The footsteps were getting closer now, as Loki and Steve edged away from the windows. The room was completely empty, except for them. Steve could feel his heart beating, beating faster than it had in a long time and, just for a moment, he was back to being that scrawny guy in the alley. The same guy that had never stood a chance.
Loki gently put a hand on his shoulder. The frost giant was not a kind being, nor was he tactful or particularly merciful, but he was a survivalist. Right now, in order to survive, he needed Steven Rogers alive, well, and capable to fight.
The door nudged open. Fingers appeared through the crack. Then they stopped.
"Alf," A voice called from down on the factory floor. "The boss is coming."
"Just a mo." The guy, presumably Alf, called from just outside the room. "I'm just checking there's no-one here."
"Alf, no-one's going to be here. The padlock on the door was probably a holdover from the last owner of this dump." The voice called up, long suffering. "Now get down here before the boss does. He's just got out of prison you know."
Steve inhaled sharply as the fingers disappeared from view. Loki's grip on his shoulder relaxed fractionally. Steve swallowed the impulse to shrug it off. "We sit in here and we wait this out, move once they've left." he whispered, "Unless you've got a better idea?"
Loki shook his head. "Not until we know what this mysterious new owner was in prison for."
They had to play it safe, at least for now. It would be a shame to lose the warehouse, after all they'd just started being comfortable, but it was better than being caught, especially by less than saintly beings. Loki wasn't sure he could face captivity again, not after The Other. He'd barely held it together last time, and he'd been relatively sure SHIELD didn't have the guts to do anything, not without the paperwork first.
Loki shed his coat, which he'd grabbed earlier, and handed it to Steve, then he gestured towards the door. Steve nodded, as Loki crept out onto the balcony, looking out over the vast floor below. He didn't recognise any of the five men.
One of them, cocky, short and even more arrogant than Thor at his worst, stood in the centre and spoke: "Well, this is my humble abode. From this starting point I will go forward, from this starting point I will go on, and I will be great. I will conquer this world, and no-one will ever remember the name Iron Man, for they will love me so much that they will shower me with adorations and love me. I will build the greatest tech empire this world has ever seen, I shall be Alexander the Great, I will be the chief lion and intimidate all the other fish in the sea."
Apparently, Loki thought, short and arrogant was even worse than Thor at making speeches as well, especially as there was no-one to hear him. Seriously, even Fandral wasn't that bad. Usually.
Short and arrogant was still monologing "Those that dare to oppose me shall fear the Hammer as we, the hammer, dare to drown those who oppose us, and we shall rise again on the dawn of opportunity. We are migrant birds facing the new spring, who shall be the new emperors of old."
Yeah, right, Loki thought, that guy might be dangerous, but only because he was clearly mentally unstable. Or possibly because of the goons he had with him. Either way Loki doubted he could learn anything more from watching a carefully rehearsed shit speech be acted out. He crept back inside the room where Steve and he had hid.
"So now there's that guy." He copied a remark he'd once heard a long time ago.
Steve 'huhed' as if he recognised the comment, "Any idea who he is?"
Loki shook his head. "Unfortunately not, although he's loud, arrogant, and the worst speech maker that I've ever come across. Even Fandral knew not to mix his metaphors like that."
"Fandral?" Steve asked
"One of Thor's friends, did he never mention him?" Loki was curious, surely his 'big brother' had bragged about his glorious kills time and time again.
Steve thought for a moment "No, I don't think so, but he didn't talk a lot about his old life in my presence. He talked constantly of Jane, sure. Couldn't stop talking of Jane, and a fair bit of Darcy, and of Eric Selvig, but there was very little talk of Asgard. He may have guessed my personal distaste of the bragging of death, even of animals."
"Oh yes," Loki couldn't help but roll his eyes, "The perfect soldier, yet soft on little animals."
"Not the perfect soldier." Steve interjected "A good man."
Loki glared at him, which happened much less than it used to. Considering it used to be his default look, that wasn't saying much.
"A perfect soldier would not be in my position." Steve pointed out, if he followed orders blindly, he'd still be with SHIELD, "And a perfect soldier would not leave you alive."
"Are you threatening me?" Loki asked in a low growl.
"Like I said," Steve spread his arms wide then pointed to his chest as Dr Erskine had done so many years before. "Not a perfect soldier, but a good man." He grinned at the look on Loki's face which ranged somewhere between trying not to laugh, and about to embark on a mass murdering campaign. Eventually Loki shook his head.
"You, Steve Rogers, are evil." Loki declared.
"I'm going to choose to take that as a compliment." Steve declared grinning.
"I bet you are!" Loki rolled his eyes, but then smiled slightly.
There was a loud noise from outside the room and Steve and Loki froze. They'd completely forgotten they weren't alone in the warehouse. Loki made to creep out again but Steve shook his head throwing Loki's coat back at him. "I've been undercover before. And I might recognise the guy." He whispered shedding his own jacket. "Besides I'm just some guy, you're kind of distinctive."
With that Steve left, creeping out along the balcony to where he should be able to see the floor of the Warehouse below. A surprising sight met him.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't the famous Antony Stark come to visit the little old me!" A short guy with dirty hair and a clear attitude problem declared, presumably Loki's 'short and arrogant'. Steve didn't recognise him, or the goons, but he recognised very clearly the two new entrants to the warehouse. What's more, if they looked up they'd recognise him.
Tony Stark stood as if on a pedestal, dressed immaculately in a, probably tailored, suit. Natasha Romanov stood next to him, dressed similarly, which was more unusual. "Justin Hammer." Tony sounded like he wanted to spit the name, but refrained with the barest civility. "You are one of the lowest life forms still left on this Earth. I hope you don't waste your short lived freedom, because let me tell you, I, and my friends, will be watching you."
"So if you don't want it to be a short life..." Natasha grinned, causing Steve's stomach to clench up on the balcony, while she looked Hammer straight in the eyes.
"Oh, Antony, all this fuss just for little old me." Short and Arrogant, who must be Justin Hammer, gestured to himself in mock innocence. He lent forwards to Natasha's face "Don't worry Dolly," He continued patronisingly "I'll have plenty of room for aging eye candy when I rule the world."
Natasha spat in his face. Steve had to stop himself from cheering, as the dribble ran down Justin Hammer's cheeks.
Natasha rolled he eyes "Don't worry," She spoke with an equally patronising tone "I'll leave you alone with your..." She paused for a moment letting her gaze roll around the warehouse. Just for a nanosecond her eyes collided with Steve's. He shook his head frantically, not even sure what he was saying, apart from don't say. Natasha turned back to Hammer "Empire." She finished with a grin, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she turned and walked out of the warehouse.
Tony Stark paused just long enough to add "While you've still got one." before following her out, oblivious to Steve's presence, fortunately.
Steve snuck back inside the room, his thoughts mainly running along the terribly indecent line of several swear words he hadn't even known that he knew. Loki looked up expectantly.
"If we hadn't had to move before, we do now." was the first thing Steve said.
"Problems?" Loki asked blandly.
"With a capito W." Steve added. Loki recognised that term.
"I didn't see her before?"
"You wouldn't have done, her arrival was that commotion, well she arrived with Tony Stark, but he's not the problem, nor is Justin Hammer, whose 'short and arrogant' by the way, the problem is," Steve paused pulling the leather jacket on "that Natasha spotted me, and she's Natasha, so she'll have recognised me, which means that if, and a big if, we're lucky, she'll turn up herself after dark, and probably interrogate me, she can't have worked out about you, apart from anything else you weren't there, but she might connect me to the guy braking you out, and then she'll know about you, so she'll probably tell SHIELD, so they'll come and arrest both of us, and then..."
"Steve." Loki cut off the blabbering "While it's an interesting discovery that you babble when scared, I get the point that we need to move as soon as we can."
"Okay," Steve nodded, taking a few deep breaths. "Do you want to go and watch when they're gone, and then we can get out of here and move somewhere else. If we're better dressed the Homeless shelters might take us."
"Steve," Loki pointed out "I'm blue. I think they might notice I'm not just cold."
Steve didn't know quite how to react to that. He left it a moment then added "Shush, you know, Hammer and stuff. Unless you're planning on selling me out and joining him."
"Nah," Loki scoffed, very quietly "I did promise that I wouldn't take over this world, and mother would never forgive me if I broke that. besides, he can't even make a speech, let alone actually succeed in anything ambitious."
Steve found it very telling that the main reason Loki wouldn't go back on his promise was that his mother would 'never forgive him' and that he only wasn't joining Hammer because he'd never win. It showed a sort of pragmatism which Steve admired, in its own way, but also the opportunism, which Steve didn't. The thing about his mother had two implications, one that that was just the Asgardian way, to live with and obey their parents or two, that (in terms of proportion of age span) Loki was a good deal younger than anyone had yet realised.
"How old are you?" Steve asked, curious.
"About 900 of your earth years, why?"
"Curious about something, how long do your... Asgardians live for, usually?"
"It can vary," Loki shrugged "It's usually around 5000 years, to die of Old age, my...Odin, is older than that, and many die younger in battles, although there haven't been any since I was of an age to remember."
"If you assume the average lifespan of a human is about a hundred years, to die of old age, 900 divided by 5000, is just under a fifth. So you're the equivalent of an eighteen or nineteen year old." Steve finished working out maths out loud. "Bloody hell, you're a teenager."
"I feel terrified at the thought." Loki shivered "it doesn't really work directly like that at all, we're not considered children since we were about 500, although I guess I was still in my more youthful age, having not reached my thousandth year yet. I'm probably closer to about early-mid-twenties, I'd guess."
"Thor's mid-twenties," Steve guessed, going on his behaviour, it had changed since his time sure, but not that much, after all, Steve was, well he was early-mid thirties by now, he'd kind of forgotten that, not that it really mattered. "Or was, it's kind of been a while since I've seen him."
"He's mid-twenties." A female voice announced behind him.
Ah, Shit.
