Chapter 10:
It takes them nearly a week to find Thor. To warn him.
They hadn't been able to do a damn thing about Doom. Hadn't been able to stop him.
He'd shoved them aside like they were nothing more than annoying gnats. By the time they'd recovered themselves enough to stand again, the dictator had been gone, Tony's cuffs with him.
It hadn't taken long after that for the infighting to start. The bickering and indecision and fear had been excruciating and, in retrospect, a sickening waste of time. Though Steve knows deep down it wouldn't have really made a difference. Not now.
Eventually he'd put his foot down and told everyone to shut up and shape up.
"We just lost what might be the most powerful piece of technology on this planet to a madman." He'd said, and that had sobered everyone up in short order. "We know he and Loki have some sort of bad blood between them, and we know the tech almost killed Loki when we used it on him. We have a serious problem."
That had only started another round of bickering and arguing, Clint and Bruce wondering aloud why they should even care. Arguing that Loki was a bad guy, and when had they started treating him like he wasn't. Steve and Tony arguing back that since the tech even existing in the first place was their doing, that whatever Doom used it to cause harm to was their responsibility, that included harming Loki, bad guy or no.
Eventually, if grudgingly, both Clint and Bruce had come around to agreeing they had to at least get a message to the god, or to his brother, about what had happened. And from there try to deal with it.
None of them had had any illusions about being able to get through to Loki on their own. Not after what had happened. They knew he wouldn't want anything to do with them. But if they could have talked to Thor...
Only they'd realized then that no one on the team had ever bothered asking Thor where he lived.
Most of the time, when he'd been on Earth, he'd simply stayed at the tower, and no one had ever felt it was their business to intrude on his private life. All they knew was that he had a private apartment somewhere in the city, and that sometimes he stayed with Jane Foster, in whatever part of the world she happened to be in at the time.
They'd made the attempt then to find him on their own, hoping that maybe he'd simply gone back to Asgard with Loki, where they would be safe from Doom.
After almost five days, Tony had finally been able to locate Thor, with JARVIS' help, and they'd rushed immediately to the complex he was staying in.
To say the god was unhappy to see them would have been a vast understatement.
He stares down at the lot of them from the threshold of his front door, his face set in a deep frown, eyes stormy.
"You are unwanted here, comrades." He says flatly. "How have you come to discover my place of dwelling?"
"You really need to ask Thunderstruck?" Tony says, crossing his arms over his chest.
It never fails to amaze Steve, just how much moxie Tony has, for such a little guy. Thor positively dwarfs him, and yet Tony never seems to let it intimidate him, not in the least, despite it being at times painfully obvious Thor likes him little.
One of those times being now, the god's eyes shifting to Tony and staring with plain displeasure down at him.
Steve can't help but notice the way Thor's fingers tighten over the door's frame where he's lain his hand to block their coming into the apartment.
The wood gives an ominous creak.
"Thor," Steve starts, feeling an awful sense of urgency, knowing they don't have time for this stupid fighting.
"What business do you have here?" Thor cuts him off sharply, turning his attention back to the Captain. "If you seek my brother, if you intend my brother harm in any manner, I warn you, you have made a grave error in..."
"We aren't here to hurt your brother Thor." Natasha says, pushing herself to the front of the group. "We're here to warn him. And you too."
Thor's frown, if possible, deepens, and the wood beneath his hand cracks like flimsy plastic.
"You dare come here to issue threat against..." he begins, and once again there is a crack of thunder from outside, so powerful it sounds as if it's right above their heads, in the hallway. All of them flinch almost violently at the noise.
"We aren't threatening you!" Steve begins frantically, holding his hands up, palms out. "We mean against someone else!"
"Who?" Thor practically hisses between his teeth.
"Is your baby bro home too?" Tony asks, standing on tip toe to try and see over Thor's shoulder. "He probably needs to hear this also."
"If you seek to force your way past me..." Thor starts.
Only this time he's disrupted by a soft voice coming from within the apartment, unmistakably belonging to Loki.
"Thor..." he says.
Thor doesn't move from his spot, but turns his head to look back behind him.
"You needn't protect me. I no longer am a child."
"Loki, do not..." Thor begins, but a moment later, Loki is squeezing himself into the door frame beside his much larger brother, standing face to face with Steve and the rest of the team.
If he's at all afraid, he shows nothing of it.
Only he looks terrible. Horribly thin, face gaunt and seemingly exhausted. There are heavy bags underneath his eyes, and he's wearing what's obviously Thor's own clothing, a t-shirt far too large for him hanging off his thin shoulders and pooling around his torso like a sack cloth.
Beside Thor's massive bulk, he looks almost like a child.
His eyes though burn that shocking, unnatural green, and he stares back at them unflinchingly, frighteningly determined. Despite his wasted state, he's still a sight to behold.
"You will not intimidate me." He says haughtily, regarding each of them with obvious disdain. "What reason have you to come here? If you think, because you managed to deceive me in our last encounter, you will do so again, than you are dangerously mistaken. Any move you make either against myself or my brother will be taken as a declaration of war. And you do not wish to engage the son's of Odin in battle, foolish mortals. I am much recovered from our last meeting. Do not make the error of thinking me as weak."
Steve shakes his head, frustrated and growing more uneasy by the moment.
"We aren't here to issue threats, or to try to take you in anywhere Loki." He looks at both gods, refusing to avert his eyes. "We have a problem. The technology Tony developed which managed to drain your magic..."
Thor steps forward at the words, his massive frame looming with clear threat, and Steve struggles not to step back, even as the rest of the team does.
"What games do you play Steven?" He asks.
"No games." Steve answers hastily. "The tech was stolen. The same day you took Loki out of the tower. It's..."
"Stolen by whom?" Loki cuts him off, and there is suddenly clear alarm in his eyes, his face, if possible, growing more pale.
Steve opens his mouth to answer.
He doesn't get the chance to say a single word.
There is a soft ding from down the hallway, the sound of the elevator coming open.
That's all the warning any of them get.
Steve watches as Dr. Doom steps out onto the floor, looking like some sort of illusion, the massive bulk of his armor seeming too large for the cramped space as he begins walking leisurely in their direction.
"Son of a bitch!" Tony curses, the mask of his suit coming down as he throws a hand out, the charge of his repulser blast filling Steve's ears, ready to loose.
That lasts hardly a moment before being drowned out by a deafening roar, coming somehow through the walls of the apartment complex, followed seconds later by the unbearable screech of metal and drywall and wood rending apart.
Steve looks up in alarm as powerful blasts of energy come tearing through the walls, blowing everything in their path to pieces, and sees above, the roof being torn asunder by thick metal fingers, a stream of Doombots pouring through the freshly torn holes an instant after.
They attack with immediacy and ferociously, even as Tony blasts Doom with his repulsors.
The dictator bats the blast of energy aside like it's nothing, before unleashing his own blast of energy towards Tony.
"Loki, wait!" He hears Thor's voice cry out, strangled, and Steve turns just in time to see two dozen robots attack the thunder god, his giant frame disappearing underneath the mass of them, even as Loki moves, so fast, Steve can't even begin to track his movements.
He leaps in front of Tony, Doom's blast hitting him square in the chest, and Steve's breath catches suddenly in his throat as Loki drops to one knee, hot steam rising off his chest where the blast hit, the god's face twisted in obvious pain and anger.
Doom lets fly another blast, and Loki barely has time to throw up a hand, a shield of green and gold energy forming, the dictator's blast bouncing off of it almost comically, ricocheting back at Doom.
Doom smacks it away, his face hidden and impassive behind his metal mask as he continues to advance forward.
Loki, somehow, pushes himself to his feet, though it's obvious that he isn't nearly as strong as usual, the movement labored, his legs seeming, for a moment, to shake beneath him before he forces himself to straighten. He moves towards Doom without hesitation, knives forming from thin air in his hands.
"Loki!" He shouts, his stomach dropping out from underneath him.
No, he thinks. No, it's a trap. A trap. Loki doesn't know. He doesn't realize that it's Doom who has Tony's tech. Doesn't realize.
It's all the time he has to give warning before a horde of Doombots fall on him, and on everyone else, attacking like they mean to take lives.
He only catches glimpses of Loki's approach towards the real Doom then, too busy fighting the robots off of himself to keep his eyes on the younger brother. But he sees enough to realize that Loki is dodging Doom's energy blasts, ducking and sidestepping them with a casual ease which seems impossible, letting loose blade after blade at the dictator as they move ever closer to one another.
Steve can barely catch his breath, wave after wave of Doombot distracting him entirely, so that he cannot even find a moment to cry out to Thor's brother, to stop him.
He turns, searching frantically for Thor, to scream to him, but he can't see his teammate anywhere, too much chaos and violence erupting around him, Thor no where in sight.
He looks back to Loki, a sickening dread taking hold his heart, even as he's torn from it by a Doombot wrapping it's hands round his throat, and he struggles for several seconds to throw the thing off.
By the time he does, by the time he has his eyes on Loki again, the god and Doom are standing only feet apart, and Steve sees Loki say something. Only he can't make out anything, can't hear a damn thing in all this noise.
Only knows the moment he sees Doom reach for Loki, knows Loki doesn't understand, doesn't realize as he stands his ground.
Steve struggles desperately to break free from the Doombots surrounding him, keeping him pinned. Tries with everything he has.
It isn't enough.
Doom latches onto Loki, onto his forearm, Loki's face twisting with hatred, lifting his hand to strike.
It's obvious when Loki realizes at last that something is wrong.
For an instant, his face goes slack, all expression falling from it, and Steve sees a surge of red light sleuthing off from where Doom's metal fingers are wrapped round the god's arm, pouring into him, seeping into his skin.
Loki gasps, loud enough for Steve to hear, the sound high and sharp and desperate. His eyes widen, pupils blowing out instantly, swallowing the green of his iris', his skin draining of color entirely.
His mouth falls open then, like he's trying to scream, like he did the first time, when Tony had snapped the cuffs over his wrists. Only no sound comes now. Nothing. Only his mouth hung open, the color gone from his face.
When he finally crumples to his knees, it's in that same moment the world for Steve goes black.
/
He cannot breathe, and he knows in that moment that he has made a grave error in judgment.
Hardly new for him. Only the humiliation that it is his second such error at the hands of a mortal burns more deeply than he thinks he can bear, and he would decry his own stupidity were he able to find his voice at all.
"Foolish mortal," he had hisses at Doom, sure in his power, sure in his superiority. "you dare show your face again to me..."
And then Doom had reached out, had wrapped his armored hand round his arm, and Loki had, in an instant, known horror.
Fear had been like a lance through his heart as he'd felt the same, overpowering surge of energy through him, tearing his magic forcibly from his core and away.
He had thought, for an idiotically hopeful moment, that it wasn't real. That he was only recalling with awful clarity what had happened before, at the hands of the Avengers. That there sudden appearance had triggered the memory in his mind. Only that hope had faded quickly, and then, like a pathetic child, he had let his terror overcome him, and he had tried desperately calling out to Thor, crying out to him for help.
But his voice had failed him again, and the pain had become too much, his insides feeling set aflame by the fires of Muspelheim as his strength too had abandoned him and he felt himself falling.
He falls to one knee, quickly then the other, his strength leaving him with alarming rapidity.
No, Loki thinks. No, he cannot... cannot let Doom have him. Will not...
He reaches up, his fingers wrapping round Doom's encased arm, crushing down with all his strength, crushing down to the fragile flesh and bone beneath, until he can feel the limb give way beneath his grip, and he hears with grim satisfaction the strangled, choked gasp of the mortal above him, his own grip round Loki's arm instantly loosening as he tries to fall back, to pull his arm free.
Only Loki refuses to let go, crushing down harder, until he hears Doom's strangled cry erupt into a horrified scream.
Loki lunges, lashing out with his now free hand, sinking his fingers into Doom's mask, tearing at it.
"NO!" Doom cries, bringing his metal fist down along the crown of Loki's head.
But still Loki refuses to release him, pushing himself to his feet, shoving past the weakness he feels, even as Doom smashes him now across the temple, and another blow backhanded across his mouth, the taste of copper washing over his tongue.
"You... dare..." Loki spits, and the sound of metal groaning under pressure fills the air, Doom's mask beginning to pull free.
He'll destroy him, Loki thinks. He's grind his bones to dust and scatter his useless remains into the void. He'll...
His thoughts shatter into nothing as something powerfully strong wraps round his chest from behind, and another, more powerful surge of the same magic draining energy rips through his body.
And it's too much.
Loki struggles. Tries with all his strength to hold on. But he can feel the darkness seeping in at the edges of his vision and knows he's lost...
He's lost...
He thinks about Thor before blackness consumes him completely.
He hopes his brother isn't too disappointed in him.
He hopes Thor doesn't mourn too greatly.
/
AN: So Doom, right? What a dick. As always, thank you guys so much for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy! I'm sorry for the long wait between chapters. But if you've got time, let me know what you think, and thanks again!