The Last Shifter (a Loki romance)

Chapter 118

It didn't take me long to find said train wreck, and the existing chaos made it easy for me to shift back into my previous disguise and approach safely. Steve was easy to pick out in his bulk and uniform, and sitting on parked bikes beside him were the Maximoff twins. They seemed...tense.

"Steve?" He didn't even turn his head.

"You don't know what you're talking about, Stark's not crazy."

"He will do anything to make things right."

"What's going on?"

"None of your business." The female gave me a stony glare.

"Stark, come in. Stark. Anyone on coms."

"Ultron can't tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it. Where do you think he gets that?" Fear and anger crashed over me like a bucket of cold water. I should've stayed in the Quinjet! With the Mind! Not gone after Natasha!

"Peggy?" Steve finally seemed to notice I was there.

"I've been an idiot. I lost sight for a split second and–" I turned and punched the pillar next to me, making the female jump. "I should've stayed with the Cradle, I just had to guard it! Stark has proven himself untrustworthy before and now I won't be there to stop him!"

"Peggy, calm down. We'll get to the Tower before he does anything irreversible."

"How? The Quinjet was our way out and we don't have any papers to get us on a plane!"

"Wait. We got here with Ultron on a private jet. If we can beat him back there, we can take that."

"Assuming he hasn't compromised it. And he's long gone, he had a truck waiting."

"Then let's get to that jet."

Steve's POV

The flight back was one of the most charged and awkward situations of my life. Peggy was still blaming herself for wanting to save Nat and was more than a little wary of the twins. Understandable, they'd hit her harder than the rest of us–with the exception of Banner. Only she didn't seem to have shaken it yet. I wanted so badly to press, to continue the conversation we'd begun at the Barton home, there was so much she wasn't telling me. Or anyone else. Information we clearly needed to have, but that she didn't trust us with. Didn't trust me with. After not telling me who she was before I went on ice–something that still stung–and the fact that she was being even more secretive about this scared me to hell. Her determination to find the scepter before was so out of character, so frightening. If the fear that this 'Thanos' would find it before she did made her completely neglect herself like that, then perhaps I didn't want to know. But I knew I had to, so I opened the com channel to the main body of the jet.

"Peggy, could you come up to the cockpit, please?"

Arista's POV

I wasn't nearly halfway done grilling the twins when Steve's voice came over the loudspeaker, summoning me. His tone of voice told me he wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer.

"Don't go anywhere." I sent the twins one final glare before I joined Steve in the cockpit.

"Do we have a problem?"

"No. Could you shut the door please?"

"Why."

"Because I'm not sure you want them to hear this conversation." I clenched my jaw, but closed the hatch regardless.

"Ok, what."

"Take a seat." He gestured to the copilot's chair.

"Not until you tell me what's going on."