"Don't defend him. He's trying to ruin this."
"He can't ruin it if you don't let him. I've got you, buttercup. I swear I've got you. This isn't only about that insane shyness of yours, is it? This is about your conviction that
no one would ever pick you over him. This is about you thinking you know what the answer to your request for help will be, and being so terrified to be proven right that you
can't even bear to ask."
"I've asked many times, Anthony. I've asked again and again, for centuries. I kept asking until I had no other option but to accept that the answer wouldn't change."
"You've never asked me, though. And you should have, because I. Choose. You, Loki. I will always choose you."
Loki's pale face turned bright pink and he blinked like a startled little kitten, staring right at him with incredulous, wide eyes.
"That's... not possible."
"It is, and I can prove it right now. All you've got to do is follow me down to the lab and feast your eyes on the unequivocal proof I've got waiting for you there. This is great
timing, bluebell. Great timing indeed. I did this before this ugly shit-storm hit my shore and now you'll always know I mean it for real."
Loki looked at him askance, elegant eyebrows coming together in that adorable expression of complete and utter confusion that never failed to melt Tony's foolish heart.
"I'm not sure I understand." He whispered finally and that was all he needed to say before Tony leaped to his feet and pulled insistently on his hand.
"So they're okay with Freyja marrying Loki?" Steve asked, looking at Thor skeptically. "I thought they were an endogamous culture."
"Traditionally, they are," the god assured him. "However, given the circumstances, they have chosen to admit exceptions. As the sole heir with a rightful claim to the throne,
there is little they can say against her choice. I don't think they would if they wanted to. He saved her life, after all."
Steve nodded in understanding, pleased that Freyja was actually going to have something go well for once in her life. After Thor had explained about the series of murders in
detail, and how Thanos had infiltrated Asgard even after death, Steve had realized it would have been near impossible for Freyja to help with the constant Kree attacks. He
couldn't blame her for refusing to return. But there was still one thing troubling him.
"Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"
Thor shook his head, "Not at all."
"How did your youngest brother, a prince of Asgard, end up here?"
"When we were young, the Norns came to our father with a prophecy," he explained. "They foretold that Ragnarök, the end of the gods, would begin with the death of Balder. More than that, they said his death would be brought about by Loki. I could never bring myself to believe it. Balder was closer to Loki than anyone else, even our parents, and
Loki loved him dearly.
"But our father has always harbored a prejudice against Loki for his blood, and so chose to send Balder here in the care of one Vanir and one Einherjar. We never saw him
again, until recently."
"But if his death is foretold, why would you be worried about him now? Wouldn't it mean that he's not going to die?" Steve asked.
He shook his head, "If there is anything I have learned from Freyja, it is that the future is never entirely certain until it is directly upon us. The Norns can only give the most
likely outcome."
Before Steve could reply, a handful of agents came rushing down the hall, causing both Thor and himself to jump out of the way. They all seemed relatively shaken, a few
glancing over their shoulders in the direction that they came. Dmitri was the only one of the group who stopped when he saw them.
"Ah, Rogers," the mutant said, giving a shaky smile.
"What's all this?"
"Magda – Nikki, sorry, and Erik are…having words."
"Having words?" he repeated.
As if on cue, there was a resounding bang of something colliding with metal coming from down the hall. Thor's hand twitched towards Mjolnir's handle even as Dmitri winced.
"More or less," he replied. "I should tell you, Magda has asked me to search for the kids, so if your boss-man comes looking for me, tell him I'm doing his job for him."
"Will do," Steve said, though he was only half listening.
Dmitri turned to walk away, but stopped and glanced at Steve over his shoulder, "Oh, and Rogers, you might want to leave them alone. Unless they tear this plane out of the
sky, which I don't doubt – quick tempers, the both of them. Only then you should get involved."
He turned away without another word, not even bothering to get Steve's response. The second the mutant was out of sight, Steve turned his attention down the hall,
wondering if Nikki was alright. He barely reacted when Thor's hand fell on his shoulder.
"You are not going to listen, are you?"
"I don't trust Lensherr," Steve admitted. "I don't know what he did exactly, but it's obvious that he's hurt Nikki somehow. He puts her on edge."
"They were married," Thor pointed out. "Perhaps it best to leave them be."
He shook his head, "She moved to an entirely different universe to escape him. Who does that?"
"Someone who is desperate," Thor answered in defeat. "And terrified."
"Exactly," he said, walking in the direction Dmitri and the agents had come from.
Steve was vaguely aware of Thor shaking his head at him, but he didn't bother to say anything more as he walked away. After all the months he had spent in the House with
Nikki, Hannah, Bali, Remy, and the kids, he still felt as though he should do whatever he could to help. Even if Nikki hadn't quite forgiven him yet.
Before he could reach the door, it swung outward so quickly that he had to step back to keep from slamming into it. Nikki walked out, apparently not seeing the ex-soldier and
god, and immediately turned to walk down the opposite hallway. Steve just barely caught a glimpse of her face as she walked away. It almost looked as though she was
crying.
A strange screeching noise, almost like nails on a chalkboard, emanated from the room Nikki had just left. Steve turned towards Thor and nodded towards the closed door.
"Make sure he doesn't drop us out of the sky," he said. "I'm going to check if Nikki's okay."
Thor nodded in agreement, not bothering to argue, and Steve got the impression that Thor understood why he was doing this. He gave a nod in thanks and took off down the
hall in hopes of finding Nikki.
He could hear her crying softly before he even opened the door. It had taken a bit more time than he had expected to find her, and it was obvious that she had wanted to be
alone, as she was in one of the engine rooms. How she managed to hear the squeak of the door alongside the other sounds of metal on metal was beyond him. But when he
stepped into the room, her entire posture went rigid. Her stance softened when she glanced briefly over her shoulder at him.
"This really isn't a good time, Rogers."
"I just wanted to make sure you're alright," he told her.
"Well, you have your answer," she said, throwing her arms out wide as if gesturing to the room around them. "Now could you please leave me alone?"
He took one last step closer, the space between them gone, and gently placed his hand on her shoulder. She barely responded to the touch.
"If you want to be alone, there's a much better room," he said. "I could show you, if you want."
"Why?"
He hesitated, wishing she would turn around to look at him, "Because no one ever goes there. And I know what it's like to want to be left alone sometimes."
He walked around to face her, offering out his hand. Her eyes were rimmed with red and her cheeks were tear-stained, a deep-set sort of pain echoing in her glassy brown
eyes, and
his heart broke for her. When she had been locked in that cell with no hope, Steve had thought he had seen her without her usual armor. He knew differently now.
It was now that her armor had been stripped away completely, some old wounds that he was only vaguely aware of had been wrenched open, and she was left defenseless
and raw.
She stood there looking at him, never saying a word, as though she was considering ignoring his offer. But then she gave a quiet sigh, taking his hand slowly. He gave her hand
a reassuring squeeze before leading her back out the door. Back when he had been on the Helicarrier for the first time, when Loki had popped up in Germany, he had spent many of the nights exploring the relatively empty hallways. It had allowed him to find many rooms that almost never used by the staff and agents on board. Whenever he
wanted to think in silence, his favorite place to go was what he had come to call 'the observation room'.
It wasn't a particularly large room, maybe four feet in width and ten feet in length, but it was completely empty. However, much of the space didn't have a floor and anyone
who walked in was only able to cross the room using the catwalk-like walkway that was suspended over the main engine far below. But his favorite part of the observation
room was the long panel of wide windows which were directly at eye level if you sat down on the walkway.
Nikki gave him a confused look as they walked in, but said nothing. He let go of her hand, walking down the metal panel to take a seat on the edge, and motioned for her to
come closer. She didn't protest or leave the way they came, instead she chose to sit down next to him and lean against of the handrail's bars. Outside the windows across
from them was the night sky, stars littering the velvet black sky.
"I used to come here when I was lonely," he told her. "If I didn't look anywhere but out there, I could almost pretend that nothing had changed. I could pretend that I was
going home, that I had a home to go to. Truth is, I was lying to myself the whole time."
Nikki pulled her legs up against her chest, resting her head on her knees as she stared out at the night sky, "The war never leaves you, regardless of how long ago you left the
war."
He stopped short at that, looking at her as she spoke.
"I don't know how long it's been for you, how long it feels like, but it doesn't really matter in the end," she said, her voice hollow. "It's been thirty-two years for me and it still
hangs over me every time I make a decision. I suppose it's different for you. You were a soldier, after all, and I was a prisoner. But it instills this fear in you that fills your veins
and seeps into your very bones. It's inescapable because it's a part of you and, no matter how fast or far you run, you can't run away from yourself.
"I've made so many mistakes, all because I've been afraid. I've hurt everyone I've ever loved because of it. When I came here, I thought things would be different. I thought I
could finally protect them. Unlike you, my problem isn't that everything has changed, it's that nothing has."
She took a shaky breath, another tear sliding down her face. In the silence, he could see how her body shook as though she was just barely holding back, as though she was
so close to breaking down completely.
"I hate being this weak," she whispered. "I've been weak since the day the Nazis dragged us from our home. I married Erik because I thought he could make me stronger,
because he was all I knew and all that I could recognize after the war. We were too young, too damaged, and we tore each other apart. I can't come to regret marrying him,
though, because it gave me Anya.
"She was the most beautiful part of my world, the only redeemable part of the world I could see. I know it was the same for Erik. I guess that's why he kept her mutation from
me. Erik didn't know that I was a mutant, I thought that was how he would have wanted it, so I suppose he felt Anya's gifts would have upset me.
"In those days, he had just started the Brotherhood of Mutants. They were this ragtag group of mutants from all over, those who had been persecuted by humanity, those
who, like Erik, could not forgive the world for what it had done to them. I asked him to keep Anya away from them. After all, I knew what happens when children live through
wars. But she was a mutant, and he couldn't help himself."
She couldn't stop crying now. That much, Steve could tell. He watched her, saw how her eyes were decades in the past, as she pushed through all that she had to say. It
seemed she couldn't stop herself now, not when she finally was able to say it.
"There was a fire. I suppose she started it by accident, practicing with her mutation, but no one was home. Raven had come to Erik with an emergency, and he left her alone.
I came home to an inferno. Erik and I dragged her out, but it was too late. My little girl died in my arms, choked in soot and smoke, and I couldn't do anything to save her.
Shaw taught me how to destroy, not to save. I sat there in the dirt, helpless as I was the day my sister died.
"I thought it was an accident for months, that maybe she had knocked over a candle. When I learned the truth, that he had filled her head with ideas of glory and fighting
alongside his brotherhood, I knew what she had been doing. Anya always wanted to make us proud. She made it her personal mission to make us smile every day, and she was
likely trying to master her mutation in the hopes of making Erik happy. It was then that I realized Erik was just as scarred as I was. And I was terrified."
"There's nothing wrong with fearing for your life," he assured her, sliding closer to her.
She shook her head, still refusing to look at him, "I wasn't running for myself. I was scared that he would do the same thing to them."
"Them?"
She nodded sadly, "I never told anyone except Charles and Dmitri, not until now. They don't even know."
"Pietro and Wanda," he guessed, remembering how Natasha had told him they hadn't existed in this world.
"I didn't want to lose another child," she sobbed. "I was so afraid of him finding them and pushing them, just like Shaw pushed us. So I ran. I ran to a man I didn't even know,
to a man Erik had vaguely told me about, all the way in America. To Charles. And, yes, he agreed not to say a word. He accepted me into his home and, for a while, I felt safe.
"But the day they were born, it came creeping back. That lingering sense of terror that I could never escape. I worried about what would happen if Erik figured out where I
went, if he found the twins, took them away from me in every sense of the word. So I did something unforgivable. I gave them away so that, even if he found me, he would
never be able to hurt them."
She looked at him at last, the final scrap of an apathetic mask falling away to reveal a devastated misery that was etched into every inch of her expression.
"I let another woman raise my kids," she choked. "They grew up thinking that they weren't wanted. What kind of mother does that?"
Her voice broke on the last word, the sentence hanging in the air between them acting as the break in a dam, and she couldn't stop her sobs. Her shoulders shook as she
cried, burying her face in her arms. She looked ashamed.
He turned to face her entirely, pulling her close against his chest, and held her tightly. There were no words he could say to make things better, but he still wanted it to be
clear that he didn't look down on her for what she had done. He wanted her to know that he didn't think any less of her. So he stroked her hair as she grieved over what she
had been forced to do.
"They didn't know me when I saw them again," she managed to say, her voice almost a hoarse whisper. "I looked into their eyes and they didn't know me."
"You did what you thought you had to," he breathed, using all his strength to kee
p his voice even. "You made a hard call to protect your kids. That's all."
"It didn't work," she murmured. "Charles had Pietro help him break Erik out of prison. I watched as Erik spoke on television, calling to all of us to join his cause, and I was afraid
again. That's why we came here. Because Erik was starting a war. And now they're in trouble, and Erik knows, and there's nothing I can do. I failed them. All that I gave up,
and I still couldn't protect them…"
"We're going to find them," he assured her. "We're going to get them back. I promise."
It was silent once more in the observation room. Steve didn't move from where he sat holding her, didn't complain when her tears stained his shirt. He let her stay there in his
arms, not saying another word, and felt fully that he was going to do everything he could to keep his promise. But for now, he sat with Nikki for as long as she needed.
And if a pair of green-grey eyes watched them from the crack in the door, neither of them noticed.
In the days after Erik's arrival, it seemed to Steve that things were becoming a bit more amiable between himself and Nikki again. Dmitri had yet to return with any news
regarding HYDRA and the kids, leaving Nikki to while away the time training, and the two had spent more time in the R and D department trying out the new uniform Coulson
was having made than Steve cared to count.
Coulson had also brought most of his team to meet and work with Nikki. While Agents May and Ward were seeking out the few HYDRA agents they knew of, Skye, who had
briefly met with Nikki out of curiosity, was searching out any darknet connections that were floating around. Fitz and Simmons were working on a developing her uniform to be
customized on a molecular level. Both had been fascinated with her abilities, with Simmons nearly bombarding Nikki with questions on mutants and what she called the X gene.
At present, Steve was sitting in with Nikki as Simmons spoke with Erik, who claimed to know a bit on mutations himself. Though he had assured Nikki that he wasn't going to
harm Simmons, she had refused to let the conversation occur without being absolutely certain. And that meant monitoring them from the sidelines.
A Girl of the Future Page 43
