Loki forced himself to leave the room after Crystal had finished her meal, otherwise he probably would've creepily hovered over her for the rest of her life, terrified that something would separate them again.
It was going to be fine. No one was coming to snatch her away. He had to keep telling himself that as he trudged upstairs to the communal floor, dishes in hand, to return them to Jarvis so he could put them into the dishwasher.
"That was fast."
Loki glanced up from his quiet musings at the sink to see Steve curled up on the couch with a tablet in his hands displaying the security feed from the dungeon.
"What was, exactly?" he answered. For a second there was no noise but the quiet hum of the air conditioner.
"Don't take this the wrong way," Steve hesitantly explained himself, "but I really didn't expect her to trust you so easily."
"Oh, she doesn't." He said the words easily enough, but admitting them out loud really made them slice to an even deeper level. "Not really, after all. She just ate dinner. Barely answered any of my questions."
Steve hummed doubtfully. "You know, most people don't feel comfortable crying around strangers."
"…She had a long day?" That was all Loki could come up with.
He didn't know exactly how to explain it, and maybe he was in denial. But Erika really didn't trust him; he was certain of it. And she wasn't going to, not for a long while. He'd used tears to garner sympathy with his captors many a time.
Weary of the emotional turmoil the day had thrown him into, he plopped onto the couch next to the Captain and his doubtful expression.
"Look, I'm not sure if she's physically capable of trust at this point," he sighed. "If I thought she'd believe me or hear a word I said, I'd tell her who she is to me."
"That's… a fair point," Steve glanced back at the security feed. "Then… how long do you think it'll take?"
"I don't know," he admitted in a slightly smaller voice. "Maybe months. I don't want to think about that."
"Do you think she'll try to escape?"
"Back to Hydra?" Loki scoffed, but the incredulous smile didn't last very long. "It's a possibility. I don't… I don't think I'd let her. Even if she doesn't want to be here, I know she doesn't want to be with Hydra. I know how they treat their prisoners. I just don't know if she knows she doesn't want to be with them again."
Steve's eyebrow lifted and he stared blankly. "Say that again?"
"I think she doesn't know how bad she's had it," he rephrased, curling in on himself just a little.
This is your fault, a voice inside his mind whispered. If you'd taken better care of your family, Erika wouldn't have had a Nazi organization give her Stockholm Syndrome.
Silently, he chewed on his lip as the reality of that thought settled over him like a burial shroud.
He needed to sleep on this. He'd be able to process it better when he wasn't completely exhausted, and at the very least, Erika needed her sleep, too.
He stood up from the couch, and briskly headed for the elevator. "Don't watch my daughter while she sleeps, Rogers," he called over his shoulder. "You're being a creep."
Unfortunately, Loki's thoughts that he didn't want to think kept him up until well after midnight. This resulted in him sleeping in until nearly noon.
When Secretary Ross arrived with his presentation and big ideas, Jarvis had to wake Loki up and convince him that diplomacy actually was better than his dear, sweet sleep.
By the time he'd made himself presentable and shown up at the conference hall with a cup of coffee, he was already Completely and Thoroughly Done with all of the Secretary's baloney.
And he hadn't even opened his mouth yet.
Today was going to be a simply lovely day, Loki was sure of it.
"Five years ago," Secretary Ross began, "I had a heart attack. I dropped right in the middle of my back-swing. Turned out it was the best round of my life, because after thirteen hours of surgery and a triple bypass… I found something forty years in the Army had never taught me."
Loki took a long sip of his coffee and hoped with all his heart that he hadn't been woken up just to listen to an American politician yammer about his heart attack.
"Perspective." The secretary continued, as if that was the perfect segway into talking about something completely unrelated. Which, of course, he was about to do. "The world owes the Avengers an unpayable debt. You have fought for us, protected us, risked your lives."
And here he went buttering them up. This really wasn't going well, was it?
Years of being a prince had given Loki the practice and insight he needed to see right through all these fancy words. What, exactly, Thaddeus Ross was getting at, now that was still to be a mystery.
"But while a great many people see you as heroes," Ross had gone on, "there are some who would prefer the term 'vigilantes'."
Loki didn't see what was wrong with that. Batman was a vigilante and most people agreed he was still a hero.
Heck, the Avengers started out as a branch of SHIELD, which was in fact a government organization. How could they be vigilantes if they weren't working outside the law?
"And what word would you use, Mr. Secretary?" Natasha's calm and quiet voice spoke up.
"How about 'dangerous'?"
The Avengers sitting around the table shared a glance of mutual indignation and wariness.
"What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?"
Ross could turn around and clicked a remote to start up whatever was on his projector screen.
Loki had to bite his tongue to keep from pointing out that what Ross had just described perfectly summed up the American military for the past hundred years – save potentially the enhanced part.
"New York," the secretary announced, as if they couldn't all see the footage of a Chitauri spacecraft on the screen in front of them, crashing into the side of a building with an explosion of rubble showering out in its wake. Ross looked pointedly at Loki, who locked eyes with him, a neutral expression schooled on his face. No, he absolutely was not letting an American politician get to him.
But one more glance at the screen had his stomach rolling (which he knew was exactly what Ross wanted) and he was nearly grateful when it wasn't his handiwork shown on the screen, anymore.
"Washington DC."
Loki hadn't been there for that part, but he knew what had happened at the Triskellion. He watched his teammates' faces carefully, watching as the uncomfortable guilt welled up within each of them.
Whatever Ross was getting at, it wasn't going to be pretty. There was no reason to be playing this footage, besides. This was manipulation at it's finest, and Ross was not the kind of person you wanted manipulating you.
"Sokovia," Ross switched the screen again.
This really was ridiculous. By now, both Wanda and Tony were staring at the screen, faces hollow with regret, and in Wanda's case, loss. That was her home, too. She'd lost her brother on that day.
"Lagos."
Wanda's hand flew up to cover her mouth, eyes closing to hide the tears.
That was yesterday. Did the secretary really think they'd had enough time to process this, themselves?
No, he didn't. That was the point. He was coming at them at a moment of weakness to sow seeds of dissent and doubt, just to make them feel bad about themselves.
"Okay. That's enough," Steve spoke up, seeming to be thinking something similar. Obligingly, Secretary Ross turned off the projector, but the damage had already been done. Whatever Ross was wanting them to think, they were all thinking it, now.
"For the past four years, you've operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That's an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution."
One of his assistants handed him a concerningly thick book, which he passed to Wanda. Of course he was targeting Wanda.
She barely looked at it before passing it to Rhodes.
"The Sokovia Accords," Ross explained, scanning his audience with a look that was probably intended to be authoritative. "Approved by 117 countries. It states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary."
Loki couldn't choke back the snort of amusement, and discreetly hid it behind his coffee.
They wanted to own the Avengers. He was pretty sure the United Nations didn't even have the jurisdiction. They were basically proposing a new branch of militia, turning the Avengers into soldiers instead of free-acting citizens of Midgard.
It was laughable, but Ross was not amused. "Do you have something to say?"
"Oh, no, do go on." Loki smiled beguilingly over his coffee cup.
"The Avengers have always made the world a safer place," Steve spoke up. "Which is what we were created to do."
"Tell me, Captain. Do you know where Thor and Banner are, right now?"
Steve made uncomfortable eye contact with the secretary. The answer coming from him was no, but Loki could contact Thor if he wanted to.
"If I misplaced a couple of 30 megaton nukes, you can bet there'd be consequences."
"Ooh." Loki straightened in his chair, placing the cup on the table to give Ross his full attention. "My brother is not an object to be mislaid, Secretary. A mislaid bomb is a threat, while my brother impulsively wandering off for his own reasons is Tuesday. He is not a hazard simply because you can't control him."
Ross stared for a second at Loki, calculating. "And Banner?"
"We don't consider him a weapon, ether," Steve agreed. "He's MIA, not a misplaced nuke. Bruce isn't as out of control as he seems."
"Whether they're weapons or not, the world has a right to hold them as a threat," Ross decided. "Three days from now, the UN meets in Vienna to ratify the Accords."
"And you only thought to bring this up to the people it concerns just now," Rhodey pointed out.
"What happens if we come to a decision you don't like?" Natasha asked.
"You retire." Ross said, as if it was going to be that easy.
Loki and Natasha shared a look of quiet amusement as Ross briskly walked out of the room, assistant trailing behind him with serious glares.
Loki leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, and rubbed at his temples. "Well, he's a headache."
"Seconded." Rhodes agreed.
There was a prolonged silence around the table as they stared at each other, hoping all of them were thinking the same thing. Loki, for one, was not. "Has anyone brought my daughter breakfast yet?"
"I did," Natasha said. "At nine thirty."
"Thank you." Loki heaved a deep sigh, and stood up. "Are we talking this over now? Or do we have some time to think about it?"
"I don't know what there'd be to talk over," Tony spoke up from where he'd been sitting in the corner of the room.
"Please don't tell me you're on his side," Loki pleaded, giving Tony the look of a man who'd sat through far too many political meetings run by completely incompetent people. "That's the man who tried to kill Bruce. I guarantee he does not have our best interest in mind."
"He has a point." Tony stood up, hands spread in a helpless gesture. "That's all I'm saying. We've been the harbinger of too many deaths."
Loki took a deep breath, maintaining eye contact with Tony, before turning on his heel to head for the same door Thaddeus Ross had just left through. "Very well, then. No one do anything rash like announcing political decisions to the press. I'll return presently."
The silence behind him was not comforting as he closed the door behind him, and headed down the stairs towards the dungeons.
Okay, we should have only one chapter left that follows the movie script. After that, basically everything changes :D
Honestly it's really fun giving the team a master of manipulation to see through Ross' baloney, but to be clear, I personally am on team Thor. The Accords may be stupid, but the way both Tony and Steve canonically responded to them are somehow stupider. You don't need to break up a team as good as the Avengers over sneakily-pitched legislation designed to make you doubt yourself.
That being said, a follow will allow you one bop to Ross' head with a pool noodle (Then I guess he'd be Bop Ross instead of Thaddeus Ross 0.0), and a review will allow you to eat popcorn as Loki calls him out for every stupid thing he said.
-TheOnlyHuman