"What if they're plants?" Clint asked around a toaster waffle, "They could be, we may have a new megalomaniac on our hands." He glanced at Loki who simply rolled his eyes, but otherwise remained silent.
"Oh that would be great, it's only been what…a month since Master Smurf here tried to destroy us," Tony gestured at Loki with his head who sighed.
"I did not try to destroy you, I tried to take over your planet and rule you, really there is a difference," he clarified, "If I had truly wanted you destroyed, you would have been."
"Thanks so much for holding yourself back," Tony quipped, Loki only tilted his head, looking amused.
"It was my pleasure," he replied and Thor cleared his throat.
"We must discover if what they say is true, Broth-" Thor cleared his throat at the icy glare Loki shot him, "Loki. Is there a way for you to tell if they lie?"
Loki continued to glare at Thor for almost a full minute before he shrugged and sighed, "I suppose, but I see no reason why I should."
"Bro-Loki, they are here under your magic, as they said, so you are involved in the future, so you must be involved now," Thor said, crossing his arms.
Loki stared at him straight faced, "I am not. I am not aware of my future self's motives for doing as I did, therefore I need not get involved now."
"Now you're just being a dick for the sake of being a dick," Clint pointed out.
Loki ignored him, "As such, what if they are plants? They may be lying about whether or not I sent them in the first place," he pointed out simply. But of course it just came full circle.
"That's kind of the point in finding out if they're lying or not," Tony said wryly.
"Is it?" Loki asked back, his eyes twinkling in mischief. Thor sighed and Tony rolled his own eyes.
"They're telling the truth," Natasha said, materializing next to Thor, the others turned to her, intrigued.
"How do you know?" Clint asked, and the corner of red lips quirked.
"I just know."
"That helps," Tony sighed, "Well, if you're sure they're not here to fuck things up…then…?"
"They are here to do as they said, to change the outcome of the future, I suggested they try and write down what it is that we may need to know, just to help, that is what they are currently doing," she said, she always did seem to be the most pragmatic of the lot of them.
"Okay…" Clint coughed, "So…what we just let two kids hang around because they said so? I'm not thinking Fury is going to like that, especially not with psycho unicorn over here as our house guest." He jerked a thumb at Loki who scoffed.
"Unicorns have a single horn, Mr. Barton, I have two," he was greeted with silence, "Yes, I do have a sense of humor, you may laugh."
Tony actually cracked a smile, "Good to know for future reference," he said and then he shrugged, "Well they can stay here, I don't care, I like them, they're fun."
"You can't flirt with them Tony, technically they're not born yet," Bruce pointed out wryly.
"I'm not that bad, Brucey, you know I'm keeping myself pure for you," he replied in kind.
There was a snort from the doorway, "Pure?" They turned to see Tali and Branden walking towards them, the latter holding a couple pages of paper.
"I know for a fact that of all the people in this room, you are the least pure on many counts, Unc- Er…Tony..?" she made a face and looked to Branden, "This sucks."
"Just have to get used to it…" he said, and then he placed the page on the table. "This is what we could come up with for now, we might have more later, but so far, we're from twenty-five years in the future where a man named 'Overlord', he picked that himself, not much is known about him, has summarily taken over the world. What we do know is that by the time he came to us, over half of the world was already under his control, he started small, taking over most of the smaller, weaker nations with bribes and promises that he did actually fulfill so he gained their trust, but nothing really changed so no one knew, then he moved to other nations, bigger, but still out of the spotlight," Branden started, Tali clipped out another piece of paper that looked like it had been freshly printed off.
"He's rarely seen, he doesn't like the spotlight so much himself, this is the only picture we have of him and it's super grainy," she pointed at Tony, "Work on your infiltration tech," Tony only blinked in response, then she went back and tapped the picture, it was of a man, he had goatee and glasses and that was all they could really distinguish. "He's good with technology himself which may have been a part of the problem, he's really good. After he got the materials he made a drone army-"
"Worthy of Star Wars," Branden muttered and Tali's lips twitched, it was obviously an old joke between the two of them.
"-and attacked all of the 'first world' nations, US, China, all of Europe, Japan, you know, because it was all so spread out, well…there wasn't much chance to be had, he was very thorough. It was well thought out. We really didn't stand a chance…"
"You guys had hints of things going on, mind you this is over the course of years, decades really, it's not for your lack of trying to stop it, the Ms. Romanov and Dr. Banner of our time are desperately trying to fight against it…but…it's really not going so well." Branden frowned.
"What about the rest of us? Aren't we helping?" Steve asked, it seemed that Steve did not like to think that his future self would not join in the resistance effort.
Tali looked at him head on, the look in her eyes far too old for a teenager, "What do you think, Captain?" she asked quietly.
There was a long silence before Tony blurted out, "We're dead? What kind of crappy deal is that?"
"Supervillains aren't usually discriminatory to who they kill," Branden said, "Whoever stands in their way is brought down, and those who pose a threat are actively found and eliminated, that's how it works."
"Are you sure it isn't Loki?" Clint asked and the god only smirked in reply.
"Yes," Tali said unphased, "Loki helped us here, he was the one that directed us to this…er…'path' seems really…um-"
"Noble," Thor said and Tali and Branden tried not to laugh.
"Sure, but no…he…we think he…um…may have…used the last of his strength to get us here…and…and…" she closed her eyes, the image of the little body collapsing as their surroundings faded was just another moment of pain seared into her mind.
She felt a hand on her shoulder, Branden, "The point is, it's really serious, we along with Ms. Romanov and Dr. Banner and a band of others are doing our best to fight against him, for whatever reason, he chose New York City and Stark Tower as his place of residence the rest of the world is depending on us to get rid of him because that's where he is."
"Stark Tower was already pretty impenetrable…though naturally we could break in after curfew, but…we had cheats," she shrugged, and at Tony's frown she smiled placatingly, "The right…mmm, assets? Yeah sure," she shrugged, "We lived there okay? We knew how to get in, we'd beg Jarvis to open the door or window and he would threaten to tell the 'rents but never did…not that they didn't know anyway," she sighed, "And you didn't hear me say any of that!"
"Right, after that really bad and revealing word vomit…" Branden shot his partner in crime a look, "Most of you got slaughtered for simply trying to save the world, we had to go into hiding, most of humanity did really, there wasn't a change to day to day life after the attack on New York, it was like…well…Overlord got what he wanted…" Branden tried his best not to, really he did, but his eyes flickered to Loki anyway.
The god frowned and stepped forward, "Are you…implying that this…figure wanted me?"
Branden sighed, "After he got you…everything really calmed down, we're not sure why, and honestly, if you end up placating him somehow, more power to you, but…then you…ah contacted us and told us we had to come here, because you weren't going to last much longer and things needed to change. That how things were weren't right, and it was too late for anyone else to do it, that it was up to us. So here we are."
"Point being, the fate of the future lies with two emotionally crippled teenagers, and we're here begging for help, ain't that just peachy?" Tali beamed.
"Peachy is not quite the word I would use," Loki murmured, frowning, he was obviously troubled by this. The others all seemed to be feeling much the same.
"Agreed, and I never thought I'd say that in concerns to Loki," Tony said, crossing his arms, "Now the real question is…whose kids are you?"
"Tony," Natasha hissed quietly.
Branden and Tali looked at each other, conveying several things with just a simple look, then Tali shrugged, "We're not helping your bet, you're smart enough to figure it out on your own."
"You're no fun," Tony pouted, "Come on, a hint?"
"And you keep trying to tell me he's a genius," Tali looked to Branden who shrugged.
"Geniuses aren't always smart, sometimes they can be more idiotic than the mediocre," Branden replied.
"Like that time you wore your pajamas to school," she said grinning.
"That was not idiotic, that was absent minded," he replied evenly.
Tony sighed, "Yeah…they're definitely from one of us. Okay, are you two related at least?"
"No," they replied in unison. Tony opened his mouth again but Steve cut him off.
"Tony stop badgering them, they have their reasons and if…if the space time continuum can't handle them telling you, then drop it," he said firmly.
"Yeah, yeah, at least we know some of us get some action around here," he commented.
"That's so gross," Tali groaned.
"I was not conceived here, thank you very much."
"Branden! That doesn't help!"
"Just because you were."
"BRANDEN!"