After spending the night walking around New York City glaring at people, smashing potted plants, and magicking graffiti onto walls (most of which said things like "Avengers Stink!" in less kind terminology), Loki was irritable and tired. To make matters worse, his phone buzzed around six in the morning, alerting him that Stark wanted him to report to the Tower immediately.

He considered ignoring the message and dropping his phone in a trash bin so that he couldn't be tracked down, but he knew that if he did then Thor would fly to the apartment and demand that Maisy tell him Loki's location. And Maisy wouldn't know and she'd probably get mad with Thor and Thor would be angered and then everyone would be furious with Loki and if he ever decided to show up then he wouldn't be able to mend the tear he'd created between himself and Maisy. At least, not without a lot of work and, more than likely, weeks of apologies.

So, he made his way to the Avengers' Tower and went to see if Stark actually wanted something or if he was just being a pain in the ass. It turned out to be the latter.

"What do you want from me?" Loki snarled.

"Oooh, someone is in a bad mood!"

"If you do not have a reason for my being here then I'm leaving."

"Listen, I know you aren't a morning person, but just because you didn't get your beauty sleep it doesn't mean you can act all moody all the time."

"I did not get any sleep last night," Loki turned to go, "And as you can see, I am not committing any crimes against humanity so I will be taking my leave."

"No sleep, huh? Welcome to the club," Tony laughed, "I spent all night working on a suit upgrade. It's gonna be great."

"I'm sure," Loki strode over to the elevator, but Stark wasn't done being a pest.

"So, any progress on finding the scepter?"

"None at all," Loki lied and then rubbed his forehead tiredly, "But I did stumble across the locations of a few more Hydra bases. I shall text you the coordinates."

"Whoa, whoa, slow down there! How'd you get that information?"

Loki sighed heavily, raised a brow, and wiggled his fingers.

"Magic. Wooooooo."

"Right. Well, why don't you come down to the lab with me and we'll map out those coordinates. Unless you have bigger plans for the day? Lounging around in your apartment pining over Maisy while she's at work, perhaps? I'd hate to interrupt pining."

Loki was fairly certain that if he spent the day in Stark's company, there would be one very, very dead billionaire playboy philanthropist within a few hours time. If the god of mischief had had enough sleep the night before then he might have realized that this would be something to avoid so he didn't end up back in a cell on Asgard. However, Loki was running on fumes and what was left of his boiling anger and irritation from the day before and he wasn't thinking clearly.

He smiled at the thought of Tony lying in a pool of blood.

"Very well, Stark. Let's get to work."

"You sure I'm not ruining your plans to gaze at a picture of Maisy while you think of baby names?"

"Speaking of children," Loki lead the way to the elevator, "How are your own attempts at creating progeny coming? I haven't seen Ms. Potts around in a while. You two aren't having a tiff are you?"

Tony shut up about Maisy immediately and only spoke about Hydra from there on out.

Luckily, as they discussed the locations that Loki had learned from Blaze, Tony accepted "magic wooooo" as an answer for how Loki had gotten these rather precise coordinates. It was a good thing Thor wasn't there or else he would have questioned the vague answer. Even if the crown prince couldn't cast spells himself, he knew enough about how magic worked to know that Loki would have had to do some complicated (and possibly immoral) things to get such specific information.

But Thor was not there and evidently Stark was too tired from his own sleepless night to access his usually invasive curiosity.

While they charted the locations and investigated satellite images of those places, Loki began to cool down somewhat. He tried not to think of Maisy just yet, because he knew that would lead to thinking about Egil and that would bring back his anger in full force. Instead he directed his thoughts toward Blaze and what she could possibly gain from telling him where the scepter was.

He didn't think it was a trap, either. At least, not in the way that Hydra had some secret weapon waiting to destroy them as soon as they got the scepter. Loki didn't think Blaze was all that attached to the terrorist group and she probably wouldn't help them destroy him, considering Surtur seemed to want him alive. Blaze was ruthless and cold, but she was also loyal. If her master wanted Loki alive then she would do her best to ensure he stayed that way.

Which could only mean that somehow if Loki got the scepter and, perhaps, took down Hydra, then it would be one step closer to Ragnarok. Somehow. Seeing as bringing about the fall of Asgard was Surtur's biggest (and only) aspiration in life, it had to be related to Ragnarok.

If Thor was faced with this situation, Loki thought, then he would probably tell the Avengers that their actions against Hydra could possibly be leading to the downfall of the Realm Eternal. And then they could all do something crafty and heroic together to still get the scepter out of Hydra's hands, while keeping Surtur from winning.

Of course, if Thor was in Loki's current situation, well, he wouldn't be in Loki's current situation. He would have never traded information with Blaze and if he had then he would have made sure that the Avengers knew about it right away. Teamwork made the dreamwork and there was no "I" in "team" but there was an "I" in "Loki" and one in "Maisy" as well. And those were the only two things he cared about (okay, fine, Linn also), soooo… he hadn't told the Avengers about his discussion with Blaze because it had suited his needs.

Sadly, this meant that whatever happened as a result of his information trade with the crazy woman was his problem to deal with alone. He'd have to keep it to himself or else suffer the Avengers scolding him about not telling them sooner and possibly suspecting him of conspiring with her.

Thinking about his new coworkers daring to shake their fingers at him made him grouchy and he accidentally cracked the screen of one of the devices he and Stark had been using to view the areas where the Hydra bases were supposed to be.

"Whoa, buddy," Stark looked up from the screen, "You okay there?"

"Fine."

"Hey, listen, I know I'm probably one of your least favorite people on the planet..."

"No, not at all," Loki rolled his eyes, "Whatever gave you that impression?"

"But we are part of a team now, alright? I can't pep talk you into telling me what's wrong like Steve can, and I can't interrogate it out of you like Romanoff, but if you've got something on your mind you can tell me."

"Oh goodness me! I can tell you? How wonderful, all of my problems will be solved!" Loki scoffed and pushed his rolling chair away from the other man, crossing his arms and raising a brow, "What are you getting at Stark? We both know that you couldn't care less about me or my problems."

"So you are having a problem! Fess up! Spill the proverbial beans!"

"I'd rather give Odin an apology for everything I've ever done," Loki laughed.

"So is it daddy issues that's got you down?" Stark stroked his goatee, "I can relate. My old man? He was always more interested in his company than his son."

"And then he died in a horrible accident. My 'old man' has yet to do something so kind for those around him."

"You're trying to get me riled up so I drop this, but it's not going to work," Tony pointed at him, "It's not old Odin that's messing with your head right now. If it was you wouldn't have said anything else about him."

"Wouldn't I have?"

"No, no, you talk about stuff when you don't want to talk about stuff."

"That doesn't make sense."

"You mislead people and get them to talk about one thing so they don't dig deeper into the other thing. You do that intentionally or subconsciously?"

Loki's teeth ground together. Was his ploy really so obvious? Maisy hadn't seen through it the night before, but Linn had. And now Stark (who was, admittedly, rather observant when he wanted to be) had caught him at it too.

"I don't have any idea of what you could be talking about," Loki said and got up out of his chair. He intended to leave before the other man could take another guess at what was upsetting him. The last thing he wanted was to admit to one of the Avengers that he and Maisy were fighting.

"You and Maisy fighting?" Tony asked and Loki couldn't hide his reaction. His fist curled and he tensed. Stark spotted it immediately. "Oh damn, you guys are fighting."

"Whatever could have lead you to that assumption?" Loki smoothed over his expression and turned back to the man a pitying smile, "You're really grasping at straws now."

"C'mon, fess up."

"We might have had a spat last night, but nothing serious. Truly, that isn't what is troubling me."

"A spat, huh? I don't need to start searching dark alleys for her body or anything, do I?"

"I have not and will not ever murder her, Stark," Loki growled, "I'd much rather turn my more violent urges toward you. Care to take another trip out the window?"

"Hey, hey, I'm just checking," Stark put his hands up peaceably, "If the fight was bad enough that you didn't get any sleep last night then I figured you'd be pretty mad."

"I was not kept awake by guilty feelings," Loki rolled his eyes, "There were other circumstances that lead to my restless night."

"Oooh," Tony laughed, "She made you sleep on the couch, didn't she?"

"No."

"I bet she did."

"We don't possess a couch, so no."

"Oh man! She made you leave the whole apartment!"

"I chose to leave. We both needed to cool down."

"And you don't have any friends so you didn't have anywhere to sleep last night! Reindeer Games, you're really in the doghouse, aren't you?"

"I gave you the coordinates. I shall take my leave of you now," he headed for the door again.

"Hey, Loki, I'm sorry," Stark called, "Next time she kicks you out you can come here, alright?"

"I'd rather find a comfortable park bench if this ever happens again."

"I'm not offering out the kindness of my heart. We can't have you roaming the streets alone. Come here next time and you can have all the pity booze you want and I won't even tell Thor."

"There won't be a next time, Stark," Loki left, heading for the apartment. He'd make sure there wasn't a next time. He could be incredibly persuasive when he wanted to and he was sure it would only take a few moments of rational conversation to get Maisy to realize how wise he'd been to kill Egil in the first place. It would be simple.

A note from the author: See! See! You doubted me, but I did it! I posted chapters two days in a row! Ha! It's kinda sad that I'm proud of that after I updated almost every day last summer, but whatever. Last summer I didn't have a job so I had much more time. Anyway, I hope you liked how Loki is coping with the fight. Tony is just the thing to take his mind off of his fight with Maisy!

Thanks for reading even though I'm sometimes mean to characters! ;)

Special thanks to Ninja Squirrel for reviewing! Now I'm kind of imagining Loki being all angsty, walking around, singing "In Her Eyes". Because he's dramatic like that. XD About the dreams... we shall just have to wait and see! Mwahahaha!

Until next time folks!