Thor looks on as his friends, inebriated and giggling like girls try in vain to lift his hammer. Tony has put his suit on and is firing all thrusters to lift it. The floor is ruined. He's going to be angry with himself in the morning. Tony gives up and lets Bruce take a swing at it. Everyone takes several steps back as Bruce turns green and grows in size. He has gotten better over the last six months at controlling his rage and his actions while in this form. He is actually having a good time. The Hulk snarls, growls, and bellows but he cannot lift Mjolnir. Oh well.
Natasha and Clint tug at it next, proceeding to role play a kind of sword in the stone narrative where Natasha is the princess in need of rescuing and Clint is her knight in shining armor. Only Clint can't lift the hammer so the dragon winds up eating Natasha for dinner. Tony belches.
Everyone is laughing hysterically and for a moment no one notices that Captain America has gone up to bat. Steve reaches down. It's so damn heavy…and yet….is this thing giving? Thor takes notice when he sees the hammer budge, however minisculely and feels a bit of fear, trepidation, and insecurity well up inside him. Just as everyone else in the room starts to take notice of Steve a bright blinding light fills the room knocking everyone to the ground.
A woman appears before them all, but only one person recognizes her. Thor takes in the powerful goddess of Helheim that is Queen Hel, ruler of the dead. She is a fearsome thing to behold. On one side she is all beauty and light, ethereal, lovely, and wise. The other half of her body is a decrepit corpse with a glowing blue eye, exposed bone, and maggots crawling here and there. To look upon her is to know, without being told, that she has the ability to damn or save your soul. Everyone scrambles into a fighting stance and then looks at Thor because…well…she kind of looks like somebody he might know. Maybe. They hope.
"Your Majesty." Thor greets her coldly.
"Your Highness." She greets him back. It is plain on her face she is irritated about something.
"To what do I owe the grace of your presence?" Thor says.
"Your brother Loki." She says. Thor's face softens immediately and then a lump forms in his throat as he realizes that this woman may well have damned his brother to an eternity of torment.
"What news do you have of my brother?" Thor asks with fear plain in his voice.
"Your brother….is a manipulative, conniving, lying little shit." She says. Tony can't resist.
"Yeah tell us something we don't know lady." The billionaire says. She looks at Tony and smirks at him, as though she really does know something about Loki that he doesn't, but she keeps it a secret to herself.
"He's also a shrewd bastard, and he has won a wager against me." Queen Hel states.
"What did he win? Bruce asks.
"The right….to live." She sneers. Another bright blinding light envelopes the room as Loki comes strolling into Avengers Tower like he owns the damn place.
"Hello brother. Miss me?" He says with a shit eating grin. Thor cannot hold back his tears as he runs and embraces his brother. Loki is all smiles as he hugs him. The sensation of being alive again is flooding his very being with pleasure. Queen Hel scoffs.
"Know this Loki, Valhalla may not have wanted you, but I did. I could have made you happy, but you have scorned me and when next we meet I will make the rest of your eternity an existence of misery and pain."
"Oh please, you're just pissed because you don't get to fuck me now. You'll just have to wait until next time." Loki goads her. Queen Hel snarls at Loki, turns and disappears in a huff. "So…..what have I missed?"
XxXxXxXx
The party is definitely over. Thor is sobbing into Loki's shoulder like a baby. Loki is rolling his eyes. Everyone else doesn't know what the fuck to do. Thor has been grieving over Loki for months. Now the asshole that tried to take over earth is back, and Thor is glad to see him. Awkward.
"How brother? How did you manage this miracle?" Thor sobs.
"Never you mind that now, it does not matter." Loki says sweetly. Six months in Helheim atoning for his sins has felt like centuries. Time passes differently in Helheim than in other places, more slowly it would appear.
"We must tell father! He will be so pleased to see you and know that you are alive!" Thor booms.
"He's not my father, and tell him if you must, but I am not returning to Asgard."
"Brother, you needn't fear, father will not punish you. After what you did helping me to save all the nine realms from eternal darkness, father would give you a full pardon. I am certain of it!"
"I neither want nor need a full pardon Thor. I have already stood before Queen Hel for judgment and my punishment for my sins has already been carried out. As a former citizen of the city of the dead Odin no longer has jurisdiction over me, nor does he have any right to punish me for crimes which I have already served my time. I am free to do as I please and go where I please. If Odin tried to throw me back into prison he'd be breaking several ancient covenants."
"You truly are a free man, with a clean slate. You can start over. We can start over." Thor says eagerly.
"You don't have to be so sentimental about it." Loki says annoyed. Everyone is watching the conversation roll out, listening to every detail that Loki willingly releases. Finally someone chimes in with the obvious question.
"So, if you aren't going back to Asgard, what are you going to do now?" It is Tony who asks….of course.
"Yes….about that…..The whole reason I am here at all, really. That little wager that Hel mentioned, that I won, which gave me my life back…." Loki drags his feet, "I wagered that the human race would go extinct within a year without my direct intervention to save it. As it turns out I was right."
"WHAT!" Everyone yells in unison. What is Loki talking about?
1 week earlier….
Agent Smith (not his real name) of SHIELD (HYDRA) looks down upon Loki's scepter with greed and ambition. He'd been trying to get on this guard detail for weeks. He wants the scepter for himself. Ever since Captain America exposed the organization, HYDRA has been on the run. They've lost a lot of people and opportunity has finally presented itself. It is the middle of the night and there are only a few other agents on duty. Their security has tightened since the incident in Washington D.C. but that doesn't matter. He has all the access codes he needs to simply walk out of this place. He grabs his rifle bag, unzips it and stuffs the scepter inside.
He picks up his Styrofoam cup of coffee, slings the bag over his shoulder and walks down the hall like he is headed to the gym to work out. He goes through one, two, three, four security doors before he is outside and jumping into his car, like there is nothing abnormal about this situation. He drives for three hours before pulling over for gas in a little farm town in the middle of the Pennsylvania countryside. New York State is just a hour away. It's three o'clock in the morning. It's so dark and quiet even the crickets are too tired to chirp. He grins to himself as he reaches into the car to pull out the rifle bag. He pulls the scepter out and examines it. The blue glow of the stone at the top is very bright in the darkness. The handle is comfortable and well-crafted and the wickedness of the whole damn thing just makes him itch to play with it. He walks away from his car and the gas station to the grassy meadow across the highway.
He swings it around a time or two, much like a child that has gotten a wooden sword for a Christmas present. He laughs in a giddy fashion and then turns, pirouettes, and thrusts the scepter in the air. He does it partly for show, but also because he was hoping the scepter would do something. He is only met with disappointment. He wishes absently that the scepter had a user's manual. He's seen the various footage of Loki using the scepter. He saw the wonderful, powerful, awful things that the scepter can do. He wants that power, but he doesn't know how to wield it. He doesn't even know what 'it' is that he is wielding. Humans don't know what infinity gems are. They've never heard of them.
He continues to swing and twirl the scepter around like a damn baton. He has no respect for the weapon in his hands, and so it is no surprise when the scepter slips from his grasp and falls to the ground. It falls tip first straight into the earth like a dagger piercing a heart. The resulting burst of power vaporizes the HYDRA agent instantly. The scepter stands there alone in the dark pouring its dark energy into the ground poisoning it.
It is another 2 and half hours before other HYDRA agents catch up and find Smith's car. After a quick search of the area the scepter is found and recovered. In a perfect circle spanning a 2 mile radius from the scepter there is nothing but dead grass and plant life, and the circle is spreading. The pestilence is spreading slowly like a ripple of water over the surface of the earth. Within just 6 months all plant life on planet earth will be dead.
Fast Forward to Avengers Tower….
Jarvis pulls up the local news coverage of the farm land in Pennsylvania. Scientists think it must be some kind of fungus or mold that is killing all the grass and crops. They are baffled by the perfectly circular growth pattern, however. Nothing in nature is that perfect. From the air it looks like some sort of alien crop circle. Only now it has covered the entire town and it is still spreading. No one knows what it is or what to do.
"That's not a fungus. That is the scepter, MY SCEPTER that did that. That is dark magic that is slowly strangling the life out of your precious world. Only magic can combat it. If that poison is left to grow unchecked it will kill all plant life everywhere. This realm is slowly rotting to death."
"Well hop to it then! Chop chop! Go do your Harry Potter thing and fix it." Tony says blithely.
"I will….once I figure out how." Loki says. Everyone breaks out in a cold sweat.
"You don't know how to fix that!" Natasha yells.
"Not exactly, it will require a bit of ingenuity and research on my part. One thing that I do know is that I will require the scepter to fix it. So do any of you have any idea where….it…is?"
Thor looks around sheepishly, as do the others as the Avengers realize that they have no idea where the scepter is. In fact, they had, as a unit, forgotten about it entirely. Ever since HYDRA was exposed they had all been busy capturing the enemy and dismantling HYDRA's network of evil. No one had given the scepter a single thought. After a long moment of silence Loki sighs.
"Why am I not surprised? Thor you stupid oaf. You left a powerful weapon in the possession of the human race and not only did they lose it, they let it fall into the wrong hands and all life on Midgard is going to end as a result. It's like giving a loaded gun to a small child. How could you be so careless?"
"I'm not the one who brought it here in the first place!" Thor deflects. A shouting match between the brothers ensues and all the old blame and grievances return to the open. The situation is deteriorating fast and they are wasting precious time. Steve puts his fingers to his lips and whistles LOUDLY.
"We don't have time for this. It doesn't matter how we got here, it only matters what we do now. Tony-get Fury on the line. Let him know what is going on and get whatever SHIELD files you can that might tell us where the scepter went. It is late. In the morning we will begin our search. As for you…" Steve turns to Loki, "You have homework to do. We will find the scepter; you start working on what to do with it once you have it back." Steve orders.