You reappeared in the common room of the tower right as the rest of the team was returning from the convention. They looked at the pair of you and seemed relieved that you were here and alright. "Hey kid, it's alright, we're all safe," Cap tried to reassure you, misinterpreting the expression on your face. You'd been worried about them, but you knew they'd been ok. Or Fury would have said something or intervened.

Loki looked over to Thor. "What happened after I left?" He asked, leaving the question open to anyone who wished to answer, but knew Thor wouldn't deny him answers and his brother would be quick to help him.

"Hydra ran off like the cowards they are," Thor snarled. He hated cowards and people who fought without honor. He would rather face an honorable battle against a stronger opponent than this cowardly warfare any day. "After reminding us of their threat of course,"

Loki nodded and looked to you. "Darling, tell them your plan to deal with the footage," he told you urgently. He sounded proud that you had a solution and wanted your solution implemented quickly so he could kill Schmidt and all the people who had hurt you, or threatened to hurt you.

You hesitated, the feeling of being useless to the team was still forefront in your mind, but Loki was right. The team needed to know your plan. "With a little time, I can make sure the footage stays off the news and internet," you finally told them softly, shyly. You saw Loki's look at your sudden shyness. It wasn't like you, though you tended not to go over exaggerating your abilities.

Tony gave you a clearly disbelieving look. "I know you're good, kid, but even I'm not that good. And I built Jarvis," he told you, questioning your ability.

You took the hit to your confidence, though Tony should know you better. He knew your abilities better than anyone else here. Your hackles finally rose and you glared up at Tony. "I've done it before. When I was 10, on a smaller scale granted, but then I only had a jankity old bootleg PC and dialup. Now I have Jarvis and every possible resource I could ask for," you told him firmly.

"You have seen how smart she is. She can do anything she sets her mind to, Stark," Loki added proudly and kissed your temple.

"When did you do it before?" Stark insisted. This was too important to leave to chance and even he fell into the trap that you looked too young to do what you claimed you could.

You glared up at him. "One of the assholes I went to high school with took a video of him having sex with a girl and threatened to send it viral if she didn't pay him not to. So I took care of the video and made sure it never saw the light of day. And fried his phone while I was at it,"

Stark nodded and looked impressed. "If you could do that on dialup over ten years ago you can do it with Jarvis," he finally admitted. You had over ten more years of experience and knowledge behind you too.

Loki gave you a warm, proud, smile, and you saw in his eyes that he believed in you without a shadow of a doubt. It warmed your heart. "Show us what you can do, kitten," he told you warmly and kissed your cheek. The rest of the team agreed with him, glad for this fairly easy fix to the problem at hand.

You nodded, reassured by their faith in you after your run-in with Fury. You thought it over for a moment. "Once I get started, I'll need at least 48 hours straight of no whining at whatever I'm doing from the peanut gallery," you told them firmly. You turned to Loki and poked him firmly in the middle of the chest to let him know you meant your next words. "That includes you," you informed him with no room for arguments in your tone.

Loki inclined his head, the formal gesture letting you know that he was taking you seriously. "I will not "whine" as long as you drink some blood every once and a while. Deal?" He asked for the compromise so you wouldn't be risking your health.

"You can even bring it to me and watch me drink it yourself," you agreed with a smile. You could agree to that compromise.

"Good," he smiled and leaned down to kiss you softly. "Why don't you get started? The sooner you start, the sooner I can get rid of that nuisance of a Hydra agent,"

You kissed him back, then nodded. "I need a couple things first," you turned automatically for Nat, and cursed when you realized she was still on the helicarrier. You looked over your options of someone else to ask for help. "Buck, can you handle a shopping trip?" You asked, low on options of who to trust with this chore. You summoned a notepad and pen. Bucky hesitated, but finally agreed. He didn't like going out in public, but he would do you the favor. You only trusted a few people to go out and get you blood without comment, and your supply was running low. Plus you needed more energy drinks and no one wanted to supply you with those. Apparently you were too much of a giant ball of annoying sunshine without them. You handed him your list and a wad of cash. "Thank you," you told him sincerely.

Bucky nodded. "I want Hydra gone as much or more than you do, Striga," he reminded you and left to go on his shopping trip. He'd do anything within reason to help you defeat Hydra.

You went to the kitchen and raided the pantry, grabbing every single energy drink you could find, including Tony's stash hidden beneath one of the loose floorboards. You headed down to the computer lab with your arms loaded with energy drinks. Loki took half of them from you, intending to keep you company while you worked.

"This is going to be very boring," you warned him as you set up shop after you'd reached the lab, positioning the command chair in front of the giant computer monitors the way you wanted it, getting everything and your mountain of energy drinks situated the way you wanted it. You used magic to change into comfortable sweat pants, a t-shirt, and a hoodie that should have been in Loki's closed instead of on you. You tied your hair out of your way and settled comfortably cross-legged in the oversized desk chair, holographic keyboard in your lap.

You looked over at Loki and hesitated a long, long time before you made your request. "I could use something, but I can't summon it from here, and I can't go get it myself. If I tell you exactly where it is, can you? It would save me a lot of rework..." your voice was hesitant at asking for this favor.

Loki jumped to help. "Of course. What do you need?" He asked immediately, willing to help with anything within his abilities.

You nodded, your decision made. You gave him an address about an hour outside the city. You described the red brick house and the second floor room with its baby blue walls, twin-sized bed covered in stuffed animals, books on every flat surface, and white computer desk. You finally described the ancient off-white old-school computer tower under the desk which was Loki's goal to get for you. "If you cant summon the computer from here, you're the only one I trust to get in and out of there without being seen," you told him. You knew Loki well, if there was one thing in the universe he treasured above anything else, it was when someone specifically stated they trusted him, especially when he was the only one trusted for a task.

This was was vitally important.

And it was more important that he not be seen.

Loki nodded and you saw the touch of pride in his eyes that he was trusted for this task. "I'll be right back, darling," he promised and disappeared. A minute later he reappeared with the computer tower. "Is this what you needed?"

"Exactly what I needed," you replied and stood to take it from him. You kissed him when you did, then stepped back and looked him over. "You don't have a gunshot wound, so I assume you weren't seen... d-did you hear anyone in the house?" You asked him softly, and you didn't know if you were hoping he had or hadn't heard or seen anyone in the house.

"I wasn't there long enough to notice," he admitted, then considered your question and asked, "Where did you send me?" His voice was concerned, like he should have asked that first.

You nodded and set the computer on the floor. "My mom's house," you replied as you sat next to the computer. "Hi Gigo, I missed you buddy," you told the computer and pet his case like the old friend he was. "Sorry bud, time for surgery," you said and pulled over the toolbox to start dismantling the ancient computer. Loki just tilted his head slightly, reminding you of a confused puppy. You fought not to laugh at him. "Gigo is the ancient computer I did this on last time. The code I wrote for it is still on the harddrive. I can get the code off to give me somewhere to start from and it'll save me a lot of time. Mom didn't clean any of the stuff out of my room after I died, so I knew he was still there. That was my childhood bedroom," you explained as you worked and carefully removed poor Gigo's hard drive.

"I should have spent more time there then! I had no idea that was your childhood home," Loki replied, sounding sorry he hadn't stayed and checked on your family for you.

"It was better that you weren't seen," you replied, then looked up at him with a mix of curiosity and confusion. "Where'd you think I sent you that I could describe in that much detail?" Loki just shrugged in reply, apparently he hadn't thought about it at all, too focused on his mission. You removed the hard drive quickly and closed up the case again. "Can you put Gigo back so mom doesn't notice he's gone?" You asked, incidentally giving Loki an opportunity to spend more time in the house.

Loki nodded and took the computer tower after giving you another kiss. He teleported back to the house and decided to snoop around your old room a bit before returning. It was definitely a teenage girl's bedroom, though there were way more books and way more advanced textbooks than an normal teenage girl would have. You smirked knowingly when he was gone longer, knowing that he was investigating your old room.

You connected the hard drive to the computer system in front of you. You smirked when you'd settled back in the desk chair and clapped your hands twice, much like Tony did when he was getting ready to start on a complicated project. "Look lively J, we've got work to do," you told Jarvis and downed an entire energy drink in one swallow before you got to work.

Loki returned to the lab and kept you company while you worked, occasionally bringing you glasses of heated blood and food to goad you into eating. You worked on your project for two days straight, surviving on no sleep, all of the energy drinks (including the new stack Bucky brought you from the store), and whatever blood and real food Loki could convince you to eat. Anyone else who approached you got growled at. By you. And Loki if they didn't listen to you. Especially Stark when he complained that you were stealing all of Jarvis' processing power.

Loki started to notice how much all of the work and no sleep were taking a toll on you. "I don't mean to interrupt you, darling, but I was curious how much farther you have to go to finish your project?"

You looked up from your work and nearly growled at him before you realized who was bothering you. "Not long. And you promised not to whine," you reminded him.

He raised his hands in surrender. "Not whining. I was simply curious,"

"Good," you replied and returned to you work.

The next time Loki asked how much longer it would be he got the same answer of "not long"

As he did the time after that.

And the time after that.

He finally stopped asking.

You didn't know how long you worked before you pushed away from the computers, turning in the desk chair to face Loki. "Done," you announced with a proud, but utterly exhausted, smile.

Loki jumped to his feet from where he was reading in a nearby chair and swept you into his arms with a proud smile. You were too tired to even protest. "Excellent news, darling. Now it's time for exhausted little vampires to rest," he told you warmly. You could see in his eyes that he'd been spending the entire time you'd been working making his preparations and plans for how to deal with Schmidt.

Schmidt was going to rue the day he'd threatened you.