Chapter Text
“I thought you should know there are Asgardians imprisoned in the Collector’s Themepark, King of Lies.”
The audacity of her interruption would have been refuted swiftly by him. Would have, if she hadn’t mentioned those Asgardians. He was surprised, a bit taken aback and worried, to the mere idea his subjects were trapped far away from Asgard. However, that was a mere mortal who just interrupted him, a God. Even if she told him about those imprisoned citizens, there was no way the King of Asgard would just let that disrespect pass.
Loki looked at her, she’d been ogling him since they arrived, and normally he’d drown in that attention, of someone recognizing how great he is. But her big eyes were unsettling, and her frown was accusatory. And when she interrupted him, Loki knew who she was: a mere mortal alien who dared to challenge him. But her tone was polite, too polite even in her clear dislike, so Loki knew what kind of mortal she was: the easy type, who would just look at him, at how he carried and showed himself, and mark him a villain.
The type who would take his lying answer and leave him alone. Who wouldn’t look closer if he tried to investigate this further. She could be lying about those Asgardians and their situation, but her demeanor made it hard for him to classify her as a liar like him. For the very little he knew of her, Mantis had no agenda except whatever those galaxy gardeners decided to do, so she had no reason to fabricate a lie like this unless she decided he was a root she had to ripen from this multiversal and timebending soil.
She’s probably hoping I get myself imprisoned by that Collector, clever plan. But that’s a trick I’m too used to pulling off. He thought, and his curiosity was hidden with his lying tone. Yes, this would be easy.
“Really? Well, a small price to pay to keep the Elder off my plans.”
It was an easy lie, one he told many times in different ways, this time closing his eyes with nonchalance and waving a dismissing hand to her. And now he could sneak into that themep- “That’s a lie. I sense that you DO care for your subjects.”
She said, too confident, too bluntly, too soon. It wasn’t a mere gamble to make him falter, she was sure. Loki turned to her, eyes open and for the first time confused. She didn’t change her determined expression, she looked at him, at his soul maybe, with black big eyes that shone with the white light of the bedroom of Wakanda. If he tried and stared too much, he could look at himself in them.
And then, that alien turned around, not giving him the chance to respond, and talked with the giant tree golem she seemed fond of.
And the doors opened, and his team rushed out. Loki stayed behind a second before conjuring a clone and catching up with them, because how, how could that have ever happened? Did he overact? Was his tone too false? No. It was the same. He’d done that trick with Thor and Hela, in childhood and adulthood, and with Odin himself. So how come this alien bug just read him like an open book? How did she know?
He kept fighting with all those people, sometimes Thor, sometimes Hela, sometimes those Avengers. Sometimes he fought alongside her again, Mantis, and also her fellow companions from outer space. He disliked them enough, the badly-called Lord of Stars was too loud and improper for a self-called royal. The little Ratatoskr, despite his usefulness in keeping people active and bringing them back to the fight, was incredibly bad-mouthed and disrespectful, especially to him. The giant tree was dull, and its asinine attempts at conversations with other people always ended in nothing, unless it was with its fellow guardians. The one called Adam Warlock was decent enough, but challenging his position was not something Loki liked even implied.
Mantis was her own category of annoyingly useful, and that made it worse. She was always both aggressive in her approach but careful to keep people in battle, Loki could see her presence just inspire others to push forward, and it worked on him too. When an enemy had fallen from the high ground and was about to finish him, Mantis had come out of the frontlines to put that martial artist to sleep. She helped him put him off, and with barely more than a cheeky smile she returned to the Sorcerers Supremes on the front.
They kept matching in teams, and he would catch her big eyes across the room, and she would sometimes repeat it to him. There were Asgardians trapped in that Collector’s themepark. And then call him King of Lies.
Loki would have been grateful for a title like that, if only it didn’t come from someone that actively defied him on that.
When people heard her, they looked at him and Loki could feel the judgement. His reputation and authority slipping through his hands when she challenged him with her report. He couldn’t confirm if it was true yet, because he didn’t want to act on it without knowing what she would do about it, if she would find a way to know about it like how she knew about his worry. Loki prided himself in being the one moving the strings, but someone that could just know his intentions with just a look would put them both as the puppetmasters, and Loki would not allow himself to be pushed into her directions even just a little.
But that was where the issues laid. She kept making him look like a bluffing buffoon, she startled him with her big eyes locking in his soul, she undermined his authority by revealing he was concerned of those hypothetical trapped subjects, and he was, for once, powerless. He couldn’t confront her before a mission otherwise they would perform poorly, he couldn’t confront her after it due to her going back to her stupid crew, he couldn’t deny it because then the lie would just reveal how true her statement was, and he couldn’t accept it was true because then how weak would Loki Laufeyson would look to everyone else. Every single person around him, even if they called themselves heroes, had the capacity of fooling his plans, of scheming against him if they perceived he had a weak point. His status as self-proclaimed rightful King, as needed for the survival of Yggsgard as it was, was not taken as such to others; labeling him as an usurper or a despot, and thus it would be heroic to take him down, and what perfect way to do it with a bait like trapped Asgardians he would be willing to rescue.
Again, if it was real. But he couldn’t know, not unless that alien woman could give him just a sliver of new information.
She passed by him, coming back from reviving herself in a cocoon of gold, almost like ichor. And there it was that walking, breathing issue again, who gave him a rush of energy and made him smile with that surge of power that was slowly making him pliant to have her in his team. Loki replaced a clone to be on the high ground of one of the Spider Island’s tower’s balconies and aimed behind a carriage to eliminate that assassin woman of the butterflies.
“Another fallen foe.” He exclaimed, still in that rush of adrenaline and positivity she gave him. But when his eyes caught her form, shoulders low instead of high and ready or relaxed, and hands holding her fingers in front of her, Loki knew she was feeling… Sad.
It wouldn’t have bothered him, truly, but something of seeing her like that made him feel it too. How could he be sad from eliminating that woman? He was sure he had killed Thor at least eight times already since this madness started, and he had a little more emotion to the idea of his brother lost to Hel forever than to a woman he never met.
The strange spidery chariot moved slowly, but the rest of their team passed them by to prepare for their foes’ return. Loki moved, intending to aid them in holding them down, but stopped when he was next to her. Mantis turned to him, she was small, her antennas barely doing anything to make her look taller unlike his helmet-crown aiding him in giving him a more imposing stature. But if he had to give her something, it was that they were natural and a vibrant green that suited her.
In her posture, he could see her distress. In her eyes and the little downturn of her short eyebrows, he could see her grief. The strain in the corner of her mouth let him know she was a bit at edge with his presence so close, but for once that disdain didn’t bother him. For once, he forgot of the conundrum of those trapped Asgardians and the need to get more information out of her.
“Are you feeling well?” He said, truthfully, in his normal tone, at least devoid of that classic extra flavor he would use to honey his offers of alliance and the self-aggrandizing of his merits.
“I am, it’s just…” She looked away from him, to her long green nails, picking and scratching the underside of them. “When the Timestream happened, I found her and Jeff in the Collector’s Themepark. We escaped together.” She looked forward, to where she had fallen at his hand. “I think I’m just upset to see her fall, even if I know she’ll come back.”
“She will, and we can’t do anything but keep eliminating her, less we want her getting the best of us.” Loki could see her hesitation of the idea, and the tilt of her lips that told him she knew he was right. “But we’ll find her again surely, I know she can be on our side.”
There were a handful of matches where he and Thor were side-by-side, and despite their enmity, he still had some disappointment in the idea of the mighty Thor, his brother, falling in the field of battle at the hands of something like that spider iron golem controlled by that little girl. It was not just disappointment, it was that feeling that something was missing and the disappointment would be to never have it again, even if he knew Thor will return to his stupid hammer-first, think-second self. Loki supposed, someone too kind and too emotional as Mantis, would have that kind of reaction and feeling for anyone even if she knew them for just a day.
His words somehow made her quirk up, antennas twitching with a subtle glow. She turned to him with a shy, dainty smile. “You are right. I can’t despair that Sai won’t be with us soon.” Mantis turned to where their team was, the enemy having finally regrouped to meet them. “We better go help them, otherwise we’ll lose for real.”
Loki didn’t say anything, just smirked and nodded, conjuring a couple of clones in more strategic places as Mantis ran back to their team. They continued their fight, sadly having lost at the almost end after a long overtime and a very unlucky maximum pulse the moment someone destroyed his runes over Mantis, who was keeping everyone fighting with her resurgence.
Still, he wasn’t so angry nor disappointed about that loss. They had fought well, valiantly even, and Mantis and him worked well enough, it served well to have her in the front while he kept them up front he back. If anything, he was rather wary that Mantis would feel disappointed and sad after all the effort she put in only to be eliminated in such a sudden way. He came to her, just as she was looking for a way back to her galaxy gardeners, and with a brief conversation and a reassurance that she did good, Mantis left to that ugly ship with a smile on her face, a wave of her hand, and a polite “You also did good” to him.
It didn’t dawn on him, hours later when he was preceding on his Kingdom and making sure nothing was stolen or too damaged around Odin’s archive, that Mantis had mentioned being in the Collector’s Themepark with Sai and Jeff, and he didn’t inquire further on the Asgardians trapped there.
Loki spent that night in his room, alone, turning side to side on his bed. His mind ran in circles over how he left that opportunity slide.
She was feeling sad, weak, it would have been most optimal to take advantage of it. After all, that was his specialty, wasn’t it? God of Mischief, Father of Monsters, King of Lies.
He remembered her face, her posture, even her antennas and the way they curved. Loki suddenly felt his chest contracting, pressing, a soft yet undeniable push over it, like how when his hands hurted after falling when he was a child. He remembered how she picked at her nails, how he would try to hold his own hands yet hissed for the pain. It was more than that, it was also the sadness, the sadness of doing poorly on anything.
Her’s was the opposite, the sadness of doing wrong on someone else, not a sadness for herself.
How did he let it slide?
He turned once more, black curls splaying on the green pillows. How? That was where everything boiled down. How did he let go of the perfect chance to get information of his supposed subjects’ whereabouts? Especially with someone like Mantis, who felt pity at the idea of a foe falling just because they looked like someone she knew once. Mantis, who would lift his and their team’s spirits to aid them in battle. Mantis, who was just feeling sad and that made him feel so… So…
Loki’s eyes opened wide with realization. It was her ability, it wasn’t only a morale boost, it went further, and knowingly or not (and most likely knowingly), she had used it to divert his attention from his goal.
She had used her woeful situation, her shy posture and gesturing, her big eyes that looked at his soul, her words of pity for her enemy that just made him think of his brother. Her antennas that glowed in vibrant green when using her resurgence, that had her smiling ready to attack with her battlecry of unity, and made his own chest feel lighter. All that to deceive Him, the God of Mischief.
Loki would not let it remain like that, not when there was the chance of his subjects in danger. He had to meet her again, find a way to make her talk about that themepark, and do it while avoiding whatever power or magic she used to make him feel bad and forget about his goal.
He settled to finally sleep, despite his mind still brainstorming ways to not get affected by her powers, it would be hard but if he kept his head fixated on his objective, no magic could make him forget about the vision he had, all of Asgard living in peace with him on the throne. In that all there had to be those captured citizens, and if Mantis was lying to him, he’ll give it to her, it was hard to lie to him and make him believe it for so long.
It was clear, as clear as sunray creeping from the early clouds of dawn to light and warm his face. As clear as the smell of dew in those mornings.
Loki did not like Mantis.