A/N: Hey guys. Welcome to all my old readers and to any new ones. This fanfiction is a prequel to my story In Which Fury Chooses Stark's PA's. I've tried to stick as close to canon as possible, which is why i wrote this after i watched Thor 2. Anyway, to any new readers, i don't think it's too necessary to have read my fic first, but to old readers, this might clear some bits up (like a couple)

Anyway, disclaimer: I own Nothing, everything belongs to Allfather Stan Lee

Case 5654 B

Part 1: The cupcake baking journalist from next-door

"LOKI!" Thor shouted. Loki kept flying his craft, glad that for once it was his turn to fly. "LOKI COME BACK HERE THIS INSTANT!"

"What for?" Loki snorted, continuing to fly, dodging the beams that aimed to maim him, not to kill. Yes, so he had sort of impersonated Odin, and yes he had brought Frigga back from dead using forbidden magic at the Allfather's humiliating loss, but it bought her back. Now for phase 2, running. He aimed his vessel for the edge of the bifrost, before magicking a duplicate of himself, making it look as if it were flying. Invisible, he dove under the depths of the water, pulling apart a cave wall with his magic and swimming through.

"It appears, my lord, we have lost him. I can no longer see him, he masks himself from us." Heimdall stated to Thor.

"Search all the 9 realms. Find him" Thor commanded. "We need him back... I need him back…"

"All level 8 agents to a meeting. All level 8 agents to a meeting." The intercom buzzed. Emma did some quick maths, she was at SHIELD, right, not STRIKE, so it meant… yes, her. Emma picked up her laptop case and walked swiftly, and calmly to the meeting room, high heels clacking on the tiles of the floor. Walking through the doors, she found something she was not intending to see. Fury, Hill, Barton and Romanoff all standing at the head of the table. With a twang of pain, she realised who was missing: Coulson. He was dead, to be fair. Her SO, dead before she could even find out what the fuck was happening.

"Wait, sir, there's just 5 of us." Emma pointed out to Fury.

"We're aware. We have a situation, you may want to sit down." Emma nodded, taking out the chair and taking a sip from the mug of coffee that was placed before her by Barton. "You remember our conversation 'bout different levels and shit at STRIKE or, MI9 and SHIELD." Fury reminded. "You see, remember about a year ago, when Loki happened."

"Case 5654, yeah" Emma nodded "Romanoff and Barton running around in skin-tight outfits with admittedly hot counterparts."

"Well, things have happened with Loki. From what Thor tells us Loki could be anywhere, so I'm assigning one of our best, because, we've found him. Thor won't risk anything and neither can we. We need someone Loki hasn't recognised. He's here, in New York." Fury debriefed, Emma flicked through the files, her eyes widening with some shock

"You know, I thought he'd be more of a London sort of dude." She said snarkily "Wait, why me? This is Loki, he fucking stabbed Coulson in the chest" Emma ran her hands through her hair, frustrated, pinching the bridge of her nose, knowing that there was no way out after being assigned. Then her eyebrows narrowed "Wait, no extraction plan?"

"Level 8s generally don't need one" Fury replied "And speaking of London, STRIKE will be keeping in contact, they've got issues with him too, after what happened in Greenwich."

"It's just… Coulson usually had one, just in case…" Emma mumbled softly, remembering how even if it was the smallest mission, Coulson had a little 'escape route' for her. "Yeah, so what do I need to do?"

"Gain his trust. Word is Loki is willing to make a public apology. He'-" Natasha started

"Oh shit, you want me to be a journalist? Yes?" Emma asked, gaining nods. "How should I play her?" determined now to do her job.

"Thor suggested like someone out of a rom-com." Clint admitted "Emma, if you could do London and Tokyo, you can do this"

"Yeah, but this bloke sort of demolished my flat, I'm barely getting any insurance money back. And…" Emma sunk into her chair, unable to argue. "Okay… how long do I have until I inevitably die a horrible death?"

"A month, not a lot of time, we know" Fury replied "He's on his way I suggest you go and find him, monitor him. You may want to change your appearance, we have some state-of-the-art dye here, I hear Auburn mist is popular." Fury said snidely. Emma sighed, tutting under her breath, taking the large make-up kit if front of her and walking out of the door. Character in a rom-com, they said. Emma thought long and hard, deciding that she was to be bubbly, cute, bakes when she's bored, cute clothes and kitten flats. In short, everything, she, Emma, was not.

Emma sat at the café table. Loki was her target. Not really target, but to monitor Loki. It had been an interesting day, looking at the photograph of Loki she was given, she looked back at the God. And rechecked. 'Shit'. Emma examined the eyes in the photograph and Loki's eyes now. They were goddamn green. Green. GREEN. They weren't blue, like in the picture, she had to recheck files on the Tesseract, how people were affected, there was only one way to check she was right. Taking out a couple of clip-on streaks, she adjusted her loose hair, up in a corporate up-do, she took off her leather jacket and replaced it with a black blazer, throwing off her flats in favour of the heels. As of now, she was Dawn O'Brien, journalist, all she needed was the paparazzi. And it looked like, she had one, as media swarmed Loki's current position, trying to get information out of his 'change' in personality. She checked her make-up bag for brown contact lenses and popped them in just in time to see the flood of questions.

"Loki" One reported would cry out. All the same, boring questions, she could turn this into a comedy.

"Mr Loki Laufeyson." Emma started, holding out her 'fake' microphone with a camera and microphone-recorder "You destroyed New York City once, why do you return now, a year later to make amends. Is this repentance or something deeper?" Emma's best American accent was put to the test, she just hoped she could fool the God of Lies.

"It's concerning the possession of several people, due to the effects of the Tesseract, I have come to believe that I was placed under it's effects." Loki said, taking advantage of the shocked silence Emma had produced, before another influx of questions. Emma squirmed up to the front, snapping Loki's eyes, she vanished, eyeing the rather chic scarf he was wearing.

Emma pulled off the wig, running into the public restroom, slamming the cubicle door shut behind her. Rummaging around, she found the screen device, unfurling it and placing it on the door. She now had a mirror.

"Okay, goodbye Emma Holmes. Hello… Dawn O'Brien." Emma parted her hair in the middle, something she would never consciously do, pulling out the SHIELD hair-straightener, she attacked her ringlets, before sighing, chopping her tresses off to just above her shoulders. Black just had to go, it was too her, reluctantly she sprayed her hair with SHIELD's patent spray-on dye that would only come off with the anti-serum. "Wow, John wasn't kidding when he said I'd look weird with strawberry blonde hair" she observed her reflection in the mirror, wiping off her winged eyeliner and quickly adding soft pencil liner. Her phone buzzed and she read the message from Hill:

'Your brother will be monitoring you, if you want. Intercom at the ready'

"Emma?" Lucas asked quietly. The voice seemed to be coming from her bag. She took out the ear-piece and placed it in her ear.

"Yeah, in the restroom. Just giving myself a home makeover. Reckon I should paint my nails sparkly pink or navy with polkadots." Emma grinned, pulling out her nailpolish, never mind the lunch-time queue beginning to line up. "Listen, I gotta go. Wondering if I can have a beetle from Fury, just for this mission"

"This is Fury, not Director Bond." Lucas reminded. "Just… just stay safe. Don't do anything stupid"

"Lu, joining a secret agency was a stupid idea in itself. But, it was yours." Emma ended the call. Taking a deep breath, she pulled the screen from the door, shoving it into her bag, before exiting, smiling sweetly at the lady who took her cubicle.

Rain lashed the window of his flat. Well, it could've been worse, for example, a prison cell where he couldn't do anything in true privacy, without some façade of magic. 2 weeks on Midgard, it was somewhat decent, yet the media were hounding him. There were literal fleas, feeding off every little thing. So he took to using a disguise in public, no doubt only Heimdall could see him. Yet even he knew that there was no hope. He wasn't coming back. The treason he'd committed against Odin on it's own was enough to warrant a reason towards his self-inflicted exile.

Midgard was, somewhat interesting. Clothing was comfortable; apparently armour wasn't in fashion this millennia. Food was alright, how Thor liked those 'pop tarts', he didn't understand. Technology was frustratingly hard to use and his flat that he had managed to rent from the landlady, was barely acceptable. However, it would have to suffice, he needed to think of his options. He flicked through the list of mortal journalists that he had collected. There wasn't very many he wanted to choose, as he'd very clearly decided earlier, they were fleas. Though, that woman earlier, she'd vanished, she seemed fine.

"No, tedious." He rejected yet another potential scribe. His midgardian phone, which he was getting quite attached to, hadn't rung, nor had his landline.

"OH MUFFINS!" a female voice cursed quietly in the hallway. Loki sighed, propelling himself from his wheelie office chair, before popping up at the front door, striding out to find a woman struggling with several boxes. "Crap, no, can't lose this file. That needs to be sent…" she hissed under her breath, her hand pushing back her blondish-red hair behind her ear, wear a feather earring dangled down.

"Do you require help?" Loki asked tiredly, watching her trying to gather her files and boxes.

"No, I'm fine" she replied shyly, pushing her cherry-red glasses up her nose, her brown eyes meeting his green.

"Don't be ridiculous, it'll be quicker if I help." Loki sighed, picking up some of her files, holding the stacks. "It may have been wise to take two trips."

"Trying to save time, I have lots of stuff to move." She laughed "I'm Dawn O'Brien by the way." This Dawn seemed to have a simple charm and ease about her, even if she was a bit shy. He could tell she was a quirky mortal, with her choice in clothing and all. The name rung a bell, he simply couldn't recall where he'd met her before. Her apartment was across the hall from him, he dumped her piles onto one of the tables and proceeded to help her bring up her luggage and boxes of appliances. "Thanks" she finally said, exhausted after they'd moved all her things from her green Volkswagen Beetle.

"What is it you do, out of curiosity?" Loki asked, before he exited.

"I'm a journalist. Free-lance." She handed him a calling card she'd pulled from out of nowhere. He read the card as he made his way back to his flat. "Just call for me if you need help!"

Emma threw herself into her Ikea sofa. She took a deep breath, hoping Loki hadn't noticed anything weird.

"Em?" Lucas asked through the feed "Like the accent thing you got going"

"Yeah." Emma replied, making her way to the kitchen, in desperate need of some alcohol.

"That was great, don't think he noticed. SHIELD have analysed your photos. You're right, his eyes were blue during the Chiutari invasion." Lucas replied. Emma took a small sigh of relief before taking a sip of beer. Whiskey was too her, she reckoned Dawn was too badly paid to be able to afford proper wine.

"Does that mean anything? What about the Greenwich incident, was he involved with that?"

"Apparently not. His mother died during that." Lucas replied. Emma choked slightly on her beer, wiping her mouth, realising that her hand didn't have lipstick on it, like it usually would. "But he bought her back using dark magic, not to mention, he'd committed high treason. Thor said that Loki helped them out a lot. And apparently 'pretended to be dead'."

"What, he did a Moffat?" Emma asked, her eyes flicking towards the direction of his door. "Anyway, was that any good? Should I be playing rom-com music and washing the dishes, hoping he'll come through the door and ask for help? Oh, I should throw a house-warming party!"

"Who would you invite?"

"Exactly, I do a Toshiko Sato, and try to invite Loki. If I get him talking, I might be able to get him on our side. Start an article, I don't know. Listen, Lucas, I need you to get as much information as SHIELD can possible get on this Tesseract. And, what's this about infinity stones I'm hearing?"

"Don't know. Even here it's classified. Just tell me whenever if you need us to piss off. We have a camera in your living room, so, try not to do anything too weird. Yeah. I'll just let you unpack…"

"Yes, I will take it into consideration." Loki hung up his phone, ruffling his hair with frustration. He dumped himself on one of the chairs, flicking to see if there was anything decent on the television. As always, nothing, though… that Sherlock looked interesting. After reading the manual, he figured out how to record the show, so he could watch it later. A soft knock was heard upon his door, he groaned, upset that he had to leave the comfort and safety of his chair. Loki walked down to the door, finding the woman he'd helped the day before at his door, with cupcakes. "Um…"

"Yeah, hi. I just thought I'd come over and bring you cupcakes." She said awkwardly, feet fidgeting, fingers tapping the edge of the silver tray she held, bearing chocolate cupcakes with ombré green icing. "You know, 'cuz you helped me out yesterday. I got most of my things unpacked and I baked just to see if my mixer hadn't broken on the way from my old apartment… But yeah. Also, I'm having a sort-of flat warming party tomorrow night, if you want to come… it's not like there's anyone that'd want to come" she added in an undertone. Loki nodded slowly, slightly confused at the gesture and the woman. She was certainly a bit of an eccentric, the type that liked kittens and pink. Her chunky, oversized jumper was rolled up her arms, worn over a navy-blue polka dot dress that matched her painted nails, he noted it was different to her nails the day prior, when he had helped her pick up her files.

"Oh, thanks… I suppose." Loki took the tray off her, grinning just a little at the prettiness of the cupcakes. "Would you come in?"

"Um, yeah, sure." Dawn nodded pulling off her bubble-gum pink apron. Loki silently apologised for the state of his flat. He'd furnished it to his likings, green the most obvious theme in the house, in a one-bedroom flat, everything was cramped together. Dawn took to the living room section, sitting down upon the single-seat, politely leaving him the sofa. Loki internally remarked, that if it were Thor, he'd take the sofa.

"You're a journalist, are you not?" Loki asked

"Yeah, yeah I am" Dawn stated "Except I'm a free-lance. There aren't very many people willing to take me on. Also, being tied down just isn't my thing."

"Would you happen to have any samples of your work?" Loki asked quietly. He hoped she was decent, he was running out of time and choices.

"Yeah, I'll just run and get them" Dawn nodded, quickly moving from her chair, running out the door to her flat.

"FUUUUCK!" Emma muttered under her breath. She was glad SHIELD had come up with CV's overnight.

"Mind your language, dear sister" Lucas reprimanded. "Keep calm. We would bug his flat, but it would be too hard, anyway, you wrote them last night, didn't you?"

"Yeah, and the night before" Emma extracted the ice-blue manila folder, then taking the pale pink binder folder. "Okay, keep calm… what would the Doctor do? Just think of this as your audition for James Bond…." Emma checked her reflection one last time in the mirror, grinning at what looked like a perky, cute, bubbly ginger/blonde in the mirror. Emma crossed the landing, re-opening Loki's door. Emma had only just noticed, Loki's flat was the flip-side of hers, both architecturally and aesthetically. Emma's flat was more light, airy and seemed as if it were bigger on the inside, whereas Loki's flat seemed much more cramped, darker and shut off to society.

"Your writing is intriguing" he remarked flicking through some of her articles "From what I know, none of these are mainstream magazines?"

"Yeah, I'm trying to get into a more prominent one. Like the Times or Daily Telegraph. Preferably something trustworthy and renowned. Nothing biased, just the truth, as it should be" Emma laughed internally at the irony of the statement and what she was doing right now.

"Can I trust you?" Loki asked softly. Emma, well… Dawn raised a brow, pushing her glasses further up her nose.

"Depends." She grinned cheekily

"Would you care if I were to ask you a quick questionnaire? Nothing too personal, all for the sake of whether you could do this." Loki suddenly grinned, charming her. Well, it was certainly working, his eyes hadn't broken contact with hers. Emma hoped she had the grace to blush, before she sat a bit straighter in her seat, nodding in agreement. "Good, shall we begin?"

Loki stared hardly at her, observing her body language. He inhaled and decided upon his first question.

"What would you call the 'truth'?"

"Truth?" she verified. He nodded, inwardly smirking wondering if she was going to be up to the challenge. He watched her bit her lip, her deep, brown eyes watching her hands as if they were the most intriguing thing, she looked up, finally deciding. "Truth is relative"

"Is it?" Loki asked, he smiled, just a bit, finding her answer interesting. She'd given him a statement, not an answer, she was clever, in her own way, Loki thought. She hadn't given him the entire answer, to her, he was just a fish, those three words the bait, and the small smirk she wore was the hook that would inevitably lead to the next sentence she would utter.

"Truth is only useful whenever it is required. What is the point of telling a harsh truth that would cause the loss of a valuable thing, when a beautiful lie is what gains you your allies and it is your advantage in war. Truth can only flourish under the right circumstances, otherwise it is disregarded and ignored. Truth is the weapon any smart person would wish for in war, because in reality, the cheaters survive. How many wars do people fight, without knowing the truth?" She finished, taking a breath.

"I'm impressed. I rarely hear eloquent answers" he drawled. "Why free-lance?"

"Because fuck society, that's why." She said suddenly. Loki choked on his own spit, surprised at the sudden harshness in her tone.

"Really?"

"Tabloids only sell what they want, the truth is selected from snippets among lies and filth. Murdoch and his cohorts pay journalists to be their puppets, make it look like this world is a utopia… or a dystopia more often than not. Tv journalists are just playing ventriloquist with a script, everything bland, everything so fake and plastic. Free lancing means no-strings attached, I can divulge what I want, get paid, then not be expected to do the same again. Free lancers are effectively bringing down the façade that is the newspaper with these sudden bursts. Most free lancers are hacktivists: Assange, Snowden, The Rising Tide, all of them want the truth, unaltered and not objectified. But they won't give it to us. Free lancing means finding out for yourself what is wrong with the world, and writing a sarcastic article while at it." Dawn finished, pushing her glasses up her nose. He could feel it, the rage within her. And if she was anything like he, he could trust her rage.

"One final thing, what is your family to you?" Loki asked, he hoped he could catch her off guard. He wanted to trust her, but simultaneously, he wanted to prove to himself he was beyond help, he shouldn't be sitting here enjoying this.

"My family? I ignore them" Loki raised a brow, slightly shocked at her answer. Not that he couldn't relate in some form, but he hadn't expected her sort of… person to be like that. "Not because I don't love them… but what I do puts them in harm's way. Well, that's half of it. The other half was that when I took Journalism, my dad kicked me out of the family will. Imagine, losing your birthright to your cousin and his whore-of-a-trophy-wife" she said derisively, giving a bit of a snort.

"No, trust me, I know…" Loki said

"Dad just… wasn't expecting me to become a journalist. A free- lance at that. I mean, he should've seen it coming with me in the journalism club and everything in high school. My English teachers adored me" she said with some pride "So did my mother, until she left us for someone she loved more than dad. That's sort of when he started to lose it with me. My sister, Kate, always eclipsed me, she was older, smarter, prettier, a freaking cheerleader."

"Blonde?"

"Yep"

"I can relate" Loki said with a small laugh. Dawn grinned just a little, before continuing.

"Kate, sort of cared, she let me rebel, she found me my first apartment, until it was demolished." Her eyes flashed at him, before she let go of an extremely terrifying and sarcastic "Thanks"

"I'm sorry"

"That's what I'm here for, isn't it? Justify what you did and stuff. Anyway, family for me: is an idyllic state that society impresses upon all of us. But my biological family was something that I should never have been allowed near with a ten-foot stick. Family to me is watching a father come home late from work every night, before finding out he was having an affair; a mother who was a perfect homemaker and a history of self-harm and a track record with suicide-watch, the sunshine in my cloudy day, before it became overcast and perpetually down poured with my tears; and a sister who was the perfect golden princess in my dad's eyes, who seemed to be able to do everything perfectly and occupied both hers and my spot in the community."

"I'm sorry" Loki said genuinely.

"Don't apologise. They're people I barely associate with, yet feel some obligation to distance myself from to prevent unwanted threats" she said with some dismissal and regret. "Anyway, what am I here for?"

"If I were to tell you that you could make your parents proud and gain a job for BBC correspondence, would you believe me?" Loki leant forward of his knees, grinning. He'd found her, the right one, the one he could trust. Look at her, she sat there cute, adorable and bubbly, yet with three simple questions, unlike so many, she was 3 dimensional, she was capable of depth, hurt, rage, emotion and sarcasm.

"Why would I want to make my family proud?" She laughed slightly, before looking at him directly. "Anyway, I know a lost cause when I see one" Loki felt slightly downtrodden for a second, before she added "However, you're not one. I'm in. How long do we have?"

"A month" Loki said definitively.

"Great"

"We got him" Emma said to Lucas, while she sat in her bathroom, doors closed, forever monitoring her flat.

"I know, that was great." Emma could feel the beam from the other side of the ear-piece. "SHIELD's happy. Just keep doing whatever you're doing, because it's working. Send me something to send to SHIELD, so Thor doesn't freak out and whatever."

"Yeah, speaking of freaking out, how's Charlotte?"

"She's in Buenos Aires, a mission for MI9." Lucas replied "Daisy-petal's fine, missing her mummy a bit though."

"I'd expect that" Emma laughed "Oh god I look weird."

"Just dye your hair brown and say it's naturally brown" Lucas suggested. Emma nodded in agreement, before taking out the ear-piece, placing it in the sink to burn. All evidence needed to be discarded, she'd be sent a new one the next day in her mail.

Loki poured himself a bottle of wine, raising the glass in salute to himself, he drank, placing the empty wineglass in his kitchen sink. He found her, he could finally see some sort of salvation.

A/N: Thanks guys, tell me what you thought and please check out my other fic :)