Broken Beyond Repair

Chapter 8

Despite Loki's insistence that he come to Sokovia, he doesn't follow Wanda and Pietro once they arrive. He exits the ship with them, but then he stays there, and Wanda and Pietro very reluctantly leave him behind. But they promise him that they'll come back soon, and that there's nothing for him to worry about.

It doesn't take long for them to realize that they will not be back soon, and that there is a lot for him to worry about.

Once the city begins to fly, they lose him. Chaos erupts, and they lose track of where he should be. They have no idea whether he's come with them or if he's still on the ground, whether he's even still alive, and no amount of yelling into the comm gets an answer from him. And with so many robots crawling around, they're too busy fighting for their own lives to check on his. There's nothing they can do but fight, and hope that when they lose, the rest of the world doesn't lose with them.

But then there's a new voice on their comms, one Pietro doesn't recognize. "I'm glad you like the view, Romanoff," he says, "but it's about to get better."

Pietro runs through the city, searching for the others, for that noise, until he finds it. There's a ship coming up to meet them – the Helicarrier. The sight of the lifeboats nearing the edges of the floating city brings a smile to his face. Maybe they won't die today.

Pietro takes off running, searching for the nearest Avenger. Instead, he runs into two of them: Steve and Natasha, both watching the lifeboats floating their way. He joins them, his gaze glued to the sight before him.

"This is SHIELD?" Pietro asks in awe.

"This is what SHIELD's supposed to be," Steve says.

Pietro looks back at him in surprise, then returns his gaze to the lifeboats, as if they'll disappear if he doesn't watch their every move. "This is not so bad." The SHIELD he'd known would never do this. They wouldn't waste their time and energy on saving civilians. They never cared about the casualties as long as the end goal was reached. He'd never realized there was another way.

And then that man's voice over the comms comes back. "We're keeping secrets now, are we?"

"Meaning?" Natasha asks.

"You all told me that Loki was dead."

"You see Loki?" Wanda asks quickly. "Where is he? Is he okay?"

"He is very much not okay," he says. "Who's this?"

"Wanda Maximoff," Steve substitutes. "One of the Enhanced. And I've got her brother here, too."

"And that's Nicholas Fury," Natasha adds for their benefit. "The Director of SHIELD."

"And your guardian angel for the day," Fury says. "Now get everyone on the boats."

"Wait!" Wanda says quickly. "You said you saw Loki?"

"Yeah, what about it?" Fury asks.

"He's not okay?"

"He looks like he went a few dozen rounds with the Hulk and lost every single one of them," Fury says.

"Yeah, yeah, we know," Clint says. "That's old news. In his case, 'fine' means alive and sitting in his wheelchair."

"Looks like it," Fury says. "But he's not doing anything so I can't promise he's still alive."

"I think that's his new normal," Natasha remarks.

"He's kinda forgotten how to, you know, life," Tony adds.

Pietro fights the urge to roll his eyes. "Should we not be helping people get onto the boats?" It seems like a better use of their time than making fun of Loki.