Muse is unamused (spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy)

[jotunblooded]

 "Safe in my collection", he said.

If I had known he was going to let the entire collection be blown up by an irate cleaning woman, I would have stuck the Aether right back under Asgard where Jane Foster found it. It would have amounted to the same, in the end.

And now Xandar might as well have put out a great big neon sign saying "Come finish the job" to Thanos. If I knew that helping protect the universe would be quite this much work hampered by quite this many idiots, I never would have gotten involved.

...except, of course, for the fact that I am also one of the idiots living here.

Ah, well. At least I got to see that wretched, cowled nightmare get its neck snapped. That almost made the entire mess worthwhile. 

Comments

[deadliestwoman]

Really? You? You're not the heroic type.

[jotunblooded]

You are going to point that out to me? [Excuse Loki while he laughs.

Once the amusement fades, he shrugs, the picture of casual disregard.]

...besides, I never claimed to be. I claimed to be the pragmatic type. [And maybe the spiteful type. Actually, definitely the spiteful type. As far as he's concerned, Gamora should understand wanting to stick it to Thanos.]

[deadliestwoman]

There's nothing pragmatic about what you do, Loki. If you knew the true side of Thanos, you would've thought twice about giving the tesseract to him.

[jotunblooded]

I was...not at my best, at the time, I confess. [The Void had not done good things for Loki's already unsteady mental state. And there had been some threatening involved, though mostly courtesy of the Other. Extensive threatening, actually, but he prefers not to think about that, and dismisses any memories of that time with a wave of his hand.] My sense of pragmatism did not extend far beyond the immediate.

But if I don't learn from my mistakes, how can I claim to be any better than Thor? It's hardly my fault the Collector couldn't keep his house in order as promised.

[deadliestwoman]

Tivan has a weakness for...beautiful things. I do not think he will allow that to happen again.

[jotunblooded]

Weaknesses can be exploited in a great many directions, I've found. I agree that he is smart enough to avoid that particular disaster in future, however.

Still. At least the Aether wasn't rendered entirely uncontained by the explosion. I'm quite certain you would have noticed had that been the case. [But he doesn't have a lot of faith in it staying that way, given the state of the Collector's stronghold after that.]

[debrieflog]

"Helping protect the universe" may, perhaps, be a bit of an overstatement.

You fear retribution and so you cower and hide, hoping that someone else will take care of your problems for you.

[Although her words are harsh, her tone is flat. She isn't insulting you, Loki, merely stating a fact.]

It is very fortunate for you that such "idiots" came along. Your former master now has one less pawn.

[jotunblooded]

Mm. On the one hand, perhaps you're right. ["Heroing" is very much his idiot brother's line of work, but Loki hadn't really been able to think of a better word because it's been a while since he's operated outside a personal scale even if only by accident.] On the other, where Thanos is concerned, I don't think you get to be terribly choosy about your allies. I'm hardly the only one who fears retribution from him, after all.

And whatever my motivations, I am assisting. ["The ends justify the means" is something of a personal credo of Loki's.] I am hardly to blame for the Tivan's faiilure.

[Her words are a statement of fact, and he's still in a good enough mood right now to ignore the jab at his cowardice. It's nothing Loki hasn't heard extensively before.]

Still. You must forgive me for being in a somewhat celebratory mood. [Outliving someone who promised to make him suffer beyond measuring is definitely a cause for celebration, in Loki's book, for everything else that went wrong.]

[debrieflog]

Anyone who considers you an ally would be making a mistake. [They don't call you a trickster god for no reason.]You are an asset, for now, and this one has little doubt that you think of everyone else in such terms. [She is a mind-reader, after all.]

The Collector's mistake was, perhaps in the long-term, a necessary one. His collection housed many dangerous and celestially important beings, most of whom are now free.

Of course, you may celebrate however you see fit, your Highness. But do not expect to be lauded as a champion against Thanos.

[jotunblooded]

[Loki reflects wryly as Mantis speaks that while there's definitely a line to kill him, there's a slightly longer line to moralize at him, and he's no longer entirely sure which one he likes less. After all, he's had unfortunately good luck at not dying, but has never been good at not hearing.

He actually does look mildly offended as she implies that he's incapable of allying with others anymore. It just takes extensive motivation. But what, precisely, has counted as the right motivation is intensely, painfully personal and he's not about to mention as much to her.]

Oh, never fear. I don't expected to be lauded for much of anything, these days. [He got used to congratulating himself a long time ago.]

Still, just to be certain I understand...you think releasing those many and varied dangerous being and artifacts to run amok at will is a good thing for the safety of the universe? [Unspoken but implied is that, if that's where she stands, Mantis does not need to be throwing stones about a lack of heroics.]

[debrieflog]

[You can't hide your motivations from a telepath for long, Loki, but Mantis isn't about to push the subject. It doesn't serve her purposes to go to war with an Asgardian.]

Safety? Unlikely, they very well destroy the universe as you know it. [But that's not what she was talking about.] But I have little doubt that beings like Cosmo or the Warlock within the cocoon will prove to be a bane to Thanos before they do.

[Everyone's just going to have to deal with one problem at a time, Loki.]

[jotunblooded]

There now. You draw your benefits from a bad situation, and I draw mine. [Loki is very bad at dealing with one problem at a time. He has the kind of mind that almost compulsively keeps multiple plates in the air.

Also, he's definitely getting the impression that, if nothing else, Mantis is looking through him a little too clearly. It is, to say the least highly disconcerting and she needs to not. Nobody needs to be inside Loki's head.]

And if we all work as assets or allies or whatever you'd prefer to call it, perhaps Thanos can be delayed long enough for all of us to live reasonably full lives. [Loki's still not entirely sure he wants to live a full life, but has accepted that the universe has other ideas.]

hover for translation

[i_am_groot]

I AM GROOT!

I'm just gonna pretend he understands this.

[jotunblooded]

[There are some moments more than others where Loki truly, sincerely appreciates having been taught the Allspeech.

This is one of those moments.]

You will try. In fact, judging by your efforts against Ronin, I suspect you will even muster a valiant effort.

Perhaps enough to slow him down. Thanos cannot be stopped.

Re: I'm just gonna pretend he understands this.

[i_am_groot]

I AM GROOT!

[jotunblooded]

You have a point in that regard. [A fact he was really only introduced to - admittedly rather forcibly - when falling in with Thanos. If not for the mind-shattering horror of the Void, to say nothing of the conditioning it takes to even be considered worthy of serving Thanos, Loki might actually have been happy to wind up halfway across the universe from where he started.]

I don't know who told you mortals could not temporarily handle the power of an Infinity Stone, by the way. Before the Aether wound up in the hands of the Collector, it was being housed in an astrophysicist from Earth. She wasn't well, by any stretch of the imagination, but she lasted an impressive while. [Is that a touch of genuine admiration in his voice? It might just be. Loki wasn't lying when he said he liked Jane.

Even if he'd wanted the Aether for himself, at the time.]

[i_am_groot]

I AM GROOT!

[jotunblooded]

True enough. And the Tesseract was even easier to bear than the Aether. [For a...given value of easy. Spread out over several targets. Assuming you preferred to have your mind dissolve over your body.

That might be a little of Loki's denial at work.

Still. Groot is fast proving to be a pretty smart tree. Loki lets himself look impressed.]

Yes, of course you must. Someone always must. It won't be me, but I like to think that working to keep the Infinity Stones apart is a valuable contribution on its own.

[i_am_groot]

I AM GROOT!

[jotunblooded]

[Did...the giant tree just acknowledge the fact that he's actually trying to help?

Loki has to take a second to just stare blankly, for a moment, before he hastily shakes himself off and moves on again to saner topics of discussion.]

As do I, though you all would have certainly noticed if the explosion had been enough to entirely undo whatever protections he placed it under. Still, with the facility itself in ruins, I don't think much for his ability to guard it any better than the Nova Corps.

Beyond that, the Tesseract and the Gauntlet itself are safe enough, though I wish they weren't being kept together. [Getting the Aether off of Asgard had been the best he could do to mitigate that particular situation.]

[i_am_groot]

[Groot is, fortunately perhaps, largely unfamiliar with Loki. And hardly one to judge the actions of others in the first place.]

I AM GROOT!

[collector_of_the_universe]

Too be fair, this has never happened before and I can assure will never happen again.

[jotunblooded]

Tivan, if I had gotten wind of half a rumor that it had ever happened before, I would never have considered you to pass the Aether along to in the first place.

The fact that you apparently have a second chance to hold on to that, at least, is nothing short of a major miracle. [Any contact at all between the Aether and the other stone would probably have annihilated the entire planet.]

[collector_of_the_universe]

I am no careless fool when it's comes to the Aether. It's somewhere secret and safe... And might I suggest that it might be wise of you to move the Tesseract and the Gauntlet... to somewhere other than Asgard.

[jotunblooded]

I'm well aware of that particular problem. [It's what had motivated him to get the Aether out as soon as possible - one Infinity stone and the Gauntlet were enough of a target. Two, and Thanos would have shown up at Asgard within the week.] But If I move to quickly to arrange it, however, people around me will doubtless suspect something...more than they do already.

I'm supposed to be masquerading as a bloodthirsty, arrogant, xenophobic old bastard who would think Asgard's defenses perfectly sufficient, after all. [But the risk is still making him itch.]