Everyone sees what you appear to be; few experience what you really are.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
I. Persephone
There was nothing worse, Loki decided, than a prison cell walled in glass.
The still dream of a world beyond the holding chamber- a sealed control room of black steel, contrasting starkly with faded memories of soaring gilded halls and sculpted architecture and elaborate carvings that he had once called home- mocked him, its silence embroidered with the low electronic hum of the technology that monitored his every breath and movement, tracking his heart rate with detached efficiency. Loki could feel the irony rotting away at his insides. The glass cage was harshly lit by the ceiling and floor, so starkly white that it seared his retinas, in a sickeningly clever design: there were no corners, no edges, no chinks, nowhere to begin or end to break it, and yet the walls left him exposed at every turn, as though he was inside a display case, contained in stasis and vitro, in a sterility that felt like starvation. It was, possibly, the worst kind of trapped; reminding him of everything he had spent his whole life quietly trying to escape, a manifest facsimile of everything that had ever preyed on his mind, shadowed his footsteps, gnawed at his heels.
All that was missing was the writhing slurry of horrors that had found him after his fall from the Bifrost- and even then, he had plenty of self-made nightmares living inside his skull- and the monster that they had wrought.
Loki had long accepted that he had no greater adversary than the one stood inside his cell. As Thor had jested what felt like a lifetime ago, he was incapable of honesty, even to himself.
The door slid open, and someone entered the room.
Loki threw a disinterested glance in the direction of the doorway. Catching sight of durable black fabric, and the figure ensconced in its efficient cut, he made the assumption that it was yet another nameless SHIELD agent, assigned the task of manually monitoring him to ensure he didn't escape- again- before he could be escorted back to Asgard.
However, when he heard the echo of steps pause at the foot of the stairs that led down onto the platform, he looked a second time.
Loki felt as though he had been simultaneously doused in ice water and set on fire.
Standing before the cell, her form was athletic but unassuming, a graceful slope to her shoulders and the traces of a confident lift in her bearing, sure as stainless steel and silk bindings. She wore a black jacket that zipped to the base of her throat, combat boots laced over taut flexible trousers, a holster belt strapped around her hips, pale blonde tresses braided back, rogue strands slipping loose to curl against dusk-bronze skin. The shade of her hair was duller than memory served, washed with lowlights of brunette- and her irises an unremarkable hazel- yet they telegraphed every shifting thought and mood behind them, like light fracturing into a web of aural threads through the surface of water, tugged to dance by the currents.
Loki, impossibly, found himself staring into the eyes of a living ghost.
For the longest time, they simply looked at each other. On his periphery, Loki could see the number tracking his heartbeat, displayed on one of the many screens surrounding the controls terminal, spiking silently in recognition and panic. His gaze swept over her, from the worn sole of her boots up to the corona of light gleaming at the crown of her head, and forced his expression into one of neutral appraisal.
"Well, look what they sent me this time," Loki commented in as offhand a tone as he could muster, , appearing to all the world as idly amused. "You are a new one."
She gazed back, cool as the northern star and unintimidated- making it that much harder for Loki to deny what he was seeing, his breathing suddenly feeling constricted by the matrix of hardened leather and etched metal of his armour.
This is not real.
"I'm only new to you," the agent replied calmly. Her voice was as crisp and clean as sea air; if Loki's
knowledge of Midgard served him, she was not American. Her accent, if anything, was textbook English.
The agent circled around his cell, only dropping his gaze when she reached the terminal. Smoothly dialling in a passcode, she conjured a flurry of images onto the translucent screens and began sifting through them. Loki examined her unashamedly, following the curve of her spine as she kept one hand braced against the sloped surface in front of her, the other skimming through the data onscreen with delicate precision. The zip of her jacket strained, and glided open into a deep plunging neckline, something heavy and gold spilling out.
Loki honed in on it, and felt his breath hitch.
The pendant jangled for a moment on its long fine chain, a single gem sparkling as it swung- before she tucked it back inside her jacket and tugged the zip back into place, her gaze never straying from the display in front of her.
Loki felt as though the world was tilting around him. It couldn't be real. It couldn't be, but- unless- unless-
"You're staring," she announced, still surveying the screens.
Loki swallowed his doubt, crushing it down.
"I was wondering something," he replied, his cadence so smooth and enticing that his voice may as well have been dipped in salted caramel.
Her eyes flicked up to meet his. "Oh?"
Loki flashed his most charming smile. "Is your name as pretty as you are?"
There was a long moment when she simply stared at him blankly.
Then her head dropped, her shoulders trembled, and she exploded with waves of genuine, helpless laughter.
Loki dragged in a sharp breath, lightheaded, lungs collapsing, blood singing in his ears, vision laced at the edges with black. If this was somehow real, then even in spite of the countless unanswerable questions that gaped through the situation like holes acid-burned through silk, he could at least be assured that a few things remained the same.
Finally, half-collapsed against the terminal, the agent straightened, raking strands of her fringe back from her face, and forced out, "Oh… I'm sorry, but- that was- awful-"
Loki chuckled in reply, glancing at the floor briefly, as he stepped closer to the concave panel of glass that separated them from each other.
"Truly, though- what should I call you? For the sake of courtesy. I'd like to know your name."
Her smile cooling, she gave a resigned sigh.
"SHIELD," she began reciting flatly, wandering around to the opposite side of the terminal as she spoke, "knows me as Fahrenheit." Leaning back against its edge, she stood in front of the station, looking directly at him. "As does practically every client I've worked for this side of the Atlantic. The others know me as Celsius. To avoid confusion, and for the file, they were combined into a full name- Celsius Fahrenheit. That is what you can call me."
Ignoring the fact that she had technically sidestepped his question- it had been a somewhat elegant sidestep- Loki narrowed his eyes curiously. "You," he said slowly, taking another carefully measured step towards her, "are an Avenger?"
She considered the question, tilting her head to one side.
"No," she said. "But I am one of SHIELD's- outsourced assets. I have certain talents that they took an interest in, so I was…" she swivelled around, drawing up the current state of the security protocols surrounding the room in several windows, "persuaded. To come to work here for a while."
Loki crossed his arms, tracing a fingertip along his mouth as he observed her.
"And they sent you to me because they trust you not to fall for any of my tricks."
She shrugged, tilting one of the touch-interface screens towards her, adjusting its angle to suit the overhead lighting. "No one else wanted to," she said with preoccupied bluntness. "Fury pulled rank and made me do it- apparently he thinks I'm the least likely to turn off your oxygen or eject the cage and throw you into the ocean, and he doesn't want to risk a political incident with a realm full of aliens who can walk away from being sucker-punched by the Hulk."
There was a short moment of silence, Loki hiding a downright amused smile behind his hand.
A few seconds passed before the agent stiffened slightly.
"That was callous, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
Loki watched her eyes close, biting down on her lip.
"I- that was unnecessary, I shouldn't have-"
"On the contrary," Loki interrupted, laughing softly and pacing his cell, his movements languid, "your honesty is refreshing." She looked up, impassive as the flat of a knife, cerise-pink flooding back into the supple flesh of her lower lip as she released it from her teeth, the shade increased thrice over. Loki responded by a teasing quirk of his mouth. "Tell me. Are you are always this candid?"
She canted her head, reluctantly.
"I suppose."
"Then I suppose you will answer me honestly, if I ask if you are afraid of me."
"Director Fury once said I was too stubborn to feel fear," she replied evenly. "His way of calling me an idiot."
Loki hummed thoughtfully from the back of his throat, eyebrows contracting. "How uncharitable of Director Fury."
Her gaze flickered, speculative and suspicious. "You sound like you disagree."
"Absolutely." Loki leaned towards the transparent wall separating them, his voice darkening and becoming thick with quiet, seductive menace. "Because you are smart enough to know that you should fear me."
He watched, gratified, as her breath stuttered for a fraction of a second and her cheeks blossomed with a hint of colour, turning her attention back to the monitors with forceful composure. Loki restrained a smirk. He saw through the most expert of façades and illusions as though they were cellophane, and she hid nothing. She wasn't intimidated by him in the slightest- cautious and viciously defensive, but not afraid.
The small device hooked over her right ear suddenly sparked to life.
"Agent Fahrenheit?"
Director Nick Fury's standard commanding timbre was filtered by electronics, dampening it. The agent raised two fingers to her earpiece, speaking through the connection tonelessly.
"Sir."
"You alright down there in the lion's cage?"
Her eyes met Loki's.
"Haven't gotten myself eaten yet."
Loki grinned at her wolfishly. She turned away briskly, grappling with an expression that was both amused and jaded, a strange blend that made Loki think, bizarrely, of honey and citrus.
"Good- because you're going to be babysitting the God of Pain-In-My-Ass for the foreseeable," Fury informed her. "You've got thirty minutes to pick up whatever you need from your quarters to keep yourself entertained down there for a few days, before the Tesseract transport device is finished. And I should mention now that this assignment is in no way optional."
"I guessed as much, sir," she replied tonelessly. She tapped at the edge of the closest screen with her fingertip. "I was actually planning on checking on something- I think there's a malfunction with the audio feed. The transmission itself appears to be running fine, but it doesn't seem to be recording to the primary server." She tipped her head back to look at the ceiling, and Loki thought of how she would look so much more alive under open skies and natural light. "It's nothing urgent, since the security protocols are all operational. But it is en route, so I'd rather go in person. It might take me a little longer if I do."
"Fine by me, Agent F-"
"Oh, and hey," another voice interrupted suddenly, one that Loki had heard first through the electronic filter of a gold-titanium alloy suit, "Hot Stuff- just remember to keep your guard up around Mr Tall, Dark and Clinically Insane down there. We all agreed that you're too pretty for evil mind control."
"Yeah, thanks, Stark." She replied in a voice like a whip. Loki smirked.
"Stark has a point, Fahrenheit," Fury said, sounding irritated by the intrusion. "Don't let him get inside your head and start screwing around with whatever he finds in there. It took long enough and too much collateral for us to get him the first time. I do not need him running around blowing up another city. Are we clear?"
"Crystal, sir," the agent intoned with such cloying obedience that it could have been veiled mockery.
"Good. I'm trusting you to handle him, Fahrenheit. Go ahead and check on the tech maintenance team, get them to look at the audio feed issue if you can't find the cause yourself. I'll have Agent Hill check on things up here, see if we can't find what's off."
The light glowing within the casing of the earpiece died, the connection cutting and falling silent. Her hand dropped and she looked towards Loki.
"Well, then. It appears I'm going to be here for a while."
"I daresay there are infinitely worse things than being trapped in your presence," Loki answered with complete sincerity.
"Hm." The agent turned on her the balls of her foot smoothly. "I think I'll take that as a compliment," she said, turning to walk back up the steps towards the sole exit. She paused, primed with one foot on the first step, to look back at him over her shoulder. "I'll be back in less than an hour. Do me a favour and don't break out while I'm gone."
"I will be counting," Loki vowed warningly. His voice rose subtly in volume to ensure that she heard him as she left, echoing out across the metal-plated room firmly. "And I will promise to be here upon your return- given that you do so on time."
She laughed as she disappeared around the doorway, flicking her braid over her shoulder.
"Fair enough. You've got a deal."
The almost inaudible sigh of hydraulics releasing heralded the agent's return. Loki's eyes opened at the sound, his mental count pausing the moment he heard the door unlock.
"Forty-nine minutes, eighteen seconds," he announced at the light tap of footsteps on the steel floor. He turned to meet her as she descended from the upper platform. The straps of a duffel bag were slung over her left shoulder, a large sleek onyx-backed device in the same hand, pressed to hr chest, a candy-coloured cord of a pair of headphones wrapped around it. In the opposite hand she carried a heavy book, fingers hooked tenuously underneath its thick spine.
"You kept your word." He added.
"So did you," the agent returned, crossing the chamber, setting her tablet on the surface of the terminal and dropping her bag at her feet. She combed her fingers through her hair, releasing it from its braid into a buoyant mass of oak-blonde curls. "Who knew that you were capable of being honest?"
The comment, coming from her mouth, stung more than it should have.
"On Asgard, the act of giving your sworn word means something more than empty reassurances," he informed her coolly, rising from the bench built against the cell's far wall, stalking towards her with all the languorous grace of a panther, "and I gave you my word." Loki halted. "I never make a promise I do not intend to keep."
The agent met his eyes, more steel than sunshine, fearlessly direct. Asgardians, however, were taught from youth never to surrender. Loki stared back steadily.
For the longest moment, she was silent.
Slowly, she took a single, meaningfully deliberate step towards him, the sound ricocheting.
"Neither do I."
Loki studied her carefully. She seemed to be debating something in her mind, gripping her upper arms, crossed like a shield over her chest and holding her book against her.
"Do you read much?"
He hadn't realised that his line of sight had drifted down until she spoke. Loki looked up.
"Avidly," he admitted softly, ignoring a resonant pang as his mind wandered back to the vast royal library that had once been his escape, his unspoken domain. "Although it usually depends on the author, especially concerning fiction." He canted his head to one side, reading the title embossed in the cover and spine in elegant metallic script. "The Complete Works of Shakespeare. A Midgardian work, I suppose."
"Yes," the agent replied tonelessly.
Loki raised an eyebrow expectantly, prompting her to elaborate.
She said nothing.
He held her glare, steadily, wordlessly convey that he wasn't exactly going anywhere.
Like watching the sun's progress as it edged over the horizon, the hard edge of her mouth melted a grudging fraction, a glint of gold igniting in her eyes.
"William Shakespeare. We call him the Bard. He was a playwright and poet in England during the Elizabethan era- easily one of the most influential and recognised wordsmiths in the history of the English language."
"Ah, I see. An acclaimed writer from your homeland," Loki intoned. "You must be quite attached."
She blinked. "How- did you know-?"
Loki threw her a deeply amused look.
"Please. I do know the geography of the world I intended to rule- the diversity of the terrain and climate, locations of its richest resources, points of weakness of both natural and artificial creation, the rapid evolution of territory borders, alliances, trade, culture, technology, nuances of language and dialect-" He grinned roguishly as she stared at him, speechless. "It was hardly difficult to place your accent. Besides, you yourself already implied that you are not from this region."
She simply stared at him for a moment. Her heel slid backwards behind her, like a dancer slipping into her next step.
"You're right. I'm not."
She turned away powerfully, and Loki crushed down a bite of frustration and a flicker of admiration as he watched her take a seat behind the terminal, slipping into the sculpted leather and cracking open her book where it was marked with a strip of ribbon. Mirroring her, Loki returned to bench at the back of the cell, resigned to hold his tongue.
Patience was, at least, one virtue that Loki could lay claim to.
It had to be thirty minutes later when she looked up again, and found him staring at her.
Her eyebrows rose.
"I was wondering something," Loki said in response to her unasked question.
"You mean again?"
Loki heard himself laugh. "Shakespeare: you hold him in great esteem. Is his work really that goods?"
He expected another flat confirmation. Instead her expression gave way into something startlingly unreadable.
She stood abruptly, waking around the perimeter of his cell and disappearing behind one of the titanium pillars sealing the panes of glass together, humming gently with a strong electromagnetic charge. Loki heard a series of digital beeps, followed a click, and a heavy clatter- and a curved panel, formerly fused seamlessly into the column, snapped out on a hinge before him.
She remerged into his line of sight empty-handed, and returned to her terminal without a passing glance. Loki looked on, politely perplexed.
"See for yourself," the agent said, drawing up the monitoring programmes across several screens, comets of blue light chasing the pads of her fingers. "Maybe an appreciation for Earth- Midgardian literature will make you less inclined to want to dominate the planet as a despotic demigod."
Loki quirked an eyebrow at the slip of a girl that SHIELD had sent to guard him, a shadow of a smile crossing his face. He could read an unspoken offer of a truce behind the action- one that others might have mistaken for weakness or naivety- but Loki knew better.
"I can see why they chose you."
"Can you?"
Her voice sent smouldering warmth blossoming inside Loki's chest.
Stepping backwards towards the exposed hatch, Loki swung its over open with his fingertips. A small compartment was concealed within the pillar- a simple sensible installation, designed for the transfer of items between the cell and main chamber without the main gate being compromised- the book deposited inside and the exterior panel fastened shut. Carefully, Loki extricated the book, closing the panel with the snap of an automatic lock. His fingertips traced over the supple leather bindings, testing its pages; Loki did not need experience with Midgardian bookmaking to recognise that it was of an uncommonly high quality and expense, well-read but in immaculate condition. Idly, he cracked it open and flipped through, wandering back to the centre of the cell as he skimmed.
He halted, something catching his eyes as it flashed past him on the previous page, and he turned back curiously.
Sketched meticulously, underscoring three printed lines of text, were a few strokes of pencil lead, light as air.
Loki chanced a glimpse at the agent. Her back was to him, standing in front of the terminal she had claimed as her workspace. Loki visually tracked the web of shadow of her hair against the smooth curvature of her spine, the almost imperceptible strain of tiredness pulled taut inside her shoulder blades, tracking its way up to her neck.
"Who could refrain," he recited quietly- the very words underlined in the book, "that had a heart to love, and in that heart-"
"Courage to make love known." The agent finished under her breath, frozen, her hand hovering above a sheet of interactive glass. "That's… that's Macbeth," she said softly.
"Yes."
Loki paused.
"So- this is why they sent you."
"I- what?"
His response was detached from all coherent thought patterns.
"A quotation underlined in a book. Such a little thing. But from this alone I can deduce that you are- exceptionally loyal," Loki said, watching for her reaction. "Instinctively truthful, even to a fault- but perceptive, and a remarkably good judge of character. And anger- true, pure, unadulterated anger- is so rare from you that, once someone makes the grave error of awakening the hellfire underneath, it is something to be feared."
The agent was as motionless as a statue, listening breathlessly.
"Such a strange one you are," he continued quietly. "A mercenary, a professional murderer, yet still you speak and act in accordance to your heart- in accordance to the truth as you find it, not the truth that you are told."
Her hand dropped to her side, breath rushing out of her.
"I like to think that," she said, more to herself than to him. "But most people do. And truth is often a matter of perspective. As for loyalty- loyalty is such a- complicated thing sometimes. If you try to be loyal to everything you value, something always ends up conflicting eventually."
"Hence your brutal honesty," Loki said, tracing over the indistinct pencil lines. "You would rather cease breathing than change that. It anchors you, like a self-imposed chain, a line you will not cross."
The agent almost laughed.
"You got all of that from three lines of Shakespeare?"
Loki gave a smile that was both guileless and guilty. "I suppose he does possess some talent."
This time, she did laugh- short and terse, but real enough to crack and brush away a little of the tension.
"Alright." The agent spun on her heel sharply, palms and heels of her hands braced on the edge of the terminal behind her, one ankle crossed over the other. "The same play. Act One, Scene Five. Lady Macbeth's speech, lines sixty-two to sixty-six."
Loki arched an eyebrow at her- how precise- before flipping back deftly until he had located the section she was referring to.
"Your face, my thane, is a book where men may read strange matters," he read aloud, his eyes tracking ahead of his tongue, the corners of his mouth coiling upwards like smoke. "To beguile the time, look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue. Look like th' innocent flower but be the serpent under 't."
He looked up to see the agent watching him expectantly.
"Appropriate," she said nonchalantly, "I thought, for you."
Loki smirked. "I confess myself flattered that you chose to memorise it for me."
She was silent and inscrutable, neither confirming or denying it. Surrendering the point, Loki flipped through the tome. "I take it there are a number of plays in here."
"That is what the title Complete Works would imply."
"Then where would you recommend that I begin?"
She circled around her terminal to her former seat. "The Merchant of Venice." She picked up her tablet, unravelling the vivid wire of her headphones. "Hamlet." She took her seat once again, curling and tucking her legs underneath her. "Othello." She pressed one silicon bud into her left ear, the other still occupied by her headset, tablet cradled in her lap. "In that order."
"The Merchant of Venice," Loki echoed slowly, "Hamlet… and Othello. Very well- let us measure the quality of a Midgardian wordsmith."
She ignored this, pretending- albeit unconvincingly- that she could not hear him over the music thrumming and hissing through the bright slim cord extending down from one ear, the other earbud hanging loose on its connected wire.
Hours passed.
She sat. He read.
Occasionally, captivated by the scenes unfolding across the pages before him in eloquently wrought iambic pentameter, intricately metaphorical or viscerally literal, he found himself murmuring the lines aloud, drawing echoes of reactions that brightened the agent by degrees. Occasionally, Loki looked up and watched her, seeing the slightest of creases appear between her eyebrows as she watched something on her tablet's screen, zooming in, adjusting, scrolling, and he wondered what she was looking at. Occasionally, he would comment on a character and the chamber suddenly filled with conversation, flowing as liberally as the wine and mead at an Asgardian gala, enmity briefly ousted by mutual boredom and replaced by something simpler and cleaner. As time passed she relaxed her guard, listening to his commentary diplomatically, debating whenever she disagreed, allaying reluctantly when they agreed- and Loki felt something wrench, unnervingly, as he began to discern uncomfortable patterns within the characters favoured by the young agent before him. He listened as she lamented the fate of the introspective, tortured Prince Hamlet of Denmark, driven into paranoia and madness by the ghost of his father. He listened to her sympathise hauntingly with Ophelia, the young woman broken by mistreatment, conflicting allegiances and the powerlessness of her own existence. He listened to her defend Shylock, unravelling him a product of cyclic hate, refused the same mercy preached to him. He listened to her admire Portia for her quick wit and sheer, sharp audacity.
Only when he drew to the blood-soaked conclusion of Titus Andronicus did the carefully constructed atmosphere falter.
"I can never read or watch the end of that play without thinking what a terrible waste of life it is. Even if it is the price of peace, in the end," the agent said, absently casting a cursory look up at the digital displays, her tablet attached to the station by an electrical cord, recharging, on the surface before her.
Loki's response was monotone.
"Is it?"
Her expression snagged as she looked towards him questioningly, before collapsing into blankness.
"My apologies. I forgot who I was talking to for a moment."
Loki might have imagined it, but she seemed almost disappointed.
"You value life."
The agent glanced over him with all the sharp precision of a scalpel. "Yes."
Loki could feel his demons stirring, clawing at his ribs, tempting him to make a snipe at her inability to lie- well, of course, you most certainly are not kin to the spider and the hawk; even a child could decode those pitiful little pretences of yours- just to silence them.
Loki choked down a handful of words, tasting sour and caustic, before they could fully form on his tongue.
"Perhaps you have conditioned yourself to see something in life to value. In the same way that one who has lost everything finds pleasure in the simplest of things."
The accomplished liar that he was, most would not have noted the false ring behind the platitude.
The look in her eyes was shifting, changing over and over again, too fast to decipher. "It's more than that. But that's not the point. I wouldn't be here if I didn't value life."
"And I would not be here if I did," Loki finished on her behalf, habit usurping his tempered, measured words, overthrowing them in favour of a comfortable veneer of bitterness. "Is that not what you are saying?"
"Yes," she said, brutally honest but frustrated.
Loki's eyes narrowed, voice lilting with mockery.
"I appear to have made you angry."
The heel of her boot slammed with a rattling bang against the edge of the terminal. Her rage was as lovely as arson and alcohol.
"Tell me that you wouldn't want to hate me if the positions were reversed. You killed people- senselessly- you would have destroyed Manhattan, you would have seen the world enslaved-"
Loki released a cruel laugh, the words slithering from his throat before he could stop them.
"Oh, and what a world it is. One that subsides on the cycle of slaughter and betrayal and mindless discrimination that comes with a frenzied bid for power, wealth, prestige- yet it is your race that has the gall to call me the barbaric one, when your people create art from bloodshed, create paragons out of liars. What right have you to judge what is moral?"
"What right have you?!" She exploded, her eyes glowing like molten iron, smouldering like embers, becoming feral with a burst of golden fire.
"Centuries of experience," Loki snarled, his natural fluid cadence dissolving into venom and ice. He wondered, in a brief flickering moment of weakness, whether it was destined to forever be this way. "Trust me, sweetling- experience is a harsh teacher, but the most reliable one you will ever find. Life is empty. You, for all your shining virtues, will tarnish and be forgotten and betrayed. Those who are gloried and remembered are remembered for lies. There is no grand scale of justice, no cosmic balance, no fairness in this universe. We are playthings of chance and circumstance, with no control over fate. Life has no great meaning, regardless of how much we might wish it otherwise. Do not blind yourself to that."
She stared at him, and tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling, considering the advice with startling composure.
"Life has no meaning," she repeated slowly.
"I suppose you would dispute that as well," Loki said dryly, setting the book aside on the bench.
"No."
Loki froze.
"What?"
"I agree with you," the agent continued, raking her curls back from her face. "You're right, nothing lasts forever. None of this-" she gestured vaguely at their surroundings, "means anything in the end. But that just means we get to choose a meaning for ourselves." She looked to him with an unexpected smile, warm and fierce and cold as a rose-gold dawn. "It's a terrifying responsibility. But it's ours. Our choices define us. It's not fate, or destiny. It's free will. It's who we are in the dark, when no one else is watching- the decisions we make when there is no one else to perform for, no one to lie to, no one to influence us or force us- that really matter. So, tell me, prince." Her eyes were locked on him, holding such brilliant clarity that they hurt to look at. "What are you?"
Loki turned away forcefully. His jaw ached, clenched so tightly he thought the bone might fracture. "You seem to have already decided what-"
"And you think I would still be talking with you if I had?"
Loki's gaze snapped back to her. Her hair was swept back in a tousled mass behind her shoulders, gloves stripped off, the zip of her jacket loosened at the throat, affording him a glimpse of a narrow slice of bronzed skin and the curve of her clavicle. She seemed more constructed from splintered light than flesh, bright and painful.
It reminded him of an old Midgardian myth: Persephone, bright and indomitable in the depths of Tartarus.
"Why?" Loki heard himself ask hollowly.
Her expression shifted into genuine confusion.
"Why what?"
"Why are you- here? As you are?" His voice was empty to the point of sounding almost casual. "You should be baying for my blood."
"Probably." She replied, without warmth. "But I prefer to know a person before I hate them. If that is alright with you."
Loki tried to laugh disdainfully. The sound caught in his throat.
"Has no one ever told you that it is a foolish idea to play with things that you know to be dangerous? You might not want to get too close, Agent. It is dark inside," he warned her, leaning forwards, his elbows braced on his parted knees, hoping that those four simple words were enough to make her understand.
Run away, please, just run away. It will be easier if you just run while you still can.
The agent laughed without smiling, crystalline and audacious.
"I have never been afraid of the dark, Loki."
It was the first time she had spoken his name- softening the first syllable an exhalation, snapping the second at the back of her tongue curtly. Its sound struck him like a blade to the chest, piercing through.
She was still speaking, oblivious to the effect of that one word. "And as my alias implies, I happen to be good at playing with fire. I've never burnt myself before."
"There is a first time for everything." Loki paused, noticing that she still had not looked away. "Do you ever tire of that?"
"Of what?"
"Holding a person's gaze."
She bit her lower lip, and her expression changed subtly with a smudge of hazy brightness. "Not really, no. Someone once told me that it was intimidating- as though I was looking into them, rather than at them. It's an effective interrogation technique."
"Is that why you have been employing it against me?"
She gave him a significant look from underneath her lashes.
"I would say that if there is any interrogation going on, it's the other way around."
That gave Loki a moment of pause. The agent blinked steadily, patiently waiting for his reply, despite having torn down a section of his defences and given herself a perfect opening for attack.
"You are more perceptive than I first gave you credit, darling," he eventually admitted.
The agent had a wickedly victorious glint in her eyes. "Don't feel bad. I'm more perceptive than most people give me credit."
Loki wavered as he watched her lean forwards, reaching for her tablet.
"One last question," he said abruptly. "Then I swear to leave you in peace."
She paused.
"Alright."
"Do you ever tire of it?" Loki repeated, softer than the first time he had uttered the words.
"What do you mean?"
Loki turned over his left wrist, elbow resting on his knee, until the open palm and heel of his hand faced towards the ceiling. His gold-steel vambrace gleamed with elaborate patterns, moulded from the metal smoothly and etched out in acid, dulled slightly by wear.
"Wearing your heart stitched upon your sleeve, for the daws to peck at."
The agent considered the question for a long moment.
"Never- honest Loki," she finally intoned, her gaze skimming towards the book resting beside him on the bench.
She looked away, pressing in her left earphone and rebooting her tablet from standby mode, settling it on her lap.
Loki kept his word. Picking up the tome by his side and relocating where he had left off, he left the agent to her devices.
The agent looked exhausted, her eyes sliding almost closed, edges defined by the ink-dark flick of her lashes, resting her cheek against her hand. Underneath the shadow of a light slumber, her eyes looked like Baltic amber, a halo of soft blonde making her softer, warmer.
A short burst of static issuing from her earpiece, followed by the low murmur of an indistinct voice, bought the steel surging back to her surface instantly. "Yes?" She replied immediately, voice creased like crumpled linen, suddenly wide awake. "Oh- of course. Right. Great, thank you… it's fine, I've functioned on less… hm? Oh, that's not- I don't really… well, thank you. Alright. Of course- and you."
The transmission cut off without ceremony, and the agent peeled herself out of her chair and rose to her feet, lacing her fingers together and stretching her arms over her head, extending her entire body upwards. Dropping back onto her heels with a sigh, she moved towards her duffel bag, still where she had dropped it over, and reached for its straps.
The book, still open in Loki's grasp, nearly slipped from his fingers.
"You're leaving?" He asked, almost too quickly.
The agent yawned, muffling it against the back of her hand. "Yes and no," she replied, and unzipped her bag, unceremoniously extracting a padded sleeping bag. "SHIELD's not stupid enough to leave you unmonitored after last time- but it's not as though a sleep-deprived guard is better than none. I'll sleep in here. There's an extra team outside as support in case you try anything, so please don't bother." She snapped the sleeping bag open and laid it on the floor, before sending him a sharp look. "Turn around, please."
Loki considered refusing, if only to see her reaction- but, after a second, he set the book aside on the bench and stood, turning his back to her and keeping his eyes respectfully fixed upon the glass, the shadow of his armour glinting in its reflection. He heard a rustle of clothing and the snap of the clasps of her holster, soft thumps of fabric and heavier thuds of her boots as they were set aside, bare feet padding on the cold metal floor.
"Alright, turn."
Loki reclaimed his seat and saw that the agent had changed into a set of SHIELD standard-issue sleeping shorts and tank top, both jet-black- and was slightly amused when he noticed the familiar circular, stylised eagle crest emblazoned on her chest in bleached grey; the supposedly secret global organisation had an interesting interpretation of secret. She was combing out her hair over one shoulder, raised onto her tiptoes, tense in the chilled air being circulated through the chamber for the benefit of the machines' efficiency.
"I'm going to sleep for a few hours. Five or six at most," she said shortly. "Don't wake me up."
"And why not?" Loki couldn't help but ask.
"Because you were right about me," she said, thick as blood and potent as a shock of pain. "Because I have hacked through a person's chest wall before, held a beating heart in my hand, drilled into a person's skull, and you're locked in here within me for the next two days, at least." She swept her long hair over her shoulder, and her eyes flashed. "Because if you do, I won't give you another book."
Loki stiffened involuntarily. It was clever, he was willing to admit- revealing something that he hadn't even known was on offer.
"Well?"
Loki bit his tongue.
"I give you my word. I will not disturb you, indirectly or otherwise."
"Thank you," she said, sincerely, before kneeling. She unzipped the sleeping bag, peeling back the top cover, and reached towards her tablet. Loki glanced up in confusion as the glaring white lights inside his cell dimmed to an almost gentle glow. She noticed his reaction, and her shoulders twitched in an implied shrug. "I heard that Asgardians don't need much sleep. Is this enough light to read by?"
Loki, for a moment, lost his voice to the unexpected thoughtfulness. "It is, yes." After a heartbeat, he added, "Thank you."
She halted.
"You're welcome."
He watched her, eerie in the low light, as she slid into the sleeping bag, her back to him, tucking her arm beneath her head as a pillow. Her long hair seemed to flash with rose-gold, pretty and delicate against the synthetic black.
"Well… goodnight," she said softly.
"Good night, good night," Loki quoted in an absent murmur. "Parting is such sweet sorrow…"
He heard her stifle a yawn. "That I shall say good night 'til it be morrow…"
The agent curled up tighter underneath the coverings, shifting them around her.
Her voice was almost bored when she spoke again.
"Oh, by the way, you can stop now. I couldn't let you out even if I wanted to. Director Fury didn't give me the code for the door release, at my own suggestion."
"I suspected as much," Loki replied calmly. "You should sleep, hækkaði."
Her reply was a low, tired hum, not registering the words beyond their low persuasive timbre. She slipped away in what felt like moments, her breathing easing.
Too long, Loki thought to himself. It has been far, far too long.