Be Thou my Vision

Dammit, Loki!

Chapter 8

The ship flies through the murky air, and there is quiet, save only the whistle of the wind and Thor and Loki's frequent bickering. Cass and I sit near Jane, who doesn't look good. She's pale, and her eyes seem unfocused, flickering between their normal brown and red.

"We shouldn't have come with them," I say quietly, looking out over the landscape. Cass stares at me, and she touches my cheek.

"Your eyes are blue," she says, and I look down.

"Probably," I respond. "That seems to happen when I get nervous."

Cass sits back and raises her eyebrows at me. "When are you going to explain that?"

I take a deep breath. "Right now."

I tell her about New York, the Tesseract, the powers I gained, my leave from Nick Fury and the Avengers, and everything in between.

"I've learned to control it better now," I say. "This past year I've been training almost nonstop, but I think I've gotten as good as I can without a proper teacher. There's just no one who's like me. Tony just has his suit; Steve has power, but not in the same way I do; Bruce... well, that wouldn't work out; and Clint and Nat are just assassins who're very good at their job." I pause, and after a moment, grin at Cass. "And I'm quite surprised you're not paralyzed in fear or shock or something."

"My brother was in the military," she explains. "Before he left, he taught me a lot, but when he came back he was different. I've seen him once or twice since he's been back, and after hearing his stories, I've become a little more immune to stuff like this."

Before I can reply, Loki buts into our conversation.

"You need a teacher? Is that what I'm hearing?"

"Yes," I say carefully. "What, you know someone? That doesn't live Nine Realms away?"

"No. I was talking about myself."

I roll my eyes. "Because I really want a lesson in 'How to Destroy Major Cities With Aliens' and 'Killing Best Friends and Innocent People 101.' Besides, what can you do that's anywhere close to what my power is?"

Without even blinking, another Loki appears sitting next to the real one. Then, the scenery changed around us. Instead of the dull brown and windy land of Svartalfheim, we're in the middle of New York City. Thor wrenches the wheel to the side to avoid running into a building, and glares back at us.

"Loki, stop it," he says, and Loki shrugs and waves his arm, and we're back to flying in Svartalfheim.

"I know what it's like," he tells me, and after a moment I nod. With a small smile, Loki moves so he's sitting in front of me and tilts his head. "So. What can you do?"

I create a little rectangle of energy and move it so it sticks over Loki's mouth. He gives me a tired look, and Thor laughs.

"I think we need a permanent one of those."

I grin and wave my hand so the energy vanishes, and Loki licks his lips.

"Don't do that again."

I roll my eyes and let tendrils of my energy wrap around Loki's handcuffs. I pinch my fingers together and his handcuffs vanish, and he looks up at me in surprise. He pulls out one of his daggers and makes to jump out of the ship, but I surround him with energy and he hits it with a thud, falling back into the ship. I pull his handcuffs from nowhere and put them back on him. All my energy disappears, and I cross my arms.

"This is why we don't trust you."

"I wasn't really going to run, El. I was just testing you to see if you knew what you were doing."