Captain America, Hawkeye, and the Black Widow arrived at the door of the Avengers Tower at almost the same time as Thor and Iron Man.

"Hey guys," Tony said. "You all were late to the party. We missed you!"

Hawkeye harrumphed. "You try flying a helicopter into an insane electrical storm where even GPS doesn't seem to work correctly. We had to set down a mile away."

"The Capsicle can run a mile in like three minutes. What's his excuse?"

"I was in DC until you called," Captain Rogers explained mildly.

..."Fair," Tony agreed, shrugging. He opened the door to his tower and waived everybody into the building. "Just a reminder, there's a former supervillain in the lobby. Don't freak out," he said, slapping Clint on the shoulder.

"Thanks. I remember," Clint answered sarcastically.

Thor elbowed his way to the front and jogged into the building. "Loki!" he called.

Loki looked up. He and Jane had at some point graduated from the thinly padded pseudo-bench to the swivel chairs behind the desk. They were both clearly on the mend, even after such a short time. "Oh, good. You're back. Did you get the Time Stone?"

"Ah... no."

"No?" He turned to Jane. "Real or not real?"

"Uh, real?"

"Be certain."

"Real."

"It's me, Loki," Thor said worriedly.

Loki shrugged. "This is the first time you've failed so utterly at anything since I became damaged. It seemed prudent to double check."

Thor winced.

"Oohh, burn," Tony said from behind. "To be fair, it wasn't a total misfire. We were waylaid by the Dark Elf things that were after you all back home, and we beat them. Thor says Asgard can totally handle any stragglers that didn't come with the main group. Rudolf, Dr. Foster, meet the team. Most of us are here, except Dr. Banner, our Hulk. He couldn't make it. I think he's living off the grid or something. Team, meet Rudolf and Dr. Foster. Everybody play nice."

"Call me Jane," Jane said vaguely, waving briefly before slouching back over a computer, taking a sip of what appeared to be very hot coffee, and stifling a yawn.

"Who is Rudolf?" Loki asked suspiciously.

"You are."

"Really. Why? I don't recall ever going by that name."

"Because of your hat. It's a nickname. Don't question it. It's no good if I have to explain it." Tony walked over to Loki and grabbed the back of his chair, casually rolling him away from the desk and spinning him around to face everyone. He pointed to each of the Avengers in turn. "That's Clint, better known as Hawkeye. He's our archer, which is even cooler than it sounds. He might hate you, fair warning, but it's not, er, personal. That's Nat, better known as the Black Widow. She's our Russian defector, formerly an assassin, now just a badass ninja woman with a lot of guns." Loki raised his eyebrows. "And last but not least, the super soldier Steve Rogers, Captain America himself!" Tony made an odd trumpeting noise, to Steve's clear annoyance.

"It's good to meet you officially, Prince Loki," Steve began politely, stepping forward to offer his hand.

"I know you. You're the one with the cloudberry cake," Loki interrupted, watching Steve's fingers but making no move to accept the handshake. He probably didn't know what to do with it.

"Uhh... what?"

"Hey, I remember something about that..." Thor said, eyes widening. "Steve is the one you thought you saw bringing you cake?"

"Yes, I remember his colorful costume. And the hair. And the earnestness."

"Loki, the only time you ever met him before in the real world was when you were first injured. I thought you didn't remember any of that?!"

"I didn't either, but if you say so, I guess I do. Remember something. Thank you for the cake, Captain."

"No! He didn't bring you cake last time!"

"Are you sure?"

"I have never given you cake," Steve broke in with a tone of bewilderment.

"...Okay." And that was that.

"So..." Steve said after a moment, turning back to the sane Asgardian. "What's our mission again? Tony wasn't terribly clear."

"I was so!"

"You said we needed to help Thor find a bunch of space rocks that only he and Loki could find."

"Well, yes... Look, it's complicated, and we were busy."

Steve raised his hands. "I know. That's why I want a real debriefing now."

Thor nodded. "What Tony told you is correct, in a nutshell. We seek the six Infinity Gems, powerful artifacts dating back to the Creation War. They were deliberately scattered across the universe long ago to prevent abuse of their combined powers, however we fear the unknown warlord who possessed my brother's mind and sent him here a year ago is now collecting them. The Tesseract and the stone that was on Loki's scepter are two of them you see. There was another stone we sensed here in the city but failed to retrieve due to the attack."

"If you've already beaten the aliens, why do you still need to collect the stones?" Clint asked.

"There's multiple parties happening," Tony said.

"Indeed. I believe only one of our attackers was after the stones, and presumably it was his compatriot who murdered the keeper of the Time Stone while we were fighting. I'm guessing both work for the mystery warlord of the Chitauri. The other aliens today were Dark Elves, ancient enemies of Asgard with an entirely different agenda which is now, thankfully, thwarted. They followed us here through the Convergence."

"The what?" Natasha asked.

"Some kind of weird astrophysics thing that's basically opening up a bunch of temporary connections between different planets," Tony said. "Woulda been nice to know about that sooner. I mean, can you imagine if some portal thing shows up on I-90 and a ton of commuters cause a pileup on Asgard or something?"

"While that is technically possible during the Convergence, it's not going to happen, at least not today," Jane broke in.

"Oh, good. Why not?"

She gestured at her computer screen. "None of the anomalies I've detected so far are anywhere near major highways. Most are in or over the ocean or otherwise in the middle of nowhere. For the handful in populated areas I have already taken the liberty to notify the US government and UN via my contacts at NASA, so it should be pretty straightforward to keep people away from them for a few days until they close up again." She grinned tiredly at Tony's pained expression. "Once I showed Loki the basics of HAL/S and C and found him a couple programming manuals online for reference, it didn't take us long to reconfigure Stark's satellites to detect the EM signature of the anomalies. They might be gravitational in nature, but they sure as hell distort local electromagnetic frequencies, among other things." she explained.

Tony groaned. "Ugh, don't remind me. Like I told Thor, you and Loki are a bad combination. It's not that I don't appreciate your efforts to save the world and all that, but did you have to break all my toys to do it? You're going to set all my other research projects behind by months."

Loki rolled his eyes. "There's nothing wrong with your satellites that can't be fixed with a little reprogramming a few days from now. I can do it if you don't want to. You'll miss barely any data collection."

"Hell no! You don't even know which way is up. I put you to work, and who knows what will happen? All my equipment will be stuck trying to analyze whether daisies are real or something equally absurd."

Loki shrugged, entirely unconcerned at the accusation.

"Right. Sounds like the Convergence problem, such as it is, is also taken care of for the moment. Moving on, what do we do now?" Steve asked, once again looking to Thor.

"Track down the other stones," Thor said instantly.

"Okay. How? How do we detect them?"

"Not with my satellites," Tony grumbled.

"Take me to an anomaly," Loki suggested. Everyone looked at him.

"Why?" Jane asked.

Loki smiled. "The thaumaturgic resonance of an Infinity Stone is unmistakable once you know what to look for. I felt the Time Stone disappear suddenly, yet Thor is not concealing it. Therefore it must be in the hands of another powerful magician or taken off world via the Convergence. If I am near an anomaly, any anomaly, I can listen for the stones wherever they are across the galaxy. They are all access points to the Veins of Yggdrasil. If the other Stones are anywhere near another anomaly, and they are unshielded from magical detection, I should be able to detect them."

"You can hear across the universe, but only if we move you a few miles to the nearest galactic portal?" Clint asked skeptically. "If you're that good, why not just listen from here?"

Loki shook his head. "The vector of the jet is parallel to the axis of the anomaly, not radial. I won't be able to listen to the stream until I'm almost on top of it or even in it."

Clint shut his mouth.

"That sounds dangerous," Thor said.

"Not really, if you're there," Loki countered. "You can pull me back if I get sucked in, or even use the Tesseract to pull us both out." Thor reluctantly nodded.

"Fine, how can we help?" Steve asked.

"Watch our backs. We don't know who our enemy is," Thor said.

"And that's the thing," Natasha said. She was studying Loki. "Maybe we should look into that first. He remembers more than you or he thought. He might remember who his master was after all."

Loki furrowed his brow thoughtfully, then looked at Thor.

Thor smiled thinly. "He might, it's true, even though he hasn't been able to recall anything like that so far when asked. But I fear I have yet to find a way to help him accurately retrieve a memory that doesn't readily present itself, and I'm not even talking about memories from his time in the Void and after. Half the time what he thinks he's remembering was a daydream, or vice-versa."

"He remembered Steve," Natasha countered.

"But not anyone else. Right Loki?"

"I can't be sure. I know what they all look like now. Who is to say if I knew their appearances yesterday?"

Clint snorted. "That's not suspicious at all."

"It's really not," Jane told him. "He remembered me too, sort of, but he couldn't distinguish the actual circumstances of our first not-so-friendly encounter from what he had heard or imagined about me. It's no use interrogating him about what he does or doesn't remember about any of you by now. He literally just accepts whatever Thor tells him as the truth." She looked at Loki with a strained smile. "It's all kind of sad, if you don't mind me saying so, Loki."

He cocked his head to the side. "I appreciate your sympathy," he said hesitantly, quickly glancing back up at Thor as if for approval. He grinned. "I think it bothers you more than it bothers me, most of the time. For what it's worth, I think I knew your faces before being stabbed in the gut a few hours ago. The sensation is proving a remarkably firm memory milestone."

"So you do remember something," Nat said, while everyone else winced. "Maybe you can't tell us the specifics, but there must be a way to get a better idea of what we're facing."

Loki shrugged. "I'm always open to suggestions when it comes to improving my mental function, though I can't guarantee I'll follow them. Time is wasting, though. We might want to look for the stones now, and probe my mind later. If we don't, the problem will be moot. Our enemy will have what they desire and soon seek us out to claim the stones we have."

"Why don't we do both then?" Steve asked. "You might be better than Thor at, er, listening for the stones, but I gather Thor can hear them too, when he puts his mind to it. Nat, why don't you talk with Loki for a bit and see if you can figure out a way to jog his memory. The rest of us will scout out the anomaly Thor and Tony found in the city, and if Thor decides he can't do this without Loki, we'll call you over."

Loki turned to face the assassin again, studying her closely. He grinned. "I wonder why any of you think to do more for my insanity in a matter of minutes than Asgard's chief healer has in months, but far be it from me to oppose you, if Thor agrees."

Thor grimaced. "It's worth a try. Lady Natasha's tactics are less conventional than Lady Eir's. Don't get distracted and forget to finish healing, though. I'll probably be calling upon you sooner rather than later. And Nat, try not to upset or excite him too much."

"Why? Is he dangerous?" Clint asked.

"Not intentionally," Thor said cryptically.

"I'll stay with him, Thor," Jane said.

"Are you sure? You should rest. Carrying the Aether within you for half a day..."

"I'm still mapping anomalies anyways. Besides, I'm not the one who got stabbed or the one who's been fighting ridiculously over-powered mercenaries on and off for the past few hours. At this point, I'm mostly tired because it's almost 10pm back in England, which is where I was before the Convergence brought me to Asgard. It's just jetlag. I'll be fine."

Thor laughed gently. "Then I thank you. Loki, listen to Jane while I'm gone."

Loki nodded agreeably.

Author's note: this is mostly just a transitional interlude with banter, but here's a few notes nonetheless: HAL/S and C are computer programming languages that per light googling are somewhat frequently used in astronomy programs/for satellites. Jane and Loki are both brilliant and between them were able to not only access Tony's satellite control programs but override and reprogram them to search for spacetime anomalies (in a shockingly short amount of time). This was one of the things that bothered me about The Dark World: the major governments really should have noticed the Convergence before random media randos did, and if they didn't, it should have caused a lot more chaos. Much tidier for Jane to actually tell various space agencies what's happening than just run around doing things locally when this is a planet-wide event...