Madness of the Serpent

Weightless

"...Let's do a head count, here. Your brother, the demigod. A super soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend. A man with breathtaking anger-management issues. A couple of master assassins..."

Loki had glanced back at the man who battled in mechanized suits of armor, an entertained smirk adorning his face.

"... and your girlfriend."

His sneer froze.

"What?"

"Yeah, you know. Long dark hair, easy on the eyes, has a perpetual deer-in-the-headlights expression? That one." Stark poured another glass of whatever passed for alcohol on this backwards planet, his tone far too casual. "When Pepper's pissed at me, she usually makes me sleep in another bedroom. Or attend a board meeting." Stark paused to take a gulp of the alcoholic beverage, swallowing the liquid as he tipped his glass towards the dark god in a gesture of off-hand insolence. "Not join up with my sworn enemies. Whatever you did to her, must have been pretty bad."

Throwing the arrogant, brazen mortal from the top of his tower had done much to lift Loki's mood after that encounter – it was a pity he had survived the fall.

But he had not truly believed the builder's words. He had trusted the human's suspicious nature would have kept them from accepting any aid from his creation. The phantom's association with him should have been enough to taint her integrity in their beady eyes.

But as the small SHIELD aircraft hovered overhead, Loki knew he had been wrong. She was there, aboard the aircraft, embedded with his enemies. The Quinjet's attack on the god had solidified the suspicion he had not realized he had greatly feared – she had chosen a side, and it had not been his.

In an action which could only be described as lashing out, Loki had jerked the sceptre in the direction of the aircraft, releasing a powerful bolt of destructive energy in a plan to end her existence in a blinding fit of rage. But his wrist had flinched at the last moment, and the blue bolt of energy had slammed into one of the engines rather than directly into the cockpit – his intended target.

Loki had watched the aircraft descend in a black billow of smoke – temporarily frozen from the realization of what he had done – his lapse in attention allowing Thor to tackle him in the chest, striking him in the face repeatedly with his bare fists. The god was unable to block his brother's furious blows, Thor's strength invigorated by seeing the likely death of his allies.

But as Loki descended upon the city moments later, having commandeered a Chitauri flier after he had escaped the ferocious beating at the hands of his adopted brother, he knew she still lived. Her dark figure had been crouched next to the supersoldier and the assassins, which included his former slave. He would not have been surprised if she had had a hand in Barton's release as well. Her betrayal seemed to know no bounds.

Loki's festering thoughts of what he would do when he laid hands on her were interrupted as the Other barged into his mind, roughly opening his consciousness and forcing his attention in a brutal show of force that nearly unseated the god from his aerial perch.

"This... is a little resistance?" the Other growled in the form of a question.

"Your force lacks... finesse," Loki responded with some difficulty. His hands clenched the handholds of the flier even as its sharp edges cut into his palms, still reeling from the unexpected mental intrusion.

"Our warriors are fearless! They welcome a glorious death..." he finished with a soft hiss. Loki felt his smugness like an irritating tic buried in his brain matter.