1963-11-17 - Professor Loki and the Director
Summary: Peggy Carter stalks Loki on campus after his uncomfortable revelation.
Related: Loki's coming out
Theme Song: None
peggy louis 


For Snoops, it'd been a long shot. He sat there in the lecture hall with his camera in hand, hidden underneath the folds of his coat that's set upon the table before him. Oh sure some of the press pool had thought it was tilting at windmills, especially with those bodies that washed up on the river that drew so many of his compatriots to the other story. But he had a feeling about this one. This Louis King fella hadn't been seen for the last few weeks, and then that whole craziness on Ed Sullivan. Doubtful he'd show up for this final lecture for the mid-term, but then again… he had a feeling.

He'd taken some steps to fit in with the crowd of people. A /lot/ of students were in the lecture hall, standing room only. The reporter's token effort at hiding himself was a Columbia University sweatshirt and a baseball hat. Yet the plethora of other students in there came from all walks of the campus. It's doubtful they were all enlisted in the class.

Yet the air was electric, there was a steady hum of conversation as the crowd of students talk about what happened last night. It had been strange seeing their professor flip out and become… something else. But still, chances are the guy won't show.

*

Not just students and reporters. Peggy Carter, after having cleaned up at the studio, went to the one place she knew he *might* be found, the campus. Everything she knows about people and psychology — but then, was he actually a person? — tells her that he'll show up. He wanted the attention, he LOVED the attention. He wasn't going to miss this chance at it. So, she's drug her rather pregnant, rather tired, entirely cranky frame up town to Columbia and is now waiting in the back corner.

Hell, at least someone was kind enough to see the fact the woman is expecting and give her a chair. She debated the importance of staying mobile, but then settled on comfort. It also let her blend into the crowd a little more, something about Peggy's own regal bearing tends to stand out even in the heaviest of crowds. So, she remains slumped down and watching through narrowed, dark eyes. Students and reporters mill about, waiting eagerly.

*

It's almost with a sphere of impregnable aplomb that Peggy is left alone. The students can recognize she is there, amongst them, yet not of them. No conversations are struck up, though occasionally she gets a glance aside. Snoops, for his part, misses her entirely.

But then the hour strikes, and exactly on time there is a flare of light that draws all eyes. The front of the lecture hall behind the podium glows for an instant, a flash brightening then retreating and leaving in its wake the image of Professor King, standing in his immaculate grey suit and adjusting his green tie with the sweep of one hand.

"Good morning."

For a moment there's a stunned silence… then it's broken by the click-flash-click-flash of a camera repeatedly shuttering as Snoops stands up and shouts, "Loki, Loki over here! Are you an alien invader? Do you have antennas, tentacles? Are your people from Mars!"

Only for Louis to point in the man's direction. First there's another flash as the camera disappears in the man's hands… and then the next second Snoops finds himself no longer in New York, and instead in a place that looks like… Fiji?

*

This is Columbia. The students are intelligent. Over all progressive. They aren't the ones rioting to kill people in the street, but trying to peacefully protest most of the killing. That doesn't mean that the way he appears doesn't scare them a little bit and, while the reporter is enough of an ass hole to speak up, the rest of the room falls into a bit of a stunned silence. Yes, he was their professor, but he was also so much more now. They stare hard at him. They wait for the attack they fear is coming, or worst. But it doesn't come.

Finally, a young woman in political science sticks her hand up, waiting for a nod. If she gets one, her voice rings loud and clear, if nervous, over the room. "…You…really think you're going to stop people from fighting mutants? How do you plan to? Kill them? Mess with their brains? Do you really think making them scared is going to make this better?"

In the back row, Peggy gives a slightly approving nod to the question. Maybe she wouldn't have to say anything at all. Maybe these bright young minds would do it for her.

*

As the silence had grown longer, Loki had been setting his briefcase upon the desk beside the podium, unlocking it with a click of the two clasps. From it he produces a manila folder and holds it up. "For those of you here, these are your mid-terms. Graded, for the most part." He looks at them curiously for a moment, his smile wry. Then he sets them down with a light thwap.

It's then that he gives a nod to the young woman. "Janet," He meets the young woman's eyes after she finishes her questions. "What is the one tenet that I told you that mankind has pursued in its existence? Self-interest."

He steps around the podium and settles down on the edge of the desk, resting his hip there and his hands upon his thighs. "You," He looks around, "All of you. No longer have the time to be able to split hairs, to decide who is more human than whom. The only criteria you should consider is 'Are these beings wishing to destroy my world?'"

*

"…Yes, we realize that, but there are a hell of a lot of people out there who *don't*. They're just gonna fight harder now, because they are scared. You scared them more, you know that?" You scare us. But Janet isn't QUITE ballsy enough to say that, even if she's speaking up for most of the class. Some of the fear comes out of her voice, line with a touch of anger and disbelief as well. She shakes her head slowly, "…Do you really think this is going to help? Are you threatening them? That's what people said this morning. Your people are going to try to burn down the world… Enslave us all… or worse. That's what they're saying!"

*

"Well yes," Louis stands there and flips open the manila folder, lightly spreading the papers for the eventual moment when the students might consider wandering up and taking them. "They should be scared, terrified."

Louis' smile is something that seems out of place on the professor's face, as if for once he was being direct with them and no longer hiding behind the mask of such a kind English fellow. "I imagine that for some they'll be swayed somewhat, some will be moved closer to consideration, others will be pushed further into their own beliefs no matter the state of the world. Such is humanity."

Then he lightly waves a hand to the side, "You will not realize the danger until lives are lost. So many lives most likely. Then minds will be further changed and perhaps some form of unified effort will come about. But until then…"

He lightly slaps his hand upon the folder, "Come get your mid-terms."

*

That unsettling comment, how little he cares about lives being lost, sends the room quiet again. The students are smart enough not to be dumb and excited like the reporter. They are disquieted. He is, by far, not the professor he knew. Janet is, of course, the first one to stand up. She marches down the lecture hall stairs and goes to get her midterm, a grim set to her jaw. She stares back up at him, "..You're supposed to be protecting and guiding people. You were a teacher. Now… more will die because… you wanted to show off. I hope you're happy. *Professor*." Oh, angry young woman. She will end up on the protest lines, no doubt. But who knows which side. She grabs her paper and moves to storm out the door.

Slowly, other students begin to get up and do the same. There are a few murmured questions about how bad it might get, but no one pushes it the way Janet did. People are scared and tired. Most are moving to leave now. They just wanted to see if he would come. Peggy, however, she remains. In the back, sitting, watching. She'll wait until the end.

*

It's only when the door closes behind the last of the students, when it's just Loki and Peggy left there in the room that he offers with a smile. "In the long run, more lives will be saved. But then again, I do tend to take the long view of things."

He slips off the table and casually reclaims the manila folder, closing it as he tosses it into his open briefcase. "Pity they didn't ask me what they could do to prepare. I had this whole line of thought prepared. About how the best thing they could do is to make more humans, have babies, procreate." He glances over his shoulder at Peggy. "It's good to see you are of like mind."

*

"I assure you that my current state has very little to do with the long view of things. And you have a very…simplistic view of our race, if you think that was your only two options." Peggy's voice is cold as ice. She isn't generally an angry woman, but she is angry now. If there is any fear in her, she certainly doesn't show it. She calmly unfolds from her position in the seat, still cutting a sharp figure in her generously let out suit and heels. She still looks like a woman who could kill someone with her right ring finger alone. She makes her way quietly down the aisle.

"…I realize the futility in arresting you, considering I suspect you could just get out of any bonds or cage in which we put you. But you have made an already bad situation infinitely worse. You do realize that? Or are you too bloody arrogant to actually *care*?"

*

"Perhaps worse in the short term, but again… long view." He seems to smile pleasantly as he lightly closes the suitcase, the clasps clicking into place. He brings it up and takes it in hand, stepping back around the desk to tell her, "Walk with me if you would, Ms. Carter."

It's towards the door that he goes, resting a hand on the door knob and pulling it open. Over his shoulder he tells her as he steps back and then faces her, holding the door open for her to precede him. "I understand I made your job harder. I understand that the central tenet of your role entirely is control. But that's all an illusion. You have no control, you are rushing around with a bucket trying to extinguish a volcano. It is an act of futility. But you still must do what you can, save what lives you can. Yet your point of view is down there amongst the bucket brigade, worrying about saving this luxurious home you have built around yourself."

The door closes as he steps out into the hallway, should she walk with him of course. "For me, I must consider the entire volcano, and hopefully keep it from exploding and exterminating all of you so precious mortals."

*

A quiet breath from Peggy, a brush of annoyance as he says for her to walk with him. She is a control freak and yes, this is a situation where she is NOT IN CONTROL. It's annoying that way. Beyond annoying. And nothing she could do can actually threaten a man with those powers. So, bristling about it, she falls into line next to him, walking smooth and quietly. She might be several months along this rather unlikely pregnancy, but she's not gotten to the waddling stage yet. Peggy Carter *doesn't* waddle.

She listens to those words, slipping through the door and walking along side as they head across the campus. "…My worry is not any bloody luxurious home, *Loki*. My worry is about the mutant kid down in the Village who now is going to get murdered faster, or worse, than he was before because those protesting this mess have been kicked into a fire. You just shook an already unhappy hornets nest. With all the power you have in your hands… All the ages you may have seen… You could not see another way to do this without expending lives. You should be smarter than that and you *are not*. You are foolish and arrogant as humans. But you see us like precious ants you are guarding and don't care if you collapse half the colony to save the others."

*

"Oh come now," Loki smiles to a co-worker that walks past nervously, and once she's past the strolling couple she breaks into a run to get away. "I can come forward with anecdotal incidents as easily as you. What of the man whose son is a mutant, who realizes now that in this time of such danger and chaos that he must hold onto what he knows and loves?"

Loki looks sidelong at her as he strolls down the hallway, "I am saying to you I am not ignorant of the possible negative aspects, but if you are ignorant of the series of events that will come forth due to this acceleration then you really do not deserve to sit in that chair in that office of yours."

*

The woman swings around, standing just in front of him, forcing him to STOP walking or run into her. Peggy stands her ground either way. If Loki expects people to be scared of him, well, she is not one of those people. She's spent her entire life standing up to things that could kill her in a blink, this is no different. Her dark eyes are icy cold, not giving a single inch of approval as to what he's done.

"No. I am not *stupid* that yes, maybe a few good things would come of what you did. In truth? I doubt it will be near so good as bad. I could run a long term study but I've got a hell of a lot of better things to be doing that involve mostly cleaning up your bloody mess. What I do know, from that 'chair' of mine, is that if you were actually better, smarter, more capable than humanity? You would have figured a better way of doing this. But no, you are just an arrogant child, like so many of our own. You wanted the spotlight and the attention so you paraded out there regardless of trying to find a better way. Regardless of warning any allies you may have. You cared for naught by having the world's eyes on you and seeing the chaos that comes from it." Did she KNOW his lexicon? Or was she just that good at reading people? Possibly both.

*

"Oh I will not pretend I did not enjoy it, I did." Loki smiles as he gestures with one hand to the side, as if casually brushing her words out of the way. "The eyes of the world, finally being out in plain sight after so many years of hiding. Being able to look at your smug self-centered ignorant culture that has all the self-awareness of a potato and tell you to get your heads out of your asses."

He spreads his hands wide, still holding the briefcase in one of them as he looks upwards. "It was lovely that it dovetailed with what needed to be done, and allows for things to come about now that must occur." He then lightly steps to the side with almost a pirouette as he walks around her.

"By the bye, your news agencies will most likely track down the information to find our embassy in the Upper West Side. An announcement will follow that it shall serve as our point of contact with your people. Perhaps you can act swiftly and control what may occur from that."

*

The director's eyes flare with anger, her temper shorter than ever these days. "Do NOT lie to yourself that this NEEDED to be done. This was nothing but to feed your ego and people will now die for it. That blood is on you." Peggy Carter hisses, shaking her head. But then he's stepping to the side to walk around her and she makes a move which could be entirely insulting to most people, if it finishes. She reaches for the outer edge of his ear like a naughty school boy, intending on hooking him and grabbing him back, "I am NOT finished speaking to you!" She hisses as she grabs.

*

And as soon as she touches him he rounds on her and there is a wild blaze in his eyes, eyes that positively glow. His hand reaches and grasps her around the throat and suddenly she's /lifted/ into the air effortlessly as he _growls_ "Do not _forget_ yourself, mortal."

His hand tightens and there's a rush of air as suddenly she's slammed into the wall hard enough to cause her breath to escape her, pushed from lungs with the impact. "Just because you hold a mewling squirming parasite in your belly grants you nothing in my eyes."

He looks down, and when he looks up his teeth are pointed and his smile is entirely too wide as he snarls, "The only thing offensive here is your presumption. You call me arrogant yet you pretend to manhandle a god."

Leaning closer he whispers into her ear, "If you survive what is to come. If you and your people manage to exist in some form after the otherworlds and their armies set foot upon your land. You will come to me. You will wish to apologize for your words, your manner. I am telling you now. Do not do so. For I will not remember you. That is how important you are."

And with that, perhaps as the world starts to turn black and fade, only then is when he releases her to drop her to the ground.

*

He might have the upper hand — literally — and strength far beyond her, but Peggy is never one to go down fighting. Even as he chokes her already bruised throat, a throat that will now have fresh green and yellow marks when he's done, she fights. She struggles. This woman is violent and angry. Her high heeled foot moves to kick at his stomach and then at more tender parts. She tries to find the back of his knee with her toes so she can bring him down, but he's like a rock in compare. The woman barely seems to be listening to his words, trying to figure a way out before the whole world goes dark. But then those spots start coming. Her fight slackens, just a little bit.

Then she's dropped to the ground and she's coughing, rolling over onto her side as she violently fights for breath and to get herself back. "…this…is not over…" She rasps out.

*

"I'm afraid it really is, Ms. Carter." And with that, perhaps before she can fully refocus and look upon him… there is that blinding flash of light and abruptly she's alone in the hallway of that faculty building.

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