Silence. Awkward, heavy silence. It was becoming far too much of an old friend as opposed to a stranger that happened upon the Avengers' door once in a while. Fortunately, silence was easy to break in the case of Tony Stark.

"No," the man in question jerked his head up suddenly, upsetting the pile of bodies around him, "Oh, no no noooo, nope. Not happening. No way."

Of course, words couldn't erase the two figures of red and green that belonged to Thor and Loki's younger selves. There they stood, on the bridge, clear as day and clearly alarmed. Loki had a dagger unsheathed and aimed, the blade glinting in the harsh lighting of the Helicarrier. A nine-year old with a sword shouldn't be so goddamn scary, but Tony felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as a familiar icy chill swept down his spine. This situation could get very nasty, very quickly.

The older Loki untangled himself from the pile and fixed his younger counterpart with a blank gaze, "Put that down."

The younger Loki did not move, his blade-wielding hand remained firm and steady as the ground he stood upon, eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. His brother seemed to shrink into himself as he kept behind Loki, blue eyes wide and frightened as he peered out through strands of dirty blonde hair.

The raven-haired boy regarded everyone with a scrutinizing gaze, mentally judging the threat levels and mapping out ways to escape. His brain whirred and sorted through the information his eyes and ears were taking in. Slowly, everything began to slip into place. His sword-holding hand loosened its iron grip and moved to resheath the sword, green eyes never once leaving the Avengers, who had begun to untangle themselves at this point.

"What in Hel just happened!?" the older Loki was wasting no time, and the sudden flare of anger was a nasty shock for his younger self, who immediately retaliated with a string of foreign words.

"Fyrirgef m-mik! Ek skil eigi!" the boy's own anger seemed to flare in accordance with his older self, leaving the Avengers in a sort of limbo where no-one could say anything or even do anything to diffuse the situation, which in turn, aggravated them greatly.

Loki realized his mistake almost immediately after that string of Old Norse, and put one hand forward in an attempt to tell the boy to calm down, which, to his credit, he did.

"Allt er gott. You think you can speak English now?" Loki asked, dropping his hand and waiting for the boy's response.

"Thor.. he dropped something and he tried to get it and I-I… I went to pull him back, then Father shouted and then there was just blackness, everywhere, and I don't know-" the young Loki blurted out an explanation and cut himself off, aware of Thor trembling to his side, and suddenly he felt bad for putting the blame upon his brother's head.

"It's not Thor's fault." the boy added, frowning up at his older self.

"Can't we just.. send them back?" Clint spoke up, although the bewildered expression on his face implied that he was simply grabbing at straws here.

"What are we, the Asgardian Mail Service?" Tony retorted sharply, "They should stamp them and we can just send them back, y'know. Happens all the goddamn time." He was tired and in dire need of caffeine or his bed which was currently… well, he didn't even know where they were. Great. And the last thing any of them needed was extra hassle, and they'd managed to bring back the biggest hassle-package imaginable. Thor and Loki, as kids. What the hell were they supposed to do about that?

After a few moments, Natasha asked if the Tesseract could be used from here, and only got a half-hearted shrug from Tony and Bruce shook his head. They didn't know.

Tesseract research was turning out to be incredibly long-winded and for the most part, completely pointless, but the minute eureka moments did happen, and they were incredible discoveries, neither man would deny that. Ultimately, those eureka moments were what kept them going (not to mention Tony's vast R&D labs that were now home to both raving scientists).

"We cannot hope to keep them here until their father finds a way to open the Tesseract portal." Thor said gravely, face completely devoid of emotion. He found the whole situation incredibly unnerving, and after Loki's recent bout of seiðr trouble which simply turned out to be a "false alarm" as Loki had put it, he wasn't sure of where this could go. Thor received a few nods and murmurs of agreement in response from everyone bar Loki, who was in a world of his own. Thor couldn't help the somewhat delirious laughter that bubbled up at that statement. Loki was always in a world of his own.

"I don't see what's so damn funny about this, Thor. Care to enlighten us?" Fury finally spoke up after being quiet for a record-breaking ten minutes. At least, it was a record in the presence of the Avengers, who always seemed to need reprimanding or debriefing. It was a comfortable little niche that they had fallen into. The Avengers assemble, Fury gives them the brief, Coulson gives them their locations and final words of advice and then they're on their way, with Loki tagging along. It was kind of.. easy, Fury supposed. No hassle. Until now, of course. Then again, seven years without a hitch? Something was bound to go wrong.

And of course, today was the day that he'd decided to give Coulson some time off.

Something was bound to go catastrophically wrong.

Thor looked to the Director, and his laughing subsided into silence. The kind of silence that followed in someone's train of thought. Thor knew it was completely the wrong time to start thinking, but his brain was one step ahead of him – albeit in a state of delirium after today - and so too far gone for him to stop. Inevitably, he was plunged into a deep well of babbling thoughts and long-hoarded memories; the vestiges of a once-perfect life.

For seven years, Loki had refused to return to Asgard. For seven years, Thor had tried and failed to persuade Loki that Asgard was his home. For seven years, Thor felt like he'd lost his brother.

And the irony was that it was these Avengers – the group that formed to destroy him – who saved him.

Why did Loki let them help? Thor was always there, had always been there, yet Loki saw past his outstretched hand and to Thor's friends instead. What did they have that Thor could not give Loki? He was a god! He was his brother! These mortals were mere strangers, and yet..

It angered Thor, admittedly in a stupid, incredibly childish way. Loki was a greater friend (though he used the term loosely) and ally to the people of Midgard than he ever was to Asgard.

Perhaps, then, this would be the last time Thor would offer his hand to Loki again-

Enough! Thor told himself, forcing his concentration back to the task at hand.

"Loki, do you have nothing to say?" Thor asked, meaning it to sound passive, but his thoughts inflicted a nasty bite to his tone that he failed to hide. Loki looked to him, not missing the sudden infliction on Thor's words. A smirk pulled at Loki's lips which unnerved his brother who'd been expecting a nasty retaliation at least.

Loki, however, said nothing to Thor. There were more important things to focus on than why his brother had suddenly snapped at him, even if it was out of character for Thor. Instead, Loki turned to Tony, a question on his mind.

"Would sustaining a 'portal' through magic possibly work?"

Tony considered this for a while, looking to Bruce for help. Eventually, he just shrugged. They needed to get Thor and Loki's kid-selves back, and time-travel had, quite literally, only just been doable as a strange property of the Tesseract, even if it was mostly accidental and a result of him and Bruce's coffee-fuelled prodding and poking in an attempt to figure out something about this curious little cube.

"What have we got to lose, Reindeer Games? Try it." Tony gestured towards Banner's lab, where the Tesseract was. At least, Tony hoped it was still there, it hadn't come with them when they'd originally landed in Asgard.

"Barton. Romanoff. You'd better go thaw yourselves and report in. You have a hell of a lot of explaining to do." Fury turned to the S.H.I.E.L.D agents as Loki ushered his and Thor's younger selves down the corridor towards the lab, figuring that using his magic to hold the portal could be worth a try. It was weird enough being in the same place as his younger self, and if this didn't work, Loki had a niggling feeling that Fury would jump at the chance to make the Avengers' lives hell for a week by sentencing them to babysitting duty. And that was something Loki wanted to avoid.

"Sir." Natasha nodded once in recognition of the order and left, with Clint following close behind, kicking up a fuss about missing the 'weird Asgardian-voodoo crap' that Loki was about to attempt.

"Big guy, you look like a kicked puppy right now." Tony commented on Thor's dejected expression; although he hadn't missed Thor's earlier slip either. He didn't really want to push it, lest Thor decide that he was adequate target practice for Mjolnir, so he kept his other thoughts to himself.

"I am fine, my friend. I should go and watch over proceedings, I'll ensure that my.. brother does not cause any more chaos than is necessary." Thor huffed as he turned to follow the path that Loki had gone down, his steps unusually heavy and sluggish.

"Captain, we got a problem." Tony shot a sideways glance to Steve, who shrugged tiredly.

"They're brothers. Arguments happen." the soldier responded, going to sit down at the nearby conference table. He pretty much collapsed into a chair, his body folding under the weight of exhaustion. Steve leaned forward and folded his arms on the table, resting his head on top.

"But, if I'm right, which I always am, they haven't argued today. Or yesterday. Or the day before."

"Do you follow them everywhere with JARVIS?" Steve picked his head up off the table, eyebrows scrunched in confusion.

"Of course." Tony said in a very matter-of-fact tone that warranted no room for argument, and Steve let it go with a knowing smile. Of course. Tony had to know everything about everybody, even if they were Norse gods.

"They were fine until they got to the Bifrost," Bruce joined the conversation, tapping a stray pen on the table absent-mindedly, "and your explanation to Odin."

"They were still way behind when I said all that-"

"It would make sense for gods to have amplified hearing, wouldn't it?" Bruce gave a sad smile, dropping the pen and pulling up a chair, yawning as he sat down. Today had really been a long day.

"Oh." Tony dropped his gaze to the floor, a guilty knot forming in his gut. This was going to be a difficult one to explain.

"Anyway, it's not our business. If they want to talk, they will." Steve mumbled sleepily, resting his head atop his folded arms on the table again.

"Yeah-" Tony let a nervous laugh slip, eyes darting down the corridor that the gods had disappeared down earlier, "Talk. More like, 'let's throw Tony out of a window because he's a complete jackass who can't keep his mouth shut'."

"Well-" Bruce raised his eyebrows and his mouth began to form the beginning of an agreement, when he felt Tony's glare boring into the side of his head, so he stopped, lips falling into an amused grin instead.

ooOOOoo

"What are you going to do?" Loki heard Thor's younger counterpart pipe up from behind him as he fiddled with the Tesseract, poking and prodding, trying to find the suitable hole in the fabric of space to send his and Thor's younger selves through.

"Send you home." Loki replied simply, bringing the cube up to eye level as if that would help. It didn't.

"I didn't know this would happen-" the younger Loki began an apology, feeling guilty for getting himself and his brother into this situation, but he stopped mid-sentence when the older Loki turned to face them.

"It's uncontrollable. Don't blame yourself." Loki spoke, smiling knowingly, as though it was something he'd done many times before. Not necessarily with the Tesseract, but there had been days when his magic had gone a bit hazy and landed he and Thor in another Realm, he could only assume it was similar. The younger Loki returned the smile, glad to know that the blame was no longer on his shoulders. He returned to simply watching as the older Loki began to rotate the cube once more, muttering to himself.

"What's the worst that can happen?" the boy asked, curious. He felt Thor tense besides him, and placed a comforting arm around his brother's shoulders in an attempt to reassure him.

"I'm just asking, brother. It'll be fine, we'll be home soon." Thor looked up at him with wide, blue eyes, and nodded, returning to playing with a plastic atom structure he'd found on the floor.

"If we consider the fact that I'm not sending you anywhere unless I can find the right tear in space, the worst that can happen is I'll end up going back with you, your father will accuse me of trying to kidnap my younger self and his brother and I'll be put in a prison cell and left to rot until my Avengers try to find me. If they try." Loki attempted to make light of the situation, but then realized his dark humour probably wouldn't work so well on kids, so he stopped and tried to force down the grin of amusement that was tugging at his lips.

It was quiet for a moment, until the sound of laughter reached Loki's sensitive ears, and he turned to see his younger self laughing at him. Raising an eyebrow in question, he waited for the boy to stop laughing and explain what was so funny.

"That's funny. You wouldn't be put in a cell, Father would try to find out everything he can about you. He's obsessed with the future, you know, he likes to see what happens." the younger Loki grinned up at him.

"Ah." Loki managed a tight-lipped smile, and turned back to the Tesseract. "Let's hope that doesn't happen then."

After a few more minutes of pointless rotating, muttering and casting strands of magic out, only to find that they simply rebounded and gave Loki a small jolt that was similar to being electrocuted every time, he slammed the cube down on the work surface and rubbed his temple, trying to suppress the sudden rise of anger that was testing Loki's reserve greatly.

"Brother?" he heard Thor's gravelly voice from the other side of the room, and turned to face him. Thor looked worried, and there was something else that Loki couldn't quite place.

"It's not accepting my magic. It's like… that time you tried to jumpstart Tony's car, and it kept failing because the battery was so low and you just shorted it out?" Loki dredged up the memory, trying to keep it a simple analogy for his sake and Thor's. Thor chuckled, and the room seemed to grow warm at the sound.

"Ah. Well, this could be problematic, brother." Thor glanced to his and Loki's younger selves, who were watching with interest and a youthful eagerness that was difficult to ignore.

"It means I can't get them back." Loki concluded, watching their reactions carefully. It was Thor who reacted first, the boy stepping forward and frowning, craning his neck to look up at Loki.

"Why can't we go home?"

"You can. You will, just.. not right now." Loki absent-mindedly knelt down as Thor dropped the plastic atom structure in his confusion. Loki picked up the blue plastic, turning it in his hands, before handing it back to Thor who took it, still watching Loki.

"You know what a battery is?"

"Bat..tuh-rie?" Thor repeated, his youthful features scrunching up in confusion. Loki sighed, reaching a hand up to his throbbing temple again. If there was a benefit to being perpetually cold, it was that your hands were miracle cures for headaches.

"It's a.. power-source. Like Yggdrasil." Loki tested just how far Thor understood that reference, knowing that he had learnt of Yggdrasil and its power from a very young age. Whether or not it was the same for these boys, he didn't know.

Thor's eager nod gave Loki a bit more confidence in explaining the subject, and so he began a small, stripped down summary of how the cube worked.

Thor watched, almost feeling like he was intruding on a moment, but he pushed that thought to one side as he felt himself smiling at the exchange. Admittedly, it was a bit strange to see Loki interacting with a younger Thor from another reality, but heart-warming nonetheless.

Loki would definitely have been a good older brother, probably better than he'd ever been. Loki understood and explained - with ease - things that Thor could never understand, no matter how hard he tried. And yet, he'd often stood there, berating Loki on his incorrect sword-wielding manoeuvres. It all seemed so trivial in comparison to the greater knowledge of how things actually worked. The kind of knowledge that Loki always sought out.

"Loki? I think we should explain to the others too." Thor jumped in before Loki went off on an explanation, knowing that they could be quite lengthy and it was difficult to stop Loki whenever he went off on a tangent. Loki contemplated Thor's words for a moment, before nodding and standing upright.

"Come on, I'll explain to you along the way." the trickster said to Thor's younger counterpart as they filed out of the room and down the corridor to the conference table.

"So the Odinforce, as you know, takes its power from Yggdrasil. This works in the same way as a battery-" Loki conjured up an image of Yggdrasil, prompting 'ooh's and 'ahh's from the young spectators, who immediately started babbling questions as to why Yggdrasil couldn't charge the Tesseract if it was a battery.

"Wait! You are impatient, aren't you?" Loki commented, and the boys hastily quietened, eager to hear more, "We cannot use Yggdrasil because there is no way to connect them. Your father has a connection with Yggdrasil, that is how he can sustain the Odinforce. A battery gives power to something- energy, rather. You understand?"

"So how are we going to power the Tesseract?" the young Loki quipped, eyebrow raised. It was an expression similar to one that the Avengers had seen Loki wear many times before now. Usually when he was being his usual, sardonic self.

"It appears that it is its own battery. It's a confusing little cube." Loki answered, smirking at the confusion that was evident on present-Thor's face as he stopped in front of the conference table.

Loki swept his hand through the image of Yggdrasil and it flickered out like a broken lightbulb, much to the young Thor and Loki's disappointment. They clamoured for Loki to do it again, but the god shook his head and took a seat.

"You could probably do it if you tried." Loki said to his younger self, watching as they clambered up onto their own seats.

"Status report?" Tony interjected from the other side of the table, "Seeing as they're still here, I'm guessing it didn't work out."

"It needs to recharge, Tony." Loki stated simply. "There's not enough energy to sustain my magic, let alone a portal."

"So much for unlimited energy." Tony scoffed, sitting back and frowning in thought. There was no other way evident to him right now, and it was grating on his nerves. There had to be something.

"Well, I don't think humans were intending on using it for time-travel, Tony." Bruce stated calmly, tenting his fingers on the bridge of his nose and nibbling on his lower lip as he began to think, only disrupted by an exclamation from the other side of the table that jolted Steve awake.

"Ha!" the young Loki turned to face his older self, a wobbly image of Yggddrasil formed in wisps of gold and green, looking a lot more ethereal than Loki's had done.

"Very good." Loki commented, a warm smile gracing his features.

"When you're done with your little light show, mind telling us why they're still here?" Fury had made his way up the bridge from his own office, heavy boots making dull thuds with each footstep, Clint and Natasha trailing behind wearing their usual, S.H.I.E.L.D standard blank expressions that every agent apparently had to master.

"Cube needs to recharge." Bruce spoke up before either Loki or Tony could get a word in, knowing that both of them were prone to long-winded scientific explanations.

"Well, ain't that sweet? You're all off duty until that goddamn cube recharges. Guess what you can do in the meantime?" Fury shot a pointed glance to the young Thor and Loki, a tight-lipped smile forming when he then looked around the table to see a mixture of shocked, confused and 'I'm so tired I just don't even care what you're saying anymore' expressions on the faces of his Avengers. Content that his daily threatening-the-Avengers routine was done, he turned to Clint and Natasha.

"You're on this too." He stated, before sweeping back down the bridge and out of sight before anyone could lodge a complaint.

Tony slumped in his chair, fingers on his temple as though deep in thought.

"So. We have to babysit Thor and Loki, whilst trying to keep an eye on Mr I-Do-What-I-Want and Pointbreak over there? Challenge not accepted."

A.N: I have officially lost control of my characters. Or at least, I think I have. While I appreciate (a lot!) all of the comments on this story, I would like some constructive criticism here, namely how the characters seem to you and whether you think I'm using words that just do not make sense.. xD

Heh, I'm paranoid! I want to write good stories, and criticism is how I can improve. But yeah, turns out that reading through your stories gives you serious perfectionist issues when you try to write the next chapter. Oops.

I have an end in sight for this story, I have to let you guys know. There will be 2/3, possibly 4 more chapters after this one, and whether or not I have a sequel in mind depends how many people want there to be one! ;)

Anyway, as always, thank you so much to all who review, follow or favourite! :D