Chapter 11: Dull Creatures
"Loki." The name is whimpered into his neck as Ellie slowly regains consciousness. She woke up briefly when she was carried from the jet to the van that awaited them, but Loki resettled her against his side and she quickly fell asleep again.
It's as if her over stimulated mind craves the ease of sleep.
The movement of her body has the cadence of walking, but her legs do nothing but sway slightly. He's carrying her and her arms hold his neck a little tighter at the realization.
"I get what Tony Stark was talking about," she murmurs into his skin. He tenses slightly, but keeps moving. Ellie can't find it in her to open her eyes. "Enormous green rage monster."
Loki chuckles. "The beast truly terrified you, did he not? Earlier you accused me of jealousy, and now I readily admit it. You do not fear me in this way."
Ellie has a difficult time decoding his words. Her brain remains fuzzy.
"Did you drug me?" she says, slurring.
"I would never stoop to such crude Midgardian tactics," he mutters, obviously annoyed. "You were in desperate need of sleep and I provided this for you."
"Magic."
"Magic," he repeats. "You are awfully boisterous on this, the day I conquer your realm."
That wakes her right up. She jerks in his arms and he is forced to shift his grip to keep from dropping her. The movement reminds her of just how battered her body is after the madness of the floating fucking fortress. Ellie cries out, thoroughly alarming her former – wait no – her current captor.
"Eleanor, what troubles you?" he demands. Through the pain, she attempts to take in her surroundings. All she can make out is yet another hallway lit by fluorescent lights. She could be back in the sky, for all she knows.
Goddamn, I miss the sun.
"The thought of you trying to take over the world physically hurts," she mutters.
Ellie whimpers in pain once more when he abruptly turns and kicks open a door. It appears to be some sort of janitorial storage closet with a chair in one corner and a cot in the other.
"This will do," he whispers.
"What in the actual fuck?"
So gently it almost makes her forget all about the sharp pain in her ribs in her shock, he sets her down on the cot. She bites the side of her cheek to keep from crying out again, but a pained whimper escapes her sealed lips anyway.
"Eleanor," he says, tugging at the zipper of her SHIELD jacket with the collar that reminds her of Loki's trench. She bats his hands away.
"I don't want you to unleash your army on earth," she mutters as if this was formerly unclear. "That's what these sounds mean."
"Silence," he demands. "I did not anticipate a simple sleeping spell leaving you so disoriented and talkative."
"I'm not disoriented."
"Just talkative, then."
His hands are back on the zipper, and he tugs it down in one hard yank, and Ellie cries out again. Loki's eyes narrow and he lowers his face to hers.
"What is this, Eleanor?"
She shrugs.
"Why do you never speak when I require it of you?" The anger in his voice makes her jump and then she winces again, but when he reaches for the hem of her white tank top, she does nothing so stop him.
When he pulls up the fabric, exposing the angry purple bruises on her ribs, he lets out a growl. Ellie glances down and then wishes she didn't.
"The beast?" he whispers.
"No," she replies, equally quiet. "I slid down a hallway when the fortress started to fall. Hit a door, ribs first apparently."
"I will rectify this. I will not have you hurt."
"It's okay," she says, pushing her hand through his dark hair. "I'll be okay. I'm just never going to move again."
He helps her lie back on the cot, knelling beside her head. She watches him watch her for a long moment, thinking about how beautiful he is. Maybe the little spell of his does have her disoriented because he is about to unleash an alien army on an unsuspecting populace, but she can't stop thinking how beautiful and broken he is.
And he's adopted. Gods do adoption. Who knew?
When he kisses her suddenly, it steals her breath. Her hand goes back to his hair as a means to keep him right here, his lips moving against hers forever. There is no way for him to open a portal and lead an army if he is kissing her forever, right?
But then she parts her lips and his tongue is in her mouth and she forgets all about aliens and this horrible person that she just can't seem to get enough of.
It is slow and deep and hard and so painfully desperate, it does things to Ellie's heart. Nothing has done anything to Ellie's heart in a long time, but something about his kiss makes her cry.
She gets greedy, attempting to hold him closer and pull him onto the cot, but the movement has pain shooting through her ribs once more.
"Fuck," she mutters with a wince.
Loki lets out a growl, but when he pushes her fly away hair off her face, his touch remains gentle.
"I know nothing of healing Midgardians," he mutters, sounding frustrated.
"But… never mind."
"Eleanor."
She shakes her head.
"Eleanor!"
"But I might not be Midgardian. Isn't that why you sucked me into this scary world of gods and glow sticks and mind control?" she whispers, unable to look at him.
With slow, deliberate movements Loki places his hand over the ugly bruising. At first it hurts, and she attempts to roll away from him, but he holds her still. A warmth spreads through her aching frame, stealing her pain. Everything goes tingly and a nervous giggle bubbles out of her throat.
"You are not completely healed, but it will do for now. Does it pain you still?"
She shakes her head, watching him with awe.
He kisses the corner of her mouth, much like she did on their first meeting, when she got him back to her dinky little apartment. This time when a sob leaves her mouth, it is from a different kind of pain all together.
"I must depart. I've lingered too long."
"Where are we?" she asks, sitting up slightly. Her head is clear and suddenly she is desperate to keep him locked away in this janitor closet with her. Loki pushes her shoulders back into the thin mattress.
"New York."
"City!" she shrieks, sitting back up. He pushes her right back down. She tries to sit up again, but her back is stuck to the cot, much like her hands against and the headboard only a few days ago. "You can't! There are so many people. Innocent people are going to die. It will be total chaos!"
Loki stands, grinning down at her. His eyes are mad, utterly and totally mad. "Oh, yes," he whispers as nothing could possible give him greater pleasure. "Total chaos."
He turns on his heel, leaving Eleanor to struggle against the mattress.
"Loki!" she screams.
"Do rest up, my sweet songbird," he says, turning his head slightly when he gets to the door. "You will need your strength to enter the glorious new world at my side."
"Loki!"
And then he's gone.
Ellie struggles and struggles until her ribs hurt once more, and then Ellie can do nothing but cry and cry.
Explosions wrack the building and little bits of dust fall on Ellie. It feels like the whole world is crumbling around her, and she just lies there, sobbing and useless. She jumps every time something loud and ominous rattles around outside and tries to calm down. Terror and panic wrack her body, although it is not her personal safety that concerns her.
Loki doesn't want her dead. She trusts that, although she trusts nothing else. He's stashed her somewhere safe, fucking magically crazy glued her to a mattress to keep her here.
She struggles again, as frustrated as she is panicked, but the magic stickiness is gone because when she moves this time she rolls right off the cot. She lands on the concrete floor with a dull thump, and she curls into a ball, pain once again radiating from her ribs.
"Fuck, Loki," she mutters, pushing herself up off the floor. Rubbing her still bruised ribs, she staggers to the door. She rests her head against the surface, totally unsurprised to find it locked. Rhythmically, she hits her forehead against the door, and although she is probably in yet another underground bunker, Ellie swears she can hear screams accompanying the resonating booms that shake the foundations of whatever building he's stored her in this time.
She has to do something, help somehow. Ellie feels responsible, as if her interaction with the God of Lies enabled him, allowed him to bring his army here. He needed something from her, be it voice or body, and she gave willingly and now he'll ruin everything.
And she has to at least try to stop him, doesn't she?
It takes very little time for Ellie to locate a screwdriver and even less to remove the doorknob. Just like that, she's free from her third prison in as many months.
She smirks for a moment, glad to have defeated a god in this one little way. He thinks of everything he can do with magic, but fails to take into account simple human ingenuity.
Pausing in the doorway for a moment to gather her meager strength, she leaves her safe little hole in the wall. She doesn't want safe.
If all of humanity is to burn at Loki's hand, then she'll burn with it, mortal or not. And if the world is to end, then she will be there to watch at the very least.
She's no solider. She's no hero, but maybe she can play some role, even if she only manages to distract Loki for a few seconds, long enough for one of the good guys to save the world.
She finds stairs, and follows the sounds of war up until she wanders into a deserted lobby. It is beautifully decorated, although it appears to be still under construction. She turns towards the wall of windows, and for one moment the sun seems beautiful to her, but it becomes impossible to ignore the piles of rubble and flame.
A pair of screeching armored aliens flies by the window on hovering craft, shooting explosive plumes of energy that cause a car to overturn, and Ellie stumbles back slightly. Again, there is a very big difference between knowing a thing and seeing the reality.
Aliens. An alien invasion.
They seem to call out to each other and the noise is truly horrible. Accompanying their war cries is the sound of more craft whizzing by. Ellie briefly considers going outside to get her bearings, but despite her decision to watch the world burn, she is not suicidal.
Well, not anymore.
They seem to be coming from the sky, this army of Loki's, and so Eleanor seeks out the elevator. She pauses, reading the plague that reads STARK TOWER, before pushing the up button, but there appears to be no power. She tries again, still feeling shaky on her feet, but she gets nothing.
Sighing heavily, she takes to the stairs.
It is a very long way up, and Ellie lives each moment in fear that one of the near by explosions will bring the whole building down, and her with it.
Loki brought me to safest spot in the city.
Somehow she makes it, and she cries a little in relief when she see there are no more stairs. She pushes open the door and steps into a luxurious pent house bar with slate walls and polished stone floors. The windows are shattered, and Ellie wanders out of the staircase in a sort of daze.
Alien aircraft come from the sky in concentrated numbers and then disperse throughout the city. It feels like a dream and Ellie once more disregards her own safety to walk out on a balcony and gape at the sight before her.
There is fire and screaming, the cries both alien and human. She takes in crumbling buildings and violence so horrible it is beyond Ellie's comprehension, but her skin still seems to glow in appreciation of being in the sun for the first time in months.
Mouth hanging open and eyes wide, Ellie looks up to see a wide beam of blue light shooting up to the heavens from the very stop of Stark Tower, just above penthouse bar area. It is generated from whirling machine and there is the portal. The beam opens a gaping hole in earth's atmosphere, and beyond it Ellie can see the darkness of space and the brightness of foreign stars.
More aliens on hovering craft flicker down through the beam and nothing feels real anymore.
A thump and a grunt, the sounds of hand-to-hand combat, pull Ellie back into the reality of the moment. She could get lost out here in the sun, just staring at the horrible and awesome sight above her, but there is Loki off to her right on an elevated platform, struggling with his adoptive brother.
She cranes her neck to stare at them on the roof, green cape wrapped around red cape. For a moment they pause, almost as if they are embracing but Loki stabs Thor who crumples in pain and stagers back. The fighting resumes until Loki rolls off the roof. Her heart stops for a moment before she sees him fly away on the back of one of those alien glider things.
She retreats back inside, leaning on an exposed beam and hating that she feels relief that Thor didn't manage to kill the God of Lies, the would be ruler of this realm.
"Lady Eleanor!" Thor shouts, making her jump. She might be a little bit in shock here. "Back inside. This is no place for you."
And then he lifts his hammer high above her head. Lightening crackles and somehow Thor is gone, flying away in a cloud of thunder.
How many impossible things is she going to witness before one of those screeching aliens blasts her with the glowing energy that's already caused so much destruction?
Retreating back inside, she wonders fleeting how Loki would react if his army takes her life.
Ellie loiters by the bar and watches the beginning of the end of the world, dazed once more. She came up here with a purpose, trying to find a way to help the good guys, but seeing the destruction below her and the mass of aliens above her, Ellie sees her own extreme folly.
She goes back to staring at the portal. Nothing the good guys do down here will matter at all if the aliens keep pouring out of the sky. And twenty feet away, on the balcony, is Loki's scepter. Even above the noises of chaos, she can here it hum.
Her eyes scan the room for another staircase, trying to figure out a way to get up to the portal when there is yet another explosion, followed by a thunk, and the sounds shattering glass. She is somewhat shocked to see Loki roll on by, coming to a stop when he hits the stone wall opposite her position by the bar.
He scrambles to his feet, looking distinctly worse for wear. The leather peaking through his golden armor is singed while the dark bags are even more pronounced under his pale eyes. The helmet is missing and he looks frantic now.
Ellie regards him with wide, horrified eyes, and he stares back at her with a similar expression. He opens his mouth to speak, but is distracted when the enormous green rage monster barrels into the room, roaring as he comes to a stop between Ellie and Loki. Ellie stares in terror at the bulging muscles of its back.
Of everything she's seen, something about the beast in front of her scares Ellie the most. Her limbs quake, and she let's out an involuntary scream, before she covers her mouth with her hands.
The muscles in his neck twitch as he slowly begins to turn around. Ellie tries to back away, but she bumps into the bar, causing a glass tumbler to shatter at her feet.
"Enough!" Loki screams, bringing the attention of the hulking green monster back to himself as Ellie watches, dumbfounded. The God of Lies spares her a quick look before glaring up at the monster between them. Ellie takes the moment to drop to the ground, hiding against the side of the bar, out of sight of the beast.
"You are, all of you, beneath me!" screams Loki. "I am a god, you dull creature. And will not be bullied by—"
The beast snags Loki by the ankle and progresses to smash him into the hard floor, repeatedly. Ellie covers her mouth and bites the side of her mouth to keep from screaming as she watches Loki's body get thrown around as if he is a rag doll. Concrete and stone fly out around the god until the beast leaves him in Loki-shaped hole in the floor.
With a final growl the beast turns away. "Puny god," he says over his shoulder.
Ellie doesn't move for a full five minutes, her eyes fixed on his motionless body. She is crying again and her heart pounds in her ears. It's drowns out the sounds of the fighting around them.
She'll never get the image of this out of her head, they way he was thrown around and beat into the ground as if he were nothing at all.
From her angle crouched on the floor with her hands covering her mouth, she can really only see his profile and his feet sticking up out of the hole in the floor.
The whimper he lets out is the sweetest music, and it serves to bring her out of her state of terrorized shock. Ellie is a little stunned to realize that she doesn't want him to die.
She glances out to the balcony to see his scepter is gone and she gives up on any dream of getting to the portal and helping the good guys. Ellie is not a good guy. She is weak and useless and everything happening up there is too much. This is all just too terribly much.
With great caution, Ellie crawls over to Loki's hole. She sits next to him, crossing her legs under her as she watches his battered face. He is bruised and bloody, his whole body held totally still. Slowly, his bright eyes open. He looks so hopelessly defeated and lost she almost feels for him, but one glance out the window removes all her sympathy for the injured god.
She hopes she can take his current state as a sign that the good guys are winning.
Loki grunts as he reaches out to take her hand. Ellie watches the smoke rise from the city and lets him hold it for a moment before snatching it away.
"You just want my skin to magically recharge your energy so you can go back to leading your army," she mutters, bitterness and exhaustion lacing her tone. Ellie brings her knees to her chin and hugs her legs, rocking slightly as she stares outside.
It remains unclear to her if the whole energy recharge thing is an actual physical power up or a mental sensation. She thinks it's the later. Somehow she brought Loki comfort with her touch, but she hopes its good old fashion connection, not magic.
Loki stays still for a long moment before he reaches out once again. His hand finds its way on to her thigh, the fabric of her pants preventing skin to skin contact. Although he is too weak to squeeze her, his hand just rests there. Ellie scoots a little closer, hating that the contact provides her comfort as well.
"What did you do, Loki?" she whispers, shaking slightly. She wonders if it's possible to be in shock for three months. Sure feels that way.
"Failed," he murmurs. "It seems to be want I always do. I failed." Every word is absolutely laced with agony, but New York City is crumbling around them and it's his fault, so she finds little sympathy left over the devil. She's glad he isn't dead. "I failed you."
Ellie watches as Tony Stark flies straight up into the sky as Iron Man with what looks like a missile against his back. A very large missile. An end of the world kind of missile, or at least the end of them.
She tenses and scoots a little closer to Loki. If these are to be her last moments of life than she'll seek comfort where ever she can get it, even if it's a little closer to the god responsible for all this destruction.
For a moment she considers stepping outside to watch the end of the world, but she'd rather see something beautiful. Loki is beautiful. Even battered and bloody and defeated, Loki is beautiful.
"Beautiful and horrible," she murmurs, turning to study him.
He wheezes slightly. "The end?" he asks although speaking is remains painful.
"No, that's just horrible."
His eyes are green again and she shifts as close to his broken body as possible without sitting on him. Their fingers lace together in her lap.
"Doesn't this hurt?" she asks.
"It all hurts, Eleanor."
Ellie starts to sing an old hymn, her Christian upbringing kicking in for her last moments. Loki holds her hand a little tighter and they wait patiently for the end.
Except it doesn't come.
The aliens below give out a pained, mournful shriek before everything goes silent and still. Ellie stops singing as Tony Stark's lifeless body drops from the sky and falls out of sight. A crash echoes beneath them.
"Eleanor," Loki croaks out, but she doesn't need his prompting to get on her feet and walk out to the balcony. He whimpers again when she leaves his side, but she doesn't look back as she gets outside and squints into the sky.
"The portals closed," she tells him in a flat, dead voice. "You really did fail." When she speaks this time, her voice breaks with relief.
Ellie closes her eyes and tilts her face towards the sun, reveling in the warmth on her skin and the brightness behind her eyelids. She doesn't open her eyes again until she hears the Avengers assembling on the balcony beside her.
Tony Stark, leaning heavily on Thor and missing his helmet, gives her a rueful grin, while Loki's adoptive brother nods at her. She tries not to cower in fear at the sight of the enormous green rage monster, but fails. The rest ignore her as they move to surround the fallen God of Lies.
She trails behind, loitering in the entryway. Broken glass crunches beneath her boots. She still wears her SHIELD attire, but her time in her second prison feels like years and years ago.
For a brief moment it looks like they are going to execute him right there as he struggles to sit up. Weapons are raised against him, the Hawk with his arrows, Agent Romanoff with the scepter, but no one makes any move to attack.
Loki's gaze searches beyond earth's mightiest heroes, resting on her a moment. He seems to plead with her, but for what she couldn't say. She remains still as a statue, blank and emotionless.
Later this all might sink in it, but right now she'll enjoy the numbness. She'll stay unfeeling as long as possible.
Loki fails to find what he searches for. He pulls on the mask as he gazes back at the Avengers.
"If it's all the same to you," he murmurs, wincing slightly, "I'll have that drink now." He gives them a pained grin, as if his failure is all a big joke. As if none of it really mattered at all. His expression is the facial equivalent of "oh, well, it was fun while it lasted."
No one acknowledges his request, but no weapons are lowered either.
Ellie stumbles slightly, her knees giving out. She catches herself on the frame of a busted out window and a jagged, leftover shard of glass slices open her hand. She barely feels it as she looks around for a place to sit.
There is nothing, except for stairs just behind Loki's hole. She stumbles over and collapses next to the god who watches her with concern. Wincing all the while, he reaches out for her hand, wrapping it in a green scarf he pulls from somewhere in the depths of his armor. She lets him fuss, even though he is the one who should be dead, given the beating his just received.
"Well, that's fucking surreal," mutters Iron Man.
Ellie jumps and glances up, remembering their presence. All six good guys stare at her as if she's totally lost her mind. It's happened before, but Ellie does not want a repeat of that whole experience so she tries to snap out of it.
"Hey, guys," she mumbles. "Good job. I'm glad you didn't die."
They just continue to stare for a moment before Thor lets out a big belly laugh. The sound has Ellie jumping again, but then a couple of the other Avengers chuckle. The enormous green rage monster roars, thoroughly terrifying Ellie once more. She shuffles back away from it, and the beast looks at her with something that might be guilt.
"Do you like shawarma, Barbara Streisand?" Tony Stark asks.
Before Ellie can figure out what he's talking about and respond, the ruined penthouse bar is swarming with SHIELD commandos. Ellie loses sight of Loki in the activity, just before she's escorted to her fourth prison.
Some of my favorite Loki fics (Companion by molescout and The White Hart by Sigridhr) updated tonight and it inspired me to get my ass into gear. Again, I don't own any of the dialog from the Avengers. Thank you so very much for reading!