Don't own Loki or the Avengers, not making money off of this.
Chapter 12: Applications
The next day, Loki awoke to find a message from Tony waiting for her on her laptop. It invited her to come back to Stark Tower and help set up the lab in which she would be working. She picked an outfit from the bulletin board, a loose, belted gold shirt over a green camisole with tight black jeans and suede boots. She pulled her hair back into a barrette so it would be out of her way, and left the necklace as it was.
Once dressed, she went out to the kitchen to set about feeding herself. Jarvis had been most insistent that she not skip the morning meal, claiming it was the most important of the day. To her surprise, she found Thor sitting at the table, drinking coffee and frowning at a newspaper. She smiled. So he's not avoiding me anymore. Good.
"What do you think?" she asked by way of greeting. Thor glanced up, and she did a quick twirl.
He nodded. "It is more suitable than what you chose yesterday, but where did you get it?"
She fluttered a hand at him. "Oh don't worry, it's not magic, just an illusion. I can make my attire look as I wish with less than a thought," she explained.
Thor looked as if he wasn't sure if there was a difference, but he said nothing.
"What are you drinking? It smells wonderful," Loki tried to change the subject, searching in the cupboards for something that wouldn't require much cooking. She found a box of pop tarts.
Thor grinned. "It is called coffee, and it is my favorite Midgardian beverage. There is some left in that pot on the counter if you would like to try it."
Loki quickly read the instructions on the back of the pop tarts box, unwrapped a pair and put them in the toaster. As she poured herself a cup of the dark, steaming liquid, Thor chuckled.
"What?" Loki frowned.
Thor shook his head. "It's just... The first time I made the square pastries, I did not remove them from their bindings."
She looked from Thor to the toaster. "But... It says right on the box..."
Thor laughed again. "I did not think to read the box. Darcy instructed me to place them within the toaster and how to activate it."
Loki smiled at the image, wrapping her hands around the warm coffee mug. "Who is Darcy?"
"A friend of Jane's," Thor said fondly, and she could tell that Darcy was his friend as well. How easy it was for Thor to win the affections of others.
The toaster finished, and she transferred the pop tarts to a plate. She set them and the untried coffee on the table opposite Thor and sat down. Blowing on the coffee to cool it, she took her first, small sip.
She nearly spat it out. "Ugh, this is awful! It's so bitter!" she complained, and Thor laughed.
"Here," he slid a sugar bowl across the table, and Loki managed to catch it before it careened off the end. "Darcy puts several spoonfuls of this in hers to make it sweeter."
Loki quickly added two spoonfuls and stirred it thoroughly. She took another sip, and made a face. "Now it's bitter and too sweet." she sighed, setting down the coffee and sliding it away from her. "I shall have to ask Dr. Bryardie where I might acquire some of her tea."
Thor shrugged, already more interested in the paper he was reading. Loki ate her breakfast in silence, glaring at the newspaper and using a considerable amount of willpower to not set it on fire. When she had been done for some time, she finally spoke.
"Are you going to Stark Tower today, or will I need to procure some transportation for myself?" she drawled in an annoyed voice.
Thor jumped, glancing at the clock. He folded up his paper quickly (although it was more like crumpling than folding), downed the rest of his coffee in one gulp, and stood. Loki followed him out the door, and headed for the stairwell as he locked it. He didn't question her choice to avoid the elevator, but bounded down the stairs four and five at a time. Loki followed at her own graceful pace, she wasn't about to let Thor make her rush when he had just made her wait.
When she got to the SHIELD car that was waiting for them, she smiled and thanked the driver for holding the door, and did her best to get in the car in a lady-like manner. Judging by the driver's expression, she had succeeded.
As the car made its way through the maze of New York traffic, Thor drummed his fingers on his knees impatiently.
"What are you so excited about?" Loki asked, slightly annoyed.
"Hmm? Oh, nothing." He was a terrible liar, but she didn't push.
Instead she studied the bustling mass of humanity outside her window, reminding her, as they always did, of a colony of ants. There was a twinge from her ruby necklace, but she brushed it off. It was not necessarily a degrading comparison. Ants could carry over fifty times their own weight, and in large groups they could take down much larger creatures. No, they were not to be underestimated simply because they were small and short-lived.
At last the car arrived, and Thor bounded out and off to whatever he was so impatient for. Loki waited for the driver to open her door, thanking him again and smiling pleasantly at the agent who appeared to guide-and guard-her through Stark Tower. It seemed to set him more on edge, but it didn't bother her.
"What took you so long?" Tony asked as she walked into the lab. "Don't tell me you're already doing that girl thing where you take forever to get ready?"
She laughed. "No, it takes very little time for me to prepare myself. Thor, however..." she shrugged.
Tony looked pleasantly surprised. Had she just made a joke? "Must be the hair. I've always said his hair was way too pretty for a dude."
Loki rewarded him with an amused look of agreement. "So, is this where I'll be working?" she asked, gesturing to an open area at one end of the room. She was happy to see that it afforded her a good view of the silver building she loved so much.
"Yup. Brought up some scrap concrete for you to practice on while we're figuring this out." he walked into the area and she followed.
She bent down and picked up a small chunk of the gray material. She rolled it around in her hand, and almost seemed to be looking through it. "This has a very complex composition," she said with a small frown. "It appears to be made up of many different discrete parts, and solidified with a chemical, rather than thermal or pressure-induced, process."
Tony folded his arms over his chest. "Yeah, that sounds like concrete. Crushed rocks are mixed with calcium, aluminum, and silicon oxides, and powdered gypsum or limestone. Get it wet, pour it into a mold, and when it dries, it's like that."
She rubbed her finger over the surface of the chunk, breaking off a little bit. "It will be very difficult to work with. A single element, or even a natural rock formation, would be much easier to manipulate."
"You can't use this?"
She shrugged. "I can, but it will use up my magic much faster." she glanced around the room, as if looking through the walls. She looked up at the ceiling and smiled. "Can I borrow some of the rocks from your roof? I'll put them back when I'm done."
"The quartz gravel? Sure."
Tony moved to make a phone call, but Loki beat him to it, and with a graceful gesture she summoned the material from the roof. "Don't worry," she said in response to Tony's expression. "It's easy to summon something from close range."
Tony watched with a closed face as she assembled the pieces of quartz into a single, giant crystal. If she can see through walls, and summon things through them, then why, in the helicarrier, didn't Loki just summon the scepter and blast his way out?
"Ok," Loki smiled. "What should I make first?"
Tony smiled, hiding his suspicions. "Let's start small. Simple shapes. How about a sphere?"
Loki turned and concentrated on the large crystal. She moved her hands in circular gestures, and between them a sphere appeared, clear and almost totally free of imperfections. The source crystal shrank in response. She took the globe into her hands, and then held it out to Tony.
"Abracadabra!" she laughed. "Isn't that what your parlor-trick magicians say?"
Tony gave a surprised chuckle. "Yeah, how did you know?"
"Jarvis had been bringing me up to snuff on human culture," she explained, handing the crystal ball over.
Tony looked at it. It was much heavier than he thought it would be. "Up to snuff? Do you mean up to speed?"
She sighed, deflated. "Yes. Clearly vocabulary is not my strong point."
Tony smiled, tossing the crystal ball back and forth. "Well, you're doing better than your brother. Or Steve. You know what, I'm gonna keep this," he set the sphere down on a counter, making sure it wouldn't roll away. "Now I don't have to buy Dr. Bryardie a Christmas present."
Loki pursed her lips together, torn between being amused and disapproving. She had taken the trouble to look up the history of magic on Midgard so she could understand what she-and Dr. Bryardie, for that matter-were up against. A long line of opportunistic sham artists had taken great advantage of the obsession with the occult that flourished at the beginning of the last century. It had sprouted up in the masses after warfare had risen to a horrific level of efficiency, and many sought to communicate with their fallen relatives. She would have admired their audacity and ability to manipulate the emotions of the stupid out of their money, if it hadn't caused her so much inconvenience.
"What next?" she rubbed her hands together, feeling the energy spark between them.
"Something more complex," Tony suggested. "Like, a head."
Loki frowned. "Any head? A specific one would be better, I think."
Tony nodded. "Jarvis, pull up some images of Michelangelo's David, specifically the head," he instructed.
Several views of the famous sculpture appeared projected on a wall. Loki walked over, hand on her chin as she studied the images. "I saw this one yesterday," she murmured. "Is there any way I could get a three dimensional image that I can move?"
"Of course," Jarvis replied, and the pictures on the wall flew out into the room to create a scaled version in detail. Tony walked up to it, turning it around a couple times and then throwing his arms wide to enlarge it until it was the size of a real person, although still significantly smaller than the original.
Loki walked up, hesitated, and then made as if to grab the shoulders of the statue, pulling them down until the head was just a little below her own. She turned it left and right, studying the shape of it. She moved away from it a little, towards the chunk of quartz. Glancing back one last time, her hands began to trace a very complicated pattern. Slowly, from the neck up, the head of David began to materialize between them. Once it had fully formed, she took careful hold of it, and set it on the counter next to the sphere.
Tony studied it, fascinated. She had made tiny flaws in the quartz so it appeared solid instead of transparent. The expression was much more easily readable, the terror and apprehension, and he looked very young. "Jarvis, how closely does this match the original?" he asked.
"It is 92% accurate to the original, if you take the change of scale into account." Jarvis announced.
Loki sighed heavily, seeming to deflate.
"Hey, that's not bad for a first try at copying a master," Tony offered, impressed. "Impose a wire frame over to show the differences."
Jarvis complied, and they both studied it closely. The differences were very slight.
"Hold on," Loki said. "Could you project something like that into the middle of the room? Another statue?"
"Sure," Tony said. "Jarvis, the Pieta, please."
A digital image of the sculpture appeared in the middle of the room, looking surreal in green tracery. "You like Michelangelo, huh?" Loki said absently, crouching down to study it.
Tony shrugged. "Art's not really my thing," he admitted. "Who do you like?"
"For sculpture?" she stood, thinking. "Rodin, I think. Such movement and expression. Michelangelo's handling of the male form is probably unrivaled, but his women leave something to be desired. With this notable exception, of course," she gestured to the Pieta.
"Well, what would you like to work with?" Tony crossed his arms, remembering that he once called Loki a 'full-tilt diva.'
Loki thought about it a moment. "How about Les Bourgeois de Calais?" The image before her changed into a grouping of six emaciated and despondent men. Some of them seemed to be arguing, some seemed resigned to their fate, and one crouched in terror. "This one," she reached out a hand to one figure. "The young one who seems to be asking 'why?'."
Jarvis removed the other figures, and changed the remaining one into a green wireframe. Loki pushed on the sides, shrinking it until it was something you could set on a table. She frowned at it a moment. "Do you have any iron on hand?" she asked, not looking up.
"Uh," Tony glanced at the instruments around the room. "Not straight up, but there's a lot of stainless steel. It has chromium in it."
Loki nodded, and held out a hand. "It will do."
Tony scrambled to get something, truly intrigued by what she might do with it. "A lot or a little?" he asked.
"A lot would be better."
He grabbed a small step stool and handed it to her. "Enough?"
She hefted it, staring through it. "Yes."
As Tony watched, Loki unmade the stool, first taking away all the screws, the rubber feet, and the no-slip surface. Then the metal seemed to melt into a ball, which split into two balls. One was much smaller and shinier than the other. This one formed into a cylinder, which came to rest next to the screws. The other she brought over to the large crystal and the shape of the statue. Drawing material from the crystal and the ball of iron, she filled the space inside the wireframe. The movement of her hands was like a dance, tracing the shape she wanted carefully.
After a few moments, she took hold of the statue and pulled it from its cage of light. She set it carefully on the counter next to the head of David and the crystal ball, and then sank heavily into a lab chair.
"That's it for today, I'm afraid," she said, her voice tired.
Tony was more interested in the statue, which was surprisingly a rich, deep purple. "That's what you get for showing off. Is this... amethyst?" he asked.
She nodded. "Quartz impregnated with iron," she explained.
"Jarvis?"
"it is a 99.5% match, sir. Perfect to the naked eye."
Tony nodded. "Well, I'd say we've got ourselves a working model," he said excitedly.
"Yay." Loki's voice lacked enthusiasm. She was still frustrated that she had so little to work with. Her watch beeped and she realized it was already 11:30.
"Go eat," Tony ordered. "I'll have Jarvis see what he can collect for research on what needs replacing."
Loki nodded and slumped towards the dreaded elevator.
