They weren't superheroes in there—the kids were barely superhuman. Franklin was showing the potential to be something more, but he wasn't made of tougher stuff than any other kid. With each crumbling block of concrete, he felt bones break. He felt it in his core. Johnny twitched, eyes blurred with tears, as the tower's supports weakened. Windows continued to crack and shatter, fire and smoke curled from gaping wounds in the side. The dust was unbearable.

He barely flinched when Thor and Loki slammed into the street some twenty feet from him. This was his first meeting with the Thunder God—all he knew about him was what he had read in news reports. However, he couldn't even bring himself to move toward them, to greet either of them, to look for Loki's grief. Johnny stood still, his body too heavy to move.

Loki made him move. He'd never felt the full brunt of the guy until his hands were on him, dangerously close to his neck, and were shoving him back. His back and head hit the underbelly of an overturned car, and he came face-to-face with a snarling god.

"You had one job to do today," Loki sneered, hands fisted in Johnny's blue uniform. He rammed him back against the car. "If you couldn't do it, you should have made that clear—"

"Get off me." Johnny shoved at him, resisting the urge to light up and end it now. The anguish on Loki's face was obvious. "We don't know if… We… They could be fine…"

The words sounded hollow, even to his ears, and he blocked Loki's hand when it went for his throat, but the god was way too strong for him to manage on his own. Luckily, Thor stepped in and hauled Loki off him, but the scuffle between the two was so violent that it was in Johnny's best interest to scramble out of the way. Their blows sounded like a car crash, like tectonic plates shifting. Neither said a word—no hissed insults or pleas for mercy—and when it was over, Thor had Loki's arm pinned behind his back, a hand on the man's shoulder. Both breathed heavily as the Baxter Building burned behind them.

He almost collapsed at the sight of his sister. She arrived in a flurry of blue and blonde, and she fell to her knees at the state of the building, sobbing. Face buried in her hands, she hunched over, shoulders shaking and cries echoing through the street. Sue was always logical in her decisions—she made no move toward the rubble. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Thor release Loki, and the god doubled over, his hands on his knees. When he straightened, his expression was tight, but Johnny couldn't see the fury anymore.

"She may have taken them to the tunnels," he said suddenly. "Perhaps she anticipated the danger and moved them down there."

Both Johnny and Thor watched him stalk to a nearby manhole, wrench the cover off, and then disappear below. No one said anything. Sue wept.

Fire was comfort—it had been ever since the initial accident. It came out of his chest to start, then branched across his body, his legs, encircled his head. When he started to move, Thor looked at him. Two men who had never met before, never said a word to one another, exchanged a knowing look. With that, Johnny drifted off into the wreckage, protected and coddled by flames.

"Max?"

She hushed Franklin, holding a finger to her lips with Valeria on her hip, and then peered out from the side of the building. Once they had slipped away from the tower undetected, Max kept the kids hidden for as long as she felt comfortable to do so. However, with all the sounds around them—the voices, the jet, the sirens—in the narrow alleyway, she didn't want to stay still for long. She knew there would be a lot happening on the main roads: relief workers, fighters, and aliens alike would be looking for relevance, and she knew how crazy it could get. People lost themselves in heated battles, and she didn't want the kids stuck in a crossfire.

"Max?"

A quick glance down at Franklin told her he had stopped crying. His sniffles had been muffled by his hand for the longest time, but now it seemed like they were gone at last.

"We're going to go to my apartment," she told him, shifting Valeria's weight. Her lower back started to ache, a dull pain that spread round to her abdomen, and she took a few deep breaths, in and out, to try and extinguish it. "It was empty when I last when there."

"But—"

"When everything quiets down, we'll go look for your parents." She couldn't imagine the panic that Sue and Reed must have felt when they saw the strike on their home. However, she didn't want to wait around for more alien soldiers to show up with gas masks—she just didn't have the bullets left to deal with potential problems.

Unfortunately, every street in Manhattan was littered with potential problems. She ducked back behind the wall when a group of men jogged by, talking loudly and excitedly, each one of them with a pistol in hand. Lips pursed, she waited until the noise died down, and then took Franklin firmly by the hand.

"No stopping," she told him, "unless it's absolutely necessary."

Valeria's arms tightened around her neck, and Max tugged Franklin out into the street. They walked at a brisk pace, crossing from one side of the road to the other. She chose whichever side of the avenue had more cars, and they ducked behind each one as they passed. It grew increasingly difficult to carry Valeria the entire time, but she figured the little girl would slow them down if she was allowed to walk on her own.

She halted when there was an outburst at the end of the avenue. Gunshots. Shattered windows. Screams. Valeria practically chocked her now, and Max turned, opting for another route back to her apartment. She bypassed a subway entrance, a rundown McDonald's, and three upturned cars. Unfortunately, the noise seemed to follow them wherever they went, and it was too difficult to tell what was a good sound or a bad one. Max licked her lips as she debated between continuing along the main street or veering into the smaller offshoot.

The decision was made for her. Max stopped abruptly when a green mass crashed into an intersection, throwing black uniformed-soldiers this way and that as a cluster of people ran after him.

"It's the Hulk!" Franklin exclaimed, pointing at the swirling dust and gas and people ahead. Shaking her head, she turned on her heel and dragged him onto the smaller side-street, preferring to bypass the violence for the quiet the street offered.

She couldn't be sure, but it looked like there might have been some looting going on. Max noticed a few shop windows were broken, but there was no telling how old the break-ins were.

"Are we still going to your apartment?" Franklin asked as they hurried along the sidewalk. She nodded, eyes darting around.

"Yup." A glance over her shoulder when some cheers sounded behind her. "Just taking a bit of a detour."

He seemed fine with that for the moment, but the panic in his voice was evident when he yelped her name. Valeria squealed in her ear as she whipped her head around, and Max let out a sharp puff of air as a small group of mask-wearing soldiers barreled onto their little side-street. They slowed when they spotted her, and Max tried to react as best she could: she turned and ran.

She was slowed, however, when Franklin stumbled over something, and she barely had a chance to keep him off the group. He was heavy. Both of them dragged her down, and when she heard the first shot go off, a bullet digging itself in the back windshield of the car beside her, she knew she couldn't outrun them. So, she pushed Franklin through a broken window, not caring if he nicked himself on a shard, and set Valeria down on top of him. Gun up, she took aim at the approaching soldiers, and she managed to take the first two out with shots to the neck and face—effectively emptying her clip.

Her insides had never felt so tight. Fingers numb, toes non-existent. Her cuffs came in handy afterward: she managed to knock one soldier out simply by covering his face in Peter's webbing. It wrapped around the mask, around his neck, over his shoulders—tight. He wrenched his helmet off as he fell to the ground, kicking back and trying to peel the white wiring off his face. The last member of the group didn't have a gun, but Max noticed a bloodstained baton in his hand.

The second time she tried to use the webbing, she missed—either she missed or he dodged. Whatever the case may be, the coil wrapped around a lamppost instead, and Max fumbled over the release gauge. By the time she had herself freed, he was practically on top of her. She dodged the baton twice, stumbling backward and ducking, but the third time was a direct hit, and it knocked her feet out from under her.

Max went down hard, squeaking when her back hit the ground. It didn't even occur to her to use her cuffs for anything other than protection. Her hands flew up in front of her face as the baton came down over and over again. Her body started to curl in on itself to avoid the blows. She was vaguely aware that she was crying.

When the hitting stopped, she had her chance. The soldier grabbed her wrist, and Max flung herself up at him, using her other hand to drag the mask off. She pulled, hit, and kicked at whatever she could—she just wanted to get away from the window that she had thrown the kids through. Her hands were coated in red: broken fingernails, busted knuckles. Head throbbing, Max put every last ounce of strength she had into fighting back, but it wasn't enough.

Not when he—it?—picked her up and slammed her down on the hood of a car. The hit knocked the wind out of her, and she let go of his wrist as shock rippled through her body. She wished she had done some more strength training. She wished Loki had showed her how to fight. She wished he was here right now.

He dragged her off of the car by a handful of hair, and Max grunted when she fell back to the pavement, shoes dragging on the ground as he pulled her into the street. Her hands flew up to try to peel his fingers out of her hair, and that was when he got her with the baton—square in the face, right on her nose. Blood spurted over her lips, and she felt the bone break. Pain beyond pain wracked her face, and she couldn't help but scream.

"Max!"

She took Franklin's momentary distraction to punch the guy between his legs, which managed to loosen his grip on her hair. Temporarily freed, she crawled away as best she could, bits of gravel and glass digging into her palms. He caught her by the ankle and dragged her back, his baton slamming into her ribs and hips.

"Stop it!" Franklin sounded hysterical. "Stop it! Leave her alone!"

Somewhere else, Valeria was sobbing again, and Max broke two more fingernails clawing at the guy's face, but it didn't seem to do her any good. The blows grew harder, faster, and her vision started to blur.

And then she was off the ground, suspended a few feet above the rubble and dirty concrete. Her attacker hovered somewhere nearby, and it took her a second to realize that this was actually happening. Her eyes flitted toward Franklin, who had both shaking hands up, his face screwed in concentration.

"Franklin?"

He sidled out from the other side of the car, and Max moved with him. It was the most bizarre experience she had ever gone through: total weightlessness in an environment with full gravity. Franklin's arms started to tremble, a steady stream of wet rolling down his cheeks. She tried to force a smile, something, but all she could manage to do was gawk. Her attacker took a swing at her, the end of the baton breezing by her leg.

Suddenly, she was flying. The weightlessness was gone, and it was like someone had hurled her through the air, like she was a great, non-aerodynamic baseball. She landed in a heap some twenty-five feet away from the initial scuffle, her wrist twisting when she landed. Her nose was throbbing, sharp blades of pain slicing through her head as she rolled onto her back. Her attacker seemed down for the count, but as she watched his black uniform shuffle, she saw Franklin inching toward him, a cinderblock floating between his outstretched arms.

The last thing she saw was Franklin letting the massive block fall on her attacker's head.

"Darcy! Slow down!"

"I thought we would actually get to use these things…" Darcy shook her canister of Stark Serum, and then huffed when she stopped at the corner of a large intersection. A cluster of average-looking people strolled by, chatting and laughing and wiping the sweat off their necks. Somewhere in the distance, she swore she heard that radio recording of Johnny Storm and some woman detailing the day's events.

Jane sighed as she hurried after her friend, eyes darting everywhere on the off-chance that there were still aliens roaming about. Thor told them to wait in Brooklyn. He insisted they stay at the base, even though both women objected to it, and assured them it would all be over quickly. She knew Thor had every intention of finding his brother, and that meant he probably hadn't the slightest idea about what intensity the fighting was actually at—not until he had dealt with Loki, anyway.

They wanted to help. Jane and Darcy had wanted to be a part of the solution ever since the issue really started, and while Jane's idea of helping differed vastly from her intern-turned-friend, she still wasn't happy being locked in an underground bunker to wait it out. She wasn't a fighter, but she couldn't just twiddle her thumbs and wait until she was told everything was in the clear. Darcy wanted to put Stark's serum to the test, and Jane just wanted to have fresh air again.

So, they had waited for Thor to leave. He kissed her farewell and smiled that broad grin she had grown to love, and he had left them in the bunker with the best intentions. Luckily for them, no one else seemed to care about their safety. They had asked to tail along with a group of soldiers going to Manhattan over the East River, and they were handed a canister each before boarding. However, by the time they got across the river and onto the docks, it seemed the majority of the fighting had died down.

Yes, they got to watch some action on the river when an alien vessel tried to take their boat down, but their fighters were better, and Jane and Darcy had seen the other ship sink after ten minutes of exchanged gunfire. Well, not sink-sink, but the boat overturned when a jet crashed into the river, the waves knocking everything out of balance.

Their entire crew was spritzed in the face as soon as they had stepped foot onto Manhattan, but once everyone was assured they weren't aliens, no one stopped Jane and Darcy from wandering off. Jane had wanted to find Thor. Darcy had wanted to spray an alien in the face—and see if the Ripley's Museum was open for free. Unfortunately, neither of them got what they wanted.

"Everyone's already been sprayed," Darcy lamented. She pointed to the slowly growing piles of limp bodies, and Jane assumed they were all alien-infected. The sight was slightly more off-putting than the executions in Oslo: all these aliens were basically still intact, but she could see tell-tale signs of asphyxiation on their faces, their skin.

"Are you seriously upset that we don't have to participate in street brawls?" They crossed the intersection together, and Jane exchanged a wary smile with a group of strangers, all of whom seemed overly familiar with both women. Still, the cluster of people moved on quickly enough, and Jane let Darcy lead the way, constantly on the lookout for her man in red.

"No." Darcy sighed, shoulders slumping a little. "It just would have been nice to do something, you know?"

"I know," she muttered. In the grand scheme of things, Jane hadn't done much for this fight, and it hadn't sat well with her for quite some time. Still, she was alive, and she'd take that over getting her hands unnecessarily dirty for the sake of her conscience. "Come on… Let's find Thor."

"He's going to be pissed that we aren't in the bunker."

"I know." She rolled her eyes at the thought. They traveled through Manhattan's streets with relative ease, darting onto another avenue whenever they heard a gunshot or a scream. They wanted to fight, but they both knew they were ill-equipped to deal with people handling guns.

Darcy shrieked when a green blur barreled out into the street, and they both scrambled over a cement barricade around a restaurant courtyard as the commotion erupted around them. Jane peered over the top, eyes narrowed.

"Isn't that the Hulk guy?"

"Yeah, looks like it," she said. Who else was giant and green and enraged? He slammed black-uniformed soldiers into the ground, and the people who traipsed along after him shot the crushed aliens once they were down. It was brutal.

"Well, can't you just ask him where Thor is?"

"What?"

"Well, they're buds, aren't they?"

"I'm not approaching the raging Hulk while he's pulverizing aliens to ask him if he's seen Thor!" Jane hissed, and Darcy rolled her eyes. "Are you insane?"

"I'll do it then—"

"Darcy, no!" She grabbed her friend by her sleeve and hauled her back behind the barrier. What would have once been a lovely outdoor bistro was, in reality, a mess. The metal tables and chairs strewn across the cobblestone area had definitely seen better days, and the window was one gentle tap away from shattering.

"Fine, let's just go then." Darcy rolled her eyes, and the duo snuck away from the mob and wandered toward the end of the street. They turned right, and something caught Jane's eyes at the first off-shoot of the avenue: two people floating above the pavement. She stopped, smacking at Darcy's arm, and then held up a finger when she heard the woman take in a breath. The bodies were suspended for only a few moments, long enough for Jane to take in the alien military uniform and the woman's apparent injuries.

Both she and Darcy flinched back when the bodies flew in opposite directions, the alien landing closest to them. Then, before she could hurry forward to check on the woman, a little boy appeared. Thin, a head of brown hair, he had a cinderblock hovering between his hands, and he walked toward the fallen soldier with slow determination.

"Uhm…" Darcy poked her side, making her wince. "Are we about to watch a kid commit murder?"

"I don't…" She trailed off, and both women gasped when the boy dropped the massive grey block on the alien's human head. The body flailed and twitched, and Jane heard another kid wailing somewhere in the background. "Okay, we need to do something."

She wasn't maternal. Thor, in these last few months, had been great whenever they ran into children. He had a lot of fans under the age of ten, particularly with all the Avengers merchandise people had latched onto, and he handled every single one of them so well that it would make any woman swoon. Jane was awkward, and Darcy wasn't much better.

"Uh, hi there," she started as they jogged toward the grisly scene. "What's… What's happening here?"

She spotted the source of the sobbing: a little girl stood on the sidewalk near the fallen woman, cheeks red and mouth gaping. It looked like she had wet herself. The boy looked between Jane and the unmoving woman, and then he too started to cry. She reached out to touch his shoulder, but he flinched away.

"Okay, so, what..." She took a deep breath, and then stepped around him when Darcy took over. She introduced herself stiffly, and then managed to take the boy's hand and lead him away from the still twitching alien. Jane should have checked on the little girl, but the woman's injuries were enough to draw her immediate attention. She quickened her pace and then dropped to her knees, checking first for a pulse.

There was one. It wasn't faint or uneven either, which was good, and the woman groaned weakly when Jane tilted her head to the side. Her nose was broken and spewing blood, which stained the front of her white t-shirt, her lips, her chin. There was a pretty good chance she was swallowing blood and mucus as she lay on her back, and Jane looked around for something to prop her up on. Finding nothing, she kneeled behind her and tugged the woman up as gently as she could, careful not to move her too much.

Her fingernails were broken and bloodied, and Jane could see massive welts starting to form on the sides of her legs. She needed a hospital to check for internal bleeding—Jane lifted the woman's shirt to look for other bruises, and found several more red marks along her ribs.

"He says they're Sue Storm's kids," Darcy said suddenly. Jane looked up, her brow furrowed in concentration. "Like… As in the Invisible Woman."

"What?"

"Apparently." Darcy moved back to grab the little girl, and Jane watched her try for at least a minute to get her to move. It wasn't until the boy took her—his sister, she guessed—by the hand that she finally shuffled forward, still sniffling and whimpering and sodden.

"She needs to get to a hospital," Jane noted, taking her hands away from their inspection when the woman's eyes started to open. Brown eyes stared up at her, unfocused, and her breathing became uneven—she was starting to panic. Jane leaned over her. "My name is Jane, and I'm… here to help."

She wasn't a doctor, but she had a PhD. She had some medical training—she took lifesaving courses twice a year to keep her certificates valid. Still, as much as she wanted to say she was a doctor to put the woman at ease, she knew it would be a lie.

"Franklin," the woman croaked, her bloody hand groping out. "Valeria?"

"We've got them," Darcy said, and the boy's crying grew louder. Good grief this was a nightmare.

"We need to take you to a hospital," Jane continued. Were there any open? Hell, there had to at least be a medical tent somewhere—all the people rescued from alien captivity were probably being treated somewhere, right? She looked up at Darcy, and the woman nodded.

"Be right back." Her friend took off at a brisk pace to the intersection up ahead.

"Is she going to die?" Jane looked up at the little boy—Franklin—and then shook her head.

"No." She was pretty confident in that. "She's not in the greatest shape, but she isn't going to die."

"I feel like I'm going to throw up," the woman muttered, a trembling hand going to her stomach. "Where… Where's the alien?"

Jane glanced up at the fallen soldier down the street, and then licked her lips. "It's… dead."

The woman shut her eyes, tight, and when she reopened them, thick tears spilled out.

"Are you in a lot of pain?" Jane asked. The woman nodded, eyes pressed shut again. Her lips started to tremble. Jane knew soothing touches could be helpful when people were on the verge of a breakdown, but she didn't know what to touch. She placed her palm tentatively on the woman's forehead. "Take some deep breaths."

"I'm sorry, Max," Franklin whimpered. He seemed glue to his spot some five feet away, his sister's hand in his. The little girl seemed inconsolable now, and Jane found it difficult to concentrate with all the crying. "I'm sorry—"

"It's okay, Franklin," the woman managed, hiccupping. Her whole body was starting to shake now, and Jane feared she was going into shock. "I-It's not your fault."

Jane looked back over her shoulder, and only breathed a sigh of relief a few minutes later when she spotted Darcy returning with a whole slew of people behind her. The closer they came, the more she realized a "slew" meant four people, and only one of them had a white EMT uniform on. They had a stretcher between them, but as Jane watched two of the men haul this Max woman onto it, she couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling the non-professional trio gave her.

"She has a broken nose," she said, dusting her legs off as she stood. "I noticed some bruising on her legs, swelling in her abdomen and marks on her ribs. I think she was attacked."

"Lennox Hill is closest," one of the men noted, which made Jane feel a little better. However, it still felt wrong to just shove the woman with these men and go along on her merry way.

"Anything else?" the EMT asked. He couldn't be older than twenty-five, and that was a generous estimate. Jane licked her lips and looked back to Darcy. Their eyes met, and the woman sighed, understanding perfectly what Jane wanted.

"I think I should come with her," she said. "I wouldn't feel right just leaving her."

"The hospital is already too full." She watched two of the men exchange a look. "It's more for essential personnel—"

"I'm a doctor," she lied breezily. "I want to stay with her. I'll be useful."

Useful. Finally, she served a purpose. No sitting around and eating while Thor got his hands dirty. No more being told to stay in bunkers—she had a reason to be in the city now. The EMT's eyes swept up and down her figure, and then over to Darcy.

"We can't take all of you. The waiting room is a zoo… I wouldn't bring kids there."

"I'll… take them to their parents," Darcy said decidedly. "Maybe one of you could come with me?" Jane tried not to roll her eyes, and the Max woman whimpered on the taut stretcher. "They're Sue Storm's kids, and I'm sure she'll be happy to give you a nice reward for keeping them safe—"

Two of the men volunteered at the same time, and Jane took one corner of the stretcher. There was a moment where she thought it was senseless for her to split from Darcy, but her friend was already lifting the stiff, crying girl onto her hip, wrinkling her nose at the wet little pants that came along with her. They exchanged brief farewells, and she repeated the name of the hospital twice over before leaving—Darcy would know where to find her.

It felt wrong to walk away from her friend. However, when the woman on the stretcher reached for her, her bloodied fingers gripping the hem of Jane shirt, she realized this was precisely where she was supposed to be.

Hovering over the dark waters of the Atlantic, Manhattan actually looked peaceful. Sure, it and all the areas surrounding it were covered in a thick cloud of his serum, but Tony thought the city turned out relatively well—all things considered. Yes, the Baxter Building went up in flames. Sure, the UN was going to need some repairs—Reed's smoke bombs were stronger than anyone anticipated, apparently—before it was functional again.

Still, all things considered, it could have been worse.

He had tapped into the radio transmissions from Steve's guys, monitoring the situations across the boroughs while he helped Johnny Storm tackle a few of the enemy jets harassing him. It seemed the situation in Manhattan wasn't unique: all the boroughs had a rise and fall in the action for the day, but now that they were a little under two hours into the fighting, things seemed to be settling down. Sirens were a good thing. The aliens sometimes used vehicles like that, but now they wouldn't want to draw attention to themselves—not with the raging mobs roaming the streets.

He wasn't sure how the authorities planned to quiet everyone down now that things were wrapping up. People were angry. People wanted to fight. Tony wanted to drink.

"Back to the city, sir?"

He hovered over the ruins of the jet that got the Baxter Building. It was a damn shame: Reed had been so happy with the purchase when they last talked about it. This was years ago, mind you, but his old friend savoured the idea of getting a tower just for the family, one that was free from the press and the government and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. He wanted a home, and from what Tony understood, the man almost had one before the invasion took off.

But what did he know. He'd been so disconnected from everyone that it could have been a completely different story. Still, Reed was at the tower when Tony first contacted him, and he was happy that the Fantastic Four finally stepped up when they were needed. He couldn't do everything for the world—he'd given enough, sacrificed enough. Tony didn't want to play anymore, and yet here he was, his suit repairing itself from the near misses that could have sent him home early.

"Yeah, let's head back."

He wanted to find Bruce. Tony had seen his other half wreaking havoc on Park Avenue earlier, and while he wasn't keen to face the Big Guy's wrath, he knew he had to. It was imperative to meet with him when he wasn't Bruce, because Bruce knew how to swallow his feelings. Bruce was tainted with Pepper's death, and Tony knew it wasn't right to put that on him. So, he wanted to see the Hulk. He wanted to face the anger, the insanity, because he knew that was what he deserved.

She wasn't in the sewer, nor any tunnel leading off from it. She wasn't anywhere. Loki leaned his head back against the brick column behind him, legs outstretched and arms limp in his lap. His eyes were closed, lest the world see his rage. He could feel Thor looming nearby, hear Sue sobbing. By the time he climbed out of the sewer, Reed was there, cradling his wife as they sat together in the middle of the street. The city had gone quiet at last, expect for the sirens. No more gunfire, no explosions—no trembling earth. A green-white haze hung over the ruins of the tower, mixing and swirling with the black smoke drifting upward.

She was gone. She was gone and the street was empty: all the little humans who approached seemed to veer off, choosing another route. The sorrow must have been thick in the air. The tower was supposed to be safety. It was supposed to hide her away from the strife and the violence—by now, he should have been climbing the stairs two at a time to see her. He'd find her with the children, and he'd take her away like he said he would. They'd be alone together—they'd be happy.

Was he never meant to be happy? Was Loki, son of Laufey, meant to travel the centuries in madness and grief?

He knocked his head back against the wall, hard enough to crack the stonework. Next came his fist, and he felt the crack travel up and away, damaging the building enough that it would need repairs before anyone could use it again.

"Loki." Thor's voice had a warning edge to it, and he opened his eyes to glower at him. What right had he to lecture him? What right had anyone to keep him from expressing the pain in his heart?

It was his fault for falling in love with a human. They were fragile. Had it not been this, it could have been anything. If it was nothing from the outside world, Max's body would have decayed from the inside. It was only a matter of time before she would have been lost to him.

But why did it have to be now? Why today?

He pushed himself to his feet and stalked toward the crumbling tower.

"Where are you going?"

"She might still be inside," he muttered, not bothering to look back at Thor. "There is still hope for…"

His words felt meaningless. They were empty on his tongue, passing through his lips, but they seemed like the right things to say.

"No." His lip twitched when he heard Thor follow him, and he whirled around just before the man grabbed his arm. He shoved against the brute's chest, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

"You will leave me be to this—"

"There is already a man inside that disaster," he reasoned, snatching Loki's wrist as he started to walk away. "He will find her if she—"

"If what?" Loki hissed. He shoved at Thor again. "If she's alive? If she hasn't been crushed to death beneath falling rock?"

Thor had nothing to say to that. No words of comfort, only a look of pity. Loki wanted to claw it off his face—to banish that look into the depths of the universe so that he would never have to see it again. He scoffed at the man and turned, marching toward the tower with a sense of purpose. However, with each step he took, his fervor lessened, weighed down by misery.

"Mommy!"

The piercing sound cut across the thick silence like a shot all of its own. Loki paused midstride, blinking rapidly as his brain processed the potential source of the sound. Was it just a trick, a whisper on the wind? He turned slowly, and his knees nearly gave out when he saw Ben carrying both Valeria and Franklin down the street. Two people followed him, a young man and woman, and both children were bawling.

His mind continued to process the situation with painful slowness. If the children were… alive… and Max was… with them…

Ben seldom looked happy, but this was the one instance Loki had seen him ecstatic. "Look who I found!"

"Oh my god!" He'd never seen Sue run so quickly, Reed trailing behind. She dragged both children into her arms and collapsed, pinning them to her and weeping. Little Valeria wrapped her arms around her mother's neck, and Franklin clung to his father.

"Darcy?" Thor started toward the woman, who gave a weak wave. Was no one asking where Max was? He licked his lips and stalked to the group, honed in on Franklin—the boy cowered as he approached. Thor let out a small laugh, shaking his head. "What are you doing here?"

The woman, who had the largest breasts Loki had ever seen, shrugged. "We… were going a little stir-crazy in the bunker and… came across the river?"

"Where is Jane?"

"Where is Max?" Loki seethed, shoving Thor out of the way and going straight for Franklin. He could read it across the boy's face: he had done something.

"I'm sorry," the boy wailed, hiding against his father's chest as Loki bore down on him. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I just wanted to help!"

Reed's hand did little to stop him, outstretched to push against Loki's shoulder, and Thor needed to drag him away in order to restrain stop him.

"What have you done?" he demanded, struggling against Thor's grasp. "Tell me!"

"Stop it," Sue snapped, holding her daughter to her tightly as she stood to face him. "Don't you dare speak to him like that!"

"I'll speak how I wish—"

"The… woman we found them with is okay." It was the big-breasted woman who spoke up. Loki's eyes darted down to them instinctively, despite the mood and the disastrous emotions eating him up inside. "She looked like someone kicked the snot out of her, but Jane's taking her to the hospital. She was talking and everything when they left."

"Take me to her," Loki demanded, finally freeing himself from Thor and encroaching on the woman. "Now."

"I don't… Uh, this is Dwayne." She pointed back to the thin man who followed her. "He made sure no one robbed us until we found… this guy."

She shoved a thumb in Ben's direction over her shoulder. Loki practically shook with frustration, anger, relief.

"I think they took her to Lennox Hill," the man started. "It… It's pretty full, but I know there was some space. More space than Mount Sinai and—"

"I don't care!" It took every ounce of self-restraint not to scream at the man and turn him into something unpleasant. He shrugged Thor's hand off his shoulder, grabbed the man by his baggy sweater sleeve, and shoved him forward. "Take me there now."

The man swallowed thickly, and then pointed in the opposite direction. "I-It'd be faster if we went that way, but any way you w-want to go works for me."

He cowered from Loki's glare and scuttled away, glancing back over his shoulder every so often to make sure Loki was still there.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

OH EM GEE you guyyyyz! I haven't had that many reviews since The Sky is Falling, so the feedback for the last chapter really made my day. It's nice to see you're all still there! I know there was some fear about me dragggging out the reunion between the kids and Max with everyone else—someone worried that it'd be ten chapters later and they still wouldn't be together—but I wouldn't do that to you!

I have way crueller things to torment my darlings with instead. –evil laughter—

Anyway. I'm feeling ten times better this week than I was last week, which means my meds are working (hurray!), but that also means I'll be back to work next week. Not that that's stopped me from posting, but just… updates from the author for those who care!

I totally cried like a baby when I first planned Sue's reunion with her kids. Like. Totally tearfest. It didn't quite have the same effect when I wrote it, but I'm still happy with the way things came out. I also liked giving Jane her time to shine. Based on the movies, I don't necessarily see her as a fighter, but she isn't someone who can just sit around and do nothing when the world is in crisis. She's a planner, a perfectionist in her own work, and I always figured she'd want to help in any way she can manage without dying.

See you soon, bbies. This rollercoaster isn't over yet! LOVE YOU ALL!