Mirror, Mirror ↠ Steve Rogers

Chapter Eighteen

Loki doesn't put up much of a fight when they find him in the tower. He's still on the ground--given the damage to the area around him, she can only assume he had a run in with the Hulk--and when he looks up to find himself surrounded by the Avengers, he doesn't seem to miss a beat.

"If it's all the same to you," he says instead, "I'll have that drink now."

Leila doesn't bother asking for context.

"Alright, get him on his feet," Tony demands. "We can all stand around posing up a storm later. By the way, feel free to clean up."

While Thor hauls Loki to his feet by his shoulder, Leila turns to Natasha, who's still holding the scepter. "Who gets the magic wand?" she asks.

"It's STRIKE's problem," Leila replies, remembering Steve saying something to that effect on their way to the tower. "They're on their way."

She glances around the room and her eyes land on Clint, who's busy pouring himself a drink at the bar. She smiles a little at this and walks over to join him, reaching over the bar to find an empty glass. She holds it out to him, and he wordlessly pours something orange into it. They clink their classes against each other.

Leila tries to take a moment and just enjoy the drink, but she finds her eyes keep straying back to Loki. He's handcuffed now, with Thor not letting him out of his sight, but it's still unnerving. Maybe because she's used to a certain procedure after fighting. After STRIKE ops, there's medical checks, post-op briefings, power checks, a million things to mark the end of the mission. She's not used to lounging around with her targets in the room.

"You okay, kid?" Clint asks, and she turns her attention back to him.

She's too tired to come up with a one-liner, so she deflects instead. "Are you?"

"I asked you first."

"I asked you second," Leila returns in a childish, mocking voice, and Clint grins. She smiles back a little.

"Are you guys drinking triple sec straight?" Tony calls from across the room. He's standing guard over the tesseract by a table in the center of the room, with Nat hovering nearby with the scepter. "You're not allowed to drink my alcohol if you're gonna drink it like that."

"Cheers," Leila replies, and without breaking eye contact, downs the rest of the drink.

Before Tony can respond with anything other than that tiny smirk he keeps giving her, equal parts impressed and entertained, the elevator doors open with a ding. Brock Rumlow walks in, holding a silver case with a handle; Jasper Sitwell follows, holding something similar, and two men she doesn't recognize file in after him, empty-handed.

Leila locks eyes with Rumlow for a moment as he enters; his eyes glance from her chest back to her face, and she remembers that the front of her suit has a chitauri sword-hand-thing shaped hole in it and is covered in her own blood. Right.

She nods at him. I'm fine. He gives a slight nod back. Good.

Leila's always liked Rumlow. He's easy-going, approved her chosen codename, and most importantly, he doesn't press her to "open up." When Coulson tells--told--her that her yearly psych evals are coming up, he always made a point to encourage her to be honest during them, as if being honest with a psychiatric official isn't going to end with Leila in a straightjacket. Rumlow never does that, just reminds her to get the paperwork sent in by the end of the week.

Besides which, his preferred mode of communication with her is something dancing on a knife's edge of flirting. Flirting is always easier than talking for her.