Disclaimer: Nothing from this Marvelous universe is mine.
Summary: Three months after Operation Avengers all is well. Or is it? When Steve and Tony hack into SHIELD to find missing weapons shipments they find more than they bargained for in the form of a prisoner who should, by rights, have been sent to Asgard long ago.
Warnings: Moderately graphic torture, hints of non-con.
A/N: School starts on Monday. So... yeah. Sorry in advance for the slow updates :'(
Chapter 25: Thunder and coffee
They end up ordering Pizza and Chinese for tea that night. Supreme for the former and sweet and sour pork, un-battered, with fried rice for the latter. Loki insists on the prawn crackers and Tasha demands that at least one of the pizzas be olive-free, but all things considered, it's an unexpectedly pleasant meal.
After they've finished, Tony half thinks about asking if everyone wants to watch a second movie. Together, this time.
Harry Potter, maybe, or The Two Towers.
Only before he can do more than suggest it, Clint's leaning forward and saying that, yes, the Lord of the Rings is good, but he's seen them all recently already and does anyone else want to watch 'V for Vendetta'? With action, plot and explosions? And knives?
The last bit's openly directed at Tasha and Loki.
Tony, eyes slipping towards the latter, suppresses a wince.
But the demigod's nodding with that same slightly-too-eager look he sometimes gets when he's asked a question and people are actually interested in the answer and Steve, who Tony had been counting on but who he now suspects has never seen it before is saying 'Sure, why not?' .
Even Tasha's nodding. Bruce meets Tony's eyes across the table and Tony really, really wishes there was a way to say "Way too close to home, Robbie" without making it seem like he's treating the demigod like glass.
In the end he gives up without trying and tells himself that no one really expects him to be the responsible one anyway.
Tells himself that Loki's tougher than he looks and it won't give him too many ideas he didn't have already.
They all end up watching it.
And it's... not so bad, Tony thinks. Clint and Tasha seem to enjoy the knife work, and so, unsurprisingly, does Loki. And unlike all the fun movies (not that he'd ever be caught classifying the shiny-ending sort that way) Loki doesn't seem so very moved by the ending.
Just smiles a bit and says afterwards that "V had the right idea" and that at least he died in battle and usefully.
Tony catches Steve giving him a sharp look at that.
But, really, with the mask and the government and the kids, it could have gone down so much more badly than it did.
Next time though, he thinks, when they've gone their separate ways to bed and he's drifting off, next time he'll hold out for 'Stuart Little'.
OoOoOoOoO
The night is dark and the starlight is choked by the twisting branches above him.
By the trees which surround him on either side, whose leaves and whip thin twigs cut into his flanks as he flees between them, desperate and panting. Already his white coat is dark with the crimson liquid and with the salty sweat which runs stinging into the wounds, burning them like fire.
The wind howls past him as he moves.
He doesn't slow.
He's running and running and it's not fast enough and he knows it won't be fast enough because nothing is ever enough for anyone and why won't his magic work and shift him back as the stallion crashes after him through the night?
Only, when he turns to look, it's Polt, not a horse behind him and he whispers "You will always be nothing" and he can't move and why can't he move? He's as frozen as the ice his race his named for and nothing was ever supposed to be like this.
And he's trying to scream for help and he knows a single word would save him but nothing will pass his lips.
And then Odin is there, watching, and his eye is hard and cold and he wants to scream:
"Please, father. Help me."
Help me. I did this for you.
Only the words are choked by the foam in his mouth and Polt is getting closer and Thor says "How could I have ever loved a brother who is a monster?"
OoOoOoOoO
Loki sits up in bed, drenched in sweat and shaking. The air is cold and he seems to have kicked off his covers onto the floor sometime during the night. The vestiges of his dream cling to him and for a moment he thinks he is still there.
Still running from Polt and the hooves and he can still feel them. Hear them, in the night.
Can see the black stallion getting closer and closer and—
There's softness beneath him and he's in his bed, alone, and it isn't dark because everything is lit by the little lamp he can't yet bring himself to turn off.
"I was dreaming. It was just a dream," he chants to himself, over and over.
And it was and he knows that. Only, he can't seem to make himself stop shaking and his hands won't stop trembling and his heart is bouncing so hard in his chest he feels like it should break or he should.
Outside, the sky is dark with night and with rainclouds. Rain pelts against the windowpanes and he wonders, suddenly, if this was what woke him. And, moments later, is sure of it as lightning cracks like a whip across the sky. The thunder comes mere seconds after, deafeningly loud and strong.
He shivers, swallowing, and curls in on himself, reaching vainly for the heat that isn't there.
Once, he would have crawled in bed with Thor.
Once, Thor would have grumbled a bit about being woken for all the twenty seconds it took for him to fumble on a light or feel his little brother trembling. And then he'd have pulled him closer and wrapped an arm about him and promised to stay awake to keep the monsters at bay. And then he would have been warm and safe and—
Once.
No more.
He tries wrapping his own arms about his middle. But they are like ice and it doesn't work and he doesn't really know why he'd thought it might. He shivers, and it's stupid because it's always stupid that he, a Jotun, can feel the cold. But for all that he can't seem to get warm.
Lightning flashes again.
He hates Thor suddenly. Fiercely.
Why had Thor only to smile to make everyone forgive him and forget his every fault? Why could Thor learn from his mistakes in three days and get second chances and not have to worry about why people were doing things because Mjolnir could stop everything from hurting him anyway if things went wrong?
When all he has been left with are his words.
Tricks.
Why was there no second chance for him?
And he is frozen and so very, very tired suddenly but he doesn't want to go back to sleep where the nightmares are lurking, waiting for him. Doesn't want to return to the hopeless, bitter blackness of disappointment and fear.
"How could I have ever loved a brother who is a monster?"
He shivers again.
It is not even a lie.
Monster.
And suddenly he can't lie here anymore.
He clambers out of bed and pads softly over the carpet to the chest of draws. Kneeling down, he rummages with icy fingers through the drawers and he can't find it and he can feel the fear clawing it's way upwards as he pushes aside spare clothes. Has it been—? But no. It is there still. Wrapped up in his Iron Man pyjama top.
He releases the air he hadn't realised he'd been holding in one long exhale.
It is dangerously close to a sob.
And then he tugs his plaster cast free of its wrapping and traces each word, each painted blob, with one tapering finger.
Best wishes for your recovery, Captain America.
Tony Stark.
Tony Stark.
Iron Man.
Tony Stark.
He is a monster, true. But not, he tells himself, an abomination.
Monsters can be loved. Are not...
His free hand clenches and the nails bite into his palm enough to hurt. But they don't draw blood. He retains self awareness enough for that, at least. His t-shirt clings to him and he feels suddenly dirty and ragged and dry.
He wants to be clean. Wants the hollow nothing inside which he knows should hold something to be filled.
Filled like it had been, a little, when he'd finally managed to beat Romanoff at Risk.
When Steve had grinned at him and Romanoff's composure had cracked enough to look annoyed and Barton had said that, screw the one game, a try two was clearly called for. This time with covert ops instead of world domination at which he clearly had an unfair advantage, having actually tried doing it once for real.
When he'd felt wanted and included and not just like he was Thor's irritating little brother who was tolerated because his tricks were sometimes useful.
Sometimes useful.
For a moment he is caught again in the old, grinding litany.
Others just use tricks.
Know your place.
Silver tongue turned to lead?
Silence!
The words are screaming and screaming and he wants to escape them but there is no escape because they are true.
"I am not worthless," he whispers to himself.
As though merely telling himself that can make it real.
Pathetic.
He is pathetic and he can't make them stop.
He clutches the cast more tightly, focusing again on the short, scrawled words.
Tries to see not just the letters but the message buried beneath.
You have courage.
You're not a monster. Or if you are you're an Abominable Snowman or Night Fury.
You are my friend.
They care.
Steve and Tony care.
And slowly, slowly, the tension constricting his chest begins to ease.
He decides suddenly that he wants a bath. Not with the salts and scented oils which were used in Asgard. But just... warmth, all over. He wants that. Wants the tension of the last few days to fade.
Replacing his cast in the bottom drawer, he stalks away into his little side-room and starts the water running.
An hour or so later he re-emerges damp and warm and oddly loose.
He seats himself in the chair near the little desk in the corner, pulls out a sheet of paper and unearths a pen. Then he starts to write.
Lists, Steve had said.
Well, silly as the idea is, it is Steve's and he cannot think up anything better—anything at all, really—on his own.
He titles it, on the left side:
"Reasons why being a Monster does not make me nothing."
He considers the paper a moment. And then he gives into temptation and draws a line down the middle, straight and hard and as neatly as he'd drawn the margins into his books of lore and spells years ago when he'd had the time to write them.
"Reasons why I am."
And then he starts filling them in.
Left:
#1: Shrek.
#2: Steve is my friend.
#3: So is Tony.
#4: My children were not nothing.
#5: I liked Randall.
#6: I can still feel.
Right:
#1: I am a Jotun.
#2: I lie and cheat and steal. I have no remorse.
#3: I killed my father.
#4: I tried to conquer Midgard like they did.
#5: I failed.
#6: I killed Coulson.
#7: Thor didn't come.
He pauses, staring at his lists.
They are... depressing, really. He crosses #7 out, and then recrosses it just to be sure and he is still staring at it and this isn't helping.
Scrunching the paper up into a ball, he throws it into the rubbish bin in the corner. Then he rises and stalks over to the chest of drawers to put on something a little more dignified than his Hulk T-shirt and Iron Man pyjama pants— A neat pair of grey trousers and a shirt with long sleeves, moss green and indistinctive.
If he had more courage, he might have taken advantage of the rain to see if what worked for Evey and V would work for him. To see if it somehow had the power to free him from all fear.
He isn't though.
Instead, he heads downstairs in search of the ice-cream.
OoOoOoOoO
Steve is there when he gets there.
He's seated over the other side of the couch in front of a laptop. Loki blinks, then decides he doesn't really care why the man is awake at this hour. Instead, he waves a lazy hand in his general direction and walks past him towards the kitchen.
"Loki," Steve says a bit distantly, eyes not straying from the screen.
Loki pauses, waiting a few seconds for the supersoldier to add something.
He doesn't; apparently it's just his way of acknowledging the wave.
Looking closer, he thinks the mortal is scrolling through SHIELD files. A few papers are scattered across the table and more are crumpled into scrunched up balls on the floor. There's a box of Cheerios at his elbow too, open, from which he keeps taking absent handfuls.
Cheerios.
Loki frowns with sudden indecision, eying the freezer, then the box, then the freezer.
The Cheerios win.
He pads over next to Steve, perching next to him and taking a handful of the brown little rings for himself.
"What are you researching?"
"Agents mainly," Steve says, glancing up, "The men who went missing. Figured I'd check if they had anything in common, you know? But they don't. Just that they all had higher level clearance for information access and all of them had worked for Polt in the past."
Loki nods without interest.
It is to be expected. If Polt had been director fifteen years ago of course the older agents would have worked for him.
"Trouble sleeping again?" Steve asks, turning a bit more to face him.
He shrugs.
"I find I am not overly fond of the thunder," he admits, swallowing another mouthful of the snack, "I always feel... stifled."
Trapped.
"Right. Well, I can't say I like storms too much myself either. Though my least favourite part's the humidity," Steve confesses, "I always seem to sweat like a pig and then I get itchy and can't get to sleep. But at least it's broken now."
Loki grins, sharp and sudden.
"First your diet. Then your sweating. I find myself beginning to worry, Captain."
Steve blinks, and then raises an eyebrow at him.
"I'm not rising to that one," he says firmly.
Loki's smile turns more genuine.
"Really?"
"Really."
Loki waits a second or so to see if Steve will respond after all.
The man doesn't.
"You are stubborn, too, I see," he observes.
Steve glares at him half heartedly.
There's a moment more of companionable silence. Then:
"Do you want to grab a cup of coffee?" Steve says abruptly.
"Coffee?" Loki echoes, lost.
They have coffee here of course. Lots of it. Tony practically lives off the stuff. And so, he suspects, does Banner.
But he'd thought Steve hadn't liked it. That it didn't work on him.
"Coffee," Steve confirms, "I don't really get stimulated by it, I have to say. My metabolism again. But... there's this really nice little shop a couple of blocks away. I know it sounds funny and it's past two now, but they open late and they've got these little pictures they do on the foam when you order lattes. With the brown and white. You never know which one you're going to get and..." Steve trails off uncertainly, looking a bit awkward.
Pictures.
How very... him.
"You mean... outside?" he hedges.
The words are more raw, more honest, than he'd meant them to be.
Fool, he silently berates himself, How can he respect you when you keep showing yourself to be this vulnerable? This weak?
The supersoldier looks at him searchingly. Then the blue eyes soften.
"You said you felt stifled," the man explains, then, a moment later, adds, "And you're not going to be recognised, Loki. No one who wasn't with SHIELD got more than a second or so looking at you, and that was in armor. And it's not as though there are security cameras there. It'll probably be mostly empty too what with the rain and the hour. Assuming— You don't mind getting a bit wet do you?"
He frowns, considering it.
But... Steve wants to and there is, he tells himself, no reason to be afraid. Steve will not let SHIELD take him. He himself will not let them take him. And he is no more likely to be attacked there then here. And no less.
He nods slowly.
"I do not mind the rain," he says.
And it isn't really an answer, not quite, but it's enough. Steve smiles at him.
"It'll be great, you'll see. And they're all so friendly and they smile when you walk in," the man says enthusiastically.
Loki eyes the boyishly handsome face and the bulging muscles pointedly.
"At all who enter? Or just you?"
Steve blinks, then grins reluctantly.
"That's not very nice," he says reprovingly, "I'm sure they're that polite with everyone."
Loki snorts.
And then Steve is reaching forwards and punching him lightly across the upper shoulder and saying he's an incorrigible cynic. And for the first time, as he winces exaggeratedly and tells Steve that he is an overbearing, naive idealist, he sees only fondness, not pity, in the supersoldier's eyes.