I struggled immensely with this chapter, so fair warning, it's kind of rough.
Warnings: language, brief mention of self-injury, Loki. I think Loki should always come with a warning.
I do not own the Avengers.
"Um, security breach?" Tony said, in a hopeless, resigned way. He had always felt that no one else took these things seriously.
Steve was the first to act, standing up slowly, positioning himself in case he needed to do...something. He didn't know quite what he might have to do, but it was best to be prepared. No one else moved or spoke.
Then, a knife flashed through the air and lodged itself in the wall less than an inch from Loki's ear. The trickster didn't flinch or move, just cast his eyes to the side, watching the knife's handle as it quivered into stillness. He then took a minute step closer to Thor.
Tony glared at Clint, who didn't even have the decency to look chagrined. "Thanks, man, I really needed a knife sticking out of my wall. It adds to the decor. Would you like to add anything else? Bullet holes, maybe, or an arrow?"
Clint shrugged.
Turning to Thor, Tony said, "You'd better start explaining. As you can see, this many tense superheroes in one place could get ugly pretty damn fast."
Thor thought it extraordinarily odd that they were all in one place. He had returned to Stark Tower, as it was one of the few destinations on Midgard where he knew he could find a friendly face. He'd known that Stark could help him get into contact with the people he needed to see. He had not expected to find the entire team assembled.
It was actually quite convenient.
"I bring...tidings," he began, cautiously. "My brother has, I fear, brought further mischief to your world."
Mischief? Tony thought. Is that what they call hundreds of lives lost and billions of dollars in structural damages?
Loki smirked, as if he could hear Tony's thoughts. Tony barely resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at him. Mature, Stark, really fucking mature.
"Well," said Steve, struggling to regain his equilibrium. He fell back on his 1940's manners. "If you're going to stay a while, why don't you have a seat?"
Thor decided that seemed agreeable, and perched on an ottoman where he looked awkwardly large and out of place. Loki opted to lean casually against the wall instead, with a vague concern for maintaining his advantageous perspective.
With a deep breath, Thor launched into his explanation, beginning with the messenger from Svartálfaheimr and his attempt at deception. He told them of how Loki had confessed to stealing the weapon and sending it to Midgard. He took the time to go into great detail about how his brother had been stripped of his magic by the Allfather, and currently posed no threat. It seemed important that he make that clear, if only so no more weapons were thrown. He ended with Odin's orders to do what he could to prevent a war between the two realms.
As Thor was speaking, Bruce was only half-listening. He was, perhaps irrationally, pleased by this turn of events. Sure, having Loki back on Earth was terrifying, even if he had been, supposedly, neutralized (though Bruce had serious doubts that the 'God of Mischief' could ever be truly neutralized). And the prospect of war with another realm was certainly ominous. But this whole fiasco had distracted the team from their original reason for convening. Bruce thought that, with some careful maneuvering, he could escape this situation all together.
When Thor was finished his speech, the room was once again enveloped in silence.
"So, I've just got this feeling. A really fucking bad one," said Tony, after a moment. "This weapon, it's a small, glowing, massively radioactive ball, am I right?"
Thor said, "I know not. I have never laid eyes upon it. Perhaps my brother knows...?"
Loki did not know what "radioactive" meant. Still, he replied, "Indeed. At least, in its inactive form it could be described as such."
Tony nodded, surprised that Loki had answered at all, and in a civil manner no less. Bruce, Natasha, and Clint, though, did not seem so impressed. They were all wearing matching facial expressions: dawning horror.
"Christ," said Clint. "If they come looking for that thing, they're going to find it. Right in SHIELD's headquarters. Right in the fucking lab."
Steve and Thor's expressions morphed to match the others'.
"But, if we know where it is, can't you just take it back to them?" Steve said, after a moment.
Loki shook his head, sneering, "No, we cannot. Transporting such an object requires a great deal of magic. And, as far as I know, you are unfortunately without a sorcerer of that magnitude. I could have done it at one point, of course, but alas, no longer. Pity."
Natasha rolled her eyes. "Will the dwarves be able find it, though?" she asked. "If they're looking all over the universe for it, it doesn't seem like they've got any means of tracking its location."
"Oh, I assure you," said Loki, his words colored with disdain, "They will be able to find it. Once they're in the correct realm, it will only be a matter of time. And there's only nine realms to get through."
"He's right," added Bruce. "The amount of energy that thing is throwing off makes it a beacon. Not to mention the energy is unique, completely different from anything else I've ever seen. If anyone's looking for it, it'll stick out. But..."
"But what?" asked Tony.
"It's currently stored in that container SHIELD provided, right? That blocks the energy from escaping. It might buy us some time, depending on how sensitive their detection is."
Tony nodded. The non-scientifically inclined took that as a good sign.
"Here's an idea," Clint threw out. "Why don't we just let them come here and take it? Tell them that douchebag," he pointed at Loki, "Stole it and sent it here? We're innocent, there's no reason for them to go all war-and-destruction on us."
Loki, uncertain of what a "douchebag" was, nevertheless felt he had been insulted. "Certainly, that's a wonderful idea. Except they will believe you are lying. And any race who would lie to avoid a war, instead of taking ownership of their actions, is a weak, cowardly sort that deserves only to be put down. They would feel no qualms about slaughtering you all."
Well, that idea was a bust.
"Have you been to see Fury?" Natasha asked, somehow making it clear that she was addressing Thor and ignoring Loki completely.
"No. I fear that I do not know where to find him."
Clint stood up, glaring daggers at Loki. "Well, we'd better head over to SHIELD before he hears that Loki's back and flips his fucking lid," he said.
Natasha stood up to follow him. Turning to Bruce, she said, "Do you have your notes on the weapon? I'd like to have something to show Fury."
"Yeah," he said, "They might not be much use, though. It's all preliminary stuff, and I didn't know it was even a weapon I was looking at. And...they're not exactly...legible. But they're in my bag, I can grab them." He struggled to his feet, leaning heavily against the couch, then the wall, for leverage.
"Dr. Banner! You're injured!" Thor exclaimed, noticing the crutches leaning against the wall and the awkward way Bruce had pulled himself upright. "How did this happen? Was there a battle?"
"Uh...no. It was an accident, that's all." Tony looked like he was going to say something, but Bruce cut him off. "I'm fine, really."
Thor began to say something about the fragility of mortals, but Natasha and Clint were herding him and Loki out the door, and Bruce didn't really catch it. He figured that was okay; it probably would have really annoyed him.
"Just an accident, hey?" Tony said, after the elevator doors had closed. "That's cute. Hey, who wants a drink?"
Bruce felt a headache coming on.
Bruce sipped slowly on the glass of scotch Tony had insisted on pouring for him. It was only about ten o'clock in the morning, but that hadn't daunted Tony in the least. He had justified his actions, saying that he deserved a drink after having a psychopathic demigod in his house. ALSO, it was Saturday, so day drinking was perfectly acceptable.
Out of courtesy, Bruce pretended he hadn't noticed how Tony's hands had been shaking as he poured their drinks.
At least Steve looked uncomfortable, too, Bruce thought. The level in his glass had barely gone down.
Luckily, Tony was drinking enough to make up for their reluctance. He had knocked back his first drink in two swallows and quickly poured himself a second. That one lasted a bit longer. Almost five minutes, in fact.
After his third, Tony noticed that Steve hadn't touched his, and so he took that as his fourth. Bruce's was commandeered as his fifth.
"Tony," Steve said, easily wrestling the bottle from Tony's hand as the man tried to pour himself his sixth drink in forty-five minutes, "You shouldn't be drinking so much."
"Yeah? And Bruce shouldn't test the fucking cutlery on his fucking quadriceps, but none of us are fucking perfect," Tony snarled.
That was a bit harsh, Bruce thought. Of course, he could understand Tony's anxiety. Loki had, after all, thrown him out a window. Bruce didn't imagine he'd welcome anyone into his home who had thrown him from a window. And it was entirely possible they were going to be working with Loki, unless Fury decided to otherwise contain him. In fact, now that he was thinking about it, he found that alcohol was sounding like a better and better idea.
And that was saying something, because he knew that alcohol was a terrible idea.
Bruce was deep into musing on the pros and cons of having liquor for breakfast when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw that he had a text message from Natasha that said, 'forgot to grab your notes. fury wants you here NOW.' He sighed and heaved to his feet. Well, foot.
"Duty calls," he said. "Time to save the world with science."
"Oooooh," said Tony, momentarily abandoning his quest for drink number six. "I want to come!"
Bruce knew that Tony was barely welcome at SHIELD sober. He suspected that a drunk Tony would probably end up in a holding cell. Maybe with Loki. That could actually be hilarious. But...
"I think you should sit this one out," Steve said. "I'll make sure Dr. Banner gets there in one piece."
Apparently, when Clint and Natasha had brought Loki into the building, it had set off every alarm in the place. All of the employees had evacuated, and they were just starting to get that fiasco cleared up when Bruce and Steve arrived. A friendly administrative assistant had directed them to Fury's office, where the director was at the tail end of what looked to have been a glorious lecture.
"Next time you bring a mass-motherfucking-murderer into the headquarters of the most powerful government agency in the world," Fury said, "Call me! Okay? And you!" He turned to face Loki, who had been sitting on his desk, looking very innocent and contrite. "Get off my fucking desk."
"Am I, uh, interrupting?" Bruce asked, knowing full well that he was.
Fury looked at Bruce, noticing the crutches and how fatigued he looked. Filing it away for later, he said, "What do you know about this thing, Banner?"
"Well, I don't know much. Just that it's emitting radiation that's higher energy than gamma rays, and that shouldn't be possible. That alone has a lot of implications. I mean, gamma rays are so high-energy that they can actually create matter. So, if this radiation has more energy, then..." Bruce trailed off.
Fury nodded and turned to Thor. "What does your brother know about this? Can he get it off our planet?"
Thor hesitated. "He has said he cannot. But...Loki is not always truthful."
"No shit," said Fury. "God of Lies, yeah, I got it. Okay, here's what we're going to do. Rogers, Thor, We need to work on this on three levels. First, we need to work on some kind of diplomatic response. Then we need to work on a less diplomatic response, if diplomacy doesn't work out. I've got a funny feeling it won't. Third, we need to find a way to get this thing off our planet, or neutralize it, or something, if it's as dangerous as you've said it is. Banner, take Loki down to the labs and see what you can make of it."
Bruce wasn't really one to sputter, but it was a close call. "Director? Do you really think...?"
Loki said, "Don't worry, Dr. Banner. I will, how do they say it? 'Play nice.'"
Bruce did not find much comfort in that.
In the end, Steve and Thor escorted Bruce and Loki to the lab. Bruce got to work immediately, fiddling with machinery and getting the computers set up, anything to avoid the immense awkwardness of the situation in which he now found himself. Maneuvering through the lab with crutches was quite difficult, and he nearly tripped a half-dozen times in the first ten minutes.
Loki sat quietly on a chair, as far away from Bruce as he could manage to get. That man was injury and chaos waiting to happen. And while Loki generally approved of those things, he preferred to be the cause of them, not the recipient.
Satisfied that the pair wasn't in any immediate danger of killing each other, Steve and Thor headed back upstairs.
Bruce worked in silence for a bit over an hour. When Loki spoke, Bruce jumped. He'd forgotten the demigod was there. Almost. His presence had receded to a vague humming of anxiety in the back of his mind.
"You know, Banner, you are a terrible liar. Granted, there are few I have encountered across the realms whose skills in that area I would commend. You are more dismal than most, though, I fear."
"You might want to reconsider startling me. Just a thought," Bruce said, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.
"Ah, yes. Of course. We would not want to unleash the monster."
Bruce rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that wouldn't go well. For you. From what I've heard, anyway."
Silence reigned again.
"So, is there any reason you couldn't just take this thing, leave it in this box, and realm-jump with it?" Bruce asked, a few moments later. He figured it would be best to make sure he wasn't overlooking a really simple solution.
Loki paused in a way that Bruce really didn't like, before saying, "Of course there is a reason. And I will tell you, if you tell me why you lied to my dear 'brother.'"
"Don't know what you mean," Bruce said. He was trying to tweak a gamma ray spectrometer to measure the alien radiation. It wasn't going well.
"You leg was not injured in battle. That was true. But it was not an accident."
Bruce leaned back from his work bench with an irritated huff. He had some extremely unfriendly thoughts about aliens and alien weapons, followed by some equally unfriendly thoughts about this particular alien. Which was followed by some really colorful thoughts about alien invasions, and superheroes, and saving the world.
Loki watched as Bruce frowned and clenched his jaw, before picking up a screwdriver to prod rather ineffectually at the piece of equipment in front of him.
"Banner, I am bored. And curious. And I have information you need."
Bruce slammed the screwdriver on the table. It was Loki's turn to jump, although he quickly recovered. "All right," Bruce said, quietly, knowing that there was almost certainly someone watching surveillance of the room. "I stabbed myself with a paring knife. Now, why can't you just cart this off to some other, preferably non-Earth, place? Like, back to Svartálfaheimr."
"Interesting. Was that so hard, Banner?"
The physicist growled. "Your. Turn."
"Very well. I currently cannot take anything anywhere. Thor could do it easily enough, I suppose. Now," Loki lowered his voice, "Why, pray tell, did you stab yourself with a 'paring knife?'"
Bruce didn't like being played, but now he was curious. And irritated. He decided to go with it for awhile. "Pain prevents the Other Guy from taking over. Why did you lie earlier, about being able to move this thing?"
"Simple. I do not wish for the dwarves to possess it. Is that really the best way you have found to control that beast?"
Bruce paused, then shrugged. "It works. Why don't you want the dwarves to have this thing?"
I am not enamored with their plans for it."
"Which are?"
Loki made a tutting sound. "Ah, ah, Dr. Banner. It is not your turn."
Impatiently, Bruce said (marveling momentarily at his own audacity), "Come on, you psycho, the fate of the world is at stake here! Can't we lay off the games?"
Loki smirked. "The fate of your realm matters little to me. It will bring me neither power nor amusement. This, at least, is amusing. Albeit, I imagine, fleetingly." He took a moment to bask in the frustration rolling off the physicist. How he loved to annoy people! "Now..." he gestured at Bruce's leg, "That must have taken a lot of willpower." If Loki was honest with himself, the idea of doing something like that made him a touch nauseous. "How did you do it?"
"It wasn't that hard," Bruce said, "Since the alternative was killing my friends."
"Surely you don't value their lives so much more than your own?"
Something akin to amusement flashed across the physicist's face, and he gave a pained chuckle. "We're so not going there. And it's not your turn. Tell me, Loki, what's the dwarves' plan for this thing?"
"Yes, Loki," came Fury's voice from the door behind them. He was flanked by the rest of the Avengers, included a half-drunk, half-hungover Tony. "What do the dwarves have planned?"
Bruce wondered how long they'd been standing there.
I can't help but feel that my plot is getting in the way of my angst.
The good news (or bad, I guess, depending on your perspective) is that I know how this is going to end. The bad news (or good) is that I have no idea how long it's going to take to get there.
The next chapter might take a while. I've been discouraged and writer's block-y.
Please review.
