A/N: I'm still writing this! This chapter was hard because I hated Avengers: Age of Ultron (so tedious) but now I'm pretty much over what I meant to say about the SHIELD takeover part (the Avengers don't trust Loki enough to really use him much) so I can get on with what I really want to do. It should go faster from here (fingers crossed).
The next days were days of planning. Although Nick Fury and the Avengers knew it, Hydra had taken over SHIELD, and getting rid of them would be difficult, even though they had not managed to gain control of the Mind Stone and its secrets in this timeline. Future Stark hadn't been able to warn them of every traitor within their ranks, so they weren't certain of who they could trust or how far the infection had spread. Loki, amazingly, popped up with more specific information, and told them exactly who was and who was not a part of the conspiracy. It was almost as though he had been there in some capacity.
"I don't trust this," Barton said. "We're not going to root out SHIELD agents based on this guy's testimony, are we? He's a snake."
"Unfair," Loki shot back. "Snakes are actually very trustworthy creatures."
"With names in hand, we've got the tools we need to do our research and dig out the losers among us," Fury said. "But we've got to be careful. Some of our nearest and dearest are on this list. Until we know who's who, we can't let anything slip to anyone."
"How do we destroy Hydra anyhow?" Banner said, wringing his hands. "Cut off one head, six more grow in its place. That's the mythology and that's their motto, isn't it?"
Loki made a rude sound.
"You have a thought?" Fury said.
"Everyone but my brother knows that you don't kill a Hydra by chopping at it. The way to kill a Hydra is with fire." He blanched. "Dear ancestors, stop me from becoming someone who suggests fire as a way to solve every problem, but in this case it is an analogy."
"Scorched earth," Fury said, catching his meaning instantly. "Cut off their supply lines, their resources. You realize most of their resources are our resources."
Loki sneered. "Then find new resources. Secret ones."
"We'd have to cut ourselves off from SHIELD completely."
"What, you want to be part of a cult of backstabbers and terrorists? Because that's what they are at the current time."
"What about your oversight?" Stark said. "We cut ourselves off from SHIELD, there goes your overseer. Or do we bring Phil along with us as Babysitter-in-Chief? Not of Judah but of you?"
"I would be quite fine with having a different 'babysitter,'" Loki said, "but as far as it goes, Agent Coulson was one of the agents who was loyal to SHIELD and for what it was meant to stand. After his resurrection, of course."
"Coulson is as straight-laced as they come," Fury said. "He might not be willing to go full-rogue, even for a good cause. No one outside this room knows that Hydra has infiltrated SHIELD's highest levels of security, and it might be tough convincing him, especially if he knows our best information comes from… well…"
"Me," Loki said.
"You," Fury agreed. "Widow, I want you to start securing us whatever secret lines of resources you can here on earth. Thor, do you think your father would open negotiations with us for a good cause?"
Thor shook his head. "Unlikely. Father believes in non-interference. The realms are meant to come by their power in their own time. But perhaps if you asked for materials rather than weapons and technology, he might consider it."
"We could work with that. Tony, will you help us out?"
Stark spread his hands wide. "Why not? I've had blood on my hands before. At least this time I'm reasonably certain I'm fighting the bad guys."
"Then I think we should be good to make our break. Let's get to it, people."
Loki went back to his apartments, wondering whether he'd just set a tribe of bloodthirsty assassins loose after his adoptive son. Well, they'd play Hel to get through him on their way to Judah.
He thought for a time. He wanted some kind of alarm system, something to give him extra eyes on the boy, but preferably ones Judah would not know were watching him. Genius struck at the door and he veered off before his hand touched the knob and left the building, on a mission to make it happen.
A few hours later, he heard a great commotion in the building and knew that the Avengers were expunging SHIELD from the premises. That came about faster than he'd expected, but Fury liked to move. Frankly Hydra wasn't the great threat they might have been, never having gotten their hands on the Mind Stone and thus upgrading their technology. Loki wasn't tremendously worried about them. But he was slightly miffed that he hadn't been called upon to help with the clean-up. It might have been fun. And with the number of highly-trained SHIELD agents in the building, they might have found him quite useful.
Another couple of hours after the hullabaloo finally died down, shortly before what would be Judah's bedtime on a normal day, Phil Coulson knocked (for a change) on the door. Loki answered, and Coulson blinked at him uncertainly. Loki was wearing strange (for him) garments. Strange for anyone on earth, really, but they were so incongruous on Loki that Coulson could hardly figure out what he was seeing at first. A long-sleeved dark green tunic and black flannel (or other soft material) trousers, and his feet, for a wonder, were bare. It was plain, it looked relatively comfortable, it was utterly un-Loki.
"What are you wearing?" Coulson asked, unable to stand not knowing why the perennially over-dressed god was so dressed down.
Loki frowned and tugged at the high collar of the tunic. "My pajamas. Judah wanted to have a slumber party. We're making snores and telling scary stories."
"S'mores," Coulson said, smiling. "I think you mean s'mores."
"Whatever. Disgustingly sweet and hideously messy, that's what they are. I see you chose to join the rebellion."
"Yes. Colonel Fury convinced me that SHIELD is... well… compromised, at the current time."
"Well, come on in, then."
Something small and furry twined around Coulson's ankles. He looked down. A gingery tabby cat looked up at him and mewed. "You have a cat," he said, with more surprise than question in his voice.
"Judah wanted a dog, but they're hard to take care of in an apartment. I thought I'd start him off on a cat and see how it goes."
"What's his name?" Coulson said, stooping a bit to give the cat a quick scratch behind the ears.
"Hopwaffle."
"Hop… waffle?"
Judah giggled. "Show him how he got his name, Daddy!" he called from the living room.
"Ah. That is rather interesting," Loki said. He stepped into the kitchenette and stood by the shiny toaster. He pulled a frozen waffle out of nowhere and held it up. "Observe," he said, and stuck it in one of the slots and pushed the handle down. A few moments later it popped back up, he grabbed it out of the air, and tossed it at the cat like a Frisbee. The cat pounced on it with all four paws, then sat directly upon the slightly-warmed waffle, curling its tail delicately around its paws and the waffle for protection.
"Hopwaffle," Loki said, as if he had just proved a scientific theorem.
Coulson was having a hard time keeping a straight face. "And how did you find out your cat would do that?" he said.
"Trial and error," Loki said promptly.
Coulson could stand it no longer. All trace of professionalism lost, he broke down and laughed, hard. "I can't tell if you're serious, but that's a good one," he said when he could speak.
"With me, you can typically assume I'm not serious. But you can never be certain," Loki said.