a/n: i have no excuse except life, which is not a very good excuse, i suppose. i watched The Dark World today. Loki's story, in my mind, is a trilogy; so provided i can make it through this story...ahaha oh i think too far ahead. sighhhh

anyway. i'm sorry. i'll try my hardest-in the meantime, thanks for sticking with me, folks! i love you all.

please read and review!


"I can't believe this!" Jane shouts angrily, slamming the briefcase full of highly sensitive material onto the table and clicking the locks, hoping against hope that she breaks several items in the process. Let them put it on her tab. "Fury thinks he can just order me around—he never cared about my 'safety' before—damn it, damn it, damn it—"

Banner coughs; light, delicate—a clearing of the throat, really. Jane stops mid-sentence, clacking her teeth together and immediately wishing that she wasn't so carelessly stupid. There's a long pause. She lets the thrumming of the electrical equipment, a low ebb near her feet, wash over her. A squadron of agents races past outside. She says, at last, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get—angry."

"It's alright." Banner smiles tightly. She can't read him; his face is like a book, closed and locked, almost as bad as—

Jane scoffs, opening her briefcase. Banner is busy setting up a holographic computer monitor. She wishes she knew more in the field of gamma radiation; she's entirely, utterly out of her league; and the only thing connecting her to this case was a sociopathic—no psychopathic god on a warpath.

But why?

She did not have the answers and she could not stand it.

"You must, ah, really care, for the guy, if you're willing to go after him like that."

Care? Jane didn't care. She was so far from caring it wasn't funny. She pauses in lifting out the heavy cylinders from their foam casing, looking out the windows in front of her. The sky outside is a blinding blue, twilight hinting at the edges. She shakes her head slowly. "No. I couldn't care less."

"Then why're you risking your life?"

"I'm sitting in the most secure place on the whole planet, Doctor. I'm not risking my life."

"By being here, we're all risking our lives."

Jane doesn't say anything. She can't pretend to understand. Some part of her told her it was too late, everything was too late. She says, "I want to kick his ass. Myself."

Banner looks at her seriously. He rubs the back of his neck, sliding his index finger across the holo-screen. "Sounds a lot like love."

Her voice is heavy. Her laugh is acidic. "Love, Dr. Banner? Love is for children."


"Nat'll be down there somewhere."

"Hey, lover boy. Snap out of it." Stark claps his hands in front of his face, momentarily blinding him, enough that he swerves the quinjet gracelessly into a cloud bank. He curses. Outside, the sky is nearly black. "Homicidal maniac, remember?"

"I'm just saying," Clint grits, knuckles turning white around the controls of the aircraft, "that I can drop you off and land in a safe location, and then locate Agent Romanoff—"

"You really got a thing for Ms. Rushman, don't you?"

"Who?"

"Never mind. I've never seen you quite so unprofessional. Well, no. I lied. Yeah, huge lie, that point of your life came when you drank all my fucking alcohol."

"Stark." Clint thinks it will be a miracle if they get to Germany at all. He cracks his neck menacingly, but the other man is barely fazed, fiddling as he is with the cockpit controls. "Suit up."

Stark sighs the sigh of a child not allowed to run wild with a shiny new toy. Clint can't shake the feeling that all of Stark's toys were usually tens of thousands of dollars, and that this quinjet was nothing new—he'd probably gotten a Bentley when he turned five.

"Aye, aye, Bernini."


The place was beautiful in the way centuries old art was beautiful—quaint. A loving attempt at something much, much grander. He steps from the mortal vehicle and straightens the tails of his coat. He eyes the crowd lazily, spread out like ants on the white marble steps. He readjusts his grip on the scepter, beginning a slow, tempered march along the red-carpeted path.

He walks through the front entrance. A mortal guard attempts to block his path, but a quick wave of his hand, a flash of liquid green-white around his eyes, and the man is letting him pass, but even that—even that is too much, too much wasted. He has to pause, just inside the building, leaning against a blank white wall, to fight the surge of blue that threatens to overwhelm his mind in a tidal wave of knowledge—of power—of rage. There is a hiss on the edges of his thoughts.

Loki looks straight ahead. The interior is incredibly white. Too white. He is trying to collect himself, but it is rather difficult, when one is remembering the pain of before, the promise of it on the horizon, skin splitting like parchment and entire realms falling to ash. He is drowning.

"Sir? Geht es dir gut?"

Loki blinks. There is a mortal in front of him, and he could break his spine. He knows someone who had done that often enough without thinking; and yet they were not proclaiming him a villain in the streets.

"Sir?" The All-Tongue begins its work. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Loki snarls, and there was his weakness, a flair of the dramatic. He surges forward, past centuries old art that makes the building seem a weak parody. The carved sculptures had been slashed into cave rock, and lovingly excavated. He wants to spit on them all.

Such helpless, newborn things, he thinks, vision tinged red, catching view of several laughing humans out of the corner of his eye. A few drinks; a broken heart; a bullet ripping through flesh—all enough to kill them.

Why was he doing this again?

He swings his scepter at his side, partly in time to the instruments playing soft, lilting music from the corner of the grand hall. The bow of the violin glances off the string, like a skater on ice. He moves for the stairs.

Now—

Now he was simply buying time.

He reaches the balcony and stands over the mortals beneath him and likes the view. He leans blithely against the railing. His eyes seek and find his target.

He waits.


Steve fits the cowl over his head. He feels awkward, self-conscious. He reaches for his shield. It smells of better times; it feels of familiar times; it reminds him of home.

Coulson looks back from the cockpit and beams proudly. "Perfect."

Steve hopes his smile looks more convincing that it feels. In either case, it disappears quickly, leaving him to watch the clouds spreading over the glass before him, a watery, limpid fog. They break the bank and there, beneath them, like a multifaceted jewel, is the city of Stuttgart. He feels his mouth dropping open.

"A little different from your time, eh, Cap?"

He wants to be sick. He steadies his hand against the top of the cab and manages, "Yeah. A little."


Somewhere, violins are playing.


"We're about twenty miles to the drop zone, Stark, are you—Stark? Stark?"

The cargo bay of the quinjet is open, and Stark is standing there, dressed to the nines in red and gold, contemplating the night sky and the lights streaming by below. The wind is almost unbearable. He looks back over his shoulder. "Hey, Bieber," and here Stark pauses, and Clint should really look back at the controls but there's something in the other man's eyes. They're dark and unreadable and Clint can't name it, the thing there, but for a second it almost looks like humanity. "You ever wonder why we do this?"

Clint knows why he's doing it; could care less about aliens and Stuttgart and things too big for him. He takes too long to answer.

"Ha! Whatever. You should see the look on your face." Stark turns back to the city lights. "It's a long way to the top, if you wanna rock 'n roll."

He jumps. The suit propels him into the air, helmet folding over his face like a second skin. There's a moment of free-fall before the thrusters kick in. As soon as he's clear, Clint shuts the ramp. The silence is deafening, and how had Stark even opened that thing anyway—

"I'm gonna pull it, pull it, pull the trigger—shoot to thrill—"

"Holy shit—" Clint startles as the music blasts concert-level loud over the speakers, swerving left, and the quinjet wavers through empty space. Somewhere back at HQ Fury was seething.

"Hope you don't mind the music choice, Boston. Oh wait. Wrong band." Stark cackles like a mad man, voice louder than the music over the speakers, system overriding so that all his readouts momentarily read SHIELD SUX, which Clint think is kind of counter-intuitive, but then Iron Man is flying past and the jet is righted and the readouts are back and all he can say is, "Stark. You're one crazy son of a bitch."

"Crazy is as crazy does."


Somewhere, violins are playing.


Natasha whistles. The guard turns; slipping into his shadow, she grasps his neck between her hands and twists. There is something oddly calming about the whole process. Twist, and the man is gone, forever; his body falls heavily to the floor. His friend on the ground looks up, gun raised, and Natasha falls straight onto him, cracking his rib cage, rupturing his spleen. She kicks the gun away.

She straightens. The vault containing the iridum Selvig needed was straight ahead, painted blue in the night; just as the man's blood she steps on seems to be cerulean; and there is a thrumming on the edges of her thoughts. There is the vast universe there, and she need only push to find it.

She presses her ear. "Sir."


The strings reach a climactic crescendo—ah, but lo! It is a false lead, and they continue up another run. Such screaming, brutal instruments. They are killing his head, murdering his thoughts. Someone says, "Sir."

Loki smiles. It's time.

He walks down the stairs, footsteps echoing the lazy beat of his heart. He is detached. He is floating. There is a man approaching him, as he reaches the bottom. He flips his scepter in his hands and swings; the head connects with the mortal's skull, crushing it like a robin's egg, and he falls. There is a lull among the mortals; simple things, they know not what to do; they know not where they stand. He sees his target, a middle-aged man, balding, showing signs of the end, and oh, how brief were these mortal flames, how they burned and flashed and were gone; a heartbeat; a grain of sand. He strides forward, grabs the man by the collar, and flips him backwards onto a piece of art, gold and marble.

What a convenient sacrificial table, he thinks. He pulls out the device from his coat pocket. An eye for an eye, he thinks.

Somewhere, the violins stop playing. He presses the spinning blades into the mortal's left eye socket, and feels them hit skin, rip ligament, tear muscle; the man screams and screams and screams; the screams mingle with those of the crowd, now upset, now running, scared, from one man and his eyeball-machine. Loki grins at their running, if only to distract himself from the writhing of the mortal beneath him.

Torture had never sat right with him. Rather a quick kill.

A clean kill.

From a safe vault Agent Romanoff's voice rings in his ear, "I've got it."

Loki stops the device. Pulls it, almost gingerly, from the man, who is crying, awfully, fiercely, like a babe. He wipes the blood, tinged blue in his eyes, on his shirt, and tosses the thing carelessly aside. He has no more use for it. The man reaches for his injured eye, to clutch it, to press; Loki is not one for torture. He slides the point of his scepter—and when did it become a spear, and when did he gain his armor, must have occurred in all the excitement—slides it across his neck. Two seconds, and the man is gone. Less, maybe. More. It did not matter.

All relative, when looking at the shortness of the mortal life.

Loki steps back, sighing. He wipes his hands. The building is empty, looking even less grand without those pompous mortals to inhabit it. He feels more powerful, in his armor, with his spear, and his plans are working, and all is working. There is nothing that can stop him.

He follows the screams and the cries out into the night.

There is chaos. A mortal vehicle squeals at him down the street. He thrusts a beam of alien, blue-fire magic in its direction. It flips, and skids, sparking, and he can taste the pain of those inside. This was never part of the plan, these deaths. He looks at the street, lit beneath the artificial bulbs, and the mortals screaming, sobbing, running—moments ago they had been viewing art, and listening to violins. Now they were no better than animals.

He throws up a projection. The mortals cower from it, running the other direction. They are like sheep, and he, their shepherd. He throws up another. His barrier between his magic and the unfamiliar one is fading, but he throws up another; and one more. "Kneel before me!" he shouts. They are slowing. There is nowhere to run. "I said," Loki looks at them, bathed in blue, and hates them, "KNEEL!"

They do. He watches them go down, showing him respect; and he's never had that before, that respect. They are wide-eyed and scared, and he—he could rule them.

He's lost sight of it all, completely, now. Somewhere, the Other laughs.

"Is not this, simpler?" he asks. His voice carries over the street, over those poor sheep. He spreads his arms. They part before him like the sea, looking at the ground, at the sky, too afraid to meet his eyes. "Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation; the bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power. For identity." His projections flicker. He can feel his magic ripping, the liquid-white too thin.

"You were made," he nearly whispers, "to be ruled." And he has never been so powerful. He is a god. He laughs. "In the end, you will always kneel."

He laughs, and the Other laughs, and somewhere a darker being laughs, too.

A mortal stands; older, by far, than the one he had so recently dispatched. Loki looks at him with interest. There is something threatening about his calm, steady gaze, his folded face, the sad eyes that bespoke horror. But Loki had seen horror, and this mortal did not frighten him. This mortal needed to be taught. "Not to men like you."

This makes him laugh more. "There are no men like me."

"There are always men like you."

And somewhere from the farthest reaches of the nether someone whispers kill him. Loki levels his spear. The blue gem at its head, the blue fire, begins to glow more brightly. It seems a logical thing to do, and he's lost track of it all completely. "Look to your elder people. Let him be an example."

Two things happen, then.

Loki imagines a mouse—he does not know why, but he cannot get it out of his head. Small, insignificant. Angry, at him. He pulls the spear up just slightly; a centimeter, no more; not enough, by far, to save anyone. It doesn't matter, though.

The spear discharges a bolt of blue energy, and a man, dropping from the sky, catches it on the round of his obnoxious shield and it bounces back his way. Loki is hit with it, square, in the chest, and falls on his face. Part of him wants to scream.

"You know, the last time I was in Germany, and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing."

Loki looks up. There is a solid mortal, dressed in dark blue, splashed with red, an 'A' on his forehead. Loki gets to his feet, and he is starting to gain things back, now; things do not look so blue, so red; he remembers things. Earth. That stupid girl. He laughs. He laughs anyway, getting to his feet, because he is a good actor. So very good, and he could not dwell on thoughts like that, not when the Other and—could so easily read them. "The soldier. The man out of time," Loki smiles.

"I'm not the one who's out of time."

A huge, bellowing monster pulls up in the air above the Captain, and Loki wants to thank them, all, personally, for following so strictly their roles. Things were in motion, now.

"Loki," a male voice proclaims, sounding lifeless and far away, "drop the weapon and stand down."

He looks at the aircraft and pulls and shoots. Blue fire arches through the air. The craft swerves out of the way, and then the Captain's shield is barreling towards him. It clips his chin, and the pain is immediate, a starburst across his cheek. Loki lowers his spear and prepares for the defensive; the Captain rushes him, swings, punches; he feels knuckles slam into his nose and his head snaps back and it hurts—this mortal with the blue cowl, this soldier, this nothinghurt him

The world is painted blues and reds. He has fought. He can fight. He could keep up with the best of them. He flips his spear and jabs and jabs and catches the mortal in the stomach, flinging him backwards. The others are scattering like frightened children. The Captain throws the shield once more, and Loki bats it aside. They rush each other, punch, jab, punch, and Loki has not fought an opponent like this, not for a long while—because—because he had fought all wild punches and wide arcs—not since Sif, had he fought someone like this—

He knocks the Captian backwards once more, presses advantage, shoves the butt of his spear into the Captain's helmet and he orders, "Kneel," because he must have it, cooperation, this thing, this kneeling

"Not today!" the Captain grunts, and knocks the spear aside with the back of his hand, and spins. Loki feels the man's foot connect with his stomach, through the Asgardian armor. He doubles over, feigns left, and throws the Captain once more.


In the sky, Coulson curses. "Guy's all over the place." Then he hears it, like the Second Coming. He turns on all channels of communication. "We did not authorize AC/DC."

"It's not me, sir," Agent Barton replies over the link. Coulson can see his quinjet hovering on the other side of the square, and then—

He sighs. "Ah. Of course."


Loki is hit with a blast of pure energy. His body is numb. He cannot feel anything, not at this point, not even as he flies back and slams against a set of stairs. One rib cracks and he tries to keep his magic in check; he had to heal slowly, or risk losing all control.

A flying man, made of metal, alights on the ground, and points more weapons at him than he has time or care to count. The Iron Man; less a threat, perhaps, than the Captain, but still, he had, at this point, everyone right where he wanted them; and there was no more reason to fight.

Not for a while, yet.

"Make your move, reindeer games."

Loki does. He stands down. His armor fades. He holds up his hands, and the Iron Man desists. "Good move."

"Mr. Stark."

"Captain."

Loki thinks it very foolish, when playing chess, to keep all your best pieces in one part of the board.

He smiles blithely. There would be no faults in his plan.

Thunder rumbles in the distance.