Elizabeth had intentionally avoided Thor as he was reintegrated and brought up-to-date on the happenings at Stark Tower. And, since everybody else seemed to congregate wherever Thor was, she in effect avoided everyone else as well.
Had they gone looking, they probably would have found her; she wasn't trying to hide. If she was, she would have been in absolutely no danger of being found.
Instead, she just locked herself up inside her room again, pacing back and forth for so many hours that she stopped keeping track. She was never lost in thought, but she frequently took detours. The photographs taped to her mirror had forced her down a side-road riddled with potholes that had threatened to take her tires off with every bump, blown her radiator so that steam poured out of the engine like a poor man's sauna, and forced her to abandon transportation completely and continue the rest of the journey on foot. If she wasn't careful, the photographs would cause her to lose both of her metaphorical shoes in a tragic mud puddle accident next.
Tony didn't even know she had taken the pictures of Loki from their hiding place in his office. He had intended to leave them there until they were needed; everyone had already seen their fill, he reasoned.
She, however, disagreed, instead maintaining that, while they grew complacent once more, she was going to use the pictures to figure out how something so impossible could have happened.
Because seeing Loki in New York City was completely impossible.
No one knew it better than her.
He had an airtight alibi. The problem laid in the fact that she was honor-bound not to speak of it. Now, she just had to work at piecing together the known facts to explain the unknown observations. It had seemed so simple at first, but, the deeper into this mire she got, the more problems she encountered – the more of her theories were debunked.
Still, she hypothesized. While she churned away at synthesizing and testing new ideas, she hoped that the Avengers would soon stop decrying Loki and start asking the right questions. Only then could they help her along.
And when she found a theory that worked, she would need their help more than her pride cared to think.
Nothing like doing all the work and letting others take the credit, she thought cynically as she glanced at her mirror – the cover pulled up – for what must have been the hundredth time that day. Loki's face stared back at her from the photos, framing her reflection (which appeared decidedly sleep-deprived and mentally torn down an invisible seam).
It's not possible.
But it has to be.
Those two statements had been doing battle inside her head for almost two weeks now, chanting at her like an obscenely bored parrot. She reached up, burying her fingers in her hair and ruffling it in the hopes that it might make the parrot stop, though she almost instantly fixed the damage by finger-combing her hair back from her face once more.
She leaned close to the mirror, scrutinizing each photograph in acute detail, one after the other, as she had countless times before. Nothing new came to her attention, despite her rather desperate hopes.
Right in the middle of her pixel-by-pixel inspection of the last picture, her door banged open.
She whirled around, pulling the cloth down over her mirror instinctively, and found Natasha in her doorway. "We really must stop meeting like this," she said, smirking flawlessly to erase any thoughts of the mirror and the images associated with it from Natasha's mind.
The woman didn't smile back, instead curtly saying, "You'll want to see this."
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows, but she followed Natasha as she turned and stalked back down the hall, heading toward the living room. "May I ask what?" she inquired politely, easily matching the shorter woman's pace.
"Something on TV."
When they rounded the corner, she saw everyone – Tony, Bruce, Clint, Steve, even Thor and Pepper – gathered around the television, most of them standing or half-sitting, frozen in the awkward in-between. Natasha joined them, pushing her way to the front, arms crossed, one fist pressed to her lips.
She heard the voice before she saw the face, and the sound made her jaw clench while a weight dropped into her stomach. As she slowly maneuvered to look at the screen from the gap between Steve and Tony, the face on the television came into her line of sight, only causing the sickening taste of bile to rise in her throat.
" – looks as if you grotesque mortals have failed to learn the lesson of subjugation."
Impossible.
"My mere presence in the city has had your precious Avengers running scared like dogs. If 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' know to fear me, should you not learn from their example?"
She felt her brain ache as it strained to understand.
"And Avengers, if you happen to be watching this charming little broadcast, know that the havoc I inflicted on your New York City not an impressively long time ago was only the beginning. A warning shot, if you will. Know that, this time, I will raze the entire city, reducing it to an insignificant pile of ashes and bones of those who will not be able to escape. Because I will take lives, and I will take them as I see fit, as suits my merit as a ruler. Know that I will bring destruction upon your realm with no regard or sympathy."
A thousand hypotheses rampaged through her mind, enough to drive her mad.
"But, if I know you well enough and can predict your actions with sufficient accuracy, you will wish to stop this. You are dogged, determined fighters, and I commend you for it. Because I can appreciate warriors with greater heart than head, I shall extend to you a bargain."
Her breathing had gone shallow as she stared at the screen.
"I will discontinue my current course of action entirely, leaving Midgard intact and without scourge on a single condition. Avengers, you must bow to me, hailing me as superior, acknowledging that I have indeed bested you, and recognizing me as your rightful ruler. Should you do this, no harm will come to your treasured realm."
That sneer.
"You have seven days to find me, or I will rain terror on the petty people you so dutifully defend. You have my word."
With that, Loki's face disappeared from the screen, returning the news program that had actually been slotted for that time. The anchors were reeling from the shock of having their channel hijacked, and the flustered woman behind the desk touched her ear, listening, before confirming that that disruption had just shown on every screen in New York.
Tony muted the television and swore. Everyone else sat silently, either still staring dumbly at the screen or exchanging glances that screamed a hundred different emotions all at once. No one noticed Elizabeth at their backs.
"I say we just got a pretty solid reason to finally kill this guy," Clint said grimly, breaking the silence.
Bruce looked down the line at him. "We already had a bunch of pretty solid reasons to kill the guy, but we didn't do it. What does that say about us?"
"That we're cowards," Clint returned gruffly.
"That we're good people," Bruce amended.
Tony threw the remote down on the sofa behind him, saying, "Yeah, well good people don't get results."
"What results do you want?" Steve demanded. "An intergalactic war? I'm pretty sure that didn't work so well last time."
"We won," Natasha put in. "Why couldn't we do it again?"
"Tony almost died last time," Steve reminded her.
"Listen, Loki's angry. I get that." Bruce looked at them. "I'm not saying we should bow to him, but running at him with weapons blazing probably isn't the best idea."
Steve nodded. "He's already shown that he's got no qualms about killing in cold blood."
"Mind how you speak of my brother," Thor said firmly.
"Well, forgive us for being honest," Tony said.
"Then you will soon find that I have no trouble killing either," Thor threatened. "Loki is my brother. Nobody touches him."
Clint threw up his hands. "So what, then? We just play his little game? I am not bowing to that son-of-a –"
"No one is bowing," Steve said.
"No one is killing my brother," Thor boomed. At that, they all fell silent again, looking at Thor in surprise.
"You know, you're pretty quick to defend him," Tony noted bitterly.
"I know him!" Thor said, jabbing his finger at the TV screen. "This is not him. He is a good man."
Tony scoffed, and Bruce said, "All our experience begs to differ."
"And even if he's a good man where you're from, he's a monster here," Natasha added.
Thor sighed in frustration. "I did not come to quarrel with you, but I will not hesitate if you try to harm my brother."
"Well, we're not going to bow to him," Clint scoffed.
"Of course not," Pepper allowed, quietly intervening and laying a hand on Tony's arm.
A heavy hesitation hung in the air at her words. People glanced at her guiltily, having nearly forgotten of her presence. The quiet rang in their ears for a moment longer before Thor more peacefully said, "Friends, I know Loki. Let me speak with him. Perhaps we can come to an agreement."
"Wasn't he supposed to be in prison or something?" Natasha said, her detestation for the man in question more than apparent. There was a general murmur of agreement from all present, though only Elizabeth seemed to see the sorrow on Thor's face.
"He was tried on Asgard," he informed them, his voice lifeless. "I know not what they chose as his punishment."
"Whatever it was," Clint snapped, "it wasn't harsh enough." With that, he got up from the couch, pushing away from Natasha, and left the room. They all watched him go, and they all winced at the sound of the slamming door a moment later.
Thor looked after him. "Forgive me," he said, voice small.
Bruce – who had taken a few calming breaths – told him, "There's no way you could've known." He appraised the rest of them. "We'll figure a way out of this. We always do."
Nobody said anything.
No confirmation. No denial. Nothing.
"If I may," Elizabeth said gently, not wanting to upset them further. Everybody turned to her, either appearing appalled that she dared to speak at all or seeming as though they had completely forgotten of her existence. She had their attention, either way. She cleared her throat lightly. "Loki gets what he wants because he is unafraid to break the rules. Your strictures are meaningless to him. In all seriousness, you are outgunned because of this fact alone. It is a battle of wills – one which you have already lost."
Bruce scoffed. "That's optimistic."
She hissed a sigh out her nose and fought the urge to roll her eyes; she hated explaining things. "I meant that, if you wish to triumph, you must change the way you play. I can promise you that Loki will not change." She glanced around at them. "You are currently playing by a set of rules – ones for which he has absolutely no regard. If you continue to do things this way, he will beat you every time."
"We beat him the last time," Bruce reminded her.
"Only very narrowly, by a sheer stroke of luck and circumstance," she told them all, bringing out the truth of it very bluntly. "He nearly had you. Besides, he was never anywhere he did not wish to be; he never did anything he did not wish to do. Neither, in fact, did you."
"That is not true," spat Natasha, but Elizabeth held up a hand.
"It is true. He had you running about, turning on each other, nearly doing all of the destructive work for him. And all he had to say was 'dance.'" She stared them down harshly, daring them to deny it. Nobody tried to defend themselves against her accusations this time. "If you change nothing, the same thing will happen again; I guarantee it. Sometimes," she mused, softening a bit, "to arise victorious, one must first stoop to the level of one's enemy."
Tony crossed his arms. "So you're saying, to defeat him, we need to be as bad as he is."
"No," she amended. "I'm saying that you needn't discard the rules; just rewrite them." She scanned their faces, watching for a moment of understanding in every pair of eyes. "Make him play by your rules, just like he did to you. Manipulate him for a change." Slowly, as she spoke, she saw them one by one look at her with a fresh spark inside them. They were on the same page. "He has given you an ultimatum – one to which you have no intention of rising. You have already got your position on the matter. Now, all that remains is to acquire leverage and, finally, upset the status quo."
"And how do you propose to do that?" Thor asked. "My brother is clever; like you said, he always has us in the palm of his hand. He will never let it happen."
She considered that for a moment; the thought had occurred to her. "I am still working that through," she admitted. "But you have got seven days. He is bound to make a mistake in that time, and, when he does, he will be weak. But only for a moment."
"We'll have to be fast," Steve said thoughtfully, looking every bit the strategizing soldier that he was.
"No, we've got to be good," she corrected. She didn't say it, but she reasoned that Loki had probably already slipped up somewhere. If they could be keen enough to pick up on it, they would suddenly take the advantage. It was all skill and deception. Holding cards behind the best poker face imaginable.
It was entirely possible that their lives and those of the civilians below depended on a bluff. If Elizabeth hadn't been so practiced in the way of lying, she would have been apprehensive. However, she secretly welcomed the challenge. It had been quite a while indeed since she had been offered such a perplexing scenario. Alright, Loki; if that is how it is to be. Let the games begin.