brovengers | Arc 3, Chapter 2: Loki, Thor, Tony, Steve & Darcy

Loki kidnaps Darcy; Thor's sacrifice.

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Once they reach their destination—near the crater left by Mjolnir when it crashed to earth—Loki lets the modern clothes shift into his traditional, ceremonial attire. He appreciates the weight of it, the heft of the cape on his back and the golden breastplate over his chest. Moonlight glints off of his gauntlets, and he holds Gungnir, his father’s spear, as legendary in its power as Thor’s hammer. Beside him, Darcy sits dazedly in the sand, drawing incomprehensible patterns and muttering about her trivial life.

Loki watches her with ambivalence; she frustrates him, and harm may come to her tonight. Thor is the true object of Loki’s wrath, however, and he has taken pains to ensure that at least a few pieces will remain off of the board: his mother, who ate a heavy and thoroughly drugged dinner, and Jane, tucked safely away in her dreams. They cannot rush to Thor’s rescue, and so are protected. Perhaps Thor’s friends will be wise and stay away as well, but Loki doubts it.

Fortunately, he’s ready for them.

Thor is restless.

He shifts eagerly in the black leather interior of Steve’s requisitioned MDX, alternating between straightening up and slouching back against the seat every few seconds or so. The seat belt hangs unused beside him; he doesn’t care to put it on. His eyes and thoughts are fixed entirely on the dim, violet horizon.

Darcy is gone. Darcy is gone.

The air conditioner’s chilled air hits his skin, cold as the winds of Jotunheim— and it leaves him with just as much guilt.

Steve’s grip flexes on the steering wheel and he shoots a look over at Thor. His heavy protective uniform creaks as he shifts gears and he resists the urge to tell his friend to buckle up.

“Thor,” he says, his tone calm and strong, despite the turmoil that has his heart already racing, “We’ll rescue Miss Lewis. We won’t let any harm come to her.”

He wants to say something reassuring about Loki. But Steve knows the truth, he knows from his own lost future that Loki’s actions will only turn more villainous. But he can’t bring himself to offer either false comfort or the cold truth. Instead he says, “It’s not your fault Thor. None of this is. We’ll get her back.”

“Also, I texted Tony before we left. He’s going to meet us there.” It’s probably not something his friend wants to hear but it is what it is. They’re not letting Thor do this alone. ”So, keep your eyes peeled.”

Steve’s words hardly reach his ears. The GPS pings in a notice of arrival that has Thor reaching for the handle to get out before they’ve even stopped moving. Through the glass he can see the polished glint of Asgardian gold, dropping his heart into the pit of his stomach; if Loki holds Gungnir, he doesn’t mean to talk.

Barely a second passes as Thor hurls the car door open, abandoning both Steve and the vehicle in favor of rushing out to meet his brother, but the sight of Darcy huddled in a bewitched stupor at Loki’s feet brings him to a dead halt.

“Loki…” He breathes, resisting the urge to leap forward and pull her to safety. “Why? What has she done to you to deserve this?”

Loki laughs as Thor tumbles stupidly out of the car. “Don’t kill yourself just yet, brother,” he says, striding across the dune to meet Thor where he stands. With his free hand, he conjures a protective shield around Darcy that shimmers, then dissipates. Though Loki cannot read thoughts directly, he never has to with his brother; Thor telegraphs his every intention across his face, with his aggressive posture. He plans to fight, despite having no tools with which to do so. Despite having no chance at all.

Loki is not impressed. “She’s fine, for the moment. This isn’t about her. It’s about you and your pathetic, infuriating existence.”

As with all of Loki’s carefully organized schemes, it isn’t until his brother is ready to allow it that Thor is finally able to understand where the threads align and fall into place. Loki’s words coupled with the thin veil of magic surrounding Darcy reveal the true target of his malice, and Thor feels his aggression wane as dread moves to take its place.

“—what? What have I done?” He asks in confusion, weight already shifting to the foot behind him, defensively leaning away from his younger brother. Loki’s sharp features never looked so murderous as they do now. He can barely recognize his own kin.

“We’ve had no arguments, no disagreements. You aided me, Loki. We’re allies!”

As they near the meeting point, Steve slows, looking for any sign of Darcy or Loki in the darkness. But Thor catches sight of his brother first and he is out of the still-moving car before Steve can stop him. Dirt and sand kick up as the car skids to an abrupt stop. ”Thor!” He shouts after him.

“Hell,” he mutters, throwing the vehicle into park. The headlights illuminate a barren strip of desert angling out towards the mountains and Steve doesn’t bother to cut them off as he grabs his shield. They’ll be easy to spot from the sky.

Moving to stand silently behind his friend, he slides his arm into the straps of his shield and grips them tightly. His risks a brief, concerned glance at Darcy before focusing his attention back on Thor and his brother.

Loki’s gaze flicks over to Steve, dismisses him, and then returns to his brother. “Yes, I aided you. Just enough to ensure that you would be entertaining. Were you thinking I acted out of love, Thor?” He advances, brandishing Gungnir. ”How ridiculous.”

Every slight, real or imagined, burns like a brand in Loki’s mind. As he reviews the events of the past few weeks, only the negative remarks echo. He recalls the reluctance, the distrust, the outright insults. Dr. Selvig’s rage; Darcy’s dismissals; Jane’s shyness. Thor, with his strutting and flexing, his clumsy attempts to sway Loki with false sentiment. The latter efforts are saccharine in Loki’s mouth. He wants to spit.

Instead, he lashes out with the spear, aiming to strike Thor across his deeply mortal midsection.

In light of what they might be walking into tonight, Tony isn’t sure whether it’s appropriate to call his presence in Puente Antiguo lucky. But then, when the text rings in from Steve, he isn’t giving mortality a second thought as he races to the makeshift airstrip just outside of town. Somehow, knowing he’s on borrowed time anyway has done horrors for his commitment to self-preservation.

Until he can spare the time to design a new jet from the ground up—where the suiting mechanism can become a fully integrated piece of its superstructure—zipping himself into the full Mark VI armor takes longer than he likes.

So, it’s well over the promised five minutes before Tony marks the showdown from the sky, the entire scene cast clear as day on the HUD.

An alien energy signature pulses around the lone, spear-wielding figure facing Thor, but Iron Man has about a quarter of a second to react before the big guy’s entrails are in the dirt; there’s no time to oblige his curiosity.

His boot jets flare, he pitches into a dive, and then the full mass of Iron Man is shoulder-slamming Thor’s little brother at Mach 2.

The shock from impact sends Thor stumbling backwards as he barely manages to avoid colliding with Steve’s shield. His hands move to grasp at his own chest, tugging at the cotton fabric of his shirt to check for blood— but there is none. Gungnir’s bite never connected with his skin. His gaze shoots up to the spot where Loki stood just moments before, and he immediately recognizes the polished red and gold of Tony’s armor.

“Stark!” He yells, hoping his friend can hear him, hoping that both he and Steve will listen. “You have to get Darcy, you have to get her out of here— Loki will end you both if you confront him like this!”

So, it’s well over the promised five minutes before Tony marks the showdown from the sky, the entire scene cast clear as day on the HUD.

His boot jets flare, he pitches into a dive, and then the full mass of Iron Man is shoulder-slamming Thor’s little brother at Mach 2.

The sheer momentum of Iron Man’s attack unbalances Loki, causing him to stumble and Gungnir to miss its target by a wide margin. Recovering quickly, Loki whirls to face this interloper, seething, his expression contorted with rage.

“Commendable,” Loki says, his voice deceptively soft. “But foolish.”

With a fluid motion, he swings Gungnir in Iron Man’s direction and activates the weapon’s power; the spear glows with otherworldly life as its energies fire on the man and his suit, a barrage of blinding, devastating magic meant to obliterate any who stand in its path. The noise cracks and booms over the night sky; the spell illuminates the sand dunes as well as any fork of lightning. Loki doesn’t care if the blast kills Stark. He doesn’t care about much of anything, now.

He shouts back to Thor as he moves to Darcy’s side, where the girl continues to sit peaceably, her eyes glazed over in wonder at the scene she’s witnessing.

“Such kind concern you show for her, Thor! But you don’t really know her, do you? You still haven’t seen her for who she is; you still haven’t acknowledged her sweet, precious feelings.” He hisses the last, and makes as if to slap Darcy, but his open palm hits against the invisible shield he had cast earlier. ”Take her if you can, Steve Rogers.” Gungnir thrums with shining menace. Green sorcery starts like a fire around Loki’s boots and ascends to outline the whole of his body, seeming to infuse him. His eyes are bright, hard gems, wide open and furious.

Loki grins at Steve; he’s vicious, ghoulish. “You are absolutely welcome to try.”

The brief surge of relief at Thor’s narrow rescue is gone in a flash of wicked crackling light. ”No!” Steve shouts, his chest going tight. But there is no time, not even to search the sky for a glimpse of red and gold.

Loki’s attention has narrowed down to Thor once again and Steve moves closer to his friend’s side. ”Tony?” he says softly into the comm mic in his helm, as Loki rails. “Come on, it’s not like you to leave a party early.” But radio silence is the only answer he gets.

Then that vicious green gaze is turned upon him. Steve meets it unflinchingly, his own expression fierce as he steps forward, putting himself between Thor and the Asgardian God. ”I intend to.”

“Thor. Stay back,” is all Steve says to his friend as he strides forward, lifting his shield to the ready. Breaking into a short run, he narrows the distance between them and lunges at Loki with the edge, putting his full weight and determination behind the vibranium.

Thor’s voice echoes Steve’s as he watches the blast crack violently outwards from Gungnir’s blade.

As much as it pains him to stand aside, he does not protest. The SUV is parked nearby, and Thor sets his back against the jet-black metal as protection from his brother’s fondness for teleportation. From this distance he can survey the scene more easily, though clouds of dust, alight with sickening green magic, still block patches of the landscape.

He is not sure how grave Tony’s injuries are, but as he searches for a sign of his friend, he has faith that Stark survived Loki’s merciless spellwork— he had to survive.

“You cannot hope to best him with force alone!” Thor calls out, thankful that the terrain carries his voice clearly. He motions with his hand towards the shield protecting Darcy.

“That barrier should be your focus! With enough force, the spell will shatter…You must hold until then!”

Loki’s retaliation? Expected. The guy had just taken a body slam at, oh, a thousand miles per hour. He’s ticked.

But that tiny taste of Asgardian energy he’d scoped out from the sky does nothing to prepare Iron Man for the crackling lance that splits the atmosphere and strikes him right between the collarbones, shrieking as it tears the paint right off the raised angles of his suit and then sends its dead weight hurtling backward a couple hundred yards through the New Mexican dirt.

The armor’s systems are jittery for a couple of minutes, fizzling in and out of functionality as Tony spits blood from his split lip at the inside of the faceplate, dragging himself to his feet and stumbling out of the brand spanking new arroyo his body’s carved into the ground.

He catches the tail-end of Thor’s warning as the dust clears, and he rallies his sights on the glowing bubble rippling around Loki’s hostage.

“Here’s hoping you know what you’re talking about,” he mutters, raising both hands and concentrating a double repulsor shot at the shield.

The shot does its work, hitting the spell that encases Darcy with enough force to create visible cracks in the barrier. Loki scowls at this, but Captain America’s ridiculous bumrush prevents him from dealing immediately with Stark. Teleporting behind Rogers does little good; the man stops himself with relative ease and turns on his heel, hurling that gaudy shield with every ounce of his weight as he does so. The shield catches Loki in the stomach, and it’s not pleasant, but he maintains his equilibrium this time and steps on the star painted in the shield’s center with a heavy boot. He has a mind to crush the thing, but there’s something curious about the metal, about the way it so effectively absorbs the force he applies to it.

However, his moment of interest is not enough to penetrate the haze of anger boiling throughout each of his sparking, taut nerves. Loki kicks the shield away violently, and then slams the shaft of Gungnir into the sand.

“Three against one,” he says, eyes narrowing as his gaze sweeps Thor, Rogers, and Stark in turn. ”Seems a little unfair, don’t you agree?”

The heavens begin to churn as he speaks. Clouds gather rapidly, and the earth trembles. The Bifrost opens, and a column of light and heat blasts down from above, right beside where Loki stands. The dunes erupt as Loki’s new ally touches down, temporarily obscuring its identity from view.

Loki gestures to Captain America’s shield, which lies on the sand between the two of them.

“Pick that up,” he says. “Let’s see what it can do.”

The whirlwind settles, and the enormous, animated suit of armor known to Asgard as the Destroyer emerges. The weapon fixes its aim on Rogers, considers him briefly. The plates that make up its featureless face withdraw to reveal a glimpse of the deadly furnace inside—blazing, destructive, and preparing to fire.

Loki was unaffected by the powerful blow of his shield. But with the thrumming boom of Iron Man’s repulsor blast still echoing in his ears Steve can’t help but feel a fresh surge of determination. He speaks into his comm, “Thor’s right. Keep it up, Tony. Try and get her out of here.”

Before Steve can go for his shield he feels the ground begin to shake. The power Loki wields comes to call in a torrent of light and sound. Throwing his arm up, Steve shields his vision from the glare, trying to see past the whipping of the sand.

Through the cloud of dust he spots Loki, kicking the shield towards him in challenge and then, beside the vengeful god, a towering shadow. It’s immense, and as the sand clears the plates of it’s metal catch and reflect the dimming light. The churning flame within its body and face surges, white hot-

Steve runs, throwing himself at his shield and scooping it from the ground just in time. The blast hits the shield with the punch of a small moving car, throwing him end over end through dirt, sand and rock.

He tastes blood in his mouth and the scent of burnt material is thick in the air. Pushing to his feet Steve rips the rest of his burned and damaged helm off, tossing it to the dirt. Again, the hollow armor is glowing deep in its chest, churning up another blast. ”Just get her! I’ll keep it busy!” He shouts to his friends, striding straight for the metal golem.

“Hey!” Steve bellows at it, trying to keep it’s attention, “Hey you! You gotta try harder than tha-!” He ducks in the nick of time, hitting the dirt and raising his shield as a blast of fire strikes him again. This time he’s ready and braced for the impact. Skidding through the sand he holds his stance through it, despite the painful searing heat that billows and tears from around the edges of the sheild.

While Tony would have been happy to point out that Loki and his assessment of the numbers is a little off with Thor playing cheerleader on the sidelines, he’s otherwise occupied by the explosion of this new tech onto the scene, the gradual give of the energy barrier under an insistent barrage of repulsor blasts, and, of course, the suspicion that Harry Potter here is compensating for something with that oversized wand he’s been twirling.

Iron Man approaches the shield one deliberate step at a time, and then when he’s within range for the big guns, he cuts his fire and swings his arms clear.

“Throw everything we’ve got into the Unibeam. Let’s break this sucker.”

A surge of power hums outward from the core of the reactor in his chest an instant before the weapon slices through the night and strikes the barrier dead center.

Thor’s eyes widen as he watches the Bifrost open at his brother’s request. Within the whirlwind of smoke and debris he can make out a massive silhouette, but it’s the sound of shifting plates and hissing, screaming fire that reveals Loki’s hand mere seconds before it is dealt.

In that moment his concern for uneven odds becomes something more, becomes fear. If he is not careful in guiding them, if they make but one mistake against the might of his father put into play, death will come for his friends without a second thought in a battle that should never have been theirs to fight.

Yet relief comes just as swiftly as Tony’s onslaught obliterates Darcy’s prison moments later; a blow against Loki’s strategy, and a victory on their part.

“Go, now! Get her out of here!!”

Loki intends to make that victory short-lived. As the spell breaks, he casts another, though this one is not for Darcy.

“Are you so eager to let your friends die for you, brother?” Loki snarls. The aura of magic that curls around him like smoke coalesces into his closed fist, forming a concentrated sphere of energy. He throws his arm out in a mockery of Iron Man’s own gesture and returns fire; the magic explodes from his open palm and races for that suit with the speed of a missile. On contact with its target, the spell detonates a second time, spitting and popping as it wreaks havoc on Stark’s armor—and whatever it can get of the man himself.

Iron Man crumples, the lights on his suit flickering.

Loki grabs Darcy by the wrist and drags her to her feet; she blinks blearily, still unaware of her situation, still living in a dream, despite the noise of battle and the frigid desert air and the man digging his sharp, black nails into the meat of her arm.

“Her next, then?” Loki says. ”Is that what you want?!”

“No— NO!!!” Thor chokes on his own scream, his voice pleading, hands already up and outstretched in front of him in surrender as if to calm his brother. His eyes flick over towards Tony, crumpled and still on the ground, before meeting Darcy’s.

“Please, Loki…brother…please just let her go. She does not deserve this.”

Some distance away from their exchange, Captain America continues to fend off the Destroyer’s constant attacks. The golem is relentless and unwavering in its focus, and the Cap is slowly but surely tiring. A buffet of flames surrounds him; the sand is molten, ashy, and Steve’s shield can’t protect him from everything. He rolls to dodge another spit of explosive fire, raising the shield to deflect not only the blast, but the superheated burst of sand as well. But he is quickly running out of free, safe space, and the Destroyer knows it, somehow.

Smoke and fumes fill Captain America’s lungs; his exposed face is streaked with blackened sand and ruddy with sweat. Intense heat licks at his legs and chest; he realizes that the fire is closer than he thought, and that it has melted parts of his costume. The shield, too, has endured more sustained punishment than ever before, and the vibranium glows with absorbed, painfully hot energy. Steve’s grip falters; he’s on his knees, and the Destroyer suddenly looms over him with its immense, spiked-metal arm raised. The arm swings down, the fist connects with his back, and he falls, prone, on top of his shield.

“Another one,” Loki hisses, though he knows that neither Steve Rogers nor Tony Stark are dead; he did not plan to kill them unnecessarily and had not acted with deadly force. Rather, he needs them neutralized and unable to interfere, a goal now accomplished. “You’re right. None of them deserve this. You do. You.”

Darcy sags against him, boneless. He lets go of her wrist and supports her by the waist with as much delicacy as he’s able, and she is supine in the crook of his arm, like a newborn kitten.

He trembles now, quaking with barely suppressed rage. He slashes the air with Gungnir, still clutched in his free hand, and opens a portal to Jotunheim. A fierce wind, far colder than what the desert can produce, pours forth from the opening. ”What do you say, Thor? She seemed so curious about the jotun. Shall I introduce her to their culture?”

Tony Stark, gone. Steve Rogers, gone. If guilt was tangible Thor would suffocate beneath it, but he has no time to focus on that— not with Jotunheim’s icy, merciless ruins flickering in the air so close to Darcy that a mere push would send her into its heart and unravel everything they’ve fought for.

“You’re right.” His footsteps are light and careful, moving away from the car towards them. He smells fire and ash, magic, seared metal and scorched earth.

“I deserve it. Everything you’ve endured, everything you’ve suffered. It was my fault, not theirs.” Thor lowers his voice, his arms. He stands defenseless before his brother, but he neither falters nor shakes as he speaks.

“Punish no one else for my crimes and let this end as it began, Loki… with me.”

Loki hesitates. He lowers Gungnir and takes a step away from the portal, towards his brother. He wants to believe Thor’s admission, to take it as sincere, to feel that Thor has come to understand him. When they were young, Loki idolized Thor. He yearned to be like him; he yearned to be liked, as Thor was.

For years, his brother could do no wrong in Loki’s sight. But as simple-minded youth gave way to the difficult mix of awareness and self-absorption of adolescence, their relationship began to change. A rift formed between them, a gully that eroded into a canyon, fathomless and dark and carved from words said and unsaid, incidents dismissed and unexamined.

Thor was sorry whenever Loki was hurt, that much Loki accepts is true.

But what was the source of his contrition? He never spoke out of empathy or sympathy. He spoke to placate, to quiet, to get his whining little brother to shut up. He insisted—insists to this day—that Loki misunderstood their friends’ intentions or their father’s lack of enthusiasm. He assured Loki that he was loved, and then left him alone.

The long ribbon of their lives unfurls before Loki, and the tale it tells is clear. The patterns are obvious, and they have not changed.

“I am called a liar,” Loki says, his voice rising in volume with each word, “I am compared to a snake, and mistrusted, and judged. I manipulate and I poison; you’ve said it yourself. But at least I’m honest in my lies. I don’t pretend to be something that I’m not. I don’t pretend to give a damn.”

His grip on Gungir tightens as he lets Darcy slip from his other arm; she slides down to sit complacently on the sand and watches the confrontation as though taking in a film of limited interest.

“You, though,” Loki growls, advancing, “you’re worse than me. You are thoughtless, careless, you are blind to yourself and to everyone around you, and you can’t even admit it! You offer me platitudes and nothing more, as you always have!”

His voice breaks, but there’s no power drained from his strike; he lunges with the spear, and Gungnir pierces Thor straight through his heart.

Thor’s hands find Loki’s, clamping tight over them as the blow leaves him hunched against his brother’s shoulder. He tries to inhale, to tell him it’s all right, but the metal is unyielding beneath his fingertips, within his chest. He looks to Darcy instead, smiles briefly as his grip fails. With this it will end. She will be safe, he will have kept his promise.

Thor slips to the ground, stares into the sea of stars above him one last time before the world goes dim.

It is nice, he thinks, to finally return home.

Blood coats the spear’s tines, Thor’s thin, shredded shirt, Loki’s bare knuckles. He yanks back, pulling Gungnir from Thor’s chest, and then pushes his brother’s corpse to the ground.

Silence envelops him. Darcy stares into the middle distance, mute. Her body shivers involuntarily, because it is the deepest, coldest part of the night, and her jacket is not enough.

A fissure cracks open inside Loki as he observes the lifeless remains of his brother. He feels euphoric, exultant; his vision swims with what is surely joy, what must be satisfaction. He is mad with the terrible, shattering glory of the moment. Months earlier, he had tried to do this and failed; he had recoiled from the reality of who and what he was. Now he has overcome that denial, that shortcoming.

Loki kneels beside his brother. The pale sand is rusty with blood. Thor is utterly still. Covering his face with one hand, Loki looks down on Thor between the splay of his fingers. He laughs, wildly, through tears; he is victorious.

At long last, he is victorious.