Unexpected

Conflicting

After a minute we pulled apart and we both leaned back, him against the stainless steel kitchen counter and me near the oven. A blush came over me again as I knew that I was smiling foolishly. My grin fading, I decided it was about time we got down to business. I needed to know what had happened during Loki's absence. "So, what happened?"

Loki gave me an account of all that had happened since he'd left me in that upstairs room of the German gala. His tale went over his act with the eye hologram on the host of the party that had sent to guests into a flurry, the fight and his capture by the hands of Iron Man and Captain America along with the female who was known to them as the Black Widow, and the flight to the Helicarrier during which Thor surprisingly came and tried to steal him. Upon the mention of his brother, Loki's face darkened and his voice grew low and growly while I was surprised. Another demigod on earth and Loki's brother on top of that? He continued with telling me of the heroes' brawl, his entrance on the great flying machine, getting locked up in a glass prison meant to detain the Hulk if should ever turn green, his talks with their leader Nick Fury whom I remembered Barton talking about and the Black Widow.

Apparently the job the scepter was supposed to do, setting the team of heroes on edge and making them more prone to bickering, had done its job and the team had started crumbling and when Barton and his team came to retrieve Loki and the scepter the Hulk was released. The Helicarrier almost plummeted into the sea, the heroes were disbanded, and Loki had tricked Thor into the glass cage he'd been entrapped in and after stabbing some agent he'd released the prison and dropped Thor. Loki then left the Helicarrier and was flown back here.

"It worked then." I sighed as the story ended. I felt almost disappointed to hear that everything had gone as planned.

"Yes. Not perfectly, but the plan is still very much in action." Loki said. He seemed partially pleased and partially as disappointed as I was. Something about his demeanor said that he at some level wanted this plan to be over or maybe to fail, which made me happy to know that his heart wasn't dead set on his domination as it had been when I first met him, but at the same time, he was not about to lose his determination to succeed. There was too much resting on this for him to simply drop what he was doing, and I knew that even if I hated it.

"It sounds like it went pretty flawlessly to me." I said shaking off my other musings.

"Yes well, I wasn't planning on Thor being here. Apparently he and everyone I once knew thought I was dead. It was probably the Tesseract that brought their attentions here, and no doubt Heimdal caught sight of me." His voice growled at the name Heimdal. For a second I struggled to remember who Heimdal was in Norse mythology before I remembered that the name belonged to the all-seeing gatekeeper. As I was remembering this I almost missed what Loki was saying next, "Then there's the fact that I lost Barton."

"Clint?" I asked surprised.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. has him back now." Loki sighed taking one of my potato fries and biting into it, "It matters little, he did his job, but I would have preferred to have had him on my side during the battle. He was a good asset."

I had mixed emotions about this. Part of me was glad that he was away from here, maybe he could help the government agency prepare and possibly prevent this war, he was free from this place and hopefully S.H.I.E.L.D. could fix his brain, but at the same time he was one of my few friends here and I was going to miss his rather silent company. Clearing my throat, "When is this battle?"

"It's far too late now and I need to rest, we will move out in the morning to Stark Tower."

Tomorrow. The word almost seemed to echo in my mind. This was all going to go down tomorrow morning. "Ah."