Time To Dance - For Loki
"JARVIS, lights, thirty percent." His head is absolutely aching. pulsing behind his eyes to match the not-quite right heartbeat that twitched against the base of the reactor. There's no snappy answer from an AI that acts as if playing to Tony's fiddle is just another boring part of his daily tasks as the quirky robotic butler. "JARVIS, stop
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A pause, and she gives a gentle shrug. "I expect some demotions are in order, no? Assuming of course that you live to tell about it, which I don't think I'll permit. I can't say that I feel much of a need to. If anything I would prefer to see you dead before me now. I am a god, girl. You know the stories. We are always vengeful, every last one, and I'm the worst of the lot."
She smiles, and the smile is almost motherly. Fond. Her attention, though, is primarily on Tony's trek to the door. She can sense the unsteadiness. Fine. This will have to end quickly. She will be there to help. "There is an old tale, a poem, which tells of me. It says that I once ate the heart of a woman, that I snatched it from her funeral pyre and devoured it on the spot. This is true, and I must say, as you lot have interrupted my meal I'm feeling rather hungry, so if there's anything you'd like to tell me, now would be the time."
She grins through the pain and her anger. The blade rises for a swing. "Right now, if you please."
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He's not quick enough himself to away from the door before it comes blasting in at him and sends Iron Man across the room. He pushes himself out of the stone to door sandwich and shakes the tingling out of his arms and legs.
"Sir, I would suggest ending this as quickly as possible."
"You think so, Jarvis?"
"Your vital signs are low. Ability to control the Iron Man suit properly is down 41% and dropping--"
"Okay, how about this--" He blasted his way right through the first in a line of bots he, thanks to Loki, knew precisely about all of their weak spots. "--conversation happens later."
"As you wish, sir. Four more doomnots are arriving down the corridor."
"On it!"
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She could, of course, go back to wearing her usual face but she wants to keep the one her disoriented companion is more likely to follow and less likely to attack or ignore. She's at least vaguely aware of the rather complex and somewhat disparate feelings Tony has for her different faces. So if making certain that they both make it out of here with a minimum of fuss means playing this particular card in view of the rest of the Avengers, so be it. It's an acceptable cost. After all, she's thousands of other faces. These just happen to be her favourites.
"Allow me," she says with cold delight, licking the dead woman's blood, mingled with her own, from her lips as she moves past Tony, sword at the ready and green fire blossoming around her hands.
"Hello, Victor," she coos fondly to one of the approaching robots, well aware that he's apt to be watching through them. They've all been instilled with his knowledge and personality anyway. It's nearly the same. Nearly. Until she removes the first one's head with a neat slice and shoves it back against the others, sword vanishing and hands coming up to protect her from the ensuing blast. Self-destruct mechanism still intact, clearly.
One left. One and the scattered remains of its comrades and the casket finds its way into Loki's hands, the chill mirroring the icy thrill that jötunn blood always feels in proximity to its birthright, it's power and heritage which Loki has kept hidden. It's hers, after all. By rights it's hers. She killed her father. If she cared to claim it, by rights, by blood, she would be ruler of Jötunheimr.
But now she's just a madwoman, a vengeful goddess, and that's much better than kingship. It's why she'd lost the battle before, despite the fact that, as is becoming amply clear, she had many more tricks up her sleeve than she'd let on.
And many more secrets than she'd let on. Blue-skinned, red-eyed secrets.
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He isn't sure what to say when he moves to catch up with her and realizes her delicate, snow white skin is now a devilishly beautiful blue. Or her eyes, that horrible, bloody red. He swallows and locks eyes with the goddess through the mask. Even hidden, he knows she can see right through the metal.
"We'll talk about this later, young lady," he said, an air of arrogance about him, and turns down towards where he knows three of the Avengers are being held.
He still is unsure about Hulk and Thor.
"This way."
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"And I suspect you wouldn't care to discuss... this, this face, if you knew what it meant but if you really wish to know I will tell you all the same." She can't say she's particularly pleased by the idea, though, for a number of reasons, most of which she does know are ridiculous. Humans have long since forgotten frost giants, and even if they hadn't, she's only one by birth, not upbringing.
No matter. It becomes all the less meaningful once she's hidden away the casket and let her skin shift slowly back to its usual tone. One revelation is likely enough for today where most of the Avengers are concerned.
In fact, she intends to hang back a bit, unwelcome as her presence is likely to be. It would be best, in fact, if she didn't encounter them at all, but she supposes that to be unavoidable.
"I expect it is advisable that you greet your friends first," she mutters tightly. "Better if you refrain from acknowledging me at all, perhaps. I will keep watch."
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She actually had been shot. The initial scans make that obvious. And Tony's sudden, outward concern is more obvious than that. "You need to cool it down," he says, hardly knowing how inappropriate that might be to command a Frost Giant to do. "You're hurt. You took a bullet for this." Obvious, obvious. "And-- Just put the normal face back on. I don't have to tell them about you."
It's kindness, the sort born out of a lazy morning -- before Thor's arrival -- spent in her arms.
Tony isn't chivalrous. But he cares. He can't shut it off.
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With that command she braces herself on the wall, eyes closed and head lowered, and concentrates. Physical transformations are perhaps the most difficult spells to cast, and mildly dangerous when one is distracted. As such she's more careful about it than usual, the process is slower, but when he looks up again out of eyes that are just as expressive as ever, the change is as total as it ever is.
He grins down at Tony. "You don't have to tell them. Ashamed of me, then? I don't blame you."
It's a joke, mostly, but a bad one. It's difficult to formulate anything better under the circumstances. Loki pushes himself away from the wall, leaving a smear of blood, almost none of which is his, behind when he does. "Go on, then. We'll see how well this idea of yours will work."
Clearly he expects it to go poorly, given the way he hovers behind Tony, hunched as though to make himself smaller, and shifty-looking, hand pressed to his chest.
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"Calm down Prince Charming, this one's with me."
No one looks ready to believe Tony, but he's in the Iron Man suit. Loki looks hurt. And the two of them are at a no longer locked and guarded door SO-- Tony's glad when they shut up about it. He's not going to explain. Fury it. Tony is going to hang out in Malibu or Paris after this for a few months and get Loki out of his system again. He deserves a break.
"We need to find out where they're holding our pets now," he smirks. "I want the big green one back and I guess we should get the golden retriever too."
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In fact, he wouldn't much mind leaving Thor precisely where he is, but his self-preservation instinct, however usually stunted, suggests it best that he not say so under the circumstances. Why this lot is so loyal to his brother he fails to understand, though he suspects it has much to do with the fact that they've only seen one side of him. The bright side, the golden side that everybody loves. Even Loki does, though he hates it too because he's seen the other sides.
He's seen the petulant child. He's seen the cruel bully. He's seen the hopeless fool. Thor Odinson is more than flawed. He's an unrepentant and nearly tragic idiot, which Loki knows better than anyone else, and which he resents and despises all the more in this man who should be his brother. Who thinks himself his brother, but who fails to understand him in the slightest.
No, he's not wrong. They're not wrong either, not for their purposes. Not until Thor thinks it righteous to turn on them, and he might, someday. He knows as well as Loki does how pointless swearing allegiance is in the long term. It's only an immediate thing, something which may someday require subversion.
But perhaps not within the lifetimes of these men and women. Perhaps only Loki will see. Perhaps only he will ever know.
"If everyone would kindly refrain from attempting to murder me while I'm distracted, however, I can attempt to locate the Thunderer. Dr. Banner may be more difficult, I'm afraid." Alright, mostly relieved, but perhaps a little sorry.
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Tony is not a fan of that idea. Not at all. He scowls at Steve as if the man is trying to have him murdered, even as he stupidly places his hands on his hips and protects Loki from them. He has no awareness that he is doing this, no awareness of how it looks. "You need me for Hulk. To date, he has not tried to squish me even slightly and I can't say the same for the rest of you."
Besides. He doesn't want more alone time withe the horned god.
"We'll take our chances," Clint says, standing up slowly. He leaves first. Tasha follows. And Steve stays behind to put a hand on Iron Man's shoulder and tell him that they will talk later.
"Are we going to braid hair too, Steve!" he calls at his back and glances at Loki. "If your brother kills me because you look like hell warmed over, I'm coming back to haunt you."
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"But please, by all means. Do come back. Haunt me to your heart's content. It would be a shame to lose you." He doesn't mean it in a romantic sense. It's merely preferential and practical: he feels that Tony Stark makes the world a far more interesting and entertaining place, and there is a great deal of value in that. He assumes that he's understood in this sense, as well -- what else, after all, is he likely to mean?
"You may go with your friends, you know," he adds. "I am perfectly capable of locating the oaf on my own." Perhaps more capable, in fact. "Though I expect they want you to watch me, not to help me."
He says it matter-of-factly but there's a hint of derision in it too, as though he's annoyed that they think Tony could do a thing to him that he didn't permit to happen. There's no hurt, though. No betrayal. Why should there be? He's a very bad man, a horrible creature, a monster, and this is how monsters are treated. Always. And they always will be treated as such.
"But you, you and your friends, you should go. This ought to have been between Victor and myself. He ought to know better than to try to make it personal or to draw others in and for that he will pay, I do assure you."
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And Loki is hurt. Tony is hurt too but he's got this protective streak in him that blurs the line he's already teetering over. Stark's loyalties are always and will always be aimed at himself. He's just not sure what he wants.
Or why he'd even think about the other option.
Loki will lead the way and Tony will scan the area to be sure that their going is safe. The quiet is never a good sign, and nor is the fact that Tony has to fly down the stairs rather than walk.
Jarvis informs him of his ailing biometric readings. Tony ignores him and waits patiently for Loki to catch up.
Thor is an easy find because Doom wants him to be. Tony isn't really ready for the reunion between psychopaths though. Or for how fondly Doom talks to Loki. Fond but also aggravated.
"What do you do? Collect big brothers?"
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He'd never sleep with his brother, after all. But he wonders vaguely, and he'll have to ask later, if that's how Tony thinks Loki sees him. He'd be terribly surprised, if so. Perhaps a bit disappointed.
"But you raise an interesting point. I feel Victor has rather overstepped his boundaries. Far overstepped them, in fact," he says, voice low and dangerous. "I feel he forgets what I am."
He steps forward, smile equally fond despite the tone of his voice, and lays his palm on the cool metal of Victor's mask. "I have seen you, Victor von Doom. You are a remarkable man, but you are just a man."
Oh, but their time together was wonderful. They had accomplished delightful things. "You knew I would turn on you, Victor. You must have known, just as surely as I knew you would one day turn on me, given the opportunity. It was never personal. Was it?"
He sighs, almost pouting. "Oh, I didn't figure you for the sentimental sort. Is that what this is about? Do you want me back? Or is this revenge?"
Loki's hand falls to Victor's shoulder, sliding over the lines of fine cloth and metal. "I would think that ill-advised. Surely you're cleverer than that. So tell me, my love. Tell me why I'm going to have to ruin you."
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This display makes Tony colder than Loki had with that cube, with her blue skin and blood red eyes. He swallows back bile at the display, at the affection both men have for each other and while Loki is busy making an idiot of himself and nuzzling a full face mask, Tony goes to where Thor is being held.
"It is no use, Stark. This room refuses to let me call forth Mjolnir." Tony shoves a metal clad finger against where his lips would be on the face plate and hisses at the idiotic blond.
"Be quiet or I'm going to get you fixed," he groaned.
"I need this device deactivated, that will fix me."
Tony rolls his eyes and spares a glance to Loki. He's not jealous. He just doesn't like the way Doom is touching his face. In case he hurts him. Or something.
He just can't get the words from his mind. His love.
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Loki leans into Victor's touch, smiling. It's not affection, this. It's anger, anger in the way that two dangerous men negotiate it when they're trying not to provoke one another into a more murderous rage.
"This will be the end of this nonsense, Victor. No more. Our games are ours. You insult me, my dear, bringing others into what should be ours." He frowns disapprovingly, bloodied fingers working their way into a gap in the armour near the edge of the mask to stroke at the ruined skin underneath. This has always delighted him, the novelty of it lovely to him, which naturally appeals to Doom's ego.
"You will--" Loki's voice cuts off into a gasp as a metal-clawed finger digs into the wound in his chest. His own hand clenches around the metal of the mask, which bends and scrunches under the force.
"We have hardly begun, Trickster," the man behind the mask growls. "Nobody from Doom. Not even you."
Loki laughs breathlessly. "Oh, Victor, no. I've not given them anything you can't replace. Besides, what good are you without a challenge? What good are either of us?"
His hand comes to rest over the glove that presses against his chest, and his expression grows dispassionate and cold as he begins to press down, to squeeze with slowly increasing pressure until the metal begins to bend and warp and the bones underneath to grind and snap.
"You grow so confident in that tin can of yours, darling, that I believe you forget what I am. I could crush you beyond recognition, I could tear you apart and all your beautiful machinery couldn't begin to save you -- you see? You see why antagonizing me is a very bad idea?" He thrusts the hand from himself, now trapped as it is in its twisted claw of a glove, and relishes Victor's cries and the change in his breathing.
"You--"
"Oh, don't fret, love. I know for a fact that you have your surgeons on speed dial. No doubt they can repair what I have wrought. Another challenge for you to surmount, and I suggest you depart now before I decide to give you any more." He frowns, waving a dismissive hand. Two can play the uncaring psychopath game, and Loki always does that one better.
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Loki and Doom will work this out on their own, of that Thor has no doubt. He swings his hammer and Tony is taken along for the ride. By this point, Banner has been located and freed...and Clint is arguing that they take the bracers that he'd been left in back with them.
"What?" Hawkeye grunts as Thor and a startled Tony land. Tony topples down to his knees, out of breath and hurting. "It keeps him from turning green and-- Oh. Hi."
"I think it is best we depart," Thor suggests. "My brother is dealing with our captor and it will become volatile before the session has finished."
"I am not riding Air Thor again!" Tony protests but it is too late. Thor does as he wishes and gathering them all up to propel them to SHIELD HQ happens without another moment's notice. Tony feels ill...but he welcomes it. He'd rather worry about his lunch than feel slighted by Loki and unattached strings he's never actually had.
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