Author's Note: Again, thank you all so much for the patience and support! You all keep me writing, however poky.

And thanks to all my betas, and especially Majoline for giving this long-overdue chapter her awesome input, and being able to fill in for Jade and Amanda, who are equally fantastic! Oh, and a special thanks to my nephew for the crustacean inspiration. :)

It was absolutely miserable outside. Loki and Kara left the apartment at 8 a.m. to get donuts - holding her, of course, because it was "too eaaaaaaarly" to be up - and by the time they made it home, he'd wanted to sink into the entryway and die.

So Kara was having brunch with the plush Avengers, and Loki was lying sprawled on the couch, a wet washcloth on his forehead, air conditioner set to Jotunheim in the dead of winter, wondering if Kara's dialogue was so nonsensical because he had heat stroke, or because she was a four-year-old girl.

"No, Thor!" The Iron Man plush in Kara's hand shook his head. "No lightning at breakfast!"

Loki groaned and rolled his eyes back. By the Nine, next month could not come soon enough, so the visit could be over, and Loki, in all hopes, that much closer to leaving this realm entirely.

Kara's imaginary restaurant got very quiet, and he cracked open his eyes to see her staring at him, hand on her hip. "Why does your face get all funny when I say Thor?"

"It doesn't get funny." He slid the washcloth down over his face, but she just pulled it away.

"Yes it does. Like this." Her tiny face scrunched into a scowl that was so dead on he couldn't help the smirk that came to his lips.

"Well, perhaps it does. He just reminds me of someone I knew, a long time ago."

"Who?"

Loki sighed and pushed himself to a sitting position. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have, but if he could take the shine off Thor, next month might be bearable. Or at least enjoyable, if Kara joined in the 'making faces at Thor' game. "He thought I was his friend. But I never was, not really. He just wanted someone to make him look better, but everyone already thought he was perfect. His friends barely pretended to like me, and for too long I never said anything."

"That's so sad!" Kara's head rested on his knee, and he rested his hand on her head, unsure what else to do with such a human display, beyond indulge it as the childish impulse it was.

He would certainly never admit that he did anything beyond notice such sympathy.

"I suppose it is. One day he insisted we do something incredibly stupid and because we tended to do what he said, we did. And I..." Loki was silent a long moment, staring out the window into the blazing blue sky outside the window, a fist clenching at his side. Kara looked up, but for a change, didn't say a single word. "Everything changed after that. With him, his friends, everyone I knew."

"Even your mom and dad?"

"Them too." Loki didn't bother to check the vitriol on his tongue. "They all abandoned me, left me, but I don't think they ever cared in the first place."

Kara looked up, and the hurt in her eyes was so plain he found him scooping her up before he could think about why he even needed to comfort her. "But they're your mom and dad."

"Well, sometimes we have to find other things to care about."

"Like me?" Her brown eyes brightened

"Yes, I suppose you do count," Loki said teasingly, though it would be gratifying if the care he'd put into his plans for conquering Midgard were as accommodating as the world's children. "It was good you mentioned Thor, however. Do you remember your birthday party?"

Now Kara's face was beyond bright, transforming into something more akin to a joy supernova."The best party ever!"

"That's a matter of perspective but yes, you do remember. But at your party, Thor asked if he could see us, and next month we are." Loki tried to keep his face neutral, but he knew he was failing. "Going to see him, that is."

"Why?"

It gratified Loki that Kara seemed more confused than pleased.

Because Thor is a ridiculous, sentimental fool who wants to reclaim what was never there."Because you are utterly charming and how could he not want to, even if he is clumsy and stupid and...other things."

Kara looked thoughtful at the flattery. "He did give me the sparkly tree." Oh yes. The little glass bauble that was a mirror of the one Thor had made for him the first chance he'd had to show off himself and his accursed hammer. "So maybe he isn't all bad." She raised a tiny eyebrow. "Are you still gonna make faces at him?"

"It is very likely." She frowned. "Perhaps." She raised both her eyebrows. He sighed and set her back down on the floor. "It is hard not to, you know."

"Then we should practice not making faces." Kara picked up the infuriatingly smug plush of his so-called brother and pushed it at him.

Kara would not appreciate him hurling the little thing into Canada, even if he wanted to do nothing else.

"You and Thor are the customers, and I'm the cooker." She narrowed her eyes at him and the tiny Asgardian. "And if you fight, or make faces, I'm gonna get lobsters, and I'm gonna make them bite your toes, and feet, and hands, and even your nose."

Loki grinned as he slid onto the floor, squeezing the doll a little more tightly than he should. How he loved his little girl's vicious streak.

He'd never admit it, but Clint was sure the lookout at the top of the Avengers Tower was Stark's attempt at a concession.

Looking out on the sprawling city, grids of white and red lines brilliant against the darkness, things usually made sense. But this Loki thing -

Shit. He'd have to find somewhere in orbit to even begin to make sense of it, much less figure out how to show Tony how screwed up an idea this was before October rolled around.

"If you were looking for somewhere to hide, might want to find a place I won't follow." He smiled at Nat's voice as she sidled into his little refuge, as if she'd materialized out of thin air.

"Where's that, Antarctica?"

"Coldest summer of my life in McMurdo." Nat slid into the space besides him, rested a hand on his knee. "You're gonna have to try harder."

"I am trying." He set his jaw so hard he felt the ache in his teeth. "Nat, this deal - what are we going to do? Give that bastard a kid because he hasn't destroyed anything in a year? Really?"

"You know it won't be that simple."

"Please tell me S.H.I.E.L.D. has some covert op up their sleeve. A plan to get her out and let Thor drag his sorry ass back?"

She shook her head. "Not at present."

Clint banged the back of his head against the curved, metallic wall. "Damn it, that's the first thing we should have done. But no, Stark's a grown up Richie Rich who didn't get enough hugs and he's the one who gets to decide if Loki's a fit parent? So he gives her parties, hasn't killed any Girl Scouts for not meeting their quotas, and he's father of the year? Everything looks adorable and quirky, and then she pisses him off like every kid does and..."

Natasha rested a hand atop his knee. "And he could do what we know some adults can do. Parenting doesn't magically make people good, or even decent. We're too pragmatic to pretend otherwise."

"If Fury knew-"

"He'd send a team and Loki would kill them all." Damn it, he hated the tone of her voice, the one that said 'no, we're shooting this crazy idea down before it hits the ground.' "Even without the scepter, he's dangerous. If anything, she makes him more dangerous. He actually cares about her, and if one of us tried to take her - just say we'd be better off if we didn't. "

"How do you-" Clint's knee jerked away unconsciously. "Damn it, Tasha, tell me you didn't see him."

She shrugged. "We ran into each other on the subway a few months ago. Had a little talk. Let's just say if anyone tries anything with her, it'll make the battles of New York look like sparring matches."

"I'm not going to be too frightened to do the right thing."

"I know." She sighed and raised her hand to press against his cheek. "Thor's meeting him soon. Until then, we work on him, and we work subtle, we work quiet. No tantrums, no fights, no storming out. Make him see what a bad idea this is, and that one little girl isn't going to bring his little brother that never was back. And he can actually take Loki out, unlike us."

Clint smirked and drew her in. "If you had that hammer, you'd do in five seconds what Thor couldn't in five hundred years."

Natasha smiled, even as a tinny voice in her earpiece told her something couldn't be possibly be true. It was just too good, too convenient. "That's interesting."

Clint tilted his head. "What is it?"

Nat started to move towards the ladder. "Doom. He might have just done what all of Asgard and the Chitauri couldn't."

Loki was glad Kara was already in bed. He usually didn't watch the news with her anyway - it was an efficient means of absorbing Midgardian culture, but it wasn't exactly appropriate for a four year old.

Seeing a grainy video of someone who looked just like her dad disintegrated by a Doombot as bystanders screamed and fled in terror was even less appropriate.

He'd been fielding texts and calls, first from Stephen, Connie from work, and a surprising number of parents from the troop. Miriam had pounded on his door until she got a "yes, I am alive, I assure you." She had the sense not to hug him, thank the Nine, but the huffiness in her voice when she said she would have killed him again if he would have died before the campout that weekend only said how much she cared.

Even Stark had texted; Loki had answered with his regrets that he was alive, and nothing more. Let the Avengers tear each other to pieces overLoki's attention, if they hadn't already.

He had poured himself a wine goblet full of port when the *other* phone rang. Even though Kara was fast asleep in a nest of plush Avengers, he pulled a small, shimmering jewel from his pocket. A little perk of working in Acquisitions, and a more untraceable means of cloaking his presence from Doom.

Then why were his hands ever so slick as he picked up the phone?

"You couldn't even send flowers? That's the least you can do when you try and kill someone."

"Doom is not amused-"

"I assumed as much, when you blasted one of my duplicates into its constituent photons." If nothing else, his literary pursuits made speaking about the magic of this realm far easier. "Still, you have to admit, they're very lifelike. I had thought you would be easier to decieve, but you humans. So very dissapointing."

"I was right, to doubt your commitment."

"You enlisted the god of trickery and lies as your ally? Honestly, what were you expecting? You should be grateful those little baubles I deign to send your way haven't done anything worse than disappoint you." Despite the mocking tone of his words, Loki knew Doom was intelligent enough to recognize the threat. It would be a pleasure to make him sweat in that ridiculous armor of his. "Perhaps I should stop being so generous. If you want to abandon this little relationship and see just how I act to those who betray me, by all means, do so. And then you will know why your pitiful ancestors bowed and trembled before me."

Doom's laugh tended to either infuriate or concern Loki, and this laugh managed to do both. "You are no god. You are a pathetic refugee with nowhere to go and no one else to turn to save those with more power than you. I have seen beings far mightier than you tremble in fear, and it will give me such pleasure to bring you to your knees. Keep up your little tricks, your illusions and your cantrips. One day soon you will overstep your bounds, and you will discover why humans have no further use for the gods their pitiful ancestors created." There was a long pause, and Loki thought the megalomaniac had hung up, save the phone was still connected. "Consider today a warning. If you cross me, betrayme in earnest, you will wish for a death so swift."

The line went dead, and yet another phone crumbled and shattered in Loki's hand.