Betrayed
Tony had to admit, it was wild seeing Loki like this. And Thor. They were nothing like they were during the battle of New York, all the high Shakespearean talk and dramatics. Now, they are almost silent as Thor holds his brother’s hands and Loki dissolves.
They’re not sure what set off the panic attack. Just that Tony had been talking to Loki and his expression had gone distant in a horrifyingly familiar way and his breath started to come short.
“Ah, hey, Thor, buddy.” It took Thor only a glance to see what was happening, guide Loki to the couch and sit on the coffee table in front of him. He grasped Loki’s hands between his own.
“It’s okay,” He says. “I’m here.” The panic really ripped through Loki then. He gasps for breath, tears streaming down his cheeks. Thor keeps his voice low and even, never letting go of his hands, even as his breath eases and he begins to calm. When it’s over, Loki drops his head to Thor’s chest and Thor rubs his bowed back. “That’s it, you’re alright. I’m here.”
Tony’s mouth feels very dry. He knows exactly how that feels.
There’s a split second of pity, of sympathy, but then a voice says what if it’s all an act and in his mind’s eye he can see Loki smirking and a great hole being torn in the sky.
He hardens himself and walks away.
The night they had appeared, Tony had been alone, except for Vision. He was alone a lot these days, Pepper busy traveling for the business, or avoiding him, whichever the case may be. Rhodey frequently didn’t feel up to making the trek out of the city. The Avengers compound was often remarkably quiet, emptied of its occupants.
As he has done for many nights before, he pours himself a glass of whiskey and wanders through the halls, trying not to think about You Know Who and their You Know What in the parking lot of You Know Where. Then Vision appears.
“I feel something…quite odd.” He has his hand on his head, just over the stone. “I think something is coming.” Tiny sparks travel across Vision’s hands just as FRIDAY says, “Boss, we’ve got incoming.” He suits up and flies to the impact site.
The grass is torn up, soil turning muddy in the damp weather. Unconscious, covered in blood, is Thor, laying flat on his back. Next to him, sits Loki, hands already on the back of his head in surrender.
“Please, Stark,” He says and his voice is broken. “You have to help us.”
“You must listen,” Loki cries. “Every moment we delay is another moment for the Titan to come closer, you must call the sorcerer-”
“Stephen Strange is a neurosurgeon,” Tony shouts back. “He has nothing to do with any of this, as I’ve told you half a dozen times, and I don’t really appreciate being shouted at in my own house.”
“Loki, calm yourself-”
“Thor, you know what will happen if we do not act against Thanos and quickly.” Loki looks to Tony. “He has an army, he has a ship and weapons and devices of destruction and torment you cannot even possibly imagine-”
“Yeah, I know, I saw it through the portal you opened to send in the Chitauri.”
Loki freezes at that. He leans forward abruptly, face very pale. “You’ve seen it then. Sanctuary.”
“If that’s what you called that giant-ass black ship, then yeah.”
Loki grabs his arm. “If you’ve seen it, you should know.” His eyes are filling with tears. “You still will not believe me, though you’ve seen the evidence with your own eyes, as you’ve seen it on our bodies, why, why will you not believe me?” Thor puts his hands on Loki’s waist then, drawing him away.
“Brother, go to my room.” Loki releases a sob. “Go. I’ll be there in a moment. It’s okay.” Thor kisses his temple and sends him on his way. Tony feels the roll of revulsion he always does when he watches any sort of physical affection between his friend and his once enemy.
“Thor, how am I supposed to believe him? This story is bull-”
“It is true, Stark, as I have been trying to explain to you for weeks. And I had told you, before, about the Infinity Stones, how odd it was that so many were appearing in such a short span of time-”
“I know, Thor. But I need more than your word to convince the government that Loki is trustworthy.” Thor scrubs a hand over his face, looking very tired.
“I am going to calm my brother. When I return, there is something we need to talk about.” When Thor is gone, Tony pulls up the footage from his bedroom. Loki paces back and forth, twisting his fingers together. When Thor enters, he stops his pacing and turns on Thor, pleading. They speak passionately for a while, arguing, then Thor lays a hand on Loki’s neck, cupping his jaw.
Tony thinks about how hard Loki’s grip had been on his arm. The edge of madness in his eyes. He thinks about other things, other dangers, and picks up the phone.
Loki came remarkably quietly, and Tony hadn’t been willing to shoot a surrendering criminal, even if he was an alien. They handcuff him to a table in the interrogation room Tony had thought the architects foolish for putting into the compound in the first place. He’s glad for it now. Tony watches first, on the camera feed. Loki appears to be sleeping, his head resting on his arms.
When Tony enters, he sits up, eyes wide.
“Is Thor…?”
“He’ll live. Pretty beat up though.” Loki rubs his cheek, the one with the rapidly healing burn, on his sleeve. “Want to tell me what happened? I thought you were supposed to be dead.”
Loki starts talking and doesn’t stop until he’s spun the most ridiculous tale of an older sister, running into the gladiator Hulk in the asshole of the universe, Noah’s Ark, and being recaptured by the guy who had sent Loki in the first place.
It’s complete bullshit.
“When he wakes, Thor will confirm all I have said,” Loki finishes. “And I swear, I’m telling the truth this time.”
“That is if Thor wakes up,” Tony says.
Loki freezes. “You-you said he would be fine.”
“I said he would live.”
“Let me see him. Please, Stark, I have a little magic left, I can heal him-”
“You’re not going anywhere near him, horns, not anytime soon.”
“Please.”
“No,” He says, and leaves Loki alone.
He acquiesces of course, more due to Thor’s begging than Loki’s, and lets the brothers see each other. They’d kept Loki in a cell at first, kept him handcuffed even when they brought him to see Thor, but eventually, Tony approves of letting him out of restraints. Allows him out of the cell, gives him his own room with express orders not to leave the compound.
Loki and Tony spend their time walking on eggshells around the other. Sometimes they collide and the results are usually cacophonous arguments.
“Enough!” Thor explodes at the climax of the biggest. “Enough, Stark!”
“Me?” Tony takes a step back. “What about him?” But he sees the protective way Thor lays a hand on the small of Loki’s back, pulls him away from Tony, like he’s the threat.
Another friend, choosing a criminal, a murderer, over him. Over his trust. Over their team. Tony feels it sharp and painful, like a hot knife to the gut.
When Thor returns from calming Loki down, he looks very serious. He sits down and is silent for a long while.
Tony had almost forgotten that Thor was a king. He’d never really acted like it in the old days. But something about his stature, something about the way he looks at Tony with his one eye, feels very authoritative now. Tony feels like can do nothing else but wait for Thor to break the silence.
“Tell me about what happened with Steve.”
“It’s a long story.”
“Start with the Accords, then.”
“Shit, is that what this is about? You know, you and Steve are two peas in a fucking pod with this. You have to take responsibility for your actions.”
“I understand that. What I fail to understand is why I should be held accountable by this…government body that I had no knowledge of, and has not been willing to negotiate with interested parties-”
“We can negotiate after, we can work with the Accords to create a more stable system. Actually protect people. You weren’t there, after Ultron. You left and didn’t see how fucked up we made an already fucked up country. People were suffering and dying, fucking starving in the streets because they suddenly didn’t have enough food. We did that. We destroyed their lives.” Thor flinches at that. “It’s time you were responsible for them.”
“I do understand. But what you are failing to grasp that I have other people who I am responsible for. I cannot-”
“Who? Your fucking megalomaniac younger brother? Yeah you are responsible for that, so you’re responsible for his actions too, and for making sure-”
“Not just Loki. My people are out there somewhere, what’s left of them, I have to provide them a home, a safe home, and to do that I need to know what I’m getting into. What? Did you think I was just going to sign them without argument?”
“117 other countries have, yes. They haven’t resisted what they understand is the right thing to do.”
“That means some countries haven’t signed.”
Tony blinks. “Sure, but-”
“Did you bother asking any of them why? From what I’ve been able to gather 117 is a majority, yes, but it’s not even close to a unanimous decision.”
“From what you-”
“Can you name any of the countries who didn’t sign? Did you read the dissenting opinion?”
Tony sputters. “Did you?”
“Yes.” Thor rises, going to stand before the window. “When it became clear I could not expect full transparency from you about these Accords, I went back to Norway.”
When Tony finally slips and mentions the Accords, Thor starts to research.
Tony’s face had screwed up, he’d glanced down, and said “Yeah, Cap and I aren’t really talking right now…we’ll talk more about this when you’re better, point break,” and Thor had started to ask around. He gathered information about these ‘Sokovia Accords,’ as much as he can without the Accords themselves, finds some news articles about a fight in an airport, and the wanted posters for half the Avengers. He filtered through the news results, finds more about the debate, mention of a dissent argument from a lawyer named Astrid Iversen.
He can’t access the actual Accords, or any of the other official documents. Tony’s got those pretty locked down, but he gathers some information and he’s ready to go.
He hates to leave Loki but he had to know more. They were stranded on this planet and his allies were splintered. He doesn’t know who to trust anymore, so he lies to Tony about going to see Jane for a few days, orders Loki to stay in his room and to call him at least twice a day, then gets on a plane to Oslo.
The air is cold but clean in the Norwegian capital. The seasons are just on the edge of changing, flurrying snowflakes falling on crisp orange leaves. Thor is waiting outside the government building, all glass and clean lines, when Loki makes one of his requisite calls.
“Are you staying out of Stark’s way?”
“I haven’t left my room, as you commanded, my king.” Loki only ever calls him that when he’s feeling particularly insubordinate. Thor smiles fondly. “I am getting abysmally bored. Have you found what you’re looking for yet?”
“Almost. Soon. I have a flight back tonight, I’ll have found it by then.”
“And then will you tell me what all of this is about?”
Thor smiles. “In good time, brother, in good time.” He sees her, crossing the square. Her hair is longer than the photograph, but it is the same straight brown hair, half pulled back from her face, clear blue eyes, and she is dressed almost the same, in a plain black suit and long wool coat. “I have to go. I’ll call you back.” He catches up to her just before she passes through security. “God morgen, Ms. Iversen.” She turns, and stops short.
“Oh.” Her eyes go wide with surprise. “You’ve cut your hair. And lost an eye. Since I last saw you on television, that is. It’s been a while.”
“I was wondering if I could speak with you.” She pauses.
“Why me?”
“I found mention of your work…on the Sokovia Accords.”
“Right. Right.” She sounds a little faint. “Let me just…I’ll clear my schedule. Grab some things from my office. There’s a cafe around the corner. I’ll meet you there.”
“Anything I can order you?”
“Just a black coffee.”
She is prompt, arriving at the cafe as soon as he’s gotten their drinks and found a table.
“So this is weird,” She says. “I’m not sure I ever got used to the whole ‘the old gods are real and oops they’re actually aliens’ and now you’re sitting across from me in a cafe. Thor bought me coffee. Thor read my dissenting opinion.”
“I haven’t actually read it. I haven’t managed to actually get a copy of the Accords, or your dissent.”
“Right. I figured. That’s why I brought them.” She pulls them out of her briefcase. “I figure you can read Norwegian…which…we’re speaking Norwegian right now so that would make sense.” He smiles at her.
“Yes, I read Norwegian very well, though my vocabulary might be a bit archaic.”
“Right…” She sounds faint again.
“I was joking. I apologize if I’ve made you uncomfortable, Ms. Iversen.”
“I think you should probably call me Astrid.”
“Sure. Astrid. I do apologize for springing this on you. I have reason to believe that the people I’m staying with are intentionally keeping me in the dark about these Accords, and I wish to hear your perspective on the matter. What led you to write the dissent, how you convinced Norway not to sign, that sort of thing.”
“Yes. You’ll understand more when you read them, I’m sure, but I can give you the main points of the dissent. To start off, I disliked the command structure of the body that would control the Avengers. It was too top heavy, not enough room for additional voices on the committee. It became clear that the Avengers could easily be used as a tool for the most powerful countries, essentially bound to the will of the United States and its strongest allies. I believe that was Steve Rogers’ main complaint as well. That organizations have agendas and they were not being particularly transparent about their intentions. From the recorded debates, he supports the idea that power is best left in the Avengers’ own hands, rather than surrendered to a government body that could easily be infected by HYDRA, for example. Or a government body that could choose to use the Avengers for immoral aims. I agreed with Tony Stark that there needed to be some form of accountability, but the system outlined in the Accords was far too corruptible.
“The main issue I had was with the dehumanizing language and the lack of transparency over punishments for transgressions. That’s what convinced the Storting that we shouldn’t sign this document. They refer to ‘Enhanced Individuals’ as if they were not citizens with their own rights. Anecdotally, several times Secretary Ross was overheard referring to Wanda Maximoff as a ‘weapon of mass destruction,’ and you and Dr. Banner as ‘nuclear warheads.’ Like, ‘I would be in trouble if I lost two nuclear warheads,’ like the Avengers lost you. That’s mostly gossip though, amongst the aids and lawyers. I can’t say for sure if it is true.”
Thor raises an eyebrow. “As if we were things to be lost, rather than people with our own things to do.”
“Exactly.” She flips a page in her dissent. “The other major concern was ‘the Raft,’ whatever that is. Well. I mean we know what it is, roughly. It’s where they proposed keeping ‘Enhanced Individuals’ that did not agree to their terms, or stepped out of bounds. They kept referring to it as a ‘secure facility’ but wouldn’t let anyone in to examine it. We were very concerned about the conditions there, especially since there was no additional oversight. It was clearly a prison and their secrecy was disturbing.
“I also tried to make sure there were appropriate protections on Section 14.3 ‘Studies and Trials.’ The wording in that section seems deliberately vague and they don’t set up any sort of connection to an appropriate medical ethics organization.” Thor flips through the Accords. “That’s my original copy, so you’ll see my notes in the margins. I worked in medical ethics before I started working for the Norwegian government, so I was particularly passionate about that clause. There are a dozen more legal reasons the Accords were invalid, in flagrant violation of international law and human rights, like forcing people to wear tracking devices, indefinite detention without legal representation or trial, but you can read about those in my notes. I’m sure you have questions.”
“Hm. Many. Probably few that you can answer. Unless you know where Steve Rogers is.”
“I do not. I can try and put out some feelers…see if he’ll respond. He’ll know that Norway didn’t sign the Accords, so I think I could get him to at least open a line of communication. He won’t be as suspicious as if it were coming from a country that did sign.”
“Do you know of anyone who has seen this Raft?”
“None have come forward.”
“And did they allow for negotiations?”
“There were some, behind closed doors. Once this document was created, it strongly seemed like they were unwilling to amend it. Every meeting I was in we argued in circles, and at the end it was a resolution to change nothing. They were deliberately spinning us in circles, like they already had their answer and they were just trying convince us of the right way.”
“And how did you resist this convincing? What made the others sign?”
“That’s a complicated question. I think there are many countries who were ideologically very pro-Accords, for various reasons. Then there are many who may have been concerned with the implications, but had too many economic ties or political concerns to say no. Or they thought we might have room to amend after they were signed, negotiate a better position once the Accords were confirmed. I disagreed with that sentiment. I think once the ink was dry on the page the Security Council would be in control and they would shut the rest of us out completely.” She takes a sip of her drink. “May I ask you some questions?”
“Of course, Astrid.”
“I have a lot.”
“That’s okay.”
She takes a deep breath. “Some are going to be off topic.”
“My flight back isn’t until tonight.”
“Where to start?” She wraps her fingers around a mug. “Where are you staying right now?”
“The Avengers compound, in upstate New York. With Tony Stark.”
“Ah, I guess that explains why you haven’t been provided the Accords. How did you get here? Why are you not on Asgard?”
“Asgard is gone.” It doesn’t sting to say it quite as much as it used to.
“Gone?”
“Yes. Ragnarök came and destroyed everything. There were survivors, we intended to rebuild but, well. I was recently separated from them, ended up back here, and I’m not sure what became of them.”
Astrid sits back in her chair. “I thought you were supposed to die in Ragnarök,” She says after a moment.
“Was I?”
“That’s what the stories said. All the old gods gone, so the cycle can start anew.”
“Well, most of them are gone, including Odin, so…”
“So that makes you…that makes you the king of Asgard.”
“…yes?” Astrid blinks.
“I’m just feeling like…like I probably shouldn’t be meeting with the king of Asgard in a cafe. I probably shouldn’t have made the king of Asgard buy me coffee.” Thor extends a placating hand and an easy smile.
“It’s really fine. I haven’t been feeling quite like a king lately. You have other questions?”
“There’s one I couldn’t stop thinking about once I knew, about all this.” Astrid gestures in his general direction. She takes a deep breath. “Why did you just leave the Tesseract here? Odin just brought it here and left it and…and the Nazis slaughtered all of Tønsberg to get to it. There was just an old man left to protect it. Why wouldn’t he tell us what it was, how dangerous it was? We could have protected it better, hidden it better. In the two weeks after the Nazis first began the invasion, we moved the entire government, the royal family, thousands of sensitive documents and artifacts from the capital. We could have gone for the Tesseract too, but we didn’t know.” Thor feels very tired all of a sudden. He sighs.
“I don’t know. Honestly, the older I get, the more I learn…the less I understand some of my father’s decisions. Why he just abandoned the Tesseract here, when he knew what it was…that’s one of them.”
“At least the gods have the same feelings of growing up and being disappointed by their parents as us mortals.”
They stayed in the coffeeshop until the early afternoon, going over some of the myths and the Accords, and various other things that had happened while he was gone. She leaves to go back to work, giving him her card with her email address and a promise to answer the phone if he calls.
“If you ever need a lawyer,” She winks.
Thor sits on a bench by the harbor and reads the Accords until he has to leave for the airport. He returns to the Avengers compound, makes something up about Jane for Tony, and keeps reading.
He’s not sure he likes the look of these Accords.
“You went behind my back. You couldn’t have just asked me?”
“Tony, I did! I asked you half a dozen times and you kept avoiding the conversation.”
“You were recovering-”
“You didn’t want to have discuss this, you didn’t want to face the truth of what you had done.”
Tony starts to pace. “What I had done? What I had done? I’m not the one who betrayed us, no, that was Steve. And now you. I’m not the one who threw away the team, threw away our ideals to side with murderers.”
“You know it’s more complicated than that-”
“Is it? Do you know what Steve did? His friend, the one he’d known since before the war, became a HYDRA assassin. He killed my mom. And Steve knew and he lied to my face because he didn’t want to face the consequences.”
“Tony, I’m sorry. I understand that pain, you know I do, I understand the desire for revenge-”
“And after all that shit. What was I supposed to do? Just…just let us keep running wild, keep fucking up the world in our crazed attempts to do good. I could see us for what we really were - dangerous. We’re a danger to the people we’re trying to protect. We’re mon-”
“Don’t. Don’t say that, we are not monsters.”
“We’re the boogeyman. People are afraid of us, and they’re right to be. Wanda has a bad day, and she can level a fucking city. She can kill people, with barely a thought.”
“That’s not her fault, Stark.”
“Well it’s sure as hell not the fault of all the aid workers she killed in Nigeria.”
“I understand where you’re coming from-”
“And how do we know that she’s not going to get her little world destroying impulse back? How do we know that Barnes won’t go back to killing, how do we know that Loki isn’t fucking with your head? They need to be watched, they need to be put in their places to protect-”
“Loki is not in my head! And how do we know that the people ‘watching’ us won’t make all of this worse?” Thor shakes his head. “This isn’t helpful. I just want to be included in these negotiations. I want to be informed, I want to be treated with the respect I deserve, as a king-”
“There is no negotiation with this, point break, you just get to decide whether you’re going to sign the Accords and get in line, or retire.”
“Retire?” Thor laughs. “What do you imagine that to look like? Binding our powers and shipping us off to some safehouse in the middle of nowhere? Tracking us, monitoring us? That’s not how it works.”
“We can now, you know. Bind people’s powers. It was completely absurd when they proposed it but once I got a look at what HYDRA had been doing in that base, I managed to figure it out. Used technology to beat magic. What a world. Maybe once we cut off your brother’s magic, whatever…spell or whatever will be lifted and you’ll see how ridiculous you’re being, under his thrall-”
“You will not touch him!” Thor shouts. “You will leave him alone, and we will discuss what terms I am amendable to.”
“Well, it’s too late for that,” Tony shouts back. “I won’t put up with this anymore. It’s too late.”
Thor steps back. “Too late? Stark, what have you done?”
“You know, I used to be just like you, you and Steve. Thought I knew better than everyone, thought that the government would never get their grubby little hands on my tech. And where did that get me? I made a weapon…worse than anything Stark Industries had ever done. A lot of people died. A lot of lives got ruined.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “You have to be held accountable, Thor, just like the rest of us. And if you won’t do it willingly, you’ll need to be controlled.” The color drains from Thor’s face.
“No. I am not a thing to be controlled, Stark.” Lightning sparks at his fingertips, traveling up and down his arms. “I won’t let you do this.”
“You don’t have a choice, buddy. The calvary’s on the way.” Tony readies the suit from the control tucked into a pocket. He activates it and the metal closes over him, just at the moment when the lightning strikes.
Bad move, he thinks as he hits the ground hard.
“Boss, we’ve lost power in the surge,” FRIDAY says.
“Reboot it.”
“Reboot in thirty seconds.”
Thor is already long gone when the suit reboots. Tony just hopes he is fast enough to stop another friend from doing something he can’t take back.