Dead Memories

39

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Bucky went up to the roof, but not because he was worried. He just needed to know where they were standing, because Chthon was most definitely not supposed to show up. They wanted to stop the Darkholders long before they got this far, but that plan obviously went down the toilet.

'Whatever Thor offered you, make it work,' he exclaimed out loud the second he was up on the roof.

Leah turned back around him with a sharp look, but Loki just seemed thoughtful.

'Don't give me that look,' Bucky told her. 'This is not up for debate. It's Chthon on the damn doorstep.'

'I didn't think they would find anyone who could survive being a host,' Leah said.

'Well, they did, because that woman was definitely not a smear on the floor when she gutted Loki and levelled a block in Detroit.'

'It shouldn't have been possible, not with a human,' Leah said. 'It had to be Amora.'

Bucky just made a questioning sound, so Leah continued.

'What she did on that island in isolation,' she explained. 'Those men you found, we know how they died, how their bodies stopped working, they had their very life force sucked out of them. But there were so many ways that power could've been used.'

'You think they used it to make someone stronger?' Bucky asked with a frown.

'Strong enough to host an Elder God, yes,' Leah said. 'There is no other way they could've succeeded.'

'Okay, but it's just a host, not Chthon in the flesh, so we still have a chance,' Bucky said.

'We have, yes, but it is not going to be easy,' Leah said.

'So I'm telling you again, whatever Thor offered; make it work. We need help.'

'We did everything...' Leah started, but Bucky interrupted her.

'To even the odds, I know, but this is no longer just a theoretical bad scenario. We need to find the Darkholders and stop them, physically, so we need bodies on the field, people who can actually fight demons. So unless you have some super-powered TAC team stashed somewhere, we need the Avengers.'

Leah and Loki shared a look.

'Or Asgard?' Bucky asked.

'No,' Leah said immediately.

'So the Avengers. And yeah, Steve's gonna fight and some of them will probably follow him no matter what, but we don't know about Strange, or those twins, or the synthezoid. Stark is a huge question mark, let alone the Widow and Barton. We could really use Thor in our corner.'

'He won't settle for crumbs,' Leah said. 'He knows there is more to this than the threat of Chthon.'

'Then tell him more, make it work.'

'You don't understand. In order for him to truly understand, we would need to pull on some very dangerous threads.'

'You know what I understand? We have an Elder God knocking on our door, that's a bit more imminent than whatever is coming in the future, so make it work,' Bucky repeated.