Chapter 104
[Classified Location], Sinaloa Warehouse, Mexico
November 2011
Steve caught a glimpse of his own reflection in a window and flinched.
He felt the same. His point of view hadn’t changed to that of a shorter man. His arms were the same length when he reached for things. His stride was the same length. But when he looked at his reflection, he met its eyes squarely and saw a Hispanic man looking back, one who was a lot shorter than six foot two. And he wasn’t looking down at the reflection, either. It was a paradox, and Steve’s brain hurt almost immediately trying to resolve the two conflicting images.
He looked away. Now was not the time to process Loki’s insane voodoo magic.
They’d entered through a small side door and gone almost unnoticed in all the chaos. Bucky, Natasha, and Maria seemed to be causing a disproportionate amount of chaos. Periodic explosions or the roar of Tony passing overhead marked Steve’s only way of keeping track of the battle, with comms down; he and Clint and Loki (who also looked like cartel people, which unnerved him every time he looked at them) hadn’t seen anyone in about two minutes.
None of the rooms they passed was well furnished; the whole place seemed cobbled together and poorly funded. Apparently the cartel people didn’t pay their storage warehouses much.
“Anything?” Clint asked as Steve locked yet another door behind himself.
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Keep going, then,” Clint said.
“Could the intelligence that led us to this place have been incorrect?” Loki asked softly, following in their footsteps. Steve wished the guy didn’t always talk like he swallowed a Charles Dickens novel.
“Unlikely, it’s Tony’s intel,” Clint called back from farther up the hall. “But I guess that’s poss… hold up. Steve. Stairs up here.”
Steve’s head snapped up. “There’s not a second floor in this part of the building.”
“Going down,” Clint said, shining his flashlight down into the stairwell.
Steve swapped a glance with Loki and they broke into a jog.
The stairs went farther down than Steve’ would’ve expected, but not too far for Clint’s flashlight beam. At the bottom was a red door marked by four padlocks.
Clint’s eyebrows were raised almost to his hairline. “Anybody wanna bet that’s not where we’re headed?”
“I do not believe those would be favorable odds,” Loki mused with a faint smile.
“Did you just make a joke?” Clint asked.
Loki arched a brow. “Will you ever know?”
Steve shook his head, smiling, and started down the stairs.
At the bottom, he examined the padlocks. Rusted.
“Hawkeye. Can you pick these?” he asked, in case anyone was listening to them over their comms.
Clint knelt and examined the bottom lock. “I mean, probably, but it’s going to be a minute,” he said. “Shoot them off?”
“Loud, but if that’s the only option–” Steve drew a pistol from his belt.
“Move aside,” Loki said impatiently, and reached out a hand to the door.
Clint scrambled aside instantly, and Steve shifted so Loki had a clear line of sight. The Asgardian began to murmur quiet words beneath his breath. Seconds later, the locks shifted and clicked open with barely a sound.
“Damn, why didn’t we get one of you beforehand?” Clint said. “Hmmm. How about Lockpick?”
“Far too plebeian,” Loki said haughtily. “Not to mention limited.”
“Okay, okay, jeez,” Clint muttered. He and Loki cleared the locks and chains off the door while Steve crept back to the top of the stairs and kept watch.
“Yo, boss man,” Clint called softly. “We’re through.”
Steve jogged back down to them. “Let’s see it.”
Loki hauled the door open.
Lights flickered on automatically. Steve and Clint immediately dropped to the sides of the doorframe, but no bullets or shouts came from the other side of the door. Loki ignored them and walked through, still in the guise of the cartel guy whose face he’d borrowed.
“Not like people shooting at him even matters to him,” Clint muttered.
“Jealous?” Steve said with a grin.
“Course not,” Clint scoffed, standing up.
Steve shot him a look.
“Okay, maybe a little,” Clint said, and they followed Loki through.
Steve’s mouth dropped open.
“Shit,” Clint muttered.
“Accurate assessment,” Loki said.
The room was a basement, but it stretched out under what looked like probably the entire complex of buildings, and it was stacked floor to ceiling with plastic-wrapped cubes of compressed green powder.
Loki stepped up to the nearest stack of packages, each of which was as tall as he. A knife appeared in his hand and he sliced open the plastic sheeting.
Clint stepped back. “Whoa, man, I don’t want to breathe any of that in.”
“I will contain it,” Loki said absently. Some of the powder trickled out through the hole and he caught it in his hand. Freed from the packaging, it was iridescent and almost greasy beneath the cheap fluorescent lighting. Steve kept his distance, like Clint, while Loki rubbed a bit of the powder between his fingers.
“As I suspected,” he said at last. “An adaptation of a compound extracted from a plant that grown only on Vanaheim. The extract is but one of the ingredients; the others appear to be of Midgard, but that extract is the predominant addictive force of the drug.” He twisted his hand, and the powder flowed back up into the hole in the plastic, which sealed itself back over. “It is a clever composition, to be sure.”
“Clever?” Steve asked. That set off some alarm bells. “You’re not thinking of duplicating it, are you?”
“Certainly not,” Loki said. “I find myself respecting Hydra for this, though it is not a death I would wish on any innocent.”
Innocent. Steve’s discomfort grew. He didn’t know how Loki defined “innocent.”
“What about on Thanos?” Clint asked.
Loki’s smile reminded Steve that in every other mammal species he knew of, baring teeth was a threat, not an expression of pleasure. “For Thanos, this death would be far too pleasant.”
“Can’t disagree with you there,” Clint muttered, wandering farther into the stacks. “Damn, they’ve got to have a couple million dollars of product in here at least …”
Steve was watching Loki. “And what if Thanos offered you rule of this realm?” he said. “Or of Asgard, in exchange for your help?”
Loki turned and fixed his eyes on Steve. He remembered what Natasha had said: spiderwebs holding an eagle. “Had he come to me and offered me an alliance in exchange for his aid in conquering Asgard, I may have considered it,” Loki said evenly. “Instead he came as an enemy and broke my mind to his will. I will never form an alliance with him.”
“You expect me to believe you’ll help us protect Earth just because Thanos is the attacker?” Steve asked, letting his skepticism show.
“Yes.” Loki didn’t waver.
“Guys, now is maybe not the time for this,” Clint said, sticking his head back into the open space by the entrance. “We’ve got to decide what to do with all this. It’s way beyond what we planned on having to move. Even Plan E can’t handle this much product.”
“Plan E…” Loki mused. “Is there a Plan F?”
“Technically,” Steve admitted.
Clint’s head snapped over to him. “And you didn’t tell us?”
“Ironside and I made it as a last resort,” Steve admitted. “It involves blowing up the entire facility to vaporize all the drugs. Someone mentioned it when we were meeting with the UN to plan this and everyone shot it down, so we kept it a secret.”
“So we’re going behind the UN’s back?” Clint said. “That’s. Pretty ballsy.”
“We’ll say we accidentally hit a munitions store,” Steve said. “Tony’s already found the one here and figured out how to make it look like that to forensics. It might be the only option. And we can’t risk this ending up in anyone else’s hands. I don’t trust the government with the chemical makeup of this.”
“We should probably head out then, yeah?” Clint said. “If it’s all gonna blow soon.”
Steve looked around. “Not much else we can do here. Unless we vanish all of it.” He looked at Loki. “Could you do that?”
Loki considered the rows and rows of packages on pallets stretching back into the shadowed recesses of the basement. “Possibly,” he said. “However, one of the more interesting properties of this compound is that it is extremely resistant to seidr . Another related natural compound from Vanaheim can be processed in a way that creates a drug that can temporarily eliminate a mage’s power. There is no certainty that this could all be vanished, or that it would go where I sent it. I assume you do not wish for samples of this drug to be scattered over Midgard?”
“Definitely not,” Steve said. “Guess we’re going with Plan F. Let’s get out of here.”
The three of them left the room full of product, pausing only long enough to re-lock the door while Loki added a working he said would hold it against any conventional Midgardian weapon, save for someone breaking through the wall to get to the product. No one would be able to get any of it off the facility. They then took off up the stairs and paused only long enough to clear the hallway before they booked it out of the room.
Steve’s earpiece crackled with Natasha’s voice. “–help–repulsor weapons–Shadow down–”
Clint’s eyes widened a fraction. “Boss, you getting this?”
“Yes,” Steve said grimly. “Let’s go.”
They picked up the pace.
“Ironside, if you copy, take out that jammer!” Steve snapped.
No response.
They had to get outside.
“Steve, down!” Clint yelled, and the next thing Steve knew he was being tackled. Two impacts shuddered through his body in midair and then they were slamming into the ground and rolling one over the other.
Steve groaned and sat up. Loki stood over him, a shimmering shield stopping bullets midair. He reached out and clenched both fists. The two guys shooting at them from up ahead both fell with necks at awkward angles.
Moisture crept through the fabric of Steve’s uniform.
He twisted and frantically patted himself down. No injuries, no pain. So where…
He turned and saw Clint.
Shit.
“Magician!” Steve snapped. “J–Scientist said you could teleport. Can you get him out of here?”
“Interdimensional travel is hard on nonmages,” Loki said tightly, kneeling on Clint’s other side. He rested his hands on Clint’s torso, in between the bullet holes. Clint was already unconscious. Critical condition. Probably shock. Steve realized Clint had quite possibly saved his life.
“Healing?” he asked.
Loki shook his head. “Not properly, not other people. I can keep him stable, but he will require professional medical attention if he is to truly recover.”
“Get him to the UN troops,” Steve snapped. “They’re five miles west of here. Do not drop your disguise. ”
“Yes, Father,” Loki said drily, and closed his eyes. “I require two minutes to stabilize his condition before he can be moved.”
“You have one. This whole place is about to blow,” Steve said. “And if you can, I need you to scan or something to make sure none of that product survives the explosion.”
“I will do what I can. Go implement your Plan F.” Loki shot Steve a firm glare. “Your illusory protection will fall away as soon as you leave me.”
“Fine. Don’t let him die,” Steve ordered, and took off at a run.
Careless fool , he raged at himself. Should’ve watched where you were going–if he dies it’s your fault –
But those thoughts could wait until later; they’d be useless in a battle. Steve shook them off and kept running.
He burst out the same door they’d entered through earlier, and froze.
Natasha, Hill, and Bucky were on the ground in the center of the courtyard, laid out on the ground.
Roaring filled Steve’s ears. They couldn’t be dead. Not Bucky. Not Natasha.
Then he registered the weapons in the hands of half the people out there: energy weapons. Glowing blue. Hydra tech.
Those things killed by vaporization. Steve remembered that all too clearly. He hoped to God that meant his friends were only unconscious.
This was still a serious problem. Even alone, he could’ve salvaged this if they had normal weapons. But he couldn’t fight those alone.
A gout of flame erupted from the south.
Steve hit the dirt. Debris scattered across the courtyard. A piece of flaming material hit the dirt not five feet from Bucky and he resisted the urge to bolt out there and cover his friends’ bodies with his own.
“–got the comms back!” Tony shouted. “Guys, do you read?”
“Kinda tied up out here,” Sam said breathlessly. “Group of ‘em in a truck running southwest.”
“You good?” Tony asked.
“Yeah. Help the others.”
“JARVIS, get me some data,” Tony ordered.
“I could use some help,” Steve said softly. He ducked back into the building. “Widow, Shadow, and Winter are down. They’ve got Hydra energy weapons, Ironside, be caref-”
“ Fuck ,” Tony hissed.
“What?”
“Bastards–took out–hand thrusters,” Tony said tightly. “I’m going down in the desert. Is that Loki?”
“Clint’s critical, Loki’s getting him to the UN. He’ll call their troops in,” Steve said.
“Too slow.”
Bruce chimed in. “Guys, I could–”
“No,” Steve said. “I can handle this.” He had to.
“Boss-”
“Stay in the jet, Gamma,” Steve snapped. “That’s an order.”
He cut off his comm and stepped out into the courtyard again.
It was chaos. He saw at a glance that half of them were bolting in disorganized fashion for the gates. Tony, outside, was going down in a controlled but very obvious blaze of red and gold and fire. Not for the first time, Steve wished Tony’s ego would allow for a suit painted in less obvious colors. The other half the guards were arguing, shouting. An opportunity.
Steve drew a gun, raised his shield, and took off into the courtyard.