Chapter 12
Alarms wake Loki up. His wound has mostly healed — more a dull ache than anything else. It strikes him as odd that they allowed him to use seidr to heal himself, but he wasn’t exactly going to argue against it.
He’s in cuffs still, keeping him on the table. They’re not suppressing his magic — they had bet on him being too weak to use his seidr for anything but healing, and they were right — just keeping him in place.
The alarm hasn’t stopped and Loki’s head is throbbing.
“Could the alarm be silenced, spirit?” Loki asks. (Loki knows the spirit’s name is FRIDAY, and that it isn’t really a spirit. But he thinks it’s funny.)
“I’m sorry,” FRIDAY says. “I have been hacked and the alarm is part of my coding.”
“Could you get one of the Avengers to override it, then?” Loki asks. He wants to go back to sleep but it is seeming less likely by the minute.
“I’m afraid all of the Avengers in the building have been compromised,” FRIDAY says.
Loki’s voice breaks. “Is Thor okay?”
“My cameras place him in the living room,” FRIDAY says. “He seems to be unconscious.”
Loki struggles against the cuffs holding him to the table. “Could you get me out of these cuffs?” Loki asks. From what he’s seen, this spirit seems to control most of the Midgardian’s strange technology.
“My programming informs me that I cannot release you unless you are in imminent danger.”
Loki shakes his head, trying uselessly to wriggle out of the cuffs. “Do you have protocol for when everyone who is supposed to help is compromised?”
“Contact the other Avengers or various personnel. But it appears that my network is down.”
“Then let me out of these cuffs. I can make sure everyone’s safe.” Loki can, and he will. But by the norns does he also want to feel the safety of cold steel in his hands, wind behind his back. “Also, I would argue that I’m in imminent danger, seeing as the Avengers are down and I’m chained to a table.”
“My programming might allow that.” FRIDAY hums. “Alright, Loki Odinson. The cuffs are disabled.”
Loki sits up, fighting back the wave of nausea. “Thank you, FRIDAY,” Loki says. “Please remind me not to get shot again.”
“Good luck, Odinson” is all the spirit says in response. Loki hops off the bed, bare feet against the tile, and runs.
As Loki runs, he flicks his wrists. His daggers spring into his hands — the cold metal grounding him. That’s the most seidr he can spare at the moment. He needs to conserve his energy, keep from ripping his newly-healing wound open, and find Thor.
By the Norns, he hopes Thor is okay. Thor is a menace and an oaf and a horrible brother — but he’s Loki’s horrible brother. And because Loki is a fool, he loves Thor.
There’s a man standing in the hallway. A man with a stringy long hair and a metal arm and a muzzle covering most of his face and a large gun — gun is what Thor called the weapon Lady Natasha carried, right? — held in his hand. There is blood on his shoes.
Loki grips his knives tighter. If he were at full power, he could confuse the man — make doubles out of illusions, use his “cowardly tricks” to take him down. As it is, Loki hopes he’s agile enough to survive this. If he could find and free Thor’s friends, they might be able to help. If, that little voice inside him asks, if they are even still alive. If Thor is even still alive. Loki shakes his head. They have to be alright, and Loki will free them. But until then, he seems to be on his own.
“I really must do everything myself,” Loki mutters. “Figures.”
The man hasn’t moved. He stares at Loki with cold blue eyes. “You are not a mission target.”
Loki cocks his head. “I should hope not. What was your mission?”
“The Asset cannot tell you his mission.” The man says.
“The Asset?” Loki repeats. “Are you not a person?”
The man — The Asset — twitches at that. Loki has an idea, and it’s a risky one, but who says that Thor’s the only one allowed to take stupid risks. Loki is alone and weak and has no backup — anything that isn’t fighting is worth a try.
“I am the Avenger’s prisoner,” Loki says, staying in the shadows. “There is no love lost between me and them. You would not still be here were your mission successful. What do you still need?”
The man — Loki feels odd calling him The Asset — shifts. He is not a normal soldier — Loki knows how people act when they’re following orders. And he knows what they look like when orders are all they have left, their only lifeline in a world they don’t understand. This man, he looks like neither. It’s not that he doesn’t seem like he wants to follow orders — it’s that it feels like there’s nothing there. No loyal soldier, no bloodthirsty fighter. He seems empty, deliberately hollowed out.
Loki has seen war. Loki has seen war many, many times. Loki has never seen anything like this.
“The Vision,” the man says and the name rings a faint bell. “I need to capture The Vision and use him to control the Avengers.”
Control? Loki remembers the strange discussion about infinity stones and other-Loki’s scepter and an android. The Avengers must be alive then, to be controlled. But with this man in the way, this empty soldier, Loki has no way to help them. To help Thor.
“The Vision does not live in the Tower anymore,” he says, walking slowly towards the man. His knives slide back up his sleeves, his hands up to indicate peace. “I have been here for nigh on a month and have not seen him.”
The man looks confused. Loki keeps his voice calm. “Do you have backup mission parameters?” He asks.
The man blinks at him. “The Asset must complete the mission. The Asset cannot fail.”
The man reminds Loki of the Destroyer. But the Destroyer is metal and magic, armor able to follow commands. This man is flesh and bone.
“You should go,” Loki says, taking a couple more steps forward in the shadows. He feels like he’s floating — breathing in that strange sense of calm before everything goes wrong, soon to be followed by shaking with adrenaline. Loki can worry about that later. “The mission cannot be completed today.”
The man shakes his head, like he’s trying to recalibrate himself. Loki does not feel pity often — pity means he can’t help with the problem, and therefore there is no reason to worry about it. He doesn’t pity starving children — he buys them food. He doesn’t pity fallen soldiers — he says the rites and hopes their souls make it to Valhalla. Loki pities this man.
“If I can’t complete the mission, I must neutralize the witnesses.” The man sounds shaky, desperate. Loki feels pity, yes, but he isn’t going to go down without a fight.
Loki stumbles into the man, ignoring the way the man’s body tenses. Throwing the man off balance and off guard, Loki wrenches the gun out of his grip and throws it. He still doesn’t have much of a chance, but it is somewhat better. He wants his seidr. He wants the feeling of power flooding through his veins. He wants his head to stop spinning.
It doesn’t matter what he wants. He has two daggers — he could summon more, but that is power he does not have right now. He has a smart tongue and a steady hand and the knowledge of how to kill a man.
Loki does not particularly want to kill a man.
He stabs his dagger towards the man’s ribs. The man deflects it with the metal arm. Loki slices and stabs and flits around the man, taking as many hits as he lands.
Then Loki makes a mistake. His side hurts and he’s tired and he stumbles. The man grabs his neck with the metal arm, picking him up and off the ground. Loki coughs and struggles and kicks. Loki is going to die. The emergency alarms are still blaring and Loki is so tired and the lights are flashing in his face and he just wants a goddamn nap.
“You’re just a kid.” The man says. His voice is still rough with disuse, cracking at the seams. But he sounds just a smidge closer to human. Loki doesn’t say anything. Loki can’t say anything, coughing and gasping as he is.
The man releases Loki onto the ground into a mess of sprawled limbs. Loki has the funny, faraway feeling that he is going to have to spend more time in the Med Bay. The man looks down at him.
“The Asset must reconsider the mission.” Loki can’t tell if the man is trying to convince himself or Loki of this. “The Asset received bad information. Nobody was home at the Tower.” The man sounds almost scared. “The Asset’s handlers will not be pleased.”
And then the man is gone. All Loki wants to do is sleep. Even lying on the floor to sleep wouldn’t be that bad, seeing as he isn’t chained down to it.
But he drags himself up. His body is on fire, and Loki can feel slick blood coating his left side.
He stumbles into the living room, eying the couches forlornly. No time for that now. The Avengers are tied up throughout the room in rather complicated knots. They’re all awake though, if a bit dazed. Everyone but Thor.
Loki is sure he’s a sight to behold. He’s still coughing up his lungs from almost being strangled to death and he’s trailing blood behind him. He also isn’t supposed to be out of the Med Bay, but when has Loki ever let rules stop him.
(The answer is very rarely. Unless those rules were instituted by his mother, because Loki firmly believes she i̶s̶ was the only other competent person on Asgard.)
Loki brings the daggers out from his sleeves. Steve and Tony watch him warily. Natasha and Clint look murderous. Bruce just looks tired. Loki agrees with Bruce in that respect, and cuts his ropes first.
Handing Bruce his other dagger, Loki rushes to Thor. Thor, who still isn’t awake and has red staining his hairline. Loki loves his brother. Loki hates his brother. Loki cannot let him die.
Logically, Loki thinks it likely that Thor will be fine (in part, because of that thick skull of his). But the calm from earlier is gone, replaced with shaking hands and shakier nerves. And because Loki is young and scared and really fucking tired, he channels magic he doesn’t have into healing Thor.
He hears shouting — at him, perhaps? — and the hum of his seidr in the air. The air around him sparkles green, Thor’s skin knits back together, and then everything goes black.
Far away, in an ill-equipped bunker that escaped the HYDRA’s decimation, the Winter Soldier repeats a question in his head. Am I a person?