They had worked so hard to cover up all the manholes in Times Square. It was Johnny's favourite place to fly out of: he liked the drama of the city around him, of the lights and buildings and advertisements. When noon struck, he shot through metal and concrete and wooden barriers, and he painted the sky with fire, his head spinning from the hit. Johnny shook it off, hovering above Manhattan on that clear morning—afternoon?—with the intention of knocking everything and anything out of the sky.
A helicopter challenged him first. It rumbled around the Baxter Building briefly, and then raced toward him with its guns blazing. He grinned, feral and hungry, and tore across the blue horizon to meet his opponent. The bullets were easy to dodge, but he knew the blades might do some damage if he flew too close. And so, a vicious game of cat and mouse started, with Johnny and the helicopter chasing one another across the skyline. He paused briefly when three explosions shook Central Park, his sister's name on his lips, but then flew off when a barrage of bullets whizzed by his head, his shoulder, his side.
Sue was a big girl—she could take care of herself. He took out the helicopter by damaging its tail, throwing the whole thing off balance and pushing it until the pilot couldn't get it back under control. The copter plummeted into the East River when it was all over, rocking the waters and the boats that raced over choppy waves. He had half a mind to fly across to Brooklyn to check on the Captain, but there were no eruptions there, no plumes of smoke in the air that weren't made in Reed's lab.
Manholes and subway entrances hemorrhaged people. They spilled up and out, and Johnny watched the violence from a bird's eye like he always did. At one point, he spotted Loki and Ben leading a group of people by the Russian Vodka Room, a favourite of his when the city wasn't overrun by Paga-whatever the hell they were called.
He didn't have much time to loiter around. Despite the air being thick with smoke from the park and smog from Reed's weapons, six fighter jets somehow found their way onto his tail. They were faster than the helicopter, and their aim was definitely more accurate. Johnny raced across the sky, managing to trick two into colliding just enough to knock them out of the air, but that wasn't going to be good enough and he knew it. His initial goal was to lure them away from the city, but he knew he couldn't go further inland or he'd spoil the Captain's plan to send out crop-dusters loaded with the serum.
Going out to sea didn't seem like the greatest of plans either suddenly—why hadn't he thought this through more? Whenever they talked about it, they always glossed over the details of Johnny's position for the day: take out air support was pretty vague, thank you very much.
A third jet went out in a firestorm. Johnny hid in the black smoke swirling up from Central Park, and when a jet was near enough, he extinguished himself and dropped through the sky, managing to catch the sleek exterior of the aircraft before it blitzed off. When he lit back up, he threw everything he had into ramming a fist into the fuel tank, and then shot across the sky in the explosion that followed. He knew it was poor planning to just let burning airplane parts rain down from the sky, but it was better than having the fuckers in the air at all.
He landed on the roof of a skyscraper, bouncing across the gravelly surface as his flames extinguished. The explosion knocked more out of him than he would have expected, and when he gathered his wits again, a fighter jet was barreling down on him through the smoky air. He lit back up, staggered to his feet, and prepared to tackle it head on.
Only he didn't have to.
This time, like a time that felt very long ago, a blur of red and gold pushed the plane out of the way, out of the sky. Johnny hovered back in the air, and then let out a slow breath when he watched Iron Man bury the jet in the side of a building. The man resurfaced a few moments later, and Johnny noticed streams of white-green smoke coming out of his hands and feet as he propelled himself through the air.
"Come to see if we're using your stuff properly?" he shouted over the roar of the city below. Stark hovered in front of him for a moment. His face covering retracted suddenly, and Johnny was pleased to say that the man looked slightly less intoxicated than he had the last time they met.
"Have you seen a big green guy anywhere?"
"Not yet, no."
"Huh."
"There's still another jet—"
"There are eight coming in from the Atlantic—"
"British military," Johnny insisted. "On the Cap's orders…"
Tony Stark stared at him for a moment, both men hovering by the smouldering skyscraper. The jet's engine cut out finally, and it was slightly easier to hear.
"Well, we're never going to be able to live that down, are we?" Johnny couldn't tell if the man was trying to be funny—there was no humor in his voice. Still, Stark's lips quirked up into a sort-of smirk. He then held a hand to his ear, and his helmet closed.
Johnny whirled around at the sound of the other alien jet, and the duo hurled themselves after it together.
"That's it, that's my last can," Loki insisted, holding up his two empty bags for the onslaught of subway people to look at. "I don't have anything else to give."
"They said you'd be giving it out!"
He turned his hardened stare at the man who spoke up, and he watched the human's bravado falter when their eyes met. Eyebrow quirked, Loki tossed the empty bags on the ground, and then pointed toward his rocky companion.
"Perhaps he has a few left. We distributed a number of boxes filled with canisters to your leaders." He watched a few men drift toward Ben, who peered around the corner of a building when gunshots echoed somewhere nearby. "It's hardly my responsibility to see that the weapons were distributed properly."
"Well, what are we supposed to use then?"
These men weren't warriors. They were a variety of shapes and sizes, different skin colours—there was even a woman or two amongst them. But few had much muscle mass to them, and even fewer knew how to hold a weapon properly. Thus far, Ben and Loki had done all the heavy lifting. The cluster of men who followed them fought with gas, and when they encountered a squadron of Pagurolid warriors wearing gas masks, it was Loki's duty to dispense with them.
This was why an all-out assault on the planet would have been easy if there were no superhumans to defend it. They were all so unsure of themselves, these regular people, and none of them had even come close to impressing Loki thus far. Ben was an adequate warrior, considering the limitations his physical form had for mobility. Johnny's stream of fire coloured the hazy sky, and Loki had every confidence that the man could handle militant aircraft on his own—which could hardly be said for the group traipsing after him through the city. If anything, these people were a burden, dead-weight.
There was no oncoming army of Pagurolids, which meant the gas had done its job. However, the roving gangs of masked warriors could prove to be a problem if they weren't dealt with swiftly and severely—and Loki had managed to do just that thus far.
The man in front of him repeated the question as Loki scanned the nearby intersection, ears perked at the sound of increased gunfire. The man's scoff caught his attention, and he turned sharply to face him, needing to tilt his head down to meet the man's gaze.
"What are you supposed to do?" he sneered, looking the man up and down slowly. He then stalked toward a metal gate in front of a narrow building, one he assumed housed people who could afford to live in the area, and then wrenched one of the bars off. It took the top half of the gate with it, and Loki stepped on the excess metal, snapping it like a twig. When he finished, he shoved the newly-made spear into the man's hand.
"The sharp end goes in the alien," Loki noted. "Did it not occur to you that you might actually become physical to free your city from these vermin?"
He watched the man's hand tighten around the rod, but he said nothing further. His companions trudged along after him, but one lingered. A flash of white caught his attention, and he watched a group of four medical workers race out of a nearby street with a stretcher between them, a bloody hand dangling over the side. They weren't the first healers he had seen thus far making the rounds in the streets, and he had infinitely more respect for their role in the day than he did for the whiny people who followed him and Ben around.
Whiny, angry, violent people, mind you, which was always a plus. They might have been pointless warriors, but they had enough rage in them to do damage when the odds were in their favour.
"Loki?"
The familiar voice grabbed his attention, and he turned sharply, eyebrows furrowed and eyes searching. Sure enough, the man who lingered was someone he knew: Garret. He pulled off the swatch of material over his mouth, and lifted the black hood that covered his head—and there he was, like they were standing together in Masonville some years ago. Loki blinked back his surprise.
"Garret?"
"Hey, man!"
He was thinner than Loki remembered. Cheekbones stuck out from his face, his eyes encircled by dark rings. Sallow skin was expected when one lived far from the sun for so long, but it was still jarring for Loki to look at. Still, there was warmth in the man's smile, recognition in his eyes. His clothes were too big for him, but it pleased Loki to see him alive.
At first, Garret went to embrace him, like they were brothers in arms, but at the last moment held out his hand instead. Loki gripped it, smiling, and they shook on their meeting.
"So this is… This is you, huh?" Garret looked him over, pointing aimlessly at his wardrobe. "It's… a different look."
"This is me, yes." He wished Max could have been here. He didn't want her anywhere near the street fights, but he knew the calm she would feel when she realized Garret was alive. That alone made him happy to see the man. "Are you well?"
"Could be better," he said with a shrug. "So, in Masonville, were you… you know, all… like this?"
He didn't have a weapon. After Loki had appraised his appearance, it was the first thing he noticed—he was unarmed. Frowning, he knew he'd need to rectify that.
"No." He gestured for Garret to follow him, and he started pulling another iron bar off the gate. "No, I was quite human in Masonville."
"Oh."
"It was my punishment for trying to take control of Earth."
There was a much longer pause this time. "Oh."
"I can assure you I mean no one any harm now that I am restored to my full power." He grunted a little, teeth bared as he yanked the bar from its confines, and then worked it so that Garret had a sharp edge to fight with. "Here."
"Thanks." He watched the man give it a few experimental swings, but there was very little power behind the movement. When he finished, he let his arms rest by his sides, and Loki looked to Ben when a few gunshots sounded too near for comfort.
"You should—"
"Listen, I know it's probably super unlikely, but do you… do you have any idea where Max is?"
Loki noticed a few men pull pistols out of pockets, then crouched low when Ben raised a hand. He tensed.
"She's safe," he said when he saw Garret open his mouth out of the corner of his eye. The man let out a shaky sigh, and Loki clapped him once on the arm, uncomfortable with giving any other sort of comfort. "I saw to her safety. She's fine."
"I heard her on the radio earlier while we were waiting… She sounds good."
"She is good." There wasn't the time to go into detail about Max's state of health, as it was far too complicated for any single word. He knew that his lady was still ill inside: sick from her loss, sore from her exertions—and from him. It wouldn't do anyone any good, however, to stand in the street and have a frank discussion about it. Instead, Loki threw Garret out of the way as a contingent of black-armored warriors surged into their narrow side street, guns firing and masks taunting.
Ben took out two warriors at once, pounding them into the ground as their bullets dug deep into a door. The horde of subway warriors took down three with little help from Loki or Ben: they had guns too. Meanwhile, Loki hurled himself at four fighters at once, both blocking their fire magically and ripping them open physically. His spear gutted and splayed internal organs with finesse, slicing through their protective layering.
He flinched back when a blob of black blood stuck to his cheek, and wiped it away with a disgusted look. The rest of the party fled with subway fighters in hot pursuit. Ben, meanwhile, loitered at the intersection, watching and waiting.
"So." He looked over his shoulder Garret approached him, seeming even paler now than he had been initially. "I'm just going to spend the rest of the day with you… if that's cool?"
"That's… cool," he said, the words feeling thick and heavy in his mouth. Garret's smile made it easier, and the protective air Loki felt as they stood next to one another justified his actions. Max would appreciate the care he took for her friend. "Stay close."
"Will do."
He quickly became Loki's little shadow, doing nothing helpful in the slightest except remind Loki why he was doing any of this at all. They were four blocks down now, and someone had just exclaimed that they saw Iron Man shoot between two buildings. Loki looked up with a sigh, hoping that Stark stuck to his arena and left Loki be.
A cluster of white-uniformed medical workers gathered up the victims from their most recent skirmish, loading them into unmarked cars and racing down the street. According to Garret, the subway folk had been working on the city's hospitals for almost three weeks now, and this was just the opportunity they needed to make them completely operational with little fear of alien violence.
"Garret?"
"Hmm?"
Loki helped the man haul a few dead aliens into the pile that had started on a street corner. The serum was starting to make the street-level hazy now, not just the sky, and he blinked away the slight sting in his eyes.
"How's your wife?"
He dropped the legs of the dead human suit he was holding, and Loki cleared his throat.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly, tossing the body onto the pile. Garret's help didn't really do much here either: Loki could lift six of these bodies on his own without a hint of strain. Still, he assumed Garret liked to feel useful. "I didn't mean to bring up anything painful—"
"She might be fine," the man croaked, wiping under his eyes with a shrug. "I mean… They took her after we were first brought to Central Park, and I haven't seen her since. So… She could be fine."
"I'm sure she is."
"Yeah." He didn't sound or look convinced. In fact, Loki tackled the next few bodies on his own as Garret sat on the curb, head in hands. The streets were quieter now, less gunfire and shrieking. The people milling about were without masks and breathing the gassed air, which were all positive signs. Down the street, there was a fast food restaurant tentatively handing out basic meals to hungry fighters.
"Seems to be settling down," Ben said as he approached the duo. Garret looked up briefly before burying his head back in his hands, and Loki shrugged when his rocky companion pointed a fat finger at the hunched man. "Maybe we should head to the park to check on Sue."
"We should look into the tunnels next." He nodded at a subway entrance nearby. While there were regular humans standing at the top of the staircase, he had a sinking suspicion that they wouldn't be completely in the clear down below. "If humans hid down there, it stands to reason that Pagurolids would look for cover there too."
"Haven't heard nothing about trouble from anyone yet," the creature mused. "Maybe we should—"
A nearby building's wall erupted, rock and glass spraying out into the streets. People shrieked, and Loki braced himself for the impact of an explosion—but nothing came. Instead, a green blur replaced the flames, and as the crowds cleared, Loki realized what had caused the damage.
The big green ape was still alive? His eyes narrowed as he watched the beast pummel alien warriors into the ground, their masks shattered—along with their bones.
"Fuck," Garret hissed, scrambling up the curb and back onto the sidewalk until he was behind Loki. "What the hell is… Is that the Hulk?"
"Never seen him up close before," Ben mused beside him, arms folded. People gave the creature a lot of space, and Loki's eyes narrowed. "Glad to have him here though."
He scoffed loudly, and at that moment he saw the beast's beady little eyes look up at him from across the street. His scowl dropped, and he held his hands up as the beast roared.
"No, no, I'm on your side, you oaf," he shouted, staggering backward as the Hulk flung his massive green body toward him. Ben and Garret were clear, scuttling behind a lamppost nearby, and before Loki could join them, a very solid mass slammed into him, sending them both flying through the shop window behind him.
Superheroes always looked so graceful when they dove off a building. Divers somehow managed to do flips and twirls and spins in the ten seconds they had between a diving board and the pool. Hell, even kids looked somewhat elegant when they flung themselves off a swing.
Max had zero grace as she fell. It was all flailing limbs and screams and watery eyes. She did, however, have the good sense to use Peter's cuffs to stop herself mid-fall. The cable connected to the side of the building, solid and sturdy. Unfortunately, the stop was so abrupt that she felt her teeth knock together, her stomach fly into her throat, her wrists wrench under the pressure. She cried out as she dangled there for a moment, knocking against the concrete siding and scratching her bare arms, and then lowered herself the other two floors to reach the pavement. Landing next to Loki's indent, she unhooked herself and raised her rifle with shaking hands.
Shaking, sweaty, cold hands, hands that almost had no feeling at the moment. Gun up. Target acquired. Shoot.
But she didn't. She stared at the creature encroaching on the kids, and she didn't shoot right away. Franklin shoved his sister under a car, and just as the massive creature lunged for him, Max finally got her shit together long enough to pull the trigger. The first shot hit the alien's armored side, and the second went through his neck. The blood wasn't black this time, but more of a dark amber—almost brown, really. It collapsed to the pavement, twitching, as Valeria screamed. It was a horrible sound, the screaming, and it didn't stop until Max watched Franklin crawl under the car.
Shouldering her rifle, which must have only had about three or four bullets left in the clip, Max needed a minute to calm down again. The streets around her were noisy: gunshots, screaming, car tires screeching. Jet engines rumbled through the smoggy air somewhere high above, and she flinched when she heard something crash into a building somewhere. Glass shattered, concrete fell, the earth rumbled, and Max doubled over—the adrenaline was making her nauseous.
As always, deep breaths seemed to help, though her head was spinning when she straightened up. Franklin managed to persuade Valeria to get out from under the car, and Max stalked torward them, not quite feeling her legs in the meantime.
"What," she demanded, grabbing Franklin's arm and dragging him away from his sister, "were you thinking?! Why would you come out here?!"
"You are really good at shooting—"
"Franklin!" She shook him harder than she meant to, and she spotted Valeria crying over his shoulder. Exhaling deeply, Max let him go and picked her up. The little girl was shaking harder than she was, snot bubbling at her nostrils and a steady stream of tears running down her face. Max used her shirt to wipe everything off as best she could, and then straightened when she heard gunshots somewhere nearby.
There was too much noise for her to keep track of, on the ground and in the sky and in her pounding head, and every new sound made her tense. With the rifle's clip digging into her back, she hugged Valeria to her—there was absolutely no way this was her idea. Max whirled around, eyes narrowed at the little boy in front of her, and then pointed to the tower.
"Go."
"I just wanted to help," he argued. "Mom said we needed to help our friends."
"No, no, she wouldn't have said we!" She never thought she could ever be this irate with a kid, but somehow Franklin had brought the worst of her protective rage to the surface. What if they had died before she reached them? What if they had been grievously injured and died on the way to a medical center? Sue would die too—her heart would break and the woman would just die, and Max could never live with that.
"She did!"
"We means people who can actually do something!"
"I can do something!" He lifted the mailbox nearby, making it hover above the ground for a few seconds. "I got the other bad guys!"
"Franklin," Max started, taking a moment to force a calm energy into her tone. She placed a hand on the back of Valeria's head as she crouched down, preferring to meet Franklin's eye. "Franklin, you did a good job with the bad guys, but your powers aren't big enough yet to fight in a war."
"They… are—"
"Well, that's not up for you to decide," she told him. "What would you do if something happened to your sister?"
"I was going to protect her."
Valeria was crying again, and she noticed Franklin was too. She brushed the few tears off his cheek. "I know you would."
That's what brothers were supposed to do. She swallowed down her own emotions, the ones that made her throat tight and her eyes watery, and then forced a smile.
"I know you just wanted to be brave," she assured him, "but we can't be outside. Let's go back in, okay?"
"But…" His shoulders shook, and Max took his hand as she stood.
"There are lots of people out here today to help our friends." She hoped that was the case, anyway. Despite all the noise, their street had been pretty quiet so far, and she didn't want to wait around for it to get busy. "They'll be fine without us."
Valeria was getting heavy, and Max adjusted her on her hip. She needed both hands to comfortably hold the girl, but Franklin clutched her other one so tightly that it didn't seem fair to deprive him of it. Engines roared overhead again, but this time they lingered, circling back close enough to make Max look up. She frowned when she saw the plane cut through the smoke that blotted out the afternoon sunlight—it was closer than any of them had come so far.
She didn't know enough about planes to determine the type of fighter jet. On the other hand, she had enough sense to turn and drag Franklin away from the tower as three missile-shaped rockets shot out of the plane and slammed into the side of the building. It didn't feel real: the running, the hiding behind the nearby car. Valeria wailed in her ear as they crouched behind the tires, and she covered the little girl's ears as her childhood home exploded twenty feet away.
They couldn't stay here. Without saying anything, Max grabbed Franklin's arm and hauled him down the street, trying desperately to outrun falling debris and glass and fire. She screamed when a massive piece of concrete slammed into the road just five feet from her, and then ducked into a small alcove between buildings. Back turned to the explosion, Max held Franklin in front of her, his face pressed to her stomach, and pushed Valeria's into her neck. When that didn't seem like it would be enough, when the dust and ash started to sting the back of her throat, she set Valeria down.
"Cover your faces with your shirts," she ordered, pulling at the necklines. They buried their little ashen faces, and Max pulled them close, hovering over them until the streets stopped shaking, until the world stood still again.
Sirens screamed somewhere nearby. Her hearing felt muffled, and she could actually wipe layer upon layer of dust and dirt off her face. Still, they were all alive, and a little dust in the lungs was better than being dead.
"Are you guys okay?" she asked tentatively, rubbing Valeria's back as she coughed. Franklin nodded and wiped his nose. "Okay… Okay…"
What was she supposed to do now? Her mind was blank—totally and utterly. All her clothes, her things… Sue and Reed's work—gone. All of it gone. Shaking her head, she stood up as her teeth chattered, and then ducked back down when a group of soldiers jogged by with gas masks on.
For fuck's sake.
Her breath stuttered out slowly, and she licked her lips, wincing as she took in a mouthful of dust.
"Okay, this way, this way," she whispered, herding the kids into the small alley between the buildings. She wasn't sure where she was going, but with only a few bullets left and two kids, it had to the in the opposite direction of armed soldiers with gas masks. A commotion started somewhere behind her, perhaps by the tower's ruins, and she picked Valeria up again and took Franklin's hand before jogging away from the noise as fast as she could.
"No, those people are going to Lenox Hill," Sue stated, pointing to a cluster of white-clad medical workers, "and those ones are going to Mount Sinai."
Weren't they supposed to know this? She tried to keep an annoyed expression off her face, but she couldn't keep telling people what they were supposed to do—they were supposed to just do it.
Thankfully, the soldiers wearing gas masks were few and far between, and the Hulk managed to take most of them out before they caused any serious damage. Unfortunately, the number of wounded prisoners was ridiculous: some seventy-five percent of the people they freed needed to be taken to the hospital, and many of the others were so emotionally fractured that it was difficult to get them on their feet.
Still, this was all to be expected. Central Park was key to restoring the city, and from the most recent string of conversations over the walkie-talkies, it seemed like the majority of the aliens were taken out by the first string of gas attacks. The rest of the city was still fighting, but the rest of the city wasn't her concern—that fell to Ben and Loki, and Peter and Reed. Johnny had the sky, and she watched her brother chase airplanes, weaving in and out of the smoke like it was the best day of his life. He lived for this kind of stuff, for the fight, and she had enough confidence in him to know he'd be fine.
Even better when someone exclaimed over the nearest walkie that they just saw Iron Man. She looked to the sky, and while she could hear the roar of an engine, she couldn't see anything anymore.
"Can I get some help here?"
Sue stomped out a smoldering patch of grass as she hurried to help a young EMT load a man onto a stretcher. They were soon joined by another relief worker, and she stepped out of their way to bring the wounded to an ambulance. Sirens had started to scream through the city, but they all knew a big vehicle with flashing lights was an easy target for roving alien groups with guns, and from what she understood, only the most gravely injured rode in an ambulance.
The field was slowly clearing out, but she knew the park would be just as busy as ever. Sighing, she glanced in the general direction of the UN building and wondered how Reed was doing. The building was a great place to catch a lot of important aliens congregating—according to the cameras, anyway—and she knew he was keen to get them all in one fell swoop.
Something rumbled in the distance, and Sue stopped when she felt the ground shake again. Similar to the explosions earlier, the grass quaked below her feet, and she looked up, attempting to find the source of the tremors.
When she found it, she had to do a double-take.
Baxter Building… It was on fire. It smoked and crumbled through the cracks of the taller buildings around it, over the rooftops of the smaller buildings in front of it. She had a clear view from the park—just as the tower had a good view of some of Central Park from the right window at the right angle… sometimes.
But there was no mistaking the smoke now.
"Oh my god…"
Johnny shot by overhead, and Sue tore off after him. She couldn't think. She couldn't focus on the dead weight in her stomach, on the way her eyes stung, on the panic that made her legs weak. Two names rotated through her mind as she ran, bypassing people in need and struggling EMTs.
This last jet was a slippery asshole. He dipped and dove out of Stark's blasts. He swerved to avoid Johnny. He used the smog and smoke as cover. He had good aim.
They lost him for a moment—just a few seconds. He disappeared into the smoke, and the sound of his engine was difficult to track. Stark found him, but Johnny wasn't lucky enough to have a built-in computer around his face. So, when Stark made a sharp turn to the left and whizzed around buildings, Johnny followed.
He arrived just in time to see the missiles fire.
"No!"
Three direct hits, all across the Baxter Building. Top floor—Loki and Max's room. Midway through—the laundry room. The kitchen. It took the missiles and crumbled, and Johnny felt his flames weaken as he watched. Massive slabs of concrete rained down on the street below. Fire. Glass. Everything. His home. Their home.
The kids. Max. His flames went out and he fell. Down, down, down he went, until he lit up again. Stark went after the jet, shooting into the smoke with a loud crack.
There was no way they could survive that… He drifted helplessly to the ground, watching, waiting for a sign. When the majority of the building stopped crumbling, Johnny's feet touched the ground, his fire extinguished and his heart broken.
Boots on the ground.
He whirled back to face the oncoming alien soldiers, faces covered in Cold War gas masks. He let a few bullets fly before lighting up, and he watched them burn to nothing as dust of his old life sprinkled onto the street.
"Here…"
Loki glanced at Garret, his expression sour, and then accepted the tissue. He dabbed the blood around his nose, sniffling a few times to take care of the rest of it.
"Mindless oaf," he muttered, glaring at the green beast. It had taken all of Ben's strength to distract that Hulk-thing long enough to assure him that Loki wasn't fighting for the aliens this time. However, before he managed that, Loki had taken a few solid hits to the face—hits that were hard enough to do some damage. Garret loitered nearby in the aftermath, and it was only now that he stepped forward to offer some help.
Not that Loki expected Garret to do anything, but he wasn't thrilled that the man witnessed him being beaten to a pulp for no reason whatsoever. With the Hulk pulled off him, he'd been watching Ben and the idiot converse nearby. It sounded like a lot of grunting from where he sat on the front steps of an apartment building, nursing his face and his pride.
"That guy really has it out for you, huh?" Garret took a seat next to him, his tone cautious.
"Well, when last we met, I was trying to take over the world," he mused. "I suspect the beast harbors some ill will."
"Seems… reasonable, I guess."
They watched the regular people around them disperse now that the show was over. They headed for the establishment serving food up the street. They sat on park benches. An armed team moved from building to building, and occasionally Loki heard a shot.
It must have been over.
He exhaled softly and tucked the bloody tissue away, feeling better already. Just as he stood, however, his slowly brightening mood vanished as a familiar face slammed into the road, the pavement buckling and cracking beneath him.
"Brother!"
"Oh, for…" Loki hissed a string of profanities under his breath before he turned and stalked away from Thor, who looked unscathed from battle and positively beaming. Of course he would show up now. The people would flock to him, the golden-child of Asgard, for whatever triumphs he earned in the war, and all of Loki's hard work would be undone. Thor was an unwelcome sign of things to come, surely.
"Wait!" He heard the man jogging after him, and he turned on his heel, hands fisted and shaking. "Brother, you look… well."
"Why are you here?"
Thor frowned, his outstretched arms falling to his side, and then shook his head. "For you."
"Why?"
Another pause. When he spoke next, Thor's voice took a deeper tone, one he reserved for serious ventures.
"Because I wanted to see you fighting for Earth," he told Loki. He took a step closer. Loki's lips pressed tightly together to make a thin line. "I knew you'd choose the right side when given a choice, and I wished to see it. The people sing praises to Loki, along with all the other heroes."
For once, he didn't know what to say. No biting retort sat at the tip of his tongue, no sneer or tease. An aircraft zoomed overhead, its engine louder than ever, and Loki broke their stare to look at it.
"I'm so sorry that I didn't look harder for you." He flinched when Thor set a hand on his shoulder, but still said nothing. "I'm sorry to have doubted you."
"Look, pal!" Both of them looked back when Ben's voice cut into their conversation, and Loki noticed the Hulk appeared much more agitated this time. "We need your help, but we want the city in one piece. So either do what I'm telling you, or go turn back to the doc."
"Banner!" Thor called, as if he only just noticed his comrade. Loki's lips pursed: how quickly apologies were over when they were for Loki. "Be at ease, my friend. He speaks the truth. The fighting is coming to an end…"
Garret lost his footing when the ground shook. The aircraft engines roared above, and when Loki looked up, he saw it flying away from something—from smoke and fire and destruction. From a building. The people around him screamed as the pavement trembled, and Thor raised his hammer.
What could the plane have possibly targeted? He had learned of the deaths in Central Park: it seemed that if the Pagurolids couldn't have their war prisoners, no one could. He moved away from Thor, trying to peer between or around buildings that kissed the smoky sky. When he found what might be the source of the explosion, his knees almost buckled.
"Was that… Was that Baxter Building?" Ben asked, appearing at his side after a few thunderous footsteps. "Was that… It's Baxter—"
The creature needn't finish the sentence. They both saw Johnny race across the sky, a trail of flames behind him, and Stark pursued the fleeing aircraft with great haste.
He didn't wait for confirmation. He didn't speak. He ran. Thor called after him, but Thor could wait. Max. Max couldn't wait for him—she didn't have the time.
"Brother, wait!" Thor caught up with him annoyingly fast, grasping his arm and dragging him to a halt. Loki whirled back and shoved against the brute's chest, eyes alight and face stricken with panic.
"I—"
"Tell me where to go," Thor demanded. He wrapped an arm around Loki's midsection, hammer swinging, and shot off into the sky. "Tell me!"
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
OMG STRESS AND TENSIONS I CAN'T TAKE IIIITTTTT!
These last few chapters have been interesting to write, because I've tried to write different scenarios taking place roughly at the same time, and that's been a bit of a challenge. I think it's worked out okay thus far, but that'll be coming to an end in the next chapter or so.
A lot of people asked to see what's happening with Natasha and the Captain and everyone else, but the battle sequence would be five or six chapters long then, and I just don't really want to drag it out for that long. Therefore, I've decided to focus solely on Manhattan and the events that take place with the heroes there—specifically the clusterfuck that's just happened.
I also know people were super pumped for Loki and Thor's reunion, and this seemed really quick, but there are heaps of Loki-Thor interactions in the future, so not to worry!
Anyway, I'm off! I'm on medical leave from work at the moment. I'm okay, but I needed the time off for to adjust to some medications and whatnot. Therefore, I can probably chew out the next chapter by early to mid next week, so keep an eye out for that!
Much love to all my reviewers and silent lurkers alike!