Finally Belonging

by Yodeling Prospector

What happens when a brain-damaged Loki who's been abused and unwanted his whole life lands on Tony Stark's tower?

39. Chapter 39

Everyone, this story has art now! *screams in total happiness* I started posting this on AO3 under the name YodelingProspector, and the incredibly talented RenneMichaelsArt drew art for this. Just click "gifts" on my profile over there, and you'll find it (since this site doesn't let you post links). She's an amazing artist, and I never imagined in my wildest dreams that someone would draw even one piece of art for my story, let alone two.

As always, I'm extremely grateful for all your support on this :)

The characters' opinions on movies and things do not necessarily reflect my own.

This is actually only part of what I had written for this chapter, but then it was getting really long so I decided to split it up. Hopefully this first part isn't too boring. The second part should be up in a few days, maybe sooner.

To Clint's relief, Lila appears to have already forgotten to wonder what Tony's question about whether Clint and Natasha were banging meant. To his credit, Tony looks like he at least realizes he shouldn't have said that in front of young kids, although that's probably helped by the look he's getting from Laura as she covers Lila's ears as if more profanity is going to spill out of the billionaire's mouth. Not that that's exactly an unreasonable assumption.

To be fair, Tony hadn't seen the kids when he made that comment about Natasha and Clint banging. Clint smirks as Tony seems to do a double take at his wife and kids. At least Tony won't be making lewd guesses about him and Natasha now. Why does everybody seem to ship them?

"Tony, this is Laura, my wife." Clint stresses the word, pulling her into his side. Tony had made a ridiculous comment about them being agents. "And those are Cooper and Lila. And yes, my family is the reason I turned down your offer for Thanksgiving dinner. Tasha too."

Tony grumbles that they left him with Steve as the only visitor, and Clint doesn't point out that surely Bruce and Loki were there, too. They live with Tony, after all. Then he stares at Nat. "Wait, she was still with you for Thanksgiving, even though you're not-" He glances at the kids. "Uh, doing anything."

"I'm a friend." Natasha says, crossing her arms.

Coulson tells the kids that he hadn't brought them any presents today like he had yesterday. They look slightly disappointed, but Clint and Laura have both made sure not to spoil them- besides, Cooper just had a birthday a week ago- which Clint sadly hadn't been able to make it home to, and he needs to make that up to Cooper somehow- and Lila has a birthday six days from today. Plus Christmas is looming nearer, since tomorrow's the first of December.

Needless to say, Clint and Laura end up buying a lot of gifts in November and December, to cover two birthdays and Christmas. Also, Clint's not sure they'll be home by then, meaning Lila's party might have to be cancelled.

Yesterday, Coulson had given Lila a stuffed polar bear that she had inexplicably named Cheeseball, rather than something logical like Snowball or even just an ordinary name like Abby- seriously, Clint's kids are weird sometimes.

Cooper had been really disappointed he hadn't been allowed bring his Legos, especially his new Millennium Falcon he'd gotten for his birthday last week, since they would have taken up too much space. So Coulson had bought a Lego Batmobile (Coulson says there really should be Captain America Lego, and Clint's kind of surprised they haven't made Avengers Lego sets yet). The Batmobile is assembled on the floor, but the box, bags and instructions are on the table. Clint has a feeling Laura made Cooper build it there so it wouldn't be in the way.

Lila and Cooper are both excited to see the famous Tony Stark and are simultaneously disappointed that he's not in one of his Iron Man suits. Despite Cooper being the one to point out that Tony is Iron Man, it's actually Lila who's chattering his ear off, asking why he's not in his suit, how it works, and why it doesn't have wings like Buzz Lightyear's suit.

Tony gives her a slightly patronizing smile, before he tries and utterly fails to explain his suit in a simple way. Admittedly, Tony's suits are the work of a freaking genius, literally. Clint's completely lost whenever the engineer describes the science behind his suit, there's no way Lila would understand.

There are playing cards scattered on the floor in front of the couch and some drawings and colored pencils on the coffee table, so they apparently haven't been watching TV the whole time.

Also scattered around the room are several toys that the kids packed before they left. Lila had brought her Merida doll and Merida's horse, Angus, as well as the Woody, Jessie and Buzz Lightyear toys they'd gotten after Toy Story 3 came out three years ago. Buzz is technically Cooper's, but Lila plays with the space ranger a lot more than her brother does these days. Lila's love of Toy Story had been further revamped by the Toy Story of Terror TV special that aired last month,where Jessie was the star. Lila had loved that.

Cooper, meanwhile, had brought his favorite stuffed animal, Lucky the "Pizza Dog." Lucky has definitely seen better days, and is missing his left button eye. Cooper has decided on the story that Lucky lost it when fighting a rabid badger that had tried to "attack" Clint. Really, it just fell off, and Laura hasn't been able to find a matching button anywhere.

There's a crunch as Tony accidentally steps on a tiny action figure of Jar Jar Binks, which, unlike Lego, isn't supposed to come apart. Good Riddance. Clint thinks. He hates the Star Wars prequels, but Cooper loves them almost as much as the originals, which should be a crime. Even worse, Lila actually thinks that, one, the podracing is the best part of the entire series and two, Jar Jar is funny, to Clint's everlasting horror and dismay.

So his almost-six year old daughter is rather annoyed that Tony just crushed the figure of the incredibly annoying Gungan.

"I just did everyone a favor." Tony says, looking at the broken Jar Jar. "Please tell me you've seen the original trilogy." Tony looks from the kids to Clint, his expression clearly saying that Clint better have shown them the originals.

"Of course they've seen the good movies." Clint says, and Tony nods in satisfaction, mumbling something about how it would be a crime to not show them the original trilogy.

Lila picks up Buzz and fires his laser at Tony, as if to punish him for breaking Jar Jar. Tony, surprisingly, hams it up and acts as if he'd been shot, but he's probably done stuff like this with Loki a lot. After all, Clint and the rest of the Avengers had ended up being roped into acting out scenes from The Incredibles in the Malibu mansion (except for Thor, who had left right after the movie).

Lila keeps firing Buzz's laser and then 'flies' the toy into Tony.

Cooper brandishes a blue lightsaber and pretends to slice off Tony's left arm, making lightsaber noises. Tony hams that up too, and the kids apparently forget about their annoyance with him for breaking a toy.

Laura makes the kids put their stuff away, and Cooper starts packing several action figures, including the broken Jar Jar, into his Captain America shield backpack. "Dad? Can we meet Captain America?"

"Hey, kid... uh, Cooper." Tony looks at the Cap shield backpack as if it personally offended him. "I'm way cooler than Stars and Stripes."

"You don't have your suit." Cooper points out, looking rather disappointed. Laura gives a stern "Cooper."

"Even without my suit I'm still way cooler!" Tony protests, indignant, as Natasha rolls her eyes. "I mean, this isn't even a competition. I'm a genius, billionaire, philanthropist superhero, and you've already forgotten me for an old guy with a shield who's not even here!" After a bit, he adds "I'm not sure I want you in my tower anymore, kid."

Clint's pretty sure Tony's joking, but Cooper seems to think he actually meant that. He glances at Clint guiltily, even more guiltily than that time when he'd been caught playing his Nintendo 3DS under his covers after bedtime, even though the 3DS wasn't supposed to be in his bedroom in the first place (incidentally, he forgot to pack it when they were leaving the house this time).

"And you- Agent-" Tony points at Coulson, who's standing off to the side. "Stop silently disagreeing with me. Even a Captain America fanboy like you should realize I'm infinitely more awesome." Glancing at the toys, Tony adds "Saying Cap is cooler than me is like saying Woody is cooler than Buzz, when Buzz has all the gadgets."

"I like Woody more." Coulson says, and Tony shakes his head as if it's a lost cause.

"I love Woody and Buzz. They go together! You can't have Woody without Buzz. And I love Jessie. She's tough. I didn't know you wore normal clothes, Iron Man." Lila switches topics and addresses Tony out of nowhere, staring up at the genius billionaire with the three Toy Story toys in her arms.

It's kind of hilarious, Clint thinks, because his kids are pretty much the only kids that regularly see Avengers- Clint himself, and sometimes Natasha- in a domestic setting and normal clothes, yet apparently Lila hadn't thought about other Avengers doing the same. True, most of the time Tony's on TV, he's either in his Iron Man suit or a business suit, as opposed to now, in jeans, a red winter coat, and a baseball hat. Clint's seen Tony in clothes stained in oil and stuff from his lab, looking more like a hobo than a billionaire.

"I'm sorry I made you mad, Mr. Stark. Are you not gonna let us live in your tower now?" Cooper stares at the billionaire superhero with wide, worried eyes. "I'm sorry."

At one point, Clint would've been sure that Tony would declare the tower a kid-free zone, but seeing how he lives with Loki (who technically isn't a kid, but is like one in some ways), he doesn't have any worries. Even before Loki came into the picture, Tony wouldn't have turned Clint's kids away if Clint needed somewhere to hide them.

Despite Cooper's worries, Clint is positive Tony won't actually refuse them space in his tower just because Cooper has a Captain America backpack and wants to meet the guy. Some people probably think Tony's enough of an asshole to do that, but they'd be wrong.

"I'm not gonna kick you out or anything. Sheesh. Well, technically, you're not even in there in the first place, but I'm still gonna let you live there. You're gonna love it. I have a huge pool that I never use- uh, and arcade machines and pretty much every video game ever made." Tony rambles, as he is wont to do, but his expression is softer than his words. The kids' eyes are wide with excitement, and Clint doesn't think the reality of the situation has really sunk into them yet. As in they might not go home for a while.

"But I would like to hear you say I'm the awesomest superhero." Tony glances at Cooper's Lego Batmobile. "As I said earlier today, I'm way cooler than Batman, and he's the coolest fictional superhero. Seriously, kid, I have got to get you some Iron Man toys."

"Hey, I'm their dad. That automatically makes me the awesomest superhero. Don't turn my kids against me, Tony." Clint raises his eyebrows at Tony. Then, quiet and serious, he approaches Tony. "Thanks for letting us stay. Hopefully it won't be long, but it depends on... you know. I just need somewhere really safe for them, and your tower's the safest place I can think of." Clint looks down at his kids and then over at Laura.

"Of course." Tony says, also more seriously than before. Stark Tower has about a zillion security measures in addition to Jarvis, so if someone tracked them down there, they'd be very unlikely to actually get to them.

The kids only vaguely know of the attack, since they were just woken up late in the night (to them, even though it was only ten pm) and told they had to leave. Clint hadn't gone into too much detail, but at the same time, they do sort of need to know that they're in hiding.

Because of this, the kids don't seem overly anxious about another attack (they're not nearly as worried as Clint and Laura, certainly). Cooper and Lila feel safe with Natasha or Clint watching over them, because they know nobody gets through either of them.

Hopefully their naive belief that heroes can't be beaten won't be shattered anytime soon.

For years, Clint's family had safely remained hidden without an incident, and the attack on Thanksgiving had been a shock. Clint keeps blaming himself. How had he not noticed the freaking tracking device on the Quinjet, even if it was cleverly hidden? He's a freaking S.H.I.E.L.D agent! How had that incident caught him by surprise?!

If it wasn't for Natasha going outside, discovering the goons, and beating them up, they might have actually made it into the house.

He isn't sure when they'll be able to go back home. Now that the location of their house is known by enemies, it's not exactly safe. Frankly, it's not at all safe, really. Hopefully that will change sometime.

Technically, once Monday rolls around the day after tomorrow, the kids are supposed to be back in school, but obviously their safety is more important. Maybe Tony can get them tutors or something and swear them to secrecy, although Clint won't actually ask for that. Tony's already doing enough, and he'll probably think of that. Or Jarvis will.

"Your backpack is way cooler." Tony says randomly as he points at Lila. She has a brown, fuzzy backpack with Chewbacca's face stitched into it, along with that gray strap he always wears (although it's not actually a plush character like Loki's Stitch backpack). She crams colored pencils and leaves her toys sticking out of the top. She opts for the familiarity of her favorite toys, Woody and Jessie, in her arms, rather than Cheeseball.

The kids and Laura wait in the hotel room, constantly guarded by Clint, while Natasha brings the luggage to the car, which is being inspected by Coulson. Thankfully, nobody slips a tracker on it like they had with the Quinjet.

Clint and Tony escort Laura and the kids out to the car. Cooper is hugging Lucky the Pizza Dog tightly for comfort, which he did back at home but has been doing even more since they left.

Of course, during the car ride, the kids keep asking if they're there yet, until Tony points out his tower when they're able to see it over the buildings surrounding them. This at least gets them to stop asking, now that they can actually see their destination.

Coulson pulls the car into Tony's private garage in the tower, where it will be safely guarded, and they haul all the luggage out, rolling it towards the elevator at the far end of the private garage. As they enter the elevator, Lila clambers to push the button and ends up punching them all, which makes Tony smirk for some reason. Laura stops her, sternly telling her that now it will take forever since they'll have to stop at every floor.

"Welcome back, sir. And do not worry, I will of course override the button commands and take you directly where you need to go." Jarvis' smooth British accent fills the elevator, making Laura, Cooper and Lila jump slightly and look around for the source of the voice. Tony smirks.

"Good afternoon, Agents Barton, Romanoff and Coulson." Jarvis' tone is just a tad cooler when he addresses Coulson, probably because of the whole incident with Loki and the Helicarrier. Not that Clint was particularly happy when he found out what happened there.

"This is Jarvis."

"Is he magic?" Lila asks, still unable to locate the source of the British-accented voice. "Or is he like Siri. Siri isn't magic."

"No Siri isn't magic, and Jarvis isn't either. He's my AI butler, which stands for Artificial Intelligence. So basically, a super-awesome computer... But a lot of thing here are kinda like magic."

Well, that's something Clint wouldn't have heard Tony say even a month ago. A lot of Tony's tower already sort of seems like magic anyways- especially Jarvis- but of course Tony's referring to Loki by that, who is literally magical as far as Clint can tell. The guy's a freaking shape-shifter, for crying out loud! "Do you guys like magic?"

"Magic isn't real." Cooper says halfheartedly. He still seems to believe in Santa Claus, although at nine, that may change soon. As much as Cooper wants to go to Hogwarts, he does seem to know that's not real. Lila, being younger, is a firm believer in both Santa and the Tooth Fairy.

Magic being fake seems like common sense, but Loki's kind of proved that wrong.

Jarvis' voice is once again perfectly friendly when he turns his attention to Clint's wife and kids. "Mrs. Barton, I presume?" Laura nods, still looking a little surprised to be addressed by a computer. "It's a pleasure to meet you, as well as young Mister Barton and young Miss Barton." Clint's honestly not sure if Jarvis had figured out who Laura and the kids were just by observing them for this very brief time, or if Tony had texted Jarvis or something on the drive here.

"You can just call 'em Cooper and Lila, Jarvis." Clint says. He's given up on getting Jarvis to just call him Clint instead of Agent Barton, and this will probably be a lost cause, too. Jarvis in polite to a fault and never addresses anyone by their first name, except for Loki, but there's always a Mr. in front of it.

"That would be against my programming, Agent." Jarvis says smoothly. Well, Clint totally called that. Why does Jarvis call Loki by his first name, anyways? Doesn't Loki have a last name? "Mrs. Barton, young Mister Barton, young Miss Barton, if there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask."

"Hey, J, order the boy, uh, Cooper some Iron Man toys, will you? And a backpack, to replace that one." Tony says. "Actually, we shouldn't be sexist. Order some Iron Man stuff for Lila, too."

"I believe I made the offer to them, sir." Jarvis says cheekily. "They probably do not want to be laden down with mountains of Iron Man merchandise of every variety, which is what I fear you would force me to thrust upon them. Besides, perhaps you are not young Mr. Cooper's favorite Avenger. His dad is one, after all."

"Told you. Stop trying to convert my kids, Tony." Clint says again. He really hopes he's the kids' favorite Avenger. How unfair would it be if it was one of the others?

The floor the elevator stops on is much like any of the other floors. There's a lot of gray and chrome in the color scheme, along with dark wood and sleek, modern furniture. Floor-to-ceiling windows span the wall. Cooper and Lila look around with their jaws practically hitting the floor before darting off to explore. Clint doubts it's possible to get lost on this floor, since it's just living quarters.

There are a several dart boards scattered around, which Tony makes sure to point out at every opportunity as he drags Clint and Laura through the rooms, talking a mile a minute about all the extra features his tower has that "boring" houses don't, mostly for Laura's sake because Clint's been in the tower before. Some of the things are really nice, like how the toasters toast bread to perfection and would never dream of burning it, thanks to Jarvis. At least, Clint thinks it's Jarvis, unless Tony made sentient toasters, which wouldn't surprise him, actually.

"We need to talk." Coulson says, as he follows Tony's almost hyper tour through their floor. They haven't really wanted to discuss the attack in front of the kids to avoid excessively worrying them, which is why they hadn't brought it up once in the hotel on on the ride over here.

Tony nods. "Come on up to the penthouse. Bruce is up there, I'm assuming he's part of this, because he's an Avenger?" They go back into the elevator, after calling for the kids and eventually having to hunt them down. Cooper and Lila grab their backpacks full of toys and follow them. Laura doesn't want to let the kids out of her sight, and Clint wants to keep an eye on them, too. It's reassuring, having them in his sight.

Even at the zoo, he'd been worrying about his family's safety back in the hotel room, even though Nat was guarding them and he completely trusts her both with his own life and with Laura and the kids'.

When the elevator doors open to the penthouse living room, Clint sees Pepper, Loki and Bruce are seated on the floor. Simba is with Loki, as always. Loki's Stitch backpack, and the apparently new addition of Lilo, are present as well. Clint's pretty sure he'd remember the ginormous stuffed Baloo from The Jungle Book, so that has to be new too. Lila gasps in delight at the sight of the huge bear that's probably bigger than she is, and even Cooper looks slightly awed by Baloo but a lot more awed about the penthouse.

Clint notices there are several shoeboxes and clear plastic bins arranged neatly across the floor, with little origami animals or plastic Disney animal figurines in them. There's also a plush Maximus in a larger crate, and the reindeer in Frozen and Bambi in another.

Is Loki making a zoo? Clint would bet money that he is, except unlike Tony, Clint has a family to support and limited finances, so gambling isn't a great idea.

It takes a second or two for Loki to divert his attention from his game. "Tony!" He runs over to hug the billionaire. "I'm making a zoo! Come see!" Dang, Clint would've won that bet. Loki starts to drag Tony off, but stops when he notices the rest of them.

"Clint! Tasha!" The god grins widely- and for once doesn't throw in a Kim Possible reference by calling them Kim and Ron- before his gaze turns to Coulson. "What's he doing heres? You're not gonna take my Simba ever again!" Loki hugs Simba close to his chest, as if to ensure nobody will try to snatch the toy lion away.

"I'm not here to take Simba." Coulson says with a bland smile. Loki doesn't relax his hold on his lion, but he doesn't look quite as worried. Coulson had been pretty decent to Loki on the Helicarrier, although some of that was a classic Good Cop/Bad Cop method.

Irrelevantly, Loki adds "Your suit makes you looks like a pen-guin but you aren't gonna fly like at the zoo." What? Clint's no animal expert, but he's pretty sure penguins don't fly. "My Tony really wouldn't want to be one of those!" Loki nods decisively, as if he'd just imparted a great wisdom.

"Yeah, I like being human." Tony says. The way Loki's looking at him makes it seem like there's more to his reasoning than that, but the god doesn't share his reasons.

Loki rocks and flaps his hands, his attention back on Coulson. "And you're not gonna put me in another petri dish! I answered all your dumb questions, but you never gave Simba back like you saids you would! Just gave me Olaf. You lied! Were you the one who ripped Simba?" Loki had asked similar questions when they talked briefly at the zoo, a little over an hour ago, but apparently he needs to go over it again. Maybe it has something to do with Coulson being in the tower.

"No. I didn't rip Simba." Coulson says calmly. Loki looks at him with more intensity, clearly trying to figure out if he's lying again.

"Where's the Furious Eyepatch Man?" Loki looks around anxiously, as if expecting Fury to jump out from behind a corner.

"He's not here." Tony reassures him, putting a hand on Loki's higher shoulder.

Pepper introduces herself warmly to Laura and the kids, while Bruce hangs back in the background until Natasha drags him forward to introduce him, mentioning that he's an Avenger too. The kids seem confused that he's not really green right now, and Bruce fidgets awkwardly.

"Is that an Iron Man suit?!" Cooper asks, looking at Simba and obviously excited to finally see a suit, even if it's on a toy lion instead of Tony. "Why does your Simba toy get an Iron Man suit?" Cooper asks jealously, obviously wishing he had an Iron Man suit for Lucky. Or just an Iron Man suit for himself. He rushes forwards, making the plastic blue blade of his toy lightsaber spring out, accompanied by electronic lightsaber sounds.

"I can beat him!" Cooper's talking about Simba, Clint can tell, but Loki obviously can't.

Loki freezes, looking terrified, and Cooper accidentally hits him in the thigh with a rather hard blow for a plastic lightsaber.

Clint seriously doubts the reason Loki looks like he's about to cry is because of the pain. Admittedly, toy lightsabers can sting a surprising amount for a toy, and have brought both of Clint's kids to tears when they whacked each other with them. But Loki barely seems to register the pain. Like Clint, the god's certainly suffered far worse pain in his life. Pain is something he shouldn't have to be used to but obviously is. Clint has a feeling that, when Loki was comparatively younger than Lila, he was probably suffering far worse pains than getting hit by a plastic lightsaber.

Maybe Loki's just panicking about the idea of being bullied again? Asgard had done far worse than just bully him.

Tony grabs the lightsaber by the blade (which would be fatal if it were real, of course. Clint's pretty sure Tony could build a real lightsaber if he wanted to. Maybe he already has, and just keeps it hidden in his lab or something).

"Hey, we don't go around hitting people here, and I'm pretty sure the rules apply to your house, too." Tony tells Cooper, glancing at Clint, who nods to tell him that no hitting is indeed a rule in their house. Admittedly, it was an accident this time, but it still is going against that rule, but Clint and Laura both remind Cooper of the rule again, even though Tony basically just said it.

Loki is actually crying now, maybe in a bit of relief to here that again, something he'd definitely never heard in that shit hole realm he's from, although he does say something about "Jotun ice spears." Or, that's what Clint thinks he says, anyways.

Tony gives Cooper a look that makes him let go of the lightsaber, and Tony holds it, speaking softly. "Look, Snoopy, it's just plastic, like your figurines. And it's not supposed to look like ice, anyways. It's like the opposite of ice, it'd be really hot if it was real, which it's not." Tony hits himself on the arm with the lightsaber.

The genius billionaire keeps bonking himself on the arm until Loki's looking and sees him do it. "Nobody's going to hit you here, and if they did, it probably wouldn't hurt anyways."

"Besides, ice isn't bad, remember? Elsa kicked the guards' as... butts-" Tony says with a glance at Cooper and Lila. "Kicked their butts with ice spear thingies, and stopped them from killing her."

Tony grabs Loki's Elsa, Anna and Olaf dolls from a couch, handing them to him.

"Elsa and Anna!" Lila shrieks. "And the snowman, and that's the reindeer, right?" Lila points at the toy reindeer in one of the bins.

"Olaf and Sven. Olaf and Sven" Loki singsongs "Son of Coul gave Olaf backs but not Simba."

Clint mentions that he and Laura were going to take the kids to see Frozen today, until their plans obviously changed with them needing to leave after the attack a few days ago.

Lila's looking eagerly at Elsa and Anna, and Laura reminds her that the dolls aren't her toys and she has to ask if she can play with them, and listen to the answer. Lila pouts.

"Why do you have princesses?" Cooper asks Loki.

"Elsa's queen." Loki says. "And she's really really awesome. She's gots ice powers, like Frozone, and she fights bad guys too." Well, it's good to hear Loki say that.

"We haven't seen the movie yet, so no spoilers." Clint says. "As in, don't tell anyone the ending, or anything that was surprising or something."

"Periwinkle has ice magic too. A Frost talent." Lila says, and Cooper groans. "And white hair and blue clothes like Elsa."

"Who's Periwinkle?"

"Tinker Bell's twin sister." Lila answers. If he didn't have kids, Clint certainly never would have heard that Tinker Bell has her own movies, and he honestly wouldn't have minded never knowing.

Lila continues to explain. "They were born from the same laugh, but got separated in Neverland, and didn't know each other 'til Tink went in the Winter Woods. I had dolls of Tink and Peri, but they're still at home." It clearly hasn't sunk in with Lila that they may not go home for a while.

Loki looks very intrigued, while Tony looks like he really hopes he's not going to be dragged into watching Tinker Bell movies. Clint sends him a sympathetic glance, he knows the feeling.

"Loki, this is Laura, my wife." Clint finally gets around to introducing his family. Loki's wide green eyes turn to look at Laura and the kids, although his eyes are still somewhat glazed. It's not like Loki wouldn't find out eventually, but he hopes the guy can keep a secret. "And these are my kids-"

"Your kids?" Loki asks, sounding somewhat shocked, glancing between Clint and Laura. Clint nods, smirking slightly, and Loki cocks his head to the side.

"Yes, these are-" Clint starts only for Loki to interrupt again.

"If they're your kids, then they hads to... they came outta you, right, after growin'side you as you get all big and fat. An' it hurts lots when they came out, but you are really happy, too, 'cause of babies." He makes a gesture over his stomach indicating a pregnant belly, and why the hell is Loki looking at Clint when he says this? "I have dreams like Spirit, 'cause Spirit came outta his mother like that, and I'm the mo-"

"Loki, let's not talk about this." Pepper gently interrupts Loki's rambling with a glance at the kids, especially Lila. Also, did Loki have a dream about giving birth?! Clint sort of hopes he'd somehow misinterpreted that.

"My dream?" Loki asks. "'Cause it's a argr freaky dream?"

"No, things like how babies are made, because, uh, there are kids here." Tony answers, though he's smirking and had needed to stifle his laughter earlier. Clint probably would have thought it was funny if his kids hadn't been listening. The kids do know some about how babies are formed. Not all the sex stuff (although Cooper knows a tiny bit of that), but that they grow in a mother's womb and all that.

Actually, Clint's not entirely sure if Loki knows how sex works, since he seems really innocent. When he glances at Tony, the billionaire looks like he's wondering if Loki would've actually gone there, so apparently Loki does know the birds and the bees.

"No talking 'bout making babies." Loki nods in agreement. "It's weird anyways. And gross." Clint finds this slightly strange. Sure, Loki may seem really innocent (even though he apparently knows about sex), but he's still technically an adult. Aren't there lots of adults with disorders or disabilities who still like sex?

"You're super tall." Lila looks up at Loki. "Taller than Daddy, and you have really, really big feet.

"Loki, this is Lila." Clint puts a hand over his daughter's head. "And this is Cooper. They're kind of a secret from most people. You can keep a secret, right?" He asks with his other arm around Cooper's shoulders.

Loki nods as a grin creeps over his face, before fisting a hand over his chest and bowing slightly in greeting to Clint's family. "Do you keep chickens?" Loki blurts out of nowhere.

"We had chicks in kindergarten." Lila answers. "They were so cute and yellow and fluffy and I loved them so much! Chicky was the best chick, but I'm in first grade now." Clint remembers Lila being very upset about leaving Chicky behind. Chickens, however, are an honest-to-god pain in the ass, and horrible little creatures. Hence why they're not on his farm anymore. He learned his lesson, and fresh eggs just weren't worth it.

"Kind-erg-arten?" Of course they probably don't have kindergarten in Asgard, but where did Loki get that pronunciation?

Cooper snickers slightly and tells Loki "You're weird." It is true, in a way, but still...

"You're weird, kid." Tony jumps to Loki's defense, staring down at Cooper. "You don't even know the coolest superhero when you see him. And you like the prequels, and-" he pauses to shudder dramatically "-Jar Jar Binks, judging from your toys."

"Not helping, Tony." Pepper sighs, as Lila announces way too loudly that Jar Jar is really funny. Clint buries his face in his hands.

"Cooper, that was very rude. Apologize." Laura and Clint scold at basically the same time after the little conversation-detour Tony just dragged them on. Clint may actually be a little harsher than Laura is about this, since he knows Loki's history and Laura doesn't. Loki might assume that one comment means Cooper's going to bully him forever, like in Asgard.

"Sorry... Mr. Loki..?" Cooper looks down. Loki doesn't answer as he looks more or less at Cooper and Lila, though his eyes linger on their toys.

"My Tony says I'm not a freak." Loki mutters, wringing his hands. "Bruce says that too. Says I'm nots a freak like how Harry's not a freak, that they didn't follows the Quasmirelsa rule in Asgard, 'n neither do the Durleys."

Loki wanders back over to the boxes and grabs a little origami flamingo before pressing it into Pepper's hands. "For you." He says, when Pepper tries to hand the flamingo back. Pepper smiles and accepts the gift.

Smiling slightly, Loki returns to his zoo and crouches down next to a bin that holds that snake necklace Loki has, with an odd name that Clint's forgotten. The snake is much larger than a necklace now and looks very real.

Loki starts saying something about winking and never talking to a snake before, and it raises its head. Loki had looked a little like Harry Potter in the zoo earlier, even with the scars and the glasses, so maybe he's re-enacting that scene?

"Whoa! You have a snake?!" Cooper asks. Laura gasps slightly, no doubt worried about a huge snake attacking her kids, even if he's not a real snake. He does appear real, sometimes, though.

"He's my Jormungand." Loki says, looking at Cooper somewhat suspiciously for some reason. Jormungand, that was it.

"Your... mun-gand?" Cooper scrunches his nose slightly.

"What's a mu-gand?" Lila asks curiously.

"Jormungand." Loki says the name slowly, as if the kids are dumb as he picks up his snake and looks at Cooper and Lila curiously. "His name, Jormungand."

"That's a weird name." Cooper says, but not in a mean way, exactly.

"So's Cooper." Loki replies casually, and it probably is to him. "Do you get the glitches too for All-Tongue?"

Laura looks at Clint for an explanation, but Bruce ends up answering it. "We don't have All-Tongue, remember?" This is actually the first thing Bruce has said since he awkwardly greeted Clint's family. "We actually have to learn every language we know."

"Is your snake a boy snake or a girl snake?" Lila apparently didn't catch the his earlier when Loki said Jormungand's name.

"Boy." Loki answers, singsonging. "Boy, male snake."

"Is he real?" Laura asks faintly. Clint whispers to her that Jormungand isn't really real, and she looks at him, confused. Admittedly, the truth is kind of weird, so Clint just ends up saying that he's about as real as a robot.

"He looked like he moved earlier." Cooper says, before adding unhelpfully. "Some snakes can squeeze you to death! Your snake looks like he could squeeze someone. I saw a snake squeeze a mouse and eat it whole on TV. Some snakes bite you with poison and then you die." Laura now looks very worried.

"Venom." Loki says after a bit, looking at Jormungand instead of Cooper.

"What?"

"Snakes, animals, they haves venom, not poisons." Loki says. "Bilgesnipes have acid."

Cooper's eyes shift towards Jormungand, and he seems like he wants to step towards Jormungand, but both he and Lila end up stepping back a couple steps when Laura pulls them away. "He's not venomous, is he?" Laura asks.

"Nope nope nope! My Jormungand is real nice. He hugs me an' I feel safes. It's even better now he gots a body." Loki nods and wraps Jormungand around his shoulders. Clint's seen Jormungand move on his own before, and he's wondering if it's intentional that Jormungand's not moving now that there are new people here. Loki's Stitch backpack hasn't spit anything out, either.

"What's the other thing you said? A bilge-thingy?"

"Bilgesnipes. They're big, and got scales... big antlers, too. They're real means and dangerous so warriors like hunting them."

Cooper gives the you're crazy gesture of twirling a finger around an ear. Clint doesn't think that means the same thing on every part of earth, let alone in other realms or whatever they're called. Loki just stares at him blankly before copying it, although he actually twirls a strand of his long black hair.

"You're crazy." Cooper tells the god after realizing Loki clearly didn't get the gesture.

Loki lets out a frustrated shout in response, sounding half resigned and half protesting.

"Cooper, come over here, will you? You too, Lila." Clint makes the come here gesture and uses his getting kids to do what you say voice.

"'m sorry! I'm sorry! I won't do it again!" Loki's saying to Tony. Clint glances at him, confused. Why is Loki apologizing?

Loki's now holding his Lilo doll in one hand and Simba is of course in the other. Tony gives Loki a look that reflects Clint's own confusion about the god apologizing. "Loki, you didn't do anything. You don't have to apologize."

"No! I'll be goods!" Loki promises, and then adds completely randomly. "I wanna dance. I practiced. I just wanna dance... I practiced."

Tony glances at the Lilo doll in Loki's hand. "Wait... you're quoting Lilo here, aren't you? At least you didn't do what she did to Myrtle and start punching and biting. Good job with that, by the way."

It's not like Loki ever hits people, as far as Clint knows, but it's a very good thing he hadn't. Not only is he an adult, but he has godlike strength so things would've ended very badly for Cooper if Loki started pounding him.

Clint ushers his kids into the relative privacy of the kitchen, followed by Laura, and Clint kneels down to be on Cooper's level, sending his son a stern look. "Cooper, you're not being very nice right now. You don't know anything about Loki, but you're called him crazy. He's not crazy. He's from another planet sort of thing... um, a realm, and I guess they have those bilgesnipe things there."

"They do. Thor also mentioned them, during the invasion. He also said they had scales and huge horns, and they apparently fight a lot." Coulson remarks from the doorway, having apparently followed them to give Loki, Tony, Bruce and Pepper some privacy, although Clint can see them through the shelves that are basically holes in the wall separating the bar and the kitchen.

"Is Mr. Loki really from another planet?" Cooper asks, sounding excited but a tad dubious at the same time. Then, he frowns "Is he one of the aliens that you fought in New York, Dad? The ones that tried to take over?" Even though Cooper had been seven and a half at the time of the invasion, and Lila had been four, they still heard about the invasion. The whole world knows about that, for obvious reasons.

Clint probably should have told them some stuff about Loki beforehand, so the kids would have a better understanding, but he's not sure if Tony or someone will get annoyed if he gives away personal information. Probably not, after all, Tony told them everything he knew about Loki the first time Clint met the god, pretty much, and Clint's not even going to tell his kids everything.

For example, he's not going to tell them about Loki's powers, because his kids would be incredibly jealous (who wouldn't?) and ask Loki a lot of questions, which would almost certainly set Loki off.

However, he doubts Loki will be able to hide his powers from them forever.

"Did Mr. Loki do something bad? Is that why he was in Time Out?" Lila asks. Had the kids picked up that Loki was in a cage? Lila seems to have equated it to a time out.

Coulson and Clint shake their heads at the same time. "No, he didn't do anything bad, and he's not one of those aliens." Geez, how do they explain the whole Helicarrier fiasco to the kids?

"But why was he in time out if he wasn't bad?"

"He showed up somewhere he shouldn't, and... some people thought he was a spy." Coulson answers. "He's not a spy. He's not a threat at all."

Lila stares up at Coulson. "Did you really take Mr. Loki's toys? Stealing is wrong." She then launches into a long lecture about it and Clint thinks it's really funny watching his five-year-old daughter lecture an adult. She's surprisingly good at it. "So don't steal." Lila concludes seriously,

"I know stealing is wrong." Coulson says after Lila's done with her rant. "I wasn't the one who actually took Simba."

"So he's a good alien, like Yoda and Chewbacca and E.T.?" Cooper asks, and Clint nods.

"Anyways, Loki's from another planet realm thing called Asgard." Clint tells them, not mentioning it's where Thor's from. Hopefully they won't talk about Thor a lot around Loki.

"Is that why he talks weird?" Cooper asks. Thor has a different way of speaking due to being from Asgard, but Loki's speech is different, Clint has noticed. "And what's All-Tongue?"

"All-Tongue is some kind of translator in Loki's head, but I think he said he's trying not to use it now." Hadn't Loki said something about that in Malibu? "Really, I think most of the stuff Loki says doesn't come out how he wants it to, and it probably sounds a lot better in his head."

"You shouldn't make fun of how someone speaks, anyways." Laura admonishes.

"Why was he crying?" Lila asks, even though she and Cooper have both cried after the other whacked them with a lightsaber.

"You have no idea what Loki's been through." Clint continues. "Everyone from his realm was unbelievably cruel to him. He got hurt really bad there, and he probably thought you guys were going to be like that."

"Like Sid's house?" Lila asks, pulling her beloved Woody doll out of her Chewbacca backpack. It's not a perfect comparison, since the bad boy in Toy Story also pulled his toys apart to build mutant toys, and blew toys up, stuff that probably hadn't happened to Loki, but Sid had thrown Woody around when pretending to interrogate him.

At least, Clint sincerely hopes Loki wasn't pulled apart or blown up, but Asgard is sadistic enough to do something like that, probably. And some of Loki's friends, like the eight-legged horse and that girl with half her body looking like a skeleton-corpse (she had shown up with the illusion-Loki when Loki was in the Helicarrier, and looked like something out of a horror movie) are kind of mutants, like Sid's mutant toys.

"Yeah, kinda like Sid's room. It's also like the Caterpillar Room, if Loki was the only toy there." Clint says, referencing Toy Story 3, where Woody and the rest of the gang ended up at Sunnyside Daycare, and all of Andy's toys except Woody were stuck in the Caterpillar Room, where toddlers threw them around and just brutalized them in general. To the toys, that room's a nightmare, but to the toddlers, it's a fun place, kind of like how Loki's view of Asgard is a lot worse than every other Asgardian's.

"Only it wasn't toddlers hurting him, it was adults, and unlike the toddlers, they knew they were hurting him and thought it was fun. They beat him up a lot, probably most days, and he's really old." Technically, Sid didn't know he was actually hurting the toys since he didn't know they were alive, but he was still sadistic like the Asgardians were.

Laura looks horrified, even more than Cooper and Lila do. His wife's definitely picking up a lot more subtext than they are. "Remember when you broke your arm, Cooper?" He asks, and Cooper nods. Lila hasn't gone through that... yet. Considering how adventurous she is, it's likely she'll break something sometime. "I have a feeling people hit Loki so much they broke his bones."

"Why didn't he stop them?" Cooper asks in a small voice.

"He couldn't. It was everybody there against him, the odds were always against him, and they made him think he deserved it. So I want you guys to be extra nice to him, alright?"

The kids nod, still looking shocked, and the head back out to the living room. Loki seems to have calmed down now that Tony, Bruce and Pepper have talked to him.

"I'm sorry I hit you with my lightsaber, Mr. Loki." Cooper says. "It was an accident. I didn't mean to hurt you." It probably hadn't physically hurt at all, Clint thinks again.

Loki blinks and looks very surprised at this turn of events, but he doesn't actually answer.

"Hitting is wrong." Lila explains, somewhat hypocritically, since both kids have hit each other plenty of times. "So's stealing, and bullying. Our school doesn't let people bully each other. One time, Jared had to miss all of recess and got sent to the principal's because he tried to steal Clark's Muppet toys and called him a baby."

Loki looks like he isn't quite sure what bullying means, even though he's suffered from it his whole life, although abuse is even worse than bullying.

"Are you really an alien?" Cooper asks Loki somewhat jealously. "I wish I was an alien. Then I could fly around in spaceships."

"You don't look like an alien." Lila studies Loki carefully. "You're not a little green man or anything." Loki looks confused and glances at Bruce, obviously thinking about when Bruce turns green and thinking that little is not a word one would use to describe Hulk. Clint totally agrees with that.

"Not all aliens are little green men." Cooper rolls his eyes. "Although Yoda is."

"Mira Nova's an alien, a Tangean." Lila says, referencing her favorite character from the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command TV show, although neither she nor her older brother were even born when it apparently ran in the early 2000s. Mira is a blue alien princess who can pass through solid objects. She's pretty much Buzz Lightyear's version of Jessie, even having reddish hair like the cowgirl. Lila has been asking for a Mira Nova doll for her birthday or Christmas, which are basically right next to each other. She's going to be heartbroken, because they never made Mira Nova dolls, and Clint really doesn't want to let her down. Maybe he can pay Tony to make a custom one

Lila doesn't mention that Mira has blue skin, though.

"Stitch is a alien, he is!" Loki then adopts a sort-of Russian accent and sounds like he's quoting someone. "'Xper'ment 626. He is fire-proof, bullet-proof, and can think faster than super computer. He can see in the dark, and lift objects three thousand times his size. His only instinct... to destroy everything he touches!" Loki cackles at that.

Glancing at Bruce, Loki adds pointedly in his usual voice. "Stitch got much better 'bout wrecking stuff. Not his only instinct, now. He can love and has his Ohana with Lilo, Nani, Pleakley, even Jumba even though Jumba tried to capture him and hit him into a tree and tried to shoot him. Jumba made him. Stitch, he's not a monstrosity anymore, nope nope nope!"

"Where are Elsa and Anna and Olaf the snowman?" Lila looks around for the Frozen toys, which are now nowhere to be seen. Clint's guessing Loki hid them in Stitch.

"Why don't you show him your toys, and if he wants, maybe he'll show you his later." Clint suggests, since Lila still has Woody in her arms.

"Why do you have all these toys if you're an adult?" Cooper asks.

"I can be a kid if I want." Loki tells them, and Clint had seen Loki in what might have been the god's own childhood body at the zoo earlier today, only he'd been wearing Harry Potter glasses. "I was not long ago." Loki says, obviously going over those events in his own mind. He's right, earlier today wasn't long ago at all.

Clint wonders how Lila and Cooper would've reacted to seeing Loki as a kid first, rather than an adult, but there's really no way of finding out now. They already know he's an adult.

"This is Woody." Lila holds the cowboy up. "He's a cowboy."

"He's nots a cow! He's a person!" Loki giggles, as if Lila's being ridiculous. "Why's he gots a weird helmet?"

"It's a cowboy hat, 'cause he's a cowboy! Jessie's a cowgirl." Lila digs Jessie out of her backpack, and then fishes around for the doll's little red hat.

"What are cow boys and cow girls?" Loki asks, confused, and still not sure that she's not trying to trick him.

"They ride horses and lasso cows." Tony says.

"Woody's a toy all the time but he comes to life. Jessie and Buzz too." Lila adds. "He has his own horse, but I don't have Bullseye, and Angus is too small for him. Plus he's Merida's horse."

They still haven't talked about the attack, and Coulson clearly wants to get to that. Clint heads back into the kitchen, with the rest of the adults except Loki, where they have more privacy but Clint and Laura can still keep an eye on their kids through the hollowed-out shelves in the wall separating the kitchen and the bar.

Bruce bustles around the kitchen, making tea. The chatter of the kids and Loki drifts in, but it's quiet enough to not be able to make out what they're saying, meaning the kids can't make out what they're saying. Clint sees Cooper running around with Lucky the Pizza Dog held over his head, and Lila has Jessie riding Loki's Maximus plush from Tangled. Just with the whole toy thing, they're probably going to get along.

Tony, meanwhile, pours himself a beer and offers one to Clint. Clint usually takes him up on any sort of offer for alcohol, but right now he's worried he'd drink more than strictly advised after the stress of the past few days, so he declines. Besides, he generally doesn't drink much around his kids.

"So what exactly happened with this whole attack thing at your house on Thanksgiving? How did they even find you?" Tony asks, leaning back and putting his feet on the table, expertly not spilling his full glass. Despite his relaxed posture and rather casual voice, his eyes are very intent and serious. Clint had told him a bit as they were driving to the hotel, but nothing since Tony found out about Clint's whole secret family.

"You were attacked?! In your home?" Pepper asks Laura and Clint in a shocked voice, too concerned to give Tony a look about having his feet on the table. Laura nods worriedly. Pepper glances at Laura "Oh my gosh, that's horrible. Are you all all right? You must be so worried."

Laura nods slightly, and Pepper reaches out to grab her hand. "You're safe here. What about Cooper and Lila? Were they hurt? Did they see it? That must have been really scary for them."

"The kids were already in bed, and slept through the whole thing." Clint tells her. Thankfully, he thinks. How much worse would it have been if they had witnessed the incident? They'd probably be scared out of their wits, whereas the concept probably seems a little abstract now.

"The thugs didn't even make it in the front door." Natasha speaks up, her eyes glinting in a slightly satisfied way. Clint smirks slightly, but it had still been far to close for his liking. Natasha clearly feels the same sort of shame that the incident had caught her by surprise, too.

"You can stay here as long as you need to." Tony says. "I don't even charge rent. I know, I'm like the dream landlord, and some people would kill to live here... but I guess you probably miss your home, wherever the hell it is?" Tony really is more caring than he often seems.

Clint and Laura both nod. The farm, their home, is still dangerous now that the address could have been sent to God only knows how many horrible people. Tony looks at them, and says "Is there anything I can do to make you feel more at home? I can have Jarvis order similar furniture for you, if you want. I'm guessing your house doesn't look like your accommodations, and frankly, most of it isn't exactly childproof."

"You've already done more than enough. We wouldn't want to impose." Laura insists, but Clint can tell she likes the idea. Tony hit that nail right on the head. All the stark, modern, extremely expensive furniture on their floor doesn't feel very homey.

Clint notices Cooper try to sneak up to listen to them, and at least they were only talking about furniture right now.

"Hey, Pep, you wanna pick out furniture online with them later? Just charge it to my personal account." Laura opens her mouth to protest, and Tony says "Literally, I could buy you five houses and barely even notice a dip in my savings. So don't be like Bruce. He's still all 'Tony, this winter coat I have that's practically falling apart at the seams is perfectly fine. You don't have to get me a new one'." Apparently Tony did, because the coat Bruce was wearing at the zoo earlier looked new.

Bruce sends Tony a halfhearted glare, and, from where he's hiding in the doorway, Cooper tells Loki and Lila to shut up. All of them try not to laugh at the fact he thinks they haven't noticed him and the fact he would've just ruined that if they actually hadn't noticed, with varying levels of success.

Pepper says it's no problem, and they can pick out furniture online later. She's clearly not taking no for an answer.

"Cooper, don't listen in on our conversation." Clint calls. His kids can be rather sneaky, just like Clint and even Laura, although she's not a spy/agent. Clint, however, is a spy, and there's no way his kids would be able to sneak up on him. Especially since Cooper had given himself away even more by telling Lila and Loki to shut up so he could listen.

They watch Cooper walk back to the center of the room with a huff, and Natasha's smirking slightly.

"So how exactly did these attackers find you?" Tony questions. "And who are these assholes anyways? I mean, attacking on Thanksgiving? Really?"

The familiar sound of Cooper and Lila fighting can now be heard from the living room. Laura gets up and goes to the doorway to see what the matter is. Apparently, Cooper wants to play with Buzz, despite almost never touching him these days, and Clint has a feeling he's just doing it to annoy Lila.

"Miss Potts, maybe you should go out to the living room." Coulson suggests lightly. "This next bit is Avengers business."

"No way." Tony says, putting a hand on Pepper's shoulder when she starts to stand up and lowering her back in the chair. "I'm gonna tell her anyways."

"Mr. Stark-"

"Look, if they went after you and your family, who's to say these assholes are aren't gonna target people important to the rest of us Avengers?" Tony has a point, Clint thinks.

"I can take care of myself, Tony. Ever since I joined your company, I was in danger." That's true. It's not exactly as if this kind of potential threat is new to Pepper. She's been associated with Tony, and Iron Man, so there are plenty of people who would want to go after her. Even before Tony was Iron Man, Pepper was still a hugely influential person in what was then the world's largest weapons manufacturer.

"Yeah, and that's not okay. You've already been almost killed because of your association with me!" The billionaire continues his rant. "Pepper, you to be safe, and that means knowing what's happening."

"That frying pan just disappeared." Laura says, pointing at the stove.

"What?"

"There was a frying pan on the stove, and it just... vanished." Laura explains, and gives a worried smile. "Now you all probably think I'm going crazy from all the stress..."

"You're not." Clint pulls her close. He has a feeling Loki called the frying pan to him, or if Stitch spit it out. That's the only explanation. He'd used a frying pan during the self-defense lesson, like Rapunzel and Flynn both used a frying pan. "It was Loki, but don't mention it around him. He has these... powers. They're like magic or something... actually. Like, he can literally shape-shift. He looked like a kid a little older than Lila just a few hours ago."

"Yeah, and S.H.I.E.L.D decided to get way too interested in them when he accidentally teleported onto the Helicarrier. They locked him up like a criminal and were freaking experimenting on him." Tony glares at Coulson, even though Coulson had actually voiced the opinion that Loki wasn't a threat.

"So how did they find you?" Bruce asks quietly, getting back to the matter after taking a sip of tea from his mug.

Ugh. Clint really doesn't want to go over this. They shouldn't have been found. Their home has- or had- been a secure location for years, in the middle of nowhere and completely off the map. If it hadn't been for the damn tracking device... The more he thinks about it, the more he keeps kicking himself for the incident catching him by surprise. Also, is Pepper still supposed to be here? Coulson asked her to leave but then Tony protested, and she hasn't left yet.

"There was a tracking device in the Quinjet." Natasha speaks up when Clint doesn't say anything for a bit.

"And you didn't notice?" Tony interrupts, and Clint sighs. Both he and Natasha are kicking themselves for not having noticed- they're super spies, after all.

"Yeah, and we just decided to leave it, because I thought 'hey, there's this random tracking device on my ship and I don't want people to follow me to my house, but I'm not gonna do shit about it.'" Clint says sarcastically. "What do you think? Obviously we didn't see it,or we would've taken it off. My family's off S.H.I.E.L.D's files, as I'm sure you know since you didn't know about them from hacking stuff. I'd already disabled the usual tracking S.H.I.E.L.D uses. I thought we were completely off the map."

"You guys need better tech that can sense this or something." Tony mutters, and it definitely looks like the gears in the inventor's brain are already whirring at incredible speeds. "So where was it?"

"It was under a wing panel, which was just slightly loose, like they were trying to get it back before I stepped outside." Nat says.

"Wait... not many people could've put it there." Tony frowns. "I mean, who gets access to tinker with Quinjets? It's not like someone could've just thrown it onto your ship."

"That's what we're thinking." Coulson tells him. "One of the attackers was identified as Victor Baker, who was, in fact, a mechanic who worked on that ship."

"Ouch. That's gotta suck." Tony says, as the kids and Loki start shouting in the living room, although it doesn't sound like they're fighting with each other. "I'm assuming you took him out and dragged him in. Has he spilled any info yet?"

"We did knock all three of the attackers out." Natasha says. "We incapacitated them and dumped them in Clint's shed to deal with later. But they had hollowed-out cyanide teeth and had committed suicide before we got back to them."

"So you have no idea why this mechanic tried to kill you." Tony says. "And apparently you can't trust S.H.I.E.L.D... not that you ever really can. I mean, you guys are all spies, and you-" Tony jabs a finger at Coulson "-weren't even dead when they said you were. And you guys kept Loki hostage for no reason whatsoever until I came and broke him out. By the way, I also really don't appreciate you trying to experiment on Simba's Iron Man suit."

"We're still working on figurine out who the others were." Coulson says. "We're not exactly using S.H.I.E.L.D resources, because one of them was S.H.I.E.L.D."

Tony nods approvingly. "See, even you're starting to get it. Jarvis, can you dig up everything on Victor Baker?"

"Of course, sir."

Tony glances at Clint. "See why you shouldn't've turned down my offer for Thanksgiving dinner?"

---

Thor is at a complete loss for what to do as he drains the water from the bathtub and dries Sleipnir off. Sleipnir's bigger now, but not so big that he hadn't fit in the bathtub. If he'd been a healthy size, he certainly would not have fit in there, though.

The incident with the apple had clearly had a negative effect. At first, Sleipnir had looked at it like it was something in his head he was imagining, as if he'd hardly expected it to be real. Then, he'd eaten it much too quickly and had thrown it up.

Since throwing up, Sleipnir has once again been rather out of it, not seeming really aware of what's going on around him. Then again, his world did just change drastically.

Thor knows, from his experience in Asgard with the horses in the royal stables, that horses generally are incapable of throwing up. Sleipnir's clearly not an ordinary horse. For starters, he has eight legs, but secondly, if Loki is truly his parent, Sleipnir obviously has Jotun blood mixed in, and he communicates much more than the average horse does, even with All-Tongue.

It's a good thing that Sleipnir can throw up, because his stomach is obviously unable to handle these foods, and it would be extremely problematic if it was simply stuck down there, unable to be regurgitated. If Sleipnir had been unable to throw up, he may have died from being overfed and having no way

That thought is horrifying, that Thor would have been responsible for the death of a creature who had already been so badly mistreated that he looks like Death.

After Thor dries Sleipnir off, he slowly walks the horse out of the bathroom. It's more awkward now that Sleipnir no longer fits nicely in Thor's arms, like when Thor had smuggled him out of Asgard.

When he gets out, he sees that either Jane or Darcy had cleaned up the vomited apple chunks and bile from the floor when Thor was bathing Sleipnir for the second time.

Sleipnir is staring at the spot as in horror, ears rapidly swiveling back and forth, a sign that means the horses in the palace stables are anxious.

"Gone gone no I needed that where'd it go where did it GO?! Where?!" Listening to Sleipnir isn't like interpreting what he's thinking in his mind. Thor actually hears it, even though he doesn't speak, and Sleipnir even sounds anxious. It's like his eyes and body somehow convey exactly what he's thinking, or that he's putting his thoughts into Thor's head or something.

"Why do you fret, Sleipnir?" Thor asks, although the horse clearly doesn't hear him. He stumbles away from Thor, towards Jane and Darcy.

"Sleip-nir?" Jane's still unfamiliar with the name. "We cleaned it..."

"Gone?" Sleipnir starts mouthing the floor as if to find any morsel.

"Yeah, most people don't want barf on their floor." Darcy says. "Why are you- wait, were you going to eat it?!"

As Darcy asks that, it dawns on Thor that Sleipnir is indeed acting like he was saving it for later, and now his only hope of food is gone. The thought is horribly sad.

"You were actually going to eat your vomit? That's not even fit for consumption!" Jane gasps, expression shifting between shock, disgust, horror and sadness. "And the apple made you throw up before, so you would've just thrown it up again."

Had Loki's horse ever had to eat something he threw up in the dungeons? Thor doesn't even want to know what the prisoners in the lower dungeons were fed in the first place, but it was obviously far too little. Judging how they'd been treated in every other aspect, Thor wouldn't be surprised if they were fed something so disgusting that the only way anyone would ever eat it was if they were starving.

Which Sleipnir and those prisoners clearly were, and it would never end for them. There is no starving to death for Asgardians like there is for Midgardians.

Thor thinks of all the food served in the palace feast halls that had been unconsumed and undoubtedly been disposed of by servants or slaves. How he himself, in acts of a spoiled prince, had sometimes deemed food to be beneath him, or had ordered for a meal to be brought to his chambers only to decide he no longer wanted that particular dish when it arrived. These sorts of scenarios usually ended with him throwing perfectly good food to the ground. There was the time, after his not-coronation, when he'd overturned an entire table covered with food in rage before deciding to go to Jotunheim and teach the Jotuns a lesson.

Sleipnir most likely would have done literally anything for just a bite of any of that food. Any of the prisoners in the dungeons would have done anything, and yet it had gone to waste when there were starving beings hidden below the palace.

Thor's stomach churns with horrible guilt as he thinks about this.

"Sleipnir, you will get proper food- good food- here, whenever you require or wish for it." Thor vows. "You will not go hungry ever again."

Sleipnir's eyes are saying something incomprehensible about a scar and... hyenas? What are those? And what are lions? Maybe he's a little touched in the head. Who wouldn't be, after what he'd been through.

Darcy asks something about the King of Lions.

"Now, you need nourishment." Thor's words don't stop the rambling he hears from Sleipnir in the back of his head, although it eventually dies down when Sleipnir looks out the dark sky through the window, not seeming to pay attention to Thor.

Even though Sleipnir wouldn't die without it, food is still considered a necessity. Withholding something basic like food should be criminal, whoever did it should have been put in the dungeons instead of Sleipnir. Even slaves are fed adequately, although that may be because starving slaves are weak and cannot do much work. Granted, what they do get is not particularly appetizing, but at least their needs are met- well, except for the slave he'd seen in the dungeon Sleipnir had been in.

Thor doesn't know what exactly to feed Sleipnir, and rummages through the cupboards in search of something. Sleipnir eating the apple wasn't even planned, and had ended badly. Even as Sleipnir was devouring it as if it might disappear at any second, Thor had though that maybe he shouldn't be eating that much, and he'd been right.

Since Sleipnir is apparently Loki's child- Thor still has no idea how that's supposed to work- and therefore not fully a horse, does that mean he can eat things horses generally would not? Thor isn't sure, but he's not sure the cereal of the Captain of Crunch would be a good choice, although Thor enjoys it, himself. The delicious Tarts of Pop are probably out, too.

Thor eventually finds a can of sliced, soft carrots, which, according to Jane, are not yet past their date of expiration. Maybe these will work. Hopefully.

Thor finds a 'can opener' and twists the crank to peel off the metal top of the can. He's not looking when he sets it down, so the can opener falls from the counter and skitters across the floor to Sleipnir, who looks at it with recognition, somehow.

When Darcy goes to pick it up, Sleipnir puts a hoof over it and flattens his ears back, clearly not wanting to give it up for some reason. He tries to spin it around slightly on the ground before picking it up in his mouth, almost like a dog would. He thinks it is food, Thor realizes.

"That is not food." Thor tells him, going to take it out of Sleipnir's mouth.

'I know.' The eyes say quite clearly as Sleipnir hides behind Darcy. The tone in Thor's head sounding like an exasperated child, and the horse's eyes roll just like a human's. Sleipnir drops the can opener, but for some reason still will not let anyone take it, even though he apparently knows it is not food. What interest does he have in a can opener?

Thor approaches him with the can of carrots. "This is food." He pulls a carrot out and holds it in his palm for Sleipnir to eat.

Sleipnir eyes him suspiciously. Thor doesn't know how often the guards went down there. Would they dangle food in front of the prisoners' faces only to cruelly deny it from them?

The horse completely refuses to take the food from Thor's hand, much to Thor's frustration. Sleipnir needs to eat, why is he not eating?

Darcy grabs the can from Thor and fishes out a carrot herself. "He scared." She says to Thor, as she offers the carrot to Sleipnir.

Sleipnir lowers his head to sniff the carrot in Darcy's open palm. Instead of eating it, he knocks the can out of her other hand with his nose. The can clatters to the floor, spilling soft carrot slices onto the tiles.

He stands over the food protectively, but also looks completely exhausted, and it's not long before he falls asleep. He still hasn't eaten anything. Jane goes and drapes a blanket over Sleipnir's terribly thin frame.

Thor has a feeling that, in the dungeon, Sleipnir had often had to stretch out the meager rations he was apparently given so rarely, since he probably never knew when, or if, his next meal was coming.

"He needs to eat." Thor says.

"He looks like he needs to sleep. And forcing him to eat might make things worse." Jane says.

"I think I'll retire for the night as well." Thor says, despite the fact the sun has not even set yet. It's been a confusing day. Jane looks like she wants to ask more about what's happening, but then nods.

Twenty minutes later, Thor in bed, but sleep eludes him.

He remembers, now, watching Loki offer food to thin air, remembers mocking Loki for it with Sif and the Warriors Three. He sees the memories in his mind's eye, watches Odin furiously punishing Loki for it whenever he saw.

The Allfather had always been adamant that Loki's friends- or family, in Sleipnir's case?- were not real. But he had to have known.

He knew. Thor's hands ball into fists. Father knew all along, but he still told Loki they weren't real. He hurt Loki for talking to them! After all, if Odin hadn't known, why would he have gotten so angry about Loki talking to Sleipnir? He was probably worried Loki would find out the truth.

Thor is even more horrified at what Father had done. He must have known Sleipnir was real, yet he'd insisted he wasn't and had punished Loki for trying to feed his not-so-imaginary friend, or for even talking to him. Yet all along, most likely, Sleipnir had been starving in the darkest depths of the dungeons. Thor doesn't actually know how long Sleipnir was down there, but it was clearly too long.

Thor never imagined his father to be capable of such cruelty, but he should not be able to get away with it. He should face consequences.

Hours later, when the sun has set and Jane had crawled into bed next to him, Thor is still awake. He wraps his beloved Jane in his arms, wondering what would happen if she knew of his treatment of Loki.

Tomorrow, he will call Tony Stark and tell him about Sleipnir.

He knows he will have to tell Jane about how he'd treated Loki sometime, and it may very well be brought up during his conversation with Tony tomorrow. He fears Jane's reaction to finding out the horrible things he'd done. He does not want to lose her, but he could not particularly blame her if she no longer wanted to be with him.

A few tears slowly travel down his cheeks. It will be his fault that she might leave him.

But for the first time, Thor is on the same side as Tony and the other Avengers on the issue of Loki and Sleipnir, rather than Odin and the rest of Asgard.

---

As the other adults go into the kitchen, Loki stays out in the living room with his zoo. He doesn't really want to leave these kids alone with it. What if they try to take his toys? Well, he guesses Jarvis would make sure they wouldn't, so he could leave.

Cooper had seemed mean at first, hitting him with the lightsaber, but he'd actually apologized. They never did that in Asgard, not even when they tricked him.

Loki hopes they're not like the other kids were like when Loki was a child in Asgard. At first, when he'd been reallylittle he thinks, but it's hard to remember when exactly, Loki had been ecstatic that they wanted to play with him. He had even thought they were his friends, until that time he got tricked by that servant and the Warriors Three.

Whenever Thor actually included Loki in a game of pretend as a kid, Loki was always the evil Frost Giant that would be slain rather violently. It fit, since he'd even had his Jotun skin sometimes then. It wasn't fun at all, especially when Thor hit him with wooden swords, which hurt more than that thing Cooper hit him with a little bit ago. Loki would have rather been in the library reading or off playing his own games, but Thor and his friends sometimes dragged him in to be the villain in their games.

Of course, wooden swords are nothing compared to the whips Odin used sometimes, or the weapons guards would use on him when he did something bad.

Loki rocks back and forth anxiously, trying to get Asgard out of his head.

The kids at that place Tony works at were really fun, especially Claire, who was probably a little younger than Lila. Clint is pretty fun, so maybe his kids are too?

Loki gently sets Jormungand in the bin that's the snake exhibit, planning on letting him out later, like Harry did, but Loki couldn't do with the snakes at the zoo earlier today. Jormungand's body actually feels even better than it used to not long ago, when he transformed from that tube thing in Tony's lab.

Jormungand doesn't move right now, but he feels... real. More real than ever before, but he's not. Everyone in Asgard made sure he knew he's a crazy idiot, because his Monster Family isn't real. Especially Odin, who got really mad when Loki talked about them, or to them. Sometimes he'd get flogged by the Allfather himself for it instead of one of the guards.

"Can I touch your snake...um, Your-ma-gund?" Cooper asks, still botching Jormungand's name. Loki knows what it's like to not get stuff out of his mouth right. Cooper glances back towards the kitchen, as if someone will tell him not to. Probably Laura. She hadn't seemed to like Jormungand at all, so maybe her kids don't really.

Loki stares at him, not sure if the boy really means this or if he's trying to trick him, like that servant. What if he tries to hurt Jormungand? Nobody's allowed to hurt Jormungand or anyone in Loki's pretend Monster Family. Family means you look out for each other.

Loki's not sure what Cooper and Lila will think of his Monster Family. Since these kids are smaller than him, and it hadn't hurt when Cooper hit him with that blue thing.

"No." Loki mutters, leaning over the bin with Jormungand in it protectively. "He's mines."

"Why not?!" Cooper demands. "Please? I won't hurt him. I wish I had a pet snake."

Jormungand slowly slithers out of the bin, and Cooper gently strokes him. Loki watches anxiously, but Cooper really doesn't seem to be hurting Jormungand. Jormungand sends Loki a look that says he's not lying.

That's a relief.

Lila hugs Baloo, squealing "He's so big and squishy!" Lila kind of reminds Loki of little Anna in Frozen, and Anna definitely would be a great friend. Maybe she wouldn't hate him for being a Jotun or doing magic, just like his Tony doesn't.

"Baloo's the bear exhibit." Loki says- there had been bears at the zoo earlier today. Baloo's actually the only bear he has, and by far his biggest toy. Lila's right about him being really huggable. She has a white animal that Loki's pretty sure is another bear sticking out of her backpack, along with some dolls. Her backpack is brown, fuzzy. It also has a face on it, and a diagonal silver stripe, but it doesn't actually look like another toy, like Stitch does.

"Cheeseball is a bear! She's a polar bear!" Loki smiles, liking that his guess about the white animal being another bear was right, as Lila pulls the toy bear out of her backpack. Loki likes getting things right. But the name... Loki thinks All-Tongue (or his own stupid brain) is messing up again. Cheese ball?

When he asks, Lila repeats it and says that yes, her bear's name is Cheeseball. Jarvis says that's exactly what that sounds like- a ball made of cheese- but not real cheese, which makes no sense- and it leaves your fingers orange. Lila and Cooper both agree they're really tasty, and Loki's not sure whether they're talking about the bear or not anymore. Loki is about to lick Cheeseball the bear, but Lila yanks him away. Glancing at his fingers, Loki sees they're not orange.

"Hi Baloo! I'm Cheeseball. I moved in from the arctic." Lila says, as Cheeseball. Wait, polar bears live in snow and ice, like penguins? Loki doesn't think they have polar bears or penguins in Jotunheim, but the place of Midgard that they live here sounds a lot like Jotunheim. Lila then replies for Baloo, in a lower voice that sounds absolutely nothing like Baloo's "Hi, Cheeseball. Have you ever been to the jungle?"

"He lives in the jungles in In-dia, with Mowgli and Bagheera, 'xcept Mowgli went to live in the man village." Loki bounces but frowns slightly. "That was really dumb. The jungle's lots 'n lots better, 'cause they can't hit you there if they're not there! I was Mowgli not long ago."

"You're too old to be Mowgli." Cooper states, staring at him. "You're like at least as old as Dad. Mowgli's like my age. I'm nine."

"Nine? What... nine whats?" Loki asks, confused. It can't be centuries. Cooper would look a lot older if he was nine centuries old, since he'd be almost as old as Loki. Unless he can turn into a kid too? But people on Midgard can't do that, right?

"Nine... years old." Cooper looks at him strangely, like he shouldn't have had to ask. Oh, years. Nine years is nothing, but Midgardians live really short lives. Tony said Harry is almost eleven years old, Loki remembers with a pout, so Cooper's younger.

This means Tony's going to die way before Loki, and that can't happen!

"I'm almost six." Lila announces proudly. "How old are you? Mommy won't answer that question."

"One thousand." Loki answers. "Plus little bits, I think." Maybe not even a full century over one thousand.

Both kids laugh as if he'd told a great joke. "No! You're lying! Nobody's a thousand!" That's a lie, because Loki's over a thousand, and Thor and the Warriors Three, and Odin and Frigga and Heimdall and a ton of other people are all older than Loki is. Volstagg is older than Thor.

"When's your birthday? Mine's November 23." Cooper says. "I got the Lego Millennium Falcon! It's so cool!"

"My birthday is December 6, and it's taking fooor-eveeerrrr!" Lila moans and then asks what day it is. Jarvis answers that it's November 30. Lila counts on her fingers. "That's six days from now! And then there's Christmas so I get lots and lots of presents in December! But then I don't get any more presents for almost another year."

"I dunno when mine is." Loki looks at his hands. Nobody in Asgard knew, since he was born in Jotunheim, although it's not like they would've celebrated it in Asgard even if they had known, so it almost doesn't matter. Although it would be nice to have a birthday like everyone else.

"How do you not know your birthday?!" Lila asks, shocked.

"Do you not celebrate birthdays on your planet?" Cooper asks after a bit. "We have parties here, and kids bring cake into school when it's their birthday."

"Thor got them, but I never dids." Loki mumbles.

"You know Thor, like the Avenger?" Cooper asks jealously. "You're so lucky! You know like all the Avengers, don't you? Wait, did you know Thor for a while?"

"I don't wanna talk 'bout Thor! He's mean!"

"Did he hurt you? Did he hit you with his hammer? Dad said he only hits bad guys, but he said you're not a bad guy. He says you got hurt there." Cooper doesn't sound quite as jealous.

Loki covers his ears and starts rocking back and forth, humming to drown Cooper out.

Someone taps him, and Loki opens his eyes.

"Have you really met Captain America?" Cooper asks jealously. "Mr. Stark, Iron Man, said in the hotel that he had Thanksgiving dinner with Captain America, and he keeps saying he's cooler than him."

Loki nods. "Yeah, we did, but my Tony's right that he's more awesome thans Steve."

"Can Jessie be the zookeeper?" Lila asks out of nowhere. "She's really good with animals." Lila pulls a string on the 'cow-girl' doll's back, and Jessie says "Yodel-ay-hee-hoo!" Jessie talks like Simba does when you squeeze his ear and he doesn't move his mouth or change his face at all. Simba moves his head, then, but Jessie doesn't even do that.

Loki sighs in relief, glad they're not talking about Thor or Asgard. He squeezes Simba's ear to show them that Simba can talk just like Jessie. Well, he can do even more than Jessie recently, but Simba isn't alive right now, so he just moves his head and tail slightly as a snippet of I Just Can't Wait To Be King plays.

Lila picks up Loki's stuffed Maximus, obviously recognizing the horse, because she says his name. She must know about Rapunzel, too, then.

"He's mine." Loki says, just so everyone knows, as Lila puts Jessie on Maximus and makes them go up to various exhibits to feed the tiny animals imaginary food. Loki's pretty sure birds don't eat pigs, though. Or do some of the Midgardian ones do it? The zoo hadn't said anything about that, but he had learned that owls eat mice and other small rodents, and sometimes even rabbits. Loki ate rabbits in Asgard, sometimes, but Loki hasn't eaten one on Midgard yet.

Cooper holds up a golden stuffed animal about the same size as Simba- a dog, Loki realizes- and asks "Can Lucky try on Simba's Iron Man suit?"

"Lucky?" Loki asks. That sounds almost the same as his name, but Loki doesn't know if he's lucky. Well, he was really lucky to end up with Tony, but he certainly wasn't lucky in Asgard.

"Yeah, Lucky the Pizza Dog." Cooper says, hugging the golden dog, who's missing his left eye. Loki guessed a dog correctly, too! Dogs are kind of like wolves, but wolves are grey. "His tag said his name was Arrow, but that's a dumb name. Lucky's better. Dad says so too."

"Hey, how comes he just only gots one eye?" Loki doesn't like that, and the words tumble anxiously from his mouth, sounding dumb. It makes him think of Odin and the other Furious Man, both of whom are missing eyes, because why else would they wear eyepatches? It's Odin's right eye that's missing (apparently he lost it in the war against Jotunheim when he took Loki), whereas the Fury guy's eyepatch is over his left eye. Lucky isn't wearing an eyepatch like they do, but he's still missing his left eye.

"He had a fight with a rabid badger." Cooper says, and Loki blinks in surprise. Also, what's a badger? After a bit, Cooper says "It fell off, and I lost the button."

"What... kind? No, breed! Is he a... be-agle? That's what breed Snoopy is. I'm not but my Tony calls me Snoopy, and I even haves his house." Tony had gotten an even better tent-like thing for the therapy room that looks just like Snoopy's red doghouse. It's sturdy and big enough that Loki can lay across the top like Snoopy (though it's flat for a bit instead of really pointy like Snoopy's), and tall enough that he can stand up in it, although only in the center where the roof is the highest- he has to crouch when it slants.

"No. He's a golden retriever." Cooper pauses, looking at Lucky. "Or maybe a Lab. Arf arf!" He makes Lucky run after Maximus and Jessie, who are still being moved by Lila.

"Lucky can be Jessie's pet dog!" Lila announces.

"No he's not!" Cooper says, making Lucky growl and pretend to bite Jessie. Lila scowls, saying that that's not how it's supposed to go.

Loki grabs Stitch. Lilo and Stitch aren't actually moving right now, and neither is Simba, so they look like lifeless toys, just like all the others. Loki knows it wouldn't have been pretty if he brought toys to life in Asgard (not that he ever had any toys there to begin with, and Thor certainly hadn't shared), and he's not sure if Cooper and Lila would react the same way or not.

"Everyone thought Stitch was a dog. Lilo said he used'ta be a collie b'fore he got ran over, but Nani, she thought he was a ko-ala... a evil koala. Lilo and Stitch always find a home for each of Jumba's 'xper'ments. Their one true place where they belong."

Loki's One True Place is wherever his Tony and Bruce- but especially Tony- are.

"Can Lucky try on the Iron Man suit? Please?" Cooper almost begs.

Loki shakes his head no and clutches Simba tighter. It's Simba's suit, he made it for Simba.

"Why not? I wanna try it on Lucky!" Cooper sulks.

"We have'ta rescue the animals and find their's one true place too." Loki says to Lilo and Stitch. "It's NOT cages! Cages are bad! But Gantu got them an' said the animals are gonna stay locked up forever and ever an' never ever get out! He trapped Mufasa and Sarabi 'n Nala!"

They're trapped like M'wasi and Sukari at the zoo, but this cage is even worse. After all, these bins are as bare those glass capsules Gantu catches experiments in, or the petri dish cell Loki had been stuck in himself. At least at the zoo the animals had things that are in nature, like rocks and water and grass and stuff.

In Loki's mind, the bins switch from a zoo to more of a prison, although that's kind of what a zoo is anyways.

Loki doesn't have a Gantu toy, and he grabs his Scar figurine from the bin of lions. Scar is an evil lion so of course he's going to be the villain in this game. "Scar wants to rule over all the Nine Realms, not just Pride Rock! He's planning to kill Mufasa 'gain and the rest of the pride, and he's gonna kill the horses so the hy'nas can eat them!" He makes Scar stalk towards the bin with his lions. Cooper makes Lucky attack Scar, and the stuffed dog is a lot bigger than the little plastic lion, but Scar doesn't die. Besides, Simba's supposed to stop him.

"They can't 'scape 'cause Gantu captured them!" Loki cries. "He tries to capture Stitch a lot, 'cause Stitch is blue."

"Mira Nova is blue." Lila says and she'd mentioned this person before. Loki tenses, but Lila chatters on excitedly. "She's Buzz's partner in the Star Command show, which is like so old. She's awesome! She's a princess but she's a Space Ranger too, and she's brave and strong. And she can go through walls." Lila had mentioned this Mira person earlier, but Loki has no idea what she's talking about.

Jarvis pulls up a holographic drawing of a blue woman with red-orange hair, wearing a white suit with green bits. Lila actually seems to like someone who's blue, because she says that she's asking for a Mira Nova doll for her birthday.

Cooper and Lila both gasp, startled.

"That's a hologram, like in Star Wars..." Cooper says, eyes wide with excitement as he pokes the picture, and it spins around in midair.

Loki frowns. Why do stars have wars? Is it like how the scorpion would try to kill Orion in the sky, if Sagittarius the Archer wasn't watching the scorpion to make sure it doesn't travel across the sky to do that? Loki doesn't want starts to fight, that makes them seem too much like Ass-Guard.

"Stars are nice! No fighting. They're nice light, but you can't touch them." Right, they were talking about holograms. "Holograms are lights, too, just fake just air, 'cause you can see through 'em. You can't touch light even when you do, you don't feel it." Jarvis was right about holograms being like illusions, except illusions look solid, and recently Loki kind of felt Fenrir, even though his hand still went through his wolf.

"The ones in movies are all blue but this has different colors." Lila sounds amazed.

"Lots of Tony's are blue. Jarvis is blue sometimes." Loki tells them. "Blue's not bad!" He waits for someone to contradict him, but Cooper says blue is his favorite color, like Claire had.

Blue not being bad is something he wouldn't have believed in Asgard, but that he's learning here. Stitch is blue, and so are Genie and Sulley and this Mira person Lila likes, apparently. Kurt's blue, too, and Loki met him for real. Of course, Loki's really blue, and Elsa probably is, too.

"Can you make any color?" Cooper asks Jarvis. Loki knows the answer to that, since he's painted with holograms and used lots of colors. Cooper's next question is one he has no clue about, though. "How come you guys get holograms here? They're supposed to be sci-fi. Why don't we have holograms at our house? It's not fair you guys get all the holograms."

Wait, they don't have them everywhere?

"Yes, holograms come in every color, young Mr. Barton, although Sir is partial to blue." Jarvis answers patiently. "As for why holograms are not everywhere, the technology is currently too expensive for the general public to afford."

"Can you make an Iron Man suit over Lucky, Jarvis?" Cooper asks hopefully, holding the dog up.

"I hope you don't mind, Mr. Loki." Jarvis says. "Here you go, young Mr. Barton." A holographic Man of Iron suit appears over Lucky, like when Loki had been designing Simba's before Jarvis and Dum-E made it real. Cooper grins.

Simba's Man of Iron suit is way better than that, Loki thinks, hugging his lion. That one doesn't even have a real arc reactor! And Simba's suit is going to fly soon. So Simba's still the best!

"You can make any color?" Lila asks, eyes wide.

"Indeed, young Miss Barton." A holographic rainbow appears as proof.

"The Bifrost!" Loki shouts as he runs through it, laughing. The Bifrost was one of the few places in Asgard he actually liked, along with the stables, the fields, and the library, but he almost never got to go to the Bifrost.

Lila follows him as they repeatedly run through the rainbow of holographic colors. Lila says Tinker Bell and her fairy friends slid down a rainbow in a short video.

Hologram Tink suddenly flutters in front of Lila's face, and she shrieks that this is even better than her Tink doll at home. She reaches out to grab the fairy, but her hand passes through her and she looks slightly upset that she can't actually hold Tink.

Then another holographic fairy appears, with white hair that's slightly spiked up and an icy-blue dress and leggings. She has the exact same wings as Tink, and white balls on the tops of her shoes. "Periwinkle!" Lila shouts. She'd mentioned before that Periwinkle is Tink's twin sister, and that only they have the same wings and the balls on their shoes.

Periwinkle really is a lot like Elsa, and Jarvis makes her shoot little holographic snowflakes. Lila actually seems to like that, but then again, she'd seemed to really like Loki's Elsa doll. Would she hate Jotuns?

Cooper groans as Loki and Lila let the two holographic fairies fly between them, and Loki wriggles his shoulders, giggling uncontrollably

"Jarvis, you wanna be Scar?" Loki asks, flicking his fingers hopefully. Jarvis does a really good Scar voice, even though he's not evil, so he's been Scar a lot, starting on the day Loki got Simba.

"Of course, Mr. Loki. If you wish, I can even do more than simply provide a voice. Would you like a holographic illusion?" Loki nods, excited. A couple seconds later, there's a holographic 3D Scar standing in the room. He's as big as the lions in the zoo were, but he's slightly transparent, like all holograms.

Lila and Cooper gasp.

Clapping his hands and grinning at one of Jarvis' cameras as he tosses his Scar figurine off to the side, Loki tells him "You're the best, Jarvis!"

"Who is this Jarvis? I believe you meant Scar, but at least you were right about me being the best." Hologram Scar's voice has the same sort of accent that Jarvis and Loki himself have, but eviler. Loki had actually forgotten about him.

"He looks like you." Lila says, looking between Scar and Loki. "You have green eyes and he has green eyes, and you both have long black hair."

"I'm not Scar!" Loki protests. "Scar's real evil, but just 'cause he is, not all lions are bad."

"Scar's bad." Lila nods. Cooper has wandered off by the entrance to the kitchen.

"Now, are you quite done gaping like my idiotic hyena henchmen?" Scar asks disdainfully. "I am rather busy, you know, trying to take over and dispose of my worthless brother Mufasa." Scar says the name as if it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. "And Simba too. Then I will be king!"

Loki holds up Simba and speaks for him, like he used to do all the time in his games until Simba came alive. "Uncle Scar-"

"Well, if it isn't my nephew, the monkey." Scar interrupts disdainfully. "The monkey who is sadly mistaken in believing he's going to be king of Pride Rock, when in fact I will be king of much more than that. You will all kneel before me when I rule over all of the Nine Realms!" Jarvis was listening to the Nine Realms bit! Well, Jarvis always listens, but still. And Scar said he'd be a monkey's uncle in the movie.

"Guys, shut up. I'm trying to listen." Cooper says from the doorway by the kitchen, apparently trying to eavesdrop on whatever they're talking about in there, even though whatever they're talking about can't be nearly as important as making sure Scar doesn't conquer the Nine Realms.

"Cooper, don't listen in on our conversation!" Clint says through one of the holes in the wall separating the bar from the kitchen. "Go play or something. I'll know if you're not."

Cooper scowls and walks away from the kitchen, although when the holographic Man of Iron suit forms around Lucky again, he grins, making Lucky fly around with his hands.

Loki can't help but laugh when Scar starts singing. "I'll be King undisputed, respected, saluted and seen for the wonder I am! Yes my teeth and ambitions are bared! Be prepared!" Loki finds himself humming along without even realizing it.

"That's about me, not you." Scar tells him.

"You're not gonna ever be's a king!" Loki shouts as Simba. "Not of Pride Rock and not the Nine neither!"

"Oh really? And a puny lion cub like you is going to stop me? Even if you do have-" Scar glances at Simba's Man of Iron suit. "-some kind of armor."

Lila grabs Cheeseball the polar bear and then starts flipping bins and boxes with animals in them over, so they're trapped under them, instead of just in them. Some of the boxes aren't even clear, so it must be really dark in them. "Ha ha ha!" Lila laughs, apparently as Cheeseball. "Now you animals will never get away! I will be queen of the universe!"

"I am not going to rule with a polar bear." Scar says scornfully. "And if you think you are going to beat me, you white lump of fur, you are sorely mistaken. It's too hot for you here, anyways."

"I'm melll-tiiiing!" Lila cries as Cheeseball, slowly making her sink to the floor.

"It's not like a snowman." Cooper rolls his eyes rather grumpily. "She won't melt. This is dumb."

"She's a snow polar bear, so she does melt." Lila sticks out her tongue at Cooper and throws Cheeseball at him. Cooper dodges, before chucking Cheeseball back in retaliation. Lila doesn't pick up Cheeseball again. Apparently the polar bear is dead, and she does kind of look like a lump of snow, if snow was fuzzy.

"You know, perhaps I won't kill any of these animals." Scar pauses thoughtfully. Right, they're supposed to be stopping him. "What would be the fun in ruling if I didn't have anyone to grovel at my feet?"

"But you have'ta feed animals in zoos and you're not gonna!" Loki tells him. After all, Scar hadn't fed his subjects in the movie, and the hyenas complained until Scar yelled at them. "You can't just starve 'em."

"Woody will save the horses!" Lila shouts, pulling a string on Woody's back,

"Reach for the sky!" Woody talks in the same non-living way as Jessie and sometimes Simba, and he has a string just like Jessie. Lila shakes Woody so his legs flop as if he's running, and charges rather fearlessly towards Scar, holding Woody in front of her. Scar moves in between Lila and the bin with the horses.

"Really?" Scar arches an eyebrow scornfully. "You're sending a tiny man to stop me and rescue the horses? I think I'll eat him." He lunges so Lila drops Woody. The 'cow boy' doll lands in a heap on the floor, and Scar stands over him to prevent him from getting away.

"Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!" Lila shouts, running back to grab another toy that's sticking out of her backpack. This one looks familiar, in a green and white suit with a couple purple accents and a weird bubble thing over his head. The blue alien Mira's suit in the picture Jarvis showed is a lot like Buzz's.

Loki realizes where he'd seen this Buzz Lightyear man on the American Day of Giving Thanks, along with the huge floating Snoopy. Lila presses a red button on Buzz's chest, and purple wings pop out with little lights blinking on the end of them. Loki laughs. Tony's suits should do that! Maybe they can make Loki's Man of Iron suit do that? They're going to make it fly soon.

"I wanna be Buzz!" Cooper says, grabbing for him. Lila tries to pull Buzz away, and Cooper's voice rises. "He's mine, Lila! Give him!"

"Nooooo! You never even play with him!" Lila's voice is even louder, as Cooper tries to tug the action figure from her hands.

"Young Mr. Barton, Ms. Barton, might I suggest sharing Buzz Lightyear?" Jarvis speaks up, not as Scar, but in his usual polite tone. They don't even seem to hear him, and Cooper grabs Jessie like a hostage. "Also, young Mr. Barton, I thought you were excited that Lucky had a holographic Iron Man suit."

"What's going on in here?" Laura asks, standing at the entrance to the kitchen, and she clearly doesn't see the Scar hologram. Hoping he's not in trouble, Loki points wordlessly as Lila tries to grab Woody from Cooper. Clint wouldn't shoot Loki with an arrow for this, right? That one time in the rafters had apparently been an accident, but that time he ended up in the other rafters and then in the petri dish. And Son of Coul is still here, but Loki doesn't think Son of Coul actually put him in there.

"Cooper, give Jessie back to Lila." Laura says. Cooper and Lila stop fighting for a second and look at their mother.

"She started it! She wouldn't give me Buzz!" Cooper protests, still holding Jessie out of Lila's reach.

"If you guys keep fighting over Buzz, I'm going to take him and neither of you will get to play with him." Laura gives them a pointed look. "Lila, Buzz is Cooper's toy, so he gets first pick. Cooper, if you're only trying to claim Buzz back to get on your sister's nerves, that's really not nice of you. You hardly play with him these days."

Cooper scowls as Laura gives him a knowing look. He groans, lets go of Buzz, and throws Jessie to the ground. "Stop Cooper!" Lila shouts, picking up Jessie and carefully replacing her helmet-hat thing.

Cooper doesn't respond, stomping away. He grabs Lucky the Pizza Dog and sulks on the floor. Lucky's holographic Man of Iron suit is gone now.

"Cooper, I get that you're upset about having to move." Laura says in a slightly softer voice. "I miss our home too. But you can't take your anger out on your sister. Or any of us."

"Their game is stupid." Cooper mutters.

"Well, you don't have to play it. You have your own toys." Laura says.

As Lila pretends Buzz is flying through the air, Loki does the same with Simba. He's made his toys actually fly plenty of times before with his magic, even when the toys weren't real, but he doesn't this time.

Laura goes back into the kitchen.

After some more sulking, Cooper gets up, muttering that "Batman is cooler than Buzz." From his backpack (which looks like Steve's shield, but still isn't nearly as great as Stitch) he pulls out a black sort of car thing that looks like it's made of little bricks. He starts driving it along the floor towards Scar.

"It's the Batmobile." Cooper explains when Loki asks what it is. "Mr. Coulson got it for me yesterday, 'cause I couldn't take my other Legos." He seems rather upset, and Loki has no clue what 'legos' are.

"Son of Coul got it?" Loki repeats in disbelief. Cooper nods while Lila shouts that Coulson had given Cheeseball to her yesterday. Why did Son of Coul get them toys when he didn't give Simba back to Loki? Not that Loki's at all surprised that he's treated differently, he just couldn't imagine the man getting anyone toys.

Well, he had given Olaf to Loki when he was in the petri dish cell, but he hadn't given Simba back!

"It's Batman's car." Cooper explains. "He has like the coolest car ever! Look!" Cooper flicks a little switch, and a tiny plastic thing shoots out. Cars are dumb, though.

"Where's the Man of Bats?" Tony had mentioned this Man of Bats guy at the zoo.

"It's Bat-man." Cooper says slowly, but not like Loki's dumb. "They probably don't have him where you're from." He opens a little cockpit thing and takes a tiny figure out, smaller than Loki's Disney figurines or origami even. He wearing a black cape and a hood-mask thing with pointed ears.

Loki's pretty sure he had actually seen the Man of Bats on Halloween.

"My Tony says he's like the Man of Bats, 'cause he's a billion-aire and a hero, but my Tony's way more awesome!" Loki flaps his hands. Cars are dumb, they could never beat a Man of Iron suit in an awesomeness contest! Tony's suits fly, and Loki's and Simba's will soon, too.

"But Batman isn't real." Cooper says, and Loki laughs. Tony's infinitely more awesome than someone who's not real. Then again, Tony hadn't really been Hulk when he'd worn that costume, and Bruce isn't really Captain America. Loki's not Man of Iron.

"Help!" Lila cries in what Loki thinks is her Woody voice. Woody is still between Scar's paws.

"Don't worry, Woody, I'll save you!" Lila grabs Jessie and rushes at Scar. Scar lunges, and Lila moves Jessie out of the way. "I can't get close enough! We need a... a diservion, but Buzz is still caught!" Lila shouts as Jessie, now making Jessie dodge Scar's attacks.

"Tink and Peri, now!" Lila shouts, and the holographic fairies appear, darting around Scar, who's clearly annoyed.

While Scar is distracted by the pixies, Lila ducks down and grabs Woody from between Scar's feet.

"Thanks for saving me, partner!" She says as Woody once he's free.

"No problem, Woody!"

"We have to stop Scar from hurting the animals." Loki starts playing again, holding Simba as if he's flying, and heading towards the animals.

"Surprise! Ha ha ha ha ha!" A holographic Gantu suddenly appears out of nowhere, standing between them and the zoo. Right, Gantu's the one who captured them in the first place. He's really big, of course, as tall as the ceiling, taller than even Hulk. Gantu is even bigger in the movie, Loki thinks (Jarvis said he was twenty feet tall once, more than three of Loki stacked together), but for some reason shrunk to around this size in the show. He's probably not more than twice Loki's height now, if that.

Lila and Cooper both gape even more than they had at Scar. "The Big Dummy!" Loki says for Lilo, but he can't get her voice right. Stitch growls without Loki, ears going back, and coming alive a little. The kids are too busy staring at Gantu to notice, though.

Gantu swings a massive hand at Buzz. It passes through him, but Lila pretends Buzz was knocked out of the air before trapping him under a plastic bin like the animals. "Oh no! The big gray guy put Buzz in a cell that even his laser can't break!" Lila lifts the bin up and presses the button on Buzz's arm, and the little blinking light on his right forearm lights up accompanied by an odd sound. Lila called it a laser, but it's not, because Loki's seen real lasers in Tony's lab, although Tony won't let him touch them.

Gantu and Scar both laugh evilly.

Loki chucks Stitch at Gantu's face, but the blue alien backpack just goes right through the huge holographic grey alien. Gantu looks like he's stepping on Stitch, who doesn't move.

"No!" Loki runs up to Gantu and starts kicking him and making his Lilo doll kick him too, even though their feet go right through him. "Stop it, little earth girl." Gantu growls, and it takes a second for Loki to realize he's talking to Lilo, not calling Loki a girl.

He dives past Gantu while the alien is trying, unsuccessfully, to crush Stitch. A huge grey hand with only two fingers and a thumb reaches down towards Loki, but it misses him and it would've just passed through him anyways.

Loki laughs, and turns towards the upside-down bin that's trapping Jormungand.

"Sorry 'bouts him." Loki says, sort of quoting Harry. "He doesn't know what it's like, being stuck. He's a Big Dummy, like Dudley." Like Thor, Loki thinks, smirking. Grabbing the bin over Jormungand, Loki tosses it aside.

"Thanksssss, amigo." Jormungand hisses, playing along with the Harry Potter bit before snapping at Gantu and wrapping around Loki.

Cooper is now trying to hit Gantu with the blue sword thing he'd hit Loki with earlier (which isn't a Jotun spear), but it keeps just going through his leg. "It's supposed to cut your leg off!" Cooper says over the sword's weird humming noises. Admittedly, that's what most swords do. But that sword isn't even sharp, and Gantu's a hologram.

"Ha! I'm immune to your puny earth weapons." Gantu boasts.

"You can't be! Lightsabers can cut through anything!" Cooper protests. Still, Gantu's leg doesn't fall off. He just seems annoyed, pulling out his plasma blaster and firing holographic plasma blasts at Cooper. Cooper dodges and occasionally deflects them with the glowing blue sword.

Loki pulls Stitch out from under Gantu's foot (not that that's hard, since there isn't actually anything pressing down on him), and returns the alien to his back. Stitch hangs on to Lilo and spits out a frying pan for Loki, which Loki holds in the hand not holding Simba.

"Let's give Gantu a wedgie!" Lilo exclaims, and Stitch cackles delightedly. Cooper and Lila suddenly quiet down, obviously having heard, but they don't seem to realize who said it, and both Lilo and Stitch are still and silent now.

Cooper does notice Loki hadn't had the frying pan before. When the boy asks where Loki got it, Loki lies and says it was under the sofa. "Rapunzel and Eugene fight with frying pans." Lila says from behind Loki, and Loki grins. "Merida uses a bow like Daddy, and Mira and Buzz have lasers."

Gantu trains his blaster on Loki and shoots, but Loki blocks the shot with his frying pan. It doesn't bounce back like when it hits Cooper's sword, though.

Loki starts to grin as Gantu fires off more shots and he blocks them, too.

"I want a turn!" Lila says, trying to grab at Cooper's blue sword thing. "Cooper, it's my turn to be a Jedi!"

"No Lila! It's my lightsaber! Go get your own!" Cooper says, and one of the holographic blasts hits him in the chest as he's distracted. "Now look what you did, dummy!"

Lila runs off and pulls another sword- a 'lightsaber' from her brown fuzzy bag with the face on it. This sword has a green blade, but it's still weirdly round, which seems dumb. She joins them in deflecting Gantu's plasma bolts.

At one point, Loki accidentally makes a force field around his whole body, and Cooper and Lila notice, of course. How could they not? "There's green around your hands, too!" Lila points.

"Just holograms! Everything's holograms!" Loki lies quickly, tensing up. His force field is semi-transparent, like holograms.

Shockingly, the kids shout that they want force fields, too. No, they're trying to trick him, make him think they like it! But when Jarvis makes a holographic fake force field around them, one that doesn't look quite the same as Loki's, they seem excited. They don't start teasing him

Cooper says the Warring Stars have force fields, too.

Loki whacks Gantu in the butt with the frying pan (even though it goes through him).

Gantu falls to the ground, defeated. A chair is sticking through his stomach and a coffee table is inside his left arm, since he's just a hologram.

Loki blinks. He won. He's never won before. The warriors always beat him, and Gantu's kind of a warrior.

He wishes this was real, in a way.

The three of them flank around Scar- Loki with Stitch and Lilo on his back and holding Simba and his frying pan, while Cooper and Lila hold their lightsaber things.

"Oh dear me. I certainly seem to be outnumbered." Scar says, and Loki's almost forgotten it's really Jarvis by now. He sticks his tongue out triumphantly at the holographic lion. This is why Scar shouldn't try to take over. He always loses in the end, even if he killed Mufasa, but Mufasa isn't dead now, and he's not going to die this time!

"Oh wait, I forgot. I have an army." Scar grins wickedly. Holograms of Ed, Shenzi, and Banzai appear.

Three hyenas isn't an army.

As if Jarvis is reading his thoughts, suddenly a lot more holographic hyenas are in the room, surrounding them and blocking off the trapped animals. Loki holds Simba and the frying pan as if the lion's holding it in his mouth and whacks a hyena with the pan, but another one immediately takes its place. If it wasn't a hologram, it would've bitten his leg off.

Cooper has grabbed his Captain America shield backpack and is holding it like an actual shield as holographic hyenas bite at it, while whacking them with his blue sword thing. They just keep coming, though, and Cooper tries to throw his backpack like Steve throws his shield. It doesn't work, though.

"Retreat!" Cooper yells, grabbing Lucky the Pizza Dog. "We need a fort, quick!"

"Yeah!" Lila says, running over to the couch. Some of the hyenas disappear.

Loki watches in slight confusion as the kids pull one of the cushions away from the back of the couch and put it on the floor. It's joined by the two other cushions on the back of that sofa, and then the three cushions people sit on.

He joins them in relieving a couple of the other couches and chairs of their cushions, and soon there's a large pile on the floor. If Loki stacked them all, they might get close to his height, and they'd definitely be taller than Lila and Cooper.

He starts stacking them, and makes a sort of wall, but Cooper shakes his head. "No, not like that. It has to be a fort you can go in."

Oh. That sounds even better. Loki knocks his fort down, giggling.

Cooper stands two of the cushions up on their sides and lays another on top of them, like blocks. They stay up for a little bit, then topple over. It's not as dramatic as a Jenga tower crashing down.

Loki quickly realizes that they can't make a big enough fort for them to fit in with just the cushions, although they can make a tunnel that Lila can crawl through. That's not really a fort, though.

Jarvis suggests that they use blankets as well. There are a couple draped over sofas, but Loki also goes to his bedroom and strips the blankets off his bed.

Back in the living room, Lila and Cooper are trying to push one of the couches across the floor without any success. Loki pushes it easily, and they both jealously say that he's really strong, even though he's really not. It's a good thing they weren't in Asgard, because they're even weaker than he is.

At Lila's instructions, Loki pushes three of the sofas they'd stripped of their cushions into a sort of U shape.

Cooper and Lila drape one of the blankets from Loki's bed on top, for a roof, but they have a lot of trouble.

The first time Loki does it, it falls in, but then it stays up as if by magic, like when his block towers don't fall down. Lila and Cooper don't comment, to Loki's immense relief.

They use another blanket to cover up the entrance- or exit, depending on how one looks at it- of their fort.

They crawl in, only to decide they should make a cushy floor for their fort out of all the pillows. It's a great idea, because now it's a lot softer than the floor.

Simba's arc reactor provides light.

It's nice and safe in here, like in Loki's Snoopy doghouse tent in the therapy room, or under his bed. The main area of the fort is as big as Loki's bed, since one of his blankets is acting as the ceiling, meaning Loki can lay down in here. This is even better than being under a table, and almost as awesome as the therapy room tent that looks like Snoopy's doghouse, though he can't lay down there.

"This is the strongest fort ever in the whole universe!" Lila declares triumphantly. "Nobody can get us here!"

"Nobody!" Loki flaps his hands and laughs, and then there are footsteps outside their fort, and someone pulls the sheet up.

Sorry if this chapter seemed uneventful, but again, it was only the first half of what I had originally.

Since I was almost done with what was going to be the second half of this very long chapter, that should be up in the next few days... so you'll get a fast update. And it may be more eventful. There'll be more about Sleipnir in that part :)