Above All Shadows [Loki Timetravel fic - Completed]

50. Two Birds, One Stone

Loki sighed and climbed out of bed, flinging out his left arm as he did so. His hand made a graceless swipe over the bedside table and sent flying everything that had been stacked on it.

On the other side of the room, Thor rolled onto his back and groaned. 'What are you doing?'

'Nothing, nothing,' Loki replied hurriedly. None of the lights in the small cabin they shared on the USS Gibraltar were lit and the moonlight that fell through the narrow window afforded Loki only enough light to make out the shapes of the two books he had kept on the bedside table. He nudged them out of the way, then grabbed his coat and slid on his boots.

'Where're you going?' Thor asked as Loki opened the cabin door and the uninviting, electric lights from the corridor flooded the cabin. Thor propped himself up and attempted to glare at Loki through half-open eyes; he didn't much appreciate having his slumber disturbed.

'To relieve myself, what else?' Loki replied. He made certain there wasn't even a hint of genuine contrition in his next words. 'I'm sorry to have woken you. Get back to sleep, I'll be back in five minutes.'

'Close the door behind you then, will you?' Thor grumbled. He sank back onto the mattress and pulled the blanket over his head.

Making sure to leave the door open by an inch, Loki indulged himself in a small, self-satisfied smile. The blankets they had been given were thin. The fact they provided little warmth bothered neither Loki nor Thor, but the material was also too thin to block out the light now beaming into the cabin, which would leave Thor irate soon enough.

He muttered polite greetings to those he passed - primarily the watch-keepers on the way to a shift change and intelligence analysts scheduled to be on call through the night. By the time Loki had descended two levels, however, his smile faded. He slipped his coat over his shoulders and ran his hands through his hair in an attempt to make himself look presentable. His pace had already been unhurried, but he halted completely before a pair of well-armed, surly SHIELD agents at the door to his destination.

'Phil Coulson requested I assist with the prisoner's questioning,' Loki said. 'If you could let me through?'

'And you are?' asked the more senior-ranking agent of the two.

Loki faked an embarrassed smile. 'Right, of course. I'm Loki Odinson.'

'Ah, yes, we've been expecting you, sir. One moment, please.'

The agent who had addressed Loki turned to deal with the door, while the other kept his eyes locked on Loki, but there was no sign of real concern in his movements. Many people had taken their turn at visiting Gamora since she had been brought aboard the helicarrier and these two guards had earlier received a message from their superiors advising them of Loki's imminent arrival.

Loki had contemplated a number of plans that had involved making himself invisible for a time or relying on his illusions. Then he realised that it would require far less effort to fool a fingerprint scanner and send an email from Coulson' address to the helicarrier's security team.

On the other side of the door, the air was cooler and Loki's footsteps seemed to reverberate against every inch of the thick walls. The glass bowl Gamora was contained in had finger-marks across it; Loki couldn't determine which side of the glass they were on. Gamora herself had moved little since Loki had last looked at footage of her. She sat in her cream-coloured prison suit on the sole piece of furniture inside the cell - a low bench with a painfully thin pad. Her head rested against the glass wall and her eyes stared into the middle distance, focused on nothing.

'Close the door and don't let us be interrupted,' Loki told the guards. Once the door shut behind him, he walked over to the chair Doctor Prothero had left behind and pushed it closer to the glass. As he sat himself down, he offered Gamora a warm smile. 'Which is worse in your opinion? That sad excuse for a bed or how the lights never go out in here?'