Titans Bearing Gifts
Chapter 5: The Cost of Gifts
"Get up."
Loki opened his eyes to the half-hidden wrinkled gray face of The Other. Make me, he thought, letting his expression communicate his words.
The hand came down with a snarl and Loki smoothly pulled himself into a sitting position, lifting his arms above himself to stretch. The hand drew back and Loki studiously ignored it. His back had stiffened during the night – it still ached from whatever Thanos had done to it, and he'd been provided as his sole piece of bedding a thin pelt from some unknown creature which did little to cushion the rough rock he slept on.
"They're gathering others to study it. You know of this one, the one they most want to work on it. You will go, and ensure cooperation."
"I haven't had my breakfast yet," Loki said, and this time the hand came down. Somehow, even as every nerve in his body screamed in pain, Loki kept his silence and didn't collapse. When it was over he swallowed to moisten his throat…and to take a moment to recover. "You have no sense of humor whatsoever." It was worth it, really, enduring these occasional "reprimands," to remind the lackey that unlike the woman on the table he was not broken, that he was a king, that he acted of his own free will, that he was not to be toyed with or ordered around. He walked right up to the line he'd learned to recognize, he stretched a toe across it, then pulled it back just before it could be crushed. Before it could be crushed too badly, at least.
He rose and followed The Other. His lack of interest was entirely feigned. He knew of fewer people on Midgard than he could count on one hand. Two he'd seen and had barely taken notice of. One, however… Will I be paying you a visit today? He didn't even know her name, but he would never forget her. That might even be worth skipping breakfast for.
"Go," the lackey hissed.
Loki turned to shoot him an angry look, but before his eyes the world began to disappear, only to be replaced with another world. So that's how he intended me to "go."
It was dark. Dank. He heard something dripping in the distance. When his eyes came into focus, he realized that blending into the sparsely-lit corridor was a dark-skinned man in black attire, a black patch over his eye. It wasn't the same eye that Odin kept covered with shining gold metal, but it was enough for Loki to immediately dislike this man who exuded power and arrogance just from his bearing, from the set of his jaw and the confident stillness of his stance. Who does he think he is, to think so much of himself? Just a mortal. He thinks he has power?
It was dizzying, the rush that ran through his veins, the euphoria, the desire, the raw need. Loki would take this planet, and teach all of its self-important mortals their place.
Beneath his boot.
Loki lifted his hand before his face, and curled the fingers into a fist. It felt real, but he knew it was not. He was here, invisible, on Midgard – and yet he was not here. They'd projected him to this realm somehow. His mind was here, but not his body, not really. That was sufficient for Loki, whose mind had long been his strongest weapon. That and his tongue. He lowered his hand, and ran it down his clothing, the same thing he'd worn when he ruled Asgard, though now the materials were again crisp and new. And in the pocket in the seam of his pants was a familiar shape – the blue stone. It hadn't been there before, and Loki didn't know if it was really there now. He supposed it was only in his mind, but he hadn't put it there; that meant it was there for a reason.
Footsteps approached. Slow. Somewhat hesitant. A bit uneven, a bit heavy. Not a young person, probably, he thought. Not the woman.
"Dr. Selvig," the man in black called. The footsteps halted, then continued, coming closer. A figure appeared from around the corner, and a smile slowly spread across Loki's face, the disappointment that this "Dr. Selvig" was not Thor's woman disappearing before it could fully take root. He did recognize this man, one of the three mortals Thor had already won to his side in just a couple of days on Midgard.
"So you're the man behind all this?" Dr. Selvig said as he approached.
He stood quietly and listened. He wasn't sure why he was here yet, but it was clear he was witnessing something important.
The man in black walked behind a silver container, and Loki felt his heart speed up as both of the mortals' attention focused on it. Can it be? Do they really have it? The mortals? He'd told the nameless one that it was better known by another, more elegant name. That it was lost from history. That its power was everything they believed it to be and more.
There was a click, and a hiss, then a glowing, perfect cube of shimmering blue. Loki could barely contain his excitement. It was all true. Everything he'd been told. The mortals had none other than the Tesseract, once the jewel of Odin's Weapons Vault. And Loki was going to take it from them, along with their entire realm. Thor's pet realm.
"Power, doctor," the unnamed man was explaining. "If we can figure out how to tap it, unlimited power."
The older man hesitated, and Loki stepped forward. He knew precisely what he was here for now.
"Well, I suppose that's worth a look," he said, listening with a smirk as the mortal scientist relaxed into his decision and parroted the words back. This Dr. Selvig might have been afraid, but he was also clearly curious, and Loki's simple nudge was sufficient for the curious side to quickly win out.
A few minutes later Midgard faded away again, but this was only the beginning. Loki would be back.
He had his purpose. And it was glorious.
/
Notes
On this chapter: One of the challenges of trying to cover this post-credits scene from Thor is to make that scene feel "real," absolutely the one we've all seen, and yet bring something new to it, not just rehash the scene. I'm not sure I entirely succeeded, but I hope you enjoyed it regardless. I wanted both to bring some explanation to that scene, and to use it to bridge what happens in this story with what happens in Avengers.
On this story: The woman on the table was never meant to be Gamora or Nebula from Guardians, though she was absolutely inspired by those characters. If you prefer to think of her as one of them, all you have to do is ignore the physical description bits, or perhaps imagine that Thanos subsequently altered the woman's physical appearance (not at all a far-fetched idea, I think). For the purposes of this story, Loki never knew her name. He never asked. He never cared.
On the void between the script pages: I doubt we'll ever know what happened "for real" while Loki was with Thanos. Mostly because no such "for real" exists - where a script hasn't been written or a scene hasn't been shot, no actual answers exist. And then although much as we Loki fans might like it, I doubt Marvel will "waste time" in its action movies to fill in backstory on this. I do suspect that Avengers 3/4 may give us a Loki-Avengers team-up of convenience against Thanos, in which case there's a slight chance we'll get some answers about what "really" went down with Loki and Thanos. But at least for now, it's all up to those of us fans who can't help wondering, theorizing, arguing...or writing.
I hope you enjoyed the story. :-)