Chapter Text
The thing about Loki was that, at times, Tony couldn't stop himself from thinking, Damn, he's cool .
Other times, his brain would randomly, without any permission to do so, also think, Damn, he's hot.
Both statements were accurate enough. They just weren't relevant or appropriate when the dude was constantly kicking their asses and laughing in their faces as he did.
For the longest time, the Avengers hadn't even known what the guy's issue with them was. It had literally been in his SHIELD threat file, the little field of Motive containing only the word Unknown . Knowing the guy as they did - which was to say, not a lot, but for him being an insufferable jerk- Tony was sure Loki would have found that hilarious, and that only made it more irritating.
There were actually a lot of Unknown mentions in that file. Exploitable weaknesses unknown. Age unknown. The Abilities column contained a little asterisk warning that the full extent of the tall bastard's powers was also unknown . Heck, after a long talk with Thor, Coulson had actually sighed and edited the Gender field to variable – preference unknown. What they did know didn't necessarily make more sense: when informed that Loki's body temperature appeared to be gravitating around 65°F, Thor had simply stared at them for a long time and then gone “Uh”.
Given the guy was their best source of information, it probably was no wonder that Loki kept pulling tricks out of his sleeves and countering their every move with ease.
Because, yeah, Thor knew the guy. In a way.
“But you don't know what he might want?”
“I'm afraid not.”
“Or how he made it to Earth in the first place?”
“He always had his own ways of traveling, but I never quite understood any of it. Something about branches?”
“And he's not an Aesir like you?”
“He is not. Well, I think not. He wasn't born in Asgard.”
“Where was he born, then?”
“I don't know. We could probably rule out Midgard, yes?”
Yes, probably. Although, really, who knew.
What useful information they got out of Thor was this: although (they supposed) not an Aesir, the mage had lived in the Realm Eternal for as long as Thor could remember, and even though he was (most likely) not biologically related to him, he had lived his whole life in the most private wings of the Asgardian castle, alongside the royal family. And the reason for that was as nebulous as the rest of him: he was the closest ally and most faithful servant of Thor's father, Odin Borsson, the King of Asgard.
Arguably, that was reason enough to attack them. Thor hadn't exactly left his homeworld on the best of terms. He'd met the Avengers several years ago, having deserted the land of Asgard and the authority of his father, who could apparently not be satisfied with being king of a single world and wanted to expand his territory through whatever means necessary.
After failing to reason with him, Thor had had no choice but to leave his Realm, as he called his home planet; however, he had had the choice of where to go next, and out of the nine mystical worlds he had described to SHIELD scientists, he had picked Earth - the very world his father had intended to take over, planning on it being an easy win. With Thor's early warning, the Avengers had been standing ready when the first battalions of Einherji had shown up. A little over ten years after that first battle, Earth remained a free planet - albeit a tired one.
That's what it entailed, fighting with immortal deities: they didn't get tired as fast as humans, even enhanced and extraordinary ones. Odin had been defeated several times already, but no pleas from Thor nor demands from Earth had gained any attempt on his side to negotiate. He wanted his war, and his war was raging on, leaving no choice for the Avengers but to fight on to protect their world.
The Asgardian soldiers were not making much of a dent, thankfully. This was in part due to their evident lack of updates on enemy resources - apparently, immortal deities also reevaluated their strategies less frequently than their human counterparts - and, in part, to Thor clearly being a charmer. The guy had persuaded Nick Fury to trust him with nothing to show for himself but his golden retriever puppy looks. It made sense that the people who had grown up seeing him as a prince would feel conflicted about fighting him, especially when he made those grand speeches of his about peace and love on the planet Earth.
Now, on top of the ongoing war, SHIELD had to figure out how to welcome Asgardian deserters/refugees on a weekly basis. Nobody had expected First Contact to go that way, especially not Nick Fury himself.
Either way, it seemed the Space Conqueror had finally caught on to the fact that sending his Einherji to Earth was not a winning strategy, and that was perhaps what had led to Loki.
They still kept that to perhaps . Because the first time Odin had decided to send a special agent after them instead of a battalion of soldiers, they had known. They still had the scars to show for it, and though Hela had eventually retreated to Asgard of her own volition, Tony had a special set of missiles with her name literally engraved on them waiting in case she came back.
Loki... was certainly after them. But he didn't seem like he was out to kill them exactly.
If he had had to guess, Tony would have filled the blank for Motive with Being annoying???
Loki had shown up for the first time directly at SHIELD. Footage from the security cameras had later revealed that the smug bastard had taken his time, strutting around every level of clearance in the building without drawing any attention from the hundreds of agents he had met - which, sure, he was better at Midgardian clothing than most Aesirs until now, but the three-piece suit with a green and gold scarf should have, at a minimum, raised a few eyebrows.
When he finished admiring the infrastructure and chatting cheerfully with guards (who had later confessed that it had just seemed normal at the time), he had waltzed into the most secure containment in the building like it was nothing and had picked up the Tesseract, a piece of alien tech they were still trying to wrap their head around. Taking a few insulting seconds to look at the blue cube, and to offer the cameras a little nod, as if to say thank you , he had then vanished right out of the room, taking the Tesseract with him.
Only, a few hours later, as they had been freaking out and trying to figure out what kind of nuclear disaster was going to happen, Steve had walked into a storage room to get his shield and had found the cube, placed precisely on the center of the star, waiting for him.
The demonstration of power was dizzying. The evident mockery in it... Well, if Tony hadn't been the one made fun of, he could only have laughed along, and even as it was, it was hard not to admire such ridiculous audacity.
That had been only the start of trying to figure out what the hell Loki was actually up to.
The day right after the Tesseract incident, Nick Fury had entered his private office, a secured room with no windows and two armed agents guarding the door, to find a whole bunch of pitch-black, green-eyed cats clawing at his furniture and doing their business on his desk. His attempts, and then the guards' attempts, and eventually the Avengers ' attempts to remove the animals had led to the small panthers breathing emerald flames and tearing through kevlar armor with their tiny claws.
“I suggest we abandon the place to the cats.” Clint was the first to voice it, but they were all getting there. “We've lost. It's too late. Abandon ship.”
“There are extremely confidential documents in this room,” Fury said grimly. He had three nasty cuts across his nose and had sacrificed his iconic leather coat to putting out a small fire. “If these things have been brought here by Loki, then we can't let any information they've gathered get to him.”
“Oh, they're definitely Loki's,” said Thor, who was holding a cat by the scruff of its neck. It was hissing and spitting green sparkles all around, although the magical Asgardian armor was apparently still protecting Thor's arms from its claws. The blond grimaced. “I've seen these once, before. Loki pranked us all with them. My father was furious.”
“Anyway, Nick,” Tony grimaced, “I hate to be the one to say it, but you're all out of confidential documents now.”
He gestured vaguely to the burnt remains of the desk. A burning sheet of paper floated down to the ground to prove his point, and darkened documents turned to ashes anywhere the roaming cats pounced or sat to look at them curiously.
The beasts had started calming down, visibly pleased with the damage they'd wrought. They actually seemed less malicious than playful, sinking their little teeth into unprotected hands and breathing flames in the way regular kittens might have chased a red dot or scratched a post.
Also, when you tried to shoot them, which Natasha had done because she had no chill , the bullets were somehow absorbed by their black fur, and they responded with attacks of their own. The acrid smell of burnt hair was thick in the devastated office.
As for removing the cats from the premises, Steve had carried off about a dozen of them to containment already. Their number in the room had not been depleted, and a worried agent had called to report that the cell they had placed the tiny panthers in was now full of at least twenty fire-breathing felines.
“These need to be put down,” Fury growled. “They know too much! There are files about agents in sensitive locations in there! We'll need to relocate dozens of them now that this is compromised!”
“Are we suggesting the Loki cats can read?” an overwhelmed Steve asked.
“I'm more concerned about space rabies,” Clint hissed, trying to push a cat away with his boot and jumping back to avoid a burst of flames.
“Loki's a shape-shifter,” Thor provided helpfully. “He might be one of those cats. Or all of them, maybe? Is that possible?”
“Now you're telling us he's a shapeshifter?!” Tony yelped. One of the felines was on its back, showing him its privates, and he was suddenly wondering if he should be offended about it.
“Abandon the office,” Fury growled, “and activate the flamethrowers.”
“You got flamethrowers in your office?”
“Sir, you can't be thinking of burning those animals alive,” Steve protested.
“Everyone out now .”
The cats, in the end, were not burned alive. They played with the flames, napped, zoomed around the room and, according to the cameras, all disappeared at 8:23 PM exactly in glittering little waves of magic.
In the end, Tony was torn between finding the whole thing terrifying and hilarious. It was really a mix of both, in the end. They didn't tell you to expect this when you signed up for a space war.
After that, there was an incident pretty much every day. There was the Portals incident, when magical doors made of green and gold light opened around the planet leading from Greenland to Nigeria and from a Japanese beach to Himalayan summits and vice-versa and left very confused citizens stranded far from their home, leading to a significative air travel and diplomatic crisis as people tried to go home - or wished to remain where they were. There was the Ent incident, during which, from 10:03 AM to 8:23 PM, all hawthorn, poplar, apple and lime trees on Earth seemed suddenly dissatisfied with their arboreal condition and started walking around. Although very slow, they had caused a fair amount of property damage and terrified a lot of people.
It was maddening. They were quickly catching on to the pattern of a disaster a day, but they sometimes had to wait until late afternoon before they found out what the new catastrophe was, spending meetings and rest days tensed with anticipation until they heard that all TV channels were broadcasting the same documentary about birds. They couldn't find the source, and the narrator's voice describing the nesting habits of magpies sounded familiar and mocking, but at least it wasn't too damaging.
On other days, they were dragged out of bed at dawn to chase a cheerful dozen of Lokis around secret bases, military facilities and Asgardian refugee camps.
It was the first time Tony got to see the man face to face. He was even taller than footage had led him to believe. His magic, when he used it, seemed to fill up the room with something cold and alive that no sensors picked up on. And his eyes, god, his eyes were...
Disturbing. That's what he said, later, when they were comparing observations.
Maybe it wasn't the most acute description, but nobody else had mentioned Loki's intense green eyes piercing holes into their soul, and Tony didn't want to admit that what he had felt under his scrutiny was more akin to attraction than fear.
Loki had no respect for personal space. One minute, Tony was chasing him, using his suit's thrusters to gain on him, turning a corner; the next, they were face to face, with Loki sitting balanced on a security railing above the crackling ARK reactor that powered the whole base.
“Hi,” he'd said, with a smile so pleasant it took Tony a second to remember he shouldn't return it, even with his faceplate down.
“You're not supposed to be here,” Tony answered, grateful for the suit solidifying his voice into something that sounded vaguely like he had expected to catch up to him eventually. “But you know that already, I think.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon. Is this place very secret?” Loki questioned.
It was , not that the Aesir didn't know that, too. Loki still made a demonstration of turning his head to look down at the reactor, then leaned a little forward as he turned back to face him. Tony had to stop himself from taking a step back, because that would have looked like he was intimidated, right? Now it just looked like their faces were maybe five whole inches apart, which wasn't weird at all, even as he noticed for the first time how vibrant the venomous color of Loki's eyes truly was.
“I liked the cats,” Tony said. “Not so much a big fan of the whole colonizing and pillaging program, though. You might want to reconsider.”
“Ah, but maybe you have yet to consider every aspect of the situation,” Loki replied smoothly. “There would be room in the court of King Odin for a man such as you, Man of Iron.”
“A man such as me?”
“There are warriors aplenty across the Nine Realms, but minds the likes of yours are a treasure my King rarely encounters.”
“Are you trying to recruit me? For King Enslaving My Planet?” Tony's heart was beating hard, the reactor whirring in his chest just like the one below.
The last thing he had expected from this talk was flattery, but considering his life experience, it shouldn't have shaken him as it did to hear that refined voice purring about the superiority of his mind. Loki raised an eyebrow at him. So close, Tony could notice every detail of his face - sharp, smooth, but not exactly flawless. He looked like he could have used a night of sleep and some hydration. What hope was there for the rest of them if immortal beings of unspeakable power had dark circles?
“I'm told there are a few perks to having the favor of a god,” Loki said pleasantly.
“Yeah, you'll have to be a bit more convincing to get me to betray my people.”
“Odin Allfather can be very convincing.”
“Why isn't he here, then? He can make his offer and I can tell him to fuck off,” Tony suggested.
Loki's eyes flashed with something and his smile widened, showing just a hint of teeth. Tony flexed his fingers, ready to fire an energy blast to his face.
“Perhaps you will have your chance. But what sort of king doesn't test the waters first?”
“So you're scouting for him?”
“Oh, me. I'm just having a bit of fun, really.”
“Yeah? You're the only one. Now, you wanna keep talking, I'm gonna have to ask you to come with me to a nice little cell we got prepared for you.”
“Oh, dear,” Loki said, and put his feet back on the ground, brushing some nonexistent dust from his complicated leather outfit. “I'm afraid this is a little too forward. It was nice speaking with you, Stark.”
“You know, I lied. I wasn't really asking.”
Loki glanced up at him, looking like he was mildly amused by his words. The energy blast hit Loki in the chest practically at point blank, shoving him back against the railing with a metallic clang ! that echoed through the room. It covered any sound he might have made, but he looked breathless and shocked enough as he looked up at Tony.
Then his mouth twisted right back into a grin. Not even an angry one. With his armor smoking and a slightly shaking hand raised to his chest, he had the nerve to look like this was pleasantly surprising.
“Well,” he gasped, “I'm impressed .”
“There's more where that came from,” Tony said, trying not to let his confusion show. “How about you follow me nicely?”
“Not now,” Loki smiled. “But perhaps we can talk more at a later occasion. It was a pleasure meeting you, Stark.”
“No you don't, you little shit!” Tony cursed as he realized what Loki was about to do, but by the time he threw himself at Loki, the god had disappeared, teleported away, and Tony found himself trying to capture luminous green vapor before it faded right out of existence.
He returned to the headquarters feeling both confused and bitter, and found that the other Avengers had had no more luck with their copies.
“It's true,” Thor said woefully in the debrief that followed, although what they had to debrief other than that they had been owned yet again, Tony wasn't sure, “I forgot that he could teleport and make copies of himself.”
“And are you forgetting anything else we should know?” Fury asked, a vein pulsing on his forehead, looking very close to shooting his Asgardian ally just for the relief of actually hitting something for a change.
“We're being distracted”, Steve said, looking exhausted. “He's taunting us, but we're five steps behind. He wants our attention.”
“He certainly has it,” Natasha agreed, toying with her Widow Bites and eyeing the picture of Loki they had on the board with a dangerous eagerness.
The image had been taken from security footage, but although it was a little grainy, there was none of the usual blur or shadows of such pictures. It was like Loki had stood still, smiling at the camera, expressly for this.
Maybe he had, Tony thought. Which implied the guy, coming down from the same land of ice and snow as Thor and the other space vikings who had been confused about toasters and phones, knew what cameras were for and what they looked like. Which implied he had taken time out of leading Clint on a furious chase through a secret base to strike a pose, never feeling threatened enough to worry about it.
Honestly, none of that was surprising at this point. Infuriating, for sure. Steve was being generous: he looked way further than five steps ahead.
It would have been admirable, if it hadn't been driving him insane . Green eyes practically sparkling with mischief were boring right into him from the screen as they had in real life, as if already laughing about what he had planned for them next.
For all he knew, the guy was actually looking at them through the frozen still. It seemed like a plausible thing he could do. The Abilities column on his file was still growing.
“Maybe Asgard is planning another attack,” Peter said meekly. “And Loki is supposed to keep us busy so we don't see it coming.”
“He pretty much told me he was preparing the ground for Odin,” Tony grimaced.
They were all silent for a little time, their thoughts no doubt echoing each other: what could they do about it? And if this was Loki distracting them, what could they do when he actually struck?
“We need to take him down”, Bucky stated the obvious with the same grim look with which he said most things. “He's different from the Asgardians we fought so far. He's a menace.”
“Oh yeah?” Fury looked about as bitter as the criminal on screen looked cheerful. “And how do you suggest we do that, Sergeant?”
Yeah. If they could get their hands on him, thatwould already be a miracle. To kill or capture him seemed impossible. Tony kept his eyes on the screen, mind turning and twisting around the impossible equation that was an apparently endless reservoir of powers fucking with them.
Loki's smile seemed shockingly youthful, for a guy thousands of years old. Which, sure, Thor didn't look his centuries either, but there was something about him that seemed unreal. He wasn't Asgardian at all, after all, was he?
“His powers can't be infinite,” he heard himself groan, running a hand over his face. “That's just impossible. And if they were, why would he just mess with us when he's proven we can't throw anything at him? Even if this is about incapacitating us for the next big thing, why stop at distracting us?”
It was driving him mad. There were just too many variables, too much effort put into being a little shit instead of doing real damage. He'd stayed up late several nights already, rewatching the stupid bird documentary and looking at the hours of the attacks for patterns.
“Loki has always seemed to me as someone who enjoyed chaos for chaos' sake”, Thor said, shaking his head. “When I was young, he would always find odd ways to prank us all - never the same thing twice.”
“Don't sound too fond of him, Thor,” Clint grimaced.
“I speak of a distant past,” the Asgardian amended. “As I grew, I saw less and less of him. He would remain by my father's side, and his mischievous ways ended. This,” he gestured to the screen, “is the most... playful I have seen him since my childhood days.”
“Was he an adult at the time already?” Tony asked, before Fury could interrupt Thor for being irrelevant.
“I believe he is my age,” Thor frowned. “Roughly. Perhaps a little older.”
“Does that mean your dad had a child as a servant?”
“As messed up as that is,” Natasha shrugged, “what do you get from that? He's acting like a kid again? That doesn't explain anything.”
“Odin certainly wasn't playing with us before,” Steve said. “Maybe Loki isn't working with Odin at all?”
“I can't imagine that,” Thor said categorically. “Loki's his personal bodyguard and servant. He wouldn't be here without his permission.”
“Have you considered that Loki could be your bastard brother?” Tony mused, then raised his eyes when a heavy silence followed. Thor looked like he had been hit in the face. “I mean, it sounds plausible. What's that book series where the bastard sons are raised to be assassins?”
“My father would not have betrayed his love of my mother,” Thor said, drily.
Tony raised an eyebrow. It sounded very naive of Thor to state that his war-mongering murderer of a father would feel any qualms about cheating on his wife; but then, the blond was always surprising them with a mixture of innocence and war god pragmatism - and, in this case, apparently balancing the honor of his parents with the fact that he was engaged in a political conflict with his father.
“Whoever Loki's parents are,” Natasha took over after a brief pause, “unless you tell us all Odin's kids have a secret weakness we could use to lock him up, this is getting us nowhere. Whether this is all Odin's plot or Loki having a late bout of teenage rebellion, it's not telling us what he's going to do next.”
It was true enough, and Tony sighed, rubbing his forehead as the other Avengers' shoulders slumped. No matter how opposed Odin and Loki's methods, they now had to worry about the two of them simultaneously, and they couldn't keep up.
It was such a shame, and it was bothering him to no end. They didn't fit . Odin was all merciless military strategies and coldly ignoring his son's pleas, and Loki was... not hurting anyone. He was dancing around them, mocking them without ever seeming to mean any actual harm...
“Go back,” he said suddenly, frowning and closing his eyes. “Nat, go back.”
“What?”
He waved at her, a quick circular motion. The thought was trying to escape his mind, and he hissed quietly as he chased it.
“Odin's kids have a secret weakness?”
“No, not that. The- teenage rebellion”, he repeated, opening his eyes, frowning. “What if he didn't want to hurt us? You say he's Odin's servant. Maybe he was told to fight us, but he doesn't want to. He wouldn't be the first Asgardian, not, whatever, to prefer Thor to Odin-”
“He's causing plenty of trouble as is,” Steve pointed out, glancing around the table for the others' opinions. “He's on Earth, and Odin isn't. If he wanted to desert, he had his chance, didn't he?”
“Maybe he doesn't want to go that far,” Tony argued. “He's not game to betray his King, or his father-”
“Loki is not Odin's son,” Thor protested.
“-but he doesn't want to fight us. That's why he's just causing trouble, not actually attacking us.”
“Either that, or he's a servant and not qualified to battle the Avengers,” Bucky suggested.
“Then why send him to Earth in the first place?”
“We established that Loki is a distraction,” Fury cut through, sounding impatient, “and trying to figure him out without any intelligence to support our claims is making us waste even more time. You can figure out his family tree once your superior intellect has gotten him in a cage, Stark, but until then, can we please focus?”
“Focus on what?” Tony replied, before grimacing at the irritated look it got him from the Director. The superior intellect line might have made him smirk once, but it echoed Loki's words now. Odin Allfather can be very convincing. Fuck, what did it all mean? “We don't have anything else. We might as well go to bed now and see what he's got planned for us tomorrow. I mean, anyone wanna bet? Kraken coming out of the sea? Cars turn to ice cream?”
“This is not funny,” Steve argued, while Clint, sitting by his side, snorted in amusement.
“Kinda is, though,” Tony said.
Fury wasn't exactly pleased with his remarks. The rest of the meeting was a tense one, with plenty of warning glares his way. Tony wasn't intimidated - that came with the job, and Fury needed him. He was still turning his theory over and over in his mind when they were finally dismissed, however, and it stayed with him even as he took the elevator back to his private floor of the Tower and went to bed.
Asgard had sent so many fighters already. So many lives had been lost in Odin's war. How did the new guy fit in? What was the point of Loki's mission?
Three more days passed before he had the chance to ask.
In the meantime, no Kraken. It did rain money in a hundred or so locations around the world - all local currencies, how considerate. Loki showed up at a freaking UN meeting, apparently just to steal a bagel and wave at security before disappearing. There was another documentary, this one about selkies, which were not even viking legends, by the way, what was up with that.
Then, for the first time, instead of taunting from a distance, Loki attacked.
The Avengers, minus Thor, who was a late sleeper even in the face of catastrophe, were having breakfast on the common floor. The TV was playing in the background, because news stations had caught on to some of Loki's schemes ahead of SHIELD intelligence and it couldn't hurt to listen, but none of them were really paying attention. They were all at least a bit on edge: they had been unable to do anything about Loki's pranks for the last three days, and they were no doubt all wondering what was coming today.
Despite this, the conversation was pleasant enough, an effort at normalcy, something they had all learned to hold on to during the last ten years of war. Clint and Bucky were riling up Steve about his hypothetical snoring. Peter was discussing radiation with Bruce while Natasha was putting jam on her Pop Tarts, the Russian disaster.
As for Tony, he was holding his own completely forgotten Pop Tart in the air, all thoughts occupied by the tablet he was working on with his free hand. He had JARVIS cross-referencing all mentions of magpies, selkies and the number 1003 to look for a common variable of some kind, which was probably all kind of futile, but, hey, better than just waiting around.
“OK, let's add in 823 and see if we get less Icelandic poetry.”
“Do you want me to add 2023 as well, Sir?” JARVIS prompted.
“Eight PM,” Tony muttered. “Might as well. You think Asgardians use military time?”
“To be fair, it's odd that Americans don't. It's a far less confusing format.”
“Hey,” Tony frowned, and then it clicked.
He jumped out of his chair, though the other Avengers had caught on a second before him and were all pointing various weapons, ranging from forks to guns, his way. Loki, standing right next to where Tony had been sitting, casually looking over his shoulder at the tablet, just smiled at them.
“Good morning, Avengers.”
“Don't suppose you're here to surrender?” Natasha asked, Glock safety off and looking very much ready to shoot.
“Whyever would I do that?” Loki asked, quirking an eyebrow.
His stance was as non-threatening as could be, as though he had really just happened to pass by the kitchen. He wasn't wearing his leather coat, but a dramatic green cape and a sort of crown-helmet with horns thing, and Tony couldn't figure out if that was supposed to be more innocuous or more threatening than his usual look. It certainly made him look even taller than was normal.
“How about negotiating?” Steve questioned. He held his plate like he was planning to frisbee-throw it at the enemy, peanut butter toast and all.
“Perhaps another time,” Loki replied pleasantly, and he threw Tony's empty chair at Bruce's face.
Natasha fired three times in a row. So close, it was deafening, and Tony, ducking his head, missed what Loki did. He must have done something, though, because he was not only standing unscathed, but he had somehow climbed up on the breakfast table, boots and all, like he was going to give a best man speech.
“Come on,” he said, and though his back was to Tony, he could guess he was smiling. “Is that the best you can do? I gave you so much time to prepare.”
“You attacked at breakfast !” Tony pointed out before he could wonder if it was a good idea to bring attention to himself. “Of course we're not ready!”
“How impolite of me,” Loki said, actually turning his head to look at him. Wavy black hair fell around his face, making him look deceptively casual as he smiled at Tony. “Do you want to go get your weaponry? I'll wait.”
Tony had a feeling he was being serious, and found himself unsure whether he should get his suit. He didn't have to hesitate long: taking advantage of Loki's distraction, Nat grabbed him by the ankle, dragging him off the table. Flat on his back on the floor, he looked vaguely stunned for a second, which was probably their greatest victory against him up to this point. Then he jumped up to his feet like a martial artist before she could punch him, blocked her arm in the air, and sent her tumbling back into Steve with a graceful little twist on his heels.
Deciding not to take a chance, Tony grabbed a butter knife from the table and dove forward, aiming for Loki's arm. The sorcerer side-stepped easily to avoid him, and Steve was on him, throwing quick, precise jabs. Loki blocked one, two, three hits before sinking to a crouch and landing a forward kick to the Captain's stomach like some Mortal Kombat character, making Steve double over.
Bucky was next, jumping to his boyfriend's rescue and grabbing Loki's leg in mid-air, actually managing to flip him on his side and pin him to the ground with his metal arm.
“Ouch,” Loki said with what looked like an honest grimace of pain.
“Tony, cuffs,” Steve ordered, holding his abdomen and wincing.
“Which one are you?” Loki craned his neck to look up at Bucky, scrunching up his nose in an inappropriately cute way that almost made Tony miss-
“Bucky, look out!”
Bucky managed to avoid the knife that Loki had produced from nowhere and swung his way; he tried to block it on its way back, and hissed when the blade sliced his palm. Tony had never seen anyone best Bucky's super soldier reflexes before, and probably neither had Bucky, because he froze in surprise, looking at the clean, shallow cut on his hand. Loki took advantage of it, grabbing his metal wrist and using it as a lever to throw Bucky over him, somehow getting up in the process.
“Don't move,” Clint warned, having procured an arrow and aimed it in Loki's direction. Judging from the arrowhead, it was an explosive one, too. Although Loki had no way - well, no normal, logical way - to know it, he paused, eyeing the archer carefully.
“Don't tell me,” he said after a beat, holding on to Bucky's arm still, indifferent to the soldier's grunt and effort to pull away. “ You 're Hawkeye. And that one must be Bruce Banner.”
Bruce was standing there, yes, a few feet back from the fight, behind the chair that had been thrown his way. He looked bewildered to hear his name.
“If you wanted to do introductions, you could have been more friendly,” Tony remarked, commanding a bot to get him the reinforced cuffs they had in the basement for hypothetical Asgardian prisoners. He had no idea if they would do shit for this guy, but what could he do? His mind was running a hundred questions a minute. Had Loki not actually spoken to the others by name before?
“I don't know much about friendly,” Loki said. He glanced at Tony over his shoulder, but caught the arrow by its shaft easily when Clint dove forward to stab him with it. He tilted his head, looking down at the archer. “I'm not convinced you do, either.”
The arrowhead exploded. Bucky used the commotion to free himself and Tony couldn't help but shield his eyes from the flash of the explosion. He squinted as he lowered his hand, half expecting to see Loki in pieces. He wasn't. His hair was a little out of place and he held the remnants of the arrow shaft with what looked like some surprise. Tony almost wanted to laugh. He blamed his nerves for that.
“What do you want, Loki?” Nat asked. She was holding her gun in both hands, aimed at Loki's head, but much like the rest of the team, seemed unsure that attacking was the best course of action.
“And you are the Black Widow,” Loki grinned with exaggerated glee.
“You knew as much already, Loki. Why attack my friends?”
Thor was there, no doubt warned by JARVIS about the commotion, and Tony felt an automatic surge of relief. The big guy showing up was usually a sure sign that the odds were about to take a dramatic turn in their favor, even when their adversary was another god. Thor had yet to make a dent in Loki, but their team certainly felt more credible with him in their ranks.
“Hi, Thor.” It was the first time, as far as Tony remembered, that he could hear something like displeasure in Loki's voice. He didn't let it give him hope, in case it was another of Loki's tricks. “Here to fight me?”
“Is there any other way?” Thor asked, readying his grip on Mjölnir.
“You could put down the hammer and come back to Asgard with me,” Loki offered, discarding the arrow and producing a pair of sharp-looking daggers from thin air.
At least he regarded Thor as a serious opponent. It was all the more offensive that he seemed to consider Thor the only one worthy of such respect, even as the others had automatically closed in a circle around the Asgardians, weapons in hand.
Tony met Steve's gaze between the two deities and followed it, understanding its wordless command: to strike in the back at first occasion, while Loki was distracted. He pressed his lips together. He wasn't usually one to mind dishonorable strategies, not if they got results, but he wasn't sure it would do any good today.
“You know I cannot do that,” said Thor, his deep voice sounding just as tense, like he, too, was wondering where this was going - or, more accurately, where Loki was taking them. “My father would see Midgard subjugated. I cannot stand by and let it happen.”
“You lack your father's eloquence,” Loki said, shifting his grip on his daggers and looking at Thor with a slight tilt of his head. “But you might get there, in time.”
“You don't have to walk this murderous path along with my father, Loki”, Thor argued. “We have much to learn of Midgard. You could protect this world and its people with me.”
He said it with those soulful, grave eyes that had made Asgardian generals hesitate and take a knee. Loki's face betrayed no such doubt. If anything, Tony thought he saw his playful disposition darken to something colder. On the opposite side of the tense dialogue, Steve's jaw was clenched, the Captain clearly wanting to give this chance to the enemy to surrender. But he wouldn't take it, Tony realized, at the same time that he wondered why .
“I serve only one king.” Loki's smile returned, full of teeth and empty of its mocking fun. “Now fight me.”
“If I must,” Thor said grimly, and raised his hammer.
Tony might have pushed past his indecision, and the other Avengers might have tried to lend Thor a hand in fighting Loki, but they didn't stand a chance. Aesirs were more durable and stronger than humans as a general rule, but these two were also significantly faster, and any intention to intervene was quickly washed away as they could only try to keep up with the strikes.
Loki was on the defensive from the start, dodging blows as Thor advanced on him. His quick, precise dagger strikes missed Thor's face or his ribs by an inch as the blond prince moved with a speed Tony had never seen him reach, and Thor's hammer swung so close to Loki's skin, Tony was half-convinced the sorcerer was teleporting to avoid it.
Tony could barely blink, the hits too fast, the fight too vicious to tell who had the advantage. Thor grabbed Loki by his neck, but Loki twisted out of his cape and temporarily blinded Thor with fabric, materializing a spear out of nowhere. He stabbed it into the floor with a sharp sound of broken ceramic and used it as a pole to swing his legs out at Thor and hit him in the chest, but landed on his feet when Thor dodged, having to jump back to avoid a punch. It was dizzying to watch, making Tony's heart beat too fast, until at last, the sound of Loki's breath being pushed out of his lungs reached his ears before he saw him pinned to the wall, Thor's forearm pressing hard against his throat and the hammer held very close to his face.
“Do you yield?” Thor asked, breathless.
“Would you kill me?” Loki said, ignoring the question.
From anyone else, it might have sounded like a dare or mockery, like he didn't believe Thor would. Tony almost shivered. He knew, without knowing why, that this was a genuine question. Loki's eyes were wide with the adrenaline of the fight. Not with fear.
Thor hesitated. Maybe he felt it, too.
“For Midgard,” he said, after a pregnant pause, “I would, though I hope you do not make me.”
“I surrender,” Loki said, without blinking.
Thor released him warily, but Loki didn't try to get away. They got him in cuffs, which he twisted experimentally around his wrists, and got him on a Quinjet without any resistance. They picked up their weapons along the way, holding everything they had to the sorcerer's head, but Loki just sat where he was told to sit, looking suspiciously at ease even as the jet took off.
“Anyone think this shit is too easy?” Clint was the first to voice it. “Why isn't he teleporting this time?”
Steve made a face at him, tilting his chin Loki's way to point out that the god could hear them. Like a comedian dutifully ignoring the stage whispers of the rest of the cast, Loki was looking out the window with undue attention.
Tony couldn't deny it, though. This was suspicious as hell. But what exactly were they to do? Refuse to take him in?
Fury did curse when he heard the news through the comms.
“We can't bring him to containment. It's clearly exactly where he wants to be.”
“No offense, sir, but he never needed our help to go where he wanted before.” Steve winced.
“You want us to take him someplace else?” Tony questioned. “The compound in DC?”
“Shit knows if that's what he wants,” Clint pointed out.
“Bring him here,” Fury said drily. “It's the only thing we can do.”
So they did. Thor walked Loki off the jet with a hand on his shoulder, and Tony held the chain of the handcuffs, but that just made things look weird as they went through the hallways, like they were doing an especially awkward conga line. Loki didn't look amused this time, eyeing everything around him attentively, but he certainly didn't look like his plans had been thwarted today.
“Right, my lord, this is where you will be staying,” Tony announced.
Security guards, looking as wary of this as they were, cleared the way to the Hulk cell - a circular glass cage furnished only with a bench, which was probably a new addition. It was a containment unit meant for only a few hours, to keep the Hulk under control and surveillance while waiting for him to change back. Although they had never actually had to use it on Bruce, it was the most reinforced room they had by far, and the logical place in which to lock Loki.
Not that logic was doing that much good for them at the moment. And how long could they keep a guy locked down without a bed or plumbing before it got awkward by their own moral standards? SHIELD might not have human (or not) rights at heart, but the Avengers did, and it wasn't like they were going to give the guy up to Nick.
Loki let himself be walked to the door. He did pause for a second when it came to stepping into the cage, and Tony thought he might have seen some discomfort on his face, but it might also have been nothing more than wishful thinking. At last, the god walked into the cage, and the door slid into place, hissing as it locked them on different sides of the glass panels.