In honor of the day devoted to lies and tickery, here is the very long - and long overdue update to the story! Thank you all so so much for your patience, and thanks again, as always, to my fabulous betas, Amanda, Jade, and Majoline!

Odin could tell his youngest son was trying his best not to cry. A few tears, however, brimmed at the corner of Loki's eyes.

"Did you not try and block?" He watched as the healer dabbed at the long, thin cut that ran through leather and cloth, an angry red line upon pale skin.

"I did," Loki said, biting his lip as Eir began to stitch the wound closed. "My arm didn't do a very good job." He slunk down, staring intently at the floor. "I don't think I'm a very good warrior, father."

"You're merely a young one." The healer's words were kind but Odin knew how false they rang, and he suspected his quick-witted son knew as well. Loki hung his head, only confirming Odin's fears.

"There are ways of fighting that require more brains than brawn. The former you have now, the latter you may have in time." Emphasis on may, as Loki was a tall but lanky child.

"You think I'm wise?" Loki's scowl curved into a hesitant smile.

"Bright, yes. Wise, I'm not so sure of." Eir finished her stitching, carefully examining her handiwork. She handed Odin a familiar jar of a mossy-green salve.

"I think Your Majesties know how to use this by now," she said dryly. She patted the young prince, one of her favorite and most regular charges, upon the head. "If you are thinking to teach him the arts I think you have in mind, I should not mind stitching someone else's arm up for a change."

"I do not see why you are so upset. Look at them playing! Thor does not treat him any differently." Thor may have had his slighter brother pinned to the ground, but this was only his usual way of showing affection.

"Thor is his brother and he adores him. I do not worry about Thor treating him differently, I worry about court slighting him more than they do now." Odin insisted that the loss of his eye had not affected his sight. Frigga often wondered otherwise.

"His father works seidr without so much as a second glance from those vipers-"

"Because you are their king!" Frigga flung her hands into the air. "They would not dare, whereas they look three and four times at Loki, if you have not noticed. And they do not look kindly." It pained Frigga to see her son the object of those stares and smirks, at his slightness of form, the darkness of his hair.

"He cannot be afraid of the glances of ignorant fools. One day he will be king of Jotunheim. Do you think the hangers-on and sycophants will be any kinder?"

"If Thor should order them to be so." So many of Frigga's hopes for her sons rested upon their own small shoulders. "He cannot bear if anyone harms his brother." The squeal of small voices tugged at the corner of her lips, finally easing the frown that had sat there too long.

"That's exclusively his privilege," Odin murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple. Thor seemed to have trouble exercising said prerogative, as Loki seemed swifter and slipperier than usual.

"Loki! That's not how you fight!" Thor pouted at his mischievous younger brother, perhaps hoping his lips could do what his hands could not.

"It is if I don't want you to hit me." Loki's tongue darted out, before he whispered words Frigga could barely hear. She didn't need to hear them, clearly, for she knew them by heart.

After all, she was the one who taught them to her husband.

A swirl of green and gold sparkled above Loki slender limbs just as Thor's arm came down. Thor stumbled backwards, his eyes as wide as Loki's. Both were shocked, but Loki was not so stunned to show a glimmer of delight in his bright green eyes.

"I hope you know what you are doing, husband," Frigga said, a reassuring smile coming to her lips as Loki looked back to them.

"When do I not?"

Loki knew he should let the woman go. He knew he should not snap her stocky neck. His grip tightened around her thick forearm, until he could feel the bone beneath.

"Tell me again, and tell me well. How did you let my daughter become injured?"

Kara's poor excuse for a Scout leader and a human being did not answer. Her jaws only flapped silently, only a strained gasping escaping her lips, instead of her vomitous stream of pitiful excuses..

"Sir, let her go!" Angry voices blurred into an incoherent, insistent buzzing. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he swung his hand back, caring little if he flung whoever was so foolish as to touch him into the wall.

"I should kill you where you stand, you snivelling qui-"

"Hey now. Let's keep the homicide and the Shakespearean misogyny to a minimum, shall we?"

Loki should have known he was too distraught to think when Stark's staying hand was a welcome, if perplexing interruption.

"Okay, deep breaths."

"I do not need you to tell me how to breathe." Loki did not need to be the God of Lies to know when someone was telling them badly. Stark mentioned he'd heard a report of a brunette Brit going berserk after his daughter got hurt, and since he was around, he thought he'd check it out. Nobody, however, simply happened to be in Washington Heights, much less Tony Stark.

"You want to go in and scare the crap out of Kara? Be my guest." Stark leaned against the wall. "Scared and worried dad is one thing. Scary, murderous dad? Less than helpful."

Loki gritted his teeth, but he found his breath, most unwillingly, responding to Stark's bidding.

"See?" The smaller man grinned, and Loki was, as always, tempted to wipe the gesture off his face, if not Stark's head from his body. "You feeling less rage-y?"

"Marginally." Loki took in a deep breath and pushed past Stark, into the room. His chest tightened as he saw Kara, dressed in an odd, shapeless, pastel gown, sitting up in a bed far too large for her.

"Oh, darling." The words felt hollow, as if he was fighting against monsters with the flimsiest of shadows. He tried to smile, but it felt as if his face was made of stone. "What happened?"

"I fell off a rock. A really big rock." Kara pouted, her hands tugging at the odd garment. "Are you mad?"

"Not at you," he said. Never at you, he thought. He manage to move suddenly leaden legs, and wrapped her tight in arms that trembled as they enfolded her tiny form.

"He did almost beat up the lady who let you climb Mount Everest." Stark came up behind him, never knowing when to leave well enough alone. "How're you doing, kiddo?"

"My head hurts and the room feels spinny." Kara narrowed her eyes, wrinkling the white bandage taped to her temple. "Did you bring Captain Amer'ca?"

Tony's brows shifted and his smile flickered for a moment. Loki caught the gesture, feeling oddly relieved Kara's idol wasn't there.

"He couldn't come." Stark shrugged, but the gesture was anything but casual. "You're cranky," he continued, deftly changing the topic. "That must mean you're already better."

"I'm not cranky. I just want Captain Amer'ca." Kara sighed out of pursed lips, curls fluttering away from her face. 'You stink."

"Well, someone still has her sense of humor." A tall man in green scrubs and a white coat strode into the room. "I'm Dr. Patel. Kara's been a model patient." He focused nearly black eyes on Stark. "Do you know you look a lot like Iron Man?"

"Actually I do" Stark answered, absolutely deadpan. "Is she okay?"

"A very mild concussion, and I don't anticipate any complications." Patel extended a stack of papers to Stark, which Loki then snatched out of his hands. He scanned over the almost overwhelming information, gaze fixing on the more ominous of said complications.

"Can you be absolutely sure? This seems to indicate the consequences could be quite severe," Loki said, brandishing the papers back at the doctor.

"I'm sorry, but there's no way to tell at this stage. The damage would be impossible to see so early."

"Impossible to tell on a standard MRI, you mean." Tony crossed his hands over his chest, and for once Loki's first instinct wasn't to rebuke him, or to send him flying through a window. Was the man actually trying to help?

Loki made a note to become far more versed in the Midgardians' incomprehensible system of healing. "Are you saying there is a way to tell if she is all right?"

"Sure. Columbia has a 7 Tesla." Stark shrugged, ignoring the doctor's look of disbelief.

"How did you know it? We haven't exactly made that public yet."

"Because I donated it to you. Well, Stark Industries did. And you putting it to good use might keep our partnership a working one."

Loki couldn't help but smirk as Patel looked at Stark with increasing horror. "So you look like Iron Man because you are Iron Man."

Stark smiled with such smug satisfaction Loki wondered if the man didn't have at least a trace of Asgardian heritage. "It's what I keep telling people."

"I-" Patel shook his head and yielded to the insufferable billionaire. "I know the scheduler. This is highly unusual, to say the least, but..." The doctor leaned in. "I have two daughters. If one of them got hurt, I'd probably want to do whatever I could to make sure they were all right. Maybe even almost kill the person responsible."

"I hardly almost killed her." Loki rolled his eyes. "Nonetheless, I am..." He paused, and again felt the futility of his words, especially when this machine could well be the cause of welcome relief or more anguish.

"What he means to say is thank you," Stark interrupted.

"Would you kindly shut up?" Loki forced himself to focus on the doctor, both for the sake of Kara's health and preserving Stark's at least marginally useful existence. "But she can go home once the test is done?"

"Of course, if it's clear, which I have no reason to believe it won't be."

Kara whimpered, and Loki knew the sound as one of protest and not of pain. "I wanna go home now. Can you stay with me?"

Loki's chest constricted as Patel shook his head. "I can't, darling." That weight eased ever so slightly as he realized there was something he could give her, something that had shielded them from debris and the darkness so many months ago. "But what if I gave you something that would always keep you safe?"

Kara's eyes widened, and she nodded her head as much as she could bear the movement. He leaned in and whispered ancient words, spoken so long ago he couldn't even recall the voice who first murmured them to him. His mother, he supposed, giving him the means to protect himself.

Kara wrapped her arms tight around his neck. "Thank you, Daddy, but don't be scared. I'm okay."

"Do you hear that? She's going to be fine." Stark laid a hand on his shoulder. Loki must have been more distraught than he thought if he let gesture pass. "I think it might be best if we waited somewhere he has less of a chance of committing assault and battery."

"Leave me a phone number and I'll call as soon as we're done." Patel gave Loki and Stark an oddly warm smile. "She's a lucky girl, to have two such caring fathers."

"We are most certainly not together," Loki protested, even as Tony slung an arm around his shoulder.

"Oh honey. Let's do something to work off that stress."

"Well." Tony lay on the rooftop, helmet up, gasping slightly as he took in the expanse of blue sky. "That was invigorating. How about you?"

"I feel marginally distracted, Stark." Loki's voice was a lazy drawl, coming from a few feet away. 'Was that your goal?"

"Marginally distracted? That's it?" Tony propped himself up on an armored elbow and raised an eyebrow at the lanky god, sprawled out beside him.

"Moderately distracted, then. Is that more of a balm to your ego?"

"My ego can take more crap than even you could dish out. Still, nice to know all of the Mark 42 shows up and hold its own." The first real-life test of that particular suit was memorable in all the wrong ways. Tony pushed himself up, ignoring the pull in his lower back. Loki might have been Thor's scrawny little brother, but damn, the man had a backswing. He also still had a brooding, unsettled look, even after their impromptu sparring session that had kept Loki away from manslaughter charges.

"Hey, she's gonna be okay. Now, if she had been nice to me, then I'd be a bit worried." Tony clambered to his knees, trying not to groan as the servos did likewise. "Seriously, what did I ever do to her to make her not like me?"

"Oh, she doesn't dislike you, which is a pity. It's merely that you aren't Captain America."

"What if I wore that God-awful Iron Patriot getup?"

"Even if she wasn't concussed, she would know better." Loki refused Tony's outstretched hand, reaching instead for the cell phone tucked in however many folds and pockets he had in his armor. Tony heard the screen crack, and he yanked the phone out of Loki's crushing grip before he destroyed the damn thing.

"iPhones might be pieces of crap, but the doctor can't call you to tell you she's fine if you smash this into bits. Why don't I just hold onto this for you?" Jesus. Tony would have an easier time getting the Hulk not to break things.

"I am perfectly capable of handling your pitiful human technology."

"Your kid's hurt and you're worried sick about her. Okay, worried furious. I'm just trying to keep you from destroying innocent technology that didn't do anything to you except be mediocre."

"And why would you bother with such charity?"

"Because she's a kid and this isn't the only time she's going to get hurt." Hell, Loki and Thor's parents probably put swords in their hands as soon as they could walk. Tony didn't think the phrase 'rough and tumble' began to cover Asgardian childhoods. "Or be sick, or get bullied, and you can't go off the deep end every time something happens to her."

"You're speaking as the model of restraint, Stark."

"No, I'm not. Because if it was Pepper there I'd be losing it just as bad as you. But I can't. It's taken me a long time to learn that, but no matter what I do, no matter how many suits I build, there's nothing I can do to keep her completely safe." Tony drew in a deep breath. "That's what sucks about being us lowly mortals. You can love someone but all that love...it can't do everything. No matter how much we wish it could."

Loki shook his head, his brows knit in disbelief. "This is intolerable. No wonder you all drink so prodigiously."

"Welcome to the human race and how very crappy our lives can be." Tony smirked. "Maybe that's why we fight for them so much. They may, on occasion, suck, but they're all we have. Face it, humanity's starting to grow on you."

"Like a fungus."

Tony shrugged. "Not the analogy I'd use, but sure, like one big fuzzy fungus."

If Loki had anymore unsavory comparisons for the human race, Tony wasn't gonna hear them. He felt a buzzing in his palm a second before Loki snatched the phone out of Tony's armored hand. Tony didn't realize he was holding his breath until Loki thumbed off the damaged phone, closed his eyes, and muttered "oh, thank the Nine."

Tony had no idea who or what Loki was thanking, but he didn't really care. If Tony was a demi-god he'd probably be thanking himself. "So she's okay? Thank goodness she's as hard-headed as her dad."

"She seems to be." Loki lifted his head, his gaze fixed onto Tony like a targeting beam. "Stark, I'm curious, how did you know she was hurt? And don't be so foolish as to repeat that drivel you told me previously."

Tony shook his head. No reason to be anything but honest, even to the god of lies. "When we started this deal, I programmed JARVIS to keep an eye on her, so to speak. He got word she was hurt and I came to make sure everything was alright."

Now Loki simply looked confused. "But you came alone."

"Well, I told Steve and Bruce to be ready to come if I needed backup. Which I didn't, and I don't." Tony raised a brow. "Right?"

Loki rolled his eyes. "The only thing I'm going to do today is get her home and see what the city of New York considers grounds for justifiable homicide."

"They're just a little strict on those kind of things."

"I'll just have to find other means." There was a faint smirk tugging at Loki's lips, but a disconcerting frankness in his eyes. "Nonetheless...thank you."

"For not bringing the entire posse? Wait, did you just say thank you?" It had to be something wrong with the suit's audio system. That or else he had hit Loki much harder than he thought. "Did I just miss some very subtle sarcasm?"

"I meant thank you for looking out for her, Stark. For having an ounce of common sense, which I was beginning to think you lacked." Now there was the sarcasm, and the demi-god alien Tony knew and tolerated.

"You'd be surprised how many people make that same mistake." Tony waved his hand idly. Loki didn't need to know 'many people' was everyone Tony had ever met. "But I knew I didn't need any backup on this."

"And why in the Nine Realms did you think that?"

"Because I just knew." Tony shrugged. "And I really like being right."

The house was quiet and dark, the streetlights casting long shadows through the curtains, the beeps and honks of St. Nicholas Avenue muffled and soft. Kara was tucked into bed, the refrigerator was full of more casseroles than the two of them could possibly eat, and not even a cask of the strongest mead could possibly assuage the worry that sat uneasily in his chest. His sullen anger had turned the glass of Zinfandel in his hand to vinegar on his tongue.

He'd hoped for a quiet evening at home, but when he arrived, Kara heavy in his arms, Stephen, George, Connie and Miriam were waiting, eyes full of worry and hands full of dishes heaped with food.

His circle of acquaintances called it Southern hospitality, insisting you never visited a sick person without a cake or a casserole; Miriam, with her brusque local inflections, just called it common sense. They'd doted on Kara, offering simple books and Teletubbies DVDs (Stephen insisted you couldn't ask for anything less cognitively challenging) and promises of coming to visit once she was better.

For his daughter's sake, he was touched by their concern. For himself, he was wary, despising their kindness not for how weak it showed humans to be but how weak it made him feel.

Here he was, a god, and all his power and cunning could be defeated by a rock, gravity, and a single woman's carelessness. Stark's words echoed until they nearly deafened him, that love, affection, whatever one would call it could never keep the objects of such feelings safe.

Loki's wine glass shattered as it crashed against the wall. He would tear the worlds apart right now if he could to find a place to keep this child, to protect the one thing that was impossibly and inexplicably his. Danger lurked in Doom's suspicions, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ruthlessness, and now their everyday lives.

After a few moments, he picked up the broken slivers, wiped up the streaks and puddles of reddish-purple liquid before they could stain. As he dropped the handful of glass shards and paper towels stained burgundy, he heard the smallest creak of Kara's bed.

"Daddy?"

Loki wiped at his eyes, thankful for the dark. He entered her room, the dim light from the streetlights past her curtains casting long shadows of dinosaurs and tea sets across blue walls flecked with stars.

"I'm sorry if I woke you up, sweetie. How is your head?"

"Sleepy. Is sleepy bad?"

"Normal sleepy or super sleepy?"

"Normal." In the faintly bluish light, he saw her frown. "Daddy, can you stay with me?"

"Of course I can," he murmured, pulling a plush chair with a well-worn curve in the seat from many a story closer to the bed. He reached out and took her small, slender hand, the paper bracelet emblazoned with her name still around her wrist.

"Can you stay forever?"

Her eyes fluttered back closed, and Loki was thankful to everything in this miserable realm and beyond no one could see the tears that brimmed at the corners of his eyes, trickling down his cheeks.

Of course he would stay forever. What choice did he have?

Loki opened the door, closed it, and wondered if he was the one waking up from a concussion.

But no, there was Captain America when he opened the door again, complete in the ridiculously colored and clinging outfit that served as the basis of half of Kara's wardrobe. He had a green duffel slung over one shoulder, a cardboard holder cradling two coffees and a chocolate milk in one hand, a paper bag flecked with dark spots in the other.

"Figured I'd spare you the trouble of kidnapping me again," Rogers said with a half-smile. He held out the bag, and Loki caught the familiar whiff of fried dough and sugar. "Tony mentioned Kara liked donuts. How is she doing?"

"As well as any four-year-old who can't watch television can do: bored out of her mind." Kara'd woken up with a mild headache and a shorter attention span than usual, but otherwise was better than even he expected.

"So she's doing all right?" Loki felt a throbbing at the corner of his temple and he wasn't quite sure what would happen first: his death of an aneurysm or his pushing the Captain through his neighbor's wall.

"Who is it, Daddy?" Kara's voice, sleepy but hale, drifted in from the living room, over the twee harmonies of a Backyardigans CD. "Is it Iron Man again?"

"No, it's not Iron Man." Pressing a hand to his head, he cursed himself, cursed the universe's relentless and merciless humor, and opened the door a fraction more. He lowered his voice so only he and the star-spangled man could hear. "This is not out of kindness, or redemption, but because she is so annoyingly fixated on you. If you come in, it will be brief, you will do whatever she asks, and you will leave when asked. Without her."

Rogers met his gaze evenly, nodding his head. "Fair enough." He proffered the cardboard tray and its assortment of beverages. "One of the coffees is yours. I figured you weren't a morning person."

"I'm not. I don't see how that vile brew is supposed to remedy that." Despite how much he despised coffee, Loki had to admit he was running on fumes. He plucked the blue cup out of its cradle and lifted it to his lips. Grimacing, he raised a brow at the bag. "Did you bring a bear claw?"

"Of course."

"Did you bring a chocolate bar?"

"Should I have?"

Loki sighed and rolled his eyes. "Kara, would you come over here and tell Captain America what your dad's favorite donut is, and chastise him for not bringing it?"

The only sign his little girl was convalescing was the extra few second it took her to scramble to the door. Her jaw dropped, and she uttered tiny squeaks of what he hoped were joy.

"Are you really Captain Amer'ca?" she asked once she could finally speak.

"Yes, ma'am." Loki was sure Rogers would have saluted if his hands weren't full of coffee and donuts.

Kara narrowed her eyes, focusing not on the sweets but on his drab duffel bag. "Are you gonna live here now?"

Loki tried his best not to choke on the bitter liquid, and it took a few coughs before he was reasonably sure he could breathe again.

"That's very nice, but I already have a house." Rogers' lips quirked at the invitation. "But I do have some friends in here who would like to meet you."

"You know, I really don't eat that much." Steve watched his bear self stuff himself on plastic fruit, cake, and hot dogs.

"Daddy says if you eat all your food, you get big n' strong." Kara rolled her eyes. Steve could only imagine where she had acquired that trait from. The Iron Man bear in Kara's hands pushed over a head of plastic broccoli. "You're really big n' strong, so you eat a lot of food."

"Well, thank you." Kara beamed at his praise, and Steve was grateful her inherent sweetness seemed to have weathered Loki's parenting intact. "You should make sure Thor and the Hulk have some food, too."

"They're fine." Loki tightened his grip around the two bears in his possession. Tony had bid on the toys, the entire team in bear form, at a gala shortly after their first battle. Even if Tony was more than a few sheets to the wind when he paid almost $50,000 for the little things, he seemed genuinely attached to them.

But not so attached he couldn't tell Steve to let Kara know she could borrow them as long as she needed.

"Captain Amer'ca's right. You're hungry!" Iron Bear pushed over a tiny box of waffles, two bananas, and a plastic chicken leg to the stuffed Thor and Hulk. "Eat it all gone."

Kara's smile was as bright as Loki's scowl was bitter, but he managed not to crush the bears to fluff as he pulled the plastic food towards him.

"What do you say, Thor and Hulk?" Kara raised a single brow at Loki, who looked a little less impressive sitting in a tangle of long limbs.

"That we would probably eat this cardboard and plastic even if we weren't bears?"

Steve couldn't keep from grinning as Kara frowned at Loki's answer. He at least had the sense to look somewhat chagrined in front of the little girl.

"Fine, fine," he finally said. "Thank you, Iron Bear." Kara giggled as she hugged the fluffy red and gold animal close.

"Iron Bear. You're silly, daddy."

"It sounds better than Bear Man." As Kara dissolved into her almost hiccuping laughter, someone rapped sharply on the door. Loki rose to his feet with a single swift movement, still holding the two bears in his hands. He slid them into the crook of his elbow as he peered into the peephole and began undoing the array of locks.

"Are you playing tea party?" A middle aged-woman with short brown hair strode into the apartment, her equally dark eyes fixed on Kara. The fact he was sitting not more than two feet away in full costume didn't even seem to phase her. "How you doing, kid? How's the head?"

"Good! Captain Amer'ca came to play with me!"

"I see." She crossed her arms and looked down, unimpressed, at Steve, who thought yet again of Peggy. "Nice to meet you, thanks for fighting evil, the usual." She turned that sharp gaze on Loki. "Well, you have a babysitter. Let's go."

"What I have is a man dressed in spandex who brought stuffed animals and donuts. And where in the world would I be going? I'm staying right here."

"I have a friend on the Board. We're going to meet with her, and we're getting the woman who did this fired." She pulled the bears away from Loki and dropped them on top of the stuffed Clint and Natasha.

"While I appreciate your quest for vengeance, it's not needed." Loki looked at Kara with something that resembled pity. "I'm taking her out of Scouts."

"The hell you are. She's been having a great time, Sarah says it's doing her a world of good. She's staying right where she is."

Kara made a small whimpering noise. "I don't wanna leave! I won't climb any more rocks, promise!"

"Oh sweetheart," Loki said, holding one arm around the girl. "I know you won't. But that idiot woman could hardly pay attention to her charges, and I doubt her successor will do any better."

"I've already thought of that. I'll tell you on the way." The woman adjusted her purse. "Trust me, the people I have in mind won't let this happen again."

Loki's sigh seemed genuine enough. "I'll meet with her, but I'm hardly going to leave Kara with him." Loki looked at him disapprovingly, but Steve simply kept his silence.

He knew he didn't have to say a word.

"He's freaking Captain America! Seriously, do I have to do everything?" The woman motioned him up, and Steve obeyed as swiftly as if she'd barked the order.

"She needs dim lights, familiar music, and no TV, books, or computers. Do you have a cell phone? Do you know how to use it?"

"Yes, ma'am." Steve pulled out the small, simple phone Tony had given him. Some sort of model called a Jitterbug.

"You know to call 911 if she gets a bad headache, starts throwing up, seems out of it?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She turned to Loki. "There, you have a babysitter. I'll be out in the hall. Kara, you have fun and get better, sweetie. Sarah and I will be over soon. Get your thumbs ready, 'cause we're going to feed some hippos when we come over." And then she was gone, Loki looking as bewildered as Steve felt.

That confused look soon shifted to one of suspicion. Loki could hardly tell the little girl the truth of why he didn't want to leave her with her favorite hero.

But a promise was a promise, and so far Loki had held up his end of the arrangement, sans one provision. Steve scrawled down his number and handed it to Loki. "Call as often as you need to. I'm not going anywhere. We do have a deal." Steve nodded at the closed door. "And a woman who might beat us both up if you don't come with her."

"You swear you'll take care of of her." Loki's voice was barely more than a whisper, but his words had an intensity that could have set his shield humming.

Steve smiled despite Loki's severity, maybe even because of it.

"Scout's honor." Steve paused, waiting until Kara dashed off to her room to grab even more stuffed animals. "There's just one thing I want you to do in return."

"That took surprisingly long." Tony looked at his watch and grinned. "But not too long. Told you I'd win."

Natasha leaned against the counter, shaking her head. "I only gave you five minutes. Now he gets to pick where we eat for two weeks. Why can't we just bet money again?"

"Because I don't need it, and the rest of you have horrible taste in food. So, how's she doing? Did she like the bears?" Tony sipped at a glass in his hand. "She loved mine, I'm sure. How could you not love it?"

"I'd like it as target practice." Clint didn't even turn his eyes from the television.

"She's doing fine, and she thought the bears were great. That was a decent thing you did." Tea time had soon turned into saving the surprisingly cozy living room from her stuffed dinosaur, who the Bear Avengers beat not with shields or arrows, but an offer of breakfast.

"I am glad she is well." The rest of the team wasn't thrilled Tony had waited so long to tell them, but Thor was only worried for his brother and the little girl in his care. "I am surprised my brother welcomed your company for so long."

"He wasn't exactly there the entire time." Steve held up his hands at the questioning looks. "He and Miriam had to get the woman responsible fired. Which is better and definitely more legal than whatever he had in mind."

"Is Kara still in Scouts? Damn it, Pepper found my Samoa stash, and no one in this city has any boxes left. I can't find out I have an insider only to lose them." Those questioning stares now fixed on Tony. "C'mon, have you tried those things? They're amazing."

"I'm more a Thin Mint guy," Bruce said, shrugging.

"He decided to keep her in. But not without a leadership change." Steve tugged at his hood. "And said leadership has kindly told me we'll be ordering a few hundred cases next year."

"I know I have a sweet tooth, but that's a little ridiculous," Tony said. "Unless we give them all to Sparky and the Big Guy."

"If you want to come up with new terms, Tony, be my guest. There wasn't much room for negotiation."

"Please." Tony crossed his arms over his chest. "She's one woman."

"I'm one woman, Stark," Natasha quipped. "Would you want to renegotiate with me?"

"Miriam's only one of the new leaders." Steve looked Tony up and down. "And without the suit, she could probably take you. I might give her odds even with it on"

"Yeah, she probably could." Tony raised an eyebrow. "So who's the other leader, Cap?"

Bruce pushed himself off the couch, looking at Steve warily. "Yeah, who is it?"

Steve looked at a suddenly fascinating point on Tony's wall. "Let's just say Kara's definitely not going to get hurt again, that's for certain."

Clint shook his head. Of course he would be the first to guess. "You have got to be kidding me," he muttered as he stood and walked out of the room. Natasha watched him uneasily, then turned back to Steve in a blur of red hair.

"You're telling me Loki's taking a break from supervillainy to teach little girls to do arts and crafts and sell cookies?" She glanced between the other Avengers, ending in a sharp, almost barking laugh.

"This other leader is formidable, yes?" There was a sad thoughtfulness in Thor's eyes. No matter how much he might look like any other man, Steve always saw the centuries in Thor's gaze. Maybe it was just a familiar look.

"She had no problem ordering your brother and me around. I think that more than qualifies. If any human can keep Loki in line, besides Kara, it's probably her." Thor nodded, then looked to the rest of the Avengers, sans Clint, in turn.

"I do not know about the rest of you, but I trust Captain Rogers' judgment, if I cannot see things for myself." Steve caught the frown that flickered across Thor's face, and he only hoped this news would help erase it.

"Speaking of that," Steve said, laying a hand on Thor's shoulder. "Loki wanted me to tell you something. He said he and Kara will see you sometime in August." He didn't need to mention the reluctance with which Loki agreed to the little arrangement. Not as if Thor or any of the other Avengers would be surprised.

Thor was silent for a long, awkward moment, and Steve wondered if he hadn't somehow made the situation worse. "That is four months from now?"

"Yeah." Tony's surprise had been easy enough to see. "Glad your brother's finally holding up his end of the deal. But seriously, August? Are the Girl Scouts having summer camp in Siberia?" He smiled offhand at Natasha. "No offense."

"None taken," she replied. "It's not a bad place to camp in July."

"I do not see why you are so upset." Thor clasped his hand over Steve's, and even if a hint of that ancient sadness was left in his eyes, his smile was nothing but genuine. "Four months is hardly any time at all."