Disclaimer: Characters from The Avengers aren't mine, nor are those from Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. Making no claims of ownership of other referenced creations either. Everything belongs to their respective owners. I gain no economical profit from this.
A/N: Consider this a pilot. The ratings will decide if it'll be continued.
Because with mediocre writing skills + bad English (my class is still learning the difference between is and are) I'm not qualified to do this justice. Betas I've contacted have ignored me. Please PM me if willing to take the big job. 'Till then, bear with the Norglish.
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Style: (just making sure you get it)
"normal" = normal talk
"italicized" = TV, radio, communicator etc.
'italicized' = thought
italicized = written note
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Slippery People
Part 01:
Smoke and Mirrors
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Three.
Two.
One.
The clock read 21:00. Smoke rose from the prison cell's surveillance cameras. The fake footage that transmitted to SHIELD's headquarters jarred a bit. The agents dismissed it as a weather disturbance, not worried about the Asgardian criminal still asleep on their surveillance screens.
Back in the cell, emerald eyes opened. Loki stood up, very awake.
He'd planned this down to the very last detail. All sixty-four surveillance cameras had now stopped rotating. He'd hacked in and planted fake videos yesterday, triggering an overheat reaction. Obtaining the means and technological knowledge to do so had been quite difficult. Not impossible, though.
The Friday guard had obeyed, smoke detector was mysteriously absent. Men tended to give in when their firstborn's life was threatened.
According to Loki's calculations there were eight guards outside. Today was a Sunday—the Day of Rest—meaning it was difficult finding good guards. Inspection was at nine o'clock. Johnson, the new guard, was always late, and it gave Loki enough time get a silver suitcase out from under the bed. It'd blend in nicely with the gray floor. The guard wouldn't see it. Too dim.
Loki saw Johnson's shadow beneath the metal door, typing it in all the codes Loki had long since memorized. Johnson was short, blonde, and wore the standard dark blue uniform and helmet, and from what Loki had heard during late-night backtalk, gambled and bedded barmaids on the weekends.
The door slammed shut after him.
"Standard procedure. Hands up, face against the wall. Try anything and you're dead." Loki did as commanded, expressionless as the guard searched him. "Not that you could do anything without your powers, heh."
Loki sneered. His punishment in Asgard had been swift: sent back to Midgard with his magic sealed inside him. The All-Father still viewed earthlings as weak, thus thinking making Loki one would cause instant redemption. But there was no turning back from the path Loki had chosen. The world leaders hadn't been keen on having Loki back whole—they'd preferred his head—but Odin offered good militaristic trades, and a deal was struck.
"...You're about as dangerous as a newborn kitty. Doesn't make you less of a freak though." Johnson's hold on Loki's shoulder tightened. "You killed my pal's daughter. Her entire kindergarten was smashed during the attack. You deserve being treated like dirt." Where did they find these fools, hiding under rocks? "...I should make you feel fear, like she felt..."
"Oh I promise you, I'm terrified," Loki drawled. Did Odin really believe making him mingle in this human zoo would teach him a lesson?! "I'm positive I reek of fear."
"Shut up! Only thing you reek of is-" Before the brute could finish the insult, he frowned. "What's that smell?"
Loki cracked his head to both sides, loosening up some muscles. He then pointed to the ceiling.
"Oh my god—!"
(Loki was nothing of the sort. Not anymore.)
He slammed the steel suitcase's sharp tip into Johnson's jaw, nose and forehead. The white walls were morbidly prettier with scarlet streaks. And Johnson dropped to the floor. Loki reached for the half-conscious man, "Pardon me, but I will have to borrow your clothes."
Outside, the patrolling guards grew wary. Three minutes were the maximum when it came to an inspection. Johnson had been in there for ten. "Johnson?" one of the men shouted. The response was several gunshots. The cell was rendered to darkness.
"What's going on in there?!"
"Let's move in someone might be hurt!"
Outnumbered warriors could win wars if one of theirs was endangered. These men weren't dissimilar, forgetting to alert the prison authorities when Johnson was inside a cell with a sociopath from another realm. The door flew open. In came six guards dressed in black, glass shards from shattered lights cracking under their boots. It was accompanied by shouts like "He's still here!", "I can't see anything!" and "Stop playing in the shadows like a child!"
The last part made Loki smile grimly. "Gentlemen." He stepped in front of the exit, silhouetted like a shadow. Red dots on his helmet appeared, their guns ready to pepper him full of bullets. In one hand, Loki had a shining suitcase. In the other was the gun shoved into Johnson's mouth, Loki's finger resting on the trigger. "Shh…" Johnson's pupils rolled back into his head, face bloodied and bruised. "Let's not be too hasty." Up above, the smoke thickened.
"Let him go!" an elderly one said.
"What, so your pack of wolves can mutilate me as soon as Johnson here hits the floor?" They couldn't see Loki's face—but he could see theirs, twisting with rage. "Keep the chains tight, or someone might die."
Hard steel dug into Loki's back. "Like you, unless you let him go," another guard said from behind him, clicking a safety off. Loki wearing Johnson's uniform and helmet enraged him. Guard number eight. Loki inwardly cursed in Norse for not noticing. "Thought you'd escape, eh, freak? Eh? Eh?! Ya can't do anythin' without your bloody magic!"
Did this mortal believe Loki's magic was the solemn reason he'd almost caused Earth's downfall? Loki's hand quivered and he stretched his fingers. Magic had been a part of him since birth. It was something beneath his flesh, inside his bones. It couldn't be removed completely, only weakened, contained, trapped, bound; a roaring beast sealed inside of him. Even the weakest spells now hurt immensely. Attempting a summoning had left him unconscious for days.
But he still had his mind.
The man behind him was loud, young, short—angle of the gun told him that—and spoke with an accent. It left only one option of who it could be. "How's Elizabeth, Charlie?"
"What?!"
"I speak of your wife. Your female life-partner. Elizabeth, or rather, your 'Lizzie. Flaxen hair in a bun, hazel eyes, often dressed in exercise clothes… Remember?" This was child's play.
"Don't listen to him, he's just playing mind tricks!" a guard shouted from inside the cell. Tricks? Could petty tricks reduce a man to a whimpering mess? Driving someone to madness wasn't a trick. It was a talent.
Charlie shifted his weight from one foot to another, attention on Loki. "…H-How d'ya know about 'Lizzie?"
Loki turned his head slightly. "It is rather simple. Your kin assume people sleep when their eyes are closed. I heard Renaldo Broker here talk about his nightly visit with Elizabeth. Would you like me to share the details?"
Dead silence followed. One could hear a pin drop. Renaldo Broker was among the ones trapped in the cell, as stunned as the rest. Torn between emotions and common sense, trifling little minds in chaos. 'Did she cheat? No, it's trick! But I did smell cologne on her…'
Johnson's blood-smudged clock read 21:11. It is in crucial moments most commit mistakes. Too used to the feel of magic between his fingers, Loki muttered a spell. Charlie and Johnson were shoved into the cell by an invisible force. But that wasn't all—Loki's arm exploded. Or, more specifically, veins in his arm did, the use of his powers triggering the violent anti-magic wards cast upon him in Asgard.
Loki closed the door just in time to hear someone spew out a tragic monologue about needing to live to support his pregnant wife. 'Imbecile.' Loki's arm gushed blood, darkening the guard cloth (thankfully not too visible), but at least it was better than the orange jumpsuit prisoners here had to wear.
An alarm went off, and the hall's walls blinked in red. SHIELD must have seen his escape by now. Loki headed for the lift, ignoring the impulse to smile at the cameras.
Whistling on a Midgardian tune—the American national anthem, if he recalled correctly—he pushed the one button in the lift and the doors closed. He ripped the surveillance camera down from its place, and he then opened the suitcase and flipped out an upgraded version of a telephone device, a 'black berry'. Odd what an upgraded telephone could do. One could read a person's life from the pictures and messages. Perfect blackmail or general mind screwing material.
Their biggest error was moving him to the nonviolent crowd, forgetting he'd gauged a man's eye out. It'd allowed him to strategize without interruption. The prison was well-guarded, but if one studied it closely one could spot holes in the highest of security. The right to read was still his according to Midgardian prison customs. In a week he was as knowledgeable as an engineer in computer science.
Through the lift's window he saw guard after guard. Loki tipped his helmet a bit more down. It felt surreal.
Orders rang from the loudspeakers.
"We have a situation on the fourth floor division six, all untrained units must leave the building, I repeat; all untrained units must leave the building."
On the second floor, it stopped. As the doors, a SWAT team stood waiting, members wrestling themselves forth in the chaos of people. Loki blended in with the crowd as fast as he could, keeping his head low. His helmet kept him hidden.
"Is this a training exercise?" someone asked.
"Does it look like that, dipshit?" someone else replied.
Special unit members looked through the crowd, picking random workers and asking them about ID. One of them squinted at Loki. His blood turned to ice.
Someone laid a hand on his shoulder and his surroundings froze. Holding his breath, he turned around. An old man stood there. "Oi, rookie, here's the way out. That door leads up. You'll get yelled at for sure." Some of the special units waved to him, and he waved back. "I know these guys, so there's no reason to get nervous. They're just like us, but with shinier badges."
"I—I'm sorry," Loki stammered, faking an accent. "Never taken part in this before."
The old man jokingly patted Loki's helmet. "Just stick close to me, son." It was only the audience arranging a road for them that kept Loki from arranging the removal of the old man's head. They moved along with the ocean of people. None of the guards spared Loki a second glance after seeing such a loyal old guard with him, and it didn't take long until the crowd guided him out into the parking lot outside.
And that was how Loki walked out of a maximum security prison.
It was night in Midgard. But the dark clouds above didn't lessen his mood. Even the rain was welcomed. Under an umbrella stood a freckled girl with red hair and squared glasses, waiting for him. Deaf and dull, but useful. She did not speak—could not speak, not properly—and guided him to her gray vehicle. He sat into the backseat and sunk into the seats. He removed his helmet. They used the chaos to escape unnoticed. As they hit the main road, numerous police cars pulled in. The night was illuminated in blue and red, twinkling in puddles and car windows, sirens howling.
That was when Loki first allowed himself to breathe properly. He cast a look at the redhead driving. It was in the prison's cafeteria he'd found her; his first pawn. Two tables from his solitary corner had some mobsters from another city been seated. "What I'd for to a woman," one of them had begun. "Y'know, one with big tits and a round mouth to—"
"Save it, ain't no gals in here. Go drop the soap if you're that desperate."
"There's one!" Behind bars in a kitchen section, a female cook had been cutting up carrots. The fool had started addressing her ("Wanna taste some real man, sugar pie?") until a guard told him he'd just gotten latrine duty for six weeks.
Then the other mobster had revealed something interesting. "Idiot. They hired her 'cos she can't hear shit, so we can't scare her off." Deaf? An idea had blossomed in Loki's head.
The trap had started off simple: a note hidden under his cup of water, detailing the guards' dismissal over his chloride sensitivity. The next day, she'd written 'no salt' on his food. Loki had eaten it smiling despite how shitty it was. He'd needed to widen her façade's cracks. A few days later, he'd quietly questioned a guard about his mother's sexual decency. She'd watched as he was hit. He'd made sure. It inspired even more sympathy.
She'd offered him bandages. Knowing she'd come, he'd slapped the equipment out of her hand, faked extreme distress, hyperventilating until she left. He knew how one looked before a beating (even the 'halcyon' Asgard had drunks and fiends) and had copied it. As well as having a silver tongue, Loki also had good acting skills. He'd already drafted an abused childhood story. When finished, he left it on a pink note along with a yellow origami bird—mortals liked theatrics—at his plate. I apologize, I did not intend to act ill-mannered… I am not used to kindness... That is all. Rest of it was some sob story about his alcoholic father. People with low self esteem were often easily manipulated, trusting the first nice person that came along. …This gift is not much, but regardless, I hope I am forgiven. He'd seen her straighten out the note's wrinkles as well as her own creased up forehead. Careful, like holding a real bird, she'd held the origami figure. For the first time, she'd smiled to him.
And Loki had smiled back because the trap had sprung around her.
Rest of it had gone fluently. His fake sympathy had made her share secrets about herself and her sister's drug abuse. Exchanging notes instead of direct confrontation made her open up more, like the paper worked as a barrier, a mask. Soon he'd deliberately pushed her in the direction of helping him escape. She now firmly believed that whatever crimes he'd committed were because of his tragic past. Of course it wasn't his fault, but his abusing, neglecting father! Loki snorted and returned to the present.
This pause couldn't last. The train station laid close by.
New York was a constant headache, with loud people and buzzing streets. It was also a constant reminder of his failure. About the destruction and death he felt nothing. Humans bred like rats without anything—or anyone—to control them. Seven billion by now, wasn't it?
With rain pouring against the windows, he could only see blurred lights.
He tore off some strips from his guard cloth and bandaged his arm, the magic wound still fresh and bleeding. A winter coat was thrown beside him. In the car window, he saw that the female had worry in her eyes. Had it been pity, someone might've found her corpse mashed into the train tracks the next morning. Loki just thanked her. He could be quite charming so desired. But had her usefulness expired? Well, if things turned unpleasant, having a human shield could prove to be the opposite.
The coat was long enough to cover the blood on his trousers, and by turning his coat collar up, he hid half his face.
The car stopped. Loki grabbed his suitcase and exited the car, the girl following.
"Thank you…" He'd forgotten her name. Loki read off her suit's ID, "…Angelica. You have been most useful to me." Then, out of hatred against her race, he bent down, mouth near her ear. His next words were not pleasant. After delivering the little tirade, Loki pulled away, smiling just as charmingly.
Angelica blushed, convinced that he'd told her something nice. It clearly wasn't a setup. She handed him the train ticket with such obedience that Loki wondered if she'd take a bullet for him. "Goodbye," she mouthed as a series of railroad cars entered the stations. Loki had read a little about train terminology during his imprisonment, recognizing where to enter a train. As soon as he'd parted with the girl, his expression darkened. He'd heard the sirens long before she did, and could already see police battling themselves through the thick crowds.
Loki uncurled the ticket, ink a bit smeared because of his damp pocket.
It spelt GOTHAM with big black letters.
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Inside the aquarium, tropical fishes swam round and round and round.
It was easier to look at them rather than at the girl Loki had brainwashed.
"…reverse Stockholm syndrome," the old policeman finished, looking at her through the window. The tiny woman sat in the interrogation room, hands folded in her lap. Incredible how who looked like innocence itself could be an accomplice of a mass murderer. "Always the quiet ones, isn't it?" The policeman had seen a lot of shit in his work. Hadn't even flinched when three Avengers stormed his office.
"Sir, please let me talk to her," Captain America urged.
The policeman took a drag from his antique pipe.
Ironman, or Stark, was leaning against a wall. His mask was off. "There's not much to talk about, cap." Not all the guards Loki had locked in Loki's cell had survived. He'd seen the families crying in the police station's lobby, desperate for answers. "She's deaf." '...and brokenly loyal,' Stark added in his head, glancing at Thor, who kept his eyes on the aquarium.
Captain America grabbed a note from the commissioner's desk. He scribbled something down.
The commissioner read through it while exhaling the smoke at the No smoking! sign on his desk. He looked through window again. "Go."
Captain America nodded back and entered. Thor followed.
"Hello ma'am," the star-spangled Avenger greeted. She paled. His expression softened and he gave her the note. 'Please. We need all the information we can get. Loki isn't a common criminal; he's a sociopathic mass murderer that will kill again if he gets the chance.' "Please," Captain America repeated.
The little lady shifted uncomfortably upon 'mass murderer' just like Thor always did. But by Odin was she tiny. Three heads shorter than him at least.
"No." Her voice was loud and off—he realized it was because she couldn't hear herself. "You did not... You did not see his eyes."
Captain America had nothing to answer to that.
Thor got an idea. He leant forward and wrote 'BROTHER' on a yellow sticker, handing it to her. He pointed at himself. She squinted. Thor sighed and decided to leave.
"Wait!" Thor jerked, turning his head. Her hand was on his lower arm. "I have a... bad sister. I l—love her."
Something unspoken passed between Thor and the girl.
"...Gotham," she then told him.
Slam!
The door to the other room flew open. The commissioner's pipe fell to the floor, breaking.
Captain America held up a hand, "No, wait, we need to strategize—"
Thor pushed past everyone who stood in his way, gone in an instant. Stark had half-expected him to go right through the wall, leaving Thor-shaped hole.
"Y'know..." the Captain pointed at Stark. "I'm going to start blaming that on you."
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Hours had passed.
The Midgardian device—the train—had gone past fields, cities, slums, and mountains.
It passed a 'Welcome to Gotham' sign, its letters washed out and barely readable. Vulgarities in green graffiti had been written underneath. Gotham's atmosphere was all but welcoming. Very different from New York. Darker. Heavier rain poured. Restless winds howled, forcing trees to bow. Gray, polluted clouds hang over the city. A crimson sunset shone through them. Wasn't the sunset a mirror reflecting all the blood spilled in Gotham?
Why had the girl sent him here? Did Loki reflect this twisted city?
It reminded him of his childhood and... them. Joining hands. Dancing around him. Singing. He'd pressed his hands against his ears and still heard it. "Silver-tongue, Silver-tongue, why are you here with us?"
If he had a place to go to, he'd go there.
For now, he'd do with this sombre city. 'Not like I have a choice,' he thought, exiting the train, suitcase in hand. Without magic, he did not have his natural resistance to low temperatures. Loki shivered. He needed to find a tavern of some sort. Sleep. Take one day at a time. Try breaking the seals that caged his magic.
He passed demolished buildings, litter dumps and homeless people. No one plagued him during his travels. He guessed it was because of his own eerie aura, triggering basic instincts in the barbarians. A dead drunk girl—fifteen or nineteen, hard to see because of the smudged makeup—was pushed against a dumpster by a hairy pig, skirt drawn high. Loki did not spare them a second glance. Those inside and outside prison didn't seem that dissimilar. Or had he walked into a bad district? Was Gotham a tree rotten to the core, a sewer of corruption?
A store window caught his attention, sale posters glued to the glass. Inside televisions in all shapes and sizes showed the same image: a man with a double chin sitting behind a desk, talking. Thor had undoubtedly concluded that there was an actual human inside. 'To think I called him brother,' Loki thought bitterly.
Despite the downpour, clear noise came through the window.
"...Urgent news on Gotham Tonight! Arkham asylum inmate Jonathan Crane, also nicknamed the Scarecrow, escaped by midnight, taking out five guards in the process." A costume popped up on the screen next to a picture of the inmate unmasked with eyes in an intense shade of blue. Not electric Thor blue; icier, like late autumn frost on frozen grass. "...He nicknames himself the Master of Fear, and is highly unstable and dangerous to approach. We beg all the viewers to take precaution. After what we've been told, trained police are on his trail."
A woman and a man popped up on the screen. "Jonathan Crane is the former head of Arkham Asylum. The crime that showed his mental instability was the poisoning in downtown Gotham, releasing chemicals that forced victims to experience horrid hallucinations, nicknamed the 'Fear Gas'. Luckily it was quickly stopped by our brace police force."
"Doctor, what about the claim that the vigilante known as the Batman was the saviour?" Loki recalled that name. The mobsters had talked about the Batman, the vigilante that dressed up like a giant flying rodent.
"That's a load of bull, Susie. The Batman is a psychopathic murderer who beats up the insane for some twisted sense of justice. As written in my book, he is the real reason that these demented people show up in the first place..."
"Bullshit."
Loki turned to the side.
An old woman stood there, hands deep in her pockets. "Saw the Bat savin' a kid last week. Man might be a lil' crazy, but he's no murderer. It's some government setup, I know it..." The woman continued to mutter to herself, hurrying home. Paranoia had sunk its teeth hard into that one.
Loki took a shortcut through an alley. An amateur robber blocked his path, knife in one hand, the other opening and closing. "Give me your wallet, lanky man."
The mortals and their insufferable nicknames. Loki decided he'd do an experiment. He reached into his pocket. Held out his hand. Smirked. "Ah. Here it is." Despite an awful hurt in his arm, a tiny green flame appeared in the palm of his hand and he swung it forward.
Into the robber's face.
"Wharghh!" Loki pressed on. Heat blazed. Skin went crisp under his hand. Not permanent, but still fun. Loki's arm started hurting something awful, but the robber's screaming dulled it. But it had to come to an end eventually, and Loki pulled back, and the man fell on his bottom. "Fucking freak!" he shouted, fear lacing his voice. Loki merely raised an eyebrow and took a step forward. The man screeched like an endangered maiden and crawled off like a hound, tail between its legs. Fear was quite interesting.
And as if called, a thin figure bolted through the ally, right. Into. Loki.
There was a crash of two bodies colliding. Both fell backwards into puddles on the pavement. The man groaned in pain and shakily stood up. His glasses were held together by duct tape. The police jacket he wore was too big. He looked up, brown bangs no longer covering his... eyes. Blue-tinted white. Just like-
"The Scarecrow."
Loki did not view ordinary mortals as weak. But this was Gotham. Here, ordinary people died young or moved away.
The Scarecrow stood frozen. He cast a look behind him. Then to Loki. He held up a rusty spray box of some sort and greenish smoke was sprayed into Loki's face. As he inhaled it, magic he'd believed lost recoiled within him.
Tiny green sparks seared, churned and hissed like electricity across his skin, each pop a tiny explosion. Raw magic fought the negative effects of the Fear Gas. Like a sleeping serpent, caged magic hissed upon awakening, tearing at the chains and locks containing it. Some small sparks escaped his fingertips, glittering like gold. The lights cracked in the air, dancing against the Scarecrow. They slithered up his arm. He did not notice. Those intense ice eyes behind the mask never tore away from Loki. "You're not from around these parts, are you?"
It was not a time for questions or answers, because it was night in Gotham. It was then a watchful knight ransacked the rotten tree, cutting of the diseases infecting it. Loki did not reflect Gotham—the Batman did, with his dark cape and demonic look.
And he headed their way. Although the apparent Master of Fear, he had no qualms running from the Batman. It told that the figure heading their way was more than a man in a costume. The Scarecrow gave Loki one last curious glance. Then he vanished in shadows, still in possession of some of Loki's magic.
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A/N: Y'know those stories where Loki is just misunderstood and forgives everyone? This is not that kind of story.