Chapter 5 - Only Peasants Eat Cabbage Soup

AN: Just as a warning, in this chapter Loki tries to manipulate Victor in a way that is *highly questionable,* to say the least. She'll get called out on it by the end of the chapter. There is mention of "inappropriate touching," but no inappropriate touching actually occurs.

"That's a lot of makeup." Natasha leaned against the wall as she watched Loki paint her lips fire engine red in front of the large mirror that hung over the dresser in their room. "If you're going to do a smoky eye you should stick to a light-colored lipstick, unless you're going undercover as a sex worker. I thought I told you to keep your makeup to a minimum while we were here?"

Loki shrugged. All she needed to do was prove to her mother that Victor was a Very Bad Man. Natasha had been convinced that if Loki crossed him, he would attempt to hurt her, so what better way than to goad him into doing just that?

"Loki, I'm asking you nicely to tone your makeup down. What you're trying to do is obvious. I've already asked you not to try to provoke Doom."

"And if I refuse to remove it?"

"I'll get Bruce and ask him to have a talk with you about it."

"You're going to tell on me to Bruce?" Loki made a face in the mirror as she grabbed a makeup remover cloth from her cosmetics bag. She'd just have to find another way to provoke Doom's ire. "Remind me, Natasha, how are we to behave at dinner?"

"It would be best to just keep your mouth shut and not speak unless someone else talks to you first. I'm pretty sure that in Latveria, they still think that children 'should be seen and not heard.'"

If that was the case, incurring Doom's wrath would be easier than Loki had anticipated. If there was one thing Loki was good at, it was running her mouth.

(¬_¬") (͡ ° 3͡ °)

Doom and Frigga were the last ones to enter the dining room. When they entered, Bruce and Thor stood as gentlemen were generally expected to do when a lady entered the room, and Victor pulled Frigga's chair out for her. Doom remained standing after Bruce and Thor sat again. "Friends, Lady Frigga and Lord Doom are glad you could join us on the eve of our wedding."

Loki rolled her eyes in an exaggerated movement involving her head and shoulders certain to be noticed by everyone else at the table. "Why do you keep referring to yourself in the third person? Could you be any more of a joke?"

"Loki, I have asked you not to be rude," Frigga chided. "If you cannot keep a civil tongue, I think you had better leave the table and go straight to bed without supper." Loki couldn't believe her mother would scold her right there at the table in front of everyone; it wasn't fair, when all she meant to do was provoke Doom into hurting her so that she could prove to Frigga that her intended was a monster.

"It's alright, my little turnip. Your daughter has had a long journey, and some sustenance might improve her mood." Of all the people in the room, Doom was the last person Loki had expected to jump to her defense—in fact, Bruce, Natasha, and Thor were all glaring at her for some reason—and it made her suspicious. Maybe he'd had her food poisoned. Well, if it was, the joke was on him, because Loki was impervious to most poisons—no, wait, she had been impervious to most poisons, but as a mortal, she probably wasn't. Well then, in that case, she just wouldn't eat. Natasha still had food in her bag, so she would be able to eat something later.

Loki had half expected the soup course to be served by Doombots. Instead, flesh and blood servants scurried about the table attempting to avoid their master's eyes—out of reverence or fear, Loki couldn't be sure. She poked at the large piece of cabbage floating on top of her cabbage soup and made a face. "In Asgard, only peasants eat this kind of thing."

"Loki, I have warned you—" Frigga began.

"Your daughter simply made an observation, love." He turned to Loki. "In Latveria, all of Lord Doom's people are as one, and eat the same food. In time, you will learn to appreciate fine, simple food as this."

"What do you mean, 'in time?'" Bruce asked before Loki could.

"Loki will be staying in Latveria after her mother and I are wed," Doom announced. "I cannot allow my stepdaughter to continue to reside with you Avengers, who represent vulgar American capitalism—"

Loki threw her spoon down as she jumped up, nearly knocking over her chair over in the process. "Hel no. There is no way I'm staying here."

"Loki, we can talk about it later," said Frigga. "Sit down and eat your soup."

Instead of sitting down, Loki calmly picked up her soup and threw it hard enough for it to fly straight into the opposite wall. The bowl shattered upon impact, and cabbage soup dripped down the wall onto the floorboards.

"Well, that was certainly dramatic," said Frigga, her tone still maddeningly calm. "Since you are obviously not hungry, I think you had better go to bed now, don't you? Clearly, you are so tired from your journey that you have forgotten that we do not throw good food into walls."

"Good food? It was probably poisoned, Mother."

"Loki, you are being utterly ridiculous."

Bruce moved his napkin from his lap to the table as he stood, giving Frigga a small, embarrassed smile. "I'll take Loki back to her room." Loki's empty stomach filled with something that felt like lead; she was sure Bruce intended to scold her for trying to provoke Doom when she'd been told not to, and she wasn't looking forward to it. She hated being in trouble with Bruce even more than she hated being in trouble with Tony. Bruce never even came close to becoming angry with her; instead, he was always "disappointed with her behavior."

Frigga nodded her approval, but then Doom stood as well and reached out to gasp Loki's arm. "No, Loki will come with me. As her future stepfather, I think it is time that we speak privately."

The lead in Loki's stomach turned to compressed Uru. Her eyes darted to Bruce, begging for him not to allow Doom to take her anywhere alone, but Bruce didn't have the opportunity to object.

҉

Loki found herself on a stairway that led down into a large, dimly lit room. Doom loomed behind her on the stairs, which gave her no option but to continue down them. When she reached the bottom, she turned around and began backing up into the room. She didn't like the idea of having a mortal capable of not only teleporting spontaneously, but of taking others with him, standing at her back.

Doom spread his arms out, gesturing widely around him. "Welcome to the laboratory of Victor Von Doom."

"What are you going to do to me?" Loki demanded, too concerned with Doom himself to take in the sights. "Harvest my organs? Trap me in a box of suspended space-time? Attempt to clone me?"

Doom shook his head. "Where are you getting these ideas? You have obviously read too many vulgar American comic books."

Loki relaxed a little; perhaps Doom hadn't brought her down to his lab to torture her after all. "Who reads comic books anymore when you can just watch the films?" she asked as she leaned against the large table she had almost backed into. "So why did you bring me down here?"

"I thought you might like to see some of my experiments."

Loki arched an eyebrow at him. "For what purpose? To intimidate me? To show me what will happen to me if I cross you? Go on, roll out your cadavers. I don't threaten easily."

Doom made a small sound of displeasure. Then he turned to something rather large, covered with a tarp. "I give you"—with this, he pulled the tarp away with a flourish, and Loki's stomach clenched, readying itself to see something truly horrible— "the potato powered generator!"

"It's just a giant potato battery," said Loki, dumbfounded. "That is a six-foot-tall potato, connected up to oversized electrodes—it's just a giant version of your world's lamest science fair project."

"It is the same concept, but on a much larger scale," said Doom, throwing his shoulder's back and puffing his chest out proudly. "I ask you, what is the resource that Latveria has more of than anything else? Why, it is our ridiculously large potatoes! With this, we will finally be able to compete with the industrialized West."

"I'm sorry, are you a complete moron?"

Doom seemed to lose about two inches in height. "You do not like my potato generator? But it is the cornerstone of the Latverian green energy initiative."

Loki almost felt guilty for hurting his feelings, but she still couldn't believe he'd expected her to be impressed by a giant potato. "Please tell me you have something more impressive than this down here."

ب_ب 🍠]-💡

"DOOM TAKE PUNY GOD—HULK SMASH!"

The transition between Bruce and the Hulk had taken a matter of seconds after Doom had disappeared with Loki. Natasha reached out and put a hand on his arm. "Okay, Big Guy, just calm down. We don't know that Doom is going to hurt her."

Thor wasn't in much better shape than the Hulk. "Mother, where has Doom taken her?" he demanded as he paced up and down the room.

Frigga remained sitting, calmly staring at her own place setting. "I'm sure Loki is fine, dear. Sit down and eat your soup."

"Do not tell me to eat my soup, when my sister has been whisked away to I know not where by a known villain!"

"He isn't a villain, darling. I've told you; he is simply misunderstood—"

"As Loki put it Mother, that is bilgesnipe droppings."

"You too, Thor?" sulked Frigga. "You can't just let me be happy for once—"

Hulk ran straight through the wooden double doors on his way out of the room as Thor, in his anger, flipped Doom's dinner table over. This was all Loki's fault, and if they got her back safe, Natasha was going to murder her.

(┛✧Д✧))┛彡┻━┻ =͟͟͞͞(╬ Ò益Ò)))

"Yes, yes, you have some rather large guns, jetpacks, more Doombots, and you are attempting to clone Reed Richards, though I can only guess what you would do with such a clone should you succeed." If she had to bet, Loki's chips would all be on "make out with it." "Don't you have anything else?"

Doom pulled another tarp away with yet another flourish, but this time, all it had concealed was an empty platform. Loki arched an eyebrow at him. "It is a time platform. It allows the one standing on it to travel through time and space."

Loki tilted her head back, literally turning her nose up at the offering. "Big deal. I've already met two time traveling versions of myself."

"Is there nothing that will impress you?" Doom growled.

Other than the highly disturbing Reed Richards clone floating half-formed in its cylindrical tank of primordial goo, everything Doom had was something that Tony could probably do better. Even the Doombots seemed reminiscent of his Iron Legion suits. "There is one thing," Loki told him. "Don't marry my mother."

Doom shook his head. "Doom loves your mother, and he has always wished for a child to carry on his legacy. Please, tell me how Doom can make his stepdaughter-to-be happy?"

"Don't marry my mother," Loki repeated, even though she was almost starting to feel sorry for the man. Then she had an idea—a wicked, awful idea, but she had always believed that desperate times called for desperate measures. "If you don't call off the wedding, I shall tell Frigga that you—" Loki's eyes widened and she crossed her arms in front of her chest as if suddenly self-conscious, sniffling for dramatic effect, "—touched me inappropriately."

"You would not dare," said Doom, his voice dropping at least an octave.

"Wouldn't I?" asked Loki, batting her eyelashes at him. She knew it was a dangerous game she played, but—

"You will have a lot of trouble doing so without a tongue to speak with."

Ah, here we go, thought Loki.

!( (*◣m◢) \ ( •᷅ ᴕ•᷅๑)

Doom pushed Loki roughly onto the floor of a cell strewn with straw. He hadn't cut her tongue out, but she had been gagged. The gag was made of metal and reminded her a lot of the one Thor had slapped on her after the Chitauri invasion.

"You will stay in here until you learn to keep a civil tongue," Doom told her as he slammed the door shut behind her. Loki settled happily into her pile of straw, convinced that someone was bound to come to her rescue. Then Doom would be the one in trouble, when they realized how horribly he had mistreated her. But after twenty minutes or so had passed, she began to worry that this time, she had gone too far, and no one would be coming for her. They had all looked rather upset with her at dinner.

She had just convinced herself that she was to waste away in Doom's dungeon for the rest of eternity when the door to the cell opened and a group of Doombots pushed Bruce to the floor. He wasn't wearing anything other than the extra-stretchy boxer shorts Tony had designed for him. "Bruce?" Loki tried to ask, but with the gag it came out sounding more like, "Brr-ruh-ruh?" A loud snore issued from the man. At least he wasn't dead, then. A few moments later, the door of the cell swung open again, and this time Thor was pushed inside. From his languid smile, a casual observer might have thought him drunk, but Loki knew that expression—it was the one Thor wore after a particularly satisfying battle, whether that battle had been won or lost. Loki wondered what she had missed.

( °T°); Zzz - (´・｀)

Bruce slowly opened his eyes, noting the stiffness in his back. He had been sleeping on a cold floor in his underwear, and he didn't know where he was—a familiar enough scenario, but that didn't make it any more comfortable. When his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw Loki kneeling on the floor. Thor stood over her, Mjolnir lifted over his head, metal glinting in the moonlight that streamed in through the windows above them. "Whoa, whoa, what are you—"

Thor brought Mjolnir down, but instead of braining his sister, it caught something behind Loki's head. Metal clattered to the floor. "Bleh," said Loki, smacking her lips. "You know, I really hate being gagged. Why do people always want to gag me?"

"Likely, they would be less inclined to silence you if you would watch your tongue," Thor told her.

That had woken him up. Bruce still felt the palpitations of his heart in his throat, and it didn't slow as he looked around himself. "Where are we? How did I—"

"Doom disappeared with my sister, and your other half took exception to it." Thor grinned. "Then the two of us destroyed a good portion of Doom's dining room."

"Thor, that isn't something to be proud of."

Thor scowled. "Your transformation did not last, however. Perhaps you were still tired from our journey? Once you returned to yourself, we were escorted here by a group of Doom's robotic servants. I could have fought them off singlehandedly, of course, but I thought they might take us to wherever Doom had taken my sister, and look, I was correct."

Loki stared at him with wide eyes, then shrunk back as if she thought he was going to start yelling. If Bruce was honest with himself, he felt a little like yelling, but that wouldn't help the situation. It would only get his blood pressure up. The last thing they needed was for him to transform inside a cell that was barely big enough for the three of them to begin with, so instead, he chose his words carefully. "Loki, Natasha told you she was calling off the mission, and she asked you not to provoke Doom. I'm disappointed that you chose to do that, when you promised you would behave yourself."

"I didn't say how I would behave myself," Loki pointed out.

Bruce wanted to kick himself, because he should have caught that. You had to be careful when you talked to Loki—not only did she listen to and analyze every word anyone said to her, she also carefully crafted her own words, using them to build loopholes she could escape through. "Loki, that doesn't make it okay. You understood what I wanted you to promise."

"But I didn't want to make a promise I couldn't keep."

"Are you saying that you knew you were going to do whatever you wanted?"

"I knew I might have to go rogue. I don't like making promises at all. Sometimes you can't keep them, despite your best intentions. Where I am from, a sworn oath is taken seriously."

Thor nodded in confirmation of this.

"I'm sorry I tried to make you promise, then. But you should have told me you weren't comfortable promising, instead of making me think that you were agreeing. Do you understand how that was manipulative? You knew I wasn't going to let the plane take off until you agreed to obey the chain of command."

Loki bit her lip, and Bruce wondered if he had been too harsh with her, despite his best intentions. "I'm sorry, Bruce. I didn't mean to manipulate you. It's just what I do. I suppose it's because I'm a horrible person." Tears glistened in her eyes. She buried her face in her hands and started sniffling, and the sniffling became a whimper. "I'm sorry, I really am. I don't want to be bad."

Bruce began to panic. Despite his best intentions, he'd said something wrong, and now Loki had gone into some sort of downward shame spiral. "No, you are not a horrible person Loki. I've been trying to say this in a way that wouldn't make you think that. You aren't bad, you just made a mistake—"

"Bruce," said Thor, shaking his head. "Don't believe this. She's making herself cry because she believes it will get her out of trouble."

Loki's tears stopped abruptly, and she glared at her brother. "Damn you, Thor, shut up."

Bruce stood. He paced the room for a moment, trying to think of what to do, then pointed at Loki. "We'll work out the details later, but once we get back to New York, you're grounded." Thor started to laugh, and Bruce wasn't sure if it was him or Loki he was laughing at. Either way, he found nothing about their current situation funny. "Shut up, Thor."

"Do not feel badly, my friend. Loki is called 'Silver-tongue' for a reason. Lying and manipulation is in her nature."

Loki looked away from them, and Bruce knew her feelings had been hurt. He didn't think Thor had meant to insult her; Thor said a lot of things like that without thinking. Loki probably knew that too, but that wouldn't make the unflattering words hurt less. "As far as I know, it isn't in anyone's nature to lie and manipulate others unless they're a sociopath," Bruce told Thor, "which Loki isn't." Leonard had assured them all of that months ago.

Thor nodded somberly as he watched his younger sister avoid their eyes; he seemed to have noticed by then that he had upset her. "I didn't mean it as an insult. During our journeys with Sif and the Warriors Three, Loki's lies and manipulations often saved us. I don't suppose you have any tricks to get us out of this cell, Sister?"

Loki arched an eyebrow at him. "If I did, don't you think I'd have gotten myself out by now?"

"We could always do 'get help.'"

"Absolutely not. If you want to do 'get help,' do it with Bruce."

Bruce almost asked what they were talking about, but then he decided he didn't need to know. If Loki didn't want to do 'get help,' he didn't want to do it either. "I think we should just wait. I don't think Frigga would let Doom keep us locked up indefinitely."

"Why should Frigga do anything about it? Clearly, she doesn't—" Loki choked on the rest of her sentence, and it came out as a strangled whine.

Thor scrunched his eyebrows at her. "What was that, Sister?"

"I said she doesn't—" Once again, the rest of Loki's sentence turned into something unintelligible, and she began to physically shake.

Thor scooted closer to her on the pile of straw they were sitting on and pulled her into his lap. Once there, Loki twisted around and thew her arms around his neck, burying her head in his shoulder. Thor sighed as he ran a hand through her hair. "Mother still loves you, Loki."

"Then why did she scold me in front of everyone? She's never done that before."

"You must admit, your behavior was a bit over dramatic."

"Her fiancé tried to poison me."

"You've no proof of that. Even if he did, there was no reason to throw your soup into the wall. Some servant is going to have to clean that up, you know."

"You said that you and Bruce destroyed a good portion of Doom's dining room. Aren't they going to have to clean that up too?"

Thor murmured something that Bruce didn't catch and cleared his throat. "My point is that I am certain Mother still loves you, Loki. Bruce also scolded you for your behavior, and Bruce still loves you as well. Don't you, Bruce?"

Loki's head turned towards Bruce expectantly, putting him on the spot. Back during the summer, they had come to an understanding of sorts, but he had still chickened out when it came to actually saying the words. "I, ah—"

"It's alright. I know how you feel," Loki told him, rolling her eyes.

Bruce felt relief mixed with a strong sense of disappointment in himself. Why couldn't he just say what Loki needed to hear him say? Maybe he ought to bring this up with Doctor Sofen when he got back to New York.

Loki let go of her brother and slid off his lap. A moment later, she had crawled over to Bruce and put her head on his shoulder instead. "Bruce—" she whispered in his ear.

"Yes, Loki?"

"I'm hungry."

And whose fault is that? Bruce couldn't help thinking, although he supposed he couldn't blame her for not wanting to eat food that had been served to them by Victor Von Doom. For all they knew, she might have been right about the food being poisoned. "Thor and I didn't eat either. The last thing any of us ate were those granola bars."

"You could turn yourself back into a cow, and we could milk you," Thor suggested.

Loki's head snapped up from Bruce's shoulder. "There is so much wrong with that suggestion, Thor. But to start off with, cows, like all other mammals, have to give birth before they can produce milk. I'm no more likely to produce milk in that form than in this form, so—"

Thor held his hands up defensively. "You can stop there, Sister. If you don't, I'm not sure I'm ever going to be able to drink milk from any animal again."

Loki rolled her eyes, and her head fell back on Bruce's shoulder. "Bru-uce," she whined again. "You don't have any food, do you?"

"If you haven't noticed, Loki, I'm sitting here in my underwear."

"I don't suppose you have my pills either, then."

Bruce shook his head. Up until now, Loki hadn't needed her medication, but the first time she had asked for it, he didn't have it. "I'm sorry. Let's try something, though, okay? I want you to start by breathing—"

"I am already breathing, Bruce, or I would not be talking to you."

"I meant breathe slowly, in through your nose and out through your mouth."

Loki rolled her eyes. "You don't seriously expect me to meditate, do you? Meditation never works for me, Bruce. I can't just stop thinking."

"You don't have to empty your mind of all thoughts. It's more about being in the present moment."

"The present moment sucks," Loki pointed out.

"Close your eyes and pretend you're somewhere else, then. Somewhere you feel safe."

"You want me to pretend I'm somewhere else, but be in the present moment?"

"Um—yes? I know it sounds like a contradiction, but it really isn't."

Loki closed her eyes, and took a few deep, ragged breaths in and out. After about twenty seconds, her eyes popped open. "This isn't working. I think it's making it worse."

"You have to give it more of a chance than that."

"I'm trying to imagine that I'm back in the tower. It's the only place I've ever truly felt safe, but—"

Bruce could appreciate that. The tower was the first place he'd felt safe in a long time, too, even though technically, the Hulk never let anyone hurt him. "But?"

"It doesn't work if I'm alone there! I need you to hold me. Then I would feel safe, I think."

Bruce knew that physical contact could be helpful to someone experiencing anxiety (so long as it was wanted), but her directness had taken him by surprise. Maybe it shouldn't have; Loki had obviously gotten better at asking for what she needed from people. "Oh—okay." He'd barely raised his arm in Loki's direction before she glommed onto him, squeezing him so that he could hardly breathe.

Loki's eyes closed again. Her breathing evened out, and eventually she fell asleep tucked into the crook of his arm. "You know, it always surprises me when your sister is, uh—" He couldn't quite think of the right word.

"Needy? Clingy? Starving for affection?" suggested Thor.

"Something along those lines."

"It is her greatest secret." Thor stretched out into the straw that lined the floor of the cell, closing his own eyes. "You should feel honored, Bruce, that she allows you to see that side of herself. She's like one of those cats that only lets certain people pet it."

(￣ー￣(︶｡︶zzz))ゝ

When Loki woke up sandwiched between Bruce and Thor, she had been filled with a sense of peace. Dust motes drifted through the rays of light that streamed in through the bars covering the little windows above them and a bird twittered somewhere in the distance; the air coming in through the windows had the chill of autumn in it but wasn't cold. That peace had evaporated rather quickly, though, when another group of Doombots showed up to escort them from the cell.

She had hoped they'd be taking them to breakfast, and that the events of the night before would be forgotten. Instead, they'd been taken to Doom's "throne room," where Doom, Frigga, and Natasha were already waiting for them, standing before a holographic screen similar to the ones Tony had designed for the tower.

"—Touched me inappropriately," the Loki on screen said.

Loki's heart rose to her throat, and she tried to swallow it down. "You mean there were cameras down there? I mean—this is obviously a deepfake!"

"Loki Friggasdottir!" Her mother sounded truly flabbergasted for once, the calm she had projected at dinner the night before gone. "I cannot believe you would resort to such a thing."

"That is pretty low." Natasha shook her head. "You do realize that making a false claim of sexual assault only hurts actual victims of sexual assault? You're playing right into the perception that many or even most reports of sexual assault are made up."

Loki knew that both her mother and Natasha had a point—even she thought it had been a low move, especially now that she had seen herself do it on video—but she just couldn't stand it when people ganged up on her, and that made her reluctant to admit she'd been wrong. "I wasn't going to do it. I just thought that if I threatened to do it, he'd retaliate, which he did."

"Victor only put you in a holding cell while he came to me to explain what was going on," Frigga argued.

"He left me in his dungeon all night!" Without access to medication she might have needed, but she wasn't going to say that in front of everyone. "And he gagged me, Mother. When you get right down to it, gagging someone is pretty kinky, so I could argue that he did sexually assault me after all—"

"No, Loki."

Those two little words felt like a dagger right through Loki's heart; they were the same words Odin had used to completely and utterly reject her when she had been dangling from the remains of the Bifrost bridge, only this time, there was no void to swallow her up and take that pain away from her. She sat down on the floor, stunned, and a moment later, she felt hot tears streaming down her cheeks into her mouth.

"Stop," her mother said. "Your ability to summon crocodile tears whenever you think it might benefit you lost all its charm long ago, young lady."

"Mother, I do not believe that Loki is faking this time." Thor bent down, and a moment later he held Loki in his arms as easily as he might an infant. As much as she normally hated it when he picked her up without permission, she couldn't find it in herself to object this time.

"Oh, Thor," said Frigga. "It is not in your sister's best interest for you to coddle her. Please put her down."

"I will not, Mother. We're leaving now. I wish you and Doom luck."

"Thor, wait," their mother called after him, but Thor didn't stop or turn back around to look. Bruce and Natasha walked ahead of them and pushed the doors open for them. Once they were outside, none of them stopped walking, nor did they speak until they reached the Latverian border.

...φ(ｰ￣*)

Author's Note:

Technically, the term "deepfake" has only been around since 2017, although the concept has been around since the late 90's. This story takes place in 2013. But obviously, this story also takes place in an alternate-alternate universe, so I'm not going to worry about it too much.