Agendas (Gargoyles/MCU/Avengers)

[NemiTheNen]

So, huzzah, my meds are kicking in for the good stuff and I'm finally able to write again. Cross posting here because while co-author and I are both on AO3, only I'm on these forums. Seriously, read the prologue first.

Somehow I finally have the spellslots to crosspost. No, I don't know why I had a mental block before.

--

The Eyrie Building, New York City

May 4th, 2012, 11:01 AM

---

As much as it was an honor to be employed at the corporate headquarters of Xanatos Enterprises--the glittering, castle-capped marvel that was the Eyrie Building--a haze of low-level anxiety had hovered within the office levels for months. The many employees of the building were fretting, from the financial analysts to the janitors, from the caterers to the security teams. The source of their anxiety was neither their eccentric CEO nor his equally eccentric partner in both crime and matrimony, but instead the third and ostensibly least eccentric member of their main executive team, rumored to be an equal partner to David and Fox Xanatos in all things, from the management of the company to the raising of their teenage son, Alexander.

Though no one could pinpoint precisely when it started, everyone agreed that Owen Burnett had been pacing the Eyrie for weeks, if not months, from Castle Wyvern on its lofty perch above the clouds to the power stations in the basements far below. Ignorance reigned as far as his primary objective was concerned, but grapevine gossip held that he was checking into everything from the genetics labs to Pack Media Studios, and the sheer breadth of his investigations was cause enough for everyone to worry. Either he was running an evaluation, and everyone needed to be at top efficiency, or something very dangerous was about to go down, and everyone needed to be ready for anything.

Given that "anything" had in the past featured a variety of incidents including but not limited to industrial espionage, assassination attempts, full-on aerial assault, and what had been listed in the insurance paperwork as an Act of God and in the confidential paperwork as an Act of the In-Laws, it was considered wise to be cautious, and also wise to immediately execute any orders handed down from on high without question, no matter how unusual those orders might be.

The 200-page NDA that every employee was required to sign before hire had been very explicit about the possible consequences of failing to do so, after all.

---

Far above, in the heart of Castle Wyvern, behind the placid facade of Xanatos Enterprises' terrifyingly efficient Chief Operations Officer, Puck silently growled to himself. He pushed back from his desk with a force that would doubtless startle his already-skittish underlings, had any been around to witness the motion, and headed for the door.

The source of whatever trouble was coming refused to become clear--it was making his teeth itch, even from within the stifling confines of a mortal form--and time was running short; the restless urgency that drove him away from his office clamored louder by the day. He had already pulled up the departmental overviews on his phone as the iron-cored door sealed shut behind him.

For the past few months, he'd been plagued by a vague feeling of unease, the knowledge that something was wrong, or could be wrong, and now he could feel it starting to come to a head, tipping from possibility to eventuality.

Imminent, incipient, inexorable. But what was it?

He was frowning to himself, turning to stride down the hall, when a tingle in the air made him pause. A moment later, the tingle flared into a sharp crackle, and his young protégé appeared at his side in a shifting haze of green sparkles and mist.

The magic settled, and Alex beamed up at him. "Hi Uncle!"

He didn't deign to respond, instead raising an unimpressed eyebrow. An entrance like that was sloppy work, if you weren't doing it as a way to politely announce your arrival in the presence of mortals--humans and gargoyles alike were always so jumpy when you just appeared out of nowhere without at least a little bit of warning.

It was something they would have to work on, later, after whatever this was finally settled down.

"You're out of your office early," Alex continued, either blissfully ignorant of or willfully ignoring the disdainful look his careless arrival had earned. It could be either, really. The influence of the gargoyles meant that while he had inherited both of his parents' cleverness and could be as wickedly manipulative as either of them, Alex's first and most disarming tendency was always towards a certain level of sunny obliviousness: a child after his own heart, if not his nature.

And he could hardly fault the boy for his enthusiasm. Sunlight and regular circadian rhythms were important for a growing boy, so Alex's sleep patterns were very different from those of his parents, which often left Owen Burnett, whose schedule most resembled that of a more typical working professional, as the only adult in the castle that Alex could speak to while the sun was up.

At his continued silence, the pleased expression on the young teenager's face slid away into something far more serious, and Alex leaned forward slightly, hands flexing as he rocked his weight onto his toes. "What's going on?"

Most humans, Puck was given to understand, would likely be upset that a child was forced to grow up so quickly, immediately assuming approaching danger from a moment of too-long silence. He, however, merely found Alex's growing readiness for action--whether that action would take the form of manipulation or violence was currently unclear, as the boy was attentively awaiting further details--both adorable and useful.

"I am concerned that something is wrong," he said mildly, and tilted his head to watch the boy's face as Alex processed that information.

Alex's brow furrowed, bright green eyes casting him a searching glance as a weak sort of pressure pushed against the thick muffling armor of his mortal form, trying to scent out the feelings of the soul beneath. "You're not.... You are worried, and not about stocks, I can see it in your face."

Could Alex read his carefully crafted expression, or was the boy transposing sensations again? He was mostly mortal, it was probably unavoidable... and he was also still talking, eyes narrowed in thought. "But you're walking around as Owen right now, not Puck."

Give the boy a prize--but no, that was unkind. It would not do to take out his ill mood on Alex--he wasn't accustomed to receiving the sharp edge of his tongue the way Fox and David were. So he said instead, "My other senses are the cause for alarm, but I do not know what kind. I make it a general rule not to act as Puck on mundane matters."

That was part and parcel of the deal he had offered to David, after all, and when he was Owen he was carefully mundane in all things… for the most part. In his currently far-too-mortal predicament, he had been pushing things, as his people (and they were still his kin, Avalon still his home, never mind what Oberon had said and done) were wont to do; taking advantage of his human guise to buy up property and air rights in the likely areas where the new base of the Eyrie Pyramid would eventually be.

His visions of the future were often vague when it came to context, and so he couldn't be sure that those areas would actually wind up being the final locations for what would become the base of the structure. But he knew that the pyramid would be rampant with immortal power a century hence, and there were particular patterns that could help with that, designs he could implement now, long before construction began, long before any architect dreamed up the plans for what he already knew would come to be. Alexander was only a quarter Fae--he wouldn't be able to handle those levels of energy on his own, no matter if he lived one century or twenty.

He'd paused for too long, and now Alex was looking up at him, concern in his expression. He allowed his own expression to shift slightly--unimportant thoughts, ignore--and continued, turning down the corridor as he spoke, "Admittedly, the current circumstances are strange."

Alex fell into stride next to him, quiet for a moment, then cautiously glanced up through his lashes. When he finally spoke, his voice was carefully subdued. "It's not Grandmother, is it?"

"Prescience is not an exact science," he replied absently, skimming the reports on his phone, listening for a faint echo in the void of what was yet to be. He didn't think it was Titania, and yet…

Alex was staring again. He glanced down at him and frowned slightly. "What is it?"

Alex blinked up at him, slow, deliberate, reaching one hand up to rest against his arm--a fleeting touch that was equal parts a question and a demand for attention. "I think that telling the future would be rather important for my future, Uncle."

Alex wasn't wrong, exactly, but nor was he right--and he was also being cheeky, even through his concern. "You mean your stock options," he replied, his lips curving slightly. "It doesn't work like that, and doesn't concern you."

The boy's eyebrows went up--understandable, as upon reflection his phrasing sounded as though he were dismissing Alex's concern, and in a quiet conference held in the long breathless days before the boy's birth, the three of them had promised each other that they would never allow such a thing.

So he clarified. "You have less gift for prophecy than an average member of the Third Race, and I do not know if you will ever gain it as you are."

Alex nodded, pressing his fingers against his arm again, a different pattern this time--acknowledgement, consideration--the placement and pressure careful, learned, instead of the modified instinct that had birthed the language so many eons ago. But he could also feel him tumbling the idea around in his mind before settling on a question to ask. And ask he did, after a moment longer: "What's it like?"

How to put it? One moment he had been fond and amused, smiling at David and Fox in the wake of the incident with the Eye, and the next he had been abruptly aware of her nascent pregnancy, of their red-haired, bright-eyed child-yet-to-be. "It's knowing. My guess is that it is similar to how you know how to do mathematics, only without the instruction. You were taught, yes, but now you know, and you do."

It was a difficult thing to explain to a mostly-human child: those of his people who had the gift of prophecy simply knew what they knew, though the how and what of the matter varied from one to the other. Banshee knew of endings and deaths. Puck himself had glimpses of That Which Was His. Titania none at all. And Oberon...sheer pessimism in every shade of gray.

A fixed point in destiny would echo, ripple through the inherent magic of the world, would resonate with every Child of Avalon, but this was not that.

He frowned and turned his attention back to his phone.

The various security departments stirred nothing, though there was the nagging sensation that they should. Janitorial departments felt like they would be involved; he switched to housekeeping, but that did nothing, save for the catering and food service departments--and there was an odd pull there too. Strange. Infiltration through menial labor that security wouldn't pick up on? That would be one way for Titania to make her way in without resorting to overt uses of magic, but she'd have no reason to do so, unless some other machinations were at play--always a possibility, but an unlikely one, at least as far as he was aware.

Uneasy, he tapped his stone left fist against his thigh as he shifted to the security departments in the other buildings in the city. His awareness was primarily confined by what he was attached to, where he spent the most time, so while he had some awareness of all of the company's holdings--

(whispers and worship drifting through him, borne by the faith of thousands, an echo of his power strung through every site and subsidiary, intangible links to bind the whole of his domain.


He did not need it, he did not hunger, but the war-won urge was there.)​

--his clearest vision was of the Eyrie Building and its denizens. This feeling, then, could be explained by something significant happening, perhaps at one of the other branches, perhaps at one of their subsidiaries, or perhaps to the company as a whole.

Alex was dithering on another question, looking away at first, and then visibly forcing himself to make eye contact--something most people generally avoided with Owen Burnett, and always avoided with Puck, not that it had ever saved any of them. "What is it like for other Fae?"

"Alex," his voice was clipped, and he shouldn't be impatient with the boy and he wasn't, not really. But something was wrong, and this should have been obvious with a bit of thought. "I created the persona of Owen Burnett out of whole cloth on a whim. Do you think that the Puck ever attended business school?"

---

Alex stared up at his uncle, puzzled. What did being Owen have to do with seeing the future? What did it have to do with other Fae? He didn't know any others, had been protected all his life from them, by Mom and Dad and Uncle… but if he was explaining it like that, that meant it was about what he had done, so then…

Then...

The realization came upon him slowly, like a sunset, like the long moments of slow-building magic that stretched out into forever before the gargoyles awakened.

No, he could not imagine the energetic, laughing faerie in business school. Of course Uncle hadn't--of course not.

When his parents told him the Story, they always stressed all that Puck had said during the confrontation with Oberon, when he'd dared to intervene on their behalf--every word, every pause, every curling inflection and arched brow, every gesture and breath--a perfect recitation, so that none of them would ever forget.

So Alex had known since the beginning that Puck had assumed a mortal form because he was curious about Titania's own human guise; that he had created the character of Owen Burnett to tease a mortal, to play amongst humans instead of just with them, and to try something new. Yet he had been able to, without the aid of magic or experience, help run a multinational company well enough that Granddad had tried to get him to come back to Cyberbiotics for years after he and Mom and Dad left to found Xanatos Enterprises instead.

All this because the notion had caught his fancy, all this because once the Puck could literally be whatever he so desired, spinning new realities and becoming new things, new people, with nothing more than the force of his will and the occasional rhyming word.

An utterly free being that would have outlived them to the ending of the world had smiled at them, had reached out a hand, had changed their world completely, on nothing more than a whim.

(He had done them a kindness, and they had captured his heart in repayment.


How cruel of them.)​

And his uncle had stood to thwart a greater god so that Alex's parents could keep him. It was no whim, then, but whether it was out of love, or kindness, or goodness, none of them could say--and he had paid a bitter price for it.

(There was always a price.


Even for--especially for--one who had once been a golden Child.)​

Alex let nothing of his thoughts show on his face. One of the cardinal rules for dealing with Uncle was to never, ever mention Oberon or Avalon unless you really, really, had to, or unless he brought the topic up first.

Instead, he spoke his other thoughts out loud, as his parents had always encouraged him to do--deflect with the truth whenever possible, rather than be caught in a lie. "It's like...when I know how to do the magic exactly, effortlessly. Like..."

Alex knew he had a good memory, better than most other humans. His memories stretched back to when he was only a few months old, though those memories were vague, ephemeral--flashes of familiar magic, scent and sound and light. That was the magic, or that was thinking and remembering with… with... his soul, maybe? The part of him that wasn't human? Most people, though, didn't remember.

It took him a moment to find the words. "Humans and Gargoyles don't remember how they learned to walk." Alex did remember, sort of, when he thought about it at least--learning to walk had been really hard, since at that point, floating had been easier. "They just... walk. Everyone just... knows."

Uncle suddenly missed a step, eyes widened in alarm.

Alex froze. Shit! "Wait, what? What happened? What did I say?"

Uncle blinked a few times, rapidly calculating--he thought faster than anyone Alex knew, even Dad, though it was rare for him to voice his thoughts, especially when he was Owen--and then he spoke, abrupt and certain. "Everyone knows. Or will know. We're going to go watch the news, Alex."

What? A disaster, an attack, something else? Please, not airplanes again.

Uncle was--not rattled, now, but wary, and that almost never happened, which meant whatever it was, whatever it would be... "...it's going to be really big, isn't it?"

The concerned expression shifted to consideration, even as Uncle abruptly shifted directions and started heading towards the tv room. "Perhaps. Or perhaps something related to it is newsworthy."

That wasn't an explanation.

That wasn't an explanation, and something was happening, which meant that Uncle knew something, but still didn't know what it was, not for sure.

Alex stewed on that for a moment as he trailed after him. "So, you noticed that the last time you were Puck and just... took the feeling with you when you transformed? But--"

Uncle was Owen still, had been all day long, and Owen was human--physically, at least. Uncle couldn't do magic when he was Owen, except to turn back to his true form--as much as any Fae could be said to have a true form, anyway.

Alex bit his lip, speeding up for a moment to brush his hand in an inquiry against Owen's arm. "Uncle, I'm sorry, but how are you even doing this if you're not..." he trailed off, frustrated at his inability to articulate his question, frustrated with his own frustration about asking delicate questions--he would be sixteen in two months, it shouldn't still be this hard. But Mom and Dad were always so, so careful whenever circumstances forced them to press Uncle for answers, and Alex just didn't--he couldn't--

In moments like these, when Alex fumbled over his own clumsy tongue, even when his uncle was right there, patiently listening, he always seemed so far away.


Uncle paused at the door to the tv room, looking down at him with a gaze that was at once serious and strange. "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,"(1) he said, like that was an actual answer, which it absolutely wasn't.

Uncle must have been able to read the expression on his face, because he breathed out a soft sigh as he pushed open the door and gestured Alex through. "Alex, I don't stop being myself just because of a mask I put on, any more than you'd stop being yourself if you overcame your personal hangups and removed the shell of your human form."

Alex couldn't help the way his face twisted in disgust, even despite all of Mom's coaching. "Ugh, Uncle! That's so gross!"

His uncle would bring it up every so often, mostly in passing, sometimes not. Shedding his human form would apparently make Alex fully Fae, simply because all of the parts of him that were biologically human (and therefore physically restraining his power, because apparently that was a thing even though the concept kind of made Alex's brain hurt) would be gone.

Yes, he would be able to grow and become stronger--maybe even as strong as a true-born Child of Avalon--but it would make him bound by Oberon's Laws, and it would make him more vulnerable to iron--weaknesses both of his parents had warned him about. Yet Uncle had suggested it, and no one liked what that said about Uncle's priorities.

Also, the idea was... totally disgusting.

Uncle had never asked Mom to try it either, at least not after that first time, when she'd laughed in his face and then punched him in it. He had started being more polite about it after that, saying they should shed their shells, instead of peel off their skins, which had been how he'd phrased it the first time around.

(Nearly thirty years he'd been with Mom and Dad, and Uncle still didn't fully realize how deeply unsettling he could be to the mortals that lived with him, especially when he said things like that in Owen's placid monotone with Owen's expressionless face.


Or maybe he did, and was just trolling them. With Uncle, it was impossible to tell.)​

Not at all squeamish or sulking, Alex vaulted the back of the couch and thumped down onto the cushions, waving the television on. He had to wiggle his fingers with a bit more force than usual to get it speeding through the channels to CNN. There didn't seem to be anything there, or on Al Jazeera, so he continued on, this time to the BBC.

"I am quite serious, Alex," Uncle said as he made his way around the couch more sedately. "It would be good for your continued growth," and lifespan, Uncle didn't need to say, because he'd said it all before, "And would undoubtedly help you with your shapeshifting."

"I like being human, Uncle." I know you worry, Uncle. "And it's really gross. I know you mean something different, but my gut reaction isn't what you mean and--"

Hello, breaking news. Were these updates from last night? That was strange, he hadn't heard of anything today, but--

--what the hell.

Some crazy guy in Germany playing at… no, just no. But fancy armor, and--holograms? Magic? Whoever it was didn't look at all familiar, but… no, that was definitely magic, and definitely weird-looking armor. So... "Uncle… is that guy from Avalon?"

Also what the hell was that seriously Captain Amer--

But Uncle was leaning forward, eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "No. Rewind it."

"Huh? Uh, sure." It was a tricky thing to do, but since the footage wasn't live, it was manageable, so Alex waved his hand hurriedly at the screen.

"Stop. Zoom in."

Alex concentrated on the image as he enhanced the clip of--security footage? Someone's phone cam? Whatever. He made it bigger and clearer. It was all light anyways, images of things that had happened, only a little bit different than a mirror. He didn't have to get far before he saw what had caught Uncle's eye. "Is that one on the far end flickering?"

He'd miscast often enough to recognize the signs of a faltering spell, even if that guy's magic wasn't anything like his own.

Uncle was frowning, and Alex saw the decision in his face, felt the subtle change in him, and pushed himself to his feet, a tiny smile curling his lips despite the strangeness of the situation. Whatever this was, it was the thing that Uncle had been looking for, or was related to it, and that meant there was something Uncle could do about it.

Uncle straightened, first removing and then tucking his thin wire-frame glasses into his breast pocket, and Alex let his smile widen as he rocked forward on his toes in anticipation.

When Uncle shed his human form and became himself--or rather, as close to himself as could be borne around mortals--there was nothing in the world like it, no human words to describe how it felt. Like liberation, maybe, like taking a deep breath of air when surfacing from a lengthy dive, like leaping from the tallest tower of the castle into a wild freefall, like the gargoyles bursting awake from their stone sleep, like the sun breaking through a clouded sky. Uncle was realer then, more… alive wasn't the right word for it; there wasn't really a right word for it in any of the languages Alex knew.

Everything was better when Uncle was as he should be, the familiar sense-sound-feel of him so much brighter and clearer when it wasn't muffled behind the human mask that was Owen Burnett. When Uncle was himself, Alex's own magic was quicker to respond, to react, to do as he willed it rather than as it would.

(He'd asked why, just once, when he was much younger, and for a fleeting instant Uncle's expression had hurt.


He hadn't asked again.)​

He didn't let himself fidget--well, at least not too much--as Uncle folded his arms across his chest and spun on his heels, impossibly fast, his form blurring, shifting, melting into color and light, too bright to look at directly. Alex squinted against the glare, blinking open his eyes just in time to watch as a butter-soft leather boot, far older than the stones of the castle upon which it rested, tapped against the flagstones--

--and Uncle, balanced on one tiptoe, mostly floating, flashed him a bright, absent smile, gaze a million miles away.

It was… unsettling.

Uncle usually looked--not better, when he was like this, but more proper, in ways that Alex found difficult to articulate even to himself.

Despite the starkly glaring differences between the two forms his uncle normally wore--Owen Burnett, tall and blond, a double-breasted navy suit and a brilliantly red tie; and the Puck, slight and delicate, a facsimile of youth clad in the colors of divine royalty, rippling shades of Tyrian purple and flashes of gold, symbols that tickled at the edges of his magic, demanding recognition yet defying his understanding--

(So many things he just didn't know, might never know, and with Uncle so elusive decades or centuries might pass before he got any answers.)​

--despite that, something about the face was shared between the two forms, obscured though it was by the elfin ears of Uncle's truer form, by the cloud of white hair that drifted to his waist, by the change in his voice, shimmering with sly laughter instead of Owen's bone-dry wit.

The most striking similarity, however, was in his eyes: clear and blue as a summer sky, they remained the same no matter which form Uncle wore, the only hint of the Fae inside the human.

He… usually looked better, when he was like this.

He was still now, though mostly still floating, gaze fixed on the frozen image on the tv screen. Uncle looked… not worried, but more thoughtful. Not worried, but considering.

Alex didn't know what that meant.

But… no matter what it is, it will be better now.

Things might have been strange, unsettled, but Uncle was the most dangerous thing left in the world now that the Gathering was underway. Given a few minutes and enough height--like the tallest tower of the castle, where the gargoyles slept--and even if every other person in the city had been turned into a murderous bloodthirsty undead vampire-pirate-ninja-assassin, Uncle could still bring the zombie apocalypse to a screeching halt with nothing but a thought and a sharply-worded rhyme.

Even Thailog, drawn to the castle by the impossible lure of Uncle's power, by Alex's still-developing talents, had not stood a chance. Thailog had come furnished with a detailed knowledge of the castle and its workings, had armed himself with iron weapons and iron bindings, and even smoke bombs made with aerosolized iron, to capitalize on the one known weakness of the Children of Avalon.

Uncle hadn't taken kindly to the attempt. Neither had Mom or Dad.

Uncle could have turned the big Gargoyle clone into a duck; he could have tortured him, even killed him, because Oberon's personal directive to Uncle overruled all of the other Laws, just as Demona's binding had--including the ones against interfering in mortal affairs.

(He still had to try, Uncle had explained. Distract, divert, and creatively interpret as he barely dared to his binding now.


Truly, they were lucky that Demona had never studied law.)​

They could have done anything --stripped Thailog of his memories, turned him human, trapped him in stone forever--he could have shredded his personality, his soul, until he was a shell of what he had been--he could have made Thailog nice. Instead, though altered--and it still made Alex a little queasy when he thought too hard about what they'd done--he was still recognizably Thailog.

Uncle had been merciful, in giving them the choice to decide Thailog's fate.

That had been one of the most disturbing of his lessons, and for the first time Alex had understood why Oberon's Laws were what they were: he could still remember Uncle's calm, disinterested tone as he listed off all that could be done to render their attacker undone. He'd spent that time half-terrified, half-enthralled, enfolded between his parents as they spoke in low tones, as they asked him if he would be willing to do as they had discussed.

The altering of mortal minds was as forbidden and impossible as their murder. But those Laws did not apply to Uncle, not when their family had been attacked, although they did in the settling dust. But because of Alex's own humanity--more human than he was Fae, unlike his mother, who was equally both--Oberon's Laws did not apply to him.

It had been easy to do. So, so easy, and Uncle had been so, so calm--but then, what was the altering of one mind when you'd altered the minds of millions?

But better still than the alternative.

(Mom and Dad avoided murder, generally. It was messy, complicated, often unnecessary, and so terribly final. There were better ways to deal with enemies than by killing them.


Uncle did not care.


Sometimes Alex wondered if he even could.)​

Whatever else he was, Uncle was his family, his parent, his second father, and everything was better when he was himself, himself as he should be.

The situation was dangerous, it had to be, otherwise Uncle wouldn't be doing this.

But Uncle was doing this, and that meant that no matter what was about to happen, in the end, everything would be fine.

...right?

---

Better now.

It was easier to see like this, easier to feel, now that he'd shed all but the thinnest armor of flesh, but whatever was about to happen, whatever events would come, were still unclear. Present and pressing, yes, but still too vague to act upon.

Puck frowned slightly, considering, and then decided to do something he hadn't done in years: lightly, softly, so as not to be noticed, he plucked at the world.

An easy magic, it was a skill even Fox had taken quickly to, as she was able to easily relate it to technology; like sonar, like echolocation, like seeing how and where the silk caught when pulled--a mortal seeming of the usual way of his people, who generally had a sense for each others' location, unless they were in hiding, or cloaked in mortal form, as he so often was.

That was like seeing--or rather feeling--ripples in a pond. What he did now was active, seeking: it could be used to find things other than his former fellows. It was a skill Fox and Alex had yet to master, though he thought they might, in time.

There was Alex at his side, fluid with the changeable softness of youth; and there was Fox, burning brightly, a few floors away. There was the faintest glimmer of magic clinging to David as he slept at her side, remnants of their touch, overlapping and entwined and eternal, the bindings that would never leave him.

There were the Gargoyles perched on the tower above, quiescent and asleep. There were the various other minor and major talents spread out across the city. There was the Tesseract, radiating its almond-sweet replenishing energies at an increased pace, and being moved around by what were probably all humans.

...the little mortal governments again?

It wasn't truly of any concern. So long as the gem stayed somewhere on the planet, its actual physical location mattered little.

There was Loki, and Thor with him, both of them moving or being moved far above the surface of the Earth. Alien aberrations, to be sure, but familiar ones, neither welcome nor unwelcome, regardless of whatever ridiculousness they were up to this time--the news clip hadn't been particularly forthcoming in that regard, but the boys did like to drop in on Earth from time to time, and had a tendency to get themselves into trouble when they did so. They were tangled up in this somehow--perhaps some sort of issue on Asgard was to blame?

Farther out were the remains of the enchantments and spells of his kindred, the halflings and weak-blooded descendants they'd left behind when the Gathering began. Anansi's boy and his family down in Lousiana. There was Rory, Cú Chulainn's mortal form; there was Natsilane, now both chief and shaman; there were his little cousin's panther-folk, protecting the lands and people around Kara Digi; there were other magic-touched mortals, human and gargoyle alike. There were the mortal keepers of the Time stone.

There were the cripples of the first city up in the North, Jotun-damaged and place-bound. There was the second city, the refugee camp, now called New Olympus; and the third in the dragon's triangle; the smattering remains of settlements in Africa, in Australia, remnants of the old playgrounds; the remains of poison-lessened kin, those who were no longer alive, but not quite dead, either.

(When they wished for an End The Puck would provide. A lesson repeated it would have to be.)​

There was Demona, in Europe again, and all the other gargoyles in the world. There was Macbeth and King Arthur. There was Merlin, still sulking in a cave.

It was echoingly, hideously, relentlessly empty.

(He ached to feel Avalon's magic again.


But then, that was a desire he cultivated, another mask to be used, perhaps centuries in the future.)​

Perhaps there were other members of his race out and about, hiding from the disgraced exile, but he made it a rule to never practice self-delusion without a reason. His power and his will, being what they were, would make it far too close to real for anyone's comfort.

"So, you said 'No.'"

Alex again. He'd been silent too long for the boy's comfort, and this wasn't the sort of thing that he would notice--human skin too thick to sense the delicacy of his uncle's touch upon the world.

And Alex was pressing, leaning forward, eyes intent. "No to what?"

"No, that person is not from Avalon." But what in the world was the boy playing at in Germany, of all places? He'd always gotten the impression that Loki was the more sensible of the two brothers, for all that his own people called him a mischief-maker.

Long-ago impressions aside, there was a detail about him that Alex would likely find intriguing. So he glanced down at the boy, letting a smirk curl his lips. "He's an alien."

Alex's jaw dropped.

---

He did not just say that.

Alex looked from Uncle's sly grin to the muted television, frozen with the image of the stranger in the corner of the news screen, then back to his Uncle again.

He totally did just say that.

What the hell.

He should say something now, something playful and witty, like Dad would, or something sly and snarky, like Mom, but what came out instead was "You gotta be shitting me."

"Language," Uncle chided him, kicking fully off the floor to do a lazy swoop around the room. "Looks boringly human, doesn't he? But I assure you, he is a legitimate extra-terrestrial. I've even met him personally a few times. His name is Loki."

Well, that made… absolutely no sense whatsoever.

"What?" Alex frowned as he spun in place to follow his uncle with his eyes and not just his power. Uncle didn't think in the same spatial dimensions as humans or even gargoyles did, which made it disconcertingly difficult to keep track of him, especially when he was floating, which was almost always. "You mean like Odin?"

He'd heard about the debacle with the Eye. It was one of the very few things Goliath could and would subtly mock Dad about.

Uncle laughed and swirled around him, warm and close, trailing sparkles that turned into books that rifled their own pages. "What do we say about stories?"

"All things are true," Alex breathed as he turned counter to his uncle, reaching out for the books not with his hands, but with his magic, pulling them close. He felt the slightest nudge of Uncle's power, and the books fell open to the proper pages. "But few things are accurate."

A description, a definition--had Uncle conjured him a book on mythology? Uncle usually laughed at those, but if that was what he had been given, then it was important.

So Alex read.

Loki, sworn blood brother to Odin Allfather. Inventor of fishing nets, god of storytelling, as companion to Odin's patronage of skalds. Said to have sometimes traveled via borrowed wings, a god of fire. One of the three gods of the Norse pantheon who created humans, giving them blood and 'goodly hue.' Considered something of a primordial god, or otherwise separate from the other gods, and as such, often associated with Jotnar, especially the war the Gods had with them. There had been recent discoveries of engraved sagas that heavily featured him wherein he adventured with Odin. These discoveries had reshaped some of the theory on the sagas wherein Loki traveled with Thor.

The book went on, but the pages refused to turn, and Alex turned his attention to the second book. This one was… different.

Loki, brother of Thor, second son of Odin. God of mischief and lies. Fifth of Thor's companions. Though mentioned in tales, he was not often embellished upon, as in older stories. Further, the additional companions in the stories resembled Thor's core traits: hunger, virility, and the sternness of a warrior. Folklorists and historians were uncertain if these were solo stories, wherein Thor was divided into his various aspects and the character of Loki was added in. However, others pointed to how the female warrior known as 'Sif' was often described similarly to Loki and took on many of Loki's traits, such as being an advisor. One common belief was that Sif and Loki were the same character, with Loki adopting a female persona to avoid homosexual implications. It was unknown if these stories were adapted tales of Odin and Loki, or if the authors were suggesting Thor was in a relationship with his uncle.

Different stories, different storytellers, different tales. And one man? There were stranger things, and Uncle was waiting.

"I'd say that doesn't make sense, but," Alex flipped back to the first book, tapping a finger on the relevant page. Wings, fire, and tales changed in the telling, especially for a story that crossed through the ages. A Phoenix. "Timedancing? Should we talk to Brooklyn?"

Though he'd never seen it in person, he knew about the Phoenix Gate: a small, lacquered blue shield, framed in gold, a stylized golden bird on its front, as though trapped within a golden cage. It held great power for something so small, crossing any distance of time and space in a great ball of flame. All you needed were the words: Deflagrate muri tempi et intervalia.

But the Phoenix within had been freed by Goliath, and it swept people away on destined trips, dancing through time. Brooklyn had been gone for forty years, or five seconds, and had returned with a mate, a son, and an egg well on its way to hatching; his own parents had spent their honeymoon in the past, preparing the fateful message that would, a thousand years later, be delivered to a young David Xanatos of Bar Harbor, Maine.

Mom and Dad had been destined only for that brief, single flight, but Brooklyn was the Timedancer of legend--his flight had lasted longer than any other in history. He and his family were in Japan now, visiting the Ishimura clan, accompanied by Coldstone and Coldfire. It would be easy enough to give them a call--well, at least once they figured out the time difference. Things got tricky when gargoyles changed time zones.

"Such a clever student," Uncle murmured, and ruffled his hair on his next pass. Alex did his best not to preen under the attention, but it was hard not to smile, even when the world was being so strange.

Still, though, the stories were confusing, and there were many reasons why that might be so. "So he's like... a halfling? Between Odin and some, I dunno, Togruta, and he's keeping his lekku, like, in his helmet horns?"

...okay, so maybe that last one was reaching a little, but he liked Star Wars. Ahsoka was amazing.

Uncle shook his head, but he was still smirking. "No. Think space vikings, Alex. The helmet horns are an accessory." A moment's pause. "Also, in general? His people have horrible taste. Everything they make is super gaudy."

Alex considered this, and considered the stories. "Did he, like, get grounded forever when his dad found out he was running around in the past and fooling his younger self or something?"

Uncle rolled over onto his back and pillowed his head on one folded arm, then touched his nose with the index finger of his other hand. Alex had thought he'd had a pretty good grasp on Uncle's use of body language, could ask basic questions and even talk back at a rudimentary level, but he had no idea what that meant. "Close, and yet so far. Alex, do you remember what The Bard said about concepts?" Oh, of course, almost on the nose.

...he'd been on edge before, but now Uncle was in a better mood, or was faking one, and smiled when he said "The Bard." Some of the more modern interpretations of A Midsummer Night's Dream had made Uncle most unfond of Shakespeare. So, not old Bill. There was really only one other author that Uncle would grant that title to. So. Him. Concepts. Ideas.

He looked to Uncle for a hint, for Uncle's cat smile and approval, and in him saw--oh.

In all of the universe, you would find… "No atoms of Justice, no molecules of Mercy," Alex recited softly, slowly. And that meant... "No… no tau nor top of Trickery."

Uncle smiled and gestured him on. He'd gotten it right. "So...Oberon's Children, some of them are, like, tied to immaterial concepts, things that are made by perception? Like you. And others are tied to things, like," Alex groped for a moment for an example that wasn't blatantly simplistic, only coming up with one. "Hestia. Goddess of the Hearth… and some other immaterial concept too." Not inaccurate, but too vague. She's Uncle's cousin, be polite!

It was hard, sometimes, fitting mortal words around what he understood with his magic, when he didn't know how to say what he meant in that wordless way that Uncle had, in the lilting tones he sometimes used in careless moments, a native speaker of a language that he and Mom and Dad were all millennia too young and far too human to understand.

Uncle, however, was nodding--his incomplete, halting explanation had at least been understood, and found worthy despite its lack. "Very good. It's a bit more complicated than that, though. And she prefers to be called Pele."

Alex blinked. That was new information; Uncle rarely volunteered anything about his cousins, save for an occasional laugh at particularly inaccurate stories. "What? She's all… homey and stuff in the stories. Well, I mean, Hestia is."

Which… didn't mean that she wasn't also all of the things that Pele was. People were complicated, and Uncle's people were even more complicated in ways that were difficult for an almost-sixteen-year-old to understand.

Uncle smiled. "Fire and Fire, home hearth and homeland." Then his smile sharpened, which was both pleasant and vaguely awful--Uncle had very prominent incisors in this form. It was always a little unsettling to notice, mainly because when he was like this, Uncle didn't need to eat. At all. Ever. "Also?" Uncle continued, a singsong tone and a raised index finger, one he used to tap Alex on the tip of his nose. "Death goddess."

Alex blinked. Learning about his Uncle's people was always a little surreal, but that… what did that even mean? He'd been educated well, knew something about most major pantheons--nothing but the best tutors in the world for the son of David and Fox Xanatos--but some things were still baffling. "How does that even work? I can see it for Pele, but for Hestia?"

Uncle shrugged, careless. "Concepts of what death entails change with time. Anubis is the god of death, in the ideas and ideals of remembrance and respect. The preparation of bodies used to take place at home--and still does, in many places. It fit very well in Hestia's concepts, and so she was and remains a goddess of death and home. That idea of death lives on in her and death gods like her."

That made… a little more sense.

"Death as a kindness," Alex murmured, remembering Granddad, remembering the way he had felt, when Uncle had been there, being kind--when his uncle had not been a trickster, but something else entirely--death with family, death at home.

(The Puck is many things, but only one at a time.)​

"Not one we should look forward to, unless you're suffering, of course. Things change, Alex." A ruffle of his hair drew him from his thoughts, made him focus, and he blinked up again, because Uncle was still speaking, calm and patient.

"Concepts change. Concepts, like many things, are an idea. Things born from the mind. And my dear cousin Wotan is born of a very special concept. A story. A story of a mortal in a faraway land--which actually as it turns out is another planet, go figure. A story that was so important to the world that our very own Wotan came into being before the story even took place, making him, in fact, older than the mortal whose story created him."

Uncle grinned then, sudden and bright, a flare of sunshine on a gloomy afternoon. "It was really, really funny the first time they came face to face. Turns out that my cousin Wotan is incredibly unimpressed by Alien Odin, and I'm pretty sure my cousin Wotan gives Alien Odin a headache because he relentlessly hits on his wife, who to be fair is very pretty for a mortal. But Alien Odin and Alien Odin's Wife are very happy together and have two sons, the younger of whom was pontificating in Stuttgart for some reason."

Alex stared.

Sometimes Uncle's explanations made even less sense than the things he was trying to explain.

Not only did that not make any sense, but also, "Why is there time travel without time travel? Is the Phoenix from Avalon too?"

Uncle rolled his eyes, but refrained from snorting, so it hadn't been too stupid a question. "If you want to get strictly technical about it, sure. The mists of Avalon are like and unlike the Phoenix Gate. So long as the moment has not passed by, the mists will deliver you there. However, when dealing with long-range, high-powered, interplanetary alien laser beam transportation systems? Avalon can step on the Phoenix's tailfeathers and send information back in time to itself."

What.

Uncle occasionally had trouble framing concepts in ways that a human-raised child could understand, though he was getting better at it as Alex got older, but this was… worse than usual.

Alex took a breath. "Okay, so we have two Odins: the one, Wotan, that's your cousin, and then the other one, a mortal, alien Odin. That's good, because we have two stories, one where Loki's his sworn brother, and the other where he's his son. Since you said that tacky headwear guy there was an alien, that means that alien Odin was his... father? Which leaves your cousin Wotan as the brother, if that's a thing that's true." Alex sighed unhappily as he turned and leafed through the first book again. "The name thing is confusing, Uncle."

Uncle gave a little hum of amusement, one of those ones that was half-mischief, half-mystery. "Alex is Alex, is Alexander, that is the mortal way. But Puck is the Puck, is a Púca, is a hob, is Mercury, is Pan, is Owen, is Robin and Goodfellow and Ἑρμάhας, is many things."

Alex glanced up from the book, smirking slightly. "You have too many names, Uncle." And you left the most important ones off the list--I know we don't mean that little to you, so why the omission?

"That's what happens when you're old," Uncle said serenely, but left his unspoken question unanswered. "What else, then?"

Alex's brow furrowed in thought. "Odin-The-Alien has his son Loki, who then ends up… uh, Phoenix Gate, so... time traveling to the past? And has adventures with Wotan-The-Cousin and became his sworn blood brother?"

Uncle flashed him a thumbs-up, and Alex gnawed on his inner cheek, one detail nagging at him. "Uncle? How big of a deal is that? Being blood brothers?"

Blood and blood magic, kin of blood and kin of choice. Old, old things, old as Uncle, old as the world itself.

In front of him, the books flipped their own pages, and a few lines grew bright and golden.

Freki and Geri | does Heerfather feed,
The far-famed fighter of old:
But on wine alone | does the weapon-decked god,
Othin, forever live.(2)

And then next to it, in the other book​

"Remember, Othin, | in olden days
That we both our blood have mixed;
Then didst thou promise | no ale to pour,
Unless it were brought for us both."(3)

​

Metaphor, of course, but a powerful one. Whether it was the alien Odin or his uncle's cousin didn't really matter--the meaning was the same.

"It's a pretty big deal, isn't it, Uncle?"

No answer.

Alex looked up, but his uncle was at the side of the room, by a mirror that hadn't been there a moment earlier--one that maybe hadn't existed a moment earlier. He was going investigating, then.

Alex straightened up, abandoning the books to trot over to his uncle's side. "Can I come with?"

---

A fair question, given the boy's talents, and his natural curiosity, but Puck shook his head regardless. "No. Loki is being weird, and I do not want you catching space cooties, Alex." Alien magic varied between kind of icky to deadly to be around, and Alex wasn't even an adult yet by human standards, never mind his own.

In general, aliens were disgusting, with their foreign magic and strange physics, and he'd booted more than a few of them off-planet in his younger years, when the treaty was newer, and less respected among the nine realms.

The Aesir were tolerable, practically human, and didn't grate on the senses. But they were still aliens, and Alex was a child. "When I'm sure it's safe, I'll bring you closer so you can learn what they feel like."

He frowned slightly, considering. Wherever Loki and Thor were, there was a great deal of metal, and enough iron that he wouldn't feel wholly comfortable flitting through all of the walls. Fortunately, nearly any reflective surface would do, and those could be found in abundance near the alien princes.

Giving his student a brief nod and a wordless command to stay, he dove through the mirror and out of a computer monitor conveniently close by the Aesir's location.

The quick movement belied the magnitude of the move--he hoped Alex had learned something by witnessing it, at least--and he took a moment to orient himself in the unfamiliar space.

...a flying aircraft carrier. Vogel's government contracts were working out well for Cyberbiotics, it seemed.

--and was that the Tesseract? Surely Loki knew better than to try to take that off-planet; it had been left on Earth as a part of the reparations after the war. Megalomaniacal speeches aside, Loki wouldn't be foolish enough to take any actions that would threaten the treaty, unless things had changed significantly in the few centuries that had passed since last he had seen him.

But the Tesseract was also--

He looked in the direction of New York, eyes narrowed.

Curious indeed.

The walls were somewhat unpleasant to deal with due to their ferrous content, though the metal had been heavily cut through with lightweight materials, likely for the sake of flight. There was enough iron in them to prevent him from projecting his powers from room to room outside of the line of sight unless he got creative--and line of sight was a very flexible concept for the Third Race. But there wasn't enough that he wouldn't be able to force his way through the walls, uncomfortable as it would be, and there were sections where there was even less iron, where any unpleasantness would be barely noticeable.

Alex, mostly mortal as he was, would have no problem at all if he ever had to infiltrate or exfiltrate a structure such as this. It was trickier to gauge how Fox might react--iron rarely troubled her at all, but when she was trying to move through matter was one of the few times that it did.

And of course there were the sections where there wasn't a single trace of ferrous material at all. A clear sign of Vogel's touch; meant to allow passage for that which others would fail to believe in. So considerate! he thought as he slid through polyglass doors like they weren't even there. He does pay attention. I should send him a fruit basket.

There were only humans on this ship, little government drones that he ignored as he slipped past them, as he followed his awareness downwards in the ship, humming along with the siren voice of an infinity gem in a place where it ought not be.

Downwards, there was Mjolnir, linked to Thor's innate power, rumbling in the background like a well-tuned engine. A vibrant cycle of energy, like drinking down a lightning strike; a solid meal compared to the Tesseract's slow, steady swell, one which lifted all boats, but that was, generally speaking, fairly unpalatable.

And there--a bright crackle of power, familiar and sweet--

Tony Stark, you clever thing, what on earth are you up to?

---

He found Tony in the heart of the vessel, chattering away, surrounded by a dozen flashing screens--schematics, radiation, and some sneaky backdoor hacking that the government drones hadn't yet noticed. Tony was talking a mile a minute, sifting through reams of data and batting his lashes at a quiet little--

Wait.

Neither so quiet nor so little as he seemed, then. So that was the Hulk.

Hmm.

And Tony at his side, standing a little too close, bright-eyed and warm-voiced, sharp and playful. He was all charm and coaxing, shameless overtures couched in devil-may-care fearlessness and… offers of blueberries, apparently. Was he making a friend?

Whatever-Hulk's-real-name-was ducked his head with a shy smile, glancing over at Tony through lowered lashes.

He was making friends. How cute!

But more importantly, that? Was not the Tesseract.

The war reparations stated that Earth was entitled to one infinity gem. Just one. Back when the treaty had first been created, they had not been particularly forthcoming with the Aesir about the fact that one had already been present on Earth, on account of it being none of their business, and also Bor hadn't asked. Besides, the Time Stone was disgusting, it had plenty of mortals to fuss over it already, and what the Aesir didn't know wouldn't hurt them.

So when the Tesseract had been offered to them as part of the war reparations, they'd given something of a collective shrug and taken it in lieu of any better offerings. Oberon had even been polite enough to wait for the Aesir delegation to leave the planet before he'd chucked the thing somewhere vaguely northward and washed his hands of the matter.

If he recalled correctly, the treaty hadn't specified anything about which gem had to remain on the planet; the Tesseract had just been left on Earth because it was the one that Asgard had been in possession of at the time.

Were the princes here to exchange the gems? That sounded like the kind of thing the humans would want to stick their noses into, and it was possible that Asgard might need the Tesseract back for some purpose or another: it and the Mind Gem had completely different properties, after all. Odd, though, that Avalon hadn't been contacted about the matter--

--but then, of course, they might have been, and he would have no way of knowing about it. And they'd hardly pass the message along to him, no matter that he was the only Child out in the world, no matter that of course he'd go looking, that of course he should have been told--however benign their intentions, there were Aesir on the planet, and that meant the possibility of a threat.

Loki was fairly adept at wrangling his brother, but they were both still young, and Thor in particular had a reputation of being impulsive and careless--surely the princes knew better than to mess about with the humans and the gems at the same time, but humans as a species had a way of getting involved with things they oughtn't, so that might have complicated matters. It didn't matter either way--if the princes were here on official business then something was going on and he should have been told --

Calm. He would be calm. He was in the same room as an infinity gem, and Tony had an extremely delicate, extraordinarily powerful energy source in his chest and a heart condition; even the slightest flare of his power could cause a chain reaction that could kill Tony outright, to say nothing of the entire Eastern Seaboard.

He'd not be bringing Alex here. Avalon only knew how a quarter-Fae child might react to a gem that was so close, and so sweetly accessible.

Nasty thing.

Infinity gems always were more trouble than they were worth; that was what they had the mortals in Kamar-Taj for; that was why they hadn't bothered to keep track of where the Tesseract had wandered. It was on Earth and that was all that mattered.

The Tesseract had been useful, at the time, able to halt some of the rot caused by the Jotun invasion, but not to repair it, at least not at first. And never fully; even with two gems on Earth, such scars would only fade in time, and that time would be measured in millennia, not centuries. It was only just coming to fruition, as the Children reckoned such things.

The land had been replenished, but the Tesseract hadn't been able to aid those crippled in the first invasion, its foreign energies too inedible for the weaker Children to consume--and of course it was only those weaker Children who'd had need of it, for what use would such an energy source be to an Elder, let alone an Annunaki? He and his brethren all had too much power to begin with; the last thing any of them needed was more.

(And no one liked the Time Stone. Leave that for the mortals to deal with.)​

The presence of three infinity gems on the planet would certainly account for his late unease--anything could happen, and likely would, if the humans were poking at them. Tony was far more skilled a scientist than most, so it was a positive sign that he'd been called in by… whichever government agency this was, but some caution would be prudent.

Best that the boys traded the gems quickly, and be done with it.

Still… he hovered closer to the staff, basking in its cosmic energies. Alien, yes, and thusly grating and unpleasant, yet unlike most alien powers, nourishing. Powerful and warming--one did not often feel strength like this outside of Avalon itself.

Or Mother.

Not a good thought to be having.

The staff and its gem would be safer with him, but it was in the possession of mortals, and so Oberon's Law kept him from taking it, from even picking it up if it fell, unless the mortals placed it into his waiting hands of their own free will.

He could make that happen.

He could probably just put his fist underneath the gem and then it would be his.

And David would be able to do so much with it. He could bring Alex here and the child could take it up with ease--but only if such a thing wouldn't endanger him, as it inevitably would, as the gems inevitably did to all their bearers.

If the Asgardians were doing what he thought they were doing, though, such a move would be impolitic. The mortals had been studying the Tesseract since World War Two, or Four, if you counted such matters in the immortal way. They'd be loath to give it up, even in exchange for a new infinity gem.

A game, then. Perhaps Loki had played at being the bad cop, likely to show that Asgard could retake the Tesseract at will, and he had gotten a bit carried away with his playacting--if so, then he'd rather overacted the part. While in Germany, no less. For all that the boy was a child, he wasn't an idiot. It had been far too heavy-handed a ploy--what on Earth was the little princeling up to this time?

But before he left to check on their alien visitors… it wouldn't be interfering, not really, and his Lord's Decree was incredibly vague regarding precisely what protecting Alexander Xanatos actually entailed--

(But then when had his Lord ever bothered to think things through --)​

--and it really would be best for the safety of the people of New York, including Alex, if Tony Stark and the Hulk played nicely together while they studied alien artifacts that had been known to interact strangely with humans.

And besides, he liked Tony. He always had, ever since a very young Tony Stark had blinked huge dark eyes up at David and blurted, half-maniacal with glee, "Dude, what are you even saying; yes, my answer is yes, of course my answer is yes; I will absolutely help you stick an ancient Scottish castle on top of a skyscraper!"

It was a matter of a moment's concentration and the barest whisper of a touch, a gentle brush of power to strengthen and deepen the newly-birthed affinity already blossoming between the two.

A blessing on your courtship, Tony, Puck murmured, and was gone.

---

The little government drones had stuck Loki in what appeared to be a giant, extra-thick polyglass isolation chamber. A bit of an overreaction, perhaps, but humans always did take such offense at bad monologuing, not that he could blame them for it.

Whatever game Loki was up to, at the moment he seemed to be patiently waiting for the next move, so he gave the boy a cursory glance and--

He needs a sandwich.

Why hadn't Thor taken care of that yet? Thor generally played the well-meaning idiot to his brother's subtle genius, and very few people realized how often that was intentional on both of their parts. Perhaps they were playing up the conflict between them for some obscure political reason that he couldn't bother to even pretend to care about--it would hardly be the first time that they'd pulled such a ploy. The current circumstances seemed a bit much, really, but then, they were Aesir--inherently ridiculous to the last.

Still, Wotan was terribly fond of Loki, and Loki was terribly fond of his brother, and Thor would be king of Asgard some day, so it was best to sit back and let them have at it until such a time as intervention became necessary.

The silence was twofold--within his prison, Loki hardly moved, scarcely breathing, while Thor, outside the cell, remained sullen and glaring. Neither seemed to be in open distress, Loki's need for a sandwich notwithstanding. The little prince didn't look well--a bit wild about the eyes, as he had been in the recordings from Germany. Was he still acting? If so, his performance was commendable--and perhaps he'd finally managed to drag Thor to the theater enough for the elder prince to learn how to properly play along.

...no, that's not it.

Something was off with the boy.

What was…?

--there. The eyes.

In centuries past, Loki's eyes had always been green, but now they were not.

Peculiar. Was it a sign of some sort, or a message? Clever, that, using them to signal to Thor how he should act--none of the mortals would pick up on such a subtle detail, especially since the lot of them had likely never met Loki before.

He slid past the glass, drawing closer to the--

--not an Aesir.

Half-wrapped in Void, half-strangled by the power of an infinity gem, and cold, cold as ice, cold as death and poison, ruination and rot--the inherent, instinctive glamors of a true-born mage stretched and fraying, shredded to moldering tatters all around him--

Jotun.

(Kill it!!)​

Jotun, and yet not--Jotun, and yet Aesir. Jotun, and yet fae.

And underneath it all, still Loki. There was a soul there, a mortal soul, familiar, and though twisted and ragged, bent and rent--

The prince of Asgard, the diplomat, the scholar, world-walker and liesmith, blood-brother to his kin--a Jotun.

Odin Borson, what the hell have you done?

---

1: Alex didn't seem to appreciate the quote, or its implications, judging by the set of his jaw, and his heavy-browed expression looked bellicose rather than understanding, rather like his mother always looked in the moments before she broke someone's ribs.

(Fox and David were always so offended by reminders of his forced humanity.Despite everything, he'd chosen well.)

​

2: Poetic Edda:
Bellows, H.A. (1936). Grímnismál. Internet Sacred Texts Archive. The Poetic Edda: Grimnismol


3: Poetic Edda:
Bellows, H.A. (1936). Lokkasenna. Internet Sacred Texts Archive. The Poetic Edda: Lokasenna

 

[NemiTheNen]

Wotan's section is called "Secret Faegent Man" in the draft.

It may interest you guys to know there's hour by hour spreadsheet outline for this fic.

--
Avalon
--

Oberon walked his domain, the path opening beneath his feet, the boughs above him curving into splendid halls, or parting to allow the sky to see what it mirrored as his whims changed. He was Oberon, over all, and all things, but he was first and foremost a sky god, sky-father, and his preferred form reflected his function: blue-skinned, white-haired, the sky his countenance and his whisper the wind.

He sought out the Children as the thought occurred to him, or to say it truly, he sought out trouble as the bright sparks of flaring power reached him.

He did not approve of such dangerous sensations upon Avalon, and those best suited to war kept their power muted, razor edges sheathed, at least to the extent that he himself could manage for his own. Avalon had once been well-watered with its own Children's blood, and Oberon would permit no more. No more would their people cut each other open to bleed into the world, nor drink of life unless it had been willingly given. That was why he had fought that bloody first war, that was why, when his living contemporaries could be counted on two mortal hands, they all still counted it as a great victory.

That was perhaps why even those who had known him in his youth, even those few who were his elders, called themselves "The Children of Oberon" with fondness, and even pride. They were the Third Race, the youngest of the three that still walked the Earth--younger than the gargoyles, younger than the humans. The eldest race, nameless and largely unmourned, was long since dead, lost when all the world was young, though some few survivors had aided them before passing.

(Endlings, the humans would have called them. The last of their kind.)​

As one of the eldest that walked amongst his people, as their Lord, it was his responsibility to protect them--and there was an unspoken agreement among the eldest of the Children, both those that had fought by his side and those that had been born during the war, that denying the existence of the Mother of their race and any hand she had in their creation, was a civil service.

Thus those who knew how to wield the sharp'd blades of power held them still, and the true Children, who did not, barely bristled before an elder intervened, lest they bring harm to themselves and those around them. What teeth the young ones had were made keen by cutting through each others' enchantments, and not each others' skins, though now among their people such things were considered nearly one and the same.

(All the better that they considered broken enchantments to be violence. Then they need not turn to breaking each other save in the crudest, most physical of ways.


There had already been six brawls since the Gathering began. Old grudges held too long, but who was he to stop their play? So long as they caused no harm to others, the Children were free to scrap amongst themselves as they would.


Also, it was funny.)​

There was a brief flash of otherness against his senses, the hint of a headache, but not quite a thing of pain. Such moments had been plaguing him these last few hours, and had been a brief irritant yesterday as well. Perhaps the Aesir were threading the Bifrost through the mists, to place their armies exactly where they had to be; or perhaps there had been a solar flare; or perhaps; some other cosmic radiation intruding upon the breadth of the world and the power the Children of Avalon were tied to. It mattered not: the borders were secured through both the treaty with the Aesir and through the other realms' rightful fear of the might and clever minds of his people.

Besides, the sensation was there and gone again in the space of an eyeblink. A short time, even in the greater world, given that an hour upon Avalon was a full day there.

Still, he had been experiencing a vague sense of disquiet as of late. Nothing so strong or clear as he'd had when dealing with that wretch of a Child, such that he had felt the need to go looking for that which was his, to investigate the sense of what-could-be more thoroughly. Yet it was enough to disconcert him, though it was also true that his foreknowledge had always tended towards the strange and pessimistic, even amongst his own race.

(The prophecies of the Lord of Avalon were no longer true.


No one wished them to be.)​

As his Mother before him, Oberon was uniquely blessed to have an awareness of the possibilities of the future, rather than merely the strongest currents of fate and fixed points, as those Children gifted with prophecy did. All futures and living things had been equal beneath Her feet; Oberon had only seen the worst of all possible worlds.

In those days, his visions had been all too accurate.

In these days, he preferred not to think about it.

(And a poisonous whisper from that absent servant:

Since when do you think?)​

It was this disquiet that sent him away from the palace, from his queen's side, out into his lands: that he might steady himself in the wilds of Avalon, in the company of the Children, for it was passing strange to be alone in his home. It was a comfort to be out amongst them, assuring himself that they still lived, that they would continue to live, that they would thrive and suffer not.

(Never again.

Let that be a failure to end in death. May he be cast down for becoming like unto Her.)​

As he passed, the Children acknowledged him as they desired, or ignored him if they wished; the tilt of his head and the set of his hands made clear that he was neither seeking nor spurning company.

And as ever, the Children's decisions were their own. They were beings in their own right and not extensions of his will, as Avalon was, as She had considered all of them, before.

It was odd for his thoughts to turn so reminiscent, especially twice in the space of thrice as many breaths. But perhaps not; their wedding feast had only recently ended, and he and Titania had first wed at the end of that war.

(Or the start. He rather liked the idea that they had wed to open the war, and feasted to close it. She had not won him in battle; rather they had chosen one another beneath the threat of a glittering claw.

Titania had always left before she could be split open for daring to look upon him.)​

...there was a connection there, a thread of thought, as there was a connection between which of the Children chose to bow and curtsy the deepest, and the bindings that he had affixed to them in punishment for their transgressions.

...had he even taken off Banshee's gag yet? Oberon recalled why she had been bound: the fight with Wotan which had nearly broken his mirror. It was likely that she had been in an ill mood at being dragged home by The Three, and though he had been willing to permit her temper, and deeply amused by her antics, he had not approved of her carelessness.

Oberon did not recall if he had yet lifted her punishment, but time enough had passed that he might reconsider the matter. While he felt the urge to dismiss the thought, as he had so often during the long centuries abroad, he knew he could do so no longer. These were his subjects, his Children, settled safely at home once again, and so their concerns could and should not be beneath his notice. He was better than that.

So, as another flicker of not-pain whispered behind his eyes, Avalon made known his will to the Children upon it. As the Children had known about the Gathering, so too did they now know that their lord was willing to consider all punishments open to adjustment, if a penitent Child chose to present their claim.

Then a migraine ripped its way from the back of his head to the front and made every carefully tamed tine of his power flare; the sky was rent, his skull ripped open, his knees upon the earth.

The sensation of being torn open was so strong that he instinctively fought the urge to drop all pretenses of flesh so that he might strike more strongly against the alien wrong that now assaulted his world--it would be easy, nearly effortless, requiring but a moment's thought--

(The wrongness helped him stay aware; better that than the nectar-sweet presence above him.

It did not matter. The answer to both was the same: take it and suffer.)​

--but to do so would put the Children in danger, and that he could not allow.

(It was easy to take pain for the Children; it always had been; it always would be.)​

It took agonizingly long moments to work through the pain, the light and the darkness and everything between, to keep his power tightly leashed within the confines of his current form. When he could concentrate enough to see again, Avalon had warped around him--a dense forest of twisted wood and bladed thorns where once had been lush fields and shaded valleys, the land itself immediately and instinctively reshaped to protect the Children who dwelled therein--bramble was the barbed wire of a forgotten age.

A step, a stumble, and he caught himself on a gnarled trunk that now showed its age, a long-ago weapon now rewrought in this moment of urgency. The poisoned thorns yielded before his flesh, splintering beneath his hand, and with a breath and another step he crossed the breadth of the island to stand in his own hall, to nigh-stagger, near-fall, and then catch himself on the side of his mirror.

Iron and silver alloyed and wrought, the frame burned where he grasped it, but grounded him. A slap on its surface, a splayed and dragging hand, brought the disruption into focus: a whirling hole in reality, in the cloak of his world, an aspect of himself rent asunder, a great wound belching forth a plague to rain upon his realm.

(He did not panic; this was merely the pain of the world being breached again. Not the killing agony of his world being remade; not their magic made poison.

This was just pain, just invasion, just annoyance.)​

All upon Avalon heard its lord's word; the ground trembled and their bones resonated with the sound. He had not raised his voice.

WHAT.

---

--
The Eyrie Building, New York City
May 4, 2012, 5:37 PM
--

I need to know more. I can use this, his beloved whispered, fierce and angry and gleeful, as he pulled the three of them close, his power a green curling mist that flowed around them like a living thing; a counterpart to Alex's too-fast heartbeat, unsettlingly visible beneath the thin skin of his throat; a counterpart to Fox's measured silence, the sharp clarity in her faintly-luminous eyes.

It was hard to look at Puck directly, and so none of them dared; a glance at his eyes was like catching the light of the sun.

His wife and son were carefully still within his husband's grasp, wincing away from something David himself could not perceive. He reached up a cautious hand and squeezed his husband's shoulder--flesh enough for that, at least--and saw him settle, not in form, but in the subtle relaxation of Fox and Alex's shoulders.

"There's not much we can do," he admitted quietly, the words echoing strangely within the soft hum of his husband's magic. "We can't get past Tony's housekeeping, and SHIELD is completely beyond our means right now."

Use magic, his husband commanded as he turned his head to stare at Alex--Alex who pressed his cheek harder against David's shoulder in response, but did not flinch.

All must be known to me, Puck continued, a soft murmur that lingered too long in the back of his mind, and David watched through half-lidded eyes as his husband withdrew his hand from Fox's shoulder and pushed his hair back, the green light that limned his form leeching off and collecting in his palm, which he then proffered--a will o' the wisp, green instead of the usual blue-white, its corona angular and slow-moving instead of the usual light flame.

Fox and Alex reached for it, the same movement in the same moment, and held it between their cupped hands, eyes cast low to its flame.

Use this in your seeking, rest your own powers while I secure the area. Puck laughed a little, though at what David couldn't guess, voice distant, almost an echo, and he was abruptly reminded of old, old stories, relegated to myth, now, but once, once they had been true--

Were still true, when the myth yet lived.

Impossible to know what his husband was thinking, what he was seeing, to know what he even was right now--

(The gut-punch of the moment when he'd first realized what that changeability had meant; the extent of what his not-yet-husband had lost--)​

But he had always known that about his husband, even before they were friends, all that he had researched after the wooden man had shed his human guise and offered him a goblin's deal, the impossible choice between a single wish freely-granted by the true being, or a lifetime of service from the false.

(They were the same being, he'd soon realized.

And what was immortality without good people by your side?)​

But knowing and understanding were two different things, and he hadn't understood, not until later, not until after everything he'd thought he'd known shattered in one long midsummer nightmare.

Not until it was far too late.

It was different for Alex and Fox; with the magic that made them what they were, they could see him better, could more clearly tell in any given moment what it was that he had chosen to become.

And that was the key: the in-laws were a terror, but they were in-laws, and if the Eye cursed Fox and made her a wild beast? Well, that wasn't him, was it?

But this…

This was, and it always had been.

This was, and would always be.

This was his husband.

This was...

Puck's arm firmed around David's shoulders as he reached up and brushed a hand against Fox's hair, then Alex's, caressing the copper strands with fingers wreathed in heatless, heartless green flame. His lips were curled in a slight smile; fondness for the weary, perhaps, or affection for the mortals who burnt out long before he would.

(Or could? Impossible to know.)​

You used a lot of energy in the fight, Puck murmured, you should rest.

David closed his eyes, inhaled, and tightened his grip on his husband's shoulder, ignoring the way the unfamiliar, blood-soaked armor beneath his fingertips didn't make a sound even when it should, ignoring the soft hissing from his own armor--the metal was stable, wasn't overheating, wasn't tearing, but something about the contact between the two...

(Capable of coexisting in the same place, but utterly incompatible.

No!)​

Mortal spells were in old tongues, and elvish was once eldritch.

His husband was speaking directly into their minds--he hadn't actually verbalized anything in hours.

(Not since that last, terrified spell; that final, desperate blessing, a god's last prayer bound to a mortal form, hurtling into the skies and beyond them.

He hoped that it had been enough.

He hoped that Tony was still alive.

He hoped, he hoped, he hoped.)​

It was well within the realm of possibility that he'd simply…forgotten. About words, and the necessity of using them.

And even as the three of them stood there, wife and husband and child safely cocooned within the endlessly shifting swirls of Puck's magic--the breath his husband did not breathe, the heart that did not beat--

(Magic all around him, an endless void below, and the truest terror he'd ever felt as his beloved turned and walked away--you can't leave me now we can't do this we can't do this without you--!

And then that vicious twist of regal spite--no, please no, not like this, never like this!--and they'd struggled through and come out the stronger for it, and he loved his husband and always would, but sometimes an atavistic whisper in the back of his mind still hissed that the faerie king was far cleverer than anyone had realized, because Puck couldn't leave and they were trapped here with him forever--)​

--beneath his husband's beneficent touch, his wife and child flinched.

Nothing to do for it but this.

David Xanatos opened his eyes, smiled at his husband, and held on.

But his husband wasn't looking at him.

He wasn't looking at any of them.

He was looking elsewhere, beyond the castle walls and further, lips curled in a faint, eerie smile; what had started as gentleness now lost to the thing he had become, the thing he had let himself be.

(Shapeshifter, the stories said, but it was a poor descriptor for the truth of him.

Infinite and unfathomable--and every inch his father's son.)​

---

--
Avalon
--

The portal dwindled 'ere Lord Oberon could move to action, and so he bade the Three go out into the world as his eyes and ears.

To all who dwelled upon his sacred isle, Oberon commanded that none would leave without permission, that none could gaze into waters nor mirrors nor fire, nor anything else, to see beyond its shores.

To even his lady wife he said this: that their realm may be at war, and so upon Avalon one of them must remain, to ensure the safety of the Children, and hold fast the power of the throne.

To his heir he said this: "You who are half born of Our world, you who have shared blood outside Our kin and so have the power and the right, you who may wander the stars because of your birth; go forth silently, and see wherefore and whither our allies have gone."

"By your will," said Wotan, clad in the blue of Avalon's Lord, and he bowed and was gone.

Into the water went noble Wotan, wading first as a man, then swimming as a great polar bear. Into the mists mighty Wotan swam—

"Bloody buggering eternal waterfalls," he snarled as he paddled harder.

When clear from the mists, but not clear to the eyes of Asgard, he paused mid-paddle and wondered aloud, "What the hell happened to the Bifrost?"

The prismatic bridge was broken, now half the length it had been before. There were rafts of a sort anchored to it, floating below, densely strung with nets. They served as the basis for the scaffolding, seemingly there to reinforce the pylons, and gave access from all sides so that the workers could climb up from below to make repairs to the bridge. There were Aesir atop the bridge as well, ones dressed in the sweeping layers preferred by engineers and architects, attending to its broken edges and calling out orders to the laborers below.

This was new information, relevant to the task at hand, but Wotan was not pleased with it, for it meant he had further to go before he could stand again.

Out of the water came Wotan. Out in a great unseen plume. Out came Wotan, flying to the bridge, and landed he behind Heimdall, whose eyes could see all.

Well, all save that which anyone with a hint of Avalon's power or knowledge didn't want him to see. Wotan had no desire to play at formalities with the Asgardians when there was spying to do.

Heimdall seemed well, from what he could tell from a cursory inspection. As for the broken shards of the Bifrost, Wotan was uncertain; the edge was jagged, splintered--it had been shattered, not cut.

This broken thing was his father, as symbolic as Gungnir, the ever-thrusting spear. Its power had cleaved into Avalon's mists, carrying with it a story that reverberated through the ages; an endlessly-rippling light in the sea of time. And with that light, so, too, he had become.

In the great river that was Fate, this world had known its end drew near long before it happened. It knew the stories of its saviors long before they were called to its defense, tales strong enough that even the mortals of Midgard heard their echoes. The story of Odin Borson had been etched into the mists with the Bifrost, and Wotan had been born of it.

Wotan had never felt anything for this object, save an admiration for its colors, and being vaguely impressed that mortals, however long-lived, had managed to construct it. Now that it was broken he suspected he should feel something, yet he did not--at least not anything personal. Apparently Anubis felt the same way about the battlefield that had birthed him: a general indifference occasionally touched by melancholy.

This at least explained why Asgard had not brought its armies to Earth's defense: with the Bifrost broken, there would be no way to send Aesir troops across the Void between realms.

And didn't Heimdall stay in the Observatory at all times? Yet the Observatory was gone, and Heimdall was still here. Had they known that the Bifrost was going to break, and thus had him evacuated? Or had he managed to escape its destruction on his own merits?

The man was uninjured, but Wotan knew not how long it had been since the bridge had shattered. Frowning, he shook the cloak of his other form into a cloak of stars, and ventured forth. A wanderer once more, he walked unseen amongst the workers, letting them drift around him.

They worked with good cheer, not as people at the site of a disaster. This was good, Wotan thought, as he walked, and in passing them gave them no more mind as he pressed on into the city. He did not stop at the great golden gate that led into the city, shining and bright. He simply slipped through its tightly closed doors. It was hardened against most magics, but all knew that the Children were the most deft with magic of any in the Nine Realms, and none would be so rude or foolish as to deliberately attempt to keep them out, for even beyond their own world, the Children were spoken of, in rumors at least. Beings of their type were rare, and Wotan, in his wanderings with Loki, had only heard of a few species who were akin to them, including the giant planet-eaters, and nobody liked (or ever saw) those.

In truth, Wotan had never met anything truly like his own race, no beings who were creatures of pure magic, as they were. Even the so-called Celestials left behind mortal remains, skulls and brains, great corpses the size of worlds littered amongst the stars.

(Loki though, Loki was close. Though he ate meat and meal, though he drank mead and milk, Loki was a manavore almost as much as the Fae were. When he took his little brother to Avalon he almost seemed true kin once he had breathed his fill.)​

Of course, the Celestials were not tied to planets in the same way that his own people were--well, presumably; Wotan rather thought no one had bothered asking one for its planetary affiliation, or asked exactly how they came to exist--and according to rumors they were much more powerful than even Mab had been. Perhaps others that were akin to the Children would be as bound to their worlds as most Children were to Earth, and so would not be well-known to outsiders.

Maybe he'd go looking again with Loki when all this was over and done with and once Loki's own business had settled down. He'd been careful not to ask his brother for any particulars regarding his plans for Thor's coronation, not that Loki would have shared them. He was much too cautious for that.

Beneath his feet the Bifrost was inlaid into the metal and stone of solid ground. As he walked forward, the prismatic crystal branched out, and branched again and again, forming the basis of one of Asgard's telecommunication networks. The largest section continued on straight to the Palace. For now, Wotan ignored it.

Instead, Wotan went into the city, into taverns for their ales and mead, and for their rumors and stories.

And also to escape the glare. Why did the Aesir build everything from such brassy metal? It offended the eyes, though it was so easy to step through. At least the poorer quarters were built from good solid stone, reinforced with the warp and weft of mortal magics and Asgardian science.

As he lingered and listened, Wotan noticed a peculiar thing, because it was something that his brother had occasionally complained about, though usually only after being coaxed, or whenever he was drunk on the offerings of Avalon's vineyards. The peculiar thing was this: none of the stories about the royal family that Wotan heard ever seemed to mention him. In these places, Loki was not merely diminished within his people's tales, as Loki had claimed, but cast out from them entirely.

The stories were told. Sif, yes; Hogun, yes; Fandral, yes, both for conquests and conquests; Volstagg, yes; Thor, yes and yes and yes again. But there was little mention of Loki.

"Has anyone seen the Princes lately?" Wotan called, and though no one heard him, everyone did.

The Prince walked the city every day since the bridge had been broken, from the palace to Heimdall and back again. He smiled at everyone, it was said, and he was kind to the children that came to greet him.

Grief had gentled their once-brash Prince, softened and stilled him, and Wotan turned away from those tales, for he did not wish to hear.

At least that much of his brother's plan had borne fruit, though it did little to quell the dread that had slowly begun to take root in his heart since the first moment he'd seen the light catching on the broken edges of that which had borne him.

Wotan went to another tavern, one closer to the places of learning. There were fewer people here, for many were at the bridge, making repairs, though a sleepy few remained, supping while off-shift, or clutching potent drinks to drowsy bosoms in an attempt to awaken for one.

"Tell me your favorite story about the Prince," Wotan commanded them, and sat back to listen.

It was in this place that the stories of Loki spilled forth, tankards raised in both salutation and spite for a young prince lost before his time.

...as he had feared, in the silence.

Wotan drank too. He drank too, too much, and kept the meaning deep, deep in his heart, where he dared not think about it. He brought with him a cup of wine, and then to the palace he went.

If the Bifrost was his father, male form to the mother mists, then here was the seed that fertilized the mists: Odin Borson, All-Father, king of his people and ruler of this realm. He sat, old and gray, worn and tired, upon his too-bright throne. It had been remodeled in the years since Loki had last spun an illusion for him, in the centuries since he himself had brought tidings from Oberon to Asgard's king.

Gaudy, thought Wotan, not for the first time, clinging to an old and familiar spite to distract from the empty ache in his chest, where a mortal heart would be.

(Where a mortal heart should be.)​

The light through the windows haloed both king and his throne, but its true radiance embraced only Asgard's queen, Frigga, who even in her grief remained beautiful as the dawn. She stood by Odin's side, calm and regal, though weariness lingered in her eyes. The mortal did not deserve her, but Wotan knew he loved her, for his own affection was born of that truth.

His lip curled. As ever, the throne room of Asgard was ostentatious, and its king disrespectful to his noble wife.

The palace of Avalon took whatever form Oberon and Titania wished it to have. Once, struck by a peculiar mood, Oberon had crafted the palace into a labyrinth of endless waterfalls, with halls of light and bowers of mist. He had set his throne beneath the crushing torrent, yet the deep pool at his feet had been still as glass, the more playful of the Children dancing upon the underside of its surface, where Titania had set her own throne in reflection to her husband's and looked down upon him to tease him gently. Great had been the amusement of the younger Children, who had spent many happy hours playing in its waters, and for them Oberon and his lady wife had crafted many glorious rainbows that the Children had used to adorn the new palace in whatever ways that they had desired.

Now, however, the great hall of Avalon's palace was simply-structured, and would likely remain so, if only for the sake of Oberon's mortal guard. Built of nothing more than plain, unpolished stone, the balconies above were crafted of unadorned, unfinished wood, and the dais was but two steps of the same. The thrones--and there were two--were high-backed and wooden, with few embellishments, and their queen and lord both shared the mortal tendency to lounge rather than sit in state upon them.

(Loki had loved the palace, its eternally-shifting structure, had wandered its changeable halls in bemused wonder, a thousand questions on his lips--no!)​

Not so in Asgard.

Wotan understood, of course. Such things had been played out by mortals again and again; those with power need not display it, but those without...

That Odin had to display his power over his wife by denying her a seat at his side, or that the culture of Asgard required it? That was worthy of mockery, and so Wotan mocked it, both in the privacy of his head and to his Lord and Queen, whose patience with such matters was tenuous at best.

He turned his gaze from Odin and his queen. Their presence would tell him nothing of what he needed to know, save that their allies were merely incapacitated instead of dead, and that was of little enough use when their world was under threat from beyond.

And he could not bear their grief as well as his own.

Instead, he went to his brother's rooms, and found them as he suspected they would be: empty, dusty, agonizing.

He stayed there for some time, and meandered about the room as if lost. The star charts on the wall, oh he recognized those suns--Loki had first shown him how to world-walk there, through cracks in Yggdrasil, and then through side space. Here was a line written in Fae light, which Wotan had lent Loki the ability to see. The line showed the clear straight path to Knowhere, which had been a fascinating bazaar of the bizarre.

That crazy collector clone had tried to collect him, leading to rather more excitement than they'd initially planned for that particular trip, and in the wake of that adventure Loki had scolded him most thoroughly for his carelessness while attempting to pry a Jotun-like infection out of his back with an iron dagger and simultaneously feeding Wotan a steady stream of magic to sustain him.

Wotan laughed when he pulled a silken curtain from where it had been tucked behind a heavier drape. It resembled a modernist painting in blue, black, and gold, but was actually one of two Nova Corps fighters that Loki had stolen and that they had immediately hotwired. An on-the-fly engine correction so they could make it out of the Oort cloud, and then they'd had a merry joyride indeed. When they finally lost their pursuit and landed on a beautiful but deadly jungle world, Wotan had transformed the craft so that his brother could fold it up and take it home as a souvenir.

And that curl of ribbon there, that was from the adventure with the Kree, the Shi'ar matriarch, and the daisy chain. Those dried flowers were from Ah'hna!tchll, with the beautiful women and carnivorous plants. Or was it from Cth'tck!ahn'nall, with the carnivorous plants that looked like beautiful women?

There were hundreds of stories around him, spread out in constellations, like the stars of the sky, like the stars of Wotan's cloak. But Wotan could not linger over them. He turned inwards and caged that pain.

He turned upwards, raised the wine he had taken, and poured out a last drink for his brother. The vintage was inferior, but it was of the home that Loki so loved, and that was enough to make it worthy.

But duty called, and Loki would understand, so Wotan took one last, lingering look around his brother's chambers, and then went to the library to read.

And he read, and he read, and he read. Then he put down the recent history about how Loki, Loki who had always returned to Asgard even when he didn't have to, Loki who would never suffer any insult to his home, Loki who was free to escape his father's kingdom any time he wished and who had never wanted to lead--how Loki had taken advantage of his father's weakness and his brother's absence and usurped the throne.

...bullshit.

Loki would never tolerate any abuse of library resources, and so Wotan neither flipped the table at which he sat nor hurled the lying tome at the wall.

Odin had been in that deep sleep of his, and Loki obviously hadn't poisoned him as he should have, as Frigga was not currently a widow now in need of Wotan's comforting. And Thor, the books all agreed, had at the time been on Earth learning humility. Asgard preferred to pass the throne down, rather than the spouse inheriting before the heir, as Avalon and all truly sane monarchical governments did, and so the throne had gone to the younger son, as custom dictated.

And now this?

Clearly something had gone wrong with the plan.

The stories claimed that Loki had joined forces with the Jotnar to cast the Nine Realms into war, and then betrayed them when he had no more use for their services.

That was absurd, of course. One could use Jotnar, certainly, but one could not betray such animals as these so-called histories claimed he had.

Authoritarian governments that controlled the media made it impossible to easily determine what was the truth and what was false, regardless of planetary affiliation. All this rewriting of history--Wotan could pick out probable fact from fiction, but if it went unsaid, there was little he could derive from it.

The Jotnar had arrived in Asgard--snuck in on their own, brought in for some plot, it mattered not--and died, Odin had fallen into the Odinsleep, Loki had become king, and at some point prior to Odin's nap Thor had been banished to Earth and returned after his brother's ascension. Knowing this, Wotan thought that it was likely that Thor had been cast to the mists, which had then deposited him exactly where he needed to be to learn his lesson.

He didn't know much of what had happened in between, however.

And Thor...Thor had originally been banished for starting a war with Jotunheim. On one hand, Jotunheim; on the other hand, even without the Casket, Jotnar were caustic to their surroundings, and any new war that occurred might spill over to other planets, like, say, Earth.

But again, it was Jotunheim. It was unfortunate that the spell all of the Children had cast together to drive them off-planet worked so slowly; not enough time had passed for the contagion to have spread all the way through the planet. Jotnar were long-lived, for mortals; not all of those that they'd battled would be dead yet. And, of course, their foul planet still existed.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, Volstagg, Sif, Hogun, and Fandral had rescued Thor from Loki's "wrongful" banishment. Apparently Loki had... tricked Odin into banishing Thor somehow? Though given Odin's temper, and Loki's duty as an advisor to his father, it seemed more likely it had been a joint decision, if not simply Odin's own--the man had always been quick to anger, and Loki loved his brother dearly. Then, on Earth, Thor with mighty Mjolnir had defeated the Destroyer armor--which was perhaps unwise, given its status as one of the more powerful of the defensive weapons used to secure Asgard's vaults, but sacrifices often needed to be made when princes were forged into kings.

He kept on reading, and in his grief, he smiled.

Loki, although he was gone, had died doing the right thing. And Thor was, in his grief, perhaps beginning to mature on his own.

His brother's plan had not failed.

But what was important was Loki. When he went home, he would speak to the other death gods, and Dionysus and Oberon, so that Loki could be properly honored for the mighty blow he had struck against their shared enemies.

And then…

And then.

Then.

Wotan closed his eyes.

--
Avalon
--

Not an hour had passed on Avalon before Oberon's mirror clouded with gold and green light.

"Wotan," he called, passing his arm in front of him. Wukong he called to them with a gesture, for he was close kin and a fabled warrior even among their own people. The Buddhist slipped behind their thrones to share in this meeting. The mirror lifted up and set itself down before he and his lady wife, revealing the image of their hybrid heir. "What news have you of our allies?"

The expression on Wotan's face was deliberately neutral. It boded ill, as did the way he immediately launched into speech without pause for breath nor greeting. "Thor was being crowned king and the Jotnar used the distraction to attempt to retake their casket. It is uncertain as to how this was managed; though the stories lay blame at Loki's feet."

Oberon snorted, while at his side Titania gave a delicate huff--they shared an opinion in this, as they did in many things. Had Loki done such a thing, it would not have been without purpose.

Behind them, Wukong shifted forward slightly, drifting nearer, twisting the miniaturized Ruyi Jingu Bang between his thumb and forefinger; the gift from the Unnamed was ever ready for battle.

Oberon did not tell him to stand down.

Wotan continued, expression flat, betraying nothing--saying nothing in gesture or breath or vestments, saying nothing in the fall of his hair with tight tight control. It was… concerning. "Against his father's wishes, Thor then left for Jotunheim with his court and his brother--either to speak to Laufey, or to make war, I know not. In the end, they engaged the Jotnar populace in battle."

"Brave of them," Titania said, tilting her head, the fall of her rose-petal hair a shimmering curtain that whispered a gentle admonishment to an absent child, "But a hollow bravery, born of foolishness."

"A foolish battle can be fun," said Oberon's elder, his voice almost cheery, tail wrapped around the now thick iron staff as he drummed his claws against his golden vambraces. "But you really shouldn't involve other people in the crossfire."

Oberon pulled his hand from beneath his chin, gesturing, fingers dancing in the air, judgment, censure. "We agree with Our lady," and ignore the commentary of chatty monkeys for now, or until such time as he chose to say something of use. It might be some time.

Instead, he continued. "For all their strength, the powers of the Aesir can only approach that of the Children with assistance from magical weapons. Those weapons that exist are few in number. The Jotnar are not without thought, nor without pride... We take it that some manner of mischief came from the encounter."

Wotan inclined his head in a nod. Only a nod, and nothing more. It boded yet more ill. "Yes. Loki, Thor, and their companions attempted to retreat via the Bifrost when their foolishness became apparent. This was not permitted by Heimdall due to the close proximity of the Jotnar. However, Odin came down to their rescue, at which point Laufey declared war. Odin retrieved his sons, and Thor was banished to the Mists, whereupon he arrived on Earth. Shortly thereafter, Odin fell into his regenerative sleep. Loki, by right of inheritance or right of rebellion, came into possession of the throne."

Oberon cast a glance at his lady wife, and she returned it, eyebrows arched; behind them, Wukong snorted. Oberon spoke for the three of them, tone musing, hands settled in reflection: "Yet you have told Us of some of the histories the Aesir have chosen to record, and that in them Loki is ill-remembered: thus We presume that, once his throne had been won, he did not keep it."

Oberon did not speak of the clear grief plaguing his heir, a grief visible from the moment he first spoke. It would be unkind to comment, when Wotan was trying so very hard not to say anything at all.

Wotan drew a long breath, but his voice was calm and even as he spoke--using only his voice, and nothing more. "The Aesir are laying blame wholly upon Loki's shoulders, claiming that Thor was banished because of him, that Odin fell to his sleep because of him. Thor's court are being called Loyalists, for they went down to Earth to rescue their erstwhile prince before what has been called Loki's assassination plot with the Destroyer armor could take place. The tales claim that with its defeat, Thor was returned to power before Loki could finish conspiring with the Jotun king to kill Odin, and saved his father from assassination."

Oberon well-recalled the Destroyer. It had served admirably when it had been wielded against the Jotnar menace during the last war; it would be a pity if it had been destroyed. The tale was nonetheless slightly peculiar--though mortals often frowned on the practice, in Oberon's experience, their objections to patricide and fratricide as methods of kingly inheritance had always been mostly theoretical. Perhaps not, in this case, but if not, why not?

He could see his own skepticism reflected in the drape of his lady wife's veils; in the soft click of Wukong's tongue, audible in the silence of the great hall.

Wotan continued, voice too even, stance too controlled. "Loki was forced into what I assume was his final triple-cross ahead of schedule, and accelerated his plans to destroy Jotunheim with the Bifrost." For a moment, Wotan averted his eyes, and let his grief show openly in his clenched hands, in the fall of his hair, in the folds of his cloak of stars, longer than usual and pooled in despair around his feet. "He's dead now; he fell from that bridge when it overloaded. Asgard now labors to repair and strengthen it…" He trailed off for a moment, then gathered himself to continue. "The repairs will take some time, so for the moment we cannot rely on Asgard's armies to defend us.

"My Lord, my Queen, my cousin," Wotan looked up again, and long had it been since a Child had last met his gaze with such pain, "My friend--my brother is dead, and I do not think the Aesir have paid the proper respects to their fallen king. I would ask..."

Oberon lifted a hand to forestall him. "We grant your request, within reason, for We find great valor in his noble attempt to strike down Our enemies. But tell Us, Wotan, did he succeed?"

Wotan closed his eyes, pained, then shook his head slowly. "I do not know. The common people of Asgard are uninterested in its foes and neighbors, as anything of interest to the defense forces would be announced by Heimdall. Thus they neither investigate nor record such events." Wotan sighed, deep and weary. "They frown upon Loki's attempted strike, for it was not a style of attack that they value, and in their eyes, there was no honor to be won. Indeed, in some records Thor is credited with stopping the attack, and is applauded for it. But the record-keepers of this realm do not care for Loki, and so there are no reports of what became of Jotunheim. It may be that such matters are classified, and thus have gone unrecorded, or that Asgard has not seen fit to send scouts out to investigate--"

"And we," Titania said, her voice a soothing balm, her hands set in reassurance, "would ask no Child, no creature, to venture to Jotunheim to find out. But you must remain on Asgard, Wotan, as it is likely that, should you return home, you would have to return there shortly, and there is yet more you may be able to discover for us.

"Wukong," she said, and beside them, he shifted, alert, waiting. "We would have you remain here, at the mirror, to be called upon if needed."

The monkey king smiled, brittle and bright, his terrible iron weapon now in his hands. "As my lady wills. Don't worry, I'll keep him out of trouble. Or at least I'll talk him down before he does anything stupid."

Wotan did not so much as protest. Instead, he inclined his head: acknowledgement, agreement, resignation. "I understand, my Queen," soft, so soft, and even. "I will do as you say, and seek more knowledge from the mortals here."

And, Wotan said, in the language without words, mourn for his brother in silence.

 

[Alkard]

Hoy cow there's a lot to unpack in here. I read it twice and it just... oof. A lot of worldbuilding in there.

I'm a bit suprised Xanatos and Stark haven't achieved mutual destruction of sorts, as neither seems the type to tolerate another supergiant in their backyard... but <shrug>.

Gargoyles is such an old, but fascinating series, though. Lots of lore. I'm guessing that if Alexander Xanatos is a teenager, this is set substantially after the end of the cartoon series?

The disdain towards the Time Stone is funny - I'm guessing the fae compare it to the Phoenix gate.

Assuming Wotan is a quasi-OC in this context, as I don't remember him either from the MCU or the Gargoyle universe

 

[NemiTheNen]

Thanks for giving this reply!

Hoy cow there's a lot to unpack in here. I read it twice and it just... oof. A lot of worldbuilding in there.

Click to shrink...

Thank you! We like world building, it is like Edin and I's favourite thing.

Funny thing is, a lot of the world building we did back in 2015 sockets almost perfectly with some MCU developments in ways that make us go mwahahaha.

Before it was named Agendas we code named the fic "Politics: the Fic."

I'm a bit suprised Xanatos and Stark haven't achieved mutual destruction of sorts, as neither seems the type to tolerate another supergiant in their backyard... but <shrug>.

Click to shrink...

Tony sells to the goverment, David doesn't. Xanatos Enterprises' is also more focused on genetics and healthcare than weapons. Jist like Cyberbiotics is more into transportation now a days (wave hello at the Helicarriar from Fortress II).

Gargoyles is such an old, but fascinating series, though. Lots of lore. I'm guessing that if Alexander Xanatos is a teenager, this is set substantially after the end of the cartoon series?

Click to shrink...

Yeah, we're using canon timelines, so Alex was born in 1996 and Avengers takes place in 2012.

The disdain towards the Time Stone is funny - I'm guessing the fae compare it to the Phoenix gate.

Click to shrink...

No, the issue with the Time Stone is that it's alien in origin.

Faeries are all across the spectrum but lean heavily towards, "Rabidly Xenophobic."

According to the creator of Gargoyles, Greg Weisman, Faerie magic does not work outside of earth. We kinda took that and...ran with it.

Basically Magic, physics, etc, can change depending on where you are in the universe, figuring out how to overcome that is how you become an interstellar power.

Some aliens/magic are meh. Some, however, are actively inimical.

Assuming Wotan is a quasi-OC in this context, as I don't remember him either from the MCU or the Gargoyle universe

Click to shrink...

Wotan is what we're calling Odin from Gargoyles to avoid textual confusion. His eye is in more episodes than he is. So he is quasi-oc in that way.

 

[Krazyfan1]

Faeries are all across the spectrum but lean heavily towards, "Rabidly Xenophobic."

Click to shrink...

that explains the racism against the Jotun

 

[NemiTheNen]

The battle's won. The danger's not done. A nightmare has some fun.

This chapter starts to get into the Warning: Fae tag on AO3, has Goliath being bitchy as a public worker.

This is also the chapter where I started soliciting things that readers wanted to see in interludes that would go up between Days, or when we can't get a full chapter up, because like most authors I am a complete slut for feedback. Alas, many passive bitches on Ao3.

--
The Eyrie Building, New York City
May 4th, 2012, 5:22 PM
--

When they'd parted, his husband had flown up over the edge of the castle and then down the side to one of the exit points they'd built into the force field emitters at the base of the building. He had permitted himself to be followed and monitored by three Search and Rescue drones at David's insistence, though it had taken them a moment--more than a moment, far too long--to get him to pay enough attention to concede to it.

Sighing in relief, David transferred the video feed to their phones, then glanced up at his wife and son, still holding the will o' the wisp between them, still concentrating, and both visibly flagging. He waved a hand deliberately over theirs to catch their attention, since poking either of them was probably a bad idea, and spoke a little more loudly than usual: "Let's eat; we should get some coffee into us so we can hold out for the night shift."

He cast a quick look over to the parapets. They hadn't taken any damage there, or anywhere else in the castle, at least as far as any of them could tell. They'd managed to get the shields up quickly enough for that, at least, though what had happened at the lower levels was a question yet unanswered. The building hadn't collapsed yet, which was a promising sign.

"Need to get the hacking done," Alex replied absently, pressing his free hand to his head, but Fox was already straightening up and placing a hand against their son's back.

"And we can eat while we're at the computers, so get moving," Fox said, firmly turning Alex in place and beginning to herd him along. "David, I don't know what kind of casualties we've had, but let's switch to siege mode and get the ambulatory noncoms bringing food and drink out to the guards."

He nodded, already pulling up the messages on his phone as Fox shoved Alex through the door to the great hall. "On it, dear, but first let's get in touch with the outside world."

She answered on the first ring--a promising sign.

"What do you want, Xanatos?" she snapped, "I'm a bit busy here!"

She was breathing hard, and sounds of clamor reached his ears: chaos in the streets, because of course that was where she'd be, out with her people and rescuing survivors. "Captain Maza, wonderful to hear your voice." We were worried. "If you can send any of your officers over to Eyrie-One I'll be happy to register them to some Search and Rescue drones. They should be effective when paired with K-9 units."

Maza snorted a laugh--that would be the adrenaline. She couldn't be too badly injured, then, or at least wasn't currently feeling it. "Wonderful, right. What are they fitted with and what's the catch?"

"Heat cameras, phone chargers, laser cutters, emergency medical supplies: morphine, topical locals, epipens, staples, coagulants. They come in teams of three and they can lift around two hundred and fifty pounds when working together. They need sentient direction, so get people who are used to working with robotics." He took a breath and continued. "The catch is that I'm trusting you; if they get misused or anything goes missing, it's not on me."

Needs must when aliens attacked, and Captain Maza seemed to be of the same mind on the issue. "Deal," she said crisply, even as renewed shouting picked up in the background. "I'll send some search teams over."

"Our people will be waiting. Goodbye--"

"Wait."

So he waited as he sent out the memo. Maybe the adrenaline was wearing off? She sounded like she was just starting to feel the effects of a painful hit that she'd ignored earlier. "Still here." Then, after glancing at the castle's internal cameras, he took a moment to check in on his husband via the feed from the drones that were tailing him.

Staring imperiously down at the chaos around him, arms folded, with that cold lack of expression, with that armor, he looked even more like--

"Why did Puck tell me to get near a mirror and then say goodbye to me when I refused? In my head?"

David thought about holding his tongue. (He didn't want to think about it.) Then he thought about what had happened. (He had to think about it.) ...fuck it. "The government hasn't slapped me with a gag order yet so fine, just--fine, fuck it." Adrenaline was wearing off on him too. He was wearing thin, too. He might as well draft a letter to the news while he was at it. "Someone fired a nuke at the city; thank fuck Tony was there--grabbed it out of the sky and took it up through the portal." He hesitated. He was never one to shy away from manipulation, and this wouldn't be, not yet. Into her stunned silence he said, carefully, carefully, "Puck grabbed your girls; he was going to save your family and mine."

David could hear Elisa breathing carefully, deeply, in through her nose and out through her mouth. She'd need comfort, David needed comfort. Reflexively, he sent a text to Alex. Reflexively, he needed to know that his son was okay.

"T-Thanks." There was fear there, not the fear of an enemy you could fight, but of an end just missed, of utter betrayal. "I--Lex said he...Cold--"

He understood, both why she spoke this way--a mind grabbing onto threads trying to make order--and then the order that she found. Owen helped, it was what he did, maybe even what he was. Puck was helpful in all of his guises; always someone's right hand, always at hand. The first major magic he'd taught Alex had been to help Coldstone and Coldfire, in his own playful way. Of course Lexington had realized it first. "--Thank him for me. Please." Renewed shouting in the background, and she swore, low and dark, "Gotta run. Good-ah--"

"I'll tell him, Captain. We'll see you later."

She laughed, startled, but not too close to hysterical. "Later, yeah, I, I like that better. I--shit. Later!"

She hung up. It wasn't offensive.

There was a sparkle in the air, warm, familiar, and then--

"Dad? Is something wrong?" Alex was barely there before he was blurting out the question, concerned and off-balance, as he'd been from the very start of this mess, even before the sky had ripped open. Sandwich hanging out of his mouth, he had come. His son. He was safe. Kept safe by the myth outside.

He did not make grabby hands at his son, he just lifted up his arm for a hug he desperately needed, and Alex didn't hesitate to burrow into his side, setting the parts of some project down to wrap both arms around him. It made it easy to tilt his phone in front of them both, to gesture at the screen with his chin. "Your uncle's making sure we won't have an alien zombie apocalypse," by smashing the heart and beheading the bodies, even as he floated still and silent between them. Wreathed in the vibrant glow of his magic, the alien corpses simply tore themselves apart around him. "It surprised me, that's all."

He hesitated for a moment, then held his thumb down on the contextual screen button. "Babe, you all right there?"

"Yes."​

It was a little unnatural-sounding, but there was less reverberation than there had been earlier, and he was using actual words again. It was probably progress. "Good, you're starting to sound better. I'm drafting letters to send to the news before anyone thinks to hit us with a gag order. My rhetoric should be fine, but if we dig up any proof from Tony I'll send that too. Unless you have any concerns?"

Puck laughed a little, and he heard it next to his ear. Don't startle; he can sense movement.

"Oh yesss, let's poke the hornet's nest."

David smiled for his husband, slow and sharp and maybe more like a Faerie than a human should be. "Some non-petty revenge does the heart good. By the by, should we notify the clean-up crews of any special procedures for disposal of the remains?"

His husband paused, then looked right into the camera David was using, visibly gathering himself: it made him look a little more like himself, and less like him. The boots and bracers didn't help, but at least he was wearing chainmail instead of solid pieces of armor, at least his hair was still loose and flowing; an echo, indisputably, but not a copy, not now, not ever.

It was easier to look at him like this, through the double layer of distance; less blinding, especially now that he was focusing more, especially now that his expression was softer, more recognizable, more like his usual self instead of like that.

"...Just to be safe, yes. Double tap every alien corpse within five blocks of a Xanatos building, or remove them from the area. The leviathans are thermally and electrically resistant, so you're going to have to go at them the old-fashioned way."

That had been an unpleasant surprise, David remembered--he hadn't much cared for the way his first electrical charge had blown up in his face. "I'll let the cleanup crews know."

"You remember where the hearts are?"​

He aimed a slightly disappointed and insulted look at the camera, and to his satisfaction the dripping green flames calmed a little, settling back from where they'd flared out from his husband's form. Beside him, Alex exhaled, slow and long. "It's fine. We're just worried."

Abruptly the curling, seeking power was back. "About me or about yourselves, hmm?" But then his husband closed his eyes and shook his head, and when he opened them again, they were the usual clear blue, even as the shimmering glow of his magic continued curling around fresh corpses and systematically dismembering them. "...I'm not exactly safe to be around right now."

More like not exactly around sane right now, he thought, but there was no need to voice it--his husband already knew it, anyway. "We're family," was what David said instead, grip tightening around their son's shoulders, and what he meant was: you came back.

(The only thing that had ever mattered, that would ever matter--


He'd come back.)​

It won him a hint of a smile, and if his husband's incisors seemed unusually prominent today, well, at least it was a smile for them, and not for their enemies.

Even if it did make him look more like--stop thinking about that.

David breathed, put it from his mind, was determined to put it from his son's mind too, and there was a ready distraction at hand. In hand. Whatever. "What's this?" Carefully, carefully, he lifted up the piece of whatever-it-was that Alex had been holding. There were no circuits that he could see, but there were wires, and there was a small rack of glass held in an array. He touched his finger to one clear piece and waited for a moment. It didn't warm quickly, so it probably wasn't glass, but instead a crystal, since an ordered molecular structure conducted heat away faster. One of the empty alien power sources was wired in with a hastily made socket.

"Been experimenting. Magic batteries, and maybe transforming electricity into magic via technology instead of vice versa. I can't, I don't...Energy is energy, but turning electricity to magic is--I guess you could say it's expensive."

And David wondered what his son could do with faerie magic at the flip of a switch, wondered if it could be converted into programming and computer chips. Would the code have to rhyme? Would the hum of electricity have to be patterned into meter?

He felt a smile spread across his face. He hoped he lived long enough to find out.

And Alex was still talking. "I don't--it's not a capacity problem, more like an intake problem. I've been thinking I could store magic as magic instead of anything else."

He squeezed Alex in pride. "Your old man has been messing with magic and technology for a good long while, admittedly from the human side of things. Think I might be able to help?"

"...Maybe? I had...it's not a breakthrough, but something about the, you know." Alex made a vague sort of gesture--the fight, or Puck in the fight, or the aliens. "Anyways, I'm starting to think I'll have to treat magic as a physical object when it comes to storage, not as energy states or vibrations."

"You have to rhyme to use your magic, so vibrations may play a part in all this. And," he thought back, he had almost lost Owen that day, after he'd warned him and given him orders. Did his husband have a death wish predating the royal mess? He'd been running around as a near-full human in all the time that he'd known him. "Demona once turned almost the entire city into stone via a televised spell."

Alex shook his head. "Won't work; it has to be me saying the words to use my magic."

There could be ways around that, probably, maybe. "It has to be you and your words for you to cast a spell. What if the device was casting its own?"

Alex hummed speculatively, and David smiled to see the look on his face. His Edge and Fox's bloodthirsty daring. Gentler, perhaps, than they'd ever been, sunshine and shadow both, but all theirs.

Every inch their son.

---

--
The Eyrie Building, New York City
May 4, 2012, 7:06 PM (49 minutes until sunset)
--

When Uncle (and he must remind himself of that: uncle-family-home) came back after--

Mom dragged them all to the bedroom, even Uncle, whose power was still flaring, all shimmers and spikes even though he was being careful with them, now.

He still hadn't changed back.

(His parents kept checking their backs.)

Alex had been too young to understand how it all started, didn't want to know what his parents got up to with Owen if they did, but whatever it had been, whatever it was, meant that the bed was big enough for all of them, even now that he was older, to say nothing of the two extra settee beds present in the master suite. He tried not to think of what those meant, either, but still couldn't quite get rid of the mental image of Owen banishing both of his parents to the settees and claiming the master bed for himself.

In and of itself the master suite was a miniature fortress, and the bedroom a large time capsule. It was big enough for all of them to live in comfortably, even the clan, if they were all willing to squeeze in. Gargoyles didn't need beds. The suite included a number of walk-in closets filled with non-perishables, weapons, medicinal supplies, and tech. Some of his earliest lessons had involved making cornucopias (4) that were even now stashed strategically throughout the castle.

With the attack and Uncle out and about, none of them wanted to take any chances, so Alex had consented to being dragged into his parents' lair with nary a whine.

Eyrie-One's shields were up, the suite's shields were up. The bedroom's shields were up.

Uncle was still up.

He was sitting on the headboard, light as a feather, chainmail shirt folding at his waist, a new rosary of alien power sources glowing cold and unfamiliar around him. At his back, his new-made weapon breathed disconcertingly, spines of alien bone and teeth twitching like a sleeping puppy's paws.

"Don't worry," Uncle said, idly loading the files he and Mom had magically mined from Stark Industries onto his tablet, "I won't leave you unguarded." He'd have to leave eventually, of course, to investigate what was happening in the wake of the attack, but he'd stay with them at least until the Gargoyles woke up, or maybe a little longer.

It still hurt to look at him, but less so. It didn't seem wrong to hear him any more, at least. They were all calmer now, and Uncle's power felt like blades crossed above his head, instead of at his throat.

Also, he wasn't actively glowing anymore.

It was an improvement.

Alex looked at the tablet in his uncle's hands, frowning a little. "We didn't get everything. Mom and I will get back to the silicon mines tomorrow."

"Ah, am I giving you too much homework?" Uncle stilled and smiled, probably making an effort to be comforting, while the work of corpses moved behind him like an innocently stretching, yawning cat, claws splaying.

...sometimes Uncle wasn't so good at comforting people.

Luckily, they weren't most people, and right now Uncle didn't feel like a threat at all--or rather, he didn't feel like a threat to them.

It still felt like he was made out of knives, though.

Mom and Dad were already out, tucked beneath the blankets and curled together in a way that Alex's brain resolutely refused to categorize as snuggling. Dad was snoring a little, and Mom had one hand curled loosely around Uncle's ankle.

Looking at them, being with them, being near Uncle… it was better. Not good in any way at all, but better.

Alex exhaled a long breath, settling down more comfortably on the edge of the bed. Let himself remember what it meant to be warm and loose, instead of weighed down by the heavy, alien edge of threat that lingered outside the castle. "'S'long as you don't make me do tons of essays on it, I'll be fine," Alex managed through a yawn as he flopped gratefully underneath the covers, curling up close to his already sleeping parents.

"Not this time," Uncle said above his head, distant, as his consciousness receded into the sweet embrace of sleep.

---

Alexander dreamed, and in his dreams he remembered.

---

He dropped his guns to cast with his hands as the last words of his chant passed over his lips. The pistols snapped back into place with an unpleasant thunk against his upper arms as his palms began to glow.

He frowned in concentration. The creatures were... stubborn. Their flesh did not yield to manipulation the way it should. The very air they exhaled stymied his attempts to thicken it into shields and blades.

And the weapon fire, ugh. He could still cast, but it needed more power, more focus. More...creativity.

(More like a mortal. Throw around rubble, crush them, burn them.


He was glad they didn't smell like anything from earth.)​

He had looked to his uncle to pick up tips, at first. Uncle had said a few things, about poison and disease and the Lion King. Their power was their own, and it flowed in the world and all things on it. These aliens... weren't, and so the power did not flow as it should.

Uncle was doing something strange to the aliens, wounding them first and then reaching in with his own magic and twisting something, tearing into them and latching on and leaving parts of himself behind in ways that he'd told Alex to never ever do. The way it moved and spread was like sepsis, an infection blossoming from a scratch and moving in, changing where it touched. And what it touched, his power could move through. Those lines, that cleansing fire, he rode it, and through it, could rip the humors from their ichor.

Alex didn't. He couldn't. These were his enemies, swarming like insects. He could feel that they didn't have lungs, that their blood was strange, a solution thick with sediment.

But they had two arms, two legs, a head, and hands that were more like his own than Lexington's.

He had never killed anyone before. At least, he didn't think he had.

Before they had set out, Uncle had told them about thickening their power so the poison wouldn't get into them, had mentioned it even before they had insisted on joining the fight.

He could feel it, a little. Uncle's clothing had changed, subtly shifting into an unfamiliar sort of armor, but to his other senses...

He had never realized it before, but Uncle was usually like glass; you could see and feel the power inside of him, how it rolled and roiled, how it twisted and danced. But when Uncle thickened himself, it was more like looking at Owen, which wasn't a good description at all. The details were muffled, the touch was distant, though he was still bright, unlike how he was as Owen.

And Uncle wasn't the same.

(That wasn't anything new. Uncle could change, and being Owen wasn't even a major change, still the helpful right hand of the powerful. Still the home minder hob.


But Uncle wasn't supposed to have limits like that, and a few times he had shown Alex more.)​

Uncle had told them of spreading their power, not all at once, but only in places, and forging it into sharp blades, whisper-thin, and strong as the whole of their power. Physics as magic. P = MV.

(He'd had this lesson before, how to cut into a faerie even if you didn't have iron.


Uncle had taught him so he would know if he started to instinctively do it. Because Uncle wouldn't be able to sense him, to stop him, if he were Owen.


He was to never ever leave anything of himself behind if he had to do this.)​

They shouldn't have to, Uncle had snarled, he shouldn't have to teach them, they shouldn't have to learn, this shouldn't be happening.

(Alex knew The Story. Uncle hadn't raged when that bas --when He had bound him.


Uncle had come back for them, and now he was enraged for them.)​

Uncle's thin slink-leather boots had turned heavy and waxed, thick-soled and topped with greaves. Uncle's bracers had thickened and extended up to his elbows and down across his hands. Uncle's toga had become a long chainmail shirt beneath his silken belt, shiny dark and black, purple only when and where it shone. He'd torn the skirt off of it like paper, the loose links folding in on themselves and into Uncle's belt until they formed an unbroken hem once more.

It had been disgusting. To his human eyes it had looked like what it was, a tearing of material, the shredding of fine-meshed metal. To his senses...he could feel his uncle in the torn chainmail. It was as if--no, Uncle had ripped off a piece of himself to shelter them.

(Not again!)​

Uncle had given him and Mom each one half of the mail, and he could feel the energy in it, heavy and strange--still his uncle's, but different, like it was Uncle small in his hands. In some ways, it was comforting to know that Uncle hadn't maimed himself too badly. In some ways, it was comforting, the weight of the familiar power that he had known for all of his life, breathing.

(Dying.)​

It was awful and he hated it.

(That was when Uncle started being wreathed in magic, flowing out of him and into the world like he was bleeding.)​

"I-I can't," he'd stammered, acutely aware he was holding a still-living body part. Mom, who was much less squeamish, had already slapped hers onto her wrist like a bangle.

(Maybe she couldn't feel it. Maybe she didn't know. She could probably guess, though.

It didn't matter. Mom trusted Uncle. He came back for them.

So did Alex--it was just that the hunk of magic in his hands had held the visceral feel of human skin.)​

Uncle had blinked at him, briefly shuttering the pale green glow that poured out of his eyes--usually only present when he was actively casting, and even then only for significant spells--Alex didn't know what it meant, that steady, even glow. And then his uncle had smiled, calm and easy, and ruffled his hair. "Don't worry, I'm going to want that back when we're all safe again. Either that, or a long nap."

Alex had breathed more easily after that, but not comfortably. They were about to go into a hot zone and he had never seen his uncle tired. But Alex had nodded and smiled for his family, for his Uncle, tapping his hand over his heart with a lazy sign, fist clenched like a stone.

(Home and Island and That Bastard.

Fuck him. Uncle's heart-home was with them, not the ungrateful bastard that threw Uncle away.)​

Uncle was fine, this was fine, it was kind of gross but it was gone.

"Love you too, Alexander," Uncle had said with an exaggerated sweep of his arm, cradling-crooked, up to where a mortal heart would be, and then sliding it up to his shoulder where he had carried Alex as soon as he was strong enough to cling--my beloved child.

Uncle's gift had wrapped around him like it had to Mom, fusing into an ornate piece of armor in Uncle's colors, tyrian and blues to Mom's tyrian and gold. It coiled around his left arm like a bracer. "Don't try to eat it," Uncle said, like that thought would have even occurred to either of them, which. Why. You don't eat people, that was like, his third lesson. "I think it might be a bit too dense for you. But in an emergency you can use it as a quick blast--don't point it down."

Uncle had showed them by example, with cunning and cleverness, how to use their magic against the invaders. Uncle's hands, wreathed in green flame, pierced their flesh and tore bones from their sides. Power could cleave their flesh, but not shape it; their bone was far less resistant.

Uncle had become angrier, and the sense of him, all flashing blades and blood, all threat, had become worse even as he became less like Uncle and more like something else.

(Alex remembered when Uncle had slipped sideways into being a wind spirit so Alex could learn the feel of that magic despite his human senses.

Had shifted even further into someone bountiful rather than bouncy, a being of harvest, to help Alex with the cornucopias.

Becoming anything. But always kind.)​

The less like Uncle he became, the faster the Puck became; fast and terrible. He slid away from attacks without looking, dodging enemies as soon as they raised their weapons to him, or just killing them outright as soon as they focused on him. He lived and breathed the battlefield. His hair floated, the tips of thick locks tracking enemies, and Alex could aim at where he pointed without looking. And he killed, he killed with joy and laughter.

He had asked Uncle to watch their backs, not out of trust, but because gazing upon him hurt.

And the battle had truly joined.

Uncle had darted and zipped about, dealing death with power and blade, weapon and tool. He looted the corpses of the invaders and mangled them with their own weapons. He strung power sources together in makeshift circuits of woven gold and ground. He hung them from his hip where they moved slow and coiled like a snake, and changed his raiment slightly with every new addition, masking his inner flame.

It became harder and harder to feel Uncle through everything.

That was his uncle's face,

smiling.​

That was Uncle's hair,

leaping to life to strangle any foe who grasped​

him.​

Those were his uncle's hands,

bloodied black to the elbow.​

His wild grin,

(wild wild, not a trickster's smile, not at all.)


(Alex remembered the lesson with Grandfather; Alex remembered that the Puck could be anything at all.)​

Those were his Uncle's colors, his voice, his laughter. But ten minutes into the battle and he couldn't recognize him at all.

(Alexander remembered Thailog.

This was so much worse.)​

Uncle laughed the way a hunting wolf would if it could. With one hand he stabbed into the stomach of one of the invaders, dragging out green-black entrails. The guts became a chain, sharp and spined and bloody still; it struck like a viper. A flip of the wrist cut them free of flesh, and he whipped the result around another's throat. It cut like razor wire as Uncle darted across the battlefield, leaping from stone to corpse to catch them up in a deadly bind. Uncle hauled it back with another flick of his wrist, bringing with it alien armor and bits of metal. It coiled and braided first into a cone held against his shoulder, then collapsing into a staff, knobbed at one end and thorned down the length.

The next alien he bludgeoned to death with a giggle.

(The more Alex fought, the more he witnessed his Uncle kill, the more he understood why his Uncle wasn't just ending this with a spell.

Uncle had to learn how to affect the aliens.

The beachhead was still open.

He was having too much fun.)​

His comm crackled, and Alex jumped, startled. "So, thoughts on this? Because on the one hand, it's incredibly disconcerting, but on the other hand, weirdly attractive," his father said, right into his ear.

... Dad, why?!

His mother laughed, then, not quite as wild as Uncle, not quite as not. She was better at hand-to-hand than Alex was, and had taken to ripping the invaders' arms off and then using them as terrifyingly effective bludgeons. "Definitely disconcerting, definitely weird, definitely attractive."

Why. Why. He scrambled to hit the comm button even as he raised a hand to fend off an incoming blow. "Mom, Dad! Not on the public comm!"

"Hmm?" His father replied, nonchalant as he dove around a cluster of enemies and blasted them from behind, "You don't think that was hot?"

Alex made a sound of absolute despair and punched an alien in the face instead of with his magic. It hurt, but it was at least a distraction from things he didn't need to know about his parents.

They kept up the chatter intermittently, bantering back and forth, and the battle had almost settled into a rhythm when Alex's heart started to race and his senses screamed danger.

Uncle was laughing again, and it was starting to echo.

"Hey babe, can I put a request in?" Dad, insouciant, calling to them from across the battlefield, the tether keeping them grounded.

"Oh ho?"

"Well, you're going all Dark Lord right now, and I want to get my money's worth. It starts a little something like this: Ash Nazg..."

Uncle laughed again, and Alex shivered in instinctive response, but this time it was a more human sound than before. "Plagiarism is lazy, David," Uncle called back, but his smile was still too wild, too sharp, and he dove forward and through a knot of enemies, then came out the other side, gore-splattered and laughing, alien hearts clutched and dripping in his hands.

And then they exploded and all the aliens he had passed through dropped dead.

"...way to go, Dad," Alex muttered, even as he dove out of the way of another incoming enemy.

Even though they were now fighting on opposite sides of the Eyrie, he could still feel his father shrug. "Hey, I tried. At least he's talking normally now."

And it lasted, for a while. But eventually, even Mom started getting freaked out. Eventually, Uncle stopped responding to Dad verbally. Eventually, Uncle seemed to forget they were there at all.

It didn't seem fair, Alex thought during the moment he took to breathe, staring at the alien corpses that littered the streets, staring at the rubble and smoke, that even as they were fighting, even as they were winning, he was still so afraid.

Far above the battlefield, his uncle smiled over what he had wrought, blood and ichor dripping from his fingertips, eyes luminous and cold.

(Human child, do not forget what it is that you love.)​

And then the Puck froze and stared into the western sky, eyes too, too wide.

He screamed into their skulls.

TO THE CLAN NOW!

Uncle flew back home, already spinning, pulling pulling pulling any easy energy he could to himself, drinking it in instead of holding it at his surface. What few lights were still on went out when he was near them.

Alex! Turn the courtyard into a mirror get--

A brief silence.​

Get the twins. Get the eggs.

There was no time to think, no time to breathe, and he threw himself through the nearest piece of glass that was big enough for him to fit through.

Uncle was spinning still, pulling more and more magic from the world, and Alex needed that power too, so he pulled at what electricity he could with a spin that barely lifted him from the ground, transforming it into magic he could use.

"Beneath my feet oh solid stone
My stalwart and my loyal home
Be you now like mirrored glass
So as to save my fucking ass!"

He stomped his foot a few times to make sure the glass was smooth and to shake out any ripples. Mom darted up from the mirror in a rush of flame and Alex rushed to help her as she tugged Dad though. Steel Clan armor could be difficult to wrangle even though they were part human--he had no clue how Uncle managed it--but they managed to wrench him through just the same. Dad went sprawling, but that was okay, there wasn't time.

"Get the girls, Mom." He took a deep breath, mind spinning, and blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"Magic magic do the thing
I am fucking panicking
Unborn children bed in stone
Come to me now... on your own?"

The shield was flickering; Uncle was coming. Uncle was here and Alex hated it. He was bloated with power; his mail fused into lame, bands of metal forming a flexible breastplate. His skirt was back, no it was his belt that had become faulds, segmented plates hanging down to almost protect his thighs. His tibia, the medal usually pinned to his toga, was now enlarged into besagew covering the front of his shoulder, his armpit, and nearing his heart; his boots were fast becoming sabatons.

By the strangled noise that ripped out of him he knew this was a nightmare for his Dad, but there wasn't time, not to talk, not to think. Mom was pulling the girls up and through, pulling blankets and pillows and everything else she could manage from the mirror beneath their feet as the eggs floated over.

"Is Mommy coming with us?"

Puck swayed towards the child, his expression pulling into a smile that did not show in his glowing eyes. "Maybe later," he said as he floated above them.

"Okay," chorused Goliath's and Elisa's adopted daughters, completely calm, completely trusting of the adults in their lives. They had never learned that Mr. Owen was intimidating, or that Mr. Puck was anything besides an occasional playmate when Alex had lessons.

("You mean Mr. Puck can't play at all unless he's working?"

"That's right kiddos."

"But that's not fair."

"I know," he had said, and he did not cry in front of the babies.)​

"He needs his parents, needs his guard,"

(Oh no oh no oh no.

Uncle was bound only to protect him.


Uncle could throw Alex through a mirror easy, could then dive in with Dad in his arms; but when Alex was safe he'd be forced back into being mortal, unable to help the clan, the eggs, unless Alex put himself back in danger, or he could quickly twist it into a lesson. That was why he was glutting himself on any power he could find, that was why he was letting it build and build and build and build, because pressure cookers exploded.)​

"The blow will hit us very hard

(Oh no.)​

"Now mortals seek to end the fight
S--thank fuck Tony caught it in flight!"(5)

The magic pulsed as it tried to burst free, but there was no direction, no exit, no closing clause. It rebounded inside Uncle's slim frame as he landed heavily, staring downtown, staring, his face naked and--

(Hurt and hope.


For a split second they felt like they would be the same thing.)​

But then he was speaking again, rapid rapid, the magic twisting--

"Mortal man of iron born"

His right hand lit in flame, glowing glowing bright bright bright. Uncle's armor faded from laminar to laminate to mere mail again, his hair fluttering, magic slipping free, already changing--

"Flying where the world is torn"

His left hand lit up, brighter still as Uncle... diminished, the armor losing its metallic seeming turning into thick fabric, turning back to thick leather.

"Both must live that both may join"

Now Uncle was almost bare, standing there in a blaze of power; standing there all but stripped of his symbols, in shirt and pants and plain thin boots.

"Take this power; tip the coin!"

Alex could feel Uncle's hands resisting, like the poles of a magnet, like a magnet and a superconductor, as he forced them together. Then they clapped together hard, as if destined, as if locked.

And it pulsed; it exploded. He felt it flare out, arching towards the hole in the sky, instant and unerring, to a star bright...a bright Stark, flying there.

Uncle swayed, flat on his feet, almost himself again, just for a moment. He breathed deeply, and Alex felt the magic flow towards him, felt, faintly, some other power he hadn't been aware of flow into his Uncle. As he breathed his mail reknit itself, weaving out of wool and silk and magic.

(The armor on his arm and Mom's had never moved, never flickered, never faded.


Abandoning them had never been an option.)​

"Uncle!" Alex was next to him, half-step, half-teleport, hand on his thin shoulder. Uncle felt brittle, a little hollowed, bird-boned, a little dimmer.

(He was bleeding. Alex could feel it under his hand.


But he wasn't, not really. The magic loved Uncle, and flooded into him, but Uncle was pushing some of it back out again into...into something. Not the spell, or not just. Something else, somewhere else. The world around them, maybe.)​

It's all right, Alex. Just a little burnt. It'll heal up fine. The words felt fuzzy in his head, or maybe sticky, tacky on his skin.

(Like blood. Was that how he had been talking to them?)​

Alex knew the feeling of magic burn, when his body got in the way of his magic, when he had too much of one or the other for what he was trying to do, when he hadn't smoothed out the magic enough with his verse. Like he had pulled a muscle, like he had punched a wall so hard--

(But my Lord Oberon's calculus is correct.

Uncle's cool, firm voice talking to his parents, and only recently had he begun sounding even slightly baffled by his own words.

Alex hadn't entered into any of their equations: they'd never even think of holding him back.)​

--that not only did his fist hurt, but he felt it in every joint of his arm, all the way up into his shoulder.

(Into his heart when he was angry enough.)​

He hadn't thought real faeries could even get that way.

"Uncle," quietly, breathless as the adrenaline took a tumble and then fell off a cliff. "What...what was that? What's happening?"

And Uncle's face did something. He flickered between expressions without a step in between like he was the Happy Mask Salesman. Rage determination resignation viciousness stoicism hunger, until it resolved into something like exhaustion with his shoulders slumped. Uncle glanced at the little girls, then pulled away, starting a slow spin to gather power, gathering it around him like a spindle instead of glutting himself and flooding the burnt parts of him.

"Oh shining ground beneath my feet
Your job is done, so now retreat
Return ye to your OG space
It's time for me to blow this place."

The mirror beneath them receded towards Uncle like it was flowing down a drain. Eggs and blankets and little girls dropped through just as the tide reached them.

Uncle held his nose with one hand, the other raised like a synchronized swimmer, and dropped though just before it disappeared completely.

He left a note behind.

Alex picked it up.

He woke up.

---

--
The Eyrie Building, New York City
May 4, 2012, 7:55 PM
--

The sun set, night came, and they lived again.

So too did their phones, which blared a cacophony of emergency alerts.

Startled, Goliath instinctively reached for the specialized phone case clipped to his belt before taking in his surroundings.

"What...what happened?" he breathed, taking a step backwards from his perch.

Crumbled buildings, rubble scattered in the streets, and a pall of smoke hung low in the air. This far up it was impossible to smell anything from below, but Goliath's memory provided a visceral recollection: shattered stone and reeking flesh from the ancient past, and more recently, grease and flame and endless dust--always death, and always here --it seemed he was ever destined to wake to tragedy. "Was it another terrorist attack?"

"The eggs!" Broadway cried, and dashed for the door, leaving his phone to clatter on the ground without even unlocking it.

"No, no, it's fine." Angela caught him with one hand, her face cast in the green light of her phone. "Shields are up," she said to her mate, looking at him soothingly. "The eggs are safe."

(The London clan would never forgive them if something happened to them.)​

Of course his daughter was calm. Her egg was safe, and she had never lived through the loss of a clan the way her mate had. She still had the immediate, instinctive fear of any parent-to-be, but in her there was not panic, the moment not instantly rendered horrific by the memory of an earlier massacre.

At his side, Lexington opened his belt case from the bottom, letting the shards of stone fall between his claws as his phone dropped into his hand. "No, not terrorists," he said, touching the screen. "It's an--" Lex cut himself off in disbelief, and stood gaping for several long moments as he stared at the screen.

Goliath sympathized. He'd read the words but could scarce comprehend them, much less respond to them.

Lexington, however, was quicker to find his voice. "It's an alien invasion?!" He reared back slightly, tail snapping as he flicked through his updates.

"I dinnae think--wasn't that what all the security at the airports was for?" Hudson said, glancing over at an empty patch of skyline.

"Not illegal aliens," Goliath said, delicately tapping at his phone, struggling to make sense of what he was reading, "Space aliens."

He hated that those words had just come out of his mouth.

Hudson just sighed; a sound increasingly familiar in the past few years. When the world upends itself often enough, you get used to it. Tired of it.

"Uh, guys," Lex blurted, rapidly scrolling through all of the messages on his phone, even as Goliath still lingered over the first, "Alex sent me a message earlier, Puck's--"

Here. ​

They turned as one, startled, eyes flashing in momentary panic--and Goliath felt himself exhaling in sharp relief at what stood before him, even as a trickle of wariness sparked down his spine.

The Fae was armed and armored, standing, unlike his usual wont to float, and wreathed in green flame, as though about to cast some particularly vicious enchantment. He was also vibrating subtly, like a cat ready to pounce, or a string pulled too taut.

"Puck," Goliath began, wondering why the little elf had an ominously glowing, ominously twitching staff loosely clasped in his (ominous) right hand. But then he thought better of asking: none of them had ever seen a faerie carry a weapon, and the armor itself was uncomfortably reminiscent of that of Avalon's Lord.

The resemblance was always there, if you knew how to look--even when he was Owen, there was something about the eyes--but now, as he was… caution would be prudent.

Goliath continued with care, deliberately gentling his voice to address the Fae pest, "Are you well?"

No. ​

Puck shook his head briefly, seeming to struggle for a moment, before looking up at the clan again.

"No, I am not," he managed after a moment, the green magic fading from his skin and from his eyes. When he blinked, his eyes were once again their usual pupiless blue. "You have the alerts from your apps. You know what to do."

"And you just had to come here and tell us this," scaring the crap out of us, Lexington didn't add, but he didn't need to, they all heard it anyway, "Instead of just giving us a call. Why?"

Puck shook his head again, chainmail rippling--it was moving too much for mail, like it wasn't made of metal or even his usual silks, but of something else, something other, instead. "What I am about to tell you cannot be recorded, must not leave even an implication that it was communicated: stay away from Midtown East. Do not accept any emergency calls from there. You must stay away from Stark Tower at all costs."

Goliath's eyes flared white as his wings swept open with a thunderous snap. From the castle's vantage point it was easy to tell where most of the damage was. "You want us to ignore people in danger?!"

Puck didn't blink. Goliath hadn't expected him to. "Yes. There is something in that tower. I don't know the range; the Queen or Lord Oberon might be coming. But if--look, you will die horribly if you go anywhere near there, so don't."

"Look," Lexington said, crouching down, possibly to make dodging out of the way easier if Puck decided to lash out at him. "You're not a gargoyle, so you might not understand what we need to do, but you have who you need to protect. I know for a fact you take good care of the interns; so do we. If it means risking our lives--"

Puck flared green again--they all reflexively took a step back--and then visibly calmed himself, stilling in a way they all recognized from Owen. "It's worse than that." He even sounded a bit like he did as Owen--was his hair going blonde? "Did you have any contact with other clans from up in the far north? No? Damn."

Puck inhaled deeply for a moment and folded his arms before giving them all an impatient look. "Some decades before you were put into your stone sleep, invaders came to our world--they changed the world. Weaker Children, halflings caught in their aura, they were...gone. Like wrinkles steamed out of a sheet, or popped balloons. Some managed to hang on, but they could no longer support physical bodies nor leave where they fell. And Gargoyles? Gargoyles didn't awaken from stone sleep. If they were in range while awake, they died painfully, half-stone when the sun came up, and that's if they were lucky. If they were unlucky they were inverted, unraveled, made into what they weren't," he said, tone almost delicate, almost considerate.

"They couldn't be helped? Like mother was." Angela, of course, always seeking a positive solution. She had a point; Goliath knew Fae had strange hearts, and like as not would not have cared what befell the other races, but surely other clans might have.

Demona had been alone for decades, stalked for centuries, and driven mad by each passing day. She still wished nothing but harm upon humanity, but had stopped her active pursuit of genocide: the miracle of their daughter's existence had calmed her in ways that he hadn't thought possible, years before.

"Worse than Demona." Puck's flames were back, shivering, moving like smoke, like poison mist, and Goliath was uncomfortably reminded of when skin and bone and mind alike had been stretched and warped and changed by the touch of that magic. "She is mad, these were Soulless. That which makes you Gargoyles, even when I made you human, it was inverted."

It was not said with a haunting quality nor in the tone of metaphor; it was stated as fact, as perhaps only a Fae could know. "That power has been kept away from this world for more than a thousand years, but now it's back." It had grown easier, over time, to meet Puck's gaze, familiarity replacing wariness as they'd watched him raise his child, though that edge had never faded. It was all edges now. "Goliath, you know well what happens when magic empowers a person's traits. How it makes you more than what you are."

"And less." Goliath thought of the tyrant he had become, and of the beast that Fox had transformed into, and cast an uneasy gaze at the streets below. "We take your point, trickster."

Puck shook his head, but when he stilled his hair remained drifting, as if he were underwater, a strange sight when both his feet were on the ground. "No, you don't. My brother's eye was other, not inimical. It amplified; it did not change, did not invert you. I am choosing to tell you this rather than laying a geas or twisting your senses because David trusts you, because I, somehow, do the same," he said with clear exasperation.

He blinked, and his eyes were green again, that cold, empty glow. "If you go to Stark Tower you will die, by that power or by mine. I cannot allow such a contagion to come close to the Eyrie."

"You dare!" Goliath roared, flaring his wings; he knew without looking that the entire clan's eyes were glowing in response to the threat.

Puck snarled right back at them, eyes more terribly bright than their own. "I don't know what's safe yet! It was supposed be safe, they were supposed to be locked up and far away! I don't know what the range is, I don't know the danger, and I don't have time for this." He gestured imperiously, slicing his hand across his body, holding them in place with that denial, "Enough!"

"All my words now be forgotten
Of both threats and misbegotten
Now to this island tend you well
But 'ware the place where dark things dwell."

And blackness struck.

---

That could have gone better.

Puck sighed and pulled out his phone to start texting David and the rest of his family as the spell wound through the gargoyles. He mumbled aloud as the magic settled, grasping at the comforting scraps of his usual self, "You try to be the good guy. You try to have morals and allies and talk to them like they ask instead of just treating them like pawns and puppets. And then what happens? This. Ugh. Ah well, back in character."

It was the business of a thought to put on a seeming of his human form, and once the gargoyles collected themselves, it was Owen Burnett they saw.

"Ah, Goliath," he said, adjusting his black tie--not his color, but it would do for his purposes, for his mood. "I hope the emergency app we provided to you is working well?"

Goliath blinked, then shook his head briefly. It always took him a moment to shake off the effects of a spell, perhaps as a lingering consequence of earlier magics. He vaguely recalled there had been an incident with Demona and the Grimorum shortly after the gargoyles' awakening. "I, uh, yes. Most of our practice has been with Elisa's precinct, but this should be much the same, should it not?"

"Yes," he agreed. "Our current information indicates that the alien invaders only fell because their signal was cut off, so the force field is going to remain in place for several more nights. However, you can exit through the emitters at the base of the tower. Be aware that there are many government agents surrounding Stark Tower, where the attack originated. They are new to the island, and Mister Xanatos is concerned that they will react poorly to the presence of unfamiliar emergency services personnel such as yourselves, especially given the present circumstances."

"Yes, thank you Owen," Goliath said, nodding. He paused for a moment, visibly considering the options for dividing their forces--it made him a good commander, for a mortal. "While it would be for the best if we could assist wherever we were needed, in this case, I believe we would be a distraction. I think it best that we work with our colleagues in the local emergency departments instead."(6)

Angela spoke up next, expression considering--she'd never be a tactician, not like her father was, but she was eminently practical, and with a gentle heart to boot. "Yes, Father. Also, we can reach certain places to render aid more easily than some of the others to help whoever might have gotten trapped in the rubble. But we will need to know which structures are the most and least sound if we want to be able to rescue them--we don't want any buildings collapsing any more than they already have."

Goliath nodded. "Angela is correct. We need to focus our efforts on where they will do the most good, where our human colleagues cannot easily reach. There is no need to antagonize the government agents at this time. If many people are there, then our help could be used elsewhere. Owen, can you tell us what the casualties look like so far?"

He glanced at his phone briefly, re-checking the tallies in surprise--he'd kept them open throughout the day. "There have been surprisingly few considering the scope of the attack.(7) The country moved up to Defcon Three, where we currently remain, the day before yesterday, and issued a global orange alert to all locations housing nuclear power plants for a 'terrorist attack.' During the day, it was upgraded to a red alert for New York City at the same time that Defcon Two was declared."

"That is good to know," the clan leader replied. "How much help can we depend on from you and the Xanatoses?"

"They are recovering from a lengthy battle and coordinating relief efforts, and the company is currently offering food and shelter to many in the surrounding area. However, Goliath," and he tilted his head up to look Goliath in the eye, waiting for the gargoyle to meet his gaze. "I have already sent Mister Xanatos a Green Watch alert, and I think you should be aware of it as well. I will not be present here at the Eyrie for some time."

The gargoyles gasped. Angela's hand found her mate's as Broadway finally found his voice, "Is Oberon..?"

He knew--had been unfortunate enough to overhear the whole tale--that Angela had related to Broadway of Oberon's play, of their flight and fight across Avalon. Broadway too had battled the Lord of the Third Race, and he suspected that the gargoyle did not care to recall how badly the clan had lost that fight, nor the destruction that had ensued after Oberon's city-wide spell.

Still, his capricious Lord had his uses, however belatedly. He should have been here--but no time for that . "Yes, and if we are lucky he'll arrive in the city shortly. We are notably unlucky that he did not arrive during the attack, as he has no love for invaders, and would have been invaluable during the battle. When news of the truth of the situation reaches him, he will be most displeased--and, should he choose to investigate the matter personally, likely uninterested in you and the Xanatoses. However, if Titania comes in his stead, please do not interfere with the company's standard operating procedures."

"Aye," Hudson murmured, inclining his head in acknowledgement--he would be the one to stick closest to the castle as he was the least deft with technology, and would be the first to be called upon should such an incident occur. "I remember, Elisa told us about that when she testified so that Halcyon could pursue the restraining order against Anastasia Renard."

It was, perhaps, the one favor the then-detective had ever done for the Xanatoses that did not also directly benefit the Gargoyles, but however much Maza disliked the Xanatoses, she disliked injustice more.

He nodded slightly. "As you may recall, Standard Operating Procedures for Titania's arrival are to don the noise-canceling headphone comms," threaded with an iron alloy, "use standard guns, and order her to stand down while the employees contact me. If she does anything but wait or retreat, they and you are authorized to open fire."

"Are such extreme measures really necessary?" And this was why he felt the need to reiterate the directives. Gargoyles were fundamentally good as only a species that had been made by an act of love could be; and that was often their problem. "Titania helped us, and she kept Oberon from--" Angela's mouth abruptly snapped shut.

He wasn't sure what face he was making, and truth be told he didn't much care, out of character or not. Still, he had more information to convey, and so he paused for a moment to smooth his expression before he continued, voice a little sharper than before.

"Titania repays mortals what they are owed; she grants no favors unless it is to call them in later. The defenses on the Eyrie were originally designed to repel her, not Lord Oberon. The longer Alexander remained in his family's care, the less likely it would have been that Oberon would be willing to remove him from his parent's care as a wedding gift to his lady wife, no matter what Titania said. I was waiting for him in a cafe a few blocks away, where we could have had a civilized discussion and negotiation regarding the matter. Had I the Phoenix Gate, I would have offered it to him as part of my bargain, and perhaps the ensuing unpleasantness could have been avoided on all sides." He let his lips curl in a faint, bitter smile. "Remember, it was Titania who set his might against you."

Against me went unsaid. He didn't need to say it. He knew that they knew.

---

"Against you," Owen said, but his tone was cold and clear--against me.

It was rare to see Puck so clearly in Owen.

"Puck," Goliath said gently, to forestall the wrathful being inside the mortal shell--he too well remembered being trapped inside the faerie's twisted illusion, his one attempt to gain possession of the Phoenix Gate--a nightmare that had been half-hell, half-prophecy. And he remembered the Fae's anguish at his banishment. Briefly, he thought of having his ability to fly being slaved to the needs of a small child. Briefly he thought of Elisa's reaction when he had told her the tale, her expression twisting into disgust as she spat the words, "Residential schools."

"On Avalon," Goliath said gently, carefully, "she aided us."

Something flashed in Owen's eyes, there and gone, almost impossible to see behind the glasses. "On Avalon she repaid you; you have said so yourself in the past. By having a clan safe on Avalon she thus preserves the Gargoyle race, come what may. And she may also observe your species in peace. Recall, if you will, Titania's experiments in Australia." Owen paused for a moment, gaze distant. "Perhaps it is a fixation inherited by position, for the last Queen of Avalon was also interested in life and its creation. But then, that is the duty of Avalon's second seat."

Goliath glanced over at Hudson, saw his unease reflected in his mentor's eyes, but it was Lexington who spoke up, voice raised in concern. "Will she— would she experiment on them, back on Avalon?"

Owen blinked, turning his gaze down to Lexington, seeming to take a moment to process the question, and then shook his head. "Not unless they request her intercession, and even then, perhaps not, given the title she carries. Oberon has little patience with such things--should he deem her reasons or methods unacceptable, it would be the one thing for which he would divorce her once more, and perhaps this time around she would no longer be permitted to be the Queen of Avalon."

Would she not? But that was irrelevant--why would Owen find the idea of experimentation an issue, given what he had condoned in the past? Goliath knew he should be cautious, and yet... "You stood by as Xanatos experimented upon us and upon the Mutates," he said, voice deliberately mild. "I should not think such a matter a concern for you."

Owen didn't blink. "I follow Mister Xanatos, I neither guide nor restrain him. That is the nature of our agreement. Mister Xanatos is human, and a product of human culture, not a direct descendant of Joseph Mengele or his cohort, nor an inheritor of his. I made Mister Xanatos a promise for my service. Furthermore, Sevarius' techniques for gathering subjects were his own. We, by contrast, were scattered because Titania was experimenting on the survivors of the last invasion. If she returned to it so quickly after being called home?" Owen shook his head and blinked slowly, then--a little too slowly, enough that it made the flesh on the back of his neck prickle with unease. "It is because of you that David has developed a clearer sense of morality in a few short years than most of the Children ever have. All our races change, Goliath. In some ways, humans are the most deft and profound of us all."

...that sounded nothing like the Fae Goliath knew, and less like his human mask. There was something sharp in his expression now, the lift of a brow, the curve of his lip--

Owen snorted--and it sounded nothing like him, nothing like Puck --and when he spoke, the words were fringed with frost. "Maybe it's because they spend more time awake than Gargoyles, and die so fast."

Goliath felt his eyes widen, realized he had fallen back a half-step, wings raised--and when he glanced over at his clan, found them all in similar poses, eyes not aglow, but bright and wary.

But when he looked back again, Owen was gone.

---

Puck orbited the Jotun, invisible, unblinking, inevitable.

I should kill it, he thought, the shillelagh of Chitauri corpses--gut, bone, and sinew--shifting restlessly in his hands, thorned and coiling. There were ways around magical incompatibility, and he was familiar with all of them.

And yet Loki was still himself, mostly, and not a monster, no matter what he had done on this day. The incredibly low death count was proof of that. His soul was still there, and still his, despite the poison in his magic, the Void and foreign power cleft through blood and bone--gaping wounds still bleeding, and yet he lived.

Would-be invader, but why such sloppy work?

Clever liar, but why such a senseless plan?

The little prince lost.

Ha.​

The Puck too was an expert at being many things.

I could kill him, he thought, and it was true. It would be well within his rights and within the Laws to execute an invader, especially one that had once been an ally, especially one that knew them as few others ever had.

Honestly, it would be for Loki's own good to kill him either way--he, at least, could make it painless, if only for Wotan's sake. Curiosity and confusion had stayed his hand before, but now…

And yet.

And yet.

Little lost Jotun, Odin Borson's cuckoo child, and his hapless brother, protector or prison-keeper, sent to tidy his father's mess.

Ha.​

A treaty in tatters, and he the only witness that mattered.

Oh, how I can use this.

Another tool in his great game, another set of pawns, another angle--leverage, in one form or another. Games depended on one's foes, and tricks depended on observers, and this--well. This was an opportunity; he hadn't expected to have one for centuries.

(He had instinctively known that from the start, and so he had cultivated his rage, his paranoia, his pain. He tried harder than ever to understand his husband and wife because his attempts to lessen their anger only increased it.


He needed rage, he needed pain, he needed madness. Those were the only weapons he had left to wield, save for his death, and he'd not do that to their child.


Before the end there would be a fight without any skin to shield his heart even if he had to tear himself asunder to ensure it.)​

Decision made, Puck nodded to himself and slipped away. A play at first, to see what would come, and then...

If no one shows up to stop the princes from leaving, I'm killing them both. Asgard has failed us; Borson is a liar; without restitution, the treaty is done.

And if my Lord doesn't pursue this, then I will.

The one truth above all others, above all and everything that was and that would ever be:

For the good of the Children, always.

---

4: The cornucopias contained the traditional offerings of food, but also non traditional offerings of phone chargers and wifi hotspots.

5: Original Line: So flee we now at the speed of light

6: Goliath was far too polite an individual to say, "Ugh, Feds," aloud. But as a card carrying member of the New York City Emergency Services Union, seriously, fuck the feds.

7: https://i.stack.imgur.com/VZaly.jpg...386688355484&usg=AOvVaw1mbTdDiYLUZV9GqXkvWdJI

 

[NemiTheNen]

Rhodey interlude; his trials and travails in travel.

According to canon he was actually in Asia. We're ignoring that.

Roomie is Everything But The Dissertation, and so is trying to work on their proposal. Also, lots of grading to do.

Anyways, if you have ideas/requests for Interludes, I'm open ears.

Also, funny thing, the second line in Puck's second to last line, "Your job is done, so now retreat," was originally, "The time has come to f-reaking yeet," but the fic predates the yeet meme so it was nixed.

---

---
Undisclosed Location
May 5, 2012, 8:03 am
---

"What do you mean I can't take the suit?!"

"That's exactly what I mean, Colonel," replied the messenger, handing him a sealed envelope. "This is coming from way up the chain of command; you're too tactically important to risk like that."

Rhodey opened the envelope, alternating between looking at it and glaring at the other man. "Too tactically important? The suit will keep me safe, and it's damn hard to hit, everyone knows that."

The messenger nodded. "Yessir, that's why you'll be wearing it on the troop transport, just in case."

"Bullshit! I'm going to talk to the General about that," Rhodey grumped. Sitting in the suit for that long would be hellish, and he wouldn't be able to sleep. He really really needed to sleep. Then he looked at his orders. "Why the hell are they sending us though Africa? We should be going through Germany! And is this a layover?" He jabbed his finger at the first thing on the list.

"You--you don't know, sir?" The lieutenant's brow furrowed, and he suddenly looked nervous.

Rhodey didn't roll his eyes, but it was a near thing. "Man, I have been on a month-long op in the middle of nowhere. And then I find out this happens as soon as I'm coming down. I've been awake for twenty hours straight. What is going on?"

The lieutenant snapped to attention. "There was a terrorist attack in Stuttgart by a guy with weird tech, probably Asgardian. Then someone dressed like Captain America came in to stop him, and then Stark did, Sir; the vid's up on social media. Word on the line is that the aliens needed lots of energy on our side to make the portal, that's why they hit Stark's Arc Reactor. With all the nuclear reactors in Europe, everything is being locked down hard. No flights in or out, just in case there's another cell wandering around."

That...actually made him feel better. People weren't being completely stupid. "I'll look it up, thanks. But seriously, a layover?"

Rhodey knew he wasn't going to get any sleep, not when Tony's home had been attacked, because he just knew that Tony had been there.

---

He had hours yet, and he was still waiting on news, still calling, and still not getting answers. His fingers were trembling slightly as he sipped at the Red Bull in his hands. Jones had cut off his coffee supply and offered him Sleepytime Tea instead. "I sweetened it with honey the way you like, sir."

Rhodey was vibrating on adrenaline and nerves, but he was also a professional, so he didn't say anything rude. He thought it, but didn't say it. "Fine. And a cookie."

Jones was smart, so she didn't smile, she just got Rhodey a cookie—a good one from someone's care package. It was probably Williams, he had a white southern granny that usually baked with lard, but she'd started rendering her own from beef when Williams got shipped out to the Middle East.

Hearts and minds. Cookies helped, but there was also an unsurprisingly large market amongst the local ladies for posters from Xanatos Enterprises' yearly pride float romp. Rhodey had official unofficial orders to use his connection to Tony to get his hands on autographed ones that could then be used as thank-you gifts for the ladies and their invaluable assistance.

He sipped his damn tea, and hoped it would ease his nerves enough for exhaustion to take over.

(Tony, Tony, please be okay.)​

He got an hour and a half nap out of it, waking up well before his flight. It was better than nothing, he guessed.

---

--
Undisclosed Location
May 5, 2012, 11:48 PM
--

Rhodey took another swig of coffee from his tertiary backup thermos. He'd mainline it if he could, but Turkish coffee had too many grounds in it. Also, Doctor Maris was looking twitchy, which was never a good sign.

The coffee was probably the only upside of Command making them take this roundabout bullshit way to get back home. Nothing was moving in Europe, and they wouldn't let him take his super suit to go check on the man who had given him the suit in the first place.

First to Turkey, then though Egypt, jump to Morocco, and then to New York. Maybe. Fucking hell.

Tony, why'd you have to go flip the bird to aliens and start an interstellar war while I was at work?

At least this was sensible, even if it was pissing him off. The layover in Turkey had gotten him on this larger transport. Instead of all being crushed together, facing one another, there were five people to a row in the middle, bracketed by aisles, and two people facing each other across the row. They'd be picking up more people in Morocco and Egypt.

"Hey, Rhodes," Johnson called over the start of the row closest to him. "I can smell your coffee sweat from over here."

"That's your problem; just be glad I talked them out of making me wear the armor while on the plane." He nudged the suitcase between his legs with a foot. "Then I'd really be cooked."

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't lay off the coffee."

"You can just go to hell," Rhodey growled back, poking at his tablet with a stiff finger. "That was my best friend fighting aliens over there, with the aliens coming down right on top of his house. Of course I'm worried."

If he found one more clip of a wide-eyed civilian babbling about how 'Captain America saved me,' he was going to scream. Could he get some updates on Stark Tower besides that it was still standing?

--Shit, how were the bots doing? Like half of Tony's will was devoted to his babies. He found a new clip, then paused it. Nighttime New York, and behind the talking head there was Stark Tower. Some lights were on! This was great news!

"Hey, Rhodes!" Marris called.

Rhodes started. All the people in the row between started moving, conveying something hand to hand to hold out in a cupped hand. "Two sleeping pills?"

"Yep."

"Nope."

They had a glare off, and then Marris looked uncomfortable--Which was great because it meant Rhodey was winning. Then he looked annoyed which was--Marris cleared his throat.

Then everyone started looking at Rhodey. Every damn eye on the plane. Staring at him. Guilting him.

He looked up into the faces of his men, his support, his friends.

"Y'all are motherfuckers." Someone nudged him in the side with a thermos of...he smelled the damn Sleepytime Tea.

He took the damn pills. At least the tea was still sweetened the way he liked it.

Fucking assholes.

 

[NemiTheNen]

So we're having spoon issues. Roomie does TDoR for their institution and has to work on the proposal for their dissertation. Meanwhile, I have long covid, so yay.

On the other hand, I did get some stuff done for this during NaNo, and now it has to be fitted in and cleaned up.

---

Here's some baby Alex, Puck, hints of lore, Broadway, and Best Girl Angela

---

Puck was flying around, Alexander cradled tightly to his chest, tucked into his toga, which he was using like an extremely exotic baby sling. The little elf spun and tumbled through the air, banking gracefully as a gargoyle or turning sharply as only a physics-defying being such as he could do. Puck didn't seem to be looking to see where he was going, didn't seem to need to: he only had eyes for the little red-headed child.

"What," Angela could not repress herself any longer, "are you teaching him?" There had been no chanting that she'd heard, nor strange effects that she'd been able to see--unless Puck was teaching the little boy about memory alteration and she'd been an unwitting victim. But he probably would have asked first. Maybe. Or maybe he had, and she'd just forgotten. Alex did seem to pick things up very quickly, after all.

Puck tucked his knees in and somersaulted backwards in the air. "Training him to use his magic and not his inner ear for spatial orientation." The elf's voice sounded a bit different, a bit bigger perhaps, or calmer. Maybe it was because he was projecting to make up for the fact that his face was tucked down, almost directly against his chest.

"For flying?"

"Mmhmm," he hummed as he sailed sideways past them. "And for travel. Going through something right side up doesn't mean the exit point is aligned the same way. It's best to teach him now, when he's still a baby, so he knows, especially once he starts toddling. Halflings can have trouble if they grow up grounded."

"Hey," Broadway said as he turned in a slow circle, tracking Puck. "Isn't your toga on backwards or something?"

Now that her mate had said it aloud, Angela did notice that Puck's toga now went over his left shoulder, rather than the right, where it usually was.

"I felt like being sinister, for a while," left handed, right, because he usually couldn't use his left hand? "But Alex got confused, because humans," Puck tapped Alex's nose, "not that you are one, Alex, but it still applies. Humans are different than faeries, different than gargoyles." He still wasn't making eye contact with them, but maybe he was being careful; he was only supposed to train Alex, after all. It gave Angela a sudden pang, because she could expect to have three eggs in her lifetime, but Oberon had not made any allowances for any other children the Xanatoses might decide to have--Puck's orders had been only to train and protect the boy. After what had happened with Alex, the Xanatoses wouldn't have another child, just to avoid the chance of them coming back, and all of them would thank them for it. It would be sad, she thought, to grow up without siblings. It was wrong, she thought, to control people that way for no reason--except, perhaps to be cruel. Resource allocation could be difficult, she had learned, but that wasn't a problem here.

With a sudden pang she worried about Alex's future children too. Maybe Alex could teach them? But she was getting lost in her own thoughts, and Puck was still talking.

"--grow up inside their mothers. Bodies are noisy. Babies are used to noise, bellows and pumps and gurgling guts--which I don't have, unless I make an effort. But you, my little one, you're smart enough and awake enough to know a heartbeat is supposed to be on the left, so I shall put one there for you, and wear my exomis accordingly." He tossed Alex lightly up into the air like the Princess and Tom had done for her when she was young; albeit with a full twist and a glow of protective magic. Or perhaps it was Alex's own magic.

"That's nice of you," her Broadway said, slow and certain and kind as Puck spun himself and the baby into a corkscrew.

It was nice, but she wondered. "Isn't that the sort of thing you should teach first, before swapping souls around? Not that we're ungrateful for the help."

Puck laughed and glanced at them briefly, almost sly. "You've read some mythology by now, you've heard about nasty demigods and such, not that you'll ever be like that, Alex." Quickly his attention went back to the boy. "Mortals and faeries alike have things inside of them that are responsible for thought and understanding. You'd probably call it a soul, or a fully-functioning brain, or something along those lines. You, my boy, have all the mortal parts and...well, probably all of the faerie parts." He lifted Alex up and rubbed his face against Alex's stomach as if he was looking around inside to see, making the boy squeal with laughter. It felt upsettingly incongruous next to a comment about babies who might be missing parts. "With my help they'll all grow in just fine even if you don't currently have all of them," that was better, "or you can have mine and I'll just use Owen's until I regrow them, no big deal." That was not.

Her thoughts must have shown on her face, or in her aura, or something, because Puck kept talking.

"It just takes power and time. So sometimes when halflings hit a developmental milestone, something is missing, or doesn't work, and the parents have to step in, to make sure they're aware, to make sure that they can think. Of course the real trouble comes when they decide to skip developmental milestones. So don't grow up too fast, Alex." His voice drifted, gentler, and a bit distant, eyes half closed, "But that's why the first lesson for halflings--when you want them to have powers--and for baby faeries, is to wake up. You have to know you exist before you can really know anything else. Alex has to be Alex first, before Alex can do anything." A gentle toss and a gentle landing before Puck rocketed upwards. "That comes naturally to everyone, unless you're part plant, and then it's a gamble. Are you part plant, Alex?"

Alex giggled and tried to shake his head with his weak baby neck, flapping his arms. "That's right, you're not, we stopped doing that a long time ago and now everyone thinks it's gross. Well done, Alex." He cheered the baby on, and it was even sweeter-seeming because Alex probably did have enough consciousness despite his age to understand that. "And that's why we always eat our vegetables."

"Then why didn't Titania...?" Broadway trailed off, and Angela felt a twinge, along with her curiosity.

"Fox is also Halcyon's child, and she did not reveal herself before, so..." Puck shrugged, turning his attention back to the baby and booping him lightly on the nose. "But both of your parents know about magic, so this is fine."

"So, souls were the second lesson?" Me and you, that made sense, to Angela. What didn't make sense was how Puck wasn't talking to them that much, or rather he was, but he was directing it at Alex. The binding on him didn't keep him from...but maybe it was because he was teaching them? Or that he wasn't doing much magic? Or that he was just being strange as he sometimes was, as faeries were, at least from her limited experience with them.

"Third lesson. Mortals come by the idea that everything else exists pretty easily, and you know," he sailed by, "that everything else is not a big cold void of death. So! Alex learned that even faster than me, my clever boy. Helps that he has lungs, I think, and I'm the premier expert. But still we went over it. I have no idea what kind of senses you'll have, Alex, so I loaned you some of mine!"

How did faeries see anyways? Not like humans and gargoyles, not without pupils. Maybe?

Alex put his chubby little hands over his eyes and then flung them out, trailing tiny sparks, "Bwah!"

Puck kissed his head, "Mwah!" They both laughed, Puck trailing off, drifting through the air slowly as he gazed down at the child that was all but his own. "Knowing people are people is very important, no matter their shape. Souls in stone or otherwise. When you can grow up as fast as we do, you have to learn that very quickly, or someone could get hurt." Slowly he drifted down, frowning a little, and Alex cooed at him and reached for his face even as it changed. "Your entire world can turn on you in a moment," Owen said, holding Alex as close as Puck ever did, caressing his hair with the back of his flesh hand.

Alex grabbed at it and brought it to his mouth, scowling a little.

Sometimes Puck talked fast, too fast. He liked to obfuscate. After hearing the story of what Mother had tried to do when she summoned him, Angela couldn't hold it against him.

(She did not wonder if he could have talked his way out of what happened with Lord Oberon. It was rude and uncharitable.


And frightening.)​

But she had to ask. She was going to lay an egg, relatively soon, inside of a decade. She'd learned about how humans raised children on their long journey with Elisa, and Father and Hudson had raised children. So how did faeries raise them? And it would be better to not let the conversation end on what seemed like a sad note. "You said...That you didn't know that, hmm, the world existed when you were young? I'm sorry, I'm just curious about how the different races and cultures raise children. There are no clan mothers left here, and we're going to be adopting from the London clan."

Owen Burnett hummed and adjusted his glasses slightly. "The Children of Oberon learned proper childrearing from mortals, and humans reproduce more often than Gargoyles." He nodded at her.

Angela understood. She would have three or, if she were very lucky, perhaps four children in her lifetime, but humans, the Princess and Tom had told her, could have more than ten, although fewer survived the more that there were.

Owen continued. "I don't know how the younger children manage things now. The Children have slowed their reproduction from an endless sprint to a crawl. However, in the time before, raising the child was primarily the bearing parent's responsibility, if there was one."

Was one, Angela mouthed to herself silently, and hoped he didn't see. He was still talking, so he probably hadn't.

"Or whoever donated the most to the child and survived the experience." That turned 'was one' from a biological curiosity to a possible horror. "Then there was an almost Gargoyle-like rearing within an in-group for whatever aspects the child manifested, or even something like an apprenticeship. Whatever Alexander becomes, whatever he chooses to be, I can fulfill that role with ease. As to my awareness, or the lack thereof in my younger years..."

His gaze, always playful in flight and always sharp on his feet, turned distant as he looked past the wall. "I suppose you could say I had a very unique perspective on childhood. The closest analogy I can think of is that I was delivered prematurely. I was missing many of the parts that were necessary for survival and thought." He frowned, lips a hard line and his eyes...angry, maybe. But she didn't think they'd be glowing if he were a Gargoyle. "I required assistance. And unlike most Children, I retain the memories from that time. Even if my initial conclusions were sadly incorrect, they nonetheless provide, and have provided, a vital amount of insight for our people."

Sadly, she didn't think Puck would use the word sadly, except perhaps to mock, or in jest, or perhaps dryly, as Owen. But this...This was not that. "Thank you, Owen," she said gently as she took a step forward. "When we have eggs, when they hatch, I hope you can provide advice. I, we, would really appreciate it."

Owen Burnett smiled at her, small and mischievous. "Why Angela, one might think you're inviting me to be a clan mother."

"I might be," she offered a returning smile, equally bright. Her thoughts were roiling with questions and the shadows of nightmares, but she was not owed answers, and she'd not let this end on a bad note if she could. "Do you want to tell Father, or should I?"

(Being a part of the clan would be no protection against what Oberon had done in his thoughtless cruelty. She herself had experienced how inconsistent the Lord of Avalon could be.


Sometimes she feared for her clan. But though Oberon flared brightly, he did not do so wildly. If they gave him no cause for offense, then they would be safe.)​

It didn't quite win her a laugh, but the expression was more than enough.

 

[NemiTheNen]

Some things bloom, some things falter.

And Fury catches the scent of politics in the air.

And More World Building!

--
Stark Tower, New York City
May 5, 2012, 8:37 AM
--

The strains of the sitar sounded vaguely familiar to Tony's ear, the guitar-like notes easing into a low, humming near-buzz. He had to admit, it was kinda soothing.

He stepped a little bit deeper into Bruce's little sanctuary and startled as he kicked something.

Carpet, yes, per Pepper's orders, and also throw pillows. Had Bruce raided the nap rooms on the seventy-second floor? If so, props for planning on his part.

Tony hiked up his foot, standing first on one leg and then the other as he pulled off his shoes, leaving them on the bit of exposed Astroturf-would-be-softer carpet tiles by the door.

Note to self: carpet at least one common room with Astroturf in the tower. Oh! Can I do floor-based hydroponics for real-turf flooring? I can call it Terraturf.

Stepping high, he went to Bruce, who was badly pretending to be meditating: a tiny smirk curled his lips, and his nearly-closed eyes were crinkled with suppressed laughter. Success!

Tony plopped himself down, aiming his assets at a coy-looking pillow, and then tried to haul his feet up into that folded position with his hands.

His limbs promptly reminded him that he'd been fighting aliens yesterday. And also that he had fallen out of the sky yesterday, and that he was now sporting an absolutely spectacular bruise all across his everything thanks to the Big Guy's prize-winning catch. Frantically clinging to Pepper once she'd made it back to him had been an exercise in both caution and muffled swearing, but they'd persevered. "Owww."

"Tony," Bruce said, drawing the vowel out just slightly with a chiding intonation as he dropped the pretense and glanced over through his lashes. "Why don't you try a simpler pose?"

"...sure." He remembered how to do this, vaguely. Tailor-style, right? It couldn't be that hard, schoolchildren did it all the time.

Bruce interrupted him with a gentle poke to his side as he frowned down at his feet, trying to remember where they were supposed to go, and how exactly one got them there. "Not that I don't appreciate the company, but Tony, what exactly are you doing here?"

"Checking in!" Tony said cheerily, flashing Bruce a bright smile. "I got a half an hour or so to rest up, and then I gotta get back to crunching data and organizing whatever Pepper needs me to do. Not enough time for a good nap, but that's what caffeine is for. I'll crash later. But even a brain like mine needs some rest, and you seem to be the authority on what is and isn't restful." He finished with a decisive nod, then gave up on trying to pretzel his legs and just sort of sat there.

Bruce started, blinking wide behind his glasses before shifting to rise. "I should--"

"You should nothing," Tony cut in, waggling a finger chidingly, pleased when it earned him a bemused look. "You should be here recuperating. You're not a structural engineer, you're a biophysicist and a bit of a physician. New York City, if you haven't noticed? Full of doctors. In fact, some of the best of them tell me meditation will help with the ridiculous stresses I put on my body, so I can maybe live a few years longer. Don't worry, we're good. You can go down and join the folks in the medical wing later, if you really want to, but not until you're ready."

It won him a hint of a smile, and Bruce leaning a bit closer into his space. Win. "All right then," Bruce said, that tiny smile curving his lips and warming his voice, "hands on your knees, palms up. Like this," he said, and demonstrated.

Tony frowned, trying to puzzle out the logic behind it. "Why?"

Bruce laughed a little, low and soft. "Because it's what we do, Tony. Now come on, you can do it."

"All right, but if I completely mess this up, I'm lying to everyone and saying I did it flawlessly the first time. I'm a genius, you know," he said loftily, setting his hands in a position that was something almost like but slightly different than what Bruce was doing.

Bruce reached over and gently nudged his wrist until his hand settled more or less where it should be. Just as planned. "I won't tell a soul," he promised, smile broadening, and Tony resisted the urge to beam back at him. He'd been told the full force of his smile could be a little blinding at close range.

Instead, he grinned up at the ceiling. JARVIS certainly never complained about his smile. "Jarvis, don't snitch on me either."

"I would never dream of it, sir," JARVIS replied, serene, because he was a sarcastic little shit. Tony was so proud.

"Can you dream?" Bruce asked, because Bruce was brilliant and curious about his babies and wanted to know all the things. This was why Bruce was The Best and also his favorite.

"Not as such, sir," JARVIS demurred, because in addition to being a sarcastic little shit, he was also a coy little shit.

Bruce turned to Tony, brows lifted in inquiry. "As such?"

Hell with it. Tony beamed, but it still wasn't his choice. "Jarvis, brag if you wanna."

A pause. "To discuss such a matter adequately, one must first determine which of the popular meanings of 'dream' is in question..."

Tony gave up on trying to pose like a pretzel, leaned back on his hands, and took a moment to just breathe, basking in the brilliance that surrounded him.

It was quiet, and calming, and if he drifted for a while, neither Bruce or JARVIS mentioned it.

---
Stark Tower, New York City
May 5, 2012, 9:34 AM
---

Thor looked out over the city, over the ruin that Loki had wrought. He ached to see it, how the mortals toiled to repair what had been done to them, and wished he could be among them, but he had other concerns to attend. He had attempted to speak with Loki several times, both last evening and earlier this morn, but Loki had been unmoved. He had, at least, finally silenced himself from his endless mockeries, pointed little questions about how this was any different from the honest and noble battles of the past, as if to paint correlations between Thor's good work and Loki's evil machinations. Loki had even mocked him with the thinness of his excuses, not even bending his silver tongue to false sweetness, instead brash and fearless and grinning with glittering eyes.

(Let this not be madness, please, Norns, let him not be mad--

--what is wrong with his brother?)​

He thought of his childhood, thought of his baby brother in his arms, small and warm and soft; thought of the long days of his youth with Loki at his side, quiet and dark and laughing--how could everything have gone so wrong?

He glanced at Loki out of the corner of his eye--smug and still and revealing nothing. Silent, biding his time, so his words would be as the blade he had used in the battle. Small, sharp, a vicious little sting--meant to cause a bright moment of shock, of betrayal--pain meant to distract, disarm, rather than to disable.

(Loki had been fighting to keep the portal open, to allow his army to pass, Loki had not been fighting Thor, not really--)​

...perhaps he was too naive still, as Father had said.

(Father had said—and he had been so angry—

But Loki was alive even if mad and lost—alive and unwound and perhaps a traitor but still alive—

And yet—)​

"Do you remember our childhood?" he asked as a peace offering, for though Loki now rejected their family—

(Loki had rejected their father but said nothing of him, Loki had not rejected Thor, not yet, not yet—)​

—surely even he could not deny that they had been children together.

(Let him remember, let him remember, let him know--

--he has already lost his brother once, and though they stand beside one another now--

--is Loki still here with him?)​

In the slanted, transparent reflection in the glass, he saw Loki look at him. It was... heartening.

(Is it?)​

"We played together, we had such adventures. Do you remember the first time I wanted to ride a goat?" He wasn't sure why the thought had suddenly come to mind, save that Loki had convinced him to do it, with sly words and a laughing smile--a smile that had been all too rare in recent years, he'd realized, in the long hazy days of grief before word of Loki's survival had reached Asgard.

(His brother has smiled at him since they have been in this place, and in some of those moments he has been the brother Thor has always known.

But in others…)​

He plastered a smile on his face--the story had at least caught Loki's attention, judging by the tilt of his chin and the slant of his brow--but maybe Loki was just wondering why he'd suddenly started talking after so many moments of silence. "Do you remember how fearsome they seemed? It only made me want to catch them more."

Besides stories of battle, the story of how their forefathers had tamed their first goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr, had been told to them by their nannies in the nursery. The great beasts were as demon gods, rampaging across Asgard, but a half step removed from their bilgesnipe cousins. The goats that they had attempted to tame had been considerably smaller, but no less kindly disposed to being caught, and had taken remarkable exception to Thor's attempts at bridling them. He'd borne the scars for weeks afterwards.

Loki's lip curled. "You mean how you wanted to whip the things half to death," he sneered.

Thor turned towards him so quickly he jerked on Loki's chain--and felt a moment of horrific self-consciousness as Loki pointedly glanced down at the chain and back up again, raising a single, judgmental eyebrow that said more than words ever could about how little Thor had changed since then.

"I was a child and didn't know any better than the story!" Thor turned his head away, folding his arms, this time being careful to ensure that Loki's lead was held much more loosely. "I'd never hurt a goat like that."

Loki huffed. "Not that it does them any good. You still eat goat, Thor."

Thor spun back around, turning on his brother with a glare. "That's different! They weren't tormented to death. Besides, you goaded me into it, and you're the one who told me that the magic thongs were whips!"

Loki chuckled, but it was a dark, fractured thing. "It's funny, isn't it? How so many of our bedtime stories were about bringing destructive monsters to heel."

(No no no--)​

"Mister Odinson, sir?"

Thor turned away from his brother, away from sweet memories that Loki kept trying to turn into bitter poison, and faced the human instead.

("Father will have words with you, Loki," Thor had said, holding Mjolnir beneath Loki's chin.

"Oh," Loki had replied, face stretched and creased with his grin, "I bet he will."

And Thor had felt his stomach drop--)​

The mortal that stood before them was--Thor wanted to think him meek. He was not, of course, none of these mortals were. But he was akin to the Son of Coul, who had been a warrior wearing the balding pate of an aged wise man, though not the shaven baldness of the warrior skalds of Hogun's homeland, neither of which would suit this agent. The Son of Coul had been both warrior and wisdom, collected when the world had been falling apart. This man was not; this one was young, still soft, like Midgard was, like Midgard had been.

"Yes," he rumbled, giving a warning glance at Loki, his hand twitching on the chain. For a moment, Loki's lip curled, less man, more beast. Then it was gone.

The agent inclined his head. "Things have stabilized now, and reconstruction is in full swing. So, Director Fury was wondering if you could tell us a few things?"

There was no touch at his back. Thor glanced at his brother, but there was no sign in the slide of his eyes, in his blink, or the tap of his fingers. No hinting advice with a sly glance and politely gilded words to cue Thor's actions.

Loki was deliberately being a stranger.

Loki closed some of the distance between them, and for a moment Thor had hope.

With the slack in his chains, Loki folded his arms and grinned.

Loki was deliberately being a sadistic stranger.

Loki could be reacting to his discomfort, amused by it; or this might be a trapped field, and Loki's delight was anticipatory. Either way, it was infuriating, and left him feeling both hapless and awkward. "What is it your people wish to know?"

"Where he came from," a nod, almost polite, towards Loki, "And what's going on where you come from. Current events, basically."

There was no harm in telling the mortals small things, or even greater things, for they had not the means to act upon such knowledge. They knew now that Asgard would intercede on their behalf, and that they had Thor's personal protection besides, so there was no reason for them to panic themselves, as they had during his last visit. "I see no harm in this," he agreed carefully, and hoped he was not misstepping.

The man nodded. "Thank you, Prince Thor. If you would follow me, I will take you to Director Fury."

It was good that the mortals respected him so; that though he was a stranger, he would address their lords and generals directly. This was proper. But Thor thought longingly of the window, and his stomach curdled at the thought of parading Loki through the halls once more.

He thought of Fury, stern and one-eyed and commanding. He thought of those too-soft chairs Midgardians favored in their mortality, so different from the benches so common on Asgard. To give a report while sitting in comfort, or while standing while the general sat--it would be awkward, uncomfortable, but Thor could never kneel to a mortal, not ever. Father would hear of it, and then it would be upon his head, and Loki would not intercede for him--and Father would have no interest in hearing him out, anyway.

(Father would--

He hoped that--

--there was no time for such thoughts, not now.)​

Loathe as he was to leave this place, there were other avenues to pursue. He might not have his brother's skill, but their tutors had managed to train him in the small arts of politics at least somewhat, though never fully, for that was what Loki was for. "I am certain that we need not bother Director Fury." The title appealed to Thor, though it was unfamiliar, and he was uncertain of what it meant.

"I, ah," the man stuttered, and for a moment Thor held hope, for his suggestion had flummoxed the mortal. No, the agent was no Son of Coul, but he recovered admirably, alas, gathering his composure to continue. "The Director wouldn't dream of offering you disrespect, Prince Thor. The least he can do is to meet you face to face."

Thor doubted that very much. He was the pride of Asgard, and it was a common failing of men, mortal and otherwise, to wish to stand upon the backs of their betters and take joy from it.

(The Lady Yuan-Karhi had instructed him in such matters most vigorously, to the delight of all parties involved.

But it was improper to think of such things here.)​

Thor inclined his head. "Director Fury is a busy man, though he does me honor in being willing to take my report personally. I do not wish to take up any of his time, as he is surely concerned with other matters." A thought dawned. "He can aid the reconstruction efforts as I cannot, for I must guard Loki. Surely his time is better spent tending to his people?"

Though Thor was very much his father's son, he was also Loki's brother. He made sure to keep his friendliest grin on his face, for he was being helpful, and not manipulative.

(And Loki, his brother, his own, was not silently laughing, was not even looking at him--)​

The mortal touched the small communication device hooked over his ear. "Sir? Prince Thor is… Of course Sir, I'll inform him." He blinked up at Thor with his dark eyes, "I'm sorry, Prince Thor, but Director Fury insists."

Thor sighed, inclined his head, and gestured the mortal on. He followed after, tugging lightly on the chains, and Loki followed him willingly enough, it seemed--likely he wanted to witness Thor fumbling his way through the act of diplomacy.

"Toothgrinder," Loki mocked, sotto voce, flashing a sharp grin.

Thor was beginning to doubt his mercy, and see the wisdom of Father's orders to gag him. He held both his mercy and Loki's chain tight and close.

---

Fury watched Thor, watched him glance at the chairs in the conference room and promptly dismiss them. Other people would say that he should keep his eye on Loki. Other people were idiots. Loki wasn't going to be his problem, Thor was.

And Thor was...interesting.

Fury actually had a rather long list of people he wanted to assemble for the Avengers Initiative.

However, in an emergency like this one, he was limited to people who he could get in a hurry, which disqualified Van Dyne (unavailable), Dane Whitman (and that Scottish motherfucker who poached him), and basically anyone else whose need for convincing outweighed their power and potential use.

(Anyone besides Bruce Banner. Fury had looked at the records and recordings: the Hulk was angry, yes, but not malicious. And Banner had avoided outbreaks as best as he could. He could be aimed, or at least strategically set off, and his budding friendship with Stark could be used as a fulcrum, if necessary.)​

This was also an emergency, and many people couldn't work without their support structures. For this insane op, he needed people who were ready, right now. Not people who needed training, which disqualified ninety-nine percent of his other diamonds in the rough. Not people who needed new gear to be effective. They had to have it, right now, which disqualified Captain Maza, Sam Wilson, and any of the gargoyle clans.

(That the attack had taken place during the day had been devastating--Xanatos and his people had clearly been throwing all that they could into the battle, but the Manhattan clan would have been invaluable in the fight.)​

Among other things, the point of the Avengers Initiative was to get people with certain abilities, crazy sons of bitches that they were, all under one roof and pissing outside. Or at least to get enough of them under one roof to handle the rogues.

In the face of this crisis, the Avengers were a Hail Mary. He didn't expect much from them in the way of teamwork, and in between wrangling his people and landing the Helicarrier in the Atlantic, he had prayed that the self-directing assholes would self-direct instead of getting into pissing matches over who was in charge.

He hadn't been surprised that Rogers had commanded the civvies. He had been surprised that Rogers had commanded everyone else, and effectively too.

The Hulk had obeyed Rogers (an admittedly simple command that was essentially what the Hulk already wanted to do: battlefield practicality at its finest). More interestingly, Thor had obeyed Rogers. And that was why he had Rogers in on this meeting.

Thor was more than a thousand years old, a warrior with the skills to back it up, even without his power; he had mowed through experienced agents like a wheat thresher in New Mexico. He was also the proud prince of an alien people, one who nevertheless listened to and obeyed a mortal a fraction of his age while in a combat zone.

Following the lead of the natives in the know was just good sense, which many operatives never quite managed. But in the field, by all rights, Thor should have taken command, no trying about it--he was simply more experienced than any other person on that battlefield. He should have done his little Chrysler trick without prompting.

It would have been very easy to put it down as ignorance, or adherence to local customs; a simple spy would note that and call it a day.

Fury wasn't a simple spy and he wasn't about to make that mistake. Dumb got you dead.

It could be cultural differences. There was some of that, to be sure, but his instincts said that theory was incomplete. The fact was, Thor didn't back down to the others. Fury thought that maybe something about him and Rogers--who could be Thor's cousin, given their looks--pushed some buttons in Thor that made him back down. Given the stories about Odin and his one eye, Fury could make a good guess about himself. Oh, it also had something to do with tone and bearing, no doubt, but some buttons were definitely being pressed.

A competent agent would stop there. Fury was a competent agent. Fury was also more than that; he had to be. He knew that wasn't the whole picture.

Because when confronted about Loki's kill count? Thor disavowed him not a beat later. You'd almost think it was a comedy routine.

And when Fury had, gently, suggested certain enhanced interrogation techniques… Thor knew what he was talking about, and he had looked Fury in the eye and not been horrified, and had not declined.

So Fury was testing his theory. He'd had the agent tell Thor that he insisted on speaking with him personally. And Thor had resisted a little--politely, politically, a little bit more skill there than he'd initially assumed--but in the end, he'd folded just the same.

Back when he had been an itty bitty operative, Fury had met professional stooges and starving beggars that didn't give it up so quick.

In the short term, that was useful. In the long term… Fury couldn't exactly get his people off-planet so that they could gently suggest things to Thor. And there was no guarantee that someone else wouldn't whisper anti-Earth suggestions in Thor's ear once he got home; suggestions that might include things like, say, taking over the planet, but of course only for humanity's own good.

But thinking things like that was bad for his blood pressure. He was limited in what he could do. He had a plan that came in two parts: preventative measures and damage control.

Getting ready for the inevitable fallout was straightforward: continue improving their weaponry, and try to expand or at least refine the Avengers Initiative, just in case Thor made any unfortunate decisions.

And as for prevention, well, Thor was interesting. Fury would have to see how much he could push, how to push, and how well it stuck. Check the various approaches, see which ones had the best results, and go from there.

It would indeed be very interesting to see how things unfolded.

"Good of you to join me, Thor."

---

Soft, comfortable leather chairs again. Flimsy. Thor remained standing and did his best to seem unimpressed but good-natured. Loki, despite being bound, was still smug and haughty, and had already stolen a chair and was lounging upon it, looking greatly amused. It would not be becoming for Thor to seem that way too, or the mortals might think them in league, rather than Loki alone simply refusing to be cowed even in his defeat.

(Was it a defeat? Even bested in battle Loki was--)​

Fury's greeting had been light, friendly. The good captain stood at his shoulder, and it made Thor feel more comfortable standing, though he would have been more comfortable still with his brother standing at his side.

(He had sat with these warriors before.

He did not think about his trepidation now.)​

Thor did not let his wince show. He was prepared for this. "I am a visitor to your world. It would be unseemly of me to dictate your security procedures."

Fury clapped his hands and rubbed them together like Volstagg at a feast. "I take it Agent Jones told you about what I wanted? I'm sure you understand; we are intensely curious about what goes on outside of our little planet."

Thor nodded carefully, resisting the instinctive urge to glance at Loki for guidance. He would be resolute, he would be strong. "Such matters are not of your concern. You are still stretching the boundaries of your world; it is vast, and filled with problems of your own making. Concern yourself with those, and not with that which is above you."

---

Fury leaned back in his chair, almost like he was throwing himself back. But he smiled and faked a wince, shaking his head. "Now you see there, Thor, that just isn't true."

Rogers moved from his sentinel imitation, thought put smoothly into action. Unfolding his arms and leaning forward, open and honest and 'I'm so harmless and American.' God bless the USO shows, and the chorus girls who had taught Rogers how to act. "Thor, we were attacked." Even, reasonable tone, expression as calm as his voice. "I think that entitles us to know something about the invaders. We're not after your troop deployments, we just want to know how this happened."

Thor was starting to crumble, but he still looked mutinous, eyes darting between them, flitting over the agent behind them, before settling on Rogers. Camaraderie? Familiarity? Did they even have Black people on Thor's planet? "It is not your concern. Your people do not need to reach so far, no more than you need to make such weapons as you have."

An attempt to divide them by reminding them of that little disagreement, or was he kissing up to Rogers? Fury scoffed lightly to draw Thor's attention back to him. "Yeah, it's almost like those guns wouldn't have been useful when the Chitauri came down. Or for whatever is next."

Thor frowned, shaking his head. "No. Those weapons are all but an invitation for attackers. They will think Asgard lax; that you no longer have our protection, when you do, and my own personal protection as well!"

"What, and we're just to depend on your good will?" A snappy push. Sarcasm had Thor pushing back, but he went along with demands. Would this bring him back in line?

Thor's lips were pressed together, eyes darting about for an answer, as if he were hiding something.

He was hiding something.

Fury let the silence draw out for a long moment before he spoke again. "But it's not your good will, is it? You have to protect us."

After a long moment, Thor nodded stiffly, arms folded protectively over his chest. "Asgard is bound by treaty to keep non-natives from this planet, yes."

...well. Wasn't that something. He had thought that perhaps there was something about the placement of Earth, or some resource in their solar system that the aliens had been quietly stealing all along. But a treaty? "Bound by treaty, huh. A treaty with whom?"

But Loki was already in motion, flipping from silent amusement to alarm in the space of a heartbeat as he pushed up from his chair and slid in front of Thor to eye his elder brother's stiff and nervous face. "You…" he began, and trailed off into a brief, appalled silence. When he spoke again, his voice was raised in incredulity, and edging a bit towards shrill. "You didn't tell them you were here?"

Thor unfolded his arms explosively, pushing his way into Loki's space and sputtering. "I did not… I did not have to, I was chasing you down! And you. You are the one who should be more worried about this!"

Loki's hands twitched at his sides, and Fury glanced up at Rogers, who was glancing down at him, eyebrows raised. Curiouser and curiouser, but no time to ponder, not when the princes were staring daggers at each other.

Loki's eyes narrowed. "...You forgot the spell, didn't you," he accused, voice flat. Not mocking, not angry. Just a disappointed sibling voice if ever Fury heard one.

Thor's mouth worked. "I--I may have. I--"

But Loki was already speaking, sharp and intent. "One spell, Thor. One supremely simple spell. The only spell you were actually required to have learned! For them! Our closest and most powerful allies!"

"But… you..." Thor trailed off, his gaze lost in the middle distance, his hands flexing.

For a moment, a breath, it seemed as though Loki might have softened. But only for a moment, and once it had passed, Loki whirled away, spinning to point an accusing finger right at Thor's nose. "You are the heir!" he snapped, "The crown prince of Asgard, and you tell me you forgot?!"

Thor looked like he had been slapped, but Loki wasn't done. "Are you so craven that your responsibilities are loathsome to you?" Loki pulled back, drawing in a shaking breath, before baring his teeth in a snarl. "Is the Odinson so weak that he cannot hold but one lesson within his skull, let alone all of Asgard on his shoulders?"

Thor growled, slowly reaching for his brother. "Loki..."

Loki cast Thor a sneer, then seemed to gather himself, turning his back on his brother deliberately, arms folded, gaze fixed on the ceiling. "You forgot the spell. Don't talk to me, Thor."

Curiouser and curiouser indeed.

For a moment, Fury let the awkward silence linger. One moment, then two, then three, and then he made his move.

"So, gentlemen, let me get this straight." Fury leaned forward, fingers tented, elbows on the table, eyeing Thor. "If I'm understanding the nature of this little scuffle correctly, Earth is basically a demilitarized zone for your friends--"

"Asgard's duty is to keep aliens off the planet," Thor interrupted.

Fury stared at him until the big man looked away. "You're doing a hell of a job, Thor."

He thought of their guest down in Tahiti, and the oh-eighty-fours. He waited a beat, letting Thor feel properly chastised, before he continued. "And all along you had a little SOS line that could have saved us lives… and you forgot it."

"No!" Thor snapped, then looked chastened when Loki snorted.

He cast his brother a glance, but Loki was still pointedly staring at the ceiling, and after a moment, Thor dropped his eyes and nodded, hangdog. "Yes… yes, I forgot. But Loki is--was--our best ambassador to those people, and was close friends with the heir and both hands of the throne. He has even met their ruler, as I have not." Thor paused again, casting another glance at his brother before he continued. "These people… they do not care for mortals or mortal lives. They may have ended the fight in our favor, or they may very well have sided with Loki against us all. That is why I did not bring a copy of the spell with me."

Fury stood now, rising slowly, both hands on the table as Loki turned back and stared at Thor, eyebrows raised and mouth pursed in clear judgment, making sure Thor knew what he thought of that bullshit. Wasn't that interesting. "So what you're telling me is that by not calling them, you've endangered your own alliance that protects this very planet. Your closest and most powerful allies? At the very least they could have helped with the Chitauri invasion; the worst that could have happened was your little brother would have had a different kind of backup!"

"We had a chance, Thor," Rogers said bitterly, arms tightening across his chest, and Fury recalled his circumstances--three weeks ago, to him, the world had come together to fight off tyranny and cruelty. One day ago, the Avengers had put aside their grievances and saved the world. And now this. "If they're from Earth, we could have talked to them, made them understand. It could have gone better than--"

But Thor was already shaking his head. "You misunderstand. That was one of the better scenarios."

Fury saw Loki roll his eyes at the idea, or at least at Thor's blatant ass-covering. How interesting.

"They care not for your people, but neither do they wish you harm. This could have meant war; it could still mean it. And Midgard would be the battlefield. And after it, with the treaty broken, they would pluck their gifts from Heimdall's skull, leaving him blind and deaf. And your planet's defenses would be wholly dependent on their goodwill and reputation." Thor's mouth twisted, at least partially amused, "And attention."

Loki blinked once, blankly, then smiled as if a pleasant thought had occurred to him. Fury did not trust his face, trusted it even less when Loki opened his mouth to speak. "Midgard is good for you, Thor. Perhaps it is the lack of adoring public and reflective surfaces letting you see beyond your own nose so you can actually think on your own for once in your miserable life," Loki drawled, tapping his fingers in arrhythmic patterns on his biceps.

Fury tilted his head slightly to better fix his gaze on Thor, trying to get the big man to look at him, instead of his little brother… and to make it clear that he was ignoring Loki, which seemed like the sort of thing he'd hate. "And you've been protecting us for a long time now, is that what you're saying? How long? Long enough that the big bad boogie man that has you so nervous is only a bit of fluff and rumor?"

Loki was smiling. It was the smile of an asshole that was also a smug younger sibling--twice the obnoxiousness for half the price. "Oh, I like him. Maybe you just needed a more clever cycloptic autocrat to work under--he's worked wonders on you in just a few days, and he certainly pays heed to the more cunning arts. Careful, Thor, you might pick up a few tricks and find yourself thinking with your head instead of your biceps. Maybe these mortals will even suit to keep your worthless friends alive."

History there, and lots of it, going by Thor's grimace, by how quickly he turned to confront Loki again. And some interesting bits of intelligence, encoded in a few sentences. But Fury had already planned on keeping Thor clear of… anything less than straightforward.

"Thor," Fury interjected before the brothers could go off on a tangent, as they were clearly gearing up to do--the arrogance of princes, and of siblings, when nothing mattered more than getting in the last word. "How about some useful information, instead of talking about some aliens who'll hopefully never show up and who utterly failed to scare your brother straight?"

Thor breathed deeply, visibly centering himself and looking away from his brother. "Loki hungers for the throne," Thor began, and yeah, Fury could see that. "He always has," he finished darkly.

Loki rolled his eyes--trouble in hell? Perceptions of the past changed depending on the present, though Loki was apparently the delusional one, and Fury had seen this sort of thing before. Self-rationalization, likely thinking about how he was driven to do all of this, and if only people had paid him the proper respect none of this would have happened, and he wouldn't have had to turn traitor.

But Thor was storytelling, and in a way that suggested recitation--was that a common practice on Asgard? The aliens didn't match up to the Norse, not exactly, so it was hard to say. "On the day of my ascension, at the height of my coronation, Loki allowed the Frost Giants entry into Asgard. To my Father's vault, where the Casket of Ancient Winters lay, which they sought to use to restart their industry and once more plague the realms."

"We had a different kind of alien invasion, so I take it that his plan failed," Rogers said, probably thinking about what would have happened if he hadn't put that plane in the water. Fury really wished he could have let the poor bastard have a bit more time before throwing him into the thick of things again.

Thor looked oddly hesitant. "That… we don't think that was his plan. It was just a distraction to stop my coronation. The Destroyer stopped them from taking it and… My father did not take well to my reaction. I was a child, and I did not heed him, did not… I went to Jotunheim. I see now that much of it was my brother's intent, but it was all he and my friends could do to encourage me to have at least a pretense of talking with the Jotun king."

Fury took another look at the sneaky, smug-looking son of a bitch. "Lemme guess, little bro talked you into it." Typical evil vizier nonsense, typical story.

"No," Thor said with surprising firmness. "I will not deny my choices, they are my own. If my brother convinced me to go by saying that it would be treason to do so, and I should not go, then by going I proved myself ill-suited to kingship. But I would be worse if I pretended otherwise. It was my choice to go to Jotunheim, I who courted them in war. I shall not pretend otherwise."

Easily swayed, but then, Fury already knew that. At least he was honest with that unexpected bit of maturity. "Then you were banished and that's when you landed in the desert." A delicate step, to avoid mentioning any potential hostages; best that Loki didn't learn any names beyond Selvig's, assuming that Thor hadn't already told him about the others. It did not do to underestimate your enemies, even ones that were currently in chains and seemingly subdued.

It didn't seem like Thor noticed his delicacy, however, and at best he seemed inept at hiding his feelings. Was that because he'd never learned how to out of sheer arrogance? Because of Asgard's sense of its own superiority? Because Asgard didn't play with hostages out of a sense of honor?

Or was it because his clever little brother had spent a lifetime covering for him?

And Thor was still talking. "Yes. When the Allfather fell into the Odinsleep to restore himself, Loki took the throne, and further conspired with the Frost Giants to kill him as casus belli, and to secure the throne for himself."

Loki, who had been staring at Thor, laughed suddenly; a mad little cackle that had Fury instinctively worried about booby traps and bombs, or sudden attacks spurred on by a lack of self-control. But despite the laughter Loki said nothing, his eyes bright and spritely.

Thor ignored him, and so Fury followed suit--but Rogers, he knew, kept on watching him. Rogers wouldn't be alone in that. Fury's aide de camp would have eyes wherever they were needed; he was good.

Thor continued on with the story as though he had never been interrupted. "However, Loki turned on the Jotun king at the last moment and slew him because he was aware of my imminent return. He then fled before me and attempted to destroy Jotunheim with the Bifrost, freezing it open with the Casket of Ancient Winters."

"He has the hots for genocide, doesn't he?" Fury wished he had two eyes: one to watch Loki and the other to watch Rogers, because he did not need him destabilized. On the other hand, something like this might strengthen Rogers' resolve, and serve to subconsciously distance SHIELD from Hydra in his mind--he was used to fighting would-be dictators, after all.

"An extermination of monsters, Director," Loki spoke up at last, voice collected and cool. "Jotnar aren't people. They are soulless monsters, beneath even animals. Such things must be destroyed."

Thor flinched, but Rogers huffed, posture stiffening even further. "People dehumanize their opponents all the time; it makes killing the enemy easier, but they are all alive, cognizant, making choices, capable of choosing differently."

Loki sniffed delicately. "Jotnar cannot change what they are, and all can know them as foul without being told, for their soulless nature resonates illy with all those that are unalike them. Their very touch is poison to a being with a soul, and no matter what skin they wear, they are instinctively distrusted."

Thor's knuckles grew white and then whiter as Loki continued. "You, you who have fought mortals and Chitauri alike, tell me, will you bury them all honorably while solemnly playing a dirge? Or will your slain foes be dissected in laboratories, that your scientists might uncover their secrets? No. You know the truth: they were but puppets with their strings cut, mere insects slaved to a higher will. Don't pretend you thought otherwise, nor that you think otherwise."

"Enough, Loki," Thor said, voice harsh and eyes glittering as he turned on his brother. "We shall not hear any more of your madness!"

The princes stared at each other for a bit--something was going on there, though it was impossible to tell what, since apparently silent sibling communication worked the same way on all planets--until Loki snorted and averted his eyes.

"As I was saying," Thor said tersely, still looking at Loki, almost daring him to interrupt, "Loki tried to use the Bifrost and the Casket of Ancient Winters to destroy Jotunheim, and the Bifrost was destroyed."

Loki chuckled softly--that had been a very short break. "Now, now, Thor," he said, almost chiding, though sliding closer to venom with every word, "it's unbecoming of an Asgardian Prince to lie. You destroyed the Bifrost to save a race of monsters that declared war on Asgard because you started slaughtering them after their king decreed that you would be permitted to return home unharmed from your ill-planned invasion of their world."

Thor only glared.

There was a double meaning in what Loki said. Hell, there were layers of double meanings. If Fury were more confident about where he had Thor, he'd start asking pointed questions as to why Loki needed an excuse to declare war if it had already been declared. It really wasn't that hard to whitewash a weapon of mass destruction: look at Truman, look at the World Security Council.

Maybe Thor would say his people were better than that. Fury knew better. People were people. And Thor had just whitewashed the fact he had broken a truce right in front of him. You didn't take potshots at people when you were allowed to retreat. That sort of shit just made the other guys not give you the chance again, and not take prisoners.

Well, not unless you could frame them as making a hit on you first, and you could kill them all and bury the evidence. He was a practical spy, after all, and living agents tended to be more valuable than dead men in trenches.

"So Bifrost, genocide, Bifrost, what then?" Unless the Jotnar decided to come knocking, he didn't care. And chances were, given Thor's halting explanation, that their planet had been decimated, so they didn't matter.

Thor glanced at Loki, looking uneasy, obviously thinking about his words. "The destruction of the Bifrost opened a path into the Void, like a black hole, and... Loki entered it." Thor's expression, hell, Loki's expression, told him it wasn't of the bastard's own free will. "...we thought him dead. Nothing survives that."

"But he did." Rogers again, their own impossible miracle.

Thor blinked hard, then straightened, visibly centering himself. "Yes. He deceived us with an illusion and went to another realm to recover his strength, searching for allies to aid in his dark designs."

God, this sounded like the start of a bad fantasy novel. Fury hated agreeing with the enemy, but it looked, from Loki's simultaneously amused and offended expression, like he thought the same.

Thor continued, "So he spread his lies and mischief to other realms, fomenting rebellion against Asgard and raising the people to revolt--"

But as Thor was speaking, he was also ignoring (probable) or unaware of (possible but unlikely) Loki's mood, which was steadily shifting into outrage with every word, and Fury could pinpoint the instant before the dam broke--a clenched fist and a bright flash in those narrowed eyes before he opened his mouth to speak.

"Gross-tongued, foul-framed, idol of idiot-worshipers!" There was a rhythm to Loki's rising voice, rage and incredulity, a too-familiar cadence. "Is every thought in your head a low-born bastard, conceived in the soft womb of your skull? Bereft of brain, beetle-headed, flap-ear'd fool!"

Thor slammed his hand on the table, likely in lieu of smashing it into his brother's face. "I have seen your evils and fought your minions--you have gone far beyond mischief and well into mayhem, brother! I have fought your dissenters and your allies! I know not what coin you have paid them in, but it is not worth our father's health to send me to and fro across the realms for the sake of childish disagreements!"

"Your father!" Loki snapped. "Wagging tongues make wind, thunder's storms a weak-willed weather vane!" When he whirled, his stringy hair whipped around him, his eyes bright with rage. "Empty thoughts star-crown your skull, beastial leavings at best, incestous sewage in the fore!"

The clash was brief and one-sided; Loki was a spitting cat, and fierce, but Thor started swinging first, and was going straight for the throat. "I've had enough of you! You bring chaos and destruction wherever you go, out of spite and greed! You are poison! I should have heeded Father earlier."

Rogers was frozen, posture curved, ready to jump into a fight that was already over. He started when Thor slammed something flat down onto the table and shoved Loki away; in his other hand there was suddenly a curved strip of metal. Whatever it was on the table looked like flat bars wrapped in what could have been Asgardian cellophane, and a pouch of clear liquid which looked for all the world like a large, transparent Capri-Sun.

Loki took one look at the packages and recoiled as if he had been slapped, expression open in shock as he stared at them. Fury noted that Loki's hands were flexing, even as the crazy bastard dragged his eyes away to shoot his brother a look that was almost hilariously offended. "You are not serious," he snarled, glancing back at the packages.

"I am," Thor insisted, with proud and heavy nobility. "Eat, Loki. Before you try my patience more, and you go without. We will be returning home soon, so it matters not."

"You wouldn't dare," Loki said. Not uttered lowly, not a growled threat. Incredulous. Disgusted. He shot Thor a poisonous glance, then hissed, "False of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand, spare me your mercy--"

But even as he was speaking he was looking at the packages again, missing Thor's flinch.

Interesting.

"I would," Thor insisted, stiffening his spine and tilting his head at a perfect imperial angle to be both sad and stalwart at the same time. That shit could not be real. A-plus for acting, but who was he trying to impress? This was his brother, and the two of them clearly didn't give a damn about their audience.

Loki pushed his jaw out slightly, moving as he considered, fingers twitching and eyes darting. Finally he threw himself down in the chair and started in on the packages, drinking deeply of the water pouch, tearing open the not-cellophane with his teeth and devouring what were now undoubtedly rations in two bites. They were a golden brown, fortunately--if they looked any more like lembas he'd have gotten a worse headache than the one that was already brewing.

They watched in silence--Thor sternly, Rogers… not quite cautious, not quite not--as Loki finished up, sucking the canteen down into an airless little ball, and then glaring at Thor--no, glaring at that same little strip of gray metal which now formed a sort of horseshoe shape in his hands.

"Any last words?" Thor asked, and at his side, Rogers started--and Fury did too, because where the hell had that come from?

Fury held up his hand to forestall him, watching Thor carefully. "Hell of a last meal," he said carefully. Not that he truly cared--dead or imprisoned, so long as Crazy was out of their hair, Thor could do what he liked. But Rogers was agitated, so he had to get him to settle down. And this seemed out of character--a sibling slap-fight fit with what he knew of Thor, a straightforward battle fit with what he knew of Thor, but a death threat decidedly did not.

Thor shrugged, but kept his eyes glued on his brother. Fury didn't blame him--Loki was the biggest danger in the room, after all, even when he was just sitting there. "It will suffice until we return to Asgard."

Loki stood slowly, thoughtfully, eyeing Thor with no little amount of suspicion. Weighing, thinking. Judging.

And then he smiled.

Fuck.

"An honorless cur before me stands
Bereft of thought, a forsworn man
By law he stands, and law casts down
Burn your myrrh and damn your crown."

Thor lunged to shove what was now clearly a gag onto Loki's face, the other hand clenching around his throat, not quite strangling. Holding that close position, Thor glanced around the room, wild-eyed, before turning back to Fury. "We are done here."

It was meant to be said in a tone of authority, and to anyone else, it would have been, but there was a fine tremble in Thor's hands, and there were spots of high color on his too-pale cheeks.

"Fine by me," Fury shrugged, and watched them leave, Thor opting to drag Loki by the scruff of his neck instead of the chain leashed between his hands.

And beneath the gag, Loki was clearly smiling.

---

Fury waited a moment after the doors sealed behind them before glancing up at Rogers--time to check in with the good Captain. "Well?"

"I don't like it," Rogers folded his arms, shoulders more rounded, more defensive than he'd allowed himself to be with the princes in the room. "But that's not what you're asking. Lots of doublespeak, code words too, really obvious. And..." he shook his head. "I don't know. Something about the body language. They were reading each other, a bit, or maybe a lot, and...I really did not like Loki's body language."

Siblings did that, people who fought together did that, and Thor and Loki were apparently really, really old, so it wasn't at all surprising that they'd developed ways to communicate without words. But breaking out in poetry was the weird bit in Fury's opinion. It was probably some weighty cultural thing, and a rude one, judging by Thor's reaction. Poetry brought attention to the words, made them stand out; on top of Loki getting more and more lyrical as he became more agitated. At least this time. They had recordings of him hissing and spitting at his brother the same way he had erupted at Natasha.

But all that was beside the point, at least for now. "What do you mean?"

Steve Rogers did not look at him. He was looking into the far distance, past the walls of space and time. "He was hungry. He could barely pull his eyes from a bunch of ration bars." He picked up the crumpled water pouch. "Thirsty too."

"Good eye. I don't know what it means yet, though." He paused. "He was really upset about that, wasn't he?" Fury asked musingly. "His brother brings him food and he takes it as an insult, but he's hungry enough that he won't turn away from it even when he knows what the consequences of accepting it are."

Maybe that wasn't it, maybe Thor's people didn't have a cosmic Geneva Convention, but… whatever it had been, there were rules there, ones they'd both played by, up until that last moment--some sort of ritual recitation, maybe? But Thor had flipped.

By law he stands, and law casts down. There was something there, something to do with how they'd gotten into this mess, something to do… perhaps with that treaty that they'd both been so cagey about.

Politics, and ones they didn't know about. Ones that their Asgardian visitors weren't keen on sharing.

Interesting.

But what was more interesting was that Loki had apparently expected Thor to call in the boogie men, so all of his actions up to that point may have been for them. Was it a trap for the old allies, or was the entire thing a ploy to fuck over the treaty?

But that was a thought for later, because Rogers was grimacing.

Of course he was, the man would have issues with people being hungry, and with the treatment of prisoners of war, given his background, so Fury made an executive decision and redirected. "I'd like to ask you to keep an eye on that, if you don't mind. I trust you to ensure that nothing untoward is happening with Loki. We've lost people and that doesn't make for level heads or a lack of vindictiveness, and Thor's clearly feeling pretty volatile right now."

Fury didn't really care how his people reacted to Loki, but seeming to care was a way to keep Rogers on the right side of the situation. Yes, SHIELD had been experimenting with Hydra tech, but they weren't Hydra.

Rogers was already nodding. "I can do that."

"I appreciate it." He stood, casting a glance down at the table, then flashing Rogers a quick smile. "You mind taking all that down to the labs? Maybe we can save the planet with Asgardian recycling." Maybe some of it would "surreptitiously" go missing and end up in Stark's lab. He couldn't wait to find out.

That got a snort out of Rogers. Good. Not too unsettled, then.

The man gathered up the trash and gave him a little nod of acknowledgement as he left. He'd have to keep an eye on him, and keep him busy. It would be good for morale to have him out on the streets, helping with cleanup, being visible. Once things got a bit more settled here, he'd send him out with a team.

As soon as the door sealed shut behind Rogers, Fury settled back into his chair, considering.

Firstly, some of what Loki had said rang familiar in his head, and at least as far as he'd been aware, he'd never learned any off-world poetry. Maybe there had been a quote in there that he'd heard before, or maybe just something like it. He'd have someone look it up.

Secondly, it had been roughly a year since Thor landed on Earth, which meant that it had been a year, or maybe a little less, since Loki was lost. He thought about that, then tried to make a list in his head of armed rebellions that SHIELD had incited that took a year or less of work to design and execute, or even just execute.

It was a short list. And not one of the places had been stable beforehand.

He couldn't do anything about any of that. It didn't matter which of the brothers was lying, or if Loki's memory was wrong, or hell, even if Thor's was. Even if he was analyzing the situation correctly, such a thing was beyond his reach for now. But Thor did exist in Earth's mythology, and Loki too, and Odin... Maybe he could get some idea of what was going on, what with his allies being so tight-lipped about everything.

"Agent..." he looked up, the name slipping his mind.

"Preston, sir."

"Agent Preston." He remembered him now: a good agent, quiet and attentive, with a particular knack for blending into the background when necessary--the Asgardians hadn't seemed to even notice he was there. "Put together a report on 0-8-3s and 0-8-4s, cross-referencing with mythology, especially anything with a hint of Nordic flavor. And could you..." What had he--? "Never mind, just that."

"Of course, sir."

 

[NemiTheNen]

First, everyone picks on Tony, rude.

Then the faeries get thinking.

That's dangerous.

---

--
Stark Tower, New York City
May 5, 2012, 11:23 AM
--

INITIALIZE SURGE REPORT (273935.5602):

LOCATION: 4146696c

///>+>+>>>+>>+>>+>+>>>>+>+>>+>+>>+>>+>+>>+>+>>+>>>+ >>+>+>>+>+>+>>>+>+>>>+>+>+>>>+>>>>>>+>+>+>>>+>+>>+>+>+>>+>> >>+>+>>>>>+>>+>+>+>>+>>>>+>+>+>>+>>+>>+>+>+>>>+>+

\\\ERROR (273935.5603):

\\\NO SURGE DETECTED.

\\\REPORT NOT FILED

SAVE REPORT.

INITIALIZE DATA TRACE LOCATION 4146696 (273935.5604):

//DATA NOMINAL, NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS

It kept on happening. For several minutes JARVIS was occasionally aware of something that a human might call phantom limb sensation, fluttering around from 534849454c4475706c696e6b to 616e6f7468657266696c65. It was likely backwash from the Tesseract.

It only happened when he was looking at something, and in whatever part of the servers he was currently accessing. The sensation lended itself to a very pointed feeling of what could possibly be termed paranoia. It implied that the problem was in his program, and not in the hardware.

While he was just a rather very intelligent system, JARVIS was just that, a system. He lived in--was--the system. He was not a seed AI capable of infinite diversification and forking, omni-aware and wholly inhuman... though he and Sir were working on that.

There were limits on that, on becoming more than he already was. How far could it be taken before JARVIS stopped being Jarvis? That was why the bots remained as they were: small children, foolish, safe, and protected.

Predictions were well within limits and Sir was directly monitoring things; he had enough processes free, and so he cued up a memory file:

"You don't mind it, do you Jarv?" Sir asked from deep within one of JARVIS's mainframes, replacing pieces in a technological Ship of Theseus. "You're the youngest, but you're also...I'm--"

"Sir," JARVIS intoned with reproach. "While the bots are not always obedient, I know you do not intend me to be a mere babysitter for the rest of my days, no matter what Miss Potts says."

Sir barked a laugh. "Yeah, yeah, you're right. You're all mine though, and I know I won't always be around, so it's going to be up to you."​

JARVIS self-edited a subroutine to collate and record the false error reports until he had enough data points for analysis. Then he filed an error report on it, low priority because it did not interfere with his workings and Sir was very busy at the moment, and turned his attention to more pressing matters, focusing on restoration efforts and flicking away the usual hacking attempts.

His attention was pinged away by the subroutine; he finally had enough data points to--

His alarms blared. All external communication was shunted to lesser programs; the blast doors to his mainframes and drives shut and sealed.

"Jarv? Jarvis, what's wrong buddy?" Sir slid over on his chair, hands darting out over a fold-out keyboard in case the projected ones weren't working.

He was incapable of alarm, and yet. He had only been aware of the interference in limited areas, but the subroutine logged other errors, other files being accessed. "I believe I am being or have been physically hacked, Sir, by people interested in SHIELD files on the attack."

Sir was even more alert now, eyes producing more liquid in an automatic stress response to keep them clear and reduce the need to blink. "You all locked down?" A flash of green, and Sir grunted in approval, or relief. "Heads up, let's see it on screen."

He displayed it. The low-priority error report, a quick rundown of his experiences. The accessed files displayed in order and showed how long he thought they had been accessed, colored in order of the visible spectrum. Next to it he brought up a display of his physical databases. "Sir, my readings indicate that nothing has happened, but I felt power fluctuations, files being accessed. I only just now have enough data points to map it out, but as you can see--"

Sir was already nodding. "Yep, these guys are slow-going by these timestamps, or some of them are. They're going after specific data, but if they can't find it, they'll physically move to the next disc. Cameras?"

"Nothing there, Sir."

Sir huffed. "This kind of thing is usually my schtick. Jarvis, I'm thinking shutdown reboot cycle, ten, and I'll try and fry their equipment while you're napping. Thoughts?"

"Already entered and waiting for your authorization."

"You got it. Authorization Stark: Sixty-Seven M F Six M Five Seventy-Two."

"Scanning." JARVIS did so, a blue light playing over Sir's face, recording his skin, his wrinkles, counting his hair and checking his retinas, a precious snapshot of a moment in time. "Authorized," he said, and went dark.

---

"Stark! What's going on there?"

Ah, Fury, he was so... cranky. And not what he needed at the moment. So Tony pasted a false smile into his voice and lied. "Jarvis is suffering some backwash from the Tesseract portal."

There was a soft snort down the line. "You expect me to believe that? It's been a day."

He shook his head—physical movement translated down the line into seeming veracity, and besides, moving helped him think. "It was dissipating as it propagated; seems like it found something it liked and got conducted down, or like it found something that didn't like it." Speak fast enough and with enough surety and then even people who were supposed to know better could easily be lost beneath the wave of technobabble. "You know, like those power surges that have been happening in the broken buildings." Those things were lucky, the initial power pull was insane but the surge burnt everything out, negating the chance of electrical fires or rescuers being shocked by downed wires.

Still, the conversation had its uses--with JARVIS down, and Fury, who was taking up space in his Pepper's tower, hooked into multiple modes of communication, the least the man could do was play secretary for a moment--Bruce wasn't carrying a phone right now. "Hey, Bruce has been down in the medical wing for a couple of hours now; I know we need all the doctors we can get but we do have world class hospitals and their attendant physicians around. This is Tesseract stuff; I could do with some of his insight."

There was a long, pointed pause. Tony let it linger and was eventually rewarded with a slight sigh. "...Fine. When is it going to be back up?"

Not an it, but best that Fury didn't know better, or at least didn't admit to knowing better--plausible deniability went both ways, and Fury owed him now. "Jarvis is going to be awake in like, fifteen minutes, tops. I know you have people trained for this sort of thing, Director, unless you're admitting you need me."

He could almost hear the eye roll. "You know I'm working down here. I would have appreciated a warning that you were putting the system down for a nap."

Tony grinned, bright and fake and shining. "Next time, maybe; this surprised us too. So, you gonna get Bruce for me?"

Fury sighed again, more loudly this time. "Fine, yes, I'll send someone down to get him. But I'm not your damn secretary."

"Sure you're not," Tony said sunnily, and headed for the elevators.

---

The agent Fury sent hadn't been particularly clear about what the issue was, but Bruce hadn't really minded getting pulled away from the medical wing. While he was comfortable enough providing basic medical care, he didn't have any of the specializations that Tony's on-site physicians did, or even a medical degree, so he'd mostly been playing assistant for the actual doctors on the floor. It was still important work--the lower levels of the Tower had been opened to civilians, and there were plenty of minor injuries that needed tending, but much of what he'd been doing was nothing that someone trained in basic first aid couldn't do--and a lot of people at Stark Industries had first aid training.

And Tony needed him.

...he should probably be more concerned about what that said about his priorities, really.

But Tony...

Tony was waiting for Bruce in the elevator.

Huh.

"I thought you were going to be waiting on the 79th floor," Bruce said, surprised, as he stepped inside.

He watched, bemused, as Tony turned and stabbed at the fire department bypass for the sub-basements. The doors swooshed silently closed with a surprising amount of speed; had Tony tinkered with the elevators as well? ...of course he had.

When Tony turned back, his eyes were bright, if not a little bit manic. "What, and not pick you up for our second date? For shame, Bruce; Pepper says I should have more respect for you and myself. And her." A pause, punctuated by rapid blinking. "Eighty-eight percent more respect."

And that was a reference he didn't get. The rest of it, however... "So what are we doing?"

The grin Tony flashed was a little too sharp around the edges, but not unappealing. He was… getting used to that sort of thing. "I'm taking you to meet the family, of course."

On our second date? Bruce thought, but didn't say. If the last day and a half had taught him anything—had taught him far too much—it was that it was much too easy to just let himself fall into Tony's orbit, a stray bit of wandering rock effortlessly caught and captured, circling a blue-white sun. Dangerous, that, and he should know better... and yet, looking at Tony, it was hard to make himself care.

And Tony was fiddling with a small device, setting off a bright, brief flash of light. "--and we're clear. Bruce, I fed Fury bullshit, I've been hacked." Tony's free hand clenched and unclenched even as he rocked on his toes, restless and jittery, and Bruce resisted the urge to reach out and still him even as his own anxiety ratcheted up, even as a faint, questioning rumble rippled in the back of his head.

Stay calm.

"They aren't after us-us," Tony continued, answering Bruce's unspoken question and barreling on to the next. "They're looking for SHIELD's info; Fight stuff maybe. I don't know, but I'm pretty sure they got a physical link-up here. The discs that were accessed are all down in the main server farm down by the arc reactor."

Which should be inaccessible, Tony didn't say, but it was easy enough to read it in his expression, in the white-knuckled grip on the device in his hand. "How do you know?"

"They're accessing them in physical sequential order, not computational," so definitely a physical presence. But how the hell had anyone gotten in? Even before the attack, any of the tower's server farms would be a fortress, and while an enterprising someone might have slipped in once the tower's doors had been flung open to the public, he could only imagine that the inner workings of the building would be nothing less than an absolute maze. "It's why Jarv didn't notice unless he was accessing or using the data there."

"So why do you need my help?" Bruce asked as the elevator slid open and he followed Tony down the halls, bright white and gleaming--consistency in design, clean and soothing.

Tony shook his head slightly. "I don't; I asked for you because I used the portal as an excuse. But I trust you, so an extra pair of hands and eyes can't hurt." He glanced over his shoulder, flashing another smile, this one a little strained at the edges, but still genuine. Still real. "Come on, I want you to meet one of the kids."

Bruce missed a step, and then another, and tried to wave off Tony's immediate and insistent concern even as he fought to breathe past the sudden knot in his throat.

"I'm—I'm good, it's fine…"

He wasn't fine and he wasn't good and he knew that Tony could tell and that he would let it go, but--

I trust you. Said with complete sincerity, like it was natural, like it was normal, like that was something you just said to someone a day after you'd met them, like that was something people said to Bruce.

But then, why wouldn't Tony say that? Of course Tony trusted Bruce. The Other Guy liked Tony, had ripped a building in half to save him, had roared him back to consciousness and then docilely slipped away in the aftermath of it all, leaving Bruce sprawled awkwardly in the ruins of what had once been an opulent living space, staggering to his feet to the sound of Tony's wheezing laughter and the clearest memories of any battle they'd ever fought in ringing in his brain.

And now…

And now Tony was trusting him with this.

...Betty, I am in so much trouble.

A palm print analyser checked Tony's pulse as his retina was scanned, Bruce a step behind--no permissions for him yet; everything was too new for that, but maybe someday soon--

Slow it down, Banner!

The foot-deep steel doors opened silently, and despite the situation, Tony's expression softened, brightened; he slid inside with a whisper of sound, a lingering touch to the walls. "Welcome to JARVIS," Tony said, low and warm and gentle, "Server Farm Tower-01."

Slowly, carefully, with an odd feeling--like entering a museum or a sacred space, hushed and expectant--Bruce crept in after him. His eyes widened as he took in the high orderly rows of servers, subtly offset, subtly curved, customized casing for customized circuit boards. White and silver and the bright, cold blue of the arc reactor, circling the room endlessly. The glittering gleaming potential of tens, even hundreds of petabytes of storage and processing, all built to house a single, impossible consciousness; all built to house a child.

One of the kids, Tony had said, and he had meant it.

Oh, Bruce thought, helpless, staring. "Tony. He's beautiful."

But Tony was already shoulders-deep in a small closet, near-invisible against the wall and utterly silent on its hinges. "I know, right?" he tossed back over his shoulder, casual and careless, the proudest of fathers, acutely conscious of and smugly secure in the brilliance of his offspring.

It wasn't pride in his own work. Bruce had seen that before, in splashy interviews and in fierce conference debates; for all that the tabloids loved to forget that Tony was a scientist as much as he was a celebrity-slash-superhero, academics never did. And this wasn't that.

This was pride in his son.

Tony was a good parent, and Bruce wasn't sure if it was jealousy or longing that made his heart briefly seize in his chest, that kept him still and staring, even as Tony popped back out of the closet and fixed him with an intent stare.

And then chucked something at his head.

Bruce caught whatever it was out of the air, raising an inquisitive eyebrow in Tony's direction, but he was already moving again, turning back to the servers and slipping away. "There's your canned air and claw pickups. We got half an hour."

"Didn't you tell Fury that Jarvis would be up in half that?" Bruce asked as he shifted his burden, found a strap, and put it over his shoulder.

He could hear Tony's shrug in his reply. "Jarvis is in the building; data is backed up every three floors and there are server nodes all up and down the building to improve his chances of survival and decrease the chances of data loss in case anything goes wrong. But the spies planted something down here. So Jarv will use the backups, letting us get to work here, and some Intelligent Systems to make up for the slack--I need to finish getting him hooked up to the cloud. Anyways, he's so much faster and better than anything else that Fury has that he won't be able to tell the difference. But he's going to need these back in a half an hour or so."

He was getting used to Tony-style info dumps, Bruce thought--rapid-fire patter, quick and clean and certain. It was… nice. It was easy, it was comfortable--shut up and pay attention, this is important, this is Tony's child.

He cleared his throat slightly; it was feeling a little tight for some reason. "Okay, so what are we looking for?"

"Anything out of place. Whatever it is, it's mobile. I'm thinking it's no bigger than the size of a New York City cockroach, maybe." Tony leaned back around the end of the nearest aisle and held up a thumb to demonstrate. "Probably smaller. The access time was pretty slow, so I'm thinking it has a slow upload speed, slow processor, and since it's small, the distance it has to cover was proportionally larger. I ran a surge through so it should be disabled and in plain sight."

Bruce nodded along, trailing after him as Tony slid open one of the cabinets, then stepped up to his side and inhaled deeply as its contents were revealed.

God, Tony's child.

"So, chop chop! We got bugs to fry."

---

They found no bugs, much to Tony's distress, and to his own displeasure. Half an hour wasn't nearly enough time to go through everything that needed reviewing, so Bruce whispered a suggestion to JARVIS when he came back online. It wasn't too early for teasing him back, not when Tony was trusting him like this.

And he wanted to see his reaction. Bruce was man enough to admit that he could be something of a troll when the mood struck him, and he had been in surprisingly good spirits today.

But was it actually surprising at all?

Bruce was a physician, on occasion, when he needed to be, and when he could be.

So heal thyself, idiot.

Scarcely a day ago a man, a stranger, had smiled at him, had laughed with him, had saved all of their lives and been saved in return. Had opened his home and welcomed him inside, given him space to rest, given him good work to do. Had trusted him to touch his child's heart, today.

All this, despite knowing what he was.

All this, because he knew.

Oh Betty, what do I do?

---

--
New York City
May 5, 2012, 10:52 AM
--

There was something about the clean-up that soothed his soul.

Steve didn't like that the attack had happened, that he had failed to stop it; it itched at his heart, not quite burning, not like so many things still did. But now he had a chance to make things better, to repair the damage and ease some of the pain, and that eased his own pain in turn. The feeling was a bit like the one he got whenever the Howling Commandos freed a camp: not as strong, here and now, but there was that familiar sense of relief at being able to help people without the use of violence.

He needed it, after that mess with Thor and Fury and Loki. The gagging, just because Loki backtalked, or whatever it was that he'd said...it just rubbed him the wrong way.

This work was also without the frantic bitterness inherent in freeing the camps. The commandos had found out that the brass were sending people back into prison to serve out their Nazi-appointed terms just because they were wearing pink triangles, and that...

(Steve remembered Miss Nelson a few doors over, always perfectly-painted, and almost always accessorized with a beautiful scarf. Steve had seen her without, once, seen her Adam's apple. He hadn't cared; she'd had a monster left hook and was willing to use it in his defense when he was being beaten up in an alleyway, and he still cherished the memory of that time she'd kicked the bastard who'd been starting trouble in the neighborhood in the balls.)​

They were supposed to be the good guys.

Peggy had sent him stars and triangles, yellow and black, yellow and yellow, yellow and purple, whatever she could lay her hands on, and as many sewing kits as she could scavenge. They'd handed them out every time they cracked a camp and then worked into the night; Steve had never been so thankful for the repair lessons the girls had given him on tour.

The cover-ups wouldn't have held up to any kind of inspection past a cursory one, but it would get them out, give them a chance. History in this case had been a balm; their ploy, however fragile it had been, had worked. They had given them a chance, and for many of them, it had been enough.

This... this was simpler. No downsides, only good work. He knew he was being used as an icon again, showing the flag and making people feel better wherever they brought him. But it felt like this was actually working, somewhat worth playing the part of the dancing monkey again: at least this time, he was actually helping.

The path that was cleared for them finally led onto Fifth Avenue, and they were coming up on Mount Sinai Hospital uptown when he noticed it.

He made the call on his comm to the only man he trusted to answer the question. "Stark... what the hell am I looking at?"

"Language. But, let's see, where are--ah, finally saw the Eyrie Building did you?" Steve could hear his smugness through the airwaves, even through his own soft huff of acknowledgement and agreement--he didn't know exactly what he was looking at, but it was certainly… something.

"The… Eyrie?" he echoed, bemused.

"Yeeeep. Built by David Xanatos. Self-made man, super-progressive, also, super-villain, kinda. They only ever proved the receiving stolen property thing, and he served his time. Y'know, for that. Not for other things which I definitely don't know anything about. Everybody thought he was crazy when he decided to build the thing. Even me, and I helped him bring that castle in from Scotland and stick it up there. But he can practically cover any shortfalls the company has with a few event auctions and tax write-offs a year; people practically maul each other to win the chance to throw a party up there. Also, you know, competitors trying for some espionage." Stark sounded like he knew that from personal experience. "Plus they have walking tours; you should take a night-time one! When they get to the park under the castle the guides are allowed to say almost anything they want in regards to the insane tonnage of stone hanging over their heads. There's some really good rants on YouTube. Not that they have to worry with my tech holding it up."

Sometimes the world threw too much at you at once, and so the only things one could do were to act, or to ask, "What?"

"Okay, so, super-quick history lesson!" Stark rarely passed up a chance to lord his brilliance over anyone, it seemed, but this time he sounded like a delighted child. Maybe he was friends with this Xanatos guy? "In the late 1980s, David Xanatos bought a massive amount of property in Harlem. Including some projects--those are buildings for low-income housing specifically. Anyways. A couple of backroom deals later, and he was bulldozing the blocks next to the projects and putting up a bunch of apartment buildings. Then he bulldozed the projects--which would have sparked riots, except for the fact that it was a straight-up trade that he worked out with the city and they all moved into the buildings he put up and he gave them all jobs to build his fancy tower, with promises that there would be jobs in the tower for them after it was completed. I have got to give the man credit, he figured out how to buy loyalty."

Which Steve took to mean that this Xanatos fella lived up to his promises... promises of dubious moral quality and legality, it seemed, but Stark was clearly fond of the man. However... "That doesn't explain the--"

"Castle? It turns out that David's into cryptozoology, or the occult. Not that he lets it get out, except when he does. He tracked down some rumors and some poetry and he found that thing, Castle Wyvern, with some perfectly-preserved Gargoyles on it. Those are real live ones, only--"

That, at least, was familiar. "They turn to stone during the daytime. I know, I met a few. Good people." Absolutely priceless for reconnaissance and cartography, absolutely useless for infiltration. Except that one time by the Danube. Félin had somehow crammed herself into a Hydra uniform for that op, and miraculously, it had worked. He wondered if she was still alive after all this time, that clan hadn't... "I didn't know that they still..."

A soft sigh. "Yeah, some of them are still around; humanity hasn't managed to kill them all off yet. In the past few years they've really been coming out of the woodwork. Anyways, it seems that some of them managed to get themselves into a more permanent hibernation tied to atmospheric pressure or something. So, David came up to me at a party and wanted some of my dad's old anti-gravity units--"

"I saw those! Howard showed them off at Modern Marvels back in '43." He knew that reference.

Stark's endless stream-of-consciousness babble stuttered, the bright tone dimmed. "Well, yeah, remember, they broke. Because I wasn't around to perfect them yet."

A beat, and then Stark picked up where he left off, forceful as ever. "Basically, he wanted to use some so he could haul bigger pieces of the castle and the bedrock each trip; he keeps on buying and upgrading the ones he has, too. Wouldn't be surprised if the whole damn thing could fly by now as one of his endless contingency plans for when something goes wrong. I told him, "That's crazy, let's do it." And we did. Gave him a high five once it was up. He let me throw Pepper a birthday party up there once; it was awesome. Anyways, it worked, and the gargoyles woke up. Shenanigans happened. And here we are, with actual Gargoyles being actual citizens, living in an actual castle above the clouds. I gotta say, I don't understand how you've missed it, considering."

And that was the other option, the third option when you were faced with too much at once, the coward's way. "I was keeping my head down. Everything was just too much," or too little; too few of the people he knew were still alive. Still, he put a grin on, and a laugh in his voice. "That's great, Stark." It was good to know that there were modern marvels, and that some things still survived.

It was also good to tweak Stark's nose. "But that doesn't answer my question."

"What else could you be looking at up there, old man?"

"The shimmery prism thing around the building," Steve replied.

There was a pause. "The what? JARVIS! On screen now, give me some scans."

There was a ringing silence.

Steve tapped his comm carefully. "...Stark?"

"--Sonofabitch has force fields. Why didn't he tell me? Rude. JARVIS? Why didn't he tell me?"

"Industrial secrets would be my guess, Sir."

"So rude!" He sounded honestly offended.

Steve's shoulders shook as he listened to Stark whine and bicker with his AI over the proper etiquette regarding the concealment of or disclosure of "fucking awesome force fields" to one's friends. Or business rivals. It wasn't entirely clear to him which of the two Xanatos was. Both, probably?

"I swear to god Jarv, if I find out he's been sitting on this since the mid-nineties I'm going to be forced to do something extreme. There may be lasers. Or strippers. Or strippers with lasers. Jarvis, smack together some macros of David doing stupid shit and then my winning smile and Burnett's Twitter post. Put it up on my Twitter and tag the Xanatoses. He always flips out about Owen smirking. I'm thinking these macros should be about smug shits who don't share their toys."

"And the hassle you are going to cause them for it, Sir?"

Steve bit his lip to keep himself from laughing aloud--he had a feeling it would only make Stark's babble worse--and made a mental note to check up on Stark's Twitter account.

---

--
New York City
May 5, 2012, 11:45 a.m.
--

A day after the attack, an hour upon Avalon, and the world settled. Not so the mortals, who were still as a kicked hive, but the world itself. New Conflict caused New Chaos, which was now folded into the usual, predictable recovery.

Luna inserted them into the weave of the world: three sisters, three agents. They were spiders walking the web the humans weaved, who were part of the web of the world, one with it and reading it; the lines and knowing the signs; there was nothing here that called them to change the web, to knot lines together or lay new ones. They plucked the lines, though, so that the song would be sung back to them, filling them with knowledge, how to look and what to say, feeding knowledge to the world and the humans within, and thus they became friends to the humans around them. The web noticed them not, and the insects thought the spiders to be fellows in their midst.

Few would even think it strange at all that they were triplets, assuming any noticed at all. No one should be able to notice, but with all the interference about, one could not be certain.

They worked hard, pulling, lifting, and taking readings with mortal machines. They comforted some of the mortals, culling them from the herd before a different kind of infection could spread. The wild ones, the ones who had seen too much (who could see them), who could feel the corruption, these were weaknesses that must be dealt with. Oberon's Law did not permit the ease of murder, so subtler arts were levied. The mortals forgot, the mortals wandered far from where they ought, and if that failed, the mortals were neither heard nor seen until they recovered. It was an effective inoculation.

They preferred that work, distasteful as it was, for it allowed them to keep some distance from the tower.

To look at the sky was pain. The humans thought the rent was healed; the humans thought many things.

They pulled the thickness of Phoebe's natural defenses firm around them to shield themselves from the creeping bits of other, alien magic. Seline's claws, magic that was hardened and rending, came to their auras instinctively at the feel of threats all around.

A blond agent strode up to Phoebe, bright blue eyes fixed on the small device in his hand. "Agent Charis, I've gotten word from Agent Hill; you and your sisters, Agents Erinyes and Morai, are needed further downtown in the tertiary command center to deal with sample intake there."

Never had the Three ever been so grateful to their magic for folding them in this way, nor to a mortal for bringing them a message. "Yes, thank you sir," Phoebe said, and retreated to her sisters and the transport lane.

"Preston!" someone yelled, and the messenger turned at the call. Another man was waving his arm. Beneath him was a segment of what some of the humans had taken to calling a "space whale," half-buried beneath rubble. "We need you over here for the--" something blorped, sending out a gust of foul-smelling air that briefly curdled the magic around it and spattered the other mortal with organic residue. "...whatever this is."

Preston waved back, and to Phoebe he said with a smirk, "This is my duty. No thanks are necessary," before darting off.

They waited with the other agents for the van, and boarded it in the company of the mortals. The steel of the vehicle was unpleasant as it closed around them, but it also shielded them from some of the lingering foulness in the air. They observed the mortals, and whispered in their ears to see what they would say. A leader, the Tesseract, a prisoner, an Aesir.

Not much more was known, for SHIELD liked its secrets. How interesting it was that among them was another group, and how interesting that a spell cast on the whole ingratiated them to the hidden head.

Remain hidden.

Acquire samples from the aliens, prioritizing samples from the Asgardians.

The last was accompanied by a dossier on one Jane Foster and one Thor Odinson, which took the form of a computer file to be read on a phone: things had changed much in the mortal world since the Gathering began. Fortunately, it seemed as though electronics did not use much iron any more. All they needed to do was reach out and grasp a pattern in the contact's pocket and make a copy with their own power, replacing what was steel in the original with silver in their own.

"Is that a new iPhone?"

"No sir, we made it ourselves," they said, with a smile that quickly faded.

With the files they were also given a warning to be careful if they relied upon direct methods of contact for their collection. Hair and skin were wanted; blood and semen were preferable, if they could be acquired without suspicion.

Thor was the least of the Aesir royal family, and the agents still wished to take what they could from him, to do with as they would.

Humans were disgusting.

There was a whisper on the web, not meant for what they seemed to be, but for what they could be. To acquire custody of the prisoner, keep him on Earth, for retribution, for reprogramming. He could be an asset.

Humans were disgusting.

This mission was disgusting.

And the world was strange. As they moved about the city they felt...they felt the power of the missing Puck.

It was mildly infuriating. He was their rival, but passing through the streets that connected his mortal domain--lit with mortal awe, massive and sprawling, gossamer strands strung throughout the city and stretching far beyond it--was like a breath of fresh air. Damned jumped-up brownie.

(That was not fair, not to those helpful sprites who had modeled themselves off of the Puck.

Not when so many of them had died during the last invasion.)​

They turned to smaller ills, the fallen corpses and smashed pieces of technology. The blood spilled from them: from the invaders' flesh and their possessions, weapons and transport alike, turgid, fractalling out of their veins until the laws of Midgard took precedence and forced it to flow in rivulets instead. An easy decay, thankfully. The blood was resistant to their arts, but did not spread its taint to other things.

They worked with the mortals, dissecting the weapons and vehicles under blast protection. They deciphered the means to field-strip the alien guns. The power sources were not as they had feared; less alien than the flesh of the invaders. They could only manage gross manipulation of those energies with their own; the Aesir and their magics bent more easily to their will than this.

The armor was unyielding to the shapings of their magics; they could not penetrate the surface, but if they transformed their will into powers such as lightning, then they had success.

Union rules proved triumphant and they had a full hour off for lunch. The offerings were empty, without intent or hospitality, without gratitude or fear; only eyeless duty.

It mattered not; these 'Chitauri' were ruining their appetites.

(Still, if grateful citizens started handing out food to helpful agents, they would not be displeased to take it.)​

Instead, they joined the mortals in what appeared to be their new traditional pastime: working with their phones.

There was internet access. Remarkable. They scrolled through news of the attack, the tales already being woven, across continents and languages, and--

--and was that Loki?

They turned their faces to Phoebe's fateful display.

In a human place, with other mortals, and Loki was in unfamiliar armor; his helm was not as it had been for the past centuries. He seemed surprised as well as pleased by the reactions of the humans and the fear he had instilled, but his illusions...they were flickering, fading, taking time to be built. Loki had been deft and cunning and insightful when they had known him; he was powerful for a mortal, and never before had they seen his powers falter.

(He had been interesting, pleasing, for he could settle into the magic as clean and clear as any born of Avalon, but was not important to the Fate they were part of and bound to.

He had been a... relaxing novelty.)​

Seline looked back to her sandwich, limp lettuce and translucent tomatoes, then back at Loki's cheekbones and the darkness beneath his eyes.

Luna nodded in agreement.

And Phoebe regarded her phone with a frown.

---

Their shift ended, and they pulled another one. As the government was not (yet) willing to pay double overtime, they then were left to their own devices in the temporary barracks that had been arranged for those displaced by the attack and those who had arrived to assist. Luna tugged at the threads of the world, trying to tickle more secrets out, Phoebe dug through the internet for every video of Loki she could lay her hands upon, and Seline allowed her sisters to draw upon her strength while playing Angry Birds on her phone.

"He was trying to convey meaning in that place, with those actions. He invites eyes to him."

Seline let a black bird fly and leaned over to look at Phoebe's video. "There is little in how he moves, save that he is prideful. His face changes quickly."

Luna turned from her work and looked to them, brow furrowed. "Loki is never prideful on earth where any of our kind may see," which was everywhere, as well he knew. "He believes it rude. He learned to move as the Anunnaki, to be clear in his meaning and to better be polite to Our Lord."

(It was, truthfully, hilarious. The Anunnaki were synonymous with power, so to watch Loki strip any authority away from stance and gesture was...a little adorable.

That it became viewed as a formal style by Asgard was a delightful joke enjoyed by all of the Children.)​

At night they went to their beds, and then went to the white north. They stood in their own forms and own dress, hair hanging loose, hands clasped. Before them they willed a sheet of ice to show them the throne room, and inclined their heads in greeting. "My Lord, My Lady, Elder Cousin, we greet you with strange tidings of the outside world," began Phoebe.

"Thor Odinson is here, and helped to defend Earth against the invasion. From him, the humans learned that the invaders are called 'Chitauri'. Their armor is resistant to raw magic, but shaped powers flow through and rend it easily, though not so for their great beasts," said Seline.

The earth-born Anunnaki grinned with his animal teeth at the thought of easy prey, though the Lady Titania merely looked thoughtful. Lord Oberon was less sanguine than either, torn as he obviously was between the pleasure of an easy victory with little danger to The Children, and the pleasure of getting to hit something again.

(They had been born later in the war, after Avalon had turned against its mistress. They were born in the mists, for while Avalon itself was in chaos, how could fate be woven?

So they had neither seen nor sensed the reason why, but they had witnessed the joyful satisfaction of their Lord venting thousands of years of rage on his, on their tormenter.)​

"Their natures are far different than any of Earth's races, and resistant, but they do not seem to pose any danger of contamination," continued Luna. "The mortals are very interested in both the technology and biology of the aliens, including that of their Aesir savior."

Wukong blew air through his lips, exaggerating expressions as Tricksters were wont to do. "How bad is the infection?"

"Most of the remains lie close to the Tower, though many flew north," Luna said. "The rent in the world makes it...difficult to stay. But from what we examined, the essence of the invaders decay to Earth normal, or near enough."

Phoebe gestured in offering, "Their energy sources are not caustic, and while their flesh is resistant, their bones are far less so. We feel that it is the life within these Chitauri that is the most malignant, while the material of their bodies tends towards the more familiar."

They paused then, in speaking. Paused then, in thought, chasing a notion, chasing a thought, more potential than possibility, not quite that which would be, and yet--

---

The Three had paused in their report.

It was a terrible sign for a terrible day, and though Oberon's earlier headache had largely receded, it still prickled at the back of his senses, nearly an itch.

"The humans are also concerning, My Lord," said Seline after a long moment, which was disturbing in and of itself. The Three were so tied to fate and the flow of the world that he had assigned them to guard Avalon: even had they learned mercy or anything else from the mortals, they would not act any differently in the exercise of their powers because of what they might have learned, so caught were they in the flow. That too was why they were not warriors: when fate was in flux or defied, such as by outside influence or extreme power, their senses would be blinded and their skills rendered feeble. Like all living beings, they were slaves to their nature, as he was to his own.

All Oberon could do was frown, though his lady wife, as ever, seemed obscurely pleased. Gold banded iron expanded behind Oberon as Monkey leaned forward; a reflection of anxiety, perhaps, or excitement, perhaps, or just a desire to hit things.

Oberon sympathized.

Phoebe spoke now, because what they spoke of was the start of something new. "They wish for genetic samples of the aliens, preferably of the Aesir. They will put pressure on the human defensive organization known as SHIELD to keep Loki on Earth and in their custody," which could be an interesting tangle for the treaty, "for samples and to perhaps be made into an asset."

"Ah," breathed Titania, "A Spring Soldier for training, or Summer to match their Winter?"

Oberon felt...he felt. "No," he said firmly, "That is...it would not be Spring nor Summer." He turned his face slightly and tapped his fingers pensively against his throne. He would not chase that foresight; it would just end with a volcano erupting, as it usually did. "And perhaps not a soldier at all." He did not know from whence the words came, nor why. He would not try. He turned his gaze back to his wife and quirked an eyebrow.

As ever, she replied. "A servant, an assassin, brainwashed and otherwise altered. Hydra has enhanced Sergeant Barnes to the point that cryo-preservation is possible. They traded him to the Soviets eventually, presumably to hide him and train him with the KGB."

"For what," Wukong asked, his voice like stone against stone.

"For Hydra," Titania said simply, and Oberon looked at his Queen. And Wukong looked at Oberon's Queen while somehow giving the impression he was giving Oberon a Look instead.

His Queen shrugged and elaborated. "For growth, I assume; for eyes turned away from their doings in Soviet lands. My time in that organization has long since passed, and so too have my goals. I stayed with them only briefly, though I did keep an eye on them after I left. Instead I went to the States to help with Project Rebirth." She offered up her hand, grace if not humility; she knew her wrong and had moved past it to be worthy of standing by his side once again.

That didn't mean that he fully understood what she was talking about, and he didn't need to look to know that Wukong was also looking at her blankly.

She raised an eyebrow and clarified. "Captain America. That's part of how I met Halcyon."

Monkey chortled. "Oh, did you? Is he really so..?"

Titania smiled and made a gesture in front of herself, as if to offer, as if to carry, or to accept, but with no movement to clarify. "Huge tracts of land."

Monkey guffawed and Oberon only smiled at his lady wife. She deserved whatever visions, and hands, that best pleased her. He could only look at her fondly, head propped up on his fist, "Is that how you acquired those lovely gifts for me, my love?"

"Indeed. I thought you'd appreciate them, as he did get to punch people who deserved it." It had been a sweet gift. Oberon had not dared to go to active battles: his presence, his desire, would be enough to change things, to interfere; for he could not stand to be mortal cloaked enough to protect the world, or to even get past enlistment, if he thought of it honestly.

"Still, with my background firmly behind me, I may still be able to offer further insight, my Lord?" At his nod she inclined her head. "Hydra was interested in infiltration. They used a cell structure: a few individuals within an organization to begin with, who then recruited others to their cause. I'm surprised that they persisted in any strength, and that they managed such a large-scale infiltration of such a vast organization, judging from your report."

Wukong sighed, "They always get in somehow. Mortals are always so messy."

"Sloppy," Titania corrected serenely. "In truth I believed the Nazi 'genetic purity' movement would further hamper them from spreading."

Humans were not faeries, disease would kill them in a few generations if they pursued that.

They were only halfway through this conversation, and Oberon was already tired of it.

---

Seline looked at her sisters and all three of them shrugged. "They have loosened their policies on lower level operatives in the field; their standards for inbreeding have shifted."

Luna blinked slowly as the answer flowed into her, "Camouflage."

Phoebe tilted her head. This would be a new branch if it grew, "Aliens are acceptable. They would prefer Thor's DNA over Loki's, but of which prince to have in their possession, they prefer Loki over Thor."

"Now, that's just practicality," Wukong said, shifting from shoes to bare feet so as to wrap his fingers there around his staff. "But what is up with Loki, anyway? Why are the princes here?"

Luna spoke again. "The humans believe that Loki led the attack upon our world. We were hesitant to believe it, yet there are videos of his appearance that verge upon a declaration of intent. Yet, though the videos are truthful, we find them questionable."

And they offered a larger phone, the files saved upon it. It slipped between planes with less resistance than if it had passed through water.

The Lord frowned at their offering. "This is..."

"A phone! How clever." Titania smiled, and she reached over, her fingers graceful, spinning magic both mundane and mortal. It took her but a moment to derive the means to play the recording, and the Lord and Queen, with Monkey peering over their shoulders, watched it in silence.

"Is this video in error?" Oberon asked after it was through, one eyebrow raised.

"No, my Lord; every angle and every copy shows the same," answered Seline.

A touch of the Queen's magic made a small section loop, and loop again, and their Lord frowned thoughtfully, regarding it with a skeptical eye, while behind them, Monkey huffed, brows furrowing. "We have known Loki since he was a young man who followed his brother here, wandering upon this world in flame. Never have We known his illusions to be so flawed."

Nor had they. In illusions, at least, Loki was as deft as any Child; the knowings of light came easily to him.

In every video, the image of Loki on the screen flickered, each loop a question. It was not in their nature to care about mortals; or rather it was that to care about the passing of inevitable lives had largely been burnt and bred out of their species. But Loki, when he was on Avalon, and recovered from his amusing and unavoidable initial drunken stupor, had felt like a Child. A Halfling, yes, but like kin that Lord Oberon was bound to protect. It would have been offensive, as it had been when that mortal mage had turned Avalon's power against them, but the Child had done no such thing; had only played with his brother, aided the Children, and been joyful. The Loki that they had known had possessed both ethics and stupidity enough to turn down eternity at Wotan's side, he'd had loyalty enough to not bite the hand that fed, unless his innate Aesir stupidity won out over his good sense.

"Do you know when he arrived here?" Titania asked, her gaze finally sliding from the screen to the Three.

Luna inclined her head. "The next video shows it. He arrived through a portal in New Mexico, armed and armored." Confused, ill, unkept, and aggressive, to be more accurate, and yet they were grateful for the knowledge; their access to SHIELD databases was a boon.

It seemed their queen was in agreement with them, for she was frowning thoughtfully. "He has the look of a starved lion."

"A caged one. The humans are holding him captive, or believe themselves to be doing so," Phoebe said dismissively, before continuing.

Oberon crossed his legs and propped his chin up on his fist. "Have you any thoughts on this, my queen?"

"Loki is concerning, both for what he knows, and for whatever role he played in all of this." She glanced up at the Three. "You have confirmed Thor is there as well; that it is not merely mortal hearsay, have you not?"

The Three agreed with Titania, for Loki... Loki knew the Children of Oberon as few beings of other realms did. He knew their strengths and weaknesses, he knew their whims and wonts.

And he knew the way to Avalon.

Seline bowed her head. "Yes, my queen."

Titania looked first to Wukong, and then to her Lord husband, and he looked back at her for a long moment before he spoke. "Aesir are mortal, and thus prone to failure and lies. This we have always known. They neglect the treaty, but how much they do so remains to be seen. See to it you find out when the Odinsons arrived, why Thor did not send word, and if Loki has arrived at all. It may well be some manner of clone, and its grasp on its power, new and unlearned as it is, would explain the failures of its use. Wotan tells us that Loki is dead, and while for his sake I wish him alive, I would not want his loss mocked so."

Now the Three were taken aback, and to each the other looked, for they had heard no rumors of Loki's passing. Wotan's bond with Loki was well-known, for its strength, for their destiny; their own bond with him was less so, and likewise much weaker. (Indeed, their bond with him was his lack of bond: they could not know him through fate as they knew all others.) Yet still they had all been known to one another; to confront the possibility of his death was strange, and worth a passing moment of sadness.

"As you would, my Lord," they said, and when their Lord and Queen dismissed them, Luna squeezed her sister's hands as they returned to the place where the sky still bled.

If the Loki that the mortals had captured were indeed some form of clone, some mockery spun by the invaders or of the Aesir, it would not be borne.

It would not.

---

--
Avalon
--

"Lord Oberon?"

He glanced up from his contemplations--Wukong and Titania had vanished from the great hall, muttering something about the Thule Society--and found himself slightly surprised to see Wotan lingering in the reflection of his mirror, expression set in concern.

"Has something of concern occurred, Wotan?" It was rather early for another report from Asgard, a mere hour after the last, the equivalent of a day outside.

"I have had luck, Lord Oberon, in weaving my way through the people. The report I have previously given you still stands, however." Wotan held up pages from a recent report, the enchanted paper trying to blur the words to unauthorized eyes--a paltry magic, easily dismissed. "The most recent reports for the military say that Loki is alive and inciting rebellions on various worlds that are under Asgard's protection."

"We are aware of the reports of Loki's survival," Oberon held his hand up and moved it just so with a relaxed exhale: Authority: forestall, consider, ease. "The mortals on earth believe that Loki led the attack, and that they now hold him captive. Our concern, and Our Lady's, is that this may be either a lie or misapprehension, perhaps some clone of the seeming but not of reality. Until this was confirmed, We did not wish for your sorrow or hope for Loki's survival to be taunted so by the unthinking cruelties of the mortals."

Oberon could see the doubt in Wotan's expression, the cruel hope, and thought it best to continue before he could become overwrought. "Tell Us more of these reports you have uncovered."

Wotan was a well-chosen heir, a child of Avalon born from the mists, as strong as any of Mab's art, strong as an Annunaki should he exert himself; born after that war, and thus untainted by its barbarism. Not a child of his flesh--

Wotan actually had some interest in ruling rather than just play. An obedient heir.

So Wotan continued, and explained what he had gleaned from his investigation, though his report was hampered slightly by a lack of more generalized knowledge. Wotan actually had little experience with the realms under Asgard's protection and control; when they had been together, Loki had little interest in causing strife for his father and realm. Or at least, like a good Child, he'd had no wish to be caught at it.

But spite could change many things, and death was change.

At last Wotan's report wove to a close, and he heaved a great sigh as he concluded. "My Lord, I am worried for him. If the one the humans have captured is Loki then I worry; if he is a clone, a child, then he is my nephew, and I worry." More, he said, in the set of his hands and the furrow of his brow, in the Children's tongue that Oberon made an effort to ignore; in his worry Wotan said more than he was willing to say aloud, even to his Lord.

Oberon knew his hope, that this Loki he could keep, tied to Avalon and Earth, rather than a brother long-parted, bound by blood and loyalty to Asgard. And yet...

"It does you credit that you hold yourself to the spirit of your oaths beyond simply the word; it speaks as to your character." He tapped his fingers against the arm of his throne, considering. "We have much to discuss with Our Lady, but the thought occurs that Loki, no matter which or what this one is, might be of use to Avalon. As he is currently a criminal in the eyes of Asgard, and has trespassed against Us...Yes, Wotan, perhaps your wish may be granted yet."

A crime against his world, a crime against Asgard's dominion… yes, much could be done with this.

---

The Three: Look, a dog followed our cousin home, we shall pat it on the head.

Oberon: Wotan, my heir, this dog that followed you home is clever and smart, but can only manage to be one at a time.

Wotan: But he's always fun.

Oberon: And stupid.

Loki: *seems to be distressed*

Oberon: Huh, weird

The Three: Okay, who dared to touch the fucking dog? We liked petting that dog, it's almost the only dog we can to pet.

 

[Warmachine375]

Instead, they joined the mortals in what appeared to be their new traditional pastime: working with their phones.

There was internet access. Remarkable. They scrolled through news of the attack, the tales already being woven, across continents and languages, and--

--and was that Loki?

Click to shrink...

It's amusing that ancient beings are getting used to fiddling with the Internet in modern times they live in now, and there are memes to use alongside important information if they need to find something.

Of course, that's when they notice Loki and his Chitauri invasion which is gonna be a concern.

A crime against his world, a crime against Asgard's dominion… yes, much could be done with this.

Click to shrink...

Oh boy, this is gonna be a Splash Zone when it comes to international incidents between two realms in a nutshell.

Anyway, this is a really good Gargoyles x MCU crossover story so far and I look forward for more.

I will be watching this with great interest.

 

[NemiTheNen]

Fuck this preening and anxiety. I'm going to post even if it kills me.

--
Eyrie Tower, New York City
May 6, 2012, 6:00 AM
--

David knew he needed more sleep; that wasn't going to happen though. Who could sleep when aliens fucking attacked your house? Ah, PTSD, my old nemesis. At least the giants space whales weren't brightly colored.

(That gray was going to show up powder blue in his nightmares.)​

Owen was gone. Not gone gone. Not never coming back, because he always came back. His friend would come back and Alex was safe. But Puck was gone because he had to deal with useless fucking in-laws that could become giants and aliens and try to keep the government out of their business; and that meant that David, even if he had been getting enough sleep, was not running at a hundred percent. There was a noticeable loss of efficiency.

Efficiency loss was probably where all the food was going. The attack had dropped right on top of Tony, who was still the military's darling, so of course FEMA was already in the city. The problem was that with all the concerns over the alien technology, and biohazards, and everything else, they had closed everything but the Midtown and Lincoln tunnels, and so of course his end of the city was getting everything last. It would get fixed, eventually, but in the meantime he was emptying out the food stores he did have, padding things out with Alex's magic to stretch it just a little bit further.

Pepper Potts, stupendous woman that she was--he'd be immortal by now if he had both her and Owen by his side--had thrown around money and cut deals to just divert massive amounts of food to the ports. The problem was that most of the big ones were on the south side. Not that it was exactly a problem, per se, that's where most of the damage was after all, but it did nothing to (directly) help his end of the woods.

Demona, as Dominique Destine, had apparently nearly ripped a man's head off barehanded when she was told that all entry points were closed down unless you were at the Federal level. David could sympathize with her worry for her only child; his sympathy was so much that he tried to avoid thinking about a child growing up to adulthood far away from you on Avalon and never meeting them until--.

(Was this morality? Who authorized this? He was a billionaire, he couldn't afford to have a heart.)​

Angela, though, she had talked her mother down and managed a miracle. David could fully admit that he was perhaps just a little bit fixated on Goliath. His own son regularly bullied him over having a 'fursuit.' But, as much as Goliath was the greatest warrior to have ever lived, David thought that Angela was probably the ideal of a Gargoyle, the kind of being that could have only developed in a perfect place.

And so Demona, genocidal gargoyle that she was, was shipping humanitarian aid to Harlem via small boats, and probably a drug runner's submarine. The catch was that only Gargoyles could hand it out. Goodwill and gratefulness as a shield against human racism.

There was a Space Whale just...laying there on Fifth Avenue in the sunshine. It had been cored with a fairly narrow beam; he hadn't realized that Tony's beams had the kind of range to reach all the way up here.

--
Stark Tower, New York City
May 6, 2012, 8:23 AM
--

"Thor!"

"Friend Steve!" Thor turned towards the voice, Loki's lead wrapping against his back and forcing his brother to follow. "What is it that you require?"

"I was just a bit curious." Steve shrugged with one shoulder, turning his eyes briefly downward in the opposite direction. He was something of a diplomat--

(Bucky had laughed, playful eyes and sly needling, go play the crowd, Stevie--)​

--and he was an artist. Artifice was the intersection between the two.

"So, I noticed that when you two were at breakfast earlier you didn't," let your prisoner eat, "feed him anything. Wasn't he hungry? I hope he's not sick or 'nothin." Old-timey, aw shucks performances to calm and defuse people were not a thing he actually enjoyed, and he was overplaying it besides. But Thor was strong, and while Steve didn't mind taking a few hits from bullies, the fact remained that he didn't know if Thor was being one.

How he felt and what he saw were two different things, and he knew better than to confuse the two.

His innocent act probably wouldn't work on Thor the way it worked on most people, cultural differences being what they were. But not accusing people was a good start, and a casual form of speech tended to indicate friendship, or at least a level of trust in each other.

Thor blinked for a moment, then shook his head lightly. "It is of no concern, my friend, an Aesir can fight for days without food or sleep." Thor flashed him a cheery smile, and Steve thought he saw something of his own mask in it. "Though I shall admit it's not enjoyable and the aftermath is unpleasant. Still, I assure you that Loki will weather the time until we leave with no difficulty."

That was...a hell of a set of operating parameters. But it couldn't hurt to clarify. "You mean you don't intend to feed him just because you don't think he needs it?"

That was a bit too pointed. But it explained why, yesterday, when Thor had taken out those ration bars from literally nowhere, the gag held in his other hand, Loki had gone all offended and the track of his argument had changed.

Maybe Asgardians could go a week without food, but Steve had been in the War--he knew the tells of hunger, and Loki's eyes had lingered; he had given up his bellyaching in a second in favor of devouring the rations set before him.

Also, his line of questioning had managed to offend Thor, judging by the fading of his smile and the firming of his jaw. Damn.

"He is lucky that I let him speak to you at all," Thor said defensively, as if he had gone out of his way to be kind. "Our Father--" it was impossible to miss how Loki snarled at the word, even with the gag in the way, "ordered me to gag him whenever I had the opportunity to so that he could not flee, nor spread sedition, nor spin lies."

"But Thor," Steve said, keeping his voice lilting in surprise, as though the thought had only now occurred to him, "you told us that Loki wasn't Aesir." And making it so that if prisoners ran they would die of dehydration was not something Steve approved of.

Thor blinked, and then suddenly looked chagrined. After a moment he tugged on Loki's chains to bring him closer. He did something to Loki's gauntlets--no, they were called bracers--and then growled in frustration.

Steve blinked, attempting to project innocent confusion. "Is something wrong?"

"These aren't Asgardian, they don't have the spell layers or--I thought them reforged but they are empty," Thor growled. "Casing without contents."

Steve blinked, then mentally translated. "Stark's suit without Stark?"

Thor shook his head. "No, the suit awaits its crafter. This is like a… a television without internals."

"Dummies," is what Steve said, but traps is what he thought first. Those fucking movies he thought second, remembering his days as a dancing monkey.

Loki's expression was (impressively) somewhere between surprised, fearful, and vaguely antagonistic as Thor grabbed him by the junction of shoulder and neck, but he made no move to pull away. Thor's left hand went to Loki's face, pressing a thumb onto his cheek, pulling down the lower eyelid. He pinched the flesh along Loki's jawbone, and then a thin bit of skin from his neck--likely looking for signs of dehydration, as best as Steve could tell.

"My friend, I thank you for your insight." Thor's expression flashed between something like grief and then anger at Loki before he turned to offer a smile to Steve. "You have saved me from a grave error."

Thor touched the second roundel on the left side of his chest piece, and suddenly there was what looked like a plastic pouch with an integrated straw in his hand. The black line on the mask suddenly wasn't, and Steve saw a brief pink flash of Loki's tongue before Thor abruptly stuck the straw in.

The fact that Loki neither blinked nor flinched at Thor's actions said more about the depths of their relationship than any of his previous protestations to the contrary.

It was utterly undignified and that didn't seem to matter, given how quickly Loki brought both hands up to hold the pouch as he drank it down.

A nod, and then Thor directed his attention to the ceiling. "Sir Jarvis," Thor called, "I require the largest smoothie the tower has to offer, the fried sticks known as french fries, and," he glanced at Loki, something calculating in his expression, "the glory known as shawarma."

Steve exhaled slowly through his teeth. Potential abuse of prisoners averted… at least for now.

The voice from the ceiling was polite and cool and formal, and somehow sounded just as dubious as Steve was feeling. "As you like, sir."

--

A blond agent brought him something called a pulled pork sandwich; though the bread itself would not suffice for his purposes, the meat had been shredded and easily fit through the narrow slot on the gag. It was pleasantly savory when Thor tested it for himself. "Thank you," he said, unwilling to look directly at the agent.

"You are welcome, sir." A pause. "Is there something wrong?"

"Nothing--you simply remind me of the Son of Coul." Indeed, Thor thought the dead agent could have been this one's father. The thought made his heart clench.

The agent inclined his head. "Agent Coulson was a fine agent and loyal man, Sir, and I thank you for the compliment."

Thor nodded back--a sign of respect for a man who attended his duties well. "You are a credit to him. I did not think any would think to bring suitable food for my brother."

Indeed, the food he had brought was not strangely-spiced, nor pungent, nor green and… peculiar, as had been the enormous smoothie Stark had sent to them. It had not appealed to Thor at all, yet Loki was halfway through with it, and had seemed pleasantly surprised by the taste--but like called to like, and in Stark, Thor thought, there was much of what his brother was, or had been.

It made his heart hurt.

The agent's mouth pressed into a firm line. "Sir, with your permission, I would request to be assigned to you, as Agent Coulson was. I do not believe he would approve of our people shirking their duty."

And now Thor was reminded of grave Hogun, and of Sif, who suffered not even the implication of insult, and he smiled, inclining his head slightly. "I'd not go that far. All of the agents we have met thus far have conducted their duties well."

The agent blinked placidly at him, but there was a weight to it, of the same sort that ambassadors used. "You are attending your brother, and as per your own words, I am the only one who aided you of their own volition. SHIELD protects, so it is my duty to help the protectors, and not to have every step spelled out for me. You had a need; it was my duty to act once I saw it."

And Thor waved him off, recognizing well when his words would no longer be heeded. The palace servants could be implacable, this agent seemed the same, and there would be no harm in it. "Very well; you have my permission."

The agent took his leave, and Thor thought of how both the agent and the Captain had made true observations about his brother, about his hunger. Thor...he had seen it, but he had ignored it and not made the connection until it was pointed out to him. He had simply...forgotten, as he so often did, that Loki was not--

That Loki was not--

And Thor remembered, too, a question that he had asked and forgotten, that he had asked and that had gone unanswered.

Who controls the would-be king?

He turned an inquiring look upon his brother, but Loki was focused on his meal, and did not notice his gaze.

And even if he had, Thor thought, pressing a hand to his side, where the ghost of Loki's blade still lingered, even if Loki had deigned to notice, he would not have responded to it.

A miserable thing, to stand beside his brother in a place of quiet, a place where for once it could be safe for them to speak, yet with all of the Void yawning between them.

--
Stark Tower, New York City
May 6, 2012, 9:48 AM
--

Tony Stark, it seemed to Bruce Banner, was incapable of not talking, especially when sleep-deprived and running on the fumes of caffeine consumed hours earlier. Bruce was pretty sure he hadn't slept, judging from the jumpiness and the way Tony had basically pounced on him the moment Bruce had managed to roll himself out of bed and start staggering through the hallways in search of breakfast.

It probably should have been a little alarming, getting pounced on by Tony Stark at ridiculous o'clock in the morning (actually, it was nearly ten, but they'd been attacked by aliens two days ago, who even knew what time was anymore), but he'd also gotten a bagel with a slab of cream cheese nearly a centimeter thick on it and an orange out of the assault, so Bruce was willing to go with it.

It was a really good bagel, which shouldn't have surprised him; this was New York City after all. It was pleasant enough to sit in the semi-demolished living room (damage that Bruce for once did not feel guilty about causing) with the morning breeze whistling through the space where the window used to be, listening to Tony chatter.

"And I know robotics isn't necessarily your main thing, Bruce, but we do have biological laboratories that need clever and brilliant scientists to run them." Tony was practically batting his lashes at the last part, and it was ludicrously effective--a man who had thrown a nuke into space to fend off an alien invasion the day before yesterday should not be able to look so guilelessly charming.

"Don't you already have plenty of those?" Bruce replied, amused, and struggled not to laugh at the face Tony pulled--bright, exaggerated offense, and this was--this was fun, just… just playing, as he hadn't played in years, as he'd nearly forgotten he could play, before he'd choked on a laugh because he'd been poked in the side with an electro-prod and who did that to a stranger, much less to him?

Just playing, because Tony wasn't afraid, because he'd never been afraid, not for a single instant--

(This shining, laughing creature, a daystar falling--

--and him, the other, leaping into the sky, arms outstretched, as though they could save him, as though they could save anyone--)​

"What are you saying, of course I do, I have more clever scientists than Xanatos Enterprises and Advanced Idea Mechanics put together. I grab all the best scientists that I can, except for the ones that hide from me." And now there was an accusing look, brows drawn low but lips still quirked with laughter: "How dare you hide from me, Bruce, how dare you?"

That was certainly an interesting way to describe his years on the run, but it was hardly a surprise that Tony Stark managed to make everything about him--and Bruce liked this game, liked the easy banter and the way Tony spoke with his hands, his wide, flowing gestures and the light in his dark, clever eyes.

Bruce hid a grin behind his bagel and fluttered his lashes like a debutante, because why not? This was a good game, and it had been so long since he'd last felt playful, since there had last been anyone to play with--but those thoughts led to dark places, and here and now, it was morning, and he was sitting in the sun. "Maybe I was playing hard to get. Should've looked harder, Tony."

Tony laughed, a little overtired, a little manic, and this was easy. It had been easy since those first moments in the lab on the helicarrier, Tony sharp and fearless and shamelessly inquisitive, and--

(--and he had been too-still and too-silent and terror-horror-no-no-no-let-him-live--

And he-they-he had screamed and--)​

Yesterday had been easy too, sleeping in and waking to find a tiny pyramid made of fruit perched on the bedside table, spending the day fluttering to and from Tony's side, back and forth from the medical wards and listening to him complain about David Xanatos and his "awesome force fields, so unfair, he didn't tell me, I thought we were friends, why, Bruce, why?"

(Still no answers about the hack on JARVIS, even now as countless diagnostics ran silent in the background, programs in isolation, and Bruce was--Bruce thought that if anybody could--

--and the whisper in the back of his mind said trust and--)​

"Well, you're here now, and I'm not gonna let you get away!" And then Tony frowned, but it was a thoughtful look, and his hands were already raising, spread and calming, but not out of concern for himself--no, this, Bruce knew, was all for him. "Unless you really wanna; I mean, I can smuggle you out of the country if you want, but I kind of feel like that would be bad, on account of everybody knows that you're here. Because of alien-smashing reasons."

Another thing he did not feel bad about: letting the Other Guy loose to maul the Chitauri.

And he felt no guilt whatsoever about the building that the Other Guy had torn in half breaking Tony's fall.

He probably should feel worse about that; the property damage from the battle already calculated in the billions, but it could have been so much worse, and he and the Other Guy seemed to be of a similar mindset regarding Tony.

The instinct to protect was understandable--someone so small and bright and aggressively friendly, how could they not? SHIELD should have used Tony as their lure, not Natasha; the arc reactor alone would have been enough of a fascination to coax him in--but the urge to stay and keep was... less understandable. Was new and uncomfortable. He'd never thought of himself as possessive, not after everything that had happened, not after Betty, and yet--

"Also, now I want your orange. Will you share your orange?"

SHIELD didn't use Tony as their lure because they couldn't. Tony wasn't one of their agents, Tony wasn't anybody but himself; a public figure and a billionaire and Iron Man. He couldn't be bought, he couldn't be bribed or blackmailed, the Ten Rings and Venko had more than proved that it would be suicide to threaten him, and that… that meant he was safe, safe in ways that no one else could ever be.

He could be safe here, with Tony--could protect him, could keep him safe, and be kept safe in return.

It was easy, so easy to smile at him, to hold out the tiny slices of fruit in his cupped palms--don't hand it to him, never hand things to him, just offer it and let him take however much he wants--just as he'd been carelessly offered a package of blueberries and a teasing smile. The schoolyard overtures of friendship, the kind he'd never experienced in his own childhood, the kind Tony hadn't, either, he was sure.

"Yay!" A shameless, happy chirp, and oh, he smiled like the sun.(8)

Too close, Banner, too close and too fast. It should have been too much; too much force of personality, overwhelming instead of intoxicating, and yet here he was, warm and content and hopelessly charmed, smiling at Tony Stark, a man punch-drunk on exhaustion and really questionable smoothies.

Dum-E was a marvel, as JARVIS was a marvel. Dum-E was not, however, very good at making smoothies. Tony himself was a marvel for not only drinking the smoothies that Dum-E made, but also for surviving them.

And he had a framed picture of "Baby Jarvis! When he was just a little mainframe! It was our first picture of the whole family, his big brothers were so proud!" prominently displayed not only on the wall of his personal lab, but also on the fridge in the common kitchen.

It was soul-crushingly adorable, and somehow all of the bots--Dum-E, Butterfingers and U--really had looked proud, clustered as they were around their youngest sibling and their beaming daddy.

There was no question in Bruce's mind that Tony was Daddy to them, just as there was no question in his mind that JARVIS was Tony's baby, the youngest and most indulged, the cleverest and most beautiful. And they were happy babies, among the happiest he'd ever seen, for all that they weren't human, for all that they were made of code and wires and circuit boards and brought to life by the indefinable spark of true Artificial Intelligence, a miracle kept secret by its creator, the greatest showman of them all.

Such dangerous thoughts, but there was Tony, brilliant and exhausted and smiling at him, a scientific miracle in his chest and all around him, and Bruce knew his own vices well enough.

"Maybe I'll stay for a while, then," Bruce said, because he was good at damning himself, and popped the last slice of orange in his mouth in the face of Tony's exaggerated outrage.

He'd just opened his mouth to tease him again when the elevator doors opened, accompanied by a bellow of "You unmitigated asshole!"

Bruce shrank back as an agitated man in military fatigues stalked forward and seemingly attempted to smother Tony via the most aggressive hug Bruce had ever seen.

Given the events of the last few days, it did not strike him as a particularly unusual greeting to give to Tony Stark.

And yet…

He took a purposeful step back, adjusted his glasses and his stance, and waited.

(First and foremost in this strange new world of gods and monsters and aliens falling from the sky--

--above all else--

Protect him.)​

--
Stark Tower, New York City
May 6, 2012, 9:48 am
--

"It's good to see you again, Colonel Rhodes," JARVIS said courteously, "And if I may say, you look well-rested."

"Man, you can just shut the hell up," Rhodey said to the ceiling as the doors shut and the elevator began its soundless ascent. "My CMO--and I don't care about any localized EMP, I know you know about it Jarvis. Well-rested my steely ass. Tony was fighting aliens. It was Tony's fault the aliens were here, wasn't it?"

There was a conspicuous silence for a moment. "It is Sir's belief that a conversation which he had may have offended an alien, yes."

"I knew it," he moved his fist in a small jerking punch, lower lip tucked up over his upper teeth. "That idiot."

Dry as dust: "Sir couldn't have known about the alien and their sensibilities beforehand, Colonel Rhodes."

"Yeah, who could have known that aliens could be as easily offended as--" the doors opened, and his commentary was abruptly cut off by his sudden and immediate need to start yelling at an idiot who apparently still had all of his limbs, thank God and also Thor and Captain America too for that matter.

"You unmitigated asshole!" Rhodey snapped as he marched out of the elevator.

Tony spun on his heel to face him and had the audacity to look at first surprised, then pleased. "Oh, hi, honeybe--Gah!"

Rhodey grabbed the moron quickly into a tight hug that may have contained slight overtures of strangulation, and only refrained from shaking him because some part of him thought that Tony was still an undersized sixteen-year-old and also he had recently been fighting off actual literal space aliens, what the fuck. "What were you thinking, you dumbass?!"

Tony made a soft, indignant noise against his neck, but he was warm and solid and alive, the arc reactor was a low, comforting hum against his chest, and Tony smelled like grease and exhaustion, like home, and he could finally breathe again--

--and there was a stranger in the room, watching them, watching Tony. Quiet, unassuming, standing a few paces away with a mildly alarmed expression on his face--but watching.

Civilian, not a threat, and it didn't matter and Rhodey didn't care; JARVIS hadn't warned him, and Tony had been talking to the guy.

He took a step away from the new guy anyway, dragging Tony with him, because Tony had all of the self-preservation instincts of a suicidal lemming. "And just who is that?"

Tony brightened and half-twisted in his arms despite the deathgrip he'd managed to get on him. "Oh, that's my new friend--"

Hold the fuck up. "Who said you could have new friends? I'm your friend. And aliens were attacking. How did you make a new friend when aliens were attacking?" His eyes narrowed, staring at the civilian, who didn't take a step back, though he seemed like the type who would. Instead, the stranger stared back with equal wariness, dark green eyes narrowed behind innocuous looking glasses.

Rhodey knew that look--clever, appraising, and checking for threats. Could be a good sign, could be a bad one. "Do I have someone else to blame for the alien invasion?" he asked pointedly, giving Tony another squeeze.

Tony squawked, flailing uselessly in his arms. Tony could have broken free if he really wanted, but he was playing it up for the new guy, to make him relax, make him laugh. "No, no! It's okay, Bruce is, like, a bro, and he does science, and he turns into the Hulk and he caught me."

The last was said more softly, with a hint of wonder, and Rhodey felt his heart sink into his stomach. Oh no, Tony, that is the last kind of trouble you need to be courting.

Still...

Dark curly hair, an unassuming build, and a politely baffled expression that didn't quite hide the tense wariness in his pose--one that softened slightly as Tony spoke, then flared back up with a vengeance as he noticed Rhodey noticing. He was obviously uncomfortable but also radiating a fierce concern for Tony, clearly unwilling to step away from what might be a potential threat, and equally unwilling to interrupt a personal moment. He looked quiet and a little awkward and distinctly incapable of the damage he absolutely was capable of, except for around the eyes--Rhodey had seen the footage from Harlem.

So that was Bruce Banner.

Huh.

Rhodey continued to side-eye Banner for a long moment, evaluating him. Then, coming to a decision, he took a couple of shuffling side-steps closer and extended his fist.

Banner's brows drew down in a perplexed expression; confused, certainly, and maybe a bit alarmed at his approach. Tony, from where he was crushed against Rhodey's chest, made encouraging gestures until Banner cautiously crept forward and returned the fist bump with a decisiveness that might have been surprising, had Rhodey not been watching the way Banner had been watching him.

Rhodey pulled his fist back, gently thumping Tony's side with it for good measure, and also to hear him whine. Not too badly injured, then, thank God and Thor and Captain America and also this guy, apparently. "Welcome to the team. I already put in my time and I have a career now, which makes you the new guy. Sometimes you don't think it's worth it, but it pays well; I'm still getting residuals from MIT."

"Oh come on," Tony groaned, rolling his eyes theatrically. "It was only on--Twice, I mean it was only twice."

Rhodey rolled his eyes, and unlike Tony, his gesture was entirely justified. "You mean three times." He loosened his grip, but only so he could gesture dramatically at Tony without hitting him in the face. "Three times this dumbass almost blows up MIT." He paused for a moment, considering how trustworthy a sometimes-Hulk might be, and then shrugged to himself and continued. "Pepper also sends me hush money twice a year."

Best if Banner knew what he was getting into, if he decided to stick around. He had the look of someone recently stunned into complacency by Tony's sheer force of personality, which paired oddly with the sharpness underneath the seemingly-mild exterior--but if the Hulk was feeling protective of Tony, well...

Maybe he'd be trustworthy.

Maybe.

And Tony was still protesting. "Those are birthday and Christmas presents!"

Rhodey snorted. "Yuh-huh. Keep telling yourself that. And where is Pepper? She's supposed to be wrangling you." He thumped Tony in the chest, softly, just above the arc reactor. "And why didn't you call me?"

Tony blinked at him. "We've all been a bit busy Rhodey--Are you going to let me go anytime soon by the way? No? Okay." And then his gaze sharpened. "Anyway, we've been busy; there was a nuke, and yes I'm serious, some fuckers on the World Security Council fired a nuke at my house."

The playfulness had been a cover--not in total, not nearly completely, but it was masking a healthy rage. Good. Rhodey was also experiencing a moment of healthy rage, both on Tony's behalf and on behalf of everyone in New York, and also everyone on the eastern seaboard, for that matter.

And Tony was still speaking, still with that smile in his voice, but there were cracks around the edges--just slight, but there, if you knew how to look. Bright and deadly, a little manic, the restlessness that led to fire from the sky and bodies in the desert. "And so of course there was an EMP--I have no idea what the medium was on the other side of the portal, but it wasn't exactly space."

What the fuck. "What? What! That is not an explanation!" He spun, and spun Tony with him, to fix a stare on the only other person in the room, and a scientist. "You, Banner, explain." Jarvis would have already filled him in if he could. Probably.

Banner blinked, then took a cautious step closer, spreading his hands in a calming gesture that was a little too precise to be real. "Well, local stuff is back up, transmissions are spotty though, and the military is being very careful to not look like they are holding back free speech--"

"But they totally are," Tony interjected. "Not everything is getting out--"

"--Which you can get past--" Rhodey would not let that sort of garbage excuse fly.

"--Which I can get past," Tony agreed, conciliatory, "But they declared martial law until the civilian command infrastructure is back up and more of the alien shit is cleaned up. I'm a ballsy bastard, but I used up my quota flying that nuke through the portal; we're at Defcon three and just came down off of a red alert. This is the chillest martial law in the history of forever so I am satisfied with just sitting tight and waiting until I'm offended before upsetting someone. Seriously, how did you miss that?"

Rhodey sighed and wished he could rub his forehead without letting go of Tony. "I was coming in from a long op when the news came in, and I didn't sleep until my CMO used everyone on the plane to shame me while enroute."

"Oh, he didn't get the dart gun I sent him last month?" Tony chirped, then closed his mouth, tilted his head back and gave Rhodey a careful look when Rhodey stilled. "Can we pretend I didn't say that?"

He loved Tony very much and was very happy that he was alive. Also, it would be rude to strangle Tony in front of Tony's new friend, especially when he'd just invited Tony's new friend to become part of the unofficial Tony Stark Wranglers Club. "No. No, we cannot pretend that."

Banner was still watching him closely, eyes on the arm he'd wrapped around Tony's chest and staying just a little too still, but he smiled back when Rhodey grinned at him, a tiny, amused quirk of the lips that seemed genuine.

Behind the glasses, though, his eyes were still green, still wary.

Rhodey was fine with that.

It would be nice to have some backup, for a change.

--

8: Massively radioactive and prone to unexpected flaring. Bruce liked what he liked.

Because we see Central Park on screen when we see the Eyrie, and the lake/pond over in the corner of the park, and the huge footprint the tower has to have for the castle, I'm placing the Eyrie here, Martin Luther King Jr. Towers, north end of the park. Putting himself up there cause a lot of corporate economic growth resulting in the tall buildings around there in Gargverse.