AN: This is obviously going to bother me until I see it finished, so here's the second chapter...which involves some almost uncharacteristically honest explanations on Loki's part, followed by some explosions.
Next Chapter: Angst hits the fan.
For now, this is FireflySummer clocking out.
Disclaimer: I don't own Avengers
Chapter Two: Questions
The first time Natasha had interrogated Loki, she'd found him pacing in his cell in an agitated, nervous way that had said almost as much about his current mindset than all his twisted, cruel words. This time, however, he was waiting placidly at the table, hands unbound (by Thor's request), but still bristling with the same annoyed impatience. As always, though, he wore a look of civility as he met her eyes and easily matched her blank face.
"It's good to see you again, Agent Romanoff." He spoke with the grooming of a prince, but Natasha knew firsthand how easily that was faked. Beneath it, a current of restless energy pulsed, and Natasha could almost feel it in each strained word.
"You were expecting me."
"It seemed most likely," he replied, "The soldier is too straightforward to play this game, while the good doctor would not risk an uncalled for outburst in the middle of this abode. And I doubt my brother would allow the archer, seeing as he needs both my eyes at this time."
"We could have sent Tony."
Loki gave a half-chuckle completely lacking in malice, like they two were long-time friends and she had just told an inside joke. The sound was altogether wrong coming from him.
"Unless he's changed dramatically in the past four years, he seems overly fond of his own voice. Which is rather effective for…threatening, but not particularly so for interrogation." Something of a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "That aside, last time we had a chat, I threw him out a window. I doubt he'd find concrete nearly so forgiving. Now Agent Romanoff, have a seat and tell me how I can help you."
Natasha didn't take a seat at the table, choosing instead to stand and (for once) looking down on the tall man. He seemed unfazed by this, meeting her gaze with a pair of clouded green eyes.
"Thor trusts you," she said at length, "Unconditionally right now. He's currently trying to convince the others that you don't mean any harm. But quite frankly, I don't buy that."
"Quite frankly, I would be alarmed if you did. I don't suppose that you would simply believe I had a change of heart?" Natasha's expression spoke far more than words ever could, and Loki rubbed his temples as though staving off an oncoming headache. "Agent Romanoff, I could spin tails that would play off the sympathies of your good-hearted Avengers. If not you, then definitely my brother and a number of those other kind fools you keep company with. It would be a delightful game, if I had nothing but revenge and a thirst for power in mind; however, as things stands, those are not my motivations and we do not have time. And so I will give you the truth, or the nearest thing I am capable of."
"The legendary Liesmith speaking the truth?" asked Natasha, "And why would we believe you?"
"Whether or not you believe me is entirely your choice." Loki shrugged. "The game that I'm playing is neither for you nor your wretched rock, but for Thor's life."
"An unusual amount of concern, considering how you've tried to kill him several times in the last few years."
"As you did at one time with your dear hawk, unless I'm quite mistaken." Loki's eyes sharpened as she watched her face go carefully blank.
"Is this love?" she asked, softly.
"You tell me," came the reply, as though he'd expected the words. "A monster would hardly know the meaning of such a word."
Natasha slid into the seat opposite Loki, her face still blank. "Talk. Thor's life is in danger. Tell me why, and how you plan to stop it."
"As you wish," he replied, the smirk tugging more obviously at this corners of his mouth. He leaned forward, ever so slightly, but without his tension easing in the least. "You don't seem to be one to believe in fate, Agent Romanoff." A look of skepticism.
"Regardless, fate does exist. We can live under the illusion that this is not so, simply because the threads are wound looser at some points than others. During such times, fate is nothing more than a series of probabilities that are kept pathetically predictable as souls flit from one moment to the next; however, this great tapestry would fall to complete chaos without a number of set points to hold it steady. The progression of days and lives turns instinctually towards those set points, inescapable even when we believe ourselves to be acting of our own free will."
"Freedom is the greatest lie," Natasha echoed. Clint had said something like that, once, on one of the days when the flashbacks had been at their peaks.
"Indeed," Loki conceded, "Five years ago, I let myself fall from the Bifrost into the void. It should have killed me…I hoped that it would kill me, but it didn't. And the universe was kind enough to show me why." Here, his voice grew haunted, but he never paused, never found a loss of words. "As I fell, I saw what the fates had designed, at least as far as I was concerned. I saw it all in every wretched combination, yet in all that there were two constants."
"The first was that I was to be the villain who would bring Ragnorak to this godforsaken rock, whether willingly or unwillingly. And the second was that my elder brother would die in the resulting battle. Sometimes by my hand, sometimes by another's, there was no world where we stood side by side. I had no choice in the matter but to be the villain. And so, when my fall left me broken in the hands of the Chitauri, I simply pledged myself to live up to my fate instead of running from it like a sniveling coward."
"So what made you change?" For the first time, Loki fell silent.
"I have long since believed myself to be in Thor's shadow," he said at length, "However, that is not quite true. I am his shadow. What is Loki without Thor?" Again, he paused, a self-deprecating smile playing at his lips. Although his face remained blank, Natasha could sense rather than see an anguish tearing somewhere inside the man. "In five short years, Thor has changed more than in the millennia we spent together. I suppose that it was inevitable that I would change as well. For the better, I would hope, but that is not really my place to stay."
"And now you wish to play the hero."
"You and I both know I never could. My ledger is dripping red, and nothing I do will ever wipe it out. It is pride, I think, to believe that my life, lengthy as it is, could somehow make restitution for those that I took." Here, he shook his head, in a broken, triumphant way. "No, I desire to challenge fate. I am Loki, after all, and I do what I want."
Before Loki would say anything more, he was suddenly on his feet. Reacting out of instinct alone, Natasha mimicked the movement, reaching for one of her unconcealed guns, but he was paying her no mind. Lines of intense worry creased his forehead as he strained to listen for something.
And when that something came, they both felt it. It ricocheted through the entire building, an explosion that shook it to the foundations some dozens of floors below. For an explosion that large, it was a miracle of (Tony Stark's) engineering that the building did not come down around their ears.
Loki did not wait for the reverberations to cease before he had crossed the room. The locked door offered no trouble to him, and with a snap of his long, thin fingers, the bolts clanked and the door slid open.
"Agent Romanoff, I believe that your comrades in arms would consider that a waste of a bullet," he said, turning back to where Natasha aimed at him, "There is a battle for you to attend to, and a world for you to save."
"And you?" she asked, "Running home to your allies?"
"Not hardly," he replied with a forced nonchalance, "My royal brother has probably forgotten his helmet again, and you know how head wounds bleed. I honestly don't know how he survived those years without me there." With that, he disappeared through the open doorway, with Natasha Romanoff following after not half a second later.
~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~
It hadn't been the first attack on the tower. For heaven's sakes the Avengers had started with an attack on the tower. So with Loki's sudden reappearance, it should have offered absolutely no surprise that the attack was swift to follow. They had been in such heated debate with Thor, though, that none of them were at all prepared when the first round of explosives went off, sending the building shuddering beneath them.
There was little time to think about this, though, because a moment later the entire floor was swarming with a dozen well-armed Chitauri warriors.
Thor and Tony were both still suited up, and Hawkeye managed to produce a couple guns from somewhere, but for the moment they were horribly outgunned. It didn't take more than a minute of fighting them to realize that these creatures were vastly different form the ones that they had four years ago, when they'd come in fairly unskilled droves that placed their strength in numbers.
No, these moved far too efficiently, shaping into unspoken formations as they attempted to separate each of the Avengers. They seemed to know each of the Avengers and their fighting styles, holding both Thor and Iron Man at bay, while Steve with all his super strength was backing into a crumbling wall.
In an attempt to regain his footing, Steve dodged to the side, pulling up the remains of the now-broken coffee table to act as a makeshift shield. Whether or not the Chitauri found this amusing, they gave no indication, advancing with the same deadly accuracy as before. Suddenly, he felt like he was back in the alley, hiding desperately behind a garbage can lid. Within minutes, he was again backed against the wall, with nothing but a slab of wood between him and three Chitauri weapons.
And then suddenly one of the creatures dropped to the ground with a sickening thud. As the creature crumpled, Steve caught sight of an all-too-familiar patriotic shield clutched. The other two creatures didn't have time to retaliate, though, as they too were felled, one with a knife that appeared in a burst of green light, and another with a bullet in its skull.
"I told you you'd want that bullet for later," said Loki to somebody behind him as he handed the shield to Steve, who would have gaped open-mouthed had they not been in the throes of a surprise attack. The man didn't pause to accept thanks or wariness from the other man, his attention now on the four Chitauri besetting Thor.
"Having trouble there, brother?" asked Loki, his voice half-mocking even as he launched himself into the fight. His brother chuckled, despite the peril they were all in.
"Of course not. When have you ever known me to have trouble in battle?" Thor was bantering, bantering with Loki in the middle of a surprise attack. Like it was something they did every day.
"Well, there was that one time in Alfheim when—" Whatever Loki was in the process of saying was cut off as the Chitauri redoubled their efforts, now choosing to focus on the two gods over the rest of the teammates.
"They seem rather familiar with your movements, but not so much mine," remarked Loki idly, "Shall we give them a real show brother?"
"I certainly hope so," came the solid reply.
Suddenly, the two were fighting for real. Whatever had happened before must have just been a warm-up, because the two fell into sync, their bodies forming a natural rhythm honed over centuries of fighting side by side, magic and might forming a perfectly complimented dance. Between the thrusts of Mjollnir and the flashes of knives and magic, the entire battle suddenly whirled around the two men: one broad and golden, the other slim and lithe, light and shadow reincarnated and everything in them testifying of their godhood.
And then the battle came to a close, Chitauri lying dead on the carpet and a victorious Thor and Loki at the epicenter. For a moment, as they stood in the remains of the room, silence rained.
To everybody's surprise, Tony Stark was not the one to break it. The elevator did, with a shrill ding. As the doors slid open, they all readied for an attack, only to find a worried Bruce standing.
"So…uh…" the man looked surveyed the scene, complete with triumphant gods, dead aliens, and broken furniture, clearly trying to quell the Hulk before it appeared unnecessarily. "I take it the elevator blackout wasn't Tony's fault this time?"
