The confrontation between the Iron Man, Captain America and Thor is very entertaining to watch, but like all good things it must eventually come to an end. That end comes with the natural explosion of force that might be expected when Mjolnir's uru metal clashes with the force-absorbing species of star-metal that makes up the soldier's shield, something Thor himself ought to have realised had his ego not gotten the better of him. But then he never did pay as much attention as he ought in their lessons.
An uneasy truce is reached after that, and Thor and the two so-called Avengers make their way back up the mountain to where Loki is waiting for them. Although they must surely find it odd that he has made no move to escape, they say nothing of it. Loki smiles at them, enjoying the mortals' wary suspicion. These people clearly have a long, long way to go before they can call themselves a team. They are fractious, egotistical, arrogant... all Thor's faults reflected and magnified. But they will learn.
Thor does not try to speak to him again during the trip, and Loki would not have answered him if he did. Words have always been one of his best weapons, his role the diplomat rather than the warrior. If he were to unleash his tongue now he would strike too deeply, break this nascent team apart before it began. That is not what he wants. He cannot allow the roiling maelstrom of black emotion in his belly to rule him.
(You could though. You should. Sully that golden shine, drown it in the sticky tide of spilled blood.)
His sceptre is close by, held by these so-called heroes. Kept safe from him, or so they think. They do not know that he can touch its power from a distance, at least in part. Much like his link to Barton, he can view the world through its eyes, has he need. That is how he intends to watch the chaos he plans on causing. What use is a little revenge, a little chaos, if you aren't there to witness it?
It is not much longer a flight before they arrive at what turns out to be a floating fortress. This had indeed been one of a variety of possibilities Barton had informed him of and in fact the most likely, but he is pleased to see it nonetheless. That which soars can so easily be brought crashing to the ground, though only the threat of such is in his plan.
Guards greet them once they land. The air here so high up is thin and rarefied, but Loki has survived the emptiness of space. A few moments of this are barely noticeable. He checks on his link to Barton, making sure the connection is still strong at such a distance. Communication will be essential in the hours to come.
Report, Agent Barton, he says.
Everything's fine on this end boss, comes the reply. We picked up the supply jets once they landed – minimal casualties. We'll be ready for the extraction once you give the word.
Well done, Loki says, and feels the seid-web around his pet shiver with pleasure. He smiles. It seems to make the mortals nervous.
Did Goldilocks show?
It takes Loki a moment, but then he almost laughs. It's a malicious thing, suppressed inside his head, but there's humour in it all the same. Yes, he replies, he is here.
He does not speak through the link again, but he takes a certain degree of comfort in its presence as his escort and guard walk him through the narrow corridors of this place. It is pleasant to at last be given loyalty, even though it is not truly real. Barton perhaps... but no, half of that is the seid seeping through unnoticed, the other half born from the desire to save his own people. It has nothing to do with Loki himself. How could it? He is what he is, and none of it is good.
At one point they pass by one of the mortal 'laboratories', and he espies through the window another of SHIELD's pet monsters. Even if he had not seen the man's picture in the files Barton hacked from SHIELD's network, his identity would be obvious. Seen through seid -sight he is wrapped in malevolent green energy, a colour that holds certain similarities to Loki's own fires. Too, it holds some resemblance to that of the Tesseract. 'Gamma radiation', these ignorant mortals call it, one of the energies of the universe, one of the secret sources of power seidmenn such as himself can tap into. And this fool did it by mistake, and paid the inevitable price. He has power, oh yes, power in droves, but that power has a mind of its own and does not care to be controlled. Loki has done many dangerous things with his seid over the centuries, but even he was never so careless as to turn himself into a monster.
No, that was already done for him, by blood, by birth.
He gives the would-be sorcerer a smile as he passes. Let him make of that what he will. Let it bestir fear and doubt in his heart. He has his own part in Loki's plan. His time will come.
The prison they have made for him is a cylinder of reinforced glass and metal, wound about with protections against a certain kind of energy. Ah, so this cage was originally meant for another, it would seem. The barriers dampen one aspect of his magic, it is true, but he has many others. Walking the secret ways may require a certain amount of energy of that kind, but strength of will will allow much that might otherwise be impossible. He could slip their noose if that was truly what he wanted. He is Loki. He is strong.
The door locks behind him with a hiss. A familiar face steps around the glass, one-eyed, cloaked in leather. Loki feels a stab of viciousness. Though he may bear Heimdall's skin, there is too much of him like Odin for Loki to be comfortable. And Heimdall also betrayed him, at the end.
"In case it's unclear," Nick Fury says, not looking at him, moving over to some kind of control panel. "you try to escape, you so much as scratch that glass..." A touch of a button and the floor irises open beneath his cage. The roar of the wind is loud even through its thick walls. Loki leans over for a closer look. It is best to know the dangers and thus the possible alternative uses of this prison.
"Thirty thousand feet straight down in a steel trap," Fury tells him. "You get how that works? Ant. Boot." He motions from Loki to the console and back. Such condescension is expected, if certainly not appreciated.
Loki laughs, a low chuckle, stepping back from the edge. Does this man really think this little thing could hold him if he were not letting it? Does he think that Loki's seid is so pitiful it could not cushion his fall?
(This fall is nothing, nothing. The abyss took him to depths beyond the ability of this puny mortal to even beginto comprehend! He shall fear no threat of theirs.)
"It's an impressive cage," he lies, "not built, I think, for me."
"Built for something a lot stronger than you," Fury tells him.
Oh, Loki doubts that very much. But he has not seen the beast in action. He may be wrong. But he does not think so. The beast is reputedly mindless, and there are forms of strength other than that which Thor and Asgard laud so highly. Yet still that kind of strength, a brute's strength, will be a part of his plan today.
"Oh, I've heard," he says, turning his head to look at the camera watching him. A touch of seid slipping out of his prison lets him cast his mind through the cables, signal, wiring leading to the watcher, and once he knows the room he can twist and view it through that self-same system of surveillance. For what is that energy these Midgardians call electricity but another form of seid itself? Their science is his own ancient history.
"A mindless beast, makes play he's still a man," Loki taunts, enjoying the way the little mortal shell shifts, recognising uncomfortable truth. And it is truth, as Loki may attest. Monsters are monsters, and it is sheer foolishness, naivety, to pretend otherwise. "How desperate are you; you call on such lost creatures to defend you?"
"How desperate am I?" Fury replies, "You threaten my world with war, you steal a force you can't hope to control, you talk about peace, and you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."
A force he cannot hope to control? What gives this little mortal the right to make such judgements, he who knows nothing of seid, nothing of the deeper mysteries of the universe? Whose greatest ambitions for such limitless power, the power to control the very weaving of the universe, were fuel and weapons? He knows nothing! Oh, he shall regret saying such things once this is over, once Loki is sole owner of the Tesseract.
Still, the rest of his assessment is accurate enough.
"It burns you to have come so close," Loki replies, words meant part in warning, part in promised threat. And not only for this man, but for those he knows are watching, will be watching. "To have the Tesseract. To have power – unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share?"
Petty ambitions, that is all these people have. Yet it is in some ways understandable, for they are so very far behind Asgard's own powers. They do not know what they do not know. They scrabble desperately not to be crushed underfoot, to pull themselves grasping upwards towards the same level. That would be a worthy ambition, but their methods are poor. If Loki chose, he could do such things with this world.
But that is not for him. He has thought it already and discarded it. A monster cannot be king, it must be the villain in the night, the shadow in the story, the darkness which light beats back but cannot ever fully destroy.
That is Loki's path. Unless – and he barely ever even dares to think this, his final ambition – he can rewrite such fate, unravel the warp and weft and weave it back together in a different pattern.
It may not work, may not even be possible, so he rarely allows himself to contemplate it. But it is the shadow of a thought, lurking in the back of his mind.
"And then," he muses, turning back to the one-eyed man, his false-father's mirror, "to be reminded what real power is." For he can do nothing while the Chitauri still exist. They are the real threat, to them both.
(Destroy them! Wipe even the memory of them, every speck of their history, from the face of the universe!)
For a moment all is silence, but then Fury's lip quirks upwards, as much in disbelief as anything. He believes this all to be the Liesmith's tricks, boast and empty threat. Well, let him. He shall learn. Fury turns to leave.
"Well let me know if real power wants a magazine or something."
With such as his parting shot, humour as weapon to disregard and put aside the threat which is Loki, he is gone.
Loki wonders at what point they will try pain. As the commander here said, the Midgardians are desperate, and in that desperation may be driven to much. They will surely come, once they deem they have given him enough time to wait and sweat and wonder, come with their tools and petty tortures. He wonders what kind of imagination they have.
Whatever they do, it shall not be enough. Not after the void, not after the Chitauri. Not after everything else he has been through. They shall pry nothing but laugher and mockery from his lips if they try.
(If they hurt him he will kill them. He will not suffer again. He will not be forced to submit!)
In the meantime he turns his attentions to his sceptre, to where the pair of mortal scientists are trying their best to understand it. He applauds them for trying at least, and from all he has seen and all Barton has told him they have perhaps the minds to comprehend the principals behind it, were they shown to them. It is a pity then that their tools are so useless, so insufficient. Working thus, they can do no more than scratch the surface.
What is interesting is that they have their own suspicions, their own wariness of the very organisation that has called them together. Of course they are right to do so, but it amuses him that they are so mistrustful. In this too, they are wise, and he thinks he sees a certain shade of himself in the bearded one called Tony Stark, the Man of Iron. Through his own wit and primitive seid he has raised himself up to the level of a demi-god, capable of battling even Thor for a time. He is a creator, a smith, a shaper of things, much like the dwarves of Svartalfheim. He too has made his own loyal servant-companion, a worthy construct who does his every bidding, much as Loki shaped his own little hawk.
They try so hard, these mortals. They have none of the complacency of Asgard, for they cannot risk such. They have not the broken malevolence of Jotunheim, the haughty aloofness of Alfheim and Svartalfheim, the beaten-down stoicism of Vanaheim, or the inwards-turned warring of Muspelheim, though that last is closest. They turn their faces outwards and strive ever upwards. Who knows, but in a few centuries, they may even grasp what they reach for.
Asgard may soon find itself challenged for dominion of Yggdrasil. Loki finds himself looking forwards to seeing it.
Ragnarok, an old mortal fantasy, may one day be brought about by them.
In the end they send first not their torturers, but the woman they call the Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff, his own archer's shield-sister. It is a confrontation Loki has been expecting, though not so soon. Surprisingly, she gets very close before he picks up on her presence.
"There's not many people who can sneak up on me," he says, turning to face her. He saw her before, flying the plane that brought him here, but she had not acknowledged him. Does it pain her to know that her shield-brother belongs to him now, that she can no longer lay claim to his loyalty? Surely it must. Perhaps she desires revenge of her own.
"But you'd figured I'd come," she replies, calm and collected. She knows better than to show any weakness of emotion. He recalls Barton's words, his warnings. She works through Loki's own ways. Does Thor respect her more, he wonders, that she follows what Asgard would deem the methods of her sex? Of the two of them, it is Loki who gives up his honour when he plays to his strengths.
No matter. Let their contest begin.
"After," he says. "After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would co-operate." He smiles, sharing with her how laughable such a scenario truly would be.
(Never again.)
"I want to know what you've done to Agent Barton," she replies, ignoring that opening. Ah, so she is here – at least in part – for herself. And he supposes there is still his hawk's lover to consider, she may be asking on his behalf as well.
"I would say I've expanded his mind."
"And once you've won, once you're King of the mountain, what happens to his mind?"
Ah, that is the question. Loki certainly has no intention of letting him go, not such a valuable and loyal servant. Not fully, not permanently. After Barton's own plan has played out, once the Chitauri are all destroyed and Loki has what he wants... He will reclaim his soldier, and they will walk the worlds together as Loki studies his prize, until he has decided what shape his new universe will be. Perhaps he will keep Clint Barton even then, his strong right hand. Loyalty in return for loyalty. Protection in return for protection.
He says none of this. "Is this love, Agent Romanoff?" he asks instead. How much will she reveal? How much does she think Barton has told him?
"Love is for children. I owe him a debt."
Ah, there is wisdom in that. For the shadow creatures the three of them are, emotion is a liability. Sentiment becomes a barrier to achieving everything that must be achieved. The analysis of cost and benefit provides a surer footing. Such Loki has seen in Clint's mind. Such he is beginning to understand himself.
"Tell me," he asks, stepping backwards to take up a seat on the single bench his prison has provided.
Romanoff hesitates, but in the end she speaks all the same. "Before I worked for SHIELD, I ah... well. I made a name for myself." She settles into a seat of her own. Their actions create a false atmosphere of confession, of being in each others' confidence. They are both aware it is a lie. "I have a very specific skill set. I didn't care who I used it for. Or on."
Monsters again. Though in her case, from what he has been told, she was less born one than made one by other hands. Shaped, cast into the mould required. Conditioned, through methods no less sure than his own seid. Yet even she has not escaped her nature, merely directed it towards a different route.
"I got on SHIELD's radar in a bad way," she continues, "Agent Barton was sent to kill me. He made a different call." Mercy to a monster, or like calling to like? Perhaps both, from what he knows of the man. His soldier walks in the grey between morality and its lack; because he disregards it entirely he is free to act as he wishes. Just as he does not do good for its own sake, nor does he do evil. Loki envies him that freedom. Envies this woman it too.
"What would you do if I vowed to spare him?" he asks, curious. Of course he needs no vow to keep that promise, but she will not know that until much later.
"Not let you out."
"No, but I like this," he tells her. "Your world in the balance and you bargain for one man." Most mortals would find this strange; he understands it entirely. For people like them, for people like him, the world cares nothing. They must hold fast to themselves and whatever they hold dear. Trying to save a man she thinks of as family is not strange at all.
"Regimes fall every day. I tend not to weep over that; I'm Russian. Or I was."
"And what are you now?"
"It's really not that complicated," she says, rising. "I've got red in my ledger; I'd like to wipe it out." Somehow, he does not entirely believe this. It feels wrong, coming from someone who must surely know her own self intimately in order to do as she does. Her acts in the past, her nature, all the blood she has shed... It is done, and past, and what it reflects into the future is Fate.
"Can you?" Loki asks. "Can you wipe out that much red? Drakov's daughter? São Paulo? The hospital fire?" Those the Destroyer killed. Jotunheim and his own murdered dead. "Barton told me everything."
He stands, stalks forwards. The words are bubbling up in sudden anger, in a spark of unexpected, unasked for hate. "Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality, this is a child at prayer. Pathetic.
"You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors... but they are part of you. And they will never go away." There is a fury in his heart, a poison gushing up unasked for. Does she think to deny her own nature when Loki could not? Does she think they are not monsters both? Does she think anything could truly change that?
(Promise her pain. Promise her death. Show her the monster so that she may look at it like a mirror and understand.)
He is about to say more, to dig the knife in deeper and tear and rip, intimidate and threaten and show her fear, but all of a sudden he remembers his promise, his own vow to Barton not to hurt his family. Albeit he swore not to kill them, but this is too much, it is not what he wanted to convey. He has lost all his subtlety in his anger and that is dangerous. For rage is sentiment too, it is its own emotion, and carries its own risks.
He steps back, draws away. Quietens himself.
"You claim righteousness," he says, "but you are all monsters here. You are the freaks you've made yourselves."
Natasha Romanoff smiles. "So, Banner. That's your play."
"What?" He seems sub-consciously to have said more than he meant to. To have shown his hand to her, though when he spoke that last few sentences he was not thinking at all of his plan. She has thrown up her own mirror in front of him and he did not like what he saw. He is an ugly thing, and he has let that blind him, loosen his tongue for him. Barton was right, she is dangerous.
"Thank you for your... co-operation," she says.
Her task completed she turns away from him, speaking swiftly into the communicator at her ear. He is forgotten, no longer of consequence to her. It smarts, but he has no-one to blame but himself. He allowed the anger she provoked to master him, and he has paid the price for it.
Still, he has the sceptre. This may not be as much of a set-back as these mortals think it is, and even if he gets none of his own personal revenge out of this, he can still serve to bring these bickering fools together. Either way, it is time to summon his hawk.
Clint has been watching the computer carefully, tracking the signal of the energy Loki's sceptre gives out. The SHIELD jets they've stolen had just refuelled when they captured them, but it actually uses up more fuel to follow the Helicarrier at its own slow speed than during normal operation. Still, they have to be the right distance away so that they can respond quickly when Loki sends them the signal. Once he has finished having his fun they can come and pick him up, and Clint can conveniently break free or be broken free from his mind control so he can go and talk the Avengers.
Well, that's the plan anyway.
Barton, are you in position? Loki's voice in his head makes him jump in surprise. Looks like it's time to get this thing started. Finally.
I'm ready, he replies.
Make your approach.
Clint signals to the pilot to send out word to the other two planes, and goes to make sure all the mercenaries are clear on their orders. This mission involves creating the greatest amount of chaos with minimal loss of life. Thankfully Loki doesn't really give a fuck about SHIELD agents, so it wasn't too hard to persuade him their deaths weren't necessary, at least. Though the brainwashed part of him doesn't care, the rest of Clint can't help but feel guilty about the idea of killing people he used to work with, hell, that he possibly might even know.
And there's Phil. There's Natasha. Loki has sworn to him that that they are safe from him, but much can happen in the chaos and heat of battle. A stray bullet. A piece of shrapnel. He has to make this as quick as possible, and minimise the risk to them. He will be able to see them again very soon.
None of this will be for much longer. Oh, he's under no illusion that Loki is about to let him go free for very long. In fact, he rather suspects Loki doesn't plan to remove the brainwashing at all, just tuck it away into his subconscious waiting for a trigger to let it take him over again. But that will just have to be good enough, because there are lives at stake, his family and the civilians of earth both.
Clint is going to tell the Avengers Loki's entire plan. Not quickly enough that they'll get there in time to stop the portal from opening, because that would completely fuck Loki over, but there will be enough time between the Tesseract's shield going up and the actual tearing open of space for them to evacuate the immediate area. His brain-washed self would also like it if he could persuade them that Loki isn't the bad guy here, that he's been forced into the whole world-conquest thing, but he hasn't decided whether he will yet, or whether it's worth the likelihood of disbelief. He'll need to see how pissed off he is without the warm fuzzies from the mind control affecting him.
His jet is beginning the approach to the Helicarrier. The mercs are suiting up in stolen SHIELD uniforms. Clint unpacks his bow, flicking it open, checking his supply of arrows. He's got a couple with heavy explosives packed into the tip. They should be enough to knock out one of the engines, and that will cause enough of a distraction for his team to infiltrate the carrier. After that...
He signals for the pilot to lower the ramp. He stands there for a moment calculating the effects of wind speed, and the way the massive rotors warp the air around them. He draws his bow, sights, and fires.
He doesn't need to look to know the arrow went exactly where he wanted it to. The explosive head is remote activated, using controls set into the handle of the bow. He waits for a few moments until they are far enough away to not be caught in the debris from the blast, and then his fingers find the trigger.
Smoke and fire erupt. Metal screams and goes flying. The Helicarrier gives a massive lurch and begins to tilt sideways, slipping downwards through the sky before it recovers equilibrium. The damage is severe, but certainly not irreparable, which is as Clint intended. He waves for them to approach and set down on the slightly slanting deck.
They're running out of the plane as soon as they touch down. A nearby vent leads down into the service shafts and from there deep into the heart of the carrier. Clint kicks the loosely anchored mesh aside and motions his men down, his eyes scanning for SHIELD agents who might have come up to assess the damage. He's the last to drop.
"Keep that engine down," he orders the first pair, then to the second, "head to detention, wait for the cameras to go dark." The last two he tells to stay with him. Once he's hacked into the mainframe, they can hold that position while he finds someone to purposefully run into. The other planes should be touching down right about now, bringing their reinforcements. He'd like the one who fights him to be Natasha. He's well aware that she's capable of beating him in close-quarters, and he'd like to know that she's okay. It would make her feel better about the whole thing too if she believes she's the one to knock him out of Loki's control.
He doesn't like to lie to her, but it's going to be necessary, at least for a little while.
He heads for the bridge, the mercenaries following him. The special arrow he's had made for this is drawn from his quiver so he can test the action of the USB prongs that should spring out on impact. They seem to work smoothly, so he hopes this goes to plan.
When they get there his two mercs make for the main gangway while he heads up, looking for the perfect spot. He has a place in mind; he scopes out possible sniper spots for any room he's in, and he's spent enough time in this one to be very familiar with his options. No-one sees him as he climbs, but the men he sent in are quickly taken down by Fury and Hill. Still, he's in position now, and more will be coming shortly.
Alarms are going off everywhere; there are damage reports and incident reports being shouted out at short intervals. Apparently Banner has changed into the Hulk, and he's tearing up the research floors. That's not really a surprise. Thankfully Hill seems to have a plan for getting him off the ship, which is good because the utter destruction of the Helicarrier isn't something any of them want. Controlled destruction, that's what Clint is all about.
He can't see Phil anywhere, and he hopes that's a good sign.
The first couple of arrows Clint sends down are mini-grenades, a lot of flash, a lot of noise, but hopefully not too fatal. They clear the path to the target site of the computer, and he sends the third arrow off before ducking back into cover, away from the inevitable gunfire sent his way. That will be enough to shut down the cameras and remove the defences in the detention block, and allow the men he sent there to get Loki out of his cell. They did discuss shutting down another of the engines as well, but they couldn't be sure the techs would get either of them up and running again in time. This will be enough for what they came to do anyway.
Time to go find Natasha.