"I wish SHIELD had such fancy coffee machines in their headquarters," Romanoff said, returning with a tray with three tall, paper cups. "If you ever need spies, I'll totally let you hire me, just for that perk."

Stark hummed something unintelligible, accepted the cup from her hand and took a sip without really examining the contents first.

"Here you go," she handed a similar cup to Loki.

He removed the plastic cover and peeked inside.

"Hey, no spoilers!"

He sighed, replaced the cap and took an experimental sip. The beverage was hot, almost unbearably so, but also sweet and creamy, with just a tinge of bitterness at the end. The test proved inconclusive though, as he couldn't say how it would normally taste like, as it definitely wasn't the kind of coffee he tried before.

"Seriously, if you were not a top-secret intelligence asset, I'd just start a videoblog titled 'an alien tries Earth foodstuffs for the first time'. I'd rake millions on it!"

The sentence as a whole made very little sense to Loki, so, in coordination with her cheerful demeanor, he decided to take it as a joke, not a veiled offense.

The machine Bruce was working with pinged and spewed a sheet of paper from a slot on the side. The doctor picked it up and handed it to Stark who skimmed over the numbers. "Yeah, same thing on this side." He looked up at Loki. "Well, it looks like whatever it was that was draining your energy, it fixed itself."

Loki nodded. He could feel it too. He already felt stronger than he was in the morning, and he could feel the magic slowly awakening, coursing through his veins and tingling at the back of his mind, begging to be put to use. It felt weird though, in this form. Could the Jötnar even do Æsir magic?

It still didn't explain why his body acted like this and what should he have been doing to prevent it from happening again. So, as much as he hated flaunting his ignorance about the inner workings of his own flesh and baring that vulnerable lack of knowledge before the humans, he had to ask. "Do you know why it happened?" he said, tentatively.

"Only a working theory, based on how my own transformation works and what we discovered so far," Bruce said. "In my case, the change is triggered by stressful situations, or, more precisely, by elevated adrenaline and cortisol levels in my blood. It also requires energy, and that's another side of the mutation – my cells have a much higher capacity for storing that energy – and it looks like your biology is similar, at least in this form. Once the transformation happens, the energy is used to sustain the new form. In my case, the cell structure stays similar, and I'd just revert back to my original self once I run out of it. In yours - your body chemistry changes and that extra energy all gets redirected to that leftover cluster, which then acts as a buffer.

"Which works just fine, until there's energy to store and use to sustain the change. When you ran out of it and your body decided it's time to revert. But, as you require an external trigger – the temperature – it didn't happen naturally and the cluster was trying to gather enough energy to sustain the current form instead, robbing the rest of your system out of it."

That sounded like a plausible explanation, which was only good on the surface, because it also meant one completely baffling and one completely disastrous thing. "I can't turn back, or the same thing will happen, not until I rebuild my energy reserves," he said numbly.

Bruce nodded in confirmation. "I also feel like the ice thing is rather, uhm, let's say, authoritative. As in, I see no reason why you'd need that. That's a gut feeling, going on from what we've seen, but logically – it's an external factor that shouldn't matter."

That was brushing against the baffling part of the whole discovery. Ever since Loki had realized the truth of his heritage, he believed his Æsir form was an effect of Odin's magic. It would have been a powerful spell, requiring an immense amount of power, but such magic existed and it was the only reasonable explanation. He had witnessed it being performed, with the curse Odin had cast on Thor before banishing him being the most recent example. His Æsir skin could not be an illusion or a charm, because if it were, he would have sensed it. In such case, the ability to change back into the Jötunn skin would be just a leftover, something Odin missed while constructing his magic. But that theory was no longer valid. It didn't explain why he could keep the form now, completely effortlessly, and why his mind still treated it as the default, original one.

The answers would have to wait though. He needed his magic back in full working order to be able to explore the issue further. And it looked like he would have to be stuck in his monstrous true skin for that to happen.

Oh, it was a blessing indeed it didn't happen on Asgard. He wouldn't live a day looking like he looked now.

Romanoff elbowed him in the ribs. "You're drifting off again, aren't you?"

His eyes dashed around.

Stark was glowering at him. "I was asking if you're more of a pizza or a sushi kind of guy," he said, before Loki managed to utter his excuses.

"That's it, I'm totally starting that blog," said Romanoff and started laughing.

Loki found out he was "a sushi kind of guy", apparently. At least as a Jötunn, for this was another kind of Midgardian fare that he never tasted before and had no reference for. The fact that it was served cold definitely helped, too.

He was going through a second plate when Romanoff's phone chirped a new call.

"Hello?"

There was a male voice on the other side, but the words were too jumbled for Loki to make out the meaning.

"Yeah, I told him just that and no, it wasn't a lie."

There were some more words, just as unintelligible.

"That's fine. Come over anytime and see for yourself. Even now."

The caller said something that could have been a confirmation, judging from the flow of the sentence.

"Okay, see you then. We will save you some sushi."

She ended the call and put the phone away.

"Who was that?" asked Stark, with his mouth full.

"Rogers," Romanoff answered. "Fury told him to check up on us, discreetly, and report back on the extent to which we're fucking with him."

"And he just called you?" Bruce asked, incredulously.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but Cap is not exactly the subtlest of men. I mean, have you seen his costume?" Stark jeered and stashed another roll into his mouth.

Unlike Romanoff and Bruce – and the fumbling attempts by Loki, but he was getting there – the man wasn't bothering with using the sticks that were apparently the proper utensil for the meal and was just eating with his fingers. At first, Loki took the man's crude demeanor for the lack of refinement, but by now he realized it wasn't unfamiliarity with the social norms but rather a purposeful disregard for them. The purpose remained a mystery though, at least for now.

"Why didn't you tell him the truth?"

"He was calling from his landline and there's no way Fury's people are not listening on that. I'm not going to give Nick any ammunition willingly. We will explain when Rogers comes over. He said he will be over in half an hour, but seeing that he's still in Brooklyn and it's rush hours, he's using the forties commute times as a reference."

Loki sighed, wiped his face with a napkin and moved to get up.

"Where are you going?" Romanoff asked with a raise of her eyebrow. "You're not hungry anymore?"

Loki was, in fact, still hungry. Ravenous, actually, despite eating a solid portion already. His Jötunn's stomach was apparently a lot more demanding in that area than the one in his Æsir form. But that could wait for some other time. "It would be the best if I removed myself from here before Captain Rogers arrives."

"Sit down," Stark said. His tone was light, but it was still a direct order and Loki hesitated. He shouldn't be forgetting his position in Stark's household. He sighed and sat back down.

"What Tony is trying to say," said Bruce in an exasperated voice, sending Stark a scornful glare, "is that you don't have to leave, but that you can if you really wish to."

"Yeah, what he said," said Stark nonchalantly and licked his fingers. "Chill, Megamind, it's going to be all right. Here on Earth, we're not too big on hating people for the color of their skin."

"Anymore," Bruce added, under his breath.

Loki kept his gaze firmly on his plate. His appetite was as good as gone.

Loki didn't develop a sense of the Midgardian measurements of time yet, but if he had to guess, he'd say Romanoff was right and it was longer than "half an hour" before Captain Rogers stepped out of the elevator.

Loki turned back to his – now empty – plate, folded his hands in his lap and listened as the man exchanged pleasantries with the others, while his heart was beating a frantic rhythm in his throat.

The notion that the humans didn't remember the war with the Jötnar the way the Æsir did and that they were not going to enact cold retribution for the damage his kind did to their realm on him had managed to calm his nerves down a bit, but didn't make the trepidation go away in full. Even with the meaning of his true nature really lost to the mortal memory, there was no escaping the fact that he looked like a primitive beast. That didn't need any context.

On one side, he appreciated the restraint Stark, Bruce and Romanoff showed in their reactions, but he could also see a reason for it. They had already seen him at his worst – sick, injured and weakened beyond the point of being able to move on his own – so there wasn't much lower their opinion of him could get. They thought him frail and spared him the truth.

Part of him wished they didn't, so he could get it the well-mannered farce out of the way already and move to the open contempt he was ought to end up with.

Also, they got a warning, at least to some extent. Captain Rogers did not. Loki was about to receive the honest, unfiltered response from the man.

And, no matter how hard he tried to tell himself it was of no importance, that he shouldn't care about what the mortals thought about him, he knew that it wasn't true. He was stuck here, until Thanos came to claim his life. He didn't need enemies, he didn't need more animosity than he had already received, on the merit of his deeds alone. He needed allies.

He wasn't going to get many of those looking like he did.

Plus, there was no telling what Captain Rogers would do once he found out. Maybe he would just scoff in disgust, or maybe he would call Director Fury and inform him about the unfortunate detail. Fury had no idea about who exactly he was harboring in his organization, as Loki withheld that information from him. It was an obvious evasion on his side and Fury could easily see Loki as recalcitrant for that. And the road led only down from there.

Rogers made a full circle and sat down across the table from Loki.

Loki could feel his gaze burning on his skin.

A hushed, "huh," escaped Rogers' lips.

Further elaboration didn't come, so Loki chanced a look. Rogers was staring at him with a slight frown, and his gaze didn't waver when Loki met it.

Romanoff was leaning on the table, intently observing the non-existent exchange, her chin propped on her palm.

"Is this, uhm, new look, something I should be… concerned about?" Rogers asked carefully.

Loki gritted his teeth and scrambled for a suitably witty answer, but Stark was quicker. "Nah, just our resident alien's natural complexion. Completely normal," he said with a careless wave of his hand.

Rogers nodded with something that sounded like a breath of relief. "I see you're feeling better."

Loki bit his lower lip, unsure what to answer to not disturb the lie that Romanoff had going around, so he just nodded.

Rogers' gaze was still on him. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but is it like… A magic thing? Or were you wearing a disguise earlier?"

Loki glowered.

"I once met a man who was hiding his real skin under a… uhm, some sort of a mask, I suppose. I was wondering if…" Rogers sighed, shook his head and finally looked away. "I'm sorry, this is highly inappropriate. I shouldn't have even asked."

"No, it wasn't a disguise, but neither it was an illusion," Loki found himself saying, not entirely sure why. "My Æsir skin is like Bruce's Hulk – a transformation."

"Oh," Rogers said and Loki could swear he blushed, but that could've been just a trick of light. "That's useful, I guess."

Bruce pushed a food tray to Rogers and gestured at it invitingly. "Thanks!" Rogers exclaimed. "I never had sushi before! We didn't have that in the forties." He fumbled with the chopsticks for a while, gave up and just stashed a roll into his mouth. "Mmm, it's good!"

Stark laughed and asked the Captain about what else he didn't have, so he could prepare it for the next time, so Rogers went on at length about the differences in cuisine between the times he grew up and now.

And that was it.

Loki waited a while, to not appear uncourteous, then excused himself and returned to his room, his mind scrambling for ideas about exactly what had just transpired.