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"Director! We've got a reading on Loki." One of the tech workers on the bridge of the Heiicarrier calls to Nick Fury.
The director advances over, his one eye analyzing the screen. "It looks like a pretty strong one too. Can we get a location?"
"With this high of a reading, yes. Agent Daviau, start pinpointing the source."
"Already on it." The woman next to the first agent begins typing commands into the computer, pulling up a map as all the possible locations are calibrated. A point on the map starts pulsing.
"An apartment?" Though he doesn't show it, Fury was perplexed.
Daviau speaks again. "Yes, director. Odd that he would still be in New York…"
Director Fury walks to the middle of the bridge. "Have Agent Hill contact the Avengers. Tell them that they will be briefed on arrival."
Loki was trying his hardest to stem the flow of blood, but his semi-conscious state was not helping. Already, he had slipped under twice, the blow to his head thickening the flow of thoughts. It was taking his entire capacity of seidr to keep him alive.
"You're kidding me."
"No, Barton. We found him, his magic was being used at a very strong rate."
"I don't doubt that, I just don't understand why we have to go after him. Can't some S.H.I.E.L.D agents get him?"
Agent Hill sighs. "We understand that you are still recovering, but you are the only team that has been able to bring him down."
Clint scoffs. "That was the Hulk."
"In any case, we are sending you all in."
Tony groans from a chair in the back of the room. Natasha strides up to Clint from her spot leaning on the wall and places a hand on his shoulder.
She turns her head to Maria. "We'll go. Though, where is Thor and Dr. Banner?"
"Thor is still on Asgard, and Dr. Banner is at Stark Tower. It doesn't matter, you all have to go bring him into custody. Captain Rogers?"
Steve inclines his head toward her. "We'll be back within two hours."
"Fucking hell, I was just about to go to sleep before you assholes called me in."
Hill rolls her eyes."Stark, you were drinking."
"Damn it. I have to find a way to disable that security system."
Loki was truly afraid now. There was no possible way he was going to stay alive.
As the Helicarrier nears the complex where Loki was staying, Tony comes in over the intercom from his suit.
"So the high-and-mighty god, that grabbed me by the throat and threw me out my own window, is living in a shitty apartment?"
"Quiet Tony." Steve is short with him. He has a sinking feeling he associates with Loki being an enormous threat.
Natasha holds a pistol in her right hand and the device displaying the readings in her left.
"Loki should be two floors down from the roof, two doors to the left."
Clint stands beside her, readying his weapon. "Got it."
"You're right beside me Clint, I'd expect you to hear."
Mumbling, Barton busies himself with double-checking his arrows.
"I'm on the roof, I'll just wait for you guys whenever you feel like finishing up." Stark sounds bored out of his mind.
"Be there in fifteen seconds." Steve prepares himself to jump from the lowering ramp of the aircraft.
He lands on the roof with ease.
Tony laughs. "Show off."
"Come on, be serious about this."
Natasha and the archer drop down with parachutes, Romanoff gracefully landing and Clint almost falling over.
"What the hell?" Tony asks Barton.
"I don't have a suit like you Tony, it's dark as fuck."
Steve has to push down the laugh that almost surfaces. "Alright, let's head in."
They make their way through the access stairway to the top floor.
"You said two floors down right?"
"Clint, you were right beside me, and clarified that you heard. But yeah, two floors down."
"I wanted to make su-"
Steve hushes them. "Guys, there are other people here, I'd guess most of them don't want to be woken up to find out that Loki, the person responsible for destruction of half of the city, is living a floor below."
"Stark is wearing an entire suit of armor. That would wake up the entire building."
Natasha flashes a warning glare at him.
"Ugh. Fine."
The team makes their way to the elevator, which looks broken and menacing.
Tony looks at the door with a warying glance. "Should we just take the stairs?" Upon remembering how well the suit works on stairs, he changes his mind. "Okay, we're gonna take our chances with the elevator."
Barton presses the button.
Nothing happens.
"Cap, why don't you open it? See if there's actually anything there." Clint steps back from the rusted metal doors to let Rogers through.
He pries them open, to find-
"It's empty." Tony makes plain.
"Obviously." Natasha says blankly.
"We're going to have to take the stairs. Tony, is that the briefcase version of your suit?"
There's a moment of silence, before Tony whispers, "Jesus Christ."
A god lays unconscious in a fluorescently lit bathroom.
"Once, we get in there, we have to be quiet as we search the place." Steve says, barely audibly.
The rest of them nod.
Breaking the locked door knob, they file inside, already on the defensive. Steve motions for Natasha to check on the right, where two doors sit.
Clint monitors the living room, which is part of the kitchen.
Tony, suited up again, checks the small kitchen.
Cap walks over to the right side with Romanoff, who enters what must be the bedroom, Steve noticing the light under the second door.
Bracing himself, he opens the door swiftly.
He couldn't have braced for this.
The light blinds him, sparing him from the sight he is about to witness.
It doesn't even register at the first few moments.
What lies before him can't be real.
Loki lies in a small pool of scarlet, his arms lined with bitter lines.
He is too pale.
"No… Natasha!" Steve leans against the door frame, feeling lightheaded.
She rushes to his side, stilling when she sees the figure on the ground.
Romanoff brings a hand to her ear, speaking into her earpiece.
"Get a med-team down here."
What was present of the Avengers sat on the small couch in the apartment, each trying to regain their thoughts.
Steve can't make sense of any of it.
Natasha struggles to keep calm.
Clint feels conflicted emotions.
Tony is sick.
The medical team had gotten the room very quickly, on account of thinking one of them was hurt. They were dismayed to find that they would have to keep a homicidal villain alive.
Rogers can't get the sight of the god out of his head. It wasn't just the fact that Loki was slowly dying, but the disturbing detail that-
He looked peaceful.
It's an awful thought, he knows, but Loki always appeared angry and seething, seeing him in such an unguarded state was off-putting. With no strain on his face, he seemed completely different.
Natasha keeps herself composed by keeping an eye on the medics. No doubt some people at S.H.I.E.L.D would love exact revenge on Loki.
She tries to match this sight of him with the one of being threatened, belitted if the mischief god had gotten his way. The pieces don't fit. Loki had been so narcissistic that it was sickeningly unhealthy.
Clint flickers between emotions, without understanding where they come from.
Hate. Shouldn't he hate Loki?
Becoming more surly with each passing second, he realizes he feels sorry for him. It makes him angry, because this is the guy who toyed with his mind and caused him to kill people.
People he knew.
If Natasha hadn't been so skilled, he might've killed her too.
"I have to go. This is pissing me off."
No one objects as he quickly leaves the room.
Tony wants to curl up in a little ball and drink. Every time he sees someone in a state like that, a country an ocean away comes into memory, of a man named Yinsen. Sitting in a vehicle about to be decorated with bullets, dead soldiers protecting him. Because he had created a weapon capable of immense death, he caused innocent people to die.
Though Loki must have been through a different brand of hell to do that.
Loki's vision dips in ink and out again.
Where was he again?
Shapes move around him, and he tries desperately to hear the yelling through thick walls that he should be trying to get away, but he feels so drained.
Is he in the healing rooms at the castle? He can't be, because he can't sense the seidr flowing through him. Loki was in those rooms so often when he was younger...
The truth hits him with a rebound.
They found him.
He wasn't supposed to use his magic during his punishment, if he did so, S.H.I.E.L.D had been given permission to bring him into their custody. Panic courses through his veins like lighting, as he strains to do anything. It worsens when he realizes they are all around him, definitely ready to restrain him if he gives them any trouble.
"His heart rate is going up quickly."
"Sedate him, I can't even figure out his damn anatomy. We'll have to bring him back."
Helpless, he feels so tired after a prick in his right forearm enters the skin. No fighting back this time.
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