Chapter Text
"The soldier. The man out of time."
Loki turned to face Steve Rogers, staring at him through the Helicarrier's rounded glass cage. His lips stretched into a disturbing caricature of a smile, and Steve tried desperately to keep himself from looking unnerved
"I must say that I had not expected you." Loki stated, gesturing toward him. "I thought perhaps the Spider, as a balm after whatever tortures your Director could concoct, but not you, the soldier." Loki bared his teeth once more. "Have you come to pledge allegiance to your future king?" he mocked.
Steve tried to keep the revulsion out of his expression, but judging by Loki's barked laugh, he failed.
"Ah," Loki smiled. "You do not think I would make a good king?"
"In my opinion, no earthly king is a good king." Steve replied flatly.
"Ah, but I am not from your precious Earth, but from the realm of the gods," Loki returned smugly.
"And how could a so-called 'god' like you ever hope to rule a race you do not understand? You have never walked a mile in a human's shoes. What would a spoiled alien prince like you know of pain, of hunger, of sacrifice, of living every day as though it were your last?" Steve raised his chin, staring Loki down.
Loki broke his gaze with a hollow laugh. "More than you might think. You would have to be very lucky to live a thousand years without experiencing all of those things, and "spoiled prince" I might be, but lucky I am not."
"Perhaps your problem isn't lack of luck but lack of character," Steve suggested flatly.
"My dear Captain, I think I am sensing some hostility," Loki remarked, lips curling upward. "Your dislike seems almost personal."
"I don't like bullies." The statement was plain, simple even, but it was a big part of what made Steve who he was.
"Good for you." Loki replied. "Judging from your looks, I suspect you have not had to tolerate their presence often."
"My looks?" Steve's voice was laced with amusement.
"Oh, yes," Loki said bitterly. "Blond hair, blue eyes, six foot three, and capable of lifting, what, ten tons? You would fit right in on Asgard."
"And before I took the serum to gain this strength, I was just an anemic kid with asthma, rheumatic fever, heart palpitations, and poor vision, getting beaten up in just about every other alleyway in Brooklyn," Steve retorted.
Loki blinked, staring at Steve Rogers. "Well, I am allergic to nuts!" he shot back.
Steve gaped at him. "This isn't a competition, Loki."
"Well, if it was, I would win." Loki sniffed.
Steve looked at him incredulously. "You really think," he said slowly, "that a nut allergy is worse than everything I've just said."
"You do not understand." Loki stated, lifting his chin. "No one else on Asgard was allergic to nuts. I was the only one. No one believed me. Thor's friends kept slipping peanuts into my stew and saying I was faking it when I went into anaphylactic shock. Once I forgot my antiallergy potion and stopped breathing on the way to the healing chambers! And yet they only stopped when I poisoned their stew to show them what it felt like."
"Okay, that is pretty bad," Steve admitted. "But it's no excuse for the way you've been acting. You could have chosen to be the bigger person and not follow in your bullies' footsteps."
"I am not following in their footsteps," Loki protested. "The fact that the Warriors Three visited Midgard just before me does in no way mean that I am following after them!"
"I feel like this conversation got sidetracked," Steve said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Nonsense. I said hello, you preached about having no earthly kings, and..." Loki scrunched his brow. "Perhaps we might have gotten a little sidetracked," he admitted. "Why did the Director send you, exactly?"
"Answer my question first," Steve replied. "Where is the Tesseract?"
Loki rolled his eyes and studied his nails. "No idea, I am afraid."
Steve sighed impatiently. "Look, Loki. You are not going anywhere, and this is your last chance to make a wise decision and give up your pointless, doomed campaign. We need that Tesseract back. We can either do this the easy way or the hard way."
Loki chuckled, his gaze turning distant. "Believe me, Captain. There is no easy way out. You could say I learned that the hard way."
Steve sighed once more and waited for Thor to arrive before opening the cage's door. Loki watched the proceedings with a frown, glaring at Thor as he pulled him out by the shoulder, holding Mjolnir threateningly.
"Where are you taking me?" he demanded.
The corner of Steve's mouth twitched upward. "To whatever tortures Director Fury can concoct," he replied wryly, and led the way to the interrogation room. Loki followed in silence.
***
After almost an hour of Director Fury standing threateningly above a seated Loki, while Steve and Thor hovered behind him, and Agent Romanov lurked in the corner, they had gotten precisely nowhere.
Loki sat looking quite smug despite Mjolnir resting on his foot, pinning him in place. Steve still had no idea how that hammer worked, but it seemed to be pretty effective-- unlike Director Fury's interrogation technique, which seemed to be shouting in Loki's unaffected face and throwing out threats Thor would never allow them to follow through on.
They were starting to delve into the topic of the scepter and Agent Barton when a glimmer of an idea began to grow in Steve's head.
"Loki, have you ever heard of the saying, 'An eye for an eye'?"
Everyone grew silent and looked to Steve in confusion.
Loki rolled his eyes. "If this is about that fellow in Germany--"
"Have you?" Steve interrupted. The others were still looking at him oddly, but this was the first time Loki had responded in a while, so they let him work as he saw fit.
Loki huffed. "I believe it had something to do with forgiveness and how without it the whole of Midgard would be blind, or some such nonsense."
Steve smiled. "I prefer to think that people would eventually learn to stop gouging out people's eyes in the first place. The way I see it, we have you, and we have the mind control scepter, or whatever it's called. Why shouldn't we return the favor and solve all our problems by doing to you what you did to Agent Barton?"
Silence.
Everyone in the room stared at him in shock, Loki included.
"I-- you insolent--" Loki spluttered, clearly trying to hide his fear. "Thor would never allow you to make me into a thrall!"
Thor begrudgingly acknowledged that fact with a nod.
"Perhaps, but I don't see why we couldn't experiment a little," Steve replied with a shrug. "The scepter seems to have power over minds. Perhaps we should skip this nasty interrogation business and use it to read your mind rather than control it." Steve waited for Loki to say that the scepter didn't work like that.
Instead, Loki paled. "You mortals would never be able to wield the scepter's power!" he finally spat. So the scepter could be used to read minds.
"I don't believe you." Steve replied flatly, and Loki paled even further. "If that was the case, you would have said so when I brought up mind control."
"That-- I-- " Loki stammered, eyes darting from face to face.
"Let's try it."
Everyone turned to Agent Romanov, who had been silent up until this point. Steve had almost forgotten she was there. She was staring at Loki with a knowing look in her eyes, a faint smirk starting to curl on her lips.
"I'll get the scepter." She looked to Director Fury, he gave her a hesitant nod, and she was quickly out the door.
Loki sat on his chair stunned, before looking to Thor in disbelief.
After a thoughtful pause, Thor said, "I will not protest this course of action."
And Loki threw his chair at Thor and proceeded to go feral.