The Avenging of Loki Laufeyson

by YouLookLikeFOOD

"So… the shadows are coming to life, we're all gonna die, and the only way to save three separate worlds is for Loki and the Avengers to quit whining and work together for once. And of course, I'm the one who, somehow, has to make that work out. Yep, sounds like a Tuesday. When's my coffee break?" Sequel to 'The Avenging of Natalie Frost'. T for violence and language.

13. Jotunheim 101

A/N: Hmm… Lotsa things to say… hmm…

Okay, first: there will be a fair number of OCs from now on, which I'm pretty sure you'll be okay with, because this was a pretty OC-centric story to begin with. :/ But, in my defense, as far as I could tell, there was only one Frost Giant in the actual 'Thor' movie (besides Loki), and that was Laufey. Who, well… died. So that leaves me with a whole planet to fill up with peoples.

Second: I wanted to thank my Guest reviewer (Guest) for suggesting those songs for Natalie and Loki. :) As I've said before, I'm always happy whenever people suggest songs for my characters. That's pretty much how I listen to music, anyway; trying to figure out if any of the lyrics fit with my characters. :P

And finally! I wanted to say that, yes, this probably will be the last update I can post for a while. For at least two weeks, I will probably be unable to update. There may be a way, but it's not likely. :( So! I made sure this chapter was long and filled with stuffs. Hope you like it, and please review! :D

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As it turned out, we couldn't actually implement our little 'plan' until the next day. There were Avengers crawling all over the place, and, when we made it to Asgard, there were sentries in the areas where the Avengers were not. The tension was thick in the air, and in such a state of high alert, our absence would have been noted. But it was surprisingly better this way; it gave us time to think. To plan things out properly.

I changed into the thousandth outfit of the day, hoping against all hope that this one would pass Loki's seriously impossible examination. His knowledge of the each worlds' separate 'fashion' had been too good of a teasing opportunity for me to miss out on, but I had to admit that he was more well-informed in what was and was not acceptable in places like Jotunheim. And what was and was not practical, considering the cold.

Loki stood just outside of my room. The two of us had been talking through the door- he was staying out of my head as much as physically possible, so we had to resort to speaking out loud to get anything across- about the plan. We didn't have to hide from JARVIS anymore, since we were in Asgard, but the conversation was still shielded, so that Heimdal wouldn't see.

"We'll have to go to one of the lower levels of the palace," He told me as I tied a cloak around my shoulders. At least the clothing was one part of said plan that had gone relatively easily; it hadn't been too difficult to sneak in the room where the spares were stored for those who trained in the palace, and the arena outside. "There is less of a chance that we will be seen."

"What about Odin?" I asked, fiddling with the ties of an armband. It would be fairly useless to me in a fight, given the fact that I'd be fighting with a bubble and wouldn't really need it, but it did look tough, and 'fighting' wasn't the original idea in the first place. The idea was to hide the Key on my wrist. That wouldn't go down well if it was seen, I was certain. "Security's been pretty tight since you landed yourself in prison. If you open this wormhole-thingy, he might notice the power flux. He might actually recognize it this time."

"It is a risk." He agreed. He didn't try to tell me that the reward would be greater, though. He was still of half a mind to convince me out of doing this. At this point, we both thought that I was insane.

I checked myself in the mirror, then pushed through the door, into the room where the Trickster waited. He stepped aside so that he could see me, taking in the outfit with appraising eyes; and then he sniffed haughtily.

"The armor will win you no favors," He said with disdain, taking in the metal breastplate that I wore. "It is too clearly Asgardian."

"Too clearly Asgardian. Right." I rolled my eyes. "News Flash, smart one, this stuff is Asgardian."

I admit, I was getting a little tired of this. I was antsy. I wanted to be moving. I wanted to get this over with.

"But not all of it is obvious." He frowned at me. "Have you even considered what you are going to say to them?"

"Well, 'hi' seems like a good start." I answered, pulling off the breastplate to reveal the black shirt beneath. He was already shaking his head before I got the irritating thing off.

He sighed through his nose. "Different shirt," he suggested, "And warmer shoes. This is a Jotun winter, not a Midgardian one."

"Not like I can feel the cold, anyway," I grumbled.

"And when you lose your feet to frostbite? Do you think you will feel it then?" He was a little irritated, too. Nothing helps a bad mood like spreading it around, after all.

I muttered under my breath about pushy blue fashionistas as I went back into the other room. In truth, I was grateful for his help; another set of eyes always made things a little clearer. And image was a lot more important than you'd think. I'd met more than one important figure in my lifetime while wearing pajamas, or just jeans and a tee. This would not be a repeat of those times.

And it had to be exactly right. It had to say 'mortal', 'I can kick your butt', 'not affiliated in any way with Asgard' and 'I come in peace', all at the same time. Not an easy task, as you can imagine.

I scanned the available clothes for a better shirt as Loki went on, "And, even if everything goes according to plan, you are still about to meet with the ruler of an entire world. You could try and act as though that meant something to you."

"It meant nothing to you," I pointed out. "And they accepted you pretty quickly."

"Yes, but I acted as though it did. You boast of being a liar; so lie."

I scowled as I pulled on another shirt; this one long-sleeved and dark blue. How was it possible for a voice that perfectly beautiful to be so freaking annoying? "Look, whether you believe it or not, this does mean something to me. And probably more than it means to you. So you know, you shutting up right now would be just brilliant."

Loki must have felt the way my heart skipped a beat as I said that, must have felt the mild fear stirring inside of me, because he did shut up. I couldn't let myself think about it for too long; because, I'll admit, I was nervous. I mean, you'd think this would be no sweat for the person who acts as the therapist to a bunch of superheroes, but it was a surprisingly big deal. It wouldn't be the first ruler of a world that I had met, but a lot rested on me being the polite, political Natalie Frost that I had never really been. Because, really, when it comes to tact, I'm clueless. Loki was the Silver Tongue, not me.

As I finished pulling on a pair of sturdy boots, I walked out. "Well?"

He scrutinized me again, then sighed and shook his head. "It will do."

"Perfect," I said sarcastically, pulling my cloak up from where I had set it and tying it around my shoulders. I knew I would be glad for the warmth, but I was still somewhat worried that it might snag on something. I fastened the ties in an easily-undone knot, so that I could drop it if this came to a fight: which was pretty likely. I was about to meet with a bunch of alien Spartans, after all.

I pulled my hair into a ponytail, then cleaned up the clothes and stuff that I had strewn about all over the room. Once finished, Loki and I started heading towards the lower levels of the castle, keeping our eyes open for anyone who might notice us as we went. But we avoided the sentries- and anyone else who might be prying- rather expertly. It was a little easier, with Loki there; after all, he had been sneaking around in this palace since he was very young. He knew this place, and all of its secrets.

The two of us made it to the lower levels without problems. So far, so good. My heart was pounding by this point; I was nervous. I'd been less afraid of Fraye than I was of this.

Loki met my eyes, scanning them, searching them. I think he was trying to see if I had the nerve. Well, right now, I had nerves of steel. I could do anything and everything. After all: my planet was at risk.

At last, Loki seemed to come to his conclusion. He took a single backwards step, moving away from me. "Do try not to get yourself killed," he suggested with light hauteur.

"Will do!" I answered, in the brightest tone that I could manage. Loki gave me one last dubious look, then closed his eyes and focused his concentration.

Power began to surge down his arms, rippling and radiating out of his chest, a power alive with the strength of a black ocean, the sea at midnight. Waves of magical energy crested at his fingertips, then flowed out into the world, bright blue-green, magnificent and, well… gorgeous. For some unknown reason, the thought of its beauty made me blush.

The magic tested the air around it, began to poke and prod at the fabric of the universe. Then, once it had a fair hold on said universal fabric, it began to tear, to rip it in half. Darkness opened up, a pathway between worlds, a hollow corridor. The way into Jotunheim. I thought I could just see it on the farthest end; the faintest sheen of blue-white.

"Good luck," Loki said, dripping cynicism.

"Won't need it!" I lied, turning to him so that I could give him an enormous grin. He was sweating a little; something of this magnitude did take a fair amount of energy to produce. Still giving him my best and most plastic of smiles, I stepped backwards, into the portal, leaving him behind on Asgard.

Think… corridor. Think pitch-black hallway at night, with the only light coming from a few speckled stars to either side of you. Think long, dark, empty train tunnel that, somehow, you can cross in just three steps. That's what the place looked like.

It was freezing cold from the moment I stepped through it; I could see my breath, misting in front of my face, could hear it echoing hollowly in my ears. There was a pressure against my temples, my eardrums. Moving through this corridor, my footsteps were sluggish and slow, almost as though I was underwater. The feeling in my stomach was like… like walking up the stairs in the dark. You think that there's one more step, and for just a second, your whole world jolts as you fall forwards a little further than you had thought, than you had intended. Walking through the portal was exactly like feeling that jolt: only for longer than half a second. More like twenty seconds, just… in free fall.

And then, with those three sluggish steps, I was through it, and on the other side.

I was in Jotunheim.

The portal flickered and diminished behind me, vanishing into nothingness, cutting me off from Asgard, from the Avengers, and-for the most part- from Loki. Though, as usual when I traversed across planets, this did nothing to affect the mental connection in my head; I could still feel Loki's thoughts pressed against mine, crowding out my skull. It was an oddly comforting thing to remember that, even now, in the barest, most icy of wastelands, I wasn't alone.

But that bare and icy wasteland took my breath away. For a moment, I was forced to stop moving and just… stare at it. It was so empty, so lifeless, so… so cold. And it wasn't the shivers-up-your-spine, goosebumps-on-your-arm kind of cold. This was the kind of cold that took root in your bones, that froze your marrow and seized hold of every nerve. To stand on Jotunheim was to breathe in icicles, to feel the arctic chill down in your very center. It was the kind of cold that bred hearts the same temperature, for it buried itself deep inside of you, a pinpoint of ice that grew and spread from a point inside your chest. It radiated out to the rest of you, and if you were born in such a place, what else could you be, but ice?

But Jotunheim's temperature wasn't its only feature. There was also the waste. The emptiness. For some reason, as I looked out at the world laid to ruin, I felt an odd kind of ache for the place. Ice and snow, I knew from experience, could be so beautiful. Why would a place carved entirely from such things be forced to lay in a desolate ruin?

Even if I had not known of the Casket of Ancient Winters, even if I had not known about that source of the Jotun's power, I'm certain that I would have recognized that something was missing here. It was as though the planet's very heart had been ripped out, and those who lived on its surface were forced to scrape and scrounge for scraps of a beauty and life that once was.

No wonder they hated Odin.

Still, being a human who knew very well what would have happened to us if Odin had not interceded, I could see his side of the story as well. But I think it's been established that my defining trait is being able to see all sides of most any story.

Through my eyes, Loki surveyed the empty landscape as well. His true home. The planet he would have destroyed. He still wasn't certain he was wrong to try and do so.

But…

You have to wonder, he mused, staring out at the empty fields of snow. If Laufey knew who I was. If he knew that it was his own son who ended his life. A painful little smile found its way onto his face. Perhaps that is why he trusted me so easily. Because he believed it inevitable that I return to him.

We don't know, and we never will, I said curtly, pulling my cloak tighter around my shoulders, letting out a clouded breath. There's a time and a place for introspection, Loki, and as glad as I am that you're finally managing to do so, now is not that time or place.

The smile stretched just a little, and I started marching forwards. My footsteps crunched in the snow and slipped in the ice; I knew my way to the 'city' by now, knew it from Loki's memory. They would not be hiding, not like they had when the others had arrived here all those years ago. They wouldn't even know that I was coming.

I took a deep breath in an attempt to keep control over my emotions. If things went south, I'd need the Death Bubble out fast. There could be no delay.

But the place was surprisingly empty as I made my way towards it. Then again, they would have seen me coming from a long way off; but why would they hide from a mortal? I wasn't a threat; if anything, I suspected that they might just try and kill me for the sport of it.

Because you are a mortal who wields magic. This is what they will sense of you. You are an enigma to them, Natalie Frost.

And everywhere else, I answered, but I was frowning. And I don't wield magic. I mean, I know we thought that it might be possible for me to do a few little things here and there, but I'm not…

Your shield is. A blend of science and magic, if you recall.

I thought about that. Obviously, Frost Giants had the ability to do magic as well- Loki was more than proof of that- and so they probably would sense that on me…

My crunching footsteps seemed to grow a lot louder, and a lot more ominous. But I made my way towards where I knew Laufey had once sat on the throne, picking my steps with great care. I supposed I didn't entirely look like a mortal, either; it wasn't like I was in all-mortal clothing. And mortals couldn't even really get to Jotunheim without help. I guess I was an enigma. Ah, well, that was nothing new to me.

I was inside of the city before long; and immediately suspected that I was surrounded. Heavy footsteps behind and to the side of me confirmed that theory. But they were watching. Waiting. Seeing what I would do.

I looked up to where a shadow, the shape of a man, sat on the half-hidden throne. My eyes widened, and I fought the urge to whistle. Woah. That sucker is big.

Loki was not amused. He is a giant, Frost.

Don't you mean a Frost Giant? I teased, trying to keep my mental tone light. It was the only way I could cope with the anxiety that was threatening to cripple me. My stomach was twisting into a thousand knots, and I felt like I should have been sweating, but the cold did not allow that.

I swallowed; my mouth and throat were both completely dry. I cleared my throat and spoke, in the loudest, clearest voice I possibly could, "My name is Natalie Frost!"

I called the words up to the shape on the throne, still half-hidden by the gloomy, icy shadows. I tried to pinpoint the place where the apparent King's eyes would be. I thought I could see them; twin flashes of bright red in the gloom. "I am here on behalf of the son of Laufey!" I added.

Loki had been wary about me using this name. As far as we knew, Loki was Laufey's only child; his true blood heir, if Laufey hadn't tried to kill him. Or if Loki hadn't killed Laufey. Ugh, royals.

But if Laufey had no other kids, then who knew where the throne went. Loki hadn't really cared enough to find out, truth be told. But whoever it was might be threatened by the idea that a true blood heir of the crown might be alive, might challenge his rule. But I thought that the benefit outweighed the risk; if they thought that I was a messenger from one of their own, I might seem less of a threat, an immediate ally. You know, maybe.

I heard the scraping of ice against ice. The strange sound of a weapon being formed sounded off behind me, an ice knife or mace or club finding its way into the hand of some Frost Giant soldier. I reigned in tight control over my emotions.

A dark, powerful voice sounded from the throne. It was a deep tone, with the barest edge of a rasp. "Laufey had no son."

"Not one that was meant to survive," I admitted. And then a smile crossed my face; a smile that was more of a smirk. "But he's… harder to kill than you'd think. Believe me. I've tried."

Far away in Asgard, Loki snorted.

I looked up at the Jotun King, wondering what his name was and deciding to call him 'Big Boss Man' in my head for now. "We have no interest in Jotunheim or its throne. I only wish to speak with its king."

I saw the shadow of Big Boss Man standing up from the throne. There was a weighted silence as I kept staring up at him. I could feel all eyes on him, on me. His next words would decide it. His next words would make everything final.

"Kill her."

Ok, screw finality. I didn't like that answer.

I heard more weapons coming into existence, ice trickling down from the arms and fingertips of a hundred hidden Jotun guards. I sighed theatrically. "Yes, that does seem to be your immediate answer to everything, doesn't it?"

Frost… Loki said warningly. He was warring for control over my emotions, but I wasn't letting him have it. I had another plan. Maybe a riskier one, but possibly a better one.

Footsteps crashed around me. A battle cry charged in the air. I did not turn my eyes away from Big Boss Man, but merely smirked up at him, smirked with all of the wickedness that I had seen in my two worlds. Smirked with all of the darkness that I had seen in Fraye, and all the bleak hatred that I had seen in Loki.

And then, as the Jotun sentries came towards me, I shouted a single word towards the King, in a loud, echoing, resounding note. A word with the power to stop armies. A word with the power to instill the greatest of fear. A word that would have come from his legends and nightmares, a word so little spoken that it was a wonder it was not lost.

That word was "Fraye."

The effect, as I suspected it would be, was immediate. The Jotuns truly did fear her above all things; and why would they not? She was the Shadow Child, the Daughter of Darkness, the creeping death that came for you in the night.

They did not skid to a halt; there was nothing so ungraceful about their stop in movement. But they did stop; they froze, became ice itself, and even their King seemed to stiffen, up on his throne, staring down at us all.

And then his hand was up, keeping the soldiers from advancing again. I lifted my head up to him and held myself as tall and strong as I could manage. I saw red eyes scanning me; I was little more than a child myself, in their eyes, and for all they knew, I could be referring to myself. Announcing my return as the Child of Shadows. But that fear would vanish from their minds soon enough. I looked nothing like her, after all.

And then the King whirled on me. I could see parts of his face now, leering out of the gloom. "You dare say that name aloud?" he demanded of me, his voice radiating power. What was it about royals? They just all seemed to ooze power, to drip with it. It was getting on my nerves; I always fought so hard to maintain whatever illusion I had of being strong and dignified and powerful and great. Why was it so easy for everyone else?

"You dare to speak it here?" The King demanded again.

"I dare!" I agreed, advancing a step forwards. I could see all eyes on me now, the mortal who had said the name of their greatest foe, their worst nightmare. I could see it in their eyes, what they had been told since they were children: to fear her, fear her above all else, because she is the vile poison that creeps inside of your throat and blackens you from the inside out, she is the creature that creeps in between stars, she is the thing which swallows suns whole.

"I dare!" I repeated, turning around in a circle to meet every eye. Some looked away. Some tried to stare me down. And some were wide-eyed in their horror. "I dare, your majesty," I had turned back to him by now, and was pointing an accusatory finger towards him. "Because she is already here!"

There were no uneasy mummers, no quiet muttering. But the sense of fear in the air was palpable. I could taste it on my tongue, this terror of the shadows.

"Fraye is very close to your borders!" I announced. "I know what she intends, for you and your world, because for now, she resides on mine! Resides upon my world!"

It couldn't be true. There was no fear in any eyes-they stood tall, dangerous, still armed- but it was in the air. This could not be true, Fraye was a myth, a legend. Legends can't harm you. They are tired tales, hidden away in dusty books and inscribed on old stones. They are not truths.

Denial was everywhere. Even the king reeked of it. "And what proof have you of this?" He demanded. "What evidence can attest to her presence on your world?"

"How about the fact that I'm here?" I suggested, lifting an eyebrow. Loki buried his face in one hand.

Tact. Composure. Diplomacy. Do these words mean nothing to you, Frost?

"You see, it doesn't matter to me if you believe me or not!" I shouted, while silently affirming Loki's assertion that, yeah, those words didn't mean much. Because, for once… I wasn't scared anymore. Maybe I was doing this wrong, maybe I wasn't good with politics, but I was more used to having big powerful people in my life than I kept letting myself think. And sometimes, slapping people in the face was the best way to get their attention; because it said that you were desperate enough not to care anymore.

"I'm not asking you to fight against her. I'm not asking you to stand with us, or anything else!" I looked Big Boss Man right in the ruby eyes. "I'm giving you a warning! Fraye is here, and when she is finished with my planet, she will move onto Asgard, and after that, she will come here!" I spread my hands out. "She has been on my world for a very long time now. I know her intent for my realm, and all I can do is try and warn others. All I can do is fight to protect my world with my dying breath." I watched him coldly. "And I will protect Midgard with my life. It is my blood in that soil! My friends are buried beneath that rock and dirt, my life has been led and my battles fought and my blood bled into that soil, and I will die before I allow her to take it from me!"

I took another step forwards. "And I am here, now, because I can't fight her; not unless I know everything! Not unless I know everything about her, and you are the ones who know the most! She has been in your legends since the beginning of your world, and will likely remain in them after the death of mine! So on the behalf of the Son of Laufey, on the behalf of my world, on the behalf of all those who have fought and died on Midgard… I am here to ask for your help. For any knowledge you might have of her. Of any way to stop her.

"I'm not going to ask you to fight beside us. I'm not going to ask you to bleed and die for my planet. But one way or another, whether you assist me or not, there will come a day soon, in which you will have to bleed for yours. She will stain this ice blue as she stains my earth red, and she will burn and boil your cities to nothing." Where had all of this come from? Why was I getting so into it? Why did it feel surprisingly… right?

Natalie Frost: Motivational Speaker. Who knew?

"But we can stand against her," there was a firmness in my voice. It was a lie. Wasn't it? "We have grown in the years since your last battle with us. We have changed. Become stronger."

And now I allowed my anger to bleed across my skin, allowed the glow to spread across my entirety. I think someone stepped back. All eyes stared at me, the mortal with this hint of magic. This mortal who exuded light.

What better way to fight the darkness than with the light?

"And we can stop her," I announced as loudly as I could. "We can or we will die trying! And if you help us, then she need never to even set eyes upon your world again!" I took one final step towards the King, standing tall.

"Tell me what I want to know," I promised, "And you may never need to fear the shadows again."

The world rang with the finality of my words. Loki lifted one eyebrow, curious as to how this would play out. An interesting tactic, he admitted.

Not what you would have done.

No. His calculating eyes watched everything, even from an entire realm away. Like he had watched since the very beginning. His mind was working quickly, seeing various outcomes, planning for separate events. If things went right, if things went wrong, if my unconventional methods were taken well or poorly… in any scenario, Loki would be ready. Because fish swim, birds eat, and Loki schemes. The nature of the universe.

I waited for a response in silence, forcing my breathing to stay even and slow. My heartbeat was turning rapid again. It was a struggle to keep my eyes from darting about to the Giant soldiers who surrounded me, to keep my gaze solely on the Jotun King.

And then he laughed.

"Brave words," he announced, stepping out of the shadows at last. I looked him up and down quickly, appraising him. He was tall, even for a Giant, and had a strength to his movements that would not be noticed by most, that would be seen by few. If I were not so well acquainted with many different types of strength, I myself might have missed it. But I could see it with the way he moved, the way he breathed, muscles moving in a sinewy dance along his arms. Snap judgment; he was likely the type of king who was challenged often. His decisions questioned. But any opponents in his way were not tolerated for long and frequently never heard from again.

Not good. Guys who thought more with their muscles than brains, I could work with a lot easier. This guy was going to take a bit of convincing.

"But bravery alone is not enough to stand against the Shadow Child," he said. "And it is often considered a fool's trait."

Now where had I heard that one before? But the King was stepping down from his throne, icy stair step by icy stair step, down to the world where I stood. I'd gotten his attention. That was good. Now I just had to keep it.

"I'm not counting on just bravery," I assured him, running my fingers along the silver bracelet on my wrist. "Believe me."

"A world of mortals, against the Daughter of Darkness," he said slowly, his eyes narrowing on me. He had an oddly intense stare, for a giant. Then I realized that my opinion of Frost Giants was pretty biased, as I'd learned a majority of the stuff I knew from Loki; and he did not think much of them. But Loki had a pretty freaking intense stare of his own; and he was one of them. I shifted my view; I wasn't talking to someone like Thor (or like he would be, if he had a single mean bone in his body). I was talking with someone like Loki now.

"I see one clear victor," he warned me. He did not lean over to stare at my eye level, but rather kept my gaze while still standing tall. It was starting to hurt my neck, looking up at him all the time, but I held that intense stare, anyway, despite his words, despite his ominous manner, despite his dark tones.

"Can you guess who that victor is, little mortal?"

Little, huh? Meh, I let that one slide. And the 'mortal' thing wasn't the insult it used to be, not to me. To be honest, I was way too used to it by now.

I tilted my head to the side, scanning his red eyes intently. I didn't take my eyes off of his, but in my peripheral vision, I could see something… odd. He was getting stiffer beneath my stare, trying to stand taller… yes, he was used to challenges, I could tell. He was trying to be more intimidating. He was handling this like an old pro, his fingertips flexing just slightly, ice beginning to trickle down inside of them, to form some kind of weapon…

And yet, there was the oddest look on his face. Like he couldn't quite believe that his most recent challenger was… well, me. A little itty bitty mortal female. I might have had a weird glow and a sense of magic about me, but it would have been weak, faint. They would think me relatively powerless.

He must have thought I was suicidal. But there was respect on his face nonetheless, no matter how he hid it. I kept my head tilted, then took a single, small step forwards. It took me within close range of the King; he could stab me at any moment. If I was armed, I could have done the same.

My voice was oddly, serenely, unnervingly quiet as I said, "You say that you see one clear victor." I kept my hands limp at my sides, not clenched in fists. I kept my muscles relaxed, despite how survival instinct was screaming at me to be prepared for a fight. The one thing that I did keep a tight lid on was the one thing that he could not see; my emotions. If this went south, I wanted to have the shield ready and armed immediately.

"But you have not seen everything," I promised. "How long has it been since you were last on Midgard, your majesty? A thousand years? You may live long enough lives to remember it, but those who battled with you on my world are long since dead. Generations have passed. And humanity has grown."

I took a step back this time, a contemplative gesture, though I did not take my eyes off of him. The strange respect that I seemed to have earned had not diminished from his face.

"In the case of a small number," I said in a measured tone, "It has grown beyond what you could have ever imagined. Grown, to the point, that each man-or woman- would be tantamount to what you consider to be one of our armies."

"And if you wish to see that we stand a chance- a slim chance, perhaps, but a chance- against Fraye…" I thought I saw one of the Giants flinch in my peripheral vision as I spoke her name once more. "Then you need look no further."

I didn't close my eyes, but I took a deep breath, focusing. Fear and anger, mixing and swirling about inside of me. It was just that simple. But this time I had to think on it, to concentrate. Because this time, it wasn't about having an invisible shield to fight against physical enemies. It was about having a very visible one, to combat against any doubt in their minds.

It was difficult to maintain the image of my shield, and in spite of the ice and snow around me, I felt sweat breaking out on the back of my neck, beading in tiny droplets on my forehead. But it was totally worth it; as the bubble flared away from me, it remained in its Tesseract-blue state, a shimmering field of energy that I soon wrapped around myself, so that it shielded me from head to toe, clinging to me, just the barest centimeter above my skin. I allowed it to fade from sight, wincing just slightly as it vanished into invisibility, though it was still very much present.

All eyes were on me again; and some had gone wide. This was a magic foreign to them; foreign to anyone. It was new. It was different. And it might just be powerful enough to stop a destroyer of worlds. If we were all very lucky.

"I may just be a mortal," I concluded. "But I am not powerless. And the very fact that I know of her, the very fact that I am standing against her… is that not enough? Do we not have the same foe? Am I not the enemy of your enemy?"

The Jotun King studied me for a very, very long time. The silence was deafening, echoing and reverberating through my ear drums, loud and crashing and terrible. The kind of silence that exists between stars, that lingers in the abyss of space. I could feel his guards, his soldiers, preparing for another strike. Preparing to fight that which was unknown.

But Big Boss Man was no idiot. I might have just been another mortal, but I was a mortal who knew about Fraye. A mortal who knew about their greatest fear. And so he turned away and ordered, "You will come with me." He paused. Then, looking over his shoulder, he added, "I will give you the knowledge you seek."

I gave him a slow, deep nod; so low that it was almost a bow. "Thank you, your majesty."

Who says I'm not good with politics? I can be the perfect little Pizza Ambassador.

The two of us walked in silence as the Jotuns dispersed slowly. I didn't look back at them as I went, and the King did not look back at me, did not see if I was following; whether it was because he could hear my footsteps in the snow or because he really didn't actually care if I followed or not was a mystery; but it was of no consequence.

Our journey towards wherever we were going ended up taking far longer than I'd anticipated; you'd think that we'd be out of the city, but I could still see Giants everywhere; and the occasional Giantess; something I'd never seen before. Like the men, the women were surprisingly… magnificent. They held themselves with the same regality Asgardians did, the same inherent strength. I guessed it was an immortal thing; not specifically localized to any planet, or to royal families.

For the most part, we were silent as we walked. I started to wonder if the King having his back on me meant something else, too; and Loki was quick to remind me that it was.

To have a warrior turn their back on you suggests that they do not fear you. In many cases, it is an insult. In yours… I am not certain.

I frowned, looking at the Frost Giant's back. It didn't feel like an insult. 'More like an I-dare-you-to-try-something'.

"You said that the son of Laufey sent you," Big Boss Man spoke up after a long time; he'd been silent for so long, and I'd been concentrating so hard, that when he spoke I actually jumped.

"Huh? Oh, yes." I composed myself quickly. "He and I are…"

Um… awkward. What the heck were we? How to describe it in a single word that the Jotuns would understand?

"Allies," I said after a moment, then paused. "He was not keen on returning to Jotunheim," I added carefully. There. Get the worry that Loki wanted the throne out of the picture. "And as it was not his planet that was under siege, but mine, he thought it more fitting for me to be the one to ask for assistance." There. Smudging the truth a little bit, but it was close enough.

"And why is he interested in the affairs of Midgard?" The King looked to me at last; I took it as a cue that I was now allowed the honor of walking beside him and did so quickly, so that the two of us could look at each other if necessary. I kept my eyes off of him, allowing him to study me. Though the bubble was still active-invisible, but active- I had arrived unarmed, and was even now relaxed and at ease. There would be no signs of attack from me.

"If he has no interest in Jotunheim, then why would he be interested in a planet of mortals?" He was putting pieces together, trying to figure out what didn't fit. Because something didn't. But then, nothing ever 'fit' when it came to Loki.

"He isn't," I answered. Because I could make everything fit if I had to. I was giving him no reason to doubt me. "His only concern is stopping Fraye. And as she currently resides on Earth, so does he. No other reason."

There was silence. And then the real questions began.

"And the Shadow Child… do you fear her?"

I blinked. Okay. I knew this was a test. I didn't know how I knew, but I knew. Those questions about Loki, they were nothing. They were just to make me used to answering his questions on command. This was the real test.

I swallowed and phrased my words carefully. "I can not afford to," I answered. "Fraye has declared herself on the side of fear. All those who are afraid, serve her. Whether they will it or not." My eyes became flint. "I will not serve that nightmare."

We seemed to have reached the heart of the city when the King finally halted. His eyes scanned me again; but if it was a test, then it seemed I had passed. He gestured with one slow sweep of the hand towards a large building, carved out of ice and rock. Well, I say 'building'. 'Cave' is probably a more accurate term; a little curved arch, tucked away in the smallest corner of shining ice and dull grey stone. A gaping hole of a mouth lay in complete darkness beyond that archway.

I followed the King's commands, and he walked beside me again. Interesting. So he was allowed to turn his back on me, but I was not allowed to turn mine on him. I tucked the information away in my head and made sure to adjust my movements accordingly.

I glanced at the Jotun King out of the corner of my eye as the two of us stepped inside. The gloom almost immediately overtook his face, swallowing his features whole; all that was visible was that which was shown by my glow, which he gestured for me to extinguish. Hesitantly, I obeyed; we were both in the dark now, but I suspected that he could see better than I could. He could probably off me right now, if so inclined. Maybe he knew that. Maybe he knew that I knew that.

"You speak her name very freely," his voice in the black emptiness made me jump again. I was getting a little more skittish now that I was in the dark. Why would information on a shadow-loving creature be surrounded by such darkness? Would it not be easier for her to destroy such information, if it was indeed here? "For one who claims to have met her," his words were measured, even, calculating. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up, and Loki's mind was whirring very quickly, flickering through strategies at blinding speeds. Something felt wrong.

"I won't fear a name," I responded after a moment of thought. "Even hers."

"There is a difference between bravery and recklessness." His words had gotten darker. More dangerous. I was suddenly very certain that he was still considering whether or not to kill me; but I suspected that he wanted information from me as much as I wanted it from him.

"If you do not fear her," He concluded, "Then you underestimate her."

"Do you still doubt me, your majesty?" It seemed that the cold of Jotunheim was permeating my voice. In frosted, sparkling tones, my words poured out of me, joining the air with the sound of my echoing footsteps. "Do you doubt that I have seen her? Do you think that I am taking her presence on my world lightly?" I could feel my heart hardening, my usual flaming anger cooling down, so that the molten magma could solidify into stone.

"Before she came to my world I had a father who loved me. I had a brother who always smiled." I closed my eyes, the memory of Thor's dead eyes creeping into my head, as they did every time I allowed my eyes to shut. "I had a friend who…" I trailed off. I didn't even want to think about Clint. But the words were coming out of me anyway. "Who would have protected me with his very life. Who protected me from my greatest danger: myself. Now, I have a father who despises me, a brother who lives half a life, and a man who would kill me without a second thought. Fraye has not even begun her slaughter, but blood is already in all eyes." My voice seemed to have dropped an octave. Despite the all-consuming darkness, I could see my breath in front of my face. "I do not underestimate her. But I do not fear her." My fists clenched. "I despise her."

"I remember that tale."

The sound of a third voice made both Loki and I jump; particularly as it was a female's voice, light and airy, and we were already made nervous by the darkness. I'd expected Fraye to jump out of every shadowed corner; and while I was insistent that I didn't fear her, my survival instincts were still jammed on red alert.

But this voice wasn't like Fraye's. It was less sugary and more… ethereal. In a spooky, haunting, just-came-out-of-the-pitch-black-darkness sort of way.

Another figure appeared in the gloom. I could barely make out a feminine form; but any identifying features were blurred and indistinct. The king stopped in his tracks, and I followed his lead, halting.

"The screaming of the one who lost her son… and the man who once loved her, now with only scorn in his eyes… these are the things that Fraye has done, the same tired tale in your bones…"

The figure took a step forwards. I didn't take my eyes off of it, though I was tempted to glance towards Big Boss Man to see if this was what he had expected. But, as he wasn't saying anything, I guessed that it was.

And then I felt it. In my head; cold fingers that reached inside of my mind and started to flick through my thoughts. Telepathy. Immediately, reflexively, Loki and I converged together, forming a tight, unbreakable barrier; black, fiery walls that could not be touched.

It was an odd sort of telepathy that tested our walls; clunky, unwieldy. The mental warfare of one who is unused to having a true telepathic opponent. It was not like Fraye's unnoticed touch, where you did not realize that she was in your mind until it was far too late, and she knew all about you. Nor was it like Loki's; these were both very intense, very powerful forms of telepathy. Whatever this Giantess-I assumed, by her stature and where I was, that she was a Giantess- had… it was far more primitive.

But now she had opened the door; our minds were brushed against each other- not linked, not like Loki's and mine were, but temporarily touching- and I could sense her. Feel her in my head, and reach out and search through hers. We had each others' names and intentions before she had the sense to pull her telepathic touch away from me, before the walls scalded and burned her out of my skull.

She gave a little, quiet gasp. Clearly, she wasn't used to having people sense her when she got in their heads. Well, even unwieldy telepathy wouldn't be detected by most until it was too late. Loki and I were just… an odd exception. Our link made us very powerful in the telepathy area; though I couldn't read other people's minds, woe to anyone who tried to read ours.

"The mortal, Natalie Frost," she whispered very quietly. "And the son of Laufey." She turned away. "You have come here in the hope of saving Midgard."

I nodded once, slowly. It was an acknowledgement; this was what she knew of me, now she was probing to see what I had learned of her during her momentary lapse. "Iecera, Keeper of Legends." My next nod was so low that it was almost a bow; I wasn't sure how well that would be received by Big, Blue, and Kingly beside me, but in that brief moment of telepathic contact, my respect had been earned. This Giantess deserved more respect than the entire planet combined probably did.

After all, she remembered.

"And the son of Laufey is not currently with me," I pointed out gently. Not that she would have been able to tell. She was blind, after all; relying on other's minds to paint the world around her into clarity. I had deprived her of her senses by forcing her out of my head like that. But I couldn't afford for the Frost Giants to find out who the son of Laufey really was; and what he had done to their world. Or, you know. Tried to do.

Iecera's head tilted to the side; I could see the movement, but only barely. It was no wonder she lived in the darkness. What use would she have of light? "And yet," she said slowly, "He never leaves you."

I smiled, a quirky little gesture. "Also true," I admitted. The king had all but been forgotten. The king knew nothing of power; because there was power in the pure, raw survival that lingered in this Giantess' blue blood. There was no power in the throne, not when compared to the power behind seeing Fraye and living to tell the tale. And of course, telling that tale, over and over again.

"You know of her?" Big Boss Man seemed surprised as he asked me this. I shook my head no.

"I know when someone is in my thoughts," I corrected. "It's… difficult to explain."

Before he could respond, Iecera turned to the king and gave him a low, sweeping bow. "I know of what you wish, your majesty." She said, again in her cold, ethereal voice. "If I may speak with the mortal alone…?"

He nodded curtly; the gesture was violent enough to see in the dark. He turned to me. "You will return when you have finished," he ordered. Yep, it was an order. I let it slide; he didn't have to be polite and political to me. I was a good, civil little human. I wasn't going to take offense at anything. Mostly because I'd heard a lot worse in my lifetime. "We have much to discuss."

"Of course," I agreed easily, giving him a half-bow. I hated bowing to people, I really did, but it was better than a full-fledged kneel or some crap. He turned around, dismissing me easily. I wasn't that important. And yet I was. Ever the enigma.

Then, suddenly, he halted. He turned back to me. I could partially see his ruby eyes. "If you truly mean to stand against her," he said after a brief second's contemplation. "Then perhaps you are worthy of your name, Child of Frost."

The words sent a little chill through me as he turned and walked away again. Child of Frost. I could get used to that one. A stupid little grin crossed my face; but it was soon wiped away by the grimness in the shadows around me.

Iecera and I waited until the King's footsteps had receded down the dark, ice-and-stone hall before we spoke again. The sounds had long stopped echoing against the walls when I spoke up again.

"My greatest condolences," I said genuinely, turning to her. "For your eyes; and for your son."

In those few seconds that I'd been pressed against her thoughts, I'd learned far more about her than she had about me. But it was still limited; I knew that she had been alive during Fraye's last attack. I knew that she had lost her son-and her eyesight- in the battle. I knew that she was the only one left alive, and the only one left telling the stories. She was countless thousands of years old; and, generation after generation, she had been pouring her story into the minds of those children sent to her, forced to listen, to hear this history so that it need never be repeated. Or, if it was, than at least these children would know to run.

And she had learned a little of my link with Loki. She knew that I had most definitely seen Fraye- the creature from her past, the nightmare that had slaughtered her son in cold blood. And she knew exactly what I wanted to know.

"Your search has been in vain, Natalie Frost," she did not waste words. When you're that old, I suspect you don't have many to waste. Nor reasons to waste them. "You seek a way to destroy Fraye."

My ears pricked. So Iecera referred to her by her real name. That was interesting; the one who had the greatest to fear from her was the one who feared her least. But then, the same could be said about me.

"It can not be done by mortal hands," she went on. "Nor by any magic or weapon known to Jotunheim, nor any realm known. You have wasted your time."

What happened to Mrs. Polite? You know, the Giantess who had been here moments ago? Her words now were blunt and near hostile. I stood my ground. "It's my time to waste. There has to be something. Anything. Anything that you can tell me."

When she did not respond, I prodded, "How did you get her off of Jotunheim in the first place? You defeated her once; and we can do it again!"

Iecera looked away. I could see it better now; my eyes were adjusting very well to the dark. "We did not defeat her."

"Then why aren't you all dead?" I demanded, surprised by how harsh my voice had become suddenly. "If Fraye was not defeated all those years ago… then why does Jotunheim still live?"

There was a very, very long silence. It was one of those ringing silences, those, some-serious-shit-is-about-to-go-down kind of silences, filled with impending doom… I swallowed painfully. Something was wrong. I don't know how I knew that, but there was something very wrong with whatever it was that Iecera was not telling me.

"Has she offered you her 'deal' yet?" Iecera asked, her voice suddenly very, very quiet. "Her pact, her promise?"

My eyebrows furrowed. "What…? No. No, I don't… don't think so." I was taken aback, trying to remember. Fraye had said something to me about a deal the day before; but it was about the deal that I had made with Loki; or the one that I had suggested. Iecera smiled sadly.

"You would remember," she assured me. There was quiet for a very long moment. "She offered to spare our world. To leave Jotunheim. But her offer came with… conditions."

Her tone immediately had my spine stiffening, locking into place. "What 'conditions'?" I asked warily.

She studied me for a long moment; even though I knew that she could not see me, I felt her fractured red gaze on me at all times. Then, slowly, she turned around, turned away from me. She gestured for me to follow with one hand, and I did so with extreme caution. Something wasn't right. Something was very not right. My heart was pounding in my throat and my stomach was tied in knots somewhere down by my feet, but I managed to force those feet forwards somehow, managed to move forwards, to follow the Giantess into the gloom.

Iecera led me deeper into the cave; it was a longer walk than I'd anticipated. My fingers flexed, in and out of loose fists. I did not fear an attack, not even from this Giantess; my bubble was still very much flared, ready and anticipating any type of assault. But I did fear her words, and what she could tell me.

I was right to fear them.

The two of us walked deeper into the cave, with Loki watching through my eyes. As we descended into the darkness, I noticed something… odd. In simple terms; the 'darkness' that we were descending into was not 'dark' at all. In fact, as we went on, the entire cave seemed to be getting lighter and lighter.

I swallowed painfully as I kept moving, my feet like lead. My mind was buzzing; Fraye had offered a deal to the Jotuns to save their planet. It had to be something awful and, given the way that Iecera had looked at me almost guiltily, I had to assume it involved me in some way. Well, not me personally, but humanity in general.

We finally emerged in what I assumed was our final destination; an extension of the cave-which was really more like a tunnel- that took my breath away. The entire place had been carved out of the rock, chipped away piece by piece by Jotun hands. I was certain it was not a natural formation; it was far too symmetrical for that. But that wasn't the impressive part.

Because now I saw where the light had come from.

The symbols were everywhere; line upon carefully written line of Jotun text, words of another language set aglow by some substance I couldn't name. There was definitely magic about it; but it seemed to be a magic that was deeply ingrained inside of whatever this substance- I suspected it was a type of metal- was. The glow was soft, a light blue-green. The color was as pale as the Tesseract's, but with a hue that was just slightly more teal. My eyes darted along the words, catching the symbols that had been carved onto Loki's back again and again, seeing them written a thousand times over on these walls. The Child of Shadow; her name, surrounded on all sides by her stories.

And there, beneath our feet, a single symbol, large enough to cover the entirety of the cave floor. It would have no other equal, but from what I could piece together of it, its meaning came off pretty clearly. This was Fraye's name, as it would be written down in Jotun text, if the Jotuns ever dared to write it out. I suspected that not many would; particularly with how greatly they feared even saying the word aloud.

This was the place that Iecera protected, as the Keeper of Legends. For this was a place filled with such legends. Fraye's every last tale, written directly after they had happened, once it had been realized what she was, so that she would never be forgotten…

And now I saw Iecera herself; I fought the quiet gasp that tried to slip out of my lips. She was very clearly old; older than a majority of Jotuns, I assumed, what with them being such an aggressive, war-loving species (But then, I thought, so that Loki wouldn't take that too harshly, that's how the Asgardians are, too). Her face had a number of wrinkles and her hair was a paler white than the snow outside; an odd-yet-interesting contrast with her dark blue skin. Her red eyes were almost pink, they were so clouded and pale, the color leeched from them by her sightlessness. Her line of sight hovered just a fraction of an inch above my shoulder.

But this had been expected. I knew that she was thousands of years old. I knew that she was blind.

I hadn't known about all of the scars, though.

They were immediately identifiable; I had seen a great number of Shadow Scars in the days since I had first met Fraye, so that even with her blue skin and blood, I recognized them. The darker scabs, the blackness beneath the skin, the bubbling, burnt-looking edges, all ravaging her face that I'm certain was once very beautiful. But Fraye had marred that beauty, as Fraye will mar all beauty; all light and life and reason and love and anything that any world will hold dear, Fraye would destroy. I needed no more proof of that; she had already destroyed the heart of a man whom I knew had more light in him than I could ever hope to achieve.

I kept the shock bottled away and hidden. Why was I surprised? She had seen Fraye. Just as Loki had; and Loki had certainly not made it away unscathed. Why would anyone else?

Iecera gestured with one careful hand towards a very specific legend on the wall. How, exactly, she knew where it was… well, that was a mystery to me. But I assumed that it was because it was such familiar territory. I glanced to her for a moment, my eyes flicking up and down her entirety before I stepped up to said legend; the tail end of a thousand others, the final one inscribed on the walls.

It did not take me long to read it through. It took me longer to read through the second time, to be certain that I was correct. And even longer to go through it the third and final time; this time, because I was struggling so hard to blink away the tears.

Of course she did.

Of. Freaking. Course.

Because she was Fraye. And she was a sadistic bitch from another world, intent on making everyone just as crazy and sadistic as she was; and if she could not do that, then everyone just had to die, instead. So why did this deal surprise me? Why had I underestimated her intense, infinite ability to make me sick?

I stepped back, away from the legend inscribed in light on the wall of stone. Loki was completely silent. He was not quite stunned, not like I was… but his usual weapons of retaliation-words- seemed to have failed him entirely. Hell, he didn't even have a single coherent thought with which he could respond to such a revelation.

My eyes closed, and I swallowed as salt water caught in my eyelashes. Why else would the Jotuns attack Earth? I asked him. Why else would you step on an anthill, and risk that your foot get bitten and stung?

Loki synced up with my thoughts, his own beginning to weave and dance around mine, our minds buzzing along, a unified chorus. Why else would they risk war with Earth's protectors? He agreed with me. Why else would they battle so fiercely with Asgard, just for control over such a small world?

And then we were thinking together: Unless their world's very survival depended on the destruction of another?

This was the deal that Fraye had made. This was the promise that she had given. If Jotunheim declared war on- and eventually destroyed- Earth, then it would be spared. If it committed pure and absolute genocide against the human race, if the Jotuns spilled red across the stars themselves, then they would be spared. They would be allowed their lives.

And if not… then she would be free to return. And it was not just their lives that she would seek, would hunt. It was everything that gave life any meaning; joy, love, laughter, all that cheesy goodness that made life worth something. That made it worth fighting for.

I swallowed again, fighting against the dry lump in my throat. "When did the deadline pass?" I asked in a quiet voice; for they would not fear her so greatly if it had not. They would think that they were safe, for now.

"Two centuries ago," Iecera answered in her quiet, ethereal voice. "Fraye swore that she would return some time after that, if Midgard had not been vanquished."

A weight settled itself on my shoulders and chest, pressing all of the air out of my lungs, forcing it out in a deep, heavy sigh. I ran my hands down my face, trying with intense difficulty to keep the frustrated, enraged scream bottled up inside of my lungs.

"So you see, mortal," Iecera said in a quiet voice, "We did not defeat her. We delayed her; and it was not by our doing." She looked away, blind eyes staring at the symbol on the floor. Fraye's name, her true name, the name that was surrounded by fear, the name of the murderer and nightmare that came for you in the dark. The creeping disease that had been swallowing our universe for millennia without our knowledge, and would continue to do so if we did not stop her here and now.

"You have come here for nothing," she finished. "If she has come to your world, then there is nothing that can be done to stop her. We are all going to die." She said this with the flat affect of a person who has long ago stopped giving a crap about life and death. A person who has long ago lost all of those wonderful, cheesy things that made life worth something. A person who has lost love. Who has forgotten joy. Who no longer knows how to laugh.

My head lowered. My jaw clenched.

And then I stepped forward and began to scan the legends once again. Began reading. Searching.

Iecera must have heard the movement. Must have realized what I was doing. "It is pointless, daughter of Midgard." She told me. "There is nothing that you can do." Her hand fell on my shoulder. "Return home. Be with the ones you love."

I froze beneath her grip. I took a deep breath in through my nose, letting it out in a slow cloud from my mouth, watching it mist over in the chilled air. My hand rested against the light-infused metal of the walls, the words that had been written there.

"Tell me, Iecera, Keeper of Legends," I said; and my words were so dark that I had a hard time believing that they were coming out of my mouth. Fire had met ice once more; and I would melt the entire world around me before I would ever let anyone tell me to give up.

"Do you really think that your son died, just so that you could live a few more years?" I demanded. Iecera's blind eyes widened. "Do you think that your husband fell in battle, just so that you could give up on your world a few thousand years later? 'Oh, well, we've had a good run, time to pack up our stuff and die quietly!'"

She took a step back. I turned to her slowly, every movement sending painful sparks through my joints.

"They are buried in this ice," I felt the words resounding in the cave around me, echoes that reverberated deep inside of me, echoes that originated from me and returned to me, over and over again. "They are buried beneath this world, and by all that is right and just in the nine realms, it is your duty as the one who has survived them to make certain that they stay buried beneath it!" I took a step towards her. She took another step back.

"Or do you truly believe that you have recited these stories- these, the worst of your memories- again and again, for no reason?" I demanded. "If that is the case, then you have lived a very sad and empty life, Iecera; and for that, I pity you."

This was, perhaps, the greatest strike, the most painful blow against her pride. Jotuns were not meant to be pitied by mortals. They were Giants; and they stood far above humanity. Even above its greatest, they stood.

"I, on the other hand," I said, turning back to the writing on the wall, "Will not rest until I can be certain that everyone I love, and everyone I have ever loved, is safe. Alive or dead, I will make them safe. Or I will die trying." I glanced to her over my shoulder. "Because if I am going to die, then I will not do it lying down and whimpering like a coward!"

Nor I, Loki agreed with me softly, though his words would not be heard here. It didn't matter. I heard them.

For a moment, Iecera seemed unable to respond. I kept reading. I was done. As much as I was tip-toeing around politeness, I was done with giving up, I was done with being afraid, I was done with all of this. I hadn't realized how much crap I'd been putting up with back at home until that moment; what with my parents doubting my decision to bring Loki to Earth, and the Avengers constantly flip-flopping between thinking I was their friend and their foe, and Clint… Well, Clint just hated me. And I was sick of it. Sick of putting up with crap. That was it. It was over. The end.

Maybe it would get me killed. Maybe the Jotuns would take it out on humanity. But it wasn't like we weren't at war already; and with a foe far more powerful than any of them.

"You have a sharp tongue, for a mortal," Iercera growled; there was a dark, dangerous venom in her words. From what I'd learned from her mind, I knew better than to underestimate her. She'd earned my respect before she had lost it. But I didn't even turn to her, didn't even look away from the stories that she had painstakingly inscribed on these walls, to be remembered even long after she had died.

"And you have a weak will," I snapped in response. "For a Giantess."

"Do you think yourself brave?" Iecera demanded of me. "You are a fool. You can not stand against her! The longer you try, the worse it will become for you! She takes her pleasure in breaking a spirit; you, of all people, should know this!"

"You know what, maybe I am a fool! But at least I didn't let her break my spirit! I didn't let her win!"

"You know not of what you speak, mortal!" She cried, ice trickling down her fingertips, forming into a spiked weapon; some type of mace, I guessed. See if I cared. "I lost everything to her!"

"Then why aren't you taking it back in her blood? Why aren't you avenging them?"

"Because she can not be killed! The only thing strong enough to destroy her is-"

I smirked as she cut herself off. For a long moment, she stayed in stunned silence; how had I done that? How had I gotten the words from her, words which she had so clearly not been intending to speak?

"Is…?" I prodded, a little bit smug. Something I'd learned from Natasha (or rather, something that Loki had learned from her): people tended to lose control of their tongues, if you got them emotionally ranting. She'd done it to Loki in his glass cage, years ago. And now I was using the tactic. It was amazingly effective; even when I hadn't really been aware that I was using it.

Iecera seemed… bewildered. She blinked. And then, as the shock began to wear away, she sighed heavily.

"Fraye spoke many times of the war that took her world," she said in a quiet voice. "But more often, she called it a 'plague'. I believe that, on her world, the two were one in the same. A disease took hold of her planet. A disease which made her, and all others of her kind, lose control of that which made them more powerful than any other creature."

"Their shadow ability," I guessed in a soft tone. She nodded in a sad, almost pathetic way. In that moment, I felt sorry for her. In many ways, I was lucky; I hadn't yet 'lost' anyone to Fraye, not in the way she had. The damage that had been done could- mostly- be reversed. There would be a few scars- emotional or physical, they would be there- but it could be healed. My life could be fixed. Hers couldn't.

"I… I believe that they lost control of the shadows. That the darkness swallowed her world; and that she was the only survivor."

For a long moment, I allowed myself to imagine that. Fraye, standing amid her world as it burned, as everyone- all of these people who loved each other, who were forced to care about each other, who knew everyone's thoughts and feelings and memories just as intimately as I knew Loki's- screamed, as they were forced to take the lives of those they cared about, because they had lost control over the shadows, and now those shadows were descending… Darkness falling as a planet burned, until there was only one left, a woman-or a child- alone in the night, alone in the universe…

If my power killed Loki, or his killed me… how would we feel?

And the entire planet had fallen to this disease… Was Fraye immune to it? Had it run its course? She seemed to have control over her powers now, at least…

"The only thing powerful enough to kill the Shadow Child is Fraye herself," Iecera finished; her voice had returned to its gentle, unearthly tones. There was no more anger in it, no more rage. It was just… empty. Sad. Ethereal.

"Shadow control is just another type of magic," I objected, surprised by how weak the protest was. "You are capable of this; the Asgardians are capable of-"

Not to this magnitude, Loki cut me off. I fell silent; Iecera seemed to take it to mean that I had realized the stupidity of my words. No where near it.

I looked down. So it is hopeless.

Will that stop you?

Has it ever stopped me before?

He smiled carefully. I looked up to Iecera.

"Thank you," I said; and I meant it. "For your time. And for everything else."

She nodded once. I straightened and headed towards the exit. "But now… I must speak with your king."

---

What little I had left to discuss with the Jotun King was pure politics; nothing of any consequence. Mostly reassurances from both me and Iecera that, yes, Fraye had indeed come to Midgard, and they had to be prepared. After a while, Loki suggested that I fade into the background, and I had obeyed, vanishing into the shadows as the King was barking out commands, preparing his world's defenses. He would not allow his planet to fall. Not so long as he could fight.

He was an interesting person, the Jotun King. Very like Laufey in some respects; but more like Loki in others. He was smart. Smarter than I'd expected. And he was not quite so interested in old wars; though Jotunheim still remained locked in battle with Asgard, he had at least forgotten humanity, eliminated them as any kind of hostile from his mind. But then, what was the point in destroying Earth now? The deadline for Fraye's deal had passed. And while they had enjoyed their safety for two centuries, and perhaps thought that the danger was over… well, now she had returned. And why would they hold onto petty grudges with an even pettier people? There was no reason for it.

Despite everything, despite everything that I had learned today… I realized that I had actually accomplished quite a bit with this little visit. First: I'd learned what had killed off Fraye's planet; and that it was most certainly dead. Second: I'd learned why Fraye had left Jotunheim alive. And while none of these things currently seemed overly helpful, it was still a hell of a lot more than I'd had a few hours ago.

And, I reflected to myself as I walked across the frozen waste, we now know that Fraye would had returned to Jotunheim one way or another. Which means…

Loki looked away; it seemed such a reflexive gesture, even though I was not in front of him, even though he was looking away from nothing. He knew what that meant. It meant that he was not the only thing that led Fraye to our worlds.

Feel better about it? I asked Loki.

No.

I half-smiled sadly as I made it to the place where I had arrived. "Well," I announced to the frozen cold; I was all alone now, with no one but Loki, still inside my head. "Beam me up, Scotty."

The corner of Loki's lip twitched upwards, and he held out his hands. Energy wrapped itself around them, twisting and bright and alive and beautiful. It spilled down from his fingertips and ripped open the world, tearing at the fabric of space and time. In front of me, a portal opened; I grinned and stepped through.

Three sluggish steps later, and I was back in Asgard. The portal closed behind me as I clapped eyes on Loki once again. My glow-and my bubble- had both died off, and I could see from his eyes that I looked a little worse for the wear, that my journey had not left me without a few markers. My hair had been mussed by the wind, my boots and the bottoms of my pants were sopping wet, and the smile on my face was more tired than I'd expected.

But despite all of this… I was walking on air. I'd done it. And I'd made it back to Asgard. And no one was the wiser; I'd gone to Jotunheim and gotten away with it.

The enormity of this hit me the instant I laid eyes on Loki, a helium balloon exploding in my chest. A stupid grin took over my face.

"We did it."

He gave me his typical bemused smile. "We did," he agreed.

And then I laughed; it was high-pitched and embarrassingly girlish, a laugh that came back from the days when I was a kid and April and I had just gotten out of a close call with a teacher. Unable to help myself, I wrapped my arms around Loki's waist and squeezed. "We did it!" I squeaked, then laughed again. "We did it, we did it, we did it!"

A dozen conflicting thoughts ran through Loki's mind. Most of them were on the lines of: Honestly, you are a grown woman, stop behaving like such a child. But one or two fell along the pattern of: We did. We truly did.

After a moment, I released him, still grinning like an absolute idiot. No, we hadn't learned everything we needed to know. No, our worlds' problems had not been solved. But we were further than we had been. And we'd gotten away with it. As much as I hated lying and going behind people's backs, I had to admit, it was an extreme rush when you realized that you'd slipped through the fingers of the law.

After a moment, however, my smile died down. Loki caught on to my train of thought and watched me with careful, oddly melancholic eyes.

You think they missed us? I asked, releasing him and trying to shake the weight off of my shoulders by rolling them around a few times. You think Thor…?

Loki blinked and turned away. It has been a number of hours, he noted slowly. Perhaps they have. It certainly does not seem characteristic of you, to leave Thor alone while he is… as he is.

In pain? He nodded once at my assessment, and I sighed deeply. I guess you're right. I don't leave my friends alone.

He considered. We can say that we were in the library. I highly doubt we will be contradicted.

I nodded once. If we were caught in the lie, there could be trouble; that's why I hated lying about things that I didn't know the full situation on. Such as: was there anyone in the library who could attest to the fact that we weren't there at the time?

But I couldn't think of a better one, so I nodded, and the two of us walked out of the door.

It turns out, my worries were for naught. And so was my celebration; because the second we walked out of that room, we were greeted by a number of fairly-heavily-armed soldiers, wielding Asgardian weaponry and wearing serious expressions. They had clearly been waiting there for a while; but the instant we exited the room, everyone snapped to attention. One man stepped forwards, and Loki very gently, very subtly directed me behind him, sweeping forwards with his usual, pompous, royal magnificence. I glanced around warily, barely aware of the way that Loki was positioning me, as the man who had separated himself from the line of guards announced, "Odin requires your presence."

And, for the second time that day, Loki and I had the same exact thought at the same exact time:

Damn.

---

"What, exactly, were you thinking, Miss Frost?"

I stood perfectly still as the tirade washed over me. Beside me, Loki did the same. Neither of us spoke a word.

Quite frankly, we were both surprised at where we were; and that Loki hadn't been thrown back in prison (yet). Though Odin had been the one to request our presence, it turned out that he wasn't the one appointed to deal with us and our little excursion on the borderlines of the law. (Or, you know. Whatever you wanted to call the unspoken 'rules' that seemed to follow Loki and I around.) While he was certainly capable of handling us and our insubordinate behavior, Odin hadn't even said a word to us since we'd been busted. Instead, he'd simply handed us back to Earth; and to S.H.I.E.L.D.

Thus, it was currently the Council, not Odin, that was chewing us out. An unexpected turn of events, but hey, better than the alternative. Neither Loki nor I was even remotely frightened of the Council; which was more than could be said about his father. While I didn't fear the guy, I did have a certain amount of healthy respect for him. Mostly because his power didn't come solely from his position; it came from what he was as opposed to just who he was. And he was a badass Asgardian King who could probably fry half the people in this room without much thought. Bubble or no, the guy was a force to contend with.

The Council on the other hand… not so much.

One of the shadowed faces began ticking off my list of crimes. "You went into Jotunheim, a planet filled with hostiles, without any reinforcements. You discussed matters with their king, without any ambassadorial authority. You went behind the backs of not only S.H.I.E.L.D., the organization you serve, but also Odin, and your team."

"Beyond this, you left out crucial information in the matter of Loki's freedom," a second voice chimed in; a female's. I kept my face blank. Smooth. Neutral. I have no thoughts, no emotions, nothing to say. I am Neutral Natalie.

"We were assured- your team was assured- that he could not leave the planet without the aid of the Tesseract," The woman went on. "And yet, clearly, this is not the case."

I felt my eyebrow struggling to lift. You'd think that would make them more confident that you won't try and leave, I said to Loki. You haven't yet, after all.

Humans are rather dull creatures, The Trickster droned. I fought a scowl.

Not cool, man.

Present company excluded, of course, he amended swiftly; in what could or could not have been a lie. Neither of us was really sure.

The Council- and Fury, hovering like a one-eyed vulture in the back of the room- remained ignorant to our exchange. "Well?" One of the men asked. "Do you have anything to say for your actions?"

I wanted to shoot a glance towards Loki. I resisted. Any show of familiarity would be taken very badly. Right now, we were co-conspirators. Partners in crime. "I was gathering intelligence," I said smoothly. "Being an intelligence organization, I'm certain that you can see the necessity in that."

"You should have come directly to us. There are others more capable of handling-"

"Who?"

Loki's eyes slid onto me, a warning smoldering behind them. I caught his gaze and forced myself to cool off, taking a deep breath and a step back.

"You had no authority. You do not speak on Earth's behalf."

"I didn't try to. I had a meeting with the king on what Fraye is. I barely even talked to the guy; mostly to Iecera." On seeing their blank faces (well, I assumed they were like that, as their faces were blank all of the time), I elaborated, "The Keeper of Legends. She was there the last time Fraye was on Jotunheim."

One of them men gave an exasperated sigh as the woman spoke irritably, "Regardless; there was a great opportunity for an interplanetary incident. You insist on saying that we are at war with this 'Fraye'. And yet you risked starting another with Jotunheim."

For some reason, I found the way she phrased that oddly intriguing. The Council seemed to seldom ask questions: it was always 'you did this'. I most definitely risked starting war. I insisted that we were at war with Fraye. No verifying of information; they believed it had happened this way, they thought that I risked and insisted and so they would hear no other alternative. An interesting tactic. It was also a very annoying, hostile way of speaking and was kinda grating on my nerves a little bit.

"There was a great possibility that we could gather information on Fraye-who we are at war with, whether you believe it or not."

"But that was not your risk to take."

Okay, now I bristled. I opened my mouth, very much ready to say, Oh, really? Pardon me, but who in this room ordered a nuclear strike against a civilian population? Was it your risk to take, to sacrifice all of those lives?

Fortunately for the Council, I was stopped. Loki very gently, very carefully, but very quickly wrapped his hand around my wrist, his cold touch shocking me down to earth as I made as if to advance towards the council, breathing fire. I didn't look to him- that would be too visible- but the gesture held me back. Tugged on the monster's leash and kept it in line.

I took another deep, calming breath, trying to think of soothing things. Relaxing beaches. Stuff like that. After a few moments, I had a calmer, more articulate, more political response.

"I did not announce myself as an ambassador. I spoke only for myself and the Son of Laufey." I indicated my head towards Loki as I referred to him by his father's name. "I did not speak for Earth; I did not even mention the Avengers by name. And while there may have been a possibility that the Jotuns would take offense to my words or actions, and taken that out on our world, I believed that the benefits far outweighed the risks. Loki agreed."

"Loki agreed?" One of the men latched onto the word. "You seem to forget, Natalie." Using my first name. No longer 'Miss Frost'. When Loki said that, it was a sign that he was trying to be more personal. When this dude did that, it was a sign that I was his lesser; that I was, quite frankly, a child.

"You do not answer to Loki," the man continued. "You answer to us."

Even standing a few feet away, Loki actually heard my jaw clench. Okay… I thought. Now you've pressed my 'Make-Natalie-A-Bitch' button.

Loki gave me another glance, then carefully, carefully, took a single step to the side. No more trying to restrain the monster. It was too late. The leash had snapped.

"I," a single step forward accented the word, "Answer to," another step landed at the same time the last syllable did, "No one." The third and final step had taken me much closer to the screens than they were probably designed to be viewed. I was directly in the Council member's blacked-out face by now. I had to tilt my head back pretty far to keep my eyes on where his would be, but at the moment, I didn't exactly care.

"I am not your puppet," I said each sentence with a quiet, but resounding strength; one that echoed and danced around me just as powerfully as my words had inside of Iecera's legend-filled cave."I am not your slave. I am not your bitch." Loki's eyebrows shot straight up. It had been a while since he'd seen me this mad. At humans, anyway.

"You think that you can pull my strings and make me dance?" These words were low in volume, but snarled out, purely animal. Purely monstrous. "I write your reports, I monitor the Avengers, but if you think for one second that you own my mind, then you've got another think coming, pal. My decisions are my own." I took another step towards the screen, my legs brushing up against the computer console. I could go no further. My eyes were burning.

"And really, what are you going to do to me?" I demanded in a hiss. "Fire me? Arrest me? Kill me? Go ahead. I dare you. Kill me before Fraye beats you to it." My eyes flashed. "I did what was best for my planet. For my world. For your world, for that matter!" My voice was still mostly quiet. But my words were still dangerous. "And I'm gonna do what is best, over and over again, until you get it through your thick skulls that I don't give a shit what you think. I will do anything and everything in my power to stop Fraye, to save the Earth, and if that means defying you, then so be it."

For a second, I remained there, staring up at them with wild eyes. I could actually taste my own anger.

And then Loki's hand fell on my shoulder, gently tugging me backwards. I allowed him to do so, giving the Council one final glare as I took my place beside him once more. The monster was still burning bright and alive, but the rant had allowed some of that heat to slip away; enough so that Loki's actions could put an icy collar around the creature once again, keep it in line. I took a few shaky breaths, trying to retain an illusion of calm once more. I'd kept from shouting, kept myself from saying a lot worse… but only barely. And my eyes were still shooting sparks when one of the Council Members found his voice again.

His tone was very dangerous; but to me, it sounded pathetic. This was a man who saw lives as numbers, who had filed the whole world into categories and shuffled it away with the paperwork. He was a grey man with a grey life. He was empty and hollow, and saw lines of text coming from the mouth of a paper girl. He did not see life and color; he saw words and lines. He was not dangerous. He knew nothing of danger. He merely gave the orders that got other people killed. But those orders did not touch him.

"You may not believe that you answer to us, Natalie." Again, reducing my name. My title.

"Miss Frost," I corrected him in a chilly tone.

I was ignored. "But he," the man gestured to Loki as he said this; they had not addressed the Trickster directly even once. Maybe they were too proud. Maybe they were too furious. Or maybe they were too afraid. "Answers to his father."

"His father's dead," I said flatly. Even Loki winced at that one. "So he answers to a dead man, does he?"

I was again ignored. Perhaps they were afraid of me, too.

The woman finished the man's sentence. I wondered how they communicated their decisions to each other; but it was a far-away fancy, not even a full-fledged thought. "We are handing jurisdiction over your case to Odin. His decision, whatever it may be, will be final for you both."

In other words: 'You're Asgard's problem now'.

"And Natalie," one of the men- one who hadn't really spoken until this point- talked directly to me. "You're fired."

"Really?" I lifted my eyebrows. "Good. Then I can-"

Loki shook his head. I scowled and forced myself to swallow the words 'do this'. I pinned my arm to my side and clenched it in a fist to keep me from raising the one-fingered salute.

It would be in rather poor taste, he reminded me in his usual logic-y way. I mimicked him in my head childishly, a high-pitched mockery: It would be in rather poor taste.

He looked down his nose at me as the screens turned black. Fury stepped up next to us, a hand falling on my shoulder. His grip was unnecessarily tight.

"Tell me it was worth it," he ordered me. No muss, no fuss. Right to the point.

"Define 'worth it'."

He gave me a one-eyed glare. "Do you know how to stop her, or not?"

Loki and I exchanged a look. "We know more than we did," I responded after a moment. "And maybe that's enough."

His gaze was oddly intense as he said, "I hope you're right."

---

"I shall give you both one opportunity to explain your actions."

It was the first thing that Odin said to us. The moment we entered the room, these were his first words. There was anger on his face, it's true… but there was a heavy disappointment in his eye that made my heart sank, my stomach twist. It was like being a kid all over again; getting caught with your hand stuck in the cookie jar, dragged before your parents and told to say you were sorry.

And it was a thousand times worse for Loki.

I can not even begin to describe to you how painful it was for him to stand here, before his father, like this. He had, of course, been in this position before; the day that Thor had taken him back to Asgard, after his invasion of Manhattan. He had been brought here as a prisoner and a failure, bound in chains, that hideous metal gag in his mouth. And while this was certainly a watered-down repeat of that event… it still stirred up some very dark memories.

When Odin said this, Loki and I looked to each other. Our thoughts brushed against each other; we didn't quite have a 'conversation', per se, but in that instant, a thousand different responses flashed through our minds, a million considerations as to what, exactly, our decision was and who, exactly, was to blame.

I had been the one to suggest the whole thing. But then again, Loki hadn't exactly fought me on the idea; he'd thought it was a decent plan. And better than what we'd had before. I had been the one to do things blindly, recklessly, spurred on by my anger, by the look on Thor's face…

But then, Loki had been the one to open the portal; something he wasn't supposed to do, and (according to most human sources) something he wasn't supposed to be able to do. He had helped me along. He had shielded me from Heimdal. He was a willing accomplice; one could even go so far as to pin the blame on him. It would certainly be easier for everyone.

The bitterness that filled him as he thought that hurt me worse than I thought it would. Being around his father really brought out the worst in him. That was something I hadn't noticed that much before; mostly because, unlike Thor, Odin did not visit Loki quite so often in prison. And when he did, I now remembered, it always made for a very difficult session the next time I came by. But then, Odin was the king. His time was limited; he had duties to perform.

He also had a damn son to take care of.

But I forced these thoughts aside, out of both of our heads. They would do us no good. Loki and I looked back to the old king as one, then Loki lifted his head. He took a step forwards, the words building inside of his throat; coated in arrogance, so that it would appear as though he was proud of what he was about to say, proud of the wrong that he was claiming the guilt for.

Before it could come out of his mouth, however, I took two steps forwards, surpassing him. "It was my idea," I announced firmly. "I knew that Fraye was a Jotun legend. I suggested that we go to Jotunheim. I convinced Loki to open the portal, and to shield me from Heimdal. He was completely against the idea." I forced myself to meet Odin's stare as I said, "I take sole responsibility for everything."

I felt Loki's eyes boring holes on the side of my face; after a moment, he turned back to Odin; who had turned his accusatory stare towards Loki. The Trickster did not say a word to contradict me.

"Is this true?" Odin asked of his adopted son.

I wasn't sure why he asked Loki this. Loki believed that he was a lie; and he never believed it more firmly than when he was in his father's presence. So did he honestly expect the truth to come from a lie's lips? Loki was his greatest deceit; a living, breathing deception. And so of course he responded in the only way he knew how; though not before he double-checked my posture, my stance. He knew how to read my gestures better than anyone; and even if he did not have this link in my head, he would have known that I was beyond certain of what I was doing.

"Aye," Loki answered his adoptive father. What was one more deception? Even if this one could get me thrown in the very prison that he'd been forced into…

Still. Odin tended to have more mercy on mortals. Perhaps I would not be imprisoned. Perhaps Loki still would be, for allowing me to 'talk him into it'. It would no longer surprise him.

The black, bubbling, tar-like hatred was very much like a sickness inside of him. It ate away at his insides, gnawed at him relentlessly. It was the worst kind of hatred; the most painful kind, the kind that shot out in all directions and stabbed you worst in yourself. And I knew that; because I was him.

Odin studied us. I didn't take my eyes off of him, did not flinch or waver or hesitate. But in spite of my pure determination, my knees were shaking. My hands trembled at my sides. Odin was not like the Council. No matter the resources that S.H.I.E.L.D. had, there was no prison on Earth that could hold me; but I doubted the same could be said for Asgard. By this point, my one and only goal was to stay free until Fraye was killed (which, oddly, was Loki's one goal as well). And if that meant that I'd have to take out armies to do it…

So be it.

Loki was taken aback by my determination in this. Before now, I hadn't even considered defying S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers, let alone Odin. Before now, I hadn't needed to.

But I was still not going to let Loki take the fall for this. (Though, as far as I was concerned, there was no 'fall' to take. We had done the right thing. Even if it had been pronounced 'wrong'.) Loki didn't deserve the fall for this.

He didn't deserve to be punished the first time that he did the right thing.

After a long moment in which I held my ground against Odin's penetrating stare, the Asgardian King finally spoke up again.

"And were you successful?"

Part of me felt relieved. Part of me was way too suspicious for that. But somewhere between the warring of these two halves of myself, a response came out. "In a manner of speaking."

Odin's face remained stern. He did not ask me to elaborate, but I felt the necessity to do so anyway. "We learned more of Fraye's world. Learned about what might have happened to it. About what might have destroyed her species. And…" I hesitated. We'd learned far more than that; but I suspected that the Jotuns would not take too kindly to an Asgardian learning about the 'deal' that they had made; and then failed to follow through on because of those same Asgardians.

I looked back to Loki. He looked back to me. Our minds touched and flooded together, trying to come to a conclusion.

"We learned what, exactly, she's capable of," I compromised, my words swimming in shadows. "And to what lengths she will go." As if we needed to learn that. As if the always-painful scars on Loki's back would ever let him forget what Fraye was capable of.

There was a long moment of silence. Odin watched me. Intently.

"And did the Jotuns protest your presence? Did they take offense to what you said?"

"No. In fact, as far as I could tell, they were grateful that someone decided to warn them about the imminent threat to their world." I tried to stare him down. At the same time, I tried not to. "They were readying their planet's defenses."

"Preparing for war," he said in a tone that was almost like an assumption, and almost an accusation. My lip twitched downwards.

"In essence. But not against either of our worlds."

Odin's eye narrowed on me. "And how can you be certain of this?"

I tilted my head to the side, pieces falling into place, the jigsaw coming together, forming a picture. I could see the pattern on the chessboard; the King had made a move, one that I had thought insignificant and thus had almost missed…

The corner of my lip now turned upwards into almost a half-smirk. "I am as certain as you were," I answered in a slow, measured tone, "When you decided to let us go through with it."

If Loki was surprised, he masked it; as did Odin. Loki's thoughts slipped along mine, following in my mental footsteps, and after a brief second, he, too, saw the pattern. The move that had been made.

Because the guards had been waiting for us outside of the room where we had been, where Loki had created the portal. They had been waiting for us to come out. If they truly wanted to stop us, they could have just come in and arrested Loki then and there; forced him to recall me back to Asgard, forced me back on-planet.

Oh, Odin was very clever. He played this game very well; but then, he'd been playing it for a very long time. And why wouldn't he want Midgard and Jotunheim to have a good relationship? Would that not, in turn, ease the strain between Jotunheim and Asgard? Would that not make things easier for everyone? Did it not fit Odin's goals?

I could have applauded.

Despite how neither of her family members had reacted to my statement, Frigga, sitting beside Odin, smiled very softly. I may have been new to the game, but I was learning to see when and where the pieces were being played. Even if I was one of those pieces.

Ever the pawn in someone else's game… One of us mused, but which one, we weren't certain.

Odin watched me closely for another long, tense moment. I stood my ground, the weight and blame of the world settling upon my shoulders. Regardless of whether or not he had allowed us to go through with my little journey to Jotunheim, I had still gone against what was required of me. I had still gone off-world unsupervised. I had still risked interplanetary war. I had still allowed Loki to open a portal to another planet. There was still blame on me. I had put it there. I had accepted and claimed it.

Finally, Odin announced, "This will not happen again."

But there was a friendlier spark in his eye (one that I saw and Loki did not) when he added, "Unless the matter has been discussed with myself or Thor beforehand."

I gave him a wry half-smile. The Pawn smiling to the King. "Aye, sir," I said, but my tone indicated, no promises, dude.

He turned away. "You are dismissed."

I backed away, half-bowing, and Loki followed moments later. His eyes were on me, watching out of the corner of his vision, as I walked out of the throne room, out into the main body of the palace. My heart was pounding and my knees felt like jelly, but for a second, I felt… alive.

As soon as we were out of the sentries' line of sight, and their range of hearing, I slouched against a wall and let out a heavy, relieved sigh. "Okay," I panted, my fingers shaking. "That went well."

Loki's green eyes turned scrutinizing, scanning me very, very carefully. I was shaking, in a cold sweat. Today had been a long one. His eyes flicked away from me, looking down the hallway, ignoring me as I took a few deep breaths in an effort to calm my suddenly-racing heart. His heartbeat, shadowing mine, was still very slow and even. He was always so freaking calm. It bugged me.

I ran my hands down my face as Loki's thoughts grew distant. I ignored them, allowing my mind to focus on other things. The Avengers, for one: they were going to be royally pissed when we met up with them. And Thor, for another. I felt kinda bad; he shouldn't have had to go through this whole 'Jane' thing alone. I mean, he had the Avengers, but still… I should have been there with him. I should be there with him right now.

"You did not have to do that," Loki's voice pulled me out of my thoughts. It was gentle and cool and quiet, a winter's mummer. I blinked, looking to him.

"Do what?"

He gave me a sharp look. Okay, so it was something obvious. I thought for a moment, then rolled my eyes.

"Oh, take the blame?" I shrugged. "Of course I did." I pushed myself up off the wall. And of course I had to. Loki didn't deserve to be punished for doing something that even his father recognized was the right thing.

I turned around and started walking down the hall, heading towards the Healing Room, where I knew Thor and the other Avengers would be waiting. Loki did not move. For a moment, he stared at the ground. A frozen statue, an ice sculpture, immobile and filled with an artist's thoughts and time and care.

After a moment, as I was still walking, he half-whispered, half-mouthed, "Thank you."

I halted in the middle of a step, almost falling but not quite. After my foot landed, I took a moment to pull myself together, straightening, then turned to him. For a long moment, his face was turned downwards; and then his eyes- and only his eyes- flicked up to look at me. It was not the first time that the words had been said, but… well, they were a rarity.

And, as big a deal as they were to him… I knew it frustrated him that they were. And so instead of freaking out and making it into a big deal in turn, I just slugged him in the arm. "No biggie. Us monsters gotta stick together, right?"

He didn't react. Instead, he turned away from me. There was no window on the other end of the hall, but as distant as his gaze went, there might as well have been. He might as well have been staring out across the city, across space, across the universe itself. "You know what he would have done," his tone was oddly flat. "If he had believed that I was the one at fault."

I looked away. Because I did know. At the very least, I knew what was likely; if Odin hadn't been on our side from the beginning. "Don't think about it," I suggested, trying to turn away.

"It is all I think about." His voice stopped me from doing so, and I flinched at his sincerity.

"It didn't happen, Loki," I said, looking to him, trying to meet his eyes. "Forget about it."

"How can I?" he breathed. "When I know that it is the only thing that lies ahead for me?" His eyes closed. "Of what use and worth is my life, if that is all that lies at the end of defending it? If we succeed, I will be of no more value. I will be returned to the darkness."

I bit my lip. Because what could I say? It was true. As hard as he was trying to save his own skin, he was finding that life was becoming worthless to him. For what was the point in living, if he was forced to live there? There, in that prison, in that darkness, that hole.

And there was nothing I could do to stop it; Loki had to answer for his crimes. He had tried to destroy one planet and take over another (twice). He had killed countless. He had killed April.

He deserves it.

It was something that I occasionally found myself wanting to believe. A thought that, no matter how I tried, I could not believe. Because, no matter how unapologetic Loki was for these past mistakes, that was still all they were: mistakes. And slowly, slowly, he was recognizing this. I knew he was. I could quite literally feel it.

And no one, but no one, deserved to be trapped with their greatest fear. Not like that. And he'd been hiding it for so long.

How exhausted he must be…

I sighed, taking a step closer to him, realizing too late that it kinda breeched both of our personal bubbles. Loki didn't seem to have a problem with it, but suddenly I felt a bit… awkward. Still, I persisted.

"One thing at a time, okay?" I asked, catching his gaze and holding it firmly. "We'll figure everything out. We just gotta survive Fraye, first. That's all that matters." At his still-doubtful look, I placed a hand on him carefully, reassuringly. "We can't let her get away with this. Revenge ain't the best thing to live for; but it's still something." He tried to look away. I made sure he couldn't. "We'll figure it out, I swear."

His eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he looked at me, as he watched me. After a moment, though he seemed almost… perplexed, he nodded. I turned, and the two of us continued to head for the Healing Room, standing a few feet apart, so that we would not seem 'close' when we encountered the Avengers.

But, in spite of what I knew lay ahead, in spite of knowing what would be done and said… my mind was far away from the Avengers and their ire. I was too busy thinking on what it meant to be a prisoner; and what it meant to be free.

By the time I reached the Healing Room, my only conclusion was this: so long as Fraye was out there, causing damage and killing people… so long as darkness existed… Loki would never be free.

---

"You said that he could not leave the planet without the Tesseract!" Clint shouted. I stayed where I was, leaning against the wall, arms crossed and face blank, and gave exactly no shits.

"Gee, it looks like I lied." I batted my eyelashes a few times. "Would it help if I said I was vewy vewy sowwy?"

"This isn't a game, Natalie!" Steve was almost as mad as Clint was. No, scratch that, he was pissed, too. "We have to be able to trust you, trust him, to watch our backs!"

"And we can't trust him, if he can just magic himself away the instant things get too rough!" Tony cut in. My eyebrow went up, unimpressed, though it was rare to see Tony and Steve agreeing on something. Under other circumstances, that might have been a nice change of pace.

"And we can't trust you if you keep lying to us!" Clint chimed in. It seemed odd to me, that Loki wasn't even the target of their latest barrage. He was sitting in the other end of the room (the Asgardian equivalent of the waiting room in a doctor's office; only Thor was currently inside of the actual 'Healing Room' with Jane) and was being left completely alone. I, on the other hand, had been cornered against the wall from the instant that I'd walked inside.

"Oh, puh-leeze." I rolled my eyes, waving a flippant hand. I placed my palms flat against the wall and pushed myself upright. "Tell me, would you have believed me if I told you that he could leave the planet, but he wouldn't?"

"Of course not!" That was Clint.

I smirked. For a brilliant super spy, Big Bird walked right into that one in a very stupid way. "So one way or another, you wouldn't have trusted me." I gave my head a quick little tilt to the side- another one of Loki's gestures that I seemed to have adopted- and took a step forwards. "At least this way, you got to see for yourself that he's not going anywhere. If he really was able to escape, he could've done it a long time ago."

"If?" Tony asked. "It seems pretty clear to me that he can escape, any time he wants."

"Not without her."

Loki's voice was very quiet, but it carried all the way over to us. The three Avengers who were attacking me whirled on him. Natasha stood beside the Norse god of Mischief, leaning against the wall in the same bored way that I had been only moments ago. I admit to looking a little bit too smug at that point.

"Precisely," I said with a callous shrug. "And I'm not going anywhere."

"Forgive me if I can't rely on that," Clint said bitterly.

"Well I will, since you asked nicely," I responded airily. "But if you ask me, this is all rather pointless. Loki can leave the planet, big deal. Why would he? Fraye can track him down across universes, and then he'd end up facing her alone." Loki concealed a wince. "At least with us, he has a fighting chance."

Banner, who had been sitting a short distance away from Loki and Natasha, leaning over in a thoughtful position with his hands folded, now looked at those hands and asked, "Loki, how long did she have you prisoner?"

The entire room froze.

You know those moments in a movie, where the soundtrack stops playing, and the world goes white? Or in an anime, where suddenly the entire screen flashes into a photo negative? And there's absolutely no sound, no movement; just a single screen with one character in a background of nothing…?

You wouldn't think those moments could happen in real life. But believe me, they do.

At the sound of our silence, Banner looked up, then straightened in his seat. "It's fairly obvious," he informed us in a calm voice. He looked to Natasha. "And you knew, didn't you?"

Natasha blinked at him. Loki looked away as Banner's gaze turned to him.

"Before or after the Chitauri incident?" Banner questioned. Loki's eyes stayed on the wall.

"Before," someone with a strong voice answered, and though I was currently numb, I realized it was me.

"And she tortured him?"

Another flash of white, a swapping into the negative, because everything was reversed and wrong, because the Avengers did not know this, they could not be told this… They could never know this…

Loki blinked. It was as much an affirmative as anyone was ever going to get from him. I think I nodded, but I wasn't sure.

"H-How…?" Tony attempted to inquire, looking to Bruce. Though he never formed an actual question, we all knew what he was asking.

"Because I paid attention," there was just the lightest of chastisements in Bruce's tone as he pointed his words in Tony's direction, then turned his gaze- and the mild blame- onto Steve and Clint. "I may not particularly like Loki, but that doesn't mean that I'm blind to whatever humanity he does have."

He gave me a little understanding look as he said this. I could only give him a blank one in response.

"So she… she did torture him?" Steve turned to me for confirmation. I looked to Loki for permission to answer. This wasn't my secret being revealed. We might have been the same person, but certain things still belonged to us as individuals; and this secret belonged irrevocably to him.

He didn't look at me. But his eyes closed and he gave the mental equivalent of a half-nod. He was too drained to actually perform the action in reality, and thus left it to me. Still, I found gravity suddenly taking a toll on my gaze, forcing it downwards, to the floor.

"Yeah," I breathed, wrapping one arm around myself and rubbing my other arm with my hand. "Yeah, she did."

I couldn't look up for a moment, but when I did, it was to steal a glance at Clint. I don't think I've ever seen anyone look so… I don't even know how to explain it. There is no one word to describe everything in his expression at that moment. There was anger, because he was always holding onto it so desperately, because Fraye was always silently urging him to do so. There was the desperate need for some kind of justification, for some way to keep Loki as the villain, the bad guy, the boogeyman. There was betrayal, because Natasha, his partner, his closest friend, the woman he secretly loved, had hid such crucial information from him. And somewhere amid that, there was the faintest trace of guilt, dusted over the words, how did I not see this?

Because Clint had been there before, I was certain. Just like Natasha had.

Torturer and Tortured.

Natasha gently nudged Loki's shoulder. "Show them," she suggested lightly. It was a suggestion she'd given to us before. She had not seen Loki's scars with her own eyes, but she had known that he would have them. We all had scars, after all, and these, the ones of torture, would be the most visible of all…

Loki's eyes stayed on the wall for a long moment before flicking to me. For a moment, it was almost as though he was now asking me for permission. But then I realized that it was deeper than that. He was asking me if he was capable of doing this. Because I would know better than he would.

The Avengers saw the interchange of glances and looked between the two of us, some eyes on him, some on me. One pair-Clint's- on Natasha. Amid all of these glances and gazes and stares, Loki and I did not turn away from each other. I took a few steps towards him as Natasha put her hand on his shoulder; for some reason, the gesture was oddly comforting in a way that I could not be. I think it was the blood on her hands that made it that way, the experience of what those hands had done and been through, things that I had not. Natasha understood in a way that I couldn't. No matter our connection, I was still currently a secondhand observer to Loki's pain in so many ways…

I crouched down next to him so that I was at eye level of where he sat, scanning his jade eyes, trying to determine an answer to his unspoken question. After a moment, I nodded. He could do this. He could do this.

Loki blinked and looked down. With a quick hand gesture, he removed the illusion beneath his sleeve; he disguised the magical movement, making it look as though he was simply moving his hand closer to his sleeve. If he dropped the illusion in the sight of the Avengers, they may have believed that he was creating one, not removing it, and that those scars were no more real than they believed any of his other words and actions to be.

As he undid the clasp of his sleeve with deft fingers, my hand suddenly shot out, wrapping around his wrist. My eyes, like all others in the room, were locked on his arm. Loki stopped moving, stopped trying to undo and roll down his jacket sleeve.

"Swear to me," I said, and I was surprised by the venom that dripped along my teeth and coated my tongue. My eyes flicked up to the Avengers and skewered each of them in turn. "Swear to me that this does not leave this room." With my free hand- the one that was not gripping Loki's wrist like a vise- I gestured between myself and the Trickster. "We tell Thor. And no one else ever finds out."

Banner nodded once; it was immediate. He understood. As did Natasha, but the others were more hesitant. My hand trembled and a single tiny droplet of spittle flew from my lips as I shouted, "Swear it!"

There was another immobile moment. Then, starting with Steve and moving on to Tony and Clint, the others nodded. With difficulty, I released Loki's arm, my fingers splaying out before clenching into a fist by my side. He gave me another glance to double-check before he continued. I nodded again, tightly, and he continued to roll his sleeve down with careful hands. It was the wrist without the Key, but there were still so many secrets carved into his skin that it was not really necessary-or really even possible- for him to reveal another.

Loki's eyes were hollow as he displayed the inside, then the out, of his forearm, slowly rotating it so that every one of the scars would catch the light. From the small white ones that were tally-marked on the side of his wrist, to the long, curving red swoops that trailed with burnt edges towards the crook of his elbow. The entire room was one person, holding their breath, as Loki gave the most twisted of smirks and demanded in what was not quite powerful enough to be called a snarl, "Satisfied?"

He was trying to be his usual dark, arrogant, evil self. Even as he showed us the cracks inside of him, the fractures that web-lined through him. Tony's and Steve's jaws went slack as Clint's clenched.

Banner took a step forwards, holding his hands out. "May I…?" he asked delicately. Loki studied him for a second, then seemed to decide that it was pointless to try and protect whatever scrap of dignity he had left. Turning away, he allowed Banner to take his arm in his hands and scan the wounds.

After a moment, Banner said in a quiet voice, "And the pain doesn't stop?" It was a question directed at Loki, but a reminder directed at the Avengers. "Ever?"

"It's not intended to, no," I answered for him bitterly. "He's repaired them as best he could but… he's not a Healer." I looked away. "And even if he were… I doubt that there's anything more that could be done."

"Where are the rest?"

The words were tight and said through gritted teeth, the words of someone clinging to their anger so tightly that their fingers are turning numb. Clint's words. Natasha closed her eyes, sighing out a warning in the form of his name. "Clint…"

"Where are the rest?" Clint demanded again, taking a dangerous step towards Loki. I rolled my eyes to him and snapped in an exhausted way, "Enough, Fraye."

For a brief second, Clint didn't seem to recognize what I'd called him; he took another step forwards before freezing in a wait-what kind of way. But before he could react, Loki spoke.

"No."

I looked to him. His eyes were on the ground. A little smile drifted across his face, showing his teeth. For a brief second, those teeth looked almost like fangs.

"No, you're right, Barton." He laughed- it sounded like twisted, shattered glass, grating against my ears- and looked to Clint. "Of course there are others." His eyes flicked to Bruce. "And to answer your question, Doctor Banner, she had me for a number of months." Eyes back to Clint. "So why would she stop here?" he gestured to his arm.

"Loki…" I said slowly. "Loki, it's okay. You don't have to do this."

"Of course I do, Miss Frost." His eyes held a darkness black as pitch even as he smiled lethally. Even as he acted as though none of this mattered. It was a darkness straight from the eyes of Fraye Burns herself. "Why else would I be believed, if they do not know everything?" He had already removed the remainder of the illusion; and was now shrugging out of his jacket. The scars on the other arm came into visibility, and I saw eyes darting across them, scanning them. He reached for the hem of his shirt, but before he could take it, I gripped his hands and yanked them away forcefully.

"You're not ready for this," I hissed at him, throwing his hands down and away. My mental voice soon joined in a chorus with my real one. What are you trying to do, throw the scars in their faces? The only ones who can be convinced have already seen everything they need to. Clint won't hear it. Fraye's making sure that he can't hear it.

He took both of my hands in his, then collected them in one of his own, binding my wrists with his fingers, keeping me from stopping him again. Regardless. This will be said.

I frowned, but when he released my hands, I did not try to stop him again. He removed his shirt swiftly, the scars that mattered still hidden by the fact that he had not yet turned his back to the Avengers. I heard Tony make some kind of noise; it was almost a gasp, but it was choked off and stifled. Even I bit my lip. I'd never really seen all of the scars like this; though I'd seen the ones on his back, had them branded into my mind with a white-hot poker, written there for the rest of time. And I'd caught a glimpse of the ones on his chest and stomach, but… well, as usual, it was still a lot worse to be confronted with them in their entirety. Regardless of whether or not I knew everything about his scars, I never liked seeing them. It was always painful to look at.

He was still smiling in his usual arrogant, wicked way as he turned to drape his shirt over the chair. Steve's eyes immediately zeroed in on the symbols between Loki's shoulder blades. The others' soon followed; even if they were not English, they were so symmetrical, so intentional, that they naturally drew the eye to them.

Loki straightened, standing upright. A single note of a laugh all but choked off in the back of his throat, and he smiled as he felt all eyes on him, on his back. I hadn't realized that I was reaching out to hold his hand until his fingers wrapped around mine. A deafening silence rang through the air.

And then… "Go on, Frost," Loki prodded, his voice languid and relaxed despite its sharp edge. "Tell them what they mean."

I closed my eyes. Swallowed. Loki was acting very flippant and casual. He was laughing and smiling and pretending like this was just another play in his long game, but his hand was clutching mine so tightly that I was having a hard time keeping myself from crying out in pain. I was certain that my fingers must have been breaking, but I spoke anyway.

"It's… Jotun text," I said, looking away as the Avengers stared. "It means 'Child of Shadow'." I paused, then, seeing their mildly confused looks, clarified, "It's their term for Fraye. They don't say her name out loud."

Loki, still smiling his twisted, bent, crooked smile, turned around to Barton. His hand slipped out of mine so that he could turn, but, moments later, his other hand took its place. The movement was so natural and reflexive that the Avengers didn't really notice it. Their eyes were on the scars that cut across the Trickster's entirety. "So you see, Barto-"

He meant to question Clint on why he would run from Fraye. Meant to ask if Clint had ever run from one of his torturers, or if he had done everything in his power to make certain that said torturers did not live to see the next sunrise. But he stopped talking abruptly, his words choking off in his throat. His eyes widened. His heartbeat froze.

Confused, I followed his gaze, turning to the thing that had made his words die off. The door on the other end of the room-the one that lead into the Healing Room- was open.

Thor was standing in the doorframe.

Staring at Loki's scars.

One by one, the other Avengers turned to see what had stopped the flow of Loki's words. I couldn't tell you what they were thinking as they caught sight of Thor- their expressions ranged from sympathy to unexplained guilt- and I could barely tell you what I was thinking. Swallowing, I took a step forwards, hand slipping out of Loki's, so that I could open it pleadingly towards the Thunderer. "Thor…"

Thor's hand clutched the doorframe so tightly that the wood splintered with a crack!

Everyone flinched as the wood broke in half, small, crumbling splinters raining down off of the sides. His blue eyes, already bloodshot and rimmed with red, did not leave the scars, roaming about and taking in every last one of them. Arms, chest, stomach… the scars were everywhere, lash-lines and curls, thin and thick, black and white and red and burnt and ugly and ruining, ruining everything, ruining his brother, ruining Loki outside and in. Just as Jane had been ruined inside and out.

I had learned the true meaning of the expression 'murder in his eyes' a year ago, back when I had first met Loki. Before then, I had thought it was nothing more than an expression, a clever turn of words used to explain something away. But even though I now knew that it was nothing more or less than a blood-stained truth, I was still taken aback by the murder in Thor's eyes now.

He moved very quickly; none of us had any time to react before he had made it across the room, taking three or four quick, snapping strides and forcefully gripping his brother by the shoulders, turning him around again. Loki, similarly taken aback by the pure bloodlust on Thor's features (and quite honestly a great deal frightened by it, fearing for only a single disoriented moment that it was directed at him) allowed himself to be turned, so that Thor could see the Jotun symbols that had been engraved into his skin.

I both saw and heard Thor's teeth clench. His hands began to tremble; I heard the rumbling of the sky somewhere far above our heads, and the light outside of the window began to darken. Blue sparks danced and crackled in the back of his eyes.

"When."

It was too dark, too blunt, and too filled with utter loathing to be a question; or to be Thor's words. It was an order from a King, and the answer slipped out of my mouth without my permission.

"Before the Chitauri Incident."

Thor's lightning eyes turned to me. I could see his hand straining not to reach for the war hammer in his belt. "You knew."

Again, not a question. But not an order, either. An accusation. One of the first I'd ever heard from Thor's lips. I turned my head away and used the gesture to nod at the same time. I could not stand to look at the betrayal in his eyes. Nor the hate that might as well have been directed at me, though I knew, somewhere, that it never could be.

Loki's shoulders were released, and he was allowed to turn to face Thor again. He did so quickly, but he still did not seem able to look at his brother. His eyes stayed on the floor, his features filled with shame, humiliation, disgrace. And of course, the ever-present sheen of dark, smothered fury.

Thor's thick hands clenched into fists at his sides, still trembling. And then, abruptly, he turned away from us all, Mjolnir flying into his hand. It did not need much urging; in seconds, the hammer was in his palm and Thor was striding towards the Healing Room, back to Jane. Unable to help myself, I followed him, calling, "Thor, wait! Please… Thor!"

But I was cut off by the sound of another voice; and the sight of another figure inside of the Healing Room.

"I told you that you wouldn't like what you saw," Fraye purred, tilting back on two legs of her chair, legs crossed and sharp, unpainted fingernails tapping her lower lip gently. She shrugged in an oh-well way and lowered the front two legs of her chair back to the ground. "Why does no one ever listen to me?" Her pale hand gently stroked Jane's hair, arranging it on the pillow, white fingers interlacing with chocolate brown strands.

Mjolnir was coming to electric life inside of Thor's hands, brilliant and bright and dangerous. "You have named your terms," he said in a very low, very dangerous, and strangely regal tone. I realized then that Loki was next to me again, having followed after he realized that Fraye was here. The Avengers were gathering behind us.

"And now I shall name mine," Thor concluded. I blinked. Naming terms. Making deals. Iecera had warned that Fraye made deals, had told me of the pact that she had made with the Jotuns. It seemed she had offered Thor one, too. From the looks of things, I'd say she was being rejected.

"Run." Thor ordered, as the sky outside grew ever darker and the world around us began to crackle with lightning. The distant Thunder was ever-growing in strength and volume, growling and rumbling and snarling like an animal, the entire breath of the world turning cold and overcast and stormy. Thor spoke through his clenched jaw, and yet every word was crystal clear.

"You can run, and you can hide, like the vile wretch that you are. But it matters not, and it never shall. I will follow you to the edges of the nine realms, I will follow you beyond them, no matter how you hide, no matter how far you go, I will find you. And I swear," he began to tremble even more violently, pent-up power exploding through his nerves and muscles and veins, his heart alight with electric blue-white flames. "I swear, that you will pay for everything you have done, creature!"

"'Creature,' now," Fraye exclaimed, mock-injured, holding her hand against her heart as though wounded. "Oh, my dear, I do still have a name, you know." She jutted out her lower lip. "I may be a monster, but I have a heart," She winked at Loki. "Sound familiar, my little toy?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Avengers- in the room now, behind us- react to that. Natasha's face remained passive. She knew how Fraye referred to Loki, she had recognized it before any of the others had. But Steve and Tony were very clearly seeing it in a new light, and even Bruce's eyes grew darker.

But the words took no greater hold in anyone than they seemed to in Clint. He actually stumbled back half a step, eyes widening in horror as he mouthed, no. Over and over again, I saw him whispering the denial, as though it could change everything. As though that would change the things he'd said. As though that could suck away and take back all of the hate. Maybe he didn't care about what hatred he had for Loki, but he knew me. And why wouldn't I help Loki, if he had been tortured? He knew how I was.

I wasn't Loki's puppet after all…

I could almost see the wheels of the archer's head turning, thinking back to what I had called him, thinking back to the fact that I had named him 'Fraye'… seeing the manipulation for what it was at last…

"But why should I run?" Fraye asked, stepping away from Jane and turning back to Thor. "When you can exact your petty little revenge right now?" She smiled with all of her perfect white teeth. "I'm not going to stop you. In fact…" She winked. "Why don't we do this the easy way?"

That was when the shadows struck.

They rose up off of the ground to meet us, wraiths of darkness, black ghosts that swarmed around us and swallowed us whole, devoured us. Startled, I tried to cry out, to scream, but I found any and all sound snatched away from me as the shadows cocooned each of us separately.

I felt the rush of cold air blowing around me, a feeling of movement and motion making my stomach lurch, and I knew that we were traveling somewhere. But where, I did not know; nor did I even know if the others were beside me, or if they were being sent in opposite directions. The blackness was absolute, swallowing all senses except that of flying through the void, through the nothingness.

Loki! I cried out in my head, for it was the only place where my voice was heard, but he was fine, I could feel that he was fine, but though he was standing beside me only moments ago, I could not find him there. My hand reached out in the darkness, trying to grasp hold of him, of Thor, who had also been standing close, trying to reach for any of the others…

And then we were plunged into light again. I pitched forwards and fell on the ground, landing painfully in the dirt. I collapsed, coughing, trying to push myself upright with my palms. My fingers dug easily into the ground beneath me, which was so fine as to be called sand… no, finer, and paler than sand, of a grimmer hue…

Not sand.

Ash.

I was on my hands and knees in a field of ash.

I immediately scrabbled upright, spitting grey globs out of my mouth, surprised at how much soot and cinder that I'd inhaled in such a short time. I heard coughing beside me and whirled to it; Tony. And beside him, Steve. I scrabbled to see someone, anyone else, looking through both my own eyes and Loki's. I was just as (if not more) relieved as he was when he caught sight of me; I turned to the angle his viewpoint suggested and saw him there, similarly spitting out ash and soot. Thor appeared moments later, materializing out of the shadows, falling to his hands and knees in front of Tony, Natasha tumbling out of the darkness soon afterwards. She was on her feet in a heartbeat, and already the skies began to darken beneath Thor's influence.

Immediately, we all went into action; the Avengers, Loki and I, all trying to clarify the battlefield in our minds, searching for advantages, for disadvantages. Stark's suitcase appeared after a second, directly beside him- this had to be a fun game for Fraye, she had to have challenges, so why would she not give it to him?- and he immediately started to suit up. The others fell into a battle pattern, falling in step beside each other, circling each other. Banner- who had come through next to Loki and pulled himself up soon afterwards- was immediately surrounded on all sides by the other Avengers, who turned their backs to him, and to each other, standing in a circle so that they had eyes on all angles.

But perhaps it was even more curious that, as the Avengers fell instinctively into line around each other, Loki and I fell in to line as well; but not with them.

With each other.

Back to back, eyes everywhere, Loki's armor glimmering into existence, covering his now-soot-stained scars and skin, my glow beginning to spread across my form as I prepped the Death Bubble for action. The Avengers stood beside us and we stood outside of the Avengers; because that is what they were, and it is what we were not. We weren't Avengers. We weren't with the team. Hell, we weren't even our own team. We were just enemies made into allies, forged together by what our link had made us into. We fought together on the basis of what we were, as opposed to who we were. Because if we fought by who we were… we'd be in very different positions now, wouldn't we?

Fraye emerged from the shadows like an old pro; with none of the indignities that we had suffered, none of the falling into the dirt. The Avengers were all tense and geared for war, weapons out, but Loki and I were still separated, and my bubble still hadn't appeared. We were thinking, not fighting, not yet. Strategy first.

First thought to be addressed: where are we?

Not Earth. Not any of the planets that Loki knew. An empty place, filled with ash and dust. Nothing living here, not for millennia. Not on this part of the planet, at least. There was bound to be some kind of growth or plant or animal life somewhere.

We had already arrived at a conclusion by the time Fraye drifted down out of the air, her bare feet making small grey clouds where they landed. "Home sweet home," Fraye bubbled and chirped and laughed like it was all so beautiful. She took a deep breath through her nose, in the way someone would after complimenting the fresh air in a place. "It took so many years for the air to be breathable again… oh, it's so good to be back, it's been a while…"

Loki and I did not need to exchange even a look. In that second, we both knew; this was going to become a battle. A bloodbath. Because this place was utterly abandoned; there were no civilian distractions, no buildings, nothing but her and us in between an empty ash sky. The perfect place for a slaughter.

I flared my force field; it snapped away in its spherical shape before molding itself to my form. Our minds meshed together, thoughts interweaving and interlacing. We had gotten much better at doing that in a short time, and in seconds, our thoughts had become one current, a wave and a riptide, flowing along the same path. Boundaries were erased, borders shattered into oblivion. Natalie and Loki ceased to be; there was no more 'I' or 'him' or 'her'. There was only 'we' and 'us'. One mind in control of two separate bodies, with control over four hands and arms and legs, four eyes and ears, two hearts and one desperate desire for the bleakest of all goals: revenge.

I'd like to say that Fraye struck first, and that all other blows were in complete self-defense… ( well, regardless of who struck first, it was still self-defense) but it was definitely our side that threw the first blow. More specifically, it was Thor, Mjolnir still alive with white lightning as the skies grew ever darker. Fraye laughed as the hammer struck against shadow, light and dark clashing in an explosion worthy of a ballad all its own, a history all its own. Thor was relentless, throwing strike after strike as Tony threw himself into the air beside him.

We turned Natalie's body towards Bruce and spoke through her lips, knowing that her voice would be more readily listened to. "Banner! We need big green! NOW!"

Now, because this could be it. Fraye was having a blast with Thor's continuing strikes, laughing like a person who had just escaped an asylum. She would have no qualms with killing one of us, it was true; but now she had brought us here, with no distractions, no buildings, no civilians.

In short, nothing to hold us back.

This could be the end of any of us.

Clint was already firing arrows (as if he would have left his bow at home when he went to Asgard. Yeah right) and Natasha, too, was firing bullets. We didn't know where she had concealed her weaponry, but she suddenly seemed to have a lot of it. Steve removed his backpack and pulled out the shield (I was wondering where that was) and, suddenly, though we hadn't all properly 'suited up'… we were fighting.

You wouldn't think that those of us who were on the ground would have much to do, given the mostly-flat field (though there were a few small rises in the ground) but Fraye soon took care of that. As she flung herself backwards, away from Thor's most recent strike, she laughed hysterically and threw out her hands. Shadows swarmed at her fingertips and spilled down to the ground, strands of darkness unwinding as they poured themselves onto the ash and rebuilt themselves into dark figures, wraiths of night, with their canine faces and forms, their fur like candlelight shadows.

Shadow Hounds.

It wasn't a thought, not anymore. It was an action, a reaction. We were charging towards the Hounds in a heartbeat as the corner of Loki's eye caught sight of Banner, rippling, changing. Even as more hounds grew out of the darkness, Natalie charged one as Loki took on another, and we saw, heard, and felt everything through all of these eyes and limbs, and we slashed out with Loki's spear and created sharp edges in Natalie's force field, and the fight became a blur, accented by the sounds of Thor's and Fraye's battle above us, as well as the Hulk's occasional shattering roar.

A swift move to the left in one body, a fast jab with a fist in the other. Striking and dodging and weaving, the two of us fell into our dance as one. The training, it became immediately apparent, had paid off, strained though it always was. The Avengers fought beside us- both of us- without complaint, without even the barest heartbeat of hesitation. And Thor was bellowing war cries every three seconds in defense of his brother, and of the woman he loved.

"Aw, you're so cute when you're angry!" Fraye gushed, a scythe of shadow interfering with Thor's most recent blow. Lightning and shadow, light and dark, split the skies into beauty and horror. The Thunderer did not seem to hear her; Natalie eyes went to him and saw the warrior madness raging in his features.

That idiot is going to get himself killed, we thought, as Loki's arm linked with Natalie's, pulling her towards him and propelling her behind him. Her force field grew into a sharpened edge, which cut across a Shadow Hound's front legs, bringing it to the ground. Seconds later, we drove Loki's spear through its head, and the creature vanished in a cloud of darkness.

We knew it was only temporary. Even now, the shadows were gathering together again, swirling around at our feet and building themselves up once again. But it still gave us a second to think. We half-separated in an effort to think straight, a majority of our thoughts still interlocked.

We have to get into the air. This was Natalie's thought. And then we were lost into each other's minds again, scanning with all eyes and listening with all ears, dodging and weaving. It was a long, endless few moments before we managed another temporary victory, driving a spear into the heart of an unfortunate Shadow Hound. It yelped and vanished into nothingness, only to swirl back into being reformed. It didn't even need the added benefit of spontaneous regeneration; not even the Hulk seemed capable of plowing through these numbers. Okay, maybe the Hulk.

It was amazing, how many of these creatures Fraye had under her control. Natasha screamed Natalie's name in an effort to warn her of an impending claw ready to rain on her back; but Loki's eyes had already seen it, and Natalie turned in time to throw the sharpest point of her force field directly into the creature's massive paw. An arrow streaked through the sky and struck the Hound closest to Natalie; she skipped backwards and was pressed against Loki's back by the time the arrowhead exploded, tearing a large, gaping wound in the side of the monstrous creature. It was agreed that one of us would need the aerial advantage, and of course immediately decided that Natalie was the best candidate. A fall from such heights would not damage her.

Shadows drove themselves into the ashen earth in obsidian shards, sharp edges that rained down from the sky with every flash of lightning, every echoing rumble of thunder. Fraye and Thor were still going for each other's throats, with Tony trying to get in a few hits as well, continually twisting and weaving, narrowly avoiding being struck by the shadows- or the lightning- that were still scorching the skies.

Whereas Clint and Natasha, old partners in the battlefield, might have communicated what needed to be done in a single look or mild gesture, Loki and I needed no such communication. Do you need to talk to yourself before making a decision?

And so the second we saw our opportunity, the decision was made. Action, reaction. See something, react to it. No middleman. Loki's hand whipped out in a claw, driving itself deep inside one of the shadow shards, keeping it solidified, keeping it from dissolving. Taming the shadows, so that this particular one now obeyed only him. Natalie skipped up along the edges that had suddenly formed, finding handholds and footholds out of the darkness that undulated and shifted in Loki's shaky control. Shadow control was a very dangerous and difficult ability to master, and Loki was no where near as gifted with it as Fraye was. But he didn't need to be; by the time he lost his hold on it, sweat beading on his forehead, Natalie was already launching herself towards the slice of shadow that Fraye was throwing in her direction. Dancing and jumping from shadow to shadow, she managed to stay in the air.

If I was me- solely, completely and only me- I might have felt like the ultimate badass. As it was, Loki's battle reflexes were keeping Natalie's elation in check. Reality, right now, was very cold; and that was how I was forced to see it: through the cold, unfeeling eyes of a Frost Giant. I didn't mind; whatever kept us both alive was just fine with me.

Thor and Tony both adapted quickly to having me in the air, helping me along whenever there was no shadow to leap to. Loki and I were now in the air and on the ground, seeing both sides of the battle, acting and reacting on all sides of the field, all at the same time. And Fraye… well, Fraye seemed only too happy to fight me, Thor and Tony all at once; and indeed, I suspect she rather helped me along with my shadow-steps. Just a little. She wanted to see what I was capable of.

Using Natalie's abilities, we manipulated the shield into the perfect weapon; though it could not move away from her body, it could stretch and warp into a thousand different shapes, from points to flat walls and onwards. Jab after pointed jab was thrown, blocked by Fraye's shadows, as the blackness beneath Natalie's feet continually dropped away and forced her to find another temporary refuge. Mjolnir crackled with each blow, and we struck together, again and again, with the same battle formations that Loki and Thor had memorized as children. This body might have been Natalie's, but a majority of its strategies were all Loki.

And down below, Natalie's reflexes helped Loki to dodge a Shadow Hound's snapping black teeth. It was very odd, to have two parts of yourself in different places, and yet still be in total control of them. The distance did not mar that control, nor our abilities.

Repulsor blasts came in Natalie's direction; we used them, allowed them to strike the shield and aimed them in a laser pinpoint towards Fraye, carving her shadows apart. But they were only ever replaced by more. If we could just get our hands on her… if we could get past the shadows… we might have a chance… we might all have a chance…

The world was flashes of light and explosions and gunfire, lightning and thunder, the next sweep and blow and dodge. We lost ourselves in the battle again, and not just in each other. We no longer thought. We only reacted. Dodge now, strike next, drop to the ground, kick and hit and retreat and regroup. Natasha was next to us, and so was Thor, and Clint's most recent explosion was made a thousand times larger by a blue blast from our spear, and it was all convoluted and crazy and yet our hearts were pounding at the same tempo, and through our exhaustion we felt a thousand times more alive…

Shadows split and cracked in half as Thor cried out at the top of his lungs, an enraged roar that rivaled the Hulk's below us. Mjolnir shattered through the darkness with violent bursts of light, slamming into Fraye's fragile-looking form and sending her plummeting to the ground, crying out as she crash-landed in the ash, sending up clouds of gray. Natalie's support was dropped from beneath her feet as a majority of the shadows in the air fell apart into smoky wisps, but Tony gripped her arms and lowered her to the ground. It was unnecessary, but it was better this way, for moments later, Fraye was laughing again; and the shadows swirled in a vile tornado around her and Thor, a black twister that sent Natalie and Tony- who were both on its edge, while Fraye and Thor were safe inside of its eye- flying backwards and around. Each of the shadow gusts sharpened into a million needle points, sharp and stabbing, and intensely lethal.

"Stark!" Loki's words, Natalie's mouth, Loki's reflexes, Natalie's arms pushing Tony out of the way as these points drove themselves towards him with enough force to penetrate even his metal skin. Shadows shattering around the bubble. Stark's repulsors firing again, trying to carve out an entrance into the eye of the Shadow Storm, even as true clouds and rain and lightning began to boil around it, a merging of two of the most powerful forces in nature: Darkness and Thunder. The two clashed together in a display of raw power and magnificence, storm clouds merging with shadow clouds, lightning and inky darkness converging into one and all battling, all struggling for supremacy. White flashes could still be seen inside of the storm's heart as the two occupants inside of the storm still fought. It was utterly beautiful, the darkness intermingling with the crackling blue, the grey clouds and pouring rain suddenly seeming more defined by the shadow's black outlining, the two forces battling and becoming completely… gorgeous.

It was also scary as hell.

And amid all this, the battle we were still fighting, descending into chaos, defined only by picture-flashes of images and sounds in our memory. Loki by Natalie's side. The twister rising ever-higher to the skies, accompanied by the sound of Fraye's sickening laughter. Thor's ferocious battle cries, demanding blood. Natalie and Stark fighting the Hound that had reached towards them, ignoring the sounds inside the cyclone.

Together, we fought, and all the while, we planned. Tried to determine our next course of action and, at last, found it.

It did not matter if they were Loki's or Natalie's words that called the Hulk's name, for we were the same person and we were both shouting through Loki's mouth. It was his long, pale finger that gestured to the ever-raging twister as we all fought to get away from it, from its raging winds and powerful darkness. Both of which were trying to suck us in and bring us high above the clouds. "Destroy it!" We… suggested. (One does not order a Hulk around.)

The Hulk saw a new thing to Smash. Ripping open the jaws of the Shadow Hound in his grasp, the thing that was once Banner made it to the cyclone in a single, awe-inspiring bound. Again, ballads could be written about that. Big Green had style. Or rather, an extreme lack of it: he was all brute force, no subtlety. It was a sight to behold.

Rain was making the ash beneath our feet slick, and we slid and stumbled away as the Hulk threw himself amid the tornado, holding his position there and roaring through his gargantuan teeth, blocking the shadows and the wind, catching a great deal of lightning as well.

Inside the now-partially-torn-open-storm, we saw Thor and Fraye fighting. We had never seen Thor so… frenzied. Not when Loki had threatened Jane's life. Not when the brothers had been battling on Stark Tower. Never. Fraye had hit Thor precisely where he lived, draining his heart of any defenses by taking Jane out of the equation, then displaying her many-year-old artwork on Loki's skin to Thor following this. Too much pressure; Thor had cracked. Big time.

You don't want to see the Norse god of Thunder crack.

We threw ourselves through the opening- one of us was ahead of the other, we weren't sure which- and Stark did the same, as the Hulk was forced out of the shadow twister and back into the fight with the Hounds; there were precious few people keeping those suckers off of us now, and Loki's eyes had seen Steve taking a very nasty hit a while back, making it even less.

It was us, Stark, and Thor against Fraye, but it seemed that Thunder-Boy didn't want to let us at her. His fury had reached its ultimate climax. He was still shouting, and I was certain that he was seeing and tasting blood. As we charged towards Fraye, however, the shadows converged on Thor. Most were blocked by repulsors, and by blasts from Loki's spear. But one pierced his upper arm even as Natalie threw herself in front of the rest, and another bypassed her, turning into smoke and flowing around her, driving itself deep into his armor, into his side.

We saw this through Loki's eyes, and we both cried out as one: "THOR!"

Thor grunted in pain, staggering backwards, but the pure bloodlust in his eyes kept him advancing on Fraye.

Until another shadow struck him in the back of the head.

"NO!"

It did not matter whose cry that was, nor which one of us voiced it; there was no variance in our vengeance. We both wanted Fraye dead the instant that sight reached our eyes and we were both charging towards her as Thor pitched forwards. He was alive- the shadow did not have a point and it took a lot more than that to kill Thor off, we knew from experience- but he was clearly injured. Badly. The storm almost immediately began dying down, and Fraye wiped blood from her lip as she waved a hand, forcing the shadows to retreat from the twister as the lightning faded, pulling the darkness around her and flinging it about, the shadows becoming whips in her hand.

But we were not scared. We were too fascinated to be scared, staring at the dribbling liquid on the corner of her lip.

So she does bleed black.

Let's see how that looks when it is smeared in the ashes of her dead world!

Natalie's shield expanded to form a sharp point as she used Loki's push for momentum. Fraye dodged this point, but smirked; the weakness, the gap in the bubble, was now away from Natalie's mouth, and closer to Fraye herself. She used this to her advantage, shadows pouring in through the gap and underneath the bubble, inside of Natalie's second skin, infecting it, riddling it with its foul disease. And then the shadows were everywhere, cutting off Natalie's sight, but Loki's eyes were still uncovered, and so we could still see…

And then…

Then pain.

There was nothing but pain.

It was everywhere, splitting, utter, sheer agony. The shadows receded away from us, but we barely noticed; we were crying out, hunching over, clutching our stomach and side. The sheer, crippling anguish sent shockwaves of horrific pain through us, our nerves raw and frayed and torn to shreds. Fraye smirked as she stepped back, and we were trembling as we realized that Thor had fallen completely, that he was bleeding into the ashen ground… but then, so were we.

The pain was so intense that the bubble flickered out of existence, rage no longer present enough inside of Natalie to keep it alive. We were screaming; but which one of us was in pain? Which one of us had been injured? As interlocked and intermingled as we were, we could not tell…

We staggered and limped and crawled towards each other, trying to wrench our thoughts apart, to distinguish boundaries and barriers when everything was twisted and confused by agony. Tony was shouting something that none of our ears could hear, because we were so far away from this battle field, because one of us was dying, and we did not know who…

We made it to each other and clutched each other's arms, but whose arm was whose, whose hand belonged to what thought and was this memory mine or yours, and who's pain is this, this hideous, all-consuming agony that will not stop…

We saw blood. It was red blood, but that meant nothing, we both bled red. At least while Loki was in this form, we did. We tried to put pressure on the wounds, but had lost control of our hands-whose were they? Whose eyes were staring back at me? Green eyes were… whose?- we couldn't think, the boundaries shattered.

It took a great deal of concentration- a nigh impossible task with such intense, crippling pain- but slowly, slowly, the borders between our minds began to reestablish themselves. Somewhere, dimly, we recognized that the battle was still going on, that the Hulk and Fraye had once again locked in one-on-one combat, with Tony and the others protecting us and Thor from the still-advancing Hounds. But these battles were nothing compared to the one we were so desperately fighting inside of our minds, trying to assert ourselves again.

For a second, I snapped back into Natalie's body, and one of us whispered through her lips, "It's you." But we couldn't tell who had said it. It hurt so badly… there were tears rolling down both of our cheeks, involuntary, barely noticed.

We stared at the hand reaching for the wound and willed it to make sense… slowly, slowly, we remembered the difference between us, and realized that it was Natalie's- I mean my- hand. After all, it was small, feminine, and the nails chewed from prolonged exposure to superheroes. But was I reaching towards Loki's side, or my own?

Another long reassertion of ourselves later, and the world began to ring in my ears- my ears, not ours, not anymore- as, blood pooling between my fingers, I put pressure on the wound.

Loki's wound.

Loki's pain.

There was so much of Loki's blood….

"It's you," I repeated, shaking from head to toe. The pain was diminished in my head, but not by a great deal. Loki was trying to breathe, but it was becoming very difficult, nigh impossible. His left side, from lower chest to his leg, was soaked with blood. His armor was cracked in half and his clothes in that area had been torn to shreds. The wounds were like claw marks- we could not tell how deep- and already becoming infested by smoking darkness.

I swore, jammed my fists in my eyes to clear the tears, and looked around quickly. Fraye and the Hulk were fighting it out, with Fraye still laughing and dancing and acting like she was just a freaking happy little pixie in a cotton candy utopia. The Hulk kept getting close, but never actually hitting her as she threw slices of shadow in his direction, black blades that did not quite cut through his thick green hide. Yet. She'd made him bleed once before.

I was still in crippling agony, on my knees beside Loki. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, but I had to say something, and so the words started pouring out. "Loki, Loki, listen to me, you're going to be okay, we're gonna get you outta here, you're gonna be fine…"

He winced. "You never… could lie to me, Frost," he managed to wheeze, hunching over the injury, pale and losing blood fast. He grunted in pain and tried to keep from collapsing to the ground. He was getting dizzy; the pain was pushing him to the edge of passing out.

"I can lie to anybody," I babbled. "But I don't have to right now, okay, 'cause we're gonna get you out, we're gonna…" My eyes flashed around the battle field again. Stark and the agents were being overrun by Hounds. Steve was unconscious; and the spies were being forced to protect him, as they were protecting us.

We'd taken a beating this time. A bad one. My breathing came in quick, fast gasps as my double-heartbeat (mine and Loki's) echoed in my ears, swift and rapid, going three times faster than was probably healthy. My gaze was whipping back and forth, gauging the situation.

I turned to Loki, pressing my forehead against his so that his eyes were forced to look at me. Our heads knocked lightly together and that little burst of pain between his eyes kept him from fading, from passing out. "Listen to me, listen! We have to retreat! We need a way out, now!"

He looked at me like: have-you-lost-your-mortal-mind? "There's no way I can…" He started to fade. I slapped him across the face, pulling him out of unconsciousness. It wasn't the blood loss doing this to him, not yet. It was the agony. Agony that was transferring itself to me in a very nasty, ugly way, and I was fighting a scream, and I was still crying, but we had to get out of here, we had to get everyone out…

"You're the only one who can!" I shrieked, allowing his agony to slip out in my words. We didn't have the Tesseract. We didn't have another way out. Unless Fraye showed mercy (HA!) then Loki was our one and only chance. My head was on fire. I wanted Loki to pass out, too; it would ease the pain inside of my skull. I'd be able to think better.

No. No, that wasn't true. Because it wasn't the pain that I couldn't think around.

It was the pure, utter terror.

This is my nightmare. Loki is going to bleed out in my arms and I'm going to be left without him. I'm going to be alone and this is my worst nightmare and I can't live without you, I can't, I can't, I can't, please don't make me, I won't, you're gonna be okay, please, please, I'm begging you, be okay…

These were the thoughts that I had to force back, to swallow down, over and over again. I gripped his shirt collar. There was no way, with this terror, that I'd be able to bring the bubble back out. There wasn't enough anger left in me for that. No more vengeance. I was no longer a fury-fueled superhero, hell-bent on revenge. I was a powerless, scared little girl on the battlefield, and there was nothing that I could do. I was weak, defenseless, and completely helpless.

I started shaking him. "Please, Loki! You've got to try! Get us to Asgard, we'll be safe there!"

"We weren't before!" He shouted, then screamed aloud, collapsing onto his hands and knees. His skin was pale and sweaty, his always-perfect hair a complete mess, and he was shaking, bile rising in his throat. "Magic requires-"

"Energy and pure concentration, I know!" I shouted. "But we are all going to die if you don't do it!"

I gripped his shoulders, holding him off the ground. You're going to die! I shouted in my head, in his head, loud and echoing, reverberating through our bones. You're going to die and I won't see that, you can't make me live through that, I will never let you die, do you hear me?! Please, please, I know you can do this, I know you can, you've got to try…

His green eyes searched my brown ones. I stared back in pure desperation.

Then, he closed his eyes and concentrated. You, he warned me as magic began to flow down his fingertips, are going to be the death of me, mortal.

Not if I can help it, I answered, standing. Though I was quivering from head to toe and I had absolutely nothing in the way of powers, I was heading back into the battlefield. I'll buy you time.

He was focusing too hard to protest. "Tony!" I shouted. Stark looked down. His armor's paint was scratched and scuffed beyond repair, and one of the lights in his eyes had been busted. I could only hope that the eye itself was okay. "I'm heading for Steve, cover me!"

He must have seen that my force field was gone; it could be picked up by cameras; in fact, that was all that cameras would see; a shimmering blue shape, in whatever form I had chosen to contort the field into. So the armor would have been able to detect it, I was sure. Stark nodded and cleared a path with a blast of light; I raced towards Steve, fighting to do the impossible and forget Loki's pain, to ignore it…

It took a few moments of running and dodging, but after a fast sprint through the battlefield, I made it to Rogers' limp body. He was still breathing; the Hounds had left him alone when he'd fallen. Bigger fish, I suppose. I took his shield in both hands- it was lighter than I thought it'd be- and threw it over my shoulders like a backpack. I'd seen the captain do the same, and if it fit his bulky shoulders, it would most certainly fit mine…

Yep. It covered my back decently. But, more importantly, I was getting it out of there. Natasha joined me, Clint covering her back-quickly running out of arrows and sporting a lovely flesh wound on his lower thigh- as I started to drag him back towards where Loki was beginning to rip open a portal.

"Plan?" She demanded, helping me to move Steve's limp, heavy and rather uncooperative body.

"Loki, portal, retreating," I kept the explanation simple.

"Thor?" Clint asked.

"With Loki." I gestured in that direction quickly with my head before looking back to the Hulk. "Banner?"

We all fell silent. None of us knew how to get the Jolly Green Giant to retreat.

"One bridge at a time," Clint finally answered, firing an arrow right into a Shadow Hound's ear. It whined sharply, trying to dislodge the arrow by running its claws across its ears, opening large, black-bleeding gashes on its black fur. Seconds later, a bullet to the forehead from Natasha ended its struggle.

I spat blood onto the ashen ground. I hadn't even realized that I was bleeding until that point. But now I saw red drizzling down from above my eye, and there was a great deal of the stuff in my mouth. How the hell did that happen? Why the hell did I care?

Pain exploded in a crimson starburst behind my eyes, and I knew that Loki had gotten the portal open. But it was shaky and weak and ready to close at any second. "Stark!" I shouted. He turned, saw where I pointed, and nodded, charging towards the portal. In seconds, he was helping Thor through. I dropped Steve as Clint and Natasha made it to our destination. The Hounds were converging on the green shape in the distance. There was no way in hell that we could get to him. Still, I shouted.

"HULK!" I screamed. He didn't even turn. "BRUCE, PLEASE! WE HAVE TO GO!"

"Leaving so soon?" Fraye purred, hovering high enough to stroke Hulk's hair and narrowly avoiding a nasty blow to the face when she did so. She wasn't so lucky the second time, catching a strike to her side that sent her in a spin. She landed on the ground, spitting black. Everything that had been done to us… and she was still getting up with barely a dent. She was completely fine. Bleeding a little, maybe, but otherwise fine.

"Natasha!" I shouted as Loki collapsed to the ground, too tired to move but not yet passed out. I pointed to him. "Take care of him!"

"NO!" Clint shouted as I started charging towards the Hulk. He gripped my shirt and yanked me back, so that his arm could wrap around my neck and shoulders, holding me in place. "There isn't time, Natalie!"

Natasha agreed. "He's right, Natalie, we have to go! Now!"

"I'm not leaving him!"

Natasha pitched Steve through the portal in an undignified way before coming back to my side, taking my shoulders so that Clint could help Loki to his feet (wait, what?). The Trickster looked ashen. His eyes were dead and hollow and I had to keep up every last barrier we had in order to keep his pain from crippling me.

"We can't help him right now!" Natasha shouted. I hadn't realized until this point that she hadn't gotten through unscathed, either. Long claw marks had cut across her shoulder and down her arm, bleeding onto me. She seemed to not be paying attention to the injuries. "There's nothing you can do!"

I struggled against her grip. "He needs us!"

"He can take care of himself!" Natasha shouted, turning me around forcefully, pointing me in the direction of Loki. "He needs you, Natalie! You're not helping anyone by getting yourself, and him, killed! Understood?"

Tears were burning my eyes. Loki didn't have the strength to look at me. He couldn't even think anything properly; he was slipping into unconsciousness. More than that, he was fading into delirium. That portal wasn't going to last much longer. Already, it was flickering.

I looked back to the Hulk. The Hounds were still advancing; Natasha shot one between the eyes, but it kept coming. And far across all of that shadowed fur and black teeth, Big Green was still fighting as though there were no tomorrow.

"We're coming back," I growled, not even looking at Natasha as I flung myself through the portal. She followed soon afterwards; Clint and Loki had already gone through.

We arrived on the other side unscathed. The portal was still open; shadows seeped through it, and Clint fired his last arrow through; it exploded somewhere, either on the other side or in the middle of the portal, but either way Loki passed out and it closed. He slumped to the ground, and we all fell down or leaned against walls, and I was already by Loki's side and holding him close, trying to put pressure on the wound…

An Asgardian sentry looked at us, startled. I glanced around and, somewhere amidst the pain, the fear, the fury and the fight that had been drained out of me, an insane, disjointed laugh managed to find its way out of my lips.

Because of course, Loki had taken us right back into the safest place he knew: the library.