fossilised | For Steve

For Steve

The war had been raging for a long time now, and James Buchanan Barnes had been drafted some months ago to ship out to Europe and fight with all the others in the trenches and on the front lines. Telegrams came back daily with the news of more brothers, sons, fathers, and husbands killed. More friends who will never return, and still there was no end in sight.

But then something even stranger began happening on both sides of the timeline.

All the newsreels were reporting strange anomalies centred in New York City and Washington D.C. that could only be explained by time itself unravelling in places. Buildings that changed to vast monoliths of glass and steel for a few minutes and then back again, a faded billboard for asthma cigarettes becoming a full colour motion picture of a man eating soup. Some people had even said they had met men and women claiming to be from the future, though this was all hushed up.

It only lasted a few days, and then it was sorted. Sealed, the government official offices said, just a trick by the Nazis to confuse us. Forget it and go about your day.

But there were pieces of the future lost in the past for good.

The Winter Soldier-- Bucky-- whoever he was now, confused fragmented memories all he had to go on, had been thrown through time unceremoniously into a street that looked altogether familiar and confusing. He hid from the authorities who were collecting all the anomalies with ease, even though his manner of dress was out of place now with jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. He didn't change it. He found his feet taking him somewhere only half remembered.

An apartment with a key hidden under an old brick. Why did he know it was there?

He didn't know. He just let himself in, quiet as a whisper, and made his way through to the bedroom where someone was asleep under the covers. Skinny, blond, somehow also familiar (the man on the bridge? The man in the Potomac? The man at the museum? No, that didn't make sense, that man had bulging muscles, but somehow he was sure they were the same). He didn't say anything, just stood there and watched impassively, waiting for the man to wake up.

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It took an hour before anyone realized that no one was actually with Loki. She could have gone or gotten anywhere. It was enough time that even Thor suddenly became worried, for it took only a moment before his brother could get into trouble and he did not doubt that this counterpart was indeed the very same. He left with no word to Steve as he watched over Anthony, consulting with Sam who had to be rapidly caught up and was still muttering under his breath about all of these young versions of his teammates just showing up.

It wasn't as if Loki would go far (or perhaps distance really didn't matter to her considering her ability to teleport herself with enough effort), not with Anthony supposedly gathering information. But Thor did not know that.

Inside the work shop, despite following plans he and Banner had manufactured together, Tony was still having problems. He needed to scrap most of the workroom to produce the right resonance inside the walls but it wasn't all lining up. He was good with finesse and better than most people might think with fine tuning anything, but the truth of the matter was that this was just a little bit beyond him.

And Bruce hadn't left any notes to follow this time.

Tony sat down, wearing just a black tank top and jeans, after he had crawled out of a hole he made in the wall. He flopped backwards and stared up at the ceiling. "Okay. I need the room guys. I have some theorizing to do." And that would time some time and some quiet.

It was a pity that nobody had been with Loki, for she had indeed been getting herself into trouble. The more she saw and heard of this realm, the more she knew that it was not as it should be. She felt the way that seidr felt out of balance here, the way that Yggdrasil seemed to be sickening even beneath her feet. In her reality, all the realms were as one, some more so than others, and they prospered for it.

She would bring that prosperity here.

But first she needed more people, she could not conquer a realm alone. And they would need to be conquered, for they did not understand that she had their best interests at heart. Mortals could not rule themselves, it was just a fact of life that they were too short lived and therefore not highly evolved enough to truly understand themselves.

She could not build a machine akin to that which 'Tony' was trying to recreate, or that which Anthony and her wife could so easily bring together, but she was the most powerful sorceress in the Nine Realms. If anyone could work out a way to puncture the membrane between realities, it would be her. Easier now that she had brought Anthony here, for she had felt the path once and intended to do it again.

Whenever Thor would come upon her, he would find her surrounded by a maelstrom of magical energy, almost akin to that of the Bifrost itself.

"Sister, what are you doing?!" Thor wasn't that dumb. He could see (and feel, for though he did not have the ability to manipulate the magical force that held the Realms as one, he could feel it just the same) just what she was doing, but this was literal insanity. "You can not-- You must stop!" If their mother was alive, she'd be able to talk sense into Loki, but perhaps not even then, for once they both set their minds to something, it tended to be done regardless.

That she was summoning was obvious. That she was trying to puncture the fabric of space through the interconnected void was obvious too, but Thor was not going to have it.

He'd gotten good at battling his sibling of late and so it took little effort to spin the hammer by it's handle and send Mjolnir into that growing force cloud to try and disrupt the spell and knock the caster to the ground.

Thor and she battled often, for they were well matched to keep one another sharp. Loki respected her sister's raw strength and skill with weapons, while Thor admired Loki's spellcasting and illusion, but rarely did they battle each other when not in the training ring for they were close. To have Mjolnir thrown at her so suddenly and with such intent took her by surprise.

It did not stop her from darting sideways and immediately throwing up several illusions of herself all around Thor so that he may find it difficult to know which the correct one was to hit.

"Can you not feel how diseased your realm is, brother?" She asked, voice pitying as she continued to weave her magic. "Why do you cling to that which is broken, when you should be helping to fix it?"

Mjolnir would return to him through two of the illusions and learn their taste. The hammer was not exactly alive, but Thor had come to see it as ally and friend in battle, not exactly as the weapon it truly was. He learned from it when it came back into his hand the timbre of Loki's Magic, so far above what his own brother had ever shown him. That did put him on edge. He had defeated Loki's construct and Loki himself in combat before, but he had never truly won against him alone and the Hulk was not here to share that victory.

There was not likely a more pressing battle than this, nor a more singularly important in all of Thor's long campaigns.

"What works well for you in your Realm can not be transposed into this. The reason for the disease within Yggdrasil is not the doing of those upon Midgard. It is the doing of my youngest brother and his anger!" Jotunheim barely existed. The planet had been torn asunder and life there was all but wiped out.

"Do not think to blame me, in any incarnation, you only make yourself look the fool." Loki was incensed. No matter what other crimes or idiocies her counterpart had committed, he must still be a sorcerer and therefore he would do nothing to damage Yggdrasil. But then, he had not been raised on Jotunheim where being a sorcerer was highly prized, and where the magic within his blood had been allowed to grow and develop with teaching both from Laufey and Frigga.

She was far more powerful than her male self could ever be, for both her sides worked within her equally rather than warring with one another.

More and more copies appeared, but some of these were solid and wielded weapons of their own, staves and knives that lashed out for Thor as Loki continued her casting. She intended to pull her sister and her slave through, and leave a connection for Helblindi to pick up so that she could muster the armies of Jotunheim and Asgard for a campaign.

"It was not I that destroyed Jotunheim!" Thor snarled, for he felt so angry and bitter in his heart about that now. The royal family was all dead. Those that did survive the sundering were nomads on Vanaheim. Asgard had done it's best to relocate the last surviving thousand or so denizens of the Realm. Most had refused to leave. Most refused any aid at all. It was still Thor's deepest regret, other than losing Loki to his madness. It showed upon his face even now as he swung the hammer again, making each step as thunderous as his name required.

He was nearly there when a blast of power caused the green swirling sphere around his sister to explode outward. Loki would be knocked to the ground, as would Thor and the two others she hand managed to pull from the feast of the youngest sister, both wrapped in a long red cape

Steve was certainly capable of protecting himself, but Thor saw little need for such things when she was more capable than he of protecting him. They rolled together on grass softer than that grown upon Asgard, her breastplate taking most of the beating as they came to a stop. She was on her feet at once, angry, hand lifting for Mjolnir. "Sister! How dare you use your--". Thor stopped just short of being accusatory when she glanced around, the only person on her feet with a black sky over her head and a strange smell in the air. This looked like no place she had been before, though it felt, in some part, like Midgard.

She was about to say something more when Mjolnir flew out of her hand and to the hand of a massive blond haired man getting to his feet now in front of her. Her lips quirked, confusion on her face.

"I dislike your games, Sister," Thor warned under her breath before there was a snap behind her as Loki's Magic collapsed upon itself. She might be powerful but that required more strength than Yggdrassil had to offer her here. The connection to the void was disrupted. Loki would need to rest a real deal before she could try that again.

Edited 2017-03-14 13:07 (UTC)

It was something truly saddening to know that Yggdrasil, that greatest of trees with power beyond all, could not even support this sort of spell for long. It made Loki's heart ache and her desire to fix the wrongs here more prevalent. Whoever was to blame, there was much to be fixed. But at least she had the start of it now. She got to her feet swiftly, as Mjolnir was pulled from one to another.

"This is no game, my sister, this is the fate of a realm. Can you not feel the wrongness that pervades here? The sickness in the world tree? This is Midgard, that is Thor, and the Loki of this realm is named traitor with Midgard under no rule."

Steven pushed himself up to his feet and revealed that he had been laying atop someone else, a woman with brown curls and glasses, dressed in a purple shirt. She was not technically owned by Loki, though she stood under the Queen's protection as her slave's wife. She inclined her head respectfully, though her gaze turned in astonishment back to the hulking brute named as Thor.

"My princess," said Steven, standing proud in his colours of red and gold, inclining his head to the new Thor. "And... my prince."

Princess Thor put her arm out across Steven to stop him from moving forward or going to her other self. She would never admit any jealousy, but she guarded Steven carefully as hers. Yes, that was her right to do so, but it was also his right as a living creature to do as he wished outside of her service. Slavery, perhaps, was not exactly the right word for what had occurred with those of Midgardian descent, but the term was still used exclusively as was ownership, mistress and master. Truly, it was more akin to what might be termed a PA here, for personal assistants were always on call and traveled with their bosses whenever their fancy struck.

That said, Thor had a small issue with attachment to her slaves. And, perhaps, they to her. Steven did not have a wife nor a husband. She was not interested in a dynastic line of personal servants like Loki might be. She'd given part of her heart to the mortal, a very dangerous thing, since she was expected to marry and produce children. And the warrior Sif, head of her guards, had thrown his sword in the ring for her hand many, many times.

But none of those things quiet mattered and Steven did not seem willing to leave her side for servitude to another...

No. Not another. To a version of herself.

Thor could not help but let out a clear, lofty laugh. "This absolutely is a game! And a magnificent one! Is this how you would see me were I born Prince?" Loki, this is impossible. An obvious illusion as anything this large would surely collapse under his own weight!" Thor strode forward towards her supposed double and punched him in the jaw. His head turned from the force, which ought to not e possible. Loki's illusions were never solid. The male Thor hit her in return and both moved bright blue eyes towards each other before embracing. "You are ridiculous!"

"You are as strong as I!"

"Stronger, brother!"

"Ha! Let us battle to dear mine the true winner!"

Loki had often counselled her sister that she should be careful of giving her heart too truly to her slaves. Though Loki loved her Anthony, it was less intense for both had their other loves and other pursuits. They shared a bed occasionally, but that was for sport. Thor, though, she claimed too high an attachment to her mortals, and Loki had thought that her heart would break for months after James had died.

She sighed and slipped forward to stand between the two idiots that she called sibling, frown at her brow and green eyes practically sparking with impatience.

"Cease. Sister, I did not call you here for sport. Now listen, I know you have not failed so greatly at magecraft that you cannot feel Yggdrasil, so stand and listen to it and feel how warped and broken it is. You must help me fix it."

Steven kept a short distance back, slightly more relaxed and with a smile on his face. He would enjoy watching his mistress beat another version of herself, for surely she would win. Only Roberta looked a little nervous and out of her depth, plucking at her sleeve for a moment or two before shifting off to the side. She could see a light on in a nearby building, perhaps she would investigate there while the royals sorted out what was to be done.

She had no idea that inside was an older... well, younger, but older seeming version of her husband.

Both blond heads turned towards Loki as they were addressed, the pleasure and amusement dissolving from their faces. "As I told you," the male Thor said with a growing impatience and hurt in his eyes, not directed entirely towards Loki, "Jotunheim does not exist here. Not in any real way. It is in it's death throes. That may be the imbalance you are feeling."

They could discuss this at length, with Steven looking on at the beck and call of his Mistress and the other two royals, but a few hundred feet away, Roberta was not privy any longer to that particular conversation. She had been invited up to the feast of the young princess due to her husband's station rather than be left on Midgard for the weeks of time difference between the two Realms, but when she accepted the invitation, she had never known that she would be brought here, of all places.

Nor was she likely expecting to see her husband laying on the floor with his arms crossed over his face trying to decide what it was he was supposed to do without Bruce around to bounce theorietical ideas off of!

The reactor in his chest was covered up by thick, dark fabric and otherwise, their bodies and the mops of dark brown hair were the same...and so was that particular tantrum-like posture. She would find that she would have to open the door, it didn't just de materialize for her, and once she did, Anthony's voice, deeper than usual (probably from his tantrum) would growl out that he really needed to be alone to figure this out, all right? "And get me some pizza."

Roberta, or Ruth as she preferred to be called, for she had been named after her father who had been a truly horrendous man, could not help the fond expression crossing her face for a few seconds. Her husband was a ridiculous man sometimes, though he was a genius and vibrant in his own right. She was proud of him and his position, understanding of the time he must put in for their Queen, but pleased when they got to spend time together.

Ola missed her father when he was away. She was already excited about potentially growing up to become Loki's new slave, for it looked good that it might stay in the family, but she was still just a child.

"And here I thought you always said my presence helped you think."

She had no idea what pizza was. Perhaps it was a new code word to have JARVIS fetch him something.

The sass of the feminine voice caused Tony to shift his arms from his face and he turned his head to look up at the woman in the strange clothing, glasses and curly hair just touching her shoulders. He didn't recognize her, the same way that he didn't recognize Loki, and he laid one arm over his stomach and the other he left trailing across the floor, knuckles down and fingers curled inwards.

He looked old. He looked like he had gained a mortal's twenty or twenty-five years on him overnight. That he didn't recognize her was obvious in the narrowing of his eyes as he sat up, turning to sit with his legs folded. He did not get up. "How do we go from having only one woman crawling around here at all hours to two?" That was sexist. Tony didn't hide the fact that he was a product of his generation. No amount of sensitivity training could help with any of that.

Pepper tried everything she could think of. And so had legal. If Tony didn't have the money, and the honestly good intentions he did, he'd be sunk.

"You're not supposed to be here. But you probably knew that already." Finally, he stood himself up, wincing. He wasn't spry anymore. His joints sometimes hurt him. "Can I help you? Please say no. I'm busy here."

Ruth was far from an idiot, she was one of the foremost minds of her generation. It didn't take her at all long to figure out that a second Thor meant that there could so easily be a second Anthony, and this must be him. He looked dreadful, old and tired, had he not been given the Gift? The thought of him without the Gift made her heart ache, for she would outlive him thanks to the Hulk even with it, without it his life would be as nothing.

It was also obvious that she wasn't recognised at all.

She pulled a polite smile to her lips and stepped forwards on feet clad in comfortable sneakers beneath jeans, a purple t-shirt, and a white lab coat. She held her hand out to him.

"Dr. Ruth Rebeccasdottr," she said, already separating him in her mind from her husband. "I understand that this isn't my home realm, Queen Loki pulled us here. I apologise if I interrupted, I saw the light and I thought you were someone else that I knew."

Tony didn't shake hands. He didn't take things from other people either. But... Maybe he was just sleep deprived. Maybe he was just over this whole thing. It wasn't that long ago that Pepper left him, his company had tanked and he was working really hard to get it back into shape thanks to Bucky's selflessness just that morning.

Too much was happening too quickly and so he forget himself and his morals and accepted the hand. He was still holding it when the flow of the name and the general all around appearance lightened up his own features. He looked, for lack of a better way to put it, happy enough that he could cry.

Ruth Rebeccasdottr. Bruce Banner.

"Holy shit. I-- Wow. You look good. Even your mouth--" Tony let her hand go, suddenly more energized as he set a hand on his hip. Her Anthony did the same thing when he was amused. "You're Bruce Banner. But a woman. I never thought I'd thank god until now but-- Thank god. I need your help getting my Bruce back. When Loki decided to crash the party, Banner was sucked up in whatever vortex brought her here. I'm pretty sure it was a fault on our side-- You are just--"

Tony had to laugh, shaking his head.

"Tony Stark. But you knew that."

It was good to see him smile, it made her think that perhaps their connection had persisted even through realms. Though to imagine him with a husband instead; well, she was certainly curious to see what she looked like as a man. Though perhaps it was a good thing that Bruce was not here, she did not know how the Hulk might react to the presence of another version of itself, it could get particularly ugly.

She smiled, the action making her glasses slip down a bit so that she had to push them back up, and moved to push herself up and perch on one of the counters.

"I should hope that I know that, though I've never heard 'Tony' before. It suits you. I will definitely be able to help you, the application of science and magic is one of my specialist areas."

Despite the accident, possibly because of it, she was a foremost expert now.

"What are you wearing? Honestly, Bruce goes away and you let yourself go, is that how it is? Some things never change."

Tony glanced down at himself. "What am I wearing? What's wrong with a Black Sabbath t-shirt?" He had relaxed immediately. Sure, she was gorgeous, but she was also Banner. That made her comfortable without any strings attached. It would have made him laugh to hear that she thought he and Bruce were married though. Tony might be progressive in many ways, but he didn't think marriage was in his cards.

Not to a woman...and definitely not to a man. Jeez.

"Why do you call your Stark? Oh, Anthony huh? Loki said that name and I almost puked. No one's called me Anthony and lived to tell about it," Tony joked before he gestured at the paperwork and the files projected up on the walls. Anthony's and Ruth's lab was far more technically advanced than this one. That he was still using projections-- Well that was fairly telling. "So this is what we're dealing with. Our machine went AWOL and this whole set up wa Bruce's specialty. I'm more of a hardware sort of guy. And he never writes anything down so it's pretty hard to follow along with just jotted down notes."

He should mention that the other Anthony was here...and he would. Eventually. He just wanted to enjoy a little but of Science here without a younger version of him stepping on his toes.

At least Ruth was more polite than Anth, even though she saw the terribly backwards state this whole place was in - projections, really? - she wasn't about to say as much. She knew that her husband could get very petulant about anyone thinking his innovations weren't the best thing ever, and she was sure that this 'Tony' would be just the same.

"Notes aren't necessary when you store it all in your head," she said with a smile, easily pulling one of the projections up and into the air to see what they were working with here. She had never really tried to puncture realities, but it might not be so different than the stable Bifrost bridges that she had helped create so that people from all realms could visit the Vanaheim Free Markets without needing to go via Asgard's observatory first.

She gestured to one small calculation and quickly altered it with some shorthand of her own, the equation changed to include magic in the mix.

"And I suppose your Bruce calls you Tony as well, does he? It's a shame Anth isn't here, he would be tickled to hear of Bruce. He takes men to his bed sometimes, but I think it would amuse him to imagine a husband."

"You don't have to show off," Tony quipped as if he didn't do the exact same thing. He watched as she cleaned her glasses the way Bruce did and push them up her nose the way Bruce did. He hadn't been keeping close tabs with his friend lately since Bucky had taken up so much of his time. He regretted it fully now.

Right up until she mentioned that Anthony took men to bed and was married to her... Or rather, he assumed that they were married since she suggested he was married to Bruce Banner.

A blank confusion spread across his face. "Uh-- One, where do I find a woman like you willing to let me sleep around and two, I'm not married. Not to Bruce. Not to anyone-- wait. Do you have a Code Green issue whenever you get uh..." He was trying to be polite. "Is that why he gets to cheat?"

This was exciting news! And disturbing news!

Tony wasn't sure what to say or think but he had so many questions! Oh. And also something else to say.

"I think he's here. Bucky told me he was trying to regrow his arm but don't go just yet? I really need you." That was a big deal for him to say!

Cheat? She had never quite heard it put like that before, as if sleeping with another person during marriage was anything other than the release of lust. Everyone got those feelings, but Anthony's heart belonged to her and so how could it be called a betrayal of any kind? It couldn't.

She was saddened and a little worried to hear that the Hulk did exist in this world too. That was not good, she did not know how her counterpart might cope with suddenly finding himself on Asgard, but at least they had experience in how to handle her if things went wrong.

"I practise tantric sex," she said, raising an eyebrow mischievously. "It keeps my heartrate down and lets me go all night. So we have no problems in the bedroom ourselves, but sometimes we have to be apart for our work, and we have both taken lovers before now. He takes more than me, I'm content to wait."

She made no move to go, she understood the need to get this sorted and she could catch up with her husband later.

Tony might have been staring-- No. He was absolutely staring. Everything that Ruth was telling him was giving him a sort of whip lash because he couldn't quite figure out how he felt about any of it. A younger version of him was smarter than him and happier than him and married and still had lovers and worked for Loki. As her slave, it seemed, but Ruth didn't seem to be a slave and was content to wait for him despite what had to be similar personality traits.

Tony was not an easy man to love. He had no doubts that his other self wasn't either.

To find a contentment in being another's servant seemed so unlike him, but if the reward was a life with the ruler of the planet and a woman like this, free from any rule but one person's-- Okay, now he was jealous. He was jealous enough to just nod at Ruth and start back up with the work that they were doing. He just had a lot of everything else on his mind right now.

But so did Anthony when he woke up and rubbed his forehead. Damn. Why hadn't anyone attempted to heal him? He gave the empty room a frown and then carefully opened up and climbed out of the window where he plopped himself on the grass. He could see Loki and so he went immediately to where his Queen was, pausing as he came around the building at Steven (thank Odin!) and Princess Thor with Loki and the Thor of this Realm.

"My Queen," he called, jogging over. "This place is crazy. We need to go home."

At least when Loki had persuaded Thor to cease her posturing and actually listen to Yggdrasil, even she had been able to feel how wrong and twisted it all was. Equally as disgusted by the news that Jotunheim and Asgard were not allies, that Jotunheim lay in ruins, and that Midgard was ruled by none.

"Do you see now, sister, why I have called you to arms and-- Anthony, who has harmed you and why has no healing been offered?"

What was this barbaric place? Who would attack his slave? And why, if one of their allies had found him, had he not immediately been offered aid. Some small salve and he would have been without bruise or bump, and yet he looked both. She scowled across at the male Thor, her irritation very close to blooming into full anger.

"You have failed at your charge, Thor Odinson, how can you call yourself fit for rule one day when you have allowed so much to fall asunder? These realms are your responsibility, all Nine under Asgard, and this-- this is disgraceful."

"Steve?"

The was a voice from the shadows as Bucky stepped in to see what the ruckus was about, Grant hanging back slightly. What the hell was Steve wearing? Why hadn't he come back to their building?

"I harmed myself, their doors are archaic," Anthony muttered, rubbing his forehead as he came close to his Queen and made a little bow. it was not as formal as Steven did but Anthony wasn't the formal type. "Does it look really bad? Oh, it sticks out here too, were you breaking up the ozone?" He never liked that smell. Not even in his armor when he was darting around on errands or attending meetings. With the flurry of sudden activity, he had to wait to tell Loki any of the important things, but it seemed like she had guessed with the way she levied insult on the larger Thor. Anthony ignored Loki's siblings.

And that was unfortunate because he would have gotten to see Thor's face twist to a painful shock. And Steven's too, whose mouth hung open as Thor took several slow steps at first before she ran towards Bucky to embrace him.

"How is this possible? How do you live, James?" At least she didn't completely embarrass herself by prolonging the contact, holding Buck at arm's length, since it did occur to her that this was not her James.

The other Thor wasn't sure where to look or what to answer. He opened his mouth to speak twice before forgoing it.

"We must gather everyone. We must speak all as one." He didn't want to call forth Odin. He wanted to solve this himself.

"You harmed yourself..." Steven muttered to Anthony out of the corner of his mouth, in a tone of voice that said he was so telling Ruth as soon as he saw her so that they could mock him for this for a long time. Though his attention was quickly arrested by James-- God, right there like a ghost. James had been his best friend, he had looked up to him so much. The man had taught him how to do his job, and then had died giving his life before any information when captured by the enemy.

Bucky froze when the strange woman embraced him, eyes wide when she finally pulled away. His gaze darted off to check Grant was still there, perhaps seeking out an anchor in this insanity.

"I'm not-- I don't know who you are. How do you know me?"

So he was dead in this other world? Or perhaps still trapped with HYDRA, still on ice somewhere. It was strange that the other him should know Thor, though, because he had only met the male version perhaps twice and not to speak to either time, he had just been ghosting around Tony's tower at the time.

"Everyone's breaking stuff," Tony lamented, glancing out of the window at the craziness going on just outside in the distance. He wanted to send the Legion to scoop everyone up and deposit them in Antarctica but that wasn't really all that realistic. So, instead, he caught Ruth's eye and thumbed over his shoulder. "I think we need to put a pin in this and stop them from....whatever they're doing."

The door opened and two figures crossed the lawn as Thor forced every last bit of emotion from her face. She didn't apologise for her outburst, she just turned to include the full group before spotting Grant out of the corner of her eye. Well, there went her face again and she actually bent to place her hands on her knees as if calling over a kitten. "Steven! Steven, come here and see! You are still a boy in this Realm. And so small! I do not remember you being so!"

Steven did as he was commanded, but he didn't recognize Grant for who he was. Steven had been Gifted early in his life and had been health corrected even earlier. He had never been that age and scrawny. How could James, or anyone, allow him to remain so sickly looking? His eyes lifted to Bucky's and he smiled before bowing a little. "Sir. You have been greatly missed."

By the time that Tony and Ruth arrived, Anthony had his back towards the group and was trying to fill Loki in on what he had heard.It wasn't much but his voice was tight and he sounded disturbed. This place was horrible.

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