I may or may have not have said this before, but if you have any suggestions or things you'd like to see happen/be addressed in later chapters, feel free to shoot them to me. I'm pretty fluid when it comes to plotting and might be able to accommodate you quite nicely. Anyway, I now offer you the fate of planet Earth and Loki Laufeyson! Enjoy

Curtain up!

Loki sat quietly on a stainless steel operating table in the extensive Hellicarrier laboratory, feeling uncomfortably like the child caught in a custody battle as Bruce attached medical nodes to his temples while berating Tony. He wasn't shouting anymore, but the tint of olive creeping around the tips of his ears wasn't likely to be going away anytime soon.

"This is the most insane idea you've ever had and I'm not okay with it. It's dangerous, irresponsible, incorrigible, and inhumane. Not to mention stupid. Even if we get that shade right down to the accent and mannerisms, The Chitauri still might not believe that it's really Loki."

Tony was going to town on SHIELD's impressive computer mainframe, already crafting an appropriate shadow function and "accidentally" deleting any security checks or firewalls that impeded his progress.

"I feel obligated to point out that the tense you're speaking in insinuates that you've already agreed to go along with it, so you might as well stop bitching and enjoy the ride, Brucey-boy."

The green tinge crept a little further down Banner's neck. "I'm not playing around, Tony! Have you even considered how this is going to affect our Loki? The strain of maintaining such a heavy enchantment could kill him!"

"Once my codex is integrated into the shade's system, it'll be self-sustaining, just like the RnD department. In theory."

"Everything here is theoretical, Tony! The science, the magic, the Chitauri's response…There are too many varaibles!"

"Do you have a better idea, Doctor Banner?" Tony snapped, his calm cracking a little. "If so, I wait with bated breath for your revelation."

Bruce opened his mouth to rise to Tony's provocation, but unexpectedly, Loki grabbed him by the hand, pulling him back to his work.

"Stop this foolishness, both of you," The god muttered, blackly but without any bite. "Anthony, you're a madman, but you have a point. There is no other choice. I cooperate of my own free will, so I suggest you reconcile yourself with the thought of it, Doctor Banner." His voice softened a little. He was tired. "Just…Stop fighting."

Both scientists sighed, and even Tony admitted to himself that this wasn't the time for his barbed words. So he returned to his computing and Bruce finished hooking Loki up to the monitoring equipment that would ensure no harm befell the god while he cast the difficult spell. The trickster had one of his weathered leather-bound tomes open in his lap and was perusing a yellowed page of Asgardian spells with delicate fingertips. His brows furrowed together and he muttered a few halfhearted curses in Aesir, words Bruce had come to recognize meant something was wrong, and the doctor asked gently,

"Problem?"

"Yes and no," Loki sighed. "This magic is in construct feasible, and well within my power, but it falls under the category of enchantments forbidden in the Nine Realms. It involves infusing flesh and blood with the spark of life, a hidden power gifted to my people by the Old One and punishable under pain of death if misused, and transferring the memories of a living creature, also a subject of debate."

"Good thing we're not in Asgard," Tony said, somewhat sardonically. "Don't tell me you of all people are adverse to breaking a few rules."

Loki looked up at him, green eyes shining with the pure passion of a true scholar. "These are not courtly manners or social constructs I am upsetting, Anthony, this is a potent force that follows a specific set of guidelines and bylaws. Were I to disregard the severity of my actions completely, I could easily rip a hole in this dimension, or anger the deities who grant me my magic and be stripped of all power or my very life."

"Sounds all religulous and new-agey to me. I thought you said this was science."

"It is. Higher science than yours, that connected to the spirit."

"Whatever. Besides a few cultural taboos, any other cons to solidifying this shade of yours?"

Loki snapped his book shut. "The strain could kill me and will undoubtedly drain me dry of all magic for a few days, but what's that to you? You care not for my beliefs."

Tony sighed heavily, realizing that his mouth had gotten him into trouble once again.

"Loki, I didn't mean-"

"We're running out of moonlight, Stark, the sun will be up in mere hours." Loki hopped off the tables, wriggling his fingers and assuming a wide stance, as if he were afraid the spell he was about to attempt would knock him bodily backwards. "I'm ready, Doctor."

Bruce looked trepidatiously from Tony to Loki, then sighed and muttered the ghost of a prayer as he calibrated the laser that would beam Tony's code into Loki's doppleganger. The god began by calmly summoning a shade, turning it this way and that, making sure that not one hair was out of place. To the untrained eye, there were now two Lokis in the room, although one held a very fixed expression as was a wee bit see-through at the edges. Satisfied that his creation was a perfect replica, Loki took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and began muttering quick incantations under his breath. His fingertips pulsed with green magic, a blinding gold halo radiating around his person as he threw everything he had into the spell. Power came off him in waves and torrents, pulsing with blinding ferocity into the shuddering shade.

After a moment of pure exertion, Loki was forced down onto one knee and then the other, his legs giving out under the strain of his chosen enchantment. This actually panicked Tony a bit, and he tried to rush forward a help Loki, but Bruce caught him firmly by the arm, keeping one eye on Loki's vital signs.

"You can't interfere now; we're past the point of no return. His vitals are holding. Give him a moment."

The two scientists unconsciously held their breaths as Loki's magic began to simmer down, turning from a maelstrom of green energy to a soft golden light that filled the whole room. Tendrils of energy wrapped around Bruce's legs and forearms, turning any patches of skin they touched Hulk-green, and a haze of emerald infiltrated Tony's arc reactor for a moment, speeding his heart up in an irregular way that made the billionaire grip the edges of the operating table as he waited for it to pass. Eventually, all the magic died out, fading into nothingness or evaporating like rain off a hot sidewalk. Then the unearthly smoke cleared to reveal Loki reduced to all fours on the ground, couching up bile and green sparks and swearing a blue streak in Aesir. Standing over him was the shade, who to everyone's wonder and horror now occupied the density and volume of his demi-god creator, flushed with life and solid as any of them.

"How perfectly curious," It murmured aloud in Loki's aristocratic tones.

That seemed to break the spell over the room, and both humans began to move quickly. Bruce rushed to Loki's side, letting the god lean heavily on him as he checked him for injury, and Tony immediately went to work on the mainframe-routed laser, powering it up and inputting his final calculations. Bruce had said that the irradiated codex only took when Loki's magic was still hot, and Tony wasn't about to waste time talking to this thing.

There was real concern in Bruce's eyes as he knelt by Loki, a hand at his temple, eyes intently searching the other man's own.

"Are you alright? Loki, can you hear me?"

The god nodded, swatting him away feebly as he took a few gasping breaths. "I'm fine. Attend to the shade. You have mere moments."

Tony didn't need to be told twice. At Loki's bidding, he swung the mounted laser around and punched in the deploy code with agile fingers, watching in anticipation as a solid stream of light split out of the device to hit the shade square in the chest. Its person was still glowing with green energy, and the trace magic mixed seamlessly with the irradiated laser, sending streams of computer code dancing across its eyes and through its mind.

The real Loki watched with a certain feeling of eerie disenchantment as he spat the taste of bile from his mouth and wrenched the offer of water from Bruce's hand, downing half the bottle.

"Is it taking?"

Tony glanced at his readings once more, then walked over and put a hand on Loki's shoulder and squeezing reassuringly.

"Yeah. Fits like a glove. You did good, Lokes."

Loki stored the friendly pet name, muttered out of relief and distraction, away in the back of his mind for later blackmail but half-smiled at it now. And then the laser program had run its course and the beam powered down, leaving the shade (or was it a clone now?) thrumming with electricity and gazing down at its own hands as if they held the secrets to the universe. Loki stood shakily and took a measure step towards it, which the clone mimicked down to the light breath the god took as he did so.

"Wow," Bruce muttered, taken aback by the sheer precision of Tony's shadow function.

"Next year's Stark tech," The man of iron explained. "Military grade cutting-edge artificial intelligence, the closest thing to real this side of a twin. It learns by imitating; give it ten minutes with Loki and it'll be able to anticipate his reaction in a scenario within the hundredth percentile of accuracy."

Loki looked into his own eyes with more pain than he thought he would feel. This thing was no longer a mirror image used to evade capture and trick his brother during childhood games of hide-and-seek, this was a living, breathing creature, a veritable child that he felt unsettlingly responsible for. It seemed to gaze into his soul, and this action made Loki's skin crawl.

"What must I do now?" The god whispered, trying his best to break eye contact with that damnable thing.

"In order to make this as realistic as possible, we need memory transfer," Bruce said, his discomfort when faced with this prospect evident in his voice. "Everything you know, everything you feel, every secret and hope, has to go into this thing. It really has to be you, Loki, down to the dying wish."

"And how shall I…Transfer my thoughts?"

"Don't worry," Tony said soothingly. "It won't hurt. It's a simply contact transfer; you touch the shade and beam your thoughts in. Easy."

Loki's face was haggard. "I have no magic left, Tony. I'm drier than most mortals."

"The clone's running hot. It's the battery here, and the conduit. You're just the database." Tony glanced at his watch nervously. Thirty minutes to sunup. "Go on. Give it a try."

Loki took an unsure step towards the clone, trying to swallow his childlike panic as it mirrored him, drawing closer. It cannot harm you, he reminded himself, chastising. It is not real. Loki reached out a hand to make contact with the shade, but Bruce's gentle voice stopped him. It was the very sound of comfort and reason, the much-needed adult in this maddening situation.

"You don't have to, Loki. If you feel uncomfortable, we can pull the plug. No one will think any different of you."

The god was suddenly gripped by a fierce desire to break down in heaving sobs, perhaps let Bruce indulge his paternal instinct to hug him, but then the steel and ice interweaved through Loki's character dried his eyes and set his jaw in stone.

I am Loki Laufeyson, bane of the nine realms. I will do what must be done.

And then he placed his hands on either side of the clone's face, pressing their foreheads together and willing his every living memory into the creation with his face.

It was a surprisingly fast process, the years flipping by in seconds, but it wrecked Loki. He felt every passing emotion with all its original severity, the childhood bliss of companionship and comfort, the cold gnawing of jealousy that began in his early teens, the first taste of power on his silvered tongue and the bitterness that capped his late adolescence, and the betrayal and all-consuming rage that ushered in his adulthood. He could feel the heat off the flames of burning New York city mingling with the madness that had encroached on his mind during his siege of earth and shivered in the darkness of Odin's frigid sentence of banishment. Finally he came to the fated moment, his capture at Chitauri hands and his first night in their sadistic company.

Then something went very wrong. The connection was broken as the shade suddenly wrenched away from Loki's light touch, leaving the god with a splitting headache. The shade stumbled backwards, a wild look in its eyes, all pain and rage. Loki tried to speak to it in a few soothing Aesir words he used to calm the horses in his father's stables, but the creature retaliated with surprising ferocity, thin fingers encircling Loki's throat and slamming him up against a nearby wall. Shocked by this sudden turn of events, Tony and Bruce scramble over and (with some effort), hauled the two Loki's apart, Bruce comforting the frightened creator shouting in Aesir while Tony dragged the creation to the ground and cuffed him to the leg of an operating table.

"What happened?" Bruce cried.

"H-he, it, the shade…It refused to receive any more of what I had on the Chituari, that's as far as I got…The last few months didn't take, he knows nothing of my time on Earth."

"Maybe that's best," Tony panted, pulling himself up off the floor. "The Loki the Chitauri had didn't know us the way you do. This is more authentic."

Below them, the shade snarled and hissed for a moment more, then slowly curled up into a ball, arms wrapped around the leg of the table, and began to heave shuddering sobs of fear and hopelessness. Loki looked upon it with pain and disgust, unable to stand the sight of himself reduced to nothing.

"Stop that," He snapped, harsher than he would have liked. "Stop it!"

Truth be told, his own voice was starting to break in telling places. This day had taken too much from him; too much power, too much pride, too many options, too much of him. Bruce released his crushing grip on Loki's arms and rubbed them gently, not so much restraining now as consoling.

"Loki, let it be. It's alright, you did it. It's going to be alright, Loki."

There was a tense, quiet moment as the shade cried, Tony tried to catch his breath, Loki trembled, and Bruce made low, soothing noises. Then Fury's voice crackled to life through the loudspeaker above them, breaking the wretched silence.

"Thanos just touched down on the loading deck. I hope you've got something to show for the last hour, because he ain't playing anymore. Bring what you have and I'll see what I can do."

Twenty minutes later, Loki watched from a safely concealed room with a window view as the Avengers walked his indoctrinated shade, complete with shackles and muzzle, out onto the helicarrier deck. He tried not to shudder as the doors to the small Chitauri ambassador ship slid opened and Thanos stepped out, smiling in that grim, animal way that was all teeth. That smile still haunted Loki's dreams. Thor hadn't left his brother's side since he had emerged shaken and pale from the lab and now rubbed his back with a massive hand, muttering awkward sympathies that Loki wasn't hearing. He merely watched as Fury exchanged a few tight, polite words with the Chiaturi overlord and then personally delivered the shade into Thanos' hands, effectively taking the blood onto his hands.

The entire exchange was a brief and anticlimactic as it was fraught with insufferable tension. Once the wildly protesting shade had been escorted by Chitauri foot soldiers onto the ship, Thanos bowed low and retreated himself into the recesses of his ship, which then took off from the loading deck with that terrible whine and a slightly purplishhaze. Loki clicked on the walkie-talkie Clint had given him and spoke into it with clipped, professional tones.

"Barton, status report."

On the deck, Clint spoke nonchalantly into his lapel mike, trying to contain his relief. "Thanos took the bait. He's removing his ships and weapons from Earth's atmosphere immediately and making for his home galaxy two systems over. I think this is the last we'll see of him for a long time."

In his tower room, Loki dropped the walkie-talkie, leaned into Thor, and sobbed in relief.

That evening, the six Avengers, Loki, and Director Fury all sat around what was becoming their usual conference table, spent from playing God and averting a nuclear Apocalypse. Clint was out of the rafters and in a chair, shockingly, letting Natasha rest her head on his shoulder, and Tony sat across from them, feet up on the table, a distant look in his eyes and stiff drink in his hands. Loki, who was exhausted and pale, was sandwiched better hovering Bruce and overprotective Thor, both who saw fit to maintain some sort of constant contact and gaze at him occasionally as if they feared he would pass out at any moment. Loki indulged this because honestly, he wasn't sure that his legs wouldn't give out if he tried to stand up. Steve was lost in his thoughts at the end of the table, only half listening to what Fury was saying.

"…A serious crisis has been averted here today due to the quick thinking of some of our own who will not be noted due to the fact that their ego simply doesn't need the boost." Tony nodded at the backhanded compliment, swallowing the rest of his gin. "And I would like to thank those of you involved, Loki, Doctor Banner, who made all this possible. Crazy-ass and too damn close for comfort, but possible. So. My thanks."

Bruce murmured a soft-spoken "you're welcome", and Loki, who had given up on sitting erect and was laying his head down on folded arms, slurred something that would have no doubt been very eloquent and charming if he wasn't so tired. Fury sighed, crossing his arms.

"That said, there is still one rather large issue that needs addressing. Earlier, Stark proposed adding Loki onto the team as an Avenger and I, as the Director, am forced to entertain the notion."

Loki cracked open an eye, finding his diction only by searching some deep, engrained part of him that defined him as royalty and a damn good liar. "I assure Mr. Stark was speaking in jest, Director. Indulge his whims only as you would those of a raving lunatic."

Tony seemed injured. "I was dead serious, Reindeer Games."

Natasha and Clint both groaned audibly, anticipating the argument that was to come, and Clint muttered something about alcohol and an early night. Loki however, was incensed, and slowly lifted his head off the table with fire in his eyes.

"Earlier you claimed it was only a ploy to garner the Director's support of your plan and you would never consider such a thing without my express permission."

"You're not the only liar in the room," Tony scoffed.

In an instant, Loki had crawled across the table with the agility of a spoiled Hollywood bad girl, spitting out bitchy threats that would have been completed by brandishing a stiletto threateningly and imbibing a few margaritas beforehand. Thor rebuked his brother sharply, grabbing him by the ankle and yanking him down onto the table, leaving him to claw at a slightly amused Tony while flat on his stomach and hissing,

"I will turn you into a newt, Stark, a worm-ridden dog! Had I my magic you would be rendered speechless, impotent, blind and deaf, incapable of muscular control-"

Fury cut him off with a shouted and comically parental,

"Boy, get off the table! Who taught you to climb on furniture? That might fly in Asgard but not on my damn ship! That is mahogany, what is wrong with you? Little banshee…This is the kind of crazy you want on my team, Stark?"

Thor yanked Loki back into his seat and held him there while offering an apologetic,

"Please forgive my brother; he's had a very trying day. He tends to get cranky when drained of his power, he just needs a nap-"

"I am no child!" Loki hissed.

"Then stop acting like a spoiled godling," Thor growled sidelong, and the exchange was so typical of siblings, Asgardian or not, that it had Steve and Natasha swallowing twin smiles. Tony, surprisingly, came to Loki's defense.

"Cut him some slack, Fury, I just asked him to waste himself in order to work some seriously forbidden magic , then gaze into the blackest pits of his soul and inflict all that bad mojo on a replica of himself, which we then handed over to the bane of his very existence. Tempers flare. Punches get thrown. It's all teambuilding at the end of the day."

Fury sighed, massaging his brow. "Anyway, back on the subject, I perused the rulebook and spoke with my superiors and yes, what Tony suggested is a feasible possibility. However, it takes a unanimous team vote, which I don't think we're gonna get-"

"Perfect," Tony said, clapping his hands together in childlike glee. "Let's vote."

"I'm not finished, Stark, so calm your happy-camping ass down!" Fury took a deep breath, calming himself. "It is up, first and foremost, to Loki. We can't very well make him an Avenger against his will. And before you refuse, Mr. Laufeyson, I suggest you take into careful consideration the fact that your three month period of housing and amnesty is nearing its end. Without a valid reason to be in Avengers Tower, I can't legally allow you to stay. You'd be either back in Asgard or on your own, and for the sake of national security, working relationships with the Avengers would have to be severed. So. Any objections?"

Loki's cutting response withered when faced with these facts. He hated to admit it, he really did, he wished he could just hate them all, but he had grown fond of these strange miscreants who had opened their home to him. Come to think of it, he practically was one of them. He had used his magic to help them out on countless occasions and was trusted. Natasha was disgustingly close to a best friend, Bruce cared far too much about him, and he had fallen into the old routine of treating Thor as his brother again. Personal feelings aside, he couldn't afford to lose his home in Avengers Tower. It was safe and was all her knew of this mortal world. He wasn't safe on the streets of New York yet; if he was recognized by a single person, it could very well turn into a witch hunt and a lynching. So Loki swallowed his pride and muttered,

"None."

"Didn't think so," Fury said. "Alright, let's make the rounds. Yea or Nay. Tony?"

"Aye aye, Cap'n," The billionaire said with a sloppy salute and mega-watt smile.

"Bruce?"

The Doctor nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. Absolutely, I insist."

"Fair enough. Thor, do I even have to-"

"I shall not abandon my brother in this bureaucratic trail by fire!"

"Yes, very good," Fury sighed, moving to the more difficultly convinced half of the table, firstly to the good Captain, who looked more than a little skeptical. "Steve?"

Steve pressed his lips together, seriously thinking it over. "I don't feel like I should, but I don't have a good reason for it and Loki's been a pleasure to have on board. He's a real solider, I have to admit…Yes. Let's try it."

"Agent Romanoff?"

Nat yawned, half gone already, and waved the question away as if it were the simplest thing in the world. "Loki honey, you keep doing nails and sparring like you do, and I'll pay you to stay. Second to Clint and the rooftop pool, you're the best thing in the Tower already."

Fury tried to nod, but it came out in a confused shake of the head. Then he turned to Clint.

"Barton? Make it or break it."

"Always me," Clint muttered, then glanced at Loki and smiled. "Aw hell. I've spent worse time with the guy. Yes."

Fury groaned, gritting his teeth. It wasn't that he didn't like Loki or appreciate what he could do for the team; there was just so much paperwork that came with the god, not to mention that six of them had already been a time bomb. Seven was bound to be…Mischief.

"Fine. You're a bunch of emotionally-compromised masochists with no sense of professionalism…Dammit it all. I, Nick Fury, swear Loki Laufeyson of Asgard in as an honorary Avenger with all rights, privileges, responsibilities, and access to commercial rights. Bam. You're done. Go have Stark make you a spangly suit. I'm done with this mess."

Loki leaned forward intently in his chair.

"Wait, I didn't agree to anything regarding costuming-"

"Take it up with Stark. I am officially off-duty."

Then Fury turned on his heel and retreated his quarters for a night of solitude topped off with a stiff drink and muttered prayer that Loki didn't kill anyone while he slept. He would be relatively satisfied when he awoke to find that the god had done nothing more than drink half a bottle of rum from Fury's private stash, steal agent Hill's brassiere and leave it lying strategically about where her subordinates could see, and make one of the technical agents cry by pointing out that he had been playing Gattica while his comrades worked to track down an African warlord.

Back in the conference room, Steve clapped a stunned Loki on the shoulder, grinning in a very unwholesome, Unamerican way.

"Loki, my friend…You most certainly get a spangly suit."

Random note for all ye faithful who have watched Serenity or Firefly: The Chiaturi here remind me of technologically advanced Reavers, don't you agree? Tune in next time to see Loki get that spangly suit and watch as Odin and Frigga get word of their son's "capture ". I believe you'll find it stirs some deep-rooted parental instincts. Thanks for the great reviews and numerous subscriptions, keep up the good work!