Mischief on Midgard

Ms Potts

"And this," Bruce said with a grin. "Is the lab."

Loki peered inside briefly before following Bruce inside the rather large room. The many surfaces and walls were covered in all sorts of electronics, screens, mechanical arms, and other various objects. Loki looked around with a surprised blink.

"I know it's a bit overwhelming. Even when I worked with the gamma field reactor, it wasn't anything like this," Bruce said when he noticed Loki's expression. He chuckled and then cleared his throat. "That was probably a mistake in all honesty. Anyway, most of this was developed by Tony himself. He really is a technical genius."

This probably was a good time to learn more about Midgardian technology. To be honest, Loki had no idea what any of the different objects were used for. Oh, he knew that some of them had to be multiple types of scanners. Then there were, of course, the various computer and laptop screens that he'd already acclimated to. Everything else, however? Loki mentally shook his head. He could figure out what this equipment was used for. This was the most advanced technology that Earth had to offer, and it was right at his finger-tips no less! That had been almost too easy.

Fools.

Loki turned his head to the side to hide his expression from Banner and smirked, congratulating himself on a job well done. His enemies had freely handed him anything that he could possibly need. He almost, almost, felt bad about the very real likelihood that he would be betraying them in the future.

Still, that wasn't a certainty at this point. Who knew what the future would bring.

Once his expression was back under control, he looked up and glanced around the room once more. At the end of the room, there was a giant window looking out over New York proper. Loki walked over to the window and looked out at the grand city-scape before him. To think, roughly a year ago, he had been standing atop this very tower calling upon the Chitauri to wreak havoc upon the populace below.

His eyes scanned over the visible buildings. He could see the specks of humans that were milling around, going about their daily lives. One year was nothing in the grand scheme of the cosmos. A fleeting second. The flicker of a candle. Loki had to hand it to them, though. Looking down at the area, one would find it nigh on impossible to guess that a massive battle with interstellar creatures had taken place.

The people had mourned, rebuilt, and, in most cases, moved on with their lives. It was like the battle had been erased and forgotten from their minds.

"It's an amazing view, isn't it?" Bruce commented as he stepped beside Loki. "Kind of scary, huh?"

Loki frowned in thought. What was scary about such a view? It was like watching ants crawling around. Mindless drones that did not even realize the depths of what was going on around them. There was nothing scary about that. Unless Banner was referring to how high up they were? If so, then there was doubly no reason to fear. In fact, the view was... calming, if anything.

"Anyway," Bruce said as he turned away from the view, waving his hand at the neater portion of the room, "this part of the lab is free for us to use."

He then pointed to the other half of the room, which was a mess. Scraps, wires, half-finished projects, food-wrappers, and unopened chocolate bars lay in a seemingly haphazard mess. It took a moment for Loki to see any kind of order to the chaos, but it was there. If only in the sense that none of the food or trash was strewn over said various projects.

"As you can see, that portion is... not," Bruce said with a weak chuckle. "That's Tony's work section. He doesn't like anyone touching his projects. Try to ignore the mess."