Mother Nature

The End

The Avengers stood before him, seemingly glowing with the sunlight on their backs. Each of them was battered and bruised and breathing heavily, but they stood before him nonetheless in victory. The redheaded assassin even had his sceptre in her hands.

He eyed them, though he locked gazes with the demi-goddess as she stood beside his brother. Her archer was on his knees before her with his medieval weapon aimed at his former master. How ironic, Loki mused, that part of his downfall came at the hands of a man he had brainwashed to aid him.

Her eyes weren't filled with anger like the others were. There wasn't anger nor fear, no, it was much more terrible than that. Her eyes were filled with pity and understanding, and the trickster was certain that was worse than the anger of a thousand men. The pity that woman was showing him would be ingrained in his memory forever. He would never be ridded of that image, even while he was rotting away in some dark, forgotten corner of Asgard.

"If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now." Loki said finally, breaking the silence in the room.

~*~

Loki was contained in a SHIELD facility and was guarded by several, severely armed guards at all times. He wasn't allowed any visitors, apart from Director Fury and the Avengers, apart from Clint, who deemed himself as untrustworthy near the person who had brainwashed him. Yet no one but Thor and the Director had actually visited Loki. Thor wanted to see if there was anything redeemable in his younger brother, and the Director wanted to follow up with Agent Cosmos' theory that Loki wasn't in charge of the attack on Earth. Neither man got their answers.

Yet on the day before he was due to be transported back to Earth with Thor, Loki received a visitor he had actually been waiting for. He sat in his glass cell, which had been charmed by a witch that Alexandra knew to repress the magic inside it, and he almost didn't sense her come in. Almost.

"I had expected you much sooner, though I'm sure your archer is the reason that you have not come until now." Loki said, as he turned his head to spy the woman already sat down in the seat that had been placed there for his idiot brother's visits.

"You expected me, which means you understand why I am here." She said, her words coming out as a statement rather than a fact.

"You want to know why I started a war on Midgard, and who my employer is. Only you already know the answer to the first of your questions, and you already know that I won't answer the second, no matter how much you try to persuade me." Loki replied, standing up from the cold metal bench that was the only piece of furniture in the glorified cage.

He moved so he was stood right in front of her, looming over her as she sat behind the safety of the glass. Not that she wouldn't be safe with him outside. Loki respected the Olympian demi-goddess, and, when she had shown him mercy that day in Stark's living room after the beast had beaten him, he had decided that she would have made a good queen for him. He wouldn't harm her, not that he would be able to. She was a fierce warrior and he had no doubt that she, like the Lady Sif, would be able to best him in a fight.

"You're actually wrong this time, Trickster. Yes, I do know why you started a war here, and yes I know you won't answer the second question I feel obliged to ask, but that's not why I am here."

Loki raised his eyebrows, and nodded once.

"If that is so, then why are you here? Did you change your mind on seeking revenge for your archer?"

"I'm not here to harm you. I give you my word on that." Alex said, sincerely, before she leaned back in her chair and gestured for him to take a seat.

She waited in silence while he practically strolled back to his bench and sat down. Loki waited for to being to explain herself, but she simply stared at him, that pity back into her eyes, which both baffled and infuriated him.