Chapter 24
If they didn’t act fast, their window of opportunity would disappear.
The Avengers decided on their plan of action, and Loki decided on hers.
She would not wait until tomorrow morning to track him down. Tyr had killed her mother, and he wouldn’t stop there.
It was kill or be killed.
Her bedroom door stayed locked that night. For this to work, no one could interfere.
Loki hadn’t astrally projected in so long.
She half expected her seidr to reject the request, as doing such a task always proved taxing to her body, but it did not. As she settled into a cross-legged position on the floor, she cast her consciousness with relative ease.
Like a shadow of her physical form, Loki drifted down the streets of New York, the grip on her daggers tight as she avoided being detected by people passing by.
Loki reached Tyr’s hideout not long after, a warehouse tucked near the banks of the Hudson River.
She slipped in through one of the sliding doors, presumably left open by whoever had last been there.
Inside, the warehouse was dark aside from the pool of light that came from an industrial work lamp tucked in a far corner of the building.
Standing with his back turned, Tyr looked as though he were studying the map on the wall, arms crossed and still.
Planning his next attack.
The map was of the different districts of New York.
Next to Tyr, a broad-shouldered man pointed somewhere in the Queen’s portion of the map.
“I suggest we start there,” he said, sounding less of a suggestion and more of a command.
He started explaining why, but Loki had already stopped listening, slowly drawing closer to them, finding a place to hide and wait for the other man to leave.
The less struggle, the better.
The other man left.
Tyr started mumbling to himself.
Loki got ready to pounce, daggers glinting in the moonlight.
She started forward, but a jolt of pain rushed through her.
Her vision went black for a moment, and she shouted, but a hand over her mouth cut it off.
Her daggers clattered to the floor.
Jolted back to her bedroom, she could see the two-thumbed hand clamped over her face, could feel the creature’s breath down her neck, as foul-smelling as death.
No, the Chitauri are supposed to be dead! This wasn’t possible!
It had to be a nightmare. It had to be.
No, the claws digging into her shoulder and face made it very clear that it wasn’t.
She thrashed against the creature, but its grip remained tight. The claws on her shoulder shifted to her neck and squeezed.
She cast a glamour for her face to turn blue, and went limp in the Chitauri’s arms.
The Chitauri laughed as it loosened its grip.
With a snarl, Loki twisted out of its arms and spun to attack it, tackling it to the ground.
The doorknob jiggled, and Steve’s voice came from the other side of the door, “Loki!”
“Come peacefully, and I will spare the lives of your Avengers.”
“You and what army?” Loki scoffed, “Stark destroyed your armies.”
“The Other sends his regards,” the Chitauri sneered.
Loki recoiled, standing up, scrambling to get away from the Chitauri.
The Chitauri might have lunged for her, if that hadn’t been the moment Steve burst into the room to stop it.
“Are you alright?” He asked, pinning the Chitauri to the ground, and called the other Avengers to take it away.
Loki never took her eyes off the Chitauri as Clint and Natasha showed up to drag it away, probably to some cell somewhere in the Tower.
“They were supposed to be dead,” she whispered when it had gone, “I thought . . .”
She looked around the room, the shadows within it seemed somehow darker and more menacing.
Without thinking, she asked, “Can I stay with you tonight?”
Ever since that first night she found out, she had stopped sleeping in Steve’s bed.
While unnoticeable by sight just yet, she had been afraid that Steve might accidentally brush her stomach while she was sleeping, and feel something.
It was a stupid, irrational fear, and she knew it, but then again, fear never was rational for her.
And it wasn’t just Steve; she’d stopped sleeping around anyone else in general. She started locking her doors at night, and as her magic started to dwindle even more, she even started avoiding Bucky again.
It just took too much seidr to keep up her glamour for too long, and Bucky would surely ask what was up if she suddenly started sneaking around in her male form.
So she just kept telling him that she was busy.
They would find out soon if she couldn’t do something about it.
And now she’d just asked Steve to let her sleep in his bed, and her heart had started racing again.
But then Steve wrapped his arms around her, and all her fears seemed to melt away, if only for a moment.
“Of course.”