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A Hollow Promise [28] chapter vi, part v

{_[on AO3]_}

main tags : loki x original character, post-avengers 2012, canon divergence - post-thor: the dark world, canon-typical violence, mentions of torture, explicit sexual content

summary: In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, the Avengers need a few days to build a transport device for the Tesseract. With the Helicarrier damaged and surveillance offline, SHIELD sends an asset to guard Loki in the interim: a young woman who sees the truth in all things, and cannot lie.

Even long presumed dead, her memories lost to her, Loki would know her anywhere.

And this changes things.

Some things last beyond infinity. And the universe is in love with chaos.

(Loki was never looking for redemption. It came as an unexpected side-effect.)

chapter summary : astrid gathers her allies, and draws the attention of her enemies. loki pays a heavy price for a victory.

recommended listening : you, greta isaac

tag list: @femmealec @mischief2sarawr

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48 weeks and 4 days out

The air was hot and humid, saturated with the smell of acid, bricking her into a wall of heat.

In the fresh dark, golden eldritch light glittering on her skin as the portal closed behind her, Astrid flipped her other phone out of her pocket- still dressed in the sleek-tailored trousers, pink satin heels, and black blazer with a narrow, dagger-plunge neckline that she had worn all day in Monaco. It had been edging into pre-dawn, as she left the Mediterranean coast; in Madripoor, the night was just beginning.

She checked the time on her screen, waiting for it to catch up to the local time zone.

She had a few new messages- one from Dr Wu’s ream, confirming the intended date for the scheduled surgery, another from Ophelia-

The clock updated.

Fashionably late.

Her client was probably beginning to sweat.

Tucking her phone away, Astrid pulled her hair up into a brisk, curling ponytail, walking towards the fire escape at the edge of the roof, the tide of noise from the streets rising to greet her.

Vivid and cluttered and treacherous, Lowtown was teeming with trebled activity as soon as the sun dipped beyond the horizon. Its unpaved narrow streets trammelled through a jungle of industrial steel beams and graffiti-splashed brick, thick bundles of electrical cables swooping overhead between the buildings and elevated walkways like trawl nets; structures staggered and crowded in and away from the water’s edge as though climbing over each other, jockeying for the highly priced commodity of square footage on the densely populated island.

The district was noise and neon lights, a grease trap and a den of iniquity.

Within it, the Brass Monkey Saloon was a strange oasis. The blue-backlit feature wall of carved primate skulls was a little gauche, and the cocktail menu was slightly bizarre even for Astrid’s well-travelled palate, but the fugu sashimi with ponzu and serrano chilli was to die for- quite literally, if the bartender was careless with the knife.

The bar was a place of business, primarily, a venue for deals to be conducted under a strict code of etiquette, enforced by the imminent threat of violence. And a contractor like Alethia was considered a selling point, a draw for customers- allowed to skip the line at the door.

The bass hummed through her bones as she was admitted by the bouncer, winding her way through the press of bodies in embroidered silks, cropped leathers, and street-fashion cotton. The dress code was somewhere between dystopia, music video, and runway in Milan- meaning that her blazer suit strangely blended into the bedlam, smudged out amongst the black and greys and blues.

Sliding up the glass-topped bar, Astrid caught the eye of a particularly humourless bartender.

“Benjamin.”

He looked up, pausing in sliding glasses away beneath the bar, and approached unhurriedly.

“Alethia.” He answered expressionlessly. “The usual?”

“Please.”

With the slightest nod, he turned away to prepare her eponymic drink.

Most of the drinks at the Brass Monkey were little more than a mouthful- premium liquors served up in a double shot glass with a dash of garnish.

The Alethia was an exception.

Hip and elbow leaning against the bar, facing out to scan the densely-packed room, Astrid glanced back over her shoulder to watch Benjamin work. The cocktail was a take on a Kir Royale; in a tilted flute glass, Benjamin tippled a chilled, sparkling rosé, mulled using a seventeenth-century French recipe that proclaimed itself wine of the gods, infused with powdered sugar, yellow apples, lemon, and orange blossom water. Benjamin added a shot of a liqueur made of summer berries, vanilla, and rose, a heavy dash of sharp lemon juice, and a sprinkle of dried rose petals and edible gold.

Astrid’s mouth curved faintly as the drink was set in front of her, incongruously and shamelessly pretty, sweet and feminine with a sour edge.

She parted her fingers around the stem of the glass, gently pulling it towards her by the base.

“Thank you. My client?”

Unblinking, Benjamin lifted his head in the direction of one of the booths tucked against the wall.

Straightening, Astrid turned to look, the fall of her ponytail sweeping against the back of her blazer like the scrape of a butterknife.

She bit down on her lower lip, to stop herself from laughing.

Dr Abigail Brand had dressed the part- dark studded leathers and a lace bralette, the silver glint of the hardware picking up and reflecting the acid green streaks threaded into her braids, eye makeup smoked out with an expert shimmer of emerald glitter- but her posture was that of a rabbit frozen amongst a pack of wolves, stiff and shoulders gathered in, eyes darting towards anyone who walked a little too close to her table.

Gripped in her hand- raised a little too high to be natural, obviously on display- she was nursing a glass of the same pretty pink cocktail bearing Astrid’s alias.

“Stars above,” Astrid murmured to herself, the slight pressure in her chest halfway between outright laughter and pity.

“Only reason she hasn’t been eaten alive is because she’s one of yours,” Benjamin commented.

“Mm.” Astrid inclined her head back, in implied gratitude.

She lifted her apéritif to her lips, awareness opening up.

There were a few familiar faces amongst the froth of bodies, as well as fresh blood. She swiftly recognised a certain Cajun thief who had given her trouble in the past, flipping a pack of cards low at his waist with the deftness of a magician, scanning the floor as though searching for a mark; not far from her, two women lounged against the edge of the bar, talking- one with white hair cropped short against brown skin, the other taller and curvier with a spill of iron-oxide hair.

Her eyes snagged on a shadow slouched against the wall several seats away.

Broad and bulky and closed in, arms folded across their barrel chest with blatant hostility, they were concealed amongst the dye of blue light, and constant slow-churning motion of the patrons.

Her eyes narrowed.

“Can I order a plate of the fugu sashimi to the table, Ben?” Astrid spoke over her shoulder. “I have a feeling that this is going to be a long one.”

He paused, inscrutable. “Sure.”

Nudging herself off the bar with a flick of her hips, Astrid wound her way through the crowds, shoulders twisting as she slid between turned backs and jutting elbows, pivoting on the balls of her heels, until she came to a halt at the edge of Abigail’s table.

She waited until her nervous sideways glance began to flicker upwards- stuttering towards her face, but afraid to make eye contact, in case she was mistaken.

Head cocked, lips parted in the insinuation of a smile, Astrid spoke.

“Now what is a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

Abigail’s chin snapped up.

“Alethia.”

Her expression and tone were translucent- relief mingled with apprehension, and a dash of visible reconsideration of every decision that had led up to this point.

Unimpeded by the dim half-light, Astrid looked directly into her, pulling her open.

What she caught, in the flickering fire of Abigail’s synapses, was- not what she expected.

But it did stain colour into a few of the blanks.

She pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth.

Without a word, Astrid slid fluidly into the seat opposite her, relaxing into the cushions, her aching muscles easing into rest.

“You came,” Abigail said tightly. She was fidgeting with the stem of her glass anxiously, dried petals and gold leaf swilled against its sides in the wash.

Astrid arched a brow.

“Should I not have?”

“No,” Abigail said sharply, clenched and perturbed, a hint of a steel-honed conviction in the reflexive panic, “I mean yes. Yes, you should have come.”

“Mm.” Astrid lifted her glass, the rim pressing against her lower lip, all caprice and acceptance. “Alright.”

Abigail glared at her uncertainly. “Alright?”

“Mm-hm.”

Blinking at Astrid’s slow, languorous hum of affirmation into her drink, Abigail shifted in her seat. “Uh. Okay.”

Astrid watched her, swallowing a mouthful of liqueur-spiked rosé, while Abigail cast about for something to say- or, rather, a way to phrase whatever she had contacted her for.

“How are you?” Astrid prompted, folding her arms atop the table.

Abigail looked nonplussed by the question.

“Um. Good.” She decided after a moment.

Astrid flicked her eyes up, and across their surroundings briefly- the pleasant small talk incongruous to the bar.

Abigail seemed to catch the meaning in her gesture, cringing to herself at the awkwardness.

“I, uh- I got out of SHIELD, a few months ago,” she explained.

“Oh, that is good,” Astrid said sincerely.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Abigail swallowed thickly. “I, um- I mean it. Thanks. You, uhm- you knew, didn’t you?”

Astrid arched her brows.

“Knew what?”

Abigail’s lips pressed together, smudging her plum lipstick.

“About- me.”

Hesitating, her hand gestured vaguely against the surface of the table, palm up and fingers flaring.

It mimicked flame.

“Oh, that.” Astrid tipped her head nonchalantly, laughing softly. “Of course. Mutant, not mutate, right?”

Abigail sucked in a breath, gaze fixed at Astrid’s clavicle.

“You didn’t tell SHIELD.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Why would I?”

Abigail’s expression flickered with the first, fragile threads of consternation, looking away.

“Aren’t you going to ask how I tracked you down?”

“Mn, no. I have a fair idea as to how.”

“Right.” Her jaw was set, chin lifting, frustration and discomfort beginning to lend her confidence. “I’m guessing you already know why I’m here, then.”

“Actually, no- well, yes, but it is broad enough a why that it barely counts.”

The outer corners of Abigail’s eyes creased slightly as she glanced up, setting her eyeshadow glittering.

“What, you’re not gonna claim the credit for getting it right?”

“I’m always right,” Astrid pointed out, lifting her shoulder. “If I kept pointing it out, I would come off like men who are so very insistent about how nice they are.”

A snort startled out of Abigail, a hand immediately whipping up to cover her mouth.

Astrid grinned, picking up her glass.

“It’s good to see you, Dr Brand- I’m glad you’re well.” She allowed herself to say. “So. Why don’t you tell me why you bought us here?”

Abigail sobered. The zips on her leather jacket clinked with the motion of her shoulders drawing back, throat moving.

“So, um. My contract ended with SHIELD, and afterwards- I decided to take a break from work. It was a few months after you- after APOLLO was finished, and I, uh, I actually ended up going back to-”

“Ah, I’m sorry- I should have been more specific,” Astrid interrupted gently, setting her flute down, teeth crunching into the dried petals, crisp on her tongue, “I know why you’re here. I was asking,” she met Abigail’s startled black eyes steadily, “why- you bought us here.”

Abigail’s mouth moved soundless for a moment.

“Wha- I don’t unders-”

“I can infer that Dr Brand is an envoy, of a sort,” Astrid continued, talking past Abigail, gazing directly into the aperture of her pupils and through, “and your point of contact, to me. But wonder if it was necessary to drag her into the lion’s den. Even with her shadow in the corner. Madripoor may know him, but they have no indication that he is here for her.”

For a moment, Abigail sat locked in place under Astrid’s stare, doe-eyed and blank.

Then, her entire posture shifted.

Knees crossing under the table, she leaned back. With a flick of a deeper glance, Astrid perceived her pulse throb down from its brisk, nervous clip to a comfortable resting thrum. The wound-taut stiffness dropped from her like snapped marionette strings, leaving her slouching into the booth, fingers lacing over her abdomen. Her eyes became knowing, the smile politely curious, her entire manner avuncular and professorial; Astrid could see the pattern in the spark-shower of her synapses shift, the electrical impulses changing.

Something other than Abigail Brand was stepping towards the surface of her skin, taking up the reins, from where it had been seated as a voyeur for the past several minutes.

Abigail Brand herself melted back with a rush of relief, willingly giving up the pilot’s controls.

“My goodness, but you are good,” Abigail’s mouth mused, grinning softly.

Telepaths, Astrid thought, restraining herself from rolling her eyes. Because they could read others, they thought they were entirely opaque.

“I assume that you were aware of my reputation.” she pointed out coolly. “It makes hiding behind the metaphorical curtain seem- a little pointless, no?”

“Well, I had to be sure. I’m sure you understand.” Abigail’s shoulders shrugged, gaze calm and clear as a cloudless night. “It’s why I wanted to see you for myself.”

Astrid couldn’t begrudge that. She lifted a shoulder in acquiescence.

“What were you hoping to find?”

“Ah. Well. When Abigail told me about you- about who you are, and what it is you could do- I could only hope that you would be precisely what she described.” She took a pause. “Interesting that you are upset. That I appeared careless with Abgail’s safety. It certainly speaks volumes of your character, Miss Alethia.”

“Are you terribly concerned with my character?” Astrid asked dryly.

“As a matter of fact.” The smiling eyes turned solemn, beneath the maintained tension that kept the edges pleasantly upturned. “It is of great concern to me.”

The press against the surface of her thoughts was light, experimental, expert- like the skim of fingertips on opaque glass.

Her mana lashed out, driving the expectant, exploratory force back.

There was no flinch in Abigail’s features at the rebuff, only a distant surprise.

Astrid twitched her head to one side, as though flicking off the residue.

Abigail’s spine straightened slightly, its occupant readjusting.

“When did you work it out?” The question came from the telepath with downturned eyes and a light mien. It was he bearing of someone finding enjoyment in an intellectual challenge, and deciding to ignore what had just happened.

Wise choice. “That Dr Brand was not alone in her head?”

The telepath used Abigail’s vocal cords to hum in affirmation.

“As soon as I looked in her eyes,” Astrid said simply. Like recognises like, she mused.

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“You’re not my first,” she replied with a bland smile, lifting her glass to her mouth, her right eyebrow arching with the curve of the left side of her mouth.

Witches and warlocks and interdimensional demons had all tried to crack her skull and pry it open to peer into her brain, at one point or another. Her defence mechanisms were instinctive, and effective, and only restrained if she wanted to invite them inside- like Loki.

“You can invite them to sit down, by the way,” she added, elbow resting on the back of the booth, finger toying with a stray blonde curl. “Although- we might need a larger booth if all four of themintend to join us.”

The smile on Abigail’s face twitched wider.

A moment later, one of the bar staff delivered Astrid’s sashimi platter to the table- raw fugu arranged in fine slices on the dark ceramic- and she felt three people exit the club.

The fourth moved in the corner of her vision, towards their booth, as Astrid popped a bite-sized fillet into her mouth.

“Ah, Logan,” Abigail’s voice called, so staged that Astrid almost rolled her eyes, “there you are.”

Astrid looked up obligingly.

The once-shadow stood close against the edge of the table, backlit in dim smoke-blue, looming over them with a blatant standoffishness, limbs held as though cut from granite- or else constantly primed to wind back into a right uppercut. His build was stocky, tall and broad, square-faced, corded with a type of muscle that was just slightly underfed- in a way that made Astrid think of rescued fighting dogs- and wearing stone-washed jeans, a weathered leather jacket, and a deep scowl, brows heavy beneath a shoved-back mane of dark hair.

While Madripoor was no stranger to soldiers of fortune and pit-fighters and hired guns, this one had a different air about him- something slightly incompatible with the city, but so unconcerned with it that he was accepted anyway.

“Logan, this is Alethia,” Abigail announced, somewhat unnecessarily. “Alethia, Logan.”

“Hey,” Logan grunted.

“Hi. Pleasure,” Astrid replied, sensing that laconic answers would endear her to the man known to the island as Wolverine. “Sashimi?”

He flicked his chin up. “I’m good. They still only serve that mini-cocktail crap here?”

“The Alethias are a reasonable size,” the telepath had Abigail interject, lifting the glass and twirling it by the stem. “And rather pretty, I must say.”

“They have a few craft bottles behind the bar, on request,” Astrid informed Logan lightly. “I can order you one.”

He glared at her for a moment, as though attempting to determine what the catch was.

Astrid kept her gaze clear and open.

“Sure,” he said eventually.

Astrid glanced towards the bar, catching the eye of a bartender and lifting two fingers in the universal gesture of requesting service.

Abigail slid aside in the booth seat to make room for Logan. He dropped into the cushions with an almost deliberate inelegance, sizing up Astrid from underneath his eyebrows.

She let him.

“You still haven’t given me your name,” she directed at the telepath instead, curling her hand under the line of her jaw, eyes remaining on the bar.

Abigail made a soft noise.

“Oh, yes. Forgive me.”

Through Abigail, the telepath smiled warmly, steepling her fingers across the table.

“My name is Professor Charles Xavier. I run a school for remarkable youngsters, in Westchester, New York. And I have a proposition for you, Miss Alethia, that I do believe may be of mutual benefit to us both.”

Astrid glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, lashes low, tone light.

“Mutual and beneficial,” she echoed consideringly. “That is an interesting combination, Professor Xavier.”

Abigail- Charles Xavier- smiled brightly.

“I most certainly hope so.”

Astrid exhaled an answering laugh, turning to him.

Logan was still watching her with an expression that threatened to pin her by her throat, if she bared her teeth first- but she simply glanced at him with dancing eyes, before turning her gaze back at Abigail and the telepath looking through her eyes.

“Alright, Professor,” she said, taking up her glass, “I’m listening.”

Another addition was made to the list.

Storage boxes.

47 weeks and 1 day out

It was an uncharacteristically lazy morning.

The linens were crisp and freshly laundered, the air conditioning thrumming into the penthouse, filtering the humid air to a comfortable temperature. Monsoon season had passed, and sunlight streamed through the drapes from clear skies, its glare from over the city spires softened enough through the gossamer drapes that she could slip back into sleep if she chose, like dipping into a warm bath.

It was a brief stillness, amongst the organised, frantic entropy that dominated her waking hours- and Astrid was struggling to regain the useful panic and need to move, to keep going.

You need the rest, Astra, Loki murmured against the curve of her neck. His mouth was pressed so flush to her skin that the words were more vibration than sound, dissipating and melting through her flesh, dissolving into utter primal want in her bloodstream, like gold dust. Now stay here and be sweet for me. It has been too long since I enjoyed you like this.

Biting her lip, Astrid resisted the urge to arch into the illusion of him- tauntingly bare-skinned from the waist upwards, the comfortable contours of his arms and marble-cool expanse of his chest and stomach encasing her, pressing against her warmth, a knee sliding lazily against her bare calf.

She was thoroughly upset at him for trapping her so effectively.

She could feel Loki’s smugness as he sank into her, languorous and satisfied. A palm smoothed under her camisole, and up the curve of her waist indulgently.

Astrid gave a muffled, bitten-off noise of protest and delight, barely stopping herself from flexing back against him.

Loki knew exactly what he was doing.

They had talked for a short while after Astrid had woken that morning, and she had just been about to rise, mix herself a caffeine hit, and review her progress, when Loki had unfurled the illusion of his weight against her- slotting a leg between hers and burying his face in her hair, projecting affection and pleasure as though there was nowhere else that he would rather be- and rendering her completely useless.

Astrid huffed into the plush of her pillow, still lying prone against the mattress.

“As though I wouldn’t do anything for you,” she mumbled ruefully.

Loki took his victory with relative grace, only smirking against her nape.

He still wasn’t entirely relaxed. She could feel it. The underlying tension was corded through him in a low thrum of anxiety, like a plucked wire, like the current of a storm in the air.

Astrid felt its echo strumming in her chest, a low roar of things that she didn’t want to think about, reverberating louder.

And moment by moment, it seemed to creep closer, nearer, blurring into her vision, like the sight-lights of a train, screaming on its tracks.

It lingered, as a sour taste in her mouth.

With a flex of her scarred shoulder blades, Astrid eased herself up onto her elbows.

Loki barely loosened his embrace enough to let her move. His mouth and the tip of his nose grazed down her back as she pushed upwards, lifting his head to her, quietly watchful.

The muscles in her abdomen and flanks stretched, the sharp-edged pull a welcome distraction from the sickness gathering underneath, clouding her thoughts.

Loki reacted before she felt him think of the motion.

Rearing onto his knees, he snaked a strong arm across her abdomen, dragging her up against the bend of his body, holding himself up off the bed on the opposite elbow.

The air was forced from Astrid’s lungs in a sharp gasp, heat pooling in her gut with a reflexive lurch, pinned in place up against him.

You seem distracted, darling, Loki said delicately, a dark and deliberate contrast to his possessive grip upon her, fingers fanning across the curve of her waist. Where are you, my heart?

Head bowed, weight forced upon her forearms, bridged underneath him and pulse hammering into a canter, Astrid swallowed down the shock, regrouping.

“That’s- Loki, that’s not what I- ah!”

She let up a yelp as Loki sank phantom teeth into her shoulder. A sharp wrench of want ripped through her, setting her chest heaving.

There you go again, darling.

Using the arm that was locked around her waist, Loki dragged her a few effortless, powerful inches down the mattress- bending her underneath him, until she was settled on her knees, stable even without his grip holding her up.

You’ve been distant of late, sweet thing. Preoccupied. One of Astrid’s hands reflexively reached for his, glazing over the back of Loki’s hand, tracing the sculpted ridges of tendons and veins and knuckles, thrown into relief as his long fingers flexed against the dip of her waist. Always swift to leave, to return to work.

Arousal speared through her stomach, at being so cavalierly manhandled. Astrid could almost feel part of her brain shorting out, switching off; the illusion of Loki was damningly firm against her, all lean strength and long, defined marmoreal lines, echoing reality to the finest detail. Her train of thought stalled at the flex and flutter of muscle and sinew, the controlled crush of his weight bearing down on her, and how he fit her against him.

Astrid half-wanted to grapple loose and twist over in his arms, and paint his skin with heat.

The other half of her wanted to willingly give up the fragile threads of control that were still taut in her grasp, and let him do whatever he wanted.

Here we are, at our leisure, and yet your mind is working away. Loki mused, ominously unhurried as the steady tightening of a knot. Away from me. Have I been neglecting you so?

She choked out a soft scoff of denial. “I d- it’s not that-”

No? Perhaps not, yet I have to wonder if it had not crossed your mind. Loki’s voice in her mind was like blood and sugar, heady as strong wine. That I have been remiss in showing my appreciation.

Astrid pressed back, as his palm spread possessively against her lower ribs. His handspan was broad enough that the pad of his thumb brushed distractingly close to the underside of her breast, taunting.

She bit down on her lip hard, neat-pared nails scraping at the rumpled bedsheets.

Ah, see? Loki teased. I have neglected you. My poor darling. I was thoughtless. You have been working so very hard, relentless, tireless, without due reward from your prince-

“You are my reward,” Astrid gasped out before she could think.

His lips curved at the shell of her ear, darkly delighted, the mark of a perfectly executed victory.

Astrid could feel the net closing upon her, caught.

Aha. Right as ever, dove.

Loki nudged a knee between hers, and pried her legs open.

Her thoughts instantly turned molten, her spine slackening.

I am your reward. Loki purred. He began mouthing his way across the open span of her back, tracing the violent edges of her scars, lingering on the ridge of her vertebrae, a tease of fingertips beginning to gather the hem of her camisole, lifting it up across her body. Now take it. Like it’s your right.

Her breath was punched out of her.

“Fuck, Loki, you can’t just say-”

His hand smoothed beneath the waistband of her soft jersey shorts, stroking her hipbone.

“Uhn-”

Say it again, he rasped, say my name again.

Her sigh shuddered on her tongue.

“Loki.”

That’s it. Again.

“Loki, please-”

Again.

“Loki-”

His hand moved to palm her thigh, long fingers gently pressing into the firm-soft flesh, parting her legs further.

Yes. Just like that, Loki murmured. Like you mean it. Like you need this. Show me that you are here, with me.

“I-” Astrid forced herself to focus, ignoring the flick of his tongue on her skin with sheer brute willpower. “Hn- it’s not- over yet. Not even close, I thi- th-this is jumping the gun a- a little, don’t you think-? If this is meant to be- a r-reward-”

Oh, believe me, Loki answered heatedly, the hand on her ribs sliding back up until his fingers rippled over the jut of her hipbone, sending Astrid shivering, stuttering against a breathy exhale. You have earned this much, at least. I will save the very best for when I can work you over with more than just my magic- but neither do I intend to deprive you now.

“I am not- deprived-”

Loki tucked a firm, searching kiss against the pulse on her throat. His fingertips barely grazed the crease of her inner thigh, teasing at the rush of arousal short-circuiting her synapses.

Stop thinking. His breaths were at the curve of her jaw, his lashes brushing her temple as he inhaled against her skin, his loose hair skimming her face. Astrid breathed in, drawing in lungfuls of his scent, of wild boreal forests, the clean bite of frost, the warm musk of leather, and fresh-ground ink. Relax, and close your eyes, and let me ignite the stars behind them. Say you’ll do that for me, Astra. Say yes. Tell me yes.

She heard the note of pleading in his voice, beneath the thick cadence of command, and Astrid’s will snapped clean in half.

“Yes.”

Loki let out a close-mouthed groan against her, before snapping out a command, every inch the proud, uncompromising, imperious prince he had been raised to be.

Eyes closed, beloved. His hand rose to her lips, caressing their edges. And let me hear you.

Quick as a viper, he gripped her hips, and flipped her over.

Astrid gave a yelp as her back hit the mattress, her head thudding into the pillow, pulling her hair almost completely loose from its ties.

She huffed, within the dark behind her eyelids.

“You are enjoying this a little too much, prince,” she barely managed to accuse him, against the caress of his fingers at the bone of her ankle, swirling against it.

Yes I am, Loki agreed amiably, lifting her leg with a crook of his finger at her heel, kissing her calf.

Astrid heard the lie instantly.

She threw her elbow over her eyes.

“Tak guna,” she muttered in Malay.

Chuckling knowingly, Loki surged in and bit the inside of her thigh.

Astrid jack-knifed with a shriek of surprise- before dissolving into laughter. Pure joy brewed up and bubbled out of her, like a cloudburst in sunshine, bright and clean and refreshing.

She could feel Loki’s answering grin, and the soft thrum of his laughter as he kissed the inside of her knee sweetly.

There she is, he breathed, the velvet of his tone softening just slightly, tenderness edging in and twining around her like ivy. My darling. My Astra.

“Your Astra,” Astrid breathed out in a vow, reaching for him. “Yours.”

Her fingers threaded through the waves of his bed-mussed hair, soft and wildened under her touch.

There was a sudden intimacy in the gesture. Even through the red-tinted shutter of her eyelids, and the cold fact that he wasn’t really there, it made him feel close and undressed and open, and hers.

“I love you.”

Loki paused abruptly.

It occurred to Astrid that this was the first time that she had said it, in naked, unambiguous terms, that couldn’t be misunderstood or misinterpreted through a veil of references or implication.

Loki reaction bled through their mental link, with a sympathetic corkscrew in her stomach.

First came a heartbreaking hesitation- a reflexive flash of doubt and plunge of agitation, acidic and uncertain and almost panicked, like a starving stomach presented with a banquet- before hardening and sharpening and rapidly breaking apart into a storm of fierce, raw, deliberate affection.

The mattress dipped as he levered back up the bed, slipping loose from her hands, before dipping down to smudge a kiss against her cheekbone, just under her left eye.

Astrid sighed, tipping her face into him. Her hand shifted up to find the ridge of his forearm, where he was propped up above her, stroking along honed muscle and the curve of bone.

Although she had sincerely never felt deprived, Astrid could admit that she wanted this.

Two deft fingers scraped the inside seam of her shorts.

The friction of soft jersey against her damp, expectant flesh set Astrid’s hips snapping up reflexively, muscles pulling taut.

“Mn-!”

Loki exhaled his satisfaction against her, his breath dusting her lashes like frost, before his lips grazed upwards to the corner of her eye.

Let me hear you, he reminded her, darkly, setting a shock of pleasure through her bloodstream.

His fingers curved against her again, pulling a bitten-off cry from Astrid that pitched higher towards its tail, becoming strangled in her throat as her head pressed back.

The pads of his digits barely scraped against her, swirling in a tight droplet shape, testing and gathering the dense slickness that was clinging to the gusset of her shorts, heavy and rich. Astrid’s grip upon Loki’s arm tightened, nails dragging into his skin for purchase, heels dragging against the sheets as she drew her body open to him.

Loki lowered his head to slide his tongue languidly along the line of her clavicle. From behind closed eyelids, Astrid blindly reached for the artifice of his shoulder, anchoring herself against him; her palm slid along to the curve of the nape of his neck, carding her fingers through the soft, cool satin of his hair, scraping pared nails against his scalp and lilting her body up against his perfect mouth.

It elicited a faintly agonised noise from Loki, ghosting across and cooling the saliva on her skin. Loki’s form dragged a few desperate inches against her, his spell wavering and sparking under a rush of uncontrolled mana, rippling through Astrid as its conduit.

Almost in retaliation, he dipped his touch deeper, and began setting a rhythm in earnest.

She was lost in under four strokes, pulled under like a riptide, raw nature hijacking her brain.

Her hips began mindlessly rolling and hitching with every clever, experimental, painstakingly measured grind of Loki’s fingers, dragging against her flesh, the motion forcing soft whimpers from low in her throat. Loki’s mounting desire and gratification at her every twitch and vocalisation echoed though her, ricocheting into itself and creating a feedback loop that began blanking her thoughts out, involuntary little sounds pulled from her as though he was drawing music from an instrument, nerves set singing like violin strings.

“Loki,” she heard herself gasp out, using her hands on him as leverage to pull herself up into him, the stimulation simultaneously too much and not enough, balanced on the knife edge of agony and hunger, “Loki, fuck, so good to me, you’re so good to me-”

I haven’t even started yet, beloved, Loki murmured against the upper swell of her breast, the words heavy with promise.

Astrid felt his arm turn under her grip, and heard his fingers snap crisply.

Magic deluged the air, sizzling on her tongue as it surged through her like a lightning rod, a split second before her wrists slammed against the mattress, held in place by an unseen pressure.

She could feel Loki rising to kneel between her legs, parting his knees wide to force hers apart, cool air brushing hot flesh.

Mm, there we are. Loki gentled for a brief moment, fingertips brushing indicatively over the delicate veins of her inner wrist. Comfortable?

“Yes,” Astrid answered, quick and strangled, a little startled- but not entirely surprised- by the heat that pooled in her at Loki restraining her with his magic, cuffing her in place.

And he caught it, seeping through their connection, easing into a smirk.

Oh, I can see that. Look at you, Loki mused, each syllable dripping with lust, like an offering at a sacred alter, tied up and wet and willing for me. Fit for a god. Fit for worship.

One finger crooked beneath the hem of her camisole, lifting it from her body, dragging the cotton upwards, air cooling the glimmer of sweat that was beginning to form on her skin. His other hand slipped beneath the hem of her shorts, brushing teasingly against her sex, making Astrid flinch into him with a short cry.

Loki’s exhale was almost a snarl of conquest.

Bolstered by the sound, and with a sudden surge of boldness, Astrid lifted one leg and wrapped it around his hip, knee crooked and her heel pressing at the small of his back.

“Did you think about me?” She asked breathily, tipping her chin up, supplicant and wanting. “Like- like this?”

The vibrato of Loki’s airless groan settled behind her sternum.

I have.

Astrid shivered.

“Tell me.”

With a twist of his wrist, Loki seized a handful of her camisole in his grip, hulling the fabric up over her head- the magic around her wrists loosening just enough for him to slide the straps underneath them and hurl it aside. In the same motion, fluid as silk, he pulled her calf loose from his waist, bent down, and took the waistband of her shorts between his teeth.

Humming in the back of her throat, Astrid lifted her hips obligingly. Loki swiftly dragged her damp shorts loose from her, trailing a smudge of slick against her inner thigh.

You want to hear how much I want you? Loki growled, velvet and deadly.

Astrid exhaled, carefully.

“Well- yes- but more of the how. I- like to aim to please.”

Loki chuckled sinisterly, and snapped the swatch of jersey from over her ankle.

Are deciding on how to greet your prince, once you have me in the flesh?

“I should plan ahead,” Astrid breathed, “for a- grand welcome.”

And if I tell you that I have thought of this, since that morning on the Helicarrier?

His touch trailed up the centre of her abdomen, skimming the underside of her breasts. Smoothly deliberate, his fingers spread, applying the slightest pressure to the curve if her ribs, to hold her in place under him. Loki’s illusion remained at an infuriating, controlled distance, leaving Astrid only able to guess and verbally test at any physical effect she might be having on him, feeling her way in the dark.

That I had thought of breaking the lock, wrenching the door open, and fucking you while you wear nothing but those delicious thigh-high socks?

Astrid’s thighs clenched infinitesimally, a zoetrope-flicker of the scenario projecting into her mind, directly from his: of Loki sinking into her, one large hand grasping the underside of her thigh, gripping smooth skin and grazing soft clinging wool as he forced her open, mounting her, driving into her as her spine arched up, lips parted-

“Mn. If that’s what you want, alderliefest,” she managed to reply almost casually, swallowing the whisky-burn of his words, fingers clenching against nothing, “I- had thought about whether I could short out the cameras for long enough to ride you in that cell-”

The moan that spilled from Loki was quiet, but utterly obscene.

Astra-

“- especially after you quoted that line from E.E Cummings,” Astrid pressed ruthlessly, confessions spilling from her in a rush, “you said those words, and I thought about it- wondered whether that would prove that I was here for you, not them, if I- if I took you while you were in full armour, fingernails in the seams of your leathers, tongue at your throat-”

- Norns-

“- or maybe on my knees, if you wanted- I wanted reclaim you from them- bring you back, overwrite it all- ah!”

Astrid shouted, kicking out wildly as Loki plunged his tongue into her cunt.

He brushed past her oversensitive clitoris, instead pressing close to her entrance, flattening a broad, slow sweep against her heat and dragging through the syrup of her wetness. It still set her straining against her unseen cuffs and cursing out, every nerve turning to incandescent wire.

“Fuck, Loki, f-fuck, stars, that- ahn! Your mouth, please, fuck, please, please-”

I thought of you gasping my name like this, Loki mouthed against her, vehemently, humming vibrations into her throbbing flesh, leaving her whimpering, open-mouthed, begging me, and the heat of you, slick and gripping me, pliant and willingly mine-

His tongue dipped inside of her, brief and probing, the tip of his straight nose nudging the underside of her clit. Astrid cried out, long and plaintive.

“Loki-!”

I thought of my hand wrapped around your neck, as I took you from behind, he almost snarled, like the sound of grinding ice, carnal and visceral. Seizing her leg to drag it over his shoulder, Loki let her heel press into his back as his tongue curled into her, again, again, again, until her back pulled into a desperate, straining arch like the pull of a loaded bow.

One sculpted arm looped over her stomach, effortlessly holding her to the mattress with sheer iron force, the silk of his hair sweeping against her inner thighs.

Or your knees hitched around my waist, moaning like a whore for your prince, taking me until I am almost deep enough for you to taste in the back of your throat- hands pinned above you, just like this, or clawing at me as though you might die if you don’t have me- in my lap, with your back against my chest, hands in my hair, driving us both to completion, taking what you want from me like a queen upon her rightful throne-

Astrid thrashed her head against the sheets, Loki’s voice tapping into something primal she hadn’t known existed in her, striking deep, hooking into her gut. Her body moved mindlessly to chase the pleasure he offered, thoughts melting, her own voice cracking as Loki’s thumb edged into to nudge her folds wider.

“Fuck, Loki, yes, like that, just like that, right the-ere-”

His tongue swirled against her indulgently, humming with satisfaction. It set her head spinning, white beginning to bloom in the darkness covering her vision.

Tell me how you want me, Astra, Loki demanded, lifting away just enough that his slick-glazed lips brushed her clitoris. Astrid almost sobbed, twisting and bucking as she fought away, yet closer, her frontal lobe disconnected and her body given over to sensation, all reflex and reaction. Tell me what you like. Tell me what should I give my perfect girl to make her scream, what does she want of me, I’ll do all the work if she likes, all the fucking, just tell me how you want me-

“Everything, any way you want,” Astrid moaned out, turning her cheek against the pillow, twisting against him, chasing the perfect angle, hips stuttering and shifting restlessly, her ankles locking at the small of his back in a half-conscious attempt to tangle the two of them together and fight for leverage, sparks chasing through her limbs, hot and sharp as a livewire, “stars, whatever you want, Loki, you can have all of it, just- uhn! Want you to want it, want you to lose yourself in me, want you to cum for me-”

Loki’s lips sealed around her clit, and Astrid shrieked in bliss.

It was like a spark exposed to pure oxygen, the first crack before an avalanche, the swell before a tsunami. It gathered into her nerves, violently, as Loki tongued her in earnest, his tongue grinding against the delicate tightly clustered bed of nerves, humming low and lascivious.

Head thrown back, Astrid slurred half-coherent praises- back bowed and lifted, hips flicking up into the sweet friction, wrists straining against the pressure holding her down for him.

“Beautiful, faen, Loki, you’d look beautiful coming inside me, exquisite, divine, every inch of you, Loki, only you, yours, break me, Loki, Loki, Loki-”

Loki let out a whining groan, curving in and bearing down on her, flicking his tongue against her with lethal precision.

Her orgasm came crashing down like the roaring rush of a spring storm, spilling through her blood, seething through her.

Astrid could hear herself gasping for breath, short, vehemently feminine sounds forcing their way through her clenched-open jaw. Loki’s grip turned bruising, caging her in place.

When she came to- eyes still closed, rising from the fall with stardust shimmering behind her lids, pleasantly senseless with pure dopamine- she could feel the facsimile of Loki’s hand soothing down her side, in long, languid, honeyed strokes of his palm, his nose nuzzling at her temple tenderly, trembling almost infinitesimally above her.

Her lips twitched, in delighted disbelief, when she realised that he had gotten off from that alone.

Back with me, pretty girl? Loki murmured sweetly, just slightly out of breath, kissing the curve of her jaw.

“Mn.”

How do you feel?

“Hmn.” Astrid shifted, testing her limbs with a sigh. “Spectacular. Definitely, ah- un-deprived.”

With an airy chuckle, Loki kissed her cheek, chastely.

Good.

Ignoring the pleasant, protesting ache in her arms, Astrid reached up- finding her wrists released, the magic dissolved- and twined them around Loki’s shoulders, pulling him down flush against her.

He came willingly, melting into her warmth like wax. She tipped her head aside as Loki tucked his face against the curve of her neck, settling his weight against her with a contented sigh and shuffling of angles, seeking the most comfortable fit. Thrumming a soft laugh, Astrid relaxed, luxuriating in the swathes of cool, bare skin that greeted her. The pads of her fingers traced over and massaged into his shoulder blades, running through his hair, until she felt a hedonistic moan purr through his chest.

Astrid was drifting somewhere in the gentle liminal haze between sleep and waking, when he spoke again.

This won’t be forever, Loki whispered, his thumb running along the curve of her hipbone, I promise. His hold on her tightened slightly. My eternity.

Teeth slicing against her lower lip, Astrid smiled, bittersweet.

She was unspeakably grateful, that he had misinterpreted her.

To her luck, it seemed that Loki believed it was the distance that was plaguing her psyche- and not the fears that the distance had begun to dredge, from somewhere dark and uncertain inside her heart, stirring up silt, scraping at her insides.

But Loki’s words rang of an ancient vow, of something that he must have said to her before.

The familiarity of it slotted into and turned against the void in her memories, like a key in a neglect-stiffened lock- not enough to unlatch the time-frozen pins and barrels and gears, but enough to tell her that it fit.

Astrid tightened the circle of her arms, burying her mouth against his crown. Her legs slid between his, sliding up his calves, grounding herself in the verisimilitude of him.

Loki was not there, but somewhere lightyears away, he could feel this.

And Astrid had chosen selfishness and pain and hurling herself onto the dagger of his affection, and she was nothing if not faithful.

No matter what lay ahead, no matter the unknowns that could drop the floor from underneath her, she had already made her choice. It was too late; she loved him.

“Can I be greedy?” She asked tentatively.

Always. Loki slid his arms around her, snug between her back and the cushion of the mattress. Tell me.

Astrid exhaled carefully.

“When it’s over,” she said, breathing in his leather and ink and evergreen, “let me hold you like this again.”

Loki huffed a fond, incredulous sound.

As often as you like. As though you need even ask.

She curved herself around him, denying the pressure building behind her eyes.

“Then I can wait,” she said softly.

I can earn you, Astrid didn’t say.

43 weeks and 2 days out

It wasn’t HYDRA who found her first.

It was as she was leaving an appointment one night- her messenger bag satisfyingly weighted with several files, as payment for services rendered, along with a fresh commissions list- when Astrid recognised that she was being watched.

She didn’t react. The dockside warehouse was one of Ophelia’s less glamorous, and more legitimate operations- located on the docks of Hǎidào Bay, on the cusp of the deep waters of the harbour. Within the shifting labyrinths of shipping containers and omnipresent grime of corruption, it had been easy for Astrid to dress herself in black and casual confidence, and render her presence unnoticed as she came to meet with Ophelia for their usual exchange.

It was equally easy to slip through one of the narrow corridors between the shipping containers, step into the Mirror Dimension, and open up a portal to another continent, escaping within seconds.

The air in Odesa was pleasantly temperate, the sun bright and the breeze cold, the skies clear as glass in the cool March weather. Ornamental trees were beginning to come into bud and bloom; by April, their fragrance would be almost sugary, like a confection made by layering something chiffon-delicate upon itself, until it became saccharine.

“I’ll give you all that I own

You’ve got me standing in line

Out in the cold-”

Singing quietly to herself, burning enough mana into her surroundings to incinerate any magical trace that had been placed upon her, Astrid bought tea and a pastry from a nearby stand, and settled on the edge of the fountain outside of the opera house. The curving Italian baroque façade was radiant in the high daylight, the sloping lawns accented by the thundering, frothing roar of the fountain jets at her back, and the susurration of conversation and rustling leaves and sharp, lilting cries of seabirds.

Setting her tea beside her, Astrid pulled the files from her messenger bag, opened each cover, and checked the contents.

“Bend me, shape me

Any way you want me

‘Long as you love me

It’s alright-”

Ophelia had been a little nonplussed by Astrid’s recent request, despite her established preference for currencies other than cash- but had dutifully provided it without fail, to her exact specifications. Each file contained a rental contract for an industrial warehouse or disused commercial space, listed with an address and lease term, signed and paid for under a shell corporation. The locations were scattered across the globe, in highly populated cities and municipalities, all carefully selected by Astrid.

She glanced over each set of papers, noting her approval with a sip of tea. Beside her, the waters of the fountain basin rippled like ocean shallows, catching spangles of blinding light in a fae shimmer, dazzling her briefly.

“Everybody tells me I’m wrong

To want you so badly

But there’s a force that’s driving me on

I’ll follow it gladly-”

She would have to get the warehouses outfitted and set up before November, at the latest- and make them fit for purpose, to emergency-house thousands of people.

Taking a bite of her pastry, still humming, heel tapping to the beat, Astrid began mentally compiling a list of favours that she could call in. She would prefer not ask something of Tony yet, with their cooperation still so tentative, built upon a house of cards fewer than those they had hidden up their sleeves- especially when she couldn’t give him the truth about why she needed these safehouses.

But Professor Xavier- or Charles, as he had insisted upon- might be amenable. And she had a few contacts that might be able to point her in the direction of people willing to do the construction work, possibly even some that Ophelia could recommend-

Astrid swallowed the mouthful of sweet pastry.

Someone was watching her. Again.

Slipping the pastry back into its paper bag, licking the film of butter and pastry flakes from her thumb, Astrid turned the page unseeingly, focusing out.

“So let them laugh, I don’t care

‘Cause I’ve got nothing to hide

All that I want

Is you by my side-”

It was the same person as Madripoor- not a camera, not an astral form, only one of them, moving towards her-

Astrid willed herself to remain composed, the nape of her neck prickling, assessing her options. Straightening her shoulders, she flicked her hair out of her eyes placidly; she would prefer not to make a scene, if possible- not while she was pulling pieces into position in the chessboard-

She recognised them.

Astrid stilled. Panic stabbed through her, shock wiping her expression blank, music stoppered in her throat.

Shit.

She hadn’t expected this.

She hadn’t planned for it, or even vaguely speculated on the possibility. Her nerves fizzled and swooped with adrenaline- this could be catastrophic, a disaster to everything they were doing- she could run, but that would solve nothing- she had to kill this risk before it reached Loki-

Their shadow crossed her, slipping across the papers on her lap and her crossed legs, sunlight just barely catching on the toe of her boot.

Heart in her mouth, Astrid looked up.

Standing before her, dressed in white tennis shoes, bootcut jeans and a collared cable-knit sweater, was Frigga of Asgard.

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olet-lucernam · 7 months ago

Text

A Hollow Promise [27] chapter vi, part iv

{_[on AO3]_}

main tags : loki x original character, post-avengers 2012, canon divergence - post-thor: the dark world, canon-typical violence, mentions of torture

Even long presumed dead, her memories lost to her, Loki would know her anywhere.

And this changes things.

Some things last beyond infinity. And the universe is in love with chaos.

(Loki was never looking for redemption. It came as an unexpected side-effect.)

chapter summary : astrid gathers her allies, and draws the attention of her enemies. loki pays a heavy price for a victory.

recommended listening : what you waiting for?, gwen stefani

tag list: @femmealec @mischief2sarawr

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54 weeks and 1 day out

“Sir. We have movement.”

Tony felt the lines of his spine and shoulder blades pull straight, almost reflexively, swivelling into motion at his holographic worktable like a well-oiled gear.

He was going on a self-imposed work diet- an attempt to rebalance, after living in his work for the past few months, building and breaking and remaking in an endless beta-testing phase, a Sisyphean attempt to patch every vulnerability he could imagine- but it had been pushed back, under the circumstances, and he had rationed out enough time for him to deal with the situation, before starting the full detox.

“Where are we, J?” He asked, with a casual upwards flick above the table.

The gesture summoned a hologram above the desk: an architectural scale model of the Tower, crafted in vitrified blue light.

“There is some unusual activity near the roof.”

The area in question turned orange on the three-dimensional map, zooming in for an exploded view of the topmost two-dozen floors.

Tony had remodelled the top of the Tower, after the Battle of New York. Damage had given him the excuse, and the team had provided the reason. Repaired and restructured, several stories added to its height, the broad, smooth curves and open layout modelled after his cliffside home in Malibu were scrapped, the exterior cleaner and sharper- streamlined, from the slanted crown of its roof, through the convex glass-faced layers of the penthouse floors, to the landing pad extending out into the open air.

Locals had taken to calling it Avengers Tower. None of the roster aside from Tony had taken up residence yet, but they all agreed that it was a good base, and Tony kept the personal suites ready for whenever they might need to drop in.

The luminescent A badge shimmered on the side of the building, level with the landing pad. Just below it- within the three floors dedicated to Tony’s private laboratories, workshops, storage, and fabrication facilities- a red diamond marked his current location.

“Surveillance feeds and motion sensor detectors are offline,” JARVIS announced, highlighting the locations in a chain, “as are the door sensors.”

Tony visually tracked the path that it created.

It led from the roof access, into the emergency stairwell, before terminating at the door into Thor’s suite: no more and no less than would be needed to gain access to the building.

It was more than twenty floors above him- a distance that would take several minutes to traverse. He had time.

“You locked out, buddy?” Tony asked quietly, summoning his touch keyboard with a sweep of his palm. “Or are they trying to be subtle?”

“Neither, sir. As with the first occurrence, this appears to be a mechanical failure, not a cyber-attack.”

His gaze narrowed briefly, jaw moving.

Somehow, that was both more and less plausible than JARVIS being hacked.

“Shall I prepare to go into lockdown protocol, sir?” JARVIS proposed. “It should be possible to isolate intruders to one of the penthouse floors, once they are inside.”

Tony contemplated the offer for only a heartbeat.

“No. Clear the way down for her, J,” he decided breezily. “Let’s hear what she has to say.”

There was a brief, audibly judgemental pause in the response time.

“As you wish, sir.” Tony could hear the mild disapproval and concern behind his AI’s cool, crisp tones. “Shall I at least stand by with security protocols?”

“Doubt we’ll be needing them, but- feels like this one’s got a few fireworks up her sleeve.” He conceded blithely, pre-empting the reproach about putting himself at unjustifiable risk. “Alright. Safety off, but finger off the trigger.”

Tony turned in his chair, scanning the room. The workshop was cluttered with a rich confusion of half-finished projects, both metal and digital, strewn across screens and surfaces between discarded coffee cups and various tools.

“And clear the decks, J. Window Dressing Protocol.”

At the command, the screens cleared.

Detailed blueprints and test data were replaced with generic schematics and randomised code, like cellophane pasted on a device fresh out of the box. They reflected in the wall of glass that faced the length of the room- diluted against the dark hallway beyond.

With a gentle swipe, Tony dismissed the render of the Tower.

Rising to his feet, he slid the rolling chair aside, summoned a program and began typing, looking to all the world like the very image of productivity and genius at work.

He wasn’t kept waiting for long.

A gentle rap of knuckles sounded on the reinforced, shatter-proof glass.

Tony’s head snapped up.

The girl whose real name definitely wasn’t Alethia waited just outside, painted like day in the light spilling from the workshop.

She was dressed for the winter night, a New York romance in a soft black sweater and jeans the colour of dried roses, champagne hair pinned in in a braided coil, emphasising a pretty set of cheekbones and long eyelashes. Backs of her knuckles still raised to the glass, snow-dusted and pleasantly windswept, she tipped chin down slightly in greeting.

She looked better, Tony observed. Her skin was clearer, her eyes brighter, expression smoother- less tension-soured, less angry, and more like the person that she had sounded like, aboard the Helicarrier.

Without looking, he tapped a command into the control panel.

The electronic lock switched open with a heavy snap.

Alethia turned the handle, stepping inside, flawless and measured.

“Dr Stark.”

There was a low thrum in her voice, as though cautiously pleased to see him.

“Not-agent.”

Tony’s reply was blandly jovial. Shunting the lines of code aside, he stepped away from the workbench, one hand tucked into his pocket. He had remained outfitted in dark sweats and a gym shirt, standard gear for the workshop, but his posture was that of when he was in a three-piece suit and a boardroom- eyes fixed on her face, chin tilted up slightly, sizing her up with an air of casual challenge.

To her credit, Alethia remained unaffectedly at ease.

It had reminded him a little of Pepper- but not by much.

Virginia Potts was like a ceramic knife. There was a deliberate poise to her, born of a consciousness of her disadvantages in the industry, a refusal to be anything less than a worthy player of the game; she was everything prim and correct and refusing to be intimidated, the result of thousands of observations and lessons learned and choices made, constructed into a statuesque, pleasantly intimidating facade.

Alethia reminded him far more of someone else.

Tony had realised it when she was leaning over the Tesseract transport device, her voice focused and softly mirthful.

Relax. I have steady hands.

For a moment, he had been hurled back in time. He had tasted metal, and dust, lung tissue still burning from the water with each breath, the heat of the forge at his back and the dim cold of the caves at his front, the weight of a car battery slung over his shoulder, and a pair of lean hands- Yinsen, sure and calm and steady, mild-mannered yet ruthlessly insightful, guarded and tired and yet earnest- pouring molten palladium into its cast.

Relax, he had chided Tony gently, tilting the long handles of the tongs, inclining the lip of the crucible over the mould. I have steady hands. Why do you think you are alive, ah?

After removing it from his chest for the second time, Tony had quietly returned the first miniaturised arc reactor to the display mount that Pepper had commissioned, sealing it back in glass.

It was still powered by that delicate ring of palladium, poured by steady hands under a mountain in Afghanistan.

With a steady sweep of her lashes, Alethia looked past Tony’s shoulder, at the screen display where he had been typing.

Her head tilted.

“Was there any particular reason that you were translating the lyrics of ABBA’s Dancing Queen into base64?”

Huh. Well.

Tony had more or less expected that she would see straight through the chains of randomised letters and numbers, like an awl punching through leather, but- the casual quickness was a little disorientating. It was like expecting a card trick, and getting shoved into a swimming pool instead.

“Everybody needs a hobby,” he said, bald-faced and shameless.

“Mm.” Hazel eyes flicked to his, warm as vanilla and laughter. “I’ve heard worse.”

They trailed into silence.

“Ran a trace, on the phone number you left,” Tony admitted boldly. “Before I called.”

Alethia smiled slightly.

“Ah. Were you disappointed?”

“I think I’d be disappointed if it was that easy.” Tony decided, circling the desks, feigning distraction. Alethia was missing a coat that would make sense for the cold. Her nails were trimmed neat, without polish. The only traces of makeup were a swipe of soft black kohl at the corners of her eyes and the sheen of lip balm. Practical, yet impractical. “Complete no sell, though. Impressive. That SHIELD tech?”

The corner of her mouth pulled up further.

“No.”

“You still with them?”

“If I ever was, I’m not now.”

“So you’re a free agent?”

“Free not-agent.”

“How long?”

“Is this an interrogation?”

“I mean, I’d call it due diligence, but I’ve got a pair of cuffs somewhere, if it’d make you more comfortable.”

Alethia’s smile bloomed into a brilliant grin.

“Didn’t think you’d be into that, Dr Stark.”

She sobered slightly, clear as glass.

“Ask me what you want to know. I wouldn’t have left a way for you to contact me, if I wasn’t willing to talk.”

Tony held her gaze for a long moment.

He tapped at the keypad.

Several pages opened across the screens.

Pages of instructions, formulas, tables, calculations, and skeletal molecular structures illuminated the digital glass.

Alethia kept her gaze on Tony.

“What is this?” Tony asked, quiet and direct.

She breathed a slow exhale, hip cocking.

“The formulas, chemical synthesis processes, and medical procedures for stabilising the biological effects of the experimental serum known as Extremis,” she announced clinically, “when introduced to the human body intravenously, subcutaneously, or intramuscularly.” Alethia paused, pointedly. “I did include an abstract.”

“And you broke into my building to leave it here.”

“I apologise for the necessity.” Alethia replied evenly. “It was safer, than a courier.”

“You couldn’t think of another way?”

She arched an eyebrow.

“So- a package, delivered to this building, or a file sent to the general inquires inbox for Stark Industries, addressed directly to you, from an unknown sender- wouldn’t have been lost in the system?”

Despite the lingering irritation, he could admit that she had a point.

And at least she hadn’t tried to hack JARVIS, or threatened to taser him, or ripped the arc reactor out of his chest, or thrown him through a window.

All in all, this break-in was probably in his top three.

Tony flicked his hands into a shrug, keeping his expression blank and blithe.

“Alright. Let’s say I buy that.” He did buy it, but she didn’t need to know that yet. “You wanna tell me what this really is?”

He saw the subtle shift in her eyes, becoming a little shrewder, a touch sharper- and a little pleased.

She pulled up one shoulder.

“A gift? Or a bribe, perhaps. Gratitude. Diplomacy. A resumé.”

“What, you’re in the market for a job?”

The quip was as pithy as he intended, but in the split second that followed- huh.

Actually.

That wasn’t a terrible idea.

Tony acknowledged that he needed to step back from Iron Man- at least until he could reorganise his head and redraw the lines so that it wasn’t the all-consuming furnace of fear and duty and penance and freedom-safety that it had become- but the work wouldn’t wait. The planet was on a deadline, and Tony had more resources than most to pull the necessary defences together. Having good people on board, who could keep his projects ticking over while he reorientated, was essential.

And Alethia knew. She had recognised the monsters lurking in the dark between the stars, and had looked for someone to warn when she decided that Fury couldn’t be trusted to listen.

And then there was the truth in all things, and cannot lie aspect. That was a hell of an ace up Earth’s collective sleeve- if, if, if-

“I don’t need a job, Dr Stark. What I need is an ally.” Alethia spoke as clear and calm as daybreak upon the mountains. “We both do. As many as we can get.”

Tony swallowed, carefully.

He turned his head to look at the screens, grappling down the swoop of intermingled terror and relief.

“So this is your pitch.”

“I was working on other areas, but- I saw the news,” Alethia said mildly. “The bombings. Malibu.”

She hesitated.

“I was worried.”

Tony flicked a slightly surprised glance back at her.

Alethia’s gaze was on the screens, inscrutable.

There was a note of quiet sincerity in her voice that rattled something within him, like marbles in a jar.

“Well.” Tony began, turning back towards the illuminated text. “I’ve come back from the dead before.”

“Even so.” She demurred. “You were- you were kind to me. I didn’t forget that. So I was glad to find that you were alright. Then I found out about AIM, and Extremis, and I- thought you could use the assistance.”

Tony didn’t know what to say.

He still couldn’t decide, even after a moment to reboot.

Instead, he deflected.

“I knew you weren’t an engineer.”

“Hm?”

Tony flicked a practiced, flippant gesture at the screens- a quick upturn of his palm, fingers loosely curled- turning away.

“Back then. The instructions you provided for the Tesseract device- I mean, we talked about it at the time. Hot garbage, right? Intentional hot garbage, but still. There was a solid working understanding of the physics and the mechanics, but it wasn’t written by someone au fait with the field. There are things that you only learn if you’ve studied it, read the books, learned how to speak the language. It’s all in the common practice- the jargon, the shorthand. That was missing, from your papers. There were a few pieces, but not enough. You’re not an engineer.”

Tony turned to face her, expression a flat, inscrutable mask.

“You are a doctor, though.”

Alethia didn’t flinch.

He would expect nothing less, from someone who had kept secrets from Nicholas Fury and was still walking around, doing as she pleased.

“This,” Tony raised a finger to his shoulder-line, indicating the screens behind him. “Is perfect. Flawless. You could send this for peer review and get it published in The Lancet.”

A chink appeared in Alethia’s expression- something that she had allowed to break through, intense as sunlight striking on a shard of glass.

Pride.

It was earned. As far as Tony could tell, she had whipped up the antiserum formula within a matter of days; any sane research institute or private company on the planet, including the medical subsidiaries of Stark Industries, would be putting a bounty on her corporate headhunt if they knew.

Blasé as he could afford to be with money, however, Tony rarely made a purchase without knowing the price.

“So. What are you?” He paced back towards her, gathering a slow momentum like the wind of a crank, closing in. “Biochem? Cellular biology? Genetics? What’s your speciality?”

Alethia smiled.

“Neurosurgery.”

Tony’s brow twitched at the admission, taken aback.

He wasn’t actually expecting a straight answer. He wasn’t expecting that answer.

And he wasn’t expecting its wistfulness.

“You’re a brain surgeon?”

She let out a short laugh.

“I should probably introduce myself.” An incandescent, media-ready smile lit up her features, relaxed and confident. “Dr Astrid North, MD.”

Tony stilled.

That was her name, he could tell. Not an alias.

Tony quickly calculated the risk, that she was taking.

“Date of birth recorded as the twenty-ninth of February, 1988,” she continued, as though this time she was actually reciting and submitting her résumé for consideration. “Graduated from Columbia in the class of ’03, summa cum laude, completed my neurosurgical residency in 2010. I also worked under the surnames Stephenson and Stephensdottir- spelt like the doctorate, not like the super-soldier. There should be records of me available here in New York, as well as the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Singapore, and Brazil.”

Tony could feel the staccato of his heart, stuttering behind the arc reactor, a thrum of anticipation.

“Hm. SHIELD know any of this?”

Alethia’s- Astrid’s- lip curled with a hint of contempt.

“No.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

She lifted her shoulder. “I thought you’d want an insurance policy.”

“And what have I done to earn that?”

“You listened.”

“I passed the test,” Tony inferred. “That’s why you’re here?”

“I’m here because I would like to trust you,” Astrid said coolly, “and because I think there’s a more than fair probability that I can. And- because I would like you to trust me. Even if only enough to work together.”

Tony observed her for a few dragging seconds.

“What’s your endgame?” He challenged. “You told me back then that you’re not an altruist.”

“Oh, I’m not.”

“Then why? What’s in it for you?”

Her brow tensed slightly.

“Enlightened self-interest? Or, is I don’t want the planet I currently live on to be destroyed insufficient for you?”

“Eh, plenty of people don’t find it compelling. Look at climate change.”

Astrid’s lips parted to reply- before she grimaced, glancing aside in admission.

“Alright, fair point.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But maybe I’m just more circumspect.”

“Or you have another reason.”

She lifted her eyes to the ceiling with a slow blink.

“You are being very obstinate about this.”

“You know, I don’t actually care, what your actual reason is,” Tony blurted out, sharp and caustic as battery acid, a sudden flare of anger and impatience shoving him forwards, “because you’re right. We need allies. Including each other. So I’m willing to work with your reason why. But only if I know what it is.”

The moment that Tony stopped speaking, he became aware of how Astrid was looking at him.

Tony felt like he was being taken apart, disassembled, the cover plate pulled off to check the hardware.

Truth in all things.

She hummed, soft in the back of her throat. It was the kind that he could feel in his sternum, even with most of it carved away for the arc reactor.

“Alright,” she said softly. “Fair’s fair.”

She straightened, looking away.

“There is- someone.” She said carefully. “Someone that I love.”

Tony blinked.

It was like the twist of a kaleidoscope, patterns reforming, in four simple words.

“And the one responsible for- that-” Astrid snapped a finger heavenwards, her entire being smouldering with a leashed, soul-deep hatred, “took them, at their most vulnerable. Captured them. Tortured them. For months. Years. Twisted their memories, tainted their emotions, and manipulated their pain until they no longer knew where they ended, and the sceptre began. They barely kept enough of themselves to ruin it all, and break free of the control.”

Tony felt a muscle in his bicep and jaw twitch, flicking an appraising, calculating look across her.

Interesting.

“The one that I love will be hunted as a traitor. Or, as a failure- I don’t think it matters, and I don’t care. It all has the same end. What matters is that the one I love will never be safe, until and unless that is no longer a threat.”

Astrid dropped her hand, meeting his eyes addressing him with a tone of complete, terrifying certainty.

“I have decided that it is not going to be a threat.”

The floor of Tony’s stomach dropped out, the room seeming to tilt.

He was suddenly struck with a strange thought- like some survival instinct coded into his evolutionary ancestry, tapping at his nerve endings, lingering like a chill in the vertebrae of his neck. It was the feeling that he was looking at something ancient, and angered- half-mad and unhinged and doing an admirable job of containing itself to its human skin.

He realised, in a split second, that Astrid was probably something not entirely human.

And she was baring her teeth at whatever was threatening to swallow Earth whole.

Fuck it. He could work with this.

“All of the sake of love?” Tony asked.

He took pride in the fact that his cadence was even-keeled, despite the stagger of his pulse.

A humourless, self-deprecating smile wrung through her features.

“You can laugh,” Astrid told him, rueful and without rancour. “I know how I must sound.”

Tony forced himself to shrug, nonchalantly. “I’ve heard worse.”

And he had. Tony had been worse. He had cut deals with worse, because he was a realist, and anyone pursuing utopia had to be willing to drag themselves through purgatory first.

After a long moment, Tony inhaled sharply, pulling his shoulders back.

“Okay,” he said powerfully. “If this is a bluff? I’m calling it. Cards on the table.”

A spark ignited behind Astrid’s eyes, like a struck match.

“Pepper’s been injected with Extremis,” he continued brusquely, “I need to get her stable, along with any other test subjects that AIM decided to turn into literal walking time bombs. That’s why you gave me these papers, right? You thought I could use it, and I can. So let’s get to it. You in?”

Astrid looked startled- before her entire demeanour snapped into a honed, clinical focus.

“Wh- are you monitoring cortisol levels? Internal temperature, heartrate, WBC-?”

“Per doctor’s orders.” Tony flicked his head towards the reams of detailed medical instructions, listed out on the glass. “Followed your procedures to the letter. We’re tracking down anyone else who might have taken part in clinical trials, but it looks like there were a limited number, at least.”

Astrid tugged up her sleeves with an efficient pinch of fabric, pulling the soft knit clear of her wrists and forearms. “How many potential patients?”

“Caps out at a dozen, maybe.”

“The antiserum? You’ve started synthesising it?”

“As we speak, lab’s running on auto.”

“How much?”

“About two hundred and fifty milligrams, in the first batch.”

“Not enough. Triple it. And quintuple it for the others, per patient. I don’t want to be caught out with less than we need. Have you started on the round of pre-antiserum IV fluids?”

“About three hours ago.”

“And no adverse effects, contraindications?”

“Nada. Smooth sailing, all in line with where you said we should be by now.”

“Good, but keep Miss Potts closely monitored. And we’ll still need to test the antiserum on a live tissue sample, if possible.”

“I’ll get on it.”

Tony swiped two fingers down through the air, dismissing the pages on the screens, the room dimming slightly as they slid away.

“If this works,” he said, his enunciation crisp, “we can talk.” In one fluid motion, Tony plucked a StarkPad from amongst the chaos of the workbenches, flipping it in his grip to hold it, outstretched, within her reach. “Sound good, doctor?”

Astrid smiled, light and wild, and Tony felt his decision settle in his chest with a feeling of rightness.

This could work.

She took the tablet.

“Lead the way, doctor.”

Astrid made an addition to her list.

Flour.

50 weeks and 3 days out

Brunnhilde would be the first to admit that she was not made for subterfuge.

She was a woman of brash, blunt action, more inclined to punch her way straight through her problems that to deconstruct them. As such, her vocation suited her. The Valkyrie were the vanguard, the cavalry, the elite corps, revered shieldmaidens who cleared the field with a swift, graceful brutality that was immortalised in legend and song and carving.

They had been thralls, once. Slaves.

Most of Asgard had forgotten that.

As war raged across the Nine, they had been appropriated by the throne- a form of tax levy, on the wealthy of Asgard- and dispatched to the battlefield in the wake of Asgard’s armies, to collect corpses from the slurry. Choosers of the slain, the golden-plated Einherjar snickered into their cups, leering over the rims.

Then there was a shortage of disposable warm bodies. It had seen weapons pressed into their hands, shoved to the front lines to fill out the ranks.

Against all expectation, the Valkyrie had fought. The fought, and lived, and bought victory to Asgard.

In recognition of their deeds, Bor had purchased their freedom. The Valkyrie became the pride of Asgard, a symbol of its might, arrayed in battle armour of bright, sun-catching pearl-white and star-silver.

Their origins were probably why the Valkyrie could be found working, even in peacetime- conducting funerary rites, serving at great state occasions, maintaining Folkvang- while the Einherjar regressed into nothing more than decorative doorstops scattered throughout Gladsheim.

Brunnhilde had once remarked as such to Loki. Months later, he had presented her with a gilded doorstop for her nameday, crafted into the shape of an Einherjar in full regalia.

It had sent Brunnhilde into a fit of delighted, undignified cackles.

I’m calling him Sigurd, she declared with a feral grin.

Ah, he’s not going to last a week, Loki had commented, clicking his tongue with a convincing veneer of faux-pity.

Even now, few if any of Brunnhilde’s sisters were of noble blood or wealthy backgrounds. Most of them came from labouring families, apprenticed in a trade before they turned old enough to apply to the corps, and they bought their skills to Folkvang. The Valkyrie’s halls, sheltered in a chilled, fertile basin in the mountains, was almost entirely self-sufficient thanks to their collective knowledge. They raised fields of wheat and flax, milled their own flour and spun their own linen, wove and baked and built, felled timber and hunted and fished, tanned leather and cured meat, cut stone and dug wells, even kept bees and pressed oil and fermented wine and made candles.

And then there was the lace.

A few girls who knew how to weave had taken it up, transforming thread into pretty swatches of aerated cloth. They had begun teaching the craft to a few others, when they showed interest. Then the pastime became an additional source of income, to supplement the stipend provided by the crown.

And within a few centuries, Valkyrie lace was considered amongst the most exquisite craftsmanship in all the Nine. A single spool of inch-wide trim commanded a small fortune. When a Valkyrie was wed, it was customary for her sisters to spend the year and a day between engagement and marriage- or longer, if they saw the union coming- making as many yards of lace as they could manage, as her dowry.

Brunnhilde loved her sisters, admired their work, and hated lacemaking with a virulence that she usually reserved for bilgesnipe and strutting lordlings who thought that bedding a Valkyrie was a notch in their gilded belt.

Fortunately, she also had absolutely no talent for it. The others had quickly banished her from their tatting pillows and needles and bobbins, gently shoving her off towards work that actually made sense to her.

And Brunnhilde was content to have nothing to do with it. She honestly couldn’t understand what the others envisioned in the countless threads, or why crossing one here or knotting another there would somehow create a magnificently intricate motif several thousand more motions later, even if she was capable of appreciating the result.

In that sense, subterfuge reminded her of lacework.

She couldn’t see all of the threads, where they were leading, or how they locked together into a single bolt of woven fibre and air- but Loki so clearly knew exactly how each and every loop and twist and knot would build outwards, and took quiet satisfaction in seeing each one tighten into place, like a miniature noose.

There was an aching patience to it, each miniscule snag changing the fall of the delicate mesh, and Brunnhilde was often caught by the impulse to just hack her way through it.

She didn’t.

Instead, she did exactly as he asked.

Asgard underestimates him, a memory whispered- that of a warm voice, accompanied by a smile that darkened the eyes above it into amber. Or thinks it sees him, or thinks it knows what it’s looking at. A trick of the light. A shadow on glass. It is a mistake, you know.

The darkened eyes had begun to glow, instead, when they saw that Brunnhilde was paying attention.

I think he might be the most real person that I have ever met.

“I was surprised,” Loki admitted, on a low, distracted hum, “that you didn’t ask.”

The dungeons were quiet, at least in the wing where Loki was being held. It felt like an archive, a place for lost and forgotten things to be kept, shelved and stored out of sight until they were needed- the air settled as silt on the bottom of a riverbed, barely stirring with the sparse rounds of the guards.

Brunnhilde had counted eleven weaknesses that she could exploit, if it came to it.

She would have counted three dozen more in a fraction of the time.

She felt her heart clench strangely. It was the feeling of old scar tissue, untouched for so long, flexing and moving once more.

She and Loki were seated at the front of his cell, arranged parallel against the golden barrier on either side. Swathed in worn, nondescript suedes, Brunnhilde slouched on the stone steps, bare shoulder shoved against the forcefield; the air felt thicker the closer she came to the curtain of spellwork, like magnetic resistance, but she found herself leaning her weight into it, defiant and testing, like pressing her thumb down on a new bruise.

On the other side, Loki was sorting through several sheaves of handwritten notes, stacks surrounding him like panes in a half-rose window. His black hair was braided back at his crown, dressed in soft leathers and deep green linens and lightweight boots, finely made with immaculate quality, but far simpler than would be expected of an Asgardian prince- at least outside of the privacy of the residential wings of the palace.

Brunnhilde knew that he could have dressed himself in illusions, if he wished.

The choice not to was- interesting. In a way that she refused to think about.

There were a lot of things she refused to think about, with regards to Loki.

Not when it made her feel all those mollusc-soft sentiments that she had decided to kill years ago, for her own survival, after the gold plating of Asgard had begun to flake in her eyes.

In that, at least, she knew they were both in good company.

“I asked about this,” Brunnhilde countered his comment, tapping a nail against the arm ring that sat flush against the curve of her bicep. It was a deceptively simple band of brass, seeming to blend in against her, unremarkable regardless of lighting. Between it, and Loki’s magic, they were shielded from the Gatekeeper’s watch- Loki as a glaring lacuna in the script, a blank space, and Brunnhilde as though from behind a fine, misting rain, the specifics blurred out of focus.

Loki rolled his eyes, in that prissy, superior manner that left Brunnhilde more amused than irritated, these days.

“Yes, about whether it would turn your skin orange or set you spitting toads, of all things.”

“It was a valid concern, knowing you.”

“Hm.” There was a slight upturn at the corner of Loki’s mouth- the closest thing to agreement that she would probably wrest out of him.

Brunnhilde slipped loose a smirk.

“I didn’t bother asking,” she admitted, in a crisp-consonant drawl, “because I knew that I probably wouldn’t understand it anyway. It would be like asking to read a contract before I sign, when I don’t know the language it’s written in.”

Loki’s eyes sliced up from the papers, without lifting his head, fixing her with a serpentine gaze.

“You do yourself a disservice, Brunn.”

Brunnhilde paused, a little surprised by his quiet vehemence.

She shrugged it away.

“This is just not something I’m suited for. Politics and subterfuge and spywork. Moving the pieces by moving entirely different ones, lightyears away. It’s like my sisters, and their lacework,” she admitted blithely. “I understand the theory. But even if you had told me where this was going, I wouldn’t know enough to tell if you were lying.”

But.

Brunnhilde wasn’t entirely ignorant to Loki’s plans. She had made certain of it.

She had heard the gossip, on dozens of planets across the Nine. The arm ring not only shielded her from Heimdall’s sight, but also from the perils of using the secret passageways that were specked across Asgard- allowing her to move freely between worlds, at Loki’s direction.

Steadily, disparate pieces and seemingly unconnected incidents were coalescing, into a clear picture.

Muspelheim had struck an unexpected trade deal with Ria. When the revival of the disused trade route had attracted Marauders and Ravagers, a new defence coalition had formed, stationed at crucial waypoints to prevent piracy and smuggling.

The Crown Prince of Vanaheim had headed a diplomatic envoy to Alfheim. By the time he had arrived, Niflheim’s queen just so happened to be also be visiting her fellow monarch. The triumvirate meeting occurred without a single Asgardian dignitary present.

A few weeks later, the realm of the light elves had also hosted several representatives of dwarven guilds.

The Nova-Kree War was turning cold. The Nine had become neutral ground. The Nova Corps had offered aid to those on the outskirts and most affected by raids, and had sent engineers to retrofit their older, short-haul vessels with swifter engines and stronger defences. The Kree were in tentative talks with Nidarvellir, to have the dwarves invest in maintaining local jump points, in exchange for Kree arms to protect their merchant fleets.

The realms were moving, like the interlocking turn of dials and gears. And for the first time in millennia, Asgard was excluded from its workings.

And it was Loki’s doing.

At his instruction, Brunnhilde had bribed and baited Ravagers to harass Nidarvellir trade routes. She had placed bets at various ports, on the likelihood of a Kree civil war. She had sold information on Knowhere, changed figures on shipping manifestos, stirred up bar fights and complained about the export tax on goods out of Ria, destroyed shipments and switched documents and delayed correspondence, paid off and blackmailed and persuaded civil servants and stewards and aides into suggesting or omitting a minor detail from a report, or handing a project to a different department.

Brunnhilde was the stage hand in a great, orchestrated play. The Nine were being gently herded into a strengthening current- one that was looking outwards, into a galaxy where the balance of power was shifting.

It was a coup.

And Loki hadn’t even left his cell.

Brunnhilde refused to be impressed.

After a moment, she realised that Loki was looking at her with a glinting amusement.

It wasn’t the kind that was intended to mock, but rather the prelude to bringing her in on the joke.

“Of course you can’t see where this is going, Brunn,” he said softly. “You’re the needle.”

A memory clicked into place, flickering in like guttering lamplight.

There was a bolster pillow in her lap, a lace pad template pinned atop it, embroidery needle gripped uncertain and rigid between her forefinger and thumb. The chatter and bickering and teasing of her sisters was a cloud of ambient sound that seemed to glow like nimbus, in the apple-golden autumn afternoon.

A warm shoulder brushed near her own.

Gently, Brunn! A voice laughed. Treat your needle with respect. Relax your hand. The needle can feel where it needs to go- you’re just guiding it.

This is a terrible idea, Brunnhilde had muttered. We all remember what happened when Svanhit tried to teach me.

Stay away from my bobbins, Brunn! Came a sharp call from across the hall, to a few snickers. Olrun, Hervor, keep her away!

Brunnhilde had made to wave a vulgar gesture at her, and almost stabbed herself with the needle.

Needlepoint lace is more straightforward, a clear voice interjected. Brunnhilde had looked over to her- the glint of her needle moving in brisk freehand stitches, looping and tightening, all deft skill and focus, one moving part, one thread. You don’t have to keep track of seventy different bobbins, and the order you need to cross or twist them in.

Your prince prefers bobbin lace, doesn’t he? Brunnhilde asked, smirkingly.

Brunnhilde received a gentle, reproachful elbow to the ribs.

A flush, through golden skin, head dipping and pearl-white hair slipping forwards.

Prince Loki has a mind for it, she replied, deliberately and damningly neutral. The dance of it, the complexity- it suits him.

Well, what do you prefer?

She had paused, head cocked.

I like both, I suppose, she hedged. Bobbin lace is essentially weaving- looping the strands together, pulling them into place against each other. It tends to be- lighter, more of a fabric with motifs created inside of it. Layers of opacity. Needle lace is often studier. Like- scaffolding. The pattern is all that there is. And the needle has to work back and back and back to bring it into existence, to make sure it holds in place, knotting back where it has already been.

Her eyes sharpened.

No- I think I prefer bobbin lace. Needle lace is- putting a great deal of trust on just one thing.

Brunnhilde blinked back into the present.

Oh.

Loki had learned some lacemaking. He would have likely received that same explanation, heard the same comparison.

After a moment, she scowled, looking away.

“I still hate lacemaking.”

Loki laughed.

Worlds away, Astrid made a cautious addition to her list, framed in brackets.

(Lace).

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