From The Ashes

By Anna Morgan

Chapter 15 From a Duet to a Trio

"This is dangerous and I will NOT let you go through with it!"

"You don't know what you're talking about, it's brilliant."

"Brilliant? BRILLIANT?! Tony this is exactly how the Other Guy came around, don't you realize that?! You could kill yourself, or worse!"

Loki teleported to the common room floor the next morning to find a very harassed-looking Bruce leaning against the counter, and Tony looking both exited and sleepy. Obviously neither of them had slept since Loki had seen them the previous night and he had a feeling he had interrupted some important heated discussion when they fell silent as his form appeared in front of them.

"That's still freaky, Loki," Tony quipped, his face serious. This earned him a reproachful look from Bruce, who huffed angrily.

"Good morning to you too." Loki strode slowly to the kitchen between the two glaring scientists as though he didn't notice them and began to pour some coffee. "If I am interrupting a lover's spat I can go elsewhere," he added.

Bruce looked murderous. Loki grinned triumphantly as he turned his back to them.

With a huff, Bruce shook his head and threw his hands up in frustration as he stalked urgently from the kitchen area. Loki swore he could see a tinge of green creeping through his usually fair complexion as he stamped by. He couldn't help himself; a feeling of glee at his contribution to the tension bubbled in his chest. A bit of mischief on his part. Just as Bruce approached the door to slam it open with all the angry force he could muster, the soft click of the door from the stairwell revealed Natasha, looking sleepy but well enough, cradling an orange kitten in her arms.

"Bruce! Look who I fou – " He took no notice of her, or her cargo, as he practically ran her over in his haste, slamming the door behind him as he went. Natasha looked after him, surprised and a little hurt, Loki noticed, and she gently set mewing cat on the ground looking noticeably put out. The bubble that had been growing in his chest deflated at her obvious dismay and Loki had to resist the urge to cross the room and envelope her in the tight embrace she looked like she could use. "What's his problem?" she asked, though she received her answer from the slightly guilty look that Tony wore and Loki's mischievous glint. "Don't tell me you pissed him off on purpose," she added darkly.

Tony shook his head and swerved around her (the cat let out a loud "YEOW" as he stepped on its tail in the process), muttering something about needed a shower and a drink.

Natasha shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose as she made her way to the kitchen; she hadn't been awake half an hour and she already needed an aspirin and as much coffee as she could handle. Loki crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the counter, watching her expectantly as she systematically retrieved a mug (and a couple aspirin) from the cabinet and began to pour the remaining contents of the coffee pot into it. "Good morning," he greeted her finally. She looked up from her cup momentarily and smiled lightly in return.

Loki moved slowly, almost hesitantly, to stand beside her. She smiled as he settled next to her as she continued to pour. "Its' still there." Her voice was quiet. "It took me a moment to remember what exactly it was. But it's still gorgeous." She smiled up at him.

"I certainly hope you remember, it took quite a bit of magic to manage such a stunning display," Loki looked down at her with his own cup resting beneath his hand.

"I'm sure it did."

He cleared his throat softly and looked down to meet her eye. "Is that the…only thing you remember from last night?"

Natasha set the coffee pot down gently and looked down at the counter. She knew this was going to come up sooner or later. Closing her eyes, she exhaled deeply.

"Natasha?" he whispered. The way he said her name so soft made her blood swirl in her cheeks and sent a shiver running down her spine.

"No," she said quietly. "I remember everything." Loki placed himself – his movements slow, deliberate, graceful – so he stood directly behind her, his hands placed on either side of her on the counter, trapping her in place. The planes of their bodies barely touched and Natasha could feel the blood gushing to her cheeks and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She turned around to face him sharply and looked up into his expecting gaze. Every nerve in her body was telling her to throw herself onto him and take exactly what she had wanted from him last night, what he wanted to give, and she wanted nothing more than to give in to their demands.

While these thoughts swam in her mind, Loki placed his hand softly on her cheek, his long fingers threading lightly into her hair and, again, hesitantly, began to lean in closer to her.

Before he could get too close however, she stopped herself. "Loki!"

Loki froze in his path. Even as she spoke, her mind was screaming at her 'What are you doing?!' She cleared her throat loudly before speaking again. "Thank you…for not taking advantage last night," her voice was almost professional sounding, clearly rejecting his advance and smothering the mood. The air between them became heavy and awkward.

Loki looked like she had just slapped him; he almost wished she had. He dropped his hands down to his side, defeated, and stood up straight once again. "You…You are welcome." It was hard to keep the disappointment from his voice as his heart sank. You knew this was coming, do not jest yourself…

Natasha panicked at his disappointed look. "I really appreciate you keeping me company – "

"You have no need to explain yourself."

" – it's just…I don't think… it's a little complicated…I really do…." she stumbled over her words, trying to find an explanation. Words were almost always her most useful weapon why did they fail her now?!

Loki slowly backed off and looked away as Natasha panicked, grasping madly at any possible way to fix this but the damage was done. Before she could reach any viable solution, the phone in her pocket rang out obnoxiously. Could this be any more poorly timed? She thought bitterly. She snatched the offending device from her pocket and answered, more forcibly than was necessary.

"Agent Romanoff….yes, Director….Yes they are….Yes, sir….We can do that, sir, we'll be there then." She hung up and looked back up at Loki and sighed, hating that this needed to end on such a sour note.

"Fury wants us all at headquarters, including you," she tried to convey her apology through her tone, but he just nodded. He teleported away in a flash of gold light, leaving her behind.

….

"We received these images from Dr. Foster and Dr. Selvig last night," Fury informed them as five of the Avengers plus Loki stood in awe in awe before him. "We need a positive identification on them. Loki, do these ships look familiar to you at all?"

Images of the familiar armada of triangular-shaped alien craft flashed on the screen in the SHIELD Director's office. All thoughts of any other matters were torn violently from Loki's mind as the blood in his face rushed away. His already pale face had no color left in it whatsoever.

"That," he swallowed hard, "that is the Sanctuary II. Thanos' flagship," he croaked. "And the Chitauri."

"Where are they?" Steve asked gravely. The present Avengers shared the same grave look.

"Pretty far," Fury replied, "A little over nine hundred million miles out. But we have no reading on their heading or velocity as of yet."

"When will we have those readings?" Bruce sounded more up in arms and impatient even than Steve.

Fury shook his head. "Few hours yet." He pulled a device from his pocket and placed it on the desk. Clint and Natasha shared a glance; they recognized the device to be an anti-bugging device.

"What I'm about to tell you is so classified that you will not speak of this outside of this room, even in the privacy of the tower, got it?" he commanded forcefully. They nodded. "In light of this, we've decided to go ahead and have the Gauntlet moved to its secure bunker early. Stark and Banner know this." Natasha, Loki, Steve, and Clint turned their heads to look at the two scientists. Loki couldn't help but wonder: was what they argued about that morning?

"The Gauntlet is going with Stark and Banner personally to Philadelphia to a specialized bunker," Fury continued. "The scepter," Loki's squirmed slightly as Fury's eye flickered toward him, "can continue to be in your custody in the tower."

So that is what became of the gem, Loki thought.

"Why not take the scepter with the Gauntlet?" Bruce asked.

Clint answered him smartly, "It would be better if we kept them separate. Plus, like Loki said, if this Thanos guy has the last gem, then the fake Gauntlet won't work. So if he takes the gem it won't be as catastrophic as if he had the real Gauntlet, or both. So, the Gauntlet is our priority" Loki was impressed – the man really didn't miss a thing. He was grateful for a fleeting second that he had the Hawk on his side once again.

"Good point," Steve shrugged.

"So what's our plan, then?" Natasha asked finally. "When he actually gets here?"

"We'll need to protect the civilians, get them out of the area, set up an evacuation," Steve looked contemplative as he spoke. "Get them in bunkers or in the subway system. Keep the fight isolated so it's focused on us. Does Philadelphia have subways? Or bunkers?"

Loki shook his head. "You forget what we are dealing with. Thanos means to destroy this world, not simply attack it. You plan as though he will attack only one place, but he will most likely choose several places in order to split your forces."

"Divide and conquer," Tony said.

"Precisely."

"Are you saying we're gonna need our own army here?" Clint crossed his arms as he thought.

"Yes," Loki started pacing around the room.

Bruce and Tony caught each other's eye.

"The Asgardians may be willing to step in on your behalf," Loki continued to pace. "The Allfather has sent his armies for the protection of your world in the past, Thor may be able to convince him to do the same again."

"I think we should hold off planning the details here until we can get Thor in on this then," Bruce said. "There's no point making a plan if it may not be feasible."

There was a general agreement among them, heads nodding and mumbled words in agreement.

"I'll inform you immediately when we have more information for you. Loki, can you get hold of Thor in the meantime?" Fury asked.

"I shall."

"Good. Until then, Stark, Banner you know what to do. Everyone else, you're dismissed," Fury stated.

….

The mood in the tower was significantly darker as the tension rose in light of Fury's newest development.

The ride back to SHIELD was quiet and heavy as each of the team members were lost in their own thoughts on the matter. Loki, for his part, left feeling more ill and jittery even than he felt when the Chitauri came for him on Asgard. This time, the stakes were significantly higher: it was not only his life and his brother's, but the beings who he had, begrudgingly, begun to feel attached to. Including Natasha. He stared at the ground as his insides squirmed and twisted with guilt and anticipation. He was crammed in beside her, their arms and sides touching from being squished together in the back seat of the car with Tony and Steve.

Almost without thinking about it at all, his hand drifted to clasp atop hers, squeezing it protectively as thoughts ran wildly through his mind. Her response was to squeeze his for a few seconds in return, and with near equal intensity, before letting go to clasp her hands in her lap. Loki took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Small and insignificant as her gesture was compared to the threat they faced, it was oddly comforting.

No one looked at each other once they were safely in the tower, each choosing to release the stress in their own individual ways: Natasha and Clint took off to the training room almost immediately. Bruce and Tony snuck away to the labs to do Odin knows what. Loki and Steve stayed in the common room floor, doing what they did best: strategize and continue to plan against their enemy, which was as close to being comforting as it was possible to be at the moment. Though it would be useless to discuss the forces available to them without Thor present, they wanted to feel as though they were doing something against their enemy.

"JARVIS, retrieve a map displaying the population density of Midgard," Loki ordered.

"Certainly, Sir,"

"Could you find a topographic map as well?"

"Yes, Captain."

They poured over maps provided by JARVIS of every kind: the population density and topographical maps proved most useful, though they studied other kinds such as manufacturing, resource availability, wealth distribution, and the like. They even came up with a few of their own in the few hours they spent on their task.

It was early in the afternoon when Steve decided he needed a break and wandered down to the training room to find Natasha for a much-needed sparring session, leaving Loki alone with their work. He continued to pour and fret over the maps when a loud and thunderous BOOM! rocked the floor and sent rumbles through the tower around and beneath him with so much force that he nearly fell from his seat at the table.

Loki jumped up as another explosion shook the floor beneath him, this one only a little less intense than the last. What in the Nine Realms…?

He sprinted to the stairwell, unwilling to teleport unintentionally to the source of the explosion. His heart was pounding like mad and he trembled near uncontrollably. His breaths were ragged and forced as he panicked. Thanos was millions of miles away last night he couldn't possibly be here now could he…?! And if he was, where were the others? More importantly where was Natasha?

He followed the series of subsequent explosions through the catacomb of the tower and breathed a sigh of relief as he realized that they were coming from the labs. Thanos was not there after all. He stopped his run and took a moment to calm his racing heart and level out his breathing. A thick cloud of smoke and sparks billowed from one of the larger labs. Through the chaos, he could hear the two resident scientists' voices.

"Whew! How about that?"

"God, this might actually work…"

"Of course it's gonna work. I came up with it."

"If we can just work out the bugs, multiply it and synthesize a biological agent…."

The panic he had felt melted away to pure curiosity. Loki cautiously approached the doorway and leaned against the doorway, his arms crossed as he watched curiously as Tony and Bruce scribbled down some notes. Tony wore his Iron Man gauntlet, the center smoking from its most recent energy blast.

"Alright this is trial 2. JARVIS, increase the levels to 20 percent," Bruce placed two new Iron Man gauntlets on separate tables on opposite sides of the room while Tony removed the one he currently wore. Tony raised his palms, a round metal circle strapped in the center of each, and aimed them at the gauntlets. In a flash, the gauntlets zoomed across the room and fitted themselves neatly onto Tony's hands.

"Yes!" They exchanged a triumphant high-five ("Ow!" Bruce shook his hand in pain from the impact of metal on his bare hand).

Loki raised his eyebrows at them. "That is impressive."

Bruce and Tony snapped their heads to the doorway, having not noticed Loki until now. "Oh hey, Loki, what brings you down here?" Bruce scribbled something on a notepad.

"Perhaps it was the massive explosion that nearly took down your manor here?" Loki's voice was thick with sarcasm.

Tony shrugged. "Experiments. Explosions happen."

"What, may I ask, are you experimenting?"

"Well," Tony began enthusiastically. "I had a thought last night while I was…slightly inebriated. We need an army, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, why not an army of "Iron Man"s?"

"Because we really need more Tonys around," Bruce mumbled. Tony glared at him in response.

Loki cocked his head to the side. "And how, precisely, do you plan to make this army of Iron Men?"

Tony picked up a test tube from the shook it playfully. "This. It's a serum. If my math is right, and it always is, it will let me control up to fifty of my Iron Man suits at once." He placed it back on the desk. "It's like the one that my dad used to make Cap, except it doesn't alter muscle groups to make them bigger. What it does is create an electromagnetic bond that can be switched on and off by the electric impulses in the nervous system, therefore allowing me to control the suits with my thoughts and movements. It's genius."

"And extremely dangerous."

Loki nodded, understanding now. "So essentially, you are attempting to synthesize a mechanical form of magic."

Bruce and Tony exchanged a look."What do you mean?" Bruce asked.

Loki strode knowingly past them to the desk. "Magic," he instructed, sounding like a British university professor giving a lecture, "is nothing more or less than harnessing the energy of the world around you, fusing it with your own, and giving it direction, a purpose. It is a part of you, it flows within you, from your very cells, in such a way that, truthfully, your magic controls you, and not the other way around." He placed his hand over an apple sitting on the desk as he spoke and made it spin of its own accord in the air.

A light bulb went off in Tony's head, an idea. "Alright, Obi Wan. So you're saying it's organic?"

"Yes."

"Hmm." Tony raised his hand to his chin, stroking it in thought. "How would you feel about helping out with this little project of ours?"

Loki cocked his head again. "In what way?"

Bruce picked up on Tony's meaning immediately. "Let us see how your magic 'flows' in you. Maybe let us get a CAT or X-Ray to see it."

Loki considered for a second. "Will it be painful?"

Tony waived his hand "Nah. They don't hurt. It'll be just like taking a nap."

He hesitated for a moment. "I suppose it can do no harm then…"

A few moments later, Loki found himself lying on his back, strapped by his wrists to a lounge bed as Tony and Bruce scurried around him, hooking up wires, turning on monitors, and flipping switches.

"I must admit, when I agreed to help you this is not what I had in mind," Loki tried to keep himself calm; this brought back too many memories of the games the Chitauri played with him for comfort and he even began to panic slightly, his heart rate going through the roof again and a thin layer of sweat forming on his forehead.

Bruce was the first to notice his discomfort. "I promise this isn't going to hurt." Loki didn't look any calmer. "If Tony does anything he shouldn't I'll set the Other Guy on him. And you know how that'll go." He gave Loki a reassuring, almost shy, smile. The image of the Hulk smashing Tony into the floor as he had once done to him was just amusing enough to calm him a little, though not much.

"Alright, you got the wand?" Tony asked as he was readjusting Loki's straps to make him more comfortable. Bruce held up the metal wand and looked up at the monitor above Loki's head and frowned. It was off.

"Shit…" Tony mumbled.

"You forgot to turn on the monitor, genius."

"No problem let me just…." Tony climbed awkwardly onto Loki's lounge so he had one leg on either side of Loki and reached up to press the button. Loki frowned, closed his eyes and tilted his head down, not wanting to see the bit of Tony that was practically in his face. As Tony stood up, however, he lost his balance and fell, face planting right onto Loki, who pushed himself as far into the lounge as he could, wishing it would swallow him as Tony's face collided with his shoulder. Bruce chuckled in the corner at the spectacle.

"Sorry, my bad, Loki…"

"What the hell are you guys doing in here?"

All three faces turned to see Pepper standing in awe at the sight from the doorway. Bruce's chuckle turned into an all out roar of laughter as he held onto the nearest object for stability to keel from rolling on the ground.

Tony was still crouched over Loki on his hands and knees in a very awkward position indeed. They exchanged a look before Tony acknowledged his wife.

"Lets face it, this is not the worst thing you've caught me doing," he said smartly.

"Well it ranks in the top five."

"Loki's helping us with an experiment and your genius husband forgot to turn on the monitor," Bruce explained as he pointed to the now-glowing monitor. He still held the wand in his hand.

Once Tony was off, and Pepper sitting patiently to observe, Bruce ran the wand over Loki's head, limbs, and torso, observing the visible energy present in his blood, Tony being unwilling to be too near him. Instead, he was content to record the images and data, giving commands to JARVIS every once in a while in the process. Loki wasn't exaggerating at all.

"Wow…" Bruce gasped.

"Is my part quite finished?" Loki asked impatiently, raising his head from the pillow.

"Yeah…Yeah…." Bruce turned off the wand and set it aside. He systematically undid the straps and Loki slipped off the lounge, rubbing his wrists in the process.

"So…you're in on this, right?" Tony asked. "You wanna make our little science bro duet a trio?"

Loki sighed as he weighed the pros and cons. At least he could do something useful. "I suppose so."

….

A/N: That's right, I'm back. I seriously considered not going on with this story, but I hate to leave things unfinished… A bit shorter than what I usually write but it's something at least.

Anyway, another chapter down for you. A great big thank you, as always, to the favorites, follows, and especially reviews. They really do feed the fire here and let me know if I'm on track with this story or not, so let me know what you thought.

Next chapter: Christmas in the Avengers Tower. With Loki involved! Because I've always wondered what THAT would be like : )