"Loki?"
The name was a ragged whisper, torn from a throat raw with sickness. Thor was sure he was hallucinating, a fever-dream conjured from the depths of his misery. Yet the shimmering green figure before him didn't fade; it sharpened, solidifying into the familiar, unwelcome shape of his brother.
"You look absolutely pathetic, brother," Loki observed, his voice a silken thread of condescension. He shook his head, a gesture that betrayed a confusing swirl of emotions. Triumph warred with something akin to disgust. "To be brought so low by a common mortal disease. It's embarrassing."
"Loki… it's really you," Thor breathed, the fever-bright haze in his eyes clearing for just a moment. "I knew it…"
The confirmation that Loki was alive, that he hadn't perished in the void, sent a wave of profound relief through him. It was a feeling so potent it dislodged the tears trapped in the corners of his eyes. They traced grimy paths down his unshaven cheeks, but a genuine, relieved smile touched his cracked lips. The fragile strength this brought him was his last reserve; his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed completely, surrendering to the encroaching darkness.
Loki stood over his brother's still form, the witty, venomous barbs he had prepared dying on his tongue. He had spent days tracking Thor, working from the frustratingly outdated information Coulson had provided, his anticipation building with every dead end. He had imagined this moment with relish—picturing himself towering over a humbled Thor, gloating, savoring every second of his brother's de-powered misery.
But now, faced with the reality of it, the satisfaction wouldn't come. The man lying in the filth wasn't just the glorious Prince of Asgard brought low; he was a wretched, feverish vagrant, shivering uncontrollably on a park bench. There was no pride in this. An unfamiliar tightness constricted Loki's chest, a blockage that made his breath feel heavy and strained. He, who had once run Thor through with a dagger, a smile gracing his own lips, was now unsettled by the sight of a simple illness.
He had always told himself he could kill Thor without a second thought, that he felt nothing for the golden son who wasn't even his true brother. But the aching discomfort in his heart told a different story. He didn't understand it, and he certainly had no intention of examining the feeling too closely.
"How does the view from down here feel?"
Ben's voice materialized behind him, calm and knowing. Loki spun around, his expression a chaotic mixture of panic and evasion, with an odd undercurrent of relief.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, his voice sharper than intended.
"Why? Feeling a pang of sympathy for your brother and embarrassed I caught you?" Ben strolled past him, kneeling to gently lift Thor into the shade of a large oak tree. "Heimdall," he explained simply. "I was just arriving at the school when he reached out. Said Thor was on the verge of dying."
Ben sighed, shaking his head with a touch of exasperation. "I know the Allfather sent him here to learn humility, but letting him actually die from pneumonia seems a bit excessive, don't you think?"
Loki's posture relaxed fractionally. "He can see across the Nine Realms. He must have known I was already here. Why send for you?"
"Who knows?" Loki offered a brittle smile, flicking his wrist to conjure a gleaming dagger, which he began to idly toss and catch. "Perhaps he worried I might finally finish the job."
"Oh, give it a rest," Ben said, his tone dismissive. "You can fool the rest of Asgard, you can even fool yourself for a time, but don't stand here and pretend you aren't heartbroken seeing him like this."
Loki froze, his fingers tightening around the hilt of the dagger.
"Everyone with eyes can see the dynamic between you two," Ben continued, his voice softening slightly. "All that 'love and hate' is mostly theater. The God of Mischief? Please. More like the God of Self-Deception." Ben kept that last thought to himself, deciding Loki's pride had taken enough of a beating for one day. "You talk tough, but you still see him as your brother. It hurts you to see him suffer, even though you endured ten times worse on Sakaar without a single complaint."
"I was adopted," Loki stated flatly, a clear signal he wanted the topic dropped. He made the dagger vanish. "Did Heimdall say anything else?"
Ben shook his head.
A flicker of disappointment crossed Loki's face, so fleeting it was almost imperceptible, before being buried under his usual mask of indifference. He didn't press the issue. Instead, he made arrangements for Thor to be transported to a nearby hospital before turning to leave.
"You're not going to wait for him to wake up?" Ben asked. "I thought you'd want to be there to mock him."
"I'm not in the mood to laugh at… that," Loki replied, gesturing vaguely toward his departing brother before turning and melting into the city crowds.
Watching him go, Ben let out a quiet sigh. In truth, Heimdall had never contacted him. The entire story was a fabrication. He had followed Loki here, a nagging suspicion bothering him ever since the Asgardian's arrival. Loki's behavior had been… off. He'd claimed he came to Earth to mock Thor, yet his first act was to seek out Mjolnir. While his explanation had been plausible, it didn't quite align with the Loki Ben knew—the brother who, above all else, was obsessed with Thor himself. His subsequent search for his brother had felt strangely perfunctory, almost as if he were going through the motions.
But after observing him in secret, Ben saw the truth. The conflict in Loki's eyes, the genuine pain that broke through his facade when he saw Thor's condition—that was real.
Was his trip to the hammer just a way to deceive himself? Ben mused. A way to pretend Thor wasn't the most important thing to him on this planet?
Considering Loki's monumental pride and penchant for elaborate self-delusion, it made perfect, tragic sense.
"Incompetent fool!"
Wilson Fisk's roar echoed through his penthouse office as a priceless crystal paperweight shattered against a marble wall. He stood, a mountain of bespoke tailoring and barely contained fury, his massive hands clenched into fists.
The Chameleon. He had been so confident, boasting that his disguises were infallible had vanished within a day of his mission. At first, Fisk had assumed it was a simple complication, a need for radio silence. But as days bled into a week with no word, a cold certainty had settled in his gut. The Chameleon had been dealt with, and Fisk was only now realizing the extent of his failure.
The plan to acquire the Super Soldier Serum formula had failed. Again.
For the past six months, his life had been an infuriating series of losses. His criminal empire, once the unchallenged pinnacle of power in New York, was hemorrhaging influence. His only recent "victory" was his minor role in the war against Hydra, and even that had brought him no tangible benefits, aside from the continued existence of a world he no longer felt he controlled. In that global conflict, the Kingpin of Crime had been a nobody, a footnote.
A profound sense of urgency gnawed at him. The world was changing at a terrifying pace. First, a man in an iron suit, then aliens, gods, and monsters. He saw the future with stark clarity: the lives of ordinary men, even extraordinarily powerful ones like himself, were destined to become increasingly irrelevant. His frantic pursuit of mutative agents—the Lizard serum, the Super Soldier serum—wasn't just about expanding his power. It was a desperate bid for survival in a new, terrifyingly super-powered ecosystem.
At that moment, a subordinate scurried into the room, his face pale with a mixture of fear and excitement. "Mr. Fisk… we have news. Walter Hardy… he's been released."
Fisk straightened up, his bulk seeming to swell as he turned his immense frame toward the man. "What?" he breathed, his small eyes boring into his subordinate, questioning the very fabric of reality.
He knew the Black Cat's true identity was Walter Hardy, and he knew H.A.M.M.E.R. held him. The plan had been simple: Chameleon would spring Hardy, and Fisk would use Felicia's life as leverage to force the old thief to surrender the formula. He was aware of Felicia's association with Ben Parker, but he had mistakenly pegged Peter as the true link to Spider-Man. To him, a friend of a friend was a distant, manageable variable.
But now the Chameleon was gone, and Hardy was free.
"How is this possible?" Fisk murmured, pinching his own round, massive cheek with thick fingers as his mind raced. "Did he trade the secret to H.A.M.M.E.R.? No… they'd never release someone with that knowledge. Or did they never know his secret at all?" He dismissed that idea immediately. H.A.M.M.E.R. was built on the bones of S.H.I.E.L.D.; they had all the old files. They couldn't possibly overlook something as critical as the original Super Soldier.
"Unless…" A slow, predatory grin spread across his face. "They released him on purpose." He considered the recent Hydra incident. "Their prisons must be overflowing. They can't very well house an old cat burglar in the same wing as a legion of Hydra fanatics. They needed the cell."
"This is our chance," he rumbled, a captivating light gleaming in his beady eyes.
"But, sir… couldn't it be a trap?" his subordinate ventured, trembling slightly. "H.A.M.M.E.R. must know who sent the Chameleon. They could be baiting us."
Fisk waved a dismissive hand. "Do you think the Chameleon is a man of such loyalty that he would die to protect our identity? He's a hired hand. Our relationship is purely transactional." His logic was cold and sharp. "Therefore, H.A.M.M.E.R. either already knows it was me, or they simply don't care who it was. If they don't care, there is no need to set a trap."
His audacity was breathtaking. This was the same man who, at the age of twelve, had murdered for the sake of his ambition. Years on the throne of New York's underworld hadn't dulled his ruthlessness, but perhaps they had fostered a sliver of complacency.
"Alexei should be recovered by now," he mused aloud. "Send him to…" He trailed off, reconsidering. "No. Forget it." The Rhino was a sledgehammer for a task requiring a scalpel. The man's idiocy would only draw unwanted attention.
Instead, Fisk decided on a more subtle approach. He would send a few of his most skilled men, quiet professionals, to abduct the old man. Walter Hardy might have been injected with the serum, but he was nearly ninety years old, practically ancient. Even with an enhancement, Fisk reasoned, there was no way he still possessed any significant combat strength.