.
.
"It's what you are."
Loki is standing behind Bruce, out of sight but close enough that every hair pricks up on Bruce's back. "It's not about choice." His hand settles on Bruce's skin, the touch faint and perversely intimate.
"I'm a monster too," Loki says.
.
Tony shouldn't have drunk that last bottle. He probably shouldn't have drunk the first. Across the table, Loki looks at him, his eyes like a city of stars.
"I thought that one day, somehow, my father would look at me, and see me, and say that I had done well."
Loki pauses.
Tony's whole life is in that pause.
"He did not."
.
"When you know that you're weaker, it does something to you. Makes you fight harder."
Without thinking, Steve nods. Next to him, Loki leans back, the fountain spray gilding his hair. "You remember how it feels, then, to be on the ground, to lose a fight you could never have won, to be saved. You remember that it burns like acid."
Despite himself, Steve nods again.
.
"They made you to be their weapon," Loki says. "A chess-piece to be placed at their pleasure."
She looks at him, her face still and blank.
"At least they didn't tell you that this was love," Loki says softly, and nods his head when her expression wavers.
.
Clint throws out another handful of crumbs, and watches the birds flutter down.
"I wish I'd had the courage to run away," Loki says quietly.
Clint closes his eyes.
.
.
