✍🏻 Bonds of Fear (Loki)

22 - Caves and Dates

Feer

Of course, we got our briefing. Oliver and his obedience to Fury didn't disappoint and he handed us a perfectly bound folder of his notes just as Loki and I exited my apartment unit. As it turned out, unsurprisingly, I was right. There was way more to it than what was on the news and the more I read, the less I wanted to go.

The caves were discovered months ago. Each expedition mission was sent further and deeper, uncovering increasingly stranger things and driven by the potential profit of finding something truly rare. Until they found it. A creature that was never supposed to be disturbed. Each of the tunnels became rounder and smoother the deeper the expeditions got as if made by a giant worm. Perfectly circular and covered in an oily slime whose origin the scientist couldn't track. And so they tracked the creature. For weeks. Learning that it must be at least forty meters long and believed that the tunnels were made by the animal itself, putting its diameter to a staggering twelve meters. With that, I didn't want to imagine how massive its mouth was and tried not to think about the strength of its teeth if it could drill through a fucking mountain stone. The tunnels could have been created by its predecessors, possibly even thousands of years ago as the age of the cave-worm remained unknown. As well as if there were more or just one.

Nobody knew how deep the tunnels went and though the expeditions were betting on the fact that the creature was blind and didn't have a great sense of smell, they largely underestimated its sense of hearing. Eventually, they got deep enough for the cave-worm to hear them and all that came out were grainy videos from their streaming cameras, capturing the monster just as it registered them and was fast approaching. Leaving their destiny up to our imagination as the stream disconnected before it could tell us if there was any point in trying to rescue them. No indication if anyone survived. But it wouldn't be SHIELD if it wouldn't insert itself into the situation, swooping in as the heroes they believed to be and hoping to kill the creature and claim its corpse so it would be them who would study it.

On the outside, it was supposed to be a rescue mission but the briefing made it clear that SHIELD's interest is as greedy as those who have died there. The only good thing about it all was that we had --

"Thor!!!" I exclaimed the second I saw him at the Globemaster, our military transport aircraft.

His eyes lit up and he turned to me with open arms just as I ran up to him and enveloped him in a tight hug. Over the years, I trained him well to make him feel good about seeing me. All it took was a tiny brush of happiness over his skin whenever we touched. A dose small enough not to trigger any withdrawal, staying unnoticed but subconsciously making him connect a hug from me with something positive. He was still grinning widely as we parted, looking me up and down.

"Mighty Feer," his deep voice sounded through the hangar, making me smile as there was no mockery in his tone. "I hope my brother treated you well during my absence?"

"He tried," I laughed and looked over my shoulder, watching Loki striding fast to us. "Failed miserably. But tried." I turned back to Thor but my smile changed to a frown as he was good two meters away from me. His face lost a bit of its color and he was looking at Loki apologetically, feeling guilt and unease. Strange.

"Brother," he addressed him with a meek smile and instead of answering, Loki only put his hand on my lower back as if to make his claim on me known. "I-I'll go inside," Thor stammered out and turned around, walking inside the large plane through the deployment ramp at its tail.

Loki's gaze was still shooting daggers at his back but the second I slapped his hand away he turned to face me. "Do not do that, ever again," I growled, gritting my teeth. "I'm not yours or anyone's and never will be. I hate these conquering displays. You have no right to chase him away from me, let alone the fact I still didn't permit you to touch me."