Two hours later, they all assembled in Heimdall's observatory. Jane was fretting. It was the first time she had left Bjarte and Brandt for any length of time, and although she knew that they would be fine under their grandmother's care, it was still difficult for her. Thor was doing his best to reassure her, but was looking a little bewildered by her concern.

"Jane. The boys will be fine. Collect Eric and bring him – via the Bifrost if he will – to New York, to Stark Tower. By the time you get there, you will both be expected. If you feel the need to come home at any time just call Heimdall and he will handle everything else. If Lady Darcy is in London with Eric, bring her too."

Listening to Thor, Frigga was aware that Loki and Hermione were standing aside from the main group, talking quietly but urgently, not quite loudly enough for her to hear clearly…. "Loki, I was thinking last night. If things go badly, we need somewhere..."

Heimdall turned to Thor. "My King. If you are ready, I will send you to New York first."

Thor kissed Jane, before bidding farewell to Frigga. Turning to Loki and Hermione he embraced them both. "Be careful. We have no knowledge of what you will be facing. Hermione. I know that you are very powerful and very strong, but please. Wait until Loki arrives before doing anything – rash."

Loki was frowning. Clearly he had the same concerns as his brother. "This damn trade delegation. Are you certain that Mother cannot deal with it Thor?"

Thor took his younger brother to one side. "Brother, I am as keen to have you on Midgard with Hermione as you are, but the delegation from Alfheim may well bring other information that they will be reluctant to disclose to anyone other than you or I. Our network of informers around the Nine Realms is still in its infancy. Greet them for me, spend the day with them, then leave them with Mother. By tomorrow night you will be safely back with Hermione..."

Loki glared at his brother. "I am not some dependent child with separation anxiety Thor. I worry about my wife's capacity for getting into trouble. For a woman of great intelligence she has a spectacular disregard for her own safety, particularly when those she loves are threatened. She will be meeting up with Harry in London, and they do not have a good track record for coming through their adventures unscathed."

Thor turned to his sister in law, drawing her into the conversation. "Sister, as your King, I have to ask you a favour. I realise that you are as concerned about this situation as I, but I must ask you to refrain from any activity that may turn my brother's hair grey until he joins up with you. I need him to be here until at least tomorrow afternoon, and he will never agree to stay if there is the slightest chance that you will be putting yourself into harm's way"

Hermione sighed, leaning her head against her husband's shoulder. "I will be fine. I am meeting Harry at The Cauldron this afternoon, then tomorrow morning we are meeting up with Kingsley and Atticus Jones, the Head of Magical Law Enforcement to brief them on the current situation. We will probably spend the afternoon ferreting through recent Auror records to see if we can pick up anything of any significance. By the time we've finished Loki will almost certainly be finished and back at the Cauldron."

Hermione smiled, putting a hand on her brother in law's arm. "Go Thor. Talk to the Avengers. Get the brains together, and if you can bring any of the others back here so much the better."

Thor was not unaware of the irony of his being commanded by a slip of a girl a fraction of his age, but he had the greatest respect for Loki's brilliant wife and was happy to let her lead. Kissing Hermione's hand, and gripping Loki's shoulder, Thor turned away. He pulled his wife against him for one more kiss, before he raised his hand to Heimdall and stepped into the whirling light of the Bifrost.

Knowing they were next, Hermione turned into Loki's arms, lifting her face to be kissed. Clinging for a moment, they reluctantly, drew apart.

"For the gods' sake Hermione, please be careful. Don't do anything until I get there please." The concern in Loki's eyes wrung her heart. Stretching up, she kissed him on the cheek, breathing in the dearly familiar scent of him.

"I promise. It's only 24 hours. And remember what we talked about. You need to set the wards up and make sure that we will have everything we need. In the meantime Harry and I will see you at the Leaky Cauldron tomorrow evening."

Hermione stepped away, pulling a rucksack onto her shoulder. Hugging Frigga, she took Jane's hand firmly in hers and the two women stepped into the Bifrost, destination London.

ooo0ooo

Stark Tower, New York.

It may only be 10am – the arse-crack of dawn as far as Tony Stark was concerned, but so far it had been a good morning. For once there had been no nightmares. No waking up, choking, with memories of fighting the suffocating darkness, trapped on the wrong side of the portal, waiting for the blinding flash of white light as the missile detonated. There was not even the familiar pounding in his head and shaking hands, evidence of too much whisky and not enough sleep. All of these factors were probably due to the presence of Pepper Potts, curled warm and delightfully naked against his side, and some very pleasant memories of the night before, principally involving an early night, and nothing stronger than a couple of bottles of decent wine with dinner. So given all this good stuff, why the hell was he awake at this god forsaken hour of the morning.

"Mr Stark"

Tony groaned, burying his head in the pillows. "Jarvis. This had better be an emergency of apocalyptic proportions, or I'm going to reinstall you in the Stark Industries canteen coffee machine. The cheap and nasty one in the basement, not the executive version"

"You have a visitor sir. The King of Asgard is on the roof."

Suddenly Tony was wide awake. "What the hell does Thor want?" A less pleasant thought dawned on him. " Wait. Jarvis. Is he alone, or does he have his brother with him?"

"He is alone sir".

Tony crashed back onto the pillows, waking Pepper in the process. "Thank god for that. Jarvis, let him in and tell him I'm on my way. And you'd better wake the others. Thor doesn't make social calls these days, not with a wife, kids and country to run. If he's here, there's trouble."

"The others are already awake sir. Mr Rogers is in the gym, Mr Banner is working in his laboratory, and Ms Romanoff is currently in the kitchen getting herself and Mr Banner their second cup of coffee."

"Coffee. Good plan Natasha... Gather the troops Jarvis, I'll see them in the kitchen."

What the hell does Thor want...?

And it had been such a good morning...

ooo0ooo

By the time Tony had dragged himself to vertical and pulled on a pair of jeans and a Pink Floyd T Shirt, Pepper was wide awake.

"Thor is here?" she half laughing, half alarmed. "He doesn't have Loki with him does he?"

Tony chuckled. "Funny, I asked exactly the same question. And you'll be relieved to hear that the answer is – no. His Highness of Asgard is on his royal ownsome" He shrugged. "Who knows - maybe Loki's sexy little schoolmistress wife really has finally got a leash on him. Either that or Thor's here because Loki's running amok again and needs us to provide said leash…"

It had been an almighty shock when they had arrived in Asgard for Thor and Jane's wedding two years ago, to discover that his disgraced little brother was not only punished, but forgiven, rehabilitated, married - MARRIED!? - and installed as Lord Chancellor of Asgard and his brother's loyal right hand man; moreover, he appeared to be disconcertingly sane, happy, and showing no interest whatsoever in the throne of Asgard or any other of the Nine Realms.

Steve, who had watched Loki sparring with the Captain of the Guard early one morning during their stay had heard the story of Loki's punishment – and seen the scars. Steve had refused to go into details, but assured the others that justice had most certainly been done. The shock in Steve's eyes had said enough, and no one had asked any more questions.

Pepper – who had quickly got to know, and thoroughly like, Loki's wife, who was as charming and intelligent as she was beautiful and strong willed; had been firmly of the opinion, that like other "difficult" men, of her acquaintance, all Loki had ever needed was the love of the right woman to put him straight. It was a cliché, and Pepper had always been a hopeless romantic - but as it appeared that Loki had completely failed to cause any trouble since the incident in New York, and given that Tony was uncomfortably aware of his own less than stellar reputation in the past, he had been prepared to cut the guy a little slack. Especially after spending ten days in Asgard, surrounded by tall muscular beautiful blonde people, who clearly valued brute strength and reckless courage above all else, and tended to view anyone with brains, and any instinct for personal survival with distinct suspicion. Tony had begun to grudgingly admit that spending a thousand years growing up as the odd one out in a place like that would do weird shit to anyone's head.

But Loki was still Loki, and all things being equal thought Tony, if he was going to be back on the scene, it was probably a good thing that Barton was now living in semi-retirement at home with Laura and the kids, and that Natasha was at the Tower to help wrangle The Other Guy.