The sound of the Tardis materialising in Tony's apartment the morning after the fiasco was both a relief and a disappointment. It wasn't so much that Tony wanted to keep Loki around for longer (although, he admitted that having the git around had been fun), but that he'd failed to help. As far as he could tell, Loki was just as conniving and bitter as he'd been when he turned up at Stark Tower.

The Doctor stepped out as soon as the noise stopped. He smiled widely at Tony and Pepper, walking over to shake their hands.

'Great to see you,' said the Doctor, 'so, where's the passenger?'

'In his room,' said Pepper, 'Bruce says hi, Doctor, but he couldn't make it.'

'No problem,' said the Doctor, 'Jarvis? Could you ask Loki to come down here, please?'

'Certainly, sir,' came the reply.

'Keep him out of trouble, would you?' said Tony, 'Also feed him pizza.'

'Take him to the eighties and bring him to a Rocky Horror screening,' Pepper added.

The Doctor and Tony both burst out laughing just as Loki walked into the room, his sceptre in one hand and his suitcase in the other. They gradually stopped laughing as Loki began to look more irritated than confused.

'Well, come on then, Loki,' said the Doctor, clapping him on the shoulder lightly before taking his suitcase for him and stepping into the Tardis, 'things to do, places to visit!'

'As far away as you can, Doctor,' Pepper called after him, 'it'll be easier for you if there's no one chasing you,' she added to Loki.

Loki nodded, hefting his sceptre and staring at the open Tardis door. He knew this must be the magical, time-travelling, bigger-on-the-inside box that Bruce had told him about the previous night after returning to Stark Tower, but he didn't imagine it would look as though it belonged on Earth. Clearly he would be unable to escape Midgardian influence, regardless of alien technology.

Loki turned to look at Pepper and Tony. Both of them were looking at him, if not fondly, as if they wished him well. As if they wanted him to be redeemed. He couldn't fathom it. He opened his mouth to say so, but paused before speaking.

He snapped his mouth shut, turned around and strolled into the Tardis. The doors closed behind him, and the sound of the Tardis dematerialising filled the room.

Pepper smiled at Tony. 'He'll be fine,' she said, pecking him on the cheek before walking into the adjacent room, 'I'm getting us coffee, ok?'

'Gotcha,' said Tony. He turned to follow Pepper. She was right, of course; Loki'd be fine.

Jane heard Thor enter the room the instant he put his hand on the door. Huge, echoing hallways didn't do much to contribute to stealth in Asgard. She put down her book and turned to face the door as Thor walked in. Immediately, she could tell what he was thinking about.

'Is he alright?' she asked. She couldn't bring herself to personally care for Loki; not after the damage and chaos he'd caused across her world. But regardless of parentage, Loki was Thor's brother, and she'd wish the best for Loki, if only for the sake of Thor's happiness.

'Your knowledge of my thoughts will never cease to astound me,' said Thor, walking over and putting a hand on Jane's shoulder. Jane put her hand over Thor's, holding it to her shoulder.

'He is fine,' Thor answered finally, 'Though he has been in trouble. The Doctor and his companions have left to collect him.'

Jane nodded. 'Peggy texted me and said she'd be back to visit eventually.'

'As the Doctor's machine travels in both time and space, I am sure it will be sooner than we think.'

Jane smiled. 'I'm sure Loki will be back sooner than we think too.'

Jane wasn't sure of the truth of that statement, but given time travel, she supposed anything was possible.

Thor smiled. 'He may well do so. So. Tell me of your book, this… "Narnia."'

Loki was, perhaps, better-prepared for the temporal anomaly that was the interior of the Tardis than most. He looked around with grudging appreciation for the elegance of the machine before noticing Steve and Peggy standing at the console.

'Figured it was time to start teaching people how to help fly this thing!' said the Doctor, beaming at Loki and then at the pair who were doing a nice job of keeping the Tardis balanced, 'They've got the basics, but I think I've got the edge on actually flying it.'

He grinned at Peggy, who rolled her eyes. 'Give it time, Doctor.'

'Speaking of time, we're heading to the future,' said the Doctor, skipping up to the console, 'Peggy, Steve, could you show Loki his room?'

'I'll do it,' said both Peggy and Steve at the same time. They stared each other down for a split second before Steve conceded. He opened his mouth.

'Don't threaten him not to harm me, Captain Rogers,' said Peggy, 'I'm perfectly capable of handling him myself.'

'Yes ma'am,' said Steve with a grin and a short salute.

'I assume that the Tardis is engineered to ensure your protection regardless,' said Loki in a bored tone.

Peggy nodded once, switching to look as much a military officer as she could. 'That too,' she said, picking up Loki's suitcase and wheeling it through the arch on the opposite side of the room.

Loki followed her straight away. No point hesitating; he'd learned that no matter who was looking after him, it was better to just adhere to their wishes if they were simple enough to carry out. He could attempt to undermine them later. Though, for once, he had no plans to escape the Tardis; he had no wish of becoming trapped in time, whether it was before or after his own time. It would simply be unbearable; even more unbearable than travelling the universe with a trio of excessively righteous soldiers.

Luckily, Loki's room was relatively close to the console room. Loathe as he was to admit it, he would be likely to get lost if the corridors were any more irrational and confusingly arranged. Peggy opened a door, gesturing for Loki to walk in ahead of her.

His room was larger than the one in Stark Tower. He had a bed, table, chairs, couch, even a wardrobe. Loki scoffed at that; he had a smallish suitcase of luggage that would take up less than a fifth of it. He felt a sudden longing for his black and green leather coat.

'That screen leads to the bathroom,' said Peggy, pointing at what looked like a translucent blue window. Loki stared at it.

Peggy chuckled. 'It took me rather a while to get used to it to, but you can walk through it, I promise.'

Loki took his suitcase from Peggy and pulled it onto the table to unpack. The fact that their destination probably would contain no one who knew Loki, he anticipated being here at least a while longer than he'd been at Stark Tower.

Peggy didn't move from the doorway. Loki turned to look at her. She seemed to be holding in amusement.

'Well?' asked Loki, 'Are you waiting for something?

'Usually, after showing someone to his room and helping him with the luggage, one expects to be thanked.' she said. The amusement was shining through now.

Loki nearly swore. It was hard enough that they were attempting to make him behave, let alone behave politely.

'Thank you,' he said with a half bow and as much sarcasm as he could muster.

'Well, it's a start,' said Peggy, 'there's a kitchen in the room opposite yours and a library on the right of the kitchen, if you need something to occupy yourself. If you need anything and you can't find us, feel free to ask the Tardis.'

'Don't tell me. There's another omnipresent computer observing my every action?' asked Loki. He'd thought that Jarvis would be both the first and last.

'Hardly,' said Peggy, 'and definitely rephrase that around the Doctor, he's fairly touchy about her.'

'Her?'

'She's alive, after all.'

Loki stared.

'She won't speak to you, but she'll be able to guide you if necessary.'

Peggy looked down the corridor.

'I should get back,' she said, 'do come to the console room when you're unpacked, the Doctor tells us he's taking us three million years in the future, and I can't wait to see what that's like.'

She turned and walked down the corridor. Loki was glad to be left alone for the moment. He was still mad about the previous night. Had that imbecilic waiter avoided his hair, he'd have at least been on Earth, rather than in a rickety space ship, jumping through time. Asgardians had long steered clear of time travel for multiple reasons, most involving it's unpredictability and the potential misunderstandings that could occur if multiple versions of one god existed simultaneously.

He decided to take about an hour to unpack.

The ship jolted as it tore through the space-time continuum, emerging with a horrendous noise and a lot of turbulence. Steve and Peggy braced themselves; the Doctor was thrown against the central column, his foot getting stuck against a lever as he tried to manoeuvre his way back down.

'The left one, the LEFT one!' he shouted, wrenching his foot away from the console and rapidly hitting buttons.

'Sorry, sorry!' said Peggy, switching to a different lever and pulling on it sharply. The turbulence eased off as the Tardis stabilised, and the Doctor raised his eyebrows and looked astonished.

'I don't believe it,' said the Doctor, ruffling his hand through his hair, 'we've landed exactly where we needed to. Well done, you two!'

Steve and Peggy grinned.

At this point, Loki strode into the room, walking as though he expected the floor to suddenly drop out from under him.

'What in the nine realms was that?!' he asked, reaching a seat and placing himself in it decisively. He'd mocked the idea of seatbelts in the Pepper's car, but was quite convinced they wouldn't be an appalling idea in this machine.

'Nothing, nothing,' said the Doctor, inspecting the console and reading the screen, 'Well, not much. Well, Peggy may have accidentally hit the wrong lever and nearly catapulted us through multiple time streams at once, but the utterly fantastic part is that she didn't.'

If Loki had had his powers, he may well have sent the Doctor flying into the wall with a well-placed kick for his apparent nonchalance. He was about to voice the sentiment when there was a knock at the Tardis door.

'That'd be them!' said the Doctor, rushing to the door. Loki stood, instinctively preparing himself for conflict, whether verbal or physical. Steve and Peggy both stood a little straighter.

The Doctor opened the door, beaming widely. 'Hell…. o?' he said, looking around for a moment. There wasn't anyone within sight.

A quiet beeping noise told him otherwise. He looked down to see a tiny robot. It squeaked at the Doctor.

'Oh, look at you, you're beautiful!' said the Doctor, kneeling down and patting what passed for its head. It seemed to reply with a sort of mechanical purr.

'You're a scutter, aren't you?' he asked, 'Think you could show us where the captain is?'

It shook its mechanical head. A piece of paper started printing out from the main part of the scutter. The Doctor waited til it stopped printing before picking it up and reading the words on it. At this point, Loki had walked around the console to be able to see outside the door; he could see the robot, and a dull grey wall behind it.

'Ah,' said the Doctor, 'Well, would you be able to take us to them, then?'

Loki didn't think it possible, but he could clearly see the machine shudder in distaste before nodding.

'Well, come on then, you lot,' said the Doctor, snatching his coat from the coat hook beside the door and following the now retreating robot 'Haven't got all day!'

Steve and Peggy walked out of the Tardis, immediately looking around as soon as they left. Loki followed reluctantly.

The corridor he found himself in was long, grey, and part of what seemed to be a group of interconnecting corridors. He glanced into rooms as they went; there were canteens, what appeared to be learning facilities, a gym, and a variety of blinking machines he didn't understand.

'Are we on a spaceship?' asked Steve.

'Point one to Steve!' said the Doctor, and Peggy cursed under her breath.

'A freighter company?' asked Steve.

'Nope,' the Doctor replied.

'Mining?' asked Peggy.

'Ooooh, good guess!' said the Doctor. Steve looked at Peggy incredulously.

'How do you do that,' he asked, astonished, 'every single time…'

'Intuition,' replied Peggy.

'I assume there was some sort of disaster here that wiped out most of, if not the entirety, of the inhabitants of this… ship?' asked Loki, pausing to stare into yet another empty room.

The Doctor nodded, impressed. 'And that's a point to Loki. Three way tie, folks, got to keep the guesses going!'

Loki looked startled. He'd simply been commenting on the total lack of people; he had no intention of joining in any game that the Doctor and his companions had running.

But that didn't stop the urge to compete, and win, rising. With a renewed goal, Loki examined the ship as closely as he could while the four of them followed the scutter down the hallway.

The Doctor smiled to himself. This was going better than he'd expected so far. Though he really wanted to know what had happened to the crew of the ship to leave it with no one on board save for the humanoid descendant of a cat, a third-rate mechanic, a holographic human and a serving mechanoid.

'Well,' said Steve, after deciding that he wasn't able to figure anything else out from appearances alone, 'this should be interesting.'

*
Author's Notes; As you might be able to tell, I'm a bit out of touch here.

I'm not sure what I've done with Peggy's character. If anyone has any suggestions for characterising her in a way that's more true to her original character, I'm happy to hear them.

Google "red dwarf scutter" for a picture of the robot they're following.