Author's Note: I was right. The minute I uploaded, I remembered what I wanted to say at the end of the last chapter -_-

What I wanted to say was, I know a lot of people are not a fan of Jane Foster; personally I agree. I think she was a waste of space in Thor: The Dark World. However, Louie is all about second chances, and so am I. I think I'm gonna give her a chance to redeem herself a little bit in this story. So she'll be hanging around for a while.

Also, I know Nat is coming off as a bit of a Goody two shoes, and I want to say I have NOTHING against her (I personally adore the Black Widow), but for the sake of the story (if there actually is a plot to this damn thing) she has to be a little bit of a good, obedient, by the book agent. For now anyway ;)

Now that that's done, let's move on shall we :D

Replies to the reviews:-

Queen Martha Pond: Thank you so much for your review! Yeah I loved the little interactions between them, they were so much fun to write :D and yes, the brothers are back together! It's not going to be smooth sailing all the way, but hey, fingers crossed :3 Hope you enjoy this one!

literaturelife7: YES IT WAS! :D congratulations! You win the price. I um, don't quite know what to give you though.. hmmm. what would you like? :) I'm glad you like Louie, yes, she's got plenty of spunk. Well, thank you ever so much for the review and I hope you enjoy this chapter! ;D

TheIronBat: Whoaaaa. This is the longest review I've ever been given :o I'm so happy you liked the chapter, and so grateful you took the time to comment on each bit! Yeah, Louie's brave speech was probably my favourite part about that chappie. I was also getting kind of sick of characters fearing the Hulk for no reason. Anyone with half a brain can understand he's not really that bad. And I agree with you. All Loki needs is love and that's what I'm trying to give him. This story is really building up to a series of related fluffy moments. yeesh. I hope I didn't just scare you away. Haha anyway, I'll let you get on to the chapter. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Chapter 6

Louie POV

I sat in my room on the carpet, bowl of water in front of me. Taking a deep breath I tried again.

"Move," I said, squinting until I was cross-eyed. "Move. Move." The water stayed stubbornly still. Grunting in exasperation I stretched out on the floor and rubbed my face. God, how was I going to do this? It had been a week since Thor arrived at Stark Tower and the entire time had been nothing short of chaos. All I knew was that Loki was truly the most insufferable asshole in the entire world. He was rude and obnoxious and always had something to say about me and my inability to control my so-called powers. At first when I was practicing with Bruce, he simply watched. He made no comments as Tony and I tried again and again and again to trigger some sort of power within me. A few days in, we had nothing and Loki decided to stop observing and join in.

"Here," he said interrupting my meditation lesson with Bruce. He placed a bowl of water in front of me and crossed his arms. "Move the water."

"Move it how?" I asked confused. He frowned like I was being stupid on purpose.

"You figure it out," he replied. I gaped. Well, this was going to be fun.

And boy, was it fun. Every day he'd leave me with the stupid bowl of stupid water and ask me to use my stupid powers to move it. Bruce decided he was going to let Loki take the reins and stepped back, opting to supervise instead of actually help. This little cycle continued for about a week until looking at a bowl made me want to scream.

"Nothing yet?" He asked on the eighth day, disbelievingly. He shook his head. "Disappointing."

"Maybe if you just told me how, I could show you some progress," I said firing up.

"Louie," said Bruce softly looking up from the book he was reading. Loki looked at me coolly.

"I will not teach anything to a student who so obviously lacks the competency required to levitate the simplest of substances. Once she moves it, we shall begin our real lessons." He told Bruce as he headed for the door. It was all I could do to keep myself from chucking the damn thing, water and all, at his head.

"How does he expect me to just know how to move the stupid thing?" I demanded of Bruce, fuming. Bruce shrugged.

"Maybe there's a method to his madness," he said turning a page, "maybe moving the water is some sort of test of worthiness you have to pass." I nodded slowly. That made sense. Some kind of Asgardian ritual. Right. Well, I could deal with that.

"Or," he added thoughtfully, "he's screwing with all of us." I slumped, defeated. Really, none of them were of any help at all. Now I'm not one to particularly take insults to heart, but Loki simply grated my nerves in a way no one else could. It was very hard to be cordial, though I did try, I really did. But it seemed that the nicer I tried to be, the nastier Loki got. Bruce told me sagely that that having a temper wouldn't help me at all and I should learn to calm down. This had me wanting to slap him too.

Tempers were running high at Stark Tower; the past three days had been a series of arguments and death threats. Thor and Loki had had a massive fight of some sort which resulted in Loki having to be locked up in his room with an annoyed Natasha watching over him (and trust me, an annoyed Natasha is terrifying) and Bruce had to be rushed down to one of the safe compartments Tony built for him in the basement because he started to look very green around the gills. The more peaceful ones like Steve, Pepper, Darcy and Jane took every opportunity to escape the tower, leaving Jarvis to deal with the rest. To top it all off, we had had a conversation with Nick Fury, the director of SHEILD. Needless to say, that did not go well.

Almost immediately after Bruce had calmed down, we were ushered into the conference room.

Fury was appalled. Apparently Tony had failed to tell him about the, and I quote directly from Agent Maria Hill's report "22 year old woman who caused random tornadoes indoors" that was crashing his place. After yelling at him for a good ten minutes about Responsibility and Safety and Dear God do you ever listen to me?! Fury moved on to the problem of Loki.

"Thor," he snapped. "Take him back to Asgard. We don't want anything to do with him. Take him back and take him back now."

"Director," said Thor looking ashamed, "I sincerely apologize on behalf of my brother-,"

"Save it," said Fury, "just get him away from Earth." Tony chose this moment to jump in.

"Hold on a second. I think Loki can help Louie."

"Oh, here we go," mumbled Clint. Fury blinked.

"Stark," he said slowly, "have you been drinking?"

"I told him you wouldn't agree to this," said Natasha nonchalantly, picking at her sleeve.

"You want Loki Laufeyson to have access to a being with uncontrollable powers?" Fury asked incredulously.

"Well we're here too," said Bruce quickly, "to supervise…" His words trailed off into silence as he looked at the Director's face. Fury looked ready to explode.

"You have two dangerous people under your roof and now you're telling me you want to team them up? No," he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Deal with Loki. I'll send an escort over for Miss Montgomery. She will be taken into SHIELD's programs-,"

"What?" I squeaked.

"Okay, no," said Tony beginning to look pissed. He glared around the table, at Bruce and Thor who looked at each other helplessly, at the agents who avoided his gaze and, at Steve. A few seconds of insistent threatening and begging conveyed entirely through facial expressions later, Steve sighed tiredly.

"Director, it was you who wanted the Avengers to spend more time together. This is the perfect opportunity won't you say? The entire team, under one roof?"

Tony grinned, clearly secure in his position of victory. I watched silently, impressed at the way Steve was playing his cards. So if the golden boy wanted it… Hmm. I filed that information away in my mind for future reference.

"You agree to this too, Captain?" Steve nodded and flashed me a comforting smile. Fury didn't speak for a moment or two. I crossed my fingers tightly under the table and bit my lip.

"Well," he said slowly, "I guess you could try. But," he fixed his eye on me coldly, "blow anything up and you'll be in SHIELD custody before you can say magic." I gulped and nodded, shuffling my feet.

"Not that she has displayed any sort of magical prowess since," said Loki snidely. I ignored him.

"Loki," said Thor warningly.

"Leave it, Thor," I muttered, "he does have a point."

"Well I'll leave you to it then," said Fury leaning back, rubbing his forehead. "Please don't screw this up. Barton, Romanoff, report back to base." The screen went black.

"Well, that went well, don't you think?" said Tony cheerfully.

I blew a raspberry at the ceiling. Sure it did, I thought grimly. Tomorrow Steve, Thor, Loki and I would be going to Asgard to face a trial in front of Odin. I was going because, as Clint said, if the douchebag wasn't going to help me, maybe his dad might. My mind went back to half an hour ago.

"I don't know what has gotten into him," said Thor worriedly as Loki's bedroom door slammed. I shrugged.

"Don't worry about it Thor," I said patting his arm, "he's probably just nervous about going back to meet your dad."

"I agree, Lady Louie. He hasn't been on good terms with Odin for quite some time."

"Maybe right now he needs his brother to be there for him?" I asked tentatively, not forgetting the way they had almost come to blows a couple of days back. Thor looked at me nervously.

"Perhaps," he said, fiddling with his hammer. A few seconds later he gave me a quick, eye-crinkly smile before heading for the closed door. "I will see what I can do. Many thanks for your sound advice, Lady Louie."

As it had before, the memory of the conversation made me grin. Thor was such a sweetheart. Unlike his dick of a brother. Hopefully, Loki hadn't thrown him out on his ass. I turned onto my side, burying my face in the carpet.

"This is useless." I was getting absolutely nowhere with my abilities and there was such a nasty atmosphere in the entire building. Bruce was hiding in the lab because he felt it too and said that it made the other guy nervous. Not having Bruce and his generally (surprisingly) calm self around made me edgy because hanging out with Bruce was the best thing I could do, especially when Loki was around. For some odd reason, the god was less vicious in the vicinity of the doctor.

Footsteps came down the hallway and Tony appeared at the door.

"Hey Louie, I-," he stopped and stared at me. "Did you fall off the bed or something?"

"Yes," I replied smoothly. "Then I rolled three feet away from it just so you could walk in and question the physics of the situation." Tony eyed me with his you're really weird look before continuing.

"As I was saying, I realised I hadn't even showed you my library yet."

"Library?" I asked, perking up.

The library was hidden away behind a door on the far left of the kitchen, one of the few I had rarely seen open. Tony wiggled his eyebrows at me, flung the door open and ushered me forward. My jaw dropped open.

"Oh my god."

Rows upon rows and shelves upon shelves of books met my eyes. Each shelf reached almost to the very top of the large room, and it was quite a large room, about four times the size of my bedroom here in Stark Tower.

"How in the world does it all fit?" Tony grinned.

"I have talent, doll" I nodded dumbly.

"You certainly do." Tony looked inordinately please with himself as he walked further into the room. As we passed bookshelves, I could see tall stools and armchairs placed here and there, all strategically placed into windows or by desks.

"Almost all these books are first editions," said Tony running his hand over the spines as he waltzed through. I let out a squeak.

"Almost – almost all of them?"

"Come over here, I think you'll find this section the most interesting."

I went over, my eyes looking at the titles of the shelves I passed. They covered a wide variety of topics, but they mostly seemed smooth and untouched. The ones that looked the most worn were titles like Nuclear Physics and Particle Theory, their spines creased from being turned hundreds of times.

"Voila," he showed me a corner. It was the furthest from the door, the shelves climbing all the way up to the ceiling. Sunlight filtered in through the window, a tall and unusually old fashioned fitting for such a modern, tech savvy building, complete with its own padded window seat and fluffy cushions. A low coffee table sat next to it, a stack of books piled neatly in the middle.

Oh, but the shelves themselves... Shakespeare, Bronte, Wilde, Dickens, Wordsworth, the names jumped out at me. I spun around.

"You have a gold mine in here!" I literally squealed, laughing.

"There's children's literature too," said Tony, his eyes dancing with amusement. He gestured the far end of the floor to ceiling bookshelves. I rushed over and pulled out around twenty titles.

"Have you read all of these?" I asked, my insides wriggling with pure happiness. Tony shook his head.

"No, these are just collectibles I guess. I'm more interested in the-,"

"Physics and stuff," I nodded understandingly and looked back at the titles around me. "This is so great."

"I'll leave you to it then," said Tony, "if you get lost on your way out, call Jarvis. He'll help you."

I nodded. Balancing each book on top of another I stumbled over to the window seat. Without further ado I opened a familiar title and sank back into the cushions. It was like greeting an old friend.

Tony POV

Outside the white door, Tony grinned.

"I must say sir," said Jarvis very quietly, "the window seat was a nice addition. It will suit the room nicely."

Thor POV

Thor moved hesitantly down the hallway and knocked ever so reluctantly on his brother's door. After a long moment, it opened an inch and green eyes narrowed at him.

"Have you come to play babysitter like Agent Romanoff?" Thor frowned and shook his head. He reminded himself exactly why he should be especially nice to Loki today.

"May I come in?" Loki glared for a moment before stepping back and flopping onto the bed. Thor followed suit and the bed creaked loudly. Loki winced.

"Loki."

Thor sighed when he got no reply.

"I thought we were beyond this silence, brother." And Thor really had thought so. Nothing has made him happier than being accepted into Loki's embrace in that first meeting. After weeks of unbearable, mind-numbing sadness it had healed Thor in a way nothing else could have. But now...

Loki didn't answer, instead choosing to examine the ceiling.

"You keep me in the dark about what ails you, brother. You only open your mouth to insult Lady Louie. You are lucky she is so understanding," Thor narrowed his eyes. "Yet perhaps that is why you choose to bully her so? Because you know she cannot hurt you?" Loki didn't reply. Thor's voice gentled.

"Are you envious of the power she wields, brother?" Loki stiffened, eyes narrowing slightly. It was a slightly movement, but it didn't escape Thor's notice.

"I see," he said quietly. He rose and shook his head.

"You know I am always here for you and that I wish to help you. But jealousy is a problem you have to overcome by yourself Loki," With that, he turned to leave.

Loki POV

Loki's eyes followed Thor's retreating form down the corridor. He counted five minutes in his head and followed. It was almost lunchtime after all and Loki knew Pepper Potts would be most displeased if everyone didn't show up for food. Loki may be a wanted criminal, but nobody could tell him he was a bad houseguest.

More unusual Midgardian food awaited in the kitchen. Thor was already attacking a big bowl of heavens knows what, Steve watching him proudly. Loki assumed the Captain had prepared the meal again. Nobody else was there; the usually packed kitchen seemed oddly empty because many of the residents of the Tower had gone out on various errands. Loki took a seat next to Thor as Pepper strode in, her arm firmly attached to Tony, who was dragging along a disgruntled Bruce.

"Now," she said in a sweet, venomous tone, "you will sit and you will eat. Until then, the labs are on lockdown." The pair looked extremely unhappy but took their seats, willing to sit and suffer in silence than face the wrath of the woman in charge. Pepper's eyes scanned the room.

"Where's Louie?"

"The library, Miss Potts," said Jarvis, "shall I-?"

"Yes please, Jarvis."

Loki pushed around the food on his plate unhappily. They were leaving to Asgard at dawn the next day and he still hadn't escaped, hadn't even thought of possible scenarios. He didn't understand; he wanted to be free, but he felt so averse to running. He was tired of running and hiding. As if sensing what he was thinking about, Thor thumped him on his back.

"Eat, brother."

A door opened and Louie slowly emerged, her nose buried in a large book. She looked up for a moment; eyes glazed and found her seat. Once she served herself, she maneuvered the food into her mouth with one hand, the other balancing the book on her lap. Loki suddenly had a mental image of a little boy doing the exact same thing, only shooting anxious glances at his father to hope he didn't notice the bad table manners.

Not that he ever had, thought Loki grouchily. It was always Frigga who had given him a swift look before the book slipped out of his fingers and onto her lap. Loki shook his head to clear the memories. Memories were painful things he could not deal with at the moment.

"Interesting read?" asked Steve conversationally. In reply all he got was silence. Loki almost smiled.

After lunch the Avengers held a meeting. Pepper and Thor's friends, Darcy and Jane, had bowed out of it with little regret; it seemed that none of them wanted to witness another argument between the two gods, the Hulk, a super soldier and a billionaire genius. Louie had attempted to sidle out of the room, book in hand, but Tony had flung an arm around her shoulders and kept her in place.

"The Allfather knows of our arrival," said Thor to start things off. "I have spoken to Heimdall. He awaits us at dawn tomorrow." Loki drummed his fingers on the tabletop. At dawn...

"What do you think will Odin do?" asked Steve.

"I assume I'll be locked up once more. Pity," said Loki, meeting Louie's eyes. She frowned. Smirking, Loki looked away.

"We'll reach Asgard at dawn. Then what?" asked Louie, her fingers twisting together.

"The Allfather will speak to us and make a judgment. If he cannot give a decision on his own, he will call upon his Counsel. They will hold a meeting. I know not how long it will take them to reach a solution. Sometimes the elders speak within a matter of minutes, other times, a matter of weeks."

"And then we come home?" Thor nodded.

"Well," Tony placed his hands on the table, "you better start packing."

Waking up at the crack of dawn was never a pleasant ordeal.

Loki was exhausted. In the entire time he had been stuck in this building, not once had he had a full night's sleep. The constant supervision and the high tensions did nothing to help neither his mood nor his insomnia. Pure adrenaline pumped through him and tied his stomach into knots. So this was the day that would determine his fate.

As the sun rose, everyone piled into the elevator; Heimdall would summon them from the top of Stark Tower. Thor clamped a hand firmly on Loki's shoulder. Loki didn't even bother to try and shake it off. What was his fate? A gilded prison? He knew his behavior during his short stay here hadn't been up to par with what the Avengers had expected; chances of a good word being put in were rather bleak.

Not that he could help having a go at Louie- the girl was so frustratingly slow about anything remotely related to concentration, focus and magic. Loki was yet to see her abilities once more. It was just aggravating to watch her fumble her way through hours and hours of attempts at the simple task of levitation. He relished the moments in which he broke her controlled façade, making her glare and raise her voice. But more often than not, it was he who got annoyed because she simply would not rise to the bait and snap back at him. Instead her shoulders would slump and her aura would wilt. If he called her an idiot, she sighed and nodded and ignored him. The jibes, the soft remarks under his breath that become more and more obvious did nothing more than make Clint Barton finally snap and threaten to sew his mouth shut. Loki hated the girl from the bottom of his heart, even though he knew he was coming off as unreasonable and childish.

Thus, Tony had put his deal on hold. Because of his lack of cooperation, they were taking the girl to Odin.

As goodbyes were exchanged, Tony took a quick moment to mutter to him, "Not too late to bring this around Loki. Help her and we'll help you." Loki glanced around to see if anyone had heard him. Everyone seemed preoccupied with wishing the small party a safe and successful journey. Suspiciously so.

But before he could make any sort of reply, Tony had stepped back to join the Doctor and the women and everything had disappeared in a brilliant flash of light.

A/N: Whew! Took forever I know. I'm sorryyyyyy! Okay come on, cheer up, the next chapter is going to be at Asgard :D Erhhmegerrrd, so excited. :3 I hope I got all the grammar mistakes this time round; I know there are many in the previous chapters. I don't really have a beta you see, so when I'm super wound up, I miss out the little grammar errors that, ironically, irk me whenever I read other fanfiction stories.

So to prevent myself from being a shameless hypocrite, I decided to let this simmer for another night, and re-read it before pressing that upload button.

Also, remember y'all, there's a method to Loki's madness.

Ookay, I think that is all I have to say :) OH! You guys! The story has 25 followers now! Awwwwwh! So 25 people or more actually care about the end of this story?! Omg :') that really makes me happy, haha.

Yay.

Okay, I'm gonna go to bed, I'll try to get the next chapter out as soon as I can.

Do, do, DO leave a review! I'd love for this story to get 25 reviews; now that would be pretty cool hehe. Yes, I'm hinting very obviously. Take the hint. No for real, I love hearing what you guys think. Come on :3

Anyway, hopefully I'll see you guys soon!

Oh and I wish you a very happy New Year!

25/07/2015: BIG GRAMMAR EDIT

Until next time,

Much love,

xo