Note: The "edict" to which Loki refers is something I recently saw on the Internet. I have no idea if it's real, but it sounds like a good idea anyway.

Chapter Three

Loki was alone in the library, tidying up the truly remarkable mess left behind by a class of eleven-year-olds, when Annie dropped in to see him.

Annie's sudden appearances still startled George and Mitchell- she now tried to be careful, after an incident involving George and a pot of vegetable soup that had led to all four housemates spending an hour cleaning the kitchen floor and the next two days finding bits of chopped carrot and potato in the strangest places throughout the room. Loki, however, always felt a sort of rustle in the air just before her appearance, as though he could hear her entering the room. He looked up with a smile as she materialized beside him.

"Can you talk?" she asked. Annie did not always remember that mortals could not see her, and had a habit of engaging the housemates in what looked puzzlingly like one-sided conversations in front of humans. Loki, with a great deal of practice at subterfuge, generally retained his composure, unless he thought it would be amusing to appear to be talking to himself. The earnest young men who knocked on doors in the neighbourhood, wishing to discuss salvation and eternal life, had learned to avoid their house.

At the moment, Loki simply nodded. "Yes, the librarian has betaken herself for a 'break'." He glanced around at the chaos of disordered books, discarded notepaper, and illicit foodstuffs and commented, "I rather hope that does not mean 'take refuge in alcohol,' although who could blame her." He returned his full attention to Annie, who almost never came to see him at work. It suddenly occurred to him that she had probably not simply been overcome with the desire for his company. "Is everything all right?" On a note of increasing anxiety: "Is Steve-?"

"Fine. Well, almost fine. Nearly recovered."

Loki blushed, which made Annie's eyes sparkle with mischief. "I am sorry about that. I did not know of the edict against playing the music of Bob Dylan to one who is already distressed. I did not even know who Bob Dylan was."

Their interview with Steve on the previous afternoon had been just as upsetting as everyone anticipated. Steve had been understandably reluctant to believe in the existence of magic, even after Loki had performed an escalating series of conjurations that ended with a half-grown rhinoceros (George: "What is it with you and rhinoceroses?") in the front room, snuffling at Steve's face and attempting to untie his shoelaces with its surprisingly flexible lips.

Loki had sent the animal back where it came from before anything happened he would be obliged to clean up and Steve, wiping perfectly real rhino-slobber from his face, was finally compelled to admit this was not a hallucination. As Loki had hoped, the sheer silliness of the conjuration seemed to reassure the disoriented superhero that he had fallen among beings who were willing to help him.

Which, of course, still left him bewitched and bewildered in a strange place, and a strange time, and among strangers. Until SHIELD arrived to collect him, it seemed the best course was to attempt to reassure him and possibly help him orient himself into the place and time where he found himself. It appeared that, under the spell, he had also forgotten most of what he knew about the current time. Rather than attempt to recap the last seventy years of Midgardian history, Mitchell and George had resorted to what was referred to as "pop culture," in the form of recordings of a television program apparently created by some sort of large serpent.

There were no snakes in evidence, but the program was still extremely puzzling, featuring one illogical sequence after another in rapid succession. Loki and Steve had watched in shared bewilderment, until the segment that began with a strangely-dressed man dancing about with a small fish, and ended with him being knocked into a canal by another strangely-dressed man wielding a much larger fish. Loki could not explain what he had found so funny about it, but he and Steve had both laughed themselves breathless all four times they had made George re-play it for them. Annie had finally rolled her eyes and left the room.

And then Loki had ruined everything by attempting to go on to music, and perfectly innocently choosing a bard from Mitchell's collection who appeared to be from the same part of Midgard as Steve. The voice sounded like it had fallen through the same void Loki had before he arrived in Bristol, which should have been his warning, but he had not heeded it. The next thing anyone knew, the voice was wailing about being on one's own, with no direction home, and Steve burst into tears. Even Loki, although for the most part perfectly content to live in Bristol, had also been visited by a sense of how far away he was from everything that had once been familiar and even beloved-

- and then Mitchell had made a dive for the source of the music and replaced it with a much more cheerful composition about a man who possessed a barrow in a marketplace, and the rest of the evening had been given over to trying to repair the damage Loki had inadvertently done.

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Annie said kindly. "You had no way of knowing. Anyway, we've gotten an email from Jane. She says SHIELD is sending someone to pick Steve up."

"Oh, good. And they understand that their emissary should first come to speak to me, or to Mitchell and George at the hospital, before proceeding to the house?"

"I think so," Annie said.

"Wonderful," Loki said, relieved.

"Who are you talking to?"

Loki jumped, and then turned around to see two familiar small boys standing behind him, looking puzzled.

"Hello Patrick. Trevor. Why are you not in your classroom?" Loki asked, going on the offensive.

"Our teacher told us to come here and ask for a dictionary," explained Patrick, who generally acted as spokeschild for the pair. "Who are you talking to?"

Loki sighed and resorted to complete honesty, which he generally found the best course with small children. "I was speaking to my friend Annie."

Both boys frowned. Patrick asked, "Is she an imaginary friend?"

"No," Loki replied. "She is merely invisible." He kept his expression perfectly serious, despite the fact Annie had burst into her extremely infectious giggle beside him.

Trevor spoke up suddenly. "Is she your invisible girlfriend?"

"That is a question you would have to ask her," Loki replied, attempting to ignore both the heat spreading up his neck to his face, and also the mischievous expression on Annie's.

"But we can't see-" Patrick began to argue.

"That is indeed unfortunate," Loki interrupted. "You were in need of a dictionary?" He had just made a move toward the appropriate shelf- the librarian could sort out the signing-out procedure later- when the sound of a large aircraft approaching the school stopped him in his tracks. The boys forgot all about the dictionary and ran toward the windows. Loki and Annie followed them.

The sound was indeed that of a large aircraft: a gigantic airship was hovering a few hundred feet from the ground, a short distance away from the school, its rotors blowing stray papers and debris across the schoolyard.

"Is that the Avengers' helicarrier?" Annie asked. A number of the television news reports about the Avengers had included shots of their mobile command quarters, so Loki nodded.

"I believe it is," he agreed. "I was expecting a less conspicuous entrance. However, we should go speak to them."

"You, anyway," Annie replied. "Since they can't see me."

"Oh, yes." He turned to Patrick and Trevor. "You two should return immediately to your classroom." The two boys completely ignored him and, as he and Annie left the library, they followed.

In fact, by the time Loki emerged from the school, half the teachers and most of the students were either in the yard or peering from the windows. Mentally cursing the entire SHIELD organization, Loki left Annie standing by the building and walked into the middle of the yard to wait for someone to emerge from the helicarrier to speak to him.

Loki was expecting a man in a subdued suit, like the ones who attempted to confront the Destroyer on that particularly unfortunate occasion in New Mexico. He was actually rather curious about how the SHIELD representative was going to exit the helicarrier in midair, and was wondering whether this would be an appropriate time to tender an apology for the Destroyer incident, when a hatch on the side of the airship opened and a red and golden figure flew out.

"It's Iron Man!" Patrick, who was directly behind him, exclaimed-unnecessarily, since even if Loki had not had access to a television, he had encountered a great many action figures of this hero in the past few weeks.

"It certainly is," Loki replied, beginning to feel a twinge of unease. Why would Iron Man be sent to conduct such a simple interview? "Go back into the school immediately." He did not wait to ensure he had been obeyed-he was not-before starting forward again. His protective charm had not been activated by the approach of the airship or the Avenger, which was not surprising since the magic was triggered by the presence of evil. Still, he felt a powerful instinct to draw this encounter as far away from the school as possible.

Loki had almost reached the fence when Iron Man landed, in front of and about twenty feet away from him. The featureless mask retracted from his face, which was some relief, revealing the sardonic visage of Tony Stark, the man behind the superhero.

"I'm looking for Loki Odinson," Stark/Iron Man said, raising his voice above the roar of the helicarrier's engines.

"You have found him," Loki replied evenly. "I presume this is about Steve Rogers?"

"Yes. What did you do to him?" Stark demanded flatly.

The feeling of apprehension became worse. "You have already been to the house?" Loki countered. If a mere image of Thor had frightened Steve so badly, Loki could not begin to imagine how this massive craft and mechanical man would affect him.

"Sure have, and I have to say, credit where it's due, you're obviously good, in a very evil way. He was completely incoherent. Took me and four SHIELD agents to get him into the helicarrier. Sorry about your house."

"You- What did you do to him?" Loki demanded. Stark looked rather amused at having his own question thrown back at him.

"I think that's my line, kid. It's obvious you've used some kind of magic on him, and we need to know what it is. Now, do you want to do this the easy way, or the hard way?"

"I did nothing to him," Loki protested, and then asked the question he should have begun with: "Have you spoken to my brother?"

"Nope. Can't seem to find him, he seems to have gone off sightseeing or something. In the meantime, your reputation has definitely preceded you."

Loki's heart sank. "I think... I think there has been a misunderstanding."

"Oh, sure." Stark smiled, and even in his state of rising alarm Loki registered that the expression rivaled his own best efforts at a sarcastic smirk. Stark went on, "Dr. Foster contacted us and explained you were holding Captain America. Although she seemed to have the impression he was your guest." Stark shook his head in apparent admiration. "You're good. Didn't you try to kill her not very long ago?" Loki had no concise response to that question, so he ignored it. Stark went on, "As I say, it doesn't take a wizard to know you magicked Steve-"

"I believe the word you seek is 'ensorceled,' and I had nothing to do with it," Loki replied. "As I explained to Jane in my message, one of my housemates encountered Steve in need of assistance, and we provided it. I am aware that magic was used upon him, but I have no more idea than you what it was. And so, unless you require my assistance in identifying the spell, I believe this concludes our business. I have a considerable mess to deal with in the library, so I will take my leave of you." Loki began to turn away.

Stark took a step forward, and a stone bounced off his metal chest. Loki's head whipped around and Trevor froze in the act of bringing his own rock to throwing position. Loki narrowed his eyes at Patrick, the original culprit.

"We do not throw stones at people. Or superheroes," Loki reminded him. "You will return to your classroom immediately." Before this mechanical idiot becomes convinced you are my evil minions and does something to hurt you. Patrick opened his mouth for an inevitable protest and Loki said firmly, "I appreciate your efforts to assist me, but they are inappropriate. Go."

This time, to Loki's relief, the boys obeyed. With a final gesture at Iron Man that Loki strongly suspected was obscene, Patrick turned and scampered toward the door, Trevor following with the rock still clutched in his hand. Loki suspected he would find at least one red-and-golden action figure abandoned in the near future, and that no one would ever come to claim it.

"I apologize for that," he addressed Stark. "Children. Now, if you will excuse me."

The instinct not to turn his back on Stark was powerful within him, but he did not care for the entire school to see him backing away from Iron Man as though afraid of him. And even if he could gather enough magic to give an account of himself, he was certainly not going to engage in battle with an Avenger, even in self-defense: the natural opposite of a superhero was a supervillain, and Loki was not interested in applying for the post.

Loki therefore turned around, cast what he hoped was a reassuring glance at Annie, and began to walk toward her and the school. He was gambling that Stark would not actually attack him in full view of dozens of witnesses, most of them children.

It was just as well Loki had never attempted to support himself by betting on horses.

Even if he had been facing Iron Man, it was very unlikely he could have altered what happened next. Some time previously, his brother and their friend the Lady Sif had paid a visit to Loki and his friends, and the evening had included funny stories of past adventures. Thor had told one about being relatively powerless on Midgard, and encountering a young woman armed with something called a "taser." Being attacked with this weapon did not really sound terribly funny, although Thor seemed amused by the memory.

Loki was not powerless by any means, but without the support of ambient magic he was definitely weaker on Midgard than he would be on another realm. And, as recent encounters with vampires had made clear to him, he was a creature of meat and blood as well as magic, with the vulnerabilities that went with them.

Iron Man did not use a taser on Loki, but the massive jolt of electrical power he fired between the sorcerer's shoulderblades served the same purpose: it scrambled his nerve impulses so that everything shut down, including the ability to control magic. And to breathe.

The dirt schoolyard rushing up to meet him was the last thing Loki saw before blackness descended.