Chapter 7
[New York, a year ago.]
"Seventy years," Steve says.
"Yes." Nick Fury sits across him, steepling his fingers. "America has changed, Mr. Rogers, during your absence. People are not what they used to be, nowadays."
He frowns at that. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that there has been a general decrease of what you call morally right behavior." Fury leans over to the table and takes a sip out of his glass tumbler. "The general amount of crime has risen exponentially in the past decade. This is not the America you know. You would do well to be careful."
"And you're not doing anything?" Steve demands. "You're just telling me this?"
"I am doing something," Fury says, sharp. "But I need you to understand the circumstances that we are in."
"What is there to understand?" Steve says, bringing himself back under a more rigid sense of control. "Help people. That's what everyone should do. We should all protect one another."
Fury gazes at him, face impassive. "Go out there, Captain," he finally says. "Help your fellow citizens and see for yourself."
"Gladly, sir," Steve says stiffly and walks out of the room.
Manhattan today is undeniably different from how Steve remembers it - where there had been people walking with their heads held up high, bursting with the confidence of being alive, people walking with their heads tucked down into their coats, nary a smile on their face or a light in their eyes, walking briskly but brusquely are to be found instead. The sky is still blue, the buildings are standing tall (and taller, Steve notes, as an frankly ugly building looms in the near horizon, with the word 'STARK' emblazoned across the very top) but its people are a muted colour.
Steve wonders if Fury had not told him, would he even notice?
He walks along and looks, instead choosing to immerse himself in memories of Bucky and Peggy, as painful it may be. Would Bucky approach that girl with a toothy smile, exuding charm? Would Peggy be affronted at today's America, the America of downtrodden lives and dreams?
He doesn't remember for long, because three streets down he walks into an alley where a man holds a pistol to a boy's head.
"Put the gun down," he calls out. The man turns to look at him, pressing the barrel of the pistol into the boy's head. His attire is a dark navy blue... A police officer, Steve realises. Was he interrupting something?
"Get out of here, lad," the man snarls. "This nigger here owes me my ten bucks."
"I din't take nothing!" The boy cries out. "I din't take nothing, promise!"
"Shut up," the officer bellows and whips the boy across the face with the pistol.
Steve sees red.
The officer finds his face pressed against the floor the next moment as Steve bears all of his weight onto the man. The pistol flies out of his hand and into the wall. "Now look here," he grits out. "You're an officer, aren't you supposed to help people?"
The man spits out a tooth. "Where have you been living, Antarctica?" he sneers.
"No," the boy suddenly says, and they both look up to see him aiming the pistol at the officer's head. His eyes are cold and hard as he releases the safety. "But you, you be living in hell now."
He shoots and the man beneath him slumps. Steve stares up at him, confusion marring his features, as the boy reloads his gun and aims again, this time for the centre of Steve's forehead. "Sorry, man," he says. "But you saw. So you die."
(Can he recover from a bullet to the head, he wonders.)
Someone shoots.
"You didn't have to kill him!" Steve yells. His hands shook despite his best efforts to control them as the man he will come to know as Phil Coulson returns his gun to his holster. "He was just a boy, for goodness' sake." The puddle of blood forming beneath his feet grows, the slightest movement causing his shoes to let out a sick squelching sound.
"On the contrary, Captain," Fury calls out as he strides down the alley. His black coat billows out as he walks. "He had to be killed."
Steve turns to him. "And who are you to decide that?"
"While we had our eye on the officer for some time now," Fury says calmly, "that boy has been involved in several murders, including his own parents'. He would have died anyway, through our own faulty law or a gang fight."
"Still," Steve protests, his fists clenching uselessly by his side.
"He would have shot you," Coulson interjects. "And you would have died, Mr. Rogers, serum or otherwise."
"This is America today, Captain," Fury says. His eye stares at Steve's own levelly. "Where anyone and everyone is both prey and predator. Law is a mockery, love is a joke. There's nothing out there but yourself to fight for."
"So who are you," Steve asks, once more.
"Nick Fury, director of SHIELD." Fury does not blink. "The largest assassination organisation in the world. We're recruiting you."
"Why should I join you?" Steve counters.
"Because if you take out the right people, the corrupt people," and here Fury's lips quirk up into a wry smile. "Then maybe America can move into the right direction again."
Steve considers.
(I'm in.)
[New York, today]
The moment the elevator doors slide open Loki is hit with nostalgia like a punch to his gut. Thor's floor is decorated with gold and marble, almost reminiscent of Asgard itself; and if Loki imagines he can see, just in the distance, the Allfather and Frigga at the throne.
Perhaps Stark has planned for this. He moves gingerly out of the elevator, every shimmer of gold leaving a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.
"Mr. Odinson," Jarvis calls out. Loki narrows his eyes in confusion. "Loki has arrived."
"Brother!" Thor's voice calls out joyously, and Thor himself appears soon after. He is clad in a tunic that looks eerily similar to the ones he left in Asgard, save for some minute inaccuracies that he would overlook. "I had only heard of the good news a few minutes ago. Come, let me look at you." He strides over to Loki, his hand landing on his shoulder and squeezing heavily. "You are as thin as a bird! Does Osborn starve both his friends and his foes?"
"On the other hand, Midgardian food is just not as nourishing as our own," Loki finally replies. "Thor. Aren't you wary of me? I could attack you."
At that, Thor laughs. "You are my brother, Loki, and I know you well. You have nothing to gain from attacking me now; besides, you are here of your own free will." He tugs Loki along into what seems to be a kitchen, staffed by some humans that immediately look down upon Thor's entrance. "You had me worried, brother, but I am glad you finally understand my actions. I should have let Tony talk to you from the very beginning."
What, Loki thinks, but holds his tongue. Thor keeps on talking. "I had not realised that you were negotiating with Tony - had I known, I would have joined in the affairs." He brusquely knocks a woman aside as he reaches for the cupboard overhead, whom Loki quickly catches before she falls. She looks up at him in alarm, before scurrying from the room.
Thor turns to him and offers him what Namor has shown him once - a Pop Tart - seemingly unaware of what had just happened. Loki takes it with a murmur of thanks. "So, Loki," Thor says. "How is Father?"
"How is Father?" Loki repeats. Thor nods at him, encouraging him - but all Loki sees is Odin looking down at him, ordering him to tell no one of his... curse and to bring Thor home, a worthy Thor home.
(A Jotun cannot sit on the throne of Asgard.)
He has not returned, since.
Thor repeats his name and Loki jerks back to the present. Thor looks expectant, almost wistful and Loki is reminded that Thor does not choose to stay.
"Father is," he says haltingly. "Father is hale and healthy. Mother misses you dearly, and thinks of you everyday. Sif and the Warriors Three train everyday, waiting to go on quests upon your return." The lies come easily, and Loki imagines some for his own - Sleipnir in his stable, grazing away. Hela within Helheim, awaiting his visits but not grudging him...
(... Fenrir within chains.)
Thor's expression mirrors Loki's own - nostalgia in its saddest form. He looks down at his Pop Tart and Loki looks away, giving him his privacy.
"Thor," Loki says, after some time (or more accurately, when Thor has demolished plenty of his stock of Pop Tarts). "Have you ever thought of going back?"
Thor frowns at him. "Surely you jest, brother," he says slowly, as if they were children of a millennium younger, the elder teaching the younger how the world truly works. "I am exiled. Father will not take me back, Mother cannot persuade him otherwise. Heimdall will not open the Brifost to me. I cannot return."
"I know," Loki says, just a tad impatient. "But the Allfather does everything for a reason (bitter taste in mouth, Frigga telling him, sorrow in her eyes), you cannot be exiled forever. You are heir to the throne, Thor, not a babe playing in the sandbox of mortals. You have to come home."
"Why are you not heir then, Loki?" Thor asks, lashing out in his confusion. "You are also in line to the throne. Father has no need for me with you." He stands up abruptly, towering over Loki and Loki stands up to face the fallen god head-on. "Tell me, Loki - had you not wished to be king? We were born kings, raised kings - "
"But I will not be king." Loki says, no, snaps tersely at his brother, his tight control over his emotions cracking. "I will not be king because you are the favoured son, Thor Odinson," because I am the second son, the unneeded son, Loki, son of Laufey, never an Odinson and because how dare Thor mock him by challenging him to take something that can never be his? Thor stares at him with shock and even more confusion at his words, and Loki takes a deep breath.
"Excuse me," he says, clipped, and ignores his brother as he turns and teleports away.
There's only so much that Loki can take.
He slips out of the tower and into the crowd of late-night Manhattan, navigating between the turf wars and hidden alleys. The spell of overlooked sights shimmers in a cloak around him, causing the mortals' eyes to simply slide over him, unnoticing, unheeding. He walks with purpose, safe in the knowledge that no one will stop him.
The park where he had first arrived on Midgard has not changed from that day, where Osborn had initially viewed him as a threat and much later an ally. The imprint of the Bifrost is also still present, pressed into the ground, its intricate design sprawling across the circle enclosing it within. Several pieces of vandalism are also there, a new addition to the ancient designs (your helmet is gay, aliens aren't real dumbfag, mortals), pieces that he cleans off with a flourish of his hand.
He steps into the centre of the circle and looks up. "Heimdall," he says softly. "Open the Bifrost."
He waits for the sky to split open. He waits for the bright flash of light, for the rainbow bridge of Asgard to appear. He waits.
He waits for too long.
"Heimdall," he calls out again, louder. The Gatekeeper of Asgard sees all, hears all, and is ever-vigilant. It is impossible that he overlooks Loki. "Open the Bifrost."
A trace of panic and fear curls within his gut, and Loki tries to remember how to breathe.
"Heimdall!" he screams into the night. The mortals pass him by, the more perceptive ones staring briefly before the spell takes hold of them and they look away. "I know you see me, I know you hear me!" Don't ignore me. "Open the Bifrost!"
He shoots up a green spark, a red spark, and screams again for Heimdall. The sky remains a murky black.
(Odin, he finally says, his voice a hoarse whisper. The sun has yet to rise, painting the world a pale shade of blue. Allfather. Please, let me come home.)
The sky remains placid, and Loki falls to the ground, searching for warmth where there is none.