Chapter Text
Loki started to sit up as his ears had finally stopped ringing. Of course, he knew he’d already lost. He’d sensed the portal shutting down, and for all he hated it, he knew full well those fools calling themselves ‘The Avengers’ could handle however many were caught on this side. He could still slip out, though. Maybe even snag the cube on the way—
His thoughts shut off when he noticed who else was in the room. All eight Avengers, most pointing weapons at him, including that huge gun that had hurt so much back in the Helicarrier. That… beast was here too. Loki considered using magic to vanish but he noticed Link there. Not holding any weapons, not looking particularly angry like some of the others. He was at his ease. But Loki remembered trying to sneak up, fully invisible, on the Hylian. He remembered getting grabbed out of his illusion and tossed to the floor like a sack of grain. Loki decided not to risk anything just now.
“If it’s all the same to you… I’ll have that drink now,” Loki said, eliciting a grunt from more than a few of them.
Thor produced a set of handcuffs from somewhere and Loki was well and truly captured. He only had one more weapon left to him, his tongue. He started to mock the muscle-brained fools, if he could make one of them angry enough he might get a chance at escap—
“Shut. Up.” Thor said with a complete lack of patience as he slapped a metal gag on Loki’s face.
Loki decided it might not hurt to stay silent for a while.
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It was six hours later, six hours of playing keep away with shield for the Tesseract and Loki for some of the Avengers, for others it had six hours of search and rescue; but for Link it had been six hours of Urgent Care. Not for him, but for Zelda. She lay sleeping now, thankfully, but she’d pushed herself. Hard. Link could not fathom what her life must’ve been like to bring her, a Hylian, to an exhaustion near to death, but she’d survive… now.
He sat, exhausted himself, next to her bed. The hospitals had all been extremely full and shortstaffed, but the efforts of The Avengers had not been for naught. Places like this had not been the focus of the attack, and Cap’s plan to draw the Chitauri’s attention had worked extremely well. There was damage, there were losses, but the city was still functional, and places like these were designed to be the last buildings to lose power and functionality.
Everybody knew why the city had survived. The Avengers were the talk of the city, the names ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Captain America’ and even ‘The Avengers’ were on every tongue, along with partial or outright false names for the rest of the Avengers. He’d heard himself referred to as a dozen things, usually nonsense. He was starting to think Coulson had the right idea providing a name ahead of time. ‘The Relic Hunter’ was the most common name he heard people whispering and it was far better than most.
Coulson had a hundred names already, but the more time went on the more he heard ‘Agent Avenger’ being spoken, which Link found objectively awful. Hopefully, something better would surface.
Anyway, being known had been very important, Link had brought Zelda’s unconscious and slowly dying body to the nearest hospital he’d found and, when he’d explained that she wasn’t human and the doctor’s expertise was close to useless, they’d given Link a room and anything else he asked for. Zelda had been malnourished and dehydrated, exhausted and delirious when her mind resurfaced. He’d saved her, without potions and with human tools. Okay, many human medical inventions were incredible, but most were useless to HIM.
He didn’t know if their normal treatments for malnutrition would work. He’d had to make a soup of what he’d had on hand in his inventory. Which was actually quite a lot. He’d bottled what was left after forcing down as much as he could manage. Zelda had woken briefly, taken a little more, and fallen asleep. Just asleep. Link breathed a lot more easily after that. She’d need more, and she’d likely wake soon. He’d be here when she did.
A knock sounded and he looked up to see Tony Stark at the door. Link waved him in and he took one of the other chairs in the room.
Stark gestured at Zelda’s sleeping form, “She gonna be O.K.?”
Link nodded tiredly, “She was close to death, by Hylian standards at least, but I got her stabilized with hours, maybe days, to spare. She needs rest and food, though, as much as she can get.”
Stark nodded, “I’ve already settled the bill for you. Anything you use, from the room to any narcotics you want, will be paid for. Do what you need to do.”
Link nodded gratefully, “Thanks. I’m sorry that I bailed on you guys.“
Stark waved dismissively, “You had something only you could do. Anyway, we’re about to take a break and get some shawarma, can you come or do we need to bring it here?”
Link looked up, “I can’t go anywhere, anytime she wakes she’s going to need more of my soup. But we can’t all fit in here, surely you can see that.”
Stark raised an eyebrow, “Who do you think I am?”
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About twenty minutes later, Zelda had been moved to a private room on a higher floor, one apparently intended for the super rich to have some privacy and space along with their care. The Avengers sat around a table Stark had somehow procured and Steve had brought in. They ate in silence. The shawarma was good.
A nurse came in, “Uh… mister Hunter?”
It took a look from Coulson for Link to realize that was for him, “Uh, oh yeah. Yes?”
“We… just need you to sign this saying you take full responsibility for the outcome of miss Zelda, since you refused any licensed medical advice or treatment.”
Link waved her over and signed the waiver. For some reason, she gave an unpracticed bow before leaving. Well, people had given some very odd gestures to him over the years.
“I think the Relic Hunter name is catching on,” Coulson said.
“Yeah,” Natasha laughed, “and so is ‘Agent Avenger’.”
Coulson groaned, “That doesn’t make any sense, where did it come from?”
“We could change it if we made some announcements via the press,” Stark offered. “If you’ve got a better name in mind?”
“What about Agent… uh… agent…” Coulson floundered.
“Agent Impact?” Link offered. “That gun packs a huge punch.”
Nobody else thought it worked. The silence broken, they bantered about names until time was long past when the others should continue on elsewhere.
Zelda woke briefly, but they only exchanged a few words while Link gave her more soup. Then she was asleep again. Link fiddled with the another gift Stark had given him. A phone of Stark’s own invention, it supposedly connected via Stark’s own satellite array, meaning there were no blind spots on the Earth’s surface. It was a good way to stay in contact, the other Avengers knew Link had his own mission to mind, but they knew he’d help if asked and able. Link supposed he’d have to remember not to keep it in his inventory, though, or he’d never hear it if they called.
“L… Link?” Zelda sang, weakly.
Link was up in an instant, “That was quick, how are you feeling?” he sang with surprise and concern.
“I am feeling much better, Link,” she sang with consolation. Then she switched to gratitude, “You saved me, again, Link. You do not need to worry any more for the present.”
Link relaxed, but he still had questions: “How did you end up like this?”
“I have been on the run for six years, Link,” she answered with tiredness and sadness.
“Two years longer than I’ve known who I was…” Link said to awe.
“What… happened? How did… alien invasion?” She asked with exhaustion and curiosity.
“Long story. Short version is that I got myself noticed by an American secret service investigating a Hylian temple in Egypt. We found some common ground and I agreed to help with the alien invasion they found out was coming.”
“And… the others?”
“A team, originally it was meant to be a temporary thing to deal with this one problem. But I think we’ve agreed to remain allies. They’re good people, I trust them. Hopefully, we can earn the trust of the world.”
Zelda nodded, “I don’t suppose this alien threat had anything to do with Infinity did it?”
Link shook his head, “Loki never brought it up.”
“Well… that’s something. Link, you have my pack?”
“There wasn’t one,” Link sang to trepidation.
Zelda breathed deeply, as if suppressing a violent urge. After a moment she continued, “There was a map in it. We need it to take us to the Master Sword.”
Link frowned, “The… what?”
Zelda’s brow furrowed and she sang with unease, “You said you knew who you were. If you visited the Goddess pool in Kyoto you should have memories from our past lives.”
“I found one in the Parthenon, I’ve never been to Japan, let alone Kyoto. Anyway, I remember a great deal… but I’ll admit I’ve noticed a hole or two…”
“The Parthenon… I suppose that makes sense. Then… then there’s probably one more. Most likely we’ll need to visit all three and reclaim more memories. But first we need that map. You need the Master Sword. Without it… Ganondorf cannot be stopped.
Link nodded, trusting her wisdom and memories. As he’d said, there was one thing at least that had been missing from his memories. One thing that had bugged him since discovering the hole.
“Zelda…” he asked with tunes conveying worry and hope both, “Who were our gods?”
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The Titan sat on his throne facing the infinite expanse of stars. The light was beautiful, but he found it saddening in its own way. The universe needed rebalancing. Unfortunately, he’d discovered very quickly that, while no world could resist him and his armies, he simply could not hit every world one by one until the work was done.
There were two reasons he’d found this to be true: first he’d realized that his own lifetime was just not long enough. He’d originally sought to fix this by raising a successor but that plan failed to help with the second problem: eventually the shortsighted inhabitants of the universe would rise up and crush his armies with sheer numbers.
It was an unfortunate truth: the universe demanded his saving hands, but its people would not see a savior, except maybe when the work was finished. If he continued his crusade those people would band together in dangerous ways. Apparently, this had already begun.
“The people of Earth are not the weaklings we were told they were,” his spokesman said. “They are unruly, and therefore cannot be ruled. And they have ancient protectors. A Darkness bubbles on their surface, tainting the land and giving its people the challenges they need to grow. To challenge them… is to court Death.”
The Titan knew he was being goaded. He stood up anyway. He turned to the speaker, and smiled.
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The Darkness watched as the Asgardians left his planet. That conflict had been… unexpected. He had been about to rise up himself. No alien had any right to this planet. It was his. But… well, he was glad he hand been beaten to that fight.
The Avengers? Bah! Most of them were worthless. Negligible. Of course… not ALL of them were. His drones had been killed, after all, if only because he’d allowed them to die. They were little avatars, not worth keeping around after they failed their task. The others had been missed, and the Darkness had continued to watch, intrigued.
One held an interesting find now. A dropped travel pack. No magic, so it wasn’t an Inventory. But.. he could sense… something. The drone searched again at his behest. A map… to THAT SWORD?!?!. Ganon raged and nearly shredded the map. How dare that weapon still exist? But then Ganon calmed for a moment. Ganon? That was… his name? He had forgotten. And with his name he remembered… planning. Traps. No, he would not destroy this map out of anger.
He made the drone put everything back the way it had found it. He knew where The Sword was now. He would… prepare. Odd… when was the last time he’d done that? Had… his madness retreated? He would have to see.