Chapter 3
It was strange to hear Loki’s side of his invasion of Earth. As devastating and unheard-of as the event had seemed to humans, to Loki it had been just one of many interplanetary battles. Asgardians, Steve supposed, did this sort of thing all the time. That put a bit of a new spin on Thor and Thor’s dad.
Steve had heard Thor explain how the Jotuns had once tried to conquer Earth, and had been prevented from doing so by Odin conquering their planet instead. Just as Germany under Hitler had tried to take over Earth, or Alexander the Great had succeeded in taking over as much of the Earth as he knew about. Conquering countries or conquering planets – it was only a matter of scale.
All of these conquerings had been accomplished by violence, by the deaths of innocents. That was the nature of war and conquest. The people who had the least say in the matter paid the highest prices, always. Young men fell in droves, non-combatants were mowed down too, and the people who had started it all – the only people who wanted it all – came out unscathed, as if it was just a game of chess to them.
Steve looked at Loki where he sat.
He didn’t look unscathed.
He was unhealthily pale. He was shaky, though he hid it well. He clutched at his water bottle as if his life depended on it. Under his multiple layers of clothing, he seemed much thinner than when Steve had last (physically) seen him. He looked haunted and starved and – changed. Scathed, if that was a real word. Definitely scathed.
Did that mean he wasn’t one of the ones who had had a say? He wasn’t one of the ones who had wanted all this?
“Had you ever thought of conquering Earth before you met Thanos?” Steve had to ask.
“This little backwater ball of dirt?” Loki scoffed. “Of course not. Anyway, I have a much better claim to Jotunheim.”
And yet, Loki had never attempted to conquer Jotunheim, Steve knew. Thor had told them all, with much clenching of his fists and crying into his beer, that Loki had tried to destroy Jotunheim, but never to actually rule it. If he had a legitimate claim to it, and he wanted to rule a planet, and he belonged to the species which was specifically adapted to life on Jotunheim – then why had he never tried to put himself on that throne?
And, according to Thor, Loki had actually been king of Asgard briefly. But it didn’t seem that he had attempted any conquering during his reign. As far as Steve had ever heard, Loki had just kept Asgard running approximately as it always had.
That was strange too. Dictators and tyrants and Fuhrers and Chairmen and Supreme Leaders usually had some kind of changes that they wanted to implement. For example, this Thanos person sounded like he had a plan, a reason for wanting power. But what did Loki want?
Steve thought back on his first encounter with the demigod; Loki commanding a crowd of people to kneel to him in Stuttgart, and all the things Loki had said about freedom. It had sounded like cheap propaganda to Steve at the time, and even then Loki had seemed like he was parroting something that he wasn’t the author of. Steve had plenty of experience with propaganda, and he knew that the people who wrote it were very often the people who believed it the least. The people who believed it the most were usually the angry, the fearful, and the foolish. And the people who spouted it most vehemently were often the people who were trying the hardest to convince themselves. The people who were caught by the short and curlies.
It might be very stupid. It might be very naïve. It might give Natasha and Clint a good laugh. But Steve believed Loki.
When the demigod went somehow even paler and giggled himself so light-headed that he had to rest his forehead on the metal table, Steve thought it was time to intervene. The Geneva Convention had very clear guidelines about the care and feeding of prisoners.
“Loki,” Steve said, feeling the cold, bony shoulder through several layers of fabric, “When was the last time you ate?”
Loki raised his head just enough to turn and look at Steve. A truly eerie grin spread over his face, though his eyes remained lightless and flat. “My last meal was such that eating no longer appeals to me.”
“Okay…” Steve persisted, because that didn’t actually answer the question, “And when was that?”
Loki screwed up his eyes in thought, “Oh, approximately two months before I came to Earth. It’s hard to be exact; my sense of time had been quite-”
Steve had to interrupt, “I’m sorry – did you just say you haven’t eaten in over two years? Anything?” He looked at Hill, who always seemed to have the necessary intel, “Is that possible?”
Loki wearily put his head back down.
“Our knowledge of the physiology of Frost Giants comes from what Vikings guessed or made up a thousand years ago, what we’ve gleaned from observing Loki, and from a very brief examination of one other specimen. There’s no way to know. However, I can tell you that Agent Barton reported that Loki did not eat or sleep at all during the time that Barton was with him.”
Loki had begun snickering again, very quietly.
“This isn’t funny, Loki,” Steve told him, “You’re in our custody, and your basic needs aren’t being met. It’s time for you to eat something.”
“I’ve told you already, I have no appetite.”
There was no way Steve was going to let a prisoner starve themselves on his watch. “No, that’s not acceptable. I don’t know anything about Jotuns, but -”
“Jotnar.”
“I’m sorry?”
Loki turned his head without raising it. “The plural of Jotun is Jotnar. And the people of Asgard are not ‘Asgardians’, but Aesir-”
Thank goodness for Natasha and her steel beartrap of a mind. Totally undistracted by semantic considerations, she broke in, “What was your last meal, Loki.”
Loki sat up and smiled charmingly. When his face was animated, it was easy to forget how pale and sickly and gaunt it was. Steve watched him, fascinated.
“Ahh, it was a delicious, succulent, rich and savory, perfectly-braised, well-seasoned shank from an unidentifiable beast. When I asked my captors what creature they could possibly have hunted - for they lived on bare rock in cold black space - they began to laugh. I invited them to explain the joke, but they declined. So, I carefully examined the bones of my meal and was able to identify the animal.” Here he began to laugh quite genially. “It was the right lower leg of a Jotun. The very limb they had taken from me three days before!”
He continued to laugh, like this was an amusing anecdote and he genuinely expected the others to join him in appreciating it. Nobody did. Steve felt a cold pit open in his stomach.
“Sir,” Hill said to Fury, “Maybe Dr. Levitt should be here, before we go any further.”
*****
They all waited in the adjoining observation room for Dr. Levitt.
Bruce broke the silence first. “So…what are we thinking? Are we believing him?” His question seemed to be directed at Natasha, who was after all their resident interrogation expert.
She shrugged, “He’s the god of lies. We’d have to be pretty stupid.”
“But he can’t lie all the time,” Bruce argued mildly, “That would be too predictable, not to mention pointless.”
“There’s such a thing as using the truth to tell a falsehood,” said Hill.
Natasha nodded, “I’d estimate we’re getting about a fifty-fifty mix.”
Fury didn’t turn from where he was glaring at Loki through the one-way mirror. “He’s using us for protection, I believe that much. He thinks we’re such a bunch of soft-hearted morons that he can come in here and say ‘I was tortured,’ and we’ll just act like the Battle of New York never happened.”
“But if he really was mind-controlled, then he’s as innocent of his crimes as Clint is,” Steve looked around, “And we’ve all agreed that Clint is.”
Fury finally turned around, to give Steve a very plain I’ve-found-the-soft-hearted-moron look. “If he was mind-controlled,” was all he said.
“No, listen,” Steve wasn’t giving up on this. He knew what his gut was telling him. “I remember the feeling of being around that scepter. Some of the stuff I said… well, I would never willingly speak that way to Tony, or any of you. The scepter dug out my lowest, ugliest thoughts and amplified them until they were my only thoughts. It brought out the worst in me, and we were only exposed to it for a few hours. And none of us even used it. I never even touched it. Imagine carrying it around for days on end. Even if nothing else he said is true, I know what that thing did to me.”
“Yeah, I remember it too,” agreed Bruce.
Natasha and Fury both nodded thoughtfully.
“We’ve just got to do this the hard way, I guess,” Bruce said wearily, “We’ll have to test each of his statements, as far as we’re able.”
Hill spoke up, “Thor will know if Jotnar can go years without food.”
“And regrow limbs,” Bruce added with a wince.
“And if Jarvis really is still alive somehow, he can tell us what he discovered that made Loki want him out of the Tower,” said Steve, hopefully.
Bruce frowned, trying to remember, “Tony said JARVIS said something about Loki’s PTSD triggers...”
“So we do think he has PTSD?” asked Hill.
Natasha shook her head, “None of us are qualified to diagnose that.”
It was just then that Dr. Levitt let herself into the observation room. She was a small, pointy-chinned old lady with a stylish salt-and-pepper bob and a pair of magnificent eyebrows.
“Whoops, am I late for the coffeeklatch?” she asked the group.
Fury gestured to the window into the other room, at the still figure there. “Loki,” he said by way of explanation.
Dr. Levitt let out a low, appreciative whistle. “Finally! A patient I can really sink my teeth into,” she held up a hand and glanced around at all of her other patients, “No offense intended.”
Steve just snorted. He didn’t mind being considered less crazy than Loki.
“He’s claiming not to have any magic right now, but if you don’t feel comfortable being alone in a room with him, Doctor, I’ll completely understand,” said Fury.
“What, are you kidding? I’ve waited my whole career for a mind like his. Let me at him.”
“Leona,” Fury said more quietly, “Don’t underestimate him.”
“Nicky, don’t underestimate me,” she replied cheerfully, and opened the door to the interrogation room. “Hello, darling!” they heard her greet Loki, before the door closed behind her and the sound was cut off. Dr. Levitt always insisted on confidentiality.
Steve stayed to watch, along with Fury and Bruce, but Hill and Romanoff apparently had more important things to do than brush up on their lip-reading.
As far as Steve could tell, Loki held a perfectly sane and calm conversation with Dr. Levitt. He smiled in a friendly-looking way at a few points, and after just five or ten minutes, the doctor came over to stick her head through the door.
“I’m bringing him out now. We’re going to the communal kitchen. You can take whatever security measures you see fit.”
“Leonaaa,” Fury nearly growled.
“What?” she put a hand on her hip, “There’s no point keeping him in a cell if he’s here voluntarily, and if he’s not, excuse me for bringing it up, but he’s escaped from everything you’ve ever locked him up in before. A person who can leave whenever they want is a guest, not a prisoner, Nicky, so mind your manners.”
Loki and Dr. Levitt led the way, arm in arm, to the largest of the kitchens in the Avengers living quarters, trailed by Steve and Bruce. Fury had left to go bark angrily into his comlink. Since there really was no better security that could be placed on Loki than Bruce, it didn’t seem there was much else that Fury could do.
In the kitchen, Dr. Levitt settled the three men onto stools at the large granite-topped island, and then turned to the fridge.
“We’re treating this like an experiment,” she said, evidently for Steve and Bruce’s benefit, since Loki already seemed to be aware of her plan. “We’ll try a bit of everything, to see what doesn’t remind Loki of… anything unpleasant. Everybody eats, so he knows it’s not poisoned.”
She leveled a stare at Steve and Bruce, until Steve said “Yes, ma’am,” and Bruce said, “Alright, sure.”
And so, one of the strangest meals of Steve’s life began. Everything got pulled out of the fridge – and a fridge that fed six Avengers turned out to hold a whole lot of everything. Kale, energy drinks, blueberries. Heavy cream, cold cuts, eight different kinds of cheese. Protein shakes in cans, four kinds of soda, an entire flourless chocolate torte. Lox, salami, Brussels sprouts, corn on the cob, raw ground beef, a log of chocolate chip cookie dough. Leftover Thai food, corn tortillas, a bottle of strawberry syrup. Raw eggs, hard-boiled eggs, a vacu-box of “vegan egg substitute.” Mystery tupperwares, string beans, half a cantaloupe. If the Tower hadn’t had a cleaning crew that came once a week and got rid of expired items, Steve suspected that this experiment might have put Loki off food permanently.
As it was, Loki evinced a mild curiosity about each item, picking up and handling and smelling some of them, but he showed no inclination to eat.
Even after Steve and Bruce began to dig in, Loki just watched until Dr. Levitt started to eat. She was still standing by the fridge, eating green tea Hagen Daaz straight from the carton.
“What is that?” Loki finally asked.
Half an hour later, Loki had discovered three things that he could bear to take slow, microscopic licks of: green tea Hagen Daaz, lemon yogurt, and lox. Thor’s protein shakes were also acceptable, but soda and energy drinks were condemned as “sickeningly sweet, clearly created with adult infants in mind,” and any meat product that wasn’t fish made Loki quickly avert his eyes.
Between every tentative lick, Steve noticed that Loki took a sip from his water bottle. When it began to get low, and Loki seemed to be taking smaller and smaller sips to make it last, Steve got up and brought him the filter pitcher and a clean glass.
“You’ll never run out of water here,” he was saying, when Loki suddenly straightened in alarm, staring through the glass wall behind Steve.
Bruce grunted, and Steve whipped around.
Tony, in his huge, horrible new suit was landing on the balcony, carrying a bundle of blankets in its arms.