Of course Loki was taking the heat for this; it was to be expected, was it not? Not totally unfair, he admitted, but it wasn't like he'd intentionally messed things up this time.
Loki sulked to himself, snorting air from his nose in an angry huff. One little mistake and he'd been chastised like a small child.
It really had been unfortunate. Finally, after slowly earning the other Avengers' trust (if it could be called that. Mostly trusting him just enough to not stab anyone in the kidney when they turned their back), Loki had been given the privilege to actually leave the tower and go on a mission with them. It hadn't been a dangerous mission; in all aspects, quite easy for someone as talented as him—but it hadn't gone as well as the trickster would have liked.
The mission was to infiltrate a covert HYDRA base that had been built under the chaos of the whole Thanos situation. Files needed to be recovered so that the heroes knew what HYDRA's plans were. Large spikes of energy showed on the maps, and it had the others (mainly Rogers, Barnes, and Stark) exceedingly worried and up in antics about the whole thing.
After several hours of discussion and lots of persuasion from Thor, Stark had finally buckled and said, "Fine, Reindeer Games can come! Hell, I don't even care anymore. Just make sure he doesn't get into any trouble. His magic could be useful anyway, I guess. You're his chaperone."
And then Thor had given Loki a bright, prideful smile framed by two thumbs up and Loki couldn't help but smile back and relax because finally, he got to leave this blasted tower and spend some of his restless, pent up energy. Maybe murdering some HYDRA agents would help with getting some more trust around here as well.
It had started out fine enough; Loki, along with Thor, Stark, Rogers, Parker, Romanoff, and Barton had set off in the quinjet to a rural, quite out of the way and hidden location in Wyoming of all places. They'd infiltrated the base easily, mowing down stupidly loyal HYDRA followers who probably had no idea why they were there.
Their mission had been to hack into the computer systems with the help of Stark's AI and then download all the files. Then they'd be sorted through and read. Easy, right?
Yes, in fact. Except it didn't end up going as smooth as silk, and while Loki knew he had a . . . small hand in fucking up, he couldn't say he'd tried to.
Down in the main control center, the Avengers had all fought their way in and were guarding the exits. Stark was ready to begin the transfer of files when shit hit the fan. From the above vents came a slew of HYDRA agents armed with powerful weapons, and specifics were lost in battle.
The only moment that mattered anyway was when Loki turned to kill a trio of agents in front of him with a powerful blast of magic when he'd been struck hard in the back by something. It had actually hurt, and, in shock, combined with the fact he'd just been whacked like a pinata, Loki had tripped forward and fumbled his shot. Green lit up the room, the walls shook, and the HYDRA agents attacking him were all dead, but . . . the drives holding all the information that the Avengers needed to obtain, were destroyed.
There were groans from around the room; the magical burst hadn't been forgiving to anyone nearby. The other Avengers stumbled to their feet and immediately assessed the damage, Stark being at the forefront as he all but screamed, "No! No, no, no! The fucking files! Shit, FRIDAY!"
Tony (not in suit) lurched forward and began typing frantically as FRIDAY ran analytics on the computer system. Meanwhile, glares were being sent Loki's way, but he tried to ignore them and instead put out a fire that had started on the fringes of his cape.
"Sorry, Boss, but it looks like the data is unrecoverable. We have nothing," FRIDAY had informed the room of assembled heroes, and the effects had been immediate.
"You sabotaged the mission!" Barton had shouted. "I knew we shouldn't have taken him with!"
"You just squashed any attempts we had of getting reliable information of what HYDRA is planning," Rogers said sternly. Glares come from almost everyone besides Romanoff, the spider child, and Thor, but even Thor had a look of exasperation on his face as he looked at his younger brother.
Inwardly, Loki had been in turmoil and he ended up angrily berating himself. The one time he had tried not to cause mischief, and he'd ended up ruining things anyway. Hiding his distress behind a mask of indifference, Loki took the tongue lashings and stood there quietly. He was still kinda smoldering, so he patted out one of the licks of flame on his shoulder. It helped ignore the hatred spewing toward him by the rest of the team.
"I told you he can't be trusted," Barton snarled—he, of course, took every opportunity to drag Loki through the mud whenever he could.
"We just lost our best lead," Cap sighed with a shake of his head.
"Amazing," Stark had chimed in with his usual sarcasm. "Way to go."
Neither Romanoff nor Peter had said a word during the exchange, and neither had Thor; he just looked at the trickster with pressing, mismatched eyes. Of course, nothing from the thunderer actually hurt Loki the most and he felt his mask slipping away in favor of a small frown and casting his face downwards.
The mission was a complete failure in the end because of Loki and he couldn't say it wasn't because of him, either, because it was. The walk back to the quinjet had been full of anger and muttered words, and Loki had been sentenced to a not so indirect timeout in the very back of their transport (mostly Stark's idea).
So now here Loki was, sitting in a very lower level of the Avengers Tower with his back to the wall, his knees pulled to his chest, and his mind in a grumpy whirlwind. He hadn't defended himself to the team—they hadn't seen what had happened and thought he did it on purpose. He was treated completely and utterly like an ex-con (not that he wasn't) and there was almost no wiggle room allowed for him to fudge up (not like that happened often either). Thor was usually the only one defending him, but even now, the golden god had been quiet and probably on the heroes' side. It shouldn't have bothered him so much that no one trusted or believed him, but it did. He didn't even know why, exactly, but he had tried so hard to be good and it had no impact anyway.
Loki sighed and glared at the floor, his head in a hand. He did this for so long that he barely realized his vision was blurring; he inhaled jerkily and pulled his lips back in a snarl.
"I hope you don't mind that I made dinner," Vision said as the team walked in through the door to the kitchen. The android was wearing his typical sweater vest and slacks along with an oven mitt on one hand as he hovered forward to meet the entering heroes. "I know your mission didn't go well, but perhaps it would help if we all sat down and ate together."
"Uh oh, Vision's cooking," Natasha murmured to Wanda next to her, and the rest of the team who had heard laughed at Vision's expense.
Fortunately, he took this in stride and smiled sheepishly, "Yes, I know, but I followed recipes this time."
"Whatever, I'm game. I'm starved, and if it was just me eating alone, I'd eat garbage," Tony said, walking forward and taking a seat at the already set table.
"Or nothing, more than likely," Bruce added as he too sat down.
"At least it looks good," Clint joked with a smile. Natasha sat down next to him and soon everyone was sitting except for Thor.
"Oh boy, I'm starved!" Peter said, practically drooling at the food spread out on the table.
"Don't get your spider spit all over everything, huh, kid?" Tony laughed. He picked up a bowl of mashed potatoes and was about to scoop some onto the teenager's plate when he noticed the golden god standing stoically beside the table. "Hey, Point Break, you gonna sit down and eat? Don't tell me you're not hungry."
Steve glanced up from his conversation with Bucky and added, "Is something wrong, Thor?"
Thor shifted from foot to foot, looking uncertain. "I . . . would feel bad if I partook in this meal without Loki here."
Rhodey rolled his eyes and said, "C'mon, dude, he ruined the mission."
"No doubt on purpose, too," Clint added with a huff. "That no good trickster doesn't deserve to eat with us."
Thor's eyebrows furrowed and he frowned. "I know Loki made a mistake, but I doubt he intended for the result to be as severe as it was."
"He can eat later. Come on, big guy, sit down," Tony urged. "He doesn't usually eat with us anyway."
"Does that guy even eat? I don't think I've ever actually seen him eating," Wanda commented idly.
"Yes, he eats; Loki must eat to keep his magic flowing. He just prefers not to be seen doing so. He is very . . . private," Thor said.
"Obviously," Tony mumbled.
"Unfortunately, I do not even know where Loki has run off to. I've searched for him all over the tower."
Peter looked thoughtful for a moment before he continued eating.
"It'll be okay, Thor. Just eat and converse with us for a while. Loki's obviously not well received at the moment anyway," Steve said.
Thor appeared doubtful, contemplating the idea, before he finally resigned and took a seat on the opposite side of Vision.
As soon as dinner was over, Peter excused himself and ran off.
Peter found the trickster in the basement, in the dark, sitting silently in a corner. Easily and quietly entering the already open room, the teenager made his way over to him. He wasn't sure Loki even knew he was there until he heard a quiet, "What do you want?"
Peter perked up and then shot a web that turned the lights on, startling Loki, who flinched and covered his eyes. Beside from being burnt around the edges and more than a bit ruffled, the god of mischief looked relatively normal.
"I thought I'd come and find you, since, you know, you missed dinner," Peter started nervously. This was met with a grunt of acknowledgement from the trickster and a shrug.
"You are wasting your time if you think I care at all," Loki muttered, keeping his back to the teenager. Peter walked forward and sat crisscross-applesauce next to him.
"N-not about eating, I guess, no." Peter rubbed the back of his head. "I just wanted to say that everyone makes mistakes. I know you didn't intentionally ruin the mission."
Loki made a sound of wry amusement. "Do you now?"
"Y-yeah, I do." Peter tried to look around the trickster's hand covering one side of his face to maybe see what emotions might be hiding there. A flash of green eye was all he saw before Loki growled in his throat and whipped his dark hair over his shoulder to make it nearly impossible for Peter to get a read on him.
"A-anyway," Peter continued, slightly shaken, "I know you didn't because if you had, you probably would have been smirking. And also, I know you've been trying your best to be able to leave the tower and do something; you wouldn't screw that up after so long on the first time out."
Finally, Loki lifted his head and narrowed his eyes at the teenager next to him. ". . . And you believe this?"
Peter nodded without hesitation. He noticed how the younger god's eyes were slightly red.
Loki appeared thoughtful before finally saying, "Well then, I suppose you'd be the second to not assume the worst out of me."
Peter would have asked why he was second if he hadn't known that Thor was literally the biggest Loki sympathizer ever.
"You know, you could just tell the team that it was an accident," Peter suggested with a hopeful shrug.
Loki barked out a laugh. "Oh yes, I can see that playing out exceedingly well. The god of mischief telling heroes how he didn't purposely cause mischief. Hilarious."
"Well, they probably won't listen to me either. They'll say I'm just sympathizing with you. But if they heard it from both of us, then maybe . . . and honestly, if you ever want to leave this tower again, you might want to say sorry."
"Doesn't even matter. They don't trust me as far as they can throw me, and they never will. There's no use in trying anymore if everything I do will be met with contempt, and I cannot have and absolutely do not want Thor to keep sticking up for me as if I depend on him or I don't have a voice," Loki retorted. "I'm still a villain to most of them. That will never change."
"It's at least worth a try, you know? If you apologize, it'll at least prove that you're not all bad," Peter replied. "It'll show you're trying. And it's a heck of a lot better than sitting down here sulking."
Loki shot him a glare at that, but he had to admit the kid had a point. His freedom was very important to him, and without that, he might as well be in prison again.
"I suppose, Spider Child, that you're somewhat right," Loki said.
"See? That's the spirit," Peter beamed. Truthfully, he was surprised Loki had listened to him at all instead of just casting him out from the get go. In reality, Peter really liked Loki; the trickster was typically hilarious and whimsical, something he found fascinating combined with the fact he was an ex-con.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, kid." Loki rolled his eyes. "I don't need to be patronized."
"U-uh, sorry." Peter rubbed an arm coyly. "So, uh . . ."
"Not right now."
"You'll miss everyone if you stay down here too long, though-?" Peter even sounded unsure of himself, but he felt bad for the trickster. He knew what it felt like to make a mistake and be excluded.
Loki sent a deadpan glare Peter's way, but nonetheless sighed and uncurled from his huddle to stand up.
"Look at me; how I've fallen," the god muttered.
"Aw, don't be like that, Mr. Loki! It'll be okay as long as you show you're striving to improve!" Peter beamed. His dorky grin actually made Loki smirk.
"If you could just pretend we never had this talk, that'd be great. I can't have anyone thinking I'm a softie."
"Your secret's safe with me," Peter laughed, "promise."
A/N: I was gonna post this into "Breaking Points" but I decided against it. It technically would work very well there but I'd like more feedback on this characterization of Loki and his interactions with Peter because I agree with the headcanon that Peter would think Loki is super cool. XD