AN: I needed to add a character and changed my starting place to flesh White Tiger plotline out. Chapter 1 - is now a table of contents that will give you insight into characters, movies included, TIMELINE, and direction of this story. Rewriting the MCU is delightfully complicated :D
P.s. -)*(- change between scene, -)o(- change of character and possibly scene.
WARNING: I have lived in Jersey, Chicago, Boston, and frequented New York City, swearing is an art form, darlings. In a country where eleven year olds can get cussed out by strangers for baseball hats, I can't bring myself to sensor a story that takes place in NYC.
Mischief Far From Managed
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At some point we all have to choose between what the world wants you to be and who you are. I made my choice. I'm done running.
-Natasha Romanoff About to Slay Some Dudes
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Guilty of being the God of Mischief? Yes. Guilty of finding all this incredibly tedious? Yes. Guilty of a crime against the Sacred Timeline? Absolutely not, you have the wrong person.
-Loki Odison Being the God of Snark
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I just like coming here to sketch people in crisis.
-Michelle Jones, Voluntarily Attending Detention
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Helped this old lady and she bought me a churro. So that was nice.
-Peter Parker to Happy's Voicemail
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There's no need to call me 'sir,' Professor.
-Harry Potter After Six Years of Being Snape's Student
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I read the Hobbit... In 1937... When it first came out.
-Bucky Barnes, Knowing Exactly Who Gandalf Is
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That is America's ass.
-Steve Rodger on the Subject of Captain America's Ass
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Chapter 1 - Bargains Broken and Kept
Year 2012 Midgard-1119
New York, NY
Loki was pacing in his circular cell, trying to remember something he had forgotten. He knew his plan, knew it would work, knew there was no power on Midgard that could stop him.
And yet…
And yet.
He couldn't remember, he stilled, smiling, "Hm. There's not many people that can sneak up on me."
The woman, the pilot, stood outside his cage. Everything about her was weaponized, her beauty, her body, her mind, and the many, many weapons stashed on her tight black jumper. She was oddly familiar…
Agent Natasha Romanoff spoke before he could follow the thought, his mind oddly foggy.
"But you figured I'd come."
He huffed a laugh, "After. After whatever tortures Fury can concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate."
He saw her take a stance, lying with her body, both of them playing a game, "I wanna know what you've done to Agent Barton."
Loki spoke on autopilot, letting his magic permeate the space around them, "I'd say I've expanded his mind."
"And once you've won. Once you're king of the mountain. What happens to his mind?"
He opened his mouth to answer but he frowned, staring at her.
She was magical, a born magical being.
Yet her being was absent of magic.
He squinted at her, did he know her?
He saw her expression change at his silence and he spoke before she could read too much into it, "Is this love, Agent Romanoff?"
Who showed you this power? Thor had asked him.
It bothered Loki greatly that he couldn't remember the face of the being he had bargained with.
Loki always remembered his bargains.
"Love is for children. I owe him a debt," Natasha was saying.
Loki fought not to roll his eyes at that trite line. He took a seat, digging into his own mind. He knew this woman, he should know her. "Tell me," he invited.
But he didn't listen, as it clicked that she must have been someone else he made a bargain with. But not face to face, he recognized her because she was a part of his magic. She was a magical being, someone who had immense power, but who had given it all up for-
He couldn't remember what for. He couldn't even remember the exact bargain, though he had vague recollection of an ancient ritual, his name being invoked in blood, calling upon his powers and being through time and space.
From across universes.
Again, he spoke, more on autopilot than in engagement, "And what will you do if I vow to spare him," as he tried to unsolved this riddle. This riddle that shouldn't have been a riddle because he never forgot a bargain.
He was the Trickster God, the God of Mischief, his word was, honestly worth very little, as little as his vows, but his bargains?
Bargains were different, bargains made up the fabric of his powers of his being. Thor made light of his status as a mage, but Loki knew that the magic he learned was more than something external to himself.
No, his magic belonged to the wild making of the world, his death would mean little, his magic was eternal, there would always be a Trickster God, bargains upon his name, his magic, his being would continue long after Asgard was no more than star dust.
Loki narrowed his attention on the woman before him, a woman who had once bargained with him and had spent an incredible price; of her own magic.
"Your world in the balance, and you bargain for one man?"
Or one child.
The fog in his mind receded some, "Regimes fall everyday. I tend not to weep over that, I'm Russian, or I was."
Loki stilled, "Liar."
She raised a brow at him, "I assure you; I was Russian."
Loki stalked closer to the glass, "Not originally. You're not even from this universe or-" he looked into her, peered at the tendrils, the remnants of magic, "your mind isn't."
Universes were strange things. In one universe, this woman had been born in Russia, become a super soldier, an assassin, a spy, and in another, she had been born a witch.
What was her name?
Who controls the would-be-king?
Loki's breath left him as if he had been punched, and he sighed out the name, "Lily Potter."
But it wasn't the witch who had traded her life, magic, and soul for her son, with the recall price of her son's soul, magic, and being, no, it was a purple giant Loki was thinking of.
A bargained betrayed.
Not twisted but straight up broken. Loki had never wanted to take over Midgard, this planet was notoriously self-destructive and messy, it didn't need a chaos god to make it -what it already was. No, Loki wanted respect from his Asgardian family, he wanted to cause chaos of his own, but he did not want to bend knee to anyone.
Not his adoptive father, Odin.
Not Thanos who had taken Loki's mind and tried to make him into a servant.
Loki's temper burned that he had nearly succeeded.
Nearly.
Loki smiled at Natasha Romanoff who in another life, another universe, had been Lily Potter; Thanos would regret crossing Loki Odinson, God of Mischief.
Natasha, once Lily Potter, was gaping at him, "How do you-"
"Did you not call my name in your little ritual? Was it not my powers that brought you to this life?" Loki asked, his mind spinning on options on how to derail what was about to happen.
Should he just tell her?
Thor would probably let him out if he asked nicely.
Natasha shook her head, "Did it work? Is Harry alive?"
Loki grinned, "My Lady, I never disappoint within my bargains."
He could hear the little voice in her ear asking their agent what she thought she was doing.
"Is my son alive?" Natasha asked, voice low.
Loki nodded, "He is, but remember, just as you are now, if he dies by the same means of magic that you did, that you used to seal the ritual, he becomes my son."
She bared her teeth, "The Dark Lord is dead, that was also a part of our bargain."
He laughed, "No, actually it wasn't. The deal was to shield him against that one spell. One spell to draw your life and the same spell to rebound off your son. There is no way to know if that killed your murderer. My knowledge of that universe only extends to that yet unfinished bargain."
"My son is alive," she stated but with a lilt of question in her voice, "He survived the Killing Curse."
"Yes, he is and yes, he did," Loki told her, "I know this because there are exactly two out comes to your son's death. Either he dies by some other means, whether it be as mundane as a knife or old age, and the bargain dissolves, which will result in your immediate death. Or, he is again struck by the 'Killing Curse' and your son becomes mine, reformed in this world by my magic and the magic you sundered from your heart."
"How do I know you aren't holding Harry hostage somewhere?" she asked with the fiery heart of a mother.
"Oh, I promise you, with such a mage under my lineage, he would be at my side now."
"How do I know you aren't lying to me?" she asked.
He held up his hand, summoning the light of Lily Potter's core magic in his hand. It glowed white like the centre of a star. Her core magic with his creation magic would allow her son, their son, to cross universes and exist fully in this world, magic, body, and soul.
Such was the nature of his magic, of fate, and death, that Loki had little doubts this bargain would come into fruition.
Speaking of which, there were other bargains, bargains broken that needed retribution.
"Agent Barton is on his way to us and will blow your engines. The goal was to enrage Doctor Banner into becoming -a problem. In the ensuing chaos, I was to get the scepter and then have transport back to the tower in New York City with its own energy source."
She blinked at him, "How were you getting out of the cell?"
He smiled, releasing the illusion of himself in the cell, Loki opened his eyes to watch the chaos unfold.
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"Lily Potter?" Fury demanded as they walked into the room with the other Avengers sans Clint.
"Forget about it," she said through gritted teeth.
"Forget about it?" Fury repeated. "You just inferred that you made not only a bargain with an alien power, but performed some sort of ritual that saved your son from a curse."
This statement garnered everyone's attention.
"Mama Natasha?" Tony asked.
God save her, her life as Lily Potter had ended, only to wake in another life, memories hazy with a severe looking woman telling her that surgery to remove her ovaries had been successful and that she was ready for field work.
Field work ended up being causing a lot of death and discovering just how good she was at it. She buried her head in that, in a purpose given to her and at the satisfaction of being one of the most dangerous women in the world, only for Clint to remind her of humanity.
That she could be more, that she had been more than a weapon once.
"Loki is free, Barton is going to blow our engines in hopes of setting Banner off to reclaim the scepter."
There were no more smart remarks about her alternate-universe son nor her deal with a devil, who turned out to be an alien god of mischief from another universe.
Her husband, James Potter had been right about the dangers of using a ritual from an old book she had swiped from Sev's collection of Dark Art books, but she didn't care:
Her son was alive, and she had bought him two shots of surviving, whether Harry lived a full life in their original universe, or like her, was given a second chance in this world, she was at peace with her decision.
Even if the world blew out around her, even if Loki was responsible for a thousand deaths, she knew in her soul that he was not her enemy.
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Loki gritted his teeth as Thor guffawed, "You fell under mind control, Brother?"
One of the long flying creatures, leviathans, and the Chitauri soldiers inhabiting its plates into cows.
"We need to get to the tower," Loki hissed, that bit of magic costing him some.
Some mortal asshole, instead of running and screaming, shouted at Loki, "Hey, dipshit! This ain't India!"
For that comment, Loki went out of his way to turn the next leviathan he crossed paths with into snakes.
"Fuck you!" he heard the man shout, followed but mowing and screaming.
Thor shook his head, pinwheeling his hammer, he grabbed Loki around the waist and they were pulled through the sky toward the Stark Tower.
Shaking off his discomfort at being carried around, Loki took stock of the situation.
The Chitauri general who had handed Loki the scepter and now had it back, much to Loki's annoyance.
Even now, his memories were foggy of Thanos. But in a vague outline of events, he remembered that there was another infinity stone somewhere on Midgard. A stone that by starting a planetary war, Thanos hoped to antagonize out of hiding.
Before he could do more though, the Chitauri general pointed the scepter at them.
But shields were one of Loki's specialties, and even the scepter couldn't break his shield, at least not wielded by this lackey.
Thor raised his hammer and called lightning to the platform, striking both the Chitauri metal staff and hitting the machine that was holding open another portal for the Chitauri.
The Chitauri went down and the portal began to close and what followed was an example of why Midgard required zero intervention to inevitably lead to chaos and self destruction.
Loki watched in mild amusement as their military launched a city destroying missile that would destroy all life in the area, grabbed by a single man in a metal suit toward the closing portal.
"Put me down!" Loki exclaimed as his brother again picked him up to go see the falling man in his metal suit.
Captain America gave Loki a brief look of tempered down amusement as Loki brushed himself off after Thor set him back on his feet.
If the man hadn't been his brother's friend he would have turned him into a frog.
There was a sombre feeling, permeating the shambled street.
"Oh, no, another dead human," Loki muttered under his breath.
Thor glared at him.
Loki smirked, he had helped, but he didn't really care.
Banner roared, causing Iron Man to take a breath.
The humans began bantering and Loki asked his brother, "What happened to the scepter?"
Thor turned wide blue eyes to him.
"Idiot," Loki groused, then tried stepping back only to be picked up, yet again, "THOR!"
Loki was honestly too tired from the feats of magic he had pulled during the battle to have the motivation to avoid his brother's antics.
He had time to wonder if the humans would consider him a villain or a hero in the end. Hopefully, they wouldn't count him as one of the self proclaimed 'Avengers'.
When they landed, he knew they needed to be the ones to get the Tesseract back. Yet digging through rubble below the Stark Tower felt beneath him, only it was the Tesseract, it was an infinity stone.
"We worked wonderfully together, brother! Midgard will never forget us," Thor said cheerfully, flipping a sledge of road.
Loki said nothing, he was ready to go home.
In the end, Thor got bored before they found it, wandering off with his new friends. Loki, however, kept looking with the human agents through the night.
Exhausted, Loki finally did happen across the damnable thing under a curled piece of metal that had successfully hidden the now revealed yellow glow of the stone.
He really should have seen what happened next, he must have been more tired than he thought, because an agent behind him used the blunt end of his rifle against the back of his head.
At least the blackness offered some promise of rest.
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Soldat, that's what they called him. Well, they also called him the Asset, but within the limited shelter of his own mind. He saw himself as Soldat.
He was a Winter Soldier.
There were others.
Sometimes he dreamed of a woman whose eyes faltered between emerald and jade depending on the light. On the gleam of her crimson hair.
Asset Natasha Romanoff.
They had trained her to use her beauty as a tool, her body a disguise, just as he taught him that his body was not his, that form he inhabited was nothing more than a weapon.
Impervious to pain or need, meant to invoke fear.
It's why his uniform included a face mask, not truly to hide his identity. There just weren't that many people with metal arms after all, but to inspire fear.
Of course, there were things they can train him to not react to, but need? No amount of torture could erase it. It's why he remembered Romanoff when he couldn't even remember his own name.
Not that any of that mattered, he was a soldier.
His purpose was clear.
His current mission? Escorting an alien back to a Russian safe house, by which they meant a secure prison.
The alien looked very human, but Soldat had been told to keep his attention on the alien, so he did.
Eventually, the black haired alien roused, his blue eyes taking in the space in an amused surveillance. He didn't seem bothered to have his hands bound, or to be travelling in a plane to an unknown destination.
"So, this is Hydra," the alien remarked, looking at Soldat and the other agents. He closed his eyes briefly, "It seems you're wiser than Shield to know not to transport me with the Tesseract."
No one answered him, but the creature's smile grew larger nonetheless, "I wonder what you think you will do with me?"
Still, no one answered him.
The creature seemed to pout at them. Meeting Soldat's eyes, the only one on their side that had their eyes visible, "Tell me, soldier, do they pay you well enough to tango with the God of Mischief?"
Soldat blinked, that statement was almost funny.
He wasn't getting paid.
And the God of Mischief?
There were no gods.
The creature leaned forward, "My name is Loki Odinson, who are you?"
Soldat didn't answer, although, he sort of wanted to. There was a theatre to the way this 'Loki' spoke and moved, and Soldat could see the cleverness in his eyes. He was interesting.
This creature wouldn't go down with a bullet or knife, he wasn't something that would die as everything and everyone around him always did.
Soldat thought that perhaps it was also a nice change to be addressed as a person rather than an object.
"Stop talking," a man to Soldat's left said in accented English.
"~Fascinating that you think you can dictate to me,~" Loki said in flawless Russian.
Soldat felt something like contentment settle in his centre, a repreive from the boredom, how unexpected.
Loki caught his gaze again and asked, also in Russian, "~Where are you from?~"
Soldat didn't know but it's not as if he would have answered anyway.
Loki's gaze narrowed on him, "~Can you not answer me?~"
Can and will are different? He thought, but did not say, because he could speak but he wasn't allowed.
Something flickered on Loki's face, something like understanding as if he had heard Soldat's silent response.
Loki's smile faltered for the first time and he asked far too perceptively, "~Is your mind your own?~"
"~Silence,~" the agent to Soldat's right said.
"~Why?~" Loki asked.
"~Because you are our prisoner,~" the agent responded.
"~Really?-" Loki turned up his cuffed hands.
Only they were no longer cuffed, there was instead a snake coiled comfortably around his wrists.
Soldat didn't need to know what type of snake it was to know it was poisonous.
Winter Soldiers did not laugh.
Soldat did not laugh.
Soldat was immune to most poisons.
His fellow Hydra agents, however, were not immune to poison and were not prepared to have a venomous snake thrown at them.
They panicked.
"~Shoot it! Shoot it!~"
It was a small plane, shooting holes in it would be unwise.
Soldat didn't have time to worry about the foolish agents as their prisoner, his mission, blew a rather large hole in the back of the plane with a blast sparkling golden light.
The mission jumped.
Soldat jumped.
The mission who called himself Loki called out to the sky, "Heimdall!"
And then Soldat was eaten by a rainbow.
This didn't stop him from getting his hands around Loki's neck.
They landed on brass, no, golden steps. He didn't know how they got here, what magic this was but he stayed true to his mission, burying down on the creature's neck.
Loki gasped but didn't fight, not truely, he reached a hand up, and Soldat prepared to jerk away for the alien clawing at his eye.
But instead, Loki merely touched two fingers gently to his temple.
The world stopped, his mind…
Sergeant Bucky Barnes threw himself back, "What-? What did you do?"
Soldat- no-Bucky shut his eyes as the world seemed to spin around him.
"I was under mind control too, recently," Loki said, Bucky opened his eyes to see him rubbing his neck as he got to his feet, "I didn't like it much."
Bucky looked up at him and managed to say, "Bucky."
"What?" Loki asked, cocking his head. A giant dome of some kind was spinning behind him.
"You asked who I am. My name is Sergeant Bucky Barnes," he said, shoving aside the well of memories threatening to drown him.
Loki flashed him a smile, holding a hand out to him, "Welcome to Asgard Sergeant Barnes."
Bucky took that proffered hand and found himself in a world that he could never have dreamed or imagined.
Chapter 2 - Rebirth
Year 1995 Potterverse-5555
Little Hangleton Graveyard
'"You won't?" said Voldemort quietly, and the Death Eaters were not laughing now. "You won't say no? Harry, obedience is a virtue I need to teach you before you die... Perhaps another little dose of pain?"'
Harry thought he was ready, thought he could leap out of the way, his muscles taut. But he caught sight of Cedric and…
For a moment, he thought he deserved it, whatever Voldemort did to him, he would deserve it. Harry looked up to meet Voldemort's gaze and didn't run.
The Torture Curse hit him and he screamed, but he didn't lose hold of his wand.
Once more, Voldemort retracted his spell, "Had enough, Harry? Imperio!"
Bow to death, Harry Potter.
It was a command and Harry smiled, despite the pain, despite knowing what he was going to do, despite knowing what it would lead to.
Cedric Diggory was dead because of Harry.
His parents were dead because of Harry.
And Harry was going to die tonight.
But Harry understood death, and unlike the Dark Lord, he wasn't afraid of it.
Harry looked up at Voldemort, red eyes to green, and said, "I will not bow to death, Tom, I will embrace it. Even in death, I will remain undefeated, because I was true to myself. You, however, have already been defeated by your own fear. In the end, you will cower before death, and it will have no mercy on you."
"Brave words, Potter, but nothing can save you now."
"Why should I need saving when you are sending me home?"
Harry Potter died with a smile upon his face.
Summer of 1995 Potterverse-5555, Private Drive, Surry
Voldemort Didn't Get Up Because Harry Didn't Get Up, Horcruxes are These People's Problems ;)
The Triwizard Tournament ended in turmoil; two Hogwarts Champions, two victors, and two coffins.
Cedric Diggory and Harry Potter had a joint funeral to the grief of Hogwarts, to the grief of greater Wizarding Britain.
Funny how they had all been sorry and worried about Potter in the tournament, the boy had handled the dragon just fine, but there were of course greater dangers. Lucius had said that the Dark Lord had fallen with Harry Potter, the Killing Curse rebounding just as it must have all those years ago.
The other Death Eaters had, in their fear, killed Nagini and paralyzed Pettigrew upon leaving the graveyard. Pettigrew had been tried with the full extent of the law in a brutal public hearing where the whole truth had come out. He had justly earned himself the Dementor's kiss after Black's name had been cleared. Not that it had mattered, Harry's godfather looked like the walking dead.
Severus, too, felt empty, having failed Lily. He took it upon himself to deliver the news to Petunia. Standing on the stoop, Severus wondered at this cruel reality that it had somehow landed on a child to save the world, again.
Petunia answered the door with a snarl, "What are you doing here?"
"May I come in, Mrs. Dursley?" he asked, not rising to the tone.
"You can leave," she said snidely, "the boy isn't here, if he has run away."
"He's dead, Petunia," Severus stated.
She looked momentarily stunned, then her face twisted into a vile expression and she spat, "Good riddance."
Severus's anger woke, like a pine in a forest fire catching light, and he pushed the door open, wand raised as he stepped inside, "What did you just say?"
Petunia cowered from him and a walrus man came out into the hall followed by a human ball of fat with a child's face. The man demanded, "What's all this about!? Freak! Get out of our-"
Severus had an awful suspicion just then, "Where is the boy's room?"
Mr. Dursley's face turned puce and he began shouting vulgarities, but Severus saw him glance up the stairs.
Severus didn't wait for permission. The first door was the master bedroom, the one beside it a rather large guest room, and the one after that was a boy's room, stuffed to the brim with toys, and dirty mess of clothing and sweet wrappers covering the floor, exactly how he had always pictured Potter's home.
But the lettering on the wall did not say Harry, it read Dudley.
Severus hesitated as he came to the last bedroom before slowly opening the door. That it had a food slot and locks on the outside as if these middle-class muggles thought they were housing a vicious zoo animal of some sort. The room inside, however, was nothing special, the only real notable thing were the bars on the outside of the windows. Severus walked in to get a better look; the paint was peeling, the carpeting was clearly older than in the rest of the house, and the room had the smell and the layer of dust that proclaimed that the room had been sealed for months.
There wasn't a single picture on the wall, not a single decoration. Just a pile of books on a desk that looked like a muggle curriculum of textbooks and selected reading, all new and hardly used. If they had been read, they hadn't been carried back and forth between school and home.
If you could call this a home.
Severus checked the dresser and found no clothes, just an old stack of parchment in the bottom draw, and when he pulled them out, he discovered they were just old Potions essays, left behind as if they were the only thing Potter hadn't cared about getting destroyed.
Severus sat down on the made bed, and winced at the puff of dust that came up, the rough blanket, and the lumpy mattress. On that horrible bed, in that horrible room, in that horrible house that reflected Severus's childhood all too strongly, he reread the essays that had passed under his hands once before. The handwriting was dreadful, getting worse and splotchy the further down the pile he got. The summer essays were- not worth remarking upon, and Severus's own comments were perhaps harsher than absolutely necessary.
Severus froze, however, when he got to the last page and read the words that had been so dutifully transcribed by a small hand four years ago;
I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death -
Severus closed his eyes then, his mistakes, his judgements, his assumptions, falling back on him in a landslide of remorse.
Harry Potter, for all the trouble he had attracted and jumped headlong into, had been a good kid who dealt a hard hand and would have grown up to be a great man.
If he had been allowed to live that long.
Year 2016 Midgard-1119
Queens, NY
Bucky had agreed to move back to Earth with Loki for a 'holiday.' He was not, however, prepared for the sight that greeted him when he came back to their apartment in Queens with Pizza.
On the couch, Loki sat smiling fondly down at a boy who was dressed in grass stained and bloody clothes. Like Loki, the boy had black hair and pale skin.
Overly pale skin.
"Loki, what have you done?"
"This is my son Harri Lokison. Though I suspect he will prefer Harry Potter for some time now."
"You kidnapped a child?" Bucky asked, after four years of being the God of Mischief's roommate on Asgard, he should be used to insanity of him.
But Loki had a habit of out doing himself.
"Don't be silly, I bargained for him. His mother made a blood deal with me."
"A human woman?" Bucky asked suspiciously.
"Yes, but she was a witch from a different universe."
Bucky didn't want to know, but he still had to ask, "Is the boy human?"
"Half-human," Loki said cheerfully, "Half his mother, born of her Midgard magic, and half-mine, born of Aesir magic. Human and frost giant."
"Right, so does this mean you are kicking me out? I certainly don't know how to raise a witch, an Asgardian, or a frost giant."
But Loki shook his head, "He grew up on Midgard, therefore he will be mostly human. I don't know how to take care of him, humans are-"
"Don't say it."
Loki flashed him a grin of victory like he already knew he had won the argument, "Though I will be the one to help him with his school homework and his magical studies."
Bucky blinked, his mind was healed, but still, he was no longer a normal man, "You want me to help raise a teenager?"
Loki grinned, "I want you to help me keep him alive."
Bucky sighed, "Fine, he can't possibly be worse than you or Steve."
James Bachanan Barnes would come to regret those words.
AN: Thoughts, ideas, flying squirrels, or feedback, pretty please?