Chapter 11:
"Alright Cap, spill." Clint stands inches from Steve's face, glaring up at him, arms crossed and expression twisted in fury. "What the hell's going on? Why the hell is that piece of shit here?"
Steve can't keep the frown from his own face, a flash of frustrated anger curling in the pit of his stomach.
"Don't call him that." He snaps unthinkingly, and then exhales sharply, trying to reign in his emotions. "Just…"
Only Clint's expression has turned incredulous and disgusted now.
"Don't call him that?" He starts. "Why the hell not? What, you and him best buddies now or something?"
"Just give me a minute to explain!" Steve shoots back, patience wearing thin.
"Uh, if I may…" Tony's suddenly stepping between the two of them. "I can probably elaborate for the simple masses here." He grins at Clint, but the archer has no humor left in him, his rage stamping all trace of it from his features.
"Right," Tony says, turning back to Steve and again to Clint. "I probably should have said something sooner, but Fury's kept us all so damn busy and I just kind of… forgot…"
Tony, Steve realizes, actually sounds ashamed. It's shocking enough that the captain can only stand and stare, blinking stupidly.
"Okay, so," Tony starts up again, seeming to realize the awkwardness of the situation. "when I went with Steve to Asgard, while Thor was giving us the whole razzle dazzle, extravagant tour of his big, beautiful palace, we, uh, kind of came across a man being, you know… whipped, you know, across the back… kind of like they used to do to black slaves here in the good ol' US of A.
And so then Thor tries to stop me and Steve from checking it out, all hot and bothered, but you know Cap, when he sees injustice happening, nothing's going to stand in his way from stepping in. Anyway, long story short, we get up to the guy being whipped, Thor's having a meltdown, trying to make us leave, telling us the dude's a salve and shit, you know, Steve goes around to the guys front and tries to give him water and… well, it's Loki. Awkward, huh? It was all pretty fucked up, and Thor was obviously super upset about the whole thing. Turns out Big Daddy up above condemned his own son to slavery, which apparently is a pretty brutal fate up in ye land of the gods, and that's what ol' Reindeer Games has been up to for the past eight or so years."
Tony glances back to Steve, giving an almost sheepish grin.
"So, I guess you couldn't just stand by and let it sit after all, huh Cap? We aren't, like, gonna have Asgard coming down on our heads for this shit, are we? Because I think that would turn Fury's already generally very surely attitude into overdrive pissiness, and I know nobody here wants that."
Tony's tone, as ever, is flippant, but Steve can't help but feel a modicum of relief over his seeming acceptance of the situation. Tony seems alright with it all, despite the abruptness of it. It's the others the captain finds himself concerned over. Clint and Natasha still look anything but pleased, or even moved by Tony's rambling explanation, though Natasha's expression is, as ever, impossible to read.
After a moment of dragging silence, Clint throws his hands into the air.
"So!? What, I'm supposed to feel sorry for the fucker?! Sounds to me like the bastard got exactly what he deserved! Or have you conveniently forgotten how that psycho mass murderer enslaved me!?"
"Clint, listen to me." Steve started, trying to keep the edge from his voice and not entirely succeeding. "You don't understand. You weren't there. You didn't see it. They were torturing him, in ways I can't even… I can't even begin to describe. Tony only saw the barest minimum of what they were doing. Look, we defeated Loki, we sent him back to Asgard without ever questioning or wondering what it was we were sending him back to. It was our responsibility to care, and we dropped the ball on that. We failed."
He takes a deep breath, trying again to keep his voice calm.
"I couldn't leave him there. He isn't… he isn't who we thought he was."
"What, Cap? You're denying now that he's a murdering bastard? You saw him kill people with your own eyes man!"
"And I'm telling you, he's more than that!" Steve snaps angrily. "Listen, we've all killed people. We've all done things we aren't proud of, or which weren't… weren't right, but…"
He glances at Natasha and sees the first real flicker of emotion flash across her face before being quickly wiped away.
"None of us have tried to take over another planet though Cap!" Clint continues to argue heatedly. "And what's his fucking excuse!? Daddy didn't love him enough? Oh, boo hoo. We've all had tough lives Steve. It doesn't excuse turning into a freak like that."
"Yeah, well, it also doesn't make it alright for us to turn the other way when we see someone being tortured or treated like less than dirt!" Steve yells. "We're supposed to be the good guys Clint, but you'd stand there and let someone who's already been brought low get repeatedly kicked. That's not being a good guy Clint. That's being petty and cruel and no better than the guys we fight against. It doesn't solve anything. What's more…" he surges on when he sees Clint's mouth open like he's about to argue further. "I know it doesn't mean a whole lot to you, willing as you seem to condemn without a second thought, but I spent a lot of time up there, talking to Loki, and he isn't anything like what we thought. He isn't the crazed lunatic we thought. You just… you just have to give him a chance."
Clint's expression is purely incredulous, his jaw working a moment as though struggling for words.
"A chance?" He finally manages to spit out. He shakes his head. "Wow, Cap, you really are the most gullible idiot I've ever met. Does the fact this guy's called the god of lies mean anything to you!? He's a fucking master manipulator! You didn't stop to think for a second maybe he's conning you!?"
Steve feels his entire frame stiffen, shaking his head in return.
"You really think that little of me, huh Clint? You think I'm that stupid? Of course I considered it. I looked for it. And I'm telling you right now, Loki isn't faking anything. You weren't there Clint. You couldn't know. He was being so badly tortured, he wouldn't have had the physical or mental capacity to lay out a manipulation that sophisticated. You may think I'm dumb, and gullible, and an easy mark. That's fine. I don't care. But I won't allow you to further hurt someone who's already lost everything. Got that?"
"Okay, okay boys." Tony suddenly threw his hands up, pushing the two of them apart. "Let's take a deep breath, regroup maybe? Hey, isn't this exactly what happened last time Loki was around? I seem to recall the lot of us bitching at each other like small, stupid children. Weird, huh?"
Steve glances at him, mouth opening, ready to counter that this situation couldn't be more different.
He never gets the chance, as suddenly from behind the closed door where Steve had left Loki, Thor and Bruce, there comes a loud, sharp cry.
The four of them share a concerned look only a moment, before they find themselves charging off towards the room.
Steve gets there first, not even bothering to knock before flinging the door wide and rushing in, stopping just beyond the room's threshold, eyes wide and shocked.
He feels Clint, Tony and Natasha crowding in behind him.
"What the…" Tony starts, and then stops, voice trailing into silence.
Steve understands why.
Loki is lying on the bed still, trembling visibly, eyes shot wide and face stricken with terror.
Standing at his side, arms upraised in a display of pleading, is Thor, his own face twisted in some strange mixture of despair and horror.
And at Loki's other side, bent over him, fixed in his position, is Bruce, his expression pained and terrified, his wrist caught up in Loki's shaking fingers.
Even from where he's standing, Steve can see Loki's grip is dangerously tight.
Loki is staring Bruce in the face, and there is so much confusion underneath the fear.
"Brother, please," Thor begins, voice thick and unsteady. "let Dr. Banner go."
Loki's grip though doesn't loosen. He seems not to hear Thor at all.
"Loki," Bruce tries, his own voice thin with obvious pain and stress. "l-listen to me, please. You… you've got to let me go. I can't… he'll… th-the other guy will…"
He chokes off as Loki's grip tightens further, what seems an involuntary reflex as the god shakes his head back and forth in denial.
"Brother, I beg you…" Thor motions forward, halting abruptly, hand reached out.
This is bad.
This is so, so bad, Steve thinks, mind racing and frantic as the reality of the situation settles on him.
Bruce is going to turn. He's going to turn, and when the Hulk sees Loki, none of them are going to be able to talk him down or explain to him what's going on. The only one here capable of even stopping him would be Thor, and Loki would be caught in the middle between them.
"What's going on?" The captain stammers out after a moment. "What happened?"
Thor's anguish seems to be increasing by the moment, Bruce's control over himself unraveling as his face lines in obvious agony now.
"I know not." Thor starts, never taking his eyes from his brother and Bruce. "Dr. Banner was giving his examination and… and…"
"I put my hands somewhere I shouldn't have." Bruce hisses between his teeth, clearly struggling as sweat builds thicker upon his forehead. "I sh-shoulda' known better, and he just got scared…"
Steve steps forward, and then halts, thoughts scrambling for something, anything he might do to stop this, to keep it from exploding.
"Outta the way Cap." He hears Clint suddenly, right at his back. "I'll take care of this."
And then the archer is shoving past him, his bow drawn in his hands, arrow again knocked.
"Clint, no!" Steve shouts, hand shooting out to grab hold his teammates arm, but Clint's already out of reach, striding fast and unrelenting towards the scene, arrow aimed and ready to loose at Loki as the god lies trembling still, fingers tightening by the moment round Bruce's wrist.
"You will not…" Thor turns, voice all at once boomingly loud, face lining in rage as he moves to block Clint's line of sight.
It all happens so fast then, Steve isn't even certain of it until well after the fact.
There is a loud crack, sickening and ugly as it echoes through the space, followed with immediacy by Bruce's pained cry.
And then everything falls strangely, deafeningly silent, the moment seeming to stretch into an eternity as it dawns on all of them what it is that's just happened.
By then it's too late.
It's like some surreal dream, as Steve watches Loki's grip round Bruce's limp and misaligned wrist slip free, the god's eyes wide and vibrating, face deathly pale and lips parted in shock and fear.
Bruce stumbles back, turning, shoulders hunched and heaving, loud, ragged breathes escaping his throat, and Steve knows he's already making the transformation.
Knows there's no hope in talking the doctor down from this.
Instinct kicks in.
"Get him out of here!" He shouts, dashing towards the bed. "Get Loki out of here! The rest of you too! Thor…"
But the thunder god is already well ahead of him, scooping Loki up as easily as he would a child, turning with him in his arms towards Steve.
"Take him!" He says urgently. "I will hold Banner off best I can until you are able to reach safety!"
Wordlessly, the captain takes the younger god, cradling him awkwardly against his chest, Loki's absurdly long limbs making him difficult to hold.
"Hooooly shit," he hears Tony behind him, and knows its cause as he listens to the sounds of Bruce's violent transformation, the doctor grunting and hissing and growling, voice deepening and growing in volume by the second.
Loki is shaking uncontrollably in his hold, and as the captain glances down, he catches sight of the god's face, pale, ashen and stricken with terror, eyes huge and overbright. He knows what he's done suddenly. Knows what's happening.
"I'm sorry…" he chokes out abruptly, voice thick with fear. "I'm sorry…"
Something in the words strikes Steve wrong, and he wants to tell Loki he doesn't have anything to be sorry for here. Wants to tell him it's okay.
But they've run out of time now. The sound of Bruce's clothes tearing apart fills the air, and both Tony's and Natasha's frenzied cries to move out.
It's all a blur of motion and panic, Steve breaking for the room's exit, following close on the heels of his teammates.
An enraged roar shatters against his ears, close enough to make his mouth turn dry and the blood freeze in his veins. Behind it, he hears Thor erupt into his own, unintelligible war cry, just as loud, just as overwhelming.
Against him, he hears Loki, a broken, near soundless whine drifting up from where his face is buried against the captain's chest.
Steve just keeps moving. He holds Loki tighter against him and just keeps running.
/
AN: Alright guys, again, huge thank you's to all my readers and/or reviewers! I hope you're continuing to enjoy the story and as always, your feedback is appreciated!