Hey there, dear Readers!

And here is chapter ten, exactly two days after the last one, as promised (though it is a little shorter than usual)! Take your time, people and enjoy!

Lots of Love,

KandyKitten

"You're right." Natasha came closer until she was standing right in front of the glass, almost exactly on the spot where Thor had stood hours ago. "They are here."

"Now we are playing." Loki stopped in his pacing to face Natasha properly, his expression becoming serious. "They attacked you again…and now what exactly is it you wish to know? You already know how to slay them."

"They didn't." The woman put her arms akimbo, fingertips almost resting on her gun. Loki raised one brow and cocked his head aside in question.

"They didn't attack us yet. They're just…present. We want to know why and we want to know before your buddies can go on another murder spree. That means, we will find out no matter how, so either you open your mouth now or Fury and his specialists have a go on you. It's your decision."

Everybody expected Loki to react violent again. Tony even hoped that maybe he would lapse into a rant, accidentally giving away whatever he knew or was trying to hide…just like he had done last time Natasha had questioned him.

Instead, the god just stood there, staring into nothingness for a whole of ten seconds, his fingers clenching and un-clenching at his sides slowly.

Then he looked up…and grinned.

"Do you really hope to scare me? Or do you hope I would tell you because you have a familiar face?" His voice slowly gained back the mean-mocking quality they were used from him, his eyes glittered wild and maniacal.

Natasha answered by giving him a sneering look. "It worked last time, remember?"

To everybody's surprise, what was meant as taunt made Loki outright laugh.

"The haughtiness of your leader had infected his vassals, it appears. Last time, you learned what I wanted you to learn." If Loki's voice had been silk before, now it was sharp steel wrapped in velvet. "Not more. Not less."

Natasha did her best to look disbelieving. "Whatever gets you through the night."

"You tried to make me believe you had come for the sake of Agent Barton. And you were good." Loki smiled at her, almost fondly. "So I had to test you. And while I approached you, threatening your life and the life of the very man you had supposedly come to protect…never did you back away. You flinched, yes, but your hands came not up for defense, they came down, widening your stand, reaching for those pathetic things you call a weapon."

While speaking, Loki demonstrated it, raising both arms in a defending, helpless-looking gesture before his chest, then letting them fall to his sides, fingers reaching for an imaginary gun.

"Your body language gave you away. You could have fooled a mortal, but you might want to remember that I have been doing this since long before you were born."

Natasha was only staring tensely. "You are changing the subject, Loki. I wanted to talk about now, not about the past."

Loki turned and began to walk away very slowly, ignoring her. "I knew what I had to do and that you were a spy. I t was the perfect opportunity. What would make a man angry enough to lose control if not…"

He spun around, raising his forefinger. His stance was that of a professor giving a lecture, his face showed the manic glee of a ridiculed scientist who had finally proven all his crazy theories right…or that of a Trickster God finally able to show everybody how smart he really was.

"…if not the very people who have brought him into this situation turning against him?"

Natasha contemplated that, nodded to herself. "How do I know you are not making that up to throw me off the game now?"

"You cannot." Loki smirked gloatingly.

"You really hope you can get me to doubt myself." Now Natasha was sneering back, openly attacking. "You look so smug right now, but I think that's all show."

"Oh, do you." There was a hint of aggressiveness in Loki's face and voice, but it was strangely superficial, completely lacking any form of depth….as everything Loki had been doing since Natasha was in this room.

"I know. You are playing mind games because you want to stall. Do you want to keep us from finding out you are as ill-informed as we are?"

Loki's grin widened, giving him a dangerously deranged look, but again, Tony saw something that disturbed him. He just couldn't put his finger on it.

"I am doing this because it is fun. It is fun to see you waver. To see you doubt."

"When you don't tell us anything…then you go back into the cell you came from. Solitary for you, for however long you were sentenced to, you've got to know that."

The grin didn't vanish, but Natasha could see the moment it turned forced. "Probably, yes. But if I tell you, I will be taken back, too. Maybe I rather go with the knowledge to have dragged you with me into the abyss."

You don't actually know anything." Natasha took a step away from the cage, threatening to leave. "You were locked away somewhere, all by yourself. You can't know why they're here."

"Maybe this was planned so you would bring me to earth and they could free me," Loki countered. "Maybe I do not know anything. In this case, though, you should check what your court and your leader have done this time to attract attention. A tricky situation, Agent Romanoff."

Now it was Natasha's turn to smirk.

Loki had almost had her back there. He had made her waver, doubt herself, and maybe, he had even tricked them back with the Hulk…but she was sure that this time, she had nailed it. Loki didn't know.

"Could be, yeah. But I think we're wasting our time with you."

She turned and walked back to the door, pulling it open. Behind her, she heard Loki moving, too, and barely withstood the reflexive urge to turn.

"You know, you are right!"

Loki's voice ringing after her made her stop and look over her shoulder. The man stood, again, with one hand pressed against the glass now, an ugly grin contorting his features.

"You are wasting your time asking questions about the Chitauri," he said. "The one you should be afraid of is their leader."

The sound of his laughter followed her out, ringing in her – and everybody else's – ears long after the door had fallen close and he had stopped in favor of meditating on his bed again.

Loki stopped laughing very soon after the spy-women had left, probably to conference with her mortal friends now that he had shown himself not only uncooperative but aggressive.

Aiming to bruise her ego like that had been a crude way to get rid of her, thoughtless, and Loki was cursing himself for it already – he had given her the possibility to guess what he had wanted to hide for a little while longer: He did not know how they might have come…or what they wanted.

But as much as she had found out about him, the talk with Agent Romanoff had cleared more for him. Probably a lot more than she had planned.

He had been worried about the possibility the Chitauri might come, but until she had told him, he had not even been sure if they were really here. He had not understood why they would take the time to have petty discussions with him and each other if they were under attack.

Now, he knew and slowly but surely, worry became panic.

They had not attacked yet, but they were 'present'. They had to be watching, maybe gathering information the mortals had not wanted to give away – nothing else would explain why they suddenly needed him.

And there was the problem.

The Chitauri were not mindless. To be valuable in battle, they had to be able to make independent decisions, they knew when to strike and when to seek cover to a certain degree, but overall, they were merely drones connected to a hive far away from battlefield, made to overrun their enemy without actually caring for loss and death.

Spying and meticulous planning was not in their repertoire.

But now, they were…it could only mean Thanos was not only giving orders, he had taken control over them and that was even worse than what he had imagined before. It meant Thanos would come personally.

And when Thanos came, he would come like a storm, destructive and without mercy.

And the humans would not be able to stop him.

I have to get out of here. Before he comes. Since the second Romanoff had told him about them, this was all he could think about. Therefore, maybe the way he had gotten rid of her had been crude, but effective, too.

He had made clear that he was smarter that they had believed, torn the spy's former victory apart and now he hoped building up a new strategy would keep them occupied for a while, because what he was about to do would cost time.

With long steps, Loki all but rushed back to the cot and sat down close to the wall. His eyes wandered over the ceiling, the walls, the cameras, the steel frame.

There were no air holes he could use – Loki knew that without checking.

He knew the trick form Asgard, the healers and teachers had used it when containing dangerous or poisonous animals. Some of the runes were meant to suck fresh air in from the outside, as not to let the captured subject suffocate.

Also, he had controlled the magic-binding net a few more times, hoping that he had been too confused to be thorough the first time. He still had found no gaps.

So, he had to rely on something else: He had abilities that they did hopefully not know about.

Loki leaned back and closed one hand around the cot's wood frame behind him, carefully checking if the blanket and his leg concealed how his knuckles and back of his fingers touched the glass. His eyes un-focused as he set on his new task – a task that had to work perfectly.

A thin layer of ice spread on the glass. Loki's fingers clenched as he concentrated on it, forced the ice to stay below the bed, thus hopefully out of sight, instead letting it spread downwards until it created a thin, not entirely smooth line reaching from his fingers to the point where the panes creating wall and floor met.

Unfortunately, they fit together perfectly. There was no blade or even paper thin enough to fit between them.

Loki bit back a curse. Those humans had been more careful than he had thought possible…but he had not reached his wit's end yet, either.

The ice contracted on the floor, as close to the wall as possible, forming something resembling a spike or a thorn, the tip hopefully pointing on a rune. Loki steadied and positioned it until it was touching the floor in an angle…then he let it strike down.

Nothing happened.

Before he could lose his patience, Loki let his head fall back, forcefully calmed his boiling emotions and thought, but it did not help. He always reached the same conclusion: It had to work.

He had seen the Jotun's blades effectively blocking their weapons, seen them effortlessly tearing through Fandral's armor, skin, flesh and bone. Their primitive maces had, even though they had taken damage, not immediately shattered under Mjölnir's blows. Thor had beaten a hole into this kind of glass with Mjölnir before.

Technically, he should be able to at least scratch the glass. Then why was he not?

Loki felt anger and frustration creep up, panic following shortly after, threatening to choke him. This had been his last resort.

He almost gave up. It was his stubbornness that saved him as he let the thorn strike down once more in a sharp twist, just on principle. There was a tense moment as he felt the pressure in every fiber….

And then there was a harsh sound.

He could barely believe it, not even after checking twice, but it was not the ice that had been damaged. There was a scratch in the glass.

He felt a grin rising and hastily wiped his expression blank. Now he knew what to do.

Still reluctantly, he let himself be overtaken by his long lost instincts. The connection to his little creation intensified as his fingers and part of his palm were conquered by Jotun blue. It spread with a strange, tingling sensation, unfamiliar but not uncomfortable at all.

A wave of disgust and self-loathing followed that thought, anger at the people who had forced this onto him in its wake. Exactly what he needed.

He focused on the connection and pumped all those destructive emotions into the thorn, turning them into something tangible, then he struck down again, pressing and twisting against the glass with all the force he could muster.

It took time, at least thirty minutes, enough to let him break out into cold sweat with exhaustion, but finally, finally there was a high, splintering sound.

Loki's eyes, that had fallen half-close as he had concentrated, now flew wide open. He froze, hands shaking in their death grip on wood and blanket, muscles rendered useless by the tremors that ran through him.

He waited, waited for guards to rush in, for some magic defense he had missed to jump into action, punishing, stopping him from trying again….but there was nothing. They had not noticed. Good. Unfortunately, also nothing else changed, the web still seemed to be in place.

He was already thinking that it had not been enough…

And then. And then.

The gap he had slashed into the magic-repressing net was only small, but it was enough. A tiny spark of magic squeezed through, eager to reconnect with his body, spreading warm and cold somewhere deep in his chest.

It was coming home after atrocious battle. It was water after years in Muspelheim's fiery deserts, cool balm on burning wounds, everything pleasant and comforting.

Loki shuddered again, but this time with pleasure. He wanted nothing more than to use it, let his magic run free and erase all signs of exhaustion, let it burn away this feeling of unreality that was still nagging him, but he kept himself in check. Instead, he waited, feeling his power slowly dripping through the gap like sand in an hourglass.

If he managed to hold on for another few hours…if they did not notice the hole in their cage for that time…he might have a chance to escape.

Loki felt his heart starting to race, his blood pounding in his ears, his head was light and spinning with this incredibility.

After all this time of helplessness, he had a chance.

And here we are, practically end of part one, if you want.

I'm kind of…not entirely content with the chapter, but I've been working on this conversation for over a week now and no matter what I try, it just worsens, so…what we should take away form this is that now, Loki finally goes from passive victim to active player. So, who's up for some mischief?

Reviews and constructive critic are appreciated!

'Till next time!

Lots of Love,

KandyKitten

Limmet: Yeah, Tyr has the lowest opinion possible…and oh no, Loki is less than cooperative, too stubborn and too proud. Well, I hope that satisfies the need for more for a little while^^ Thanks for the review!

LePetitErik: Glad you like it! Thanks for reviewing!

Potkanka: Oh yes, the big Nordic family…the thing with Tyr is that he is named Son of Odin in the Prose Edda, but in the Poetic Edda, he is named the Son of Hymir. So I go with Tyr is not actually related to Odin (not sure how it is in the comics, admittedly) because if he already has a mighty war god as oldest heir to the throne, why crown Thor? As Balder did never appear or even was mention in the movies, I guess it's open to interpretation^^ I don't know about the W3 and Sif… they were pretty hard in 'Thor', partying while Loki's family was mourning around them…but I don't believe they would kill Loki, too. The story with Heimdall…well, you'll see the moment the story moves back to Asgard. Anyways, thanks for reviewing!

jaquelinelittle: Of course, SHIELD isn't blameless…but well, they can twist it anyway they want and we are still pretty much at the story's beginning, there are still things to come about this theme. Every questions about Heimdall's loyalties and oaths will be answered in Asgard as soon as possible! Thanks for reviewing!

angrbodagiantress: Not only trying to find weaknesses – succeeding! And oh no, there is nothing good building up in Asgard right now…but you'll see! Yeah, I hope am not spoiling everybody with the fat update, but I had the whole conversation done in one go and split it later, so…well, here it is! Thanks for reviewing!