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The Avengers/Casablanca fusion continues (Part I here). *grins sheepishly*
Title: Casa Verde: Interrogation
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Tony, Loki, Schmidt, this chapter. Heading for Tony/Loki
Summary: In which Tony falls afoul of Schmidt, and Loki, somewhat shockingly, interferes
Wordcount: 3768
Warnings/Notes: Violence, interrogation, ambiguity
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Casa Verde: Interrogation
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Avengers movieverse
Characters/Pairings: Tony, Loki, Schmidt, this chapter. Heading for Tony/Loki
Summary: In which Tony falls afoul of Schmidt, and Loki, somewhat shockingly, interferes
Wordcount: 3768
Warnings/Notes: Violence, interrogation, ambiguity
Disclaimer: Not mine
Interrogation
Conversations started back up as Schmidt entered the main bar. Slowly. And with a vaguely frantic edge. To be fair, Tony didn’t exactly blame anyone there.
For his own part, he fixed back on his casual, welcoming smile, finding a glass to polish to keep his hands busy - and steady - as he watched the man approach, followed by what had to be a couple of his own people. Vaguely conscious, as he did so, of Loki turning sideways in his seat to lounge with most of his back to the bar, and his languid attention fixed between Tony and the Commandant. Tony … tried not to worry, about that.
“Evening, sir,” he smiled, as Schmidt drew level, spreading his hands to encompass the bar. “Can we help you?”
Schmidt twisted one lip, faintly. Something that Tony had the nagging impression was meant to be a smile. “Yes, I think you can.” He sat, slowly and pointedly, at the bar, ignoring Loki’s borderline-invasive stare beside him. “I’m here to look for someone. Perhaps you have seen him?”
Tony affected a shrug. Carefully not swallowing, not stiffening, not showing the creeping flinch that had started its slow, icy way up his spine. “Could be. We see a lot of people, in this place.”
Schmidt did smile, this time. Tony wished he hadn’t. “So I’ve heard,” he murmured, low and suggestive. “And I have only been in the city a few hours. It seems all of Casablanca knows the Cafe Bercilak.”
Tony faked a proud smile. “Yes sir,” he nodded, tipping his head proprietarily. “Everyone comes to us sooner or later.” And yes, he was aware he was digging a hole it was going to be hard getting out of, he could see the eyebrow Loki was surreptitiously raising, but frankly, he didn’t see as he had much choice. “Did you come here for business, sir?”
Schmidt leaned in. “I came here for a man,” he said, softly, and with that dark edge of passion that stabbed at Tony’s gut. “A man I have been searching for for some time. And I would like, very much, if you could help me find him. His name … is Captain Steven Rogers.”
Fuck. Fuck. He was going to kill Rogers. He was going to kill him.
If no-one killed him first.
“Sorry,” he smiled, and it wasn’t queasy, he’d could fake a smile like you wouldn’t believe, he could look casual before a fucking firing squad. And almost had, once. “Names … Well. They don’t mean so much, in Casablanca. You got a description, maybe?”
Blond, blue-eyed, Aryan dreamboat, except for the fact he was American, soldier through to his bones, shadow of Tony’s past, pain in the neck … sitting not twenty yards away, with only a few walls to keep him out of sight. Sure. You got a description, friend?
They were dead. They were so, so dead. Though technically, Schmidt couldn’t touch them, not on French soil, unoccupied French soil … Tony didn’t figure Schmidt looked like a man to care.
“Indeed,” Schmidt smiled. Colder, now, threatening. Loki, very faintly, shifted. A gentle, ready stillness. “You would know this man, I think. Blond. Blue-eyed. A certain … heroic figure. He would be quite noticable, I think.”
Yeah. You don’t say. “Hmm,” Tony murmured, trying not to think of how badly this was going to go, focusing on the fact that so long as nobody said anything, there was still … hope, sort of, for this endless disaster of an evening. “Yeah, I’d have noticed him, alright. And I might have seen him recently. But … I don’t think he’s been through tonight.”
He shouldn’t have been, the stupid noble bastard, because only a goddamned idiot would have been abroad with the Commandant fresh in town, but no, no, Captain bloody Rogers had to warn people, and now look where they were. As soon as Tony got rid of Schmidt, and Loki, and the whole fucking bar of witnesses, he was going to murder the good Captain. Thoroughly.
“Really,” Schmidt said, looking right at Tony, and that tone … That tone snapped Tony right out of his thoughts. That tone shot like a bullet straight through Tony’s gut, and locked the ice solid in his spine. “Really,” Schmidt repeated, mildly amused, as he rose in his seat. “That’s interesting. Because when I arrived, the local police, having received my advance description, informed me that a man of such looks was seen entering the Cafe not so long ago. And since they have been guarding every exit for the past two hours, it seems to me this man could not have left just yet. So.”
He smiled, grim and terrible, into Tony’s widening eyes, resting his hands heavily on the bar while Tony let his fall still and shaking.
“So,” Schmidt whispered, almost gently. “Perhaps you have suddenly remembered something, yes? Perhaps you have suddenly seen … more than you thought you had, hmm?”
Tony … said nothing. Not for a long second. He said nothing, staring up into the mad light in the Schmidt’s eyes, resting his trembling hands on the bar. The light he recognised. The light he knew, so well.
He knew what he should do. He knew what sanity said was the only possible thing he could do. He didn’t owe Rogers a damn thing. He and Bruce had agreed to a policy of self-preservatory neutrality years ago, and he owed it to his friend not to break that. Not to take risks for both of them, without asking. And if Schmidt was right, if Rogers had been seen enter, and the exits were blocked, then Rogers was lost regardless. And his whole cadre with him. And this was Vichy soil, still. This was not occupied territory, and there were limits to what Schmidt should be able to do, and even if Tony sold them out right now, they should be … they should be fine. They were dangerous, and capable, and they had the law on their side. More or less. Sort of.
But …
Tony knew the light. In Schmidt’s eyes. He knew it. Remembered it, with that faint, creeping urge to tuck his wrists to his chest, to bring the scars of binding up, and arrange them defensively over the near-fatal starburst on his chest. Tony remembered that light. Remembered what it meant. And knew, law or not, unoccupied or not, if Schmidt took them now … they were dead. At the very best, they were dead.
And the Captain’s eyes had just, for the first time in more than a month, warmed in Tony’s direction. Tonight had been the first night Rogers had looked at him with anything but disdain.
Tony closed his eyes. Dipped his head, addressed himself to the bar. To avoid the flare he knew would appear in Schmidt’s eyes, the predatory flash. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, quietly. Knowing. Fuck. Knowing, how this was going to end. “I haven’t seen anyone matching that description. Not tonight. I don’t know how he …”
He cut off with a snap, as Schmidt’s closed fist impacted brutally with his cheek. Tony heard himself suck in a stunned breath, felt himself stagger back, clutching at the bar. Almost falling, hearing a glass skitter back from his clutching hand. The pain, when it arrived, was almost distant, by comparison.
“Look at me,” Schmidt snarled, low and furious. “Look at me.”
Tony swallowed. Tony breathed, once, long and careful, clenching his hand into a tight, terrified fist. He swallowed. And then, he raised his head, fixing a shocked, apologetic look on his face. From the corner of his eye, he caught something flicker, in Loki, but his attention was for Schmidt. For the familiar, horribly familiar, look there.
“What do you think will result from this?” the man asked him, almost curiously. “If he is here, he will be found. When it is found that you have lied to me, what do you think will happen, hmm?”
Tony swallowed, shook his head. Well. If he was going to be stupid … “I’m sorry. Perhaps I just missed him, sir. We’ve been busy tonight. But I haven’t seen this man.”
He saw it, this time. He saw the darkness in Schmidt’s eyes congeal into cruelty, saw the fist come up. He saw it coming, braced himself. Not that it would do him much good. He saw the blow coming.
Except it didn’t.
Tony stared, in some shock, at the pale hand that locked itself around Schmidt’s wrist, arresting the strike before it hit. Tony stared, in pretty open disbelief, at Loki’s small moue of distaste, uncaring in the face of the raw fury as Schmidt turned on him, and a number of pistols were cocked behind them.
“Now, now,” Loki murmured, light and immaculate in his casual attire. “Really, sir. This is not German soil. Some pretense at civility, please.”
Schmidt turned on him, his snarl turning ugly rapidly. “How dare you …” he murmured, soft and vicious and, Tony thought, just the smallest bit disbelieving himself.
Loki smiled, a gleam like a razor. “I understand your concerns, Commandant, I do,” he continued, casual and airy as though there was no thought of violence around him. “I sympathise. But this is as yet unoccupied territory. The natives might get … a little restless, perhaps?” He nodded sideways, into the silent, grim crowd that surrounded them. These people, so many of whom had seen brutality. In Casablanca. And with the police not yet inside.
Schmidt, looking around him, cooled somewhat. He didn’t back down. He was too powerful, and too supported, to back down. But he calmed. Put back on the requested pretense of civility.
“And who are you?” he asked, clipped and cold. “To interfere?”
Loki shrugged, light and easy, releasing the man’s arm to turn back to the bar, lifting his drink once again. Catching Tony’s eyes, for a beat, a half-second. Flicking a glance over the blooming bruise on Tony’s cheek, the swelling of his lip. And Tony … couldn’t quite parse the flicker in his expression, at the sight of it.
“Laufeysson,” he answered, quietly. “Loki.”
Several expressions flickered rapidly over Schmidt’s face, at that. Several emotions, few of them good, and in the end, he settled on … satisfaction. A rather dark, disdainful satisfaction. “Liesmith,” he said, almost approvingly. “The quisling.”
Loki flashed a smirk, nearly disguising the edge of pain in it, almost obscuring the taint of irony. To Tony, at least, not quite succeeding. Huh. “Even so,” he smiled, raising his glass in salute. “So you see. I really do sympathise, Herr Schmidt.”
Schmidt’s lips curled, somewhere between smile and sneer. “I’m sure,” he murmured, shifting forward slightly into Loki’s space. Ignoring, for the moment, Tony. “And what are you doing here, Herr Liesmith. You are … far from home.”
Loki laughed, waving a hand dismissively. “I am looking for someone, of course,” he smiled, cavalier. “Much like yourself.” A small darkening, a small edge. “Indeed, quite like yourself. Almost down to the description. Isn’t that interesting?”
Schmidt stilled. A hunter coming on point, a predator sensing a threat. Tony felt his gut turn over, felt fear ebb and surge desperately, coiled in his stomach. Dead. Every last one of them. They were all dead.
“Rogers?” Schmidt asked, and there was something strange in it, almost a threat, towards Loki, for no reason Tony could see. Possessiveness? Was there a competition, now, for who got to bring the Germans Rogers’ head?
“Close, but no,” Loki demurred, narrowing his eyes in turn. Seeing what Tony had seen. Seeing no more reason for it. Well. That was … interesting. Or would be, if Tony wasn’t shortly going to die. “Merely someone who bears him some resemblance. A Norwegian.” He offered a small smile, a lightening of his eyes. “Perhaps we can be of assistance, to each other. I have been in Casablanca for some time.”
If Loki had been trying to distract him, he failed, at that. Not that Loki would, Tony didn’t even know why he’d thought that, but regardless. If Loki had been trying, he failed as soon as he said that. Schmidt, interest cooling back into anger and ugly cruelty, turned back to Tony. “That will not be necessary,” he said, coldly, his hand snapping out to seize Tony’s arm. “I think I have all the help I need, is that not so?”
Tony smiled at him, desperately. He couldn’t think of a damn thing else to do. He leaned over the brutal twisting of his arm, and grinned up into the mad light in Schmidt’s eyes.
“Yes,” Loki said, almost quickly, his fingers flickering lightly over the man’s sleeve. “About that, actually.” He smiled, thin and casual, as both of them turned to stare at him. Tony … hadn’t the first clue what the man thought he was doing. “I’ve been here for some time, you see. And I’ve been rather monopolising Anthony here’s time. I’m afraid it’s very possible that he hasn’t seen your quarry. And it may well have been my fault.”
Tony didn’t gape at him in shock. He had enough survival instinct to realise that that would be a very bad plan. But it was a near fucking thing. What the hell?
Schmidt, though, only raised a cool, disbelieving eyebrow. “You think so?” he asked, a casual twist of his grip almost curling Tony sideways onto the bar, struggling not to gasp. “You think he is not simply lying?” He spread his lips again, that thing that wasn’t a smile, no matter how much it tried to look like one. “I recognise his type. Don’t you? That terrified, defiant look, in his eyes …”
He smiled down at Tony, who glared up at him, eyes watering. Knowing, knowing he should look away, knowing he should look cowed, knowing he wasn’t helping himself. But he remembered this. He remembered that look, in the eyes of men standing over him.
He remembered the man who had died because of it.
“Yes,” Loki said, and it was a hushed murmur, almost respectful, in a strange way. “I recognise it. But I think, Herr Schmidt, that it has little to do with us, or your prey. I don’t think it has much to do with Casablanca at all.”
Tony felt his breath hitch. Staring up into those green eyes, and the tired thing there. He felt his breath hitch, and shook his head. Don’t. Don’t you dare. You bastard, don’t you dare.
Loki, with a faint, ironic little smile, ignored the silent plea, and reached delicately across Schmidt’s arm to touch at Tony’s sleeve, and draw it carefully back from his wrist. “You see,” he said, very softly. “I don’t believe it is you he defies at all, Herr Schmidt. I think it is his memory.”
Tony looked up. Looked into Schmidt’s eyes, as the Commandant took in the knotted scars, the twisted marks of ropes, dug into his wrist. They’d drug him a long way, before they considered themselves safe. Dragged him, mostly dead, such a long way. He looked up into Schmidt’s eyes, as the man took them in. He saw the appreciative light that flared there.
He struggled, desperately, not to throw up. He struggled not to be sick, in memory, in the face of it.
“He hasn’t seen anything, I think,” Loki continued. Lightly. Persuasively, patting Tony’s sleeve back into place, brushing Schmidt’s arm as though in summons as he drew his hand back. “Anthony has been a good friend to me, these past few weeks. An excellent confidante, I assure you. He simply has some small peccadillos. Results of an old misadventure. But he would not … discommode us, not purposefully. He knows better.”
And Tony distantly recognised the implications in that, distantly recognised what Loki was implying, and how many people were listening to him imply it, how many people were going to feel betrayed by it, but he couldn’t quite focus on that. He couldn’t focus on any of that, because he was looking right at Loki, looking right in those calm, green eyes, and there was something … desperate, there, that Tony just couldn’t understand. Bowed under Schmidt’s hard grip, he just had no idea what to think.
When the hell had Loki decided to give a good goddamn about Tony? And how much was that goddamn going to cost?
“If you say so,” Schmidt said, face still twisted in that sneer, in that hungry, appreciative mask. He let go of Tony’s arm, casting it aside almost contemptuously. “Then we’ll search the place. Achtung!”
The two men who’d followed him in leapt to attention, ready to move. How they expected to turn over the place on their own, Tony wasn’t quite sure, but he figured they’d probably manage. He … stiffened. He had to. Groping under the bar, since he was already curled down there, for one of his and Bruce’s little surprises. Because Loki might just have saved him, Loki might have given him a window to breathe, but if Schmidt found the others … well, Tony hadn’t actually had to pretend not to have seen them in the first place, had he? He … He hadn’t had to, except for how he had, and it was going to be spitting on Loki’s generosity, but that hadn’t actually changed, in the past few minutes.
Schmidt had reminded him, viscerally, of why defying him was a bad idea. Schmidt had reminded him, so very powerfully, of what it felt like, to be under someone’s thumb. Schmidt had reminded him of what, exactly, Abyssinia had been like.
And that was a bad, bad plan. Because Tony mightn’t have a chance in hell of helping them, of getting out of this, of doing a damn thing, when Schmidt apparently had them surrounded, but then ... he hadn’t a hope then, either. Tony hadn’t had a chance in hell of escaping, in Abyssinia, hadn’t had a hope of taking his captors out. And look how that had turned out.
He still didn’t owe Rogers. He didn’t owe any of them a damn thing. But that didn’t matter, anymore. It wasn’t them he was thinking of. It was Schmidt. Schmidt, and the pulsing, throbbing desire to really, really ruin his day.
Loki must have seen something, in Tony. Loki must have caught something, in the way he moved, in the savage flash of his eyes. Loki must have seen something, because Loki moved, then. Flashed Tony a fierce, desperate warning, and moved to block Schmidt. Moving lightly and easily, almost languidly, for all the urgency only Tony really saw.
“You know, that might not be necessary, Herr Schmidt.” He flashed that slick, dark little smile of his, the one Tony was maybe beginning to hate, just a little. “Not to mention that it would be … somewhat impolitic. As I said. I have been in Casablanca for some time. Perhaps I can … ease your path, a little?”
Schmidt turned to look at him. Black, impatient. No longer indulging, no matter what kind of reputation Loki must have had, with him. Schmidt looked at him, hard and ugly and cold. “If you can be of assistance, Herr Laufeysson,” he said, quietly. “Perhaps you might like to hurry.”
Loki smiled. Edged and glittering and, Tony thought, with a flash of temper of his own. “Of course,” he murmured, and Tony hoped Schmidt couldn’t hear the poison in it as surely as he could, or Loki was going to be nursing a bruise of his own, in a minute. More to the point, Schmidt would stop listening, in a minute. “Anthony hasn’t seen anything. But perhaps his employer has …?”
Oh, fuck. No. Tony needed to stop letting Loki have his head. The man didn’t lead them anywhere good.
“His employer?” Schmidt asked, and hey, interested again. Lucky them. Shit.
Loki sketched a small bow, inclining his head with that small smile. “Mr Banner,” he explained, razored and light. “The Cafe Bercilak is his. Anthony here is his best barman. They usually operate together. One in front, one in back. If Banner saw that I had occupied Anthony, he may have taken over some small duties, and thus been in a position to see your, ah. Your quarry.”
Schmidt quirked an eyebrow, at that. Looking pointedly back at Tony, who hurriedly slipped the gun back under the bar. In reach, but not in his hand, because he still recognised that look. He still knew what it meant.
“And will this Herr Banner be any more … cooperative, that Anthony?” Schmidt asked, softly, moving back to the bar before either Tony or Loki could move, snapping out to grip Tony’s neck, and drag him forward slightly over the bar. “I ask, because I find my patience beginning to fray.” He leaned close, looked into the terror Tony knew was lurking in his eyes, the terror he didn’t bother trying to hide. This kind of man, it was best to show it. It made them … complacent. “I find myself not enamoured, of this Cafe.”
Loki’s smile turned a little queasy, for a second. Half a second, and only when Schmidt’s eyes were turned away, before firming back up with casual confidence, and no hint of how, for that second, his eyes had been fixed on the hand on Tony’s neck.
“If one knows how to ask,” he demurred, instead. Airy and confident, and Tony was beginning to think Loki might be as decent at false confidence as Tony himself, and have earned the epithet ‘liesmith’ besides.
And then Tony couldn’t think, yet again, then he was lost to the slick chill spearing up his spine once more, because the next words out of Loki’s mouth were … about the worst possible ones, under the circumstances.
“I think I saw him go to the kitchen,” Loki said, while Tony desperately, desperately, did not flinch. “Why don’t I go and … acquire his assistance, hmm?”
The kitchen. Of course, the fucking kitchen. Where Rogers’entire bloody crew were sitting pretty. Where Tony himself had put them. All this, all of this, and Tony was pinned here by the resident madman, while Loki, who hated Thor with a bright passion, even still, wandered over, looking for Bruce. Of course, of course, Loki had seen Bruce enter the kitchen.
“Why don’t you,” Schmidt agreed, sneering blackly out over the bar, over the crowd, and for the first time in some years, Tony felt something close to despair. For the first time since dragging himself back from Abyssinia, he felt that black, dark ball in his gut.
Loki, smiling lightly, caught his eyes. Loki, the quisling, the gestapo, the enemy. Loki, who’d stuck his neck out, for some unfathomable reason, for Tony. Loki caught his eyes, in turning, and smiled. Soft and black.
And Tony felt ice stab jagged shards into his spine.
Conversations started back up as Schmidt entered the main bar. Slowly. And with a vaguely frantic edge. To be fair, Tony didn’t exactly blame anyone there.
For his own part, he fixed back on his casual, welcoming smile, finding a glass to polish to keep his hands busy - and steady - as he watched the man approach, followed by what had to be a couple of his own people. Vaguely conscious, as he did so, of Loki turning sideways in his seat to lounge with most of his back to the bar, and his languid attention fixed between Tony and the Commandant. Tony … tried not to worry, about that.
“Evening, sir,” he smiled, as Schmidt drew level, spreading his hands to encompass the bar. “Can we help you?”
Schmidt twisted one lip, faintly. Something that Tony had the nagging impression was meant to be a smile. “Yes, I think you can.” He sat, slowly and pointedly, at the bar, ignoring Loki’s borderline-invasive stare beside him. “I’m here to look for someone. Perhaps you have seen him?”
Tony affected a shrug. Carefully not swallowing, not stiffening, not showing the creeping flinch that had started its slow, icy way up his spine. “Could be. We see a lot of people, in this place.”
Schmidt did smile, this time. Tony wished he hadn’t. “So I’ve heard,” he murmured, low and suggestive. “And I have only been in the city a few hours. It seems all of Casablanca knows the Cafe Bercilak.”
Tony faked a proud smile. “Yes sir,” he nodded, tipping his head proprietarily. “Everyone comes to us sooner or later.” And yes, he was aware he was digging a hole it was going to be hard getting out of, he could see the eyebrow Loki was surreptitiously raising, but frankly, he didn’t see as he had much choice. “Did you come here for business, sir?”
Schmidt leaned in. “I came here for a man,” he said, softly, and with that dark edge of passion that stabbed at Tony’s gut. “A man I have been searching for for some time. And I would like, very much, if you could help me find him. His name … is Captain Steven Rogers.”
Fuck. Fuck. He was going to kill Rogers. He was going to kill him.
If no-one killed him first.
“Sorry,” he smiled, and it wasn’t queasy, he’d could fake a smile like you wouldn’t believe, he could look casual before a fucking firing squad. And almost had, once. “Names … Well. They don’t mean so much, in Casablanca. You got a description, maybe?”
Blond, blue-eyed, Aryan dreamboat, except for the fact he was American, soldier through to his bones, shadow of Tony’s past, pain in the neck … sitting not twenty yards away, with only a few walls to keep him out of sight. Sure. You got a description, friend?
They were dead. They were so, so dead. Though technically, Schmidt couldn’t touch them, not on French soil, unoccupied French soil … Tony didn’t figure Schmidt looked like a man to care.
“Indeed,” Schmidt smiled. Colder, now, threatening. Loki, very faintly, shifted. A gentle, ready stillness. “You would know this man, I think. Blond. Blue-eyed. A certain … heroic figure. He would be quite noticable, I think.”
Yeah. You don’t say. “Hmm,” Tony murmured, trying not to think of how badly this was going to go, focusing on the fact that so long as nobody said anything, there was still … hope, sort of, for this endless disaster of an evening. “Yeah, I’d have noticed him, alright. And I might have seen him recently. But … I don’t think he’s been through tonight.”
He shouldn’t have been, the stupid noble bastard, because only a goddamned idiot would have been abroad with the Commandant fresh in town, but no, no, Captain bloody Rogers had to warn people, and now look where they were. As soon as Tony got rid of Schmidt, and Loki, and the whole fucking bar of witnesses, he was going to murder the good Captain. Thoroughly.
“Really,” Schmidt said, looking right at Tony, and that tone … That tone snapped Tony right out of his thoughts. That tone shot like a bullet straight through Tony’s gut, and locked the ice solid in his spine. “Really,” Schmidt repeated, mildly amused, as he rose in his seat. “That’s interesting. Because when I arrived, the local police, having received my advance description, informed me that a man of such looks was seen entering the Cafe not so long ago. And since they have been guarding every exit for the past two hours, it seems to me this man could not have left just yet. So.”
He smiled, grim and terrible, into Tony’s widening eyes, resting his hands heavily on the bar while Tony let his fall still and shaking.
“So,” Schmidt whispered, almost gently. “Perhaps you have suddenly remembered something, yes? Perhaps you have suddenly seen … more than you thought you had, hmm?”
Tony … said nothing. Not for a long second. He said nothing, staring up into the mad light in the Schmidt’s eyes, resting his trembling hands on the bar. The light he recognised. The light he knew, so well.
He knew what he should do. He knew what sanity said was the only possible thing he could do. He didn’t owe Rogers a damn thing. He and Bruce had agreed to a policy of self-preservatory neutrality years ago, and he owed it to his friend not to break that. Not to take risks for both of them, without asking. And if Schmidt was right, if Rogers had been seen enter, and the exits were blocked, then Rogers was lost regardless. And his whole cadre with him. And this was Vichy soil, still. This was not occupied territory, and there were limits to what Schmidt should be able to do, and even if Tony sold them out right now, they should be … they should be fine. They were dangerous, and capable, and they had the law on their side. More or less. Sort of.
But …
Tony knew the light. In Schmidt’s eyes. He knew it. Remembered it, with that faint, creeping urge to tuck his wrists to his chest, to bring the scars of binding up, and arrange them defensively over the near-fatal starburst on his chest. Tony remembered that light. Remembered what it meant. And knew, law or not, unoccupied or not, if Schmidt took them now … they were dead. At the very best, they were dead.
And the Captain’s eyes had just, for the first time in more than a month, warmed in Tony’s direction. Tonight had been the first night Rogers had looked at him with anything but disdain.
Tony closed his eyes. Dipped his head, addressed himself to the bar. To avoid the flare he knew would appear in Schmidt’s eyes, the predatory flash. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, quietly. Knowing. Fuck. Knowing, how this was going to end. “I haven’t seen anyone matching that description. Not tonight. I don’t know how he …”
He cut off with a snap, as Schmidt’s closed fist impacted brutally with his cheek. Tony heard himself suck in a stunned breath, felt himself stagger back, clutching at the bar. Almost falling, hearing a glass skitter back from his clutching hand. The pain, when it arrived, was almost distant, by comparison.
“Look at me,” Schmidt snarled, low and furious. “Look at me.”
Tony swallowed. Tony breathed, once, long and careful, clenching his hand into a tight, terrified fist. He swallowed. And then, he raised his head, fixing a shocked, apologetic look on his face. From the corner of his eye, he caught something flicker, in Loki, but his attention was for Schmidt. For the familiar, horribly familiar, look there.
“What do you think will result from this?” the man asked him, almost curiously. “If he is here, he will be found. When it is found that you have lied to me, what do you think will happen, hmm?”
Tony swallowed, shook his head. Well. If he was going to be stupid … “I’m sorry. Perhaps I just missed him, sir. We’ve been busy tonight. But I haven’t seen this man.”
He saw it, this time. He saw the darkness in Schmidt’s eyes congeal into cruelty, saw the fist come up. He saw it coming, braced himself. Not that it would do him much good. He saw the blow coming.
Except it didn’t.
Tony stared, in some shock, at the pale hand that locked itself around Schmidt’s wrist, arresting the strike before it hit. Tony stared, in pretty open disbelief, at Loki’s small moue of distaste, uncaring in the face of the raw fury as Schmidt turned on him, and a number of pistols were cocked behind them.
“Now, now,” Loki murmured, light and immaculate in his casual attire. “Really, sir. This is not German soil. Some pretense at civility, please.”
Schmidt turned on him, his snarl turning ugly rapidly. “How dare you …” he murmured, soft and vicious and, Tony thought, just the smallest bit disbelieving himself.
Loki smiled, a gleam like a razor. “I understand your concerns, Commandant, I do,” he continued, casual and airy as though there was no thought of violence around him. “I sympathise. But this is as yet unoccupied territory. The natives might get … a little restless, perhaps?” He nodded sideways, into the silent, grim crowd that surrounded them. These people, so many of whom had seen brutality. In Casablanca. And with the police not yet inside.
Schmidt, looking around him, cooled somewhat. He didn’t back down. He was too powerful, and too supported, to back down. But he calmed. Put back on the requested pretense of civility.
“And who are you?” he asked, clipped and cold. “To interfere?”
Loki shrugged, light and easy, releasing the man’s arm to turn back to the bar, lifting his drink once again. Catching Tony’s eyes, for a beat, a half-second. Flicking a glance over the blooming bruise on Tony’s cheek, the swelling of his lip. And Tony … couldn’t quite parse the flicker in his expression, at the sight of it.
“Laufeysson,” he answered, quietly. “Loki.”
Several expressions flickered rapidly over Schmidt’s face, at that. Several emotions, few of them good, and in the end, he settled on … satisfaction. A rather dark, disdainful satisfaction. “Liesmith,” he said, almost approvingly. “The quisling.”
Loki flashed a smirk, nearly disguising the edge of pain in it, almost obscuring the taint of irony. To Tony, at least, not quite succeeding. Huh. “Even so,” he smiled, raising his glass in salute. “So you see. I really do sympathise, Herr Schmidt.”
Schmidt’s lips curled, somewhere between smile and sneer. “I’m sure,” he murmured, shifting forward slightly into Loki’s space. Ignoring, for the moment, Tony. “And what are you doing here, Herr Liesmith. You are … far from home.”
Loki laughed, waving a hand dismissively. “I am looking for someone, of course,” he smiled, cavalier. “Much like yourself.” A small darkening, a small edge. “Indeed, quite like yourself. Almost down to the description. Isn’t that interesting?”
Schmidt stilled. A hunter coming on point, a predator sensing a threat. Tony felt his gut turn over, felt fear ebb and surge desperately, coiled in his stomach. Dead. Every last one of them. They were all dead.
“Rogers?” Schmidt asked, and there was something strange in it, almost a threat, towards Loki, for no reason Tony could see. Possessiveness? Was there a competition, now, for who got to bring the Germans Rogers’ head?
“Close, but no,” Loki demurred, narrowing his eyes in turn. Seeing what Tony had seen. Seeing no more reason for it. Well. That was … interesting. Or would be, if Tony wasn’t shortly going to die. “Merely someone who bears him some resemblance. A Norwegian.” He offered a small smile, a lightening of his eyes. “Perhaps we can be of assistance, to each other. I have been in Casablanca for some time.”
If Loki had been trying to distract him, he failed, at that. Not that Loki would, Tony didn’t even know why he’d thought that, but regardless. If Loki had been trying, he failed as soon as he said that. Schmidt, interest cooling back into anger and ugly cruelty, turned back to Tony. “That will not be necessary,” he said, coldly, his hand snapping out to seize Tony’s arm. “I think I have all the help I need, is that not so?”
Tony smiled at him, desperately. He couldn’t think of a damn thing else to do. He leaned over the brutal twisting of his arm, and grinned up into the mad light in Schmidt’s eyes.
“Yes,” Loki said, almost quickly, his fingers flickering lightly over the man’s sleeve. “About that, actually.” He smiled, thin and casual, as both of them turned to stare at him. Tony … hadn’t the first clue what the man thought he was doing. “I’ve been here for some time, you see. And I’ve been rather monopolising Anthony here’s time. I’m afraid it’s very possible that he hasn’t seen your quarry. And it may well have been my fault.”
Tony didn’t gape at him in shock. He had enough survival instinct to realise that that would be a very bad plan. But it was a near fucking thing. What the hell?
Schmidt, though, only raised a cool, disbelieving eyebrow. “You think so?” he asked, a casual twist of his grip almost curling Tony sideways onto the bar, struggling not to gasp. “You think he is not simply lying?” He spread his lips again, that thing that wasn’t a smile, no matter how much it tried to look like one. “I recognise his type. Don’t you? That terrified, defiant look, in his eyes …”
He smiled down at Tony, who glared up at him, eyes watering. Knowing, knowing he should look away, knowing he should look cowed, knowing he wasn’t helping himself. But he remembered this. He remembered that look, in the eyes of men standing over him.
He remembered the man who had died because of it.
“Yes,” Loki said, and it was a hushed murmur, almost respectful, in a strange way. “I recognise it. But I think, Herr Schmidt, that it has little to do with us, or your prey. I don’t think it has much to do with Casablanca at all.”
Tony felt his breath hitch. Staring up into those green eyes, and the tired thing there. He felt his breath hitch, and shook his head. Don’t. Don’t you dare. You bastard, don’t you dare.
Loki, with a faint, ironic little smile, ignored the silent plea, and reached delicately across Schmidt’s arm to touch at Tony’s sleeve, and draw it carefully back from his wrist. “You see,” he said, very softly. “I don’t believe it is you he defies at all, Herr Schmidt. I think it is his memory.”
Tony looked up. Looked into Schmidt’s eyes, as the Commandant took in the knotted scars, the twisted marks of ropes, dug into his wrist. They’d drug him a long way, before they considered themselves safe. Dragged him, mostly dead, such a long way. He looked up into Schmidt’s eyes, as the man took them in. He saw the appreciative light that flared there.
He struggled, desperately, not to throw up. He struggled not to be sick, in memory, in the face of it.
“He hasn’t seen anything, I think,” Loki continued. Lightly. Persuasively, patting Tony’s sleeve back into place, brushing Schmidt’s arm as though in summons as he drew his hand back. “Anthony has been a good friend to me, these past few weeks. An excellent confidante, I assure you. He simply has some small peccadillos. Results of an old misadventure. But he would not … discommode us, not purposefully. He knows better.”
And Tony distantly recognised the implications in that, distantly recognised what Loki was implying, and how many people were listening to him imply it, how many people were going to feel betrayed by it, but he couldn’t quite focus on that. He couldn’t focus on any of that, because he was looking right at Loki, looking right in those calm, green eyes, and there was something … desperate, there, that Tony just couldn’t understand. Bowed under Schmidt’s hard grip, he just had no idea what to think.
When the hell had Loki decided to give a good goddamn about Tony? And how much was that goddamn going to cost?
“If you say so,” Schmidt said, face still twisted in that sneer, in that hungry, appreciative mask. He let go of Tony’s arm, casting it aside almost contemptuously. “Then we’ll search the place. Achtung!”
The two men who’d followed him in leapt to attention, ready to move. How they expected to turn over the place on their own, Tony wasn’t quite sure, but he figured they’d probably manage. He … stiffened. He had to. Groping under the bar, since he was already curled down there, for one of his and Bruce’s little surprises. Because Loki might just have saved him, Loki might have given him a window to breathe, but if Schmidt found the others … well, Tony hadn’t actually had to pretend not to have seen them in the first place, had he? He … He hadn’t had to, except for how he had, and it was going to be spitting on Loki’s generosity, but that hadn’t actually changed, in the past few minutes.
Schmidt had reminded him, viscerally, of why defying him was a bad idea. Schmidt had reminded him, so very powerfully, of what it felt like, to be under someone’s thumb. Schmidt had reminded him of what, exactly, Abyssinia had been like.
And that was a bad, bad plan. Because Tony mightn’t have a chance in hell of helping them, of getting out of this, of doing a damn thing, when Schmidt apparently had them surrounded, but then ... he hadn’t a hope then, either. Tony hadn’t had a chance in hell of escaping, in Abyssinia, hadn’t had a hope of taking his captors out. And look how that had turned out.
He still didn’t owe Rogers. He didn’t owe any of them a damn thing. But that didn’t matter, anymore. It wasn’t them he was thinking of. It was Schmidt. Schmidt, and the pulsing, throbbing desire to really, really ruin his day.
Loki must have seen something, in Tony. Loki must have caught something, in the way he moved, in the savage flash of his eyes. Loki must have seen something, because Loki moved, then. Flashed Tony a fierce, desperate warning, and moved to block Schmidt. Moving lightly and easily, almost languidly, for all the urgency only Tony really saw.
“You know, that might not be necessary, Herr Schmidt.” He flashed that slick, dark little smile of his, the one Tony was maybe beginning to hate, just a little. “Not to mention that it would be … somewhat impolitic. As I said. I have been in Casablanca for some time. Perhaps I can … ease your path, a little?”
Schmidt turned to look at him. Black, impatient. No longer indulging, no matter what kind of reputation Loki must have had, with him. Schmidt looked at him, hard and ugly and cold. “If you can be of assistance, Herr Laufeysson,” he said, quietly. “Perhaps you might like to hurry.”
Loki smiled. Edged and glittering and, Tony thought, with a flash of temper of his own. “Of course,” he murmured, and Tony hoped Schmidt couldn’t hear the poison in it as surely as he could, or Loki was going to be nursing a bruise of his own, in a minute. More to the point, Schmidt would stop listening, in a minute. “Anthony hasn’t seen anything. But perhaps his employer has …?”
Oh, fuck. No. Tony needed to stop letting Loki have his head. The man didn’t lead them anywhere good.
“His employer?” Schmidt asked, and hey, interested again. Lucky them. Shit.
Loki sketched a small bow, inclining his head with that small smile. “Mr Banner,” he explained, razored and light. “The Cafe Bercilak is his. Anthony here is his best barman. They usually operate together. One in front, one in back. If Banner saw that I had occupied Anthony, he may have taken over some small duties, and thus been in a position to see your, ah. Your quarry.”
Schmidt quirked an eyebrow, at that. Looking pointedly back at Tony, who hurriedly slipped the gun back under the bar. In reach, but not in his hand, because he still recognised that look. He still knew what it meant.
“And will this Herr Banner be any more … cooperative, that Anthony?” Schmidt asked, softly, moving back to the bar before either Tony or Loki could move, snapping out to grip Tony’s neck, and drag him forward slightly over the bar. “I ask, because I find my patience beginning to fray.” He leaned close, looked into the terror Tony knew was lurking in his eyes, the terror he didn’t bother trying to hide. This kind of man, it was best to show it. It made them … complacent. “I find myself not enamoured, of this Cafe.”
Loki’s smile turned a little queasy, for a second. Half a second, and only when Schmidt’s eyes were turned away, before firming back up with casual confidence, and no hint of how, for that second, his eyes had been fixed on the hand on Tony’s neck.
“If one knows how to ask,” he demurred, instead. Airy and confident, and Tony was beginning to think Loki might be as decent at false confidence as Tony himself, and have earned the epithet ‘liesmith’ besides.
And then Tony couldn’t think, yet again, then he was lost to the slick chill spearing up his spine once more, because the next words out of Loki’s mouth were … about the worst possible ones, under the circumstances.
“I think I saw him go to the kitchen,” Loki said, while Tony desperately, desperately, did not flinch. “Why don’t I go and … acquire his assistance, hmm?”
The kitchen. Of course, the fucking kitchen. Where Rogers’entire bloody crew were sitting pretty. Where Tony himself had put them. All this, all of this, and Tony was pinned here by the resident madman, while Loki, who hated Thor with a bright passion, even still, wandered over, looking for Bruce. Of course, of course, Loki had seen Bruce enter the kitchen.
“Why don’t you,” Schmidt agreed, sneering blackly out over the bar, over the crowd, and for the first time in some years, Tony felt something close to despair. For the first time since dragging himself back from Abyssinia, he felt that black, dark ball in his gut.
Loki, smiling lightly, caught his eyes. Loki, the quisling, the gestapo, the enemy. Loki, who’d stuck his neck out, for some unfathomable reason, for Tony. Loki caught his eyes, in turning, and smiled. Soft and black.
And Tony felt ice stab jagged shards into his spine.
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