The next few hours passed in a pleasant blur. The three of them, herself, Tony, and Bruce, worked together in the lab telling each other jokes and comparing information.
"The energy source to power the tesseract would have to reach a point one six degree." Loki said tapping the screen. "There aren't that many places on Earth that could not only generate but also be able to sustain it."
"The signal of the tesseract is also high enough that it should be able to be traced by any satellite. The fact that we can't means that they have some high tech material hiding it." Bruce pointed out.
Surprisingly Tony didn't say anything, he didn't take his attention away from his tablet.
"Tony stop hacking into SHIELDs files and come help us." Loki said not looking at him.
He didn't even bother denying or hiding his grin as he put the tablet on the table to the side. "I can't help it." he said walking back to them. "I'm a need to know guy, I need to know everything there is."
"I would think that as a SHIELD agent you would protest against this." Bruce said looking over his glasses at her.
Loki looked up at Tony over her screen and debated for a moment to say that it was Howard that had asked her to join SHIELD on his request in order to find a way to protect his son.
"If you can hack into the system you deserve to get their information." she said instead. Turning her attention back to the screen she enlarged a picture of the tesseract and took Selvigs notes on the thing and applied it to the hologram. As she waited for the image to properly upload she stared at Tony from the corner of her eye.
He was a lot like Howard, she thought to herself. But while Howard had always been certain of what he was doing and would at times calculate his next move almost as if he was playing chess she knew how to play against him after countless nights of them playing together. Tony, on the other hand, from her readings on him she knew that he was more impulsive. Less willing to sit around and think when he could do something about it instead. 'Action first, talk later' seemed to be his motto.
Tony seemed to know that she was looking at him and threw his head back slightly as his fingers flew quickly over the screen.
"You're going to hurt yourself if you keep peacocking like that." she said dryly.
A muffled snicker from Bruce had a corner of her mouth twitching upwards as well as a scoff from Tony.
"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." the inventor sniffed. "And I am insulted of what you say. Good day Madame." With that he turned and left the lab only to almost immediately come back with a grin.
"I think tall, caped, and blond is looking for you." he said slipping back into his seat.
Loki gave a snort as she sent Bruce her calculations, he immediately started to connect them to his. "Let him look."
There was a pregnant pause where Loki could practically feel the questions gathering. When she saw Tony start to turn towards her and open his mouth her hand went to the table which held the three of theirs snacks and grabbed one bag. She quickly pulled one of whatever was in the bag and threw it at Tony's open mouth, cheering to herself when it landed directly in his mouth and cherishing his look of surprise as he closed his mouth and chewed.
"Here." Loki said throwing the bag at him which he easily caught. "Have a blueberry."
Giving a groan as she rubbed her neck and rolled her shoulders she gratefully breathed the fresh air deeply. After what seemed to be countless hours in the lab stepping on the outside balcony was the best idea she's had today. She brought one leg on top of the rail to stretch it and then did the same to the other. she cracked her neck from side to side and placing two hands on her lower back she bent backwards to crack her spine.
Straightening herself with a sigh she leaned against the wall and watched the clouds pass as they almost leisurely made their way forward.
The worry that she had pushed aside to work in the lab came back to the forefront of her mind. Most of all she was scared for Clint. She still remembered the first time they met, the memory still brought a smile to her face.
"Hi, I'm Clint 'Hawkeye' Barton. Call me Clint, Barton, Hawkeye, and occasionally I answer to 'Hey Asshole.'" he had said shaking her hand. "Here's some advice. Don't eat the meatloaf on Monday. Nurse Lakes is tranquilizer happy, and the best closet to make out is on the third floor next to Room 312."
She blinked and used her thumb to wipe away the tears that had suddenly started to fall. Nanna had known just how important Clint was to her and if she knew that combined with the power of the tesseract, she was more than a little afraid for her bird.
Suddenly she realized she was no longer alone.
"And how long have you been standing there?" Loki asked not looking behind her.
"Not long." Thor said stepping towards her but still stopping a few feet away. She looked at him over her shoulder, smirking internally at the image he made as he wringed his hands together. She hadn't seen him look so unsure of the situation in ages.
She turned her head to look back at the sky instead of Thor.
"Loki." he started.
"I don't want to talk to you Thor." Loki said pushing away from the railing and going back towards the door.
Thor grabbed her arm as she went passed him. "I thought you were dead."
She stopped and slowly turned to face him wordlessly.
"At first Father had forbidden me from looking for you, he had even used magic to bind me to the castle." Thor said quickly, encouraged by the fact that she was still standing there. "I was only able to sneak out days later and I managed to get away to Heimdall." His voice fell and wavered slightly. "He searched all over the Nine Realms for you and wasn't able to find you, no matter how hard he looked." His hand let go of her arm and went to cup her cheek. "I thought you were dead." he whispered.
"Did you mourn?" were the first words that managed to come out.
"We all did." Thor insisted grabbed at her with both hands. Never before had she realized the size differences between the two of them, he was practically engulfing her. "Mother still cries and your room has been untouched."
"What of my burial?" she asked. "If you believed me to be dead, did you have a burial without a body?"
Thor hesitated for a moment and that was all the answer she needed. While he and mother had mourned, they had done so in private. In public they continued on as if nothing had changed or happened. As if she had never existed in the first place.
"You need to understand." Thor persisted, trying to grasp her as she slipped out of his hands. "You were in banishment, we couldn't properly-"
"And I am still in banishment." Loki interrupted. She pulled away from Thor. "And therefore it is severely inappropriate that you are here speaking to me, Prince Thor of Asgard." She gave a rigid and mocking curtsey. "Let me get out of your sight, oh honor filled one."
She was sure that Tony and Bruce had been listening no her conversation because when she returned to the lab and picked up an empty beaker and threw it against the wall neither of them asked any questions.
The sound of the door sliding open had Loki twitching however she didn't stop her scan on the scepter.
A cup of coffee was placed in her sight along with a familiar hand making her look up at the offerer.
"I thought you could use a small break." Steve said. Looking behind him she saw Tony and Bruce with their own cups and were focused on their drinks in an attempt to give the two of them a semblance of privacy.
Ignoring the coffee offering she all but threw herself into Steve's chest who automatically curled his arms around her after placing the coffee to the side.
"So, does the entire ship know?" she asked a few moments later.
His arms tightened around her. "No, just a few." he answered twirling his fingers through her strand ends of her hair.
She sighed through her nose and pressed herself closer to him. He rocked the both of them back and forth slightly. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked her quietly, looking down at her.
Loki shook her head. "It won't change anything."
"You'll get it off your chest." he pointed out. "And that might make you feel better."
She considered that for a moment and finally shook her head, pressing herself to Steve's chest once more. "I always thought that Thor was my brother." she said her voice slightly muffled. "And I had always believed that no matter what happened or what either of us did that we would be able to count at least on each other. Thor has often done...horrible things in search for amusement and although in private I would always lecture him in the hopes of getting through his thick skull in public I would always support him fully and remain by his side." She gave a small sniffle and hoped that she wouldn't stain his uniform. "No matter what he did or who he hurt, on purpose or by accident, I was always ready to support him."
Steve's hand was stroking her hair. "Loki." he said slowly. "What did you do? What was so bad that all of this has happened?"
Resignation and just a small amount of fear coursed through her as she opened her mouth to finally tell him, to tell someone after nearly seventy years of not telling a single soul.
Only for the two of them to jump when the computer gave two shrill beeps, Tony went to the screen and peered at it.
"We've broken through the tesseracts blocks and we're searching for it now." he said triumphantly. "We'll get a lock on it in a few minutes."
Nodding, the moment broken, Loki turned back to Steve and gave him a small sad smile. Smiling back in understanding he bent down and kissed her forehead. "Later then." he said. He stroked her hair one more time and left the lab, presumably gone to let Fury know.
Biting her lip she pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear and looked towards her coworkers. Bruce was staring at the computer screen intensely while Tony was staring at her.
"I can keep a secret too, you know." he said twirling a pen in his hands. "Totally keep it, not a single person will know it. Except Jarvis. And Pepper. And Rhoedy the next time I see him. But besides them your secret is safe with me."
Rolling her eyes Loki went back to her computer, snagging the coffee Steve had left her as she went. "Go back to hacking Tony."
He gave her a cheerful mock salute and took his tablet back in hand, tapping away on it while whistling.
Giving a fond sigh she sat next to Bruce who gave her a small comforting smile, he held his own cup towards her slightly. She brought her own cup forward and lightly knocked it against each other. Sipping her coffee she turned and watched the percentage on the computer screen rise.
Suddenly the lab doors opened to admit a stressed looking Fury followed by a worried looking Steve.
"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" Fury demanded.
Tony didn't even blink. "Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you." Loki turned her head to look at him curiously. "Looking for the cube as directed, Director."
"The models locked and we're sweeping for the signature now." Bruce said now. He motioned with his head towards the computer. "When we get the hit, we'll have a signature within half a mile."
"Yeah, you'll get your cube back, no mess, no fuss." Tony concluded. His face and tone suddenly became accusatory. "What is Phase 2?" Unseen by other observers Loki saw Tony's fingers now fly across his table under the table.
"That is none of your concern." Fury said waving the question away. His eye fell on her. "Agent Erskine, the fact that he is attempting to hack into our systems right under your nose does not-"
"I'm sorry Nick." Tony interrupted. He turned the screen towards them. Loki stood up in shock as she saw weaponry being assembled with the tesseract in the middle. "What were you saying?"
Loki walked up to the screen and read the files on the side of it. Turning slowly to Fury she said "Nick. What is going on?"
He hesitated for a single moment and she knew the answer. Horrified she took a step away from him as Steve came forward to read the notes himself. "Nick." she whispered. "How long have you known about this?"
At that moment however Natasha and, much to her displeasure, Thor followed her closely. Natasha didn't even pay any attention to her as she placed her gaze firmly on Bruce. Bruce in turn looked back at her and pointed at it. "Do you know about this?" he asked her.
"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?" Natasha asked in return, her voice frosting over slightly. Loki tried to meet her eyes however the redhead refused to look at her.
"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed." Bruce said, humor not touching his eyes.
"Nanna has been trying to manipulate you from the beginning." Natasha continued.
"And you've been doing what exactly?" Bruce snipped back.
"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you." she snapped at him.
"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy." he snapped back at her. Loki moved forward to put a hand on his shoulder which he rolled off and stepped to the computer screen. Pointing at it he looked accusatorily at Fury. "I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."
Fury looked resigned and with a sigh he lifted his hand. "Because of him." he said pointing at Thor.
Thor couldn't have looked more surprised than if Lady Sif had started to dance naked in front of him. "Me?" he repeated.
"Last year earth had a visitor from another planet, who had a grudge mass that levelled a small town." Fury started to explain. Loki followed his movements and words carefully with narrowed and suddenly suspicious eyes. "We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, out gunned."
"My people want nothing but peace with your planet." Thor protested. He ignored when Loki gave a snort.
"But you're not the only people out there, are you?" Fury countered. He waved towards her. "Thanks to Agent Erskine we have gotten reports on practically everyone and everywhere of your so called Nine Realms. You are not the only threat. The world is filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled."
"Like how you controlled the cube?" Loki said, finally snapping slightly. A part of her cherished the surprised look on Fury's face. "You working on the tesseract is what drew the Chitauri here, Nick. It was a signal, a beam for them."
"It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war." Thor immediately injected.
"A higher form?" Fury repeated, seemingly not sure whether to glare at her or at Thor. "You forced our hand, we had to come up with something."
"A nuclear deterrent." Tony suddenly said, his voice cold. "Cause that always calms everything right down."
"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?" Fury asked dryly.
"I thought humans were more evolved than this." Thor said in obvious growing disgust. She fought the urge to throw something at him.
"Did the people of earth come to Asgard and be the ones to destroy and hurt the innocent?" she snapped at him.
"Alright, I think everyone needs to just calm down." Steve said coming to the middle of everyone with his hands raised. "And we need to think things through."
"You speak of control, yet you court chaos." Thor spat out.
That much gave Loki pause. There really was something wrong with this picture. The air was too heavy, too difficult to suddenly breathe. Her eyes went unbidden to the scepter.
"It's his M.O. isn't it?" Bruce asked motioning to Fury. "I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're..." he seemingly struggled for a moment to find the right words. "We're a time bomb."
"You need to step away." Natasha said warningly.
"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Tony asked.
"Because you know why, back off!" Steve said finally snapping on his own. The two of them stared at one another for a long moment before Tony said softly "I'm beginning to want you to make me."
Loki closed her eyes and tried to focus, tried to remember back almost seventy years' worth of memories as she tried to focus on what she was feeling at the moment.
The shouts and yells faded into the background as she thought. She thought back. Back to Asgard and its library of magic. Back to her Master and his teachings.
For the first time in almost seventy years Loki can feel the hum of magic clear in the air as anything. The part of her that had used to be able to call a green flame to her fingertips no longer itched or reacted to the magic of the scepter. But, however, a smaller part of her still managed to stir underneath her skin. A part that she had tried to ignore for ages.
She could feel the caressing of the scepter, almost like thin fingers or veins were stroking over her mind, encouraging her in a sweet voice that she found herself almost unable to ignore to turn herself towards the scepter and obey. To succumb and to submit.
Her hand reached out and her fingers brushed along the metal of the scepter as unknown to her a blue film started to coat her eyes.
A shot practically threw itself from her hand, the same hand that was touching the scepter. A red and blue light that illuminated her veins for a moment went through her and coated the entire scepter in a thin layer of ice. She quickly pulled back and yanked her sleeve down her arm where her skin had turned blue but quickly warmed under the fabric of her shirt.
Clarity coursed through her at that moment and she grabbed the ice covered scepter, the ice acting as a guardian against its influence for the moment, and with a shout she aimed it downward, the blue glowing stone aimed at the ground. She could bent it or destroy the stone but she could create a small enough moment of clearness to help stop its influence for the time being.
The bang that she created filled the room and quieted everyone who were looking confused and slightly worried, Steve went to her immediately.
"Loki. Breathe, please." he said reaching out for her. She hadn't even realized that she had been breathing heavily and almost painfully until Steve had spoken and took in shaking breaths.
She threw the scepter to the side and placed herself around Steve. "It was making us fight." she mumbled.
"...Loki." Thor started to say, still staring at the ice covered scepter. "Did...did you-"
He was interrupted by the computer once more. Bruce was the one, with a slight green tinge on his face, who went to the computer and peered at it.
"Is the tesseract located?" Fury demanded.
"I can get there faster." Tony said immediately.
"The teseract belongs on Asgard." Thor protested just as fast. "No human is a match for it."
"You are not going alone!" Steve said pointing at Tony. "We need to come up with a plan."
"Well I'm not going to just sit around here and-" Tony started to say only to be cut off this time by Bruce.
"Oh my God." Bruce said in horror. As one everyone looked at him and he looked up with fear in his eyes. "It's at-"
Everything seemed to freeze for a single second before suddenly an explosion at that moment shook what seemed to be the entire helicarrier. Loki gave a yelp as she was thrown to the side, Steve barely had time to grab her by the wrist to stop her from going down into the newly created hole. He dragged her back against him as he gripped onto the railing on the wall.
Clutching onto him tightly she immediately looked around. Tony was on the ground next to him, safe. Fury was a few feet away cursing up a storm, also safe. Thor looked confused and almost insulted, irritating but also safe. Natasha, was nowhere in sight Loki realized with a sinking heart. Neither was Bruce.
"Hill!" Fury shouted into his ear piece as he struggled to right himself on the ground.
"It's a detonation, number three engines is down!" Loki could hear Maria say in her own ear piece. Cursing as well she helped Steve stand up and then helped Tony.
"Put on the suit!" Steve shouted at Tony who, for once, didn't retort anything and instead nodded and ran off to get to his suit.
With a sinking feeling Loki suddenly realized that with power going into everything to help fix the engines and keep the helicarrier in the sky there would be no one guarding Nanna and therefore no one keeping her in the cage. She ran off in the direction of the containment chamber, Fury's and Marias voice in her ear as they continued to relay the situation.
"Someone gonna get outside and patch the engine!"
She jumped over what used to be stairs, one hand on the railing and the other going to her gun.
"Hulk and Thor are in the research level!"
"Get his attention."
Skidding past workers and slipping through an opening on her side, she could hear the Hulks roars from where she was and she gave a moment to pray for the safety of whoever was in front of them.
"Sir we lost all engine one!"
"It's Barton. He took out our system." Fury's voice was almost emotionless but she could still detect something in his voice.
Clint. Her heart gave a pang and she prayed that he would be alright.
She was almost at the containment chamber.
"He's headed for the detention lab." Fury said, his voice thin and strained. "Does anybody copy?"
Suddenly Natasha's cool and collected voice filled her ear.
"This is Agent Romanoff. I copy."
For the first time Loki put her hand up on her ear piece. "Nat, be careful." was all she said. She knew that Natasha wouldn't say anything back for the moment.
Turning the corner her eyes widened as she saw Nanna and a newly appeared Thor. Looks as if Fury had managed to get the Hulks attention after all. Nanna was out of her cage, just barely stepping out of it.
If she could just get her back in the cage and then to the control panel, she could drop the cage to the ground.
Trying to stay in the shadows she moved around slowly, pulling out her Taser from her side. Neither of them seemed to notice her as they spoke.
"Nanna, this is madness." Thor said, his hand flexing uncertainly on Mjolnir. "Please come to your senses."
"I am in my senses." she snarled at him. "More so than I have been in ages."
There was something wrong, the voice was not in the right position or sounding. Something about this seemed both familiar yet wrong.
Realization caused her eyes to widen and her mouth to open to warn Thor properly before a flash of blue light hit her and threw her into Thor. She bit back a whimper as she had practically been thrown at a mountain. He shouted in surprise and with another blue flash they had been pushed into the cage itself. The door closing behind them.
The Nanna at the front door of the cage shuddered and then disappeared as the real Nanna stepped out from the shadows with the scepter in hand, and a victorious look in her eyes. The magic of creating an alter image, down to every last detail, was a move that Loki herself had created and it needed a great deal of magic to be able to sustain it properly. She couldn't help but feel just a bit violated that Nanna had used her own creations against her to such a degree that even she had been fooled for a few moments.
It felt almost...wrong for her own work to be used in such a way. For the first time in years she wished to could call upon her own magic and to show Nanna what properly used and strengthened magic that had been perfected over the centuries could truly do, not the secondhand magic from an artifact that called war to it.
"I tricked the Trickster!" she said gleefully, her voice shrill and high. "I cannot believe you even fell for your own tricks!"
Loki gave a groan as she stood up on her shaking legs. Send her to Siberia all they wanted, she did not want to be thrown at Thor again. "There is no way you had that kind of a magic, where did you learn that? It was mine to invent."
Nanna smirked, still gleeful in her victory, as she twirled the scepter in her hand. "The tesseract." she said her voice silky smooth. "Has more power than anyone in the universe. Just holding a piece of it gives me more strength and more magic than you could have ever even imagined, you disgraced thing."
"You're an idiot if you think you can even hope to control that." Loki said softly. Next to her Thor had tried to smash the glass with his hammer, something she ignored when it only caused a crack.
Nanna laughed softly. "The humans think us immortal." she said moving to the control panel and relishing the way Loki's eyes widened. "Shall we test that?" Her finger was hanging over the button and twirling around it.
"Move away please." a familiar voice said calmly. Her neck almost cracked as she looked at Phil who was moving into the chamber holding a very large and very intimidating weapon.
"Do you like this?" he asked, motioning with his head towards the weapon. "We started working on the prototype after someone sent the Destroyer. Was that you?"
There was no answer from Nanna who had her eyes firmly on the weapon in Coulson's hands.
"Even I don't know what it does." Coulson said still in that calm voice of his. "Do you wanna find out?"
At that moment two things happened at the same time. The first was that Nanna pushed the button on the panel and Loki felt the winds start to pick up. The second was that she was barely able to see Nanna surrounded in a blue light before she reappeared behind Phil and stabbed him through the chest with the scepter.
"PHIL!" she screamed as she threw herself at glass wall. Next to her Thor screamed "NO!" as well and tried once more to break through the walls.
The ground holding them up at that moment however opened and the cage was dropped. She screamed as they fell and Phil left her vision. She banged against the glass as the rapidly approaching ground started to reach them.
Together, she and Thor fell to the earth in their glass cage.
I do not own The Avengers or anything MCU related.
By the way, I've noticed that my last few updates have all been towards the end of the month. I didn't think of that and that pattern happened without my noticing but I guess at least it gives a semi-knowledge of when I should update if I hadn't already.
And if you celebrate it dear readers then Happy Thanksgiving!