A.N.: So this came to me when I was re-watching The Blind Banker... It just made me think of Loki...

Warning: Reference to violence

Disclaimer: Don't own Avengers (nor the lines from Avengers Assemble or Sherlock)

It hadn't taken him long to form his conclusion. Really, he had known it before the base had collapsed – had known it from the moment that Barton had shot Fury.

There was no way that Loki would win; and it wasn't because if his army won and the Earth was taken over, then the planet would be avenged and the god would be defeated anyway. No; it was because it was clear, from the very beginning, that he didn't have the heart.

His first clue was when he had ordered the possessed Barton to kill his (currently former) boss. It was clear from that moment that one of two things was true. Either, the sceptre that Loki wielded wasn't as powerful as he claimed, which didn't seem likely, seeing as it had managed to take over the minds of some of the strongest S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that the intelligence organisation had under their employ; or, the mind control wasn't complete: it was done half-heartedly, so that those under control had some sense of themselves and could bend orders to their own wishes.

After all, Barton would have known that Fury wore a Kevlar vest, and that a single shot to the chest from so far away wouldn't have killed him.

If he had really, truly, been under Loki's control, he would have shot the Director in the head.

Then, there was Germany. Sure, people had died, but never by Loki's hand; he had always left that to Barton and his arrows. The god himself had only – admittedly disgustingly – taken someone's eyeball, and subjugated an entire crowd onto bended knee; but he had always made sure that anyone he hurt didn't actually die.

The man now sans eyeball had to wear an eye-patch, and the two men in the police car that had been flipped over were in hospital (though were expected to make a full recovery), and when Captain American and Iron Man had shown up, the proceedings had almost had the feel that Loki was stalling for time, waiting for the crowd to disperse before any shots were fired and they could all get away safely.

And now – now that he was on the Helicarrier and a battle was ensuing – the god had stayed behind to simply watch: the man who had killed a group of agents before even saying a single word after he had first arrived on Earth was intentionally staying out of the way so that he wouldn't have to use an ounce of violence. At first, he had thought that it was because Loki wouldn't want to risk being hurt in a potential one-on-one combat situation; but then, when he locked his brother away and dropped him 30,000 feet towards whatever lay below the Helicarrier, his opinion had changed.

It wasn't that he didn't want to hurt himself; not physically, anyway.

It was because he didn't want any more blood on his hands.

Loki himself generally stayed out of the killing, leaving others to do it for him unless it was absolutely necessary. So when it was – in Thor's case, for instance – he did it in such a way that all he had to do was press a button and let machinery do the rest. He wouldn't have to stick a sword in someone and watch the life drain from their eyes, to see that it was in fact him – and absolutely no one else – who had killed that person, who had ripped the life from their body and ceased their existence in this universe.

It was why he was trying to leave now, and why – with the little strength that he had left – he had to tell him; he had to make him hear it.

"You're gonna lose."

"Am I?"

"It's in your nature."

"Your heroes are scattered; your floating fortress falls from the sky. Where is my disadvantage?"

"You lack conviction."

After all, what does it tell you when an assassin cannot shoot straight?

It tells you that they're not really trying.