Ebony Maw's flight caught them all by surprise and for a moment, they stood frozen. Loki was the first to react.

'Don't let her out of your grasp!' he shouted to Stark, who had managed to grab onto Gamora.

He wasn't quite a match for her skills or alien physiology. One well-practised manoeuvre and she flipped Stark over her shoulder. He landed onto his back with a dull thud. The Sorcerer Supreme tutted as she unravelled the bright mandalas she had been using as shields and wrapped the cords of magic tight around Gamora's body.

'Thanks for the help there,' Stark grumbled, his words somewhat slurred. There were splits in both his upper and lower lip and one of his front teeth was missing. He motioned towards the Sorcerer Supreme. 'Who are you exactly?'

'Later, Stark,' Loki replied.

He glanced down the mountainside. The fire in the lodge continued to spread and with the growing devastation, it also offered more light. Rogers and Tyr were clearly visible now. Rogers seemed to be dragging the uncooperative Asgardian up the mountainside. Loki chewed on his lip. Tyr was badly injured; Gamora was contained with formidable magic. Surely, Rogers and Stark could handle these two.

Thor seemed to have the same thoughts. As he swung Mjolnir by its strap, he said, 'We can't allow the Maw get away.'

The hammer's momentum pulled him into the air before anyone could respond. The Sorcerer Supreme chose to rely on her astral projection. Loki, however, merely ran. He had a vague notion that the other two would stop Ebony Maw in his tracks and he would come from behind, but he soon regretted his decision. He hit a particularly deep patch of snow and his boots began to sink into the snow almost up to the knee. Even a blind person would have been able to follow the trail of Loki's ponderous trek. Ebony Maw, on the other hand, left far more nebulous evidence of his passage. He relied on his magic to carry him forward, travelling faster than Loki could and leaving only a thin frothed up layer behind where his magic disturbed the snow cover. Then, even that much disappeared.

Sweating through the armour that was enchanted to wick away sweat -- his Jotunn form tolerated his Asgardian garb poorly, Loki summoned an emerald-hued light-ball. He guided the ball above his head, toward the pine branches and examined the area around him more closely.

'I can't feel him any longer,' the Sorcerer Supreme's astral projection said tersely.

'Nor I,' Loki replied. He wasn't exactly surprised. It required a substantial commitment of magic, but Loki knew how to make himself invisible to certain people when he wanted to avoid scrutiny. Why shouldn't Ebony Maw know a similar trick? Unfortunately, the only way Loki knew to tear off that magic involved knowing exactly where the spell's caster was located.

Loki flicked the light-ball lower once Thor landed beside him. He had anticipated Thor would be scowling and fuming with anger -- their adversary had just slipped away from him for a second time, so Loki was caught off-guard when Thor grabbed him and in a single, panicked breath asked, 'This is really you? Loki? You're not an illusion, aren't you?'

I suppose I did put him through the wringer this night.

'I'm really me.' Loki rested his hand on top of Thor's and felt his brother's clenched grip somewhat relax. 'I would've told you, but I couldn't let you risk giving away the surprise.'

'The way your double killed itself. After what you said to me earlier, I --'

Loki shook his head. 'Now isn't the time for this, Thor. The Maw has lost the sceptre, but he's still a threat. We need to find him.'

'He's without his sceptre and without his allies,' the Sorcerer Supreme said. 'He doesn't have a face to easily blend in with the local population of this planet. Plus we do have the other two, who can be persuaded to talk. He can be found, I think.'

What she said sounded great, but Loki had his hopes dashed too often in the past to fully embrace her optimism. He jerked his head back towards the direction of the lodge. 'In that case, we don't want Tyr to bleed to death.'

In his focus to catch up to Ebony Maw, Loki hadn't been fully cognizant of how far he had travelled and now that the adrenaline had begun to wear off, he started to feel the full weight of his tiredness. It didn't help either that there were now too many aching spots across his body to be worth counting. The walk back was a miserable exercise. The fact that the astral projection moved freely beside him was infuriating.

'Did you get the Maw?' Rogers called out when they finally made it back. He and Stark had dragged Gamora, who was bound so tight she couldn't move an inch, closer to Tyr. Rogers stood on full alert next to Tyr's prone form, his eyes flicking every few seconds between the wilderness around them and their two captives.

'Do we look like we have him?' Loki replied. 'We're going to have to pry out the location of his hiding hole from the other two. Tyr is still alive, yes?'

'He is.'

How polite of the good captain not to mention he's the only reason I didn't gut Tyr when I had the chance.

'Ok, I say later is now,' Stark declared. He had stripped off the remaining pieces of his suit and was now in clothes entirely inadequate for a Midgardian to be wearing in this temperature, not that it seemed to bother him. He motioned first to Loki, then to the Sorcerer Supreme. 'The one that acted like the real you was the fake, am I right? That's how you managed to die and the Maw just dissolved your body. All right, magic is fun like that, sure. But who is this? Where did she come from?'

'Wait, you had two doubles then,' Rogers said. 'The one with me became sluggish and then disappeared altogether. Gave me a fright and a half.'

'My apologies, Rogers. The double was distracting while I dealt with Gamora, it had to go,' Loki said.

He dropped to his knees beside Tyr and checked the man's breathing. It was shallow, but not overly strained. Loki began prying off the man's bloodstained armour - it was difficult to do much for an injury you couldn't see. The armour, still the same Tyr had worn as the captain of the Einherjar, was elaborate and much of it was slick with blood. Loki's fingers slipped as he tried to release the smaller latches holding the shoulder-pieces together, so Thor crouched down to help. They worked together until the bulk of Tyr's armour lay spread out beside him.

Thor pulled the fabric of Tyr's trousers back until it ripped and better exposed the badly oozing wound in Tyr's thigh. 'Was this your blade, brother?'

Loki nodded and turned to the Sorcerer Supreme. 'I don't suppose you'd be kind enough to do me another favour and give us a lift to the helicarrier.'

'Is it that bad? It'll be here in fifteen minutes tops,' Stark replied. 'We're still lacking an introduction, Loki. Is this a cousin of yours? The Goddess of Unanswered Questions?'

She chuckled, extending her hand out to Stark. 'I'm the Sorcerer Supreme. I can assure you, I'm as native to Earth as you are, Mr Stark.'

'Earth has sorcerers now?' Rogers muttered. 'The future is turning out to be a strange place.'

'You're right on the mark there, cap.' Stark chortled.

Silence reigned for a few seconds, then Rogers said, 'If we're going to wait for the helicarrier, I'm going to check on Nat and see what mess Ebony Maw and his lot left behind. It's been a while since I heard from her.' He forced a smile. 'A pleasure to meet you, Sorcerer Supreme.'

What did Gamora do to Romanoff?

Loki brought his hand up to his ear, hoping to get a status report from whoever was left to give a report and realised that his ear-piece was missing. It had to have fallen out along the way - perhaps when escaping the burning lodge, perhaps somewhere in the mirror dimension. He had been too preoccupied with the fighting to notice.

Not that he would have been able to hear much if he did still have the ear-piece on him. As Rogers slipped into the distance, the questions thrown at Loki mounted. Loki suspected Stark was attempting to distract himself from his injuries and the harshness of the local climate by grilling him. So, while Loki and Thor did what they could for Tyr, Loki humoured Stark and explained what he had been doing during the battle. Eventually, however, Stark couldn't shake off the limitations of his body any further and began shivering so severely he was nearly incomprehensible due to his chattering teeth. He moved closer to the lodge where the flames could offer him some badly needed heat.

'Stark, don't get too close,' Loki said. 'You had all manner of chemicals inside. There's no telling what the flames could get to at any moment.'

Stark took two reluctant steps back, his face scrunched up and his eyes watering from the smoke. 'There's not going to be anything left to salvage, is there? Goddamn it, this was my dad's baby. He worked on this place for years.'

'It was a fine house, Tony,' Thor muttered. He ripped off another piece off the bottom of his cloak and wrapped it around Tyr's thigh. The would on his back they could contain as long as they kept him lying on his side, but the blood flow from thigh injury refused to be stemmed. 'Sorcerer Supreme, have you any skill as a healer?'

'Just let me die,' Tyr groaned in reply.

Loki leaned in and whispered into the old man's ear. 'Not yet, old man. Not until you have repaid for all the disrespect you've ever shown me.'

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

He would have gone on. Neither Thor nor Stark were paying attention to his words, while the Sorcerer Supreme only seemed amused, but a deep rumble in the distance caught him mid-thought. A few moments later, a great light climbed above the crest of the mountain to their west and Loki realised that the rumble was merely the sound of the helicarrier's engines. He patted Tyr on the shoulder and rose to his feet as the USS Gibraltar began its descent into the valley, the force of its engines bending the slim pine trees and sending snow flitting in every direction.

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

Two days later, the overflowing medbay of the USS Gibraltar seemed to be on the minds of many aboard the helicarrier. Loki had been on his way to the bridge when he noticed the elated tones of the SHIELD personnel around him, which struck him as odd. SHIELD had lost more than three hundred people in the past fortnight, most of those on board knew someone who hadn't made it, so until now the atmosphere on the helicarrier had been dour and sedate. Curious, Loki followed the hubbub of excitement until he found himself in a very crowded corridor that led to the medbay's main doors.

'Brother?' Thor called out. He was slumped against the wall further down the corridor.

Loki pushed through the crowd until he reached Thor. 'What's happening out here?'

'I came to speak with Tyr again. Why the Midgardians gather here, I don't know,' Thor said, speaking softly to avoid drawing the attention of the SHIELD personnel in the vicinity. 'His doctors say he's ready to be transferred to a cell.'

Loki nodded; this issue had vexed Thor ever since they captured Tyr. Fundamentally, there was a capacity issue aboard the USS Gibraltar, which was an operational base and not a floating prison. There was only one cell Thor and the Midgardians considered secure enough to hold an alien with strength and physiology far superior to the average Midgardian, yet they had two prisoners on their hands and no one thought it was a good idea to keep them together in the same cell.

'You want to take him back to Asgard,' Loki said. He tilted his head so he could see through the gap in the blinds hung over the medbay windows. Tyr lay on his back, hooked up to several machines. Not visible from Loki's vantage angle were the three SHIELD agents stationed in the medbay to guard Tyr.

'He has crimes to answer for back on Asgard,' Thor said, 'but the Midgardians want to extract every bit of information he has out of him. And they want to prosecute him for the crimes he committed on Midgard.'

The plan to put Tyr on trial was news to Loki; Coulson and his team were reticent to discuss much with Loki ever since they returned to the helicarrier. They were unimpressed by his decision to keep them uninformed about his plans in Switzerland and irritated by his refusal to explain what he had done with the sceptre.

'I don't want to stir up ill-feelings among the Midgardians,' Thor added, dropping the volume of his voice even further.

Loki turned his back to the medbay window and looked up at his brother. 'Then be a help, not a hindrance. We have cuffs on Asgard that will contain him. Have them brought down here.' A corner of his lip twitched upwards. 'And remember that dwarven mouth mask? You'd do everyone a favour if you had that brought over too; his tongue is insufferable.'

'That thing hasn't been used in centuries.' Thor cringed.

Loki bit into the inside of his cheek and made a concerted effort to focus on the time-line he was currently in. 'Has Tyr said anything worth hearing yet? Every time I come near him, he rambles like a madman.'

'About as much as Gamora has.' Thor tugged at his vambrace. 'There was one thing he resolved for me last night when I spoke to him. I wanted to know how he escaped his cell back on Asgard. It wasn't as productive a conversation as I'd hoped, but he did explain what happened to Sigurd.'

'Who?'

'Tyr's son-in-law, married to the second of his daughters. He disappeared the same night Tyr did. From what I knew of the man - a capable sorcerer and seldom on good terms with his father-in-law - he didn't seem like one to become involved in the escape plan. I was wrong. Sigurd was instrumental in organising Tyr's escape and he remains back in the Sanctuary. Apparently, he wanted to prove himself to his father-in-law once and for all.'

'Good riddance then,' Loki muttered, then thought better of it. He did have a vague memory of Sigurd - a handsome and talented young man and utterly smitten with his wife. When he wasn't doting on his two young children, he was in the library. 'What has he been doing in the Sanctuary?'

'Helping the Maw understand how infinity stones work, according to Tyr.'

Then it's likely Sigurd is as responsible for the accelerated time-line to the Tesseract theft as I am.

A flurry of excitement among SHIELD personnel massed in the corridor drowned out Loki's string of violent profanity. Then, at someone's shout, the chatter stilled and the Midgardians parted, pressing themselves against the corridor walls. A wheeled bed, flanked by six guards, was pushed through the corridor and into the medbay. From where Loki and Thor stood, they had no chance of making out whether there was someone lying in that bed, but once the medbay doors swung shut, the Midgardians exploded into chatter once more. Loki finally picked up enough of their words to understand - Nick Fury had been found.

Loki supposed this ought to be seen as a positive development. In fact, the entire Switzerland escapade looked like something close to victory. They had deprived Thanos of an infinity stone and had captured two of his followers. It had been a long time since Loki had tangled with the Titan's children and it hadn't turned into an utter disaster.

Yet it hardly felt like a victory. Ebony Maw remained out there somewhere, in possession of the Tesseract. Neither Gamora nor Tyr had provided any helpful information thus far. Romanoff was still under vigilant medical supervision, recovering from severe internal injuries. Stark stubbornness is the only reason he was still on his feet. And Thanos remained as potent a threat as ever.

Loki tucked a stray lock of hair behind his left ear. 'We'd best make ourselves useful in what ways we can be to the Midgardians. Get those cuffs brought over, Thor.'

'I will,' Thor replied. 'Perhaps I can find something to help with Gamora as well. You've still had no sign of the Maw?'

'They've had another go at facial recognition this morning.' Loki rolled his eyes. 'More hideously ugly Midgardians and none of whatever species Ebony Maw spawned from.'

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

Loki used his fork to scrape out the meat mixed into his rice. Having now spent half a week on the helicarrier, Loki had come to realise that the food served aboard wasn't quite as unpleasant as he remembered it being. He suspected Fury had ordered he be fed left-over scraps when he had been in SHIELD custody on the USS Gibraltar.

However, this particular meal - the "Indian Curry Special" as the menu board advertised it - had to be a mistake. The meat was chewy, the sauce powdery and the rice tasted like the chef had developed short-term memory problems and ended up salting the rice three times over. Unfortunately, Loki had arrived very late and all the other options listed on the menu had run out. No doubt the helicarrier's crew knew which meals were palatable and which one would be best thrown overboard.

'Enjoying your lunch?' Thor asked, making Loki jump in his seat. He had been too preoccupied with contempt at his third-rate curry to pay attention to his surroundings. Thor took a seat opposite Loki. The rest of the cafeteria tables were unoccupied, both the helicarrier mechanics in their overalls and the SHIELD operations personnel in their slick office attire had filtered out to resume their work. 'By your face, I'd say you wouldn't recommend it.'

'I've eaten worse, I suppose.'

Thor rested his elbows on the table and pressed his fingers together. 'I've spent the morning in Gamora's cell.'

'Is she talking yet?' Loki asked. After Thor returned from Asgard, Tyr became even more uncooperative than he had been and Thor had turned his attention to their other captive.

'Not a great deal, but some. In fact, you're her favourite topic.'

Loki rolled his fork between his thumb and index finger, then set it down against the edge of the plate. 'I'm not surprised. I made her father look like a fool and killed her sister. She has more than enough reason to hate me.'

'She talked a little also about what she got out of the Valkyrie about you. You told me that you heard about Thanos and his plans while you were on Sakaar. Yet you told the Valkyrie that our father sent you out as a spy. Your story doesn't add up, brother. Why is that?'

'I hoped our home-world and father's name still had some meaning for her,' Loki replied smoothly as he moved his plate to the side of the table.

'Really?' Thor frowned. 'I don't follow the logic. I've never met her, true, but I've heard a bit about her from you and now from Gamora. This is a woman who abandoned every oath she swore and ran off to drink away the rest of her days, what does our father's name mean to her? By both your account and Gamora's, the money you offered was what swayed her. So why bring up our father, why bring up Asgard at all? You only endangered the realm by doing so if you were discovered. And you were.'

Loki tried to suck in a breath through the building tightness in his chest, but the sense that his ribs were constricting and crushing his lungs refused to dissipate. He shook his head.

'I made a mistake,' he muttered.

'I know you, Loki. This isn't the kind of mistake you make.'

Shit. Goddamn it.

Loki crossed his arms. 'Well, this time I did. What's the point you're trying to make here? Are you accusing me of something? It might have slipped your mind, but the whole debacle with Laufey was still fresh on my mind back then.'

'How long were you on Sakaar the first time?'

Loki glanced around them. The kitchen staff were packing up and the lone person out in the cafeteria itself was lost in his world, his headphones blasting music as he wiped down the tabletops. The door across the room was propped open, but Loki wouldn't help his cause if he avoided his brother's questions by physically walking away. In fact, doing so would only leave Thor more determined to dig to the heart of the matter.

'Not long, Thor. I wanted to occupy my mind with something and Thanos' crusade for supremacy became my answer.'

Thor dropped his head momentarily, then looked back up at his brother. 'Are you sure you didn't leave Asgard because you wanted to seek out Thanos? It's a curious thing what Gamora relayed from her chats with the Valkyrie. Brunnhilde remarked that you seemed familiar with how the Sanctuary was run and she thought there was something personal between you and Thanos from the beginning. Would that the Valkyrie were here, I'd very much like to speak to her myself.'

Brunnhilde was lucky she was galaxies away, otherwise, Loki would have given her what she was due for babbling all this to Gamora. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to visibly react to Thor's words or to swear at his own idiocy. Brunnhilde had been a mistake from the beginning. He should have been thorough back when he first realised she was a loose end and put her out of her inebriated misery.

'I had a vision. Or a couple rather,' Loki said. 'They didn't show me anything good.'

'Hmm. Of course.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'What was your train of thought here then?' Thor asked. He pushed his chair back and stood up. He didn't quite end up pacing the room, but he kept couldn't stand still either. 'All right, I accept you didn't want Thanos to know you had visions about him, so you made up the cover story about being an Asgardian spy in case things played out badly. But why lie to me and to our mother about why you left? And to claim that you were upset about finding out about your true parentage, that's cold, even for you. You must've recovered from the shock very quickly if you were ready to do that, much quicker than I did.'

Loki chewed on his bottom lip. 'You always were rather slow.'

'Then explain it to me! You love showing off how much smarter you were than me.'

'There's nothing to explain, Thor. You've made up a grand conspiracy on the words of a prisoner. Have you considered that she might be playing you?' Loki grabbed the rim of his plate and slid off his chair. 'Now, excuse me, I'm going to occupy myself with something more productive than this unwarranted interrogation.'

'Loki!' Thor forced himself into his brother's path. When Loki turned to skirt around the long table to his left and take an alternative route to the door, he grabbed Loki by the upper arm, sending the leftover curry scattering across the linoleum floor.

'Look what you've done now, you fool,' Loki scowled.

'I'm sure you know a spell for that.'

'It's the principle of the matter. Now let me go.'

With a sigh, Thor released Loki, but then added, 'There are lies within lies within lies in your tales. You look like you are drowning under their weight. And I haven't forgotten what you asked of me back at Stark's house. Whatever trouble you've gotten yourself in, I want to help. But I can't help you if you tell me nothing.'