~Act Well Your Part~

°2019°

"It's too risky. You remember what happened to that group last week, right?" Bucky argued.

"Yes, I do, but they went and stormed in. We can be discreet about it." Carson replied.

"How? Our faces are pretty recognizable, don't forget." Bucky gestured to Carson's lilac shaded hair.

"We can use wigs and shears. You have already started growing a beard; that hides most of your face."

"Because we can't afford another razor, remember?"

"I rather like the beard, thank you very much. We can probably sneak into the back of that old costume shop and find a few things to use. We'll be fine. Everyone else will be in costume anyways." Carson said.

Along with being evil magic alien overlords, Loki and Olivia considered themselves acclaimed playwrights. Investment in the live arts was something greatly valued in their eyes. It explained why high schools could suddenly afford to do larger productions and sports teams had to use old equipment. Of course, people couldn't put on productions of shows like Les Mis, but the "fun" stuff was still fair game. Shows about witches and talking plants were always in high demand.

Midtown High School had put together a lovely production of "The Secret Garden" that spring and were able to have full moving sets to swap between the manor and the garden itself. Live ivy vines coiled around the front of the stage and they even had a real robin.

The bird was part of the deal that Loki and Olivia could attend one of the showings as they sometimes did to high school shows. They claimed it was to get a feel for how the new generation fared in the spotlight. Though, most everyone knew that it was really just a way to get free entertainment and intimidate the humans. Rumors had gone around that during one west coast production of "Evita" that Loki and Olivia had attended, the girl playing the titular role had gotten so frightened that she forgot half of her lines.

She hadn't shown up at school after that.

But, as Bucky and Carson knew, their alien monarchs enjoyed writing their own plays. And finally, they had one all to themselves. It was a dramatization of Earth's conquer through the lense of Loki and Olivia themselves. They painted their victory as some great service and the now dissolved Avengers as opposing fiends. The play was only ever performed for its writers, which made it that much more fear inducing for the actors they had selected. A lot of people who were brought in to be a part of the play never came out.

It was the perfect way to sneak into the Palace undetected.

The Winter Soldiers planned on posing as actors to stage an assassination by way of poison. Re-engineered Iocane Powder courtesy of HYDRA in the wine, to be specific. Odorless, tasteless, extremely deadly. All Bucky and Carson had to do was sneak in, don costumes, and find a way to get to the wine. But, of course, they needed disguises to get into the Palace in the first place.

That's how two alien guards led Carson wearing a long, strawberry blonde wig and thick framed glasses, and Bucky with a beard and short hair, to the backstage area. It was quite the operation, actors scrambling around as tech people gathered their teams.

"So, who do we cover for?" Carson asked. Bucky looked around and spotted two actors conversing nervously with scripts in hand in the back corner. One was wearing a green morph suit type getup with slightly oversized purple basketball shorts wearing green facepaint. The other wore red Speedos over blue tights, coupled with a slightly too big blue shirt with a white star painted on the front, white and red stripes underneath.

"I... guess those two?" Bucky said. Carson looked to where Bucky was gesturing to and looked back at him.

"Are you sure? Being Steve?"

"We don't have much choice."

Bucky had Carson walk around casually while he threw a block of cut timber nearby the two actors. They looked up and went to see what the noise was. Unceremoniously, Carson and Bucky knocked them out and stole their costumes and scripts. The actors they just shoved into a nearby closet.

"How long until the play starts?" Carson asked.

"Ten minutes." A girl wearing black clothes and a headset replied. Carson nodded as he flipped through the Hulk script.

"Hulk and Banner are two separate parts, so after the final transformation back, I could probably sneak in to poison the wine." Carson whispered to Bucky, reading the highlighted lines. Luckily it wasn't that hard seeing as Hulk just gave a bunch of voluminous roars at periodic times with a few cases of throwing objects around.

"Seems like a good idea." Bucky said, shifting his pants around.

"Would you stop that?"

"The Speedos are too tight!"

"Well, suck it up! It is probably a bad idea to be shifting your junk around while on stage."

"Why do these costumes suck so bad? I thought this was Royally funded."

"It is. Look at the actors playing Their Majesties." Carson pointed to a man and a woman in near flawless costumes, also scanning their scripts. "They want to make themselves look good and the Avengers look bad."

"I'd rather these crappy things than have to do what they do." Bucky said, finally seeming to find a comfortable position. His gaze lingered on the woman playing Olivia. "Could have sworn I saw that woman on TV before."

"Emilia, Tom, three till go." A tech head said to the pair. They nodded and passed the tech head their scripts.

"Just keeping things in perspective for you." Carson replied to Bucky's sentiment before he glanced at Bucky's script. "Are your lines hard?"

"To memorize or bring myself to do?"

"Memorize. Look, I know playing your mind controlled best friend is hard, but we have to do this if we even want a chance at having the plan work."

Bucky sighed. "You're right. I suppose you have it easy. Just roaring. I have to say things like "I'm Steve Rogers, the embodiment of America and being a huge brown nose." If Their Majesties hadn't written it themselves, I would have assumed a five year old did."

"Well, the Queen is anything if not petty."

"Hey, Captain America, you're on soon!" A techie said to Bucky. The Winter Soldier looked at his script and saw a dialogue-less action where he had to mock-fight the Thor and Iron Man actors while the opening scene went on. Carson nodded for Bucky to go ahead.

The lights outside dimmed and a few sparse claps could be heard from outside the stage. The stage lights came up not long after. Bucky stood with the Thor and Iron Man actors on the stage itself, dominated by a wood platform with panels to make it look like a cliffside. Not knowing what else to do, he took the tiny plastic shield and tapped the Thor in the face. The three of them then bat their hands around each other while the spotlight shone on the top of the cliff. Carson gulped very audibly, though no one cared, too focused on the production to make sure nothing went wrong.

"Oh, my love, you're alive! How did you survive your fall into the abyss at the hands of Odin?" The Olivia actress said, her words a little stiff despite her best efforts.

"Only through my determination to get back to you, my darling. I have missed you greatly. How did you fair alone?" The Loki actor replied.

"It was horrible! I received no solace and no comfort. I just wallowed all day, hoping you would somehow return to me."

Jesus, what is this dialogue? It sounds like a high school rom-com with bad Shakespeare mixed in. Carson thought to himself, rolling his eyes.

"Well, now I have returned to you! Why, though, have you come here? I told no one of my whereabouts." The Loki actor continued.

"Odin sent Thor and I to stop you and bring you back home to Asgard."

"You are here on behalf of that old fool?"

"I don't want to-"

"You don't have to. Come with me, join me on my conquest. Together we can bring prosperity to Midgard and give the mortals' lives a greater purpose, a new meaning. Leave all thoughts of Asgard and your woes there behind to be my Queen."

"Oh, my love, of course I will. This will be our chance to be the rulers we were always meant to be, yet never could."

No hesitation... they really are just power hungry villains, aren't they? Carson thought as the scene wore on, eventually fading to black as the next scene took place. Bucky was still on stage, however only for the first part, the round table meeting with the other Avengers. Once the scene transitioned to the detention block and there was more crowing of SHIELD's stupidity and naivete, Bucky finally met Carson backstage.

"This dialogue is absolute garbage." Bucky groaned as he wiped his forehead to remove the extra sweat.

"I feel like I am watching a twelve year old's first time trying to write romance. They may say they are great playwrights, but they do not match their words." Carson agreed, fanning his face with his script.

"Well, whatever makes them happy, I guess."

"I wish I could just poison the wine now and get it over with so we do not have to listen to any more of this garbage."

"I do, too, but if we do it to early, we won't have time to get out without looking suspicious. You have to complete your role first."

"Fine."

Bucky was back on soon after for the accusations in the lab. Once again, he and the others were made out to look stupid while Olivia looked extremely clever at having fooled them all. It made Carson wonder how much of this had actually happened. Sure, SHIELD was largely at fault and were probably a little dumber than they should have been for a secret, yet advanced organization, but surely the Avengers weren't complete idiots. All Carson knew was that aside from the cheesy dialogue, all of Loki and Olivia's actions seemed accurate.

A false explosion rocked the stage, which was Carson's cue to start wrecking everything. He ran on stage under the bright lights and pushed around desks and threw objects made of wood and foam. He also got a good look at the audience for the first time. There wasn't a full auditorium, rather, just a long table covered with a red table cloth that Loki and Olivia sat at with a few servants and handmaidens on standby. Their Majesties seemed to be enjoying themselves, Olivia with a wry, almost cruel smile on her face and red on her cheeks. Loki whispered something into her ear, to which she laughed, her chest heaving. Once Carson had made his way across the stage having sufficiently "destroyed" the setting, he retreated backstage.

He only had to go on one more time after this, so he wasn't going to sneak off just yet.

The scenes seemed to drag on, the killing of a nameless agent, the escape from the hellicarrier, Loki meeting with Tony Stark in congruence with Olivia shutting the AI down, and the start of the battle. Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, was the first to fall. Carson recalled seeing Natasha in the audience a few feet to Olivia's right. Did she question her portrayal in this play?

Bucky's Steve was next to go. Natasha and a couple of extras playing aliens dragged him up to the platform acting as Stark Tower.

"By the might of my shield, you will not succeed!" Bucky declared. Carson rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. There was no way Steve would have ever said anything like that based on what Bucky had told Carson of his oldest friend. It was almost funny, really. Were the circumstances different, he probably would have laughed.

"Captain, you are here to fulfill a greater purpose, not serving just one country, but the whole world under our command." The Olivia actress said. The Loki actor then dramatically poked Bucky in the chest with the wooden likeness of the scepter the real Loki and Olivia wielded. Bucky fell dramatically before standing back up, giving a salute, then going off stage. His next task was to retrieve Carson as Hulk with the Natasha actress and even more people playing aliens.

Carson pretended to thrash around and roar before he, too, was "mind controlled." He fell to the ground only for the Banner actor to appear instead as Carson slid down the stairs of the Tower set. It gave the illusion of Banner turning back into himself after being controlled.

This was the time.

Carson left the stage and checked the halls looking for a serving girl of some kind. Luck was on his side, for he found a servant with a tray next to her. Two goblets and a bottle of wine decorated with silver flowers. The girl walked away for a moment to probably retrieve something else. Carson then pulled the stopper out of the bottle and dumped the entire sleeve of Iocane Powder he had into it. About a tablespoon's worth in all. He quickly replaced the stopper and fled back to the stage.

Luckily enough, there was a very long monologuing scene at the end of the play between Loki and Olivia. Carson walked in just as the UN had given the surrender order. Carson pulled Bucky aside so they could ditch the costumes and leave before being caught. They replaced the cruddy costumes onto the original actors, using a strong smelling liquid to rouse them awake.

Carson and Bucky then watched the ending of the play from the shadows, praying their plan would work. The curtain call began, starting with the extras, then the Avengers (including very confused Steve and Hulk actors, probably assuming they blacked out while performing and went on autopilot), then the two leads.

Loki and Olivia gave their applause as the serving girl brought their wine on the platter. She poured it into the two goblets before scurrying back. Carson and Bucky glanced at each other nervously.

"Wonderful performance, all of you. Probably the best we have had. We expect to see all of you again when called upon." Olivia said, raising her goblet in a toast. She and Loki started to tip them back, before Olivia stopped. She appeared to smell the wine for a moment, Loki wondering what she was doing before he would drink his. "Pod, would you taste this?"

A servant scurried forward and took Olivia's wine, afraid of questioning what she was doing. He took a sip of it, mulled it over... then promptly dropped dead to the floor, spilling the wine everywhere.

"Don't drink that!" Olivia shrieked, knocking the goblet out of Loki's hand. "Someone poisoned it with Giant's Breath! Bring that girl back in here!"

"'Giant's breath?'" Bucky asked.

"They probably have a similar poison with that name, now come on, we have to get out of here!" Carson hissed, the pair fleeing the stage and out of the Palace. Turning a few corners, they reached their little shack and hunkered down.

"I was uncomfortable for two hours in too small Speedos and it didn't even work!" Bucky practically whined. Carson groaned in frustration, yanking off the wig and tossing it aside. His natural hair was stuck in different directions, sweat covering his body.

"They could smell it?" Carson wondered aloud.

"We're humans and their Asgardians, maybe they have heightened senses." Bucky reasoned. Carson grabbed one of his pillows and screamed into it, pissed that the plan didn't work.

"What are we going to do now? That was our last good supply of poison."

"For now, lay low and find a way to research more native poisons. It's gotta work eventually."

Carson sighed again and sat down with a defeated thump.

"Well, one good thing came out of it; you should keep the beard and short hair. It's nice."

Bucky just flushed.

***

"How did a lowly mortal like you even acquire such a poison?" Olivia asked harshly, holding up the poor girl by her hair.

"I swear on my life I didn't do it!" She wept.

"If not you, then who did?" Loki asked.

"I turned away for a few seconds to grab a napkin, and I saw a figure dressed in green rushing away."

"In green? What shade of green?"

"Like the Hulk costume."

Olivia finally dropped the sobbing girl to the floor, looking at Loki with a deceptively calm look.

"Lena, did you see anything backstage?" Olivia asked the stage manager. "In regards to the Hulk actor?"

"I saw them conversing much with the Captain America actor, and I saw the Hulk actor run off after his last scene. I assumed it was for the restroom, but..." the stage manager, Lena, replied. That was answer enough.

"Get out of my sight, all of you... except you two." Loki said, snapping at the Hulk and Captain America actors, looking very confused. When it was just the two of them left, Olivia and Loki approached them, towering above the frightened actors. A dagger appeared in each of their hands with wicked grins on their faces.

"Such a shame, you both did so well tonight." Olivia said calmly.

Not a moment later, the two actors were dead on the floor, throats as open as their now permanently shocked mouths.