It's the red helmet that catches Loki's eye, really, more than the man wearing it. He can tell what it's supposed to do; the mutants he's run into in his travels have had various talents, and he felt enough of the telepathy to be able to tell that this helmet can resist it. It's useless against his magic, though, and Loki's instantly curious as to what this mutant is hiding because of course he is, he's the god of mischief and chaos, and the helmet has to have a story behind it.

He wasn't expecting to find what seems to be a reflection of himself.

The mind of the man with the helmet is shattered and dark and chaotic and refracted into about a thousand shards and Loki feels the pain of each one individually. He can't examine each one individually because doing so would remind him too much of his own pain (and now he's thought about it, damn) but he gets a general impression of blue eyes and a beach, and something that looks like a coin with a strange cross-like shape on it, and there's an impression of terrible and immense power, Loki's genuinely surprised that a Midgardian can possess that much power, it even looks like he has allies who would follow him anywhere and what is that underlying desire.

No. It can't be.

It is.

Humans were made to be ruled, says the mind of the man with the helmet, and the last pieces of Loki's plan fall to complete the puzzle.

When he swaggers over to the man with the helmet and pulls up a stool beside him, calling out to the bartender for another round for himself and the helmeted gentleman, please, he's wearing the blue eyes he saw in the tatters of the man's mind.


They are silent and vicious. Peace was never an option and lust flares and sparks in its embers until everything is the movement and the sharp painful stabs of ecstasy and, incongruously, the faint violet scent of the hotel's lotion. Erik pants harshly above him and Loki remembers his fall as his vision whites out, stars crystallizing, the concussion of universes, and he's in free fall with no hope of survival.

"Whose eyes was I wearing?" Loki dares to ask, afterwards, lying spent and terrifyingly vulnerable on the bed, extricating his mind from the haze of pleasure.

"He betrayed me." The depths of pain have not healed prettily, are revealed in the harsh edges of the syllables. I betrayed him. They are the same thing; Loki understands this better than anyone, is surprised Erik does.

Loki raises himself onto his elbow and looks into Erik's eyes, darkened and bitter. "What was he to you?" he whispers, leaning in, allowing his breath to ghost over the other man's face. Erik closes his eyes and shudders, almost imperceptibly, preparing himself for the next word.

"Brother," says Erik's mouth.

loverloverloverloverlover says Erik's mind, and Loki understands and does not understand and knows that this man will burn more brightly than he ever could and he imagines the power, terrifying and immense, that will come of their alliance.

"I, too."

Erik's eyes flash open, hope and steel and darkness. Loki sees in them the promise of fires burning in the streets and knows that everything in their path will be consumed without apology or forgiveness.