It's a Loki chapter :)

This one isn't LOLFUNNY like the others, but it IS necessary for the character development that has to happen here. So suck it up. There will be mostly giggles from here on out.

stolen lonely relic

The nice thing (or, the irritating thing in Loki's case) about the Stark mansion was that the rooms -the guest rooms, anyway- were designed and built to be completely soundproof. Most presumably a comfort feature, Loki figured. Or privacy, might be a more appropriate term for all the inappropriate things that had most likely taken place within these walls. And on these beds. As in the one Loki was sitting on.

Joy.

But let's be serious here. Loki had no plans to stick around. The 4 days he'd spent in that laughable excuse for a high-secury penitentiary had been his holiday. He could have broken out the very second he'd developed the inclination. But teasing the guards had been ever so fun, he'd stuck it out for a couple days. And damn, were they ever easy to manipulate. Naturally they'd passed him over to the very people who wanted him the least. And he'd done his job before he'd even walked through the front door - just look at the chaos they'd caused themselves just in anticipation of his arrival! It was so pathetically easy, causing them any more grief would quite frankly be a waste of precious talent. Not to mention these Iron Man blankets were the most ghastly colour known to man. The exact shade of Thor's cape, brightness amplified by about 1000 percent. Ick.

Yeah, Loki out.

That's where the soundproof walls were causing some annoyance. (Despite his impeccably perceptive ears, honed from centuries of eavesdropping.) He had no way of knowing whether or not everyone else had retreated off to bed, leaving him free to escape. He had to guess. He hated guessing.

The god sat in the darkness, calmly watching the digital touch-screen clock as the lime green digits ticked away the minutes till 2:00 am, the time he'd silently decided would be his departure. Where he'd go from here, he was uncertain. Maybe the other side of the universe, that should be far enough from Thor and his posse of super-righteous do-gooders who all regarded him as less than dirt. Like he hadn't had enough of that in his childhood in Asgard. The Avengers were an earthly version of the Warriors Three, it was really that simple. Thor was undeniably a magnet for fellow warmongering jocks, no matter what realm he was in.

Loki could officially cross Earth off his list of places to potentially call home. Right under the first two X's: Asgard and Jotunheim. Well, the universe was a pretty big place. There had to be somewhere where nobody hated him.

2:00. Go time. Now, he wasn't stupid. Far from it, as you well know. They had the place rigged with every security device known to man. They were invisible for now, but once he located them, he'd break them like he broke the prison. It was only a matter of time. You can't contain the Trickster. But kudos for trying.

He slowly stood up and strode noiselessly over to the door. First glance revealed it to be… just a door. It didn't appear to be rigged in any way, but he braced himself for an alarm or an electric shock or a bucket of water dumped on his head, or some other dumb humanly thing. Gods forbid he end up like the adorably naive star-spangled blond man, hanging upside down in a net like an animal. (Had Fury not pointed out the emergency switch, he'd still be up there.) Anyway, back to his mission. He cautiously extended his hand and set it on the elegant door handle. The security system did not resist. Cool. He shifted the handle a millimetre downwards…

"You are not authorized to exit this area." JARVIS suddenly spoke up, quite loudly. Loki would like to say he didn't yelp and jump a foot into the air, but that would be a flat-out lie. Ahem.

"Excuse me?" he replied indignantly, once he regained his dignity.

"You are excused. Have a pleasant evening." JARVIS returned politely.

Not to be deterred, Loki attempted to turn the handle again. The door was firmly locked. Loki cursed violently.

"I told you." JARVIS commented rather boredly.

"Silence!" the Silver Tongue snapped in a rare display of frustration.

"Only Mr. Stark has access to my mute functon." JARVIS informed him. The smart-ass.

Loki didn't care to answer. He was busily weighing his options, of which there were many. He'd never met a lock which he couldn't convince to open with a good shot of trademark trickster magic... hmm, that was odd. He couldn't detect any sort of mechanism. This must be one of those Midgardian electric contraptions. Technologically inclined as he was (compared to Thor, anyway) his power didn't react well with electricity. Hmph, no matter. He wasn't out of options yet. (Although he was momentarily tempted to pull a Thor, so to speak, and abandon himself to yelling furiously, violently cranking the unyielding handle, and quite possibly kicking down the door. But such an uncouth attack was much farther down his list of sensible solutions to imprisonment.)

The only question now was what what sort of insect to transform into. The tiny crack between the bottom of the door and the smooth hardwood floor had just enough space for a little something to slip through...something like one of those little picnic-ruiners which Thor so detested (hmm, how appropriate.). An ant would do nicely.

Loki closed his eyes and gently summoned his powers, preparing to downshift until he was at eye-level with the dust bunnies.

Odd.

His silent command to his body went seemingly unheard. He didn't feel any trace of the tingling rush that rushed through his bones when he shapeshifted. Didn't feel his flesh and muscles twisting, melting, and reforming. And when he opened his luminous emerald eyes, all they saw was the same wide, unfriendly room staring back at him. In the same proportions.

Like the logical, sensible deity he was, he calmly dismissed the instinctual flash of panic that jolted him. His powers weren't gone, because that would be nothing short of absurd. They had been in fine working order that morning. (He had the contents of the prison vending machine to prove it - a parting gift to himself.) No. Weakened as they were, they were certainly not gone. Shame on him for even jumping to such a conclusion. Focus, Loki.

He directed his energy back towards the door handle. Screw sensibility, his fuse had officially run out. He was going to take a page out of Thor's book and just blast the damned thing apart. This was no time to be his usual tidy self. He steeled himself with the utmost concentration, and... nothing. Not even a spark. He could swear the handle was laughing at him.

Gripped by foreboding, he wheeled around to face the window behind his bed. With as much restraint as inhumanly possible, he calmly attempted to vanish the glass. For one wildly hopeful moment, he thought he'd succeeded. But when he extended a pale hand, he realized with dismay that the glass was still very much impassible.

"What's happening to me?" he voiced in a shivery whisper, audible only to himself. (JARVIS apparently had the good sense to mind his own business.)

The fact that his voice was shaking was more than a little disconcerting. He was a god, a god. His ever-repressed temper flared; this wasn't happening. And he was going to prove it by blasting the ever-loving shit out of this entire room, then walking straight outta here. Maybe that was more Thor's style than his own, but even the Master of Chaos has to run out of patience sometimes.

Ready, aim, fire.

And..

Nothing.

Nothingnothingnothing - no - nonono -what's happening - what happened to me - what have they done to me - I can't - why - WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?

He couldn't hold the panic back, it broke the barriers of his inner sanctuary like a flood obliterating a dam. His power was gone. His strength, his protection, his identity - gone. Taken. Stolen. But how?

It couldn't have been the work of SHIELD. They couldn't stop him before; they had no effect on him now. Thor! It had to be Thor. It was always Thor. Only a god can control a god. But... for all his strength, Thor couldn't just take Loki's power away. He was mighty, yes. But he wasn't almighty.

Father.

Yes. It could only be Odin. He should have known, should have suspected Thor would involve father somehow. He'd always had a tendency to go running off to daddy when faced with a task he couldn't quite wrap his head (or hammer) around. Rather intelligent of him, Loki supposed begrudgingly. Clearly he had the presence of mind to realize that all the superheroes in the world couldn't keep the trickster contained in one place, on Midgard no less. So he'd called in the cavalry. And Odin was surely all too delighted to heap down that much extra punishment onto his stolen relic.

After minutes of staring bleakly at the moon and trying to collect his very rampant thoughts, Loki slowly sunk back down onto the bed (the bed, not his bed.) and pressed his palms against his forehead. He'd never been physically powerful in the manner that Thor was, but he'd been gifted in his own right. He'd never known true weakness. There was no clever trick or cunning deceit to get him out of this. For the first time in his life, he was well and truly defeated.

Then something utterly strange occurred to him; was this how Thor had felt upon his banishment? Like his very skin had been peeled away and his every vulnerability was exposed for the cold cruel world to strip away at will? Had his brother felt so terribly betrayed? So… alone?

Trapped in his own thoughts as much as in this unwelcoming room, Loki curled into a fetal position on his side and stared out the window at the resplendent reflection of the moon on the vast expanse of ocean, until the tauntingly warm dawn light melted silver into red.

Poor baby...

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