The moment he left Darcy in that parking lot outside of the bar shot feelings of anxiety and regret straight through his heart; but he had to get to his brother. Loki could just feel that something was wrong, but really, what could he do? He was a fugitive of Asgard and he would bet anything that this was Asgard related...being that Thor was supposedly there.

He ended up being right, but only partially. It wasn't Asgard he appeared on, but some other place right in the middle of a battle. Loki found Thor right away and caught him pushing Lady Sif out of the way of some kind of laser, wielded by a blue warrior. Great, she's here too... he thought as he rushed over to help. He made it to them and was immediately recognized by the two as they pushed him back and into a small tent for cover.

"What are you doing here!" Thor yelled incredulously at his brother. "And what in the nine realms has gotten into you? Do you have any idea how badly you hurt Natasha?"

"Thor, calm down," Lady Sif said gently as Loki finally noticed how much she was propping his brother up, then he saw it.

"Thor, you're hurt..." he began as he took a small step forward in the cramped space.

"Don't..." Thor warned as he pointed an accusatory finger at Loki. "Why are you even here?"

The darkness Loki had been fighting inside ever since the incident with Natasha on the roof of the tower creeped back in at the rejection of his brother. He knew Thor wouldn't exactly be happy to see him, but the feeling he felt back on Midgard told him that his brother needed him.

"You... you needed me," he said as he started to doubt himself.

"Need you? Why would I need you, brother? You've brought nothing but misery these past few weeks after what you did to her."

Her. After what I did to Natasha... his mind started to slip away once more.

"Boys, can we talk about your issues later? There's kind of a battle going on out there and I need to get back to my army," Lady Sif said to ease the tension.

"You came...why?" Thor asked Loki as he ignored Lady Sif's plea.

Why AM I here? he asked himself. Things were getting even more dangerous back on Earth and he had just discovered Ksenia for crying out loud! But it was Thor...

"I felt you call for me... I couldn't ignore it, I felt that you were in immense danger and all issues aside, you're my brother." Loki started to leave, maybe this was all just a big mistake. The anxiety at being away from Natasha and Ksenia...Thea... was growing. The game was so much more complex now that he found a Petrovitch to be behind the manhunt for the Romanoff's.

"Wait..." Thor said as he grabbed onto Loki's shoulder. "I'm sorry. The fighting got really intense and I was in a tight spot. I got hit..." he explained as he shot a gaze down to his side, which explained why Lady Sif was supporting him, "...and for some reason, I felt like I needed you by my side. Even after everything you have done, I wanted my brother next to me if this was going to be the end."

"You're such a baby," Sif teased as she peered outside of the tent to the chaos outside. "You aren't going to die, you were just grazed."

It didn't look like just a graze to Loki, it looked as if he needed a healer.

"As I was saying," Thor continued, "I didn't mean to make you come all of this way for nothing."

Sif was then heard cursing to herself as she peered into the battle. "It won't be for nothing if you help us out a little. This village sent us a distress call when these invaders attacked but we were quickly overwhelmed." Turning back to the reunion, she asked Loki if he could stay and help out.

Fighting with the choice of making up with his brother and going back to Earth, he made the hard decision to stay and fight.

The rest of the battle took 3 days and the fighting was almost nonstop. The invaders were after a power source, which just so happened to be located right beneath the village. They were so brutal, but Loki turned out to be even more fierce as he let the darkness take over. He caught the glance of Sif and Thor several times with uncertainty and worry splayed across their features. The brutality Loki was letting off was unlike they had ever seen.

"Loki its over... IT'S OVER!" Thor had to yell to get his brother to snap out of it. He felt as if he was in a haze, and Thor could see it in his eyes. They were glazed over, and the blood of their enemies did nothing to hide the smile on his lips. "What... are you okay brother?"

It took a minute, but Loki finally reigned in the darkness and the anxiety returned, this time with the tiredness of the battle. "I've got to get back, I've got to get back to Natasha," he muttered as he shook off the grogginess.

"Loki, you need to rest," Thor pleaded and grabbed him. Loki wouldn't even make eye contact but instead gave Thor two options. Either stay here or go with him back to Earth.

To be honest, it hurt when Thor hesitated for a moment. He had shared a look with Sif who nodded for Thor to go. Loki then walked over to his brother, grabbed him by the arm, and let his mind roam, searching for Natasha as he often did these days just to know that she was safe. This time though, he picked up on the faintest of feeling. With that being all that he had, he grabbed on and projected himself to where she must have been last.

Thor's grip on his arm tightened when they landed, he wasn't so used to traveling this way and it usually took a toll on him. Loki looked around and found himself outside of a hotel. Reading the name on the sign, he knew this was where he had sent Darcy to protect Thea. He didn't even have to go past the 'crime scene' tape HYDRA, or maybe even Echo, had set up to know that Natasha wasn't here. The emptiness he felt told him she wasn't there, and the pang of fear told him to keep moving. He looked to Thor apologetically while grabbing him and disappeared again.

Loki barely registered Thor's wobbly stance as he took in the empty parking lot where the team had their car parked the night Loki left to find Thor. Something wasn't right and Loki was on the verge of panic. It didn't usually take much for him to find someone, especially Natasha. He knew her mind inside and out, so he focused harder and felt the entirety of the earth to find her, but there was just a void. He shook the dark thoughts of her being dead from his mind, there was no doubt that he would just... know, if that was the case.

He grabbed Thor again and moved through space, popping up in places that she had been, but not where she was. He even mixed it up a few times and felt for Thea, but just like with Natasha...nothing.

After several more tries, Thor begged him to stop. Thor wasn't used to this kind of moving and it was taking its toll especially with his injury. Loki glanced at him briefly and prepared to move again before Thor hit him this time. "Loki, snap out of it!"

This got his attention. Loki brought his hand to his lip and then studied the red on his fingers and glanced at Thor. There was a stream of blood coming from Thor's nose and the dizziness in his eyes told Loki that he couldn't take much more of this.

"I'm sorry. I can't find them," he said ashamed as more panic started to set in.

Thor leaned on him and asked him what he meant. "How could they just be...gone? Are you sure you're doing it right?" he asked. The look on Loki's face told him everything he needed to know. "They aren't...dead...are they?"

"No Thor, they aren't. I don't get it either, I've always been able to find someone, especially Natasha. The only time I've ever experienced a similar problem was recently when..."

"...The Avengers Tower went on lockdown!" Thor finished excitedly. He looked to Loki to take them there, but Loki didn't move.

With a heavy sigh, he told Thor the problem. "She's not there, Thor. I could feel her last time, I just couldn't get to her."

"Oh, maybe we can find Darcy and Bobbi, they may know what happened or where she might be."

It was worth a shot, so Loki tried and found Darcy almost immediately. Even though she was inside of the tower on lockdown, he could still feel her which made him even more worried about not sensing Natasha. Darcy was usually glued to her mentors' side. When they arrived, they appeared on the roof since Loki couldn't get in. Thor dropped to the ground almost immediately, not being able to stand much longer on his wobbly legs and exhausted body. They briefly wondered how to get in and then changed their mind minutes later when Tony Stark in full suit and followed Clint Barton threw open the door and surrounded them. Loki could sense their cautiousness and observed them looking all around the roof for any intruders, their eyes skipping over their familiar forms.

When all was clear, Clint trained his arrow on Loki while Tony pulled a device resembling handcuffs from his suit and wasted no time in pulling Loki's arms behind his back and slapping the cuffs on tightly. Clint remained on guard and just nodded to the open door when Tony pushed Loki towards him. Loki allowed this simply because he had no other options and turned to see Tony helping Thor to his feet, giving him a slap on the back. His brother, supported by Tony followed him into the tower and the door was sealed once again when Clint finished his sweep.

Not a single word was spoken as they made their way down to the lab and for that Loki was grateful. He didn't know how to answer any questions, and he also didn't know what kind of questions to even ask. The remaining Avengers were not very happy with him with what he did to Natasha; there was no doubt Darcy would have spilled everything. He was actually a little...disappointed. The trust that he had built with the team after helping Natasha find herself seemed like it was gone, and he was left feeling like he did before any of this had ever happened. Once they made it to the lab, Loki was hoping to see at least Darcy, but she wasn't there. Steve Rogers was the only one waiting for them and even he looked pissed.

"Throw him in the cell," Clint said to Steve as he walked past him and into another room to the lab. Steve did as he was told and again, Loki allowed this simply due to the fact that he needed information.

"Well this hasn't changed much." He said as he looked around his old cell.

"Why are you here?" Tony asked as he dumped Thor onto a couch, as if he thought Loki was going to lie.

Ouch, he thought. One mistake and it zapped away all the trust he had built with this team. "You know why I'm here, Man of Iron."

"No, we really don't," Clint said in response as he made his way back into the room, "because the last time we trusted you, you threw everything into helping Natasha. And then you tied to kill her."

"I didn't try to kill..." he trailed off as Tony had pulled up video surveillance of that night on the roof. "It was simply a lapse in..."

"Oh look, here's my favorite part," Tony interrupted at the part where Natasha had managed to kick him off the roof before she collapsed. "Ha! Gets me every time, I should make a GIF of it and share it with all of your buddies," he mocked. He paused it then on a close up on Natasha's face and then made his way to the far end of the lab to remove his suit. "Just kidding, you don't have any friends on account of you being a spineless coward."

Loki rolled his eyes but inside, he saw the hurt and betrayal on Natasha's frozen face on the screen and it sent a shot regret and guilt through his heart. He knew Tony paused it at that exact moment just to torture him. He had to turn away and when he did, he came face to face with Darcy Lewis.

"Turn it off Tony," she demanded as she searched his shocked expression.

She was littered with cuts and bruises, a painted mosaic of blues, purples and greens. He could tell she had been up against something, and that something had to be Echo. She bit her cut lip and then let out a sigh of frustration as she came to some kind of internal conclusion.

"He can't find her," she said matter of factly.

"What?" Steve said in surprise. "But how..."

"No," Tony said in denial as he stormed his way over to her. "You said that he would be back and that he would be able to find her. You said that he was 'sorry' for what he did and that he had been trying to reach out to her to apologize. "YOU SAID that..."

"I KNOW WHAT I SAID," she yelled back as she turned to Tony and bucked up to him. She clenched her silver draped fist by her side and Loki watched as Tony hesitated before backing off.

The tension between the group had been seriously heavy since the moment he saw them so he knew that things must have been bad. What was it that he had missed? He glanced at each person in the room and when no one would even look at each other, he knew that they had been hopelessly following leads, and he was their biggest one.

"I tried," Loki offered. "I've been trying to find her, but I can't even sense her anymore which told me that she had been captured. It's taken its toll on Thor, jumping all around the globe," he said as he nodded to his brother over on the couch, "but I don't think she is...dead."

"She's not," Clint said matter of factly. Loki expected him to offer more, but he didn't.

"Okay? And what is it that I am missing?" Loki asked. Everyone was so frustrated and disappointed with themselves that no one answered. "Look, just let me out and we can work this out together. I can keep searching..."

"No." Tony said.

"No?" he asked.

Repeating himself, Tony told him no. "You are not leaving this cell because I DON'T TRUST YOU," he yelled.

Steve walked over to Tony and gently dragged him away by his arm. Loki could see Captain America trying to calm him down but as expected, Tony was fighting him back. Clint waved them off and went over to Thor to see what he could do about his wound, and Darcy sauntered back over to Loki as if they were old friends.

"Look," she began halfheartedly, "a lot has happened since you told me where to find Thea and things went south from there. That, and with how you attacked Natasha is all that they can see, and we have hit sort of a dead end. Tony is beside himself with guilt and can't see past how he led Echo straight to us. He thinks that they found Natasha and Thea because of him..."

"They have Thea too?" He already knew the answer. It made sense when he couldn't find her after trying to get to Natasha. "I never should have left, I never should have left, and I should have contacted Natasha sooner. My ledger is dripping with red simply because I had to leave her there that one night, all those years ago, just like I left her once again on that rooftop. She called me a monster once, and that's just what I am."

"Loki, come on." Darcy said gently to him. "I know you loved her, and I know you still do though you try to hide it. No one blames you for what you did to protect her the night Ksenia was born. Yes, they blame you for trying to take over the world, but not for the things you did to save her. The sacrifice to yourself that it took was beyond selfless, and the sacrifice to bring her back from being Natalia proves to me that you are trying. I know that its not going to be an overnight change, and I know that deep down you didn't mean to attack her. It was a lot all at once but guess what, that night on the roof might actually be the key in saving her."

Loki realized then that he was crying and wiped the sorrow from his face before he embarrassed himself further. He looked over to Thor and saw a smirk on his face while Clint did his best to hide his. Loki knew that they had overheard what Darcy said to him but then something Darcy said brought him back to his senses. "What do you mean it could be the key to saving her?"

"Darcy!" Tony yelled. She rolled her eyes and turned to face him, leaving Loki's question unanswered. Tony cleared the space from across the room once again and angrily told her to stop talking to Loki. Loki waiting for her to blow up at him but when she didn't, he really looked at her then and saw the tiredness in her features. "Whatever," she mumbled, and then went over to greet Thor.

Loki became lost in his thoughts for the next half hour since no one would talk to him. He was pulled from his thoughts suddenly when he felt the mood of the room change. The blonde that had been helping Darcy and Natasha had entered and was leaning heavily on the doorway to the room Clint had disappeared into when Loki was place in the cell. Her body was starting to shake and all at once, everyone jumped into action as if they had seen this a few times.

"Hook her up!" Tony yelled as he ran for the computer next to the operating table while Clint ran to her and scooped her up. She already had leads taped to her body and an IV line in her arm. Loki watched as her entire body had tensed up and started to convulse before whatever was in the IV bag was hooked up and started to run into her arm.

"We got you, Bobbi," he heard Darcy say soothingly to her as Tony and Clint studied her vitals that were flashing across the screen. He didn't notice it before in the chaos, but he noticed Steve exit the room Bobbi had come from and remain in the doorway, out of the way. A few minutes later, the blonde came out of whatever it was that had happened to her and pulled herself up in a groan, clutching her head in pain.

"I can give you some morphine Bob," Tony said as he forced her to look at him so that he could check her pupils.

"No," she choked out as she pulled her face out of his hands and brought her knees to her chest, laying her head on them. "It makes my mind too fuzzy."

"How is she?" Loki heard Darcy ask as if afraid. How is who? He wondered.

Bobbi didn't answer for a few moments, but the team didn't seem too worried about the silence. Tony asked her then if she needed something for the nausea and when she didn't answer, he pushed something into the port of her IV. A few more moments passed and then she lifted her head.

Loki could see the exhaustion in her features and some of the same injuries that Darcy had. The dark circles around her haunted eyes concerned him and told him that something weird was going on.

"They...took Natasha out of the room," Bobbi began as confusion flooded Loki's mind. "Thea tried to stop them but there were too many guards. I think they weren't satisfied with what little supplies Thea had scavenged to patch her up, but they... they were not gentle. They drug her down a hallway and I saw drains with water running down some of the walls, it was cold. She's got to be underground somewhere. They sedated her once they got her into a lab, but I didn't see Yuri."

"What in the Midgardian hell is going on?" Loki asked in wonder from his makeshift cell.

Darcy looked at him and smiled before answering. "You, my dark lord, have given us a link to Natasha."

While Bobbi recovered, Darcy explained to Loki about the blood transfusion and how Bobbi had a connection to Natasha's mind. Tony, who still didn't fully trust Dove, called him and let him know that they thought Natasha could be deep underground somewhere. When Loki asked where the dark skinned, ex HYDRA agent was, she told him that he went back to the Red Room base to see if he could find anything on other secret bases incase Natasha and Thea turned up to be in one of them. And for the first time in a long time, Loki started to have some hope, especially when he heard the baby cry from the room Steve was watching.

As the feeling of relief overwhelmed the Avengers back at the tower, feelings of fear and pain overwhelmed Natasha Romanoff an unknown number of miles away. After being violently dragged from Thea's side and operated on in an unknown lab, she woke up in an immense pain. She could feel that Echo had did their best to patch up her broken body, and for that she was thankful, it was just that they had 'forgot' to give her any pain medicine. Just as she often did, she surveyed her surroundings while pretending to still be under and after a few moments, her senses cleared, and she could hear muffled chatter from outside of the room. She picked out Yuri's voice, as well as another familiar voice.

"Sir, I've done my best to gather intel, but I don't think that is wise just yet..." the familiar voice argued.

"I don't care, we need more leverage. Romanoff has proved just how far she would go to protect her own. She would rather die than cooperate, and I simply can't have that." Just the sound of Yuri's voice made Natasha furious, but something about the man he was talking with caused her a sense of dread.

"Yes sir," the voice said, "but we have a major problem."

"What kind of...problem?"

"The SHIELD agent, Bobbi Morse. She is somehow linked to Romanoff's mind and can see bits and pieces of what she experiences."

"What?!" Yuri asked incredulously. "How could that have happened?"

"The god, Loki, did something and when Romanoff had to give Morse a blood transfusion, it linked them somehow."

"That god has been more helpful than anyone else on this wretched team. Because of him, we were able to build this place to keep him out. My fathers notes and studies on him along with Starks technology has made this whole place the tightest kept secret on the planet. No one can find us."

"I understand sir, but the Avengers are smart. I think this link is going to do more harm than good."

Natasha couldn't understand how this man knew so much about the team until Yuri answered him. "You're right. We are too close to have this blow up in our faces. I want you take out Agent Morse...and bring me the kid. Its time to move on with the plan."

"Yes sir."

"Oh, and one more thing, don't get caught. I still need you as a 'hostage' if this doesn't work."

"I won't," the man said, "there's a reason ghosts never get caught."