The Adventure // open

Some help couldn't have come any sooner, to be honest Kate was at a loss at what to do and she really didn't know what her next step was. There was nothing in the paper screaming headlines about the Avengers...she had no idea if they were here in this world or not. Kate guessed they were though...every world had Avengers in it...that was kinda the theme that she had come across so far so they had to be out there somewhere...Kate just had to find them and explain the whole situation and that would be that and then she would be on her way home. Right? After all that was how this kinda situation went right? Then again in the other universe she had been to they hadn't been all that useful.

A voice startled her, she recognised it almost instantly, Kate turned around fast, her hair splayed out as she did so and then her eyes fell on what looked like a little human. Kate knew better than that. Loki. Holy crap. Her heart skipped a beat, her jaw dropped...she knew he could move between worlds with his magic when it was at full strength but she wasn't expecting him to show up here of all places. "Loki?" She asked sounding a little shocked at his sudden appreciation. "Holy shit am I happy to see you and your punchable face!" Kate almost yelled as she took a few steps forward and sat her hands on his shoulders as if she was trying to check that he was real because it was a little hard to believe right now.

Where he had been since the Young Avengers took their separate ways she didn't know. The Dazzler gig on the moon thing had been pretty cool and the last time she had seen most of the Young Avengers had been her birthday party slash New Years Eve...and even then parts of that night were a little um...sketchy at best. Kate blamed the vast quantities of alcohol that had been consumed by people - both of age and not.

"I don't brood thank you very much, I was thinking, totally different thing thanks very much!" She took her hands back and smiled, it was a little sad, at least now he was here...there would be someone with more experience in all of this than she did but at the end of the day she knew to take everything Loki said with a pinch of salt. He wasn't the most trust worthy person on the planet but hadn't got them all killed last time around and the world hadn't ended but it was okay. As long as she had her wits about this it would be okay!

"Have you seen America around, I don't know...I thought all of this had something to do with her but...apparently she's nowhere to be found..." That wasn't a good thing, where there were multiverse travels there was Miss America Chavez. Her absence meant something sinister was going on rather than a harmless mistake. "I hope this isn't one of those world is ending things...I totally don't have enough arrows for that."

Kate visibly relaxed. Smiled. She felt a little safer actually with Loki around, it was a strange relationship that he had in her world with the Young Avengers and sure he was part of the team and while people would have thought it strange she couldn't help but wonder what it was he thought his place in the team was. To Kate he was kinda like the little brother that she had never had. Yes he was older than them all but he was so small, looked so young that it gave Kate the urge to just put her arm around him and look after him. "What else is there to do but stay positive? We could cry about it all we want isn't going to get us anywhere." She just shrugged her shoulders and looked back out to the skyline before wondering over to him and putting an around around Lokis shoulders in an almost sisterly way before directing his attention to the newspaper that had been taken apart and pinned down to the roof top with small rocks that she had found acting as paperweights. The map was in the middle of it all, she'd drawn over it with the pen she had in her quiver.


"A while...I've been researching." She clarified, Kate had been doing a lot more than just watching the world. She was gathering information...she was trying to make sense of the world that they had been thrown into. "So...I got a hold of a couple of things...there's no real mention of Avengers in the newspaper which is a little...weird...I mean what if they don't have Avengers or heroes here? What are we doing to do?" Kate let the question go though, she would cross that bridge when she got to it but there was something more pressing. "The cities layout is almost identical, little bits here and there a little shifted..." It was a strange world, so alike but it was as if everything had been picked up and moved five inches to the left and while everything was there in the right order it was almost not in the right place. It was hard to put your finger on really, to find a way to describe the strange discomfort it all brought.

She kept her arm around his shoulder, gave him a small sideways hug before letting go. They were left aimless in wonder with outdated maps and information to navigate a universe they barely knew. It all kept falling back to the fact that Kate had no idea what to do. She was meant to be a leader, she was the leader of the Young Avengers and now she had a team member here the choices she made also affected him. She had to make the right ones. She took a deep breath she mused over his statement for a moment. It wasn't the end of the world. "Maybe not this one but what about the others?" Kate knew more about the multi-verse than she ever really wanted to. One would could end and the rest would go on as if nothing had happened. They would be forgotten and cast aside by the world around them. Their world could be gone and this one would never know.

Kate stood there for a moment, one hand on her hip the other went to her quiver where she spun and arrow around in thought her eyes falling on the information she had gathered on the floor. "Well...that begs the question...if America and the others arn't here...then where the hell is the rest of the team?" He should have known by know after the lengths they had gone to get Tommy and Teddy back that a universe between them was nothing. "I mean...the Young Avengers would be looking for us. There's no way they'd just miss this action."

They had to lead the way? Oh god that was not the answer that Kate wanted, she wanted to crawl under a rock and hide but this was no time for personal wishes and running away wasn't going to make anything stop. They had to deal with it. had to move on. Had to suck it up and get on with it and that was just what Kate was going to do. If there were no Avengers then they were going to have to step up...after all that was why the Avengers Failsafe was created any way wasn't it? That was the whole reason behind it. Kate had to step up to the mark sometimes and become a part of the main roaster, one day her Avengers would be all that was left and right now that might be the horrible reality.

Oh no she shouldn't have let that thought cross her mind.

As usual Loki had his wits about him and a plan ready, a base sounded like a good idea, she nodded her head softly. That sounded about right actually. Earth would have someone to protect her. She really didn't know who that was...that worried her...what worried her more was Clint. Was he okay? Did he escape the attempt on his life that Madam Masque had ordered? She swallowed the lump in her throat and went back to the conversation at hand, which was prioritising their plan. He was right again...this was powerful magic to pull this off. It was utterly insane kind of power...and with that you could have crushed everyone. You could have just ended the world in the blink of an eye but no...here they were, all alive and completely fine but trapped in another land. They were both on the same page...Kate couldn't help but feel a little like a rat suck in a maze being watched by researchers.

"The infinity gems?" Kate asked raising an eyebrow. "I thought they had been scattered, separated and locked up so no one could get ahold of them?" Well that was the last that she had heard. "Infinity gems are the last thing we need. You realise if someone has them they could blink us out of existence?"

Loki managed to bring a smile, Kate laughed a little...world protecting was kinda what they did. It was their job. It was why most of them got up in the morning. "Too true." She answered before she kicked the stones aside and picked up the map. Carefully she folded it and then rolled it up into a tight roll and slipped it into one of the tubes on her hip quiver. The map they could keep, they didn't need the newspapers and Kate set about roughly gathering them up and kicking the stones around to make it look like they hadn't been here. Kate scrunched it up into a large ball and then wedged it down the side of two cooling vents. Well...it would biodegrade!

"Loki's Vile?" Kate raised an eyebrow, shot him her 'you better be kidding' look before shaking her head. "Aw hell no." Last time they had named something after him the world had ended...well worlds,well the last time really they had trusted Loki it had been a grey area of unknown lies and the team not sure if he had been on their side or not. Then again. Everything had worked out fine and right now he was the only person around that Kate had met.

She didn't much have a choice.

As the turned, heading for the fire escape down to the bottom of the building she mused over Loki's theory for a moment. Either they were playing games or they didn't know how to work the gems properly. Both were good...but what point were the gems with the universe destroyed? "What good are they without a world to have them in? It serves no purpose to destroy everything." It was like a virus, what was the point of killing the host, it meant you died along with it. You needed the host to be alive. It was counter productive. Power was much like a virus. "In order to hold power, to hold some kind of influence whoever has the gems needs this place alive...they need leverage and something to have power over. What good is a king without a kingdom?" If anyone should understand that analogy it should be Loki.

So therefore by default they must be playing a game with them, exactly what their end was Kate didn't know and she was pretty sure that they weren't going to find that out until they got there and by then it was going to be too late. Of course Loki always managed to state the obvious silver lining. Ok they were in a strange world with a half full New York City that currently had no cell service and in basically what was a lab rat maze but hey they were currently alive. Great silver lining.

"We'll need to find somewhere with food etc..." Kate pointed out going for the essentials, shelter, food and water. The rest could come tomorrow. "All the cell phone towers are down, there's just static on the radio and the TV...so I'm guessing none of the ATMs are going to be working either..." fucking great. What was the point of having a several figure trust fund when you couldn't take any of the money out of the bank? Perfect. "Come on, it's gonna get mega cold soon...it's still technically winter after all."

Kate couldn't help but roll her eyes, "No. No way are we calling this place anything after you....your ego couldn't cope with it, plus its meant to be a super secret hide out we can't name with with our names! People would catch on! " She pointed out.

Truth was none of their conversations had ever been really been that deep, it had been more about what to do, what their next steps always was...after all they had been running though the multiverse and they had been trying to save the universe there hadn't been time for this kind of talk. Kate smiled though, she laughed a little as well. ”Well you know what they say right? The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation.” She quoted...she couldn't remember where she had heard it but it had always stuck with her for some reason.

Climbing down the fire escape they almost came to consensus, someone was playing a game with someone, this was the mind fuck stuff that bad guys brought out when they had little interest in power or ruling over...they just wanted to destroy and you could blow up buildings all you wanted something else would take its place. Real estate didn't last long in this city...breaking a person however was different. A broken person remembered it forever and sure they could put themselves back together but you were always going to be back together differently. You couldn't just throw up a new person like a building leaving no trace of the destruction behind. Those scars were for life and maybe that was what was so frightening about it.

As they reached the bottom she jumped the space between the platform and the ground landing crouched before looking up at Loki and shaking her head, “The last thing people are going to be worrying about is us stealing some food...the entire city just got transported across universes, the TV is pretty much out as are the radio, the ATMs and internet isn't working and I don't know how long the utilities will hold out either with us off the grid. People are freaking out, the last thing thats going to happen is them stopping for card tricks on the street.”

The city was in chaos. It was utter panic and people were terrified. The looting and the violence hadn't started yet, people were with their families in fear and hopefully some Avengers showing up would help take the edge of it all...well she hoped. First of all they had to survive the night without anything going down. “No I'm good. I know the way...I've lived here for 21 years Loki I know my way around.” she nodded her head down the street, her bow on her back and quiver against her hip. Well hopefully walking down the street would at least put anyone at ease they met. If there was anyone out. “There will be a store on the way there....come on kiddo.”

“Metaphorical? Loki you are a bottomless pit.” Kate replied raising an eyebrow at him...well that was all judging from the amazing number of pancakes that boy could put away in one sitting. For someone so small he really could put eat a lot. Kate was almost jealous. “The Sub? Dude you make us sound like a sandwich shop, jeez you're just obsessed with food. Can you still move between dimensions? I could really have some of that Korean food we had in that place...that was really great.” Her stomach rumbled, Kate wanted it. She wanted it right now. God damn stupid end of the world crap.

She was still smiling when she shot him a sideways glance, rolled her eyes a little, in some ways he never changed he was still full of trickery but at least now it was aimed in another direction and not destroying the earth or trying to enslave everyone. “No gambling Loki. This is serious.” Deep down she knew he was just trying to help, he was trying to find a joke her could tell or something funny that would lighten the mood because that was normally what Loki did in times of tension but she wasn't really in the mood for it.

“Right now we don't have time to let people calm down.” There was more of a sense of urgency in her voice now. “We need to find somewhere to hide out the night and then tomorrow we help get this city back up and running, the phone lines are down people will be trying to call emergency services and not getting though, we have to make sure the hospitals and emergency services are running. Then we have to consider the power and the water. New York City imports power and water from up-state depending how cut off we are we might have lost that as well.” Her mind was firmly on the task of getting this city back into a liveable state.

His narration of their trip however did make her laugh, she shook her head as she glanced up at the sky and smiled. “You make our night sound like some D and D adventure you know.” Maybe making it sound a little less real helped, as if they weren't actually the ones that were going to have to deal with it all. Kate had always thought that was why they put on costumes, it was a way of separating themselves from everything. A way of segregating the horrors they saw as Avengers from their real lives and families. Like turning off your phone when you left the office only much more difficult.

“And we're not looting, we'll borrow a couple of things and I'll put some money in the till alright. Still technically not theft.”