The Seventh Avenger: Playing With Fire

Chapter 22: Hashing Things Out

          The relief of hearing her friends' voices on the other end of the line is strong enough for a wide smile to split Ava's face in half. Any thoughts and fears that they were buried under the remains of the mansion at the bottom of the Pacific fleetingly retreat from her mind the longer she hears them talk, sharing with her their current predicament and wishing for her to help. In fact, the smile remains on Ava's face until Lydia ends the call. It's when she tosses her phone to the side of her bed that her round face turns sour, and she glares at the God of Mischief still standing on the other side of her bedroom. His arms are still crossed over his chest, and his head is tilted to the side as he studies her, confused by her sudden – yet obvious – hostility towards him.

         "What is it?"

          "Do you think that maybe next time I'm on the phone, you could try to avoid talking or making any noise at all?!"

          At first, everything had been fine. Loki had started to listen to the conversation between the three heroes with mild curiosity, though it seemingly didn't last long. At one point he had started muttering things under his breath, distracting Ava. Her focus slipped for a split second as she scolded him, not realising her mistake until a very confused Lydia and Tony on the other end of the call asked who it was that she was telling to shut up. She had managed to come up with a bullshit excuse, thankful that the gravity of the Mandarin situation had been strong enough to divert their focus back to the problem at hand and away from the truth; that the God that they hated was currently standing in her childhood bedroom.

          "They could have heard you!"

           "And that bothers you, doesn't it?" Loki says, the smirk on his face holding no traces of humour in it whatsoever. "The thought of your teammates discovering that we are working together?"

          "Well, duh! You're the insane God who tried to take over the planet. Not to mention that you tried to kill everyone on the team at least twice, you practically enslaved Erik Selvig and Clint, and – and you killed Phil Coulson."

          Her voice wavers ever so slightly at the last part, Phil's pained scream ringing in her ears and the memory of his dark blood seeping across the front of his shirt, like a blooming flower, flashing before her eyes. It's a moment that had initially haunted her dreams in the first few months following The Incident, and she truly doesn't think that she will ever be able to forget the day that Coulson died trying to save both her and Thor.

            All thanks to the God of Mischief standing before her now.

          She swallows thickly. Anytime she needs to remind herself just exactly who it is that she's dealing with here, all she needs to do is recall how Loki's staff had slipped into Coulson as easily as a knife through butter, ending his life in a gruesome manner.

          "They would absolutely hate me if they found out that I was working with you."

          "No, they wouldn't. They would not hate you. They would hate the circumstances of our agreement. Or find some way to blame me entirely for our agreed partnership."

          "Well, could you blame them? After everything that you did?"

         His dark brows pinch together, contrasting starkly against his pale skin, and he bluntly questions, "If what I did was truly so unforgivable, so despicable, then why did you agree to work together in the first place?"

          "You know why. Whether I like it or not, you're the only person that I can think of who would have any clue about what I am, and what it is that I can suddenly do. Trust me, if there was anyone else that I could turn to for this, then I would."