Chapter 15: A Bad Moon on the Rise
Loki remained, forgotten, in his rolling chair at Tony's worktable while the others exited the lab. He looked up at the ceiling and counted down in his head until Sif surged back into the room and took hold of the arms of his chair pulling it around to face her.
"Four. That's a new record for you." Loki's gaze flickered down to her lips, mere inches away, then back to her eyes without shifting his expression. "Is there something that you want from me?"
"What are you after, Loki?" Sif accused, ignoring his teasing.
"I'm fairly certain that it is you who pinned me, Milady," Loki snarked with a smirk. "That is the way you most enjoy our little encounters, is it not?"
Sif pursed her lips and straightened to lean back against the worktable with her arms crossed over her chest. "I haven't the time for your games. It is clear to me that you know something you are not sharing with our mortal hosts."
"Humans."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Agent Barton and Mr. Stark are humans. I have been told that the term 'mortal' is unfavourable,"Loki corrected.
"What are you hiding?"
"Many things. As much as you, no doubt," Loki answered evasively, but then sighed at Sif's stubborn expression and elaborated before she could argue. "I cannot remain in this realm. There is a powerful force after me. It will come for me soon if I do not leave. Thor knows this, but he will not listen to reason."
"A 'force' is chasing you," Sif echoed in a tone that could be skeptical, or curious. It was hard to tell.
"Not chasing... He knows that I am here, and that I am- It matters not. I can feel him nearing; this world is in peril as long as I remain here. They cannot stand against him. You have seen this place," Loki stood, facing her directly. "This world is unprotected."
"Thor has sworn to safeguard this realm," Sif pointed out, considering Loki thoughtfully.
"Not good enough. Not against him." Loki shook his head, keeping his expression open and honest. He was willing to try Charles' way first, even though he knew that it wasn't going to work.
"Name him."
Loki closed his eyes, drawing in an exasperated breath. He shook his head again, as he made his way to the door.
"I cannot simply take your word-" Sif began, but he cut her off.
"You don't need to. You are a woman of your word. I highly doubt that you were released from jail and sent here merely to tell Thor the location of his human mistress," Loki spat, turning back around to face her. "You are to return us to Asgard so that we might face the Allfather's judgment. Let us waste no more time on pointless pretext. You have already dealt with my brother."
"You're wrong," Sif countered.
"Am I?"
Sif seemed to be arguing with herself for a beat. "It matters not. I have given my word to Thor."
Loki crossed the space between them, grabbing the counter beside Sif with one hand so that now he was the one crowding her. "Why are you here!?"
"For you," Sif admitted, averting her eyes."I was sent to retrieve only you."
There was a heavy silence while Loki stared at her, trying to process the unexpected news and what it could possibly mean. The Allfather wouldn't abandon his only remaining child and the heir to his throne. So why send a warrior to fetch Loki alone? Did he imagine that Thor might try to stop him from- Loki went cold. This was it. Odin has finally decided to be rid of me for good.
"I have given my word to Prince Thor, that I would guard you in his stead," Sif stated. "I will not betray his trust."
"You gave your word that we would remain here?" Loki verified.
What are you doing?! Charles demanded, beyond concerned by the risk that his channel had just taken.
Sif opened her mouth to reply, then closed it, considering the question more carefully. She slowly looked up to meet his eyes and he knew. There was no bond holding her back from delivering him to his fate. Loki jumped at a throat-clearing sound from his right. Both Asgardians turned to see Clint standing in the open doorway.
"Am I interrupting something here?" the assassin inquired.
Loki pulled stiffly away from Lady Sif and pushed past Clint, hastily disappearing up the stairs. He paused just out of sight of the others and closed his eyes. It might be best if you remain dormant while I carry out this plan. There is a risk you might otherwise be discovered.
Are you sure? Charles verified. You're already risking a lot. I might be able to help you find an alternative.
One side of Loki's mouth quirked upwards in a smile. I have already formulated a reliable alternative. However, I was under the impression that you prefered to avoid violence.
He could feel Charles' surprise and gratitude that Loki was still considering his preference and made sure to cut him off before he could do something to ruin it, like thanking him.
Until the risk has cleared... he prompted. Then he opened his eyes and walked over to the elevator. "It will all be over soon," Loki remarked drily, as he hit the call button.
ASTRAL PLANE
Erik paused in his reading and walked over to the wall-length windows behind the couch. The landscape outside had changed again and this time he honestly didn't know what to make of it. For one thing, it was no longer a landscape. It was a utitilitarian, metal chamber with two circular glass cells lined up on either side of a pair of featureless metal doors. When the view had first appeared, two soldiers had dragged an unconscious Francis into the first cell on the right. A wall-crawling young man with messy brown hair in the next cell over had lowered himself on a gossamer thread to look, said 'could be worse,' and climbed back up to the ceiling to wait. A spider, Erik decided, willfully ignoring the cell on the far left. A dark, black and grey figure sat cross-legged in the center, chanting in a strange and ancient tongue. The deep voice resonated through Erik's core despite its low volume in a way that put the magnekinetic's teeth on edge. He could feel the words vibrating the metal around the chamber, weakening it.
"Hey, Kid?" the spider called to Francis, snapping Erik back to the present. "You ok in there?"
Francis stopped rubbing at his tired eyes to shoot the wall-crawler a look. "Ah... Relatively speaking. Why do you sound familiar?"
"We met a couple times when you were little. You wouldn't remember," the spider responded, once again lowering himself on a strand of silk.
Francis squinted at him for a beat. "Peter Parker, you're that photographer Marie was sweet on."
Peter chuckled. "Huh. That's uh, that's a good memory you got there. Yeah, I'm Peter. So, how'd they grab you? Were you stealing stuff with that crazy father of yours again or-"
"I trashed a SHIELD facility, unassissted. This isn't the standard holding area," Francis said, standing to explore the cramped confines more closely. "Stark claimed that he'd designed this with me in mind."
"He's probably exaggerating," Peter remarked.
Francis hummed in agreement.
"That is kind of his thing," Peter added in solidarity with himself.
Erik jumped at a the sound of a door opening and closing directly behind him. When he turned to look he found Charles standing behind him. The impossible blue door through which he had entered vanished into the thin air it had opened out of as soon as the telepath let go of its handle.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you," Charles apologized, chagrined, letting Erik pull him closer. "Is that Francis you're watching now?"
Erik hummed a wordless affirmative, somewhat distracted by his present company.
"Worth considering... So what did you do, anyway? I mean, I wasn't even aware that you were a-" Francis' question was interrupted by the hiss of the double doors opening.
"Mmmn- Erik!" Charles interrupted, forgetting his own rather pleasant distraction at the sight below.
"What is..." Erik trailed off, one hand clenching Charles' sleeve as two soldiers in black SHIELD uniforms dragged in a familiar, lean-muscled form. The new prisoner's fiery locks danced in vibrant waves around his head as it lolled about; he appeared to be heavily sedated. Erik saw two armed guards take up the rear of the procession and added 'overly guarded' to his growing list of concerns.
The spider flipped down from his web and moved closer to watch.
"Pietro..." Francis breathed, stepping forward to press a hand against the glass while he watched them manhandle his brother. An aura of blue light flickered over his skin, prompting one of the guards to turn and sneer at him.
"Just try it, Freakshow," the beefy guard taunted while his compatriots laid Pietro in the middle of the opposite cell. "You see those canisters up there?" He pointed one gloved hand at the metal cylinders lining the top edge of each cell. "We got some nasty gas stored up just waitin' for ya. One wrong move and you choke."
"Hey! Leave him alone," Peter objected, and the guard turned his hateful smile on him.
"What was that?" he challenged, resting a hand on his semi-automatic rifle.
Peter swallowed, shrinking slightly at the sight, but he still continued to stare back at him. "You should just, you should leave the kid alone," he reiterated more tentatively.
The soldier snorted. "Huh. Not so brave without your mask now, are ya, Spidey?" he mocked, then shook his head, following the others out.
Francis watched them go with an all too familiar expression in his cold blue eyes then turned back to Peter, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. "What have I been missing?"
AVENGERS TOWER
Tony looked up from the three-paned computer interface in the lounge at the sound of the elevator arriving. Loki made a beeline to the seat on the inventor's left and curled up with his head resting on his folded arms beside the keyboard. Tony studied the alien's dark head in mild confusion, then came to his senses and closed several windows on the computer screens before Loki could look at them. He glanced back down at the quiet Trickster. Loki was still face down, draped over the desk. If Tony didn't know better, he would've accused him of moping. The elevator opened up again and Sif and Clint stepped out. The Asgardian stayed lingering around the periphery of the room while Clint walked right over to them.
"Hey," Tony greeted, eyeing the shifty warrior with suspicion as he turned back to the screens. She was keeping her gaze locked on Loki, which shouldn't bother Tony, but really was bothering him.
"Anything on Pete's disappearance?" Clint asked, seeming not to notice the troubling behavior at all.
"I- Yeah. Well. Yes and no," Tony corrected himself. He gestured toward Loki. "Do we know what this is about?"
Clint shrugged it off. "What did you find?"
"Okay. I hacked into Pete's tech, including his personal computer and his SHIELD-issued tracker. The tracker is dead -as expected- and the computer came up empty of any indication of where he might have gone." The engineer held up a hand in front of Clint's impatient frown. "Except! Someone else hacked their way in first, nowhere near as skillfully as I did."
"Of course," Clint indulged him sardonically.
"So I traced it to their IP address, and back-hacked-"
Clint gestured for him to get on with it.
"SHIELD," Tony summarized. "One of your guys did it."
"You're sure?"
Tony flashed him a patronizing look and continued, "I figured I might as well bother Fury about this. See what reaction I can get out of him, maybe see that special little vein again. The one that pops out every time he gets pissed."
"I know it well," Clint acknowledged. "What'd he say?"
"Nothing."
Clint scowled.
"Apparently, he's gone AWOL. They've got some new guy in charge now. He put me on hold for entire minutes so I hung up on him," Tony informed the Agent.
"This is bullshit."
"I know. On the bright side, the others should be back soon. They just checked in before you guys came up here, and we've got Jane back," Tony reported. He watched Clint stare out at the cityscape outside, no doubt itching to climb to the top of the tower while he digested the latest piece of bad news. "You wanna' break it to them or what?"
"Yeah. I'll handle it," Clint agreed distractedly, stalking around behind Tony's seat. The inventor watched him linger around the couches, then turned back to Loki. He was still slumped over the desk in the same position that Tony had left him in. So Tony poked him.
"Stark," Loki cautioned without moving a muscle.
"Frosty," Tony countered good-naturedly. He stole another glance at the ever vigilant warrior loitering by the windows. "What's up?"
"Up?" was Loki's muffled reply.
"What's bothering you? You're acting weird."
"When will my brother return?"
"Missing your Prince now, Sleeping Beauty?"
"Stark," Loki warned. Tony saw Sif glance at him with a disgusted expression. He thought that was a little harsh.
"About..." he checked the clock, "half an hour. Why?"
"Could you tell him that this was not his fault?" Loki requested quietly, turning his head so that he could peek at Tony while avoiding Sif's watching eyes.
Instead of answering, Tony reached down slowly, giving Loki the opportunity to stop him, and felt the back of his neck.
Loki tracked his movements warily but didn't tense up or object.
"We should get you something to drink. Come on." Tony got up and ushered Loki into the elevator.
"Tony?" Clint asked, seeing Tony hit the 'door close' button as soon as they were both in.
"Drinks. Want anything?"
Clint narrowed his eyes at his friend. Sif hurried past to him to catch up.
"Oh. Did you want to..." Tony mimed a fake attempt to stop the doors. "Ah. Ooops. Sorry!" He held his arms out in a helpless gesture while the doors shut in her face. He turned to Loki once the lift had started moving. "So. What's with Xena?"
"Lady Sif," Loki paused to hide his smile at the mocking gesture Tony made in response to his correction. "She was sent to apprehend me and deliver me to the Allfather."
"Thor mentioned that. You guys are headed back once he's sure that Jane's safe."
"You misunderstand. Thor is not intended to accompany us."
Tony paused, looking Loki over for tells and finding none. Not that that meant anything. "She's playing us to get to you. Why?"
"I believe the Allfather plans to be done with me, once and for all," Loki stated, keeping his voice even and his eyes locked on their reflections in the metal doors. "Now that Mother-" His voice faltered ever so slightly, but he forged on. "Without her, Thor will be the only remaining obstacle to my execution."
"Well that's not happening," Tony dismissed.
Loki blinked at him, curious about the unexpected reassurance.
"We need you, remember? Besides, execution's too harsh considering Thor's 'theory' that it wasn't even under your control."
"I have committed other crimes of which you know nothing," Loki confessed. "I was under the control of none but myself at that time, and what I did was unforgivable."
"What, do you want to be killed?" Tony replied. The way that he said it sounded flippant, but Loki could see the seriousness in his eyes.
Loki remained quiet. He didn't know the answer to that question himself, nor did he have a fitting lie to fill the silence. He didn't think that Charles deserved to die, but there were ways around that problem. In the end, Loki thought that it might be a relief simply to be gone, finished for good.
"Then I guess it wouldn't make a very good penance," Tony concluded in the same carefree manner, stepping out to head for the bar.
"A fair point," Loki conceded, leaning on the other side of the bar while Tony set out two glasses between them. "However, if I am taken-"
"Which you won't be," Tony inserted.
Loki pushed away from the counter to stand at the wall of windows and look out on the city with his hands folded behind his back.
"I heard you: it's not his fault," Tony said, pouring some amber liquid into each glass. "That's bullshit..."
"It is not," Loki said sharply, surprised by how much the implication upset him. "I blamed him before. I wanted it to be his fault, because I wanted vengeance! I was so angry! I still am, but I now realize that he knew so very little about my suffering. Willing or not, we were both deceived. I knew that Sif was deceiving him in order to get to me, even before I knew the true reason why, and I allowed it."
"Why?" Tony prompted, dropping ice cubes into their glasses.
"Because I am not like them! I may be a liar, but I am no hypocrite. If the Allfather wants me dead, then he will have to face me himself! I shall not use my brother as some living shield, and I have no need to see him choose between us!"
Tony calmly waited through Loki's outburst with his hands resting around the tumblers holding their drinks. His patient demeanor in the face of Loki's shouting reminded the Trickster of his brother. What? No. Neither of them would've stood for this. Where did that come from? It didn't matter. "I suppose you think yourself clever."
"I am clever," Tony confirmed, offhandedly.
"You merely drew me up here to gain more information from me," Loki sneered, turning to face the mechanic with disdain. "How disappointing. You truly are just like the rest, justifying your own deceit with grand battles and moral judgments. I should have expected as much."
Tony took a sip of his drink, still looking enragingly calm and unaffected. His dark eyes found Loki's once the latter finally stopped shifting about. "Are you done yet?"
Loki's brows furrowed, uncertain.
"I mean, I can wait, if you've got more..."
"You're mocking me?"
"Not right now. I can, Blue Man Group, you know I can but I wasn't really reading that mood in the room," Tony clarified, he indicated the untouched glass. "Scotch?"
Loki crossed over to stand on the other side of the bar while the smaller man continued, "Look, I get it. We can do the whole venting thing if you want, but if you start hitting, I reserve the right to suit up."
"Why are you doing this?"
"Done venting?"
Loki took a seat and Tony slid his drink towards him. "Good. I know you don't hate me," the human ignored his guest's silent challenge. "So let's get to the point here. We both know that I'm not tricking you. You've got some weird, insanely fucked-up situation going on with your dad."
"He is not my father."
"The guy who raised you," Tony amended without missing a beat. "And now you've got people coming after you from multiple angles and you don't know who to trust. But Loki, you came to me."
Loki suddenly felt caught and decided to focus on his drink.
"You gonna tell me why? This is your chance, right now." Tony watched the Asgardian sniff his drink experimentally, deem it suspect, and place the glass daintily on the bartop between them.
"I do not know why I came to you," he said, not looking up from his pale, folded hands resting on the counter.
Tony straightened, blowing out a disapointed puff of breath and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Okay. Fine. That's your call." He wandered over to the elevator. "At least I don't owe you that drink anymore..."
"He stole me, at the end of his war against the Jötuns... My people," Loki said, halting the inventor with his hand hovering over the call button. "It was no coincidence, nor an act of mercy. I was to be his bargaining chip. A tool to end the war forever."
Tony turned back around to look at him. "I did think that Thor's version sounded... abridged," he agreed, rubbing at the back of his neck.
"We were both deceived." Loki laughed hollowly. "Odin does nothing without a deeper purpose. Yet once he was forced to face my true nature he claimed to have found me, alone and abandoned in the warzone, a discarded runt. I was left in a temple and when he found me he took me home out of the goodness of his heart!" Loki swiped under his eye and his mocking tone became more bitter. "Such a charitable man the Allfather must have been to rescue King Laufey's childe."
"So you figure he was going to use you to take your Dad's throne," Tony inferred, claiming the seat one stool away from Loki's. To his surprise, Loki scoffed and shook his head.
"Although the thought clearly has occured to him, I am the wrong sex for such a scheme. He must've had another plot in mind lest I refused to claim a masculine persona before I came of age," he clarified. "After all, he could not have simply married me off to my own kin."
Tony grimaced at the thought. "Ughh. No."
"We were raised on stories of the primitive, monstrous Frost Giants. Great heroic battles in which the brave aesir warriors would slay those mindless beasts. Sometimes Odin even told us about his own exploits in the great war. It used to give me nightmares..." Loki remembered and smiled wryly. "While Thor... well, I don't suppose he told you why he was banished to this realm in the first place."
"Not that I'm not interested, because I am, but why are you telling me this?"
"Because I want someone to know the truth after I am gone. Thor idolises his father. He always has. This is a burden that I cannot entrust to him."
Tony nodded and glanced back over his shoulder at the sound of the elevator nearing their floor. When he turned back, Loki locked eyes with him, "Do not let him do anything foolish once I am gone." It was a command, more than a request.
Tony nodded anyway, but before he could speak, the lift arrived depositing a silently fuming Sif in their midst.
Loki smiled at her, all traces of his volatile mood having vanished in the blink of an eye. He held up his untouched glass. "Scotch?"
She marched over to the end of the bar and caught the drink he slid to her, downing it in one go. "Hmm. A bit mild."
Loki rolled his eyes. "You've been spending too much time with the other warriors."
"That is where I belong," Sif returned, placing the empty tumbler on the bar and continuing to ignore Tony's existence. "Come. Your brother is returning at any moment. We are expected to greet them on the roof."
Tony looked from Sif to Loki and saw him studying the lady warrior's expression with unexpected intensity. He nodded once.
"Then I suppose we should not disappoint them," he conceded. Tony watched him stride over to the elevator, still trying to place the sense of foreboding in his gut. Sif's grip on his neck shocked him out of his ponderings.
"If you ever dare to engage in such a deception again, I will reap your manhood as reparation," she hissed directly into his ear. "Am I understood?"
"Perfectly," Tony choked out.
"Good." She left him coughing and gasping in his seat without a backward glance. Loki seemed vaguely confused but not concerned enough to ask, merely looking curiously between the two before he followed Sif into the elevator.
"How do you plan to handle Thor?" Loki inquired conversationally once the lift had started moving. "You must have realized that he will not part with me so easily."
"He will understand. Jane will require his care now more than you do," Sif replied. "Whether or not you are a criminal, all I am doing is bringing you home. There is little risk in that."
Loki turned to stare at her, then let out a genuine laugh. "You truly believe that, don't you," he noted, sending a flicker of wordless reassurance Charles' way when he began to stir agitatedly. "I have suspected many things, Milady, but somehow I never imagined that you could be so naive."
"King Odin may not be your father by birth, but he is your father by right, Prince Loki," Sif reminded him with a harsh note underlying his title that Loki knew had not been intentional. "It is not our place to question his honour."
"And that is the heart of the matter isn't it? This is you showing me my rightful place. Even after all this time you still condemn me."
"Do not make this personal."
"Oh please. Do try not to make yourself even more of a hypocrite." At those scathing words, Sif turned on him. Her eyes were wide and her fist was rising to punch him but Loki just kept going. He felt unable to stop now that he'd finally dared to mention the bitter truth. "I don't have to. It is personal. This is what has always been between us even if we never spoke of it; I have reached beyond my station. I didn't keep to the boundaries laid out for those like me, and you could not stand for it," he said, his expression betraying the emotion hidden beneath his casual tone.
Surprisingly, this made Sif hesitate to punch him. She appeared to be taking in what he was saying.
"You never truly accepted me or you wouldn't even be here, " Loki spat.
"Loki-"
"This is your moment, Milady. Soon you will have your revenge, but do not do yourself the disservice of thinking you must pretend to care for me. I already know that you never did." Loki straightened, his impassive mask slamming securely into place as the lift doors opened. He stepped out while Sif was still struggling to formulate a response. She tried to call him back, rather shrilly, but he was intent on ignoring her.
"Being your usual charming self, I see," Clint observed from his perch on the far corner of the roof.
"I am touched that you took notice of it," Loki replied, crossing over to his side of the roof. He felt a lot lighter now that he had that old weight off his shoulders. All he had to do now was keep his would-be kidnapper distracted until Thor and his friends were here. He was certain that he could manage that.
"Yeah. Keep your distance, Smartass. Your big brother isn't here to stop me from shooting you."
"You wound me," Loki joked flashing him a playful smirk as he stepped just a bit closer.
"I'd love to," Clint shot back, his hand twitching towards his crossbow.
"Please," Sif cut in, stepping between them and placing a hand on Loki's chest, which he pointedly brushed away. "I would prefer to deliver him to judgment unhindered." She eyed Loki's taunting smile and stepped closer to speak quietly with him, but he pulled away.
"Something I need to know?" Clint inquired.
"It is of no concern to you," Sif assured, watching Loki wander towards the middle of the roof to poke at the edge of the circular markings on the landing pad with the toe of his boot. She cut her losses and remained beside Hawkeye to watch the Avengers' hovercraft flying towards them over the broken cityscape.
Loki paused his exploration and looked over at the elevator when Tony stepped out to join them, then went still. There was a stream of rainbow light dancing over his vision.
"What the hell?" Clint wondered aloud.
Loki looked up at the sky instead of answering. It seems that even the noble Lady Sif is not above such betrayal, he thought idly, as the warrior in question darted forward to grab him around the middle.
"No! Stop her-" Tony ran forward, trying to grab Loki's reaching hand, but the full beam of the Bifrost touched down, knocking both humans back with the force of the conversion. Tony groaned and slowly picked himself up off of the ground. He had nearly been winded by the impact. "Oh... Wait. Clint!" He ran over to Hawkeye's now empty perch, and helped him back up from where he was dangling one-handed off of the edge.
Clint looked around. "They tricked us."
Tony nodded his head. "She did. Loki tried to warn me that she might try something, but..." Tony looked up at the hover coming in for a landing. "We're in trouble."
ASTRAL PLANE
Erik watched Pietro beginning to stir in his cell while Charles paced back and forth behind them. There was nothing that they could do. Charles still didn't know why they were even seeing this, except the theory that it probably had something to do with their genetic, telepthic bond with Francis.
In the past half hour they had learned that SHIELD was now collecting powerful individuals, whether or not they were mutants. They called them 'supers'. Pietro was merely the latest acquisition, despite being a member of their agency.
"The others won't stand for this," Francis speculated, watching his sibling stir uncomfortably. He favored the older mutant with a fake, closed-lipped smile as he woke. "Morning." He waggled his fingers in a sarcastic wave.
"Francis..." Pietro noticed belatedly that he was locked up, surveyed his surroundings and lay back on the floor with a heavy sigh. "Bloody perfect."
"Not my fault this time," Francis clarified.
"I know. They failed in their first attempt to incapacitate me, then caught me an hour later at a gas station in Joliet," Pietro recalled. He pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes. "Hello, Peter."
"Um. Hi," the wall crawler greeted, walking closer and leaning an arm against the glass to see the agent better. "So you have any idea what this is about?"
"I imagine that it has quite a lot to do with the war."
Erik turned away to focus on Charles. "There has to be something that we can do!"
"Not at the present time. We're still working on getting Loki out of his current mess. If he can't do anything, neither can we; that's how channeling works."
"Then we need a new channel."
"Not an option."
"Because we can't, or because you won't leave him?!" Erik accused.
"Pick one," Charles replied stopping to glare at him.
"You're choosing him over your own family!"
"Don't oversimplify this."
"Then how would you put it, Charles? That man is a killer! He admitted it himself! You've seen it yourself!"
"So were you," Charles stated calmly, causing Erik to flinch as if he'd been struck. "You're worth saving, and so is he. We need him."
"Why?" Erik asked roughly.
"Because we stay with him."
The two men stood in silence for a long moment, until an odd flickering light danced over the scenery behind Erik. The walls warped and rippled soon after, as if their surroundings were having trouble deciding what they were.
"What is this?" Erik asked.
Charles came to stand beside him and watch the warping image of the cells shift into a vast corridor lined by ornate stone columns. "I don't know." They looked up as the study stablized. "Something's gone wrong."
In Heimdall's observatory, two flashes of rainbow light surged in through the vortex and broke apart. Sif lost her grip on Loki in her struggle to maintain her balance and he tumbled painfully over the polished black tile, catching himself on his elbows before a pair of gilded sealskin boots. Loki blanched and slowly followed the fine leather pants up to the gold and silver plated armor until he was staring up into that single, pale blue eye. Odin.
A/N: Yep... Another cliffhanger. I know, I'm terrible. But hey, it could have been much worse. I know Loki might seem a little bitchy right now; in his defence there's shit you guys haven't been let in on yet, and there is always the possibility that he's fucking with someone's head. *grins* Anyway, thanks for reading, and special thanks to icanhearthedrums for reviewing. Feel free to follow her shining example! Ha ha! Seriously though, I crave reviews.