Author's Note: Hello, hello, hello :D This one is a longer chapter than usual.

Replies to reviews:

Queen Martha Pond: Yeah, they really, really are. Their boss must be really desperate to have hired them ;) And Pepper is totally the responsible mum in this story :3 I also wanted to make it a point to describe the actual horror in killing someone. We see it happen all the time in movies but take it lightly. We don't ever truly realize the gravity of the action and so when Louie finally realizes what she has done, she is truly horrified, especially since she was just an ordinary young woman for a long time, suddenly thrust into this dangerous world. Thanks so much for the review; I hope you enjoy this next chapter!

LilliannaStone: *dumps a bucket of Loki-Louie things into the chapter*. I hope you liiiike :D Thanks for the review, and there's a little action in this chapter too! Enjoy!

PhantomLion: Why thanks very much! :D I hope you enjoy this chapter and the many chapters to come :)

Devicorn: New readers, yay! :D I'm so glad you like the story, and I hope you'll like the chapters that are yet to come! So glad to hear that Loki and Louie's relationship is not moving too fast or anything. I really, really do not want to do that. This story brushes off the darker side of Loki as it is and that could have been a key factor in making their relationship rocky, if I had chosen to write a more angsty story. I want to maintain SOME semblance of realistic progress. If they suddenly start doing each other I don't think it would hold true to Loki's nature or to my common sense. That being said, in this here chapter, I hope you get an insight into Loki and Louie's thoughts about each other.

Hope you all enjoy :)

Disclaimer, disclaimer, etc, etc.

Chapter 15

Loki POV

Loki observed Louie without even bothering to hide the fact that he had been staring at her for the past ten minutes. He was conflicted, in body and soul. That is to say, his body wanted things his soul condemned to the depths of Hel.

It annoyed him so much.

Now that she was safe and back in his vicinity, all Loki could think about was the frustrating fact that her hair was slowly curling once more, her face was devoid of any of the makeup and that nonsense on a stick that women applied to their mouths and he found that more attractive than anything. When she had on a dress and had done her face up with powders and colours she had looked enticing, yes, but she had intimidated Loki. She looked different and Loki was even more aware of her lips when they were painted red. And he didn't like it one bit. He didn't like that he was intimidated, he didn't like that he was attracted and worst of all, he didn't not like it either.

This Louie, the one who didn't particularly care if she threw on a shirt or a pillow case, her, he was more comfortable with. Her, he could deal with.

Meanwhile, Louie was working herself into a nervous wreck, as was Tony, somewhere in the Tower.

"The scanner should have found them by now," she said, wringing her hands.

"Didn't Stark mention something about the communication devices malfunctioning?" Loki asked idly. To be quite frank, he wasn't very concerned about the disappearance of the women. People always showed up in the end - it was only a question of whether they were dead or alive when they did.

Louie seemed quite affected though, behaving as if those of her own blood had been taken. Loki put it down to sentiment, another very mortal affection. He firmly ignored the fact that Thor was, at the moment, devastated too; he was unusually fond of the small dark-haired one. Louie nodded absently.

"They wouldn't work in the club either. It's really weird. Nothing could have been able to stop the comms like that."

"And yet..." Loki trailed off, fiddling with the cuff of his shirt. He was barefoot once more, and Louie was sitting across from him, feet tucked under her tense form. These Midgardian clothes weren't as comfortable as Asgardian silks, but they would suffice for the time being. Louie tugged on the hem of her overlarge t-shirt tiredly. Loki fought the urge to reach over and straighten it.

"It's been hours. They would most definitely know about the mistake by now. So why aren't they contacting us? What do they want?"

"Well if we knew who they were, it would be less complicated," Loki muttered. He looked at Louie. "Tell me about the tentacles again."

"Dark, cold, kind of octopus like. It didn't like fire at all," she recited immediately, like she had to the others. "Tony thinks it's a mutant of some kind."

"Possibly, yes," said Loki. He had been filled in on the mortals in the world with special abilities and was currently regretting not educating himself about them before he arrived on Midgard. They would have made valuable allies when he had wanted to obtain the Tesseract.

Louie fidgeted, glancing at the clock repeatedly.

"It'll be noon soon," she half whispered. She glanced at him nervously, eyes skittering away when he met her gaze.

Loki knew Louie too was thinking about the past few days, mulling over them in her head, worrying absently about the grounds of their – relationship - for want of a better word. He knew it from the way she hadn't even come near him after that moment of weakness last night.

Loki very badly wanted things to return to normal, when they squabbled like children over books and lessons and Louie always treated him like he was a rather difficult friend rather than a mass murderer. But ever since that night in Louie's room, the dynamic had changed for the worse.

Sometimes he wanted to just charm his way back into her good books. He was clever with his words; they didn't call him Silvertongue for nothing and Odin's spells could not ever completely eradicate his way of enticing someone with his mouth. That was simply an inborn talent.

Yet it felt so wrong to do that to Louie. She was clever and insightful but she was the farthest thing from dishonest. Working his ways on her seemed fundamentally wrong. It was like forcing Stark to give up tinkering and take up knitting - although that might keep them all amused for an afternoon.

Nevertheless, the only way to deal with this odd little dance they were doing around each other was to approach it head on.

"Is there something else on your mind?" Loki asked. "You seem unusually agitated." Louie shook her head, cheeks flushing. Loki prodded her mind telepathically. She pointed at him warningly.

"Stay out of my head." Loki crossed him arms and smirked in triumph.

"So you are hiding something from me?" Louie's jaw ticked in irritation.

"You irk me like no man's ever irked me before."

"I'm no man, my dear," he replied idly. Louie flinched, the fight going out of her. Loki frowned.

"Did I say something wrong?" Louie shook her head at once. Loki sighed. Really, add lying to the list of things he had to teach her.

"If it weren't for a remarkable lack of magic, mortal, I'd have the answer out of you before you could spell your name. Would you please just tell me what's wrong without tiptoeing around me on stocking clad feet?" he said irritably. Louie's eyes widened and she let out a snort of laughter.

"What?" he snapped.

"Nothing," she said, still grinning. Sighing, she shifted closer to him, running her fingers through her hair.

"I killed a man," she said finally, "last night. It was the first time I'd ever done something like that. And I felt terrible." She pressed her lips together, saying no more.

Loki pursed his lips. Although he was sure that was not exactly what she had been thinking about at that moment, he knew immediately this had been bothering her for a spell. He could see it in her eyes - the silent horror, the shame, the guilt.

"Seventeen," said Loki quietly.

"Sorry?" said Louie looking confused.

"Apology accepted," he replied smartly. "What I mean is, seventeen. That's how old I was when I made my first kill." The blood drained from Louie's face. Loki winced. Maybe a better explanation was in order.

"It was war. It wasn't a safe time for any of us and anyway, the people consider it a norm for young men and women to enlist in the army at the age of sixteen. Being of royal birth, I and Thor were trained from the beginning to fight," Loki took in a deep breath, wondering why he'd started this conversation in the first place. "It was Thor's first battle and I wasn't letting him go alone. Rightfully speaking, he alone was ordered to go. I had the choice of staying back. Thor's - our - mother was almost beside herself when Odin let us both go together.

"It was a small unit, and we were ambushed on our way to joining the army on the battlefield. Someone had tipped off the enemy that both the crown princes were heading into battle together.

"It was quick. But ugly. It was a near perfect ambush. Had it not been for Frigga's protective enchantments, Thor and I would most certainly have been dead. A party of two dozen was cut down to just four lone soldiers. The remainder of the unit were just Thor, two others and I. It almost seemed worthless to arrive at the army camp." Loki shook his head, getting back to the point.

"The man I killed, the first one, he had Thor in a chokehold and a dagger at his neck. I did what I had to do. On the entire ride to the base camp, all I could think about were the lives I had taken. Those men, they may have been our enemy, but they were simply following orders. It was simply from a different leader." Loki looked and Louie, who was staring at him like she had just seen him clearly for the first time.

"Please, stop staring," Loki sighed. Louie ignored him.

"And you feel like- like a murderer, even though you know you did the right thing," she said quietly. Loki nodded shortly.

"You learn to get over it, eventually. You did it for an honourable reason."

"But you were just seventeen," said Louie softly.

"A prince is a prince at any age, Louise," he said, not unkindly, "I do not regret what I did that day."

"I don't expect you to," she replied, "but you were just a boy..." Loki rolled his eyes.

"Gods above, I was trying to say I empathize, Louie. The feeling of guilt - it passes. You don't have to worry for me. After all, it happened centuries ago."

Louie propped her chin in her hands, looking at him skeptically, but dropped the topic anyway, looking slightly better.

"Tell me something," she said instead.

"What?"

"How come you know how to speak and read English?" Loki's mouth quirked.

"Asgardians have been speaking this language for far longer than humans have, you know. You are such a young race. The language has evolved quite quickly in your hands. When we first taught it to Midgardians, it was called Latin."

"The origin of European languages," she said.

"Exactly. Writing it and reading it are things I learnt in my spare time. I've even studied other forms of language on Midgard, such as French, German and Russian. Let it never be said I did not do my research before coming to Earth." Louie snorted.

"It figures you'd be so smart. And here I am still struggling with tenth grade Spanish." Loki smiled mischievously.

"You become bored when you live long enough. A scholar like you and I would naturally crave new knowledge."

He slipped in the "you and I" on purpose and it had its desired effect. Louie looked quite pleased at the inclusion. Loki almost laughed. Sometimes it was too easy to play the mortals, like they were puppets on strings.

Darcy POV

"Someone's coming," hissed Pepper. Darcy put her hands down, hiding the obvious slit in the wire on her wrists. Her teeth hurt, but her effort was worth it. Darcy was sure that if she tugged hard in either direction, her hands would break free.

Light shone into the dark inside of the vehicle as a man entered. He moved forward into the light and Darcy noticed a rather vicious looking snake tattoo on his arm.

"Ladies," he said cordially, inclining with his head. Next to Darcy, Pepper inhaled sharply.

"Remember me?" he asked, advancing on them, and crouching down to gaze at Pepper.

"You're one of the idiots from the alleyway, months ago," she replied curtly. Darcy was surprised at how brisk she was being. Pepper was more of a peacekeeper but right now, she looked as if she'd like nothing better than to fly at this guy and rip him to shreds. Blondie grinned.

"Luke, please, Miss Potts," he said smirking.

"What do you want with us?"

"Well, let's see," murmured Luke, his eyes travelling over Pepper in a way that made Darcy want to cringe. "After that little freak exploded back there, that day, your bodyguard came looking for us. He hit one of my boys so hard he might not be able to walk again." Luke rubbed his hands together.

"I took great satisfaction in beating him into a bloody pulp back at the club. We're still waiting for an update, but we were given allowance to kill him. I'm sure my boys handled that well." Pepper let out a choked sob.

Darcy shifted, so that she was facing both Luke and Pepper. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the door hanging open. Nobody seemed to be outside. As Luke spoke, the wheels in Darcy's head turned.

It made no sense that Tony hadn't found them yet, if all these idiots were just a bunch of alleyway goons. She remembered how the Pepper said the comms hadn't worked in the restaurant. That only meant one thing.

Something was blocking their signal to Tony.

Darcy knew Tony well, after living with him now for months. If she was right (and she was damn sure she was) Tony would be scanning the country over and over and over until she and Pepper appeared on his computer screens.

Darcy took back her previous statement. In her head, she was beginning to formulate a rather watery, insane idea.

"What do you want with us?" Pepper asked once more, her voice louder and angrier.

Yes, good, Pepper, keep him talking and occupied, thought Darcy.

She sat back and tried to think like Tony. Tony had been hesitant about this night out from the beginning. What did that mean? What would Tony have done if he was responsible for the safety of them all?

Well. If Tony was watching over them, he would have done it in the sneakiest way possible because Pepper would blow her top if she found him putting a bug on any of them. Darcy bit her lip. Her plan was crazy. It wasn't even a plan. It was half a plan. A quarter. One of them was gonna die. But it might just be the bravest thing she'd ever done.

Some small, childish part of her thought of, for once, being the hero in her story. The more rational part was thinking along the lines of Darcy, you stupid little crackhead, you're going to kill yourself. She tuned back into what Luke was saying.

"...mutant," he grinned a nasty grin, "around him, nothing works. Not computers, not GPS, not phones. It's like being stuck in a hundred foot wide elevator."

"Was he the whackjob with octopus tentacles for legs?" asked Darcy. Luke nodded, mouth twisting in distaste. Darcy risked another quick glance outside.

"So, why have we stopped?" Luke stood, walking over to the door.

"Regrouping. We go on foot, here on out," came the curt reply.

"I don't think you should wait for your pals from back at the bar," advised Darcy sagely, "you left them back at the club in the wrong hands." Luke's eye twitched. He jumped off the truck and yelled at someone in the distance. There was a muffled yell in reply. Luke growled and swore under his breath, saying colourful things about tentacle man's mother.

They were going on foot. Darcy felt a thrill of hope.

"Hey, Pepper?" Darcy whispered under her breath, "did Tony give you a tracker of some sort? An additional thing in case we lost our comms?" Pepper shook her head. Darcy didn't let this dishearten her. Plan B then.

"I need a phone," she whispered. Pepper glanced at the doors. Luke was standing outside, checking his phone repeatedly and grumbling under his breath.

"I can get you a phone," she whispered, "but we won't have long after I get my hands on it."

"All I need is five minutes," replied Darcy. The older woman nodded.

"I need to pee," said Pepper loudly. If this hasn't been such a dangerous situation, Darcy would have laughed. Pepper Potts said the P word.

"What?" asked Luke, looking slightly taken aback.

"Nature calls," quipped Darcy. Luke looked into the distance again, sighed and looked back.

"Hold it in."

"But I need to go now," whined Pepper petulantly. Give the woman an A star for acting.

"Shut up," Luke snapped.

"Well, would you rather she go in this shiny truck that doesn't belong to you or out there?" asked Darcy. "Trust me. She can't wait long, she got pretty drunk last night." Pepper squirmed for effect.
Luke seemed torn, clearly not wanting to spoil the truck's interior, but not sure if letting them out was the best thing to do.

More evidence of them working for a higher power, thought Darcy. Pepper whimpered, making a face. Luke groaned and beckoned.

"Okay, okay," said Luke. "Get out. Only you." He pulled out a small handgun and pointed it at Darcy.

"You stay. I've got no problem shootin' you, considering how you're not the freak. And don't even think of fucking running. We're not stupid, we're guarding the patrol." Darcy shrugged and leaned back, feeling the sweat run down her back. Luke cut off the binding on Pepper's wrists and led her away. Another man came and stood by the door, gun in hand.

Darcy's heart dropped when she saw the cloth bags in his hands, looking suspiciously appropriate for pulling over someone's head. Great. Of course they'll blindfolded their victims.

Time for plan C then.

She counted to a hundred, hoping Pepper had led Luke well away. Then, Darcy opened her mouth and began to scream.

Tony POV

Falling. Falling backwards. It was the same dream, every time. As he watched helplessly, Pepper fell back into a dark abyss, the bottom glowing like angry coals. The rationale in Tony always told him it was a dream, nothing more. But that didn't stop him from suffering as Pepper slipped away from him slowly, fear in her eyes, shocked at his broken promise.
You said you'd catch me.

He sat up with a lurch, gasping. Around him, it was bright, and he could hear the workings of the Tower above and below him. His machines whirred and like a heart monitor, every time the scanner went round and came back to square one, there was a resigned beep.

Tony groaned, burying his face in his palms. He had worked himself to the point of exhaustion that he fell asleep on his desk. The clock read that it was well past noon. Fear raised hackles on his neck. The thing about kidnappings was that the longer it took to find someone, the higher the chances of them being dead.

"Tony?"

Tony turned, blinking rapidly. His hands automatically reached for his equipment and he fiddled with a few buttons and screens. Louie moved forward, arms crossed.

She looked tired, wan - Tony was sure she hadn't taken Bruce's orders and rested. Loki moved in behind her, his eyes sweeping the room before moving off to observe the things in his lab. Tony knew Loki would never admit it, but the god always seemed interested in his knick knacks. He also noticed that even though they were at opposite ends of the room, Loki kept watch on Louie very carefully, as if she were a tiger in a cage – something not to be taken lightly or to turn your back on. When Louie moved forward, Loki moved too, but gave her a wide berth. If she shifted to her left, he accommodated by shifting to the left as well.

"Any luck?" she asked quietly, moving in to take a seat beside him. He shook his head and typed away at some nonsensical figures, because he had to keep up the persona of A Very Busy Man. Over his dead body was he letting the kid know that the great Tony Stark had been drooling on his desktop just a minute ago.

The flat beeping of the scanner was the only sound in the room for a moment. Tony hated silences. They made it seem like someone had just died and people were just grieving all around.

"What does that do, really?" Louie asked, indicating the scanner. "I mean the technicality of it. I know it's a scanner."

Thankful for something to talk about, Tony grabbed the opportunity and launched into a full blown lecture about the science behind his mastery. It was genius, actually, or he had thought so up until it had all gone wrong. The hem of Pepper 's dress had a little wire attached to it, something he'd tucked into her collar at the very last moment. A combination of sheer luck and Happy taking precautions to keep sly hands away had resulted in a near perfect tracker.

Was it creepy and stalker-like? Yes. Did he regret it? Not one bit. His security detail always had these trackers on, and the minute one of the guards had died, he was notified and thankful for the extra precaution he had taken. But then, Pepper had disappeared off the screens and Tony was left with a tsunami of fear threatening to drown him.

"This isn't how it works in the movies," mumbled Louie, almost to herself.

"It never is, sweetheart."

"I thought they'd have contacted us by now, you know?" she sighed and put on a terrible impression of a deep voice. "We demand no less than five million. You have one hour."

"That was horrible," said Tony almost laughing. Louie grinned sheepishly and winked.

"Made you smile, didn't I?" They both looked away, stifling giggles. It was the worst possible moment to laugh but Tony felt glad that it happened. He reached over and brushed his knuckles against Louie's cheek, a silent gesture of thanks.

"I knew I liked you." Louie smirked.

"I always knew I was your favourite child."

"Don't push your luck, kid." Loki coughed discreetly somewhere towards the left of the room. Tony grinned again. Louie gestured to the screen again.

"How long are you planning to keep this up?"

"It'll be running day and night until we find them," Tony replied. "Clint and Natasha went back to the club a while back. They're trying to trace these people on foot. I'm staying here in case they do show up." He waved at another screen on which two yellow dots were slowly making their way down a busy street.

"So, there's nothing left to do but wait."

Pepper POV

Pepper had only just gotten close enough to swipe Luke's phone when Darcy's screams echoed through the air. More yells filled the barren land. With nothing else to do, Pepper stumbled sideways, into Luke. Luke staggered and the both went crashing onto the ground.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she cried, making no effort to get up off the man. She made a show of patting down Luke and brushing dust off his shoulder. The phone was in the pocket of his jeans, and Pepper leaned heavily on her arm and dug her elbow into Luke's stomach.

"Oh! Oops," she smiled sweetly. The phone fell with a thud to the ground. Deftly she picked it up, tucking it into her dress.

It would have gone unnoticed if it hadn't just started ringing at that very moment.

Pepper froze. Luke froze. Then his eyes zoned in on her, realisation dawning on his face.

"You little bitch!" He wrenched the phone from Pepper and backhanded her. With a cry, Pepper stumbled back, her head spinning. Her chest hurt, her dress was ripped and she could feel a bruise forming on her jaw.

"Shit," Luke swore. He pulled her to her feet and dragged her back to the van. The screams were louder now.

"What the fuck is going on?" yelled Luke, his face red with anger. The screams cut off at once. Pepper stumbled along miserably, half scared to find out what Darcy had got herself into.

It was worse than she imagined.

Darcy lay at the edge of the truck, breathing shallowly. Her arm dripped with blood and she was mumbling things incoherently. The moment she spotted Pepper she began to scream once more.

"I said, shut, UP!" roared a man, cocking his gun. Darcy sobbed, reaching for Pepper. Pepper hurried to her side, tears filling her eyes.

"Oh Darcy, what have you done?"

Darcy let her head rest on Pepper's shoulder. She had been shot in the arm, a mere graze of a bullet, but the blood was flowing freely enough to make Pepper well and truly scared.

"Can we kill her?" a asked a man with distaste. Luke looked like he badly wanted to say yes.

"Let's just get going shall we? We'll let the boss decide." Darcy pressed her forehead against Pepper's shoulder, hard. At first, Pepper thought she was doing it out of fear but she realized Darcy wasn't stopping as she calmed down. The younger woman was still butting her head against Pepper and it hurt, stabbing painfully into her collarbone. Suddenly, it was as clear as day to Pepper. There was still hope.

Louie POV

When I woke up it was dark in my room. The sun shone behind closed curtains and the only sound in the room was quiet breathing. The clock showed it was three in the afternoon. Loki was sitting in my chair, breathing so evenly he had to be meditating. He had this intense look of concentration on his face that probably spelled trouble in other circumstances.

I wondered constantly about Loki's life. I understood that a combination of a teenage temper tantrum and some serious daddy issues had driven him to do the things he did, but I wanted to know more. About his childhood. About his brother. I was fairly sure that between the two of them, Loki was the creative mastermind behind pranks in their days as children.

This was the god of Mischief. When did that change to him becoming just the god of Lies? Mischief wasn't always deceit and lies. Mischief was different. Mischief could be fun. Loki opened his eyes and narrowed them at me.

"Can I help you?" In reply, I smiled sleepily. He looked unnerved at that.

"I may have an idea on how to track your friends," he said, buttoning his shirt tightly to the top. If it made him uncomfortable he didn't let on - he seemed well adjusted to wearing clothes that made him look all princely and regal.

"Do share," I said, firmly beating down thoughts of unbuttoning that button and maybe a few more.

"A simple tracking spell should do. It's pure magic, not technology so maybe it can get past these barriers and reach the women."

"But a search of that magnitude," I sat up, "it would be exhausting to search the entire state. Not even you and I combined would be able to cover the area even once, without taking at least a couple of weeks." Loki nodded, agreeing.

"Therein lays the problem."

We both went quiet for a moment, trying to figure out a way to scan the entire globe in a matter of days. A thought occurred to me, something that had been nagging me in the back of my mind for a while.

"Why do you want to help?" Loki leaned back, poker face in place.

"It would be good to have one over the Avengers. It could lead to favors in the future." I raised my eyebrow.

"It has nothing to do with, say, having a secret fondness for us mere mortals?" Loki threw me a Look. I grinned and thumped the bed.

"Come rest."

"No, thank you."

"Come on, you're exhausted, I can tell."

"Oh, you can, can you?" He looked amused now, like I was some sort of interesting show puppy.

"Yes I can. Now get over here." A shadow of something flickered over his eyes when he realised I wasn't bluffing. Was it distaste? Surprise? I never really got to find out because Tony's voice broke over the intercom.

"Guys, we have a sighting."

I shot out of bed and hurried down the hallway, Loki following closely behind me. Tony stood at his computer, arms folded.

"It was just for a few seconds but it was there. We have a lead now." Tony looked more alive than he had in the past eighteen hours.

Loki sidled closer, murmuring into my ear, "If we get there, we might be able to track them."

"Tony," I said nodding to show Loki my assent, "Loki has an idea." I explained how we could probably track Darcy and Pepper using magic, that it may work better than Tony's scanners. Although Tony didn't seem to like the sound of that, he agreed it would be a pretty good idea.

"Jarvis, get the plane ready in five," he said, all business, "you two and Thor, suit up."

Suiting up just involved putting on something I could be comfortable in, so I went for the same casual look I'd gone with when I was with Clint.

Thor and Loki both wore their Asgardian armour and looked highly impressive. When they were decked out in jeans and shirts, you kind of tend to forget they were both six-foot-something gods with unfathomable power. Not that Loki had unfathomable power anymore, something he had no qualms about telling each and every one of us as often as he could. His powers were so weak now that even I could overthrow him. His lessons with me exhausted his small reserve of power faster than ever.

Today's tracking spell would be conducted by Loki, but he'd use my power as a vessel for his mind to control. That way, neither would he tire himself out nor would I waste time trying to learn a brand new spell.

Steve and Bruce stayed back at the tower, both manning the computers and communication and the sick bay for when we returned.

A few minutes before we left, Steve pulled me aside, glancing at Loki.

"You've never been this far out with him. Do you think it's a good idea to give him free reign out there?"

"Steve," I gave him a look. "His powers are sealed and there's a tracker on his ankle. I think we'll be fine." Steve still looked doubtful.

"I can handle it, okay," I assured him. "Don't worry."

Ten minutes later, we were flying. The kidnappers hadn't gone far, in terms of aircraft time. Fifteen minutes or so in the air and Tony made a stealthy descent.

Loki was sitting opposite me with Thor on his left who was making small talk with him. Loki didn't seen as annoyed with Thor as he used to be. He definitely put up with his ramblings more, paying more attention to the news Thor brought from Asgard.

Thor was in the middle of cheerfully explaining in gruesome detail how he'd decapitated some Asgardian monster when Tony brought the plan to a standstill. Jarvis took over and Tony came out of the cockpit, suit at the ready.

The plane had landed on a barren, grassy area on one side of a tarmac road. On the other side of the road was an area of land that was fenced off. Barbed wire ran along the top of the fence, which was at least twenty feet high. Inside the fence, the land had run wild. Trees grew tall and densely packed together, and grass and weeds were overflowing from the little forest.

Tony fired up the suit and flew further down the road and then off onto the grassy shrubs. We hurried to catch up.

"This is where I last got a signal," said Tony, "after that, it disappeared again." I looked around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

"Tony?" asked Thor. He was even further ahead than any of us. He waved to us from the road. Thor pointed at a splash of something dark on the ground.

"Is that what I fear it is?" I crouched on the tarmac, examining the splotch of red brown splatter.

"That's blood alright," I muttered grimly. Tony picked up a sample and inserted it into a slot in the suit.

"It's Darcy's blood," said Tony.

Shit. Anger coursed through me. These people had hurt Darcy. Sweet, funny Darcy who knew her way around an iPhone better than anyone else in the Tower, who hadn't done anything worse than taser a Norse god. Thor looked beside himself.

"I will find them, and crush them to dust," he vowed.

"Yes, well, that would be a little difficult considering how we can't find them at all," said Loki a little acidly.

"The spell," I asked. "Would that work?" Loki shook his head in frustration.

"Look at where we are Louie. We seem to be the only beings for miles all around. It would be as foolish as trying to comb an entire country."

"I don't think we'll have to, guys," said Tony. He flipped open a compartment in the sleeve of the Mark- 42 and showed us his scanner again.

This time, a red dot shone brightly and steadily, unmoving and apparently from beyond the fenced off wilderness.

A/N: Ooooh, things are getting heated up. Whatever will happen next?

Ugh, I don't believe action scenes are truly my thing xD Well, I left a couple of references in this chapter, to my favourite books and movies, and I believe I have done so throughout the story so I'd just like to say, if you recognise the phrase, it's probably not mine: I'm just adding fandom references into all my homework.

Remember, Reviews Maketh Writer.

And Writer Maketh Plot Twists.

25/07/2015: BIG GRAMMAR EDIT

Until next time,

Much love,

xo

PS: Louie meant for the explanation of the scanner to be a distraction for Tony to jump at.