Affliction (P.P.)

Part 11

(Peter POV)

I blink my eyes open. My head hurts, but I feel relatively okay. I hear a groan from next to me. Thor is coming to. "Mortal, are you all right?" He asks. "Yeah I'm fine." I nod slowly. I sit up. The ship is totaled. "Great. Just great. Now how will we get home?" I groan in exasperation. "We have a bigger problem at the moment. Where is my brother?" Thor says. "Oh even BETTER. Now we lost our guide. He probably saw us out and took the chance to leave." I lay back on the floor and cover my eyes with my hands. "For your information, I stayed right here until you woke up. I was scouting the location that we crashed, thank you very much." Says Loki as he comes through the door of the ship. It must've been ripped off in the crash. "We're only a few miles from the city. We can be there before nightfall, but I'll have to disguise myself. They're out to get me you know." He says, smirking slightly. "Oh believe me Loki, I'm not surprised." I stand up with a grunt.

The three of us bring what food we have left with us in a back pack, and start the hike to town. It's snowy on the planet, so it's a bit difficult. Thankfully it's not falling, it's only covering the ground. Loki tries to decide who to shape-shift into for his disguise as we go. "Hm. Should I be Stark? Or what about your patriot, Mr. America? Now that would be funny." He says. Thor shakes his head. I ignore them and keep walking ahead, when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around, ready to get annoyed with the brothers again, when I come face to face with Charlotte. My chest tightens, and my eyes widen. I fall backwards in surprise, landing on my butt. I almost say her name, but then Loki's chuckle comes from her mouth and I remember that it's just him shapeshifting, and not actually Lottie. I glare at him. "Don't do that." I grumble, then get up and start walking again. "I can even make my voice sound like hers you know." He says. "Please don't." I say, but he doesn't listen, he instead does it and Thor nods, impressed at the impression.

"I love you, Mortal." Loki says dramatically in Lottie's voice, mocking me. "Loki, enough." I say, still facing forward. "Well, that's all you want to hear isn't it?" He asks, still in Lottie mode. "Will you leave me alone about that?!" I snap. Loki chuckles again, then shape-shifts back into a version of himself, but with shorter brown hair and glasses (Tom Hiddleston mode). I look at him. "You could fit in on earth in that get up." I remark. "I know, I've used it many times. Very effective." He says with a proud smirk on his face. I go back to walking. We finally make it to the outskirts of the city. There's all kinds of different aliens roaming around, not just Vrenkrels. "Now, where do we get the cure?" I say in a lower voice as I walk next to Loki, Thor in tow. "Well, we're not going to be able to even get near where its guarded at night. If anyone besides cleared palace personnel steps foot near the gates they're dead." He explains. "They have a palace?" I ask in surprise.

"Yes, they're very rich and spoiled creatures. They think they're above everyone, so you have to be touchy when speaking to them, or you might say the wrong thing and insult their honor." Loki says as he leads us to a building. "Why are we here?" I say, stopping in my tracks. "Well unless you want to sleep in the snow, I suggest you follow me." He says. He leads us inside a tavern looking thing, with different colored and shaped alien type people inside, all drinking and singing, or dancing. It was basically a bar. Loki leads us to the actual bar inside. "Hello, would you happen to have a spare room available?" He asks nonchalantly. The woman- or I think she's a woman. She's yellow, and looks like a half worm half human. She says something to him in some foreign language I've never heard in my entire life. "Thank you." Loki says. The woman hands him a key, and he turns and me and Thor follow. He leads us up a few flights of stairs, which makes the music quieter and quieter.

We get to a door, and Loki unlocks it. Inside is a room with a bunk bed and a single bed on opposite sides of the room. There's a big window that looks out over the city, and a small area with a table where four people could eat. "This'll work." I say, and drop the back pack onto the bed. After we settle in, Loki and Thor eat at the table, but I just take my communicator that Tony gave me and go sit by the window. It's almost like a phone, but it's thicker, and has an antenna on top. I press the button on the side that's supposed to ring to Avengers Tower all the way back on earth. It loads for a bit, then a red X appears on the screen. I try again, and it does the same. "Tony's gonna kill me." I mumble to myself. I pull out a picture of me and Charlotte that we took in a photo both a few months ago. I brought it with me, figuring it would give me motivation. It's just making me worry more if I'm honest. I know I shouldn't worry. I've been praying and praying for this to go well, and I know we can do it, I just- I want to get her back.

I don't want to lose her. We've already wasted two days just traveling here. We don't have much time. Four more days and she could be gone. I lean my head against the window. "You are really bloody in love with that Mortal girl. I thought it was nothing before, but your entire mood has changed since we left Midguard. You're that worried." Loki says, sitting in front of me. Thor is now snoring on the bottom bunk of the bunk bed. I ignore Loki's comment. "Afraid I'll bail on you?" He asks, taking out one of his many daggers and balancing it on his finger, toying with it. "Partly. Other part being that we won't make it in time." I say quietly. "We'll make it. You're with me remember?" He says, twirling the knife now. "Yeah well you haven't proven yourself to be very reliable in the past." I mumble. He stops twirling the knife. He leans on the window. "I know. But when I say I'll do something, that means I'm doing it. No bloody alien is going to stop me from that." He says with a scoff.

I glance at him, and he glances back. "Your mortal girl will be safe. Now sleep." He says. "You're not going to sleep?" I ask. "Not unless you want someone to ransack our room, no." He says with a shake of his head. "They do that here?" I ask incredulously. "Yep. Now sleep." He waves me off. I'm so tired I don't even question him. I lay on the single bed, and fall asleep.
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The next morning, Loki is already up and ready to go raid a palace. "Come on you two, we've got things to do." He says. I groan and roll off the bed, stretching my legs. After getting ready, we all are around the small 'dining room' table in the room. "Okay so whats the plan? How do we even do this?" I look to Loki. "Okay, so the front and back gates are guarded. But, I figured out when I was here before that there's a sewer system that runs under the gates, and has an opening on the other side of the walls." He explains.

"We could do that, orrr, we could maybe get palace personnel uniforms and sneak in that way?" I suggest. Loki shakes his head firmly. "Nope. I've tried that before. That's what got me into the whole 'do us a favor and try to take over earth for us' situation. So no." He says. I nod. "Good point." Thor says. He spreads an entire palace map onto the table. "Wha- where did you get that?" I ask incredulously. "I have connections. Now, your cure is going to be located in their hospital wing most likely. So that's where we have to get. Bad news is, it's all the way on the opposite side of the palace. Our sewer opens up on the other end." He says, pointing on the map. "I could....use my powers and just climb up the building to get to the other side?" I say. "What about Loki and I? We're supposed to stay with you." Thor says. "We can figure that part out when we get there. Right now, we need to get going before we waste anymore time." I say. Loki nods, folds the map, and puts it in his pocket. I grab our backpack full of stuff, and then we head out.

"Where do the sewers start?" I ask Loki in a low voice since we're out on the street now. "There should be an entrance the next street over." Thor says. He had taken the map of the sewers from Loki. We keep walking until we find a man hole cover in an alley way. Thor takes the lid off. We all look down inside the dark hole. "Well that looks inviting." Loki says. "Smells inviting too." I add. I grab three flashlights out of the backpack. "Well, what are we waiting for?" I say, then start to scale the later into the darkness...