A/N: Well, you guys wanted Thor, so here he is! ;) He and Cap make brief appearances in this chapter. Expect more of them in the next chapter and in chapters to come. Thor will also be playing a bigger role in Like Poison soon since many of you requested it, so keep an eye out for out. I'm pretty much making this stuff up as I go. I'm a few chapters ahead of updates here on Nine Lives, but with Like Poison, I really have no idea where I'm going, so if there's anything you guys would like to see, feel free to suggest it.

ALSO, for those of you who don't know, I'm running a poll on my profile on whether or not I should continue the Abaddon series, and I would love to have everyone's feedback. Essentially, what would happen is: the story would lead into some sort of redemption for Loki. He'll never be the goody-goody hero Thor is, BUT he may at least reconcile with his brother and/or the other Avengers. That's the direction he was starting to take in Unto Death, anyway, and whether or not I write this is totally up to you guys. :)

EDIT: WE HAS FANART! 8D Bask in its awesomeness! stoft. deviantart .com/gallery/#/d48fb9a

(just delete the spaces)

Allegiances

The next morning, Loki awakened to the softness of a cushion beneath him and a warm body against his back. A disembodied voice with a British accent was talking about the weather – something about unexpected thunderstorms in the New York area – and Loki tried to blink the sleep from his eyes.

Trying muzzily to remember how he had ended up in someone else's bed, he yawned and stretched, closing his eyes and arching back into the body behind him. Male, if he went by the flat planes of his chest and the low rumble of his snores.

Hmm. When was the last time he had taken a male to bed? He didn't feel particularly hung-over...

It was only when he tried to sit up that he remembered.

Ah, right, he thought wryly. I'm a cat. Lovely.

Which meant that the snoring, drooling sack of flesh behind him was Tony Stark. Loki jumped up and away, disgusted with himself for spending the night spooning with Iron Man, quadruped or no.

Tony's snores ended in a grunt, and then his eyes opened to tiny slits. He mumbled something under his breath and then pushed himself into a sit, wiping crusted over bits of drool from his chin. His hair stuck up like a cockatoo, and there were creases in his cheek from where it had pressed against the mattress. Inwardly, Loki smirked.

Tired, puffy eyes landed on Loki, and Tony smiled, reaching out to tousle the fur on his head. Loki ducked away from the hand and glared, rearranging himself until he was sitting in a more dignified position. Tony chuckled.

"Morning, Loki."

You snore.

The disembodied voice – Jarvis, right – continued in the background, informing them pleasantly of the football scores from the previous night and of a battle raging in the middle of Central Park. Apparently the Hulk was throwing another tantrum. A normal enough day.

"Shit."

That was Loki's only warning before his human jumped to his feet and sped out of the room, jostling the bed and almost upending Loki in the process. He hissed after Tony's retreating footsteps.

"...Captain America and Thor are requesting that you join them, if you are not otherwise occupied..."

Loki turned towards the voice almost fast enough to give him whiplash, ears perked as high as they would go. Thor was back in Midgard?

Damn, damn, damn...!

If Tony went to Thor's aid, there was a better chance that the God of Thunder would come back to the mansion. Of course, chances are he would do so anyway if he was back in Midgard, but Loki was in too much of a panic to really care about that bit of logic. If Thor saw him, the ruse was over.

Loki sped down the stairs after Tony, following the sounds of cursing echoing up from the workshop. The basement floor was cool under his feet, and his heart thudded in his ears almost loud enough to drown out the whir of machinery as each piece of Tony's suit clicked into place. A few strategically placed robots were helping him speed up the process.

Stop, you idiot human! The shout came out as a long, whiny meow.

Tony spared him a distracted glance. "Pepper will feed you, kitty."

Loki growled. Does it look like I'm interested in food right now?

But Tony's full attention was on his suit. This would be so much easier in Ancient Egypt. They revered cats, like sensible humans. Now that he thought of it, he wondered how Seth was doing. He'd heard all sorts of gossip about those squabbles with his nephew...

Focus, Loki.

Damn it, mortal! I am a god, and you will pay attention to me!

Loki pushed off of his hind legs and launched his tiny body at one of the robots attaching the plates of armor to Tony's arms and hands. He hissed and clawed on some circuitry that looked like it might be important.

"H-Hey!"

Tony turned wide eyes on Loki but dared not move as another robot arm locked his helmet into place.

"Bad kitty!" a second voice – Pepper – gasped behind him, and Loki knew that he was defeated. A pair of hands grabbed him about the middle and pulled him away. Loki scrabbled for purchase on the robot, but his claws only grazed metal before he was swinging at air. He hissed and struggled, wriggling out of Pepper's grip and onto the floor. By the time he landed, Tony had already taken off. The roar of his rockets was like a rumble of thunder in the distance.

Loki curled his lip and hissed at Pepper one more time before stalking up the stairs, his tail bushy and twitching angrily.

Loki was definitely living up to his name, Pepper decided. She sat on Tony's couch, legs curled under her and her fingers dancing over her laptop's keyboard. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Loki, who was perched on the ottoman in front of her, eyes glued to the TV screen. On the television flashed the local news with live coverage of the three Avengers – Thor, Cap, and Tony – trying to subdue the Hulk, and Pepper thought she was going crazy because she could swear that the cat understood everything that was going in.

Ten minutes ago she had tried to change the channel –Tony had taken a rather vicious punch to the face, helmet, whatever, and she had cringed and needed a distraction – but the cat had glared and bared his teeth. She had pulled back and scooted to the other end of the couch while Loki had wrapped one paw protectively around the remote.

A little over a week, and the cat was already running the house. What a devious, nasty little thing he had turned out to be.

Still... sometimes, when she scratched behind his ear just right, he would close his eyes and purr as though her hands were the most delightful things in the world. And she had spotted him in the workshop the other day, curled up on Tony's lap. The goofy little smile Tony had worn as he talked to and petted the cat was alone worth the headache.

Now that she thought of it, the fact that he was a little devil made him a perfect match for Tony temperament-wise. She smiled and gave Loki an affectionate, though cautious, pat on the head. The cat did not react but continued to stare at the screen as though his life depended on it.

A moment later, still staring at the TV, Loki started purring. Pepper looked up and saw that the Hulk had dealt Thor a solid blow that had left a crater in the ground. Thor was shaking his head and woozily pulling himself to his feet. Pepper cringed as the Hulk punched him again, but she swore the cat started purring louder.

Something about that gave Pepper pause. She watched Loki out of the corner of her eye and wondered if – ?

No. That was crazy.

Right?

She could hear Steve trying to say something, probably trying to talk down their friend and former fellow Avenger, and she watched as the Hulk uprooted a tree and used it as a bat. Steve deflected it with his shield but was sent skidding backwards, his feet leaving long twin furrows in the ground. The Hulk swung back around impossibly fast, catching Tony before he could dodge, twisting his neck at an angle that made Pepper gasp, and sending him through a line of trees.

Loki stopped purring.

Pepper leaned forward, one hand over her mouth as she stared at the screen. Tony lay in a heap on the ground, but the camera panned away before she could tell if he was okay. She cursed loudly, and Loki jumped, turning to stare at her as though only just realizing she was there.

On screen, the Hulk had calmed down. He dropped the tree – the reporter was narrating, annoyingly describing what Pepper could already see – and was saying something likely self-pitying. When he bounded away, the Avengers did not follow him.

The camera panned first to Thor, who watched grimly after the Hulk, and then to Steve, who was helping Tony sit up. Pepper sighed in relief that the idiot was alive, at least, but if she continued working for that man, she would be completely gray in a few years. The camera panned back to the reporter, who segued into another story.

Loki was staring at the floor now, looking bemused – Pepper had not known that a cat could look bemused – and finally unwrapped his paw from around the remote. She watched him for a long moment, and he turned to look at her as though to say, What, human?

"He'll be okay," she said. It was crazy, she knew, but she suspected that, on some level, the cat understood that Tony had been hurt. Or maybe she was just saying that to reassure herself.

Loki stared at her for a long moment, his gaze intense but unreadable. She had never felt a cat see through her before. She wondered with a shiver if, maybe, there was something about Loki – the real Loki – that she should know or needed to remember.

Loki jumped down from the ottoman and slinked into the basement. When she peeked into the workshop a few minutes later, Loki was sitting at Tony's desk, waiting.