"If you try to stop me, I will kill you all. Understand?"

There was a pause, and then the Avengers unanimously decided to ignore what she had just said. Loki was pretty sure it was an empty threat, but honestly, he wasn't an expert.

Stark took a deep breath. "Well, why doesn't Loki give the Tesser- er, Nova, a tour of our building? And the rest of us can go, uh. . . talk."

Of course. Let the known crazy psychopath take care of the possibly crazy psychopath. Nothing could go wrong there right? What they were doing did make sense, though. Let the most expendable Avenger, (if he even was an Avenger), take care of the possibly insane, incredibly powerful girl so that if anything went wrong, no one who mattered would get hurt. Meanwhile, the important Avengers could go have a discussion about what they would do next.

Loki was stuck babysitting the Tesseract. Fun.

The Avengers left the room rather quickly, but Loki didn't blame them for wanting out fast. A few moments past silently, before Nova seemed to pull herself together. She stretched, arms over her head, back arching, before turning to Loki.

"Quick question. Is FRIDAY always around?" She gestured to the blinking red light in the corner of the room.

Loki was about to answer the question with a short 'yes' when something in her eyes stopped him. A question with a double meaning. She may have been crazy, but she was smart.

"Oh, yeah, FRIDAY is always around," Loki said casually. "But if you're looking for somewhere slightly more comfortable than a hospital room I can show you my quarters."

A flash of understanding passed her eyes, then faded to boredom. A quick nod. "Yeah, that would be great."

Hopefully Nova understood his double meaning, and wasn't excited because Loki had just invited her to his room. He really hoped he hadn't misinterpreted her words because otherwise his offer just sounded. . .

He led her down the hall, up a couple of flights of stairs, (he never trusted elevators, didn't know how they worked), and another couple of halls, pointing out important places along the way.

"The kitchen, a couple of living rooms, the library, the labs, everyone else's rooms. . ."

"Why is your room all the way on the other side of the building? Did they run out of rooms in this wing?"

"If you get a room, yours will probably be near mine. It's the place where all the possibly psychopathic threats live." There was the sarcasm that always seemed so prevalent whenever he wanted to deflect. A mask, yes, but an effective one.

"Oh." He wasn't in the mood to see her reaction, so he continued to walk. The rest of the trip passed in relative silence, although he could tell that Nova was itching to explore. She had seemed particularly interested in the library and the lab rooms: in the lab, she had to restrain herself from examining all the equipment, and in the library, she couldn't stop herself from grabbing a few books and flipping through them.

Finally, Loki got to his room. Why did it have to be so far away from, well, everything else? He could kill the Avengers just as well from here, although saying that aloud wasn't going to help his case.

He opened the door for Nova, gesturing for her to enter. Most people might be embarrassed to invite someone into a space so personal, but Loki had made sure to leave his bedroom as blank as possible. The walls were their original off-white, greyish color, bare of anything that might make the space seem more cosy. The bed only had the sheets it had come with, and the closet doors were open, revealing that it was completely empty. If not for the hastily made bed and stack of books on the nightstand, he doubted anyone would have guessed someone was using the room.

Nova looked around the room and seemed to take in its emptiness. Then her gaze drifted upwards, scanning for the blinking red light that would alert her to FRIDAY' presence. Honestly, she seemed very spatially aware and observant for someone who had until very recently been contained in a stone the size of a grape. He really didn't want to know what she was like with her powers.

Loki shut the door behind him with a soft thud. "Don't worry, I disabled the AI a long time ago. No one's listening in."

She gave him a grateful look. Good, he hadn't misinterpreted her words. "What exactly did you want to tell me?" He could think of a couple of questions she might have, and from the tension in her shoulders and the fact she didn't want FRIDAY listening in, it had more than a little something to do with her current standing with the Avengers.

Nova sighed. "What do they want from me?"

He had expected a question like this, but that didn't mean he knew how to answer it. "The Avengers are just trying to look out for their world." He paused. "They want you to join them because of how powerful you could be, but they can't trust you until you prove your loyalty absolutely. If you prove you aren't a threat, then they'll let you join the team. They did the same for Barnes."

She cautiously sat down on his bed. It felt like an invasion of his personal space, which was weird because this room was neither personal nor his. "And if I don't want to join the Avengers?"

Loki frowned. "Everyone wants to join the Avengers. It's a rule of the universe or something. Besides, if you won't join, then you're a threat, and they will treat you as such."

She glanced at him. "You aren't officially part of the Avengers, and they let you stay."

"They regard me as a threat that needs constant monitoring. It's an uneasy peace."

Nova sighed and flopped down onto his bed. She didn't seem like a being who was hundreds of thousands of years old. How old was she, officially? 25?

"Well, I don't trust any of them, and I need someone I can trust to navigate this world." Oh, he knew what she was getting at. No, he was not going to throw in his lot with this girl. "You need someone to watch your back, and I need someone to watch mine. I know you're known for stabbing people in the back, figuratively and literally, but maybe we can be. . . I don't know, allies?"

This would be a more persuasive argument if he knew she was capable of watching someone's back. As of right now, he knew nothing about her at all, but he also knew that this offer wouldn't last very long. She did make a good point. He'd already made plenty of decisions he regretted. Why not add one more to the list? Besides, this wasn't a spur of the moment decision. With Nova's appearance, his relationship with the Avengers was becoming more and more unstable. He needed someone to watch his back. While the Tesseract clearly wasn't the ideal choice of ally, she would do for now.

He nodded. "As long as this is a mutually beneficial agreement."

Nova looked slightly relieved. "Well, that's good. You're how old?"

Well, that was an odd question. "1,054 years old. Why?"

She sighed. "You wouldn't know him then." She saw Loki's look of confusion and elaborated. "The man, or rather creature, who made the Infinity Stones. Actually, he didn't make them, he found them. Objects of incredible power, created at the beginning of the universe, which already existed long before they were tied together by him. And then, because he needed a nice round number for the spell, he decided to imprison me as the sixth stone. I'm pretty sure he's dead, but if he is alive, I would very much like to kill him." She sighed.

"Anyway, how do you keep ending up with the Infinity Stones? No offense, but compared to the other beings who have found them and wielded them, you're. . . " She trailed off.

Loki didn't particularly like this question. Was she saying that he seemed less powerful?

"What is that supposed to mean? Am I less worthy?" His scathing tone and the scorn in every word might have been a bit of an overreaction, but the alternative was to just let her think him weak, which wasn't an alternative at all.

She winced. "I didn't mean it like that. I was just pointing out that the Infinity Stones are usually only possessed by those that want to use it for great evil, examples being Thanos and the Dark Elves, or beings that want to use it for good, examples being Doctor Strange and Tony Stark. You just seem to want to survive, and people who just want to survive don't usually end up with objects of immense power."

"I did want to use them for evil. Do you not remember the Battle of New York?"

She shrugged. "You were at least partially mind controlled. Besides, you already had one stone, the Mind Stone. Why did you need the Tesseract?"

"As a trade, obviously. You in exchange for an army to destroy Earth."

She shook her head. "You already had an army. You didn't want to destroy Earth, you wanted to be free of the influence of the Mind Stone, hence your getting the Avengers involved. You've never wanted to use any of the Infinity Stones for anything other than survival, whether it was to get your freedom back or to escape Asgard before Ragnarok. So why do the Infinity Stones keep falling into your hands?"

Loki shrugged frustratedly. The worst part was how innocently curious Nova sounded. She didn't understand how long Loki had tried to forget. He had spent so long burying these memories, only to get them constantly unearthed by every mention of the events.

"How am I supposed to know?"

Loki could feel himself shutting down. He could feel the memories and emotions just underneath his facade, struggling to break free, to overwhelm him. There was no way he was going to let his feelings get the better of him, especially not in front of someone else.

No weaknesses.

Nova sat up. "Come on, you must have some idea." She was prying, prying into cracks that weren't supposed to be there. He needed time to pull himself together.

Loki turned on his heel, opening the door. "We've stayed here long enough. I have to give you a tour of the rest of the tower." He knew that he was being unreasonable, but he didn't care very much at the moment. Let her think what she wanted; he didn't want to talk about any of this anymore.

He didn't know how she had reacted because he didn't turn around to check on her. He just walked forward, and fast, not even bothering to wait for her. How dare she barge into his meticulously put together life and think she could just knock down all these walls? He suddenly wished she had just stayed in the stupid stone.

"Loki, wait!" He turned around, a bit angrily.

"I'm sorry, I'm not good with people. What did I do wrong?" Nova asked anxiously. She looked like a lost little kid, trying desperately to apologize for a problem she didn't know anything about.

"Maybe you should consider not speaking about things that I would prefer to remain in the past," he said coldly.

Nova flinched. "I'm sorry."

Inwardly, he winced. He had given away too much information in that last sentence. "Forget about it. Touchy subject." What was he saying? 'Touchy subject'. That was much too much information to give away. He had told this girl more in two sentences than he had told the Avengers in 6 months. He was losing his touch.

Her eyes widened slightly with understanding. "I'm so sorry."

"Just stop apologizing, okay?" Make this humorous. Lighten up. Make her think it's all a bit of a joke. He rolled his eyes at her expression of relief, which made her smile. "Come on, I should show you the roof."

He turned to lead her up another couple of flights of stairs when FRIDAY spoke.

"Sir, Anthony Stark has requested your presence in the meeting room."

He guessed, correctly, that it was time to figure out what the other Avengers had been talking about without him.

When they entered the room, all eyes went immediately to Nova, which was a welcome change. Usually all eyes all went to him. He looked at each of them in turn, quickly figuring out their thoughts. Maximoff, Barnes, and Rogers wanted Nova to stay because they wanted to help her, while Stark, Wilson, and Vision wanted Nova to stay because they thought she was a threat, and Romanoff, well, Loki had never been very good at reading Romanoff anyway. At least this proved he hadn't lost his touch.

Rogers spoke up. He must have been the one designated to explain their thoughts, and he didn't look happy about it. "We've agreed to let you stay." Obviously you were going to let her stay, even if each person had a different reason for wanting that. "You'll be under constant surveillance and will be expected to be with at least one Avenger at all times."

Nova shared a look with Loki. She seemed to have expected this.

"Otherwise, you're free to go anywhere in New York. You'll also be expected to notify us about anything and everything you learn about your situation."

Nova nodded, and the rest of the Avengers relaxed. They couldn't have honestly expected her to refuse, did they? She certainly wasn't in much of a position to argue. "Do you want me to sign an agreement or something? Do you need my signature?"

Rogers looked slightly startled. "No, no, no, we just need your word. After all, we'll be keeping track of you anyway."

"Alright then. I agree to, uh, stay with at least one Avenger at all times and tell you about any breakthroughs I make in regard to my powers."

The Avengers seemed satisfied with that answer. Out of the corner of his eye, Loki noticed Wanda lower her hands quietly, and watched Stark not so discreetly take his hand away from the button that would summon up his suit.

Rogers held out his hand for Nova to shake. "Well, Nova, welcome to the Avengers."

ENDNOTES: I'd love to know your thoughts on the story so far! What do you like, and what don't you like?