Dinner ended quickly. Everyone went off to find activities that interested them. It was not a particularly stressful social setting, because people were allowed to sit where they were and do nothing, simply drinking juice and staring blankly at the sunset.
Schiller was one of them. He had no interest in poker or board games, nor in swimming or surfing, let alone fishing or beach volleyball. So he sat there, drinking juice and watching the sun gradually sink toward the horizon.
Surprisingly, Stark had not joined any of the activities either. Like a novel-addicted middle schooler, he kept flipping through the material Natasha had sent him, which read more like a novel than a dossier. His expressions were wonderfully vivid, and every so often, he glanced up to study Strange and Loki.
Then he realized Schiller was sitting beside him, and he urgently wanted to share his delight with him. He turned, leaned closer, raised an eyebrow, and said, "You knew from the start that he'd gone too far, didn't you?"
Schiller knew Stark was referring to Loki. He had indeed known, but this incident quickly made him realize there were other problems.
Thor's attitude toward Loki was a joint creation of the two brothers. Thor's favoritism might have stemmed from blood ties, but Loki's enticement had undoubtedly pushed that emotion to an extreme.
He had been employing a method Schiller knew well: becoming a hostage, then cultivating a kidnapper. During the years before Schiller met Loki, Loki had been doing exactly that, and with great success. He had firmly seized more than half of Thor's attention.
Actually, Greed was not the one most familiar with this method. He had merely heard of it, because one of his younger personality traits was always talking about it and practicing it personally,