[Classified Location] , SHIELD Quinjet, en route to Stuttgart
April 2011
Steve waited silently in the back of the jet, watching Barton and Romanoff. There was an easy camaraderie between them that reminded him of another time, another man, another mission.
Steve shoved the grief aside and focused on his analyses of them. There wasn't anything better to do on the flight.
Barton was the pilot, strapped in and speaking only occasionally when another aircraft hailed him on the radio. Steve didn't understand the complex controls yet, but Barton seemed to have an easy mastery of the plane, and of himself. The man was very clearly a fighter and a good one. His environmental awareness was excellent; he'd evaluated Steve at a glance the second they'd met and there was a quiet confidence and amiability that clearly let him get along well with everyone. The exception was Stark, but that hardly surprised Steve. He'd known Howard well. Being an obnoxious jerkface was an integral part of Stark DNA.
The woman was a different story.
Natasha Romanoff. Steve had watched her from the second she led Banner and Barton into the command room. She was an enigma: she gave nothing away and was the most self-contained person he'd ever met. Every movement was choreographed; every word was premeditated. She was an exceedingly dangerous individual. Steve's judgment on her was reserved. He got the sense that she would be a powerful ally, but that she would be an equally terrifying enemy. Based on her report, he doubted whether even he could beat her if it came down to a straight fight.
Yet he was drawn to her. Not in a romantic way, just - the sense that he got with people sometimes. There was something similar about them. He wanted to be on her side.
"Got it on autopilot," Barton announced a few minutes later. "I'm gonna check over my suit." He stood, left his headset on the seat, and headed for the weapons locker in the back of the jet, nodding at Steve as he passed. "We'll be in Stuttgart in ten minutes, so lock and load if you've got to."
"Thanks," Steve said, and Barton disappeared into the locker.
Now or never . Subtlety was never Steve's strong suit. He stood and approached Romanoff.
"Steve Rogers," he said, and held out a hand. "I don't think we've been properly introduced."
Her inscrutable eyes met his for a moment, and then her lips quirked and she took his hand. "Been a long time since I've heard anyone talk like that."
Steve shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "They call me the man out of time."
"Applies to both of us."
"We anachronisms ought to stick together, then," Steve said.
Romanoff's eyes sharpened. "An offer of alliance, then?"
He tipped his head to the side. "I wasn't going to be so blunt about it."
"Yes, you were," she said, and her smirk grew into an actual smile. It was full and amused with a distinct edge of cruelty, but Steve was familiar enough with his own dark side to not be scared off by anyone else's.
"Yeah," he agreed. "I was."
"Allies, then," Romanoff said.
Barton stepped out of the locker. "Tasha, look, this quiver-" He paused when he took in the changed atmosphere of the cabin. A guarded look came over his face despite the agent's light tone. "Am I interrupting something?"
"We have a new ally," Romanoff said solemnly, a hint of a smile still on her face.
Barton looked to Romanoff, who communicated back silently. The exchange happened in a heartbeat but Steve caught it easily, and almost flinched, remembering when he'd had that kind of a bond with someone else. It could only be formed in blood and under fire, by fighting for your lives until we came more easily to the mind than I.
He shoved the memories away. That time was gone, and even a supersoldier couldn't reverse death.
"Welcome aboard," Barton said, nodding briskly to Steve and dropping back into the pilot's seat. "Not the most functional group you'll have ever met but - oh, hold that thought. What in the hell is that guy wearing?"
Through the dash, the three could see at least two hundred people kneeling in the square in the center of Stuttgart, surrounded by glowing body-doubles of an unusually tall man in green-and-black leather armor and a gold horned helm. Thanks to the two other helicopters in the sky, he had taken no notice yet of the Quinjet.
Steve sighed, pulled his helmet on, and buckled the chin-strap. "Honestly? The last maniac I fought in this country looked even weirder."
"They just don't make villains like they used to these days," Barton said with a theatrical sigh, and opened the rear bay door. "Cap, you're up."
Steve looked at Romanoff. "You coming?"
"Code black agent," she said quietly. "Minimal exposure. There's dozens of cameras down there. I'm only coming in as a very, very last resort."
"That's reassuring," Steve said, and jumped out of the plane.
Stuttgart, Germany
April 2011
Tony didn't want to admit exactly how much vindictive pleasure he got out of seeing that holier-than-thou Captain getting tossed around like a tennis shoe. He didn't pause in his flight to the rescue, though. That would have been poor sportsmanship.
"Hey, Romanoff, Barton. Miss me?"
He could practically hear the two agents rolling their eyes, although it was probably drowned out by the music blasting from the jet's PA systems, both internal and external. Tony blasted the alien away from the battered Captain and aimed every weapon in his arsenal at the dude's unfairly attractive face. "Make a move, reindeer games."
A pause. The metal armor bits and the helmet vanished, and the alien raised his hands.
"Good move."
"Stark," the Captain said, sounding out of breath.
"Rogers," Tony replied. "Somebody got a workout, huh?"
The man's glare bored right through Tony's helmet and into his temple. He grinned behind his facemask. His first impression of Rogers had been that the man would be so easy to needle, and turns out he'd been right.
As usual.
Barton brought the plane in for a slow and careful landing on the now-abandoned plaza, and Tony helped Rogers bundle their prisoner inside. They cuffed his wrists together with a metal alloy that Fury said had been developed from the remains of the Destroyer in New Mexico. If anything could hold an Asgardian, it'd be that, and the odds of there being another alien species that looked more or less human were low enough that they could safely assume this guy came from the same place as the blond muscle-bound clod from New Mexico.
"Everybody secure?" Romanoff called from the copilot's seat.
"In the plane, yes. In my sexuality? Eh…"
"Stark, shut up," Rogers replied irritably. "Yes, we're all fine back here."
Tony grinned at Rogers, who glared and turned away.
This partnership was already so much fun.
Then Tony turned and saw their prisoner watching with no small amount of interest and amusement.
"So, can I just say - your hair looks like an evil Christmas tree," Tony said, throwing himself into the seat across from the alien. "And the horned helmet was a bit much. Can you just do that summoning trick at will?"
"Stark," the Captain growled.
Tony raised an eyebrow at him. "What? I'm interrogating the prisoner."
"You're not going to get anything that way," Rogers snapped.
"Oh, and waterboarding is going to be so much more successful," Tony drawled.
"He'll lie to you."
"And I'll get to try and figure out what's lie and what's not," Tony said reasonably. "It's entertaining. Above a certain IQ threshold, at least."
Rogers gritted his teeth.
"Stark," Natasha said from the cockpit.
"Fine, fine… I take it back, Captain. It's more of a personality thing. Okay." He turned back to the alien. "Seriously, can you just make the helmet appear right here?"
"I have no obligation to respond to a pathetic mortal," the Asgardian sneered.
Tony pointed at him. "I agree. Fortunately, you are in the presence of four of the very rare unpathetic subset of the human population, so we're good!"
"You are all ants to me," the alien said. Tony thought he'd read something in the man's (or whatever he was) eyes, though. Surprise. Respect, even? His posture certainly sharpened a bit, as if he were engaging in the conversation for the first time.
"Makes sense. There's several billion of us and only one of you. Ratio sounds about right, at least." Tony sat back and waited.
The alien at last raised an eyebrow. Reaction, yes! "I could, yes."
"What about the vanishing thing? Could you make any of us disappear? Or the jet?" Tony asked.
"Stark!"
"Hold that thought, Cap."
"Don't give him any ideas!" Rogers snarled. "Do you want him to escape?"
"As if he wasn't already thinking the same thing," Tony snapped back. "We've been on this plane for fifteen minutes. If he could've done any of that, he would have by now."
"Then why even ask?" Rogers said.
Huh. He was a better debater than Tony'd expected. "Boredom? Apathy? A burning hatred for people who try to control me? Take your pick."
"Stark, can't you at least wait to tickle the sleeping dragon until it's safely in a cage?" Romanoff said.
Tony glanced quickly at her and read the warning on her face.
"Simply for the excellent Harry Potter reference," he said, stood up, and joined her and Rogers in the forward section of the jet.
"Stark, you need to keep your mouth closed," Rogers admonished in a low tone. "You'll give away information-"
"Please, Cap, I know better than that," Tony scoffed. There wasn't much that made him bristle, but this - one of his supposed teammates implying that he wasn't intelligent enough to handle a criminal - definitely rubbed his pride the wrong way.
"It's a job for the trained investigators," Rogers said stiffly. "Not us."
"Right, and you always follow orders to the letter, don't you?" Tony said. He smirked when a muscle in Rogers' jaw twitched.
"Both of you back down," Natasha interjected. "Rogers, Stark can handle this on his own. Stark, you need to stop antagonizing him. We're teammates now. At least until this mess is cleared up."
Neither man said anything, but Tony stepped back and took a seat to the side of the copilot's chair, silently giving in.
Temporarily.
"What's Harry Potter?" Rogers asked at last, reluctantly.
"You had to ask," Natasha muttered as Tony sat bolt upright.
" Has no one told you about Harry Potter ?" he demanded.
Rogers stared. "What? Who is this Potter? An enemy?"
"For the love of God. No. An epic book series. You have to read them at the first chance you get."
Rogers' face kept getting more and more confused, which was frankly quite entertaining. "A… book series?"
"Yes. Seven books, one intrepid hero with a wand."
Rogers made a face.
"And they say my mind is in the gutter," Tony remarked idly. "Not an innuendo, Cap. A magic wand."
"But magic doesn't exist."
Tony raised a hand to his temple. "That's the point ."
They turned aside when they heard Barton snort. Natasha had swiveled around in her seat and was watching them with an expression of concentrated amusement, and even Barton had turned his head away from the controls to watch them.
"Never would've guessed the playboy Tony Stark was a nerd, huh?" Barton asked, grinning at Rogers.
"Not one of my more better-known interests," the billionaire admitted, knowing full well that he was exuding a strong aura of smugness.
Rogers opened his mouth, but he was cut off when a steady high-pitched beeping started from the controls. The jet jerked and dropped abruptly.
"Shit - Tasha-"
Natasha flipped around and started skimming rapidly through radar screens. "There's a - we're in the middle of a storm-"
"I noticed!" Barton gritted out, hauling on the yoke and dragging the nose back up. Tony shared a glance with Rogers, and despite their differences, they understood each other well enough. They reached simultaneously for their weapons, Rogers slinging his shield onto his back and reaching for his helmet while Tony stepped backward into his suit where it waited in a specially designed rack on the wall.
Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled; the jet shuddered again. Tony's visor snapped down over his eyes and he focused in on the alert face of their prisoner.
"Scared of a little thunder?" he joked.
"I'm not overly fond of what follows."
Tony had half a second to try and sort out what that meant before the bay door screeched open and a figure in a snapping red cape appeared in the opening.
No one had time to say a word before the figure stormed forward, tore their prisoner from his harness, and dove back out of the jet.
"Thor!" Natasha shouted over the wind, clinging to the ceiling straps as she navigated back toward them. "He's a friendly-"
"He just freed our prisoner," Tony snapped. "Doesn't seem that friendly." He started for the door.
Rogers tried to grab him. "Stark, wait - we need a plan of attack-"
Typical soldier boy . "I have a plan: Attack."
Tony leaped out of the plane, fired his thrusters, and tore after his prisoner.
[Classified Location]
April 2011
It was too much. The deception had been one thing; sending the Destroyer another, but this? Attacking Midgard, making a spectacle of himself, posturing and attempting to rule them?
Too much.
Thor hurled his brother - the word felt curdled and rotten in his mind, a mockery of what they'd once been - onto a rocky promontory. He didn't know where he was on Midgard and didn't much care.
"This is enough , Loki," he growled. "Midgard is under my protection!"
"Stellar job you're doing there," Loki drawled, eyes glittering. He climbed to his feet and somehow managed to look menacing even with his hands bound. "The Kree remember what your protection is worth."
Thor hesitated, struggling to place the statement. "You… are still fretting over that peace treaty? Brother, it's been centuries. By the Norns."
"We are not brothers," Loki hissed, his face suddenly feral, vicious. It smoothed back out a heartbeat later, but the momentary change startled Thor.
"We were raised together," he snapped. "We played together, fought together - do you remember none of that? Does that not make us brothers, in name if not by blood?"
"I remember a shadow," Loki spat back. "I remember living in the shadow of your greatness. I remember our father raising me to hate my own kind; I remember my parents lying to me with every breath and every look; I remember dear Odin favoring you more with every passing decade. I remember being told that one day I would be a king, and then watching you build a legacy even more idiotic than Odin's as you prepared to ascend the throne."
Thor stared. " No , Loki. Your recollections are twisted, warped-"
"Hypocrite," Loki mocked. "Look to yourself! Did you not believe me happy? Did you not believe me your most loyal sycophant, willing to follow wherever you lead? I was not either of those things. Not for many, many centuries now. So I ask you, whose memories are more wrong?"
"Bro- Loki," Thor said, unsure of what would come out of his mouth but knowing he had to try. For her sake. "Loki, I have come..."
"Look at you," Loki sneered. "You cannot even call me brother to my face. You don't believe it any more than I!" He laughed. It was a howling, mirthless sound, born of dark triumph. "Why are you here, then? Why share words with me on this barren rock? Asgard's justice awaits me, does it not?"
"I am here for Mother," Thor said stiffly.
Loki's face shut down. "Ahhh," he breathed, "and now it all makes sense. The mighty Thor, lowering himself to speak with his traitor foundling brother, all for the sake of the one woman who has ever been able to check the Odinson's rages. Did she mourn, Odinson?"
"We all did," Thor said roughly. He remembered sitting on the shattered end of the Bifrost, having chased the repair team away for the day. He remembered a single tear falling into the abyss as he mourned not the brother who had fallen but the one he had known in their youth. He remembered Father solemnly dropping Loki's favorite sword after his tear, a homage to a fallen warrior, and then putting his grief aside as they made preparations for the coronation.
He remembered Mother refusing to speak to Father for months, throwing herself into the repairs of the Bifrost, as befitted one of the most accomplished seidr masters in the Nine Realms, and turning her coldness on him as well, at times. He remembered the moment he had realized that this was Loki's fault as well.
The traitorous prince had broken more than the Rainbow Bridge on Asgard.
Thor didn't remember exactly when his grief had petrified into anger and resentment.
"Come home," he forced himself to say. "Come home, Loki."
"Asgard is no longer my home," Loki said simply. "You made sure of that."
Thor gritted his teeth. Mother, I tried. "Then if you will not come and make amends for your crimes, you will face the justice of the Allfather," he said grimly.
Loki smirked.
Something slammed into Thor. The next thing he knew, he was flipping end over end along the forest floor, shattering trees and clinging to Mjolnir, at last spinning and landing on his feet.
Battle fury descended. Thor fell into a crouch and glared at the man facing him: a Midgardian, but encased in an ingenious metal suit. The Midgardian flew through the air and landed hard not far from Thor.
So it was to be a fight. Thor twirled Mjolnir.
This would at least let him work off some of his Loki-induced rage.
[Classified Location]
April 2011
Steve didn't have to search very hard for Stark and the new arrival, despite the fact that they were in an isolated forest in the middle of the night. All he had to do was follow the explosions.
He landed two hundred meters from the fight, disengaged from the chute, and ran toward them, seeking high ground.
From atop a fresh-fallen tree, Steve took in the scene at a glance: toppled trunks, scorch marks on the ground and the new man's strange armor, fingerprints around Stark's metal forearm. Surprise pinned him in place for several seconds. Stark was actually an excellent combatant, much better than Steve would've expected from reading his file. The newcomer - another Asgardian, probably - was impossibly fast and strong, but Stark fought smarter.
Steve shook off the shock and hurled his shield. It ricocheted off Stark's head and the newcomer's hammer and slammed back onto Steve's arm.
" Enough ," he said angrily into the silence.
Stark and his opponent waited as Steve deliberately took a position halfway between them, creating a triangle, in the hopes of not taking a side and therefore defusing the situation.
"Not going to work," Stark said directly into Steve's earpiece. No sound came from the billionaire's helmet speakers. "My new buddy is not the most rational of men. "
"Who are you?" Steve demanded. He readied himself to fight with Stark; they might not get along, but they were on the same side. He just hoped Stark would do the same.
"I am Thor son of Odin," the blond Asgardian growled, "and you will leave me to my own affairs."
Thor. From New Mexico. The one in Foster's files.
"Nuh-uh," Stark said before Steve could open his mouth. "I don't care if Reindeer Games up there stole your girlfriend or put Mentos in your Coke. You're welcome to his leather-bound ass just as soon as we get back what he stole. Which I believe I already tried to communicate."
"Loki is of Asgard," Thor snapped. "He will face trial by our courts."
"You mean by your king," Steve said. His tone came out cooler than he had intended, but he couldn't quite get past that tidbit he'd learned in the briefing on Asgard: a single person being the arbiter of justice? Not a good system.
Thor drew himself upright. "Do not insult Odin Allfather," he rumbled threateningly.
"He didn't," Stark said, taking a step forward. Steve threw out a hand to stop him even as he processed his own surprise that the man had come to his defense.
"He implied that the Allfather's justice is less than perfect!" Thor snapped.
Steve backtracked. "I was clarifying a legal system so different from most societies on Earth," he said. "I meant no offense to Asgard or O- the Allfather." How did my life get this weird?
Thor glowered, but relaxed his grip on the oversize hammer. Really, how did the guy fight with that thing? "We are not enemies," he said at last. "I have no desire to continue battle with you."
"Not now that it's two on one, anyway," Stark said straight to Steve's earpiece. " He was plenty eager two minutes ago. "
"Then prove it," Steve said, meeting Thor's eyes. "Put the hammer down."
He knew instantly that he'd made a mistake. The prince's eyes flared up with rage, and his face contorted. " You want me to put the hammer down?" he roared, and leaped through the air.
The world slowed.
Steve saw Stark ducking and raising a metal arm before his head. He saw Thor flying toward him, the hammer descending. He saw his shield as he raised it in slow motion to protect his face, and even through closed lids, he saw the brilliant flare of light as the hammer met the shield.
The impact shuddered through his body. The only worse thing he'd ever felt was the blow as the Hydra ship crumpled onto the ice shelf.
A single ringing note split the air and left silence in its wake.
Steve, Stark, and Thor rose slowly to their feet. Even Thor looked a little disoriented, staggering slightly as he stood and shaking his head twice as if to clear it. Stark took a step closer to Steve, who found himself glaring at the Asgardian. Their files said he was a prince, but Steve made a point of giving respect to people because they earned it and not because they had a dramatic title after their name. So far this guy had proved himself impulsive and prone to violence, not worthy of much respect at all. At least not as a prince.
"Are we done here?" Steve said tiredly.
Thor looked around the new clearing, trees toppled from the force of the impact, and nodded once.
"We will keep Loki in custody until we can retrieve what he stole and set right what he… interrupted," Steve said. "After that-"
"He's all yours," Stark finished.
Thor glanced once at them, and Steve might have been wrong, but he thought he saw both wariness and respect in the alien's eyes. "We have a deal."