Chapter Text
Stark pushed Loki's hand away as the chitauri appeared in front of them. Loki didn't even bother to react. It was hardly the first time someone had shoved his help away. It wouldn't be the last.
These chitauri were the ground soldiers, and as much as Loki didn't want to admit it, he knew their weapons would still hurt if they hit him. Of course, Thor was an idiot who charged ahead without a second thought anyway, pounding his hammer into the ground between them and the soldiers, sending half a dozen flying, sparks blasting off their skin before either Loki or Stark could move.
"Well," Stark muttered. "That works."
"Sure," Loki rolled his eyes. "If you're half-arsed and destructive." Stark laughed, a strange throaty sound that Loki could barely hear through his suit, and yet, still there.
"We need to close the portal," Thor said, turning toward them, eyes dark and serious. He didn't even bother to show off his kill as he would have always done in the past. Loki would have been surprised if he was capable of being surprised anymore.
"It's not like we know how," Stark answered, the face plate on his suit popping up.
"You said Selvig would know," Thor said, turning back toward Loki as if he had all the answers. Loki almost sighed at the idiot, except he supposed it was almost his own fault. Thor had always looked at him for answers when they were in the middle of a losing battle, and Loki had always had something for him. He shouldn't be surprised Thor hadn't changed in the time he'd been gone.
"No," Loki answered. "I said Selvig might know."
"Would you be able to release him from his mind control?" Stark asked.
"No!" Loki snapped, making an effort to get his voice under control. He could feel the shiver that went through his mind at the very idea of brushing against the Other's control again. He wondered if Stark could see his fear, if he could taste it on his tongue. It had to be obvious. "Why in Hel would I even—?"
"Can't you at least try?" Stark snapped. "We're kind of in the middle of a war here."
"And that's my responsibility?"
"Uh, kind of," Stark answered. "You did steal the tesseract, mind control Selvig, and invite, you know, an alien army." Loki felt surprisingly stung by the accusations. He shouldn’t have expected Stark to continue to defend him. It was foolish.
He should have expected nothing, because to Stark he was just another criminal. A criminal who had only been worth saving for the part he could play. Worth yelling at for the damage he'd caused. Stark glared back at him, defiant and spurring and Loki shouldn't have been upset. He'd had centuries to lean how not to let people get under his skin, but Stark was different.
Somehow, someway, Stark made him want to reach forward and rip the man open and make him look anywhere but at him with that judgement in his eyes.
"Technically, I think I've rescinded my invitation by now," Loki said, forcing his face into the flat plains of indifference.
Natasha leaned over his body, feeling along the large bump in Clint's hairline. He was still unconscious, and he wouldn't be coming around for a while. Steve turned to the other side of the roof, the doomsday machine still buzzing away. Selvig staring up at the sky where more and more chitauri were pouring out.
She could hear the chaos in the streets around her, the sounds of people panicking and screaming and begging to no avail. She knew she should have been down there, doing something, anything, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from Clint's face, from the way his eyes flicked behind his eyelids as if he were dreaming.
"Natasha," Steve said, his voice quiet, urgent. She stepped away from Clint, letting his head fall back to the hard cement without bothering to look back down at him. He wouldn't want her to coddle him.
"We need to find a way to shut it off," Steve said.
"I bet he knows," Natasha nodded toward Selvig, who wasn't even bothering to look over at them, his eyes intent on the portal above his head.
"Maybe," Steve answered, but he stepped after her, saying nothing of the batons already back in her hands at they approached.
Selvig didn't even bother to try and turn away as they neared. He just looked straight at them, his bright blue eyes full of a frantic kind of light that Natasha didn't even want to think about.
"Turn it off," Steve said, his voice pitched low as if he were issuing an order. Selvig just shook his head.
"There's no going back. No turning it off," he answered. "This is the future."
Natasha wondered if being exposed to the tesseract for so long had driven him insane. If it could have driven Clint insane. With the reactions of both Loki and Selvig in front of her, it was hard to ignore how probable the idea was.
"Sir," Steve said, taking another step forward, his gloved hands outstretched.
He didn't get the chance to say anything before the portal above them flashed a bright blue, pulsing once, twice, three times before a giant form tumbled through. It almost flew through the air as its the black exoskeleton revealed it to be a chitauri.
"Oh, God," Steve muttered, his eyes locked on the form floating above them. Natasha couldn't help but agree as another came after it and another. The third, tilted left, it's wing or whatever catching the edge of the building and spraying cement and asphalt down on them. She gripped her batons as smaller chitauri jumped from its back, running toward them with their spear-like weapons brandished.
They were quick, their spears jabbing at her almost faster than she could dodge, and they had Steve and her backed up to the edge of the building almost before she knew what happened. Spears at their front and a 20-foot drop at their back. Steve's face was hard, his shield clutched tight in his hands, but for every chitauri he threw back or smashed in the face, another just took their place.
Natasha had given up on her batons a little more than half-way through, stealing one of the chitauri's spears and using their own laser ray against them as they approached.
It didn't matter. It was a losing battle.
She didn't know how long they stood on the edge of the building before she was forced to take another step back, her heel catching on the lip and sending her tumbling down and over. She clamped her jaw shut to the scream that wanted to tear its way out of her throat as she saw herself reflected in the windows, hanging off the side of the building, supported only by Steve's arm as he reached over, his teeth gridded in pain.
He looked down at her, blue eyes dark and painful and hopeless, and she almost couldn't help but let the bitter laugh out when they slipped off the side of the building together, the loud sound of the chitauri chittering above them.
Tony was just opening his mouth to snap back at Loki when the echoing roar of the chitauri sounded in the air around them. He turned on his heel, staring over at the airborne thing that was making its way over the city.
"What the fuck is that?" he asked. Loki said nothing, his face ashen and pale as Thor grunted, hefting his hammer.
"We must shut down the portal," he said as if that wasn't already obvious. As if they hadn't already stated it. Loki scowled, still stubbornly saying nothing.
"Let's go," Tony said, his suit making an uncharacteristic creaking sound as he moved forward. He was almost out of battery. Only 10%, but it wasn't like he was going to be able to stop and get a recharge any time soon. Loki's green eyes locked on him for a second too long, angry, dangerous, and then a voice that sounded a little like JARVIS whispered inside Tony's head that Loki was unstable, that maybe Tony shouldn't be pushing him. And yet, he couldn’t make himself afraid.
They made quick work of most of the chitauri they ran into. Between Thor and Loki and Tony, they had plenty of weapons. Besides the fact that Thor and Loki just moved like a team. Even with Loki clearly mad at Thor, and Thor wary of Loki's mood, it was more than obvious they'd been fighting together for a long time, reading each other's body language and moving before the other even had to say something.
It left Tony feeling strangely like a third wheel. And he didn't do third wheels in any parts of his life.
Eventually, they stopped next to the building with the portal on the roof, the blue light flickering high in the air above them. Tony panted into his suit, feeling hot, short of air. He was only at 5% battery. Loki scowled up at the building, his horns curving up and casting shadows around his face, his body covered in dark green leather, and he looked just as menacing as when Tony had first met him. Just as prepared to do something horrible.
"Loki—" Tony started.
"Friend Stark!" Thor interrupted him, a chitauri suddenly appearing to his right. Thor crushed its skull but another one took its place. Tony was turning to help when a large piece of brick suddenly struck him across his helmet almost knocking him to the ground.
He raised his hand, ready to defend himself, only to see two figures hanging over the side of the building, hands locked.
"Oh, dear," Loki muttered from Tony's side, his green eyes cast upward. He too was looking on the now slipping figures above them. "Do you think they'll fall?"
"That's not helping," Tony snapped. And then they were falling, the flash of red hair against a black suit and spangly stars and stripes reflecting against the windows of the office building.
"Jarvis, thrusters," Tony snapped, and he went a foot off the ground before there was a stuttering sound, and he landed hard again.
"You do not have enough battery to maintain flight, sir," Jarvis answered.
"Shit," Tony snapped, staring up.
"That's unfortunate," Loki said, his voice a mock calm that made Tony wonder if he would break his hand if he hit him.
"Do something!" he snapped. Loki just raised an eyebrow.
"What do you want me to do? I can't fly."
"You..." Tony answered, before turning his back on the god. He had a feeling Loki was lying. Not about the flying part but about the not being able to do anything part. He'd just decided not to help, and Tony didn't have time for Loki’s moods.
He watched as Romanoff and Rogers continued to fall. Past the 20th floor, 15th, 12th. Before a large green blur appeared out of nowhere, yanking them out of the sky, grabbing hold of the side of the building and almost smashing into the ground a few yards away from them.
Tony stared as the Hulk set Romanoff and Rogers on the ground, whipping his nose as he stared over at Tony, Loki, and Thor—who'd dispatched the last of the chitauri in the area.
"I guess we know where the beast is," Loki said, his eyes dark and careful as he watched the Hulk take off toward the chitauri floating in the air now heading in their direction.
"Maybe don't call him that?" Tony suggested. Loki didn't answer, which Tony figured was as close as he was going to get to an acknowledgement that he was right.
The Hulk gave them a strange break in fighting. They were all battered, bleeding in at least one spot—well, except Loki. Which Tony didn't know how he'd managed to do but whatever. Tony himself was pretty much out of battery. The only thing his suit was at this point was armor. Heavy, uncomfortable, useless armor. Romanoff kept glancing up at the top of the building, and Tony couldn't figure out if it was because she really wanted to shut down the portal or if there was something else up there. Steve just looked anxious, his helmet gone, and his hair a mess, and honestly, Tony was 90% sure he looked better this way. Thor kept sneaking worried glancing at Loki, who was alternating between glaring at the sky and Tony.
"We need a plan here," Steve said finally. "We tried running in, and it didn't work. We need to try and be organized."
"Not my style," Tony answered immediately. He didn't even know why he was arguing at this point. It wasn't as if he would do anyone good anymore. He was just being an ass because he could. And from the way everyone looked at him, they knew it too.
"No one cares about your style, Stark," Loki snapped, his right hand flicking almost faster than Tony could follow. There was a bright flash of green energy, coiling around Tony's suit, and causing the lights to flicker once, twice before they all come back online again, twice as bright.
"Power at 100%, sir," Jarvis' voice sounded in his head. Tony turned to Loki, trying to keep his expression neutral. Because, yeah, supervillian going from being fine with letting his friends die to helping to recharging his suit was something he hadn't expected.
"What did you just do?" he asked. It wasn't like Loki hadn't already done it when they'd been stranded together, and both his core and his suit had been out of juice, and Loki had waved his magic fingers and restored his battery.
It was just… disturbing when he did it while Tony wasn’t brainwashed.
"I did think your intelligence was higher than that, Stark." Loki sneered at him.
"Loki," Thor said, his hand falling heavily on his brother's shoulder. "Calm down."
"I am calm," Loki answered, shaking Thor's hand off with an angry twist of his lips.
"Right," Roger's muttered, blinking hard as he tried to continue the speech he'd obviously been preparing to give. "We need a plan. We need to shut down the portal and concentrate the attack on us, not the civilians."
"I'll head back up to the roof—" Romanoff started.
"No,” Rogers interrupted. “You're staying down on the ground with me."
"But—"
"Barton is still up there, and you're too close to him," Rogers said. "Besides, even if you get up there, you won't know how to shut down the portal." Rogers hesitated, waiting for just long enough that Tony noticed before he turned to Loki, his eyes wary. "You can shut down the portal."
"I can?" Loki answered, raising one skeptical eyebrow. "Good to know."
"Thor," Rogers said. "I want you to cover him. Stark, help take out some of the soldiers in the air while Natasha and I stay down here."
"Sounds great," Tony muttered, and he tried to sound sarcastic. He did, but he couldn't help but feel vaguely relieved that they suddenly had a plan. That they had a plan and that he didn't have to be the one to come up with it.
Loki sighed as they climbed up the stairs of the building. Thor's heavy footsteps echoed behind him, and Loki was already starting to hear the sound of the portal humming above them. He didn't understand why they'd sent him up here. Why they were so sure he could do something. Why he was even going up just because a mortal in a colorful outfit had told him to. He didn't care whether they lived or died.
Sure, they hadn't been overly cruel to him, but that was only because they needed him. It was only because they had a use for him. Thor's hand on his shoulder—Stark's kind words all came with the condition he give up his mind for them, his sanity, his freedom. Stark had made that only too clear.
"I believe you can do this, Loki," Thor said, his voice loud in the stairway. He almost sounded as if he was telling the truth.
"That makes one of us," Loki muttered. He could hear Thor frown, the rusted gears turning in his head, but he didn't answer. Probably lacked the brain cells.
The roof was clear of chitauri when they arrived, only the scientist that he'd brainwashed there. His hair whipped around his face, electric blue eyes wide. Loki shoved the bile down. He shoved the anger away.
He didn't even know who he was angry at anymore. Rogers for sending him up here with no real plan. Thor for saying he still believed in him. Stark for standing in front of him and saying things he didn’t mean. Himself for everything else.
"Eric!" Thor called, his voice catching in the wind. Loki craned his neck, looking up at the portal pulsing above them. They didn't have much time before the next wave came through. If he was going to close the portal, he needed to do it soon.
"Eric, you must help us!" Thor tried again, but the scientist just stared back at him, his blue eyes wide and blank, and Loki could vividly remember when their minds had been connected. When he had been able to feel Selvig's thoughts pulsing through his mind, cold and logical and clouded.
"You won't be able to reach him," Loki answered, stepping forward. He looked into the scientist eyes, stepped his mind forward and then fell.
His mind was a confusing web of tangled blue thoughts and patterns repeating themselves, wrapped around each other and looped into circle after circle until the scientist was locked inside his own head, his will a slave to the staff. Loki had no idea how to break the spell. He didn't even want to try. Didn't want to touch the blue web. He had no idea what would happen to him if he did.
He might fall back into their control, into the hazy half-conscious unwilling subjugation he'd been forced to partake in as before. He might never be able to leave Selvig's mind again. As weak as it sounded, he knew he wouldn't survive a second mental round with the Other. His sanity wouldn't. It almost hadn't the first time around.
He remembered again Stark's question of whether he could break the human's mind control. Thoughtless, tossed out as if it wasn't something Loki should fear, and he couldn't stop the anger that shot through his mind, down into Selvig's. They all thought themselves better than him.
He forced himself to creep forward, through the scientist's mind, avoiding the blue strands, sidling along the outskirts and looking for the thread of thought he was looking for. Building the portal. Shutting it down.
And saw nothing.
If the scientist knew the answer, it was lost in the blue web, tangled in his thoughts and run amok with the tesseract, and the only way he was going to get it would be to wade in himself.
Which he wasn't going to do.
He wasn't.
He was already starting to withdraw from the mortal's mind when he felt something touch his shoulder—his body's shoulder. Thor's hand heavy and rough against his skin, his voice echoing into Loki's subconscious as he spoke. From so far down, it was hard for Loki to hear the desperation in Thor's voice.
"Loki, the next wave is coming through. I'll keep them at bay as long as I can manage, but you must hurry. We must close the portal soon."
Loki expected the wave of anger to wash through him, hot and heavy, but it was slower coming than he remembered, less focused, lost. He was left with the vague idea that he had no idea with whom he was angry with. Thor was standing above him again, relying on him again. They asked everything with no thought of what it would do. Just as Thor had always done, and if Loki helped him, he would probably receive no recognition. No reprieve from the All-Father's inevitable punishment.
So, why did he care? Why did he want to turn around to plunge back into the scientist's subconscious and risk his own sanity on the off chance he might save his brother's foolish planet?
They had done nothing for him. They had bound him in chains and asked him everything he'd done wrong and when they knew the answer, they'd demanded he fix it for them. They had done nothing for him except—
Except, look at him with dark brown eyes—really look instead of assuming they already knew. Instead of thinking they already has the full story. That he was all evil.
It shouldn't matter. He shouldn't care. He didn't want to care.
He dove into tangled blue web of the scientist's mind, already feeling the strands catch at him, trying to pull him down and away. Trying to wrap him up. He yanked against them, shoving them away from the scientist's mind, cutting across them as he searched, and the further in he went, the more he could feel Selvig's consciousness waking up under his own.
In the back of his subconscious he could still hear Thor fighting, the thundering of his hammer and lightening, but he refused to stop until he found the thread. The memory of Selvig building the machine. The one fail-safe the man had built in.
When he found it, the relief was palpable. Loki stepped back, out, away. He could feel the blue strands of the Other clinging to him, and the icy shot of terror that seized hold of him shouldn't have happened—not after everything, not after how far he'd gone already—but it did, and he couldn't move.
He was falling again, watching as the blue webs leapt from Selvig's mind into his, tangling his thoughts together, wrapping them around, leaving him feeling hazy and bereft. He could feel his body opening his eyes, Thor's face hovering above him, the shock showing along his face when he saw how Loki's eyes were blue instead of green.
Loki could feel the terror just below the surface of his mind, fighting to escape, just below reach, but all he could do was watch as it sank further and further down. Thor was shaking him now, his name shouted into his face, but Loki just stared back, unsure if he was a friend of foe.
"I hope you guys know how to close the portal," a voice suddenly spoke up, and something deep in Loki's mind sparked, hot and cold, and he blinked. "We've got a bogey incoming."
The words didn't mean anything, but the voice did. The voice was low and masculine and—friendly. A friend
"Loki," Thor spoke again, and his eyes seemed to catch the change in Loki's face as he spoke. " Stark needs us to close the portal."
Stark? A friend. Stark.
The words tugged one of the strands of his memory, not quite covered in blue webs, and he could feel the tangled mess begin to unravel, the pain already spreading through his head, leaping around as if it was fire. He could see the blue nesting inside his mind, but he didn't have time to fight it. Didn't even know if he could.
"You can close the portal with my staff," he said.
"What?" Thor answered, always two steps behind.
"My staff. The one the chitauri gave me. You can interrupt the flow of the machine. It'll work."
"But—"
"Quickly. The man, Barton, that I first took has it," Loki interrupted, and he watched as Thor stood, his cape billowing out behind him, red like the fire burning along the back of Loki's mind. The blue was still trying to race its way across his mind, but the harder he pulled on his memories, the less ground it gained, and the more his mind hurt.
He watched as Thor approached the device, picking up Loki's staff from where it lay in the nest of arrows attached to Barton's unconscious back. Thor slid the device into the slot of the machine, Stark's flying suit appearing out of nowhere, the cylindrical metal thing hoisted on his back as he flew straight up and into the portal.
"No!" Loki cried out, already it was too late. Thor had already inched the staff forward, the portal closing with a snap and leaving the sky blue and clear.