Endless Mischief

Loki opened his eyes to the great hall of Asgard. (Having looped back right into when he was fighting/talking gave him the very useful ability to recognise and memorise a lot of text and places). 

Now, looping back into the great hall wasn’t that unusual. He hadn’t been there a lot after his invasion (which was the earliest point in time he could loop into), but he had been there for his trial and the few years he pretended to be Odin. Wow now that he thought about it, that was a lot of time. He didn’t think about that time much, since he’d only looped back there, like, three times. 

What stood out to him was that it wasn’t filled with citizens for a trial. Instead, he’d looped right back into a big feast- 

Those had happened like?? Two Times?? During his time as Odin, so it was just really bad luck. 

At least that’s what he would think if he wasn’t staring at Thor and Frigga right now, which had both definitely NOT been present during any of these feasts for two very different reasons. 

Loki blinked, and rubbed his eye. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d come back and immediately started hallucinating, especially during the invasion and the trial afterwards. Or his time in prison. 

He opened his eyes again, looking at noth-

Nope, they’re still there. 

Hm. Well that’s interesting. He’s gone back further than his arrival on earth? That never happened before, so Loki’d just assumed that the loop started then. Looked like it was around earlier that that…

That would explain why he couldn’t find anything that could have started the loop   when looking around (both literally and magically). 

Though, how far could he come back? Did the loop start in the void? No, he’d looped back to before that. Coronation? No this was before it. Long before it. 

Then what caused the loop? 

It could be anything! Maybe the loop was a result of one of his experiments during childhood, or one of the adventures Thor would drag him along with, or-

“Loki!”

“What is it?”, was the reply he automatically gave before even realising the words. 

What if it was the TVA? Although they were as clueless about as his situation as him, they could’ve caused it on accident. Or maybe it really was just the Norns or some higher power like he’d assumed. 

“What is it?? You’re the one who stopped midway through a sentence and was unresponsive for the past five minutes!”, Thor said, somewhere between concerned and annoyed. 

Loki shoved his thought to the back of his mind and turned to the issue at hand called Thor. 

“Was I? I’m terribly sorry. You see, possessing a body takes a bit. I’m afraid I just didn’t hear you. What was the prince saying?” This was probably the wrong thing to say, especially since he should be exploring his surroundings and try to figure out what started the loop, but Loki lived for chaos and the response came automatically. 

And the absolute dumbfounded looks he got was worth the trouble it would cause later. 

“What?” 

“I asked what the prince was talking about before I possessed him.” 

“YOU DID WHAT?!” 

Loki later on proceeded to have a mental breakdown when realising he could potentially loop back into his time on the sanctuary and thanked every god/Norn’s/TVA/whatever the fuck out there that it hadn’t happened yet. 

***

(Even Time can’t go against these banger pockets!! [Remake] 1/1) 

Loki was, nicely said, really fucking annoyed. 

This was the 29-and-something-th time he’d looped back, and goddamnit it was bad. 

For the past few loops, Loki had been going through every time-related book on the shelves of the Asgardian library, but the loops seemed to have a personal grudge against him or something, because they always restarted right while he was reading. 

And he didn’t even find anything remotely useful. 

The book he was reading right now, a orange handbook??, was sprouting the most and utter bullshit he’s ever heard. 

Sacred Timeline, TVA, pruning- complete nonsense!!

Why was this even in the library? Any innocent child could read this and be completely misinformed for the rest of their life! With an annoyed sigh, he threw it away and let his magic carry it to a nearby fire to burn it. 

He turned to the next book, titled ‘Time and Space Pockets.’ That one sounded somewhat useful at least. 

The first few chapters were all about pocket dimensions, so Loki skipped them. He already knew how to make those, thanks. 

Then, finally, came the new information. 

Because apparently, there were pockets of dimensions specifically made for storing objects when time travelling. 

How had he never known about that?

He looked back at the book, grimacing when he looked at the needed stuff. It was all from Midgard. He did not have access to to Midgard this loop. 

He sighed. 

Killing himself to end a loop was something he didn’t like resorting too, mainly because he didn’t know if the timelines would continue without him, but sometimes, like now, it was needed. 

He stood up. 

Well, time to go get his trusted rope!

***

(The Killing Show, Episode 1 : Cakes and Participants!) 

The screen (we’re ignoring that this is a written work for the sake of my sanity) was playing an idle animation. Thousands of delicious looking cakes and cupcakes were bouncing in and out on a pastel-coloured rainbow background, making the people watching it hungry for dessert. A soft jingle was playing in the background. 

One of those people watching was Nick Fury, although he didn’t get hungry seeing the pastries. He was not much of a cake person, so he wasn’t sure why he was watching this in the first place. 

Oh, that’s right. He was watching this because the Avengers were missing and a anonymous source sent him a message telling him to watch the premiere of this ridiculous show with some other people (the whole crew of the Helicarrier). 

He still wasn’t sure if the message was a joke or not, but he’d take anything at this point. 

Finally, the cakes and cupcakes stopped bouncing, instead moving together to form one text in the middle of the screen. 

‘Is it Cake? : Season 4!’ 

Fury sighed in annoyance. He just already knew that this would be awful, if only from the way the calm jingle got louder and faster, even gaining drumming. 

Finally, the title screen faded into nothing, revealing a circular case, coloured in pastel-rainbow. 

Fury tensed up. 

On it was standing a person, the show’s host presumably. They were wearing a black suit with white sleeves that was decorated with golden accents. There was also a golden star on each of their sleeves, and one right where their heart was positioned. Their pants were matching in colour. 

None of these things was what made him tense up, not even the sinister looking black mask covering their whole face, leaving only a golden slot for mouth and eyes. Nor was it the golden cape looming down their shoulders. 

What made him tense up was the small, golden headband with horns poking out of their black hair. It wasn’t that noticeable, not really, especially when everything else— from the mask to the hair fading into a dark green— was much more attention grabbing.

And yet, here he was.

Coulson, who was sitting next to him, had tensed too. He’d no doubt noticed it— how could he not? The last person wearing something similar had very nearly killed him. 

“Boss,”, he whispered. “That headband—“

“I know.”, Fury whispered back. “It looks like Loki’s.”

“Good evening everyone! Welcome to the fourth—and best, if I may so myself— season season of ‘is it cake’!”, they, most likely Loki??, greeted, spreading their arms. And that mask was…unique. It’s expression was changing— probably magic. “This time around, we have three surprises for you, my dear pals!” 

Even the speaking patterns were similar to those of the still free walking terrorist. 

“First things first! As you can see, I am not Mikey Day! Y’alls favourite moderator won’t be here for the season, as he sadly got… lost!” 

The screen cut to show said man, stumbling around the tropical forest in tattered clothes. A crashed plane modified to serve as a shelter can be seen in the background. 

“Well, forget him, because I’ll be your new host! You may call me ‘The Host’, or some other nicknames— I’m sure you overly creative mortals can come up with something!” 

Fury frowned, texting Maria a command to send out a team to the tropical forest to try and find the man. 

The chances of this being Loki grew by the second. 

“Now then, the second surprise! For this season, we will have some special guests as our participants— but sadly none of them are professional bakers! That’s why we changed up the concept of this a bit! Instead of baking themselves, our lovely guests will be doing something else— not without a twist of course! You’ll see when it’s the time!” 

Furry, once again, frowned. He didn’t have a good feeling about that ‘twist’. 

“And of course, the third surprise! That would be our special guests!” The camera shifted away from the Host, instead showing another stage. There was a curtain covering it, which was slowly removed as the music hyped up for the reveal. 

Fury knew who the special guests were going to be before the curtain was swayed to the side. 

Staring at the camera— or the host in some cases— were their missing superheroes, each tied to a coloured chair. 

Romanoff red, Cap blue, Stark yellow, Banner green, Barton purple, Thor pink. Knowing The Host—or Loki? He wasn’t a hundred percent sure yet— the last one was done purely to piss off Thor. 

“There they are! Our special guests are the Avengers!”, The host was saying cheerfully, even as the glares of a whole room were directed at them. “Don’t look at me like that, it’s not like I’m forcing you to be here!” 

“Uh, I beg to differ.”, Stark, because of course it was Stark, protested. The host waved him off. 

“Details Details. Now that this particular little secret is out, I don’t feel like keeping up that stupid facade anymore! It Get’s boring pretty quickly.” With those words, they raised their hand, and Fury almost thought they would take off the mask—

—when their hand suddenly started glowing and the screen began glitching. It got worse by the second, until the idle screen showed up again. 

Or well, an idle screen showed up, as this was definitely not the previous one.  The background was a dark, green, moving, mass of something, making it easy to read the bold, golden letters portrayed on the screen. 

‘THE KILLING SHOW — SEASON 1’ 

…

Well. Shit.

Fury was staring at the changed idle screen in utter and completely dread, trying very hard to ignore the general panic and yelling that broke out around him. 

It stopped right as the screen faded out, showing the too changed stage. The soft pastel colours had been replaced with dark tones of green, red and blue, decorated with gold. 

The Host almost blended in with the background.

“Now that everyone knows that this is in fact not a baking show, it makes more sense for those clowns—” they pointed at the avengers “—to be here, does it!”

The mask of the Host twisted into a grin. 

“Now, about this Killing Show! Of course it’s not just going to be mindless carnage— that would be way too boring! No, this is going to be much better! Although, I’ll need a few more people…how nice of all of you watching to be volunteer!!” 

There were some flabbergasted and confused expressions throughout the room, and Fury honestly felt the same. Volunteer? How? And how was the Trickster even going to get them? 

Fury froze a moment later. Wait, all the people watching. That wasn’t only them. Shit. They needed to stop this show, fast! Least they needed was the Host kidnapping a bunch if random people from their homes!  

“Now, who here watching seems interesting…we have a random person, and more random people, and- Ah! Well, you’ll be fun!” 

Loki— it was no doubt Loki— stuck his hand into the cape, and a seemed to search around for a moment, before pulling out something—

—someone. 

Loki just pulled out a man out of his cape. The man seemed disoriented, but quickly regained himself and let a whole ass panther armour come out of nothing— what?!

One swipe of Loki’s finger removed the armour, and the man was flung into a new chair- a black one. 

Then Loki put his hand back into his cape, and low and behold, next to him Coulson was sucked into the ground in the span of an second. 

Fury tried to grab him, but the tip of finger just barely missed the other man’s body. 

A second later, he appeared on screen and too was flung into a chair— grey this time. 

Fury clenched his fist, before turning around to the rest of the room. 

“Hill, tell the media team to try to track—“

He was pulled into the ground before he could finish his sentence. 

‘,,𖦹,,’

Loki wiped his hands, having just hauled the last participant into their position. Loki had to admit that this show was highly inspired by a series of games he’d just found out about, but they were great so who would complain??

He had convinced the TVA to leave him to his own devices this timeline— that had taken FOREVER. He felt like Renslayer didn’t like him very much—the feeling was mutual though, so it was fine. 

He revealed to the big wheel he had prepared for this, turning back to the camera. 

“And now this beautiful wheel shall decide our hero for this story!” He walked to it, grabbing it by an edge. “Aaaannddd…GO!” 

Spin spin spin spin and spin and spin—

—and stop. 

The wheel had landed on yellow. 

Tony Stark, huh? Well, that’ll work for him! 

‘,,𖦹,,’

Tony Stark woke up on a bed that wasn’t his own. 

*** 

20. 

Loki opened his eyes and prayed, prayed that he wasn’t back at- it was the coronation. He was back at Thor’s coronation. For. The. Twentieth. Time. What was going on?? He’d been looping back here again and again after Thor went to Jotuunhein!! 

He’d tried to change the course of actions the fist few times, but Thor was hustling too damn stubborn and prideful, so he ended up going every time no matter what Loki said or did to stop him. 

And always after Thor left, the loop reset to exactly this moment. Did the loop want him to stop Thor that badly? 

He sighed, looking at Thor. Young, stupid, naive Thor. Thor before everything. Thor about to be king. Which he shouldn’t be yet, Loki was standing by that. Especially after having seen older Thor. 

But still, this Thor didn’t experience the grief of his brother dying 3 times, he didn’t experience the grief of Frigga’s death, nor Odins. No destruction of Asgard either. 

And just about now—

“Frost Giants.”, Odin said in Realisation. 

—Loki was at fault for the first domino into that direction. 

Well, not as long as he had something to say about it. 

— 

21.

Okay, so not even him and the warriors three could stop a Thor on a mission. But then again, their arguments were a bit weak— well not really, but for Thor they were. Convincing that oaf to do anything he didn’t want to required steel-hard arguments. 

He’d try one more time, and if that didn’t work he’d add Mother to the mix. No way Thor would disobey their mother, and if he decided to be unpredictable and do it anyway, he would tell Odin. 

He’d refrained from doing it in case his newest try would work, meaning he’d have to life the timeline further, and He did NOT want to live with a Thor that was mad at him for ratting him out. 

Having already prepared some strong arguments, Loki walked over to Sif and the Warriors Three, greeting them with a simple sentence: 

“Thor is about to do something stupid.” 

That was enough to completely grab their attention. 

—

22. 

Well then, Mother it was. 

—

23. 

Another try couldn’t hurt. 

—

24. 

Okay, he was asking for it. Sorry-not-sorry Thor, but he’d have to involve Odin. 

—

25. 

Okay how?!

Well, drastic times call for drastic actions. 

—

30. 

How. HOW?! HOW THE FUCK?!

THOR WAS LOCKED IN THE DUNGEONS- HOW!?! DID!?! HE!? EVEN!??

—

37. 

“Alright my friends, let’s— OH MY NORNS IT’S A SNAKE!!”

Everyone— that being Sif, the Warriors three, and Heimdall— startled as Thor suddenly ran over to another corner of the Observatory, where a small, green snake was laying.

After followed an exasperated sigh from Sif. Everyone present knew about Thor’s fascination with the small creatures, and it was of course just their luck that one had somehow gotten into the- 

Wait. 

“Why is there a snake here?”, Sif questioned. Fandral raised his finger to answer, only to bluescreen and end up with nothing. 

“I— don’t know actually.”

“Yeah, how did it get in here?”, Hogun frowned, putting a hand to his chin. Thor rolled his eyes. 

“Is it not obvious my friends? It must have accidentally been transported here from somewhere else!”, Thor explained, picking up the snake and hugging it near to his chest. 

That…actually made a lot of sense. Sif sighed. Because of Loki’s usual shenanigans, everyone had begun to be particularly suspicious of any out of place snakes. Well, everyone expect Thor. 

“I did not open the Bifröst today, and I can safely assure that the snake wasn’t here and hour ago.”, Heimdall, who was watching the snake as if it were a particular dangerous monster, said. 

Suddenly, the snake sprung into action, biting Thor into the neck. Thor responded with a betrayed shriek, before collapsing onto the golden floor. The snake was still sitting on his unconscious body. 

“Prince Thor!”, everyone exclaimed at the same time. Sif used her sword to remove the snake, which looked particularly proud of itself. No one bothered to check on Thor, as Loki always took the form of a harmless snake whenever he bit his brother. 

“Loki.”, Fandral sighed. “Now is hardly the right time for your shenanigans.”  

To everyones surprise, the snake did not turn into the prince, instead further curling around Sif’s sword. 

Suddenly, everyone was sweating bullets. 

“Uhh, is that, perhaps, not… Prince Loki?”, Hogun asked the dreaded question. When the snake didn’t react, panic broke out. 

“PRINCE THOR OH NORNS-“

“HE GOT BIT BY A WILD SNAKE-“

“Wait.”, Sif interrupted, holding up a hand. “That snake has to be Loki. After all, every snake immediately likes Thor.” 

Everyone stopped in place, which looked quite weird as Fandral was in the middle of running. 

It was true. Despite his fascination with them, causing him to pick every single one up and cuddle it, no snake had ever actually done anything about it. It was like every snake took a liking to Thor. If Thor told them to slither off of a cliff, they would probably do it without hesitation. 

Everyone turned to the snake, which visibly rolled it’s eyes. A second later, Prince Loki was standing on the golden floor, Sif’s sword in his miffed face. 

“I just stopped a war from breaking out. You’re welcome.”

Sif put down her sword, sighing. As much as she loathed to admit it, Loki had just saved them from a war that would no doubt have broken out. 

“N-no. W-W-We’-re go-going to Jot-unheim!”, a raspy voice spoke up, causing everyone to turn to a certain not-anymore-collapsed prince. He was barely standing and sweating bullets from the snake-poison, but his hammer was firm in his grip. 

There was stunned silence. 

“…How?”, Sif asked. 

“How.”, Loki asked. 

There was a notable difference in tone. 

“HOW?!”, Loki shouted, considerably louder and confused. “THAT WAS ENOUGH POISON TO KNOCK OUT A GOD-DAMN ELEPHANT?! YOU SHOULD BE CONFINED TO BED FOR AT LEAST TWO DAYS?!?” 

“We-We’re going. To J-Jotun-heim.”, Thor said, his face one of dark determination. 

Never had the Bifröst been activated faster, leaving behind a gaping Loki. 

— 

92. 

“We’re going to Jotunheim, and we’re going to show the Frost giants that we’re not going down that easily!” 

“You.”, a familiar voice echoed through the hall. “You are so stubborn.” 

“Loki?-“, Sif questioned, but stopped when she got a look at the second princes eyes. 

He looked done. His eyes were promising certain death to anyone daring to interrupt, so Sif wisely shut up. 

“You are so fucking stubborn. I am this—“, Loki took a deep breath, calming himself. Then he proceeded to summon— two eggs? They were touching each other at their tips. “I am this close to throttling you. Seriously, what part about ‘don’t go to Jotuunheim, you’ll start a war’ do you not understand.”

“Brother, the eggs are touching—“, Thor said nervously. 

“Exactly.”, Loki said, a dark smile on his face. “You have three seconds to run.”

***

Fury opened his eyes, having had them squeezed shut after the the portal-thingy the tesseract opened collapsed into itself in a bright light. 

He desperately hoped nothing had come through. 

Standing where said portal was just a few moments before was a person, because of course something had come through. Why could life never be easy? 

“Sir, please put down the spear.”, he called out, not even bothering to analyse the intruders looks further. He had the feeling he was doing it for the hundreds time by now, and like he was boring someone doing it. 

The mind sure was weird sometimes, huh? 

The intruder narrowed his eyes, before dropping the spear to the floor with a loud clank. 

“Trust me, I didn’t want to hold that thing in the first place.”

Well, that was…good? If the stranger didn’t want to carry a weapon, then he maybe didn’t want to kill anyone either. 

“Who are you and what is your business here?”, Fury inquired. 

“Prince Loki from nowhere, quite pleased to meet you, Director Fury.”, the man introduced himself. “And I’m here because- well, this is going to sound bad.” 

Fury raised an eyebrow, while at the same time taking in the first part of that sentence. A prince from nowhere? The prince part seemed true, but from nowhere? Fury was more feeling like Loki just didn’t want to be associated with wherever he came from. 

“Bad how?” 

“Well…Let me first assure you that I have no plans of carrying out my commands. You get that? I won’t do it.” 

This was starting to look concerning, bit Fury nodded. 

“Not planning on doing anything, got it.” 

“Great! So, I was sent here by a mass murderer with the mission to take over this planet with an alien army.” 

Silence for a beat, then Loki started smiling happily. 

“But I have no plans to actually do that, so the reason I’m here is actually a different one! I’d like to do a play, if you’d let me?” 

“A— what?”

“A play! You know, the ones you see in theatres. I’d need you and some of your people to play a role, so that’s why I’m asking you.” 

“And, pray tell, why should we do a play with you after everything you just told us? We have a few different worries right now, if you understand.” 

“Oh, I get that! But you see, it’s either I do a play, or I’ll do my actual job. Soo, either a play, or world domination by my hands!” 

The smile turned sinister. 

“What would you prefer, Director Fury?” 

—

So. Turns out that saying no to the play wasn’t exactly an option. Which is how he got himself into this situation right now. Said situation being Stark cackling at him madly from the other side of the screen while Fury did his best to keep himself from just ending the call. 

“You—hah! You want me to-“, Stark was still laughing loudly, not really getting out his sentence between his laughs. 

“No. I don’t want you to, I need you to.”, Fury corrected, completely unamused. 

“That desperate, Nicky?”, Stark teased, eyes shining with amusement. 

“Yes, because the person who wrote the script will fall back to world domination if we don’t do their play.” 

Stark laughed. 

“Hah! Good one.” 

When he saw that absolute serious look in Fury’s eyes, he stopped. Suddenly, he was sweating bullets. 

“That’s a joke, right?” 

Defined silence. 

“Right??!” 

—

“No.”

“I didn’t even say anything.”, Fury sighed. 

“The stack of papers titled ‘script’ in your hands tell me everything I need to know.”, Romanoff said, leaning back on the chair with her arms crossed. 

“Well, it’s an order.”, Fury said, letting the script, and DAMN it was long, fall down onto the table with a smack. “The sake of the world lays in this plays hands.” 

“Yeah sure.”, she snorted. “Still, No.” 

Fury sighed, folding his hands. 

“I mean it in the most literal way. The man who wrote this play is threatening the world. If we don’t do it, he’ll settle for world domination instead. And, being realistic, we don’t have the power to stop him.” The picture of bullets bouncing off off the mans skin flashed into his mind. 

“…Well, I’ll be damned.”, Natasha sighed, sitting up straight and grabbing the stack of paper. “Psychopaths these days have the weirdest demands.” 

“Yeah, this is a weird one.” 

Romanoff raised an eyebrow as she read the cast. 

“Stark? Rogers? You? Coulson?”, she asked, disbelieving. “Did he hack into our files or something?” 

“That’s the thing,” Fury’s smile was completely unamused. “He didn’t. He just arrived from outer space, script included.” 

“Damn, that’s creepy.”, she said jokingly, but her eyes were narrowed. And yeah, thinking about it, it was pretty creepy. 

Fury stood up. 

“Well, you have two weeks time to learn the script before the first rehearsal. Good luck.” 

He paused. 

“Oh, and one more thing. You’ll have to pick up Banner.” 

—

“Why, just, why.”, Rogers asked, looking at the stack of papers with disbelief. “I literally just punched that poor sand sack to death, and now you want me to participate in a play.” 

“That would be the situation.”

“No offense, but In what universe would I be a good pick for a play.” 

“In none.”, Fury answered honestly. “I don’t think this is a particularly good idea either, especially with who the other actors are. But sadly, we don’t have a choice.” 

Rogers raised an eyebrow in a silent question, so Fury explained further. 

“A immortal terrorist from outer space is the one who wrote the script, and he’ll go for world domination if we don’t do it.” 

Rogers looked stunned. 

“Sir…outer space?” 

“Aliens are a thing now, apparently.”, Fury confirmed with a shrug. 

—

When it suddenly started thundering out of nowhere when he was discussing  whenever it was okay or not to use the real tesseract for the play with Loki, Fury wasn’t even surprised. 

Loki had told them that his brother was no doubt going to appear at some point, although the man had muttered some things about ‘delay because he wasn’t doing anything evil this time’. Fury was beginning to wonder if maybe Loki had done some evil stuff on other planets. 

So, when it happened, Fury ignored it and instead focused on making Loki understand that no, he cannot use the real tesseract for his play. 

But it was getting a bit hard to ignore when the brother in question tackled Loki and crashed into a wall with him. 

A small part of Fury wished Loki got knocked out and would be taken back to wherever he was from— Asgard apparently, as Selvig kept claiming— and they wouldn’t have to do the play. 

But alas, life was never easy. 

“Ow!”, was all the god said to being smashed into a fucking wall.

“Brother, stop this at—“ 

“Shut up Thor. I’m directing a play, not taking over earth. I’d understand if you were mad because of the later, but the first??” 

“How can I trust you after what you tried with Jotuunheim?”, Thor spoke, voice full of distrust. Loki pushed Thor off himself, patting himself to get rid of the dust. 

Did Fury even want to know what happened with ‘Jotuunheim’? 

“Look, that was ages ago. I’ve had time to think about my actions and realise that I was wrong. I won’t try to destroy a planet again, promise.” 

Ah. 

Sweet. 

“Loki, it’s only been a few years.”, Thor argued. “You couldn’t possibly have changed your opinion that fast!” 

Loki deadpanned at him. 

“A few years is a long time though.” Yes, Fury agreed. “Especially when it was more than just a few for me, but sure. I guess I’ll just go back to destroying planets if that’s what you want—“ 

“No!”, both Thor and Fury called out at the same time, both horrified. Loki rolled his eyes. 

“I was joking, relax a bit. The past thousand years opened my eyes, I’m not doing that ever again.” 

They both relaxed at that, before Thor tensed again. 

“Wait, thousand years—?”

“Time passes really weirdly in the void.”, was all the explanation Loki gave. “I’d rather not talk about it.” 

Immediately, Thor looked guilty. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know—“

“It’s fine, Thor.”, Loki waved him off. “The only important thing is that I’m out of there now.” 

“Still, how can I make it up to you? I didn’t acknowledge your change and feel guilty.” 

“Well, I need some more people for my play… I was already searching for people who could play your role in it.” That was a lie, Loki was somehow completely convinced he could get Thor to play his part from the start. “But if you’re here, you might as well play yourself!” 

“I’m in your play??” 

“Yep! Director Fury over there is too, although he won’t let me use the blue cube of destiny for the play.” 

Thor turned to Fury, a dissatisfied expression on his face. 

“Whatever a blue cube of destiny is, I think you should let my brother use it!” 

Oh gods. 

(Fury ended up giving in. The combined convincing power of two gods was too much for him too withhold.) 

—

Fury stared at the theatre, struggling very hard not drop open his jaw. It was an identical copy of the Teatro Real de Madrid. Just?? How??

Loki had just— just got it out of his magic cape?? That worked like a??? Pocket??? And placed it there?? Like?? How??? 

“How did you do that?l”, he asked, trying to sound casual and not like he was prying for info spy-style. 

“I stored it in my pocket dimension and got it out? Do you not have magic on Midgard?” 

That broke his fucking brain. Magic. Yeah, okay, besides Aliens, magic was real too now apparently. 

“No, no we do not. Where did you get the—“, he gestured to the building. “—theatre?” 

“I snatched it from, uh, what’s it called…Maridi? Madrid! I saw it in Madrid and thought it looked nice.” 

“Oh, yeah, alright.” Fury said as he discreetly sent one of his teams the order to check if the actual Teatro Real de Madrid was still safe and in place.

It was gone, the only thing left was a big whole in the ground. 

— 

“So. Your play.”

Loki raised a brow at Stark. 

“What about it?” 

“Why did you write about, uh, what you wrote about. You know. World domination.”, he asked, a tiny bit awkwardly, because how the hell do you politely as a immortal terrorist why the fuck they would write about their own defeat. 

“Oh, that’s what was going to happen if I did go through with my orders.”, he said, shrugging. “When I arrived I panicked a bit, so I just went with the first idea that came to my mind— which happened to be doing a play.” 

Well, Okay? 

“But how did you, like, predict all that? It feels pretty on point and in character— every single action of everyone too. Well, except yours. I can’t really imagine you as a egoistical terrorist, no offence.” 

Loki laughed. 

“Oh, if only you knew…”, he mused, before shaking his head. “Well, I’ve had had a lot of time to study all of you! You see, before I came to earth, I was stuck in a place called ‘the Void.’ It’s basically a big dark see of nothingness. For some reason I could watch Earth though— and time there was weird. Things kept reseting, repeating and changing, for centuries, even though only a few years passed outside of the Void. But! I did get a pretty good feel for everyone’s character.”

Stark just stared at Loki with utter and absolute dread. 

“You were trapped there for centuries?” 

Loki smiled, seemingly a bit confused. 

“That’s the part you focus on? But yeah, essentially.” 

“Wow, uhm, sorry dude. That sucks.”, Tony said, awkwardly, because what the hell do you say to that?? The bastard sure went through it, huh? 

“It’s fine. I wasn’t bored— most of the time. And I was found by my boss a few years ago, so it’s fine. Well, he isn’t exactly the nicest person, but it was better than a black sea of nothingness.” 

Tony just looked at him with pity. 

“Well! Do you have any more questions?”

“Oh, Yeah, I do. So, a lot of these scenes are more something you’d see in a movie than a play. Like, the thunder effects, the scene where all of the Avengers gather in a broken city—really badass by the way— and some other stuff too. And there’s a lot of different backgrounds too— how are you planning for all that to work?” 

Loki smiled. 

“Leave that to me! You just focus on learning your lines.” 

—

“Alright! Is everyone here?”, Loki asked loudly, standing on the stage while everyone else was sitting in the audience chairs. 

There was a loud chorus of ‘yes’ as an answer, although Fury himself didn’t participate in it. He wasn’t the type to loudly yell yes. 

“Great!”, Loki said, clapping his hands. “For the few people who don’t know me, I’m Loki from Nowhere, and I wrote the lovely script you have—hopefully— at least partly memorised the past two weeks!” 

There were considerably less ‘yes’ than before. Loki looked amused. 

“Well, no worries, we still have a few months until the actual play, so you’ll have time. Now then, Stark has brought it to my attention that none of you know how this’ll work scene-wise.”

Loki turned around, and with a flick of his hands the curtain moved to the side. Those who hadn’t seen his magic yet, and some who had, gasped. 

“Well, don’t worry about that.”, Loki continued, walking onto the middle of the stage. “Because if I want to…” he spread his arms, which were staring to glow greenly. “We could be anywhere we want!” 

The stage was filled with green, sparkling smoke. When it cleared, Loki was suddenly standing in a forest. 

A whole damn forest. A fucking forest. 

Another puff of smoke, and suddenly he was standing in the middle of the sky. 

“And I know that the few seconds of smoke are a bit too short to hurry in and out of the stage, especially with the props that are needed for some scenes, so I’ll just…” 

There was another puff of smoke, and suddenly Fury was standing in a copy of the room Loki had first appeared in. 

Of fucking course he could teleport. 

“I’ll just teleport you in. So, then let’s start!”