"That referee needs an eye exam."
Chris made a non-committal noise. He was cheering for the other team, but fairness made him admit that the call had been debatable. And since it was Nathan complaining, it was probably meant to be a factual point rather than an insult. Probably.
Vin's hazel eyes twinkled with mischief in the firelight. Chris thought about calling him on it, stopping him from saying whatever-it-was to upset Nathan and liven up the evening. He might not have, in the end. Chris wasn't actually a babysitter, and besides, part of him found Vin's antics amusing. But it turned out to be irrelevant - Vin let it go. He turned back to the window, to keep watching the snow sweeping across the valley towards the mountains. Not quite sulking - he understood that Chris was right, it wasn't a good night to go riding. This was a gentle snow now, but that could change in an instant. Best to stay at the ranch house tonight, by the bright fire and the softly glowing television. See what the night wrought, maybe ride out in the morning. They had the day off, after all. A consolation prize from Travis after today's bust had gone bad. Smith the human trafficker wouldn't have his bail hearing until Monday, so even Ezra had nowhere else to be.
Which had given him and Chris the chance to get their argument over with this afternoon, out under the sky as the storm clouds rolled in overhead.
"I do not know what you were thinking, Mr. Larabee, in ordering Vincent not to shoot me. We could already be rescuing that idiot Able's partner, if you hadn't...interfered." Ezra's tongue dripped acid, superior and supercilious and resorting to formality to wound rather than show respect.
Chris had an advantage with Ezra, in that he didn't care about tone or insults to his intelligence. Chris had pride - but not much of the type that Ezra could threaten. Mostly, he just wanted the people he cared about to live, and the people who threatened them - or others like them - to die. Or be locked up. One couldn't have everything, in a civilized society. Chris was honest enough with himself to admit that, in some ways, he was nearly as savage as Ezra. Its not that he didn't believe in rehabilitation - but he didn't believe in it for men like Smith.
That notwithstanding, Chris couldn't let Ezra get away with the stunt he'd tried to pull. "I won't apologize for not allowing Vin to shoot you, Ezra." He said, not quite yelling, but almost. "What I want to know is what the hell you thought you were doing, ordering Vin to go ahead with his shot once I said no?"
Ezra tilted his head in arrogant challenge, his green eyes glittering with fire and temper. "My job, Mr. Larabee. You have finally managed to understand that a bullet will not kill me, have you not?" Ezra's tone made it quite clear that he wasn't sure Chris was capable of understanding that he should come in out of the rain, let alone something more complicated than that.
"I'm not as convinced of that as you are." Chris returned. Ezra didn't flinch, but Team Seven's leader was pretty sure that Ezra wasn't completely convinced of it either, anymore. Whatever Ezra - Loki- had done in absorbing Odin-King's bindings in order to escape from Asgard, it had changed his magic. Even once the geas had released, Ezra- Loki - had seemed to be more than just re-learning defenses which he'd once known. He seemed to have to learn new ones, and while he had been quite obviously pleasantly surprised at the greatness of some of his new powers - freezing time in the entire Four Corners area for a day and a half, for instance - in other ways he didn't seem to have the full measure of the stamina that he'd expected to regain. Or at least that was Chris's impression, and Josiah's and Vin's.
"And anyway," Chris continued, convinced that his first point had been made, "It was my call, Ezra. Not yours."
"It was the WRONG ONE." Ezra replied, ice in his voice and something colder, darker, and more dangerous than ice in his eyes. The wind howled louder, as if to remind Chris that it could freeze a man to death without effort or remorse.
"You don't get to make that decision." Chris replied quietly, calmly. In such a tone and with such fortitude a man might bargain with death, but Chris presumed to do more than just bargain. He was commanding the obedience of a being who had once walked this land thousands of years ago, guiding, beguiling, and tricking the ancient peoples who had once called these mountains home.
Ezra was quiet, not yielding the point, but the ice was quiet again, too. Not gone, but holding off, for now.
"You're not careful enough." Chris said more harshly, "Not with bystanders like that poor girl - who we did rescue today, in case you didn't understand that." That statement was true, and more than true. Ezra still didn't really give a damn for people who weren't 'his.' He'd gotten better - the people of the United States were Team Seven's to protect. Chris and the others believed that, so Ezra tried to remember it, too. It wasn't as if Ezra had been uncaring of the plight of the woman tied up behind him. He didn't set out to hurt those who were in no position to harm him or his. He took no joy in causing pain to those whom he did not hate, and he was not a being who hated easily. But that didn't mean that Ezra wouldn't destroy a world to protect those whom he did care about.
He'd almost done it once - only Thor and luck had stopped him. Ezra - Loki- had hated the frost giants. Hated them like he hated the parts of himself which were unlike Thor, unlike the other Aesir. The parts that were calculating and merciless. And more, he'd feared the Jotnar, for he knew his own heart, his own abilities. Ezra - Loki- knew that he could have destroyed Asguard many times over, if he'd chosen to. The existence of an entire planet of beings which he'd believed to have his same abilities and a burning hatred for Asgard - well, Ezra had decided to destroy Jotunheim, to prevent them from ever having the chance to attack Asguard again. And he'd decided usurp the rule of Asguard, deeming Odin to have been insufficiently ruthless to protect the Aesir, both for not having destroyed Jotunheim and for having not strangled Ezra - Loki - as an infant.
No, Ezra's judgment of acceptable risk and acceptable losses were far from sufficient. In fact, they were an avalanche shy of sane. But it was also true that Ezra was as much a threat to Ezra as he was to anyone else. And that bothered Chris. Bothered him a lot.
"As sure as it will snow tonight, you're not careful with yourself, either." Chris told Ezra, quiet but cutting. "And even if you were, it wouldn't matter, because - better take note of this, Ezra - YOU ARE NOT IN CHARGE. I AM." Now Chris was yelling again. But Ezra had backed down.
"You are our leader." Ezra agreed, reluctant but resigned.
Chris just nodded in recognition, partially satisfied.They'd never had to actually discuss it, but if there ever came a day when Ezra wouldn't accept Chris's command, he'd have to leave. Chris knew that some of the others, J.D. and Nathan especially, worried that a day would come when Ezra would challenge Chris's authority and not back down. Either that, or just walk away and disappear. Chris didn't much worry about that - he'd cross that bridge if the day came. He had a feeling that it wouldn't. Ezra had been with them a year before anyone but Josiah and J.D. had realized that he was Loki, and he'd stayed. Ezra let Chris tell him what to do. He didn't always listen, but he let Chris make the calls. Or at least let Chris set the consequences if Ezra defied him.
Now, why it was that Ezra consented to be under Chris's command, why he let Chris and even sometimes Buck and the others tell him what to do - that Chris really didn't know. He thought it maybe had to do with Ezra - Loki - desperately needing to feel understood, appreciated. A part of something, and not kept outside the circle by the differences inside himself that he couldn't help. Ezra was ruthless and manipulative. But even when Ezra's impulses were monstrous, he most often chose to deny them, or to at least use them to protect rather than harm. The way that Chris saw it, a man couldn't help what he felt, only what he did. Mostly, what Ezra actually did - and even more often, why he did it- were honorable. Even Nathan had learned to appreciate that someone could pretend to be bad, even do bad things, and still be a good man.
Someone had told a much younger Ezra - Loki - that he was a bad person, and Loki had believed it. Chris wished, sometimes, that he could go back in time and let Josiah loose on whoever it was who had told a child Loki that he was bad for lacking natural empathy, instead of trying to teach Loki to understand that other people could hurt, too. It was the same anger Chris had felt when he'd found himself commanding young men in the army who were convinced that they were dumb, good for nothing but brawling. Chris had been able to persuade a few of them otherwise, to see their potential and pull it out. Some of that he'd learned from Buck, who had been one of his first non-commissioned officers after Chris had graduated from West Point.
Even though Ezra believed that he was bad, believed that something inside of him was wrong, Ezra - Loki - still tried to protect the people and worlds he cared about, no matter what he had to do to achieve that goal. Chris respected the hell out of that, even when he had to rein the norse god in.
His past experience in the army and his respect for Ezra helped Chris to know that it was time to soften his tone, to leave off the rest of his lecture and trust that someone more tactful (Buck or Nathan), or someone with a better understanding of Ezra's twisty mind (Josiah or Vin), could take up explaining better what exactly had been wrong with Ezra's decisions today.
So Chris sent Ezra off to muck out his stables, trying to decide how many weeks of scut-work he should have their normal undercover agent do around the office in his spare time. But before Ezra left, Chris grabbed his right shoulder and squeezed.
"Other than trying to end-run around me, Ezra, you did good today."
Ezra looked surprised for less than half a second. Then he smiled sardonically, "Your sports analogies are both tired and trite, Chris."
'I like you too, Ezra.' Chris thought to himself. Aloud he only said, "Go on, git," and gave the trickster god a not-so-gentle shove in the direction of the barn.
Chris's memories of earlier that day were interrupted by a loud, "Whew, nice catch, pretty boy," from Buck, directed at the opposing team's quarterback. Normally watching the game with his team was more contentious, but without Ezra to make trouble for trouble's sake and J.D. to insist that whatever play had just been made, the Patriots could do it better, the evening was much quieter.
J.D. had been sent out to join Ezra in mucking out the stable. Apparently, he'd forgotten to check around a wall before rounding it during the busted op earlier that day. Buck, instead of having it put in J.D.'s official file, had opted to have him share whatever ended up coming Ezra's way. Chris thought that was probably a good idea. Exposure to J.D. seemed to help with improving Eza's moral compass and confidence in himself as a good person, and spending time with Ezra seemed to help J.D. learn how to evaluate a situation more carefully.
Chris did feel a little bad for their two prodigal sons, but not too bad. The barn was heated, and they were together. They should be finished soon enough, even including time to groom the horses and cozen their own mounts.
A breaking announcement interrupted the game. A terrorist organization had sent a fleet of killer robots to immobilize New York, and the Avengers had been assembled to fight them. A fight that was, according to the newscaster, getting rather dirty.
Chris was changing the channel from the game to the news even as Buck ducked out to get Ezra. Ezra simply appeared in Chris's den a half-second later, snow flakes still caught in his dark hair. He smelled of horse and sweat, incongruent for the normally immaculately groomed agent. But what struck Chris were those green eyes, soft and strained with worry as Thor fell under a pile of murderous robots. The air around them turned cold, frigid. Even more cold than before Ezra would teleport himself and one of them someplace elsewhere. Chris tensed.
"No, son." Josiah said quietly, putting a large, warm hand down on Ezra's shoulder, "Even if you could reach him, you might well be in no condition to aid him once you got there."
"Yeah, Ez." Vin agreed, "Last time you sent yourself to the top of a mountain, you collapsed there and we had to carry you to the standoff."
Thor erupted out from under the pile of robots, bleeding but roaring with victory. Captain America came to his aid. Ironman figured out a way to reprogram all the robots to dance the conga instead of murder and destroy. Chris changed the channel back to the game. Ezra just kept standing there, behind the couch, looking lost and young. He reminded Chris of the tough young men he'd seen in the army, all of their formidable defenses wiped away when they got a call from home that their mother was sick.
"C'mon, Slither." Buck said, collecting Ezra with an arm around his shoulder, "You need a bath, and then a lot of beer." Chris listened as their footsteps disappeared in the direction of the master bathroom.
The game played on. Chris's quarterback threw an eighty yard touchdown. Nathan's defenders sacked him in the next play. The game went to commercial, and Chris changed the channel back to the news. Thor was graciously thanking the EMTs for binding up his wounds, and then bounding off with glad cries that their victory must be celebrated most grandly. In short, he was fine, and as opposite from Ezra as anyone could be, except for being similarly impervious to pain.
"Just because a man's family doesn't understand him or appreciate him, doesn't mean they don't love him." Josiah said softly. "I think that our trickster has trouble with that."
"Ezra-Loki does, or Thor does?" Vin asked.
"Both, probably." Chris opined, switching back to the game. Nathan and Ezra's team were making a come-back. Chris really didn't like their offensive line.
J.D. rejoined them, cheerful and a little earthy. He plopped down between Josiah and Nathan, and immediately said, "Tom Brady could have connected with that receiver." And then, "The Patriots' defense could have stopped that play." Vin's eyes danced, and he took turns insulting Nathan's Team and then Chris's." After one too many paeans to the Patriots from J.D., Vin tackled him off the couch and tickled him breathless. J.D. watched the rest of the game on the living room floor with Vin sitting on top of him. Josiah and Nathan just ignored the antics of the younger two agents, idly pushing Vin's legs or J.D.'s out of the way when they came to close.
Ezra reappeared, hair wet. He was clad in his own silk pajama pants and an old sweatshirt of Chris's. Buck trailed behind him, gently teasing the undercover agent about wearing the other team's colors.
The game ended. Chris's team had lost, but he still had hopes for the play-offs. And bigger things to worry about.
"We're going camping tomorrow." Chris announced, brooking no disagreement.
He wouldn't meet any from Vin or J.D., both of whom loved the outside and didn't mind winter camping.
Buck, who'd probably had a date, just sighed.
Ezra himself was uncharacteristically silent, his eyes downcast.
"What about the snow?" Asked Nathan, hoping that Chris might come to his senses.
"The snow and ice will be good for our spirits." Said Josiah, meeting Chris's eyes and nodding faintly.
All of Ezra's powers worked better in the cold. If their undercover agent and brother was going to be teleporting himself to New York to protect his brother and a group of super-powered heroes who hated Ezra-Loki's guts, then Chris was determined to make Ezra figure out what he really could, and couldn't, do. Because Chris had seen the look in Ezra's eyes when Thor went down. Ezra might have trouble understanding his brother or appreciating him, but he still loved his brother. And when someone Ezra cared about was in danger, there was no telling what their trickster god might do.