Transcendent
The next morning’s preparation was a flurry of activity, the Avengers mostly concerned with making sure you and Loki were unrecognizable so that no one at SHIELD would catch on to the plan.
“Now, as far as everyone besides Fury is concerned, Loki is currently serving out a sentence on Asgard and y/n doesn’t exist,” Tony said, looking at you pointedly as Nat pulled a wig cap over your head. You didn’t bother to correct him in regards to what SHIELD actually thought was going on with you. “We need to make sure they don’t figure out what’s really going on.”
“The less aspects of his appearance he needs to actually shapeshift, the better,” Thor said, looking over to where Banner was showing Loki a sketch of what disguise he should don. “If he gets startled, he could lose the look entirely.”
“I don’t get startled,” Loki snipped.
“Well, there was that one time…” Thor began but trailed off under Loki’s penetrating stare of displeasure.
“Those were exigent circumstances. It hasn’t happened since.”
“But it still did happen.”
You rolled your eyes, letting out a sigh of annoyance, and the brothers fell silent. “Let’s try not to rip each other’s heads off before we even get out there, please.”
Nat slid a wig of straight brown hair over your head, and you tried to ignore the itch that popped up right at the top of your scalp, shifting impatiently as she glued the edges down. Once she was done, she handed you a SHIELD uniform and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. “Go put it on.”
By the time you came back, Loki was arguing with Bruce over the sketch, still having made no headway in transforming himself to fit the façade. “This man is ugly. I refuse to become him.”
“It doesn’t matter!” Cap interjected. “It’s just one mission. You won’t look like that for life.”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” Loki sniffed. “I’ll choose my own disguise, or I won’t go at all.”
“You know what, fine,” Tony said. “Just do whatever makes you happy, we’re running behind already.”
Pleased with his small victory, a green flash travelled up Loki’s body, turning him from the Loki you knew into the unknown, and when you saw what he’d done, your jaw dropped.
Loki had turned himself into a girl, slightly shorter than he usually was, complete with long, dark hair and full lips. He, or she rather, had left her piercing eyes and roman nose alone, leaving you to marvel in just how perfect the God of Mischief looked at any given point of time. She showed off her envy-worthy curves in a SHIELD uniform that was just a touch tighter than it needed to be, and when she winked at you, you involuntarily blushed. What a shameless flirt.
“Okay, wow,” Steve said, blinking hard, as though Loki’s disguise was just a trick of the light he could squint away. “Well, I guess that’s as good a disguise as any.”
Thor, obviously, seemed to be the only one immune to feminine Loki’s charms. “I’m surprised you didn’t turn into an unripe banana this time, sister.”
“Perhaps next time, brother.” Loki strapped a gun to her hip, and you managed to rip your gaze away from her long enough to do the same.
“Sorry, what just happened?” Tony asked, holding up his hands for a pause. “You’re a girl now?”
“I’m a shapeshifter,” Loki said, like it was obvious. “I don’t get too hung up over the male-female thing, especially since I can just pick whichever one I want to be. Sometimes I’m a woman, other times I’m a man. That’s just how it works.”
“Alright then!” Tony clapped his hands together. “Now that we’ve got y/n and the Goddess-” he paused to give Loki a questioning look. She just nodded at him to continue. “-of Mischief all ready, I say it’s time to pay SHIELD a visit.”
“Let’s do it,” Nat said.
It was a brief jet ride to Washington, Tony flying as fast as possible while the rest of you all sat in silence. The Avengers would have to make small talk for over an hour once there, and it seemed they were saving up all their niceties.
“Okay, y/n, Loki, here’s your drop point,” Tony called out as the jet neared a park. You had all been certain there would be a welcoming committee when the jet landed at the headquarters, and it wasn’t exactly a good idea to have yourself and Loki onboard the jet when it landed.
“You can do this,” you whispered to yourself, double-checking the straps of your parachute as the ramp lowered. “I got this. All I have to do is jump.”
“What are you waiting for?” Loki yelled over the wind that whipped through both of your hair, bending her knees as she prepared to jump. “An invitation?”
“A divine intervention?” You yelled back. Obviously, you’d meant a divine intervention that made it so you didn’t have to jump out of a jet, but Loki apparently took that as a sign that she was supposed to step in. Before you could even put two and two together, she’d stepped behind you and shoved you off the ramp.
“Ahhhh! Loki!” You screamed as you fell towards the ground, your hair streaming behind you. Whatever glue Nat had used on it was not playing around. Your arms windmilling, you glanced over to see Loki in a graceful swan dive, her eyes wide open as she plummeted past you.
“Parachute now!” She called to you, pulling her own cord, and white filled your vision as the nylon fabric exploded out of her pack.
You pulled on the string of your parachute, a little too hard, because the string snapped off into your hand. The ground was coming up far too quickly as you zoomed past Loki, your body twisting uncontrollably. Even if the parachute somehow worked now, it was too late. And it was with that realization that your heart rate slowed, your breathing steadied, and you closed your eyes.
The flapping of a hundred wings reached your ears and you felt something grab the back of your uniform and yank upwards, slowing your descent. A swarm of ghostly eagles grabbed you, saving you from an auspicious future as a pancake on the ground. They set you down in the park and disappeared, drawing a lot of stares from the passerby.
“Official…SHIELD…business,” you panted, resting your hands on your knees and attempting to slow your erratic breathing as the small crowd moved on. Loki landed next to you, her parachute disappearing with a wave of her hand, her hair still perfect.
“That was graceful,” she quipped, reaching out to smooth down your wig. “I thought you were going to die for a moment there.”
‘Yeah, thanks for the help.” You straightened up, smacking her hand away. “So glad to know I can count on you.”
“You had it under control,” she asserted. “The eagles were a nice touch. Little bit smaller than the eagles I’m used to, but I understand that you were under some time constraints.”
“Shut up before I punch you,” you grumbled, starting your trek to the headquarters.
“Admit it, you find this form of me alluring,” she said, jogging to keep up, although it didn’t seem as though it took her any effort.
“Alluring is not really the word I’d use. Don’t worry, you’re still as dense as bricks.” You stamped up to the building, pulling out a small device Tony had given you, tapping a few buttons before the doors swung open. “Now, act natural.”
“Naturality is my speciality.” Loki smirked at you.
“Could’ve fooled me,” you muttered under your breath as the two of you stepped into the lobby.
“This isn’t the helicarrier,” Loki said, observant as always.
“Yeah, because we don’t think it’s on the helicarrier, and we didn’t really want to take you back there again.” You walked purposefully towards the weapons hall, the open design of the lobby making you feel exposed.
“Hey, you guys in counterintelligence?” A random agent approached the two of you, drawing his own conclusions based on your uniforms. “Because it’s Brandon’s retirement party, and I’ve been sent to collect everyone in the department who’s here.”
“We’re okay,” you said, nodding politely. “Brandon and I weren’t particularly close.”
“Brandon is close with everyone,” the agent emphasized. “I know we’re all going to miss him, but you ought to turn up for one last hurrah.”
“Will there be cake?” Loki asked, that familiar glint of mischief in her eye.
“Of course!”
“We’ll be there.” She gave him a flirtatious smile, grabbing your arm. “Come on, bestie, let’s go.”
As she pulled you off in the direction of the counterintelligence break room, you shoved her off of you, glowering. “Bestie? And what on earth are you doing?”
“You heard the man, it would be suspicious if we didn’t go to this send-off.”
“Has it crossed your mind that Brandon will definitely recognize that he’s never seen us before in his life? The others can’t stall forever! We don’t have time to run around like this.”
“Just let me grab a slice of cake.”
“No.”
You grabbed her by the shoulders, backing her into the nearest unoccupied room, slamming the door shut behind you. It appeared to be a dark storeroom, small and filled with cleaning supplies. Grabbing the front of Loki’s uniform, you pressed her up against the door.
“Stop being a rogue. We have a job to do, and if you can’t take it seriously, I will make your life hell.” Tensions were running high, and you could feel your stress level rising exponentially.
“I’d love to hear how you think you could accomplish that.” She grinned at you, tongue darting out to lick her lips.
“You don’t know the extent of my powers, bestie. Keep up the tomfoolery, and you might not like what happens when my good faith runs out.”
With that, you wrenched open the door, dragging her back out and in the direction of the weapons hall. You could hear her snickering to herself behind you, but you ignored her, focusing on the mission.
“Are you guys in the weapons hall yet?” You heard Nat said in your ear.
“Just about,” you whispered, attempting to move your mouth as little as possible as you unlocked the entrance. “We had a little bit of a situation.”
“Is your cover still intact?”
“For now.” You stepped into the hall, Loki following you closely like a little shadow.
The weapons hall was massive, much larger than the hologram had implied it was when you’d studied it. Like an old records room, sealed containers on shelves stretched on for as far as the eye could see.
“Okay,” Loki said slowly. “So we can evidently see that some of these weapons aren’t available for everyone. We just have to find the general firearms and then we’re good to go.”
“Yeah, when you see those, let me know,” you said, groaning. Loki shook her head, then started off down one row.
“Nat? Any help?” You hissed over the communication device.
“Go to the very back of any of the rows. There should be a general area at the end.”
Seems inconvenient, you thought, walking swiftly after Loki.
Just as Nat had said, shelves of guns were at the back of the hall, all with usage logs. Loki was already examining them, popping the clip out of a few to inspect.
“Look for one that hasn’t been fired lately but has been checked out multiple times,” you advised, scanning the logs.
“Found one,” Loki said, removing the handgun from the shelf and popping out the clip. “This looks promising.”
You abandoned your current line of inquiry, heading over to her as she pried it open. A little USB sat inside, where the bullets would usually go.
“Good work, Loki,” you said, closing it back up and swapping your own sidearm for this new one. “Now let’s get out of here.” You quickly informed Nat that you’d acquired it over your earpiece.
“We might have a problem,” Nat said back. “They think there’s an intruder in the building. They’re going to lock everything down. I don’t know how they found out, but get out or hide.”
You repeated this information back to Loki, pulling her into a side room that branched off the weapons hall. It wasn’t a hallway, like you’d thought, and you needed a code to get back into the weapons hall. Instead it was a medium sized room, some discarded targets leading you to believe it was used to test out weapons. The lights were dimmed and deep blue; not the best for visibility.
“Great,” you muttered, pulling out the device Tony had given you and moving to unlock the door. Instead of the little electronic pad turning blue and unlocking, like it should have, it turned red.
“That’s not good,” Loki said. “It appears they’re going into a state of lockdown.”
“Thank you for the super helpful commentary,” you said, sinking to your knees and inspecting the pad. It seemed to be reinforced, presumably to prevent any stray ballistics hitting it and damaging it. Truthfully, you weren’t exactly used to this sort of situation, and it was stressing you out, being locked in a room with Loki.
“Got a magnet?” You asked Loki, looking up from your spot on the floor.
“Sorry?”
“These don’t use regular screws, they use powerful magnets to make it harder to break. Do you have a particularly strong magnet?”
Loki reached into the air, pulling a magnet out of thin air and handing it to you. Breathing out a small sigh of relief, you managed to pull the pad’s outer casing off, letting it clatter to the ground as you inspected the wiring.
“Okay, if I can properly line these up, I think I can make the door open.” You started pulling at the wires, attempting to identify them.
“Why are your hands shaking?” She asked, noting your stress.
“Shut up!” You snapped back, not particularly wanting to get into your claustrophobia.
“I’m just saying, this could be going faster if your hands weren’t shaking.”
“It’s not like this is something I’m purposefully doing,” you grunted, doing your best to connect two of the little wires.
“Just stop doing it.”
“Argh!” You leapt upwards, pulling one of your massive katanas from thin air, levelling the point to Loki’s chest, backing her up against a wall. “Shut the hell up or I’ll run you through with this blade.”
“How come when you’re holding the little wires, your hands are shaking like crazy, but now when holding a massive sword, they’re suddenly so steady?” Loki’s teasing tone was infuriating you. You knew she was just enjoying getting a rise out of you, but you couldn’t help it.
“Because I’m not used to doing this sort of thing, okay! I’m not a spy, the only role I’ve ever played is that of a fighter! So holding swords is far more my style.”
“Shh,” Loki said, placing a hand on the top of your blade with the intention of pushing it downwards. You didn’t yield.
“Don’t tell me to shush! This whole time you’ve been absolutely insufferable, and now you’re telling me to-” You were cut off as Loki quickly dodged around your sword, pressing both her hands over your mouth and backing you against the other wall.
“There’s someone in the weapons hall.”
There went your plan of escape. Your eyes widened as you looked her in the eye, your heart beating so hard you were sure she could hear it.
“I might have an idea,” you said carefully.
“No, we are not travelling through the soul world,” Loki hissed.
“It’s not just the soul world I can travel through,” you said. “I can go short distances through fog and shadows if I’m with someone, further if I’m not lugging a person along.”
“Wow, your powers really just want you to be as creepy as possible, huh?”
“Unless you have a better idea?”
“How about you get us back to the tower?”
“Did you not just hear me? I can’t go very far at all.”
“Okay but what if I wasn’t a person,” Loki said, talking faster now that the voices outside were getting closer. “I’ll transform myself into…I don’t know…a ring or something and you take me back to the tower with you.”
“That should work,” you reasoned, quickly speaking into your earpiece. “Okay, Nat, we’ll meet you guys back at Avengers Tower.”
You turned back to Loki and nodded. In a flash of light, she turned into a ring and dropped to the floor, promptly rolling out of your vision.
“Damn it!” You seethed, bending down and digging through the pile of discarded targets.
“In here!” You heard someone say right outside the door as you shoved Loki onto your finger, raising your sword and ramming it straight into the light socket. The dimmed lights went out completely and you felt yourself fade into the darkness.
Picturing the shadow your dresser always cast at this time of day, you blindly leapt out of the dark, falling out and onto the floor in your bedroom, yanking Loki off your hand and throwing it outwards. Immediately, he sprang up from the ground, back to his typical masculine self.
“I thought you were used to doing that,” he said, frowning, as you peeled yourself off the floor.
“Usually I only go a few feet, not all the way across the country,” you snapped, grabbing the wig glue solvent Nat had left on the top of the dresser and dabbing it at the edges of the wig, peeling it off your scalp.
“Okay, okay,” he held his hands up in surrender. “I think we’re at each other’s throats a bit today.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re an immature cad who can’t take anything seriously!”
“Or maybe it’s because we’re both just stressed about having to do our first mission together and not wanting to mess it up.”
“Or maybe,” you said, slightly more forcefully, “it’s because I have a strong dislike of being trapped in small spaces and you were just making things worse.”
“You’re afraid of confinement; a loss of freedom,” Loki said quizzically. “You can go anywhere. It’s been proved repeatedly that you cannot be restrained.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” you said, laying flat on your bed. “Or you could consider that the only reason I’m so good at escaping is the fact that I’ve had lots of practice.”
“Well, I think we’re both well versed in the art of elusion. But don’t worry; we all have our fears.”
“You’re afraid of being alone.” Your voice was barely a whisper as it came to the realization of what Loki could possibly be afraid of. Ever since the conversation started down that route, you’d attempted to pinpoint what the god could fear. And now, tilting your head to look at him, you knew you’d hit the nail right on the head.
“Why do you say that?” He moved to the bed, laying down next to you, eyes boring straight into yours, the fire from your earlier conversation completely fizzling out.
“It’s why you talk so much. You want people to listen; to stick around. And at the same time you wear a cloak of indifference because you’ve convinced yourself that if you don’t care, it won’t hurt when they leave. And if you’re the one to leave first, to betray them and burn that bridge, then it hurts even less. I get it.”
Loki was silent for a moment, then he breathed out slowly. You could feel it on your own face, and you could smell his scent. It was difficult to describe, a sort of mix of pine and dew and leather and flowers, and the only word you could use to sum it up as was ‘nature’. He smelled like life.
“Come visit Asgard with me,” he said, abruptly changing the subject.
“What?” You drew your brow, searching his eyes for any sign of a joke.
“Come home with me. I’m long overdue for a visit.”
“I don’t think Fury would spring for that little fantasy.”
“But if I can convince him, would you come?”
“If you can convince him.” You weren’t about to turn down an opportunity to visit Asgard, to see its splendour for yourself.
“They don’t call me silver-tongued for nothing,” he said with a small smile. You let your eyelids flutter shut, tired after the events of the day, simply thinking about Asgard. The mystical realm beyond the clouds, one you never imagined you’d be so much as offered to go see. And then Loki had sauntered into your life to change that.
“Why now?”
“The winter solstice,” Loki said simply. “There’s this big party and everyone gets together. People are a lot nicer to each other during the solstice.”
“Like Christmas here on Earth.”
“I don’t know what that is, but sure.”
“Okay, so it’s the eighteenth so you have what, two days to convince Fury?”
“Challenge accepted.” He gave you a wicked grin. “I will play the religion card.”
“I’m not sure that really works when you are the god,” you giggled, turning away from him. In the distance, you could hear a plane approaching. “That’s probably them, coming to get the drive.”
“Right,” Loki said, watching you intently as you sat up, prying open the clip once again and ripping out the USB.
“You might want to get up,” you commented, standing up and sending the remainder of the gun to your otherworldly storage locker.
“Mmmm,” Loki considered, chewing on his lower lip. “I think I’ll just wait here for you to get back. Send a little message off to Director Fury.”
“Do you mean like, send an email, or project yourself into his office and haggle him?”
“Well, I don’t have a computer. Seems simpler, you know?”
“I’m sure Stark would give you one if you asked nicely.” You walked over to the doorframe, wiggling the drive at him. “And Fury, like most people, is probably a little unsettled by your duplication casting, so how about in the interest of persuasion, you don’t do that?”
“Y/n!” You heard Thor call from the main level.
“Duty calls,” you said, dancing out the doorframe and off to pass off your new intel.
“I think we’re in the green, as far as that mission went,” Tony said as you joined the others, grabbing the USB form you before heading over to pour himself a glass of whiskey. “Anyone else want some?”
“Really? They didn’t catch onto you at all?” You asked incredulously, accepting a glass from him.
“Nope,” Nat said with a grin. “They didn’t even notice me snooping around their employment records. Not that we’ll get much out of those, but it was nice to have things go right for once.”
“Banner really stole the show, so to speak,” Thor said, clapping a hand on Bruce’s back, causing the smaller man to cough.
“Yeah, what were you even talking about?” Steve asked.
Bruce blushed slightly, scratching behind one of his ears. “Eddington and stellar nuclear fusion and the impact on the scientific community.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that,” you said absently, sipping at your drink. When all eyes turned to you, you smoothly sailed past, adding on, “I remember reading about it during a brief nuclear physics phase I had in high school.” The lie was simple. Too simple.
“You had a nuclear physics phase?” Steve asked quizzically.
“Stark.” You were saved from having to answer by Loki’s reappearance as he sauntered into the room.
“Yes?” Tony raised an eyebrow, apparently surprised that Loki would address him directly.
“Y/n said you could get me a computer so I could write an electronic mail to Director Fury.”
“Did she now?” Tony gave you an inquisitive look. “I suppose I can do something of the sort. Come on, let’s go to the tech room.”
Loki followed Tony out of the room, and Nat turned to you. “Why is Loki trying to contact Fury? I thought they hated each other.”
“I suspect it has something to do with the solstice,” Thor said. “It’s one of the few festivities Loki genuinely enjoys. It falls during Jul, or as you humans call it, Yuletide, a twelve day festival to honour the ending of the year. However, the solstice is seen as the most important of these days.”
“Sounds fun,” you said mildly.
“It is. Loki is a Frost Giant, so he feels more connected to the winter on a biological level. I think it is why he is less prickly this time of year.”
“This is what you’d call less prickly?” Nat said.
“You saw what he was like in May.” You hadn’t really intended to let that slip out, but it did anyhow, and everyone paused, looking at you, before Steve burst into laughter and the others followed.
“She makes a fair point, this one!” Thor declared, slinging an arm around you. “If Loki is going to ask Fury if he can visit home for the solstice, I might as well ask also. I can promise to bring him back.”
“That would be helpful,” you mused, watching as Loki and Tony returned, Loki clutching a laptop under his arm as he headed back to his bedroom.
“Work something out?” Cap asked.
“Oh, we definitely came to a conclusion,” Tony said, pouring himself another glass of whiskey. “Threats were made. I offered to write the email for him and that just seemed to set him off more and around and around it goes.”
“I’m going to go help him,” Thor decided, marching off purposefully.
“I wouldn’t…” Tony said, but his advice fell on deaf ears. “Well, I tried.”
“Honestly,” Bruce piped up, “I’m surprised that we haven’t all turned up dead yet. Fury’s experiment of having Loki live with us kinda freaked me out to begin with, but we’ve all had experiments that have turned out a lot worse than this. I’m proud of us.”
Nat sat down on a bar stool, leaning back against the counter. “I think we have y/n to thank for that one. You really seem to speak this guy’s language.”
“Loki and I are friends,” you said uncertainly. “I didn’t do anything special except be nice to him. You guys were acting like he was a time bomb waiting to go off, when in reality he’s just a little confused.”
“A little confused? Guy’s been alive, what, a thousand years or so? And you think he’s confused?” Tony shook his head.
“Not everything is made clear with time,” you responded, picking at your nails. “Sometimes it makes everything murkier.”
It was true. You thought you’d known everything. How to survive, how to fly under the radar, how to make yourself fit into the mould of a human being. But now, with Loki here, your mould was under pressure. And it was only a matter of time until you broke out. Whenever that day came, and you weren’t sure when it would, whoever you were to become was a mystery to even you. But you knew that destiny had your calling card, and eventually you would have to become whoever it had fated you to be.
And you had hope that she was someone good.