Learning To Love

Chapter 9

"Sierra, I swear to God, did you actually think through any of this?!" She cringed under Tony's harsh glare.

"I'm sorry, Tony. I couldn't let Shield lock Loki up again without a chance to explain himself." Sierra flashed a glance at Loki next to her. "We have answers now."

"You should have just come to us. We could have helped," said Bruce, a hint of anger in his voice. Obviously, he was pissed. They never kept anything from each other. Sierra gave him a pleading look.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do. And besides, I've only had him with me for a few days." She knew that trying to justify her actions wouldn't make this better. Sierra turned her attention to Pepper. She always had Sierra's back, but now she didn't say a word. Her expression was the poster for the phrase "I'm not mad, just disappointed".

"Can we just explain everything?" Loki implored. "We know who is behind the attack on New York."

"Really?" Steve asked. He had been silent when everyone found out who "Luke" was and Loki let his disguise wash away, but finally this piqued his interest.

"Yeah. And it's not Loki. He was just the puppet," Sierra explained.

"Oh, do tell." Tony said sarcastically. She clenched her jaw and squared her shoulders.

"I can, and I will."

Slowly Loki and Sierra divulged everything about Thanos, The Other, and the scepter. She described how Loki had been under its influence like Barton and Selvig, and how Thanos was the one to go after now. It was a tough story to sell, but she could see in their faces that they were starting to understand.

"How do we know this isn't all a lie? This is crazy," Tony said furiously when we finished.

"Because I can stand before you and have this conversation, like a rational, sane human being," Loki said, his eyes narrow and his voice cold. Sierra knew that he needed to calm down in order to make his point; at the moment he seemed ready to erupt. "My brother will vouch for the fact that I was not myself when I first came to Earth."

"That's not enough. Do you have any idea what you did here? What you put us through?" Tony snapped.

"I do, and you're lucky I didn't do more." Loki's voice rose and he completely went off on Tony. "I didn't want to. Your monster snapped me out of the scepter's control when he beat me into the ground. I surrendered. I let Thor take me to Asgard because I knew that Thanos would come for me and I thought I would be safe on Asgard, but evidently I was wrong. You want proof, Stark?"

Without warning Loki grabbed the back of his shirt collar and ripped it off over his head. Immediately all of his scars were on display, running across his torso and around his arms and wrists; one particularly large gash crosswise on his chest and shoulder was still partially open. Where there were no open wounds, his skin was bruised, obvious against his normally pale complexion. Furthermore, Loki's skin hugged his bones, every rib visible. He lacked any muscle tone. Sierra gaped in horror at the sight of him; she'd noticed his gaunt face, the dark circles under his eyes, but those features had only been a glimpse of his true condition.

"This is my proof. I failed my task, and I paid for my mistakes in ways you can't imagine." Tony's eyes ran over Loki's body.

"I can imagine, actually. You don't know my life, kid," he said bitterly.

"And you don't know mine," Loki said, pulling his shirt back on. He tugged it down definitively, once again hiding his emaciated figure.