Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Though she’d been alive for far longer than anyone had right to be, Jaklyn Baker had never been to Egypt. At one point during the Victorian era, she thought she might get the chance to go because her father was involved in the Egyptology craze that swept the world and her mother wanted to visit him at his archeology site. However, it was at that time that a new suitor became interested in Jak and instead of her and her mother going to Egypt, her father came back to them to arrange the union. It fell through, as all of Jak’s marriage prospects did, but by then her father had found all of the artifacts he wanted and did not plan on going back to the desert.

Now, Jak found herself enthralled by the bright colors of an Egyptian marketplace as she made her way to talk to an archeologist she’d contacted on the internet. She loved the smells of the market and was tempted to buy every spice she came across. The jewelry glittering in the sun caught her eye and the carpets for sale made her wish she had a permanent residence to decorate.

She quickly had to turn away thoughts of decorating a small apartment. One with cracked tiles above the sink and worn curtains. An apartment with one bed, one chair, and backpacks hidden under the floorboards.

Of course, thoughts of this tiny Romanian apartment dragged up thoughts of the man she’d shared it with just a few months previous. And the horror of seeing him wanted on the news for terrible deeds he did not commit. At least, she was fairly certain he hadn’t committed them. She hadn’t actually spoken to him since they’d parted ways--apart from a few postcards she’d sent him. But she knew Bucky Barnes and she knew he wouldn’t hurt anyone anymore unless he was forced to do so.

The UN bombing had almost made her abandon her own goals and go running back to the Avengers to help them find and rescue Bucky. But there was all of that business with the Sokovia Accords. The government had taken her powers before. She would not let them do it again. Not to mention the small detail that she’d skipped out on her probation and was now a fugitive.

So, she monitored the situation as best she could from afar. It broke her heart to hear about the Avengers splitting up. She wasn’t sure that she would have considered them her friends, but she cared about them and she knew that they would not be able to do as much good for the world while they were fractured. As the dust between the Avengers began to settle, it seemed that neither side had gotten their way and those who supported Bucky, along with the Winter Soldier himself, vanished. Jak had not heard from any of them since and neither had the rest of the world.

Even though she dearly wanted to know what had happened to Bucky, she had her own goals to accomplish and knew that he wouldn’t want her to worry about him. Instead, she found herself in Cairo, trying to track down an archeologist, who was the grandson of an archeologist who her father had worked with. Her British friend, Stephen, had helped her track him down and set up a meeting time at a coffee house.

“Qasim?” she asked an elderly man at one of the tables of the coffee house. He was sitting all alone, reading a newspaper, and wearing a blue shirt and red glasses, just as he’d said he would in his message.

“Seraphina, I presume.” The man put down his paper and stood to shake her hand. Seraphina Falkner was the name she’d been traveling the globe with in the past few months. She knew she’d have to change it eventually, but she was enjoying the elegance of it while she could. 

“How is the coffee here?” She sat down with him.

“When tourists ask me that, I tell them it is the best in the world,” he replied with a wink, “but as you are not here for tourism, I’ll tell you that the coffee at the other end of the market is better. This place just has more comfortable chairs.”

She ordered a cup of coffee anyway and savored the rich bitter taste. If this wasn’t even the best coffee in the marketplace, she had to try the other stuff before leaving because the cup in her hand was the best she’d ever tasted.

“Now, I must know, how were you related to Clarence Flint?”

It took Jak a moment to process the name. It was one of her father’s aliases. After Clarence, he’d been Henry, and then Leroy. She’d thought he was dead for seventy some years after Leroy, but he came back recently as Uriah. And now, he was dead. She’d ripped out his heart with her own hands and frozen it with a Frost Giant’s magic. Presumably, the Frost Giant still had the heart, but she’d heard a rumor that he and his brother had been taken back to Asgard as punishment for helping her.

“Clarence Flint was my great-great-grandfather,” she said. It occurred to her that she didn’t even know if she had a grandfather out in the universe somewhere. Her father was so ancient that she’d never considered it.

“And he worked with my grandfather on a site,” Qasim chuckled, “That makes me feel old.”

Jak knew better than to say “you’re an infant compared to me” but the thought still popped up. She wondered what she’d been up to when this man was born. Probably needlework or socializing with her father’s Nazi friends.

“You said in your message that you have a box that you believe Clarence found at the site and you want to look into it more, is that right?”

“Yes. My friend, Stephen, tried to help me decode the hieroglyphics on the scroll that was inside it, but then things got, uh, complicated for him and he couldn’t help me anymore,” Jak winced. 

She tried not to think of how Stephen had started talking in an American accent one day and telling her that she’d be better off leaving him alone. And then she’d felt a surge of magic and seen a giant bird skeleton standing behind him threatening her. The bird told her he’d known her father and that she was better off not learning anything else about him. He’d said he had bigger plans for Stephen and she needed to get out of the way.

The next day, when she checked in on him, Stephen hadn’t seemed to remember any of the oddity and when she told him she didn’t think she could work with him any more, he kindly put her in contact with Qasim instead.

“Yes, you sent me the pictures of those hieroglyphics and I’ve been doing my best to study them. Do you have the box with you now? And the scroll?”

Jak carefully took them both out. She’d put the scroll in a clear bag, though she doubted that was best preservation practice. She didn’t want hands touching and destroying it, though, and the bag seemed to be doing the trick.

“Beautiful,” Qasim picked up the box and looked over it. He took out the false panel that hid a small storage compartment at the bottom and examined it with raised brows. “This character here… he almost reminds me of… but that couldn’t be, could it?”

“It does look like Loki who invaded New York in 2012,” she sighed, knowing exactly where he was going with his disbelieving mutterings.

“And the paint is old enough that I don’t believe it could have been added on much later than the rest of the box. It almost feels… prophetic.” Qasim shivered and looked Jak in the eye. “I do not believe in omens, Seraphina, but this is odd.”

“It is,” she agreed. “Do you have any idea what this picture means? Why the woman with the wings is reaching up to touch him?”

“I do not. Hmm, this is fascinating. We may want to bring in an expert on Norse mythology. Or an Avenger? There is no figure in the Egyptian myths that looks like this character. The mythology of the vikings would not line up with the timeline of this box, but perhaps Loki has been alive longer? Perhaps he visited the creator of this box and inspired the piece?”

Jak supposed she could have told Qasim that Loki wasn’t quite that old, but that wasn’t information that just anyone knew and she might have to come up with an explanation for why she knew information about a Norse god that only his friends would know. So she didn’t mention it.

“Thor went back to Asgard, so he’s unreachable. And the Avengers are all split up,” Jak pointed to the scroll, “Since we can’t ask them, let’s focus on this scroll. Do you know what it says?”

“Right,” Qasim gently touched the plastic bag and squinted at the scroll. He took a pair of glasses out of his shirt pocket and perched them on his nose. “I cannot, of course, make an exact translation, but as I’ve been studying it, I think I’ve got the gist of the meaning.”

“You don’t need to explain each glyph to me, if you could just tell me generally what you think it says, I would appreciate it.” Jak looked away from the box and the scroll for a moment. She’d stared too long at the horned trickster on the art and had started to become overwhelmed by confused feelings. However, when she looked up, she saw a blond, wrinkled man staring at her from another table. When he saw her looking at him, he quickly turned away and took a sip of his coffee. He looked vaguely familiar. The oddest part about him was that he was wrinkled, but still looked fairly young otherwise.

“It goes along with my earlier thought about this box being prophetic,” Qasim continued, unbothered by the man, who looked at them again.

“How so?” Jak took her spoon from the table and held it in her lap, magicking it into a sharp knife. She did not like the way the blond man kept darting glances her way and she began to look around to see if he had someone else with him.

“It says something about a god of the north,” Qasim said breathlessly, “But the way it’s phrased makes it seem like he wasn’t around when this was written. A god of the north and a ‘daughter of Bennu’ unite and… hmm, I think they’re going to fight someone? Or each other? I’m not sure.”

“Bennu is the Egyptian equivalent of the phoenix, right?” Jak had done some research about firebirds of mythology.

 After finding out that her father was a phoenix and she’d inherited his fiery magic, she wanted to know everything. Originally, she had wanted to find other firebirds, but many myths said that there could only be one in existence at a time, so she wasn’t sure that she could. Of course, she and her father both existed at the same time… but she was only half phoenix. The whole situation was muddy and she’d been hoping the scroll would have more answers. She’d also quietly been hoping that it would say something about the horned figure on the box and tell her that it was some other figure of mythology and not the Norse god she’d once dated.

“Bennu is a heron, the soul of Ra, inspiration for the Greek phoenix.”

“What is a daughter of Bennu?”

“I’ve never seen those glyphs used together before like this,” Qasim said with a shrug. “I have not heard a myth about Bennu having a daughter or any other offspring. He created himself according to legend and he did not make any others like him.”

“Do you think this,” she pointed at the woman depicted on the box with magenta colored hair and features eerily like her own, who reached out for the man with the golden horns, “is the daughter of Bennu?”

“She is on fire, but she is also humanoid.” Qasim scratched his head, “This is fascinating. I highly suggest we take this to a team and begin studying the artifacts immediately.”

Jak didn’t like that idea, but didn’t say anything about it. Instead, she redirected the conversation and shot another glance at the blond man, who was now whispering into a cell phone while staring at her.

“Does the scroll say anything else?” She asked.

“It does, but it’s difficult to decipher what exactly. Something about kingdoms burning. Death. Destruction. Or maybe just a massive campfire and s’mores?”

“What?”

“Doesn’t that one kind of look like a marshmallow on a stick to you?” Qasim pointed. The glyph did, indeed, look like a marshmallow on a stick over an enormous flame. “Oh, no, I’m sorry, that’s a poorly drawn feather. Perhaps to be weighed against a heart?”

“Could you figure out what the rest of it says?”

“Perhaps with a few years of research. You really ought to let a team take a look at it. This is quite revolutionary and may unlock all sorts of mysteries.”

“I’ll think about it,” Jak said. She noticed the blond man put down his cellphone and get up. He was walking away from her, but that did not put her at ease. Fairly certain Qasim couldn’t help her any further, she packed the scroll and the box back into her bag and began to stand up. She felt a clammy hand land on her shoulder.

“Ms. Fenice, I must insist that you come with us. We have a great deal to discuss,” a raspy voice said from behind her. Jak threw her elbow back and raised her knife, but as she turned to stab, the clammy hand slipped a power dampening cuff around her wrist.

She heard a click and then felt her magic drain away, letting her disguise spell fall. She’d really only changed her hair color, but Qasim still jumped back in surprise.

“Who the hell are you?!” She demanded of the man with the clammy hands. When she looked at him, she knew that she’d seen him before, but couldn’t place where.

“A friend of your late father’s,” he sneered. The blond man came up to them as well and knocked the knife from Jak’s hand.

“Hydra,” she snarled.

Qasim swore in Arabic, scrambling to get away. “Police! Police!”

Jak kicked the clammy hands man in the gut and twirled to throw a punch at the blond. They both wheezed indignantly and seemed to be down for the count, but a younger man approached. A man that Jak definitely recognized from a disastrous gala her father had hosted. She’d danced with this young man and he’d let his hand drift far too low on her back.

“Ms. Fenice, you need to come with us,” he said calmly.

“That’s not my name,” she told him and raised her fists. “Get out of my way.”

“You don’t have your magic, you don’t scare me --ack!” 

Jak lunged at him and jabbed her fingers into his throat and then kicked him in the groin. She didn’t check to see if any of them were getting up or if the police were on their way. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her.

Chapter Text

The library of the royal palace in Asgard held a vast collection of tomes that many scholars from across the galaxy begged to study in. There were books, recordings, and preserved magic from the past millennias and cozy nooks to curl up in. But, as Loki perused the shelves, he couldn’t help but wonder if a quick Midgardian web search might bring up more relevant answers.

“You’re telling me that the only books on firebirds in this whole library are children’s fairy tales?” Loki asked the librarian when she brought him a stack of reading materials.

“Allfather, you said that you had no interest in the materials we possess about the Phoenix Force entity. There are very few actual firebirds in the universe.”

“I’ve seen them before. They are proven to exist. Why do we not have nonfiction books about them? Aren’t there any in captivity that we can study?”

Loki had seen a bird that caught itself on fire, with scarlet feathers in a circus once. It could only have been described as a phoenix. He’d not sensed any disguise spells on it either, so he’d known it to be a real creature. If a circus could possess such a thing, then surely someone else did too and had written notes for the care and keeping.

He did not mention to the librarian that he was also looking for information about firebirds that took a human form. For all he knew, that might be a fluke. Jak Baker, his former girlfriend (for lack of a better word), might not even be a phoenix, perhaps she just had particularly fiery magic… and a father who could be reborn from his own ashes.

“The legalities of holding such a creature captive are foggy,” the librarian said, pushing her glasses up her nose. “If these fairy tales are to be believed, then they are more than just dumb birds. They are intelligent.”

“So? That’s never stopped a being from capturing another being and studying them before!” Loki huffed and took the fairy tale books.

“Allfather… I’m not a phoenix expert, this is all just speculation on my part.”

Loki took a deep breath, knowing he wasn’t acting much like Odin, and thanked the woman before carrying his books to a corner in which to study. Sure, Odin had a private study office, but it was on the other side of the palace. If he came across anything else he needed to research, it was far simpler to be in the room where he could do so.

“Perhaps I ought to put a reward out for anyone who can capture a phoenix and bring it to Asgard,” he mused as he flipped through pages of a fairytale. “Of course, that would be a good way to accidentally capture Jak. And that might not be the best way to reacquaint ourselves.”

He could just imagine the livid expression on her face if he paid some hunter to release her into “Odin’s” custody. In this time with her, he’d done nothing but speak poorly of the man who raised him. She might try to do something stupid, like use her magic against him. And then he’d have to make a big show of imprisoning her and then show her it was actually him later. Or worse, she might recognize him right off the bat and blow his cover.

He’d told the people of Asgard that Loki had been sent on a top secret espionage mission and then killed. For the fifty-third time in Asgardian history, the people mourned the death of the prince of Asgard. Loki was beginning to suspect that they didn’t believe him to actually be dead this time around.

Regardless, they had not yet figured out that he was playing at being Allfather while Odin whiled his days away playing bingo and eating jello on Midgard. 

Loki had been worried when he commissioned the giant golden statue of himself in memoriam, that people might figure it out, but if they had, no one objected or stopped him. And today would be the debut of a new theater production in his honor. He’d given the playwrights the basic outline of the performance, but then told them to make it their own. He was excited to see what they’d come up with.

But first, he had promised himself that morning that he would make more progress on his research for Jaklyn. He’d told her he would see what he could learn from the library in Asgard and in the months that they’d been apart he had learned absolutely nothing but contradictory fables.

Some stories said that there could only ever be one phoenix alive at once, others said that the universe used to be rife with them and that there was a secret planet somewhere that still was. There were legends of phoenixes seeking out lucky people and others about them being an omen of death. He’d only come across one story about a phoenix turning into a humanoid species and the further he read into that story, the more it became apparent that it was not about phoenixes, but instead about the terrifying Phoenix Force entity, which was another thing entirely.

Just as he came across something that might actually be useful, about a Midgardian with fiery magic who spent time in Asgard and could transform himself into a bird, a bell rang outside, signaling the hour. The play was meant to start at that moment.

Of course, it wouldn’t start until “Odin” arrived, but the real king of Asgard had never been late in the thousand plus years that Loki had known him. People were already suspicious enough, being tardy wouldn’t help matters.

With a quiet curse, Loki shoved the book he’d been reading into his comfortable robe and hurried out the door to get to the theater.

It turned out to be a lovely performance with decent acting. Such a shame his brother came home at the end of it and ruined everything.