Synopsis: Ragnarok approaches. Prophecy reveals that Loki will be its harbinger. Or the world's salvation. Thanos the Mad has Loki's soul, Syn the Betrayed has Loki's magic. So begins a journey of self-discovery, and self-recovery, featuring romance, adventure, a reluctant hero, Nidhogg -a cat, Tryggr -a horse, Tony Stark -a camera hog, nine realms, six Avengers and a heroine twice-betrayed.

Disclaimer: Nothing from Marvel or Thor or Avengers is mine.

Prologue. The Dwarf King's Forge, Nidavellir.

Another star would die tonight.

Stars died all of the time, millions of them collapsing and expanding their great lives throughout the infinite expanse of the cosmos. It wasn't something that Kindra, daughter of Eitri, normally concerned herself with.

But this star was different.

Father was going to kill it.

Kindra sat hunched over her workbench, and tried not to think about the heat of a star at its twilight moment. Her nimble fingers worked the shimmering uru into delicate links on a chain so thin and ethereal, it would be difficult for anyone to tell that it was made of such a powerful, strong substance.

The magical metal was rare, and she must not make a mistake. She must concentrate. She must not think about what her father was doing right now. She must not think about how his dark eyes had warmed and shimmered when he had given his last orders.

Kindra, my daughter, you know what must be done. Finish the necklace, so that it is ready upon the completion of my own task.

He had cupped her cheek with his hand, before he had turned to go, and she had felt the thick, calloused scars that covered his palm and extended in burning lines up his forearms to tease around his elbow.

One couldn't forge in a star and not expect to be forged in return.

She cursed the Allfather under her breath, for sending him out on such dangerous orders, but not too loudly, since one never knew if Heimdall might be listening. And then she cursed Mjolnir, and this time she cursed louder, for although it was a beautiful, perfect weapon, it had given her father's talent notoriety and attention.

One couldn't make a weapon like that and not expect to have a repeat customer.

Except it wasn't a weapon that Odin wanted this time.

Present day. Stark Tower, Midgard.

Natasha bristled and tapped her foot with impatience as the elevator ascended Stark tower. She'd only had one month. One month to spend with Barton. It wasn't even enough to start making up for all the time they had lost. And now here they were, contacted by Tony on behalf of Thor to come discuss some new potential threat in the universe.

And it was all because of him. Again. New York still hadn't recovered from the last time he had visited their little corner of the universe. People went to France with their cameras and travel guides and took a liking to having croissants for breakfast. Loki came to Earth with his bull horns and his voodoo staff and had taken a liking to having, well, everything. Loki was to tourism what Stalin had been to a little manifesto on class struggle in the old country.

She had liked knowing he was back in Asgard. She was calmer knowing he was someone else's problem. And she liked it when she was calm. Barton liked it when she was calm. Her enemies most definitely did not like it when she was calm, and this was a technique she had quite perfected, because despite what people may say, pain is not pain. Pain coming from a woman who speaks to you in a soft voice like your mother reading bedtime stories, and smiles gently with the promise that the next story will be the Nutcracker, is infinitely worse than pain.

And yet he had deemed her nothing more than a balm. How dare he? She could certainly use such a ruse to her advantage, but it made her decidedly angry that the insufferable Asgardian had assumed that that was all she was capable of. She scoffed at the thought. She could make a man beg for a balm. She could give a man a balm that would make his skin boil and fill him with so much suffocating agony he would beg for the pain before the balm.

Just because it wasn't soothing didn't mean it wasn't a balm. And she had shown exactly what she could really do, in the end. They all had.

That final thought soothed her like a ba…like something really soothing. As she entered Stark's conference room, calm and collected, she was faced with him again, sitting at one end of the table and flanked by two other Asgardians. Thor she recognized, the other woman, she did not.

Loki lounged between them, almost indolently, as if bored. As if inter-planetary meetings regarding the future of the cosmos were something he tried to fit in every Friday afternoon, right between genocide and his lunch break. He was wearing shackles on his wrists, but not the muzzle she had seen him in last. He was positioned closer to Thor than to the unfamiliar Asgardian woman, and leaning slightly away from her. It could be nothing, one never knew.

But Natasha always noticed the little things. Little things could be very useful. A little pressure here, a little squeeze there, and a man could tell you all his secrets. Or, scream them, anyway. Little things could be big things, in the right context. She filed the tidbit of information away for later comparison and analysis. Stark had arrived. Early this time.

That was odd.

Tony entered his conference room to a resounding silence, and that needed to be rectified immediately. He took in the three Asgardians at one end of the table, Natasha at the other end. She seemed to be engaged in some sort of macabre staring contest with their former adversary, so he took a moment to give Thor a passing nod, since they had shared a greeting earlier, before studying the third Asgardian in the room.

He was surprised to see that she was looking at him with a beatific smile on her face. It was a smile he was accustomed to seeing on the big-breasted bombshells that tended to wait for him outside of the bars he used to frequent. Definitely not as sleazy, but it was still like she recognized him somehow. Like she knew him. His gaze flickered down to her intricate golden breastplate. It glinted with a polished rich sheen of some metal his fingers twitched to study. And, more importantly, it curved in such a way that more than hinted at all sorts of wonders hidden beneath.

Like a subpoena. She could definitely tuck a subpoena in there.

"Hey, Little Miss Sunshine, you got pockets in that thing? Where do you keep your lipgloss?"

Three pairs of Asgardian eyes were now looking at him. The blue were confused, the green…unfathomable.

The woman's eyes were gold, which was weird and oddly compelling, and they looked decidedly amused. "You don't want to know."

"No, I really do." He plopped quickly into the seat next to her and rested his chin on his palm.

It was an effective trick. Men invariably got annoyed but women usually loved it.

Golden-eyes lifted a gauntlet clad wrist, and teased, "It's tucked up my sleeve, and it is such a pain. You think Stark Industries could make me a purse to go with this get-up?"

He had to actually confirm for them he was Tony Stark before they could issue the subpoena though, right? He should have paid better attention last time but there had kinda been more important things going on in his life. Like that Audi R8 Spyder convertible.

Except there was no way D.C. could be this creative. Plus they had become decidedly less interested in trying to get their grubby government hands on his suits once he became affiliated with SHIELD. Not to mention he'd received the message that Thor and company would be arriving at his tower with an important dilemma to discuss through Jarvis, and he was confident their methods of communication were secure.

He pulled his head back from his palm and snapped his fingers. "That is exactly what Stark Industries has been missing. High danger accessories. For the woman on the go save the universe. Hey Romanoff, you interested? Or are you just gonna stick with the whole bullets for bracelets look? No? Okay."

He wasn't usually one to let something as paltry as a total freezing reception stand in his way, but that woman was a tough nut to crack, and right now her attention was focused sharply on their old enemy turned prisoner.

He swiveled back around to the striking woman in the long, golden drapery cloak, and tried to shake the image of everyone on Asgard ogling window treatments.

"Have we met?"

"No, but I've read about you, Mr. Stark. It's such a pleasure to meet you in person."

"Please, call me Tony. We're all friends here, right?" He made a point of smiling at Loki when he said it, because he could never resist an opportunity to needle someone, before he shifted his gaze to Golden-eyes again. "Are they starting fanclubs for me in Asgard now?"

"I'm sure they will be. But as for myself, I've…spent some time on Earth."

He glanced at Thor, currently standing while observing their exchange with crossed arms, and remembered a conversation they had once shared. For Thor, "time spent on Earth" had meant a family feud that almost took a planet out in its wake. He wondered what it meant for Golden-eyes. And her face, damn it, where had he seen it before? He kept up the pretense of conversation as his fingers flickered madly over the phone he had pulled from his pocket and rested on his thigh.

"Global warming, rampant poverty, the arms race, and now we can add Asgardian infestation to the mix. How many more of you are hanging around? Cause I always thought there was something weird going on with Gerard Butler."

There was a laugh from the other end of the table. Natasha had perked up. "You're just mad because that overly busty Australian tennis star said he was sexier than you."

Of all the moments for her to take an interest.

"She isn't too busty. She can't be. She plays tennis. It's a balance thing. There really is no accounting for taste, is there?" He pursed his lips at her before returning his attention to Golden-eyes. "Seriously, sunshine, is he one of yours? I must know."

She turned towards Loki, seated to her left, her long red-gold curls bouncing over her shoulder with the sharp movement. "I'm not quite certain. Loki, are there others, outside of Thor and I, that you've gotten exiled due to your little games?"

One quickly lifted brow provided a brief hint that Loki was surprised to be addressed during their little exchange, before the mask of droll amusement swept down to veil his pale features. "Well as far as actual intentions go, it would not be too far off the mark to say that I saved the gift of exile just for you." The words practically oozed from his lips with practiced charm, in a way any other man might have said "You have the last piece of chocolate, darling," or "I'm happy doing whatever you decide, dear."

Thor clenched his fist and shifted his feet to a more threatening pose, but Tony was too distracted by Golden-eyes to worry about any impending violence between overly entitled Asgardian princes. She had sent Loki a look that didn't stop at glaring daggers, but threw in a few rapiers, a broadsword, and an over-sized claymore. Tony found himself barely resisting the urge to duck when she turned to face him again.

A blink on the screen in his lap signaled success, and he let out a little "Hunh" at what he saw. A few seconds later he had commandeered all available screens in the room and transferred the newspaper images. Her striking face was now, quite literally, lighting up the room.

"I knew I'd seen that face before. Sinclair Donovan. You're that bigwig lawyer. And, incidentally, bigwig is the nicest term I have to precede the word lawyer, no offense. You were all over the papers when you went missing."

"I was found." There were enough layers of meaning in those three simple words to make an onion peel itself and weep for shame. The layers had layers. She didn't seem to be interested in filling in the blanks either, and she had definitely lost her amused demeanor.

Tony was not a man easily fascinated by people. He liked fast machines and even faster computers and people were usually only entertaining to him if he could find little ways to annoy them. Fast. He hated onions almost as much as he hated being handed things. He hoped to god no one ever tried to hand him an onion. But there was a dynamic here that needed figuring out. He hated it when he didn't have all the variables. He stored what little he knew of the equation away to be solved later. Barton had entered the room, Rogers close on his heels, and he was fairly certain he saw fun go scampering out in terror.

That was just too bad.

Loki was playing a very dangerous game. The ultimate stakes were nigh impossible to completely fathom, even for him, and most of the cards were either missing or blank. But at least he was the one holding them. Most of them.

As his old adversaries filed in and found seats around the table, greeting each other in the process, he risked a glance to the woman seated at his right. He couldn't count how many times he had tricked her or betrayed her in the great expanse of their past. And now control of his magic rested in her hands.

It was a card he needed to get back.

And he would.

Fate, the only bitch in the universe who could play a meaner game of chance than he, was on his side now.

All things considered, events had gone quite to his liking after Thor had returned him to his home. His prison, in a way. Except Asgardians tended to take the same approach to due process as Midgard took to high fashion. Sometimes it was in style and popular, and other times it was just optional.

They had found it exceedingly difficult to punish someone who was prophesied to potentially harness the means to stop Ragnarok.

That had been a fun card to play. He really wished he could have been there to see Odin's face when the prophecy had been revealed.

Ah yes. Fate had her hand on his back.

And she was pushing.

It was time to lay down another card.

Except he was distracted by Barton's question. "Where's Banner?"

Loki forced himself not to move as Stark responded. "He'll be here later this evening. He was…a bit further away than the rest of you. Well, except for them."

Stark gestured to their end of the table, before adding, "Oh, and that's Sinclair Donovan. She's a lawyer. Or was. She's also from Asgard. Or was. I'm a little short on all of the exact details."

Thor took this as his cue to begin. "My friends, this is Syn, born of Vanaheim, but now a guardian of Asgard. Loki has no power here, as long as she is present. And yes, as Tony has so cleverly discovered, she spent some time on Midgard, a lengthier span of time than my own experience. But these details are not essential to discuss at the moment."

Loki almost laughed at Thor's poor choice of words, like she had spent a vacation here, not a term of exile for a crime someone else had committed. And by someone else he did mean himself.

"So what is this new threat to our worlds you wanted to discuss? It had better be a big one," Stark interjected, "I was enjoying my vacay."

"You weren't the only one," Natasha muttered under her breath.

Loki leaned back in his chair with a smile at the sound of Thor's beleaguered sigh. "The Chitauri were not Loki's only ally in the battle we recently fought together. Another enemy has been revealed, one who has amassed great power and commands even would-be kings. He covets death and seeks the destruction of the Eternal Realms, an event known as Ragnarok, to my people. The end times. And we have been given signs that the time is approaching."

Would-be kings. Thor had glared at him when he said it.

"Shouldn't that be Asgard's problem?" Leave it to the Captain to point out what he thought was the obvious.

Loki sneered at him, and spoke as if explaining to a child. Which pretty much summed up his general attitude when interacting with Midgardians. "I almost envy you your ignorance of the endless depths of the cosmos, and the interconnectedness of each and every layer within the infinite expanse. It must be so much simpler living in the small little worlds you all build for yourselves. Round and round in your little heads you go. Ragnarok as we know it will not simply be the end of Asgard. It will be the end of everything. All life, all worlds, will be threatened, if Thanos is allowed to continue in his plans."

"And that is something you care about?"

Loki sent him a cold stare. The Captain was a man overruled by sentiment, in his estimation. But a lack of sentiment did not equate to a desire for a cataclysmic event on a cosmic scale. "Your feelings are as foolishly naïve as your simple little existence. And just as breakable. Why would I wish my world destroyed? Or yours? I cannot very well rule what does not exist."

"It doesn't look like you're ruling much of anything, from where I'm sitting."

It surprised him that Stark was the one to interrupt their jabs and attempt to get the room back on track. "The annihilation of worlds is a pretty tall order. Who has the power to do that? And how? Does he have a Death Star?"

Loki found himself almost starting to like Stark. He could watch him and Thor talk and be endlessly entertained, seeing the simple expressions flicker across his so-called brother's broad, earnest face. The furrowed brow of confusion. The puckered lips of consternation. The slight tick in the lower jaw that signaled his inner fight to be patient and calm.

Ah, it seemed as if he won the round again. Thor's voice didn't even betray his inner turmoil when he spoke, at least not to anyone else. "He is called Thanos. It is said he was born millennia ago, misshapen and unseemly to his people, a race of beings that no longer dwell in this universe. And so as an outcast he grew and sought power and strength, and when he found enough of what he sought, he slaughtered his family and the remnants of his world. Stories are told of him as lessons to my people, although not all of us learn the lesson. He is almost as a myth would be in your realm, as he has not been seen or heard of since his rampage of vengeance so long ago."

Loki felt himself clenching his own jaw now, the crescents of his fingernails digging into his palm. The comment about not learning lessons was a jab for him. As if one could really learn anything substantial from a story. As if Thor in his self-righteous glory could imagine what it was like to feel misshapen and unseemly and outcast.

And he had learned a lesson. Just because it wasn't the one they were selling didn't mean he hadn't learned. He just hadn't needed a story to drive it home.

Stark seemed to find Thor's tale amusing. "And now he's back. Did he find out about some long-lost cousins, and wants to finish the job? Because I've had plenty of 'long-lost cousins.' They can be trying. With all their lawyers and talks of wills and attempting to prove their unsubstantiated claims. Snoozefest. And they never visit on Thanksgiving."

Thor paused and took a breath. Loki wondered how long his newfound patience would last. "Thanos does not seek dominion so much as destruction, and perhaps he has been biding his time. He now has in his possession certain powerful artifacts so rare that I have only seen but one in the span of my life. They would have been difficult to acquire. They are called infinity shards, small colored gems in appearance, but like the Tesseract, they are repositories of great power, as they can bestow omnipotence over various aspects of cosmic existence."

Loki glanced around at the various levels of confusion and concentration on their faces. He thought a practical example might give them some clarification. He might as well throw Thor a bone or they'd be stuck in this stuffy room all day. "You have had contact with one of the six shards, admittedly some of you had more intimate contact than others, but you all can surely understand the concept. The mind shard."

Barton sat up sharply in his seat. "The sceptre."

Thor nodded. "Yes. It was powered by the mind shard. I do not need to explain what this stone can accomplish. I doubt Thanos was pleased to lose access to such an energy source."

Loki snorted. Thanos was not the only one.

"Wait, there's more of those power balls scattered throughout the universe?" Stark was leaning forward in his seat, eyes gleaming. He rather reminded Loki of the canine creatures so popular as pets on Midgard. He was near to drooling at the power potential under discussion.

Thor answered. "Thanos already has two others. The soul shard is one. We are not even fully sure the extent of its ability. It can mirror the mind shard, in some respects, that much is certain, but it is infinitely more dangerous for those under its thrall. How long it has been in his possession, and how he acquired it, we do not yet know. But the space shard he gained through association with Loki. It can bestow the ability to move easily throughout the realms, and between them, if one can master it. Loki has not been forthcoming as to how he himself acquired this shard."

Another glare. He was amassing quite a collection. He couldn't remember the last time Thor had looked at him without one.

Barton mused aloud. "So, he can manipulate souls. And minds. Or he could. And movement through space. How does this translate into, uh, Ragnarok?"

Barton stumbled over the unfamiliar word, looking for all the worlds like he had a mouthful of Alfheim taffy. Loki laughed quietly to himself, or so he thought, until he felt Syn's sharp elbow jab his side.

He assumed he was collecting glares from both sides now, but when he looked over to send one back in return, he was surprised to see her lips twitching.

Thor seemed abashed not to have a good answer. "We do not know. But he also seeks the Tesseract. It has powers that even we have not unlocked yet. Perhaps it will augment the shards he already possesses, or be used to combine them in some way. There is great power within the shards, but there are only hushed whispers to guess at how much power, and what sort of power, can be unleashed when they are combined together. Whosever holds all six could have absolute dominion over the entire universe, able to alter time, reality, any aspect of existence as we know it."

The Captain spoke again. "And how are we supposed to stop this being from bringing about this Ragnarok? Are we just gonna find the remaining cosmic gems that no one has ever seen? And why do we need this war criminal with us?"

Loki knew they all must be wondering that very thing, and he spoke carefully. "According to prophecy, we may have a chance at averting Ragnarok if we re-acquire what Thanos has taken from me."

"Your little travel trinket?"

"That would certainly help us. But no, I was actually referring to something far more precious, even to me."

"What does Thanos have that is more important to you than a means to power and magic?"

Loki sent the Captain a pointed look, before giving his answer in a whisper soft voice to a round of surprised faces. He couldn't blame them. It was the first thing he had said that day with complete sincerity.

"My soul."

Author's Note:

This story is not so much a part 2 as it is a spiritual successor to Farewell, Remorse. The tone and presentation are very different. You won't need to read that story to get into this one. All of the important and relevant history will be coming out in this story as it progresses. Including more details about shards and prophecies and what the heck Odin had forged and all that jazz, so if you are worried that you might have missed something there, well it isn't so.

My presentation does assume that the events of Thor and Avengers happened, and I get character and plot inspiration primarily from the movie worlds. And then I pad things out with elements from Marvel comics and Norse mythology, but like the movies, I often add my own spin (ie, my take on the infinity gems). Syn is not from the comic or movie worlds of Asgard, but my presentation of her is inspired by a goddess of the same name, attested to in ancient texts as one of the sixteen principal gods of the Norse pantheon. Her name means "refusal" in Old Norse, and she was a goddess associated with vigilance, the guarding of doors (especially Frigga's palace) and general defense, but also defense in terms of legal matters (especially against those wrongfully accused).

I hope it all works (eventually) and I hope you enjoy! Please review or drop me a message, it really does keep me going.