I thought I'd give you all a happy chapter! I still don't really know how to continue to get where I want to go but we'll see! Don't forget! More than 5 reviews equal a preview on Wednesdays.
Loki wishes they would all relax, hadn't he told them that Thanos wouldn't attack for at least another three days? Why are these mortals so nervous and stressed anyway, there's nothing more to be done, when Thanos comes they'll have to deal with it, pacing and complaining is both a waste of time and of energy. The man of iron is staring at the chess board currently the only one who's not pacing or sighing every two minutes.
Thor keeps swinging Mjolnir and doesn't stop complaining. The captain of America sits in one of the chairs deep in thought, the two agents sit next to each other, looking the most relaxed of them all. The healer is currently in some other room, Loki does not know where.
"I got it!" Stark exclaims throwing his hands in the air, moving his hand to the knight, the hand hovers above it for a few seconds but falls back at his side. The frown on his face is most amusing and Loki cannot help but grin.
'No, no I don't." he sighs, staring at the board once more. None of them react because this has been going on all morning, at first every single one of them had jumped up, weapons at the ready (except Loki of course) only to then realize that it had just been Stark thinking he had found a winning strategy. (He hadn't of course)
It's silent again for a few precious minutes before Stark once again throws his hands in the air!
"I got it!" This time he does move a piece. Loki grins he moves his knight and Stark's face falls.
"Okay so maybe I didn't." he admits.
"You'll lose, Man of Iron, look at your rook and my knight, you can't do anything, think five steps ahead, you'll see, you're stuck." Loki gloats. Nobody's interested in his victory though.
It takes his opponent exactly two minutes to get to the same conclusion Loki has. Stark's lost. He just grumbles and knocks his own king down.
"Fine you win." He mumbles.
From the corner of his eye Loki sees Steve look up.
"Didn't you do like five moves?" he asks.
"Well grandpa, you try playing chess with a three hundred-year-old see how long you'll last!"
"Hey I'm just asking." The captain grins.
"But you got beaten by a kid, Stark, that can't be good for your big ego." He jokes.
"This KID is like half-god or something."
"Whatever."
Loki rolls his eyes, sometimes he wonder who's really the kid around here, these mortals sure act like it.
"Not that I don't enjoy your company thoroughly," he mocks. "but where's the healer?"
"Brucie's doing some research on your blue magical, mind controlling glow stick." Tony says waving at the door.
"The Mind Gem? Why didn't he tell me, I could help with that."
"Dunno," Stark shrugs.
"Yeah I bet you know all about the scepter." The eye of hawk's voice is like venom. No one reacts but Thor who takes a threatening step towards the agent but after a slight shake of Loki's head he steps back, still glaring though. Nobody has forgiven the spies for their actions, they all however understand them. Whatever the personal feelings or the cost, both are agents which means they follow orders, the one to be blamed is actually Fury but he's not here to kick the living daylights out. Most of them ignore both spies, the only reason they're allowed to stay is because they are needed no one likes to admit it but they are, their skills and knowledge but they are also part of the Avengers, like it or not.
It's been a silent agreement to ignore them but Thor still has difficulties with that and all of them know for a fact that Thor had had a word with them, Thor still reacts and looks like he might punch one of them (Clint most likely) in the face very soon.
"Yes, well since I do, perhaps it would be best if I went to share my excessive knowledge with the healer."
Loki jumps from the chair and exits the room quickly, he can feel the archer's glare on his back but he ignores it, back home everybody glares at him so why should he care about one mortal with some stupid grudge.
XxXxXxXxXx
At first Bruce's not certain whether to be happy that Loki's come to help him or not, the reason he had separated himself from everyone else is still Loki but soon he realizes that Loki knows so much more of the scepter and of its workings than Bruce could have ever hoped to without the mini-god.
Bruce knows Loki has knowledge about the computers and machines in Stark's lab above even his own. It's still a weird sight to see a twelve-year-old dressed Asgardian clothing working with computers like some professional scientist.
"See this?" Loki asks. He points at the model of the scepter, to be more specific at the place where the Mind Gem is located. "Enhanced glass, nothing breaks through that but radiation and the power of the Mind Gem."
Bruce frowns, he hadn't even noticed a glass layer covering the scepter not even a millimeter of glass had he seen when studying the scepter not even with a microscope.
"So it's like a protective coat?" he suggests, pushing his glasses up and putting down the papers he had been holding.
"Like the other gems, the Mind Gem is far from indestructible, I assume Thanos wants to protect it, if it is destroyed every mind controlled is free, every spell placed upon it, is broken."
"So it's a fragile mind controlling hocus pocus rock from outer space." They both turn around and of course neither are surprised when they see Tony sauntering in the lab. He leans on one of the desks and glances at the computer screens.
"I see you've been studying quite a lot there my fellow nerds." He jokes, picking up the paper Bruce had put down a few seconds ago.
"Are you here to help, Iron Man, if you are not that perhaps leaving is the best course of action?" Loki drawls, turning around again with one swift motion of his finger the projection in his hands zooms in on the gem.
"I am here to help actually!" Tony exclaims happily, he throws the papers away like they're not very important notes on an extraterrestrial weapon.
Bruce runs towards Tony as fast as he can and picks up the papers, he worked very hard on those thank you very much. While grabbing the papers fast enough so Tony doesn't step on them he mutters.
"You're not really helping right now Tony, if you wanna help, there are these energy reading I'd like to-"
"Wooh there Brucie, let the genius finish his sentences." He chastises. Bruce can feel the Other Guy's urge to smack Tony really hard but he manages to control it.
"So everything's been a bit dull, you know, tension with the two Totally Spies and me letting Loki win the chess games-" (Loki snorts at that one) "-and I thought why not do something fun?"
Bruce frowns, he doesn't like where this is going.
"Something fun, Tony? With the fate of the worlds in our hands and its destruction almost imminent?" Sarcasm has never been Bruce's strong suit but he's done fairly well now.
"Yes, like I said," Tony continues, ruffling through some other papers, "fun!"
"So I'm thinking,"
"Make sure you do not hurt yourself, Man of Iron, thinking might give you a headache." Loki mocks, his back is still turned on both Tony and Bruce and he's typing new info on the data pads.
"We should go to the park!"
XxXxXxXxXx
"We should do WHAT?"
"The park, P-A-R-K, you know the place with the grass and the trees and the old ladies feeding ducks."
"And the symbol of the Bifrost embedded in said grass, and you know, the huge crater Loki left when he was zapped to earth by the Tesseract?" Steve Rogers says, glaring at Tony. Stark's gone mad he thinks, and then, we should have seen that one coming.
"No guys I'm serious! I have these awesome watches that will make us look like totally different people and Central park's open again, they removed the symbol and the crater and all of that with huge donations given by Stark Industries of course, and we could like have this picnic or eat shawarma!"
"We're not going to the park Tony" Bruce shakes his head.
"Okay not the park how about… the fair?"
"We're not going to the fair either Stark!" Steve yells.
"What's a fair?" Thor asks. Loki rolls his eyes.
"Why do you want to go someplace with useless shenanigans anyway, Man of Iron I-"
"The name's Tony Stark, Locks."
Loki frowns. "Locks?"
"Not important," Steve interrupts, "what is, however is this: we're not leaving this tower, are you out of your mind Stark? You want to put civilians in danger so you can go ride the ferries wheel?"
"We're not endangering anyone, we'll have these!" He's somehow magically summoned up six wristwatches. "Courtesy of Stark Industries of course!"
"Those cheap cloaking devices will not shield you from Thanos." Loki snaps, losing his patience, is this supposed to be a mortal adult? How old is this guy anyway?
"Excuse you, cheap? I put a lot of money and work in these babies!" Tony objects, waving his creations in front of Loki's face. Everyone wants to protest some more but they can't because Jarvis interrupts them all.
"Sir, Miss Pots is here."
XxXxXxXxXx
"Anthony Edward Stark, how dare you cancel all my flights back to America!"
"Pepper?" Tony yells, rushing toward her, how dare he? How dare he lock her out and not tell her anything!
"Yes! Me! You left me stranded in Paris, cancelled all my attempts to take a plane back and then I hear on the news that there was some gas leak in Detroit, a very obvious lie made up by director Fury I'm certain and who is that?" She's just noticed the boy standing next to Thor with a sullen expression on his face.
"Pepper, hey- Pepper listen to me I can explain I swear!"
Realization hits her hard, she recognizes that face, even though it's so different, it's so much younger. "Is that Loki?"
Pepper turns around and stalks to the boy and seeing him stand there like that, makes her bold, she's not afraid of him, because her anger is stopping her from that.
"Are you the maniac god that gave Tony nightmares for MONTHS?! She asks, glaring at Loki, Thor looks like he wants to interrupt but Loki beats him to it.
The boy cocks his head to the side to look, past her at Tony and grins. "I gave you nightmares son of Stark?" he mocks.
The woman doesn't look too pleased.
"You need to explain this to me now Tony!" she says, Pepper tries to make her initial anger sound through, through her voice but she can't stop the confusion and fear from showing.
"Pepper, please, it's hard to explain, with the Chitauri and Loki, I thought you'd be safer in Paris, I'm sorry I kept you in the dark I thought it was better if you didn't know…" That's the lamest excuse she's ever heard.
"What?" her eyes go from Tony to Loki as if she's not sure who she's supposed to glare at.
"Why does he look like a child? Is this Loki?" she asks. Loki sighs like this is all tedious and nothing serious.
"I could explain everything to her with magic." He drawls, "Then the healer and I could go back to research."
"You mean you could mess with her head and probably make her think she's a goat or something!" Tony bites, glaring at Loki.
"I wouldn't!" Loki says in the most sincere way he can manage. Thor intervenes.
"You made a guard think Sif was in love with him and he ended up in the healing court for five days."
"It WAS you who wanted me to 'distract' the guards." Loki says smugly.
"I have a feeling we're sidetracking here." Tony says dryly. Loki turns around again.
"I solemnly swear that I won't make her think she's a goat." Loki drawls, right hand at his heart like he's saluting.
Pepper doesn't like the way this conversation is going.
"Maybe she'd like some say in the matter." Pepper states, glaring. The boy she just learned is Loki looks up at her and shrugs.
"It was a mere suggestion for this tiresome conversation to end faster."
"No," Pepper bites, "I want a nice long explanation telling me everything that I need to know."
Loki narrows his eyes and for a moment he looks angry, but that moment is over as fast as it's come and he scowls.
"You don't need to know anything, in fact, everyone would be better off if I just wiped your memory and we'd be done with it." Pepper wants to give a witty remark but she can't, Loki's already turned around.
"Healer Banner I think we can go back to doing useful things, like the research we were doing before we were so rudely interrupted."
Doctor Banner gets up awkwardly and follows Loki out of the room.
The other get the hint though, everyone leaves except Thor who doesn't seem to get it until Tony literally pushes him out of the room.
XxXxXxXxXx
She has been waiting for the opportunity and now with everyone distracted with pepper Potts suddenly in the picture she knows it's now or never. Agent Barton probably went up the roof, just like her he doesn't like surprises and he likes to know what's going on or what will be going on later, it's one of the reasons he likes high places, people rarely look up and he has quite the view in high places. Chances are that he's on the roof right now.
Thor is either plundering the kitchen or pacing once more, Steve… she doesn't know what Steve's doing right now. Not jogging that's for sure.
Loki is walking with Bruce saying something about Clint's arrows for some reason and she grabs the chance presented. She takes a hold of Loki and smiles apologetically at Bruce.
"I need to talk to him about something." Bruce doesn't look convinced.
"There are camera's healer Banner," she hears Loki say.
"And if I might add, I know how to defend myself from just one agent, I assure you."
Bruce's still not convinced but nods anyway.
The moment Natasha is one hundred percent sure he can't hear them anymore she turns Loki around so he's facing her, sort off, he's still smaller.
"You lied."
"You might want to be more specific, I lie quite a lot you see."
"When you explained what was going to happen when Thanos attacks."
Loki's not smiling anymore, his face looks older again, tormented like it had looked back when he attacked earth months ago. His eyes turn sad for a moment before they light up again.
"That I did." He smiles again like it's no big deal.
XxXxXxXxXx
"You should have let me come back." Pepper says.
Tony shakes his head, the thought of Pepper being there when the Chitauri attacked, he can't stand it. Pepper is the love of his life, she's put up with him when no one else would, she's been there when the nightmares were too much and she's the most amazing person he's ever met, the thought of losing her because of what he does, because of who he is (for he is Iron Man), he cannot stand.
"You weren't here when Loki attacked New York and you were fine with that."
"No I wasn't, Tony you can't keep doing this to me."
"What do you mean? I can't keep you safe?"
"That's not what I mean and you know it." Pepper takes a deep breath before continuing,
"You can't keep risking your life and expect me to be okay with that, Tony Iron Man is starting to be an obsession, how many suits have you made since the Battle of New York?"
"No don't answer that," she holds her hand up to stop him from making silly excuses she won't believe anyway, "You think putting me on a plane when there's danger is going to solve everything. Don't you realize that every time you put on the suit I am the one who's afraid. I'm not afraid for my own life Tony, I'm afraid that one day I'll come back to an empty house that I will come back to that house knowing that you died and I was hundreds of miles away and I couldn't stop it."
"I understand that you can't just stop, Tony that the world needs you but I need you too." By the end of it she's crying and Tony can see she hates herself for it but inside he's crying too.
Pepper… he can't lose her but it never occurred to him that maybe he already is, by putting on the suit and risking his life, by locking himself up in the lab for days, by shutting her out without wanting too but he needs her to be safe.
He takes her in his arms, he needs her to be safe just as she needs him to be alive by the end of the day.
XxXxXxXxXx
"Everything is ready, my liege." The voice that speaks these words cracks, like the owner is afraid. He has good reason to be, the Mad Titan is losing patience, he's waited for so long and his patience is wearing dangerously thin.
The Other is watching Midgard and silence reigns on the barren and pathetic excuse of a planet they stand upon. But it is merely calm before the storm.
"Prepare the command centers and mount the Leviathans, earth's time is up."
Wow this chapter took a lot out of me, I had a major writer block there and I still have but I'm struggling to get this all right, I don't know how many chapters are left but I'd say at least 5 probably more not more than 10 I'd say though if this gets enough reviews a sequel might be possible because I enjoy writing Kid!Loki so much.
XxTheAlgeaxX