Ladies and gentlemen, this is it! We're at the end. If you've stuck with the story long enough to be reading this, I am immensely grateful. I appreciate each person who clicks on this story and gives it a chance. I want to extend a special thanks to everybody who reviewed (you know who you are)! To those who reviewed multiple chapters and gave me a fairly consistent string of dialogue: you have no idea how much I value that. Thank you.
If you like my writing style and my approach to these characters, follow my profile. I'm planning on releasing a series of oneshot ficlets soon that will function as a backstory to much of what's happened here (with an emphasis on the LokixSif relationship). Keep an eye out for those in the future! But for now, please enjoy this: the final installment of: Desperado.
She didn't open the envelope until everybody was gathered in the common room, seated comfortably, listening. Bruce had informed them all of the most recent developments as they woke up, telling them to get breakfast quickly and meet by the television so Natasha could finally break the seal on the envelope that promised "Answers" in long, elegant script. Now, every resident of the tower was waiting, the silence thick with more emotions than Natasha could enumerate: anticipation, concern, confusion, and dozens more. With a pointed exhale, she slid her thumbnail under the flap, tearing it open.
She read the first couple lines to herself before repeating them aloud. "To start," she began, reading Loki's words, "I was never happy about coming here. It was hardly a trip taken of my own consent, much less to my own enjoyment. Imagine the worst punishment ever devised by men. Double it, and then you might be coming close to the reason for my being here." She glanced around at each pair of eyes, all of them different colors, all of them riveted on her. "On Asgard, I was tried for my transgressions, as my brother has likely already so dutifully told you. The Norns—a set of mystic, rather divine figures that we on Asgard hail with reverence—presided. Never before had I seen them, nor had I ever experienced their presence in any situation, let alone one of my (somewhat regrettably) many trials. My escapades within the justice system had always been handled solely by my father, to whose merciless style of punishment I had grown accustomed over the centuries. The Norns were nothing like him. They were cold, unfeeling, and, worst of all, quite creative.
"They sentenced me to what you on Midgard would call 'community service.' I personally view it as 'dignity-extinguishing.' The essentialities of my sentence were these: I was to select a disguise—one that would be easy to maintain and yet unrecognizable—and assume it, after which I would be sent post-haste to Midgard until such a time that my penance had been served. My only instructions were to 'fix what I had broken.' You are all very aware by now of the disguise I chose; once I had adopted it, in the courtroom, immediately following the trial, the Norns proceeded to leech away all of my Seidr—that is to say, magic. That process itself was far less than pleasant. By the end, I had been entrapped within my own disguise, stuck there indefinitely. With what little instruction I had been given, I did the logical thing: I showed up at your front door.
"I will admit that the first few days made me want to vomit. The only thing I was interested in was fulfilling my requirements as delineated by the Norns so that I could go home and face whatever hel awaited me there." Natasha paused, skimming back over the text. "Huh," she said. "It doesn't seem like him to misspell something."
Curious, Bruce held out his hand. "May I?" Natasha passed the lengthy letter to him and he searched for where she had left off. "Oh yeah," he said. "Hel. Just one L. It's the Nordic version of hell."
"It is where the wicked among us go in the afterlife," Thor supplied.
Bruce nodded. "I remember reading about it in that book of myths." He made to give the letter back to Natasha, but she held up a hand.
"I say it's your turn to read," she said.
With a shrug, Bruce picked up where she had left off. "…so that I could go home and face whatever hel awaited me there. It was, of course, only in this spirit of expediency that I—"
"Drew up the plans to help with the rebuild," Tony finished, realization dawning.
"Right," Bruce confirmed as he skipped the rest of the sentence. Then, he continued. "It wasn't until the Scrimorous appeared in the photographs from SHIELD that I began to wonder if something beyond my simplistic goals was calling for attention. I spent hours on end analyzing the pictures, trying to find something amiss in the persona."
"Wait," Tony blurted. "He snuck into my office and took the damn pictures?"
"It would appear so," Bruce responded.
Tony sat back, a curious mixture of offense and amusement playing on his face. "I was wondering where those went."
After quietly clearing his throat and regaining Tony's attention, Bruce continued reading. "Obviously, I knew it couldn't be me, but I could not tell you as much; such a divulgence would have revealed me behind my disguise, an inexcusable error for one in my position. If you had seen my face before the proper time, you never would have trusted me, nor would you have allowed me the resources and assistance I needed to complete my appointed task." Bruce hesitated. "Well," he mused, "let's face it: his disguise wasn't really the best. It kind of did look like him. In hindsight, at least."
"The more complex the disguise, the more difficult to maintain," Thor interjected. "Or, at least, so my brother says. Besides, he needn't try beyond his capacity; he wears a pendant called a perception filter." When everyone stared at him blankly, he explained to the best of his ability. "I am yet unsure of its true mechanisms, but it was bequeathed to him by a visitor to our realm. It alters the perceptions of anybody looking at the wearer, making it easy for the wearer to go unnoticed. Unless one draws attention to oneself while wearing or carrying a perception filter, one can go through life virtually unseen and unquestioned." Thor shrugged, as though such a device was the most normal, run-of-the-mill trinket in the world.
"Hmm," Tony said, fingers tracing his goatee absently. "I wonder if that's the reason I let him—her—whoever—into the tower in the first place. Could it do that?"
"I cannot see why it would not," Thor replied with a thoughtful scowl. "It would cause him to be more or less immune to suspicion. Above such things, even."
Clint gave a low whistle. "Where can I get one?" he asked, and Natasha shot him a look that seconded the question.
Thor glanced at them. "Ask him. He has confirmed that he knows how to create them; he might make one for you."
"Just don't give it to SHIELD," Tony put in. "It's way too cool for Fury. He'd just find some way to turn it into something boring and…corporate."
"Guys," Steve interrupted. "If Loki did make one for any of us, it's our responsibility to at least inform SHIELD that we have such a thing." His eyes scanned over every face in the room. "To hide it would be immoral and, frankly, unpatriotic. Think of what something like that could do for security. Or defense, even."
Tony rolled his eyes. "Nobody here ordered a conscience report, Jiminy Cricket."
"Anyway," Bruce cut in, waving the letter impatiently at his friends and derailing the conversation for now. Once he had their attention, he read on. "As long as the Scrimorous remained passive, I was willing to do the same, simply analyzing the photographs with greater scrutiny every day. I was searching for something—anything that was not right—to tell me the nature of the imposter. Scrimori are not the only ones in the universe with such skills, though there are certain mistakes that can identify them from the set. The trouble was, I didn't know what those mistakes were. I needed to get close to it—to see it with my own eyes. Speak to it. Thankfully, Romanov and Barton were willing to get me inside, and, once I had knocked the thing unconscious, its disguise fell away. It was then that I knew we were in the midst of a much larger problem—one that I had inadvertently brought directly to you.
"The Chitauri had commissioned me to bring them the Tessaract during our last encounter and, upon my failure, they had determined me worthy of the highest Chitauri justice. It was as I had feared when you defeated me at the end of my last visit to your great city; the Chitauri were displeased, and they were far from through with me. While I cannot truly know their thoughts on the matter, I can hazard a guess or two based on my time with them: The Chitauri are a proud people; because I made them look foolish, they would have had to kill me. That much was obvious from the start. But they had no way of knowing that I was on Midgard—a fact which leads me to think that they sent their Scrimorous to destroy me indirectly. If you Avengers for some reason thought that I was plaguing the city again, making threats and the like, you would certainly waste no time in locating me. They undoubtedly intended to pull their Scrimorous before it could be found, leaving you with a collective rage and a dead trail. The Chitauri likely had two options, then, in how to proceed. They could let you strike out across the galaxy and find me, after which they would allow you to finish me on your own, simply reveling in the spilling of my blood. Or, they could try to stay two steps ahead of you, finding me first and capturing me—an arrangement that would likely lead me to a much more prolonged death."
Bruce glanced up, grimacing slightly. Images played in his head of Loki enduring the most outrageous tortures before he finally—gratefully—slipped into the dark fold of death's robes. "Uh…" he hesitated. "Anybody else want to read for a while?"
"Sure." Steve held out his hand, and Bruce reached over Pepper (who herself looked somewhat troubled by the subject matter) to pass him the letter.
Steve cleared his throat and then resumed the narrative. "…prolonged…yeah. Anyway…When I met the Scrimorous, I, in a moment of either genius or insanity, drew his attention to my reflection in a window. Because my reflection did not wear my disguise, the Scrimorous knew immediately to whom he was speaking. (This is, incidentally, the same reason I always kept my mirror covered. I couldn't chance any of you seeing my reflection.) The Scrimorous, upon realizing my identity, was actually surprised to see me here on Midgard, though my presence didn't seem to be very much of a game changer (to borrow a phrase from Clint). Its mission had simply altered. This was no longer about indirect revenge; the Scrimorous meant to kill me right then and have it done with.
"When, in fact, I killed it, they sent their legions to both avenge their fallen comrade and retrieve my head. Now that they knew of my whereabouts, none of you were safe. I commend each of you greatly for fighting alongside me so steadfastly, and I thank you. Nonetheless, I made the mistake of letting myself hope that I might somehow have been able to walk away from the battle—a premature supposition that vanished in the shadows of an alley, cornered, weak, and entirely out of weapons."
Steve paused and took a breath. The room had gone quiet, any interjections held at bay by the gravity of the memory—in some ways, a thing far too fresh. "I surrendered myself in the hopes that they wouldn't touch you," he continued reading softly. "You—who had been kind enough to call me 'friend.' Who charged fearlessly into battle alongside me, despite no promise of life on the other side of the fray or potential benefit for any one of you. You had all bargained your lives for mine, and I could not allow that to be in vain. When the Chitauri seized me, I figured I was finished. I merely hoped that they would kill me simply, without a preamble or interludes. When the Chitauri apparently had no intention of letting you go free, however, I was suddenly infinitely more reluctant to die. Instead, I muttered a prayer to the Norns under my breath.
"I asked quietly for a piece of myself—I didn't care which; I only needed just enough—to save you. I didn't need much, to be perfectly honest. Just a bit of magic would have done; I could have gotten creative if the necessity had presented itself. I didn't even care what became of me during the process. If saving you all meant tearing myself apart, I would have done it. I even told the Norns as much in my prayer.
"I didn't know what I had been expecting, but I think that I may be the only person more surprised by what I got than any of you. Rather than giving me my magic—a cheap parlor trick by comparison—the Norns for some reason deigned to give me back the very center of myself. They allowed me to use the full, concentrated power of the part of myself that I most feared and despised."
"The heart of Jotunheim," Thor offered, voice little more than a whisper. When everyone's eyes shifted toward him, he explained, an air of solemnness touching his words. "What I told you earlier—that my brother is adopted. I was speaking the truth. Loki comes from another realm—one called Jotunheim. We on Asgard sometimes call it the Plain of Eternal Winter." He didn't dare mention the other, more derogatory names the Aesir had for the realm and its inhabitants.
Natasha narrowed her eyes. "So, the ice thing he did—was that…normal for his kind?"
Thor shook his head heavily, the instance rising in his memory. He wondered if it had hurt physically to possess that much power, even if only for a short time. Loki had always been one of the most gifted sorcerers on Asgard, but that was not saying much; the Aesir were largely unmagical. Jotunns, however, were frequently born with varying degrees of Seidr in their very souls. Thor imagined Loki—so far removed from Jotunn culture and physicality—shouldering, even for only an instant, the entire magical weight of the Jotunn race; the thought of how unbearable that must have been for him made Thor sick.
With a glance at Thor, almost asking permission, Steve continued to read. "In Jotunheim, there belongs a Casket that contains a great deal of the realm's power. It was taken by the Aesir an eon ago and now rests in the Asgardian vaults, leaving Jotunheim as something of a wasteland. It is this wasteland that I should have grown up calling home, and it is the blood of its people that runs through my veins. When I prayed to the Norns, they gave me back not just a part of myself, but the very core of my being—the part that I had spent my entire life trying subconsciously to stamp out and ignore. They imbued me with all the power that typically resides in the Casket, and, for one minute in time, I was one of the most unstable creatures in the universe. There is a reason the power was siphoned off into the Casket at the dawn of the age, after all. It is far too much for any one being to wield for very long. Thankfully, I was able to make the few seconds count."
Clint hummed in agreement, muttering, "Annihilating an army in the blink of an eye; yeah, I'd say that counts for something."
"I can't say for certain what made the Norns remove my disguise and restore my magic," Steve continued, nearing the end of the letter, "but I can speculate that it had to do with my motives in that instant. My assumption is that they never wanted me to fix anything. Nothing but my own heart, at least. I had grown proud—jaded—over the years, a complex that eventually resulted in my dealings with the Chitauri, my war against your realm, and my imprisonment. The Norns, I believe, simply wanted me to remember, through an incredibly humbling sequence of events, what was important, and, during my time on Midgard, I learned that you all fall under such a category. Thank you all for everything—and I mean that in the sincerest sense. I hope I've answered all of your questions, but, if you've got any outstanding, just call on my name. I would be honored to answer them. May the Norns bless and keep you." Steve looked around at his friends. "He signed it too," he noted, turning the paper around to show them all the ornate L that decorated the lower right-hand corner.
For a long moment, everybody sat in a hush, none of their gazes crossing as they stared absently, different thoughts reaching through each of their minds. For some, it was a few seconds. For others, it felt more like hours. And for at least one of them, it could have been several days and several nights before anybody dared to break the tender silence.
The morning was chilly when Tony padded on bare feet down the hall, careful not to wake the rest of the tower. He stopped, dialing the temperature up a couple degrees on a thermostat panel that responded with a cheery ding. His insomnia had been getting worse as late, and he had been waking earlier and earlier. Checking clocks in the mornings had proven to be too depressing for him; no normal person woke voluntarily at 4:30.
He ran a hand over his face, wishing that he would feel tired, but he didn't.
Life had been unspeakably dull the past few weeks. He guessed that, if asked, any of the other Avengers would remark that it was probably a good thing; a boring day meant a safe day. But Tony had never been one to play it safe. Besides, with nobody around to take the brunt of his jokes—or better yet, tease him right back—Tony felt as though he had fallen into a dry, gloomy rut.
Tony sighed, pausing to glance into the bathroom mirror. He looked exactly like he felt: alive, but fairly comatose. Sometimes, he still expected to see the mirrors covered.
The room at the end of the hall hadn't been occupied since Loki had left. The sheet that had covered the mirror was still there, even this many weeks later. The rarely mentioned him, but, when they did, it was with a strange sort of nostalgia, as though their time with the god of mischief had been something crystalline that could never truly be replicated. Sometimes, Tony could see in the eyes of his friends the same sort of emptiness that he was feeling now, and, if he didn't know them all better, he would have been tempted to say that they missed the imp.
They didn't expect him to return—not with all the redemption that had to happen on Asgard.
They had never called him, either; they'd never had reason to.
As he shuffled around the corner, he heard the soft bubbling of the coffee machine, and he knit his brows. Nobody was awake, he thought. Still, he wouldn't put it entirely past Bruce to get up at this unholy hour for some reason or another. Maybe this is when he practices his yoga to keep calm, Tony mused sardonically.
As soon as he cleared the doorway to the main room, he stopped. For a moment, he wondered if his over-exhausted brain might be playing a trick on him. It had, after all, been known to do that from time to time. But, when the man in the dark jeans and shirt with the rolled sleeves turned around and smirked at him, Tony knew he wasn't imagining anything.
"Fancy a cup?" Loki asked, gesturing at the coffee pot, now full of deep brown liquid.
Tony cracked a smile. "I could drink the whole damn pot."
Silently, Loki turned around and procured another mug from the shelf behind the bar. He set it out beside his own and poured the coffee, filling Tony's cup first. When he handed the mug off to Tony, their fingers brushed, and Tony realized for the first time just how cold Loki's hands were.
"So," Tony said, cautiously sipping the beverage, "what the hell are you doing here?"
Loki didn't touch his own cup, instead just waving a hand over it. Instantly, the steam lessened. "We don't have coffee on Asgard," he explained, picking up his mug and drinking.
Tony shrugged. "I hear you have good booze, though," he said, and Loki chuckled.
"Yes," he agreed, "we do."
They drank their coffee in silence for a while, the quiet of the tower before sunrise enveloping them in a sense of amity that had been very present before—when neither of them had bothered to notice it until they were planets apart and it had disappeared.
Tony winced a bit as he swallowed a piping sip of coffee too quickly. Before he could do it again, Loki cooled Tony's mug in the same way he had done for his own. "Thanks," Tony said, and Loki nodded. Neither of them spoke for a moment longer. Then, Tony broke the stillness.
"Why Elizabeth?" he asked.
Loki glanced at him, confused. "I'm sorry?"
"Why Elizabeth?" Tony repeated. "You know—why pick that name?"
With a quiet laugh, Loki replied, "It was the most mundane mortal name I could think of."
"That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Tony said, laughing a bit himself. Loki just shrugged, a grin playing on his face. "Next time," Tony told him, "just use your real name. It suits you better."
Loki smiled. "I will."
"And—" Tony hesitated a bit, blowing unnecessarily on his coffee. "Don't be such a stranger," he finished.
For a long moment, Loki stared at him, tendrils of steam from the coffee puffing up in front of his face. Tony wasn't sure which emotion was dominant in his eyes, but he didn't need to work too hard to see gratitude there.
Quietly, Loki replied, "I won't."