Steve hadn't been expecting visitors in Wakanda, but if he had, he would have known which ones to look for. Stark wouldn't be ready to talk to him for a long while yet, Bruce was missing, Thor was in Asgard, and a lot of the others were in prison or in hiding, but Natasha – Natasha might well stop by to say hello. So it was a surprise of sorts, and yet not quite, when she did.

They met in the botanical gardens in the capital, and Nat smiled as he came up to give her a hug. "Good to see you, Steve," she said, putting her arms around him.

"Good to see you, too," he replied. "Another new haircut?"

She'd cut her hair short again, in a chin-length bob but without the curls. "Yeah. Clint calls this one the Hot Android Chick."

"That sounds like Clint," Steve agreed. He sat down on the round bench that encircled the central fountain – there was moving water everywhere here, creating a mist in the air that nourished over two thousand uniquely Wakandan species of plants, and helped cool everybody in the blistering African sun. The air was thick with their perfume. "Is he…?"

"He's back home." Nat remained standing. "Don't worry about the others. That's not why I'm here."

Her words put him suddenly on his guard. Of course, Steve thought, Natasha wasn't here on a social visit – she just wasn't the type. She was here for a reason, and not a trivial one. Was her new haircut a disguise?

"What happened?" Steve asked.

Nat looked around. There were visitors enjoying the gardens, and botanists working with some of the plants, but nobody was close enough to eavesdrop. A few, particularly children, were sneaking glances at Steve and Natasha, but that was because the pair were probably the first whites they'd ever seen in person. The Wakandans were, by and large, a people who respected each other's privacy.

Even so, Natasha offered Steve a hand to get up, and led him back into a bower where shelves housed at least fifty different types of orchid, from tiny ones that looked more like iridescent insects than flowers to a giant species whose frilly white blooms were nearly eight inches across. She took one more quick look outside to make sure they wouldn't be interrupted, then leaned in closer to Steve.

"Thor's back," she said quietly.

A rustle overhead made both of them look up, but it was only a troupe of colobus monkeys making their way through the trees. Steve lowered his gaze again.

"What's he found?" he asked. Thor had left after the defeat of Ultron, hoping to learn more about the Infinity Stones. If he'd returned, he must have something important to tell them.

"Not what he expected," said Natasha. "Loki's alive. Apparently he was hiding on Asgard, pretending to be somebody else, until he found where they'd stashed the tesseract. Once he did, he took it and ran off."

That was bad. The Battle of new York honestly wasn't even one of the more traumatic things that had happened to Steve, but fighting off eight-foot aliens in the canyons between skyscrapers hadn't been any fun, either. Steve absolutely agreed with Stark in hoping it never happened again, even if he wasn't so enthusiastic about the other man's attempts to guarantee that. "Has he gone back to the Chi'Tauri?"

Nat shook her head. "As far as Thor can tell, he slipped out by a portal that leads to Earth. Thor wants us to help bring him back."

"Why us?" asked Steve. "I'm a wanted criminal, don't forget." Steve himself couldn't forget, even when he sometimes wished he could. Every time it slipped from his mind for a few minutes, something popped up again to remind him. "Why not Stark and the rest?"

"Stark's got a lot on his plate right now," said Natasha. "He's the one who's having to deal with all the politicians on this, and he's constantly in he public eye. If Stark gets involved, then the media finds out, and we have to deal with the Sokovia Accords. We're hoping to keep it low-key. Pun not intended," she added, the corner of her mouth twitching.

Steve gave her a withering look for the joke, but he did understand her reasoning. "If people hear the name Loki, they might panic."

"It doesn't improve our image any to have him back, either," Nat agreed. The Avengers, or whatever was left of them, needed all the good PR they could get. "The idea is to recapture him quietly, no fuss. Hence, no Stark."

"How do we do it, then?" asked Steve. Loki had come quietly in Germany, but only so that he could cause the problems in person. Outside of that, he hadn't done anything quietly, and the tesseract was not a quiet object. If Loki were really on Earth, it was frankly astonishing that the whole planet didn't already know it.

"Thor's going to help," Nat promised.

Steve snorted. "Because Thor's all about quiet."

"He's asked us to meet him at the Nasjonalgalleriet in Oslo, undercover," Natasha went on, as if Steve hadn't said anything. "I gave him a bit of advice about what 'undercover' entails but I don't know if there was a point. Blending in isn't exactly in his nature. But he's promised to provide us with a containment unit for the tesseract and some weaponry."

The situation just didn't sound right. "Why would Loki be hiding, though? Especially if he's already got the tesseract. Why isn't he swaggering around declaring himself king again?"

"Thor's theory is that he's looking for something else, probably something that's in Norway, near where HYDRA found the tesseract in the first place," Nat said. "He's not entirely sure Loki has an overarching plan because apparently he often doesn't, but he's got to want to use the tesseract for something. It's not a very good doorstop."

Steve had a bad feeling about the whole thing, but at the same time, he couldn't say no. Not when the tesseract was involved. The damned thing just wouldn't leave him alone, would it? He'd already died for it once, and then had been relieved to see it shipped off to another planet… yet here it was again, as if determined to devil Steve until the end of time. If the tesseract were a part of this, then he had to do something.

Although if Steve were going to be honest with himself, he probably would have gone even without the tesseract's involvement. What he'd said to Stark was true – when Steve saw a bad situation, he couldn't just ignore it, especially when he was sometimes the only person who could do something about it. That just wasn't the way he worked.

Overhead, the monkeys rustled again. Steve nodded. "All right," he said. "Let me just talk to T'Challa."

It was around sunset the next day when Steve and Natasha boarded a small craft, built to look like an Avro RJ but capable of much greater range, at the city's airport. Steve had dyed his hair brown and Natasha had bleached hers blonde, and they were dressed in t-shirts and jeans as if they were tourists. It reminded Steve of going undercover at the mall in Washington, though now they'd had a little more time to prepare. At least there weren't going to be any HYDRA goons looking for them.

Probably. Scandinavia and the secrets hidden there had been one of HYDRA's primary areas of interest, and might still be. They would have to be on the lookout for surprises.

"So," Steve said, settling down in his seat. "Two of the only slightly super members of the Avengers against Loki. Remind me how we're gonna keep this quiet again?" It had taken all of them before – of course, that time, Loki had an army. Hopefully there wouldn't be a repeat of that, but Steve still had trouble believing that Loki was skulking around keeping his head down. It just didn't sound right.

"Thor has assured me he has a plan," said Nat. "Besides, there's really nobody else he can ask. I've already explained why Stark can't get involved, Clint wants no part of Loki or the tesseract, Scott's serving two years under house arrest, and Bruce… yeah." She sighed.

She had a point there. "Did you tell him about our, uh… disagreement?" The media had called it Civil War, which Steve thought was ridiculous hyperbole for something that had, at its worst, been a dozen people duking it out in an airport parking lot.

"Of course I did," said Nat. "If I hadn't explained about the Accords, he would have just marched in with his hammer swinging."

"What did he say?" asked Steve.

"Not much, but I get the feeling he thinks it's just mortals being petty and tiny again."

That figured.

The Wakandan aircraft didn't need a takeoff roll. It lifted smoothly from the ground and ascended almost vertically to its cruising altitude – it would make an approach landing at the airport in Casablanca, where Steve and Nat would transfer to a normal passenger flight bound for Europe, in order to maintain anonymity. Steve leaned on the window, watching the buildings slowly drop out of sight below them, and wisps of cloud start to appear.

"I should have asked this earlier," Nat said, "but… how have you been?"

The view outside rotated slowly as the craft's nose turned north. "I'm working on it," Steve said. He felt like he was stuck in limbo, and would be until Bucky was better. "You?"

"Working on it," Natasha echoed.

Steve wasn't sure he should ask, but after a moment's doubt, he forced himself to. "Stark?"

"He's working on a lot of things," said Natasha. "He and Miss Potts made up, so he's not so alone anymore. He said you sent him the world's douchiest apology letter."

Steve sat up straight. "I sent him an apology letter," he said. "What was wrong with it?"

"Other than the fact it said sorry you couldn't see I was right the whole time?" Nat asked pointedly. "You didn't even address the main reason he was mad at you in the first place, or the fact that you used to lecture him for keeping secrets from you. It's gonna take a lot more than that before he forgives you, Steve."

Steve sat back again, scowling. "Maybe I don't care if he forgives me."

"You asked how he was," Nat reminded him. "Clearly you care on some level."

"So you're still on his side," Steve observed.

"There are no sides in this, Rogers!" said Natasha. "We're all on the same side, and by letting our enemies play us against each other we're just falling into their hands. Trust me, I know how this works, intimately. You know it, and Tony knows it, but if you really want me to come down with one or the other? The Accords exist and they're something we're going to have to work either with or around. You're going to have to compromise eventually because they won't go away. I'm on the side of getting shit done."

"Which is why we're going behind everybody's backs to catch Loki," said Steve.

"I'm trying to avoid creating a situation in which anybody needs to invoke them," Nat told him. "I made Thor promise to at least try to do this without raining down bolts from above, and if we can do that, the Accords will never come up."

"So Loki can do whatever he wants, but we have to sneak around."

"Yes," said Nat curtly. "That's how it works for now. How is your friend?"

She was changing the subject, but Steve was okay with that. He didn't want to talk about the Accords, either. "Bucky… they're working on it," he said.

Nat nodded, and offered him a reassuring smile. "They'll figure it out," she said.

"I know they will," Steve agreed. He had faith in the Wakanadan scientists, and Princess Shur, who stood a good chance of being the single smartest person Steve had ever met, had taken a personal interest in the case. He needed some good to have come out of that whole damned mess.

They landed at Moss Airport in Rygge in the middle of the next morning – the bigger Oslo Lufthavn was closer to their destination, but would be harder for them to slip through unnoticed. At security they presented the fake passports Natasha had brought along for them. These were stamped without any comment, and if Steve looked nervous, he must not have looked nervous enough to cause any suspicion.

With that done, he and Nat collected their luggage – which was minimal, since both of them preferred to travel light – and headed into the arrivals hall. This looked much like any other airport Steve had ever been to, with beige walls and high ceilings with visible rafters and pipes. People were milling around, collecting baggage and meeting friends and relatives, talking to each other and on phones in half a dozen languages…

… and there seemed to be an awful lot of people in navy jumpsuits with the word POLITI on the back.

Natasha appeared to notice this at the same time Steve did. She stopped and looked around in confusion – or did she? That was the thing about Natasha. It was so difficult to tell what she was really thinking, and what was just an act. A terrible suspicion entered Steve's mind.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," said Nat.

Steve took her arm and pulled her aside. There was an area set aside, against the far wall, for oversized luggage – Steve dragged her over there to pretend they were waiting for something.

"What is going on?" he repeated, looking her in the eye.

"I don't know," she said. "I just got here, too, remember?"

"Is this a trap?" Steve asked through his teeth. "Did they send you to Wakanda to trick me into leaving the country so I can be arrested?" Why hadn't he thought of that before he got on the plane with her?

"No," Nat replied, perfectly calm. "I don't know why this place is full of cops, but I don't think it has anything to do with us. Now stop looming over me, or I'll scream."

"You? Scream?" For a moment Steve wanted to scoff – Nat never screamed. Then he had second thoughts. A woman screaming in this crowded public area would attract immediate attention, and they were surrounded by the police. If she accused him of threatening her, he would be arrested and fingerprinted, and they would quickly realize who he was. Natasha may not have brought Steve here to be locked up, but she could make it happen at any moment.

He stepped back. "All right."

"Better," she said. She rearranged her clothing, and pulled a packet of gum out of her jacket pocket. "Let's do what we came here to do."

Natasha popped a stick of gum in her mouth and softened it, then went up to the nearest airport employee. "Hey, you speak English?" she asked, chewing the gum loudly. "What's up with all the fuzz?"

The woman frowned. "The… fuzz?"

"The fuzz." Nat nodded. "The five-oh. The po-po. They're everywhere." She gestured around.

"Oh." Steve couldn't tell if the employee had actually recognized any of the slang terms, but she seemed to have figured it out. "There was a bread-in at the museum of Cultural History. They're trying to make sure thieves cannot leave the country with any artefacts."

"Bummer," said Nat. "I wanted to see the Viking boat."

"I'm sure they'll let us in once they've got it figured out," Steve said, conscious as always of what a terrible actor he was. Steve could lie, but he couldn't do it off the cuff the way Nat could. He needed to prepare and rehearse. "In the mean time, I guess we'll have to find something else to do this morning."

"I guess," Natasha grumbled. "Hey, what do you people have for breakfast in Sweden?" she asked the employee.

"This is Norway, honey." Steve took her hand.

"Whatever," she said, and let Steve drag her away. Once they were out of the airport employee's hearing, she added, "see? I told you. Nothing to do with us, but possibly…"

"… Possibly something to do with Loki," Steve finished for her. Asgard had influenced Viking culture long ago – a piece of lost technology from that realm could easily have been mistaken for ancient Scandinavian art.

"Exactly," Nat nodded.

There was only one problem with that theory – the name of the institution. "I thought Thor wanted to meet us at the National Gallery, though," Steve said. "Isn't that a different museum?"

"Yes, but it's just around the block from the Museum of Cultural History," Nat said. "Maybe Loki found him first."

"If that's true, what are you and I supposed to do about it?" Steve asked. If Loki had surprised Thor and incapacitated him, then he and Nat, who were not nearly so powerful, were up the creek.

"Wing it," said Natasha.

They rented a car. It had been the middle of summer in Wakanda, with the rivers dried up to trickles and the sun beating down. In Norway it was only thirty degrees out, with a thin but soggy and treacherous layer of snow on the ground. Driving was slow and slippery on the E6, and the trip took at least twice as long as the fifty-one minutes suggested to them by their GPS. As they got into the city proper, the roads became drier and the traffic sped up – but within a few blocks of the museum, they began to hear sirens. The next corner they turned was the last one they were able to. The road ahead of them was cordoned off by yellow tape.

"That's promising," said Steve.

Nat didn't say anything. She parked the car, and they both stepped out for a closer look. There was police tape strung all around the two grand old brick buildings that housed Oslo's most prestigious museums, and cops were standing guard at all the entrances, communicating by walkie-talkie. Steve and Natasha exchanged a look, and then began walking around the block. As long as Loki hadn't already taken him down, Thor should be waiting for them somewhere around here. Hopefully he'd taken Natasha's advice about blending in.

"Would it be suspicious if we started asking people whether they've seen our friend?" Steve wanted to know.

"A little, since they'll wonder why we don't just phone him," said Nat.

There was a thought. "Does Thor have a phone?" Steve was pretty sure, now that he thought of it, he'd seen him talking on one before.

"He does, but he only gives the number to people like Dr. Foster and her friends," Nat said. "He's very firm about it not being a work phone."

They continued on their way around the building, until one of the policemen stopped them. "Jeg beklager, du kan ikke komme på denne måten," the man said.

Steve expected Natasha to resume her obnoxious tourist guise, but instead she replied in fluent Norwegian: "Hva skjer? Vi skulle møte en venn her."

"Det er en bombetrussel . Vennligst hold deg tilbake," said the policeman.

Natasha nodded. "Takk skal du ha," she said, and took Steve's arm to escort him back across the street.

"What did he say?" Steve asked. He had a good memory for words and languages, but he'd rarely encountered Norwegian.

"I asked him what was going on, and told him we were supposed to be meeting a friend," Nat said. "He said we have to stay away, because there may be a bomb in the building."

"A robbery yesterday and a bomb today," Steve observed. "Either this place just can't catch a break…"

"Or somebody's up to something," Nat said, taking her turn to finish the sentence. "We have to find Thor."

They separated to search for them, but before Steve even reached the end of the block, he heard the sound of shattering glass. He looked up, and then quickly crouched down and covered his head with his hands as the windows on the second floor of the Museum of Cultural History exploded in a shower of glass fragments. The policemen ducked or ran to get out of the way, and beams of blue light shot out through the space where the panes had been.

That was a very specific shade of blue, one Steve knew all too well. He caught Nat's eye – she hadn't gone far, herself – and saw her nod. The two of them ran back to the main entrance.

"Stoppe!" one of the cops protested. "Du kan ikke gå inn!"

He tried to intercept them, but Natasha grabbed him by the arm and threw him into a snowbank while Steve kicked open the heavy wooden doors. An alarm went off, but he ignored it and dashed inside. There were policemen here, too, but they seemed to consider his appearance a rescue rather than a problem. As Nat hurried up the steps to join him, men and women were fleeing the building on both sides of her.

"That way!" she said, pointing to a sign reading ANDRE ETASJE.

They ran up a staircase, two and three steps at a time, and Steve's brain churned over possibilities. What were they going to do when they got there? If Thor were in the city and hadn't already fought Loki and lost, he would definitely join them. If he were there ahead of them, they could work together. If he wasn't, then Steve and Nat would have to come up with a way to keep Loki busy until he arrived. The thing Loki liked to do best, as they'd already discovered, was talk – so they'd have to encourage him to do that.

If Thor didn't show up at all… Steve had no idea.

On the second floor they arrived in a long gallery full of tall stones with runs and figures carved into them. Most of these were in cases, behind glass, but two or three had been broken out and moved. Of these, all but one were now lying on the floor, some of them in pieces. The tallest was still whole and upright. It was a long tapering piece of silvery limestone with its sides roughly squared off, like an Egyptian obelisk, with lines of writing carved around the edge of each. Several pieces of gold decoration, looking like something taken from a Viking shield or sword, had been inserted into some of the runes, and at the very top, where an obelisk might come to a point, this one had a square notch cut into it.

Historians and archaeologists probably had all sorts of theories about the significance of that notch, but Steve didn't need those. He recognized the size and shape of it immediately – and if that hadn't been enough to convince him, there was a man standing in front of the stone. He was tall and thin, wearing a dark green coat, with long black hair pulled into a ponytail.

"Loki!" Steve barked.

The man turned around, and his green eyes went wide – Loki had probably been expecting Thor to try to stop him, but Steve and Natasha were a surprise. He stared at them a few moments as if trying to figure out what they were doing there, and Steve knew he had to seize this chance. There was no sign of Thor, so they had to get Loki talking.

"Loki, whatever you're trying to do, you don't want to do it," said Steve.

"You think you know what I want?" Loki asked.

"What do you want?" Nat said. "If it's worship, then the people who made this stuff did worship you." She gestured at the fallen stones. "You want to destroy the evidence of it?"

Loki glanced around like a hunted animal looking for a way out, and then his stance changed. He drew himself up to his full height and sneered at them. "I'm not here to destroy anything, I'm here to rule. If I cannot turn this world to my tastes, then I will find another, one with everything I ever wanted, and where my enemies cannot touch me." He turned back to the run stone, and began rotating the gold pieces he'd attached to it. "Then I will no longer be your concern, and you need never trouble about me again."

"Even if you are not the Avengers' concern, Loki," the voice of Thor boomed, "you are my brother – you will always be mine!"

Thor had just walked through the door in the opposite end of the gallery. He was undercover, as far as it went, wearing blue jeans and a red hoodie over a heather-gray t-shirt, but it didn't really help. He was still definitely Thor, and nobody who saw him would have failed to recognize that. Even disguising Mjolnir as an umbrella didn't help.

"You're late!" Nat shouted to him.

"This was not my plan," said Thor. "I don't want to fight you, Loki. I never have."

"Good," said Loki. "Because if you kill me, you'll never find where I've hidden the tesseract."

"It's inside the stone," said Nat. "Obviously."

Steve wondered what they were supposed to do now. Whatever Loki had in mind obviously involved that rune stone, but it was a cultural artifact. It would be a shame to destroy it. Would it be worth it to prevent Loki from carrying out whatever his plan was?

Thor clearly thought it was. He raised his umbrella – a bolt of lightning hit, and it transformed back into a hammer, and his clothes to Asgardian armor.

"Not this time!" Loki put his hands on the stone. The runes lit up blue, and the pieces of gold liquified and seemed to crawl into the carvings, where they began to trace out intricate patterns.

Nat darted forward to tackle Loki from behind. Steve joined her – they each took one of Loki's arms and tried to drag him backwards, while Thor struck the stone with his hammer. The stone fragmented, but did not fall apart. Instead, the pieces of rock seemed to float on the surface of a pillar of blue energy, still showing the shapes of the runes. The pieces of gold clattered to the floor.

"You rock-headed…" Loki began.

Thor struck the stone again, and this time it flew apart in a shower of shrapnel. The roof lifted off the exhibit hall, the walls crumbled, and there was a blinding blue flash. Steve was flung violently backwards and lost consciousness for a moment. When he came to, the first sound he heard was, inexplicably, people clapping.