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milesyTitle: Midgard Legends
Fandom: Thor, Captain America, Hellboy
Wordcount: 7400
Rating: T
Characters: Loki, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Trevor Bruttenholm
Summary: While hiding out on Midgard to avoid responsibility back home, Loki begins to feel the pull of the Tesseract as it calls to him. After the usual methods fail, Loki resorts to a more unconventional tactic to get his hands on the weapon: he enlists.
AO3 | FFN
The Tesseract had travelled far since being taken from Tønsberg. It still sang, but it sang quietly, and its song was different now. It was no longer trying to be found. Now it sang with a glorious, terrible purpose.
Loki didn’t have to search to find it. There was no shadow-walking or games of hide-and-seek. The Tesseract still spoke to him; still prayed, and all Loki had to do was answer its call. He went to the Tesseract and found himself high in a mountain fortress in a strange part of Midgard. A small, bespectacled man pottered about near an impressive-looking machine, taking notes and making adjustments as he saw fit. What the machine was and what it did, Loki neither knew nor cared. The Tesseract was somewhere in the room, and it was his only quarry.
There were other men in the room as well. Two guards by the door, alert for any sign of trouble, and still unable to see Loki simply because he wished not to be seen. Loki walked amongst them, pausing to curiously peer down at the weapons they held. He moved silently over to the man with the machine and inspected it. Though it seemed designed to house something fitting the Tesseract’s description, he found no sign of it there. Still, the work was impressive, even if half-started and alien. Loki suspected, the more he looked at the machine and the calculations on the nervous little man’s clipboard, that he would not like what was intended for the Tesseract.
There was one other man in the room, far on the outer wall. He sat behind a desk, overlooking the mountains beyond. It was clear that he was the man in charge. Loki walked up to his desk, letting his concealment drop arrogantly.
“I believe you have something of mine,” he said.
The man behind the desk looked up suddenly, his eyes alight with indignation. He glared up at his guards, who only then began to react to the intrusion, and waved his hand to Loki.
“What are you waiting for? Kill him!” he ordered frantically.
Loki had been shot before, both with an arrow after an ill-fated trip to Niðavellir, and various Midgardian pistols while off gallivanting with pirates and frontiersmen. He hadn’t enjoyed it then, and he didn’t enjoy it now. The humans’ technology had changed since then, and changed greatly. The guards quickly moved into position and opened fire on Loki, releasing a spray of bullets. Loki reconsidered his strategy immediately. Before he was able to beat a hasty retreat, he felt the hot sting of metal piercing flesh, and he gave up the idea of fighting back almost at once and returned to his apartment. On uneasy legs, he made his way to his bed and collapsed. The entire frame nearly buckled beneath him, but he didn’t even take notice. He was too busy forcing himself to breathe. The air felt heavy in his lungs, almost as if he could drown on it. Every breath burned, but not breathing wasn’t an option.
With each forced breath, he could taste blood on his tongue. He tried to cough, hoping to rid the taste from his mouth, but it only made things worse. His vision swam dangerously from the searing pain that shot outward from his chest, threatening to tear his consciousness from him. Loki needed to sit up. He needed to fix the issue, because it would not fix itself.
Dragging the back of his hand over his mouth, Loki dared to look down at his chest, and he grimaced at what he saw. As many as six individual patches of red, slowly blossoming out onto his shirt. He knew from painful experience that it took a considerable amount of trauma to make a god bleed so, and he was almost afraid to look at the damage directly.
How stupid had he been to have expected that to work at all? Of all the idiotic, arrogant stunts he’d pulled, he knew this had been the worst. He should have at least worn armour, instead of a cotton shirt. Their shots would have bounced right off had he taken but a moment to think.
Now, he could think all he wanted, but it wouldn’t do him any good. The more he waited, the more difficult it would be to undo the damage. He forced himself to sit up slowly, trying not to use any of the muscles in his chest, and failing. He grit his teeth and let out a strangled cry as every part of him lit up once more. Not wanting to waste any energy on unnecessary magic, he carefully undressed, using one hand to unbutton his shirt while the other held him upright. His overcoat had survived, it seemed, but the shirt was completely ruined. Loki managed to toss them both aside with minimal effort, trying not to make enough noise to alert the neighbours. Once he was ready to move again, Loki took off his glasses and set them aside on the table, taking each action as slowly as possible. He didn’t think his wounds would kill him, but he didn’t want to risk making things worse and find out otherwise. Not since his failed adventure to Niflheimr with Thor had he ever experienced such pain. Every movement; every breath spent a spike of pain straight through him. For a fleeting moment, he thought he might welcome death if it meant the pain would end.
Since his hunting accident, however, Loki had learned some new tricks. He’d also learned that he had no talent at all for the healing arts, but that didn’t matter. He had other talents that suited his needs just fine; talents that might have been called cheating if he cared about such things. At this moment, he cared only about surviving.
He placed his hand over his chest and breathed as deeply as he dared. Reaching out with his magic, he could feel every last trace of the guards’ bullets. It wasn’t like the round from the flintlock, easy to find and obvious. These rounds had shattered and deformed as soon as they broke the skin, scattering themselves to cause as much damage as possible. Finding all of it was difficult enough. Keeping his focus on the task was exhausting. He held onto each piece, banishing the fragments from his body. Twice, he nearly lost consciousness and had to stop to catch his breath, having to breathe slowly to keep from exacerbating his injuries.
Finally, he could no longer feel any trace of the metal inside his body. Confident that he’d found it all, Loki stopped to catch his breath once more. He could have ended it there, and would have healed eventually, but eventually wasn’t good enough. Feeling his magic quickly fading, he summoned what he could and changed his shape to that of a small, black cat. The change itself was unusually painful his damaged body shifted to take on the new form. As he crawled out of his trousers, he was certain that it had been worth the suffering. A brief inspection proved his chest to be solid and whole once more, though he was still covered in his own blood.
He knew he should have done something about it, but by this point, he no longer had the strength to stay on his feet. Before he was even able to release his false form, he lost his grip on consciousness and the world around him went black.
Loki didn’t know how long he’d slept, but at some point he’d lost hold of his magic. He awoke as himself, his dark skin in sharp contrast against the blood-stained sheets on his bed. He hardly noticed as he looked around in a daze, struggling to remember how he came to be in bed in the first place. Finding himself covered in a thin layer of dried blood, he slowly began to recall the string of events that led to it, and his spectacular lack of judgement.
His sheets would need to be replaced, but it was low priority at the moment. First and foremost, Loki needed a shower. He sat up stiffly and looked down at his chest, rather pleased to find that his trick had prevented scarring, thus avoiding any embarrassing reminders of his own stupidity. Or at least, any more than he had already.
Rousing himself from bed, Loki forced his muscles to move him across the apartment. Every part of him was stiff and moved inelegantly, but it was nothing a hot shower wouldn’t fix. It had taken him quite a long time to get used to such a novelty, but now that it was a common occurrence in his life, he didn’t know how he ever went without them.
He stood under the water for countless minutes, wondering where he’d gone so wrong with his scheme. Showing up without armour, for one. He’d also severely underestimated the fire power the humans now possessed. A flintlock and a musket had nothing on the weapons that man’s guards carried, which was all the more reason they could not be allowed to have the Tesseract. The army that commanded it could raze the entire realm, and Loki had become rather attached to Midgard. If the humans destroyed themselves, he’d have nowhere to go when Asgard became insufferable. It wasn’t as if the higher realms had anything new to offer. If anything, they were just as stagnate and unchanging as Asgard.
He’d simply have to try again, and this time, do it properly. Before the last amount of the hot water stopped, Loki quickly washed himself, scrubbing away any trace of his previous failed attempt. He nearly ran out of soap before he was done, but he felt better for it. Just being clean seemed to renew his energy, making the task before him not seem so daunting.
As he dried himself and dressed, Loki decided against taking on his Æsir appearance. Humans frightened easily, and he had a very distinct advantage on that level. He called forth his armour, forming it around himself with the simplest command. The hippogryph armour with the tall, sweeping horns on his helm fit him as well as it had the day it was presented to him. He had earned this armour, and he wore it proudly. Where Thor’s eagle motif was regal, Loki’s was threatening and menacing; almost villainous. What better way to frighten humans?
He took a moment to check over himself, making sure every stitch and plate of his armour sat perfectly on him. Beneath the shadow of his helm, his red eyes seemed to almost glow as he looked down at his vambraces, adjusting them over his forearms. Looking up again, he caught himself in the mirror and grinned a pleased, smug grin. Like this, he could start a whole new legend of creatures that went bump in the night. Loki liked that thought.
The Tesseract wasn’t singing, but that hardly mattered this time. Loki knew where he was going without that beacon of prayer to guide him. He stepped to one side, leaving his apartment and returning to the mountain fortress where the Tesseract was held. No sooner had he left, he found himself back in his apartment, one step away from where he’d started. Loki cautiously tried again, but the same thing happened, and once more he found himself back where he’d started.
“What the Hel?”
He hesitated to try a third time. Something was preventing him from gaining access to that place, which only meant someone was likely waiting to spring a trap.
It also meant they possessed very powerful magic; magic drawn from the Tesseract. Loki may have been a god, but this — whatever it was — was far bigger than him. He couldn’t help but laugh despairingly at the thought.
He should have kept to the shadows and taken his time. He should have observed the situation more closely; learned where the Tesseract was held and taken it without fanfare. Instead, he put on a show. He was arrogant and presumptuous, and for it, he lost his chance.
For the first time since he could remember, Loki was completely without a plan.
He began to pace around his apartment, chewing his thumbnail as he rethought his strategy. Any magic used to block his travel would have to be powerful, and not easy to manage. It should have been impossible for the humans to have managed at all, and yet he still remained in his apartment, far from where the Tesseract was held. How long, he wondered, had he been asleep?
That would have to be his first step in forming a new plan. He needed to find out how much time had passed. He was certain that those with the Tesseract had not yet managed to achieve whatever their goals, but at the same time, he doubted his own certainty. With the Tesseract, one could do almost anything.
Loki banished his armour and put on what he’d come to call his human skin. It was identical to his Æsir appearance in almost every way, except for his fingernails. For the same reason he wore them black on Asgard, he couldn’t on Midgard. They stood out far too easily.
He dressed quickly, finding his shoes kicked under his bed and his watch tangled in the blankets. Making sure he had a decent amount of money on him, Loki left his apartment and walked out to the street, where a group of boys were playing stickball. As Loki walked past them, he threw a handful of quarters onto the ground. At once, the game was forgotten as the boys scrambled to collect the quarters from the pavement, shouting at one another as they searched ever last one out. Loki let himself smile as he walked to the newsstand at the corner, finding no small delight in the sounds of chaos left in his wake.
Paying for the newspaper, Loki glanced down at the front page. According to the date, he’d been asleep for almost two weeks. He did tend to practically hibernate sometimes, but that seemed rather excessive, he thought. Determined not to do something so idiotic ever again, he flipped through the rest of the paper to see what other progress had been made. He began to wander down the street, hardly paying any attention to where he was going. He was far too busy being disgusted with the whole state of affairs. The war in Europe was only growing bigger, and would eventually become too big to be stopped. The Tesseract would be misused sooner or later, and then not even Odin himself would be able to stand in the way of those who wielded it.
Loki stopped and folded the paper, feeling no closer to solving the problem than he’d been in his apartment. Loath though he was to admit it, he didn’t think it was a problem he could solve on his own. Not unless he wanted it to kill him in doing so. He turned to start making his way home when a sign in a window caught his eye. It was a sign he’d seen hundreds of times already, but for the first time, he actually considered what was written on it. It was, he decided, the best option available.
So much for no more idiotic ideas. Loki was going to enlist.
He stepped into what had been turned into a recruitment centre, finding it abuzz with eager young men, literally lining up to enlist. Loki stood near the door, watching the movements of the room, trying to determine what he was meant to do. Almost at once, he realised a snag in his plan. Though he could understand the humans’ language and appear to speak it, he didn’t actually know it. He would be expected to fill out a small stack of paperwork, from the looks of it, but the only thing he knew how to write in their language was the name he used. And he’d only learned that because he’d been using it since he was a boy, and it was bound to sink in eventually.
He made sure that no-one was looking his way and cloaked himself to better slip through the crowds. He walked silently up to the desk in the centre of the room and began to peruse what few papers were visible. Slipping one of the folders from the stack, Loki stepped away and began to thumb through its contents. It had only the most basic of information, but even that Loki would have to forge. Unless they would accept ‘some time during the summer of Odin’s seventy-forth year of reign’ as a suitable date of birth. Somehow, Loki doubted as much.
Loki copied the folder and returned the original to the desk. Banishing the copies, he returned to the milling throng, where he let himself slip slowly back into view. Eventually, he managed to find a spot in the queue and looked around nervously like those around him. To speed up the process, a young woman walked down the line, handing out pens and clip boards containing blank copies of the forms Loki had taken. He once more made sure no-one saw what he was doing and replaced the blank forms with the ones he’d made. He changed his name and shifted some of the numbers about so his deception wouldn’t be quite so easily noticed. The person whose forms he’d copied was nineteen, which was a number Loki committed to memory, hoping he could pass for a human of that age. If not, he had other tricks, but he hoped to rely on them as little as possible.
The rest, he wasn’t sure what to do with. Medical history and family information were both areas he didn’t even know how to forge. Most of what was on his stolen copies was unremarkable, so Loki simply left it as it was, shifting only the numbers in the addresses.
Except for one. Next of kin. He was struck with a terrible idea and reached back to his apartment for an old letter. It sat, if it remained where it was meant to be, in a drawer by the window. He found it right where it should have been and pulled it out to look at the front of the envelope. Kitty liked to send cards for Christmas, and had sent him one with a whimsical dog wearing a bright red bow. The envelope, adorned with stylised sprigs of holly, had her address on the top corner. It felt a cruel thing to do, knowing how he intended his stint in America’s military to end, but it seemed even more cruel to accidentally list an unsuspecting person elsewhere in the city. Loki changed the information on the form, listing Kitty Price as his next of kin. He copied the address from the envelope and sent the envelope back where he’d found it. Glancing over the information one final time, Loki brought his thumb to his mouth. Satisfied with what he’d done, he ran his thumb over the pages, working a charm into the paper that would make any who looked at it not think to second-guess anything. Just in case he hadn’t been as thorough as he’d thought.
At the front of the queue, the man at the desk took Loki’s forms and glanced over them. Loki watched patiently, refraining from giving the man’s mind a slight nudge into accepting everything as legitimate. In the end, it wasn’t necessary. After a few moments, the man behind the desk nodded and handed the folder back to Loki.
“On your left,” he said, pointing to a corridor behind him.
Loki followed the directions and was met by a man in a while coat, who ushered him into a small room and took the file from him. The walls of the room had several anatomical charts hung up, as well as one sign, expressing the legality of lying on enlistment forms. Loki ignored that one and looked at the man instead.
“Luke Olson, correct?” he asked, looking down at the forms. Loki recognised him as one of the realm’s healers, realising the purpose of this meeting. It only made sense that they wanted to be sure their potential soldiers would be fit for duty.
“Yes,” said Loki, once more realising that he was in more than he’d bargained for.
“All right,” said Dr Scott, snapping the file shut and setting it aside. “Strip down to your shorts. I’ll be right back.”
He left Loki alone in the room, closing the door behind him. Loki quickly undressed, setting his clothes aside on a high cot along the wall. Not for the first time, he wondered how wise his plan was. It wasn’t as if the humans posed any real threat to him, but if he was caught, the consequences could have been disastrous. Suddenly, all he could think about was witch trials.
Dr Scott returned with a clipboard and motioned for Loki to sit up on the cot.
“That’s a nasty scar,” he said, pointing to the long slash across Loki’s chest. “What was that?”
Loki looked down, momentarily annoyed that his scars didn’t fade when he changed his skin. There was probably a way to make that happen, but he didn’t exactly have the time to dwell on it just then.
“Hunting accident,” he said. “My brother and I spent a winter hunting polar bear.”
Dr Scott looked impressed. “You sure you he wasn’t the one hunting you?” he asked.
Loki smirked. “I’m not the one hanging on his bedroom wall.”
That got a laugh from Dr Scott. “Fair enough,” he said. He wrote something down on his clipboard and reached for the device hung round his neck.
Loki wasn’t sure what to expect from the examination, but he felt a bit underwhelmed by it all the same. He spent twenty minutes being told to breathe and cough and touch his toes, and being tapped and poked and prodded. At one point, he was led to a strange scale meant to weigh and measure him. Loki stepped onto it without thinking, causing the top portion to tilt with a dramatic clang. Dr Scott gave it a concerned look as he adjusted the weights, and Loki belatedly thought to take his weight off his feet. He still couldn’t make himself as light on his feet as those around him, but a quick prod at Dr Scott’s mind made him see what he expected to see from a man of Loki’s size. Still almost sceptical, Dr Scott wrote his findings down on his clipboard and nodded.
The only thing Loki found remotely relevant to all the tests was when Dr Scott later asked him about the prescription on his eyeglasses, which Loki had to confess he didn’t know. He’d stolen them from an unsuspecting man when he first began spending time in New York, and kept hold of them ever sense because he rather liked the look of their round, brass frames.
Dr Scott at least didn’t seem to find any of this out of the ordinary, and only had Loki read from a chart across the room. He seemed satisfied with the results, and after a few more pokes and prods, picked up the file from where he’d left it and added his notes to it.
“All right,” he said. “I think that’s all. Go ahead and get dressed and wait for someone to call you.”
He left Loki alone to once more wonder if he was doing the right thing.
Loki walked up the stairs to the brownstone’s door, hesitating only slightly before ringing the bell. Inside, he could hear muffled shouting as someone rushed to the door. Loki couldn’t help but smile at it, somehow pleased to know that his family wasn’t the only one to express opinions through rage and loud voices. An older boy quickly threw the door open and frowned at Loki, sizing him up.
“You here for Kitty?” he asked.
Loki gave him his best smile. “I am,” he said.
The boy turned away, leaving the door open. “Kitty, there’s some guy here for you!” he shouted. “Should I tell him to scram or what?”
Watching the boy start to wander away, Loki very nearly laughed.
“Who is it?” Kitty shouted back from somewhere inside.
“How the hell should I know?” The boy disappeared into another room as Kitty rushed to the door, her face brightening as she saw Loki.
“Luke. What the hell are you doing here?” she asked. Someone inside shouted, so she stepped out to the stoop and shut the door. “Family,” she said apologetically.
“No worse than mine,” Loki assured her.
“So, what’s going on?” Kitty asked, not to be derailed. “You never just stop by. Is everything all right?”
Loki nodded. “Yeah. Everything’s fine. I, uh. I enlisted. Just today.”
Kitty’s eyes went wide as she took a small step backward. “You what?” she asked. “Why? You’re not even from here. You don’t have to do that.”
Loki shrugged. “They say you get citizenship if you enlist,” he said.
“Yeah, but is that really worth it?” asked Kitty.
Loki didn’t have an opinion either way, but if Luke Olson did, that would have been it. “I think so, yeah,” he said, shrugging again. “And it seemed like the right thing to do.”
Kitty looked up at him, an unspoken plea written across her face. “And getting shot’s the right thing to do?” she asked.
“By the time I finish training, the worst of it will probably be over,” Loki reasoned.
Kitty wrapped her arms over her chest and looked out at the street. Neither spoke for a long while, not sure what to say. Finally, Kitty inhaled deeply and faced Loki again.
“When do you ship out?” she asked.
“Monday,” Loki said. “Just enough time for me to get everything sorted here, and then it’s off to Camp Union for ten weeks.”
"What about your family? Have you told them?"
Loki didn't like to lie outright, because it was too easy to get caught up in his own deceit. The easiest way to avoid trouble was to avoid talking about himself at all, but Kitty had a way of getting past all his defences.
"I was disinherited," Loki said, seeming to not be sure whether he should be angry or ashamed. "Why do you think I'm even here?"
"I did wonder," Kitty admitted quietly. "What did you do?"
Loki snorted, knowing that the two events had nothing to do with one another in the slightest.
"I plotted against my brother," he said, going with the more interesting story. "It wasn't treason, but it could have been had things gone any worse than they did. Mostly, I just publicly humiliated him."
Kitty looked up at him almost pityingly before sliding into laughter she couldn't control. Loki soon joined her, realising only then how ridiculous the whole ordeal with Thor had been. Suddenly, Kitty stepped forward and pulled Loki into a tight hug, burying her face in his overcoat.
"You better come back, you hear me," she said.
Loki gently wrapped his arms around her shoulders, content to remain like this for as long as Kitty wanted. He hated that it had to be like this, but it was truly the best way for him to disappear, he thought.
"Of course I will," he said. "I promise."
“I’m getting real sick of drills. When do we actually start training?”
Loki silently agreed with the private across the mess table from him. Training was coming into its second week, and so far, they’d done nothing but learn how to march and stand and salute. Nothing about it seemed useful at all, but Loki didn’t dare try to contradict the drill sergeant and risk standing out any more than someone his size already did.
“We ain’t ever gonna do any good over there if we don’t start learning how to kill Nazis, you know?” Randal went on.
Loki looked up at him, almost surprised.
“You mean you don’t already know how?” he asked.
Private Randal dropped his fork onto his plate and glared up at Loki. “Yeah? What the hell do you know about it, four-eyes?”
“Hey, shut up, all right?” the recruit next to him said. “Just leave him alone.”
“No, I wanna hear what this guy has to say,” Randal said, swatting Coulson away. “He’s sitting over here like he’s done all this before. I mean, you know. He must have, to be talking like this.” He leaned back and levelled a sarcastic look at Loki. “So go on, then. Expound upon us all your knowledge of this subject.”
Loki remained unfazed. “I’m afraid you wouldn’t believe me if I did tell you,” he said.
Convinced of his victory, Randal held his hands in the air. “See? Doesn’t know a thing. Just as clueless as the rest of us.”
“Well, at least you established that,” Coulson said dryly.
Loki was fairly suspicious that Ray Coulson had lied on his own enlistment forms, but he couldn’t be sure. He seemed younger than the majority of the men in his platoon, but it could have just been a quirk of biology. Several of the men Loki trained with seemed rather young. Either that, or more people were lying in order to join the army than anyone was willing to admit.
As Randal continued to despair upon the monotony of their training, Sgt Horton marched into the mess hall and called the platoon to attention. Ten minutes later, they all stood outside on a dusty patch of earth, listening to Sgt Horton give a lecture about the importance of unarmed combat skills. Loki dared a quick glance over to Randal, not surprised to see him looking rather pleased.
“I need a volunteer,” said Sgt Horton suddenly. “Olson. Step forward.”
Loki stepped forward as commanded, almost dreading what was about to happen. “Sir,” he said.
“I’m going to demonstrate the basic defencive techniques,” Horton said. “Olson, I want you to hit me. Anywhere you like.”
He stood with his hands at his sides, opening himself up for a strike.
“Sir?” Loki asked, really not liking where the situation was heading.
“You heard me, Olson. I want you to hit me,” said Horton, already losing his patience.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Sir,” Loki said. Behind him, he could hear several of the other recruits laughing. Loki ignored it.
“Olson, this is your last chance,” Horton said, raising his voice until he was almost shouting. “Hit me.”
Loki refused still. Clearly annoyed at the defiance, Sgt Horton swung a right hook at Loki’s face. Loki dodged as soon as he saw Horton’s weight shift, grabbing him by his wrist and using Horton’s own momentum to pull him off his balance. Without even thinking, Loki threw his elbow at the back of Horton’s head, pulling the swing at the very last moment. The blow still connected harder than Loki had meant it to, and Horton fell face-first onto the ground. The whole thing was over before anyone even realised what had happened. Loki quickly stepped away as a nearby sergeant rushed over, kneeling beside Horton.
“I said I didn’t wish to hurt him,” Loki said calmly.
Around him, the other recruits murmured in shock, not quite sure whether or not to believe what they’d just seen.
Horton was roused and sat up, swaying slightly. He looked around him, his eyes glazed as his vision failed to focus.
“What happened?” he asked distantly.
“Come on,” said the other sergeant coaxingly. He pulled Horton to his feet, holding him as steady as he was able. “Up you get.”
Horton was led away, leaving the platoon alone on the training grounds.
“What the fuck?” Randal asked quietly.
No-one had an answer for him.
Loki sat outside Major Lee’s office, wondering why he was even still there. They’d all but found him out, and nothing good ever came from being found out. He’d have to leave New York; stay away from Midgard completely until enough time had passed that they’d forgotten him. But if he did that, there might not be a Midgard to return to. His list of solutions was growing shorter by the day. Three times since his induction into America’s army, he’d tried to return to the Tesseract while those around him slept, and each time he’d been forced back again. He supposed he could have just started wandering the realm until he found it, but even for him, with all his powers, that could take years.
The man who controlled the Tesseract was an enemy of America’s and allying with the nation was the best way for Loki to find him.
He’d begun to lose track of the time when he was finally called into Major Lee’s office. The major was a surprisingly old man, making Loki wonder just how effective their military could truly be if it was run by old men. He refrained from saying anything at all and stood at attention in front of Lee’s desk, waiting to be reprimanded, or worse.
“At ease, son,” Lee said.
“Sir,” Loki said with a nod, shifting his stance.
Major Lee had a file open on his desk, which he read over slowly before shifting it. Loki could only guess whose file it was.
“You want to tell me what happened out there today?” Lee asked finally.
Loki nodded once. “I acted on reflex, Sir. I was taught when someone hits you, you hit them back.”
“Except he didn’t hit you, did he?” asked Lee.
“No, Sir,” Loki admitted.
Lee nodded and grabbed a pen from a cup on his desk. Loki thought he might be about to write something in the file before him, but he just opened it and read it over again.
“Am I in trouble, Sir?” Loki asked finally, wanting whatever discipline meted to him out of the way.
“Trouble?” Lee asked, incredulous. “No, son. I’m promoting you. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be assisting Sergeant Horton in unarmed combat.”
Loki was caught rather off-guard by the decision. “Ah. Yes, Sir.”
Lee slid a small envelope across his desk to Loki, nodding at it. Still unsure, Loki reached forward and took the envelope, but he didn’t open it just yet. Almost at once, Lee seemed to become occupied by the next matter.
“Dismissed,” he said.
Loki nodded again, and saluted and turned to leave the room. Perhaps their army wasn’t completely useless after all, if they were willing to utilise whatever talents they found in their soldiers. Loki made his way back to the barracks, finding the others preparing for a march. Loki was met with cautious stares as he made his way to his bunk, but he ignored the lot of them. As he put the envelope down on his bunk, he glanced over at Coulson, unable to discern what he was meant to be doing.
“What’s going on?” Loki asked.
Coulson gave him a wary glance. “Full pack march,” he said after a moment. “With first platoon, since…”
“I did tell him I didn’t want to hurt him,” Loki said wryly as he gathered his pack.
“Yeah,” Coulson said, looking away again. “You pulled that punch, didn’t you?” he asked suddenly. “My old man was a boxer, and I’ve seen it before.”
Loki looked up at him. “I did, yes. Rather too late, I’m afraid.”
Coulson looked back up at him. “Where’d you learn how to do that sorta thing, anyway?”
“Growing up,” Loki told him, setting his canteen aside to be filled before the march. “It was just like any other daily lesson. Something everyone learned.”
“Jeez, where’d you grow up?” Coulson asked, his expression shifting from apprehension to something closer to wide-eyed awe.
“Iceland,” Loki said. “We’re practically Vikings.” He ran his fingers through his hair, still not used to the short cut of it.
Coulson snorted as he finished readying his pack. “I guarantee Randal won’t be giving you any more grief after today,” he said.
Loki grinned. “Yes, I did tell him as well, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, I guess you did,” Coulson said, laughing. “Maybe next time, he’ll listen.”
Loki found it surprisingly difficult to lead the platoon in physical training. Apparently the added stripe on his arm came with a small chunk of Horton’s responsibilities. It wasn’t that the training itself was difficult — in fact, it was childishly simple, and that was the problem. Loki would get bored doing jumping jacks and push-ups before he ever got tired from it. The humans he led could barely keep up with him.
The assault course was at least fun.
Sgt Horton timed them, sending them off through a maze of high walls, rope ladders, and various obstacles to be climbed over, under, and through. Years of running along precarious roof tops and dangerous terrain made days at the assault course the most familiar aspect of training. Loki started off with Coulson and Randal nearby, but lost them as soon as it came time to scale the first wall. A heavy rope hung down, which Loki was able to climb up with ease. He was actually surprised how much he seemed to miss so much physical activity.
He finished the course, panting happily as he dropped down from the climbing bars.
“What the hell are you doing here, Olson?” Sgt Horton demanded, looking incredulously at his stopwatch.
“I finished it, Sir,” Loki said with a grin.
“Then get back there and do it again,” Horton ordered.
Loki laughed. “Yes, Sir,” he said, already running back to the beginning of the course.
He still finished before almost a quarter of the platoon, feeling rather pleased with himself for it. Randal stood hunched over nearby, his hands resting on his knees as he panted at the ground.
“That guy ain’t human,” he decided. “It ain’t right.”
“I heard they were doing experiments at Lehigh,” another recruit, Kirby, said. “Maybe that’s where they found him.”
Randal shook his head. “It ain’t right,” he repeated.
Weapons came during the second phase of training, and Loki found he once again had an advantage there. While some of the recruits were hunters and police officers, most had never handled a weapon any more dangerous than a kitchen knife.
Even so, the M-1 was nothing like the muskets Loki had learned to use as a boy, or the more recent shotguns and revolves used out west. While the basic function was the same — point it where you wanted it to fire and squeeze the trigger — no musket had ever tried to take his thumb off when he loaded it. Loki almost missed the hassle of wadding and powder and ramrods.
He lay on his stomach at the range and tried to force the clip into the rifle. Finally, it clicked into place, loosening the slide before Loki had taken his hand away. It shot forward, catching Loki’s hand in the mechanism.
“Mother of Hel!” he shouted, struggling to pull his hand away.
Sgt Horton quickly rushed over to assist him in opening the slide, but found Loki already with his hand free. He had the side of his thumb in his mouth, sucking on the damaged flesh.
“Report to the infirmary, Olson,” Horton said. Two others had already been sent away from the range to be treated for broken thumbs, and Horton was starting to sound resigned to half of his men washing out just because of their weapons misbehaving.
Loki took his hand away from his mouth. “I’m fine, Sir,” he said. “Just caught the edge.”
Horton levelled a sceptical look on him, but walked down the line as Loki took his position once more. Next to Loki, Coulson lay on the ground, ready to be told when to start trying to hit the targets at the other end of the range.
“You sure you’re all right?” he asked.
Loki looked over at him and wiggled his thumb to prove it wasn’t broken. “I’m tougher than I look,” he said.
“You’re crazy,” Coulson replied.
Dangerous as it was, Loki also found the M-1 impressive. Fiddly though the clip was, it held eight rounds. Even more impressive, the rounds could be fired as quickly as one could pull the trigger. Loki rather liked that.
It was also a precision weapon. One could point it in a general direction and had a good chance of hitting their target with practise, but the M-1 was meant to be aimed. It took Loki a bit of time to get used to it, but he quickly grew to love the concepts of semi-automatic and aperture sights. He loved it so much, he qualified on the 1911 shortly after.
The 1911, he thought, might just have been his favourite weapon in a very long time. It fit better in his hand than his flintlocks, and produced far less blinding smoke. It also held seven rounds at once and loaded easier than a revolver, making it that much more practical than anything Loki had used like it before.
One way or another, Loki was determined to keep both the M-1 and the 1911 after he was finished with this ridiculous errand he’d found himself on.
The day before their final physical exam, the platoon was given a rare day to themselves. Not one to waste it, Loki got up and dressed, and then spent the rest of his day in his bunk with a book.
“You know, I don’t understand you,” Coulson said as he returned from the mess hall. “You got more energy than a jumping bean with a spring up its ass, but you’re the laziest bastard I ever met. Have you done anything at all today?”
Loki shrugged dramatically. “I can sleep for days if you let me.”
Coulson took off his jacket and stretched out on his own bunk. He pulled out a thin magazine from under his mattress and started flipping through until he found the page he’d left on.
“What are you reading?” Coulson asked, looking over at the book Loki held.
Loki showed him the cover. “What the Hel is a hobbit, actually?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of such a thing before.”
Coulson laughed. “You never read the Hobbit before?” he asked.
“I’m not from here,” Loki reminded him. He looked over at Coulson and frowned. “What have you got?”
Coulson showed him the cover, which depicted a man in blue with a shield, as he ploughed through a small group of Nazi soldiers.
“You remember that guy last month that was all over the papers?” Coulson asked. “Saved that kid and all that? My mom sent me this yesterday. I guess he’s this big thing now.”
“Is it any good?” Loki asked.
“Yeah, it’s all right,” said Coulson with a shrug.
Loki hummed speculatively. Suddenly, he closed his book and rolled over to face Coulson, causing his bunk to creak ominously. Spreading his palm out onto the mattress, he renewed the spell that kept the whole thing from just collapsing under his weight, letting him actually relax.
“Ray, can you do something for me?” Loki asked a moment later.
Coulson gave him a dubious look. “It depends,” he said. “How much trouble am I gonna get into for it?”
Loki tapped his book against the edge of his bunk. “Our alphabet is different from yours,” he said. “I can read reasonably well, but I can’t do much more than sign my name. Not quickly, anyway.”
“What?” Coulson asked, grinning. “You got a girl you want to send a letter to, but you never learned to write?”
“A friend, but basically, yes,” Loki said.
“Yeah, all right,” Coulson said. He put his comic aside and got up to dig through his foot locker. He pulled out a pencil and a small notebook and returned to his bunk. “All right, lover-boy. What’s her name?” he asked. He licked the tip of his pencil and got ready to write.
Loki rolled his eyes. “Kitty,” he said.
Fandom: Thor, Captain America, Hellboy
Wordcount: 7400
Rating: T
Characters: Loki, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Trevor Bruttenholm
Summary: While hiding out on Midgard to avoid responsibility back home, Loki begins to feel the pull of the Tesseract as it calls to him. After the usual methods fail, Loki resorts to a more unconventional tactic to get his hands on the weapon: he enlists.
AO3 | FFN
The Tesseract had travelled far since being taken from Tønsberg. It still sang, but it sang quietly, and its song was different now. It was no longer trying to be found. Now it sang with a glorious, terrible purpose.
Loki didn’t have to search to find it. There was no shadow-walking or games of hide-and-seek. The Tesseract still spoke to him; still prayed, and all Loki had to do was answer its call. He went to the Tesseract and found himself high in a mountain fortress in a strange part of Midgard. A small, bespectacled man pottered about near an impressive-looking machine, taking notes and making adjustments as he saw fit. What the machine was and what it did, Loki neither knew nor cared. The Tesseract was somewhere in the room, and it was his only quarry.
There were other men in the room as well. Two guards by the door, alert for any sign of trouble, and still unable to see Loki simply because he wished not to be seen. Loki walked amongst them, pausing to curiously peer down at the weapons they held. He moved silently over to the man with the machine and inspected it. Though it seemed designed to house something fitting the Tesseract’s description, he found no sign of it there. Still, the work was impressive, even if half-started and alien. Loki suspected, the more he looked at the machine and the calculations on the nervous little man’s clipboard, that he would not like what was intended for the Tesseract.
There was one other man in the room, far on the outer wall. He sat behind a desk, overlooking the mountains beyond. It was clear that he was the man in charge. Loki walked up to his desk, letting his concealment drop arrogantly.
“I believe you have something of mine,” he said.
The man behind the desk looked up suddenly, his eyes alight with indignation. He glared up at his guards, who only then began to react to the intrusion, and waved his hand to Loki.
“What are you waiting for? Kill him!” he ordered frantically.
Loki had been shot before, both with an arrow after an ill-fated trip to Niðavellir, and various Midgardian pistols while off gallivanting with pirates and frontiersmen. He hadn’t enjoyed it then, and he didn’t enjoy it now. The humans’ technology had changed since then, and changed greatly. The guards quickly moved into position and opened fire on Loki, releasing a spray of bullets. Loki reconsidered his strategy immediately. Before he was able to beat a hasty retreat, he felt the hot sting of metal piercing flesh, and he gave up the idea of fighting back almost at once and returned to his apartment. On uneasy legs, he made his way to his bed and collapsed. The entire frame nearly buckled beneath him, but he didn’t even take notice. He was too busy forcing himself to breathe. The air felt heavy in his lungs, almost as if he could drown on it. Every breath burned, but not breathing wasn’t an option.
With each forced breath, he could taste blood on his tongue. He tried to cough, hoping to rid the taste from his mouth, but it only made things worse. His vision swam dangerously from the searing pain that shot outward from his chest, threatening to tear his consciousness from him. Loki needed to sit up. He needed to fix the issue, because it would not fix itself.
Dragging the back of his hand over his mouth, Loki dared to look down at his chest, and he grimaced at what he saw. As many as six individual patches of red, slowly blossoming out onto his shirt. He knew from painful experience that it took a considerable amount of trauma to make a god bleed so, and he was almost afraid to look at the damage directly.
How stupid had he been to have expected that to work at all? Of all the idiotic, arrogant stunts he’d pulled, he knew this had been the worst. He should have at least worn armour, instead of a cotton shirt. Their shots would have bounced right off had he taken but a moment to think.
Now, he could think all he wanted, but it wouldn’t do him any good. The more he waited, the more difficult it would be to undo the damage. He forced himself to sit up slowly, trying not to use any of the muscles in his chest, and failing. He grit his teeth and let out a strangled cry as every part of him lit up once more. Not wanting to waste any energy on unnecessary magic, he carefully undressed, using one hand to unbutton his shirt while the other held him upright. His overcoat had survived, it seemed, but the shirt was completely ruined. Loki managed to toss them both aside with minimal effort, trying not to make enough noise to alert the neighbours. Once he was ready to move again, Loki took off his glasses and set them aside on the table, taking each action as slowly as possible. He didn’t think his wounds would kill him, but he didn’t want to risk making things worse and find out otherwise. Not since his failed adventure to Niflheimr with Thor had he ever experienced such pain. Every movement; every breath spent a spike of pain straight through him. For a fleeting moment, he thought he might welcome death if it meant the pain would end.
Since his hunting accident, however, Loki had learned some new tricks. He’d also learned that he had no talent at all for the healing arts, but that didn’t matter. He had other talents that suited his needs just fine; talents that might have been called cheating if he cared about such things. At this moment, he cared only about surviving.
He placed his hand over his chest and breathed as deeply as he dared. Reaching out with his magic, he could feel every last trace of the guards’ bullets. It wasn’t like the round from the flintlock, easy to find and obvious. These rounds had shattered and deformed as soon as they broke the skin, scattering themselves to cause as much damage as possible. Finding all of it was difficult enough. Keeping his focus on the task was exhausting. He held onto each piece, banishing the fragments from his body. Twice, he nearly lost consciousness and had to stop to catch his breath, having to breathe slowly to keep from exacerbating his injuries.
Finally, he could no longer feel any trace of the metal inside his body. Confident that he’d found it all, Loki stopped to catch his breath once more. He could have ended it there, and would have healed eventually, but eventually wasn’t good enough. Feeling his magic quickly fading, he summoned what he could and changed his shape to that of a small, black cat. The change itself was unusually painful his damaged body shifted to take on the new form. As he crawled out of his trousers, he was certain that it had been worth the suffering. A brief inspection proved his chest to be solid and whole once more, though he was still covered in his own blood.
He knew he should have done something about it, but by this point, he no longer had the strength to stay on his feet. Before he was even able to release his false form, he lost his grip on consciousness and the world around him went black.
Loki didn’t know how long he’d slept, but at some point he’d lost hold of his magic. He awoke as himself, his dark skin in sharp contrast against the blood-stained sheets on his bed. He hardly noticed as he looked around in a daze, struggling to remember how he came to be in bed in the first place. Finding himself covered in a thin layer of dried blood, he slowly began to recall the string of events that led to it, and his spectacular lack of judgement.
His sheets would need to be replaced, but it was low priority at the moment. First and foremost, Loki needed a shower. He sat up stiffly and looked down at his chest, rather pleased to find that his trick had prevented scarring, thus avoiding any embarrassing reminders of his own stupidity. Or at least, any more than he had already.
Rousing himself from bed, Loki forced his muscles to move him across the apartment. Every part of him was stiff and moved inelegantly, but it was nothing a hot shower wouldn’t fix. It had taken him quite a long time to get used to such a novelty, but now that it was a common occurrence in his life, he didn’t know how he ever went without them.
He stood under the water for countless minutes, wondering where he’d gone so wrong with his scheme. Showing up without armour, for one. He’d also severely underestimated the fire power the humans now possessed. A flintlock and a musket had nothing on the weapons that man’s guards carried, which was all the more reason they could not be allowed to have the Tesseract. The army that commanded it could raze the entire realm, and Loki had become rather attached to Midgard. If the humans destroyed themselves, he’d have nowhere to go when Asgard became insufferable. It wasn’t as if the higher realms had anything new to offer. If anything, they were just as stagnate and unchanging as Asgard.
He’d simply have to try again, and this time, do it properly. Before the last amount of the hot water stopped, Loki quickly washed himself, scrubbing away any trace of his previous failed attempt. He nearly ran out of soap before he was done, but he felt better for it. Just being clean seemed to renew his energy, making the task before him not seem so daunting.
As he dried himself and dressed, Loki decided against taking on his Æsir appearance. Humans frightened easily, and he had a very distinct advantage on that level. He called forth his armour, forming it around himself with the simplest command. The hippogryph armour with the tall, sweeping horns on his helm fit him as well as it had the day it was presented to him. He had earned this armour, and he wore it proudly. Where Thor’s eagle motif was regal, Loki’s was threatening and menacing; almost villainous. What better way to frighten humans?
He took a moment to check over himself, making sure every stitch and plate of his armour sat perfectly on him. Beneath the shadow of his helm, his red eyes seemed to almost glow as he looked down at his vambraces, adjusting them over his forearms. Looking up again, he caught himself in the mirror and grinned a pleased, smug grin. Like this, he could start a whole new legend of creatures that went bump in the night. Loki liked that thought.
The Tesseract wasn’t singing, but that hardly mattered this time. Loki knew where he was going without that beacon of prayer to guide him. He stepped to one side, leaving his apartment and returning to the mountain fortress where the Tesseract was held. No sooner had he left, he found himself back in his apartment, one step away from where he’d started. Loki cautiously tried again, but the same thing happened, and once more he found himself back where he’d started.
“What the Hel?”
He hesitated to try a third time. Something was preventing him from gaining access to that place, which only meant someone was likely waiting to spring a trap.
It also meant they possessed very powerful magic; magic drawn from the Tesseract. Loki may have been a god, but this — whatever it was — was far bigger than him. He couldn’t help but laugh despairingly at the thought.
He should have kept to the shadows and taken his time. He should have observed the situation more closely; learned where the Tesseract was held and taken it without fanfare. Instead, he put on a show. He was arrogant and presumptuous, and for it, he lost his chance.
For the first time since he could remember, Loki was completely without a plan.
He began to pace around his apartment, chewing his thumbnail as he rethought his strategy. Any magic used to block his travel would have to be powerful, and not easy to manage. It should have been impossible for the humans to have managed at all, and yet he still remained in his apartment, far from where the Tesseract was held. How long, he wondered, had he been asleep?
That would have to be his first step in forming a new plan. He needed to find out how much time had passed. He was certain that those with the Tesseract had not yet managed to achieve whatever their goals, but at the same time, he doubted his own certainty. With the Tesseract, one could do almost anything.
Loki banished his armour and put on what he’d come to call his human skin. It was identical to his Æsir appearance in almost every way, except for his fingernails. For the same reason he wore them black on Asgard, he couldn’t on Midgard. They stood out far too easily.
He dressed quickly, finding his shoes kicked under his bed and his watch tangled in the blankets. Making sure he had a decent amount of money on him, Loki left his apartment and walked out to the street, where a group of boys were playing stickball. As Loki walked past them, he threw a handful of quarters onto the ground. At once, the game was forgotten as the boys scrambled to collect the quarters from the pavement, shouting at one another as they searched ever last one out. Loki let himself smile as he walked to the newsstand at the corner, finding no small delight in the sounds of chaos left in his wake.
Paying for the newspaper, Loki glanced down at the front page. According to the date, he’d been asleep for almost two weeks. He did tend to practically hibernate sometimes, but that seemed rather excessive, he thought. Determined not to do something so idiotic ever again, he flipped through the rest of the paper to see what other progress had been made. He began to wander down the street, hardly paying any attention to where he was going. He was far too busy being disgusted with the whole state of affairs. The war in Europe was only growing bigger, and would eventually become too big to be stopped. The Tesseract would be misused sooner or later, and then not even Odin himself would be able to stand in the way of those who wielded it.
Loki stopped and folded the paper, feeling no closer to solving the problem than he’d been in his apartment. Loath though he was to admit it, he didn’t think it was a problem he could solve on his own. Not unless he wanted it to kill him in doing so. He turned to start making his way home when a sign in a window caught his eye. It was a sign he’d seen hundreds of times already, but for the first time, he actually considered what was written on it. It was, he decided, the best option available.
So much for no more idiotic ideas. Loki was going to enlist.
He stepped into what had been turned into a recruitment centre, finding it abuzz with eager young men, literally lining up to enlist. Loki stood near the door, watching the movements of the room, trying to determine what he was meant to do. Almost at once, he realised a snag in his plan. Though he could understand the humans’ language and appear to speak it, he didn’t actually know it. He would be expected to fill out a small stack of paperwork, from the looks of it, but the only thing he knew how to write in their language was the name he used. And he’d only learned that because he’d been using it since he was a boy, and it was bound to sink in eventually.
He made sure that no-one was looking his way and cloaked himself to better slip through the crowds. He walked silently up to the desk in the centre of the room and began to peruse what few papers were visible. Slipping one of the folders from the stack, Loki stepped away and began to thumb through its contents. It had only the most basic of information, but even that Loki would have to forge. Unless they would accept ‘some time during the summer of Odin’s seventy-forth year of reign’ as a suitable date of birth. Somehow, Loki doubted as much.
Loki copied the folder and returned the original to the desk. Banishing the copies, he returned to the milling throng, where he let himself slip slowly back into view. Eventually, he managed to find a spot in the queue and looked around nervously like those around him. To speed up the process, a young woman walked down the line, handing out pens and clip boards containing blank copies of the forms Loki had taken. He once more made sure no-one saw what he was doing and replaced the blank forms with the ones he’d made. He changed his name and shifted some of the numbers about so his deception wouldn’t be quite so easily noticed. The person whose forms he’d copied was nineteen, which was a number Loki committed to memory, hoping he could pass for a human of that age. If not, he had other tricks, but he hoped to rely on them as little as possible.
The rest, he wasn’t sure what to do with. Medical history and family information were both areas he didn’t even know how to forge. Most of what was on his stolen copies was unremarkable, so Loki simply left it as it was, shifting only the numbers in the addresses.
Except for one. Next of kin. He was struck with a terrible idea and reached back to his apartment for an old letter. It sat, if it remained where it was meant to be, in a drawer by the window. He found it right where it should have been and pulled it out to look at the front of the envelope. Kitty liked to send cards for Christmas, and had sent him one with a whimsical dog wearing a bright red bow. The envelope, adorned with stylised sprigs of holly, had her address on the top corner. It felt a cruel thing to do, knowing how he intended his stint in America’s military to end, but it seemed even more cruel to accidentally list an unsuspecting person elsewhere in the city. Loki changed the information on the form, listing Kitty Price as his next of kin. He copied the address from the envelope and sent the envelope back where he’d found it. Glancing over the information one final time, Loki brought his thumb to his mouth. Satisfied with what he’d done, he ran his thumb over the pages, working a charm into the paper that would make any who looked at it not think to second-guess anything. Just in case he hadn’t been as thorough as he’d thought.
At the front of the queue, the man at the desk took Loki’s forms and glanced over them. Loki watched patiently, refraining from giving the man’s mind a slight nudge into accepting everything as legitimate. In the end, it wasn’t necessary. After a few moments, the man behind the desk nodded and handed the folder back to Loki.
“On your left,” he said, pointing to a corridor behind him.
Loki followed the directions and was met by a man in a while coat, who ushered him into a small room and took the file from him. The walls of the room had several anatomical charts hung up, as well as one sign, expressing the legality of lying on enlistment forms. Loki ignored that one and looked at the man instead.
“Luke Olson, correct?” he asked, looking down at the forms. Loki recognised him as one of the realm’s healers, realising the purpose of this meeting. It only made sense that they wanted to be sure their potential soldiers would be fit for duty.
“Yes,” said Loki, once more realising that he was in more than he’d bargained for.
“All right,” said Dr Scott, snapping the file shut and setting it aside. “Strip down to your shorts. I’ll be right back.”
He left Loki alone in the room, closing the door behind him. Loki quickly undressed, setting his clothes aside on a high cot along the wall. Not for the first time, he wondered how wise his plan was. It wasn’t as if the humans posed any real threat to him, but if he was caught, the consequences could have been disastrous. Suddenly, all he could think about was witch trials.
Dr Scott returned with a clipboard and motioned for Loki to sit up on the cot.
“That’s a nasty scar,” he said, pointing to the long slash across Loki’s chest. “What was that?”
Loki looked down, momentarily annoyed that his scars didn’t fade when he changed his skin. There was probably a way to make that happen, but he didn’t exactly have the time to dwell on it just then.
“Hunting accident,” he said. “My brother and I spent a winter hunting polar bear.”
Dr Scott looked impressed. “You sure you he wasn’t the one hunting you?” he asked.
Loki smirked. “I’m not the one hanging on his bedroom wall.”
That got a laugh from Dr Scott. “Fair enough,” he said. He wrote something down on his clipboard and reached for the device hung round his neck.
Loki wasn’t sure what to expect from the examination, but he felt a bit underwhelmed by it all the same. He spent twenty minutes being told to breathe and cough and touch his toes, and being tapped and poked and prodded. At one point, he was led to a strange scale meant to weigh and measure him. Loki stepped onto it without thinking, causing the top portion to tilt with a dramatic clang. Dr Scott gave it a concerned look as he adjusted the weights, and Loki belatedly thought to take his weight off his feet. He still couldn’t make himself as light on his feet as those around him, but a quick prod at Dr Scott’s mind made him see what he expected to see from a man of Loki’s size. Still almost sceptical, Dr Scott wrote his findings down on his clipboard and nodded.
The only thing Loki found remotely relevant to all the tests was when Dr Scott later asked him about the prescription on his eyeglasses, which Loki had to confess he didn’t know. He’d stolen them from an unsuspecting man when he first began spending time in New York, and kept hold of them ever sense because he rather liked the look of their round, brass frames.
Dr Scott at least didn’t seem to find any of this out of the ordinary, and only had Loki read from a chart across the room. He seemed satisfied with the results, and after a few more pokes and prods, picked up the file from where he’d left it and added his notes to it.
“All right,” he said. “I think that’s all. Go ahead and get dressed and wait for someone to call you.”
He left Loki alone to once more wonder if he was doing the right thing.
Loki walked up the stairs to the brownstone’s door, hesitating only slightly before ringing the bell. Inside, he could hear muffled shouting as someone rushed to the door. Loki couldn’t help but smile at it, somehow pleased to know that his family wasn’t the only one to express opinions through rage and loud voices. An older boy quickly threw the door open and frowned at Loki, sizing him up.
“You here for Kitty?” he asked.
Loki gave him his best smile. “I am,” he said.
The boy turned away, leaving the door open. “Kitty, there’s some guy here for you!” he shouted. “Should I tell him to scram or what?”
Watching the boy start to wander away, Loki very nearly laughed.
“Who is it?” Kitty shouted back from somewhere inside.
“How the hell should I know?” The boy disappeared into another room as Kitty rushed to the door, her face brightening as she saw Loki.
“Luke. What the hell are you doing here?” she asked. Someone inside shouted, so she stepped out to the stoop and shut the door. “Family,” she said apologetically.
“No worse than mine,” Loki assured her.
“So, what’s going on?” Kitty asked, not to be derailed. “You never just stop by. Is everything all right?”
Loki nodded. “Yeah. Everything’s fine. I, uh. I enlisted. Just today.”
Kitty’s eyes went wide as she took a small step backward. “You what?” she asked. “Why? You’re not even from here. You don’t have to do that.”
Loki shrugged. “They say you get citizenship if you enlist,” he said.
“Yeah, but is that really worth it?” asked Kitty.
Loki didn’t have an opinion either way, but if Luke Olson did, that would have been it. “I think so, yeah,” he said, shrugging again. “And it seemed like the right thing to do.”
Kitty looked up at him, an unspoken plea written across her face. “And getting shot’s the right thing to do?” she asked.
“By the time I finish training, the worst of it will probably be over,” Loki reasoned.
Kitty wrapped her arms over her chest and looked out at the street. Neither spoke for a long while, not sure what to say. Finally, Kitty inhaled deeply and faced Loki again.
“When do you ship out?” she asked.
“Monday,” Loki said. “Just enough time for me to get everything sorted here, and then it’s off to Camp Union for ten weeks.”
"What about your family? Have you told them?"
Loki didn't like to lie outright, because it was too easy to get caught up in his own deceit. The easiest way to avoid trouble was to avoid talking about himself at all, but Kitty had a way of getting past all his defences.
"I was disinherited," Loki said, seeming to not be sure whether he should be angry or ashamed. "Why do you think I'm even here?"
"I did wonder," Kitty admitted quietly. "What did you do?"
Loki snorted, knowing that the two events had nothing to do with one another in the slightest.
"I plotted against my brother," he said, going with the more interesting story. "It wasn't treason, but it could have been had things gone any worse than they did. Mostly, I just publicly humiliated him."
Kitty looked up at him almost pityingly before sliding into laughter she couldn't control. Loki soon joined her, realising only then how ridiculous the whole ordeal with Thor had been. Suddenly, Kitty stepped forward and pulled Loki into a tight hug, burying her face in his overcoat.
"You better come back, you hear me," she said.
Loki gently wrapped his arms around her shoulders, content to remain like this for as long as Kitty wanted. He hated that it had to be like this, but it was truly the best way for him to disappear, he thought.
"Of course I will," he said. "I promise."
“I’m getting real sick of drills. When do we actually start training?”
Loki silently agreed with the private across the mess table from him. Training was coming into its second week, and so far, they’d done nothing but learn how to march and stand and salute. Nothing about it seemed useful at all, but Loki didn’t dare try to contradict the drill sergeant and risk standing out any more than someone his size already did.
“We ain’t ever gonna do any good over there if we don’t start learning how to kill Nazis, you know?” Randal went on.
Loki looked up at him, almost surprised.
“You mean you don’t already know how?” he asked.
Private Randal dropped his fork onto his plate and glared up at Loki. “Yeah? What the hell do you know about it, four-eyes?”
“Hey, shut up, all right?” the recruit next to him said. “Just leave him alone.”
“No, I wanna hear what this guy has to say,” Randal said, swatting Coulson away. “He’s sitting over here like he’s done all this before. I mean, you know. He must have, to be talking like this.” He leaned back and levelled a sarcastic look at Loki. “So go on, then. Expound upon us all your knowledge of this subject.”
Loki remained unfazed. “I’m afraid you wouldn’t believe me if I did tell you,” he said.
Convinced of his victory, Randal held his hands in the air. “See? Doesn’t know a thing. Just as clueless as the rest of us.”
“Well, at least you established that,” Coulson said dryly.
Loki was fairly suspicious that Ray Coulson had lied on his own enlistment forms, but he couldn’t be sure. He seemed younger than the majority of the men in his platoon, but it could have just been a quirk of biology. Several of the men Loki trained with seemed rather young. Either that, or more people were lying in order to join the army than anyone was willing to admit.
As Randal continued to despair upon the monotony of their training, Sgt Horton marched into the mess hall and called the platoon to attention. Ten minutes later, they all stood outside on a dusty patch of earth, listening to Sgt Horton give a lecture about the importance of unarmed combat skills. Loki dared a quick glance over to Randal, not surprised to see him looking rather pleased.
“I need a volunteer,” said Sgt Horton suddenly. “Olson. Step forward.”
Loki stepped forward as commanded, almost dreading what was about to happen. “Sir,” he said.
“I’m going to demonstrate the basic defencive techniques,” Horton said. “Olson, I want you to hit me. Anywhere you like.”
He stood with his hands at his sides, opening himself up for a strike.
“Sir?” Loki asked, really not liking where the situation was heading.
“You heard me, Olson. I want you to hit me,” said Horton, already losing his patience.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Sir,” Loki said. Behind him, he could hear several of the other recruits laughing. Loki ignored it.
“Olson, this is your last chance,” Horton said, raising his voice until he was almost shouting. “Hit me.”
Loki refused still. Clearly annoyed at the defiance, Sgt Horton swung a right hook at Loki’s face. Loki dodged as soon as he saw Horton’s weight shift, grabbing him by his wrist and using Horton’s own momentum to pull him off his balance. Without even thinking, Loki threw his elbow at the back of Horton’s head, pulling the swing at the very last moment. The blow still connected harder than Loki had meant it to, and Horton fell face-first onto the ground. The whole thing was over before anyone even realised what had happened. Loki quickly stepped away as a nearby sergeant rushed over, kneeling beside Horton.
“I said I didn’t wish to hurt him,” Loki said calmly.
Around him, the other recruits murmured in shock, not quite sure whether or not to believe what they’d just seen.
Horton was roused and sat up, swaying slightly. He looked around him, his eyes glazed as his vision failed to focus.
“What happened?” he asked distantly.
“Come on,” said the other sergeant coaxingly. He pulled Horton to his feet, holding him as steady as he was able. “Up you get.”
Horton was led away, leaving the platoon alone on the training grounds.
“What the fuck?” Randal asked quietly.
No-one had an answer for him.
Loki sat outside Major Lee’s office, wondering why he was even still there. They’d all but found him out, and nothing good ever came from being found out. He’d have to leave New York; stay away from Midgard completely until enough time had passed that they’d forgotten him. But if he did that, there might not be a Midgard to return to. His list of solutions was growing shorter by the day. Three times since his induction into America’s army, he’d tried to return to the Tesseract while those around him slept, and each time he’d been forced back again. He supposed he could have just started wandering the realm until he found it, but even for him, with all his powers, that could take years.
The man who controlled the Tesseract was an enemy of America’s and allying with the nation was the best way for Loki to find him.
He’d begun to lose track of the time when he was finally called into Major Lee’s office. The major was a surprisingly old man, making Loki wonder just how effective their military could truly be if it was run by old men. He refrained from saying anything at all and stood at attention in front of Lee’s desk, waiting to be reprimanded, or worse.
“At ease, son,” Lee said.
“Sir,” Loki said with a nod, shifting his stance.
Major Lee had a file open on his desk, which he read over slowly before shifting it. Loki could only guess whose file it was.
“You want to tell me what happened out there today?” Lee asked finally.
Loki nodded once. “I acted on reflex, Sir. I was taught when someone hits you, you hit them back.”
“Except he didn’t hit you, did he?” asked Lee.
“No, Sir,” Loki admitted.
Lee nodded and grabbed a pen from a cup on his desk. Loki thought he might be about to write something in the file before him, but he just opened it and read it over again.
“Am I in trouble, Sir?” Loki asked finally, wanting whatever discipline meted to him out of the way.
“Trouble?” Lee asked, incredulous. “No, son. I’m promoting you. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be assisting Sergeant Horton in unarmed combat.”
Loki was caught rather off-guard by the decision. “Ah. Yes, Sir.”
Lee slid a small envelope across his desk to Loki, nodding at it. Still unsure, Loki reached forward and took the envelope, but he didn’t open it just yet. Almost at once, Lee seemed to become occupied by the next matter.
“Dismissed,” he said.
Loki nodded again, and saluted and turned to leave the room. Perhaps their army wasn’t completely useless after all, if they were willing to utilise whatever talents they found in their soldiers. Loki made his way back to the barracks, finding the others preparing for a march. Loki was met with cautious stares as he made his way to his bunk, but he ignored the lot of them. As he put the envelope down on his bunk, he glanced over at Coulson, unable to discern what he was meant to be doing.
“What’s going on?” Loki asked.
Coulson gave him a wary glance. “Full pack march,” he said after a moment. “With first platoon, since…”
“I did tell him I didn’t want to hurt him,” Loki said wryly as he gathered his pack.
“Yeah,” Coulson said, looking away again. “You pulled that punch, didn’t you?” he asked suddenly. “My old man was a boxer, and I’ve seen it before.”
Loki looked up at him. “I did, yes. Rather too late, I’m afraid.”
Coulson looked back up at him. “Where’d you learn how to do that sorta thing, anyway?”
“Growing up,” Loki told him, setting his canteen aside to be filled before the march. “It was just like any other daily lesson. Something everyone learned.”
“Jeez, where’d you grow up?” Coulson asked, his expression shifting from apprehension to something closer to wide-eyed awe.
“Iceland,” Loki said. “We’re practically Vikings.” He ran his fingers through his hair, still not used to the short cut of it.
Coulson snorted as he finished readying his pack. “I guarantee Randal won’t be giving you any more grief after today,” he said.
Loki grinned. “Yes, I did tell him as well, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, I guess you did,” Coulson said, laughing. “Maybe next time, he’ll listen.”
Loki found it surprisingly difficult to lead the platoon in physical training. Apparently the added stripe on his arm came with a small chunk of Horton’s responsibilities. It wasn’t that the training itself was difficult — in fact, it was childishly simple, and that was the problem. Loki would get bored doing jumping jacks and push-ups before he ever got tired from it. The humans he led could barely keep up with him.
The assault course was at least fun.
Sgt Horton timed them, sending them off through a maze of high walls, rope ladders, and various obstacles to be climbed over, under, and through. Years of running along precarious roof tops and dangerous terrain made days at the assault course the most familiar aspect of training. Loki started off with Coulson and Randal nearby, but lost them as soon as it came time to scale the first wall. A heavy rope hung down, which Loki was able to climb up with ease. He was actually surprised how much he seemed to miss so much physical activity.
He finished the course, panting happily as he dropped down from the climbing bars.
“What the hell are you doing here, Olson?” Sgt Horton demanded, looking incredulously at his stopwatch.
“I finished it, Sir,” Loki said with a grin.
“Then get back there and do it again,” Horton ordered.
Loki laughed. “Yes, Sir,” he said, already running back to the beginning of the course.
He still finished before almost a quarter of the platoon, feeling rather pleased with himself for it. Randal stood hunched over nearby, his hands resting on his knees as he panted at the ground.
“That guy ain’t human,” he decided. “It ain’t right.”
“I heard they were doing experiments at Lehigh,” another recruit, Kirby, said. “Maybe that’s where they found him.”
Randal shook his head. “It ain’t right,” he repeated.
Weapons came during the second phase of training, and Loki found he once again had an advantage there. While some of the recruits were hunters and police officers, most had never handled a weapon any more dangerous than a kitchen knife.
Even so, the M-1 was nothing like the muskets Loki had learned to use as a boy, or the more recent shotguns and revolves used out west. While the basic function was the same — point it where you wanted it to fire and squeeze the trigger — no musket had ever tried to take his thumb off when he loaded it. Loki almost missed the hassle of wadding and powder and ramrods.
He lay on his stomach at the range and tried to force the clip into the rifle. Finally, it clicked into place, loosening the slide before Loki had taken his hand away. It shot forward, catching Loki’s hand in the mechanism.
“Mother of Hel!” he shouted, struggling to pull his hand away.
Sgt Horton quickly rushed over to assist him in opening the slide, but found Loki already with his hand free. He had the side of his thumb in his mouth, sucking on the damaged flesh.
“Report to the infirmary, Olson,” Horton said. Two others had already been sent away from the range to be treated for broken thumbs, and Horton was starting to sound resigned to half of his men washing out just because of their weapons misbehaving.
Loki took his hand away from his mouth. “I’m fine, Sir,” he said. “Just caught the edge.”
Horton levelled a sceptical look on him, but walked down the line as Loki took his position once more. Next to Loki, Coulson lay on the ground, ready to be told when to start trying to hit the targets at the other end of the range.
“You sure you’re all right?” he asked.
Loki looked over at him and wiggled his thumb to prove it wasn’t broken. “I’m tougher than I look,” he said.
“You’re crazy,” Coulson replied.
Dangerous as it was, Loki also found the M-1 impressive. Fiddly though the clip was, it held eight rounds. Even more impressive, the rounds could be fired as quickly as one could pull the trigger. Loki rather liked that.
It was also a precision weapon. One could point it in a general direction and had a good chance of hitting their target with practise, but the M-1 was meant to be aimed. It took Loki a bit of time to get used to it, but he quickly grew to love the concepts of semi-automatic and aperture sights. He loved it so much, he qualified on the 1911 shortly after.
The 1911, he thought, might just have been his favourite weapon in a very long time. It fit better in his hand than his flintlocks, and produced far less blinding smoke. It also held seven rounds at once and loaded easier than a revolver, making it that much more practical than anything Loki had used like it before.
One way or another, Loki was determined to keep both the M-1 and the 1911 after he was finished with this ridiculous errand he’d found himself on.
The day before their final physical exam, the platoon was given a rare day to themselves. Not one to waste it, Loki got up and dressed, and then spent the rest of his day in his bunk with a book.
“You know, I don’t understand you,” Coulson said as he returned from the mess hall. “You got more energy than a jumping bean with a spring up its ass, but you’re the laziest bastard I ever met. Have you done anything at all today?”
Loki shrugged dramatically. “I can sleep for days if you let me.”
Coulson took off his jacket and stretched out on his own bunk. He pulled out a thin magazine from under his mattress and started flipping through until he found the page he’d left on.
“What are you reading?” Coulson asked, looking over at the book Loki held.
Loki showed him the cover. “What the Hel is a hobbit, actually?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of such a thing before.”
Coulson laughed. “You never read the Hobbit before?” he asked.
“I’m not from here,” Loki reminded him. He looked over at Coulson and frowned. “What have you got?”
Coulson showed him the cover, which depicted a man in blue with a shield, as he ploughed through a small group of Nazi soldiers.
“You remember that guy last month that was all over the papers?” Coulson asked. “Saved that kid and all that? My mom sent me this yesterday. I guess he’s this big thing now.”
“Is it any good?” Loki asked.
“Yeah, it’s all right,” said Coulson with a shrug.
Loki hummed speculatively. Suddenly, he closed his book and rolled over to face Coulson, causing his bunk to creak ominously. Spreading his palm out onto the mattress, he renewed the spell that kept the whole thing from just collapsing under his weight, letting him actually relax.
“Ray, can you do something for me?” Loki asked a moment later.
Coulson gave him a dubious look. “It depends,” he said. “How much trouble am I gonna get into for it?”
Loki tapped his book against the edge of his bunk. “Our alphabet is different from yours,” he said. “I can read reasonably well, but I can’t do much more than sign my name. Not quickly, anyway.”
“What?” Coulson asked, grinning. “You got a girl you want to send a letter to, but you never learned to write?”
“A friend, but basically, yes,” Loki said.
“Yeah, all right,” Coulson said. He put his comic aside and got up to dig through his foot locker. He pulled out a pencil and a small notebook and returned to his bunk. “All right, lover-boy. What’s her name?” he asked. He licked the tip of his pencil and got ready to write.
Loki rolled his eyes. “Kitty,” he said.
