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Slipping closer to Clint, he finally paused behind the blonde, letting his knuckles brush the man’s side as a silent sign that he had arrived. The blonde looked over and skillfully hid his surprise at Loki’s appearance, though he still felt it.

“You know her?”

He gave a nearly imperceptible nod of his head in response, eyes flickering over to the tesseract.

“I can’t do much—using it will alert her to far too much. It would put you all in danger.”

Clint nodded slowly, the muscles in his jaw twitching.

Amora moved forward, eyes half-lidded and her walk graceful yet sneaky, slinking like a predator towards its prey. He knew the way she walked though, had seen her do it when walking towards Thor all those years ago. Slow steps with enough weight behind them to be light sounding, but heavy enough to make her breasts bounce and with the now far more revealing outfit she was clad in, Loki could only imagine how his brother would react around her.

Unfortunately Thor was a bit of a slave to carnal desires, even if he had developed some control over it in the passing decades.

“She appeared out of nowhere,” Clint muttered finally after a beat of silence, shifting closer with a simple cock of his hip and Loki nodded his head shortly. “There was just a flash and she appeared. There was some interference with the tesseract.”

His eyes were immediately drawn to the blue cube and he could see its erratic blue light, the panic of it as it shone left and right, light flashing blindingly from where it was bound in its metal prison. Amora’s eyes were on Director Fury, eyes lighting up with something only able to be described as manic glee.

“Give me the tesseract and I’ll let you free.”

She was bargaining, clearly, but Loki could sense the lie in her tone. As a master of lies and deceit, he could see the way her lips curled a bit too much, a clear indicator that she was a bit too over-confident. Too much confidence was an easy flaw in lies.

The reason he was considered the god of mischief and lies was because he had mastered the art. You had to be perfectly normal—perfectly.

He was.

“You’re not holding me hostage, so that offer is invalid,” the director responded curtly and she glared, smile dropping as she tensed. He watched the muscles in her back shift as she drew herself up; pausing in a pose that Loki assumed was supposed to demonstrate her womanly prowess.

He felt the urge to roll his eyes.

He withheld.

Clint did not.

And she saw it.

Whirling, he pointed a hand at Clint and fire exploded from her fingertips. It was whirling and alive, drinking in the oxygen and flaring bright and hot and Loki didn’t hesitate to wrap a tight arm around Clint and yanking him out of the way of the heat.

It wasn’t like normal fire.

This one incinerated on contact—no delay, no time to scream in agony or attempt to put it out. He could feel it in the power, the magic crackling through the air as she grinned wickedly.

It devoured, swallowed whole.

It was easy to tell the extent of its power when it collided with another agent behind them, two others managing to jump out of the way in time, but the third was not so lucky. The pile of ashes on the floor was all the proof Clint needed to sag in relief just slightly.

It wasn’t him, it wasn’t Clint. Clint was safe, Fury was safe, Natasha was safe; they were all safe. That was what Loki cared most about. It hurt, though, to think that an agent died and Loki could have stopped it, but he knew in his gut that it would only be more dangerous if Amora saw—saw who he was, what he could do.

She was powerful.

But Loki was more so. And she would focus her energy on taking out him, or weakening him at the very least. That alone would weaken every other defense or offense against her.

Magic didn’t work the same as science, as modern day weapons. It just didn’t, unfortunately, and with someone as wicked as Amora, it would take an extraordinary amount of luck to defeat her without at least a bit of magic on their side.

She turned her eyes on him and Loki was immediately grateful he thought ahead and disguised himself, because knowing the hatred she probably possessed for him for once barging when she and Thor were about to have intercourse and had pointed out the lack of protection, she would not hesitate to attempt to obliterate him on the spot.

“Thor, stop!”

The blondes froze, her legs hiked around his waist and Thor staring at the ceiling as she had been guiding his member to a certain place, but Loki’s eyes were quick—sharp and trained to take in every little detail.

They caught the sight of the protection disappearing with Amora’s magic and her intentions were suddenly clear.

Despite seeming to lack the brute force of Thor on a battle field, Loki was by far the intellectually superior one between the two of them—not to say that Thor wasn’t intelligent. He was; just, Loki was even more so.

She wanted the next king of Asgard to impregnate her, give him no choice to be able to leave her. That was she wanted. To be married to the next ruler because she had his kids.

It would raise a scandal if the first born of Odin ditched a woman after pumping her full of his seed. He could already hear the rumors and he didn’t hesitate to send a spark of fire towards the bed, making Thor jerk away from her to protect himself instinctively.

He had received the burn of Loki’s flames before; black flames—dark and unable to be extinguished without his will. She sat up as Thor whirled on his brother, standing in all his naked glory and Loki determinedly did not eye his brother.

No, sir—he did not.

He did not need her spreading rumors about his feelings for the blonde god in front of him—his brother, no less, regardless of whether they were related by blood or not. Just because she possessed no shame didn’t mean Loki did not.

It’s not like anyone other than himself and his parents knew—and even then they thought he didn’t know.

“Brother—this is not a good time.”

That heated stare focused on him with the male standing in complete nudity in front of him made heat ignite in his gut, but he ignored it, doused it in icy water; reminding himself that Thor would never like him like that—

Don’t look down, Loki.

“This is actually the worst of times you could decide to barge in here without knocking.”

The words snapped Loki back to the current time and place from where he had been determinedly staring at Thor’s eyes, though his mind had been elsewhere.

“I knocked, you didn’t answer. It sounded like someone was being murdered—I worried. Father wants to see you, though, so I could not leave you to your,” he glanced over at Amora, sitting still with her legs spread and a glare on her face, “mauling of the animal.”

Did she have no decency?

How could anyone find her attractive? He wondered how his brother could continue to see her even after she had told him that she had used Loki to get to him.

What kind of brother was Thor?

“Please get dressed and use protection next time. You know how father will be if he finds out you ignored it,” Loki now glanced pointedly downward, though his eyes completely bypassed the cock standing tall and proud, full of blood, before jerking back up.

Thor glanced down, eyes widening in surprise.

“I would have noticed immediately,” was his immediate, almost automatic, response; defensive and dismissive.

“I have no doubt you would have, dear brother, but,” he walked forward and he grabbed the black flame that was sitting on the bed spread, completely harmless on Loki’s command, “would you have been able to stop? Cool down, get rid of that thing and come to his office. You’re timed.”

“She is not a thing, Loki. Do not talk down on her simply because she chose the better one out of the two of us.”

He pretended that comment didn’t hurt.

He could tell Thor was mad at being interrupted.

For the life of him, he couldn’t bring himself to care all that much.

A smirk grew on her lips and Loki returned it, only his was directed at Thor. “Was talking about what’s in between your legs, Thor.” He passed him and shoved a glass box to him. “The contents should keep her ready for you, and this is for next time.”

He didn’t mention the blackness of the glass, the way his black flame was dancing inside of it unseen.

Exiting the room was easy and when he sat in Odin’s office suffering under the stifling silence, Loki found he could bear it because he knew what the box would do.

When Thor arrived, not moments after, still adjusting his shirt, Loki immediately told his father about what he had seen, ignoring his brother’s hatred filled look that was sent his way. He ignored it in favor of thinking he was doing this for Thor, for his own well-being and honor, so that he would not suffer a greater wrath from Odin later should Amora win.

Thor didn’t understand until Loki explained the protection disappearing under Amora’s magic, what he read in her intent and then Thor was livid. The skies darkened and thunder roiled as lightening struck down from the heavens.

Then the screams began from down the hall on the other side of the castle and Loki watched his brother and father go racing out, quickly calling the black flame back to him, gazing at it in between his fingers before making it disappear.

If Amora had to be put in prison for mental surveillance after having asked Thor nearly immediately to pound her in the animal pelts covering the male’s bed because she had been almost painfully hot without him inside her, he didn’t say anything. If she immediately blamed him, claiming the box had been cursed by him, he didn’t care. If Thor had dumped her after accusing her of lying to him, he didn’t pay attention.

He just remembered the look on her face when she’d been ordered to stay as far from Thor as possible and that if someone saw her try a trick like that again, she’d be incarcerated. The look of contempt, of hate, but of complete defeat and rage as she had been lead in seidr restraining cuffs, glaring at Loki who lurked in the shadows; that was what he cared about because that was all that mattered.

Loki ignored Thor’s raging shouts the next night, blaming him because ‘of course the one person that decides to talk to you is completely insane and I’m stuck on the receiving end of it’.

He ignored the apologies two days later, turned the other way in the middle of them and stalked out. He didn’t need that and he didn’t need to have the pain inside him smoothed over again by sweet words from Thor.

Loki didn’t like pain and he didn’t want to feel it again. After apologies always came the tentative truce and after the truce came the betrayal once more, all in cycle.

He didn’t like cycles.

So, he broke it.

The apologies never sunk in, his heart put up its walls, and his books became a mountain around him and the casket his cave, his solace.

He guessed Amora was what finally broke their bond. Silly to think it would have been a woman who came and destroyed it and not Loki’s secretly harbored feelings for Thor.

Either way, that was the end of whatever brotherly relationship he and Thor had managed to have throughout their childhood.

When she looked at him now, he could see the madness in her eyes. This was a woman whose only drive was to come out on the winning end for her, screw whoever she brought down with her.

And so he put up his guards, made his expression hateful, but anguished—the hurt of losing a comrade, the anger at having someone attack them.

He was the master of deception.

She didn’t stand a chance.

And so his grip tightened on Clint momentarily before he drew his gun, aimed at her and shot. It knocked against the green armor pinning her hair back, the metal shining and she cocked her head.

“Missed?” Her lips curled into a devious grin, her fingers twitched, and eyes widening just the barest bit. He could feel the hatred coming off of her, the want to destroy and own. The sweetness of her voice, childlike in comparison to normal, grated on his nerves, but he steeled them.

Everything was static. The noise in his blood, the scent in the air, the simple stare of her eyes on him—just background noise. And he grinned, just as manic and unhinged as she had before and he played her game, moved like a puppet on strings as his head lolled drunkenly to the side.

His grinned widened, open mouthed and his tongue slid along his teeth. “It’s a warning,” he whispered, leaning closer like it was some secret he wanted share. A giggle slipped out, an exaggerated movement of his shoulders with the sound as he pulled back. “Three strikes and you’re out.”

She hissed, darted forward and tried to lunge at him.

She was physical when angry. He remembered that as she missed him by a foot as he twirled to the side, slouching in his spot as he waved the gun around whimsically.

“Strike one.”

Blonde hair whipped around her as she whirled, firing another burst of flame from her fingers and he dodged once more, ducking and thanking that the other agents dodged as well.

“Strike two,” he drawled, giggling and in another maddened leap, she launched herself off the wall and flipped behind him, her arm coming up to wrap around his throat and lock tight.

Loki gasped, eyes widening slightly at the touch before they fell half lidded in another second, tilting his head towards her and breathing against her lips. “Strike three.”

The resounding gunshot echoed throughout the room and she screamed out in surprise as she let go, taking a couple steps back and patting her body down with frantic hands.

“No wound,” Loki whispered, coming to stand by Clint again and pocketing his gun, “for now.”

And his features were schooled once more and Clint sent him a brief sidelong glance of confusion as Loki once more fell into an impassive state that he normally possessed in the presence of other agents. It was their job to be expressionless, essentially, but he knew how to play Amora’s game and he knew Fury would let him.

He mouthed ‘later’.

He’d explain then.

She glared, adjusted her belt, green like the rest of her attire, but darker—it matched her head wear, he noted absentmindedly.

Something dropped from the ceiling—a chunk of the ceiling and they all ducked instinctively. Fury shot him a nod and Loki quickly turned on his comm.., sending out a message to all SHIELD agents to evacuate the building immediately.

Director Fury had the tesseract in a case in mere seconds, locking it and taking it with him as he ran towards the exit. Amora launched fire at him, but Clint was quick to fire a shot at her and her aim went askew, hitting the wall instead.

“Top priority is to get this out of here,” Fury instructed, but then the case was out of his hands and Amora was teleporting away and Loki knew her magic was weakened in this state and she wouldn’t be able to travel realms—he was pretty sure she didn’t want to travel realms if the fact that Fury wasn’t so upset about it was anything to go by.

“Ignore that now—top priority is to get out of here. This whole building is going to be brought down on top of us.”

“Where’s Selvig?” Loki finally asked amidst the chaos and Clint froze. Fury looked around with his one eye and Clint did as well. Nowhere was the quick conclusion drawn to.

“We’re missing agents, she took them with her,” Clint finally said, eyes darting across the room and landing on the blue hole opening up in the ceiling. “I didn’t notice her take Selvig with her. We have to move now, though.”

His hand gripped Loki’s and they began to run, splitting to put Director Fury in between them, guns drawn for any further sign of threat, though with the ceiling collapsing in on them, it was debatable how important shooting the enemy would be.

As they rode in a helicopter, silence had descended on them like a blanket and Loki found himself twisting a dagger between his fingers. They were his own from Asgard, the only weapon other than the spear that he enjoyed using to fight.

“So, who’s going to fill me in on what I missed?” he asked finally, running fingertips along the edge of the blade.

Fury cast him a glare.

“When we land,” is all the director muttered, pulling up Maria Hill’s contact and beginning to talk to her about the damage on the building and surrounding land. Several agents had gotten trapped under the rubble, including her, some because of research they could not afford to abandon, others because they were injured.

He winced at the thought of having a leg crushed under a boulder.

It wasn’t a comforting thought.

His eyes strayed back to the blade in his fingers. He remembered fashioning them—funnily enough, it had been on a trip to Jotunheim that he made them with a mage there. Fortunately mages had a seemingly unspoken truce—or at least when it came to the males.

He had yet to meet a female other than Frigga that was nice.

“Lost now, are you, boy?” A voice commented from behind him, not cruel, thankfully, just inquiring. It was croaky, weak with age, but wise and Loki turned slowly, sending a smile to the towering giant in front of him.

The bitter winds of Jotunheim blew, knocked against the loincloth the giant wore. He was hunched; just the slightest arch of his back and Loki noted that despite it, the man was powerfully built with bulging muscles and thick thighs.

“Not entirely. I know there’s a town over a few ways west, but I would rather not be seen in a crowded space.” He motioned to his Asgardian form. Unfortunately he learned it was best to travel as royalty—less likely for people to attack him, especially since he never carried any ill will for whatever realm he visited.

Red eyes narrowed slightly, staring him up and down, a soft hum escaping.

“Not very bright for someone as small as you to venture to the land of giants,” the man muttered, but he smiled, soft and genuine as he motioned for Loki to follow. “Why would someone as defenseless as you come here unarmed?”

“What makes you say I’m unarmed?”

The giant laughed, deep bellied and loud. It vibrated through Loki’s bones as he walked lightly upon the snow and ice. Surprisingly enough, he kept up easily as they weaved between trees. He wasn’t sure if the giant was deliberately going slower for him or if Loki was somehow managing to not slip on the ice despite his boots.

Normally he had to be barefoot to not slip.

“I can see it.”

The giant pointed a long blue finger at his gleaming red eyes and Loki’s brow furrowed.

“How,” was the question that slipped past his lips as he continued to follow the giant. His eyes caught sight of a cave slowly coming into view in the distance, not quite hidden amongst the snow, but it was shielded from sight.

“Magic, young one,” was the low response and the giant suddenly hefted Loki up, carrying him through the rest of the snow briskly and into the cave. “You possess it too, do you not?”

He blinked, not even bothering to struggle. The giant knew he was unarmed and hadn’t harmed him yet. He was fairly confident that he wasn’t the man’s next planned meal. Besides, he had made trips to Jotunheim before; enough to know that they were not cannibals like most Asgardian people wrongly assumed.

“Indeed.”

There was a grin, the teeth pointed and sharp, but the grin itself was warm like the realm was not. It held no malice and Loki felt relaxed at the sight of it. He was set down upon an animal pelt, soft and smooth and he looked down on it as his fingers gently tangled themselves in the fur.

“It’s comforting to know my sight is not failing me yet even in my old age.”

“You do not seem old.”

The man chuckled, low and comforting—warm like the fires in Thor’s bedroom whenever the male needed Loki’s company so that he could talk to him about his latest achievements—and sat down across from Loki, folding his hands.

“Looks can be deceiving.” He leaned forward, wriggling around a bit to get comfortable before returning his eyes to Loki. “What brings you to Jotunheim, young mage?”

And so, Loki told him. He told him why he was there, told him what he knew of magic, what abilities he had. And the giant taught him more. He taught him how to shift into animals without needing a whole ritual, told where the best places to get ingredients for spells were and which were rarer than others, taught him how to command elements around him.

And then when it was a few moons before Loki would be due back in Asgard, the man taught him how to fashion an indestructible blade. He made two, helped Loki sharpen them, made sure the balance was right, and taught him how to fight with them.

They were strong—stronger than the metals of Asgard—and would never dull.

Then as the mage bid Loki good-bye, he told him that he wished him the best of luck on his quest and that he found himself happiness in the coming years.

The knowing look in those red eyes still flashed through his dreams and he remembered upon arriving on Midgard for the very first time, he had rested a few days before going to Jotunheim.

He had found the mage again, older now, obviously, though still with the warm eyes and the gentle smile.

“I think I’ve found my happiness,” he had told the giant the instant he saw him.

The grin on the giants face had been momentarily blinding in its elation and he had scooped Loki up and held him tight. “That is good, young one. Happiness is hard to find nowadays.”

“It’s not complete happiness, but it’s enough and it’s mine.”

Loki remembered smiling so hard it hurt his face.

He wasn’t used to smiling so much—or at all.

The next few days he spent curled under layers of animal pelts with the giant, curled against his chest and finding comfort in each other. It was nice to have a friend, but the mage had to leave soon as did Loki, so he bid the mage goodbye, but before he left, he handed him one of the golden apples of Asgard.

It was a gift in return for all the man had done for him.

Loki traveled back to Midgard and went about setting up his future life, getting to know the realm and its language, its people and its cultures.

The giant was always in his heart, though, and whenever he visited Jotunheim, he made it a goal to visit the mage every time.

“Lo?” Clint nudged his shoulder and Loki blinked, looking up from the blade and meeting Clint’s concerned blue eyes. He really loved those eyes, just like how he loved Natasha’s red hair and Fury’s strong hands.

He hummed in response, leaning closer and settling against Clint, closing his eyes.

“You said those daggers were from Asgard, right?”

“Forged in Jotunheim, but yes,” Loki responded and Clint nodded his head. Loki could tell the man was trying not to think too much at the moment. When he thought too much, he worried, and he couldn’t afford to let his worries cloud his mind at the moment.

“Have you considered going to visit that man?”

Loki’s eyes stung at the corners and he let them slip shut, sighing deeply through his nose. “I would, but there’s not much I can do with a slab of rock.”

There was silence as the blonde processed the words and he looked up to see Clint chewing on his bottom lip pensively.

“How did it happen?”

“Illness—an animal ate something poisonous, he consumed the animal and it slowly killed him. He would have been fine considering he possessed seidr, but old age caught up to him. I wasn’t trained too much in healing magic then.” His hands clasped themselves in between his legs, fingers pressing tight. “I could only ease his pain through the worst of it, provide comfort where I could, and let him pass peacefully.”

“You buried him,” Clint murmured, voice sounding somewhat in awe, albeit sad.

“Yes.”

Silence followed and Loki reached over, giving Clint’s knee a comforting squeeze and a small smile. There wasn’t much comfort he could provide. Death wasn’t new to either of them, but Loki remembered that death especially well. It had been the first death of someone he deeply cherished and it had stayed with him all those long years, but he had continued with life.

His mentor had died happy and at peace, cherished and loved and that was all Loki could wish for a man on his deathbed.

“I think he saw it coming. His eyes saw much. I remember he used to get dreams, allusions to the future, sort of speak. He was ready for it when it came. I was just there to ease the pain of the poison, not of his heart.”

“He died happy?”

“Indeed.”

The rest of the helicopter ride was silent and Loki had gently put Clint under a light sleeping spell when the agent began to fuss with his guns slightly, fingers trembling just that small bit that gave away his worry.

Running his fingers through blonde hair was what he spent the rest of the flight doing, listening to Fury update him on the status of the agents and then listening to the one side of the conversation that he could as Fury talked to Coulson.