Stephen Strange cringed as Iron Man smashed the front bumper of a taxi into the dark, horned woman. She did not fall. Only stumbled three steps before charging Stark again.

But that wasn't Strange's main concern. First, Bruce Banner hit the Bleecker Street staircase like a meteor. Then Stephen had to stomach meeting Tony Stark face to face. And then the woman and her saggy-skinned companion appeared out of the dead of space and stepped into Washington Square Park.

And now this. A ringing in his mind from the other side of the planet.

"Wong, we have a problem."

The portly man glanced over, breathing heavy, his eyebrows drawing together into a single dark caterpillar. "Yes, I noticed."

"No," Strange said, throwing two, sparking shields toward the wrinkled wizard hovering above them. "A new problem. Of the evil Asgardian kind. Loki-"

A twisted block of concrete detached itself from the sidewalk and flew into his stomach from below, lifting him off his feet with a pained grunt. He managed a weak cushion before his back slammed into the brick edge of a corner building, three lamp posts ripping out of the ground in his path.

He groaned. "That was unpleasant."

Electrical sparks crackled from the shattered lights, and Strange grabbed at those sparks with a quick thrust and pull of one gloved hand. When he flipped his fist open, a hundred bright pinpricks of heat sailed toward the ghoul in front of him. The handful that made purchase drew a sneer from the dark sorcerer, and he lunged. Both gnarled hands reached for Strange's chest, but the second of distraction allowed Stephen to push his concrete prison back at his attacker.

A great gust of wind from Tony Stark's approach blew his hair into his eyes.

"Um, did I hear you say Loki? Because I'm really hoping you said literally anything but that. Maybe mochi? There's a great mochi spot a few blocks away. Love the mango."

Strange opened his mouth to cut off Stark's endless nonsense talk, but a rope of fire coiled around his ankle and dragged him down the street.

"Rude. We weren't finished." Tony blasted toward Strange as he watched the ropes bind first his wrists then snap across his chest and legs. A boom echoed off the pavement as Tony sped up. "Almost gotcha."

A heavy blow to his right side threw him off course and through the windows of an office building. Cubicles, file cabinets, glass office doors, and screaming suits and heels swam through his vision as he exited the other side of the high rise and landed in a patch of grass near an occupied park bench.

An elderly man in glasses glanced up from his book. "Mr. Stank?" Tony heard him mumble before the horned woman reappeared, staff raised to strike.

"Yeah, not today, Beauty and the Beast." Six compartments opened above Tony's right shoulder and fired a shower of lasers that tore a scream from the woman's black lips. She jumped away, giving Tony an opening to send two heavy beams of energy her way while he took back to the sky.

"Friday, find Strange."

"He's moving fast, boss." Friday said in her hurried lilt. "Three blocks northeast. Five. Six. They appear to be headed in the direction of the large disturbance over 41st and 3rd."

"Disturbance?"

"News channels are calling it a space ship."

"Can you confirm that, Friday?"

"The technology did not originate on Earth."

"Aliens in New York. Again. Great." He watched the woman's sprinting form on the street below, keeping easy pace with his flight. "That girl is persistent. I'll give her that. Friday, check on Banner."

"Four blocks away on foot."

"Green?"

"Afraid not."

"Awesome." He blasted the Lexus five paces in front of the woman to slow her down. "Hey, Friday? Put a call into Jane Foster at Stark HQ. The wizard mentioned Loki, and now there's a spaceship. Feeling like Jane could be a target."

Tony searched the street for his pursuer while Friday paused. No sign of the dark woman amongst the wreckage of cars and debris.

"Um, Friday?"

Still no answer. Tony sped toward Wong as he threw portal after portal in front of the bound Strange, but their wrinkled attacker dodged each one with lazy flicks of his fingers.

"Friday!"

"Boss," Friday said, exasperation leaking into her robotic voice. "Jane Foster isn't at HQ. There's been an explosion. I'm sorting through the data, but the blast took out most of the tech on her floor."

Tony swallowed hard, remembering a similar blast on Jane's floor not all that long ago.

"Hey Wong! Give me something that'll spit me out behind saggy pants up there."

"Got it."

Tony soared through a newly opened portal and aimed hands and heart at the back of the enemy.

"Yahtzee!" Tony yelled as the villain slammed into the street under the force of the blast. He didn't let up, even after Strange disappeared into one of Wong's portals. "Lovin' those portals, Wong. A bit of help here when you can?"

With a quick burst of golden light, the wrinkled wizard was gone.

"Where'd you put him?"

Wong shrugged. "Somewhere safe."

Tony shook his head. "That doesn't give me happy feelings, but I'll let it slide. Where's Strange?"

"I'm here." Stephen Strange touched down beside Wong as Bruce Banner rounded the corner, limping and holding his side. "Where's the woman? Also, Loki's on Earth."

"Loki?!" Bruce shouted. "That's good! And maybe bad."

Tony started a diagnostic test and moved to Bruce. "Where's the good? It's Loki. And how did you even get here, Banner? Where've you been for, oh I don't know, three years!?"

Bruce squeezed his eyes shut. "So much has happened, Tony, but none of it matters except that Thanos is coming! These were his, I don't know, minions? Buddies? Bad people. There are so many bad people right now!"

Strange silenced Bruce with a raised hand. "Yes, bad people. Pull yourself together, Doctor Banner. And again, where's the woman?" The silence gave him no comfort. "Well, then she's not our problem for the moment. Loki has to be a priority."

Tony sighed. "One of them." Loki was on Earth, and Jane Foster was missing. Nausea rolled through him at what that could mean. "Hey, Gandalf, is it just Loki? No Thor?"

Strange shook his head. "No Thor, but there's someone else. I don't know who. Both of their energy signatures are severely diminished. And their location is…foggy."

Tony started. "Location? You mean you know where they are?! Yeah, could've said that first. And what do you mean foggy?"

"I can't explain it. It's as though the location is shielded, but I can get us there. It might just take a little longer than usual."

"Doesn't seem like you're treating Reindeer Games as top priority there, Mr. Wizard."

"It's doctor," Strange said, throwing up his hands. "and my top priority is figuring out why aliens descended on Earth and tried to steal this!" He motioned to his chest and the glowing green stone ensconced in gold. "And do you even hear yourself, Stark? Reindeer Games? Mr. Wizard? What, are you a teenager? Want to go grab your skateboard and Gameboy before we go?"

Tony stepped into Strange's personal space. "Look, caped crusader. Those things don't even go together. If you're going to insult me, at least give me some current material. Otherwise, you just sound like a pompous ass."

"Oh, I'm a pompous ass!?"

"Guys, GUYS!" Bruce weaseled his way in between the two men. "Can we please focus? Loki's not the issue. He's on our side."

There was a blissful beat of silence. Then Tony and Stephen erupted.

"You're absolutely insane if you think the Horny Green Giant just switches sides!"

"That's impossible. Loki isn't known for his loyalty to anyone except himself."

Bruce's face tinted green as the two continued shouting over each other, and he threw his arms into the air. "IT'S TRUE! I WAS THERE!"

Both men stepped back, cautiously watching Bruce Banner suck in large gulps of oxygen, his skin growing paler by the second.

"You know what?" Strange began, opening a portal. "We'll just see for ourselves. But you," he nodded at Tony, "keep your mouth shut, and don't step on my cape. Wong, go back to Bleecker Street, track that woman, and check on the other one. Keep me posted." He looked from Bruce to Tony. "You two, follow me."

"You two, follow me," Tony mimicked, but he trailed after Strange. He just hoped that Bruce was right about Loki. Otherwise, they were walking into an ugly rematch with less fire power and no Hulk. Not the best odds.


The shop windows glowed under strings of twinkling white lights. Glasgow appeared to celebrate the winter holidays from October through February with twining ribbons and luminous bulbs cutting through the miserable darkness.

A man and woman strolled the brick street that night, clasped hands swinging freely as they smiled and laughed, stopping to examine the gifts in one store window and blissfully ignoring the next. Their cheeks and noses were stained with the pink of a chilly wind, but neither noticed as the man's fine eyes brightened each time the woman looked his way, both awestruck by the simplicity of these stolen moments together.

"Vis? What's wrong?" Wanda asked as Vision tried to shake away a sense of pained vertigo, the same feeling that had been his constant companion for far too long. His human mask flickered as he pressed the pads of his fingers to his temples.

"Very little, darling. It is nothing."

He reclaimed her small hand, marveling at the sensation of her skin against his. She was a force of nature, he knew, burning and melting and molding simultaneously, a riot of emotion contained within a body just shy of truly human. And she had chosen him, a nonhuman, a non-species actually, to share her mind, her body, and her heart. A budding romance had been an impossible consideration for him. Besides the fact that his synthetic brain was incapable of creating a mix of calculations, algorithms, and statistical data that resolved in her finding any relations with him to be personally beneficial. Besides that, well, he was simply not programmed for romantic feeling. That is to say, any feeling.

His body was a manufactured shell created for the sole purpose of containing the scepter's power in the form of Ultron. Vision often pondered if the humanity of the Avengers, fed to Jarvis over so many years through black and white data points, casual observations, and the sardonic diatribes from one Tony Stark, allowed the AI to understand motivations. Motivations for Tony's transformation from spoiled defense mogul to self-sacrificing hero. Motivations for Bruce Banner's mysterious disappearance after a rampage so far out of his control that he abandoned the very real possibility of love. Motivations for Steve Rogers turning his back on the Government and the ideals that made him a super soldier for the possibility of rehabilitating a programmed assassin he once called his dearest friend. Motivations for Natasha Romanoff, for Clint Barton, and for every other once-Avenger who could have chosen differently.

Motivation. Choice. Emotion. Responsibility.

Love.

Though seemingly impossible, Vision had evolved to a stage of somehow human and learned to love. He could not say for sure, because all of his learning concluded that love was entirely more complex than a word or touch or euphoric moment. It pulled and pushed and warmed and hurt, sometimes all at the same time, and he found more questions than answers in his short time with Wanda Maximoff.

And he also found he was not unhappy about it.

His eyes had not left her face during his musings, allowing her to lead him down the moonlit street, the soft glow from the shop windows flowing over the red waves that had escaped her knit cap. In his eyes, she had no flaws even as his processing center cataloged the data behind each and every one. He loved her, he knew, but the confusion of this new feeling and the possibility that she could feel differently did not allow him to voice his love. That indecision made him feel completely human, and he was thrilled and devastated by the knowledge.

What reminded him once again that he was not and could not be human was the slicing pain emanating from the stone in his forehead. He stumbled this time, toeing the upraised edge of a loose brick in the sidewalk, and fell to one knee. Wanda was there, chilled palm moving to his cheek to lift his eyes to hers.

"That was the worst one yet."

He nodded, gritting his teeth against the fireworks shooting from the stone. Wanda raised a finger to his forehead, asking permission with a slight hesitation of her wrist.

"Of course, please," were the words he said. What he meant was I am yours and you never have to ask and I love you. Ruby tendrils danced at the edge of his vision as she listened to the stone, calming his pain with her almost touch. She tilted her head, the beginnings of a crease lining her forehead. "Wanda, what do you feel?"

Somehow, he had forgotten the hand that had remained against his cheek. She lifted it now and ran her fingers, one by one, along his jaw. It was a sensual movement and affected him inappropriately for two people kneeling on a pedestrian sidewalk beside a sweet shop.

"From here," she said, again pressing her palm to his cheek, her voice rich and full. "I feel heat and thought and humanity. I feel you." Her flaming eyes slowly raised to his forehead, a confused accusation in them as ice dripped into her tone. "But here…here I feel something different. Desperation, but it will not say for what. It acts as a hostage, anticipating something."

She tried to continue, but his scream shattered the night as the pointed ends of an obsidian spear pierced his back and peaked from his stomach. A fist threw Wanda against the wall of the shop with enough force to raise a plume of dust from the aged bricks. Vision's human visage disappeared and he distantly watched three wrapped candies fall from the wreath display in the shop window above Wanda's crumpled body. The window also showed him a reflection of his attacker as she materialized from shadow, painted black lips, dead eyes, and twisted horns pulling the warmth from the colorful treats in the display. A rough, gloved palm smacked into his forehead, dragging him backward into the street, as claw-like fingernails squeezed into five vicious points around the stone. The agony of the still embedded spear allowed little conscious thought, but Vision was able to calculate that this demon woman was thirteen, now twelve, seconds from ripping open his skull. His odds of survival were so low to not be quantifiable. He watched Wanda as she pushed a fist into the stone sidewalk and tried to stand. The words he had wanted to say to her would not come, and he closed his eyes and wondered if she knew, hoped she felt his love without needing the confidence of his words. He simply wished he had more time with her.

But the pressure of the woman's fingers disappeared, as did the points of the spear from his abdomen, and their quick exit brought greater agony than their entrance.

Wanda miraculously stood above him, one hand pouring healing strands of red light into his back, the other violently hurling discs of fire at his attacker.

"You cannot sustain my healing and keep her at bay. You know this."

She pushed more power into her attack, eyes burning, as she tried and failed to maintain the healing flow to his wound.

"Can you stand?" she asked.

The wound closed, but the internal damage remained. He stood with a heavy limp and pulled her close.

"I can fly," he whispered as they soared vertically for several moments, the cold of their accent piercing their lungs. She held him tightly, scanning below.

"Vision, we need time and quiet to heal the damage to your tissue. I cannot fight her and leave you vulnerable. I sense no others with her, but that does not mean they won't come for you." She nodded to the stone in his forehead. "For that, I think."

He touched down feather light on a small rooftop several blocks from the attack. Once he was assured Wanda was on her feet, he allowed his knees to buckle. It was not in his nature to curse, but he had learned so much vile language from years and years of companionship with Tony Stark that he could not stop the multitude of four letter words from running through his mind. Wanda knelt beside him, one hand on his back above the entry wound and the other pressed to his stomach, fingers splayed wide in what would be the beginnings of an intimate touch in any other situation.

It was yet another testament to his growing humanity that he could think in such a carnal manner at a moment like this. Once again, he blamed Tony Stark.

A roar from the street below drew his focus as Wanda continued pushing red heat into his body, healing him from the inside out. She could not block the pain from the stone, now revived and surging through him. He held back a gasp with effort as he anticipated the dark woman's reappearance.

But he was left waiting, distracted by the pain in his forehead and the sounds of a scuffle below, grunts and dull thwacks of what he guessed to be worn leather making purchase. Sounds that were unmistakably female. He met Wanda's gaze as a very small smile flickered along her mouth.

"How does she always know?" she asked with a laugh. "Agent Romanov is not alone, though. They will be angry with me for not checking in."

Heavy boots landed beside them, and again, the horned woman reached for Vision's forehead. He sent a beam of light from the stone before Wanda could react. Natasha Romanov hurdled the rooftop barrier as the dark woman dove to the ground. Two pistols appeared from nowhere, and Natasha took calm step after step, firing a staccato rhythm. The bullets bounced off the woman's skin, and Wanda removed her hands from Vision to send orbs of pure energy at her, timing them between Romanov's shots. Her attacks did not ricochet, and the woman screamed, the smell of melting flesh wafting through the chilled night as the right side of her face peeled away. She pivoted, turned to escape Wanda's attack, and was stopped by a right jab to the chin then a boot to the knee and a left hook to the temple.

Steve Rogers hated hitting a woman, but the pained grimace on Vision's face and the worry lines above Wanda's glowing eyes tempered his guilt. The villain crouched five feet from him, her staff held awkwardly as she clawed at what was left of her right eye and cheek. She stared at each of them. Steve, Natasha, Wanda, and finally at the stone in Vision's forehead.

"This is not over," she said, bored tone violently opposed to the threat and hatred making her body tremble. A cloud of creeping black claimed her, and the four of them took a collective breath.

"Captain Rogers, I can explain Wanda's lack of communication."

Steve pushed his hair back, the tips hanging to his ears and into a neat beard that granted him a worldliness that had not existed the last time Vision saw him. He wondered again about motivations.

"That can wait, Vision. We're exposed here, and I have good reason to believe more and worse are headed our way. We move. Now."


Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone reading this little passion project. I couldn't get this idea out of my head, so here we are. Out of my brain, and onto the page. It's the only way I can rest. This is admittedly slow and will have a lot of Lokane that doesn't make sense yet, because it's definitely not canon, so eventually there will be a companion piece. Or several. Honestly, the MCU is so darn rich, how can we not throw new stories into the universe as often as possible?!

Anyway, again, thank you all. I appreciate you beyond words. MK