Chapter Text
It was one of those times. Time to fall asleep. Tony’s ears had stopped working a long time ago. By now Fury’s endless and terribly repetitive speech had completely faded into the background and instead Tony was studying the colour of the wall. What a fascinating kind of… white. Or was it beige? Hard to tell.
“… absolutely necessary to improve our communication to a point where…”
Really? Fury was still talking? Tony wanted so badly to moan out loud or to roll his eyes, but then the entire thing was going to take even longer and Tony was already wasting precious lifetime. Obviously though he was the only one to think so, because every other Avenger looked perfectly attentive. 10 more minutes, how much longer could it possibly take?
Tony was busy thinking about which one might be his favourite Star Trek episode when somebody did him a favour and interrupted Fury.
“I’m sorry, Director, but I…”
“Agent Rayne, this is an Avengers meeting.” Fury narrowed his eyes, very obviously annoyed by the agent who entered the room without knocking.
“I know, but this is important.” The agent insisted, still somewhat politely and that instantly earned him a dark glare. “As far as I know you haven’t been on a mission recently, so I am sure that any information you might have can wait another 30 minutes.”
No, that was too much for Tony to take. “What? 30 minutes? Please, say whatever you want to say, just make him stop talking.”
“Stark.” Natasha reproachfully said his name as if that was going to make him feel bad for being so tired of Fury’s monologues. Actually Tony was surprised that Steve wasn’t glaring at him yet, probably Fury had stopped giving them actual information hours ago.
“Hey, when an agent storms into such a tremendously important meeting that can only mean that the building is probably already on fire and Nick here wants to ignore it.” Tony winked at Fury who definitely made a mental note to kill Tony eventually. For now he decided to get rid of the agent quicker by listening to him. “Fine, agent Rayne, go ahead, but it’d better be important.”
Rayne nodded and didn’t lose a second. “I think I got in contact with the Ghost.”
Well, that was a disappointment. Strangely enough not for Fury who suddenly looked like Rayne had told him that he had only five more minutes to live. “What? When?”
“Just half an hour ago on my way to work.”
“How is that even possible?! Why haven’t you immediately contacted HQ? Where is my report? How are you even…”
Tony hated it when he had no idea what was going on. Like right now. Also Fury was begging to be interrupted. “Uhm, sorry, but what are you talking about? Who is the Ghost? Like an actual ghost? If so I am really pissed for not being involved in the secret ghost project.”
“The Ghost is SHIELD’s codename for Loki.” Clint muttered absently and Tony noted that he had balled one hand into a fist. Tony couldn’t help it to feel bad now and his body went instantly into high-alert mode. “Why don’t you just call him Loki? That wouldn’t be so fucking confusing.”
“Tony, that’s not the point right now. Where did you see Loki?” Steve directed the attention back to agent Rayne who was still standing in the open door, looking a bit out of place and just the slightest bit taken aback at how an Avengers meeting looked like. “Like I’ve said – half an hour ago. I saw him in a book store that I like to frequent.”
It was fascinating what a name could do. Mention Loki to this group of people and the bored, dry atmosphere turned into tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. Nobody was leaning back against their chair anymore. Everyone was sitting straight, leaning forward, listening attentively and Tony already felt his fingers twitching. Half an hour ago? So maybe there was still a chance to get the son of a bitch?
“Despite the risk of repeating myself… why didn’t I receive that message half an hour ago? We would have had several teams ready to take him in!” Normally Tony would have been annoyed by Fury’s big, bad show, but now it was about Loki and he couldn’t deny that he agreed with him.
Kudos to the agent though, he didn’t bat an eyelid, completely unimpressed. A blank face similar to Natasha’s. “I decided against contacting HQ because I saw an opportunity to shadow him. At first I wasn’t sure that it was him, sir. His hair was different and he moved easily among the people. He was shopping. Due to the large amount of civilians and considering Loki’s abilities I didn’t want to risk alerting him.”
“That was a good decision, agent.” Steve nodded appreciatively and Tony could admit that calling in the Avengers would have probably ended in a huge disaster since Loki didn’t bother to get people out of the way before attacking them.
“So instead of calling back-up you decided to do nothing and tell us afterwards that you happened to see SHIELD’s most wanted criminal.” Natasha cocked an eyebrow at Rayne and Tony admired that a person could look this condescending by doing so little.
One didn’t have to be very observant to notice that it rubbed Rayne the wrong way. Not very surprising. “I’ve been on 17 undercover missions, agent Romanoff. I am more than capable of surveilling somebody without being noticed. I observed him for 15 minutes then he got ready to leave… Given his history of just vanishing thanks to teleportation I figured that he would be gone as soon as he left the store, so I made a judgement call and approached him.”
Tony wanted to ask if Rayne wasn’t by any chance mind-controlled. No, his eyes seemed naturally blue. Pretty. “Now isn’t the right time for a dramatic pause. What did you do?”
Rayne raised his right hand that was holding his phone. “I got his number.”
Now that was an effective way to make them all fall completely silent. Tony let his eyes travel across the room, from one face to the next and he saw the very same thing on all of them. Utter shock. Well, there had to be a reasonable and logical explanation for this. Loki might actually have a phone. Okay, Loki could buy that. Not that much of a problem. “So… you hacked his phone. Good job, agent. A free cookie for you. I like it when people use their IT background.”
Tony already knew that it wasn’t going to be that simple which instantly made Rayne the most interesting person in the room which was quite an achievement. “No, Mr. Stark, I asked him for it.”
Well, Tony would leave it to the others to comment on this, he needed a couple more minute to grasp even the bare concept of what was happening.
“Are you making a joke? Because let me tell you that it’s not funny.” Clint grumbled softly and Rayne shook his head. “I am not joking. I approached him, I talked to him, then I asked him for his number and he gave it to me.”
No, Tony couldn’t help it. “Sorry, but are we really talking about Loki here? Tall guy. Long black hair. Eyes green as poison. A bit power hungry and with sociopathic tendencies. That Loki? Or did you just pick up some random guy while book shopping. Which would still be cool, but way less interesting.”
“Stark…” Natasha only sighed his name which was probably supposed to tell him something, but Tony didn’t care, because how the hell was he supposed to wrap his head around the fact that Loki was handing out his phone number. While Tony was still pondering that Natasha continued to talk. “You’re lucky to still be alive, agent Rayne.”
“I disagree.”
Everybody’s head turned to look at Thor who oddly hadn’t said anything until now. “You have had one conversation with my brother, Romanoff. You don’t know him. He has never reacted aggressively to possible suitors even if he was very annoyed by them. He likes to taunt and mock people even if they aren’t aware of it. It would be much more like him to play along and give the agent a fake number and laugh as soon as he was gone. That possibility is much more likely.”
Fury let out the strangest noise, which reminded Tony of a growl. “This is not getting us anywhere. Rayne, sit down. I want the whole report. Your phone is going straight to IT. Don’t leave anything out.”
So Tony got to hear how a SHIELD agent, off duty at that time, ran into Loki and how he pretended to be into the same books as him to eventually ask him for his phone number.
“Details, please. If you got Loki to give you his number, I may need your advice in the future.”
“Tony, be serious. Agent Rayne, could he have suspected anything? That you aren’t a regular civilian?” Steve didn’t even take his time to properly scowl Tony. What a shame.
The agent responded by shaking his head. “I guess there is no way to know for sure, but I don’t think so, Captain. I didn’t get that vibe.”
“A vibe? That’s supposed to be enough.”
Natasha seemed to like switching sides in this conversation. Now she was suddenly pointing out how Rayne was right. “Intuition is a main part of spy work, Stark. You have to make decisions in split seconds.”
“Okay, alright. So we have Loki’s phone number. What are we going to do with it?” Tony was losing his patience over this, because nobody had just suggested yet that they should simply call him. They’d figure out what to say to him later on.
“It might be a way to locate him, lure him into a trap… or at first to keep taps on him. If it really is his phone number.” Natasha pointed out the obvious before turning back to Rayne. “Did you insinuate a romantic interest when you asked for his phone number?”
“Not specifically, but I told him that I’d like to meet up again to talk to him… I had to improvise and the way I spoke up to him… I don’t think there is any other way he could have interpreted it.”
Well, now even Tony had to admit that Rayne had some balls. Walking up to Loki and pretending to be into him, that definitely meant risking your neck. But now that Tony was thinking about it, he couldn’t hold back from making another comment. “Thor, take a good look. Could Rayne be your brother’s type? Not everybody is into tall, blue eyed guys with perfect hair.”
Rayne ever so slightly arched his eyebrow at Tony. Like most people did when they weren’t used to him. Yes, Rayne had definitely imagined the Avengers meeting differently. Things got only better when Thor answered that absolutely legit question. “My brother has always had very diverse taste, but I believe that the agent’s appearance would please him.”
“I’m sorry, but what conversation are we having here?” Clint seemed more upset than confused, probably because he had a very good idea where they were going with this.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Fury sighed, rubbing one temple. That man was very obviously suffering from a major headache. “First we need to try and track that phone down, then we need to come up with a complete battle plan…”
Clint leaned over to Tony, muttering under his breath “20 dollars that he mistook some guy with a weird haircut for Loki.”
“Oh please. I am a billionaire, remember?”
“Okay, 50 dollars.”
“Deal.”
***
The next day all of them were ordered back to the headquarters for another meeting. When Steve entered the conference room he saw agent Rayne already sitting there next to Fury. No doubt that this conversation was also going to be about Loki.
Had they been able to locate him yet? To be completely honest Steve had no idea if Rayne had actually come into contact with Loki. Their supervillain going out to buy books like everybody else? Hard to believe.
“Here we are, Nick. Come on, tell us. Our friend and Loki have already agreed on a date?” Tony dropped on a chair next to Steve and Fury immediately scowled. “I would really appreciate it if you didn’t take this situation lightly, Stark.”
“Can’t make any promises.”
Steve decided to ignore Tony’s comments and instead directly addressed Fury. “What do we need to know, sir?”
“That the phone number agent Rayne received leads into a black hole. We’re unable to locate it and officially the number doesn’t exist. We’ve run out of options. Well, except for calling him. Which are we going to do. Now.”
To Steve’s surprise it was Clint who bluntly asked Fury if he was serious. Not Tony.
“Yes, agent Barton, I am serious. Agent Rayne and me have gone through this plan several times. He is going to invite to one of several places that we’ve picked out. When that meeting takes place, the Avengers are going to be around to interfere and take Loki in if possible.”
“That doesn’t sound like a plan… maybe the fifth of a plan, but nothing more. Also, did I get that right? You are actually setting them up for a date? I was only joking when I said that.”
“Are you convinced that this is the right way to go about it? There is still time to get a few more people working on this.” Natasha glanced at Rayne who was way faster to understand the meaning behind it than Steve.
“I am perfectly qualified and very much capable of this task. Also I am the only one who can do this, because Loki gave me his number. Not somebody else.”
Next to Steve Clint huffed. “I am still not sure if we’re even talking about Loki here.”
Fury didn’t bother to even glance at him. “Highly unlike that it’s not the case. He introduced himself as Loki and Thor took a look at the piece of paper that he wrote his phone number on. He identified it as Loki’s handwriting.”
Steve swallowed softly. So it was true. Loki was indeed wandering around the city like an ordinary citizen. Able to interact with everybody. Sure, it seemed foolish now that Steve had ever thought that Loki would stay all the time in his hiding stop when he wasn’t lancing a new attack.
“Rayne, you know what to do. Let’s go.” Fury made an inviting gesture and Rayne nodded. To Steve he didn’t look particularly nervous, but they probably had been practicing this for hours. “You being here is merely for sparing me the time of keeping you all updated with the process. Nobody is going to say a word.” Fury warned them while Rayne was already typing in a phone number.
Steve felt like holding his breath, then quickly realised that that would be ridiculous and instead settled for gnawing on his lower lip. Perfect silence was filling the room for several seconds. Perhaps it had been a prank after all and Loki was never going to answer the phone.
Until he did.
It was this very second that Steve realised that he would never be any good at spy missions. Acting was fine if it was for fun, between friends as an innocent game. This was none of that. Rayne had to pretend to be excited to talk to a murderer who was feeling nothing but distain for all of mankind. That didn’t mean that Rayne wasn’t doing a pretty good job. “Hey, Loki. This is Sebastian. You know… from the bookstore…”
No, Steve had to correct himself. This was incredibly impressive. He sounded almost shy, a bit awkward and excited to talk to Loki. As if he was asking somebody for a real date. “Right, yeah… Listen, I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner with me sometime? Preferably Friday night…”
A couple of seconds of silence which meant Loki was talking.
“Oh… yes, sure. If that’s what you’d rather do. I know just the… Alright, sure. Why not? Tomorrow five o’clock? Great. I’m looking forward to seeing you again. Bye.” It was like hitting a button. The second the conversation was over the smile vanished from Rayne’s face and the expression that remained was so sour. “That didn’t quite work out as planned.”
“Why? Didn’t he fall for your incredible charm?” Tony was all too happy to bring his sarcasm back up. Rayne looked once more like he would definitely have preferred to do all of this without the Avengers. Steve understood him perfectly.
***
They got to hear the record of the phone call several times. Loki’s side of the conversation wasn’t very energetic, but definitely interesting. Also a bit harsh. He declined Rayne’s suggestion to have dinner by telling him that he preferred a coffee. Like that it would be easier to get rid of him if he should turn out to bore Loki to death.
Charming, right?
It also brought up a couple of problems. Loki had got to choose the location and the café of his choice was a highly frequented place. Excessively dangerous for bystanders and hard to control. They couldn’t afford risking Loki seeing a familiar face. The suggestion was brought up to get in some agents to pose as staff of the café. Why not a fake waitress? Steve spoke up against it.
“We already know that he went to the bookstore. Maybe that’s something he likes to do. Maybe he likes the café too. If he goes there often, he knows the staff. He would notice the change. We should better send in somebody among the guests.”
Due to the location the plan was rather simple. No attack, just observation. Rayne should try to get Loki to talk, find out any kind of information that could be useful. At first Tony could have said that the entire idea was stupid, but for some reason Loki had agreed to meet up with Rayne. It wasn’t impossible that he was already aware of what was going on and tried to lure them into a trap and not vice-versa.
Or Loki was just a guy like everybody else and was game when an attractive person of the preferred sex approached him. Rayne was cute, no question about that. His job though might easily end up killing him. If Loki realised that they were playing him
According to Fury that shouldn’t be a problem, Rayne had plenty of experience when it came down to undercover missions. Actually more than Natasha. Which really seemed to bother her and made Tony grin like a maniac. It was all very short lived. Suddenly the date was there and the Avengers were hiding out in different places, a couple of streets away from the café where Loki and Rayne were going to meet. Tony and Clint were hanging out in a van with complete video surveillance. At least five agents were guests in the café, all of them wearing hidden cameras. Thanks to them they had a nice view of Rayne sitting at a table, waiting for Loki.
Waiting for Loki. Which was still the most bizarre thing that had ever happened on this planet. There was no way in hell that Loki was going to show up. No chance.
“I can’t believe that Fury said okay to this… Loki is either just fucking with Rayne or he is looking right through this and is immediately going to kill him. That’s the definition of a shit job.” Clint was muttering under his breath, tapping his foot against the floor of the van.
“Or Loki just wants to get laid… you are a guy. You should know that everybody has some needs.”
“So you don’t think that this isn’t going to end up in immediate disaster, because this is the worst idea that any human being has ever had?” Clint tilted his head and looked at Tony questionably who shrugged. “Every reality show ever was a worse idea than this… He probably won’t even show up. It’s Loki, he’s fucking with us.”
“Very possible… but…” Clint shifted uncomfortably. “Thor’s told us before that his brother gets bored really easily. Perhaps he’ll just show up to get some entertainment… like going on a date with a guy to steal all of his money, then leaving him broke and very sexually frustrated.”
“That would be an asshole move… and totally in character. Let’s wait and…”
“Confirmed visual on Loki.”
“Well, that went fast.”
Simultaneously Clint and Tony leaned forward towards the screen, almost knocking their heads together. At first Tony thought that it was false alarm. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t see a dark and moody Goth prince anywhere.
“Holy shit, when did he grow out his beard? I didn’t think he could grow out a beard. He doesn’t even look like Loki anymore… I am so weirded out by this…” Clint shuddered demonstratively while Tony arched an eyebrow. When he finally made out Loki he was equally surprised. The archer was right, this didn’t look much like Loki. The black hair had turned brown, it was cut short and curly. Like Clint had already pointed out, Loki was now having facial hair. A full beard, nicely trimmed.
Nope, didn’t look like Loki. More like human, normal, slightly hipster version of Loki.
“Wait a second… what is he holding in his hand?”
“That’s… a cup of coffee. What the fuck? Who brings coffee to a date in a café?”
It was time to shut up when Loki approached the table Rayne was sitting at. His steps were fast, confident and his face completely blank. Rayne on the other hand began his routine. A shy smile that looked completely genuine and at the same time it didn’t go well with Rayne’s face. “Hey Loki. So glad you…”
“I changed my mind.” Loki talked over him without a care in the world. “I’ve already had coffee.” He raised the cup to make a point. “I’m going to a reading, so I have about 20 minutes. You want to take a walk?”
No, Loki didn’t sound particularly interested and Rayne merely stared at him for five seconds before getting a grip. Trap? Loki being a troll? Did he know what was going on? Or was he just being the son of a bitch that they knew and hated?
A decision had to be made instantly. Sure, one or two agents could follow them, but the main surveillance would be left behind at the café. Didn’t sound like the safest setting and Rayne had to know that. Tony would already be running away.
“Oh, alright. Sure.” Rayne got up from his chair and Loki nodded, barely waiting for him before wandering off again. The SHIELD agent with the worst job in the world rushed after him.
Rubbing one hand over his eyes Clint groaned. “I knew this was a bad idea…” After clearing his throat Clint talked directly into his radio. “We need to get air surveillance on them. We cannot lose them. Constant visual contact is absolutely necessary.”
Tony had to admit that some agents indeed didn’t completely suck at their jobs, because Loki and Rayne disappeared from the screens. They had to rely on secret microphone Rayne was wearing.
“So what reading are you going to later?”
That wasn’t the smoothest way to start a conversation, but what was a secret agent supposed to say on a fake date that the super villain clearly had no interest it.
“Robert Sanderson presents his new book about his theories about dark matter.”
Tony almost fell of his chair hearing that and they were in luck that Rayne wasn’t a complete moron. “You are into physics? I figured that you were more an arts guy… given all the history books.”
“I have lots of different interests.” Loki sounded incredibly bored while saying that and he had to be trolling them, there was no other possibility. He clearly didn’t want to spend any time with Rayne, but it didn’t look like he was luring him into a trap either. No, Tony didn’t get what was going on here.
“Okay. History, physics. What else?”
“Art, rhetoric, chemistry, architecture, music, mathematics… Pretty much anything.” Since they didn’t have a visual Tony could only imagine Loki’s body language. As disinterested as his tone? Seriously, what were they doing here? This couldn’t lead anywhere.
Rayne had to notice it too and he did. He turned out to be a risk taker. Tony had to admit that he was quite good at pulling this off. Playing the guy who was rightfully pissed off at his awful date. “You know you could have just said no. I’m not forcing you to be here. If you don’t want to go out if me, don’t go out with me. Don’t show up and waste my time. I thought you were interesting, but I have better things to do than suffering your obvious passive-aggressiveness… which is not as interesting as you might think.”
Clint and Tony shared a look. Both of them were waiting for the loud bang. Or the chilling sound of a knife cutting through skin and hitting the bone beneath. Neither came. There was only silence. Awkward. By the time that Tony was convinced that Loki had killed Rayne in complete silence they started talking again.
“I don’t think someone has ever called me passive-aggressive. Normally they settle for aggressive.”
“Strangely enough I’d prefer that.”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
“How about you let me decide that?”
Another pause.
“Alright. Maybe you could come along to the reading. What was your name again?”
“Sebastian and you very quickly turn out to be a jerk.”
“Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know yet. We’ll see.”
They continued to talk and Tony thought that he might actually be losing his mind, because now there was actual small talk going on. This was definitely insane. It only got worse when Loki and Rayne actually went to that book reading. During that Tony finally made it to not constantly feel on the edge anymore.
Two hours later they were all back at the headquarters and Fury was all over Rayne. Wanting to hear his report, how he was still alive and if he was already brainwashed. The usual. And of course if he had any useful information. Like where was Loki’s hiding place or what was he planning to do next.
“None of that sort. He claimed to work as an archivist. That’s the most personal thing he told me. We’re having dinner Saturday night.” Rayne mumbled nonchalantly and Tony thanked Clint with all of his heart for saying what had to be said. “Great, get him to take you home. We need his home address. So better wear something revealing.”