A.N. I had almost forgotten about this story, but never fear! An update is here! I was scrolling through this account and encountered all the cringe of my lasting writing and decided to rewrite some of this stuff. I seriously hope my writings improved. Enjoy and don't forget to review!
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin or the Avengers, the BBC and Marvel respectively does.
The Chitauri attack had left New York City in shambles. Buildings and roads had been destroyed, people had died, and many more were facing a life time of trauma all because of a temper tantrum thrown by none other than Loki Odinson.
The aftermath of the attack saw various cults rise up claiming to possess the power of the psychopath, and they were actually gaining followers. Apparently, too many people only need to be shown a being of mythical power to revert back to their primitive states of psychopathy and anarchy.
The police could usually handle these cultists well enough, after all, none of them posed a big threat to the world. The cult itself was huge in number, and that is only one of the reasons why the Avengers were called in to deal with them.
Some of these cultists managed to harness some power from Chitauri remains, armor, and weapons that had been sold over the black market. Then, they turned their newfound power on the general populace. So far, three were dead and another eight gravely wounded.
Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Thor were taking out the vast quantity of foot soldiers that were there. Bruce had elected stayed behind due to the location of the attack, a busy intersection. That left Iron Man and Captain America to the current super powered psychopath.
"Is that all you got, Reindeer wannabee?" Iron Man taunted while flying around avoid the blasts of power.
The cultist remained silent, choosing instead to give a face breaking grin and raising the spear to fire another shot.
"And here I thought I was a funny guy," Tony raised his hands to fire back on his enemy.
His blast hit the man in the foot, causing a brief moment of inattentiveness for Steve to bang him over the head with his shield, knocking him out immediately.
An hour later, the Avengers had defeated the remaining cultists. Most were sent to jail, except for the one with the spear, he had been taken to SHIELD.
Natasha went in for interrogation, quietly walking in while holding a beige folder.
"What? I get no lawyer?" the man lazily grinned, "And here I thought I was a U.S. citizen,"
Natasha remained quiet, choosing to instead pull several pictures of wounded people and damaged property. After giving him a minute to glance down at them, she pulled out a picture of Loki Odinson.
It wasn't surprising to her that this was the one that caused him to pay attention.
"Your attacks," she spoke up for the first time, "Caused the deaths of three civilians, and an additional eight are in the emergency room. But do you know the worst part," she leaned forward, "The worst part is that you did it in the name of a psychopath who would never give a damn about you,"
This got the opposite of the reaction she was hoping for, "You think he doesn't give a damn about me! Of course he does! After all, I'm his son," Natasha narrowed her eyes, "And every man and woman fighting out there today were his sons and daughters, not by blood, but by power. Someday, we'll be equals to him."
"So you don't worship him," Natasha cocked her eyebrow, "You see him as your next challenge,"
"Why would we worship him!" the nameless man roared, obviously enraged by her sentence, "He was weak, all it took was six petty mortals to take him down. Eventually, our cult will be so powerful, threats like you will be ants under a boot,"
"Well," Natasha gathered up all of her papers, "I think I'm done with you,"
"You don't understand," the man whispered, catching her attention, "You won't be able to defeat us because we will be immortal,"
Natasha walked herself back to her seat, not wanting to stop the flow of information.
"Loki Odinson has been around for a very long time, yes?" he nodded to himself, leaning backwards on the chair, "Some might say its because he's an Asgardian, but that is false. He's a Jotun, and a runty one at that. Everyone's surprised he's still about. He's only alive because he practices the Old Religion."
Natasha discreetly typed the new information into her phone and pressed send so it got to Fury.
"You don't get it, do you?" the man smiled his disturbing smile again. He raised a cuffed hand, Natasha was sent flying into a nearby wall.
The Avengers, who had been watching the interrogation immediately surged into the room, subduing the still-cuffed man.
"Before I could do this," the man glanced down at his cuffed hands, "I was a middle school teacher; therefore, I have a knack for making people understand my lessons," His eyes glowed gold, and the six Avengers vanished from sight, sent back in time. It was only a few more seconds before the man keeled over himself, having died from the excess power.
Each one of the six Avengers slowly groaned into awareness. After quickly locating each other and doing a head count, they looked at their new location.
"What the hell was that?" Clint wondered, absentmindedly stroking his bow.
"Seidr," Thor answered simply, worryingly looking over in the distance.
"Never mind that," Tony interrupted, much to the annoyance of his team mates, especially Steve, "Where the hell are we?"
That was true, none of them had a clue to their location. It was dark out, and a million stars shined in the sky. A light breeze caused the tall grass to brush against their fingertips, and distant growls were heard from a nearby forest.
"I don't know how this is possible," Bruce shook his head, "But I guess by now anything's possible,"
"What do you mean?" Steve asked, showing on his facial features how baffling this situation was to him.
"Look at the stars," Bruce gestured to the sky, "Every place on Earth that grows plants like this and has this sort of temperature has too much light pollution to see any of them. The only possible explanation for our location is time travel,"
The teams' expressions said it all. They all though Bruce was on drugs.
"I mean it's logical," Tony comforted, "But completely batshit crazy."
"The only form of time travel I know of would be through the Eye of Agamotto, which was not there," Thor muttered to himself.
"Did you just say time travel existed, Thor?" Clint through his hands in the air, "I don't know whether to be excited of confused!"
Their arguing continued, each jibe at another team mate only escalating in volume from the one previous to it. They probably would've continued arguing all night if it was for the shrieking of a small child.
Sure enough, a small boy, barefoot and dressed in rags, sprinted out of the forest. At his heels were a dozen very buff men, each one of them holding swords and shouting angrily.
Seeing the medieval era clothing, Clint smile slightly, "It's like a cosplay fantasy," he notched his arrow on his bow.
"Maybe next time, Robin Hood," Tony said, warily glancing at the scene, he didn't have his armor with him.
Natasha, Clint, Thor, and Steve all started fighting the bandits. Tony and Bruce grabbed the child and began to run to what looked like a huge town.
"What are you wearing, pretty," a bandit leered at the Black Widow, something that earning him a swift kick to the genitals and a couple solid knockout punches.
All twelve of the men were lying in varying degrees of pain around them.
"Let's follow our friends," Thor stated, looking as if he had not used any energy and sprinting to follow the two.
The four remaining Avengers legged it to catch up to the couple that had gone ahead. Within twenty minutes, they had all walked into the biggest town for miles, and, after acting like a drunk, Tony told the team that it was roughly 1123 AD.
Thor's eyes widened, and he scanned the mostly empty streets as if he was looking for something.
"Problem, Thor?" Steve asked, eyes filled with worry.
Thor quietly nodded, "Did you get the name of the town?" he asked urgently.
Tony shook his head.
Thor quickly ran towards a lady who looked to be closing her shop and asked her the name of the town.
"Town?" the lady laughed slightly, her elderly face crinkling with amusement, "This is more than a town, young man, you are standing in Camelot itself!"
Thor fell back as if he had been shot, and the rest of the Avengers looked warily at the woman.
"It was a serious question!" Tony argued, frustrated by the woman.
Clint cursed again, "I should've brought my cosplay," Natasha kicked him for this.
"Forgive us," Steve said, quickly taking control over the situation, "My frie-family here is just a little drunk. We've been travelling for days and stumbled by here in the night,"
"Well," she snickered, "I could tell you were drunk from a mile away,"
"How?" Bruce questioned, speaking up for the first time in awhile.
"You aren't really properly dressed," the woman admonished, "My kids could dress themselves better by the time they were four! Aside from this handsome devil," she gestured to Thor, who was still wearing armor, "You all look like you stripped to your under clothes!"
The groups' faces lit up in understanding and humiliation.
"Don't you worry, my dears," the lady smiled, "Your not the first to come out of that tavern drunk, let's see what clothing I have to spare,"
The Avengers were all welcomed into her store despite the fact that it was obviously closing time. They were welcomed politely and asked to take a seat on some hard looking stools.
"I know it might not be what you're used to," she put a laundry basket on the table.
Clint cocked an eyebrow, "What do you mean?"
"No need to act all modest," she took out some clothing from the basket, "You six have your own knight, a lady fair enough to be a princess, two scholars, a man with obvious battlefield experience, and an archer with some of the finest looking arrows I've seen in years. The only way in my eyes for you all needing clothing is that some form of attack happened on you royals,"
"Royals?" Steve questioned, not wanting to be seen as more than the kind woman.
"Yes, yes," Tony nodded, playing his part just a degree too dramatic, "That is us! The attacked royalty in desperate need of council with the King!"
"To get council I'd talk to one of the guards," she quirked her head in their direction.
Steve grabbed the shirt she had thrust in his general direction, "How should we pay-"
"No need," the woman shook her head, "They were old anyway, no one on the market would buy them so might as well give them away! Be careful!" she bid them farewell.
"You okay, Thor?" Clint fell into step with their beefy friend.
"We should not be here," Thor took a glance around, "Someone I know was in Camelot at this time, we cannot risk running into them,"
Natasha, having overheard this, asked, "And who would that be?"
Their convoy stopped, all of them eager to listen to the rest of the conversation before they got too close to the guards.
"The man who sent us here practiced in something called the Old Religion," Thor explained, "Most of you mortals would describe it as something magical, but it is in fact a way that people could tap into hidden energy sources within their bodies. In order to do so, many early peoples did rituals and prayed, earning it the name 'Old Religion'. Asgard sees it as something too feminine for them. They see it as a weakness to seek out power within ones own body in order to enhance their attacks. It is considered cheating."
Natasha shook her head, "And that's why you're ignorant. You never leave a possible weapon untested Thor, even if it's too 'girly' for the likes of your Asgardians,"
"That is not why I'm concerned right now, Lady Romanoff," Thor admitted, "In this time period, my brother, Loki, got in trouble with the Asgardian justice system due to being ousted as a sorcerer due to the existence of the eight legged horse Sleipnir. As punishment for his embarrassment, he was sent to Midgard, much like how I was not two years ago."
"You mean to tell me that the man who mind fucked me," Clint's voice cracked slightly from the shock, "Is here in Camelot?"
Steve's face had hardened, "You mean to tell me he was punished for the existence of a horse?" it was clear he didn't approve of the punishment.
"There's actually a whole myth to go along with it," Bruce said, "Thor could probably explain it better, though,"
"So how was Reindeer Games doing in this century?" Tony asked.
"My brother fared well. He seemed to come out of his punishment better than before," Thor said.
Clint shook his head, "So his head wasn't a bag of cats yet, okay. But why would he be sent to Camelot of all places?"
"Yeah," Tony agreed, "What about the myths of Merlin, you know, the sorcerer! Wouldn't that kind of work against his whole 'no magic' policy,"
"I do not know what you mean," Thor narrowed his eyes at the new information, "Magic is outlawed here by death,"
That sunk in as quickly as a stone thrown in water. The teammates were all shocked and confused by the onslaught of new information. They were unable to believe that Thor and Loki's father would send his son to a place where he might die because he felt he was too embarrassing to be around.
"That's cruel," Steve's game face was on.
"Whatever, you boys can settle this later," Natasha pointed towards a guard, "He looks like he's dozing off; therefore, if we asked for a council meeting now, it's more likely we'd be accepted."
Thor led the group of to the sleepy guard, speaking in a loud warrior's voice, he caught the man's attention, "We come from a far away kingdom known as Asgard, a kingdom who shares your sentiments on sorcery." It was clear that was hard for him to say, "The royal household was attacked though, and a kind woman lent them her clothing. We come to you to ask for council and shelter."
The guard nodded, hitting another guard to wake him up as he straightened a piece of armor, "Follow me please,"
The guard led them through winding hallways and past servants doing night calls until they got to a glamorously decorated suite. Each of the Avengers had rooms that all led into a common area before hitting the hallway.
"I will go retrieve some servants and request council," the guard politely bowed and shut the door.
After quickly claiming rooms and setting down their weapons, they gathered in the common area and anxiously awaited the reply from the King.
The servants came first though, each of them bringing clothing and bathwater. Each Avenger was led into their individual rooms where they were going to be bathed.
Steve's servant attempted to help him bathe.
"No sir," Steve smile at the man's kindness, the servants mouth fell open at formality, "I'm capable of washing and dressing myself, you may leave,"
The servant, still in a state of shock, took a few moments to leave.
The team waited around for a reply from the King for roughly an hour before deciding that he wouldn't give them an answer until morning.