Warning: Graphic violence


"Break involuntary ties

A secret so the spies

Could never find us out"

[Now]

Travelling through the portal was a lot more volatile than coming to Midgard on his own. But Loki was already hurting; his entire body already ached. He didn't care.

He sensed more than one mortal making their way towards him, and as he looked up he let a twisted smile spread across his face. Finally, he was able to fight. The Other had told him to kill whomever he fancied, and Loki was going to take that to heart. The little insects thought that they could fight him, and Loki found it as amusing as he did bothersome.

Only one mortal had ever impressed him, but that was done, now. The man had made his decision, and despite his trickery and lies, Loki would respect that.

Even if it did break him.

Sentiment, Loki mused as mortals gathered around him, weapons raised. How the mighty fall. How weak I truly am.

Loki let his smile fall as he stood, having greater difficulty than he would have liked. The tender loving hands of the Other had left him weak, and the journey through the portal hadn't helped at all. Loki spread his arms to steady himself as he looked around, and that was when one of the humans spoke to him;

'Sir, please put down the spear!'

Loki glanced at the sceptre, as though it wouldn't hurt a fly, and then thrust it out, aiming a bolt of magic at the mortal who dared tell him what to do. The one to the dark skinned man's left threw both of them aside, and Loki leapt at the closest mortal.

They fired their primitive bullets at him, bullets that bounced off of Loki's skin like they were pebbles thrown by a mere child. Loki stabbed his sceptre into the mortal he'd landed on and watched as blood trickled from his chest. Loki turned and thrust the sceptre out, again having the satisfaction of watching blue magic erupt from the end, careening through the air and slamming into the floor.

The explosion was small, but loud, and mortals were tossed aside like toys, making Loki grin. A mortal came up behind him, tried to stab Loki in the side with some type of knife. Loki wrapped his arm around the mortal's neck and twisted violently, the satisfying crack loud in the Jötunn's ears. He dropped the mortal and caught sight of four more; one was the man who had thrown the dark-skinned mortal aside, and his bullets actually hit Loki's chest, while the others went wide.

Loki sent another blast of magic at them, and the better marksman once more jumped out of the way, the others thrown back by the explosion.

There were more, coming from the left, and a sadistic smirk spread across Loki's face as he leapt at them. They were too slow, and the sharp tip of Loki's sceptre embedded itself in one of the mortal's chests, forcing him to the floor. Thick blood pumped out of his chest, and Loki watched, fascinated, as the life drained from him.

More crimson liquid gurgled up from his throat and out his mouth, but Loki ripped the sceptre free and turned, not bothering to watch the man die. He swept his weapon across the floor, knocking the other agents off their feet. He stabbed them, too, grinning as he thrust into their bodies, the crunch of bones breaking and the screams of mortals dying filling his ears.

It was over as quickly as it had begun, and Loki stood on the spot, looking around to see if any more mortals would dare cross his path.

Loki spotted the good marskman slowly getting to his feet, gun in hand, and teleported to him. The mortal tried to fight, but Loki pushed his gun away. The man's eyes locked with Loki's, and Loki tilted his head.

'You have heart,' he murmured, and with that he pressed the sceptre to the human's chest. Magic pulsed along the razor-sharp tip and Loki watched as the Tesseract took hold, easily chaining the man to Loki.

Loki smirked and turned away, the new drone- Barton- following. Loki turned a few other humans, while in the corner the dark-skinned man was trying to escape with the Tesseract.

'Please don't,' Loki ordered, and the man froze. 'I still need that.'

'This doesn't have to get any messier,' the man said without turning to face him.

Loki almost laughed. Any messier? He'd already slaughtered a hundred humans, and twenty just here a few minutes ago. 'Of course it does,' Loki told him. 'I've come too far for anything else.'

The man finally turned to face him, his one eye locked on Loki.

'I am Loki of Asgard,' Loki stated. 'And I am burdened with glorious purpose.'

'Loki,' said the one human still standing whom Loki hadn't enthralled- besides the one-eyed man. 'Brother of Thor.'

Loki's entire body tensed and he turned to glare at the man, his jaw working roughly as the mere reminder of the blonde oaf sent anger coursing through him. Even here, on Midgard, a place he'd never truly visited as himself, he was only known as Thor's brother.

The eye-patch wearing man raised a hand, trying to placate Loki. 'We have no quarrel with your people.'

'An ant has no quarrel with a boot,' Loki retorted with raised eyebrows.

'Are you planning to step on us?' the man asked.

Loki started walking as he spoke. 'I come with gladtidings,' he told the dark man, his eyes on the other one, 'of a world made free.' He turned to face the man with the Tesseract.

He actually looked worried now. Good, Loki thought. He should have realised as soon as he saw me that I wasn't to be played with. 'Free from what?'

'Freedom,' Loki stated, his back to the fair-skinned man. 'Freedom is life's great lie,' Loki said. 'Once you accept that... in your heart...' He turned and pressed the sceptre to the white man's chest, watching as the Tesseract made another drone to follow Loki's every whim. 'You will know peace,' he finished as Doctor Eric Selvig's eyes turned blue.

'Yeah, you say peace,' the dark man spoke, 'I kinda think you mean the other piece.'

'Sir,' Barton suddenly spoke up and made his way to Loki's side. 'Director Fury is stalling.' Ah, so that was the man's name. 'This place is about to blow,' Barton continued. 'It'll drop a hundred feet of rock on us.' He and Loki looked at Fury. 'He means to bury us,' Barton finished.

'Like the Pharaohs of old,' Fury said.

'He's right, the portal is collapsing in on itself,' Selvig called from where he was standing before one of the computers. 'We have maybe two minutes before this goes critical.'

Loki thought about that for maybe half a second before turning to Barton. 'Drop him.'

Barton immediately pulled his weapon and fired, hitting Fury in the chest. The man was thrown backwards, the briefcase containing the Tesseract at his feet. Loki strolled forward with his thralls following after, and Barton picked up the Tesseract as they went.

Loki only stumbled once as they made their way through the facility. He still wasn't at one hundred percent, and it annoyed him to realise that the previous fight, however short, had taken a fair amount of energy from him.

Loki shook those thoughts off as he and his mortals reached the vehicles. A woman asked where they were going, and who Loki was, but Barton lied without Loki having to order him. Loki could feel the facility bending and breaking around him, and the group hurried into one of the vehicles. Loki crouched down in the back, thinking about the last time he'd been in a car-

He shook his head roughly and flexed his fingers around the sceptre. The bruises and deep cuts on his body helped push those thoughts aside. He focused on the pain, and on the next part of his mission, rather than Stark. Loki felt the clutch the Other had on his mind briefly intensify to remind him of just who was in charge before it disappeared, becoming nothing more than a dull ache in the back of his head.

The female tried to follow them, but Barton was rather skilled at what he did, and Loki was pleased that he'd brought him on-board. Loki had a brief moment of laughter when he shot down a helicopter, the flames lighting up the sky.

He smirked to himself as he sat back again, the car whisking him away into the night.

{oOo}

Tony was trying to celebrate with Pepper when Coulson barged in.

'His name is Agent,' he pouted, but both Pepper and Coulson ignored him as Tony picked up the file. There were sticks of data, too, and Tony ignored the paper in favour of those. He plugged them into the closest port and had JARVIS display the information.

There were files upon files of himself, from his birth up to his latest Iron Man skirmish, and Tony brushed them aside. He lingered slightly on the files about Agent Natasha Romanov, and then Agent Clint Barton. He took more time on Captain America's file, spent an entire minute on Bruce Banner's. And then...

And then.

Tony's heart beat wildly against the arc reactor, and he stumbled, catching himself on the table before him.

No.

No fucking way.

'Tony?' Pepper was suddenly at his side, and Tony was vaguely aware of Agent behind her. 'Tony, what's wrong?' Pepper asked. She glanced at the pictures and words now hovering before Tony, and then looked at Coulson when the genius didn't answer.

'Loki, brother of Thor, recently came through the Tesseract,' Coulson explained. 'Unlike Thor, it wasn't a friendly visit. He killed twenty-three agents himself, took five with him, including Hawkeye, and destroyed the facility where the Tesseract was held. He now has it.' He paused to see if Tony was going to say anything. 'We need your help finding him, Mr Stark,' Coulson said.

Tony ran his hands through his hair and tugged tightly, the pain dull compared to the emotions running through his body. Loki... fucking Loki. Brother of Thor. Meaning of Asgard, a god, a fucking sorcerer, according to the information SHIELD had gathered.

No... fucking no.

It explained everything. It explained Loki's weird name; why Tony could find nothing but Norse mythology results when he researched it; why Loki had been so hesitant to talk about his family and his life in England. It explained why Loki was so strong, able to hold Tony against the wall as they fucked, able to drag Tony into a dark alley after a night out.

Blowing up the facility, coming for the Tesseract, killing twenty-three agents as well as hundreds who couldn't be evacuated in time... that explained why he'd come back for Tony, why he'd tried one last time.

Loki was the bad guy. The Chaos God. What Tony had seen had only been a small taste of the destructiveness that Loki was capable of.

Tony closed his eyes, but the image of Loki stabbing a SHIELD agent in the chest swept behind his eyelids. The feelings currently churning through his gut, the way his heart thumped behind the arc reactor, all of it betrayed Tony's current hero status. Because God fucking damn it.

'He looks familiar,' Pepper's voice broke Tony from his thoughts. She was frowning at a picture of Loki, a still-shot taken from Loki's stroll through the middle of the SHIELD facility.

He looked horrible. His hair was so much longer and messier than how he used to keep it, the bags under his eyes were dark, and the hollow look, the way he walked and fought, just... everything about him screamed torture.

Tony knew. He'd looked the exact same way when he'd come home from Afghanistan.

And Loki's eyes... fuck, his eyes.

Blue.

'Do you know him, Tony?' Pepper then asked.

'No,' Tony said. Too quickly, much too quickly, but why would he lie? Pepper and Coulson couldn't, nobody... nobody could know. 'Never seen him before,' he lied thickly. 'Just, uh... thinking about how to get Fury's shiny blue box back.'

Pepper stared at him. Coulson did, too.

But finally, they both nodded.

{oOo}

'Tell me about the Avengers Initiative,' Loki said after Barton had rattled off all he knew about SHIELD. Loki found the entire organisation amusing. Yes, they were probably a problem for human villains, but Loki was a god.

'The Avengers Initiative was created by Director Fury,' Barton explained dutifully. 'Or, it would have been created it Fury were given permission to do it from the World Security Council.'

Loki nodded but didn't interrupt.

'The Avengers Initiative is an operation that, if allowed to go ahead, would include people who can be called together to fight any danger that presents itself to America or Earth. I only know of a handful of people that were approached, or that know, of it,' Barton said.

'Who?' Loki asked.

'Fury approached me about it,' Barton explained, 'because of my archery. Agent Natasha Romanov was also approached because of the high success of her missions. Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, would have been brought into the Initiative if we were able to locate him.'

'Who's Steve Rogers?' Loki interrupted. He turned from where he was watching Selvig fiddle with the equipment needed to use the Tesseract and create a wormhole. Barton was sitting on a box to Loki's side, his Tesseract-blue eyes staring straight ahead.

'Steve Rogers was a soldier born in 1918 and the only successful test subject of the Super Soldier Serum,' Barton told him. 'The Serum made him the ultimate human; strong, fast, and with amazing healing factors. He disappeared in 1944 and Fury's been looking for him, hoping that he's still alive.'

'Hmm,' Loki hummed. He tapped his sceptre against the floor. Rogers, if he were alive, might prove to be a bit of a problem if he was stronger and quicker than any of the mortals Loki had so far come into contact with. 'Continue,' he finally murmured. 'Tell me, in detail, about everybody involved in the Avengers Initiative.'

'Natasha Romanov, also known as Natasha Romanova, Natasha Romanoff, and Black Widow, is an agent and assassin for SHIELD. She was born in Russia and joined SHIELD when I let her live.'

Loki quirked an eyebrow at that. Hmm, sentiment. He could, perhaps, use that to his advantage.

'Black Widow is an expert in martial arts and interrogation, highly intelligent, and an accomplished killer.'

Loki waved a hand. He couldn't care less about some silly little girl unless he could bend her to his will. 'Next.'

'Doctor Bruce Banner was considered for the project,' Barton said, 'however, his inability to control his dangerous side will probably stop him from being asked.'

'Explain,' was all Loki said.

'Banner has a doctorate in nuclear physics and an understanding in even more sciences,' Barton said. 'A few years ago he was involved in an accident that exposed him to a lethal amount of gamma radiation and mutated him. Now, when he gets angry or scared, he turns into a large beast with amazing destructive capabilities. He's destroyed more than one military party that was sent to get him, as well as whatever was around him at the time. Currently he's being watched by SHIELD but not approached.'

Barton paused to take a breath before continuing.

'Anthony Stark-' he began, but Loki whipped around and hissed;

'What?!'

Barton, of course, just continued to stare vaguely ahead. 'Anthony Stark, aka Iron Man, was approached about the Avengers Initiative,' Barton said. 'However, Romanov spent a few weeks watching him and working with him, and declared that he was too dangerous to be involved.'

Loki wet his lips and turned away. His fingers tightened around the sceptre and he closed his eyes against the bright lights and the humans working around him. Of course. Of course. He couldn't get away, no matter what he did. Even starting a war on Midgard would draw Anthony's attention.

Having not told Barton to shut up, the archer continued to talk about Tony. 'Though he's a genius with connections and a weaponised suit, it was decided that he was too chaotic to join the Avengers,' Barton explained. 'He is suspected to have some type of mental illness and not be quite sane, and he's also a narcissist and doesn't play well with others. Stark isn't fit to join an operation that would involve working well within a team.'

Loki just nodded, eyes still closed, his lips pressed into a thin line. 'Who else?' he asked, voice soft.

'That's it,' Barton said. 'Apart from a few SHIELD agents who were contacted to interact with the super heroes, as well as Selvig himself, those are the only people that I know of.'

Loki nodded again and took a deep breath. 'Who could cause me the most problems?' he asked.

Barton hesitated, clearly thinking it over, before saying, 'Romanov and Stark. Romanov because she will stop at nothing to get me back onto SHIELD's side, and Stark because he has the ability to worm his way out of tight situations, as well as the fire-power to cause a lot of damage. Banner is too much of a loose canon; SHIELD can't control him. And, as far as I know, Rogers is still MIA.'

'I always have the last laugh,' Tony said with a cheeky grin. 'My enemies can do whatever they want to me, but I'll always come back, and they'll be the ones going down in flames.'

Loki wondered if Director Fury had contacted Anthony, now that a true threat- Loki himself- had appeared. The mortals would need all the help they could get to take Loki down. Not that they would... well, they would think that they were taking Loki down, but Loki would still win, in the end.

He kept those thoughts tightly locked away, barely even thinking about them. The last thing he needed was the Other or Thanos discovering what he was up to.

He also pushed thoughts of Tony Stark deep, deep down. If he and Stark crossed paths, so be it. Loki would strike him down like all the other pitiful mortals who dared to stand up to him.

A sharp stabbing pain penetrated Loki's skull, and he gasped and stumbled to the side, clutching at his hair with one hand. Thanos' mind swept over his own, delving only deep enough to find out how Loki's invasion was going. He snarled when he saw that it wasn't as far along as it should be and heat, pain, radiated through Loki's already weak body.

When Thanos finally pulled back, Loki was gasping for breath, and had broke out in a cold sweat.

'Loki?' Barton questioned.

Loki snarled and turned. He grabbed Barton by the jacket and pulled him in, the sceptre easily connecting him to Barton's mind. He ripped through the human, flicking through memories and feelings, storing valuable information and tossing the rest aside. When he was done he tossed Barton aside, the human in no better state than he was.

'Barton, prepare for the attack,' Loki ordered. Barton stood from where he was hunched over, at attention despite his obvious pain. 'It's time I made a visit to Germany.'