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(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)
Hank Pym glanced up at the flash of green light, then he grunted when it cleared to reveal Loki. "Aren't you dead?" He took another drink of whiskey. "Of course, I heard that from Scott, and he'll believe anything, especially if Captain America says so."
"Whether or not I'm dead apparently depends on which branch of the World Tree you reside," Loki said. His green and gold armor shifted to become an elegant gray business suit. "On yours, I am most definitely alive." He made a gesture with his right hand, and produced a bottle and glass. "Unless Midgard is very different from Asgard, drinking alone is depressing."
Hank shrugged. "Look around. Everything's depressing. My wife's trying to figure out a way to harness the ...well, you don't need to know what it is... to heal people, but the only way she's got it to work is by draining her own energy. She won't stop. Hope and I have tried to convince Jan to let the doctors do their jobs, but... she was... away... for a long time and she says she feels this is why she was returned, this is her purpose." Hank drank some more. "It will kill her eventually."
"Ah. Liquor makes you loquacious, I see," Loki remarked. He poured a light golden liquid into his glass and sipped.
Hank wrinkled his nose. "What the hell is that? It smells like a musty old book."
"Honey mead," Loki replied. "It tastes better than it smells. Like many things, it's best not to judge by appearances."
"Is that supposed to mean something? Look, if you've come here to watch someone kneel, it's not going to be me. You don't scare me."
"No, that's not why I've come. Thor's gone off gallivanting with a group of idiots. The remaining Asgardians are attempting to learn a bucolic lifestyle, and I am persona non grata on every world I have visited."
"Wonder why," Hank said. "You're such a charming fellow."
Loki nodded. "Yes, it is a conundrum. However, I believe I have a solution to both our problems." He put down his glass, twisted his hand again, and produced a large, lumpy, dull yellowish fruit mottled with dull tan patches and streaks of reddish brown. "I will be forgiven all my sins in return for my gift to Midgard in its hour of need."
"A pear. An ugly pear. You need to up your fruit basket game."
"How soon they forget. Do not judge by appearances." Loki pulled a slender knife out of nowhere and cut a sliver from the fruit. A deep, rich apple smell filled the room.
Hank sat up straight. "What is that? It... just smelling it makes me feel..."
"Yes. I had thought it might have an even stronger effect on a Midgardian. This... is the last of Idunn's apples, golden in name, if not in color. It heals."
"But..." Hank reached out to the apple and then pulled back his hand. "If it's the last... can you plant the seeds, maybe... no... it would take too long to grow..."
"They wouldn't breed true, at any rate. You never know what you'll get with a seedling apple tree. Idunn tried and none of the offspring had the same properties. She had to graft shoots onto other rootstocks."
"So what use is it?" Hank glared at Loki. "Save a few powerful people and let everyone else go hang?"
"That's what one small apple can do."
"Oh. So that's why you've come to me. I could use the Pym particles to enlarge it... but the effect is unstable, increasing with the size differential. I could never make it large enough to help everyone. I could get it up to the size of a watermelon safely, but not much more."
"I know. That's why I've recruited another ally. She has her own agenda, so I thought it best to prepare you for..."
The door to the lab opened, and green tendrils poured in, twisting and growing. "ME!" A green skinned, red haired woman lounged on the newly formed green throne. "People have got themselves into this fix by destroying the natural world." She pouted. "I still don't know why I let you talk me into trying to save them."
Loki smiled. "Dr. Pym, I would like you to meet Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley, better known to her friends as Poison Ivy. Please don't be offended if I request you to keep your distance. She is, quite literally, a femme fatale."
Poison Ivy grinned. "You are such a charmer, Loki. That's probably why I listened to you."
"That, and the opportunity to blackmail governments," Loki said.
"No such thing," Poison Ivy said, "It's just quid pro quo! That's the way politics is done, isn't it? You scratch my back, I blister yours." She held out her hand. Loki tossed her the apple. The one shriveled dry leaf clinging to the stem unfurled. The stem lengthened, and turned into a branch which shot off shoots. Her green throne broke off shoots and merged them with itself. Apple trees began growing, and then bloomed. The scent of apple blossom filled the laboratory.
Hank said, "Huh. In Washington D. C. they make a big deal out of cherry blossom time. I think, right now, apple blossom time would be a bigger hit."
Poison Ivy's smile widened.