Chapter 3
Looking back on it, Loki remembered a weird sense of relieve when he finally stumbled through that portal which had led him to the S.H.I.E.L.D facility.
What he had hoped would be negotiations with Thanos had quickly turned to simple torture. First, Loki had despised the arrogance of the creature before him. Then, he had felt belittled under his commands. Who was he to think that he, Loki, a God would simply follow whatev-er instructions he was given? He had not taken the fall to be slave to a new master.
In the end, his feelings were gone in the anguish, the white-hot pain and exhaustion he felt with every breathing second. Thanos had turned out to be more powerful than Loki had ex-pected, so much more powerful that not even his silver tongue had been able to save him. Thanos did not care for any word of his and made him scream instead of talk. In the end, the words had left Loki in stark contrast to the pain that never quite seemed to vanish.
He often wondered how much time he had spent on that barren piece of land. It had seemed like forever and then again so short. But seeing how long it took the burn marks to fade, his body to once again comply with him, Loki thought of weeks.
So it had probably been relief that had made him smile when he had stumbled though that portal. Relief to at least have some distance, even though some corner of his mind knew that distance mattered nothing to Thanos. He had focused on his new task even though nothing of that short-lived enthusiasm had remained. The agreement between him and Thanos had turned out to be a trap and not an agreement at all. All that now remained was fear and pain.
Taking the Tesseract, recruiting an army thanks to the new weapon all seemed to happen without his doing. He focused on his task in the same way a drowning man would focus on swimming to shore. In hopes of surviving and maybe being distracted from his bad state.
Just when he had managed to almost gain some satisfaction from his task, when he had almost convinced himself that it might have been his idea all along, Thanos contacted him once again to remind him of his duties. Later that night he found himself hoping for help. Like a child he hoped for somebody to come, take care of him and protect him. He scolded himself for his naïve thoughts and instead focused anew on his work.
His first capture by the Avengers had been civil, something that could not be said of Thor’s way to handle him. When he had first seen Thor, a glimpse of hope had lightened up. Maybe Thor would be able to help him, maybe the All-Father could protect him. But then his pride had gotten the best of him and he had encountered Thor with his usual sarcasm, accusing him of making his life miserable. In the end, Loki almost believed himself.
By the time he was shown into his cell, he had a plan in his mind, ready to go. At first he had been distracted by the distant fear of inevitable pain – surely the Avengers would not let themselves be mocked without any revenge? – but when it seemed sure that there would be no pain, his plan had almost formed itself.
Earth’s mightiest heroes seemed to be nothing but a bunch of extraordinary people thrown together. Not exactly a team by any means. And Loki probably knew best that most geniuses did not like other smart people in their surrounding field. To him, it was clear as day that it would be easy to play them off against each other.
What he had not taken into consideration was the agent. Some part of him had actually felt bad about killing him, but he hadn’t thought that his death would be the turning point. He hadn’t really meant to kill him, but he had felt impatient, his body still aching in some weird way and so sick of those humans. So he had killed him. One death more or less didn’t matter anyways. Or so he had thought.