In which Loki adopts fem Harry and no one was aware of this fact until the Avengers.
Loki was not in a good mood. To be fair, he never thought he would have to enact one of her paranoid suggestions... especially in a situation like this.
He could hear Thor calling what everyone assumed was his lady-love Jane. In reality, Thor was in a hypnotic trance that Loki had implanted around two years ago after that mess with the wizards in England. His apprentice had been so upset about being forced into that ridiculous tournament and being unable to call for help that she convinced him to have fail-safes in case something happened to him.
Loki had humored her, purely because it had eased her fears and allowed her to sleep.
He knew what was coming. He felt some dark amusement that Thor and his new band of idiots did not.
The first indication that something was about to happen was the charged feeling of magic in the air.
The second thing he took note of, belatedly considering he was still trapped by the Mind Stone...was his apprentice holding him in a choke hold with her hand on his throat, green eyes blazing.
Considerate as always, she was nice enough to at least cast a protection spell to prevent permanent damage. That was about the only consideration she gave him...before calmly throwing him through the hardened glass into the nearest wall.
Hearing the sounds of alarms at his 'break out', Loki could still feel the hit wasn't enough. His apprentice likely noticed the same, which was why her second move was to throw him into the room where Stark and Banner were studying the staff to try and track down the Tesseract. He slammed into the wall much harder, causing him to black out for a few precious minutes by his estimate.
"What the hell?!" said Stark.
A young woman who looked to still be in high school calmly stalked into the room. She had long black hair, vibrant green eyes and tanned skin. She wore proper armor fitted for her body and the way she walked like she owned the room.
Loki was so damn proud of her, because she had come a long way from the small child he had found over a decade ago.
"What do you have to say for yourself?" she asked, without trying to hide her British accent.
"I will never argue over your paranoia again," said Loki. His mind was finally clear of the stone's influence.
"And?"
"...Odin's A-plus parenting skills are shit as always."
Thor, the clueless idiot, walked in to hear the second bit.
"Now aren't you glad I insisted on the fail-safes?"
"Who the hell is this?" demanded Fury.
Loki slowly sat up, uncaring of the concussion she had given him.
"My name is Rowan...and I'm Loki's apprentice. He enacted one of the fail-safes I insisted were necessary to alert me that he was being controlled by someone and unable to reach out to me," said Rowan. She glared at Thor for a moment. "I find it fascinating that someone claiming to be so close to him never noticed he was being controlled."
Thor blinked.
"I agree, considering the blithering idiot was literally close enough to see that my eye color was wrong. And honestly, I thought Thor at least would have noticed something was wrong from the simple fact I wasn't doing much to hide myself from his little groupies," said Loki bitterly.
"Hold up... are you telling us that you were under the same control as Barton?" said Fury.
"Do you really think I would attack a planet my daughter currently calls home? Forget Odin, she would never let me hear the end of it!" said Loki irate.
Rowan beamed at him. It was nice to hear her Master refer to her as his daughter. He rarely said as much because he didn't want Odin finding her.
Tony looked at Loki for a moment, then pulled up the photo from when he was captured. His eyes were a bright blue. Loki's eyes...after the asskicking...were now green. He swore, before pulling up before and after photos of Barton and Selvig from the base. Same thing.
"Son of a bitch...he might actually be telling the truth," said Tony.
Two hours later...
Thor was a bit taken aback by Loki's adopted daughter. He was far calmer and a bit more cooperative regarding the missing Tesseract.
While Loki didn't have a solid idea where the thing was, he did know Thanos had seen their little group as a potential threat and wanted them gone. Which meant he would likely target them where it hurt.
It had taken Tony all of five minutes to realize that out of all of them, he was the only one who had anything that could be used to open the portal. His new building had a power source that could easily do it, and it was right in the heart of New York.
Rowan pulled out her phone and immediately dialed a number from her contacts list.
"Hey Colossus, how would the Professor like having a chance to show off his little group in a positive light and earn some major brownie points?" said Rowan. A few people listened in as she gave him the bare bones of what she knew, and a potential timeline. From the sound of things, she was planning to have extra back-up in New York.
"Who did you call?" asked Fury, mostly out of paranoia.
"The X-Men," deadpanned Rowan. "Can you think of a better way to help improve the image mutants have than to have them helping the civilians get out while we're dealing with the main threat?"
Fury, rather than tell her off, looked approving.
Her next call was going to a far more used number.
"Who are you calling now?" asked Tony.
"Well considering I'm a frequent flier at Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Girls, I thought I'd call in a few friends."
"Do you really think it's a good idea to get school girls into what's almost guaranteed to be a major fight to the death?" said Steve concerned.
You could imagine his confusion when Natasha was the first to break out in laughter, with Loki and Rowan following suit.
"What's so amusing?" asked Bruce.
"Sister Margaret's isn't a school. The only reason it still has that name is because the owner is too cheap to change it," said Rowan, cackling.
Natasha was barely able to contain her laughter at this point.
"I still don't get why it's funny enough to make the super spy laugh her ass off," said Tony.
"That particular location is a known waypoint for the higher class of mercenaries," explained Fury.
The expression on their faces was even more amusing than their initial confusion.
Rowan managed to contain her amusement long enough to call.
"Yo Weasel...how many are there at the moment?" she said, putting it on speaker. "I have a proposition that will have them not only doing their good deed for the year, but also earning two free rounds on me."
The second she said that second part, several voices cheered loudly through the speaker.
"Now you've gone and done it. Did you seriously have to say that while Wade's here?" complained Weasel.
"Tell Deadpool I'll give him an extra round if he kills more of the alien army than the Avengers combined."
"Taco buddies forever!"
Rowan hung up, and Loki looked more resigned than anything.
"Remind me again why you I permit you to associate with those fools...especially him?" said Loki.
"The mental image of Deadpool being brought to Asgard with me for support and driving Thor's band of idiots up the wall and driving Odin nuts," said Rowan without hesitation.
Loki perked up at that.
"Oh yes, that. I keep having to remind myself that you would happily bring him to Asgard purely to piss off Odin."
"That and you know I'll drink Volstagg under the table while showing Thor's band of idiots all the things I learned from my friends."
Steve...had a headache. Thor was confused. Tony and Natasha, however, were immensely entertained.
Some time later...
Clint hated being controlled. Hated every single second of it. He could hear the whispers and someone was pissed. He didn't particularly care what Loki had done, he just knew whoever was at the other end of it wanted Loki dead.
As he stalked through the familiar halls of the helicarrier, he felt something was off.
So you could imagine his surprise when a fist came out of nowhere and punched him so hard that his head hit the rail. He saw stars, and when he went to get up, he found himself on the wrong end of a green eyed demon girl who reminded him strongly of a pissed off Natasha.
Once she was sure he was freed of mind control, she unceremoniously picked him up and locked him in the med bay. Then she told Natasha where to find him and left them to it.
If Fury held any reservations about Loki's daughter slash apprentice, it died at the terrifying efficiency she showed dealing with the invading troops trying to crash the helicarrier.
Thor was busy trying to deal with the Hulk (he had little to no luck), Tony and Steve were trying to get one of the rotors back up and running, and Natasha was ruthlessly putting down as many as she could.
Thor sat awkwardly in the helicarrier with Loki and Rowan.
Rowan was busy scrolling her phone like any other teenager, and Loki was reading a book. They would be in battle soon enough, so they were catching what little respite they had.
By this point, the Avengers were tentatively accepting of the fact Loki had been under the same control as Barton.
(Clint considered it fair payback for being allowed to punch Loki in the face as hard as he could without any reprisal.)
Did not make the fact that Thor had a rather awkward family situation to deal with.
"We're coming up on New York... Sweet Jesus, that portal is huge," said Steve.
"Oh it's worse than you think...whoever is on the other end controlling them is deliberately targeting civilians," said Rowan.
Natasha turned slightly to look at her.
"How could you possibly know that?"
"The Professor armed the mercenaries helping with their special communicators so they can coordinate. They're having a hell of a time doing damage control, but on the plus side the cops are more inclined to work with the obvious mutants than shoot at them for once," said Rowan. Seeing the look they were giving her, she stared right back at them. "What? Did you think I was just playing games on my phone this entire time?"
"A little, yeah," admitted Clint.
"I'm a student at the mutant school and a part-time student at the New York sanctum for my magical training," said Rowan, rolling her eyes. "Why did you think my first response was to call in back-up from people I knew were competent when things went completely FUBAR? I even have confirmed sightings of Magneto helping out with the evacuation."
"Magneto, as in the mutant terrorist? How did you convince him to help?" said Natasha surprised.
"Good PR does more for both sides of the mutant cause than his usual antics," said Rowan flatly. "Besides, there could be mutant children in there that will remember his actions favorably and be more inclined to help his side if he did something."
Loki beamed at her, and it was clear he was pleased with his daughter's antics.
"How bad is the casualty list?" asked Steve seriously.
"The initial shock has worn off, and since both sides know that reinforcements are coming to deal with the threat specifically they're focusing on containment and helping the law enforcement on the scene get the civilians out safely," said Rowan. "No idea how many are dead yet, but it's already reached above the hundred mark. The Professor has been keeping tabs on where bodies were last seen to help with recovery later, just in case."
Considering New York had hundreds of thousands of people in it, a hundred dead was barely a drop in the bucket. But it was still fairly sobering to hear. Steve gripped the steering column just a bit tighter.
"But...you'll be happy to know that people are fighting back. Don't count humanity's will to live out just yet," said Rowan. "Apparently those who have something to fight for have been taking guns from the local stores and doing their best to help others have a bit more time to get out, and have been defending the hospitals and schools. It's bad, but it could be so much worse."
Steve took a calming breath.
"Thanks...I needed to hear that."
"I know. Hell, from what I've been reading some of the ex-military mutants have managed to round up some soldiers on leave and they've been doing a lot to defend the schools."
It was bad, but her words had given them some measure of hope. They just needed to end this before it got so much worse.