Chapter Text
I've mostly adjusted to this new universe.
As in I try not to think about the last time I saw the people I considered friends. Sylvie and Mobius, gone forever.
The man known as Fury knows I'm here and that I'm not this universe’s Loki. He's agreed to give me a place to stay and discretionary funds, provided I wear a monitoring device and practice something called therapy.
Dr. Fairchild is not to be trifled with in any capacity. Were she not in the business of listening to others complain, I would think she'd make a good politician, or perhaps some sort of royal advisor.
Fury also stipulated that I was not to contact any Asgardians (namely Thor) without express permission from both him and Dr. Fairchild. Fine by me; I don't need him in my life. I've been here for three months, and things have been…uneventful. I don't know if the other Avengers know that I'm here. If they do, they haven't come to confront me.
I have little faith that things will remain this way.
—
Aside from therapy and the monitoring device, I'm free to come and go as I please, provided I don't leave New York City. It's strange, not being recognized. No one greets me with malice or awe. Most people look past me, barely sparing a glance my way.
It's rainy and as I step into the coffee shop, I realize that the only other person I can see is behind the counter. She's turned away from me, so I can't see her face, but I can see the hair tufts that stick out from the back of her neck.
I step up to the counter and clear my throat. “Excuse me.”
She turns, and the first thing I notice are her eyes. Bright blue, almost electric. The second thing I notice are the bags under those eyes. She stares at me, unblinking.
“Erm. What would you recommend, what's your favorite drink here?” I put on a smile.
Dr. Fairchild says I need to practice being more sociable towards strangers. I'm only doing it because the alternative is being locked in a prison somewhere while SHIELD decides what to do with me.
She glances around, then leans forward on the counter. “My favorite drink is not something that should be consumed by anyone, if I'm being honest. Which I am, because you're the only one here and I'm too hungover to lie.”
I blink. “Tell me about this drink.”
“Yeah, sure. You're gonna take a Dr. Pepper, two pumps of vanilla – maybe four pumps if you're doing a large – fill it, ice, cream, four shots of espresso. Do not mix, let sit for a minute.”
I can't help but physically recoil. “That's disgusting. Do you have a second favorite?”
“You bet I do.” I can't say that her face lights up, but she seems more animated now. “Vanilla, lavender, sparkling water, four shots of espresso.”
She stops to stare at me. “You wanna give that one a shot?”
“Of course not, that sounds awful. …What else do you like, what's number three?” This is no longer about coffee; I just want to hear what she has to say.
“Two pumps of vanilla, carefully layered with heavy cream or half-and-half to the halfway point of a glass, then a balancing act with two shots of espresso. Drink unstirred.”
“Those are the worst drink combinations I've ever heard of." I pause. "I'll have the first one.”
“Gotta break some bad news to you – they don't sell Dr. Pepper here, I go buy mine from the 7-Eleven down the block.” She shrugs.
“I'm going to be back in five minutes.”
Five minutes later, I return. The store is still empty. The girl looks up at me.
“I didn't think you'd actually come back.”
I heft the twelve pack onto the counter. “Do your worst. Do you have any muffins?”
Wordlessly, she pulls a muffin out from the glass display and puts it in a bag. She punches in some things on her register.
“That'll be $3.50.”
“You're forgetting the drink.”
She shakes her head. “If I charged you for this and then later you died because of the drink, I would never forgive myself. Besides, I don't want to have to explain that drink order and its price to my manager later.”
“Fair enough.” I hand over payment and in return receive a blueberry muffin, slightly stale.
“Hang tight, it's gonna take a minute or two to make this.”
It actually takes less than that; despite her sluggish demeanor, she's fast on her feet. All too soon, a medium sized cup of the concoction is put before me.
“Enjoy.”
I take the cup. It feels heavy in my hand. I inhale, then sip.
There's no one word that can describe the immediate feelings; it quickly turns from “this isn't nearly as bad as she made it out to be” into “this was a mistake,” and then finally becomes “still not the worst thing I've had.”
The barista is watching me. “Well? How is it?”
I force myself to swallow. “Could be worse.”
She nods. “Yeah, that's what I figured. Personally, I can't believe you actually drank it.”
“Oh, make no mistake.” I grimace. “I'm not finishing this.”
“Suit yourself.” She pulls an energy drink out from underneath the counter and pops open the tab. She raises it to her lips, tips her head back, and then proceeds to drain the whole thing, crushing the can beneath her open palm. The counter beneath her trembles for a moment.
She looks over and raises an eyebrow, then belches. It's an impressive one. “Are you just gonna watch me do my job?”
I blink. “Er, no.” I glance down at the bag in my hand that contains the muffin, then back up at her.
She's still watching me. “Look pal, either sit and eat your muffin or get out. No creeps allowed.”
“No need to tell me twice.” I roll my eyes and swiftly head for the exit. I can feel her eyes on my back until the coffee shop door closes behind me.
What an odd woman.
—
The majority of the day passes without further incident, and when the sun sets, I decide to go to one of the many bars available nearby.
This one isn't upscale or fancy in any way; in most things, it's a downgrade. As I settle into the bar seat with my drink, I hear the brief whine of static over the speakers before it cuts out and is replaced with:
“Hey, fellow NYC rats! How we feelin’ tonight?”
I freeze. The voice belongs to the woman from the coffee shop. I slowly turn in my seat.
She looks completely different. Her hair has been styled into spikes, and she sports a mustache. As for clothes, she appears to have traded her barista uniform for a guitar, a studded leather jacket, a white t-shirt and flat chest, jeans, and…a spiked codpiece?
Where would you even obtain one of those?
I tune back in just to catch the last of her speech: “...and if anyone doesn't like it, they can —”
“Suck my dick!” the crowd responds with a cheer.
The band on stage starts playing music, or at least a version of it. It's loud, fast, and there's an angry undercurrent to it.
The hairs on my arms tingle and I realize why this feels so familiar: there's a tinge of electricity in the air, and not the metaphorical kind. It's like there's a lightning storm, only there's nothing here. Out of habit, I strain my ears for thunder, but there’s only the music.
That is, until the barista shows off a shower of sparks as she plays a complicated solo on her instrument. The crowd's response is to get even more excited, whooping and yelling as the solo continues. When she finally finishes, she holds up both hands, electricity arcing between her fingertips as she looks skyward while the notes fade into the air. The cheers become raucous applause and she slowly lowers her hands, grinning as she faces the audience once more.
“Thank you, thank you, you're all too kind, really.”
The band moves onto another song, but I can hardly focus on it. (Not that there’s much to focus on, it really does just sound like a bunch of noise.)
Why were her fingers doing that? Is she a superhuman, like Rogers? And if she is, why is she working in a coffee shop of all places?
I pay for my drink and leave the bar, my ears ringing faintly even as the music inside becomes muffled.
—
It’s probably for the best that I didn't drink too heavily last night, because when I wake up in the morning, my head aches fiercely. I groan and roll over, pulling the pillow over my head.
“Rise and shine, Mr. Laufeyson.”
I pause, considering my options.
Fury sighs. “Don’t make me ask again. I need you down at HQ. Disguise yourself, you know the drill.”
“You couldn’t have just texted me?”
“With what phone? Last time I checked our accounts, you didn’t have a plan with T-Mobile.”
I groan and pull the pillow back down. “Look, I’ll be there in an hour. My head is killing me.”
“You have twenty minutes.” I hear him move out of the room, and only when I hear the front door to my apartment close do I finally sit up.
Twenty-two minutes later, with a fresh face and a set of clean clothes, I make my way down to Headquarters. Fury is inside the lobby and I raise my hand in greeting. He nods once, then motions for me to follow him through more than a few security checks before we get to the elevator.
Once the doors close, he turns to look at me. “What do you know about American politics?”
I shift back into my own face. “Less than nothing. Nor do I care to learn. Why?”
“I want to show you something.” He turns back to the elevator doors. “Take us to the Homegrown Bay.”
“Loki Laufeyson does not have authorized access to Project Homegrown,” the elevator informs him.
“Director override, Fury, Nicholas J.”
“Confirmed.”
The elevator begins to descend and I raise an eyebrow. “You’re being uncharacteristically trusting.”
“It’s a hunch. Besides, if you go against me, I know where you live.” He shrugs. “And should anything happen to me, a whole lot of people will also know that.”
“Fair play.”
The rest of the ride down is long and silent until we come to a stop and the doors open. Fury gestures, and I step out first.
Instantly, my brows furrow. The lights overhead flicker just enough to see the dust and broken equipment. “It looks abandoned. What happened?”
He sighs. “A lot, but I’ll condense it. After Rogers’ disappearance, the US government wanted to make its own super soldiers. The problem was, the lead scientist in charge of creating Rogers was dead, and without Rogers to study, we were stuck. We weren’t in the middle of war anymore, but we could be, and that scared a lot of folks.”
He starts walking and I follow him. He leads me to what looks like a glass chamber of some sort. It’s cracked and dusty, with metal apparatuses on either side. He puts a hand on the tarnished metal.
“After the unpopularity of the Vietnam War, nobody wanted to volunteer to be a soldier — not when it was phrased like that.”
“So you lied about…what, exactly?”
“A number of things. I’ll narrow it down and say we lied about what we gave people in some clinical trials.”
I frown. “I thought humans frowned upon experimenting on each other.”
“As a general rule, yes; but when someone with a lot of money wants something, they usually get it.” His eye bores into mine. “I think you might know something about that.”
I wave my hand. “Yes, yes. Carry on, I think you had a point to all of this.”
“I did. It was an off branch operation to create superheroes before they were born. Or, rather, take the fetuses and imbue them with power.”
“I can’t possibly imagine how that might have gone wrong.” I roll my eyes.
Ignoring me, he continues, “Most of them didn’t survive. The ones who made it to term usually died within a few hours, some a few days.”
“And the ones that made it past the three day mark?”
“There were only ever two: Subject 8652, and Subject 8701. The first one was confirmed to have not been affected by the serum, and as far as I know, still lives in New Jersey.”
“And 8701?”
From a pocket, Fury pulls a small device out and presses a button. A hologram of a woman’s head appears — the same woman from yesterday.
I groan. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” I pause. “Wait, hang on. How do you know it’s her?”
He presses another button, and the hologram is replaced with a low resolution version of the bar I was in last night. Even with the poor lighting down here, I can still make out a figure on a stage, with tiny sparks flying from her fingers.
“For the record, humans can’t do that. Not without getting a bunch of OSHA violations or killing themselves.” He presses the button and the image disappears.
“Alright, so you found your missing test subject. Why am I being told about it?”
“Because I need to find a way to bring her in. We’ve been looking for her for over twenty years, and frankly, I think it’s time we find new faces for SHIELD.”
“Is the Captain really that bad off?”
“No, but I’m not going to force him back into service.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Not yet, at least.”
He shrugs. “It’s an open possibility. Regardless, I need you to be the one who gets her here. I’m too obviously a Fed, and from what I’ve gathered from her online activity, she’s going to be hostile toward any sort of law enforcement or government official.”
“So what, you want me to kidnap her?”
Fury pinches the bridge of his nose. “Not unless that’s our only option. But ideally, I’d like you to bring her here willingly.”
“I will if you answer something for me.”
“Depends on the question.”
“What if she doesn’t want to work for you?”
This time, he pauses before answering. It’s only maybe a millisecond, but it says volumes. “The Government doesn’t like loose ends lying around — especially ones that took a lot of funding to make.”
“I see.”
Silence hangs in the air between us, and then:
“How do you want me to get her here?”
He crosses his arms. “By earning her trust. I know that’s something you and Dr. Fairchild have been working on together.”
“And does she know you want me to use these coping skills to bring someone to their potential death?”
“She knows as much as she needs to.” He fixes me with a steely look. “Well?"