Seven months, twenty three days before incident

Location: Earth, U.S.A, Midtown: Manhattan, Stark Tower, floor zero

Subject(s) involved: Renard, Loki

It took several hours for Renard to admit to herself that Gabe was right.

She did go in without permission or back up, which had been very, very stupid. She had been seconds away from being shanked- if that wasn't an indication of poor choices, she didn't know what was.

She rubbed a bruise left over from the fight and stewed. Something about Agent Taylor bothered her, aside from the fact she'd almost killed her. Taylor had gone absolutely crazy- Maddison Vey had been changed by her meeting with Ash, but the severity of Taylor's condition was so much worse, it wasn't even comparable.

Renard hadn't used that side of their mutual abilities much- it was a dark thing, to twist a mind. If Gabriel hadn't given her permission, she wouldn't have used it on Greene, let alone Vey.

Greene was another piece of the puzzle.

Maybe he hadn't been frothing at the mouth, but he'd been a little crazy, too.

She'd never found out what specifically Ash had told him to do- get Loki, perhaps?

But obviously, he couldn't do that.

The security was all but self automated.

He'd drive himself nuts trying to- oh. Something fell into place for Renard. Taylor couldn't tell her where Loki was, and Greene couldn't get to him.

Maybe that was it.

They, unlike Vey, had been commanded to do things they simply couldn't.

If that were the case, it would have been... extremely bad.

Renard sighed and leaned back in her chair.

"Having a hard day, are we?" Loki mocked her from the bed where he was sprawled out.

She scowled at him and his paleness, and the purple smudges he had under his eyes. He was like a bossy bruise.

"Yeah, we are. It's a lot of responsibility, walking around being free."

His expression twisted sourly.

Since their last argument, Loki hadn't made the effort to stay up and speak to her. He actually tried harder to be asleep before she got there.

Unfortunately, nature was working against them.

"Charming as ever."

"Why don't you just go to sleep?"

"As if I'm not trying, wench."

"Read a book. Count sheep. Do something dull."

"Sage advice, but I fear I shall never find anything duller than a conversation with you."

"Isn't there some other captive audience you could whine to?"

There was a spark of incredulous anger in his eyes as he sat up to glare at her.

"The guard complains to the prisoner of captivity? I knew you were dense, I didn't know you-"

"Yes, okay. Foot in mouth. I get it, sorry."

He glared still, but the air had been let out of his sails. He loathed her, it was true, but it was a satisfying kind of hate. She was an ant. He was a boot, and it was infinitely more pleasurable to verbally grind her into the dust than to try and ignore her.

They had both tried to ignore one another, of course, but after the argument, they became incapable of it. Their bubble of silence had burst, replaced with insatiable bickering.

Anything could set them off.

The way he drummed his fingers, how he rolled his eyes. In a somewhat Pavlovian twist, Renard's ire could be kindled at the sight of the color green.

Loki, on the other hand, was constantly ready to fight. He didn't need any specific trigger- he hated her personality, he hated that she existed, he hated that she was there, he hated that he'd been reduced to needing her as an ally, he hated that she refused to be his ally.

She was his only way out, and she was still completely unhelpful.

It was enough to make any man lose sleep.