Chapter Text
Avengers Academy has always had some kind of party on or around New Year’s. Janet promised this one would be the party to end all parties, in more ways than one, and as far as Brian can tell she’s succeeded. It’s not just at Club A or even Club Galaxy this time; the final Avengers Academy party has taken over basically the entire campus, which has somehow involved moving all the relevant buildings to the quad and shuffling the less party-appropriate structures into other parts of the compound. (He doesn’t ask how it’s possible to just move buildings around like toys. It’s Avengers Academy. Everything here is weird.) The two clubs seem to be party central, but Gwen’s Punk Palace is just as full, people are milling around the park and quad, all the food trucks are in easy reach, and pretty much all the available surfaces on both dorms and both Stark Towers are occupied. Somebody even dragged over Nefaria Land to make use of its roof pool, although with two hot tubs and an entire beach for competition, Brian can’t imagine it getting much use. All the musically inclined students (which is quite a few, more than he’d realized) have had a chance to perform at least once, so there’s almost always live music of some kind, with Vision and Lil Groot tirelessly running their turntables the rest of the time. It looks like every one of the academy’s nearly 200 students and faculty members are here, dancing or talking or gorging themselves on the contents of Tony’s cheese fridge. Even Natasha’s here, leaning against a bench looking speculative and nursing a bottle of something Brian strongly suspects has vodka in it. Loki’s on the dance floor because of course he is, but he also seems to be talking to Tony, America, and Stephen Strange. He waves when he sees Brian and Natasha, though.
“Glad you could make it,” Brian says, stepping up beside Natasha. He doesn’t go for a hug, because Natasha is not a hugging type of person. She smiles back at him, though, and holds out her hand for a fist-bump, which is pretty much the Black Widow equivalent of a Wasp tackle-hug.
“I figured I’d meet my fate with dignity instead of waiting for Jan to literally drag me outside,” she says dryly.
“And it’s possibly the last chance to see everyone.”
“Yeah,” Natasha says after a second. “Before everything goes back to normal. Well, pre-academy normal.”
“Been a long three years,” Brian says neutrally. “Not bad though, all things considered.” He doesn’t know when he got used to all the weirdness or when the Academy kind of started to feel like home, but going back will be a big adjustment. “You planning to leave ways for anybody to contact you?”
“Maybe,” she says. “Probably. Some people, anyway.”
“Janet, because she will literally hunt you down otherwise.”
“Well, that goes without saying.” She takes a sip. “You?”
Brian shrugs. “If anybody asks, sure.”
Loki and America break off from the other dancers, close enough now that Brian can hear her saying, “Congrats, chico. I really didn’t think you could do it.”
“So you said. This means no punching for the rest of our time here, correct?”
“Don’t push it.” She punches his shoulder lightly and laughs when he pretends to stagger. “Save me a dance next time you’re feeling like a girl, okay?”
“I’ll see if I have time,” Loki says, grinning.
America rolls her eyes and makes her way through the crowd to Kate Bishop, while Loki joins Brian and Natasha. He looks immensely pleased with himself, which could be a good sign or a very bad one. It’s a genuine smile, though, and Brian’s glad to see it either way, even as he tries not to wonder how quickly Loki will forget all of them.
“Haven’t seen you around much since Fury made his announcement,” he says.
“Oh,” Loki says. “Well. I’ve been a bit busy. Various duties to attend to, and all.”
“So is Asgard going to be better or worse than here?” Natasha asks. “Bigger housing, Amora probably not right down the hall, but also less dancing?”
“Oh no,” Loki says, “the first thing I intend to do is import Midgardian dance styles. Asgard can adapt for once. Perhaps I’ll even settle the more tedious court matters with dance-offs.”
Natasha shakes her head, lips twitching. “Odin’s really making you his heir, huh?”
“Clearly,” Loki says, “being here is good for at least one thing, given that he’s finally realized I was always the best choice.”
“Yeah?” Brian says. “Seems like a lot of responsibility. You sure it’s still what you want?”
“Of course it is.” Loki’s eyes narrow, a defensive edge creeping into his voice. “You think I’m not worthy either? Or that Odin would never choose me if Thor were willing to do his duty?”
Natasha rolls her eyes. “Knock it off. I’m not here to feed your insecurities or your ego, remember? And you know Brian doesn’t give a shit about your reputation either.”
Loki sputters for a second and then seems to deflate a little. “It’s what I always wanted. But Thor always wanted it too, and I don’t doubt he will again, when he’s had his fill of heroics. But—I do recognize that I have a duty to Asgard. Even if…”
“You’d rather be chosen,” Brian says.
Loki shrugs. “That would have been ideal, certainly.”
“So, make a name for yourself,” Natasha says. “You’ve already played a big part in defending this universe and probably others from a lot of threats, and that has to mean something on Asgard. Show everybody you can be a good king—or queen, when you feel like it—and you’ll get public opinion on your side. If Thor does change his mind later…it doesn’t automatically mean everyone’s going to pick him. Hell, maybe you could co-rule. Balance each other out.”
“It’s possible, I suppose.” Loki sticks both hands in his pockets, not quite looking at either of them. “At any rate it’s something of a moot point, at the moment, given that my parents expect to live at least another thousand years. But Father does seem more serious about training me, so…we’ll see how it goes.”
“Well, good luck,” Brian says. “Asgard would be a lot more interesting with you in charge, that’s for sure.”
“Okay, everybody, eyes on me!” Tony’s voice blares over the loudspeakers. “Yeah, over here, standing on Stark Tower so everybody can see me? Hi.”
“Wow, I think he made it a whole half hour without demanding all the attention,” Natasha says.
Loki grins and says nothing, but he’s back to looking pleased with himself.
“So!” Tony says. “This isn’t a real speech, I promise. Nobody likes speeches at a party. I just have an announcement to make and I need everybody to hear it, which is, the current plan is to kinda-sorta keep in touch with an interdimensional chat room, right? Because if you don’t join, Janet will hunt you down?”
“You bet I will,” Janet says, glaring at everyone in general.
“Right, exactly. So we were working on setting that up, some of us tech people, and we started thinking, what if we took that a little further? A whole server of channels, for instance, not just one chat room, and something we can make into an app so it’s portable, because maybe we want to be able to text each other, and also video chat because why not, and an absurdly user-friendly format so even Grandpa Steve can figure it out, and shitloads of security features because obviously it would be a real bad thing to fall into the wrong hands. But then we started thinking, well, some of us are probably too paranoid to actually keep a phone like that, and I’m not gonna name any names but we all know who I’m talking about—”
“I know where you sleep,” Natasha calls, smiling.
“—anyway, even after we pulled in a bunch more people, we were kind of stuck on that, all the smartest tech geniuses across multiple universes, until we were reminded that there’s also, you know…magic. And we also have the best sorcerers across multiple universes, which expanded the whole group to 30 or so people and that’s almost a sixth of the entire student body right there, so if any of this is a surprise to the rest of you, our tech geniuses and sorcerers are also very good at keeping secrets.” He pauses, frowning. “Or possibly one of the sorcerers hexed everybody else to keep it quiet until today. You know what, if that’s what happened, I really don’t want to know so please don’t tell me. Moving on. Security features are, for starters, each device will be keyed to a specific person, through biometric recognition and magical bullshit—”
“It’s called an energy signature, which you know perfectly well,” Loki says.
“Sure, that. Whatever, it means nobody but you can use it unless you unlock it for them, which can only be done by choice—there’s some completely magic stuff worked in there to detect whether you actually want to unlock it, which means nobody can force you to do that, which is possible because magic, I don’t know, none of it makes any sense but anyway while we’re doing several impossible things both before and after breakfast, we added convenient magical storage so you don’t even have to hang onto the damn thing. Like so—” He holds up a Starkphone and then tosses it over the edge of Stark Tower. Janet lets out a pained squawk and dives for it, just as the device vanishes in a flash of green sparks.
Brian glances at Loki, one eyebrow raised. “Did you maybe have something to do with this?”
“Hush,” Loki says, but he’s looking even more smug. “There’s more.”
“Where’d it go?” Tony says. “Some kind of pocket dimension, because magic. And when you want it back, you just…want it back.” He opens his hand and the phone reappears in it. “How does it work? I seriously don’t know and no I’m not happy about that but it does, is the important thing, no knowledge of magic necessary. So: magic security features, magic storage, zero safety or convenience reasons not to take one. But wait, there’s more.”
“You are going about this completely backwards,” Loki says.
Tony looks offended by the mere suggestion. “I’m saving the best for last. It’s called showmanship. You of all people should appreciate that.”
“Tony,” Janet says, “you are one of my very best friends, but if you keep trying to build suspense, I will scream right in your face. Nobody wants that.”
“And I will definitely, definitely join in,” Kamala adds.
Sam grins. “You were gonna do that anyway.”
“So anyway,” Tony says, “if you’re all done interrupting me and you’re ready to hear it, unless you all just want to hang around for a while first—”
America mutters something under her breath. Louder, she says, “It’s a transdimensional teleporter and portal generator. A very small one but a complete one, all in a Starkphone.”
Stunned silence greets her announcement. Brian shares a glance with Natasha and even she looks taken aback.
Gwen breaks the silence first, punching Peter Parker in the shoulder. “I knew you were hiding something. You are literally the worst liar I’ve ever met.”
“Fine, yes, since America had to spoil it,” Tony says. “We figured, a few of us can basically pop around wherever, but most of us can only do that with stationary portals, or some insanely dangerous new thing Pym’s cooked up, or the Bifrost if we haven’t pissed off Heimdall too much recently. With the academy shutting down—well, Fury’s still got all kinds of secrets to keep buried and that probably includes the portals, but the rest of us won’t have easy access. So we figured—we’re legit geniuses. Why can’t we take this weird science and magic we barely understand, mash it all together, and make it portable? Obvious reasons were things like ‘it’s probably very dangerous’ and ‘please don’t blow up the whole campus’ and ‘sometimes people need to sleep, eventually,’ and those are all good points but we got it done anyway.”
“Yeah,” Pepper says, “and you owe me about a week in a spa to make up for the migraines.”
“Hot tub’s all yours any time you want it,” Tony says, looking a little sheepish. “But also I will pay for…whatever. Anyway. This is why all the security features are so important—it’s not just a transdimensional teleportation device but a very specific one, all linked together into a network. At any time, you can invite anyone else with a phone like this to travel almost instantaneously to your location, and that includes you location in time because that’s relevant for a few people. By default the reverse doesn’t work unless you’ve both set it up that way, because although that would be a great setup for some hilarious pranks, Pepper convinced me it would be a bad idea for reasons of, you know, privacy. But the point is, if long-distance chatting isn’t enough and you want to hang out in person, or you’re in a tight spot and you need a way to call in reinforcements or get yourself out…now you always can. And yes, there’s an ‘Avengers assemble’ function that invites everyone, which probably nobody should ever use unless there’s a world-ending emergency, considering any situation will probably become a world-ending emergency pretty fast with all of us concentrated in one place. Or you’re throwing an Avengers party, which I’d say is virtually guaranteed to happen.”
Janet is practically vibrating with excitement. “You’re damn right it is. We’re having school reunions once a year minimum, no excuses. Oh my god this is amazing.”
“Hell yeah it is,” Tony says. “That part’s a big messy combination of science and magic too, and please don’t ask me to explain how it works because even those of us who built it barely understand, but—yeah. What we have right now is a fully functional prototype, but by the time we’re all ready to leave, we’ll have a final version ready for everyone who wants one, which I hope will be actually everyone. Okay that’s it, announcement over, I’m opening the fridge for the really fancy cheese in like 15 minutes, party on.”
Natasha and Brian both turn to look at Loki, who’s grinning again. “You knew about this, obviously,” Natasha says. “And you helped work on it. That’s what you’ve been doing for the last several days.”
“Don’t tell Odin,” Loki says, “but we incorporated a few elements of Bifrost technology into the mix. That was my idea, among other things.”
“Yeah?” Brian says. “The whole thing of making it a teleporter instead of just a communications device, whose idea was that?”
“I’m sure I don’t remember,” Loki says airily, “but it was a good one, wasn’t it? You’ll both want one of these, I imagine. At least for emergencies.”
“You’re sure these things can’t be used against us,” Natasha says.
“In theory, an enemy magic user might be able to override some of the security features, but the combination of science and magic from multiple geniuses means that…yes. It’s highly, highly unlikely that any one person would be enough of a genius in science and magic to be able to counteract everything we designed.”
“So you’re saying it’s possible.”
Loki rolls his eyes. “Technically, theoretically possible, but remember that our device is the product of all of us and we are quite literally the best in our fields across multiple dimensions. Do you really think some Hydra scientist or Hand sorcerer could think enough like me and Stark and Ms. Maximoff and both Black Panthers, and a couple dozen others besides, to untangle our creation? Not impossible, I suppose, but vanishingly unlikely.”
“Sorry,” Natasha says, “you made me imagine a combination of you and Stark in one person and my brain shut down in horror.” Loki scowls at her, and she finally cracks a smile. “Yeah, I’ll take one. Between you and Jan, I’d never heard the end of it if I didn’t, and I really don’t know which of you would be more obnoxious about hunting me down.”
Loki sniffs in disdain, but Brian catches a flicker of relief in his expression. “Me, obviously. I have several centuries’ more experience.”
“Well, now I’m tempted to say no just so you can prove it.” She considers. “No, Jan probably has enough to deal with already.”
“So do I, frankly,” Loki says. “I suspect I will be busier back on Asgard, meaning I may not have much time to waste popping around, so…all told, this seemed more efficient.”
“And you’re all about efficiency,” Natasha says, smirking.
Loki narrows his eyes at her like he’s pretty sure he’s being teased but can’t quite figure out how. “I really will have responsibilities, difficult as you might find that to believe.”
Natasha’s smirk softens a little. “If this is your way of saying you’ve made some friends here and you want to keep in touch, you could actually say that.”
“Well,” Loki says, not looking at either of them now. “I’m not sure I’d go that far. But even some of the humans here have been—tolerable. More than tolerable, in some cases. And if there’s ever a problem that only the God of Mischief can solve, I’d hate to see someone mucking it up when they could call me instead.”
Brian shakes his head, smiling. Not forgotten so quickly after all, apparently. “I’ll miss you too, you nutter. And you can just say you came up with this because you’re going to miss everybody.”
“I am not going to miss everybody,” Loki says stiffly, and then he colors a little. “But. Humans do live very short lives, and—yes, all right, some of you I would be quite sorry not to see again. So—you may consider this a standing invitation to Asgard. If you wish.”
“Mate,” Brian says, “of course I wish. We might be spies, but I’m not in the business of forgetting my friends. Especially friends I’ve made out with.”
“Well, neither am I,” Natasha says. “But that’s a secret, so don’t tell anybody or I’ll have to kill you.”
Loki grins at both of them—another real smile, not just a smirk. He nods toward Club Galaxy’s dance floor. “Shall we?”
“You know,” Brian says to Loki as the three of them step under the neon lights, “nobody was going to forget you either. In case you were wondering.”
“Well of course they weren’t,” Loki says, “I’m quite unforgettable,” but Brian doesn’t miss the way his shoulders relax a little more.
“This seems like an appropriate time to play something traditional,” Vision announces, and he cues up a vaguely electronic-sounding version of “Auld Lang Syne.” It’s a drinking song more than a dancing one, but it’s also never been more relevant, so everybody makes it work. Soon pretty much every one of the nearly 200 students and faculty members are singing along. There probably isn’t a truly good way to shut down the academy, but as last memories go, this isn’t a bad one.
And there’s a hand my trusty friend
And give me a hand o’ thine
And we’ll take a right good-will draught
for auld lang syne
For auld lang syne, my dear
for auld lang syne
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet
for auld lang syne