Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wakanda — Present Day

Steve was two months into helping out a remote village at the northern edge of Wakanda’s territories when Nakia, T’challa’s favorite of the warrior women, arrived at his doorstep. It was a modest hut, his quarters, with a single plain cot in one corner. The sheets were threadbare and the floor yellow dirt, all the signs of an impoverished area except for the paper-thin plasma display monitors mounted on one wall. The family he lived with had refused to leave him without at least a bit of Wakanda’s rich resources. Steve didn't particularly want or need the high tech gadgets, but he didn’t want to offend them, and so the screens stayed.

It had been hard, accepting Bucky’s choice to go back under, but he understood the necessity. Steve was willing to wait for the day Bucky’s physicians figured out the safest way to end the Winter Soldier programming and clear him for normal human interactions.

In the meantime, he had busied himself getting to know the people of Wakanda, learning their culture, and offering assistance wherever it was needed. In the first couple of weeks, T’challa, greatly amused by all this, had left Steve to his own devices. He only had to intervene when Steve got abducted by a female tribal warrior looking for a new husband. After that wild debacle, he mostly stayed in the tamer side of Wakanda.

“Nakia,” He greeted when the door creaked open to reveal the beautiful woman standing on the other side.

She took in his thick beard and disheveled hair and lifted a silent brow.

“Is something wrong?” Steve asked, mind already leaping to the man lying helpless in a cryo-pod in the heart of Wakanda’s best research lab. His fists clenched.

“Not exactly,” Nakia bit her lip before adding, “your friend is fine, ikhapteni, but you need to come with me. Our king insists.”

“Steve, not ‘captain’,” He reminded for the thousandth time, pulling out one of the prepackaged knapsacks out from under the bed and tossing it over one broad shoulder.

“You have been learning Xhosa in your free time,” Nakia sounded subtly impressed. Steve shut the door dutifully behind himself, not bothering to lock it. He had nothing of value beside two extra sets of clothes and some trinkets the local children had gifted him.

“The kids are excellent teachers,” Steve smiled briefly, “I teach them English in exchange. Where to, Nakia?”

“Why are you so determined to punish yourself?" Sighing, she shook her head. The air in front of them shifted as the ship de-cloaked itself.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Steve replied mildly, following her up the steps.

-

The first thing he heard was the sound of a woman’s sobbing screams. Then, the cryo-chamber doors hissed open and the straps holding the Winter Soldier snapped and Bucky Barnes fell forward. He automatically braced himself for the impact, and to Bucky fascination, there were two responsive and functioning limbs instead of one.

He held up his new arm, dark gray with a curious gold material lining the musculature. It was quite pretty. And shiny, very shiny.

Bucky looked up sharply when he heard more screaming, and five feet away, the orange rock suspended in the pillar of light was giving off angry pulses like a heartbeat. The commotion was coming from a shimmery blue portal, from which women and children wearing medieval Shakespearean clothes were stumbling out, faces chalky pale and tears running down their faces. He and Steve had seen one of those, Macbeth or something, down at one of the Broadway theaters before the war. It felt like a life time ago.

He shot to his feet when one of the women, heavily pregnant, crumpled as her legs gave out beneath her. Bucky caught the lady before she met the floor. He spun them around to shield her from the worst of the sparks that had suddenly exploded from the light fixture over their heads. The surge of power was probably what had roused him from the cryo-pod.

“Our princes,” She sobbed, clutching hysterically at Bucky’s shirt, “you must help them!”

“What princess?” He asked, completely lost.

But by that time, Wakandan researchers were flocking into the destroyed lab, closely followed by their leader. T’Challa’s eyes widened when they met his over the heads of the distressed people filling the halls. Bucky tried to convey his bewilderment with a shrug, his arms still full of the pregnant woman.

The portal fizzed, and with it, the last of the bizarrely-dressed people trickled out. It was a man and a woman, but she was barely holding him upright. Blood dripped down between the fingers pressed to the wound on his abdomen. His head lolled and T’Challa closed the distance between them with three quick strides, taking the brunt of the man's weight from the dark-haired woman. Something clattered to the ground and Bucky’s eyes landed on the hilt of what was once a beautifully-crafted broadsword. The blade was no longer intact.

She fell to her knees, colorless lips parting to whisper-

“Thanos.”

 Outer Space — Present Day

“Peter, that was not necessary,” Gamora’s quiet disapproval was only making him more annoyed.

“He’s not my father,” Peter muttered, crossing his arms.

“Stakar Ogord meant well,” She pointed out, taking a seat next to him. “He was only trying to watch out for you.”

“Well, I don’t need it,” He snapped, breathing hard. “Who does he think he is? Ordering me around like he’s my old man and throwing Yondu’s name around like that. He’s an asshole, that’s what he is-”

His voice cracked. Gamora carefully laid a hand over his knee as Peter scrubbed furiously at his watering eyes.

“Yondu died thinking they hated his guts,” he muttered angrily. “He had no right to bring up my old man.”

“Peter, Stakar was the one who rescued Yondu from slavery,” Gamora reminded gently. “besides, we follow you, remember, captain? Not him.”

That made Peter smile a little, and Gamora rolled her eyes when he puffed up his chest and repeated the word, but her expression remained affectionate despite the childish preening.

“Peter…” She started, but was rudely interrupted by the sudden appearance of Rocket and Mantis.

“Are you two done sucking faces?” The rodent demanded waspishly, “if so, I need a fucking pee break from the con. Quill, you’re up. Get your fat ass in the pilot chair.”

“Sucking faces?” Mantis asked, puzzled. “Were you kissing? I feel sexual energy in here.”

"We were only talking, Mantis," Gamora gave Peter a warning look that he promptly ignored. 

“Guess what, it's from Groot’s room,” He leaned in to whisper gleefully, ignoring Rocket’s groan of disgust, “he’s probably jacking off, what with being a teenager and all.”

“You’re repulsive, Quill,” Rocket said, kicking him sharply in the knee. “Kid’s a tree.”

“What is ‘jacking off?’” Mantis blinked.

“You see, when you reach puberty-” Gamora’s fingers found their way around Peter’s left ear and twisted painfully. He gritted his teeth, “-you find the urge to get more sleep. It means 'to rest,' Mantis. Please let go, Gamora, I happen to be very fond of my left ear.”

“Oh,” Her antenna perked up, then, turning to Rocket, she said generously, “you look exhausted, Rocket, you should go jack off.”

Peter choked on the laughter bubbling up from his chest.

“Wow, Quill. There’s a special place in Hell for people like you,” Rocket said blandly.

“Idiot,” Gamora sent him out of the room with a stinging slap to the back of the head. Still chuckling under his breath, Peter ambled into the control room where Drax was standing over the blinking console.

“You left Drax to man the con?” Peter hollered, “Rocket, are you actively trying to kill us?”

“He’s less stupid than you, dickhead,” Came the quick reply.

Before Peter could generate an even better insult, something smacked into the windshield of the new Milano with a resounding thunk. Peter squinted, and for a moment, he could not believe his eyes.

It was an unconscious…man, blue-skinned with shoulder-length black hair.

“Yuck, get it off,” Rocket yelped from behind him, "I told you to fix the windshield wipers, turd-face!”

Another heavier thud, and Peter actually yelped this time, taking a step back as a second figure joined the first against their windshield.

Fair skin, short hair, and eyepatch this time.

“What the hell…” Peter muttered.

Beside him, Drax let out a booming laugh and slapped a meaty palm into Peter’s back.

“It’s raining men, Quill,” He bellowed, delighted, “just like your song said!”

Chapter Text

The In-Between — Present Day

The first thing Loki registered was pain, hot and scalding, all along the left side of his body. It throbbed like an open wound beneath his charred leathers, and as his memory of past events slowly stirred to life, he noticed something else — the soft repetitive sound of waves crashing against a cliffside.

“I was not expecting you so soon, my son,” Odin’s mild voice was accompanied by gentle hands, easing Loki’s body upright. He opened his eyes to the All-Father’s sad smile. Loki took a rattling breath, winced, and forced his mouth to speak.

“I am dead, then?” The calm finality in his tone surprised even himself.

“Not quite,” Odin said, brushing Loki’s wild hair back from his colorless face. His touch seemed to leech away most of the pain from Loki’s body, leaving him pleasantly numb. “What you did was brave but utterly foolish.”

The words rattled loose a memory, Thor’s stricken face across from him, their people’s fading screams, the cold cruel press of a blade against his own neck and Corvus’ angry roar in his ear.

“Do it, Thor!” Loki had yelled, and his brother’s lightning had descended upon them both in bolts of pure agony.

Loki ripped apart his tunic with trembling fingers and saw the deep blackened grooves dug into the skin by Thor’s lightning, his flesh charred and lifeless around the wounds. He hoped at least that he had taken one of Thanos’ henchmen down with him. Odin heaved a sigh at the sight. Loki met his eyes and swallowed thickly.

“Thor?” He croaked.

“He is not here,” Odin said, and for a brief second, relief flooded Loki’s chest. It was quickly squashed by annoyance. Now was not the time for weak sentiments.

Looking around, Loki noticed that they were back on that cliffside in Norway, or at least it looked like Norway. “So is this the Valhalla my brother speaks so proudly of? I have to say, it seems rather disappointing."

“No, my son,” Odin said quietly, “it is not your time.”

“What do you mean? I am dead, am I not?” Loki got to his feet with some difficulty and gestured down at the mess that was his chest. He cocked his head to the side and studied the All-Father with suspicious eyes, “do not tell me this only a dream. Or are you here to give another droning lecture like you did with Thor? And yes, he told me about you impromptu appearances.”

Odin’s lip twitched. Patting the spot on the mossy boulder next to him, he said, “come sit with me, Loki. We have much to discuss and not a lot of time.”

Frowning, Loki sat down. Odin turned to look at him, really look. Loki met his gaze head on for the first time in a long time.

“I have not been a good father to you, my son,” Odin said, “you were so startlingly similar to my first-born, still is, that I did not want you anywhere near battle, for fear of losing another beloved child to the bloodlust. In the end, I failed you, just as I failed Hela.”

“Why are you telling me this now?” Loki asked.

Odin’s smile was fond, “despite my multiple mistakes, you came to Asgard’s rescue and risked your life to send our people to Midgard. You did not lose yourself in hatred and overcame everything pitted against you, Loki. Words cannot begin to convey how proud I am."

“Wow, I really must be on my death bed for you to say that, old man,” Clearing his suddenly tight throat, Loki bit his lip and willed himself not to react to the words.

“It fills me with hope, Loki, seeing how far my sons have come,” Odin continued, “yet that hope is tarnished with dread for what is to come.”

Rubbing at the deep slash Thor’s lightning left on his right arm, Loki said, “you mean Thanos.”

“Aye, the danger is not over for our people, Loki,” Odin said solemnly, “it was smart of you to harness the power of the remaining Infinity Stone in conjunction with the Tesseract to open that portal and send them to safety, but he will eventually track down that last hidden power source and with it, Thanos will unleash chaos upon the Nine Realms.”

“I gave it up, the Tesseract,” Loki admitted regretfully, “I had no choice, Thanos’ lieutenant was going to kill Thor.”

The memory of his brother’s warm blood was still fresh in the back of Loki’s mind. He could almost feel it, Thor's phantom pulse throbbing beneath the torn flesh of his slit throat as Loki cupped trembling fingers over the wound. He had been ready to die for Asgard, but Loki had not been ready to let him go.

“You did the right thing,” Odin’s hand settled on his tense shoulder and it was as if an invisible weight had been lifted from him, Loki suddenly found it a little bit easier to breath.

“So what now?” Loki asked after a comfortable silence. Odin had not removed his hand from Loki’s shoulder. The ground was soft beneath his boot-clad feet, the lush green grass swaying gently in the salt-damp wind. There was no pain in his battered body, just tranquil peace. He suddenly had the urge to capture this moment in its entirety and savor it for eternity.

“As fond as I am of you, my son, your brother needs you more than us. You belong with the living,” Sighing softly, Odin got slowly to his feet.

Loki raised an eyebrow up at him, “I suppose you’re just going to raise me from the dead then, Odin All-Father?”

“No, not me,” Odin smiled slowly just as a soft hand landed gently atop Loki’s shoulder and his nose filled with the familiar scent of the night lilies Frigga used to adore, “your mother.”

-

 She was untouched by time. Loki’s tongue could not conjure up the words to describe her ethereal beauty. Instead, he sat there, jaw slack and eyes wide as Frigga cupped his cheek with a warm palm, her brilliant blue eyes, so similar to Thor’s, smiling down at him with loving affection.

“Oh my beautiful boy,” She sighed, eyes filling with unshed tears.

“Y-you’re here…” The words were half-questioning, but his fingers were already reaching out to touch.

Frigga let out a soft gasp of surprise when Loki shot to his feet and embraced her tightly, wrapping his arms greedily around the only being who had showered him with unwavering love growing up. He buried his face into his mother’s soft hair and the rest of the world seemed to fade away. Here in her arms, he was safe and loved.

“Oh Loki,” Frigga patted him gently, her loving fingers carding through Loki’s dark messy locks. “I have missed you so.”

Loki pulled back, eyes red-rimmed. He swallowed and began, “Mother, I—”

“I know what you are going to say, and it was not your fault, Loki,” She cut him off firmly with a stern look.

“I’m sorry our last conversation ended the way it did, Mother,” He whispered and allowed Frigga to pull him close again.

“As am I, son. But that is all in the past,” Frigga assured him, “I love you, Loki, and I am so so proud.”

Their foreheads touched and Loki closed his eyes on an exhale, shoulders sagging as he admitted quietly, “I love you too, Mother.”

A gruff cough sounded beside them and Loki turned to Odin, whose expression was regretful. “I do not wish to cut this reunion short, but the longer Loki stays, the harder it will be for him to return to the land of the living, my dear wife.”

“Yes, of course,” Frigga took a small step back, wiping at her wet cheeks and reverting back to the regal queen of Asgard once again. Loki scowled at the All-Father, bitterly disappointed.

“I want to stay with Mother,” He snapped, crossing his arms over his chest like a five-year-old.

“We will meet again, my dear boy,” Frigga’s smile was sad, but her hand was steady when she threaded her fingers through Loki’s and guided him over to stand at the side of the sharp cliffside overlooking the dark inky sea down below, “all great tales will come to an end someday, Loki, and their heroes shall be welcomed with open arms into the Halls of Valhalla, but today is not your day.” She lifted his hands up to her lips and brushed a gentle kiss over his bruised knuckles, “your brother needs guidance, Loki. He will be lost without you. Watch over him. We can stand to wait for a few more years.”

“But I don’t want to leave you, Mother,” Loki said, gripping her tighter. “Thor doesn’t need me, he’s got the people of Asgard and his stupid little mortal friends. Let me stay here with you.”

“Oh Loki, your brother needs you more than he will ever willingly admit. Both of your siblings need you,” Frigga shook her head with fond amusement, “and I will always be with you, Loki." She tapped his chest, “in here,” and then his temple, “and in here.”

“A mother’s love leaves a lasting embrace, my son, your mother will always watch over you just as I will your brother,” Odin’s hand squeezed Loki’s shoulder. 

He frowned at Frigga's odd wording, "What do you mean 'siblings?'"

“Hey Loki, how about not biting the dust so soon after us next time, huh?” A laughing voice called from behind, and Loki lifted his head to see the Warriors Three walking toward them. Fandral grinned crookedly at him, “did you morn?”

“Not one bit,” Loki smiled at the familiar exchange. Distracted, he turned to face the blond man.

“Ever the Lyesmith. Tell Thor I’m giving him permission to woo my past conquests, alright?” Fandral clapped Loki on the back and peered down at the tumultuous waters below. He whistled, "quite a long way down."  

“Keep an eye on him, Trickster,” Volstagg warned.

"This isn't goodbye," Fandral promised. 

“Good luck, Loki,” Hogun said, quiet. 

“It is time,” Odin said grimly. He took Frigga’s hand in his and turned to Loki.

Loki slipped his fingers into both of their hands. The wind picked up around them, a low mournful howl that sounded oddly like Thor’s voice. Waves crashed upon the rocks beneath the cliff and Loki suddenly understood what he needed to do.

“We will always love you, son,” Frigga said.

He looked at them one last time, committing each face to memory.

“Mother, Father,” Loki inclined his head, “till we meet again.”

Then, he let go.

Chapter Text

When Thano’s henchmen tore through their last defense, Thor hauled Loki close by a rough hand to the back of the neck and ordered him to run.

His hand was uncomfortably slick with alien blood, and his little brother stared back at Asgard's new king, shock and disbelief etched over his pale aristocratic features. The ship around them was in chaos, alien soldiers pouring in through every crack in the ship’s hull. The distressed screams of their people echoed through the walls of the Grandmaster’s rapidly deteriorating vessel.

“We are no match for his army, brother!” He roared at Loki, desperation in every word.

“I will not run from this, Thor,” Loki threw a dagger at the alien drone sneaking up behind Thor and spat back, equally fierce.

“I know, but you must, for Asgard and for me,” Thor breathed, brushing a sweat-soaked lock of hair out of Loki’s face in the brief lull of battle. He took Loki’s left hand and placed it over his temple. Images flooded forth, flashes from Thor’s mind that his clumsy tongue could not convey.

Loki snatched his hand away and choked out, “That is madness!”

“Take Asgard with you, protect our people, Loki, use the Tesseract to teleport them away from the ship. I know you can manage it,” Thor ordered, and it was no longer the older brother in him speaking, but the king of Asgard, unwavering in his command.

“You-” Loki’s voice cracked as he swallowed convulsively, “you will die...”

“Do not weep for me, Loki,” Thor's thumb brushed the corner of Loki’s eye and came away wet. “I promise I will do everything in my power to return to you.”

Loki wiped the moisture off his face and smacked Thor’s hand away angrily, “how did you know I had the Tesseract?”

“You have always been awfully fond of shiny things,” Thor smiled, turning to run his blade through an enemy sentry. “Like me, for instance.”

“Without your pretty golden locks, you no longer belong in that category, Thor,” Loki sniped on autopilot, but the conflicted pain in his jade green eyes told another story.

“Go, Loki, before I feel the need to throw you at our enemies again,” Thor returned. The back and forth insults were a comforting habit from their childhood, and somehow it helped Thor find the strength to turn from Loki to face the dozen or so creatures tearing their way into the atrium.

“I will buy you as much time as I can,” He promised, lightning crackling from both fists.

“This is not goodbye,” Thor heard Loki vow past the sharp sound of tearing steel, “I refuse to let this be goodbye, Thor.”

When Thor finally mustered the courage to check behind him, his brother had long departed. 

 - 

Except he had been wrong.

For once in his life, Thor's little brother had come running back to him. Ironically, the one time Thor had desperately wished him gone.

You fool! He wanted to scream at the stubborn idiot, but the wide gash in his throat prevented any coherent words. Blood, chokingly thick and salty, bubbled out instead.

“Please,” Loki whispered, holding up the glowing blue cube like an offering to the gods. In the light of the Tesseract, Thor saw that his brother was crying. “Take it. My brother’s life for the Stone.”

The claw around Thor’s head tightened for a fraction of a second. Then, he was flung aside as Corvus stalked forth and plucked the glowing cube from Loki’s fingers. Loki paid him no attention when he rushed forward and with trembling hands, eased Thor gently into his lap.

“Don’t talk,” He snapped when Thor tried to speak past his ruined throat again. “You’re not going to die. I won’t let you.”

The magic wormed beneath his torn skin, knitting the parted flesh with agonizing heat. A drop of cold sweat meandered down the side of Loki’s face. Thor reached out clumsily, but instead of wiping Loki’s brow, his hand tracked a dark red smear over the Trickster’s cheek and flopped uselessly back onto the ground again.

“Pathetic,” The tall woman sneered from where she was watching them with dark eyes.

“Remember that trip we took to Niflheim with Fandral?” Loki spoke softly in words only meant for Thor’s ears, “when we stole treasures from the dragon Nidhug. I need you to do what you did back then.”

What he did back then…what had Thor done back then? Dizzy from the blood loss, it took him a moment to remember that particular adventure. They had landed in a spot of trouble when Fandral had miscalculated the number of dragons inside the cave. Loki had distracted the two other dragons with his clones while Thor took care of Nidhug with his lightning. They had left Niflheim ladened with heavy gold that the trio had promptly lost hours later in a remote tavern in Asgard. Frigga had not been pleased to find the boys covered in bruises, still yelling obscenities at one another, and waist-deep in a truly massive pile of dung outside the establishment.

“Atta boy,” The clone Loki cradling him smiled at the sight of the sparks dancing over Thor’s lax fingers. “Don’t hesitate, no matter what happens.”

He didn’t, not even when Proxima destroyed all the decoy clones and Corvus grabbed the real Loki around the throat, threatening to repeat what he had done to Thor and slit his brother open.

“Do it, Thor!” Loki screamed past ashen lips.

So Thor closed his eye and released the lightning.

Outer Space — Present Day

“Leave me alone,” He said dully when the female with the antennas tried yet again to coax him away from Loki’s cold body. In death, his brother’s magic had faded away, the disguise stripped from his flesh to reveal the intricate light blue swirls adorning his real form. It was disconcertingly beautiful, looking at the familiar features he had grown up with transform into something alien and exotic. Loki had never shared this side of him with Thor before, but now in death, all the illusions had been mercilessly robbed from his body, and Thor found himself strangely wanting to avert his gaze as if he were looking upon something private and intimate.

“He was beautiful,” The other woman, green-skinned, said softly, her solemn gaze trained on Loki’s blood-streaked face.

“Yes he is,” Thor murmured, brushing his hand over sculpted cheekbones. Loki felt chillingly cold, but Thor welcomed the numbness on his skin. Anything to ease the hollow pain in his chest.

“Uh, I hate to interrupt the mourning, but I don’t think we can wake him, not even with a kiss, so you wanna tell us what exactly happened here?” The obnoxious man from earlier asked, breaking their peaceful silence.

Thor turned to face him and narrowed his one good eye threateningly, “you are not worthy of kissing my brother, mortal.”

"Really not the point I was trying to make, dude,” The man, Quill his companions had called him, pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned.

“He is not a dude,” The muscular bald man finally spoke for the first time since Thor woke.

“What?” Quill blinked, “he’s clearly male.”

“You are a dude,” The other man explained solemnly, lifting a finger and pointing at Thor. His bland expression was weirdly intense as he breathed, “that there is a man, one of the finest specimens crafted by the loving hands of the gods themselves.”

“Yeah, I agree with Drax,” The little furry rabbit hopped off a nearby crate and spoke, much to Thor’s surprise, “you’re one sandwich away from being fat, Quill, so you're not exactly an amazing representation of the bipedal humanoid male.”

“I am not fat! I just have big bones,” Quill puffed up indignantly.

“I can see your double chin from here, or is that another bone?” Drax said as the woman with the strange antennas put her palm over Thor’s bicep again. He frowned in bewilderment when the other woman followed suit with his other arm, tracing the tanned skin with a soft finger.

“Ok, that’s enough touching for today,” Quill stepped between Thor and the green woman and hissed, “stop acting like you’ve never seen a man before, Gamora.”

“I haven’t, according to Drax,” She shrugged, smirking a little when she jabbed a finger into Quill’s waistline. “up to now, all I’ve met were dudes. You, for example.”

“Hilarious,” He rolled his eyes before turning back to Thor, “seriously, what happened back there?”

“Thanos,” Thor said quietly, choosing to ignore the strange fondling he'd just received, “his people found our ship. They were in search for the Space Stone inside the Tesseract. Corvus and Proxima ambushed us.”

“They killed your brother?” Gamora asked, eyes widening. The words sliced through Thor like knives.

“No,” He cracked a humorless smile, “I did that.”

-

They were sympathetic and understanding, but it didn’t make the situation any better. Loki was still dead. Thanos likely had the Space Stone in his gauntlet by now, and would be in pursuit of the next one.

“He should be heading to Knowhere to find the Collector next if you are interested in trying to stop him,” He told them when his strange rescuers explained who they were, “However, I advise against it. Where are your escape pods. I need to commandeer one.”

“Wait, where are you going?” Quill asked, trailing after him when Thor made his way out of the tiny infirmary.

“Nidavellir, to find the Dwarves,” He replied distractedly, punching a few command panels. “What’s the code? One of your birthdays?”

“What? No, hang on for a goddamn second,” Quill sputtered.

“Nidavellir? I thought that place was a myth,” The rabbit said excitedly, ears perking up visibly. “Just a fairytale slash wetdream for weapon geeks like me.”

“No, it is real, I assure you,” Thor said, “I need them to forge me something to slay Thanos with. You seem to be in command here, rabbit, mind telling me where the pods are?”

“He’s not a rabbit,” Quill snorted, “and I wear the captain pants around here, not Rocket.”

“Here we go again,” Gamora rolled her eyes.

Thor spared a glance at the man’s trousers, “the color is a little off-putting.”

Drax laughed, “he is handsome and honest.”

“What the hell is happening?” Quill yelled, throwing up his hands in despair. “Stop waxing poetry about the sexy space pirate we dragged in, Drax. I know you don’t swing that way.”

“So, Rocket, would you like to join me?” Thor asked, turning to the little furry creature. “I do not have much time. If Thanos gets all six stones, it will be next to impossible to kill him.”

“Heck yeah, you had me at Nidavellir, hunk,” Rocket said with a sharp grin. “When do we leave?”

“We leave now, he will pay for what he did to my family,” Thor clenched his teeth, “I will avenge my brother’s death even if it kills me.”

"If this Thanos guy is so powerful, how do you know you can kill him and his men this time around?" Rocket asked.

Thor shrugged, "I have nothing else to lose. That's why."

“I’m touched…I truly am, brother, but we must make a detour before we face our deaths,” A familiar albeit exhausted voice said from behind them.

Thor froze.

Had he gone mad with grief? Hearing voices was never a good sign anywhere in the universe.

“Holy shit,” Quill yelped, “Gamora, it's Blue Jesus…”

Heart pounding, Thor forced his feet to move as he turned slowly to face the source of the voice. If it were indeed an illusion, he was not sure he would survive the disappointment and heartbreak this time.

Breathing heavily and leaning against the door frame for support, his little brother smiled wanly, chapped lips twisting to reveal bloodstained teeth and dark hair a wild tangled mess around his face.

“Hello, brother,” Loki croaked.

Thor moved abruptly, shoving his way through the five bodies standing between him and Loki, but the God of Thunder made sure he was extra gentle when he gathered his battered sibling into his arms. Loki coughed quietly, his blue cheek coming to rest against Thor’s shoulder, his cold breath making goosebumps rise on Thor’s neck but warming that empty void in his chest.

“I told you it was not goodbye,” He murmured hoarsely, eyes slipping shut.

Chapter Text

Outer Space — Present Day

Standing in front of the dirty mirror atop their tiny spacecraft, Loki stared at the crimson fern-like tendrils blooming from his chest, crawling all the way down to disappear into the waistband of his pants. The charred broken flesh wounds had disappeared, but in their place, the lightning had left curious scars in Loki’s skin. They added a certain interesting flair to the once flawless expanse of skin in his Aesir form.

Thor’s signature, forever etched into his skin.

Loki knew he should feel more angry, but at the moment, all he could summon was muted relief. He was alive, and so was Thor. Even though their temporary home atop the ship was gone, they were still together. A sharp inhale from behind signaled the arrival of said brother, and when Loki hurried to cover himself, Thor stopped him. There was a look of pure agony on his bruised face as his one remaining blue eye roamed over Loki’s exposed chest, taking in the damage.

Thor swallowed, “Brother, I—”

“I like them,” Loki found himself saying. He calmly met Thor’s guilty gaze, daring him to argue.

“But why?” Thor asked in such a small broken voice that Loki reached out and grabbed his wrist, forcing his calloused fingers to touch a tendril of the lightning flower curling over his torso.

“Because they are a reminder that we survived,” Loki said firmly, “and, I will say this only once, so listen well, because they are from you, Thor.”

“I never wished to hurt you, Loki,” Thor sagged into him, thick arms coming to greedily circle Loki’s waist. He tried not to roll his eyes at the cliche gesture of sentiment as he stiffly patted Thor on the back. “There, there.”

A hot splash of something landed on Loki’s exposed shoulder. Thor sniffed quietly and Loki felt his stomach clench. His older brother had not shed a tear since he was a child, and certainly never for Loki.

“I saw them, you know, when I died,” He said quietly in the ensuing silence. The words felt easier when he did not have the weight of Thor’s gaze on him. “Our Mother and Father, and your friends.”

Thor remained quiet.

“They made me promise to look after you, brother,” Loki murmured, pressing a hand to the back of Thor’s head and blinking back the wetness threatening to spring forth from his own eyes, “so you see, I had no choice but to come back.”

Thor’s arms tighten around him.

“Alright, enough weeping. Or shall I call you sister from now on? We have work to do,” Loki pulled gently on the short tuffs of hair. His brother took a step back and Loki averted his gaze to give him some semblance of privacy as Thor scrubbed vigorously at his wet cheeks with both hands.

“Your face is filthy, come here,” Loki commanded, throwing an arm around Thor’s neck and forcing his face down close to the sink to scrub away the crusted blood and dirt caked in his beard and hair.

“Gently, Loki,” Thor sputtered, spitting out a mouthful of water.

“Don’t be such a princess,” The younger of the two gods sneered, pushing him under the spray again just for spite.

“I meant you,” Thor gurgled, “I don’t want to reopen your wounds.”

Deciding to end the water torture a little bit earlier than planned, Loki grabbed a nearby towel and began to scrub at Thor’s soaking wet head. His brother let out a muffled laugh and took over.

“Thanks, Loki, I feel sparkling clean now,” Thor said drily when he finally emerged, short brown hair sticking out like the spikes of a porcupine and forehead flushed pink from the rough scrubbing.

“You’re very welcome,” He smirked back. “So, as I was saying before, we need to take a detour before heading to Nidavellir.”

“Where is it that are you thinking of going?” Thor asked curiously.

“Sakaar.”

“What's there?” His brother frowned.

Loki’s lip twisted, “If I am not mistaken, like us, our dear ‘dead’ sister most likely landed there.” 

-

“She is alive?! How?” Thor asked.

“I don’t know, but Mother mentioned something that got me thinking.” They were back in the tiny command room that served as a cramped meeting space, their ragtag team of rescuers standing around in a loose circle. Loki chose to sit down before his legs gave out. “She said my siblings needed me.”

“She told the truth, I do need you, brother,” Thor’s lips lifted in a small smile as he took a seat next to him.

“Mother said siblings, as in multiple. So unless Odin has another bastard stashed somewhere out there, I take it she is referring to our sister.”

“Sister?” Quill asked.

“She was the reason our home on Asgard was destroyed. As it turns out, my father kept her imprisoned until his death. After he died, she broke out and vowed to take Asgard from us. We fought. She stabbed me in the eye.” Thor explained to the group quickly, pausing in between to give the mortal man a menacing scowl before continuing.

Quill had blurted out a remark about how pretty Loki’s Aesir form was when he stepped out of the bathroom with Thor. It was clear that the words had meant to insult, but his idiot brother had taken them quite literally. Thor had nearly fried the entire vessel with the lightning crackling around fists the size of Quill’s head when he’d hauled the man off his feet and thrown him against the side of the ship, threatening a very slow and painful death if Quill dared to harbor any impure intentions toward Loki.

“Stop it, Thor,” Loki muttered when Thor shifted strategically in his seat so that the majority of his bulk blocked Loki from Quill’s line of sight.

“Even if Hela is on Sakaar, why do you think she will agree to help us?” Thor asked, still scowling suspiciously at Starlord.

“Having Hela on our side would help immensely,” Loki said, “besides, she hungers to conquer, to prove her strength as a warrior. Life on Sakaar would become dull in a matter of weeks. What better way to prove herself that than defeating the most powerful thing in the universe? It would also provide her with a way to get back into Asgard’s good graces.”

“She is not you, Loki, I do not believe our people would be so quick to forget and forgive, not after what she did,” Thor said disapprovingly.

“I trust Mother’s guidance,” Loki said, “so should you. If she hints that we need our sister at our side to win this fight, then I would not hesitate to beg her if need be.”

“Sakaar isn’t that easy to get to,” The sentient rodent piped up.

“No, we need a formidable ship to bypass the Devil’s Anus. Unfortunately, it is the shortest route,” Loki agreed after a perfunctory glance around their cabin, “This rickety tin can will not do.”

“Whoever came up with that name has some serious issues, man,” Rocket muttered, ignoring Quill’s indignant “Hey! That’s my baby you’re dissing, pretty-boy.”

“We know someone who has decent ships,” Gamora appeared in the doorway, holding a bowl of something that she handed to Loki, “soup, drink it while it's still warm.”

Loki glanced down at the liquid sloshing merrily around the thrice-bent metal spool in the bowl. The soup was the distinct color of horse urine and was still bubbling slightly. It gave off the pungent odor of damp leather. Loki’s eyes watered just looking at it. He wordlessly passed it onto Thor who downed it in two big swallows.

“It’s actually not that bad,” His brother said with a shrug, setting the empty bowl aside.

“Yes, well, I am afraid my appetite has yet to rise from the grave,” Loki muttered weakly.

“Nope, we are not going back to him, not after my dramatic exit, Gamora,” Peter Quill said with a resolute shake of the head.

“Stakar Ogord, the Leader of the Ravagers, he’s sort of Peter’s step-grandfather,” Gamora explained to the two Asgardians. “Peter had a squabble with him a few days ago.”

“He is not remotely related to me or my old man,” Quill denied with a heavy scowl. We can go steal a ship from Xandar. I’d rather risk getting thrown in jail than go crawling back to him.”

“Peter, he gave you one lecture about safety after Yondu’s death, he’s just concerned and looking out for you,” Gamora sighed like this was an age-old argument between them.

“You can’t go to Xandar,” Thor said, “Thanos already tore it apart to gain the Power Stone.”

There was a moment of shared gloomy silence between them. Then, Drax opened his mouth and decided for the group, “Ogord it is.”

-

“I feel dirty, used,” Quill remarked after their short meeting with the Leader of the Ravagers. Stakar had agreed to lend two of his finest ships to them.

“Suck it up,” Gamora sighed, “we will split up like we discussed. Rocket and Groot will go to Sakaar with Thor and Loki, the rest of us will head to Knowhere and track down Thanos.”

“Do not engage,” Thor advised, “keep us posted, also, my brother and I are grateful for your assistance. Good luck.”

“You too, don’t die.”

The girls were still staring at Thor with weird intensity. He met Quill’s mulish gaze across the room and lifted a questioning eyebrow as his older brother smiled awkwardly at them and waved farewell. 

“Stop gawking at the giant Ken doll, have some dignity, woman! Mantis, you too, walk away!” Quill bellowed. They turned reluctantly and trudged after him, not forgetting to give Thor’s thick biceps one last lingering glance.

“It appears that you’ve managed to acquire more female fans, Thor,” Loki remarked lightly when his brother turned back to him with an amused look on his face.

“They only like me for my body,” He shrugged, blue eye shining with good humor as he slung an arm around Loki’s shoulder and nudged him gently after the departing rodent and tree.

“That is because there is not much inside that empty noggin of yours,” Loki smirked.

“And here I thought you adored me for my personality all these years,” Thor gasped indignantly.

Loki laughed low in his throat, “'adored' is a strong word, brother, 'reluctantly tolerated' is more accurate.”

Wakanda — Present Day

Bucky was waiting for him on the tarmac with a handful of Wakanda soldiers and...a baby in his arms. Steve froze mid-step off the ship. His best friend was smiling softly at the pink bundle held to his chest. Bucky looked up and lifted one of the infant’s tiny pudgy arms, giving Steve a tiny wave.

“And I thought T’Challa’s deer-in-headlights reaction was bad,” Okoye, T’Challa’s Dora Milaje general, sighed as she hopped up onto the ramp and gave him a slight push forward.

“He froze,” Nakia exchanged a small knowing smile with the bald woman.

“He sure did,” She shook her head with rueful grin.

Steve stumbled forward, questions tumbling from his lips, “Bucky? When did they wake you? Are you feeling better? Where did you get the baby?”

“Whoa, slow down, big guy,” The brunet man laughed, dark green eyes shining under the sunlight, “one at a time, but since you’re so impatient to know: just now; I am feeling a lot better, thank you for asking; and this is Artemis. She was making a fuss because her mother needed medical attention. She seemed to like me, so…”

“So the parents just handed her over to you,” Steve smiled, taking his time running his gaze over Bucky’s relaxed face, fondly cataloging every minute detail and committing them to memory.

“Long story short, yeah,” He grinned back. “Guess I looked trustworthy enough.”

“Who wouldn’t trust their children with you? Give me a hug, Buck,” He said, pulling the other man close and feeling that tightly-wound knot of worry in his chest finally loosen. “I’m so glad you’re doing better.”

“I didn’t really have much of a choice, Stevie,” Bucky admitted, “that’s part of the reason Nakia went to retrieve you.”

Shifting the baby into a more comfortable position, Bucky motioned to the Wakanda medical center in the background. “Come on, I’ll explain on the way. T’Challa’s inside helping with the wounded survivors from Asgard.”

Steve did a double-take, “Wait, you said Asgard?”

 -  

The medical facilities in Wakanda were nothing short of amazing. If it weren’t for the dull aches in his body, Bruce would have suspected that he had died and gone to nerd heaven. The run-in with the King had been somewhat humiliating when he performed what felt distinctly like hybrid between a curtsy and a bow. T’Challa had told him firmly that there was no need for such formalities here. Bruce lied and blamed his blunder on the concussion that he certainly did not have.

Now, all patched up, he was on his way to meet up with Captain America and the Winter Soldier with Princess Shuri, the king’s younger sister. She had tried her best to fill him in on the way, but Bruce still stumbled over his own feet when he saw the two men standing together behind the transparent glass wall. The dark-haired one, James Barnes Bruce presumed, had a blond infant propped comfortably on one hip, his fond gaze trained unwaveringly on Captain America who had an affectionate arm around his shoulder as they chatted.

“They had a baby together?!” Bruce whispered frantically to the young girl next to him. “I know I was floating around in outer space for two years, but this escalated quick.”

“No, but kudos to your mind for going there first, Dr. Banner,” Shuri snickered and pushed open the door.

“Hey white boy, long time no see,” She skipped over to Barnes who opened his arm and gave her an affectionate hug.

“Bruce,” Steve closed the distance between them in two long strides and wrapped Bruce up in a tight embrace. “We thought you were dead. I am glad we were wrong.”

“Me too, Cap,” He smiled, patting the man on the shoulder, “I like the new changes.”

“The baby or the beard?” Cap laughed.

“Both,” Bruce admitted, “you gonna introduce me to your special someone?”

“Buck, come meet Dr. Bruce Banner, I told you about him, remember?” Steve beckoned at the other man.

“The smartest Avenger?” Barnes smiled and held out a hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Banner.”

“Not sure about the smartest, bet Tony can give me a run for my money,” He said, noting with curiosity the smile fade from Barnes’ eyes.

He looked a little guarded when he said, “well, Steve certainly thinks very highly of you.”

“Sergeant Barnes, Captain, we need to speak about the impending attack,” Okoye called out to them before Bruce could reply.

“What impending attack?” Steve asked, tensing.

“According to Brunnhilde, Thanos will be coming for the Infinity Stone,” T’Challa explained from behind her.

“Is she alright?” Bruce asked worriedly. He had not seen the Valkyrie since they landed in Wakanda.

“She is healing, along with Heimdall and the other injured Asgardians,” T’Challa nodded as Steve asked, “There is an Infinity Stone here in Wakanda?”

“I am afraid so,” Barnes was the one who spoke up, “we’re talking about that glowing orange rock in the lab aren’t we? That was where the portal opened up.”

“Where is Thor? Is he here as well?” Steve asked.

Bruce shook his head, “Loki sent us here with the Tesseract.”

“Loki, Thor said he was dead,” Steve stared back at him with wide eyes, “did he stay…?”

“With Thor, yeah,” Bruce bit his lip. “I don’t think they made it out of there, Steve.”

“We will make sure that their sacrifice was not in vain. You say there is an Infinity Stone here, but Thanos already has two of them, so that leaves four more,” Steve narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, “we need to find Wanda and Vision. Their lives may be in danger if he’s going after the Mind Stone next. Buck, what do you say to a field trip?”

“Can’t wait, when do we depart?” Barnes wandered over after handing the child carefully off to a nearby Wakandan guard. 

“I can have a ship ready for you in five minutes,” T’Challa said curtly. He turned to his sister, “Shuri, get the Captain his uniform and shield. Then, I need you to relocate the Infinity Stone deep down into the mines. The signature from the vibranium will provide a temporary interference that will hopefully cloak the stone’s signals and buy us some valuable time. Okoye, contact W’Kabi and tell him to ready his men. Send messages to all the other tribes as well. I have a feeling we will need all the help we can get. I will join you shortly.”

“Where are you going, your Highness?” Okoye asked.

T’Challa paused beside one of Shuri’s test dummies. The Golden Habit, damage fully repaired from the incident in the mines a few weeks ago, glimmered dully in the light. Carefully, T’Challa lifted it off the figurine.

“I need to have a word with my cousin,” He said grimly.

Outer Space — Present Day

“Psst, Loki,” Out of the corner of Rocket’s gaze, he spied the big blond man gently nudge his sleeping counterpart awake again. The younger one stirred slightly, letting out an irritated exhale as his green eyes slid open and slowly focused on his brother.

“What is it this time, Thor?” Loki snapped, “I don’t care if there's a space leprechaun wearing a tutu floating outside. Stop poking me and let me sleep for more than five minutes.”

“Sorry, I just thought you might want to see that truly remarkable pink moon shaped like a butt in the distance. We might never come across one like it,” Thor whispered back, shifting to better accommodate his younger sibling.

Rocket easily saw past the lie. Thor's shoulders had visibly relaxed when his brother stirred awake, something the raccoon was all too familiar with. He had done the same thing after getting Groot back, making up all sorts of ridiculous reasons to poke and prod at the little piece of twig sticking out of the makeshift pot just to make sure he was still alive and it hadn’t all just been Rocket’s hopeful imagination. He had persisted until baby Groot had gotten so pissed that he’d bitten Rocket’s left paw in retaliation.

“You are such an idiot,” Loki snorted but lifted his head obligingly, “fine, where is the pink moon-bum you speak so highly of?”

“Over there, see?” Thor’s smile crinkled the corners of his eyes.

“Looks like your face, Thor.”

“Loki, that was a mean thing to say,” The older of the two brothers whined, pretending to be hurt.

“Cry me a river,” Loki screwed his eyes shut again.

“Don’t you wish they could just stay small and cute forever?” Rocket muttered under his breath, meeting Thor’s eyes in the reflective control panel.

“Alas, they refuse to,” The blond man smiled wistfully.

Rocket glanced over at the teenage tree sprawled gracelessly next to him. Groot was completely immerse in his video game as usual. Rocket sighed, but he did make sure to keep their ship steady so as not to jostle the pair in the back as they hurtled through the dark void to Sakaar.

Chapter Text

Wakanda — Present Day

“What the hell’s this, cuz?” Erik looked up sharply when T’Challa stepped into his confinement unit and threw the Golden Habit into his lap, making him drop the book he was reading in surprise.

“Get up, we have work to do,” T’Challa said simply.

“What work?” His cousin set aside the novel and rose smoothly to his feet like a big cat, each deliberately slow step taking Erik closer to T’Challa. The King kept his head high and calmly met the man’s challenging gaze even as Erik crowded rudely into his personal space.

“Such confidence, T'Challa, stridin' in here and expectin’ me to just obey your every order,” The rebel child purred, “What’s stoppin’ me from snappin’ that pretty neck of yours right now?”

“The restraints around your wrists, cousin mine,” T’Challa shot back cooly.

Erik’s gold-tipped smile was smug when he lazily lifted a wrist, “you really think I haven’t found a way to deactivate these bangles?”

T’Challa stood his ground and met Erik’s malicious gaze, "you once said that ‘all people were my people’. Well, people have come to Wakanda for help, and you are a part of Wakanda whether you admit it or not. So, will you join me in accepting the mantle of their protector?”

Stunned disbelief registered briefly on his cousin’s face, but Erik quickly shut it down with practiced ease and his expression smoothed out once more into the blank indifferent mask that T’Challa abhorred with every fibre of his being.

“Yeah? Fuck you and your people,” Killmonger spat, retreating back to the sofa and picking up his book again, “I ain’t bitin’. Get out before I gut you for makin’ me lose my page.”

-

“It seems my endeavor has failed,” T'Challa admitted when Steve next saw him. He and Bucky were loading the last of the supplies into the jet when the King reappeared, looking highly dejected.

“Want me to speak to the kid?” Steve offered.

“I do not think my cousin will grace us with a better response even if you tried, Captain Rogers,” T’Challa sighed, massaging his temples. “Do you have any idea where to start looking for Vision?”

“We’re going to hit up New York first,” Bucky explained, setting a crate of gun mags under a bench inside the cargo area. “Steve reckons Vision might not stray too far from Stark.”

“Stark, yes, have you thought about how to deal with him if there is a confrontation?” T’Challa inquired with a concerned frown, “your last correspondence was…”

“Bit of a disaster, yeah,” Steve finished for him. “We’ll see. They might not even be in New York.”

“Very well, take Ayo and Nakia with you. They may come in handy if you run into a spot of trouble, Captain,” T’Challa said, smiling when Steve stepped forth and gives him a parting hug.

“Thank you again for all that you’ve done for us, T’Challa. Buck and I can’t thank you enough,” He said sincerely.

“We’ll be back with Vision and Wanda,” Bucky called from atop the craft, “tell the princess not to miss me too much while I’m away, won’t you?”

“Of course,” T’Challa laughed, “safe journey, Captain, Sergeant Barnes.”

Sakaar — Present Day

“Man, this place is a freakin’ dump,” Rocket said the moment they got out of the spaceship. “I love it already. Come on, Groot. Watch your step.”

“Are you sure we should just leave our escape vessel parked atop a pile of...garbage?” Loki asked, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun and peering dubiously up at the mountain of waste parts and the occasional rotting thing. He had magicked his way down to the ground in a flash of green light.

“Am I the captain or are you the captain?” Rocket snapped, scurrying down to ground level in a few seconds. Thor, who had exited last, tripped over an exposed piece of plastic pipe and went rolling head-over-heels down the mountain of garbage. He finally came to a messy stop at Loki’s feet and quickly scrambled upright, bearded face flushed pink with embarrassment. Loki eyed the tattered pair of dirty undergarments that had somehow wound its way around Thor’s left ear and nodded curtly.

“You’re right and I was wrong, that was a fantastic move, rodent,” The Trickster said, smirking at the look of dismay on Thor’s face when he turned to find a wide rip in the seat of his trousers.

“Brother, I demand that you fix my pants!” The God of Thunder yelled after him when Loki turned and began to walk away.

“Please?!” Thor called out to their retreating backs.

-

“Keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking, Thor,” Loki warned when they approached the outskirts of the city.

It was strangely quiet. They had yet to be ambushed or seen by any scavengers. Loki did not know whether this was good or bad news, but when they finally cleared the surrounding buildings and saw the huge statue that had replaced the central arena, Thor let out a rumble of laughter.

“I am starting to think I was the one who was adopted, after all,” He said, staring up at the bronze figure of Hela in all her glory, Fenrir looming behind her like a wild bear, his lips peeled back in a soundless snarl.

“Great, the overgrown flea bag is also here,” Loki muttered with a grimace. “And my statue was way better than hers.”

“They are equally distasteful,” Thor said, “you two both have a ridiculous obsession with horned helm—”

He did not get to finish the rest of his words because Loki suddenly made a tackling dive and knocked his brother sideways. They rolled to a stop a few feet away and Thor spat out a mouthful of dried grass stems.

“I’m sorry I don’t like your stupid helmet!” He yelled, “You didn’t have to throw yourself at me!”

“She’s here,” Loki hissed, still crouched protectively over his prone form. That quickly shut Thor up. They both turned to look at the wickedly long daggers buried in the ground where Thor had stood seconds ago. Rocket and Groot had ducked for cover when the knives descended upon them.

“What do we do?” Thor asked, staring up at Loki with wide eyes.

“I was wondering when you would find me,” A familiar voice drawled, “I did not expect it to be so soon. Coming to face your demise, boys?”

“We come in peace, sister,” Loki called out cautiously, slowing rolling off his older brother and getting to his feet with both hands raised. Weary-looking men and women were starting to appear around them, bits and pieces of the Grand Master’s weapons held in their arms.

Hela strolled into view, her long black hair braided neatly behind her back. She was decked in a flowing green dress, pale bands of gold and silver adorning her throat. Loki was surprised to see a very ruffled-looking Grandmaster stumbling behind her, a familiar tracking dot implanted in the side of his neck. The old man’s face lit up in recognition when he saw the two brothers.

“Losing one eye wasn’t enough?” Hela asked, spotting Thor’s scowling face behind Loki. He grabbed Thor’s wrist when his older brother snarled and made an aborted step forward.

“Don't,” Loki hissed, squeezing gently. Turning to Hela, he said, “we need your help.”

Over the Atlantic — Present Day

Bucky woke to the sensation of fingers tracing lightly over the skin of his arm. No, not skin, he realized after a pause, vibranium metal with sensor implants. Steve was sat beside him, blue eyes fixed on the gold lines running down his metal arm. The shaft of sunlight from outside the aircraft painted his dark hair fiery bright as he leaned close to inspect the pattern.

“Hey,” Bucky murmured, smiling when Steve gave a little start and looked up with a guilty expression.

“Hey,” He cleared his throat and snatched his fingers back. How a hundred-year-old man could pull of that kicked puppy expression was beyond Bucky’s comprehension.

“Did I tell you to stop?” The words pulled a smile from Steve that Bucky returned. He allowed his best friend to take his metal hand, spreading the dark grey digits so that they lay flat over Steve’s calloused palm. He noted with some dejection that even with the bad-ass vibranium limb, his fingers were still shorter than Steve’s.

“Does it hurt?” Steve asked quietly.

“Not anymore, no,” Bucky shrugged. The one time he’d caved in and said yes to that question had been when Stark had blasted his whole arm off in that abandoned Hydra base. He had been half delirious with pain when his guard slipped, but Steve had never stopped checking in after that.

“I keep failing you, Buck, again and again,” Steve lamented quietly, his eyes hidden behind a curtain of hair.

“You’re still here, aren’t you? Even after everyone’s left me behind,” Bucky pointed out, “like a sticky wad of gum.”

“Thanks for the delightful metaphor, Buck,” Steve said wryly.

“Actually, that was a simile.”

“Smartass,” Steve glared.

“All part of my charm, Stevie, all part of my charm,” He flashed the blond man a lazy grin. It was almost effortless, reverting back to their old bickering habits.

Steve’s voice was a little wistful when he next spoke, “you know, sometimes I wish we could just stop for a while.”

“What do you mean?” Bucky asked.

“It feels like I’m dragging you into one war after the next, Buck, and I don’t want that.”

“I swore I’d watch your ass, Rogers, didn’t I?” He said firmly, “so don’t apologize for something that isn’t your fault. Besides, who said I wanted to be with anyone else?”

Steve turned to him with a raised eyebrow and murmured, “I do have a fantastic ass, don’t I, Buck?”

Across the plane, Nakia hid her laugh with a strategic cough when Ayo commented, "it is, according to Wikipedia and several independent western news media sources, America's Ass™."

Bucky eyed the smug blond bastard and shrugged, "true, I heard from the Princess it's got its own Instagram fan account." 

"I really should trademark it," Steve laughed, and for a while, they sat in companionable silence, fingers close enough to touch.

“The Grand Canyon," Bucky blurted suddenly, "I want to see it after this.”

“What?” Steve blinked.

“Remember back when I was dating that girl, what’s her name, you said that the best place for a date was the freakin’ Grand Canyon of all places?” The memory pulled a laugh out of Bucky’s chest, “man, I thought it was the stupidest thing to ever come out of your mouth, Stevie. You were so pissed when I told you so.”

“Lizzie, her name was Lizzie,” Steve provided with a roll of his eyes, “and if memory serves, you said, and I quote ‘what’s so magical about red dirt?’”

“Right, Lizzie,” He chuckled, “she was wild. How come you still remember all the girls I dated?”

“Because you wouldn’t stop talking about them back then, that’s why,” Steve dug an elbow into his side and Bucky retaliated by leaning his entire weight into the man.

“So, what do you say, Rogers? Take me to the Grand Canyon after all this is done?” Bucky asked. “I wanna see that magical sunrise you promised.”

“Deal,” Steve said, reaching across the small space between them and threading their fingers together.

Sakaar — Present Day

“Don’t sit down, this place is filthy, Thor,” Loki sniffed disdainfully when his older sibling plopped gracelessly onto the ground of the holding cell.

“Am I supposed to believe that getting thrown in here is just another part of your plan, Loki?” Thor grunted, throwing a piece of rock at him. The pebble bounced harmlessly off of Loki’s chest.

“At least she did not kill us,” Loki shrugged, “I admit, I was hoping for a longer conversation than just one sentence.”

“Rabbit, you got anything?” Thor turned to Rocket, who had been inspecting something in the corner. “Little tree?”

“‘M tryin’ to fix this broken communicator we found on the dried up corpse back here,” Rocket called out to them without turning around. “See if I can send out a message to the others.”

“I am Groot,” Groot said, not looking up from his game. Hela had let him keep the little gadget, to everyone’s surprise.

Thor exhaled noisily and dropped his head back against the wall, “We can’t wait it out. Time is the last thing we can afford to waste!”

“Perhaps we do not have to wait, brother,” Loki said, turning to the energy shields separating them from freedom. “I was wondering when you would turn up.”

Exhausted face illuminated by the red light, the Grandmaster gave him a humorless smile. “Hello, Loki.”

“Set us free and we will take our sister with us when we leave your planet,” Loki said, folding both hands behind his back.

“That s-silver tongue of yours,” The old man murmured. “How can I trust you?”

“I give you my word, Grandmaster, or shall I call you by your real name?” Loki cocked his head to the side, “I admit, I was surprised when I finally figured it out. A being of your caliber hiding away on a dump of a planet, growing content and fat with your little meaningless games. I was rather disappointed, En Dwi Gast. All that power gone to waste.”

“We all have our fancies, my boy,” The Grandmaster shrugged.

“So, what do you say, old man? Release us and we will give you your twisted life back,” Thor promised eagerly.

“I see you are doing well, eh, Lord of Thunder,” The Grandmaster observed, shuffling over to the control panel. He peered at it for a long moment before turning back to them, “I don’t actually know the, umm, passcode.”

Thor growled.

“Give me a minute,” He said before shuffling off into the shadows, one hand casually scratching at his left butt cheek.

“He’s your Plan B? He’s an imbecile!” Thor bellowed at Loki when the Grandmaster disappeared from sight.

“That imbecile is one of the Elders of the Universe, possibly even older than Father,” Loki returned calmly, “and no, he is not part of my plan.”

Before they had time to argue some more, the red shield fizzled out. Thor reached out a cautious arm. There was no painful crackling energy when his brother’s hand passed through the doorway.

“Ta-da!” The Grandmaster popped his head back out, a familiar-looking stick in his hands. “It’s Topaz’s trusty old melt stick! I took care of the wires.”

“You call this 'taking care of the wires?'” Loki asked when their little group trickled out into the hallway to find a massive goopy hole in the wall. The lights overhead went out just as another chunk of melted circuitry dripped onto the ground. The air around them smelled faintly of burnt fish.

Rocket turned to the old man and asked, “how much for the melt stick, geezer?”

-

“You don’t know when to quit do you?” Hela said when Loki and Thor strode into her throne room. She had decorated everything with swords and knives, and the giant undead dog stirred at her feet, its demonic green eyes fixating on Loki with scary intensity.

“You were intrigued by our presence, were you not?” He said, “that is why you did not kill us upon sight.”

Loki did not flinch when a long blade embedded itself into the floor inches from his left foot. Hela stood, her silk dress pooling around her lean form. Fenrir snapped his jaw.

“Not yet, my pet,” She placed a hand over his muzzle, “what is it that you want, boy?”

“Thanos the Mad Titan is threatening to kill off half of the universe!” Thor blurted out.

“Did I ask you?” Hela’s eyes flashed and a few dozen swords went for Thor, who ducked behind a pillar just in time.

“How come he only got one knife thrown at him?!” Came the muffled, highly indignant shout. Hela smirked.

“He does not annoy me as much as you,” She drawled, coming to a stop in front of Loki who met her eyes with a faint smirk. 

“Thanos wishes to rid the universe of half its population, sister,” Loki said silkily, "He will be imposible to stop once he has all six Infinity Stones. We are not strong enough to defeat him on our own.”

“So, you’ve come to grovel at my feet for help?” Hela mused, stroking a strand of her long black hair thoughtfully, “how many does he currently have?”

“Two, the last time we checked,” Loki answered.

“The one in Odin’s vaults?”

“He took from me two days ago,” Loki said, “we came to you because when I died, briefly, Mother urged me to find—”

Her hand came out of nowhere, curling around Loki’s pale unprotected throat like iron as she lifted him cleanly off his feet.

“Do not touch my brother!” Loki heard Thor’s faint roar past the loud ringing noise in his ears.

“The Mother that stood by and watched when our bastard of a father buried me? Tell me, child, did she suffer when she died?” Hela snarled.

At the words, hot blistering rage overrode the hazy panic due to the lack of oxygen in Loki’s brain. Something seemed to unfurl deep within him, and the next second, Hela had been thrown off of him, coming to a stop several feet away, the pale skin of her right hand blackened from where she’d touched him. Loki fell to his knees, coughing, and saw in the reflection of the Grandmaster’s shiny floor, a pair of blood red eyes peering back at him.

“Loki,” He looked up when Thor said his name. His older brother was slack-jawed with shock when he murmured, “that was incredible.”

There was a circle of jagged blue ice surrounding Loki, their wickedly sharp tips gleaming in the torchlight. Trembling, he muttered the quick spell that would conceal his true heritage and felt relief spread along with the pale white skin on his exposed hands.

“Impressive,” Hela hissed, getting to her feet, “you’d be more of an opponent if you didn’t put so much effort into looking pretty, Jotun.”

“Enough, Hela,” Thor snapped before Loki could speak. His older brother stepped in front of him. “I promised Loki to try his diplomacy first. He and I have done nothing to wrong you, yet you continue to mock us. If you do not wish to be a part of the team, then so be it.” Turning to Loki, his face softened, one blue eye crinkling fondly as he extended a hand, “come, Loki, let’s get out of here.”

“We need her, Thor,” Loki tried to say when Thor helped him upright.

“We do not, Loki, and stop calling her ‘sister’,” Thor said stubbornly, “she’s not part of the family, you and I are family.”

“You think I’m just going to let you walk out of here?” Hela called after them.

Thor paused, his arm tightening briefly around Loki’s waist, “I believe so, yes. I almost lost my brother earlier, and I am not keen to repeat it. If you attempt to stop us, I will tear your heart out of your chest with my bare hands and feed it to that mangy cat of yours.”

The underlying edge of anger in his voice sent a small shiver through Loki. “Thor…”

“This was a bad idea, Loki,” Thor said coldly, “do not attempt to speak on her behalf again. Now, where is the smart rabbit and the talking tree?”

“Over here, big guy,” Rocket’s voice echoed from the end of the long hall, “we got trouble. I managed to reach Quill and the others on the communicator, they said the purple menace didn’t find the Reality Stone that was supposed to be with the Collector.”

“What do you mean?” Loki asked with a frown.

“Quill said he tortured the location out of the guy and is heading there now,” Rocket panted as he came to a stop in front of the two brothers.

“And the trouble you mentioned?” Thor prompted.

“When I said there, I actually meant here,” Rocket yelled, yanking on his own ears in pure frustration, "Tivan told Thanos the Stone was here on Sakaar. He’s coming!”

“That’s impossible, rabbit, the Reality Stone is not on this trash planet,” Thor laughed incredulously, but Loki’s gaze had fallen onto the old man leisurely strolling behind Groot and the blood red gem fixed in the center of the golden sphere hanging around his neck.

“What?” The Grandmaster asked, blinking when all four of them turned to stare at him.

“That rock on your necklace,” Loki said slowly, “may I have a look at it?”

Chapter Text

New York City — Present Day

It was a nice day out and for once in her life, Pepper did not have a meeting to go to on behalf of his company, so Tony decided to take her out for a picnic in the park like a normal person who was madly in love with another person.

A part of Tony still didn’t believe that she had said yes. The ring around her finger was a plain band, fashioned from the material of his first arc reactor, the one that Pepper had scooped out of his chest all those years ago. He had carved two tiny words into the inside of the band himself.

Tony’s Heart.

Pepper smiled at him when she noticed him staring. She was decked out in a pale yellow sundress, her long copper hair glowing like bright embers of a fire against her bare shoulders. He blinked when she plucked her giant hat off and set it over his head, the broad rim blocking her mischievous smirk from sight.

“We should have a baby,” Tony blurted out before he could stop himself.

For a long moment, there was silence between them and he heard the distant giggles from a group of little girls holding a birthday party down the gently sloping hill. Then, Pepper tilted the rim of her hat up and peered curiously into Tony’s eyes. He smiled, trying not to outwardly show the panic rapidly welling up inside his chest.

“Tony, if you want a piece of Tonya’s birthday cake, you can just say so, her mother offered a few minutes ago,” She murmured softly, hazel eyes scanning his face.

“Tonya?”

“Down there,” Pepper pointed a finger at the laughing children, “She just turned six.”

“Oh,” He said dumbly. “Right. You know me so well, babe.”

“We don’t need a kid to get cake, genius,” She teased, her smile fading a little when she realized he was not joining in. Pepper cupped his cheek with a tentative palm, “Tony? This is about cake, isn’t it?”

Sure, why not? He wanted to say, brush off the slip, but instead, what came out was, “I want to have a child with you, Pep.”

Her eyes widened, and Tony suddenly felt like they were sitting too close to each other like this, under the giant bucket of a hat Pepper had bought at that cruelty-free auction three days ago.

“Tony…” Pepper started, her gaze softening as she traced the tight corner of his lips.

“Nice hat, Stark.”

They blinked at each other.

“That wasn’t me,” Pepper said, pulling away. Tony turned to the source of the voice and after a bit of fumbling with the hat, he managed to lift it high enough to catch sight of a pair of worn boots standing at the edge of their picnic blanket. He followed them up to dark trousers, a faded red cape and…

“Uh, sorry you got the wrong place, the birthday party’s down there,” Tony said helpfully when he saw the man’s whole rumpled wizard getup. “Although, I think Tonya would’ve much rather preferred a Disney princess over Gandalf with a hangover...”

The man’s jaw clenched at the words, “I’m not here for her. I’m here for you.”

“Do I know you, Doctor Who?” Tony lifted an eyebrow.

“Actually, it’s Doctor Strange,” The man corrected, lips twitching, “New York is in danger and I need your help, Stark.”

“Uh, I’m in the middle of a date right now, Dumbledore, so can it wait?” Tony gestured to Pepper who was watching them with a worried frown.

“Not if you want to ever have a date again,” Strange shot back, gloved hands going to his hips.

“Whoa, sweetheart, where are you going?” Tony asked when Pepper got to her feet and approached the weird wizard.

“Come on, Tony, you heard the man,” She snapped her fingers at him with an impatient look.

“You know, I don’t like this CEO side of you coming into play when we’re at home, Pep,” Tony whined, dragging himself upright with an unhappy pout. “Fine, let me text Happy to bring the car around.”

“We won’t be needing a car, Stark,” The man said briskly, lifting his hands as if he was about to start conducting an orchestra.

Tony rolled his eyes, “Well, I’m not walking to your one-bedroom apartment, so unless you pull a magic umbrella outta your ass and fly us there, Mary Poppins, I’m gonna text my guy.”

The golden strands parted to form a perfectly round portal leading to an empty study. Strange lowered his hands and took a small step back.

“I’m a wizard, Stark, remember?” Doctor Strange murmured with an infuriating smirk. Then, turning to Pepper, he bowed slightly and held out his left hand, palm up, “shall we, my lady?”

Sakaar — Present Day

“You can, ah, you can have her,” The Grandmaster said, surprising them all when he lifted the thin gold chain off of his neck and dropped it over Thor’s head. “I told Tivan I didn’t want her back, but he, he insisted.”

“So it is the Reality Stone?” Rocket asked, squinting up at the little red gem twinkling from its golden cocoon on Thor’s chest.

“What do you mean ‘want it back?’” Loki asked sharply.

“Oh, she was mine for a few million years, back when, oh you know, the uni-universe was still learning to walk properly, but it takes effort to please her,” The Grandmaster shrugged, “and like I said, I’m lazy, so...”

“She?”

“I call her Red,” The old man shrugged, patting Thor on one thick bicep, “anyway, she’s yours now, Sparkles. I sure don’t want anything to do with Thanos. It won’t take him long to get here if he already has the Space Stone, but I’m sure you four will keep him occupied l-long enough for me to get out of here. Toodle-oo, boys.”

“That’s it?” Thor asked dumbly, his jaw hanging open as they watched the Grandmaster sashay away, humming cheerfully under his breath and using the melt stick as a makeshift cane.

“I am Groot,” Groot observed.

“I agree. He’s definitely gone senile,” Rocket said, “so, Thanos? What are we going to do about him?”

Loki took a calm step to the side just as a dagger flew past, embedding itself into a marble pillar.

“You are getting predictable, dear sister,” he drawled, turning to face the approaching Goddess of Death. “What do you say, want to help us kill a Titan? I promise it’s more fun than it sounds.”

New York Sanctum — Present Day

“So, aside from ruining dates, what do you do exactly, Wizard of Oz?” Tony asked when he stepped through the portal after Pepper.

“Protect the world,” Strange said distractedly, “and write the occasional prescription.”

“For?” Tony wandered over to what looked like a dried hand in a glass display case. There were cobwebs on the finger bones.

“I’m an actual doctor,” The man explained, “but that is not why I asked you here. There are some people I’d like you to meet, Stark.”

“The color suits you, Tony,” A familiar voice said, and Tony’s heart leapt to his throat as he whirled around in time to see the man step from the shadows.

Steve Rogers smiled tentatively at him through the dense bush sprouting over the lower half of his face. He was dressed in muted black and blue colors, two strange metallic wrist guards covering his forearms.

“The hell?!” Tony said, snatching Pepper’s hat off his head and narrowing his eyes at the man who had torched their fragile friendship all for—

“Stark.”

Speak of the Devil.

The Winter Soldier appeared at Rogers’ elbow. His hair had gotten longer and he looked a lot less like a soulless killing machine. There was life behind those eyes now, but Tony could see how nervous he was standing a few feet from the man who had blasted his arm off all those months ago. Tony activated his suit without thinking. Rogers’ relaxed frame stiffened almost immediately as he stepped in front of the ex-assasin, his smile gone and eyes hard.

Still willing to protect a murderer, Tony thought bitterly, charging up his weapons.

Several things happened at once.

“Tony, don’t!” Pepper yelled and grabbed his wrist.

“I did not bring you here for you to continue this ridiculous catfight,” Strange snapped as two exotically-dressed women carrying golden spears appeared out of nowhere, their weapons pointed at Tony.

“We don’t have time for this,” Rogers yelled in all the chaos, “Vision and Wanda could be in danger right now. We need to track them down before Thanos gets to the Mind Stone, Tony!”

“What?” It took a few seconds for the words to penetrate the angry fog that had settled over Tony’s mind, but it was the scared expression on Pepper’s face that finally convinced him to power down the suit. She threw her arms around his neck as soon as the nano-material retreated, and Tony pressed an apologetic kiss to the side of her neck, breathing in the comforting scent of Pepper’s perfume.

“He slaughtered half of Asgard’s people,” Steve explained in a tired voice, “Thor and Loki sent the survivors to Wakanda through the Tesseract.”

“Loki? He’s alive?” Tony asked with a frown.

“Maybe not anymore,” Steve said grimly, “they’re not here, but Bruce is. He’s been floating around in space as the Hulk for two years until Thor ran into him on a planet called Sakaar. They sent him down with the survivors. He said a guy named Thanos is trying to gather all the Infinity Stones in order to rid the universe of half of its population. He already has two of them. We think they might be going after the rest as we speak.”

“Why on Earth would he want—” Tony started.

“He thinks he’s doing the world a favor,” Barnes was the one who spoke up, “cleanse the land of overpopulation, or at least that’s what he believes.”

“Jesus,” Tony ran an unsteady hand over his face. “Uh, I don’t know where Vision is, ok? Even if I wanted to help, he disappeared a few weeks ago, went completely off the grid. Friday couldn’t even trace his whereabouts.”

“I want to try something, if you can offer me a strand of your hair, Stark,” Strange said, “you are not technically related, but you did create JARVIS, the system that is essentially what Vision is based off of, did you not? Perhaps that bond between creator and machine is strong enough to lead us to him. The Captain thinks it may work.”

“Right, and Rogers knows everything about magic spells,” Tony rolled his eyes, wincing a little when Pepper yanked a few strands of hair out of his temple. “Hey!”

She dropped them into Strange’s palm.

“Thank you, Miss Potts,” Steve smiled gratefully at her.

“You are welcome, Captain Rogers,” Pepper said, going back to a scowling Tony who wrapped a possessive arm around her waist.

“It’s going to be Mrs. Stark soon,” He said mulishly.

“Tony, behave,” She scolded gently, slapping him on the chest, "and I'm not taking your last name. We talked about this."

“Congratulations,” Rogers’ smile was genuine when he met Tony’s guarded gaze across the room. Strange was doing some fancy rope-flipping thing off to the side and muttering to himself. Tony let go reluctantly when Pepper excused herself to go to the bathroom.

“So, Wakandans I presume,” Tony broke the awkward silence and jerked his chin at the two scowling warrior women.

“Nakia, and I assume you remember Ayo,” Steve introduced, “This is Tony Stark.”

“I see the king’s been treating you well, Chewbacca,” Tony said sarcastically, eyeing Steve’s wild facial hair. “But one question, they don’t have razors in Wakanda or does your man enjoy the beard burn?”

“Stark,” Rogers warned. Like he had hoped, Steve turned an interesting shade of red, or at least what small part of his face that wasn’t covered by fur did. Tony smirked. Barnes was watching their interaction with a slightly confused frown.

“Ok, I’m ready,” Pepper said, and when Tony turned to her, his jaw dropped.

“You changed your clothes,” He said, blinking at the sight of the black yoga pants and his old AC/DC t-shirt. “Did you have that outfit in your purse?”

“It’s called a handbag, Tony. Yeah, I also have mace and some band-aids, sunscreen, a protein bar, and a bottle of water,” Pepper shrugged and under everyone’s gaze, dug out a rubber band and quickly tied her auburn hair into a high knot. “I left the dress in your bathroom, Doctor, I hope you don’t mind.”

“I’m sure Wong will take care of it when he gets back from the London Sanctum,” Strange smiled thinly. “I think I found Vision in Scotland. Shall we?”

“What are you doing?” Tony asked, snagging Pepper around the wrist when she made to follow Dr. Strange.

“I’m going to help you,” She said like it was the most normal thing in the world. “I know how to work the suit just as well as you do.”

Tony blanched, “Pepper, no, absolutely not.”

“Tony, I have sat back and watched with my heart in my mouth too many times,” She cupped his cheek with a gentle hand, “if this guy is as powerful and dangerous as everyone say he is, you’ll need all the help you can get. I won’t let you leave me behind while you go save the world again, not this time.”

He wrapped his hand around hers, eyes wide.

“And if we beat him,” She paused, “no, when we beat him, Tony, I am going to marry you and we are going to have three babies, ok?”

“Three?” Tony wheezed, finding it suddenly hard to breath. Strange made a soft disgusted sound behind Pepper and rolled his eyes at the sappy expression on Tony’s face. He flipped the man off without taking his eyes off Pepper’s smiling face.

“Yes, three,” She kissed him slowly and lovingly, “and if I’m in a good mood by then, I might let you name one of them.”

“How about Rudolph?” Tony suggested.

“I changed my mind,” She chuckled, poking him in the cheek. “You’re not naming any of our kids.”

“I’m surprisingly ok with that,” He breathed against her lips, his heart so full it felt like it was going to explode.

“I think we’ve run out of time,” Strange interrupted grimly as the air around them stilled, “I sense something approaching.”

Seconds later, a figure smashed into the floor-to-ceiling window and came skidding down the steps. It groaned. Tony stared.

Peter Parker flopped onto his back and pulled off his Spider-Man mask. He squinted up at them, “Mr. Stark?”

Sakaar — Present Day

A shudder went through Loki’s thin frame when the sky parted to reveal the Mad Titan. Hidden behind the throne, Thor carefully took his sibling’s hand. Loki turned to him with fearful eyes. Thor squeezed those cool fingers gently, hoping to provide some form of comfort, but Loki did not seem convinced.

“Who the hell are you?” Hela was sprawled gracefully on the golden throne, her green dress pooled around long pale legs. Fenrir rested at her feet, his dark gaze on the Titan who approached slowly.

“My lady,” Thor was surprised to hear Thanos say, “I had hoped to find a stone here, but I see that I have chanced upon a gem. I am Thanos, Son of Alars.”

Thor gagged at the words. He leaned close to Loki’s ear and whispered, “I didn’t know he was a freaking poet.”

Loki’s fingers tightened around his. "Concentrate, brother.”

“Hela, Goddess of Death,” Their sister drawled lazily, getting to her feet.

“A beautiful name befitting a beautiful woman,” The Titan murmured quietly, inclining his head respectfully as she approached.

“Why are you here, Thanos?” Hela breathed, running a coy finger over one broad shoulder. Loki kicked Thor when he made another muffled strangled noise in the back of his throat. He couldn’t help it. Their interaction was nauseating to watch. 

“I seek an Infinity Stone,” Thanos said, capturing her thin wrist in one giant hand, "I was promised that it was here on Sakaar, my lady.”

“I don’t know of an Infinity Stone here,” Hela said casually.

“It is here, I can sense it. I will scour the land for it,” The Titan rumbled, meeting her gaze as he lifted Hela’s pale hand and brushed a slow kiss over her knuckles, “with your permission, of course.”

“And if I refuse?” Hela asked.

“Wait for it, Thor,” Loki hissed at him when lightning skidded impatiently across Thor’s palm. Echoing Thor’s mood, Fenrir growled low in his throat, hackles raised, but the wolf did not attack.

“Then I will just have to convince you otherwise, my lady,” Thanos said, the threat clear in his voice. She turned her head demurely to the side when he tried to capture her chin in his fingers.

“Men,” Hela sneered, pulling away.

“NOW!” Loki hissed as the ground beneath Thanos’ feet crumbled. The thick bolt of lightning crashed down from above along with the torrential knife rain Hela had summoned in the blink of an eye. Rocket’s energy shield flared to life, sealing the containment unit they had set up beneath the floor. Groot’s branches snaked across the opening, adding an additional barrier between Thanos and freedom.

“We got ‘im!” The little rabbit crowed, leaping out from behind a nearby pillar. Thor was still humming with energy when he stepped out behind Loki.

“Don't celebrate just yet, rat!” Loki yelled when the ground began to shake beneath their feet, deep cracking grooves starting to appear in the thick marble. The golden sphere that housed the Reality Stone suddenly flew into the air, stretching taunt around Thor’s neck as it strained toward the crater in the center of the throne room. Thor managed to grab the little nugget when the chain snapped. It felt like a miniature heart in his palm, warm and pulsating with life.

“Do not lose it, Thor,” His brother emphasized. 

“Do you have pockets by any chance?” Thor asked weakly. The ground exploded in a shower of debris as the Mad Titan emerged, the two Infinity Stones in his gauntlet glowing fiercely bright. He pulled the long barbed sword from his chest with a grunt of pain.

“You wound me, my lady,” He murmured, “perhaps you shall warm to me after a proper courtship, once I assemble all six Stones.”

“You will not court my sister, Mad Titan Thanos!” Thor roared at him, dragging Loki to his feet with a fist in the collar of his dark tunic.

“Oh, now you admit she is your sister?!” His little brother wheezed, stumbling as the ground shifted beneath their feet. He latched onto Thor’s bicep with tight fingers, jade eyes wide with panic. “Where is the Stone? Did you drop it?”

“Your sister, Thunderer?” Thanos cocked his head to the side, “a pity I will have to take your life.”

Hela lifted a hand and the Titan grunted when sharp thorns burst from the ground and burrowed deep into his flesh, branching out and pinning him to the spot. Hela whistled sharply and the wolf leapt from the foot of the throne, coming to a stop in front of Thor and Loki.

“Take Fenrir and get to your ship,” She commanded. Thor winced and opened his palm where the Reality Stone had seared an angry red burn into his skin. Thanos snarled at the sight of the Stone. It was so close.

“What about you?” Loki asked tensely.

“I can handle myself,” Hela said cooly. More swords rained down from the sky. Thor took a startled step back when green tendrils began to see from the earth, manifesting in grotesquely shaped skeletal figures that latched onto the Titan and began to drag him down into the ground.

“Come on, Thor,” Loki, already astride Fenrir’s back, reached out a hand to him impatiently. He didn’t have any pockets and even if he did, the jostling ride could potentially dislodge it from his person. Thor stared down at the little golden ball encasing the Reality Stone and groaned. Making up his mind, he shoved it into his mouth for safe keeping and grabbed Loki’s hand.

-

“Stop humping me!” Loki shouted past the wind tearing at their faces. The little tree was hanging haphazardly in front of them, the smart rabbit tucked securely in its embrace.

Thor had tried to do something similar by grabbing onto fistfuls of Fenrir’s fur and caging Loki within his arms, but it had turned into something more awkward with all the wild jostling. He was half sprawled over Loki now, pinning his little brother tightly against the animal’s broad back, and with each big bounding leap, Thor was uncomfortably aware of how his pelvis was crashing repeatedly into Loki’s backside.

“Imm mhmm trnnn,” He garbled an apology, trying to speak past the Infinity Stone held in his mouth. It was definitely a mistake because that gave the river of moisture gathering in his mouth a chance to escape.

“Why the hell are you drooling?” Loki shrieked, cringing away when Thor’s saliva landed on the back of his exposed neck.

Loki elbowed him painfully in the gut. Thor’s face burned.

The next second, they were being flung off the giant wolf. Thor landed on his back in a mountain of garbage, Loki tucked safely in his grasp and shielded from the worst of the impact. They rolled apart and Thor choked, frantically clawing at his throat when he felt the little ball travel down his esophagus after he swallowed convulsively upon landing. The metallic taste of blood spread inside his mouth. 

“Are you alright, brother?” Loki crawled over to him, the alarm and worry fading a little from his face when he realized that Thor was alive and whole. Thor heard Thanos' furious roar somewhere close by.

He belched loudly. Yup, it was definitely in his stomach now.

“Loki,” Thor whimpered, covering his mouth with a terrified hand as fire began to spread through his body, “I think I may have swallowed the Reality Stone by accident…”

His little brother’s jaw dropped.

“You did WHAT?!!!”

Chapter Text

Scotland — Present Day

“So you really are a wizard?” It was the brunet with the long hair who spoke first after they stepped through the portal into an empty alleyway somewhere in Scotland. It was dark out, and judging by the level of noise, or the lack thereof, he placed the time a bit past midnight.

“I prefer the term ‘Sorcerer,’” Stephen answered stiffly. He was expecting some sort of snarky reply similar to Stark’s, but after a short thoughtful pause, the man simply said, “I see. Nice cloak.”

He felt the Cloak of Levitation shiver excitedly against his back. Barnes drew in a soft breath of surprise when a corner of Stephen’s cloak lifted up and enveloped his flesh limb in a semblance of a handshake. However, it did not let go after the customary five seconds of contact. Captain America, who had been watching the interaction in silence, cleared his throat pointedly. Stephen yanked the cloak back before it could start stroking up the man’s wrist like it often did with people it liked.

“Apologies, the Cloak of Levitation is somewhat of a slut when it comes to compliments,” He explained drily, managing not to outwardly wince when it tightened around his neck in retaliation.

“Aren’t we all?” Barnes chuckled. The man didn’t seem offended about nearly being molested by a sentient cape when he smiled gently and waved at Stephen’s cloak. It waved back, jerking Stephen back a few stumbling steps with its enthusiasm. The Captain lifted an eyebrow when he met Stephen’s irritated gaze.

“I assume you have a plan to track down the robot person?” Ayo, the Wakandan lady who had not smiled once since their unexpected appearance at the Sanctum, prompted him impatiently. No sooner had the words left her mouth than a figure smashed into the chain-linked fence a few hundred yards away.

“That was Wanda! Buck, cover my six,” Rogers shot past Stephen before the sorcerer could even react, the metal wrist guards lengthening on his forearms. Barnes did as he was told without hesitation, their steps falling in sync as they melted into the night. Ayo followed closely behind. The Cloak of Levitation jerked as if it wanted to float after Barnes.

“Pull yourself together,” Stephen snapped, spotting the tall dark shadow wielding the wickedly sharp glaive sprint quickly toward another downed figure, “we’ve got work to do.”

New York City — Present Day

The cars were levitating in midair when Peter rushed out of the sanctum with Iron Man and the less scary Wakandan woman who had decided to stay with them instead of going through the portal with the wonky wizard. In the center of the chaos, the slim silhouette of a tall humanoid was barely visible.

“Go back inside and keep an eye on Pepper, kid. I’ll deal with this,” Tony yelled, activating his nano-suit and stepping out into the street. He blasted aside a taxi and pulled someone out of the path of a falling lamp post. The woman disappeared after him, two glowing circular weapons clutched in her fists. Peter stared after them for a second, his head still a bit groggy from being hurled across the city by the mysterious alien man who had stepped out of the metal space donut.

Pepper crossed her arms over her chest when Peter turned to face her. “I know you idolize him, but there is no way I am letting Tony face whatever is causing that out there by himself.”

“Miss Potts, wait!” Peter started, but Pepper had already redirected her attention to her StarkPhone. “Friday, I need you to send the suits. Yes, I am using my override codes, and no, I do not want you to tell Tony. You know fully well that I know how to use his tech.”

Muttering under her breath about overprotective and reckless men, Pepper made her way over to the giant window overlooking the stairs. Five seconds later, one of Tony’s automated suits crashed through the glass like a cannonball. It assembled quickly and Pepper stepped inside with practiced ease. She saw Peter’s stunned expression and smiled wryly, “Tony went through a phase of paranoia in 2013 when he forced me to learn how to operate his suits. It’s actually not that hard with the AI in the background.”

“Umm, so what’s the plan, Miss Potts?” Against his better judgement, Peter opened his mouth and asked, a little too eagerly if he were to be completely honest.

“Call me Pepper, Peter,” The visor closed over her face as she fired up the repulsers, “first we take down the giant metal bagel in the sky, then we surprise Tony and sweep him off his feet.”

“You guys are seriously the coolest couple ever,” Peter breathed, pulling the mask over his awestruck face and following Tony’s fiancée out into the chaos.

Wakanda — Present Day

They were in the middle of evacuating the defenseless women and children to the secluded Jabari caves when the strange space pods entered the atmosphere over Wakanda. T’Challa’s kimoyo beads buzzed angrily and Shuri’s panicked voice quickly followed, informing him of the breech.

“It is time,” He said quietly when Ramonda pushed past the crowd and reached out to cup his cheeks. Tears gathered in her eyes as she pressed their foreheads together. T’Challa closed his eyes and leaned into her embrace. Then, he gently extracted himself from her arms and activated the Black Panther Habit, the vibranium moving to cover his face.

“Take care of our people, Mother,” The young king said, “Shuri and I will do our best to hold them at bay.”

“May the ancestors be with you, my son,” The Queen said, her head held high and eyes blazing fiercely.

He nodded curtly and with a few bounding leaps, took off for the wide prairie plains. The Border Tribes had already set up energy shields around their army when T’Challa joined their ranks. M’Baku, easily the tallest of the tribal leaders, lifted his staff in greeting when T’Challa deactivated his suit.

”The Princess says they are here for a small space rock of immense power,” The Jabari Leader rumbled. He seemed completely unfazed by the hideous black creatures coming out of the pods.

“She gave you an update?” T’Challa prompted.

“If you had told me that I would be fighting off actual aliens at the end of the week, I would have punched you in the face,” M’Baku nudged him with a smirk.

“Then you would have been arrested on the spot,” T’Challa returned calmly. M’Baku laughed at that. Along with the other tribal leaders, they watched in tense silence as an opening appeared in the ship’s hull and a massive creature walked out, dragging a huge club-like weapon behind it.

“Shuri, is the Infinity Stone secured in the mines?” T’Challa asked his sister through the comm link.

“I am working on the last of it, but yes,” came the short reply.

M’Baku flexed his fist around the Jabari staff as the black creatures began hurling themselves at the energy barrier. He turned to T’Challa.

“Your orders, King?”

Sakaar — Present Day

“No, no, no. Spit it out,” Loki grabbed the big blond idiot by the shoulders and shook him roughly. The dump around them was in chaos. Thanos was attempting to tear his way past Hela’s stubborn defenses to get to the Stone, but the Goddess of Death was not one to be easily reckoned with.

“You halfwit, why did you go and eat it?!” Loki hooked unsteady fingers into the collar of Thor’s leather tunic and tore through the material with a hard tug, splitting Thor’s shirt down the middle and revealing his older sibling’s chiseled abs. The two men drew in a collectively sharp breath when they saw the red tendrils blossoming like veins of lava beneath Thor’s tanned skin. The God of Thunder doubled over with a pained moan, the tendons in his neck straining and sparks skittering across his back as the sharp flare of agony from within. Even with someone of Thor’s caliber and power, Loki knew that there was not much time left before the Reality Stone eroded his brother from the inside.

“Why are you two still squatting down there? Get the hell up here!” Rocket yelled, and when Loki glanced up, he saw their ship dangling on the edge of the garbage dump. Groot waved at them from an opening in the side. Loki hoisted Thor upright and with a burst of energy, magicked them directly into the ship.

“Umm, why’s he half-naked? I just saw you guys a second ago,” Rocket blinked, pausing long enough in his frantic punching of the control panel to stare at the two Asgardians.

“Because he’s an idiot,” Loki snarled and threw an arm over Thor’s neck. He pried his jaw open and unceremoniously stuffed two fingers down his brother’s throat, “come on, throw up already!”

“I am Groot?” Groot asked, tugging absently on Rocket’s tail.

“I don’t know if it’s a sexual thing, Groot. Stop watching them, I need you to go hook those wires up for me,” He said, turning back to the ship’s controls when their vessel rocked violently. “Keep it PG-13 back there, you two. We got a kid onboard.”

The ship listed sideways when Hela leapt inside, her pet wolf strangely absent. She snarled and sent another rain of daggers down upon the Titan. Thor muffled a scream of pain against Loki’s neck, his knuckles white from where his hand was wrapped tightly around the armrest of a nearby seat. The thick metal was starting to dent beneath Thor’s fingers. Loki sucked in a sharp breath, closed his eyes, and summoned a dagger into existence.

“We have no other choice,” His voice shook slightly as he met Thor’s single blue eye. His older brother nodded wordlessly, sweat running freely down his temples.

“What the hell are you two doing back here?” Hela demanded, making her way over to them when their ship finally lifted off the garbage cliff. Her eyes landed on the glowing red light in Thor’s abdomen.

“Are you an infant?” Hela asked in a furiously mild and condescending tone, hands settling on slim hips, “I leave you alone for one minute and you eat one of the six largest power sources in the universe. What next? I don’t suppose you would like that madman’s mitten as a pacifier?” She eyed the dagger clutched tightly in Loki’s fist and sneered, “you don’t have the balls to gut him open, princess.” She lifted a hand and a wickedly sharp blade the length of Loki’s arm appeared, "But I do. Move.”

“Forgive me if I don’t trust you around Thor with a knife, sister,” Loki narrowed his eyes, but she ignored him, grabbed a fistful of his tunic and flung him bodily away from Thor, an ungodly savage glee alight in her green eyes as she peered down at the distressed God of Thunder. Hela lifted the long blade over her head with both hands.

“Hela, no!” Loki yelled, but she had brought it down with all her might before he could stop her.

For a horrifying moment, Loki thought Hela had run him through, but the sword melted into harmless opaque bubbles upon contact with Thor's heaving abdomen. The three of them stared wordlessly as the bubbles floated serenely up into the air, popping one by one and releasing the faintly pleasant scent of watermelons into the ship.

“What the hell?” Thor croaked, breaking the stunned silence.

“Oh my, it appears that she likes you, Lord of Thunder,” A smug voice purred directly into Loki’s ear. He jumped, lashing out blindly on instinct and smacking the Grandmaster squarely in the face. The old man stumbled, clutching at his rapidly reddening cheek with a look of utter betrayal and heartbreak. “What was that for, Loki?! I thought y-you liked me!”

“What are you doing here?!” Loki shouted back, staring at him in alarm.

“I was trying to steal your ship when the little squirrel came back, so I hid in the bathroom,” The Grandmaster shrugged defensively. Said ship shook violently and Loki went rolling into his older sister. He felt something soft and round beneath his palm for a split second before she elbowed him viciously in the gut, knocking the breath out of his lungs. Blushing furiously, he sprang away from Hela and turned to find that the Mad Titan had leapt onto the side of their ship and was attempting to tear a hole in the hull.

“Aim for the anus, rabbit, the anus!” Thor yelled, still clutching at his stomach and looking extremely ill.

“I’m freakin’ tryin'! The autopilot’s broken!” Rocket shouted from the command console.

“Why the hell won’t he die?” Hela snarled, shooting to her feet and breathing heavily. The shrill sound of tearing metal reached their ears. The next second, Thanos’ fist had shot through the barrier. The rest of him quickly followed.

“Give me the Stone, Thunderer,” He growled, crossing the distance and grabbing Thor by the throat. Thanos backhanded Loki when he tried to attack from behind. Thor let out a muffled roar of protest when his younger sibling crumpled to the ground.

“Do not think I will not tear you limb from limb to get to the Reality Stone, Asgardian,” Thanos spat, his fist tightening. Thor clawed blindly at the Titan’s arm and face. His eyepatch had fallen off in the scuffle, leaving the sunken socket painfully naked in the knot of scar tissue on his face. Thanos ignored the feeble attempts. He did not even bat an eye when Hela drove a sword deep into his back.

“Do not fight it! Submit!” The Grandmaster yelled above all the chaos, and for a second, Loki thought he meant for them to give up against the Mad Titan, but something seemed to shift in Thor’s flushed face at the words. His brother’s eyes, which had slowly begun to slip shut from the lack of oxygen, snapped open. In place of the missing eye, a vibrant, blood red glow now emanated from within the empty crater. Loki stared in disbelief as Thor grabbed Thanos’ fingers and slowly pried them off his neck like it was nothing. He heard the soft snap of bone and the Titan hissed in pain, his face mirroring Loki’s in its astonishment.

Thor rotated his neck and shoulders. Then, the God of Thunder drew back a massive fist, red energy crackling across his knuckles like lightning sparks.

“How do you like me now?” He growled and punched Thanos squarely in the face.

Chapter Text

Scotland — Present Day

“Goddamn it, Steve!” Bucky muttered under his breath when his idiot best friend caught the alien woman’s hurled spear with his bare hand. So much for being cautious, he thought bitterly as he set up his rifle with practiced ease on the nearest rooftop. Surprise registered briefly on the woman’s face but was quickly replaced by fury when she realized Steve had no intention of returning her weapon. She broke into a run in his direction. Bucky sucked in a small breath, steadied himself on the ledge and pulled the trigger. She hissed when his warning shot clipped her shoulder, quick gait faltering as the vibranium rounds pierced through her armor like butter. He lifted an eyebrow when she looked up sharply, dark eyes narrowing as she tried to pinpoint the mysterious sniper’s position.

“Ma’am, eyes on me,” Steve said, forcing her attention back to him with a mighty swing of his borrowed spear. A few feet away, Ayo was bent over Wanda’s fallen form. Bucky kept an eye on the girls as he readied his sniper rifle for the next shot. He had a clear shot to the head, but Steve had emphasized containment and capture rather than kill, so he aimed for the woman’s other shoulder instead. She leaped aside this time, dark lips twisting into a smirk as she looked up in Bucky’s direction. Knees bending, she scaled up the building in one impressively long jump. Bucky barely had enough time to lift his arms and brace for impact before she was kicking him into the wall with the excess momentum and knocking the breath from his chest. He twisted out of the way of her punch as the alien woman’s fist shattering the concrete beneath him.

“Buck!” Steve’s tinny yell, laced with worry, came from somewhere below.

“I’m fine!” He shouted back and scrambled upright. He pulled out a dagger and met her dark disdainful gaze. The Winter Soldier training hardwired into his muscle memory kicked in automatically when she lashed out at him. It wasn’t easy, hand-to-hand combat never was, but he didn’t have trouble holding his own against an alien with superhuman strength. She hissed in pain when Bucky slammed his dagger into the soft underlining of her shoulder plate, the sharp metal sinking into soft flesh. His ensuing kick caught her jaw and sent her staggering back, nursing a split lip.

A loud angry roar came from down below and the woman’s head whipped around. She pulled Bucky’s knife from her shoulder like it was nothing and leaped off his rooftop. When he raced after her, Bucky saw that the two separate groups had converged into one. Steve had thrown himself at a glaive-welding figure and knocked him away from Vision who lay crumpled on the ground, a hand pressed weakly over his abdomen. Bucky glanced at the sniper rifle for a brief second before deciding against it.

He peered over the edge of the building again. It was a long way down. Groaning under his breath, he rotated his metal shoulder and threw a leg over the ledge. It would hurt his joints something fierce, but using the arm as a makeshift brake was the fastest way to scale down the side of the building. Bucky was about to throw himself off the edge when something soft brushed against his calf. He glanced down and saw the sorcerer's cloak floating there.

“Huh,” He blinked as it beckoned invitingly at him.

“You gonna show me a whole new world, magic carpet?” Bucky asked as it snaked around his waist in a surprisingly strong grip and lifted him into the air.

“Thanks, darlin',” He gave the cloak a two-fingered salute when they touched down on the ground. It brushed up against Bucky’s cheek and swept a loose strand of brown hair behind his ear.

“Seriously?! Can’t you keep it in your pants until this is over, Cloak?” Doctor Strange bellowed from across the road, his face streaked with dirt and grass as he scrambled to his feet after diving clumsily out of the way of a blow from the alien woman. Fluttering unhappily, the Cloak of Levitation flew back to its master and settled around the sorcerer’s shoulders again. Shaking his head with a wry smile, Bucky threw himself back into the fight.

New York — Present Day

“Where do you think you’re going, Squidward?” Tony called after the retreating figure. The alien man paused in his steps and turned a fraction to give him a brief dismissive glance.

“The Stone Keeper is no longer here,” He murmured silkily, frowning, “you hold no value to me, mortal ant.”

“So Thor’s psychotic little brother learned to talk from you, fish-lips,” Tony rolled his eyes behind his visor. Then, muttering to himself, he added, “Parenting tip, don’t let your kid play with freaking lunatics.”

“Look, I can’t let you just leave after you trashed New York City, buddy,” His nanobots had snuck up behind the guy during their little conversation, and Fish-Face stumbled slightly when energy lassos shot out and snaked around his torso and arms.

“I was in a generous mood, but you are starting to annoy me, chittering animal,” The alien creature lifted a hand and Tony’s armored suit jerked violently into the air. He smacked into the side of a building and a second later, the nanobots, crumpled and broken, embedded themselves into the bricks where Tony’s head had just been.

“Huh,” He pushed himself out of the wall and landed on the ground unsteadily. “Ok, I’ll admit, maybe I shouldn’t have told the wizard to go with Rogers, Friday.” Tony dodged out of the way of a giant uprooted tree, but it was next to impossible to get anywhere close to Fish-Face, not when he could fling the Iron Man suit away from him like it weighed nothing. His blaster cannons didn’t seem to work on the guy, either. And judging by the bored expression on the thing’s grey withered face, it wasn’t much of an effort to keep Tony at bay.

“Enough,” Fish-Face snapped after thwarting another of Tony’s attempts, "Father awaits the Stones, I do not have time to waste with you, metal man.”

At the words, thick cords burst from the earth and wrapped tightly around Tony’s limbs, pinning him down on the ground. The thin filamentous ends wormed their way beneath the Iron Man armor, sending sharp heated pain everywhere they touched.

“Friday, disengage now!” Tony gritted out, managing to trigger the release before the sharp strands could burrow into his skin. He stumbled out of the suit and barely rolled out of the way of a rolling taxi.

“Where’s the freaking wizard when you need him?” He yelled, eyes widening when he caught sight of the dozen or so sharp metal shards floating over his prone body.

“I will put you out of your misery in the name of Thanos,” Fish-Face said with a satisfied smile. He raised a hand. Tony braced himself for the pain, but when nothing came, he opened his eyes to find a portly Asian man standing over him with the same weird glowing disks around his wrists like the sarcastic wizard.

“I could’ve sworn you were a few inches taller and Caucasian last time we met. Did you change your avatar or something?” Tony scrambled to his feet, keying in the command for the trapped nano suit to reassemble.

“I’m Wong,” The man said curtly, blocking another slew of projectiles with his force field, “I assume you have met my colleague?”

“Yeah, we met Doctor Who,” Tony answered, stepping back inside his armor, “also, kudos for the kickass entrance, Wong. It was a lot better than his sad birthday clown themed one.”

‘Thank you,” Wong said drily, “I came as soon as I could.”

“Tony, Tony Stark,” Tony said absently.

“Oh, believe me, I know who you are,” Wong replied.

“Great, now that we’re all caught up, how do you suppose we stop Fish-Face over there?” Tony asked.

“Fish-Face?”

“I’m all ears if you got a better name.”

A pause. Wong cleared his throat, “Fish-Face it is then.”

“He said something about the Stone Keeper not being here, so he wasn’t going to waste any time with me,” Tony explained, firing off another blast just because he could, “I’m guessing he’s talking about your less handsome coworker?”

“I’m sure you know they are after the Infinity Stones. Stephen has the Time Stone around his neck, the Eye of Agamotto,” Wong said, “it bends space and time, and we are sworn to protect it with our lives.”

“Alright, I guess we need to stop him from going after Strange then,” Tony glanced up at the sky where the giant donut ship still resided, “If only someone could conveniently take out that giant-ass spaceship.”

Not two seconds after the words had left his mouth, multiple explosions swept across the ship’s hull, sending flying debris every which way as it rapidly began to lose altitude, acrid smoke drawing an arc in the sky like a black rainbow. Across from them, Fish-Face let out a low angry snarl.

“What in the world…” Tony murmured, stunned, “Wong, you guys don’t also happen to have an old bearded colleague wearing red who grants wishes to the good kids, right? Cause I’m definitely a good kid and that was definitely my wish just now.”

“Actually, that was Miss Potts and young Mister Parker, Boss,” Friday corrected, “but I get why you would think Santa Claus.”

“Wait, Peter and Pepper?!” Tony screeched as two figures landed on the ground a few feet away, both still whooping excitedly. Pepper, decked out in one of Tony’s most recent nano-suit models, laughed as she accepted the high five from Spider-Man.

“Yo, P-squared over there, stop celebrating for a second,” Tony crossed his arms over his chest as best as he could when they both froze and twisted guiltily to face him. Pepper’s faceplate parted to reveal her flushed cheeks and bright eyes.

“We blew up the space donut,” She announced, beaming at him.

“Yeah, and gave me like fifteen heart attacks and in the span of three seconds, Pep,” Tony berated, throwing his arms into the air and narrowly missing the back of Wong’s head. He turned accusingly to Spider-Man, “and you, kid. I told you to stay inside and watch her. What were you thinking?”

“Sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter at least had the decency to hang his head.

“Seriously, Tony? You can’t possibly say that you don’t like the way I look right now,” Pepper said, crossing over to him.

“Fine, I came a little in my pants at the sight of you kicking ass, but that was overshadowed by the heart atta—” His words were rudely cut off when she hauled him close by the back of the neck and kissed him. Tony melted into her embrace and noticed with some detachment as the little Spiderling covered his eyes with a gloved hand, cheeks flushed bright pink.

“Not to ruin the moment, but we have a problem,” Wong panted, dropping his defenses as he pointed a finger at their alien guy who was already disappearing into a black portal.

“Shit,” Tony groaned, “he’s probably gone after the other more annoying wizard.”

Wong’s lips twitched into a small smile, “I can give you guys a lift.”

“A lift?” Pepper asked as Wong opened up a portal himself.

“To find Stephen. He’s in Scotland if I am correct,” The Asian man explained, “I cannot go with you, the Sanctums need guarding, and we are a bit understaffed at the moment.”

“Wong, bud, we are officially inviting you to our wedding,” Tony clapped him gratefully on the shoulder, “seriously, you rock dude.”

“So, not your wife and son then?” Wong leaned close to Tony’s ear and asked in a low voice.

“Uh, well…” Tony glanced at the two trailing after him, his fiancée and his protege. They both smiled at him when they noticed Tony staring. His heart swelled at the sight.

“I guess you could say that,” He shrugged casually after he escorted Peter through the portal and made sure the kid was well out of earshot. Wong smiled, warm and understanding. Tony returned the smile, feeling a little light-headed. They clasped hands in farewell.

“Good luck, Stark,” He said as Tony stepped through onto the other side.

“You too, Wong.”

Wakanda — Present Day

“All they are doing is throwing themselves at the shields…”

T’Challa frowned at M’Baku’s words. Something nagged at the back of his mind as he watched waves upon waves of the black creatures hurl themselves tirelessly at the energy barriers. Most burned to death before they could push through, but there was the handful that occasionally succeeded with the breach only to be shot dead by T’Challa's outermost line of sentries.

“They will not break through, my King,” W’Kabi reassured him for the umpteenth time. “The shields are capable of withstanding their attacks for years if need be.”

“What is the point of this?” T’Challa murmured tensely as he locked eyes with the pacing behemoth outside the barriers. Its massive axe was gouging deep lines into the earth.

“He looks like he is waiting for something,” Okoye observed.

“Or someone…” A thought suddenly occurred to T’Challa. He pulled up a comm-link to Shuri and asked, “sister, do you have visuals on the Stone?”

“No, there’s too much signal interference down in the mines,” Shuri’s reply has him running for the palace before she could even finish her sentence.

“Your Highness, where are you going?!” Okoye shouted after him.

“This is a trap!” T’Challa yelled back, activating his suit, “they are trying to distract us to get to the Stone!”

-

There were a dozen or so black creatures tearing their way into the mines when he arrived on the scene, Shuri’s voice still in his ear. More were digging their way into the ground to bypass the energy barriers Shuri had set up over the entrance. The creatures turned as one to face T’Challa.

“Shuri, how deep do your defenses go?” He asked as they charged at him.

“As deep as I could manage in such a short time,” Came the somewhat weak reply. T’Challa crushed the spine of one of the creatures with a burst of kinetic energy from his suit and turned just in time to see a black body wriggle out of the ground inside the barrier.

“So not very?” He groaned, kicking another monster away from him.

“There are more defensive measures inside,” His little sister promised.

“Long enough to hold them back from the blasted space rock?” T’Challa panted, twisting beneath three heavy black creatures when they piled into him from behind.

“Hang on, brother, I’m dispatching my backup plan your way—” were the last words T’Challa heard before one of the things closed its sharp teeth over his kimoyo beads and tried to bite off his right arm. He extended the vibranium claws inside the creature’s mouth and watched with no small amount of satisfaction as it went limp. The corpse was quickly crowded out of the way as more and more writhing bodies shoved their way forth, relentless in their sheer number.

“Shuri, are you still there?” T’Challa switched to the communicator in his suit, but there was no reply on the other end.

More of the black creatures were wriggling their way into the mines through the hole in the ground, and as much as T’Challa trusted his sister’s tech, there was bound to be one or two creatures that managed to thwart her defenses, and he had to stop them before that happened.

He latched onto the back of a creature as it burrowed through to the other side and dispatched it with a swipe across its throat. The king took off after the things down the tunnel. There were corpses littered along the way, killed by various traps Shuri had set up, but it was not nearly enough to eradicate all of them. He killed a few along the way, but it was not until they arrived at the vibranium trains did T’Challa realize that he was leading the creatures behind him exactly where they wanted to go. The tunnels beneath the mines were next to impossible to navigate without a guide, so the chances of a creature stumbling into the Infinity Stone’s hiding place was next to none. Or at least that was what T’Challa told himself as he turned to face the monsters trailing close behind him.

He kicked one of the creatures into the path of the automated train and winced when it scored a bleeding line across his chest on the way. T’Challa was running into the same problem as when he had fought Erik all those months ago. The vibranium suit was randomly deactivating in places along his body as the trains rumbled past. It was a nice decapitation device for the monsters, but he was also less protected from their sharp claws.

He cried out when pain exploded over his shoulder. Gritting his teeth against the agony, T’Challa snarled and head-butted the creature that had snuck up behind him. His exhausted legs gave out when one of them tackled him into the side of the cavern. Stars exploded across his hazy vision when the back of his unprotected head connected with the hard wall. A train whizzed past, its residual vibrations sending small lances of pain through his bleeding shoulder. The Black Habit faded along his chest. Heart pounding, T’Challa lifted a weak hand. The creature hissed triumphantly atop him, opened its gaping maw and—

— disintegrated into a shower of disgusting flesh and entrails.

He choked, gagging at the strong metallic smell of its blood. T’Challa rolled off to the side and tried feebly to sit up. His vision was still swimming, and it took a few seconds for him to recognize the dark blurry figure standing over him.

"You…came...” He rasped when the other man’s unimpressed face came into focus. T’Challa slumped back onto the ground, what little energy left in his body dissipating with sweet relief.

Killmonger bent down and picked up a severed claws, splashing sticky black drops of blood everywhere as he extended it to the dazed king with a condescending smirk.

“Need a hand, cuz?”

Sakaar — Present Day

“I will enjoy ripping the Reality Stone from your head, Aesir,” Thanos murmured, wiping at the small trickle of blood from his nose. Thor’s eyes narrowed angrily and his jaw clenched mulishly.

“Brother, no!” Loki yelled, recognizing the all too familiar signs of when Thor was about to do something utterly stupid and life-threatening. But it was too late because his brother charged the Mad Titan in a running tackle and knocked Thanos off the half-destroyed ship and into the clouds. Loki’s jaw dropped, his brain still attempting to understand what had just transpired in the short span of two seconds.

A brief silence fell over the remaining occupants of the aircraft.

“Well, there’s that,” The Grandmaster said serenely. He folded his fingers over his stomach and leaned back on the bench.

“What the hell just happened?” Scrambling unsteadily to his feet, Loki ran to the edge of the hole and peered down at the fluffy clouds. A thick bolt of crimson lightning descended from the sky, narrowly missing their vessel. The resulting buffeting air currents stole the breath from Loki’s lungs. The ship rocked violently.

“Oh dear, I think they both might be dead,” Hela said breezily, leaning her weight against a steel frame and casually checking her nails. The Trickster shot his older sister a nasty look that she completely ignored.

“Odin’s balls, that’s a long way down,” Cursing his newly restored conscience, Loki twisted to yell at Rocket, “remember we don’t leave this planet without Thor!”

Then, without waiting for a reply, he took a deep breath and leaped from the ship after his pigheaded sibling.

-

There was a huge crater in the garbage island when Loki flopped gracelessly onto the ground. From where he was, Loki could barely make out the tiny figure of the God of Thunder, one massive fist twisted in Thano’s collar and the other raining punches down on the Titan’s bruised face. Red energy was crackling along Thor’s entire body, and with each blow, the chasm was widening, the ground beneath them crumbling from all that raw power. It took a few seconds for Loki to realize that the red bits flying from Thor’s fist were actually peeling flesh. As he magicked his way closer, he could see flashes of white where the muscle had eroded all the way down to the bone.

“Brother, stop! You’ll kill yourself!” Heart in his throat, Loki screamed.

Beneath Thor, Thanos laughed madly, blood and spittle flying. He was struggling to lift the gauntlet, but it was embedded deep into the ground along with half of his body and sinking deeper with each crushing blow from Thor’s fist. Both of his brother's eyes were blood red. He seemed to have given himself entirely over to the rage and bloodlust of battle.

At a loss for what to do, Loki picked up a nearby block of wood and threw it with all of his might at the back of Thor’s head. It bounced off with a loud hollow thunk that would have pulled a laugh from Loki’s throat under any other circumstance. His brother froze and twisted slowly to face a ghostly-pale Loki. Without breaking eye contact, Thor delivered one last punch that sent the Titan hurtling into the earth’s embrace and stood. In one bounding leap, he landed directly in front of Loki, punching another sizable dent in the ground and squeezing all the air from Loki’s lungs. His brother’s fist, the less ruined one, curled around his neck before Loki could flinch back and put some safe distance between him and the battle-crazed God of Thunder.

Loki braced himself for the inevitable pain, but none came. Instead, something warm and sticky gently touched his left cheek.

“Loki?” His older brother rumbled, blinking in confusion. “What happened? Why are we back on the ground?”

His stomach twisted when he realized the warm sticky stuff was blood from Thor’s destroyed hand. The mad gleam of red was fading from Thor’s good eye as he ran his gaze over the fearful expression on Loki’s tense face.

“Did I…” Thor swallowed thickly, heartbreak surfacing over his features, “did I hurt you, brother?”

“Of course not, oaf, but we need to get out of here,” The younger of the two said, stumbling a little when Thor’s legs suddenly gave out beneath him and his full considerable weight descended upon Loki. He hoisted Thor close and looked up at the sky. Their ship was a minuscule black speck in the distance. No amount of magic was going to be able to teleport them up there, not when he had another person to support. Thor groaned, his head lolling onto Loki’s shoulder.

The earth trembled beneath them. Thanos was no doubt digging his way out of the ground.

Cold sweat stinging in his eyes, Loki admitted out loud with a high, hysterical laugh, “Thor, I don’t think we’re going to make it.”

“Leave...me and go, I will…buy you some time...” His older brother wheezed, smearing thick lines of red into Loki’s leathers as he pawed blindly at his tunic in an attempt to push Loki away.

“I can’t do that, Thor. We’re in this together, remember? I made a promise to our parents,” Loki murmured a quick spell to halt the worst of the bleeding and internally braced himself as the Mad Titan emerged from the deep crater.

“Impressive effort, but not quite there,” Thanos said appraisingly, spitting out a mouthful of dark blood as he straightened. “Now, hand over your half-dead sibling, Trickster.”

“If you want him, you’re going to have to go through me,” Loki snarled, magicking a dagger into one hand, the other still wrapped tightly around Thor’s limp form.

“Looks like someone finally grew a spine. No matter, it will be easier than taking candy from a bab—” Thanos drawled, but he never got to finish the words because something came pelting out of the sky and knocked him back into the crater.

“Wretched useless brats,” Hela snapped as she jumped lightly from the hole. She waved a hand and sent an impressive amount of blades down to join Thanos. Turning to Loki, she beckoned impatiently, “well, what are you waiting for, princess?”

“Last time I remember, you can’t fly, sister,” Loki pointed out. Hela rolled her eyes so hard Loki almost winced in sympathy.

“There are more ways to get up there than flying, idiot boy. And here I thought you were the smarter of the two,” She sneered, yanking an unconscious Thor from Loki's grasp and throwing an arm around the Trickster's waist. “Hold on tight.”

Then, before Loki could properly question her method of transportation, his older sister had launched herself into the air in a huge bounding leap. He realized a few seconds later that she was using her projectile swords as stepping stones. But by then, Hela had already jumped back inside the ship and unceremoniously chucked both brothers into the cargo bay.

“Satisfied, mouse?” She turned to Rocket, who was standing by the console with arms folded over his chest. Groot stood beside him, mirroring his stance.

“Eh, good enough, gorgeous,” The raccoon waved a dismissive paw as he turned back to the controls. “Can ya also fix the gaping hole in the side of the ship while you're at it? We got no chance of passing through the Devil’s butthole with it there.”

“I think I may be of help with that,” Carding a hand through the windblown rat's nest atop his head, Loki sighed and got to his feet with some difficulty. The idea was not an appealing one, especially with the number of people watching, but the swirling rift was rapidly approaching and with Thanos not far behind, he really could not afford to sit back and watch. Closing his eyes, Loki unraveled the spell he kept up constantly in the back of his mind. He heard someone let out an audible gasp somewhere in the ship as the blue began to spread across his skin. Ice magic came easily to Loki in this form, but he had despised his Jotun heritage with every fiber of his being since the accidental discovery all those years back. All he had ever wanted to be was Thor’s equal, and as it turned out, he was not even the same species as his brother.

The thick layer of ice spread rapidly, sealing the opening in the side of the ship and blocking out the torrential air currents buffeting their faces and clothes. Loki slumped against the wall when the job was done. The weight of the ice would throw off their aerodynamics, but not by much. It should hold at least until they passed through the anus and could procure a less damaged vessel.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Rocket whistled, sounding strangely impressed. The Grandmaster clapped enthusiastically from the sideline. The sly expression on the old man’s face did nothing to set Loki’s mind at ease when he reactivated the concealment charm, but he ignored it in favor of limping back into the cargo bay to inspecting Thor's wounds.

Taking his brother's ruined right hand, Loki began to murmur the healing spell, recalling the familiar magic that Frigga had taught him when he was just a child and watching as layers of muscle and sinew slowly covered the bare white bone of Thor’s blistered knuckles. The younger of the two let out a heavy exhale when he finished the healing process. Exhausted, he pressed his forehead to Thor’s shoulder and closed his eyes.

“It’s alright, little brother, I’m all good now, thanks to you,” Thor rumbled, pressing his prickly bearded jaw against Loki’s cheek. The Reality Stone was a dull muted red in his right socket. His older sibling squeezed his arm fiercely with the newly healed hand, and Loki felt the residual panic subside at the warm contact. He took Thor’s fingers tightly in his and squeezed back. The brotherly camaraderie did not last long. It never did with the two of them. So Loki was not particularly surprised when Thor leaned in close and complained quietly in his ear, "wash your hands next time before you decide to jam your fingers down my throat, will you? Who knows where they’ve been...”

Loki punched him in the kidney for that.

“Up your ass,” He returned sharply, pulling away and rolling his eyes at Thor’s exaggerated wince of pain.

“For what it’s worth, I am glad that while the world has gone to shit, you are still here with me, brother,” Thor admitted quietly, his voice rough with emotion.

For the first time in a long time, Loki did not protest when Thor leaned his warm weight into his side. They sat in comfortable silence for a while, listening to the soft hum of the ship around them. Thor was steadily nodding off against Loki’s bony left shoulder when Rocket’s irritated voice cut in, “Are all Asgardians so touchy-feely?”

“Not that I’m aware of, no,” Hela sneered, looking at the two boys with unveiled disdain as the Grandmaster and Groot trailed in after her. “Or is this something Odin encouraged after my imprisonment? Turned you lot into a bunch of over-emotional pussies.”

“Speaking of pussies,” Thor scowled at their older sister, not bothering to lift his cheek from its comfortable resting place, “where’s your dead cat?”

“Fenrir is safe,” Hela sat down gracefully across from the brothers, long legs crossing at the ankles, “I will summon him when I have need of him.”

“So, next stop Nidavellir?” Rocket prompted the group. Loki exchanged a brief glance with his two older siblings. Thor nodded grimly, his eyes sliding shut again.

“Step on it, mouse,” Hela ordered.

Chapter Text

Wakanda — Present Day

“Erik, wait,” T’Challa grabbed his arm and jerked Killmonger to a stop before they could clear the trees.

“What now? We ain’t got time to chat about whatever it is that’s got your royal panties in a twist,” He snapped back, irritated and itching to kill. It had been such a long time since Erik got the chance to stretch his legs and get his blood pumping.

“I need to know that I can truly trust you, cousin,” T’Challa said seriously, “that you will watch my back as I will yours.”

“You’re fuckin’ kidding me, right?” Erik snorted, deactivating his Golden Habit and baring his teeth, “you’re the one who stabbed me in the chest.”

“Erik, I— ” T’Challa started.

“I swear to God, if you try and apologize again, I will shoot you with the gun your sister gave me,” Erik shoved him away, clear annoyance written all over his face. He ran a hand through his dreads and groaned, “look, I’m not stupid, T’Challa. There’s clearly something bigger goin' on here, so yeah, whatever thing we have between us, that shit can wait.”

T’Challa smiled gratefully and made to embrace his cousin, but Erik stopped him with a firm hand to the chest, “hey bro, I said I’d watch your back. That don’t mean we’re gonna be best friends and braid each other’s hair, ok?”

“Ok.” The rejection stung a little, but hope lingered in his heart as T’Challa turned and activated his own Habit.

“Someday,” He vowed, not pausing to wait for Erik’s reply.

-

His younger cousin whistled under his breath when they finally caught up to the rest of T’Challa’s men. The energy barrier was holding steady, but the creatures had tripled in quantity and there were more and more successful breaches.

“You know, usually I’m on that side of the battlefield, cuz,” Erik murmured, jerking his chin at the monsters.

“Betray him and I rip your head off with my bare hands, Killmonger,” Okoye growled when she saw him. Her dark suspicious gaze burned holes in the side of Erik’s face as she glared at their freed prisoner. T’Challa gave a reproachful look.

“Yeah, well, get in line,” Erik replied cooly as he casually sidestepped the general, “behind my cousins, aunt, and the rest of your fuckin’ country.”

“Erik, I never wanted you dead,” T’Challa sighed as he repeated the words for the umpteenth time. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sent a silent prayer up to Bast for patience.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Hello Kitty,” Erik flapped a hand dismissively in his direction. He paused in front of M’Baku who had not spoken a word since his arrival. T’Challa felt his headache worsen at the sight of Erik’s broad smirk.

“You gonna tell me how you’re gonna skin me alive too, tall dark and silent?” He asked, eying M’Baku’s massive arms under the silver fur pelt.

A slow smile spread over the Jabari Leader’s face as he said slowly, “No, I was going to tell you that you just stepped in rhinoceros excrement, little cat.”

“Very funny,” Erik said, not breaking eye contact, “but you ain’t gonna make me look.”

“Actually he’s telling the truth,” W’Kabi piped up from beside T’Challa. The king closed his eyes briefly in despair.

“The hell is wrong with you, W’Kabi?” Erik cursed, lifting his foot with clear dismay, “why you lettin’ your animals shit everywhere? Shouldn’t there be a fine or something? There should be a fine, T’Challa. Write that down.”

“Hello, Erik, good to see you too,” W’Kabi said, suppressing his amused smile as T’Challa admitted in a muted voice, “I do not have a writing utensil. Sorry.”

The three men turned as one to stare at the king who peered back in confusion. Okoye rolled her eyes behind her husband.

“So, should we go help kill some aliens?” M’Baku suggested, first to break the silence.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s do that,” Erik agreed, activating his Golden Habit. He shot T'Challa a weird look before the vibranium closed over his face.

“Killmonger out, bitches,” He said, flipping backwards onto a passing rhino and hurling himself into the fight. Okoye shook her head with a loud sigh.

“You don’t have a writing utensil,” T’Challa’s general repeated under her breath as she shouldered past T'Challa.

The king frowned at her retreating form, “I do not. It is the truth.”

W’Kabi patted him comfortingly on the arm and turned to follow his wife.

“What?” T’Challa called after him.

“Oh brother, you sweet sweet cinnamon roll,” Shuri, who had been silent the whole time, sighed in his earpiece.

Nidavellir — Present Day

“You’re hot,” were the first words out of Star-Lord’s mouth when they disembarked from Rocket’s ship. Thor growled, his hand wrapping around Loki’s wrist protectively and dragging Odin’s youngest behind his bulky frame.

“He meant Hela, you imbecile,” Loki murmured, jerking out of his brother’s grip and sidestepping the God of Thunder. “You survived your trip to Knowhere, mortal, well done.”

“Well, it wasn’t much, the hardest part of the mission was keeping Drax from tackling Thanos with his itty-bitty knives,” Quill replied, his eyes still raking appreciatively over Hela’s supple form. “The poor Collector got the shit beaten out of him, though. He lasted pretty long for such a spineless old guy.”

Quill ran a hand through his hair, plastered on what he obviously thought was a winning smile and bowed, “hello beautiful, Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, at your service.”

Hela cocked her head to the side, dark green gaze glimmering with amusement as she studied Star-Lord like he was a particularly fascinating fleshy slug and she really wanted to know what color his insides were. Thor made low nauseated noise in the back of his throat and grimaced. Gamora, who had just exited the ship, caught sight of them. Loki sighed and stepped forward to intervene before blood could be spilled. They needed all the manpower they could get to stop Thanos, and loosing one to their own was not going to help the cause.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Quill,” He patted the man lightly on the shoulder and leaned in to whisper, “this is the sister that stabbed Thor in the eye, has a zombie pet wolf the size of your sad excuse of a space ship, and single-handedly slaughtered Asgard’s entire army. Also, your girlfriend just saw your pathetic attempt at flirting.”

A shudder went through Quill at the low silky words. Loki smiled thinly at him, “You’re welcome.”

“So, Tivan survive the encounter?” The Grandmaster tutted as he strode past Thor with his melt stick and peered around interestedly at the dark cavernous hall around them, “I told him his hoarding problem was going to get him in trouble someday. Honestly, why do people keep trying to possess those Stones anyway? All that power makes you super constipated.” He smiled absently and put an arm around Hela’s shoulder, “funny story, one time after I used the Reality Stone to turn an entire planet of sentient people into mushrooms, I didn’t poop for like, a century! Should’ve seen what came out after, it was like diamond, rock hard the stuff was— ”

He suddenly went rigid and keeled over. The melt stick clattered onto the ground and rolled off. Hela pulled out the little remote control for the electro-chip implant and amped the charge up to max. Loki winced, recalling just how much it hurt.

“So, guess you won’t be needing a toilet any time soon, eh big guy?” Rocket asked a horrified Thor.

“What does that mean?” Quill asked, taking a subtle step away from a smirking Hela, “also, who’s the geriatric twitching on the ground and why are we torturing him?”

“Your eye,” Gamora pushed past Quill and came to a stop in front of Thor, who obediently bent down so she could better inspect the blood-red glow in his right socket. Gamora touched the scarred skin beneath Thor’s eye and murmured, “it’s the Reality Stone. How are you still standing?”

“I don’t really know,” He replied honestly.

“You are so…remarkable." She was still stroking Thor's stubbled cheek with a mesmerized thumb when Quill elbowed his way in between them with a massive scowl on his face. “Seriously? You won’t let me flirt with the hot new girl, but you can openly drool after the sexy space pirate?”

“What?” Gamora blinked slowly and reluctantly tore her gaze from Thor’s face. She still hadn’t let go of him.

“He is truly a virile specimen,” Drax added solemnly from behind.

Mantis’ face lit up happily as she unconsciously dealt the last blow, “you are feeling very incompetent, Peter!”

Loki hid his smirk when Quill deflated like a punctured balloon.

Scotland — Present Day

“Huh, looks like you guys don’t really need a helping hand.”

Steve turned at the sound of Tony’s voice. The golden portal that he, Pepper Potts, and Spider-Man stepped through closed after them with a hiss. Beside Steve, Bucky tightened his grip around the spear they had wrestled out of the woman’s hands. She was crouched wearily next to her partner who had been on the receiving end of a nasty bit of Doctor Strange’s magic.

“Tony,” Steve nodded at the trio, “Pepper, Peter.”

“Captain,” Tony glanced around, frowning, “say, you wouldn’t have seen a fish-faced fellow come through here recently, have you?”

“Fish-face?” Steve shook his head, “no, these were the only two we encountered. They were after the Stone in Vision’s head.”

“Vision, you hanging in there, buddy?” Tony yelled at him. Vision waved feebly from where he was being gently coaxed to his feet by Wanda. “Ok, so he didn’t go after the wizard after all.”

“What are you talking about?” Bucky frowned.

“You will never best our brother, pathetic mortal,” The woman hissed, and a blinding pillar of light fell over them. Steve took a startled step back, but Bucky who had been standing over the two, was suddenly jerked off of the ground along with the retreating aliens.

“Buck, no!” Steve made a wild grab at him and missed by millimeters.

He had lost Bucky once on that frigid train during the war. Steve was not going to let it happen again.

“What the hell, Rogers?!” Tony, who was standing closest, let out a startled yelp when Steve took a running leap at him. Using the momentum, Stark as a stepping stone, and his enhanced strength, he launched himself at his best friend. Steve probably would have missed again, but something soft whooshed past him and wrapped tightly around his wrist and Bucky’s left ankle.

The beam crushed all the breath out of Steve’s lungs, but he held onto Strange’s cloak with all of his strength.

“You stubborn ass!” Steve heard Tony’s voice before he felt the hard metal arm snake around his waist. Tony accelerated to grab Bucky as well, but they were already too far up to escape the pull of the ship, not even with the Iron Man suit blasters at full capacity. Doctor Strange and Spider-Man’s attempts to lasso them also failed miserably.

“Tony!” Steve heard Pepper yell before all three of them were sucked inside the alien vessel.

Wakanda - Present Day

“What the fuck?” Erik said over their comm.

T’Challa, who had been fighting nearby, paused long enough to follow his cousin’s gaze. A gaunt, grey-skinned humanoid male had just stepped out of a black portal outside their energy barrier. The hulking monstrous one dragging the battle axe turned and grunted a greeting. Then, he pointed a massive claw at the shimmery blue shield. The thin man floated closer to their barrier, his expression curious.

“You think…?” Erik asked, tensing beside T’Challa.

“It is impossible to penetrate,” T’Challa said grimly.

Seconds later, the man pressed a thin-fingered hand to the shield and with a sizzling crackle that filled the air with the scent of burning ozone, the protective barrier the Border Tribe had set up around their troops melted away. The creatures that had been throwing themselves to their deaths suddenly began pouring in through the broken crack.

“Shit! It’s very possible, cuz,” Erik roared as the thin grey man uplifted several massive trees and began throwing them at the crumbling shield. “He’s fuckin’ telekinetic, too!”

All around them, Wakandan soldiers were suddenly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of black creatures that were passing unencumbered through the broken energy barrier. The young king met the grey-skinned man’s milky gaze from across the battle field. He smiled thinly and lifted a long finger to his ashen lips. T'Challa felt a sense of helpless dread settle over him, icy cold and crushingly heavy.

How were they possibly going to win against such enemies? A small voice whispered in his head, his family, his people and his friends were all going to die. And for what, a useless little space rock?

“Aight, this is gettin’ us nowhere,” Killmonger shouted from atop a nearby tree. He had scaled it in a few leaping bounds and was assessing the chaos below with a critical eye.

“Princess, you there?” He asked, “Wakanda’s unmanned aircrafts, do they have weapons?”

“Y-yes,” Came Shuri’s stuttered reply.

“Tight, assemble a few dozen pilots, get those ships up and running,” Erik ordered rapidly. He dropped down on top of a black creature that had tried to sneak up behind T’Challa and crushed its skull. Killmonger dodged another one and shoved T’Challa at the incoming enemy like a human shield. “These drone soldiers are terrestrial. Attacking from the sky’ll wipe ‘em out faster without losing too many resources. We’ll keep the two that can think independently otherwise engaged on the ground.”

“Got it,” Shuri answered, “anything else?”

“While you’re at it, get some shit to blow up those pods outside the barrier. From the looks of it, they’re either generating more monsters or serving as portal devices. Either way, gotta take ‘em out to stop the endless flow,” Erik finished. He met T’Challa’s eyes across the battlefield, “what do you say we go distract the one throwin’ shit around with his mind, T'Challa?”

“Erik…we cannot win against these— ” He began, but his cousin grabbed T’Challa by the back of the neck and hauled him close.

“Don’t you dare give up on me now,” Killmonger growled, seizing him by the jaw with a rough hand. Erik shook him hard, “You’re the Black Panther, remember? I grew up hearin’ them badass tales about the Protector of Wakanda, cuz. You gonna disappoint my inner ten-year-old?”

T’Challa gritted his teeth against that strangely persuasive whisper in the back of his mind, and slowly it began to recede bit by bit. The icy sense of hopelessness went with it.

“Hey, trust me when I say I’ve clawed my way out worse situations than this, T’Challa,” Erik squeezed the nape of his neck, the comforting pressure grounding him to reality, “now are you gonna help me take down Lord Voldemort over there or what?”

“W-who?” He blinked.

“Come on, man. Harry Potter reference,” Erik groaned, throwing his hands up in the air, “what are y'all doin’ with all that Wifi, cuz?”

Nidavellir — Present Day

“Is it me, or are these halls a little too quiet?” Hela asked as the amusing blond man began complaining about Asgardians and their excess perfection.

“What do ya mean?” Rocket, the little furry pilot, frowned, “where’s everybody? Surely they’ve heard Quill’s annoying voice by now?”

She liked him. Rocket reminded her a little bit of Fenrir back when he had been small enough to fit in her arms. Those days were so long in the past.

“In my day, Nidavellir was teeming with life and sound. The forge was bright as the sun and worked ceaselessly to create the most powerful weapons in the Nine Realms,” Hela murmured, stepping over the old man she’d just electrocuted and striding down the dark hallway, “weapons that I used to conquer planet after planet for my father.”

Loki was trailing after her and hanging onto every word alongside Rocket, his expression one of open curiosity. He thought his Trickster’s mask was so impeccable, her youngest sibling, Odin’s adopted Jotun runt, but Hela could see all of Loki's insecurities and fears beneath that pretty face. They say third time’s the charm, but Odin’s parenting skills clearly didn’t get the message.

“What happened?” Rocket asked.

“Eventually, there were no more worlds to conquer and,” Hela paused, pale throat working soundlessly before she spat bitterly, “he no longer needed me. So the Allfather locked me away, his own flesh and blood, Asgard's firstborn. Odin turned me into his most powerful weapon and then, when he no longer desired the Universe’s fear and obedience, he let his sword rust away in the darkness while he went and had those two pathetic, sniveling princesses.”

“Your dad sounds like a dick,” Rocket said as Loki made a noise of protest.

“I am not a princess,” He snapped, soft, lily-white hands going to his hips.

Rocket snickered at him, “man, if I had a mirror with me right now, I’d show you, buttercup. I really would.”

“Se what I mean, mouse?” Hela laughed.

“Hey come on, be nice, you’ll make them cry,” Rocket cackled, winking at her as he turned a corner. Something large came swooping out of the shadows and sent him flying with the force of the blow. His gun clattered off into the darkness. Hela snarled and launched a dozen or so swords at their mysterious attacker who cried out in pain.

“Show yourself,” She commanded loudly and as the rest of the crew came running at the noise, a familiar voice called out, “Hela? Is that you?”

She conjured a dozen or so floating green flames, their flickering light revealing the hulking figure of the bedraggled man crouched before her. A few feet off, Rocket sat up with a pained curse.

“Eitri,” Hela sucked in a sharp breath, “what happened to you?”

“Thanos,” Loki murmured, lifting a hand and pointing to a familiar-looking mould half-buried in the rubble behind Eitri’s destroyed throne. “He was here to forge the Infinity Gauntlet.”

“My people are all dead, three hundred Dwarves,” Eitri murmured, collapsing onto the ground, “I did as he asked and he still spared none beside me. Where was Asgard when we needed you?”

“Well, we were busy being destroyed by a fire demon,” Loki said drily before adding quickly, “and attempting to kill our homicidal sister. We obviously failed on the latter part.”

Hela narrowed her eyes at him. Loki was clearly still hung up on being called a princess.

“What happened to the forge? Why has it gone dark?” Thor, who had just caught up to them, demanded.

“Broken by the Mad Titan,” Eitri said dully.

“What if we fix it?” Thor asked, “we have the people and you have the knowledge.”

“You do not understand, Thor,” Eitri sighed, “the star at the forge’s core, its energy source, Thanos smashed it to pieces.”

The little ragtag group exchanged silent looks with one another.

“Can we maybe tape it back together?” Quill asked tentatively. He winced when the green-skinned woman smacked him on the back of the head.

“You got a back-up star somewhere in here that we can dust off and use?” Rocket piped up. Eitri shook his head sadly.

“So, this was a complete waste of time,” Drax said, folding huge arms over his chest, “what do we do now?”

“Is the forge itself broken?” An oily voice asked from behind Thor.

Hela frowned as the Grandmaster pushed his way through the crowd, all the while muttering dainty little excuse me, pardon mes under his breath. She didn’t like him. There was something off about a cosmic being that was older than Odin behaving like a demented toddler, and an extremely handsy one at that. It had taken her too long to figure out what he truly was when she’d first landed on Sakaar all those months ago.

“No, but without the energy necessary to power it, the forge will not turn,” Eitri explained.

“And this energy, you need a star’s worth?” The old man asked, rubbing thoughtfully at his chin. The Dwarf King nodded. Hela knew what the Grandmaster was going for before he even opened his mouth.

“Well, the Reality Stone has an infinite amount of energy,” En Dwi Gast murmured, his amber gaze settling disconcertingly on Thor, "far more than that of a Neutron Star, my dear boy.”

Chapter Text

New York City — Present Day

The phones were ringing like crazy in Everett Ross’ corner office. He had ignored them in favor of staring at the giant flatscreen mounted on the wall opposite his desk. The reporter, severely windswept and covered from head to toe in dust, was shouting rapidly into his microphone about aliens and downtown Manhattan. Footage of Captain America and the Winter Soldier had surfaced a few minutes ago on CNN and the folks over at Fox and Friends were attempting to blame the latest alien attack on the God of Thunder again.

“We should have never opened up our doors to immigrants from outer space in the first place, no matter how good-looking they are,” Steve Doocy was saying passionately. Ross sighed and fought the strong urge to pull on his hair in sheer frustration.

He looked up reluctantly at the sharp knock on his door and saw Nakia standing on the other side, dressed in her full Wakandan battle regalia and glowering thunderously. Jumping to his feet, Ross dragged her inside his office before any more people could see her like this.

“What are you doing here?” He demanded.

“What are you doing here?” She snapped back, gesturing to the bland office he was in.

“I was taken off the task force,” He explained, adding, “at my own request. It had nothing to do with what happened in Wakanda. Well, it kind of did. My wife didn’t want me doing such dangerous things at work. So, if you came for assistance, I don’t think I can offer any.”

Three of his phones went off simultaneously in the ensuing silence. Nakia looked him in the eye and said, “yes, you can. Those things that just attacked Manhattan are also in Wakanda where they are trying to get to the Soul Stone. We need to help them before it's too late!”

“I can’t do anything, Nakia, I don’t have any powers,” Ross yelled, throwing his hands up in the air, “I would love to help, but I don’t see how I can— ”

He paused mid-speech to stare at the flurry of suited men that had just appeared down the hall. Flanked by a weary-looking Colonel James Rhodes and another army general, the Secretary of State did not look happy. Two of Ross’s stony-faced men stopped them before they could get to his office. They probably had a roughly five-minute window before Thaddeus and his goons broke in by force.

“Huh,” He said, thinking hard.

“It’s time to let them out on a field trip, don’t you think, Agent Ross?” Nakia asked, “the ones under house arrest, I mean.”

“It’s not that simple. The FBI has jurisdiction over the fugitives from the Germany incident,” Ross explained as his private cellphone buzzed violently in his pant pocket. Pulling it out, he blinked at the caller ID, “you know what, we just might be able to get one of them.”

“Jimmy, yeah, hey listen, don’t freak out,” Ross began, “but I need your people to hand over Scott Lang.”

Over the Atlantic — Present Day

“What the hell, Steve?” Barnes hissed quietly the moment they rolled to a graceless stop in a tangled pile of limbs inside the dark spaceship. Thankfully, the three of them had ended up in a different chamber than the two aliens.

“You need to be more careful! I am not letting you out of my sight again, Buck,” Rogers whispered back, equally furious. Strange’s cloak, which had wound itself around Barnes’ shoulders the moment they landed, was petting lovingly at the brunet man’s hair. Steve still hadn’t let go of Barnes’ hand, but the cloak was discretely trying to shove him away because it kept flopping into Rogers’ bearded face and strategically blocking him from Barnes’ sight.

It was the weirdest threesome Tony had ever seen in his life, to be honest.

“Shut up, both of you,” He finally decided to intervene when a corner of the perv-carpet snuck a corner under Barnes’ bullet-proof vest. Tony had to admit, it was very satisfying to silence the arguing duo with a metal palm each to the face, made even more satisfying when Barnes said in a muffled voice, “oww, I think you just knocked out my front teeth, Stark.”

The ship lurched suddenly, gathering speed, and the trio rolled again, coming to a stop against a metal wall. Tony winced as his suit clanked merrily along the way like a sack of tin cans. They waited in tense silence to be discovered, but nothing came.

“What now?” Rogers asked, yanking the cloak off his face where it was either attempting to slowly smother him to death or put him to sleep like a bird.

“Are we going to space?” Barnes asked, eyes wide as he took in their strange surroundings, “we can’t breathe in space, Steve.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Tony rolled his eyes behind his mask and stood. “We need to get to the ship's controls before that happens. Any idea where it is, Friday?”

“Boss, I’m afraid I can’t help with that. Our networks are down. Only internal resources are at your disposal,” His AI said apologetically.

Frowning, Tony pulled up the suit’s internal log and felt his stomach clench when he saw that he was essentially operating in ‘airplane mode’ because something in the metal Fruit Loop they were in was blocking most of the signal.

“Shit, Friday, guess I shouldn’t have scrapped the remote servers in the new nano-suits,” Muttering under his breath, Tony walked over to what looked like a sealed door, “guess we’ll just have to do this the old-fashioned way. Activate one of the nanobot drones please, dear girl.”

The duo fell into step behind when Tony cut through the metal with his laser and sent the little bot down the hall. Barnes looked like the prettiest princess with Strange’s cloak swishing softly around his legs. Tony kind of still wanted to murder him a little, but the more pressing matter at the moment was finding their way out of the alien ship before it took them off-planet.

“Steve, give a guy a little space, will ya?” Barnes complained softly as they moved silently through the dark corridor. Tony scanned his screens for any signs of life. There were none so far.

“It’s not me,” Rogers replied, “I’m a foot away.”

Tony didn’t even have to glance back to know what was going on. “You and the magician’s drapes need a room?” 

“What?” Barnes blinked.

“Tony,” Captain America made an affronted noise behind them. 

“Boss, was that really necessary?” Friday asked inside the privacy of his suit. Tony bared his teeth in a grin, “we’re stuck in an alien spaceship because of those two idiots back there. I should at least get some fun out of this shitty experience.”

When they next turned a corner, the narrow passage widened into an atrium. Tony swept his gaze over the glowing controls, relief flooding his system when he realized that they had yet to clear the atmosphere over Earth. He couldn’t see much past the cloud coverage, but they were definitely still on their home planet.

“Old-timers, keep an eye on the entrances, I need to figure us a way out of here,” Tony murmured as he moved closer to the screens, “Looks to me like they already have a course plotted. Friday, what do you think?”

“Sir, from my initial assessment, it looks like the destination is somewhere in northeastern Africa, near Ethiopia and Kenya,” Friday replied quickly, “ETA twenty minutes.”

“But that’s—“ Barnes began.

“Where Wakanda is,” Steve finished for him grimly. “They’re going after the alternative Stone.”

“Well, guess we gotta make sure they don’t get there then,” Tony muttered, eyes roaming over the strange language carved into the control board. “You know what, fuck it, I’m just going to blow all this up and go from there.”

“Would that help?” Steve asked at the same time Barnes said, “uh, shouldn't we take a vote or something?”

“Nope, unless either one of you is a tech genius smarter than me. Trust me, no one’s smarter than me,” Tony said, “well, maybe Bruce, but he’s not here, so…”

Steve sighed and moved a few feet back, “alright, blow it up.”

“You will do no such thing, mortal scum,” A familiar voice hissed. The female alien was back, minus her spear. But even without a weapon, she was about a head and a half taller than Steve and probably just as dangerous.

“Why don’t you make me?” Tony replied childishly and fired off three mini-rockets at the control panel. She roared furiously and charged at him. The ship shook violently and Steve, who had already thrown himself in a running tackle at the alien woman, collided heavily against her side and they both rolled out of the control room in a tangled heap of limbs.

The ground beneath Tony’s armored feet was vibrating, and as he stared down at the blackened crater that used to be the ship’s command, Friday said, “Boss, the vessel is accelerating. New estimated time of arrival in Wakanda is 95 seconds.”

“Well, shit,” He turned and met Barnes’ wide eyes, “maybe we should have taken that vote.”

Wakanda — Present Day

Erik’s plans had worked pretty well up until the telekinetic alien with the facial features of a dried corpse noticed, and from there on, it was short work for him to pluck the unmanned aircrafts from the air like paper planes. Shuri had managed to completely destroy one of the alien-churning portal devices outside the tattered barrier, but it was far from enough. All around them, Wakanda’s soldiers were dying. Erik’s own limbs shook from exhaustion. There was just no way that they would be able to keep the aliens from breaching Birnin Zana. From what Erik had heard and seen, they were pretty much done evacuating the city, but it would still be a heavy loss if they were forced to retreat.

T’Challa was a few feet away, dealing with the hulking behemoth that did not seem capable of human speech. He was still a bitch to fight, though. Erik winced in sympathy when the thing started pummeling T’Challa into the ground with both fists.

“You are the smarter of the two, are you not?” The grey-skinned humanoid said silkily as he turned to face Erik.

“What do you plan to do with me if I say yes?” He asked, straightening with difficulty. One of the quadruped creatures lunged for Erik but the alien male sent it flying with a flick of his index finger. Erik blinked in surprise.

“I am Ebony Maw,” He introduced.

“Erik,” Erik panted, clutching at his aching side.

“My father Thanos seeks the Soul Stone hidden away on this land, Erik,” Maw purred, "Help me find it, and I will speak favorably of you when His Greatness arrives.”

“And if I don’t?” He asked, “just thought I’d hear the whole deal before I decide.”

“Then you will die alongside these foolish mortal ants,” Ebony Maw said.

“Cool, cool, cool,” Erik nodded, his eyes flickering to something in the distance, “I totally get you, man.”

“So, what will it be?” Maw asked impatiently.

“Umm,” Erik said, scratching the side of his vibranium covered face.

Maw narrowing his eyes, “What are you doing?”

“Good question,” Erik said as the rapidly approaching green blob in the distance took a massive, bounding leap, “I’m distracting you, Voldemort.”

The ensuing collision between the Hulk and Maw sent Erik rolling head over heels down the slope. He bounced a couple of times before coming to a jarring stop in a mound of upturned earth, his whole body screaming with pain.

“Can I go back to my cell now that the Hulk is on the field, Princess?” He moaned into the comm. One of the mindless beasts paused in its step to sniff Erik’s prone form.

“I’m dead, leave me alone,” He smacked the thing on its scarred muzzle. It roared at him, revealing layers upon layers of sharp, serrated teeth and showering Erik with specks of warm spittle.

“Come on, give me a fucking break,” He muttered as the thing tried and failed to sink its teeth into Erik’s neck. It started chewing on his arm instead, shark-like fangs sending warning tingles along Erik’s skin beneath the vibranium. Here he was, the best soldier in his entire black-ops unit, rendered a fucking chew toy for an ugly alien dog. His CO would probably turn in his grave if he ever found out. The thing was gnawing on his leg now. It was persistent, he’d give it that. Erik closed his eyes for a brief second. The alien creature let out a squeal of pain that was abruptly cut off. The pressure around his ankle disappeared.

Erik opened his eyes to the sight of a lean figure decked in a set of ivory-colored armor, Egyptian blue cloak swirling around long, elegant legs. The woman withdrew her short sword from the dead alien and turned to leave, long dark hair spilling over one shoulder.

“Wait,” Erik wheezed, heart in his throat. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Korg,” A voice said overhead as Erik twisted to find a person made of…grey pebbles peering patiently down at him, a Wakandan gun held to his chest.

“Who are you?” The rock creature said cheerfully as one of the pebbles came loose and bopped Erik on the forehead.

Erik’s jaw dropped as he stared at it, him, whatever it was.

“What the fuc— ”

Nidavellir — Present Day

“So...am I like the only one who finds the old guy super creepy?” Quill asked, breaking the silence that had settled over them after the Grandmaster had spoken out loud.

“Join the club,” Loki murmured, crossing his arms over his chest. Thor nodded in agreement.

“I thought you liked me, Loki!” Grandmaster pouted.

“I feel like we keep having this conversation, En Dwi Gast,” Loki sighed, “you’re like the weird distant uncle Mother forbade us to talk to when we were little, you know the one, Thor. He had a peg leg.”

“Yes,” Thor’s eye lit up, “he used to hide candy in the fake leg and give them to us. It was rather bizarre, come to think of it.”

“He’s still alive?” Hela asked, lifting a surprised brow.

“I doubt it, not after what happened to Asgard,” Loki pointed out reasonably.

“Hmm, it’s probably for the best,” Thor said after a thoughtful pause between the siblings.

“Bet none of you can beat the weird people I lived with growing up— ” Quill started to say, but Gamora interrupted before he could finish his sentence.

“Now is not the time for this!” She snapped, making them all jump, “Your little trap on Sakaar will not hold Thanos. He’s got the Space Stone. How long do you think it’ll take for him to catch up to us?!”

“Gamora’s right,” Rocket said as he turned to Eitri, “so how do we do this, King?”

“The outermost rings must align so that the pupil in the middle can open,” Eitri explained, pointing to the pieces of the floating forge, “that is when the energy of the star can pierce through and activate the forge.”

“Ok, we got two ships,” Rocket said, “well, one and a half. The ice we were using to seal the hole in the hull might be completely melted by now, but we could throw out two grappling hooks from the ships and pull the rings into alignment. Then, Thor can do his thing with the Reality Stone?”

“How exactly do I do the thing?” Thor asked nervously.

“It does not need to be that complicated, Mouse,” Hela dismissed as she shoved past Loki, “I can use my blades to pin the rings into place.”

“Wait, Hela, don’t be so quick to— ” Loki started, but it was too late. His older sister threw out her hands and thick barbs sprung into place around the massive metal rings. There was an ominous creak, followed by a deafening crack as one of the rings detached completely and disappeared into the darkness of space. The ragtag little group stood there for a long moment, staring at the now thoroughly broken forge. Eitri’s shoulders slumped.

“I know you said you didn’t have a backup star, but is there any chance you got one of them replacement rings somewhere up in here?” Rocket was the first to break the silence.

“No,” Eitri said mournfully.

“I am Groot,” Groot said.

“Yeah, we’re fucked,” Rocket agreed.

“Do I have to do everything around here?” The Grandmaster sighed, and before anyone could react or stop him, shoved Peter Quill off the ledge and into space.

“Peter!” Gamora screamed. Loki snagged her around the waist before she leapt off the ring they were occupying after Quill. Hela had her blade out in a flash, its sharp edge digging a bleeding line into the Grandmaster’s throat.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Drax growled. Red lightning crackling along Thor's knuckles as he also turned to face the Grandmaster.

“Hel-helping…you,” The old man wheezed as Drax’s fingers wrapped around his throat. He lifted a hand and pointed, “l-look.”

They all turned as one. Loki’s lips parted in surprise when he saw Quill floating there, his expression mirroring the astonishment on everyone's face.

“Thank fuck you had an aerorig, Quill,” Rocket heaved a relieved sigh.

“Actually, I don’t,” Peter mumbled, staring down at himself.

“You’re not a mortal, are you, Quill?” Loki asked, narrowing his eyes, “mortals cannot survive out in open space for more than a few seconds.”

“He’s a Celestial, my smart boy,” The Grandmaster pushed his way out of the Drax/Hela cage and sauntered over, dabbing gingerly at his bleeding neck with a wrinkled silk handkerchief. “Well, half a Celestial. But still, it is more than enough to repair that broken thing your awful sister just destroyed.”

Hela growled.

“Wait, but my old man pulled all that Celestial stuff out of me when he, you know, stabbed me in the back with his light tentacles and sucked me dry,” Quill said as he touched down lightly onto the ground and allowed Gamora to pull him into a fierce hug. He frowned and made a face, “it’s less sexy than it sounds.”

“Your Celestial nature is imprinted in your genetic code,” Grandmaster said with a smirk, “he took what power was there, but that does not mean it will not refill itself in time.”

“Well, what are you still waiting for?” Loki demanded, “fix the forge. We are running out of time.”

“Uh, so I never actually had any formal training with the whole Celestial thing,” Quill admitted, “I mean, I made a giant Pac-Man once, but that was mostly it.”

Gamora groaned, “Peter, now’s not the time to doubt yourself.”

“Hey, I just wanted to be completely transparent here,” He said defensively, “I mean, I don’t want to mess things up further. No offense, Hela. You’re still terrifying and beautiful in my book.”

Hela smirked a little.

“You can do it!” Thor said, clapping Quill on the back and nearly sending him sprawling head-first into the void again. Loki sighed.

“Just focus on the task,” He advised, meeting the Grandmaster’s approving gaze over Peter’s head, “Celestials are some of the most powerful beings in the universe. You should be able to create literally anything from your imagination out of nothing, Quill.”

“Ok,” Peter flashed him a tentative smile that Loki returned with a silent nod. “Can you hold my hand?”

“You can do this on your own,” Loki replied patiently, exchanging a glance with his scowling brother. “Focus.”

Peter took a few quick breaths, spread his legs and squared his shoulders. He glanced back at their expectant faces, “Uh, so should I have like a fancy hand gesture or something?”

“JUST MAKE THE FUCKING RING, QUILL!” Gamora finally snapped.

“Fine,” Pouting, Quill turned back to face the forge. He screwed his eyes shut for a second and when they reopened, Loki noticed that Quill’s green eyes had turned into a swirling bluish-grey. He lifted a hand and dark metal began to assemble in the empty space where the missing ring had once sat, forming a slightly wobbly-looking circle. It certainly wasn’t as perfect as Eitri’s craft, but it would do for now.

“Aww man, it looks like an overcooked smiley fry,” Quill moaned when he finished, “I wanted to make it perfect.”

“I believe it will hold,” Eitri said, his eyes wide with amazement.

“You did well,” Loki smiled. Quill grinned back, “thanks.”

“Fist bump?” Star-Lord asked, lifting his hand. Loki blinked and pressed his open palm uncertainly to the other man’s knuckles.

“Not quite,” Quill laughed and winked at him, "but good enough.”

“So, my turn next?” Thor asked grimly. The Reality Stone flared brightly in his eye socket. He ran a hand over his rough-shaven jaw and peered up at the massive machinery winding around them. “If one of you can keep the pupil open for me, I can start the forge.”

“I can do it,” Hela said calmly. “It’s those levers there, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Eitri said, “Since the star has gone out, it will not hurt you to stand there. Thor must get closer to the forge.” He pointed to a concave spot near the pupil, “that should be a good spot.”

“Very well,” Thor nodded and moved over to the edge of the ring, “shall we begin then?”

“Thor, wait,” Loki called out to him. “Come here for a second.”

“What is it, Loki?” Thor walked over obediently.

He had nearly died the first time he’d used the Stone’s power. Loki was almost certain the amount of energy needed for the forge to restart would be more than that of giving Thanos a good beating.

“You realize that you could die, right?” He hissed at his older brother, mind still thinking frantically.

“It would be a small price to pay,” Thor said, “we need this weapon to kill Thanos.”

“How are you so sure it will?” Loki asked.

“Fate— ”

“Don’t you dare start yapping about your stupid Fate theory again.”

“Loki, are you worried?”

“Of course I am!”

“Oh,” Thor blinked, taken aback at the easy admission. Then, he smiled, bright and confident as always. “Do not worry, brother, I will not die.”

“You don’t know that Thor,” Loki sighed wearily, “we haven’t known that for a while now, in case you missed the memo. You had a few close calls— ”

“And you were always there to stitch me back up,” He smiled, “sometimes literally.”

Loki heaved a mighty sigh and pressed his palm over one of Thor’s chest plates, leaving an icy handprint over the armor.

“What’s this?” Thor peered down at the mark interestedly.

“An idea,” Loki said vaguely, his expression a cross between thoughtful and determined, “I grow tired of stitching you up, Thor. Good luck, brother.”

“I do not need luck, Fate— ”

“Yes, yes, Fate is your biggest fan, so we’ve all heard,” Loki bit his lip, “nevertheless, do be careful.”

“I will,” Thor promised.

“You sure about this, big guy?” Rocket asked as the two brothers walked over to join them.

Thor nodded, “let’s do it.”

Chapter Text

Nidavellir — Present Day

Rocket had never met a god before. Up to that point, he had been a firm believer of the hard sciences. There was nothing in the world that couldn’t be explained by science and logic, and anything that seemed like magic was just undiscovered fields of, well, more science. But as he stared at the man standing in the middle of that ring, his whole body aglow with the power of the infinity stone, Rocket had to admit, if there ever was a god, Thor would be it. 

“How much longer?” Loki turned to hiss at them, tight expression a mixture of impatience and concern.

“Just a bit more,” Eitri shouted. Rocket looked into the forge where they had placed the metal. It was starting to bubble. He turned to Groot, “you got the weapon mold, kid?” 

“Whatever plan you hatched, now is the time to use it,” The Grandmaster prompted Loki, narrowing his eyes at the bright red light. “He will not survive another minute of this.” 

Squaring his shoulders, the dark-haired prince lifted a hand. A bright golden shield spread across the glowing figure in the center of the forge, encasing whatever parts of Thor it could reach before being destroyed by the stone’s energy. It was slowing down the damage but not by much. Even from his vantage point, Rocket could make out the bits of flesh peeling from Thor's body. It looked excruciating. Loki hissed in frustration, bared his teeth, and screwed his eyes shut. Blue began to spread across his pale skin, the swirling pattern and lightning scars resurfacing once more as he shed the glamor and channeled every drop of magic into the shield.

Rocket, acting as Eitri’s hands, scurried across the forge and flipped the lever to allow the now completely heated metal to slowly pool into the mold below. It hissed as it cooled upon contact. The air hummed with restless energy, making Rocket’s fur stand on end. 

“I think he just lost consciousness,” Quill said from somewhere behind them and Rocket saw in the corner of one distracted eye, the glowing supernova flicker once, twice, before going out. The massive rings groaned as Hela released the levers and Quill kicked off into the void, catching the limp figure before Thor could float off into space. Loki collapsed to his knees, panting like he had just run a marathon.

“The handle, rodent, where is the handle?” The Dwarf king shouted at them as Rocket pawed frantically through the mess of parts. “Now, it has to be now!” 

Sweat beaded the king’s exhausted face, but his eyes were bright and determined as he motioned for Drax to break the mold with one mighty swing from a truly massive hammer. The Grandmaster watched on the sidelines as Rocket pawed frantically through the mountain of parts. He had just seen the handle a few seconds ago. Where had it gone? 

“I am Groot,” Groot said, shoving past Rocket with his jaw stubbornly set. He opened his mouth to protest, but it was already too late. The little tree reached for the two pieces of hot metal, hissing in pain when it sizzled against his limb. Rocket chewed anxiously on his paw, wincing when Groot snapped his arm cleanly off at the elbow and staggered back.

"Stormbreaker is complete..." Eitri murmured, his voice filled with awe. "We've done it, little furry animal of unknown origins."

Red and blue sparks skittered across the massive ax. The humming energy in the air finally reached critical point. Lightning forked through the empty space, and Rocket heard Quill's startled cry of shock as he flinched away from the half-conscious figure he was supporting. Stormbreaker flew through the air, slicing a few silver strands from the top of the Grandmaster's head as he ducked out of the way just in time to avoid being decapitated. Rocket tasted ozone, the rumbling of an impending storm echoing and buzzing through his skull as the God of Thunder straightened his shoulders, the deep gouging wounds in his bare skin knitting back together amidst the sizzling energy. His eyes, one electric blue and the other crimson red, glowed inhumanly in his face. Rocket's breath caught in his throat. The sheer power humming inside that body was terrifying and beautiful.

Thor inclined his head at them, grateful. Rocket swallowed, fumbling a hurried little salute as he hopped off the metal bench and scrambled over to Groot to inspect his injury. He breathed a sigh of relief when Groot showed him the miniature hand already sprouting from the severed stump.

"Well done, Thor," Loki murmured, accepting Quill's hand as Starlord pulled him to his feet.

"Thanks to you, little brother. All of you," Thor smiled, the inhuman glow of his eyes receding as he turned to his siblings. Hela was watching him with a curious expression on her face that looked almost like grudging respect. Thor turned to the rest of them, "now who's ready to slay a Titan?"

"Not yet, Thor," The Dwarf King interrupted. "I have a few items that could be of help to your quest."

-

"You know what?" Rocket murmured when Eitri heaved the thick metal doors to the weapons vault open, "I think I'm going to stay. You guys can leave without me..."

He pattered over to a gleaming, medieval-looking machine gun and traced the shiny barrel with utter wonder. It looked like someone had crafted the thing in one piece, which should be impossible. All the guns Rocket had ever worked with needed the assembling of several pieces. This one didn't even seem to have a slot for a cartridge.

"You may each take one piece from the vault," Eitri addressed the group from the entrance to the large chamber.

"For free?" Rocket asked, blinking in amazement. The king nodded, his face grim.

Drax and Gamora migrated immediately to the side with the knives. Quill meandered over to Rocket who put both paws on the cool gun when he caught the man eyeing it with interest.

"Try it, Quill. I will rip your face off without hesitation."

Starlord wisely took a few steps away from him. Rocket leaned in and took a deep whiff of the metal. Oh yeah, that was the stuff.

Power and destruction. Absolutely divine.

"Oh look, a pretty necklace for a pretty princess," He heard Hela say somewhere behind them. Rocket glanced over just in time to see the oldest Asgardian toss a clunky silver amulet over Loki’s shoulders with a smirk.

“Aren’t the insults to my masculinity getting old, dear sister?” The baby god asked grumpily. Hela just let out a low laugh and pinched his cheek hard enough to hurt. Loki turned to Thor, “you’re just going to stand there and let this happen?” 

“Let what happen?” Thor asked with a sly twinkle in his eye. 

“You are enjoying this, you bastard,” Loki accused furiously. His older brother shook his head innocently and leapt away before Loki could fumble out a knife. There was definitely something wrong with the weird necklace because when Loki tried to lift it back over his head, he hissed in pain and dropped the chain. Hela waved away his angry yell of “it’s freaking cursed! I can’t get it off!” 

She was perusing a rack of blades with Gamora deep inside the vault when Eitri reappeared with an impressive longsword. Much to Rocket's curiosity, Hela froze at the sight of it.

“This was your father’s weapon when you rode with him in conquest of the nine realms,” The Dwarf King said gravely as he offered up the gold-hilted sword to the oldest of Odin’s children, “I believe it will be of great use to you, Hela.” 

“Is that the famed—” Thor began, his eyes widening in amazement. 

“Yes, the Odinsword,” Hela murmured, long fingers curling around the hilt. She lifted the massive weapon with ease, naked triumph on her pale beautiful face.

"Everyone good?" Her blond brother asked their ragtag group. Peter took a pair of pistols as Gamora pulled a wicked-looking blade from the wall and grinned. Drax had gone with double swords. Mantis picked a pair of silver vambraces instead of an actual weapon. She shrugged when Rocket shook his head at her lame choice. Groot grinned toothily and held up a rusty helmet, his eyes glittering happily.

Hopeless idiots, Rocket thought with a deep internal sigh. What a fucking waste.

"Only one piece, Prince Loki. I have my rules," Eitri said, stopping him before he could follow his siblings out of the chamber.

"I can't get this necklace off," Loki pointed out, pale face spasming under their scrutiny.

"Hand over the knives, boy," The Dwarf King ordered, not impressed at the excuse.

"Seriously?"

"Yes," Eitri said simply.

Shoulders slumping unhappily, Loki tossed the set of knives onto the weapon bench on his left, his jaw working angrily as he stalked after the other two Asgardians, “You inherit the Odinsword, Thor gets Stormbreaker, and I'm left with a cursed necklace that does Odin knows what. How is that fair?” 

Predictably, his older siblings ignored him. 

Quill nudged Loki and offered over one of his pistols.

"Thanks, but I prefer knives," The youngest prince murmured dejectedly as they made their way back to the ship. Rocket almost felt sorry for him. Thor thanked Eitri and sealed the ship shut. Rocket waited until they cleared the atmosphere before wandering over to a scowling Loki.

"Come to make fun of me as well, rat?" He spat, hunching in his seat.

"No," Rocket pulled out the pair of knives he'd snuck out of the vault and smirked as Loki's green eyes widened. They weren't the exact ones Loki had wanted but they were close enough.

"For me?" He asked, studying Rocket's face cautiously.

Rocket scratched his chin and shrugged, "I'm good at stealing things, and you looked like you were about to cry, so..."

"Thank you," Loki murmured, taking the weapons.

"Yeah, I'd wash them first."

The young god cocked his head to the side, confused, "Why?"

"My pockets were full."

"And?"

"I had to put 'em somewhere else," He gestured at the vicinity of his crotch with a paw. Predictably, Loki let out a girly shriek and dropped the knives.

Chapter Text

Outer Space — Present Day

When Hela sauntered into the back of the ship, Loki had finally passed out from exhaustion, one pale cheek smushed uncomfortably against Thor's armor-clad shoulder. She took a set opposite them next to the girl with the antennas. Thor's older sister ignored Mantis's smile of greeting and crossed her arms over her chest, dark eyes unreadable as she stared at them. Loki shifted, and Thor adjusted their positions so he could sleep a little more comfortably.

"What's the plan when we get there?" Hela asked. Thor narrowed his eyes and lifted a finger to his lips. She repeated the question, not bothering to lower her voice one bit.

"I don't know," He admitted quietly into the heavy silence. Things had been happening so fast, Thor didn't have much time to think, not that thinking was his forte. "Loki sent our people to where the last free stone is, and that's Earth."

"You know this for a fact?"

"The Aether seems to point that way," He said, frowning. It was hard to describe, but the Infinity Stone within his body spoke in various flashes of disjointed images and whispers of thoughts. He had seen an open field, lush and green, with a gleaming city in the background.

"Thanos will most likely already be there by now," Hela said, her pale jaw working in annoyance at the thought, "Since you two useless idiots gave up the Space Stone."

"Loki was trying to protect our people," He sighed, bending to peer at his little brother, "and me."

"The chance of this going sideways and everyone dying is extraordinarily high."

He lifted an eyebrow, "Are you scared, sister? I thought you were the Goddess of Death."

"I'm not the one that should be afraid," She smirked and leaned forth, "he will rip that Reality Stone from your head, Thor."

"At least he doesn't want to stick his purple dic—" 

The sharp bite of a blade kissed Thor's exposed throat, silencing the rest of his insult. 

"I'd care how you address me, boy," Hela purred, "I haven't decided to help you and your weakling friends yet."

Mantis had her arms wrapped around her knees, rocking back and forth as she watched their scuffle. Hela increased the pressure for a fraction of a second, making sure he felt the hot prickle of pain before she dissolved the blade with her magic. The dreadful silence settled over them again. Thor exhaled.

"I should send him off," He admitted out loud, "open a wormhole or something with the Aether and just toss Loki through it."

"He'd despise you for it," Hela pointed out, "the boy is awfully proud."

"At least that way he'll live. I'm used to him hating me. It's selfish of me to make him stay," Thor admitted, careful not to jostle Loki, "I suppose it is of a little comfort that even if we perish in battle, we will reunite with our parents in Valhalla."

"Will he?" His older sister mused, sliding long pale fingers through her jet black hair and untangling the knots, "He's a frost giant."

Ice settled in the pit of Thor's stomach at her observation. "How dare you insinuate—"

"She's right," Loki said suddenly, lifting his head from Thor's shoulder and shrugging off his arm. He ran a hand over his tired face and dropped his gaze to the grimy floor of the ship. "I'm not Asgardian. My biological father tossed me out to die. Your father only took me home because he wanted a war prize, I was meant to serve as a display of Odin's power and dominance over the Nine Realms. To show that he was strong enough to keep a child of the enemy so close and still retain his—"

"You truly think that?" Thor interrupted, hurt spreading inside his chest at the poisonous words, "still?"

"It matters not what I think," Loki's pale throat bobbed violently as he swallowed, "I was born on Jotunheim, to Frost giant parents. Frost giants don’t go to Valhalla when they die.” 

"You're my brother!" Thor insisted, head reeling at the horrible thought, "you said you met them before Mother brought you back, surely—"

"Odin said we weren't in Valhalla, it was some in-between place," Loki's pale fingers twisted restlessly in his lap. "He said it wasn't my time."

"You have proven yourself worthy so many times already," Thor scowled, grabbing his younger brother roughly so that he could force their eyes to meet. "Father sees this, Loki. He'd be a fool not to!"

"Let go of my face," Loki complained, cheeks squished between Thor's meaty hands.

"And if he doesn't, then," Thor bit his lip, "screw Valhalla."

Loki's eyes widened in alarm. "Don't speak like that, you idiot!"

“Where you go, Loki. I will follow,” He promised, “We both will. Right, sister?” 

“Still not a part of this,” Hela said without looking up from the complicated braid she was weaving into her locks.

“You and I are two parts of a whole, Loki,” Thor said simply, “the afterlife would not be the same without you there, brother.” 

“Why all the pessimism, boys?” The Grandmaster interjected from the doorway. He wiggled his eyebrows at Loki’s annoyed expression. “Play, play ah your cards right and no one has to die.” 

His little brother narrowed his eyes at that odd sentence, “what does that mean?” 

The old man merely winked at him in reply.

"He's just messing with us," Thor dismissed, rolling his eyes, "come on, Loki. You need to rest."

"I doubt anyone can fall asleep now that—"

He slumped forward abruptly, and it was only Thor's quick reflexes that saved his younger sibling from face-planting at Hela's feet. Mantis smiled at them, her hand still on Loki's forearm.

"I put him down," She explained to the room.

"Permanently or just temporary?" Thor asked, sticking a worried finger under Loki's nose. He heaved a relieved sigh when he felt a long exhale. "Wait, you can put people to sleep?"

"I can also feel their emotions," Mantis added, her eyes huge.

"Really?" Thor asked, curious, "what does he feel about me?"

Her face scrunched in concentration. "That you are annoying, arrogant, and an idiot with little to no brain function." 

Thor scowled.

"But he loves you anyway," She finished, beaming.

"I'll take it." He shrugged, smiling down at the unconscious form of his little brother sprawled gracelessly in his lap.

Wakanda — Present Day

"Where's Steve?!" Bucky shouted past the wind buffeting his face. Stark had both metal arms around his waist as they hurtled through the air, dodging the shower of flaming debris raining from the disintegrating ship.

"Deep breath, Barnes," Tony bellowed back. His suit hummed beneath Bucky's fingers as it pushed power to the max and they took a gut-wrenching drop to avoid being sliced in two by the alien woman's sharp spear.

"Hang on!" Stark instructed. Bucky wrapped his metal arm around the man's neck, threw both legs over his hip and clung on. Tony flipped the suit over, lifted both hands from Bucky's waist and fired off a series of searing-hot beams at their enemy. Bucky, eyes streaming with tears from the cold air, saw the wizard's cloak whiz past, knocking the woman away from them and wrapping around Steve's free-falling form.

"Strange's cloak's got him," He yelled in Tony's ear.

"Ok, I'm taking you down to the ground," Iron Man said, grabbing ahold of him once more as they shot toward the land where miniature figures were in full battle with the strange black creatures pouring endlessly from outside the destroyed Wakandan energy barrier.

"Preferably not in the middle of a pile of monsters?!" Bucky grunted, stumbling when Tony touched down on the scorched earth and they broke apart.

"Hard to pick a spot without any," He snapped back, lifting both arms to power on the cannons. Bucky socked one of the strange dog-like creatures with his metal fist, winced at the jarring pain in his shoulder, and yanked a spear from a nearby dead Wakandan soldier.

"Go help the others, I'll be fine," He told Stark.

"Here," The man handed something over. It looked like a tiny headpiece. "Yell if there's trouble."

"Will do," Bucky squinted past runny eyes as the red and gold suit shot into the air and northward. He took a deep breath and broke into a run. Piles of smoldering bodies lay strewn across the destroyed ground. He spotted a few familiar cloaks, now all in tatters, of the border tribes. Gritting his teeth, Bucky slammed his spear into one of the still crawling creatures and twisted, hearing the snap of bone as it went limp.

A fresh wave of the black things appeared over the hilltops. The large alien woman was nowhere to be seen, but Bucky had a feeling she'd survived the fall. He flinched when something landed on the ground next to him. Stark's suit zoomed past as Steve groaned and sat up, his face covered in dirt. 

"You're welcome, Rogers!" Tony yelled.

Bucky pulled Steve to his feet and smiled as the wizard's cape settled happily around him again.

"You alright?" Steve asked, still spitting out bits of grass and dusting off his ass.

"Fucking fantastic," Bucky grunted, driving his spear into the monster bounding their way and flinging it off to the side. His shoulder twinged again, more insistent this time.

"You don't look fine, Buck," Steve eyed him with worry. Goddamn Rogers and his almost inhuman ability to tell when Bucky was hurt or lying.

"You can play nurse on me all you want after we get rid of these things, OK?” Bucky promised, stumbling as Steve yanked him out of the way and punched the monster rushing at them. The creature went down like a rock, its skull crushed.

"Damn," Bucky whistled. Steve shrugged, wiping black slime off of his gloved knuckles.

"Any way you can punch us through that?" Bucky pointed to the writhing mass of creatures headed their way. The man with the wicked-sharp glaive made a bounding leap just as Steve lifted his shield. The resounding bang sent Bucky staggering, his ears ringing as if a detonator bomb just went off within touching distance. The cloak around his shoulders cushioned the worst of the shockwave. He crawled to his feet, spots dancing in his eyes as a thick bolt of crimson lightning forked from the sky. The taste of ozone filled the air. Goosebumps rippled across Bucky's skin as the towering figure in the eye of the electric storm lifted a massive ax and brought it down hard. The earth shook beneath their feet, and the monstrous man Steve had been grappling with fell to his knees, head severed from his shoulders.

"I see you've copied my beard, Steven," Their mysterious rescuer let out a booming laugh as he extended a hand to Steve.

"About time you showed up," Steve griped, reeling the strangely-dressed blond man into a one-armed hug. "What happened to your hair?"

"Long story—"

"Enough pleasantries, Thor. We don’t have time for this."

Bucky turned at the silky drawl and found a dark-haired man, wearing equally strange garbs and wielding two daggers standing behind him. As he stared on in bewilderment, the man's pale skin rippled, blue seeping in as his green eyes darkened to a blood red. He threw one of the daggers and jagged ice burst from where it impaled the monster.

"Get rid of the outrider portals," He ordered the one wielding the ax, "Thanos is coming. I can feel it."

"Loki?" Steve asked, disbelief coloring his expression. "You're blue."

"Magnificent, isn't it?" Thor grinned and shot off into the air, lightning crackling across his skin.

"You're here to help or finish the job from six years ago?" Steve asked suspiciously, kicking one of the outriders as Loki had called them.

"I am your ally for now," The strange blue man replied vaguely.

"Alright gang, Anna and Elsa have joined the fight," Bucky heard Stark's irritating voice over the earpiece, "along with a scary hot girl with a big-ass sword. Jesus, she's doing a ton of damage, really hope she's on our side."

"Who's the lady with the sword Tony's talking about?" Steve panted as the three of them raced up the hill.

"Hela, Goddess of Death," Loki grunted, stabbing another outrider with a blade of ice, "our long-lost older sister."

"You're Asgardian," Bucky realized. No wonder the costumes, er, clothes, looked familiar. Loki's blood-red eyes fell on him for a fraction of a second, cold expression unreadable.

He gave a one-shouldered shrug, "more or less."

"Don’t worry, they’re safe," Bucky told him between stabbing an outrider and running, "the women and children, I mean."

"Not for long," Loki said grimly as something massive broke through the atmosphere above the city. The creatures around them roared as one. He lifted a hand over his eyes and murmured, "that's Thanos's flagship. He's brought more Chitauri soldiers."

"We didn't kill them all when you led the Chitauri to New York?" Steve scowled, panting and clutching a stitch in his side.

"They have infinite numbers, Captain," Loki explained smoothly, "Thanos commands them all. What he gave me to decimate your pathetic city with was a small battalion at most. He's here for the remaining Infinity Stones." He turned to Bucky, "you have communication access to the annoying little man in the flying metal suit?"

Bucky nodded. Loki strode over and pressed two cold fingers against his earpiece. There was a rush of static, then he cocked his head to the side and said, "Stark?"

"Who's this?" Came Tony's immediate reply.

"Loki. Tell me where the rest of the stones are."

"How do I know that you're really on our side, Elsa?" Stark said testily, "What if you stab us in the back and go crawling to your old master again?"

"I almost died protecting my idiot of a brother, Stark. I am not keen on repeating that experience."

"And gave him pink-eye in the process?"

"That's the Reality Stone, you imbecile."

"I missed this, you know. This charming back and forth between us," Tony exhaled on a laugh. It sounded a little hysterical, "Fine, there's a weird party city wizard that has the Time Stone, the Soul Stone is in Wakanda's mines, Reality is in Thor, and Vision has the Mind Stone from your scepter in his forehead."

"What a waste of an Infinity Stone," Loki muttered, severing the head of an outrider and spraying Bucky with scalding black blood. "Tell the second-rate wizard and your purple robot baby to stay away from this battlefield. If they come here, it will only hasten our demise."

"Yeah, about that," Tony began as over a dozen golden  portals fizzled into existence in the sky around them. Vision soared through one of them with Wanda. Bucky saw the tiny red form of the Spiderboy swing his way through another. He winced as half a dozen outriders immediately buried the poor kid in a writhing avalanche of bodies.

"Fuck," Steve said with feeling.

"Fuck indeed," Loki agreed with a grimace.

"This gun is freakin' amazing!" A tiny furry raccoon in a tactile vest whirled past, a massive gleaming weapon clutching to its chest. It was perched on the shoulder of a...tree.

Bucky felt his jaw drop. "Steve."

"What?" His best friend grunted.

"I just saw a raccoon wearing people clothes and holding a big gun…” 

Steve paused long enough to shoot him a concerned look, "did you hit your head earlier? Let me see your eyes, Buck."

"No, I'm not concussed—"

"That's Rocket, he's with us," Loki drawled, brushing past them. "And yes, that is a walking and talking tree you just saw."

"I'm going to need even more therapy after this," Bucky muttered as he raced after the two.

-

"Almost thought we lost you back there," Quill greeted Loki as he led the two mortals up to the ledge where the rest of the rag-tag Nidavellir group had stationed themselves. He jerked his chin at the Captain and his friend, "who are these people?"

"Captain America and..." He hadn't caught the man's name, "some guy with a metal arm."

"I'm Bucky," said the polite stranger with the shiny brown hair.

"Captain America? Like the real deal?" Quill asked as he spun around and shot a Chitauri soldier in the face. His sweaty face gleamed under the sun as he deactivated his mask and openly gawked at the blond man on Loki's right. "I had a whole box of comics books about you."

"They have comic books in space?" Steve Rogers asked tentatively.

"Oh no, I was born on Terra, I mean Earth. Well, my dad's an alien, a sentient planet actually. He sent my old man to kidnap me, but Yondu ended up keeping me around the ship 'cause I was so darn cute," He explained sporadically as they killed more of the Chitauri troops. Quill winked at him, "right, Loki?"

"No," Loki replied, "stop talking and concentrate."

"Hey Cap, can I get your autograph after?"

"Kid, if we make it out of this, you can have all the autographs you want," The Captain sighed, meeting Loki's unimpressed gaze.

"Sweet," Quill beamed, "I'm Quill by the way, Peter Quill. People call me Star-Lord."

Loki scanned the chaos below. Hela was leading the charge with a bunch of the local warriors on gray horned beasts to the east of the battlegrounds, Stark zooming above them and providing extra cover for the humans below. He couldn't see Thor in the throng of bodies, but he could feel the power of the Aether nearby. Judging by the occasional  bolt of lightning from above, his brother was very much holding his own against Thanos's henchmen. Then, he spotted the colorful splash of gold and blue among the mess of bodies. The Grandmaster, unarmed and unhinged, pranced along in the madness, waving to the soldiers on horseback streaking past him. Loki teleported down to the muddy field next to him.

"What the hell are you doing?" He yelled at the deranged old man, pulling him out of the way of a charging outrider, "We told you to stay in the ship!"

"Oh, my darling boy, how how c-could I resist," The Grandmaster laughed, eyes alight with mad excitement, "look, look at them go, Loki. My champions, ha!"

"Your what?"

"Oooh, look at that one, that one's new," En Dwi Gast pointed to the silver form of Stark's female companion as she hurtled past her lover, cannons blazing, "I l-like her." He curled fingers around Loki's leather vambrace, "that little spider-child is is is very strong, hmm? I should steal them and, and put them in the, in the fight pit in Sakaar. Loki, you remember the fight pit?" The Grandmaster gasped suddenly, tugging Loki along, "the green beast, my p-precious Hulk is here."

"You've lost your mind," Loki panted, dispatching another blood-thirsty beast before it could sink sharp claws into the old man. "I'm getting you out of here." He tapped into the comm feed again, "Stark, where is the shelter?"

"Within the mountains," Came the distracted answer, "You sending someone over? Take Pepper with you. She shouldn't be out here. It's too dangerous for—"

"Tony!" The woman's annoyed voice interrupted, furious, "I am not leaving you to fight these things alone!"

"Ah, Loki, dear boy," En Dwi Gast tugged on the tattered remnants of Loki's cape. "We've, ah, got company."

"What?" He whirled around just in time to dodge the heavy spear Proxima tossed his way.  It flew back into her hand as she straightened, towering above both of them. Loki shoved the old man, and with a burst of magic, teleported him up to the Captain and the rest of their group.

"Not going to run, maggot?" She purred at him, twirling the sharp weapon in her hands.

"What's the point of running now?" He swallowed, magicking two thick blades of ice over his forearms.

"I'm going to enjoy ripping the entrails from your body, Trickster," Proxima spat, "your brother took the life of one of mine. Rest assured I will repay the debt and make your agony unending."

Loki blocked her first strike clumsily, boots slipping in the wet earth. Physical combat was one of his weakest areas. Growing up, Loki had turned his nose up at the ungainly sight of Thor and his simpleton friends grappling in the dirty training yard for hours on end, bloodied and bruised and spitting curses at one another as they fought. He declined most of Thor's extended offers to train him, and as the years had gone by, his older brother had stopped asking. Most of Loki's moves, he'd learned from watching Thor and Sif or reading from a book.

He conjured a dozen clones and hurled them at Proxima Midnight. She called his bluff almost instantly, slashing through the illusions and sending Loki flying with a hard kick to the chest. He landed on his back, vision swimming and blood hot and salty in his mouth. The silver chain around his neck swung wildly as Loki scrambled onto all-fours, gasping. The ice did not seem to deter Thanos's furious daughter as she clawed her way out of the jagged prison he had conjured. Proxima lifted the spear, a sadistic smile on her face. Loki clenched his teeth and braced for pain, but he felt a buffet of cool air through his hair, and she stumbled back as a sentient tablecloth wrapped itself around the woman's face and dragged her back.

"Come on!" The brunet man who had introduced himself as Bucky earlier twisted a metal fist in Loki's mud-streaked tunic and lifted him bodily off the ground. Steve Rogers hurtled past them, throwing himself at Proxima. He heard a loud rip. She had torn the cloth with her spear and flung it off to the side.

"Shit," Bucky hissed, pulling out two blades and fumbling one to Loki as the outriders behind Thanos's daughter finally reached them. He shoved the metal arm into the gaping maw of a creature and crushed its throat from within.

Loki grunted when two outriders slammed into him, hot, foul-smelling slobber dribbling onto his exposed face as they clawed and bit at him. He caught the thing's jaws and ripped it apart with both hands, searing pricks of pain running up his arms from the sharp fangs digging through his exposed palms. It collapsed on top of him as the other outrider took over, snapping aggressively at Loki's unprotected throat. The necklace around his neck pulsed once, a reverberating bone-deep ache that sent the creatures flying backwards and robbed the breath from Loki's lungs. His vision flickered. It was thrumming like a miniature sun against his chest. He heard the distant thundering of hooves and saw, out of the corner of his eyes, a golden figure sat atop a wing horse swoop past.

It was a Valkyrie.

But all the Valkyries were dead, with the exception of Brunnhilde, and he had spotted her blue cloak on the other side of the battlefield.

Two more winged horses flew by, their riders lifting gleaming spears above their heads, long hair shining in the Wakandan sun.

"How long are you going to lie there?" A familiar teasing voice asked.

Heart pounding in his throat, Loki twisted and saw Fandral's smirking face above him. His edges were cast in the same strange golden sheen, but when the dead Asgardian warrior reached down to Loki, his fingers felt solid tangled in Loki's. 

"How?" He breathed, staring at Fandral.

"You call, Prince Loki," He murmured, jerking his chin at something behind them, "and Asgard answered."

"I d-didn't—" Loki stammered, the words catching in his tight throat as he saw the massive golden gates of Valhalla, long-dead warriors of old pouring out of its depth to join the fight in the land of the living. 

"One last ride?" Fandral asked, squeezing his shoulder.

"What?" Loki blinked past the stinging wetness in his eyes and met Fandral's amused gaze.

"Whoever kills more monsters wins," He elaborated, slicing through an outrider with his broadsword.

"How is that fair? You're dead, you don't feel pain like I do," Loki found himself settling instantly into the familiar rhythm of their old bickering. Fandral was the only one of Thor's close pals that Loki actually got along with.

"Life's not fair, Loki," Fandral reminded, laughing. "Come on, you're making this too easy!"

All around them, Asgardian warriors dead and alive were fighting side by side with the native people. Loki flinched as Thor dropped down beside him, eyes blazing and beaming with pride. He caught Loki in a one-armed hug. Up close, his brother smelled of the storm and death.

"You did this," He said, smile so bright it hurt to behold, "I told you Father thought you worthy, Loki."

"Where's Thanos?" He managed to squeeze out through the emotional lump in his throat. Thor's smile faded, discomfort resurfacing.

"Fighting Hela," He said vaguely, "she still hasn't beaten the poet out of him yet. I got sick of the death threats and flirting."

"Ugh," Loki muttered.

Thor threw Stormbreaker and Loki watched as it raced through the air, cutting down droves of outriders.

"Proxima said she was going to disembowel me with her bare hands because you beheaded her brother," He shouted at Thor, smirking inwardly when the Reality Stone flared angrily in Thor's eye-socket.

"Did she now?" He growled, crimson energy skidding down his massive arms as Stormbreaker came hurtling back soaked in outrider blood.

"She's over there," Loki pointed in the vague direction where he'd last seen Proxima Midnight.

"Wait here," Thor ordered and shot into the air once more.

"Really?" The brunet man asked from a few feet away where he was helping Fandral cut through a hoard of the creatures.

"What?" Loki glanced at Bucky and shrugged, "I'm not gonna fight that thing myself."

Fandral snorted as he teleported over to them and placed a palm on Bucky's injured shoulder. The hairline fractures in the bone beneath knitted back together with a burst of Loki's magic. He worked his metal shoulder with a look of wonder.

"It doesn't hurt anymore," Bucky breathed in awe.

"Call us even," Loki replied before promptly throwing him at the advancing outriders and teleporting away.

-

Before meeting Hela, Tony had thought Thor powerful, but seeing her against the purple madman hellbent on wiping out half of the universe, he realized that his limited imagination just didn't cut it when it came to the Asgardians and their inhuman resilience.

"You are formidable, my lady," He spat out a mouthful of blood and retreated a few steps behind the two remaining sentient creatures under his command. T'Challa and the other man in the vibranium cat suit had managed to kill the giant lumbering one, and all that was left were Fish-Face and a slender hooded woman who hadn't done much physical damage since she'd stepped off the ship after Thanos.

"But the stones are my birthright," Thanos continued. Their attacks were bouncing uselessly off of the silver shields Fish-Face had erected around Thanos.

"And Asgard was mine," Hela drawled, leaning her weight against the longsword and regarding him with narrowed green eyes, "we can't all have what we want, darling."

"Hand over your brother, and I will create New Asgard in your image," He murmured, "you can take your new army and what's left of mine, conquer the realms like you used to."

"Tempting," She mused, "but like I said, I take what's mine. I don't wait for a man to hand over scraps."

"Very well, my lady, you will not reason with me. Perhaps Stark will," Thanos said, and before Tony could react, the hooded woman on his right lifted a slim arm.

Nothing happened at first. Tony's heart thudded in his throat. Then, to his horror, Pepper's silver Iron Woman suit dropped from the sky. She landed on one knee in front of the force field.

"Pepper, what are you doing?!" He dove sharply down, but it was too late. The nano-suit rippled and retreated as Pepper shed the armor and stepped inside.

A golden lasso of energy stopped Tony from ramming head-first into Fish-Face's energy fortress. Dr. Strange touched down next to Tony. His face was streaked with blood and dirt, the once-vibrant cloak around his shoulders blackened and ripped at the edges.

"Wait," He murmured, "she's being controlled."

Thanos smiled, beckoning Pepper closer with a large hand. He glanced at a tense Tony, "My daughter Gamora once had hair as fiery as hers. She has a fierce soul, Stark. You must be very fond of each other."

"What game are you playing at?" Tony snarled, shaking with rage. Pepper's gaze was blank as she turned to face them. He fired up his blasters as Thanos put a hand on her thin shoulders.

"Give up the remaining stones, Stark, or I will take the lives of your wife and unborn child," Thanos said.

"What?" Tony swayed at the words, a curious hollow noise spreading in his panicked skull.

"He does not know, Father," Fish-Face said with an ugly smirk, "the pathetic mortal is unaware that he has sired a child."

"How careless," Thanos said, clicking his tongue.

"Please," Tony swallowed, "d-don't hurt her."

"The stones, Stark," The Titan reminded, "give them to me, so that she and the child may survive."

"He is thinking of attacking us, Father," The strange woman at Thanos's side spoke suddenly, "Stark has no intentions of giving up the Infinity Stones."

Fish-Face lifted a finger and metal shards from the ground flew into the air, arranging themselves into a wickedly sharp blade that settled against Pepper's neck. She gave no outward reaction.

"No, no, I'm not going to fight you, please just don't hurt her," He staggered forward, hands uplifted and pleading, "I'll get you the stones. I-I-I need time."

Hela cocked her head at him, her gaze disapproving.

"Please," Tony whispered at her, hoping against hope that the woman would not doing something drastic.

"Two of them are stuck in living hosts," A familiar voice chimed up from behind as Loki shimmered into view behind them. He was still blue, those blood-red eyes focused on Pepper as he approached. "They prefer their current mediums. If you attempt to remove them by force, it will not bode well for either party."

"What are you saying, Trickster?" Thanos asked.

"Father, I cannot get a read on him," The hooded woman frowned, taking a step forward and regarding Loki with interest, "his mind is fractured."

"I'm a bit on the mad side," Loki flashed a savage smile at her, "allow us time to remove them, My Lord. And I will bring them to you myself."

"As you did with the Space Stone?" He regarded Loki with narrowed eyes.

"I did what I had to to protect my people, Lord Thanos," Loki murmured silkily. He glanced at Hela, "if not for our detour, would you have met my lovely sister?"

Hela shifted on her feet, and for a fraction of a tense second, Tony genuinely thought she was going to stab Loki for that comment.

"Very well," Thanos inclined his head, "how long?"

"Three days."

"Three days, Trickster? You really think I will give you a chance to plot and wiggle your way out of my grasp again?"

"Twenty-four of Earth's hours then," Loki tried again.

"No," Thanos replied, "ten at most."

"Perhaps I can be of help," Strange stepped forward. "I will give you the Time Stone in exchange for more...time with extracting the others."

He glanced at Tony, then at Loki, his expression unreadable.

"Twelve of Earth's hours," Thanos relented, "for the Time Stone, Sorcerer."

"Are you truly this rushed to rid half of all life in the universe, Thanos?" Hela spoke up, her tone bland, "what can a few more hours do to jeopardize your imminent success?"

The Titan turned to her, "What are you saying, my lady?"

"Give them twenty-four hours, " She commanded, banishing the massive sword with a wave of her hand, "I will find something to distract you for the remaining twelve."

He chortled at the words, dark eyes gleaming. "Are you offering what I think you are?"

Loki's older sister simply lifted a hand and the Titan reached across the force field, drawing her close. Fish-Face was watching them with clear suspicion in his pasty face. Tony waited with bated breath. Thanos seemed to consider the idea for a moment before nodding at the hooded woman.

"Very well. You have twenty-four hours," He announced, large hand settling at Hela's narrow waist, "now give me the Time Stone, sorcerer."

Strange made a series of complex gestures and the eye-shaped necklace parted to reveal a glowing green rock sitting in the pupil. He plucked the stone from its resting place and let go. Tony looked on helplessly as it glided to Thanos, who smiled triumphantly and slotted it into one of the knuckles of the gauntlet. Light coursed through the entire glove and up his arm. He flexed his fist and smiled.

"Let her go," He ordered Fish-Face. The alien glanced at Tony with a nasty smirk. He flicked a finger and threw Pepper out of the energy shield.

Loki caught Tony's fiancée in a flash of green light, managing to teleport there just in time. Her head lulled in his arms. Pepper's eyes were tightly closed. Tony nearly tripped over his own two feet in his haste to reach them.

"Twenty-four hours," Thanos said, gesturing for his henchmen to recall the monsters as he turned to leave.

"Make it count," Hela muttered before the light swallowed them.

All around, the alien creatures were retreating. Thor landed a few feet off, his expression puzzled as he called out to them, "why are the creatures leaving? Have we won?"

"No," Tony grimaced, "we just lost a stone."

Thor's mismatched eyes widened, "What? How?"

"It was the only way," Strange said, placing a palm on the god's chest and stopping him from running over to the huddled trio. "We needed more time."

"Pepper, baby. Can you hear me?" Tony deactivated the suit and cupped her pale face in his palms, "come on, open your eyes."

"She's fine," Loki murmured, placing a pale hand over her abdomen. He had shifted back to his human visage. "So is your daughter, Stark."

Tony's weak legs finally gave out from underneath him at the onslaught of information.

"What now?" He asked after a weary pause, still clutching Pepper's hand tightly in his.

"Clock's ticking," Loki murmured, meeting their grim eyes, "like Hela said, we have to make it count."