Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 106

Tony scoffs. "How did you do that?"

"How could you not?" Loki asks. "I told you, despite Thor's insistence to the contrary, it's only a hammer."

Jane looks up at her boyfriend. "How is she...?"

Thor just smiles. He pushes himself to his feet as well, and Loki's smile falters, just for a moment, but she knows all dumb things must come to an end, and this is no exception.

"Very impressive, Lady Sylvie," Thor says, his voice dripping in sarcasm. "But perhaps next time, you should try picking up the actual hammer?" He reaches out to hit Mjonir, and his hand goes right through it.

Loki giggles, and Mjolnir disappears from her hand, reappearing on the table where he'd left it. "I just wanted to see your reaction."

"All deference to the man who would be king," Tony remarks, "but it's rigged."

"You bet your ass," Clint agrees.

Maria gasps. "Steve, he said a bad language word."

Steve rolls his eyes. "Did you tell everybody about that?"

Loki furrows her brows, looking between Steve, Tony, and Maria with intrigue. "Not yet, but I sure do hope he will."

"The handle's imprinted, right?" Tony guesses. "Like a security code. 'Whosoever is carrying Thor's fingerprints' is, I think, the literal translation?"

Thor chuckles. "Yes, well, that's a very, very interesting theory," he says. "But I have a simpler one." He gently moves Jane aside so he can stand up, and he picks Mjolnir up, flipping it around once just to show off. "You're all not worthy."

Everybody else groans, muttering about untrue this very true fact is.

A sharp ringing sounds through the room, and Thor grimaces at the assault on his ears. He glances around at the others, but nobody seems to know what's going on. He makes a point of checking on both Jane and Darcy, and though neither of them seem thrilled, he's relieved to see that it's not too too much for their ordinary mortal ears.

"Worthy," a voice growls from the shadows.

Everybody looks around, and then they find him – they find it. There's a robot, beaten to hell and back, composed of broken bites and strings of wires, stumbling around the room until it finally comes to a stop.

"No, how could you be worthy?" the robot drawls. "You're all killers."

"Stark," Steve says cautiously.

"JARVIS?" Tony says.

"I'm sorry, I was asleep," the robot says. "Or, I was... a dream."

Tony taps on his portable tablet. "Reboot, Legionnaire OS, we got a buggy suit."

"There was a terrible noise," the robot continues, "and I was tangled in... in... strings." He moves his arms, peering down at the wires hanging from him. "I had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy."

"You killed somebody?" Steve repeats.

Loki's been slowly moving during this whole confrontation. It's only now that he realizes why: she's been trying to get to Darcy. She carefully shields the woman with her body, backing them both away from the robot.

Thor does the same, then, with Jane. He gently pulls his girlfriend to her feet and pushes her behind him, and he slowly backs away as well, bringing Jane further from the robot and closer to Loki and Darcy.

"It wouldn't have been my first call," the robot admits, "but, down in the real world, we're faced with ugly choices."

"Who sent you?" Thor asks.