I don't own Loki or the Avengers, as much as I would like to. Fortunately, (or unfortunately) I'm also not raking in any of the massive amounts of cash they're making for Marvel.
Chapter 5: Reparations
For a few seconds, everyone spoke at once. Loki stayed calm, the eye at the center of the raging storm. Suddenly, Dr. Banner stood up quickly, which effectively silenced the room.
"Thank you," he said, a little out of breath. "Can we please handle this calmly?"
The others looked frustrated, but stayed quiet.
"I assure you I can only use it for good," Loki said mildly.
"And what's to keep you from reverting to your old ways, if you truly have reformed?" Steve demanded.
"This, mostly," Loki held up the ruby pendant. "It's bound to me, and reminds me of all the pain and suffering I caused. But I have also had a change of heart in the most literal of senses. I want to help make up for what I've done."
Natasha laughed. "Can you really make up for that much damage?" she mocked.
Loki stared at her for a long moment. "I don't know, Agent Romanov. You tell me."
Natasha sat back, unruffled. "I have a plan. What's yours?"
Loki set down her water, putting her hands in her lap. "Mr. Stark, I know you live to impress, so I am intrigued why we are in your second best living room?"
Stark glared at her. "Because you and Bruce trashed the best one and it's still being repaired."
Loki nodded. "As I suspected. May I see it?"
Tony looked around to the others, then set his drink down. "Alright, kiddos, time for a field trip." He headed out one of the doors, and everyone followed, Thor keeping a close watch on Loki. After going down a hallway and up a couple flights of stairs, they came into an even larger room with a stunning view of the Chrysler building which was slightly marred by the plastic sheeting that temporarily replaced the windows. Much of the debris had been cleared away, but only a few things had been replaced. The marble floor was still cracked, and some of the cabinets were left open.
Loki skirted the large depression in the floor and turned around, nodding. "Now, I don't have a perfect memory, but..." She began moving her hands in a complicated gesture, green light glowing around them. The avengers stood back, and Thor tightened his grip on Mjolnir. If Loki was going to turn on them, now would be the time.
Loki closed her eyes, and extended her hands outward. Jets of yellow-green light ran out into the room, latching on to broken things. The cracks in the floor healed themselves, The sofas, which had been removed, were replaced. Cabinets re-grew doors and glass bottles of all shapes reformed out of shards, filling with various-colored liquids. At the end of no more than 30 seconds, they all stood in the completely remade room.
Tony looked around, unable to hide his excitement. "Sweet, I got my scotch back!" He ran up to the bar and poured a glass of dark amber liquid.
Loki walked shakily over to the window, visibly exhausted.
Tony took a large sip and his eyes went wide. He put the glass down and tried very hard not to cough.
"Sorry," Loki said, "I am as of yet unfamiliar with Midgardian beverages, so I replaced them with what we drink back home." She continued staring out the window, putting a hand up to the glass.
"S'good stuff," Tony choked out.
Thor came to stand next to Loki, looking out at the silver skyscraper and back at her face. "What are you thinking?"
"I will fix it," she said quietly. "I will fix all of it. Starting with that building."
"Why that one? I seem to recall that I was the one to damage that particular skyscraper."
She turned to him, smiling, and he saw that she suddenly had dark circles under her eyes and much of the color had gone out of her face. The magic had drained her much more than she let on. "Does it not make you think of home?"
He looked at it again. It's sleek lines and geometric designs did remind him faintly of Asgard.
"Hey, my seats weren't green!" Tony shouted.
Loki chuckled, turning around to face the room again. "Sorry, just trying to improve on the original." She waved a hand, and the couches returned to black leather. Then she passed out.
The avengers shuffled around uncomfortably as Dr. Banner checked Loki's pulse. "I think she's ok, just exhausted."
Thor nodded. "I don't know much of magic, but I do know that it pulls on your personal energy. She may not have as much to work with, now that she is human."
Banner put Loki's hand back on her stomach gently. "That makes sense. She should wake up in a little bit, make sure she gets a lot of fluid and some high-protein food."
"So... Are we gonna let her do this?" Tony asked, gesturing out the window. "Rebuild New York? It's a daunting project to begin with, but to do it single-handedly..."
"I think if she did, she would more than prove herself," Steve offered.
"We should call in Dr. Bryardie," Bruce suggested.
The looks from his comrades were not encouraging. "Ok, yeah, I know you guys don't like talking to her, but do you really want Loki following us around 24/7 if he-she's still a homicidal psychopath?"
There were sounds of grudging agreement from the other Avengers. "Clint agrees," Tony added, pointing to the communicator in his ear. "Why you two like talking to that phony head shrink is beyond me. I mean, she's attractive and all, but really. Weirdo."
"Says the man who thinks jumping out of windows is fun," muttered Pepper.
"Hey, I just gotta make sure the Mark 7 initiation is fine-tuned. Real-world testing is the only way to do that." Tony argued.
"Mmhm," Pepper did not sound convinced. "Anyway, I'll go put in a call to her." She gave Tony a quick kiss on the cheek and walked out of the newly restored room.
Loki began to stir, and Thor sat down on the couch next to her.
"Jarvis," Tony ordered, "Bring up something really healthy for the new girl. As in yucky healthy."
"Yes sir," Jarvis replied.
Loki sat up and put her head in her hands, resting her elbows on her knees.
"Are you going to be sick again?" Thor asked in trepidation.
"No," Loki answered, "Just tired. I haven't drained myself with magic like that since I was first training."
"Why wipe yourself out on the big show?" Tony asked.
Loki leaned back into the couch, pinching the bridge of her nose. "That shouldn't have taken anywhere near the extent of my resources. Either some of my own magic was used in the change or this new form is extremely limited."
"Well you better hope it's the first," Steve piped up. "Because if you're gonna do this whole fix up New York thing one floor at a time, it would take you a little over two months just to do the Chrysler building." He gestured out the window.
Loki looked even more exhausted at his suggestion. "Well, it would be much easier if I had raw materials to work with."
"Raw materials?" Bruce asked.
Loki opened her eyes and peered at him warily. "Since you have a good grasp of the natural laws, I'm sure you'll understand me when I say that it is much easier to transform existing matter than it is to summon it up from nothing."
Tony frowned. "Technically, the second option should be impossible. You can't create something out of nothing."
"I didn't say create, I said summon. If you want to get overly technical about it, I must find the materials somewhere in the universe where they are not being used and pull them here into the proper arrangements by sheer will alone." Loki was starting to sound irritated.
Bruce and Tony exchanged a look that spoke volumes. "It's theoretically possible," Tony argued.
"Logically, yes, but the kind of energy needed to accomplish it-" Bruce trailed off, looking over at Loki uneasily. "Well, it would be a lot."
"You can summon energy as well," Loki added. "I will explain it to you in detail when I don't feel as though I have my helm on inside-out."
Jarvis took this moment to announce that her food had arrived, and that he had been so thoughtful as to include a couple aspirin. Tony retrieved the tray from the high-tech dumbwaiter, downed the aspirin and set it before Loki.
Loki stared at him a moment, and then cracked a tired smile. "I like you too, Mr. Stark. You've got... flair."
"Whatever. Just eat your..." he waved his hand at the tray. "Jarvis what is this?"
"It is a selection of Japanese dishes, mostly sea vegetables with a white fish and tofu soup. Packed with protein, vitamins and essential minerals. The beverage is pomegranate and white grape juice, which is high in antioxidants."
"It looks like a shipwreck," Tony said gleefully.
Loki took a sip of the drink, and nodded. "It's good." She picked up the chopsticks and rolled them around between her fingertips for a moment, contemplating the dishes. The moment dragged on and Natasha realized what the problem was. She snatched the chopsticks from Loki's hands, hovered over the tray for a moment as if indecisive, and then snatched up a slice of fried fish skin. She popped it in her mouth and stuck the chopsticks back in Loki's hands. All this took less than 3 seconds.
"What?" she asked, looking around. "It's one of my favorites."
The others laughed or shrugged it off, but Loki stared at her with a confused look before carefully arranging the chopsticks in her hand exactly as Natasha had so cleverly demonstrated. She began to tuck in, trying each dish one at a time. "This is all very good," she said, picking up a bowl. The contents resembled baked beans, but when she lifted some with the chopsticks, it was sticky and stringy. She tilted her head in curiosity, and took a bite.
There was a long moment where she held perfectly still, an odd look on her face. Finally she swallowed with some difficulty and put the bowl back down, wiping the chopsticks with her napkin. "Except that. That is awful. What isthat?"
"That would be natto," Jarvis chimed in, "A fermented bean dish. Very healthy."
Tony did his best not to laugh, and failed miserably. "I'm sorry, it's just…" he wiped tears from his eyes, "the look on your face…"
Loki looked back down at the offending dish. "I suppose I deserved that," she said quietly.
Oddly, this shut Tony up, and he actually looked a little uncomfortable. Loki picked up the bowl of soup and began to eat it instead.
"I have an idea," Steve said suddenly. He had been staring out the window this whole time, silently contemplating the wrecked vista.
"Fire away, Captain," quipped Tony.
He turned to face the room. "You can recreate things exactly as they looked before?" he asked Loki.
Loki nodded, swallowing. "If I have seen it, or you can provide me with a painting, for instance."
He smiled. "That shouldn't be a problem for what I have planned. What if she only worked on the irreplaceable things? The statues, the edifices, things like that? We already had plans in place to repair New York, but we had no way to replace those treasures."
Everyone thought about it a moment, and a few nodded. "Makes sense," Bruce offered.
Loki frowned. "It doesn't sound like enough, to me."
Natasha laughed humorlessly. "You haven't seen the buildings that were destroyed. Some of them were covered in statues. You have at least a year's worth of work ahead of you this way."
Loki took a long drink. "Well," she said. "Maybe. And maybe I do a few of the more important buildings."
Once she was done, Loki set her chopsticks down. "Thank you. That was—mostly—delicious, and I feel somewhat refreshed. However, I am still very fatigued. Is there somewhere that I could perhaps rest?"
Pepper came back in as Loki was speaking. "I just got off the phone with SHIELD. They have arranged for most of you to be moved to one of their employee housing units. There are cars downstairs to take you there now if you like. You also have an appointment with Dr. Bryardie tomorrow at 11:00 AM."
Loki arched an eyebrow. "A doctor...?"
Tony laughed. "Not a real doctor. A shrink. Not even a real shrink," he mused.
Bruce frowned, "Just because she came to us in an unusual way doesn't mean she's not good at her job. I mean, look at Natasha," he argued, gesturing in her direction.
"Thank you? I think?" she returned.
"I'm afraid I still don't understand," said Loki.
"Dr. Bryardie is a... mind-healer, of sorts," Thor explained. "She does not use magic, not like we know anyway."
Loki nodded. "You wish to ensure that I won't kill you all in your sleep?"
The responding silence was very uncomfortable.
"Er... I might have phrased that better," Loki apologized. "Forgive me, I am tired. I think perhaps I should just retire for the..." she glanced out the window to assess the time of day, "...afternoon."
Thor nodded. "I think it is time we saw the accommodations SHIELD has provided for us. He stood and helped Loki to her feet, made his farewells to his fellow Avengers, and left by way of the elevator.
Once they had left the room, the remaining members stared at each other.
"Well," Steve sighed, plopping down on the couch. "Looks like the solution to one problem just gained us a whole new bag of problems."
Natasha frowned, and finished her drink. "We'll see."
A/N: Tada! Hopefully that gives you a better picture of what to expect from this story. Not going to post any more until Saturday, though, I need to build my buffer back up!
