Chapter 4: Liars
All my chapters are a perpetual work in progress. Pacing has always been challenging for me, and I'm trying really hard to do it right. I have the overall plot planned in my head, but the details I'm making up as I go.
Hopefully later chapters are easier to write, haha.
Thank you everyone who are reading/following/reviewing. I hope I can continue to amuse you~
It's early in the morning on the fourth day. Loki's hair is damp and curling from the shower they allowed him (prisoner, alien, former leader of an invasion, or not—he still has his basic rights). Everything is under surveillance, including his showers. Steve had watched Loki pull his shirt above his head. No more cuts and scrapes from the glass, and the bruises around his neck have dulled to a pale greenish yellow. A long line of stitches are still visible along his ribs, angrily red but mostly healed, otherwise. Even without his Asgardian strength, Loki seems to heal much faster than normal humans, which is useful to note. Steve had the common decency not to look any further, as Loki removed the rest of his clothes as much as his chains would allow, before stepping under the spray of the water.
Steve is a lousy liar. He simply cannot feign anything—voice too honest, face too expressive. Don't ever play poker, Tony had once advised when the soldier failed to hide his complete and utter shock when a sultry waitress slipped her number into his breast pocket.
So he doesn't know why the director thought he could do this—purposely pitied him in an obvious mismatch of mind games and lies. Despite his good efforts, he had failed to come up with anything convincing, other than to purely be himself. This is probably what Fury wanted all along, but it still doesn't feel quite enough.
Steve approaches Loki after the god was returned to his cell. Loki senses his presence immediately, straightening his back and smoothing his hands over the fabric on his knees, just as Steve steps into view. The god watches him with unwavering eyes.
"Hey," Steve says the most natural thing that comes to mind.
Loki grins slightly as if he can smell uncertainty on the soldier, but Steve doesn't care if he comes off as naive or outright gullible—that's the whole point, isn't it? Maybe he doesn't have to act at all.
"Has the burden of appealing to my senses fallen upon you today?"
"If you want to call it that."
"Who should I expect tomorrow, then?" Loki tilts his head. "The green monster? Barton threatening to shoot an arrow into my skull?"
"No, just me from now on. If you don't mind." Steve furrows his brows. Something is definitely not right because Loki is talking, initiating even, and smiling—that's never a good sign.
"Ah." The god's expression opens briefly in revelation. "I see. Your team has dispersed. I guess I have failed to monopolize their attention."
So it begins, the mental war. Steve apparently has lost the first round and inwardly kicks himself for giving away such a blatant weakness. Good thing no one is watching them on the screen upstairs, otherwise his ears might turn red. "I'm still here," he responds sternly, "And I'm more than enough, so don't get any ideas."
Loki's eyes glint as if Steve's mere presence has woken the mischief he has decisively subdued for the past few days. But this must mean everything is all going according to plan, the soldier inwardly cringes. Loki will try to manipulate him, but Steve won't be fooled, and that's how they get inside his head. What could possibly go wrong?
"So besides me," the god continues, "What else troubles your tiny planet, so that the heroes must scatter?"
"That hole into space you left above my apartment, for starters." Steve frowns.
"Oh, it's still there?" Loki raises an elegant eyebrow, and Steve thinks that this has to stop. He can't allow their roles in this interrogation to be reversed any further.
"I'm supposed to be asking you questions, not the other way around," he says a little too defensively.
Loki tilts his chin to look at the soldier through half-lidded eyes, almost as if Steve had given him a choice to contemplate over. "Very well," he finally decides, "You may ask your questions."
"That easy?"
"I will answer them, within reason. And in return, you will answer mine."
Steve tries to hide his disbelief. Loki is up to something, undoubtedly and obviously, and making no effort into even hiding the fact. Three days have passed since his capture, and he has waited until now—this moment which he probably deemed most appropriate—to reveal his true intentions, to just Steve. The Avengers have dispersed with only the soldier remaining, and Steve wonders whether Loki had been waiting for him all a long, that Fury was right to send him.
The god waits patiently for a response, challenging Steve to reject his offer while knowing that the soldier cannot.
"You had three days before today to inform Agent Romanoff and Director Fury," Steve says sourly, not wanting Loki to take him for a complete idiot. "Why are you telling me now?"
"Do not flatter yourself," the god counters, "I needed time to make a decision, and you were the first to come to me since."
"What decision?" Steve very cautiously asks.
"To what extent will I allow myself to be…helped."
"You want us to help you." The soldier stares at the god in disbelief.
"Or do you wish instead to keep me here against my will, asking meaningless questions that are no concern of mine."
Steve feels his anger rising. "Do you even realize that your mere presence puts our planet—"
"The welfare of your planet is last on my mind." Loki promptly cuts him off. "I intend to leave it in peace."
"So what do you want, then?"
Loki hesitates for a moment, before answering. "To return to Asgard."
"You want to return to Asgard."
"Is that not what I said?"
"I don't believe you." Steve says, his tone flat, and Loki appears to stiffen.
"What is so hard to believe, Captain?" The god sneers, self-righteously and royally. "I grew up in Asgard. Everything I am familiar with is in Asgard. My punishment will be decided in Asgard. Perhaps I wish to return because redemption waits for me, because I seek absolution for the destruction I have caused in my poor judgment."
"Do you mean that?" Steve wavers, and immediately regrets when Loki's face splits into a grin, suggesting anything but. God of lies, Steve reminds himself, Silver-tongue, do not believe anything.
"I waited three days for them to find me." Loki pushes back a strand of unruly hair that has fallen over his eyes. "I knew Midgard lacks the technology to send me back, but I thought perhaps you had developed some method of communication at least, since my enlightening visit. I suppose I overestimate your capabilities."
"Wait, so no one knows you're here." Steve suddenly realizes—finally, finally concluding something since the start of their conversation.
"No."
"So, why are you here?"
Loki doesn't respond.
"If you want us to believe you." Steve crosses his arms. "And help you with whatever you need help with. Maybe you should start answering some of our 'meaningless' questions."
Loki presses his lips together, eyes briefly searching. "Very well. Although, may I ask for you to return tomorrow?"
"I'd be less inclined to believe you, if you're asking for time to think about your answers."
Loki laughs quietly, and it's a peculiar sound—airy but undoubtedly sad. He swings his legs over the span of the cot in one fluid motion so that he is lying on his back, staring contemplatively at the ceiling. Steve thinks back on the past three days—how Loki preferred silence to taunts, how he rested in his cell, tense and pensive.
"Sometimes, Captain," the god says as he turns his back towards the soldier, his spine curving like that of a cat. "Truths are difficult to speak of, while lies are not."
###
"You're kidding me!" Tony sputters out tiny chunks of Thai food. Both Bruce and Steve grimace at the sight. "He wants to go back to Asgard."
"Word for word." Steve says.
"Did you tell Fury that?"
"Yeah."
"Alright, good. Then, I don't have to explain to you how that's complete bullshit."
Steve has dinner with Tony and Bruce almost every night since moving into the tower. Pepper is away for an exhibition which Tony had stubbornly refused to attend himself, while Clint and Natasha are completing their assignment in some small Eastern European country. That leaves only Captain America, Ironman, and the Hulk in New York City, and Steve surprisingly doesn't mind having dinner those these two because Bruce has almost a natural talent in subduing Tony—like a horse-whisperer to a horse—and Tony can be surprisingly bearable when it is just them. Although, Bruce and Tony do break out into science-speak from time to time, Steve doesn't feel too left out because he's sure 99 percent of the population wouldn't be able to follow either.
"I'm not saying we should trust him completely," Steve sighs into his cup of water, "But we should at least hear what he has to say."
"Don't be fooled by those pleading eyes and sultry voice, Captain Righteous." Tony swallows a mouthful of Pad Thai. "He is using you."
"You're probably right." Steve rubs wearily at his forehead. "But that's the point. Fury wants Loki to use me—or at least make him think he can."
"That's dangerous, you know?" Bruce joins the conversation for the first time.
"I'm not actually going to believe everything he says. Just enough for him to...open up," Steve says defensively. Just because he's from the 40s doesn't mean he's all chivalry and apple pies. He had grown up during dark times and fought during the Second World War, and he knows evil just as much as the rest of them. Just because he had agreed to listen doesn't mean he'd believe. "And besides," he continues, "I only have to keep this up until Thor comes to take him away."
"Speaking of which," Bruce says as he turns to Tony, "How is that coming along?"
Tony frowns against his bottle of beer. "I thought I heard something, but I'm not entirely sure. The reception is awful. I have no idea what kind of waves I'm picking up. But I'm hoping they're the right waves at least. If Thor comes back and tells me that he smashed the receiver I gave him—and all this time, I've been trying to decipher random space noise—I swear I will strangle him."
Tony's animation draws out a chuckle from Steve, before the soldier turns to the doctor. "And how's that…portal thing…above my apartment?"
The doctor winces a little as he rubs at the back of his neck. "We haven't made much progress yet, but at least it hasn't spread. If you take away the clouds, the tear itself is actually really small. Professor Selvig and his associates will be flying in. Coulson finally managed to locate them somewhere in the Andes Mountains, so they will be joining us within the next few days, which is good. They're the experts in these sorts of things, after all." Bruce smiles knowingly. "And perhaps, Jane Foster can also assist in reaching Thor."
"Who's Jane Foster?" Steve asks. The name rings a bell, but he can't quite put his finger on it.
"And why would she be able to contact Thor?" Tony adds defensively. He has been working on communicating with Asgard for months now, and therefore, no one should be more qualified than he is.
"Jane Foster had been working with Selvig when Thor fell to earth through the wormhole they had been tracking," Bruce says with a hint of amusement in his voice, leaning closer to the other two men as if whispering a secret. "And according to Phil, Ms. Foster happens to be Thor's Midgardian girlfriend."
"You're joking." Steve's jaw drops as Tony chokes on beer.
"Is she like some 300 pound female bodybuilder?" The scientist manages once he clears his lungs.
"No, no, a scientist," Bruce responds quickly, before finding a photo of Ms. Foster on his phone. It seems as if the doctor had been waiting all day to share this piece of gossip. "She's quite lovely. Not to mention incredibly intelligent—"
"In other words, she's the anti-Thor," Tony says dryly.
"Don't get any ideas, Tony." Bruce chides in good humor, and Tony feigns a look of complete appall.
"Make a move on Thor's girl? No, thank you," the scientist dignifies, "I happen to be a strict follower of the bro code, for your information. And I'd rather not have Thor smash my skull like a melon. Also, my playboy days are over. If Pepper asks, this reason precedes all the ones I listed before."
Steve laughs as he takes Bruce's phone to get a better look at Jane Foster, all the while making a mental note of looking up 'bro code' in his spare time. The doctor is right. Ms. Foster is young and delicately pretty, and her eyes shines nothing short of fierce determination. It's odd imagining her with Thor, but who is he to judge. Maybe opposites really do attract.
"I wonder what happened between those two," Bruce muses.
"She may be a woman of science, but that doesn't make her any less of a woman." Tony helpfully offers his theory, equipped with suggestive eyebrow wiggles to boot.
"Oh, please stop." Steve winces at the innuendo, and the scientist rolls his eyes in response.
"Sorry, grandpa. Forgot you're still up."
They discuss rather neutral topics throughout the remainder of the meal, before Tony slinks away to his lab, leaving the other two to clear the table. Steve thinks of tomorrow, of his imminent encounter with the god of lies, as he slides a few plates into the dishwasher. If he had wanted to be thorough with his research, he would have looked through Thor's files as well. But such an act seemed like an awful invasion of privacy, considering Thor is a teammate and a friend. (Steve wouldn't want Tony or Bruce to needlessly dig into his own past, even though his stories are probably the most public out of all of theirs). Still, Steve's overactive conscience can rarely be fooled, and he supposes that it's okay because if he really wanted to know more about Thor, he'd rather hear it from Jane (if she is willing to share) because she is human, and she cares for Thor, and her honest voice will offer Steve much more insight than the factual detachedness of a report.
"Ms. Foster will be extremely busy once she arrives," Steve says absent-mindedly.
"Yeah?" Bruce hums as he dries his hands on a towel.
"Between Tony's lab and that portal downtown, I don't know when I'd get a chance to ask her anything. Do you think Thor mentioned anything about Loki to her?"
Bruce shrugs. "I don't see why not. She's his girlfriend, and he's his brother. Family's bound to come up in conversation—although, Loki might be the type of family you'd want to avoid mentioning."
"Yeah," Steve sags his shoulders as he leans against the kitchen counter. Fury had been quite pleased with the progress he had made with Loki in just one day, but Steve still feels as if something is not quite clicking, that the god has the upper hand.
"Like you said before," Bruce assures him before stepping out to follow Tony into the lab. "We just need to keep Loki out of trouble until Thor comes. You don't actually need to figure out—" Bruce makes a face as he waves a vague gesture "—what's going on in that scrambled mess."
"Yeah," Steve smiles in return. Although if he's perfectly honest, he is at least a little bit curious to know what exactly is the god is hiding.
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