For Steve Rogers

[throneenvy]

Odin's wrath was a magnificent thing to witness.

Even when it had been directed fully in his direction, even knowing he might have died any second, the thrill from seeing the All-Father's power and fury unleashed and unfettered had been awe-inspiring. It had also been bitter, fractured, and furious. For how could any still think of Loki's rage as untamed, or his actions as crimes, when so ruthless a war-god sat upon the throne of Asgard? His actions had been that of a King. Had he not proven a wise and benevolent leader during his time upon the throne? Any who gainsaid that were fools, blinded by their petty prejudice.

He hated and loved Asgard with all his heart. He wanted to watch it burn and he wanted to rule it from on high, he wanted to see his family dead at his feet and yet always seemed to stay his hand when such an ending was within his grasp. It had been so again with Odin. He should have killed the old man when he had succeeded in spelling him into imprisonment, but he had not. For he had told himself that to keep the All-Father alive was wise, it allowed him to continue to tease out details from that ancient mind in order to keep his illusion believable to all.

It had proven his downfall.

For when Odin escaped, he had come with the force of a thousand suns for the man who sat atop his throne and wore his face falsely. Any love he had once felt for his younger son was gone now, and Frigga no longer there to stay his hand against execution. An execution he had determined to carry out with his own hand and with no further delay, to give Loki no quarter or mercy this time.

How long the battle had lasted, Loki did not know. He had not often battled to his full power, he preferred tricks and illusion to outsmart his enemy and his usual weapon was his silver tongue. He had no choice in this fight. He threw all his power at the All-Father, he used all his strength, all his tricks, all his magic. And somehow, impossible though it should have been, he survived long enough to slip through one of his hidden pathways.

Loki used the last of his remaining magic to cloak himself from Heimdall's all-seeing eyes so that he would not be easily found. To be so drained, so helpless, was not an experience he enjoyed at all. Blood stained his clothing from head to foot and he could feel the sticky clotting of it all over his body. He had taken great injury, and he knew he may not yet even survive the next few days in order to begin healing, but he would not give up. He would never lay down and wait for death. He was Loki of Asgard and he would never go snivelling to the gates of Hel.

With the remaining shreds of his energy, Loki staggered into the nearest building. His consciousness only vaguely registered that this was Midgard, a realisation that sent a thread of concern through his gut. An apartment door chosen at random, a hand slippery with blood on the handle. The lock yielded to him easily, he did not even need a trickle of seiðr for that, and he stumbled within. The Norns must have a sense of humour and wish for him to suffer, for he did not know even as he collapsed onto the couch that, out of all the billions of homes upon this wretched realm, he had found himself within that of Steve Rogers.

Comments

[cold_righteousness]

It had been a rough stretch of time for Steve, since the Battle for Earth, for the Tesseract, since Loki had last come to Earth. Knowing that Peggy and Howard had helped to build SHIELD, he had believed in it. Not all of their choices, but in the ideals they had espoused, that they truly wanted to protect people, even if there were moments where they chose the wrong sort of protection. He supposes that he should have known. That any organization willing to sacrifice eight and a half million people cared little for protection. It had still been jarring to find out just how rotten it was, to hear the name of his old enemy on new tongues.

It was that same disturbing sort of deja vu of hearing about the Tesseract. Old weapons, old fights -- it seemed he was not the only thing from seventy years ago that lingered through the decades.

Or even the only person. He hadn't stopped looking for Bucky, but as far as he could tell he'd disappeared without a trace, like smoke in the darkness. He'd moved back to Brooklyn, near enough to Stark's newly-christened Avengers Tower to work with him on dealing with what remained of Hydra. Stark was interested in their technology, Steve was interested in stripping the blight of Red Skull from the world. Their was a friendship fraught with disagreements, but at the end of the day they still were. Friends.

And then Ultron had happened. People had died for Tony's hubris. They breathed in relief at the close of the battle, they shook hands and they moved on, but things were still different. A tension between them. That feeling where Steve could no longer honestly trust that Tony would make the right decision. But he tried to ignore it. He worked with Wanda, with Sam, trying to focus on that ideal of making the Avengers a force for good, protectors, strength for the weak and hope for the hopeless. It was the closest he had to having a life these days.

He was adapting, adjusting, but he didn't think that he'd ever lose that sense of not quite belonging. That knowledge that his home was forever beyond his reach. Decades gone, people that had withered and died, left him with nothing but memories. It was perhaps why he couldn't let go of the idea of Bucky. A ghost from his past, but also someone that would understand. Maybe. If he could reach him, make him remember...

Steve tried to not believe that anyone could be a lost cause.

He'd been out for his morning run when Loki broke in, but it wasn't long before he returned, still not quite dawn, even as the sky lightened toward the pale grey that preceded sunrise. He paused at the door, lips thinning and his body almost instinctively shifting into alert. His shield was in his apartment, but that hardly meant he was defenseless. He cautiously, silently eased the door open, taking in his surroundings, noting a few streaks of blood but was pleased by the lack of people shooting at him so far.

He supposed that since he'd almost fallen into a sense of routine as of late, that it was time for another crisis. He was quiet, almost stealthy as he slipped through his own apartment until he found the intruder collapsed on the couch. He didn't relax, but neither did he move to attack. He looked around, taking in the living room, looking for some trick, some deception, any indication that things were not as they seemed. Finding none, he sighed.

The smartest course of action here would probably be to call the Avengers, call for backup, for someone else to be here in case this went really wrong really fast. The two options here were that this was some kind of ruse and Loki was going to use it to knock his head in. But, the other was that Loki really was so injured that he'd come here of all places. He was supposed to be dead, and at the moment he didn't really look that far from it, and Steve just wasn't the sort of person that could walk away.

"Loki," he called his name evenly, not particularly loud, but enough to announce his presence, trying to mask his surprise. The longer he turned the idea over in his head, the less difficult it was to imagine Loki faking his death to escape his imprisonment. But what had happened to him since then? Steve didn't know. It had been almost a month since he'd seen Thor last.

He took a few steps closer. Not close enough to invite Loki to lash out, but enough for him to try and get a better look at the man. He was hoping he could patch him up and figure out what was going on before he had to make any decisions on what to do with him. He just wasn't sure that he'd get that chance. He took a breath, and made a choice. He held his hands out, as non-threatening as he could manage while not actually dropping his guard. "As long as you don't attack me, I'm not going to hurt you. Alright?"