This chapter is dedicated to my grandmother, who passed away last week. She would have loathed and despised this story and its characters for their queerness, as she would have loathed and despised me for the same.

Rest in peace, you bigoted buzzard.


The whole team is beat when they are finally home again. Tony takes the lead, his eyes dark and thin, shoulders slumped. No one is talking; exhaustion has taken its toll. The billionaire is vaguely hoping he can deal with the fallout of attacking a US military base once he's had a few days of sleep.

"Sir," He hears JARVIS speak as they approach the front door. "I should inform you that –"

"Save it till morning." Tony interrupts with a grumble, opening the door as he speaks.

As soon as he opens it, a tall man in an army uniform is visible, sitting in the front hall. His eyes shoot up to Tony's and he stands just as Tony slams the door shut.

"The house is compromised," He says, spinning on his heel and strutting towards one of his cars. "Every Avenger for themselves!"

The door is flung open again, and the soldier steps out. "Tony Stark, don't you dare run away from me!" The other Avengers stand dumbfounded as Tony proceeds to do exactly that, while a soldier with the name tag "James Rhodes" chases after him.


Two weeks later

It is good to be back in Asgard again.

Though the reason for the journey troubles Thor, he still finds himself smiling broadly as he walks through his home. Familiar faces grin at the sight of him and friends call out in greeting, and Thor is pleased. But there is a heavy weight in his heart, which keeps the joy from quite reaching his eyes.

The guards make way for his passage and he takes the stairs two by two, rushing into the catacombs. His royal mother and father know not where he is, though certainly they shall soon. He will have to think of how to explain to them the events of the past weeks, but for now, his greatest concern lies ahead.

He comes to a stop in front of a large wall of bars, going all directions: up and down, side to side, corner to corner. Magic flows through them, and he can feel it, though he's never had a keen sense for magic. It's so potent, it's almost overwhelming. The room behind the bars is dark and dim, but he can see a shape, pressed against the back corner, head bowed.

"Brother," Thor begins. "I would have words with thee."

For a moment the shadow remains silent. "And after all this time… I thought you'd forgotten about me." A raspy chuckle echoes out of the room. "And what would make the Thunderer deign to show his face down here?"

Thor feels his throat closing up, and clenches his fists. "Brother, I would be glad to visit you at any hour. Tis only…"

"Your pet humans and Midgard, yes, I know." Loki's voice is dark and droll. "I may not be permitted to leave this room, but even the Allfather cannot block all my powers."

"Surely you jest?" That couldn't be possible – the Allfather wouldn't risk allowing Loki any of his abilities.

"Not by choice, of course. But when one looks into the abyss, and sees it looking back… well." Loki chuckles again. "I have more power now than any of you know. Which is why you are here, is it not?"

Frowning, Thor steps closer to the bars. "What do you know of the Son of Coul and his resurrection?"

"Do you not already know the answer, brother?" Loki stands and approaches the bars, and Thor fights a wince at seeing him. He hadn't looked good even during the war, but now he is haggard, bone thin, deathly pale, with bags beneath his eyes. "You would not have come if you did not suspect my involvement, and tis true. Even locked here, my powers cannot be contained." A malicious grin covers his brother's bony face, and for a moment, he appears almost monstrous. "I revived the Son of Coul. He is alive because of me. How does it feel, Thor, to be indebted to your enemy?"

"We are not enemies!" Thor refuses to think of Loki that way; no matter how many times they meet, facing off against one another, he will never think of Loki as an enemy. He is misguided, lost, tormented even – but not an enemy.

"Aren't we!" Loki throws his arms against the bars and they burn him, but he holds on. Thor stares appalled as Loki holds tight despite the smell of burned flesh filling the air. "What are we then – you, who hold the keys to my cage, and I locked here!"

"Loki! Loki, let go, you are harming yourself!" He tries to touch the bars and pry loose his brother's fingers, but he can't press through the magic barrier between them. "Loki, let go!"

"Tell me Thor! Tell me what we are!" Loki looks feral, his blood shot eyes widening. "You, who chose Midgard, chose the mortals over me! Who locked me here, and now dares to come and call me brother! What are we!"

"Brother, I –" He's helpless, he can't do anything. Thor can hardly breathe, watching his brother wail and writhe like a spirit, screaming madly. Tears burn his eyes.

The thunderous footsteps of the guards come from above, and soon they pass Thor and approach the cell. Thor doesn't want to see, doesn't want to know what he's condemned his brother to, so he turns and flees like a coward. Grimacing, Thor fights tears as he rushes back up the stairs as quickly as he came, racing towards Heimdall. He has to leave. He has to get away, to escape the constant reminder of his mistakes, his past, and the brother he destroyed.


It is close to midnight, two weeks after Coulson's rescue. It is not the first time Steve has attempted to sneak off and do this – each time before, something had happened. An emergency had popped up, someone had gotten in his way, or Nick Fury had demanded his presence. All sorts of things had stopped him, but thus far, no one had figured out what he was doing.

He assumed it was just a matter of time before one of the Avengers figured it out – but he hadn't bet it would be this particular Avenger.

"Friend Steve," He hears Thor ask carefully, stepping into the hall. "Why are you carrying that shovel?"

Freezing, Steve feels embarrassment color his face. "Thor, you – you're back early!" He hopes he can distract the man, but that doesn't seem to be happening. Thor crosses his arms and stares hard, and Steve feels this might be what it's like to be a boy caught sneaking out of the house after curfew.

"When last you left the house in secret, you almost lost your life in battle. I would not risk such a thing again." Thor says, stepping forward. Sighing, Steve realizes it could be worse, Clint or Natasha or even Tony could've been the ones who caught him, and at least Thor might not make fun of him.

"I'm sorry, I just – it's embarrassing." He lowers the shovel and puts a hand behind his head. "And sort of hard to explain. But it's not dangerous, I promise, I'll only be gone an hour or two."

Thor seems to be thinking, eyes narrowed, and perhaps it's just a trick of the eyes, but Steve could swear his eyes seem red. Before he can think on it, Thor's speaking again.

"Perhaps so, but still I would feel more comfortable if I could accompany you." Steve blinks, somewhat surprised by the offer, but he can't deny that company might be enjoyable right now.

"Uh, sure. But don't you want to get some rest?"

The god looks down, brow furrowed, and he sighs. "I feel I've rested enough."

Shocked, Steve stares as Thor steps past him towards the door. He's in a very peculiar mood. Usually, Thor is jovial and cheerful, like an eternal ray of sunshine. Even serious subjects or dangerous situations don't do much to lower his mood. Something must have happened, Steve thinks as he follows after. He's never seen Thor in such glum spirits.

Thor finds most mortals to be strange, but Steve Rogers is perhaps one of the strangest. The last thing Thor expected to see when he arrived at the mansion was Steve, in the front hall, holding a shovel. Though Thor is rather pleased with himself for knowing the name of the tool, and its use; if only fair Jane could be here to see his progress!

He exits first, followed by Steve, and then allows Steve to take the lead. "Where is our destination, Steve Rogers?"

"It's in the city, a couple miles from here." The man begins. "We could take the subway, but you're not exactly dressed to blend in."

Thor glances down; he is still in his armor and cape, and certainly does not blend in well. "Perhaps not." Thor admits then looks back up. "But we have other ways of travel open to us."

Steve cocks an eyebrow, confused, and Thor chuckles. Lifting his hand, he summons Mjolnir to him, allowing only a brief show of lightning. He doesn't want to catch the nearby trees on fire. Once the air has calmed down, he turns to Steve and reaches out to him. Both of the captain's eyebrows have disappeared behind his bangs, and the baffled look is endearing. Thor chuckles.

"Do not fear, Steve, I shall not drop you." He says. Realization begins to dawn, and Steve's mouth falls open. "It is quite exhilarating, I've heard." But Steve is backing away, holding his free hand up.

"Thanks, but I think I'd rather –"

"Nonsense!" Thor strides over, his longer legs easily allowing him to overtake Steve. "Do not fear! Tis very safe!" He wraps a thick arm around Steve's waist, hoisting him up a bit, and laughs as Steve yelps. His free arm goes around Thor's neck, holding tightly to his shoulder, while he clutches the shovel to him.

"Really, we can just waaaaaaAAALLK!"


He's an hour late for his shift. Clint figures he should probably have an excuse, but he doesn't.

He didn't leave the mansion until 12:30. Then, when he finally arrived at Xavier's Institute, he sat in his car for ten minutes debating whether to go in, or turn around and leave. Eventually, cursing up a storm, he stepped out of the car, slammed the door shut behind him, and entered the school.

The halls are quiet, dimly lit, and mostly empty. A few of the older students are still wandering around, and they look at Clint with a healthy mix of fear and awe. Clint ignores them. He heads towards the infirmary, which he knows the location of though he's never been there.

He passes the blue guy as he walks, and gives a little nod. The Beast doesn't scare him, he's seen weirder in the circus; and even weirder at SHIELD. As he comes closer to the room, he hears voices echoing down the hall.

"… Don't worry, Dr. Phil, we had a talk about it."

A few weak chuckles reach Clint's ears. "You've been waiting to use that, haven't you?"

"Yes I have, and it was physically painful holding onto it, I swear. But honestly, I apologized like an adult human being, he made those puppy dog eyes and tried to apologize – as if that idiot ever does anything wrong – we went our separate ways as unlikely friends… sort've."

"Sort of?"

"I may have made his head explode from insinuating certain things."

"You can never just let things end peacefully, can you?"

"It's not my fault Cap's so easy to mess with. Don't tell me you're on his side, too? Oh, I forgot the whole hero-crush thing, of course you're on his side."

"It's nothing as juvenile as a crush, Tony. Or anything else romantically inclined."

"Oh, good, because I'd hate for you to have your heart broken when Steve and Thor finally put their combined 2 brain cells together and figure out they're head over heels for each other."

"From what I've heard, you're the one being obtuse about your feelings."

"I'm always obtuse about my feelings."

Clint slides up to the door, leans against the wall outside, and takes a deep, steadying breath. That is his mistake. Tony's head appears in the doorway suddenly, eyes widening at Clint. Then a hand grabs him. "About damn time, don't you know I have a thousand and two things to do? My babysitting for the evening is through." Clint feels his heart stop as Tony drags him into the room, and he tries keep his eyes towards the floor, but he can't help but look and…

He's thin and pasty and easily mistakable for a ghoul, but there's no doubt who he is. And he's alive. Horribly injured and scarred as if he'd been run through a paper shredder, but alive, and that is the only thing that matters. The word is on repeat in Clint's mind: alive, alive, alive. Every other thought has stopped, every other brainwave ended, as if the only thing that exists is the reality of Coulson, alive in front of him.

"Do you like the doorframe, Barton?"

It takes a minute for the archer to realize Tony has already left, Coulson has spoken, and Clint has been staring for much too long. "Uh, yeah. Nice, sturdy. Leaves a little to be desired in the practicality department."

"Hard to guard your back when it's open to the whole hall." Coulson agrees, a small smile coming to his face. It looks pained. Clint finds himself trying to smile back, and it's probably strained too, he imagines. "Not that this room really has any high ground."

Crossing the tile floor, Clint steps up onto the window ceil, balancing on the edge with his feet, arms wrapped around his knees. "I make do with what I've got."

Coulson gives a weak grunt. "You were always good at that." A silence follows, one which is neither comfortable nor awkward. It's almost smothering in its intensity, though. "Been on an assignment?"

Clint can translate that to, Where have you been? Why haven't you come to see me in the two weeks I've been here? "Yeah. In a way." Coulson's stare asks him to elaborate. "Fury had me going through some training. Trying to… clear my head."

Coulson nods and Clint knows that Coulson understands exactly what happened. Fury knew this most recent mission meant more to Clint than perhaps anyone else, and that afterwards, his head wouldn't be screwed on quite right. So, Fury called him in, and helped him get himself together. Say what you will about Nick Fury, but he looks after his own.

"How've you been?"

Clint bursts into laughter then tries to cover it by moving a hand over his mouth. He knows it's too late. "Fine. Just fine. You?"

"Great." Coulson smiles, though Clint can see the glisten of tears under his eyes. His heart clenches. "Even better now."

On his feet in an instant, Clint grips Coulson's hand tight. When the agent looks up at him, Clint sees Phil, his friend, who's been through things so nightmarish the human imagination would have troubling imagining them. "I'm never letting you out of my sight again."

It says something about everything that's happened that Phil doesn't even object.


Tony is halfway to the entrance when he suddenly feels the compulsion to turn left, instead of heading straight ahead. He snorts. "You could've just sent an email. 'Hey, Tony, want to stop by and have a chat before you go?'" He follows his feet as he complains, entering a study on the side of the hall. Prof. Xavier's outline can be seen beside a roaring fire. "So, is having a big fancy study with a fireplace a condition of being a professor?"

"As much as having an ego the size of a country is a condition of being a billionaire." Xavier jokes as he turns. There's a small, gentle smile on his face, which is rather disarming. No one ever looks that calm and at peace when they're in the same room as him. Not even his friends. "I've had a lot of practice dealing with strange temperaments during my years as a teacher, Mr. Stark. I don't think you could antagonize me too much now."

Tony slaps a hand to his forehead. "Psychics be gone!"

The smile becomes a smirk. "It's not my being intrusive, I'm afraid; you simply have a very loud inner voice, Tony."

Sighing melodramatically, Tony slides into a chair nearby. "In that case, you will simply have to accept being blessed with my ingenious, imaginative thoughts all the time."

"Of course."

"And if any of my designs are stolen out of my head, I'll know who to blame."

"Not to worry, Mr. Stark. As curious as most of your inventions are, I am much too busy teaching to attempt to invent anything."

Smiling, Tony pats the arm chair. "Good to know." There's a bit of exhilaration running through him. He only knows a few people who can keep up with him verbally, and most of them get annoyed with him pretty easily. Strangely enough, his little visits with the Professor over the past two weeks have been, dare he say it, relaxing. Comfortable.

Red alert! Red alert! Becoming invested in people! Expressing emotions! Abort! Abort!

If Xavier heard that thought, he doesn't mention it, and so neither does Tony.


When Steve's feet touch the ground again, it's all he can do to keep from dropping to his knees and kissing it. He's flown before, he's dropped out of an airplane before, but there's something different about knowing the only thing keeping you from going squish is one man's hold. Granted, that man is technically a god, but Steve's stomach still got all tied up in knots on that flight.

"Are you well, Steve?" Thor's hand falls onto his shoulder as Steve puts a hand on his throat.

"Fine, my internal organs are just trying to catch up with me. Give them a minute." Thor laughs, and it's a bright, cheerful sound that makes Steve smile. Maybe he could go for another flight if the reward was that sound. Wow, Rogers, that was cheesy.

Looking up, Steve sees they have indeed arrived at the right place, which he finds surprising. He wasn't sure if his directions would help, given they were arriving by a very different means than he'd supposed. Apparently, Thor was keen enough to take his road suggestions and follow them by flight… and while Steve had never really thought Thor to be unintelligent, he'll admit he hadn't thought of him as particularly intelligent. But you'd have to have a good memory and strong spatial intelligence to be able to look down on a grid of lights and roads and follow them.

The two stand within a familiar graveyard, where both had been not a few weeks ago. The look on Thor's face says he's beginning to recognize it, but is also confused as to why they are there. Steve stalks forward, looking for one particular sight. Thor's heavy footsteps begin a few moments later.

After a bit of walking, they come across the right grave: Phil Coulson. Strengthening his resolve, Steve turns to Thor as he approaches.

"Alright, buddy," He begins. "Ready to dig?"


It's as he's driving home that night that Tony begins to question his motives in making such frequent visits to Prof. Xavier's office.

Sure, he goes to the institute a few times a week for his shift with Coulson, but he's there even more often just to speak with Xavier. At first, he was just trying to get more information on whatever it is Xavier's keeping from him; more and more, it seems as if Xavier is the one digging through his secrets.

That night, for instance, his attempt to learn more about Xavier's family had led to an hour long discussion of his relationship with his father. Tony had always thought he had something of a silver tongue, but Xavier had seen right past it and Tony didn't think he even had to use his gift to do it. Tony was just transparent to him, and that really put the billionaire on edge. He wore a lot of masks, had mastered the art of covering his true thoughts and feelings with false images, and this fifty something professor cut through the illusions with no trouble.

Yet he still kept coming back. Why was that? If he didn't know better, he'd think the professor was forcing him to, but he knew that wasn't the case. Never before had he willingly placed himself, multiple times, into situations where he wasn't in control. But something about Charles Xavier was so curious and intriguing to him, that he couldn't help coming back.

He pulls into the garage at the mansion still lost in thought, going through the motions as he dwells on Xavier. Only when he's in the living room, walking past the occupied couch, is he pulled out of his thoughts by a voice.

"Tony." He spins around, taken off guard but he tries to hide it with his usual grin and swagger.

"Hey, Rhodey, enjoying the plasma? New installation, pretty spiffy huh?" Tony gestures towards the TV. "Netflix is on it if you want to peruse some shows or something – I'd hang around but I've got a, uh –"

"Tony, cut the bullshit." Rhodey stands and approaches. "You've been avoiding me for two weeks. We've got to talk about what happened."

"I thought Fury handled all that."

"Yeah. He talked to the military. I'm talking about you, telling me, as your friend, what the hell's been happening around here. Because from my point of view, you've been neglecting to tell me a lot, including but not limited to: you almost dying in outer space; you almost being blown up in your own house; and your suit suddenly turning against you in the middle of a battle." Rhodey really does look very upset, Tony can tell by his flared nostrils, his posture, the tone of voice which kind of sounds like Rhodey's dad did when they were kids. "Want to tell me about all that?"

No. No, Tony does not. But it doesn't look like he's going to have much of a choice.


I'm sorry this chapter took so long, and is so short – I've had a lot going on, and I've had trouble getting time to write. I finally just decided to cut this chapter short so y'all would have something to read.

Don't worry, future installations will be posted much faster.