Chapter Text
For once, the Avengers had been called to assemble and there wasn’t anything burning. No one was dying and nothing was being destroyed. Except, perhaps, Tony’s peace of mind. Every chair in the tower’s common room was occupied. There were the five mortal Avengers, plus that one-eyed Fury and his shadow Hill, Phil because he was the Avengers’ liaison, Pepper because she lived here too—and two gods, one of which Tony would have been quite happy never to see again. Why they had appeared on his roof instead of SHIELD’s headquarters, Tony desperately wanted to know so he could tear the reasoning to shreds. He hadn’t had enough coffee to deal with this kind of bullshit.
The gods were cuffed together and Thor had refused to sit, so Loki’s arm dangled up above his head where he sat on the ottoman, glaring at the floor like he could set it on fire. Tony didn’t doubt that he could.
Fury steepled his fingers. “So let me get this straight. Your dad on high decided that prison wasn’t a good enough sentence, so he decided to foist Loki off on us as community service?”
“Yes.” Thor started to cross his arms then thought better of it. “As the damage to your city would never have happened without Loki’s actions, the Allfather decided it was only fitting that he be of use in its aftermath.”
Tony raised his hand. “I’m all for cleaning up your own messes, but, really, Thor? My tech’s nothing to sneeze at but you’ve got all that weirdo space Viking science. What’s to stop brother dear from doing it all again? Nowhere on my resume does it say ‘maid.’”
Thor pointed to a gold bracelet on Loki’s cuffed wrist. It was engraved with runes, and four black stones, only about the size of the tip of Tony’s pinky and very flat, were spaced evenly around it and glittered faintly whenever Loki’s wrist was moved. “This restraint suppresses my brother’s power. It can only be unlocked by this key, and even then only in small amounts.” He held up a matching gold pendant with what looked for all the world like a shrimpy sun dial. “Of course, even in small amounts, Loki will be able to lift quite a weight and he does possess minor healing abilities—but he cannot get up to too much mischief outside of his service.”
Loki glared harder at the floor.
“Well,” Bruce said neutrally.
Tony, same as last time, was still caught up on the idea of magic not being an elaborate con.
“That’s all wonderful,” Fury said, “but I still need it explained why I would even want that miscreant back on my planet.”
“I am afraid, Director Fury, that you do not get much say in this matter. The Allfather has already decreed it.”
Fury’s eye glittered. “And I’m just supposed to take that, am I? This is Earth, not Asgard.”
Thor took a deep breath. “I am aware of that. I understand why this is hard for you. But you must understand that Asgard has ways for Loki to carry out his sentence without your knowledge. By informing you and making you his guardians during his stay, the Allfather is acknowledging your authority on Midgard and your status as a realm in your own right.”
Pepper nodded at Thor in CEO-mode. “Wise move.”
Fury raised an eyebrow at her but didn’t argue. He turned to Tony. “If we’re going to do this, he’s staying here.”
“Excuse me? In my tower? In my home? Uh, I don’t think so, buddy.”
“I’m not asking, Stark. All the Avengers are living here, and your security is slightly—I said slightly¬—better than that at HQ. If he should try anything, the best resources to deal with it are here.”
Clint scowled fiercely. Natasha leaned over on the loveseat and whispered in his ear. The scowl slowly melted into a thoughtful expression, then the archer looked the trickster god over with a wicked gleam in his eye. Oh boy. Tony began to fear for his laundry, grocery, and cleaning bills. He glanced around the rest of the Avengers. Bruce just grimaced at him and Steve looked resigned. Dammit.
“Pepper’s not an Avenger,” he said in a last ditch effort.
“Pepper isn’t exactly helpless,” the woman said. “I live with all of you, and own nine Tasers of varied size and voltage. Besides,” she added, patting his knee, “if you’re that worried about me, just make me some tech.” She finished off with her driest, un-amused face—the one he got when he’d stayed up too many nights in a row in the workshop and had just said something so incredibly stupid even a snot-nosed kid could have done better.
Tony threw up his hands. “Fine, fine! Whatever! It’s just my whole tower but whatever, do what you want with it.” Fury turned to him. “That was not an invitation!”
Thor shuffled. “There…is one more thing I need to mention. Loki possesses the ability to sky-walk—”
“Hold up,” Tony said. “You did not just make a Star Wars reference. You haven’t even seen it.”
Thor frowned at him. “I do not understand your meaning, Man of Iron. My brother’s sky-walking is limited to transporting himself within one realm. He cannot transport himself between stars.”
“I thought you said his magic was suppressed,” Bruce said.
“My brother’s magic was something he acquired through long and careful study. His sky-walking is an inborn talent. The Allfather can no more suppress it than he could a talent for music or combat. This is why we are bound together.” Thor held up their cuffed wrists for emphasis. Loki’s arm dangled from it like a dead thing. “Should Loki sky-walk away, I would be dragged along with, and I could easily bring us back with Mjolnir. However, this is impractical in regards to his service.” Thor pointed to Loki’s other wrist where a silver bracelet, also engraved but with only one, pale green gem on its front, rested. “Asgard’s tinkers have created a tracking beacon that will interface with your technology—” Tony perked at that “—in case he should sky-walk. Have no fear. As I have said, he cannot get off your planet.”
“Oh I’m fearing,” Fury said. “There are plenty of places I don’t want him on the planet. And even with your little flying hammer, you can’t get there instantly. Who knows what he could get up to while we try to reach him?”
Loki actually had the gall to grin slightly at the floor. Tony scowled at him.
If the universe had any justice, the god’s hair would have vaporized.
Thor was starting to look very pained. “I would rather wish another arrangement could be found. Of course I wish to be of help and I love my brother, but I do not wish to be chained to him day and night.”
“A sentiment I share,” Loki grumbled to the floor, speaking up for the first time since his arrival. “Make no doubt of that.”
Fury rubbed at his forehead, grimacing as he muttered darkly to himself. Hill shifted where she stood behind his chair.
“Sir, this seems like it would be in the Vigil’s neck of the woods. Perhaps they have a way?”
Clint slouched down in the loveseat. “Ah, come on, not those guys! This is weird enough—don’t make it worse!”
“They’re not that bad,” Phil admonished. “They do good work, and they’re older than SHIELD by centuries.”
“They also chase fairytales for a living,” Clint countered while the Avengers who were not SHIELD agents glanced bemusedly at each other.
“Call up their New York branch,” Fury ordered.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
“Sir?” Hill called from the hallway. “The Vigil say they might have someone. Or, rather, they say they know of someone.”
Nick vacated the living room where Tony and Bruce grilling Thor on just how exactly the tracking bracelet was supposed to synch up to Earth’s GPS. He would have thanked his lucky stars if he believed in anything like luck—experience said good things only happened through careful preparation and hoarding of resources—he’d never thought he’d get a solution to such a uniquely unique situation so soon.
He took the phone from Hill. “Fury.”
“Hi, Nick,” the voice of the Vigil’s New York branch head cackled through the phone. The woman had to be at least as old as his grandmother: wizened, barely taller than his waist, bones made from iron—he would swear to it. He had never known her to take any bullshit, of any flavor. “Interesting spot you’ve got yourself into.”
“And I hear you have a way out for me. Spill.”
There was hemming and hawing on the other end of the line. “We do have someone with the ability to teleport. We don’t know the full extent of his range as it’s basically impossible to get him to consent to a test, but we have no record of anything ever hindering his ability.”
Nick waited. There was always a catch.
He could practically see the old lady pursing her lips. “He’s rather volatile.”
Nick rolled his one eye. “Give me five subjects from either of our jurisdictions that isn’t in some manner. What makes this one special?”
“Hmm, prone to excessive violence—though perhaps in his line of work that’s not too far off the beaten track. Still. Dismissive of authority, can’t follow orders worth a damn, has a reckless streak a mile wide. Though usually he can be contained by his brother. Mostly.”
Nick cursed the day Mjolnir had landed in New Mexico. The only thing on his plate before then was the random gifted individual, mutants—which Professor Xavier handled just fine with only occasional aid from SHIELD—and one Tony Stark. Now he had a trickster god he couldn’t conceivably get off-planet, who could teleport anywhere on the planet, and apparently the only person able to watch him adequately was nearly as bad as he was!
But. He had little to no authority over Thor, and he was still only the second-best option—he would have an extended ETA. This guy wouldn’t.
“I’ll have the office send you the details. Just get me the guy.”
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
There were many things in life that were worth waiting for. Chili cheese dogs. Good porn. Targets to step into range. For your brother to open his eyes, goddamn him. These were the things I was willing to wait for. Waiting for damn Vigil agents to get out of our apartment so that I could get on with said porn was not one of them. Especially when it was only ten in the morning. That was just fucking blasphemy. I shouldn’t have to do anything before lunch.
I thunked my head back on the couch and planted my feet on the coffee table. Niko gave my stockinged feet the evil eye—be gone ye foul germs, I glare at thee. I fiddled my toes at him.
Samuel was still prattling on. “—just a simple watch-and-retrieval detail. Watch the guy’s ass and if he tries to teleport, gate him back. You’ll be working with SHIELD, though, not us.”
Niko transferred his glare to Samuel where he sat in our armchair. “How trustworthy are they?”
Samuel shrugged. “Think of them as like the Vigil, except the people they track have powers that originate from science.”
“Yeah, ‘cause that makes them real trustworthy,” I griped.
“The Avengers?” Nik asked.
Samuel nodded. “They were the ones responsible for most of the clean-up from that alien invasion last year.” I was still hung up on that. Aliens. An honest-to-fuck alien invasion. Like, War of the Worlds alien invasion. Werewolf mafia, totally. Boggles in Central Park and actual trolls under the Brooklyn Bridge, no problem. Aliens on goddamn hovercraft falling from a hole in the sky? Yeah, sorry, excuse me, what? You’d think at least the hole would be familiar, but nope. Mine don’t lead to the other side of the fucking galaxy. “They’re also the ones footing most of the bill this time,” Samuel added.
I could see the gears in Nik’s head turning. Our current apartment wasn’t the shithole we usually got, but it wasn’t what the average New Yorker would exactly call decent either, and the pipes in the kitchen had started to leak all over the linoleum.
“Ah, no, Nik, no. It’s babysitting. We don’t do that anymore! You know this!”
“Stop your whining. How much?” Nik asked Samuel, completely ignoring me.
Samuel named a figure that was easily double our normal fee. To be paid daily.
I slouched deeper into the couch and scrubbed at my face, dragging on the skin beneath my eyeballs. Dammit.
“Loki is going to be staying in Avengers Tower for his sentence, so you’ll also be staying there,” Samuel added. “Tony Stark will be covering most of the day-to-day expenses such as food and munitions.”
I paused.
Stark had nearly as much money as Robin. There was a new model of Glock I’d been eyeing…and I could finally stock up on high-end bullets, maybe a few armor-piercing ones—and grenades, god, you could never have enough of those—not to mention the ludicrous amount of gun oil I could go through…and Stark may be a playboy narcissist but he had nothing on Robin. I probably wouldn’t want to pluck my eyeballs out after two days in close proximity.
Nik said nothing. The smug bastard.
I flipped him off.
Nik nodded. “We will be consultants and contractors, not agents. This means that we will not be called on for things outside of this security contract. Anything official must come through you. No exceptions. Also, while we are under contract, we are professionals and will be treated as such.” He glared Samuel down across the coffee table. I rolled my eyes. Nik needed to get over this. Yeah, I was useful, but yeah, I was also a half-breed with royally fucked-up morals. The Vigil, the rest of paien-kind, even our friends—everyone else got this and treated me as such. They might not invite us out for drinks—besides Robin that is—but they knew better than to mess with me either.
Samuel held up his hands. “I’ve only been your liaison for four years, Niko. I’ve got the drill. Don’t worry. It’s all in the dossier we gave to SHIELD.” Niko nodded and Samuel lowered his hands.
“When do they need us to start?” Niko asked.
“As soon as you possibly can.”
Niko thought for a moment. “Have a car come by in five hours. And don’t,” he said, pointing at me. “You never fold your clothes anyway.”
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Tony tapped one last button on the tablet and waited with bated breath. A progress bar inched along, JARVIS flitted through the program’s settings, then a map popped up with a little blinking red dot on the tower. Tony fist-pumped the slightly-less-demonstrative Bruce. “Awesome! The Asgardian space Viking tech had successfully been linked into the satellite GPS network! This calls for a drink.”
“No, Tony,” Pepper said from the breakfast bar that separated the common room from the kitchen area. “It’s only three.”
“It’s the afternoon,” he countered. “And it’s celebratory.”
“No, Tony.” She turned the page of the report she was reading without looking up at him.
Clint snickered.
“How about later, Tony,” Bruce placated. “Like after dinner or something. We’ve got guests coming after all.”
“Right. Guests who can teleport. Who are here to watch an alien war criminal who can also teleport. How did this become normal?” Tony asked the room at large. One-eye and his shadow had left, but none of the Avengers had really felt comfortable going off that day so they had all brought some form of work or entertainment to the common room. Thor and Loki hadn’t moved, though after assuring his brother’s stay, Thor had relaxed and they were now sharing the ottoman. He was engrossed in reality TV while Loki had transferred his glare to out the window.
“Don’t look at me,” Steve said over the newspaper. Paper newspaper. “My life stopped being ‘normal’ years ago.”
“Excuse me, sir, the Vigil’s car has arrived.”
Both gods perked.
“Finally,” Thor said, pushing to his feet.
“Like you’ve been the only one suffering,” Loki snapped, jumping up before their connected wrists made it uncomfortable.
People drifted towards the kitchen as they waited for the elevator to arrive. Pepper shifted her stacks of paperwork so that Natasha had a place to set her tea and Tony poured himself his sixth cup of coffee. Bruce was giving him the disapproving doctor look again. He made sure to slurp loudly.
The elevator dinged and three people stepped into his penthouse. One looked like every other hipster, wannabe rocker: goatee, tattoo that gleamed against his coffee-brown skin, leather jacket. A little crescent scar winked behind his ear when he turned his head. The second guy was taller than the first by about an inch, and had nearly three on the last. Dark blond hair was bound into a short, ordered queue revealing an olive complexion, gray eyes, and a nose that would have made Caesar proud. Despite it being late July, the guy was wearing a trench coat that the two spyssassins were eyeing suspiciously. The short guy had the same gray eyes, but his skin looked like he lived in a basement somewhere and his hair was dark as tar, pulled back into a messy rat tail that allowed strands to dangle around his face. He was dressed in jeans with scuffed combat boots and a scuffed leather jacket that bulged in a manner even Tony recognized from all his previous bodyguards. They both carried well-worn duffel bags slung over their shoulders that clanked strangely. Natasha and Clint were eying those as well.
They looked as shady as shady could get without creeping on homeless bum territory. And they didn’t look older than twenty-five. Steve didn’t look any older, Natasha was ageless, the two gods didn’t look older than thirty for all their being older than the moon—good god Tony was starting to feel old. It was disgusting. And evil. Very evil.
The short one shamelessly sniffed the air while the black guy nodded at Phil. “Nice to see you, Phil.” Phil nodded back and the guy turned to the rest of them. “I’m Samuel King. I work for the Vigil—I’m basically Phil. These two are Niko and Cal Leandros.” He pointed to first the dirty blond then the short kid. Niko nodded back in a curt, business-like manner. Cal ignored the whole room to run his eyes over the two gods, having picked them up out of the room’s line-up with no difficulty. Which, Tony granted, might not have been that difficult. “I’m their liaison. Cal here is your gating expert.”
“Wait, this kid?” Tony said.
Clint wasn’t impressed much either. “He looks like a lost boy band member.”
At that, Cal grinned at Niko. “Hear that, Cyrano? They think I’m pretty.”
Niko rolled his eyes.
Thor frowned slightly. “You are a skywalker?”
Cal stared at him for a moment, then snorted. “Yeah. Yeah, I got Jedi powers. Totally.”
Tony decided the kid might be okay. Still looked like a delinquent, though.
Natasha eyed each of the three in turn. “I need proof before I condone this.”
Samuel looked at her, then raised an eyebrow at Phil, who shrugged. “You wanna?” he asked the two brothers.
Niko thought about it for a moment before nodding. “Fair enough. Cal?”
The youngster sighed dramatically, unslinging his duffel bag. “This is work, Nik,” he complained. “There’d better be pizza after this.” With that, he shoved his hands into his pockets, a silver sheen outlined his form—and he disappeared.
“Ya happy now?” he called from behind them. They swiveled to see him sprawled all over the common room couch.
“Or how about now?” he asked from the bar stool next to Pepper, who squeaked like a mouse and clung to Natasha, who glared at the kid. “Or now?” he said next to Thor and Loki. He reappeared back by his bag, hands still in his pockets.
Steve crossed his arms. “I have no problem with this. He seems more than adequate to watch Loki.”
“Excellent!” Thor said with palpable relief. He pulled a key out from a pocket and unsnapped the cuffs before anyone could say anything. Thor flexed his wrist and stretched like a cat while the rest of the Avengers stood frozen.
Loki flexed his fingers and inhaled deeply, eyes closed. “That feels better.”
And he teleported.
The tablet in Tony’s hand pinged as the tracking program updated. Tony looked down. The trickster was somewhere in northern Finland. Somewhere in the Vätsäri Wilderness Area, to be precise.
Cal leaned his head back on his neck and groaned. “I take it back,” he said. “This is work. Gimme that.” He stomped forward and swiped the tablet out of Tony’s hand. He grimaced. “I hate cold,” he said before the silver sheen outlined him once more and he disappeared.
There was an awkward silence where Phil and most of the Avengers glared at Thor, who had the grace to look sheepish though not really repentant, and Samuel and Niko studied the room.
“Can I have that drink now?” Tony asked.
Pepper resettled herself. “No.”
He scrubbed at his face. “Fine. While they’re out, how about we show you your rooms?” he said to Niko.
The blond shifted his weight, settling into a firmer stance.
“Before any of that, I have some ground rules. These are non-negotiable. Any violation of them results in termination of our contract.”
Samuel pinched the bridge of his nose but just waved a hand when Phil glanced at him.
“First,” Niko continued, giving the Avengers a hard stare, “all mirrors in common areas that cannot be covered will be removed.”
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Of all places, why Finland? The bastard could have teleported to anywhere—LA, Disney World, fucking Fiji. Why Finland? Yeah, it was midsummer in the northern hemisphere. Did that mean that it wouldn’t be cold? No!
I gated in behind him where he was crouched by a tree, digging around its roots. “Really, dude?” I asked. He spun frantically, hand straying to his hip before he remembered he didn’t have a weapon. Green eyes sparked at me. I crossed my arms. “Really? Two seconds out of the cuffs and you’re already out the gate? There are better ways to play hooky, you gotta know that.”
“You would not say that if Thor was your brother,” Loki said. He was hiding something in the roots; I could smell it. There was the tang of metal and old leather in the air, buried underneath all that woodsy pine smell and the alien’s own icy river scent. I circled around to the left. He angled his body to block my view.
“Suspicious bastard,” I muttered. “Fine, whatever, not my problem. Now let’s get back to America where it’s warm.”
I started to build a gate beside me and reached for his arm. Loki danced away, shoving the thing he’d been hiding deeper into the roots with a well-aimed kick. He grinned manically at me. “You’ll have to catch me first.” And he teleported away again.
This could get old.
The tablet pinged. He was now somewhere in west Johannesburg. When I arrived on the rooftop of the apartment complex, there was just another grin and he was gone again. Yep. Really getting old.
By the time I had chased him around Cambodia, Mount Rushmore, Peru, Kiev, Guam, the Sahara, and Sicily, the grin had dissolved into peeved malice. The bastard was obviously envisioning doing violence on my person. That was fine by me. I wasn’t the nicest person either and I was more than fed up with this little game of cat-and-mouse. I was tired, and I wanted a pizza.
Teleporting to goddamn Siberia was the last straw.
Gating beside him, I pulled my Glock and shot him in the leg before he could glare at me. He staggered in the snow, throwing me a shocked look, and I took the opportunity to get an iron grip on his wrist. I gave him my own shark grin. “I win,” and I gated us back to the tower’s common room.
All conversation stopped as we dropped onto the rug in front of the couch. Loki, disoriented from the gunshot in the first place, lost his balance and stumbled a step before his knees buckled and he hit the floor.
“Welcome back,” Nik said from the breakfast bar where he had been talking to the Stark CEO.
Beside her, Stark was frowning at Loki.
“Is he bleeding? Is that blood on my rug?”
“Eh,” I said, holstering my Glock. “He’s an alien. He’ll be fine.”
“You have injured my brother?” the blond jock asked, his hand twitching by his side.
I scowled at him. He actually took half a step back, shock rippling across his face. I glanced sideways at Nik. He tapped a finger to his eyes, one corner of his mouth frowning. Shit. I was doing it again. I shifted all my weight to one foot and folded my arms, took a quiet breath. “Yeah, well, your baby brother was giving me a wild goose chase all over the damn planet. I haven’t gated that much since that crazy red cap.” I nudged Loki with my toe. “I suppose I should give you kudos for that. You’ve certainly got balls to try anything so soon. This just might be fun after all. Annoying, but fun.”
I ducked the apple Nik threw at me.