A/N I've just watched Spiderman: Homecoming, and seen the new trailer for Thor: Ragnarok, and as I expected, a lot in this fiction doesn't fit with canon. I'm thinking of using a few things from Homecoming, but I'll probably mention in comments where these are (none in this one).

Tony's POV

We couldn't open the door again. It had locked and Friday wasn't able to override it. We instead raced to an area we could access camera footage from, so we would still be able to keep an eye on them.

"Friday, have the largest screen show the infirmary, and let the microphones feed whatever they say into here. Once they wake, they might mention something we can use to possibly find them later." I turned to Nat. "Go to T'Challa and Vision and tell them they have next watch here. We'll watch in pairs, as this room is quite close to theirs, and when they wake whoever is here will be able to get there first. They should bring their gear too."

Nat walked out, and I started watching the screens. Flare had quickly suppressed her sobs and fallen asleep, against her best efforts most likely, curled into Loki's side with the wing still covering them both.

Friday woke the rest of us at about 7am, right in the middle of Vision and T'Challa's watch, because Loki had started to move. Thor, Nat, Peter, and I joined them in the surveillance room.

Loki's visible movements were only slight, his eyelids fluttered and head twitched, but it put all of us on edge.

A few minutes after that, he opened his eyes, and moved his head so he could focus on the girl beside him. His lips tugged upward, and he slowly moved his arms, still joined by the shackles, to tap her wing once. It folded as Flare lifted her head. She had been asleep, but as she turned to the camera, we saw her eyes were already alert.

She rolled off the bed and stretched her arms and wings slightly, giving a full body shudder like a cat, before they closed again. She had her back to Loki, who then must have 'said' something, because she looked sheepish.

Loki huffed and sat up carefully, shifting his legs off the bed, then gestured for her to come closer. She did, and gave a determined nod to whatever he had asked. Her wings started to shrink until they were back to the raised lines we had first seen, but red, until as we watched, a layer of skin grew over them. It was a bit disturbing.

She gathered all her hair and put it over her left shoulder, then closed her eyes and nodded again. Loki reached to the tips of the topmost ribs, and gently pushed. Flare shifted, but didn't make a noise, even though it must have been incredibly painful. Loki then moved to the next ones, keeping his other hand on the ones already done, until all of them were back in place.

Flare reached behind her to start healing them properly, and Loki removed his hands when they weren't needed, wiping Flare's blood from them onto the bed. In an astoundingly short amount of time, Flare stepped away, injury completely gone, not even scars remaining.

The two had another short silent conversation, and Flare made a strange gesture, one arm above the other with palms facing each other. When she moved her arms to the side, two amber swirling patterns started, quickly gathering into small orange balls. She grabbed them in a continuous movement before they could start to fall, then gave the two objects to Loki. He put them under his arms, like Flare had done with the cloths before, and I realised what they were doing.

Soon enough, the same series of loud clicks echoed, and Loki also twitched involuntarily at the electricity, but otherwise had no reaction. Once the shackles were off, Flare grabbed and melted them as well, leaving another puddle in the middle of the floor. Loki removed the small orange balls, then made the same gesture as Flare but in reverse. They were gone when he opened his hands.

They 'spoke' again. Before I had admired the possibilities of these silent conversations, now I just found them a pain. We wouldn't have any idea where they would go next if they managed to evade us and leave the tower.

Abruptly, Flare nodded, and waved a hand toward the door.

"The door has been unlocked, sirs and Miss Romanoff."

We already had our gear on, and we ran in formation to the infirmary hall.

When we reached the door not a minute later, T'Challa, Peter, Natasha, and I separated on either side of the entrance. Vision and Thor were the most likely to withstand a direct attack, so they quickly opened the door and went in first, before the rest of us followed.

We expected them to go on a rampage, and mercilessly attack to escape, so we aimed our respective weapons. Nat and T'Challa had guns so they didn't have to go too close, but they only focused on Flare, as we knew our bullets didn't work on Loki.

When we entered, Flare was standing motionless in the middle of the room, with Loki close behind her on her left. Now that he was awake, I studied him properly. He was much thinner than the last time we saw him, and without his armour he looked smaller too. (Not that he was now small, by the way, just smaller.) His already sharp face was more pronounced than before, as a result of his emaciation. The visible skin on his face, neck, hands, and feet was grey, as he was still covered in dirt, worsening his gaunt appearance. There were patches of his pale skin visible, though it was noticeably whiter that the last time we saw him. Altogether, he looked almost like a ghost.

He had his hand resting on Flare's shoulder. She was actually a lot more emaciated than him, and her bones were still clearly visible even through the thick shirt she wore. The top of Flare's head only reached Loki's chin, so we could clearly see their expressions. Loki was neutral, though his eyes (green now, I did notice, not that it proved anything), showed way too much amusement for the situation. Flare had a small mischievous smile, that actually gave me shivers. She looked each of us in the eye briefly.

"Release her, Loki. Do not bring her into your tricks," warned Thor, brandishing Mjolnir in front of him.

Flare made to speak, but Loki gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and she closed her mouth. She frowned at Loki, then silently glared at Thor.

"I'm preventing her from attacking you and your Midgardian shield brothers-and-sister at this moment. She desperately wishes to throw a fireball at you all." Loki inclined his head. "I have no idea what you could have done to upset her so."

And there it was. The honeyed voice dripping with sarcasm that I had hoped to never hear again.

Flare glanced at him, her shoulders dropping and head tilting. Her expression now clearly said, 'really?' and she elbowed him in the side gently. With anyone else, it would have been funny. To be honest, they were almost acting like siblings. This infuriated me. Loki was so casual, as if talking with friends, rather than with people he had tried to kill, and who had sent him back to Asgard in chains in return.

I started firing up my right-hand glove. "Surrender now and this won't get messy."

The two didn't react, only slowly started walking backwards together, heading for the window that led to the outside. Loki let go of Flare and instead stood on her left, shoulders touching.

Flare made a quiet laugh. "Oh, we'd love to stay and chat, Stark, but we really must be going." When they reached the window behind them, they stopped, and Flare lightly touched it with her right hand.

"That window is made of some of the strongest glass possible. Even Thor takes a good half a minute to break it with Mjolnir." It didn't sound like much, but really with that hammer anything the Thunder God smashed would be destroyed instantly. The glass at least took a few solid hits.

Loki smiled, all teeth, and Flare just raised an eyebrow. Not a second later, the whole pane behind them turned red-hot and melted. Not a gradual melt, but one second there the next a waterfall (molten-glass-fall?) and it was gone, flowing down the side of the building, leaving a gaping hole.

Nat and T'Challa started shooting at them, but either Loki or Flare made the bullets veer off course, pinging into the walls or the floor. Neither flinched.

A green light flashed around Loki, and when it cleared there were two Flare's standing in front of us. Flare's wings had returned while this happened, and I realised they meant to fly out.

"Fireballs now?" from Original-Flare was our only warning before two large balls of flame headed straight for us. We all dived out of the way, and as I landed I saw the two prepare to jump out the window. Original-Flare locked eyes with me, and waved with one hand while giving the middle finger with the other. Flare-Loki rolled his/her eyes as they stepped backwards into nothing.

Thor's arm moved, and Mjolnir started singing as it flew through the air. Their eyes widened, but neither could avoid it. Before they were even gripped by gravity, the hammer hit.

But it didn't. The hammer passed straight through Flare and Flare-Loki, who were now frozen, even with no floor below their feet. They flickered, gold, green, and red, until the images flashed out of existence.

"Illusions," Thor grumbled just as Friday spoke over everyone's comms.

"There are two birds on the floor of the fourth stairwell, Sirs and Miss Romanoff. I believe they are the real Flare and Loki."

We glanced at each other, I didn't even start to think about what that sentence meant, then started to each make our quickest way down the tower.


Flare's POV

After Loki had helped heal me, I relished in the lack of throbbing pain. I wished I could have grown my wings again now, and stretch properly, but I needed to use the magic sleeping had let me regain to leave this tower.

'Thanks, Loki,' I said.

'You are welcome, as always. Could you materialise the resin for me now? I dearly wish to be rid of these shackles.'

I nodded, then grabbed two small balls of orange resin from the dimensional pocket for him. As soon as I passed them over, he put them under his arms, and clenched them tight.

Once the shackles came off, I grabbed them and walked a few steps away to melt them. It should be impossible, but we didn't want to underestimate the Avengers and have them learning how to make more. The ones that Thanos had were already enough of a threat.

I felt his use of magic as Loki replaced the balls of resin, though hopefully we wouldn't have to use them again.

'How much magic do you have left?' Loki asked me while my back was still turned.

I faced him as I replied, 'not too much. What were you thinking of doing?'

'Can you shift?'

In Asgard, it was only a cruel rumour that Loki could shapeshift into more than just other Asgardians. Very few knew that it was actually fact (Odin, Heimdall, and Thor were the only ones left alive in this category), and no one was aware that his Jotun form was not the last species he could shift to. In reality, both of us could change into virtually anything we wanted, if we had enough magic. 'Yeah, definitely enough for two small ones. Possibly three if they are similar animals. No dragons yet though.' I loved it when we could become dragons. They were so intimidating and powerful, and could do the equivalent of multiple animals at once, so we didn't need to change again.

'No dragons needed. Could you hold an illusion at the same time if we only used…Hmm. Maybe two birds?' Of course he already had a plan.

'Yes. Should be fine.'

He thought for a moment, then sent me his ideas through the mind link. It was a good plan, and with any luck would likely leave some magic, however small, to use later.

Both of us formed an illusion at the exact position and place we were standing in, and that resembled us completely, splitting our focus on ourselves and the new images. Then we stepped back, making our real bodies invisible to all alive, or non-alive, observers but each other.

I closed my eyes as I concentrated on the next spell, and I felt my body begin to change, getting smaller, and growing feathers. Within a minute, there were two barn owls standing on the floor of the infirmary.

One of our escapes that lasted for a month had been mainly spent in Australia. We found such a wide diversity of different unique animals for us to use, and I particularly fell in love with the birds.

I couldn't see much of myself, but knew that I was a few centimetres taller than Loki (for once) in this animal form, and had white, light brown, and dark brown plumage, with a heart-shaped face. Loki would have had the same coloured plumage, but a shapeshift alone does not remove dirt, so his feathers were more grey or black.

I knew he hated it, and wanted to ruffle his feathers to dislodge some, but that would leave a large, noticeable pile of dirt on the floor and give away our position. Instead, with some mental grumbling, he bound it to himself, so when we flew it wouldn't drop.

We each spread our wings behind us, and jumped into the air, flying silently with our new owl bodies onto a railing at the edge of a metal table. Once stable, I made my illusion wave a hand to the door as I unlocked it, and both the illusions moved to a position so they were facing the door, but still able to easily reach the barrier separating us from the outside. The Avengers would be coming soon.

As soon as they rushed into the infirmary, Loki and I took off again, out the door and into the hallway. We each were concentrating a little on our illusions we left behind, but the energy required was quite minimal. The harder tasks were melting the window and deflecting the bullets. I did both, as Loki needed to adjust his illusion into my image. Thor didn't know the difference between an actual shapeshift and an illusion, so the green light would pass unnoticed.

Having some of my mind on what the Avengers were saying and making the illusion respond as I normally would was a bit disorienting. It was like seeing two completely different images in each eye at the same time. Loki was used to it, he used illusions so much, but I admit that on a few occasions as we moved down the floors, I had to slow down to avoid crashing into a wall.

We were going as fast and quiet as possible down the stairs between levels. We had just reached the last few floors when Thor threw Mjolnir and the illusions dissolved.

The sudden snapping of the connection to the illusions caused us both to screech aloud and land. A headache came soon after. Usually, losing an illusion wouldn't bother us at all, but the ambient energy of Mjolnir caused havoc in the magic if unexpected direct contact was made.

Loki screeched again, and although he hadn't sent the thought to me, I knew he had cursed.

'Loki, you're flickering.' Thor and his bloody hammer had disrupted the cloaking spell too.

He looked at me for a second. 'So are you.'

'Damn. The AI will be able to see us now. It will warn them as to where we are,' actually, I could sense them moving now. So much for Plan A) Getting out completely unnoticed. 'Stark, Thor, and Parker are coming down the side of the building, heading toward the front door. Romanoff and T'Challa are taking the lift, but it is a very fast one, so will be down here in seconds,' as I spoke, we took off again and left the last of the stairwells, entering the last floor. 'They are trying to block us off, so we'll need to hide until they give up.'

Using a small burst of magic, I prevented Friday from locking the doors to outside, and instead opened them. Loki and I shifted forms in mid-air as we flew out, changing to just another two, average grey pigeons, in the massive city of Manhattan. There was a flock of the birds on the ground where someone had dropped a lot of food, and we joined in the mess of flapping and cooing until no cameras would be able to tell which ones were us.

We were just in time, as the Avengers came seconds later. All the birds, including us, rose into the air as the flock was scared by the sudden appearance of three flying objects coming closer to them, and two running ones. Thor's angry cry echoed behind us.

The birds split up, going separate ways in search of more food, joining other groups. Loki and I lost each other, but we had already planned for this, (About Plan D, because Loki always had plans A through Z) and knew where we would meet later.

I flew from place to place, landing on car mirrors, traffic lights, trees, and buildings. I also went to Central Park for a while, in case of the very minimal chance CCTV cameras on buildings had been able to track me from the first flock we had used as cover.

I breathed in the wonderful fresh air, and preened just to have an excuse to linger. An hour after I'd left the tower, I started to fly toward where I would find Loki. Sandy Hook was almost 35km south from Central Park, and would take about 45 minutes for me to fly straight there.

Being a pigeon, and an exhausted one at that, I had to take breaks along the way, and it was closer to an hour before I landed on the sand. Loki was already there, still in pigeon form, sitting in some shade a pile of sand had created. He was slightly wet, so had likely washed in a fountain somewhere.

'Were you here long?' I asked.

'No. I arrived only recently. Are you able to continue?'

'In a minute. I need a break.' I strutted over in the weird way of a pigeon, and sat down on the sand beside him.

'A few minutes rest then,' he said, and tucked his head under a wing. I did the same, and let myself regain energy for the next flight.


We were going to use one of the World Tree portals to teleport where we wanted to go. They were scattered all over Yggdrasil, and connected the worlds. It was similar to Loki's innate and (almost completely) unique ability to world- or sky-walk, but would save us a lot of energy, and take us to a place that would allow us to travel almost anywhere else on the earth later on.

We had to be away from prying eyes though, as only Loki and I knew the locations of the portals, or in this case, how to manipulate one to come to you.

When we were far enough away from the city, and there were few boats around, I gave my magic to Loki, who then used the combined amount to subtly direct the energy flows of the Tree until a tiny, multicoloured hole appeared before us; a smaller version of the Bifrost.

As he worked the magic, I sang through the link.

'I'm coming home

I'm coming home

Tell the world I'm coming home

Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday.'

Loki looked at me in amusement, then once the portal fully appeared and he no longer had to concentrate on it, he joined in for the next few lines, though with an underlying feeling of sadness.

'I know my kingdom awaits and they've forgiven my mistakes

I'm coming home, I'm coming home

Tell the world I'm coming…'

We flew into it, and were spat back out in a large cave deep underground, extremely far away from where we had entered. We were still on Earth, or rather in, but in a place no human had ever found.

It was not a filthy, disgusting cave, but instead was lit up by the gentle yellow glow of lanterns made from magic, fixed to the ceiling far above, and around the walls, imitating the sun. These allowed small plants to grow, with the occasional bush scattered around as well. The lanterns also emitted a small amount of heat, so the cave was pleasantly warm.

There was a small river with clear water that cut through the rock on one side, where blind cave-dwelling fish swam, not knowing we could see them perfectly. The river came from a tunnel at the top of the cavern, and disappeared down another tunnel after flowing through.

Many streams of energy ran through this area, intersecting at a magical crossroads. When we had more magic, Loki and I would use them to sky-walk into various cities, and get food.

Near the back of a cave was the façade of a simple house. It was brown like the surrounding rock, and had plants growing on and around it. It looked so much like a part of the wall that one could easily miss it at first glance if they didn't already know it was there.

We flew through an open archway into this house, which extended far into the rock behind it, and perched on the back of a black double-seater leather couch.

I looked at him, and let out a wordless, happy cry.

We had escaped Thanos again, and we had come to our safe haven. Our home.

A/N The song lyrics included are from the song 'I'm Coming Home' by Diddy, only the chorus.