Chapter 9: Explanations

Loki Laufeyson

"What happened to you?" the red-haired girl demanded, putting her hands on her hips. She looked sort of familiar, but Loki didn't know her name.

"I don't understand," he said, backing away. "Who are you?"

"I'm Natasha, remember? I lived with you for a little while. With Clint and Tony and Thor and Pepper…" she trailed off, looking confused. "You don't remember?"

"No. What am I supposed to remember?" Loki asked, suddenly worried. He couldn't remember anything now.

"Well…Thor is your brother. Your adopted brother," she began. Then she trailed off and ended up just staring at him confusedly.

"Thor," Loki repeated slowly. "Is he from Asgard too?"

"I don't know," Natasha said nervously.

"This isn't Asgard," Loki continued, "so where is it? What am I doing here? Natasha, I want to go home." He looked down, scared and sad now, and Natasha patted his shoulder nervously.

"I'm sorry you're sad. But you lived with us before, so maybe you will now. It'll be like home."

"Home," Loki repeated. It sounded strange to his ears, the same way Thor's name did, and he wasn't sure if he could believe it. "I don't think I would belong," he told her sadly. "I don't fit in anywhere."

"None of us do," Natasha said. She looked scared, like she wanted to leave, and Loki felt sad again, because everyone always seemed to want to leave him. He remembered something then, a blond-haired boy who'd always been at Natasha's side and had often been hostile to him.

"Does Clint know you're talking to me?" he asked, as he felt his body start to stretch and shift again. Natasha stared at him with her mouth open and her eyes wide with fear, and Loki smiled, feeling his mind sharpen.

"Why?" she asked, turning suddenly cold, her green eyes blazing with defiance. Loki stifled a sigh; no one defied him.

"He trusts me with you? After New York?"

"What do you mean?" she whispered, reverting to a frightened child.

Loki laughed, ignoring a pain that had begun to spread through his head. "I suppose you did get your wish. 'Love is for children.' You are certainly a child now, Agent Romanoff." He strode forward, and the pain in his head doubled.

"Love is for children… I don't understand…" Natasha was talking to herself now, mumbling fearfully.

Loki gasped as he felt his body begin to shrink again, and the pain faded, along with most of his memory. He looked up to see Natasha pressed again the wall, looking horrified. "What happened?" he asked.

"You were an adult. And now you're my age again," she whispered.

"You mean it happened again?" he asked in dismay.

"Again?" she squeaked. "That happens a lot?"

Loki sat down on the floor and hid his face in his hands. "Mr. Fury says it happened a bunch of times, but I don't really remember. He says my mind and body are still adjusting, whatever that means, but that's it's worse for me."

"Worse than who?"

"I don't know. You, maybe?" he suggested uncertainly. "I haven't seen a lot of kids here."

"But why would I be adjusting?" Natasha wondered.

"Well," Mr. Fury said, walking in suddenly, making them jump, "I know the answer to that, but what I don't know is what you are doing in here."

Natasha backed up, almost tripping over Loki, while muttering something that sounded like, "Being sneaky." Loki wondered what she thought she was being sneaky about.

"Don't worry, it's just Mr. Fury," he tried to reassure her.

"'Just Mr. Fury?' I think I'd like a little bit of fear to my name," Mr. Fury grumbled. Loki frowned at him, confused, but he just shook his head. "I guess I owe you an explanation. Otherwise you'll just keep sneaking around and then we'll all be in trouble. Come on."

…

Pepper Potts

When Fury led a frightened-looking Natasha and a confused-looking Loki into the conference room, Pepper felt the last bit of her patience wear away.

"What now?" she asked, trying to control her temper.

"They are going to hear the truth. We owe them that much."

"What about the others? Why Natasha and…Loki?" Pepper wanted to know, thinking of Tony.

"Mr. Banner will be arriving in a moment, as he has apparently figured a lot out for himself," Fury replied, settling down in a chair to wait. Natasha and Loki looked at each other, looked at Pepper, and then looked at Fury, before sitting hesitantly down in two chairs at the end of the conference table.

A young woman walked in, leading Bruce, who was staring around in rapt curiosity. Someone had given him a white lab coat, which was dragging behind him slightly, too long for his seven-year-old height (or rather, lack of it). It was adorable, especially with his glasses and look of fascination with all of the equipment S.H.I.E.L.D. had.

"Tasha? Loki?" Bruce asked in confusion. He glanced at the young woman he'd been following. "Do they know too?"

"Sit down, Mr. Banner, Dr. Jefferson." Natasha jumped and looked guiltily at Dr. Jefferson, and Pepper wondered what she'd done.

"Is this about how we're not aging right?" Bruce asked, as Dr. Jefferson closed the door.

"You mean how Loki became big and then little again?" Natasha asked. Bruce started, as though noticing Loki for the first time.

"Loki? I thought you were older," Bruce said, frowning. "Like 14."

"I'm seven," Loki said quietly. "And I don't remember you."

"I'm Bruce."

"Anyway," Fury interrupted, "rather than have you consider sneaking around, we've decided to let know what happened. Once, you were all much older. You were all aging adults, including Pepper and Jane, who were older than they are now."

"But Pepper is old. I mean she's a grownup," Bruce interjected, frowning. It was something Tony might've said, and Pepper winced.

"Don't call Pepper old," Natasha protested.

"What happened?" Loki asked quietly, shutting them up.

"You were important people in S.H.I.E.L.D. – superheroes, in fact – but many of you were starting to get too old to keep protecting the city, so S.H.I.E.L.D. started looking for a solution. Unknown to the rest of us, one agent found one. She called all of the Avengers to S.H.I.E.L.D. and stuck you guys, Pepper, Jane, and Loki into a special room in order to get you away from everyone else and knock you out, so that she could do something to you to make you young again. When we found you, it was already starting to work."

"How did it work?" Bruce asked curiously. Was it Pepper's imagination, or did he look a little different, a little bit older suddenly?

"We don't know exactly," Dr. Jefferson replied, when Fury glanced at her. "It seems to have involved triggering the production of certain chemicals that the body slowly stops producing, such as hair color, and no longer producing other chemicals that don't appear in youths. It also seems to have blocked out many memories, although some of that is the brain's natural response. And it caused a complete regeneration of many cells, with old ones leaving the body through a sort of water from the skin. Kind of like sweating away your age."

Only Bruce seemed to have followed that. "Were there any harmful effects besides the blocking of our memories?"

"Most of you seem to be slightly off in terms of your ages physically and mentally, and Loki is one of the best examples of it. His mind's suppressed most of his memories, but he's still lived a long time, so living in the body of a seven-year-old or a 14-year-old doesn't feel normal. Mentally, he's much older, so his brain seems to be subconsciously trying to make an appropriate body with his shape-shifting abilities. Meanwhile, Thor, who is also much older than the other Avengers, seems to have reverted to the state of a young child, even though he's in the body of a 15-year-old. But on the other hand, Loki and Thor are Asgardian, so we don't know exactly how they develop."

"Actually, Loki is a frost giant-" Fury began, but Dr. Jefferson cut him off.

"I know, but the same idea applies."

"We used to be older," Natasha whispered. "That's why Clint has nightmares." She glanced at Loki and then quickly looked away. A single tear was running down Loki's cheek.

"Did you come to a decision about their guardianship?" Pepper asked. Hidden in her lap, one hand was clenched into a fist.

"You and Jane will continue to act as their guardians, at least for now. We've enrolled them in school – a special school where children of many S.H.I.E.L.D. attend. They're used to strange people there. I have paperwork for them. Hopefully, this will be only temporary, but as of right now, we are no closer to returning the Avengers to their previous state."

Pepper looked down at the papers Fury handed her. "Why am I guardian and aunt of Natasha, Steve, Thor, and Loki and Jane guardian of Tony, Bruce, and Clint? Wouldn't it make sense to have it the other way?"

"Mrs. Stark," Fury said sternly, and Pepper flinched. "If Thor is 15, Tony is already saying he wants to marry you, Clint and Natasha are inseparable, and none of them are aging right, I really don't want to have to redo the paperwork again if suddenly someone decides they want to publicly date their supposed relative. Are we done here?" Pepper nodded.

"Oh," Fury added, as Pepper led Natasha and Bruce toward the door. "S.H.I.E.L.D. has set up a bank account for the Avengers, so that you don't have to use up all of Tony's money. And don't forget to take Loki with you."

"Come on, Loki," Natasha coaxed, though she looked slightly distant and scared, as though still thinking about the fact that they'd once been older.

"I'm scared. I don't remember any of them," Loki whispered. Little Loki seemed nothing like teenage Loki had been, though he still scared Pepper, since she still couldn't forget what had happened when Loki had tried to take over Manhattan."

"It'll be okay," Natasha promised. "You have a brother. And you could have friends too." Natasha was different than she'd once been too, Pepper thought. She was younger, of course, but she also seemed to be less cold and more emotional. Maybe it was just because they were all younger and more innocent.

Pepper was surprised to find how sad that made her, that someday these children would be gone. She wanted Tony back, but she had come to love the little Avengers and their innocence too.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed it...sorry if the explanations of the Avengers' aging wasn't very good, but I'm just a freshman in high school, so yeah.

Anyway, I know this chapter was mostly explanations and Loki angst, but the next chapter will be all mini avenger adorable-ness, so I hope that will make up for it. Speaking of which...if I get enough reviews, I might be persuaded to post the next chapter TOMORROW. If not, it'll be until Sunday or Monday, because I'll be out of town for the rest of the week and probably won't have access to an actual computer.

Thanks for reading, and remember: REVIEW! Love you guys:)

-DP