A Taste of Vengeance

“If you drop me Tony,” I growled, looking unsurely over the edge of the helicarrier, “I swear I will haunt you until your death.” I was not scared of the idea of Tony flying with me in his arms, but I wasn’t exactly fond of the idea either. Not only did it mean I was going to have wind blasting around me at all times, but it meant that if Tony was attacked, I was sure as dead.

“I’m not going to drop you,” he assured me for the millionth time, annoyed. “I promise you’re not as fat as you look.”

I scowled at him and punched him with telekinetic force, knocking him a few steps back and causing him to laugh. He gestured for me to hug him and hold on, and I did so grudgingly and with many groans and moans of protest. Hugging his suit was not the most comfortable thing ever, for it was hard and cold. I also managed to bang my head on it went he took off unexpectedly, jolting my entire body.

I squeezed my eyes shut as wind roared in my ears, making me deaf to everything else around me. I was suddenly glad my uniform protected me from heat, because I got the feeling this would have been an extremely cold ride otherwise. The wind was biter, and rough, and although Tony had an arm around me as well as my arms encircling him, it tugged at me viciously, desperately wanting to cast me off into the abyss of the sky. I was thankful for my super strength.

The trip wasn’t long, but it felt like a lifetime. Tony and I only exchanged a few words during the duration of the flight, mostly to insult one another and make jokes. But I could feel that we were both tense now, knowing the unavoidable danger we were about to face. Loki had his magic wand of death back, and we were both taking a risk by confronting him like this.

“Alright,” Tony said through the earpiece. The wind around me died down noticeably. “I’m going to drop you off on the balcony. I’m sure Loki is sneaking around my apartment, writing ‘Loki waz here’ and a whole bunch of shenanigans. Talk him up while I try and get past Selvig.”

“He’s probably taking pictures of himself in your apartment for a keepsake,” I joked as Tony delicately let me drop onto his porch. I smiled up at him. “Go get em, Tiger.”

“Don’t get your mind blown up,” he ordered before jetting upwards and to the top of the tower.

The city’s skyline was beautiful and completely normal, no sign of danger at this moment. The tops of the building were level with my gaze and the sun glinted off of their windows, causing them to twinkle like diamonds. Glancing below, I saw hundreds of people walking the busy streets, going about their business, unbeknownst what lay ahead. I felt a pang of pity, wondering how many civilians would be injured in this attack.

Turn on my heel I walked towards the glass sliding door. I could see Tony’s extravagant apartment inside, impressed with it’s dexterity and wonder. What I was not so impressed with, was the God who stood in front of the glass, hands crossed behind his back, plated armor glinting in the light. His handsome face was pulled into a smirk, watching me with cool, blue eyes. He didn’t seem defensive, nor did he seem interested in attacking me.

“Hello Ashlynn.” His greeting was formal- friendly even, although his smirk suggested he was anything but.

“Loki.” I stood a few yards in front of him, hands loosely at my side. I didn’t want to show any tense posture or sign of intimidation. I portrayed a cool and collective exterior. “This doesn’t really look like your style,” I gestured to apartment. “Such a home seems far to cheery and modern for one such as yourself.”

He laughed. “Good thing I’m not interested in keeping it long. But it serves my purposes. For now.”

I nodded. Ignoring the blast that I heard from the rood. Obviously Tony was blowing something up. “I feel bad for you, you know? Your delusions are… saddening.”

He furrowed his brows, actually confused with my comment. “I have no delusions, Agent Bane. I know what I want, and I know what is best for your world and your pathetic human race.”

“See, right there,” I pointed at him. “Delusion. You cannot hope to know what the human race needs if you don’t understand the human race. You think us mindless and inferior because we feel emotions and let emotions control our thinking. How can you hope to control that which you do not understand?”

“Quite simple, really.” He began pacing. “Humans crave freedom: they die for it, they kill for it, they suffer for it. If you take freedom out of the equation, they have no need to suffer from such impossibilities; they have no need to fight amongst one another anymore. No, freedom is most freeing.”

“Oh my god,” I muttered, annoyed. “All you do is talk in circles, you’d give a lawyer a heart attack. You can’t just come and take over a planet because you want to, Loki. This isn’t the Sims, where you can control everyone.”

He paused. “The Sims?”

“Oh, right. Asgardian. It’s a magical place where you can’t go- stop making me get off track. My point is, you can try all you’d like, and even if you destroy us, you will never control the human race. You can take away our freedom and chain us and command us, but you can never take away how deeply we feel because you don’t understand the concept of feeling. You don’t know how to take away feeling.”

He seemed amused. “Do you think Agent Barton was feeling, when he killed so many of his friends?”

I glowered at him. “Yes, because even though you had Barton’s mind on a silver platter, he remembered every ounce of disgust he felt, every emotion and feeling that went through him, even if he couldn’t express it. Even after you stole his mind, you could not steal his emotion.”

Tony landed behind us then, and I turned to glance at him over my shoulder. Loki and I exchanged glances before he moved away from me, towards the glass door. I followed him slowly; wary of how easily he could turn his back on me. He was not alarmed that I was behind him and armed. In fact, he seemed overly comfortable with the idea.

“Please tell me you’re going to appeal to my humanity like this one did,” he snickered.

“Uh, actually I’m planning to threaten you,” Tony answered, letting himself behind his bar. I rounded Loki and stood in the corner, father away from either of them, hands behind my back where I knew a knife was hidden.

“I wasn’t appealing to your humanity either,” I pointed out.” I was simply stating your flawed plan.”

He simply smirked in my direction before looking at Tony. “You should have left your armor on to threaten me.”

“Yeaaaah.” He opened his cabinet. “It’s got a lot of mileage and you’ve got the uh- glow stick of destiny.”

“Looks like the elder wand to me.” I approached the bar sideways, standing next to Tony but watching Loki, who smiled and stood very simply and casually, his weapon in his hand, glowing away.

“Wanna drink?” Tony asked. He pulled out a glass bottle of aged brandy, pouring some in a crystal glass and sliding over to me. I raised an eyebrow at the drink, not sure if he really mean me to drink it.

Drink it his thoughts told me loudly. I trust you. It’s all a part of the master plan. I took the glass and sipped, watching Loki, who looked both charmed and confused at my actions. I then realized why Tony wanted me to do this, especially in front of Loki. He wanted me to prove him I was worth more than his low hits at my self-esteem.

“Stalling won’t solve anything,” Loki continued, unfazed by the offer.

“No, no, no, not stalling. Threatening.”

Loki turned on his heel abruptly, walking to the window and looking at the sky expectantly. “The chitauri are coming, you cannot stop that. What have I to fear?”

“The avengers.” Loki looked confused. “That’s what we call ourselves,” Tony explained, pouring his self a brandy. “Sort of like a team. Earth’s mightiest heroes type thing.”

“Yes, I’ve met them.”

“And aren’t we extravagant?” I asked, hopping up on the counter. Tony rolled his eyes at me but continued to look as casual as myself.

“It takes us sometimes to get a little traction, I’ll give you that. But uh, let’s do a head count here… your brother, a demigod-“ Loki growled but Tony didn’t pause. “A super soldier who is a living legend and kind of lives up to the legend…” He slipped on two bracelets then, and I tried not to watch as he did so. Loki didn’t need to catch my eye movement. “A man with breath taking anger management issues, a couple of master assassins, the air bender to my left here and you!” he cheered, pointing at Loki. “you, big fella, have managed to piss every one of them off.”

That infernal smirk was still on the God of Mischief’s face. “That was the plan.”

“Not a great plan,” I observed, hopping off the counter. I grinned as Loki tensed, his knuckles going white as he tightened his grip on his scepter. Obviously he was intimidated with both Tony and I on the move.

“Agreed.” Tony stared the god down. “Cause when they come- and they will, they’re coming for you.”

He seemed undeterred. “I have an army.”

“We have a hulk.” I smiled, circling around Loki. His azure eyes followed me, not sure of whether to keep his eyes on Tony or on me. I could see his mind working, could feel it as he calculated who the bigger threat was. He inched himself to an angle to face both of us, deciding we were equally dangerous.

“The mindless beast?” he questioned. “I thought he had wandered off.”

“Yeah you’re missing the point.” Tony’s voice became serious and took on the threatening factor that he had been promising. I linked my hands behind my back, gripping the handles of the two knives behind my back, knowing the time was approaching to attack, to start the avengers initiative. “There is no throne, there is no prize- there is no version of this where you come out on tope. Maybe your army comes, maybe it’s to much for us, but it’s all on you.” My fingers twitched with anticipation, a vision of Phil laughing clear in my mind. “Because if we can’t protect the earth, you can be damn sure we’re going to avenge it.”

Loki’s smile faded and his face took on a mask of malice and darkness, a true menace and evil. I gripped my knives harder but Tony’s thoughts barked at me to stay put as Loki approached him, each step weighed carefully and threateningly.

“How can they?” he purred, voice a seductive darkness. “When they’ll be so busy fighting you?”

Loki raised the scepter and tapped Tony in the chest. Before I could lunge, a metal cling rang throughout the room. Tony stood completely unaffected, looking down at Loki’s glow stick did nothing, even as he tapped him in the chest again. I almost laughed at the look on our enemies face, the confusion and anger lingering as he murmured, “This usually works.”
“Performance issues?” Tony made a ‘sorry’ face. “Not totally uncommon-"

Loki grabbed Tony by the throat and tossed him. I lunged from my spot, ripping the knives out and ducking as Loki swung at me, taking him down by the knees and rolling off him to stand once again, but he was standing already, holding Tony by the neck and tossing him clear through the glass, sending him hundreds of stories down.

A scream ripped out of my throat as I dove at Loki, sticking a blade in his shoulder and making him bellow in anger, swiping me from his back and onto the floor, where he kicked at me. I rolled away from the kick, snatching his leg and yanking, sending him to the floor as I stabbed down again. But he had tumbled away from my knife, blasting me in the center of my chest with his scepter, sending me screaming over the edge of the building and plummeting down into nothing, sure that I would die of fear long before I hit the ground below me.