hey! I actually kept my word this time! Surprising! :D Anyway, thank you for hitting 110 reviews! Wow! I never thought that I would get that many. Thank you! This chapter is actually fort of long for you guys as a thank you, and because I felt back in the swing of writing. :) ENJOY!

There, standing before her, was Loki.

Astrid stood in shock.

She didn't know what to do.

Suddenly, everyone around her, her friends, all went on defense.

Clint and Natasha drew their guns and pointed them at Loki.

Steve, Tony, and Banner all tensed their bodies, ready for combat.

Thor stood in shock.

Finally, Astrid was shaken out of her haze and rushed into motion.

She raced forward until she was in front of Loki, and turned towards her friends, her hands up in the air in front of her.

"Wait! Please everyone just wait!" she pleaded glancing from one face to another, waiting for some sort of emotion other than anger and hatred to cross across their faces.

They stared at her as if she were betraying them.

"Please don't shoot!" she cried, desperate for them to listen to her.

Tony snorted. "I knew another Asgardian was too good to be true! Look at her! Defending a monster!"

Astrid's eyes whipped to meet his, her exotic blue eyes blazing with fire. She was sensitive towards the word monster. Loki was never a monster to her. Never.

Her muscles tensed and her fists clenched and unclenched from holding herself back from launching herself at him. "He is not a monster. If you ever call him a monster again, I will personally hurt you."

He stared at her. "But you know what he did! He almost killed you, and suddenly you're okay with that?" Tony asked, disbelief crossing his face.

Astrid was almost ready to knock some sense into him, when a gentle, yet firm hand rested on her shoulder.

She looked away from Tony to the hand. Loki's hand.

"No need to defend me, Astrid. You will only make it worse." He whispered soothingly to her.

She debated this in her mind, but then decided that Loki was right. She didn't want to fight her friends.

"I just wish he would have stayed dead." Tony muttered under his breath.

Her muscles locked up, ready for combat, but Loki's hand tightened on her shoulder.

She sighed softly.

Her muscles relaxed and she looked at the people standing before her again.

"Please do not harm him. He will not harm you." She said loudly and clearly, making sure that they all heard this.

"I'm not?" Loki asked her.

Her head whipped around to meet his, only to see a teasing smile on his face.

"Let's hear that from him!" Clint snapped.

Astrid glanced back at Loki.

He watched Clint with his head tilted slightly to the side as if observing him. Clint saw this and seemed to flinch away from his gaze.

Loki finally looked at everyone. "I did not come here to try and take over Midgard."

"Are we supposed to believe that?" Tony asked.

"You have my word." Loki replied.

"You expect us to believe you just like that?" Tony retorted, not believing him for a second.

"No. You just have to trust me." Loki replied evenly, with a small smile playing on his lips.

"Yea, because we will totally trust you." Steve said with a glare.

Loki shrugged. "Take it or leave it. Do you want my help or not?"

Banner spoke. "You came to help us?"

Loki's gaze turned towards him. "Yes. Is that so shocking?"

"Umm, yea!" Tony said.

Loki sighed. "I know who you are dealing with, and you cannot do this alone."

They glanced at each other, as if they were silently asking each other whether to trust him or not. They knew that they needed his help, even if they did not want to admit it to themselves.

They all seemed to come to an agreement, because Tony looked at Loki and gave a curt nod. "Fine. You can help us. But if you make one move to try and do something crazy, we will kill you."

Loki chuckled. "I'd like to see you try."

Astrid elbowed him in his stomach. "Don't be cocky." She whispered under her breath.

Loki grunted, but then he met Tony's eyes. "Understood."

Clint and Natasha put their guns away, but they all seemed tense.

Astrid turned to face Loki.

"What in Valhalla's name are you doing here?!" She shouted in a whisper.

"I came to help. I could not let you do this on your own. I know what we are dealing with, and I came to make sure that you will not get hurt." His eyes met hers and she saw the protective way that he looked at her.

Astrid sighed. "But you didn't even disguise yourself or anything! To these people, you are dead!"

Loki shrugged. "Now I'm not."

Before Astrid could say anything else, a tentative voice made her to stop. "Loki?"

Loki looked over Astrid's shoulder to someone standing behind her. She saw his eyes soften just a bit. Only someone as close as Astrid would have been able to see it.

She slowly turned around to meet her brother's eyes.

"Is that really you?" Thor asked softly, in almost a whisper.

"Yes." Loki replied.

Thor stared at him with a disbelieving look on his face. "But how? I watched you die. You died in my arms! How can you still be alive?"

Loki shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Thor's eyes shifted to hers. "And you knew about this? You knew that he was still alive?"

Astrid could not bear the betrayal that was shining in his eyes. She looked at the ground, staying silent.

"Answer me Astrid!" He shouted loudly, causing her to jump. He rarely ever rose his voice at her.

"Yes…." She whispered softly, but she knew that Thor heard her from the way that he sputtered.

"A-and no one thought that this was something that I would have liked to know?"

"It's not her fault. I asked her not to tell you." Loki broke in, defending Astrid.

Thor stared at him. "But why?"

"Because you had moved on." Astrid said softly. She lifted her gaze to meet his. "Because you were happy here. You had gotten over it, enough to enjoy life here. Why would we want to ruin that?"

"Because he is my brother!" Thor shouted, the pain and anger that he was feeling, seeping through. "Because I care about him!"

Loki's eyes flashed. "Do you? Do you really?" He spit out. "Because last I remember, you locked me up for all eternity! Do you really care about someone who is not even your real brother?"

Thor's eyes shifted from pained to angry. "Of course! We were raised together! You were raised as my brother! Of course I cared! How dare you think I didn't! You think it was easy to lock you up? Do you think I wanted to lock you up?" Thor was shouting now.

Loki matched with his own shouting. "You did! Because it looked so easy for you to just throw me in a cell and walk away! You never even came to visit! Never! Not once!" Loki's loneliness started to seep through in his words. "You never cared about me. How could you care about someone like me?"

Everyone else just glanced back and forth at each other awkwardly, wondering if they should intervene or not.

Astrid finally did.

During their fight, they had been taking steps closer to each other, until they were almost nose in nose.

She stepped between the fighting brothers and shouted. "Enough! Both of you! This is not the time to be fighting! We have other things to do!" She glared at Thor and then at Loki, placing a hand on each of their chests and pushing them away from each other.

They glared at each other, but backed off.

Astrid let out a frustrated sigh and turned to her friends. They all stared at the reunited family.

Tony glanced at the others. "Man, I'm glad I'm not part of that family." He muttered as a bunch of SHEILD cars rolled to a stop around them.

Thank you to everyone who had been following along with this crazy story. :) I am still writing it because of you people. Reviews are always appreciated. I don't know when the next one will be up because school starts up again next week, but I promise it will not be 5+ weeks. :) See all you lovely people then!