Healing Each Other (Loki Fanfiction)

Chapter 2

Loki. I've never met the man, but I've heard rumors and I've seen footage to prove them. He eyes us all, me slightly longer than the others, before joining us at the bar. I stiffen as he comes up next to me. Luckily, he doesn't seem to notice my reaction. Calm down.

"You called?" He asks Tony dully, completely ignoring the rest of us, his brother especially. Thor watches him carefully, but Loki isn't dumb enough to try anything, not here. Not surrounded by the very people who took down his army. He is, at least for now, calm. It's strange, being this close to a known killer, a Norse god, a madman. I can feel him inches away from me.

"If you didn't come, we weren't about to wait," Tony responds, already grabbing his piece and heading to a couch. I follow him, careful to stay away from the younger prince, no matter how docile he may seem.

While everyone else is busy, I turn to Tony, who seems intent on inhaling his slice of pizza. "What is he doing here?"

He only shrugs. "We have intelligence that he might not have really been behind the whole New York thing," he says, taking another bit. Might not have been him? Who else would it have been? "We're keeping him here so we can investigate more. He's powerless right now, Thor's seen to that. I've got my eyes on him, don't worry. We all do."

I try to say more, but everyone else joins us. I end up between Bruce and Tony, who keep trying to talk about some new development in computers. It's getting a bit annoying with them talking over me, so I make Bruce switch seats with me and talk to Nat and Steve instead.

"Enough tech talk?" He asks, smiling. "It's like they're speaking a different language."

"I get enough of that from Fury. I don't do that stuff, I study biology. Numbers alone are boring," I scoff, earning raised eyebrows from Bruce and Tony.

"Yeah, I bet you do. So what's been happening since last month?" Nat asks. "You obviously know what I've been doing." Of course. Saving the world once again. I glance over at Thor and Clint, all who seem to be in some sort of playful argument. Loki has disappeared with his book.

"Well, my finals are almost over, and then I'll be free for the summer. I'll be more help to you all then."

Nat raises her eyebrows at my quick response. I surprised her. "Do you ever consider taking a break?"

"What do you mean?" I ask, shocked. Take a break?

"I know you're brilliant and all, and you're with S.H.I.E.L.D., but did you ever try just being a kid? You're only twenty-one, Eliza."

I shake my head, already dismissing the idea. "I haven't been a kid since I was fifteen." Her eyes soften at this, and they briefly dart over to Bruce, who's too deep in conversation to notice. Six years ago, that horrible day that twisted my brother's DNA into something even the famous Dr. Banner couldn't control. I know he's gotten better, but the last few years haven't been easy on either of us. I wasn't able to lash out at Bruce, my primary caretaker once our parents died, when I was upset. I couldn't come home and cry to him about my bad day at school. And then a few months after I graduated, he left for Kolkata. To help people, he claimed. I understood but didn't. While he helped others, he damaged me.

It wasn't his fault, not really. I didn't hold "the big guy" against him at all, but he sure made the last few years harder.