25 DECEMBER, 2013
ASTRID
She only knew the grenade had gone off because her ears were ringing, and because she was on the floor, where a dull throbbing prodded her side. Seville had shot her there. She had found nearly all of her friends. There was still one more. They had been compromised. She had fallen for a trap. Someone had pulled the pin of a grenade and rolled it along the floor at her feet.
She had done nothing to stop it.
So why was she alive?
When the dust cleared, Astrid pushed herself onto her elbows and blinked the spots away. Her skin was shredded by the concrete floor-bad. She hadn't hit her head-good. There were three people lying on the floor in the hallway. She recognized them. They were her friends.
"N-" Astrid coughed, and then she vomited. Bile. "No," she croaked, like it would reverse time. Like she could go back and kick the grenade away. "No. No. No. No..."
Blood on the floor. She crawled to them. One body moved, to her left. Angus. She made a noise that was meant to sound relieved, but it stopped halfway up her throat and Angus supplemented it by groaning. Alive. One alive.
Astrid pushed herself up, higher, higher... On her haunches, she couldn't balance, and fell backward. She did a terribly awkward shuffle, scraping her hands and her ass and trying to call out to the two other bodies.
Around Michelle Laurens was a puddle of blood. Around what Michelle Laurens used to be. Now, it was more like a pile of flesh decorated with blood. She had jumped on the grenade. Shoved Astrid out of the way.
She vomited again, but to the side, so she would not desecrate the body. Not the body-Laurens. Laurens, who had stood up for Astrid before she became the Director. Laurens, who had never wavered from a battle despite her age, despite the uncertainty she would make it out alive. Laurens, who had driven her to New Mexico in the hopes that Astrid could preserve the last remnants of her connection to Loki Laufeyson.
Angus was pulling Fred to his feet. Fred was alive. They had lost Laurens. Astrid stood, stumbled, then stood again. She stayed upright this time. "We have to go," said Angus. Fred looked fine, but dusty, and a bit unaware.
"Gomez," she managed. Her voice was coated with dust. She couldn't swallow.
She would find Luca Gomez. She would not make the mistake of letting someone else fall on the blast for her.
"Take him home," she told Angus. "Get everyone ready. Get out before you die, but take her body with you."
"Astrid-"
"Get. Out."
She rolled her head around her shoulders and went back the way she came. Before she tore her old life down, she would do whatever possible to salvage one last piece of it.
~
Every Hydra agent was on the lookout for Astrid Louvelle, Director of the Organization Formerly Known As S.C.O.R.P.I.O.N. They had orders to kill on sight.
Not that it mattered much. Mara Harris had done her finest work, and the compound was in ruins. All of the agents loyal to the Director were dead or gone: gone away in hiding, under the orders of Operation Fallout. Some switched sides. That's how it was in a war like this. Astrid held no ill will against them. Her priorities had changed. Everything had changed.
Something had awoken inside Astrid Louvelle. It was an old, cruel, and terrible thing, something she had thought long ago extinct. It was a spark, and it was so bright that she felt no fear. She walked through the crowd and stood up on a table, but they did not shoot her. She held them with a gaze, and when she spoke, she spoke calmly.
"Luca Gomez. Bring him to me."
So they did. Two men dragged in Luca, his arms slung across their shoulders. Blood trailed behind him like a bride's veil, oozing still from his head and his leg and his stomach. She could see everywhere he had been. "Tell me if he's dead," she said. There was no tremble to her voice. A streak of cold fire over water.
"Yes," said the men holding him, together.
Only when they said it could she see that it was true. Yes-obviously, he was dead. His head was bowed as if before royalty, but there was an opening in it, and through it she could see the cracked skull inside. Like a doorway. A doorway you walked through and disappeared behind.
"Lay him down gently and listen to me. All of you."
They did. Utter silence. A waiting silence, while in all their eyes was reflected the white-hot fire she could feel prickling her very skin. "I know Hydra has many heads. I know they've been growing right under my feet. I know that you outnumber me, and there will always be more of you. But you killed my friends today.
"I don't care that there will always be more. I will remember your faces the way I hope you remember mine." She took a deep breath. A final breath. The calm before the storm. "You killed my friends today. I will do so much worse to you."
And because she could not win against them all, Astrid took the stairs. Into the dying sunlight, she carried Luca's body and lay him on a patch of grass, under a tree, where the snow did not touch him. His daughter waited at the Andrews' home. She would not understand what had happened, but she would know all her father had done to keep his girl safe. Astrid inhaled the air, blinked into the sun, and sat down next to her friend.
She let go of the breath, and with it the compound crumbled down on top of the soldiers inside.
The spark went out.
~
That night, she found Loki sitting on her roof.
"Lost my temper today," she said softly, lowering herself next to him.
He made an amused sound. "Good. You'd gotten a bit too saintlike for my taste."
She didn't laugh. She just stared at the skyline, illuminated by small golden squares where people's homes lit up the blackness. Everyone she trusted was gone. Fred, Kate, Angus, Lily, Jeremiah... They had all left the city. There was no other choice.
"There's no choice for you, either," he said, finishing her thought. "You have to leave."
She nodded once. "I told them not to stop driving until they were a thousand miles away. It's safer that way."
"And you?" Loki was watching her, but she had fixed her gaze on a small apartment across two grids; inside, the tenant's Christmas tree twinkled. "Where will you go?"
"Classified," she said, attempting a joke, but it came out cold and mirthless. "Actually, I was thinking D.C."
"Boring," he declared.
Her bottom lip quivered. "I didn't just lose control of my temper today, Loki. I lost control of everything. Everything that makes me, me. I lost my mind and my body and my friends-" She righted herself when her voice broke. "I found a piece of my old self, from before. I grabbed onto it and I used it, because everything else was gone. I let my friends die. I betrayed them. But then I turned around and betrayed myself, too.
"How am I supposed to be the hero when I just keep breaking things?" She finally turned her head to look at Loki, to ground herself in him and wrap herself tightly around his roots. "I was her again today. I was the monster. How can I live with that?"
Loki looked at his hands, folded in his lap. "I've spent a thousand years trying to figure out who I am. When it finally came to me, I didn't even like the answer. The would-be king's brother. The shadow. The Trickster and the Liar. The Frost Giant. I've had many names, but they were all me. No matter where I ran, they always followed."
His eyes met hers again, and the faraway glimmer in them chilled her. "You're a mortal, and a soldier. You're an Avenger, if you'd like to be-barring any grudges I may hold. You are someone who doesn't shy away from danger or fear. You run straight at it, and that terrifies me. Knowing the heart inside you..." He laughed in a sort of whisper. "I know a monster when I see one. The shadow doesn't follow you the way it does me."
Astrid wiped tears from her eyes so she could see him clearly. She took his hand and smoothed over the lines of his scar with her thumb. "I don't want to go," she told him. "I want to stay here, in bed, and forget that there's a world outside."
"What kind of king would I be if I let that happen?" He aligned their palms and fingers together. "When your job is done, I will be here. We'll leave, and we'll forget the world outside. But you need to go, Astrid."
"Since when are you the responsible one?" she grumbled.
"If you ever mention this to anyone, I don't care how much you mean to me. I'll kill you."
"Anyone ever told you how romantic you are?"
"As a matter of fact, yes. Want me to tell you the stories?"
She scowled up at him. "I have packing to do."
~
On New Year's Eve, Astrid Louvelle shut the door behind her landlord, dropped her duffel bag on the floor, and didn't make it to the bed before she was asleep.
The cheering woke her up as the world ushered in a new year. Sprawled across the carpeted floor, she grimaced, wiping the drool from her mouth, and shamefully pushed herself to her feet. She cracked open the window of her studio apartment and listened to the celebrations, sticking her head just far enough out the window to feel the breeze ruffle her hair. She missed her home, but it would be waiting for her. Everything was waiting. She had to put her life on pause until she could heal the world of its newest sore.
Not that she expected to do it alone.
"Hey," she said when the phone stopped ringing. There was no response yet from the other end. "I heard you were in the neighbourhood, wanted to see if you were interested in spending some quality time."
A dark laugh. "Still trying to figure out if you can trust me?"
"I've already told you I can't." Astrid smiled. "But don't we make a great team?"
A five-second pause. "Where?"
"Lincoln Park, six hours. Or is that too obvious?"
"Call it hiding in plain sight. I'll be there. You have a lot to catch me up on, Scorpion."
"Count on it, Widow."
"Happy New Year," said Natasha Romanoff.
Astrid shrugged. "That remains to be seen."