After (Avengers)
Loki accepted a short glass half-full of amber liquid from Iron Man and reclined against a broken piece of flooring, surveying his captors. Thor had set down Mjolnir and looked distressingly as though he would have happily lunged over his companions to give his brother a hug, had they been willing to let him. The red-haired assassin glared steadily at Loki, the heat banked behind her eyes a bloody promise of what she would love to do with him. Loki would have to remember that, he decided; she may well prove interesting in the future. The Captain had lowered his shield but not his defenses, clearly (and wisely) uncertain of Loki’s surrender. The monster still loomed, rage-filled, but calming; he would be gone soon. Behind him, Loki could hear the clink of glass as Stark poured himself a drink. Ever the thoughtful host, not to let his guest drink alone. And his Hawk still eyed him down the length of an arrow. Poison-tipped, Loki thought that one was. He would not want to take any chances now.
Loki took a sip from the glass - weak, compared to the brews of Asgard, but not as poor as he’d feared - and smiled up at him. “I have surrendered, you know. And you cannot hold that bow drawn forever. Are you sure you wish to stay like that, mortal?”
His Hawk did not so much as blink, nor did any muscle in his arms quiver. “Yup.”
“Hawkeye will not harm you,” Thor said reassuringly, but Loki noticed that his Hawk ignored Thor’s statement completely. Thor had always thought the best of his companions, no matter how ill advised. Loki decided not to test his Hawk’s resolve, and stayed where he was.
Loki turned his gaze to the Captain, but before Loki could taunt him with the obvious question, Stark stole the very words from his mouth.
“So. What do we do now?” The clunk of metal on stone heralded his return to the group. Loki turned his head just slightly to see Stark standing with his faceplate up, his drink already half-finished. Loki toasted him with his own glass, and Stark, quirking one eyebrow, returned the gesture.
The Captain looked surprised. “What do you mean?”
“I will bring my brother back to Asgard, where he will face the judgment of our father.” Thor stared at Loki, daring him to challenge this declaration of their kinship.
“Your father,” Loki obliged him, but he added a small smile. Thor frowned back at him, and Loki had to resist the urge to laugh. It was too easy, but that was no reason to stop.
There was no shame in this defeat. Loki had never been ashamed of being defeated by Thor alone in battle, never mind by Thor and five companions who, it had to be admitted, were a remarkably capable team. And now, as predicted, Thor would take him to the Allfather, there would be some shouting and some accusations, but neither the Chitauri nor the Other who had commanded them would be able to breach Asgard’s gates, and Loki would have some time to plan his next move. Whatever punishment the Allfather deemed appropriate, it would not be severe. Loki had committed no crimes on Asgard or her citizens, and he was at any rate still under his brother’s protection.
There would be no apologies. But then, there never were.
“Okay, hold it there, Fabio,” Stark said, gesturing with his glass in Thor’s direction. “Where we come from, you get your punishment where you caused the damage. Unless we signed an extradition treaty with the alien gods while I wasn’t paying attention?” He looked around the room for support.
The assassin frowned at him. “What would we do with him, exactly?”
Stark shrugged, an awkward gesture in the suit. “Community service?”
“Hulk smash,” came a rumbled suggestion from the back of the room, and Loki’s fingers clenched around his glass. “You tried that already,” he said dryly, and smirked. “Still here.”
“Loki is a Prince of Asgard and will not be subjected to your mortal punishments,” Thor said, Mjolnir flying back into his hand in the thoughtless way it so often did when he was angered.
“Okay, that’s interesting,” Stark countered, “because it sounds to me like he’s been denying any relationship with you for a while, am I right?” He looked down at Loki, who held up his now-empty glass in a silent request for a refill. Stark ignored it. “Want to explain that?”
“Not particularly, no.”
Stark looked back at Thor, who was now nearly sparking with fury. “He is my brother, and my father’s son.”
Loki eyed Thor with interest. He had not forgotten that his question had never been answered: Loki did not know if Odin had told Thor of his true parentage. Thor certainly did not behave as if he knew. How like the Allfather, to keep his secrets close.
“You will not take him from me if I do not wish it.”
The Captain frowned at both of them, and then down at Loki. “And you’re going to let him take you back there?”
Loki schooled his expression into one of penitent agreeability which had always worked particularly well on Thor. “I will submit to whatever decision you come to between yourselves. I am your prisoner, am I not? Although,” he added, “I am not especially looking forward to whatever punishment the Allfather might deem fit for me.” Which was true, as far as it went.
“Allfather, what does that even mean?” Stark demanded, always ready to latch on to an irrelevant point when one was offered to him. Loki decided not to mention the figure he saw ascending the stairs and approaching the broad glass doors behind them.
“Odin is King of Asgard and rules over the Nine Realms,” Thor said grudgingly, as though reciting a lesson. “Therefore he is called Allfather, for he cares for all the people of the Realms as though they were his children.”
“Are we part of the Nine Realms?” Stark asked. “What am I saying, of course we are, or we wouldn’t have any idea who Odin is. Does Odin think he’s king of us?”
“Please do not tell me you’re talking to him,” said Director Fury, and Loki had the pleasure of watching the Avengers – Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Stark had quipped – jump like guilty schoolchildren. Well, most of them, at any rate. Hawkeye’s arrow never wavered.
“There’s an alien god who thinks he’s king of me,” Stark whined. Fury ignored him.
“Director Fury,” said Loki, “We must stop meeting under these circumstances.”
“You are going to shut up,” Fury told him, and produced a small black briefcase, a miniature of the one that had held the Tesseract. From it, he withdrew a vicious-looking metal contraption which took only a moment to make sense.
“No,” Loki said, but no one was listening to him.
“SHIELD has the facilities to hold him,” Fury started to say, and then the whole argument broke out again, louder and more enthusiastic than before. Loki rose to his feet, but Thor seized his arm possessively before he could even gain his balance. His Hawk, who had put down his bow when he rose to argue with Director Fury, seized his other arm, and when Loki tried to get a word in edgewise he found himself muzzled and bound.
When the disruption ended, Loki glared, mute and furious, from under Thor’s restraining hand on his shoulder, the Avengers had put down their arms, and Fury looked at all of them as if they were a group of unruly children he had somehow been given the responsibility of minding.
“As I was saying,” Fury said firmly, eyeing Thor, who responded only by closing his fingers more firmly around Loki’s shoulder, “SHIELD has the facilities to hold him, but only for a little while. Besides, the Mayor, the Governor, and the President have all let me know in no uncertain terms that they want Loki out of their respective city, state, and country as soon as possible. You can take him back first thing tomorrow morning.”
He turned his gaze on the rest of them. “Everyone else, if you don’t want to find yourself roped into cleanup duty in midtown, I expect you to make yourselves scarce. This means you, Rogers,” he said, before the Captain could argue. He glanced around the room one last time.
“And somebody get Dr. Banner some pants.”