"Loki!" Thor roared, sprinting towards the last place he'd seen his brother. The establishment was completely in ruins, sparks and water dripping down from where the wall had been torn away, with no signs of life inside. But maybe Loki was still here somewhere beneath a cloaking spell. Or maybe he'd ended up underneath the piles of rubble. Thor began frantically throwing aside chunks of metal and concrete twice his size, still shouting his brother's name. He found nothing underneath the first pile. Or the second. Or the third.

"Hey, Thor!" Thor spun around to face Barton, his hope rising. However, it plummeted again when he saw that Barton was only pointing at one of the walls that remained standing. There was a blue-bladed sword sticking out of it. "Wasn't that the sword that warrior lady was carrying?"

It was, without question, the Valkyrie's Dragonfang. She wouldn't have left that behind if she'd had a choice.

"And what about this?" said Romanoff. She picked up a dwarf-forged dagger with a gold and black hilt from the ground.

"Loki's," said Thor. Part of his mind was still scrabbling for a positive explanation to all this, and the only one it could come up with was that Loki had been wildly successful in his wooing of the Valkyrie, and things had gotten very out of hand. But knowing Loki as well as he did and having spent a few weeks in the Valkyrie's company, that possibility seemed extremely remote. More likely, they would've ended up at each other's throats, and even then, this destruction would not have been their doing.

A groaning sound came from behind the bar. All three of them rushed over, and Barton and Romanoff helped Thor clear away smaller pieces of debris that had half-buried the A'askavarian barman. "Are you alright?" said Thor. Thick yellow liquid oozed from several scrapes in his skin, his clothing was torn, and the tentacles that took the place of a right arm were a vibrantly bruised riot of different shades of green.

"M-my bar!" he whimpered, staring around at the destruction. Not so badly wounded that he couldn't care about that, then.

"What happened here?" said Barton.

"Some kind of wizard attacked the place," he said. "Everyone ran, but I got trapped back here when he started throwing pieces of the building around."

"What did the wizard look like?" said Romanoff.

"I don't—tall, gray skin, lots of wrinkles, no nose, wearing some kind of tunic?"

"Ebony Maw," said Thor, his lip curling. "What of the man who came in here with us? And the woman I opened the drink tab for?"

"I didn't see," he said. He squirmed, avoiding Thor's gaze.

"Want to try that again?" said Romanoff.

"What do you want from me?" he whined. "I've lost everything!"

Thor seized him by the throat, lifted him up from the ground, and slammed him against the back wall. "What. Happened. To. My. Brother," he growled. Thunder rumbled overhead.

The A'askavarian whimpered and squirmed fruitlessly against Thor's grip. "Ow! I didn't have a choice, okay? When Topaz gives you an order, you follow it if you want to keep your freedom. Let me go!"

"What did she want?" said Barton.

"She asked if I knew where you three had gone, and then she gave me something to put in your brother and Scrapper 142's drinks and left."

Thor's grip tightened. The alien's face was steadily turning a deeper green. "Why?" he barked. "How did she even know about us?"

"How the hell should I know?" he rasped.

"What happened to Loki and the woman?" said Romanoff.

"They fought the wrinkly wizard guy," he said. Thor felt his slimy throat contract in a gulp beneath his hand. "They lost, and he took them away. But I'm pretty sure they're still alive." Blue-white threads of electricity burst out of Thor's skin. He dropped the A'askavarian before his hold could either crush or electrocute him, and he staggered back. He tried to draw slow, deep breaths, but his control was gone and the energy of his wild seidr would not be restrained. The storm outside broke loose. The sky itself seemed to crack apart with lightning every other second, rain became hail, and the wind picked up until it howled through the city, sweeping away small to medium pieces of trash and rubble.

Ebony Maw had Loki. He had Loki and he was going to take him to Thanos, and then every horror Thor had sworn to spare his little brother from this time would happen anyway.

X

The Grandmaster was less pleased with how today was shaping up than he'd been with the way it had begun. Scales was one of the best fighters he'd had in his arena, sure, but he had zero sense of showmanship. He was so quick about bashing in the heads of his opponents that most of the audience had barely had time to see what had happened before it was over. The death of the previous reigning champion, which should have sent the stadium up in screams of outrage and delight, was instead met with nothing but hesitant, confused applause that died away quickly. Scales hadn't even gotten any blood on him! Meanwhile, Topaz had gotten her ship destroyed and a platoon of guards killed trying to capture the big blond guy, and she had nothing to show for it except a broken leg and a burned arm. To cap things off, he couldn't remember having such horrible weather on Sakaar in the entire time he'd been here.

If Wrinkles wasn't striding towards his throne right now, looking like his day had been much better, the Grandmaster would've been trying to salvage the evening with an impromptu party in his ship. He shooed away a couple of attendants and frowned at him, savoring another sip of his drink, not adjusting his relaxed position in his throne.

"Grandmaster," said Wrinkles, inclining his head, "thanks to the information of your subordinate, I have succeeded in capturing my quarry. I attempted to inform the Great Titan, but Sakaar's temporal flux is making communications off-world impossible, so I would like to return to him at once."

"Uh-huh," said the Grandmaster. "That wasn't our deal."

"The units for the soldiers have been transferred to your accounts, and Cull can remain behind to complete his battles in your arena," said Wrinkles calmly, but there was a vein twitching in that ugly gray forehead. He obviously wanted to use his normal methods of persuasion against him. The Grandmaster hoped he would. It would be funny, and it might improve his evening. "I will return for him and the army after I have delivered the mage to Thanos."

The Grandmaster went to sip more of his drink, but it was empty. He raised the glass in the direction of the nearest attendant, who took it and scurried to get him another. "I thought you guys were supposed to be all about balance," he said. "You offered to help my guards capture the other intruders, and, uh, now you want to skedaddle with yours while the other three are still running around? If you want the army, you're going to stay here until it's all finished. I'm not offering an installment plan here."

Maw's eyes narrowed, and for a tantalizing moment, the Grandmaster thought he might really cut loose against him, but in the end he only inclined his head with a movement so stiff it was a wonder it didn't snap his spine. "You have a reputation for always getting what you want, Grandmaster. It is not undeserved." He withdrew, flexing his long-fingered hands.

The Grandmaster sighed, accepting his new drink from the returning attendant. Maybe there was still time for a party.

X

"Thor," said Romanoff. He faced her. She looked rather pale with fright, but her brow was furrowed in determination and her voice was gentle. "If the Grandmaster's people are after us, they'll probably be back soon. We need to get somewhere under the radar so we can plan our next move."

"Our next move?" he repeated with a mirthless laugh. "Loki could be halfway to Thanos by now." He kicked one of the chunks of rubble, sending it tumbling into the street. Romanoff jumped, and he struggled to rein in his temper. Frightening his human friends wouldn't accomplish anything, and they deserved better after everything he'd already put them through today.

"According to the Grandmaster's hologram announcement thing, Cull Obsidian is gonna fight in the arena two more times," said Barton, walking up next to Romanoff. "That means they aren't leaving Sakaar for at least another two days, right?"

"Heimdall told you they came on one big ship," Romanoff added, "and I bet their communications off-world are getting as screwed up by the time difference as yours, so it's not like they can call another ride."

The knot of fear and despair in Thor's chest loosened a little, and it became easier to temper the storm. "Come on," he said. "I know a place we can go."

X

Loki came to and immediately regretted it. His skull was splitting from the blow Maw had knocked him out with and the fading effects of the drug, and his stomach felt like it was trying to crawl up his throat and escape out his mouth. He blinked his eyes open and found that he was in an irregularly shaped room, chained by his wrists to the ceiling a few feet above with barely enough slack for his toes to touch the floor. He saw the Valkyrie chained nearby, also coming out of her drugged sleep. She looked pale under her dark skin and one side of her face was caked with dried blood. He doubted he looked any better.

"Oh, you're still alive," he observed. He used the nameless tongue, in case anyone else was listening. "I'm glad my intervention wasn't for nothing."

She scowled at him. "You're the reason I'm in this mess in the first place," she said, using the nameless tongue too. "He was after you, not me."

Loki returned the scowl. "How was I supposed to know Ebony Maw would show up and attack two hours after I set foot on Sakaar? It isn't as though my brother and I broadcasted our plans. I don't even know why he was after me!" At this point in time, Thanos and his minions shouldn't even know Loki existed, let alone that he would be on a world so far outside Yggdrasil.

"The Grandmaster has surveillance everywhere so that he can get first access to anything interesting that turns up out of the portals," she said. "One of his cameras must've spotted you coming in."

And they had arrived out of thin air in a flash of Tesseract-blue light, just when the Grandmaster was negotiating with Maw. Loki groaned. Was there anything left that could go wrong with this mission at this point? He looked around their cell. Heimdall had only described the size and weaponry of the vessel bearing Thanos's lieutenants to Sakaar, but that information wasn't particularly useful now that Loki was inside it. Every surface was formed of the same glistening black material that pulsed with blue and orange lights. Wherever a light appeared in the walls, floor, or ceiling, it illuminated odd structures beneath the surface. They ran with fluids of various colors, and they resembled branching veins more than pipes. It was almost as if the ship was organic. Loki noticed that fresh waves of nausea rolled through him with each pulse of those eerie lights. The sickly energy it was giving off exactly matched the tenor of Maw's telekinetic powers, and his magic and Loki's seidr apparently did not mix well.

Loki gritted his teeth and wrenched at his chains. They creaked but didn't break. He hadn't really expected them to, but typically the best way to get out of shackles was to become something that didn't have hands. However, the instant he began calling on his seidr to transform into a serpent, his insides rebelled violently and his focus evaporated. He fell limp against the chains for a few moments, panting and fighting back the urge to throw up.

Right. No magic, unless he wanted to tear himself apart. Fantastic. Back to brute force, then. He heaved against the shackles again—not to break them this time, but instead to flip himself upside down like a trapeze artist. He caught one of the chains between his feet and pulled into a crouching position to give himself additional slack. From there, he was able to pit his full strength against the metal cuffs, and thereby made short work of them. Once the second one gave way, he flipped back down, landing cat-like on the floor. The impact sent out a ripple of that sickly light and another corresponding wave of nausea.

He would've liked to have curled up in a ball until the sensation passed, but he stood upright and turned to help the Valkyrie out of her chains too. However, two loud metallic snaps sounded out, and he found her free, massaging her wrists and looking bored. Of course.

"Heimdall?" he called. "Can you hear me?"

There was no reply. Well, it had been worth a try. At least that meant the ship was likely still on the planet. Did Thor know what had happened yet? Was he still trying to secure translators for the mortals, or were they all on the ship too, trapped in more of these doorless cells?

"He's still the Gatekeeper?"

Loki faced the Valkyrie again. She was watching him with her arms folded.

"He is," he said, brushing past her on the way to the nearest wall. He ran his hands over the strange material, face twisting in a grimace. It was unpleasantly warm and moist, which would've made it feel like flesh if it wasn't far too hard. "Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help me look for a way out?"

"You really think Maw would've left us alone in here if it was that easy to escape?"

"Judging from those chains, he already underestimated our strength once."

"Yeah, and that's why you're freely using your magic tricks to get us out of here."

Loki scowled at her again. "Maybe if you'd actually helped me against him instead of trying to fight both of us, he never would've been able to get us on his ship in the first place!"

"I don't help anyone," she said, as though he'd been an idiot for expecting any kind of cooperation against an obviously stronger foe.

"Ah, yes, how could I forget that I'm speaking with someone who knows no loyalty to king or realm?"

"I don't owe Asgard a bloody thing."

"Except your life, just now." He'd gone about halfway around the cell. The wall was completely seamless even as it curved and bent, and there were no gaps in the vein-like structures beneath it.

"Considering you're the reason I'm in this mess in the first place," she said, "that's already a wash, and besides, I didn't ask you to save me."

"You may have abandoned your oaths," said Loki, "but I haven't." It was the duty of the Allfather, and the royal family by extension, to protect the people of Asgard, and she was still one of them whether she liked it or not.

"Oaths," she scoffed. "That wasn't about oaths, it was about you wanting to get in my pants."

Loki's scowl became a smirk, even though by now he'd been all the way around the room and still failed to discover an exit. Perhaps a door simply grew into place when Maw needed one, and if that was the case, it likely only responded to his own commands. "Must the two be mutually exclusive?"

She laughed. It sounded more incredulous than mirthful. "Is this approach one that normally works for you?"

Given that he could count on one hand the number of times he'd been inclined to have an approach at all, he didn't really want to answer that. To make matters worse, her proving to be one of the most aggravating people he'd ever met had done nothing so far to diminish her appeal. All he could think of doing was to be equally aggravating. Pulling his best imitation of Fandral's most rakish smile, he said, "I'm a prince. If I didn't actively work to thin the crowd, I'd never get anything done."

Her eyebrows drew together and upward, and she turned her back to him.

Angry protective Thor is my favorite Thor. He's not really Clint and Nat's favorite Thor, though.

Okay so I decided not to use one of the ships we've seen in canon as Ebony Maw's ship in the fic. This takes place a few years earlier, and I imagine Thanos has a fairly rapid turnover rate of ships with all the wars he wages on different planets. I wanted the ship to be as creepy as Maw is, so I came up with this idea of it being almost alive, pulsing with its own energy that triggers basically a bad allergic reaction in seidr users.

Still, the setting was the easiest part of Loki and Valkyrie's scene to figure out. I went through probably four or five drafts of that scene. At first, Loki took a lot longer to notice her, but that just felt weird, and I played with the conversation and rearranged things a lot until I finally got it where I wanted it. It honestly would've been helpful if Ebony Maw had just gotten back already, but there never seemed to be a good place for him to butt in, so now we all get to be in suspense about what's going to happen to them for another chapter.