Incorruptible

By: Eva Grimm

Chapter One: Der Verführers Einzug (The Tempter's Entrance)

"This is the start of how it all ends. They used to shout my name, now they whisper it."

Lorde, Yellow Flicker Beat

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Iron Man, Tony Stark, or any other Marvel intellectual property. Incorruptible is a fan-based work and not sold for profit.

***SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for any Marvel movie and comic book — they're going to happen. You've been warned.

Sunday, December 25th, 2005 09:26p, EST | Washington, D.C., a homeless shelter

"I'm sorry, sir, but if you don't have an ID, then we can't let you stay."

"Please," the young, raven-haired man begged, his thick, unkempt black beard shaking steadily in sync with the uncontrollable chattering of his jaw. Though the streets of the capitol were devoid of snow that evening, they were nevertheless coated with ice, perfectly matching such a frigid night. Even stepping into the lobby of a homeless shelter did very little to dispel the pervasive cold once it had settled into one's bones so deeply. "Just for tonight? It's C-c-christmas…"

The attendant sighed wearily, averting her eyes from the pitiable man. He had been regularly attempting to stay at the shelter for nearly half a year, and she hated having to turn him away, since he had a habit of breaking into tears when rejected. "Listen, hun, I want to help you. I really do. But my hands are tied here. There's nothing I can do."

Sure enough, the man choked back a sob as his sky blue eyes began to brim with tears. Without another word, he turned on his heel and fled from the desk to the lobby doors, which he awkwardly fumbled with for a moment before finally leaving. He began to walk down the sidewalk, no particular direction beyond 'somewhere warm' in mind, but he didn't make it far from the shelter before the December air swirled violently, slamming a chilly gust into the bedraggled man causing him to lose his balance on the ice and crash down onto the sidewalk. He swore violently, his voice laced with agony as he awkwardly pulled himself to his feet. Blood dribbled from his cheek where an errant rock had dug into his flesh upon impact with the ground, and a portion of his ragged jacket's sleeve bore a freshly torn, jagged hole. If he noticed either of these things, he didn't show it, instead pulling himself weakly to his feet before stumbling over and into a nearby alcove lest the ominously howling air make good on its threat of more pain to come should he not seek shelter from its tender mercies.

"Goddamn body," he murmured to himself once he was relatively secure within the alcove, a lone light dimly illuminating the nearby area. He brought his hand to his cheek to inspect the damage his body's pain receptors were reporting diligently, and as his surprisingly smooth hands brushed over the offending area, the course black hairs of his out of control beard brushed against his fingers. He snatched away his hand violently at the sensation as yet another deep sob wracked his frame. It's all just too much. He crumbled to the ground as if his legs were jelly and curled into a tight ball, trying in vain to make his large frame smaller. Tears continued to flow freely from his tightly shut eyes as he began to mutter nonsensical gibberish to himself in as comforting a tone as he could muster (Which, needless to say, was not very comforting at all.).

"What the 'ell's wrong wit' this guy den?" a rough, deep voice called out from just outside the light of the bulb overhead. "Inner'uptin' me sleep, 'e is, Georgie."

"Do kindly keep your mouth shut, Parry. I can only hear so much of your uncivilized tongue before the urge to empty my stomach becomes too great," the person apparently named 'Georgie' bit back, disgust evident in her voice. "Perhaps he's mourning having inadvertently stumbled into your proximity? But for the advantages of keeping you nearby, I know I would."

The sound of someone pulling themselves to their feet reached the ears of the crying figure huddled up on the ground. One of his tear-filled eyes snapped open, the watery, sky blue eye locking onto the direction the noise came from, but the shadow betrayed nothing.

"Oi, what'cha doin' den?" Parry asked, his befuddlement evident.

"I should think it obvious. I am checking on the condition of our new companion," Georgie replied as she slowly entered the aura of light surrounding the fallen man, the shadows framing her features, their appearance somehow still refined despite her apparent malnourishment. Her expression was carefully neutral, spare her dark eyes which glinted with curiosity. "Humorous allusions to your status as a pariah aside, something is clearly ailing him."

The focus of her attention moaned as she bled out of the shadows. "No… Please stay away from me."

Her lips tightened into a small frown, her eyes narrowing so slightly that the movement would've been missed, had he not been watching her approach so intently. "Do you honestly believe I am going to hurt you? Perhaps you suspect I wish to make your fetching, tattered coat my own. Foolishness! Just show me what hurts. I was a doctor in a previous life; I can help."

Georgie closed the gap between them with a collected gait that, similar to her features, belied her social status. As her gloved hand descended upon the tense figure, her finger tips bare and spread wide, the man lashed out in obvious panic, crying out with a suddenly squeaky voice, "Don't touch me!"

She hissed as his fingernails raked her partially uncovered wrist, the yellowing cuff of her shirt having edged back in the process of reaching out. "You dastard! Why would you do such a thing!" Her face twisted as she snarled out, "Very well then… I attempted to be civil, and I will not be subjected to abuse. Perhaps an education regarding why I suffer Parry's presence is called for?" Her dark eyes gleamed as she backed away, the shadows slowly enveloping her once more. "Yes. That seems to me the proper course of action. Parry, darling? Please take out the trash."

Sky blue eyes widened fearfully as gravel ground heavily against the pavement as her companion pulled himself to his feet within the darkness. "A'ight. What'er ya say, Georgie."

"Please, no…" the man brokenly implored as the hulking form of Parry clomped over towards him. As quickly as he could, he picked himself up to flee but staggered when his aggressor latched onto his arm with an iron grip. "You don't understand… I-I'm sorry! Please don't do this!" he cried as he began to tremble, his gaze locked onto where he was being touched, unable to look away.

"You ask for a kindness," Georgie retorted with a snort, "yet when I proffered such before, you reacted with violence. Deplorable," she finished, shaking her head as she disappeared into the inky black entirely. "Your request is rejected."

"Aye, you 'eard 'er," Parry said, a lopsided grin adorning his face as he drew back his fist. "'Take ou' da trash!'" The man with the sky blue eyes braced for the impact, his face screwed up in anticipation and his eyes firmly shut.

The blow never came.

"Is your hopelessness truly so deep that you will not defend yourself, Megan Stark?" a new voice asked. It was a voice she recognized but never would have expected to hear again, much less at that precise moment.

Megan yelped, her eyes snapping wide open. Parry was gone and standing in his place was an unmistakable man with shoulder-length black hair clad in ostentatious green and gold armor. "Loki," she breathed out in shock before cringing at how foreign the name sounded when uttered by her currently baritone pitched voice. "I… What?"

The trickster god gave her a distinctly unimpressed look. "How perfectly eloquent. I'm certain the historians will be anxious to record that statement in the annals of your world's history that it might be shared with the generations that follow you."

She flushed, though most of it was obscured beneath the thick black beard on her face. "Yes, well, given the circumstances, I…" She clenched her male body's eyes shut as fresh tears began to flood out. Ordinarily, I wouldn't take my eyes off of him, but… he does have a point. "You're… not wrong. Why should I protect myself at this point? Why fight to keep myself alive, when my reward is continuing to live like this? As male?" Her Asgardian companion began to laugh, and the absurdity of his timing caught her off guard. "I'm sorry, is my situation funny to you, Odinson?"

Loki's eye twitched at being referred to in such a manner, but he bit back the scathing remark he had nearly uttered. She's on the tipping point. I can't push her any further, or she'll break irreparably. "Not at all. I simply found your priorities very… you. I imagine that those who don't know you would have been flabbergasted by your ranking 'being male' as a greater problem than 'homeless,' 'starving,' 'identity stolen,' and so on."

The color of her flush intensified. "In my opinion, it is."

He smirked. "As I said before: 'Very you.' As for your 'situation,' as you referred to it, it is quite obviously unacceptable," he retorted. "What has me puzzled, however, is why you do nothing when you have risen above similar hurdles before. You were born into a male body, yet that did not stop you from being your true self. What is stopping you now?"

Megan frowned, idly noticing that she was no longer shivering uncontrollably and that the air around them was, if anything, quite warm. Whether or not it was an illusion hardly mattered to her at that moment; the reprieve was welcome. "'Those who don't know you…' 'Your true self…' You're implying a level of familiarity with me I wasn't aware you possessed, Loki." She paused, waiting for a response from the trickster god. After he graced her with nothing more than the same, secretive smirk, she eventually ground out, "Well?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," he smugly quipped. "Was there a question in there? I thought you were just making an observation."

Her eye twitched violently as she physically restrained herself from slapping the smirk off of his face. "Don't be a dick. A question was clearly implied." A mocking smirk of her own danced across her lips. "Or is the illustrious Loki such a poor verbal jouster that he needs me to spell such a thing out for him?"

Good. She's regaining some of her usual vigor. She just needs a bit more. "Not at all, milady. I simply did not want to appear presumptuous. The implicit question in your observations is: 'How is it that I have obtained this level of familiarity with you?' The answer is simple: I did my research. As I'm feeling generous, I will answer the question you will likely follow up with: 'Why did I research you?' The answer to that question, however, is somewhat more complex." He gestured beside her with his hand, a chair appearing there that, in Megan's opinion, looked exceedingly comfy. "Please have a seat. I would be remiss to give you a lengthy explanation while you stand there as tired as you are.

Megan eyed the chair doubtfully, carefully probing it with her finger. Satisfied that the chair was real, at least for the moment (I swear, if he makes this disappear from underneath me, I will break his pretty face. Wait, did I just seriously refer to his face as 'pretty'? I really do need some rest…), she slowly lowered herself into its cushiony embrace, eventually beginning to relax. Once she was seated, Loki elegantly sat down into the thin air behind himself, a regal, throne-like chair materializing beneath him as he did so. She rolled her eyes at the sight, playfully remarking, "If my priorities are 'very me,' then that chair is 'very you.'"

The trickster god chuckled lightly, his voice eliciting a small smile from her. "I'm confident that we can both agree that being true to oneself is important, right Megan?"

She quirked an eyebrow at that. "I agree, yes, but when did we arrive at a first-name-basis?"

"You've referred to me as 'Loki' for how long now?"

"Touché. Now, why did you research me?"

"Originally, it was because you have foiled me at every turn. Without you, Thor could not stopped the Bifrost without destroying it. Without you, the 'Avengers' (He uttered the moniker with obvious distaste.), would never have pieced together that my underling could control others' minds, much less how. Without you, my destruction of your ship would have massacred all but a handful of people. I needed to know more about you, to know how to handle you in the future."

"You're right," Megan replied with a hint of mirth, reveling in her growing feeling of security. "That was definitely longer than 'I did my research.'"

Loki released a distinctly undignified snort. "Quite."

She gazed curiously at him, her still bloodshot, sky blue eyes squinted (Whether from several minutes of crying or from suspicion was unclear.). "Why are you here?"

He glanced away for a moment, a flicker of hesitation crossing his face so briefly that she nearly missed it despite how closely she was watching him. Steeled, he continued. "My curiosity led me to the discovery that you had saved my life. Without you, I would have been caught in the wake of what you humans call a 'nuclear' weapon. My brother foolishly thought me confined, defeated by his hand. Obviously I was not, or I would not be here with you tonight. Regardless, the point is that humans think us immortal; we are not. Had you not changed that weapon's course, I would have died. Consequentially, I… feel indebted to you. And I see the potential for me to repay that debt in a way that I am comfortable with." He leaned back into his chair, his lips twisting into a light smirk. "Now, I have generously answered several of your questions, and I am still awaiting the answer to mine: What is stopping you from being yourself, Megan? You did so once before when you were but a child."

She scoffed, unaware that her voice's pitch had begun to rise. "I did that when I was six, yes, but the circumstances now are a great deal more difficult to overcome. There's a huge difference between the only child of Howard and Maria Stark transitioning and a homeless man with no government identification, no money, and no friends transitioning."

"And yet, your intact intellect has not been able to conjure up a single alternative avenue to become yourself once more?" the trickster quipped back.

"You've used that terminology a couple of times now: 'Be yourself,'" Megan remarked, her head cocked slightly to the side, her curiosity evident. "Tell me, Loki, who do you think I am?"

The Asgardian steepled his hands in front of himself, taking a moment to carefully consider his choice of words, before replying, "You are a female spirit trapped within a body that repulses you so much that you cannot bear to be touched. Your spirit cries out, desperately pleading for you to be your true self once more — to shed this lie you have been forced into. You have done your best to deal with being thrust into this form, done your best to return yourself to normal, but it affects you so much that you have become trapped in a perpetuating circle. Needing to be yourself again, but unable to make it happen because you are not. Even what you are experiencing now is a temporary reprieve. You feel better because you are interacting with me, someone who knows you for who you are, but eventually, the feeling will be tempered by the truth of your situation, which will grow ever more unavoidable." He paused. "Simply put, you are someone who will invariably die unless someone helps you."

The duo sat there in silence for a time, Megan's eyes locked onto his, boring into them as though the truth of his words could be ascertained if she merely stared into them long enough. She was losing herself in a sea of pale green, his words echoing, washing over and through her, his baritone piercing straight to her core. I don't want to go back to that.

"You're right, Loki," she eventually breathed out, now aware that her words were spoken by her true, soprano voice. "I don't want to die." She bit her lip softly, her conflict evident. Her upper teeth rubbed briefly against the skin beneath her bottom lip, revealing that her face was once again free of the course beard it had born for so long. The word danced from her lips: "Please…"

A toothy smile began to grow on the Asgardian's lips. Almost. "Please what, Megan?"

She whined softly at his use of her name, reveling in the fact that for the first time in nigh half a year someone saw her as herself. She wrapped her arms around herself, drinking in the feeling of the return of her voice's true timbre and of her petite frame. Gods, I don't care if it is an illusion. "Please, Loki… Help me… I don't want to go back."

"That, Megan, is why I am here."

Tuesday, July 12th, 2005 10:02a, EST | Stark Tower, NYC

"Morning, Danny," Megan said as she entered the tower's dining area where she, Danny, and Bruce ate their meals together.

The brunette tore his gaze from the laptop in front of him, which he'd been using to idly scan the news, and moved it to her. Her usual, disheveled appearance upon waking up brought a smile to his face. "Good morning to you too, Meg! You're up early. What's the occasion?" he cheerfully replied before grabbing a fresh piece of toast and beginning to prepare it with butter and jam.

The raven-haired genius replied, "Nightmare," before yawning and following up indignantly, "And you are entirely too cheerful. How I manage with two morning people living under my roof is beyond me."

He gave her an utterly unrepentant grin. "Who can say 'no' to this face? And as for Bruce, ew — we aren't discussing that," he quipped, earning a piece of toast thrown at his face by his 'sister.'

"Mhm, something like that," she replied, sticking her tongue at him as she set about preparing her own breakfast, a simple bowl of cereal. The moment after she finished pouring the milk over the cereal, Jarvis intoned, "There's someone at the front door for you ma'am."

She groaned heavily in response. "Perfect timing … Who is it, Jarvis?"

After a moment of silence, the AI replied, "She is delivering an undisclosed document. I have analyzed her person and determined that you are being served."

"Ah… right," she replied after a moment, taking stock of her appearance. Thankfully, she was more dressed than she had been the last time she was served, due in no small part to Danny's presence. "Well, tell her I'll be down in a second."

"Wait, why?" the brunette asked with a confused expression. "You're not officially served until they hand the subpoena to you, right? So why go take it at all?"

"Danny!" she reprimanded with a frown, turning back from the door she had nearly exited through. "It's not fair for me to dodge a subpoena like that just because I have technology that allows me too."

He scoffed, "If there's one thing I learned on the streets, it's that life isn't 'fair,' Meg. If you have an advantage, you should exploit it."

"Oh? So I should scrap the Stark Foundation for LGBTQ+ Youth? Keep one of my biggest advantages, my money, to myself?"

Danny cringed at that. "I… Well…"

Megan sighed, crossed the room to where he was still sitting, and hugged him around his shoulders. "Danny, you're not wrong, but you're not right either. There's a fine line with these things. Sometimes, giving away one of your advantages is the right thing to do, and other times, you need to keep it to yourself. I'm going downstairs because even though I could be the untouchable princess in her tower, I recognize that using my power like that is corrupt." She giggled then. "Besides, they'd eventually just send the big guns. Wastes less time to tackle the problem head on."

"Okay, okay," the teen responded, half abashedly, half laughingly. "Point taken."

"Good!" she replied. "Now then, I need to get down there. I'll be back for that breakfast soon, okay?" As she made her way over to the door into the hallway where the elevator lied, she called out, "And Jarvis, would you please tell Bruce that I need to eat breakfast still, but I'll be up soon?"

"Of course, ma'am," her AI intoned as walked into the elevator that Jarvis had summoned and left open for her.

'You are hereby ordered to appear at the July 14th, 02:00p session of the U.S. Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing to testify regarding your continued possession of the 'Iron Woman' armor despite your discharge from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division on March 16th, 2005. Address follows.'

"Seriously? These guys need to get a hobby or something," Megan remarked as she glanced at the subpoena. Her sky blue eyes flicked up to look at the blonde carrier, briefly glazing over before she commented, "You served me in California too, didn't you? The must pay you some good money, if you're traveling all over the U.S. to deliver subpoenas."

"It's a living," the carrier remarked with a shrug before turning on her heel and hopping back into her waiting taxi.

"Fair enough…" she murmured to herself as she made her way back into the tower. "And two days is more reasonable notice than last time, at least. Jarvis, is my schedule clear?"

"Yes, ma'am. Beyond your usual work, the only other event on your schedule for the day is your meeting with Aldrich Killian at 11:00a."

"Mmm, I'd almost forgotten about that…" she noted as she walked into the waiting elevator, which began to rapidly ascend, taking her back to her, by now, soggy cereal. "Happy was insisting on escorting me to that, right?"

"That's correct, ma'am."

"Then please send him a message so he knows about the hearing and also a message to the flight crew for my jet."

The elevator reached the floor with the dining area not long after, and when she made her way into it, she found two brunettes waiting for her instead of one. "Hey, Pearl," Bruce said over her bowl of cereal with a smile. "I figured I'd eat this for brunch, so you could have something that wasn't soggy."

Megan returned the smile with a brilliant one of her own. Her beau knew her well. Even if the food had been soggy, she would have eaten it anyway, as she hated to waste food. "Thanks, my wyrm. Working on anything interesting upstairs?"

"Nothing too exciting, really," he replied, placing a kiss on her cheek as she passed by to grab a fresh bowl of cereal. "So what's the subpoena for?"

"The suit, surprise surprise. Honestly, it was just a matter of time. S.H.I.E.L.D. secured me a stay of execution last time, but now that I'm no longer with them, I'll have to face the music by myself." A new bowl of cereal prepared, she sat down next to Bruce, across from Danny, at the table. "At this point, I'm just hoping they haven't roped Phil or somebody else I trust into testifying that I'm a danger to society while the suit's my property. My publicity is… mixed after the NYC debacle."

"You're lucky nobody in the press has pieced together my part in that mess," Bruce replied, "or the military would knocking on our door as we speak… To be honest, I'm surprised Ross hasn't leaked it in the hopes of finally having an excuse to go after me again."

Megan took a couple of bites from her cereal, thinking over the probabilities of such a situation occurring, before finally replying, "No, that's unlikely to happen, unless he's willing to risk his career. The moment the Hulk is tied to you, the press will find a way to dig up your past, and that will invariably lead them back to Ross. His career would be over; nobody would want a general like him. Beyond that point, S.H.I.E.L.D. hasn't separated us because, despite the fact that I've left them, the fact remains that you are significantly safer when you're with me."

"Yeah, that sounds accurate; especially the part regarding S.H.I.E.L.D.," he agreed. "What's the game plan for the hearing then? Any thoughts?"

"Unless I think of something new between point A and point B, the plan's to go with the argument I would have given last time, if S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't taken the heat in my stead: First and foremost, the 'Iron Woman' can't be their property because I am the Iron Woman, and that's indentured servitude at best. As for the suit itself, I'll attempt to convince them that it's not a weapon — it's an advanced prosthetic. If they insist on defining it as a weapon, I'll point out that out of everyone in the world, I am the most qualified handler for it, and that taking it from me and giving it to someone else actually increases the risk of danger. If that fails, then I'll point out that if they decide to take my suit that I can, and will, appeal their determination to a Court of Appeals. Unless they somehow convince the court to convene an emergency session, that will buy me a couple of months, during which time I'll 'levy my assets to my advantage' (i.e., I'll either find or create blackmail that will make them wish they'd never dicked around with me. I can't actually say that, but they'll get the message if I have to contact them personally in the meantime to drive the point home.). Worst case scenario at that point, I'll use the bought time to figure out a better plan, at the very least. Maybe build a self-sufficient space station that orbits the moon? Nobody has a valid land claim there, that I'm aware of."

Danny stared blankly at her, his laptop long since forgotten. Bruce just smiled and quipped back, "Well, it's good to have a plan."

Thursday, July 14th, 2005 10:54a, EST | Washington, D.C.

"I still don't like the idea of you meeting this guy alone, Megan," Happy grumbled as he deftly steered the car through the awful inner-city traffic. "I'm the Chief of Security now, and it's my jo—"

"Happy," Megan interrupted with a weary sigh, "thank you very much for being such an exuberant (Total understatement...) Chief of Security, but we've been over this. It's just a quick tech demonstration, he understandably wants to keep it as confidential as possible because it involves trade secrets, and he's not some random stranger."

"A guy you've met all of once before isn't that much better than a 'random stranger,' Meg," her ex-bodyguard drawled back.

The petite woman sighed as she shifted anxiously in her seat, readjusting her crossed legs so the left was on top. "You're not wrong, last time I saw Aldrich was six years ago at that technical conference in Bern, and he was… kind of creepy, if I'm being honest. Still, I need to see this tech demonstration. He said his think tank's nearly completed Maya Hansen's project that she showed me at the conference. You remember that, right? The explosion at the hotel when you pulled the leaf off of her plant?"

Happy grimaced at the memory. The explosion he caused was definitely one of his biggest failures as a bodyguard, since but for his actions, nothing would have happened. "Yeah, I remember… Actually, didn't you help with her with it?"

"I gave her some of my thoughts on it, yes, but I doubt my five minutes of thinking and hastily written out thoughts on the formula were very helpful." She glanced out the window in thought, unconsciously rubbing the prosthetic portion of her left leg. "The point is, if A.I.M. has come close to completing the formula, then a joint venture with them would be a good idea for Stark Industries. The technology would, at the very least, be an alternative to our prosthetics line, if not replace us altogether. Aldrich specifically requested me instead of Pepper, so I need to go to this demonstration." She turned her gaze from the window back to rearview mirror where Happy was occasionally glancing back at her. "Besides," she added, "if he tries anything unsavory, I'll zap him." She snapped her fingers, a small flare of electricity occurring as she did so — the byproduct of her brief stint as the owner of Mjölnir.

The driver released a resigned sigh but otherwise said nothing as he parked the car at the venue A.I.M. had named. Appreciating why she needed to go didn't mean he had to like it, and admittedly, her strange new power was a certain degree of insurance for her safety. Seeing that they'd arrived, Megan unbuckled herself, opened the door, and slid out of the car, a smile growing on her face as her upper thighs rubbed together, the feeling reminding her that she now had the genitalia she knew she should've had since birth. Her birthday this year had fallen on a Sunday, so she hadn't been able to have the surgery the moment she turned twenty-five, but by the end of the thirtieth, her genitalia had finally been remolded. Her recovery had lasted a handful of weeks (During which time she nearly drove Bruce and Danny, who had to deal with her full time, crazy as she insisted on working from bed.), ending last week.

The thought of how she and Bruce had celebrated the end of her recovery made her flush, and that only served to remind her that the celebrations had been… ongoing, and included the night prior. Happy, who had leaned over to the right side of the car after pressing the button to lower the passenger window, looked up to check on her and noticed. "You okay there, Meg?"

"Yes!" Megan squeaked out, altogether too fast, eliciting a quirked eyebrow from him. "I, err…" she muttered as she collected herself. "I was just thinking about…" Meg, listen to yourself! Are you seriously about to tell Happy you were thinking about you and Bruce having sex!? "Err… it's… a girl thing."

The color of his face rapidly changed to match the hue of hers from a moment prior, and he muttered something that vaguely sounded like, "I don't want to know," which elicited a giggle from the petite woman.

She turned her attention back to the surprisingly nondescript location. I know Aldrich said this is just an outpost of sorts, but still, I expected something… different for the think tank that's working out how to regrow lost or damaged limbs! "I'll see you at one o'clock, right?"

"On the dot," he replied, attempting to recover his composure.

"Okay." She smiled. "Thank you for agreeing to drive me out, Happy. This feels like old times."

Happy returned her smile. "Yeah. Yeah, it does."

She gave him a jaunty wave then turned away and headed into the building, her red pumps clicking on the sidewalk along the way. Inside, a man sharply dressed in a light gray suit, open top black button-up shirt combo gave her a brilliantly white smile as he greeted her, "Megan! It's so good to see you after all this time!"

Megan blinked, nonplussed for a moment before realization struck her. "Aldrich!" she exclaimed. "Wow! I barely recognized you, you've changed so much!" Her eyes raked over him once more, taking note of the changes. His blonde hair was pristinely styled and swept back, his thickly framed glasses were gone altogether, his smile was perfect, and despite the absence of his cane, his posture was impeccable. She couldn't help herself: She blushed. "You look great. You look really great."

He laughed at that. "Yes, I suppose I have changed a bit since New Year's Eve 1999. Though in my opinion, you are the one who's 'changed so much.'" He gestured at her pristine white pant-suit and the red blouse underneath that was simultaneously tasteful yet flattering — her arc reactor on full display — and also matched her hair's highlights and her mother's pumps, which she had decided to wear for much the same reason she had at the Stark Demonstration just over a year ago: She wanted to channel her mother's courage, in the hopes that the press conference would end in her favor. "You are stunning, Meg. Age has only enhanced your beauty."

"T-thank you, Aldrich. That's sweet of you to say," she murmured, her blush intensifying, beginning to match the hue of her red attire. Pull it together, Meg! You're acting like a school girl for heaven's sake! "I'm sorry, I've gotten us off point, haven't I? I'm very excited to see where you are with Maya's work. I believe you said you're calling it Extremis?"

"Oh, I have an incredible demonstration planned." He gave her a winning smile and gestured for her to follow him as he set off at a light pace down the hall. "As it so happens," he continued after they had begun walking, "the changes you noticed between the old me and the new me are the first example I have to show you."

Megan's eyebrows shot up a mile. "I'm sorry? You're saying you've used the technology on yourself? I was under the impression the formulae were still under development?"

"There are some… kinks that are still being worked out, but the benefits of the technology are so strong that we decided to move forward with human testing despite the side effects."

"I… see," she replied. "Well, I'm familiar with the benefits from what you've told me. Admittedly, I'm… concerned by the potential for weaponizing this technology. I'm in the business of prosthetics to help people live, not to help them kill others. Still, it's something I'm confident our lawyers can hammer out terms that would alleviate my worries in that regard. As for the side effects, what exactly are we talking about here?"

Megan's prosthetic leg suddenly stopped functioning, sending the caught off guard genius crashing to the ground. "Fuck!" she exclaimed, as she twisted mid-air to avoid landing on her face, putting her left side in the line of fire. She cried out in pain as she connected solidly with the floor, her shoulder dislocating from the impact.

While she was falling, Aldrich had swiftly retrieved a filled syringe from a case in his pocket and, before she could react from her position on the ground, he stabbed her with the needle and depressed the plunger. "Our second demonstration will showcase the primary side effect we discovered."

Immediately, she began to scream and writhe, her veins feeling as though they were filled with liquid fire. Electricity flared out from her body reflexively, blasting back a surprised Aldrich, but it rapidly began to fizzle out. The panicked genius attempted to summon up the power again, hoping to fight back, but instead of feeling the expected jolt of current, she felt a very different jolt. Her body began to change: She was growing in size, muscle mass, and height, her clothes rapidly becoming ill fitting to the point that they began to tear away altogether; her smooth skin began to grow rougher and sprout coarse, black hair body hair; her scream, though undying in intensity, began to fall dramatically in pitch; the receptors for her prosthetic leg rose to the surface of her skin and burst through, the skin healing over promptly; the prosthetic itself fell off as the missing portion of her limb began to grow anew; the shining blue arc reactor in her sternum slowly pushed its way out of the hole in her sternum together with a multitude of small metal shards — the shrapnel that had been present in her nearly two years — leaving a gaping wound that sealed immediately after; and her genitalia, which had finally been remolded only two months prior to how it ought to have been, made a frightening return, reaching a size larger than it had been after a life of hormone replacement therapy.

The whole process took only moments, but to Megan, it felt like an eternity, the pain blinding due to how massive and multitudinous her changes were. Eventually, the pain subsided leaving only the thrum of fire in her veins, the relief of having numerous health issues suddenly gone, and a crawling feeling all over her that her body felt wrong. "What ha—" she began to wearily ask, before she slapped a hand over her mouth as the pupils of her sky blue eyes shrank until they were practically nonexistent, the pitch of her voice sending her into a frenzied panic. No! No, no, no! Please tell me this is just a nightmare! I'm going to wake up in a minute, and Bruce will be there next to me, ready to comf—

"As you can see," Aldrich said, interrupting her panicked train of thought, "Extremis performs its regrowth based off of one's DNA rather than self-perception. Any cosmetic surgery or similar procedures the subject has previously undergone are wiped away as if they had never happened."

"NO!" Megan screamed, her voice shrill yet distinctly masculine in timbre. "No, no, no!"

"Yeah, I had a feeling you'd be dissatisfied with the results, regrown leg or not. In fact, that's not the only unpleasant side effect, but I imagine you're a tad bit more occupied with this one at the moment."

She began to hyperventilate, sobs wracking her now male body as tears began to flood her vision. The room was beginning to spin and go black, her mind unable to process what was happening. The last memory she had before everything went black was Aldrich smugly remarking, "That concludes my presentation."

Aldrich watched smugly as his underlings ripped off what little of Megan's clothes remained remotely intact until she was entirely bare and began to slip her male body into the type of worn and battered clothes that many homeless men wore. "That went well," he idly commented to the woman standing next to him — a perfect doppelgänger of Megan Stark.

"Yes, but I hate that this was necessary," she replied with a wince. "It was… hard to watch, to say the least."

"I can only imagine, my beautiful pearl," he responded before turning to her and softly cupping her face. "I'm sorry our plan requires so much of you."

"Don't be," she said with a small smile. "It's only fair that I do my part to save the world." She pushed herself up onto her tiptoes and kissed him firmly on the lips. "I love you."

"I love you too."

"Sir, are you okay?" the police officer inquired, his mag light lit but aimed slightly away to avoid blinding the sleeping, raven haired homeless man when he opened his eyes.

Megan's eyes shot wide open, her sky blue irises frantically snapping back and forth and unable to focus, and she let loose a brief, wordless scream, the masculine pitch of which only served to deepen the rapidly developing panic attack. "No, no, no," she began to mutter incessantly as she began to rapidly pat down her body, her movements becoming frenzied as her hands confirmed that her body was one that clearly proclaimed 'male.'

The officer's eyebrows furrowed as he took a step back from the hectic Megan. "Sir, have you been drinking tonight?"

"No!" she screamed back at him, his breathes short and ragged. "I-I-I can't… N-n-n-nightmare, please, please, please…"

"Sir, I need you to calm down for me," the officer said, attempting to placate the frenzied Megan.

"Help me," she moaned as her eyes finally managed to focus on the nearby officer. "Attacked… Please h-help…"

"Dispatch," the officer's nearby partner directed into his radio, "we have an individual who's claiming to have been attacked and is presently having a panic attack. We need EMS at the corner of V Street northeast and third street northeast, over."

"Sir," the original officer asked with as calm a voice as he could muster, "I need you to tell me who attacked you…"

Sunday, December 25th, 2005 09:59p, EST | Washington, D.C., an alcove near a homeless shelter

"No one believed me, of course," Megan said with a sigh, regaling the trickster god with her tale. "No one would believe that I was Megan Stark, much less how my body had changed… My family might have, if I could have reached them, but my doppelgänger made sure all contact between my family and me was impossible."

"It is outlandish, even to me," Loki admitted, his brow slightly furrowed in thought. "What your world can do with this… 'science' is fascinating. To recreate what only magic could accomplish, all without a drop of mana…"

"Mana?" the raven-haired woman queried.

Her companion lifted his right hand, aiming his palm at the wall to his right, and released a wave of ice, flash freezing the wall into a solid sheet of ice. "Reserves of magic. You didn't think magic was fueled by nothing, did you, Megan?"

"Fascinating…" she murmured, her eyes raking over the fruits of his magical display. "This explains Heimdall's condition when I first went to Asgard. I thought all magic was created by weapons like Mjölnir and Gungnir… I suppose the knowledge I was given when I took up Mjölnir wasn't complete." Her sky blue orbs found his pale green counterparts. "Am I correct in guessing mana isn't something all Asgardians have?"

Loki nodded his head in confirmation, a light grin on his lips. She catches on quickly. This was definitely the correct course of action… I'm liking her more and more. "Yes. Though I am not truly Asgardian, but rather Jotun, it is nevertheless true that all races have variance regarding who possesses mana reserves." Seeing she was satisfied, albeit curious, by his answer (Since she's not asking what a 'Jotun' is, she must have already known from the wealth of knowledge she gained when she claimed Mjölnir. Likely, this means she's pondering how Thor and I came to be 'brothers' but isn't asking because she can sense it may be a sensitive topic. Very good…), he added, "Thank you for telling me the whole story of how you came to be like this. Having the full details is helpful."

"Of course," she replied, unconcerned. "It's impossible to solve an equation unless you have all the variables, after all."

"The… variables?" he asked, one eyebrow elegantly quirked questioningly.

"The influencing factors," she supplied sheepishly, having briefly forgotten that although Asgard primarily (and miraculously) spoke English, Asgardian English was very archaic in vocabulary. "Speaking of which," she added, her gaze becoming intent, "I cannot begin to thank you enough for helping me. You said earlier that you saw 'the potential for you to repay that debt in a way that you're comfortable with,' and I know you said you're doing this because I saved your life, yet…" She worried her lip for a moment, preparing for potential backlash, before continuing. "Yet I can't shake the feeling that you aren't doing this purely out of the kindness of your heart. Your moniker, 'the trickster god,' is well deserved as I understand it."

If anything, the Asgardian appeared smug upon hearing her question. "Excellent. Despite all other distractions, you still noticed my wording and remained appropriately cautious. Ordinarily, I would frown on you showing me your hand so clearly, but it made determining whether you were wary of me very easy."

Megan stared at the raven-haired trickster. Well, shit. "So… What exactly do you get out of doing this, besides repayment of a life debt?"

"I consider the life debt owed by me to you fully repaid, in light of my restoring your body to what your spirit has always yearned for," Loki carefully explained. "That aside, I have an offer that I hope you will consider."

She considered him for a time, watching carefully for any sign of disingenuousness. Eventually, with her eyes carefully focused on his, she asked, "My body is permanently restored — not an illusion?"

"Yes," the Asgardian evenly replied, matching her seriousness and meeting her gaze.

No dilation in his pupils… I'm confident a Jotun's body must have some differences from that of a human, but given my unfamiliarity with how they tick, I'll have to stick with what works on humans and hope they're appropriate analogues. I know I'm biased in wanting what he says to be true, but still… I'll assume he's not lying. "Please tell what you have in mind."

The Asgardian gave her a toothy smile as he drew a circle in the air between them with his index finger, a ring of light tracing its movement. When the light had formed a complete circle, a scene from a press conference not long after her attack began to play out, showing Aldrich Killian and Megan's doppelgänger shaking hands with the news title 'Stark Industries partnership with Advanced Idea Mechanics' emblazoned below them. "You have your body back, but I imagine you will want to reclaim your life from your doppelgänger and will want revenge for the atrocities this 'Aldrich Killian' did to you. I will help you, Megan, on the condition that you will be my ally from this day forward."