Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 149

Loki is having a wonderful time sunbathing on the roof.

Granted, he's not really sunbathing. In his Asgardian leather, he's nearly covered head to toe, so it's hard to say he's bathing in the sun that can't reach his skin. And then, of course, there's the fact that he's invisible and the sun's rays physically cannot touch him. So, really, he's not sunbathing in any sense of the word, but he's enjoying it nonetheless.

The Avengers all went off on a mission together – once again, they'd thought they found Rumlow, and though they were wrong, they cleared out another HYDRA base in the process – and Loki lent a hand, though he left once everybody returned to the ship unharmed. He's assuming they're on their way back now. Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately, if he wants to enjoy the quiet – that's going to take a while, which means he has at least another few hours to himself before they make it back to the compound.

He's fairly content to just lie on the roof until they come back. There's nothing he wants to do. There's nothing he has to do. He'd like to think that there's a chance the Avengers will bring him food from their journey, so he doesn't want to eat anything, nor does he want to fall asleep. So, until they come back, he's just going to lie on the roof and do absolutely nothing.

This is the height of luxury.

(No, it's not. It's boring, and he's very fortunate he's been able to trick himself into enjoying the time he has to himself sometimes, because if he were to actually acknowledge how boring this is, he would lose his mind.)

There must be something weird in the air, because a big swarm of bugs descends onto the roof. Loki furrows his brows and sits up, watching them with intrigue – and this is how he knows that lying on the roof is boring; in what other situation would he be intrigued by bugs?

Most of the bugs fly by, but one lands on the roof with an uncharacteristically loud thud. Loki squints, trying to get a better look at it. He crawls on his hands and knees until his face is no more than a foot from it, and the bug is all but oblivious to the invisible looming presence next to him.

And then he hears words.

"Alright, I'm on the roof of the target building!"

Loki cocks his head to the side.

It's a talking bug.

No, it's...

It's a person.

Loki reaches over and picks this little red person up, sitting back on his heels so he can get a better look.

"Uh, guys?" the little red man says nervously. "What's going on?"

Loki puts the little guy flat in his palm and looks him over, intrigued. He's kind of cute – in the way a cat's cute; largely dependent on the fact that he is unreasonably small. In fact, he's so small that Snowflake would probably love to play with him. That could be a fun use of his downtime – though Heimdall would probably see him, and that would technically be murder via adorable feline, so he should probably refrain from feeding this little person to his cat.

What a pity; it would have been funny to watch.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" the little red man yells. "Figure it out!"

It's probably cruel, holding this little person like this when he can't see what's happening. Loki makes himself visible, still holding the little man right up to his face.

"Holy shit!" the little guy yells.

Suddenly, he's not so little.

In the blink of an eye, this formerly little man is now ordinary man size – a rather disappointing development, really. He'd rather enjoyed him in his little man form. There's nothing all that interesting about a man-sized man.