PART II: Balm for the Weary

Outside his room of obsidian, all of Loki's old powers are returned to him. He is a sorcerer and shapeshifter, the God of Lies and Mischief once more. He cloaks himself in shadow and steps between realms, as easily as another might walk into a different room.

Midgard is different than he remembers it. Or perhaps he is different. The humans do not seem so small, so insignificant now. After all, if they can produce the likes of Tony Stark, Natasha, and Pepper, what other jewels might be hidden amongst the rough?

His first task will be to locate Queen Pepper, wherever she might have gone. But to accomplish this, he will need to know more about Midgard. He hails one of the bright yellow automated carriages that roam the streets of New York, and asks to be taken to a place where he might find lodging.

It is when he has given enough gold to the keeper of an enormous inn (called the Four Seasons, though Loki can detect no enchantment that merits the name; otherwise, he would request a room surrounded by winter) to be shown to the largest suite on the top floor, that he discovers television.

It is there that his education begins.

-l-

Years of watching Tony has taught Loki that his high priest loves beautiful women (and Loki's female form is beautiful, very beautiful, everyone (Frigga) says so). After some thought, Loki concludes that Queen Pepper and Natasha will be more likely to befriend him as a woman as well.

He stands before the large mirror in his bathing chamber until He has become She.

But this form is too well known to Thor to fool him, so Loki makes herself shorter, her lips plumper. She changes the color of her eyes from emerald green to olive, and darkens her complexion until she looks like a Midgardian of Latin blood. Thinking of Tony, she makes her breast a little fuller. Her hair stays raven black, but she lengthens it to cascade over her shoulders. Observing herself in the mirror, she is satisfied that she will seem a stranger to Thor, and be pleasing to Tony's eyes.

She paints her face as she has seen Natasha do, and summons clothes that resemble Pepper's. If she is to be a Midgardian, she will dress as a queen.

A marathon of Sex and the City helps her to learn the social customs attached to being an earth woman.

-l-

She names herself Lori Silverton, and uses magic to create a history for herself. She is an orphan with no family who made her way in the world by cleverness and sheer force of will. She took ballet as a child, and has one degree in business and another in political science. For the sake of not being too good to be believed, she got pregnant as a teenager and gave up her child in a closed adoption. (Fenrir, Hel, Nari, how fare you all now that you claim your father no more?)

Once she has read all of the magazines that presume to know why Pepper left Tony, she arms herself with a briefcase and tailored (black) suit dress, and goes to see Pepper in her office, the throne room of Stark Empire.

Pepper is as beautiful and poised as she ever was, with ginger hair and red lips and a strand of pearls at her throat. She smiles when Loki is shown in, her face the polite mask of a benign ruler, but Loki has watched her too long to be fooled. She can see the lines around Pepper's eyes, the strain that stiffens her spine.

"I am Lori Silverton," Loki says, stretching her hand out to Pepper in greeting, "and I am here to become Tony Stark's new personal assistant."

Pepper blinks, giving Loki a puzzled expression even as she takes Loki's hand. Her grip is firm, her skin soft. "I'm sorry, Ms. Silverton. I've tried to send four new assistants over since Tony and I…" She presses her lips together in a thin white line, her brow creasing. "Tony won't let anyone in to see him. I've stopped trying."

"I will get in," Loki says confidently. She will not be kept from those she considers hers.

Pepper's eyebrows draw down, suspicion sharpening her features. "Ms. Silverton, I appreciate your confidence, but – "

"I think," Loki interrupts, "that you will find me just as highly skilled as a friend of mine who once held the post. A Ms. Natalie Rushman?"

Pepper stills. "You know Natalie?"

Loki smiles. "Very well. She can be quite a fury, can't she? And you can be assured, Ms. Potts, that if you hire me I shall do my best to shield Tony just as well as Natalie did." She puts a finger to her lips, and winks at Pepper.

Pepper smiles back. "One week, Ms. Silverton. You have a week to prove you can handle the job."

-l-

The newly christened Avengers Tower is as familiar to Loki as her own home in Asgard. (Home no longer. Was it ever home?) She finds her way to the levels where the Avengers live easily, and calmly asks Jarvis to summon them all to their central living area. Tony will not show of course. Tony is busy destroying more things in his workshop.

The Man of Hawk Eyes arrives first, looking just as Loki remembers, all lean muscle and cold looks. Loki smiles at him and skims the surface of his thoughts. It is easier to do so with a mind that she once held intimately in her hands.

Clint is aroused by Loki's breasts, and wants to know what she's doing here. He's watching her for signs of being an enemy agent. He doesn't recall ever seeing her around S.H.I.E.L.D.

Thor arrives next, the great blundering blond lummox, and Loki holds her breath, waiting for him to recognize her. But Thor merely bows over Loki's outstretched hand, his red cape fluttering around them, and presses a kiss to her knuckles. "If the esteemed Lady Pepper thinks you equal to the task, then our Man of Iron shall be himself again soon and once more join us on the field of battle!"

Loki nearly collapses in relief, though not a flicker of it shows on her face.

And then there is Natasha, Loki's wolfling. "Agent Romanov," Loki says, her palm burning with the feel of Natasha's hand against her own. (Hair like blood, skin like snow, wolf eyes that see all.)"You have no idea how I have looked forward to this moment."

Natasha raises one eyebrow. "Oh?"

Loki raises one in return. "I believe the phrase is, 'I am your number one fan.'"

Natasha is saved from having to answer by the entrance of Dr. Banner and Captain Steve Rogers. Dr. Banner is a quiet, unassuming man. One would never guess by his nervous gestures and unruly dark curls that he holds the Hulk inside. On the other hand, Steve Rogers cannot be anyone but Captain America. He wears his good intentions and righteous morality on his face, as plain as any stars and stripes. What a pity that one so handsome should be so good.

"I am Lori Silverton," Loki introduces herself to them all. "Tony Stark's new personal assistant. I desire that you aid me in my campaign to prevent his self-destruction."

"Whatever you need," Captain America promises. "None of us have been able to get through to him. Here's hoping you can."

-l-

When Jarvis, Tony's invisible computer servant, regretfully informs Loki that he cannot open Tony's workshop to her, Loki simply uses magic to circumvent the door.

Tony is thin, and looks as if he hasn't slept. His skin has taken on a greyish pallor, his dark hair sticks up every which way, and his eyes are wild. He is not a young man by Midgardian standards, but this is the first time Loki has thought he looks old. Perhaps others would look on and scoff, would see a man so pathetic that he cannot carry on after a lover has left him, but Loki sees only herself. It is a hard thing, to lose the only real love one has ever known. (Not good enough, never. Always, always lacking in some way.)

Loki sits by Tony, and waits for him to notice her. He is currently focused on one of the gloves of the Iron Man armor, adjusting it with a magnifying glass strapped over one eye, and an impossibly tiny tool in his hand.

Loki finds him beautiful.

It takes some long minutes, but Loki is content to wait. Finally, Tony moves to reach for another tool, and registers that there is someone sitting on his workbench with him. He starts.

"Who the hell are you? What are you doing here? How'd you get by JARVIS? JARVIS! You traitor!" He directs those last remarks to the ceiling.

Loki leans toward Tony, knowing that doing so will draw attention to her breasts as the neck of her blouse slides down. She is gratified when Tony's eyes roam over her skin. "In order, I am Lori Silverton. I am here to serve you in whatever way you require, as I am your new personal assistant, and as to how I got by JARVIS… I will make you a deal."

Tony's face assumes the calculating expression Loki loves so well. "What deal?" he asks.

"If you go take a bath, eat a large meal, and retire to your room to sleep for at least six hours, I will tell you how I got by JARVIS when you wake."

For a moment, she thinks it will not work. But then Tony sways and says, "Deal."

He wanders vaguely in the direction of the washroom attached to the shop. Loki gets up and guides him by the elbow, drawing his bath and starting to pull at his clothes. Tony bats her hands away, removing his shirt himself and throwing it to the floor. Loki's mouth goes dry at the sight of Tony's mechanical heart – no, arc reactor. That is what it is called. "Staying to watch the show?" he asks her with a leer.

Loki smolders at him, making her voice as smooth and smoky as Tony's favorite scotch. "If you like."

Tony swallows. "That will be all, Miss Silverton."

Disappointed, Loki leaves.

-l-

JARVIS alerts Loki as soon as Tony wakes, and it is only moments before he blows into the kitchen to interrogate her as to how she managed to enter his workshop.

Congratulating herself on her strategy, Loki opens the oven door and uses her body to block Tony's view of her conjuring him a plate of eggs and bacon. She sets it and a glass of orange juice in front of him.

Tony starts to eat without a second thought, even as he glares at her.

"I've checked all the logs, and run the code on the system. A breach was never recorded, there are no blips, no radiation or electromagnetic pulses, I don't understand how – "

"Magic," Loki shocks herself by saying.

No, no, no. This was not the plan at all. She is to befriend her favored mortals, guide them as she once sought to guide Thor, never letting on her true nature. She will see Queen Pepper and Tony reunited, and persuade Natasha to treat her as a sister. She will make a place for herself, here, on Midgard, and she cannot do that if they know what she is.

"Magic," Tony repeats flatly.

More truths come flowing from Loki's lips, and she cannot even pretend that she does not wish to speak them.

"You are a difficult man to serve, Tony Stark. It is only proper that your servants be more than human. Isn't that right, JARVIS?"

"Of course, Ms. Silverton," JARVIS says, even as she thinks, Less than human.

She does not mean the computer.

She waits for rejection. For the ridicule that has ever been her lot in life. She waits for Tony Stark to tell her to leave, and wonders if she'll obey when the order comes, or if she'll throw him from the roof and burn his tower to the ground. (Either is possible.)

He touches her arm, drawing his thumb over her skin.

She shivers.

"More than human, huh? Does that mean you're from Asgard?"

His breakfast lies forgotten now, and he is watching Loki like a mongoose does a viper. And yet there is an edge of excitement to his caution, a spark in his eyes that speaks of chaos and his love of it. Curiosity.

I am Loki Liesmith's, Tony Stark's eyes say.

"I am not of Midgard, but neither is Asgard my home," Loki answers.

"Hmm." Stark leans back, looking Loki up and down. He takes his hand away, and Loki must force herself not to snatch it back, place it once more on her skin.

"I hail from a place of snow and ice, and carry the power of the Queen of Air and Darkness."

Loki slew Mab in a duel of sorcery some six hundred years ago, taking her former teacher's magic as a prize. But few ever knew the reclusive Queen of the Ice Elves, and so few notice her absence. It is simple enough for Loki to assume her name and form when the need arises. (Unlike Thor, Loki holds her triumphs close. The most dangerous weapons are those that cannot be seen.) Loki has not lied to Tony Stark, and yet if the mortal consults Thor, they will surely conclude that she comes from Álfheim.

Loki does not wish to lie to Tony Stark. (Discovery. Curious. Why him?) She wants him to know her, to know her in a way that she has never had the opportunity to be known, with the weight of her name on her shoulders and the darkness of Thor's shadow hanging over her.

She wishes this man to know her, and in his knowing, choose to love her anyway.

Loki disappears in a sweep of magic light (olive, not emerald, she must remember to temper the shade) and lets Tony Stark think she tries to impress him.

The truth is that she is fleeing from the (bright, burning, too bright, mortal) man who stole her heart in increments, a shard at a time, and may fracture it like so much glass. (Will it glitter when it breaks?)

-l-

She expects the other Avengers to be aware of her powers when next she meets them, and yet they seem oblivious. Tony catches her eye and smirks, and she feels her lips curl in return.

Of course. She should have known. Her Tony loves secrets, when they are his. (And this is his secret. His and hers. Binding, sharing, does this make them friends?)

She slinks across the room to sit by him, nodding to Natasha as she does so. "Mr. Stark, interacting with humans. I am so very proud of you."

"Yeah, well, they were starting to get bored without me. You know how it is."

Very seriously, Loki nods. "Indeed I do. You are most entertaining."

Dr. Banner snorts, and Loki bats her eyes at him. She must be careful to make him like her, for she remembers well being beaten into the floor one handed by his alter ego. Dr. Banner looks uncomfortable, and glances at Tony.

"Uh, she knows about the other guy, right…?"

Tony shrugs. "Don't know, Brucy-babes, going to have to ask her." Tony leans to the side, laying his head back to rest it on Loki's shoulder, looking up at her with deceptively innocent eyes. "How 'bout it, kitten?"

"If you are asking whether I know that Dr. Banner is the Hulk, then yes, I do." Hesitantly, Loki shifts her arm around Tony's shoulders and begins to stroke his hair. He stiffens, but does not pull away.

His hair is soft and spiky against Loki's fingers.

"You know?" Bruce asks, an ugly, pinched look on his face. His lips turn down at the corners, his brow marked by deep furrows. He stares at his hands. "Why aren't you scared?"

"Oh I am afraid," Loki corrects. She starts to massage Tony's scalp. "I am not stupid. But neither am I a coward, or cruel." She waits until Bruce looks at her. "We cannot all help what lies inside us."

Bruce meets her gaze, and once eye contact is made (windows to the soul, windows to the mind, Midgardians don't remember that they shouldn't look a sorcerer in the eye) Loki dips a fingertip into his thoughts, gathering impressions.

Monster. Revulsion. Blood on my hands. No one should love me. No one should trust me. How could they? How could they?

And then Loki understands. Bruce is hers too, in a way that not even Tony and her wolfling are.

Bruce has discovered that he is of Jötunheim.

"Hey," Tony disrupts the moment, waving one hand around. "Don't make eyes at my assistant. That's my job."

Loki jabs at a pressure point just behind Tony's jaw, and he yelps. Natasha laughs.

-l-

Two weeks after Loki first ousts Tony from his workshop, Pepper comes to the tower.

It is tense. Tony will not look at her. Pepper's smile becomes frozen in place. The longing and pain between them is so palpable that Loki can almost touch it. (Could she wrap herself in it? Make a shawl of misery?) She frowns, even as the dark, broken pieces of her psyche writhe in pleasure within the corners of her mind that are cobbled together with red string and blood.

"It was too soon. I shouldn't have come here," Queen Pepper says after Tony has escaped to his lab. She has forgotten Loki's presence entirely. Her words are not meant for other ears, and yet Loki has always been adept at knowing what is not meant to be known.

She hooks her arm through Pepper's, offering her a sly grin. "If Sex and the City has taught me anything, now would be an appropriate time to gather all of our female companions, imbibe fruity drinks, and discuss all the ways in which the men in our life 'suck.'"

Pepper giggles and Loki knows she will have her way.

-l-

Jane Foster is not the empty headed beauty Loki thought she must be. She is beautiful (brown and sweet, like a hind), yes, but once she becomes tipsy she starts explaining the universe to Loki by writing complex mathematical equations on cocktail napkins. There is hope for Thor, if this Midgardian (sorceress) scientist is who he would have sit on the throne of Asgard.

And Darcy Lewis? She is a delight. A bubbling fount of mischief with a particularly foul mouth, brown hair, and bountiful curves. Loki wonders what it means, that the majority of the great heroes of Midgard and their companions belong more to the Temple of Loki than any other god she knows.

"Serioushly," Darcy is saying, "all the good men are taken, dead, or evil… Do you think Captain America would date me? I should totally try to sheduce Captain 'Merica."

Pepper laughs, false brightness. Natasha is quiet, waiting, watching. She glances at Loki.

They both know this is an interrogation. (How wonderful it is to be understood.)

The dam breaks after Pepper's fourth mimosa. Jane is waffling on about biochemistry and having children with Thor.

Pepper sniffles, and then sobs. "I want a baby," she says.

Loki feels her eyes widen as the pieces click into place. Natasha pets at Pepper's hair, gentling her in Russian.

"Tony isn't ready and he might never be. I know that. I appreciate it. I wouldn't force fatherhood on him, not after everything he's been through. But it's different, for women, you know? You only have so long before it's too late."

"You still love him," Loki says.

She buys Pepper another mimosa.

-l-

When Loki returns to her rooms in Avengers Tower, Tony is lying across her bed. He has grease on one cheek, welding goggles pushed up on his forehead, and he smells like scotch. A half empty decanter is in his left hand. Loki stops for a moment, admiring the way the light of the arc reactor plays over Tony's face. It is like magic. (Tony is like magic.)

Tony pushes himself up on one elbow and squints at her. "Lori. Lori, Lori, Lori. Heard you took Pep drinking."

Loki crosses the room to stand before her closet doors and starts casually undressing. "And I see that you took yourself drinking. Did you have fun?"

Tony makes a rude gesture, and Loki laughs.

"You aren't drunk. You aren't even tipsy," he accuses, sprawling once more across her bed.

"It takes much more liquor to intoxicate me than it would a Midgardian. I pretended, while we were out." Loki is in her bra and stockings now. She is not wearing panties.

She feels Tony's fingers, warm against her thigh, before she can bend to remove the stockings herself.

"You don't have to pretend with me," Tony says, the puff of his breath so close to her skin raising gooseflesh along her back. (He flays me alive without even knowing.)

Loki swallows hard and tries not to tremble. Her throat grows tight. She turns to face Tony. He is sitting on the bed, nose level with her belly button. He glances up at her, and Loki catches a snatch of thought.

Fuck up, fucked up, fuck.

Tony buries his face in the curls between Loki's legs and inhales deeply. Loki moans.

"Going to regret this in the morning," Tony mumbles against Loki's most intimate parts, even as his tongue probes at her slit. She doesn't know if he speaks of his regret, hers, or both of them.

"Mmm," Loki responds, pulling the welding goggles off Tony's head and tossing them to the carpet.

Tony's grip is firm on her hips. "Having sex with you is a bad idea," he reminds himself aloud.

"You will not be the first to think so and do it anyway."

She is a god of chaos. She will not allow Tony to destroy himself, but she will revel in all the ruin he brings.

-l-

Morning comes, and Tony is not there. Loki is not surprised. She takes her time bathing and dressing, and teleports herself into the workshop.

Tony looks up, and then glances away, determinedly ignoring her. Lips twitching, Loki presses herself to his back and nibbles on his ear.

He freezes.

"Look, Lori, about last night…"

"Yes, beloved?" Loki simpers.

Tony squeaks. "I told you you'd regret this in the morning. I don't usually do this, the whole morning after thing. If you didn't work for me and live here I'd have had someone wake you up and put you in a cab by now. This is why everyone's always telling me not to sleep with employees, isn't it? I need a drink, you want a drink?"

Loki pouts her lips, making her eyes big and tearful. "But Tony, surely you know that elves mate for life. You are mine."

How sweet it is to say it. Neither part a lie.

Tony sputters. Loki grins a feral grin. Minutes pass.

Slowly, slowly Tony's expression clears, and an answering grin stretches his lips. "Oh, you are evil."

Equilibrium restored, Tony begins to create new wonders as Loki observes (and occasionally helps, though Tony will admit to no such thing).

-l-

"Is Tony okay?" Queen Pepper asks when Loki goes to Stark Industries to collect items Tony needs for his (their) latest invention. "I mean, really okay?"

Loki thinks of days gone without sleep, frantic sex that leaves marks even on her godly skin, the crushing weight of knowing that it is not her embrace that Tony seeks, but solace, a balm for the weary.

The crazed look in Tony's eyes as he manipulates his screens of floating schematics, every bit a sorcerer, for all that he calls his work science.

She says, "He creates and destroys in equal measure now, just as he is meant to do."

Pepper gives Loki an odd look, but she accepts the words as the assurance they are meant to be.