"Loki, you really need a hobby - and before you say anything," holographic Thor said, holding up his hand, "Mischief is not a hobby."
Loki rolled his eyes. "I do have a hobby. And I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm a complete angel. I'd never do anything to annoy anyone ever."
Thor sighed. "Obsessively studying the Tesseract is not a hobby either. It's great that you've got a job studying it, but that's your job, not a hobby. Even the other Avenger's are kind of worried, Steve especially."
"I appreciate the concern, I really do, but my research on the Tesseract is important. Besides, when did Rogers or any of the Avengers actually care about me? More likely they're afraid my 'tinkering' is going to destroy the city."
Holographic Thor winced. "Regardless of their reasons, they are worried. Why don't you try to reach out to them? They'd accept you if you actually tried to get to know them."
Loki waved his hand, tired of the conversation. It was just like Thor to assume that the moment Loki reached out to his 'teammates' they would automatically accept him and everything would be amazing.
"Whatever you say, Brother. Since I have nothing to say, and you have nothing to say I haven't heard before, this conversation is over. If you'll excuse me, I have to go." He held out his hand to cancel the call.
"Wait, Loki-" Holographic Thor blinked out, and peaceful silence descended once again. Loki sighed, stretched, and cleared the table of clutter.
"FRIDAY, I'm going to start the final test. Get ready to start recording."
It had been a chaotic few months. First, whatever Hulk, or Banner, or whatever they were fused together, had done to bring everyone back had also brought him back. While it was great to be, well, not dead, everyone still hated him.
The only reason Loki had been allowed to stay with the Avengers was the fact that Loki had found a loophole in the rules regarding the infinity gauntlet, allowing Banner to use the infinity stones to bring back Stark, Romanoff, and Vision by teleporting them from an almost identical timeline. Oh, and also the fact that Thor had begged for hours until everyone was so sick and tired of him that they had given in if only to get a few moments of peace.
Loki had been given his own room, which was small, uncomfortable, and as far away from everyone else's rooms as possible. He'd also been given a lab to research the Tesseract, which Stark hadn't wanted to return to the past, hoping to be able to use it as a power source for his precious tower. Loki had elected to study it, and was in fact the only one apart from Banner who could safely handle it for long periods of time.
The Tesseract had always confused him. Knowing that it was an Infinity Stone, the Tesseract, or rather the Space Stone, confused him even more. Why was the stone so unstable? The portals opened by it were hazardous to use and could fall apart at any time: even as an energy source, Loki had conducted tests that showed the energy levels varied over time. Conducting the same kinds of test on other magic wielders like Strange, (who hadn't liked the test), Maximoff, (who really hadn't liked the test), and of course himself, showed the same energy fluctuations and instability.
Was it possible that the Tesseract had some kind of consciousness? That was the focus point of the rest of his research, and now he was close to a breakthrough. He had hypothesized that perhaps the Space Stone was in fact a kind of jail for this creature, drawing its energy and magic from that being. All he had to do was prove that there was more than one magic signature coming off the stone: one for the being, and another for the magical cell that it was encased in. He was so close. He just needed to run one more test.
Loki placed the stone on the table in his lab. The aim was to be able to shine a light through the stone and see what colors come out, just like that old experiment where one shines sunlight through a prism to see all the colors of the rainbow. In this case, though, each color would mean a different magical signature. Multiple colors would prove his theory that the Tesseract was little more than a prison.
"FRIDAY, turn off the lights."
Loki had gotten used to FRIDAY quite quickly. Being able to boss someone around reminded him of the times he had once had real power, the power to command armies and kill people on a whim. Now he was kept in check by the apparently most powerful group of people in the world, who watched his every move, waiting, and probably hoping, that he would step out of line. Instead of using his magic to inflict chaos, he was limited to pretty light shows and bossing around an AI that literally couldn't disobey him.
The lights flickered out.
"Sir, it is unwise for you to conduct tests using your magic. I will have to notify Stark."
"Yes, yes, go ahead and notify my babysitters that I'm putting on a light show. While you're at it, why not tell them that I'm trying to take over the world as well? Make things more exciting."
"I will notify them right away, Sir."
Loki rolled his eyes. "I was being sarcastic, idiot."
"Stark has asked me to tell you that he is gathering the team. They would like to see your . . . light show."
Great. Company. Loki had expected them to come, but still. They were always monitoring his magic usage, always making sure he wasn't going to do anything dangerous. Now he would have to make more room, not to mention explain why he was shooting beams of light at an Infinity Stone. Absolutely wonderful.
The Avengers filed in one by one. Most of them, by the looks on their faces, were just as annoyed about the arrangement as Loki was. Rogers, Barnes, Stark, Maximoff, Vision, Romanoff, and Wilson were the only permanent residences of Stark Tower. (What kind of egotistical narcissist names an entire tower after himself? Even Loki had never gone so far as to label entire buildings with his name, although this one time he did design a huge statue of himself. That had been fun.)
The only person who looked remotely interested was Stark, probably because he was hoping the experiment would backfire in some embarrassing way.
"Alright, why are we here?" Black Widow sounded as annoyed as Loki felt.
"You're here to make sure I'm not planning a massive invasion of Earth again."
Scarlet Witch sighed. "So basically there's no reason for us to be here."
"No, we're here to keep Loki in check, because come on, we know that something's going to go wrong. Loki plus the Tesseract equals chaos. Basic math." Stark sounded bored. "Just yet to the part where the experiment fails miserably and we can all leave."
"You're not doing anything dangerous, are you? No side effects that might come from shining magical light into an Infinity Stone?"
Loki resisted the urge to roll his eyes and then stab Rogers. He could stand to take Loki's work a little more seriously.
"Nothing interesting should happen, but that's what you're here for, right? Prepare to be completely and utterly bored." Loki raised his hands, gathered the appropriate amount of light, and then shot it in a concentrated beam at the Space Stone. The light refracted and reflected around the stone before shooting out onto the wall. The Avengers had been bracing as if they expected some kind of explosion, but after a minute passed and nothing happened, they began to relax.
There were two colors reflected on the wall. One was the same glowing blue that the Tesseract was, while the other looked like liquid darkness that shimmered and swirled on the wall.
"FRIDAY, what's your analysis?" Earlier, Loki had programmed in every magical signature that he knew so that when the time came, FRIDAY would be able to analyse the signatures and report back quickly.
"One signature matches the containment spell you described, Sir. The other signature does not match any of the ones programmed into my database."
Interesting. Obviously the color that was the same shade as the Tesseract was the containment spell, but Loki couldn't make heads or tails of the liquid shadow, which appeared to be a substance not unlike the Aether, and most definitely wasn't light. Something about the shimmering substance sent shivers up his spine.
At least this proved that there was in fact a being in the Space Stone. He pulled up his notes on different magic signatures. Flipping through the pictures, he could see that none of them matched the strange signature, not that he had been expecting any matches. No being this powerful or with this particular skill set had ever been recorded.
"Hey, what's going on?" Barnes wanted to know what was going on. Typical. He really should get caught up on science and technology in the modern world. Or at least learn to listen to someone when they're explaining what's going on. Loki had given an entire lecture about what he was doing with Tesseract, and maybe if Barnes had paid attention he wouldn't be so confused.
"I'll explain later, right now I need to record this," Loki murmured, not even bothering to look up.
"Uh, I don't think you mentioned that the stone would start glowing. . ." Now Maximoff was speaking, and she sounded wary. Loki looked up and froze.
The light that made the Space Stone seem to glow from within was fracturing into pieces. The same darkness that had until now been reflected onto the wall was oozing out of the cracks, expanding them, searching for an opening. The stone seemed to swell with this added mass, ready to explode at any moment.
"Loki-" Rogers' warning tone cut through his thoughts. "Care to explain?"
He winced. "Something I did triggered the containment spell."
"Which means what?"
Where had Wilson gotten that gun?
"There's a high chance that whatever was imprisoned in the Tesseract is getting out. LIke, now."
Everyone was pulling out weapons now. Why did everyone have a weapon on them? Had they all come here sure that Loki would somehow mess up and get them all killed? He would have been annoyed at their lack of faith. . . if they hadn't been right.
"On a scale of zero to Thanos, how dangerous is this?" The light from the stone was dimming. Occasionally a flash of light would burst out, and the darkness would temporarily retreat, but it always returned, stronger than before.
"All I know about the creature in the Tesseract is that whatever it is, it's immensely powerful and has the ability to instantly kill us all if it wants to. I really don't like the look of it's magic signature."
Loki summoned up his fighting clothes and a pair of daggers, although compared to the power of the Tesseract, he may as well have been holding up a pair of toothpicks.
For a second, the stone glowed so brilliantly that Loki had to look away or he would have been blinded. Then darkness, complete darkness, returned. The magic levels in the room reached levels so high that Loki could feel each new wave of magic that radiated outwards. Maximoff was so affected that she had fallen to the ground, cradling her head. Wave after wave of power swept through him.
Loki wondered vaguely if he was going to die.
The space between the pulses shortened, each one coming right on the heels of the last. Whatever energy had been used to create the containment spell was thrown violently outward, creating an aftershock that they would later learn had been felt throughout the galaxy. And then, as quickly as it had come the energy dissipated.
And yet, as Loki came to his senses, he realized that somehow none of them were hurt. Yes, Romanoff had a few cuts from a glass beaker that had fallen, and Barnes had ceiling plaster in his hair, but the energy that had seemed to explode outward seemed to have affected nothing. The windows were intact, the walls were still standing, and no one had died. Why had the power of the stone affected nothing?
After checking himself over, and finding that he had no cuts, bruises, or injuries of any kind, Loki looked over at the Space Stone. Or rather, where the Space Stone had been. The other Avengers must have seen it too, because there were a couple of gasps and more than a few whispered profanities. Loki had been right.
Lying on her back was the Tesseract. Jet black hair framed her face, spreading out on the floor, her skin white from lack of sunlight. Her clothes seemed strange, to say the least. They were made of a material that Loki had never seen before.
"What. . .who is that?" Rogers asked the question that they had all been thinking.
Because despite her strange clothes, and despite the fact that this was supposed to be one of the most powerful beings in the world, the Tesseract looked . . . human.
ENDNOTES: This is the first fanfiction I've ever written, and comments / advice are always appreciated. Critique is always welcome, and if you could take the time to write a comment / review, that would make my day (even if it's to say how terrible my writing is). I'd love to know both what you liked about this chapter and what you think could be improved on, because I'm always trying to become a better writer. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Posting schedule: I'm going to be posting daily during the week and then taking weekends off.