AN: Brand-spanking-new chapter 4. Woohoo, there's more Loki in this chapter. It took about 4 or 5 re-writes before I was satisfied with how he turned out, so if you have any suggestions on how to make him more canon in future chapters feel free to share! Thank you for reading! Enjoy =)
I stood as far from Loki as the shackles would allow and waited for him to fall into slumber. It was awkward to hold my arm out over his head, but that was as far as the chain stretched. The sooner he fell asleep, the sooner I could try to pry his eye out. As disgusting as it was, it had to be done. I had grasped at the possibility that I only had to humiliate and interrupt him, but there were no results. With the fog over my mind clearing more and more with every passing hour and my nausea fading to a distant annoyance, I didn't have any excuses left to not do what had to be done.
Except, of course, for the tight knot of painful anxiety in my stomach.
I wasn't entirely sure that gouging out his eye wouldn't kill him. It had killed Heinrich, after all. For another thing, I didn't know anything about Loki. He could have a family, a home, a huge loving group that would miss him dearly if he died. 'Heinrich had that,' a tiny voice whispered in my head. 'But that didn't stop Loki.' To make myself feel better, I had goaded him a bit with insults when we were first put in our cage, and he obediently flew into a temper. The angrier he became, the more unpleasant he became. By unpleasant, of course, I mean hate filled and insane. But that was good for me. The more unpleasant he became, the easier it was to dislike him and dismiss any feelings of guilt and reservations about harming him.
"Staring at me, while uncomfortable, does not count as a means of revenge."
"I don't care what you think. You are not a god to me," I shot back. Loki opened his dark rimmed eyes to shoot a vicious glare up at me. Even while laying sprawled out on a much too small cot, he still found a way to be intimidating. He huffed a small sigh and closed his eyes again. I knew when to choose my battles, and I decided that letting him sleep was more important than provoking him into an argument. The faster he fell asleep, the less likely it was that I would completely lose my nerve.
I leaned against the glass wall and surveyed the small room. Blindingly white tile covered the floor, and floor to ceiling glass acted as walls for the round room. Aside from a small white walled closet, presumably the toilet, we could be observed by all angles. It was a bit unnerving to know that every move I made was being watched and studied. Director Fury had stressed that point multiple times during the brief interrogation.
I supposed he might have intended it as a form of reassurance that Loki couldn't hurt me, but I was more worried about the fact our holding cell could be dropped from 30,000 feet in the air at the mere whim of the airship's crew. The worst Loki threatened to do was remove my arm. Fury would have us dropped to our certain deaths. I knew who I feared more.
After being escorted to this giant fishbowl, we had been interrogated. Well, I had. Loki had been ignored, only acknowledged to be threatened against harming me. Loki still wasn't asleep yet, and as I waited my mind drifted to earlier in the day.
After my little stumble in the helicopter, one of the armoured and armed guards hauled me roughly to my feet. I mumbled a thank you, but received no reply. Loki and I had been marched at gunpoint out of the helicopter and onto the landing strip of the airship. The first light of dawn oozed over the horizon, wind whipped wildly, and fat raindrops beat down onto us. Blindingly bright lights lined the runway and cut through the stormy gloom. The walk from the helicopter to the entrance of the ship was shamelessly filled with squabbling.
"Please stop pulling on the chain," I requested after Loki 'accidentally' jerked the shackles for the third time. It was beginning to hurt my shoulder.
"Whatever do you mean?" he had replied with an innocent look smeared across his face.
"Just stop it."
"No." A rougher yank than before nearly sent me sprawling on the ground again.
"Stop it!"
"If you wouldn't trail behind like a mindless dog, I wouldn't have to tug your leash. You could at least try to keep pace. It is not my fault you cannot keep up with a god," he gave a snobbish sniff and frowned.
"Excuse me? How dare you call me a dog!? I can't help it if my injured ankle makes me limp a little. Maybe if you were capable of thinking of literally anyone else but yourself for a few seconds, you'd learn some compassion," I sneered at him and scoffed. "I can't wait to be free of you, you're nothing but a big baby!" Frustration temporarily prevented me from fully registering the fact that he had just referred to himself as a god. He was nothing more than a spoiled, arrogant child, playing dress-up and make-believe. Guilt niggled at my conscious.
'Was it really all right to harm someone this immature? Does he even realize his actions were wrong?' I wondered.
"Oh, let me help you with your freedom. Tearing off your arm would bring me much joy." Loki narrowed his eyes and grabbed for my shackled arm. My little bubble of compassion popped.
"Knock it off!" Natasha caught up with us outside the entrance and cut off my retort. "You're acting like an old married couple." She rolled her eyes and entered the security code for the door. None of the old married couples I knew threatened to tear off each other's limbs or called each other dogs. I concluded that perhaps human relationships worked differently than Grimm's.
We passed through a number of more locked doors and were led around countless nondescript and winding hallways. I lost track of where we were around the fourth passageway, and the only thing that marked a difference between them all was when we passed a single window. It looked into a laboratory of some sort, and a dark haired man inside watched us pass by with a worried crease in his forehead. The rest of the trip was filled with tense silence, only punctuated by a jerk of the shackles and a prod to our backs by the gun of an impatient guard.
When we finally arrived at the centre of the airship, we were confronted with the imposing figure of a tall, dark, bald man. His one remaining eye narrowed as he saw the cuffs between Loki and I. A stylish black eye patch covered his left eye, and a distant idea struggled into my foggy mind. 'Maybe he could help Loki find one like that when I was done with him?' It would've gone well with Loki's leather armour. A small smile tugged at the corners of my mouth at the brief image of Loki and this new, frightening man shopping in an eye patch store together.
"What the Hell is this?" he demanded and glared at the head guard. "Who is she and why is she cuffed to him?"
"There were complications, sir," the guard began.
"Yeah, I can see that. Is she Asgardian like him?"
"Not as far as we can tell."
"Then why hasn't she been un-cuffed and placed in a regular holding cell?" His frustrations were clearly mounting.
"She threw away the key."
"Then pick the damn lock," he exclaimed.
"Sir, I really think we should discuss this afterwards," the guard nodded pointedly at Loki and me still standing in the middle of the metal walkway.
"Alright," he assented and turned to us. "This is where you'll be staying while we find the Tesseract." The man gestured to the glass holding chamber suspended by metal brackets behind him. His boots rang out with every stomp down the steel bridge leading to the jail cell.
Thump Thump.
My pounding headache returned and I jammed my eyes shut.
Taka Taka.
It sounded like he was typing something, probably the code to open the doors of the chamber.
Beep Beep.
Two shrill electronic chirps pierced through the air and my mind. Yes, this was definitely a concussion. I felt so groggy, like I was in a fog. Nausea roiled in my gut, which I ferociously fought back. I refused to vomit in front of this large group.
The irritating prod of the gun shoved against my back urged me to walk forward. I snapped my eyes open and wobbled along beside Loki. The wheels turned in my cloudy brain, and I came to the realization that I would be trapped in the small cell with Loki. 'Perfect,' I thought. I could enact my revenge completely undisturbed. Loki paused outside the sliding glass doors and turned back to the one-eyed man.
"Oof!" Unaware of his sudden stop, I bumped into Loki's armoured chest. It seemed as if everyone on this ship was heavily armoured and protected. I felt ridiculously underdressed in my tattered and now rain soaked jumpsuit. Then, a thought occurred to me. I had bumped into his chest. For the first time since I hit my growth spurt, I was actually shorter than someone. Not just a finger span or two shorter, but an entire head span. The realization rendered me unable to move for a moment. Certainly, I'd met people the same height as me, or a hair taller, but never to this extent before.
"When will this pest," Loki curled his lip, "be removed from my person?"
"She won't be," Natasha stepped out from the group of guards. "You will both be kept here until an appropriate means is found to remove the handcuffs. Then you'll get the whole place to yourself, and the girl can go through severe mental analysis to find out what's wrong with her."
"Nothing's wrong with me!" I shook off my surprise and protested, "Although, I have a pretty bad head wound that should probably be seen to." Natasha sent a searing scowl my way. "No worries. Just continue on." I waved a hand in the air and edged toward the glass chamber.
"Give me a strip of metal and the lock will be undone in a heartbeat," Loki suggested.
"Not going to happen. The cuffs have a set of safeguards built into them to prevent that from working." She turned to the one-eyed man and answered his previous question. "She chained herself to him on the ride over here. Rogers detained her in Stuttgart after she protected Loki, and we were transporting them both back for questioning. I'll write a full debriefing and have it submitted by the hour."
"Start on it now. You're dismissed. The same goes for you," the one-eyed man addressed the guards. "Return to your stations." They raised their hands in salute and marched out, Natasha following close behind. "Care to explain?" His sharp eye focused on me.
"Not especially." I found his gaze to be unsettling and studied the metal walkway to avoid it. That's when I noticed just how high up the path was. A dizzying distance stretched to the far off bottom. It was not helping with my nausea, so I decided to brave his unsettling stare instead.
"No?" He cocked his head to the side, and his voice clearly held unspoken threats.
"You won't believe me."
"It's true, you won't. She's a terrible liar," Loki contributed.
"It's a good thing I wasn't lying then, huh?" I snapped back at him. "I am an Apprentice Grim Reaper! I come from the In-Between. It's a different dimension, or realm, or whatever you want to call it. We help lost and trapped souls move on to the Realm of the Dead. I was in the middle of a mission when you ruined it," I stamped my foot, "You ruined it! And now I'm stuck in the Realm of the Living because my powers have been taken away, because of you." I shook my head in disgust.
"Great, another alien," the one-eyed man sighed. "Do you have a name, Miss Grim Reaper?"
"Of course I do. I'm Leena." I was pleasantly surprised by how easily he accepted my story. I glanced over to Loki and found that a smug smirk had replaced the sneer of before. Why? What made him change his mood so quickly? I struggled against my blurry mind. Then it hit me; he was smug he had made me explain when I didn't want to. He was happy that he had manipulated me.
"I'm Director Fury," the one-eyed man replied. "And that's a great story, but it doesn't explain why you willingly chained yourself to someone who- how did you put it? Ruined your mission." He raised a thick eyebrow.
"To complete my mission," I edged ever closer to the sliding glass door. "The last thing the soul I was aiding said was 'revenge'. Then she disappeared, so that's all I have to go on."
"You chained us together for revenge?" Loki asked incredulously. "You are annoying, certainly, but...How is this revenge? Irritating me does not seem to be a very effective means."
"I don't have to explain myself to you. For Norn's sake, your idea of a good plan was to attack a museum and bark at a crowd to kneel. I assure you, I don't need an idiot's help with thinking up an effective means." I narrowed my eyes and yanked as hard as I could on the chain. Nothing happened. Pulling him into the glass chamber was not working.
"Oh, and I suppose I require the mighty opinion of an insane girl myself, then? I will take great pains to acquire your sage advice on the best ways to tear you limb from limb!" Loki spat down at me, his temper boiling over.
"Great. Well, if both of you could step into the cage," Fury brushed us off. He was probably itching to find Natasha and get the full story out of someone presumably sane. He had better things to do than stand here and listen to us bicker, like, for example, look for the Tesseract. Whatever that was, it sounded important. "If either of you try any funny business..."
Beep-Boop.
Whoosh.
At a press of a button, the long drop down to the bottom became longer. A lot longer. About 30,000 feet longer, leading straight to the surface of Earth. The airship apparently had a latch directly below the suspended glass cage. The opening of the latch had sucked all the air out of the room and sent even more flying back in. My already messy bun came undone from the force of the wind and whipped wildly, smacking both Loki and myself in the face. I spat out a mouthful of hair and strained to hear Fury over the roaring wind.
"If either of you harm each other, if you so much as sneeze in each other's direction, I will open this latch," he gestured toward the computer, "and drop the holding cell out of this aircraft. A fall like that would kill anyone, even a god." His voice was laced with sarcasm, obviously as skeptical as I was that Loki was actually a god.
Shuuup.
The latch whooshed closed again, stemming the ferocious wind. Loki impatiently flicked my hair from his face and stalked into the holding cell. I followed as far behind as the shackles would allow, and nearly tripped on the shackles around my feet. I was really beginning to hate these damn chains.
The glass doors slid closed soundlessly behind us. Fury had declared one more warning against the detachment of my limbs and revenge against Loki, punctuated by a thumb jab toward the many corners and walls covered in security cameras. After that, he had left the room.
After more than an hour or so of pacing and dragging me along behind him (according to my pocket watch, now sporting a cracked face from the shield thrown at it), Loki sighed, and stood perfectly still. I studied him as he stood there and tried to figure out where he would keep the tool he used to remove Heinrich's eye. It was difficult to judge if he had any pockets on his suit of armour. As I studied him, I had the strangest feeling he was studying me too, just not as openly.
Then, I suppose, he became tired of the game and plunked himself down on a small cot bolted to the glass wall. I could have complained and claimed that, as an injured person, I had rightful claim to the cot, but it didn't look very sturdy and I would much rather it collapse under his weight than mine. I could've used a good laugh. We stayed like that for some time, me standing over him, him sprawled out on the cot.
"Snortle." Loki shnuffled and shifted on the cot. I peered at him from my healthy distance away, trying to tell if he was just fake sleeping. It didn't seem likely such a frightening man could make such an adorable sound in his sleep. "Hmm." He let out a tiny whimper. If I hadn't been standing right over him, I wouldn't have heard it. I doubted if even the high-tech cameras had picked it up.
I took a tentative step to Loki and gazed down at him. His dark eyebrows were furrowed and his pale face had a slight sheen of sweat. A nightmare? Or a trap?
"She's l-lying," he murmured. I stared down at him, very confused as to what he could possibly be dreaming about. It was such a random string of words that I doubted he was just pretending, but I really wouldn't have put anything past this lunatic. If he was willing to kill someone for- I realized I didn't even know why he had killed Heinrich. That bothered me. That bothered me so much, I completely lost my original train of thought.
If I didn't know why Heinrich was murdered and Heidi's chance at moving on the the Realm of the Dead was ruined, how could I expect to properly enact revenge?
"Uhn," Loki whimpered louder. This bothered me too. How dare someone as horrible as Loki have such a terrible nightmare about some girl? Why wasn't he having a nightmare about his terrible actions against Heinrich instead? He should be regretting his murderous actions, not jilted lovers.
Above all else, my own actions bothered me the most. How dare I feel compassion, pity toward this monster? I had to hate him. He acted terrible against me, against Heidi, against Heinrich. He even acted terrible against the old man in the crowd in Stuttgart. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't bring myself to completely hate Loki. Strongly dislike, yes. But not hate.
In the hours I had stood over Loki, I had come to the disappointing conclusion that I vaguely recalled the eyeball-gouger that was used on Heinrich being left beside his dead body on the alter. I didn't have any sharp objects with me, so I really couldn't get revenge on Loki right now, anyway. With a start, I realized that I was talking myself out of doing it. The familiar strong knot of anxiety twisted and clawed at my belly. It had happened.
I had lost my nerve.
I sighed and impatiently shoved my hair away from my face. The ribbon I usually used to tie it into a bun had flown away in the strong wind. It was long gone, and I had nothing else to use. I adamantly refused to rip a strip off of my uniform; I didn't plan on paying Darius for any more damages than need be. My gaze flickered back down to Loki. His armour had many decorative strips of leather sewn on it. If I could just tear a piece off...
I slowly raised my free hand up and reached toward Loki. "Oh!" I quietly exclaimed when he jerked his shackled hands up to his face. I held my breath as he rubbed his nose and rested his right hand on his neck.
"Shnorffle," Loki gently snored and continued to sleep. I tried to reach for a piece of leather, but found I couldn't quite reach it. When Loki had scratched his nose, he had managed to pin the shackles connecting us under his arm. I stood above his head, and the perfect length of leather by his knee mocked me just out of reach.
I gently braced my shackled hand against his neck and stretched as far forward as possible. Unbeknownst to me, my long hair slipped over my shoulder and landed on his face. I gripped the piece of leather and yanked as hard as I could. It was sewn on better than I had originally assumed. I braced my shackled hand harder and tried again. And again. And again, each time I shoved down harder with my shackled hand to gain better leverage on the strip.
"Gawk," Loki made a strange, strangled sound. I decided that as soon as I removed the strip of leather, I would wake him from the terrible nightmare that was making him emit such awful noises. "Kkurk," another, more urgent sound escaped from him. I picked at the stitches with my nails and leaned over as far as I could to bite off the final corner that refused to detach. "Gaaah!" Loki gasped.
"Ah-ha!" I exclaimed and shot back, the thin strip of leather clutched in my pale fist. At the same time, Loki rolled off of the cot and landed on the floor with a thud, bringing me down with him. We landed in an undignified heap, with me sprawled out across his back. It was hard and colder than I had expected, and the metal fastenings dug into my chest. He slowly raised himself off his belly, and I felt his wiry muscles shift beneath the leather.
"What is wrong with you?" Loki, slightly raised up on his hands and knees, gasped and coughed. I slid off his back and knelt beside him.
"Huh?" I asked, and realized he must be referring to why I hadn't woken him from his horrifying nightmare. "Oh, I'm sorry about that. I just wanted to grab this before you woke up," I held up the makeshift hair ribbon. "I didn't think you'd give it to me willingly. But I assure you, I fully intended to wake you up." I flashed the same reassuring smile I usually gave worried souls.
"That's fantastic!" Loki snarled, "After you strangled me to death and smothered me with your hair, you would have resuscitated me. How kind."
I stared blankly at him. "I don't think we're talking about the same thing," I quietly observed. "Weren't we talking about your nightmare?"
He rubbed his throat where I had braced myself and sat back on his heels. The small realization that I had most likely nearly and accidentally strangled him to death flickered over me. He raised his head, locked his icy blue eyes onto mine, and gave me such a cold glare that I wouldn't have been surprised if icicles formed on me. He slowly raised himself from the floor and took a menacing step to me, closing the small space between us. He opened his mouth, and quickly snapped it shut again.
Thump thud thump. Thud thump thump.
Rapidly approaching footsteps interrupted Loki. We both turned to the transparent doors.
"Leena!" Cap' shouted and skidded to a halt outside the glass chamber. "I can't believe they didn't take you to the medical unit. I saw you on the surveillance system, and I noticed you still had all the blood," he gestured to my head. "They would have cleaned you up if the medical unit had a look at you."
I raised a hand to my head. I hadn't noticed it bleeding. My fingers brushed against my hairline and felt something sticky. 'Gross,' I mentally grumbled.
"I'm sorry I didn't come by sooner, I had to-" He stopped himself, as if realizing that he was about to reveal important information a prisoner probably shouldn't know. "Well, I'm going to escort you to the medical station now."
I nodded and pulled my knee-length hair into a ponytail atop my head, fastening it in place with the leather tie. I wasn't about to bicker about medical attention, I knew I needed it. My stomach grumbled loudly, my head throbbed gently, and my eyes felt extremely heavy. Maybe the medical station had food, an icepack, and a nice place to curl up for a nap. Perhaps if my head wound was seen to, I would be able to think clearer and form a better plan than gouging out Loki's eye. Or maybe Loki would do something else awful that would spark enough dislike to justify hurting him. Either way, I needed a clear head to think, and the means to achieve it were not in the glass cage.