A/N: Had Jack Sparrow's theme by Hans Zimmer playing in my head this whole time...oh lord. Kimbee, I am SO SORRY! I FORGOT YOUR CRYSTALLIZE PLOT! However, you will find a reference to it in this.
But here it is. The final chapter of Childhood Innocence. A big thank you, I love you all to every one of my favoriters, reviewers, followers, readers, heck even visitors! THIS CHAPTER IS FOR YOU ALL! GOING TO MISS ALL OF YOU AND WRITING THIS STORY! ENJOY!
Loki was sitting out on the ledge of the Tower, gazing out over the city skyline. He was bored. There was no little child to come running over, bombard him with questions, and be an otherwise pain in the ass. Admittedly, he had enjoyed all of the questions, the playing around, the goofing off, the running...
Particularly the running. And the violin. But his topic of musing of course had to go and destroy that avenue of entertainment, and he was far too lazy and not to mention drained of magic to conjure up a new one. Instead, he decided he was going to just reflect. Reflecting was good. It made you feel guilty about everything or made you get nostalgic and therefore feel like crying or laughing for no apparent reason.
Okay, maybe reflecting wasn't so good. If you were a weird person who enjoyed inflicting sadness on yourself then yes, but other than that, no, he said to himself and sighed heavily, hunching over to rest his elbows on his knees.
"I know that sound," came a voice and Loki looked over his shoulder to see Coulson walking over to sit beside him. "I've sighed like that far too many times in my life. Recently more than ever," he added slightly chagrined and looked over at Loki. "What's bothering you?"
"Um, you, maybe?" he asked, voice bitter and Phil raised an eyebrow.
"Huh..." he mused and nodded. "I get that." This time, Loki's eyebrows arched, and he turned to look at the boy - no, man, remember that Loki, he told himself - a question in his eyes. "What?" Phil asked defensively.
"What do you get?"
"Oh the fact that you now, quite illogically, feel like you can't interact with me because it would be a social taboo to do so." Loki looked back down side of the tower, feigning a great interest in the bug like cars creeping by so far below them. "Come on, I know you aren't interested by cars. You hate them from what I gathered on our outdoor excursions." Loki sighed and looked back over at the agent. "Well?"
"I can't help but feel that this isn't...that this shouldn't go on."
"What us being friends? Talking to each other?" Loki didn't answer but clenched his jaw, and Phil put his hand on his companion's shoulder. "Loki listen to me. You could stab me a thousand times right now, you could throw me off the tower even, but I still wouldn't hate you. I could never hate you. Remember what I told you when I was a kid over the past few months?" Loki raised a single eyebrow.
"Could you be a bit more specific? You talked quite a bit." Phil smirked and nodded.
"Fair enough. When Steve and Tony were arguing above the cupboard under the stairs that I slept in at their Malibu house?" Loki thought back and nodded slowly. "Do you remember how you told me you wouldn't take it hard if I hated you again?"
"I was lying," the god muttered, but to his surprise the agent just nodded.
"Oh trust me, I knew you were lying. But do you remember what I told you?" Loki nodded and was finally forced to verbalize it when Coulson continued to stare at him pointedly, waiting.
"You said that you would never hate me."
"And I still hold to that. No matter what you do, I'll always give you a second, third, fourth, fifth chance. I believe that was something else I told you over the course of this whole thing, on inside, I have something to show you."
"Do I want to know?" the god asked, but allowed himself to take the man's offered hand and got to his feet.
"I think you might." Coulson walked back in, Loki following and the other Avengers offered them brief smiles, probably knowing what they had been talking about. Instead of stopping in the sitting room though, Phil guided him over to the elevator and then up to one of the empty gyms where Maria Hill was waiting, for once not in her S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform and with a cello propped up against her. Loki frowned.
"I fail to understand what's going on here."
"I would too in your place," the agent said and walked over to the table, opened a violin case, and threw the instrument through the air so that Loki was forced to catch it. "Recognize that?"
"It's the same one as before...I thought you threw it off the tower," he said wondrously, looking up at his friend. "How did you get it back?"
"Well, actually I didn't," he commented, ever so slightly embarrassed. "I just went out and found a new one. I figured that you coming back from the dead and all would seriously drain you, so you probably wouldn't be able to conjure up a replacement." Loki nodded ruefully.
"Unfortunately true," he conceded and experimentally drew the bow across the strings. "Thank you."
"No problem. Have you ever played a cello?" Loki gave an expression that clearly said, why would I have done that?!
"I think the safe answer in this case is no, Phil," Hill commented and rolled her eyes, earning a similar expression from her coworker. But still Loki was frowning.
"Is that a cello?" Hill nodded and played a quick, jaunty piece before resting the bow against her leg once more in explanation. "You're very skilled."
"Not as skilled as I've heard you are," she answered and Loki shrugged.
"I didn't really learn. I just imitated."
"And then learned," Phil supplied and Loki rolled his eyes. "What?"
"You're starting to regress to how you were as a child," he said and the man shrugged.
"That necessarily a bad thing? Well, I'm going to leave you two to it while I go and talk to Stark and Banner about something." With that, he left the two with each other without a further explanation, leaving them looking very confused. Hopefully they would get the point he was trying to make, but other than that...they were on their own.
"So, Loki. Want to learn another instrument?" Maria asked and Loki looked at her as though he was afraid she was going to attack him with the wooden piece in her hands.
"Stark, Banner, can I talk to you for a second?" Coulson asked as he walked into the lab and the two of them looked up.
"Yeah sure, Phil, what is it?" Tony asked trying to see if calling the agent by his first name would make him uncomfortable or not. When it didn't, he was slightly disappointed.
"I was wondering if you could alter that thing. You know, for a quick favor." Bruce frowned and took off his glasses, cleaning them in a preoccupied habit.
"Depends, what for?"
"Well, am I the only one who noticed that Steve has been a bit...depressed?" The two scientists looked at each other blankly. "I am, aren't I?" he asked, voice slightly let down. "You know for being a team, the lot of you can be pretty blind."
"I'll try not to be insulted," Tony muttered but Bruce nodded.
"You especially, Tony. Definitely blind." Before the argument could escalate, Coulson cleared his throat, regaining their attention.
"I've been thinking. So, he's mostly lonely, right? Everyone he ever cared for, was friends with, loved...they're either dead or really old." He put careful emphasis on the last two words. A light dawned in Tony's eyes while Banner looked concerned.
"Um, we don't know what that would do to her, Coul- "
"Can you all stop with the Coulson? Phil's fine," the agent interrupted but then waved the radiologist on. "Sorry."
"I was saying was that we don't have any idea what the process will do to her. I might kill her."
'Which is why I want you to properly experiment before trying it on her. I'll go talk to Agent Carter about it okay?"
"She's an agent?!" Tony asked, almost askance. Phil raised an eyebrow.
"Of course." And with that, left the room. This was going better than he thought it would.
Then of course came the hard part. Phil stood in front of the door of the small home, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, before finally raising his hand to knock on the door. An elderly woman that he didn't recognize opened the door. She frowned as she took in his appearance, and Phil mentally kicked himself as he realized that for once he was out of his orderly suit and till in the sweats that had belonged to Steve.
Well then.
This just got awkward.
"I'm Phil Coulson," he said, holding his hand out to her. She eyed it, but didn't take it. "I'm a good friend of Steve's," he elaborated and her eyes shone as she shook his hand and beckoned for him to come in.
"Are you with S.H.I.E.L.D?" she asked, suspicious. "Because if they're trying to recruit me again, they should know that I my original statue stands."
"And that was?" he asked, entertaining her line of conversation.
"Over my dead body." He nodded and weighed his answer.
"I am with S.H.I.E.L.D, but I'm here on a more personal matter, hence the lack of the suit." She laughed as she led him to the sitting room, finally stopping her rather brisk walking for her age to settle in a chair.
"I was wondering why you looked so informal. Sit, sit!" she ordered, gesturing to the sofa behind Phil. He sat down and considered where to start.
And halfway through his explanation, he risked looking up at her and saw that she appeared sad, but determined. When he finally finished his proposition, she rested her head on the back of the chair and stared at the ceiling in thought. The brief moment of waiting stretched out into a long, awkward silence, and the man couldn't have been more relieved when she spoke.
"I lived a long life, Agent Coulson," she began, looking down at her hands and then up at her guest. "It had its moments of happiness. It had its moments of excitement. It even had its moments of love." Phil felt his heart slowly begin to sink as he realized she was going to turn it down. "But overall...it was lonely." Phil tried not to look too hopeful and he was pretty sure he was failing dismally. "I lived a long life of loneliness, Coulson. And I wouldn't want Steve to live a life like that."
"So...will you do it?" he asked, not even trying to hide the hope in his voice. She shrugged.
"I'll have to think about it."
So, yes, Phil answered in his mind but didn't dare say that aloud. Even as a ninety-odd year old lady, he could feel that sense of power that seemed to just radiate off of her. No wonder Steve had been slightly afraid of her.
When Coulson returned home, it was to the sound of cello and violin, meaning that Stark or Clint or Tasha or someone had found Hill and Loki and herded them out of the gym they had been practicing in and they were now performing in the living room by the glass. As soon as the elevator door opened, Pepper looked over her shoulder and smiled.
"Phil! How are you, come in!" she teased and he gave his half smile and walked over to sit on the couch beside them. "Did you seriously go out in the streets dressed like that?" He threw her a baleful look.
"I forgot I was wearing sweats. I'm so used to wearing a suit when I go out," he explained and Pepper nodded, mentally picturing the looks people had given him when he had been walking out on the streets.
"Where did you go by the way?" Clint asked and he shrugged. "Fine, be that way."
"I've always been that way, you should know that," Phil responded and looked over to where Maria and Loki were playing. And raised an eyebrow.
"So apparently you recuperate rather quickly," he said loud enough to be heard over the music and Loki turned to look at him. "Cello? There was only one when I left."
"Oh, right. Yeah, I was able to...sort of create one," he began awkwardly and Steve shook his head.
"Look at the fireplace. We have a surplus of firewood now," he explained and the agent had to cough to cover up his brief laughter as he saw the many mutilated and warped cello bodies that had obviously been Loki's first attempts to materialize them.
"I see..." he said carefully and Nat shook her head.
"You do realize you can laugh around us, Phil? We've been laughing together for the past few months." Instead of responding, he simply shrugged.
"I prefer not to."
"Understandable," Bruce commented and thought for a moment. "Hey, why don't the three of you do a trio in the other room? Phil you can play my piano and they can do the string accompaniment."
"Sure why not," Phil answered and got to his feet, walking over to the other room, Maria and Loki following with their instruments.
That night when they all went to bed, Loki couldn't get that one song they had been playing out of his head. Crystallize or something like that. It made him think of that girl he had seen playing in Central Park and for some reason the song made him think of ice...
He wondered if there were any sort of massive ice cities on Midgard.
He highly doubted it, but he resolved to ask Phil in the morning.
As the weeks went by, Banner and Stark spent more and more time in the lab and for some reason Pepper, Clint, and Tasha seemed to be very keen in keeping Steve away from there. Loki and Thor talked a lot outside about different things, mostly about how they were going to get back to Asgard, catching up on things that they hadn't said to each other in a long time that probably should have been said.
And then of course there was Phil. No one ever really saw much of him anymore. The moment that Fury found out that he was back in the world of adulthood, he had whisked him away and sent him on at least fifty different missions over the course of three weeks and the rest of the team could tell that the agent was slowly starting to edge closer and closer to the "director I am going to kill you" end of the scale.
And, rather suddenly, things went back to the way they had been before:
Chaotic, unpredictable, but clear as to what was going on in the basics of the scenario.
"Phil, you're back!" Pepper said happily and gave the man a quick hug, whispering in his ear, "they're in the lab. Steve doesn't know." Again Phil gave that smirk. He broke off the hug as Steve walked around the corner, looking peeved and confused.
"Ah, Couls - sorry, Phil - I'm glad you're here. Maybe you could explain to me why everyone has been laughing at me today?" His expression turned to one of not being amused as the agent and Tony's PA both broke down laughing at his predicament. "Thank you, Phil. Thanks." Finally managing to compose himself, Phil straightened and put a hand on Steve's shoulder, leading him towards the lab. "I thought I wasn't supposed to be in there - "
"Well, now you can," the agent finished and gestured for the super soldier to go down first, him following only a few steps behind with Pepper behind him.
"Capsicle's going to have a heart attack."
"Tony...Don't be like that for this please," came Banner's voice and Thor's loud voice reached the approaching people almost as clearly as though they had been beside him.
"Does the Captain not know about this?"
"No, brother. That's why they were keeping him out of here," Loki responded, slightly acerbic. "When will you grasp the concept of a surprise?"
"Shh, I think he's coming," Clint hissed and he walked over to the stairwell and looked up, locking eyes with Phil and nodding with a slight smirk.
"Okay, what's going on - " Steve began and stopped talking and moving as soon as he had gone two feet from the base of the steps. Peggy, looking just as she had seventy years ago, turned around from where she had been talking with Romanoff and tilted her head to the side, that familiar expression on her face that Steve recognized from whenever she was going to give an order. All around her, the rest of the team were grinning like Cheshire cats, and the World War II veteran could vaguely sense Phil laughing silently behind his back.
"Well then Rogers," she began and that was when Phil discovered what a bad idea it was to stand behind someone when they were receiving a major shock.
"WHOA!" Phil shouted as the super soldier toppled back onto him in a complete faint and sent both of them crashing painfully to the ground, the agent not able to contain his laughter anymore as he simply let it all out to the point where he couldn't breath.
"Oh my god, Steve are you okay?" Peggy called and ran over, leaning into her lover's line of vision. "Steve?" she asked and gingerly went to touch the bruise on the back of his head. "God you are an idiot, Rogers!" she snapped as he opened his eyes and immediately scampered back several feet, crashing into Phil as he did so.
"What the hell's going on?" he asked, completely confused and, finally regaining enough breath so that he could sit up, Coulson pointed to the shrink tank.
"Well you figure it can add years onto you...it can take years away too," he gasped and finally managed to pull himself under control. "You two are the same age now. Both young ninety year olds."
"Don't get smart with me," Steve warned and Phil grinned, getting to his feet and giving the couple some room as they embraced. "Who's idea was this?" he asked and everyone pointed to Phil who suddenly looked very uncomfortable, rather close to how he looked as a child some times.
"You were depressed," he said in defense and Steve just smiled.
"Thanks, Phil. This means so much to us," he said, voice thick with emotion, and the agent just smiled back.
"Well, I was a perceptive kid. That and I eavesdropped on your phone conversations." Peggy laughed into her soldier's shoulder and pulled back from Steve, wiping at the tears in her eyes and laughing.
"Thank you, all of you," she said with heartfelt gratitude and the team smiled.
"Come on. Why don't we all go upstairs before Director Fury comes and yells at us for this," Pepper said and walked up the stairs, leading the way for everyone else to follow. Peggy gently looped her arm in Steve's and the two of them followed Pepper, Clint, and Nat. Thor smiled and dropped his arm around Loki's shoulder, the younger sibling stiffening.
"Thor..." he began and his brother responded with a noncommittal noise. "What did we talk about?" Thor looked down at his brother and beamed.
"I don't know, what did we talk about?" Loki gritted his teeth.
"About you touching me?"
"Oh, sorry," he said, not really sorry, and left Loki's side, walking up the stairs to join the festivities above. Loki looked over at Coulson and shook his head.
"Always has the need to get all touchy-feely in emotional settings. It really bothers me," he explained and Phil nodded.
"I can understand that."
"No, don't pull that one out! You have to disengage this thing first and then you can - "
"Tony?" Phil asked without looking and the two scientists looked up from where they were working on disengaging the shrink tank.
"Yeah?"
"Later, please. Go on up and hang out with Steve and Peggy. Today is kind of an important day for them," he ordered and Banner had to drag Tony up the stairs to get him out of the room. "You coming Loki?"
"In a minute," he said as he stepped onto the platform, examining the contraption.
"Something wrong?" Loki shook his head.
"No. I was just thinking. You know how you said Thanos was the start of all of this?"
"Yeah," Phil answered, voice dark. Loki shook his head yet again. This time it was slow, as though he were contemplating something.
"You were wrong." Phil frowned.
"Beg pardon?" he asked, slightly affronted. Loki straightened and faced the agent, offering his crooked smile.
"It was this. Had you not been a child when I met you, there would have been no way we would have become friends. This machine was what started all of this." Phil nodded in thought.
"Yeah. I guess it was." The two of them stood there, facing each other and the human sighed, walking towards the stairwell. "Fate's a fickle thing. So, I'll see you upstairs momentarily?" Loki nodded and turned around, taking one last look when Phil noticed something out of the corner of his eye.
A spark.
He spun around and saw Dummy playing with the half exposed wiring that Tony and Bruce had been playing with and saw that the robot was plugging things back in. The circuitry sparked again and suddenly the panels flared to life and electricity started building up once more.
"Dummy - WAIT! DON'T DO THAT!"
Phil Coulson slowly lowered his hands from his eyes and looked at the ring of tesla coil looking things and white panels as they coursed with power from the arc reactor. He caught a glimpse of their accidental experiment's results when a lot of wires started sparking and fused together, plunging the whole room into darkness.
"Please tell me I did not just see..." the agent began, only to be cut off by a thundering of footsteps on the stairs.
"What's going on?!" Pepper asked as she stopped halfway down due to the darkness, creating a sort of stumbling, half crash on the steps as people coming down the steps collided.
"JARVIS, reboot the lights in the lab," Tony ordered, a strange feeling settling in his gut. Banner was the same way. In fact, so was everyone. You could literally hear everyone's heartbeats synchronized in the tense silence. This was looking too fam -
With a sudden return of bright white light, everyone's worst fears were confirmed. Slowly, Phil walked forward to stand over the small body blinking rapidly in the sudden bright light.
"Not again," he said in a completely defeated tone, and the five year old Loki looked up at him with a completely blank expression.
The End