The next morning led the early rising Avengers (Steve, Natasha and on this occasion Bruce) to question their sanity when they were joined at breakfast by Evie. It was six thirty and a time that they had hitherto never associated with the teen. Any questions as to her wellbeing were met with polite responses that didn't really answer anything, and she would have looked her normal self if it wasn't for the unusually sharp and focussed gleam to her eyes.

She wolfed down her toast, hardly tasting the Nutella and drank the orange juice so quickly she was in danger of drowning.

"Going somewhere?" Steve asked in bemusement.

"Gym." Evie's reply was indistinct with a mouth full of toast.

"Since when have you ever gone to the gym?"

"Since today."

Bruce raised an eyebrow at her. "Has this got anything to do what happened yesterday…?"

"Yup."

Steve opened his mouth to speak again but Bruce silenced him with a hurried shake of the head. He recognised that look in Evie's eyes, knew the unmistakable expression of a Stark on a mission. Tony tackled problems in a head-on, bull in the china shop sort of way and his daughter had inherited that. She had been terrified and badly injured in a home invasion, and in true Stark fashion she wasn't taking that shit lying down.

"Let me guess, there's a reason you're down here at the same time as Steve and Natasha, huh?" Bruce asked gently.

Evie looked shifty, glancing at the super soldier and assassin. "Maybe a little bit of a reason."

"And could that reason be that you've finally decided you need to learn some self-defence?"

"Not exactly." The girl pushed her empty plate away and folded her hands on the table. "Self-offence. Is that a thing? Protection is all well and good, but this is my turf and they came in here and shat all over it! I don't want protection, I want pay-back!"

"You want us to teach you to fight?" Natasha asked.

"Nope. I want you to teach me to kill."

"That's hardly something a fourteen year old should want!" Steve sounded almost amused, as if she could possibly be joking.

"Yeah well, most fourteen year olds aren't the target of a hit-team. I've got other plans in the works – but I want to be able to fight too."

"What other plans?"

"Just…plans. But I want to know if you'll teach me how to fight."

Both Steve and Natasha looked at each other, then at the determined teenager sat infront of them. She definitely had the Determined Stark thing going on.

"Why ask us?" Steve played for time. "This is something you should be talking to your parents about, and they'd be in a better position to train you if you really do want to learn some self-defence."

Evie sighed and rolled her eyes in possibly the most teenager-y way possible. "First, offence, not defence, and secondly, even if they agree to this they don't have the know-how for someone of my age, lack of experience and body type. Dad can fight unarmed, but he's hardly Bruce Lee, and Möðhy's style – even without his magic – requires Aesir strength, agility and reflexes. They might be able to give me some pointers down the line, but I need to build up basics first. Hell, I don't even know how to throw a punch. So…" She gestured at the two Avengers. "You're the experts, if anyone can teach me it'll be you guys."

Bruce cleared his throat quietly, reminding them all of his presence. "Can I just interject here? You are aware that training –serious training is more than just learning a few tricks. If you want to be able to actually protect yourself and fight back to any degree of effectiveness you need to actually put some effort into this."

"I know!"

"Not your usual half-assed effort, Evelyn, but actual physical effort. It'll require you to change your life-style, your diet, your exercise habits – as in you'll actually have to start exercising - no more lazing around infront of Call of Duty."

"I know. I know what it will take – I've seen Karate Kid."

Natasha groaned and shook her head. "Seriously? Look, I'm happy to show you a few things but this actually takes dedication."

"Why does everyone assume I'm lazy?!"

"We don't assume, we know. You've mastered the art of watching films like a true Olympic champion."

"Yeah, and look where that got me! Staring down the barrel of a gun because I didn't know the first thing to do in that situation!"

"Evie…" Again it was Bruce, ever pouring oil on troubled waters. "You got to the panic room – that was exactly the right thing to do."

The girl looked down at the table, her determinism and ferocity draining away. "I don't want to feel that helpless in my own home again." She whispered. "This is meant to be my safe-place, and yesterday it wasn't, and if I can do something about that then I should." She shrugged slightly. "I've been looking at things online; I've found recommended diets that could help, and some online programs in kick-boxing and things but…well, a real teacher is better than the internet any day. So…will you help me?"

Steve let out a heavy sigh and rubbed his chin. "We will all need to sit down and have a serious talk with your parents, young lady, but for now I can show you how to use the punch-bags in the gym properly."

When Evie lit up with a bright grin Natasha rolled her eyes and nodded. "We can always go down to the target range and have a look at your marksmanship for now. It won't hurt to know how to use a gun properly."

"And I want to look at those diets you mentioned!" Bruce added severely. "And they had better be proper diets that work with you to build muscle and endurance, rather than some stupid weight-loss things that will do far more harm than good!"

"Yes Uncle Bruce." Evie sounded contrite, but her smile could have been a light source in it's own right.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWWMWMWMW

When the alarm on his phone went off Tony reached out blindly to flail at it, finally hitting the snooze button.

"…Time…?"

"Half eight…"

Loki let out an unintelligible grunt and burrowed in closer, evidently deciding that getting up was not on the agenda. Tony was of equal mind, if it weren't for the fact that his husband was lying on his arm and his movement towards the alarm had sparked off some serious pins and needles. He pushed at Loki until the trickster grumbled incoherently at him, but shifted his weight off the limb in question.

"Jarv? How's Birdy?" Tony mumbled at the ceiling.

"She appears well, sir. She has been up for the past two hours."

"Good…" The man slowly sat up, slumping forwards as he scrubbed a hand across his eyes. "Wait, what? What the hell was she doing up at six thirty?"

"Conversing with Captain Rodgers, Miss Romanoff and Dr Banner, sir."

"Why?" Loki's voice was still groggy with sleep, but the concern was very much evident as he pulled himself up onto one elbow. "Is she alright?"

"Quite alright, sir. She is currently with Miss Romanoff at the target range discussing the finer points of marksmanship."

"She…What?"

After the events of yesterday both parents had been ready for their daughter to be traumatised, needy and terrified. They didn't quite know how to deal with the idea that she had sorted herself out on her own.

"She's…she's fine?" Tony asked.

"That is not what I inferred, sir. But she is not the emotional mess we all assumed she would be. I believe Miss Evelyn has decided that she doesn't wish to be the damsel in distress should yesterday's event occur again."

"Huh…" The inventor glanced at his partner. "You know, I think that kid is more like us than we could ever realise."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, look at me for an example." He gestured at himself. "I get kidnapped and tortured by terrorists, so I build the suit and the very first thing I do after escaping is go straight back and blow them to kingdom come. You get tortured by the Chitauri so the moment you have your strength back you summon the whole lot of them and blow them up too."

Loki smiled slowly. "And Evelyn has been attacked and terrified, so the first thing she does is try to arm herself against them."

"She went and spoke to Nat, Steve and Bruce. I bet anything she'll be coming to ask us if we'll let her learn how to fight."

"Not just fight. If your summation is correct, she will want to learn how to defeat them." Loki sat up properly, running a hand through his hair. "Why else choose Miss Romanoff? She wishes to learn to kill." He glanced at Stark in time to see the man go pale. "Tony?"

"I…don't know how I feel about that."

"Well, with the more stringent protection measures we put in place yesterday she will hardly need to use the skill even if she learns it, and if it makes her feel safer, what is the problem?"

"Uh…the problem is that our fourteen year old might be wanting to kill someone?"

Loki waved a hand tiredly, stifling a yawn. "Alright, alright. We've just woken up. If this is going to turn into the disagreement that I think it is may it wait? We both need food, we need to hear what our little bird actually has to say for herself, rather than wildly speculating and we need to wake up a little more. Agreed?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess." Tony's metaphorical hackles subsided and he grinned sheepishly. "Good call."

"Well, we are slowly improving at not fighting."

"Slowly but surely!" The man laughed, and leant over to kiss Loki's cheek. "That's a silver lining I guess. All this crap is happening, but we're learning not to argue the whole time!" He moved away and flicked the switch above the head-board for the lights.

A gentle glow filled the room as the main lights slowly brightened (designed back in the day when hangovers featured heavily in Tony's morning routine) and Stark smoothed his hair down.

"Time to face the day?"

"If we must." Loki sounded less than enthusiastic, still rubbing a hand across his face. When he lowered it his eyes looked red and sore in the new light.

Tony's amused grin faded with concern at the sight that he hadn't been aware of in the dark. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Just a rough night, I did not sleep well."

"Why didn't you wake me up?"

"One of us needed to be well rested to deal with whatever life and our daughter can throw at us today." Loki smiled tiredly at his husband's worried expression. "I am fine now."

"Was it nightmares?" Tony persisted, and the trickster nodded slightly.

"I expected them, so it could have been worse than it actually was. And you have helped me get to the point that I can wake from them once I realise that they are only dreams, so that made it easier too."

"Yeah, but-"

"Tony, I am fine. I can handle a nightmare or two without having to go crying to you for help!" It could have been said angrily, but Loki sounded so tired that it took any bite out of his words. He didn't object when he felt his husband's hand on his shoulder.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Hardly. I believe there were some things mentioned yesterday that triggered certain memories."

Tony nodded sadly. He understood full well how much it could throw someone to have something dredged up from the memory banks by an unexpected trigger, and the events of the previous day had certainly been full of things that could have set Loki off. At a guess he would probably blame the phone call with Hydra and what that had revealed about their plans for Evie – Loki undoubtedly had never wanted to hear the term vivisection again, so to have it put in the same context as his daughter would have been more than enough to spark a serious PTSD incident.

"Do you want to go back to sleep for a bit? By the sounds of it Evie doesn't need or want us molly-coddling her so you can afford to get another few hours if you're that tired."

"It is tempting, but I will simply fall back into another nightmare, so I would prefer not to."

"You really should have woken me up and said something – I used to have that problem and have any number of strategies to stop it."

Such comments would usually annoy Loki, but lack of sleep had mellowed him enough to simply nod enquiringly. He more than likely had his own coping mechanisms, but they evidently hadn't worked and he was tired enough to accept help.

"Jarvis, can you put on my old playlist."

"Of course, sir."

Quiet music began filtering in – a piano concerto – and Loki looked at his husband questioningly.

"Hey, I found it helps. Your brain can still hear it whilst you're asleep and it keeps you grounded in the here and now. At least, it did for me. Give it a go."

"I will try it tonight, but to be honest Tony, right now I would rather get up."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure – we have things to discuss and we never did look through all of the data from the attack yesterday." Loki smiled slightly as his husband leant over and kissed him. "What?"

"Nothing. Just tell me next time? Please?"

"If it's that important to you, then alright."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW

When Evie returned to the kitchen at about nine o'clock her parents were both there with Thor. Loki was at the stove whilst Tony had been too hungry to wait to cook something and had gone straight for the cereal.

"Morning kiddo!" Tony grabbed his daughter round the waist as she tried to get past and pulled her into a hug. "How are you feeling today?"

"Better. Much much better. And hungry." She added, looking longingly at the pan in which Loki was frying eggy bread. He noticed this, sighed and added another slice.

"A little bird told me you were down in the shooting range at some God-forsaken hour this morning. Did you skip breakfast?"

"No, I've just been busy." Evie sat down next to her father, pouring herself an orange juice from the jug on the table.

"Yes I know, do we need to talk about this?"

"Nope."

"I rather think we do, Birdy."

Evie scowled at him. "Well everyone else around here knows how to fight – I think it's high time I learnt!" She sat back a little to let Loki place a plate of eggy bread infront of her. "Thanks Möðhy."

"How is your arm today?" The trickster tried to take the conversation back a few paces as he sat down next to Thor with his own food.

The girl shrugged slightly, flexing the elbow in question. "It was fine when I woke up but is a little sore now – but Natasha said that was probably from the recoil."

"Possibly. Do you want me to take another look at it?"

"I've taken an anti-inflammatory for now, and it's got a support on." Evie rolled her sleeve up to present the elasticated support bandage that wrapped her elbow snugly.

"And how did you sleep?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "You know I was fine; you knocked me out yourself! Stop worrying about me!"

"Stop being a defensive teenager, Evie. We can hardly help being worried about you after what happened yesterday!" Tony countered.

"Well I am trying not to think about yesterday and am focussing on sorting myself out so that it doesn't happen again!"

"You shouldn't need to be worrying about that." Loki said gently. "We will take care of extra security."

"Yeah, well, I am worrying, so I'm sorting it out for myself. And besides; if you guys know that I can protect myself should it happen again then you won't need to worry so much either."

"The aim is not to let it happen again." Tony added.

"It's going to be a bit difficult to stop them trying again if they really want to give it another go. They got quite close to grabbing me yesterday."

"Well if they can't find you they can't get to you."

Evie blinked at her father in confusion then turned to Loki for clarification. He looked equally confused. Thor appeared to be wishing he could just leave.

"How do you mean, can't find me?"

Tony shrugged, pushing his cereal bowl away and cupping his hands around his coffee mug. "It makes sense doesn't it? We know they're after you, we know they're ruthless and cruel and what they want to do to you is the stuff of nightmares. So we get you the hell out of here. My other properties are probably all under surveillance, but we can easily set up something off the radar."

"What? No!"

"Be sensible Evie! The best thing we can do right now is get you out of here. It's all very admirable that you want to learn to protect yourself and all that, but it takes a long time to learn those skills and we don't have time! They could be back tomorrow, the day after, hell, they could be outside right this moment!"

"I don't want to leave!" Evie protested.

"Where would you suggest?" Loki ignored his daughter's outburst for a moment, agreeing that there was some merit to Tony's suggestion. "Somewhere on Earth?"

"It would be better to get off the planet entirely. Back to Asgard?"

The trickster wrinkled his nose. "Probably not a long term plan. It was fine whilst I was still recovering and therefore not a threat but by now the distrust will have grown again."

Thor looked surprised by this view point. "That's not true, brother! People have to no cause to…" He trailed off at the look Loki levelled on him. "Well, alright, there have been times, but recently…"

"The Bifrost? The Jötunn?" Loki began ticking off on his fingers. "Having you banished, trying to kill you, trying to kill your friends, trying to kill Heimdall, sending the Allfather into the Odin-sleep, and that's not to mention the simple fact of being me. Evelyn was beginning to have problems there – which was why we left – I don't wish to take her back so soon. Maybe as a last case scenario, but otherwise, no."

"I don't want to go anywhere!"

Evie's protest was ignored again as Tony bit his lip thoughtfully. "Okay, what about another realm then? I mean, I know some are unsuitable - we're not taking her to Jötunnheim – but what about somewhere else? Alfheim?"

Loki shook his head hurriedly. "I am not welcome there – and no child of mine will be either."

"What did you do?"

"I may have slightly stolen their most sacred item."

"Slightly?"

"Well, I didn't keep it. It resides in Asgard's weapon's vault now." He glanced at Thor. "You remember? That ugly gauntlet? Honestly, I couldn't see what the fuss was all about, but they revered it and now there is a hefty price on my head should I set foot in their realm again."

"Huh. So not Alfheim then. Vanaheim?"

"Again, they are not so fond of me either."

Tony groaned and buried his head in his hands. "Are there any realms that you haven't pissed off?"

"Not as such. I burnt those bridges long ago."

Evie waved her hand sarcastically. "Hello! Remember me? I don't want to go anywhere! I'm staying here!"

"Yeah, Earth does seem the best bet." Tony said. "How about Antarctica? We could dig down, build a new base there – no-one would find it. Or the Sahara. Australian outback, Amazon jungle, anywhere remote."

"No! No no no no NO! I am not leaving this tower!" The girl screamed, silencing the three adults. They stared at her in shock.

"Alright then, anti-Rapunzel. What do you suggest we do then? Just wait for them to come again?" Tony asked sarcastically.

"I don't know, but I'm not leaving! This is my home!"

"It's not safe here, Birdy!"

"No-where is safe! If it's not Hydra it will be something else! You can't protect me and keep me sheltered forever; I intend to learn how to kill these bastards and would appreciate some help with that."

Loki opened his mouth to reply, but was silenced as Tony waved a hand at him. Normally he wouldn't allow such behaviour, but the look on the man's face said that Stark was up to something so he complied without incident.

Father and daughter stared at each other, the girl full of righteous anger.

"Alright then, Evelyn. What do you need?"

"I…what?" It was obviously the last thing she expected to hear.

"You obviously have a plan, and it's probably a good one so; what do you need?"

"Permission to train properly and learn armed and unarmed combat and…well, yeah. That mostly."

"Just that?"

"Well…some lab space too? Down in the workshop?"

"Will you need a testing area?"

Evie nodded hopefully.

"I'll see what I can do. And as long as you do exactly what Steve and Natasha say I can't see the harm in learning some skills. Just don't overdo it, yeah? We're still going to look into this safe-house idea, but until we can think of something concrete you've got a good plan to be going on with." Tony glanced at Loki as he said this, and received a small nod that told him the trickster agreed with what he was saying. "Any chance you'll explain why you want room in the workshop?"

"Nope."

"Anything dangerous?"

"Eh, a little. Nothing Dummy and You can't sort if it catches fire."

Tony smiled slightly and tapped his daughter gently on the nose. "Blow up my cars and you are in mega trouble young lady. And this is just a short term fix until we sort out a proper solution to all of this. Deal?"

Evie grinned. "Deal." She hugged her father tightly. "Thank you!" She grinned at Loki over Tony's shoulder. "Thank you!"

"Don't thank me, I didn't appear to have any say in this." The trickster's smile made it clear that despite his words he was happy with the temporary solution. "Although I will certainly be having a say in your training."

Thor snorted with sudden laughter, drawing the attention back to him.

"What?" Loki snapped.

"You willingly wanting to train? I never thought I'd see the day!"

"Funny, Thor. Very funny."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW

Despite promises of clearing out a small area of his work-shop for Evie, Tony didn't get chance to start on it straight away as Bruce called him into the doctors personal lab. Jane was on web-cam again – this time up on the interactive whiteboard on the wall – and both looked intensely worried when Stark arrived.

"Hey, what did I miss?" He looked around at Bruce's usually immaculate lab with a frown; apparently all of the chitauri tech they had recovered yesterday had been dumped there with no semblance of order whatsoever. "Um…Do you need me to send up house-keeping?"

Banner waved a careless hand at the mess. "Oh forget that, it's nothing." Considering that he was usually neat bordering on OCD that said a lot. We've been looking through the chitauri portion of the stuff we recovered yesterday and we've found a link to that file." He waved his copy of the stream of nonsense.

"You have?!" Tony pulled up the spare swivel chair and plonked himself down next to his friend. "What?"

Bruce gestured towards the speeder – dominating the centre of the room - with his pencil. "We took a look at that thing first because, well, who wouldn't? And we found that someone had already been tampering with it."

"By 'we' he means the royal we." Jane put in quickly from her screen. "He did it all; I simply gave suggestions of which bits to poke."

"You can see where someone's drilled into the outer shell, and there are marks that look like attempts were made to run an electrical current through it." The physicist wheeled over on his office chair to tap something on the console area. "God knows why, since to turn it on you just press these buttons here." He then spun his seat round to point at a chitauri gun. "Same story there too – tampered with. And even the bits of armour look like someone's chiselled parts off."

"So? I'm curious about it all; I can't imagine someone else wouldn't have been." Tony flicked a piece of helmet with his finger.

"True, but it was only after we started taking readings did Jane notice anything odd." Bruce gave credit where credit was due. "I worked out how to turn the speeder on and Jarvis was monitoring the background radiation since there's no power source that I can make out – which is weird- and we noticed something…odd."

"That's twice you've used the word odd."

Bruce sighed. "Look." He flicked a small switch on the side of the gun and the thing whirred into life. "I mean, we need to look at these things properly, since I have no idea how this works, but the moment it's running…" He gestured at his computer that was plugged into a bank of machines.

There were various graphs logging different forms of radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum on the dual screens. There was a noticeable spike in the radio waves and ultra-violet as the weapon had been switched on but that wasn't particularly weird given that they didn't know what the thing ran on.

"See?"

"Well, it's weird that it's bouncing all over the spectrum, but it's alien tech, so I'm not quite sure why you're so surprised."

Bruce rolled his eyes and Jane gave a tut of annoyance that made Tony feel like he was being thick and he studied the screen again.

"Nope. I'm still not seeing this and now you guys are making me feel stupid."

"Look at the units, Tony. I appreciate that you are not a specialist in electromagnetic radiation, but radio waves should not do that."

Stark looked, and then stared. The wave length was oscillating between the very lowest frequency possible and then up to so high it almost wasn't classed as a radio wave. 3 Hz up to nearly 3000 GHz.

"That's…what the actual fuck? That's not physically possible!"

"As I said, we don't know what's powering it. It gets worse too."

Tony glanced at the chitauri gun again. "This thing is breaking the laws of physics and it gets worse?!"

Bruce sighed. "Jane, show him."

The woman on the screen cleared her throat and glanced down at her notes. "Well, I've got equipment set up as standard that receives and tunes into the frequencies – you know, in case ET tries to contact us – and it automatically started trying to translate this one. It took some chugging through given the discrepancies in the frequency but we managed to get a translation of sorts."

Light dawned and Tony groaned. "Let me guess…"

"Yup. The Pages of Nonsense. Official title, that." Jane held up her own copy. "It doesn't help us in any way work out what it says, but we're pretty certain that what we've got here is the closest approximation we can make to the chitauri language written down."

"So that thing, all of these things, are sending out a…a what? A message of some sort?"

Bruce and Jane exchanged an uneasy glance. "Not just any message." Banner said slowly.

"I thought you said you still couldn't translate it."

"We can't, but thinking logically, what sort of signal do you think something like this might send out? Someone starts drilling holes into it, breaking it apart and so it sends out a message."

"Oh God…" Tony pinched the bridge of his nose with a groan. "It's a distress signal. The bloody thing is calling for help!"

"Yep."

"Well, turn it off then!"

"It's a bit late for that." Bruce sighed. "The damage is done. The speeder was inert when we found it, but this," He tapped the gun with his pencil. "Was still 'on', as it were. Shield's records show that they simply archived all of this stuff, so this can only have happened in the past few months once Hydra took over."

"Radio-waves travel at light speed, right? That signal could have gone a hell of a long way in a few months."

"Even further than that." Jane looked rightfully concerned as she spoke. "Those items were brought through a wormhole by the chitauri and as such Einstein's and Minkowski's theorems leave for the possibility that the radiation given out by these things can possibly go back through the same way."

"The wormhole was closed."

"Only to solid matter, for a given definition of 'solid'. Radiation can still pass through."

Tony frowned. "So that message could be on the other side of the universe…But the chitauri are all dead."

"Are they though? Loki killed all the ones he knew about – what if there were more?"

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW

The weight of the gun was familiar in Evie's hand. She had used one before, obviously. She had full access to both a shooting range and a group of world-class weapon experts at her disposal, of course she'd used a gun before.

What was different this time was Natasha's stern presence and the constant corrections. The girl was used to coming in and simply having a mess around (supervised, of course) with the stationary targets about twenty feet away. Now she was being corrected every other shot; her stance, her angle, the attitude of her hand, when she breathed.

And Natasha had changed the targets over. The new ones moved suddenly in unexpected directions and occasionally more than one would swing down, causing confusion.

Evie was having the time of her life!

Finally the last round was fired and Natasha took the gun off of her again. The targets swung forward for inspection and although most were peppered randomly with holes, there were a handful of kill shots too.

"How did she do?"

Evie jumped, surprised to hear her mother's voice, but Natasha simply turned to address the question, evidently knowing that Loki had been there watching them.

"I've worked with worse. Her reflexes are absolutely excellent, she just can't aim."

"Well, practice will sort that out." Loki pushed away from the wall he had been leaning against. "And that's with the Glock?"

Black Widow clicked the safety back on and laid the gun down on the side. "Standard issue. I was going to cover larger fire arms in a few weeks once she's more comfortable with this."

"Just fire arms?"

"I said I'd let Steve start off on hand to hand." At Loki's look of confusion she laughed. "I'll take over and train her properly, but she's hardly in any shape to start an intensive combat program. Steve is going to help her get her conditioning up first."

"Basically I'm fat." Evie said cheerfully.

"You are not fat, and you know we never said that! You are simply not at the fitness level required." Natasha snapped.

Loki glanced back at the targets and their varied bullet holes. "If it is aim that is the problem, throwing-knives are a good way to practice, they don't waste bullets and shouldn't require someone supervising as handling a gun does." He held one of the small blades out, produced from nowhere.

Evie reached for it but was beaten to it by Black Widow.

"What metal is this?" She weighed the delicate knife in her hand.

"Not one found on Earth."

"Hmm." It was much lighter than Natasha was used to, but also seemed to hold a better edge than her own knives. When she threw it at the target it spun strangely in the air. "Well, it handles well, they could be good for her to practice with."

"So glad you approve." Loki's voice simply dripped with sarcasm as he handed the rest of the knives to his daughter. Natasha smiled sweetly at him.

Evie rolled her eyes and left them to it.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMW

There were Press outside the tower again.

Thor and Sam had taken to base-jumping off the roof and racing each other. Usually this involved having to get to the base of the tower, touch the ground and then fly quickly up to a nearby roof. Technically Thor was faster, but Sam had more control and could stop himself from actually slamming face-first into the concrete, whereas the God had left some sizable dents.

As can be imagined, the public absolutely loved this, which was the real reason behind doing it. Keeping the Avenger's public, in your face and on everyone's good side.

This time they had raced straight down, back up and down once more to land infront of the main entrance to the building. Thor had won, but not by much, and now they were walking through the crowd giving autographs. This concept was still novel to the God, even after so long on Earth, and he rather enjoyed it.

Sam was still barely known outside of New York as one of the Avengers – and was only so well-known inside the city because of his constant presence flying around the tower and peoples recollections of seeing him during the battle of the Triskelion. As it was there was a small but growing trade in little Falcon dressing up outfits and he was slowly breaking out of the mould of being a local celebrity and gaining a bit more status.

Given the situation yesterday, and the fact that three helicopters had been taken down over the tower it was all the more important that the Avengers maintained a good public image. There was also a lot of explaining to do.

'Training Exercise' covered so many things.

He was signing a magazine for a small boy dressed as Ironman (consistently the most popular, to everyone's dismay) when something made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Someone was staring at him.

In the middle of such a large horde clamouring to meet them that shouldn't have been unusual but for the briefest of moments Sam felt that something was misplaced. There was a man staring straight at him through the heaving crowd. The face was non-descript under the low pulled baseball cap, but there was something familiar about the absolute piercing gaze. The moment was fleeting, an instant before the man was sucked back into the heaving mass of people and Sam's attention was drawn back to a child with a Thor helmet begging for an autograph on said piece of head-gear.

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"I still don't get it." Rhodey looked entirely bemused at the flip-chart Bruce had set up in front of them all in the living room.

"What part of 'this thing has been sending chitauri help messages into space for the past two or three months' didn't you get?" Tony asked in exasperation. "It's not a complex concept."

"It's pretty complex!"

"Where did we lose you?" Bruce was far more understanding than his fellow scientist and pulled back a few sheets of paper on the flip-chart.

"Look, forget the science; just tell us why this is a problem. Earth has been sending messages out into space for decades and that hasn't led to any problems."

"No, just an interminable amount of Jerry Springer for those of a psychic persuasion who can pick up those radio waves." Loki muttered. He was lounging on the arm of the sofa, chin cupped in one hand as he watched the proceedings with boredom. "What is your point, Doctor?"

"Did you actually bother to listen?" Tony poked him.

"Not as such. Nothing sounds to be a threat as yet."

"Pay attention, you're worse than a bloody two year old at times."

Bruce sighed and turned back to Rhodey. "Basically – Earth's signals haven't gone very far yet; it takes a very long time to go anywhere since space is pretty damn big."

"So why's this any different?" Clearly James wasn't the only one with issues with the science since Clint picked up on the theme too. "What's so different with this chitauri signal?"

Bruce found the appropriate diagram, glanced back at his friends and shook his head with a sigh. "Maybe I'm just not saying this clearly-"

"Look, it's hardly difficult." Natasha waved her hand in the air in a dismissive gesture. "Wormhole opens, stuff comes through. Wormhole closes, radiation can still go back the way it came. And we have no way of knowing who's on the other side of said wormhole."

"Yeah, but the wormhole, the chitauri, that was twenty odd years ago and the chitauri are all dead." Rhodey argued back.

"Yes, the chitauri are dead, but that doesn't mean they were the only ones out there. Other races may be picking up that beacon." Tony explained.

"Who else is out there?" Eyes turned on Thor and Loki.

"I have no idea." The blonde God shook his head and looked at his brother who shrugged lazily. "Come Loki, you are the only one who has been there, you must know if there were others."

"I was rather focussed on the chitauri and the tesseract at the time. I wasn't there for a comparative anthropology lesson, Thor."

Tony rolled his eyes at his husband's surly reply. "Can't you think of anything? Chitauri, space eel things, The Other…nothing else?"

Loki glared at him. "Oh, goodness, of course! Your nagging has suddenly recalled the memory of an entire race I had entirely forgotten about! How about that!" He sat up straight. "There's an army of pink unikitties trying to unite the –OW!"

Thor had grown used to holding back when playfully slapping an Avenger on the back but when it came to thumping his little brother he had no qualms. Loki was thrown bodily off the side of the sofa, landing hard on the tiles.

"That was uncalled for!"

"It was entirely called for and I will do it again if you have nothing sensible to say." Thor turned back to Bruce. "So I believe the answer is no, we do not know what – if anything – may be picking up that signal. It is entirely likely there is nothing there and it is echoing around empty space."

"You really think that's likely?" Tony asked, rather hopefully if anything else.

"Space is bigger than even you can comprehend – the chances of anything still floating around in that tiny area are very small."

"Or it's full of –" Loki ducked as Thor rounded on him again. "Debris! I was going to say debris!"

Bruce was beginning to look thoroughly relieved. "So you're saying all those hours fretting in the lab over that bloody file and it's almost certainly nothing to worry about."

"Pretty much." The trickster pulled himself back onto the arm of the sofa, keeping an eye on his brother as he did so. "Although it was hardly a waste of time – none of us knew what the chitauri's language would look like translated into a Midgardian script and now we know that is what it is we may even be able to translate what it is saying."

Tony snorted with laughter. "Uh, yeah, but none of us are experts in alien linguistics. We'll attempt it at some point, but need to wait for this whole Hydra crap to blow over first."

"Fair enough."

Bruce was watching Loki with a speculating expression. "Were you able to speak the chitauri language?"

"Of course; Allspeak."

"We met some of the bastards on the rescue mission – it took me far too long to realise I could understand them." Clint chipped in. "Although it wasn't really on my mind at the time."

"What did they sound like?" Bruce looked between the two. "Anything that could explain the weird frequency readings we're getting off the chitauri gear?"

"Not really. It just sounded like English."

The scientist shrugged. "Oh well, it was a thought. Either way, did you-"

Whatever it was Bruce was going to ask was interrupted as the lights in the room suddenly flickered and for a long moment dimmed. The last time something like that had happened the chitauri themselves had come bursting in not thirty seconds late so needless to say the occupants were on their feet, weapons to hand.

"Sorry sir!"

The lights came back up to normal and Tony scowled at the ceiling. "What the hell was that, Jarvis?"

"Sorry sir. Miss Evelyn needed to re-root a power supply and pressed the wrong switch before I could stop her."

"What the fuck is Evie doing messing around with the arc reactor's power output, Jarvis?!"

"It was an accident, sir. She is fine, it's fine. Nothing to worry about, sir."

"Yeah, now I'm really worried. Is she in my lab?"

"…You did say she could have some work space down there."

Tony gaped. "Well, yeah, but I was going to clear that space out and she was meant to be supervised!"

"She is being supervised, sir. I'm here."

"Grade A job you're doing then."

"Sorry sir."

"Tell her I'm coming down." The inventor was already half-way to the door, which automatically slammed shut. "Jarvis!"

"She asked me not to let you!"

"Open the door or I'm asking Loki to just teleport us down there."

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Evie had cleared away enough that it was impossible to tell what she was working on, although there was still a substantial mess left across the bench. She had commandeered one of the lesser used worktops, and someone – most likely Jarvis –had cleared away the clutter to let her use it.

She answered Tony's annoyed questions politely, comprehensively and utterly refused to tell him what she was up to. Yes, she was sorry about the power, she hadn't meant to press that button, no she wasn't doing anything dangerous, yes Jarvis could vouch for her, no she wasn't going to spill the beans on what she was doing and by the way could she please have a rummage through the scrap metal box?

It was one of those moments where Tony had had to learn to tread carefully. His daughter was still a child, hence the supervision from Jarvis, but at the same time she was a growing teen who needed her own privacy. It would be very easy to simply order the AI to tell him what the girl was up to, but that would tell her that he didn't trust her.

And he did trust her.

Just…

In the end they compromised that she could continue on with her mystery project so long as she didn't test it without Tony or Loki with her. She also had the go ahead to pillage the scraps boxes on the proviso Jarvis okayed each material and alerted Tony if Evie desperately needed to work with something that was hazardous. Oh yes, and either Dummy or You were to operate the more dangerous pieces of machinery in the workshop.

The girl readily agreed with the terms and conditions, even if her Father still had misgivings.

"Why is our daughter growing up so fast?"

It was hours later. Tony was lying spread eagled on their bed whilst Loki sat at the desk, idly sketching on a piece of paper.

"All children grow up, it is what they do."

"Yeah, but she's doing it so fast! What happened to the little toddler who used to follow me around everywhere?"

"She's still the same person, Tony. Just a little older and a little wiser."

"She's going to be an adult before we know it!"

Loki laid his pencil down with a sigh and glanced at his husband. "Is that so bad? All children become adults in the end. And she is still only fourteen."

"Nearly fifteen now. It's July; only two months to her birthday. And then only three years to legally being an adult!"

"Yes, and even then she will not be allowed to drink alcohol." The trickster resumed his sketching. "You American's have ridiculous age-related laws. Why allow her to join the army long before you allow her to drink a glass of wine?"

Tony turned his head to glare. "Seriously? That's your problem here? I'm concerned about my baby growing up in a world of war and dishonesty and cruelty and terror and you seem more concerned about letting her get drunk."

"Well, alcohol does appear to feature largely in teenagers social rituals."

"Social rituals! That's the other thing! She's at the age for boyfriends! Or girlfriends! Or whatever!"

Loki snorted with laughter. "Her Father is Ironman and she lives with the Avengers; I believe we will probably end up scaring off any potential suitors." He turned over a sheet of paper. "And besides, girlfriends? When did that happen?"

"It hasn't, I'm just keeping an open mind. She has two dudes as parents; who knows what that will mean." Tony stared up at the ceiling again. "I've only just coped with her hitting puberty; adulthood is a bit too much for me to deal with."

"Well, puberty is difficult for anyone to deal with; the parents or the teen going through it."

Stark laughed. "Heh, yeah! Acne, growth spurts, sudden attack of hair, hormones…don't miss all of that crap! Evie was lucky she mostly escaped the acne issue. And until recently hormones haven't hit so hard. She can be a bit of a bitch at that time of the month, though."

"It isn't exactly pleasant to feel like your uterus is falling out."

"No I guess not…" Tony suddenly sat up, staring at his husband. "Wait, what?! Do you menstruate?!"

"Is that any business of yours?"

The inventor started sniggering. "Oh my God! You do! You totally do!"

"I did." Loki's pencil hit the paper with a sharp click. "I don't know if you recall, husband mine, but certain unfortunate events recently mean that I no longer have a working reproductive system. And besides," He added quickly, before Tony's horror-struck apology could be uttered. "The moment it started I found some spells to sort the problem out for me; I still cannot believe evolution could not have found a better way of dealing with it all." He rolled his eyes at the look on his husband's face. "Oh seriously, Tony, there's no need to look like the world's falling down. You didn't offend me that badly."

"But-"

"Yes, you are insensitive and thoughtless, but did I expect anything else when I got together with you? If I had wanted romance in my life I would have found someone from Vanaheim to play with."

"Vanaheim?"

"Well, Aesir are pretty insensitive and thoughtless too."

"Sorry…"

Loki smiled slightly. "No matter. I can be pretty insensitive when the situation calls." He pushed away the paper he'd been sketching on and left his chair to sit on the bed next to his husband. "And I really don't think you need to worry so much about Evelyn growing up. She's a capable young woman already and I think she will be entirely capable of kicking arse in her own right once she has some skills under her belt. Look at how well she has coped with yesterday's debacle; most people would still be in a state of shock and instead she's picked up a gun and set up a training regime."

"I guess."

"All little birds need to learn to fly, Tony. Clipping their wings won't do any good."

Tony turned his head to look up at the trickster sitting over him. "You're taking that analogy way too far."

"It is a good analogy." Loki idly ran his fingers through the man's short hair. "And a true one. You have given her all the tools she needs to succeed; now we just need to see how high she will fly."

Stark laughed quietly. "Quit it with the bird metaphors. But I see your point. I think she's going to do pretty well."

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The next few weeks passed without incident. Evie was managing to stick to her self-imposed diet and training regime, and had even managed to wake up early again. Tony didn't think the early mornings would last, but the girl's commitment to the rest of the plan was quite admirable. Natasha seemed to be enjoying spending more time with the teen as well – as she put it; Evie was finally at the age where she was becoming interesting.

After going in so heavy handed Hydra seemed to have simmered back down and for the next few weeks had apparently gone underground again. Bruce calmed down over his panic about the chitauri signal after the world didn't suddenly implode. There were no more power issues either since Jarvis did a better job of keeping an eye on Evie's lab work and things began quietened down for a while.

Could that last? Could it Hell.

It was late one evening when Thor came running in on a Starwars marathon. No one complained overtly since it was Attack of the Clones but Thor had long lost the habit of bursting in so loudly.

"Pause! Pause it!"

"Gladly." Loki waved a hand at the TV screen – he'd never got to grips with the remote and simply used magic to do what he wanted. "Whatever is the matter, Thor?"

"Yeah, this is a passably good bit." Tony added grumpily.

"I've received word from Heimdall." The blonde God ignored Stark's comment, focussing on his brother.

"Heimdall?" That actually attracted Loki's attention somewhat. "Why?"

"There have been attacks on Alfheim."

The trickster had been lounging against his husband, but sat up at that. "Attacks? Of what nature? They are not at war with anyone."

"Heimdall cannot perceive their nature, which in itself is worrying. They have already lost the main trunk of their standing army and conscription is– "

"What?!" Loki interrupted his brother with horror in his voice. "They've lost most of their army?! What by the Norns happened?"

"We don't know."

The trickster was staring at Thor in shock. "But how can that be? Their warriors are among the strongest in the realms!"

"That may be, but they were defeated. Father wants us both back to lead the might of the Aesir into Alfheim."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Tony held up his hands in the time-out position. "What the hell? Why's it Asgard's business if another realm is under threat?"

"We are the strongest of the realms, and therefore it is our duty to protect the others." Thor explained quickly. "And the Allfather needs us to lead the army in to defend Alfheim against this new threat."

"Us? I'm not going to Alfheim!"

"It's a royal command to a prince of Asgard." Thor's eyes narrowed. "You do not get a choice in this Loki; we need to help Father lead the army. We are leaving now."

Evie had been looking between the two Gods as if watching a tennis match, but her uncle's order made her snap out of it. "What?! No! Möðhy can't leave!"

"Not helping, Birdy." Tony put a restraining hand on her head as she tried to stand up. "Thor, how long does a campaign last?"

The elder God shrugged. "I cannot say, but it is imperative that we leave now; the attacks continue even now and civilians are dying."

"We could be gone for months!" Loki protested.

"Or for days." Thor cut in quickly. "With the full might of the Aesir army we may well be able to defeat this threat swiftly."

"And when has that ever been the case?!"

"Stop arguing, Loki, we are going, now." The thunder God caught hold of his brother's shoulder and pulled the trickster to his feet.

"Hey!" Of all people it was Steve who jumped to his feet, pulling Loki back from Thor's grip. "Hold the phone! You can't both just up and vanish, especially if Loki doesn't want to. He fights for Earth now; why should he leave his family for another realm?"

"It doesn't work like that." Thor looked an odd mixture between confused and angry. "You have no monarchy in this country; I would not expect you to understand. We are the crown princes of Asgard; even if we take out the fact that we are morally bound to aid the helpless, we are duty bound to obey our king."

Loki scowled, a dark and ugly look on him. "Duty bound like chains." He shook Steve's hand off and glowered at his brother. "Both you and I defend Midgard now, brother. At least one of us should remain here to continue this fight."

"We will not be gone long." Thor repeated tersely. "You have a tenuous footing in the realms right now, brother. You have already stated that you can't hide Evie on another realm because there are none that would harbour you. How do you think Alfheim will feel about you if you refuse to help them in their hour of need? If you think they are against you now then Norns know what they will do after this."

"One day I should love to meet a race that doesn't hold a realm-wide bounty for my head." Loki hissed.

"Humanity doesn't mind you so much right now." Tony piped up, and was dutifully ignored by his loving husband.

The trickster glanced at his daughter, green gaze meeting green gaze. Evie looked miserable, but nodded at him slowly. The teen might have been young, but she was old enough to know that any loss of life of any race was unacceptable. And duty was duty.

"Fine." He ground the single word out around gritted teeth.

"Loki?" Thor sounded almost too hopeful.

"Fine, I said! But do not expect anything good to come of our presence there; Alfheim has always detested Aesir presence in the past, whether we were there to help or otherwise, do not assume it will be any different this time!"

"You'll come?"

"I have no choice really, since as you put it, the Allfather has commanded it and my head is only recently off the chopping block." Loki turned to look at his husband. "We will not be so long. A week maybe?"

"Better not be more than!" Tony groused. He wrapped an arm around Evie's shoulders as she looked more and more despondent, staring at Loki in dismay.

"You're really going to leave? Just like that?"

"Only briefly, Little Bird. Duty calls." Loki tipped her chin up with a single finger, smiling gently at the irate expression on his daughter's face. "You will understand duty well enough one day, and like me you may well also come to loath it."

"I think I hate it already."

Despite her sulk, Evie allowed her mother to kiss her on the forehead before she turned and stormed off.

"Well…she's not going to talk to you for weeks." Tony sighed. He folded his arms and glared at his husband. "And if you get yourself killed in battle I want a divorce!"

Loki smiled slightly. "Fair enough."

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