Round 9
THIS ROUND IS CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS
Round 10 will be up in about a week. We'll have a friending meme up in the next couple of days, and we'll be discussing hiring new mods to deal with the influx of members and prompts.
Welcome to norsekink!
Keep up the awesome, folks.
Attention: When you fill a prompt offsite or on your own journal rather than on the ( Read more... )
Round 10 will be up in about a week. We'll have a friending meme up in the next couple of days, and we'll be discussing hiring new mods to deal with the influx of members and prompts.
Welcome to norsekink!
Keep up the awesome, folks.
Attention: When you fill a prompt offsite or on your own journal rather than on the ( Read more... )
--
It starts with trying to find Loki some clothes. The armour is pretty much ruined at this point, and getting the tesseract calmed down enough for anyone to go near it is taking a while.
Thor wants them repaired, which, sure, Asgard, whatever, might as well be judged in his best duds. But they have to get them off him, and they have to have stuff for him to put on. Nobody wants to think about Loki naked. It's like naked flies: it happens, just no thinking about it. Naked gods on base felt sacrilegious.
SHIELD has enough data to inform them of his rough dimensions, but finding someone who matches is harder. Either they're too big or they're too short, and not making him look more ridiculous than he already does in his dented armour really shouldn't be this much of a problem.
In the end it's one of the bridge techs, probably the guy playing gallaga, that offers an old, outgrown shirt and a pair of sweats. They look like they'd fit a kid that's stretched like toffee, but after the earlier fiasco SHIELD is very prickly about the accuracy of their tests, and they absolutely insist they'll fit.
They hand them over to avoid diplomatic incident and give him a bit of privacy because again, naked Loki is a definite no, but it's kind of startling what they find when they turn back to check he hasn't used the opportunity to turn everybody into frogs.
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The camera changes angle when he sits and clasps his hands and from the back he's an hourglass of bone: shoulder, spine, pelvis.
It changes again to a profile view and from the side his features are blade-sharp, his eyes sunken against the edges of his nose and chin. He looks haunted, and weary, and very, very ill.
"That's not what I expected," Clint says, and he sounds startled.
"What, never saw him with his kit off?" Everyone scowls at Tony, and he subsides, grumbling. "Come on, he was a minion of evil. It's a legitimate question."
"Well, the answer's no, Stark."
"Never? Really?" Tony looks grotesquely fascinated.
"What were the measurements again?" Bruce breaks in, tactfully diverting their attention before they all start pissing each other off.
"My brother has always been a weak warrior," Thor says. "He relies on his tricks."
Bruce nods. "Yeah, that's ... not measurements."
"187," Natasha reads from a screen. "They couldn't get accurate bodyweight with the armour. Read as 82 kilos, though." She compared with the screen, brow furrowing. "That can't be right."
"Oh, Nat, don't --"
"The armour itself, how much?" He ran right over Clint, and that was unusual enough that everyone else was shifting their attention to Bruce and Natasha and how focused they seemed.
"Why does this matter?" Tony complained. "Who cares if he's not a horny fashion plate?"
Bruce shook his head, and something in his face shut him up. "Natasha?"
"Uh, estimate from the team examining them right now is 18 kilos."
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Bruce was leaning all the way over Natasha's shoulder now, tapping at files and shaking his head.
Clint nudged Thor, who was looking confused. "They're just bitching because they couldn't take him down."
"You didn't either," Natasha said.
"It was a team effort," Steve said from the hallway, loping in at a half-jog. He had the look of extremely frustrated politeness that followed all his meetings with Fury. "What's the problem?"
"The problem is I need a second opinion," Bruce said. "Uh, Tony? You ever learn anatomy?"
"Yeah," and he got up, tapping his chest, and leaned over Natasha's other shoulder; she was beginning to look put-upon. "Why am I looking at a kid's xrays?"
Bruce looked sick. "Damn."
Natasha gave him a look, clearly trying to decide if vomit on her shirt was worth the effort of forcibly moving him. "Dr Banner?"
Tony blinked, brain visibly catching up. "Whoa, these are his? That's -- wait, wait -- can't be more than 17 --"
"He's a kid?" Steve said, disbelieving. "How can a kid do that?"
Thor patted their shoulders. "Friends, you need not be concerned. No man of Asgard would do such things."
Clint looked like he'd swallowed a lemon whole. "Thor, buddy, uh, thing is, we thought he was."
"I am sorry that so much pain has been caused by a child," Thor said, guilty and regal. "But you need not fear. He has done so pretending to the actions of one grown into manhood, and he will be punished as one."
"What?"
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"Yes," Steve said. "But if he is a kid --"
"XRAYS FIRST FREAK OUT LATER," Tony bellowed. "Am the only smart person here? No, don't answer that, it's obvious. We'll get an independent batch, hell, grab a portable one, we'll do it ourselves, see what's going on. Hour tops."
Steve looked like he'd rather be in another meeting with Fury. "Someone has to go with him in case. I'll do it, but I need a partner."
"I will," Natasha said, and efficiently crowded everyone back so she could stand up, ignoring Tony's wounded hiss. "Ready when you are, Captain."
"I hope you're wrong," Clint said.
Tony grimaced, watching them go. They were hilariously mismatched, but they had teamwork going for them and it wasn't like SHIELD was going to do any better. "Me too."
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I took the armour weight from hiddleston's account of how much his costume weighed. (he said 'forty pounds' in interviews; I converted and rounded.) don't worry, the only way I'd write him as eighteen kilos is as tiny-babee-Loki. XD
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now it feels a lot better
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--
Loki was frighteningly complacent when they handed him the paper-fabric gown and waited for him to dress, and still more so when they took him from the cell and into a side room hastily cleared so it had only a machine and a long table.
"Lie down just there," Bruce said, and looked around. "You both see pretty well in the dark, right?"
"Yes," Natasha said, and moved closer. "What do you need, Doctor?"
Steve lingered beside Loki, uncertain what to do or say. He looked like a corpse but for the faint rise of his chest, and his actions reminded Steve too much of the Red Skull to be comfortable on the same base, let alone beside him, even muzzled and chained. One genocidal villain was all of them.
But Red Skull had been rageful and bitter and seeking power. Loki's own words had been that he was spreading a truth. An ugly and horrible lie, of course, but the motivation was different.
It had been simpler then. It felt simpler. They didn't muzzle their enemies like dogs, they killed them and took satisfaction in avenging the deaths of their friends and protecting their country.
Children fought sometimes too, slipped the tests and went to war, but it was easy to tell and they were kept to supply lines and errands and nurses' assistants. They weren't the figureheads, the ones who led the war. Who had to die for everyone else to feel safe.
Sometimes in the war capable, caring men of fine character and good sense laid down for no obvious reason. When pressed they pled tiredness and fatigue and oncoming dysentery, but it was obvious that something in them had broken and left them listless. Loki as he was now reminded Steve of that. A part missing, waiting for pain and death like a quisling.
The overall effect was very much as though someone had replaced his eyes with glass. It was singularly uncomfortable.
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Loki's eyes shifted to his and held, almost resentful.
Were gods like people that way? He'd been examined by SHIELD doctors, and they'd been brusque but not unkind. "It shouldn't," he said. "Tell us if it does. Uh, tap the table if it does, is that all right?"
Loki closed his eyes. Steve supposed that was as good as anything else, and he stared at his pale, incogrously long toes until everything was ready and they were shooed out.
The hall was bright, and Steve blinked, then noticed Natasha's careful study of the wall.
"Nickel for your thoughts?"
She shook her head. "My opinion. We have to be very careful with Thor."
He hadn't really noticed that Thor was a danger, but the way she spoke made it sound like he was. "Why? It's his brother."
Natasha shifted slightly and focused on a different, identical patch of wall. "He doesn't consider Loki an adult man even though they'll try him with the responsibilities of one. That doesn't bode well."
Steve gave the top of her head a confused look. "Ms Romanova, I won't be offended by whatever it is you're not saying."
"Thor does not consider Loki a man."
Steve puzzled through it. "Oh, I see." He blanched. "I mean -- I'm sorry, I --"
Natasha turned to face him, lips pursed. "Haven't we had this conversation?"
"Er. Yes." It had been very, very awkward. "I'm sorry. So there's more going on here than just bones?"
The door opened and Bruce came out, then recoiled, white-faced and retching. "Watch him. 'scuse me."
Natasha gave his fleeing back a grim look. "I believe so."
She turned the lights on, the rows of dark papers with shadowy spines and legs meaning very little to Steve. Loki was still exactly where they'd left him.
"It didn't hurt?"
Loki shook his head very faintly, his adam's apple bobbing, and a trail ran from under the muzzle.
"Oh." That was something they hadn't considered, and Steve found a cloth, batting away the worst of the dust. He half-wondered why Natasha wasn't stopping him. "Let me get that." He flinched, badly, wild-eyed and holding still as a frightened bird, and Steve tried to be quick as he wiped down his cheek and ear and chin. "There we go."
Loki was staring, exactly as incredulous as Bucky's aunt when she found Steve playing pony to Bucky's knight, and Steve flushed.
"It's polite," he said, defensive and not exactly sure why.
Natasha shook her head and they waited in silence until Banner returned, grey and tired-looking, his smile strained. "Hey, sorry about that."
"Going to tell us what you saw, doc?"
He glanced at Loki, half-smiling. It looked painful. "I've got a lot of questions for Thor, I've gotta tell you." Steve saw Loki stiffen, eyes narrowing in something resembling mingled pride and fear.
Natasha stepped closer, obviously sensing the changed mood. "If you're finished we'll take him back and meet you on the bridge."
"Yeah, Agent Romanova, you do that." Banner moved to take down the papers, and Steve saw him shudder over an image of ghostly hips like pinned butterflies.
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"So definitely not an adult." Tony tipped his head and squinted as though another angle would change the jags and curves. "I'm just not seeing one here. You see one?"
"No."
"Man, I didn't miss these. You know how weird it is? Staring at the inside of your chest?"
Bruce tapped the arc of the pelvis, the part that was giving him the most trouble. "What does it change?"
"Better question. What should it? He's got pregnancy marks and he's not --" Tony's face twitched on itself, then smoothed, in the tell-tale of Tony Stark tasting and dismissing diplomacy. "One way or the other. Is that relevant? I mean, he trashed my tower. He killed people, started a war."
"He's a shapeshifter," Bruce said. "He can choose. It's not like us. He keeps these, they matter."
"Important isn't relevant. It's the age thing. I mean, we're looking at somebody who, you know, could be fourteen. Maybe seventeen if he's ridiculously starved, but we'd see that, right? I mean, we are seeing it, but -- ah, fuck."
They both contemplated the lightbox.
"You know, his first kid, they say it was a horse?"
"That sounds awkward."
"Kinda awkward, yeah. But he was a horse too at the time."
"Wow."
They continued to stare then, as one, shook themselves and looked away uncomfortably.
"So basically we're flying blind here. That's ... that's par for the course, isn't it, I hate this team."
Bruce gathered the papers together and slipped them into a makeshift envelope he'd taped together. Looking at them any longer felt creepy and invasive. "No, you don't."
"No, but I'm not here for the ambiguous moral choices and, you know, yeah, maybe he is a kid. I don't care. I need more evidence before I stop being the first one in line to cheer when he gets kicked back to daddy. You know what I was like when I was fourteen? I was absolutely capable of this shit, fully aware, sane, everything. I would have just had to want to. It's luck that I didn't, but that's it."
Bruce switched off the lightbox. "You'd have slept with a horse and had its babies?"
There was a long, terrible pause. "See -- see, that would convince me. If it was true."
"Clint's been doing research. Matching up what he remembers with the myths. It wasn't all one-way, apparently. The mind-control, uh, you called it something funny."
"Blue stick of destiny. He got Loki's backwash from when he brainwashed him for two weeks so Loki could destroy the world and we're fucking around with xrays?"
"Agent Romanova said so, so."
"I hate this team. Come on. Gotta rescue Capsicle before they bond or something, oh, no no wait, you know something. It's too late, isn't it? It is. Of course it is. This horse story had better be epic."
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I am loving this other fill, please do continue!
<3
I may have to stop reading your fill though, lest I start unconciously cadging from it! :P
Loved the way you described the scans, I had to start skimming at that point because I am in the middle of writing the same bits. XD (Conflicted writer/reader problems, eh?)
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"Uh, Barton?"
Angry blue eyes. So, so angry, hands flat on a book illustrated with watercolours. "It's true. The details here are wrong, I can't confirm anything, but it feels true. Take that for what it's worth."
Well.
It just gets more and more damming, doesn't it?
"I'll tell Tony. Could you do me a favour --"
"You're going to talk to Thor."
"We will. I don't think I could by myself. Can you keep Agent Romanova and Captain out of the way when it happens? Not today, but soon."
"Sure."
Bruce pauses. "It's worth a lot. You were compromised. That doesn't make your instincts worthless. And you were compromised by Loki. I don't know how that works, not really, but ... you were there, and you remember ... You do remember feelings, right? This is all feelings. Loki's feelings. If anyone would have the most insight in this, it'd be you."
Clint doesn't relax, but something in his gaze lightens almost to boredom, like a lion being bothered by a puppy, like Bruce's falling into a well-worn rhythm that's something he knows how to deal with. "Thanks, doc."
---
should be the end of part 2... part 3 is almost all written. this idea is going bang bang bang. :D
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This second fill is great! I think you've got most of the characters spot on, their reactions exactly what I would imagine them to be. And your dialogue...damn! I agree with the others, it's very easy to imagine Tony's voice saying all this witty lines.
I'll be sitting up waiting for more!:D
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