Chapter 1
The Midgardians had surprised Loki.
He had more or less expected Captain Rogers to step in to keep him alive, if necessary, so that part had not surprised him. He knew that the mortal was carnally attracted to him (he had, after all, perused all of the Captain’s sketchbooks at his leisure) and had counted on the hero’s physical protection, at least until after Rogers got what he wanted, by which time Thor would hopefully have returned.
It was the other two who had astonished him.
Why would Banner stand up to his own shieldbrother that way? He was not attracted to Loki. And yet he had argued and threatened most convincingly. What benefit did he anticipate from having Loki as their prisoner? He was a scientist, perhaps he was merely eager for the vivisection that Rogers naively believed wouldn’t take place? Loki had never noticed Banner to be bloodthirsty, but if he for some reason thought that Loki’s body chemistry held a cure for his own affliction, might that be something that he would be willing to fight Stark over?
And then there was Stark himself. He had surprised Loki most of all. He had burst into their carrying-cell wearing an absolutely enormous suit of armor, thrown his own friend down a bottomless pit, spat some sort of viscous immobilization-goo at another, learned that Loki was in a weakened state, used one of his known fears against him, threatened, cursed, smashed things, and yet…and yet.
When he had held the flame close enough that Loki had heard his own hair sizzle, felt his skin tighten, fought down a scream, Stark had looked into Loki’s eyes – and Loki had seen fear in Stark’s. Fear and something like pleading. The thought that Loki had had at the time (and he tended to believe his own first impressions) was that Stark had been pleading for Loki to stop him, to fight back or make some miraculous escape. Could it be that Tony Stark, supposedly one of Midgard’s mightiest heroes, couldn’t kill an enemy in cold blood? Loki had tested the theory by offering no defense whatsoever (for, really, what else could he do?) and it had borne out. Stark had grasped gratefully at the timely excuse to leave when his Lady Amanuensis called.
Loki simply couldn’t understand it. Stark truly loved his electrical spirit, and he had genuinely believed that Loki had killed it. (Loki had been starting to believe so himself, since he couldn’t understand why Jarvis hadn’t contacted Stark already.) If someone killed Thor or Frigga, Loki would hunt that person to the end of the Realms, and when he found them no amount of defenselessness would save them. It was absurd to contemplate. He would have reveled in their pleas for mercy. He would have bathed in their blood, danced in their ashes, made garters from their skin and lute-strings from their intestines – all while what was left of them watched and howled. He had learned a number of tricks on Sanctuary.
Stark simply hadn’t had the stomach for it. Could all of Midgard’s heroes be equally soft-hearted? Was that, in fact, what made someone a hero on Midgard? Loki now recalled that he had seen even the Widow Woman, the most merciless of them all, stop and hold off once an enemy surrendered.
Then the secret to making it out of this alive would be to act as surrendered as possible.
Loki considered all of this as he faced Director Fury across the interrogation table. Ranged around the room, variously sitting and standing, were also Rogers, Banner, Romanoff, and a vaguely familiar woman whom Fury addressed as “Hill.” Barton was conspicuously absent.
“Alright, Mr. Laufeyson,” Fury began, already loud and belligerent, “You told Rogers and Banner that you want to trade information for protection. Before we get into your so-called ‘information,’ and what it might be worth, suppose you tell us just exactly what you want protection from?”
“Whom, Director,” Loki said, keeping his manner polite. “Has anyone informed Thor that I am here?”
“You let us worry about Thor,” Fury said, “And you just worry about answering my questions. Whom are you trying to get protection from?”
Loki thought about how to say this concisely. It seemed a given that they wouldn’t believe him the first time anyway, so he didn’t wish to waste his breath spinning a long tale. “In a far distant galaxy, in an asteroid field known as Sanctuary, there lives an individual named Thanos. I have heard some refer to him as a Titan, and I have no reason to doubt that he is one. For very stupid reasons of his own, he wishes to collect certain…gemstones of power. When he has all six, he intends a universal culling. He will not end all life, because that would also mean an end to death, which he worships. Some will be kept alive. I will be kept alive.”
Fury very plainly didn’t believe a word of this. “Sounds to me like you don’t need our protection, then.”
Loki fought valiantly, and fairly successfully, not to roll his eyes. “Allow me to give that statement a different emphasis: I will be kept alive.”
The Widow was quickest to catch on. “You’re talking about torture.”
“Actually, I would prefer not to,” Loki smiled tightly at her.
“So why does this Thanos character want to… ‘keep you alive’?” Fury asked with heavy humor, “You steal one of his rhinestones?”
“I was entrusted with one of the stones - the only one he had - and sent on a mission to get a second and bring it back to him. I didn’t know then that what he had given me was one of the stones. I was told merely that it was a powerful weapon. My mission was not successful. I was captured and my weapon taken, thereby losing Thanos his only stone.”
“Holy shit, he’s talking about his attack on Earth,” Banner whispered to Rogers.
“I was safe enough from his retribution, which I was assured would be both swift and slow, as long as Thanos had none of the stones. Both were sent to Asgard, and I thought that Odin would be an adequate guard on them.”
“Let me just be real clear about this,” Fury interrupted, “These stones you’re talking about – they’re the Glowstick of Destiny and the Tesseract?”
“Yes, congratulations Director, you have thus far followed my extremely simple narrative,” Loki said, and then winced internally. Come, Silvertongue, you’re supposed to be acting surrendered. He moderated his tone. “And there are four others, the whereabouts of which are unknown.”
“And this ‘Thanos’ just gave you one?” Hill scoffed, “Doesn’t know you very well, does he?”
“On the contrary, Agent Hill,” Loki told her, “He knows me very well. He knows me... inside and out.”
He paused to let his meaning soak in.
“Thanos gave me the stone because he believed that he had me under control. And so he did. The stones, you will have noticed, are both encased. The Space Stone in the Tesseract, and the Mind Stone in the object you call the Glowstick of Destiny. It would be death to touch them directly. The containers channel their power and make it usable. Thanos gave me the spear and told me it was a weapon. It is not. Or, I should say, it is not primarily a weapon.”
Loki stopped, knowing that he had them hooked enough at this point that someone would surely ask:
“So what is it?”
Fury himself. Loki smiled.
“It is a connection. It is intimately connected to Thanos, and through him, to one of his lieutenants. My…trainer. Thanos had the scepter made with one of his own bones as its core - his fibula I believe - and the stone that it holds is encased in a blown diamond bulb filled with a fluid containing what sorcerers call ‘answering atomies,’ the counterparts of which are in his own brain. In this way, the spear can communicate with him instantaneously across any distance.”
“Oh my God,” Banner interrupted, “Are you talking about entangled particles?”
Loki filed away the terminology, but didn’t bother to address the question. “The scepter can affect people by its mere proximity, as you yourselves learned aboard your flying fortress, but it truly sinks its claws in when you begin to use it. Thanos designed it that way. Every person you kill with it adds a strand to the rope that binds you to Thanos’s will, and every person you, shall we say, convert with it, well, that adds a chain.”
Loki didn’t dwell too much on this. For one thing, he didn’t want to play the victim-of-mind-control card too early or too hard, for fear of being reflexively disbelieved. For another, he genuinely wasn’t sure how true it was.
But the Widow was quick, “You’re saying you were a puppet? You didn’t want to do the things you did?” she asked skeptically.
Loki thought it best to employ honesty here, “I don’t know. I don’t know which of my wants were mine and which were his. That is what being bound to someone’s will means.”
“Had you ever thought of conquering Earth before you met Thanos?” Captain Rogers asked.
The idea was actually laughable. “This little backwater ball of dirt?” Loki snorted. “Of course not. Anyway, I have a much better claim to Jotunheim.”
“If Earth is such a backwater,” said Fury, leaning in, “why are you still here? According to Thor, you can teleport yourself to other planets. Why not go to Jotunheim, then, or literally anywhere besides my planet?”
Loki didn’t bother to correct the human’s misconception of world-walking. He paused judiciously, to make it seem as if he didn’t want to admit what he was about to say. “Thanos made a true effort to invade and conquer your world. He set his ablest allies and his most potent weapon to the task. And you repelled him.” He put on a chagrinned expression. “It would seem that Midgardians are not to be underestimated.” Everyone, in Loki’s experience, relished reluctant flattery.
“So you stuck around on Earth because you think it’s the safest place to be?” Fury asked incredulously, “You do understand that most Earthlings would be happy to kill you?”
“I wanted to be near the only people with a proven history of thwarting Thanos’s efforts,” Loki told him coolly. “Though you don’t see it yet, our goals are the same. We are allies.”
“Oh my God,” said Hill, rolling her eyes so hard that her whole head moved.
“Is that why you’ve been living in Avengers Tower?” Rogers asked quietly.
Everyone stood or sat a little straighter.
“It’s not entirely accurate to say that I’ve been living in the Tower,” Loki replied carefully, “The technically ‘living’ part of myself has been almost exclusively elsewhere.”
“You know what I mean,” the Captain said, “I’ve seen you around.”
The Widow looked at Rogers sharply. “So have I.”
Loki sighed, “Yes, both of you seem to have some weak, untutored elements of spirit-sight. It’s not unheard of in Midgardians.”
Rogers looked stunned, but Romanoff was not to be distracted.
Fury was irate. “And neither of you saw fit to report this!?”
“There was nothing to report,” Rogers said, “I kind of thought I was imagining it. I didn’t see him with my eyes.”
“More to the point,” said the Widow, turning back to Loki, “How long have you been spying on us?”
Loki thought about it, very quickly, and decided that there was nothing to be gained by lying. In this instance. “I have been in Avengers Tower more or less continuously for the past year and one month.” He didn’t mention that he had visited quite often during the six months before that, too.
A very gratifying chorus of outraged gasps rose from every throat. Except Fury’s. He just pinched the bridge of his nose and bowed his head. As he should. The spymaster out-spied.
“That’s how you knew that JARVIS was telling your secrets to Tony?” Banner said, his eyebrows high. Then they rose even further. “Oh my God, and is that how you watched Law and Order: Criminal Intent? With me?”
Loki chose to answer only the first question. “Yes. In fact, I’m surprised Stark didn’t tell any of you what JARVIS told him. JARVIS spoke of ‘astral projection’…?”
“Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but Tony’s been kind of out of his mind with grief ever since he thought JARVIS was dead,” Banner said angrily.
Fury was glaring at Romanoff, “This is exactly why I wanted you to pump Tony at the earliest opportunity,” he gritted out between clenched teeth.
The Widow only shrugged, “He had the lab completely cut off. I told you I could break in, and you said, and I quote, ‘Leave it for now’.”
“Am I understanding this?” asked Rogers, “Your…spirit…has been in the Tower with us. But where has your body been?”
“That is really none of your business, Captain,” said Loki, who thought he might like to have that bolt-hole in reserve, “It’s here now.” He gestured down at his scrawny, unwashed, unglamoured form, clad in distinctly Midgardian attire.
“You say you’ve been in the Tower continuously,” Romanoff said, “How is that possible if your body was somewhere else. Astral projection can’t be maintained indefinitely. I’ve never heard of anyone doing it for more than two hours at a time.”
“Wait - you’ve heard of this!?” Banner squawked, seemingly more put out than when he’d learned about his invisible saga-watching companion.
Romanoff glanced at him, and then at Fury. “The Soviets were pretty into it for awhile. Its practical applications were found to be… limited. They don’t use it much anymore.”
“Much!?” Banner couldn’t get over this. Loki remembered that Stark had been similarly appalled to learn about the reality of so-called ‘astral projection’ from JARVIS. For scientists, they were rather close-minded, he thought.
“Being a great sorcerer,” Loki told them, “I can hold a separated spirit-form for as long as twelve hours under normal circumstances. Of course, within the confines of Avengers Tower, my spirit-body is stabilized indefinitely, due to the Ancient Law of Hospitality.”
“Hospitality?” scoffed Hill, “Don’t let Stark hear you say that.”
Loki narrowed his eyes, “But it was Stark who laid the binding in the first place. As it would have to be, since the Tower is his.” He looked around at their puzzled faces. “Do they not teach you of the Ancient Laws in Midgardian schools?”
Blank looks answered him.
Loki had to laugh. “And here I thought Stark had just unaccountably forgotten! It turns out he truly never knew?” No one seemed inclined to join in his laughter, so he explained, “Stark offered me a drink. Here. In his home.” They stared at him. “I later accepted his offer. He poured the drink with his own hand, gave it to me, and I drank it. You all witnessed it. He made me a member of this household. And the inclusion was never rescinded.”
Loki snickered until he felt dizzy and had to put his head down.
Having finished laughing, he found that he had neither the strength nor the will to lift his head.
A large, warm hand laid itself on his back.
“Loki?” asked Rogers gently, “When’s the last time you ate?”