Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 32

Thor returns to the living room without the usual pep in his step. It doesn't surprise Natasha at all. Whatever he was hoping to get out of seeing Loki again, he never stood a chance. He should have realized that the last time he was here.

Natasha, Clint, and Tony are still seated around their Monopoly board, though they haven't used it since Thor and Steve left. Tony wanted to listen in on their conversation, so, with JARVIS's help, they did. And, naturally, they listened to Thor and Loki's conversation, too, because life in the tower is boring and they wanted to spice it up a little by eavesdropping on private conversations that they have no part in. It might make them bad people, but, hey, she's a spy. This is what she does.

"You lost Rogers," Tony remarks.

Thor looks around, and he seems a little taken aback by that. "I'd assumed he had come back out here."

"Nope," Tony says, indifferent to that. "You know, Loki is a completely different person when he's talking to you."

Thor cocks his head to the side. "Could you hear us?"

"We sure could," Tony says. He conveniently leaves out the part about using JARVIS specifically to eavesdrop. "So he and Cap really were friends, huh?"

"It would appear so," Thor says.

"Glad he got out of that," Tony mutters.

For once in her life, Natasha has to agree with Tony. She knows Loki doesn't act the same with them as he is with Steve — she still remembers walking in on that sympathetic "I'm sorry" a week or so ago — but he's still evil, with or without the niceties. He did try to take over the world earlier this year, after all.

Natasha looks over at Thor. "What's his story?" She can tell he has one. There were a lot of blanks in Thor and Loki's conversation that she'd like to fill, if only for curiosity's sake.

"I don't want to know his story," Tony says quickly. "I actually don't want to know anything about him."

"Oh, come on," Natasha says, rolling her eyes. "You were just asking who he wanted to 'prove himself' to." If she thought Tony had a lot of commentary during movie night, that's nothing compared to his input during that conversation.

"Uh, yeah," Tony says, "and I was looking for answers like 'Santa Claus,' not a whole biography."

Natasha rolls her eyes. Yeah, sure he was. It was a question in complete earnest, whether he wants to admit it or not. Granted, he wasn't expecting the chance to hear the real answer, but his curiosity was still very real.

"I kind of want to know," Clint says. "I mean, he knows everything about us and he's going to try to use it against us —"

"He won't," Thor says. "He can't. There's nothing he can do."

"Believe me, he can," Clint says darkly.

Natasha looks at him sympathetically. She can tell their "deal" has been weighing on him. Clint hasn't even come close to breaking his promise of silence in Loki's presence, but he's always visibly uncomfortable when he sees the guy. Fortunately, that hasn't happened very often, but she can't imagine how stressful it must be — worse than it is for her, she's sure. She loves the Bartons, too, but this is his family.

Meanwhile, Tony just looks confused. "What are you talking about? What's he got on you?"

"Doesn't matter," Clint says. "But he knows me, so I want to know him."

Thor furrows his brows. "You want me to tell you about my brother so you can use it against him?"

"No, no, of course not," Natasha says, shooting Clint a look. If they want to convince Thor to talk, they have to do it in a way Thor will like, and given that the brothers' on-again-off-again friendship seems to be on at the moment, at least on Thor's end, that means being nice. "What he meant to say is that it's weird to live with a guy you know nothing about. Maybe it would help us, you know, understand each other." She fakes a smile. "Like friends."