Work Text:
1.
Escaped. Vamoosed. Ta-da! Ladies and gentleman, in the center ring, doing the impossible with a grace and style beyond that of mortal men—me. And is there anything more delightful than to be young and alive and in possession of the Tesseract, an ancient artifact of such power that it can instantly transport one across the entire vastness of space—
So of course, he uses it to transport himself upstairs, to the top of Avengers Tower: right back into Tony Stark's living room, in fact. The place is a mess of shattered glass and broken marble, but all the Avengers are safely 93 stories away and he'd never gotten that drink he was offered—and he still wants it, badly. He goes to the bar and inspects bottles with a shake of his head. New whiskeys—forty years, fifty. Pathetic. Every fiber of his body is crying out for a glass of Odin's elixir: aged ten thousand years in a barrel made from wood cut from the Forest of Norn. Ah, well—when in Rome. He shakes his head and pours a slug of the fifty-year-old stuff into a glass and drinks it down. It's rough, but it suits his wild mood.
It's a good view from up here. In fact, the whole tower is rather majestic in its way. He perfectly grasps the impulse that would have inspired a man like Tony Stark to build a monument such as this and emblazon his name across the top. A bit diva-ish of course, but every circus has its animal acts. The pleasures of ego-gratification aren't trivial. There’s quite a lot to recommend—
2.
"—Loki? Blast and damnation!" and Loki grins, because that’s his dear brother, outmaneuvered and flummoxed again, not like it’s a challenge. He's got a spell that alerts him whenever his name is spoken, and they’re in a perfect tizzy over him downstairs, safely downstairs, still trying to grapple with the fact that he's vanished when he's already on his second drink. "Gone, he's gone—" "This is bad." "Wait, are you telling me that Loki is on the loose?" and as he sips he has the fleeting thought that there seem to be too many voices down there—or rather, multiple versions of the same voices: confusing, strange echoes. But that might just be the effect of drinking rotgut whiskey. In any case, the cacophony of fear and dismay comes to his ear as a delightful harmony. Quite cheering really, and Loki enjoys it as a complement to the view as he sips his second drink—until his calm is abruptly and unpleasantly disrupted.
"I've got eyes on Loki," and he turns, ducks, hands raised—prepared to throw a spell or hurl the crystal tumbler in his hands at someone's head as a distraction. But there's no one there. His eyes dart around the wrecked room, looking for cameras—but no, it wouldn't be a camera, would it, because the voice he heard is the voice of the man they call Captain America, and if he says "eyes" he means "eyes." Loki slowly straightens, listening more intently now.
"I've got eyes on Loki. Fourteenth floor," Captain America says gravely, and then: "I'm not Loki," and oh, this is much too good to miss. Loki smiles, turns, picks up the Tesseract—
3.
—and transports himself, whiskey and all, to a bird's eye view of the fight that's transpiring on the 14th floor between (well, well) Captain America and Captain America. So there is something strange happening here: mirrors or magic or perhaps a break in the time-space continuum. Loki peers discreetly over the balcony. He's always enjoyed a good fight. But combat should be a spectator sport, preferably staged for his personal amusement and, ideally, catered. He's glad for Stark's whiskey and grieves the absence of—oh, good one! The Captain has slammed the Captain's head to the ground! well played!—snacks. Watching the Captain put himself in a headlock is delightful, whereas being in combat is rather boring, really. He thinks of the green monster and suppresses a shudder. Boring and painful. Loki takes another sip of whiskey and decides that, from this day forward, he'll let others take his punches for him whenever possible: condescending to engage personally was clearly a mistake.
Rogers vs. Rogers turns out to be an excellent bout—a real knockdown, bone-cruncher of a brawl between two evenly-matched combatants. There's punches and flying kicks and a lot of twisted metal and broken glass, but eventually one of them manages to pin the other to the ground. Loki leans forward breathlessly, waiting for the coup de grace: surely only one of them is meant to survive! But instead, the pinned down Rogers gasps, "Bucky is alive" —and the apparent victor, shocked into some kind of stupor, lets him go and loses his advantage.
Boo. Appalling. In fact, the entire denouement is a disappointment: very poorly played. There is no killing blow. Rogers merely seizes Loki's own scepter and knocks out his doppleganger, leaving him alive and unconscious on the floor—and for what? Loki grimaces, then lifts his fist and lets his fingers fall open. A little gray cloud appears on his palm. "Who or what is a Bucky?" he asks petulantly, and the little gray cloud quivers for a moment before separating into whisper-thin tendrils and forming a holographic image of a dark-haired soldier in uniform: Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes (1917-1945). Loki snorts; how predictable. Who else would Captain America care about but a fellow soldier, a lost comrade in arms? What pathetic, sentimental slop—exactly the sort of ballad his brother liked to call for when he was drunk. Loki's about to close his fist on the matter when the gray cloud abruptly changes shape and re-forms into—oh, well now that is interesting. Loki peers down at the assassin they call the Winter Soldier, who started killing in 1947 and doesn't seem yet to have stopped. So not such a sentimental story, then; no, someone's taken the Captain "Bucky" in hand and brought his lethal talents into full flower. Ha. Captain America's grieving a man who'd likely gut him like a fish.
Loki laughs, blows the gray cloud off his fist, and looks out again at the spires of Manhattan. He's free from the captivity of the Mind Stone, free from the Avengers —free to do anything he likes. A million windows glint before him in the sunlight. There's a lot of empty space here.
And that…presents possibilities.
4.
The top three stories of what used to be called the Hartley Building are empty and there's a designated glass elevator to the penthouse which Loki likes a lot: he likes standing at the window and contemplating the city before him as he rises: going up and up and up.
He doesn't so much buy the property as announce his acquisition of it as a fait accompli, magicking it off the market and putting a mild curse on it to discourage any other interested parties. He turns up in a splendidly-cut suit, flashing a deed drawn up in the name of the Gilded Apple Corporation: L. Laufeyson, at your service—except, ha, no, not really; rather the opposite, in fact. Their eyes dazzled, the building employees scurry to serve him, the tower's newest and greatest occupant. Loki likes the way they bow and scrape, greeting him effusively when he strides into the lobby, moving quickly to open doors, or to call the elevator. The penthouse suite is marvelous, more than comparable to Stark's—the walls are glass, the view spectacular. He debates simply conjuring up decor to his liking, but decides that it would be much more fun to supervise a stream of workmen, contractors, delivery men, and salesmen—a smorgasbord of patsies, suckers, toadies, and fools to trick, manipulate, and awe.
And so they bring him Turkish carpets and ornaments of carved ivories, delicately painted ceramics and an enormous carved wooden desk. Loki sits behind it in a dark red leather chair, leans back, and surveys the magnificence of his surroundings with a grin. It's very good, very fitting—he likes it a lot—but at the same time, he knows something's missing.
Tony Stark made a fortune—and considerable mischief, not incidentally —as a dealer in technology, primitive weapons like bombs and missiles and so forth. Technology is boring, inferior magic—but imagine how much chaos he can create with the merest dollop of the real thing. On this world, trinkets of the very slightest power—magic lamps, dancing shoes, amulets—have created such pandemonium as to have become the subject of legend. A simple magic necklace could bring the city to its knees, while a love potion—
His plans are interrupted by an unexpected visit.
5.
The door to his inner sanctum opens unannounced. Two men come in—tall men, thick-chested like bulls and wearing badly cut suits over their almost grotesquely muscled bodies—followed by a third. This man is shorter and graying at the temples. Soft hands, lots of jewelry. The tall men give Loki a hard look and then break in different directions, strolling the perimeter of his office; meanwhile, the gray haired man comes forward and, uninvited, makes himself comfortable in the chair on the other side of his desk, smiling pleasantly. What can the bizarre creature be thinking? Eventually the two men finish their reconnaissance and come to stand behind him. One of them unbuttons his suit, revealing a large gun. The other crosses his arms in an apparent display of menace, and finally, the seated man speaks.
“Mr. Laufeyson,” he begins, “my name is Dalhammer, Reginald Dalhammer, and I’m sorry to be the one to tell you that somewhere, somebody’s made some kind of mistake.” It was very clear from his tone of voice that you didn’t want to be the somebody who’d made this mistake, whatever it was. “You see,” he went on, “I happen to be in charge of interviewing and approving everyone who wants to move in or out of this building—it’s sort of my exclusive purview, if you understand my meaning—and yet here you are, which is impossible, or at the very least, unprecedented, being as I don’t remember seeing your application or, more to the point, getting your application fee and discussing all the other fees associated with your tenancy here,” and oh, what an enchanting performance this; it’s all he can do not to clap his hands in glee.
Instead Loki presses the tips of his long fingers to the quilted leather surface of his desk and leans forward, smiling with all his teeth. “Oh please do go on,” and so Dalhammer explains about the application fee and the permit fee and the monthly operations fee that every tenant, Gilded Apple Corporation included, is required to pay to him, cash only please, for apparently no reason at all other than that Reginald Dalhammer wants them to. Dalhammer grows increasingly more unsmiling as Loki, growing increasingly more delighted, says oh and I see and you don’t say before concluding, with terrific good humor, “Ah, but what I’ve perhaps failed to explain to you, Mr. Dalhammer, is how you can go fuck yourself,” and in a swift movement, one of Mr. Dalhammer’s assistants pulls his gun and aims it straight at Loki’s head.
“Marvelous,” Loki says, almost a little starry-eyed. “And you—tell me, what is your job?”
The beefy guy frowns; thinking is obviously a matter of some difficulty for him. “Security assistance,” he says finally. “Protection for Mr. Dalhammer.”
“Ah, yes, I see,” Loki says, and chooses, for his first weapon, bees, conjuring a swarm of them and engulfing the men in a thick, buzzing cloud. The men shriek and flail as they attack, waving their guns helplessly, bees being a notoriously gun-proof adversary, very difficult to shoot. It’s wonderfully comic entertainment, and Loki watches until he’s had enough, then switches to spiders, then concrete, and then ice, transforming into a frost giant and freezing selected parts of the screaming security men with the merest caress. He doesn’t blame the security men—men must work to eat, and how few of us have our choice of profession?—and so he gives them a sporting chance at survival by letting them run for their lives to the nearest heat source. They might lose a finger or some such, but nothing too important—not if they’re quick.
That lets him turn his attention back to Mr. Dalhammer, who he has left tied up and hanging upside down just on the other side of the parapet outside his office. Mr. Dalhammer is now contemplating 95 stories of empty air.
Strangely, he doesn’t seem to like the view from the top.
“So tell me,” Loki begins conversationally; he’s switched back into cloak, helmet, and horns, opting for comfort. He's also affixed the Space Stone to the head of his walking stick. It glows pleasingly. “Do you enjoy the extortion business? Do you find it rewarding, personally or professionally? I’m a relatively young man, but I'm looking for a change of occupation.”
“Mmmf. Mm-mfff,” Dalhammer says, struggling against his gag and ropes.
“I’ll ungag you, if you like,” Loki tells him, “but if I do, the spell you're under will compel you to unburden yourself completely. You won’t be able to help it: all your secrets will come pouring out of you. I understand the horrors of that position,” Loki assures Dalhammer, whose eyes are widening, "both from your side and mine. It is a terrible thing for a man to speak nothing but the truth, and it's terribly boring for anyone else to have to listen to it. Most secrets are so bloody uninteresting; give me a good novel any day. So if you’d prefer to answer with a nod—“
He isn’t even able to finish the thought; Dalhammer, face flushed from hanging upside down, is nodding furiously.
“Right. So do you enjoy being a gangster?” Dalhammer stares, eyes bulging—and then he nods. “Excellent,” Loki says, rubbing his hands; now they're getting somewhere. He looks over at the pile of cash and guns that he's confiscated from the pockets of the trio. “And your primary business is extortion, is that right?” He's still nodding. “Backed by violence." More nods. "Threats thereof?" Loki asks, raising his eyebrows, and Dalhammer just stares, wide-eyed and silent. He's drooling out of the corner of his mouth, around the ropes. "Or violence executed?" A brief jerk of a nod. "Hm. Murder?" and now Dalhammer's eyes are hard—hard and afraid, though it's himself he's afraid for, and fair enough. Loki arches an eyebrow. "Multiple murders?" and Dalhammer is practically vibrating with trying not to give anything away, but he can't resist and it's all the worse for his having resisted; when he breaks, he nods furiously, almost eagerly.
Loki tsks and shakes his head. "Disappointing, Reginald; I'm afraid you've used your authority very poorly, murdering for money. Where's the protection in this racket? These creatures are giving you money for nothing: they're clearly in need of leadership and guidance. This could be a position of vast influence, in the right hands. Mine, that is," and then the ropes binding Dalhammer sparkle—burn—disintegrate. Dalhammer's poised, impossibly, in space for a moment—and then he plummets, his screams echoing through the caverns of skyscraper windows.
6.
The Winter Soldier is oddly difficult to locate, even with finding spells—so much so that Loki wonders if his location has been hidden by someone else's magic. It's not impossible: HYDRA, the organization which created him, was known for its interest in sorcery and the occult and once possessed the Tesseract. When he does eventually find the Soldier—in an underground bunker in iciest Siberia, of all places; a forbidding landscape to some but home turf to him—he's not surprised to see that the heavy bunker doors are inscribed, clumsily, with runes that these monkeys clearly don't understand. The grammar's wrong, the spells are—not even incoherent, they're not even spells. The creatures must have just copied bits of language from alien artifacts or other magical relics that they've stumbled across. The resulting inscriptions are the magical equivalents of t-shirts mistranslated from a foreign language. Hamburger Friend. Become Door. The Pig Is Full of Many. Nonsense, but it was enough to confuse his finding spells.
The Soldier himself is encased in some kind of sarcophagus, a shadowy figure barely visible through a white frozen cloud. It's one of many brutal mechanisms in the room, a high-tech torture device descended from something like an Iron Maiden. Loki studies the machines that control it: their code is much more primitive than the runes they've stitched together. A few taps and the sarcophagus opens, sending a pleasing chill of fog flowing out into the room. The Soldier has been strapped vertically to a gurney, a mess of tubes and wires, a mask over his face. He looks suitably terrifying…right until the moment that he crumples and falls forward.
Loki reacts without thinking, moving to catch him, but the straps around the Soldier's chest break his fall and leave him dangling limply, hair hanging. His color is changing—he looks almost greenish. There's clearly a protocol for this situation, but Loki doesn't know what it is.
But the Soldier must know. Loki tilts the Soldier's chin up and looks into his unfocused gray eyes. "I want you to come work for me," he says softly, and the Soldier just stares at him confusedly for a long moment before nodding, dazedly, and saying in a harsh scrape of a voice, "All right."
Good. “Do you have a mobilization protocol?" Loki asks, putting the tiny push of a minor compulsion spell behind the question; the Soldier doesn't look like he could take much more than that. He's wearing an expression of such despairing blankness that Loki fears that he's been in cold storage too long and his brains have turned all to mush. Then the Soldier blinks once, twice, and rasps: "There are…code words. I—they— They activate me with code words."
Loki issues the command softly. "Tell me," and the Soldier's face twitches and spasms as he obeys. It takes Loki a moment to realize that the Soldier has switched languages, but he has no trouble understanding the words: Longing, Rusted, Seventeen, Daybreak… It's a spell-casting of an unknown kind, but it clearly works. Even as he forces the words out, the Soldier's face sharpens and clarifies. But the mute pain on his face is replaced by a wariness that Loki immediately marks. The Soldier looks hunted, but also like a hunter; it's the look of an abused dog, now leashed but watching carefully for an opportunity. Loki is blindsided by the obvious. This man is dangerous. Well, of course he is; that's the point.
Loki grins widely; he's perfect, just exactly what's required. "Good morning, Soldier," he says.
The Soldier swallows against his dry throat. "Ready to comply," he responds.
7.
Loki frowns when the Soldier shows up to work in his armor and tactical gear. He's silent and extremely menacing, but there’s something—well, altogether too showy about him: the long hair, the eyeblack, the metal arm. It’s all a bit dramatic, not to say scene-stealing, though there can only be one star in this particular show. Loki interlaces his fingers and shakes his head.
But the Soldier cleans up surprisingly well. He’s sent back to his small cubby of a room, and returns dressed as directed: in a dark suit with his hair shorn, body armor now tastefully on the inside, underneath the white shirt and tie. It’s a cheap suit but it looks good on him; somehow the Winter Soldier knows how to wear a suit. The penny drops a moment later: of course he does, because he was once Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s friend from times past. The thought makes joy swell in Loki like a balloon: he has survived, he has escaped Asgard and Thanos and the Chitauri and the Avengers and most of all his brother, and now he’s got Captain America’s dog on a leash: a trophy, proof of his triumph over those fools.
Loki sits back in his red leather chair. Honestly, things are pretty great.
8.
They get better after yet another unexpected visit. Loki had given the Winter Soldier instructions, but wasn’t sure that he’d understood them; the Soldier isn’t much of a conversationalist. But in the event, he plays his part to perfection. The Soldier hears the visitor before Loki himself can perceive him (his senses must be exceedingly acute) and silently moves to the door—then yanks it open and drags the terrified man inside and across the room, depositing him in the chair across from Loki’s desk. Loki wants to applaud as the Soldier stands behind him, looming, a human thundercloud. His performance is marvelous; just marvelous.
It certainly has the desired effect on the pale, balding man cowering in the seat before him. Loki shows him a broad grin that is by no means reassuring. “Yes?”
“Mr.—Mr. Laufeyson?” The man is looking nervously between Loki and the Soldier, evidently not sure from which direction the threat is more likely to come from. Not a fool, then, anyway. “My name is Whitman. Bob Whitman. I’m the CEO of Whitman Financial—we occupy the sixth to ninth floors below you.”
Well, how very neighborly, Loki thinks wryly. He wonders if Mr. Whitman has brought him a pie.
It’s a mocking thought, but it turns out to be closer to the truth than he imagines. Mr. Whitman says, a bit nervously, "I'm coming to introduce myself on behalf of—well, a number of other tenants in the building. Polk and Associates, The Franklin Group, CaliCore. We—" Whitman stops, clears his throat, and says, "We understand that Reginald Dalhammer jumped from the balcony outside your office—"
Loki steeples his fingers beneath his chin. "Yes, indeed; very sad."
" —and so we wanted to let you know that we are, er, very grateful to you," Mr. Whitman says, to Loki's surprise, and the Winter Soldier tenses, ready to strike, even before Whitman shifts and reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out—not a weapon, but a thick wad of currency. Well. Whitman puts it on the quilted leather desktop. Loki stares at it. “And we're willing to do business on your terms.” He meets Loki’s eyes and adds, quietly: “Dalhammer was a bad man.”
“I see,” Loki says, and then he says words he’s rarely had occasion to utter: “I’ll have to think about this.” He's used to being four moves ahead all the time. This, he didn't see coming.
9.
Even the Soldier can see that Loki’s off-kilter. After he sees Whitman out, the Soldier comes back and looks at Loki and then at the wad of bills. But he doesn’t say anything. Loki supposes that the Soldier’s been hard-trained to silence; told not to speak until spoken to.
So Loki speaks. “What?” he asks, a bit irritably.
For a moment Loki doesn’t think the Soldier will say anything, even with an invitation. But then he does.
“You’re not HYDRA,” the Soldier says.
"No," Loki agrees.
The Soldier stares at him. "What are you, then?" he asks finally.
"I'm a chaos demon," Loki replies. "Prince of Asgard, rightful king of Jotunheim, god of mischief." Inspired, suddenly, to do the most improbable thing he can think of, Loki tosses the wad of cash to him. The Soldier barely moves, but snatches it effortlessly out of the air.
The Soldier stares at him for another long moment, and then nods. Okay," he says.
10.
He wonders, vaguely, if the Soldier will just take off; he's done nothing to keep him here since first coercing his compliance with the magical code words. Loki hasn’t bound the Soldier to him either by force or by magic, and now he's armed him with cash, mostly just to see what the hell happens.
But the Soldier doesn't run away; rather, he keeps living in the small closet of a room that he’s chosen for himself and quietly dedicates himself to improving the Gilded Apple Corporation's security. A bank of surveillance monitors appears in a cubby off the penthouse's magnificent foyer. These give views of the elevators, the lobby, the balcony, the roof, the sidewalk below—Loki wonders if the Soldier has hacked existing cameras, or installed new ones. Either way it’s an impressive piece of work.
Loki is further impressed when he’s awoken in his own palatial bedchamber by the Soldier, who is looming over him in the dark, hand pressed against Loki’s mouth. Loki, heart pounding, is about to protest this outrageous impertinence when the Soldier leans in, breath hot against Loki’s ear, and hisses into it, “Assassins. Stay here.” A moment later, the Soldier dematerializes in the darkness, and Loki does, in fact, stay put, listening intently. He hears absolutely nothing.
It continues to be dead quiet—until suddenly there's a low thump, and then another and another, and then the door to his room opens and the Soldier is there, a dark shape silhouetted against the light. Loki goes to him and looks out: there's a pile of unconscious bodies out there, including at least one of the men who came with the now-deceased Reginald Dalhammer.
"What do you want me to do with them?" the Soldier asks softly.
At first, Loki doesn't know. Then he does know. "I'll leave it to your good judgment," he tells the Soldier, because somewhere in there he's realized that the Soldier does have good judgment.
More than that, Loki trusts him.
11.
But he begins to wonder if that trust is reciprocal, or whether it should be. The Soldier seems to take his duties seriously, operating out of loyalty and an evident sense of honor—but the Soldier himself isn't flourishing. He looks pale, and he's definitely growing thinner—and when Loki finally investigates, he discovers that the Soldier isn't eating the food that's been provided to him: that is, the sort of delicacies that Loki likes. "Too…rich," the Soldier is finally made to admit, and yes, of course it's too rich: Loki thinks back to the machine, the tubes and wires, and what he knows of the Soldier's history. The man's been in comas or cryostasis, fed by liquids.
So Loki arranges for more easily digestible fare: broths and soups, gelatin and applesauces. This halts the Soldier's rapid slide into ill-health, and eventually bits of chicken start disappearing, and potatoes, and cheese. His color returns—but at the same time, the Soldier's expression grows sadder, his face more shadowed, his eyes more haunted as the days pass.
He doesn't realize why until one day, he comes upon the Soldier standing at the bank of monitors he's installed. The Soldier doesn't register his approach, which is unusual—the Soldier usually knows what he's going to do before he does—and so Loki pays particular attention to the screens. There are the usual views—elevators, lobby, balcony, roof, sidewalk—but also news channels giving different reports. There's a protest on the steps of the stock exchange. A race riot in a suburb of Paris. And—an international incident involving Captain America.
Loki leans forward, frowning, attending to the flow of images, trying to put the story together. Steve Rogers has been arrested—taken into custody by the Russian military, accused of committing an act of aggression against a sovereign power. The U.S. insists that Captain America was not on a mission to Russia, sanctioned or covert; in fact, he formally quit S.H.I.E.L.D. after the Battle of New York. Steve Rogers has no authority beyond that of a private citizen, says the White House press secretary. He's just a man in a funny outfit. Steve Rogers is accused of breaking into and destroying a top-secret scientific research facility in Siberia—
Loki looks at the Winter Soldier. His face is unreadable.
"He's looking for you," Loki says. "You know that, right?"
"Yeah," the Soldier replies.
Loki should just leave it at that, but his reason for living is chaos, mischief, shit-stirring—and besides, he just has to know. "Do you know who you are?"
"Yeah," the Soldier replies; his eyes haven't left the screen. Loki turns back to look and sees Steve Rogers handcuffed and in civilian clothes; he looks wild-eyed. Loki wonders what happened when Steve Rogers turned up at the thick bunker doors with their deeply-inscribed runes. He imagines Rogers going inside and seeing the empty cryo-chamber, confronting all the primitive torture machines that they used to give the Soldier the abused-dog look he still wears.
Loki doesn't have to imagine beyond that; he's sure that Rogers would try to take the place apart with his bare hands. Rogers is a self-righteous do-gooder, but he isn't a savage; he has philosophy, if you want to call it that. This moral code has driven him to spend his whole life fighting HYDRA and other totalitarian systems. And also, the Winter Soldier was his friend.
"What do you remember?" Loki asks. He's kicking himself for not realizing that the Soldier's brainwashing has been wearing off. He wonders if he will have to put some kind of spell on him to keep him in service. Maybe he just needs to say the magic words again. What were they? Longing, Rusted, Seventeen…
The Soldier is still watching the monitor. "I remember a lot of things," he replies.
The newscaster tells them that, despite the fact that Captain America is no longer officially associated with the U.S. government, diplomats are currently negotiating for his release in gratitude for his years of extraordinary service, up to and including the most recent crisis. And then they cut away to the studio to give the week's weather forecast.
Loki turns back to the Soldier and looks at him curiously. "I happened to be there when he found out that you were still alive," and he can tell this much truth without having to tell the whole truth: truth is an illusion, and illusions are his specialty. "He reacted quite strongly to the news."
A different news broadcast now turns its attention to the Captain America story, and the Soldier reaches out and switches that screen off. "He was always pigheaded like that," the Soldier says—and then, just like that, the conversation's over and the Soldier's all business again. "You have an appointment in fifteen minutes," he tells Loki, who frowns and then nods. "I did a background check: he is who he says he is," and that's how Loki figures out that the code words are no longer necessary: weirdly, James Buchanan Barnes has no intention of leaving his employ.
12.
Loki became the boss of what he has now renamed the GAC Tower with surprisingly little effort, and now seeks to use his seat here to widen his sphere of influence. He deals primarily in magical artifacts, including healing stones, rare plants and herbs, extinct animals, and of course enchanted jewelry; boy, human beings are suckers for enchanted jewelry.
Today's appointment is none of those, though; it's with a man who claims to be in possession of Chitauri artifacts that he can't identify and wants to sell. Loki sits at his desk, and the Soldier puts a manila folder in front of him; he's taken to writing up his background checks and neatly organizing them in a file with supporting evidence. "He's small-time, a salvage worker," the Soldier informs him, "and he's not part of any larger criminal organization. But at the same time—the guy's clearly corrupt, and I think he could be dangerous. We'll want to be careful."
Loki stretches in his chair. "Oh, I think we can take him," and that's true. They have no trouble at all dealing with Adrian Toomes, who brings them three large crates of glowing blue weapons: particle rifles, vapor grenades, power-packs. Toomes leaves, stupidly dazzled by little green pieces of paper bearing the portraits of U.S. presidents, having delivered Loki enough firepower to take over all of Manhattan. Not that Loki wants to, of course; that's so yesterday.
However, it turns out that the rebels of Baluur very much would like to take a stab at conquering Manhattan, having observed by how thin a margin the Chitauri were defeated. They come for the weapons Toomes has collected, and they're rather more of a challenge than Toomes, partly because they're 12 feet of raw strength and have shape-shifting abilities. That said, they don't have much in the way of strategy; the Baluurians are not quite as stupid as the Chitauri, but that's a low bar indeed. Stupidity in muscle isn't the asset he'd once assumed it was.
And the Soldier just proves the point. Loki lets himself come fully into his power and fights lustily, rather enjoying it, but the Soldier is punching well above his weight-class. They're outnumbered, but that doesn't matter: the Soldier shows no fear. He takes out the Baluurians one by one, and moreover, he's clearly trying to defend and protect Loki to the best of his ability.
Loki's touched, really.
13.
The story makes the front page of The New York Times: FREED, CAPTAIN AMERICA DEMANDS ANSWERS. Loki goes to the surveillance cubby and finds the Soldier staring at the bank of monitors. He slaps the newspaper down in front of him. "He's still looking for you.
The Soldier glances down at the headline, takes in the photograph of Steve Rogers, blazing, standing at a podium surrounded by microphones, then returns his implacable gaze to the security cameras: elevators, lobby, balcony, roof, sidewalk. Loki hasn't asked a question, so there's no reason to expect a response, except he does expect a response. He crosses his arms and taps his foot, glaring down at the Soldier, who keeps staring at the screens. The elevator is empty. The doorman's drinking coffee. A woman walks her dog down the street in front of the building.
Finally, whether out of respect or maybe just because Loki's his boss, the Soldier responds, though he doesn't meet Loki's eyes. "I don't want him to find me," he says.
"Whyever not?" Loki demands. "He's your friend, isn't he? All the history books say so," though of course, Loki's lived long enough to know that written history's often incomplete or plain wrong.
"He was," the Soldier says heavily. "A long time ago," and then he looks at Loki and says: "He doesn't really want to find me."
That's such a ludicrous thing to say that Loki laughs out loud. "I'm sorry, but all evidence appears to the contrary. You should read the article. Captain Rogers has not only invaded Russia but has destroyed a bank vault in Washington, D.C., a research base in Sokovia, and a submarine off the coast of Brazil. If he doesn't really want to find you, he's wasting an awful lot of energy."
The Soldier's face is guarded, but a muscle is jumping in his jaw. But then his control snaps and he turns to stare at Loki—and his eyes are a bright cold gray, like an arctic dog's. "He thinks he wants to find me, but he doesn't," the Soldier grits out. "Not as I am. Not after what I've done."
Loki feels a sudden, savage rage against Captain America's moralistic, priggish, do-gooding bullshit. How dare America's favorite son judge anyone? He saw the machines: he must know of the tortures and compulsions that the Soldier endured. He wasn't in control of his own mind, or his own actions—he was misused by a stronger, more malevolent force.
But favored sons never understand the way that second sons are sidelined, do they? No. The first son is blessed with pomp and ceremony, made the hero of song and story; he inherits all while the second son scrambles in the darkness, foraging for scraps. Nobody bothered to look for the second son when he fell, did they? No. They peered down into the darkness, and perhaps wept a tear or two, and then they went about their lives, uncaring and forgetting.
Except…The red fog of rage clears, and Loki again looks down at the newspaper. CAPTAIN AMERICA DEMANDS ANSWERS—and in his head, he hears the gasped news, "Bucky is alive," and sees Steve Rogers shocked into losing his fight with himself. Siberia, Washington, Sokovia, Brazil—any objective observer would be forced to conclude that Steve Rogers wants to find the Soldier very very badly indeed; in fact, that he won't stop till he does.
Loki says, slowly, "Sergeant Barnes," and the Soldier's head jerks up, his eyes going wide and— He would have said teary, but two blinks and the arctic gray eyes are dry. "You may be wrong," and Barnes is still trying to control his face but his expression is torn between agony and hope. Loki presses on: "I think there's a very distinct possibility that you are wrong."
"Oh yeah?" James Barnes's voice is wet, raw—nothing like the Soldier's controlled tones. Loki also thinks he detects the first sign of a regional accent. "You think so, do you? Why don't you give your brother a call—invite him over for a beer, talk things out, bury the hatchet?" and the very suggestion makes Loki unwell, like he's drunk a toxic cocktail of fear and humiliation.
James Barnes watches him closely, face quivering with sympathy—and then something hard and cold slams down and he becomes the Soldier again right before Loki's eyes. "Right," the Soldier says, with soft steel in his voice. "So you know," and Loki spins on his heel and strides away, back into his office with its view overlooking a foreign city of towers and spires.
14.
Indeed, he does know. Loki Laufeyson, Prince of Asgard, rightful king of Jotunheim, god of mischief, knows all about the curse of being oneself, and of having to live with who one has previously been. But the Soldier's wrong about Steve Rogers: he knows, he saw the look of hope on the man's face. Loki stands at the penthouse windows, looking out at a city that isn't home (but where is?) He can make things right for the Soldier, he's sure of it: send a raven, or better yet, just magick a note into Steve Rogers' pocket. And while other people's secrets are so terribly boring, they can be useful; people in power, he knows, will do anything rather than be exposed. He can put his thumb on the scale for Steve Rogers. Loki watches the setting sun reflect orange off the buildings. He can give his security man some security, put some protection into his racket. The thought makes him smile. Why else be a god, if not to meddle in the affairs of men? Eventually the sunlight is extinguished, like a man pinching a candle. The shadows fall.
Loki sees himself, now, vaguely—just the hint of his tall, thin reflection in the darkening glass. He waves his hand and the window becomes a mirror. And there he is, in his suit and white silk shirt. When the impulse comes upon him to shift into his horns and cloak, he quashes it. After another moment's consideration, he waves his hand again—and sees, to his surprise, that his brother has gone (home; not home) back to Asgard. Thor is sitting with their—his— mother. His hair is unkempt, and his beard has grown out. He seems very distraught.
He's tempted to listen, but knows that he doesn't really want to hear. He's heard it all before, anyway: He's been such a disappointment, blah blah. War, ruin, and death wherever he goes. His birthright was to die on a frozen rock, why oh why did Father ever bother to kidnap him? Surely Odin must rue whatever urge it was, whether domination or battlefield kindness—
—except Loki is a master of tricks, which include misdirection, sleight of hand, manipulation, and lip reading, and the words on their lips refuse to match the words in his head.
—looked everywhere, his brother says despairingly, not anywhere in the nine realms.
His mother's lovely brow is furrowed. We must be cleverer, she says, if we are to bring him back to us. I will consult the oracles, and the ancient books of spellcraft—
She rummages through books and scrolls while Thor watches helplessly; he was never good at anything that involved books, or thinking, really. His brother is made of foolhardiness and bravery and pure animal instinct. Except that it’s Thor who catches sight of him, who sees through his spell and perceives him. Thor suddenly looks straight at him, which wouldn’t matter a damn except for the fact that Thor's face shows not just surprise, but wonder and joy. He shouts, and Loki reads his lips easily: Loki’s here—I see him! The ancient parchment slips from Frigga’s startled fingers. Thor's still looking at him, and his feelings are as clear to read and incontrovertible as Steve Rogers': Bucky is alive. But he’d known all along, hadn’t he, that the Soldier'd misjudged his situation. He just hadn’t realized that he'd wrongly assessed his own.
Thor is stretching out a hand to him. His mouth moves. Brother. And then Loki reaches back helplessly, and his fingertips push right through the glass.