With Mjolnir's hum fading into the distance, Loki surrendered his footing and slid to the ground. Thanos strutting about the ruined Statesman with the Infinity Gauntlet on his arm. Thanos in the possession of two infinity stones. If Ebony Maw hadn't yet realised what he had pulled out of Loki's mind, he would the moment he had a few minutes to reflect on the matter.

And that meant they were all done for. Midgard, Asgard, the entirety of the Nine Realms, the entirety of the universe. All the death the first time around, and all the deaths the second time had been for nothing. Ebony Maw would open the portal soon enough. The Chitauri, or whichever foul race had been selected to carry out the massacres in this time-line would come rushing in. Loki, Thor, SHIELD and the nascent Avengers might manage to hold them off for a day or a week. Ebony Maw and Gamora might even have to call for reinforcements. The Midgardians might even use up their stockpiles of atomics. It wouldn't matter -- destiny wasn't something you could run from.

Thanos' words. Except, he said it better.

'Shouldn't have gotten involved. I knew it was a bad idea and I did it all the same.' Loki rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. 'I always was an idiot.'

Closing his eyes, Loki let out a pained chuckle. Perhaps it would soothe some of the damned if they died knowing that their deaths would be infinitely quicker and kinder than Loki's own? After all, in damning them, he had damned himself too. Tyr, Gamora and Ebony Maw had little in common, except their hatred of Loki. A hatred Thanos himself undoubtedly shared too. Even putting aside Loki's efforts to bring down Thanos' crusade from the inside and his attempt to murder Thanos himself, Tyr had shouted that Loki had killed the Titan's daughter. Loki had never steeled himself enough to ask Heimdall the question, but Tyr had been gracious enough to provide confirmation. Nebula was dead. By Loki's hand.

And here was another pointless death on his ledger. It shouldn't have mattered, not when he had condemned the half the universe, yet Loki still found himself swallowing the lump in his throat. He pushed the knuckle of his index finger between his teeth and bit down until the pain began to echo the lingering throbbing in his head.

'This can't be the way this ends,' Loki muttered and despised himself for the unevenness in his voice.

There was no point in running or hiding. Thanos' children would scour the universe until they dug up whichever hole or crevice he had crawled into. He supposed could wipe out his memory. He had never tried it, for obvious reasons, but over the years, while researching for other things, he had come across a number of potentially useful spells. Some seemed quite thorough. A few days of digging around the palace library back on Asgard was bound to dredge up a spell that even the mind stone couldn't undo. But then if Thanos got his hands on the time stone, he could reverse whatever Loki did to himself just as he reversed Wanda's efforts with Vision.

The time stone.

It was right here on Midgard. Not yet in Strange's possession; Strange was probably still ignorant of the very existence of the mystic arts at this point. Loki stared at the deep imprints his teeth had left across his index finger. He could try to persuade Strange's predecessor to help him. And if she refused, he could steal the damned amulet. But what then? Start the cycle again? Time travel was a wonderful tool, but could do nothing to address the fundamental issue -- the knowledge locked in Loki's head presented an existential threat to the universe.

No, it was safer to wipe his own mind. Thor, the Avengers, Brunnhilde and whoever else was out there stood a much better chance against Thanos if he couldn't torture the truth out of Loki.

'He'll still try,' Loki reminded himself. 'Now that Ebony Maw saw what he saw. Torture -- the kind that would make the last stay in the pits of the Sanctuary a pleasant memory, that's what awaits. And if I survive the torture and he gains nothing, he will kill me. And I won't even know why I'm being tormented.' He shook his head. 'Or to go back again, right now. Wipe my memory the moment I go back. No, that's stupid. How will I know what I came back for? I'd have to leave enough to nudge me and he'll unravel me from that single loose thread. And again, death. It always ends in death.'

Maybe father was right. My birthright was to die.

'Maybe all of this could've been prevented had he just left me there in that wretched Jotunn temple.' Loki laughed bitterly.

Faint thumps of hurried footsteps came from somewhere above. Loki glanced up just as Rogers emerged from a hole in the ceiling and landed gracefully amid the wreckage. Rogers himself looked less than graceful. His hair was in disarray, white powder peppered his face and wide gashes across his SHIELD uniform exposed his pale skin.

'Are they all gone?' he asked. He trudged over to the broken window Loki sat beside, carrying himself with an air of a man who had just lost a fight he couldn't afford to lose. Yet, his face darkened further when his gaze focused on Loki. 'You don't look so great. Are you injured?'

Loki found he didn't have an answer to that question. Yes, his head, his throat, his neck hurt, but the physical pain hardly seemed to matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Loki peered up blankly at the Midgardian and shrugged.

'Would...' Rogers' brows drew together. He set down his shield and sat down on the dusty ground next to Loki. 'Do you know where your brother is?'

'He flew off somewhere in that direction.' Loki motioned back to the broken window.

'Why?'

'Ebony Maw and Tyr fled from us, Stark and my brother went off after them. Oh, Coulson in the quinjet as well. Perhaps they'll catch the Maw, or at least Tyr.'

'I hope so,' Rogers replied. 'The woman. Gamora, was it? I believe she's fled as well. I was on the lookout for you, then I caught a glimpse of her on the third floor. I pursued her for a while and we clashed, but I couldn't bring her down. She made a good few tonnes of the building collapse on top of me. By the time I dug myself out, she was gone.'

A small part of his mind, a relic of his younger days, found amusement in Rogers' failure, but the mirth was fleeting. Loki ran his thumb over the still visible teeth-marks across his index finger. 'Did she have the iridium on her?'

'She had a vial of something on her.'

Gamora on the third floor - where some of the laboratories were supposed to be. A vial on her person. Even with Loki's mind still somewhat addled by the infinity stone, the pieces now fell into place easily. Gamora had been tasked with securing the iridium, everything else had been a distraction. And they had fallen for it. Even Rogers' encounter with Gamora had been an accidental one.

This was a right disaster.

'Do you think we can commandeer the helicopter and follow their trail?' Rogers asked as he pulled himself up until he could see out the window. 'Or should I take you to a medic first? I don't know much about your... species? Is that the right term? Anyway, you look like you could use some rest.'

'There's nothing your medics could do for me.'

Loki shook his head and refused to listen to Rogers' reply. It was tempting to stay where he was, in fact, to never move again at all. The captain was stubborn and his cajoling would go on for a while, but he would tire eventually. After that Loki would have the pleasure of contemplating in peace about precisely how much of an idiot he was. But the thought of Thor out there, possibly in the Maw's mercy, nagged at him.

Stolen story; please report.

He pressed his left hand against the wall behind him and clambered up. The window offered a good vantage point of the battle's aftermath. Loki cocked his head. He had counted five helicopters before. Two hadn't survived the fight and were now smoking wrecks on the ground. One he barely made out in the rapidly fading light. It had touched down further away, well beyond the facility's perimeter; there was no longer a space closer that would have served as a safe landing zone. Of the remaining two there was no sign.

'You mean to take the one that survived the battle?' Loki said. 'I wouldn't recommend it. There'll be damage all over it; it won't make it far.'

Rogers fiddled with the strap on the inside of his shield. 'I've flown in worse.'

'Is there a particular direction you think Gamora would've gone? She might not have caught up with the other two yet and she does carry the iridium on her. If we can catch up to her --'

'What's going on down there?' Something close to silence had fallen over the area in the past couple of minutes; now shouting and bursts of gunfire came from ground level once more. 'Come on, this doesn't sound good.'

With that, Rogers scrambled down to investigate, pausing only to make sure that Loki was behind him.

----------------------------------------

As they returned to ground-level, the sun finally sank below the horizon. Lit by what last few rays remained, squadrons of soldiers flooded the area, moving like ghosts between the rising plumes of smoke. And in the gathering darkness, a single, desperate voice pierced the air. This wasn't the adrenaline-fuelled holler of battle nor the howl of the grievously wounded. Fear - that was the only thing to be found in that sound. Rogers, of course, understood the situation as quickly as Loki did and rushed over to the source of those screams.

'What's going on here?' Rogers demanded.

As best as Loki could tell, the military were clearing the battle-site and making a muck of it. Six infantrymen in full combat gear had converged on the upturned wreck of a light-armoured vehicle. Their focus wasn't on the vehicle itself, however, but solely on the woman caught in the narrow band of dirt between it and a body riddled with bullets. Or, rather, she had been their sole focus. Rogers' question had earned him three automatic rifles pointed at his face.

'Who's asking?' hollered the shortest of the infantrymen. With the soldiers' attention drawn away, the woman's screams had turned to gasping sobs and half-comprehensible pleas. Nor did the short distance between them warrant the shouting. Rogers gave Loki a side-long glance; they hadn't discussed with Coulson what the world should be told about Loki and Thor. Loki also didn't know what had been released to the public about Captain America's return from the annals of history. The infantryman seemed to take this hesitation as an insult. He jerked up his rifle and looked through the sight mounted on the weapon. 'Identify yourselves or I'll make mince out of you.'

'Sir!' came an alarmed shout from somewhere behind Loki. 'They are on our side. They helped us out. Well, the one with the shield did, but the... The point is -- they're not hostiles.'

It was the same corporal who had been daft enough to try to take out Rogers an ammunition box, but he was at least intelligent enough not to throw himself in front of the rifles aimed at Loki and Rogers. He came around the side and stopped there. The infantrymen's shoulders softened a little, but their rifles didn't shift an inch.

'My name is Loki Odinson,' Loki said. Now that they had butted into whatever was going on with the woman, it was evident that they wouldn't extricate themselves out of this situation without giving some explanation.

Much like Loki, Rogers' gaze kept drifting back to the road leading away from the research facility. Likely, he quietly made similar calculations also -- the soldiers, their blood still pulsing with the heat of battle, wouldn't just stand by and watch if they tried to leave. But another violent engagement today would help no one.

Nor am I up to one right now.

'Captain Steve Rogers,' Rogers said with a mild grimace.

'Sergeant Major Thornton,' the shortest of the infantrymen replied. His gaze lingered on Rogers as he went on, 'Pardon me, sir, what are you two doing here?'

'We are --'

'We received information that insurgents were planning an attack on this facility,' Loki cut in. He had no idea what Rogers wanted to say and he didn't care to find out. The situation was delicate. 'They were after certain chemicals that may be used to stage a large-scale terrorist attack. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived, the attack was already underway.'

Thornton motioned for the other two men to lower their rifles, then reluctantly brought down his own. 'What agency do you work for?

'They jumped out of the SHIELD jet,' one of the other infantrymen said. Although he had followed his sergeant's order and lowered his rifle, his finger still inched towards the trigger. 'They're not the good guys here.'

At the mention of SHIELD, the woman's head lifted. Beneath grime, ash and blood, which dripped from her temple as freely as her tears, were the remnants of a SHIELD uniform. Loki tilted his head to get a better angle of the armoured cars' interior. A badly burnt corpse lay twisted inside.

I can't believe it, but I actually wish Coulson and Romanoff were here. They could've dealt with this.

'We're not SHIELD.' Loki sighed. 'You know Tony Stark? As in Ironman? It's kind of the same thing with us -- free agents, occasionally pitching in where we can.'

'Vigilantes.' Thornton snorted.

The corporal bristled. 'Come on, sir. Captain Rogers took down half the SHIELD bastards who were firing at us. And if not for Stark, they would've brought down the entire building on top of us.'

Loki supposed he ought to have been thankful Rogers couldn't go five minutes without playing the hero, but he doubted the corporal's support would be enough to convince Thornton. Chewing on his bottom lip, Loki tried to come up with an explanation that didn't involve aliens or glowing sticks of magic. 'It seems SHIELD has been infiltrated by rogue agents,' he said in the end. 'Your man's right, we arrived on a SHIELD craft with several SHIELD agents escorting us. Those agents had called for reinforcements when news came about an attack here, but when we arrived, what we thought were our reinforcements started firing on us.' Loki gestured towards the woman. 'Why don't we ask your detainee for her side of the story?'

The corporal inched closer to Loki and Rogers. 'Sir, -'

'Corporal Esposito, have we run out of body bags?' Thornton interjected.

'No, sir.'

'Then get on with your work and don't stick your nose where it don't belong.' Thornton nudged the barrel of his gun towards the woman. 'Enlighten us then.'

She stared at him for a long moment, then slid her tattered sleeve across her mouth. 'I don't... I barely remember anything. An alert came in. We were all rushing, about to head off and then the director came. He was with a strange man.'

'Did he carry a staff?' Rogers asked softly.

'Yes!' Her eyes widened. 'He pressed it against my chest and everything faded away until his voice was the only thing I could hear. Then there was a battle, wasn't there? I remember flashes of it. I don't understand it; I was trying to bring down a SHIELD quinjet. Why would I do that? And then... I woke up and I was here and everyone else was... Oh, God, everyone else is dead.'

So much for no glowing sticks of magic.

'May I examine her quickly?' Loki asked. With obvious reluctance, Thornton gave his nod and Loki moved over to the woman. He shifted her blood-soaked locks until he found the narrow, inch-long gash. 'I wager you have a good concussion to go along with this blood. You were probably unconscious for a while, long enough to clear your mind of the influence that staff had over you.'

Thornton made a face. 'What the heck are you talking about? Mind-control?'

'More or less.' Loki straightened back up with a loud grunt, making the woman flinch away.

'Yeah. You know what? Colour me surprised.' Thornton muttered. 'SHIELD has always been filled with fuck-wits and weirdos.' He let out a loud scoff and went on. 'Jesus H. Christ. This is so beyond my pay grade.'

To Loki's mild amusement, Thornton meant what he said. He had his squad pull the bleeding SHIELD agent to her feet and marched them all straight to his commanding officer. But if Thornton wanted clear orders as to what he ought to do next, there were none to be had. The commanding officer decided to confer with his fellow officers about proper protocols for the situation and they soon fell into a heated argument about doctrine, jurisdictions and rules of engagement.

'Do you have a mobile phone on you?' Loki asked Rogers, speaking quietly so he didn't interrupt the healthy debate going on around them. 'They gave you one, right?'

Rogers winced. 'They did. I left it on the table back in the bunker; not really used to carrying it around just yet.'

'Where've SHIELD been keeping you? As much as I appreciate the hospitality of the local military, I need to find my brother. And we need to rendezvous with Coulson and his people. Or we can encamp at Stark's? I hear he has a tower all to himself.'

'Tony Stark lives in New York,' Rogers replied. 'It's a city on the other side of the continent. And that's where SHIELD... That's where I've been lately. I do have Coulson's number memorised if that helps.'

'Well, that's something,' Loki muttered, then raised his voice. 'Sergeant Major? Could we borrow a phone for a minute?'