The antique store's bathroom was probably one of the grosser ones that Max had seen in her history of low-paying employment. The mirror was spotty with water marks and dust, and there were a number of smudges that she didn't want to hazard a guess as to their origins. The garbage basket beside the once white—now grey—sink was in desperate need of a change, and the toilet had a dark brown ring in the bowl that made her hesitate before she sat down.
Her bladder, on the other hand, was far less hesitant than her brain, and before long, she was holding herself up on the seat and feeling sweet relief. She probably smelled pretty atrocious, and since she and Loki had never discussed what abilities he gained as a god, she wasn't sure how pungent her non-showered body was to him. He seemed to show no outward signs of disgust—so very considerate of him—but Max really wished she could sink into a steaming bathtub and bury herself with suds. For now, the questionable bar of soap beneath the mirror would have to do, and Max wasted countless paper towels in her effort to scrub every inch of visible skin—armpits included.
Her blouse was basically done for. The sweat stains under her arms were never going to come out, and there was the black blood of her enemies splattered across the expensive material. Her sweatpants seemed to be holding up a little better under the grimy conditions, but seeing as they were dark grey, they hid the stains better than anything else would. She wished she had a hair elastic around her wrist to manage her progressively greasy locks, but a quick bout of finger-combing with some water made her feel better.
When she finished grooming, Max hovered over the sink, hands gripping the porcelain bowl. Thick brown hair curtained her face—she planned to get it cut next week. It was annoying to plan around her work schedule, but she decided that she would get her hair done this Friday because she and Pat were going to try a new club. They both had the next day free. She bought a dress and everything.
Max shut her eyes, taking a few moments to inhale and exhale when she felt the tremors return. Her elbows shook the most, under both the weight of her upper body and the stress of her situation. Feeling somewhat faint, even with the cold chicken churning in her stomach, she turned on the tap and cupped her hands, gulping down some lukewarm water. The liquid managed to get her head right, and after drying everything one last time, Max opened the door and flicked off the lights.
On her way to the bathroom earlier, she heard Loki asking for privacy from the sentries out front; the thought that they wanted to watch whatever he was going to do to her made her sick—it made her angry. As she returned, Max was pleased to no longer see their hulking forms looming on the other side of the door, but she assumed they hadn't gone far. She glanced at Loki, and then stopped dead in her tracks, gasping without meaning to.
Loki was standing there one moment, and in the next, there was two of him. Identical twins. Identical gods. Identical right down to the last detail of his fraying wardrobe. She blinked a few times, wondering if the sleep deprivation was starting to make her loopy, but when Loki looked at her sharply—one of them looked at her, that is—she realized this was not a hallucination.
"What…?" She licked her lips, pointing at his second self. "What is this?"
"Magic," he said quietly, cracking his knuckles and stretching upward. "Magic will be our escape. I'm still not strong enough to simply whisk us away, so this will have to do."
Max swallowed thickly, the light-headedness returning for a moment. "What will have to do?"
"A distraction," he told her, smirking when her eyebrows shot up. "My replicas require very little of my concentration, and they can act on their own so long as I acknowledge them."
She stared for a moment, eyes darting between the two Lokis standing in front of her, and then nodded. "Right."
"There are fewer soldiers today," he continued, taking a step back and shutting his eyes. He inhaled deeply, the sound making Max tense, and on the exhale, his duplicate split into a duplicate of his—its—own. It was like one of those videos of cells dividing in her old biology lectures, and it was highly unsettling.
"So we're going to overwhelm them with Lokis?"
"We're going to distract them," he said, his tone clipped. "Try to keep up, Max."
"Go fuck yourself."
The demand was less harsh now than it had been when she originally said it, and she swore she saw his lips quirk upward while he observed his two replicas.
"I suspect they will be moving to a more permanent location before the sun sets," Loki muttered. "I noticed them packing up supplies earlier… Now that the violent human has been detained…" He shot her a look. "They can go about their business as usual."
"Good for them."
"It really is, actually." He turned to face her again, beckoning her closer with a small nod. "There will be fewer to chase us."
"Because they'll be busy chasing… you? You plural?"
She worked it out slowly, taking a few steps closer to the original Loki. Her eyebrows furrowed as she surveyed the other two versions of Loki, each one moving and acting on their own. It was like they were on a loop: look left, right, fiddle with cape—which moved realistically—and then spare a glance in her direction.
"They will be chasing me." He had made another replica while she was busy studying the first two, and Max stepped out of the way as the third sidled up to the others. "They will wonder which is the real me, and when they catch one of these, they… Well, touch one."
"I… I don't want to touch him," she told him. She folded her arms over her chest as she surveyed the nearest fake-Loki, and she heard the real one sigh unecessarily.
"Max, you…" He trailed off when she looked at him, eyebrows up, and his eyes narrowed. "Do it."
"Fine," she grumbled, taking a step toward the Loki to her left and hesitantly reaching for his arm. However, rather than touching a solid mass, her fingers slipped right through, and she let out an embarrassing "Oh!" in the process.
And then she smiled. She wasn't sure why, but the way Loki was watching her—completely amused with her shock—made her want to laugh. It was unexpected, and Max put her hand through the Loki's chest, which she initially expected to be cold to the touch, and she watched the replica's face contort almost painfully.
"Magic," Loki practically crooned, and when she looked over her shoulder at him, she saw that he too was thrilled with the sight before him. "It's been a very long time since I could do any of this… I learned to duplicate things as a child."
"I learned how to swim without getting water up my nose when I was a kid," Max blurted, genuine awe starting to creep into her expression. "This is amazing."
She meant it—truly and honestly. Now that the shock of seeing double—and not being drunk—wore off, she could actually appreciate the brilliance of what he was able to do. Seeing Thor fly a few years back was the first and only experience she had with real magic, and as she stepped closer to the actual solid Loki, she wondered what else he was capable of now.
Whatever he could do, she hadn't seen any of the invaders whip out a magic wand yet, which meant they had some kind of advantage in their court.
Like before, the happy feelings were only temporary, and as Loki busied himself making several more versions of himself, Max could feel her shoulders slump further and further forward. Even if this plan worked, where were they going to go? What were they going to do? There had to be hundreds of enemy soldiers wandering around the streets of Manhattan—and Max was close to exhaustion. She wasn't quite done for yet, but she hoped she had more fight in her somewhere.
In a matter of minutes, there was a small army of Loki look-alikes standing around her, and she actually lost the real one in the herd. Frowning, she held out her arms and walked until she touched the only solid Loki of the bunch, though the rest reacted rather distastefully whenever she walked through them.
"I hope they can run fast," she muttered, arms folded across her chest as the real Loki gazed down at her. "Those guys put up a hell of a chase."
"They will be able to run as fast as I will them to," he told her. "When you and I eventually leave, do not be upset if my attention is elsewhere."
"I'll get over it somehow."
His lips quirked upward again, but Max stilled when she thought she saw a shadow looming in the doorway. It must have been a trick of the sun, which appeared to be poking through the cloud cover at last, because there was no one in sight when she stood up on her tip-toes for a better view. The other Lokis may have been gaseous in texture, but she wished they were a little easier to look through—it was a little overpowering to be surrounded by this many people, magic or not.
"You will have a small part to play in our escape," Loki insisted. Max nodded slowly: it was only fair that she do something here. "Fall out the door as if I am encroaching upon you. Can you do that?"
"Yes."
"Good."
"And where are we going to go when it's finally our turn to run?" Max asked, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. He frowned momentarily, and then brushed the question off.
"We will determine that based on the scenario outside."
"Fair enough."
They fell silent, and when Max looked back at him, he was staring at her in disbelief.
"What?"
"Well, I thought we were getting started," he snapped, pointing toward the door, "but if you'd like to stand here and wait for them to discover us in a room full of my replicas—"
"Sorry, I thought you were busy making more Lokis," she shot back, throwing her arms up in the air. "You could have let me know you were done being a splitting atom."
"Just go."
"Fucking hell," she grumbled, marching through a series of duplicates, waving the magical smoke out of her face in the process. Once she had cleared the group, she took a shaky, deep breath, and then turned back. Sure enough, one of the replicas approached her, and his expression was sterner than she had ever seen Loki—literally ever. It would have frightened her if he hadn't been a fake, but it wasn't difficult to look nervous as she stumbled backward toward the door.
He moved quickly, practically floating after her, and although she wasn't the greatest actress in the world, she was able to make her "accidental" fall through the shop's front door look realistic. She stumbled on the bottom of her trackpants, and when she clung to the door's handle, swinging to the side with it, she saw that the guards had moved temporarily to the edge of the farthest window. They were seated on the ledge sharing a drink, and when Max fell out, they both looked up sharply.
She didn't need to say anything. As her bare feet fumbled on the concrete, Loki's replica shot by her, racing passed the guards at an almost inhuman speed. Max tried to look just as shocked as her captors were, and as they rose to their feet, she scrambled back inside while another two Lokis made their run for freedom.
"Maybe stagger them a little?" she suggested as she hurried back to the original Loki, who was sending out his magical clones in such a flurry of movement that it made her need to lean against something.
"No," he remarked, his eyes on the front windows. "This needs to be done quickly."
"Are they all going in different directions at least?"
He finally looked at her, so completely and utterly unimpressed with the question that Max actually felt a little dumb. Whatever. A lack of sleep, food, and all the horror she had seen in the last two days justified the occasional silly question.
"Go to that side," he ordered suddenly, and Max darted across the room. When he motioned toward her, she crouched down behind one of the ornate chairs, clutching its side. Loki, meanwhile, grabbed a fire iron from the set by the fake mantel, and before Max could get another word in, he was forced to use it. A lone guard strode in, and Loki slammed the iron rod into his head so soundly that his helmet cracked.
Max covered her mouth with her hands to keep from making a sound and then sunk behind the chair as Loki continued pummeling the guard. The man's screams sounded otherworldly, but they were short-lived. When she was sure it was over, she hauled herself to her feet and stepped forward—they needed to go.
There were no words for the absolute devastation that Loki wrecked on the man's body. There was black blood everywhere. His clothes were ripped, his teeth were gone, and every finger was crooked at an odd angle. Loki appeared fine; his expression was steely, but there were no marks on him—the guard didn't even get a swing in before he died.
"Let's go." She couldn't move. Her body was paralyzed as she stared at the broken mess of a human—no, not a human—on the ground in front of her. When he spoke again, Loki's voice was less distant, more in the present moment, and Max snapped to attention. "Now, Max."
"Yup."
She followed him toward the door, sidestepping the body and pools of blood. Her face felt numb. In fact, every part of her body did, and her legs were starting to get a little wobbly. She took a deep breath, stopping when Loki did in the doorway, and then jumped up and down for a moment: spread the adrenaline everywhere, because she was going to need it.
"Stay close," he said over his shoulder. "Tell me if you cannot keep up and I will slow down."
"Okay."
More running. She had done more running in the last two days than she had done all year, and she wasn't sure how her legs were keeping up with the workload. Still, this was survival, and she knew the effort was a necessity.
Fire poker in hand, Loki stepped out of the store gingerly with Max on his tail. It appeared that the majority of the soldier population had scattered, hopefully off chasing alternate versions of Loki. There were a few lingering: two hurrying into the entrance of her museum and four standing on the other side of the cage—they appeared to be in conversation.
She tugged on his cape, and when he glanced back irritably, she pointed toward the caged prisoners. Loki shook his head, beckoning her to follow him in the opposite direction, but she stopped.
"We should help them."
"That is not our responsibility, Max."
"Well, no one else is going to do it!" She thought of the man who stood up for her, the one who probably broke a few fingers for his courage, and she didn't feel right leaving him in there while she ran for freedom. "Loki, just break the—"
"They'll see," he hissed, taking her by the wrist and yanking her away. "Come along."
"No—"
"Max!" He whirled back and came down to her eye-level, which made her words catch in her throat. "This is no time for human morality or civility. If you want to leave, we need to leave… now."
She knew he was right, of course, but her conscience didn't want to listen. "But…"
In the end, Loki's reasoning won out, and he pulled her along without another word. They crept by the food tent quietly—it smelled like rotted flesh, and Max swallowed down her nausea.
She thought they were in the clear once they passed the very last tent in the row, but it was then that she heard a gunshot. A store window by her left shoulder shattered; without looking back, Loki started to run. She tried to keep up, but his legs were too long and his pace too quick. They tore down the narrow street, avoiding gunfire and bits of rubble in the process. Her feet were screaming as they pounded against the pavement, but Max kept her eyes on Loki's back: all she needed to do was keep up.
He slowed at the street corner, and when she was close enough, he held out his hand for her. Max took it, glad that he could just pull her along. Her palm was sweaty—his was not—and Max heard a rabble of voices behind them; they had escaped, but their freedom could be short-lived.
Loki paused again. Max hid behind him, panting so hard that her chest hurt, and she watched as two uniformed guards rounded the corner behind them. The fire poker came in handy again—this time as a spear. Loki's aim was incredibly precise: he hurled the iron tool across the distance between them and the enemy, and Max peered out from under his arm just in time to see it impale a man in the neck. His companion stopped to help him, laying the injured guard down and tugging on the fire poker.
"Good shot." Loki said nothing to her meek praise. Instead, he took her by the hand again and pulled her down the street. There were no other people to be seen, but Max wasn't looking for people—she had her eyes peeled for dark uniforms and men with guns, but definitely not people.
When they turned on to Park Avenue, it seemed their luck had changed. Loki suddenly fell to his knees, squeezing her hand so hard that she swore something cracked.
"Ow!" She only managed to get her hand free because it was sweaty enough to slip out of his grip. "What? What's wrong?"
He responded with a strangled howl, eyes clenched shut and mouth contorted.
"Loki!"
"I t-told you," he ground out. "The… The pain would…"
He groaned, collapsing down on the sidewalk while Max stared at him. She didn't know what to do—not one bit. The cement split when he slammed his fist against it, and for a moment, Max simply watched his writhe in agony.
And in that moment, she realized she could just leave him there. She could turn and run; she might have been a "violent human", but he was the one they were after. There were plenty of nearby buildings she could hide in—they'd probably stop looking once they found Loki.
But she couldn't do that. Apparently, human morality had a part to play in every situation. Her eyes narrowed at him, and as she heard a clamor from the nearby avenue, she grabbed him by the cape and tried to tug him upward.
"Get up," she ordered, speaking to him over the sounds of his agony. "Push through it and get up!"
He felt like a pile of bricks when she tried to haul him to his feet by his arm—she didn't remember him being this heavy.
"If you don't get up, they're going to find us, and I can't fight them off," she tried to sound reasonable, not hysterical, but her voice kept cracking and breaking. "Loki, they'll take you back and they'll probably just kill me… Please, get up!"
That seemed to get through to him. Max couldn't imagine the kind of pain he was in, but that couldn't be a factor in their escape. He managed to push his body up—without her help, though she tried all the same—but once he was on his feet, he collapsed onto her. His sheer heaviness made her knees buckle, and Max winced when they slammed onto the sidewalk.
"Come on, man," she hissed, pushing up against him. He was sprawled across her back, groaning and panting, and Max tried to lift with her legs—unsuccessfully. "You're a god, for fuck's sake!"
His second attempt to stand was marginally better, and Max wrapped his arm around her to help keep him stable.
"We need to get it out," he managed. "It's… They control it… It's in my mouth."
"What?"
Her ears perked when she heard voices—much closer this time—and she let out a shaky breath.
"Okay, okay, we'll… we'll deal with it," she muttered, her fingertips digging into his side when he started to buckle again. "We'll hide for now… Here."
She nodded toward a plumbing supplies store, and Loki moved with what appeared to be an excessive amount of effort. Just as they walked up to the door, Max heard a siren shrieking in the distance—either something had gone wrong, or they were announcing Loki's disappearance to the city. Trembling under both the weight of her anxiety and Loki, Max tried the front door of the shop—it was locked.
"For fuck's sake," she cried, rattling the handle and peering inside. She couldn't see anyone, and it seemed the owners had the good sense to lock up their wares before they made a run for it. "Come on!"
Loki grunted meekly, leaning on her so heavily that she felt like falling again, and then slammed his fist into the Plexiglas door. The thing shattered in an instant, and Max let him tumble inside on his own. She hurried in after him, crying out when shards of the door stuck in her feet, but she soon found a place behind the cash desk that offered them enough protection from the front windows. Loki hunched up in the corner—mostly because he was too big to fit under the counter comfortably—and Max crouched at his side, her hand on his shoulder.
He hissed to the touch, but when she saw shadows cross over the wall, she planted a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet. She could feel him shaking, see the pain in his eyes, and while she just wanted to help, it was more important that they stay hidden.
She held her breath when she heard someone at the door, and Max wished she had locked them in a bathroom or back office—this wasn't a very good hiding spot. She placed her other hand over Loki's mouth when he groaned weakly, shooting him a very pointed look to keep quiet, but it seemed like he couldn't help himself.
"Someone spotted the girl two streets over," a voice stated suddenly, and Max ducked her head down when she realized how close they were. "He can't be far away."
The voices trailed off shortly after, but Max kept Loki pinned under the counter for a long time. His eyes were starting to water, and when she was sure they were gone, she hesitantly poked her head out to check. With her hands off him, Loki turned onto his side, face screwed in agony.
"Okay, okay, they're gone," she murmured, coming back to his side. "Let me see it. Can we get it out?"
"They… They put it in," he stated through gritted teeth. "I am sure we can remove it too."
"Right," she nodded, trying her best to speak in a soothing voice. "Let's see it then."
She helped him settle onto his back, though he flinched every time she touched him. Once he was relatively flat, she waited for him to open his mouth, kneeling by his head. The lighting wasn't the greatest, but even without it, Max could see the festering black molar—she assumed that was the source of the pain. The gums around it were inflamed and red, and the tooth appeared to be too big for the hole it was slotted into.
"Oh my god…"
"F-Find something to pull it out with," he instructed, brushing her hands away from his mouth. "Hurry..."
She nodded, but as soon as she was up, her knees buckled: there were still pieces of Plexiglas stuck in her feet. After picking them out, ignoring the way Loki cursed profusely nearby, Max hobbled around the store to find something that might be useful. In the end, she found two pairs of pliers that seemed to be the right size, but she had no idea how she was going to pull a tooth out of someone's mouth.
On her way back to the cash counter, she realized she had been leaving faint bloody footprints all over the store's white floor. She checked both feet: they were bleeding, but it wasn't horrible yet. The pain was manageable, but each step made it just a little bit worse.
"Here," she whispered as she kneeled down beside him again. Loki had rolled onto his side again. "I think these are the best shot we have… Everything else is too big."
"Do it quickly." He eased himself on to his back and opened his mouth. She licked her lips, a pair of the smaller pliers in hand, and then took a deep breath. "Max, do it."
"Okay, okay," she hissed, resisting the urge to smack him. "I'm working up to it."
Pushing his mouth open by his chin, Max stuck the damn plier in there and tried to get the clamps around the tooth. Unfortunately, she nicked the gum on the first go, which made him flail and groan, and she winced: this was going to be even more difficult than she anticipated.
He glared up at her as she tried a few more times to get at the tooth, his hand digging painfully into her leg, and she huffed at him.
"I don't pull people's teeth out for fun," she practically shouted at him, her pent-up frustration and stress at a breaking point. "Don't look at me like that!"
He shoved her away and took the pliers from her hand. "I'll do it myself then."
Both of their strength was required to get him into an upright position against the wall, and Max practically straddled one of his legs so that she could get at the proper angle to help him.
"We'll do it together," she told him as he groped blindly for the tooth. "You're stronger than I am… I'll just… I'll help."
He nodded weakly, and Max watched him search for the tooth with the pliers this time. Once he had it, he started to yank, and she saw the agony in his eyes. He seemed to be trying to keep quiet, but she could only imagine how overwhelming it was to pull out your own tooth with no anesthetic.
She crooked her arm around his elbow and started to pull, using all of her dwindling strength to help. For everything that she put in, she wasn't sure how much she actually helped. It took them both twenty minutes to get the damn thing out, and when the last tendril ripped from his gum, Max practically fell to the side as Loki hurled all of it over the cash desk and out of sight with a shout. He then doubled over again, blood spilling from his parted lips.
"Thank you."
She propped herself up on her elbows and nodded. "Yeah, sure."
He spat a mouthful of blood on the floor, coughing a little in the process, and then nodded toward her feet. "You're bleeding."
"I know," she said. "So are you."
They stared at one another for a moment, and she wondered who looked more exhausted. Swallowing thickly, she pushed herself up and staggered through the store in an effort to find a first aid kit. The back office was open, but the only medical supplies she found were a few small bandages, and they weren't going to do her any good. She cleaned up the bleeding in an employee bathroom, and in the end, she grabbed a roll of duct tape from the owner's desk and started to peel off a few strips.
It definitely hurt to put duct tape over a cut, but at least it would keep the dirt out. She wrapped both feet thoroughly, glancing up when she heard Loki rummaging around the store just outside of the office door. It was a small room, similar to Glenn's office, and Max wondered if this guy was as paranoid as her boss was: a hidden gun somewhere would have been a nice find.
"Nothing here is a suitable weapon," Loki announced, appearing in the doorway so suddenly that she jumped. He glanced down at her feet, which were now wrapped in grey tape. "What are you doing?"
"I don't have shoes or socks," she told him, "and I can't just walk around with bloody feet. This will be fine until I can find something to wear."
"Will it?"
"How's your mouth?" She noticed that he had cleaned the blood away, but his right cheek was a little swollen. He touched it tenderly.
"Painful," he admitted, "but I have felt worse. It will be fine soon… Healed by tomorrow, I believe."
"I wish I could heal that quickly." She finished wrapping her left foot and set the duct tape down on the desk beside her. "You know, you should take that cape off."
"Why?"
"It's like a giant beacon to let everyone know you're you," she said, nodding toward the garment. "No one wears capes here."
"Hmm." He reached back and tore the fabric loose, tossing it aside. The clothes he wore beneath were simple and black with a few metallic details. She studied the outfit brazenly: he looked like he should be in a movie.
"I don't think we should stay here," she said after the silence dragged on for too long. "There's nothing to eat and, like you said, no weapons."
"I agree." He extended his hand to her. "Come along."
Max would have preferred to stay seated, but she was soon on her feet with her hand in his. They didn't link fingers, not like they used to, but she gripped him for support. Her feet were sore, and the duct tape tugged at all the wrong places, but she would rather have that than nothing at all.
"So where are we going?" she asked as they walked by a bathroom display.
"We'll hide in Stark's tower."
Max looked up at him sharply.
"That building has been empty ever since I moved here," she told him. "Tony Stark doesn't live in Manhattan anymore."
"Where is he?"
"Nobody knows, really," Max said with a shrug. "It's all over the gossip columns… No one has seen him for a long time."
She hadn't received a single cent from Tony Stark for almost a year now—not that she was complaining, but his continued financial support definitely would have made her bank account a little less depressing. Loki was quiet as he stewed over her news, but he carried on toward the broken door all the same.
"We will go to the tower nonetheless," he said decidedly, kicking the broken bits of Plexiglas out of her path. "I suspect that it is the safest place in the city."
"It's across town," she argued, stepping behind him as they passed through the narrow door, hands still clasped. "It's all the way across town and it's got ridiculous security." According to the papers, anyway.
"That won't be a problem."
"Loki." She groaned softly and rolled her eyes. "We shouldn't go there."
"This is not a discussion, Max." Her eyes narrowed a little. "That is where we are going."
"We don't have to go anywhere, you know…"
He stopped and looked back at her, frowning, but before she could say anything else, a lone voice shouted at them. Lo and behold, dozens of uniformed men were on the other side of the lush traffic divider—Max could see their faces through the bushes and trees.
"How many are there?" she asked as Loki's head turned in both directions, perhaps trying to decide which way to run. "In total?"
"Too many."
He opted to go left, and Max tried her best once again to keep up with his long strides. They raced passed brown brick buildings, iron gates, metal newspaper stands, and forgotten garbage cans. There were empty cars scattered everywhere on the streets, but still she saw no people—no one except for the uniformed horde chasing after them.
Then something caught her eye.
"Wait!"
She stopped abruptly, but Loki seemed not to realize and the sheer force behind his momentum actually popped her shoulder out of its socket. Max shrieked in pain as Loki whirled back, and she ripped her hand from his to clutch her shoulder. The pain was stronger than anything she had experienced over the last two days, but before the first few tears could reach her chin, Loki hauled her aside and popped the limb back into place—which was almost equally painful.
"What?" he snarled, shaking her as she wiped the tears away. "What is so important?"
"The subway," she whimpered, pointing down the narrow avenue to a staircase. "We can go underground… It'll be harder for them to keep up with us in the tunnels."
He was hesitant—unwilling, even—but the soldiers were too close for any other ideas. They could keep running, but Max knew she couldn't go much farther without a more substantial rest. So, he took her hand again and practically dragged her to the stairwell, and they descended into the brightly lit underground together.
She prayed they wouldn't find more soldiers belowground than aboveground.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Hello darlings! I was so thrilled that people were pleased with Loki and Max's reunion! I wanted there to be chemistry, but discomfort on both sides, and I think I accomplished that. I've got some more Max POV chapters lined up, but I'm eager to do a Loki one soon so I can get his perspective on everything out there too.
Now, you know me—I do try for realism. I've been to Manhattan once a few years ago, but that's not enough for me to make it 10000% accurate. I'm using Google Maps and whatnot for street descriptions and locations, and while I'm mentioning streets that are recognizable, I'm trying not to be too accurate with that. If I did give exact locations, I feel like I'd get something wrong that someone would point out. Native Manhattanites, I'm more than willing to take some advice on the subway system. I was too chicken-shit to go from the airport to the downtown area to meet my friend when I went, so whatever you have to offer is appreciated. Not that I've never been in a subway before, I just haven't been in one in NYC.
I cabbed from the airport. I regret it. Anyway.
Oh, and I've always been under the impression that Loki's magical clones were completely not solid. At all. So sometimes I've seen smutty fics where there's two Lokis and a woman, and I just... Maybe I'm totally wrong, but that's how I interpreted things.
People asked about Pepper's fate, and while I thought I was fairly clear on things, I guess I wasn't. I will spell it out—black and white—later in the story, but I dropped (and will drop) some clues here and there about what's happening with the Avengers and Pepper etc. We're learning as Max is, so things are a little murky right now.
Just like trying to figure out how much Nolan-angst to give Max right now, I'm still debating how much "Max's body hurts like hell" to put into description places. She's not a superhero. She's barely in shape. All of her energy is coming from the need to survive right now, so yeah… There's that.
I'm going to update my other Loki story before I do another update for this one, but I'll try to get working on it next week sometime. MUCH LOVE, DARLINGS!