"You're back late," Steve says, and Tony turns his head, looking at the other man. When this had been Stark Tower, Tony had often slept on the cot downstairs in his lab, but these days, with Avengers Tower a bed and board for Avengers and allies who just want to drop in, he has his own room up on one of the higher floors, with no windows on any sides – just sweet, blissful darkness where he can sleep for as long as he needs.

When Steve Rogers isn't in the way, of course.

"S'not so late," Tony says, shrugging his shoulders lightly. "It's only…" He glances at his watch, feels his eyebrows raise and his tired eyes widen a little, despite their dryness. "Oh, shit."

"Good morning," Steve says. He leans on the counter-island that separates the main shared living area from the walkway that leads to the elevators and stairwells to the bedrooms, and Tony sees now that Steve hasn't been waiting up for him to come home: Steve has his morning coffee in his hands, and has probably been for his morning run around Central Park already. "Six AM, huh. You just outta Svensson's bed?"

"You know, I preferred you when I didn't know how dirty your mind was," Tony says, putting his hands in his pockets, and Steve scoffs. "Rogers, I used to think the 40s were pure!"

"We brawled, we had sex, and we drank like all Hell," Steve retorts: he doesn't seem amused by Tony's attempts to joke, and Tony sighs, rolling his shoulders and feeling their ache. After leaving Loki's apartment, he'd settled on a park bench and just thought for a little while – although given that the sun is gonna rise soon, maybe he'd been there for longer than he'd initially thought. "Why didn't you just stay there?"

"I wasn't in his bed," Tony mutters, reaching up and pressing the heel into his left eye, rubbing at it and trying to soothe away the headache he can feel starting in the back of his head. "What's it to you anyway, Rogers?"

"Think maybe I misjudged Svensson," Steve says, his lips loosely pressed together. What is he thinking about, Tony wonders? His eyes have a faraway look to them – what, he thinking about Bucky? Maybe. Tony wouldn't be the first to wonder what exactly their relationship had been like before the war, before all that Winter Soldier shit, except Bucky talks more to Nat than Steve, and spends a great deal of time holed up in his own quarters, doing his own shit. Sam, then? Sam Wilson is easily the closest friend Steve Rogers has, except perhaps Nat, but Tony doesn't pretend to understand exactly how Cap makes his decisions or forms his relationships.

"I never heard you say a bad word about him," Tony says, slowly. And it's true, too: Steve isn't an unopinionated guy, but whenever word of Loki or one of his technologies came up, he'd shrug his shoulders and not say anything at all, one way or the other. "You been harbouring some dark thoughts?" He knows the way he asks the question seems ridiculous, but he's too tired to find a better way to phrase it, and Steve exhales slowly through his nose.

"Not exactly. Guess I just thought he was…" Steve seems to consider it, his eyes alive with the morning fire Tony totally isn't jealous of, and he finally says, "Guess I thought he shouldn't be here. He's a civilian, and he doesn't make weapons or defence systems – I kinda thought it was irresponsible of you and Maximoff to get so friendly with him, even if he wasn't regularly visiting the tower or anything."

"You don't like Maximoff no matter what he's doing," Tony points out, maybe a little defensively – he and Pietro will work sometimes in the same lab, Tony running tests and feeling the soft breeze as Pietro flits from one part of the lab to another, changing up the make-up of his suit or making some little device or other. Even with that, he had no idea Pietro was an actual engineer: he'd just figured the guy was smart and good with mathematics.

"You wouldn't understand," Steve says, and Tony swallows the bitter taste the reply leaves in his mouth. "Anyway, for Svensson… I thought he couldn't handle it."

"Today didn't prove he couldn't?" Tony's tone is sardonic, and ruefully, Steve cracks a smile.

"He broke down afterwards," Steve points out quietly. "Down in the basement, he kept his head. He coulda died, and he focused on keeping everyone safe. Raised my estimations, I guess. Raised yours too, seems like."

"This has been brewing for a while," Tony says.

"Didn't take you for a guy into other guys," Steve says, and he says it as if it reveals something big about Tony's character, as if it's somehow revealing. Tony frowns, glancing at the other man, but Steve's soft smile is friendly, and warm. He can hear the whir of the elevator down the corridor – the others in the tower are starting to wake up now, and Luke Cage is running a Mario Kart tournament later this afternoon. Tony had been set on snatching the prize out of Parker's hands, too… Maybe another day, when he isn't so exhausted he's asleep on his feet. "See you later, Tony."

"See ya, Cap," Tony says, and he heads down the hall, calling for the elevator. And who should be inside but Thor fuckin' Odinson, in a bathrobe with damp hair and a cheerful expression? God, Tony just can't get a break.

✯ ⇜ ⇝ ✯ MY STARS FOR AN EMPIRE ✯ ⇜ ⇝ ✯

Thor reclines in the pool, floating on his back, his arms and legs outstretched as that of the starfish, his gaze upon the tiled ceiling of the gym. He has found the pool at Avengers Tower is at its quietest in the dead of night, where barely anyone except Thor – who sleeps for more hours than the Midgardians, but takes a two hour break between some sleep and the next – will want to make use of it. Two or three times, another of the light-sleepers have joined him – Thor has challenged Luke Cage to lengths of the pool, and has retold stories of great battles to Bucky Barnes as he rests on the edge, up only to his ankles in the water – but for the most part he retains the silent waters to himself, and to his private musings.

It has been a long time since he has seen a young man so distressed by death as he had seen Loki today, so obviously sick to his stomach, and so overwrought… It is wrong, perhaps, that men like Loki, simple men with a passion for creation, should be drawn into the horrors of death and destruction, but no man can escape such things in the end.

"How old is Loki Svensson?" Thor had asked Natasha Romanov that night, when Thor had seen Loki leave to return home, with Tony offering him the use of his vehicle.

"Twenty-seven," Natasha had said, and looked at him with her deep, dark eyes, seeming perplexed. If Loki Svensson reminds him of Loki, Natasha reminds Thor a little of his niece, who inhabits the underworld and rules its entirety. Would it flatter her, Thor wonders, to be compared to Hel? Perhaps not. It matters little: Thor wouldn't consider it so simple a statement as to be a compliment. "Didn't you celebrate his birthday with him?"

"Is that old? For a Midgardian?" Thor had asked, and understanding had come to Natasha's face, her lips parting slightly.

"No, he's still young. Middle age is around forty, fifty. Old age comes at around seventy or eighty these days. Humans used to have a lifespan that stretched to seventy, eighty, maybe ninety – these days, though, people are living longer. Maybe by the time he's older, a hundred and ten, a hundred and twenty." She had reached out to him, reached out, pressed her cool palm to the breadth of Thor's arm, offered a small smile. Natasha, Thor knows, is a spy with a necessarily cold heart, and it had filled him with warmth that she would try to comfort him. "You'll have him a while yet, Thor. Don't worry about it."

Thor shifts in the water, closing his eyes and tilting his head back slightly, feeling the cool water sink into his hair, weighting it down and darkening it in the water. The scent of chlorine is thick in his nostrils, overpowering and uncomfortably strong, but when he had asked after the nearest natural spring, the response he'd received had been perplexed and uncertain. Midgard has need of these chlorinated pools, and Thor must simply make do, just as he must wear these strange "swimming trunks", as opposed to bathing in the nude, as he has long-been accustomed.

What is to be done about Loki?

Thor will telephone him this week, he thinks, and offer to meet somewhere with him; perhaps he might teach him to fight. Loki studies some Midgardian martial art or other, and Thor has watched him perform meditative exercises as part of this craft, but he doubts Loki knows how to fight properly.

Thor's brother had been reluctant to fight Thor, at first. When finally the palace guards began to offer each of them tutelage in melee, Thor had thrown himself into the new craft with aplomb, but Loki had been demure and uncertain, seeming so small at the side of the dirt arena in which Thor trained. Mother had taken Loki aside, Thor recalls, training him to fight as she had learned herself – Thor recalls he'd had a tantrum over it, on a night when the skies were stormy and Loki had finally faced him in the arena, and won.

Father had taken over Thor's tutelage from there… Had Father offered Loki help too? Surely, he wouldn't merely have offered it to Thor himself? Or, Thor notes to himself, there is a chance he offered, and Loki refused.

It serves him not to think of such things, and yet Thor finds his mind wandering to his lost brother multiple times a day. He had received a missive from Father and Mother that very morning – there had yet to be a sign of Loki in any nearby realm, and he could have fallen into the expanse of space itself, landing on some forgotten planet or cold moon.

Thor sighs, leaning forwards and swimming to the edge of the pool, pulling himself onto the edge and padding quietly into the changing room. Towelling himself off, he puts on his bathrobe (a gift from Tony Stark, emblazoned with a T in gold upon its breast) and a pair of slippers, stepping into the elevator and leaning against the wall as he rises toward the upper floors, where the bedrooms are to be found.

He covers a yawn behind his palm as the doors open a few floors beneath Thor's own, and he looks at the exhausted figure of Tony Stark. There are dark circles beneath his eyes, and his lips are slightly bruised: evidently, he has taken his time in "escorting" Loki home.

"Have you only just returned?" Thor asks, glancing at the time on the lift's blue-glowing screen: 6:13AM.

"You up already?" Tony asks, in a tone of vague complaint as he smashes the button for his own floor, and Thor smiles.

"I am returning to my bed now," he says quietly. "I shall take another four hours at least before I rise for the morning."

"You got the right idea," Tony says. His fingers are tapping nervously against his leg, and he is staring at Thor as if Thor poses some sort of threat: the motion is somewhat perplexing, and Thor allows his puzzlement to show upon his face.

"Have I worried you, Man of Iron?"

"Just… You know. I walked Loki home."

"Indeed. Most chivalrous of you," Thor says, nodding his head. Tony blinks at him. What, he expects further praise? But what more is to be said?

"You get the connotations of that, right? Me being out for like, six hours, after walking him home… Returning early in the morning?" Thor narrows his eyes slightly, twisting his lips and rubbing his palm over the short, bristly hairs of his beard. "You're not… I don't know, pissed? Protective?" Understanding comes like moonlight from behind a dark cloud, and Thor feels himself relax.

"No, Tony," Thor says, reaching out and gently patting the younger man's shoulder. "Loki is my good friend, and he makes his choices as he pleases. He is not my child, nor my dependant. On Asgard, we do not interfere in the relationships of others – perhaps offer counsel, when it is desired, but that is all."

"Guess I was worried you were going to threaten to beat me up if I hurt him," Tony says lightly. Thor chuckles.

"Loki is not of violent makings," Thor says. The elevator doors open, and he steps partially out of the elevator, leaning against the door frame to prevent them from closing before he finishes his sentence. "If you hurt him, Man of Iron, I have no doubt his revenge would be more cunning than that."

Tony laughs.

"Guess it's good I'm not planning to hurt him," he says softly. "Night, Thor."

"Good night, Tony," Thor says, with a polite bow of his head, and he steps down the corridor toward his own quarters.

✯ ⇜ ⇝ ✯ MY STARS FOR AN EMPIRE ✯ ⇜ ⇝ ✯

"My companions don't usually pack a bag," the Doctor says mildly. He sits cross-legged on the leather ottoman at the foot of Loki's double bed, which is sheeted in luxurious Egyptian cotton, watching Loki as he packs a small, vintage suitcase. The case is open beside the Doctor, and he eyes everything Loki puts inside: so far, some changes of underwear, a few pairs of rather tight jeans, two or three buttoned shirts. There is nothing in the room that speaks to Loki's apparent inhumanity: the Doctor had half-suspected him to release some sort of secret panel or complex technological device, but his bedroom is as mundane as any other room the Doctor's ever seen.

"Companions?" Loki repeats, and he arches a blond eyebrow, letting out an almost-offensively derisive sound. He doesn't seem at all uncomfortable with having the Doctor in his room, so the Doctor can only presume that there are no potential clues or curiosities around him – it doesn't mean he isn't going to look. "You wound my ego, Doctor, to tell me I am not the first."

"Nine stories, you said," the Doctor says, doing his best not to let the wheedle into his tone. He is curious, and he can hardly help it – he rarely revisits planets where he made an especial difference, and while he knows that he's made into legend on some planets or by some sects, he knows it is best not to dwell on it. But to have somebody right in front of him, treating him like a legend? That's impossible to resist. "Surely there were people with the Doctor in those stories?"

"In some of them," Loki says. He is wrapping twelve wax candles in brown paper and tying the parcel with twine. The candles smell like juniper and mistletoe, and the Doctor feels his nostrils flare as he inhales.

"Do you like the smell of mistletoe?" the Doctor asks mildly, thinking of his and Rose's encounter with the monks at Torchwood House a few weeks back. Loki chuckles, seeming fond for a moment, and then he gives an inclination of his head.

"In the Norse myth," Loki says lightly, taking up a small, wooden box and opening it up, "the God Baldr could not be harmed by anything at all. His mother, the goddess Frigga, had asked of every living thing an oath that it should never harm him: except the mistletoe. Frigga looked upon the mistletoe, and thought it so small and so insignificant that it could never harm him. So Loki crafted a spear of mistletoe, and passed it unto another, who pieced Baldr through and through."

"That's horrible," the Doctor says, but he doesn't frown. Loki seems deeply amused by the story, as if he looks on it fondly, and the Doctor is as curious about Loki as he is about his own tales.

"The myths are rather brutal," Loki admits, chuckling. "I rather liked the ambiguity of the character, thus why I took up the name. I didn't realize at the time, of course, that these myths had true progenitors." The Doctor watches as he picks up a few watches and silver chains, placing them carefully in the box, alongside a few sets of cufflinks, some earrings. The Doctor hasn't known a great many men so comfortable with jewellery.

"The Asgardians, you mean?" the Doctor asks, and he nods his head. "Yeah. Lots of people don't realize it when they first come to Earth, but it has a long history of alien inhabitants. Have you ever been to Asgard? I read an interview – you said you were pretty close with Thor."

"Been? No, goodness," Loki says, shaking his head. He seems pensive for a moment, clasping the box closed and placing it into the suitcase with the rest. There's a thoughtful conflict on his face as he finally shrugs his shoulders and gives an answer. "I rather like Thor, but I don't know… He believes I grew up near-worshiping stories of him. I don't know that I could walk the streets of his cities feigning astonishment and delight at every little thing, even were he to invite me. Have you been?"

"No," the Doctor says. He places his chin on his palm, considering the question as Loki opens a wardrobe and reaches in, taking out a few journals and a light jacket, placing both into the base of the suitcase. The journals seem hand-written, and he feels his two hearts sing with curiosity, so he forces himself to turn his head, looking at the wallpaper Loki has up in his bedroom. "Asgard is actually pretty strict about those who enter and exit – I've heard of Time Lords trying and getting caught by Heimdall. That was… That was years ago, when I was a child. He really can see everything in Asgard, you know." The Doctor trails off, feeling himself slightly stiff as his gaze traces the tree pattern on the walls.

"And you don't believe in magic," Loki scoffs, taking a tie and neatly tying up his hair. He seems to know not to ask about "Ought I change?" He gestures to the suit he's wearing, and the Doctor blinks.

"Why would you do that?"

"You don't think this is perhaps too formal for a casual romp on a distant planet?" The Doctor opens his mouth, then purses his lips together as he looks down at his own suit. Seems perfectly serviceable to him.

"It doesn't really seem important," he says, finally. Loki is staring at him, incredulously, as if he's somehow insulted by what the Doctor has said, and he arches his eyebrows, bemused. "What?"

"How many times, pray, have you been chased from a settlement by a horde of angry villagers?" Loki asks, archly.

"I'm not going to answer that," the Doctor says, rather hurriedly, and before Loki can ask anything else, he hops up onto his feet, clapping his hands together. "Got your stuff together?"

"Mmm," Loki hums. "I'd appreciate time to fix my Isaz, but I have all the components I need in a bag in the living room, so I'll just pop those into the case." Helpfully, the Doctor picks up the case by its flat side, leaving it open where it rests on his forearms as he follows Loki out of the bedroom.

"Won't you need your laboratory?" the Doctor asks as Loki picks up a leatherette satchel, taking a quick glance inside before placing it into the case and clasping it shut. Loki looks about as baffled as the Doctor must have looked when Loki questioned his suit.

"No," he says eventually. "How do you think I built a laboratory, if I required my laboratory to build everything?" The Doctor suspects this is a false equivalence, but he thinks better of pointing it out, and he watches as Loki pulls on a light coat and puts a silvery-blue scarf around his neck, hanging open over his coat labels.

The Doctor hands him the suitcase. "You ready?"

"I'm ready," Loki assents, with a neat nod of his head. The Doctor grins, and leads the way out of the apartment building.

Ten minutes later, Loki has his back pressed against the alley wall, one hand up before him, palm out and radiating electric heat, his eyes wild with a mix of fear and fury. The rain is falling in fat, leisurely drops, and when they touch the flesh of his outstretched hand they sizzle and evaporate.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he hisses, and the Doctor stands with his own hands up in a gesture to calm down, his shoulders squared. This is… Unexpected, to say the least.

✯ ⇜ ⇝ ✯ MY STARS FOR AN EMPIRE ✯ ⇜ ⇝ ✯

It is some minutes before seven AM: more specifically, it is twenty milliseconds past thirty one seconds past forty nine minutes past six. Pietro stands in the corridor outside Nick Fury's office, watching the rain as it falls onto the city below. For Pietro, time moves immeasurably slowly, so his watch reads his seconds like minutes and his minutes like hours: the rain comes down in slow motion, and it is beautiful.

Pietro has always loved the rain.

"Mr Maximoff," says a voice behind him, distorted and slow, but Pietro has been used to the strangeness of other voices since he was nine years old and his mutation manifested all at once, so he makes no comment. Turning, he looks at Nick Fury, at the black patch over his eye and his broad, strapping shoulders, at the slight shine on the top of his bald head from the overly bright lights in the SHIELD offices. "Thanks for the prompt report. You don't mind answering me a few questions?"

Pietro stands for a long time, absolutely still, his lips loosely pressed together, his gaze on Fury's face. Pietro has taken time to learn the rhythms of other people's speech, of the ways he must focus to naturally slip in the pauses and inflections that come to others so very naturally. Pietro learned to meditate at a very young age, to be comfortable in the stillness – it is perhaps ironic he seems so impatient to others.

"If you have questions, I should recommend you ask them," Pietro says, cleanly, and Fury's head tips forward in a silent nod. Pietro slips past Fury, settling in the chair across from the younger man's desk. Fury follows him slowly into the room, oh-so-slowly, but doesn't take his own seat: kicking the door shut behind him, he leans against his windowsill, his shoulders against the rain-soaked glass of the window.

Pietro remembers the way it was during the Cold War, when no one would dare stand against a window and not at least be aware of what was going on outside it, but those days are long behind them now – every window in SHIELD's office block is bulletproof, much like the glass in Avengers Tower, and indeed, in the apartment block Pietro built and lives in. Fury was an agent of the CIA during the Cold War – and Pietro had his own allegiances. A thousand memories replay in his head, a thousand vague wonderings about Fury, about New York, about the way the war went.

Many of the Avengers dislike Fury, in some way or another – Pietro knows Loki himself keeps his distance from the man outside of doing his background checks and filing his paperwork for Kuldeheim, but Pietro understands Fury. A career of espionage leads easily to paranoia, and Fury isn't the only man to assume the worst of those around him.

"How long have you known Loki Svensson?" Fury asks. "Your statement on the events last night details how you started asking him for a donation, then taking his offered help with set-up, letting him publicly endorse the Magda Corporation—"

"Korporacja," Pietro corrects cleanly. Fury stares at him.

"How long have you known him?" Fury repeats.

"I met him the night Thor joined the Avengers. He was nervous about meeting his childhood hero, and we spoke, briefly. A week or so later, he sent me a thank you card – in perfect Polish, no less – and a hamper of kosher meats and pastries. I appreciated the gesture, and our friendship began in earnest from there."

"He Jewish?" Fury asks, frowning. It is not Pietro's turn to stare silently for some moments, his head tilting slightly to the side.

"No," he says, slowly. "But this is New York, Colonel Fury. It isn't difficult to find a kosher delicatessen. To my awareness, he's an atheist."

"You know if he has any political affiliations?" Fury asks, the question well-practised and almost neutral in its intonation: Fury is a natural interrogator. Pietro so dislikes to be interrogated. "Is he a member of any political parties, mentioned sympathy for any causes, stuff like that?"

"Well, he's not a communist," Pietro says. He lets out a short bark of laughter at his own joke: Fury remains stony. A true American, this one. What a waste. "He donates to various school programs and charities. He donates to the Xavier School, and to various school programs for genetically gifted students. There is a playschool on the city limits for mutant children – I believe he's on their Board of Governors."

"What about your father?"

"He lives very frugally. Presumably he donates his money somewhere, when not building fortresses and the like, but I—"

"I mean," Fury bites out, wielding his impatience like a weapon, "How does Svensson feel about your father?" Pietro's lip twitches, and he feels amusement at having drawn a reaction out of Fury. He thinks of quiet dinners or drinks they've had together. Pietro had worried initially that Svensson was mounting some sort of seduction, but it had become quickly obvious that wasn't the case: they would merely spend time together, having conversations, discussing engineering or mathematical concepts Pietro can't speak about to others. Pietro's father has come up in conversation, but never has Loki asked him a question about the Mutant Brotherhood, or even about what Magneto himself is like.

"He's sympathetic," Pietro answers. "But not especially so."

"He likes mutants, right?" Fury asks, his eyebrows raising slightly. His hands are loosely clasped across his thighs, his shoulders touching the glass now. He's blocking out the sight of the rain.

"I see," Pietro says mildly. "You think Loki Svensson is a mutant sympathizer." That's rather funny. An interesting thought, to be certain: there is no doubt that Loki finds mutants interesting, and enjoys socializing with different types of people, but Pietro would hardly consider him a fanboy. The man simply has a lot of money to throw around, and so he does.

"You don't?" Fury asks. Pietro resists the sudden desire to scoff in derision.

"I don't think he sees mutants as any different to anyone else," Pietro murmurs, allowing his thumb to play over the glass-front of his custom watch, playing over the links that make up its bracelet.

"The Xavier School For Gifted Children," Fury says, reciting from a list in his head, "The Thompson Group. Musical Mutants. Fenton's Soccer and Basketball Club. Mint Playscheme. The West Star Paediatrics Group. Mutants With Bite Dentistry… These are all organisations Loki Svensson donates to. You saying he isn't extraordinarily into mutants?"

"I would argue that, yes," Pietro says quietly. "All of those organisations aren't merely focused around mutants, Colonel Fury: they are focused around mutant children. He also donates to various programs for inner-city school children, sponsoring them to visit museums, go on field trips, take out scholarships and bursaries, et cetera. He loves children, mutant or not."

There's an expression on Fury's face that Pietro is not entirely unfamiliar with. He sees it sometimes when he touches his daughter's cheek in public, or when he kisses her face after some time apart, and strangers visibly take offence. He sees it when he smiles at children in the street, or babies in the park, and their parents block Pietro's vision, or shoot him stares. It isn't necessarily because he's visibly a mutant, Pietro knows: he barely looks like he's into his forties, and he doesn't seem like a parent himself.

"He's into kids?"

"You're applying connotations where they aren't required," Pietro says lowly. "No children of your own, I suppose?"

"That ain't your business." Of course, Pietro knows the other man doesn't have children. How could one not know? Fury's single eye is intent on Pietro, and he asks, "And Svensson? He got kids?"

Pietro meets Fury's gaze. The question flares a curiosity in him, a curiosity Pietro has found since the two of them have formed their friendship, if friendship it is. He recalls Loki visiting him home, quietly commenting on a photograph of Luna and Crystal Pietro had hanging upon the wall.

"She's beautiful, your daughter. Such lovely hair, and her eyes… They've the same energy your eyes have. So full of life." Pietro remembers well, in that moment, the way Loki's face had seemed to gain so many lines and wrinkles, how momentarily ancient he had looked. He could have believed the man was thousands of years old, not twenty something.

"Do you have children of your own?" There had been a long pause as Loki had looked slowly from the photograph to Pietro himself. The ancientness about him, the old energy, had drained away, but had left a palpable melancholy. Pietro had never seen a young man look so very sad.

"No," he had said, and that had been the end of that.

"No," he says. "Not as far as I am aware. Is that everything, Colonel Fury?"

"One more question," Fury says. Pietro raises his silver eyebrows, leaning back slightly in his seat, and then he slowly puts out his hand, his palm facing the ceiling.

"Please," he says invitingly.

"Can you say, with absolute certainty, that Loki Svensson isn't a mutant?" Pietro laughs. It must sound distorted and malformed to Fury's ears, because the idea so surprises Pietro that he forgets to slow the sound down.

"That is preposterous," he says, pulling himself from the seat before Fury's desk. "You grow too paranoid in your old age, Colonel. You are seeing shadows where none fall."

"That's real poetic, Maximoff," Fury mutters. He stays on the window sill, crossing his arms slowly over his chest, and Pietro feels his gaze on his back as he slips from the room. As he leaves the SHIELD building, making his way out of New York and beginning the jog to his own offices in Chicago, he thinks about the question.

Loki Svensson, a mutant. Possible, Pietro supposes. But why hide it? To protect his privacy? To be fair, Loki doesn't reveal many personal details at all to the press, about anything at all. For a tech giant, he barely even uses social media for stuff to do with him. Sure, he tweets his support for events and wishes people happy birthday, takes the occasional selfie, but that's it.

Pietro supposes he could be a mutant… But it's not really his place to wonder.

✯ ⇜ ⇝ ✯ MY STARS FOR AN EMPIRE ✯ ⇜ ⇝ ✯

Loki has never travelled with a suitcase before. He's carried a pack – saddlebags, a knapsack, a satchel, once or twice even the traditional bundle upon a stick – but never one of these suitcases. He might have tried one of the modern ones, with the little wheels and the fabric casing, but he rather likes the aesthetic of the hard leather cases… And so petite.

He doesn't really need to carry possessions with him – with seiðr to hand, he can conjure whatever possession he requires from the very ether around him. Even heavy metals can be managed if the situation calls for it.

But he rather likes the image he must cast: a young man in a suit and a light coat, with a vintage case hanging from his left hand, and moreover, the weight of it is rather nice. The rain starts just as they exit the building, and Loki breathes in as he feels the first drops settle cool upon his skin, soaking into his tightly-tied bun of messy hair.

"I'm about ten minutes away," the Doctor says lightly. He walks confidently in the cool breeze of the morning, his hands in his pockets and his chin high: the sky is painted in peaches and deepening reds as the sun rises further above the skyline, and Loki smiles to himself as he falls into step beside the Doctor, who has a loping gait.

"Is it really a box?" Loki asks, softly. He is astonished at the wonder in his own voice, the childlike wonder he feels himself draw up from the well deep within, and when the Doctor smiles, Loki cannot help but smile back. "A blue box?"

"About ye high," the Doctor confirms, holding his arm above his head to indicate a height. "Deep blue, TARDIS blue. Time And Relative Dimension In Space."

"How does that work?" Loki asks.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you're Gallifreyan: you're not from work. Why does the acronym work in English – what's the Gallifreyan word for TARDIS? Is it a backronym, or—"

"Nobody's ever asked that before," the Doctor interrupts sharply, seeming mildly offended, and he shifts the position of his hands in his pockets, widening his stance. There's something mildly attractive about the way his brow furrows and his lips downturn, his nose wrinkling, even. Time Lords – do they have wives? Lovers? Partners? Presumably they do have sex… "Here we are."

Loki looks down the alleyway the Doctor gestures to, and he feels his lips part. He laughs his delight, taking a few steps forwards – it is, indeed, a blue box, crafted of what seems like wood. It looks like a telephone box specifically for calling the police – Loki imagines such things were common perhaps in the sixties in the UK.

The Doctor moves past him, offering him a slight smile, and then he takes a flat key out of his pocket, putting it into the lock of the TARDIS' door and turning it. Loki hears the soft click of the lock, and the doors creak softly as they open: golden light streams out from within, and Loki gasps as the energy hits him in the chest.

It's the same energy that clings to the Doctor's hair and skin and clothes, radiating from him: it is more than the scents and tastes that come away from him, but the very power that surrounds him, seems to bleed out from within him. The TARDIS has that power, magnified a thousandfold. Loki feels it wash over him, tingling on his flesh and combing through his hair, but he realizes that it is more than that.

This power, this foreign energy, has a pulse to it. He feels it interact with his magic as it settles against him, feels it mimic his own seiðr rhythms, feels it fill in the gaps. It's… Loki feels his tongue heavy, feels his mouth abruptly dry, and he drops his case on the floor and scrambles back, away from the mystical blue box he's thought about for so long.

"What?" the Doctor asks, his eyes wide with concern, and Loki stumbles until he finds the wall behind him, leaning back against the brick of the alleyway. He steps toward Loki, but before he can come close enough to touch him, Loki raises his left hand, bringing electricity to the surface of his flesh and holding it like a weapon.

The Doctor's hands go up like someone threatened with a gun, and Loki looks toward the TARDIS, his lips curled, his skin tingling. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he hisses, and he feels himself squirm, unwillingly, beneath the tingling energy as it affects his hairs to stand on end. "Is that why you've brought me here? To feed me to this blue monster of yours?"

"Monster—" The Doctor shakes his head emphatically, his hands still raised above his head. "No, no, it's a ship. A living ship."

"I've flown on living ships," Loki says. "That has too much— too much soul to be a ship." He feels the intelligence behind the cloud of energy around him, feels the care in the movements, and he feels an intense revulsion inside him. The energy itself seems at odds with Loki's own, and when he inhales he tastes it in the back of his throat.

The Doctor takes a slow step closer, reaching out. The crackle from Loki's hand, which is causing steam to billow up as the rain hits him, seems not to deter him: he simply reaches for Loki's other hand, which is flat against the wall. The Doctor's hand is warm on Loki's own, and Loki can feel his heart – his Midgardian heart, so vulnerable, so lacking in defences as his proper body would be – beat fast and hard in his chest.

"It's alright," he says softly, his voice quietly soothing, full of warmth. His eyes are tender now, and he is supremely gentle as he pulls Loki closer. Loki's steps are stumbling, and he feels himself shake. "Trust me, just trust me, alright? You could have killed me: it's the last you can do."

Trust him? Trust this madman? Is Loki truly so insane? Is he so bored by his life on this planet that he would let a stranger feed him to a monster of such proportions as this one? Hating himself, momentarily, Loki realizes his answer is plain: yes. He slowly reabsorbs the crackling energy, letting the Doctor pull him closer, and he stares, disbelieving, as the Doctor takes his hand and very gently lays it on the blue-painted wood of the TARDIS' outer shell.

It feels like wood. Cold, grainy, flat.

Loki looks through the open door and within. On its inside, the TARDIS is a high-ceilinged dome, with grating on the ground and pillars made of some unknown material supporting it. In the very centre of the room, there is some sort of console, dominated by a blue-glowing pillar.

"It's alive," Loki whispers. "It's… It's more than sentient. Surely you can feel it?" He is reminded of the stories of behemoths he once heard as a child: stories of great monsters, serpents, dragons, so large their size could barely be comprehended.

"Yes, I can," the Doctor whispers back. His hand is on top of Loki's, the flesh warm and surprisingly soft, and Loki swallows. He frowns, glancing between the TARDIS and Loki, and says quietly, "She's trying to open a telepathic connection. She says she can't get in."

"Why does she need a telepathic connection with me?" Loki asks. The askance must be so subtle at the edges of his well-protected mind that he barely feels it, and he reaches out, lets himself be aware… There's a cloud of consciousness around him, seemingly surrounding him on every side, and it feels warm. Tender, even. "This is the toll, then? For unlimited travel, for the universe… I must let this thing inside my head."

"I never thought of it as a price to pay," the Doctor says, shaking his head slightly, and he says, "Barely anyone ever notices it – she just links to people's subconscious, the backs of their minds. Of course, I've not had all that many telepaths aboard."

"I'm not a telepath," Loki murmurs. He can't do this. He oughtn't. "If she sees my mind… Can you?"

"No, it doesn't work like that," the Doctor says. "She doesn't really say anything in words, just in feelings, pushes. I'm sorry, I didn't realize this would be—" Loki tips his head back, his eyelids drooping shut, and all at once, he drops his carefully-built telepathic shields. It all floods in at once. The welcoming warmth, like a crackling fire in a hearth, seeps through his head, rushing into the space between his ears and filling it with golden light, and he hears a sort of rush where once there was sound.

Loki feels light-headed as he rebuilds himself, allowing the TARDIS to retain the new connection. He feels her prod him.

"Ah," Loki says. "Don't do that." She does it again: it's the equivalent of someone blowing air into one's face, but instead presses against his very seiðr, his energy. Incensed, he prods back. He feels a tingle against his lips, like laughter. "Your TARDIS is laughing at me."

"That's new," the Doctor says, slowly. "You believe she doesn't want you eat you, then?"

"I suppose," Loki mutters. Summoning his suitcase to his hand and ignoring the surprise on the Doctor's face, he steps into the TARDIS, listening to the metallic clank of the grating as his soles slap against it. The TARDIS is all around him, and he feels how large the dimensional pocket is. His seiðr comes away from him in a web, and he feels dozens of rooms and corridors coming away from a doorway from this central room. "You have a library?"

"And a swimming pool," the Doctor says. He is leaning against the central console, his coat thrown over a bannister, his arms crossed neatly over his chest. "What's that? There's an energy field around you."

"It's magic," Loki says softly, distractedly, as he looks around the room. "This is how you travel, then? Her power?"

"It's time energy: she uses the power of the Vortex itself."

"The Vortex?" Loki repeats softly: when his power touches the central console, he feels a light slap of power retort, and he draws the tendrils of seiðr back into himself. "The Time Vortex?"

"Something wrong?"

"It tastes bad, let us say," Loki says simply. "The time energy. I am a being of chaos, Doctor: such things take getting used to." Loki reaches out with his hand, this time, stroking some of the elements of the console, touching lightly over buttons, dials and rotors. Leaning over the console desk, he puts his hand against the pillar in the middle. Even through the glass, he can feel the mechanism within vibrating with energy, and he takes in a slow breath. "This is energy of the highest order. We're incompatible."

"Time isn't order," the Doctor argues. "It's more like—"

"Things that have happened have happened, even if you can go back and change them. Things that will happen will happen, regardless of what is to come." The Doctor scowls.

"That's just wrong," he says. His eyebrows knit together, and Loki bites his lip.

"I am a being of wrongness," Loki declares, with some self-satisfaction. "So. Where are we going? Do you decide, or does she?"

"Me," the Doctor says. There is tingling on Loki's lips, and he chuckles. The TARDIS disagrees, then…

"Then please," Loki says, waving his hand toward the console. "Let us go forth." The Doctor is smiling as he looks at Loki, and Loki looks at him, wonderingly. He begins turning dials upon the console, flicking switches, turning rotors and pressing buttons: Loki watches him as he plays the console like an instrument, and finally his hand rests upon a large handle, from an old-fashioned switch. "You'll bring me back here," he says quietly. "To this time? It will be like none has passed?"

"I promise," the Doctor says, and he flicks the switch. The console's central pillar moves, flaring with energy, and Loki watches the mechanism as it moves rhythmically up and down. "That's the Time Rotor," the Doctor says, and with that unprompted answer as invitation, Loki asks a hundred questions before their journey is through.