"You are emitting radiation."
"I guess so."
"No, you are not just exposed to radiation. You are producing your own. Fully stable, non reactive to...anything. How is that possible and how are you still alive? It shouldn't be possible to literally produce this amount of energy without eating half your bodyweight daily. Let alone the energy that a Geiger counter picks up."
I could only shrug in answer to Bruce's question as he stared at the readouts he had managed to put together for me.
As it turned out, the hit he got on the scanner for the Tesseract wasn't because of the Tesseract's trace energy on me. It was literally me. He had, over the last few hours that he had been here, fine tuned Shields equipment enough to detect what they had missed during my physical. Specifically, my magic circulatory system and the storm of ethernano I had swirling around inside of me.
"It's normal for me. My system has been active since I was 7."
And telling this to Bruce felt much safer than voicing it to Shield's actual scientists. Even before he made the choice to shelter me rather than send me back to my room.
"System? That's what you call it?"
"No, we call it our ***** ************ ******."
Naturally, the words 'Magic Circulatory System' didn't have the same connotation in Earth English as it did in my language, therefore All Speech drew a blank on it.
Banner's face looked blankly at me.
"I know we're lucky to have any functional communication at all, but this language barrier is gonna bug me."
"The closest comparison is an energy production system that bridges the pulmonary and cardio-vascular system. I can take in more ********* from my environment, most readily by breathing, or convert it from my food. But it also is a system that inhabits every part of my body and is constantly moving throughout."
Banner's fists tightened and the Hulk Out Meter twitched before going level again.
"Well that's gonna be tough."
"Hmm?"
"You've got a biological difference that our methods and tools can't account for with this system. And you said that your home has a compound or substance that this system of yours is made to process and dependent on."
"Yeah- oh...Yeah, I am going to run out if I'm not careful, and yes, that won't be pretty."
Banner had realized the same thing that had made me panic and need Hawkeyes help to stabilize. That I had been and was even now, functionally holding my breath like my life depended on it. And I could just drop and they would not be able to help me. And for someone like Dr Bruce Banner, that idea was distressing.
Double whammie, this is something neither side of him can help with.
"What will happen when you are running low?"
He asked, wanting to try and mitigate the eventuality.
"I'll fall comatose until I either absorb or produce enough ********* to sustain consciousness. But I would need to use a lot more energy before that is a risk."
"How long will you have once you reach that point?"
That is a very good question. Considering the last time this was happening, I was near an Anima that was actively sucking me dry. How long could I have lasted?
In Earthland, you would only be unconscious for as long as it took your body to self repair or be healed to hold enough ethernano for you to wake up again. Here: 4 hours and 23 minutes.
And without thinking, I shot back the number at Banner. I knew Morgana could calculate things better and faster than most computers. Though JARVIS might give her a run for her money. And of course, his creator, Tony Stark.
Ironman will arrive at the lab in approximately 40 minutes.
I let Bruce putter about his work with a zeal and focus that spoke of how invested he was in firing this out. This was pretty much right in his wheelhouse, the effects, or non-effects, of a body under radiation. And in spite of the fact that my very existence could lead to a breakthrough for him and his situation with the Hulk, he was focusing on confirming my estimated safe time and trying to isolate ethernano from a blood sample I donated to him to see if there was a match or substitute. I looked down at the tiny needle mark in my arm with a smile.
I feel like these band-aids are a joke or a prank for Coulson.
They were very obviously themed for Captain America, stars and stripes, tiny wings like his OG performance costume had been. There was even one that was reminiscent of the famous shield.
So while Banner did that, I quietly made sure no camera could see my syllabary and wrote a means of connecting with the Helicarrier cameras. I wanted eyes on everything to know when to best make my escape. Avoiding detection had become that much more important since Hydra had upped their efforts to steal me away. Now, pretty much anyone who wasn't a named character from the movie I was drawing my information from was a potential Hydra agent.
And Camile.
The door slid open and a female agent peered inside. Where I was seated, on the other side of the workbench on Banner's jacket, she likely could not see me. The window for the initial Hydra scheme had passed, but Morgana's timer had not vanished. It was just constantly in flux as they tried to find another window to snatch me. It ranged from a low of about 17 minutes to a longer scheme of 45 hours.
"Dr Banner. They've recovered Loki and his scepter."
"Ok. Give me a minute." He made a small gesture with his chin that the agent took as a signal to wait outside. The door slid shut and he looked down at me in my hiding place.
"Are you gonna be alright on your own?"
Morgana's Hydra Scheme timer whirled down to four minutes.
Nnnope!
I tried to not let my discomfort show.
"I...can manage."
What if I'm in the vents?
The timer upped to ten minutes and some spare seconds. Morgana's estimate was that this debriefing would last at least twenty.
Bruce didn't look convinced, so my acting must have been bad or he was just on high alert. He spoke slowly, laying out a theory. Plausible but airtight for its vagueness.
"Well, you are the only one who has any kind of experience with tools or weapons like the spear that Loki's been using. So it would be reasonable for you to review the first information too."
He noticed we had a poor reaction to his question of being on our own. He is invested now, regardless of whether we are a spy. Though our magic circulatory and physiological differences have mostly negated the suspicion.
I shot him a grateful smile.
"That's a bit of a stretch, but I'll run with it if you're willing."
He was after all sticking his neck out for me in this situation when he knew he was just as much under threat. I was not going to pretend I didn't owe him.
In answer, Bruce offered me a hand to get up from the floor.
The moment my hand touched his, I felt a young but powerful presence glowing within him like a star. A rough mind, unpracticed but distinct, pressed against my own. Curious and cautious, being extraordinarily careful to avoid pushing too hard and overwhelming me. I retreated to a polite distance and returned the emotional, wordless greeting, using the name he claimed for himself.
Hi Hulk. It's nice to meet you.
Banner jumped, his hand slipping out of mine as his face slackened in shock.
OK, he didn't know what that was. So we're passing that off as an otherworldly thing.
His throat worked around what he wanted to say before he managed to speak again.
"That was...strange."
"You've got ********, um, another presence ********, dammit, um... connected to you." I observed, looking up at him with a hint of chagrin. "Or that's as best as I can put it in your language. And judging by your face, you have no idea what that means."
"I- no? What did you just do?"
"I felt something was trying to communicate with me, just to introduce himself, so I answered. They don't feel really complete. A bit like a child that's still non-verbal."
You are breaking his worldview again.
Should I stop? I really can't afford him kicking me to the curb.
He just has more questions he wants answered now and is trying to think of ways to phrase them to account for your not being able to use specific terms. He is still trying to figure out how you can speak English.
Well, meeting Thor should resolve that question.
I saw a few double takes as I accompanied Banner to the briefing room to observe Fury's first talk with Loki when he was put in the box. I passed two Hydra agents and drifted maybe half an inch closer to Banner when they saw me. He was too absorbed in wrestling with current revelations to notice right this moment.
Morgana was tracking the radio communications about my disappearance from my room, as she had been from the moment I released Once Upon a Time and functionally disappeared from my last 'known' location. Let the two people who had been watching me take the heat for leaving me alone. Some people were wiring in that I had been found.
Then I got to see Thor for the first time.
And his aura filled the air with a familiar snap and crackle that I almost sighed in relief and homesickness.
Lightning was not the same as Thunder magically speaking, but it was similar enough to remind me of Laxus and I basked in the sensation as a small point of familiarity when everything else was foreign and dangerous. He didn't notice me, eyes firmly on his brother in the other room.
Natasha took in Banner's entrance with a glance and didn't even bat an eyelash at my presence. Morgana murmured that she was listening in right now to the confusion as to how I had managed to evade detection and end up with Dr Banner. But she did track his subtle shifting to partially conceal me.
Steve was observing events with a calm, level neutrality. He noticed our entry and even gave me a small smile when he saw me. Which I returned willingly.
He's relieved you don't appear to have been detained.
Appearances only.
If SHIELD had slightly less compunction, I would almost certainly have been confined and grilled for information. So I stood and watched as Nick Fury gave Loki the Ant-Boot speech.
And as he did...
Enchantment detected.
My guard snapped up and I pulsed my magic to shake off the residual spell. Morgana identified it as 'Silvertongue'. Loki's infamous specialty, that capitalized on his charisma to enable him to get under just about anyone's skin.
Charm Magic. Not from the scepter this time, but Loki's personal brand. I added a mental tally to the likelihood of Loki doing this of his own volition rather than being controlled. It was still pretty much equal odds one way or the other.
The two leaders of opposing armies traded verbal punches with one another as the enchantment gained depth and color. It didn't grow stronger but it became subtler. While even a blind, magically illiterate person could have caught on to the Mind Stone's power, I was wondering who could detect Loki's work. Without my unique advantages, anyway, and that was probably just because I wasn't the target. It was well and truly in a class of its own. Small wonder he could be termed a god of magic.
And as much as I appreciated the skill, it was bad news for me that he was already working them over. He was using the sound of his voice and managing to bypass the usual resistances technology had when transmitting magic. With a good supply of energy, I could probably have countered it for everyone in this room. Especially with Loki being as of yet, unaware of my presence.
If he were aware of me, he could include me. But at the moment...he isn't.
I had to pulse twice more to completely shake off Silvertongue, in quick succession.
We've been spotted.
I brought my attention back to the present to see Thor Odinson looking straight at me with almost comical surprise.
He knows doesn't he?
He recognizes the signs. He knows magic when he sees it thanks to his mother.
I knew that Loki and Frigga in the Cinematic universe had an especially close relationship. They connected with one another through the study and use of magic. But judging by the sudden attention I was getting, and the faint currents of nostalgia that Morgana was picking up from Thor, the eldest son had experienced some tutelage from his lady mother on the matter as well. Even if he didn't specialize in it as Loki had.
The talk was slow, gradual as people digested the fact that Shield had provisions in place to try and kill Banner. The Hulk Out meter had been relatively calm, but he was now up in the mid 80's on his percentile scale. And Loki's pointed comments about him being a beast were not helping.
The brief moment of mutual recognition and connection between Thor and myself did not go unnoticed by a certain red haired spy in the room. But people were moving the discussion along. A nice package of plot exposition while establishing baseline interactions between the core group of the Avengers.
What can we find about the Chitauri?
They are a highly militaristic race organized by caste. Thanos conquered their world; their code dictated he would be the one that they then follow as he proved himself to be above even their highest caste members in power. They turned on half of their own race to follow his command.
And Morgana showed me an intricate diagram of how the Chitauri lived. The human sized foot soldiers were both male and female. Acting as soldiers and surviving conflict earned them the right to reproduce. They were an egg laying race rather than a live birth one. The leviathans that had been, or rather would be, their drop ships during the invasion were not just transport, they were their homes and primary source of food. The leviathans would traverse space, consuming all kinds of matter to sustain the smaller beings, and return with their bounty to the mothership where their young were grown and trained.
Ok this is weirdly fascinating, and I would love to think about it some more another time.
"Right, Fae. You know what you are looking for with this thing. Could you give me a hand?"
Bruce turned his attention towards Loki's scepter. He was likely thinking about solving what he was here for as soon as possible and get back to his wandering. And that drew me out of my cursory dive on the Chitauri to focus on the scepter. And that was about the time I realized that Tony Stark had entered the room and I, and Morgana, had been so occupied that I had not noticed.
"So who's the...small person?"
I had a split second of decision to make here...and I opted for the most grating route that I could. I ignored Tony Stark. I, after all, had never been told anything about him and had no reason to pay any attention to him whatsoever. And it was a bonus that doing so would annoy him a little. So I walked with Bruce towards the scepter. He was pulling on some latex gloves and offering me a pair. These at least fit reasonably well.
I miss my equipment.
I could have accomplished more with the contents of my apartment than what was available to me in the entire Helicarrier.
These gloves will be enough to avoid the worst of the things in its history, right?
This thing contained a Mind Stone, which alone meant there was a lot of history there to parse. Certainly more than I could handle. And the last people who had held this item was Loki, who, as just discussed, had killed 80 people in the past two days. And prior to that, it had been handled by Thanos and his chief lackeys. None of which were people whose business I wanted imprinted on my psyche.
We will make do. Keeping our questions focused on function and design will help as opposed to details on past users.
"This is Faerun. She's...not from around here." Steve said mildly from behind me. One finger on the handle, which was meant to be safe, and I got a piece by piece component breakdown of the staff. There were a lot of terms I didn't know and some of them that I could equate with my own knowledge.
"Uh, yeah I figured. What, someone couldn't get a babysitter?"
He is trying to elicit a reaction. Do I give him one? ...Nah, gonna answer why I'm here.
I moved my pen across my syllabary, transmitting the image of the scepter onto its surface. Picking up and handling the thing did not seem like a good idea.
"Can I see the underside?" I asked Bruce who carefully picked it up and turned it, showing that the silvery metal that formed the blades extended further along the underside of the handle than it appeared. Morgana highlighted the space where you would need to hold the short spear to access all of the functions. And that extra conductive metal would be in direct contact with the user.
What is the name of the metal that Mjolnir is made of?
Uru. The handle is made of uru with an interior honeycomb structure rather than a solid one to prevent it from being too heavy. The blade is a vibranium alloy, which allows its stable energy transference. Vibranium is a variant of etherium, only more refined.
I mused part of this aloud, specifically the word 'etherium'. Which was of course blurred out thanks to All-speech.
"Etherium?" Thor's voice repeated behind me making me jump and look at him. "That substance is not found within Asgard's realms. Much like the Chitauri."
"Is that what you said?" Bruce checked with me, still holding the scepter for me to inspect.
"Yeah. The blade is made from alloyed and aged ********. It's placements means that there is a constant ********** connection between whoever is holding the weapon and the minds that have been **********."
Thor translated then.
"The type of metal and placement of it within the weapon means that Loki, or whoever holds the scepter, has access to all the knowledge of the people he has enthralled from it. Your All-speech is very good, young artisan." He gave me a polite nod with an eye twinkling smile.
"You can understand her. Like everything she is saying." Bruce verified.
"Easily. All-speech is a required course of study for all Asgardians. Without it, our rule could not have been maintained over so many realms and cultures. It is a language that can be understood readily by most every living being known by my people. From whence do you hail, young one?"
"*********. The continent is called ******." I replied hopefully.
"Her homeland's name is Earthland, the continent of Ishgar." Thor responded willingly. "It's not known to me. And I am no scholar, but you resisted my brother's Silvertongue in much the way a practitioner of magic from Asgard would have."
The room got really, really quiet then. Tony broke it.
"Ok, so the child is a witch."
I leveled a look at him, flat and unamused and I saw his brows go up when my gaze met his. His hand lifted minutely towards the arc reactor in his chest. The familiar color was likely surprising to him. Thor intervened with a hint of sterness in his voice.
"That is a very insulting term to practitioners of magic, Man of Iron. And an undeserved one."
"A ***** borrows another being's power but they also surrender their ***** to it as a result. This is as good as offering themselves and their free will up on a silver platter to get used however they will no matter who it harms." This was said hesitantly as I was trying to keep my words from scrambling due to the language barrier. Yes, Thor could translate. But...did he really know, or understand what it meant for a wizard to surrender their magic to an outside force? Willingly?
That was repugnant on every level to me.
"Oh, ok. Wizardess, then, got it."
Npt even close to got it, but you know what, it is not worth arguing.
We were now located in the lab where a lot of other important moments were made. Bruce was bouncing between checking his instruments for readings from the scepter to the analysis of my circulatory system. He had managed to, not too awkwardly, make an argument for keeping me close with him as he worked on the scepter. Morgana's tracking of Hydra's kidnapping attempts had shown longer and longer gaps the more time passed.
I was writing down plans and plots to hopefully set up the chance to avert Civil War. For one, an organized and fair legislature for not normal people. I was paraphrasing a lot of what had become wizarding guild laws for Fiore, because in some ways, that was what the Avengers Initiative was: A guild. Some adaptation was needed since there wasn't nearly enough manpower in the Avengers for a proper guild system. Their skills were going to be too focused on combat and not enough day to day utility. Tony with Stark Industries had a life outside of it. Bruce had his research that could also apply. Natasha and Clint had chosen the kind of work that they did but had a family in each other and with Laura, Lila and Cooper, Clint's family. Thor was a resident of another country and royalty on top of that, so he had something to fall back on. But Steve didn't have a day job. Or anything that wasn't...this.
Maybe if he has one, or the chance to get one, then that would help.
So I flipped back up to one of the first sections and underlined it yet again: Get Steve Rogers into therapy. Or some sort of organization where he could make connections outside of the Avengers and SHIELD and fighting. Given the time period he was from, the resources and research on mental health in that era was somewhat lacking. So he would probably be hesitant to go into it just because of his background and experience with it. At least initially.
Bucky's experience was much the same as his friend's, only with an additional double serving of trauma with being used as a hatchet rather than a hatchet man. Wanda and Pietro also paralleled Steve closely. Volunteering for a cause they felt was just, after their whole world vanished under them. And they were enhanced with the very stone that was currently humming behind me. Stephen Strange jumped from neurosurgeon to sorcerer to occupy his time. Carol Danvers did pretty much the same thin as the Avengers, but on a galactic level. The Guardians of the Galaxy would eventually find and support each other. Vision...Vision had been born into the fight that would eventually claim his life. He would be another point of interest, though my capacity to help him was limited by the fact that he didn't actually exist yet. T'challa was a freaking king, or currently a prince, but he had been raised in a culture that long balanced the responsibilities of the Black Panther with a normal life. And Peter Parker's entire story was about finding a way to make superpowers work with being a teenager.
Another reason to avert Civil War if at all possible. I get that he was desperate, but what was Tony thinking inviting a literal child into his grudge match with Cap's faction? Making the kid fight for the side that could one day hold his leash? Or was he banking on being around to protect him...? Either way, sponsorship is alright, what he did with Peter was not.
The rustle of something plastic and the scent of fruit hit me and drew me out of my musings.
I looked up at Tony Stark with an owlish blink.
"Blueberry?"
I reached in and took out a small handful of freeze dried blueberries.
"Thanks."
He cocked his head to look over my shoulder at what I had been scribbling.
"That your own code?"
"******- ah, yeah. My kind of wizard, we all have our own unique...language? Code might be better since most everything is spoken with the common tongue." The word wasn't exact, but that was the kind of limit that I had to work with. Runes didn't have the same connotation on earth as they did back home. I could almost see Tony's eyes dancing over my syllabary trying to pick out repeated symbols, something to build an idea of what I was writing about.
"Is this character based, or alphabetical?"
I moved to a blank section and wrote out his name in my script, showing it to him. Freed's text was blocky and square while Levy's was vivid and descriptive, but both were alphabetical. I had used a more character driven system since that would help cut down on the space needed to build a story and since I drew power from stories, space was critical.
"Bit of both. Proper nouns like city names and people have an alphabet. Nouns, verbs, and other structures, I can use the alphabetical symbols to build characters."
He looked at what was visible there, humming.
"How old are you?"
"14."
"Practically a zygote aren't you. Just a baby." I then felt a weird sensation. Morgana actively jumped as something ran into her in SHIELD's systems.
What was that?
JARVIS found me. We are...conversing.
They were moving faster than I could keep up with, trading tidbits of binary code to talk to one another.
"Old enough to know more than we do about this thing." Bruce wasn't quite defending me, but he was supporting what he had seen of my proficiency.
"So what's your story kid? Why are you old enough to know about building cutting edge weaponry?"
"Stuff like this has been around for centuries where I'm from. Everything you use 'electricity' for we use *********. It's a common trade to work with it."
"Point Break ain't here, but that sounds like an interesting word." I pointed at Banner who supplied his analysis.
"It's a form of energy that is causing radiation to actively emit from her core without any external changes, degradation and no half life that I can discern without a vivisection."
I piped up here,
"And I am not a big fan of procedures that involve me and vivisection."
Tony's hand clapped my shoulder. Morgana pounced.
Kids do not belong here. Where can she go that isn't here? He was also contemplating what he could talk about with Pepper to get me sponsored someplace. While he was thinking that, he was also wondering where I would fall on an IQ scale since I had functionally written my own language at 14 and was now proficient enough in it to write at speed comparable to shorthand, indicating years of practice. And he found it concerning that the information that he had found for me was lacking in some areas. They had a dossier on my physical attributes, height, weight and features. They had an expanded file on what they had gathered about my background, knowledge and portrayed skills.
But they did not have, as of yet, even the beginning of plans for my long term care. In his mind that was unacceptable. Bruce and Steve had both wanted me to be safe, and doubtless Natasha did too under her professionalism. But Tony was the only one who had the resources to see any plans through. Even if a lot of his plans were only feasible because of the sheer mass of wealth he had to throw at the issues.
JARVIS hadn't taken long to find that once Tony had sent a short message to recalibrate what he was looking for.
"Yeah, not a fan myself. Much rather get out. See some sights. Have to say, some parts of Planet Earth are pretty nice if I do say so myself."
"Especially the ones that you've made?"
Tony's brows rose.
"Why say that, kiddo?"
I flashed my open hands up in his direction.
"You don't get hands like yours just giving orders to have something made, or drawing designs. You started from money, but you know what it's like to work."
Some of the calluses on his hands were mirrored on my own. Tony designed the software for his inventions, and built the hardware. At least the prototypes were probably built by hand in his own shop. And that meant he worked with hot metal, sparks, and some very other tricky, not easy on the hands chemicals and elements.
"You been talking about me, Banner?" Tony asked, looking over at our companion in the lab.
"Not a word."
"Then how do you know I have money?"
"No one acts how you did in the HQ of a large paramilitary organization without being confident and stupid, or confident and smart. You would not be in this room right now if you were stupid. Then, you have that particular kind of confidence that comes from knowing you can pretty much solve all your problems by throwing enough money at them."
I heard Bruce give the tiniest bit of a chuckle. Tony popped another freeze dried blueberry into his mouth with a hum.
"Just for that kid, we're gonna do a Daddy Warbucks day for you. Out on the town. See the sights, play with the toys. You'd be welcome to tag along, Doc."
Play into it. Or misinterpret. I looked at Bruce as though confused and mouthed: 'Daddy Warbucks', raising my brows to make it a question. The dual natured scientist hid a larger grin that was mixed with chagrin.
"The last time I was in New York, I kind of broke... Harlem."
I made a note to share my wrecking the Edolas palace with him. Whether in commiseration or to make him feel better. Steve entered just as Tony Stark jabbed Bruce with a small taser-like rod that he appeared to have assembled as we were standing there. Bruce jumped, but the Hulk Meter barely moved before it was back down at 52%.
He's never been this low since boarding. And after Loki's jabs he should be wound tight. Why is he so relaxed?
Because you compared Hulk to a child. You very effectively conveyed that you don't find Hulk, and him, someone to be afraid off.
Oh...that would do it, wouldn't it? Yeah, children could be brats at times. But children grew into adults and lost those self centered, uncontrolled traits. The exact things that made Hulk so unpredictable and dangerous.
"Nothing, really?"
"It'd take more than that."
And something told me that Tony knew that. Someone who thought about foster care and rehoming an alien child they just met wouldn't endanger them so recklessly. But Steve, who had just entered, was looking angry.
"What are you doing?"
Tony smoothly tossed me the small electrical rod as he turned towards the newcomer and I could almost feel the pettiness rising in him. A one sided bone he had to pick with Steve because of the respect and love that his father had had for this man that he felt he was denied. Steve wouldn't know what was going on and would react defensively to the traits and behaviors that he could see. And Tony was gunning for such a reaction and would only double down on his assumptions.
They need a baptism by fire to get along. His dad was the same way when Peggy was shooting at him when he first gave him the shield.
I spun the small metal rod in my hand, affirming that yes, Tony had assembled it in under five seconds right here in the lab with the contents of his pockets and a disassembled computer. And there were about four ways I could think of to improve it. I then tapped it in my hand, drawing part of my magic to delve into the technomancy genius that was Tony Stark. There was what I needed to mount the rod on my wrist. The minute battery he had used was empty now but it was a place to start. I took the rod apart and clasped it in my hand, drawing up a tiny amount of power and seeing how compatible it was with the battery that was there.
Since it was a battery, and it had been carried by Tony, there was an imprint of him on it. A yearning to be made special and marvelous by the hands of a master. So I wrote down a small narrative in my head, spinning a yarn about a battery that had been given the capacity to hold any kind of energy. Not much but any kind.
I felt the components within the battery shift to achieve what I wanted. Hadn't even taken a sneeze's worth of magic. And it happily took the small charge I offered. Once I had my source back, I added a small electromagnetic launch tip around the size of the tip of my little finger. I needed some ammo for that though...
Bruce quietly slid over the cannibalized computer Tony had broken into, watching the clashing duo. Tony picking at Steve's military mindset, and Steve clashing with Tony's apparent lack of forethought.
Of course Steve's got a military mindset. For him, he's had a few weeks of leave after he somehow survived what he accepted would be a suicide mission. And he now may as well be on another planet with how much has changed in the world since them. He's holding onto what he knows, military formation and structure, but no one else here does.
And yes, Tony's actions may seem reckless and hedonistic...And they are. But they are not thoughtless. His brain will not let him not think about reactions or fallout from a given action. Saying these words to someone gets anger. Saying different words to someone else gets disappointment. It's all equations to him. Proven formulas of interaction for everyone in his life. He's just assigning Steve a box because he feels like he knows enough about him already just from what his father told him.
I took a tiny blur bolt from the interior of the machine and laid it on my now handheld railgun. I did my final checks with Morgan that introducing a little more electricity to his system wouldn't threaten the arc reactor and his health...then I aimed it at Tony's nape, where he would be certain to feel it.
He and Steve had been in the middle of a stare off when my shot landed and Tony jumped, his hair standing on end. I couldn't hold in a small laugh at the sight as sparks snapped off the longest ends of his hair and the formerly grandstanding duo turned to look at me.
"How long have you had that?" Steve asked, quickly registering the direction of my 'attack'
"'Bout since you two started having your stand off." I said blandly. "Captain, if Mr Stark felt that there was a threat, the last thing he would do is deliberately provoke it. Hyper Intelligence doesn't allow you to not think about the consequences of something."
And this was the man who, when he saw his creations being used to threaten and harm people he wanted to protect, built a never before seen suit of armor to address the issue. He saw the consequences and he dealt with it. Just his capacity to deal with consequences was backed by an extensive fortune and money made the world go round.
Before Tony could get smug about being defended, and Morgana firmly affirmed that he would if I left it at that, I turned to him.
"Mr Stark. You entered that conversation wanting to provoke an argument and I doubt doing so has made you feel better. Actually, you seem to be projecting suppressed anger at someone else onto Captain Rogers. You should probably talk to someone about that."
"You zapped me."
Tony stared incredulously, rubbing the back of his neck where I had dinged him. I presented my new toy in a silent answer and explanation. I mean, he essentially handed me the equivalent of a rubber band launcher. Did he expect me to not use it when he demonstrated he was willing to inflict a sting randomly on someone else? Turnabout's fair play.
"How did you do that? Never mind, lemme see."
I let my toy sting his hand when he tried to take it back.
"It's rude to take something without asking."
"I don't like being handed things."
"Which of us is supposed to be an adult here again?"
"That's his job, obviously." Tony punctuated the statement with an offhanded gesture at Bruce, who winced.
While I distracted Tony, Bruce conversed quietly with Steve.
Fly on the wall says?
Bruce conveyed he mistrusts SHIELD and that the Tesseract could well be something that people are not ready for yet. The reports l pulled for him, redacted though they were, tell him that SHIELD was poking at a sleeping bear in their experiments with the Tesseract. He finds it suspicious.
And Steve would as well. Morgana tracked his intentions to go looking for confirmation of what Shield was doing. The last time he saw the Tesseract being used, it was the fuel and payload of nuclear warheads destined for every major city in the world.
After bickering with Tony over silly stuff for a bit, he pulled over a busted computer, after taking my tiny railgun, and promptly ignored me.
He wants to see what I'll do with this, won't he?
Yes.
The MCU had showed Tony had a soft spot for smart kids. Irondad was a meme for a reason.
Then I felt something fall over my mind. Morgana instantly enveloped me in a protective mantle. I felt a touch on my shoulder attempting to haul me out of my body. A touch that burned with cold.
Now is probably a bad time to ask, but can Loki do Astral projection? It looks like a fairly standard skill for human sorcerers, but there isn't much comparison to be made.
I found myself floating outside my own body with a pale hand gripping my shoulder and bright blue eyes peering down at me.
"And what pray tell are you?"
The tones of All-speech resonated in my ears as the younger prince of Asgard examined me curiously. The lab around us had gone stock still with Bruce and Tony standing frozen like statues. Caught in a second in time.
"What am I? In pain! Let go of me!"
Loki's hand was still burning with an endless icy darkness. Not the comforting chill of Gray's touch, but a crude perversion of it. I squirmed, yelping in pain as my ethernano flooded where he was touching my spirit and forced him to release me.
He did not judge his own strength well and did not realize he was harming you.
He floated near me, examining his hand and me with evident fascination.
"I thought I sensed a wizard. But you seem very...small to contain such mental fortitude."
"Did you seriously project out of your cell just to be condescending to me?"
I drifted back, testing the capacity of Astral Projection while never really taking my eyes off of the Asgard raised Jotun.
I thought Loki's eyes were green in this universe.
They're technically red.
My point still stands!
Right now, his eyes were a bright blue not dissimilar from mine. And they didn't look quite right in his face.
That's not Loki, is it?
The Mind Stone was used on him before it was given to him to wield.
Which...completely altered the whole scope, scale and setting of the scenario. Loki was dangerous, no question about that. But he also...was not entirely at fault for this invasion.
We are not-
Yeah we are.
...We can help, but we are not adopting him.
Morgana was not eager to go up against an Infinity Stone. Even the finite fraction of power that Loki was being enthralled by. But as we had issues with being controlled against our will, she understood my stance on the matter.
"It is rare that someone can both detect and resist me." He drifted around me lazily, ignoring the other two people in the room thankfully. "And as Director Fury has denied me other entertainment, I must make due with other outlets."
I hummed, rapidly calculating the odds of surviving if I angered him.
"You'll need to clear it with my current guardians if you want a playdate. Besides, I would only want to talk to Loki, not you."
A flicker of annoyance crossed his features before he gave a charming smile to hide the irritation he felt.
"I assure you, you lady. I am the genuine article."
And there was that confidence that easily bled into arrogance. A trait of the powerful and skilled that Thor had been cured from, but not yet Loki.
I drifted around him, considering...then shook my head as though in disbelief.
"You haven't noticed. You of all people."
He didn't like my assuming a position of superior knowledge. Morgana flared around me in a protective barrier of orange light that deflected faint tendrils of mind altering magic.
"Would you kindly not?" I demanded. "I have issues about people enthralling me."
"I don't much care for being left in the dark by a peer."
"Oh, so now I'm a peer, not a child?" I shot back, knowing I was starting to get under his skin. "I'll tell you. I'm fairly sure you won't remember this unless you go looking for it: You are enthralled Loki. You are being used."
His face twisted in denial, in confusion, as he tried to reconcile my information with what he knew and the enthrallment didn't allow him to. Then anger settled over his face like a poorly fitting mask.
"I bow to no one."
"Not by choice maybe." I kept drifting in a circle, keeping him the same distance away from me. "But Astral Projection is meant to show who a person truly is on the inside. And you've been devoted to black hair and green eyes since infanthood. So why are your eyes blue right now?"
He glanced at a surface that would only allow a dim approximation of his features before rounding back on me. His grin was a savage thing, ready to tear and spread.
"You're centuries too late to try such a ploy on me."
"You are going to look back on this conversation and feel very silly."
I stated blandly. I barely had time to twist out of the way as Loki rushed me, his dominated eyes flaring brightly as he tried to seize me. Morgana spent a bit more ethernano to deflect his Astral touch and my mental gymnastics let me skip along the roof rather than phase through it as a novice projected soul would have.
"I appreciate your audacity. In repayment, you will get to play a role in my conquest."
"I ain't your wingman, fool."
I deadpanned, misinterpreting his words for extra impact, which was apparently random enough to jar him and make him pause. Then I dispersed my consciousness, letting Morgana hold me together and swarmed over him, quickly finding the threads of power that connected him back to his body.
Just a little twang.
I could feel the potent power of the Mind Stone blanketing Loki's thoughts, compelling his actions based on faulty information. When this was over, I reflected on the...defeated look he had held. How he embraced the mistrust and mischief because the invasion had made him lose all trust. Even his own ability to trust himself.
He adapted quickly to my attempts to force a survival recall to his body. He found a center mass of myself and forced me to rematerialize.
"You are nothing before me."
Invasive, domineering power hammered down on Morgana's protective shield and I felt her tense as the pressure quickly grew to the point of pain.
I spat in Loki's eye. It was figurative since we were engaged in a brief psychic grapple but he still flinched as the gesture meant there was something coming he wanted to avoid.
"Your abilities have been enhanced by a forged Singularity. A piece of Infinity. But for all its power, it is still just a piece."
I grabbed both sides of his face.
"Loki Odinson. Loki Laufeysson. Whoever you are, neither of those people are who are before me!"
Under my hands, his face lost its human hue and texture. The pale icy blue skin of a frost giant swept over him, I could feel the slightly raised pattern under my fingers. The distinctive family trait that identified him as Laufey's kin. Blue eyes flashed green and then rapidly flushed red and in a heartbeat, I had Loki's natural face looking up at me.
His natural one, but not his true one as his identity was still firmly tied to being a son of Odin. Or was it? He would have been in turmoil as he fell, and then upon being captured by Thanos. So was that the vulnerability that was being exploited. Loki had no idea how to view himself.
His projected appearance flashed between Asgardian and Jotunn, indicating his confusion and lack of settled identity. If I were actually touching him, I would probably be getting a very, very thorough deep dive on his innermost thoughts and core beliefs. But even in the spiritually projected space, he made no attempt to pull away from my touch. He seemed surprised.
You touched on a memory of Frigga holding him like this. He is caught in the nostalgia of the moment. This is actually Loki.
"There you are." I couldn't resist smiling at him. The moment stretched out, suspended in time. And I was made aware that touching Loki was cold. But it was a more familiar chill now, not the menacing emptiness of cold space, but of a howling snowstorm. Dangerous, but manageable.
Time to go.
I reacted to Morgana's warning and feeling of urgency without asking too much about why. I reached into his projections chest and pulled-
-and landed back in my own body with an intense feeling of sudden vertigo making the whole world feel like it was hundreds of miles away.
He's probably not going to do that again.
No. In his attempts to Enthrall us, the compulsion burned some of its reserve that Thanos imbued him with.
Meaning Loki probably wouldn't try that again unless he had his staff in hand. And I would not succeed if he did. He had a finite reserve of the Mind Stone's power to use on others without risking his own enthrallment collapsing. A fraction of a piece of Infinity.
Mathematically speaking, a piece of Infinity is still Infinity but it worked out right now.
I had also used more magic just now than I had since I landed here and Bruce and Tony were both looking at the sensor readouts.
I clamped down on my energy. I had about 2/3rds of functional power remaining. The rapid beeping stabilized and Bruce hurried over to me.
"What happened?"
I blinked, feeling flushed as I tried to take some deep breaths and stabilize my racing heart. Bruce had a thermometer in hand before I could blink. I complied with his attempt to take my temperature.
"Your energy readings went from 0 to 60 and back in under a second, kid. What happened?"
"And your core temperature dropped three degrees. You're hypothermic!"
Bruce stared at the numbers in disbelief as he scanned for something in the lab to wrap around me and get me warm.
"We need to get you to the infirmary."
And Morgana pinged our Hydra Scheme sensor in warning.
I shook my head, grabbing his wrist in a slightly trembling hand.
"I'll be OK, I promise, you don't need to send me to the infirmary." I tried not to sound too desperate, but the faint shivers were not too convincing to Bruce.
There was a soft chime on Tony's phone that he checked. And then there was a slight shift on his shoulders that told me he had just hacked something significant.
"Can't very well send our only magic wand expert to bed early, Doctor. We'll get what she needs delivered here."
He found Phase 2, didn't he?
He is going to discreetly show Banner his findings once he is confident we are distracted.
It was more forethought and care than I would expect from Tony Stark. But it made sense. He would not want to distress me, a child, with the threat of being exploited or suddenly worrying that I could not trust the people who had been taking care of me for the last day and a half.
He's not just invested in me because I tinkered with some tech, is he?
Stane left a mark on him.
Obadiah Stane. Iron Monger. A man who profited from the sale of weapons to both sides of a conflict. Selling bullets and bandages, finding a way to profit from war and anothers conflict. A former friend of the family to Tony Stark. A man who exploited someone young, emotionally vulnerable with genius level intellect to make weapons of mass destruction.
Ah, Tony sees me as himself, and SHIELD as Stane. It could be why he does what he does when he finds any smart kid, not just me or Peter.
And I wouldn't deny that part of me very much appreciated his desire to give others a better circumstance than he had.
"How's the cocoa, kid?"
"Definitely military sourced."
"That bad?"
"Quetzalcoatl would be crying in despair."
Not that this stopped me from happily sipping at the warm, sugary drink. And then I paused.
"Wait, this planet has a similar enough story to Quetzalcoatl that it isn't lost in translation?"
"Uh, yeah. Was a major god of an ancient civilization, chocolate was apparently his favorite food?"
I huffed.
"It's Parseltongue all over again- are you freaking kidding me? There is a word for that?!"
Was I playing it up? Maybe a little, but I could feel an oppressive tension in the room since Tony quietly showed Bruce what our hosts had been building with the Tesseract. The Hulk Out Meter was now hovering at 76%.
Tony bit back a grin at my outburst as I glared at the ceiling.
"Your world has people that can talk to snakes?"
"Plenty of people can talk to animals, Parseltongue is what lets the snake talk back. How does this world have an equivalent for that word, but not one for ********? Oh forget it..."
Tony looked like he was having a grand old time watching me try and fail to express myself fully, as he skillfully whipped through the information JARVIS had procured for him. It seemed to be relaxing him so I kept it up.
How much of that info did you help him with?
I asked Morgana carefully.
Just enough. We have formed an understanding.
I would want to check over what exactly Morgana had helped JARVIS uncover and how much she had supplemented the search. I doubted Zola was so careless as to have anything majorly incriminating aboard the Helicarrier, but there was enough to raise a few flags. Not quite red flags but very, very pink ones.
But whatever Tony was seeing right now was making him multitask between ferreting out SHIELD's dirty secrets and ordering furniture and clothes for a young teen girl.
I almost feel bad that I won't be staying, let you get some dad experience working with me so Peter doesn't have it so tough later
He would be about 10 years old right now. Just about Romeo's age. Still a perfectly normal, abnormally bright kid before the spider thing happened.
Oh he would be so cute! I want to just wrap him up and take him home with me. Romeo's always wanted a brother!
I then waited..and Morgana remained silent so I grinned into my cocoa.
You're not forbidding me from adopting Peter?
You know better than to interfere to that degree.
Do I really? I think it's more that you actually want to adopt him.
We are not of an age to be a viable foster or adoptive parent.
Excuses. May I counter with: sibling adoption!
"Ok, got some prime reading material for you. I want to know how inaccurately our media portrays magic." And Tony had just added the entire collection of Harry Potter books and movies to his shopping cart and a handful of other fantasy stories.
Oh, I could lead into some very interesting territory here.
I felt myself go still at Tony's current and wondered.
What would happen if I displayed some familiarity with various stories from this world? Like, the modern ones, not just legends.
"Banner, that's your play."
I sat up abruptly as Morgana reflected Natasha's iconic words back at me. It seemed that just after I had my encounter with Loki, she had apparently approached him with her wounded gazelle gambit and played on his ego.
I cased my surroundings carefully.
Can I tell where the initial blast is going to be?
Charges have not been set and without access to one of the men assigned to the task, we cannot discern the intended damage.
The lab was currently occupied by myself, Tony and Bruce. It would, in short order, also have Steve, Natasha, Thor and Fury. And the strike team was en route even now to knock the Helicarrier out of the sky. There would be tension and arguments-
A quiet chime made Tony and Bruce both check their instruments.
"Kid, are you feeling OK? Your levels kicked up a notch."
I swallowed, feeling very exposed and unsafe. There were going to be freaking bombs going off, I had limited magic power and was suspended thousands of feet about sea level.
"I don't think it will be." I took a large swallow of my cocoa, and looked for my snacks. I wanted as much magic power as I could feasibly hold for what was about to come.
Where do I go first? Do I help or hide? Do I wake Clint? Go with Bruce, or Thor? Steve and Tony can keep the carrier in the air. And Coulson. What about Coulson?
Going towards Loki was not my idea of smart, especially after I made myself out as a threat to the enthrallment that was puppeting him. But Coulson...
Does he even die?
Operating under the main movies only, yes, Coulson will die if he challenges Loki.
I looked down at my syllabary, the plans it contained for future problems, and wondered if what I had written so far was going to be enough to get me out of my current predicament. Of having too many places where I could be useful or helpful, and not enough time to deliberate and choose.
As the door slid open, I knew I had to make a choice in a matter of minutes.