Things at Avengers Tower were going well. Which surprised everyone. Loki was continually astonished that he'd been able to stop himself from wringing Tony Stark's neck or throwing him out a window again, but somehow he'd managed civility with the people he despised and life was grand. As grand as it could be when Captain America and Iron Man were constantly suspicious of him.
Maisy was enjoying her job at the boutique and a few weeks after she started her boss had asked her to design some things for the shop. Doing what she loved all day put her into a better mood, generally, and she hadn't experienced any nightmares for a long time. At least, not that she'd told Loki about.
Linn seemed happy enough, though she sulked for a few days after Bjorn returned to Asgard. Once she had finished feeling sorry for herself, she and her friends had thrown themselves back into their efforts to get the school dress code changed. With that and homework - not to mention the fact that the one girl, Alexis, had asked Linn to be on the prom planning committee - meant Linn was quite busy. Loki thought she was doing well on Midgard and, though she seemed happy no matter her location, she had never been quite this joyful in Asgard. Perhaps that was partly because here she could simply live as a teenager and not an adult providing for her father.
While Maisy worked at the boutique and Linn went to school, Loki spent his days in Stark's lab trying to explain the intricacies of the universe without murdering those who asked pesky questions. Banner and Stark at least understood him to some extent, but they still got on his nerves most of the time.
"How can you be this idiotic?" He asked one day as he gestured to the drawing he'd made of Yggdrasil on a holographic whiteboard, "Honestly, from what Thor tells me it only took Dr. Foster an hour to understand this. Why can't your puny minds grasp the simplest of knowledge?"
"Careful who you call puny," Bruce chided quietly and Loki remembered to reign in his temper.
"Explain it again," Tony demanded, "I want the whole spiel again."
"Fine," Loki pointed to the nine points on the tree, "Asgard, Svartalfheim, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Midgard, Jotunheim, Niflheim, Nidavellir, Muspelheim - I assume you remember the nine realms by this point?"
"Yes, but I don't understand what constitutes a realm as opposed to a planet. Aren't they all just planets?"
"Asgard is flat," Loki manipulated the hologram and then drew a new image of Asgard floating in space, "So they are not all planets."
"Doesn't it orbit a sun, though?"
"No," Loki scoffed, slightly offended by the idea, "It is the Realm Eternal. A sun orbits Asgard."
"That doesn't make any sense!"
"It's the highest realm! It doesn't have to make sense!"
"Everything has to obey the laws of physics!"
"Then explain to me how a sun orbits Asgard rather than the other way around," Loki crossed his arms and raised a brow.
"It can't! That's a medieval mindset that Galileo disproved!"
"Maybe for this solar system."
"Fine, assuming that somehow that's true, what about the other realms? Why is earth a realm, but Mars isn't?" Bruce asked, fidgeting with his glasses.
"For one, in this reality there is no life on Mars, obviously."
"What do you mean 'in this reality'?" Tony said, "How many realities are there? Is it really endless?"
"I suppose," Loki shrugged, "I have not looked into that portion of mystic studies much because it is of no interest to me."
"How can it be of no interest to you?!"
"I don't know," Loki rolled his eyes, "How can ballet be of no interest to you, Stark? I read what I had to on the subject in school and I've since forgotten all but the basics."
"Brother, be patient with them," Thor said, walking into the lab with his arms full of snacks for the studiers, "This is all new information to the Midgardians, after all. It would be like teaching a child to read in a day!"
"I learned how to read in a day," Tony commented, stealing some of Thor's food, "But maybe Point Break is right. I think even my brain needs a pause."
"Maybe we should call Jane in," Bruce rubbed his forehead tiredly, "This all seems more like her area of expertise and I'm sure she'd want to be here to listen to Loki."
"I think that is an excellent idea!" Thor declared and then sighed, "But Jane is quite busy with her other studies. There is word of her getting some sort of prize for her work on the Convergence. A, what was it? Nobel Prize?"
"That's great, good for her!" Bruce said, sounding somewhat jealous.
"Well, you know Pepper has been…"
Loki tuned them out as Tony and Thor began bragging about their girlfriends. If it came down to it, they all knew who the best woman out of the bunch was. At least in Loki's opinion. Maisy may not have been doing ground breaking research or running a multimillion dollar company, but she was one of the only things keeping Loki from killing the Avengers out of irritation. Which meant, she was indirectly saving the earth.
While they took a snack break, Loki tried to think of a way to better explain Yggdrasil and its intricacies to Stark and Banner. He hadn't even gotten into travel between the realms yet. He seriously doubted their tiny minds could take it if they couldn't even understands the basics of what made a realm a realm rather than or in addition to making it a planet. Honestly, what oafs!
"So, Loki, you excited for tomorrow?"
"I rarely excite over the matters of Midgard," Loki replied to whatever they'd been referring to. They all seemed to be looking for a more concrete answer and Loki realized he probably should have been paying attention, "What are we talking about?"
"Tomorrow! You're first mission as an Avenger!" Thor exclaimed, hugging Loki tightly, "I will admit that it brings me great joy to have you fighting for the forces of good once more!"
"Not an Avenger," Loki quipped, "A consultant. I had not been informed we had a mission tomorrow."
"Dammit, someone was supposed to brief him!" Tony exclaimed, "Oh wait, that was me. I was supposed to. Whoopsies."
"Stark!" Thor growled, "I understand that you and Loki do not get along, but I will not stand for you neglecting giving him information that could mean the difference between life and death in the heat of the battle!"
"Alright, alright," Tony rolled his eyes and stroked his goatee, "I'm sorry."
"We're fiddling with life and death, are we?" Loki asked boredly, "I'd best tell Maisy - she'll be peeved."
"You aren't going to die. No one is going to die," Tony said firmly, "It's not as big of a deal as Thor is making it. One tiny mission."
"Rogers does not seem to think it is such a small matter," Thor protested, "His friend, Sam Wilson, insisted it was quite serious."
"Well, if Cap wants me to make a big deal out of this stuff then he should have given me more information about the actual mission long before this."
"Could someone please explain to me what it is we are doing tomorrow?" Loki examined his nails tiredly. He didn't particularly care what the mission was about. He only knew that he would go and do whatever needed to be done to make sure the Avengers allowed him and Maisy to stay on Midgard.
"Hydra," Tony said, "You heard of them? They messed around with the Tesseract before you did?"
"Ah yes, they are the ones who are led by the Scarlet Skull in the 1980s or whatever, correct?"
"They were led by the Red Skull," Tony corrected, "In the 40s. Now we aren't so sure who's in charge. Cap knows the most about the subject. All you need to know is that Sam Wilson - the 'Falcon' - found a Hydra base last week and we're going to strike tomorrow. Got it?"
"Any particular objectives while we're there?" Loki picked lint off of the lab coat he'd stolen hours ago. He felt it made him look more scientific and like he was some great expert on the cosmos. In reality he'd simply done some light reading on the realms. Thor probably knew just as much as he did, if not more because he'd probably studied up to impress Jane.
"No," Tony and Bruce snapped at the same time and Loki smiled at them.
"So, there is an objective too sensitive for my ears. Don't deny it, next time, just tell me it's confidential."
"You aren't going to try and find out what it is?"
"Oh, I'm sure if it was important you would have told me," his smirk grew, "I trust that you have my best interests at heart. Isn't that what teams do? Trust each other?"
"You aren't in any position to guilt us into trusting you, Oh Destroyer of Realms," Tony pointed at him and then stuffed the rest of his snack in his mouth, "It's not going to work."
"Maybe we should tell him," Bruce said, "I mean he might be some help-"
"Just because he's being all domestic these days doesn't mean he's changed! We aren't telling him."
"He has changed!" Thor declared loudly, "Haven't you, brother?"
"I really haven't," Loki sneered at them as he walked toward the door, "When are we leaving tomorrow?"
"Six AM," Tony said, eyes narrowed.
"Ew, morning," Loki sighed and waved tauntingly at them, "I shall see you all then."
"You aren't going to keep talking about, Egg, uh, Eegg-basil? Yig-dizzy," Bruce lowered his glasses and squinted at his notes, "Yggdrasil?"
"If we are to engage in life threatening business tomorrow then I'd best, as you humans say, 'get my affairs in order'. And it's time to pick Linn up from school," he shook his head, "Blast, I forgot to get a snack for her. She's always so hungry after school. And if I don't get her something substantial she'll be cranky. Of course if it's too substantial Maisy says it spoils her dinner and we wouldn't want-"
"Dude. We don't care."
"Oh I'm sorry, is the hunger of a child no concern of yours? How silly of me."
He stepped out of the room and waited just outside to see if the Avengers would be dumb enough to give away what their objective for the mission was. They were not, but Thor scolded his teammates a bit more about how they ought to show Loki a bit more respect if they ever wanted him to help them. Loki rolled his eyes and went to pick up Linn.
A note from the author: Loki's about to embark on his first mission as an Avenger! Hurray! Maybe punching some Hydra baddies in the face will be a good outlet for his evil tendencies.
I can't remember if I've said this already or not, but now that I have the whole story written out and I know the direction that everything is going, I will probably post chapters more frequently. So for those of you who don't have accounts and don't get alerts when I update, I'll probably post two or three times a week now. :)
Thank you so much for reading!
And special thanks to my awesome reviewers:
ferbette: As she's sarcastically saying "oh no, the horror, the horror" she probably would be stabbing someone with each syllable and then finish by staring into the camera like on the Office. XD
CheetahLover: *Blaze glances nervously at the wolves* "Heh heh, nice doggies! Nice doggies! I love puppies! Please don't rip my throat out!" *she tries to hide behind Strucker*
Ninja Squirrel: You read my mind! I have been planning on doing something like that, actually! That and, uh, throwing around the idea of a third one... I'm still not sure about writing a third part because this story ends in a pretty good spot I think and even though I still have loads more ideas it might be nice to work on something new. But I am for sure going to do a sort of collection like you suggested! I already have some great ideas for it and I can also do deleted scenes and stuff. It'll be kind of like a bonus features disc lol. :D
Dragoncat: I was going to say "cool motive, still murder" but then I remembered it technically was an execution and not murder because Surtur gave Loki permission. So you are correct! XD
You guys are the best! I love you and your reviews and our little weird community. Until next time!