"A month and a half," Loki seethed as he, Thor, and Romanoff drove through a small town in upstate New York. "How can she just disappear for a month and a half?!"
They were near the border, having received another tip that someone fitting the Winter Soldier's description had been seen in the woods about a month ago. It was hard to believe they'd find anything, but Loki would not let them give up hope on Jak until they brought her home.
"At least we know that the sorcerer who sent her mother's bones was the one who took her," Thor offered. "Or someone else with magic. How else would they be able to hide themselves from Heimdall's gaze?"
"I'd rather we didn't know that," Romanoff said, "if it meant your all-seeing friend could find her."
"Heimdall is not as all-seeing as he would have people believe," Loki muttered. "The spell to hide from his sight is complicated, but anyone could do it with enough focus."
"Could Jak?" Romanoff asked. "Did you teach her how to do it?"
"Why would he have taught her that?" Thor asked. "Why would she use it?"
"Maybe in case they wanted to run away together," she shrugged. Loki had to admit it was a decent idea. If he found Jak again, perhaps he would teach the spell to her and they could follow through with the hypothetical plan.
"I did not show her how to hide from Heimdall," Loki shook his head, "It must be the other sorcerer. Which means he knows enough about Thor and myself to know he would have to hide from Heimdall."
"Could it be another Asgardian?" Romanoff asked, "SHIELD ran into a couple of other people from your world not too long after Thor crash landed here. Seems like your dad uses our realm as a bit of a criminal dumping ground."
"He always takes away their magic before banishing them here," Thor assured her, "So if it was an Asgardian, they wouldn't be able to hide from Heimdall."
"Could it be an Asgardian who isn't banished then? Maybe someone who came here without anyone knowing? Can you think of anyone who would have cause?"
"We never did figure out Jaklyn's parentage," Loki sighed, "Perhaps she has a relative in Asgard or one of the other realms who took her away."
"Or someone wanted revenge on you," Romanoff pointed out, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror. A cold feeling of dread shot down his spine at the idea of someone taking her because of him. He pictured purple skin and gold armor in his mind and the torture he'd endured at a mad man's hand. He didn't realize he was shaking until Thor reached back from the passenger seat and put a hand on his knee.
"If it is revenge, they're doing a poor job of it," the big blond said, "After all, how would Loki know it was revenge and what the revenge was for unless the fiend told us? This is too ambiguous a disappearance to be revenge."
"And the sorcerer was not interested in me," Loki told himself and the other two, "He only wanted Jak. It is too great a coincidence to think that both the sorcerer and someone else were both interested in kidnapping Jaklyn for different reasons."
"Weirder things have happened," Romanoff shrugged, "But I agree it's unlikely."
"Hey look! Stop!" Thor opened his car door before Romanoff could stop the vehicle and dashed through the town square to a community bulletin board. Romanoff hit the brakes and pulled into a parking spot before she and Loki followed Thor. By the time they got to him, he was already shaking his head.
"Nevermind, I saw this missing poster and thought perhaps it was a found poster for Jaklyn," Thor pointed to a cheaply printed paper with a grainy photograph of a smiling woman.
"'Missing, reward, Lyubov Buzinsky, last known work for magic man'?" Loki read the English words off the poster. There was more writing in Russian and a phone number to call with information.
"Magic man?" Thor asked.
"Probably not the one we're looking for, but it's worth checking out," Romanoff leaned closer to read the poster. "It says 'please help, my daughter has been missing since…' that's fifteen days ago, yikes, 'she went to work for a man who lives in the woods, but never came back and she never told me where he lived exactly. Please help, I do not speak English and the police will not help me.'"
"Let's call her!" Thor suggested, "Even if she doesn't know anything about our janitor, perhaps we can help her find her daughter."
"We already have a missing person of our own," Loki shook his head, "We don't have time to help with hers. Let us see if she knows where Jaklyn is or anything else and then be done with her."
"We'll help if we can," Romanoff decided, taking out her cell phone and dialing the number on the poster, "We're the Avengers, that's what we do."
"I thought the Avengers saved the world," Loki rolled his eyes.
Romanoff shushed him and began speaking in Russian to her phone. There was a long pause when she just nodded her head and then she took out a pen and paper from her pocket and gestured for Thor to turn around. Using his back as a table, she wrote down an address, said something else to the woman, and then hung up.
"She wants us to go talk with her. Loki, can you disguise us? On the off chance that the 'magic man' is watching her, I don't want him to recognize us and then panic."
"Done," Loki flicked his wrist and the three of them wore different faces and simple gray suits. They looked official, but not celebrity status.
When they arrived at the rundown apartment building, a short woman wearing a scarf over gray hair waved to them from the litter covered yard. They all shook her hand and she began speaking to Romanoff. Eventually, she gestured for them to follow her inside her tiny, but neat apartment on the ground floor. She made them tea and offered them seats around her folding table.
The conversation took a long time with the three of them asking questions, the woman answering, and then Romanoff translating.
"She says Lyubov worked for a rich man who came into town seeking a cook and housekeeper. She would go out once or twice a week to clean his big house and make him meals. Recently, he stopped having her clean for him but still had her cook. She went out fifteen days ago and never came back, but the police won't look for her."
"Why not?" Thor asked.
"She says that the first reason is because his house is across the border so it's out of their jurisdiction," Romanoff frowned, "The second is that they think Lyubov ran away. And the third reason they won't help is because they think our host here is a crazy old lady and they don't have anyone on the force who speaks Russian and she doesn't have any friends who speak English well enough to help."
"We will tell the police her story, won't we?" Thor reached out and held the old woman's hand, "It is foolish that they cannot simply find someone to speak to her."
"We'll talk to them," Romanoff agreed.
"Does she know anything else about the man that her daughter went to work for?" Loki asked, doing his best to be patient. He felt sorry for the woman, of course, but she really wasn't any of his concern. Jaklyn was his concern. He wanted her back and he'd already wasted enough time.
Romanoff asked the woman in Russian and waited for the long response before translating.
"His name is Uriah Fenice," she told them, "He is rich, keeps to himself, and she knows he uses magic because her daughter saw him use it. Bright orange flashes apparently."
"That's our sorcerer," Loki clenched his fists.
"Everyone in town thinks he's cursed and evil. She says that her daughter only agreed to work for him because the pay was good and because he spoke Russian."
They thanked the woman and told her that they would pass on her story to the police. While Loki and Romanoff went to speak with the local law enforcement, Thor flew into the air and did a sweep of the forest on the other side of the border. When he landed an hour later he shook his head, saying there was not a house to be seen from above, certainly not a large house like the woman described.
"More magic at play," Loki shook his head, "We'll have to scour the woods on foot and even then we may not find it if he's truly cloaked it with magic."
"The cook had to find it somehow though," Thor pointed out.
"But not anymore," Romanoff sighed, "If she's missing she's probably dead. This Uriah Fenice guy probably killed her and now he has no reason for anyone else to find his house."
"So it's hidden," Loki seethed, his own magic rolling off him in waves and crumpling the front of a police cruiser. "There has to be an easier way to find it than trying to dispel a hiding enchantment on all of the Canadian wilderness."
"Let's see what we can find about this Uriah guy. Tony can work his own magic with a name and a general location," Romanoff unlocked the car, "C'mon, let's go back to the Compound."
.
.
"Never heard of him before," Stark declared upon hearing the name Uriah Fenice, "Let's change that."
"Uriah Fenice," Vision piped up, "Canadian multi-millionaire. He runs a shipping company along with several businesses selling a line of health products called Rebirth. Born sixty-four years ago, he appears much younger and credits it to his health products. His customers say that those products have worked for them as well. He backs several politicians and has ties to both the Canadian and American governments as well as several overseas powers."
"You take all the fun out of research," Stark pouted, his hands hovering over his keyboard, "But good job, Raspberry Beret."
"Raspberry Beret, really?" Romanoff raised a brow.
"I call 'em like I see 'em."
"Rebirth?" Rogers said, "Is that ringing bells for anyone else?"
"Uh… I know this one, I know this one," Stark tapped his forehead.
"Project Rebirth," Vision supplied, "Also sometimes known as the Super Soldier Project.
"Are there any pictures of this Uriah guy?" Romanoff asked. "Can we run them against pics of people involved in Project Rebirth?"
"If he was involved I'll recognize him."
"What is the Super Soldier Project?" Thor asked, rubbing his beard, "I know people often refer to Steve as such, but I assumed it was just because he is so athletic."
"Thor," Loki rolled his eyes, "He hasn't always been that way."
"Well of course not! When he was a child I assume-"
"Here's a picture of Steve before Project Rebirth," Stark said, throwing a black and white photograph onto the screen. Thor's eyebrows skyrocketed and he looked at Rogers and then back at the screen.
Rogers smiled awkwardly and patted Thor on the shoulder. "I had a bit of a growth spurt after I joined the military. Like Tony likes to say: everything special about me came out of a bottle."
"Huh," Thor stared at the picture a moment longer and then laughed and clapped Rogers on the back, "That is not true at all! You have the heart of a warrior and I'm sure even when you were a bony runt with limbs like toothpicks you were a good man!"
"Thanks, Thor."
"Yes, Steve Rogers was once pathetic and tiny - enough about him," Loki snapped his fingers in Stark's face, "Show us Uriah Fenice."
"Here," Vision pointed at the computer and the screen changed, "This is the only picture I could find on all of the internet or in any of the confidential databases to which I have access."
"Stop messing with my computer!" Stark wagged his finger at his robot and turned back to the screen, "This is kind of blurry. What's this from?"
"A group photo of the company board for Rebirth, I have included the names of the other board members."
"Steve, does he look familiar?"
"Can you make the picture bigger?"
"You've got to get reading glasses, old man," Stark snorted and zoomed in.
"I can't be sure, but," Rogers crossed his arms and sighed, "He looks like the Hydra agent who killed Dr. Abraham Erskine. Heinz Kruger. But he chomped down on a cyanide pill when I caught him, so it can't be."
"Suicide is the easiest death to fake," Loki replied, "You control all the variables."
"What happened to his body after he killed himself?" Romanoff asked.
"Can you look into it, Vision?" Rogers turned to the robot.
"Hey! I could look into it too!" Stark began typing furiously on his computer.
"The only record I can find of Heinz Kruger is the old SSR file about him killing Erskine. There is no record of his death beyond mention of cyanide, no mention of his remains going to a mortuary, no mention of his undercover American identity's death either. He barely exists on paper," Vision said, "Very little is known about him beyond his stealing the serum and killing the doctor."
"Great, I've made myself obsolete by keeping this robot alive," Stark threw his hands in the air. "Technology really will overrun the human race."
"Jaklyn had connections in Hydra, or at least her parents did," Romanoff said, "If you think that looks like a Hydra agent, then I'd bet he's a Hydra agent. Either way, we need to find a way to get to Uriah Fenice and see what he knows about Jak."
"Robot, does he have an address listed somewhere?" Loki asked.
"No," Stark piped up, "I checked already. All we have is Rebirth's address. But, good news is, the Rebirth company is hosting a charity fundraising event in two weeks at their headquarters in Ottawa."
"Uriah will be there?" Rogers asked.
"It's his company, so if he's not that's a bad look."
"So we're crashing their fundraiser?" Romanoff said, "Sneaking in?"
"Or, we could kidnap some of the attendees and I could disguise us as them," Loki suggested.
"Guys," Stark glared at them, "It's a rich people event. I'm a rich person. I'll just buy us tickets to go."
"That will cause suspicion if Uriah Fenice does have Jak," Loki pointed out, "Don't you think he'll be alarmed if he sees an Avenger on the guest list?"
"That's why I'm not buying them as Tony Stark," he grinned, "I'll buy them as Wayne Bruceberry, eccentric billionaire from New Jersey."
"Who the hell is Wayne Bruceberry?" Romanoff asked.
"He's my alter-ego!"
"I thought Iron Man was your alter-ego," Thor said.
"My alter-alter-ego. I've built up a whole online personality and profile for him. He's the head of Bruceberry Produce. Which is my produce company that I keep secret."
"This sounds like tax fraud," Rogers remarked.
"No! Not really. I swear I had lawyers handle everything. But the most important thing is that Wayne Bruceberry can't be traced back to me! So he'll buy tickets and then we'll go in disguise and get our janitor back!"
"Another two weeks," Loki growled, "We have to wait two more weeks before we save her."
"Take heart, brother! Jaklyn can take care of herself," Thor said comfortingly, "I'm sure she will be perfectly fine when we get to her."
"If she is not," Loki looked each Avenger in the eye, "I will be violating my probation in a dramatically violent way."
"We'll keep that in mind," Stark gave him a thumbs up.
A note from the author: Happy Easter! :D
Slowly but surely I am getting the rest of this story written. It's looking like it will end up being about 130k words long (I'll have posted around 88k once this chapter goes up, so we still have a ways to go yet). I have everything planned out, I just need to get the words on the page.
Anyway, thanks for reading! Special thanks, once again, to zxnightfox for your review! It makes me so happy that this story makes you so happy lol.
Until the next chapter!