Chapter Text

Not a Job For One Person 

Of course there were times that finding lost pets wasn’t exactly a one shapeshifter job. 

Go figure, right? 

Generally, Loki, who was a big fan of those stupid pirate movies they’d watched a few weeks ago, slapped on Jack Sparrow makeup, donned some Band Major jacket that a girl at the resale shop told him was very boho chic, and then practically pranced his torn jeans, scarf wrapped, fedora wearing self to some crowded public place to meet up with an owner and collect fur from the missing pet’s bed, or favorite blanket.

Depending on the owner, he generally either claimed to be a psychic or have access to a bloodhound. Winter had to acknowledge neither was a lie, although Loki almost never went the bloodhound route, at least not to initially get a location. For that he just sprinkled a bit of the fur into his silver ‘scrying’ bowl.

Hell, once he had a general location for the ones who had just run off, eighty percent of the time he just changed into a dog or cat himself and somehow convinced them to follow him out from wherever they were hiding to someplace quiet where Loki could change back into himself. Long scarfs apparently made excellent improvised dog leashes, or cat slings. Of course, the remaining twenty percent of the time were more complicated retrievals. For most of those, Loki just put on his spooky-scary face, beat on a door until the hinges vibrated, and demanded the animal back from whoever had found or snatched it, with only a bit of knife play if the snatcher happened to be a thug of some sort. 

However, there were rare occasions when something more hinky than usual was going on. Those times were when Winter got to dust off his best murder glare, and more importantly, his knives and tac gear. And maybe, underneath it all, his new favorite T-shirt. 

“Please tell me you aren’t wearing that repellent article of clothing.”

Loki apparently had a general disdain for t-shirts in general, and a particular dislike of the ones Winter occasionally picked up from a corner vendor that had phrases on them. The one currently getting his drawers in a wad proclaimed, ‘What doesn’t KILL ME had better start f*cking RUNNING.’”

“Oh stop. You know, it’s going under my body armor.”  

Ignoring Loki grumbling about small mercies, and idiots who advertise their intent, Winter finished kitting himself out. 

“What are we looking at?” he asked a short time later after closing and locking the garage door behind them and climbing into the sedan. 

While it served its purpose, Winter didn’t think that the dark brown jacket they’d picked up from a local resale shop suited the taller man’s graceful form. But no matter how bad it looked, he agreed that Loki’s space alien coat was a bit too strange looking to go unnoticed. 

“I’m not quite sure.” Loki paused, concentrating on settling his knives in various areas of the leather jacket, eventually continuing once they were arranged to his satisfaction. “However, unless dog snatching on this realm is far more dangerous than I envisioned, there are far too many heavily armed men in the building where the dog is currently being kept. And, honestly, far too many dogs.”

Huh.

An errant memory tugged at Winter. Hadn’t there been… 

“You know, I seem to recall that there were dognapping gangs, even back in my day. So it is possible that your rich old lady's dog had gotten snagged by a ring of professional crooks. They would trade dogs with gangs in other states so they could be resold in locations far from where they'd been stolen.”

Considering this a moment, Loki conceded, “Well, I suppose that might account for all the weapons I saw. There being no honor among thieves, they possibly would need all of that to protect themselves during a transfer.” Loki fiddled another moment with his makeshift weapon placement before finally settling down for the short ride to their destination.

“Sucks that you don’t get voice anymore.” Glancing over, Winter saw a sour expression fix itself upon Loki’s face. He had numerous times had to listen to the guy rant about how badly he hated ‘scrying’ like a common hedge witch, because like them, he was currently limited to mere sight alone. Apparently being able to eavesdrop in addition to Peeping Tom’ing took a different kind of magic, one that was potentially traceable, if he wanted to augment his magic water bowl for sound. 

“Indeed. Were it possible to use my other powers I assure you I would be listening in on corporate board meetings to get investment tips,” he almost growled, “and not sussing out the location of lost or stolen Midgardian mongrels.” 

Which, Winter knew was probably true, but there was nothing they could do anything about right now, so he put the car into drive and headed towards their destination.  

OoooO

Roper’s Diesel Repair was emblazoned in faded lettering across the dilapidated three story building. There were various cars and trucks parked in the small parking lot in front of the building, but all the bay doors were padlocked shut, and a tattered sign declaring that the business was closed hung inside the main door’s dusty window. Not that Winter believed for an instance that there was no one inside. Or that they were going to have a problem getting inside themselves. 

He suppressed a sigh. Taking out low level dog napping punks wasn’t even going to cause him to break a sweat. However, the prep work to remain unidentified for this and whatever was going on in the upper levels was a complete pain in his ass. He didn’t mind so much putting on the black balaclava, but he would be ecstatic if he never again had to do the raccoon eye thing. And not only because borrowing black eye makeup from Loki was just weird.

Opaque Smokey Eye Onyx Midnight Zero eye shadow. 

Yeah. That shit. 

Suppressing a deep sigh, Winter dug his flesh hand into the thigh pocket on his pants, fumbled his way past a few packs of makeup removal pads for later, opened up a small plastic bag and then reached in and crushed the thin metal pot he’d previously pried out of its plastic compact, tossing the metal bits out of the car window. And no, he did not need to have Loki critiquing his makeup application skills. Mainly, because he didn’t have any. Close eyes, scrub hand across one eye, then the other with an additional smear across the bridge of his nose and wiping the excess off on the side of his pants before putting on his hood and making sure the attached nose and mouth covering were adjusted so it wouldn’t ride up. 

Ready, he glanced over to let Loki know he was good to go, only to receive the most judgmental look he’d ever received from another human being… Including a few patrol guards that used to work the East German border back in the day. 

Since he was used to far worse than a judgmental look, and he’d already informed Loki that there was no way he was using makeup brushes, Winter just shrugged, and wordlessly indicated to Loki that he was ready to move. 

Locked doors didn't mean a lot to a shapeshifter, particularly not when Winter could see a couple of broken windows on the second and third floor, so he didn’t figure Loki would have much of a problem getting them into the building… Not that he couldn’t also have done so, few door knobs could withstand his left hand. 

Loki, however, did not as expected take to the air, but rather went downwards. Winter waited, involuntary shudder rigorously suppressed, as a copperhead snake twined around his one boot wound its way up Winter’s leg and across his chest before slithering out the sedan’s still open window and dropping to the pavement. In less than two minutes, the snake crossed the street and disappeared under the building’s large rolling door, no doubt via a missing section of weather seal. It was only a moment later when his enhanced hearing heard the soft click of a deadbolt being unlatched. By the time he had made it across the street, the newly oiled door opened just far enough for him to slide into the building. 

Winter, yet again, felt the tiny pang of jealousy that he didn’t have an alien space pocket. Without using his own magic, Loki might only have access to one small interdimensional pocket, but it was big enough for a few essentials, like this evening’s tiny can of oil. 

Upon entering the building, Winter’s enhanced senses were immediately assailed by the sounds and smells of distressed animals. 

Lots and lots of distressed animals.  

Mapping out the open doorways branching off the small entry area, Winter heard the soft click of the door behind him closing before suppressing a shudder at having someone standing behind him. A barely audible voice whispered directly in his ear, “Remember, our mission isn’t to kill anyone. We want no complications that would prevent us from turning these miscreants in for whatever reward may be available. However, we take no risks. Not with your safety or mine.” 

Nodding, Winter gladly slid past the doorway leading to where the stolen dogs were being held, and cautiously approached the center doorway, where a television was turned up loud enough to be heard over the constant background of unhappy animals. Readying one of his knives, he flattened himself against the wall beside the door, as Loki, shifted into an absolutely gorgeous black Samoyed crawled past him on his belly. Head pressed against the floor, he peered through the door for a moment, before wiggling back and pawing Winter’s leg four times, while looking expectantly up at him. 

Winter made a rolling ‘ Yes, of course I am ready’ motion with his knife.    

Loki padded back several paces, nodded at him in a manner that Winter would have found incredibly disturbing if he’d been dealing with a real dog, and then, with a howl worthy of an entire Siberian Wolf pack, charged into the room the four men were watching television in. 

Pandemonium ensued. 

OoooO

While Loki would not say he lived for moments like this, he did enjoy them immensely. Four sets of wide eyes turned to him as he raced into the room. 

“Holy shit, one of the dogs got out! Which one of you assholes forgot to latch a cage?!”

Dashing through the legs of a rat-faced man who’d spun around and tried to grab him, Loki managed to get them all focused on the area furthest from the door. And not focused on the lean, graceful warrior gliding into the room, slipping a metal arm around the rat-faced’s throat as a gloved hand covered the man’s mouth. With absolutely no wasted movement, and completely unnoticed by the man’s companions, Winter hauled rat face a few feet away from the commotion, and knocked him out. He then stashed him pretty much out of sight behind a large overstuffed chair, that like everything else in the room, except for the entertainment screen, had certainly seen better days. 

Other than his makeup techniques, Loki would be the first to say that there was nothing slapdash about the way Winter dispatched the next two. Admittedly, Loki barking as loud as he could, weaving up, over, and around the furniture and tripping them up by dodging through their legs helped, but still. 

The last man, realizing that his companions were no longer assisting him in trying to capture their ‘stray’, turned to see what the problem was and positively yelped as he finally noticed the warrior in the room. And then he yelped again as fifty pounds of dog springboarded off an overturned chair and onto his back, knocking him flat on his face.   

The caged dogs in the next room were, if anything, making even more noise now.  

Which was no doubt why Winter had no sooner finished trussing and gagging everyone with a heavy gray tape, when a door slammed open and an angry voice yelled down the stairs, “Oh, for Christ’s sake! Will you guys shut those fucking dogs up!” 

Winter tucked the tape back into a side pocket, slid over to the doorway, and then nodded his readiness. 

Tail wagging, despite himself, Loki winked at Winter before barreling up the stairs at full speed, dashing between yet another set of legs.

There ended up being five people upstairs. And they posed no more problem for Loki to distract than the four he and Winter had already vanquished. 

After Winter had taped blindfolds, gags, and appendages, Loki had transformed back into himself and asked those still conscious a few leading questions. He learned not only the location of some cash they had hidden, numerous collaborating details to use when turning them in to crime stoppers, but also the names of some people who might turn out to be helpful contacts in the future. 

Hel, they’d recovered not just the dog he’d been originally hunting for, but several other expensive dogs that might also net them rewards. Winter scored some cash he could use to buy them a few more creature comforts, and Loki had gained a lot of interesting, possibly very lucrative information to mull over. Best of all, at least in his private opinion, Loki had experienced yet another opportunity to admire his companion in action.

All in all, he would have to say that it had turned out to be a lucrative and vastly entertaining day’s work. 

OoooO

A month later, the abandoned Brooklyn power plant he and Loki had claimed for their own was no longer piled high with trash. Prior to their ‘liberating’ a bunch of loose cash during the dog rescue thingy, they hadn’t had the funds to do much more than weatherproof the place. After patching and sealing the roof, more or less, Loki and Winter had replaced broken window panes with plexiglass, or boarded up entire openings for those windows where the metal frames were missing altogether. A repair that Loki’s ability to change into various birds and chimps had helped with, particularly in getting ropes over the roof supports so they could climb up and reach the more inaccessible windows. 

That pretty much being all they’d previously had funds for without tapping into their legitimately earned money. Those funds were in a bank helping to establish a credit history and were never spent on anything as frivolous as creature comforts.

However, back when they had first met, Loki had mixed up a scar removal cream, rune enhanced, that worked like magic. 

Go figure, right?

And Winter knew that they could make them a fortune selling it if he could just convince Loki that it could be sold in a legit way.

“Look,” Winter demanded, pointing to the several tabs open on his laptop, “This dame makes a beauty cream based off something she found in her grandma’s old recipe book.” He opened up the next tab, “This guy claims his beauty cream made with organic mango and rare herbs makes skin glow. As long as we don’t claim any specific medical properties, or use any substances that aren’t already FDA approved, we have as much right to make and sell skin cream as any putzy broad with a beauty blog.” he turned his attention from the screen to Loki, whose face was scrunched up in distaste. 

“What? I’m telling you it will sell.” 

“Perhaps. It does work, and I have noticed that Midgardians will buy just about anything. However, Winter, I have ideas to build our business empire that will need to be taken seriously. I don’t think that being lumped in with ‘any putzy broad with a blog’ or some ‘new age health nut’ as you refer to them as will help our future credibility.” He then waved a hand to encompass their surroundings. 

“Additionally, after you mentioned this a few weeks ago, I did look into how your idea could be implemented, and while the sanitation rules for small batches of homemade creams and herbal skin scrubs are lax, they aren’t non-existent.”  

Winter was well aware that making a product for sale would require at least minimal improvements to their lair. Of course they could always rent an apartment with a functioning kitchen. And, while renting would be a lower initial outlay of cash, it would be an ongoing expense, and even more importantly, it would have been an ongoing security risk.

So it took a few days to thoroughly hash out the pros and cons of each. 

And arguing. 

Well, yeah. That too. 

Loki was a stubborn bastard, and apparently had no desire to begin his business career as a skin care formulator, something generally regulated to low level hedge witches where he came from. Particularly since he had centuries more experience in potion making than anyone with any Midgardian with a masters degree in chemistry.

“I’m surprised you don’t want me to brew up a batch of potion to cure spots in adolescents.” 

“Well, if you know one that will actually work on lowly mortals, that would make a great follow up product.” 

Loki scowled at him. 

“However,” Winter went on blithely, “I can see that is an argument for another day. So how about we just finish deciding between the remodel or apartment? You know which one I want.” 

“Are you that afraid of living in an unsecure building and having neighbors?” Loki asked, damn well knowing what the answer would be.

That answer being, ‘Damn skippy straight’. As would be the answer of any sane person who was also an internationally wanted assassin, hiding from a deeply entrenched secret organization. Not that Winter could exactly claim to be sane, per se.  

They decided on the remodel, as Winter knew they would. Security, and he suspected his pouting, trumping the initial cost savings of an apartment. 

It took a few weeks, but they finally found a shady contractor who demanded cash for his crew at the end of each day, but who did decent work, didn’t ask too many questions, wasn’t worried about permits, and had a crew that was as closed-mouthed as he was. And, apparently more importantly, he was vetted by Mrs. Glasswincski. 

She being the little old lady who’d retired from NYC’s Office of the City Registry. The same one that Loki had paid to advise him on what documents to plant in the property records office archives, so they could basically steal the title to their building. Mrs. Glasswincski was also seemingly in line to be the head of his coffee shop babushka advisory cabinet. 

However, there was no denying she was right about the guy. Him and his crew were the perfect solution. They got building improvements with no paper trail, and since they wanted cash, they could be paid with ‘unaccountable’ money (ie. stolen from crooks), that couldn’t legitimately be used to start their business anyway.  

Tyrone and his crew had turned the second floor, or as the guy insisted on calling it, the office mezzanine area, into a fairly comfortable if rudimentary efficiency apartment that included their icebox, and a small stainless sink/counter thing that they could set a camping stove on. The adjoining office was a much more finished area, but was basically a rudimentary lab that could be used as a clean room for Loki’s potion making. Neither room was fancy, but they were vastly more comfortable than what they’d previously had.

Tyrone wasn’t touching an illegal electrical tap-in, but he did add lines going up to the solar panels they already had on the roof, and as a bonus wired in a few batteries for use in the evenings. Not that Winter hadn’t enjoyed taking the laptop and the phones up four flights of steps to the little shelter they’d cobbled together to protect their electronics while they charged. Or them having to finish the movie du jour on one of the phones because laptop battery capacity just sucked, and life as we know it would come to an end if Loki had to wait until the next day to finish watching whatever series he was currently viewing for the cultural context it would give him. 

Water was a lot easier to tap into clandestinely, which is why each of the rooms could have a sink. However, the only bathroom was still downstairs, tied into the drain they’d been using to piss in since they’d arrived. Thankfully, it had at least been partitioned off from the rest of the factory floor. To save money, they’d made three quarter high walls constructed with leftover building materials from the office area, and when that ran out, some of the pallet wood they’d saved during the clean up. 

The bathroom’s shower might only be an open area with a drain, but at least it and the sink had the same type of hot water on demand heater that the rooms upstairs had. Winter didn’t care if he had to sweep pooling areas of water towards the center floor drain after every shower, or that at night the only light was over the small sink, at least he didn’t have to drive across town to those damn beach showers when he wanted to get cleaned up anymore. And he’d slipped the guy doing the plumbing and electrical a bit of extra cash, so once they were off solar, or could pick up a larger gas generator, he already had the outlets and hookups for a washing machine at least.

“Correct me if I am wrong,” Loki said looking over their (rustically) renovated bathroom, and gesturing towards the capped off water stubs, “but in addition to power, does not a washing machine also require a drain?”

“Yeah, but we can hook up a hose and put it down the shower drain when we use the washer.”

Loki’s eyes tracked the distance the hose would have to run. The bathroom was crappy, but not small.

“And this couldn’t wait until we redo the building properly?”

“Hell, no. Hand washing blue jeans sucks balls, and the laundromats around here are worse.”