loki laufeyson (toberuled) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-07-15 22:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | hulk, loki |
Who: Loki and Bruce, with guest star The Hulk
What: Bruce comes to check up on Loki and ends up accidentally helping him break out of Stark Tower. Poor Bruce.
Where: Stark Tower [Marvel Door]
When: Recently? ~bendy recently. After Loki visited with Tony and Thor.
Warnings/Rating: None.
Loki had been sitting in the cage in the basement of Stark tower for some time. He wasn’t sure how long it had been precisely. There were no windows, of course, and without his magic he had no other way to tell time. Louis had only been willing to go through the door again when adequately reassured that doing so wouldn't allow Loki a chance to escape. Loki willed the door to lead to Jotunheim, and the world of blue ice showed in the doorway as Louis stepped tentatively over the threshold. But when Loki passed through the invisible barrier that separated the realm through the door from the one outside it, he found himself in the cage again, back in the basement of Stark tower. And, most importantly, the manacles were still on.
They chafed him, and he despised every second that he wore them. Without his magic, he felt weak, and more alone even than he had felt when he’d been exiled. Then, in his darkest hour, he had still had his magic to rely on. Now he was without power, without connections, without hope.
But not without hate. And what a motivator hate could be.
Loki spent much of the next few hours testing the limits of his bindings. He attempted to draw his glamour back over himself, to bring back the skin he still felt was who he truly was. He'd managed to do so before, when he spoke to Stark and when he saw his brother, but he could only hold it up for so long. The manacles were adjusting to his personal seiðr, but slowly. This time, the glamour failed, and he was left in the skin he was born into.
He inspected the manacles, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor. Their construction was unparalleled, if, maybe, a little rushed. Such objects as this were not easily come by, and he wondered what wondrous and heroic quests Thor had been forced to run to afford their commission. Even for a king of Asgard, such things were not simply bought.
His ribs were healing, slowly but surely, and much quicker than a human’s might - the manacles could bind his magic, but they did not change his physiology. In that way, Louis, as much his captor as these wretches could ever be, had been clever. He’d used, him, really. Going back through the door had been a test, but since it had been successful, Loki would now be forced to sit there in the cell for the next day and continue to heal, and Louis wouldn’t be forced to endure Loki’s shattered rib cage on the other side.
It made Loki think idly of slicing into himself with his own rough, thick blue nails, to give him something to truly pain over. But no, not now. Louis would be punished in turn, along with everyone else who had made his captivity possible. He would learn to regret thwarting him, and allowing him to be subjected to this.
When the elevator doors slid open across the room, Loki was still sitting on the floor. He wore only the dark pants that had been on underneath his armor, leather with a hint of silver around the waist. His armor had mostly slid out the door before Thor had shut it, and what little remained was pointless to try to wear. No one would say that he looked well, though it wasn’t as easy to tell, considering that he was blue from head to toe. He’d kicked off his boots at some point, and his fingers were neatly laced into each other. He was looking at them, apparently, staring down into his lap. His hair was still the same black as always, the one herald of his heritage that didn’t change when the glamour was in place. The raised lines on his skin painted abstract patterns, curving around joints and making complete trails up and over his arms and onto his chest. On his forehead, they curved up in concentric circles, the mark of an heir to the Jotun’s cursed throne. At his ribs were dark stains, even darker blue than his skin, bleeding into purple - bruises. His breaths were still a touch shallow.
Loki didn’t look up, just listened to the gait of the person who entered the room. Of course they all would insist on seeing him caged, when he could do nothing but endure the humiliation of being seen beaten, and the sinking, furious shame of being seen in his own skin.
“Have you come to tend my wounds, doctor?” he asked, looking up. He’d known it was him from the moment he’d entered the room. There were very few men Tony Stark would be willing to trust him around right now, and that step was not that of his brother, or the soldier. Eyes bright as blood stared at Bruce. Everything was identifiably Loki, only the details that had changed, but the change was stark. Even his teeth were stained faintly blue, and lightly, jaggedly pointed. “Or just to have a chat?”
Bruce still wasn’t sure what he was walking into when he agreed to look in on Loki and make sure he was in one piece. On one hand he wanted to make sure he actually was in one piece and on the other he wanted to make sure that this solution was one he was comfortable with in the end. He didn’t think Loki ought to be running around making chaos whenever he felt like it, but Bruce was concentrating on the man Loki presumably was on the other side of the door. That was something he understood better than anyone.
Granted, they all had a counterpart, but Bruce viewed it differently. There was Anton, there was Hulk, there was Bruce. Bruce and Hulk would do what they could to protect Anton and Hulk did what he could to protect Bruce. And Bruce was left feeling vulnerable and concerned about himself every time Hulk managed to destroy a parking garage. People seemed to forget often enough that when they caged the Hulk it was Bruce that suffered. He was sympathetic to that but he was trying very hard to remember that he was dealing with Loki as he moved into the room.
“The former, I’m not much of a chatter,” he said with a shrug.
Loki stood, and stepped toward the glass wall. "That, of course, begs the question of how you will ascertain such a thing from outside when I stand here. Unless you'll be coming in to join me?" He smiled, a sharp curve that didn't reach his eyes. "I would so love the company." His speech was steady enough, but he was taking more breaths than usual, since they were a little shallower by necessity. His ribs still had a ways to go before they were fully restored to normal, and each breath sent spikes of pain through him. Considering that he and Thor had fallen from the top of one of Midgard’s tallest skyscrapers, it wasn’t a steep price to pay. That didn’t make it pleasant, however.
Loki remembered speaking to Bruce Banner over the journals. He'd tried to convince the good doctor to leave this world for another one, far from the clutches of the humans and the inevitable imprisonment that would await him one day, when the beast inside him stepped over the line. If Loki didn't know better, he would think there was something akin to a touch of understanding that had passed between them then, whatever Banner said about being on the side of the 'right'. "I do believe I told you that your friends would come for you, just as they sought to cage me." He lifted his hands, looking around at the four clear walls around him, and showcasing the manacles around his wrists. "And here we are, here I am, just where they want me.” Garnet eyes followed Banner’s gaze. “How long, do you think, it will take, before they turn their eyes on you?"
Bruce stood there looking wholly unimpressed and shrugged as he took his glasses off and cleaned them, and then re-situated them on his face. “I’m going to come in there with you, it’ll be a good old fashioned boondoggle,” he said not even bothering to make a point of “securing” anything once he moved to open the secure doors. If Loki made a break for it they’d all be in a world of hurt.
Bruce wasn’t afraid for himself, it was hard to be when you had the world’s angriest defense mechanism just aching to smash something that seemed threatening. He gave an honest answer to Loki’s question as he closed the door behind him, “It could be right now for all I know, some elaborate ruse just to cage me up, I doubt it...” he said folding his arms and leaning against a wall, “But it could be.”
Loki hadn’t honestly expected the good doctor to step into the cage with him, and his brow shot up as he walked through the door. His gaze did not stray to the open doorway, but he was, of course, thinking about it. How likely was it that he could find some way around the sensors without using his magic? Not likely. And the situation might end in the green beast attacking him if Banner was too thoroughly provoked, so he would need to take care.
He stood across from Bruce, eyes flicking over him. For a human that had been gifted with as much brutal power as this one had, he looked deceptively ordinary. Loki well knew, though, that power often came in strange and unassuming guises. “Could be? Is, no doubt.” Loki glanced to the door. “Today, that door will open. They wouldn’t risk leaving you in here with me.” He smiled, savagely. “But it will tell them a great deal about how to trick you into a cage of your own, once they have extracted me from this one.” Loki rolled his shoulders back, regarding Bruce. Despite the cosmetic changes, he was still tall for an Asgardian and tiny for a Jotun, standing lean and willowy and over six feet. “Are you here to be sure the prisoner has no intentions of dying on you?” he asked. “How can you be sure that you know the Asgardian constitution well enough to treat me?”
“Haven’t you heard?” he said walking across the cell just a bit, almost pacing, “I don’t have to be tricked into a cage, it’s the other guy they’ll need to worry about. But I don’t believe that you believe you’re telling me anything I don’t already know. So what is this? Just a helpful reminder?” he asked curiously.
Bruce was not tall, he was not impressive, he was very unassuming as an individual. It was the monster inside of him that everyone feared (and truthfully what he’d feared long before the Hulk had ever actually showed up), anyone who knew Dr. Banner as simply that...Mostly just felt sorry for him for being such a hopeless nerd. He looked up partly at Loki and partly at the ceiling. “I don’t think I’d fit well in here, it wouldn’t hold me for long.” He said off hand before he looked back at Loki and couldn’t really help himself when he blurted out, “I don’t but I’m pretty sure you aren’t much of an Asgardian either. So why don’t we just wing it and see what happens?”
Loki smiled, sharply. “And how can you be sure?” he said. “My current appearance is merely a side effect of my binding. Take my magic from me, and you take much more than just that.” It wasn’t even a flat out lie, that - it was a side effect of being bound, or, rather, a direct effect. But there would be no harm done if he gave him the impression that all Asgardians would look similarly if bound similarly. What did a human know of the matter? “Well, go on,” he said, gesturing with his bound hands, the metal links clinking, his palms open. “Inspect me.”
Bruce nodded, but it was clear he didn’t buy Loki’s story, mainly because he knew the truth. But that wasn’t a battle he was going to fight today. He closed the distance and was tempted to just start poking at all of his injuries and ask “does that hurt?” but he didn’t, he wasn’t that vindictive. He was a good person, and he kept the thought of the person behind Loki clear in his mind. “How are you feeling?” he asked genuinely curious. “I think you’ll live but if there’s something serious going on I’d like to know about it.”
Loki deliberated for a moment. “My chest has been causing me some pain,” he confessed. “But I do heal relatively quickly. I can, for instance, move my arms within the bounds of this chain without much pain.”
He moved his hands up lightly, as if to demonstrate. What happened instead was a sharp shove forward, pressing the chain to Bruce’s neck with all the force in his body. Somewhere, alarms were likely going off, but that was of no consequence. He hurtled through the air, jumping higher and faster than a human could, particularly with no momentum to get started. He was deceptively frail, Loki - even the weakest Asgardians (and Frost Giants, for their physiology was fairly similar) were stronger than several humans put together. He vaulted over Bruce, arms flipping behind him, and dragged him to the ground with the weight of his body and the chain. He slammed his hands into the glass floor, pinning Bruce there by his neck, sitting in a crouch with his hands planted firmly behind him to keep him choked. “Now. Let’s see if you can assist me with my real problem. Doctor.”
He should have seen it coming from the moment he walked in, he should have known better, he should have paid closer attention to all of the signals. The only thing he’d been worrying about was being provoked into letting Hulk out but even then it would have been vaguely in his control. But this...This was something else. This was Hulk fighting for his life and there was no way he’d be able to control it. It was going to be chaos.
Bruce himself was slight, he wasn’t especially strong, he was a bit, well, waifish when it came right down to it. Especially compared to the likes of Thor and Steve. There was no way Dr. Bruce Banner could have fought of Loki even if he had the instinct to do so. Which he most certainly did not. Most people had fight or flight, Bruce flight, but Hulk had fight. And when Bruce’s life was threatened, Hulk came out swinging. “Don’t,” he managed to gasp out, though he wasn’t sure if he was talking to Loki or Hulk at that moment. “Please,” he pleaded as he gasped for air. He didn’t want this, for so many reasons he didn’t want this. He didn’t want to harm Loki, he didn’t want to ruin everything they’d all worked so hard for. He ruined everything.
No matter what he said or did, it didn’t stop his mind from starting to darken and for every muscle in his body to start to expand. It felt like being ripped apart at first, Bruce felt and heard every tear and rip inside and outside of his body. His body adjusted, but it was never comfortable. As his physique changed, his mind dulled, the rage increased, so did his screaming and by the time it was said and done Hulk stood up and bucked Loki off of him haphazardly the chair breaking and coming nowhere close to being able to hold him.
It took Hulk a moment, as it always did, to assess his surroundings. Cage. Loki. He roared angrily and smashed the wall immediately to his right with his fist and made his first grab at Loki. He was angry. Far, far, beyond angry. Not unlike any recently caged animal he wanted out and he was going to take his captor, Loki, down.
Loki was tossed off as Banner was changing, but he turned and landed on his feet. He could not help but feel the icy touch of fear as the man grew to twice his own height, turned color, became the brutish creature he’d heard so much about. There was a little elation, too - what power there, what could be done with it if only Banner could be taught to see reason. If there was any member of the Avengers that Loki thought he might one day turn to see his own perspective, it was Banner, the outcast of the bunch.
Now was hardly the time for in depth musing, however, not if he wanted to survive. He had no access to his magic, nothing to defend himself with. Only his innate speed was on his side, the same agility that had allowed him to keep from being murdered on numerous occasions by whatever creature his brother managed to provoke on their journeys. Loki slipped away from the heavy, brutish grip as quickly and smoothly as a snake in the grass. It was a very small space to be trapped in with such a creature, but if he timed his dodge right, he could get it to shatter one of the windows. The one he’d struck already had a substantial crack in it - one more hit and it would be no more than twisted metal sides and shards of glass.
Hulk was making a scene, as usual. Fists were flying and he was hollering and yelling as loud as he could, the glass was shaking from it all. It was chaos. He was panicking, Hulk was bad enough when he wasn’t panicking, but at this moment he was nothing but panicked as he tried to get out and get Loki all at the same time. He crashed through one side of a wall and it was as close to freedom as he could get as his he tried like hell to find his way out.
Loki dove through the opening as soon as it appeared and sprinted for the elevator. The lights in the room were flickering, either in an attempt to set off the alarm or because the Hulk had put them on the fritz by smashing his way out. Loki didn’t much care - whatever the beast had done, the elevator lights still shone, which meant he still had time to escape before his prison came smashing down on the both of them. He jammed the button for the door while the Hulk was still occupied searching for an exit, and ducked through the doors as they began to open. A quick survey of the buttons found a simple pictogram of arrows facing one another, easy to read even for an Asgardian. He jammed it, then jammed the button for the first floor, pinning himself to the side of the elevator to hopefully avoid any grasping hands, even as the doors began to slide closed.
Like that, Loki was gone and Hulk was raging more than ever before, he put a sizable dent and some serious cracks in the exterior of the elevator doors but Loki was gone and he was still trapped. There was no way for him to get out and he knew it, so he was hell bent on destroying the place. He’d rip the place apart brick by brick until he found his way out. He’d dig himself out if he had to, he vaguely had Bruce Banner in his head raging of his own accord but he wasn’t letting him come back. Not yet. On some basic level he knew that Bruce would have the best chance of getting out of here, he was smaller, weaker, and more likely to be rescued. But he wasn’t ready to give up yet.
The elevator doors slid shut, and Loki was rocketing up to the ground floor. He could hardly believe it. How easy - how simple it had been. He was still crippled, still made lame by the blasted manacles, but for the moment, his body was free. He leaned against the inside of the elevator, and he laughed, breathless and disbelieving. Oh, how he would make them regret this. Before the doors slid open at last, he used all his strength, and his glamour slid over his skin like a ripple of color. He would draw enough attention as it was - no need to be blue on top of it, even if he couldn't hold it forever.
A minute later and he’d darted out the front doors, ducking into the crowds outside and getting lost in them as quickly as possible. Above, his watchers had sounded the alarm, but too late, busy scrambling to recover their lost electronics and focusing all their attention on the basement. By the time they caught up with the figure surveillance showed walking out of the basement elevator, he was already gone. The manacles were strange enough to attract attention, but only so long as he stayed on the street. Clothes, those would be the priority first, and then a place to hide, plan, and figure out how to remove his chains for good.