Yay, I updated this fic at the end of winter break as well as the beginning, and updated a few other fics in between. I can't believe I'm on chapter 50. I actually held off updating this fic for a few days, since Jan 2 has been a pretty significant date in this fic's posting history. This has officially been revived for as long as it was abandoned- 2 years to the day for each- and somehow Harry's still four lol.
James's head throbs, the voices inside it drowning the conversation out after Banner's comment about Loki smelling crazy. James is fairly certain Logan voices his agreement, but James does not hear it.
THREAT ASSESSMENT OF LOKI: EXTREMELY HIGH blares the one voice, as if James was not already aware.
Harry's head is clearly bothering him as well. He rubs his scar, repeatedly, and if he could, James would take Harry's pain for him. He doubts even his headache and Harry's combined would be worse than the Chair, or the feeling of the trigger words tearing his will away from him.
James still isn't hearing anything, but he sees Steve sign as his lips move. "You look like you need a nap."
Bet the punk sees this as revenge for makin' him sleep all those times he was sick. Bucky's tone is fondness hidden behind exasperation.
James didn't know he knew sign language, but he doesn't remember learning Russian, or relearning English when he'd been acquired by HYDRA. He's fairly certain he knows other languages besides those three, but does not know which languages they are.
Harry opens his mouth, clearly protesting that only babies need naps until Steve speaks and signs again. "Harry can join you."
James twists his mouth. He couldn't get any sleep, with the voice shouting as loud as if it's under heavy fire in the trenches. He realizes, after the fact, that his hands, flesh and prosthesis, are working together to sign Can't sleep.
Even if the voices shut up, he wouldn't be able to sleep with Loki nearby. He glares at the hologram showing Loki locked in the cell, his mind being probed and prodded by Romanoff and the Professor. The Professor has been able to help James recover quickly from the trigger words, but judging by the pained concentration on both his and Loki's faces, Loki's mind is an even tougher nut to crack than James's own.
Loki has assets and an army and is seemingly the commander and strategist behind the whole operation of invading and conquering Earth. Yet Thor is clearly convinced that Loki has been influenced by the Scepter, that what he'd done to Barton and Selvig had been done to him as well.
He sure seems willing, Bucky sounds thoroughly unconvinced. He's willing to do it again, to us and Harry.
LOKI WILL NOT COMMAND US. The mission voice sounds oddly reassuring.
James can sympathize with Barton and Selvig easily, and hopes that the hold on their minds is broken soon. But trying to imagine Loki in the same possessed state is like trying to imagine Pierce being mind controlled.
He has been, and even he wasn't as diabolical as Loki. Bucky points out. Pierce had always been calm, almost gentle occasionally before he'd slap the Soldier across the face. Pierce had never had that crazed gleam in Loki's eye, even if they both are after world domination.
HAIL HYDRA rings through James's head, and he scowls. The mission voice is not proclaiming its allegiance as it had before. Pierce had said those words on an international broadcast, undoubtedly under the influence of Professor X.
Once James is able to hear past the voices, he almost wishes he couldn't. Onscreen, Loki is practically taunting Romanoff about all the red in her ledger, promising to make Barton kill her before waking up to realize what he's done.
From his place next to James, Logan growls like an animal.
The noise in James's head picks up again, but it's not the voices this time. He hears screams, pleas, gunshots. Brief silences broken by more terror. Instead of the tower, James sees targets and entire families murdered by his hands.
Slowly, the sounds of death are replaced by the Professor's voice in his head, telling him to name five allies in the room with him. James glances around the room. Stark. Logan. Steve. Banner. Harry.
James feels a small hand grasp his and he looks down to see Harry staring right back up, concerned. Harry is still clutching his "Wii wand" but their games from earlier seem long ago. James is more used to having long stretches of time- years even- seem moments apart due to being frozen for the duration.
Looking up, James catches Steve's gaze. Steve is clearly in the middle of strategizing, yet can't seem to stop glancing his way, just as worried as Harry.
Over the video feed of Loki's cell, Romanoff stops fake crying and calmly reports "Loki's after the Hulk. And the Winter Soldier."
He's not in the driver's seat anymore, Bucky says. James clenches his hand. He can fight back now, can regain control from the words made to control him.
"Loki's after me, too." Harry says. James pulls Harry close to reassure himself as much as Harry.
Stark is busy questioning Moody about how the Imperius curse works, how to counter it, and whether or not it could counteract the effects of the scepter. The whole conversation makes James twitchy, imagining Loki making good on his promise of turning him into an obedient puppet.
Then, Stark opens the case and takes out the scepter.
Tony's ready to scan the hell out of this glow stick of destiny and make it tell him all its sweet secrets.
Okay, so the secrets really aren't that sweet. The scepter, while interesting, is quite frankly vile. Not as much of an abomination as the mind-wiping chair, sure, but Tony doesn't blame James at all for glaring daggers at the thing.
Even taking it out of the case makes the air seem... sinister somehow.
James is regarding the thing with extreme suspicion and wariness, and will probably keep Tony from doing anything too risky to it. Bruce also seems to be on team Keep Tony From Prodding the Unknown Alien Artifact Too Much. Thor insists it is too powerful for a mortal.
"Well, I'm known to do the impossible." Tony shoots a grin around the room. "We need to take it apart to know how it works, then we can reverse it."
"It's a stick too. Is it a mem'ry one?" Harry asks. "Are we going to crush it like the Zola stick?"
"That'll probably set it off." Bruce sounds far more strained than Tony's heard him yet, even more than with the reveal of HYDRA. His eyes aren't turning green yet, but there's something somewhat beastly about his voice.
"So, tell me what you see, J." Tony lays the scepter on a table.
"Do you put a mem'ry stick in it?" Harry leans closer until James pulls him away. Before Tony can answer, Harry's asking another question.
"Is Loki going to take the Queen's brain?"
"I thought you humans no longer had monarchy." Thor's brow furrows in confusion.
"We don't," says Steve. "At least, not here."
Harry gives Steve a look like he's a baby who knows nothing. "Yes we do! God save the queen!"
"I will save her if I must," Thor promises solemnly, and Tony can't hold in his laughter.
"There's only one god, and he doesn't dress like you." Steve sighs and gives Tony an exasperated look. "We don't have a queen in America."
Harry's frown is half directed at Steve and half thoughtful, clearly considering something he's never thought about before. "Who's king here in America?"
Logan raises an eyebrow. "Tell me you're not going to ask that in history class ten years from now."
"We fought a whole war to not have a king anymore," Tony tells Harry, though he's back to inspecting the scepter. "Well, not us personally. Even Cap and James aren't that old."
Harry nods slowly. "So now we'll fight a war so Loki's not king?"
"Looks like it," Steve squares his shoulders, putting on his Captain voice. He had essentially just been in a war a few weeks ago, since it's not like he remembers his seven decade hibernation.
Tony glances at James next. He seems sick of fighting for completely understandable reasons, but Tony has no doubt that James will use all his skills to protect Harry.
"The only sort of king Loki will ever be is Scar." Tony mutters, receiving mostly uncomprehending looks. Harry rubs his own scar again, and Tony rolls his eyes. "Geez, I should've started a movie night policy the day you two showed up at my house. Seriously, I haven't shown you The Lion King? Scar literally is Loki in lion form."
"Loki has not shifted into a lion, to my knowledge." Thor says, though he'd been the one who said Loki had shifted into a snake. If Tony didn't know that Bruce could shift into a hulking green figure, he would have said it was impossible.
"If he's a lion, he can eat the queen." Harry says. "Is she magic?"
"No." Moody growls. "He'd go after the Minister of Magic."
"And the King here?"
"There's no king here." Steve repeats, starting to lose his patience.
"Yes there is!" Harry shouts. "Pierce was the bad guy enemy king here!"
"He was secretary, not king." Fury's jaw is tight. Tony's pretty sure Fury was close to Pierce, which brings up some serious concerns about the intelligence agency's intelligence.
"He's going to break out, like Joker!" Harry waves his Wii wand angrily, and a nearby chair skids away several feet without being touched. "And Loki's going to break out, too, 'cos bad guys always break out!"
Tony's enjoyed watching Harry come out of his shell more, lose that submissive and meek demeanor that his scumbag relatives beat into him, but this seems to be full-on toddler tantrum levels. Tony can't blame him, but it's giving him a headache, anyway.
As the arguing continues, Bruce picks up the scepter and Fury barks at him to put it down, reaching for his gun. Harry, who hadn't seemed to notice the gun, yells even louder.
Jarvis raises his own volume to report that all of their heart rates and pulses are elevated, and that the scepter is emitting colossal amounts of an unknown energy. It's glowing more than it had before.
"I'd recommend putting it back in its case immediately, sir." Jarvis says.
James snatches the scepter in his prosthetic hand, shoves it back into the case, slams the lid shut, and deposits the case on the other end of the room. When he returns, a bit of the tension in his shoulders seems to bleed from his body.
Just a bit, though. He's still so tense that both his shoulders look like metal.
Harry, however, is still rubbing his scar. Tony thought that the kid would bounce back the quickest, and then he could kick himself as Harry rubs his scar even more furiously.
Sure, let the kid with an evil wizard's soul trapped in his head near the thing that another evil wizard has been using to amass an army of mind-slaves.
Great thinking there, Tony.
"You, uh, don't feel Loki in there, do you?" Bruce asks Harry. From what Tony can tell, Harry hadn't actually felt the Dark Lord in his head.
Harry keeps rubbing his scar, but he says "He can't fit, 'cos I'm little."
"Little enough to only house one villain," Tony mutters, gesturing to the screen. Loki hasn't made a move to escape yet.
From the stories Thor told of Loki, Loki hadn't always been evil. Tony feels like he almost would have gotten along with the Loki that Thor described. The Loki with a razor-sharp wit and a fierce thirst for knowledge.
The way Thor told it, Loki had been that way for a thousand years, and had only recently turned into a power-hungry, destructive opponent. Thor clearly thinks it was the work of the scepter, but Loki hadn't had the scepter when sending some Iron Man-esque destroyer robot to New Mexico.
But then again, after new Mexico, he'd apparently tried to kill himself in a void. He clearly hadn't been in the best state of mind.
Still, it begs the question of what will happen once the scepter's effects are reversed. Will Barton's loyalty shift just as suddenly back to Fury? If Tony's learned anything about mind control, it's that it has some very lasting effects. But then again, James was brainwashed for far longer than Loki or Barton have been.
"I'm going to take run some tests in the lab. Find what makes the glow stick tick." Tony says, and Bruce gets up to make sure Tony won't blow it up with his tests.
James stalks out of the room, muttering that he's going to the gym. Harry doesn't follow immediately, swinging his Wii remote at the case, then glancing guiltily at Bruce as if that will make the scepter explode.
"Aren't we going to crush it like the mem'ry stick?" Harry jumps, stomping his feet on the ground as hard as he can.
Bruce tries to explain that the thing's stronger than a flash drive, but Harry just looks confused and frustrated. "My dad's stronger than a dumb stick. Is it magic?"
"Whatever you call it, I'm going to understand it soon."
"I'm going to the gym," Harry copies his dad's tone, even his gait, stalking out of the room like a mini-James.
Tony and Bruce head to the lab. Tony's eager to dive in, and quickly loses himself in work. Jarvis keeps him updated on current tower events- Loki's still in his cell, Professor X goes down to the gym.
"We know he's skipping leg day," Tony smirks, earning him an unimpressed look from Bruce. Right, the professor's probably going there to lend an ear. Loki's arrival has affected Harry and James the most, and Tony wouldn't be surprised if James is defeating some workout equipment in his stress.
Tony's fairly certain the Professor thinks Loki is redeemable- after all, he seems to see the best in Magneto, who has similar views of being above humanity.
"Guess our Prof X Machina can't solve this," Tony gestures to the scepter. Honestly, he's having a blast talking science with Bruce in a way the others clearly wouldn't understand. Now he just has to get Hank over here to weigh in, and possibly have the Professor mind-probe it when he's done talking with James and Harry.
Jarvis's readings are very interesting and more than a bit ominous. There's some sort of powerful object in the middle, which Tony supposes was obvious, but still. It's more than he's gotten from Moody's wand. Tony's still half convinced that Moody was joking about wand cores- though he'd pointedly not mentioned his own. Seriously, unicorn hair and dragon heartstrings?
Whatever is in this scepter is more like a stone.
"Sir, an arrow-" Jarvis is cut off as an explosion shakes the tower.
"An arrow has struck the building, sir." Jarvis says. "It exploded before I could notify you, and Captain Rogers has asked what you're doing down here."
"You know it wasn't me." Tony replies, already calling up a suit and glancing at Bruce, who's breathing heavily but has the presence of mind to leave the lab. "Looks like Barton's coming to crash the party."
I thought I'd breeze through the whole Avengers plot in a chapter or two (with some adjustments) but somehow this chapter ended up super long and only just got to the Helicarrier attack, even though they're obviously not on the Helicarrier in this. The argument about queens came out when I was stuck on this chapter, and I think writing Tony's POV makes me write more.
But, they should figure out something during the fight with Clint. Oddly enough I couldn't get into The Falcon and the Winter Soldier or Loki, despite reading Loki and Bucky fics for years, but the Hawkeye show was hands-down my favorite MCU thing ever.
So hopefully I can do Clint justice in this fic.
I'm not sure when my next update will be. I'm kind of worried about going back to teaching tomorrow.