When they land – crash-land, that is – Daisy is the second on her feet. She staggers, inner balance swinging. It's like she's spun around and around in circle and now, her organs feel like they're inside-out. However, it all quickly fades and she feels all the vibrations around them, an especially large one rippling around them. Daisy physically looks around, seeing the damage that their Timefrost – their strange, Time Stone-whammied Bifrost – has created in the ground, trees knocked down around them.
Thor draws away from Loki, who still lies on the dirt, blue complexion momentarily alarming Daisy before she moves to help her ally up. Thor grabs her wrist, instead, stopping her.
"Don't touch him," he warns quietly as Loki twists on the ground, dry-heaving. "The magics have left him weak. Not even his shapeshifting is holding."
"Right," Daisy mutters, not knowing what that means. Withdrawing, she looks to the markings in the ground again, the pattern familiar – the pictures of other markings she's seen in the past of Thor's landing spots had the same design. It's the Bifrost, she thinks, now knowing the truth of it. The ripple is of vibration around them is still holding strong as it moves outwards. We're going to be pinpointed if it's strong enough to be detected by sensors.
"Brother," Thor says, crouching by Loki, brow creased with worry. "Brother, how long until I can touch you?"
"Not soon," Loki replies, voice barely more than a hiss of air, barely audible in the thunder. He curls up on the ground, a layer of frost ranging out from where he lays. Daisy frowns, wondering if this is normal, before a crack of thunder has her looking up, the lightning that follows illuminating the sky and also revealing the quinjet in the sky.
"Shit," Daisy mutters, wondering it they saw them appear. We don't need that right now. "Where and when did you send us, Loki?"
"To a moment we wouldn't be noticed," Thor says on his behalf, tense, looking up at the sky. "My power is what guides that storm. This is before the battle against the chitauri- there!" He points and Daisy squints, seeing the faintest of blurs shooting off into the night. "That is I with my brother. Tony shall follow at any moment."
Thor's right, of course. Daisy sees the tell-tale burn of Iron Man less than ten seconds later.
"Well, what happens now? What do we do?" Daisy tries to think, panicking. "Is Phil already dead?"
"No, he yet lives," Thor reaches out, putting a calming hand on her shoulder. Lightning flashes above them, illuminating his face, blue eye bright in the dark and his axe impressive over his shoulder. "Don't worry. We'll save him before that can happen."
"Thank-you, for this," Daisy can't help but say. "Thank-you." Her hand comes up to grip his wrist and they share a solid moment before Loki forces himself up onto his feet.
"Enough. We must get on that quinjet."
"We shouldn't move from our position," Thor says, hand falling to his side. Daisy shivers as a cold breeze billows past them in a sudden rush. "It will do us no good to interrupt the confrontation in person. My younger self is still feeling the effects from father's dark magic."
"Anger, pain," Loki says, "You didn't ever do well with either of those."
"I've learnt how to deal with it," Thor ends that conversation, before taking his axe from his back. "I shall give the quinjet reason to come to us. Stormbreaker shall help me." Sparks grow from his hands, crackling and popping. Daisy takes more than a few steps back as he raises his axe, short lightning strikes rising up into the air, one after the other.
"Don't wear yourself out," she says, peering into the sky, trying to find the quinjet again – but it's flown on since she last saw it. When the continual flashes of light begin to bother her eyes, Daisy looks back at Loki, who sways where he stand, still so very blue.
The frost around him still exists, stretching out minutely as the seconds go by. Quite honestly though, past the alien skin colour and red eyes, he looks like shit. Loki looks two seconds from collapsing and apparently, they can't touch him. Daisy eyes the ground again. Maybe we get hypothermia from close contact. Thor said something about shapeshifting.
"Are all Asgardians like you?" she questions the sorcerer. Loki glances her way, brow furrowing.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Are all Asgardians like you?" Daisy repeats, motioning to him, "All…blue and frosty."
"I…no, not at all. I am Thor's adoptive brother – I am from Jotunheim, a frozen planet inhabited by Jotuns or Frost Giants, as their often called."
"Huh," Daisy tries to imagine it. She wonders if it's like international adoption, taking orphans from other countries and giving them a better life. "So, intergalactic adoption is thing? That's cool."
Loki's lip twitches, like he's trying to contain a smile. "My circumstances are unique, as far as I'm aware. I didn't know I was a Frost Giant, growing up."
"…how?" Daisy demands, "You're blue."
"I'm a shapeshifter. I obviously mimicked others around me," Loki says, "and as I grew, I had no idea I had this form to change back into. I have never been as drained as I am now, however and the…upkeep, was obviously too much. I feel…" Loki licks his lips, grasping for the words, "hollow."
Daisy thinks of when she still had an inhibitor, before Fitz pulled it out of her neck. She thinks of not being able to control the powers she could still feel under her skin, in her bones. Hollow isn't a word she'd use to describe it. Her powers were there, but inaccessible. That isn't what Loki is feeling – his powers are drained so much they're pulling power from other places.
"When you have enough magic, are you going to shapeshift into your normal skin, then?"
"Something like that," Loki says, before the lightning stops. Daisy glances at Thor, then at the sky. The quinjet is nowhere in sight. "What?" Loki verbally prods.
"…incoming," Thor says, tossing Stormbreaker from his right hand to his left before pushing Daisy away abruptly. She flies through the air, falling down against an uprooted tree just as Thor himself – the younger version, the prince of Asgard, not the king – lands in front of them. Loki backs away into the opposite fallen trees as the two Gods of Thunder regard each other, Daisy moving into a crouch, staying out of sight as she sees the other, younger Loki, too getting up out of the dirt by Prince Thor's side.
"Who are you? Why do you take my form?" Prince Thor questions. His hair is long and shifts in the breeze, red cloak pristine and magnificent. Compared to King Thor, there's a certain new age vs eternal warrior feel to the clearing and of course, neither Thor takes their eyes off the other, despite how the younger Loki has quite obviously seen his older self and Daisy, too.
"There is much to discuss," King Thor says, finally looking away from his younger self to Young Loki, who stands at Prince Thor's side, back straight and eyes narrowed. Daisy wonders if she'll be any help here and looks to Loki the Elder for direction as King Thor speaks. He shakes his head, hands flat. Stay down, his actions say and Daisy follows them, not really wanting to get into a fight right now, not when her back hurts from Thor throwing her into a tree.
"Answer my questions," Prince Thor demands, thunder crackling. A small smile tugs at King Thor's lips.
"I do not wish to fight. I wish to talk. I am on a diplomatic mission from the future with my brother, Prince Loki of the people of Asgard and the Lady Quake of Midgard."
"What was the point in tossing me over here if you're just going to introduce us?" Daisy immediately questions, standing up straight. Thor glances at her, contrite.
"Sorry. I'm kind of making this up as I go along. My younger self is in a bad mood. Also, Iron Man is about to attack us."
"Who is about-" Prince Thor starts, before being blown back by numerous miniature missiles, Iron Man swooping down to hover in the air above them all, full arsenal aimed at them.
"That was for taking my stuff, Goldilocks," he says, voice distorted by the armour. "Who are you guys and this time, don't try the bullshitting."
King Thor grins at the Avenger, "Tony." Then, of course, his younger counterpart comes up swinging and a fight begins. Daisy is quick to go over to Young Loki, herding him towards his older self. King Thor joins them and they sit down on a tree-trunk, watching Iron Man and Thor beat it out.
"What is wrong with you?" Young Loki asks himself.
Loki the Elder shrugs from his position on the end, Young Loki to his right, then Daisy and then King Thor. "It took too much of me to bring us here. I will not be doing that again."
"Let's hope you don't have to," Daisy says, flinching back as Iron Man throws Prince Thor back. There's a pause in the stand-off, then, as Prince Thor actually speaks rather than fights.
"You have no idea what you're dealing with."
"Shakespeare in the park?" Iron Man quips. "Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?"
Daisy lets out a snort of laughter, King Thor giggling at the joke, whacking Daisy's arm lightly. The fighters look over at them, Prince Thor obviously far from amused.
"You like my jokes?" Iron Man questions, obviously surprised.
"Mother is alive," Loki the Elder then says, King Thor's laughter dying abruptly. Silence fills the clearing. "We have to stop Malekith."
"…he hasn't awoken, yet," King Thor says, almost hesitant as he looks over both Daisy and Young Loki's head to his blue-fied brother. "Until the Alignment of the Realms, he shall not be found."
"We can find him," Loki snarls, true anger leaking through his voice. "I won't have it happening the same way again!"
"Enough," Prince Thor interrupts, a strange quaver to his voice. "The things you talk of make no sense. Why are you even here?"
"We're here to save the universe," Daisy says, "But first we need to secure the Tesseract and the Mind Stone. They're the two Infinity Stones that we can actually get our hands on, soon. Thanos is coming for them."
"How do you know of Thanos?" Young Loki questions, taken-aback. He looks to his older self. "Are you truly my elder counterpart?"
"I am indeed," Loki the Elder smiles, "What you have gone through under his thumb is nothing compared to the torment and heartbreak you shall go through. Mother shall die. Father shall die. Asgard shall be shorn from the sky and then so shall what remains of its people."
"You're really taking this seriously," Iron Man cuts in, "What are you, a LARPer? The kid beside you is a criminal."
"I'm fully aware of what he's done – I did it, in my timeline," Loki says. "The last time I saw you, Man of Iron, you were helping create the device that would send us back. You would not join us. The shame that filled you, the grief and despair for losing the Spider under your care, it consumed you. Your penance was helping rebuild the world that we left behind, if it still existed. We had some…interesting conversations about the nature of time."
"Spider? What, Natashalie?"
"Not that Spider," King Thor says, "I unfortunately never had the opportunity to meet him."
"Spiderman was really young, supposedly," Daisy cuts in, "like, some people thought he was your kid or something after he got that suit upgrade."
"I do not have a kid. What are you even on? God, that's a terrifying though, me with a kid. Ugh."
"What's terrifying," comes a new voice, "is what I'm hearing." Daisy looks across the clearing, where she had been thrown before. Captain America stands there in his colourful glory and Daisy, for a moment, is that twenty-one year old fangirl who stood under Stark Tower in red, white and blue. Coulson must had a heart-attack when he saw his idol like this, Daisy thinks, standing up, fidgeting.
"Hi!" she says, surprised at how star-struck she actually is, how excited this meeting makes her. Coulson's enthusiasm rubbed off on me. "You're Captain America. Oh my god, this is so- so cool! You're Captain America!" Daisy grins, reaching to grab Thor's arm, shaking the Asgardian-shaped puppy, who is as equally smiley at his appearance – or maybe just her enthusiasm. "Why did I never get to meet him in the future?"
"Stark and Rogers broke up," Loki the Elder says dryly, as if he and Stark totally didn't kiss each other goodbye before they went through the Timefrost.
"I know that," Daisy replies, quieter, "I just meant- he wasn't around. It would have been cool to meet him. I could have got like, an autograph or something." I could have put a copy on Phil's grave. He would have liked that, even if he wouldn't have any use for it as a corpse
"Aren't you supposed to be a superhero as well?" Loki the Elder asks in good humour.
Daisy rolls her eyes, pointing at the stationary Captain America, far calmer than she was with her dark thoughts. "He's a national icon and even born on the fourth of July."
"And that's not creepy at all," Iron Man says, before he walks over to Prince Thor, putting out his hand to shake, visor rising. "Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man. Obviously, you've got some drama to sort out and Loki over there kind of stole our Cube, so we want that back."
"Loki will face Asgardian justice for his crimes," Prince Thor says stubbornly, side-eyeing the outstretched hand. "I will take him and leave with the Cube."
"No can-do on that one, the Cube is ours," Stark says, wiggling his hand. "Can we come to some kind of agreement? Preferably quickly?"
"We'll come quietly," King Thor says, "the four of us, at least. I don't know about baby Thor."
"I'm not a baby," Prince Thor denies, disturbed.
"You're a baby," King Thor shakes his head. "It's alright. I know it's hard to accept the truth, but you have so far to go, yet. You're half-baked, not ready…"
"Stop teasing him, Thor," Loki the Elder sighs and Daisy frowns, because his voice sounds strange. She looks at Loki and leans closer, away from Young Loki but still closer, so as to recheck what she's seeing – because what she's seeing can't be true. "He's not your brother."
"No, you are," King Thor says, before pausing, "Well, you sometimes are."
Loki the Elder – Lady Loki – smiles, winking at Daisy as she gapes at the goddess. Loki is somehow female. Shapeshifter, Daisy remembers, taken-aback. She still looks like shit, but…she's a she.
"Wait a second," Tony Stark points, "weren't you a guy? And blue?"
Lady Loki isn't far removed from her male self. She has alabaster skin, dark hair, the same large forehead, slanted jaw and thin lips, but the rest of her is proportionally different – there are different curves and even her clothes have moulded to match.
"You got enough magic to change, then?" Daisy questions, still not quite back into focus. Lady Loki shrugs, silent as she taps her nails on her knee, raising an eyebrow at Prince Thor, who frowns at her. Daisy notices how her hands are smaller, fingers just as long but somehow more delicate than before, that there are dark bags under her eyes and still, she sways slightly as she sits – still weak and shaking.
"Why?" the young Asgardian asks. "I have not see you like that for years."
"I do what I like," Lady Loki says, watching him but distant from his question. Daisy can see it – how the measure of her investment in him is different from that of her investment in King Thor. "If your sibling wants to, that is their own business."
"I'm still stuck on the transformation bit," Stark says, before the quinjet flies overhead slowly. "That's our ride. Coming, Barbie?"
"He's coming," Daisy says, before the quinjet speakers come online, projecting a female voice.
"I can't land here, it's too crowded. What's happening down there?"
Captain America raises his voice, "We're going to have some extra passengers on board! Stark's bringing some of them now!" Captain America gives Stark a look, the billionaire's visor flipping back down before he marches over to Daisy, offering an arm.
Hesitant, Daisy steps up onto the foot of the armour, holding on to some grooves as he flies up. The Iron Man armour is hard and surprisingly cool – she'd have thought it would be warm, seeing as it's machinery. Her grip strengthens as they get up into the air, but luckily the flight into the quinjet is short, even if they have to wait a moment for the ramp to lower. Once inside, Daisy takes a look around, noting the small, confined space and old-fashioned SHIELD logo stamped onto everything.
"Who are you?" the pilot questions from her seat.
"…Quake," Daisy replies, remembering how Thor introduced her. "Lady Quake, if you ask the king. What about you?"
"Black Widow."
"Really?" Daisy steps further into the plane, curious as to what the mysterious Natasha Romanov is like in the here and now. She's met Natasha of the future, who lives in the Avengers compound and is more interested in looking after her godson than doing literally anything else – except perhaps making sure Clint isn't running himself ragged, grief turning him into someone who would rather train all day and do Avengers work than be within a hundred yards of his only living child.
Then though, the two Loki's are brought up, Lady Loki wrapping an arm around her younger self's shoulders as he questions her, distracting Daisy.
"Did Thanos catch you?" he questions.
"In a way. To be fair, I wasn't very conspicuous, flying around with over four thousand Aesir refugees," Lady Loki says breezily. "I played my part, pretended to die. He was too focused on his goal to bother checking."
I know this, Daisy thinks, remembering Thor telling his side of the story. Loki appeared one day with Valkyrie, Sif and two dozen Asgardians, including six children, without a care in the world.
Daisy clears her throat however, interrupting their conversation before Natasha- no, the Black Widow, can hear anything more. "You might want to get buckled in."
Lady Loki and Young Loki look at her and if Daisy hadn't known better, she'd have said they were twins. Side by side like this, though, lets her see the change Lady Loki went through more easily. Their shoulders are the same width, but her hips are wider. They both have the same colour of hair, but Young Loki's is shorter, around his shoulders compared to Lady Loki's, which tumbles down her back and around her shoulders in heavy curls, tickling her elbows.
At Daisy's words, Lady Loki nods.
"Of course, Lady Quake."
Nodding in return, Daisy sits down herself, thinking on what is to come. The original Avengers are barely formed, only now meeting Thor and Hawkeye is under Loki's control somewhere, the Mind Stone curling through his mind and taking away his freedom. Daisy knows they're heading for the Helicarrier, now – they have to be.
Phil is on the Helicarrier.
She hears the Black Widow radioing quietly to SHIELD, telling them that four potential hostiles have joined them and that circumstances are rather strange. Daisy almost snorts. Two Thor's, two Loki's – one of which being in female form – and a rando human with a superhero name. Or a villain name, I suppose.
Iron Man flies both King Thor and Captain America up, then, Prince Thor joining them via his flying hammer. Daisy catches King Thor giving his younger counterpart a small face that looks suspiciously like a pout as his hair flutters in the breeze, barely sparing a glance for Mjolnir. Daisy has heard that story too.
I spent a lot of time listening to stories, Daisy thinks, remembering her time in the compound in those last few weeks. May had been there, too, probably to keep Daisy from going to visit her mother again – Daisy and Lian May got on too well for Melinda May's liking. Daisy and William got around that by skyping, rather than visiting in person; Lian was always too stingy about being traced electronically to use the web, unlike her ex-husband, who revelled in 'such attention'.
Thor had liked regaling her with his adventures. Daisy, originally having gone to the compound to tell Natasha and Clint about Phil's life after his supposed death, ended up becoming good friends with the king. She doesn't know his favourite colour, but she knows his favourite kind of pop-tart is strawberry and he can make her coffee the way she likes it – usually right when she needs it before the sun rises and she does tai chi with May.
It helps that both of them are at least aware that the other has a sad past, enough for them to bond. Thor once said she was lucky to still have May. Daisy had agreed.
"Okay, strap in, we're going up," Natasha orders, slowly rising in height, picking up speed. Daisy leans back in her seat and thinks of Phil, alive on the helicarrier.
She hopes she can save him.