Pepper stared at the squirrel, her mouth falling open. She should probably be freaking out, but she found that after the madness of the last two weeks, she simply didn't have the energy for it. She looked warily at the man standing across the room, who still hadn't so much as glanced at her. "Are you Loki Odinson?" Tony had found out some information about Thor and his brother since the showdown at the Expo, and this man certainly wasn't the Mr. Odinson she had already met.
He finally looked around. "What? Oh, yes." He seemed very distracted. "And your name, good lady?"
This chivalry in the face of the squirrel sitting on the floor in front of her, tail and whiskers quivering, made everything even more surreal. "Uh. Pepper Potts. I'm the CEO of Stark Industries." Considering that she had no idea why Tony was now a squirrel, she decided against mentioning her personal involvement with him.
"My brother mentioned you when he told me of the battle at the Stark Expo. It is a pleasure to meet you."
"You too," said Pepper, closing her eyes in the hopes that maybe when she opened them again, everything would make sense. It did not. "You—you turned Tony into a flying squirrel?"
"I did."
"And...uh...why did...you do that?"
"He was talking."
Tony the squirrel gave an indignant squeak.
"Don't worry; the spell is harmless," said Loki. "I've already explained that to him, which is why he's no longer chattering incessantly and gnawing on my boot."
Pepper sighed and walked forward. "You know," she said, bending down and carefully scooping Tony up, "there are a lot of people who probably wish they could turn him into a small animal, including a few generals and at least one senator. This is just the first time he's met someone who could actually do it."
Pepper scratched Tony lightly behind his ears. He seemed to enjoy it, but as soon as she was close to the food table, he jumped out of her hands and landed beside the salad, from which he snatched a crouton and began munching on it. He had soon filled his cheeks with pieces of crouton, and once his paws were free, he jumped and glided over to his disassembled suit. Pepper stood next to Loki and watched Tony struggle to maneuver a small screwdriver (that was almost the full length of his body) towards something on the gauntlet of his suit.
X
Even after spending the last few days with the Odinsons, Coulson still would have bet on Colonel Rhodes to win the race. It was still difficult to imagine a man flying by hammer at all even though he had witnessed it, but breaking the sound barrier was something else entirely. And yet, after about ten minutes of soaring out over the ocean, Thor beat Rhodes back to the clifftop by a full ten seconds, a huge grin on his face.
"Damn," said Rhodes, opening his mask. "Even with the lightning boost, I still couldn't catch you. How do you do that?"
Thor laughed. "It was a worthy contest, Rhodes, but I've been flying far longer than you."
"So this is Thor?" said Mr. Hogan, who had stood beside Coulson with his hands cupped around his eyes to block out the sun as he tried to watch the race. Coulson watched Thor go through another jovial introduction that soon had Mr. Hogan looking less grumpy than the SHIELD agent had ever seen him. Thor was really a ridiculously easy guy to like. Coulson was glad he'd beaten Sitwell to the attaché assignment, and not just because he no longer had to babysit a billionaire pain in the ass as a result.
The four of them made their way inside the house and down to the workshop, where Coulson frowned at the sight of Miss Potts standing next to Loki. They both had their arms folded and their heads tilted to the side, staring intently at the suit Stark had been working on when everyone else left for the race.
"Hey, Pepper. What's going on? Where's Tony?" said Rhodes, while Mr. Hogan made straight for the food table.
Neither Miss Potts nor Loki answered, and Thor, Rhodes, Hogan, and Coulson all followed their gazes to...a squirrel that appeared to be attaching wires to a circuit board beneath the outer armor layer of a piece of the Iron Man suit. Coulson didn't know a whole lot about rodents, but he was pretty sure they were usually more interested in chewing through wires than clipping them into place.
"What the hell?" said Hogan.
"Loki…," said Thor. He sounded both stern and apprehensive.
"What?" said Loki. He sounded both defiant and amused.
It all clicked together, and Coulson let out a peal of laughter that made Hogan, Rhodes, and Miss Potts all jump, but he couldn't stop. He didn't think he'd ever laughed harder in his life. Tears streamed down his face and his ribs ached. Tony Stark was a flying squirrel. This was the best day of his life.
"I don't get it," said Hogan. "What's so funny?"
"Change him back," said Thor.
"Why?" said Loki. "I think he's making better progress with those little paws than he would otherwise at the moment. I would hate to impede his work."
"Wait…," said Rhodes. "Are you saying that's Tony?"
With a long-suffering sigh, Loki waved a hand in the squirrel's direction. Green-gold light shone around his fingers before engulfing the small creature and growing rapidly into the shape of an adult man, and then Tony Stark was standing there amid pieces of his suit, looking exactly as he had when Coulson had left with Thor and Rhodes.
Rhodes and Hogan yelled and jumped back. Coulson, who had nearly regained his composure by that point, fell victim to a second wave of hysterical laughter. Miss Potts looked like she was trying not to do the same.
Stark himself was glowering at Loki. "Not cool, dude. Couldn't you see I was in the middle of something?"
"I told you," said Loki to Thor, who rolled his eyes.
"And you're okay?" said Miss Potts, closing the short distance between them and running her hands over his shoulders and upper arms.
"I'm fine." He blinked hard and looked around. "Squirrel vision kinda sucks. Not gonna miss that."
X
To Thor's surprise and relief, Stark took Loki's prank fairly well. Far better, in fact, than had Thor himself or any of their friends on Asgard, each of whom had fallen victim to a similar spell at various times over the centuries. Unlike them, Stark apparently found the experience too interesting to be humiliated by it, no matter how hard the son of Coul had laughed at him.
They stayed a while longer, until everyone had eaten their fill of the excellent food and drink, and when it came time to part company, they did so in good spirits.
"Don't get too cocky about that race," said Rhodes. "I expect a rematch the next time you're on Earth."
"Of course," said Thor, grinning. "I will be happy to win again."
"Oh, I see how it is," said Rhodes, chuckling. "Tony, you better make me a faster suit so I can teach this guy a lesson."
"I let you borrow a hand-me-down one time and now you expect me to make you a suit? I've created a monster," said Stark. He turned to Loki. "You find out those answers about how magic works, you better come tell me."
"I will," said Loki. "I am glad to have met you, Anthony Stark."
"Thanks," said Stark. "Never thought I'd hear that from a guy who turned me into a squirrel. You gotta work on your friendly overtures."
Loki laughed—a sound Thor had heard far too rarely of late. "You are not the first to tell me so."
X
"You can't be serious, Nick" said Pierce.
"Oh, I am very serious," said Fury.
"Not only are you going to let these guys take Bruce Banner with them, you're going to hand over one of the only other things we've got that we could use against hostile aliens?"
"They've already proven that they can wipe the floor with the best fighters Earth has, and that's only two of them. The cube wouldn't be enough, and they know more about it than we do. We can either give it to them and hope they make good on their promises to protect this planet, or we can hold onto it and hope that Thor was lying about it being a magnet for world-destroying alien warlords. Except that we can't really hope he was lying, because that would mean he and Loki are the world-destroying alien warlords. It's our only way forward, Pierce."
"You're taking an awful lot on faith."
Fury gave a grim chuckle. "What else can we do when we're dealing with gods?"
"And what does Earth get out of this except protection from a vague future threat?"
"I'm not sure we can really call it 'vague' after all the intel they gave us on Thanos and Malekith and their armies, and I'd think protection from very real future threats we can't hope to defend against on our own would be worth quite a lot."
"We still have no actual proof they didn't just make these threats up to manipulate us. They hold all the cards."
"For now," said Fury. "I have something in mind that might put a few cards in our hand. How they react to it should tell us a lot."
X
The morning brought with it a message for Thor and Loki from Heimdall that the Queen expected Odin to awaken by that evening. Coulson was visibly crestfallen when they told him this might be their last day on Earth for a while. He brought them to the same briefing room as before, where they found Fury waiting for them again. There was a large silver briefcase on the table in front of him.
"I've decided to grant your request," said Fury. He opened the briefcase, the contents of which bathed his face with blue light. He turned it to face them, revealing the Tesseract. Even though this was the outcome Thor had hoped for, he had to fight a sudden impulse to take the thing and hurl it into the nearest star. Was he mad to want the Tesseract on Asgard, to serve as bait for Thanos like the Aether had been for Malekith? Perhaps. But mad or not, it was the right thing to do. It should be Asgard's fight, not Earth's.
"Thank you," he said. "We will do everything in our power to live up to the trust you have placed in us."
"That's good!" said Fury with a trace of sardonic humor. "I thought you might start today."
"How so?" said Loki.
"I want to send a few extra people with you. A delegation from Earth so that we can begin broadening our understanding of the universe."
"Of course," said Thor, smiling. "We will welcome them gladly." He hoped Fury wouldn't inadvertently send any Hydra agents, but they would be so outmatched by even Aesir children that they would hardly pose a threat anyway.
"How many will you send?" said Loki—if not enthusiastically, at least politely.
"On a more long-term basis, just three, but if you'll agree to it, I'd like two SHIELD agents to be able to come and go as needed."
"That sounds reasonable enough," said Thor.
Fury touched a button on the table. "You can come in now."
The conference room door opened, and Thor froze at the sight of the three people walking into the room.
"See, Darcy?" Jane hissed. "I told you they didn't fly us all the way over here just to shoot us."
"There's still time," said Darcy. "Hey Thor, Loki."
They both nodded at her. Erik stood behind the two women, looking like he couldn't decide whether to be eager or wary.
A heavy sort of numbness swept over Thor. This Jane, who neither knew him nor cared for him, was going to be coming to Asgard to stay for the mortal equivalent of a long-term basis?
"I spoke with Dr. Foster on the phone last night," said Fury. "Asked if she'd like an opportunity to take her studies to a place where the subject matter is a little less theoretical."
"I don't want to be a burden," said Jane, turning to Thor and Loki, "but this would be such an incredible opportunity. I mean, I never even imagined—"
"You could never be a burden," said Thor hoarsely. He forced a smile, though he felt like he'd been stabbed in the heart. "Any of you," he added, smiling at Darcy and Erik too.
"Good, 'cause this is gonna be worth so much more than six credits," said Darcy. "Lauren Harwood in my Intercultural Comms class can take that U.N. internship and shove it up—"
Erik cut her off with a nervous cough, his eyes on Fury, who only seemed amused.
"What do I need to do to send my agents to you in a couple weeks or so?"
"Call for Heimdall," said Loki. "He will let us know, and then we or someone else will come to escort them to a Bifrost site."
"Can't they just stand in one of the sites we've already seen you use?"
"I suppose they could," said Thor.
"It may still be easier for them if an Aesir guide accompanies them, at least the first time," said Loki. "It is not an especially tranquil mode of travel, and as you have seen, they will need to stand in precisely the right place in order to arrive in one piece."
The apprehension on Erik's face was intensifying, but Jane was practically bouncing up and down with excitement.
"We'll take the guide," said Fury.
"If that's all," said Loki, "I should find Banner and see if he's made his decision."
X
Every time Bruce felt tempted to believe he'd only imagined meeting the actual Thor and Loki, all he had to do was look in the mirror at his unfamiliar blue-eyed, angular-featured face. It must be a face people could trust, because it hadn't been too hard for him to land a dishwashing job at a shabby diner, even though he'd been wearing slightly ill-fitting clothing he'd stolen from an unattended hamper at a laundromat when he applied. It was also bizarre how much of a difference four inches of additional height could make to his vantage point, considering that he regularly grew several feet.
Washing dishes for hours on end gave him plenty of time to think. Wouldn't you like to be able to stop running, at least for a little while? Stop running. Stop working shit jobs just to stay fed. Stop wondering when something would set him off. It was a mark of how bad the last few years had been that choosing between going on the way he had ever since the accident and letting himself be abducted by aliens didn't really feel like much of a choice at all.
His shift ended and he went back to his water-damaged, possibly bedbug-infested motel room. It was in exactly the same condition as when he'd left that morning, which confirmed his suspicions that the custodial staff was nonexistent. He turned to hook the chain in place and turn the deadbolt. When he faced the room again, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Good evening, Dr. Banner," said Loki.
"God!" Bruce yelped. "Was that necessary?"
"Probably not," said Loki. "But it was fun. Have you decided? Will you be coming with us to Asgard or remaining..." He looked around, taking in the flickering light, the scuffed furniture, and the blotches in the wallpaper. "...Here?"
Bruce couldn't even feel offended by Loki turning his nose up at his accommodations. They were pretty bad. He laughed. "I can't believe I'm doing this, but what the hell. I don't really have anything else to lose. I might as well become the first human to see another world."
"You won't be," said Loki, "but that's the spirit!"
"What?" said Bruce.
"Come along," said Loki, brushing past him and undoing the lock and chain. "The Bifrost site isn't far."
Bruce opened his mouth to protest that he needed to collect his stuff, but then he remembered that the only things he had to his name were a toothbrush and a disposable razor, so he shrugged, tossed the room key on the nightstand, and followed the alien prince out into the crumbling parking lot.
I had lots of different ideas about how Pepper would react to squirrel Tony, but I couldn't get any of them off the ground. Then it occurred to me that she might just be too tired from the events of IM2 for anything more than the John Mulaney "This might as well happen" reaction. Which ended up being the perfect fit. And yes, Loki mentally punched the air in triumph upon causing Coulson to roll around laughing. He's been hoping to get some kind of extreme reaction out of him this whole time.
Oh look, I figured out what to do with Jane, Darcy, and Erik! They will likely still be fairly minor figures in this fic, but I wasn't happy with the idea of shelving them completely when I could instead mine them for angst.
Any guesses on which two SHIELD agents will be the Asgardian liaisons? (It's probably going to be more of a cameo situation than a substantial plot thread, but who knows?)
Okay, now that the Earth field trip is over, it's time for some House of Odin Family Drama™. *cracks knuckles* This should be fun.