Author's note: Hey guys, have chapter three! I love this gif  of Tony so much, can definitely imagine him pulling this face when Thor is arguing with him. Hope you enjoy, also please help me think of a good name for this fic, I'm struggling so much:( Leave a comment if you enjoyed, and check out some of my other series and one shots on my profile! <3

...

It had been the craziest week of your life. And the best. Hands down.

The day after you'd arrived, Tony had given you a credit card and sent you off into New York to get everything you needed, clothes, shoes, furniture for your room, the lot.

"I'd send someone with you, but I think we've established that you can look after yourself." had been his exact words. You'd appreciated that. Happy had driven you in though, who you got on with very well.

At first you'd been reluctant to spend that much of Tony's money, even though you knew how rich he was, but you'd soon got into a shopping rhythm, and besides, you kept finding things that you really needed.

You'd come back laden with bags, and Tony had told you off for only spending $300, which made you laugh. A shopping trip with Natasha and Pepper was scheduled, because apparently they knew how to shop properly.

The same day you had started training with Natasha, and she seemed pleasantly surprised at the shape you were already in. You even got a smile out of her; you'd discovered that she was the sort of person you had to work hard to get to know. She didn't entirely trust you yet, you could tell.

You had training every day, and after four sessions you knew that she had warmed up to you, and you to her. As you had to all the others. Steve was the mother hen of the group despite his hard outer shell, you could tell, and he was the nicest man you had ever met, apart from maybe Thor, albeit slightly guarded. Bucky was hilarious, and really nice to you, Bruce was calm, funny and a total science nerd, everything the Hulk wasn't. You struggled to imagine him as the 'big guy' as they all called him. Clint was more like Natasha in that you had to get to know him before he became friendly, but you had made good progress, and then there was Pepper, who treated you like her daughter, telling you to eat at every opportunity and constantly checking up on you. You loved her.

Everything had been going amazingly, until your fifth night there, when you witnessed your first argument. And it was a big one. From what you could hear so far, Thor was trying to persuade Tony that someone should come in live in the Avengers Tower, and Tony was adamant that it was a bad idea.

You were sat reading quite peacefully in the company of Natasha and Clint when they'd come bursting into the lounge... could you call it a lounge? Like the penthouse upstairs, the space on the same floor as all of your rooms was a kitchen, dining room and lounge all in one, but was made for living in rather than looking nice. Not that it didn't look nice, and the view was as good as the penthouse.

Anyway, Tony and Thor stormed in, and Tony immediately turned to the three of you on the sofa.

"Are you hearing this?" he demanded angrily.

Thor tried to cut in, but Tony wasn't having any of it.

"Remember Loki? Thor thinks he should move in."

Clint and Natasha immediately joined in with the yelling, but failed miserably at being heard over Thor's booming voice.

"He is family Stark! I cannot abandon my own brother."

At this, Tony abruptly stopped trying to yell over the top of him.

You were confused, more than anything. Wasn't Loki the one who had led the alien invasion on Earth to try and become ruler of the world? You weren't sure you wanted him sleeping across the hallway from you. And moreover, he was Thor's brother?! If there were ever two people you wouldn't put as brothers, it was him and Thor.

Your train of thought was interrupted as Thor bellowed "Stop!", and probably ruptured your eardrums.

"I understand that you do not feel warmly towards him after what he did, but he was being brainwashed, that was not him! Please, Stark, at least let's try, he has nowhere else to go... Father won't-"

"Fine! He can stay here. He will have a restraint on him at all times, so that means no magic, and if he tries anything, anything at all..."

Thor looked shocked, but not as shocked as Natasha and Clint.

"Thank you." he finally said, and turned and strode from the room.

The minute he was gone, Clint started spluttering.

"You can't possibly be serious about letting him stay here. He's a psychopath." Natasha said angrily.

"Thor said he was being brainwashed..." you chipped in, probably not helping the situation but wanting to have your views heard.

"The only brainwashing going on was him brainwashing me, he's probably made it up to get out of the death sentence or whatever it is they have on... wherever it is they live." Clint retorted.

You put your hands up in an apologetic gesture, not wanting to piss him off.

"I trust Thor." Tony said simply, running his hands through his hair. You had to agree, if Thor thought it was safe to bring Loki here then you were fine with it. Kind of.

...

Later, you found Thor sitting alone on the roof. You had noticed he'd disappeared after dinner (to be fair, he'd had a pretty hard time with almost everyone telling him that he was crazy and that his brother was a psycho), and you somehow had known he would be on the roof.

"It makes me feel closer to home, up there." he had told you on your third night, and you hadn't asked any questions; he'd looked upset.

"Hey." you said, sitting next to him on the edge of the helipad, your legs dangling over the edge of the Avengers Tower. Under normal circumstances you would have been terrified, but you knew that your magic wouldn't let you get hurt, and also you were sat next to Thor. Who, as you had discovered, could fly.

"Lady Y/N." Thor greeted you, with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"I'm sorry about how the others are acting. I wish they wouldn't take it out on you, you're just trying to do the right thing." you said apologetically.

"They have every right to dislike Loki, he tried to destroy everything." Thor replied sadly.

"You said he was being brainwashed though, right? If it wasn't really him..." you trailed off, thinking back to the day it had happened, not that long ago. It had been terrifying, and people had died. You couldn't imagine how awful Loki would have felt afterwards if he really was being brainwashed.

"Loki is... complicated. He always has been. He's not my real brother, he's adopted."

Ah, that made sense.

"He's also half frost giant."

"Er, what's a frost giant? He looked like a normal human on the news." you asked, confused.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this." Thor sighed, shaking his head.

"Please do, I want to know!" you replied, desperate to piece the story of Thor's background together. So he told you everything, the war between Asgard and Jotunheim, how Odin had saved Loki but then revealed that he had only wanted to use him to make peace, the Frost Giant invasion and Loki's betrayal, Loki's 'death', and then not death – everything, right up to the New York invasion, and how now he was locked up on Asgard, and had been for nearly a year.

You were speechless for about two minutes after Thor had finished talking.

"I feel sorry for him." you finally said. Thor looked at you in surprise.

"As do I." he replied eventually, turning his gaze back to the New York skyline.

"So why is he coming down here?" you asked.

"He cannot stay locked up forever, and I think Father only trusts him where either he or I can keep an eye on him. That means either jail or here, and think Loki will prefer the latter. He's had his punishment, he doesn't deserve to be locked up any longer." Thor explained.

You nodded thoughtfully, admiring Thor's ability to forgive his brother so readily.

"You really care about him, don't you?" you smiled sadly.

Thor nodded.

"I do care for him deeply. I only wish for him to be happy."

"What are you two doing moping out here? Get back downstairs, it's freezing!" Tony yelled from the other side of the helipad, having come to see where you'd disappeared to and interrupting your heart to heart with Thor. You were glad you'd had it though, and you thought he seemed slightly happier as you headed back downstairs to join the others.

That night you didn't sleep much, your mind buzzing with all that Thor had told you. You were excited to meet Loki, but you'd be lying if you said you weren't nervous too. He'd been brainwashed and locked up for almost twelve months; you were confident that he'd be scarred in some form.

Eventually you fell asleep to the sounds of the city far below you, and dreamt of a scared, abandoned child who'd been adopted into a family for reasons other than love. A child not unlike yourself.

...

The next morning, you were all up bright and early, except it wasn't bright, it was raining heavily and looked miserable outside. You had breakfast with the others, apart from Thor, who had left for Asgard with a magic restraint and a promise to Tony that he wouldn't bring Loki back unless he was wearing it, hours earlier. There was an uneasy sense of tension in the air as you ate breakfast with the others.

People express their nerves in different ways, you'd learnt, and Natasha and Clint expressed their nerves through conveying their negative views about Loki very assertively to everyone else over breakfast. Everyone else was silent. You felt an odd sense of, protectiveness? That wasn't the right word for it, you didn't even know Loki, but you would be lying if you said their comments didn't annoy you a bit. They didn't know the whole story.

"You're keeping awfully quiet Y/N, what's up?" Bruce asked, when there was a split second of silence while Clint was drawing a breath.

"I just think that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover." you shrugged, quickly shoving a spoonful of food into your mouth so you didn't have to speak anymore.

"Ah yes, don't judge a book by its murderous and manipulative tendencies." Clint agreed, sarcastically.

You swallowed the enormous amount of food you had just put in your mouth angrily, causing your eyes to water.

"You need to give him a chance and consider the idea that maybe he's not as much of an asshole as you might think. He's coming to live here whether you like it or not, so why moan about it when you could just accept it and stop worrying about it?" you exclaimed, more angrily than you'd intended.

"I hate it when the new girl is right." Clint grumbled moodily after a long pause, and Natasha just rolled her eyes in response. Bruce and Steve were staring at you in surprise.

Suddenly, someone cleared their throat from the doorway, and you all turned to look.

Shit.

Thor was stood there, and next to him was Loki, or, you assumed it was Loki, and not just a random man with a large metal cuff around one wrist.

Had he heard what you'd said? You proceeded to go bright red as Loki stared right at you, wishing you'd just kept your mouth shut.

"Everyone, this is Loki." Thor told the room, as though he needed any introducing.

Loki looked... like a prisoner. He had dark shadows under his hooded eyes and his long dark hair was matted and wiry, contrasting heavily with his pale, porcelain skin. His face looked as though it was fixed into a permanent scowl. He was tall, almost as tall as Thor, and skinny. Unhealthily skinny, so that he looked gaunt rather than slender. The only striking feature about him were his eyes: a shock of bright, intelligent blue surrounded by the evidence of his time as a prisoner. You could see how he might have once been handsome, but now only a shadow of those looks remained.

The silence which followed Thor's introduction was excruciatingly awkward, but at least Loki removed his gaze from you to return the glares Natasha and Clint were shooting him. You willed your face to stop being bright red.

"He'll need somewhere to sleep." Thor said pointedly, looking at Tony, who sighed and stood up, gesturing for Thor and Loki to follow him from the room.

"Yikes." Bucky said, pulling a face, after they had left the room.

Yep, that pretty much summed it up. You cleared up from breakfast just for something to do, and about five minutes later the three men returned. Tony returned to his seat, at the table, and Thor sat down too, gesturing for Loki to do the same. He sat down in your vacated seat, and turned to look at you again. You didn't give him the satisfaction of letting him know you'd seen, or minded, and continued to load to dishwasher, listening to Thor try and make conversation at the table.

You suddenly noticed a dull pain in your neck, and rolled your shoulders to try and get rid of it, which did nothing; it only got worse. And worse. You winced as it spread up into your head, and massaged your temples – this was really weird.

Hang on.

You turned to find Loki still watching you, now frowning as though in... concentration? Or annoyance? Whatever it was, you wished he would stop.

"Loki? What about you?" Thor asked, obviously trying to engage him in conversation with the others.

The minute Loki looked away, the pain vanished. What was that about? He wasn't meant to have magic... should you tell someone? You'd tell Thor later, if you told Tony he'd kick Loki out straight away, and you didn't want that.

You wanted answers.