On Yonder Hill

Natasha walked into the kitchen the following morning to find Scott and Loki sitting together at the island drinking coffee and watching YouTube clips of Loki’s Drunk History episode. She blinked at this unexpected sight, then shook her head and made a beeline for the coffeemaker instead. Tony had provided it years ago and it practically required an mechanical engineering degree to use, mostly because it had broken so many times and been put back together in increasingly esoteric configurations. Scott had gotten it to work, Natasha found. Loki either hadn’t or didn’t care for coffee, since when Natasha got to his far side she found he had some kind of gold-looking kettle balanced on a tripod over a miniature brazier next to his left elbow, giving off a fragrant herbal scent like nothing on Earth. The brazier had actual coals in it.

“I don’t remember this at all,” Loki said as Natasha found a mug and wrestled with the coffeemaker until she had freed the pot.

“You look pretty wasted, man,” Scott said.

“Well, it isn’t called Entirely Sober History, that’s my other class.”

“You mean ‘So You’ve Just Found Out Aliens Are Real In the Worst Possible Way: A History’?” Natasha said.

“That is not what it’s called,” Loki said.

“What is it called?” Scott said.

“I don’t remember. It’s a history of the Nine Realms and Yggdrasil’s place in the greater cosmos because no one on Midgard knows anything about cosmic history, which was charming ten years ago and is less so now.”

“Ig-dra –”

“Just say ‘the Nine Realms,’ it’s less painful for me to listen to.”

Natasha opened the fridge and extracted one of the six different milk containers; they seemed to have spawned after all of the remaining Avengers had moved in, not just her and Steve. It was still a little shocking to find a full fridge, let alone a house full of people. “Is it actually still the Nine Realms?” she asked him, inspecting the label on the milk container before putting it back and picking up another one instead. As long as she had options, she didn’t see the point in settling for what came first to hand. “Because Asgard –”

“Asgard’s not a place, it’s a people,” Loki said, his mouth going briefly tight. “It’s been the Nine Realms for several thousand years, it’s a hard habit to break. But yes, some of the realms have stopped calling Yggdrasil that. Every time I talk to the Vanir they seem to delight in throwing ‘the Eight Realms’ in my face. The Ljósálfar – the Light Elves – have never called it the Nine Realms as the Dark Elves were supposedly wiped out before there were Nine Realms under Asgard’s protection, though Asgard has claimed the actual planet of Svartalfheim for eons.” He let a hand waver in the air, palm down as he tipped it back and forth. “It’s something of a tense political situation that your government has decided to remain blissfully unaware of despite the fact that Midgard is part of the Nine Realms…” He shook his head, annoyed.

“I’m still back here at ‘elves are real’,” Scott admitted.

“Elves have been real since long before the ancestors of humankind crawled out of the swamps,” Loki said. “And have I mentioned how annoying they are recently? And that’s just the Light Elves, not the Dark Elves, who were a great deal worse than merely annoying.”

“You did say you got shot in the face once by elves?” Natasha said, putting the milk back in the fridge. “I thought you people didn’t use guns.”

“I got shot in the face with an arrow,” Loki said. He tapped his left cheek with one finger. “I was commanding a troop of ulfhednar – rangers, you might say, woods-walkers – to deal with a rebellion on Alfheim and then Thor had to show up because he thought he was missing out on the fun of living in the woods for a month with elvish guerrillas taking potshots at us and while we were yelling at each other one of those guerrillas shot me in the face. And then he burned down half the forest with lightning and then I had to smooth things over with the queen because who has always done all the diplomacy in the family until I – well – anyway. Elves are very annoying and I think the queen still holds a grudge. And some of the elves use guns, just not those particular ones.”

He frowned for a moment, then made a gesture with one hand. Green-gold glimmered on his fingertips and resolved into a straight-shafted, metallic-looking arrow that he passed to Natasha when she held her hand out. It wasn’t metal, she discovered as she took it, but a very fine-grained wood; the fletching wasn’t feathers, either, but some kind of fibrous material she didn’t recognize. The tip was barbed and finely-etched in unfamiliar patterns that glowed a little as she touched a finger to them.

“That’s not the one that Thor pulled out of my face, by the way,” Loki said. He hesitated, then said, “You can give that to Barton, if you like. Peace offering. I’ve got more.”

“Thanks, I think,” Natasha said. She put the arrow down on the counter and picked up her coffee again.

“You do need an elvish bow to actually activate it as anything other than a very sharp arrow,” Loki said.

Natasha looked down at the arrow. “It’s an energy weapon?”

“Just because you hear me say the word ‘elf’ doesn’t mean you should assume they’re anything like the elves in your myths or your media,” Loki said dryly. “They do have pointy ears, though.”

“And are really into bows and arrows,” Scott said, nodding. “Have you seen the Lord of the Rings? Or read it?”

“I actually met Professor Tolkien,” Loki said, his mouth twitching a little. “He didn’t know who I was, of course.”

Natasha decided to leave that to mentally process another time, perhaps after she had more than two sips of coffee. Talking to Loki had that effect, far more so than Thor had ever had. It wasn’t that she had never been aware that Thor was a god and functionally immortal – or at least so long-lived that to humans it was essentially the same thing – but he had usually been less inclined to throw it in their faces.

Loki poured himself more of whatever it was he was drinking. Despite the brazier and the exotic kettle, he was using one of the novelty mugs from the kitchen cupboards, a heat-sensitive poison apple mug that Sam had bought at the Disney Store years ago. Only about half the color-changing portion still worked, but it was still mildly disconcerting to watch Loki drink from, which Natasha suspected had been his point in choosing it.

She opened the fridge again at the sound of the back door and had a glass of orange juice to hand Steve as he came in from his morning run around the lake. He took it with a nod of thanks, blinking at the sight of Loki and Scott seated together, then again when he saw the arrow on the counter.

“Steve,” Loki said, tipping his mug towards him in greeting.

“Morning, Loki.” He looked down at the arrow. “Did I miss something?”

“Nothing important,” Natasha reassured him. “You want some coffee?”

“Or some of this?” Loki said, indicating the kettle next to him. “We did determine that while it’s extremely toxic to most humans, you seem to be able to consume it with no ill effects.”

Steve’s mouth twitched a little. “I’ll stick to coffee, thanks.”

“It’s toxic?” Scott said, edging sideways away from him.

“Only if you drink it,” Loki said.

“You’re drinking it!”

“I’m not human,” Loki pointed out, and took another sip. That probably explained why he had picked the poison apple mug in the first place. “For which I am eternally grateful. Though since we’re on the topic of my species, I do have a somewhat related question.”

“Yeah?” Steve said, managing to get the pot out from the coffeemaker without breaking anything this time – that was what had led to the last series of repairs. He poured himself coffee and leaned against the counter next to Natasha. He had told her once that the caffeine didn’t do much for him, but he liked the taste.

Loki balanced the mug between his palms, the handle pointed outwards towards them. “How certain are you that this plan of yours will actually succeed? Realistically, I mean, not optimistically.”

“Pretty sure,” Steve said.

“It’s my plan,” Scott said. “I mean, mostly. So yeah, I think it’ll work.”

Loki frowned. “You really believe that, assuming we can get all of the Infinity Stones, we’ll be able to bring back those who were culled.”

“Yes,” Natasha said, nodding. “We believe that.” We have to believe that, she didn’t add; he knew that already.

“Right,” Loki said. He tipped his forehead down against the edge of his mug for a moment before saying, “Then I’ll have to make some arrangements.”

Steve frowned. “We’re not making any public promises,” he said. “Or announcements, or –”

“Probably wise in your case, given the absolutely appalling state of your so-called government,” Loki said. “However, as you may recall, when the culling occurred Asgard was not on Earth; the majority of Asgard was on a number of escape pods and assorted vessels in space. Should the culling be reversed, would the disappeared then reappear on those vessels? We still have most of them in New Asgard, but others were sold. Or would they appear in the physical location where they were when the culling occurred, which was in the midst of deep space? Asgardians can survive in space for a time, but not all those who were culled were Asgardian and I’d rather no one return from the dead to die instantly in the cold vacuum of space.” He gave them a thin smile.

“Oh, shit,” Natasha said, looking at Steve. “I didn’t even think about that – how many planes do you think were in the air during the Snap?”

“Oh, shit,” Steve echoed.

“I’ll talk to Rhodey,” Natasha said. “I think most civilian aircraft were grounded after the New York and Edinburgh attacks, but I know there were military planes in the air. Maybe he and Tony can come up with something.”

Loki put his mug down and laced his fingers together. “There is also the chance,” he said hesitantly, “that not everyone who was on the Statesman was dead when the culling commenced. I’ve believed for the past five years that I was the only survivor, that it was – that it was Thanos’s punishment for me to survive when Thor and the remainder of our people were slaughtered. By the time the Valkyrie and I were able to return to the wreckage, there was no one left alive, just the dead. That was weeks later.” He swallowed. “We had an accurate census of those who were onboard before the attack and we know who made it to Midgard, even those who didn’t stay in New Asgard and chose to go to Vanaheim or one of the other realms instead. But we’ve never been certain how many of the escape pods were destroyed during the attack or who was still on the ship when it was boarded, or – or any of it, really. I only know what I saw. And no one else made it off. It was just me.”

His laugh was harsh, broken. “I probably wasn’t even supposed to survive, given that Thanos blew the damned ship apart with the Power Stone. It’s just – it’s incredibly difficult to kill an Asgardian and I wasn’t injured, not really. Just cuts, bruises, a cracked rib, a broken wrist. Nothing serious. I would have survived for weeks more even if Rocket and his friends hadn’t found me – I literally bounced off their viewport, you’ve heard?”

“He might have mentioned something about that,” Steve said. He was watching Loki the same way that Natasha was, wary and cautious; Loki had never said this much about the attack on the Statesman in the five years they had known him as someone other than Thor’s psychopathic brother. They had had to piece it together from the fragments he had let slip after the Battle of Wakanda.

“In vacuum?” Scott said, horrified. “For weeks? How do you even find that out?”

“Personal experience,” Loki said, with a humorless smile. “It may have also left me slightly unhinged, but that could be unrelated. Events both preceding and following did not help, so it’s hard to say how much effect falling endlessly through the void of space had.”

Scott edged a little further away from Loki.

“Regardless, Asgardians can survive for quite some time in vacuum – and I was neither the first nor the last, so it’s definitely an Asgardian quality and not a frost giant one, as I am not actually an Asgardian.” He flexed his hands, restless. “There is a chance, though admittedly a slim one, that anyone who survived Thanos’s attack and then the Power Stone’s destruction of the ship may have been destroyed in the culling. There wasn’t much time in between the two events, and when the Valkyrie and I finally made it back to the wreckage, there weren’t…there weren’t enough bodies. But we’ve never known exactly who never made it off the ship and the escape pods that were shot down were entirely vaporized. And the Power Stone itself…” He rested his fingers against his forehead. “It’s incredibly difficult to kill an Asgardian. Anything that doesn’t kill us instantly, no matter how unpleasant the experience, we’ll likely recover from. If there were Asgardians onboard who were injured, not dead, or if – if – there’s a chance that anyone who survived was destroyed in the culling. Just a chance, but –”

He stood up abruptly, made a gesture at the brazier to instantly cool the coals, and then left the kitchen.

They watched him leave. Steve waited to say anything until after they had heard a door slam somewhere deeper inside the compound, then he said very quietly to Natasha, “Do you think he believes Thor might have survived until the Snap?”

“I don’t think he wants to let himself believe that,” Natasha said. “The Valkyrie told me once they never found Thor’s body. God.” She put her coffee cup down and ran her hands over her face. “They both seemed pretty sure Thor was dead.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. He looked down at his now-empty coffee cup. “But, you know – I thought that about Bucky once. I’m not going to be the one to tell him no.”

Various other Avengers wandered into the kitchen over the course of the next few hours as people woke up. Since they were already there, Steve, Natasha, and Scott made breakfast for ten, then Steve made a shopping list since having to feed an Asgardian on top of a super soldier and the Hulk put a serious dent in their supplies. Loki came back to eat and ignore Clint’s suspicious glares, talking to Rhodes and Tony about the aircraft conundrum, which after a few minutes they all realized would be a problem for ships and submarines as well. Cars and trains too, but since that likely wouldn’t result in immediate death it was less urgent. Into this, Rhodes said abruptly, “Oh, God, the ISS,” and put his hands over his face.

“No, wait –” Bruce said, pointing at him with a fork. “Nobody on the ISS got snapped five years ago, right? I remember hearing that on the news.”

Rhodes opened his mouth to reply, thought about it, and then said, “Oh, thank God, I didn’t want to have this conversation with NASA too.”

“Did you really not think about this before?” Nebula said.

“We were sort of focused on making sure that it might actually work,” Bruce protested.

“Wow,” Scott said. “Thanks. Whole lot of trust there, guys.”

“You turned into a baby!”

“We would have fixed that eventually!”

“And I fixed it for you,” Tony said. “You’re welcome.”

“This is really Earth-centric,” Rocket said through a mouthful of pancakes, spraying crumbs in all directions. He and Nebula had spent the night on the Benatar, but predictably appeared for breakfast. “You guys know this is the whole universe, right? People live in space.”

“Well, excuse me; we’re on Earth!” Tony protested. “We’ve got enough problems with our one planet!”

Loki massaged his forehead. “I’ll have to go to Vanaheim anyway to speak to the Asgardian expatriates there,” he said. “I can speak to the Ruling Triumvirate of the Vanir while I’m there and if they can refrain from reminding me how much they hate the Aesir every other sentence they may actually listen, though I wouldn’t put money on it. Nidavellir will probably hear me out; Alfheim and Niflheim probably will not; Muspelheim and Jotunheim definitely will not.”

“The what now?” Tony said.

“The other six realms in Yggdrasil,” Loki said, very slowly and clearly, like he was speaking to a child. “Midgard is your problem; Asgard is mine.”

“That’s eight,” Clint said.

“Svartalfheim is no longer a factor,” Loki said thinly. “As their entire population has been dead for quite some time now.”

“Are they all like you?” Scott asked. “Asgardians or – I mean, you said there were elves out there –”

“The Vanir are related to the Aesir – to Asgardians – but broke from the Aesir many, many eons ago. Or the Aesir broke from them; it was so long ago that we no longer have records, just stories, and both Asgard and Vanaheim tell different versions of that particular tale.” Loki frowned sharply. “Nidavellir is home to the dwarves – we were there five years ago,” he added to Rocket, who nodded.

“I thought that guy said they were all dead.”

“On the forge ring, but their homeworld is actually in the neighboring system. Eitri knows that I came looking for him at the forge after the culling, so at least they remember me fondly and anyway, of all the Realms, they’ve always had the best relationship with Asgard. Alfheim is home to the Light Elves –”

“Who shot you in the face,” Natasha said helpfully.

“– who have been clients of Asgard’s for many millennia and were quite thrilled when Asgard was destroyed, though they’ve had some political problems as a result and have been on the verge of civil war since the culling. Not that that’s new; the elves are always fighting with each other. Niflheim is a prison realm home to the outcasts and criminals of the Nine. Muspelheim is the home of the fire giants, also not particular friends of Asgard’s, and Jotunheim is the home of the frost giants.” Loki gave them a very thin smile. “They once invaded Midgard more than a thousand years ago and Asgard pushed them back, then invaded Jotunheim in turn, killed a great many of their people, and forced the Jotun king to sue for peace, which lasted until twelve years ago.”

“What happened twelve years ago?” Clint said warily.

“Oh, I tried to blow up the planet,” Loki said.

Dead silence.

“Uh,” Scott said eventually.

“In my defense,” Loki said, “Thor broke the treaty first. In any case, they are also not particular friends of Asgard’s and they are certainly not going to be inclined to listen to anything I have to say.”

“Why did you try to blow up the planet?” Rhodey asked tentatively. “And what did you use to do it?”

“The Bifrost,” Loki said, not answering the first question.

“Didn’t you say that you were a frost giant?” Scott said.

Loki gave him a withering glare, then went on as if he hadn’t spoken, “I’ll speak to the Ruling Triumvirate when I go to Vanaheim and to Eitri when I go to Nidavellir. I can attempt to speak to the queen in Alfheim, I suppose; Niflheim doesn’t have any government to speak of. I’d rather not put Muspelheim and Jotunheim off on the Ruling Triumvirate, as I wouldn’t like them to get ideas above their station – not that they don’t already have those now that Asgard is gone, but I have my pride –”

“Okay, quick question,” Tony said. “Why do these Vanir people hate you? You try to blow up their planet too? Invade them with an alien army?”

“Not personally,” Loki said. “You’d want to go back about seven thousand years for that to my grandfather Bor. And then again on at least three dozen occasions with my father Odin and my insane sister Hela and also my mother. And Thor. And me,” he admitted, “but Thor and I were still quite young the last time there was open warfare between Asgard and Vanaheim and relations have been mostly peaceful for the last six hundred years. Most of the fighting since has been in Vanaheim’s defense, as they’re on the outer edge of the Realms and also everyone else in the Realms hates them.” He thought about it. “Except for that one time with the kidnapping and the dragon and the assassination attempts, but let’s not talk about that.”

“God, you guys are unbelievable,” Tony said.

Loki raised an eyebrow. “I’ve studied enough of Midgard’s history to know that we’re hardly unique in this sense. You all just do the same thing on a much smaller scale.”

“He’s got us there,” Natasha admitted. “Except for the dragon.”

Steve massaged his forehead. “I guess we can contact Carol – and Rocket and Nebula know the Ravagers, so –”

“Yeah, but we need a date and a time,” Rhodes pointed out. “Otherwise it’s just more fearmongering and wishful thinking and we’ve all had enough of that. And no offense, guys, but we actually don’t know if it’s going to work. I think we can take the risk here and Asgard obviously has to, but I don’t think we should spread this too far. Yeah, there are going to be casualties, but – we can’t be responsible for everyone in the universe.”

“No, just the half you wish to restore,” Loki said, like he couldn’t help himself from being contrary.

“You got a problem with this?” Clint demanded.

Loki glared at him. “Just pointing out a fact,” he said.

“Don’t,” Clint suggested.

Loki rolled his eyes and ate a piece of bacon. He did manage to restrain himself for most of the rest of breakfast, aside from a few sarcastic asides and the odd helpful comment. He had one eye on the clock, though, and after he had taken his plate into the kitchen to wash he said, “I need to contact the Valkyrie so that Asgard can start making arrangements to return to the place of our culling and to the St – to the wreckage. She should be in by now.”

“Not going to help with the washing up, huh?” Clint said dryly.

“Well, I can, certainly.” Loki stood in the entrance to the kitchen, looking at them meaningfully.

Natasha hid a smile behind her nearly-empty glass of orange juice. Loki did actually mean it, which had shocked them all the first few times. “It’s fine, Loki,” she said. “Go make your phone call.”

“Oh, I have something a bit less crude than a phone.” Magic glittered on his fingertips as he held up a hand and a fist-sized round of amber shimmered into existence on his palm. He looked into it and said, “Brunnhilde, can you hear me?”

They all jumped as the Valkyrie’s voice came from the amber round. “I got you, Loki. Not in prison yet?”

“No, but the day is young.”

“I don’t see how that’s better than a phone,” Tony said. “Or a hologram. Or even Zoom.”

Loki glanced at him. “Well,” he said, “for one, no one can hack in and listen and I know your government monitors my communications. For another, I don’t have to worry about poor reception. For a third – it’s just cooler.”

“You are such an ass,” the Valkyrie said.

“You have no respect for your king.”

“Nope,” she said. “None at all.”

Loki rolled his eyes, but he looked genuinely amused.

“Tell her I say hi,” Bruce said.

“She can hear you,” Loki said, as the Valkyrie said, “Tell him he should come visit.”

“He can hear you.”

“Hey, big guy, you should come and visit; the kids miss you,” the Valkyrie said, pitching her voice to carry.

Bruce looked touched, since even in his current arrangement with the Hulk that wasn’t a common sentiment. “Maybe after all of this is over,” he said.

“‘All of this’?” the Valkyrie echoed. “What in Hel are you people doing? I’ve only got the one king left, you know, and I’ve gotten attached to the little cockroach.”

“Cockroach?” Clint said, trying to get a look at the amber ball without letting Loki know he was interested. “I think I like her.”

“Who’s that?”

“The human I mind-controlled when I attempted to take over the planet eleven years ago,” Loki explained.

“The serial killer we had to up our security for?”

Clint’s mouth opened and closed indignantly.

“That’s fair,” Rhodes told him.

“She didn’t have to say serial like that,” Clint muttered after a few moments.

“Aww,” Rocket said. “That’s cute. Wait, you Asgardians were worried about this guy? He’s just a human. I’ve seen bullets bounce off you people. Though, I mean, bullets, you Terrans are pretty primitive –”

“I wasn’t concerned for myself,” Loki said haughtily. “I have magic and I sleep with a great number of knives. We have children in New Asgard and I wasn’t certain how discriminating you might be.”

Clint looked horrified. “I don’t go after kids!”

“You’re a serial killer?” Scott squeaked.

“No!”

“You sleep with knives?” Tony said to Loki.

“Yeah, he does,” Steve and Natasha said together, then Steve shut his eyes and Natasha smirked. Loki just looked amused.

“Oh my god,” Rhodes said, putting a hand over his face.

Clint looked like he was going to die right on the spot.

“Can we go back to the serial killer part!” Scott said, his voice rising.

“I’m not a serial killer!”

Tony made a “what can you do” kind of gesture.

“And you’re a convicted felon, I once tried to conquer this realm and destroy another, Nebula is Thanos’s daughter, Stark was a war profiteer, Natasha burned down a hospital, Steve was the most wanted person on the planet for several years, Bruce has destroyed several major urban areas, and Rocket –”

“Also a convicted felon,” Rocket said, and gave Scott a thumbs-up.

“– try and keep up,” Loki said. “And on that note, I’m going to continue this conversation in private.” He gave them a little wave and left the dining room, his voice going serious as he and the Valkyrie began speaking again.

“You burned down a hospital?” Scott said to Natasha.

“Tall, dark, and crazy just told us he tried to blow up a planet and that’s what you’re focusing on?” Tony said.

“You know, he didn’t say anything about me,” Rhodes said. “Thank god.”

“I’m not totally convinced he knows who you are,” Rocket told him.

“Nat – Steve – what the hell,” Clint said helplessly.

Steve massaged his forehead. “It’s not what it sounds like – I mean –”

“Do you happen to remember when New Asgard was in the international news because a couple of press helicopters got footage of the Valkyrie kicking the shit out of a bunch of white supremacists who tried to sneak in?” Natasha said.

“I was a little preoccupied.”

“Killing people?” Scott demanded.

“No! I mean, yes, but that’s not –”

Natasha ignored them. “Loki kicked up a fuss about the insult and Steve and I had to go to Norway to smooth things over before someone declared war on New Asgard or New Asgard declared war on someone else, because it was touch and go for a while there. Also it was an election year and I really needed to get Steve out of the country before he did something stupid and went back on the top ten most wanted list.”

“Oh, yeah,” Rhodes said. “That year.”

Steve lifted his hands helplessly and opened his mouth a few times, but couldn’t seem to think of anything to say.

“What happened?” Scott asked warily.

“More like what didn’t happen,” Tony said. “You’re lucky you missed it. Oh, well, nobody started a nuclear war, though that was touch and go for a while too even before His Royal Craziness got involved. God, what a year.”

“Anyway,” Natasha went on, “Steve and I stayed with Loki while we were there because New Asgard doesn’t have any hotels.”

Clint looked at her meaningfully. Natasha stared back at him, unblinking. Steve hid his face in his hands, but his ears were bright red.

Clint broke first. “I can’t deal with this,” he said. “I’m going to go wash dishes.” He gathered up a stack of plates and went into the kitchen. A moment later he yelled, “Why is there an arrow in here?”

“It’s for you!” Natasha yelled back. “It’s from Loki!”

Clint came back into the dining room, holding the arrow in one hand. “What?”

“He said he got it from elves and it’s a peace offering.”

“I’m not going to be bought off,” Clint said indignantly. “Why is it glowing? Is it radioactive?” He held it out at arm’s length.

“It’s an energy weapon if you use it with the right kind of bow, I guess?” Natasha said. “He didn’t say if he had the right kind of bow somewhere in his dimensional pocket.”

Tony raised his hand. “I want a look. Don’t even think of throwing it.”

Clint rolled his eyes but trotted over to pass the arrow to Tony, who inspected it and then said, “Can I keep this for a few days?”

“Sure,” Clint said. “Go crazy. That’s not the one that was in his face, right?”

“He said it wasn’t,” Natasha told him.

Nebula had been listening to the conversation with an expression of increasing disbelief. “We’re all going to die,” she said.

“Well, that seems pessimistic,” Scott said.

She gave him a pointed look.

“Hey, come on,” Tony said. “We’re Earth’s mightiest heroes. We got this.”

“Oh, man, we are gonna die,” Rocket said.

Loki wasn’t the only one who had affairs to settle before the Time Heist commenced. Time wasn’t a non-factor – Loki couldn’t stay here forever without someone noticing, for one – but they didn’t have to leave within the next twenty-four hours, either. Both teams had reconnaissance to do so that when they did start the Heist itself they could be in and out within, hopefully, a couple of hours. Even if no time passed in the present, the less time they spent in the past the less likely they were to cause a paradox. Loki told them this in no uncertain terms when he had finished talking to the Valkyrie and returned to the conference room so that they could start planning out their next steps.

“Don’t make the mistake of believing you’ve invented time travel,” he warned them. “It’s been done before, quite often, and every account I’ve ever read of it has never worked out exactly as planned and some of them have ended catastrophically.”

“Yeah, but we’re not trying to change anything,” Bruce assured him. “Like I said last night. We’re just going to get the Stones, bring them here to undo the Snap, and then take them right back. No one’s even going to know they’re missing.” He paused. “You do remember last night, right? You were pretty drunk.”

“I wasn’t that drunk,” Loki said dismissively. “It was only wine and Earth wine at that. It wore off fairly quickly.” He thought about that and then added, “Unfortunately, though I can’t regret not getting a hangover.”

“Thank god,” Tony muttered; Natasha had to agree with him, since she had seen Loki hungover a few times in Wakanda and it had been nightmarish.

“And I’m aware we’re not deliberately attempting to change anything,” Loki said. “Why do you think I told you I refused to go to Asgard?”

“Uh,” Natasha said, which got her a glare from him.

“Well, you were pretty drunk,” Rhodes said, politic for once.

Loki rolled his eyes. “That’s enough about me, I think. What I mean to say is that on some level it doesn’t matter how much we intend not to alter the course of history. Our very presence, no matter how unobtrusive, will have unintended consequences. We can’t make the assumption that these events have already happened in our own history and gone off without our noticing simply because we have no memory of them.”

“That doesn’t mean they didn’t –” Bruce said reasonably.

Over him, Rocket said, “Aren’t you supposed to be a god of chaos or something? You’re sounding pretty boring and rule-abiding right now.”

“I’m the god of mischief,” Loki said, rolling his eyes. “Not chaos. They’re two different things. And no, it’s against my nature to advise such things and I truly don’t enjoy it. However, I am a god and the king of Asgard and for what little it’s worth these days, the Lord Protector of the Nine Realms as well. It’s my responsibility to tell you all of this with the understanding that you will ignore me and do whatever you want. Now that I’ve done that, can we get on with it?”

“I just don’t get you these days,” Tony admitted, staring at him as if Loki had begun speaking in tongues.

Loki opened his mouth, obviously about to say something cutting, then stared up at the ceiling and ground his teeth together. Natasha had seen him do exactly the same thing a dozen times at the UN last year, reminding himself that he was Asgard’s king and the last and best defender of the Aesir in an arena which the Valkyrie had no experience in. He was the only person left who understood what it meant to be all of those things he had just said – a god and king of Asgard and protector of the Nine Realms. And maybe, when he had said it was against his nature, he had meant it entirely literally. Natasha didn’t know what it meant to be a god – if it really meant what it sounded like or if it was just what the Asgardians believed about themselves. Or if it mattered.

Thor had never seemed particularly bothered by it, but when Natasha had known Thor there had still been an Asgard and thousands of Asgardians. He hadn’t outlived the destruction of his planet by more than a few days and he had died as part of Thanos’s near-genocide of the surviving Asgardian people. Thor had never had a reason for all of that to matter, or at least not one that Natasha knew of.

“Well,” Loki said eventually, “we never really did talk, before.”

“You threw me out a window that time.”

“I’m not certain that constitutes conversation.”

“You threatened me some before that.”

“You threatened me back. I suppose I’ve had that drink now, though eleven years is a bit of a delay.”

“I think you were faking your death for part of that,” Tony said.

Loki spread his hands and shrugged.

“Also the part where you’re a war criminal who tried to take over the planet with an army of aliens.”

Loki shrugged again. “I believe I heard something about a robot army that tried to wipe out your species when an attempt to construct an artificial intelligence went predictably awry?”

“Okay, moving on!” Bruce said brightly, clapping his hands together. “So, tell us about this Knowhere place where you sent the Reality Stone. Scott, Rocket, get in here, you’re the only professional thieves we’ve got.”

“Yeah, all the stealing Nat and I’ve done was just government work,” Clint said, coming in with a cup of coffee and sitting down at the table next to her. “So I guess it doesn’t count as professional.”

“I’m a burglar,” Scott protested, sitting as far away from Clint as he could. “Not a thief.”

“What’s the difference?” Rocket demanded, hopping up into the chair beside him.

“Five to ten, depending if the theft gets charged as a felony or a misdemeanor,” Rhodes said, straight-faced. “Burglary’s a felony.”

“That’s not what I was convicted for – you know what, never mind.”

“Hey, how much time did you do in prison for trying to take over Earth, anyway?” Tony asked Loki. “Does time work the same on Asgard as it does on Earth?”

Loki stared at him. “Not anymore, since the planet of Asgard no longer exists.”

Tony winced. “Sorry.”

“Yes,” Loki said pointedly. “You should be.” He made a gesture at the center of the conference table as Nebula and Steve, the last two stragglers, came into the room, and green-gold glimmered briefly before resolving into the form of –

“Is that a skull?” Natasha demanded.

Rocket pointed at it. “That’s Knowhere.”

“It’s a skull,” Steve said.

“It is the severed head of a long-dead Celestial,” Nebula said.

“A celestial what?” Clint asked.

“A Celestial,” Nebula said.

“Right, a celestial what?” Bruce said. “Celestial’s an adjective, not a noun.”

“You heard her,” Rocket said. “A Celestial.”

“No, I mean, a celestial what? What are you talking about?”

“Oh, brother,” Rocket said. “This is going to take a while, isn’t it?”

Loki rubbed a hand over his face. “I see we’ll have to start from the lowest levels of the Learning Halls or your half of the mission will end not only in failure but also abject humiliation.”

Rocket climbed onto the table and plopped some kind of holoprojector down in the center of Loki’s illusion, which vanished with another wave of Loki’s hand to be replaced with a near-identical hologram of Knowhere. Loki rolled his eyes and sat back as Rocket began to half-harangue, half-lecture them.

Well, Natasha thought, exchanging a long-suffering look with Steve, at least they only had to worry about Earth in 2012. If they got their timing right, there would just be the one alien running around they would have to worry about.

After some discussion, Loki elected to remain at the Avengers Compound in New York rather than return to New Asgard until the actual mission was underway. Either one was a risk, as flights in and out of New Asgard were monitored by several governments and too many back and forth trips in a short period would send up flares. If he was caught in the United States without government permission, even in the company of the Avengers, he would be arrested and imprisoned, a diplomatic disaster that no one wanted to deal with. Natasha absolutely believed the Valkyrie when she said that the Asgardians would kill everyone between them and their king if it came to it; she was also absolutely certain that Vice President Ross (unfortunately not one of the casualties of the Snap) did not. Ross had the usual arrogant American belief that all refugees were desperate and inferior, which in this case wasn’t helped by the fact that the Asgardians all looked essentially indistinguishable from humans. He had also never actually met Thor, so his entire perception of Asgardians was based off Loki’s immediate post-Snap casual disregard for…well, everything. Natasha still thought it was a minor miracle that Loki hadn’t actually stabbed him the first time they had met, but she had gotten the impression at the time it was too much effort for him to muster up.

Showing a level of caution that Natasha hadn’t been certain he had, Loki spent most of the next few weeks inside the compound where neither satellite surveillance nor the civilian drones that occasionally snuck past the perimeter would register his presence. The government wasn’t any happier about the Benatar and its crew, but Nebula and Rocket didn’t have to worry about staying in Earth’s good graces. Loki did.

Natasha and Steve, who could still move around with relative freedom aside from being public figures, took several reconnaissance trips to the site of Loki’s old hideout – Clint went with them that time – and to the Sanctum Sanctorum once Tony and Bruce had located it on Bleecker Street. The former was deserted except for rats; the latter was occupied by a couple of wary sorcerers who greeted them politely enough. Natasha knew the sorcerer who had taken up the title of Sorcerer Supreme in Stephen Strange’s absence; Wong occasionally joined in on Avengers holocalls and had been out to the compound a few times in the past five years, but generally the surviving sorcerers kept to themselves. They had some kind of magical exchange program with New Asgard and were actually on friendlier terms with Loki than with the Avengers, since they had never let any of the Avengers find the Sanctum before. Wong hadn’t been pleased when Steve and Natasha had shown up on his doorstep, and they had both known better than to bring up the reason for their visit. She had gotten the impression that he wouldn’t be any more in favor of it than Loki had. She and Steve had made their excuses for their visit, then left, though she was certain that Wong suspected they were up to something.

After they had killed Thanos, when it had become clear that there was no end in sight, Natasha and Steve had made a point of finding everyone left on Earth who could possibly be a factor in the planet’s defense. She was certain they were still missing people, even after digging up the old Project Insight files of SHIELD’s – well, HYDRA’s – potential threat list.

You, a TV anchor in Cairo, the Under Secretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa City, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who’s a threat to HYDRA, Jasper Sitwell had said all those years ago. Zola’s algorithm had been one of the few things she hadn’t released after SHIELD’s fall. She had also, even before Ultron, known better than to pass it to Tony to look at. She hadn’t even wanted to know it existed.

At the time, Natasha had thought that letting everyone who had been targeted by Insight go on with their lives without ever knowing how close they had come to death was the best thing for everyone involved. After Thanos, all she had been able to think about was that maybe if she had hunted all of those people down, then maybe, just maybe, they might have actually had a chance.

Or maybe not. Thanos had taken the Power Stone and the Reality Stone from advanced alien civilizations, apparently without a hitch. He had gone through the remnants of Asgard like they were nothing. He had defeated both Thor and Loki. He’d killed Thor. There was no reason to believe that a few humans more or less, no matter how powerful, would have changed the final result of the battle.

But maybe they would have. They would never know now. All Natasha could do was make certain that when the next alien psychopath came along spoiling for a fight, Earth would be ready. By now the greater cosmos had mostly adjusted to the new normal, which in practice meant dozens of warlords of failed planetary states rattling their sabers and taking potshots at their neighbors. From what she had heard from Loki, the Nine Realms had been teetering on the verge of dissolving into similar chaos for the past five years, but hadn’t quite gotten there yet.

“Probably not on my account,” Loki had said haughtily when Natasha asked him about it. “But,” he had added after a moment of hesitation, “it also doesn’t hurt that there’s a son of Odin as king of Asgard, even if it’s me and even if most of what’s left of Asgard is on Midgard just now.” His jaw worked silently and he had looked aside; Natasha studied the wall behind him until he had himself under control again. “The king of Asgard is still the Lord Protector of the Nine Realms and I’ll hold that title until someone comes and kills me for it. Perhaps that means nothing now except pride, because I doubt that Asgard could enforce it if challenged. Certainly five years ago I would have told you that it was pride and nothing more. I would have allowed the Protectorate to wither on the vine – at the time I didn’t work very hard to keep it in one piece. But now…” He shook his head.

“Thanos did not dare enter the Nine until Odin was dead and Asgard was gone. I know that for a fact, because while my father was alive the only way he attempted it was with a son of Odin at heel.” Loki’s jaw worked again. “And you and I both know how well that went, though I suppose he got what he wanted in the end. I’ve no idea how long Asgard’s name will be able to sustain the defense of the Nine, but I’ll barter with that currency as long as I still can, and spend it if I must for whatever good that will do.”

Even if the only coin you have to spend is your own body? Natasha thought. She didn’t know if Loki had believed in Asgard’s supremacy over the Nine Realms while his parents and Thor had still been alive – in fact, she rather doubted that he had, given everything she knew about his history. But all of them were gone now and whatever Loki might privately think about what they had done, he would live his memory of their legacy – or maybe what he thought their legacy should have been – and live it as perfectly as he was capable of until it killed him. Even if it was, as he had said, against his nature as the god of mischief. Natasha understood that.

Empires fall every day, she had said to him all those years ago. They died fast or slow, in fire or by a thousand cuts, and afterwards there was nothing to do but pick up the pieces. You couldn’t go back, just live with the past and use it if you could, and she could tell that Loki was as aware of that as she was. Like him, she had come to terms a long time ago with the fact that this wasn’t the kind of job you retired from; the only way you left this line of work was in a casket. They had that knowledge in common.

She had left him to brood on that while she, Steve, and Clint tried to reconstruct the timeline of Loki’s initial invasion. After a while Loki came and joined them, though the process was hobbled by the dual facts that Clint didn’t have a particularly clear memory of the time he had spent under Loki’s control and Loki himself didn’t seem to remember it very well either. Natasha dug up the SHIELD files from the original investigation, most of which still existed, though some had vanished – either into HYDRA or during the destruction of SHIELD or as casualties of Nick Fury’s paranoia, she wasn’t certain. A combination of all three, probably.

While they were doing that, the space team was doing reconnaissance of their own. Rocket and Nebula took everyone – Clint included when he got tired of being in the same room as Loki – out to Knowhere, which had been deserted since Thanos’s attack on it. No one had seen the Collector or any of his living exhibits in the five years since, though Rocket said that it looked like scavengers had gone through a few times to clear the settlement out of anything valuable. On their second excursion they brought back an intact exhibit case, which Tony, Rocket, and Scott took into the lab to pick apart for vulnerabilities, occasionally joined by Bruce and Rhodes. Loki stood in the doorway and watched them for a while when they finally started getting somewhere, then remarked to Natasha – who was passing by on her way to the training room – that if he had known that a few mortals were capable of bypassing the Collector’s security, he would have run the risk and kept the Aether in Asgard’s vault anyway. “Not that it would have made a difference in the end, but I have my pride.”

“Hey, quick question,” Scott said to Rocket. “Do they have ants in space?”

Loki winced. “And on that note –”

Natasha patted his back reassuringly. “Want to come spar with me and Steve?”

“With pleasure. I feel like hitting something.”

They had been doing a lot of sparring recently. If everything went as planned, they would be in and out of 2012 without any trouble, but if anything went wrong they could find themselves fighting their way through the younger Loki’s army of hired goons. After almost eight years without it, Steve was still reaccustoming himself to using his shield, which had put a lot of dents in the supposedly undentable walls and taken the barrel off of one of the War Machine suit’s guns, to Rhodes’ vocal complaints. Sparring with Loki was exhausting but also just fun; Natasha had a craftswoman’s appreciation for any kind of unfamiliar combat style and Loki’s was totally unlike anything from Earth. It was only occasionally like sparring with Thor had been, though there were enough similarities that Natasha could tell they had been trained in the basics by the same people. Loki defaulted to his superior Asgardian strength less often than Thor had, which seemed to be a matter of preference; although he tended to fight with his polearm (called Mistilteinn, apparently) or his knives, occasionally he produced another weapon from his dimensional pocket – just to keep himself in practice, apparently. Natasha and Steve usually went two-on-one with him, but sometimes they were joined by other Avengers as they all got used to fighting as a team again. Even Clint, though he clearly wasn’t happy about thinking of Loki as an ally, let alone an Avenger.

In between training and planning – and the joyride Rocket had taken most of the space team on to one of the nearby inhabited systems outside the Nine Realms so that, as he said, “you humies don’t lose your shit the first time you see an A’askavariian or a Pluvian” – Natasha, Rhodes, and Loki coordinated as much of the potential return as they could without having a specific target date or time and without making it obvious that that was what they were doing.

Loki had the advantage of being able to tell the Valkyrie their plans directly without having to dance around it. He had left the compound – had left Earth – at one point to walk the paths between worlds to Vanaheim to speak to the Asgardian expatriate community there, formed around the garrison which had been stationed there prior to Asgard’s fall. The bulk of the Asgardians who had been caught offworld during Hela’s invasion and the subsequent destruction of Asgard had elected to relocate to Vanaheim rather than to New Asgard, to Loki’s weary resignation. While he had never said as much, Natasha had gotten the distinct impression that the reasons for choosing Vanaheim over Earth mostly fell into one of the two categories: mistrust of Loki (and by extension the survivors’ accounts of Ragnarok and Thanos’s attack, which annoyed everyone in New Asgard) or plain dislike of Earth (which also annoyed everyone in New Asgard). The expatriates still nominally acknowledged Loki as their king, but Loki said that probably had more to do with the alternative being the acknowledgment of the Vanir Ruling Triumvirate as their monarchs rather than any actual preference for him personally. “Oh, yeah, we do that sort of thing here on Earth too,” Natasha had told him, and he’d cracked a smile at that before admitting that one of his old friends had been with the Vanaheim garrison before being taken by the Snap. “Well,” he clarified, “one of Thor’s friends, I suppose, as the last time she saw me as myself she threatened to kill me. But either way I’d rather have Sif back among the living if there’s a chance.”

Natasha couldn’t argue that. She had acquaintances like that too.

While Loki was offworld, she called Okoye and Queen Ramonda to let the Wakandans know they had a viable plan for reversing the Snap. The hope on the queen’s face had been painful; Okoye’s reaction had been subtler, but Natasha had seen it anyway. Since Wakanda had been the site of the battle, the combatants’ sudden return would be chaotic, especially when they found themselves without half their comrades or any enemies to fight. She left the details of the Time Heist out of the conversation and was careful to stress that it while they were pretty sure their plan would work, they couldn’t be absolutely positive. She just wanted Wakanda to be prepared, since it was the one Earth government they could tell straight-out.

The day before they had finally scheduled the Time Heist to go off, Vice President Thaddeus Ross showed up at the gate.

They were sparring again – Nebula, Tony, Rhodes, Clint, and Bruce against Steve, Natasha, and Loki, with Rocket sitting on the sidelines commentating sarcastically and Scott beside him with an icepack pressed to a black eye he had gotten early on in the fight. Loki wasn’t using his magic, just his polearm and his fists, which made it close to a fair match even with Tony’s most recent upgrades to the Iron Man suit.

“Oh, shit, guys?” Scott said, looking at the tablet he was holding, then waving it to get their attention. “Guys!”

They stopped, Loki shunting a stray repulsor blast aside with a flare of green magic. Tony retracted his helmet, Rhodes put his face plate back, and Loki leaned heavily on Mistilteinn, watching Scott with sharp eyes. All eight of them were breathing hard and soaked with sweat, even Nebula and Loki.

“The gate sensors just went off,” Scott said. “It’s Secretary Ross.”

“Actually he’s the vice president now,” Rhodes said.

“That’s awful!”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Bruce said, then the implications of what Scott had said caught up to him. “Oh shit!”

Steve was faster on his feet. “Clint, Scott, Loki, you’d better get out of sight. You two are technically in violation of the terms of the Sokovia Accords and your plea deals –”

Scott gasped in indignation. “The Sokovia Accords are still in effect?”

“Yeah, they got stricter,” Natasha said. She and Steve had gotten presidential pardons that exempted them from having to sign, but also meant that at any moment someone could decide to enforce the Accords on them anyway.

Steve ignored the interplay. “Loki –”

“Yes, I’m aware, thank you,” Loki said, “and since I suspect you don’t want the Valkyrie to kill your entire government as punishment for my arrest, I’ll take them.”

“Oh, the hell you –” Clint began.

Loki waved a hand. He, Clint, and Scott vanished in a shimmer of greenish light.

“– will,” Clint’s voice finished.

“Are we invisible?” Scott said, sounding equal parts freaked out and fascinated. “I knew a girl like that once.”

“My, aren’t you humans enterprising,” Loki said.

“I think it was an accident. She could only sort of control it.”

“Fascinating. Come along.” Loki must have still been able to see them, because he chivvied them along like he was herding geese. The training room door slid open and then shut after them.

Steve caught the towel Natasha tossed him and wiped sweat off his face as he stepped over to Tony to have a look at the holographic monitor he had pulled up. “God, what does he want now? He couldn’t have waited a couple of days?”

“Better let him in now that our fugitives are out of the way,” Rhodes said, his mouth twisting. “You know how he gets.”

Steve’s expression said it all. He and Natasha exchanged a look, then Steve groaned and adjusted his grip on his shield, tossing the towel into the basket by the door. “Let’s just get this over with. Go ahead and let him in. You should probably come too, Tony.”

“I think I’ll just stay out of the way,” Bruce said.

Steve had been there the last time Bruce and Ross had come face to face, so he just nodded and said, “That’s probably for the best.”

Natasha slid her stun batons into the harness she was wearing over her tank top and followed him to the compound’s front entrance, stepping out of the doors just as Ross’s SUV and a couple of follow cars pulled up.

“You lost, Mr. Vice President?” Steve said, his voice utterly flat.

Ross’s gaze swept over Steve, moved to Natasha next to him, then to Tony and Rhodes as the latter two emerged from behind them. His gaze went back to the shield on Steve’s left arm, incongruous against Steve’s shorts and “Made in Brooklyn” t-shirt, before he said, “Well, I heard you two made up; I had to come see it for myself.”

“Eh, you know how it is,” Tony said, stepping up on Steve’s other side as Rhodes fell in beside Natasha. He had gotten out of the War Machine suit, but the arc reactor was still shining on Tony’s chest, clearly visible through the hoodie he had quickly zipped up. “You can only hold a grudge for so long and that thing takes up a lot of space.”

In their sweat-soaked workout clothes, the four of them should have seemed unprepossessing, and Natasha could tell from Ross’s face that he was aware of that. It didn’t keep the Secret Service agents who had gotten out of their cars from watching them behind mirrored sunglasses, braced for trouble. None of them were crass enough to reach for their sidearms, not when all the Avengers were doing was standing there. But they were all waiting for an excuse.

“I interrupt something?” Ross asked.

“Just practice,” Steve said.

“I see your friends are here.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the Benatar, parked on the compound’s landing pad. “They’ve been making a lot of trips on and offworld lately. That and all of you here – and I assume Banner inside, maybe a few of your other friends? – suggests something.”

Steve tilted his head a little to one side, his ice-chip eyes cool with apparent disinterest and boredom. “Sounds like you’re the one suggesting something, Mr. Vice President. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We’re not stupid, Rogers,” Ross said. “You think no one’s noticed that Rhodes and Romanoff have been making inquiries? Or that we’ve been getting a lot of offworld traffic in the past couple weeks, including with the space Vikings over in Norway? Or that you’re here now, Stark? Seems like you’re getting ready for something. Or someone else is.”

“Of course someone else is.”

Natasha didn’t jump at the new voice, and neither did Steve, though Rhodes and Tony both twitched a little and Ross’s eyes went wide. The Secret Service agents all reached for their sidearms as Loki shimmered into existence on Tony’s other side, looking utterly bored. Unlike the rest of them, he was in black slacks and waistcoat over a green silk shirt, his hair pulled back with a gold clasp that matched his curving gold tiepin. He regarded Ross’s Secret Service agents with a look as cool and disinterested as Steve’s.

“Spare yourself the trouble, I’m as aware of the terms of New Asgard’s settlement as you are and I’m not physically present,” he said. He passed a hand through Tony’s shoulder to prove his point, his fingers dissipating briefly in a shimmer of green and gold magic before reforming. Something about the way the light shone on him didn’t quite look right either; Natasha looked at him out of the corner of her eye, trying to figure out what it was, and realized that it was dimmer than the bright sunlight and flickering. Like firelight.

It would be about late evening in Norway right now, she calculated, and her respect for Loki’s illusion skills went up a reluctant notch.

“Of course someone else is getting ready for something,” he said derisively, folding his arms. “Someone else is always getting ready for something. The cosmos has been in chaos for the past five years. Do you truly believe that Earth is alone in its suffering, Mr. Ross? As I’ve told you people time and again, Thanos’s culling cut the whole universe in half. Everyone else is just now dragging themselves out of the muck, just as you yourselves are. It’s no secret that most of those who finally destroyed the Mad Titan were warriors from this world. Any warlord who’s able to conquer Earth will have quite the feather in his cap. Some of them are starting to turn your way.” He arched an eyebrow. “Our way.”

“Is that a threat, Mr. Odinson?” Ross said.

“It’s ‘your majesty,’” Loki said flatly. “And no, it’s not a threat. I live here; my people live here. I’ve seen enough dead Asgardians and enough dead humans not to want to see any more if it can be avoided. Up until recent years, Earth has been relatively protected because of its position within Yggdrasil – within the Nine Realms. Besides Thanos and my invasion –” He smirked at Ross, who ground his teeth, “– you had a small Kree incursion about thirty years ago when the movement of the Nine briefly brought Earth to the outer edge of Yggdrasil, leaving it vulnerable. Asgard’s destruction and the dousing of the Nidavellir forge star have both changed the orbit of the worlds within Yggdrasil. Even our greatest scholars have not yet been able to predict what effect that will have on the orbits of the worlds within the Nine, but even beyond that they’ve created gaps along Yggdrasil’s defensive line, gaps which Thanos was able to exploit five years ago. There have been scout ships from beyond the Nine recently testing those gaps. I came here to speak with the Avengers about that.”

“Sounds like a lot of bullcrap to me,” Ross said.

“You think Thanos or the Chitauri were the only aliens out there?” Tony said; his fists had gone white-knuckled as Loki spoke. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in getting caught by surprise again. Especially as one of the guys who’s going to be out there slugging it out with giant alien space worms or whatever.”

“All we’re interested in is being ready, Mr. Vice President,” Natasha said coolly. “We’re not here to start a war, just finish one if someone else brings it to us. I think we’ve had enough surprises to last a few lifetimes.”

Ross looked at her. Natasha met his gaze, raising her eyebrows in response.

After a moment, Ross turned his gaze towards Loki again. “Doesn’t look like you were expected.”

Loki tilted his head a little. “I was.”

“We got a little preoccupied and lost track of time,” Rhodes said. “And then, you know, you showed up so we couldn’t keep our appointment.”

Ross’s expression suggested that he wanted to argue the point further, but couldn’t think of a good response. Finally, he said, “You might be on the President’s good side now, Rogers, but this is her last term and she’s not on the ticket next year.”

“If that’s the biggest problem I have, I’ll deal with it,” Steve said. “You fellas need an escort on your way out, Mr. Vice President?”

“I think we can find the way.” He smirked briefly. “Tell Banner I said hello.”

“I’ll pass it along,” Steve said flatly.

The five of them stood there watching as Ross and his Secret Service agents piled back into their cars and drove away. Once the front gate had shut behind them, Loki’s illusion vanished and the Asgardian himself walked out from one of the columns.

“Jesus,” Tony said, flinching at his sudden appearance.

In the flesh, Loki looked exactly like he had in the training room – long hair plaited back and wearing track pants and a t-shirt with a picture of an opossum and the words “Live Weird, Fake Your Death” printed on it that Natasha had gotten him in New York. He frowned after Ross. “Well, that was inconvenient.”

“Was all of that true?” Tony asked him. “About the warlords and – all that?”

“Of course,” Loki said. “If I’m going to bluff, it’s always better to do it with the truth.”

“He’s been telling the UN about it for years,” Natasha said. “They’ve been saying pretty much the same thing as Ross just did.”

“I haven’t really been paying a lot of attention,” Tony admitted.

Steve silently mouthed the words “no shit,” but didn’t say anything out loud. At least the only people facing him to see it were Natasha and Rhodes.

“The good news,” Loki said, “is that if our little endeavor succeeds it will cause far more chaos in the rest of the cosmos than it will here and unless any of the warlords are particularly quick on their feet, then it will take them some time to recover. And by then Earth should have most of its defenders back.” His mouth worked briefly for a moment, like he had just remembered that his brother wouldn’t be among them. “So you actually are being quite proactive in Earth’s defense.”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Well. I guess we should get to it, then.”