Chapter 2
It had become a new rule that he was to be dining with the Heroes whenever they were in the Tower. The new rule had to have been a result of the dear Captain's well-meaning efforts and Stark's arrogance. He could still remember the drunkard saying, "he is a prisoner, not our guest needing room service."
Sitting on the same table as Barton was as pleasant as pulling out his own nails. The assassin was not much better, always trying to get into his mind and to manipulate him, never realizing that of course, as someone a thousand years older than her, he had far too much experience to be her equal in anything.
Stark in the morning, without his coffee was a torture session Loki often wondered was the real reason for his presence at the table where the rest of those mortals thought 'If we have to suffer, so should you.' This thought always came along with the voice of the doctor for reasons he couldn't be sure of.
The doctor, for all of his faults in his other skin, when human, was the most bearable of them all. He didn't care about Loki in any kind of manner. Sometimes he sensed that his close proximity at the table made the man uncomfortable even, figures, he thought ironically.
What vexed and intrigued him in equal measures was the good old mortal fossil of patriotism, Captain Rogers. The man was too kind, too humble and moderately smart, and yet, he wished to be around Loki. The soldier actively sought him out, in his room, in the kitchen, in the common room where the bookshelves were. Often dragging him to sit beside him in front of the image box called television which never seemed to show anything of importance.
Though Loki would silently admit to himself, and seldom to the infernal man, that the movies had some good content to them. It was almost as good as reading a book, but not quite.
Slowly, surely, he started to grow used to the presence of the blonde around him. The silent company as pleasant as a walk in the gardens used to be. A relief from the noise inside.
Loki still worked on the knots and barriers placed upon his magic, of which are many, but he worked on them a little less. He spent most of his time with Steve, as the man insisted he be called, when he was not on his many missions.
The man perplexed him endlessly. He was almost the paragon of virtue and all things good and the propagandist rot that kings and politicians fed their people. And yet, he desired the company of a man who was nothing like himself. Loki on his best days was one step away from creating anarchy. The chaos of it was so beautiful and thrilling he could never help himself. But it was things like these that were part of his nature that should repel the good old captain but for whatever reason the mortal was doing this, he wasn't deterred in the slightest even by the deadliest of scowls on Loki's part.
"Oh, get on with it already" in such a petulant voice that Loki could never get over it.
Thinking and strategising was what Loki did best and the one most likely to follow after his own thought patterns was the woman, but she did her best to pretend that he didn't exist, as important to her as cutlery was to Asgardians. The whole thing confused and intrigued him in equal measure.
The only consolation Loki had for wasting precious time he could have spent cultivating his seidr was that the mortal was an extremely beautiful annoyance. Loki was aware that spending over a thousand years in the company of Asgardian warriors had left its marks on his psyche, one of which was that he found the blonde, muscular and blue-eyed man to be his ideal type of partner.
But while he was aware that he, Captain was intelligent, it wasn't the type of intelligence that Loki preferred. The man was too gullible and soft-hearted, as Loki's lover, he would not last past the month with his numerous enemies and the people he had annoyed or humiliated wanting retribution.
He refused to even acknowledge that he had even started considering the possibility of being lovers.
-
Today was one such day, where upon hearing the knocking of the door to his personal room or cell as he liked to call it, Loki was instantly aware that today was not a day of meditation or for any kind of seidr.
When a blond head peeked into the room after a moment, he was proven right. Over the past month, the Captain had repeatedly got himself injured on his numerous missions and whenever he healed, he came to see and spend time with Loki.
Were the two of them friends or in any kind of positive relationship, the gesture would have been very sweet, perhaps, but as it was, they were prisoner and warden and the action always annoyed Loki to no end.
He wanted to figure out this man!
Sighing, he got up himself, knowing full well by now that the man was very capable of dragging him out of the room by force if he was reluctant.
When greeted by the complete view of the man, he was made aware of the fact that he was once again injured, this time his arm was in a sling that on this man could only mean he had somehow broken it, "Again?"
By the sheepish expression he was answered with, he must have let his annoyance show. The man had no regard for his own safety, he thought grumpily.
"One would think, getting injured so often, you would learn to be cautious by now." Loki grumbled in similar fashion all the way to the common room with the big 'TV' in it. Loki had himself educated on a basic level on the workings of Midgard but he still had yet to find the use of the annoying source of noise and drama. He had witnessed some kind of meltdown on Stark's part about how the actor in the box wasn't supposed to die so soon. Accompanied with thrown popcorn.
Heathens, the lot of them. No wonder they were Thor's friends. Like calls to like, he supposed.
Today was a new movie that was represented by very badly drawn caricatures, how could the mortals stand to look at something that ugly was another thing that confused Loki, about a girl trapped in a tower that escaped with a thief to see candle lit lanterns in the capital of the state they lived in because they were released on the day of her birthday. The arrogance of humans was something that boggled his mind at every turn.
One of which being that they were the only beings in the universe, which was laughable when confronted with the fact that their space crafts were so puny in power that they couldn't reach even the outer orbit of the closest planet rocks, stars or anything at all.
The longer he watched the film, the more he was getting accustomed to seeing poorly drawn mortals, at least the candles were pretty and the horse was hilarious. He was going to retell this tale to Slephnir whenever he saw him next. He supposed that the art was similar to those found in children's books in Asgard.
The aspect of the movie that he could relate to was how he was being forced to accompany a very gullible and bull headed blonde to do whatever they wished. Both the blondes in question were similarly naïve and clueless about the workings of the world. The thought made him silently snicker and earn a weird look from his blonde.
When the duo managed to land themselves in the tavern, he had to say it, "you are very like the girl, charming people as you cover more land, Captain." His comment was a mere observation but for reasons he would guess later, the blonde blushed.
Somedays Loki thought when such things became of the Captain that he was acting like a maiden smitten with Thor, only he had replaced the Asgardian in the mortal's mind.
But such things were just baseless assumptions, or so he told himself.
He hoped his seidr would free itself soon and he could get away from the Tower filled with mortal nuisances and the blonde Captain that somehow always managed to annoy Loki with his constant sunny moods and good nature. And smiles; Loki didn't think he could forget about them at all.
-
These days the Captain didn't drag him out of the room when he came to Loki. Instead, he would come armed with his artistic materials and books he wished to read and small portraits he kept staring at. He would not trouble Loki with words or idle chatter as anyone else in the position would have.
The Captain was unusually quiet, and when he wasn't, it was just sounding frustrated that were marked by a rare show of frustration where he would tear up whatever he was working on in his art journal that always seemed to fill at a rapid pace.
Four days of this unusual routine and the man finally decided it was time to say whatever he wanted to say.
"I took down S.H.I.E.L.D. last week. All of my friends' life work and in the end, it was yet another cover for Hydra to use and hide behind." Steven looked ready to cry.
Loki personally didn't care at all if some secret mortal organization was hiding in the dark with some dark, nefarious purposes. He was never interested in things the mortals concerned themselves with. The mortals had some good things such as the internet which made acquiring information of any kind incredibly easy, and then there was the fact that Midgard seemed to respect scholars instead of brutes.
Even still, he had no love for anything on the rock of mortals and what they did to each other as long as the rock itself survived for it was the center point of the nine realms and hence important in the one regard.
Yet, despite it all, he found himself putting down the novel he was reading to get up and sit beside Steven. He was not a being who could comfort another. Neither had he ever been comforted by anyone else- except Mother, he thought.
Putting his arms around some one was a very difference when not trying to kill said man. He felt highly awkward and when Steven went stiff in his hold, he retreated, starting to stand up already thinking that this had been such a bad idea, when he was suddenly yanked back in a very muscular hold that was so strong, he struggled to breathe for a second.
"Don't go" the mumbled into his hair were so soft, he almost didn't hear them but then he decided, it was the right thing to do. Turning in the hold, he wrapped his arms around Steven again, this time he went limp against Loki with his head hiding in his neck and black hair.
Soon his skin grew damp and he held the mortal tighter, which was quite contradicting for any other mortal would have crumbled with Loki's strength in a heap of shattered bones. He started singing the lullaby he remembered Frigga sing to him when he would jolt awake in his bed with nightmares of shapeless beings.
"Hush now my story,
Close your eyes and sleep,
Waltzing the waves
Diving the deep
stars are shining bright
Wind is on the rise
Whispering words of Long-lost lullabies"
As he sang, he wondered if it always felt this good to be so close to another.
Neither of them noticed the lights as the dimmed or the blinds that slowly dropped and shadowed the room in darkness. Somehow, they both fell asleep this way, pressed close in a dark room with sad hearts.
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