Atonement

By: Shadow Chaser

Disclaimer:

Loki and the Avengers along with all Marvel characters do not belong to me; they belong to Marvel Entertainment and Disney. I am only borrowing the characters for my own amusement and will return them (a bit battered, but hopefully healthy) when I'm done.

Story:

Chapter 12

Loki could tell Thor wanted desperately to go to this West Virginia like the others as he unconsciously twisted his hammer in his hand. But his orders from the Allfather made him stay and Loki had no inclination to go anywhere near another open portal or Chitauri at the moment. However, he also knew that Thor would become insufferable, especially since he had heard his mortal woman was in danger. Loki sighed quietly, closing his eyes briefly as the others made to leave. It was a risk…but it would have to do as he knew that if he let Thor stay, it would become unbearable.

Opening his eyes, he caught Thor's look and waved his hands, "You may join your little band of friends."

"Loki-"

"I am sure," he made sure to raise his voice a bit so the others would hear him, "that Agent Romanoff would be an adequate substitute for your insufferable presence."

That stopped the others from leaving and both Fury and Agent Romanoff turned around. "Come again?" the leader of SHIELD asked.

"Loki-"

"You may explain to the Agent your orders from the Allfather," Loki offered blithely, "the fact that he has only assigned those who had known me the best, tells me enough. Agent Romanoff is an adequate substitute for your presence Thor."

"I-"

"I am not going to this West Virginia and you have made it clear you will not leave my side due to the Allfather's orders. I know you well enough that you will become utterly insufferable and attempt to wheedle me into going to rescue your woman. For the sake of not incurring the Allfather's wrath and explaining to the Queen why I had to turn her only son into a miniature bligesnipe, which would be more of a headache and annoyance, I give you the excuse to tell the Allfather why you had disobeyed his orders if Agent Romanoff stays."

"It is not only because of the orders that I stay Loki-"

"Spare me your sentimentality;" he glared at Thor, "you will become insufferable if you stay. Take the offer for what it is."

"Wait, wait, hold on," Fury stepped back towards them and pointed a finger at Loki, "you, do not tell my Agents who goes and who stays-"

"I did not; I merely told Thor that he could leave, providing he explains to Agent Romanoff why she must stay. It would be Thor who has given orders for your Agents to go or stay," Loki smiled briefly at Fury's exasperated expression.

"Semantics," the man waved away his explanation, "the fact is, you're telling Thor to do this and in a way, you are responsible-"

"Thor would be much more effective in the strike force since this Jane Foster is in danger," Loki pointed out, "Agent Romanoff's skills would only be of support and you will need an offensive strike force to help evacuate the people of the facility."

"That's not the point and Agent Romanoff's skills are a valuable asset-"

"He's right sir," Loki smiled a little as Romanoff finally stepped forward and Fury turned his one-eyed gaze to her as she gave a little shrug of indifference.

"Agent-"

"My skills on this op would only be support and recon. We need a fast moving strike force to distract the Chitauri while the support team on the second quinjet evacuates the civilians and ensures the retrieval of the sceptre before anyone can get at it," she explained and Fury frowned, staring at her for a long moment before shaking his head.

"Fine," he turned briefly to throw a glare at Loki, "don't get any ideas that this was your suggestion. I'm only taking this under advisement because of time issues. If you ever think of doing such a thing-"

"Like I said, I never suggested a thing," Loki held both of his hands up, both to show that he was still cuffed for their benefit, also to show that he did not really 'suggest' what was suggested.

Fury snorted, clearly not believing him, before he walked from the room, hand touching an ear and started to relay further orders. Loki watched as Thor approached Romanoff and quietly spoke to her. To her credit, her expression did not change, but he noted that her eyes betrayed the extent of the surprise she was feeling as Thor explained his orders and seemed to give more information than that. He knew he could easily cast a listening spell to hear what Thor had to say, but a certain amount of pride and annoyance prevented him from doing so. He had no need to listen to Thor's opinion of him or what was happening, his brother clearly stating how he had felt about all of this through his poor attempts at reconciliation that was not wanted nor needed.

After Thor was done, he turned and the two walked over. Loki arched an eyebrow at Thor who looked like he wanted to embrace him, but hesitated. "Knife, ribs," he cautioned and saw a grimacing smile appear on the Thunder God's face. Good, he was learning.

"I will return soon, Loki," Thor said giving him a measured look and left with the others. For some odd reason, he felt a pull of fear at his brother's departure, but that feeling flitted away before he could contemplate on it. He shrugged mostly to himself and turned to Agent Romanoff who looked like she could be carved from stone once more.

"Shall we?" he gestured and she shot a look at him before gesturing for him to follow her.

"Stark and Dr. Banner are probably already at the lab," she started as they walked from the briefing room, "I'll bring you to them."

As they left the room, the four guards that had escorted Loki to his original cell materialized from the interconnected corridors and surrounding him and Romanoff once more, but her pacing did not stop, nor did not indicate her state of mind. He guessed that she clearly was not too happy to be left behind, but at the same token had acknowledged her weaknesses on the battlefield to Director Fury.

They passed by several other crew members, some carrying equipment, others headed towards elsewhere, but many of them did double takes as they passed by. He only smiled in return, enjoying the discomfort they clearly expressed on their faces at his presence. It felt good to be acknowledged or at least remembered for something, though he supposed dropping a giant floating object with perhaps thousands of people on it was a bit overdramatic.

"Dismissed," Romanoff suddenly stopped at a non-descript door that Loki did not recognize the last time he was here. When he had made his escape, one of the men who had accompanied Agent Barton's strike team had reported that the lab that Dr. Banner was working out of had been blown apart by the initial explosion to the engines. He supposed that this was perhaps a secondary lab, though lacking in windows like the first one.

The guards around him all straightened before hurrying off as Romanoff keyed in a code that was too quick for Loki to see, but he gently brushed the pad with magic and saw the codes she had pressed. The door hissed open as he released the spell on the keypad and she looked at him expectantly.

He stepped past her into the lab and was immediately confronted with at least several monitors, all of them similar to the holographic interfacing that was in the briefing room, but instead was two dimensional and projected onto transparent screens.

"Oh good, you're here," Banner looked up and Loki was a little surprised at the sudden business-like demeanor in his posture and tone, a complete contrast to the seemingly meek and non-confrontational nature of the man to stop the release of the monster within.

Banner turned one of the screens towards him before pointing out a vague pattern on the screen, some full of lines, others with bars and codes on it, "I need you to work out the configuration pattern-"

"He's not getting access to any computer systems, Doctor," Romanoff spoke up behind him and Loki turned a little to see her crossing her arms across her chest.

"But-"

"Fury's orders," Romanoff shook her head, "we don't know what he's capable of doing to the network if he does get access."

Banner opened his mouth to protest once more before he closed it and shrugged resignedly. "It would be much easier if he could help us program it…"

"We don't even know if he knows computers, Bruce," Stark called out absently as he stared at his own screen, his ungloved hand tapping quickly on a series of letters, the gloved one gently swiping across the screen, "Jarvis, I need you to copy the files that we had scanned for and re-upload them to the mainframe."

Loki looked around, expecting to see someone named Jarvis around, but no one appeared and he decided that Stark was perhaps talking to someone he could not see nor hear within the room.

"You deleted the files?" Banner looked surprise and out of the corner of Loki's eye, he saw Romanoff shake her head, as if she had expected it.

"I kept them safe," Stark replied absently, "so, Blitzen, I'm throwing out a guess here, but since Asgardian magic or magick-tech or whatever, can be like the Tesseract, it emits a radiation of sorts, right?"

"What he means is that we found the location of the Tesseract just by scanning it for gamma radiation," Banner explained, "and I think Tony's determined to probably call you every single reindeer that Santa has, so you can do what I usually do, ignore him."

"Hey!" Stark protested, but it was in jest and Loki's brow wrinkled a bit in confusion. He had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, but had long figured that Stark was referring to him by odd names when he wasn't calling Thor 'Point Break' or whatever other names he was tossing at the others.

"But you are not looking for the Tesseract," Loki started as he tried to figure out how he was going to solve the problem of making sure the mortals were able to scan the barrier and at least find the portals the Chitauri were being sent through. It was…difficult to say the least, to convert the equations and calculations of magic that he had learned into their terms. Especially since none of them believed in magic and barring the fact that it was a very highly guarded secret amongst all magic-users. Even Loki dared not break that oath that he had taken when he had first learned spell work.

He had to admit, it was much easier to show- A smile briefly worked its way up his face as he killed it quickly and stretched his hands out, summoning a light spell that appeared on his finger tips.

"What-"

"Do you not have your…scanners…as you call them? Scan this and tell me what frequencies they radiate," he looked at them as Stark lowered his arm, having taken a step back when he had cast the spell. By contrast, Banner had taken a step forward, utterly fascinated with the spell glowing on his finger tips. Behind him, he had not heard a peep from Romanoff and turned his head slightly to see her staring at the spell with some curiosity, but not the surprise that he thought she would wear.

"It's not that easy," Banner took another step forward and adjusted his glasses as he peered down at his hands, "I mean, we have portable radiation detectors, but they're kind of useless, only there to figure out how much radiation someone's exposed to-"

"Give me a second," Stark interrupted before, tapping his screen, "Jarvis, can you give me a quick bypass to the portable scanner I have in the HUD and bring it up here. Good, good…"

Stark's display changed and Loki blinked at the sudden jagged lines that appeared on a corner along with a display that was listing a meaningless symbols he did not recognize. They looked a little like runes, but instead, were written with just a single capital letter and a lower case letter. He nearly took a step back as he saw Stark lift his gloved arm up and the whine of the circle of light in the middle, where repulsors usually fired from, hummed. But resisted the urge to do so when he saw a smirk briefly appear on the other man's face and frowned, narrowing his eyes.

"If you think of harming-"

"Relax, Donner, though I suppose it would be funny to just you know, blast you a bit for all those three-hundred-thirteen lives-" Stark's expression changed a little and Loki smiled nastily at the sudden grimace of pain that appeared on his face just before it disappeared.

"What was that?" Romanoff asked warily behind Loki and he turned a little to see her hand on the butt of her holstered gun.

"The effect of the geas," he answered before turning back to Stark who had a murderous look on his face and smiled, "I was curious as to what would happen based on Director Fury's negotiations. It seems I have my answer."

"…the hell?" Stark paled a bit, but did not lower his hand. He took a deep breath before releasing it and Banner started to shuffled towards him, but was stopped by a look from the man of iron.

"You spoke of taking revenge for the lives of those three-hundred-thirteen mortals," Loki shrugged lazily, "the contract of the geas prevents any sort of harm to befall me if anyone decides to avenge or say I owe them recompense for those lives."

"So if you don't figure out how to help us…"

"I will simply die," Loki finished for Romanoff, "and if someone decides to try what Tony Stark here tried, even perhaps as a joke, the geas will kill them."

"That's…" Banner trailed off and Loki saw Stark lower his hand as he glared at him.

"What a piece of work," Stark muttered, "you knew that was going to happen, didn't you?"

"I can claim that I did not, but you will not believe my words, so why should I say anything?" he countered and the other man looked away, his un-armored hand flexing in anger before he all but glared at his own screen.

"I got portions of near-infared, and near-ultraviolet, which doesn't make any sense," Stark grounded out, fighting to move past what had just happened, but Loki sensed that he was not quite done and knew the other man would confront the issue later, "so we're supposed to scan for this stuff, because to tell you the truth, there's a lot of things out there that read into this part of the electromagnetic spectrum."

"No," Loki shook his head and Stark sighed loudly and noisily.

"Then what the hell-"

"I wanted to make sure that your primitive technology was capable of detecting a minute amount of magic," Loki interrupted the man of iron who looked like he wanted to slug him hard.

"Hey, hey, calm down guys," this time Banner stepped in between them with a hesitant smile on his face and Loki instantly realized that with him and Stark bickering, Banner was liable to turn into the monster…and he had no inclination of being the monster's toy a second time around.

"My apologies," he took a step back and spread his hands out as best as he could with his cuffs still on.

"Yeah…sorry," Stark groused out before rubbing the back of his head.

"Okay, good," Banner nodded congenially before turning to Loki, "so what are we supposed to be scanning for?"

"The barrier is only one part of the magic that prevents Heimall from being able to see parts of the realm," he gestured with a wrist, feeling it grate against the metallic bite of the cuffs, "but that barrier is also being used with the magic of the portal itself. I can only show you part of it, but you will have to scan a portal and combine the two in order to find the right…frequency, as you call it like you had found the Tesseract."

"So, why didn't you go with the strike team?" Stark blinked, "would have made it a lot easier-"

"It would not have," Loki gritted his teeth as he felt like he was explaining things to a child of all people, "Thanos' portals have a completely different weave and skein than my own. Those skeins and weaves are similar to the barrier, but are different when traveling through portals-"

"Hold on, hold on, skeins? Weaves?" Banner looked confused and Loki sighed, rolling his eyes in frustration as he looked away from them to try to regain some of his composure before turning back to Banner and Stark.

"Each magic cast by a healer or battlemage has their own unique signature. A skein of magic or weave of the spell is like a thumbprint," he explained carefully, keeping his voice leveled and controlled. "There are common…threads that bind each spell cast together, but each time the same spell is cast, there is always something different. The weaves of spell work for a portal to cross the shadows of Yggdrasil are perhaps the most…unique of all."

"How?" he turned as Romanoff walked over to a table and leaned against it, her arms still crossed, but she looked rather interested in his explanation.

"They…" he hesitated, feeling oddly vulnerable for a moment as he realized what he was about to say was highly personal, and seemingly exposed the deepest and most private thoughts from within him. But as he looked at them, he realized with some ironic thrill that they would not judge him as the Asgardians or Court judged him for so long. They did not know him, did not know the ridicule nor shunning of magicks. They did not know…and they would not be able to truly understand what he was about to say. "They are…the mental state of the caster itself. To truly cross between the shadows of Yggdrasil, the branches and darkness, one must cross oneself…"

And true to what he had predicted, there was confusion on all three's faces and Loki breathed an inward sigh of relief. If Thor had heard that, or even the Warriors Three and Lady Sif, they would have pitied him, would have looked at him with some disgust, and would have derided him for the type of unholy magick he had performed. Even the battlemages would have stared at him in horror, to do such a thing and the Allfather would have surely said that he sullied himself by doing such a thing. The true testament of what it meant to be anathema was this…

"So…I guess how does this help us? I mean, each portal the Chitauri are sent through is unique right? So how can we figure out how to scan for one if they're different each time?" Banner asked, tapping a finger on his lip as his brow furrowed in thought.

"There are common threads," Loki shrugged before summoning the skein and weave he had stolen from Thanos days earlier, but did not apply it to the spell to break the barrier and lifted his hands up, his palms flat.

"Uh…"

"I don't see anything?" Romanoff tilted her head slightly and Loki shook his head.

"Scan it," he looked at the man of iron who reluctantly lifted his armored hand up and the small whine filled the air.

"I'm getting…soft x-rays and some gamma radiation?" Stark sounded unsure as he stared at his screen, the jagged lines that Loki could see becoming even more jagged, but they seemingly were static and disjointed, "I can't…it's not really getting a good reading."

Loki frowned as he stared at the weave he had plucked, trying to find if there was any imperfection within it, but a cursory scan of his own revealed nothing. The complexity of the spell work must be great he realized as he lowered his hands. "We will need to perhaps scan an open portal," he said, a grimace on his face as he thought of actually going back to the battlefield, to where Thor was…but that was not what he was truly afraid of. He did not want to see that lone blue eye that stared back at him from the darkness, from nothing, ready to swallow him whole-

"Green Bank was one of those we used; maybe I can configure it to scan for the frequencies that your suit picked up…" Banner suggested as he moved to his own workstation and started to tap on a few things on the screen.

"No, it's not perfect. Plus, who knows what you may pick up in the mean time," Stark shook his head, "Prancer's right, we probably need an open portal, but we do need a stronger radio telescope than the miniature one I've got. I can hack into Green Bank and we can then work from there-"

The door suddenly opened and all of them turned to see a rather ordinary man with unremarkable features standing by the door. However, Loki realized that the ordinary looking man was rather…familiar in ways, but he could not place his face. However, both Banner and Stark looked like someone had walked over their graves several times. Romanoff by contrast, looked mildly surprised, as if she had known for a while now.

"Fury called me in early," the man shrugged at Romanoff's expression to which Loki saw her smile a little before he turned to face the other two, "sorry…couldn't tell you that I was actually back and you know…not quite dead. I was actually watching upstairs with Barton, Hill, and the others…"

If anything, Stark's expression surprised Loki as he saw something akin to anger, fury, even consternation, guilt, followed by something utterly unreadable pass through the man of iron's face.

"Good to meet you…again," the man said and Loki realized he was addressing him, "Phil Coulson…the guy you kind of stabbed with your glowstick of destiny when you were busy trying to send Thor thirty-thousand feet into the ground."

Loki blinked before he realized why the other man looked familiar. He had to admit, when he had first faced off against the almost-comically gigantic weapon this son of Coul had in his hand, it had been an unknown quantity. His magic had immediately identified it with the markers of Odin's Destroyer, yet at the same time had been manipulated to the point that he had barely recognized it. If there was anything Loki knew, it was that the Destroyer was aptly named and anything, anything derived from it would hurt.

"You'll forgive me if I'm not going to shake hands with you," the ordinary-looking mortal shrugged as if it was the sole thing he wanted to do and Loki smiled briefly. The mortal had courage; he had to give him that, especially since he remembered stabbing him through and then discarding him to the side like he was just a waste of space. Even the blast from that unique gun he had wielded was a surprise, but nonetheless at that time, it was an annoyance in his escape.

"You said I lacked conviction, is that correct?" he was starting to remember more about this ordinary, yet dangerous, simple looking man and wondered if he should classify his resilience and perhaps slightly manipulative tendencies as high as he ranked Agent Romanoff's abilities.

The son of Coul flashed a brief smile, but there was nothing behind it, "You do remember."

"I believe it was more of the fact that my army lacked conviction," Loki shrugged, "I still believe all of you belong under my heel, but there are far more pressing matters…"

"Yes," Coulson seemed to gather himself together and addressed the others, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but we need to borrow you Stark and Agent Romanoff. There's been another sighting of the Chitauri in Montreal and we've got a team headed in, but we need some extra firepower. The others are still dealing with Green Bank…"

"What does SHIELD have in Montreal?" Banner asked the same time Romanoff also spoke up

"I…I can't leave him," Romanoff winced and Loki resisted the urge to sigh. Whatever Thor had told the red-headed Agent, it had produced the same result and Coulson frowned.

"I'm sure Dr. Banner-"

Romanoff shook her head and Loki looked at her, wondering why of all people she would not just go. She did not hold the same loyalties as Thor, the same sentimentality that made Thor try to reconcile and attempt to be the family that they once was – though he would never understand that Loki did not want to be that family anymore, the family of lies, deceit, and of being in the shadows. So what had Thor said to make her defy Coulson's request? He seemed to give off the air of authority and rank that Fury gave off, perhaps a hierarchy that he was senior to her in some respects. SHIELD in particular prided themselves to be a warrior-like culture, with a few oddball semi-pacifists like Banner and even the soldier Rogers in it, so in respects, should Romanoff openly defy Coulson's order?

"You want to tell me why?" Coulson looked puzzled and Romanoff shook her head again before Loki saw the barest flicker of her eyes back to him and realized that she would not say whatever Thor had told her in front of him.

"I'll pretend to turn around and silence my ears from your damning words, Agent," Loki drawled even though a part of him was now deeply concerned with what was said that even Thor had perhaps sworn Romanoff to silence. He sent a tendril of magicks towards her, but there was no indication that she was under a geas, except for the one engulfing the whole of Midgard for his previous negotiations with Fury. Then again, he did not expect any other geas upon her, since Thor had not even a drop of magick ability except for the hammer he wielded.

"What's in Montreal?" Banner asked as the tension in the room was starting to rise with Romanoff's refusal to say anything about why she had to stay.

"Nothing," Coulson shrugged, "we don't have anything there."

"But then why-"

"There is an open portal," Loki interrupted and saw Romanoff shoot him a dark look.

"It's a trap," she stated plainly and the others turned to her, but she refused to elaborate.

Coulson grimaced, "We still need-"

"Yeah, on it," Stark finally spoke up, his voice tight with emotion and Loki smiled inwardly. When Stark had rattled off the list of those he had angered before surprising him with a quick attack in New York City, he had sounded calmed and controlled, but he had known that the man of iron had been anything but. It seemed he had taken the supposed death of the son of Coul the hardest, and while he did not know what bound the two together, it had proven to him that Stark true nature was buried under the façade he fought so hard to keep up.

He brushed past all of them before glancing over to Banner, "You'll be able to handle the calculations right? I'll hack into Green Bank and at least try to point it in the direction."

"Yeah, sure," Banner grimaced bracingly, "just…"

Stark snorted and waved his armored hand to dismiss his concern before walking out, Coulson giving Romanoff one last look before following the man of iron. Loki watched as the door slid close before noting that Romanoff was chewing her lower lip, clearly unhappy with the turn of events. He could clearly tell, especially by her body language which he knew was half a ploy, half unfeigned, that she wanted to go and had not wanted to deny Coulson his request.

"He's a good friend," she said without looking at him before crossing her arms and leaning against a table and stared at nothing in particular.

"Your attempts to feign guilt and make me feel sorry are sorely lacking," Loki replied a bit dryly. He really had no intention of going anywhere near an open portal, not even with this one in this city called Montreal open.

"I'm not," Romanoff replied before turning her head to look at Banner who blinked in return, wondering what she was staring at. Loki also looked between the two, wondering what she was getting at before he realized what she intended to do.

He shook his head. If there was a choice between her leaving him with Banner whom seemed to turn a shade of light green each time they were near each other, to facing the Chitauri and an open portal, he would choose an open portal. Plus, Banner did not know him well enough and that fear, the deep seeded fear within, was starting to bloom within him.

He gritted his teeth…the puny mortals, or at least in Romanoff's case, were far more manipulative than he had imagined. But, there was still a chance he could salvage this and make it so that he was the one in control of the situation. "The man of iron will not know what to directly look for and could be hunting for the portal all day long," Loki squared his shoulders and marched towards the closed door which promptly slid open. He glanced back to see Romanoff trying hard to hide the smile of triumph on her face and narrowed his eyes as she met his gaze. He knew what she was playing at, but she only returned his look with an arched eyebrow of her own. A part of him was pleased that she was much more of a challenger than Lady Sif.

"Good luck…?" Banner called after them as Loki left the room and headed towards the hanger bay with Romanoff following next to him.

Author's Notes:

Coulson was meant to be a background character in this story, but he ended up worming his way to the forefront…and nearly unseating Banner and Black Widow while vying for top spot with Stark and Loki. I really need to reign in those two…