nodded solemnly, "So we're just manning the barriers."
"Yeah." Steve replied. The quiet didn't seem right amongst the scraps of Tony's work, "Did you get the jets ready to spread the formula?"
"Oh yeah! That was the easy part." Tony answered confidently, winking as he did so.
Steve continued to rub circles on Tony's shoulder as the man became less and less engaged in tinkering uselessly with his gauntlet. Another few moments passed, and then a low frantic beeping emanated from the radio buckled onto Tony's belt.
"Looks like we're leaving." Steve noted, raising himself to his feet. Tony nodded and looked down at his hands.
"Go on ahead," he instructed, "I'll catch up when I've got my suit on."
Steve felt only a moment of trepidation at the idea of leaving Tony on his own, but decided that he could use the time alone to gather his thoughts, and strode from the room to join the others by the jets.
I decided to make this a sort of montage of the different characters preparing for the clash.
I also made it more shippy, as the story was beginning to lose the pairings a bit.
Hope you like it