Chapter Text
“Hello, Slayer.”
Loki’s smile was wicked, and so sharp that even through the screen Coulson felt a shiver run down his spine. His hand flowed over paper, recording the first words of the conversation, and kept his eyes glued to the monitor, staring intently at Consultant Summers, waiting to see how she’d react.
“Huh.” Summers’ answering smirk was more than a little vicious, and the anxiety Coulson had felt for her odds against Loki, this Valley Girl with her spotted jacket and sparkly sunglasses and shiny hair and Starbucks cup, melted away. With a sudden quietude, Coulson realized that she could hold her own; there was something in the way she stood, now that she thought she was alone with a god, that had echoes of a soldier or a hunter, something that reminded him of Natasha when she came in, feral and fatal. He didn’t need to scared for her, Coulson knew, but he almost felt he needed to be afraid for himself, and everyone else on the helicarrier, with her here.
Coulson took an almost-involuntary step back, before willing himself back to in front of the monitor, in time to catch Summers’ raised eyebrow, exaggerated to almost the point of absurdity, and suddenly he realized that the whole over-the-top persona was a cover. The expression was too practiced, too perfect, to be genuine; the cover too ridiculous to be questioned. If she wasn’t some Cali girl who Fury’d brought on for her knowledge, who was she? What was this thing Fury had let loose on their ship?
When the Consultant spoke, her teeth were sharp, glinting the artificial light. “Y’know, for a god, you’re kind of a wimp.” She circled the cage as she spoke, steps sure and feather-light, poised, a presence so intense, coming off her in waves, that even through the monitor Coulson felt the need to listen .
“The last one I fought was more…” A vague hand gesture, indicating who-knows what, a little pout accompanying the put-down. Seemingly not able to find the word, she gestured again, more frustrated “... More.” Suddenly, a strike of inspiration, and Summers snapped her fingers with an “Oh!” (Such a human gesture for someone holding her own against a god, so innocuous, but even a simple snap held such intention, such intensity. Something otherworldy was in there with Loki, and Coulson couldn’t for the life of him tell who would win.)
“Stylish! That’s the word I was looking for.” Summers rolled her eyes at herself, gaze flicking to Loki. The god’s expression of offense was so over-the-top, but rehearsed. He’d clearly expected this – as opposed to Coulson, who was very confused. Stylish? She was insulting his style? It was a very strange play; Coulson had been expecting something more along the lines of “the other one was stronger/more worthy/better”, not “the other one was more stylish ”. But to the two inside the camera’s view, it was clearly a typical opening, with Loki seeming … satisfied, almost, by the sufficiency of the barb thrown at him.
Loki parried, shooting back a snide, “Truly a curious statement coming from someone with taste such as yours.” Summers’ expression showed no disturbance, her face kept straight despite the contempt of the response. Strangely, it was the Consultant’s dedication to showing no response that let Coulson realize why their conversation had been so strange. The attacks were personal . That ’s why they were slinging what seemed like inane insults; an insult to power was basic, but an attack against style was unique, tailored to one’s opponent. This was no obligatory match; there was a real resentment there.
Summers’ detachment clearly had its intended result, Loki’s face falling for a moment, before pulling the mask back on. “I suppose it’s inevitable,” he continued, cultivating a careful air of disaffectment, producing a knife from nothing and slotting the tip under his nails, filing them to sharp points without an apparent care in the world. “After all, I have had centuries to develop my taste. And you, you’ve had what? Months? A year or two? You are alive , so it can’t have been long.”
This had the intended effect, hitting its target, Summers’ face distorting into a wince. There was something different about her eyes, too. Coulson zoomed in, pixels growing and splitting into more detailed images, the monitor projecting the details of her face at a fifty times scale. A tear was what he had seen, Consultant Summers’ eyes glistening and damp. Coulson zoomed back out once he’d confirmed – something about continuing to track the tear’s path seemed voyeuristic.
“Please.” Summers composed her face again, and Coulson diverted his eyes back to Loki inside the cage, to avoid the guilty twinge inside his chest. “Haven’t you heard?” Her voice was mocking, now; raw and harsh, but smooth, too, like a predator. The nerve Loki had hit hadn’t weakened her, but provoked her, and now the Consultant was angry . “I’m the longest living slayer ever .”
Something flashed across Loki’s face – a realization, epiphany of some sort. He pulled up his mouth in a sarcastic smile, executing a mocking half-bow from the waist. “The Queen Slayer. A pleasure to make your acquaintence. I’ve heard so much about you.” Summers let out a soft exhale, a short “Huh”. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
A swirl of Loki’s hand, and his clothes transformed – an old-timey reporter’s outfit, complete with newspaper boy cap and messenger back. In his hands materialized a notepad and pen, the back of which he immediately caught in his mouth, freeing up his other hand to flip to a new sheet of paper. “I mean,” he continued, “You’re really such an interesting case. I have to ask – did you enjoy your slaying? Did it give you, say, a glorious purpose? I mean, I can’t think why else you would have shared that burden – or blessing, I suppose – with so many others, some of them little girls?”
Again, Summers was silent, eyes still shimmering, but this time a tear fell forward, a single rivulet flowing down her cheek. She let out a wet, humorless chuckle, wiping her face with the back of her arm. “Right. Like you care.” Loki’s cheshire grin grew wider, the pen in his mouth threatening to slip out of his grasp. “Please. I do care. In all the years of the Council, no one ever thought to try to give the power to more than one girl, because of its terrible cost. And eight years in, you decide, with all the wisdom of your experience, to give this awful, horrible strength to thousands of women and girls, some of them young enough not to have been born when you were Called? Whyever, say, would one be confused by that?” His voice softened when she stepped back involuntarily, hand reaching out in an aborted caress. “Don’t leave. I understand your desire to not be alone, to blend in, to stand among those like you. I was adopted, after all.”
Loki’s smile turned wry and self-deprecating, and Consultant Summers’ laugh, this time, was startled, genuinely mirthful. “I have an adopted younger sister. I think you’d like her, actually.” Loki’s brows furrowed, puzzlement clear in the lines of his face. “Sister?” “Yeah.” Summers bit her lip, looking down. “Ironically, given who I’m talking to, gods keep trying to kidnap her.” Loki’s brows drew together more, closer, and Coulson was curious to see if even his finger would span their distance at this point. “She’s powerful, but I have to protect her all the time.” Summers looked up, as if remembering something. “Don’t you have an older brother?”
Loki’s responding laugh was less genuine, and more a desperate attempt to turn the rasping cry that sprung from his throat into something less raw. “Yes. His name is Thor, and he is…” Now it was the Consultant’s turn to be sympathetic, her own face softening, hand coming forward, resting her palm against the glass. “He’s never been my protector. He’s always thought of me as a monster, I think.” Again, he laughed, but quieter this time, sadder, and Coulson had never thought a god could look so small . “Just waiting for me to prove him right.” But when Loki looked up again, there was fire in his eyes, destruction, fury, a desperate desire to burn the whole world down. “It never occurs to him that he’s willing to work with the real monster on this ship.”
A beat, and suddenly Summer’s face shuttered off completely, soft look hardening and eyes narrowing. She rose back to her full height, and she’d gone again from human to something more, something terrifying. She stalked backward, glancing over her shoulder to a bewildered, desperate Loki, his face still open and trusting. “Sorry, but I’m kinda opposed to people, or gods, or any thing trying to take over the world. Apocalypses really aren’t my thing.” She called back, still walking out of the room. Before she reached the threshold, Summers paused, looking back at the broken god in the cell behind her. “I wasn’t lying. I really do think you’d like my sister. I just don’t think she’d like you.” And quietly, with the face of one giving an offering, her voice barely above a whisper, a final gift to the boy looking up at her from his haunted cage. “She’s always had better judgement than me.”
Consultant Summers walked offscreen.
Agent Coulson pressed his earpiece.
“Director.
She’s gone.”