A Lullaby for Gods chapter 41

this was...longer than I thought for just a regular chapter and an arc finale chapter

XLI. New York, New York

Their time in the extravagant house by the ocean passes by in a blur. Quite literally for Damara (and she reckons for Dirk too), as when she stands by the door with her bags packed and her tickets in hand, she feels as if she’s been doused in cold water and has woken up from a long, long slumber. She can’t quite recall the past few days with clarity, only that they’ve been…comfy, as in there were no large mishaps and she’d been able to pass the time in peace and quiet, and she’d been well-rested, but she can’t draw up clear details no matter how hard she tries to.

She knows she’d come to the house for a reason. Had practically talked Ben into bringing them here and had pushed Dirk into realizing he had no clear plans so he should let her take the reins, and she’d done it for a reason.

And it hadn’t been to find her friends, because hah, as if.

She has no friends. Not anymore, and so she knows for whatever reason she had gotten them to room in the house, it was because she wanted to figure something out. 

But what, exactly?

She doesn’t have enough time to remember it, as a pair of glasses are being given to her, and she’s being told that this is going to disguise her. These are glamoured glasses that will cast an illusion about her, make her appear human to everyone watching, and that she shouldn’t lose them, although they’ve been made quite sturdy and hard to take off for anyone who isn’t her.

Then she and Dirk are being brought to the pier, and the next thing she knows, she’s on the boat, and it’s been half a day already, and they’re on their way to New York.

It’s troubling. And frustrating, to the point where she has half a mind to jump off the boat and swim back to the island, or break the glasses, but that would be counterproductive. They have a reason to go to New York too, and that’s to see if everyone else is there, and if they know anything about their situation so that they can all get off this sorry excuse for a planet and go back to playing their sessions.

She pauses at the thought. She’s alive now, which can mean that her session might be back in action, but – hm. She’ll have to see how it goes first. But if it is back in action, then she’ll gladly destroy it with her bare hands if she has to.

For now she has to get to New York. Perhaps she can find a way to revisit the house and their nameless, faceless host, but for now, she must focus on the task at hand.

Not a lot to focus on when she’s waiting to arrive in New York, though.

She watches Dirk as he stares down at the water below them. The wind’s been trying to blow off his anime shades from his face since they’ve gotten on the ferry, but he’s still refusing to take them off. It’s entertaining, at least, and she adjusts her own glasses as she continues to observe him as he flicks a stray lock away from his face.

She admits they’re quite useful, and they make her unmemorable to everyone else because she appears to only be a human girl, but perhaps it’s also more than that, as sometimes, everyone’s gaze just slips over her. Maybe there’s some other magic woven there.

Even Dirk confesses he forgets she’s there, sometimes, which unnerves him.

She hates how she looks in the mirror, all human-like, with soft, soft fleshy human skin instead of the tough troll skin she’s used to. Her neck looks like it would easily snap, and she has no horns anymore. Her eyes are a dark brown and her scleras are white instead of the usual rust and yellow, respectively.

She looks weird.

But at least no one’s looking her way, she supposes, and that’s what’s important. They need to get to New York, and they need to get to New York with no complications, because their papers are fake and their benefactor’s just paid off some people, or maybe talked to them, so Dirk and Damara can get on the boat with no problems. It’s a free ticket to where they’re going, but they both have to make sure not to waste it.

The glasses are annoying on her face though.

“You know you need them,” Dirk says, when he notices her attempting to take them off again. She’s only really supposed to take them off when she’s in her room.

“They’re heavy,” she says, “And I don’t like how I look.”

Dirk sighs, but nods. “I’m sorry that you have to pretend to be human,” he says, in a low voice, “But it’s better than staying in your room for the whole trip.”

“I think I’d rather that – everyone here is too loud for my liking,” she says.

As if on cue, there’s a loud bout of laughter from one group of people across them. Damara frowns and gives Dirk a look, as if to say, See?

He just turns and leans back on the rail with his elbows. “Yeah, it is loud.”

“You don’t like it either?”

“I really prefer the quiet,” he says, “Or, white noise – machines whirring. But that’s just because I’m used to it to the point that it’s comforting.”

“You worked with machines before?”

“Yeah,” he says. He sounds a little proud, she observes. “Designed robots. Designed artificial intelligence. A lot you can do when you grow up by yourself.”

She thinks for a second, that she knows – but then she remembers that once upon a time, she had friends. It’s just a pity she doesn’t really feel like they ever were, now. 

“I see,” she says, “They were all destroyed in the reckoning.”

“Not all of them,” he says, “That…bunny survived. The Auto Responder did too.”

“Where are they now?”

Dirk pauses. “I don’t know. I know AR got merged in a sprite with that…weird troll.”

“Pity,” she says, “Perhaps if it hadn’t been, maybe it would have found its way here too.”

“And just sass me, because that was his favorite pastime.” Dirk laughs dryly and runs a hand through his hair. “AR was a bastard, but – I guess in the end he had every right to be alive too.”

Damara tilts her head. “He was alive?”

“He said he was scared to not exist,” Dirk says, and the way he says it, he sounds haunted. Damara pauses just to listen to his silence. After a while, he finally huffs. “Sounded pretty alive to me.”

“Interesting,” she notes. “And you don’t know where he is now?”

“No,” he says, “No more than I have any idea about how we dropped here.”

She hums. As interesting as it would be to meet this AR, she knows it’s probably too much to hope for, and even if they do meet, he’s been merged with a sprite. There’s a possibility his personality has been diluted. That’s a sort of death, she thinks, even if it’s just the unity of two personalities. It’s still the creation of something completely new. 

Damara just pushes up her glasses again and pulls her hair back, ready to tie it up. “Pity,” she says again. 

Beside her, Dirk nods. “Yeah,” he says, “Pity.”

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to find everyone else,” she says. She looks over her shoulder at where the humans are milling about, laughing and drinking, and she thinks she’d rather like it if she pulled all their tongues out.

It would be funny, to see them squirm, see them choke on their own blood, but that’s not really possible if the cut-off tongue’s not there anymore. They can choke on their shock and their bile though.

It would be great. 

Would be fun.

She blinks, and feels that sensation of being doused in cold water again. The way one feels when the fog of sleep has finally left and they’ve woken up. 

Those aren’t her thoughts.

Not purely, anyway. 

She frowns and taps Dirk’s shoulder. 

“What is it?” he asks.

“I’m going to my room,” she says. “We won’t be arriving in New York for several more hours, so, I think I’d rather sleep.”

He nods. “Probably best if you did. It’ll be a long trip.”

She waves back at him, saying nothing more, and starts to her room. 

In her head, she thinks she can hear someone laughing, amused.

-

Her sleep is not restful, which isn’t anything new, but her dreams this time seem a little different. And way worse. Oftentimes, she’s the one who brings about the end upon everyone she knows and once loved, and she’s okay with that. She’s long made peace with that, and she actively seeks that end, praying for it to be a vision somehow. This time she’s just a spectator as something ends.

She doesn’t remember a lot of details when she wakes up – that’s just how dreams work, ever fickle – but she does know she has the distinct impression of violence, malice, a lot of bloodshed, and a hint of sorrow. She doesn’t tell Dirk her dream even when he asks her if she’s okay, when she gets out of her cabin looking disheveled, glasses nearly slipping off her nose. She’s lucky their magic still holds them up even with how they’re precariously balanced.

She fixes herself up and gets food with him, and they talk a bit about how long it will take for them to reach New York. They’ll be there in three hours, before daylight even breaks, which is ideal as Damara still hates the sunlight even though it doesn’t burn her. The sooner they get to New York and find the building that their host had given them the address of, the better. Hopefully everything will easily fall into place and they can get to finding a way out of here and Damara doesn’t have to socialize with any of the humans anymore.

Dirk laughs when she tells him, as they’re both standing over the railing, an hour and a half before they’re supposed to reach the port.

“That’s one motivator to be able to get to New York, I guess,” he says.

“It’s getting tiring, all of this. I’ve barely tolerated you.”

“I’m just glad you stopped antagonizing the bird,” he says. 

She hums. “It was a menace.”

“It wasn’t,” Dirk says. “You were just – lashing out at it. Unnecessarily.”

“Because it was feeble.”

“Then all the more reason you shouldn’t have broken its wing,” he says, “It’s called decency, being able to refrain from picking on those who have no way of defending themselves from you aside from a few pecks and flaps.”

She holds her tongue, just for one moment, to think about that. 

Then she says, “Decency’s how you get killed.”

“You’re not wrong,” he says, “And I wouldn’t say I’m a decent person, but I’m trying to be.”

Damara scoffs. “Why’s that?”

“Because I want to be,” he says. He pauses, like he’s trying to say something, but it’s not quite getting out of his throat. He settles for shifting uncomfortably. 

“Introspection making you jittery, huh,” she says, and laughs a little. Maybe it’s the fatigue. Maybe she’s just tired. Maybe it’s that no one can understand and speak lowblood Alternian on the boat aside from Dirk. “You’re not alone there.”

“Yeah?”

She doesn’t answer, only turns away.

“I don’t really talk about things I think about, I guess,” he says, “I pick things apart sometimes. Try to see them from a different angle. Try to see what they did to me, but then it’s just…”

“Sad and uncomfortable?”

Dirk laughs again. “Yeah,” he says, “Something like that.”

Damara looks down at the water below them and wonders what would happen if she just pitched him over. He’s a godtier, so he’d mostly just come back and be pissed. She wonders what would happen if she pitched herself over.

“Don’t,” he says softly, as if reading her mind.

“I don’t plan to,” she says. She has too many things to do, too many people she wants to knock teeth out of, to just throw herself into the sea. “Trust me.”

“Good,” he says, “We still need to get off of Earth, Megido-san.”

“And then I can finally throw you off of all the boats I want,” she says.

“Good luck.”

“You should have said, have fun,” she says, and snickers. “Oh, Strider, you poor bastard.”

“I think I can defend myself just fine if it will come to that.”

“Maybe,” she says, “Maybe not.” 

She reaches over a hand – a human hand, veiled by the illusion that’s currently over her – to knock on his chest, the left side of his ribcage where his frail and feeble human heart would be. “You’re decent.” She says it with a sneer, like it’s an insult, and Dirk only watches as she retracts her hand and stands, going to her room, to prepare her bags. 

Ahead of them, the buildings of New York are already visible against the dark sky.

-

The plan is, from the port, they have to take the bus to even get to the hotel their host told them to go to. From the hotel, they’d be able to do a quick study of their environment, and go where they need to go, and Dirk knows where they should go next. They need to go to the Safehouse, because that’s rumored to be the safest place in New York, and perhaps with a few smiles and some careful hiding of Damara being a troll, they can stay there for a while, at least until they’re able to find someone from one of their sessions.

Their money won’t last, after all, and they need some way of making sure Damara doesn’t starve. Pickpocketing seems like an option, but in a city full of humans where a pair of glasses can easily be knocked to the ground, Dirk doesn’t want to risk it.

He tells Damara as much, and she frowns, but agrees. They’re not in their home turf anymore , so they can’t take any chances (and it’s funny they’d been more comfortable hopping from island to island before, which also wasn’t their home turf, but months in a place gets you to trust its geography a little). Not in a city that’s apparently frequently attacked by a bunch of dramatic megalomaniacs. 

The bus is quiet as they both board it with everyone else. They settle in the back, away from prying glances, just in case, and Dirk props up his bag by the window to lay his head on it, closing his eyes. He’s tired too. Apparently travel fatigue still affects even godtier bodies, although that might just be a psychosomatic thing. He’s not sure. 

He still keep his glasses on despite how uncomfortably they’re digging into his face, and beside him, Damara just tuts, but leans on her bag too as she puts it in the empty seat beside her.

He falls asleep, not that he’s aware of it. He only knows he’s slept when he opens his eyes and they’re sluggish and heavy, and because he’s so tired, he lets them drift back close, the light from outside too bright for his still-drowsy senses. He’s faintly aware that he should be taking note of his surroundings, maybe memorize the roads they’ve taken, but he’s too tired to, so he doesn’t. He doesn’t know if Damara is paying any attention to everything around them.

She does kick his shin when they arrive, and he jolts awake, reflexes on a hair trigger just as always, and she just tells him, blandly, that they’re at their stop. He picks up his bag and gets off the bus with her.

The building before them is large and fancy, made of glass and metal – a skyscraper like the ones on his Earth, except those were dead and empty. Here, everything is loud and alive. There are cars everywhere, and it hits Dirk that he’d just boarded a bus, something he’d only really read about in books and watched in animes, but it was real and New York had a lot of it and he’d just been on one. There are a lot of people here, and they’re all talking and hurrying, going about their lives and not knowing that somewhere, out there, there is a version of their world where all of them are dead under a hundred feet of water.

Damara taps his shoulder and he jumps.

She raises an eyebrow. “Strider?”

“I’m okay,” he says, voice sounding strange. He clears his throat. “Overwhelmed,” he tries, hunting down for the term, but a car is honking behind him and he’s very aware of that noise. “Sensory overload.”

“Still not used to this many people, huh?”

He looks around, adjusting his glasses. A few people are staring at him and his sloppily-cut hair and his anime glasses, and he avoids looking them in the eye (which is easier with his glasses, thank the Empress), but thankfully, none of them stop by to ask and talk. He talks a moment to listen, and just pick apart the sounds of everything from the cacophony he’s hearing, but it’s a little difficult as everything is blending into one, and he just frowns.

“Yeah,” he says, “I’m not used to it.”

Damara glances around her and nods. “I hate this place.”

Dirk laughs. “I’d say maybe it’s not so bad, but I’m starting to hate the noises.”

“We should get inside, then. Maybe it’ll be quieter,” she says.

He nods, shifting his bag on his shoulder, and then turns to the side as something catches his attention. 

At the corner of his vision, there is a man. He is tall, wearing a simple black turtleneck sweater with some jeans, and he has long dark hair, and high green eyes. There’s nothing remarkable about him, really. He looks sensibly-dressed, and he looks a little tired, but Dirk can swear that he’d seen him just appear out of nowhere, with a few green sparks from his entrance (and something tickles at his memories at that). A couple of people appear to have noticed too, but only spare him a little wave and then go on their ways.

Damara has noticed, and she mutters something under her breath, but he can’t quite make it out as he’s too focused on the man and the other humans he’s talking to.

There’s two of them, and the smaller human jumps at the man’s sudden appearance and then punches his arm. 

“Winters! The hell, you scared me.”

‘Winters’ only gives an amused smile and flicks the little human’s forehead, much to their irritation. “Rose was getting impatient. She wanted food.”

“I was lost.”

“That’s why I’m here,” he says. Dirk’s attention has snapped onto the name Rose, even though it might just be someone else who share the name. He’s found that the name Rose is common here on Earth. So it could just be a coincidence. Could just be someone else.

But what if it’s not?

“Sorry, Mr. Winters?” the other human says, sheepishly brushing a stray lock of red hair away from his eyes. He looks disheveled, and Dirk frowns because there’s something there that nags at him too, but he finds that he can’t quite place it.

He’s in a loud, loud city, with only Damara for support; he might be so close to his ectobiological daughter and not know it; and now he’s noticed that there’s something wrong with what he recalls. There are things there, and yet…very obviously out of his grasp.

“Strider.” Damara hits his back and jolts him back into reality. 

He turns to her, eyes wide, and for a moment, her angry expression falters. Then she frowns. “We have to go inside now.”

“Okay,” he says. He sounds unsure, so he tries again. “Okay.”

The strangers’ conversation is still continuing, and he hesitates, trying to catch just a bit more of it. Damara looks a little irritated, but he reckons that’s because he’s just overwhelming himself on purpose now.

“You do have everyone’s food?” ‘Winters’ is saying. He sounds familiar, just a little.

“Yes,” the little human says, “Just took a few wrong turns.”

“So the food’s cold.”

“It’s been three minutes, and I immediately gave up before we could get even more lost, Luke.”

Luke Winters, Dirk thinks, committing the name to memory.

“They can do smart moves, sometimes,” the taller one says.

“I can and will eat all of this in front of both of you and you won’t have anything to eat anymore.”

“Don’t be rude,” Winters says. He pauses and then takes out his phone. “Rose will have my head if we don’t get to the hospital right this moment, come on.”

“Alright,” the smaller one says. 

Winters puts his hand on their shoulder, and then places his other hand on the other human’s. Dirk watches intently, just waiting for something to happen, but then, he feels a hand on his own shoulder too.

He turns. There is a man in a black suit in front of him. 

Before he can say anything, a badge is being flashed in front of him. He only catches the bold letters spelling out S.H.I.E.L.D. before it’s tucked away. 

“Excuse me, sir, but you’re going to have to come with me.”

Another man is also showing Damara his badge, but she’s already talking rapidfire lowblood Alternian at him, and he frowns, turning to his partner. The man sighs and turns to Dirk. “Both of you,” he says, “And I’d prefer it you came with us carefully.”

There’s flashes of light, suddenly, and Dirk notices that they’re being photographed. The man puts a hand on his arm, and his reaction is instant – he doesn’t even think about it, he doesn’t pause for a second to think about what it could mean, he just thinks that he’s already uncomfortable in a new area that’s smothering his senses, and he does not want to be touched.

He accesses his sylladex and holds his katana out in front of him. He and Damara had agreed to store the thing there for the boat trip, because no weapons were allowed on board, and since they needed something to defend themselves with, then they had to take it with them.

There’s stunned gasps from the crowd, and it’s like the whole city has paused to watch. Dirk can feel numerous pairs of eyes on him as he holds out his blade, and the men in suits draw out their guns and point it at him.

“Sir,” the first one says, the one who’d been talking to him, “I’m going to need you to put down the – ”

He doesn’t get anywhere because Damara tilts her head sharply to the side and both he and his partner go flying in the same direction, bowling past several civilians. Dirk aims his sword at them, still, as they both groan, disoriented.

He notices that several other men in suits are getting out of cars parked innocently at the sidewalks, and turns to Damara, who nods. She hefts up the bag she’s carrying so she can have a more secure hold on it.

“Run.”

-

It’s a pity that Loki’s magic is too fast. 

In the time it takes for the agent to touch Dirk Strider’s shoulder, it takes even less for him to skywalk from the city to the hospital, and so he doesn’t see the mess that comes after. He doesn’t see Dirk summon a sword from his sylladex, or Damara throw off the agents with her telekinesis, he only sees white hospital hallways and Sapphrel shuddering from displacement before running to Dave’s room, Ruben on their heels. And he simply lets out an amused snort before following them.

Cecil is currently sleeping in his room below, and as Kevin and Mr. G are looking after him, everyone else is crowded in Dave’s, where the boy still lies comatose. He’s turning a whole year older today, or theoretically would be. Time is funny, after all. Maybe this year is a bit backwards in time for him, maybe it’s not. Loki won’t know until he asks Dave himself, but that’s not an option right now.

“Hey, Loki,” Jade says, smiling and motioning to one of the empty seats. He nods and claims one, settling beside John, while Sapphrel hands the bag of food over to Rose, and quietly asks to excuse themself and Ruben as they deliver Kevin’s and Mr. G’s share downstairs. 

“How is he?” he asks.

“Recovering fine,” Rose says, from where she’s beside her brother’s bed, leaning her elbows on the mattress. Without his glasses, Dave’s face is fully visible – unmoving white eyelashes and tiny scars on the bridge of his nose and all. They both look so much alike. “But,” she says, “Like the doctors have said – like I’ve told you, still somehow regressing.”

“They had redo another surgery,” John says, “Which is going to wipe him out a lot more, I guess.”

“Theoretically, if being stabbed by some sort of entity that can possess people doesn’t override SBURB mechanics, then being a godtier should heal him up just fine,” Rose says, and then frowns. She pinches the bridge of her nose. “But he was dying, and it was being counted as…Heroic. I don’t know what happens when you attempt to save someone from a Heroic death.”

Intriguing. He can practically hear the capitals. “A Heroic death?”

“Yes,” Rose says. She moves a hand as she explains. “When you die a godtier, you can only die two ways.” She lifts a finger. “Justly.” And another. “And Heroically. Any other deaths, and you will revive. If you haven’t done anything for your death to be considered Just, and yet also weren’t doing anything for it to be considered Heroic, you are resurrected.”

“I see,” Loki says, “Death has to be earned then.”

Rose pauses and then nods. “Yes. You could say that, yes. I’ve never really thought about it like that.”

“In Asgard, those who die in battle are the ones who die an honorable death. It is a death worth celebrating, in the midst of the mourning,” he says, “Those who die a warrior’s death go to Valhalla.”

“And everyone else?” John asks.

“They go to Helheim,” Loki says, “Humiliating deaths go to Hel. That is why warriors would rather die on the battlefield than go home injured and unable to fight any longer.”

Jade wrinkles her nose and pushes her glasses up. “That’s – not really very nice.”

“It isn’t,” Loki says, and he says it with conviction. How strange, to realize the wrongs of a society you’ve grown up in. How strange to know it for years and yet finally acknowledge it. It’s freeing. “I suppose if they were given a chance to be able to implement a Just and Heroic system, they’d buy into it, and they’d probably be more at ease, knowing that undignified deaths won’t be counted so long as they could just save themselves from them.”

“It’s still not fun to die a lot,” John says.

Loki looks at him thoughtfully. “I imagine so.”

He looks over at Dave for a moment, and lays a hand on the boy’s arm. He hasn’t really properly visited him in days, not when he’d been steering clear, in case Rose didn’t want him anywhere near her brother. He lets his magic gently search the boy’s stomach, seeking out what needs to be repaired. He looks up at Rose, and she only nods slowly, giving him approval.

He can feel the stitches there, on Dave’s skin, in his stomach lining, and he can see that they’re holding quite well, but there is a wound very, very slowly opening up on the wall of flesh that’s leading to his back. Loki frowns. He remembers he’d tried to heal the exit wound as best as he could when Dave was bleeding out on the floor.

“It’s regressing, indeed,” he says, half-curious. “All the work your human doctors have done on him are holding well, but…the healing I’ve done on him prior to that is unravelling, somehow.”

“Along with the blood transfusion?” John says. When everyone turns to him, he just bumps up his glasses nervously. “All the doctors said the amount of blood in his body was somehow dropping despite him not bleeding out. It’s like it’s vanishing to thin air somewhat.”

Loki glances at Rose. She holds it. She knows. He hadn’t been the one to perform blood transfusion spells on her brother to make sure he’d made it to be taken care of by the surgeons.

“I have a theory,” Rose says, hesitantly. “But…”

“But?”

“I can’t know for sure until he wakes up,” she says, “Although hopefully by that time, all of this would have stopped.”

“Yeah,” Jade agrees. “But he’ll wake up, Rose, don’t worry.”

Rose smiles at her gently. “I have no doubt of that, he’s a tough kid. He’s already survived so much.”

Loki wants to ask more about that, but that’s for later. That’s for when Dave’s woken up and has recovered and doesn’t need to worry about bleeding out on the floor. 

“Can I heal him?” he asks.

Rose nods. “Go ahead.”

He inclines his head in thanks, and turns his attention to Dave again. For a brief while, he’s back in a dark room again, all the lights in the hospital out, while Dave is grasping on to the last shreds of consciousness after hours of crashing and being revived by a small electric shock to the heart. He’s back to listening to Dave deliriously talk about forgiveness, and family, and Heroic deaths. He’s back to feeling like the floor just dropped out from under him, and the harsh, cold realization that he can’t ever save anyone is right in front of him.

But the hospital room is bright, and Rose and Jade and John are there, surrounding him, silent pillars of support while he keeps his hand on Dave’s forearm. They don’t say anything, but just wait, and Loki feels like he can breathe.

He lets his magic close the reopening wound on Dave’s back, and as he realizes that it’s going to keep reopening for the next few hours, makes sure to keep his hand there, even as the hours pass, and as the day wears on. The other children sleep, and he stays awake, magic working on healing Dave, while he tries not to fall asleep from exhaustion. 

He’s actually nearly asleep when he feels the twitch.

Loki opens his eyes, slowly, as they’re heavy with fatigue, and notices that Dave’s fingers are moving.

“John,” he says, softly at first, and when John doesn’t wake up, he pushes at the boy’s shoulder with his free hand. “John.”

“Wha’ssit.”

“John, Dave is waking up.”

“Wha?” John lifts his head to look at Loki, putting his glasses back onto his face from where he’d stored them in his sylladex while he’d slept. He turns to the heart monitor, at Dave’s spiking heartbeat, and then to where Dave’s hand is moving. Dave himself is starting to frown very slowly, like he’s waking up from a bad dream.

“Oh shit.” The chair makes a loud scraping noise when John stands suddenly, and Jade and Rose jump in their seats, awake.

“What is it?” Jade asks.

“Rose, he’s waking up!” John says, lifting off the ground as he excitedly points at Dave.

Rose turns to her brother, whose face is set in a particularly harsh frown, and sits back down again, moving her chair closer and grasping his other hand. “You can do it, Dave.”

The heartbeat monitor is getting louder and louder, and Loki makes sure not to relinquish his magic from where it’s still continuing to heal Dave’s back. He waits, patiently, as Dave continues to stir, but he doesn’t wake up. He only starts mouthing something, as if he’s mumbling, as if he’s –

Like he’s having a nightmare.

He tries not to consider that what’s happening right now is what he thinks it is.

Rose’s cellphone rings. She picks it up and hits answer, and before Steve Rogers can get anything out more than a, “Hey, Rose – ” she says, “I’m sorry, Steve, but something requires my full attention and presence right now, I can’t talk.” And then she hangs up, and pockets her phone again.

She watches and squeezes her brother’s hand as he shifts, groaning softly, trying to keep away whatever unpleasant dreams he’s having right now.

Loki hopes he wins.

-

At the tower, Steve Rogers looks down at the phone in his hand, disappointed.

“So?” Tony asks.

“She said she was busy,” he says, “Maybe Dave’s in surgery.”

Tony looks to one corner of the room and then shrugs. “That’s a fair reason. We still can’t postpone going to the hospital, though. Who knows when we’ll get another free day, what with everything that’s happened.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. He slips his phone back into his pocket and makes his way over to the couch, sighing. “We’ll still have to try to visit her tomorrow. I’ll make an early call.”

“Hope she’s awake.”

“I’ll have to wake her if she’s not. This is urgent,” he says. “That, or she’ll be in for a surprise visit.”

“We’ll have to do a surprise visit, if it comes to it.” Tony hops onto one of his desks and waves his hand to let JARVIS get some holographic screens for him. He’s probably checking the news or something. They’re trying to cover what’s happened to the Safehouse crew diligently. “This Cecil kid’s life is also in danger.”

“She’ll understand,” Steve says. “I’m sure.”

Tony doesn’t look up from where he’s typing onto his hologram, but he smiles. “From what you’ve told me, she sounds like a smart kid. She will.”

Steve feels a bit of pride bloom in his chest. “Yeah, she is.”

They’re silent for a while, but the silence is not awkward. It’s more tired, and there’s an air of camaraderie as they share in that tiredness, so it’s fine. The kids are all scattered throughout the building – Eridan in his aquarium, as there’s no one else in that room right now, and he misses the water (Steve only knows this because the boy had asked Steve to not tell Roxy where he is); Kanaya in her own room with the Bernina sewing machine Tony’s got her (and Steve can tell that Tony’s thinking about maybe moving to making sewing machines too, because that would be fun); Davesprite cooking around with DUM-E in the kitchen; Roxy and Hal in the lab trying to test out the prototype body Roxy is trying to make the AI.

It’s a good day in the tower, which is saying something right now, considering the last few days. It’s been nothing but awkward glances and clipped sentences between everyone else and Eridan, after all, and in fact the only time they’d all actually managed to be in one room and just talk was when Roxy explained who the hell the Condesce was, which pretty much ended up in Tony having JARVIS record everything she said, as well as break out a laptop so he could take notes. 

“I haven’t paid this much attention and taken notes since college, and not even then,” he’d said. “But to recap, this Batterwitch is some alien hag who flooded your Earth?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re from the future?”

“Yes.”

“How far into the future?”

“Nearly four hundred and thirteen years.”

“Oh, hell.”

“How is it?” Steve had asked.

Roxy had fallen silent. “Lonely,” she’d said. “The whole place was flooded.”

She’d talked about how the Batterwitch had invaded and how she’d infiltrated the government, slowly at first, and then suddenly, everyone had realized that she’d taken over everything, and the humans had gone near-extinct. Most of the remaining residents with Roxy had been carapacians, she’d said.

“I’m still so confused,” Tony’d said, clearly not convinced. “But keep going?”

And she did, and she talked about having friends, three of them, and they were going to play a game, one that rained meteors down on their Earth so that they could destroy it and birth a new universe, but halfway through, Tony had held his hands up and said, “Okay, this is giving me a headache, can we have this discussion later?”

Roxy had laughed and said yes, and everyone had gotten food, and then everything else was back to the way it was before. Tense silence and awkward conversations, but at least it was…lighter, somehow. 

At least Eridan is starting to eat more, and he’s showing up at mealtimes when he’d initially avoided them. Roxy’s worrying less, Steve knows, the more Eridan shows signs of taking care of himself. Even Kanaya is easing up on the boy, glaring at him less and less. It’s good progress.

“Sir, you have an e-mail from S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Tony huffs. Steve returns his attention to the present. “Is it good?” Tony asks.

“Do you ever think anything from S.H.I.E.L.D. is good, sir?”

“No, I don’t,” Tony grumbles. “I’ll read it later. I need food before I can even process what they tell me.”

“It’s not all that bad,” Steve says.

Tony raises an eyebrow, and then scoffs. “Isn’t it?” He stares at Steve for a moment, as if wondering how he can even say that, but then he lets his shoulders drop their tenseness. “I guess I’m just pissed off from what they’ve been doing these past few months. Hard to drop the hostility.”

“And it’s fair,” Steve says, “I still can’t believe they’ve…started kidnapping people off the streets.”

“If they’re being fed information, I can see why but – ” Tony messes up his own hair with one hand, frustrated. “Still can’t help feeling that something is off.”

“If there is, we’ll get to the bottom of it,” Steve says, “But one thing at a time.”

Tony nods. It’s a good strategy. It’s always a good strategy to take one thing at a time. Steve smiles and pulls out his phone to check the time, wondering if they should get dinner since – 

There’s a loud crash. Both he and Tony snap to attention. 

“JARVIS, where was that?” Tony asks.

“In the laboratory, sir.”

Roxy is there.

“Camera feed, JARVIS.”

The AI automatically opens up several screens, all footage of the laboratory, taken from different angles. Steve runs over, checking all the videos – there’s Roxy sitting on her usual chair, and the robot she’s been working, sitting on the table. It looks fine, and in fact has its head tilted, like it’s confused. Roxy must have already installed Hal in, then. On the floor, there’s a small pool of melted lead, and beside it, a soldering gun. From the angle that takes Roxy’s stunned face as she looks up at another holographic screen, Steve can see that she’s burnt part of her hand. 

“Nothing wrong,” Tony says, breathing out in relief.

“Ms. Lalonde’s stress levels appear to be rising, sir,” JARVIS says, at the same time Hal, in the video feed, says, in a monotone, robotic voice, “Roxy, breathe.”

“JARVIS can you show us what Roxy’s watching?” Steve asks.

JARVIS does. 

It’s the news, and Steve has to take a moment to read the headline: MUTANTS WREAK HAVOC IN NEW YORK STREETS. He catches up to what the reporter is saying, about two mutants, who were apparently causing trouble in the city and have just been recently caught, apprehended by several people who refuse to answer any questions. He turns to Tony, who slowly runs a hand over her face.

“S.H.I.E.L.D?” he asks.

“Might be,” Tony says. “I need to know if the mutants really were causing trouble.”

“I’ll get reading,” Steve says, but he doesn’t move to go get a laptop right away. He just stays where he is, watching the video feeds, as Davesprite flies into the room and goes to Roxy’s side, gently trying to shake her from her shock. A few seconds later, Kanaya comes in and puts a comforting hand on the girl’s arm, but she remains staring at the screen. Eridan dithers at the doorway, but Davesprite motions for him to come in, and he does, standing beside Kanaya, but making no move to touch Roxy. Instead, he just turns to the screen she’s staring at.

So, Kanaya does the same.

And then Davesprite.

And then Hal.

“Oh,” Davesprite says, sounding small and scared and vulnerable.

Steve turns to the screen where the news is playing. Two children – or teenagers, really, from the looks of it – are being made to kneel on the sidewalk. One of them has light hair, the other dark. They’re both being handcuffed, and one man is trying to usher the camera that’s taking this shot away, but instead, whoever’s taking the shot just pushes past the man, even when he’s shouting threats.

Steve watches as the boy, the one with the light hair, gets yanked to his feet. His glasses drop from his face, shattering on the ground. 

“Those glasses look like Hal’s,” Tony murmurs. His eyes flicker to the feed where Hal is. “Oh. Oh, shit no.”

The boy says nothing to the man, face blank. And then the man handling him suddenly goes flying backwards. 

“She’s starting again, clear out the civilians and take her down!” someone from the news clip shouts. 

The boy runs, reaching forward with handcuffed hands, summoning a figurine out of thin air like that’s going to help him, just as the girl rises to her feet. Some of the men around them have taken out guns, and the boy stands, holding out the figurine as a last resort for protection, while behind him, the girl looks like she’s breathing heavily, tired.

“Everyone evacuate, these two are highly dangerous.”

“Do you think we might get called in?” Tony asks.

Steve takes the hint, but before he can go to get his shield, he sees sparks suddenly go off on the screen where the news is playing and when the boy suddenly crashes to the ground, he realizes the kid’s just been tazed. The girl drops to her knees beside him, trying to shake him awake, and she snarls when the people around her get closer, but she gets hits with the Taser gun as well, and convulses before listing to the side, unconscious.

Roxy’s chair clatters to the floor as she stands up, and both Steve and Tony to the camera feed this time.

“Dirk, get the fuck up,” she says.

On the news, the girl and the boy are being hauled away. Steve notes, just for a moment, and it’s a miracle the girl’s glasses have stayed on her face, although they’re slightly broken now. 

“Dirk, get up,” Roxy says. This time, the man trying to shoo the camera crew away are effective. He pushes the camera away, further and further, while the children are brought inside of a van.

“Dirk!”

“Dirk, come on.” That’s Davesprite this time. He sounds small again. “Bro, come on, you have to get out of there.”

But on the news, Dirk doesn’t wake up. Neither of the children do. They’re just tossed inside the van, and the camera is forced to pan to the reporter, who looks shaky at witnessing what’s just happened, before she starts to report again, hesitant.

“Fuck!” Roxy yells, stomping off before just suddenly stopping and putting her face in her hands. 

Kanaya and Eridan watch her, looking conflicted, while Hal just stays on the table. He probably still can’t walk. 

Davesprite hovers over to her, and when he touches her shoulder, she just sobs and turns, burying her face in his chest. He wraps her arms around her, his wings following suit.

“They know that kid,” Tony says. “Fuck.”

“More people we have to break out,” Steve says. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“I know,” Tony says, “I know,” He lets JARVIS exit the news feed and the camera feed of the lab. “I’m betting my entire fortune the new e-mail’s got something to do with those two.”

“I’m getting the laptop then,” Steve says. He’ll call Rose tomorrow, but for now, there’s something else he has to do. “Time to get reading.”