"It's dark, Tony. And it's dangerous, who knows who could snatch her up." Bruce stated, sitting back on a rickety chair that looked as if it would break at any moment. Then again, all the furniture looked like it would break. Nothing was exactly new, and there were nothing but crates and rugs hanging from the walls as some form of decoration. Or maybe to keep the heat in, it certainly didn't feel very warm.
"She's not welcome here." Tony muttered, his arms folded across his chest as he stared towards Sigyn, who had now backed herself up against the wall.
"Tony, she knows nothing. Look at her!" Bruce took to his feet, ready to approach Tony but felt himself growing weak, and before he could move his legs he slumped to the floor. Tony stared at him on the floor, his mouth twisting to the side as he thought, but he didn't make a move. Sigyn stared at him, too. Watching and waiting for him to struggle to get up, but when she realized he wouldn't; she decided to help him. She cautiously took a few steps forward, careful not to anger Tony any more before she slipped her arms under Bruce's torso and struggled to pull him up to his feet. He slumped against her, still too weak to stand before she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hoisted him up against her.
"Please, someone explain to me what is going on." She brushed Bruce's hair back from his forehead, and gently pushed Bruce down into the chair, her hand on the back of his head so it wouldn't lull to the side. She dragged her eyes from Bruce towards the only other man in the room, whose eyes bore into her own. She tried her best to stare back, but couldn't, and ended up dragging her eyes away from him and back to Bruce.
"Loki is-" He started, but Tony cut him off.
"Don't say that word." He muttered, and Sigyn watched as Bruce rolled his eyes and tried his best to offer her a gentle smile.
"Loki won the final battle."
"Battle?" She asked, mopping sweat from his brow with her sleeve. There had been no battle, well none that she could remember. In fact, Loki had gone missing. disappeared. Unless it had happened when she had been in Nornheim. Her eyes narrowed and she stepped away from Bruce, hands clasped in front of her as the last image of Loki she had in her mind came to light; he had run off, and she had thought it had been in temper. But of course it hadn't, Loki never lost his temper. And even if he did, he wouldn't let anyone else see. If he had been angry, he would have stayed and made her life a misery before apologizing profusely. He had disappeared because he had a last battle to organize. He had a war to win. And that's why she must have been kept in Nornheim, because he knew she would ruin everything for him.
"He... He tricked us all." Bruce forced out, biting his lip as Tony seemed to begin to practically radiate anger. His eyes went from Sigyn to Tony, before back to his hands, which trailed up his arm and pulled the tourniquet from around him. "Manipulated us all. Nearly killed us."
"Nearly killed you." Tony spat.
"Where are the others?" Sigyn asked, and Bruce took a deep sigh before placing his head in his hands. It was easy to see that he didn't feel like talking, but Tony on the other hand did. Especially as he walked towards her, sleeves rolled up and furrowed brows.
"What 'others'?"
"Natasha, Clint, Nick Fury, SHIELD."
"Natasha is at our other compound. Clint and Nick Fury are somewhere with Loki."
"What happened to SHEILD? All the agents? Couldn't they help?"
"Destroyed." Tony muttered, turning away from her and walking back to the spot he had taken first. "Hawkeye and Fury are the only ones alive other than us. But they're not exactly our cohorts anymore."
"What about Pepper?" Sigyn wished she hadn't asked that question when Tony turned around, his eyes looked almost red and his mouth trembled for a split second before he drew in a breath.
"Pepper's safe."
"Safe where?"
"Up there." He pointed to the ceiling, and Sigyn remembered something she had seen on television. 'up there' was usually the Midgardian term for Heaven, which was a place where people rested once they had passed on. Her brows knitted together and she clasped her hands in front of her again, her voice coming out as a whisper.
"I'm sorry, Tony..."
"She's not dead." He barked. "She's living up there, on the surface. We were... Offered immunity, but I couldn't take it."
"So Pepper did instead." Sigyn finished, and Tony nodded, staying silent for a few moments before he spoke again.
"Loki promised us he wouldn't harm us if we complied, but I couldn't do it. But Pepper could. An agreement was made with Loki, and he's never bothered her. Probably because he knows she's completely clueless."
"So Stark Industries is no more?"
"Of course it is, you really think I'd let my baby go out of business?" He scoffed, "Pepper runs it. But everything has to be checked by advisers. They can't have anything that might be anti-Loki."
"Anti-Loki..." She muttered to herself.
"Everyone worships him, but only because they've been brainwashed.." He began, but was stopped by a stern look from Bruce.
"So, his cult of personality is large?" Sigyn asked, moving a step forward. Tony was being less hostile, less threatening. Now she wasn't as scared.
"How do you know what a cult of personality is? Do they have that in Asgard?" The Iron Man asked, hands on his hips as Sigyn shook her head.
"No, I'm not as unintelligent as you think, though."
He scowled.
"Then yes, his cult of personality is pretty much unbeatable. He's an extra-terrestrial Stalin."
"No, Tony." Bruce said, both people turned towards the Doctor, "You might not like him, but he's not Stalin. He hasn't killed half of his own people."
"Yet." Tony muttered.
"And he hasn't recreated Communism and made it into a dictatorship."
"Yet." He muttered again.
"And he hasn't-"
"Right, I get it." Tony snapped.
"He's more like a... A medieval king."
"Of the world." Tony offered, and Bruce nodded.
"Sort of like Asgard, well what we've heard about it anyway."
Sigyn nodded her head, "So where is Thor?"
The two men stared at each other for a few moments, before turning their heads back to Sigyn.
"Thor is in Asgard with Jane." Bruce started, and then Tony carried on,
"His dad made him go home, and he took Jane with to keep her safe."
"Because Loki would have killed her." Sigyn finished for them both, and they nodded.
"We get contact from his every so often, but he can't invade and help the revolution because it goes against the laws of the realms. Or some bullshit like that." Tony said, rolling his sleeves back down.
"Revolution?" Sigyn coughed, from what she could tell everyone loved Loki as, well, leader of the world. Why would there be a revolution?
"Not everyone's blinded by Loki's propaganda." Bruce began, he took a deep breath and a crooked smile appeared on his face, "But the only thing is that not all of these resistance groups want to go back to the way Earth was, because most people have forgotten. They just want to take his place."
So he did have enemies. And now it seemed like The Avengers, or what was left of them, wanted to restore order. Well, maybe not order; it sounded as if the world had enough order. A New Order. Loki's Order.
"And I think I hear Natasha and Steve, they can explain the rest." Bruce smiled, and sure enough a rumbling sound came from the pipe in the corner of the room, and Natasha graceful landed on her feet, with Steve landing less majestically a few moments later. Natasha stared at Sigyn for a moment, her eye twitching before she let out a long breath, eyes darting from Bruce to Tony and then finally to Steve, who they lingered on.
"What's going on?"
"Natasha, say hello to Sigyn." Tony motioned from woman to woman, "And Sigyn, say hello to Natasha."
"I know who she is." Natasha said through clenched teeth.
"Natasha, she doesn't know a thing. We've just spent the last half hour telling her everything." Bruce explained.
Natasha's eyes narrowed, her breath quickened and she glared at Sigyn for a few moments before her spell seemed to break, and her eyes snapped back to Tony.
"She knows what he did to Clint and Fury?"
"What did he do?" Sigyn asked, her brows furrowing as Natasha sighed, pushing her hair back from her face and placing her hands on her hips.
"He ruined their minds-"
"No, he didn't. The gas from the geysers did. They're his fellows now." Bruce broke in, stopping Natasha in her tracks. She went back to staring directly at Sigyn, who felt herself nearly squirming under the pressure.
"Does he have strong laws?" She asked, trying to break the tension a bit, and if she was honest to herself; she was eager to learn about Loki's rule and she had no idea why. If anything, she was appalled that he could have actually carried through with everything. He had got better before they went to that little town, the ideas of ruling had almost disappeared. Unless they hadn't, and he had been lying. The coldness that radiated from him, and the bathroom. He had used that spell. And she hadn't even realized.
"No treason, if you're guilty of a crime you're punished. Sometimes it's severe, and sometimes it's not." Steve stated, he had made himself known now, and everyone's eyes were on him, "He's actually pretty fair."
"God help us." Tony mumbled.
"But treason is the worst. He'll have you killed, hung drawn and quartered." Bruce spoke up quietly, "Which is why we've never really committed that crime. We've just... hidden."
"Like cowards." Tony spat against, and Natasha nodded her head. Steve's eyes went from Tony to the floor and he took in a deep breath.
"We've already lost enough, we're not losing anyone else." Bruce said a little louder this time, and everyone nodded their heads in unison. "So long as we don't do anything rash, we're safe. The guards have nearly given up their search for us, Loki knows we're not a threat anymore."
"But we can be a threat, we just need to get inside the high courts. Become one of the lords, or head of the guards." Natasha said, sitting down on another chair in the room. It didn't seem to creak under her weight, and she never made a sound whilst moving around.
"You know we can't. We just need to ride this out, wait for someone else to-" Bruce was cut off.
"Someone else to do our job." Tony finished.
"The last time we tried to do our job, Bruce was nearly killed. I'm not risking that again." Steve said, arms folded across his chest. "I'm not losing another soldier."
"We're not soldiers." Tony spoke quietly, practically to himself.
"Could I help?" Sigyn asked suddenly, and everyone turned their heads up again and looked towards her. Natasha shook her head quickly, Tony rolled his eyes and Steve pursed his lips and looked away. But Bruce smiled, nodding his head. He tried his best to lift himself from his chair enthusiastically.
"You can."
"What?!" Tony's head swiveled to meet Bruce's inane smile, and he placed a hand over his eyes and muttered something that Sigyn couldn't hear. "How the hell can she help? There's nothing to help anymore."
"But there is! Sigyn is technically Queen, right?"
They all muttered a reluctant agreement, and Sigyn's eyes went wide and she felt her throat going dry. She didn't like the sound of this.
"At some point or other she's going to go to Loki and take her place, right?"
They all muttered and shared reluctant looks of agreement again.
"But she's on our side, right?" He looked towards Sigyn, who by now couldn't even speak. She made a half-hearted non-committal noise, which seemed to do. "She knows how he works more than we do, she knows how to get into his head, she can-"
"Take him down from the inside." Natasha finished.
"And even if it doesn't work straight away, it'll work years from now. Maybe generations down the line, her influence will still be there and eventually things'll be restored to what they used to."
"But that's still not doing our job." Tony shouted, and Bruce looked taken aback for a moment before he sighed, shaking his head.
"Yes, it is. Indirectly, or directly. This is our job. We can't get out there and fight."
"So we turn Sigyn into a Femme Fatale and hope she doesn't double cross us?" Natasha spoke, and Bruce nodded his head.
"Exactly! Well, maybe not a Femme Fatale, she still has morals. But as long as she at least tries to help, we have hope."
"Hope? How can we have hope?"
"'The future belongs to the proles.'" Bruce stated, and Tony let out a noise of anger,
"This isn't Nineteen Eighty Four, Bruce. There are no proles, there is no party. Loki isn't Big Brother."
"No, he's not. But there's one speech about hope in that book that you need to read, memorize and think about."
"Sure, I'll tell you when I get my hands on a copy." He blinked a few times, staring down at his palms before letting out a breath, "Which won't happen until Loki is gone."
"Which is why you need hope." Bruce said cryptically, and Natasha and Steve both nodded their heads.
"He's right." Natasha spoke, giving Sigyn a once over before she looked back to Tony. "It might not work straight away, but years, maybe centuries down the line it'll all pay off."
"Right." Tony said.
"What will I have to do?" Sigyn asked, and everyone's eyes turned to face her again, Steve coughed and excused himself from the room, and Bruce sighed before he motioned for Sigyn to come closer.
"Just try your best to... Make sure he loosens up on laws, gives people more free speech. Make sure he respects everyone-"
"Make him go back to Asgard. Or his future kids go back." Tony stated.
"Sabotage, Sigyn." Natasha added. "Distract him, get him to tell you everything. We'll try to contact you, you can tell us all and we can put plans in motion for any length of time."
"Right." Sigyn nodded her head, taking a deep breath.
"We know you're the loyalty Goddess, but you're going to have to betray him in some way." Natasha said, her voice was now comforting, as if she was trying to reassure Sigyn, maybe she knew how it felt, "But don't think of it as betrayal, think of it has helping the world. Being loyal to your friends."
Friends, there it was. She was their friend. She had to help them in any way she could, even if it was indirect. They needed her.
"I'll do my best." She said, and they all nodded their heads in agreement."
"We know." Bruce smiled, "And we know that we haven't got much time, either. Loki's 'Queen-in-waiting' is getting more and more control, too. That's one of the main reasons I suggested this. You need to push her out, don't let her take control. You need to have control, well much as you can; That's another way you can help us."
Queen? Who else could be queen other than her? Had Loki taken another bride? It didn't seem likely, but after these revelations Sigyn didn't know what to think. Anything was possible, Loki was capable of betraying her, she knew that. But she wasn't capable of letting someone else win. Not in that kind of way. She gritted her teeth and nodded her head, and it didn't occur to her till moments later to ask the name of the mystery woman.
"What's her name?"
"Amora." Bruce stated, and Tony made a noise of disgust. Sigyn nodded her head, her expression vacant before a small smile appeared on her face.
"I'll leave tomorrow."
Ahhhh, I'm having lots of Loki feels today from that silly Avengers Gag Reel, Tom Hiddleston is the most adorable thing in the world.
If none of you have noticed, there's lot of George Orwell's ideologies and concepts in this chapter, so I just wanted to say that I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from him and you should all check his work out, to put it lightly.
And again, replying to reviews next chapter because this keyboard is awful and I don't have the energy to spellcheck anymore, so apologies!