Holly Potter and the Midlife Crisis (Hp x Mcu) by Enigmaris

Chapter 40: Don't Lie to the God of Lies.

Summary:

Seriously, don't lie to the god of lies when Holly Potter's life is on the line. It will not end well for you.

Loki had disliked everything about Pierce from the moment he laid eyes on the man. He'd disliked his graying blonde hair, his stupid glasses and his well-tailored suit. All of it was awful. Granted Loki had felt that about everything and everyone that wasn't Holly after her kidnapping. He'd been snappish and rude to everyone aside from Hermione because that woman frightened him far too much. And really who would blame him for his foul mood? Holly had once again been put into danger and Loki had failed to protect her. She had been vulnerable and in so much pain. Loki should have foreseen this.

They all should have.

In their defense, their worry about Holly's transformation had blinded them to the danger they were in. All of them were focused on trying to prepare for whatever Holly would become. Hermione had pulled Tony, Bruce, Loki, Ron and even Thor into researching the books she'd gathered up for them. Clint and Natasha had been working on keeping everyone fed while Steve had switched off between monitoring them and helping Winter.

On top of all of this Loki had been led to believe that Hydra was a diminishing force in the world. That after the formation of SHIELD, Hydra had been chipped away at year after year. Yes, there were programs like the Red Room that had created Black Widows but those had been dismantled one by one. Hydra was supposedly weaker now than it had ever been. They had assumed that sending the Winter Soldier at them had been Hydra's last shot at being a threat. They had not expected Hydra to have the force, the resources, that they did.

The robots that had swarmed them. The explosion in the penthouse that would have killed Ron and his baby if Ron hadn't had insane reflexes. The EMP bomb that went off in the server room in the basement nearly killing Jarvis. The numerous agents. It had all been so surprising that they had been nearly paralyzed by it. When the dust had settled, they'd found the Winter Soldier severely injured and no Holly to be found.

And it had pissed Loki off.

It was still pissing him off in fact.

Despite this Loki was quite sure he hated Pierce solely because he was a liar and a piss poor one at that. How dare he lie to Loki's face and not even have the guts to not suck at it. That was just offensive. He found he despised the man for dangling Holly in front of them to try and push his agenda. Pierce was a slimy toad of a man and Loki wanted nothing more than to make his outside match his inside. If Holly could turn assassins into rats, then Loki could turn agents into toads.

The man had spoken at length to them about the benefits of Project Insight to the world, how they could use it to find Holly Potter and do so much more to prevent tragedies like this from happening in the future. He seemed entirely too full of himself, too sure that they would believe him. He didn't even bother trying not to look like he had a stick up his ass. Loki didn't care one way or another about Insight, but it reminded him of Hiemdall and that alone made him hate it too. To Loki's lack of surprise there was no one in the group of heroes that liked Pierce's ideas.

When the toad left, they immediately looked like they wanted to argue about it. Loki shushed them harshly and then waved his hand in a violent cutting downward motion. Ever single listening device in the room shorted out simultaneously except for Tony's phone which had Holly's protection on it. Once that was done Loki growled harshly.

"He was lying, and I intend to rip the truth out with his spine."

"Lying about what? Project Insight?" Steve asked. "Because I do not like the sound of that at all."

"Not that." Loki scoffed. "That was obviously a ploy to instate a fascist regime on the globe. Who cares? No. He was lying about Holly. She isn't in Russia."