Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers, or any of the characters used in this fic. They all belong to Marvel and their respective creators. I only own any original characters that I choose to include, as well as any original plot ideas.
Chapter 28: Forked Tongues, Faux Sermons
A/N: The semester is now over, and I am, quite fortunately, home and away from my strange vacation. I'll probably not be the last to tell any of you that little cousins change drastically after eight years. Sometimes for the worst if, the very next time you see them, they are hormonally imbalanced teenage boys. Good heaven, I can't believe I didn't strangle that kid, obnoxious as he was. So glad I'm away from him now, because it is not pleasant at all to wake up when a very clingy teenage boy jumps on you at five in the fucking morning before he has breakfast. Blah...
On the up side, in case you folks didn't know, Tom won three awards at the MTV Awards in Los Angeles: Best Fight, Best Film, and Best Villain. Hooray! I am thrilled, and incredibly proud of both him and those of us who are his fans. I'm sure this is pretty obvious, but I have such a great respect for him for doing what he believes is right, for making it a point to always be a gentleman, and for being so charming when it comes to fans. Congratulations, Tom. Very, very proud of you, love.
The recommended tune for this chapter is Cold by Aqualung.
His head throbbed, the ache almost blinding as he cracked his eyes open, stared dazedly up and into the darkness. The air around him was almost stale, hot, as though this were the blistering summer weather of Southern California in the middle of June. He hadn't felt that in a while, and after having lived a number of years going back and forth between East and West coasts every few weeks or so, he no longer had quite the same desire to go back to beautiful Malibu. Rolling onto his side, he saw glass, the thick kind with the barely visible smears of hand prints upon it. On the outside, there were dim blue lights, set into the walls no higher than his ankles would have reached and, against the far wall, there was a shadow, the eyes staring at him with a soft and weary gleam through the dark.
Groaning, he looked away, turned to the other side and saw the others, save Bruce, scattered about the wide expanse of the container, noting that Pepper hovered over him worriedly while the rest of them seemed to only glare.
Tony sat up. "Oh, God," he muttered, rubbing his forehead. Had he been drinking the night before? For the life of him, Tony couldn't remember. Was it even morning? If so, perhaps this was a hangover. "Where the hell are we?"
"Trapped." The word was sharp, loud, having bounced off the walls with a distinct ringing that tore through his skull. His eyes moved towards the sound, caught sight of the red hair that radiated with the same blaze as her temper, the woman's thin brows meeting at the point above the bridge of her nose, a statement that she was in a positively foul mood. "Like rats," she added, biting her lip hard. "Payback."
That said a lot, the Iron Man realized, and sat up, Pepper's arm draped about his shoulders as he wobbled, leaned back against the glass behind him and sighed. A cage, not unlike those that had been used by SHIELD, those meant to detain and potentially kill. A fall from thirty thousand feet or even suffocation by gas, by extreme heat, and various other chemical methods that Tony could have listed in great detail. It really did seem like reparation for his own confinement, Tony realized, and forced himself to turn, stare at that shadow on the wall just as the god let out a slow breath and looked away.
He was unusually quiet, not seeming to be the least bit interested in correcting the assassin or even silencing her. Maybe he was bored, or just stuck, not knowing quite what to do with them now that they were all stripped of their weapons, their naturally gifted comrades. Maybe, Tony thought, he hadn't dared to imagine that things would progress this far.
"Where the hell are Bruce and Sparky?"
"I'd rather know," Pepper breathed, peering out of the glass, "what happened to my baby."
Tony was on his feet then, eyes like flint as he slammed a fist against the glass, teeth clenched as he sought to fight off the myriad of dark thoughts that pervaded his mind. It wasn't the baby's fault he didn't know anything, that he made messes, that he couldn't go more than a few hours each night without crying for food and comfort. That was just the way of things. Infants were small, innocent, helpless, and Tony didn't want to think on the things that could have happened to his son; to the giggling baby boy that, as he grew, would hopefully be able to experience the moments with his father that Tony had not been quite so blessed with.
It was only then that the god stirred, threw his head back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling, perhaps reluctant to venture a response.
"He serves no purpose."
"Then where is he?!" Pepper shouted, and Tony cringed at the booming echo. She was crying, eyes wide and red, her fingers wrapped tightly around his wrist. "What did you do with my baby...?"
"Nothing. He is as you left him. Home, asleep."
She sighed, legs falling out from beneath her as Tony held her up a moment, lowered her gently to the floor again as Pepper curled in on herself and cried in silence. Whatever this was, whatever was going on, Tony knew it to be madness. There was no legitimate motive, at least none that he could conjure, that should have led to all of this. And even if there was purpose to all this, method to this insanity, it was still not excusable. He swallowed, noting that there were no windows within the room nor any sign of a door. Just a round room with the glass cage set in the center, set into an indent at least two feet down in the floor. No seam in the transparent barrier that surrounded them, no idea as to where, or even when, they all were.
The gentle sound of humming thrummed through his ears, the melancholy tune of that bizarre Asgardian lullaby that had sent little Bradley off into the world of sleep only weeks before. Though only in passing, Tony had wondered what it all meant, rhymes of a wraith being sung to a child before sweet slumber, dismissing it after a time as nothing more than simple nonsense. But now, as he replayed the words inside his own buzzing skull, he wasn't so sure anymore.
"Does that... mean something?" he asked, back sliding down the glass as he sat.
Without looking back, he could almost see Loki shrug. "It is just a song..."
Tony snorted, smiling. "Right, because every guy I know goes around humming his mother's lullabies at odd moments in the day."
"The wraith king takes them slowly, slowly deep into the dark," the god relayed, and Tony stared, wishing he could get that damn tune out of his head. "The wraith king steals them only, only after leaving mark. The wraith king, cold and quiet, waits to drag you down. Open, and see the shadows watch the world as it does drown."
The man stared wide-eyed, felt his jaw drop. Now he obviously wasn't one to give parenting advice to anyone, particularly because his idea of babysitting was putting Bradley to bed before retiring to the couch for scotch and horror films, but Tony was fairly certain that it wasn't exactly healthy to be singing to little children about wraiths that would drag people into the night and kill them. And he would have said as much, too, had they been sitting in his limousine or at a table in one of his luxurious restaurants. But, considering how they were all very obvious captives in this game gone awry, Tony opted for keeping his mouth shut instead of pissing off the prison guard.
"Your people know something of prophecy, yes?"
Tony didn't know if that was a trick question or not. Of course they knew. People had been claiming to have powers to see the future and whatnot for years, since long before the birth of modern society. Hundreds, even thousands, of years into the past. Much of it was documented as well, in myth and legend, passed on by word of mouth and even in scripture. So, yes, he thought it would be safe to say that humans had a pretty decent understanding of prophecy. Tony nodded.
"My mother sees everything," Loki said. "Eventually. Not always when she would like to, or even when she needs to. All she knows is what the Tree chooses to shows her." He gestured, one of the outer walls vanishing completely, leaving Tony to stare through the glass with the others as the stars steadily passed them by.
"Holy shit... Uh, guys..." Tony swallowed, stared out into the dark and sincerely began praying to whatever god would hear him."Guys?!"
Had the hawk and the spider any weapons, he was certain that he'd have ended up with an arrow to the head and a gunshot to the groin. Or the opposite. Either way, the two of them made sounds of irritation, their steps echoing before the archer gasped at the sight and fell back against the glass, smacking his head and swearing. Natasha, on the other hand, charged the barrier and gave it a solid but useless kick, growling under her breath.
"So," Tony muttered, still hoping that he was stone drunk and asleep, "that..." He made a face and waved his hands the way he imagined someone like a witch doctor might. "That... song, or whatever, was some Asgardian prophecy...?"
"Yggdrasil gave to her the song, a warning of what would come. She saw this. All of it. The end of Midgard as it is. As you know it. Its rebirth. And still she could not stop it... No one can."
That sounded ridiculous. Like another half-assed excuse for Loki, or anyone else, to do whatever the hell they wanted without repercussions. Tony scoffed, shook his head, slammed a hand against the glass.
"That... That doesn't mean anything! It's just another line for you to use to excuse yourself, to try and pass the buck!" Tony knew. He'd tried, time and again, to blame someone else for his mistakes years before. To try and excuse his company's constant production of explosives by saying that, if it weren't for terrorists, there wouldn't be any need to continue cranking them out. The fact was, he could have chosen to stop at any time; to put an end to the devices that were so clearly being taken and used against the very people that he was trying to protect. So this, he thought, peering around the room, was nothing but another lame excuse. "I'm not gonna let you rationalize thi, you monster! You're just... toying with people's lives!"
He felt her fingers curl into his sleeve as she pulled him back, eventually shoved him to the opposite end of the container.
"Just keep your mouth shut, Tony," the assassin whispered, peering over her shoulder. The wall was back where it belonged, dark and solid, and Loki was gone. "Don't... Don't say anything that'll make this any worse for us, okay? We'll figure this out." She smiled, forced. "You're a smart guy."
"Yeah," he sighed. "Maybe. But I'd really rather let Sparky and the Jolly Green Giant do all the heavy lifting..."
# - # - # - #
Needless to say, Thanos had not been the least bit pleased with his lie; with the fact that the cube he had first delivered had been one forged by his hand out of stone and stardust and a bit of well-placed magic. It had been a risky move, but he had not been the least bit willing to take the chance of letting these monsters have their way with him and leave. If they had chosen to betray him, to keep from him the force he had been promised, the God of Mischief would have used their precious cube against them, wiped the lot of them out. Whether or not he was fortunate to have not reached that point, Loki still could not decide. Perhaps he would have been better off with killing Thanos and the Other, taking their soldiers by force to lead them against the mortals. But, as stories always told, where one leader fell, another would rise, full of far more ambition than the last.
Upon being granted the artifact in its true form, the Titan had stayed his rage, and without a word. It couldn't have hurt when Loki had informed him prior that he had brought to him the mortals who had stolen the Tesseract away in the first place. Following that, there had been no exchange of any kind as the Other had silently ushered him towards the door.
Then, he was upon Midgard again.
He was bowed over, hands held in place by chains, by spells, his eyes closed as lose golden hair stuck fast to his forehead. It didn't matter how long Loki sat there and stared at him, Thor didn't move. So he shifted, moved from one end of the room to the other, trying to find something with which to distract himself. Maybe the baby would wake and start crying from down the hall, demanding to be held or fed or just granted some manner of attention and affection. Perhaps something from the hellish onslaught outdoors would come soaring through the wide windows, skidding across the floor and causing him to wonder just how he might go about explaining the tower's damage to the likes of Tony Stark. The god smiled, noting what a humorous thought that was. He had delivered the Avengers and their friends to the Titan, had left them all there to be punished for their defiance, to die as their world burned. Thor had been the only one he had held back, the only one whom he would not allow Thanos to touch, for that vengeance belonged to him alone.
The child began to wail then, screaming as the sound of a collapsing building filled the penthouse. He must have sounded like that once, Loki thought, knowing only fear, mindlessly crying for a mother that would not come. But she had come, hadn't she? Not at once, but in the days following his arrival in Asgard. When he had been wrapped in soft cloth and kept a secret from all until a plausible story could be formed. A story that Loki himself still did not know. Perhaps they had told the people that she had been ill, afraid that the second child of herself and Odin would be stillborn, and had thus kept him heavily guarded and concealed.
Thor's breaths were still, slow, as though he had fallen fast asleep. But his eyes, though lidded, were open, appearing worn and tired, and Loki couldn't stand to look at him. He could only lean over in the chair that he had finally settled into, listen to the gentle clacking of the chains as the other shifted slightly. How the god hated that damned sound; the sound of lost freedom. A lie, he had called it, in his first waking moments of desperation. Foolish.
"Do you..." The words were sour on his tongue. He could not even bring himself to speak Thor's name. "Do you hate me?" What was this? Why should he have cared? For all this time, Thor had been naught but his enemy, a brother only within the confines of a lie. Still, Loki felt compelled to ask, to know. "I wouldn't blame you if you did... But it's your fault, too," he laughed quietly. "You keep trusting me, expecting me to act according to your standards, your will...!"
The God of Thunder said nothing.
"It's almost... funny. One would think that, of all the members of your motley crew, you would have been the first that I handed over. The first to receive punishment." Loki laced his fingers. "And yet, here you are. All... caught up. Safe and sound while the rest of them await their fate..."
He shifted slightly, perhaps drew sharp breath as he stiffened, his golden hair appearing to stand on end as though it were imbued with the stark shock of lightning. But Thor still did not look up, and he did not speak.
"You're doing this on purpose," Loki sighed. "Trying to guilt me, aren't you?"
Silence.
The god stood, wished that there were something nearby that would merit a kick solid enough to send it flying across the room. Perhaps a potted plant would do.
"Wh-What do you want from me, an apology?! You know better than to ask for that, Thor! You know I can't–"
Thor was on his feet then, still threatening though his hands remained bound. He frowned, took two steps across the room and slammed his shoulder up against Loki, catching him off balance.
"Tell me but one thing, brother!" How Thor still had the nerve to call him that was startling. "Why would you take them from me?! Is it not enough that you already seek to drive a wedge between us?!"
Why had he gone to all this trouble again? For the life of him, Loki couldn't remember, if only for that moment. There were only Thor's words ringing in his head as he searched for an answer, abruptly remembering as another massive cloud of heavy gray smoke flew up in front of the window. He hadn't wanted to be caught up in all this madness, to be the target of a mass assassination that would be carried out by the monsters that ravaged the city. He hadn't wanted to be hiding in the dark when they came, tearing open the earth to find him.
But more than all that, Loki hadn't wanted to die.
"You really are a fool!" Loki shot back, and tried to shove him. He grit his teeth. "Your only fear was being trapped on this worthless planet, to never again see the realm that has only ever belonged to you!"
Thor couldn't have known what it meant to be possessed by terror. To wait out the hours of each day in hopes that the next light of dawn would not be the last.
But he was safe now. Granted the security that he always should have had; that which he never should have bargained for.
Outside, the smoke kept coming, piling up in the darkened sky as fire raged and continued to kiss the edge of the skyline. Within the penthouse, he could smell it, the heat, the scent of collapsing buildings and torn up streets rising on the steady wind. The people would be burning next, he thought. Their flesh charred and stripped utterly away, bones reduced to naught but crumbling bits of charcoal. They would soon become lost, the people of this great Midgardian city. Artifacts left to be consumed by time, to bear testament to the infinite foolishness of humanity. A witness of his triumph... and his fall.
"Loki..." He looked up. "Let me go..."
His gaze fell, faded along with the thunderer's own, a soft groan escaping parted lips. Loki stared at the floor for a time before giving in, allowing himself to finally drop at Thor's side as though this were not a war, but the grassy fields outside Odin's palace. They had escaped there far too often to hide out, keep far and away from the mundane goings on of parties and seemingly empty celebrations that held no allure for two growing and eager young boys so addicted to violence.
"Thor..."
There was no response.
"I know... you may not be able to forgive me..." This, Loki knew, was madness. And, at first, there had been a genuine method, a means, an objective woven deep into the threads of this spiraling tapestry. To satisfy himself, obtain that which he had never known by Odin's hand. That strange manner of affection, of pride, that even the writhing infants of Midgard were graced with daily. But all this, watching the world burn, was not quite so thrilling as it had once been. "But I... It was all I could do to keep them from..."
If nothing else, he had only ever feared the thought of being forgotten. The traditional processions of a warrior's sending, of being set alight by flame in a ship upon the open sea, devoured and, eventually, pushed out of Asgard's collective mind by death.
"Loki..." Thor nudged him with the side of his head as he lifted his bound hands, pleading again with his eyes. "Once more is all I ask. One last venture into the fray... together."
