Do You Have Heart (Avengers/Loki fan-fiction)

Chapter Thirteen - The Battle of Manhattan (Part 1)

LOKI's POV

We do not have long to wait now, and I am only just beginning to doubt that what I have done is right. Maybe what Vor said is true; maybe I am a monster.

But I have already gone too far to ever get her back: I know that now. So what else is there left for me to lose? Nothing, there is nothing for me to lose anymore, because I have lost her. Twice, she has slipped through my fingers, and, somehow I know that my encounter with her in the glass cell was the last time I will ever see her smile at me and me alone.

I have gone too far, and there is nothing I can do anymore. Nothing but try to succeed in another way: to take this realm for my own.

 

 

ALINA/VOR'S POV

The plane speed towards Manhattan with one intention: to stop Loki before he destroys the world as we know it. I won't let him do that: I don't care who he was to me, he is no longer that person. This Loki I see today is not the Loki I left seven years ago, at the Bifrost gate in Asgard. This new Loki is insane, power hungry and hell-bent on ruining the place I now call home. And I am prepared to do anything it takes to stop him.

"So, what changed, with you two?" Steve's voice cuts through the silence in the back of the plane, and my gaze drifts up from the floor to meet his. His expression is questioning, but also puzzled: clearly, he doesn't understand. I take a deep breath before I begin "Just so you know, Loki was never like this." I can't help but smile slightly as the memories of our childhood together flood back to me "He used to be nice. Yeah, he's always been one for trouble, but nothing like this. When I left Asgard he was still tricking the guards at the palace: stealing things from right under their noses whilst invisible. And we'd watch as their faces became more and more confused by the second, once they'd realised something was gone. Then we'd reveal ourselves and the guards would laugh and roll their eyes at us, because it happened all the time..." my voice trails off suddenly, and my gaze drifts to the floor again. I don't exactly know how to carry on.

"So, what you're trying to say is that he's changed a little since you last saw him?" smiles Steve, a sympathetic look crossing his face as I slowly nod, my hands shaking slightly as I recount the last few days in my mind: Loki has killed enough people already, along with controlling my best friend's mind and threatening a group of innocent civilians with his dictator-like speeches. This is not the Loki I knew.

"We need to stop him, Alina." before I even realise it, Steve is standing right in front of me and arms are reaching around my body, pulling me into a hug "It's going to be hard for you, I know it is, but we need you on this. You know him better than anybody: surely that means that you've got more chance of stopping him than any of the rest of us have." His arms release me and now his hands are clamped down on my shoulders, eyes staring hard into my own. "Alina, we have the whole of the Avengers Initiative to fight off his army. But Loki, he's your call, Ali. You might be the only one who can talk him out of this."

"Always, Steve, you consider that negotiation might be an option." I laugh, shaking my head as my eyes meet the floor again "The time for negotiation passed long ago. Anyway, Loki has never really been one for that kind of thing. He's just as difficult as I am. And plus," I add, smirking back up at him "SHIELD doesn't tend to negoti-"

But I don't get to finish my sentence, because I'm suddenly knocked sideways into the wall of the plane. "What the hell was that?" I shout up to Clint, only to find that we've already reached Stark Tower. And we've also lost a wing.

Crap, we're going down.

"Loki happened, that's what!" Clint screams back as he attempts to avoid the already half-destroyed buildings on the way down to the ground. The back door of the plane bursts open, and Steve falls into me, propelling me straight towards the door. I know Steve stops before we hit the open air, but I don't. I just about manage to catch Steve, Clint and Nat's shouts before I'm free-falling through the air, spiralling towards the wrecked streets below.