#capshield

Loki felt angry again– the threat of his pity combined with his not having listened before, added to Loki’s own exhaustion, made for a bad mix.

“I told you– if I leave this circle, I am punished. The circle is not large enough to lay in. The punishment is heat– more than I can bear, for as long as any part of me is outside of the circle.” He tried to make it sound like he was sneering, but he was well aware he missed the mark. 

He was exhausted, and he sounded it. His eyes were beginning to play tricks on him, shadows dancing in his vision and flashes of amorphous light intruding on the edge of his consciousness. 

“How long have you been like this?” The Captain was demanding, and Loki heaved a sigh. 

“There is no way to tell time, here. My guess would be approaching a week.”

Loki watched as the man took a deep breath in, exhaled roughly, and began to lift his right arm. 

Unlike his unfocused thrashing from before, this made actual progress. He was shaking with the effort, but was able to lift his wrist from the floor– enough at least to slip his hand free, moving faster than Loki would have thought possible. 

With one hand free, it was short work for him to rip his hood off, then free the other, and with both hands free, he was standing, and then– 

“Loki?”

Loki swallowed. “Hello Captain.” He said simply, watching the other man wearily even as alarms began to blare. The Captain stars back, then shook his head, took a few steps back, raised an arm in front of his face, and sent himself hurtling through the glass of his cell. 

“If you can get out, I think now’s the time.” The Captain said shortly, so Loki stood, wobbling on the way up. He took a deep breath of his own and reached for his power just as the door to the outside opened, and a group of ten or so guards came pouring into the room, fully armored, guns blazing. 

Loki threw a shield up in front of the captain, and watched as their bullets embedded themselves into his cell. 

Bulletproof, but not strong enough to hold a stronger than average human. 

Loki could work with that. 

He stepped out of the circle, feeling the heat immediately kick on, but he approached the wall of the cell with single minded determination, and smashed a fist into it. 

It cracked, but held, so he did it again, and again. The heat was already so much that he thought he might pass out. 

In a last ditch effort, he slammed himself against the splintered wall of glass, and despaired when it bowed only slightly outwards. He remained trapped. 

And then he felt the glass shattering inwards, as the Captain used the metal that had held him to the floor as a tool to claw his way through it. 

He reached in and pulled Loki free of the hot cell, laying him out on the cool concrete. 

“How long can you hold that wall up?” He asked, words spewing out in a hurry as the guards paced outside of Loki’s shield. 

Loki shook his head and kept his voice down. “Not long. I am not– not well.” As evidenced by his inability to simply break through glass. “I can push it out, though. Knock them over. It will give you time to run.” Loki gestured towards the open door that led to the outside. 

He had no hope of being any help beyond that, nor of keeping up with The Captain. But at least the cage was broken. Assumably they would have to find another way to hold him now. Maybe he would be able to sleep when they loaded him into one of the other cells. 

Loki turned his head to look back at the remaining four, and quailed inwardly. 

They were pacing, watching, their guns raised and at the ready. 

When they recovered, when the Captain made his move and fled, and the bullets made contact with Loki’s flesh, it was going to hurt. 

Maybe, with any luck, he would go unconscious and stay that way, at least long enough to regain some of the strength he was lacking in his current exhausted state. 

The Captain was shaking his head, but Loki had no time left for arguments. 

“Five seconds, Captain. Four. Three. Two–”

He released the shield, pushing it away from them as he did so that the energy pulsed outwards, taking the men by surprise just as he had hoped, and sending them toppling to the floor. 

After that, though, nothing went as he had thought it would. 

The Captain lunched forward, snatching up a weapon from the nearest man. Wise, Loki thought, even as he let his legs fall out from under him, crumpling into an ungraceful kneel. 

The Captain fired a series of shots- hands, shoulders– disabling shots, rather than killing blows. Honorable, albeit stupid.

And then the Captain took up another gun, and came back over to Loki. 

It was his turn to shake his head. “Go, I can’t, and I will slow you down. If you care as much as all that, bring your friends and come back for me.” 

He hoped there was still some of him left to come back for, but if nothing else, Thor would see to it he had a proper burial.

The Captain pushed the gun into Loki’s hand and pulled, draping Loki over both of his shoulders like some sort of cape, leaving Loki free to raise the gun and shoot at the men running through the door– the next wave of their captors intent on keeping them here. 

“We’re getting out of here, and all you have to do is more of that.” The captain said, raising his own weapon and firing as he strode purposefully forward. 

They focused next on the same human, and he fell as identical gunshots rang out in tandem.