A Child of Mischief (Loki/Avengers story)

19. Memory Lane

As those who were pushed out of the infirmary wait to see what will become of Cora, Thor can't help but feel more than responsible for the events of today. Looking at the pained faces of his family and Peter, Thor turns away from them and begins to walk to his room.

Every so often as he makes his way to his room, he see's the pained faces of one of his friends. They each look at him with tear filled eyes and then hang their heads. Once in his room, he slams the door. Coming face to face with his reflection in the mirror of his bathroom, Thor breaks down, falling to the floor, he lets out an agonizing scream.

Numbly, Thor manages to get off the floor. Still in a rage, he hits the marble countertop and it nearly cracks in half. With his mind in a fog, Thor begins to think back on the first time he had seen Cora years after taking her to Earth.

***

"We need your help, in understanding Loki and ensuring Earth's safety." Fury says as the Avengers are gathered on the floating undetectable Helicarrier.

"I can only help so much in figuring out what would cause Loki to become this way." Thor says and watches as Tony Stark comes in and begins talking in his nasally snarky voice.

"Are all of you not on the same page as I am? It's obvious, that the tesseract is what is causing mister slender goth and creepy to want to rule the world. All of the unworldly power that it holds has gone to his head. Blueberry?" Tony says and then offers a bag of blueberries to Fury. Fury just shakes his head at Tony.

"Can I have one, Uncle Tony?" A young Raven colored haired girl asks as she teleports in to the room. All eyes fall on her as the Avengers all look over at her.

"Cora, you know you aren't supposed to be in here." Black Widow says, and looks at Cora.

"What I want to know is how was he able to turn two of the brightest men I know into his personal flying monkeys?" Fury asks, Thor looks puzzled and Captain America just smiles.

"Monkeys? I do not understand—." Thor begins to say but is cut off by Captain America.

"I do. I understood that reference." Captain America says proudly, Tony just rolls his eyes at how childish it seems Captain America is being. He also hands the bag of Blueberries to Cora and she smiles at him.

"It's a reference from a Nineteen Thirty-Nine movie called, The Wizard of Oz." Cora says as she takes a handful of Blueberries. Captain America just looks over at Cora proudly.

"And who are you?" Thor asks as he watches Cora hand the bag of Blueberries back to Tony Stark.

"Who she is, is not important. What I want to know is, why is the tesseract being used to create weapons that can take out entire countries?" Bruce Banner asks, as he turns a holographic screen toward everybody.

"Because of him." Fury says and points to Thor, Tony snickers and Cora's eyes go wide.

"Me?" Thor asks confused as he looks at Fury.

"Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet that had a grudge match that resulted in the leveling of a small town." Fury explains, Cora's mouth hangs open as she listens to Fury.

"Wait, Thor leveled that town in New Mexico?" Cora asks shocked, Thor looks at Cora and notices something familiar about her.

"He was partly to blame. After that, we learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly and hilariously out gunned." Fury says, keeping his eye on Thor.

"My people want nothing but peace from your planet." Thor states, and crosses his arms.

"But, your not the only people out there, are you? Your not the only threat." Cora asks in between eating a few Blueberries. Thor's eyes go wide ever so slightly as he begins to realize who she may be.