"Well this is awkward." Everyone turned to look at the man who had broken the tense silence, but Tony just shrugged it off. "What? Everyone was thinking it."

Loki had to agree. This was awkward. And boring. Loki hated being bored. He had known it would be a grim meeting, but he hadn't counted on it being so quiet and uninteresting. He was also over-prepared. He'd assumed that since he had been somewhat...troublesome...to this little group of late, they would be more cautious about his presence in their headquarters. Granted, he had been there many times before, but they didn't know that. And while he had - technically - saved them all, he was still the reason they had formed in the first place.

His vanity was only slightly flattered that they had to gather the most powerful beings in this realm (and beyond) just to take him on – but only slightly. While the people before him were the best Midgard had to offer, that wasn't saying much. The woman, while quick and lithe for a mortal, was more impressive in a bathing suit than a battle; the cocky fool was a good tinkerer but useless without his armor; the sullen one gave off an aura of medicine and magic - borrowed power; the shoddy dresser with anger management issues was only truly powerful (and he was truly powerful) when he lost his control - and there is no point in power, however limitless, without control of it. He'd learned that lesson the hard way. The one with the bow was interesting - relatable even. Whenever Loki had to resort to physical confrontation, he preferred the precision and advantage of a ranged weapon. Thor, Mjolnir in hand, would laugh at Loki's little daggers, but he could use them and maintain his distance from the enemy. No matter how large your sword, you cannot kill a target you cannot reach. Still, looking back at the woman, he acknowledged that even the archer had his weaknesses.

And then there was Thor. But that was another matter altogether.

If they weren't going to amuse him, then he'd have to make do on his own. He conjured a few pebbles and threw them onto the table in front of him. Then he reconsidered and transformed the pebbles into diamond - his target was quite dense after all. He pulled a swath of purple fabric from a hidden pocket and started to fiddle with the shape of it.

Hands still busy, he noticed the air had gone still. Looking up he saw that everyone was staring at him with various degrees of discomfort on their faces. He almost sighed at the oddity of mortals. The absent-minded professor turned into a rage demon and they didn't blink, but he conjures a few stones and they panic.

Ignoring them, he focused back on his task. He adjusted the fabric in his hand one last time and placed a diamond carefully in the appropriate place. Then he pulled back and let it fly. It hit Thor directly between the eyes. Thor didn't so much as blink, which was somewhat disappointing. Still, Loki smiled - pleased at the surprising amount of control he was able to exert with his makeshift weapon. He went to reload, but his brother's voice halted his movement.

"What is that?"

"A slingshot," he replied without taking his eyes off his task.

"The fabric, brother. What is the fabric?"

Ah, he understood why Thor was so bothered now. "Oh. Darcy Lewis's panties."

Seeing his brother's mouth gape open, he used his advantage to let fly another diamond at his new target. Another direct hit. Thor immediately started choking on the diamond before spitting it out and giving Loki an irritated look. Loki just shrugged it off, pleasantly surprised that the elasticity of the fabric allowed for such precision. He wanted to applaud his own ingenuity. Had anyone else used panties as a weapon before - at least once they were off an attractive woman? Doubtful.

"Why do you-" Natasha had started to ask, before Thor cut her off with a firm, "No, do not ask. It is better if we do not know."

Loki smiled at his brother, thinking of better times.

"Do not fret, brother. There is no sinister reason. This time."

He looked around for another target. Perhaps if he made the angry one's eye-patch disappear, he could aim for his empty eye socket? That thought, morbid and amusing, reminded him of his father. Of Odin, he mentally corrected. The game was no longer any fun.

An awkward silence once again descended. This was getting old. He addressed the group at large, "Are we going to talk about why I am here, or will you all just continue to stare at me? While I am sure that you find me quite fascinating, I have better things to do with my time."

The mortal in the badly tailored suit – Coulson, his mind supplied– took that as his cue to start speaking. He began to offer him some sort of pardon if he was willing to cease hostilities. Boring. Loki quickly tuned the little man out. Prior to his "arrival" at the facility today, he had sent out doubles to various nooks and crannies that were to stay alert and hidden, should the need arise for him to make a quick getaway. He scanned each double and found that one of them was quite entertained. It was spying on a pair of spies.

Hmm…he wondered what would happen were he to reveal that there were two silly mortal women listening at the keyholes. Metaphorical keyholes, of course – the door to the meeting room was made of an uncommonly hard metal and guarded by no less than nine armed guards. As if that would stop him. The mortals were listening in on the meeting via a little camera and technical skill. Clever girls.

Tuning back into the meeting, he found Patches was talking now about something or other – treaties or trust or treason – so he threw his consciousness into the body currently standing scant inches from Thor's new woman.

He had been somewhat startled when he first started observing Jane Foster. She was intelligent, sweet, demure, slender. Beautiful, yes - but not Thor's usual type. In truth, Loki was surprised that Thor hadn't made his move on the pretty Darcy instead. Darcy was loud, bawdy, funny, busty -everything Thor had traditionally sought in his previous romantic companions. Still, Thor had befriended the younger girl and courted the elder. That, more than anything, confirmed Loki's suspicions that Thor had grown up. Finally. Part of Loki was almost proud for him - of him. The rest of Loki was just resentful. Thor was correcting his flaws and Loki was creating new ones to revel in. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Still, this had the potential to be fun.

He leaned over Jane's shoulder to get a better view of the monitor, "See anything interesting, ladies?"

Jane turned around, and Loki could see the lies forming on her tongue to explain her little naughtiness, but she froze at the sight of her lover's brother instead of military personnel. In his periphery, he could see Darcy jump and spin around to face him silently, but he kept his eyes on Jane. He waited for her reaction and was almost disappointed (and oddly offended) that she paled and then screamed his brother's name loud enough to make him grimace. He scanned the double he'd left in his place and found Thor already running toward the door – the others without godly hearing staring after him in confusion. His double held out a hand to halt his brother, but Thor passed straight through as if it were a ghost. Corporeality was trickier to maintain in multiple forms.

Damn, he had been interested in what Jane would say to him without the distracting presence of his brother's mammoth person.

A voice shouted to his right, "Motherfucker! What the Hello Kitty are you screaming at, woman? I think I'm deaf in this ear now. Didn't your mother ever teach you to use your freaking inside voice?"

He'd forgotten Darcy was there until her diatribe reached his own ringing ears. He turned to find her looking at him earnestly

"Loki, dude, be honest - is my ear bleeding?"

She turned her head sideways as if she were genuinely concerned that Jane had punctured her eardrum. When she didn't crack a smile, he realized that she was actually being serious. Blinking at the absurdity of what he was about to do, he leaned closer and looked at her ear.

"No blood. You shall live to eavesdrop another day. Any lingering damage sustained appears to be simply emotional."

She huffed, "Emotional. Yeah, that seems to be the trend these days."

While her words were offhand, he found them strangely poignant. Emotional wounds - festering and frustrating - were what had spurred him on these past few months.

As Jane was still sitting in her chair staring at him like he was about to bite the head off her kitten (ah, the good old days), Loki was about to address the only other mentally cognizant person in the room. He paused, words caught midway between his mind and his mouth, as he heard Thor's heavy footsteps heading toward them at a godly rate. The facility was quite massive and labyrinthine, but apparently Thor could manage to find his way if the need was great enough. He careened around the corner, hammer in hand, and headed straight toward Jane. Loki realized that Thor would simply run straight at him, thinking him but a double again, so he sidestepped quickly and then had to watch as his brother swept the still-frozen woman into his arms in a laughably heroic manner.

"My love, what is wrong? Are you hurt? Please, speak!" He began running his hands along her body, checking for injury. Feeling vaguely discomfited that his brother had his hands on a woman's ass and wasn't pinching it, Loki decided to end his brother's desperation.

"She is fine, Thor. I merely startled her. But she gave as well as she got - ask Darcy if you doubt my words."

Thor gave him a brief glance before looking back at Jane, concern still etched into the very lines of his person. Loki understood that Thor would be less likely to take his words at face value now, but still found it somewhat rude to be ignored. As he watched his brother press a gentle kiss to the mortal woman's forehead, he felt vaguely nauseated as well. If he ever became that soft over a woman, he hoped someone would have the common decency to kill him quickly and be done with it. He turned to look at the least sickening thing in the room, but she was still grimacing and fiddling with her ear.

The woman - Natasha, he amended - rounded the corner with her gun drawn. Her eyes scanned the area and then the nozzle was pointed in the general direction of Loki's forehead. Lovely. And what kind of hero used a gun anyway? It didn't take much finesse or skill to pull a trigger.

The rest of the little band of crusaders followed into the room except for the Professor. Loki wondered if it was because he was out of shape or had more to do with maintaining an iron grip on his control. Can't raise your heart rate or you turn into a monster? Must be tough to get a woman.

Coulson's voice shouted breathlessly, "Thor, sitrep!"

Voices started answering but it was Darcy - loud Darcy – who gave the only audible answer.

"Jane threw a hissy because Loki was being Loki. She deafened me."

Even though she was being helpful, Loki couldn't help but correct, "She did not deafen you, though she does have exceptional lung capacity for a mortal. And the ability to reach a decibel range not often heard outside of kennels."

Darcy just turned to give him an annoyed glare, "How do you know I'm not deaf? Are you a doctor as well as a god? I could be bleeding internally."

He wasn't sure whether to sigh at her ridiculousness or smile at her audacity, "You are not bleeding internally."

"Yeah? How do you know? Can you look inside my head?"

"Yes."

She blinked. "Oh. Wow. Cool. Wait a minute, can you see through my clothes, too?"

He just raised an eyebrow.

"What a perve!" Her words were angry, but her lips quirked upward into a slight smile.

"I hate to interrupt, but what the fuck just happened?"

Everyone turned to look at Tony again. Loki had to admit that the man certainly had a gift for getting to the point. Maybe he would challenge him to a game of chess.

Loki answered, "The fact that I came here was proof enough that I am done with my…campaign. The rest was mere formality. And you were talking and talking without imparting any additional information, so I decided to pay a little visit to two beautiful women who looked as bored as I felt. Apparently, my effect on mortal women is not as positive as I had imagined."

The Professor, arriving last but comprehending first, said, "But you were still in the room with us."

"Part of me was still in the room, I suppose. But to discuss whether or not that was truly me would require a deep discussion of philosophy and existentialism. And I prefer to have such discussions after a few servings of ale."

Tony answered with a sly smile, "So was that the you or the not-you that made a slingshot out of Darcy's panties?"

The woman in question turned to Loki with a comically shocked look on her face, "You did what?"

"The others were boring me. Truly it was for the best. Bad things tend to happen to the people around me whenever I get bored. Ask Thor."

Since Thor was still too busy making cow eyes at Jane, Darcy didn't even bother.

"You turned my undies into a slingshot?"

It occurred to Loki that she might not be pleased with him, "Does that offend you?"

"Not really. I'm actually kinda impressed. You're my new desert island guy."

Loki blinked, unsure of what she meant by that. "Desert island?"

"Yeah, or you know, like a zombie apocalypse. You're my new go-to guy."

Loki shook his head. Apparently her odd babble last night hadn't been the sole product of the alcohol she'd consumed. She was just naturally incomprehensible.

He said slowly, "I understand the words you are using, but the way you have ordered them has robbed them of all coherence."

"What? Oh. Sorry. It's just that you made a weapon out of my panties. That's MacGyver level resourceful. So I want you to be my partner if I'm stuck in a situation where a resourceful guy is needed – like on a desert island or in a zombie apocalypse. Get it?"

He did. She was insane, but he understood her unusual logic.

"While it is unlikely that there exists an island, deserted or not, that I would be unable to escape from – should you find yourself in such a situation, I shall endeavor to assist you."

She smiled at him in a way that made him uncomfortable. They weren't friends – she should not be smiling at him like that.

"Really? Sweet! How about the zombie apocalypse?"

"I shall kill you quickly and painlessly should you become infected."

Her smile fell. "Woah. That was not where I was going with that. I was hoping more along the lines of a scenario where I live."

She truly was bizarre. "Then I shall kill all of the infected and you can wander alone for the rest of your days. I do not see why that would be the preferable option."

"Oh. Good point."

Fury's voice broke into their conversation, "While this is both highly disturbing and completely pointless, could we head back to the meeting room so we can sign the damn papers, call a truce, and get the hell out of here sometime soon? Before I start killing people."

Loki mused, "Fury is furious. I wonder why you constantly feel the need to live up to your surname. Had you been born Nicholas Serenity, would you even be here right now?"

Loki was truly curious – destiny by birth was an interest of his. From the blank expressions on the faces around him, no one else shared his interest. Except perhaps Darcy. She had raised an eyebrow and made a little "huh" noise at Loki's words. He wasn't sure that having the strange mortal follow his thought pattern boded well for his own mental stability. He sighed.

"Nevermind. Alright, Coulson. I shall be leaving now."

Coulson raised his hand, as if that would actually do something to stop Loki, "Hold on! You have to sign the treaty first."

Loki gave the little man a condescending smile, "I just did."

He turned to his brother who seemed to have finally realized that his woman was perfectly fine and other people actually existed. "Thor. I take my leave of you."

Thor immediately released Jane and stepped toward his brother, which pleased Loki in a way that almost embarrassed him. The fact that Thor still cared was inconceivable – but strangely wonderful. Brotherhood was a tricky thing.

Thor held his arm out to his brother and Loki grasped it tightly, locking their forearms. He squeezed Loki's arm a bit too tightly, as he always did, and gave him a lopsided smile.

"Thank you for coming, brother. We belong on the same side. We have always belonged on the same side."

Loki smiled around the odd emotions bubbling in his throat. "Not always. But for now, we are no longer adversaries. I will be in touch, brother."

Loki recalled all of his doubles, and with a quick nod to Coulson, he disappeared.