Loki was surprised to find that he was actually looking forward to seeing Gwen again, despite having to go to Midgard in order to do so. He put it down to the promise of knowledge about his brother, who as ever seemed distracted during the times he actually was in court, and distracted himself with the politics of the Cree.
Any positive emotions he may have had regarding the girl, however, disappeared when he entered their rooms in the hotel.
"What in the name of Asgard is that monstrosity?" he exclaimed, pointing at a shiny, horribly coloured cluster of tubing and cubing sat on a side table.
"Algernon's new home," Gwen informed him, walking in from the bathroom. She was wearing a silk robe almost short enough to qualify as a shirt, and he could see all the bruises and scratches running up her legs and over her knobbly knees. His favourite handmaiden came to mind again as he glanced her up and down, but he pushed the thought aside. "D'you like it?"
"About as much as I like being violently tortured," he replied, "get rid of it."
"No!" she softened a little. "I'll move it into a corner so you don't have to look at it, is that better?"
"You're too kind," Loki said sarcastically, and she beamed at him. "And what is the point of having a cage for that rat if you don't use it?"
"Mouse," she corrected him again, stroking the rodent in her hand with her thumb. "Hold onto him while I get changed."
"I don't-" but before he could finish his sentence, the pest was in his hand and she was slamming the door shut of the bedroom. He brought Algernon up to eye level and glared at him. "Don't even think about it," he warned him.
A few minutes later, she emerged in neither the clothes he had made for her, nor the ones she had with her when they first met. They were black and ripped and tight, and made her look dangerous to approach. Which, Loki supposed, would be useful for an urchin.
"So," she said, taking Algernon back off him and tucking him in her breast pocket, "I haven't actually found out anything you might find interesting, but the chef for Stark Tower is a very friendly woman and really quite partial to an evening brandy, if you catch my drift."
"What makes you think a servant will know what he is doing?" Loki asked sceptically, and she rolled her eyes.
"First, we don't have servants anymore due to the gradual erosion of the class system, and second, nobody keeps their mouth shut over dinner. And besides, little old ladies know everything."
"I'll have to take your word for that," Loki decided, "but if I arrive again to a lack of news then you will find yourself without a benefactor."
"Relax, posh boy, you won't. And stay a while this time, will you? I get lonely up here on my own."
"Need someone to keep the bed warm?" he offered, and aside from the effect he expected her comment to give her face slipped and for a moment she looked… scared. "Gwen?"
"Don't say stuff like that," she snapped, mask returning, "please."
"Why?"
"Because it's lewd," she told him, and he raised an eyebrow. "Oh, don't, okay? You didn't seem over the moon when I asked you about going all crazy take-over-the-world villain, either, and I'm not pressing you for details."
"For which I'm grateful," he said, "although most people felt they already knew the reasons for my actions."
"And did they?"
"Not all of them," he said, "but I can't help that they're not clever enough to understand."
She laughed. "You are unbelievably arrogant, y'know."
"You're not exactly reticent yourself," he retorted.
"Oh, touché. I saved you some dinner."
"I've already eaten," Loki informed her, and she frowned.
"I go to all this effort," she said, and despite himself he laughed.
"I'm curious," he said, "is your name still Gwen?"
"To you it is," she explained, "to the chef, I'm Annie and the security guards think I'm… what was it, Algernon? Trisha, that was it. Why, is your name still Loki?"
"To you it is," he replied, and she gave him a look. "To everyone else, I am Odin."
Her beady eyes widened in surprise. "That's… oh. Is he-"
"Still alive," Loki assured her.
"Well, for you that's impressive."
"I am not about to commit patricide, mouse."
She sat down, curled up on one end of the sofa. "Did you know, in ancient Rome the punishment for patricide was to be sewn into a sack with a snake, a cockerel and a dog and chucked into a river?"
"How barbaric," Loki replied as he sat down across from her, and she shrugged.
"The Republic was the peak of civilisation for centuries, so I wouldn't go as far as to say barbaric," she said. "It took centuries to reach such a level of democracy in any country, let alone on a global scale."
"What happened?" Loki asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
"Armies became loyal to people and not the empire, Caesar accidentally became dictator for life, there was a bit of a mix-up over his will and bam, five hundred years of emperors." She waved her hands as she talked, and her dark eyes glittered with the same excitement Loki had seen in other men on the battlefield. It was strange, how the stories of dead men could bring so much life to her.
"He… accidentally became dictator?"
"Yeah, it's really funny actually. What happened is-" she broke off. "Wait, why do you want to know about boring Midgardian history?"
I don't, Loki thought, but I like to watch you talk about it. Midgardian women's fascination with what he thought to be dull things intrigued him; Thor's woman, Jane he remembered her name was, he remembered babbling about science during the short period of time he had been around her, and she had been awake. But with Gwen, it amused him as much as Jane had annoyed him. She was an acutely entertaining person to be around.
She snapped her fingers. "Oi, posh boy. Answer my question already."
He blinked. "I… am intrigued as to how someone can accidentally gain control of an empire."
"Two things you need to know about humanity," she said, "one is that our entire civilisation, everything we are today, is built on a series of fuck-ups; two is that we don't like being told what to do, me included. Unless you pay me large sums of money. Now it's your turn to tell me something."
"What would you like to know?" he asked.
"Ideally, why you're so worried about your brother when you're supposed to hate his guts, but that would probably take several hours of therapy sessions to explain, and I'm not emotionally prepared for that. So…" she chewed her lip, making the piercing twist. "How's Asgard?"
Loki half-smiled. "Infinitely better than here."
"You'll have to show me some time," she said, "is being king fun?"
"More so than my brother thinks, it seems."
"Well," she said, "you know what they say about crowns."
"Enlighten me," Loki smiled.
"They beg for madness." She gave him an uncomfortably piercing look. "And you are an interestingly abnormal man."
"I am no man," he said, "I am a god."
"Can't gods be mad? Surely there's a deity somewhere that's the manifestation of insanity."
"And I would love to meet them," Loki admitted. There was a bottle of wine on the table; he poured two glasses and passed one to her. "But they certainly aren't taking my throne from me." Even if it isn't technically mine.
"What are you the god of, Loki?" she asked, not relenting with that dagger-like stare of hers.
"Mischief," he answered honestly, and she threw back her head and laughed.
"Of course you are. Well, you've managed a lot more than mischief in the last few years, posh boy."
"I am aware," he said, "and not all of it was voluntary."
She sipped at her glass. "The plot thickens."
"As does yours," he replied, "it seems the more one reveals, the less the other knows about them."
She raised her glass. "Not bad for a sneak thief and a mischief maker."
"I am inclined to agree, little mouse."
"For the last time," she said exasperatedly, "my name is Gwen. Not that I expect someone as bourgeois as you to make the effort of remembering some poor povvy girl's name."
"Bourgeois?" Loki asked. It was not a word they had on Asgard.
"The rich, the elite, the disproportionately wealthy. The spoiled brats of the universe," she finished, and there was a slight note of disgust in her voice.
"You think I'm spoiled?" he asked, setting his glass down.
"Oh, undoubtedly."
"Do you have any idea how much I've suffered, girl-"
"Yeah," she shot back at him, "but I bet, even in your Asgard cell, a murderer like you was still treated better than the poor kid who tried to steal some food. Have you ever been so hungry you can feel the empty in your gut, Loki? Not for a few days while you were in exile, for years, for every waking moment of your damn life." She was stood now, and shouting at him. "When was the last time you were kicked out of a place because you couldn't afford to be clean, when was the last time people with enough money would walk past the cardboard box that was your home and spit on you, because to them you're not even worth enough to be human? Huh? Don't you dare preach to me about how you've suffered, when this is the first time in my life I can remember being clean, and not so hungry it hurts."
"My father left me to die!" he roared back, standing up himself and squaring off with her. Who was she to tell him what pain was? "I am a creature of ice, and monsters found me and put me to roast to watch me scream for family I didn't have who would never hear me, I was tortured until all I could remember was pain, and you expect me to pity you because you've missed a few meals? If I had a life as low as yours, none of that would have happened to me!"
"No," she retorted, "because you would have been unimportant enough to kill and be done with it. You are a king, Loki, and I am a beggar dependent on your mercy. Tell me, who's worse off?"
If he struck her, it would just further reinforce her point, and for once his silver tongue couldn't think of a response; she had played him perfectly.
"Count your blessings, King of Asgard," she said in a much softer voice, "I think you'll be surprised."
"Count them yourself," he snapped, and grabbed the crystal in his pocket.
A/N in this chapter you can see me putting my Classics A level to good use. I think this fic was born out of having read so many other OC-centric ones where the OC walks down an alleyway and gets cornered by some shady people, leading to her either being rescued by an Avenger or manifesting her powers and promptly blacking out. I've got nothing against that trope, but I like the idea of the OC being the shady one for a change.