Chapter 4- Loki's tale
"What do you know of me so far? I don't know what Thor's told you."
Steve shook his head "Little I'm afraid, he said you were his brother, but he mentioned something about adoption. He didn't say any more in terms of your roots, although he did try to tell a few tales of battles long past."
Loki nodded, "I'm surprised he didn't spill the full beans, and distance himself as far away from the monster I am, as possible. I'm not Asguardian, I thought you might have gathered that from the blue skin. I was born a member of the Joturn, the Frost Giants, and Asguard's mortal enemy. I am the son of Laufrey, the last of the kings, and abandoned during the last Great War. There Odin found me and like spoils from a battle carried me home as another stolen relic. There he put a spell on me and disguised me to look like one of his own." Loki's voice was bitter.
"I grew up in that court always being told that I was born to be a king, that both of us were, but that only one of us could ever become king. I didn't get the full meaning of that even after I discovered my true heritage for a while. I was born the heir to the frost giant throne, but because Odin stole me and lied to me I would never become king of anywhere. At the time I just thought he was pitting his two sons against each other, trying to get the best out of us."
"Odin sounds like a great big bag of dicks." Steve interjected "Sorry, go on."
Loki smiled slightly despite the story "I guess that's one way of putting it. It didn't work for a while, I mean we were competitive but I turned out to have a strong passion and talent for magic, which most of Asguard, my brother included, mocked. It was my mother that taught me my magic, not all of it, but the disuse spells and the concealments and the fireballs. The little tricks as well, to turn wine into a snake was mine, but based on one she taught me. But I learnt, and I knew, I knew offensive spells, I knew defensive spells, I learnt healing, and tactics, and knowledge that could solve almost any problem." Loki smiled proudly, then dropped it suddenly "They were known as little tricks."
"Ouch." Steve winced in sympathy.
"So I carried on learning, I learnt my knife fighting and so was rewarded with going out with my big brother and his friends, I got inducted into their little gang. Picture it: the mighty Thor, the Warriors Three, the gallant Lady Sif and then little Loki. I bet that was how it was described. I saved their lives so many times. I even saved their lives on the trip that started this whole mess and the entire time I bet you I was 'little Loki' playing with the big soldiers."
"I know how that feels." Steve interjected "To be the little guy with the brains among the big guys. The difference is you were actually useful."
"You?" Loki asked "Little?"
Steve rolled his eyes "This is actually artificial, but never mind I'll tell you afterwards, carry on,"
"I guess the next bit of any importance is Thor's coronation." Loki sighed "He wasn't ready. My… Odin was and, I guess, is awful, but Thor really wasn't ready. In truth my mother probably should have been crowned. So I made a deal with a couple of Frost Giants. I would let them into Asguard and then they would be able to steal the casket. I had absolutely no plan of letting them succeed and indeed they failed, disrupting the coronation as they did so."
Loki paused, and tried to judge Steve's reaction. As far as he could tell it was entirely supressed, like he knew what he thought, but he was also sure he didn't know the whole story.
"As the frost giants died one of them touched me, turning my arm blue as he did so. Then Thor declared he was going to end the Frost Giants and gathered the old group to go off to Joturn to destroy them all. I told one of the guards before we left where we were going and to tell Odin as soon as we'd left. I saved all our lives." Loki felt cold, colder than his skin in remembering it "You know most of the rest, Thor was exiled to Earth, and I led Asguard once Odin fell into Slumber, not well but I didn't know what else to do. I also tried to talk to the frost giants."
"What happened then?" Steve's voice was a polite request for more information, but he also squeezed Loki's shoulder as Loki moved around him to get to his hair at the back.
"I lost my temper. I don't know, I don't know but I tried to work out a coup to raise my standing in Asguard, getting Laufrey to invade and then I killed him in front of mother but at the same time I was trying to destroy Joturn. I guess I thought that if I destroyed everyone else who could reveal my secret then the fact I was this monster might remain a secret. Instead I turned into the monster. I killed Laufrey, my blood father if nothing else. Then, I fell from the rainbow bridge. I fell into Thanos lair and…"
"Hey," Steve said, cutting him off in mid-sentence "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.
"No." Loki decided, "It's better talking about it. It's helping clear my head. But if you don't mind I will brush over the next section."
"Of course…" Steve attempted to sound understanding.
"Well it was in a bad state and the Other made it somewhat worse. Within a week it got to the point where I'd rather turn myself into Odin, a couple of days later I'd rather have turned myself into the Frost Giants. It was about a month in, where I'd have agreed to anything, anything at all to get out of there." Loki paused for a moment, to emphasise the next statement. "They had me for a year."
"Oh blimy," Steve muttered, although trying not to interrupt.
"So when they said all I had to do was to lead an army against Earth, well, that seemed like such a small price to pay, even though that wouldn't have got me out of there. But I got what I wanted. I lost, but I lost to the extent in which it looked like I tried, and I was taken back to Asguard, to be safe, I thought. They decided my punishment would be the same as Thor's had. I was sent to Earth, powerless, in my natural form, with no resources, to learn from my mistakes."
"Ah," Steve sighed, understanding at last. "So you've got no powers, natural form and no money or anything." Loki cut through the last of his long hair. "Hey, that feels a lot lighter. Are we going to dye it now?"
Loki nodded, getting up and heading towards what looked like the employee toilets. Steve tried to find a mirror, improvising in the end using a bus window. It was odd with his hear cut as his beard reduced to heavy stubble. Loki wasn't lying when he said he had an even hand though, it wasn't a professional hair cut today, but it easily matched up to those from the forties, even if it was a little short.
"You're going to have to come in here!" Loki called from by the toilets "I can't see a bowl, so we'll have to use the sink."
Steve rolled his eyes, but came over and got his hair dyed to a dark brown, almost black, sticking it up in spikes with the moisture "What do you think?" he asked, giving a mock twirl.
"Steve Rogers, who are you?" Loki said with a grin, pointing out in the mirror. It was surprisingly effective, particularly with the spikes in it and the sleeveless top he was wearing. He looked nothing like Captain America, but at the same time he did look like Steve Rogers, or at least how Steve Rogers had wanted himself to look. He also looked dangerous for a completely different reason.
"I'd say I was a fighter. I would also so that I wasn't soft."
Loki concurred. "We should see about getting some more clothing, some of those big stores shouldn't mind a little going missing."
"Stealing is wrong." Steve said firmly "Stealing to survive is significantly less wrong. On the other hand I'm not going to object to doing a little Robin Hooding (1). Do you think I look decent enough to gain access to a library?" His mind was formulating a soft little plan. It wasn't strictly right, and it certainly wasn't inside the law, but at the same time… The slightly hidden old romantic in Steve was brimming to the fore again.
"Robin Hooding?" Loki asked, more curious, and to pass the time than anything else.
Steve shook his head "An old British legend. It's about an outlaw who stole from the rich and give to the poor. He accumulated a band of merry men and they tried to even out the world."
"How unbelievably self-sacrificing," Loki scorned "wait, you said legend, who came up with this stuff?"
Steve shrugged "No-one knows- it's been around for a while. By a while I mean at least eight hundred years, so if someone actually existed it's long since lost. It's certainly possible that an outlaw robbed from the rich for themselves and gave some of it to the poor guards as bribes."
"I didn't expect you to be pragmatic," Loki remarked, putting the hair dye can in the bin. They left the bathroom and Steve checked one of the buses, pulling the doors open.
"It'll be warmer in here. Slightly more comfortable too." He pointed out, encouraging Loki to come in. "I'm far more pragmatic than people realise. I grew up, homeless for a section, in Brooklyn on my own. A was a soldier and one at the bottom of the pile as well. I was the smart ass little kid whose mouth vastly outsized his ability to prove his opinions. I lived through the great depression; there is very little reason for me to be a delusional optimist."
Loki sat down on one of the benches at the back of the bus. "You were small? You've mentioned it before but, please..." He gestured to Steve's general self.
"Artificial." Steve explained "You never heard of how pathetic skinny Steve Rogers became Capitan America?" Loki shook his head "Well, I guess I know your story, how about I tell you mine?"
"Will it be boring and dry?" Loki asked sceptically, but amused as well.
Steve grinned mischievously "It involves several platoons of grown men looking like idiots, the embarrassment of the US Senate, several strikes into enemy territory and a whole chorus of show girls."
Loki grinned "Full steam ahead."
Steve told his tale animatedly, although notably dropping at the bits that involved Peggy or Bucky. He managed to get quite a few laughs out of Loki though, as he told of how he left a US senator standing on a stage. And indeed, the timing of him coming back from the rescue attempt of Bucky. But he also had Loki's sympathy, far more so than he did before, when he realised how little time Steve had been out of the ice before the Battle of New York, and when he realised who Bucky was.
"What did you mean by Robin Hooding?" Loki asked at the end of the tale.
"Well I told you that he robbed from the unworthy rich, those with Civil Rights violations etc, and gave to the poor." Steve began
"Yes…" Loki didn't see where this was going.
"Well there are plenty of rich people in this city, and I'm sure many companies have human rights violations. I don't know which ones off the top of my head, which is why I wanted to know whether I looked decent enough to go into a library. I could use the computers in that to look up companies to liberate goods from. Do I look decent enough to go into a library by the way?"
"Probably," Loki shrugged "I'm not the best judge, having never been inside one myself."
"You've got a point. I'll try, the worst I can do is get kicked out. It just occurred to me that we know quite a few poor people, including ourselves."
"I like this brand of Robin Hooding. Steal from the rich to give to our poor selves." Loki muttered with a grin "But I take it you wouldn't agree to give it just to ourselves?"
"No. besides, this is more chaotic. This entire city runs on careful differences between the things people can afford. We start giving poor people expensive stuff, and that system starts to break down." Steve tried; personally he doubted it was that fragile, but as a tactic to get Loki to agree…
Loki began a slow Cheshire Cat grin (2) "Now you're talking! A little chaos in the system is just what this city needs. After all, even the streets are numbered, it's ridiculous."
"So we'll start tomorrow then? Or at least I'll hit the library tomorrow." Steve said.
"Sounds reasonable." Loki half whispered, feeling rather sleepy "By the way Steve,"
"Yes?" Steve was a little tired himself.
"I'm not being a merry man."
Steve let out a bark of laughter "Never said you were. I thought we'd agreed we were partners anyway?" He added as an afterthought, despite the fact he'd been thinking it for several days "Partners in crime."
Loki performed a laugh that would have been a giggle coming from pretty much anyone else. "You know I'm falling asleep here?"
Steve yawned "You're not the only one. Rest, you've had a long day being broken out of captivity by moi."
Loki rolled his eyes but did set off to sleep. Steve wasn't too sure he wouldn't be following him in a minute or so, but he had to stay awake for a bit longer…
It was fortunate that Loki woke up at the slightest sound as they fell asleep in the back of the bus. He shook Steve awake "Steve, Steve…"
"What?" what a surprise, Loki thought to himself with a slight grin "Steve Rogers is not a morning person.
"We're running late, there are people here, we're in the bus stop, remember." Loki urged, poking him "Come on, I can't carry you, you know."
Steve dropped up pulling himself into a crouch, "We'll have to make a dash for the exit I think. They'll spot us if we try to hide out of a bus. We've got the very earliest drivers so they'll probably go to the bathroom first. We'll dash then." Steve glanced at Loki, "We'll meet back at the Warehouse, so try not to get captured by SHIELD this time." Loki frowned and would have hit him over the head if that hadn't meant revealing their position. He settled for poking Steve in the arm and muttering.
"I'll get you later."
"No you won't," Steve contradicted "come on, now!"
They dashed out of the bus, and out of the shelter, splitting up past then.
Fortunately neither of them got lost.
Or Captured by SHIELD.
This time…
Thank-you for reading. This is this fic finished, although I am working on a sequel. Feedback is welcomed, and much appreciated. The following are a couple of notes for the above of of other references:
1 I'm working on the assumption that if Steve hadn't already heard the legend of Robin Hood that Peggy would have told it to him.
2 Read Alice in Wonderland, and it's the best description I could think of.