Chapter Text
Harleen fingered the collar of her shirt, absently running a thumb over the L-shaped scar just visible there, and smiled. Her mind wandered back to the night -- well, early morning -- she’d received it, and she toyed with the memory, replaying the highlights, retracing its shape.
“Eyes on the present moment, if you please,” Loki interrupted, sounding slightly strained, and Harleen started guiltily and snapped her attention back to her task -- which, at the moment, amounted to little more than holding the scepter steady as it shone with a diffuse yellow glow.
“Should we really be using this thing as a flashlight?” she asked, gripping it with both hands to steady it and leaning a little closer towards the apparently blank rocky wall Loki was concentrating on.
He seemed to be taking measurements of some kind, spreading his hands apart from each other along the wall, muttering to himself, and tapping on specific points as if to commit them to memory, then moving on to new sections. “Why should we not?” he asked after a long enough beat to show he hadn’t really been paying attention to the question.
Harleen shrugged, then hastily held her arms still again when he turned briefly to give her an annoyed look, pale shadows dancing across his face. “I don’t know. It just seems like… using the Hope Diamond to hammer in nails or Excalibur to cut a loaf of bread or something. I mean, I guess it doesn’t really hurt anything, and if you really need to hit something or cut something and that’s all you have on hand, it would work, but that’s not really what it’s supposed --”
“ Hsst. ” The impatient sound derailed her train of thought and Harleen fell silent as Loki stepped back from the wall with a softly triumphant, “Ah!” Standing electrifyingly close to her in the narrow confines of the stony crevice, he watched the wall critically until he got the reaction he wanted.
Harleen thought at first that the wall itself was splitting open, rock cracking apart to reveal bright points of light on the other side, until she realized that the light was set a few inches away from the wall and that the air itself was parting along shining geometric lines that webbed out and branched into each other until they lost distinction and became one great rend in space. It was nearly blinding to her badly-adjusted eyes, but -- as usual -- Loki seemed unbothered, staring into the light with quiet satisfaction as if he’d just won a bet with himself.
Suddenly remembering she was there, he uncrossed his arms and offered her his elbow, flipping the switch on an inviting smile that almost blinded her all over again. “Shall we?” he asked cordially.
“You still haven’t told me where it goes,” she pointed out, taking his arm but eyeing the tear in reality with suspicion. It was too bright for her to make out any details through the glow.
“And you still have yet to present your own theory,” he deflected.
Harleen paused to consider, adopting a dramatic attitude of thoughtfulness as if she were only pretending to think over an answer she’d long since determined. In reality, her mind was scrambling, trying to piece together the few clues she’d received.
The only thing she could say for sure was that it wasn’t Niflheim; only Thor could possibly fall for that old, “Whatever you do, don’t look there! ” routine. She was also fairly confident in crossing Midgard off the list. If Loki had business there, he’d have dealt with it before returning to Asgard; she was sure of it.
But that still left six other possible realms, and while her research over the past week or so had held some mild academic interest, it hadn’t been particularly useful for narrowing down what would capture Loki’s attention or lead him to the Tesseract. In the end, she had to take a shot in the dark, picking out the first name that came to mind and trying to justify it after the fact.
“Nidavellir,” she guessed, remembering when Loki had used it as an excuse to start a fight between Thor and Odin. “Because you know Odin’s men have already come and gone from there, so you’re less likely to be bothered by Thor going back over it again.”
“Half marks, kitten,” Loki said graciously. “Right place, wrong reason.”
“Well then, why are we going there?” Harleen asked, but he only smiled mysteriously, having too much fun with holding the secret over her to let her into it.
He had rested Gungnir within arm’s reach on the crevice wall while he worked and retrieved it now, setting his shoulders back with royal dignity as he held it at attention beside him. Harleen imitated his pose, mirroring the spear with the scepter, and together, they swept through the portal into the realm of the dwarves.
Loki paced sedately forward with even, measured steps. Chin lifted and back straight, Harleen did her best to match him, but it was difficult to keep her eyes forward when there was so much to take in. If Asgard had been mildly disconcerting, with its waterfalls to nowhere and its Flat-Earther’s wet dream, Nidavellir was disorienting on a whole other level.
There was more empty space to what she saw than there was mass, and what little there was of that seemed to be more artificially constructed than naturally occurring. Harleen wondered if the realm had ever even existed before its residents had, or if they’d built it up themselves across the eons.
The… path? aisle? road? that led them forward appeared to have been constructed piecemeal over a very long time, representing a wide variety of materials and design standards that still all managed to fit together into one continuous course of riveted metal. It was spanned overhead by a series of arches, giving it the odd feel of an underground tunnel, when one glance past the arches showed that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
In the spaces between each arch, there was absolutely nothing separating Harleen and Loki from the cold black of outer space. The stars and nebulae that had been more visible on Asgard than she’d ever seen on Earth seemed to be practically on top of them now, and she had no idea how she was breathing oxygen or how gravity was keeping her safely pinned to the ground or how she wasn’t already freezing to death with blood boiling out her eyeballs.
Consciously loosening her cling on Loki’s arm by a few degrees, she forced herself to look back up at the lack of sky and saw that it was spanned by several Saturn-like rings passing across her vision in a constant interlocking dance. The rings creaked and whirred as they spun, setting Harleen off on another round of questions -- There’s sound in space! How the hell is there sound in space? It’s a goddamn vacuum, and there’s no way that -- but that line of thought could only lead back to the eyeball-boiling issue, so she abandoned it.
If she looked ahead, she could see the path’s end a short distance off. A few silhouettes of dwarven figures toiled among massive machinery there, fire glowing and steam gushing between unnamed contraptions. They would be arriving there in moments, but none of the dwarves bothered to look up at their approach.
Somehow, though, the approach took more time than Harleen had anticipated. Still they walked and kept walking, the figures looming ever greater in her view until the truth became impossible to deny.
“This is Nidavellir, right?” she hissed at Loki, as they truly came upon the forge, where the enormous workers there finally did turn to notice them, eyeing suspiciously down to watch them arrive. “You didn’t miscalculate something on those weirdass maps, did you? I thought this was supposed to be where the dwarves lived.”
“It is,” he responded in a sharp whisper, his chin barely moving to betray his speech to their onlookers. “Smile for the nice dwarves, Harleen. They’re our hosts.”
She tightened her face into her customer service smile and continued speaking softly through gritted teeth. “Oh, right. They’re dwarves, and you’re half-giant. What does that make me, a teeny little fairy? Galactus’ big sister?”
“I certainly hope not,” Loki answered blandly. “Fairies have a nasty bite.”
They ran out of path, then, and one particular dwarf, even taller than the others, glowered down at them. He opened his mouth to speak -- and judging by his expression, he didn’t have anything nice to say -- but before he could, Loki planted Gungnir before him and swept himself grandly into a one-kneed bow. Harleen matched his movements, doing the same with the lengthened scepter and synchronizing a bow with his.
“O great King Eitri,” Loki began, as he and Harleen rose again, his voice ringing up to meet the dwarf’s ears. “Master of the forge and wisest among --”
“What brings you here, Liesmith?” the dwarven king interrupted in a voice like a rockslide and a tone that implied he’d already had about enough of Loki’s shit for the next century or two. It was hard to tell from so far down, but it seemed to Harleen like his gaze kept drifting to the spear at Loki’s side.
“Is it not apparent?” Loki asked with a gracious smile, deftly tilting the spear so it rested horizontally across his outstretched hands and lifting it for Eitri’s inspection. “It has recently come to Asgard’s attention that your most generous gift to Odin was --”
“Was never given, but stolen? By you? ” the king interrupted again, the rockslide deepening dangerously into shifting tectonic plates.
“-- was perhaps the result of a diplomatic misunderstanding,” Loki continued without a hint of shame, his smile unfaltering.
King Eitri seemed to know better than to get drawn into that distinction. “I thought you to be out of favor with your court,” he said skeptically instead. He passed off the tongs he’d been holding to another dwarf nearby, who picked up his task, and wiped his hands on a dirty rag the size of a bedsheet. “Yet they send you as their representative in this matter?”
Loki let the spear balance upright again so he could wave a hand dismissively. “Your intelligence is out-of-date. ‘Twas a trivial disagreement, already put to rest,” he lied cheerfully. “You know how family squabbles can be.”
“I know how you can be, and that is all I need know,” the king snorted. “Why have you truly come, Asgardian?”
Loki looked mildly taken aback, as though this were the first time anyone had ever questioned his word. “It is as I said: a mission of goodwill to resolve a minor misunderstanding and return to your people this --”
“Out with it.”
“ Well, ” Loki began thoughtfully, tipping Gungnir invitingly from one hand to another and back again, “As you happen to mention it -- though I am sure I mean no disrespect by instructing such a beloved and well-practiced monarch as you in matters of diplomacy -- I believe it is customary for one gesture of goodwill to be met with another to the mutual benefit of all concerned.
“Asgard would, naturally, take no offense were you to not have such a token prepared, as of course our arrival was quite unannounced, but if you find yourself seeking inspiration for an appropriate expression of your gratitude, I may be able to provide a suggestion.”
By this point, King Eitri had sunk back against an unused piece of equipment, huge fingers covering his face. “The sooner you speak plainly, the sooner I can be rid of you,” he growled. “ What. Do. You. Want? ”
This seemed to be the cue Loki was waiting for. He dropped the hand-waving and the smiling, his entire personality shifting to one of businesslike curtness and answered brusquely, “Information.”
Eitri lifted a bushy eyebrow and looked quizzically down at Loki. “What knowledge could we possibly hold that you Asgardians cannot find for yourselves?”
“If you wish plain speech, then do not pretend ignorance,” Loki snapped. “You know what I’m after, dwarf-king.”
The king nodded once, conceding the point. “We don’t know its precise location, but I can tell you the realm. What do you intend with it?”
Loki smiled tightly. “The Cube holds many uses for Asgard. I’m sure you’re aware of the bridge’s --”
“I did not ask what Asgard intends with it, Liesmith.” Eitri’s tone was challengingly calm.
“Am I not speaking on their behalf?”
“Are you?” For the first time, Eitri’s huge eyes shifted to Harleen and the scepter she held, and Loki followed his gaze.
Harleen stared levelly back up at the dwarf, her face carefully blank.
“Whence did you come by that weapon, mortal?” he asked calmly.
“It is mine,” Loki answered for her, and Eitri’s gaze snapped impatiently back to him.
“Where did you get it, then? It’s not one of ours.”
“Chitauri make. A gift from a generous benefactor.”
Eitri snorted. “A likely gift ,” he said sarcastically. “You seem to have rather a penchant for collecting them. Friendly word of caution, Asgardian: beware of those who intend the same. You may find the Cube an insufficient prize.”
Harleen had been following the conversation reasonably well up to that point, but now had completely lost its thread. Loki and Eitri both seemed to be walking along multiple lines of doublespeak, and she couldn’t quite grasp what the king’s warning meant.
Loki didn’t seem concerned by it, though. “I seek its utility; nothing more,” he said breezily. “I’ve no interest in the rest, though I do know one who quite fancies the matched set.” He cocked an eyebrow up at Eitri and a hint of his old smile returned. “I could tell you, have you more knowledge to trade.”
The dwarven king waved a great hand dismissively. “Bad enough that you’ve come to sell me my own spear,” he grumbled. “I already have the poor hand in this bargain, and I’ve no wish to deal further. At any rate, I have no need to know. You all with your wars and your schemes and your great quests have passed us by for eons and may continue for eons more; we have no desire but to stay in our little realm to craft and drink and watch the spinning stars while we stay out of it all.”
“Words wisely spoken indeed,” Loki answered diplomatically, and raised Gungnir above his head in both hands. Eitri took it, holding it closely to his face to inspect it for wear and damage -- or possibly for trickery -- then nodded in satisfaction. “The realm?” Loki prompted.
“It is on Midgard,” the king said, and he scowled.
“The tardiness of your intelligence again betrays you,” he snapped. “I’ve just come from Midgard; the Cube is no longer there.”
“I tell you that it is,” Eitri snapped back, apparently annoyed at being doubted. “Perhaps it is your own information that fails you.”
Loki glowered up at him, lips set in a thin line. “That isn’t possible. The Cube left before I, and was stolen from Asgard . I even took steps to verify that it had not returned to Misgard after.”
“Then either they are wrong or you are,” Eitri insisted, sounding bored. “Whether it left and returned or never left at all, I care not, but you will find the Cube on Midgard.” Loki was clearly about to argue with him further, but it was difficult for even him to talk over the booming voice, and Eitri pressed on. “Regardless, our bargain is done. Be gone from my sight, Loki, and do not return here lest I decide you’d make better fuel for my forge.”