Eagle (A Loki love story)

Chapter 160

My loyal readers, we are approaching the end!  There are perhaps ten chapters left in this story.  Thank you so much for sticking with me for as long as you have.  I know I haven't been perfect with remembering to update this, or TLS for that matter, but it means the world to me that you've stuck around to read Eagle.  Ordinarily, I would just upload the last ten chapters and end the story right now, since I always try to write at least ten chapters ahead, but I fell behind.  I didn't write a lot last year, and wrote even less after a tragedy in April, and it was during that time that I had never been more grateful for my write-ahead policy.  Once I finish the story, I'll put all the remaining chapters up, but until then, I'm going to continue with my every-other week thing.  Gosh, I didn't mean for this A/N to be this long!   I'll let you get to the chapter now, if you actually read to the end of this!

Not long after I composed myself and managed to finish my breakfast, the proximity alert went off. The others were back. And by how close that little sedan was riding to the ground, Bruce had decided to help us. Against my will, hope flickered in my chest as I went to greet them.

"Hey, Loki!" He gave me a hug that made my ribs creak, "How've you been? How's Dreyma?" A smile crept its way onto my face. Despite being half the size of and just as green as the monster that slammed me mercilessly into the floor of Stark's penthouse, I found that I wasn't subconsciously afraid of Bruce's hybrid form anymore.

"I've been...well, I suppose you would say. And Dreyma is wonderful. She's spending the weekend at Tony's."

"Loki," Steve cut in, "Any news on the others?"

"Carol can't come, but Nebula, Rocket, and Rhodey are on their way now. ETA tomorrow morning."

"Good, then we can get an initial test out of the way." Scott said.

"Initial test?"

"Yeah, I got bored in the car, so I made some modifications to my suit based on the malfunctions mine had when I came back." He explained, "It should be able to withstand time travel now."

"Oh." This would be good.

We all gathered in the main training hall, where the van had been put last night. Scott put on his suit and Bruce had changed his shirt. It took an hour or so to get the van hooked up to the console and for Bruce and Scott to agree on the science and formulas, but then we were finally ready to give it a shot.

"Ok, here we go. Time travel test number one! Scott, fire up the, um, van-thing."

"Breakers are set, emergency backup generators are on standby."

"Good, because if we blow the grid, I don't want to lose, uh, tiny here in the 1950s."

"Excuse me?"

"He's kidding!" Natasha said too stiffly to be amused, not looking up from her data pad, "You can't say things like that."

"Ju–" He stuttered before he found the proper words, "It was a bad joke." Scott seemed to believe him, a virtue of him not knowing Bruce very well.

"You were kidding, right?" Natasha whispered.

"I have no idea!" Bruce hissed back, "We're talking about time travel here–either it's all a joke or none of it is." I moved so I could see the console, "We're good! Get your helmet on." Bruce gave Scott a huge thumb's up. He reluctantly complied.

"This is not going to work." I muttered. We really needed Tony. Or someone who actually understood the physics of this. I cursed the destroyed books of the Asgardian library.