Loki tapped his fingers on her arm and woke her from the nap. The end credits rolled on the screen. She turned around to face him, without getting her head up from his lap.
"Did you like it?"
He shrugged. [The plot was rather vacuous. This is not at all how magic works,] he judged. [And who would send mail by birds when you can just use phones? Those are so much more convenient. Less likely to leave excrement on your possessions, too.]
She chortled. "I told you you're going to enjoy it."
[Is all human entertainment this infantile?]
She rolled her eyes. "Okay then. We are watching 'Dune" next and by the end you'll be begging to get back to kid wizards," she laughed.
He turned his face away and took in a long breath.
"I've been thinking," she said, mostly to pull him away from whatever dark thought that she just inadvertently sowed in his mind. "Since I've – somehow – now learned how to source the energy from the cosmos, is there anything new I can try?"
[You have something particular in mind, I assume.]
"Yeah," she chuckled. "I mean, illusions seem like something super useful, especially now, that we can't show our faces anywhere without risking being recognized, so…"
[That's not a novice-friendly area of magic.]
"I suspected you'd say that," she pouted.
[On the other hand, your whole learning process is turned upside-down and you're hardly a novice anymore,] he said with a thoughtful expression, [so I see no reason why you shouldn't try.]
"Upside-down? What do you mean?"
[You started your journey by using two of the most powerful relics in the universe at the same time. You had to learn how to escape your inner place first instead of finding it and learning how to fully immerse yourself. You spontaneously used potent magic and only later learned to control it somewhat. You found your way to the secret paths without looking for it specifically. You can perform advanced spells almost on an instinct, but you have only a basic grasp of material objects manipulation, which is one of the first things one learns while studying magic.]
"Well, I'm sticking to my new-found disregard for rules," she smiled and reached up, grazing her fingers on the smooth skin on his neck.
It was such a relief to see at least the physical reminders of his ordeal gone. Some of them, anyway. The formula Banner had Loki on gave him enough energy to recover, but he was yet to put on any weight. Banner was almost certain it wouldn't happen until Loki switched to a regular diet or at least enteral feeding, but so far, he didn't find a way to tell Loki about shoving a tube through his nose and down into his stomach in a way that wouldn't meet an instant refusal.
Loki's eyes crinkled in a smile and his fingers met hers, just for a split-second, before he moved them to talk. [You show affinity towards non-physical aspects of magic. And, at the core, illusions are still the art of affecting minds. You're altering people's perception and make them see or feel things that are not truly there.]
"That's why it doesn't work on cameras, right?"
[Yes. Fooling a machine is possible, but requires you to influence its workings, and that is a physical manipulation. Minds are more fickle. We are prone to believe what we see, and our brains subconsciously try to form a coherent version of reality, even if our senses lie to us.]
She bit her lip. "Okay, one mind seems complicated but not beyond possibility, I suppose. What about groups of people? Like you did, well, in Germany for example?"
[You must affect every mind at the same time to form a shared illusion.]
"Damn, that sounds awfully hard to do and maintain."
[It requires extensive practice to perform consistently, but I'm sure you'll get there eventually.]
"Thanks," she said with a smile.
[You want to try?]
"On you?"
[Yes.]
"Wouldn't that trigger the spell?"
He tapped Stark's gizmo, still sitting at the nape of his neck.
"Oh, no, we are so not doing this again. I'll try on Stark. Maybe without telling him first if he pisses me off hard enough one of these days."
Loki inclined his head at the corner.
"Fuck Jarvis," she snorted.
"You called, Miss Romanoff?" came the AI's perfectly levelled voice and she growled.
She scoffed. "For the record, that was a joke." Mostly.
"I've been programmed properly to recognize even the most heavy-handed attempts at humor, Miss Romanoff."
Loki chuckled.
"That's it. I'm out of here. You can stay and reflect or, I don't know, have a chat with your new ceiling pal or something."
Natasha left and Loki stayed, not only because it was implied that he should, and he was trapped in place until the rest of the formula seeped into his veins anyway. Banner had to redo the central line first thing in the morning. It couldn't be done in the same spot, so Loki picked his other shoulder when presented with the options. At least it wouldn't be visible under his clothes like one in the jugular vein would be and wouldn't get in the way as much as it would if placed on his arm or groin.
It was obvious Natasha wasn't truly annoyed, and Loki wanted to give her an opportunity to eat some breakfast before he ventured out of his – their - room. All the humans still refused to eat in his presence, so he just removed himself from their vicinity at proper times, if the situation allowed.
He should perhaps be irritated by the state of affairs – the sentiment came from how weak they perceived him to be after all – but he couldn't find that anger in himself anymore. For that, and other things that would make him absolutely fuming with indignation, once upon a time.
Be it as it may, there was no point in arguing against that truth. That, or many others.
He shook his head and felt the metal shift, swallowing a pained whine. After Natasha's magic healed the scarred flesh of his mouth and throat, his every movement rubbed and tore at the freshly mended and overly sensitive tissue. The last time it happened, it took days before the things were back to normal, and Loki wasn't looking forward to it, not at all.
Maybe he could ask Banner for some painkillers to get through the worst of it?
No, he decided quickly. That would lead to questions and Natasha might find out it was because of her magic. He endured it once, he could do it again.
He sat at the edge of the bed and reached to open the window. The tube tugged at his flesh, but was just long enough for him to reach the latch without having to move the whole setup. He slid the glass pane open and sat there, breathing the fresh air that rushed in. It was just a moment ago that they've awoken, yet the sun was already high up in the sky. He was slowly getting used to the shorter Midgardian activity cycles and by now had almost no trouble with sleeping when the humans slept and staying awake when they did. It still felt like days kept on slipping by, without him really noticing. The humans seemed to have a native – or just a very deeply ingrained – sense of time that he utterly lacked. So, last night, after he got surprised – again – that it was already well past midnight, he made a promise to himself to pay more attention to the hours.
It was a skill after all, and as such, it could be learned, so Loki devised a small game to school himself into it. He squinted his eyes at the sun and tried to judge the hour. Ten-thirty, he decided, then pulled out the phone to check.
He was off by thirty-two minutes. Not bad, but he could get better. It was something to work towards to at least. Another small thing that made him dare to think that there might yet be future for him. As his body healed and slowly regained strength, fraction by fraction and the claws of his former captors and Odin's justice remained at bay, those small sparks of optimism lit up the darkness and he found himself unwilling to let them go.
Perhaps – as unbelievable as it felt at first – he could carve a place for himself here, among the humans. Neither Natasha, nor Stark, nor Banner seemed to care much about his heritage. The legacy of the Jötnar aggression – so alive amongst the Æsir – was lost to the mortal memory, the real meaning of his heinous nature disappearing with it. Perhaps, in time, he could gain their trust and become a real ally, not just that of convenience, and a questionable one at that. Perhaps Asgard truly cared nothing for his fate, and he would be allowed to live the rest of his life in exile. Perhaps, in a few years, he could make amends with Thor – who was quick to anger but never one to hold on to a grudge for long, unlike Odin or Loki himself, once – and convince him to free Loki from the clutches of the All-Father's magic, if Stark didn't come up with some clever workaround earlier…
There was a knock on the door and Loki unhooked the tube and went to answer, taught by the previous experiences.
It was Stark.
"How's it going?" the man started and shifted from one leg to the other.
[You came just to ask me that?] Loki showed and shot a meaningful glare at the box Stark was carrying under his arm.
"Well, I had some business to run in town, and I decided to be extra nice and get you something while I'm at it," Stark said and grinned. His impression of nonchalance was in place, but not as impeccable as usually. "Here."
With that, he handed Loki the package. Loki took it and pried the lid off. Inside there was a pair of ankle-high boots, crafted of dark, well-polished leather.
"We had to skip off before your order arrived," Stark explained, and he seemed… apprehensive? "So, yeah…"
[Thank you.]
"Don't mention it. And I mean it. Especially not to Romanoff, if you'd be so kind. Like, this whole deal. I sort of like being alive," Stark said with a smirk, his self-confidence already firmly back in place, like it didn't waver at all.
Loki nodded in agreement and immediately cursed himself for that. Stark turned to leave. [Was there a word from Barton?] Loki asked.
Stark stopped further down the hallway. "No. Also, not a word about a bunch of dead agents found on the side of the road in any news outlets. Also, the raid on my tower wasn't officially sanctioned and there's no report of it anywhere I could find, so they still think they can deal with us quietly. Which is fine by me. We still haven't figured out how to get to the bulk of Pierce's secrets, other than just going in and physically hooking up to their mainframe. And I don't think we are ready for a hostile takeover of the Triskelion yet."
[Can I be of any use?]
Loki did not expect an affirmation, so it surprised him when Stark yelped out an enthusiastic approval.
"I'm going through the drive Natasha got in Switzerland," Stark followed up, "and it's scrambled with some kind of code that Jarvis' algorithms can't crack. It looks like the old-timey, asynchronous, machine ciphers, but I've been looking at it for hours now and I can't see a pattern. I'm pretty sure it's there, but I've been running in circles for so long that I probably wouldn't notice it even if it hit me in the head with a stick. A look with a fresh set of eyes could make a whole lot of a difference."
Loki couldn't tell whether Stark was asking him just to make him feel useful or if he really was desperate enough to think Loki might be of actual help, but the challenge still made him say 'yes'.
Loki took in the mess on Stark's workbench – piles of papers, some adorned with coffee cup stains, or written over, or crumpled. Or written over then crumpled.
"I really don't like when technology keeps secrets from me," Stark provided as an explanation. "Not even such old pieces of junk. Judging from the construction of the drive the computer it came from must be like fifteen years old, at least."
Loki found himself marveling yet again at how fast the Midgardian technology was progressing, given that fifteen years was not only a recognizable jump, but also so much of a skip that it might pose a challenge on its own. The last time he spent more time on Earth, the computers humans used were bulky, inept machines, and now everyone carried miniature versions in their pockets. All the while, it took two ages to just upgrade the plumbing in the royal palace in Asgard.
Some Æsir would say it was because Asgard was already at her peak and did not need any progress, but Loki always saw the danger of complacency. That was even more evident now, after witnessing what the mortals could achieve within such a brief period of time. If their advancements continued at the same rate, in a few centuries they could be the next contenders for the rest of The Nine. Perhaps even Asgard herself.
Unless, of course, Thanos razed their world to the bare ground in the meantime.
He should really tell Stark about the extent of the danger, he realized. The rest of the humans, too. Natasha only knew some parts, because it never came up after he told her about his shameful defeat at the hands of the Mad Titan. Stark probably knew even less than that. Loki has been waiting, saving the information for when the question got dropped on him, to exchange it for even a chance to get away unscathed. And then the inquisition never came.
Tomorrow, he decided. He would tell them tomorrow.
[Is it all just from one file?]
"Yep. One of a couple of thousand, but they are all scrambled the same way."
[Is it the original format?]
"No, it was just a string of binary, but that's what it translated into. And it makes no sense whatsoever. I printed it out because the code seems so old it was probably the way it was originally designed, and it would show me some new angle... And I felt like killing a few trees, I guess."
[Can I see the original files?]
"Knock yourself out," Tony said and waved his hand at his main desktop. "Jay, grant Loki access, pretty please."
Loki sat down in front of the computer and Tony returned to dismantling the right greave of his suit, were the redesigned magnetic servos absolutely refused to cooperate.
He got the external plates off and was halfway through a complete resolder of the control board wiring when Jarvis asked, in the one-tone-lower voice that he coded the AI to use for Loki, [Who is Armin Zola?]
"This is a surprisingly low amount of chaos for you two in one room," Natasha joked when she came down to the workshop. Looking at the screen and waiting for an update – from any source at that point – got insufferably boring after a few hours. "I haven't even heard anything explode since the morning. Not a single curse, either."
"I'm busy with witnessing my software fail over and over," Stark whined, "while trying to compile scraps of a forty-year-old code."
"You cracked the cipher?"
Stark chortled and it was a very unhappy chortle. "Well, let's say we did. I loosened it up, Mr. Alan Turing over there finished the job. To my defense though, I'd have figured the 'ancient Norse runes being given numerical values' thingy if I had slept more than two hours today. Or yesterday. Hydra used to be all about that stuff back in the forties."
Loki's fingers ran across the keyboard. He was getting better at it every day and while his typing speed wasn't anywhere close to Stark's – or even her own for that matter – she gave it a couple of weeks at most till it got there, as he was already past the "only index fingers count" phase. Then his eyes dashed over the screen quickly and he let out a small relieved breath and Natasha was sure he just googled who Alan Turing was and found out that Stark wasn't trying to offend him.
She went to stand behind Loki, propping her arms on the backrest of his chair. "What are you watching?"
There was some sort of old, black and white footage playing on the main screen. Loki paused it, noted something down on a page that was already half-full of similar annotations, and only then turned to her.
[It's an archive recording with the man whose name was in the code,] he said. The sign he used for "recording" wasn't the one Natasha would use, so he didn't get it from her. [Stark thinks it's an early version of their current defense system and that it's based on this man's brain and I'm trying to find out what we might expect of it.]
Natasha squinted her eyes. "Which one is it?"
Loki pointed at one of the guys on the screen. The man looked rather non-threatening, short, stocky, with a round, homely face. He was wearing a white coat and was surrounded with men and women in similar attire, in what looked like a lab.
"What do we know already?"
Loki showed her his notes and she went through them, trying to focus more on the contents and less on how much she liked Loki's handwriting. Back during their first day on the island she judged his scribbles as crude, and now it hit her how biased she was being back then. He was using a foreign language, probably first time in a long while, and wrote with a goddamned stick in the dirt. How else was it supposed to look like?
She sighed and went through the notes again, reading them properly this time.
"Hmm," she hummed, "Nazi scientist, turned ally, except apparently not at all, dead since seventy-two, except not exactly." She turned around. "Stark, why do you want to bring it online? I'm not complaining of the lack of enemies, the fleshly ones are bad as they go already."
[If Stark is right and it is truly an impression of a brain, it could contain information we're looking for,] Loki said.
"That, and I'm taking precautions," Stark added. "I'm running it on an isolated, virtual machine, not connected to the internet or even my own server. The best it can do if it turns out super-malicious is burn itself off the drive."
"You think we should do it, too?" she asked Loki.
[Yes.]
"Okay then." She dragged a chair to sit by Loki's side.
He gave her a doubtful glare.
"I'm better at judging people's characters than you. So, bring it on."
He huffed out a cursory protest, then unpaused the video.
On the screen, Zola spoke for a couple of minutes about groundbreaking discoveries in the areas of biochemistry and physics and praised the pleasure of working in such a commited, science-oriented environment. There was not a single mention of what they were actually working on, only that it would further the interests of the great nation of the United States and Natasha didn't need any backstory to guess where he had learned that rhetoric, no matter which master he claimed to serve at that point.
Then the scene changed and the narrator – it was a sort of an old documentary movie, it turned out – went to present the events that led to Zola's capture and his eventual turn to the allied side. There were a couple of takes of marching soldiers, then a grainy, shaky footage of Rogers showed up and the narrator explained Cap's involvement.
"Wait. Show me that again," she said and Loki did. She leaned closer and rewound the video a couple more times. "Stark?"
"What?"
"I think we just found our Rogers' argument."
"Are you sure it's him?"
"One hundred percent. I got a really good look at his face. You know, when he was trying to kill me, for example? Or when he was dying on my floor?"
Stark scoffed, like always when something offended his perfectly reasonable and scientific worldview. "Sure, whatever. A Howling Commando roaming the streets as a Nazi hitman, in twenty thirteen. Makes perfect sense."
"You're sitting in a room with a thousand-plus-year-old mage and a KGB assassin born in fifty-two and you're still drawing the line before World War Two soldiers?"
"Fifty-two?" Stark asked with a raise of an eyebrow. "I thought the whole KGB thing was a joke."
"Nope."
He whistled. "Do they still sell what you got? My liver could really use some. My heart too, probably," he said and rapped his knuckles on his chest, resulting in a metallic patter. "And don't get me started on my knees…"
"Stark!"
"Okay, fine. How do you intend to sell that? Call Rogers and go 'hey, I know I'm a wanted criminal and we haven't spoken in a year then some, but I came to ask you to fight the agency that employs you because I happened to stumble upon your dead friend that turned out not so dead, just brainwashed?' Oh yes, it's totally not going to end with his shield in your butt crack."
Loki chuckled.
She turned. "I really don't like this development. You were supposed to be on my side!" I'm incapable of making friends my ass.
[No, I'm supposed to not lie to you. Stark has a good point.]
She took in a long breath to calm herself down before they truly managed to rile her. "I'm not going to call him. This warrants a face to face."
"You're going to DC?"
"I don't need to. We have our man on site, don't we?"
Clint murmured something unintelligible and scratched his head. "Are you sure that's going to work? What if he doesn't believe me? Hell, how can you be sure he is not on their side?"
"You will talk until he does, easy," Natasha said and smiled at the camera. "And if they managed to convert Rogers there's no hope for us in this world."
"You're overestimating my gift of persuasion, Nat."
"You will be fine."
"If he doesn't listen, I'm done as well. He will know I'm helping you and my connection to what's left of SHIELD would be gone."
"I'm sure Stark will find you some nice couch to crash on here," she said with a smirk.
"I'm serious."
"I know you are. We all know the stakes. If you really don't want to do it and would rather keep a low profile and return to your family, no one will hold it against you."
Clint grunted something that sounded much like, "That's what I meant by 'persuasion skills'." He cleared his throat. "Okay. I'll call him now and say I want to meet up. Then we'll see."
"Thanks."
"Yeah, yeah," he said and shook his head. "Talk to you later."
The screen went dark.
"That went well," Stark judged.
"Rogers will want some explanations first," Natasha said, "before he agrees to help. To hear our version of what came down."
Stark's eyes dashed to Loki, just for a quick glance. Long enough for Loki to notice. He shifted in his chair, his shoulders slumped, and he looked down. His fingers flexed in his lap. [I'll tell him everything he wants to know. And if he still demands me to be turned over to your authorities, you should comply. He is more of use to you than I am.]
"If he demands that, he is a piece of shit and I don't want anything to do with him," Stark said darkly. He took in a breath, like he wanted to say more, then turned on his heel and disappeared back into his workshop.
She came closer and ran her fingers through Loki's hair. He looked up at her, then his eyelids fell, and he buried his face in her shirt. She didn't take her hand away.
It's all right. It's fine. I won't allow anyone to hurt you, she wanted to say, but she knew the first two were lies and she couldn't sincerely promise the latter, so she didn't say anything at all.
"I know you don't like the idea, but you really should reconsider…" Banner started before Loki's angry 'no' cut him off.
Banner looked up at Natasha, the plea to intervene obvious in his eyes. She curtly shook her head. They talked about this, more than once. She understood, as well as Loki understood, that it was medically advisable. That it would make his recovery quicker, that there was nobody but her, Banner and Stark around and no one would even think to judge him for wanting to get better. But she also knew how much holding on to that piece of dignity meant to him, that he saw the agreement as the final admittance that there was no way out. So, as long as Loki refused, she was not going to talk him into it.
"Just… think about it some more, okay?" Banner tried one more time, without much enthusiasm, and checked the flow on the tube for what must've been fourth time. He decided Loki should get an increased dose today, because he skipped one portion when they were in New York and the port got damaged.
[Thank you,] Loki said, as always starting the gesture a bit away from his face and Banner gave him a small nod, quicker than Jarvis could possibly provide a translation into his ear.
Both Banner and Stark resolved to wearing earpieces a while ago, so they wouldn't have to rely on the placement of speakers around the house, which was not as convenient and as widespread as it was in the tower. Natasha was grateful, she no longer needed to hear the translations like that, especially considering that not everything aligned with the way she interpreted it in her head. There were no obvious mistakes, but the AI would miss some intricacies she knew were there she had to fight the urge to correct it on occasion.
"Oh, one last thing," Banner said, stopping by the door. "Tony wanted me to tell you that we are going to have guests, tomorrow."
"Guests?" she asked. She didn't like it, not at all, and judging from Loki's narrowed eyes, neither did he. Guests meant people. People meant danger, to all of them, but particularly to Loki.
"Miss Potts is arriving and is going to be accompanied by Mr. Hogan," Jarvis interjected.
"Stark thinks this is a good idea?"
Banner's lips thinned and he considered for a moment before he answered. "Pepper has already extended her trip twice. Delaying the return further would draw unneeded attention to her, and so far away there would be nothing Tony could do if…"
He didn't finish. There was no need.
"Okay. Does she know that… we are here?"
"You'd have to ask Tony, I wasn't around when they spoke, but I'd assume he's reasonable enough to give her at least, uhm, a rough idea of what to expect."
[You don't have to talk like you're around a sickly child,] Loki showed with an irritated huff. He lasted surprisingly long anyway. [I know how this looks like. I know how my presence here will be seen.]
"Loki, you are Tony's guest here, just like we all are," Banner said.
It was a meek attempt and Loki saw right through it immediately. [Am I?]
Banner closed his eyes and sighed. "I don't know," he admitted, "I don't know what any of us stands on right now or how it all will end. But I know how it feels to have the whole world against you. It's hard, but it gets better once you understand it's not the world that counts, but the people around you. And no one in this house means you harm."
Loki's face mellowed and the frustration slowly drew away. [I know.]
"Good," Banner said and smiled sheepishly.
He turned around and vacated the room.
Loki pulled his legs up and settled closer to the headboard behind his back, his eyes away from hers. [I don't want to… go back there.]
"You won't."
[I have no way to defend myself. You think that Stark would still stand by my side if it's his wife who demands me to be…] He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a frustrated sigh.
"No way to defend yourself? You offed three well trained, armed goons with nothing but Stark's kitchen knife just the other day," she laughed. "That's not how being 'defenseless' works."
[They didn't know what to expect. That won't happen again.]
"Okay. Listen. I'm not going to lie, I have no idea how the Pepper visit deal is going to turn out. There will be drama, and we will have some serious explaining to do, more likely than not. But nobody in their right mind is going to support torture or demand more of it."
He blinked at her, his fingers fiddling with the hem of the blanket.
"Let me put it this way: if you were tried for what happened in New York… Like, lawfully, with a judge and jury and all the fuss, you'd be acquitted of charges, full stop. There's an insurmountable proof to the mind control thing and you did nothing but cooperate since you were freed from it."
Loki frowned. [I killed your boss in cold blood.]
"While holding the scepter that affected our minds so much we went at each other's throats just because it was in the same room as us."
[But my actions…]
"Let's not go there again. I understand that… Aesir justice is all about that. But this is not how things should be. I'm not going to pretend our system is flawless, there're too many weak spots and conflicting interests and hidden agendas, as you had the questionable pleasure to experience yourself. I'd be lying if I said I'm sure what the outcome would be if it truly came to a trial, that someone's pride or personal gain wouldn't win over. But motives do matter and – in the ideal scenario where you're judged according to the letter of the law – you'd walk out free."
Loki's gaze was confused and incredulous and so full of hope it made something crack inside her.
"Stark knows this as well, now, but… I didn't tell him about the coercion and mind control until after we got you out. I didn't want him to take it as a ploy, so I saved it for later, yet he still agreed to help. He is a good guy and, while I'm not all-in for the unquestionable trust on the best of days, I think it's fair to grant him some credit here. If he thinks it's safe to clue in his girlfriend, we should respect his judgment and play along."
And if it doesn't work out, we're skipping the party before it's too late, she thought, but didn't say out loud.
Loki set his shoulders. [Okay.] It cost him a lot to say it and his doubt wasn't completely gone, but he would go along with it, because she said so. Because he trusted her.
She got off the bed. "I'm going to grab something to eat. Try sleeping maybe? It looks like tomorrow will be a busy day."
[I will,] he said.
She glowered at him.
[I'll try,] he yielded.
"That's my space boy."
He tried, for half an hour at least (thirty-seven minutes, the phone informed him) before he gave up and just lay there, anxiety kneading his thoughts.
Even if Stark's spouse was going to be easily convinced by her husband's words, the man who was coming along was a major unknown. Neither Banner or Natasha seemed to consider him much of a factor, so it was a reasonable assumption that he was Stark's servant or subordinate, but there was no way to assess how he would react, and Loki really wanted to avoid a reprise of the Barton situation.
He should go and talk to Stark. Convince the man that they should take precautions. That it would look best and not prompt any intemperate outbursts if Loki was locked up when the visitors arrived. They could take the explaining from there, once the guests saw with their own eyes he was no longer a threat. The cell in the workshop would do, for the lack of better options. Stark probably had the cuffs somewhere too…
Loki didn't make an attempt to move. The very thought of being confined to the small, windowless space made something squirm and pulse in his chest and the fact that it would be on his own volition this time didn't make it any better.
It would be just temporary, he tried convincing himself. Stark would let you out the moment the danger was averted, he wouldn't try to trick you, not like Odin did.
It wasn't working.
He might be weak and broken, but he wasn't going to ask to be imprisoned, no matter how much of a valid strategical decision that made. He would have to get out of this with his wits alone.