Author's Note: I'm baaaack! Did you miss me? I missed me. And you know it's bad when you miss your own writing! Work was crazy for me this week.

Thanks to all who left reviews on the last chapter, they're always appreciated! Thanks to all who favorited and followed, too.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this next installment. As always, REVIEWS ARE DEVOURED LIKE CANDY so please leave one if you can. Favorites and follows work, too.

WARNING: HERE THERE BE COPIOUS LORD OF THE RINGS SPOILERS. If you haven't watched the movies and have no interest in them...sorry! But it really shouldn't be too bad. ;)

Chapter Seven

"He's in my lab…" Tony said; a not-so-subtle tinge of disgust in his tone. "I still can't believe he's in my lab…"

Christy sighed, following her uncle's gaze to where Loki stood with Bruce, hashing out some quasi-magical, quasi-scientific cure for something.

Distraction, distraction; that's my name…

She grabbed his arm and tapped her homework sheet with her other hand. "Uncle Tony, you gotta help me with this! You're my only hope!"

Tony snorted. "You can do it on your own. Besides, this is the last problem. Just add the 53 to the 136 and you're done."

Rolling her eyes, Christy did so; in her head, no less. Tony's lessons were paying off. "Uncle Tony, can we have a movie marathon this weekend?"

Still haphazardly glaring at Loki, Tony muttered. "Yeah, yeah, sure; whatever you want, kid."

It was clear that he was not paying attention. Christy sighed again.

"Uncle Tony, can I take your private jet to Las Vegas?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure…wait, what?!"

"Well, you weren't listening!" Christy cried, throwing up her hands in exasperation.

"I'm listening now!" Tony huffed.

"So can we watch Lord of the Rings this weekend or not? Dad finished the first book and I think Uncle Thor would really like it!"

She also thought Loki would enjoy the movies as well, but she was smart enough not to mention him.

Tony frowned, thinking. "Eh…why not? Are Robin Hood and Little Orphan Annie in this weekend?"

"Yeah. And you know Aunt Tasha would kill you if she heard you call her that."

"Hey, what happens in the lab stays in the lab."

From where he stood across the lab, Bruce smiled and felt profoundly grateful that Christy had decided to do her homework in the lab most afternoons. At least, as long as it was math homework, which was usually all she did have. Christy had a rather clever knack for finishing most of her homework at school

"Bruce! We're having a movie marathon this weekend! You're invited." Tony half-yelled across the room.

"I heard you, Tony, I'm not deaf." Bruce said calmly.

There was a small pause. Then, Loki said quietly, "Am I…uninvited, then?"

The pause grew more awkward.

And then, suddenly, Vader's March from Star Wars began to play.

The three men stared at Christy, who shook her head vigorously. "Don't look at me!"

Tony groaned. "J, are you kidding me?"

"I was merely trying to lighten the mood, Sir." said the AI coolly.

Christy giggled. That seemed to break the spell and calm things down. Tony sighed.

"Alright, alright; you can come, too, Reindeer Games. But you put one foot out of line and so help me, I'll…"

"Why do you call me that?"

Tony looked startled. Loki rarely ever addressed him directly. "Huh?"

"Most of your nicknames are simple enough to deduce, but I do not understand why you insist on calling me 'Reindeer Games'."

"It's your helmet." Bruce explained. "It looks like…ah, Jarvis? Little help here?"

Jarvis pulled up a screen showing images of reindeer.

"Thanks. Anyway, that's a reindeer. Your helmet looks like their horns. A bit."

Loki nodded slowly. "And 'games'?"

"It's a reference to a song…it's kinda complicated to explain."

"Alright then." Loki turned back to Tony. "I promise to behave, Stark. Thank you for the invitation."

"Uh…you're welcome then." Tony stuttered.

He really does have terrible inter-personal social skills. Bruce thought wryly. But we love him anyway.

Christy inched over to where Bruce and Loki were working. "What are you guys doing?"

Bruce sighed. "Well, we're trying to convert magic into something tangible, like a pill or even a liquid, for shots."

"Ugh, shots…" Christy shuddered.

"Shots or chemo, which would you prefer?" Bruce asked, not unkindly.

"Shots, please." Christy whispered, her smile drooping into a frown.

To Tony's surprise, though not Bruce's, Loki gently placed his hand on Christy's shoulder. "We're making progress; or so Dr. Banner informs me, for I know little of practical medicine. We should have something soon."

Christy smiled, though her eyes were still a bit sad.

For the first time since this whole mess had begun, Tony conceded that maybe, possibly, it might not be a completely horrible thing that Loki was on Earth.

Maybe.

It was Friday night and everything was set up on the Common Floor.

Pepper had come; officially, because she liked Lord of the Rings, but also to help calm any arguments that might arise.

Between Thor to watch Loki, Steve to watch Natasha and Clint, Pepper and Bruce to watch Tony, and Christy to shame them all into acting civil, the evening promised to be…fairly calm, if not exactly ideal.

Tony had ordered ten pizzas, all stacked up on the counter. Everyone settled down in the entertainment area, trying to sit somewhere that wouldn't end in an argument with the person next to them.

"Jarvis, start playing The Fellowship of the Ring, extended edition, please."

As the beginning prologue started to play, Thor 'whispered' to Loki, "I do not understand this, brother…"

"Thor, hush, they explain everything in this part!"

"Would you two shut up, we're trying to watch!" Natasha hissed. "And why is he even here, again?"

This was starting to go suspiciously like it had the first time all the Avengers plus Loki were in a relaxed setting. Christy tugged at Steve's sleeve nervously.

The super soldier sighed. "Jarvis, pause the movie for a moment, please." When the AI did so, he leaned over to the threesome and said in his best 'team leader' voice.

"No more arguments. Thor, watch the movie, they should explain things. And if you make my child throw up again with your arguments, I swear by my spangled suit, I will end you!"

Nobody said anything for a moment. Steve very rarely got angry. Then, Tony sniggered.

"Did you really just say…?"

"Yes, Stark, I did."

"When did Christy throw up?" Pepper asked.

"The first night Loki was here, I tried to have a team dinner. Not one of my better ideas. All the arguing made her nervous and that made her sick."

Pepper sighed. "You people are ridiculous."

"Can we watch the movie now?" Clint asked, annoyed. Bruce nodded

"Jarvis, start it again." Tony said.

There were no more arguments that night.

They got through Fellowship of the Ring without too much incident. Everyone finally understood why Tony called Clint Legolas.

Clint himself spent half the movie analyzing Legolas' shots and explaining why most of them had to be CGI because they were impossible to make.

Everyone agreed that Saruman was a jerk. Although Tony couldn't stop giggling at the fight between him and Gandalf, even after Pepper slapped his arm. ("Old man fight! Look at them, Pep!").

When Aragorn was introduced, Christy whispered to Steve, "Is he a good guy, Daddy?"

"Oh, yeah." Steve whispered back. "He's a very good guy."

Aragorn quickly became Christy's favorite. She also rather liked Arwen.

When Boromir betrayed the fellowship, it was too much for Tony.

"He's a jerk! They trusted him, and he just…ugh!"

Pepper had to snuggle up against him to calm him down.

Needless to say, everyone was affected by the movie, in many cases, a great deal more than they let on.

The next night rolled on much the same as the first. Clint joked that they were all going to get out of shape eating so much pizza.

Loki was getting thoroughly annoyed with Gollum. And he was also not happy at the looks everyone kept shooting him once Grima Wormtongue showed up.

Whatever my behavior in the past, at least my hygiene was never lacking!

The looks only got worse once it was shown that Wormtongue was controlling the king's mind. Clint's face also gained a pinched look that didn't let up until Gandalf released Théoden from the spell.

They all cheered at that part, even Loki.

He found that the idea of taking over another's mind had lost its appeal, somewhere after his talk with Bruce.

Everybody laughed over Merry and Pippin's antics with the Ents. And cheered again when the fortress of Isengard was destroyed by them.

"Moral of the story, be nice to the trees, kiddies, or they'll come and attack you." Tony muttered.

Both Thor and Loki looked decidedly uncomfortable at the flashback to Boromir and Faramir, before Boromir left on the quest. Denethor's overt favoritism struck them both in a sore place.

When Faramir let Frodo and Sam go, Loki looked thoughtful.

He chooses to do good above pleasing his father…

Steve definitely got misty-eyed at Sam's speech to Frodo. He was trying, hard, not to make parallels in his mind between him and Bucky and Frodo and Sam.

He just couldn't go there. Not tonight.

Sunday, they started early, mindful that one resident of the Tower had school the next morning, and that the third movie was long.

When Arwen began to leave for Valinor, both Steve and Thor lost it.

"No! Do not leave, fair maiden! It is better to be with the one you love, even if they are mortal!" Thor cried.

"Please, he'll be heartbroken if you go." Steve muttered, brushing away tears.

Tony held Pepper a little closer.

Steve and Thor both cheered when Arwen chose to stay.

Christy had been fairly quiet up till now, although she occasionally carried on running commentary with Clint (who was the worst at running commentary). But at Denethor's scenes, she lost it.

"Why is he eating in front of Pippin and not giving him anything?! That's bad manners! And he's a hobbit! Hobbits are always hungry, so that's really bad manners! And why does he hate Faramir? He needs to die! He's a jerk!"

When Denethor jumped off the roof of the palace, everyone cheered. And Loki felt just a twinge of grim satisfaction

All the girls (and even the boys) lost it when Eowyn said the "I am no man" line and killed the Witch-King. Christy even got up and did her own reenactment of the scene, until Steve made her sit back down.

When all the hobbits reached the Shire, and Frodo spoke about "picking up the threads of an old life" Steve could feel the tears creep back into his eyes.

Like Frodo, Steve had come to realize that there was no regaining what he had lost. Apparently unlike Frodo, he had come to terms with it.

Loki was not crying when Frodo left for Valinor, he was not, though Thor was loudly boo-hooing beside him and even stoic Romanoff appeared to be shedding a tear.

Christy, however, completely lost control.

"No! No, no, noooooo!" she yelled, clutching at Steve's chest. "Don't leave me!"

At this, Steve immediately grabbed Christy and took her off the couch.

"Hey, hey; what's all this?" he said, as he stood to the side and rocked her gently. Everyone else was discretely ignoring the scene—except for Loki.

"You-you're like Frodo!" Christy sobbed. "You're hurt and he couldn't take it and he left them! He left them all alone!"

Steve sighed.

"Baby, I'm not leaving you. You know what Frodo didn't have?"

"Wh-what?" Christy asked, still half-crying.

Steve tapped her nose. "You. And I will never leave you. You're my child. How could I leave?"

Christy slowly calmed down, enough to watch the ending scene of Sam going back to his family. But Steve took her up to bed shortly after that.

"Well, brother, did you enjoy this saga?" Thor asked, as Loki sat in one of the chairs, mulling things over.

"Yes…I rather did. These…movies differed from the stories in some respects, but not painfully so."

"So which are better?" Bruce asked. "Tony says movies, I say books. So does Pepper."

"The movies leave out all the boring stuff!" Tony cried.

"Tony, the 'boring stuff' is what makes it possible to understand the story!" Pepper cried.

Clint shrugged. "I'm in the middle. But I think I prefer visual to print, anyway."

Natasha nodded. "Me, too. Though, the books have their charm."

Later that night, after Steve had gotten Christy to bed, there came a knock on the door.

"Come in!" he called, slightly puzzled as to who was coming up this late.

He was even more puzzled when he opened the door.

"Loki?"

The trickster stood, twisting his hands together. "I apologize for disturbing you, but I…I had a question that I could not get out of my mind.

Steve nodded. "Come on in. Just be quiet, though, Christy's asleep. I'm hoping she stays that way."

As they both sat down, Loki's nervousness only seemed to grow.

"I…I saw you, and Christy, tonight. When you spoke to her, you called her your child."

"Well…that's what she is."

"But not by blood." Loki sighed. "I have watched you both, these weeks I've been in the Tower. And I could not help but wonder…?"

He looked straight into Steve's face, his eyes anguished. "What drives a man to take a child not his own and raise him as such? I always thought…that Odin took me as a war trophy, nothing more. But could it possibly be true…?" he trailed off, unsure of where he exactly was going with this.

"I adopted Christy because she was alone. And so was I." Steve said. "She told me once that she wished that her life was just a game of hide-n-seek—you play that on Asgard?"

"Yes."

"Anyway, she said that she dreamed that her life was just like one big game of hide-n-seek and that her mom would just pop out, say 'found you!' and whisk her away. Basically, that was how I felt, too. We were both alone and lonely. So I figured that together…we wouldn't be."

Loki sighed. "I was found by Odin, abandoned in the wake of his war on the Frost Giants. I was weak and small, for a giant. I assume I was left to die. But he took me. He said that he once hoped to unite Jotenheim and Asgard, but that he abandoned those dreams…" Loki ducked his head.

"Did he love me? Or did he merely see me as a means to an end?"

Steve looked troubled. "Well…did you ever ask him?"

"There…hasn't been time."

"Then maybe you should ask him what he was thinking. Maybe it wasn't as selfish as you think. I mean, most people's reaction to finding an abandoned baby would be to take it."

"And…if it was as selfish as I fear?"

Steve looked Loki in the eye. "Then have grace for him. All people make mistakes. All people at times have less than pure motives."

Loki nodded numbly. "But…what if it is less selfish than I feared? What if…what if he truly loved me?"

"He might have loved you, and just been bad at showing it." Steve offered. "Like I said, all people make mistakes."

"Perhaps…" For the first time in…ever, Loki realized how little he and Odin had really spoken on the subject of his 'adoption', how little he really knew for certain. Much of his ill-will toward Odin came due to his own speculations.

"Besides, whatever your relationship may be with your father, I know that Thor loves you." Steve said firmly.

Loki sighed. "That is true."

And perhaps it was time he really appreciated his brother's love.

He stood up. "Thank you…you have been most helpful."

Steve smiled. "I'm glad. Did you like the movies?"

Loki smiled back. "Yes, I…I rather did."

As Thor lay in his bed that night, almost on the verge of slumber, his battle reflexes suddenly kicked in.

He sat up. "Who goes there?"

There was an exasperated sigh. "Peace, brother, it is only me!"

"Loki?" Thor frowned. "Is something wrong?"

"No…no, there isn't. Actually…I wanted to thank you."

"For what?"

Loki sat down on the bed. "For not giving up on me, for loving me…even when I deserved none of that."

"But of course!" Thor pulled Loki into an embrace. "'Tis what brothers are for!"

Suddenly, he remembered something.

"Brother," he said seriously, "did father ever speak to you…in the manner Denethor did to Faramir; in the movie?"

Loki shook his head. "Never so harshly. But I did at times feel…" he trailed off.

Thor sighed. "And I was not so kind as Boromir. I fear I ever rubbed my victories in your face."

"And yet…you always took me with you."

"That is where you belong. With me." Thor said simply. "Brother…would you care to sleep here tonight?"

At first, Loki wanted to protest. He and Thor had not shared a bed since they were children. But tonight…

Tonight, he craved more than ever the closeness of the one person who had ever been his advocate.

"Yes…I shall."

And that night, for the first time in many moons, the sons of Odin slept side by side, their hearts beating in tandem.

And the ice in Loki's heart melted ever more. It would take merely a few more things to set it free.

The next would come a few days later.

Dun, dun, duuuuun! Cliff-hanger! Next chapter is fairly important and should be up...soon.

Also, if you've ever heard of a show called Firefly, written and directed by Josh Whedon (who, as you know, also directed the Avengers)...then you might catch the reference to that show. ;)