Catalyst
"Ok so," Tony starts while stepping into the main room.
“Why are we here? It’s like 8 in the morning,” Sam asks, receiving many equally tired nods from others at the table.
“I told you why we’re here. Wanda and I found a hostage at the facility yesterday and she was pretty beaten up. So we’re just trying to sort out the situation here, ok? Let's all be nice because who knows? She might even become our newest recruit,”
“Another one, Tony? We just got the spider boy over there," Sam challenges, nodding his head across the table towards an offended Peter.
“Hey! It’s SpiderMan!”
“Not with that squeaky little voice, it’s not."
"I-"
"As I was saying,” Tony's annoyed tone shutting both of them up, "I'm not sure about her credibility yet, so that's what this meeting's for. We're all just gonna have a nice little chat about her powers, and Hydra, and how we plan to move on from here. Hey, where are they?" he questions, highlighting Loki and Thor's typical seats.
As if his request was heard by the universe, at that moment Loki's tired groans fill the main room as he emerges with Thor pushing him out of his room.
"Get off," pulling his shoulders away from Thor's force, "It's too early for this," Loki complains.
"THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING!" Sam exclaims, throwing his arms up in exasperation.
Loki and Thor take their seats. Loki rubs his eyes and scowls at Tony, and he may or may not be plotting his demise. He catches Wanda glaring at him across the table so he rids his head of thoughts.
"Well,” Loki asks, breaking through the background conversations he deemed unuseful, “where is she?"
Her story had piqued interest in him, even just the snippets of sentences he gathered up from Wanda and Tony's hushed discussion in the healing room. Perhaps, he was being meddlesome then, but he wanted to know. And he was going to be let in on it soon enough, so why not just find out now?
“She’s just changing, I’ll go back in a sec. Please be sensitive though guys. Seriously. She seemed a bit shaken, and for good reason.”
A collective murmur of “yeah” and “okay”s rang out in return.
“Oh, and I wouldn’t stare,” Tony adds.
“Stare, why would we stare?”
“Let’s just say I wouldn’t want any of you hitting on her the first day,” he explains smugly, leaving them all confused.
Tony walks off in the direction of the guest room now appointed hers, between Peter’s and Bucky’s.
Loki had not slept well the night before. The bright waxing moon had reflected in through his open window, leaving smudges of white along the darkness of the walls. He had watched them, breathing in the cool summer air, and thought of the girl.
A Hydra associate -- formerly, of course. She had powers apparently; he wondered what kind. Was she like him?
How bad was it, if Tony had had to stay holed up in his office scrambling, prying through the internet for any, if any, evidence of her existence, any files on her last 10 years?
How bad was it, if the hostage had to stay in the medical quarters for most of the day, although for all of it unconscious?
How bad was it?
How bad had it been?
Hearing footsteps and feeling Thor’s eager elbowing, Loki reluctantly breaks from his thoughts.
Tony is walking back towards the table, however this time accompanied by her. Her.
And at that moment, Loki feels wide awake. His eyes brighten, lips parting to empty out a breath.
She’s very.
Wow.
They approach their seats and Tony drops his hand on her shoulder, shaking her lightly.
“This is her,” he announces, “Chloe.”
This is her.
Chloe.
She’s scanning the table, incredulous.
The goddamn Avengers. This is crazy.
“Pleasure, I’m sure,” she acknowledges, putting on a cool front and grinning with a glimpse of mischief in her eyes, which is fitting, because she and Loki hold eye contact for the first time.
Shit, he’s even prettier in person. She smiles more personally at him now.
He breathes out a small laugh and he feels his heart slow.
And they didn’t know it yet, but the stars look down at the two of them and sigh in relief, for ah, at last, they meet.
Nat is the first to break the silence.
“You boys done drooling over there?” she asks, arching her smirking face over in Loki’s direction.
Chloe and Tony sit, and of course, her seat is opposite Loki’s.
Tony starts the discussion although his words sound blurred to Loki at this point. She tries to focus on his words, but all she could feel was Loki’s burning gaze.
“So we’ve pieced together most of the story, picked up the rest through files, so why don’t we just confirm?”
“Confirm?” she repeats, looking away from Loki.
“Yeah, confirm your story. How you got your powers, why you were there, that sort of thing. We’ll need this info if we want to finally take down Hydra,”
Oh.
Take them down?
“Take them down?”
“Yes,”
Oh.
Thank you.
She spends the next couple minutes explaining as much as she can without falling into her hole again. She leaves out some things.
It’s hard, saying all this. Makes her feel like she’s begging for attention.
But they did ask, didn’t they?
They listen, and the room is silent except for her bulletproof voice. No questions are asked.
“And I just waited for the next mission to come. Just held on till then, I guess,” She takes a deep breath, stabilizing herself.
“And I was weak. They hadn’t fed me much cuz I’d just run away. That’s what they’d do. Punish me.”
Those last words hardened and hushed. Loki noticed, and chills ran down the nape of his neck.
Her voice sounded almost violent, like the cold metal veins in her hands could rip Hydra’s head off at any moment. It was all there in her tone, ominous and sinister, in a way he thought only he could be.
It was heart wrenching when her voice was shaky and cracked, but when it steadied, she became terrifying, words spitting out like daggers. Raw and bleeding and exposed and destructive.
As the time goes by, the others eyes’ slowly widen and widen and sadden.
It wasn’t that bad, she assures them.
But it was.
She knows it.
They do, too.
She finishes and they sit.
They sit with it.
“God,” Pietro exclaims quietly after a moment or two.
“Heh, yup,” she feels an uneasy blush creeping onto her cheeks as the gravity of the situation settles in.
She shuffles in her seat.
Slowly, Tony and Steve rebegin conversing but whatever their words were, she didn’t feel it necessary to listen. She needs to stay quiet after all that reliving, after finally making her life known.
As Chloe intensely concentrates on the hands in her lap, trying her best to somehow become invisible, she feels a kick on her feet.
She looks up quick.
Another kick.
Loki, directly in front of her, has a growing grin along his lips, glad to have gotten her attention.
Another kick, this time as they made heavy eye contact.
He tilts his head and his eyes become softer, lifting his dark eyebrows in interrogation. And as if Loki and her were now one, she knew he was asking “Are you ok?”
Concern.
She kicks back in return, involuntarily surrendering a whisper of a smirk. They continue on like playful little children, another rush of adrenaline accompanying every coming kick.
“You get all that, Chloe?”
“Chloe?”
“Huh- oh, yeah,” she responds quickly to the voice that turns out to be Steve, caught in the act: “Yeah I got it, heh,”
Tony rolls his eyes, but Chloe doesn't see. Loki's cheeks glow as he smirks with his head down-turned to hide it.
“Wait so you have nothing? No clothes, no books, nothing?” asks a staring Bucky. Across the table Cap gives him a look of reproof.
Before she can answer, Tony stands up, almost knocking his chair down, as if he’s only just been reminded of something.
“Wha-?” many of them ask, their heads turning as he walks fast to Chloe’s room.
She looks over to Loki and burrows her brow in question.
He just shrugs like an old friend.
They all sit in silence listening to a couple bangs whilst making confused faces, until Stark returns struggling to carry a large cardboard box.
When he walks up back to his place, he smiles and dumps the contents of the box onto the table, which spreads papers, folders, and other random items in front of them all.
There’s a red journal with a metal star imprinted on it which Bucky stiffens up at the sight of.
There’s an old stuffed lamb and a baby pink blanket trimmed with satin.
There’s a sea of file folders thick and cold, some old and yellow, others newer and clean, labeled with dates and her name.
There’s a basic brown leather wallet, one she recognizes.
There’s an empty glass vial, its walls smeared with some blueish substance, in a stapled shut clear bag.
There’s a notepad Tony takes out.
“Ok, all of this here, we found at the facility. But these,” he shakes the notepad in his hand, “are my notes.”
He flips through them anxiously, but everyone else is too busy digging through the items he’s dumped onto the table.
Natasha passes around files, holding up a picture ID of a much younger girl and her hands tremble, remembering how young she was herself.
Wanda glances at the evocative bruising on Chloe’s neck, knowing exactly what caused it. An old familiar tenseness settles in her throat.
Bucky picks up the red notebook with solemnity, and Sam rubs his thumb on his back, in an attempt to comfort the other.
It doesn’t work.
Thor picks up the blanket tainted with childhood and the smell of old linen wafts into his nose.
“Is this yours?” he asks, with all the consideration he can muster.
He looks up to find her holding the stuffed earth-colored lamb, and the look on her face makes sorrow ping in his heart.
“Yeah,” There is a slight pause as she looks up, “Yeah, I had these on the day of my capture,” She scoffs and sniffles and her eyes ease.
“It smells very nice. Loki, smell it,” and he shoves the blanket into Loki’s unprepared face. Chloe attempts to stifle her chuckle, unsuccessfully.
He pushes it away distractedly.
“Yes, yes, delightful.” And then his eyebrows jolt up, “Vanilla?”
“Yeah,” she breathes out a sweet laugh. He knew.
Frigga always reminds the servants to use vanilla-scented oils for Loki’s garments; it’s one of his favorites.
He hums and continues on with the files.
Tony finally brings the main conversation up again, breaking through all the side ones.
“I guess we’ll keep you here, for now, seeing as you’ve got nowhere else and you’re a minor.”
“Not for long, I’m not.”
“Yeah, your file says August 13, right?”
“Mhm. God, I can’t wait,”
“Yeah well, we’ve definitely got enough room. It’ll be fun,” Tony assures her.
“Yeah ok,” and a meek smile grows on her lips.
“Chloe,” Natasha starts softly, after she notices her fidgeting, “Are you comfortable staying here?”
There’s a pause as it sinks in; they really do care.
“Yeah.” She sits up and grins. “Yeah, I’m sure I’ll fit right in,” forcing the confident tone in her voice but they all must have believed it because Vision speaks up.
“I’ll notify Secretary Ross,”
“Oh god no,” Tony begins to protest but Pietro interrupts his next words by loudly slamming one of the notebooks as he gets up from his chair,
“Alright, then, meeting adjourned,”