A/N: I revised this chapter and the next. I want to note that this was originally supposed to occur after The Avengers prior to the film coming out. So I've tweaked it to work with the ending of the film (and if you haven't seen it, I don't believe I'm ruining anything for you and don't plan to). And I just tweaked it in general because I wanted to fix my writing.
So, here's a newly-revised chapter one.
He would never understand Midgardians. Their obsessions with technology, this…thing with a book of faces and a site for tumbling. Whatever happened to their books? He did not see a single piece of a paper in binding. Only in folders that might as well have been made into books for their sheer thickness.
The lack of literature on the base was frustrating. He had been allowed to peruse the internet and buy books that interested him; the book he truly wanted were in Asgard but these would do. He could find other copies of magic tomes if he knew where to look.
Loki did enjoy the coffee, though. He would give them that. Flavored, regular, different beans creating a different scent and taste in subtle ways. He had learned that too much coffee was a bad thing. How much he could have had been limited to two cups a day and a ban from being anywhere near Banner's lab.
He was stuck at S.H.I.E.L.D until further notice. His punishment from Odin was that he spend time with his brother and learn of Midgard, stripped of most of his magic, not all of it. He had wanted power over them, considered them lower beings; what better way than to have him live amongst them and be forced to be in the presence of his so-called brother. There was hope Loki would learn and begin the process towards reformation. Asgard would do him little good, they both thought.
Some days he wished Allfather had simply exiled him to Jotenheim.
Despite the brothers being together, they didn't see much of each other. Loki was kept at the base; used for planning and opinions, but not much else. He avoided The Avengers as much as possible outside of Fury's meetings. For the sake of his already-thin patience and the fact that he was sure all of them wanted to beat him to a pulp.
He'd already faced the strength of that…Hulk. He'd greatly like to never have that happen again.
A part of him missed Asgard considerably. But that was a possibility far beyond his reach at the present moment.
It became an unwritten rule to not bother Loki unless necessary. He was rarely ever happy-he was sarcastic, caustic to most. Most figured if they left him alone, everyone would be better off. To say he wished for a companion sometimes was a bit of a stretch, but sometimes he felt like it wouldn't be so bad to have someone to talk to, who wasn't afraid of him.
His actions in New York had wrecked whatever chances he had of that happening.
Loki had untapped power. Magic was something Midgardians had always feared (although they seemed to love the idea of these Harry Potter books and movies. Wands. Oh, please).
He didn't bother them, they didn't bother him.
With the exception of one Miss Darcy Lewis.
Loki had opened the door to find her standing there, holding a toy. A toy cat, to be precise. What in the world was a grown woman doing with a children's plush toy? He raised an eyebrow, eyes narrowing. Was this some weird Midgardian joke?
"Can I help you, Lady Darcy?"
He did not mean that to be an invitation for her to step into the quarters S.H.I.E.L.D had given him. She stared in awe at the shelves of books, and the sleek computer monitor on a desk, a flat-screen television mounted on the wall, the screen black. A pile of DVDs that he had found to be interesting were piled on the floor near a DVD player.
"You can still do magic here, right?" She wasn't looking at him, but ducking her head to read the movie titles.
"A little. Not terribly much, of course. Why?"
"I need a gift for my little sister's birthday. I was thinking that, maybe, you could animate it." She shook the toy cat for emphasis, "Like, when she snaps her fingers or something, it'd come to life, and then she snaps again and it's just a toy cat…"
Loki just looked at Darcy, and then back at the little toy she was holding out.
"And I get what by doing this?" He asked.
"The knowledge that you did something out of the goodness of your heart?"
Loki's deadpan expression refused to budge.
"I'll bring you back bags of Starbucks coffee, since you liked it so much the last time."
"Coffee for an animation spell?"
"That's all I can afford. I'm a college student; I'm broke as a joke. You like coffee, I need a cool present for my sister."
When had the mortal gotten so good at negotiating?
He sighed, and took the stuffed cat from her, looking at the glassy blue eyes. "Fine. I'll see what I can do."
Loki didn't have much to work with when it came to ingredients. An animated spell would have been simple in Asgard or Jotunheim (that was a different matter, of course), simply because there was always an essence of magic surrounding him.
Here, in Midgard, it was different. There was no magic around him. He felt it in his veins, he knew it was there. But it was difficult to access if he hadn't done it in a while.
Another reason he hated Midgard. He felt so mortal it sickened him.
He sat on the floor of his quarters, the metal surprisingly warm (then again, pipes ran under it, giving off heat from the steam, the ever-present electrical current running through the wires to support the base of operations). He rolled the chalk in his fingers as he remembered the markings, drawing a circle and strange symbols that made sense to only him.
He had nabbed three things to symbolize what he was giving to the inanimate object. Sugar for…sweet and adorable (it was for a little girl, after all). He'd found a bit of red fabric, and created a heart stuffed with the petals from a violet, for love and fidelity. He created a make-shift collar as well, and placed it in the circle for obedience.
He sat, and concentrated on the idea of giving life to the stuffed animal. He pictured it moving, acting like a real cat would. The sound of a single snap of the fingers, it obeyed and fell back to its façade.
Loki could feel it working, he was sure. Magic ran through his veins, out of his hands, working on the objects in the circle.
The power flickered. Magic and technology never mixed well, and with this scale of servers and computers and mere cell phones…interference was likely, to say the least.
Loki didn't even notice that it had entirely backfired until it was too late.
When he opened his green eyes, the first thing he realized was that everything was far too big. That stuffed cat was huge, but the objects were on it; that much had gone right.
He looked up. He usually almost hit his head on that light. And now it was a good six and something feet above him.
He looked down and jumped. Paws. He had paws. What? He furrowed his brow, and moved…ears. He could move his ears. He turned his head around as far as he could. He had fur. He had a tail.
Well, this was unexpected.
First things first. He had to get out of this room. Damn his Asgardian pride. He could not be seen like this. But he could not reverse the spell; it would take more magic than he presently had to do that. He needed help, as much as it pained him to admit it.
Things went downhill from there. Doors at S.H.I.E.L.D were meant to be opened by a handprint and an eye scan. It also read for a pulse, so dead bodies with clearance couldn't be used. He could not open door leading out of the small room that was considered his bedroom.
Luckily, someone had decided to bug him, and opened his door. Some stupid agent, he assumed, he didn't get a good look. Black trousers were all he noticed as he darted down the hall as fast as little kitten legs could carry him.
Damn, this place was huge.
Maybe…no. Not Thor. Thor was useless. Thor couldn't undo the spell. Thor wouldn't even recognize him.
There was shouting.
"What was that?"
"Did someone bring a cat in here?"
"Get it, we can't have animals here!"
Fantastic. Now he'd have to outrun most of the stupid agents that hated him for being a freeloader.
Tiny legs. Stupid tiny legs. Faster.
He urged himself onward, taking corners at speeds that had the humans skidding to make the turn after him.
He was tired. His pathetically tiny heart was beating rapidly. He looked behind him; no one, but he could hear them. They were close.
He ran into a leg, face first. Breathing fast, he rubbed his face with a paw. What stupid human put that there?
He felt hands scoop him up. Soft. Warm. Decidedly feminine. He looked up at her face. Brown eyes, auburn hair. She was wearing a tee shirt. She must have been going off-duty, because he was soon placed into a small back-pack with clothes that needed a good washing.
Why are mortals so disgusting? These clothes smell vile! And I've smelled quite a few vile things in my centuries…
He heard a conversation, and a voice he knew very well. Coulson.
"Agent Harris, you're leaving early?"
"I pulled two days straight. I'm entitled to a day free of duty." She was nervous, Loki could hear it in her voice. "Besides, I have to see my son sometime."
Oh, yes, that nervous little laugh. A tell-tale sign if Coulson had worked with her for a few years. He'd know if she was hiding something.
Surely Loki could still overpower her a bit? Urge her to be a bit more confident in her words.
"You haven't seen a little black kitten, have you? Came from that direction?" Loki stuck his head out of the bag, just a bit, working within her curtain of hair to see Coulson pointing in the direction of Loki's room.
He closed his eyes and thought, urging her to stop being so worried and just spill out the words in her mind.
"No, I haven't. I'll keep an eye out though." She added an involuntary smile, baffled as to where that came from.
Coulson narrowed his eyes. He could have sworn there was a black ball of fur at her shoulder. Huh. He nodded to her, and strode off in the direction he had been heading in earlier.
The woman let out a breath she wasn't aware she had been holding. Loki hopped off of her shoulder. He had lowered his back legs, pulled a front paw to his chest and bowed his head, as gracefully as he could. It was an attempt at a bow to thank her for hiding him. He may have found human irritating, but he could at least be polite. As he sauntered off, he was picked up by his scruff and was staring into brown eyes again.
"Oh, no you don't. You're going to walk right into trouble." He finally saw what she had been talking about, having pulled two days of work in a row; her eyes were lined with a light shadow. Didn't suit her, Loki thought. "I get the feeling they don't have a nice place to put you, you little fluff-ball."
Loki glared at her. Call me a fluff-ball again. I dare you.
She sighed. She understood why finding a loose animal was a problem (to her knowledge, there were no animal testing sights in the base, but she could be very wrong. She was hardly ever in the science labs). If a small animal could get in, who knew what else could? Health problems, etc.
But it was just a grumpy kitten. With the exception of the glare it was giving her at being picked up in such a fashion, she saw no danger. It was not clawing at her or biting her.
Loki had not attempted to hurt her for two reasons: she had just hid him from Coulson and she may prove to be useful to get out of the base.
The woman slid her backpack down her arms and placed it on the floor. Opening up the smaller pocket, she placed the kitten inside and left the zipper open enough for there to be air.
He tried rationalizing her thought-process. If she was taking him away, there went the threat of being caught and potentially skinned alive or whatever it was they did to animals on the S.H.I.E.L.D base. He wasn't in the mood to die (although he questioned as to whether he could by their methods). But he did not want to be a house-pet.
The God of Mischief, a house-pet! The idea was absurd.
But he didn't know how to undo whatever the hell happened to him. Not yet, anyway. He was nearly drained of magic and he had to figure out why it went wrong. He needed to study and he needed time and resources.
He sunk down into the pack as he felt it being picked up and placed onto her shoulder. Curled up into a little ball, he was just happy she hadn't thrown him back into her smelly work-out clothes.