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The steps wound down into the bedrock of the realm. Her steps echoed, but the farther down she went, the more it seemed like the stone absorbed the sound, until her boots were barely a whisper as she reached a set of doors guarded by four Einherjar, the tray of food clasped tight in her hands.
“Lady Sif,” one of them said, and stepped over to the side, placing his hand against a carved panel. It glowed golden, and the doors swung open silently. Sif walked through them, and they closed behind her, leaving her in a room dimly lit around the edges. In the center was a great gaping hole, and when she stepped onto a stone sigil, a rumbling sounded from even farther below.
No normal prison cell for Loki anymore, no white-lit room with comings and goings to observe. A room deep in the ground, a cell that served to obfuscate his reality as much as he ever had in his free life. When not being visited (which mostly consisted of wordless meal deliveries at varied times of day, so he never had a schedule) his cell stayed deep in the ground. When he was being visited, his cell would rise, rotating up from its place below so slowly and smoothly that he wouldn't know until the walls of the cell would fade to transparency.
Sif's job, the one she had taken on, was not only to deliver his meals but to ensure that he was still present. Thor had said that he no longer trusted his brother to keep his word, but he trusted Sif and her word, and so it was on her honor that she did this, even though every step downward took a little more of her heart each time.
This time, though.... this time, the rest of her heart dropped to the glowing sigil at her feet when the walls faded enough for her to see through them.
The cell was empty.
*
Part I
Duty vs. Obligation
*
Walter reached behind the bar, nearly knocking Willa over as he did and pulled a bag out from behind it, handing it over. “Maybe next time don't hire HYDRA agents,” he said brightly.
“Hey, it's not like I knew she was—“
“What Walter means is 'here, I found the thing, so my weird little brain is off its finding high,'” Willa said. “I speak his language, he's bad at stuff like being normal.”
“Okay, well, thanks for this,” the scientist said, tucking the slim, battered notebook back into her backpack. “It's got most of my theories and is pretty sentim—hey, why is he walking away?”
Leo watched Walter meander back out of the bar and turned back to Doctor Jane Foster with a small smile. “Walter doesn't care about why something's important, Doctor. He just cares about finding it, that's his thing. But it's our pleasure.”
“I've already paid you, right?”
“Yes. If there's ever anything else we can do for you, don't hesitate to ask.”
When she had left, Leo took a glass of water and went out onto the patio. The hatch to Walter's vault was open and muffled banging could be heard from within. He sat on a chair and waited, and after a few minutes, Walter reappeared from below, something in his hand.
“She go already?” He looked crestfallen. “I wanted her to sign a napkin she scratched some equations on once.”
“How'd you get that?”
“Found it.” Walter went below again, presumably to tuck the napkin back where it resided, and when he returned he sat in a chair next to Leo. “So this is like one degree of separation from the Avengers, right?”
“Didn't think you cared about things like that.”
“I don't. Just a little somethin' to put on my resumé.”
Translated from Walter's usual obtuseness, Leo figured that meant that he'd filed away Jane Foster as a potential future contact, and took a sip of his water. It didn't hurt, having an astrophysicist owing a favor, particularly when she was at the forefront of her field and had a Norse god on speed dial. “It is pretty rude to point out that she had a HYDRA plant in her lab though.”
“She needed to know.” Walter paused, his face scrunching up. “Why do they call themselves HYDRA, anyway? Their little fan club sign doesn't even look like a hydra.”
“Who knows? I don't make it a habit of psychoanalyzing fascist cults, Walter.”
“Didn't that one guy say the thing about enemies?”
“I don't think Lao Tzu meant that you had to understand the symbology of your enemy to be able to defeat him.”
“Spirit of the law, Leo.”
*
The first words out of her mouth when the lights of the Bifrost cleared away were, “He is gone.”
She didn't need to elaborate. Thor's face tightened, and he gestured for her to come inside.
“When did you find out?”
“This morning. We have searched the city as quietly as we could; he is not on Asgard. Thor... he undid the trace spell placed on him. We have no way of finding him.”
Thor ran a hand over his chin, staring out at the city. “He could be anywhere, in the realms or beyond them. But we have no choice; he cannot be allowed to roam freely after what he has done.”
She hated seeing him in so much pain. Truly, it seemed that he had not been happy since Loki had been thrown off Odin's seat, his illusion dropped, his plots in shambles. He had stood by the bed that his once brother had been laid in, put into a magically induced sleep while his prison was created, and Sif had hardly seen the Thor she had known since.
They spent a few more hours going back and forth, trying to divine where Loki might have gone, what his hideouts could be, what his goals were, but got nowhere. The despair in Thor's entire being was starting to take root in her soul when Jane Foster walked in.
Sif liked her, this mortal who had captured Thor's heart. Inevitably she would leave him after far too short a time, but if nothing else she made him smile, and that was enough for Sif. Thor was smiling now, going to greet his lady, and Sif hung back until Jane and Thor had finished their greetings.
“Was your trip fruitful?” Thor asked. Jane pulled out a slim black book and grinned, and he smiled too. “I am glad.”
“Well, it's got some pretty good drawings in it, anyway.” Jane leaned around Thor and gave Sif a little wave. “Hey, Sif.”
As befit the chosen partner of the Prince, Sif put her fist over her heart and bowed. Jane fumbled with her book a moment before setting it and her bag down and walking over to embrace Sif. “It's good to see you again,” she said. “So what brings you to Earth?”
“Business of concern to all of us. Loki...”
Jane's eyes narrowed. “What about him?”
“He has escaped.” Thor drew in a breath. “I can take you somewhere safe—“
“Whatever your brother is, he's not stupid enough to come after me.”
“We have been trying to determine where he might be, but this far we have been unable to determine where he might go.”
Something came over Jane's face then, and Sif reminded herself that this woman was made of sterner stuff than most. Her expression would have been sly on Loki, but on her it just looked canny.
“I know someone who might be able to help,” she said. “Hope you packed a swimsuit.”
“We swim naked on Asgard.”
“Well, I'm sure there's a place for that too. C'mon, Thor, we're going back to Florida.”
*
He burst into bright sun and wet heat. The air seemed thick enough to choke him, cloying with the scent of trash and humanity and chemicals, and Loki leaned against the side of the building he'd appeared beside, coughing, until he could catch his breath. He didn't want to stay here, and indeed it was a terrible idea; even though Asgard had nobody who was half as adept with magic as he was, they knew enough to follow the path he'd opened. So he brushed his fingers over his body, his plain prisoner's tunic and pants becoming the kind of clothes he could see on the people walking by the alleyway's opening. Another glamor blurred the hard lines of his jaw, lightened his hair, made his eyes become a mossy green. Not too difficult to maintain, once he'd set the hooks of the spell to his skin, but enough to throw off anyone who'd recognize his face.
Shelter was the next task. Loki left the alley and followed the flow of traffic, trying to ignore the disgusting feeling of sweat beading up on his skin. He needed to find a place to stay and plan his next move. Midgard was the last place that Thor or Sif would think to look for him, and so afforded him more time than going to one of the other realms, save perhaps Hel, and he was not sure of the welcome he'd receive there. No, safe bets were the way to play it right now.
Lucky that he had unraveled the trace, Loki thought as he walked. It had been a complex one, and when they'd first latched the spell to him (inept and bumbling with the magic they were so unfamiliar with) he'd recognized it as some of Frigga's handiwork. She'd made the traces up for him and Thor, when they were younger and ran wild through the realm, promising she'd only use them if there was a question as to their well-being. She would have been livid to know how her weaving was being used now.
Loki ground his teeth, stamping out that thought as he turned down a street that seemed to dead-end into the ocean. The more people around the more likely he would go unnoticed, and he needed the biggest head start he could get.
*
Sif was used to her presence causing a stir among mortals; she was taller than most of them, carried what they considered antiquated weaponry, had been told that she seemed more radiant than most people. So when the only one to look up out of the three occupants of the tavern was the young girl, Sif found herself wondering what kind of place Jane had led them to.
“Oh my god,” the girl said, her eyes wide. “Oh my god, that's Thor, oh my god—“
She slammed a glass container labeled Honor Jar down and ran out from behind the bar, causing the large dark-skinned man at a table opposite a board (reading, inexplicably, Ninjas vs. Pirates) to look up.
“Willa!” he called after her, but when a door banged in the back of the tavern, he sighed. “We didn't expect to see you back so soon, Dr. Foster. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I'm fine. But my friends need your help.”
Another man who had lifted up a newspaper as soon as they'd walked in lowered the top half now. “Who are your friends, anyway?” he asked, sounding suspicious. “How'd they get here?”
“Walter, don't be so confrontational,” the large man admonished. “Please forgive him, he's got trust issues. I'm Leo Knox, and this is Walter.”
Thor stepped forward. “I am Thor Odinson of Asgard, and she,” he gestured to Sif and motioned her forward, “Is Lady Sif, the finest warrior of our realm.”
“Obviously,” Walter said. He didn't sound at all convinced. “Why are you here?”
“Jane Foster has told me that you are able to find anything.” Sif stepped to the fore; this was her responsibility, she would not have her Prince or his lady take the burden off her shoulders. “I have lost something. Someone.”
“We've all lost someone—“ At a quelling look from Leo, Walter made a face, then grinned up at her. “Is it true that you can punch through walls? I heard you can punch through walls. Can you demonstrate—“
“Who is it you want found? And is this... well, is it the Avengers asking? There are a few complex legal issues with them right now.”
“Leo is a lawyer,” Jane explained. “No, it's not an Avengers thing. It's... well. Sif, Thor, why don't you tell them?”
So Sif told them the facts of the matter, keeping her voice as level as she could. There were a few times that she thought Thor and Jane exchanged a glance, places where her voice betrayed her, but she felt by the time that she finished that she'd gotten the whole story out with the businesslike manner necessary.
When she was done, Walter tilted his head, watching her with a strange stare for a long moment. She watched him back. He had a strange affect, almost seeming manic, but Sif thought perhaps there was much more to this man than it appeared. In that moment she understood why Jane would have entrusted this man with her own task.
“Before I say yes or no,” Walter told her, “You need to know something. When I set out to find whatever it is I'm asked to find, I usually find something that you didn't want to know. When something disappears there's always secrets involved, and not everyone is happy about them comin' out.”
Sif drew in a breath. “It is more important that Loki not be allowed his freedom,” she said firmly. “You have seen what he has done on your realm. He is a danger to others, to the universe...”
“To himself,” Thor muttered. Jane took his hand. Sif clenched her fist.
“Could I have a moment to talk about this with Walter?” Leo said. He'd grown increasingly stone-faced as she'd spoken. “Alone, please?”
Jane took them outside, back into the oppressive heat of this state of Florida. Sif's armor felt too heavy for her; an absurd notion, for Asgardian steel was the lightest and strongest material in any realm. “This heat is worse than the fires of Muspelheim,” she grumbled.
“Welcome to Florida.”
They turned to see the girl standing before them. She'd changed clothes and applied makeup to her face, trying to make herself look older. Sif bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing; this happened nearly every time she'd come to visit Thor, and she had yet to tire of it.
“I'm Willa Holland,” the girl said, sticking out a hand, then thinking better of the gesture when all their hands were already halfway out to hers, then trying to recommit, and finally settling for a little wave. “Hi.”
“Greetings, Willa,” Thor said with a charming smile. Jane coughed and turned away so Willa couldn't see her snickering.
“Does this ever bother you, this constant fawning?” she asked Jane in a low voice.
“Nope, I think it's hilarious. He gets so flustered about it.”
Faintly raised voices came from inside, and Sif glanced over at the door. “Do you think they will agree to aid us in finding Loki?”
Jane hesitated before answering. “I'm not sure. I think Walter wants to.”
“Why is this even a matter of debate?”
“Because no matter what Loki's done or what kind of punishment he deserves, some might think it's not right to return him to a life of isolation. I'm not one of them, but I think that's the debate here.”
Sif looked back over her shoulder, wondering if perhaps she had made a mistake in coming here. Whatever her feelings were regarding Loki's situation, he had made his own bed and could lay in it for all she cared. At least, thinking of it made her feel less conflicted, and there were certain things she wanted to make sure were very clearly defined.
After another few minutes, the door swung open and both Leo and Walter stepped out onto the creaky wood patio. Leo looked dour, but Walter seemed very pleased, so she took that as a good sign and offered him a slight smile.
“Cheese!” Walter took a picture of her suddenly, pulling the square of plastic out of the camera and waving it around in the air. “For our records.”
“Does this mean you will find Loki?”
“Against my better judgment and personal quarrel with condemning anyone to solitary isolation for the rest of their near-immortal life, yes, we'll find Loki for you,” Leo replied.
“You are certain?”
“I never fail. Can't do it. Would literally go insane.”
“He kind of already is,” Willa stage-whispered to Thor. “The FBI said so.”
“We're gonna need to see it.”
“See what?”
“Where he escaped from.”
Willa lit up. “I'm gonna be the first Romani astronaut!”
*
Then.
*
The wind whipped through her hair and pulled the laughter from her lips before it could be given full voice. Faster than horses, just a hair slower than travel by Bifrost, the gun-boat wove in between the towers of the city. Her hand gripped the tiller tightly, vibrating and wobbling slightly with her inexperience. Out in the big open spaces above the fields it hadn’t been much of an issue, but she’d been talked into flying into the city, and now she shrieked with glee as her inexpert turns brought them dangerously close to the sides of buildings.
“Careful!” her companion shouted, but he was grinning, and Sif thought all this near-death was worth it if Loki would smile like he was now. Rare it was that he was unrestrained, eyes twinkling and smile bright and without edge as he reached over, laying his hand atop hers so he could guide them in to one of the palace’s landing platforms.
“I can do it!” she shouted over the wind.
“Like you have been since we got back into the city?” he asked, but trustingly removed his hands… though not his body, she noted with a jolt of pleasure. He was still long and lean muscle at her back and she leaned a bit into him as she moved. Unnecessarily, but when was anything about lust necessary?
Sure enough she was so distracted that she bumped the landing, and only the Einherjar’s quick reflexes saved a few of them from getting run over. But she was laughing, and Loki was smiling as he helped her off, his hands on her waist.
“Next time, I will land us,” he said. She tilted her chin up.
“Next time, I will be better,” she countered. Loki’s lips twitched.
“Just so,” he agreed. “Come in out of the cold, my lady. Let me teach you about the finer points of landing a gun-boat…”
*
Now.
*
“Do we both have to go?” Leo asked as they waited. “I don't think Willa should be left alone.”
“I don't think I'm gonna need long. Maybe half a day. Besides, how often do you get to go to another planet for work?”
Sif had made sure to communicate to Heimdall that they would need one of the gun-boats waiting for them, as she didn't trust the two mortals with horses. Besides, it was a far faster and easier way to travel, and allowed her to show off her home. Even the mercurial Walter seemed fascinated, before they looped toward the back of the palace and landed. It was a smooth landing, one of her better ones, and Sif was glad for it.
“This way. Follow me, and try not to wander off – the palace is large, and we are short on time.”
She led them down the steps she had taken every day for the last year. Somehow the darkness seemed less enveloping and her heart less heavy, knowing Loki was not at the bottom now, but she quickly put that thought away. Best not dwell on things like that too much.
The guards were no longer on duty, not while there wasn’t a prisoner there, and the cell had been left in its raised position. Even so, the place seemed dim and dismal, and Sif hung back from the opening when Walter marched on into the cell.
“You kept a man down here?” he asked, turning round in the center. “No wonder he’s batshit crazy.”
“He was quite mad long before he was put down here.” Sif watched ever more dubiously as Walter wandered from one stack of books to the next, laid down on the simple bed, sat at the smooth metal table. When he picked up things and started licking them, though, Sif glanced at Leo in clear confusion.
“Walter needs to know everything about what he’s trying to find. His methods are a little… unconventional, but…”
“As long as Loki is recaptured.”
“No wonder he busted himself out of here,” Walter said from inside, his voice doubled by the spells transmitting sound inside the cell to the outside. “Trapped like this, even I’d go bonkers.”
That may already be the case, Sif thought to herself. “Loki has no right to comfort. We provide books, we provide food. He had his chance, and he chose wrongly.” She paused. “Did you say that he got himself out of here?”
“Yup.”
“You must be incorrect. It is impossible—“
“’parently not, ‘cause he totally did it.”
For a moment her heart betrayed her, made her feel a stab of joy – of course Loki had figured a way out of his cell, of course he had—then her mind caught up once more. “How?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. But I know he didn’t hang around.”
“He wouldn’t. So where did he go?”
*
He hated Florida.
Beyond the masses of humanity, most of whom seemed to be disgustingly aged, there were cars, and animals, and above all the sweltering wet heat that conspired to make him feel like he was leaking, a most unpleasant sensation. Sad that it was the least likely place for him to be, and thus the best place for him to be given the circumstances.
The inn he had found was painted in garish tones of pink and green, and the pool area crawled with shrieking children. Luckily it had a bar, and now Loki sat in the shade with a drink just as gaudy as the building’s exterior, his eyes hidden behind dark wraparound sunglasses, trying not to melt.
Even now he imagined that Asgard was tearing itself apart looking for him. It would move on to the other realms soon, and eventually perhaps it would turn its eyes here. By then he would be gone from this place, to somewhere far less sweaty.
“You look as miserable as I feel, young man.”
Lowering his sunglasses, Loki eyed the elderly human sitting at the next table. She had a folded newspaper and a pen, but apparently hadn’t done most of the crossword it was open to. She had a similarly vibrant drink with condensation dripping down the side of the glass, and as he watched, she scooped it up and took a sip of it. “You believe so?”
“Ah, you’re foreign, that’s why.” She took another sip, eyed the glass, and took a longer swig. “Why anyone would come to this hellhole is beyond me.”
“You are here, are you not?”
“Not by choice, I’ll tell you that much.”
Loki slipped his sunglasses back up his nose – the glare of sunlight off the water was starting to blind him anyway – and settled back in his chair. “I know what it is like to be sent somewhere you have no desire to go.”
“I thought you Brits were better at going where you weren’t wanted.”
It took Loki a moment to remember the history of this realm and smile thinly. “Well, not all of us benefitted from that, my lady.”
“I’m nobody’s lady, not anymore. You just call me Dolores.” She waited a moment, then raised one wispy white eyebrow above her own dark glasses. “Usually this is where we Americans introduce ourselves.”
“I’m not American.” But Loki nodded. “Call me Luke.”
“An alias if I ever knew one, but it’ll do. Seems to suit you.” Dolores turned back to her crossword. “So what brings you to the sweaty asshole of the country, Luke?”
His lips twitched. “My health.”
She snorted. “That’s what my kids convinced me of. But I’d rather have braved my remaining winters in my own home, rather than in this overpriced hole, and my rheumatoid be damned. We all run from something though, when we come here.”
Loki eyed this Dolores out of the corner of his eye, wondering if she was some kind of soothsayer. Mortals had no such abilities, to the best of his knowledge, but now his information was out of date. He would have to investigate. “I cannot imagine another reason to come to Florida.”
*
“Midgard,” Sif repeated. “He would not. He hates Midgard.”
“Earth is definitely where he went.” Walter had asked that everything in Loki’s cell be taken out and laid around him in the small hall Sif had requested for their work. In addition, trunks of his belongings, cleared out of his apartments in the palace, had been brought in. Walter had gleefully dug into these despite Sif’s warnings that Loki had probably laid powerful enchantments around things he didn’t want disturbed.
“Magic isn’t real,” Walter had told her, shoulders-deep in one of the trunks. “Hey, what’s this?”
He’d held out a sheathed knife, the silver hilt set with rubies, and Sif had stared at it a moment before pushing it back. “Nothing. Get on with it.”
And now Walter was saying that Loki was somewhere on Midgard, and she was beginning to wonder if Jane Foster knew what she was about, bringing her to this crazy mortal. “How could you possibly know that just by looking at his old things?”
“It’s called looking for what isn’t there.” Walter had spread out notes in Loki’s spiky hand. “He’s got information about literally every other planet but Earth. If I wasn’t right, I’d say it’s almost too easy.”
“I say again, he hates it on Midgard – on Earth. Why would he go there?”
“Because he hates it,” Leo supplied. “He probably thinks it’s where he’s safest because he’s least likely to be looked for on a planet he’s tried to conquer.”
Sif opened her mouth to argue, but shut it. There was a certain logic to it, after all. “Midgard is a large place, and Loki conceals himself from Heimdall’s sight. We’ll never find him among the humans.”
“That’s why you have me.” Walter grinned, and gestured to Loki’s old belongings. “Can I get this to go?”
As Sif went off to collect guards to help them, Walter scrunched up his face. Leo leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “What is it?”
“She’s hiding something.” Walter said, crossing his arms on top of a pile of old clothes. “I’m gonna find out what it is.”
“She didn’t hire us to find out her secrets, Walter.”
“I don’t think we can find Loki without finding them out too. Call it my magic sense, and it’s tingling.”
*
Then.
*
Nights on Asgard were always full of stars, bright with the Branches of Yggdrasil that cradled the realm. They lit the rubies on the knife he held in his hand, a fine piece he’d had made by one of the best metalsmiths in the city. Beautiful and deadly, just like the lady he intended it for.
It was Sif who now occupied his mind. He’d left the feast hall with her still recounting the tale of their most recent exploits and her prominent place in them, gesturing wildly about with her fork to illustrate the movement of friend and foe alike. She had glowed in the light, and he had quietly excused himself; a creature of shadow such as he did not deserve to sit at her knee, much less look upon her face. Certainly he did not deserve the honor that he wanted to ask for, with this knife as his pledge.
He could not sit so close to the light.
So he had withdrawn to the quieter veranda to think underneath the stars, to consider his gift and his intentions and how his mother had looked upon him with knowing eyes. He was not sure he had the nerve to do it, or that he even had the right to. Sif could take lovers, had indeed so honored him, but would she want him in a more permanent fashion?
Sif, he thought to himself, May I have the honor of courting you? No, no, she’s hardly that formal… Sif, I would very much like to…
“Loki? What are you doing out here?”
Hurriedly he tucked the knife behind his back, smiling at her. It was shaky, but Sif always made him smile – on the inside, if not outwardly. Now it was on the outside. “Getting some air,” he said. “I fear the air in the hall grows overwarm with boasting.”
She smiled and his gut clenched. “And how much of that was from your own mouth?”
“Not enough, sadly.”
“Oh, Loki.” Sif brushed his cheek with a hand before slipping past to stand in one of the little balconies off the main veranda. Like a satellite he followed her, inescapably drawn. “I never thought modesty would come out of you.”
“It’s not modesty, merely a wish to not have the audience’s attention divided.”
As he spoke, though, he slipped the knife back into its pocket of magical space. Now was not the time.
He never got up the courage to even consider asking again.
*
Part II
Forgiveness vs. Absolution
*
“I can’t believe you two!”
“Willa, it would violate your probation if you left here.”
“My probation doesn’t say anything about other planets! I could have gone to a whole planet of Thors!”
“Most of them didn’t look like him,” Walter said from where he was pinning things up, spreading out Loki’s belongings. Sif watched, tense, as he picked up a length of green ribbon from deep in one of the trunks and laid it out on a small table. Moving through piles of things that had belonged to a man she once knew well, she surreptitiously scooped up the ribbon and tucked it into a pocket.
“We Asgardians are as varied as you are,” she said, trying to be kind to Willa. “Perhaps once this is all done, I will take you to visit. With the proper permission, of course.”
Willa gave her a smile. “See? Wonder Woman wants me to come visit.”
“I’m sure Lady Sif has better things to do than chaperone guests all the time,” Leo told her, but hesitated. “But ask your probation officer anyway.”
Sif watched as Walter scuttled around arranging things according to some plan he had only in his head. “What does he do now?” she asked.
“This?” Willa leaned on the bar counter, watching interestedly. “This is how Walter’s brain makes sense of itself.”
“Are you certain it does make sense? I must find—“
“Yeah, yeah.” Walter handed Sif a stick with a nail on one end and nudged her out onto the patio where a map of the continents of Midgard was drawn out crudely with chalk, upon which a small forest of brightly colored balloons had sprouted.
Walter passed out another stick to Willa and kept one for himself. “Now we figure out where your boyfriend went,” he said brightly. “First—“
“He is not my boyfriend, he is my duty.”
“Whatever makes you sleep better at night.” Walter used the non-nail end of his stick to nudge her into position over two of the continents. “You handle Europe and Africa. Willa, you deal with Asia and Australia.” He straddled a narrow strip of land connecting “North America” and “South America” and raised his stick.
“The balloons represent countries. When we determine he isn’t somewhere, we pop them,” Walter explained.
“How can you be sure you are correct?”
Walter gestured to Loki’s belongings. “It’s all right there. Pretty interesting guy, I gotta say, if you can get past the whole megalomania-taking-over-the-world business. I still think he’d be better than Trump, but you know, natural born citizen and all. Anyway, it’s all very logical.”
“Walter-logic isn’t normal logic,” Leo said from where he was idly flipping through one of the books they’d hauled back from Asgard. “But it gets the job done.”
“More or less.” Walter gestured to Sif. “Knock out all the northern European countries and the British Isles.”
It took some explanation but she did so, popping the balloons for those countries. “Why would he not go somewhere cold?” she asked.
“Because those would be the first places on the planet you’d look for him. Willa, that means you take out Russia.” He paused, staring at her part of the map. “And the rest of Asia. He’d stand out too much and people would notice, and that’s what he doesn’t want.” Walter looked round at the map. “He wants somewhere with a high tourist population, somewhere he can blend in as a traveler, disappear into the mob. But not too much, because he has this weird innate need to be noticed. At least by you, Sif.”
At Walter’s direction, Sif popped a few more countries’ balloons, places where the tourism industry wasn’t large enough to cover the movements of an Asgardian who couldn’t help but stand out. “He has strong magical abilities, you realize,” she said as she popped a balloon with Romania on it. “He could look like anyone.”
“But he wouldn’t. Based on his actions here a few years ago—“ Walter popped a balloon labeled Argentina but left Brazil alone. “—he loves attention, and if he looks like a normal human, as much as it’ll help his whole laying low thing, he won’t go too far from his normal appearance. Pop everything that’s not bordering the Mediterranean or South Africa. And Sokovia while you’re at it, that place doesn’t even really exist anymore.”
Sif jabbed with her stick. Only a few countries remained now, and as she surveyed them, she began to realize what it was that Walter was judging by. If he thought he could know Loki as she did just by reading his papers, he was mistaken. Turning in place, she said, “He would not go somewhere he had not already gained extensive knowledge of. He is incredibly intelligent and adept at blending in, but if he is running, he wants it to be easy now at the start. He always did take the coward’s way,” she muttered. “Why, by the Stars, I have no idea…”
She gestured to Australia, New Zealand, and turned to take off the rest of the African countries. As tempting as it was to say he’d be there, she knew better. Walter only had one balloon left, the one labeled USA. Willa’s countries were all gone, so she went to sit down and watch them.
“Don’t know that it’s being a coward so much as it’s being smart,” Willa said. “You do a job, you want to make sure you know as much as possible about where you’re going before you go in. No surprises.”
Sif let those words sink in, then popped the rest of her balloons. “No surprises,” she agreed. “Loki hates them when they’re not facilitated by him. Which leaves only this country.” She put her stick down in USA. “Not that this will be a small feat.”
“We know he won’t be in New York,” Willa said. “And anywhere it’s cold right now, which knocks out anything above about Missouri.”
“Anywhere that gets snow.”
Sif thought of her own reaction to Loki’s parentage and sighed. They were probably right, Loki wouldn’t want to risk turning his skin its natural hue. “Which still leaves a large swath of this country.”
Walter was staring at her feet. “Maybe not,” he said. “Leo, we’re gonna need you to drive.”
*
Then.
*
She pushed aside a curtain and found him sitting there, doing something inexplicable with magic. Ire welled up in her as she glowered down at him.
“What happened?” she demanded. Loki appeared to ignore her until she nudged him with the toe of one jeweled slipper. When he at last decided to look up at her, he gave her a thin smile that only served to irritate her more.
“What do you mean?” he asked innocently. “I thought it was all going rather well.”
“Except that you completely humiliated me!” she snapped.
“Did I?”
“Yes! Don’t play stupid with me, Loki, I know you better.”
“Apparently you know others better, too.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Is that what this is about, Loki? Your jealousy? Have I not been faithful—“
“I wouldn’t know,” he replied, looking anywhere but the deep green ribbon wound into her hair, a token he had slipped into her hand before a melee one summer. She had worn it in her hair then as now, but it seemed more an accusation than a token of affection. “Seeing as how it’s all been such a secret. Are you so ashamed of me, then?”
Sif gave him an odd look. “I thought you wanted the privacy, Loki, so I never thought to ask—“
“No, you didn’t. That’s the problem, isn’t it.”
“The problem is you!” she snapped, and though he could see on her face that she realized what she’d just said when she said, it, he saw her set her jaw and plunge onward, a warhorse with the bit in its teeth unwilling to slow down. “Had you a scrap of decency in you, instead of thinking only in terms of comparing yourself to Thor, you would hardly be in this position! But you love your ambitions more than you could ever love me or anyone else, save yourself.”
Stung, Loki got to his feet. If there was one thing in the realms that he was good at it was wounding with words, and so he hissed, “And what of you, my lady? What of your ambitions that make you turn away from me in public, worry about what the court whisperers will say of your rise to fame among Asgard’s warriors? Anyone who has seen you fight cannot think that you only bedded your way to the top, but that conviction is strong in your heart, is it not?”
Sif gaped at him, then tore at her hair, unraveling the braids until it was a dark corona around her face. She held the ribbon in one hand, balled up, and as she turned to go she flung it back at him.
“You don’t know my heart, Loki Odinson,” she said quietly. “And the way you talk, it seems you never did.”
She was gone.
*
Now.
*
“So what is it that you’re running from, anyway?”
Loki set his drink down. The napkin the waiter had delivered it on was stuck to the glass table now, and he rubbed the condensation from his long fingers before replying.
“My past.” It was as good an answer as any, and as honest as he felt like being. Dolores had proved herself pleasant company, for an elderly mortal; she had a quick mind and a sharp tongue, and if Loki had been in any other situation he would have admitted to taking a shine to her. But being a fugitive precluded that.
Dolores, of course, wasn’t about to take his vague reply as a decent answer. She gave him a significant look over the top of her glasses. “You’re not old enough to have a past to run from.”
“How do you know?”
“When you live as long as I have, Luke, you learn to be perceptive. Like I know that the reason my children sent me on a vacation to Florida is because they want me to move here, to leave the home I raised them in so they can squabble over who moves in while I rot away down here in this swamp.”
“It seems we’re both in prisons we never chose.”
“Perhaps. But I can piss them off by continuing to live and enjoying myself, when they’d just as soon see me in one of those awful homes.”
“It sounds as though you care nothing for your children.”
Dolores snorted. “The tragedy of it is that I do. I love them as much as I did the day they were each laid in my arms, and I consider it a failure that this is what they’ve come to. I thought I raised them better, but I suppose we’re all disappointments in our own way.”
Loki traced the rim of his glass for a moment before raising it to his lips. “I suppose that’s so,” he murmured quietly. He couldn’t bring himself to admit that he loved anyone; it was a useless sentiment that had only gotten him hurt, and he could not afford that.
“So it’s your family too.”
“Are you a soothsayer, my lady?”
“I told you to stop calling me that.”
“I don’t listen very well, I’m afraid. But my question stands – can you somehow read me?”
Dolores laughed, a thin and reedy sound. “You aren’t as obtuse as you think you are, Luke,” she said. “Now, hush up and help me with this crossword.”
That night though, Loki found that he could not sleep. His mind whirled with images, memories he thought he’d suppressed long ago. Old regrets…
“I have no time for regrets anymore,” he murmured, and turned out the light. In a few days he would move on, and leave this place – and an uncomfortably perceptive old mortal – behind.
*
In the morning they continued up the coast. Leo had the top of his car down, and Sif closed her eyes and let the sun warm her face and the wind comb her hair. Despite the urgency of her mission – she had a feeling that wherever Loki was hiding, he would not be there for much longer – she relished this moment of serenity. Soon she would not be, for she would have to speak to Loki. She had not had the courage to do it since Thor had gratefully accepted her taking on the duty of seeing to his imprisonment. She did not know what to say then, and she had even less of an idea now.
My apologies for being the face of your prison, she thought, resting her chin in her hand as the waters of the ocean passed by alongside the road. The one who loved you now the one who shuts the door on your freedom.
“Why would he be out in Miami?” Leo was saying in the front seat, and Sif pulled herself out of her thoughts to listen.
“Miami Beach,” Walter corrected. “It’s full of people. Lots of people, of all different faces. Whatever woo-woo he has, it’s not a substitute for actually being able to lose yourself in a crowd. You could comb that place for days and you’d never find him.”
“So how are we going to? Even knowing where he is, that’s not going to make it any easier.”
“We look for where he’s not.”
“What’s that mean?”
Walter caught her eye in the tiny mirror in the shade. “Xena! What does Loki like?”
Sif pursed her lips. “Attention.”
“Besides that. What kind of creature comforts?”
“All of them. Even in his first imprisonment he was given fine furs, comfortable furniture, when the other prisoners had none of it.”
“So he likes luxury. But we know he’s rejected his usual methods for this.”
“Walter, I know where this is going,” Leo said, “And even in Miami Beach there have to be a hundred hotels—“
“We only need one. Onward!”
Miami Beach ended up being a sandy, sweaty island, teeming with mortals. People stared as Sif unfolded herself from the car in her armor, shielding her eyes against the glare of the ocean as she looked around. “How are we to find him here?”
“I’ve got a hunch.” Walter held up a phone, waved away Leo’s protests of that’s my phone, Walter, and tapped the screen a few times.
“Loki likes to be comfortable, but he doesn’t want to stand out too much. He wants to blend in, but not so much that he goes completely unnoticed due to whatever combination of complexes drives his narcissism. He won’t be in Miami proper because it’ll increase his chances of being noticed even with a disguise – no offense, but you Asgardians are really really bad at not standing out – but he wants to be in a populated area. And now that we have a list of places, all we have to do is go to each one and see if he’s there.”
This turned out to be easier said than done. Sif was constantly stopped and asked for photos, and though she managed to convince each group that she was on important business for Asgard and regrettably could not stop, it slowed her down. In her mind, each minute that ticked by was a minute more that Loki had to run. She would not let him run anymore, she could not, it was her duty…
More than that, though, she was tired of looking at Loki’s back. She would look upon his face at last, and perhaps it was time, now, to speak her mind.
In the afternoon, they found him.
*
Loki was in his room gathering the possessions he’d managed to accumulate in the few days he’d been here. Something was compelling him to move on, keep running, and he figured he had better heed it. His instincts had rarely been wrong, and the thought of going back into that prison made him physically ill, and so he would do what he was best at. He would run, and run far.
A knock at the door made him freeze. The only person he knew here who would knock at this time of day was Dolores, and she was currently off with an old college friend. The hotel staff knew better. So who…
He opened the door, saw Sif, and slammed the door shut again. Or tried to, because Sif stuck a foot in and blocked the door from closing all the way. “I thought I told the staff to keep out the vermin,” he muttered. She stiffened, and as much as he hated it, he enjoyed seeing her get angry.
“You know why I am here, Loki,” she said, forcing her way into the room. “By the order of the regents of Asgard, I am here to return you to your cell, to serve out your punishment—“
“To condemn me back to a life of isolation. I didn’t think even you were so cruel, my lady.”
“It is no less than you deserve!” Needing support, Sif looked behind her to see Walter trotting back down the stairs toward the car. “We aren’t done!”
“I am,” Walter called back over his shoulder. “I found Loki for you. I don’t care about whatever you two lovebirds have to work out. We’ll be waiting when you’re done. Oh, and ah, you may want to tell him that you actually returned his feelings. I don’t think he believed it.”
Sif watched, incredulous, as both Walter and Leo went to wait in the car. Behind her, Loki cleared his throat.
“You brought a block?” he asked, his voice chilly. She felt in a pocket for the rune-encrusted stone that blocked his access to the paths he’d used to escape the first time. It was warm to the touch; so, he’d already been trying.
“I had to be sure you would not leave again.”
They stared each other down until Sif couldn’t take it anymore and sighed. “He was not wrong, you know.”
Loki glanced at her and then let his eyes slide away. “Do not give me false hope, Lady Sif. If you are to return me to my cell… do not be so callous, not even to me.”
“It is not false.” Sif bristled at having her conviction so questioned, then remembered that for a hundred years she had denied it herself. “It isn’t.”
“Then how,” he hissed, “Could you have stood by and allowed me to be kept like a shameful secret? How could you have been the one to bring food so that I might be allowed to suffer for even longer? How could you abandon me, if you truly cared for me?”
She tried to think of a good reason, but all the ones she had known for this whole ordeal seemed to be slipping away from her like water, meaningless now that he was before her and speaking. “It was my duty,” she whispered. “My duty and my obligation. But not my joy.” She fished the ribbon out, held it in her hand like it was made of the most precious metal. “Never that.”
Loki’s eyes flicked between her face and her hands, and he licked his lips, uncertain. “So you have my things,” he said.
“Walter needed them to find you.”
“You needed to go through them to find me?”
“He thought it useful. And I found it…”
“What?”
“Enlightening.”
They stared at each other for a moment longer after that. Then Loki sighed.
“You and Thor,” he said, voice soft, “Were always the ones who knew how to find me and ferret out what I meant.”
“We know you best, though in hopefully significantly different ways.” Sif fingered the silk ribbon, then reached up and plaited it into her hair, a long thin braid that hung over her shoulder. “It is why we can hurt each other so well and deeply. Loki… I do not want to force you. Will you come quietly? I… I may be able to use your compliance to garner some sympathy for your situation. Perhaps an easement of your solitude, though not a diminishment of your sentence. You did impersonate the All-father.”
“That sounds dangerously close to treasonous thought.”
“I never liked being told that I am not supposed to do something. You know this.”
She rested her hand on the shackles at her hip, then shook her head and held her hand out to Loki instead. “Will you come?”
He stared at it for a moment as though he’d never seen it before, then nodded to himself and slipped his fingers into her palm. Tension in her heart eased, and she closed her fingers around his hand, leading him back out of the room and down the stairs.
When they were almost to the car, he paused, looking out across the pool. “May I have a moment?” he asked. “There’s someone I owe a farewell to.”
Curious, Sif followed him to where an old mortal sat. Loki stood awkwardly before her, apparently unsure of himself. That was odd indeed.
“Lady Sif,” he said, “May I introduce Dolores, a woman of Midgard who is… a most singular person.”
“He means I’m the only one here worth talkin’ to.” Dolores peered up at Sif over bifocal glasses. “You’re quite a pretty thing. Luke,” and her tone turned into one that Sif had heard out of Frigga many times when addressing her boys, “Why on Earth would you run from her?”
Loki muttered something indistinct, and Sif bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. She hadn’t seen him so flustered in a long time, and had forgotten how funny it was. “It is good to meet you, Dolores,” she said, bowing. “I hope Loki has not caused you too much trouble.”
“Loki, is it? Why am I not surprised… and you needn’t worry, he was no trouble at all. In fact, I’m thinking of writing him into my will.” She eyed Loki, then nodded to Sif. “That would shut my children right up, and I think he needs it, alien or not.”
Sif considered saying that Loki was still in possession of most of his incomes, but kept her mouth shut. Loki seemed pleased by this news, and she would let him enjoy it.
“If you need anything, you have Asgard’s offer of help,” she told Dolores.
“I’ll be sure to take you up on it.”
They got back to the car, and Sif paused to fish out her sword and shield. “I can take him from here,” she said, handing over a purse of gold coins to Leo. “Thank you for your aid, and may you have good fortune.”
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Leo replied. “Walter would say thank you, but he’s bad at things like that.”
“I understand.”
Sif watched them drive off. “You would have liked them,” she told Loki quietly, walking him over to the beach.
“Possibly, if they hadn’t had a hand in my recapture.”
Their feet sunk into the sand as they walked out into a clear area, their hands clasped once more. “Are you ready?”
She felt his hand tighten in hers. “As ever.”
As they were engulfed in light, she felt herself smile. Maybe, just maybe, things were about to change.