Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

Agent Phil Coulson

Being SHIELD's official liaison to the Avengers meant that Coulson never had a boring day of work in his life these days. If he wasn't fielding the media or making sure that Thor had actually used Word's spell checker and/or had Dr. Foster read over his reports before filing them, he tended to be on call, checking out potential leads on unusual activity, making sure that Doctors Foster and Selvig had the equipment they needed when they needed it, or dropping in unannounced at Stark's residence to check on His Team.

And yes, so far as Coulson was concerned, the Avengers - from Captain America to the gods of thunder and mischief - was His Team.

Coulson walked into the living room of Stark's home, giving a nod to the people who were scattered about the room. Stark himself was sprawled comfortably on one of the two couches, a cup of coffee (probably his fourth) in hand and chatting quietly with Agent Romanoff, seated next to him but with her feet propped on the table. Agent Barton was on the other side of Romanoff and waved lazily to Coulson as he walked in.

On the opposite sofa, Captain Rogers was flipping through the newspaper while Dr. Banner appeared to be meditating; Coulson wouldn't interrupt until it was necessary to begin the meeting. Beside him was Loki, who had somehow procured a stopwatch and seemed to be timing Banner for reasons known only to him. Thor himself was seated on the coffee table, and he beamed brightly when he spotted the SHIELD liaison.

"Good morning, Avengers," Coulson greeted, noting that Banner took the stopwatch from Loki upon opening his eyes and tucking it into his own pocket. "I know these bimonthly meetings are boring, but they are mandatory."

"We could petition to have them quarterly," Stark commented.

"You avoid the quarterly meetings at your own company," Coulson reminded him as he moved to set up the television for the video conference. "This way we can make sure that you aren't attempting to have someone take notes for you."

Stark effected a hurt look. "Now that is not true."

"So why did I take notes for you at the shareholder's meeting?" Romanoff asked casually, smiling slightly as the men snorted with suppressed laughter (Stark included).

Coulson cleared his throat, not wanting them to get started and then have to put out any fires quickly. "We're ready to begin," he said, stepping back as Director Fury's call connected and the screen went live.

Director Fury looked momentarily surprised before his expression shifted to annoyance. "Why do you have to do this every meeting?" he snapped. "Whether I'm actually in the room or on video conference, you always do this. The meetings aren't that boring, are they?"

Loki blinked innocently, although given that he was currently wearing Director Fury's face it looked more like a wink. "It's because I admire you so," he said seriously. Stark snickered into his coffee cup and Romanoff reached over to smack him. Coulson reminded himself to thank her for that later even as he moved a half-step closer to the shape-shifter.

"In the interest of getting this meeting started and finished quicker, could you possibly choose another form?" he suggested casually. As usually happened, Loki effected a bored shrug and melted easily back into his usual body. For a moment, Coulson wondered if he would continue on into his female form (as he had last meeting) or into one of his teammates (he'd been Romanoff two meetings ago and Miss Lewis the time before that), but this time Loki stopped at his own shape.

Coulson stepped back and listened as Director Fury finally started the meeting. Really, he just couldn't understand why so many people were startled by Loki's chameleon nature. After all, the Avengers had on their roster a World War II hero who was frozen in time at his prime, a CEO with a miniature arc reactor keeping him alive, a scarily accurate marksman, a woman who may or may not have been a gymnast in her past life, a scientist infused with gamma radiation that it was best not to piss off, and a pair of aliens who had been mistaken by the early Norse as gods. It would be more astonishing if one of the team wasn't a shape-shifter.

Notes: And boom, finito! This whole thing wound up being in the neighborhood of 2750 words, so I'm oddly impressed with myself right now.

The reason I picked Coulson as the one person who was very very "meh" about the whole thing in spite of not always being around came directly from the first Iron Man film. Specifically the part where he puts a detonator on a door, walks away, and oh-so-goddamn-casually crosses his arms and patiently waits for it to explode.

That's when I went "oh yeah, Loki's shenanigans don't even register for him."

Thank you all for following along with my madness, and I hope you've enjoyed it!