Clint swore, instantly on his feet, holding his discarded weapon, and pointing it at Natasha.

Just as quickly as Lucy moved to stop him, Thor moved towards her, stopping his sister from doing anything that might help the situation as he ordered her sharply, "Switch back to your mortal form."

Instantly Lucy complied, watching tensely as Natasha jerked her gun from its holster and pointed it straight at the head of the fallen god.

"What in the name of all that is holy is going on here, Clint?" she asked, looking with confusion between the three gathered across the room from her.

Clint's only answer was to ask, "How much of that did you hear?"

"Actually, I came in around 'Lucy' calling Thor 'brother.' Please tell me there's a very good explanation for that, because if it's what it sounds like, then we're going to have Asgardian brain splattered all over your walls in a minute."

"Wanna bet?" Clint asked tersely, stretching his arrow even tighter on the bow. "Tasha, I've dropped my weapon before when it was aimed at you; make it so that I can do that again. Lower your gun; I don't want to have to hurt you. No one needs to get hurt right now, but if Lucy's carrying my baby, I'm not going to let you harm her."

"Is. She. Loki?" Natasha asked evenly, gun not wavering a centimeter as she stared straight around the human shield that Thor and Clint were making around Lucy to meet the other woman's eyes.

"The closest thing that exists to Loki anymore," Lucy answered for herself.

"So you're still controlling him?" Natasha asked, jerking her head in Clint's direction.

"Hardly. It's been rather the other way around, actually. These two rarely give me a moment's peace." The elevator doors opened and Lucy nodded at the Avengers coming out along with Pepper, saying evenly, "And then there's them."

"What the heck is going on here?" Steve Rogers asked, marching from the elevator with concern scrawled across his features.

"I asked the same thing," Natasha replied, still not taking her eyes off of Lucy.

Rogers surveyed the partners who were still standing off across from one another with weapons drawn before he stepped towards his girlfriend and put a hand on her arm, ordering gently, "Nat, stop; lower your weapon. Whatever's going on here, we can talk it out like civilized people, right, guys?" He looked between Nat and Clint, his eyes flickering uncertainly to Thor whose grip on his hammer was particularly tight as he repeated, "Right?"

"Clint," Dr. Banner was the next to speak, eyeing the archer harshly. "Put those down, or so help me, I will break them in two, and quite possibly break Lucy in the process."

That got Clint's attention, and he threw the bow and arrow back onto the couch, raising his hands towards Natasha in a show of surrender. "Cap's right, Nat. We're all grownups here, and there's a little kid on the line, apparently. That's a completely innocent life, and neither of us wants that to end." Natasha's gun wavered and Clint took notice, saying, "Come 'ere, Nat. Just put the gun away, come here, and look right in my eyes. Then you can tell me whether or not Lucy's to blame for this."

Natasha was grinding her teeth in agitation, but she put the gun away and stepped up to her partner, obligingly searching his eyes and finding them no more blue then they normally were.

Suddenly there was nothing but pure confusion in her voice and expression as she asked again, "Then what the heck has been going on here?"

Clint sighed and waved the others onto the seating around the room while Lucy offered helpfully, "It's actually Odin's fault."

"No, it's not," Clint said, giving her a pointed but somehow amused look as he sat down and pulled her into his lap.

"What's Odin's fault?" Tony Stark asked in confusion. "And why exactly did Spidey and Legolas look ready to kill one another when we came in here?"

Thor answered tensely, "Because of Loki."

"Why?" Steve asked. "Where's Loki?"

Lucy flinched, slowly raising her hand. "Here."

There was a long, pregnant pause, and Rogers eventually looked at Stark to say something, but all the billionaire said was, "I don't say this very often, but I got nothing."

"It's magic, right?" Natasha finally asked.

Lucy nodded.

The redhead then asked, "Just… why?"

"Why am I here?" Lucy verified.

Natasha nodded.

"The All-father's idea was for Loki to garner some humanity and humility through servitude," Thor supplied. "But it backfired on him due to the woman that Lucy was turned into."

"Now, really," Lucy said. "If you will think back, my dear brother, it is your fault that I am here in this particularly feminine form."

"How am I to blame?!" Thor protested.

"You mentioned that there was already a manservant in the house, thus," Lucy gestured to her body. "I got this."

"And this," Clint said softly, moving one of her hands so that it was pressed against her abdomen. "So that means that you don't mind so much, right?"

"Excuse me?" Thor said suddenly, looking at Clint with a lot of emotions rolling through his eyes as he was apparently just realizing that he was going to become an uncle again.

Lucy looked at her brother in surprise, asking, "You didn't catch on to that yet?"

Thor mumbled something unintelligible.

"How about this, brother?" Lucy suggested. "You don't kill Clint, and Agent Romanoff does not kill me." She looked between Thor and the assassin as she asked, "Can we agree on that, please?"

Thor nodded and Agent Romanoff did too, albeit begrudgingly. Clint and Lucy both sighed with relief.

"How much acting have you been doing?" Pepper asked Lucy suddenly as the air around them became much less charged.

"Here recently, not much," Lucy admitted with a small smile. "Mostly it's just been lying about my background. The friendships that I've began to have with all of you and my feelings for Clint… I believe that those are genuine." She bit her lip. "At least… I'd like to believe that."

"Me too," Pepper said at last. "So… why don't we start over? I'm Pepper."

Lucy glanced at her hands as she admitted, "I'd still prefer being Lucy Saint; I like her better than Loki."

"Me too," Stark spoke up with a grin, unexpected kindness in his eyes as her gaze met his.

And for some reason, they all laughed at that. Lucy was hit with it then. They all knew. Every person in this room knew who she had been and what had been done to them at her hands, and they were all okay with her being here. She was still alive, they were all laughing together, and Clint was even happy about their upcoming baby.

For the moment, her life was perfect.