The lab came into blurry focus as Loki opened his eyes. He blinked rapidly and the concerned faces of Abby and Ducky came into view. Tony and Gibbs stood behind them, Tony with a smirk and Gibbs with an opaque expression.

"Wh-what happened?" Loki stammered. He pushed himself up into a sitting position. He was lying on the floor of Abby's lab, in the space between her workbench and the plasma screen on the wall.

"It appears you had a fainting spell, Mr. Laufeyson," Ducky informed him. "Although as to what triggered it, I have no clue. You are as physically fit as Tony here."

"Well," Tony said. "I wouldn't say that."

"Neither would I," Loki shot back, slowly pushing himself to his feet. To his surprise, he was not dizzy or anything. In fact, he felt fine now. But the Other's words still ricocheted inside his mind. "I am clearly in better shape than Tony."

"Hey!" Tony exclaimed, but Abby cut him off.

"What happened, Loki? Why'd you pass out?"

Loki considered telling them, but decided against it. He had no wish to tell them about the Other and Thanos. Not now. Not yet. He didn't want to lose the little companionship he had left because he was some sort of psycho.

He was kind of forgetting the fact that most of the world – NCIS included – already viewed him as some sort of psycho.

"I don't know," he answered. "One second Gibbs was asking me a question, the next I was waking up on the floor of your lab. As to what passed in the intervening moments, or to what triggered my blackout, I haven't the slightest."

"That's hinky," Abby mused. "Why would someone just pass out?"

Tony shrugged. "Who knows, Abby? But he looks fine now. Want me to take him back upstairs, Boss?"

Gibbs nodded. "Yes, Tony, you do that. Go join McGhee and Bishop."

Tony jerked his head towards the exit. "Come on, Loki. Let's go."

Loki glanced at Gibbs, whose expression had not changed, and then followed Tony out of the room.

****

Gibbs sighed. He felt like Loki hadn't told him everything. The god was hiding something, his gut told him.

He sighed again when he remembered that the trickster would be coming home with him tonight. And he didn't trust him not to slit his throat while he was sleeping.

So he fished out his cellphone and made a call to an old friend.

****

"So," McGhee asked Loki curiously as the four agents all sat at their desks, seeking to find Daniel Diaz's whereabouts. "You met the Avengers?"

"'Met' is putting it rather mildly," Loki replied. "But yes, I do know them."

"Then you met Tony Stark," McGhee commented energetically.

Tony put his head in his hands dramatically. "Oh, here we go again," he moaned.

McGhee shot Tony a dark look and then turned back to Loki as the god began to speak. "Yes, I did meet him. He offered me a drink after threatening me, and we had a nice chat...all before I tossed him through a window."

McGhee stared at Loki, horrified, as Tony burst into uncontrollable laughter. Bishop gave him a strange look as he almost fell out of his chair, he was laughing so hard.

Loki wrinkled his brow. "I'm sorry, did something I say qualify as one of your Midgardian jokes?"

Bishop shook her head. "Everything's a joke to Tony."

Tony dragged himself back into an upright position and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "You...tossed...McGhee's idol...out a window?" he gasped between fits of laughter.

Loki nodded. "Yes, I did."

Tony howled. "There goes your invincible Iron Man, McGhee!" This time, he really did fall out of his chair, and lay on the floor gasping for breath. "Thrown out a window!" He craned his neck to look at Loki. "Please tell me it was Avenger Towers."

Loki nodded. "It certainly was."

McGhee looked indignant. "I'm sure he paid Loki back for it," he retorted. He looked to the god of mischief. "Did he?"

Loki shrugged. "If 'pay me back' includes stopping my invasion, then yes. I suppose he did."

Tony slowly got to his feet, panting. "It's just that McGhee's such a big fan of Stark, and here comes along puny little you and throws him out a window. Here's the man who designed the Iron Man suit and the War Machine suit, thrown out of his own window. Sorta like the way he was voted out of his own company."

"Hey!" Loki exclaimed. "Watch who you're calling puny!"

McGhee stood up. "But he got it back, remember?"

"And then handed it over to Pepper Potts," Tony shot back.

"I'm not puny," Loki exclaimed, still stuck on Tony's statement.

"You're pretty puny," Tony asserted, standing up to his full height of six feet three inches. "I'm taller than you."

Loki stood up. "No, you're not."

Bishop sighed in frustration. "I'm never going to get any work done with you three arguing! Okay, Tony, Loki, back to back. We'll settle this and then we can get back to work."

Loki and Tony obediently stood back to back and Bishop and McGhee both studied their shoulders thoughtfully.

"Tony's taller," they exclaimed simultaneously.

Loki spun around to see Tony's smirk. Indeed, the Italian agent was taller than him, by about an inch.

"Not by much," Loki said. "But I'm still not puny." For some reason, he could feel anger boiling up inside him. Perhaps because the last guy who had called him puny was a guy twice his size who had just beaten the heck out of him.

"Enough! You are all of you beneath me. I am a god, you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by –"

The Hulk grabbed Loki by the legs and started smashing him into the floor of Stark Towers. The air was knocked out of Loki's lungs and he felt several of his ribs break. He was also pretty sure several joints were now dislocated.

Hulk threw Loki into the ground, pain raging through every vein in his body, diffusing through his cells. Loki wheezed as the Hulk glanced at him and then began to walk away.

"Puny god," he commented.

Loki shook his head to clear the recollection and glared at Tony as the agent said, "You are kind of puny."

"I'm taller than Agent Gibbs," Loki seethed. "Would you call him puny?"

Tony laughed. "Yeah, but Agent Gibbs could actually take over New York."

As Bishop and McGhee joined Tony in laughing, something inside Loki snapped and he could no longer control what he did next. He just acted.

Tony's head snapped back from the force of Loki's punch.

McGhee and Bishop fell into stunned silence as Tony stumbled backwards, eyes dazed. Loki rushed at him as DiNozzo hit the floor hard. Planting his foot on his torso, the god of mischief leaned forward, resting all of his weight on Tony's chest.

"Enough," he said quietly.

Tony stared up at him in shock, and then narrowed his eyes. "Like I'm gonna put up with that from a probie!"

Grabbing Loki's ankle, he wrenched it forwards, dragging Loki over his head. Loki hit the floor and rolled as Tony spun around to attack. McGhee and Bishop started yelling. "Go Tony! Hit him, DiNozzo!"

Loki blocked Tony's first punch as the agent leered over him and kicked Tony in the abdomen. The agent gasped for air as he fell to the side and Loki jackknifed to his feet. He kicked Tony in the ribs viciously, with enough force to spin him sideways.

Bishop shouted as McGhee grabbed Loki in a headlock from behind. Loki stepped down on his instep hard and twisted his head to sink his teeth into McGhee's wrist. As the agent recoiled, Loki spun around and threw his elbow into the side of McGhee's head. As McGhee hit the floor, he snatched at Loki's leg but he danced out of the way just in time to receive a kick in the calf from Tony.

The god of mischief fell to the floor, twisting himself to face Tony just Bishop slammed one of her desk drawers open and cocked her gun. Loki looked up to see the barrel aimed at his face, right between his eyes.

"I'll shoot," she warned.

"I don't doubt it," Loki responded, becoming still.

"What the –?" echoed from the corridor passing the squad room, and both Loki and Bishop turned to see Agent Gibbs standing there, Abby behind him.

"What in the heck is going on here?" Gibbs demanded.

"Loki started it," Bishop said quickly.

"DiNozzo started it," Loki shot back as he started to get to his feet, but then Gibbs drew his own gun and pointed it at Loki.