Loki clambered clumsily from another nightmare that fled to rest in a now-familiar dark corner of his mind. He always pictured it as a cloaked figure, one whose face was obscured. It lurked on the edge of his consciousness throughout the day, a vague tightness in his chest that never completely vanished. If he managed to distract himself from it, the nightmares seemed to get worse whenever he slept next.

Since Steve had returned two days earlier, Loki had spent his nights reading more about computers and history from the new books Eleanore received in those flimsy brown boxes that Charlie so dearly loved. Those boxes were collecting into quite the little fortress next to the couch, and the cat sped across the floor to dive inside them at least once every couple of hours during the day. The evening before, Loki had watched the kitten's antics through heavy-lidded eyes with a fond amusement that he didn't bother to quash since no one else was in the room to see it. Charlie assumed affection from everyone, crawling up into the lap of any sitting person and stealing their left arm to curl himself around in a rumbling heap.

That recollection helped chase away the chill of whatever nightmare the Other had sent. Loki checked the timepiece beside his bed and found it was four AM. Rain pattered against the window panes. Steve would be out dashing around by now, if he'd slept at all. Loki considered using the bracelet's spell to find and join him. They had switched from the original plan of early morning exercise and fighting to sparring matches in the evenings. Eleanore participated in these, though she still asked for instruction instead of fighting directly. The evening matches let Loki vent whatever frustrations he found during the day.

But right now, he did not feel frustration or a need to fight. He felt… a curious and far too pathetic mixture of resignation and weariness. He'd gotten maybe four hours of restful sleep, which should have been plenty, but he was still tired. It was a bone-deep, settling kind of fatigue. This followed him throughout the day as well, though it was more immediate. It wore on his patience and fueled his anger to flare at the slightest spark of annoyance.

And today he had real need of patience. He was supposed to meet with Darren Stark in a private SHIELD lab to test the effect of magic on Earth's metals. The boy was not an irritant on his own, mostly speaking straight to Eleanore about anything that crossed his mind and staying quiet unless he had something to add to a discussion. But Loki would be testing Earth metals, and the tedious process would definitely drag him into a bored quagmire.

In addition, Eleanore would likely not be present for the majority of the day. Loki had been in a contrary mood the evening before, and he hadn't informed her of his plans for today as she discussed her own with Steve. Agent Hill had given them the morning off, barring any unforeseen complications. Steve wanted to have a look at Tiryaki during another round of interrogation. Eleanore had volunteered to join him, apparently assuming Loki would tag along as well.

Loki was curious as to how she would react to such a slight, and how she would adapt to being unable to keep her eye on him at all times. Now that the morning had actually arrived, Loki felt a bit foolish for it. But he knew (hoped) he could handle himself perfectly well on his own.

He knew sleep was useless at this point. No matter how long he rested, he'd still be tired. So the question was, should he rise and read in this cell of a room, or should he go out and make himself a mug of tea to remind him he was still alive and warm, no matter what icy blood flowed through his veins?

His cell phone vibrated a staccato from its perch on the chest of drawers.

Loki suppressed a groan, rubbing both hands down his face a moment before he rose to see what message was waiting for him. This early in the morning, it was most likely an emergency.

He found, however, that Lydia Engman's name and image were displayed on the bright little screen. She'd sent a message one minute before. "If you have time, stop by for tea this morning. It's been a while."

Well. Loki had time to spare. He picked up the device and magically donned comfortable Asgardian clothing: black cloth trousers and a soft green tunic completed with black leather boots. Checked his appearance in the mirror and transported to the familiar little room with ease.

Lydia greeted him from her chair. "I wondered if you were up."

"I only woke a few moments ago," Loki informed her. He wasted no time in moving to the kitchen and filling a couple of mugs (Lydia's favored flowery one and a plain green one that he preferred) and heating them in the blink of an eye. He tossed a spoonful of sugar in his before retrieving two tea bags and delivering the beverages to the small seating area. "Do you normally keep such early hours?" he asked by way of conversation.

"I try to rest when I can," Lydia began, setting her mug on a 'coaster'— a little stone square that was painted over with white flowers and green leaves. "My back was hurting, though, so I moved to the chair."

Loki took a sip of the weak tea. "You have my sympathies."

"It's not so bad," she said with a smile. "I get a lot done when I'm up early. Like today, I get to have tea with you while you're not out saving the world."

Loki skimmed over the woman's optimism. "Not so much 'saving' as 'stumbling about,' I'm afraid."

"You learning anything new? Any leads?" Lydia asked in quick succession. Then she shook her head just as soon as she'd done speaking. "Never mind, I don't want to talk about work. I'm sure you get tired of it. What else have you been up to? Were you busy the other day?"

The 'other day' was a reference to Eleanore's last visit to see her mother and the mysterious Peggy a few days before. Loki shook his head. "I wasn't busy. I thought I would allow you a more private visit with your daughter." He had been so irritated that day about Steve's stupid risks around magic and the lab childrens' incompetence that he had wanted to be alone with his thoughts. The apartment was quiet for a few hours, and he had calmed considerably. And then Eleanore had returned in fairly high spirits, bringing Italian 'takeout', and the night had passed more pleasantly than not, even with the anger ever-present in the back of his mind.

Lydia smiled. "That was sweet of you."

Loki wrinkled his nose. It must be a common theme among mothers to call him 'sweet'. Frigga had done so when she'd visited the farm in Iowa. And now Lydia. But Loki wasn't sweet, not in the slightest. A sweet person wouldn't have fantasies about taking young human scientists by the throat and screaming in their faces so they would just listen. "Another word would be 'antisocial'," he offered. He'd heard the idiot children calling Cecil Salfield antisocial the day before when the young man continued working and shrugged off an invitation to a 'bar', and the translated Allspeak definition had struck Loki as familiar. A similar term had been ascribed to him often on Asgard, whenever he chose to read or study or develop magic instead of going along with Thor's friends.

"You're introverted, not antisocial," Lydia corrected him. "Antisocial would mean you wouldn't show up at 4 AM for tea with me. Are you hungry, by the way?"

Loki processed this new term. Lydia's meaning had no negative connotations— the Allspeak supplied him with an image of Eleanore's quiet sitting room for reference, and of her reading a book, because apparently Lydia also thought her daughter was introverted. "Is such behavior not singular on your realm?"

"No, lots of people are introverts. Elle and Zephaniah are, and so is Darren."

"Then they must be miserable constantly, as they are rarely alone at all." Midgardian social norms were strange and contradictory. Loki took a long, scalding drink of his tea to keep himself from saying anything more scornful.

"They like being with other quiet people," Lydia supplied. "Aren't you happy when you get home after a long day, and you get to just relax?"

"That sounds like something I would feel if I had a home," Loki said more sharply than he meant to. Memories of his chambers on Asgard, so still and peaceful and suited to his tastes, surfaced with a great deal of force. He longed for that, for all the books and calm and weeks of simply reading, watching potted plants bloom, crafting new spells.

"I guess it would be kind of a culture shock to go from… what, a palace? To my old bedroom." Lydia's smile was sympathetic, understanding. "You must miss your things, too. I've never been much of a collector, but you must have a lot of— jeeze, even a lot of birthday gifts from a thousand years."

Loki felt his mood lighten somewhat into amusement at her amazement over his age. "It's called a nameday there. And they don't celebrate much after the first century. But you're right; I did collect a fair number of artifacts, magic and otherwise." Although as he'd grown older, his interest in collecting had waned. The artifacts he did have had brought him no real joy, and he couldn't imagine loving something enough to purposely find it a place on his shelves. Bit by bit, those shelves were tainted by bitterness until he couldn't look at an item without remembering how Thor had been part of the adventure where it was found. "Objects are objects," he said aloud, "and gone is gone. No use pining over…" over things that will never miss my presence. Over people who won't mourn my absence. "… the past," he finished forcefully.

"Mm. I guess not." Lydia was looking at a leather-bound book resting beside her chair. "I like having memories, though. Elle grew up so fast, and I was working most of the time. And I like looking back on when my mom was alive."

Loki realized with a start that Lydia had gone through what her daughter was facing already. At least both her parents loved her when they died, he thought bitterly. But he knew that even mortals felt powerful sorrow over their dead. He wondered if their memories were as short as their life spans. "Do you miss her a great deal?"

Lydia chuckled. "Yeah, I suppose I do. I'm not really sad anymore— it was seven years ago, now— but I guess I miss how things were back then. It seemed like we were all happier.

That, Loki decided, was a disturbingly perfect description of how he felt when he thought about his palace chambers and the items in it. He didn't miss the things, he missed the life that came with the things. He missed his toehold of belonging to that golden, shining world. He missed having a claim to honor and royalty.

(Do you miss fighting every moment for Odin's approval? Want to go crawling back, even now, you pathetic little—)

"But I'm glad I'm here now," Lydia continued into the silence, breaking Loki's internal consternation.

Loki mentally shook himself. "Why?"

Lydia smiled brightly. "I'm getting to see Elle grow up. And I get to witness all the heroes coming out of the woodwork, finally. And, of course, I got to meet you."

"What do you mean, 'finally'?" Loki asked, shifting uncomfortably under the compliment. Lydia often said things like this without warning, and he had no idea how to respond. "I'm also grateful to be trapped on this planet, simply for the company." It wasn't true, and he didn't know what the sickly woman was trying to accomplish.

Luckily, she never pursued the topic.

"Well, it started with Tony, I guess. About a year before Elle met Darren, Tony made the Iron Man suit and came out to the public. Since then, SHIELD has been monitoring potential heroes for the Avengers project. I was part of Tony's monitoring team, although he had no idea. They took me off when Darren took Elle out on a date." Lydia smiled sarcastically. "Something about necessary impartiality. So, we found Steve in the ice, we had Hawkeye and Black Widow on our team, and we were monitoring the Hulk. Then…" She trailed off with a look of cautious skepticism.

Loki knew where she was going. "Then Thor fell from the sky and redeemed himself. And you hope the same for me."

"I just hope you're having a good time," Lydia corrected him. "Something wrong with that?"

Considering I'm imprisoned here… But Loki knew what she meant. The journey was important to her, even more than the destination. He found himself curious instead of bitter. "When Eleanore was small, what did you hope for her?" Because a prince's destiny was fairly straightforward with little to no variation.

"I wanted her to be happy," Lydia said vaguely. "You know, finding something she enjoyed doing for a career. When I joined SHIELD, I had no idea she'd follow me six years later."

"And the life of a warrior is not what you wished for her?" Loki pressed.

"She's not just a warrior," Lydia protested, "and I didn't have any really set expectations for her to grow into. Kids go through stages of trying on different careers, you know? Maybe a prince wouldn't have, but human children do. When Elle was little, she wanted to be a zoologist."

Loki caught the translation of that in the form of a person who chased down dangerous creatures and studied them extensively. Not so different from what she was doing now. Perhaps she was drawn to peril, like Steve was.

"Then she thought about being a teacher," Lydia continued. "Then a counselor, then a photographer, then a painter. She only found out what I really did for SHIELD when she was sixteen, still in the painter phase. One job-shadowing day later, and she decided her whole college career path to be an agent. And even that changed just as she was getting there." The older woman smiled fondly through Loki.

Loki felt his burdensome presence in the face of these recollections. "Her plans can be resumed, I suppose, as soon as she is rid of me."

Lydia laughed. "The world doesn't revolve around you."

Loki frowned. "I never claimed such a thing."

"No, you just act like it." Lydia was now turning that fond smile on him directly. "Loki, Elle's plans got derailed for the better. And you pretty much had nothing to do with it. She was recruited by SHIELD to help Steve acclimate to the modern world. That's what put her in line to be an Avenger."

"You don't think having a dragon on hand and courting the youngest Stark had anything to do with that?" Loki challenged, stinging a bit over the implication of his self-absorption.

"Maybe. But she wouldn't have been on that helicarrier if she wasn't Steve's handler. I doubt Fury would have called her in for anything even related to you."

Loki didn't know how he felt about being a mere side-effect. "In other words, Eleanore has as little control of her destiny as I presently do."

"We're all subject to outside factors," Lydia agreed. "What does destiny have planned for you today?"

"Colluding with Darren Stark to find which Midgardian metals will accept magic." Loki was getting more anxious instead of more relaxed. Lydia was in some sort of humor today, or he was too shaken, still, from his unremembered nightmare. Either way, he started planning ways to politely conclude the interaction.

"What are you going to use the magic metal for?"

"Many things, I presume. Finding the magician before he can do more damage to this realm."

"Oh, how will you do that?"

"I first need to know what capabilities each metal has, then study the sorcerer's magic to… It is complicated," Loki hedged automatically. Lydia knew nothing of science or magic; she'd soon be bored by the long explanation.

"So can you recognize the magic, or do you have to make your spells specific to a person? Like DNA?"

Loki took a moment to remind himself just whose mother he was speaking to: Eleanore of the Unending Questions and Surprising Insights. Apparently, it was an inherited trait. His mood shifted from winter to a hint of spring, and he allowed a grin to ghost across his mouth. "Darren mentioned 'DNA' being similar to a person's essence. I suppose that is the best term I can relate it to. If I had some blood or hair of the sorcerer, I could find them quite simply."

"But they haven't been at any of the crime scenes," Lydia said when he paused for breath. "So you're going to track the magic? Is that harder?"

"It's less certain," Loki said, now thinking through the possibilities. "This is experimental spellcasting, even for me. As far as I have read, nothing like this has been attempted in the history of the Nine."

"So magicians like you just… what? Don't get caught?"

Loki gave a mischeivous smirk. "There are no magicians like me."

Lydia started laughing again. "Yeah, that's not arrogant at all."

"Not when it's true," Loki chuckled along.

"So this new guy isn't a problem?"

"Obviously, they pose a problem." Loki's mood soured as he remembered the melted mortals, killed for nothing more than a display of strength. It was too brash, too Thor for his taste. Loki preferred not to show all his abilities to potential foes. He also didn't go looking for battle. Well, he amended, I don't look for battle for myself. Thanos had sent him for a fight, and Loki had not felt averse at the time.

"Less of a problem with you here?" Lydia prompted curiously.

"Considerably less," Loki assured her.

"Elle said you think whoever it is trying out their skills. Transporting? But only you can really do it without killing people."

"And only with limitations," Loki affirmed. "I have been considering their motivation, and I can only surmise that they have recently developed these abilities. Thus, they want to test the extent of their reach."

"But what if they've had these powers for a while?" Lydia challenged.

"Then why wouldn't they have used them before?" Loki asked. "I have been assured many times that SHIELD has found no such 'terrorism' in the past few years."

"No, and only an idiot would display their abilities like this," Lydia agreed with a pensive nod. She was looking straight into Loki's eyes with a distant sort of thoughtfulness. Merely questioning, not looking for a fight. "But you're here, now. A great sorcerer from another planet; lots of people know about you too. So before, if this person was confining themselves to more worldly goals, they would have been quieter. But with you here, maybe they see a chance for something more."

"You think I drew them out?" Loki asked. Of course he could have done it; he'd hardly been subtle about saving Steve in Turkey. And afterward, he'd been far too free with his magic. Acceptance from the mortals had made him careless. Even a little excited to show off, in the face of their amazement.

(Stupid, foolish simpleton. Do you bow before the slightest hint of camaraderie?)

"It's not your fault," Lydia clarified rather forcefully. "I just wonder if they're trying to copy you."

(You and all the destruction you caused without real awareness. You weak, pathetic creature. Everything you touch turns to dust. How much longer before you kill even these little creatures? You exist to ruin.)

"Loki? Loki!"

Lydia's exclamation was accompanied by a harsh crack, and then Loki's hands were soaked in warm liquid.

Blood? was his initial thought, coming quickly back into reality from the red-tinged self-loathing into which he'd sunk. But there was no blood, only tea soaking into the carpet and the chair and his trousers. Shards of green cut into his hands, though they would be crushed before they broke his skin.

And Lydia's hands were there holding tissues and gently prying his fingers open. "Here, don't want to cut yourself."

Loki summoned his magic and sent the mug into the trash can, lifting the tea from the material before it could stain. "My sincere apologies," he said through a stiff-set jaw that only wanted to grind his teeth to nothing.

"It's fine," Lydia assured him. "I mean, it's gone now. No harm done."

Not yet, anyway. Loki felt like he was about to fly through the ceiling. Now he wanted to hit something, to fight, to run so far and fast that he left his strange knot of shame and tension in his stomach far behind. He stood and transported in the same instant.

Back to his bedroom in Eleanore's apartment. It was sparse and bare, nothing like his former chambers. But the smells were familiar all the same, and the quiet was peaceful. Loki breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth as Bruce had suggested a few days before in a quiet moment as they waited for a computer to deliver results.

He noted he had a mere couple of hours left before he had to meet Darren. Loki hadn't even informed Eleanore about the meeting, suspecting she needed her sleep after a few nights spent getting kicked across the sparring ring, followed by tapping away at her computer's keyboard until one day officially turned into the next at the strangely- termed 'midnight'. She'd drunk several servings of coffee the afternoon before, prompting looks of concern from Darren and Steve. Steve, in an uncharacteristic display of subtlety, had asked Eleanore to wait until he was done running errands to go to the Triskelion, perhaps around ten that morning. Loki had taken the hint and resolved to let the young woman rest as long as she could.

And it sounded like she was still slumbering. The apartment was silent, even though the sun was now peeking over the horizon at the late hour of half past five AM, turning the black clouds to dark gray. The rain was petering off into short bursts of drizzle.

Loki felt himself calming again as his phone vibrated in his pocket. He read the message from Lydia, expressing concern over his quick departure.

"You okay? Let me know you made it home safe, at least. Don't worry about the mug. Next time you visit, we won't talk about work."

Loki ignored the older Engman's habit of calling this tiny dwelling his 'home' and replied shortly. "Thank you for the tea." He wouldn't promise to visit alone again. Too much attachment was wearing on him and giving the Other more of a hold on his mind. At least Loki could limit the damage if the attacks came when he was alone.

He shook off the impending sense of dread and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling a book on metallurgy out of his storage space between spaces. Darren had lent him this 'hard copy' the night before just before he flew that ridiculous metal suit back to New York. Loki had only read half of it before he forced himself to sleep.

Now, he had to find something to occupy his mind or he'd burst. He examined different metals and their known Midgardian properties. Gold was available, as was silver, but there the familiarity ended. 'Steel' wasn't an Asgardian alloy. Loki found a section on 'conductors,' which seemed promising. He read about energy transfer and mathematical equations and currents until he felt somewhat certain that magical energy could also be sent through these mediums fairly easily. Storage was another issue. Humans were still searching for efficient means of keeping energy bottled up without allowing waste to burn off or escape.

Time passed sluggishly, but it passed. Loki watched the rain stop completely over the pages of the book. He listened to the whisper of cars pick up along the quiet road. The street lights turned themselves off, and the world began sparkling in the light of the morning sun as the clouds scuttled away.

Eleanore's bed sighed and squeaked for a few minutes. Loki heard her mumbling something to her dragon regarding a 'damn body clock' and waking too early even when she could sleep in. Charlie meowed and trilled and thumped to the floor.

"Hush," Eleanore told him, emerging herself. "Loki's probably asleep, you turd."

Loki didn't feel like disillusioning her at the moment. He still had about half an hour left before he had to transport again to the Triskelion. The plans, texted the night before, stated eight o'clock, a time Loki had suggested from his observations of normal Midgardian work schedules. Darren had merely said, "Sure," in response to the time and place. Loki had taken it as a sign of boredom; the boy was probably tiring of seeing him every day and making no real progress.

But Loki was also done with reading for the moment. He set the book aside on the little table beside the bed and sauntered over to the closet silently. Inside he found the black suit Pepper Potts had provided. He'd noticed that many men wore belts, so Loki brought the black piece of leather off the little hook on the door and eyed it. It seemed useless, other than as a tool to keep trousers from riding down his hips. The material was thick, though. Loki modified it to hold a couple of small pockets which would conceal the thinnest and shortest of his blades. Going around without armor was making him more tense as time went on. At least these blades would be on hand if his magic was not an option.

That done, Loki finished dressing himself. He checked his appearance in the mirror and found those disconcerting eyes, too wide and bitter, above a blank expression. He sighed, then sighed again. There was no way to fully prepare himself for the day ahead. As Lydia said, all were subject to the unexpected whims of fate.

Loki resolved to tell Eleanore where he was going to avoid worried phone calls and unnecessary visits. He opened the bedroom door and stepped into the main room.

"Why are you ready so early?" Eleanore asked over her coffee mug from her seat at the little counter. "Did I forget a meeting?"

Loki appraised her disheveled, sleepy, pajama-clad appearance, buttoning his own black suit jacket over a green shirt. He rather liked Earth's more debonair styles, and the mysterious Pepper had given him clothes measured exactly right. "I'm supposed to collaborate with your lover."

"Darren? In the morning?" She gave a wry grin laced with disbelief. "I don't think you need to rush. Want some tea?"

"No, I'll just be on time as it is." Loki didn't wait for more comments, transporting through the air into Darren's lab at the SHIELD facility.

The room was empty, but he was a few minutes early. Loki strolled over to the windows to watch the city coming to life, and to take stock of the Midgardian capitol in the morning light. Humans had come far with their buildings and monuments. He gotten Jarvis' help and had studied a map of Washington D.C. during one of his sleepless nights, bent on avoiding Eleanore's instruction as much as he could. From this angle, Loki could identify the Washington Monument, several museums, the Lincoln Memorial, and the FDR Memorial Park where Tiryaki had been captured. Though mortals like Eleanore might have to squint in the early sun's rays, Loki could easily make out pedestrians, traffic, and small animals going about their daily lives.

He checked the digital clock on the wall. 8:05. Well, Eleanore had known he didn't need to rush. But Loki was used to Asgardian timetables, where meetings were set for 'just before the nightly feast,' or 'after breakfast.' He'd done his fair share of waiting.

But as Darren's late time increased by another five minutes, Loki grew bored with the scenery. He turned back to the lab equipment and began fiddling with an unused motherboard left in the 'scrap' pile. Found a soldering gun, and began connecting other scrap to the motherboard. He found bits and pieces— a wire here, a shard of circuit board there. The solder smelled 'hot,' like an electrical fire or a softened version of the sulfur pits of Muspelheim. Loki checked the clock periodically, but allowed himself to focus on his work. Small projects like this had always relaxed him, allowed him to organize his thoughts.

Currently, he was intent on the subject of his research here. What sorts of metal might magic best bind to? Gold had always been favored by sorcerers of the Nine because of its immortal qualities. However, it was soft and malleable, so much so that a spell with too much energy would melt or break it, backlashing the user. Silver was also useful for workings because it held intention well. But Loki had yet to experiment with metals and spells in this way, and he'd never used Midgardian resources. Would this world's elements hold magic, or would it discard them because of its powerless people? He pondered and soldered until he'd slowly, carefully built a small structure of green and silver that could reach from his fingertips to his wrist.

It was 8:50.

Now Loki was more annoyed. They'd set a definite time; where was the boy? And more importantly, did Loki have time to go somewhere for breakfast before Darren would show up? He pulled his phone from his suit's pocket and found no messages, no missed calls, and a full battery.

It was also embarrassing to have rushed out the door to meet someone who clearly didn't care about the appointment. But perhaps there was an excuse. And Loki held a source of information for that in the palm of his hand.

"Jarvis," he began.

The screen went black, and a white-blue line appeared in the middle to express sound waves. "Yes, Master Loki?"

"Can you tell me how soon Darren will be here?"

"My apologies, Master Loki. That goes against my protocols."

Loki frowned at the device. Perhaps 'protocols' could hold loopholes like legal documents. "Can you tell me what he's doing?"

"I'm afraid not, sir."

"Can you put me in contact with him?"

"Unfortunately, Master Darren is not in a position to be reached."

What in Hela's name… "Is he in danger?"

"No, Master Loki."

This was becoming ridiculous. "Why has Darren put these protocols in place?"

"These protocols were added to my programming two years ago by Master Darren.

"That doesn't answer my question," Loki growled. "But I suppose the answer goes against the protocol as well."

"That is an astute assumption, sir.

Loki raised his eyes to the ceiling's bright fluorescents. The conversation had pushed the clock to the hour. "Very well. Thank you for your lack of information."

"Please let me know if you require any further assistance, Master Loki." Jarvis sounded almost amused.

Loki put his phone away, worried that he'd break it in frustration in a few moments. Instead, he moved on to what he could do alone: testing small samples of metal lying around the lab.

First up was aluminum. Loki tried binding a concealment spell to an ingot he gathered from the remains of the scrap pile. The metal emphatically refused to hold the power for long, dissipating it through every atom until absolutely nothing was left. Just for good measure, Loki also tried simple illusions and some energy storage, but they failed to stick as well. Runes and inscriptions had no affect; the metal was just terrible at containing magic.

So aluminum was out. Fair enough. And it was 9:40. At this rate, Loki would conduct all the tests alone today with only the materials present in this room. He sighed again and focused on the matter at hand.

Next was copper. Again, there were plenty of samples to draw together into a good-sized disk. Loki repeated the previous process exactly to be sure he hadn't made an error anywhere. Copper accepted and conducted energy efficiently, but there was no way to store a spell in the metal without an insulator. And the only insulators in the room were part of the hardware. And insulators didn't respond well to magical reassembly like metal did. Wood and rubber and the like tended to need coaxing, and one manipulation was enough to strain the materials. Plastic fared better, but Loki knew rubber would flex around the metal more malleably.

Thus it transpired that, another half hour later, Loki heard the door slide open from his position on the ground trying to wrestle a rubber footing off one of the larger desks without breaking either.

"Well, it certainly took you—" he began, glancing over the tiles to find Eleanore's 'comfortable' light blue shoes and Jet's dog paws approaching. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought we could go out for brunch," she explained, walking around the desks and coming fully into view. She wore her hair piled on top of her head precariously, with short jeans that only reached partway down her calves and a loose red top with short sleeves. "Steve's driving to the Tower to talk to Tony about something to do with a New York Avengers base. I knew Darren would be late, so I figured you might want some food." She didn't seem to find it odd that Loki was lying on the ground looking up at her, nor that he'd amassed a pile of rubber and plastic odds and ends in a small pile on one of the desks. She glanced over at the soldered sculpture. "This looks nice. Did you make some progress?"

Loki decided that if she was going to treat this situation normally, then he would too. "I'm trying to. Your lover is not helping the matter."

"You could just call him Darren," Eleanore pointed out amiably. "What exactly are you working on right now?"

"Insulating copper for testing." Loki pried the rubber from the footing with his fingernails. And frowned at how dirty he was getting. He'd had the foresight to hang his jacket from a chair, but he hadn't changed his clothes, instead only rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. Sometimes he could lose track of himself when he had a goal in mind, even one as simple as gathering bits of material from furniture. He decided he had enough, and rose to his feet to set the footing with the rest of the harvest.

Eleanore examined the copper ingot. It was shaped like a perfect, rounded droplet the size of Loki's thumbnail. Smaller than the aluminum one because of a lack of materials. Loki had been inspired by the solder's drippings from earlier. "You get this off circuitry?"

"Yes." He used magic to carefully form a bowl from the rubber, which he then outlined in hard plastic. He placed the ingot in the bowl and molded the sides to hold it in place.

Eleanore watched the process, then picked up the aluminum piece. "There's writing on this."

"So there is," Loki said sarcastically. "What an astute scientific observer you are."

"Well, I didn't show up for the conversation," she responded in turn. "Let's get lunch after this. I'm hungry."

"I'm experimenting," Loki informed her. "Perhaps you don't value my contributions to the human race's understanding of magic, but I'm sure there are some who do."

"I do value your contributions, but you can take a break," Eleanore pressed. "I found this build-your-own salad place on the other side of the bridge."

That offer was tempting. Loki set aside his annoyance, which wasn't really directed at Eleanore anyway, and considered it. "Perhaps in a short while. If Darren hasn't appeared."

"Sounds good." Eleanore hopped up onto one of the tall stools which was now missing its footings. "What are you going to try now?"

At least with someone around, Loki could talk through his thought process. It was cathartic, and it helped him organize ideas and separate them from facts. "Just energy storage for now. You'll likely see nothing."

Still, Eleanore watched him run through the tests again in order. The insulator did help the energy stay inside the copper. Because of this, Loki tried and failed to make the metal accept a will over workings. Just to be sure, he ran through all the basic spells, from lightcasting to soundproofing. Nothing would stick.

"What was that one?" Eleanore asked as a flash of light indicated another defeat.

Loki heaved a frustrated sigh. "It was a transportation spell."

"Like you'd use this thing to teleport?"

"No. You'd use 'this thing' to bring a set object to your location." Explaining made things both better and worse. Better because Loki could vent a bit through his tone. Worse because he knew Darren should be here, and no explanation should be needed with him.

"Let's go have lunch," Eleanore decided, hopping off the stool she'd perched on for the last twenty minutes. "I'll call Darren on the way and see if he's even out of the Tower yet."

"Just leave him be," Loki grumbled, grabbing his jacket from the chair and slinging it over his shoulder as he'd seen men do in advertisements. "The protocol won't let you speak to him, in any case."

"Oh, you hit that firewall?" Eleanore chuckled.

Loki stored the 'firewall' term away for later. "You know a way around it?"

"Yeah. Pepper gave me administrative control over Jarvis a long time ago. Enough that Darren can't shut me out." She pulled out her phone and nodded to the door. "Come on. We'll walk and berate."

Loki followed her through the building as the phone rang time and again. Eleanore tried Darren's regular cell phone, which went to voice mail, then just patched herself through to the Tower. Tony answered as they walked outside.

"Hey, Princess.

"Hey Tony. How's it going?"

"Well, far as I can tell, no one major is trying to kill us today."

"That could change," Loki muttered under his breath.

Eleanore grinned at that. "Is Darren with you?"

"I didn't know he was still here," Tony said. "Thought he had a meeting with Tall, Dark, and Scary."

"He did. Two and a half hours ago."

"Change that to Tall, Dark, and Pissed."

"Well, anyway," Eleanore redirected the conversation as she and Loki entered the walking bridge that took them off the island's west side. "While I have you, Tony, do you have any ideas about metal that would hold magic well?"

"Have you tried anything yet?

"Aluminum and copper," Loki supplied.

"Aluminum and copper," Eleanore reported.

"Copper seems like a good start. Copper and zinc, maybe? But if it's magic, it might need something archaic. Silver and gold?"

"We don't have those metals right now," Eleanore reminded the elder Stark. "Darren was supposed to bring them."

"Can you make it to the Tower? I've got samples to spare. And if we run out, I'll order some. And a pizza."

Eleanore looked to Loki for his opinion on this plan. He shrugged, then nodded. The advice of one Stark and perhaps Banner was more than he was getting at present.

"We'll be there in a few minutes. Thanks, Tony." Eleanore ended the call and stopped walking. They were in the middle of the bridge. "I don't think you've had pizza yet."

"I haven't," Loki confirmed. "I've seen it on an Italian menu, however."

"I think you'll like it. New York-style is pretty good."

"I'm more interested in the metals," Loki reminded her. He held out his hand. "Shall we?"

"Sure you're not annoyed enough to rip Tony a new one?"

He considered that. "What is the alternative? And a new one of what?"

"Walking a little more. And a new asshole."

Loki let out a laugh at the unexpected imagery, vulgar though it was. Eleanore often cursed when Steve wasn't around to express silent disapproval, and sometimes when he was. Loki looked ahead to the unexplored buildings. "I give you my word that I won't attempt anything of that nature, but very well. A short walk. A few minutes, you said. I like to keep my appointments."

"Tony probably needs to shower and put on a clean shirt. We've got like twenty."

They set off again at a brisk pace. The breeze from the river was refreshing, even if the cars zooming by did disturb the peace. Loki used Bruce's advised breathing techniques to center himself and prepare for the hours ahead. After a few minutes, he grew curious about Eleanore's easy, intimate knowledge of Stark habits. "You knew Darren would be late."

"I did," Eleanore agreed with a small grin. She met his eyes and the grin widened into teasing. "Tried to warn you, too."

Loki ignored that last small jab. "So you've experienced this tardiness before."

"Ever since we started dating."

"You haven't reprimanded him for it?" Loki found that hard to believe. Eleanore would tell an arrow how to fly.

"Oh, I have. It just doesn't work. If I want him to be on time, I have to constantly remind him about it. We usually both end up late that way." She shrugged clear annoyance off. "I decided about a year ago that it's just not my job to manage him. I only do now when it's basically life or death."

"I could make this life or death," Loki mused darkly, only half jesting. "Then he might realize the error of his ways."

"You can try that," Eleanore said with a laugh. "I don't think you know how stubborn he actually is."

"Indeed?" Loki glanced down at her. "I always thought you were the more headstrong one."

"I'll take that as a compliment." Eleanore smiled. "You'll see what I mean eventually."

Loki presumed he would. "What were his excuses over the years?"

"Honestly?" she grinned and shook her head. "I already know what he's going to say to you when you confront him about it."

"And what is that?"

"He'll say he got a late start, then talk about gathering things he should have had ready last night, then explain that he needed time to get ready." Eleanore bit her lip and continued, "What that means is he felt like he had to, in his words, 'take a massive dump' right after he ate breakfast. He does that almost every morning, and he never accounts for it in his timing. And if you press the issue, he'll also say he likes to relax in the morning, which means he was watching some video about science, or he got distracted by an experiment as soon as he woke up."

Loki was impressed with the confidence in her tone. "He never changes the story?"

"It's not a story. That's literally what happens every time."

Loki looked around and re-centered himself in this part of the city. It had been nearly twenty minutes. "Let's test this theory, hm?"

"It does count as a theory, if it never fails." Eleanore placed her hand on his with a sardonic smirk.

Loki returned it, then tugged them through space until they stood in the main room of Stark Tower.

"Elle?" A tall, extremely slim woman with a fitted white dress, high heels, and red-blonde hair looked up from her seat in one of the easy chairs. When she saw Loki, her familiar expression closed into formality. "You must be Mr. Loki. I've heard a lot about you."

"Loki, this is Pepper." Eleanore did the introductions, still wobbling after the transportation. "Pepper, this is Loki. We're here to talk to Tony and Bruce about magic and metals."

"Pleased to meet you," Pepper said with a chilly tone.

It took Loki a moment to remember he'd thrown Tony out of the window in this very room. He put on his most charming façade, adopting every Midgardian rule of etiquette he'd observed. "Ms. Potts, it's an honor." He took the hand she held out and kissed it with a disarming smile that had gotten him into and out of a lot of… situations.

Pepper blushed the barest bit, but still looked grave.

Are all Midgardian women so cautiously stoic? Loki straightened, but not enough to tower over the two women, and released her hand. Trying to lighten the mood, he gestured broadly to his suit. "I thank you most sincerely for your gifts since my arrival."

That seemed to undo some of the tension. Pepper smiled benevolently and looked him over. "I'm glad you like them; they look very nice."

"Have you seen Darren this morning?" Eleanore interjected.

"He was rummaging through the kitchen about two hours ago," Pepper supplied. "Is he late for something again?"

Loki kept from clenching his teeth. Two hours ago?! What did he find to do with that time? "I had an appointment with him at the Triskelion at eight o'clock."

Pepper and Eleanore shared an understanding, exasperated glance.

"I won't apologize for him," Pepper said, "but I understand your frustration."

Loki felt a real smile slide into place. "Thank you. You're very kind."

"Master Loki, Master Stark is requesting your presence in the shared lab," Jarvis informed them.

"You go ahead," Eleanore bade him. "I haven't seen Pepper in a while. I'll be down after a bit."

Loki wondered if she'd be able to sense an outburst of anger that might be caused by Stark proximity. At least Banner was probably there. "Have a pleasant visit. Ms. Potts, it was a pleasure to meet you." He bowed formally and turned heel to walk away.

"Is he always like that?" Pepper whispered as he opened the elevator doors.

"Ha. No." Eleanore ratted him out with a chuckle. "He can be nice, though. And he can almost definitely hear us."

Loki rolled his eyes. "I won't stop my ears just so you can gossip." He tossed the words over his shoulder with what he thought was a daring degree of nonchalance, considering he didn't know either woman very well.

That earned him two individual laughs. He turned just in time to arch an eyebrow as the elevator closed and whisked him down several floors until it opened again with no sound.

"Man of the hour!" Tony grinned and grandly gestured from behind a clear display full of squares and letters. "Jeeze, no need to show up looking like a supermodel."

"Hi." Bruce was much quieter, but just as friendly, looking over his spectacles through another screen full of data.

"Stark. Bruce." Loki let their names imply his preferred distance.

Tony didn't pick up on hints. He came forward and slapped Loki on the shoulder, leading him further into the room. Loki noted that the shorter man's hair was wet, that he smelled of soap, and that his short-sleeved shirt and jeans were free of grease stains. "So we've assembled — ha, get it?— ingots for you to sample. Do you have a method? Have you been recording your results?"

Loki set his jaw and resigned himself to this twist of fate. "I've only been at this a few hours. Yes, I have a method. I haven't recorded the results, but I'm sure SHIELD recorded me while I was in their lab. Thank you for the samples."

"Woah." Tony paused and stared at him dramatically. "Did you just thank me, God of Grumps?"

Loki scowled at him. "I was taught proper etiquette, unlike you. I already regret it." The thanks had been a means to end the conversation, or at least to steer it away from Tony's questioning.

"Hey, feel free to thank me anytime. Nice suit, by the way." Tony smirked meaningfully at him and retreated behind display again.

Loki raised an eyebrow. "I met Pepper upon my arrival. She does have wonderful taste in everything except romantic partners."

"Oh, score one for the low road!" Tony pointed a pen in Loki's general direction. "Sass levels around here are going to be off the charts. Jarvis, record everything for posterity and/or evidence."

Bruce approached then, holding out a small bar of rosy silver. "Copper-zinc alloy. We use it in batteries here."

Loki took the bar. It was heavy and cold in his hands, and it smelled of acrid metal. He carried it over to an unused desk and banished the clutter to pile in the corner. Then he pulled a globule of the metal and pondered it closely. "Have you anything as a preferred insulator? An advanced method of storage?"

Bruce followed him and watched the wavering droplet. "We could get some rubber or plastic, if you want to make something out of that."

Tony approached and tried to poke the blob with the end of his pen. "You thinking energy storage here, Reindeer Games? Or energy transmission?"

"Both," Loki answered, moving the metal away. "And rubber and plastic are fine for now."

"This already sounds fun," Eleanore commented from the elevator doorway.

Loki eyed her. "You kept your visit short."

"Pepper had a meeting," she explained. "Whatcha doing?" Like Tony, she tried to reach for the metal hovering between Loki's hands.

"I'm trying to focus without giving you metal pens and fingerprints," Loki snarked, pulling the substance out of reach.

"Is it hot?" Eleanore asked, unimpressed.

Loki was already feeling fazed by the ordeal. He brought the sample back down. "Test it for yourself."

Eleanore didn't hesitate, grasping for the metal.

Loki pulled it away. "Do you want to burn your hand off?"

"You said to try it!" Eleanore protested.

"I thought you had a bit more sense!" Loki shook his head and laughed, his tension now dispersed into incredulity. "Would you jump off this tower if I advised it?"

Eleanore rolled her eyes at that. "You sound like my mom again."

"And my mom," Bruce chuckled.

"Universal mom line," Tony decided with a grin.

Loki remembered Frigga saying something similar. "Loki, if Thor jumped into a volcano, would you follow him?" At the time, the answer had been 'yes'. He'd trusted Thor back then. Eleanore trusted him now, a bit too much. "You mortals should listen to your mothers, then."

"We're known for not doing that," Tony informed him.

"Loki?" Darren departed from the elevator then, lugging a rectangular case.

Loki fixed the young man with a glare that halted him in his tracks. "You kept me waiting, Stark."

Darren looked confused for a moment, then smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. I got a late start, and then I had to get the metals together. Then I had to get myself ready… you know how it is."

What Loki knew was that if he turned around at that moment, he'd be faced with Eleanore's triumphant smile. Instead of seeking that out, he let his annoyance from that morning well up. "It's considered the height of dishonor to keep a guest waiting. I was at the lab at eight, unable to contact you."

"I put the protocol on so I don't have to answer the phone in the shower, or… bathroom at all." Darren shrugged. "Sorry again. I'm not the most awake in the morning. I like to relax."

Loki forced himself not to laugh at the utter predictability of this child. Instead he did as he'd promised, and issued a threat. "If you 'relax' at my expense again, I'll personally ensure you don't sleep for a week."

Darren appraised him. Loki found the undercurrent of obstinance in that short glance. "I can't always control when I have to take a dump."

Eleanore made an undignified grunting noise. Loki didn't turn to look at her, knowing he'd likely laugh if they made eye contact.

Darren gave her a strange, wide-eyed look that said he knew at least in part what she was laughing at, but didn't want to admit it. "What?"

Loki needed to draw his attention back for the threat to take hold. "I will refuse to collaborate with you if you ever waste my time again. Have I made myself clear?"

"Jeeze, Loki, okay." Darren held up his hands and grinned. "I'm sorry, alright? Won't happen again."

That, Loki supposed, was as much remorse as he'd get. But the impression he gathered from Darren's apology was more exasperation with an inconvenience rather than a genuine concern for the time he'd cost another person.

"You must allow others the dignity of their schedules. Frigga's voice sounded again. She was very vocal, suddenly, in Loki's mind. "Keeping a guest waiting is the height of arrogance, Loki. And you'll get much less cooperation from an exasperated person than one who feels your generous hospitality."

Loki had been called arrogant any number of times over the years. Now, he witnessed it in another being with whom he closely identified. Darren reminded him uncomfortably of himself when he was younger. He'd considered himself more intelligent than the other young people because he could speak of magic, understood the workings of the universe, while they repeated warrior mantras and hit each other with blunted practice weapons. It wasn't until he'd begun shirking his princely duties — ducking out of meetings and avoiding guests in order to study— that Frigga had chided him alone.

You'd like this halfling, Mother. He could learn a thing or two from you.

But Loki wasn't Frigga, and he certainly wasn't anyone's mother. If Eleanore had given up on this line of chastisement, he could only imagine more frustration lay in store in the future.

Darren moved around the desk to embrace Eleanore. "You here to experiment too? What was so funny?"

"I told Loki what you'd say about being late," she said truthfully. "I didn't miss a single excuse. It was like Bingo. I've told you you'd get in trouble one of these days."

Darren looked hurt. "I'm not late that much."

Eleanore gave him a look. "Sure about that?"

"You're late a lot," Tony confirmed, clapping his son on the back. "Don't know where you got that. Kidding!" he exclaimed when Eleanore frowned at him.

The elevator door opened once more, admitting Steve, who paused with a confused expression upon finding most of the Avengers assembled before him.

"About time you got here!" Tony exclaimed. "What took you so long, Cap?"

Steve ignored the joke and strode into the lab, all business. "You wanted to talk about a base here?"

"That was before your wunderkind showed up and started threatening us with molten metal," Tony told him. "Today just got a lot more interesting."

"But you should talk about the base," Eleanore chimed in. "Darren, let's go to your lab with Loki while they talk. Tony, you can join us there later."

Tony grumbled, "Now who sounds like a mom?" But he didn't argue as Loki followed Eleanore and Darren around Steve and back into the elevator. Bruce stepped in just as the door closed.

"I'm interested," he explained, gesturing to the glob of alloy still hovering above Loki's hand.

Loki cooled the orb and let it fall into his palm in a perfect sphere. "Investigate to your heart's content, Doctor Banner," he said, handing the ball over.

Bruce took it and examined it closely, even as Eleanore and Darren crowded him for a better look themselves. "Asgard do a lot of magic casting?" he asked, looking at Loki over his glasses.

"No," Loki answered. "Most metal working is done by hand. There may be magic involved, but it is generally used to protect a finished product or enhance a weapon." Such facts seemed harmless, simple statements of truth not connected to Loki's baseless former claim to the Realm Eternal.

The elevator came to a stop ten floors below Tony's lab. It opened to a similar, though darker and more cluttered, room. The walls were lined with black shelves, which held scraps and machines and tools in no particular order. The lights hung from the high ceiling next to bare silver ventilation piping, their sterile whiteness cutting through the drab darkness thrown by the black-tinted windows. The walls were striking, dark gray concrete, though Loki caught sight of a few paintings flashing color here and there. A couple of sofas and easy chairs sat in an alcove near a large, un-tinted window, with book-covered shelves and a warm lamp, a definite contrast to the rest of the space. Desks and work tables also lined the walls, and one array of screens in the middle of the room almost made a complete square with just one way to escape.

"Welcome to Darren's Mission Control," Eleanore said with a grin.

"Here's the main workshop," Darren added, leading them around the middle pillar of the room which housed the elevator. The lab continued on the other side in much the same manner, though there was more heavy equipment scattered across the white tile floor.

"If you don't want to cast everything with magic, Loki," Darren continued, approaching a metal cylinder and patting it fondly, "we can use my foundry. It can melt anything up to tungsten."

Loki had hoped for such a device. Melting the metal with magic imbued it with his power from the start, which could pose issues in later, more specific spellcasting. He held out what was left of the little bar of copper-zinc. "You can begin with this."

"What size mold?" Darren asked, taking the metal in hand and lifting the lid of the foundry.

"Like this?" Bruce offered, showcasing the sphere Loki had given him again.

"Like that," Loki agreed easily. He took the case Darren carried and lifted it onto a less-cluttered table to open it. Twelve bars of metal were arranged in a black foam packaging, and when Loki lifted the lid back fully, a little platform rose and revealed twelve more bars below. Some were wrapped in black cloth, some were in plastic containers. Inside the lid of the case lay a few different types of fittings: wood, plastic, rubber, and some flimsy metal chains.

"I brought two ingots of gold and silver," Darren explained from his place near the forge. "Then there's… basically everything I could think of. Lead, platinum, tin, titanium, cadmium, iridium, copper, aluminum, iron, nickel, chromium, lithium, isolated barium. Um…" he trailed off, watching the forge light to life.

"Anything radioactive?" Bruce asked.

"No, those are in the vault," Darren said. "Elle said to start with the safer ones."

Loki glanced up from the case to Eleanore, who was perched on a tall chair with wheels at a tall desk, a tablet in her hand. She didn't look up when Darren mentioned her. "The fewer explosions the better," she commented dryly, dragging her finger across the screen.

"Palladium!" Darren said next. His voice sounded affectionate and excited, like a child showing off its favorite toy. The half-Vanir man walked over and reached across Loki to retrieve a silvery bar from the case.

Loki looked at it and noticed how Darren's unkempt energy interacted with the metal. "Can this hold magic?" he asked.

"It can transfer and hold hydrogen— it's one of the best ways of storing hydrogen for long periods of time— but it's too expensive for widespread application like that. We use it in catalyst converters a lot, and some people like it in jewelry because it's a unique kind of silver. Dad used to use it in his Arc reactor, but it was poisoning him so he made a new element— name pending. We also use it in electronics, so I was thinking maybe palladium-nickel alloy for an experiment? We could also heat it up, because it diffuses hydrogen a lot easier when it's, say, six hundred seventy degrees Kelvin. And since Palladium is exclusive to hydrogen, I was thinking that maybe it has special properties that would allow it to work well with magic and intent." Darren paused and took a deep breath after his diatribe.

"So, to answer your question," Eleanore commented, "he hasn't tried it with magic yet."

Loki had wished a few times in the last couple of days that Eleanore were the expert on magic of this world, because working with her would be much simpler. Darren often spoke at length about an idea as he had just done without seeming to hear or understand the actual questions directed at him. When Eleanore was there, she answered the questions in short sentences, focusing on what Loki or whoever had asked wanted to know. When she wasn't there, getting a straight answer out of the younger Stark often took much longer and involved much more frustration.

But Loki wouldn't be the one to compliment the presumptuous young woman. Instead he gave a short nod and kept looking over the metals. Took the palladium from Darren's hand and examined it more closely, careful not to let his own magic contaminate the metal yet. He could see energy moving in strange patterns, some reflecting off the silvery surface, some sinking in. The heat from his hand easily transferred into the bar.

"This one is interesting," he decided aloud.

Darren took it back. "Great. I'll make some more samples to test. The copper-zinc should be about done already."

So it went. Loki found that he worked well with Darren and Bruce together. Darren's long-winded explanations soon became background noise, as Loki listened for the key words he actually needed as answers. Bruce would translate sometimes, positing ideas that Darren, with his limited background in 'thermonuclear astrophysics' hadn't thought of. Eleanore stayed off to the side at a desk near the book-lined alcove, reading something on her computer and typing every so often. She spoke to clarify something Darren had said, but otherwise remained silent.

Palladium proved to hold magic in interesting ways. It absorbed the energy Loki gave it readily, and held it well when insulated with plastic. He cast several spells over several samples, and they all 'took,' as Bruce said. Intriguing as that was, they moved on to test the rest of the metals in the case.

Tony and Steve brought down several boxes of 'pizza' a few hours into the process. Loki found that he did like this portable dish, though not as much as ravioli or lasagna. He worked through spell theory in his mind while he ate, ignoring the conversations taking place around him. When the meal was over, Tony stayed to observe the experiments and Eleanore and Steve discussed something off to the side.

"Here," Darren said when Loki set his empty plate aside. The young man handed over a sketch made on blue paper with squares drawn in uniform white lines.

The image was of an amulet with scribbles where the runes should go in the shape of a knot. Beside the amulet, mathematical equations spanned the length of the paper, along with notes like 'palladium?' and 'likelihood of acceptance- find'. These notes and the equations were barely legible, written in a connected, close hand at an angle.

"I was doing some math," Darren continued, "just using some of the basic energy readings we've done combined with metals of similar properties. Not all heavy metals are reacting the same with magic, though, like lead isn't working at all." He set a sheaf of papers in Loki's hand on top of the sketch. "Do you see any metals with similar properties that Asgard uses for stuff like this? Then we could link them to our known elements— oh, and I was wanting to learn more about the knot-weaving technique with the runes, so can we discuss that sometime soon? And then we could look into current human stuff that can track things, just in case you find the sorcerer again or someone you have to fight, you could track them back to him. With as much power as he uses—"

"— They," Eleanore interjected from her seat next to Steve in the book-filled alcove. "We don't know if it's a man or a woman."

That distracted Darren, so he proceeded over to Eleanore and began talking to her in rapid-fire, disjointed statements.

Loki realized that the younger Stark preferred working with her just as much as Loki did. Eleanore listened to him and knew when to interrupt to keep him on track, as she was doing now. She asked questions that clarified Darren's points and made him stop so she could repeat his words back more concisely to make sure she understood him. Listening to them, Loki understood what Darren had been trying to say to him in the first place.

"… because the blueprint gives different mass- to-storage ratios for the metals we've experimented with today, but we obviously haven't gone through all of them," the boy was saying.

"And all the combinations will take forever," Eleanore added, nodding. "That's a good idea, if our interpretations of atoms and elements correspond to what Loki learned." She met Loki's eyes and lifted an eyebrow in question.

Loki looked back down at the papers Darren had given him and started leafing through them. He was becoming highly proficient reading English, but it helped when he heard words for direct translation. The Allspeak didn't work on the written word. He hated asking Jarvis things every few minutes, especially when others were present. And a great many of the words in these papers were unfamiliar. Loki kept his eyes trained on them to hide his confusion, resolving to stay awake all night and learn the definition of every single one in the privacy of his room.

Aloud, he said, "I will need to study this further, but I see your point." Avoided eye contact, so Darren wouldn't pursue the topic.

Tony wandered over instead, but he stopped at a table about five feet away. "Jarvis, do a 3D model of the blueprint for me."

The table lit up and separated the sketch into component parts, from the chain to the ingot to the insulator. Tony sent Darren's handwriting off to the side with a wave of his hand and turned the imaged over and over, just staring at it.

"This is pretty simple, itself," he muttered to himself. "Jarvis, give me the data from the palladium experiments."

The picture was replaced with charts and numbers and words. Loki read them from the corner of his eye but, again, he was lost in definitions.

His perusal was cut short by movement from Eleanore and Steve. They were standing and stretching.

"It's a long drive back to D.C.," Steve said. "You two should head out if you want to make it back before dark. You can take my car, I'm here overnight."

Loki decided to take this opportunity to escape, himself, seeing as Steve was supposed to be in command of him anyway. He wondered why the Captain was staying the night in the company of the Starks, but didn't care enough at the moment to ask. "Pleasant evening to you," he said, following the mortal woman to the elevator. It was late afternoon now, just past four o'clock, merging into evening. Loki had hours to learn more about Midgardian scientific terms tonight, provided these mortals would leave him alone. He waited while Darren bade Eleanore a lengthy goodbye and handed her a leather-bound notebook and pen when she reminded him about it. Then the elevator shot them down to a private parking garage that held a multitude of vehicles.

Loki eyed Steve's car with distaste. "Can the vehicle not make its own way home?" An hours-long journey in cramped quarters was unappealing; his patience was worn thin by the day.

"Do you want to transport us?" Eleanore asked, sounding cautious.

"I'd find that preferable to hurling along the streets in a metal coffin." Loki shifted his papers into one arm and held out his hand.

The mortal woman shrugged and put her hand on top of his.

Loki was kinder this time about shifting them through time and space. The distance still took a toll, but Eleanore could still stand when they arrived in the main room of her apartment.

"Thanks," Eleanore said before handing over the notebook.

Loki did not immediately take it. "You don't have to pay me in blank pages."

"It's for you, though. For notes," Eleanore insisted. "Darren likes this kind of notebook because you can take the pages out and move them around if you want to. If you mention you like it, he'll give you a lot more of them. And fountain pens. How do you feel about leftovers tonight?"

"Indifferent," Loki said. Then, when she looked up for clarification, he pulled up the last dregs of his patience and pasted on an easy grin. "I likely wouldn't eat anything you made tonight anyway. I have reading to do."

Eleanore nodded. "Yeah, I have a lot of paperwork to file. And I'm still full from the pizza. Have fun reading." With that, she headed into her bedroom and greeted the dragon and the cat with equal enthusiasm.

Loki turned toward his own room and opened the door, which he kept closed for the semblance of privacy.

Something stopped him on the threshold. A scent, familiar and out of place, dredged up tea and conversation.

He reached out for the electric light to find the source of the disturbance.

Anyone else walking into the room, except, perhaps, for Eleanore, likely would not have noticed anything truly amiss. But Loki had become very familiar with everything, ranging from the bare wooden floorboards to the empty desk drawers. It was the work of his first night, since the room had been very bare.

It was still somewhat sparse, but several changes had been wrought. First, there was large green quilt on the bed, along with freshly-cleaned sheets and two additional pillows with green covers that matched the blanket covers to go along with the plain white ones. Then there was a rug right next to the bed, as long as Loki was tall and nearly as wide as the non-bed part of the room, covered in patchy squares of deep green and warm brown. A new desk chair sat on top of this, and the old one was relegated to the corner near the closet. On the bed's little table and on the desk sat matching lamps with flared white shades and golden bases. A tall, wood-scented candle also sat on the desk. A multi-image wooden picture frame adorned the formerly blank wall between the desk and the bed. Finally, filmy golden drapes hung on a burnished decorative rod above each of the two windows. Everything smelled… new. Like a mixture of laundry and chemicals and the large warehouse of a store where Eleanore bought her food.

"Huh," Eleanore said from her bedroom. She raised her voice and called, "Loki, I think my mom was here."

Oh. That certainly made more sense than Loki's original theories, which consisted of Eleanore having someone deliver the items and arrange them while their team was in London, or Pepper sending even more gifts. Lydia had made things more personal.

She'd also left a folded note on one decorative pillow.

"Loki,

"I came over to surprise Elle with a clean apartment when I noticed how bare your room looked, and how uncomfortable your mattress seemed. Hope you don't mind the alterations. I kept the receipt, so if you don't like anything, we can return it to the store.

"The pictures are from security video cameras at SHIELD and at Stark Tower and some June took of you at the farm. You can change them out or add more as you spend more time here.

"I left some stuff for Steve and Elle, too, so don't feel singled out. I accept tea visits as repayment.

"-Lydia Engman

"P.S. You touch the gold part of the lamps to turn them on and off."

Loki looked up from the note and around the room again. He didn't know how, but Lydia had gotten everything to suit his preferences. Green on the wood floor boards, for one thing, made the white walls look slightly more familiar. The curtains gave a finished air to the room that the simple blinds did not. And the lamps, when he touched one, emitted a bright, warm glow like the one in the sitting room instead of the brighter white light the ceiling fan used. Their gold, though it definitely wasn't real gold, added a flair of luxury.

This room looked like someone lived here. It looked like Loki lived here.

Footsteps warned him of Eleanore's approach. Loki sent the note away and turned to the door. "Yes, I dare say your mother was here."

"Wow." Eleanore chuckled incredulously. "She must have thought you could use an upgrade. Are those…" she squinted, leaning across the doorframe without entering the room. "…are those pictures?"

"Come in and see for yourself." Loki felt distantly generous as he processed the fact that this had all been done just for him. He let Eleanore approach the desk before following her to examine the images for himself.

There were eight in the frame, all arranged either upright or sprawling horizontally. The first was from the SHIELD interrogation room, capturing all the Avengers as they stared through the window at Tiryaki. Somehow, Lydia had found a still image without anyone looking particularly murderous. Tony and Romanov were in the front row with Eleanore and Darren, who were leaning against each other, as usual. Loki stood behind them next to Steve and Clint and Bruce.

Next came a photo from the night they'd captured Tiryaki, when Eleanore and Loki and Steve had been talking to Fury in the memorial park. The camera caught Eleanore excitedly speaking with a smile on her face while Loki and Steve stood to her right. "And we got him!" she'd been saying, with all the elation of an untested, victorious warrior.

Then came an image from Iowa. Loki, Eleanore, Steve, and the twins trooping back up the driveway after a morning run. Steve was speaking this time, smiling more freely than usual over Eleanore's head at Loki. And the Loki from this picture was returning the grin.

Here, Loki paused. There was something in that grin… no, something absent. He looked so different, from his hair to his clothing, that at first Loki couldn't decide what made him stop and reexamine. Short hair, so the morning after the lightning strike. Midgardian exercise clothing and shoes. And he looked… happy.

Loki knew he hadn't been particularly happy at that point in time. Then, he still thought Eleanore was mainly responsible for his imprisonment, and he acted like it. And truly, there was some reservation in the smile he wore that spoke of unfamiliarity. But he was smiling, still, and his eyes weren't as haunted as his mirror usually showed.

Loki didn't know what to make of it.

"I didn't know Aunt June was taking pictures," Eleanore commented quietly.

Loki followed her gaze to the next picture down. It was the board game on the night of the storm before anyone had been eliminated. Coleman was saying something brash while moving his troops to attack Zephaniah's. Again, Loki was grinning in this picture, though this was a much more understandable expression of superiority. He'd been thinking twenty or more moves ahead, plotting to pit each player against each other one at a time. Steve, in contrast, looked like he was concentrating on a serious problem.

"I think we have Risk here, if you ever want to play Steve again," Eleanore said. "Darren would probably try it too."

"Mm," Loki murmured noncommittally.

The image after this was taken in the barn. The main subject was Rose, the new calf. Eleanore was leaning over the gate on her elbows and taunting Alan with a smile. Loki was just observing the cattle, as was Steve.

As if to contrast the rural setting, the picture just beside and slightly below this one was in the autopsy lab. It caught Bruce's chuckle, Loki's smirk, and Eleanore's scrunched up face. "I can make it up to you with a meal of your spaghetti," he'd said, hoping to remind them of gore and humor before they got into a dangerous piece of work.

Then came one from the children's laboratory. It contained Loki and Eleanore alone, and they were talking over a tablet. Well, Eleanore was talking and Loki was listening. She'd been saying something about how magic and machinery had to be the same, because magic should just be a word for more advanced technology.

"Waiting to tell me how wrong I am," Eleanore said, pointing to that image with a laugh.

Loki let a surprised chuckle escape at the accuracy of that statement. "Well, you were wrong."

"Yeah, yeah." She grinned and began retreating to the door. "Well, I'm glad your room looks… lived-in now. I'll tell Mom you like the stuff. Let me know if I can help with the studying, okay?"

Loki nodded, but she was already gone and the door was closed behind her. That brief moment of… of comfort had vanished with her presence. Now he had to get back to the real work at hand, frustrating and slow as it would be. He decided he'd thank Lydia later, possibly with a visit, but after this studying was over and done with so he wouldn't be delayed.

He sat in the new desk chair, which was made of the not-leather like so many chairs on this realm, and finally opened the new notebook. He pulled his own pen from the air and his phone from his pocket and was just about to speak his first unfamiliar term when there was a knock on the door.

He knew who it was by the two quick raps: Eleanore, back with some advice to share. Trying not to growl— some of her information was useful, after all, and her mother had just given him a great many unwarranted gifts— Loki rose and opened the door again. "Done with your paperwork already?"

She grinned up at him from the threshold and leaned her shoulder against the frame. "I found some things that might help you."

Loki trailed his gaze down to her hands, which held an assortment of colorful items, including a few writing utensils. "I have a pen, as you can see. And I don't like decorating my writing with colored bits of paper and metal."

"Paper clips and sticky notes. I thought you might like to organize your notes by section. I'll leave them on the counter out here if you need them. The pen is one Darren gave me a while ago. It's supposed to work well with that paper." So saying, Eleanore retreated and left the things on the island a few feet from Loki's door.

He'd had enough of gifts for now, and enough distractions. Loki forced a pleasant smile and another nod, then shut his door and turned back to work. He promptly forgot about the offering. He put a sound-dampening spell over his room, enough to shut out most noises while still allowing him to hear anything as loud as a shout, so he could write in peace. Started the long, arduous process of jotting down a word as it appeared in each passage about 'heavy metals' and 'elements' and 'molecular fusions', then looking up the definition through Jarvis and writing it next to the word.

Two hours later, Loki raised his head and sniffed the air. The smell of food was wafting under the door. It was the leftover chicken Eleanore had made the night before. She called it 'exploding chicken,' but it tasted sweet instead of spicy. It had been quite good paired with potatoes and 'asparagus' shoots. She'd told him a story of Lydia cooking the dish when Eleanore was a little girl. Lydia had used a glass pan in the oven— something Eleanore didn't own, apparently— and the pan had exploded when she opened the oven door to take the finished product out.

His stomach rumbled. The words were swimming before his eyes, anyway, and it was difficult to learn like this when he had previously had weeks or months or years to master many things at once. It was time for a break.

Loki took the notebook and his phone with him and ventured into the main room. Eleanore was seated on the couch, furiously tapping away at her computer with Charlie on one side and her half-finished plate on the other, wires stuck in her ears. She only grinned in welcome before diving back into whatever 'paperwork' was on the two-dimensional screen.

Loki got himself a piece of chicken from the refrigerator and heated it with magic. He ate it standing up, contemplating the calendar above the microwave. He'd been on Earth almost exactly three weeks now. Soon he'd measure his time here in months, with no end in sight.

The thought didn't enrage him; it left him feeling empty. Thor had been here for barely three days, and he'd been deemed righteous enough to swing Mjolnir right back to Asgard.

Loki didn't want to go back to Asgard, though. There was nothing for him there any longer, except the undeserved love of Queen Frigga. He wanted to be free, that was all. First free of the Other's hold on his mind, which was growing stronger every day, then free of this planet of ants.

But while his mind was compromised, Loki decided, he could live in this quiet apartment. It was a base, and the familiar surroundings of the main room, at least, pulled him out of his own melancholy in a way that the bareness of his bedroom did not. It was the trinkets, really. They told stories. And if they were silent, Eleanore and Steve would tell stories for them. Distractions were welcome at times like this, when Loki felt like his mind was trying to devour itself as an eel eating its own tail. And now his own room had distractions, thanks to these too-kind mortals.

He chose to take his normal seat in the leather chair to continue his work, appetite gone after considering Asgard and Thor. A fresh page of the notebook was where he made a detailed list of every amulet and magical weapon he'd ever seen or owned, their properties, their metals, their creators. It was much simpler to translate Asgardian sounds into the English alphabet than it was to redefine the scientific terms for himself. Loki was still tense from the day behind him, but he would let himself go a bit here.

"When's your birthday?" Eleanore asked into the quiet of the apartment. She pulled the wires from her ears, and they clunked against her keyboard.

Loki did not bother to look up from his notes. "No date you would recognize," he replied.

"Well we need a date for licenses."

"Choose one you like, I have no preference."

"Summer or winter?" Eleanore insisted.

Loki rolled his eyes. "I said I have no preference. But you did leave out two seasons."

"You're a man of extremes," Eleanore said with a smile in her voice.

"Witty enough retort for someone who can't choose a simple day."

Eleanore sighed. "It's your birthday."

"Not really," Loki said. He was growing tired of these ties that the Engman women kept trying to create. Perhaps he would return the gifts just to show them he couldn't be bought. "Why not use the day I attacked New York? A suitably extreme legacy, is it not?"

That silenced her for a few minutes. Loki chanced a glance at her face and found thoughtful disquiet. She met his eyes and shrugged off her disapproval. "Sure you don't care?"

Loki nodded and returned to his notes. He was uncomfortable, now, like his very skin was crawling. Hid it under information. "Asgard's year and Midgard's never truly coincide."

"Okay." She resumed her typing with the same air of concentration as before.

Loki tried to return to his own perusal, trying to find a connection between the Asgardian and Midgardian metals, but he couldn't focus anymore. He sensed there was something Eleanore wanted to say. It hung heavy in the air, where before there had been comfortable silence.

That's what you cause when you bring up your past, he thought to himself bitterly. These mortals like to pick and choose parts of each other to like as much as anyone on Asgard did. Some things they cannot accept.

But the silence continued until it strengthened to something with a life of its own. Like a nest of snakes. Loki knew something vile would emerge if the beast was disturbed.

"Mom said you wanted to lose."

Apparently, Eleanore was foolish or brave enough to continue.

Loki chose his words carefully. "She speaks from observation and assumption. I had no real desires of my own."

"If you did," Eleanore pressed, "would you have stopped?"

Reaching. She was reaching for a hint of… something inside him. Goodness or reason or anything to redeem.

(Nothing for you here, little girl.)

"I attacked to win the Earth for myself," Loki said flatly, for once embracing the horrible, nasty voice of the Other. "Thanos used sentiments already present to carry out his will through me."

"But you aren't that… You don't like battle. You would have stopped." She was struggling with her words as she thought them through. Likely, Loki thought, because she knew they were false.

"I did wage battle, though," he said. "I did, and I can. And I would, to achieve a great many things."

"So you would do it all again." Eleanore looked disarmingly sad. Wide eyes full of innocent disbelief stabbed Loki straight through the heart.

If she'd acted offended or derisive, he could have brushed her off easily. But this openness tugged at him relentlessly. He hated her expression, and he hated his reaction to her expression even more. Bitterness and venom welled up to fill the painful chink in his armor. "Whatever good you hope to find in me does not exist," he said harshly, biting out the words. "Heroes are a child's dream. Thanos found a willing servant. I directed the plan to open the portal. I took Clint Barton's mind, and Erik Selvig's. I killed in the service of a killer because I wanted a throne."

Sadness left Eleanore's face during Loki's rebuttal, and it was replaced with steely determination. She set her jaw and squared her shoulders. "You lie to yourself more than anyone else."

Loki could scarcely believe she'd said that. "You are the liar," he refuted. "You create this image of me, and you're so disappointed when I do not adhere to the lines you've drawn."

"I'm not creating an image of you," she protested.

"Really. 'Loki is an Avenger, Loki is a hero'." He paused a moment, unable to utter her other claims made silently through her actions: Loki is my friend, I trust Loki with my life. "You put these words into other people's minds, and they are completely false."

"Your actions make you a hero. You save people all the freaking time. You help Steve and I—"

"—Do not confuse my actions with my intentions. I push you closer to Thanos every day, you ignorant child." Finally, there it was. Out in the open, where she could find the true ugliness behind Loki's 'help'.

But Eleanore seemed to roll right over that. "Preparing us for imminent attack isn't the same as—"

"— Building soldiers," Loki interrupted again. "That is what you are to me. Shields, weapons, tools. Your pathetic existence will only serve to defeat one of my many enemies."

It took her another moment to process that, but then she shrugged. "Okay."

Sputtering was beneath him, but Loki was suddenly very close to it. "What?"

"That's fine," she said. "I never expected to live through the Thanos battle, anyway, so it's okay. If you teach me to fight, and if I can save people, then that's all I want. And in the meantime, I still like you because at least you're keeping me alive for that. I know you don't like me that much, and I don't expect you to start anytime soon. But I also think you're lying to yourself, because it's easier."

Loki wasn't prepared for that logical acceptance, nor for the accusation. He sat, gripping the arms of his chair.

"I think you would have stopped," Eleanore decided. "I think you wouldn't have done a battle like that in the first place. You'd have taken over the world like in Risk, right? Making us ally with you until we gave you the Tesseract. You play the long game. If Thor hadn't shown up, it would have worked, too."

More venomous words would distance himself from this… this. But Loki was shaken. The Other's voice was silent. He stood and turned his back, deciding whether his bedroom would be far enough away to escape this woman.

"You only act aggressive when you're backed into a corner," Eleanore concluded, as though she was stating the time of day. "I won't back you into a corner, though. I'll leave you alone for a little bit. That's what I always want when I'm stressed." The couch shifted as she stood, and her feet whispered across the floor as she went into her room and closed the door. Computer keys clicked, and music began to barely permeate the panel.

Loki remained standing on the threshold of his own room as two songs began and faded. His thoughts were racing, and with Eleanore gone, he had time and opportunity to freeze his body and focus on them wholly.

No one had ever weathered a storm of his so calmly as Eleanore and Lydia did. No one returned anger for understanding. Terrifying understanding and insight. Because the worst thing about the entire interaction was that Eleanore had been right— not about Loki's true nature (she was too kind and naive and young to understand the darkness he'd harbored for centuries) but about how he would have taken over Earth if he had had full control of his mind. Somehow, this witch had read him in less than a month, when his own 'family' hadn't known him so well almost all his life. And her mother had read him the first time they'd met.

Loki was used to explaining himself to people who wouldn't hear. He had grown attached to the shadows after so many decades. People did not see him, they only thought they did. It was safer, more opportune. Loki could think his judgmental thoughts, he could ponder horrible plans (which he previously never truly carried out) and no one was the wiser. And when he did show his true colors, people were suitably, predictably repulsed. They hated him for saying what he was thinking. They wanted him to say what they were thinking, to agree and go along. He'd learned how to do that on the surface. Another layer for outsiders to get through before they found him out.

His hands twitched. He was too tense to stay still. The apartment was too small for proper pacing. Loki glanced from Eleanore's bedroom door to the hall one, and let his thoughts guide his feet through the kitchen, out to the stairs, and up to the roof.

Warm night air greeted him, laced with fumes from machines and food and the little smoking papers that lay in the small receptacle by the door. Gravel crunched under his feet as he circled the door's little shelter and found himself alone next to a small garden area full of young plants in dirt-filled wooden boxes.

Now Loki paced the length of the building and back, expending nervous energy in quick steps. He found himself picking at the bracelet time and again, and eventually he let the warm metal become part of his thought process. The chain was smooth, slipping through his fingers like a stream.

Frigga had chosen this binding, though Odin had carried it out. What had she seen in the little mortal woman? Frigga was hopeful for Loki's happiness, in her own words. Did she think that exposing his darkest thoughts would bring him joy? Had she meant for Eleanore and Steve and Lydia to soften him?

Lightning flashed in the distance. Over the noise of the city, Loki caught the barest rumble of thunder. He didn't have much time to ponder. Nowhere to go but back to the apartment once the weather came in perhaps half an hour.

He growled and paced again. It was unbearably humid, and the gravel and concrete were giving off heat in waves from the absent setting sun, which was hidden behind the approaching thunderheads. No breeze swept the heat away, either. It was the sort of calm that fell before Thor's temper tantrums unleashed all sorts of chaos. The city was loud, but the trees and lawns around the building were silent. The animals were wise enough to shelter themselves and wait.

Why did humans not follow such basic instincts? Why did Eleanore and Steve not back away when Loki threatened them? Why did Eleanore accept Loki's disdain so calmly?

"I never expected to live through the Thanos battle anyway, so it's okay."

But there was acceptance of one's mortality, and then there was foolishness. Though Thor and many others on Asgard called foolishness 'bravery,' Loki knew the mortals could be slightly more logical. He'd seen them retreat, accept backup, plan attacks instead of charging in.

It was more than that, though, that led Loki's feet around the rooftop. Even before she'd shown her peculiar insight, Eleanore had accepted Loki's dark thoughts without complaint. The familiar expression of fear mixed with disgust that he'd seen so many times before was completely absent. Just "Okay," and nothing else. So like her mother. So very like her mother. Those two women… They accepted the worst about him, and probably about others, without batting an eye. It drew him in, it disarmed him.

The thunder was closer now. Not close enough to shock in its noise, but humans should be able to hear it. Loki paused along the edge of the building closest to the street and found pedestrians looking up at the sky before scurrying on their way.

They were so weak. Loki saw them from high above, as though he were the god their ancestors had thought him to be. In some ways, he was more. In many ways, less.

He did not care what those arrogant insects thought of him. He barely cared if Thanos crushed this entire realm, except for the link the Mad Titan would find to Loki.

So why, then, did you mind when that mortal child was disappointed in you earlier?

Loki scowled. This voice was different from the harsh one, though it was equally disturbing. It was his past self, the part he'd long thought dead. The part he'd wanted to die, back when he'd let go of Gungnir on the bridge. But it was there, annoyingly, and he had to answer it. No doubt her empathic powers drew that reaction from me.

Of course that was it. Eleanore had been hurt by his tone, his harsh words, and she had made him feel that hurt in some conscious or unconscious retaliation. Loki did not care that she was hurt. It was proximity, not attachment.

"But I also think you're lying to yourself, because it's easier." Eleanore's voice joined Loki's already overcrowded mind.

Loki hissed air through his gritted teeth and started pacing again with renewed vigor. Walking in a square was hardly the way to outrun his demons, but it was better than nothing. He needed to get away from them, away from the past, and focus on the future he'd forced himself into.

So. Eleanore knew about Loki's plan to use the Avengers to defeat Thanos. Steve would likely know soon as well. That was just as well; perhaps it would even distance them a bit.

"… I still like you because at least you're keeping me alive for that."

There went that hope. Steve was just as likely to cling to Loki as she was, and they both called him 'friend' whether he liked it or not.

Lightning struck perhaps ten miles away. The thunder traveled to wash over the land in a low roar. The heat was more oppressive now.

Loki didn't know why the mortals insisted on claiming him. He didn't know why he cared so much about it, either. Surely their attachment was useful, whether or not it was reciprocated. Willing tools were best.

But I am unworthy of their camaraderie. Even I cannot lie to myself about that.

Because they were too kind, all of them. Even Tony, the formerly suspicious genius, now offered his home to Loki 'whenever he needed a place to crash,' as he'd said earlier that very day during a lull in the experiments. Darren freely lent or gifted anything Loki asked for in a heartbeat. Bruce gave advice softly and protection easily. Pepper Potts was thoughtful and generous to a fault. Clint Barton had forgiven, and so far had shown nothing but acceptance in their limited interactions. Natasha Romanov was a closed book, but not an openly hostile one. Lydia watched and gave and mothered openly.

And then there were his mortals. The two he was assigned to protect. The ones who had first brought him back, who'd believed in him for some reason from the beginning. They were so stubborn and childish in some ways, so jaded in others. It wasn't fair that they'd been stuck with Loki, but they seemed to think he was… useful, at least. Acceptable. They let him air unpleasant ideas without turning him away.

Steve was the first to do such a thing. That night seemed so long ago, when the Captain was recovering from Tiryaki's torture. From then to now, the fair-haired man had seemed to assume Loki's involvement with the side of all he deemed good and right and honest. He was trusting to the point of gullibility. He was perceptive to others' strengths. He knew when Loki needed a break, and when to push him. He trusted every other Avenger as an equal.

And Eleanore. Where Steve was simple to read, she was much more complex. Just when Loki thought he could predict her words and actions, she defied him with a smile. Sarcastic but honest, confident but cautious. Apparently more observant than he'd ever suspected. Unfailingly kind.

A fresh, cool breeze finally swept over the rooftop. It carried the scent of rain and the energy of the storm.

Loki breathed it in and closed his eyes. He had a decision to make. He could hide on the roof some more, or he could descend and face the mortal. Facing her was an ominous prospect simply because of Eleanore's thoughtful brown eyes that saw who-knew-how-much. Hiding was pathetic.

Loki had always fought against being pathetic.

He resolutely approached the door's shelter as thunder finally crashed through the air. The storm was nearly upon them now, only a mile away at most. It echoed in the stairwell as Loki swept down the two flights.

The door to the apartment was still unlocked. When Loki entered, Eleanore's bedroom was still closed and music was still playing. Charlie leapt from the couch to greet him with a very loud trill.

Loki contemplated using the desk in his room to finish working on his notes, then discarded the idea. The storm would distract him as they always did. Instead, he took a seat on the couch and watched the lightning flash. The tree's branches made interesting patterns in the intermittent light, as they were tossed to and fro by the wind.

Loki remained still when Charlie jumped into his lap, when there were footsteps from behind Eleanore's door, and when she emerged.

"Hey," she greeted him with the same smile of welcome as always. Now she was dressed in looser clothing: trousers that descended in shiny black waves to just above her ankles and a bulky, dark pink long-sleeved shirt.

Loki did not want to return to their earlier discussion. He also did not want to drive her away right now. In the warm light of the lamp, he could face a truth: he enjoyed her company at times. And perhaps if he engaged her now, he could find out when she was observing him so closely. "Would you care for a game?" he asked.

That made her pause. "Yeah," she replied after a moment. "I have some in the pantry, actually. Or do you have one?"

Loki thought of summoning the set of playing cards that went along with a Vanir game called Wayward Chance. It was complicated, though, and he wanted something more mindless. And Eleanore was terrible at strategy. "What do you have here?"

"Risk," she answered immediately, looking at the ceiling in thought. "Um, chess and checkers. I have 'Sorry,' if you'd like something new. Or I have a couple decks of cards so we could play poker again. Monopoly, but that always ends in a fight… Do you want to play Risk?"

Loki shook his head. "You would be terrible at it. And two people hardly makes the game interesting."

"I have Life," Eleanore continued. "Or Scrabble?" She seemed slightly more excited about that last suggestion.

"What is Scrabble?"

"A word game. You have letter tiles, and you arrange them to make words out of other words."

Too complicated. "Cards sounds lovely."

Eleanore nodded. "Poker? Or I know some other games."

"Poker," Loki decided. If he grew bored, he'd ask about the other games.

Eleanore opened the pantry door, reached up to the top shelf, and came back into the main room with two boxes: one of cards, and one of cookies.

"We can play for these," she said, shaking the cookies. She set both boxes on the little table between the chairs, then turned her reading chair until its back was to the window. "I'll go to the bathroom, and then we can get started," she informed him. "There's sparkling grape juice in the fridge if you want it."

Loki stood and moved his chair as she disappeared into the bathroom. Then he got a couple of the long-stemmed glasses from the cupboard and filled them with the purple-red drink. By the time he returned to his seat, Eleanore was emerging from the bathroom. She'd tied her hair back with a clip, though curls were already threatening an escape.

"Yum, thanks." She took a drink from her glass and sat across the table. "So, Texas Holdem? Five-Card-Draw?"

Loki chose the simplest one. "Five-card-draw."

Eleanore nodded and extracted the cards from the box. Unlike the ones from the electronic game, which had blue or red designs that corresponded with the font of the numbers and letters, these had a picture of a bulbous creature with two fins for arms and a strange, dog-like face.

"What is this?" Loki asked, taking one of the Joker cards as she discarded them.

"A manatee," Eleanore answered. "They live in the fresh water of Florida. I got these cards down there."

Loki remembered her living grandparents were in Florida. "What purpose do these creatures serve?" he asked.

"No real purpose, except as part of the ecosystem." Eleanore shuffled the cards in an impressive display of dexterity. "They were endangered, but they're making a comeback. They're mammals that live in the water, and they're really calm. I swam with them while I was there."

This was the gap in the conversation where Loki could either ask her another question or share something personal himself. He decided to share a harmless story from when he was a boy so he could watch Eleanore's face as he told it. Maybe he could see her turning basic information into intuition. "When I was a child, the royal family would often visit the coast of the Ending Ocean on Asgard. It is populated with fish, not with mammals."

Eleanore betrayed no subversion, though she did look up during his story as she dealt the cards. "What kind of fish?"

Loki picked up his five. A pair of sixes, a three, a nine, and a Queen. "I doubt you would know their species if I named them."

Thunder cracked in unison with a close lightning bolt. The lights flickered, but they stayed on.

"I'm glad Steve's in New York still," Eleanore commented, abandoning the fish of Asgard.

Steve's earlier parting played again in a quick memory. He'd mentioned an overnight stay, but Loki had expected him to return either way, a moth drawn to the warm light of Eleanore's apartment. "Planning more strategies with the Starks, is he?"

Eleanore chuckled. "No. He's going to film the PSA things they asked him for early tomorrow morning. I think he's staying at the Tower because Pepper invited him."

Loki remembered that conversation. Steve had asked Eleanore about the offer days before, when he'd received it, and she'd explained what might be expected of him. "Captain America warning your youth of ill-considered relationships. I would like two new cards."

"Mr. Rogers saying 'be a good neighbor, kids!'" Eleanore laughed harder and exchanged Loki's cards and her own. "Oh, you don't get that reference, but it's hilarious."

"A teacher you had?" Loki guessed. He'd gotten another nine and a queen in exchange for his three and nine.

"No, it was a TV show from when I was a kid. Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. The host was Mr. Rogers, and he told stories and talked to the kids like we were smart. And he always wore bomb-ass cardigans, and he had house shoes and outside shoes. He died, though, when I was like ten years-old. The theme song of the show is Won't You Be My Neighbor? And he composed the songs himself. I think the Smithsonian had a sweater of his a few years back."

Loki listened, though he did not understand most of what she said. He laid down his cards in reply. "Do you concede?"

"Yes." Eleanore showed him a pair of twos, an eight, a Jack, and a King. "Your turn to deal."

They continued like that. Eleanore was very talkative, so Loki simply let her speak and watched her reactions every time he responded. Nothing seemed strange, though. He didn't bother with much bluffing, as he could tell when he was going to win or lose by his own hand (Eleanore had a run of bad luck that lasted six games). She didn't seem to mind losing, eagerly speaking instead about the storm, her past, the times she'd played poker with her cousins. She wasn't lying or acting for his benefit. Loki could find nothing in her behavior that said she was watching him closely either in his memories of her or in the present.

Loki wasn't frustrated with this. He was intrigued. How did her mind pull intimate truths from the air, when she normally seemed to be thinking about something entirely different? Could she explain other people the same way?

"There we go!" Eleanore exclaimed, laying down a full house.

"Finally," Loki said. "I was thinking of drifting off, to see if I could beat you in my sleep."

"You probably could," Eleanore admitted. "You're really good at reading people."

And you are not? Loki decided to take a chance. "Why did you say I lie to myself?"

Eleanore bit her lip and fidgeted with the cards. "That wasn't the right way to say it. I meant you don't know yourself very well."

"Shall I rephrase my question?" Loki asked, keeping his voice even. He knew she would stop the conversation if she felt it was dangerous.

"No." She set the deck aside. "I meant you haven't done a lot of self-reflection. Um, like, humans are encouraged to get to know themselves pretty well. In America, at least. Kind of. We have psychology and stuff, counseling. We take tests and go into careers that are based on our interests and personalities. A lot of communication— well, skilled communication— is taking a step back and analyzing why people say what they do, and why you say what you do. And you haven't done that."

"Because I am not a skilled communicator." Loki was not insulted. He appreciated her honesty, even though he thought she was incredibly misguided. He knew others, he knew why they did what they did, and he knew how to manipulate them to do as he pleased. In most cases. Thor, at least. Usually.

"No, because you didn't have the chance," Eleanore contradicted. "I mean, did anyone on Asgard sit you down and go, 'Okay Loki, here's a series of personality tests. You take them to see where your career preferences might lie'? Or 'Loki, be true to yourself, find out what you like to do'? No, they didn't do that. You were a prince; that was your childhood, adolescence, and career path."

"You make it sound as if I had no choices," Loki commented. "Yes, I was raised to be a prince, but I explored other interests as I found them. Is that not the self-reflection you speak of?"

"Kind of. Not quite, though." More lip biting, and a moment of silence.

Loki sat still and let her think. His eyes drifted over to the rain-spattered window panes where the storm was still raging away.

He knew when she would speak again by the sharp intake of breath. "Okay. So one of your choices that you made was to learn about magic."

"Yes," Loki agreed. "And it was a choice that I made because I like learning, and I have a skill for magic."

"But," Eleanore continued, "you didn't just learn it. You mastered it, Loki. Best sorcerer in the Nine realms? And you're pretty young for that title, too. That must have taken a lot of work, and even now you're still working to create more spells and stuff."

"Do you have a point, or are you complimenting me?" Loki asked with an easy smile.

"I have a point. My point is: Why did you push yourself so hard? And over something Asgardians don't even like?"

"That's not a point, it is two questions," Loki hedged. Questions I… may not know the answer to. "I see the value in knowledge, I suppose. Magic is a tangible form of knowledge. I never understood why other Asgardians didn't 'like' it." He stopped himself there. And I am not Asgardian. No wonder I never fit.

But Eleanore was nodding excitedly. "Yes, right. It's weird that they don't like it, when a lot of technology and stuff relies on magic there. You'd think they would respect the people who make advancements to make life easier."

"You would think," Loki agreed vaguely. This seemed to be more of an examination of others than of himself.

"So why do you think differently?" Eleanore inquired to the ceiling. "Why are your thought processes so…"

Monstrous, Loki's mind supplied. "Wrong," he said aloud.

"I was going to say 'logical'," Eleanore countered.

Loki shook his head. "Logic would dictate that I adhere to the general consensus." He'd heard enough arguments to that effect over the course of his life. A prince was supposed to uphold his realms' values, not throw them into question.

"Mm, not really. You can be logical, and everyone else can be illogical. It's not easy, but it's true. We had an… astronomer, I think. His name was Copernicus. Like five hundred years ago, give or take. Back then, the Catholic church was in charge of a lot in Europe, and they had a generally understood school of thought that they taught to the general masses. Part of it was that they thought the Earth was the center of the Universe and everything revolved around that, because the church thought God made us the most important thing, you know. In his image. So most people believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, if they thought about it at all. But Copernicus charted the stars and planets, and he did math, and he discovered that the Earth actually revolves around the Sun."

"A wise mortal," Loki conceded.

"We think that now," Eleanore said, pointing a finger at him. "Back then, though, the Church called his discovery heresy. A lot of people didn't believe him even after he was dead. And then this guy named Galileo agreed with him, and the Church put him on trial and threatened him with torture if he didn't redact. Some people from another religion supported him, and so did some scientists, but the Church was more powerful. So they put him on house arrest until he died and defamed him for a long time. So," she concluded, "being right isn't the same as being accepted."

"So you would think that all of Asgard is wrong?" Loki asked.

"Did all of Asgard think magic is actually dishonorable? Or did Odin think that and teach Thor?" Eleanore asked. "Societal acceptance of something doesn't mean everyone thinks it's true. Actually, most people can disagree with it as long as those in power maintain control of the loudspeakers."

Loki sat back. The storm was mostly past, and only rain spat against the windows in occasional gusts of wind. "Does poker always lead you to such insights?" he finally asked.

Eleanore came back from staring through him and smiled. "It's kind of late at night and I'm tired. I get philosophical."

It was nearly ten o'clock. Their games had taken longer due to conversation. Still, Loki had no idea how or when Eleanore would have observed him. And after this last bout of discussion, he was left with even more questions.

May as well try everything, he thought wearily. "How do you know so much of me? Are you truly a mind-reader?"

Eleanore looked confused. "Nooo?" she answered, drawing the word into a question.

"Then where do your insights come from?" Loki demanded, sitting forward.

Eleanore shrugged and yawned. "Past experience, I guess. I've been around you a lot these last few weeks, so I've observed a lot about you. You're my coworker, and my roommate, so there's really no escape. I mull things over in my head quite a bit until they make sense to me. I remember things you say or do, or how you act when someone mentions something. I know people well, if I know them at all. And honestly, I just make educated guesses."

"Educated guesses," Loki muttered in disbelief. "You seem very sure of your guesses."

She smiled wider. "Mom says I'm arrogant."

"Would you agree with that assessment?" Loki challenged.

"I'd say I'm discerning and confident," Eleanore hedged. "Everyone's arrogant, sometimes. Like you say: it's not arrogance if you can back it up."

Loki felt a grin creep over his face. "One more question," he said.

"What's that?"

"If I had denied your educated guesses, would you have believed me?"

Eleanore thought it over. "Yeah, I probably would have, if you proved me wrong. But if you just went 'Nuh-uh,' I would have thought, 'Methinks thou doth protest too much'." She crossed her arms. "I'm a little naive, but not that bad. You know I can tell when you're lying."

"To myself." Loki wouldn't believe that. How could it be a lie, if he was not aware of it? Had he sunk so low?

"Most of the time," Eleanore confirmed with that brash confidence. "I wish we had a Mirror of Erised for you to look into."

"Are you going to get one?" Loki asked, wondering what sort of contraption it was.

"It's another reference," Eleanore said. Then she straightened and gave an excited, "Oh!" She leapt over the arm of her chair and dashed into her room.

Loki listened to a furious scuffle that sent Charlie darting from the bedroom in a huff. Is she having a conniption? he wondered. Did all that educated guessing drive her mad?

The scuffling stopped and footsteps returned in the form of Eleanore with a load of books in her arms. "Here," she said, dumping them into Loki's lap triumphantly. "Homework."

Loki gingerly examined the top book. Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone. A boy with dark hair and glasses on the cover reaching for a golden ball. "What am I to work on?"

"It's a story that influenced my generation," Eleanore informed him happily. She was so excited that it was making Loki's heart jump around. She balanced on her toes unconsciously and tipped forward to show him the rest of the stack. "I put them in chronological order for you. They're not tough to read. I bet you get done with them in a week or less."

Loki skeptically examined the rest of the covers. The same boy doing all sorts of strange things. "These books influenced your generation to become delusional?"

Eleanore breezed over that with a wave of her hand. "Steve's a Gryffindor. I think Clint and I are Hufflepuffs. Tony and Darren and Bruce are Ravenclaws, obviously, and Natasha is almost definitely a Slytherin. And, if nothing else, you can tell me how wrong the interpretation of magic is."

Definitely delusional. Lack of sleep, probably. Nonetheless, her happiness and smiles were amusing and infectious, and she spoke so quickly it seemed she would soon run out of air. Loki smiled. "And what nonsense word have you assigned to me, my lady?"

Eleanore bounced again. "I think the cool part about these books is that you get to figure it out for yourself as you read them."

Loki narrowed his eyes at her. "You already know."

"I do," she agreed, "but only because I'm very good at educated guesses."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Go to bed. Perhaps I will read these, but not with you standing over me."

"In order!" Eleanore demanded, even as she retreated to the bathroom.

Loki was very close to mimicking her the way children did. In order! his own voice sounded in his head in a poor imitation of Eleanore. That was what he had done to his most disliked tutors, copying their voices almost exactly and saying ridiculous things. It had always made Thor laugh.

Thinking of Thor was enough to banish any amusement from Loki's mind. His eyes settled on the children's tale Eleanore had dumped in his lap.

Eleanore darted out of the bathroom then and picked something out of her purse. "Here." She held out a folded bit of black leather.

Loki took it and unfolded it. There was Midgardian money inside, along with two cards: one that contained numbers and one that had his face again. "I presume an explanation comes with this gift?"

"It's a wallet," she informed him, speaking very quickly. "I picked up your debit card today. I'm a co-operator on your account right now, just in case there's a problem. I withdrew a hundred dollars in cash from your last check, which should last you on food until we get your next paycheck cashed, especially if you're hanging out with Darren." Loki couldn't tell if she was even breathing between each sentence anymore. "Your spare SHIELD ID is in there too, which is your only form of identification now, so keep it handy. I'll teach you how to drive next time we go to the meadow, so maybe in a few days. Oh, you keep your wallet in your back pocket, usually. Keep cash on you, just in case you need to buy something without a paper trail. But for your card, your PIN number is 2412. Don't take it out on the street or the bus or the train or anywhere you could get pick-pocketed. Do you know how dollars and cents work? Okay, here you have five ones, five fives, a twenty, and a fifty dollar bill. The dollars are indicated before a decimal point on a price, like five-point-zero-one—"

"— Eleanore," Loki interrupted her, "I'd learn better if I could look through the contents myself. I'll ask any questions I may come up with."

"But I'm not always there, and neither is Steve," she protested. "Look, at least let me teach you about prices on things."

"I experienced Midgardian monetary practices on previous visits," Loki insisted. "It's not difficult, and not so different from Asgard, Alfheim, and Vanaheim. Your kind just deals in paper instead of coins."

"We have coins, too," Eleanore told him. "Pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Pennies are worth one cent— here, I'll show you." Before he could protest, she darted into her room and emerged with a hand full of coins. "Pennies are the little copper ones. Nickels are these, worth five cents. Dimes are ten, and quarters are twenty-five. Change isn't used a ton, unless you happen to have the exact amount, but you can use it for parking meters all over the city, or for cheap things (not that anything is really cheap) or for laundry in the basement. Quarters are for laundry."

"Look, I'll simply leave if you don't stop spouting facts at me." Loki was mostly jesting, but he was also a bit irritated. The tone he used implied more irritation than jest.

Eleanore heard it and quieted a bit, looking reproachful. "I'm trying to help before you need it."

"Very pragmatic," Loki congratulated her sarcastically. "I'll ask for help if I need it."

"No you won't," she insisted.

"Perhaps not from you," Loki amended.

"From anyone. You hate asking questions. I just watched you fuck around on a tablet for half an hour the other day instead of asking me how to save a file."

Loki glowered at her. He'd struggled quietly, hoping no one else had noticed while the children blathered on at him about Earth's 'laws of physics'. "You could have offered to show me. Succinctly."

"You could have asked. Politely."

"I taught myself the lesson, and now I'll remember forever how to save a file on an inane piece of your antiquated Midgardian machines." He was getting more worked up than was, strictly speaking, necessary. He breathed in through his nose. "I don't need to be shown everything on your planet. I'm hardly a child."

"Midgardian machines…" Eleanore wasn't listening to him any longer, looking straight through Loki, lost in thought. She came back when he finished speaking. "Okay, just one more teaching moment for today."

"It's not time to bargain," Loki told her flatly.

"I'm not bargaining," Eleanore said with an easy smile that said she was absolutely unafraid of him. "Here, let me see your phone."

As if he'd listen to such an imposing order. "No."

"Loki."

"Eleanore."

She lost her domineering attitude in a real laugh, though that wasn't much better. "This is ridiculous. Just hand me your phone for two minutes."

She was laughing at herself, too. Loki could tell because Lydia did the same thing when they would get into a light argument over nothing of importance, and Eleanore had shown this tendency before when discussing stupid disagreements with Darren.

But if Loki conceded, she might actually laugh at him again. "What do you need from my phone?"

"It's a different model than mine. I want to show you something."

"What do you want to show me?"

"How to be cooperative: 101," she deadpanned. When Loki wrinkled his nose at the joke he didn't fully understand, she grew earnest. "Just something real quick. It's easier to show you than to explain. So you won't have to ask me any questions, probably ever again."

That was an appealing offer. Loki narrowed his eyes, but found nothing but the truth from her. He summoned his cell phone to his hand and exchanged it for the wallet. Maneuvered around to look over her head at the device.

"Thanks." Eleanore lit the screen and went into the section marked 'Applications.' She found a colorful symbol and dragged it to rest on the initial screen, next to the games. Then she dragged all the games together into one tiny spot, where they shrank together into a circle. "To save space," she explained. "Okay, here's your best tool for learning something quickly. It got me and just about everyone from my generation through school. It's called Google."

"Google." That word felt ridiculous on Loki's tongue. He stepped around to look over her shoulder more clearly as she pressed the colorful symbol. He realized it was shaped like a letter 'G'. When pressed, it brought up a mostly-white screen with a smaller white box and the word 'Google' above it in colorful letters.

"It's called a search engine," Eleanore continued, now speaking more slowly. "There are a lot of search engines, but this one is the best. Jarvis even uses it when he has to. Steve likes it a lot. Search engines look up anything you want. All you have to do is type in the term for what you need to know. So…" she furrowed her brow and looked up at him. "What's a question you have about Earth stuff?"

Loki frowned. How long can you speak before exhausting yourself? was his reflexive response. But instead he settled for, "How many languages does Midgard have?"

"Okay. Good one." Eleanore tapped the smaller white box, and a vertical black line appeared. The entire screen also shifted upward to reveal the normal series of characters and numbers. "So you want as few words to search with as possible. We'll use, 'Number of languages on Earth'." She typed that in very quickly and pressed the button on the keyboard marked 'Go'.

The page changed again to a white background covered in blue and black text. 'Languages of Earth,' 'Linguistics,' 'Languages by region,' 'Dialects.'

"These are your results," Eleanore said, pressing on the top blue text. "It's a bunch of websites with the information you want. You choose the one that looks best, and here. This says there are over seven thousand languages in the world."

Loki was intrigued both by the results and the device. He didn't need to ask Jarvis for help anymore, surreptitiously whispering where he hoped no one could see. He suppressed the urge to thank Eleanore, not wanting to encourage more 'teaching moments'.

"You can type in questions, too," she was saying. "But I've had the best results with sticking to simple terms. Oh, and you can say, 'Okay, Google,' and speak your search terms if you want, but typing is quieter."

Loki had a question just then, so he asked. "Will it respond if I speak to it?"

"Only like this." She tapped on another small icon set into the right corner of the box. "Okay Google. What movies are playing tonight?"

"Here are the movies playing in your area." A female's monotone responded pleasantly, bringing up results in a list, below which were more 'websites'.

Eleanore handed the phone back. "It's not as smart as Jarvis, but it's something I find useful. And I'm not the only one— Darren and Tony and Bruce Google things all the time. Tony and Darren don't like to admit it, but they do."

So that was how Bruce found such a plethora of meditation advice. Loki tried typing 'meditation guidance' in the box. Pictures with sideways arrowheads on them appeared, all headed with a website named 'YouTube.' He tried again with 'engine parts' and got a myriad of results. This was like having a library— many libraries worth of information in his hand, without the bulky scrolls and books and parchments. Loki tapped the blue text of the first website and started reading the long, detailed explanation of different Midgardian engines for all the known vehicles, and their components.

Eleanore moved away at that point without a word, heading back into her room. Soon after, there were a few clinks of the coins in her hand falling into something made of glass, and then the sigh of bedsprings and the tapping of computer keys.

Loki tore himself away from reading to make his way over to his chair. Then he immersed himself again and looked up term after term. He found 'articles' on a site called Wikipedia, which were organized and contained blue text that led to other articles about similar topics. It was a continuous stream of information, and he soaked it up like a sponge.

"Not to make you growl at me again," Eleanore's voice pulled him from neutrons and their properties, "but you can read that stuff on your computer, too. Just in case you don't want to keep squinting at your phone." She was somehow sitting at the kitchen island, her own computer in front of her along with a glass of water. The apartment was dark except for the light from Loki's phone screen and the electric bulb above the island. Charlie slept on Eleanore's reading chair, and Jet was sprawled across the sofa. The storm had stopped sometime, leavings its drying raindrops on the windows.

Loki hadn't heard her emerge from her bedroom. He also hadn't noticed half an hour passing on the wall's clock. He blinked, realizing she was watching him cautiously. Waiting for him to lash out and trying to hide it. He knew because he'd proposed things and been rejected— harshly, most of the time— on too many occasions to count, and he'd eventually given up. Is that who I want to be? Someone who hurts those trying to teach me?

The answer to that was a resounding 'No,' accompanied by a pang of guilt. He took a second to soften his tone and expression into something resembling amiability. "Is that so?"

"Yeah," she answered, still watching him.

Loki considered his options. He could apologize outright for his impatience, or he could show contrition through a gesture. Actions carried more weight than words, he'd found. Especially his words. He cleared his throat and offered a small smile. "Could I trouble you for another demonstration?"

Eleanore looked like she wanted to question him at first, but she didn't. Instead, she nodded and gestured to her laptop. "Yours or mine?"

"Mine." Loki thought, since she'd used his cell phone, his device might also be the best option here. He rose and quickly retrieved it from his room. The battery was only at half power, but it would suffice for a short lesson. He set it on the counter in front of Eleanore as she slid her computer out of the way. Kept a fair distance from Eleanore's back this time as he observed, wanting to limit his potential to threaten.

"Okay." Eleanore took a deep breath, glancing back at him. "I have to explain a few more things on here."

"Please." Loki gestured to the computer. "Explain away."

That seemed to finally satisfy her caution. She turned back to the computer, concentrating. "So on a computer, you have a web browser… oh my god, you only have Internet Explorer."

"What?" Loki asked, leaning in to find the arrow symbol hovering above the icon that was a large, blue 'e'. From her tone, he gathered that this was terrible.

"It's a really bad browser," she explained, clicking on it. "It comes pre-installed on these machines, but people basically only use it to download a different browser. I'm going to download Chrome, since you like Google. Google is a company, by the way, like Stark Industries. Chrome is the web browser they developed."

"Alright." Loki nodded along. He understood, so far, that he needed a new program to access the Internet. He filed everything else away to look up later. "May I ask why one 'web browser' is superior?"

"You can ask anything you want," Eleanore informed him absently, navigating herself to a page with a colorful circle, information on 'Chrome', and options for 'downloading'. "Let's see…" she said to herself. "Okay, control panel." She started clicking through more programs that Loki had not yet explored on any computer and muttering unfamiliar terms to herself. She looked back at him a moment. "This is a 64-bit machine running Windows 7, so if you're doing to download a program, get the 64-bit version for Windows 7. See?" She showed him on the Chrome screen.

"I see," Loki said, though he didn't know why 64 bits would be different than 32 of them. Whatever bits were. He could look that up, now, but he suppressed the urge, watching intently.

"Not that you should download a lot until you know what's safe," Eleanore continued. "And I should teach you about web safety while we're doing this, just really quick."

Loki shrugged, though she wasn't looking at him. "I am not averse to learning."

"Okay, I'll explain while Chrome is installing." Eleanore turned on the stool to partly face him, though one hand still rested on the touch pad. "There are these things called 'viruses' that people plant on some websites. They can do anything from stealing your personal information to making ads pop up constantly. You can avoid them with an antivirus program, which Darren has on here, but it doesn't catch everything because people are constantly writing new viruses."

"Why are they writing new ones?" Loki asked when she paused for breath.

"Some use personal information to take money, like out of your bank account." Eleanore motioned to his wallet, which he'd left on the little table between the two chairs. "Some just like to cause problems. Darren and Tony write viruses to steal SHIELD's information, although you shouldn't tell anyone that. But anyway, it shouldn't be an issue if you stick to reputable sites. Google will bring up the most popular links for you first, and those are usually safe. If it's labeled 'ad' to the side, though, don't click on it. Oh, and Internet Explorer is worse because it's insecure, and because it doesn't work well a lot of the time."

"I understand." Loki watched something appear in the middle of the screen that said, 'Chrome Setup.'

Eleanore responded to the prompt, navigating through each setting. "I'll use your email account on here. It stores your search preferences, but I can show you how to avoid that if you want more privacy." She typed in , and then the short password associated with the program. "This is your email address, by the way. Everyone has it, so they'll probably send you things once in a while."

"I've heard of such a thing. But I don't have any preferences yet," Loki mused aloud, even as he watched her 'sign in' to the mysterious 'email address' that everyone referred to.

"I mean it stores everything you ever search for on a database. SHIELD can hack into those databases. Actually, tons of people can. If you need to look for something sensitive, ask Jarvis to do it."

You're telling me how to avoid unwanted scrutiny? "That's remarkably trusting of you." And why was she so open about such things? What about Loki, the man no one ever trusted for long, made her tell him everything?

"Jarvis watches this computer," she said. "But we're covert agents, too. It's kind of important for you to know the basics of Internet privacy policies. And it's also common knowledge here."

"I see." So she hadn't told him anything truly subversive, except for asking Jarvis to help. Still. "You have no trouble obscuring information from SHIELD."

"I'll tell them what they need to know. They're government, though, and I don't fully trust such large agencies." She finished 'setup' of Chrome and rose from the stool. "Here, you can try it out."

Loki sat, noting that Google was the first page to appear when he clicked on the image for Chrome. "Excellent." He also took a moment and turned to the side to meet her eyes. "Thank you, Lady Eleanore."

She wrinkled her nose at the title. "You're welcome. I can show you more tricks for the Internet later, if you'd like."

Loki gauged his own patience levels— surprisingly high for now— against his wish to immerse himself again in the information. He also wondered what she'd been doing on her computer, and how long she was willing to stay up tonight. "Do you have time for a few more teaching moments?"

Eleanore smiled at that. "Yes. I was just reading up on old research anyway really quick, and filing some more forms. Click on that button up there, right next to where it says 'Google'."

What followed were more instructions and a great deal of explanation. Loki followed most of it easily, appreciating that Eleanore had taken the hint and was letting him learn by experience. And he had to admit she was an acceptable teacher. She took the time to explain everything, making sure her way of wording made perfect sense to Loki before moving on. She tailored lessons to his previous experience, and expanded upon what he mentioned he already knew.

He filed away every tidbit of fact she mentioned, from how the Internet came to be to the definition of porn.

"And you don't frown upon that?" he asked when she told him.

"Not consensual stuff," she said. "I frown if people are exploited, but otherwise it's fine."

"What do you… never mind." Loki had been about to ask what use such content could possibly serve, but his mind moved more quickly than his mouth and he figured it out with a blush.

"Just to warn you, some porn sites also have viruses. If you use them—"

"—I won't be participating in that, thank you." He kept his tone genial, but he wanted to change the subject now. He'd hardly attempt such a debasing act with Heimdall watching him, anyway. "Have you ever heard of something called Wikipedia?"

"Yes," she laughed, leaning an elbow on the counter. "That's how I got so many sources for my research papers in college. It's amazing."

Then she launched into an explanation of 'scholarly versus unscholarly sources' and why that mattered in learning institutions. And she told him about 'crowdsourcing' and how people worked on articles in their area of expertise in their spare time. For once, Loki was glad of the diverse and large population of Midgard, for it meant that thousands of new topics were being published every day. Perhaps one day he'd be led to something featuring magical theory he'd contributed to the human race. It would have been so much simpler to study if he had things like this on Asgard.

From there, Loki learned about YouTube and social media and keyboard 'shortcuts' to use on Chrome. Eleanore explained how practicing his typing on free websites would make him as proficient as she was, when he commented on her typing speed. She showed him how to open things in a new 'tab' so he could preserve his current page as he looked for something different. She focused on communication platforms for the most part, helping Loki to find ways of covertly asking her questions through 'chat' and the ever-present 'email', and showing him how to find locations on a 'map' so he wouldn't need to ask for directions. Then she told him about online shopping, and how to be careful when doing it. Always, it seemed, someone could steal his name or his money.

"I can't think of anything else right now," she said finally, putting her hands on her hips with a yawn. "Let me know if you have questions."

"I will." He gave a friendly grin. "Thank you again. This was most informative."

"It's no problem." She looked at the clock in the living room. "I think I'll go to bed."

"Pleasant dreams." One of them might as well enjoy sleep, however little night was left. He was already planning to greet the dawn with no rest, avoiding nightmares and pursuing as much as he could learn in one swoop.

"Thanks." She went into the restroom again and closed the door.

Loki went back to typing and clicking through articles and 'safe' websites. He lit upon a line of research dedicated to 'dark matter,' and began to wade through unfamiliar terms, looking up each definition as he needed it. He was hoping to find some connection to magic through this, because it sounded similar to the basest forces of the universe. Unfortunately, humans had only recently discovered it and understood very little themselves. He had barely begun by the time Eleanore retreated to her room and closed herself inside.

He noticed this time when she went through (twelve thirty), and he also noted that she'd left her laptop on the island right in front of him. He was curious as to what 'research' she'd been reading when he had asked for a lesson. But then, he still didn't know her password, and he'd learned nothing to help him decode it. He left it alone, moving back to his chair in the main room for comfort.

His laptop died when he was halfway through an explanation on muons. Loki resisted cursing aloud, instead relocating to the desk in his room, where he plugged the charger in and resumed reading.

Dark matter wasn't quite what he'd hoped, Loki realized after four hours of searching. It was a piece of the puzzle that was universal energy transfer, nothing more. An interesting puzzle piece to be sure. Perhaps he could use it as an analogy to explain to Bruce how magic permeated everything, including the caverns under the ground where Earth's scientists studied the dark particles.

He took a break at that point to get a glass of water from the kitchen. Charlie had slept on his bed while he was in his room, and now followed him to the sink, stretching up to claw Loki's pant leg, trilling happily. Loki took a moment after he was done drinking to pick the cat up and let it rumble away in his arms. All was dark, peaceful, and quiet. The street outside was even devoid of cars for the most part.

Eleanore's bed sighed, and her footsteps pattered to the door before Loki could leap back through to his room to pretend at slumber. Instead, he put the cat down and picked up the water glass just before she came fully through the main room.

"Hey Char— Loki?" She greeted the cat with a soft tone, but paused upon sighting Loki in the kitchen's shadows.

"Did I wake you?" Loki asked, trying to make this encounter seem normal. He was glad of the darkness, which hid his clothes from the previous day. If she saw them, she'd know he hadn't been sleeping.

"No, I have to go to the bathroom," Eleanore replied drowsily. "You okay?"

"Simply thirsty." Loki checked the time again on the main room's clock and found it was half past four. In a few hours, Eleanore would wake properly and stumble out again to start another day. Though she might rest longer, if the Captain was staying in New York. "I'll leave you to that, then."

"Okay." Eleanore nodded and headed past him into the bathroom.

Loki went into his bedroom and closed the door, leaving Charlie to scrabble underneath it. He waited until he heard Eleanore return to her room to bring his computer back to life.

He recalled what she'd said about people sending him messages through his email, so he navigated back to that page and found many waiting missives. They were organized by date of arrival, and the most recent ones were from Tony with detailed notes and video links from their metal studies. Bruce had sent one that contained the addresses of 'guided meditation'. Pepper Potts wrote a formal invitation, not only addressed to Loki but to all the Avengers, inviting them to use Stark Tower's guest quarters if they felt the inclination or need.

Loki frowned at the other email addresses listed at the top of the message. Each consisted of either initials or full names nat.rom, steve.rogers, dstark, bbanner, cbarton, eleanore.engman... i.am.ironman.

Well. At least everyone was clearly identifiable.

Loki had no idea why his address had 'eldrsen' at the end. He typed the word into the search engine along with 'definition' and found no results at all. He tried again with only the name, and found several websites of a different alphabet.

The most logical conclusion was that someone had assigned him a surname for identification in the endless mortal systems of information. Certainly, it was similar to surnames of Asgard. 'Odinson' and 'Eldrsen'…

Loki tried again, only using the first part of the word. 'Eldr' was Old Norse for 'fire' or 'flame'. Literally, someone had named him 'Loki, son of Fire.'

Was this a joke? Did someone here truly know his heritage? Loki's vision dimmed in confusion that quickly turned into anger. Whoever had done this, he'd find them and they would be sorry they'd ever been born. It was bad enough that those little 'scientists' treated him like a simpleton; Loki would make sure they and everyone else associated with SHIELD knew he was dangerous. More than dangerous. Though he was fettered to the side of heroes, he was more than comfortable with destruction. It was his fate, after all. Perhaps he would burn them alive for a bit of irony. Mortal or not, they would die very soon.

Calm yourself, he reprimanded his mind sternly. You won't get anywhere acting rashly. Certainly, Eleanore and Steve will not give you vital information if you're acting like a murderous maniac.

To that end, he gently shut the computer's lid and left it on the bare white desk to pace around the tiny room. It only took him five strides to reach each wall, but the motion was helpful. He began fiddling with the binding bracelet on his wrist semi-consciously, plotting how he could make a mortal death look like an accident. Perhaps he could simply horribly injure them, or find a way to be sent on a mission alongside them so they would seem to fall in the line of fire. If not that, he would monitor them, figure out their habits, and arrange a painful, probable 'accident' to occur as they went about their day.

First, he had to obtain the unfortunate human's identity. He planned the conversation first with Eleanore. She was brutally honest and much less experienced than Steve was, though they were both gullible. On second thought, Eleanore might interpret his intentions. In that case, Steve would be the best person to ask. But would Steve even know the answer? The Captain worked with some agents, but Eleanore largely took care of things pertaining to Loki's 'handling'. Discernment or not, she was the most productive one to talk to.

As though Loki's line of thinking had reached her through the walls, she padded into the main room with a yawn. Loki heard every step and decided asking while she was still half-asleep would guarantee him the best results. She'd even stayed in bed a little later than normal; it was close to eight o'clock when she usually woke up by six-thirty. A lapse in such a schedule could lead to advantageous grogginess.

He pulled new clothing on, opened his door, and plastered on a pleasant smile. "Good morning."

Eleanore stopped just before she reached the kitchen and looked him up and down. She was fully clothed in black leggings, a white shirt, and exercise shoes, and her eyes were alert. "You didn't sleep."

Loki barely faltered, his smile growing the barest bit in uncertainty. He decided not to lie, since she sounded so sure of her deduction. "You're ridiculously observant for the little rest you got. How can you tell?"

"I just… can, I guess." Eleanore squinted at him in the early light of dawn that filtered through the blinds. "Educated guess, based on the fact that you look really tired and you were awake when I got up at 4."

"I am perfectly well," Loki assured her, quickly abandoning his decision not to lie. He decided to divert her attention from his wellbeing to the matter he cared about. "Actually, I have a question for you."

Eleanore raised an eyebrow at him. She was remarkably awake. "Really?"

Perhaps Steve was a better bet. But Loki had always enjoyed a certain amount of risk. "Who assigned my Midgardian surname for my email address?"

"Oh." Eleanore shrugged and looked cautious again. "You can choose another one. I just typed that in as a placeholder."

"You chose it?" Loki couldn't kill this mortal; he couldn't even maim her without repercussions. And more importantly… "Why did you name me the son of fire?" Did she know? Was she jesting at his expense, knowing he could do nothing to retaliate?

Eleanore grinned, but her grin contained a hint of caution. "It's kind of a dumb reason. It was when you first got here, like two days after, and I was reviewing footage of you that SHIELD had while you were mind-controlled. I found your arrival through the Tesseract, and you were just bam, there, all on fire, and everything was on fire, so I looked up the old Norse word for fire and found one without accent marks and made it seem like a real last name by adding the 'sen'."

Loki remembered, for the first time, the blue fire blistering through his veins as he was swept through time and space to land in SHIELD's facility in a flash. It was hazy, and he couldn't make the memory go much further, but he knew what she was referring to.

Relief washed over him in a giddy wave. Eleanore didn't know; of course she didn't. Thor was too stupid to explicitly tell anyone Loki's origins— he'd assume all creatures had a similar distaste of the Frost Giants, and that they would understand his veiled language— and Frigga would be more secretive. It was just a coincidence this little mortal had chosen such an ironically backward name for him. The more he thought about it, the more humorous it seemed.

"You can Google common last names," she was offering, "just don't choose something like 'Smith' or 'Jones'. It sounds suspicious."

Loki vented his relief through a hearty chuckle. "Poor luck for those who receive such surnames naturally."

"I went to high school with a girl named Anna Smith," Eleanore mused. She finally continued her journey into the kitchen and started the process of making coffee. "I wonder how she's doing. She wanted to be a doctor."

Loki reached his own mug down when Eleanore opened the cupboard, and quickly started steeping a bag of tea. He was glad Eleanore was off the subject of his sleeping habits. That, combined with the fact that no one knew of his heritage, put him in a rather jovial mood. He felt like talking, though not about himself. "What were your plans back then?"

"I wanted to work for SHIELD," Eleanore said, "I told you, that's why I went with Communications."

"Your mother mentioned your interest in being an animal healer, and then in taking photographs," Loki contradicted. He was gratified to find the confused half-frown flitting across Eleanore's face.

"Oh, back when I was like five years-old I wanted to be a vet." She nodded, taking a sip of her coffee, and her expression grew more serious in an instant. "But enough about me. We have a mission this morning."

Loki took in her careful attitude. "Something unpleasant, I presume."

"I think you'll find it more boring than unpleasant. Escorting a scientist from the West Coast to the Triskelion."

"Mm. Fury is testing the waters." Loki grabbed a piece of bread from the bag on the counter. "What time this morning?"

"In about forty minutes. If you want a shower, I can drive to the Triskelion myself. We're meeting in the hangar. Steve's already there. He had them shoot the PSAs early and rode back in one of Tony's jets."

Loki looked her over. She was all but ready for the day, and she could make it to the Triskelion in plenty of time in her tiny car if she rushed to gather her things and sped through the morning traffic. But she hadn't asked him for a transport at all, hadn't even hinted at it, which was interesting. "Are you averse to my method of travel?" He had nearly made her sick a couple of times. Today he'd be gentler, if she went with him.

"Not averse, I just don't want to assume you'll take me everywhere," Eleanore explained with blunt honesty.

Loki chewed his bread and swallowed it. "Well, you haven't asked; I am offering." And he didn't mind taking her with him, if it saved time that would otherwise be spent riding around in those metal death traps. Come to think of it, she'd never asked him to transport her. Was this out of consideration, like she said? If so, she'd inconvenienced herself a great deal. But then, she could read Loki's temperament as easily as a note, so she might also have backed off as a precaution, as she had the night before. Avoiding cornering him, whatever that meant. Or avoiding his anger. If he wanted a real answer, he'd have to ask, and he didn't care enough at the moment to get into a real discussion.

"I'll take you up on your offer. Thanks." She headed around him into the bathroom. "Just five—" The sound barrier cut off her promise of time.

Loki assumed five minutes was what she meant, so he grabbed a couple more pieces of plain bread from the sack on the counter and ate them quickly, not bothering about manners. The dragon wandered out from Eleanore's bedroom with a languorous yawn and stretched out on the main room's colorful rug.

Eleanore came out of the bathroom with her usual eye makeup in place and her hair coiled in a more creative braid pinned to the back of her head. "There you go," she offered, darting into her room again.

Loki took his time getting ready. Eleanore's forty minute estimate for him was fairly accurate when he wasn't in a rush. Now he had thirty-five, and he planned to make use of them. He liked long showers on days like this, when his thoughts weren't a maze of torture and danger. He decided to wear his gray suit with the crisp white shirt and the green patterned tie for today. Hopefully this 'boring' mission would stay boring; he was tired, and food only went so far to bolster his strength in lieu of sleep. He needed rest soon.

At least, he reflected as he scrubbed suds through his hair, on a SHIELD mission there was very little likelihood of running into any Starks. That alone would save his patience.

'At least?' He paused, stilling completely as he ran through that thought again. 'At least?! That was something Eleanore and Lydia both said regularly. And Steve. 'At least its' raining today; it's good to stay at home when it rains.' 'At least I'm alive seventy years later to help with what I can.' 'At least I have chemotherapy now, so I can stick around a while longer.'

Mortals dealt in 'at leasts' because they were too weak to change their circumstances. Loki dealt in absolutes; if he did not like something, he altered it by any means necessary. Recently, anyway. Once he'd overcome a few baseless moral compunctions.

But, moral compunctions aside, he had work to accomplish. His sidetracked thinking had eaten up probably five minutes, and his hair still contained a fair amount of suds. He rinsed it thoroughly and ran a tiny amount of Eleanore's conditioner through it as well— it smoothed his short curls into a natural shine as they dried. Then he scrubbed the pine-scented body wash into a lather and rinsed himself again, satisfied that he'd be presentable and aloof as ever when they reached the Triskelion. He dried quickly and rid the bathroom of steam, summoning the clothing onto his body, straightening his tie with a sigh.

The mission proved to be as boring as they'd expected. A quick— very quick, thanks to a small, new quinjet— jaunt to the other side of the continent where Steve, Eleanore, and Loki picked up a waiting scientist by the name of Dr. Harold Mullins. He was a dark-skinned, middle-aged man with a thick crop of curly hair and silver-rimmed square spectacles. He boarded the plane with no hassle at his university's science facility while Steve and Loki helped carry some boxes of equipment, and Eleanore settled into a seat near him and started talking about the man's home 'state' of Michigan. Their conversation lasted the rest of the flight while Steve manned the controls with newfound confidence and Loki stood behind the cockpit, alternating between listening to the mortals behind him and watching the cloud banks shoot past.

They reached the Triskelion hangar within an hour after leaving California and handed Dr. Mullins off to Cecil for initiation into the project. Eleanore watched him go with a parting wave and a smile.

Loki raised an eyebrow at her when she turned toward him. "Your mother seems to think you tire of people very quickly, but I don't see any truth to that."

"Oh, you mean I'm introverted?" The woman crossed her arms and nodded. "I am, and small talk like that wears me out a lot, but I don't hate it when the other person is nice. Like Dr. Mullins was."

Loki saw Fury approaching, then, out of the corner of his eye, so he abandoned the conversation and straightened into severe distance in an instant. The leader of SHIELD would not see any effect these mortals might or might not be having on him.

"Another mission, Sir?" Steve asked, ever the symbol of respect.

"Just another pickup," Fury said. "South Korea and back this time, though, about seven hours each way. Contact's name is Dr. Helen Cho. She wants to examine these microbots we're dealing with." He handed Steve a tablet. "She'll want to get into this information as soon as you pick her up. This might be the chance we've needed to understand these things."

Steve and Eleanore nodded seriously; Loki just stood there until Fury turned heel and walked away.

They boarded another quinjet, this one even smaller than the last. It was set with an autopilot, though Steve took a seat in the cockpit again anyway.

Loki settled into one of the more comfortable seats with cushions on either side of his head. Eleanore slumped into one across the small aisle as the plane took off. When they were in the air, she retrieved the tablet from Steve and sat back down, going over charts and symbols and a myriad of written data, most of which carried Bruce Banner's signature.

Loki watched her read for half an hour, debating whether or not she would take kindly to an interruption. Then he realized how foolish it was for him to worry about a mortals' opinion on the matter; she should be honored to speak with him as much as her ancestors had been. He was becoming entirely too engrossed in these petty little lives, thinking about politeness. He was a king

With that in mind, his etiquette fell away into soft condescension. "How much of that do you actually understand?"

Eleanore looked up at him, grinned, and raised an eyebrow. "Probably more than you would."

That was the most sarcastic answer she'd ever given him. Loki found himself smiling because the veiled insult was a direct response to his previous tone, and because even this reaction was tempered with Eleanore's friendly smile, which was looking more and more wary as she waited for his answer. "I finally see why your mother calls you a 'smart ass'."

Her grin remained in place. "You know, you can sleep on the flight there. We still have… what, five hours left? Steve and I won't bother you. I'll go to the cockpit and you can have the whole cabin."

The kindness was back again. Loki chafed under it in his current mood. A mortal shouldn't be noticing how weak he was and offering her meager help. She should be obeying his every command.

He easily slipped into the icy, distant demeanor he'd once used constantly here. "Your concern is wasted on me." And not welcome, he let his voice and expression add.

Eleanore just smiled. "I have plenty to spare." She rose and walked to the cockpit, taking the tablet with her. In a moment, Loki could hear her speaking to Steve about its contents.

He scoffed to himself, letting his head hit the seat as he contemplated the ceiling and felt the ineffectual nature of the gesture. Eleanore was gone; she couldn't see just what he thought of her overt maneuvering, leaving him with nothing to occupy himself with except sleep. He wondered if she'd even intended it, or if she really did want to talk to Steve about cells and structure and repair.

Or perhaps she sought to escape my ire, the vulnerable voice said with a hint of wistfulness.

Loki mentally growled and quashed that side of himself. Who cared if she was 'hurt' by his words? She should be hurt, she should always remember just what sort of creature she harbored. It had been a mistake to allow himself to forget that in the first place. He was a monster, forced to do good in protecting these mortals. His impulses were still evil.

That same side, the one he wanted to absolutely obliterate for its weakness, brought forth the memory of the previous night, when Eleanore had 'gotten philosophical' and called him logical in the face of Asgard's derision. She doesn't think I'm a monster.

She doesn't know!Loki reminded the voice. If I shed this false skin and appeared before her in all my hideousness, she'd shrink away just like the rest. Steve would brandish his shield, Bruce would pull out his own monster to protect them from me… again.

He let his eyes trace the dark metal over his head, mentally trying to conjure Eleanore's frightened face as it had appeared once in the only Other nightmare he remembered. All he found was anger, not fear. And try as he might, he couldn't bring fear into focus on her face. He ran into the same problem when he tried to imagine Steve's revulsion. Even when he thought of Frigga, he couldn't see anything except her confusion upon Thor's triumphant return.

It didn't matter. He'd have no trouble remembering those reactions if they ever did find out his true identity. But he didn't plan on ever wearing that skin again voluntarily, so perhaps his true nature would find another way to repel them.

The plane jostled slightly. Loki trained his hearing again, and heard Steve talking to Eleanore about the controls. Apparently he was to 'sleep' through a flying lesson. But just as quickly, Eleanore asked something about the past, and the Captain fell into reminiscing instead of instruction.

Four hours to go, and Loki was growing bored inside his own head. Dark thoughts clung to every subject his mind wandered to. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the clouds they were soaring through instead of the barren hunk of rock where the cloaked figure that currently shared his mind hailed from.

The next thing he knew, the plane was shaking, bumping, settling to the ground. The sunlight was gone completely; it was night on this side of the planet. Loki stood, feeling better-rested than he had in a long time, and stretched his neck as Eleanore and Steve came out of the cockpit and lowered the ramp.

"Are you hungry?" Eleanore asked him as Loki joined the couple and made them a group instead, venturing into the night together. They were about twenty feet from a large white building, outside of which stood a Vanir-looking woman and a few more boxes.

Loki shook his head. He was hungry, but still shrugged of her concern. "I don't need fuel as often as you do, apparently."

"Apparently," she agreed easily.

"We have some energy bars on the plane," Steve added just before they reached the woman. "Doctor Cho?" he confirmed, holding out his hand, "I'm Captain Rogers, and these are my teammates, Agents Loki and Engman. We're here to escort you to the Triskelion."

"Pleased to meet you, Captain," Dr. Cho said politely. She gestured to the boxes. "If you wouldn't mind giving me a hand, these should be useful for my research."

Steve didn't hesitate to pick up the largest of the boxes, which had handles. Loki forced himself to follow suit, even as Eleanore took a couple upon herself. The boxes Loki got were fairly heavy for Midgard; he wondered how much will power the mortal woman was using to carry hers. From the strain in her voice, a great deal.

They got Dr. Cho's belongings loaded into the plane and took off again for the United States. This time they continued East so they'd fly over the continent before reaching the capitol city again.

As before, Eleanore spoke to Dr. Cho for most of the return flight. This time, though, she mostly listened as the slightly older woman spoke of her work and hopes for its future with SHIELD's backing. This particular doctor was actually interested in healing people, unlike some of the others Loki had been forced to meet over the past few weeks. She wanted to be able to repair the mortal body quickly on a cellular level.

It sounded like what healing stones did, and what Eleanore could do. Loki wondered if the mutant mortal would mention her power to this passionate scientist. Though Cho would probably want to study her abilities, then, and that would lead to even more delays in their search for the magician.

He sat stoically silent, not caring whether he was perceived as 'friendly' or not by this doctor. He was not in the mood to please anyone, even after a few hours of nightmare-free sleep.

Nightmare free, he reflected as the map showed their plane passing over the coast of California. He'd slept for perhaps three hours without waking to horror. He'd slept on a plane. Perhaps that was the answer. Perhaps the Other had trouble reaching him if he was moving at such high speeds. That would be a breakthrough— he could rest when they traveled, which was happening more and more. While it wouldn't be enough to maintain his health, it would keep him further from the edge of insanity than he had been.

He pondered this until the plane landed again. Then they all departed to greet Agent Maria Hill, who escorted Dr. Cho away from them to a 'dormitory' section of the Triskelion. She told them all that they were free to go home and get some sleep as she left the hangar.

Loki transported back to the apartment without a word, and without Steve and Eleanore. Let them wonder why; let them question everything he did. He wouldn't let them get used to his help, though he'd still offer it when it was convenient. He did his best to ignore the insistently affectionate cat trilling around his ankles, and devoured the rest of the leftover chicken quickly. There would be nothing else for Eleanore to eat when she got here, but she could find a way to survive. He glared contemptuously around the dark main room as he ate. These trinkets were less comforting, lacking the warm lamplight. He could see how foolish everything was; how idiotic the mortals were for decorating every living space they had with such telling relics. They sought a claim, individuality, comfort for their short, meaningless lives.

The food was gone. Loki was still hungry, but he wasn't going to stick around and make something more for himself. Eleanore would be back soon, and she'd probably drag Steve over since he'd been absent the past few days. It wouldn't do for her to let her disarming control over the Captain go lax. That moronic man clung to her with the foolishness of youth, his pain clearly written in every pathetic gesture of friendship.

Loki nudged Charlie away, where he wound around his ankles, and shut himself inside the prison cell of a room alone. This, at least, was no lie. It was the only place in Midgard the mortals were telling him to claim, and it was…

It was decorated with gifts.

They care, that horridly gentle voice insisted.

Shut up, Loki told it. He flipped on the cool white overhead light and surveyed the room in all its glory. Pondered whether breaking the gifts would be worth the cleanup and the inevitable curiosity Eleanore would show. She'd notice, somehow, right away, and she'd use his reaction to… to all this… to whatever he was feeling as a way to read him further. She'd mention the absence of the bedspread, the lamps, the curtains, the rug, the chair, whatever Loki decided to be rid of, and she'd accuse him of lying to himself again. Insufferable wench.

The white light was beginning to turn pink around the edges of his vision. Loki realized it too late, as the red continued to creep over everything. It turned the green coverlet to brown, it gilded the lamps in blood.

No! Loki clawed against it. He pushed a threw everything he had into stopping the descending madness because whatever he was or was not, he wouldn't be governed by that foul creature any longer. He would not.

The effect pushed back against his efforts, but Loki felt himself winning in the end. He wasn't sure how long it took, his focus all drawn inward, but eventually he stood in the silent room where everything was its correct color again.

Eleanore still wasn't back, strangely enough. The clock reported it had been nearly an hour since he'd arrived at the apartment. Loki pulled his phone from where he'd stored it and found several text messages, only one from her.

"Steve and I are getting a (really) late supper. Let me know if you want us to bring you anything. There's still chicken in the fridge. :)"

Loki knew enough about Midgardian communication at this point to recognize the inane 'smile' at the end of the message. He backed out of the page and looked at the others instead of responding.

Bruce reported nothing new about the metals they were studying, but Darren sent a picture of a palladium ingot that glowed with an ingrained light spell. Tony sent a vague invitation to return to the Tower for more 'heavy metal fun'. Then there was one from Lydia.

"Elle said you're going to South Korea. Take pictures if you see anything interesting— that's one of the few places I haven't been. Hope you have a good trip. -L"

This missive tugged the corners of his mouth upward. He typed a reply. "You haven't been a great many places; the Nine hold more interesting—" Loki stopped himself. What was he doing? Already falling back into this quagmire of companionship, that's what. He gazed around the room at the gifts before deleting the message and tossing the phone on the dresser.

It was dark and cool tonight. Another storm was rumbling toward the city, though this one was not nearly as strong as the one from the night before. Loki opened the window that did not face the wind and let the breeze wash through the room until it smelled like rain and asphalt and trees. He set a spell on the screen to prevent unruly droplets from making their way in, and flopped onto the bed sideways so his feet still touched the floor. He noticed for the first time that the mattress was a great deal softer and more comfortable than it had been three— or was it four? — nights ago. Lydia must have added something to it when she was here.

That kindness was grating, more difficult to resist than the Other's control was. Loki had no defenses against the purely innocent intentions of these mortals in relation to himself. He couldn't even use that innocence right now for his own gain. SHIELD was watching, and so was Heimdall, and… and he didn't want to exploit the Engman women. That understanding hit him with an accompanying feeling of exposure. He knew he probably could get the mortals to do as he pleased; he could play the Avengers like a well-tuned pipe if he put his mind to it, but he didn't want to.

I'm tired, he thought, feeling as ancient as a dying star. Games are games, I suppose. Perhaps I took my enjoyment from the element of revenge in the past. Certainly, most of his pranks and dealings were based on slights. Only Thor had born the innocent tricks of their youth. As he grew up, Loki learned to use that trickery to defend himself and his not-brother, and now… and now he had no cause for defense. And that was weakening him.

'Know myself,' he thought, recalling the books still stacked on the little table. Any suggestions for that, Eleanore? Or are you simply raised into that confidence here? But that couldn't be it. Other humans were far less… less. Cecil Salfield was cautious and quiet. Bruce had mentioned that Tony made things clear to him about the Hulk being a guardian. Her twin cousins Alan and Zephaniah were not nearly as centered. Darren was, but his was a kind of brash arrogance that spoke more of a lack of opposition and understanding than of acceptance for others and himself. Steve knew right from wrong instinctively, but he hardly cared about himself enough to examine his own personality. Natasha Romanov was an enigma altogether; she could change who she was as the need arose. Clint Barton was the closest example Loki could find.

What makes them similar? Well, they were both reckless enough. Brave, always. They accepted insults to themselves, but Loki knew that if someone hurt their families, that person would be killed with no remorse. They were intelligent as humans went. More important than that, they were adaptable. Watchful, quietly observant, insightful.

Loki closed his eyes as another breeze shifted the new curtains to whisper. His head was beginning to hurt from a lack of sleep and a surplus of tension. He tried to breathe and relax. In and out. In through his nose and out through his mouth. Slow and steady. He felt his heart rate decrease. The bed was snug. Loki let his muscles sink into the mattress. Snug and inviting.

The next thing he knew, he was landing on the floor so hard that his teeth jarred against each other. Thunder boomed furiously and lightning flashed, illuminating the bedroom in sharp relief.

Loki's face was wet. Actually, most of him was. He was sweating profusely. His heart was racing. His lungs could not draw in air without shaking more out in a convulsive explosion. Everything was terrible, and he was… sad. So sad. Desolated to the point of ruin. All he could do was wrap his arms around himself and let out a pained groan.

Please, please make it stop. Help me! But his mouth did not form words, and soon enough it did not even make a real sound. Loki's throat closed, and he lowered his forehead to the floor.

Eleanore? he tried desperately, hoping a thought or errant feeling would summon her. He could hear nothing over his own ragged sobs and the roar of the storm. Please, please, please, please. It was crushing him, this anguish. Loki felt like he was going to die. It was worse than when he'd discovered his true heritage. Worse than confirming it with the Ice Casket and hearing Odin admit that he hadn't wanted a son, he'd wanted a puppet. Worse than his mother's disappointment as she understood the kind of monster she'd housed for centuries. It was all his pain combined. It was a clawing, aching emptiness that threatened to pull Loki into a bleak chasm.

But no one came. Loki knew this wasn't a dream because no one could hear him, just like in real life. He was alone, and he had to do something to save himself.

He had to stop this.

He fought with all his strength and finally noticed his magic still covering the window, sending raindrops scattering back into the night. With a monumental effort, Loki reached for the magic on the window pane with one hand. He inched across the floor, finding purchase on the new rug, until he was directly beneath the sliding glass. Then he cut the spell and let the rain pour inside, drenching him with cold water.

It worked. The water was real, tangible. It chased away the threat of the Other. It loosened the choke hold on Loki's throat. He lay there gasping for breath, staring up at the sky, while lightning flashed and wind drove more rain inside.

What was that? Loki demanded of himself. What weakness was that? What did he find, that parasite? Something not even you know to defend against. He stabbed you right in the heart, and you let him.

Loki stayed still, even as he berated himself for cowardice. The rain kept coming in, and the floor was getting soaked, but he did not care. He watched the clouds and felt his deepest self begging not to leave, to stay where it was safe.

Enough, he decided. I am not weak. I am Loki of Asgard, and I will not be cowed by mere emotion

With that, he sat up and rose to his feet. He closed the window, shutting out the storm and the wind and the rain, and used a bedraggled towel he'd found in the closet to mop up the water. With that done, Loki changed his clothes without magic and threw his wet things into the laundry basket in the closet.

He wanted to flee the room, but Loki forced himself to look in the mirror. A hollow-eyed specter greeted him, straight out of a funeral. Either a mourner or a corpse could have matched his blank expression. Loki arranged his face again, but the look would still linger around his eyes.

Loki decided he'd faced enough of himself for the moment. He wanted to find out why the apartment was so quiet and lifeless. Why Eleanore had not noticed his distress and come running to help drag him back to reality.

The main room was dark as night, but the clock on the wall read half past seven. Could that really be right? Loki summoned his phone and yes, there was the same time reflected in plain numbers. He'd slept through the night, no matter whether he felt rested or not.

Eleanore was usually awake by now. Loki sidled over to her bedroom door, which was open a crack, and heard nothing from inside. Charlie trilled from the couch. Loki pushed the door open and found an empty room with an unmade bed that smelled like Eleanore's berry soap and lilac perfume.

He backed out and tried the kitchen. She'd left notes there before; she'd even set up a 'white board' for messages a couple days ago. Loki had never used it, but Eleanore would put small notifications up all the time. 'Text me any groceries you want. Or,"Out with Mom, back by 7.'

Today was no different. "Steve called me into the Triskelion (leaving at 6:15). Scientist something— he wasn't clear. No danger. Oatmeal on shelf or bagels in fridge. - Eleanore"

'Scientist something…' Loki pondered that. Scientists could mean that the lab rats (as Tony called them) had had a breakthrough on something. But if that was the case, Tony would have been called in, not Eleanore. Perhaps they needed a mediator; she could do that. Or maybe Tiryaki had attacked a scientist and Eleanore was needed to save their life.

His first impulse was to transport there right away to find out what was going on. But just as quickly, Loki remembered what he looked like in the mirror. Another glance in the bathroom with the light on showed even more problems: dark circles highlighted by pale skin. He looked like… like he had when he'd first arrived on Earth through the Tesseract, minus the blue eyes. Much thinner than normal. Dehydrated.

Loki washed his face with warm water to try to burn some color into his cheeks. It didn't work. He decided food, hot food, might be a good solution. Eleanore employed it often enough. So, he heated up some oatmeal and added cinnamon and sugar. Ate it while staring out at the storm.

It was a bad one. The clouds were turning gray, but Loki attributed that to the insistence of the rising sun, not to any cessation of the downpour. Lightning flashed crackles of thunder, and waves of rain poured down the pavement in rhythmic patterns. It was mesmerizing. So mesmerizing that Loki found himself drifting back to his awakening. His throat closed and he nearly choked on the last bite of his breakfast.

Enough, he told himself again. He turned away from the window and switched on the lamp and the kitchen lights. Anything to distance himself from the dreary outdoors. Eleanore said she liked rain, and Loki did not mind a warm summer shower himself, but this was something else.

His eyes fell on the books, left where he'd placed them on the little table between the chairs. Getting to 'know myself' through childish stories? Better than dwelling in my mind. He picked up the first one and sat down in his chair. Charlie jumped into his lap, a warm assurance of something good in the world. Loki opened the book.

He soon found himself drawn into the story. The writing was very different from any on Asgard. It was direct and humorous. Loki thought of Eleanore or Clint when Harry made a joke. His imagination supplied the characters with faces to go along with their strange names. He followed the train to Hogwarts, where he soon learned about the nonsense words Eleanore had been so enthusiastic about.

He immediately identified with Slytherin as soon as the hat began to sing. Green, achievement, goals. Loki could not deny the parallel. Harry chose Gryffindor (or, more accurately, chose not to be in Slytherin), and Loki nearly put the book down. Of course the hero of this tale was in the 'brave' house. Obviously, those with ambition were not to be trusted; Loki was proof enough of that. The nasty little blond boy went into Slytherin without hesitation, where the snakes dwelt.

But Loki forced himself to keep reading, since his mind was angry at the book and not at himself for being a coward. He calmed somewhat when he noticed that the little girl, Hermione, should have been put into Ravenclaw. He chuckled when he remembered that 'Ron' was the name of Eleanore's dead grandfather. He tracked Harry's childish learning and accomplishments and found himself more and more engaged.

Finally, Loki came to the Mirror of Erised. Eleanore wanted one of these, but for what? So Loki could figure out what he truly desired? What if he looked into the mirror and saw himself razing Midgard again? Or killing someone? No, Loki would stay far away from that mirror. Some ignorance was bliss, indeed.

Familiar steps clomped up the stairs when he was nearly to the end of the first book. Loki noted that it was only ten o'clock, so he hadn't missed much yet. He wanted to see what this Professor Quirrell had to hide.

But the lock turned and Eleanore walked in with a scowl. No 'hey,' no smile. At least not until she saw that Loki was reading her book. Then she lit up a bit. "Is it good?"

Loki held up the volume so she could see how close to the end he was. "I imagine Quirrell is in league with He Who Shall Not Be Named."

"No spoilers. I'm glad you like it. I'll let you finish it, since you're almost done." She walked into her bedroom, discarding her black and white coat with a shiver.

Loki did finish the book in peace. He'd guessed Voldemort would show up again to keep things interesting. Loki did not understand the strange man's motivations, but he could respect the lengths he'd gone to obtain the Sorcerer's Stone. How frustrating, to be defeated by such a young boy.

Eleanore came back into the main room as Loki set the book aside. He noticed her scowl still in place, though it was more thoughtful now. She switched from mysterious frustration to concern when she really looked Loki over. "Are you okay?" Her feet carried her across the room, and she held out a silver-lit hand to his cheek.

Loki wanted nothing more than to sink into her palm and let her power banish the leftover tightness in his chest. But to do that would be weak, so he gently brushed her hand away and forced a smile. "I am perfectly fine. I never sleep well during a storm, that's all."

Eleanore frowned at him. "You were pretty peaceful when I got home, and when I woke up to leave."

"I slept on and off," Loki assured her. "I will accompany you back to the Triskelion if you desire. What problem were the scientists facing so early in the morning?"

The scowl came back full-force. Eleanore drew in a breath through her nose and set her jaw. "Nothing, I'm just… frustrated." She shook her head, and the anger retreated. Sat on the floor in front of Loki's chair and gathered Charlie into her lap when he jumped down. "But I came home to see how you're doing, anyway."

"Well enough, as I said," Loki answered easily. "What was the source of your frustration?"

"The kids don't like me," Eleanore blurted out, the anger returning full-force. She hunched over the cat, but waved one hand in the air to describe her words. "I mean it's like, okay, I don't have a Ph. D, but you don't have to be a Ph. Dick about it. They don't listen to me at all, even when Darren is listening to me. I'll say something and they'll ignore me, and then Steve or Bruce or someone repeats it and they listen. Like this morning, I was positing that those stupid microbots could also be used to track whatever they've infected so maybe that's how Tiryaki knew what hospital Steve was in, and— and it's not like I'm quiet, either. They look at me when I talk, but it's like this look, you know? Like they're listening to a child talk about driving a car. I don't know how to… to earn their respect. And I shouldn't even have to earn it, but apparently I do."

Loki sat still through this diatribe of displeasure, trying not to grin. It wasn't humorous, but he wanted to laugh anyway because this was so familiar. Centuries and eons of this exact feeling, of being snubbed in favor of someone else simply because of peoples' opinions. Of being spoken over, of watching his advice being proved right and no one admitting it. So when Eleanore ended her short rant, out of breath and indignant, he liked her better than ever before.

He also had some idea what to reply. "They're the idiots for not listening." It was what he'd wanted to hear from someone, from anyone.

Eleanore heaved a heavy sigh. "Thanks. But the problem is, they're smart idiots who we need to catch this magician."

"Mm. Perhaps if you fly into the lab with your dragon they'll begin to take more notice."

That made her smile. "He's not my dragon," she answered automatically. "And I don't want to do the reveal quite yet. I shouldn't complain so much, anyway. Oh! Here." She shot off the floor and darted into her bedroom, returning with a paper bag, which she gave to Loki. "They had that today again."

'That' turned out to be baklava, warm and fresh. The flaky pastry broke down the last of Loki's distance and whatever bitterness he'd been harboring since yesterday seemed frivolous now.

Etiquette took over, and he accepted the gift with thanks, offering Eleanore a piece, which she took. They ate in companionable silence for a few moments.

"What called you in this morning?" Loki asked when the baklava was half gone.

"Dr. Cho wanted some files on Steve, and he wanted me there to make sure everything got explained correctly."

"So someone listens to you," Loki pointed out.

Eleanore really smiled. "Yeah, I think the 40's gave him a healthy respect for abrupt brunettes."

"A healthy respect for anyone who knows his past healings," Loki amended.

"Oh, I have medical power of attorney over him," Eleanore explained. "I have a form for you to sign for that, too." She rose to get it.

"I will handle my own medicine, thank you," Loki decided before she took a step.

"You still get to make the choices," she said, sitting down again. "It's if you're unconscious, then I have the right to tell the doctor to operate or not, or what meds you can have. Steve and Pepper are both mine. I have it for my mom, too. It can mean the difference between life and death."

Loki imagined himself unconscious, dying somehow, and Eleanore fighting with a medical doctor who wouldn't listen to her, just like the mortal children. "If I am ever unconscious here, I want you to heal me. Don't let your doctors cut me open."

"Do you want to sign the form, then?"

He nodded. "I will, after I read over it."

"You can add Steve too, if you want, in case I'm ever not there. Or someone else, like Pepper, in case Steve and I aren't around."

Loki waited until she'd retrieved the paper— a folder of papers, really— from her room to answer. "If either or both of you are dead, then I will be as well. Or have you forgotten?"

"I said 'not around,' not 'dead,'" Eleanore corrected him. "If we get separated or something, or if we're all three knocked out."

"Anything that would render me comatose would kill you," Loki informed her coolly, enjoying this moment of light argument.

Eleanore rolled her eyes at him, but she was grinning. "Okay, tough guy. Just sign here, and write up a plan for your funeral so we know what to do there."

Loki frowned as he read over the document. He knew she was joking with that last statement. However, he hadn't thought about what sort of funeral he might have. It would depend, he supposed, whether or not he succeeded in protecting these mortals with his sacrifice. If he did, he might be burned on a barge and sent off as a prince. If he did not, he would probably be left here to rot in whatever receptacle the mortals used to entomb their dead. "If you are alive to witness it, I would like to be burned completely. I want no trace left. Scatter the ashes in a hidden place, and make sure nothing comes back."

Eleanore shifted, placing her chin in her hand and watching Loki sign the document under the assumed name she'd given him. "You really put the 'fun' in 'funeral.'"

Loki looked up and found her grinning to herself. "I'd hear you be as cheerful about your death."

"We've already decided I'm dying in the Thanos thing," she reminded him with a smile that bordered on teasing.

"Mm," Loki concurred, brushing away the disturbing image. For some reason he could picture Eleanore dead with no trouble, while he couldn't imagine her frightened. "In that case, there probably won't be a funeral. No one will be left to mourn."

"Delightful," Eleanore deadpanned, taking the form back. "Okay, do you want to head in to the Triskelion, then? Or do you want to have a day off? It's fine if you do, I think we'll get home around five today."

Loki stood. "And leave those mortal scientists at your mercy? I think not." He held out his hand and she took it.

"Can you take us to the lobby? I'll drop off this stuff off there," she requested.

Loki supposed he should be pleased that she was still comfortable enough to jest and argue and ask such a thing from him after his coldness the day before. He obliged, transporting them both to one of the lesser-used hallways just off the main entrance of SHIELD.

"You want to wait while I head up to the lab?" Eleanore asked. "This'll probably take… ten minutes?"

"I have all day," Loki said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall next to the doorway. He watched her walk away, and kept her in his sight even as his eyes roved around the large, bustling room. Eleanore stood out among the mortals because of her colorful clothing— the yellow long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans with pink shoes and a white clip barely containing her curls. Most of SHIELD's agents and visitors wore black, gray, white suits, the women in heels, the men in loafers. Loki could blend in with them more easily as he was, dressed in the dark gray dress shirt with black slacks and a black tie, though he'd left his suit jacket hanging in his closet in the apartment. Some agents watched Eleanore strangely until a clear light of recognition dawned, but mostly their eyes slid over her in silent identification before continuing through the room.

There was a fair amount of activity at this time of day, so near lunch. Smells wafted up from the cafeteria, making Loki thankful for the baklava and the oatmeal from that morning. He watched mortals hurrying on their way, engrossed in their destination far more than their journey. Most of them barely gave him a glance even if they passed very near him. A few met his eyes and quickly looked away. He wondered what they saw, or if they were just showing the 'politeness' many did in this impersonal city.

The sun appeared from behind the clouds, shining through the glass roof of the lobby with such sudden brightness that most of the humans squinted and commented on it. Loki found Eleanore again, right where he'd last placed her, talking through something at the information desk and signing even more forms. He also found a familiar face winding its way through the crowd.

"Hey," Steve greeted him with that easy grin.

"Good morning," Loki responded. "Have your medical tests been completed, then?"

Steve looked confused for the barest instant, but then his eyes tracked Loki's gaze over to Eleanore. "Oh, Elle came in to talk to Dr. Cho about the microbot mixture. I thought she'd have more to say about them than I would."

"You were a bit distracted during that mission," Loki drawled. Something was nagging his mind now, something every-so-slightly off about the room. He let Steve watch over Eleanore and swept his gaze over the thickening crowd.

There was Agent Hill, who at first seemed to be the explanation for Loki's disquiet: someone known but not familiar drawing close. But then he found the real source: the short brunette following the agent, her eyes locked on him from twenty feet away.

"That's… you're…" Jane Foster muttered, quickening her steps and changing direction, heading straight for Loki and Steve.

Loki drew himself up. This day had just gotten much more interesting. "I'm Loki of Asgard." He greeted her with a winning smile and the slightest of bows, nothing but princely in front of Thor's woman and the now-gaping Captain and agent who were trying to work the situation out. "You may have heard of me."

A/N: Enough of a cliffhanger for you? ;)

Sorry again for the long delay! I started my first job about a month ago, and I've spent the last few weeks traveling around to train for it. I have been working on this story a lot, though, for future chapters. I'll try to make the next one shorter, so that I get it published more quickly. I'm very impatient to get some places and do some things in here. Although I have a busy weekend coming up, so who knows what will actually happen?

Anyway, thank you for sticking with this story; it's a pleasure to write and to hear your thoughts on it.

Vendetta - Thanks! I love Steve so much as a character, and writing him is always torture because he second-guesses himself so much, especially in modern times, until he's sure about something. Sorry for the long wait, but I do hope you enjoy the longer chapter. I'll try to get better about posting more quickly as well.

PrimeReader - Thanks for the review! I hope you enjoy this chapter as well!

Lily Noir - Thanks! I'm glad you like longer chapters— that seems to be where my brain keeps going as I write.

Everyone Else - Thanks again for reading! Please leave any thoughts you have in the reviews; they're always appreciated!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or the Avengers or anything except my own original characters who appear in this work. Any references are merely meant to pay tribute to other peoples' great work.