Check it out, two chapters in five days! (Probably not the beginning of a pattern, but I would like it to be because I love writing this fic as much as I hope you guys love reading it!)
"I don't think I've seen you smile like that before," said Loki. "What brought it on?" He and Brunnhilde were a few paces behind Thor as he marched confidently along the streets of New York City. To minimize the startled stares they were all getting, Loki had reapplied the illusions to his and Thor's armor and added one to Brunnhilde's leathers. The Dragonfang he'd disguised as a rebec strung across her back. Her Valkyrie braids he left unchanged, but her boots now looked more like they were from Earth, and she appeared to be wearing one of those leather coats that barely went past the waist and a pair of pale blue trousers covered in rips and worn patches. He'd seen several humans in such articles and had to assume that the purpose of wearing them was to make oneself intimidating by giving off the impression of having recently survived encountering some kind of fearsome, clawed creature.
"Heimdall, mostly," said Brunnhilde. "He's one thing I'm actually glad hasn't changed."
"What did he do?"
"I sort of went to the Bifrost to run away, but we talked. It was good."
"You were close before?"
"He's a few centuries older than me, and he was that kid everyone looked up to when I was little."
"I think he's always been wise beyond his years because of his sight," said Loki, though trying to imagine Heimdall as anything but the adult Gatekeeper was bizarre. He was going to have to thank him for helping her the next time he saw him. The thought of returning to Asgard only to discover that she had fled was not a pleasant one.
"He gets it from his mother. Did you know he's the son of a Valkyrie?"
"Thor and Sif found out about as soon as they learned to read. They pestered him nonstop for stories about her."
Brunnhilde shot Loki a look both suspicious and amused. "Only Thor and Sif? Meanwhile, you were aloof and uninterested?"
"I may have listened in. Raptly. But my sense of decorum was always better than theirs."
"I can believe that," she snorted.
"Oh dear, did the sparring match go that badly?"
She shrugged and looked away. "Only partly. Sif had as much fun as you thought she would, at least until the end. I was the one who wasn't ready for it."
"I'm sorry I asked you to do it."
"No, I think I needed that."
"What happened?"
"She said she wanted me to train her to be a Valkyrie and I went a bit mad on her."
"Is it such a terrible request?"
"It's not that. She reminds me of me, if anything. But she only looks up to me because I'm a Valkyrie, not because she knows me. If she did, she'd run the other way."
"I know you a little better than she does, and I'm not running either."
"It's different. We started off being assholes to each other, so I know you haven't just got stars in your eyes."
"The two don't have to be mutually exclusive," said Loki. She jabbed an elbow at his ribs, then slipped her arm around his waist beneath his surcoat. He laughed, draped his arm across her shoulders, and bent to kiss her temple. It was nice not having to worry about passersby gossiping about the prince and the Valkyrie. They were just two more people in the crowd.
"How much farther are the wizards?" Brunnhilde called.
"We're nearly there," said Thor cheerfully over his shoulder.
X
"And...Thor is the one who told you about this?" said Stark.
Natasha had listened mostly without contributing as Rogers explained that his childhood best friend, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, was apparently alive, not an old man, and being used by Hydra. She had to suppress a groan that the information had come from Thor. She knew he just wanted to help them all get to a better future than the one he came from, but it seemed that no matter how much SHIELD tried to finesse the strategy, he was going to keep approaching everything with the bluntness of his giant hammer. At least he'd managed to convey the information to Rogers without giving away that he was a time traveler.
"Yeah, he said Asgard's Gatekeeper recognized Bucky from, I guess, glimpses of the war."
"Okay, still not used to having a bunch of all-seeing aliens in the game," said Stark.
"You're working on getting into Hydra's files through these computer things, right?" said Rogers. "Can you help me find him?"
"Course," said Stark without hesitation. He began fiddling with his holographic interface. Almost immediately, images and paragraphs began popping up in the air. Barnes's service records, it looked like.
"Holy mackerel," said Rogers. He put a hand out experimentally to touch the nearest hologram, which fuzzed and distorted around his fingers.
"Could get tricky, though," said Stark. "He disappeared, what, beginning of '45? If it was Hydra who found him, I'm guessing they didn't hand over those files when the digital age came along and SHIELD started putting stuff on servers. I don't think we'll be able to trace him that way unless we find the physical paper trail. I could always have JARVIS try some facial recognition, see if anything turns up."
"Without additional parameters to narrow the search, it will take some time, sir," said JARVIS. Rogers didn't quite jump, but he clearly still wasn't used to the disembodied voice.
"And he's still young?" said Natasha, moving to stand in front of one of the photographs, scanning the features of the handsome face like Barnes was a mark she needed to memorize for an op. "That would stand out."
"Hydra sitting on the fountain of youth or something?" said Stark.
"Not sure we can rule it out," said Natasha. If the Norse gods were real, what else was possible?
"Although maybe they just cloned him and it's not the same guy. Would Heimdall be able to tell the difference?"
"What do you mean 'cloned him'?" said Rogers.
"A genetic duplicate," said Stark. "He'd look exactly the same as the original but he'd be a completely new person. Think identical twins, just on a serious delay."
Rogers's face fell, and Natasha felt a pang of sympathy for him. She wanted this to be real, and she doubted Thor would've made such a point of telling him if it wasn't actually Barnes out there. "But why would they clone an Allied soldier when they could just work with subjects who are already loyal to them?" she said, hoping to steer them away from this theory.
"Maybe because of the experiments Zola did on him and the rest of the Commandos while they were prisoners," said Rogers, his expression hollow. "Schmidt was using them as lab rats to try to recreate Erskine's serum. Zola never got that far, but what he did still put them all on a different level from the other soldiers."
Stark shook his head. "Those kinds of enhancements would need to have changed their DNA to carry over to a clone, and considering that DNA wasn't discovered until the '50s, that seems unlikely."
Rogers perked up a little. "What if the same thing happened to him as to me? I came out of the ice just like I went in. That river in the Alps was freezing, so maybe…?" He trailed off with a wince as if apologizing for voicing a stupid idea. Stark, on the other hand, frowned.
"Hey super-spy lady," he said, turning to Natasha. "Is SHIELD sitting on working cryonics? I would've called it sci-fi quackery to con gullible rich people until three days ago, but that was before I found out he did it by accident." He jerked a thumb at Rogers.
"If it is, it's above my security clearance," said Natasha. "It would be one way to keep Barnes from aging normally, though."
"Then it's one avenue to go down," said Stark. "Give me a few minutes to figure out what kind of equipment would have to go into a working cryo facility, and then I can limit the facial recognition search to anywhere that qualifies."
"That should narrow things down considerably," said JARVIS.
"Thank you," said Steve with a tight but sincere smile. He turned to study the most recent photograph from the military files.
"Just a few minutes to solve a piece of sci-fi quackery?" Natasha muttered to Stark.
"You know, I think I'm gonna name my new element Tonium."
She pulled a face like she was thinking hard. "How many other planets have you been to?"
He actually pouted. "Touché."
"I'm sure Thor and Loki will bring you for a visit too if you ask nicely."
"I'm already bleeding out here, Romanoff. You don't have to twist the knife."
X
At last, Thor saw the building he was looking for. It was slightly more ornate than its neighbors (very slightly, by Asgardian standards), which made it stand out. He briefly turned to look at Loki to make sure he hadn't vanished into a portal like last time, and nearly did a double-take at the sight of him and Brunnhilde contentedly following in his wake, arms slung around each other like they were an ordinary sight-seeing couple. It was rare enough for Loki to be in such a good mood, but he didn't know Brunnhilde was capable of it. He turned back around before they could see him smiling. "We're here," he announced, and jogged up the stone steps. He was prepared for them all to be teleported inside mid-knock, but he was able to rap his knuckles on the sturdy wooden door several times without incident. "Hmm, feeling less irritating today, I hope."
Loki and Brunnhilde joined him on the doorstep. Thor was about to try knocking again when the door opened to reveal a slice of the dark-wooded interior and a man he didn't recognize. He was about the same height as the wizard he'd met and wore clothing of a similar style, but his hair was longer and grayer, he lacked any beard, and his expression was wary.
"Hello," said Thor. "Is the one called Stephen Strange inside?"
The man narrowed his eyes. "You have the wrong house. No one by that name lives here."
Undeterred, Thor gestured to Loki. "My brother is a talented and learned sorcerer, and he's interested in meeting some Earth wizards. If Strange isn't—"
"Someone must have played you for a fool," the man interrupted coldly, "but you won't find me as susceptible to nonsense and rumor."
"Perhaps a demonstration, then," said Loki. Green light passed over him, Thor, and Brunnhilde, dispelling the glamour that hid their Asgardian garb.
The man's eyes went wide. He shifted into a combat stance and made quick maneuvers with his hands. Shining golden glyphs fanned out from them to form disks, which he held in front of him like they were shields.
"I told you," said Thor.
Loki's face was shining with eagerness. "How are you doing that? This power isn't seidr at all!"
The man did not relax his pose. "How did you find this place?" he demanded.
"Kaecilius," said a woman's voice commandingly from deeper inside the hall. "Let them enter."
X
Ava slipped inside the Triskelion as easily as she had the day before. She couldn't just take Agent Barton at his word. It would be stupid to trust anyone from SHIELD so quickly.
But she wanted him to be telling the truth. Her life would be much easier if he was, and so would Bill's. Bill was reluctant to delay the trip to California long enough to find out. He had a house in the woods not far from Berkeley with plenty of room to set up her quantum chamber, and they had everything packed into a U-Haul ready to go. No matter how anxious he was to be on the road, however, she couldn't leave until she knew how much of a problem SHIELD was going to be for them.
Hoping for a quick lead on where Barton might be, she went to the security office and scanned the many feeds over the shoulders of the guards on duty. After about five minutes, she spotted him heading along the corridor of the top floor. She managed to slip through the elevator doors in time to catch a ride with a few agents most of the way up, then took the stairs for the rest.
Barton wasn't in the corridor anymore by the time she reached it, so she walked through the walls of all the offices it connected to instead. If he wasn't on this side, she'd do the same on the other, but that proved unnecessary. She found him inside the Director's office, and they didn't look terribly happy with each other.
"—her back in after this is all over," Barton was saying, "you're going to have to find someone else to do it. The only thing I'm going to offer her is help."
"She's a skilled field agent, Barton," said Fury. "She took out the head of Hydra and got away clean. If there's a chance she'll be willing to keep working with us in the future, I'm not just gonna let that bridge burn."
Ava didn't have any time for anger to boil up before Barton was firing back. "If you had kids, Director, maybe you wouldn't be able to be so cold about this. It wasn't just Hydra that stole Ava's childhood. SHIELD let it happen because she was useful. It wasn't right. We're lucky Pierce is the only one she went after, and more of us will deserve it if we don't make good on the promises we made to her."
Ava stared at Barton in surprise. Was this all an act? They had to at least suspect she might follow him back to spy on his debriefing, but...
There was a knock at the door. "Yeah?" said Fury, clearly frustrated.
The door opened and in walked Deputy Director Hill. "We might have a situation, sir."
"What kind of situation?"
"This was filmed in the Bronx about fifteen minutes ago." She flipped the tablet she was holding around so that he could see the screen. Ava moved to get a better look too. It showed a YouTube video of what seemed to be a family enjoying a birthday celebration at a park. Then, something flew into frame in the background and the one holding the camera swore and focused on that instead. It was unmistakably Thor, and in the next second, the large bird next to him transformed into Loki. In another couple seconds, the whole screen went white and crackly while lots of shouting and jostling happened, and then the image resolved into some kind of pillar of light. It faded to reveal a dark-skinned woman standing alone on charred grass, who then leapt at Loki and embraced him.
"What the—," said Fury.
"How did they even get to New York?" said Barton.
"Where the hell is Coulson?" said Fury.
Hill turned the tablet back around and started tapping on it. "The logs show that he left the Triskelion with Dr. Banner, en route to Culver University."
"What about Nat?" said Barton.
More tapping. "She took Rogers to go see Stark at his Virginia residence."
Fury made an exasperated noise. "Like herding a bunch of damn cats."
Ava wasn't going to hear anything else about her own situation, and it was becoming increasingly painful to remain invisible. With one last glance at Barton, she left Fury's office.
X
Kaecilius didn't think it was very wise to just let an unknown sorcerer and his armed companions into the Sanctum, but the Ancient One must have her reasons. He wasn't about to leave her to face them alone, though, and he retreated only as far as a spot near the base of the grand staircase in the event that they revealed dangerous intentions.
"What brings the princes of Asgard and a Valkyrie to our doors?" she asked. Kaecilius stared at them in disbelief. Of course. He should have realized it from the moment the umbrella turned into a hammer. Thor. And that would make the sorcerer Loki. He'd grown up on tales of them. He'd repeated those tales to his boy. His chest tightened at the thought. The grief was never going to leave him, was it? No matter how deeply he studied the mystic arts, the peace and new sense of purpose the Ancient One had promised were going to evade him forever.
"Curiosity," said Loki. "The study of magic has been my life's pursuit, and yet I never knew mortals were capable of wielding it. How is this accomplished?"
"The answer is one I am sure you would love to hear," said the Ancient One. "Alas, it is my curiosity you will have to indulge."
"Curiosity about what?" said Thor.
She didn't reply at once, and Kaecilius took his eyes off the Aesir to look at her. Her eyes had fallen closed and she was smiling. "Forgive me," she said. "It is a vanishingly rare treat to hear my native tongue, even if it is only by an illusion of spellwork. Thank you." Kaecilius, who had only heard Danish when they spoke, was stunned yet again.
"Allspeak brings with it considerable diplomatic advantages," said Loki, inclining his head. Perhaps the Ancient One had been right to let them in. How much could they learn from each other?
"Come, we can have this discussion over tea," she said.
"We would be honored," said Loki, while Thor and the Valkyrie both grimaced.
Oh hi there, Kaecilius. Fancy seeing you here. Your name is hard to spell. I'm getting his tragic backstory from the wiki. Apparently there were some tie-in comics that went with the movie. A better strategy is to give your villain a personality in the movie itself, but that's cool too I guess. Also I decided he's Danish because Mads Mikkelsen is. That makes his reactions to characters from Norse mythology way more fun.
A little progress with Ghost, but she's not entirely sold yet, and meanwhile Fury is having another headache-filled week.
Thor knows Loki and Brun are both big enough dummies to stop enjoying themselves if he catches them at it. *eye roll* Might need to draw them in their illusory Midgardian clothes. The instrument Loki disguised the Dragonfang as is another of the instruments we know Vikings used. Thought that'd be more fun than a regular guitar, and he can't be *that* good at crafting these disguises when he's spent this little time on Earth. Oh, also, I forgot to translate Thor's Old Norse insult for your guys last chapter. He called Stephen a "hraumi," which means "braggart."
Neither the movie nor the wiki gives any information about the MCU Ancient One's background except that she's Celtic, so I decided it'd be the most fun to have her be from the Isle of Man. Her native tongue is Manx, which is arguably the most dead of the six Celtic languages. At some point, she made her way to the London Sanctum and, out of necessity, picked up the different incarnations of English that came along over the centuries.