Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel Comics trademarks or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other comic junkies like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.
Rating: T+
Spoilers: This takes place after Infinity Wars, but who knows who is really dead and who isn't.
Chapter One: Trouble With a Capital L
Thor looked at the unassuming Bleeker Street townhouse with its iconic upper story window and sighed. He really had no desire to return to Midgard and its troubles, but when the Doctor called them together he was specific in calling out to the god of thunder in particular, and Thor answered that call almost by force of habit. Whatever the wizard had to say, it was probably world-shatteringly bad news. Thor would be in it up to his remaining eye soon.
The others were gathering now, what few were left. Tony Stark, neat and tidy in a business suit instead of his armor, though the briefcase he carried was probably the type that turned into a full suit. Bruce Banner. Clint Barton. Wanda Maximoff. Rocket Raccoon, bereft of any home save for the Avengers now. A footsore and bedraggled bunch, these days, all of them, really, even the ones that were good at pretending otherwise. The whole world had been run through the wringer. No one was left unscarred.
The front door opened for them and they filed inside. Instead of letting them through to the parlor where the drinks were served, the Doctor met them right in the front hall. "Big trouble," he said without preamble.
"We gathered as much, from your summons. What's up?" Tony said.
"I have detected a growing atmospheric disturbance near Rochester. Magical in nature - severely magical in nature. God-level, basically. I don't know who or what is causing it or for what purpose, but it is definitely something that needs to be looked into. It's my jurisdiction, at this point, but I could really use the backup."
The dispirited Avengers shared looks amongst themselves. In the wake of their ordeal with Thanos, none of them wanted to deal with anything like this. "All right, we're with you," Tony said.
"Hold on to your gluteus maxima," the Doctor said, and closed his eyes and made a gesture. In a flash, everyone was standing in a frozen field somewhere in upstate New York. Black birds flew overhead in perfect concentric circles.
"Freaky," Clint Barton said, taking a step back. "Yeah, uh, I'm not waiting around to get power-shit on, guys."
"Those are crows. And ravens," Thor said, watching the birds with great interest.
"Yes, yes they are," the Doctor said. "This is significant?"
Thor looked down and quickly shook his head. "No. No, not really. Maybe. No."
In the distance, the ground seemed to be rushing toward them. Cats of all shapes and sizes were running towards the center of the circle transcribed from the air by the birds. The black cats formed a circle in the center. Thor began to get very excited. He took hold of Banner by the shoulders and shook him. "By father! I don't believe it! I think it's really happening!" he cried.
"What is?" Bruce said, trying to free himself from the Asgardian's tight grip.
"I don't want to say yet. I don't want to jinx it!"
"Yaaaaaiiieeee!" Tony shrieked, and leaped into the air as thousands of snakes crawled out of the ground below them.
"Yes! Yes!" Thor shouted, throwing his arms out wide. "Yes! I hardly dared hope this day would come!"
"How are there snakes surviving out in the open in early January in upstate New York?" Wanda asked, watching as the snakes coiled their bodies together into rings around the cat circles. "And the politicians claim global warming is a myth."
"Everyone, step back," the Doctor said. "Whatever is going to happen is going to happen very soon. We don't want to be in the middle of that circle when it does."
Tony put on his armor. Banner prepared his mental state for a possible imminent Hulk-Out. Thor grinned like a maniac and stood with his arms thrown out wide in a gesture of welcome. A dark green cloud gathered above the birds, and a bolt of emerald lightning shot to earth directly in the center of the circle of black cats below. It diffused into the form of a massive coiled snake, a green anaconda thirty feet long or more, sitting with its head raised like a cobra in a way that normal anacondas simply couldn't do because of their bulk. It swayed back and forth in a hypnotic motion, then…
…the great jaws opened wide, unhinged, and the beast began to gag, choking, dry heaving, until something large and covered in goo was regurgitated inch by gastrointestinal inch. Long, dark hair. Lanky, naked body. Seemingly human, but how many humans were birthed by celestial snake vomit?
"Loki!" Thor shouted, and ran to greet his unconscious brother. He grabbed him up, heedless of the goo, and hugged him tight against his shoulder, pounding him furiously on the back. "I knew I'd see you again, brother!"
"Did… anybody else notice anything a little… 'off'… about Loki?" Rocket asked, looking around for confirmation.
"Do you mean the fact that he's a woman?" Tony said. "Yeah, I saw that."
"Well, he was always a little fem," Wanda said.
"Do you think… Thor… knows? Should we tell him?" Rocket said.
"I think he'll figure it out," the Doctor said. "Let's just… get some clothes on her, shall we?" He made a gesture and a portal appeared. He stepped through it and returned in a moment carrying one of his long tunics. "This should do for now."
"Thor," he said, tapping the Asgardian on the shoulder. "Thor, your… your sister needs her dignity."
"My brother," Thor said, but he took the garment. He fitted it over the still lifeless Loki's head and down onto her shoulders. "Why do you insist on calling him a woman?"
"Well, that is a female body…" the Doctor said.
"Loki is a shape shifter."
"I don't think she is in any condition to use even the most natural of her powers at the current time, Thor."
"Well, why do you insist on foisting a gender stereotype on him?" Thor cried out. "If he has a female body now, that's immaterial. He's still Loki, God of Mischief. He hasn't changed. You're redefining him based on a set of inconsequential bodily organs."
"That's true. I'm sorry."
"Loki. Loki, my brother. Wake up, now. Come on, now, that's a boy," Thor coaxed, shaking the limp woman in his arms.
Green eyes fluttered open. "Bleagh. Damn it all… you couldn't have picked a more disgusting way of bringing me back? I couldn't have been shat out of a raven's rectum? Not… not that I'm not grateful. Death is… no way to pass the time."
"Loki, you ass! Do you know how much grief you caused me?" Thor said. He hugged the woman tightly again. "With father and Heimdall… well, with things being the way they are, I didn't know if you would ever return."
"You didn't think I'd let myself die not knowing I was coming back, did you?" Loki said, gingerly pushing Thor away. "Do you really think a dagger is the best trick I've got up my sleeve for defeating a mighty fuck like Thanos?"
"Then why did you throw a dagger at Thanos?" Tony said.
"Someone had to die," Loki said. She had the same voice - the same face, softened moderately by femininity. "If it wasn't me, it would have been one of the rest of you. You wouldn't have come back."
"So you did… something altruistic?" Rocket said.
Loki sighed and stood upright, trying to sluice the worst of the snake goo off of herself. "So I had a moment of good-heartedness. Sue me."
"How do you feel?" the Doctor asked.
"Like I've been hit by a Hulk," Loki said, sneering. "I'll live, however." He paused and did a wriggling movement with his hips. "I also feel like I may be missing something."
"You're, um… hmph… female," the Doctor said. "At least, physically."
Loki's emerald eyes grew huge and he looked down at himself. "Well, at least tell me I'm a shapely female. I can't tell a thing in this baggy excuse for a garment."
"I'm… sure you're lovely, Loki," the Doctor said.
Her face twisted up in a grimace. "Hmph. Finally, father will be 'okay' with my preference for men."
"I knew it. You owe me twenty bucks, Clint," Wanda said.
"I thought he was into horses, honestly," Clint said, breaking out his wallet. "Didn't he, like, give birth to one, or something? God, this god-shit is so messed up."
"I'm tempted to throw sand in father's face and become a lesbian," Loki said. "That might be fun."
"I don't think that's something you can choose," the Doctor said slowly.
"I'm a god. I can choose," Loki said, with a haughty hair toss. "I am Loki. I can choose to turn myself into a male again, if I want."
"Then… why don't you?" Thor said.
"Because I am weary, brother. Being reborn from the land of death is a painful experience I wouldn't expect you to understand. And besides, this female thing sounds like it could get me into a lot of trouble. I like the sound of that," and his lips turned up in a sly grin.
"I have a surprise for you," was the first thing that Loki said when they reached Stark Tower and she was properly dressed at last. "I… prepared a little something, a new invention, you might say… before my untimely death. I think it would be of use to us now. However, I left it at my home in Asgard, and I am not strong enough to make the transition there now. Brother, can you take us?"
"Of course," Thor said. He raised Stormbringer and the Asgardian runes surrounded them, creating an instant portal to the plane of the gods. The entire group found themselves standing on the plaza outside Loki's stately residence.
"All right, right inside, down the cellar where I keep my favorite toys," she said, striding forward through the door with great purpose. "Remember folks, don't touch anything."
She led them down to a table on which lay a replica of herself as she had been, a mannequin of exceedingly high quality.
"What is that all about?" Rocket asked, pointing to the manufactured Loki.
"Ah, pay no attention to that," real Loki said. "That was a backup plan, in case things didn't go the way I thought they would. Father can do great things, but he is dead, after all."
"So father did bring you back?" Thor said. "I wondered if perhaps it was Hela. Or the Guildmaster."
"I was… planning on going back in time…" Tony mumbled.
"How would a doll of yourself have helped in any conceivable way?" Wanda asked.
"With this," Loki said, and gestured at the shining green chip held up by a pair of clips nearby. "I left a note for Thor, telling him to give this to the false me."
"And this is?" Bruce said, reaching out for the glowing object with one finger.
"Don't touch it! By Odin, man, that's childrearing 101! It's my own creation. I call it a Soul Chip. It's a combination of advanced sorcery and Asgardian technology. You may think us backwards, but we have our advancements, mortals. It contains a small sliver of my soul."
"So it's like an Infinity Stone," Tony said. "How does that help?"
"It's not like an Infinity Stone. An Infinity Stone traps the entire soul and uses it to power the magic of the stone. The Soul Chip takes a small piece of the soul and stores it. Just stores it. Like a data chip from one of your computers. Then, if you have the proper retrieval system, you can access that data at any time."
"So you're saying that the OS is in the doll, and if Thor put the chip in, it would be essentially like you coming back to life," Bruce said. "Minus, maybe, a few memories."
"Precisely. I would even have my powers, and could turn the mannequin into living flesh."
"Handy. But you're back, alive and… well, pretty much well. So it's kind of useless now, right?" Tony said.
"Not so. Observe," Loki said, and clapped her hands once. A large door slid open, revealing a number of similar mannequins standing in a neat row. Steve Rogers. Bucky Barnes. Groot. Gamora. Peter Parker. Nick Fury. The remaining few stood and stared at these replicas for a long moment in silence, then turned as one to look at Loki.
"You can bring them back?" Tony said, croaking from his dry throat.
"I have their Soul Chips right here," she said, opening a drawer in the table. "What I can't do at the moment is make them flesh. I need time to recuperate from my own ordeal. I think I could perhaps bring back one to full living existence."
"But wait - they'll be alive - and dead or trapped in the Infinity Stones - at the same time, won't they? Wouldn't that be traumatic?" Bruce said.
Loki grinned. "There's a unique thing about the soul of any man, god or mortal alike. They don't like to be split. It's still a theory, mind, but the soul sliver in its containment casing should be strong enough to draw the rest of the soul from the realm of death or the Infinity Stones, wherever they happen to be. Thanos will presumably be left with nothing."
"You don't know if it will work or where Thanos is?" the Doctor said.
"My ability to see the future was interrupted by my death. I expect I'll get it back when I'm stronger. Now. Whom do I bring back?"
"Cap," Tony said. "No, wait - Spidey."
"Groot!" Rocket said.
"Maybe you should just wait until you can do them all at once?" Wanda said. "It's too hard to pick just one."
"Well, this is new technology. I don't honestly know that it will work. One of them has to be a test run for the others," Loki said. "It would have been me, had I not been brought back by Father. And if I cannot turn them back to flesh, finding themselves in a false body might prove traumatic indeed."
"I thought you said you could do that," Rocket said. "Don't go backfilling on us now!"
"I could, previously, do that. But now I have no idea what my powers are. I feel very different. Much of it, I'm certain, is the result of fatigue. I will feel better once I have rested. But for now, who will it be?"
"Make it Cap," Tony said again. "He'd be the first to volunteer for anything… dangerous."
"Loki," Thor said quietly. "Why not… Father? Or Mother? Or Heimdall? Any of them could help you bring the others back. But you don't even have them here."
Loki looked at her feet. "I never foresaw Father and Mother dying, Brother. As to Heimdall… well, I don't have the power to bring him back just now. An Asgardian requires considerably more power than a mere mortal. As it is, bringing Captain America back to full strength and vitality is going to be difficult."
The Doctor stepped forward. "I might be able to help you," he said. Loki eyed him warily.
"You may at that. If you can make a conduit of yourself that I may draw power from you, that would be quite helpful," she said. The Doctor cast a glyph and his eyes began to glow with blue light. He placed his hands on Loki's shoulders.
"I'm with you," he said.
"Very well," she said. She took a blue Soul Chip out of the drawer and placed it into a slot behind the Steve Rogers mannequin's left ear. "Here goes the proverbial nothing."
There was a moment of tense stillness, and then the mannequin's eyes fluttered. The mouth moved. "I'm… this is not… my body. I'm not real," Steve said. His eyes focused on Loki and his expression hardened. "You. Trickster. What have you done to me?"
"Easy. Rest easy. All will be well in a matter of… moments," Loki said, and held out her hands. Her eyes glowed brilliant gold, and a powerful wave of energy pulsed through her, drawing some energy off of the Doctor as well. She collapsed. The Doctor tried to catch her but found her much heavier than he expected, and she bore them both to the ground.
"Unconscious," he said, checking her. "I think she'll be all right, though."
"How about you, Steve?" Tony said, taking a hesitant step forward. "How are you feeling?"
"What the hell just happened to me?" Steve said. "One minute I thought I was made of some kind of… metal. Now I'm fine. What the hell?"
"It's… a long story," Tony said with a sigh. "How's your memory?"
"I remember being introduced to Loki… well, reintroduced, I guess. Then there was a little sting, and now… where the hell are we?"
"Loki's house. Steve… he saved your life."
"Loki did. The guy who destroyed most of New York."
"Yeah, that guy."
"How?"
"Not really sure how he did it, but apparently… he cut a little piece off of your soul… and saved it to a device he created… so that after you died… he could bring you back to life," Bruce said.
"So he knew I was going to die? And he couldn't just tell me so I could watch out for it?" Steve said.
"Some timelines can't be broken," the Doctor said quietly, "but Loki does like to find the loopholes in every law, even the laws of time, physics, and nature."
"Well, I'm going to put this wet whelp to bed so he can rest," Thor said without any great concern. He hoisted his brother up and tossed him over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes. "He has a lot of work to do when he wakes, if he's going to bring Tree and Fury and the others back." He offered the Doctor a hand up.
"Why is she so heavy?" the Doctor asked.
"Never really thought about it, but probably because he's a frost giant," Thor said. "They're not that tall, for giants, but… they're really… dense." He hefted the body on his shoulder. "He hasn't seemed to have lost much weight as a female."
Thor tripped lightly up the stairs, whistling, happy. The others followed more sedately, pondering. The idea of having their comrades back was a pleasant one, but the concept that Loki had such ability was daunting. Was he really so powerful? The god of mischief and trickery and deceit? How could you trust such a being with so much power?
Thor met them back in the living area when he'd divested himself of his brother. He clapped his hands together. "Who's for a tall, frosty ale to celebrate?" he said. No one responded. "Come on, now, why the long faces? This is a grand occasion! So much that went wrong shall be undone! Don't be upset because it isn't done yet!"
"That's not what we're worried about, Thor," the Doctor said quietly. "Did you ever know Loki's powers were so… amazing?"
"Well, he's always been good with magic."
"He has created something that may rival the Infinity Stones in terms of power," Tony said. "He did that himself. Without anyone knowing. Even… your father, perhaps? Maybe even Heimdall?"
"Oh, I doubt that. Father would have known, one way or the other. Heimdall would have told him, if nothing else. You couldn't hide anything from those two."
"Your brother hid plenty from them in the past."
"No, actually, he never did. They saw it all coming. They just let it play out," Thor said. "I'm sure they know everything that's going on now. Father brought Loki back - even though Father is dead himself. I didn't know even Father would be able to do that. Of course, he did it a little differently than normal…"
"I think he brought some of Loki's own power into bear," the Doctor said. "It felt like Loki's power signature, at any rate, as best as I know it. Which, granted, isn't very well yet."
"That did look like a bolt of my brother's magic, just before the snake formed," Thor said. "You may be right."
"You understand why we're concerned, don't you, Thor?" Steve said.
"Not exactly," Thor said. "But then, I seldom do."
"Bringing people back from the dead is serious power," the Doctor said. "Your father could do it, and Heimdall could do it… but we didn't know your brother could do it."
"I didn't know he could, either. He couldn't, until he invented those little chip-thingies," Thor said. "You heard him, he didn't even know for certain he could do it until it was done."
"But he did it," Steve said. "I appear to be the proof of it."
"Then he turned a manufactured body into a human one," the Doctor said. "I couldn't do that."
"Perhaps you could," Thor said airily, "if you'd been studying magic for a thousand years like my brother."
"Touché," the Doctor said.
"It's just that… your brother hasn't always been… all that… trustworthy," Bruce said. "If he's more powerful than we knew, he's more worrisome than we thought."
"Don't worry about my brother. He's my brother. I'll keep him in line," Thor said. "You know, my brother may be the one that came back as a woman, but you've all turned into a bunch of big girls, haven't you?"
"Hey!" Wanda said.
"The last time your brother got out of line, we lost half of New York City," Tony said, pointing his finger at Thor.
"Oh here we go, playing the blame game," Thor said. "Thanos made Loki do that, and now that I know about it, it won't happen again."
"Can you really stop it?" Bruce said.
"Damn straight," Thor said in a dangerous tone, giving Stormbringer a short toss. "Thanos isn't coming near my brother again."
"I hope you're right," the Doctor said. "For all our sakes. Because if this scheme of your brother's works, and the Infinity Stones are sucked dry, he's surely coming back looking for blood. He'll probably be able to guess who pulled a fast one on him."
"You pulled a bit of a fast one yourself, Doctor," Thor said.
"Yes, but I'm counting on him not having figured that out, yet."
Loki awoke two Midgardian days later, still weary. Nevertheless, she insisted on continuing with the process of bringing the Avengers and Guardians back to life. The Doctor tried to tell her that doing while exhausted was not good even for a god's constitution.
"Nonsense, I'm fine, just sleep-droopy," she said. "The way you get when you've slept so heavy you feel like you need to take a nap when you wake up. I can feel my powers and they are strong. Besides, now that we know it works, I have something further to show you all."
She led them back down to her cellar laboratory. Another door, and another, revealed more mannequins. Replicas of all the lost Guardians and Avengers, and…
"You've got all of us here," Bruce said, staring his own replica in the face. "You didn't know which of us was going to die."
"No. As I said, my precognizance ended at my death. I did not know in advance who would pass after me," Loki said. "I made one of each of us, just to be sure."
"Heimdall," Thor said, looking into the replica's face. "You made a doll of Heimdall."
"I did. I don't know for sure I have the power to bring him back fully, though. I… made one of you, too, brother… just in case… but I really didn't think it would be necessary. And I kind of thought if it was necessary, then it would all be moot, anyway," Loki said, looking anywhere but at Thor. "I've got Sif here, too. I think I should have enough power for her."
"Heimdall would be able to help you bring back everyone else," the Doctor said. "Wouldn't he?"
"Almost undoubtedly, assuming, again, that I can bring him back to full power," Loki said. "That is daunting."
"You should probably try," Steve said, though he didn't look at all happy about the idea.
"Well, there is one person I think I should bring back first," Loki said. "Then I could perhaps have double the assistance in bringing back Heimdall."
"Who's that?" Tony said, one eyebrow arched quizzically.
Loki looked at the Doctor. "It's time you gave your compatriot back full command of his own body, don't you think?"
"That would be wonderful," the Doctor said. "You have me somewhere?"
"Right over here," Loki said, and opened a single compartment in the wall. A mannequin resembling Stephen Strange stood at parade rest, eyes closed.
"How do I get in there?" the Doctor asked.
"Well, hypothetically…" Loki said, and took a red-hued soul chip out of the table drawer. She put it into the slot behind the mannequin's left ear and the replica awoke. She cast her powers over it and it became flesh.
"Well, great," the Doctor and the replica said. "Now I'm living in stereo. This doesn't really seem to help Wong any."
"Hold your Sleipnir," Loki said. "It may take a moment or two, but it should happen."
A stillness, and then the Doctor began to glow. A pale blue mist formed around him, coalesced, and headed straight for the replica. It was absorbed in a heartbeat.
"Never again, Strange. You make other arrangements, next time you die," Wong said.
"I'm sorry, Wong. Thank you for putting up with me," Strange said contritely.
"If any of your soul is trapped on the Soul Plane, it should draw back to you eventually, probably more rapidly once you've returned to Midgard. Asgard doesn't have the same connection to the Soul Plane that Midgard does," Loki said. "Now… if you and Wong might assist me, I will attempt to bring Heimdall back."
"Don't you think you should take a breather first?" Strange said.
"Enough of this. I am fine, mortal wizard," Loki snapped. She took an orange Soul Chip from the table drawer and put it in the big Asgardian's ear slot. She drew a deep breath. "Odin preserve me."
"Loki," Heimdall said, opening his eyes. "I saw that you would do this. It is not the wisest decision you have ever made."
"I had to do something," Loki said. "In my place, what would you have done?"
Heimdall smiled. "Probably the same. But disconnect me. Do not bring me to full life. It will only hurt you. I would not see that."
"I'm sorry. I must try."
Heimdall's face fell into sorrow. "I warned you."
Loki drew back, gathered all her power in a great golden shimmer around her. Wong and Strange both provided backup sources for her to draw from. She released the spell, and Heimdall stood as a true Asgardian again, but Loki fell to her knees, washed out and shaking. Strange dropped to her side.
"Loki, you're blue in the face," he said.
"I'm a frost giant," she said. "Blue is my natural coloration."
Heimdall knelt down before her. "I did warn you," he said, and offered her a hand. He placed the other on her sweat-slick brow. "You are feverish, Mischievous One. You must rest."
"I'm fine," she insisted.
"You are stubborn," Heimdall said. "You always were. If you attempt to bring back any more of your friends, you will kill yourself, and I promise you, your father will not send you back to the world of the living again. Rest. I will do this work for you now. You have done enough. You have done well, Trickster."
"Do you think so?" Loki said, looking up at him.
Heimdall smiled. "Frigga and Odin smile this day. They are proud of their fine son Loki."
A smile tugged at the corners of Loki's mouth. "I will leave you to it, then, I suppose. Ah… don't get the souls mixed-up. Although… that would be hilarious. Nick Fury saying 'I am Groot!'" She took herself off up the stairs, laughing like a psychopath.
