Daughter of Trickery- Ah I love Loki too. I just hope I'm doing him justice in my story compared to how he is in canon haha

Miriam looked around at the various displays inside the museum, and even after reading each of the little plaques, she had no idea how any of these things qualified as art. It was the same feeling she'd gotten the time that Thor had brought her to a Midgardian museum. It's not like there was actually anything interesting in there. Maybe it was just a museum thing. Maybe they were all destined to be boring and pointless.

Though this particular museum at least had the decency of holding a single thing of value, which was nice. Not that there was any easy indication of where they'd be able to find the glove that Thanos was seeking. As she perused everything that she walked past, Miriam had to wonder why Thanos didn't just come here himself if the glove was so easy to find. Did he not want anyone to figure out his plans? Or was there some other reason he'd chosen Loki as his lackey?

After a while, Miriam got tired of just wandering around in the very large building, and she went up to one of the Esperosians who was wearing a shirt that said 'staff' on the back. "Excuse me, but I saw an article about how you've got a gauntlet on display here that was left behind by an alien a little while ago. I was hoping you'd be able to tell me where I could find that? It sounds like it would be really neat to look at."

The staff member sighed. "You're the second one to have asked about that recently. And I'll tell you the same thing I told the other one. We don't have that in our possession anymore. Since it was just a rusty old glove, large and very useless, when a private buyer offered to take it off our hands for a large sum of money, it wasn't exactly a tearful parting. No one ever wanted to see that piece of junk anyways." He cleared his throat, and tried to look more chipper. "I do not mean to imply that everything in this place is junk, though. There are many other artifacts and artworks that I'm sure you'd find most pleasurable and fascinating to observe."

Miriam clenched her jaw, feeling irritation fill up in the pit of her stomach. Of course it wasn't going to be that easy. Miriam was half a million years old, and she'd never seen anything be that easy before. "Can you tell me who bought it?"

"Sorry, ma'am. But I'm afraid that they wanted to remain anonymous. And with the large amount of money they gave us, we're certainly in no position to deny them that simple request. What's so special about that thing anyways? Why are so many people interested in obtaining it? Except for that one who donated it in the first place, of course."

Miriam turned away from the Esperosian while he continued to mutter to himself, trying to solve the mystery of the big old gauntlet. He was useless. This trip to the museum had been useless as well. And now Miriam felt bad for making Loki wait outside for so long, when he probably would've enjoyed some of the exhibits.

She walked out, and quickly found Loki in the spot behind the museum that they'd agreed upon earlier. He seemed surprised to see her slowly ambling towards him rather than simply appearing. "What's wrong? Was it not safe for you to teleport out? Where's the gauntlet?"

Miriam groaned softly. "It wasn't there. Apparently someone bought it for a lot of money, and since the stupid locals didn't even know that it was something of value in the first place, they handed it right over. So now we know even less than we did before. We don't even know what planet the dang thing is on. We could just go and grab the one in Odin's possession right now, but that would probably alert Thanos to our plans. Ugh, this is just a giant crap fest right now."

They both stood there in awkward silence for a few minutes before Loki cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should simply return to Midgard now, and question my brother about the location of the aether. If we can get there quickly, before Thanos learns that I'm on the run from him, you could obtain more of your power, and be another step closer to being strong enough to defeat him."

Of course Miriam wanted to get back all of her power as quickly as possible. But she knew that despite how much stronger she'd been than Ar'iaal before, now he'd be the one with the advantage. He had half of her power in his hands, which meant that he had an added boost, while Miriam was down by a lot. She wasn't sure that it was even possible to defeat him with such little power.

But in the end, it had to be worth a try at least. She gave a solemn nod. "Alright. Prepare yourself, because this isn't going to feel very pleasant. I'm going to take us to the nearest planet, and keep bouncing around from there until we reach our destination. Unfortunately not even I could cross the galaxy in a single leap. This shouldn't take long though. You may interpret it as much longer because of the amount of leaping we'll be doing. You may want to close your eyes."

Then Miriam reached out and grabbed both of Loki's wrists. He grabbed her wrists as well. He didn't want to get pulled away and lost in space, since unlike Eternals, Asgardians would die without any oxygen or warmth. Though he was planning on keeping his eyes open, since this would be a unique learning opportunity. Since the tesseract had been powered by Miriam, did that mean her transportation method would feel the same way as using the tesseract had?

Before he could try and think of more questions, Loki felt a slight tug, and between one blink and the next, they were standing on entirely different terrain. He felt like in less than a second, he'd nearly died, like all his insides had been torn out, and then shoved back in. He glanced at Miriam, wondering if she felt the same way. She didn't look particularly bad.

When she noticed him staring, Miriam gave a soft grunt. "I haven't tried bringing someone along with me since before I lost all my power. A girl can get a little out of practice in ten thousand years. And besides that, you're kind of heavy. No offense. At least I'm not trying to cart around Thor, because that would definitely make me throw my back out.

Loki gulped. "I don't feel very well right now. But that was such a fast transportation. Much faster than the tesseract ever went. I've seen you move quickly across small spaces, but I didn't expect it to take the same amount of time to cross a space as large as the one between worlds." He took a deep breath in, then slowly let it out. "Alright, I'm ready when you are."

Miriam nodded. "Alright. Oh, and sorry about the slight dizziness. It's from being completely exposed in open space, even though it's only for a fraction of a second. It affects me too, but I've been bouncing back and forth between Asgard and Midgard for so long that even in this weak body, I hardly notice it. Come on. It might take longer, but it also might be easier to take a breather like this in between each stop."

Loki shook his head. "I don't think that would be beneficial. It's a rather… unpleasant experience, and I'd rather get it all over with rather than psyching myself up each time. Stop and rest when you must, but otherwise let's just go."

The two of them grabbed each other's wrists again, and Miriam nodded. "Sure. Let's see how far I can go before I need to take a break. This should be fun." A moment later their surroundings had disappeared, and Loki squeezed his eyes shut despite himself.

When he could feel solid ground beneath his feet again, Loki immediately pulled away from Miriam and dropped to his knees to vomit. While the tesseract had taken a bit more time, it had also been more gentle. He couldn't even really describe the sensation of being whipped through so much space in such a short amount of time.

He looked up once his stomach had settled a bit, and saw Miriam leaning over, her hands resting against her thighs as she panted for breath. "Well, that was exciting. I got us all the way here without even stopping to ask for directions or anything."

A moment later, Loki realized that they were indeed on Midgard, just outside the vast Avengers compound. He got to his feet, still feeling disoriented. His body was not meant to travel in such a quick and harsh manner, and he was sure he'd never forget that. It was quick and convenient, but if it was a choice, he'd pick to take almost any other means of transportation. He cleared his throat, and tried to keep his voice steady as he spoke. "So shall we seek out my brother?"

Miriam nodded. "Sure." She started to head towards the building, and Loki hesitated only a moment before following her. His legs felt like jelly, but he wasn't going to let on about that if he could help it.

The guards scattered around spotted them fairly quickly, and rushed over. "Miriam! Everyone's been searching for you for days! Where have you been?" Then they looked at Loki with a mixture of curiosity and nervousness. "And what's that?"

With a start, Loki realized that he was still disguised to look like an Esperosian. Perhaps that was for the best anyways. He wasn't sure he'd be welcome into the compound as himself after everything he'd done to torment Midgard.

Miriam gave the guards what she thought was a winning smile. "Ah, it's so nice to be home. This is my friend," she purposely omitted mentioning a name or species. "And we just need to get inside and talk to the others. It's pretty urgent. Is Thor around?"

One of the guards narrowed his eyes. "Thor is currently off planet, searching for both you and his brother. The others are out at the moment, but once I tell them you're here, they should return shortly. Let's head inside."

No one seemed willing to touch what appeared to be a tall purple alien with four legs, three arms, and no eyes, so they simply followed closely and kept a stern eye on him. Miriam had to try and hold in her laughter at their reactions, since she couldn't actually see what the disguise looked like, and could only see the pout on Loki's normal blue face.

They got inside, and went straight to the conference room. Even after Miriam's assurances that she'd keep an eye on her friend, two guards stayed behind while the others went to try and track down the Avengers. Miriam did feel a little bad about worrying everyone so much. She hadn't expected to be gone for so long, and she hadn't had time to leave behind a note.

It still felt strangely foreign to her, though. The idea that anyone would actually worry just because she'd disappeared for a few days. She wasn't going to question why, though. She just leaned back in her seat, crossed her arms over her chest and waited. She didn't even realize that she'd dozed off, exhausted from the effort of dragging an entire frost giant across the universe, until Loki flicked her in the shoulder.

Her eyes snapped open, and Miriam looked up at where Natasha, Steve, Rhodey, Sam, Vision, and Wanda were all standing. Thor would take a bit more time to return, but the others were there at least. They all had varying looks on their faces, and Miriam couldn't be bothered to try figuring out what each one meant.

Instead, she stood up, and stretched her arms over her head. "Hey. You'll never guess who I found." She looked at the two guards. "Ah, the whole Avengers team is here. I don't think you're needed at the moment." At Steve's quick nod, the two of them filed out of the room. Then Miriam stared at the superheroes with wide eyes, and gestured to Loki. "I found him."

Wanda raised one eyebrow. "I didn't realize we were missing anything like that."

Miriam frowned. "I found Loki." Since she'd said who he was, Loki stood as well, and a moment later, appeared to the others exactly as they would recognize him. "So Thor doesn't have to worry anymore. I actually successfully found him." She crossed her arms over her chest. "That's the only good news though. The reason he was missing is because Thanos kidnapped him." That brought some looks of doubt and some looks of concern to the Avengers. "He wanted Loki to find a gauntlet that would allow him to use the power of all six stones at the same time. He doesn't seem aware of the fact that I've already started taking back some of my power." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath in. She kept her eyes closed as she spoke, ready to disclose everything. Though the information wouldn't really be relevant in how they could defeat Thanos, Miriam didn't feel like lying or holding back anything that could come back to bite her later. "That's not all. I've also discovered the identity of Thanos."

Steve frowned. "What do you mean? We already know who he is."

Miriam shook her head, and finally opened her eyes. "Well, maybe you do know who he is now," she admitted. "But I found out who he used to be. I saw Loki's memory of speaking with Thanos, and I recognized him immediately. The reason I was unnerved to hear of Thanos the first time was because that used to be my name. But I still thought it was merely a coincidence that connected me to him like that. I was wrong. When I looked into Loki's mind, I saw someone I'd never be able to forget the face of. I saw Ar'iaal."

Everyone in the room had heard at least one story of Miriam's oldest and dearest friend, even though she tried not to speak of him very often since the pain of his departure and absence was still strong. Steve gulped. "Are you sure?"

Miriam nodded. "Yes. I can't really judge him, I know. After all the horrible things I've done, he's only taking his turn. Maybe that's just how Eternals are. We're destined to ruin lives and be bad people. What else are we supposed to do with the amount of time that we're given? But that's not even the part that hurts the most. I can't believe he's been awake and lucid long enough to become Thanos, but he never even bothered trying to find me." She let out a soft sigh. "Anyways, I don't think it matters much when it comes to beating him, but I just thought all of you should know so that I wouldn't be hiding anything from you." She grabbed Loki's sleeve, and tugged him towards the door of the room. "We're going back to Asgard for now. I'll be back later to debrief you on everything that happened."

As soon as they were out in the hallway, Miriam brought Loki and herself to Asgard like she'd said. She brought them straight into Loki's room, since that the was the place she was most familiar with, and was only slightly surprised to see Thor sitting on the edge of Loki's bed.

Thor jumped up, clearly very surprised to see both of the missing people he'd been worrying himself sick over, and he looked back and forth between the two. "So I guess Miriam found you then? Or did you find her?"

Miriam grinned. "Doesn't matter. The point is that we're both back now, and we're both definitely leaving again very soon. But while we're here, you wouldn't happen to be able to give us access to the treasure room, would you?"

Thor frowned. "Why would you need that?" He shook his head. "Wait- where have you even been? What happened?"

Miriam shrugged. "Loki got kidnapped by Thanos, and I rescued him, and now we're kind of on a mission that involves the throne room. We just plan on stealing something." At Thor's blank face, she laughed. "I'm joking, big guy! I just want a chance to look at that disgusting thing I slept in for ten thousand years to see if there's any kind of clue that was left behind about where the rest of my stones are."

Thor nodded. "Yes, of course I can help you with that. But afterwards we will need to talk at greater length about what transpired over the past several days. And you have to make sure Mother knows you've returned. She's missed you very much."

As Thor walked towards the treasure room, Miriam and Loki purposely lagged behind. Loki spoke in a soft whisper that Thor wouldn't be able to hear. "What are you doing? I thought you were going to ask about the aether?"

Miriam responded in an equally quiet voice. "I will do that later. For right now, I've decided we should grab the other glove after all. Once we're in there, you keep Thor distracted while I steal the gauntlet."

Loki rolled his eyes, but he did nod his head after a moment. "Fine. I already agreed that stealing to prevent someone who's practically the incarnation of evil from getting their hand on it is fine."

Miriam scowled. "He's not the incarnation of evil. As Thanos, he hasn't even done a percent of all the shit that I have. And if I could be turned around the power the friendship and love and all that crap, then so could he. Now come on before your brother starts getting weird ideas in his thick head."

They both hurried forward to catch up with Thor, and neither said another word about their plan. Stopping Thanos was going to be very difficult, if not literally impossible, if their only weapon against him refused to harm him.