Loki lived in a strange, ever changing world that millennia ago the Gods had appointed ´Midgard´, the land of men. While being there, he always wore elegant, tailored clothes, and maintained a regal appearance that gave people the impression that he was a very rich man (even though he didn't have any wealth, nor a home, nor what one would call a ´proper job´). He used the collar of his black trench coat to cover his face -white as paper, and sharp as a cold chisel- and under his white silk shirt, there were always hidden two silver-handled daggers. He appeared among mortals as a tall, slender man, of steady gaze and expressionless face.
It was dark magic -of the most dangerous kind- what made him invisible between the crowd; what forced men to depart from him, and woman to avoid his gaze, and what made children (much more perceptive to sorcery tricks than adults) stop to observe him. When he wanted something, he took it. When he didn´t have the means to do so, the blue medallion hanging from his neck would issue a dim light, and the first person who crossed his way would get it for him. He gave no guidance, no orders, -for they already knew them- and in a matter of hours the job would be done. Then his benefactor hurried to leave, uncomprehending.
Contrary to popular belief, Loki´s powers could not change the reality, but they could alter the perception of others about what was real and what was not; his power resided in creating illusions. His magic altered senses, he could make one see, feel, hear, taste or smell things that didn´t actually exist. In order to achieve this, he had gained a profound knowledge about physics, especially about the visual and auditory part of the science.
He was very quick with his hands and fingers; a skillful manipulator of objects. He had a way with words that he used to distract, or to emphasize his deceptions. When the power of words was not enough, he would always value the power of the medallion. His view was excellent. He could quickly distinguish a smile from a choleric gesture; but nothing impresses a creature who lacks emotional sympathy. He could laugh, and he could get angry, but he could not understand the joy or anger of others.
His lifestyle had forced him to maintain an agile and willing body, but when the time to fight came, it was his great perception what always saved him. The lightning coming down quickly in his direction, the arrow aimed at him passing through the air - they never took him by surprise. Despite his physical complexion, he reacted to blows, and he could maintain a fight with the strongest warriors of Midgard, and his fearsome beasts. He could fight against storms, against machinery, soldiers and monsters; he could take loneliness and anger as if they were natural to him. Resistance was, after all, one of his more valuable assets.
He had no preference when looking for a place to stay, but in the places where he stayed there were always more houses than buildings. He liked the green grass and the fresh air more than anything (maybe because they reminded him of his home). However, because of the kind of sorcery that he studied, he needed a fairly spacious abode.
In his days of youth (as he liked to call them), when he lived in the Valaskjalf Palace, Loki's quarters were conditioned to appear like something that they were not; they contained lots of spells and tricks to defend him against any possible attack, and also to boast of his powers in front of the guests he may have received. Ever since he was in Midgard, he had to opt for more subtle liars, so he wouldn´t call the attention of Phil Coulson and his associates.
He had been incarcerated by SHIELD four times. He had not minded too much, and it had not changed him in any way. Once he took off his cellmate´s eyes while he slept, and among the commotion of the guards and the screams of the other prisoners, he left the prison through the front door. It was an open reference to one chapter of the Odyssey; in fact, it was meant to be a joke, but as usual, no one in SHIELD got it. On another occasion he cut the throats of all his guards and escaped through his cell´s window. On the other two occasions, he went for a more subtle breakout.
When the time came, an agent found himself face to face with Loki and his devilishly green irises. The Medallion under the trickster´s clothes shined, and the door was opened. His benefactor would run to do something then -anything-, deeply troubled.
Loki was a god, a superior being (quoting his words) that could not live among mortals. But he was, effectively, a god living among mortals. He moved in their world in silence and secrecy, with the grace of a panther stalking his prey. He killed like an animal, with hatred and without haste. He ate just enough to live, and never more. He slept between dark and evil dreams, always ready to escape. In the best times, he had the maturity of a bitter old man, and in the worst, that of child who found no fun in games. He didn´t know neither happiness nor joy; his being sailed only -placid and blindly- between anger and satisfaction.
A sad Jotun, sensible and bluish, lived inside of Loki. Something united it with his outward appearance, but for most of his life, he had ignored that. He feed it daily, but unconsciously, with his strength. When Loki felt heat, that inner being trembled slightly, almost in fear. It would die if it was exposed to the sun for too much time, but Loki didn´t seem to mind, for he never prevented its light.
Tony Stark was a good agent, one of the bests, in fact. That´s what Director Coulson told him when he assumed his post as ringleader of SHIELD. It was shortly after the Battle of New York, when Coulson´s predecessor, Nick Fury -with an indignation greater than agony and fear- died cursing the name of Loki Laufeyson. Tony had been collaborating with SHIELD during less than 24 hours.
Just a good agent, Coulson said, the best of all agents, would have dared to risk his life in such a way for the good of the cause. Not any agent would have come back from a certain dead with a smile from hear to hear, like the one that appeared in Tony´s face when he knew they were victorious. So, when SHIELD reopened the Avenger´s project, and the Director started to look for recruits, Tony Stark was the first name on his list (being a priority over Steve Rogers himself).
"You want to do good, don´t you? Just like us." He said that day, when he handed him the folder that contained the information for his first mission. "This is your opportunity to do something good."
Tony took the file, with just a little hesitation (he didn´t like to be handed things) even when a strange knot in his throat told him that it was a bad idea.
Because it was truth. Tony wanted to do good, and what Coulson was saying did make sense; but when he knew that his mission consisted in guard the Infinity Gauntlet, and all the powers and mysteries that it held inside, Tony felt that he was doing something horribly wrong. Shortly after, when the old asgardian relic was located in his workshop, in a highly secure metal container, right beside the Iron Man suits, Tony realized that the implications of "good" and "wrong" were completely lost to him.
Before the transfer Coulson had explained him how scientist and doctors of the highest integrity had went mad while been alone with the Gauntlet, when they could not contain it properly. How their bodies had become cold and inaccessible, mesmerized by its poisonous red glow; how the color moistened their eyes, overlying them with ugliness and horrors. When they showed him the photographs of those sad, cracked eyes, consumed by carmine, Tony had not wanted to know more about the matter. Losing control over one´s body was something he could not understand (let alone explain) and because of his deductive nature, Tony feared greatly everything that escaped his understanding.
Ever since New York, Tony and Pepper lived in the Malibu House, high on a bluff overlooking the ocean. It was a quiet place. No road came to the house; only a narrow path that writhed again and again among palm trees and sand, and from the windows one could not see where it lead. The trail ended at a wall and an iron gate; beside the gate, embedded in the wall, there was a steel panel that opened the doors with the push of a bottom.
Tony was a busy man, however, just like Pepper, and they didn´t spent as much time at the house as they would have liked (they didn´t spent too much time together either), but when they did not have any commitment or anything really important to attend to, they rarely came out of the Mansion. Ever since the wedding, the press fell on them as hungry crows fall over fresh meat. Going out together had become a tiring task, if not exhausting.
Once a day Pepper came down the road and opened the locks of the panel with two keys. She lifted a metal plate, and picked up the correspondence, leaving a bit of money and a few cards; then she closed the locks once more, and headed back to the house. That was as far as they´ve got during the last weeks.
They had taken extreme measures at the moment of placing the security systems, but Tony believed it was better safe than sorry -at least in that aspect-. Security was not, after all, meant to protect them as much as it was meant to protect what Tony hid in his workshop.
It was there where the engineer spent most of his time. Normally he didn´t get to see the house, or the wall or the Iron Gate, not even the sky or the palm trees. While working on his suits, Tony barely ate and drank. When he locked himself in the workshop no one could bother him. Ever since New York he didn´t let anyone enter, not even Pepper.
That day, sitting at his work table, Tony was putting together the pieces of his new suit. He noticed a cable poking out between the pieces of metal, and hastened to put in place, out of sight. He leaned his head against the back of his chair, and stared at his work. The air conditioning in his laboratory was heavy and dense; it rested on his lips until they cracked, it squeezed them until they became little more than an imperceptible thin line. It went boldly on his chest and made his insides tremble.
But it was an air conditioning with a problem: it was cold, like an ice cube melting on sweaty skin, completely motionless, and yet hot. The cold and heat were moving together, excitedly, inside him, almost like an electro shock. It didn´t make sense. At some point he started to wonder if it was really the air conditioning what he was feeling.
A shrill screech came to him from afar. Tony felt his eyes itch, and a mysterious fog clouded his vision. Something stretched on his stomach. He looked down, and then his hands began to move, one above the other, placing in his hands the gloves of his suit. Then, already covered, they raised to Tony´s head to put his helmet, even when he was desperately trying to stop them. He leaned forward, and his hands felled quietly on the other pieces, placing them in his legs, his arms and his chest.
He held out his hand, clumsy and hesitant, and slapped himself, as if that would free him from that unspeakable and confusing attack. It didn´t happen like that. Tony attempted to resist, and when the cold and the heat finally took possession of his whole body, gently pressing against his brain, he began to scream.
Loki had been in his lair, reading through the pages of an ancient scroll, when he felt it. He stopped moving his fingers over the rough surface of the paper and looked up, alert and watchful. He could hear a distant call; soft, almost imperceptible, radiating from somewhere far away, in a place where he had never been. At the beginning he tried to ignore it, telling himself that it was only his imagination; but the sound slipped through his ears and ticked him in the back of his neck, pulling him out of his reading again and again. The pressure of a hand on his shoulder would not have been more real than that call.
He stood very slowly, as if afraid to break something. His green eyes glowed softly in a bluish hue. He had never called anyone (not in this way); he had never been called, neither had he responded. He started to walk, nevertheless. He went to his sensed goal voluntarily, without anything from the outside prompting him to. He felt -without thinking- that inside him was awaking a desired that had been entrenched before. That desire had been accompanying him for a long while now, ever since New York (ever since his first breakout in SHIELD´s jurisdiction, really) but he had never been able to understand it so far. Now, he could.
He took a deep breath, and teleported himself out of his lair, to that faraway place where the call was coming.
Loki walked carefully and quickly, using only a small amount of magic to dull the sound of his footsteps. He swung his shoulders, sliding between palm trees, burying his boots in the sand, as if he could not abandon the rect line carrying him towards that call. Underneath his pale skin, his inner Jotun trembled at the heat of the coast. The sun was high in the sky; the palm trees were repeating indefinitely in front of him, in his left side, the ocean in his right side, in his right side, and at his back again. However, he continued on his way without hesitation, not knowing where he was going; only guided by the ever present call.
And suddenly, he was there.
The coast was unexpectedly interrupted by a strip of scorched earth, surrounded by an iron fence about fifteen feet wide. The palm trees had been uprooted so that the branches would not pass above the irons. Loki walked through the bare ground, towards the clenched bars. With just one glance he knew what material they were made of, and he knew that the fence would not budge. Despite his superhuman strength, Loki did not have the ability to break bars made of Adamantium, and teleport to an unknown location -where he didn´t know what dangers awaited him- was too risky.
But his eyes remained active, quick to respond, staring through the bars and the palm leaves. He started walking along the iron fence, hoping to find its gateway.
Tony was standing in the middle of his living room, looking through the wide windows facing the ocean. At the other side of the crystal, he could hear a song. It was strange, to be so interested in it, for he didn´t know anything about music. He couldn´t read it, and he certainly couldn´t play it; but he was hearing this melody, among the sound of the birds and the howl of the wind, and he was almost certain he could catch the notes it was playing. As if they were telling him something.
"Tony, why are you wearing your suit?" A voice asked harshly.
Tony turned slowly over his heels. Pepper was standing in front of him, with a strange, hard face.
"Why are you wearing your suit?" She asked again.
He looked down slowly, and saw the Infinity Gauntlet resting between his hands.
"Well?"
"I… Fuck, I have to…" Tony started, but no matter how much he reached on his mind, he couldn´t find the words. "I…"
"Stop babbling." Pepper interrupted him. "What´s wrong? Tell me."
"I´m trying to!" He said in a harsh, and at the same time pleading voice.
Tony pulled the gauntlet against his chest (right on top of the Arc Reactor) and his metal finger approached its golden padlock. Pepper gave a few steps forwards, y forced them away.
"Don´t do that. You know is dangerous." She said. "What were you doing? It looked like you were speaking with someone."
"Yeah, I was… I mean, I think I was… But not with you."
"… There´s no one else in here."
"Yes, there is." He answered way too quickly, looking around the place. "JARVIS says it's nothing, that it´s my imagination, but he´s wrong! There´s someone else in here." And then, out of breath, he added. "And I have to give him this."
"This?" Pepper followed Tony´s gaze and looked at the Infinity Gauntlet.
"You can´t give that to anyone, Tony." She said slowly, with all the sweetness she could manage in her confusion. "Look, are you… are you feeling alright?"
"Yes." He answered, again, way too quickly. "No. I… Fuck, I don´t know." Tony held tight the gauntlet, and slowly tried to open it again.
"Tony! Don´t do that!" He turned to look out at the windows, as if searching for something, and then turned to look at Pepper again, almost with confusion.
"I have to give this to him." He said, though he didn´t sound as convinced as he should have. "Goddamed, I have to! But the fucking genius doesn´t tell me where to send it!"
"Anthony…" Murmured Pepper, and with eyes wide open she began backing towards the door. "I´m going to call Phil, okay? He´ll know what to do, just… just don´t move."
Tony stood there –not moving a muscle- in the middle of the living room, and watched her disappear through the door.
So, I´m here like raping the Movie´s Canon by killing Nick Fury, and mercilessly replacing him with Coulson. Honestly, I did it because Coulson is the cutest thing and Fury makes everything too difficul ¬.¬
And well, Pepper and Tony are married, the Infinity Gauntlet is in earth, and everything´s a mess. Yep, I´m pretty much raping the movie´s cannon.
Anyway, I hope you don´t mind much. I´m just trying to be creative! :3
